Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category
October 19th, 2008
After reading Paul Walsh’s post about why he loves Tweetdeck (play nice kiddies, he’s paying for my freelance lifestyle at the moment) I started thinking about the new UI that was recently added in version 0.19b. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great App - and Adobe should give this guy some credit for choosing Air on which to build the best Twitter desktop App I’ve ever used.
But it’s this bloody new UI added in the new version. Apparently, it’s “Overall new cleaner” - well, yeah, I guess. Trouble is it’s at the cost of usability. Fair enough use icons to denote functions in an App, but not when the icons used have no accepted meanings. Checkout a screenshot I lifted from the offical site of an early build - the main functions can be accessed by text buttons. No fuss, no mess. Want to Tweet? No worries, the button is right there…
But these have been replaced with fussy icons that don’t really tell me what they do at all.
Ok, I can see why this has been done, as using text buttons for all the new functionality that’s in the most recent version probably wouldn’t fit in the current configuration. But I say give us the choice, I don’t really know what these icons mean, so it’s a learning curve. Maybe I’m lazy, but the new “cleaner” Interface has made this awesome app (for me at least) harder to use.
Alright, rant over, I’m feeling like enough of t***t now. Bottom line - This is still a great app, and if you’re a Twitter user you’ll wonder how you ever coped without it.
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July 22nd, 2008
That’s the old joke right, they hate to love me and I love to hate them? Well, as Confucius say: Lot of truth come from crap Jokes.
By now I’m sure anyone whose called me or spoken to me in the last few days has heard me say “Yar, oh hi, yar, I’m speaking to you from my iPhone… *snort*”, and thought “T***”! But nevertheless I have it in my grubby mitts and I LOVE it! Yeah, OK, so the battery life isn’t great and it still doesn’t do voice dialing - but it’s mine… My precious!
Alas there is one big, terrible, steaming, huge, pile of festering turd - the O2 website. Never have I come across a web service so inept and terrible at every turn as the dog-shite that O2 are serving up.
My first encounter with the webshite was when I tried to track my order. I clicked on the link from the email they sent me, only to discover that as I was already logged in - my session had expired. So I was given the link to log in, which I did, but then it takes me back to the O2 homepage. From here there’s no links to order tracking, so you have to go back to the email and re-click the link. Which then tells you your session has expired!
In the end, the only way to access your order is to log out, click the link, copy the link, log back in, and paste the link… Nightmare.
The next was MMS. Everyone knows that picture messaging is Soooo last year, and that’s why Apple haven’t added this feature, but some freak still send me one. No problem though, you get a text with a web link and a code to type in. (Which could be better - like having the code in the url) but still… But, uh-oh, the link is dead! An Apache error occurs. I even emailed O2 “Support” about this - to which their answer was “we know, we’re working on it, but don’t ask us how long to sort it ‘cos our web team is clearly rubbish!”
I could go on, but suffice to say that for a company who is as big as O2 you think they could afford to spend a few bob on some decent systems and developers. The monkeys they’ve got working there now should be sacked, and they should get some actual monkeys in. They’d do a better job.
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June 1st, 2008
My good friend and awesome sound engineer Richard Kemp has recently discovered that some young whippersnapper in New York has shamelessly ripped off his website. Not only has he had the cheek to rip him off, he’s also done a p**s poor job of it. I mean, come on, if you’re going to copy someone at least do it well!
Kemp’s original is well though out, and he’s obviously spent some time on it - Creating a nice logo, and writing some really nice content. Then along comes RK Audio USA and WHAM! Looks like he just couldn’t be bothered.
To be honest, there’s probably not a lot he can do about this, other than bask in the satisfaction that this other guy’s stuff is turd. Gutted.
4 Comments »
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.
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