Posted in Uncategorized
Two weeks! Two sodding weeks without my iPhone working perfectly as an upgrade. Apparently (so I’m told this week) the system is giving them a “999 error” every time they try to process the upgrade. Now, I’m very forgiving when it comes to human errors, but each time I phone and ask about it they say:
Oh, sorry Sir. The system says its been fixed.
“The system says”? How about what I say? How about keeping some transparency and actually phoning me up to ask if it’s working okay?
Last week you were very helpful. This week you are seriously pissing me off. Some of the sales/help people I’ve spoken to (Nicola, Shaz, Kirstie…) have been great, but the company itself!?! Nrgh! Serious, guys, what the f@#£ are you playing at?
Definitely over-due a very long post about the simple art keeping your customers happy. Watch this space.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ll do a post about my experiences of buying an iPhone later, but I feel compelled to point out something obvious:
Apple knows this, which is one of the many reasons they (like any other manufacturing company) limit initial stock during ramp-up;
Yup… we are Apple’s extended test team. Tis the price of early-adopter kudos, has and always will be; get over it. Thanks to us, Joe Public will no doubt be happy with his iPhone.
Posted in Uncategorized
Forums, google, review sites, friends, relatives – you name it, I’ve scoured it in the name of paintball entertainment. I’ve narrowed the list down to five pretty good sites (click on the titles to take you to the sites themeselves, just in case that wasn’t clear in the previous post)
LOCATION: Southampton-ish (20mins from soton)
THOUGHTS: Cool looking sets, recommended by a couple of people
LOCATION: North of guildford. (about 70 mins from soton)
THOUGHTS: Looks really great. Awesome venue. Check out the different game types!
LOCATION: Southampton (about 10 mins from soton)
THOUGHTS: Large sets, but a bit basic-looking. Comes recommended though
LOCATION: Reading (about 110 mins from soton)
THOUGHTS: Well recommended, but hard to see much from the website
LOCATION: Horsham, east sussex. (about 90 mins from soton)
THOUGHTS: It’s no coincidence this Horsham rhymes with awesome. Check out the gallery! It really does look very good indeed.
My thoughts? Well, you ought to bear in mind these are 915am starts! OMG! Yes, srsly. So to get to the east sussex venue for 9am we’d need to get up really early. But it will be worth it, IMO. So for what it’s worth, my favourite sites are Holmbush and Campaign….
Posted in Uncategorized
Ok, so here’s the problem. I’m organising Benjie Gillam’s stag party and the consensus is that we should be going for paintball in the south of england. The problem is that:
So… is it possible to work this all out? I’m hoping so. Here’s a list of locations I’ve found… if you’ve any views on them, please leave a remark in the comments. Beer to the winner, or something 😉
LOCATION: Address, Skirmish Lasham, Manor Farm Buildings, Lasham, Hampshire, GU34 5SL
COST: Ultimate Package = £49.95
INFO: Useful, well-designed site. Cool games. Heard some bad reviews though?
Hard-core BB guns. Definitely NOT paintball, but looks like a hoot.
SESSIONS (END TIMES ARE APPROX): 0915 – 1600HRS
COST: £14.99 per person entry: Paintballs £6.99 per 100, £5.99 per 100 if purchased in bulk (2000).
FOOD: BBQ, included I think
LOCATION: Rose Wood, Lee Lane, Romsey, Hampshire. SO16 0AD. Tel: 0800 849 4911
LOCATION: National Paintball Parks (Hants), Street End Copse, Hook Road, Rotherwick, Hook, Hants RG27
INFO: Very generic website
LOCATION: Shedfield, Southampton, Hampshire SO32 2HL
COST: £55 – to include all equipment, lunch, hot drinks and 700 paintballs – must be pre-booked/pre-paid.
INFO: Seems friendly. Not sure about how much the facility has to offer
COST: 1000 ball = £39.95
LOCATION: Woodside Farm, Gosport Road, Privett, Nr.Alton, Hampshire. GU34 3NJ
INFO: Very little on the website.
Also at fareham and portsmouth
Not very professional looking – will check out reviews
LOCATION: Lee Lane, Romsey, Hampshire SO16 0AD
COST: Doesn’t state on site, though balls not too much
LOCATION: Hilsea Industrial Estate, 2b Limberline Road, Portsmouth, PO3 5BJ, Portsmouth
COST: £50.00 = 800 balls
INFO: Seems a bit kiddyish and small?
LOCATION: 248 Ringwood Road, St. Leonards, Ringwood, Hants. BH24 2SB
INFO: Not a great website. Nowhere near enough info. Not paintball-focussed.
LOCATION: Skirmish Paintball Dorset, Oak Cottage, Bere Wood, Bere Regis. BH20 7JJ
INFO: Looks pretty decent… doesn’t have its own website as far as I can tell
LOCATION: Skirmish Dorset, North Almer Barn, North Almer, Dorset. BH20
LOCATION: Skirmish Paintball Dorset, Oak Cottage, Bere Wood, Bere Regis. BH20 7JJ
LOCATION: Wattons Ford Common, Wattons Lane, Matchams, Ringwood, BH24 2BS.
COST: Doesn’t state on site, though balls not too much
INFO: Is it still going? Heard they had planning permission prob?
INFO: Very little indeed
LOCATION: Christchurch Road, Hurn, Christchurch, Dorset. BH23 6AE
INFO: Very little
LOCATION: Christchurch Road, Hurn, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 6AE
LOCATION: Hurn
INFO: Very little
COST: 400 + 1 bomb = £34
LOCATION: Hurn Court Lane
INFO: 12 game zones in firing zone
Doesn’t look great TBH
LOCATION: Paintball Warriors, Uddens Drive, Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 7BQ
COST: £45 = 1000 balls
INFO: Lots of game zones. Simple but decent site
TIMING: Full Days Paintball : 9.15 am – 4.30 pm ( BBQ lunch included )
COST: £55 for 1000
INFO: Nice site. Indoor version at Poole. UKPSF
LOCATION: Virtual Warfare, Units 3&4 Grimsdyke Granaries, Blandford Road, Salisbury, SP5 5RL
COST: 5 games for £30
INFO: Laser-based, but informative website. Looks pretty good
Any thoughts, leave them in the comments… let’s make this a kick-ass event for Benjie!
I know this is a shameless plug, but it’s in the festive spirit I promise. Yesterday BrainBakery.com (my web dev sister company to i-together.com) released a facebook advent calendar application for Sumo.tv.
Apart from giving you a bit of much-needed festive bling to you facebook profile, by supplying you great video clips each day up til Christmas, the top few people who invite the most users win an ipod! So get inviting!
Find the app at apps.facebook.com/sumoadvent.
Note that I’m not using my personal sumoadvent affiliate code as that would be wrong of me… no point trying to win a competition I created 😉
Posted in facebook, marketing, social media, web development, Web2.0
It’s been a huge amount of work, but the end result has been really worth it. Find all the details at the Blog Friends blog.
Posted in blogfriends, facebook
I suspect not, but unlike Google, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5 and maybe even Facebook I’m not in the loop on this Open Social thing so I certainly don’t have the whole story. You see, something is really bothering me…
Much of the coverage of Open Social has focussed on developers being able to use “normal” JavaScript and HTML to develop their apps. However, FBML and FBJS, combined with Facebook’s limited indexing on Google, actually do us a favour:
I’m going to trackback this post to a few big bloggers in the hope I’ll get an answer in the comments, because I can’t find any answers to these critical questions anywhere on the web.
The thing that bothers me most is that Google doesn’t exactly have a great reputation for quality secure code and attention to user privacy. Do I need to be turning off JS in my browser? :S
Edit: LMAO, turns out I was probably right. So, folks, let’s all welcome in a new era of totally shit web security. Hurrah for key-loggers! Hurrah for hackers being able to re-use old tricks without needing to think!
Good grief! :S
Posted in facebook, hack, javascript, Open Social, security
Many of you, like me, only use facebook as a way of communicating with people you actually know well. However, there’s no rules to how this is done and you’ve got to admit, annoying though it might be, Scoble and Kawasaki’s approach has some considerable advantages for them and (crazy though it might seem), the overall social graph.
As I see it, Robert’s using facebook to tap into an extremely valuable resource. Via facebook’s filtering features he is able to see the most important information in the daily lives and activities of a lot of people. Through interacting with them, facebook automatically hones the information he sees until it is as relevant as possible to him. Dave McClure also did a similar experiment, utilizing features such as tagging to raise his profile and tune his social graph quicker.
I’ll admit facebook’s algorithm isn’t astounding, but as I rarely communicate with Robert I never get “spammed” by him so it must work.
Actually, it’s a positive thing for me: thanks to Robert’s open policy, my team and I have been able to make (albeit fairly lose) friends with him which has been invaluable during the development of our app.
Of course, if you’re not Robert then it’s easy to feel that he’s everywhere, spamming the whole face of facebook and twitter. However, by opening the floodgates like this, he’s allowing facebook (and indeed the new version of our app Blog Friends) to potentially converge on the “true” social graph much faster. Let me explain.
When I went to university I spent the first two months making in excess of 500 friends via many clubs, societies and bars. I spent the next 4 years “optimizing” these relationships: I lost contact with most of them; some of them became business relationships; many became close friends; others become distant, but with an open social channel. The fact that we can now, thanks to the power of computer-based social networks, do this on a much faster and larger scale must only be good for the flow of information and hence humanity… it’s just a pity the tools aren’t perfect yet.
Posted in blogfriends, facebook, social media, Web2.0
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