Monthly Archive for October, 2009

Twitter Updates for 2009-10-30

  • Unfortunate coincidence: sweating like a pig post gym, car roof down to find "Money (that's what I want)" blaring out. Many heads turn… #

AdBlock for Chrome

Hmm. It will be tempting to move across to Chrome now that AdBlock is running. Only on developer builds at present.

Hidden message from the Governator

I hope that lots of legislators do this kind of thing. No-one can read all of the guff that is produced in an average government body, so I’m sure some bored civil servants must be doing it.

Twitter Updates for 2009-10-28

  • Is it bad form to wear a T-shirt to the gym saying Department of Redundancy Department the day of the staff redundancy consultations? #
  • @jwatson1 Congratulations! When are you moving? Can I come and see you before you go? in reply to jwatson1 #
  • @jwatson1 Cool. I had visions of the wild countryside. But I will try and see you before you move. Dates follow by email. in reply to jwatson1 #
  • @jwatson1 Yes, could be a painful commute. in reply to jwatson1 #

Baby Einstein refunds

I love the fact that Walt Disney is having to refund Baby Einstein purchasers because the DVDs are positively detrimental to their children. Brilliant.

Tech things

Sourcemap

Nice idea to allow you to check the supply chain for goods you purchase. Additionally neat to use QR codes to link products to the site.

Fictionology

Nicely done Onion on Scientology.

Music done right

Thanks to La Moule for two links: Rachmaninov had big hands and O Del Mio Amato Ben. The first is a splendid piece of musicianship and very funny to boot. The second is a gorgeous lament for a lost love.

Internet enabled phones missing calls

After a particularly bad spell of missing four calls from Caroline, I wondered what was going on. I upgraded my Hero to the latest Modaco build and radio which seem good, but not staggeringly faster. While investigating, I discovered that most modern phones can’t use 2G data and make a phone call at the same time. This is kind of staggering in that it is ridiculous for an always on, always connected device, but I guess is a function of how the networks were set up in the first place: no-one expected always on data at the time (and the networks can’t really afford it today). My problem at home is that 3G signal is variable, so the phone keeps
hopping between 2G and 3G and that also kicks the phone off the network
to receive calls.

In summary: if I’m downloading data from a web page or email using 2G (G or E on the data network indicator) at the time that someone else phones me, the call will go straight to email and I won’t know unless they leave a message.

There is a free service from O2 that SMSes you if you have missed a call: I’m hoping this will mop up some of the occasions, but I’m not really sure how to fix it other than to have a phone that doesn’t do data.