Blackberry. A rant.

I sit here perplexed at what I have just done and why so many hundreds of thousands of you out there have done the same.  I have bought a Blackberry.  But you see what makes me in comparison very strange in doing this, is because I already have a perfectly servable and as I have now found out, far better phone – an Apple iPhone.

Contrary to popular belief I am not an Apple fan card carrying ‘fan boy’. Far from it, their iPad sits in my room doing little more than being a £500.00 photo frame. It is pretty useless, but I am none the less easy to sway and like shiny new toys to play with.

So what on earth you may wonder made me go out and spend so much on Blackberry? Simple really, I am a very curious person and while unlike the cat it has not so far killed me, it does often cause me to spend vast sums of money on needless purchases and otherwise cause be to make mistakes in life.  I was curious about the hype of Blackberry, the device, ‘BB Pins’ and how well it handles emails.

I’m sorry to say it is all just that, hype.  You see a Blackberry is really rather shit.  Before I owned one I had always said that a Blackberry owner was someone who wanted an iPhone but could not afford it. It was a business person given it as a corporate mobile, or a teenager who had not the money to spend on anything more decent.  Now I admit the fact Android phones have become much more mature and can compete (and sometimes do a better job than a iPhone) only the other day a friend got an HTC Desire and it is very nice to use. So perhaps a Blackberry user is someone who wants an Android phone – but can’t afford it. I honestly can see no reason why anyone could put up with using, or rate a Blackberry over anything other than a basic phone, Smartphone I isn’t!

Let’s begin by saying I have got the Blackberry Bold 9780 – It has all the usual features, GPS, WiFi and of course the famed email service (more on that later) and costs £350.00.  I was expecting a lot, It delivered little.

First up is the fact that Blackberry want you to pay for their ‘Blackberry service’ which gets you the internet, push email and Blackberry Messenger.  Let’s just look at BB Messenger for a moment.  It (as the cocky salesman told me so excitedly):

“Lets you message any other Blackberry anywhere in the world for free!”

I then asked, why if I had unlimited text messages, and do not need to text outside the UK, would I need such which is after all not free* with my inclusive text messages I can text any phone, not just a Blackberry phone and this is free.  He paused and looked down at his feet, a moment later telling me:

“Well most users are teens who can’t afford to top up all the time so BB Messenger is ideal”

I then asked about the email service.  I was told how this was encrypted and no one could ever read them, and how the moment someone sent an email it was ‘pushed’ to your inbox on the phone in seconds. I nodded, but my iPhone does this for nothing, heck even my Mothers paltry LG for £20.00 gets emails on it, every 5 minutes so what makes a Blackberry special then?  The best he came up with was a unified inbox where emails and texts are shown in one conversation.

*Blackberry services are charged at an additional £5.00 a month taken from credit loaded on the phone, the tariff you are on or as an additional charge incorporated in your monthly contract price.

But none the less, before long I was signed up, entering my card pin and parting with money to embark on Blackberry ownership.

It looks nice, sat on the desk – it’s little notification light telling me it is happily connected to O2 and will tell me at a glance if I have any notifications, like emails.  I set up my email accounts and then run into the first problem.  Anywhere outside the main context menus and you are taken back to the 1990’s in how things work and look.  It is all black and white and frankly looks so, well basic and ‘cheap’.

Ahh but I was told you can spice it up with themes and applications from ‘Blackberry App World’.  Now having used the Apple App Store, and Android Market Place (even once the god awful Nokia Ovi Store) I can confirm that Blackberry App World is the biggest load of old bollocks I’ve ever seen in my life.   It is jumbled and clearly was an after thought at RIM (the makers of the Blackberry) where they needed an App store for all the non corporate out there suddenly buying their handsets. The pricing is all over the place and the applications all feel half arsed efforts of their Apple or Android counterparts. I know that is not RIM’s fault, but it is so clunky in how you get, download and use the Apps.

Let’s take for a moment, themes.  So you want to make your Blackberry icons look akin to an iPhone? Sure that’ll be $4.99 and once you do this, what you get is a skin overlaid on the main menu and home screen, but the moment you go into, for example email, you are straight back into the basic black and white world of Blackberry.  Even applications like Facebook where on Android and the  iPhone make using Facebook easier than the main site, Blackberry have managed a mangled approach to things. The optical track pad, although customizable with its sensitivity is all over the place and constantly having to save or discard things you do makes the experience feel ‘broken’.

I could go on and on about the experience, but to sum up.  It feels sold to hold, the keyboard is OK to use but requires more effort to push the keys than to touch as you find on a touch screen phone. I like the personalisation of sounds and notifications, the ringtones are not bad either and with a magnetic holster case a nice touch is it will sleep and change profile when in the case, but the moment it is taken out comes to life with perhaps a softer ringtone and the like that you’ve personalised.  I am sure too it is robust and makes for a good phone to call people on, but other than that in my opinion is pretty much yesterday’s tech polished for today’s market.

Personally get if you want a phone to email and text on then get the Orange Rio.  It’s £30.00 and a perfect clone of a Blackberry 8520 but has a touch screen and at least looks and feels snappy and modern.

How anyone could ever think a Blackberry better or easier to use than an Android phone or an iPhone is simply on another planet.

Sunset chasing

You may have heard of those nutters who call themselves the Storm Chasers, a group of guys in the good old USA who hunt down Tornadoes, well yesterday I became a sunset chaser. Yes you read it right, I have become a Sunset Chaser!

Being a sunset chaser is a fucking tough job. You have to be fit and quick on your feet, both of which I sure could do with improving on and it looks like I will have to get into some serious training if I want to take my new hobby seriously.

My new hobby came about purely by chance. Let me explain…After work I decided to head out to central London, the plan was make my way to Marble Arch and then have a wander around Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and Holland Park with the goal of taking a few ‘wintery pictures’ There I was sitting on the tube, when I decided to check that I had emptied my memory card. Damn! It was worse than expected; I had in fact forgotten to put any memory card in the camera. Not a great start to my adventure…

After a bit of deliberation, I decided I would just buy another one when I got off the tube at Marble Arch. First electronics shop I went into, Mr India offered me a 4GB card for £19.95, WTF. I never even answered the guy and walked out.

I knew there was an Argos along Edgware Road and I still had the measly 20 quid voucher they gave me for all the hassle they caused me at Christmas. To cut a long story short, I got the same card Mr India tried to rob me with for £8.95 at Argos! – Although people if you need memory cards, I personally use www.mymemory.co.uk for even better value.

By the time I had got all the way back to Marble Arch, then to Hyde Park, I was 60 minutes behind schedule. I was contemplating what to do. I had about an hour before it would be pitch dark, which wasn’t so good for the scenic pictures I was planning on taking.

I looked up to the sky seeking some inspiration, when I noticed the sun setting way in the distance. I instantly felt inspired and decided to chase the sun set. I knew there had to be some amazing pictures out there somewhere.

So off I went following the sun, trying to get to the Round Pond at Kensington Gardens, which I had a feeling would provide an amazing view, and if I had enough time, hopefully make it to Holland Park. I would have to be quick…very quick.

The fading sun and beautifully coloured sky, along with St Mary Abbots Church in the background were looking truly magnificent as I quickly walked and even ran at times, trying to reach Holland Park on time. By the time I made it to the Round Pond, I decided to give up the chase. I was never going to make it on time and anyway the view was truly beautiful and my legs were feeling a little bit tired from the rushing around. How pathetic do I sound!

However, watching the sun setting in Kensington Gardens was one of those magical moments where you just have to stop and soak it all up.  As for the Sunset Chasing, I’ll get back to you on that one…

Two glasses of wine…

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 glasses of Wine…

See it is all a bit philosophical I know, but if I were to be standing before you now and had some items infront of me being:

• A class jar that used to contain Mayonnaise
• 2 glasses of red wine
• Some golf balls
• Some small pebbles
• Some sand.

You may think I was being my usual self (odd) but I may want to show you how one can understand our work/life balance and just what is important in today’s hectic world.

If I were to take the glass jar and fill it with the golf balls and you observed me doing this you would, as I would feel  too that the jar was now full.

Now if I added to this the pebbles, which of course as I shook the jar rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  One would further agree the glass jar was indeed full.

Should  I further add to the golf ball and pebble mix the sand it too now will fill the gaps between the pebbles and the golf balls. I am guessing you would join me in unanimous agreement that the glass jar was full and certainly could take nothing more!

If I were though feeling very decadent and my mix of golf balls, pebbles and sand were not enough and added to this the two glasses of wine you may suspect I had lost the plot completely…But you would notice that said wine had now ‘filled the jar’ and you may crack a rye smile as the wine now filled the space between the sand, pebbles and golf balls.  You may also ask me ‘what is the point of this’?

Well you see the glass jar is life, the golf balls are the important things your family, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions; things that if everything else was lost and only they remained; your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and and if you own onw a car – onemight say the big things in life.  The sand is everything else; the small stuff the phone, the television that favourite jumper.

If you put the sand into the jar first, there will be no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.  The same goes for your life, if you spend your time and energy on the small stuff, you  you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Take time to take your partner out and spoil him or her, look after your health, life for the moment and enjoy life fully without planning too much or awaiting before you jump in. There will always be time to clean the house and do the mundane and boring things, but as you get older you see that time really does tick past a pretty fast pace and you soon can allow regret should you not do now those things which you enjoy most.

Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter.  Set your priorities.  The rest is just sand.

And if you are wondering what the wine represents in my little puzzle, it just goes to show that no matter how full your life may seem, there is always room for a couple of glasses of wine with a friend.

January Blues

Perhaps it is the fact I spend my working days typing words that when it comes to my free time, making sense of those left in my mind becomes all the more difficult.  And yet I feel somewhat guilty that I have for so long, not written anything on these pages.

This is going to be one of those rambling musings on life and feelings that I can tell.  You may therefore wish to move along now and avoid being caught up in the sticky treacle as I dispense with what is going through my mind now.

So a New Year and time to reflect over the past decade perhaps, now I don’t want to be caught in the trap that I am somehow that bad off, or that my life is super shit (there are plenty of people out there with far more on their plate than I) but 2010 certainly was a ride that began with excitement and happiness, but ended in a feeling of being lost, trapped almost and as we’ve passed into 2011 the future is looking decidedly dull. Indeed I find myself thinking back to this time last year and comparing what was going on then, with what is (or is not) going on now perhaps I should really learn to stop comparing and worrying as much as I do.

How gloomy this all seems.  But you see just after the summer last year my father was diagnosed with Cancer that was bad enough, upsetting, shocking but there always seemed to be hope, just one more hurdle to overcome and indeed he has done very well through several operations to recover as he is now.  But until then my family and my relationship with them were somewhat different to ‘the norm’ in that whilst I live at home, I did not see my parents very often.  My father was either way working, or at his mothers flat that he has kept since here death some 25 years ago.  And if not there were at my parents other pad in Cambridgeshire.  So you see I was very used to my independence, space and freedom and have been quite happy with this since a teenager.

Having my parents at home 24/7 has caused me to feel somewhat trapped, as if my freedom and independence I have been so used to for so many years has suddenly gone overnight.  I know why this must be, and while I have sympathy and understanding for my fathers health I admit wishing him full recovery not just or his benefit but so I once again have my space and ‘home’ back.  Perhaps that is selfish of me to think.

Not everything has been dull and down however.  I’m used to talking to and meeting new people and it has to be said most of these people tend to be women, but in the latter part of 2010 something really rather out of the blue happened which, for how it came about was most original and in the most innocent of ways.  I’ll spare the details of how but suffice to say a series of events which lead to looking at photographs online, an email of compliment, Twitter and the sending of tweets and now good old fashion letters in the post has lead me to make friends with someone who is the most interesting and unique of women.  Both as talented in her capturing of images with a camera that make you stop and think,  to the depth of her writting.

I’ve not met her, nor even spoken to her over the phone and until recently had not heard even her voice.  This may seem  weird, but I think it is rather innocent in its ‘yesteryear’ ways of how now we communicate.  After all ,these days we have so many forms of communication between people, but how much do we value the communication we exchange between them?  The fact that her and I are going about communicating so differently to the ‘usual’ way makes it much more rewarding to receive such.  May it long continue.

You know that bloke off Red Dwarf…

Yeah Robert Llewellyn is the chap.  Now every now and then you come across a site on the Internet that really captures you.  I’ve recently found such a site, which all came about though Twitter.

Some of you may know Robert Llewellyn for his role as Kryten in the BBC series Red Dwarf (which is returning incidentally in 2011) – But he is also well known as the host of Channel Four’s Scrap Heap Challenge, and has featured in numerous other television outings. I could go on with his past, but should you be curious you can have a peek at his Wikipedia Page here.

But what, you may wonder has this to do with anything?  Well I recently began following him on Twitter.  Through this found an interesting Tweet about ‘Car Pool’ and so turned to the trusty oracle that is Google and went on to discover an absolute gem of a site.

You see it turns out that Mr Llewellyn is a bit of a ‘eco-warrior’.  No, that is a little extreme for a true tree hugger will surly push us all to turn Vegan, give up all electrical devices and walk everywhere.  Robert however simply shares his views and passion on the subject of making do with things we have without the need to constantly replace and consume, to the way we get about the place and generally having a more open mind to ‘green thinking’ without shoving it down your throat.  And you know what, it rather works.

Now this may be sounding all very well and good but why is this site so good?  It actually has little to do with the ‘green issue’ and more to do with a damn good time and many laughs.  You see Robert has two main websites.  His personal one www.llew.co.uk – features a forum, information about him, Red Dwarf, Scrap Heap Challenge etc. And is a good read and fun to boot – but the main star of the show is www.llewtube.com.

Llewtube features something that I find is a very original and fun idea.  Something that I doubt would work on television, but on the internet really sucks you in.  Robert offers lifts to people. Funny people, interesting people, celebs – you get the idea.  But the fact this is all done while he drives them (in his Hybrid car) means that the ‘interview’ is so much more informal. It is two mates out for a drive having a laugh.

We all know many conversations and funny tales have been had from the passenger seat of a car, not say facing each other in a room.  There is something about the random nature of the passing world around you; to the relaxed fact you are going somewhere which I think means those he interviews (or should I say has a chat with) mean you see a true, often deeper side to those people.

His journey and chat with Phil Jupitus had me in stitches as did David Mitchell. But this has all been going on for months without me having a clue – And you know that is one of the great things of the Internet, you can find something such as this and then go back through previous episodes and play catch up – eager for the next slice of the cake each day.

Robert is also on You Tube and you can find his experiences with the year long trial of his new electric car and general thoughts on such over on www.youtube.com/gearlessuk where you will find links to his main You Tube channel where this all began.

It really is rare these days to find some original, genuinely funny content online that is not staged and makes you feel as though you could be a passenger in the back listing on to these funny men and women share their stories, thoughts and random funnies during just another journey.

So why not have a break and laugh over in the ‘Car Pool’

The best poetry to learn by heart

I am in genuine awe of John Basinger, who has learned the whole of Paradise Lost by heart – all 12 books, 10,565 lines and 60,000-odd words. He completed his feat in 2001 and can still recite it today; his achievement is so astonishing that the journal Memory recently conducted a study on him. Testing Basinger by giving him two lines from the beginning or middle of each book, the academics found he could recall the next 10 lines each time. He achieved it, they believe, by “deeply analysing the poem’s structure and meaning over lengthy repetitions“. They suggest that “exceptional memorisers such as [Basinger] are made, not born, and that cognitive expertise can be demonstrated even in later adulthood”.

As well as awe, I’ll admit to feeling a little jealous of Basinger, because I hardly know any poetry by heart. When my mum was at school, it was something they were made to do, and she can recite scads and scads; I just called her to check, and she could reel off Upon Westminster Bridge, Ozymandias, Adlestrop and lots of Shakespeare too.

It wasn’t something we really did at my school, though, and I do regret it. The poems I remember are few and far between and usually incomplete.   As an adult I’ve made even less effort to learn poetry, and all I can recite as a whole is Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Spring and Fall, because I loved it so much I wanted to learn it. Apart from that, there are snippets which will dart into my head and tantalise me with wanting to remember more. Last week it was Tennyson – “I hate the dreadful hollow, behind the little wood, / Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath” – and I had to go and track down the rest of Maud. It’s far too long for a person with a brain smaller than Mr Basinger’s to learn, but I’m thinking I might try and commit some sections to memory.

Before that it was EE Cummings and “a smooth round stone / as small as a world and as large as alone”, which led to a rereading of Maggie and Milly and Molly and May. Now that one looks learnable …

I know I’ll never get as far as Basinger. But I am minded to address my shortcomings in this area. After all, scientists tells us that “memorisers … are made, not born”.  How about you – what do you know by heart (no cheating)? And what would you recommend learning?

New music and air tagging

I discovered two free Apps, for the iPhone. One which is rather addictive and the other simply amazing and seriously has potential to change the way we see the world around us.

The first available from the App Store is called Soundrop.  (also available for the iPad) As you can see from the picture it is a simple application, a solid black screen and some lines.  Sometimes the simplest things in life bring the most pleasure, and this is one of them.

Soundrop in action

You begin with a droplet falling down the screen.  There are no instructions and no sounds at this point.  But tap the screen and move your finger across it and a line is produced.  The drop now bounces off this line and produces a sound much the same as a xylophone.

As you draw lines around the screen, so these drops ricochet off them producing yet more notes, and the placing of the lines around the screen determines the pitch of the notes produced. I love Apps like these, where no musical knowledge is required yet the results can be quite amazing and it is very hard to produce a messy out of tune sound.  You also feel as if you’ve just created your very own bit of music, unique to you and the time in which you created it.

The second App – SekaiCamera blew me away.  For such a fully featured application I was surprised at it being free.  Many a review is glowing of its uses and rated at 5 stars, while others (perhaps due to the lack of clear instructions) put it down.  But don’t let the negative reviews put you off – after all it is of no cost so always worth a punt.

What SekaiCamera does is bring together the iPhones GPS, accelerometer and camera together to allow you to ‘air tag’ the world around you.  If you wonder what an air tag is, see the picture where I have tagged my garden.

The example picture is the simplest form of an air tag, but walking around my local area I found many, some funny, some sentimental and some as if ‘virtual graffiti’ all hidden to passing people but with an iPhone and this App suddenly become apparent.

You can text, photo or even sound tag locations.  At the top of the screen when the phone is held in landscape orientation you see the world through the phones camera.  To the top is a compass and within the bar is a square.  You also see many tiny dots, which if you will is your ‘tag radar’.  By walking in the direction of the compass and keeping the dot in the square you can navigate to air tags around you.  I found some giving impromptu reviews of a restaurant and others leading you to the best pub.

SekaiCamera and an Air Tag

Then in a park I found a rather sweet one hanging above a bench where ‘Sarah and Tom fell in love here’.  But it is not just text air tags, you find some with a musical note, tapping it plays what the person had left as speech at the location, others show group photo’s of people. You get a kind of historical record of those who were where you are, but have since left but equally left something in their place.

I’ve yet to try it out in far more busy parts of London but can imagine there being many hundreds of such tags.

These days we seem defined by sharing our lives, feelings and experiences with many.  Usually it is through the likes of Facebook but an application like SekaiCamera brings it to a new level allowing people to post in tags where they have been, how they were feeling or what they were thinking.  Like Twitter, you can ‘follow’ a person and reply to their tag and while it is anonymous begin a sort of ‘tag conversation’.

Turning the phone to portrait view closes the camera and brings you your history.  You can see any replies you’ve had to tags, delete them and see where you have been through the ‘footmarks’ feed.  It uses the mobile internet to download such data but does seem to work best if you are within range of WiFi.

All in all though two very good, free applications that is well wroth trying out for a bit of fun.

iPad fever

Today it was announced that Apple’s new baby, the iPad has sold more than 300,000 units on its launch day in the US.

Now that is pretty impressive going for any product that has been on sale in one Country for three days.  When Steve Jobs showed off the iPad for the first time on 27^th January he said it was “The third category” between smartphones and laptops.”  He also told us “Netbooks aren’t better at anything – they’re slow and have low quality displays,”

This of course angered many and reading various tech Blogs you have about 70% of people saying it is too expensive, does not allow the use of Flash on websites together with various other moans and of course those who will shout ‘My Netbook can do so much more for less money.’ The other 30% seems to be praise from the Apple lovers which, as usual starts a comment war with said Apple lovers between Windows lovers and last to the party as ever the Linux faithful.

I sit back and wonder to myself what is the point of this device? Is it really a ‘third category’ in computing? And finally would I need one?

Yes it looks very nice, the 9.7 inch display looks a dream, the light weight, the thin design, the smooth aluminium back and it’s simplicity in use.  Sure we have had tablet computers before, and they failed to catch on.  You know why?  They were computers.  They ran Windows in tablet form and they failed.

What so many seem to miss is what the iPad is all about.  I am sure I am not alone here, I will keep my mobile close at hand, it is never switched off and as the battery runs down so over night as I sleep I recharge it.  I don’t do that with a Netbook or Notebook computer.

So imagine this scenario. I am in my front room and as I watch the latest race in the Formula one session.  I want to get some info about where Hamilton is in relation to Button and know I can get live race timings online but I have to get the Netbook out and turn it on.  I wait for it to boot and load up windows.  I wait for it to load the web browser and finally I get to the content I want, all the time balancing the thing on my lap trying to type and move the mouse about with the small touchpad.  Come on, it is not the easiest of things to do.

So let us say I have an iPad.  I’d treat it as a phone, always on always close at hand.  I’d pick it up like a book from the table, unlock it and tap Safari to go online.  I’m there already there with little fuss. I see all I need to.  I think to myself, has that order from Amazon been shipped? Let me check my emails, yep should be here in a day. Hmm let me just open up the Facebook app see what is going on there…Oh that’ll be the door better just put this down again.  You get the point.  And some may argue this is like the spoilt kid in the sweet shop ‘I want this I want that’ and perhaps that is true that you pay over the odds to get what you can elsewhere, just a little easier and faster.

The point of the iPad is the simplicity of consuming media.  Whatever that may be.  Yes it costs, yes the Apps will cost more than on an iPhone or iPod Tough, yes if you want an eBook you will likely be charged more than if you own a Kindle and there are many other ‘negatives’ but that is part of getting something made by Apple.  And many will question all the above and sure you can do all the above on a Smartphone, a Netbook or Notebook – but it is just not quite as easy and simplistic an operation to do.

And as Dell, HP, Sony and the like bring their own tablets to market, with built in cameras and better hardware they will still be ‘Windows based computing devices’ which is why they will sell but a few, and the iPad will sell in the hundreds of thousands.

The iPad is not Apple’s OSX on a tablet and because it is a large iPod Touch/iPhone that is easy to use and can be treated as an always on device much the same as phone – is why it is a ‘third category device’ and why I will be getting one myself.

Twitter and Twitterrific

I must admit I missed the hype bus surrounding Twitter since it’s launch in 2006 not a lot had changed until I got Twitterrific – a small App for the iPhone from Iconfactory.

Twitterrific comes as a free ad supported version, or a premium paid for product. I am currently sticking with the free version for the moment.  It brings all the features of Twitter to your phone in one easy to use application.  There are countless other ways to update your Twitter and read Tweets from your phone, but after trying a few other products that do much the same and reading  reviews I went with Twitterrific. By doing so I have suddenly realised, what to me at least, Twitter is all about.  A voyeur’s social network.

You see because almost everyone’s Tweets are not set to be private, you get little glimpses into these otherwise stranger’s lives.  Because it is now in the palm of my hand I found myself strangely sucked into reading, in a 140 characters or less, what those geographically close to me were saying.

It seemed that at 8am on a Saturday morning, London was waking up to a chorus of people asking ‘why am I up so early’ while many with hangovers and asking ‘what can be taken to help my headache’. Yes it is on the whole rather pointless, not that Twitter can be knocked, for it has been a source of information from the troubles in Iran to the recent devastating Earthquake in Haiti.

I guess the problem I had before was the fact that all this information was out there, but to get at it meant going to Twitter.com and seeing what had been going on.  I find myself now seemingly transfixed by a constant stream of information, randomness and intrigue.  It is like have the world’s mobile text messages appearing before you, or a virtual source of snippets of conversation you may overhear as people walk past in the street.  You have no idea what was said before, or what will be said as you leave ear shot, but for that moment you were just filled in on something that is going on in that person’s life.  To me, Twitter is much the same.

Twitterrific in action

It is said that many people who have a Twitter account use it for a bit and then never Tweet again. I think this is true, certainly it was for me, but the ‘hardcore’ Tweeters out there can be a very useful source of information.  Recently BBC’s iPlayer was down for maintenance.  This made it to Twitter, and through that I was able to know when it was back up and working.  I let others do the hard work of checking back every few minutes and being in their own ways, a live feed of news relating to a very specific story.

I feel I am more a user of Tweets, rather than a supplier of them.  Whilst I like the ability to publish small updates, I have never been a great lover of text messages when they get into small conversations; I give up and call the person.  With Twitter it is a great source of global and local information, and one can search Twitter for specific trends and information that is relevant to you (or that you just want to see what others are talking about) but Twitterrific brings everything altogether in an easy to use and surprisingly complete package for nothing.  Well worth a go if you have an iPhone.

In praise of Mothers

Jill Bingham's website

As some of you maybe aware my Mother has written her first book – Trio, which after a lot of effort is due to be published this year.

Many people of her generation either do not wish to know about the Internet or do, but are either scared or have not a clue where to begin. To be fair she has embraced the Internet and computers in leaps and bounds over the last two years.

With her new status as an Author, it is only right she should have her own piece of the Internet and so I have produced a website for her, which I am rather proud of.  This along with her own Blog, Twitter and Facebook means she really has gone the full distance into ‘Social Media’.

I am very proud of her efforts and though at times can get annoyed with her stream of questions about ‘How do I do this again?’ I do not mean to be harsh (and think she knows this).

Tonight I thought I would help bring a wider audience to her activities and those with a keen interest in reading may well like to pop over to her site and read a Synopsis of her book for a taster of what will be on the shelves.  But more than this, want to take time to say that both Mothers and Fathers are often taken for granted for all the kindness, understanding and help they give to us – the children that grew from their nurture.

Yes we have Fathers Day and Mother Day – but I often think these are little more than ‘I must get some flowers and a card’ day where the ever present commercial pressure takes away from the day itself – to thank those who brought us into this world and looked after us in all sorts of ways.  So here is to the Mothers and Fathers out there, for all you do and continue to for us.  You may think you are taken for granted and many of you must wonder if it was all worth it through the trials, arguments and problems that your children have brought over the years.  But in our hearts we love you and would be nothing without you.

Thank you Mum.

Links: jillbingham.com – the website |  life.jillbingham.com – the Blog