A curio from the archives. Waaaaaay back in 2003, I was working at Vodafone on their graduate training scheme. One of their fancy new ideas was a crowd-sourced employee suggestion box for new business proposals. As an eager young grad I submitted dozens of ideas. Most of them were crap. But, as I looked back over them, this one struck me as being a lot less crap than others. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentLooking through some *very* old documents.Discovered that I pitched the idea of…
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I promise you this story is true. Many years ago, when I was very young and you were even younger... Work was not going well. Our recently launched product was a flop. Rumours of job cuts were swirling. Things were tense. I was sat in work, headphones on, trying to drown out the sound of the open-plan office. Grinding through emails. When suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Excuse me," the vaguely familiar woman said, "do you work for Vodafone?" I was wearing a Voda lanyard,…
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Back when I worked for them, I was (partly) responsible for some of Vodafone UK's "Content Control" systems. I didn't like the system then, and I don't like them now. I understand the need that network operators have to protect themselves from bad headlines and give people some control over what they see online. What I dislike is the way it has been implemented. On trying to access Untappd on my mobile, I got the following error: Which, when zoomed in, gives me this: Let's count the…
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As many of you know, I worked for Vodafone for nearly 7 years. I left shortly before the "entirely legal and justified tax avoidance" scandal came to light. I didn't know anything about the tax issues while I was working there - other than the fact I had some colleagues working in Luxembourg - otherwise (I like to think) I may have raised the matter internally. Not that the accountants would have listened to me... Since leaving Vodafone, I haven't felt able to criticise it too harshly. …
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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. I've been an Android man ever since. Magic, Hero, Nexus, Galaxy - all great phones, but none could…
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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 pay a fee to prove they are over 18. Of course, their filter is broken - so it's caught sites like…
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(Yes, the title is link bait.) Sony Ericsson have announced that their Xperia X10 range of Android handset won't be updated to the latest version of Android. They'll be stuck on Android 2.1 with no hope for any bug fixes. As I discussed last year in "The Future of Android - And How To Stop It" there is a fundamental tension between users, manufacturers, Mobile Networks, and Google when it comes to the Android Operating System. First up, a common misconception... Some Android Phones Are Too …
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(This post appears on ReputationOnline) Vodafone has suffered a massive blow to their corporate reputation in recent days. A security error on their site allowed anyone to find customers' email addresses and phone numbers. It's still unknown if any accounts were compromised due to the flaw - nor is it known if there was any wholesale plundering of the sensitive personal data. Mistakes happen - even to companies who can afford the very best consultants. The way in which a company responds to …
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(Disclaimer - I used to work for Vodafone. I don't any more.) A rather nasty flaw with Vodafone's "My Account" service was recently pointed out by Denny de la Haye. Vodafone will quite happily tell you the email address of any customer who has set up the "My Account" facility. Denny@dennyUgh. @VodafoneUK's website exposes my email address to anyone who knows (or randomly enters) my phone number on the 'forgot password' page.❤️ 0💬 0🔁 013:14 - Wed 22 September 2010 Vodafone offer a "My Accou…
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I've got a rather neat femtocell - the Vodafone SureSignal. It extends the 3G signal into my house by way of my broadband. To stop anyone leaching my broadband, you need to register "approved" phone numbers with the SureSignal. So - given that the Kindle has a Vodafone SIM card - how do we find the Kindle's phone number and register it with the SureSignal? There are three ways you can find your Kindle's phone number. None of them are "easy". Ask Amazon Open your Kindle, remove…
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In this Mobile Badvertising series, I regularly pick on the Guardian. I don't have anything against them - they're my favourite mobile news resource. It's such a shame that the advertising they have on the site is atrocious. Samsung Galaxy S The Galaxy S is Samsung's latest Android handset. There are so many Android phones out there that you need a really great advertising campaign (or a really great product) to stand out from the competition. Let's take a look at the Samsung campaign. Sm…
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This is a really geeky app! You know USSD? They're the codes you can type in to your phone to send messages back and forth to the networks. You've probably seen something like *#147# to display the last caller. My second app presents a series of buttons which call the USSD commands - so you don't have to remember if it's the HLR or VLR which is queried by *#103#. Useful, I know.... You can download the app by scanning in this QR code. Android App - Vodafone UK USSD Commands The majority …
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