Disqus - Latest Comments for Moof

Re: Unlimited monthly air travel for $599 from JetBlue

Moof — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:53:23 -0000

The closest I can think of right now in Europe is Air Berlin's City Pass: 5 flights to anywhere on the network for 199€. Only for people between the ages of 18 to 27, and only in July and August this year:

http://www.airberlin.com/site/landingpages/airb...

I'd definitely be well up for an EasyJet pass like this.

Re: Dual SIM Android handset from Onyx coming soon

Moof — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:44:44 -0000

Does it have a Physical or a Virtual keyboard? Am I right in thinking that the only physical keyboard Android on the market right now or in the pipeline is the G1?

Re: Is this every device in the 2009 Android pipeline?

Moof — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:31:53 -0000

Were you not talkign abotu a Dual-SIM one a while back?

Re: O2 launch ‘O2 Money’ pre-paid credit cards

Moof — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:56:30 -0000

The main draw I see for the Load-and-go card is to allow teenagers, who by dint of age cannot have a credit card, to purchase things online without having to have a bank account. Given the Bad Press that banks have had lately, it seems natural that alternative online transaction suppliers will appear.

Re: Dual Sim Android handset coming soon

Moof — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:06:48 -0000

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, YES.

One for my international phone number, one for my local data card.

I've been waiting for a dual-sim smartphone for a long time. As they become affordable, then people may not bother getting operator subsidies, which opens them up for availability.

I just hope this is the real thing, not like the ZZZPhone...

I'm actually glad it's Android that's the platform that got there first.

Re: The power of PayPal… why I couldn’t be arsed to sign-up to Spotify (yet)

Moof — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:25:31 -0000

Ah, but as you're about to find out, Ewan, Paypal deals with multinational citizens badly.

In the name of Fraud Prevention, they lock an email address to a particular country. So if, say, like me, you have bank accounts and associated cards in three different countries, you find that you need three email addresses to really be able to cope with that, and remember which is which. And woe betide you if you want to pay for something with an English card and have it delivered to your residence in Spain. Let alone if you try to register a UK bank card with a Moroccan statement address...

I'm a real person. I know plenty of real people who travel as much as I do. But I apparently closely resemble a fraudster, so Paypal want to make my life difficult. If I try to complain, they just ignore me, after all, 95% of their customers aren't difficult the way I am...

No, I tend to find not using paypal brings about less confusion.

Re: The telephony service for the global mobile elite arrives in 2 weeks

Moof — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:31:47 -0000

So, four weeks on, do you have any further comment?

Anything more than just this tidbit dangling in front of us?

The perfect phone service round the corner?

Re: Strada & why I rarely send rubbish food back in restaurants

Moof — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:11:53 -0000

There's obviously reason for complaint. You complained on here, after all :)

If you tell them that, and how much it hurt you, then they may try to make it better for you. You say there is no way to make it better. fine. However, they'll *also* know they're getting it wrong, and that their customers expect them to get it right first time. They will probably make to the effort to make sure it doesn't happen again, to you, should you choose to go back, or to anyone else.

Your evening's been ruined. Let them know. Maybe then they can work out why and make an effort to ensure nobody else's is ruined. For all they know, you had a wonderful evening. If your'e not a frequent customer, they're unlikely to even notice you not coming back again.

Re: Strada & why I rarely send rubbish food back in restaurants

Moof — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:24:19 -0000

This reminds me of a chat I once had with a spanish hotel manager in Mallorca. He ran an above-par 4-star hotel in a holiday resort area, and was telling me how expectation management worked, and how it differed by nationality.

"First off, the Spanish. Tourism the national industry, so a spaniard knows how it should be done, and demands things to be done right. he'll complain at the first sign of trouble, send things back, and generally talk to the head of section or maitre, or head of reception, knowing full well that it's these people's jobs to ensure the smooth running of that particular area. If they're particularly incensed, they know their rights and will fill in a complaints form.

"The Germans are very precise. They know what they want, and they want it just so. They will tolerate some problematic stuff, but not much. When things do go worng, they immediately ask to speak to the manager, the big boss, and I hear them out, and offer them a freebie or a discount, and it's all fixed. Zer Gut.

"The ones that frustrate me most are the British. They moan to each other about problems, but never complain to anyone who can do anything about it, preferring not to send meals back, or talk to the reception, or whatever. If they don't get something, they'll just tough it through, and none of us will be any the wiser. We try our best to minimise mistakes, but we can't do anything about them if we don't know they're happening. The worst bit is when you are aware that things have gone wrong, and you deliberately ask them 'is everything OK?' as a way to open up the conversation and maybe offer them some compensation and they just smile and say 'Yeah, fine', and leave you conversationally stumped. Of course, the next week you'll get the tour operator calling you up to tell you you're blacklisted because they've received a letter of complaint and were forced to give out a refund"

It's good to complain to the people in question, though in the UK we seem to have developed a "don't complain about things" culture. If you complain, the people who are in charge of quality control can actually know that things are going wrong, something that they may not otherwise realise, and can hopefully take steps. It also stops things getting to a head to the point where drastic actions occur.

Re: Jonathan Jensen on Thursday – Truphone; the first global operator?

Moof — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:19:43 -0000

Is this the system that Ewan was hinting at trying out the other day?

Re: The telephony service for the global mobile elite arrives in 2 weeks

Moof — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:41:51 -0000

Or five lucky people....

Re: Who does T-Mobile UK whitelisting?

Moof — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:02:26 -0000

I don't think that's 100% true.

The company shouldn't need a James Whatley. The company needs good people at the end of a phone who know what they're doing, and can fix this from that level, and an easy way for those who aren't asking how to send a text message to get to them. It should be possible to call T-mobile and get this fixed easily, without having to resort to contacting one man who circumvents the normal system to get things fixed. The normal system should just get things fixed.

Putting a James Whatley in there is a solution to the the symptoms of the problem, and even a stopgap measure, or maybe even an aid to diagnosing the problem. But it doesn't resolve the problem itself.

Re: Dual SIM phones aplenty

Moof — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:42:13 -0000

I'd use a Dual SIM mobile: One SIM for a local number and Data and one SIM for an international number, a la united-mobile.com. Then again, I do travel a lot.

Re: Our first phone call made under water - with the XP3

Moof — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 08:31:26 -0000

Can you freeze it in a block of ice, and then break said block of ice in time to receive a call?

Re: *Reception whilst submerged cannot be guaranteed

Moof — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:06:04 -0000

Enquiring minds would appreciate a general overview of the UI. We all know the Nokia and SE and iPhone and blackberry and Android UIs backwards now, but this is a new company, and some in-depth info on how it works as a phone, as a texting device, and as a browser, or calendar, or whatever would be good. There's no point in thinking of buying one of these things to replace, say, a bog standard Nokia series 40 phone (which seems to be the market it's aimed at) if it's nowhere near as easy or intuitive to use.

There are loads of reviews of the handset (well, the XP1) being bashed, dunked, run over, dropped form a plane and so on around, and yes, they're fun, but everybody seems to miss out the essential phone functions from their review, so this could be a plus point for you :)

Re: Mocospace - mjelly Mobile 2.0 Service of the Week

Moof — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:13:22 -0000

Well, it does sound like a nice place, but its growth will be limited by its name, I suspect. In the 3rd-most spoken language in the world (Spanish) "Moco" means "Snot".

Re: Vodafone’s EMAPA region changed about

Moof — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:35:24 -0000

Where do Vodafone UK and NL fit into that?

Can I guess Europe Middle-(east) Asia-Pacific and Africa?

Re: More and more annoyed at the book industry

Moof — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:32:32 -0000

Amazon used to have an "Alerts" service that would let you know when new books by specified authors came out, amongst other things.

I'm not sure what's happened to it since then.

But, yes, it's a tad strange that I have to find out about new books by polling rather than being notified

Re: I'm a PC! - RussellBeattie.com

Moof — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:00:36 -0000

Is it me, or is that ad not stereotypically PC (Politically Correct)?

I'm not a Mac. I'm a human being.

Re: Riddles in the Dark - RussellBeattie.com

Moof — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:23:01 -0000

How about Harry Potter? You've got a good year's worth of story there ;)

To be honest, a lot of the children's books made into film are actually really good in their own right, and your kid can watch them too, after havign them read to him. I'm especially thinking of Narnia here, which, despite the religious overtones, is actually pretty good. Also Eragon, and some classics like the Jungle Book, which also teach him about animals and the jungle generally, so will give him some great vocabulary.

Anything by Roald Dahl is also worth a try, they have great illustrations by Quentin Blake.

You could try some of Terry Pratchett's childrens' books. Truckers, Diggers, and Wings, are a good trilogy for younger kids. He's possibly still a little young for the Tiffany Aching series (The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, The Wee Free Men, etc).

I'd say much of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series is good for kids.

If you want something that doesn't have a happily ever after ending (sorry for the spoiler), that can give rise to some good conversations about the world around you, you could do worse than Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game".

At that age, I was a devout Enid Blyton fan. Her books are rather out of date, as they speak about an england that just doesn't exist anymore. But then again, it didn't exist back when I was a lad either, and for your son, England is a far away land anyway :)

Hope that gives you ideas for authors.

Re: How I think Watch Phones should Work - RussellBeattie.com

Moof — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:12:49 -0000

So, much like the NTT DoCoMo Finger Whisper Project?

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2003/12/fin...

It's been around a while.

Re: RussellBeattie.com - iPhone text entry thoughts

Moof — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:44:39 -0000

One thing I do miss about my Treo is the Excellent text messaging client it has, somehting that I have yet to see emulated effectively on my E61i. The new Nokia Conversations is getting there, but it's not quite there, and won't be for a while.

But yes, I agree, a decent UI does make a difference. Making a pluggable text messaging app would make a lot of things move forward, e.g. Twitter could be better integrated into the phone's UI, and still keep using text messages, etc.

Re: RussellBeattie.com - Using Mowser with TinyURL.com

Moof — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 07:06:21 -0000

How about doing a "mobile-optional" URL remapper. For known desktop browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Opera, etc), you pass straight on to the original URL. For others, you use the mowserised version. This might get you a much better uptake rate...