This was going to be a Sponsored Post from ebuzzing - but they rejected it. Can't think why... I think I'm turning into a Luddite. I see all these shiny tablets and... I just don't want one! Don't get me wrong, I drove myself crazy trying to get an HP TouchPad because a) Massive discount and b) under a hundred quid. You see, everyone I know with a tablet has one of two accessories. A …
Continue reading →
Update: A version of this article appears on Sophos's NakedSecurity blog Last year I blogged about how easy it would be to pay for parking via QR code. Now it looks like Islington Council have partnered with Verrus to make this a reality. But is it any good? Well.... nearly. Let's take a look. The Initial Impression The QR code is fairly clear and I was able to scan it without issue…
Continue reading →
It's been a while since I did a screenshot based review of a mobile app. I was gratified when QR Pal asked me to review their new app. First thing's first, this is a great idea for a QR Scanner. It saves all your scans - so you can retrieve them by category, it checks to see if links are safe to click on, it allows you to share scans with friends, and it also has a gameification element. But…
Continue reading →
I love Ribbit Mobile's voicemail service. It's the perfect replacement for the now-defunct SpinVox. My voicemail gets transcribed (by a human or machine) - then the text is emailed and texted to me. I even get an MP3 recording for later blackmail purposes. But today comes the news that Ribbit is shutting down. Or is it? The email specifically says: "this notice only refers to Ribbit…
Continue reading →
As I've mentioned, I'm off to Africa. I was wondering what the rates are going to be for roaming. I could get a local SIM - but as I'm only there for a few days, it seems a bit pointless - no one will have the number & I'll lose any credit at the end of the trip. So, how do the various roaming SIMs stack up against my Vodafone SIM? TruPhone's list of prices is very simple Country Make a…
Continue reading →
I spotted this poster today, encouraging people to search for the Twitter hashtag "#Transformers". Wouldn't it make sense to use a QR code as well? That way people could quickly scan, and be taken straight to the discussion, rather than have to fire up Twitter and do a manual search. As it happens, it's slightly tricky to make a QR code which searches for a Twitter hashtag. There are two…
Continue reading →
Twitter has announced that it will soon open up a native photo sharing service. Rather than using an external service like Embed.ly to retrieve thumbnails, all the data is embedded within Twitter Entities. So, if you request a status using "include_entities=true", you will be able to grab the image and display the thumbnail using the following code. function twitter_get_media($status) { …
Continue reading →
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…
Continue reading →
The only thing I love more than giving out my business cards, is taking business cards from others. Unfortunately, my current "to do" pile of cards is getting a little... unwieldy... Enter WorldCard Mobile - the app for Android which claims to be able to recognise the text on business cards and add them directly to your address book. At only US$5.99 it's a good deal cheaper than some of its…
Continue reading →
For years I was a BlackBerry fanboy. I remember snatching a departing colleague's 6710 and lying to the IT department that I was authorised to have my email on my phone. I never looked back. Despite a brief flirtation with the Nokia N95 - I was a BlackBerry Boy through and through. Until this happened. In early March 2010, my beloved BlackBerry Bold took a tumble out of a cab and died. …
Continue reading →
I contribute code to Dabr - a mobile twitter client. It's a great project to keep my hand in the world of PHP, APIs, SVN, and all the other tools that are essential to the modern online world. Dabr's strength for developers is two-fold Dead easy to install. Unzip the files, fill in your API key(s), upload, done. It's under an incredibly permissive Open Source MIT License. Essentially …
Continue reading →
WARNING This article and pages it links to, contain information about pornography and sex education which may be offensive to Daily Mail readers. These are the hurried lunchtime writings of a chap with too much on his plate. So, O2 has apparently angered the Internet Gods by switching on its Adult Content Filter. This means anyone who wants to look at adult material on the web will have to…
Continue reading →
