Monday, 20 August 2012
Sense 4.1 Update... HTC One X as it should be!
Like many frustrated HTC One X customers, I couldn't be bothered waiting for them to push the release out OTA, so downloaded the official RUU from XDA and can happily say that both the performance and the battery life have been improved considerably.
Although I was never unhappy with my HOX, I did used to wonder how I was supposed to manage more than one day without having to charge the battery, and I did come across a few minor niggles with the operation of certain aspects of it, mostly coming from Sense itself. Navigating menu's and the home screen could have been so much smoother.
All this has now been rectified though and I can happily confirm that this latest update from HTC has cured the issues. I'm now getting more than a days usage from my phone and navigating around the UI is a delight.
One of the other fixes, which is equally satisfying, is the removal of the '3 dots' in non-ICS apps. This wasn't something I had noticed previously until it was actually pointed out to me on XDA. But all apps that haven't been developed for ICS (including the likes of Facebook, and many games) featured a solid black bar along the bottom of the screen with 3 dots in them. This was used to get to the menu of whatever app you were in.
As I said previous, I never really noticed it. However, now that it's no longer there, and I have manually mapped the 'recent apps' button to be the menu, the difference is amazing. Such a small change can have mass impact on the user experience and makes the HOX a much nicer phone to use as you can now fully appreciate the screen's size and resolution.
I can happily say, that once again, I am thoroughly satisfied with my HTC One X, but the fact of the ridiculous wait for this, to the point where I have had to manually download and update this myself, coupled with the fact that HTC clearly rushed the HOX out the door without sorting this issue prior to launch makes me wonder what HTC were thinking. It's an arms race in the smart phone industry right now, and more imperative than ever to get things right first time.
Either way... I'm happy with the result and am only left with one question... How long do we have to wait for Jelly Bean ???
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
HTC Making A Little More Sense (4.1)
Latest rumour coming from the HTC camp is that there is finally a worthy update coming for the Sense UI.
Sense 4.1 is set to improve battery levels (from 3 hours screen time to 5), fix some minor glitches with the Wi-Fi connectivity and all-in-all make it a smoother experience.
There is also rumours that users are going to be able to remap the dedicated buttons along the bottom edge of the screen, allowing us to use the (not so) multi-tasking button as a menu button, much like most AOKP roms, thus disposing of the horrible black menu bar that appears in the majority of apps and games. In addition to numerous other dedicated buttons for both the browser and camera.
I will be eagerly awaiting this update over the coming weeks... Shame it's not Jelly Bean, but I guess that's not far off either :)
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
My First Taste Of Jelly Bean
So I did it, I took the leap and rooted my HTC One X.
I'm sick of reading blogs about Jelly Bean coming soon, and how well it's performing on the Galaxy Nexus, I decided I had to try it for myself.
OK, so it's not the most stable, and there are still a couple of little faults here and there, but nothing I can't live with.
Plus, I know once HTC pull their finger out and finally release Jelly Bean with Sense, I can soon enough flash my HOX back to stock and get the update OTA.
Initial thoughts... Superb. Galaxy S3, eat your heart out!
The new Google Project Butter really make the quad core Tegra 3 chip work, but wow! It works well. Screen transitions are amazing, instant and as the name suggests. Buttery smooth.
The other feature I've been eagerly awaiting to get my hands on it Google Now. I still haven't managed to get my teeth into it just yet, all I have done is open the app, but as soon as I did, I was amazingly impressed that it displayed local delays across trains, and roads in my local area and asking if I wanted suggestions to alternatives. That's Impressive.
That's about it for now... Just wanted to share my initial experience with Jelly Bean. I'll create a full write-up on it over the coming days once I've managed to get my teeth in to it completely.
Massive thanks to TripNDroid for this update, head over to XDA if you want to try it for yourself.
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
The Power Of Social Media
Monday, 2 July 2012
A Day of Fun, Laughter and.... Screams!?
However, my girlfriend and her family are on the other hand, the complete opposite. Regular visits to Alton Towers each year, holiday's to Disney World in Florida, Portaventura... basically, anywhere there are rollorcoasters... they are there. In short, they are theme park mad.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Top Tips To Good Open Rates...
Well, it's been a while since I wrote a post for which I have no excuse for other than having somewhat of a hectic lifestyle at the moment. What with work, the gym 3 times a week and cycling whenever I can. Not to mention standing outside women's changing rooms while the missus tries on copious amounts of clothing only to buy 1 item... all this amounts to not leaving me much time to myself :)
However, I have finally got 5 mins to write my latest post about Email Subject lines... OK, so I'm sure this has been written many times before, but you can never stress the importance of a good subject line. After all, it is the first thing the recipient sees before opening an email. I suppose they actually see who the email from, but the subject line says what it's about... It's in this split second, in which the 50 character (max) sentence is read that, the user decides whether or not to open or delete. So you have to make it count.
So here are my top 8 tips to creating the right subject line to deliver success...
1. Test, test and test – Look at email campaigns you’ve sent in the past. What worked? What didn't? What got the highest open? what saw the best return?... These are key learning's to help you decide on your next subject line. You might find that for a particular topic there’s a general trend or subject style that resulted in higher open rates. You may even have a particular email in your inbox that caught your eye and made you open the email.
2. Identify the importance – Try and put as much important and relevant information in to your subject lines as possible. For example, if you’re sending out an email about a special offer make sure the product name and details on the offer appear in the subject line in a clear and concise format such as “25% off ACME Product – Today Only”.
3. Personalise the subject line – Placing personal details such as a name in the subject line makes people feel you care, makes them more loyal to the brand and most importantly, ALWAYS produces more opens that one without. A previous test I carried out for a large mobile network showed open rates of 26% for personalised subject line against 17% for those without the personalisation.
4. Avoid spam keywords – Most email servers automatically filter out any emails that contain spam keywords in their subject line – Words such as free, save, sale, etc all trigger spam detection software so keep them out of your subject lines wherever possible, because its no good having a compelling subject line, if its not even making it to the inbox.
5. Trigger curiosity – One of the best ways to improve open rates is to play to peoples curiosity... People like to be enticed, and they like suspense... So exploit this in your subject line... make them 'want' to open the email. eg. {firstname}, Guess what?
6. Make the offer clear – If you’re making a special offer to your subscriber then be upfront and include it as part of your subject line. People love bargains and special offers so let them know about it before anything else. However, you have to try and do this without using too much spam (tip #4).
7. Easy identification – Make sure your subscribers know the email is coming from you. Deceptive subject lines can confuse people so always try and including your company name in the subject line. Also, make sure you set the “From” attribute of your email to include your name and your companies name, such as “From: John Smith <john@acme.com>”.
8. Exclaim nothing – Avoid using excessive punctuation at the end of your subject lines. Google bans punctuation from AdWords ad’s for a reason – too much hype can annoy and confuse people.
Well there you have it – 8 tips for better subject lines in your next email marketing campaign. If you have any tips you’d like to share feel free to post a comment below.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Politics & Taxes
I didn't go to Oxford and I didn't go to collage... Damn... I don't even have any GCSE's... But, what I do know, is that in layman's terms, a recession is a general slowdown in economic activity such as employment and household spending. And why aren't households spending??? Because everything is so expensive... People can't afford to spend money.
Here's just one example...
The average fuel tank costs around £70 - £100 to fill... apart from that being ridiculous (not to mention greedy), families can't afford to pay out £100 in fuel alone to go away at the weekend, and then when they do go away, its costing them even more in food, accommodation and activities because the companies that provide these services have also boosted their prices to enable them to pay for their amenities (which have also gone up in costs)... This results in Mr & Mrs Bloggs, spending the weekend sitting in front of the telly doing nothing and saving what little, hard earned cash they have...
So I put to you Mr Cameron... Does it not make sense, (as apposed to spending BILLIONS of the countries hard earned cash on Nuclear submarines that won't be read until 2025 and that we clearly don't need) that if you were to lower taxes and the cost of fuel, that people would then be able (and more happy) to spend more money, to go on that weekend away, etc... thus (slowly) bringing the country out of recession ???
Please like and share this post... It's not often that I actually ask people to share my work... But I really think this matters, to all of us. Because clearly, our PM is more concerned with making money for the government to spend on things we just don't need to be spending it on (such as said Subs, which are clearly a statement more than anything else and if come 2025, when they are ready, we are still in an age that requires such 'peace keeping' forces then I would imagine it will be 'us' that is at the disadvantage).
Rant Over! :)
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2... Is It Really Reaching Its Potential?
Because I realise that not everyone needs a 1.5GHz quad-core, all singing, all dancing smart phone with true HD screen and 8MP camera. (I said 'realise'... doesn't mean I don't understand why). But, either way... I thought I'd write a post on what's set to be the benchmark setter for the next tier down... The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.
I think one of the largest letdowns about the new Galaxy Ace 2 is its lack of Ice Cream Sandwich, despite having a dual core 800MHz processor, you'd have thought it being more than up to the job of becoming the baseline model for the new version of Android, and with no current rumours coming from Samsung as to whether the new OS will be emerging on the handset, this could be the end before it begins. That said... the market the new Galaxy Ace 2 is aimed at, quite possibly won't care what version of Android its running.
I think the biggest let down of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is its processing power... it's not what you expect for what could have been the leader of this category of phone. Jumping from app to app, opening trays and using apps isn't as smooth as you would expect (or hope). Which is a surprise considering the 800MHz Dual core should be more than capable of the task.
The camera hasn't changed either. Still 5MP and still with a single LED flash. Again, the speed of the processor lets it down again, with the shutter speed seeming somewhat delayed, meaning you could quite possibly miss that perfect shot you were trying to capture.
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is definitely a step in the right direction for a handset in this category – it's, faster, smoother and has slightly improved build quality.
However, I can't help but feel it could have been so much better.
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is now available on Three on a variety of tariffs.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Reaching The Mark? The New Samsung Galaxy S3
The S3 packs a powerful quad-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz (not quite the 1.5GHz of the HTC One X - but what's 0.1GHz between friends), which should make it more than capable when playing high-resolution video and graphically demanding games. However, I have noticed with the HTC One X, that as phones get more powerful, the apps and games that are released are equally becoming more demanding, making it un-noticeable that you are using a phone with just as much (or in some cases) more power than your home PC or laptop. But I suppose, that was to be expected. Needless to say, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is definitely up there with the big boys when it comes to processing power.
In Summary, it would seem that there's not a great deal of change with the Galaxy S3, other than upgrading all the major components... but, with the S2 being such a huge success, there wasn't a great deal to change other than bringing it in to the current (ever changing) times. And although I won't be rushing out to get my hands on one, I'm confident it will be the success that the Galaxy S2 was last year.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
The Cookie Law
On 26th May 2012 all UK websites must offer their users a consent mechanism to allow cookies to store information about your browsing activity and potentially pass this to 3rd parties. This includes tools such as Google Maps, Google Analytics, social sharing buttons and many more! But what does this mean for your website?
What are cookies?
Cookies are a small sweet cake (biscuit), typically round, flat, and crisp. The best cookies usually have chocolate chips in them, or (my personal favourite) are chocolate biscuits with chocolate chip cookies in them... #NomNom... OK.. slightly off track there. In the digital world, cookies are small text files that are stored on the user's computer (yours) to remember choices as you navigate round the site. They are used to remember user preferences, to track site performance and to target advertising. Essentially making your user journey better.
What is the law?
‘The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive)(Amendment) Regulations 2011’ has been commonly referred to for at least the last 12 months as the ‘Cookie Law’.
What does it do?
In short, it means that all website operators are now required to ask a website user’s permission when placing certain types of cookies on their devices or computers. They must also explain what they are and why they are placed there.
When did it become law?
26 May 2011, and assumed that browser technology could be used to manage cookie permissions. However, this was not the case, and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) declared a suspension on enforcing the law until 26 May 2012 by when browser developments would have caught up. Again, this has not proved to be the case, which has left all website operators with the task of implementing measures to comply. With no practical guidance being issued by the ICO on how to do this, companies are taking their lead from the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce).
What can be done?
To ensure your site complies with the law, your Privacy Policy on your sites must explain the different types of cookies used and how you use them. There are four categories of cookies summarised as; strictly necessary, performance, functionality and targeting. In addition, users have to give permissions to allow categories two to four.
What else can be done?
The ICC have interpreted the law to mean that you can gather consent for category one to three cookies by agreement to terms and conditions or privacy policy. Category four, which is what the law was specifically targeted for, and requires explicit consent.
Hungry for more cookies?
For more information on the Cookie Law, visit The Cookie Collective, or visit BBC Food (I know which I prefer :)
Monday, 30 April 2012
Where Apple Are Going Wrong...
Well it's been a few days (almost a week) since I wrote my last blog post, and already I'm starting to feel like a naughty school boy for not doing something that I should have done. Not to mention the with-drawl symptoms I am getting from not writing.
So I thought today, I would write a post to let Apple know where they are going wrong. And because I because I know my opinion means a lot to them, I know they will honor it and completely re-write their strategy, launching the new iPhone 5 (whenever that may be) with a completely new look, cut me in on the profit thus making me a millionaire over night. (Well.. you can but dream!).
I used an iPhone for a quite a long time in comparison to other handsets I've had. I even bought my girlfriend one for Christmas last year, so obviously, I appreciate that they are amazing phones. They are built to an extremely high standard, they look beautiful, and in terms of their touchscreen, they are more responsive than any other phone on the market. Quite simply, they are perfect... Which is where I think they fall flat.
To maintain their perfection, they have sacrificed a certain element that I think a lot of people (particularly Android users) want from a smart phone... They lack that element of fun!
When I hit the unlock button on my HTC One X, I am suddenly hit by a smoothly animated picture showcase. Beautiful images flying around the screen in Polaroid style frames which make me smile every time I unlock it - each one displaying in a crisp, sharp resolution making me smile in amazement at its performance, followed by an almost bigger smile as the memory of the photo which is being displayed. And because I have so many photo's on my phone, It's very rare that I am shown the same picture as last time. Making each time I unlock, a new reminiscing moment of happy times in my life...
OK... so maybe the above is a bit much, and making you want to grab a bucket... but it's just one of the simple things you can do with an Android phone which you can't with an iPhone. And of course, this is only one of the features you can set to the unlock screen... You can have a vast array of things displayed there to make your day so much brighter, including the local weather. Beautiful animation of what the weather 'could be doing' near you.. (although you could look out the window). You can have notifications up there also, allowing you to see who's been messaging / emailing or calling you without even having to go in to the phone, which can be simply dragged into the unlock ring, transporting you instantly to whatever app is delivering this notification.
You can even display your latest Footprints updates up there... Instantly displaying your closest friend's and family's latest Facebook and Twitter updates. All of which you don't get from an iPhone.
Other little things an iPhone can't do which Android does effortlessly are the widgets... And we all love our widgets. I'm particularly fond of my newest widget which set me back a whole £1.60... Ouch! The Pure Calendar widget, (linked directly to my Google ID) displays all my calendar entries on the home screen, allowing me to see where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing over the coming week without making a mess of my home screen. This fully customisable app can be set to a small font with a transparent background so that it doesn't take away from your favourite wallpaper in the background... Now to me, that's perfection :)
I'm not gonna go on listing all the little functions and widgets that are available on Android but not on iPhone... But I will end this with 2 quotes that I've had from Sally and my Mum...
Sally on the iPhone:
The iPhone does exactly as you expect, as soon as you take it out the box, or tap on one of the apps, you know exactly what its going to do.... It lack's fun!
Mum on her HTC Sensation XL:
I can always find some new function/feature, each time I play with it. It's smooth and fast and never had any issues.
So there you go Apple... Make your next iPhone a little more exciting, make it a little less user friendly, and most of all... MAKE IT MORE FUN!!! :)
If like me, your a fan of all things tech, including Android... Check out my mates blog. Relevant Social Media. It's full of interesting articles including a Full Serving Of Ice Cream Sandwich and the new Samsung Galaxy SIII (boooo). Not just pushing this blog because he's a mate... it genuinely is a really good, easy reading and informative blog... So check him out!
Monday, 23 April 2012
Google - Much, Much More Than An Email...
Google Talk is very much like MSN messenger. Quite simply, it's a chat applet. The clever and most useful ones though are the calendar and contacts. They are as you would expect. They are a calendar, and a store for your contacts. However, if like me, you are a smart phone user these are automatically synced with your phone. Meaning as you add new appointments, meetings, contact details, etc... to either interface (phone or Desktop) these are updated on Google's servers, giving you access to them wherever you are... 'Simples'.
Friday, 20 April 2012
HTC One X - 1 Week In
Right... as you will have no doubt gathered by now, I'm a bit of a geek, and love my techie things. Especially mobile phones and as I mentioned in my second post, I recently changed my Nexus for a HTC One X. I'm now a week into using it and thought (as many have) I would write a review on my thoughts, expectations and opinions of what I think to be HTC's greatest achievement to date.
Usually at this point, a week in to using a new mobile phone, I would have something to niggle about, something that just wasn't quite right. Because like a lot of men... I'm never happy, never satisfied. But... I can honestly say, with the HTC One X, this isn't the case. OK, so if I really wanted to be fussy, there are a couple of teeny weeny little things, but these are just things I'm finding for the sake of finding something. But I'll come onto these later.
First Impressions
I think the first thing you notice about the HTC One X is how well built it feels. Almost on par with the iPhone 4(s), only difference being you can feel confident that if you were to drop the One X, it wouldn't shatter into a million pieces, which is the feeling I always had with my iPhone.
I've read some reviews that have slated the single piece, polycarbonate body, and lack of access to the battery, but I actually like this idea. Makes the phone feel much more solid and reliable. I've also read about people not being happy that you can't get access to the memory card, or add any kind of expansion to it... Really?? It's already 32Gb... What more do you want? I mean, I'm a huge music fan, and have a HUGE collection of music on my phone, and that's only taking up 20Gb of space, which leaves with with plenty more for other things. Its not like I want to store numerous films on there or more music that I can listen to in a week. There's just no need for it.
The Screen
'Amazing'... That's quite simply the only word that can be used to explain the display on the HTC One X... the resolution is second to non, it's almost as tho the screen is floating on top of the glass and is crystal clear. It's responsive too, but I suppose that's to be expected coming from what, for the moment, is the worlds most powerful mobile processor. The Tegra 3, quad core chip is definitely setting the bar here, and wow, what a bar it is to reach. I've not yet come across a situation where the processor starts to fail, or lag... It's seamlessly jumps from app to app, opening and closing windows, files, apps, whatever you ask it to do, it does it within a fraction of a second and amazingly smooth.
Whilst we're on the subject of 'switching from app to app'... one of the little things I mentioned above, about being silly little niggles for the sake of finding them. One of the things I have noticed with the HTC One X, is how using the 'recent apps' button, doesn't actually show you the apps in their open state... it shows you a screen shot of them, and selecting them, zooms in on the screen shot, and then loads the app as apposed to showing the actual app and zooming into that. Sounds strange, I know, and not the easiest thing to explain without showing it on the actual handset. But when using the same feature on the Nexus, it was the live app that was shown, and selecting it would instantly jump back into the app. Whereas now, there is a millisecond of a delay as the phone switches from the screen shot, to the live app. Again, not an issue to discourage anyone at all from the HTC One X. It's just another one of those things that you would kinda expect 'not' to see from such a high end device.
Camera
Music
Overall
Thursday, 19 April 2012
The Handbag...
Well... here it is... here is the result of what happens when you ask a woman to write a post for you blog :)
Content kindly donated by my dear Mum today :) (thanks Mum xoxox)
Yes ladies, we all have one, or one hundred and one ! And we still desire/buy/require/NEED, more!!
Handbags are a woman’s best friend. You can go without a lot of things, in this day and age, but the one thing a woman does not leave the house without, is her beloved handbag.
It may amuse you to learn that it was men, yes men, in the 14th century, that first carried a “handbag“. It was a measure of ones social status!! [ooo er. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the term ‘handbag’ emerged, to describe handheld luggage designed for rail travel.
Hence, all of our lusted after names such as Hermes, [who were in fact saddlers], Mulberry, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, etc. started life making large luggage ! [yep, the kitchen sink did in fact fit]
So next time your dearly beloved dares to pass comment [also known as complaining] about your increasingly large collection - blame him !
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Drifting... #1
Drifting - To Drift - To purposely force the car into an oversteer, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner.
A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle, to such an extent that the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa). Also known as 'opposite-lock'.
I blame my parents for both my love of motorsport and the burning passion I have for taking part. Throughout my childhood years we we're involved in a catalogue of activities from 2 wheels to 4, from water to forest. All of which I loved to be involved with and learnt a great deal from. Whether it was helping my Dad build a Rover V8 engine in the hallway of the flat at 12 years old (and destroying my skate board whilst trying to move it - "Yes, I remember, Dad"), to watching them tearing across the countryside in the Ricker. I loved every minute of it.
When I was young, drifting wasn't really on the scene, as I feel if it were, that would have been another sport my parents would have had a go at.... It's only really become big over here in the last few years. Probably coincides with the release of Fast & Furious, Tokyo Drift in 2006.
Needless to say, now, It's huge... From small local events ('Run What You Brung' days) where privateers can turn up in their daily driver and thrash it out across a simple drift course, right through to national championships, on national race tracks - filled with (what are now becoming) well known teams such as Japspeed and Team Orange (US). The sport even has it's own local celebrity, Shane Lynch, who following the demise of Boyzone, donned his helmet and became a 'professional' drift racer for Team Japspeed.