534 posts from 2008

It was an unusually warm day today here in Blighty (well at least in this part).  I have no ADSL at home at the moment and my parents' broadband was flaky (sort it out Sky, I'm switching to you too and won't put up with that!)  What's a guy supposed to do?  Go on a walk, that's what.  With a Walkman phone.

I could put that brand spanking new Sony Ericsson W595 through its paces while I'm pacing, I thought to myself.  And so I did.  Below are some pictures I took along the way.

Here's the Pyrenees and here's a bunch of other photos...

And some more...
Good job I knew where I was going as the phone doesn't have GPS built-in, more's the pity.  However it does have support for "location services" via the 'GPS Enabler' HGE-100.  I haven't got one of those yet, so have no idea how that works and what the services are.

I'm still getting to gripes with the handset and have only started to read the manual.  Hopefully any gripes I have with it are down to me not doing things the right way or not understanding how the UI behaves/should work.  Things like the web browser closing down when you bring up another app, or what seems like a long drawn out process trying to switch tasks.

The main task being the music player, the camera (obviously), the phone (you know to actually make a call!) and Google Mail.

Oh, and The Darkside (if you're wondering what that's got to do with the price of carrots) - there's now video on YouTube* of 3's spine-chilling spooktacular.  Was I really scared?  No, not really... I had to speak to quite a few of the undead this week over the phone (Tiscali!) and a couple came to life (well, they sounded quite animated). :-D

*I've yet to see if I'm on there, to be honest I barely remember the 'rusty lift shaft' as I'd drank too much complimentary alcohol (it complimented the alcohol I'd already drunk).  Really fun evening and nothing like what neither I, nor anyone else, was expecting.

Cheers to 3, the 3mobilebuzz gang (you know who you are), I guess Sony Ericsson (presume they had some small hand in it too), the lady that kept topping me up and the guy from Pocket Lint for not knocking me out.  When one's drunk, shortsighted and doesn't have one's glasses - one ends up staring out total strangers thinking they're someone completely different but one can't figure out who!

Always good to see Ben from Mobile Industry News, Abul from adonismobile and Miss Geeky, Melinda.  (BTW Abul, I found the link to the YouTube channel from your blog - cheers!)

Moonbases, holographic TV, supersonic airliners... we were led to believe we'd have it all in the 21st Century.  But no, if anything we've been going backwards (haven't been back to the moon in eons and now it takes longer to fly across the Atlantic than it did before I was born!)

But what's this?

The Lego Batman game arrived today for my nephew.  We called him up to tell him as soon as he left school.  Oops.

Why Oops?  Well just after we called him to tell him the good news we got an email from The Hut saying that they sent out the wrong format!  Low and behold, we double checked and yes, we ordered it for Wii and they sent out the DS version.  Bugger!

Okay, mistakes happen.  They'll just send out the right one in the post before the end of the day...  Er, no.  Monday is when they're going to send it out.  We queried that and got the following response:

I am sorry we are unable to ship the item today as we do not have this quantity of stock in our warehouse and therefore has been ordered to be despacthed (sic) at the earliest availability.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused to you or your grandson.

It wasn't our fault you sent us the wrong one.  But then again, it wasn't their fault that we told the child that his present had arrived (naively thinking what they sent was in fact what we ordered).

I guess it was a good job we hadn't given it to him already, wasn't it?  That would've been even more awkward!

@Kathryn Barnett at The Hut: Did you not think it would've been a good idea to offer money off a future purchase as a gesture of goodwill?  Remember, we were the ones inconvenienced by your mistake and you might not want to lose us as customers in the future.  And you know what?  Had you said, 'Hey, keep the version we accidentally sent - no need to return it' - We'd have been telling every man and his dog how great you were and ordering a tonne of stuff from you for Christmas.

I was asked to find a 2GB SD memory card and it needed to be with us before the 18th.  In the local mall yesterday and all the prices were crazy.  Unfortunately that's to be expected.  For some reason or other memory cards have always been vastly more expensive on the High Street.

So, it had to be online - but I was worried that we wouldn't get one in time.  But, as the prices are so much cheaper online, I decided to buy two cards - one from eBuyer and the other SVP Communications.  I've used both in the past and I've generally been happy.  I can't remember how long either take though, but I don't remember any delays in the past (I'd most likely remember if either had royally screwed up!)

I could've bought the cards even cheaper elsewhere but I wasn't willing to risk using a retailer I hadn't used before (or one that has screwed up in the past, cough, Play, cough, Blueunplugged).

Can't wait until the Lumix is charged and primed to go as some camera phones aren't suited for close-up shots...

I was trying to take pictures of my newly acquired Sony Ericsson W595 with a 'proper' camera but it ran out of battery after just one shot.  So out came a bunch of handsets and I used those instead.  Not ideal, but will do until the camera is charged.

Anyway, I've just hooked up the Skypephone to the laptop and stumbled across this picture from long ago...

No pictures yet I'm afraid.  Talking about being afraid, I was scared senseless at 3's The Darkside launch last night.  Some mysterious force prevented my camcorder (with nightvision) from working.  When I left my place yesterday my battery meter told me I had over 200 mins of battery life.  However, when I turned it on inside One Marylebone Road it was completely DEAD spooky!

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, Google Maps Mobile on the Sony Ericsson  W595.  Like other attendees, I received a brand spanking new phone (guess which one?) and £30 worth of credit on the pre-installed SIM.  Nice!  I've installed Opera Mini and Google Maps - hence this post!

Unfortunately the only version of Maps that works doesn't do GPS (neither does the phone, but I've got a couple of Bluetooth units kicking around).  It does still attempt to find your location utilising mobile phone masts.  It's pretty accurate even on the outskirts of town.  Funny thing is that the dot showing my location is just a couple of houses away from my parents house - which is about a mile away from me.

If i were at their house right now, I'd be pretty damn impressed!  More to come later, I've still got the shakes (trembling with fear still, or too much champagne!)  BTW cheers guys for inviting me, it's always fun and I really wasn't expecting the phone in the goodie bag.. crikey!)

I typed this up yesterday on the train to Waterloo but didn't get to send it.

Earlier today I backed down when I shouldn't have.  I'm annoyed with myself to say the least.

Received my phone call from Tiscali today.  Just as promised yesterday.  They stuck to their word, fair play!  The woman I spoke to was very polite and seemed eager to help.  It was also a crystal clear line and she spoke so well you could imagine her working for the World Service.  The line didn't drop, I wasn't put on hold or passed from department to department.  As I received the call, I didn't have to pay for it either.  Nice!

So where did it all go wrong?  Well I wanted my money back immediately.  If immediately wasn't possible I'd have been happy with a couple of days - even a week.  What did I get?  It had to be 28 days.  That's how long it takes and there's absolutely no way to speed these things up.  That's a crock right there.  I have a friend who works as a financial adviser for a major bank who filled me in on what is and isn't possible.

What did I get?  Well, the promise of all my money back and some compensation/'goodwill gesture'.  I didn't get offered that, I had to demand it.  They were only willing to refund me the cost of my calls.  That wasn't good enough - they kept taking small sums of money from my account that the weren't entitled to.  Then they took over £100 out the other day, again a sum they weren't entitled to.  Plus I've spent most of my waking hours from Friday until today trying to sort this out.  I spent 5 hours solid yesterday including what must've been a couple of hours playing the phone game.

She then asked how much I was seeking.  Now we're on the right track...  Well, I didn't want to be greedy - I just wanted what was fair.  £200 including all the money due to me seemed fairish (actually I was being quite generous) and would make things clear (nice round figure and all).

It was just after this point that she hit me with the 28 days.  Well I was less than pleased.  28 days was non-negotiable.  Okay, if there really wasn't any way around it, I mused, can I have more in the way of goodwill as I'm going to be out of pocket for a month through no fault of my own?  No.  Not a chance.  We agreed £200.  That was that, I was told.

Oh well, I'll just have to owe people another month! :-(

Courtesy of talkToshiba...

I'm taking liberties with the title somewhat as the dongle didn't save my life, it didn't not do it last night and, touch wood, my heart isn't broken (although it's probably not in the best of shape).

What my 3 Mobile Broadband dongle is doing:

• Keeping me connected during my home ADSL being migrated from one provider to another
• Keeping me less stressed than I would otherwise have been
• Keeping me sane
  
• Keeping my parents sane (they're down the road from me, have food, the most amazing power shower ever and spare beds - if I didn't have mobile broadband, guess where I'd be right now and for whatever time it takes to migrate?) ;-)
  

What did people in transition use to do before mobile broadband?  Being cut off for a few days or a couple of weeks doesn't even bare thinking about!

I'm just hoping the migration goes smoothly!  I'm not optimistic.  (BTW, no tags - I'm curious who reads this post if I don't leave any)