4G: Godsend or liability?

I have recently received notification from O2 that I can now access 4G. Sure enough my free 4G bolt on has been activated on my iPhone 5s (by the way it's space grey, not gold as O2's 4g checker insisted). In the week or so I've had this enabled, I haven't seen a 4G signal anywhere near where I live in South Wales.

Also, for information (bear with me, this becomes relevant shortly), I have a 1Gb data "bolt on". I've recently upped this from 500mb a month as a couple of times I've just tipped over the 500mb a month limit. I also NEVER stream video unless I'm on a wifi connection.

Yesterday I travelled to London on a 2 day business trip. I was delighted as my train approached London to see a 4G signal, and indeed, the connection on the normal apps I use (Twitter, Facebook, email, seemed quick).

Last night in my hotel room I checked my data using the O2 app and saw that I had 943 Mb available for the remainder of my contacted month (to 25th March). As I had a 4G signal, I attempted an iPhone FaceTime (video) call home to my wife. This turned out to be very short because the connection at one end (not sure whose) wasn't great. According to the call log, the call lasted 2 minutes and used 5Mb of data. Then, using my iPhone in no different way than I normally do, including some limited tethering to my iPad, by about 8pm my remaining data had dropped from 943mb to about 740mb. Odd, but I wasn't entirely alarmed.

By this time my iPhone was sat on the desk in my hotel room and although it was tethered to my iPad, the ONLY thing I was actively doing was watching a film on the iPad. It's important to note that the video file was actually physically on the iPad (that is, it was NOT being streamed to the iPad from anywhere). The iPhone had no open apps running (as far as I could tell).

Imagine my surprise therefore when my iPhone text alert went off at 21.17 to say I had used all my UK data for the month!!!!! Somewhere between about 8pm and 17 minutes past 9 I had used almost 3/4 gig of data doing nothing other than looking at twitter and during which time I had streamed no video or used any other data intensive apps, and was predominantly watching a local video file on my iPad about 6 feet away from my iPhone.

I immediately bought (rather begrudgingly) a further 1GB bolt on as I've still got nearly a month before my data monthly rolling contract end. At the time of writing this, about (24 hours later), according to O2's app, I have only 420mb of that available, so the best part of another half gig of data has disappeared.

What the hell is going on? How can I have used nearly 1.5Gb data in around 4 hours, doing nothing other than the things I normally do, that in any normal month, leave me using around 500mb data?

The ONLY difference as far as I can see has been the enablement of 4G and being in a 4G area. 4G should use MORE data, it should just make it quicker.

I am perplexed, and if this is the 4G experience, then frankly I don't want it.

So, I spoke to a very pleasant girl at O2 tonight who told me that although this amount of data consumption was unusually high, it was because she could see that my phone was downloading "updates" at 12 midnight and 3am and this was consuming the large amounts of data.

Now I'm REALLY perplexed. According to my phone iTunes and App Store settings, automatic downloads is turned ON for music and apps (though I've downloaded none of either in the last few days, and is OFF for updates. Additionally the "use cellular data" (for automatic downloads and iTunes Match (which I don't use) is OFF.

Basically, the girl on the O2 call told me that was that. She was sorry, but couldn't offer anything other than suggesting I take the phone to an Apple Store to have it checked.

I can't see that's going to help. I'll keep a close eye on my data use age, but worryingly I suspect that my two day jaunt into a 4G area has something to do with this. It shouldn't have, but there's no other conclusion I can draw


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini

The need for speed

We've had broadband at Chez Statto for a few years. We had it when it was still known as ADSL. However, it's never been fast. Faster than my old dial up modem for sure, but never what you'd call zippy.  In fact today when I measured it, it was about 3.2 Mbps (if that means anything to you, on a package that's supposed to deliver me up to 8 Mbps.

So I've bitten the bullet and put in an order for Sky Fibre Broadband, with a top speed in the region of 38 Mbps (we'll see about that).

Fibre promises faster download (and upload speeds), less buffering when watching streamed content like BBC iPlayer and smoother faster video calls etc etc. Trying to video call our son in his University via Skype is a painful experience - it only works reasonably well if we both sit still and don't move a muscle!

Anyway, the point of this blog is to talk through the process and service. I'd researched what's out there. Virgin Media isn't yet supported in this area, and that really left BT and Sky. I'd looked at BT Infiniti before, and come pretty close to signing up, but didn't - the cost at the time was too high.


My current provider (BE Unlimited) has recently been taken over by Sky, so effectively I'm a Sky broadband customer now, with the official transition taking place early next year, but that would have been like for like. Already being into Sky for TV (Sky HD, multi-room) it seemed sensible to plump for them - they do the telephone stuff too, so I placed the order last night. It was a very slick and easy process online, and my confirmation email came through straight away.

I've booked for the 22nd Oct, a morning installation, and so will look forward to updating you on what happens on that day.

This morning I had an email from BE (with the Sky company footer), saying "It looks like something has gone wrong, BT have told us there's a cease date on your line for 22nd Oct". Clearly BE and Sky aren't quite joined up yet!

As an aside, I suppose I should consider shares in Sky. They get a fair whack off me already for TV, and now I can chuck in broadband and line rental. However, I won't be paying BE or BT, so on balance it's a coupe of quid cheaper for a (potentially) much faster broadband service). Lets wait and see.

Website update

I look after a couple of websites for some friends. I've used various systems in the past, but have recently converted one of them using the free Weebly system. It's dead simple, requires no (or virtually no) technical knowledge and "just works".

I've been very impressed with it. You can see the results here Hendre Eynon

I can see my others sites moving this way too.

Apple goodness....Lion, iOS5 and iCloud

For users of Apple products (and that's me with an iPhone 4 and a Macbook Pro), the keynote delivered by Steve Jobs and his crew at this week's WWDC has shown us some wondrous goodies that we can expect over the next few months.

I'm no techie, so I'm not going into any massive detail here, but essentially there are three strands to what's coming.

1. Lion - the new incarnation of Mac OSX - the core Mac operating system. Already a super slick user interface, Lion brings a whole host of UI enhancements, better and clevere multi-touch gestures, improved apps and a whole lot more. And all for $29.99 (though here in the UK that'll probably translate to a more expensive £29.99. And that's for a 5 license OS - yes, you can install it legally on 5 Macs!
2. iOS5 - the latest operating system version for iOS devices - the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Again a whole ream of developments and enhancements - too many to go into here, but some notable ones include improved notifications, better handling of previously purchased apps, improved mail app, and great use of the lock screen. It's coming in the Autumn.
   
3. iCloud. The new way to sync your data across all Apple devices. At the moment I use MobileMe (and pay for the privilege). That's now effectively dead in the water. When iCloud arrives it basically means if you change data on one device (my iPhone for example), that data is automatically updated on my Macbook Pro. In the words of Steve Jobs...."It just works" No set up, no fiddling, it just works. And.....it's FREE! Awesome.

If you want more detail about all this lovely Apple goodness, then trot across to any of the tech blogs/sites which are awash with the detail of these three core elements. Me, I just can't wait to get hold of them.

Keeping it all together

Regular readers will know that I've got a pretty eclectic approach to computing. I have no real affinity for any one OS, and have desktop devices running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro on Mac OSX and a netbook running Ubuntu netbook edition. Chuck in my ever to hand iPhone, and the challenge for me is keeping everything together and in sync.

In all honesty, it's made a bit simpler in that the Ubuntu netbook rarely sees the light of day. It's an old Asus Eee with virtually no memory or storage, and I put Ubuntu netbook on it more as an experiment than anything else (it works fine though).

What is happening therefore, is a slow and gradual transition to cloud computing. Applications I tend to prefer are cross platform, and with an ability to sync seamlessly with whichever device I'm using . I'm not a complicated, or power user, which makes life simpler still, and what follows is a brief description of my key picks.


Dropbox
If you work in different locations on different computers and haven't used or come across Dropbox yet, you're missing out. You install the Dropbox client on all the devices you use and it creates a Dropbox folder - so it's installed on all my PC's, laptop, netbook and I have the iPhone app. Whenever you are connected to the Internet, whatever you have saved to this folder is synced to Dropbox. Then, whenever you connect using one of your other devices, all the changes are automatically synced back to that device. Simple. Add in versioning, so you know which is the latest version, and the fact that it's free for up to 2GB storage, and you not only have a way of keeping everything in sync across multiple computers, but some free online storage too.

If you are going to check it out - drop me a line first. I can refer you, and that helps me boost my storage space!
Highly recommended.


Evernote
One of the things that many people require from their computing devices is a good way of collating all those snippet of information, notes, screenshots etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of solutions out there, but one of the best is Evernote.
Evernote, like Dropbox is cross platform, and you can sync to all your platforms. Like Dropbox it's also accessible online, and like Dropbox free at the basic level.It also has browser extensions so you can clip all, or bits of web pages directly to your Evernote account.
You can record text notes, voice notes, photo notes, documents - pretty much anything. It's fully searchable, you can have multiple "notebooks" within your account, and use tags on notes. A Premium version (which I use) brings added benefits, but for most people, the free version is just fine. If you need to store "stuff", then this is the way to do it.
Brilliant!


Email/Contacts/Calendar
Gmail is my preferred email route, because everything is available on any Internet connected device. It's got a a lot of functionality too - more than most people realise, you've just got to dig a bit to find some of the optionsd and settings.


My calendar and contacts are all handled by Apple's "MobileMe" service. You have to pay for it, but it keeps my calendar and contacts beautifully in sync on my Macbook and iPhone (I tend not to do anything that needs calendar and contact access on the PC, although I could always access Mobile Me through the browser if I wanted to.

I've tried a few times to manage contacts via Google Contacts, but I find there's always some corruption/duplication though the sync process back to the iPhone/Macbook. I know some manage this perfectly fine, but I've never managed to do so to my satisfaction.

So there you have it. Core functions of email, contacts, calendar, notes and document sync/storage handled through some first class online/cross platform applications, that are free.

It's a no brainer.

1,000 posts

Blimey - realised tonight that I've posted over 1,000 times on this blog. Mostly mundane rantings of a deluded Cardiff City fan or inconsequential ramblings about shiny gadgets granted, but who'd have thought?

When I started this blog way back when, I posted a few times and virtually forgot about it. I've had another "break" along the way.

I'm not sure too many people apart from my mate Mike "Stabber" Baker (don't ask) read this drivel, but who cares?

Hidden data use and the iPhone

A salutary tale

I'm on O2 as my carrier using an iPhone 4. I, like most people was a bit miffed when O2 slapped on a 500mb cap on data usage. On reflection though, I rarely get even close to using that. Sensible use on 3G, plus using wifi wherever I can, including at home means my typical monthly data use over 3G is in the region of 80mb - 100mb.

A couple of days ago I paid a cursory glance at my usage in Settings/General/Usage and it was around the 30mb mark. About right given my billing month runs from 25th of the month.

Over the weekend I've mostly been at home (on wifi) or at Cardiff City Stadium - where regular readers will know I don't get a data signal. I haven't been doing anything different, or downloaded any new apps - though I have updated a few existing ones.

Imagine my surprise therefore when at 8.57am this morning a text from O2 pinged in saying I was at 80% of my data limit and they'd let me know if I went over it. Sure enough a quick check in settings showed around 400mb used. Somewhat perplexed, but with no time to check anything (I'm a busy man) I vowed to check things out this evening. Then 30 minutes later I got another text saying I'd exceeded my limit and now needed to buy a bolt on.

I suppose at least they told me rather than letting me carry on and shafting me with a hefty bill at month end.

Anyway, busy I may be but not that busy. I checked again, and use was at 477mb according to Settings. I re-booted the iphone and made sure there were no apps running. What I should have done was check what apps were running - but as I've said before I wasn't doing anything differently to normal.

I then contacted O2 - via chat as it happened. Their phone lines - my first port of call said they were very busy, but within 20 secs of being on the web site I was offered a chat session which I gratefully took.

The next 20 minutes basically confirmed what I'd been told by text. Yes I was over my limit, yes I'd need a bolt on and given I said I'd not normally come near this level of use, they did agree to "look into it", but I suspect they won't find anything.

So, for a £5 bolt on I've got another 500mb to tie me over to my next billing date in 10 days time. Worryingly, I still have no idea which app was the culprit.

My vague recollection is that the following were in the multi-task bar - but remember these apps re supposed to be in a suspended (ie effectively stopped) state.

Sky Sports Football, Safari, Mail, Twitter, Messages, ECB Cricket, Notes, Reeder, Facebook, Contacts, SafeWallet and Angry Birds. I don't (or rather very rarely) stream video or music and certainly haven't been doing this in the last few days. One of them though, appears to have been doing something rather naughty. Two pieces of supporting evidence were significant battery drain - down from 100% at 7.30am to 68% by 9.30 when normally I'm not down to 68% by the end of the day, and the fact the phone did appear to be quite warm at one stage.

So, conclusions?

Well, clearly not all apps go into a suspend state when you open another app or return to the home screen, despite what most people would have you believe. I've heard of this with apps like Pandora and Spotify but I don't use those. Gavin suggested it might be a location services issue, although I don't think I've changed anything since yesterday.

A bit of a mystery then. One things for sure. I'll be paying a regular trip to the task bare to check what's there and clearing them down, and I'll be paying a bit more attention to my data usage over the next few weeks.

Ubuntu Linux

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself.

I've got an old Asus Eee 701 netbook, which has been gathering dust for a while. Originally it had Xandros Linux as an operating system (OS), which was OK, but not great. I eventually took the plunge and after much tweaking managed to install a very cut down version of Windows XP on it. That gave me the comfortable Windows interface, but to be honest it wasn't much fun on a 7" screen. Additionally the arrival of a 13" Macbook Pro consigned the Eee to the furthest corners of the study.

Recently, I got it out and was fiddling around, and decided to have a crack at installing Ubuntu's netbook Linux edition on it. Ubuntu is now one of, if not the Linux distro of choice for many, and has come a long way from the old command line only interfaces of Linux variations of yore.

So armed with a USB flash disk to download the distribution and act as the install disk, I duly cracked on. In the end, it was pretty painless - I consider myself an experienced rather than advanced user, and I can follow instructions, and it was straightforward. The Ubuntu interface was a revelation after my previous (albeit limited) experience of Linux. It's far more "Windows" like, and the Ubuntu software centre in particular does away with all that synaptic and repository stuff for installing software. which had previously put me right off. It's there hidden away if you want it, as is the terminal console - but I don't particularly.

It hooked up to my network like a dream, and I installed OpenOffice with no hassles - all this on a netbook with only a 4GB SSD mind you.

So, I've got a working Ubuntu netbook. Next up, though I wanted to connect my printer. This works over a wireless network, and the Ubuntu software centre didn't find the relevant printer drivers (it's a multi-function Canon MP560. So I downloaded the drivers after a quick google. I hadn't a clue what I was supposed to do, so double clicked a bunch of files, seemed to extract from the archive, tried to open/run some files that looked like executables and got a few errors. Another google suggested I had to edit an install executable. So I found a text editor, edited the offending line as instructed, and via a quick trip to the terminal window (really, this is gobbledy gook to me too) and a comand line instruction - bingo! Installed. Not only working, but I can print and scan - first time. Brilliant (considering I'm flying by the seat of my pants).

I've also just installed the brilliant Dropbox that allows you to store files "in the cloud" and then sync them and make them available to any device you install Dropbox on.

That just about does it for the moment. I've now got everything I need. A small, robust device, running a tidy OS that's Internet connected, I can print from and has all my key documents available to me via Dropbox.

If you're a real tech-head, this probably doesn't sound like very much of an achievement. Believe me, installing ANY OS is often fraught, one you are unfamiliar with is often treacherous. To get everything up and working, almost first time is an achievement, especially when you have to go digging in executables and editing files.

So all in all I'm very pleased with myself. I can now truly say that I am diversity personified when it comes to computing. I've got a Windows 7 desktop PC, a Macbook Pro laptop running Snow Leopard, an Ubuntu Linux driven netbook and an iPhone running iOS4.2. A tool (and OS) for every occasion!

Neat

T-Mobile have kicked up a bit of a fuss by saying they are going to cut the unlimited mobile data use for it's customers to 500mb.

For those used to getting (and as importantly paying) for "unlimited" data, this came as a bit of a shock to say the least. If it had been me I'd have been really hacked off, but fortunately I'm not on T-Mob any more, I'm on O2.

Oh hang on, I forgot, my data cap is 500mb anyway. D'oh!

Anyway, turns out T-Mobile weren't quite right in what they were saying. They are only going to apply the cap for new customers and those upgrading from (I believe) 1st February. Those currently on "unlimited" data plans can stay on their current useage plan.

But here's the rub. When they say "unlimited" they don't mean it. It's not unlimited at all. There's a fair useage policy which basically limits the data you can use to 3GB. If you go over that (routinely) you'll be told politely by T-Mob to stop using so much, and if you persist they might well take more heavy handed action (knocks on the door in the middle of the night?).

I'm not sure how often that happens in reality, but that's not the point. The point is, today you get unlimited (sorry, 3GB) for your money tomorrow (or from 1st Feb) new customers or those upgrading will be getting 500mb for the same money (more or less). Hardly seems fair.

And in an increasingly connected world, giving people the tools to use data easily, but then restricting what they can do with those tools seems a bit arse about if you ask me. and it's not OK to just say find a wifi hotspot, because in many places - including most of the places I go, they're not abundant.

The theory is that a few data "hoggers" are ruining the bandwidth for the majority, but penalising everyone because little Johnny is misbehaving doesn't seem to be the right way to go about solving the problem.

I'm going to stop now, and enjoy using my 500mb data cap by browsing and tweeting and so on.

Remember though, use wifi where you can and it won't be an issue!

Are you receiving me...?

I've posted before about my frustrations of not being able to get a data signal on O2 at the Cardiff City Stadium on match days, and anecdotal comments by various people about the connection being "switched off" on match days, although other people on other carriers seem to do OK.

I got so fed up with this that I sent a "Mr Angry from Barry" email to O2 yesterday.

This afternoon a very nice young lady from O2 rang me to discuss this. Initially she suggested that the lack of connection was due to the mass of people at the match until I pointed out that:

1. People on other carriers seem to do OK
2. It's only Cardiff City match days - Wales international matches and Cardiff Blues rugby matches don't seem to have this problem (though admittedly the crowds for both are smaller than Bluebirds games)
   
3. I can text/SMS OK but get absolutely no data signal, almost as soon as I'm in sight of the stadium
   

She seemed genuinely willing to want to help, but was stuck on the "it's the volume of people" approach. I then told her that I'd heard (from two separate sources) that the data signal is turned off by O2 on CCFC match days. This threw her and she said she'd need to speak to someone else and promised to ring back.

She duly did 20 minutes later. She told me that after speaking with the "network infrastructure" team (or something like that) they could "neither confirm nor deny" that the data signal is turned off. Hmm....interesting. Sounds like a government or military sort of response!

She said that the mast was a small one and 0.4km from the stadium and that the most likely explanation was that in order to ensure a continuous connection for existing O2 users who reside in the vicinity when there are large crowds in the area, the likelihood is the connection is reduced (or switched off, but she could neither confirm nor deny that).

It doesn't help me, but at least now I know - I think. In addition she has arranged for a small discount on my monthly bill, as I complained (nicely) that in effect I'm paying for a service which is available but being denied to me in the 8-12 hours a month I probably spend in and around that area. A result!

The other option of course is to switch from O2 to a carrier that doesn't have the signal problems in the area on match days, but I don't want to do that....yet.

Maybe if everyone complains, they'll put a bigger, closer mast up??

Adobe: What a load of old cobblers

I've just had an inordinately bad experience, and I'm trying to hold my temper, but it's hard.

I've been an Adobe Photoshop Elements (v2) user for years. That version has always just about done for me and I've avoided upgrading, but tonight decided the time had come to take the plunge to the latest version (v9), and so I navigated to the Adobe online store.

Yes I know I could have gone to Amazon, or somewhere else but the price difference wasn't that great and I get it right from the horses mouth so to speak.

No I must digress briefly here, and say that I've ranted about Adobe before - that was about the price differential between what US customers pay and European and specifically UK customers pay. Adobe put this down to the shifting exchange rate. I say "cobblers" (or words to that effect). Not a valid argument for online software purchase. It's entirely Adobe taking UK purchasers to the cleaners. Enough said.

Now I've made a few big online software purchases recently - MS Office for Mac, MS Office for Windows to name two, and several others to boot. In ALL cases, I've paid, downloaded installed, registered and just got on with it. How about with Adobe? Oh no........

First up, I paid. Fine - they took my cash sweet as a nut.

Click on the download link and get a cryptic message saying if I'm downloading with IE then blah, blah, blah, but if I'm using another browser I have to download something else first. I was in FireFox, and I didn't want to download something else first to enable me to make the download I wanted, so I switched to IE (yuk) and downloaded the 1.75 GB file to my desktop.

When it was downloaded I tried to launch it. Oops. Mistake. It's some odd compressed file that nothing on my Windows PC could read, so I then had to download some more software to extract the files (stuffit expander - or a choice of another couple of programs) to extract all the files, which I did and it duly did.

So, left with two folders. A Readme and an Program folder. Read the Readme ((briefly) as you do, nothing untoward in there, opened the program folder, double clicked the "setup.exe"..........and got an error message saying "Please install/uninstall the product setup.exe to the root folder". Click OK and the installer exits. D'oh!

A quick Google didn't find anything obvious so went to Adobe site and clicked Live Chat.

Within seconds, had Umer on the desktop offering to help. I explained the problem. The rest as they say is history. The full transcript of our chat is below.

Thank you for choosing Adobe. A representative will be with you shortly. Your estimated wait time is 0 minute(s) and 30 second(s) or longer as there are 1 customer(s) in line ahead of you.

You are now chatting with Umer.

Umer: Hello! Welcome to Adobe Customer Service.

Simon: Hi

Umer: Hi Simon

Umer: I am glad to help you.

Umer: As I understand, you are unable to install the software, correct?

Simon: That's right

Umer: Thank you.

Umer: Let me check the order number AD000726232UK

Umer: I see that you have placed the order on Dec. 05, 2010

Umer: Please be informed that it normally takes 24 to 48 hours to complete the order.

Simon: Why 24 hours? Yes - I have downloaded a 1.75GB file to my desktop. Expanded it into two folders - a read me and a APSE 9 with a setup file (amongst others). Launch the setup file and get the error message

Umer: You will be able to download and install the software 48 hours after placing the order.

Simon: I already have downloaded the software

Umer: I see that the the order is processed completely.

Umer: Please try to install the software after 48 hours.

Simon: Why can't I install it now? What's going to change in 24 hours?

Umer: The product will be ready to install in 48 hours.

Simon: I don't understand why, when I have a 1.75GB file sitting on my desktop I can't install it for 48 hours! That's ludicrous.

Umer: Simon, I see that this is a technical issue and I may not be of great help to you.

Simon: If I go to a store and buy the software on a CD/DVD would I have to wait 48 hours before I installed it? I think not.

Umer: I request you to call our Technical Support team on phone if you are unable to install the software after 48 hours of placing the order.

Simon: This is ridiculous. I'd like a refund please

Umer: Sure. We can help with this.

Umer: May I please have the product serial number?

Simon: Yes it's 1057-1717-6531-9470-5398-9279

Umer: Thank you.

Umer: In order to process your return, you must agree to delete the existing software from your computer and destroy any existing copies. You may not sell, transfer, give away, donate or otherwise distribute your existing Adobe product to anyone else. Do you agree?

Simon: Yes I do

Umer: Thank you.

Umer: You will receive the refund in 7 to 10 business days by the method of payment.

Simon: Thank you

Umer: You are welcome.

Simon: I'd be grateful if you could provide some feedback to your manager.

Umer: Sure.

Simon: I have bought online and downloaded several commercial software suites recently, and in all cases with this exception, the process has been flawless. Buy, download and install and I'm up and running straight away.

Umer: Let me help you with a link with more information on this.

Simon: The process for downloading this software (and I assume all other Adobe software) is convoluted, unclear and the idea of having to wait 48 hours after downloading before I can use it is completely ridiculous. Adobe have just lost a customer, and I will be looking elsewhere for my photo editing software.

Umer: Thank you for waiting. One moment please.

Simon: I appreciate your help in processing the return, but I'm unhappy with the process and feel aggrieved that it had to come to that.

Umer: Please click here

Umer: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Simon: OK. Thanks. Goodbye

Umer: Thank you for contacting Adobe. Goodbye!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure Umer is a nice person. But what's all this crap about having to wait 48 hours before installing software that I've just paid for and downloaded, and is sitting in a whacking great 1.75 gig file on my desktop? Excuse my French but that's just bloody ridiculous. What the hell is this, and how suddenly after 48 hours will a file decide it's OK to be installed?

I'm beginning to understand why Steve Jobs (head honcho at Apple) has a thing about Adobe.

It's worth googling Adobe and install - seems I'm not the only one.....

Any thoughts?

Apple: It just works. No it doesn't

You know, for a company that prides itself on ease of use and the "it just works" principle, Apple have sometimes got things horribly wrong.

Take calendars, and three Apple specific elements.

1. An Apple Macbook Pro
2. A pricey (by most people's views) subscription to Apple's Mobileme cloud/syncing service
3. An Apple iPhone 4

Now then, let me see - oooh, I have all of those. And what I want to do is have my calendars on the two bits of hardware to be seamless. Update one, the other one updates. And it works, mostly.

I have two calendars on my MBP that are "subscribed calendars". These are calendars that someone else has built. You download them, and then subscribe to them, usually for free (in my case, a calendar of all Cardiff City's fixtures, which saves me having to type the darn things in at the start off a season, and a UK holidays one so I don't have to add in things like "Christmas Day" or "Easter Sunday").

The beauty of a subscribed calendar is, if the data is updated - say a CCFC fixture v Middlesborough on Saturday is moved to a wet Tuesday, the calendar automatically updates with the new data - I don't have to do anything! Marvellous!

And it works except.....that the subscribed calendars don't sync. A "normal" local calendar syncs to Mobileme and to the "other" device, but the bloody subscribed ones don't.

It's such a pain in the arse. A beautiful elegant solution that's been hamstrung for Lord knows what reason.

You'd have thought Apple would have been able to make it work, but it doesn't. And that means they are driving people to alternative solutions like third party sync tools and Google. Surely that can't be good for business?

Come on Apple, make subscribed calendars work with Mobileme.

BE the Daddy!

This might not look like much, but BE-lieve me, that little figure of 3.3Mbps brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Basically, that's saying that my broadband speed has about doubled by switching to BE as my internet broadband provider. With my previous provider, Pipex,, I was typically getting around 1.6-1.8.

Ok, it's not superfast, but relatively, it's much better than I was getting, so I'm happy!

UPDATE

I've been having chat with a few people in the excellent thinkbroadband.com BE forum, and they've been really, really helpful. The view is I could squeeze out as much as another 3Mbps - 5Mbps speed if I carry out some tweaks. I'm going to check the key thing tomorrow which is the wiring in the BT master socket coming into the house. Not as drastic as it sounds, but might make a helluva difference. Also might be worth siting the router direct to this socket - currently it sits upstairs, but only because it's got a direct ethernet link to my main dekstop PC and the network hard drive. If I get a wireless card for the PC, no reason why the router & HDD can't sit down in the living room (at least I can't see a reason why not - Mrs Stats may have a different view...).

I'll take it one step at a time. Tomorrow I'll check out the bell wire in the master socket, which apparently, if there can be a cause of noie on the line. It's not needed with modern phone systems, so it can go. We'll see.

Be there.....

My new broadband service with Be goes live on Friday.

Everything's ready. My new Be box (router) arrived today. Nothing flash, a capable Thompson router. I'll see how it goes but have my current Netgear DGN1000 available if it proves not brilliant (not that the Netgear is superb).

Everything about the transfer from my current provider Pipex has gone swimmingly well so far.

Pipex delivered the MAC code to me as promised - though I only got it via the post - not also via email, text and voicemail which they also promised me.

Anyhows, the Be order process was smooth, and the communication I've had from Be has been superb. Automated txts and emails granted, but plenty of them from telling me the order has been processed, to the box being despatched, to expected delivery date of the box plus what to do when it arrives. The comms have all been clear and concise, but in a light hearted and easy to understand manner that suggests that they value you as a customer, and want the process to be as pain free as possible (unlike Pipex/Talk Talk/Carphone Warehouse or who-ever they are these days who are pushy, often rude and frequently incomprehensible.

Apparently, I just plug this box in on Friday when my existing connection goes down, and off I go. Virtually no configuration needed. Certainly no complex usernames and other configuration that I have to do for my Pipex connection.

That bit's yet to come of course, and may not be as simple as it''s made out to be - we'll see.

either way. I'm pretty excited in my own geeky sort of way. I'm not expecting a massive speed boost. Currently I'm lucky to get 1.7MB downstream on a connection that promises "up to 8MB". Be say I might get 2.5MB. The main problem is that I'm a fair way from the exchange, but I'm hoping the key is that BE's service has less contention and no throttling (that's what they say). If I can consistently get 2MB I'll be happy. I'll be happy just not being with Pipex any more!

Bye bye Pipex

I'm on my way to leaving Pipex. I've threatened this for a long time and recently decided I was going to do the deed.

Today I rang them and asked for my MAC code which will allow me to leave and go to another provider. Tales of trouble trying to leave Pipex abound in various Forums, but this first stage seemed to be a pretty painless process. The person I spoke to tried the usual to get me to stay but once I made it clear all I wanted was my MAC code, he got the message. He couldn't give me the code then and there (why not?) but told me I'd get it via email, text, post and via voicemail on my landline with 5 working days. I got a reference number too, so let's see how it goes from here.

As previously mentioned, I think I'm going to BE broadband. Unlimited usage for £13.75 a month. Sadly, whichever provider I go to I think the max download speed I'll get is about 2 meg, but I'm not close to that with Pipex, and the contention issues in the evening make it even worse.

Fingers crossed

Ok, that's it. Goodbye Pipex

I've finally had enough. Very shortly I'm going to be saying au revoir to Pipex internet. I've been with them years, but through the various acquisitions - first by Tiscali, then by Talk Talk/Opal the service has become poorer and poorer. There are times when my internet link just appears to turn up it's toes and say, "not tonight".

I've hung on, out of some misplaced loyalty to a company that's long since vanished as it used to exist when I started with them, but reading this months PC Pro Awards (you can't read them online yet - I've seen them because I'm a subscriber so get the mag early), Pipex languish in 16th place for fixed line broadband providers, held off rock bottom place only by AOL. These awards are based on readers experiences, so they aren't biased by anything particularly other then real life scenarios, and there had to be a certain number of readers submitting info to make the rating valid. Notwithstanding that, I rate PC Pro's views anyway.

Pipex's ratings were as follows, (out of 6 bizarrely)

• Reliability - 2
• Speed - 2
• Customer support - 1
• Value for money - 2
• Recommended? - 1
  
• Overall - 1

As a comparison, the top two performers were Zen Internet and Be Broadband. Zen scored 6 in everything except value for money where they rated 5, and Be scored 4 in Reliability and 5-6 in everything else. Third placed O2 was just a smidgeon behind Be.

I think at this moment I'm going to go with Be, with their value package at £13 a month for up to 8meg and unlimited downloads. My line can't receive more than 2 meg according to most providers assessments, but I'm not even getting close to that with Pipex.

The difficulty, however will be actually cancelling the Pipex account. There are tales upon tales of woe on thinkbroadband.com of people who have had terrible problems trying to geyt their MAC code and cancel their account.

Wish me luck!

Clever GMail

How clever is GMail?

You probably know this already, but I didn't. I just went to send an email in which I had intended to add an attachment, and had said in the body of the email "...see attached". Except I hadn't attached it. I do this all the time at work and Outlook blindly sends the email and people come back and say "what attachment?"

GMail though popped up a message that basically said "Ooop! looked like you meant to attach a document but you haven't done so - do you still want to send?"

Simple, but brilliant!

I and I know GMail isn't in beta any more, but this is the image I had lying around.

The good and the bad

Interesting comparisons .

A couple of months ago I bought a PAYG mobile broadband dongle from O2. This week I've also bought one from T-Mobile, as I know I'll be somewhere this summer that has very poor O2 coverage but pretty good T-Mob coverage.

Having both might seem extravagant but it does give me some backup options. Anyway, the interesting thing has been how easy (or not) these things have been to set up and get going with.

The O2 one was pretty straightforward. Installed the network manager on my Mac, put the dongle in. Went to the O2 mobile broadband top up page, entered my number, paid my money, connected and off I went. Now, every time I need to top up, I just do the same. I haven't needed to set up an account (even though I have an O2 account) or register a card.

The T-Mob experience was much harder. The network manager install was easy - easier than O2, as everything was installed from the dongle when I put it in.

However, that's when things went a bit pear shaped. When I bought the dongle it had a compulsory £10 "top up" on it, so I should have been good to go. But I wasn't. When I tried to connect I kept getting a message saying that I was trying to connect but hadn't any top up or hadn't activated my account. Activate my account I had to register a card! So I did. But to register a card I had to put a top up on it! Minimum £5. However, I must have tried a couple of times without success as eventually it told me I couldn't register the payment as I'd exceeded the number of attempts. So a long call to T-Mob ensued. The first problem was I couldn't register my debit card because that's already registered with another T-Mob account for my son's phone, and yo can't register a card with 2 accounts - apparently. So I topped up on my credit card. Now I had paid £15 of top up including the original £10 with the purchase of the dongle, but still only £5 was showing on my account.

Tried again, and got the same message - have to activate, and to all extents and purposes it looked like it was still asking me to pay. In the end I worked out that I had to go through the motions as if I was going to top up again whereupon my initial £2 daily top up charge was deducted from the £5 top up payment I'd made earlier (this was entirely unclear to me). A further phone call to T-Mob as to where my original £10 top up was elicited an apology and assurance it would be put right within the hour (and it was).

So eventually, I'm there. I just hope it's easier next time, and that the bloody thing gets a network connection in the middle of nowhere, where I'm assured by my sister who also uses a T-Mob dongle, it will.

Toodledo

I'm still trying to find the perfect to do app for the iPhone, over a year after moving to the platform.

Recently I've been using 2Do, and it's kind of OK, though some feel it's more form than function with it's colourful, nice to look at interface, which can at times feel a bit cluttered.

I use Appigo's Notebook app for my notes, and I find this a very decent app. It syncs to Toodledo, a cloud based to do/note application, but I've never bothered with it's to do element before now.

I've forked up the £1.79 asking price for the iPhone Toodledo app (come on, it's not even the cost of a pint of beer), and of course setting up the sync was a piece of cake.

I'll see how this goes - it's more like a traditional to do list rather than the over complicated (for me) "getting things done" model, though it does have folders, a hotlist and starred list options.

Pretty much all I'm after is a basic and easy to enter in, app that tells me when a task is due to be done and can give me an alert.

I'll see how this goes for a while.

Google contacts update

I thought it was too good to be true, and so it proved. Although enabling Google Contact sync from my Macbook Pro (see post below) appeared to have synced all my contacts across to Google, when I fired up my MBP tonight, I got a message saying that Google wanted to make 40 odd amendments to the contacts in my Mac's Address book.

It wanted for example to replace a perfectly valid record such as:
Title: "Mr & Mrs" with "Mr"
First Name: "M" with "& Mrs"
and so on....

So I've turned off the syncing for the moment, until I can work out what to do for the best. All my records in the Mac Address book are accurate and up to date, and I can't risk Google's sync process buggering these up. At least of got 270 plus contact records in Google that look OK from the way they synced across originally.

You would have thought in this day and age, something as obvious as contact management would have evolved a fairly standard sync protocol. I appreciate some of the more esoteric fields found in certain address books might cause problems, but it can't be beyond the wit of man (or coders) to at least be able to come up with a standard for title/first name/ last name syncing?

Obviously it is.