8 Random Things About Me – Blogtag!

My dear friend Helen – aka Technokitten – has just taken my Blogtag cherry… I say ‘just’…

Helen actually gave me a shout back in July, but I’ve been so sodding busy I just haven’t round to doing it…

However! As I’m off on my hols this week and I’m desperately trying to do anything BUT pack – I thought I might actually give this a go…

But first – here are the rules:

  • We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
  • Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  • People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So – without further a do – here we go!

  1. I am a Hugger. A Free Hugger in fact. I own two ‘Free Hugs’ T-shirts, a ‘Free Hugs’ hat and I even have a few ‘Free Hugs’ badges that I give out on occasion. I bought my first shirt on a whim earlier this year and now wear it quite regularly – in fact – I even set up the facebook group – ‘Huggers Unite‘ – where I organise the odd ‘Free Hugs’ event around the streets of London… Why not join the group and come to the next one? I believe a hug can make you feel so much better. The first event we ever did in Covent Garden was only supposed to go on for an hour – but we were there the whole afternoon – one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.
  2. I’m a geek. No really. Not in the mobile sense like you’re all thinking right now. But in the “I-own-comic-books-and-I-collect-the-figures-and-sometimes-I-don’t-even-take-them-out-of-their-boxes” kind of way. There. I said it. Ahem.
  3. I once fasted for seven days. That’s right. SEVEN DAYS. Not a single morsel passed my lips for a week. Detoxing in Thailand at the Spa they have on Koh Samui. Changed my entire life. Everyone should do this at least once… It sorted my head out, put my career on track and as and an added bonus – I lost about two stone in weight!
  4. I used to be an accountant. Say. No. More.
  5. I studied at Drama School, (see above).
  6. I’m a gamer. I love Nintendo through and through and have owned pretty much every system they’ve produced at some point or another in their patchy history… I bought a Wii on day of release and people are STILL struggling to get their hands on them… This fact I like a lot. :o)
  7. I can dance like a Cossack. Like.. properly. Strange old family tradition. We can all do it. Are we Russian at all? No. But if you’re REALLY special and if I like you an AWFUL lot – then I may consider wheeling it out for you at your next party… for example – the wedding I went to at the weekend… my thighs are killing me now… aargh! Yeah – so don’t ever let me get involved in a dance off – (it’s been known to happen before).
  8. I’m a married man. Got hitched in June 2005 and it was all over by March 2006. The best part of it all? I wouldn’t change a single thing. Without it, I would not be person I am today… and anyone who knows me knows that I am one happy fella!

So who do I tag?

Well – I think eight random things about the following people would make a good read:

  1. My good friend (and new blogger) Will,
  2. Fellow Nintendo fan Neil,
  3. My Jaiku/Vox Nokian buddy Carol,
  4. New friend Melissa,
  5. Taptu demon Vero,
  6. Founder of Refresh Mobile – Scott Beaumont – link as soon as I have it (I know you’ve got a blog somewhere Scott), EDIT – Thanks Scott
  7. Good buddy and ex colleague of mine – Prash
  8. Aaaaaaaaand… last and by every means least – Mobile9 King: Abul. ;o)

By the way – the photo on this post? It’s a pic of eight random things that are closest to my desk!
A prize for the person that can name all eight…

EDIT – Scott came back with his link – it can be found here: http://scottbeau.blogspot.com and also – as for the picture prize competition – name as many as you can…

Prize goes to the person that gets the most right…

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Ladies and Gentlemen..
It’s official.

Tomorrow – Aug 24th marks my last day at Refresh Mobile.

Over the past 13mths I’ve worn many hats and gone through many job titles… so here goes –

Ahem – SO – I am leaving the role(s) of:

Mobizines Manager, Customer Champion, Chief of Blogger Relations, Content Merchandiser, Blogger, Product Manager, Quality Control Manager and Service Evangelist… (breathe) …at Refresh Mobile.

Phew… and where am I off to?
Well…

I’m off to go and be the new Digital Marketing Product Manager over at the voice-to-text specialists, SpinVox.
Working alongside another new(ish) recruit – James Scroggs – to help them expand the SpinVox brand and products across the world and throughout the entire universe!
😉
In the meantime – I wish the guys at Refresh every success with Mippin

…which, by the way, IS fantastic. I’m gonna be taking it along to the SMS Text News Unlimited Drinks event tonight – so if you’re coming too – grab me and I’ll give you a cheeky preview…

And I owe a massive amount of thanks to them also, for plucking me from obscurity many moons ago (more details here) and helping me grow in all sorts of ways…

(ask Scott Beaumont what I was like when we first met!)

It really has been an incredible journey* (which is by no means over for them – Mippin is gonna ROCK!) but at this point our paths are headed in different directions…

Good luck guys – The first round is on me at the next Mobile Geeks of London!

🙂

____________________________________
*Some key points in the Refresh Mobile journey so far – in no particular order:
(and I’ve probably missed a few too – so expect this list to grow)

Nokia Developer of the Year 2006

The Mobizines Blog

Launching Eyemags

Shortlisted for the Meffy Awards

Nokia Download!

Getting Mobizines live in the USHungarySouth Africa and Germany!

Mippin – Make It Mobile

SMS Text News – UNLIMITED DRINKS

Me and and buddy from Team Mippin went to this lovely little soirée last night, and very good it was too.
Ewan and his team from SMS Text News were great hosts and it was fantastic to meet them all at long last.

They’ve already said “Thanks for coming!” and there’ll be a main review coming later I’m sure…

😉

Network Throttling

Ok – so a few of us N95 users at Refresh Mobile have noticed a thing called ‘Network Throttling’.

Basically, when browsing the mobile internet your operator chooses what kind of kb per image you can download.. This is usually a low number.. So that when you first get to a webpage, more often than not, the pictures on said site are usually grainy and horrible..

Now, this wouldn’t normally matter on a small-screened phone – but on the N95, it is VERY noticable indeed!

Ok.. The example I’m going to use is when I was chatting away on Jaiku earlier on today and my friend Chibbigirl uploaded a link to her m.flickr account.. (i’d tell you what it was – but you’re about to see it anyway!).

So, said link appears in my (fantastic) Jaiku client, I click it to go through and see the pic..
And what do I see?

A grainy rubbishly loaded version. Grr!

However, a simple ‘reload page’ fixes this issue..
Which is fine..

Until you realise you have to double load EVERY PAGE YOU GO TO!
Aaargh!

See below for before & after shots…

Do you see what I mean?!
Shocking…

And following up on Adonis’ comment:

Dude! I’ve got auto-reload on already and I still get this problem!
Rubbish!

Statues of London

Hey all,

Was wandering over Waterloo Bridge on Saturday afternoon and I caught sight of the Anthony Gormley statues that formed a part of his exhibition at The Hayward Gallery

Unfortunately the whole thing’s over now… but I had to blog about it – there were just SO many of them..!

I took a couple of pics below…
This one – you can just make him out – lonely old chap that he is…

And this one…

Two in here – one on Waterloo Bridge itself and there in the background – there’s another one on the National.

I’m SO glad I caught these – I think they’re being taken down today – which to be honest is a real shame…
Having been there and experienced the almost comforting feeling of these figures looking down on me – I just got the feeling that this is one of those pieces of art that ideally would remain forever…

Much like when there was a similar work in Liverpool a while back and everyone wanted those to stay too..
Beautiful.

You can see more on this video interview that I found over on the BBC… worth a look – if only to get an idea of the scale of this project..

Just… Just watch it – you’ll see what I mean…

EDIT – thanks to regular reader – Nechbi – for a link to a great panoramic picture of some more statues…

Nice one dude.

Nokia N91 8GB Comparison Shots

Right then!
Obviously I’m going to have this lovely little phone for a little while… and obviously this phone is predominantly a music phone, (not a multimedia phone), so it wouldn’t really be fair to compare it to my Nokia N95… would it?
Oh I don’t know..
We’ll see…

First I think I’ll just do some size shots..
Enjoy..

I must admit – it is a bit bigger than the current range of Nokias on the market.. but more than that is the sheer weight of the thing.. it’s just so damn heavy!
When I had the N93i I mainly demonstrated the uses of the camera but as I’ve already mentioned – that’s not what the N91 8GB is for…
So really I should make this sort of comparison… No?

You tell me…

🙂

Thank You WOM! (again)

Not two days after I returned my rather swish and swanky Nokia N93i to WOM World they turned round and sent me another corker of a handset to have a play with.

What was it this time?!

A brand-spanking new (it still had the little stickers on the screen/camera) Nokia N91 8GB.

Not only that – but it was the nice black version too 🙂

The silver variant (which I believe is only 4GB) is not really my thing – it’s amazing how much of a difference such a minor cosmetic change can have on a product.

Comparison shots coming soon…

Major Wii Firmware Update – V 3.0

Good morning folks,

Just a quick note to say to all you fellow Wii owners out there… Keep a look out for that little blue light today.
That there means that there’s an update waiting to be downloaded…

Go on…
Go get it…

A lot of stuff has been written about this already – most of which I’m about to repeat – HOWEVER!

Stay ’til the end and I’ll exclusively reveal something that has yet to be reported that a few gamers that I know stumbled across this very morning…

Ok – here’s the lowdown,

The rest is as follows…

Main Menu Revisions

  • Clock Display
  • The Disc turns 180-degrees on the Disc Channel icon
  • News Channel icon displays headlines
  • Forecast Channel icon now displays the weather without entering the channel
  • Faster loading times when changing channels/leaving channels (Up for debate)
  • Move contacts on Address Book
  • Calendar no longer displays envelopes for the amount of time you played, only messages
  • Light bar goes on when disk is inserted or removed
  • Able to navigate Wii Settings with + and – (Man that always pissed us off)
  • Scrolling through messages has a new sound, and scrolling with B now displays an arrow similar to the Internet Channel

Wii Shop Channel Revisions

  • New Welcome screen detailing 4 Recommended Titles and the points they cost
  • Titles You’ve Downloaded was moved to the main shop menu
  • New ways to browse
  • Popular Titles (not only based on recent info)
  • Newest Additions remains the same
  • Search for a title which can use partial names
  • Search by Category
  • System shows the different systems and how many titles have been released under each
  • Publisher showing different publishers and amount of titles released
  • Genres listed

Warning: Do not install this update if you have modded your Wii!

Ok…

So finally – and annoyingly enough – this story is now being picked up around the gaming journos.
I’ve just emailed the guys over at SPOnG to let them know…

But yes – what’s the big secret Whatley?!
Well – everywhere I’ve read about V 3.0 of the Nintendo Wii firmware I am yet to read one little thing…

That is – V3 actually allows Full USB Keyboard Integration.
That’s right – Wii-Mail & Internet Browsing will never be the same again!

Wooooooooooo!
lol – at the time of writing I’ve just had an email back from the guys at SPOnG saying:

“In fact… it even works with an ancient Mac keyboard!
Cheers!”

Rock.

Transparent Wallpapers

This is something that I think is pretty damn cool.

A colleague of mine has figured out how to make certain graphics transparent.
So that when you upload them to your phone, they seem to be just sitting on your desktop…

Make sense?

No?

Ok – Well allow me to share some screens from my N95…
First you need a blank canvas

—————————————>

Et voila!

Then you need a picture, your favourite will do.

Once you’ve got that, send it in an email to your friendly neighbourhood Graphics Designer…

Wait five minutes…

He then sends you back the graphic that you then save to your phone’s memory card…
Scroll to said graphic ‘use as wallpaper’ – go to your mainscreen…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand… Ta Da!

Job done!

Not only can he do it with photos that you have –
But he can do it with any drawings that you may do too!
Take this picture of a ‘BattleFish’ for instance that a friend of mine drew recently…

See how the aforementioned expert takes said pic and not only makes it a perfect wallpaper for my N95 but also adds a funky little reflection too…

Cool huh? Now this can be done with most pics – my current favourite?
My very own South Park Whatleydude!

The only problem is – I can’t live without my active standby…

…which kinda ruins it a bit!

Ah well…

Anyone want to know this is done?
Anyone think they know how it’s done?
Answers on the back of a postcard…
I’ll be waiting!