A long time ago... Ten years ago, I posted on usenet that I'd watched a bootleg of The Phantom Menace. I discovered the post recently and it got me thinking about how little progress has been made in the digital download arena. The actual resolution of the bootleg Picture the scene, it's my first year at university and, like any good geek, I am obsessed with Star Wars - Episode I. So much so that I help run a fan site, ThePhantomMenace.co.uk. The guys on my corridor are similarly hungry f…
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I can often be found wearing a T-Shirt with this logo on it: Share this logo with your friends But what does "Sharing Is Caring" mean? When I was growing up, my parents alway told me it was nice to share. If I had a toy - I should let my brother play with it too. If I had an ice-cream, it was nice to offer a lick to my friends. It's fun to share - and the more people you share with, the more fun you have. Last night, I went to Global Cool Swish organised by Vikki Chowney. This was a twist o…
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I know a thing or two about mobile websites. The last 4 years of my life have been spent obsessing over them. I wouldn't claim that the sites I run are the best in the world - but I've picked up a thing or two about how a successful mobile retail channel should work. Nokia's Ovi gets everything wrong. I'm going to show you 25 easily avoidable mistakes in the new Ovi Store. Here's how to make a successful downloads platform: Make it easy for your customers to buy things. ...er.... …
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I try so hard to like Nokia. Their hardware is second to none - but when it comes to software and services, they haven't got a clue. They've just announced a new app store - Ovi Store. This is to replace the broken mess that is Mosh, N-Gage, Download and the current Ovi. Why do I get the feeling that there are several fiefdoms within Nokia all working against one and other rather than working together? So, let's take a look at the new service. Nokia Ovi Store - Wow! Wow... just wow. A b…
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Directly inspired by Scott Smith's excellent brainstorming game at #M4ChangeUK. A team consisting of myself, Luke Razzell, Improbulus, Karina Brisby, Priya Prakash, and a few other lovely people whose names have slipped my mind were tasked with finding a way to raise money for clean water. Specifically targeting families and using mobile payments. Me describing our team's idea The Proposition The ability to donate your unused minutes to charity. Text "10" to NNNNN to donate 10 m…
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The built in Wordpress importer doesn't let one import a Blogger FTP blog. I tried converting my FTP blog to a Blogspot one, but that didn't help. Luckily, a post by AlanA pointed me to Blogger2Wordpress conversion tool. I exported my blog from Blogger, uploaded it to the tool, it spat out a .wxr file which I then imported to Wordpress. Looks like it has got all the posts, images and comments. Great stuff. …
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Saturday was a bit of a Busman's Holiday for me. The Mobile Tech 4 Social Change Camp was held in the London offices of Vodafone. Certainly an interesting venue for a BarCamp - not quite as plush as the Guardian venue for #BarCampLondon09, nor as hip as Wallacespace for SMCLondon09, but surprisingly good for a smaller camp. It's certainly given me a new appreciation for the office space in which I spend most of my time. Organised by MobileActive.org, this was a BarCamp for people passionate …
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I've been fairly happy using Blogger.com to compose and publish my blog posts. But it's become obvious that it's an old and outdated platform which isn't receiving as much love from Google as it should be. I've been persuaded by Torgo and others to play with Wordpress. All I knew about it before today was that every blogger on twitter keeps moaning about it - so I really wasn't quite sure what to expect. Well, 15 minutes after downloading, I'm faced with an excellent interface, some very …
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There has been much discussion recently as to whether the BNP are becoming more acceptable to mainstream voters. Are people really happy to let the world know that they support the BNP and their policies? Will they publicly show their allegiance on a social networking site like twitter? Do you know how many of your twitter friends are racists? There are two ways to tell: Directly. You see them saying something racist. In which case, I'd hope you either call them on it or you block them. …
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Don Norman wrote a fascinating article on the Toilet Paper Algorithms I've long been intrigued by the central premise of the "Design of Everyday Things" that the basic interactions with normal objects - from teapots to motor vehicles - leaves a lot to be desired. It's something which is also picked up on in Edward de Bono's book "Simplicity. So, I was in a toilet when I happened upon this stunning piece of [un]usability. (Please ignore the fact that I take my phone everywhere and see nothing …
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Recently, I've seen a lot of people retweeting content that I've already seen."How very annoying," I thought to myself, "I wish someone would do something about that."So, like any self-respecting geek, I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it :-)My PHP is a little rusty, but luckily the twitter API is fairly easy.My first pass was an abject lesson of inefficiency and illiteracy. Here was my thought process... Get the ID of the person I want to retweetGet all of My FollowersGet the people…
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I'm continually frustrated with Nokia. They make truly excellent hardware but akways seem to produce the most disappointing software. The N95 & the N810 are perfect examples of this. Powerful and innovative computers let down by shoddy software.So, when I heard that some clever hackers had ported Google's Android OS to the N810, I leapt at the chance to reinvigorate my sadly neglected Internet Tablet..There are various tutorials on the web, but here's my quick & pain free howto for people…
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