Just read this on IntoMobile - I think this is one of those things that gets announced a little while after it happened. GetJar has been prominently featured on Planet 3 now for a good few weeks (at least).
I came across the excellent New York City traffic cam app that way (can't remember the exact name of it but I blogged about it previously).
There's so many of these things on the market now and most don't have any differentiating features. How's one to choose between them? I don't know but I know what my ideal one would be like... (trying to be realistic too!)
- At least 3 hours battery life under normal conditions
- Intelligent standby mode (for those times when you shut the lid and carry it)
- Quick boot up and shutdown
- Light and small
- Nice bright screen and decent speakers
- A video input for the screen would be nice*
- HSDPA built-in
- Have the compatibility of XP but not all the crap that goes with it
That shouldn't be too much to ask, should it?
*I think a video-in for the screen would be a killer feature, it'd certainly make one laptop stand out from the crowd. A cheap and cheerful subnotebook can't really do video capture and editing but there's nothing to stop the screen from doubling up as a monitor for a smart phone, digital camera or the newer version PSP.
Want to make the most of what you've got? Check out the following tips. Some may be blindingly obvious to some but not to others. As I blog about things like games, technology and mobile, they'll be more of a focus on that.
Find out offers and deals on these websites/forums:
Compare prices on:
Don't buy from the likes of CEX thinking you're getting a good deal because you're buying secondhand. CEX's prices are often far higher than buying the product brand new.
Ring up to cancel or downgrade your mobile phone contract, your pay TV service and your ISP. Do so whether they've offered a good service or not. Customers usually don't get rewarded for being loyal. If the service has been bad, go to town! My ISP recently offered me 5 months free because I took them to task for over billing me every month.
Oh, and walk instead of getting the bus, tube or taxi - if possible. The savings soon add up and you don't have to spend £30 for the treadmill at the gym.
There's plenty of other ways to cut back without cutting back, so if I've you've got additional tips I'd love to here them. Drop us an email if you haven't got a Vox account.
The last few days have been a pain. I've been fighting against technology and losing! Why can't things just work, and why can't they be easier?
Sky+
Getting a Sky+ box replaced? Did you know you can't transfer existing recordings to your new box? And if you're going to keep using the old one as a 'free' box in another room you won't have access to your recordings anymore?
I'm not getting a Sky+ replaced, but my parents are. Guess who's spent much of yesterday trying to clear the Sky Planner? Moi! They don't have a DVD recorder so I had to come up with a genius plan of using their DV camcorder and a laptop. Don't worry, I wasn't videoing the TV screen - their Canon camera does an analogue to digital conversion.
Mobile broadband
My sister was back from the Far East and wanted to get online at HQ (Mum and Dad's). Should've been simple enough, it nearly always works without a hitch (unless I'm on the train or Nando's!) Guess what? It didn't work! Tried my laptop, their laptop, my niece's laptop. Nothing. Put the SIM in my spare mobile. Nothing. Who gets the blame for this, depite it being outside of my control? Me, that's who!
Sky Broadband / WiFi
The folks have just got themselves ADSL from Sky. It wasn't working Saturday as far as I know but I figured it was worth a try on Sunday (especially as it was the Sunday that the 3 Mobile Broadband went pear shaped). Surprisingly it was enabled and working. Took little effort to connect to...
...oh I was naive to think that was that! The connection was all over the place and even today there's issues with the WiFi. One laptop works well (although it refused to even connect for an hour last night) and another won't work unless it's within 10ft of the router. On top of that, their videosender is now plagued with interference. Bugger. That's another problem to figure out (oh, and I guess that might have some bearing on WiFi connection issues, d'oh!)
Sky Player / Sky Anytime on PC
This proved tricky as the software is kinda buggy (at least on this Vista laptop). It's great when it works without issue though. Picture quality is good and it's a genuinely useful application if you have the film channels. Shame that there's been reboots and ctrl-alt-dels aplenty to keep it going! Oh and the download meter bears no similarity to reality.
Misc.
Then there's websites not working properly or at all (issues not related to poor connectivity). Slow downs in the calender option menu on the E71 - I just wanted to correct a time and I had to wait 30 seconds between button presses! Push email isn't pushing. Jaiku on mobile isn't connecting. My sister wanted her pictures off her camera so we needed to figure out how to do so...
Kinda hilarious as it would turn out. Her MS Pro Duo memory card was almost the same size as my SD card. The Toshiba laptop takes both. I figured I could probably just put it straight in without an adapter. I figured wrong. We then spent the next few minutes trying to get the card out! My sister had work related photos amongst about a thousand on the card - she was panicky to say the least!
We got it out in the end - hopefully unharmed! That's when we figured it would be a good idea to get an adapter for the card. You saw how much of a success that was in a previous post.
Now I'm going to unplug myself. I've had enough for the time being! Might read a book or something.
There's a lot of contenders for this one but Maplin's MS Duo to Memory Stick Adapter is the clear winner...
The above was what I got when I asked for a Memory Stick adapter at the local Maplin. Should be just the thing needed to get pictures off of my sister's camera and on to the family laptop. She didn't have the USB cable and was unsure whether she got one of these with her camera (I presume she did but that wouldn't help us when the box is at her house a couple of hours away!).
What's so useless about the above product? Check this following picture out...
Look at the bottom bit, it only supports cards up to 128MB! Didn't see this until I got home. Bugger! What use is this? I mean, who only uses cards up to 128MB anymore? My sister's card was 4GB so this didn't work (I tried it regardless as you never know!) Maybe I should've asked specifically for a Pro Duo one. I don't know, I stopped using anything that uses Sony's crappy Memory Stick a long time ago.
I never thought there was anything in these adapters other than contacts. I thought they were pretty 'dumb' devices. Guess not.
...I say that even though my problem isn't resolved!
Using a bit of the ol' grey matter I decided to choose the option for cancellations/upgrades when dialling 3 on 333 this time 'round. Bingo, straight through to Scotland!
Nice chap, went out of his way to help me despite my problem not being his department (and me explaining that I deliberately chose the wrong option in the hope of speaking to someone not in Mumbai!)
He understood the situation and tried to see if there was anything he could do about it. He couldn't, but he did really try and didn't suggest anything silly or repeatedly tell me the same thing. He also has a 3 handset and uses 3 services, that is fundamental to me. Speaking to someone who isn't a user themselves seems counter-intuitive.
Incidentally I can still use most internet services on my handset but some refuse to work (Jaiku) or have other issues such as web pages taking forever to appear and often getting a 'page cannot be found'-type error. Google Maps works a.o.k. (but that works even on an old prepay SIM that has no credit it on it!)
Oh and some sites work fine via Opera Mini but not through the Nokia web browser.
I've had enough of Mumbai. I want to speak to someone in Scotland or Maidenhead.
What am I waffling on about? The fun and games that is trying to get something resolved when speaking to people in a call centre half a world away! On my 3 mobile phone I have X-Series Silver. It's an internet add-on that's supposedly unlimited but with a fair-use limit of 1GB (or 2GB - depending who you talk to or what Ts&Cs you read). When you get near to the limit you're sent an SMS to warn you. However, I only ever get an SMS telling me I've gone over - never an "about to".
Users, including myself, keep getting these messages even if they've not gone anywhere near the limit. As such, most of us ignore them. You finally get your bill in and find out you well under. Of course there should be a way to keep an eye on what you're using - and there was - just not anymore!
I've spoken to two people so far today, presumably in Mumbai. No matter what, they're stuck with their script and as hard as I try they won't deviate from it. It's kinda like talking to robots. It's also funny how their accents become harder to understand the more you press them (or is that just me?) One minute their English is crystal clear, next minute you have to keep asking them to repeat themselves as they sound like the guy from Channel 4's Phonejacker!
Ho hum.
Ideally I'd have the direct line to the Scottish chap that sorted out a previous internet issue earlier this year. He knew what the problem was likely to be straight away. He had the same service on his own handset so had personal experience too. He didn't suggest any generic "solution" and it was obvious he wasn't stuck with a script.
You'd think I might know someone at 3 that could fast track any issues I have, but I don't! That's probably a good thing in a way though as I get the same treatment as any other customer.
Back to my search... (excuse any typos, I've got some phoning to do!)
Last Monday I popped up to London to do a piece to camera for 3. It was in their branch opposite Selfridges and took, at most, quarter of an hour. A short while after I left the shop I got a text* along the lines of, 'Cheers Ant, we'll send you a cake or something' (that's not verbatim but it's more or less the message). Knowing the person that sent it, I thought they were kidding. They weren't!
On Friday I received nine yummy cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery, in a nice paper bag and with a note from 3. Cheers guys! Here's what they looked like...
Oh, and this made me laugh as well...
They looked too good to share, but share I did! Looking at The Hummingbird Bakery's website it would seem they only deliver to London postcodes and yet they delivered to me - 50 miles away! Crikey.
*I also got a text immediately after I stepped outside the store saying that I'd used up my internet allowance (but that's a whole other post!)
The truth was about to step out from beneath the shadows. Well not literally, we were the ones stepping into the answers...
Ever since installing StatCounter I've become ever increasingly interested in my blog's traffic and where it's coming from. The coolest thing is seeing I have visitors from Greenland to New Zealand and even at the International Space Station (okay I made the last one up!)
But once the thrill of seeing you have an audience from Tipperary to Timbuktu wears off (there's a long way between them, apparently) you want to know a bit more about who they are and why they're reading. That may sound a little 1984 but it isn't really. A lot of it is me using common sense (I have some in reserve) and doing some educated guesses.
As interesting as it is to see regular folk using the likes of AOL or Virgin Media it's more intriguing to see what companies and organisations visit and why. Yesterday, for instance, I had the US EPA. Why? I think they were scanning for key phrases related to pollution and coincidentally one of my posts had that phrase even though it had nothing to do with the enviroment.
For many differing reasons it's interesting to see what PR companies and advertising agencies look at one's blog. The only thing is many of them have almost identical names to that of ISPs! Usually some random word followed by something like 'Communications'. Hence this post.
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