Aehso’s Output

Nice: Nokia N800

Lots of folks playing with new Nokia N800 and it is getting surprisingly good (and some bad) reviews.  Things to definitely like are the screen, Opera browser, Skype and Gizmo Project (SIP) support, Canola, and GPS receiver integration.  Things not to like are choppy Flash playback but hopefully they can fix that with revised software.  Most important of all though is Maemo, the N800’s development platform.  This really seems to be the antithesis of the iPhones walled garden.

I am very, very tempted though I think A would kill me if I bought one this week given I only bought the Wii last week.  I will probably buy only if I can pair it with a 3G modem via bluetooth (k800i) and if my mobile operator introduces cheaper flat rate 3G data plans than the ones they showed me last week. Municipal Wi-Fi in Ireland is too patchy/non-existent to be the only way to get a device like this online when out and about (though maybe FON might eventually fix that).

Mobile network operator focus group last night.

So I was invited to a focus group hosted by one of the Irish mobile network operators last night - I’m not sure if it’s cool to name the host company so I’ll err on the side of caution for the mo. It turned out they are preparing some new products (hint - might explain why I was invited) and they wanted some feedback on some proposed new price plans to con(vince) users to sign up. Hi again if you were one of the folks behind the one way mirror!

Interesting things, focus groups, I guess they are a reflection of how profitable and mature an industry is. I can see there is a lot to be said for getting face-to-face with your customer as long as the sample rate is high enough to get reasonably balanced feedback.

The software industry, in general, just does not do enough of this type of thing, even though we all know that accurately gauging requirements on an ongoing basis is so crucial to the success of processes like Scrum…

Does Bebo’s Chief Safety Officer know how social network signup works?

The front page of yesterdays Irish Times carried a story about an international expert on online paedophile activity who is suggesting that the Government should provide email addresses to every pupil in Irish schools to help verify their age when signing up to internet communities.

The international expert who suggested this is one Dr Rachel O’Connell, Bebo’s Chief Safety Officer. It is amazing that someone holding such an important position in one of the companies hosting these online communities would propose such a technically deficient policy. Users of social websites can sign up using any email address they own, not just one that a government might allocate.

The technical managers at Bebo would do well to vet these statements in future. They reflect very badly on the percieved competence of the company’s management team as a whole.

Irish mobile phone data plan pricing.

Recently I switched to O2 (Ireland) in order to be able to replace my aging Sony Ericsson t610 (workhorse!) with a k800i (über-phone!). Vodafone will probably release the same handset at some undefined date in the distant future but their customer service was completely incompetent in dealing with my queries.

Anyway, the k800i is a full on 3G phone - video calling, mobile email, blog-this-photo - lots of features I have no immediate plans to use (and it turns out lots of features that the O2 configuration & network do not support ‘out-of-the-box’). It does support RSS feeds though and that will be useful to me for a number of reasons. Plus it can run Opera Mini so I use it occasionally to get my PVR (EyeTV+Mac) at home to record tv programs via TVTV mobile.

I’d use it a lot more for data were it not for the incredibly expensive data pricing plans that O2 have in place. 1c per kB (O2 refer to them as ‘kb’s - I hope to God they don’t mean kilobits!) is the default rate. So, that 21kb BBC News RSS feed that SonyEricsson pre-install (actually a wrapper feed URL that is not accessible from full internet browsers?) costs 21c for every update. It gets better though - downloading a single MP3 (say a conservative 3000kB) would cost you, wait for it, 3000c = €30 for the data alone. Hahah, you’re having a laugh O2, no wonder nobody uses these services.

Meanwhile, over in the land of the rising sun, they have massive adaption of their 3G services primarily because of flat rate data plans. A relevent quote from an article today on Read/Write Web:

A lot of people in Japan buy not only digital (music, games, videos) but “real” or “offline” goods on their mobile. They use auction services, blogs and use assisted-GPS powered navigation services to walk the city. And they have been doing so for already 2-3 years, at least. Market maturity is not only about getting a device in people’s hand, it is also about the service offering and the actual usage rate.

But you don’t even need to go to the orient to find examples. T-Mobile UK offer flat rate unlimited internet access (with fair use policies) for around an additional £7.50 a month.

In Ireland, it’s like the switch from dial-up to broadband internet access all over again. Except in this case there are no excuses like decades of underinvestment in infrastructure or a low density population. Nope, we just have a duopoly that just like to charge extortionate prices for services that are way behind those offered in rival information societies.

Ireland an Information Society? My ass.

DTT trials in Ireland.

I must be busy, I completely missed this until now.  DTT trials have started in Ireland.  Now if they’d just integrate with Freeview…

Wongs Chinese Restaurant in Ranelagh.

While booking a table for dinner tonite I just remembered to post a small warning on a recent experience. Dinner in Wongs Chinese Restaurant in Ranelagh last Thursday turned out to be one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had in a restaurant in Dublin. Yep, I think I’ll even include take-away dining experiences in that observation.

• Stale prawn crackers. Imagine, a “gourmet” Chinese restaurant that cannot even serve fresh prawn crackers. Then imagine that they store said prawn crackers on shelves above the cloak room rails (I kid you not).
• Uninspired, bland, overpriced, precooked main dishes. Incredibly, we were were served about two minutes after ordering, they did not even pretend to cook the food after it was ordered.
• An obligitary 10% service charge added to the bill total - for a table of 3. I thought this begorra-chance-me-arm practice had died out in the 90s?

How such a terrible restaurant can survive in a gastro-mecca like Ranelagh is beyond me. Silly rich people who don’t know any better perhaps?

Back to Zen in Rathmines for me that type of meal in future…

Local Irish search

Two “search the Irish corner of the web” sites worth noting:

• Scrúdú - an Irish search engine (supposedly launching in June - errr)
• Gimmiedat - an Irish web site directory

Both could be stressing the “local to the island of Ireland” aspect of their results which I think is a missed opportunity. Something like a real up front assurance that they don’t contain advertisements for irrelevant stateside commercial websites, that type of thing. Hopefully they will - anything that helps ween ordinary web users away from using the “pages from Ireland” option on google.ie can only be a good thing. I cannot count the number of times that my girlfriend/mum/sisters/brothers have asked me about international commercial websites they found by sticking something like “hotel” into that bloody search box and then clicking on one of the many “sponsored links” that infest the results page. Even the old Yahoo! Directory (Ireland) is safer!

Reality check: ordinary web users, the ones that barely know how to use Office and read their email, do not know the difference between an organic result link and a sponsored link. Until the misdirection (and quasi-fraud) by the search engine companies is cleaned up I for one am forwarding family and friends to local directories and revoking my Google-search-related-technical-support-services. Sentences beginning with “I found this on Google…” will fall on deaf ears.

Why are mobile handsets so expensive in Ireland?

Here’s a question for those of you “in the know” in the Irish mobile industry:

Vodafone.co.uk sell the SonyEricsson w810i handset and it can be had for as little as FREE or as much as £100, depending on which plan you sign up for. For example, it costs a £60 if you sign up for a £30 per month plan summarised as “Evening and Weekend 1000 + 250 texts + 3 months 1/2 price line rental + 18 months (contract)”

Vodafone.ie don’t even sell the w810i (how crap is their online store by the way, 3 phones!) so I’ll use the predecessor, the w800i. They don’t even offer the w800i to personal customers. Businesses (SME) get quoted €249 assuming it’s a first time connection or a qualified upgrade.

So, what gives? Why do I have to pay more for the handset and pay more for my monthly “package”? I thought Irish mobile phone customers generated more calls than any of our European counterparts (if anyone has a relevant link please do pass one on, it’d be useful in correspondence with Vodafone).

I guess the other question is what are ComReg doing?

Tom Farrell’s blog posts nominated.

Some of Tom Farrell’s excellent contributions to Old RottenHat have been nominated for “Best Blog Post” in the upcoming the Irish Blog Awards.   I’m sure this is the moment he has always been waiting for…

If I am honest I’ll admit that his older but simpler “Mr Men in Bed” and “More Mr Men observations” still haunt me whenever I wander into a kids bookstore.  Thanks for that Tom.

Channel 4 Dispatches on Ryanair

“If that’s the best they can do after five months, then they should give up filming. Channel 4 can shove this programme up its jacksie,” said O’Leary. “There’s nothing in it.”

Micahel O’Leary’s view of tonite’s Dispatches exposé on Channel 4. He must be the only CEO in the world who speaks freely like this, credit where it is due. The show should be worth watching but if the sum total of their revelations is that Ryanair treat customers like crap, then they won’t be telling us anything we don’t already know.