sevitzdotcom

Wot I dids on my weekend

2010-03-15T13:20:54Z

I�m useless at DIY, so my friend Andrew graciously came round to help. (By help I mean he did all the hard work and I stood around a lot looking useless).

This is what happened ...

eBook experiment or how I came to buy two books I got for free

2010-03-07T22:42:19Z

I love reading. I read a lot. I read every night before bed. I probably read 20-30 books a year.

I love books. I love the smell of a new book. I love being the first one to read the physical copy of a book. I like being the person who cracks the spine.

So I�ve mostly dismissed e-readers. The Kindle looks interesting and the linking with the Amazon book is a smart feature and I did muse about the value of buying one. But it wasn�t available in the UK and then the iPad was announced �.

So I started wondering could I read books really on an electronic device? Could I give up all those things I like about books. The quality of CDs is way higher than MP3s but I pretty much listen exclusivity to MP3s now. My CD play isn�t even connected to my amp anymore. Convenience beat out the smallish loss of quality and that was that for music requiring actual media. And it was the iPod and iTunes where that convenience came in. I remember the days of loading songs on my 512 MB iRiver for the gym. I still listened to CDs in those days.

So I know if something becomes easier to use you soon forget about the reasons for not shifting. You just shift your behaviour without realising it.

But books are different right?

Well I thought I would try an experiment. I would read a book on my iPhone and if that was ok, I would consider buying the iPad. I�ve seen several comments on the web about people reading books on the iPhone�s and that the experience wasn�t that bad.

Roughly around this time @Reynolds wrote a interesting piece on the Amazon vs MacMillan spat, where he linked to his two books, in digital format for free. So I made a deal with myself. I would download and Blood, Sweat and Tea (and the sequel) and if I liked them I would buy the books and give them away to friends. I�ve met Tom at a blog meet two years ago, and follow him on Twitter, and he�s a nice bloke, so if I liked the books, I felt I owed him at least the cover price. Although sending him a tenner would net him more cash, most authors would rather be read.

I did enjoy the books. Immensely. They are really fascinating, well written and human. I highly recommend them. I bought two copies of Blood, Sweat & Tea off Amazon and gave them to my friends Ross and Andrew. With a deal. When done they to pass them onto someone else. Hopefully by spreading the book around ,Tom will get more people recommending it, and more sales in the end.

So what was it like reading a book on my iPhone?

Surprisingly after about 5 pages I forgot about the fact I was reading it on my iPhone and was just reading. I used the excellent Stanza App which made it really easy, and even with no iBookStore or KindleStore it was all pretty simple to get set up. I actually found the "tap to page turn" mechanism much easier than reading a paper book. Also reading in the dark while other people are trying to sleep in the same room an unexpected benefit. I also tend to flip from side to side with big books as I read on my side, and one half of a book is normally heavier than the other. With an iPhone this wasn�t an issue.

So what was a problem?

Well the formatting was off. I�m not sure if this was the ePub format or something else but having glanced through the properly formatted printed edition this was definitely a loss. The other issue was the amount of text easily visible on an iPhone is a bit less than on a normal printed page. However this I expect to not be an issue on an iPad or Kindle.

The "digital" aspect vs paper was never noticed once. In face some unexpected easy ways to bookmark pages, look things up in a dictionary and cut and paste text all where great additions that easily outweighed it not being paper.

I unrelatedly played with a Sony eBook reader in Waterstones yesterday. The flash black/white when turning a page would drive me super batty (I think). Looks like the Kindle has this effect too, so I�m way more likely to get something like an iPad than an Kindle. Of course I would need to play with an iPad first to know if it�s worth getting but based on my iPhone experience there�s a higher chance of it now.

I�ll probably blog more on eBooks at some other time, but for them to take off I really think they need to learn the lessons the music and film industry seem to have failed to make. Including

No DRM. Seriously, All it does is annoy paying customers.
Formatting. Seriously how hard can it be to format something that has to start digitally to begin with.
Easy easy easy easy. Make it easy to buy. Easy to load. Easy to read.
Available everywhere. On your own store. On Amazon. On iTunes. Don�t make me need 4 apps depending on where I buy a title from.
Make it cheaper. Don�t knock $3 off the cover price and bemoan the cannibalisation of hard covers. I also can�t resell or lend an ebook, and you also don�t have to chop a whole fucking tree down and truck it around.

Sadly so far, the book/publishing industry seems content to make the same mistakes all the other media industries have made.

The best way to beat piracy is with connivence. Well that and a decent price. Man up and be innovative for a change.

My girlfriend is an airport mule

2009-12-19T10:26:04Z

An email I got by my girlfriend on the way home for Christmas �.

…

Oh my God. You have to be here to understand how bad this airport experience is.

I arrived in Gatwick at 5am looking for check-in section B. Turns out it’s a side exit to the basement and there’s a single file queue to get to the lovely basement.
No problem. Cos my flight leaves at 6.55. I have plenty of time (for a change). I can handle this. There is a desperately loud Aer Lingus lady shouting “Faro, Faro anybody for Faro”? Of the 600 people queueing some shuffle and squash their way past into the basement to get to Faro where nothing else moves in the queue. Faro at some point gets turned into Malaga, which evetually turns into Munich. An hour later the lady’s not hoars, and I am really looking forward to make it to the basement check-in. Not long now, surely. How many destinations does Aer Lingus fly..?
Yay. Finally my turn. All this waiting has paid off. I can now see the 6 check-in desks. I observe how even though we’ve been treated like cattle (eager to be hearded but going nowhere) people are being told off for the extra bag, oversize bags and heavy bags. I’m told I’ve got 10kg too much. Marco’s records get transferred from the suitcase to the rucksack. Is there a point to shifting it from one bag to the other, other than avoiding paying 27 pounds? Doesn’t it all go on the same plane? Hopefully. Maybe not though… Oh hold on. My bag’s not going anywhere because the Aer Lingus conveyor belt is not moving. Oof. Could we be facing a Suitcase Disaster in the Basement? An engineer gets called by the loud Aer Lingus lady. Poor her. She has a lot of responsibilities. They try to proceed with check in by shouting asking if there are any passengers with no luggage. I watch with interest. No. Not a single one. Guess nobody wants to show up at Christmas with no gifts. Good stuff. Ahhhh…it’s moving. Good good. Because according to my boarding pass the Gate closes in 30 minutes.
So quick quick out of the basement and into another queue for the xray machine. Oooh, it’s all going well so am sure there may even be time for some airport shopping? Hmmm maybe not. Don’t want the plane to take off without me. How come I’m worried about missing a 6.55 flight even though I got here at 5am? Hmmm…Christmas and Aer Lingus seem inefficient. Xray guys make me take off my boots. Oh, you guys were so close to flawless. Never mind. You’re pretty damn amazing in comparison to your other airport buddies today.
Bummer. My flight has been delayed. By one and a half hours. Oh well time for shopping. Yay, yay, yay. Am spending money and doing shopping which I didn’t have time for in London but the experience seems hollow despite what I try to make of it. These 10kg records that I am carrying on my back have now transformed me airport cattle experience to airport mule. This thing is heavy.
I think I’m allowed to sit down now to bend my back back into its natural shape, cos I’ve spent quite a bit of money on I’m not sure what as I’m feeling pretty tired and disinterested now. I think I’ve paced it all well though as I now only have 40 minutes left before my new Gate opens. Ok. Shoot. Setback. I’m sitting next to a big plastic bubble. The man who just started talking into the mic in front of the bubble is trying to get people to volunteer to sing. He calls is Gatwick Factor, like X Factor at Gatwick. That’s ok. Nobody in their right mind would sing at this time of day in Gatwick airport. No…not even the flights to see the Northern Lights that you are offering Gatwick Factor man. Nobody…good. I sense solidarity in this empty airport to combat stupidity.
Oh. One person climbs into the plastic bubble and starts to sing. No, that’s normal. Because she’s a teen and maybe this is ‘her moment’ for her. She’s making me feel more perky anyway cos the song is a crazy teeny bop song. It doesn’t disprove my theory or break the solidarity against stupidity.
Oh f. Despite it taking Gatwick Factor man a good 10 minutes to find another volunteer it looks like this out of tune singing has a steady stream of equally unable singers. I hear Grease Lightning (seriously, why do you eant to sing Grease Lightning- it’s an embarassing song), I hear Umbrella. You really sound shit. And I’m getting really f@@ed off having to listen to this sh!t. I woke up at 3am and this is harassment.
Oh my God. Why are you telling me to go to the main information desk for refreshments. Aren’t we only slightly delayed boarding for the new time? Surprise! There’s a queue for refreshments! God it’s long. How come everybody’s so keen to queue for three pounds? Not me. Oh interesting. The white board says I’m delayed by another hour and half. I didn’t realise there was a while board at the airport. Isn’t this why we have so many monitors? Maybe not because the monitors still say that I’m supposed to take off at 8.30 and the white board says I’m supposed to take off at 9.50. But no guarantees I suspect, hey? And why are only the Aer Lingus flights this heavily delayed? Or maybe it’s chaos for everybody and you just can’t trust what the monitors are suggesting.
Write to Adrian. He’ll worry a little but sharing is good. Oh. His text reads “Welcome to Vienna”. Ok, here goes. Another Gatwick Factor singer sings “I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind”. Honestly?
Oh my God was that “Last remaining passengers to Vienna…” have I been ranting so long already? Run mule, run, run, run. You can do it. Run away from Gatwick Factor and the cramped basement and the not working conveyor belt, the not working screens, the insanity. Run! Happy Chrismas everybody. I’m getting out of this jungle!

then some time �..

then �

Who owns the blue bag the stewardess is holding up? Confess! Get off the f@@ing plane. You and your blue bag! Show yourself! I need to get out here! I need to get out of here! Why what? There’s a problem with the computer system? Oh you found the error. We haven’t missed our slot. Good. What was that thing with the blue bag? I no longer have to find the owner of the blue bag?

I am laughing hysteric nervously all by myself in seat 18C. Nothing funny really. Never mind me.

I solved the next financial crisis at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig

2009-05-07T13:29:33Z

There’s been a few interesting posts recently (see bottom of post) about how one of the issues we have currently is we have companies that are considered “too big to fail”. That we have to bail out banks, because if they fail, the economy breaks down totally, and it’s not a far jump from that to rats gnawing on your cold lifeless body in the street.

I was at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig last week, and between the support act and my second favourite half Korean coming onto stage, the solution dawned on me, as blindingly obvious.

Every time (not this year but the last 10) a company (Oil/Banking/etc) makes ludicrous profits (Billion dollars a second yadda yadda) everyone’s up in arms, as it’s immoral and wrong and we should impose a windfall tax.

I’m against windfall taxes. They sound like a good idea, but I think they’re mostly desired out of misplaced moral outrage (under the false assumption no one should make that much money) and not any decent economic reasons. If companies are making money be being anti-competitive, then competition authorities should come down on them. If it’s just a result of running a successful business then well done to them and we should move on.

I do however have a massive issue with bailing out these companies after they spent year after year declaring ludicrous profits. Yo banks, I’m looking in your direction.

The solution of course is not a ‘windfall tax’ but a bailout tax. When companies reach a certain size such that their failure would have impacts beyond their market and into the general populace, they have a choice. They can spin off sections of themselves into independent companies and slim down such that the failure of any single part would not have severe economic consequences.

Or they have to pay a bailout tax. This tax money would go into a government reserve (some fiscally stable system) and not general taxation. And when companies fail this money is drawn on to bail them out. This saves us printing new money (cough sorry quantitative easing) or borrowing such that my friends’ children will grow up in debt having to bail the lot of us out.

Now of course if a business doesn’t fail, the money goes to bail out businesses that do. That’s how insurance companies work and well let’s be honest, we need a few more insurances. And businesses don’t have to pay the tax. They can avoid the tax, by avoiding being too big to fail; otherwise when you’re declaring �10 billion a quarter in profit, you can pay a hefty chunk of that to make sure it’s not frigging me that’s bailing you out.

I want my tax money to go to something useful. And bailouts are not useful, but needed when things have gone too far wrong. I shouldn’t be the one paying for your mistakes.

If you’re interested two good articles on why we shouldn’t allow companies to be too big to fail:

Resilience in the Face of Crisis: Why the Future Will Be Flexible

The recognition that failure happens is the other intrinsic part of a  resilience approach. Mistakes, malice, pure coincidence—there’s no way to rule out all possible ways in which a given system can stumble.  The goal, therefore, should be to make failures easy to spot through  widespread adoption of transparency through a “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” embrace of openness, and to give the system enough redundancy and slack that it’s  possible to absorb the failures that get through
Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world

What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks � and hence the most fragile � become the biggest.

Twitter should do their own url shortning service and buy TwitPic

2009-05-04T22:21:20Z

I'm sure twitter has a list a thousand items long called "Stuff to do". We have at vzaar and it always grows quicker than it shrinks, so I'm sure Twitter has more important things to do.

However, I think their is a certain time sensitivity to these things, and they are roughly related and I think it would be a good thing for both Twitter and the ecosystem if they did.

URL shorteners (if you didn't know, I know you know) take a long messy url and ... um ... shorten it it a small tight nifty url. There's a good explanation here: The Benefits And Pitfalls of URL Shortener.

With Twitters recent rise to rule-the-worldom, URL shortners are both back (it used to just be TinyURL that did then, now everyone and their spambot has one). Of course this has brought a whole host of problems and highlighted all the issues with URL shortners.

A lot of this is Twitters fault in a way. It's the 140 character limit that requires the use of URL Shorteners. However the same reason means Twitter has a great opportunity to control and win the space, and control means you can extract the most value out of it.

Not only should Twitter create their own independent service, they should incorporate this into their API. This gets the app developers on board and it makes their life easier by just working with one API. I would imagine if the twitter website and most clients are using their url shortener, they'll quickly dominate the market on Twitter, and not far behind it too.

Controlling this market is useful. Because you know what's inside those urls. You also know what kind of click through they are getting (useful data to both Twitter and the users). You can also flag spam more easily (and we know this is going to be an bigger issue than it already is), and if you are flagging spam more easily, you can build up trust that Twitter URLS are safer, which they should be.

Many people are saying the value in Twitter is less in premier user services and more in the fact it's become a "real time search engine". If that's the case they need to know what's in those URLS and the best way to do it is bake it right in.

This also allows Twitter to expand the URLs in mediums where the 140 chars is less of an issue (at least on the web and in the API returns). This makes it more valuable to developers, and should have quick take up.

The use experience could be vastly improved. Just say we know any URL size is 25 chars long (the size of the Twitter web default of TinyURL. Then anytime someone enters a URL, you can just carry on typing to 115 chars. No need to worry about size limit. You can add on a feature that automatically shows all your Twitter URLs, and their click throughs on the twitter website (or via the API). I suspect this alone would kill all the competition.

So in summary

There's knowledge in the URL
Twitter could know the knowledge
Knowledge has value
Twitter is uniquely position to dominate this space

Twitpic is really just an extension of this. It's a specialised URL shortner for pictures. In fairness there is less knowledge in this that's of direct value, but I still think Twitter should bring this in house. Unlike a URL shortner I think Twitter should buy twitpic, rather than do their own.

AFAIK Noah Everett is running twitpic.com as a one man operation and has done a great job. He's built up his own little community and I think the goodwill would do a lot for Twitter buying this. He also has 1000000 pics plus on the service and is the biggest player in this space.

However the space is fracturing, and everyones trying to get in on it. Again Twitter can do interesting things here by controlling and dominating the space (especially with the API). Whilst I don't think they should expand the 140 character limit, they should realise people are posting pictures and a lot of them. Control the space before someone controls it for you.

An interesting thing here would be building in an automatic licensing system for the press or other people who want to use public pictures. Put all pictures on a creative common license and allow the press to use them if they pay a fee. Percentage of the free goes to the user and percentage to Twitter. Users can turn this off if they want.

Think of some of the great consolidated image feeds one could build of live events, from social (gigs, sports) to news (protests, planes landing in the Hudson).

In short:

Twitter, you should do your own url shortener and buy twitpic. Really you should. I'm smart and right, and it would make your service even more awesome.

Always happy to help.

[UPDATE: 2009.05.06]

Looks Like I'm not far off. Prediction: Twitter to acquire bit.ly within the year

TechCrunch - URL Shortening Wars: Twitter Ditches TinyURL For bit.ly

This is actually not that much of a surprise. Betaworks, the startup accelerator behind Twitter related companies such as Summize (acquired by Twitter in July 2008), is also behind bit.ly, and it just happens to also count early Twitter investors and advisors Chris Sacca and Ron Conway as their own backers.

Which obviously prompts this inevatible question: does the move signal Twitter paving the way for an outright acquisition of the URL shortening service provider?

ReadWriteWeb - Twitter Crowns Bit.ly As The King of Short Links; Here's What It Means

Once Bit.ly has been put to enough use, and today's news will likely be a big part of that happening, you'll be able to ask it questions like: within the last hour, what are the five hottest web pages about President Obama's budget? What social networks are sharing links to my web page the most today? What are ornithologists on Twitter most interested in this week?

The columns and rows here are semantic key terms on pages shared, method of sharing used (Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.), number of click-throughs, time and person who created the original shortcut. There's a whole lot you can do when you have that kind of information about a link. Bit.ly says its API isn't quite there yet, but it's close.

"Open Mindedness" not the same as "Believing Shit"

2009-04-12T16:04:17Z

I love this video.

I wish I could argue this well.

It would make these blog posts much better written. * The last maybe one day discussion ever. I wish * The god in the coincidence

Stage Managed Rioting / Protesting

2009-04-02T12:42:59Z

This image is doing the rounds of most major newspapers today, I assume because it has the makings of an 'iconic image'.

Capitalism has failed, the people rise up, yadda yadda yadda.

Except it seems rather stage managed to me.

I don't mean that it's set up deliberately, but I do think it's engineered by a collective group think that wanted it to happen.

Look their are more press in the picture than protesters.

When you take a balaclava to protest, clearly you are not thinking about singing John Lennon songs.

Clearly there is no sane person in this picture standing up and saying, "Um like guys, this isn't a political statement, this is just vandalism, why don't we go plant some trees instead".

Everyone wanted this picture to happen. The Press (clearly), the protesters, possibly even the police, although I suspect they'd rather everyone sang John Lennon songs. And hence the situation unfolded where a group in balaclavas lands up holding a monitor outside the RBS, and the press are all ready for the iconic picture.

It's stage managed by some sort of group think.

I have no issue with protesting, although generally I would like it to have a point. I have no idea what they protesters were protesting. You can't protest an concept (like capitalism). Sure the banks all fucked up, but are are they protesting that the G20 trying to stabilise the economy? And how is throwing shit though windows helping?

The May Day (riots), the G20 protests ... it all seems to me that protesting is no longer showing peaceful political decent between elections, but an event to be part of, something to ay you were there, and an excuse to cause violence and vandalism.

Sure the police are going to fuck up. When people take balaclavas with to hide and goad the police, it's going to descend into chaos.

Take John Lennon songs, not balaclavas.

Sevitz's Death Jump

2009-03-25T00:16:56Z

Alternatively titled "Why I am hurty"

I almost hit a woman tonight

2009-03-23T00:03:32Z

I've never hit a women, but today I got close.

I was shaking when I sat down, with the effort to control my anger.

Those who know me, know I might grumble and get annoyed easily, but I don't have a temper, and few people have see me 'lose it'.

There are a group (5) of women who arrived late on Thursday night and woke me up by having a loud inconsiderate conversation in the passage outside out room. They woke me up at 7am this morning and I can hear one of their high whiney voices through the wall now.

I call them 'The Primark Women' due to their ski outfits which they think look expensive and classy but aren't. The other day during the ski hosting, one spent the whole morning on the phone yelling at her manicurist because her nails had chipped and how was she meant to go out. I kid you not. They've also complained loudly that this is the first time they have had to carry their own skis.

They are not my favourite people.

They had a minor strop this morning with us, on the ski busses. We were already all in the chalet bus when 5 of them appeared. Late. However the bus only had 4 seats. The chalet guy doing the driving asked if I minded sitting on the floor in the back, which I didn't as I am pretty easy going. Maria on the other hand is rather safety conscious, and objected (politely) as they all clambered in.

They then all got quite stroppy and clambered out, and the last we heard was one of them calling Maria "poker face over there". Still they were late, didn't say thanks when I moved to sit on the floor in the back, nor offered to sit their themselves when Maria objected, so we didn't care that much as we drove off.

I suspect this was part of the build up for the fight later on.

After a rather pleasant Sunday meal (roast) followed by an explanation of the 16 cheese on offer we all got up to sample the fromage on offer. A friend of mine was in front of me, Maria behind me and the Primark Women pushed in front of two other friends of mine behind Maria. Since there was more than enough cheese for everyone thrice over they didn't care and let them go.

we get to the front of the line, and a few cheese selections in there is a pause as one of the guests asks to take a picture of the chef and his wife serving the cheese. Barely a minute passes when the Primark Women get fustrated with having to wait. I guess those who seem to model themselves after Paris and Posh don't like waiting.

Maria gets pushed twice in the back as a 'hurry up'. Bare in mind we're in a chalet, there's enough cheese for everyone, and their is no reasons to rush at all. Maria being slightly less patient than me, leans back a bit in annoyance.

And then it starts to go a bit down hill.

I have no recollection of some of finer details as due to my subsequent anger, some of the exact words that were said are lost to me.

The Primark Women at the head of the queue starts to have a go at Maria. For leaning back, for not moving forward fast enough, but I think mostly for not wanting me to sit in a dangerous position on chalet bus in the morning.

I, sensing this, turn around, step back, position Maria in front of me, and say to her, somethign along the lines of "why don't you go in front". Again I can't rememberer the finer nuances of the words said next but the women says, "I would have done that too" to me, along with some insult to Maria.

I turn around and say (more or less) "Leave it alone, we're all trying to have a good time here, just relax". I was entirely non confrontational, calm and polite.

The women then launches into it, and starts really having a go. Again I say something along the lines of just leave it alone, we're all trying to enjoy our holidays here, this isn't anything worth the stress.

The women then starts waving her fork inches from my face and and insulting Maria repeatedly.

The red mist descends. Waving a fork in face doesn't help either.

It takes every ounce of my self control not to lose it. And I'm not someone who has a temper.

I raise my hand.

I put it on the fork and push the fork away from my face and lower it.

I say, "Stop insulting my girlfriend and leave it alone. We're on holiday and just trying to have a good time. Please stop this"

She threatens to punch me and then walks off.

I breath in, turn around select some cheeses and walk to sit down.

I count to 20. I look at my hands which are shaking. It's a reaction to anger.

I take a bite of cheese. I force my self not to cry. It's also a reaction to anger. I don't know why.

I joke with my friends and get over it.

I do not understand some people.

The world revolves around non of us.

It's air, is what it is.

2009-03-19T18:27:29Z

Yes, you can't prove it's me. But it is.

And yes I am attached the board I haven't just taken a picture of me throwing it over the jump.

Coffee breaks better than in the office

2009-03-17T21:30:17Z

Adrian http://sevitz.com

Ski La Clusaz Day 1 - Departures and Arrivals

2009-03-16T22:13:02Z

Adrian http://sevitz.com

SDC Guide to email: Part 4 - Why you should use gmail for domains

2009-03-08T12:13:49Z

I think I use email quite efficiently. I'm sharing some of those thoughts. This is sevitzdotcom's guide to email and this is Part 4. There are 7 parts

Introduction

Why you should have 3 email addresses
Why you should have your own domain
Why you should use server side email
Why you should use Google for Applications (gmail for your domain)
How to set it up Google for Applications
Setting up mail on your iPhone and Mail.App Correctly
Smart folders and ways to manage your email

You know I wish this all would work better. It's one of those technologies that should work perfectly (we're almost there) but doesn't. It causes a lot of frustration. I believe email is more than just email these days. It's the whole caboodle, email, contacts and calendaring. (and event perhaps tasks/todos, but I think is almost a special part of calendaring and won't cover that here).

Oh but I can hear you comment now "I just need email, not the whole caboolde". Well yes I suppose you do. But who are you emailing? Your contacts right? And really you want you contacts in the same way you want your email. That is to say,

On the server so you can access it anywhere (and not lose it)
Synced up with all your email clients (web, desktop, phone)

Everything I said about email really applies equally to contacts. It amazes me how many people lose their phone and lose their address book. I don't blame the people (up to recently) it's been quite tough to sync your phone electronically. This is changing though.

And calendaring? Well we all arrange events, and we all send invites, and we do a lot of this by email now.A good email/calandering system is the most efficient way of doing this and shared calendaring helps organise things. Many of my coupled friends (and now me to) use a shared calendar to avoid social conflicts or organise shared events.

However due to weakness in consumer electronic calendaring systems, I don't think many people use it. Or as many as would find it useful and effective. But I don think their uptake and use case will increase, especially with younger generations.

The best system for email/calander/contacts as a whole system is Outlook connecting to Outlook Exchange. Partly because it's all been designed by one company and partly because it was built for people who needed all three things. However it's not a real consumer option as far as I am concerned, and has many business functions probably not needed by consumer users. It's also relatively pricey.

I think the future will have a similar system where email (IMAP), calendaring (caldav) and contacts (LMAP/who knows) all work and sync seamless between devices, the web and applications. But we're not there yet, annoyingly so.

So whilst we work towards this great syncing future the consumer options are, really the big 4.

Microsoft Hotmail / Live Mail
Yahoo Mail Plus
Apple Mobile Me
Google gMail

Quick thoughts on the non google options (which I'll caveat is not a review, just my high level thoughts why I don't use them)

Microsoft is probably a good long term bet, as they have a lot of good background with Outlook. However they don't get the internet to a degree (their relative lack of success here and corporate DNA I feel show this). They also like to do things their way and I don't believe this offers the flexibility I keep looking for in my other blogs on the series.
Yahoo. Well what's to say about Yahoo? They definitely get the internet, but they are fractured, not sure what kind of company they are, charge for Mail Plus, but I don't believe give enough value for this. And last I looked didn't have a great IMAP solution, and I'm not sure about their contact syncing.
Apple's mobile me, is something I want to be perfect. And it will be a very strong consumer solution one day. I'd even bet that they will have a business offering at some point based on the work they are doing with OSX server. But it's not there yet (e.g. calendar imperfections). They also are moderately pricey (well compared to free and if you have multiple accounts) at $50 a year, although you do get further value with this, especially if you are a mac user. I also think because they do everything, it does hang everything together quite well. I think this will be a strong player in the future, but today it's pricey for imperfection.

So onto Google and their Google for Applications Free service.

So what I like about google

It's free (as in beer) for up 200 accounts with 25GB storage per user
It has a relatively easy to use control panel
It has calendaring and contacts with syncing (which whilst not perfect is free)
It's used by Google internally and is actively developed.

I think the last point is quite important. Because it's being used by google itself, it's more than just a business play. And because it's being actively developed many of the issues (I reckon) will get fixed.

Ideally I'd like to see MS using their Outlook experience and being far more competitive here, and Apple upping the stakes and dropping the price and giving us three strong options. I'd probably put MS as the weakest long term bets here (gut feel), but we'll see.

Problems with gmail. * Some tech experience needed * They like to do things their own and have some "odd" ways of doing things that well would be better done if they just stuck to convention (They are not dissimilar to MS in this respect) * You need a bit more of a hodge podge of tools to get syncing right * I'm not entirely sure they really get how to do pure consumer level stuff and I think Apple is stronger here, but they are improving, and they are aggressive about dominating.

So there you have it. No perfect solution.

But as a package deal of syncing major electronic services (email/contacts/calanders) I think priced at free, they are the best option at the moment.

I'd love for Apple to up the game, offer more attractive pricing, and a business level service to compete with Hosted Exchange, and I feel this (or at least the first) is a long play for them.

At the moment though, the game is Googles to lose.

(I'll cover setting up gApps in my next blog post)

Ryanair motto: "We hate customers"

2009-02-26T08:18:00Z

My Dad always used to say shit travels downhill, and no where is this summed up better than Rynair. Or as you generally would have heard me refer to them "I hate Ryanair".

Most companies take their attitude, or their corporate DNA from the founder or the CEO. And clearly Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary hates you.

I remember seeing an interview a few years ago asking but mobile phones on planes. The reporter asked something along the lines of, "do you think allowing cell phone usage on planes would disturb other passengers". To which O'Leary replied "I don't give a fuck as long as it makes me money". And the attitude prevails in almost everything he says.

And this shit flows downhill to their staff. I've never enjoyed a Ryanair flight. I've always had problems. It's a miserable experience. It's like they find customers inconvenient.

So yesterday when some Ryanair Staff decided that way to deal with a customer who had found a problem on the Cheap Flights Ryanair website was rather than a polite thanks, merely ignoring it, OR ACTUALLY SOLVING THE PROBLEM, was to insult him, and to engage in petty comments arguing mind gobbing stupid.

Ryanair of course responded. Companies have to these days, as bad PR is well bad. But instead of giving a press release that says when reading between the lines "Oh boy, we're sorry, we have to clean up this mess" they offered this

Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won?t be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

Which again strikes me as "mind fuckingly dumb". The old age of "no news is bad news" was before the internet age. A quick look of twitter shows that instead of Cheap flights on Ryanair being talked about, they "suck monkey balls".

It never ceases to amaze me about how people in the service industry (restaurants, taxis, airlines) don't get that customer service is everything. The old adage of treat one customer badly they tell 10 friends still applies.

Similarly, it still boggles my mind that people in the online industry don't know that links are gold, and it's probably best not to insult people who might write about your product, negatively, and reflect badly. Just ask Serenata Flowers rather than one of their better contemporaries, Arena flowers who offer great flowers and fast delivery in London.

In the internet world, insult one blogger and they tell 1000 friends.

Internet and social media guru Dan Wilson adds a valid point too

It's not as if the people you're slagging off are, have ever been or ever will be customers. They're just sad, lonely, sexually self-sufficient losers who never fly anywhere for �1. They (and I guess I must mean 'we' cos I'm writing this) just use our copious spare time being pedantic about low-cost bargain airline Ryanair and the website you might use to book bargain �1 Ryanair fares to Europe online.

And whilst this post is partly about some petty linking, such that people searching for bargain airline Ryanair for cheap flights to Europe might find not quite the official Ryanair website, it's also partly my version of a "customer complaint". Since I know Ryanair doesn't care about customers, I thought the internet might care a bit more.

If you do have a blog, or tweet or have had shit service with Ryanair, feel free to post your thoughts on the matter. This is the one place you have power. Remember Ryanair hates you.

I much prefer Ryanair's competitor Easyjet who is much better as they are honest, open and provide a reasonable service. Yeah they are low cost, but their attitude is friendly and for the most part they provide a decent service. Unlike Ryanair their website don't suck and their founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou is quite a likeable guy in interviews.

I think Lyle in the end Lyle has summed it up best

I'm more surprised that "Ryanair are crap, and have no idea of customer service" is news anywhere in the civilised world - LyleD4D