In one of my previous "day jobs" I used to deal with bug reports for a major application. While there was the odd genuine problem or poorly designed bit of UI, the majority of the "bugs" were PEBCAK - aka people so unbelievably dense they couldn't work out that print button does nothing if you didn't have a printer attached to your machine... We're now seeing the same sort of problems in the QR space. Marketeers are using them without any really thought of how or if they work. It doesn't…
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I was recently invited to the Windows Phone 7 Mango preview (no, I didn't get a free phone) - here are a few thoughts. The first thing to note is that WP7 still looks gorgeous - the front tiles (aka widgets) are smart and add a real feeling of fluidity to the phone. Juicy The second thing is rather more depressing. Windows is still playing catch-up. It's a standard joke that neither the iPhone nor WP7 had copy-n-paste on release - what's not a joke is the number of "new" features that…
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Another year, another OpenTech. I found last year's OpenTech conference to be awe-inspiring. This year's was equally good. This is a quick rundown of the sessions I attended that I found particularly interesting. (more…) …
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QR codes are an awesome free resource for charities. Sadly, they are often misused. Charities can use them to drive SMS donations - here's a quick example of how this works. Sightsavers Sightsavers is an incredible charity, working hard to combat blindness in developing countries. I'm picking on them only because their poster caught my eye this morning. It's an effective poster with a strong call-to-action; "Text now". They've even included a QR code with it. Due to the proximity of the …
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Quick Summary Twitter's secure API hides the contents of the tweets you are reading. But it doesn't hide the images of those you converse with. Raised as Issue 2175. A Bit More Detail Twitter has a secure (HTTPS) and insecure (HTTP) API. When calling the secure API, all the content of the returned message (tweets) are encrypted. Eavesdroppers only see the cipher-text - essentially garbage. However, within that cipher-text are links to insecure resources. For example, a user requesting…
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I recently read Andrew Grill's post about being a QR Code Sceptic. I agree with some of his points about crap QR code adverts - I've blogged about many of them - but I believe the fundamental business case for QR codes is still strong. Many people on the blog and on Twitter have asked for case-studies proving how efficacious QR is. Case-Study comes from the Latin phrase casum stutitius which literally translates to lies told by marketing drones to get you to buy their product. We get the…
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This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing I've been pleasantly surprised by ebuzzing. They're part of the Wikio Group, who are focussed on getting bloggers to post about about brands that they like - and get paid for it. Despite running a backwater blog on obscure mobile phone related nonsense, I often get emailed by companies wanting to promote themselves here. Sometimes they offer review goods to keep, sometimes cash, sometime they don't want anyone to know they're…
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A guest blog by marianne@bamkin.org.uk The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh has QR codes in some places. Level 6 to be exact. This is the story of what happened when I tried to use those QR codes last week. The article in The Guardian gave explicit instructions of how to access the information linked to the QR code. First you have to go on to the website “Tales of Things.com” to download an app that allows you to scan and read the codes. I did that quite successfully the night bef…
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