It has been a while since I last posted in the Mobile Badvertising section. Mobile adverts are slowly improving. By every once in a while, I spot an advert of such mind numbing ineptitude that I am compelled to post. Orange Take a look at the latest offering from Orange - a large UK mobile network operator. Orange Advert on Guardian Spot it? It's the microscopic banner hidden away on the mobile site of the Guardian newspaper. The advertiser has little choice in the poor placement. And it's …
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I'm in the process of moving all my contacts from BlackBerry to Android. I've been moving contacts from phone to phone for close to 10 years - but I've never found a problem like this. Getting my contacts from BlackBerry to Google was simple. I exported a VCF of all my contacts from Outlook and imported them to Google. Simplicity. Everything worked. Syncing back to Android was easy - input Google account and password and hey-presto. But that's where it all broke down. The address seems…
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ARRRRRGGGGHHHH! Dead BlackBerry Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Due to a crazy taxi driver (are there any other kind) and a violent swerve, my BlackBerry Bold 9000 is no more. Bereft of life, it rusts in pieces, and other such Pythonesque metaphors. Arse. I truly feel like I'm missing an extension to my body. There's a symbiotic relationship which develops between a geek and his phone. It entertains me, informs me, keeps me on time and allows me to rapidly communicate with a variety…
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Blah blah Twitter.... Blah Blah BlackBerry... Blah Blah.... http://www.blackberry.com/twitter NB1: I primarily use SocialScope on my BlackBerry. SocialScope's terms of use prohibit me from showing screenshots of their beta. Hey, guys, I want to show everyone how great you are! NB2: Screenshots taken on a BlackBerry 9000 running OS 5.0 First Impressions I've never understood the need for a EULA. They're long, confusing, boring and a terrible way to make a first impression on your customers. …
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Once again, I dive into the confusing world of Mobile Internet Advertising. A world, so we're told, where the streets are paved with gold. Based on the evidence I've accumulated, mobile advertising is subject to a lot of hype and not a lot of professionalism. Take this example as seen on my BlackBerry 9000. Flickr iPhone Advert First off the bat, it gets my phone wrong. It should be using the User Agent to determine which advert to serve. Well, let's be a good consumer and click on it…
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Seesmic, a service I've not tried before, have released a Twitter client for the BlackBerry. Is it any good? How does it compare with the features of Dabr or the usability of UberTwitter? Find out! Getting the client was fairly simple, but could be better. Simply visiting http://seesmic.com was enough to bring up a mobile friendly page with download instructions. However, scrolling down presented this mess. You simply can't rely on users to know what make, model or firmware version they…
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There now follows a quick run through of how you go about wirelessly updating your BlackBerry. The total process took just under an hour. This was a BlackBerry 9000 updating from 4.6.0.266 to 4.6.0.301. What's really annoying is that there's no automatic propt to tell you there's new firmware. I wonder how many people out there are cursing their BlackBerry without realising that a simple firmware update will give it a new lease of life. The process worked more-or-less flawlessly. Just m…
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HTML is a complex beast. Especially when it comes to languages. I don't mean the difference between English and French but between UTF-8, Windows-1252, and all the other methods for encoding text. When it goes wrong, you can come a cropper - take a look at this advert for the BlackBerry. Somehow a character has crept in to the text which can't be rendered by the browser. BlackBerry? Advert? Immediately, one gets the sense of a poorly tested advert - one which probably goes to a dodgy s…
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(Disclaimer, I work for Vodafone Group who do a lot of work with Opera. These are my personal views.) The regular BlackBerry browser is... how can I put this politely... sub-optimal. For reading mobile-friendly sites it's perfectly adequate - but for anything more complex it tends to choke. Don't get me wrong, it's "good enough" for most basic browsing needs, but a lack of tabs, half-arsed JavaScript implementation and idiosyncratic rendering choices make for a somewhat frustrating browsing…
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It's been a long time since my last post about Twitter on the BlackBerry. Back then I concluded that Dabr wasn't quite up to snuff - how wrong I was! In the last year it has come on leaps and bounds. I've even contributed a few suggestions and lines of code. Without a doubt, Dabr is the best general mobile web client for Twitter. As my main device is a BlackBerry, I wanted something that integrated a little better. The Facebook app hooks in with email, calendar and even adds profile pictures …
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So, RIM have finally released their Application Store (hereafter called AppWorld) Let's take it for a spin on a BlackBerry Bold (9000 running 4.6.0.237 for those who care about such things). All screenshots taken with the magnificent CaptureIt from The Tech Mogul.You can grab it by pointing your 'Berry at http://blackberry.mobi/appworld.First off, it's very good looking. A good layout showing featured apps. Underneath are links to Categories, Top Downloads, Search, and My World (where you can …
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Just a few quick thoughts..tel is yet another top level domain to go with all those other highly profitablepopular ones. You know, like .biz, .museum, .info, etc.This domain is different - this domain is single purpose. .tel's raison d'être is to abolish the business card. No more handing over little cardboard oblongs, in the glorious future, we'll just say "Visit aitch-tee-tee-pee colon slash-slash edent dot tell... No... Tell. It's spelled TEA-EE-EL. Yes. Just one EL. No, I don't know …
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