June 27th, 2007
At last! I’m free of Tiscali! Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, turns out one call to offCom and Tiscali do everything they can to sort the problem. Strange. I’m now with another company, let’s hope they’re not as bad when it comes time to leave.
June 20th, 2007
As some of you know, I moved jobs recently to work for the Birmingham based Glaxstar as their in-house web / UI guy, and I have my first major bit of news… Glubble is born!
Glubble is a extension for Firefox aimed at children under 12, and aims to provide a fun, safe browsing environment for them. It comes with around 350 sites (in what we call the Glubble World) that have been pre-vetted as safe and just downright cool for kids. The parents and extended family and friends (’helpers’) can then add sites to the childs Glubble.
And vise-verse, If a child clicks on a link they’re not allowed to see, they can ask a ‘helper’ for permission. So Glubble is infinitely extensible, and very personal to a particular family, group, school, whatever!
There’s a new UI for kids too! It includes a thumbnail bar so kids can easily view and click on their bookmarks. It even screenshots new sites that are bookmarked for easy of finding later.
It’s a shared experience too, and it’s easy to add other kids or helpers into your Glubble. They then can request from the new helpers and the helpers can add sites for their new Glubble children!
The whole team, especially those currently in the USA have worked their proverbial socks off, and many a late night has been spent hunched over a laptop screen to get this launched on time. I for one am very proud and privileged to work with such a bunch of hardworking, driven people.
The reaction from users and tech-heads around the net has been somewhat mixed. I’m pleased to say that we managed over 1000 downloads in the first 24-hours. The product has had mentions and reviews galore, not least by such shining lights as The Washington Post, Wired, Lifehacker, CNET and Techcrunch… (to name but a few).
But don’t take their word for it, why not just bing-bash-bosh download yourself a copy from glubble.com and try it for yourself. Just remember, you need Firefox to run it, but that’s ok, Firefox is probably better than your average web-browser anyway.
- Jon.
May 30th, 2007
Thanks to all who left a comment on my last Tiscali post, it seems that they’ve outdone themselves this time, here is a breif update:
I sent a letter to Tiscali complains department aprising them of my situation and promptly… ahem… well, soonish recived a reply informing me that this was indeed a ‘rare case’ and I could expect the TAG removed from my line soon, as the nice woman who’d written the letter had issued an internal memo.
So you can imagine my (lack of) surprise when I get a message from some woman at Tiscali saying ‘we hope your internet is now working’… no no NO NO NO!!!
So the TAG is still on my line, and to cap it all off, I’m now being chased by a dept collection agency because apparently I owe Tiscali money! Despite the fact they took the Direct Debit for a month of broadband they didn’t provide.
Anyway, I’ve written them another polite letter and OffCom are involved. My advice? If you have Tiscali, get rid (if you can) get rid now.
May 14th, 2007
The very last site I did while at Trinity was Ar-Ger for the company of the same name who specializes in selling spiffing properties somewhere in France.
I don’t know if it was the fact I had a week left to finish it, or just because I’ve got a hidden passion for French property websites (sometimes, I wake in the night, my head full of fine wines and blue cheese), but this is perhaps the best site I’ve done to date.
So, so long Trinity, I had a fine three-and-a-bit years with you, but onwards and upwards. There’s gonna be some exciting things coming out of Glaxstar in the next few months so keep an eye out for them.
May 1st, 2007
Hats off to Tiscali who over recent weeks and months have been providing me some of the poorest service I’ve ever recived.
I had a Tiscali account over a year ago which I transfered to a different phone number, but unbeknown to me they’d left the tag on the original line. So in Nov last year when I tried to set up a new BT broadband account BT told me I needed a MAC code, and suggested I talk to tiscali, which I did…
Tiscali said (after a few calls) they couldn’t give me a mac code, but they could request the tag removed from the line… This would take 2 weeks.
2 weeks later it wasn’t done. so I requested it again…
and guess what.. yup.. still not done, and anther two weeks wait.
In April I decided to start keeping a track of this promise / 2 week wait cycle…
On 13th April 2007 at 15:00 Spoke to Matthew who said the TAG still hadn’t been removed from the line and he’d email his manager Warren to put pressure on BT to get this done quickly. I was given case number 576194
On 18th April 2007 at 14:47 Spoke to Levi who said he could see they’d put this case through a few times. It’s been put through as a high priority case and the line will be freed by 27th April.
On 1st May at 10:15 I phone again and spoke to Calib who put me on hold for 7 mins.. then told me the TAG was still on the line and there was a problem with the account. He said he’d pass my details to Alan, his line manager, who he’d get to contact me later on today (yeah… )
So now I’m stuck. I have no broadband or hope of getting it anytime soon, or any idea how to get this sorted. I now desperately need broadband at home, as my new job pretty much requires that I have it. Other people must’ve had problems with Tiscali (or tiscali-esc companies) before. What did you do? Where do I go from here?
April 26th, 2007
I’ve been involved in Kidz Klub (admittedly on and off) in Coalpool for a while now, and this year I got to design the boards we use as a backdrop to the games and stuff we do with the local kids.
I’ve loved working with the whole team over the last couple of years, and all credit to Esther, Sarah and the guys for the sterling work they do.
Unfortunately, we’re up against it as Walsall Council in their wisdom have decided to stop charging us the £20 per week rent we used to pay and increase it to £100! How nice of them. Obviously the KK needs to keep going, so any fundraising ideas (or indeed donations) are gratefully received.
I put together the original design in good old Fireworks, the scale was a little off tho.. whoops!
The design was then transferred onto the boards using a combination of bits of string, pencils and one massive ruler. Hannah then got to work painting…
The finished thing (although not quite the same as the original) turned out alright… Dee provided some lamiate stickers for the 4 points (which looked awsome, thanks Dee).
Photos of the whole process are this way…
April 15th, 2007
Mozilla have just announced the alpha version of a new ebay plugin for Firefox that looks pretty awesome. You can sign up on the site for an alpha test when it’s launched later this month.
If you’re a fan of Firefox and an ebay user then this may be the very thing for you. A secure and quick way to keep an eye on your ebay stuff built right into your browser. Sweet.
April 11th, 2007
I’m making a career move! After three happy years at Trinity Design I’m joining Glaxstar as thier web designer / interface person / possible tea maker, and I can’t flippin wait!
While this sees me not making my much anticipated move down south, it is the sort of opportunity I’ve been waiting for after Paul’s had his Ning Thing now it’s time for a bit of Glaxstar action.
There’s some pretty big things in the pipeline so keep your eye on the website for the next few months as Glaxstar unleash their new “big thing” on the world.
March 23rd, 2007
I stared designing some shiny new icons for a website yesterday, and thought I’d like to share them with you lucky lucky people. But I need ideas! What could / should / should not go in these icons?
They’re pretty much a miss-match of objects at the moment, but if someone can suggest a winning theme then I’ll put together a new set based on your ideas. I realise this is coping out, but you wanted more posts, so this is the type of crap you get. It’s not all about me me me you know.
Anyway, ideas for icons gratefully accepted. Thanks. Now bog off.
March 14th, 2007
It’s been a while (again) and that’s simply for this one fact.. I’m bored of blogging. Sorry, but there you go. It’s always the same old stuff, where I’ve been, who I’ve seen, what I’ve…. been doing. And there’s a few billion other people who live lives too, so what makes mine so special that people want to read about it on the internet.
But, here is a quick run down of (some of) the things I’ve been up to over the last few months.
Littlehampton has been calling my name, many of you will know the sad news of Katie’s dad, he was a top bloke who will be very very missed by all those he came into contact with. So I’ve been living my life somewhere on the A34. I’ve been to the seaside, up Snowdon (and back down again), to Matlock Bath (and up the cable cars) and taken a bath in Bath.
It’s been all about the Poker over the last couple of weeks, what with Sunday night’s at Dans gaf, Mondays at Steve’s and now Tuesday looks set to have it’s own post-cell game, I’m loving it, and better yet not loosing any money (or betting any in the first place).
As for work, I’ve got a few things up my sleeve, that will hopefully come to something good. Can’t say too much at the moment tho.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Does anyone actually read this crap?
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