Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category
February 29th, 2008
I have to applaud the BBC who have been pioneers of pushing new web media web services since the inception of www.bbcnc.org.uk (BBC Network Club) in 1994. And though a little rough around the edges sometimes, they always managed to achieve something special. They really thought about their output - which is what you want from a name as prestigious as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Then The iPlayer. And in one word, wow! Gone is the terrible terrible choice of RealPlayer, replaced with the much more robust and reliable Flash (not to mention the wide-spread support of the Flash-plugin). The design is fresh and very functional. The ajax is usful but not overcooked and most importantly of all - I can watch whatever I want, when I want. Truly the BBC embracing the way programs will be accessed in the future. They’ve seen that transmission is dead, and have taken a BIG step towards content on demand.
The New Homepage
I really want to hate the new homepage, and to be fair there’s lots of things to hate about it.
Stuff I hate
- It’s not exactly (erm, how do I say this nicely) very professional looking. Come on BBC, you’ve been pioneering new media for the last 12 years, and you’ve come up with this?! You’d hardly describe this as having finesse. There’s little attention to detail - it’s all rather big and somewhat over cooked.
- It’s fixed width - which in itself isn’t a bad thing. I’m not about to slate a website for being fixed width when 99% of the things I design are. But in this case it just feels lazy. The BBC must have a whole team of designers working on their flag-ship web page, and they couldn’t solve the problem of catering for different screen sizes while still having movable content? Come on, Netvibes managed to do it.
- The text size by default is big - which again isn’t a bad thing. But this feels like the design would have benefited from a smaller text, then allow users to increase the text size through some cookie-stored accessibility options. So what happens when you increase the text size now? Well, try it. One text size bigger is OK (just about) but two causes all the boxes to crash into each other.
- There’s a LOT of functionality they should (could) have included, but didn’t. I’m sure there’s some important internal wrangleings that went on here - after all the bbc want only their own content, but think of this situation :- There’s a flood, and the BBC are the first to report on it. But, they don’t have any decent pictures - so make a call for public photos. A user has some excellent photos on flickr (or facebook, or whatever) and has enabled his “BBC photo viewer” which pulls in his photos to the homepage. He then simply clicks the ’submit these photos to a story’ button, et volia! The BBC have the photos. And they’re more likely to get submissions to as the process is now much easier. It’s catering for everyone - It just seems that the BBC wanted a content rich, Web 2.0 homepage, but have missed a trick somewhere along the line.
- One (tiny) niggle I have is that the navigation on the top-right fixed contact block controls the colour of the whole page. Why? What has this content got do with the rest of the page
Well, I said I wanted to hate the new page, but it’s growing on me. Yes, it could have been better - but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I understand some of the decisions they’ve made in relation to text size, functionality and overall design but I really thought they could have done something far better. These are the guys behind the superb iPlayer after all. I hope they can continue to build on this step in the right direction.
What would I have done?
Well, I had a quick play a while ago (when the beta was around) and did a fixed width and fluid version of the homepage. Well, at least started to. They’re not finnished, but you’re more than welcome to give them as sound a thrashing as I’ve given the official version.
9 Comments »
February 17th, 2008
Photo by Stagedoor
I like a trip to the cinema. The popcorn, the overpriced drinks, the sticky floor. But recently I’ve become a bit dishartend with the whole thing. I still like a good (or bad) film but something has been lacking in my cinema going experience.
That was until Katie took me to the Dome Cinema in Worthing. This place is what cinema’s should be (what they used to be) and a LOT more fun than your local 100 screen mega-max.
For a start there’s a friendly atmosphere, the staff are obviously enjoy their jobs (or at least act like they do). And the whole place just feels different - if cinemas could have the x-factor then this one would have it in spades.
Then there’s the bar - and the fact you can take your drinks in with you. A Big BIG plus from our point of view.
It just feels good to be in the building (no matter what film you’re watching) - like you’re having a real treat in an atmosphere of people who enjoy the same thing as you.
You know what? This sterile corporate shit really isn’t for me - we need more places like the Dome - it’s what makes Britain great!
4 Comments »
January 15th, 2008
I write this having just forked out £12.99 to upgrade my iPod touch with Applications that should have really been there in the first place, and it makes me a little sad inside.
In fact, I’ve been thinking about Apple’s money grabbing tactics for a few days. I really want an iPhone - it has (most)everything I want (ok, except G3, a decent camera, Bluetooth file exchange, Video calling, & GPS). The only problem with the iPhone is the talk plans - O2 can pretty much get away with charging what they want - and they do! £35 per month for 200 minutes and 200 Texts is laughable. Yes, you get the unlimited data package, but that’s not even G3.
OK, So that’s O2 - but don’t Apple get some kind of kickback from each tariff? £5 per month? They’re raking it in!
What about if you want to assign your favorite pumping club tune, or a bit of the old Spice Girls as your ringtone, just to prove how cool you are. Well, even if you’ve been a good boy (or girl) and payed for the tune from iTunes Store, you have to pay again to turn it into a shorter version of itself!
It just feels to me that Apple are devising more and more ways to squeeze as much money from us as they can. Is this right? Is this fair? No, defiantly not! But will we stop buying their mouth-wateringly cool products? Well, I’ll let you decide that one for yourself!
And as for a new phone, so far I’m thinking Sony Ericsson P1, but that keyboard and smaller screen is putting me right off… Come on guys, help me out here. What should I be getting?
8 Comments »
September 18th, 2007
The iTunes store is great, I love it! And that’s the problem. They have my credit card details and it’s way too easy for me to click the all to available ‘buy now’ button. And, to make matters worse, we now have TV shows in the UK store.
Oh crap, Ugly Betty is quite good, and I don’t watch TV so this seems like the perfect solution. Click, watch.. and then cower under the table when my Visa bill is delivered each month. They add more stuff all the time, why wont they let me rest?
And then, the final straw. They go and launch the iPod touch. How do Apple do that? Make you want their things? And with WiFi access to the store I’d be as dangerous as a granny with a chainsaw.
Somebody help. Surly there must be a support group for this kind of thing?
5 Comments »
September 11th, 2007
Last week I received a random e-mail from a lady calling herself “Yummy Mummy” that simply said…
I have written about you, I hope you like it. x.
So with trepidation, I clicked on the link. At this point, it’s worth pointing out that I don’t know this person, or had never had any contact with her before in my life. And yes, I’m aware how much you guys are going to take the p**s.
It took me a while to work out what the hell was going on here. Apparently this woman, writing under the pseudonym of Yummy Mummy writes about “Amelia” her 18 year old daughter and how she needs to basically be more wise in the way of men. It’s pretty weird stuff and morally questionable to say the least, but after a few emails to “Yummy” (staring with me asking ‘are you for real?’) I was assured that this wasn’t real, and was just to provoke interest in her blog. So needless to say, I don’t agree with what this woman is doing, but she has a much right to write what she thinks as the next guy.. um, gal. I saw absolutely no point in sending her a message judging her for her actions.
Then I received an email from Rose DesRochers who writes quite a nice little blog and also runs Today’s Womans Writing Community.
She was trying to get me to force “Yummy” to take my photo off her blog. She seems to have quite a lot of anger about Pimp My Daughter, which I guess I can understand. However she did rather go off on one about how she thought that all MEN (yes, capitals) just saw a joke in this.
But I did rather feel caught in the middle, forced to take sides on an issue that I’d never really considered before. And I suspect that far from farming her daughter out “Yummy” is actually just massively taking the p**s.
5 Comments »
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.
2 Comments »
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.
5 Comments »
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?
22 Comments »
December 21st, 2006
I’m sure many of you will have seen the story that Mr.Prescott has spent £645 of tax money on changing his office sign. And for the most part I agree it’s a complete waste of money. I did, however, find ITV’s report on the story a bit laughable, and at worst the kind of sensationalist repoting that I hate.
To demonstrate the high cost of Prescott’s sign the reporter was seen buying a “sign” in a near by prontaprint shop. They then went on to say “This cost us £9, that’s a difference of £636 that Mr. Prescott could have saved the tax payer.”
What they didn’t point out was that the “sign” that they’d had mad was simply a printed piece of A4 paper (£9 was a bit of a rip-off to be honest) where as the sign for the deputy Prime Minsters office obviously needed to be a little more robust than that.
Oh well, a bit random I guess, but it really wound me up. Maybe it’s all the Christmas shopping addling my brain.
1 Comment »
October 27th, 2006
I dunno why I found this so funny, well, interesting I guess.. Paul in the office brought a Loyd Grossman soup that supposedly you can fit in the microwave. When he discovered that it actaully wouldn’t fit in our stinky office micro he decided to exercise his consumer rights by writing a review of the soup on a certain review site…
Paul said:
Hey Loyd! Next time you design the packaging for a soup suitable for microwave heating why not make sure it stands up in the microwave?
Which I thought was a pretty resonable thing to say, the people at the review site however had other ideas…
Dear poppa999,
Thank you for submitting your review of Lloyd Grossman Maris Piper Potato & Leek soup to Review Centre (www.reviewcentre.com). Unfortunately it has not been approved for one or more of the following reasons.
1. Your review was too short and hence may not have contained enough valuable information.
2. Your review may have been on a religious or political topic or contained sexual content.
3. We feel that you may be reviewing your own or a competitor’s product for the good of your own business.
4. Your review criticised other people or a business in such a way that to publish it might make Review Centre liable to legal action.
Please do not let this discourage you from re-writing your review or writing further reviews on the website.
Kind Regards,
The webmaster
So it seems that even when you have a valid point, you can’t get it aired. Hmm.. maybe I’m just running out of ideas of what to write. More soon.
6 Comments »
