Sep 3 2007

newspaper freebies/incentives

Lately I have decided I dont tend to read national newspapers unless Im bored during my lunch break at work.

They are really dull and predictable, with moaning about foreign immigrants or speed cameras being endlessly put on the front page.

Im amazed at the amount of freebies and competitions being offered. Are they really getting desperate to get more readership? Are most of the regular readers of The Mail fluent in Spanish after langauge lesson CDs?

I have to admit it, Im a sucker for freebies :o)

This stemed when I was 5 I saved up tokens for a Rice Krispies alarm clock, I think it was £7 or so as well, but my parents paid for this and sent it off for me, after the 28 days for delivery or whenever it is, getting a parcel with your name on it when it isn’t your birthday back in 1982ish when I was 6 was incredibly exciting. Like most kids I pestered my dad in buying things that had stickers or other free things inside or things you had to send of for.

I havent changed, so buying things online and getting something thats really hard to find off ebay arrive in the post, has the same buzz.

Often I will go and take a peek at newspapers and see what they are trying to give away next. I think I counted 7 different sets of tokens in the Express on one day for 7 different promotions.

One thing I want to know. Is there a web site that shows whats forthcoming with newspaper freebies, so I can work out what worth getting in advance, so not to find out about a freebie already has half the amount of tokens already needed to be collected.

I say this as Im hoping to get a killer deal on a flight somewhere, not just one of the cheap sounding deals with Ryanair, I know some of the grown up airlines (sorry my general euphemism for the non-budget operators) did some similar promotions a while ago.

Jul 7 2007

charities in Commercial Road

everytime I go to Commercial Road shopping I frequently accosted by people collecting charities, I think they are wanting the public to give them their direct debit details to give a donation every month, but they are come out with this long spiel first of all, which I tell them I am not interested as many of these organisation collecting in the past are not always what they appear to be, and the people recruited do often get paid well, normally its just easier to shop wearing earphones and they just ignore you.  This saturday was no different, being pounced on by some pretty student girl with some well rehearsed phrase which I declined, however when about to exit the precinct by Debenhams, I was saddened to see this elderly chap looking very gaunt on an electric scooter, a poster hung over the handlebars says he was collecting signatures for a petition for people with industrial illnesses from working with asbestos, to be able to get some medication that would relieve some of the pain but may shorten his life, it claimed it used in other parts of the country but not down here in the south.

This really saddened me, and it seems not to many people had taken notice of his campaign so I just silently prayed for him and went home.

Jul 7 2007

toolbars

why is that trying to install various well known bits of free software comes with extra clutter you dont want?

Install Adobe Acrobat 7 and it wants you to use Yahoo toolbar, plus some fancy download manager which seems pointles, Winzip was a good simple application which has annoying tip of the day, some wizard which is just playing annoying, an icon on your taskbar to supposedly make things easier.

Having too many items on your desktop taskbar slows down your computer, really the only apps ought to be there is your antivirus, app, VNC (or other remote tool) and sound volume, oh, and maybe icon the shows your wired or wireless network connection status.
So please software makers, just give us the raw nuts and bolts of our applications, cute toolbars,  download managers are just rubbish and make the training process for computer users and support process from the helpdesk more difficult.

Jul 7 2007

last few months…

well I meant to be writing some stuff on a proper regular basis, but I havent.

the last couple of months have been a bit crazy, my contract at the hospital came to an end, not completely unexpected, but I was a sad at leaving there, my attempts to apply to be permanent were not successful before and it seems my career plans were meant to be some place else.  Two interviews came about at my last week, one for company making switch panels, one for a large utility company, the former was the I really set my heart on and the second just didnt feel right, I got accepted for the power company doing helpdesk there, but more of a regular call centre job, as the tasks I enjoy like building good relationships with users, problem solving and learning new skills were absent here, the large concrete building had a kind of oppressive feel to it, and just a bad feeling I couldnt put my finger on meant I struggled to learn the ancient command based helpdesk software to log the calls (which were mainly password resets) meant the days dragged on and I yearned to be back supporting the health workers in my previous role.  The interview for the other role that seems right at the time, I got turned down for which I was massively disappointed.  The power company got fed up with me and I got the boot, learning the training was hard when they were already shortstaffed and the guy who was sat with didnt seem like training people was really his thing.

This time has meant I have had to trust in God’s plan for me like never before, and has it been hard..

In late May, I got an interview for the company I work for now making security software, this seemed really consistent with what God has planned for me, after a lot of prayer, I was accepted, the relief and joy was immense.  I have been there for a month and enjoying support the users in our office, on site, and in the other offices in Europe gives plenty of variety and challenges.

I feel incredibly blessed by what God has provided me at late,  I am seeing surprising things with some friends at the moment, and feel continuously surprised God has been providing so many answers to prayers recently, I think there are more exciting times ahead…

Apr 22 2007

absence

a combination of reinstalling my computer and mislaying my password is meant no blogs for quite sometime now, I hope to get back in the swing of things…..

Jan 24 2007

mythical gadgets

ok, you probably saw all the recent hype about Apple’s iPhone, and all the speculation on this much rumoured device.

Wondering what would start being hyped out next, some ideas I thought.

Apple Car stereo

Seriously, this would be a good idea.

Why is the iPod the best MP3 player? its not the most feature packed, but one thing Apple always does well as engineer software well. Someone really sat down and designed the user interface and tested it, and thats why a lot of multi-everything PDAs, smart phones, or MP3 players that do video normally suck. Working once at one of the UK’s biggest computer retailers has let me see some gadgets that are just awful as the user interface that strings all the parts together is just shoddy. How many electronics devices are released and then you have to get a firmware update later to make it work right?

Majority of car stereos I have seen suck. Normally lots of tiny buttons that are hard to see and operate whilst driving, too many flashing light patterns, a Vaccuum display which doesnt display the track or radio very clearly, a digital clock (why do you need one when all cars have a clock on the dash?) Sony car radios were some of the worst for user design, when they make a loud irritating beep when you wanted to press any of the controls.

The Apple iAuto

my thoughts would be the main head unit would have a minimal of electronic guts and a 80gb laptop hard disk mounted on some kind of rubber shockpads. Some proprietry connector on the back to interface your steering column controls (let Belkin, etc sell some after market adapter cables for your car) The removable faceplate would house all the main bits, and would only be a slim piece of plastic the size of an iPod Nano, of minimalistic design and have the colour screen with nice easy to read icons and would have touch controls to operate. The faceplate would snap on using some little magnets, not some stupid easily breakable latches. Apple’s attention to detail would be ideal for this kind of product, and if even if you couldnt afford the high price expected one, it would raise the standard for the rivals to do a better job of making something similar.

Copying the songs to your PC would be a SD card slot on the back of the faceplate and come bundled with a 1GB card, this would require a few backward and forward trips from PC to car to get a large music collection on your ride, but dont think most people would mind.

Google branded Satnav kit

This would be cool. I dont have a satnav kit and dont often drive outside of my city, but get Google’s well known Contextual ads flashing on the unit discretely to advertise hotels and restaurants would be good. To keep your satnav upto date, you would need to plug it into your PC once a month to keep the service working. This would mean the units would be more affordable and mean map updates be free.

I also think for safety reasons the more advanced features should be locked out whilst the vehicle is moving. The motion sensors in the Nintendo Wii console’s controller will now doubt be available in other devices at some point soon, this could do the job well.

Dec 28 2006

go on a blender

A maker of high quality food mixers was advertising their products on some new site the other day as Christmas gifts not long ago, as these devices are surprising good at what they do, as videos of putting items in like mobile phones, credit cards, whole cans of coke and a broken iPod get mashed up into tiny little bits.

http://www.willitblend.com/

Whilst on the subject of destroying things in a fun way, check out these industrial shredder machines at http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm