Thursday, January 20, 2005
Flickr
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
It's Official: my birthday is on a shit day.
But on the plus side, I am meeting one particular current recommendation: I am told that it's currently recommended that people walk 10,000 steps a day. Well, Nina from work kindly let me borrow her pedometer today. It's telling me that I walked about 1,000 steps around the office today (excluding any lunchtime excursions) and that the journey from my desk to my house is 6,702 steps. In total I estimate that I probably walk an average of 14,000 steps on any given workday. Fascinating, I know.
So this means that my birthday is on a shit day and I will probably live forever to bathe in it's badness.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
I take it back - Apple have done a sterling job in rushing me a new iPod. Well done.
Next week my sister and her husband arrive from Australia for a fortnight in the UK. Very much looking forward to it. Glad I've got some time booked off!
iPod dies and Apple screw up again
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Just before Christmas my beloved iPod mini developed a fault. Only a little fault, but a fault nonetheless. The iPod has a 'Hold' switch which, once activated, prevents accidental operation of any of the other controls. If the iPod is left not doing anything with the 'Hold' switch activated, it eventually powers itself off. It's a nice feature that usually works well. Except that mine developed a fault that meant that the iPod simply sat there and toggled between being on 'Hold' and not being on 'Hold' until the battery ran flat.
So, after the holiday season I decided to get it repaired/replaced and dutifully completed Apple's online repair request form. I was sent a box in which to place the iPod and instructions on who to ring to get it picked up.
I rang UPS yesterday at 13:50 and, once deliberately talking rubbish to the automated-human-voice-recognition system, was able to talk to a human. He informed me I could expect it to be picked up by 16:30.
Once again Apple's delivery mechanism let it down.
Today I rang them at 11:00 and again had to speak rubbish to a computer to be able to converse with a human. I was told very abruptly that "Your order isn't trackable, it hasn't been picked up yet". "Yes" I replied, but you just asked me for my tracking number".
After a frustrating conversation it emerged that they did attempt to pick it up yesterday but the package wasn't ready when they arrived at 13:20. It just wasn't worth explaining that they didn't turn up at 13:20 and even if they had done, I hadn't told them there was a package to collect until 13:50. Whatever. They've turned up today and taken her away.
The upshot is that I am currently iPod-less for an unspecified amount of time, relying on the inferior MP3 player of my phone, or worse still, the prospect of listening to Hallam FM on my little radio. Oh God, help me!
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Went to Edinburgh at New Year. Nick's described it here and Tim's put his photos up here so I don't need to say much more really.
What I will tell you about is that having been testing a Sony Ericsson Z1010 third generation ("3G") phone for a few months, I have now been asked to test a Nokia 6630. Shiny is good. Expect to see a higher quality of photo being posted on here as the camera in this baby is a 1.3 megapixel, 6x digital zoom marvel that, unlike the Z1010, you can actually use to take pictures of the thing you're looking at.
As well as a much better camera, this phone fits in my pocket (or the mobile phone pocket of one of Jane's handbags), seems easier to use and is much faster. Oh and the PC Suite of software to link it to your PC doesn't wipe all your contacts and crash your PC - in fact this phone is truly excellent in most areas. The main grumble is that it comes with a 64Mb dual-voltage half-size MMC card. This means that it doesn't even accept 'normal' half-size MMC cards. Why oh why oh why do these manufacturers insist on changing memory card format each week? In this case, for a card format that is so weird that it's not just difficult to buy, it's impossible as nobody manufacturers them, let alone retails them!
If anyone's interested I can do a fuller review, just let me know. As a quick summary though, my advice is not to go for 3G just yet, wait until mmO2's "Super 3G" is launched at the end of this year and see what handsets are around on the current 3G networks at that time - I think they'll be worth a shot.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
New Year then. Words cannot describe exactly how drunk the man we have just met is. Oh dear.