Archive for Miscellaneous
March 16, 2010 at 11:24 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
This is just a quick blog post to appeal to all service industries, cafes, bars, bistros etc in Belfast (& beyond) to install free WI-FI for paying customers.
You can install a wireless router and have decent broadband Internet for about £10 per month if you already have a phone line. This is roughly the same as three paying customers buying a coffee over the course of the month.
I guarantee if you put a chalkboard outside your door advertising free Wi-Fi, you can get your three customers plus many more because despite the increasing ubiquity of smartphones, netbooks and laptops, very few businesses seem to seize this opportunity.
People want to be connected, be they business people on the move, students looking somewhere quiet to finish an essay or just casual browsers wanting to catch up on news while chilling with a coffee.
Hotel Ibis in the Queens Quarter is at the end of my street and was great. You bought a coffee in their hotel and were able to avail of their Wi-Fi for two hours. However, I went in last night and was told I must now be a guest of the hotel or pay £7.50 for 2 hours.
Considering this is the price of some monthly broadband offers, it’s not exactly a sound return on investment on my part. But the thing is, I was the only person ever sitting in the whole bar. It’s not like word had got out and the place was jammed with students downloading every episode ever broadcast of Glee, bringing their net connection to the world to a grinding halt. Now, not only will I never pay for their extortionate Wi-Fi, I’ll also never buy their coffee as I have no reason to sit in their otherwise empty bar.
However, there are some more forward thinking business owners who do kindly offer this service in Belfast. So far, I found free Wi Fi in;
This list is by no means exhaustive and I’ll add to it if I stumble across anywhere else. If you know of somewhere, please add to the comments.
September 19, 2007 at 19:50 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
So..after all the speculation, the iPhone was launched yesterday in Apple’s flagship store in Regents St, London. The rumours were confirmed when O2 was unveiled as the network provider to have an exclusive deal with Apple. First time buyers will have to pay £269 to obtain the handset while tying themselves into a 18 month deal with 02.
Although I am very excited by the iPhone and the rave reviews it has received across the water in the US, I don’t think I’ll be queuing with my flask and blanket in the days leading up to the launch on November 9 and my reasoning is as follows;
- I once vowed never to buy a first iteration of anything again. This was after I purchased a Nokia 6280 when it first hit the market and worked my way through 3 models in 6 months as they were littered with bugs. Vista is another classic example of where first time buyers are unwittingly beta testers as they expose vulnerabilities and incompetencies in the software.
- £269 is a hell of alot to pay for a handset when you are also chained to an 18 month contract. Network operators normally have to lure and coax you with free top of the range handsets so they can have you by the proverbials for a year and a half. 02 are blatantly playing on the hype and sticking their arm in when they can. When paying that amount of money for the handset, you should have a no strings pay-as-you-go tariff, never mind an 18 month contract!
- As US early birds discovered to their expense, when the hype dies down, chances are Apple will slash the initial cost to ensure momentum continues through the Christmas sales and if not, there will almost definitely be a cut for the January sales.
- On a technical level, I can’t justify parting with that amount of cash for a phone that I know will be covered in scratches within a month. I just know it won’t scream cutting edge when it looks like that old glass coffee table underneath your old bike in the garage.
But then again, by all reports it is one sexy piece of kit….
June 21, 2007 at 10:54 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
I’ve broken the fundamental rule of blogging. For anyone who has been following this blog it will be blatantly apparent that I’ve got lazy over the past six weeks and haven’t bothered to blog. Well, in my defence, alot has been going on.. I finished my degree, exams all over and I got my results last week. I managed to achieve the Second Class Honours – Upper Division (2:1) so I can now look back and sigh about how it was all worth it…
Anyway, The upshot being, I intend to be alot more active from now on…
April 1, 2007 at 20:04 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
Seems like an interesting concept to say the least…
www.google.com/tisp
:P
March 22, 2007 at 21:10 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
This Saturday 24/03/07 marks the worlds first Shutdown Day where computer users are asked to leave their computers off all day and do something else.
As there hasn’t been a day gone by in well over two years when I haven’t turned on a computer, I find it a very interesting concept but I’m afraid I’ll be logging on if only to check if the Internet is any faster than usual!
March 11, 2007 at 00:17 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
According to the BBC, a ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board could spell the end of internet radio in its current form as broadcasters will be forced to pay almost double what they currently pay per track by 2010. Insiders say the ruling was influenced heavily by the record companies.
As a regular listener to 1.fm this is not good news. Once again, the corporate bigwigs have decided they aren’t getting enough in their salaries and have put their considerable weight behind a ruling body to do something about it. Don’t they realise the exposure their music gets by being played on the these online radio stations?
I can see online radio dying a death, just like Napster…
February 27, 2007 at 17:31 ·
Filed under Miscellaneous
In this BBC Technology report Spencer Kelly talks about the movement towards social networking sites on mobile devices. As the mobile revolution has been expected for a couple of years now with many touting 2007 as the year of the uprising, this article makes for interesting reading.
Kelly also talks about how IBM are envisioning Second Life persona’s interacting directly with mobile devices on the ground. Microsoft has been talking for years now about blurring the line between the desktop and the Internet but this concept seems to be heading towards blurring the line between reality and virtual reality!
However, I’ll not get too carried away just yet as the mobile web still hasn’t managed to conquer its two biggest hurdles, i.e. bandwidth constraints and the eye watering cost of any sort of substantial mobile surfing….
