There is a petition on the Downing Street website calling for hoodies to be banned for sale in the UK.
Hoodies have already been banned at Bluewater Shopping Centre, in Kent. Prime Minister Tony Blair backed the ban. John Prescott described hoodies as "intimidating uniform".
The banning of hoodies, and proposals to widen such bans, have been growing in recent times. In 2005, a youth was handed an ASBO which banned him from wearing a hoodie. Disciplining him, or tackling the cause, would have been more effective.
I wear a hoodie. I am not a chav. I disklike chavs because of the way they act, not because of their clothes sense.
People also seem to have lost the plot. Banning sale of hoodies will not stop people wearing them. It will probably just result in a black market, which would be quite amusing!
If society actually did something about chavs directly, rather than banning their clothes, we would get somewhere. Some shopping centres in Manchester resisted a similar proposal in 2005, saying they would rather deal with individuals than eject everybody.
Banning hoodies to stop people from hiding is unlikely to work, there are still things called hats and helmets. A simple "hats off" policy would be far more sensible.
I wonder what chavs will wear if hoodies get banned? I hope they move onto suits and ties, then things get interesting...
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Living Off-Campus? Beware!
Some words of warning to all those who plan to live off-campus next year: be careful. Here's why...
(I'm leaving it to the reader to guess who ? Internet are.)
I've just banked a refund cheque from ? Internet. It is, possibly, the end of over two years of hell.
It all started in Spring 2005, when I decided to abandon plans to commute from home in the second year. The people I was living with had already found houses and it was no secret that I didn't get along with them too well anyway. So I found some random people looking for housemates and signed a contract to move into a shared student house.
As usual, once we all moved in, each housemate took responsibility for a bill. I chose the telephone and Internet, since I was a computing student and it meant I might have some more control over the broadband setup. I signed a 12 month contract (well actually, I never physically signed anything, but still...).
I hated the house. The bedroom was small, the bathroom was rubbish, the kitchen was filthy, the garage was always broken and the landlord refused permission to put locks on our rooms (even just on the inside). I liked the garden, the cycling and living off-campus. Regardless, I had to leave.
The others were able to find an alternative housemate, and the University offered me a room on campus (which is an entirely different story...). I left and arranged for the housemates to pay for the telephone and broadband via me.
Guess what? They didn't pay. So I warned them and warned them and eventually had enough. I tried to get BT and ? Internet to transfer the accounts to somebody else. They refused. So instead, I just cut the accounts. I could see no good reason why I should be paying, when I didn't even live there.
Given that I had moved into student accommodation and that the University would never have allowed BT to drill holes and install telephone lines, it was quite obvious I could not transfer the account to my new address. So I told ? Internet this and they just quoted the contract and said that I had to pay for the 12 months regardless.
This is not the only thing that angered me. The expensive phone calls (remember, no proper line means calling card or mobile phone charges to 0845 numbers), poor quality sound and international call centre staff did nothing to help. Nor did the faults or deliberate hang-ups.
In the end, the only viable option left was to try to recoup some of the money. I figured that if I found somebody who needed broadband, I could transfer the account to their house and charge them half price. In theory my losses would be reduced even though a new contract had to be signed. So I did that and ? Internet agreed.
In the meantime I wanted the ADSL line to be disconnected. I had no keys and my router was still in the house. Without physical access I could not cut off the 'free Internet', and trust me we tried! ? Internet had no idea what I was talking about. Ask any technician what "log off" means and they should know. Oh well.
So I transferred the connection to my friend's house and put a computer in his house so I could have an off-campus machine. He paid. But then he had to move. Damn, still not the end!
So then I called ? Internet again. Again they quoted the contract. So I agreed to pay it off and they agreed for somebody to call back. So I sat in the office for weeks, and nobody called. I guessed somebody had intervened, so I cancelled the Direct Debit. It really looked like the end, but it wasn't.
14 months later I was contacted by debt collectors. I was then charged for 12 months outstanding fees, some £240. I then contacted ? Internet and asked what they were playing at. Again an international call centre, again bad excuses and again no budge. It turns out they forgot to close the account and even forgot to send the mail to the second address. To make matters worse they didn't even notice the account had been disused for over a year! By the way, the debt collectors called me on my mobile number, something ? Internet had all along.
So I kept trying and eventually somebody agreed to refund me to the point my contact should have ended. But it still didn't end. They never bothered to send the cheque.
Enter the law. ? Internet were then threatened with legal action, a cheque arrived within a week. Well short of what I think they should have paid, but at least it was all squared up.
Mistakes on both sides, perhaps. Was it fair?
You have been warned, so here are some tips:
Tips
(I'm leaving it to the reader to guess who ? Internet are.)
I've just banked a refund cheque from ? Internet. It is, possibly, the end of over two years of hell.
It all started in Spring 2005, when I decided to abandon plans to commute from home in the second year. The people I was living with had already found houses and it was no secret that I didn't get along with them too well anyway. So I found some random people looking for housemates and signed a contract to move into a shared student house.
As usual, once we all moved in, each housemate took responsibility for a bill. I chose the telephone and Internet, since I was a computing student and it meant I might have some more control over the broadband setup. I signed a 12 month contract (well actually, I never physically signed anything, but still...).
I hated the house. The bedroom was small, the bathroom was rubbish, the kitchen was filthy, the garage was always broken and the landlord refused permission to put locks on our rooms (even just on the inside). I liked the garden, the cycling and living off-campus. Regardless, I had to leave.
The others were able to find an alternative housemate, and the University offered me a room on campus (which is an entirely different story...). I left and arranged for the housemates to pay for the telephone and broadband via me.
Guess what? They didn't pay. So I warned them and warned them and eventually had enough. I tried to get BT and ? Internet to transfer the accounts to somebody else. They refused. So instead, I just cut the accounts. I could see no good reason why I should be paying, when I didn't even live there.
Given that I had moved into student accommodation and that the University would never have allowed BT to drill holes and install telephone lines, it was quite obvious I could not transfer the account to my new address. So I told ? Internet this and they just quoted the contract and said that I had to pay for the 12 months regardless.
This is not the only thing that angered me. The expensive phone calls (remember, no proper line means calling card or mobile phone charges to 0845 numbers), poor quality sound and international call centre staff did nothing to help. Nor did the faults or deliberate hang-ups.
In the end, the only viable option left was to try to recoup some of the money. I figured that if I found somebody who needed broadband, I could transfer the account to their house and charge them half price. In theory my losses would be reduced even though a new contract had to be signed. So I did that and ? Internet agreed.
In the meantime I wanted the ADSL line to be disconnected. I had no keys and my router was still in the house. Without physical access I could not cut off the 'free Internet', and trust me we tried! ? Internet had no idea what I was talking about. Ask any technician what "log off" means and they should know. Oh well.
So I transferred the connection to my friend's house and put a computer in his house so I could have an off-campus machine. He paid. But then he had to move. Damn, still not the end!
So then I called ? Internet again. Again they quoted the contract. So I agreed to pay it off and they agreed for somebody to call back. So I sat in the office for weeks, and nobody called. I guessed somebody had intervened, so I cancelled the Direct Debit. It really looked like the end, but it wasn't.
14 months later I was contacted by debt collectors. I was then charged for 12 months outstanding fees, some £240. I then contacted ? Internet and asked what they were playing at. Again an international call centre, again bad excuses and again no budge. It turns out they forgot to close the account and even forgot to send the mail to the second address. To make matters worse they didn't even notice the account had been disused for over a year! By the way, the debt collectors called me on my mobile number, something ? Internet had all along.
So I kept trying and eventually somebody agreed to refund me to the point my contact should have ended. But it still didn't end. They never bothered to send the cheque.
Enter the law. ? Internet were then threatened with legal action, a cheque arrived within a week. Well short of what I think they should have paid, but at least it was all squared up.
Mistakes on both sides, perhaps. Was it fair?
You have been warned, so here are some tips:
Tips
- I could have commuted and got a room on campus (eventually). If you can do this, then do it. Rooms eventually free up, so a couple of weeks on the train is no problem - it may even be cheaper.
- Don't accept a room without a lock. Check. Especially when living with strangers. The strangers may be trustworthy, but are their visitors? It isn't just your stuff, it's also your personal safety when sleeping.
- Don't sign a 12-month contract unless there is a viable escape route. Paying off a £20 per month contract is expensive. Paying a £60 fee is not.
- Avoid long contracts completely. Some ISPs don't have them. They may cost a little extra, but it is worth the security.
- Sometimes it is cheaper and less hassle to pay for something you don't have, rather than paying again. Sounds nuts, but it is cheaper.
Monday, 18 February 2008
The £45,000 Logo
Cardiff has just spent £45,000 on a new logo. Not only have they ditched the daffodils and dragons (ie. their 'identity'), but they have replaced the logo with a bunch of multicoloured discs.
£45,000 can pay 4 people for a whole year - did it really take that much effort just for the logo?
Another example, the London 2012 Olympic Logo, cost £400,000. You can almost pay 40 salaries with that (albeit in lower paid jobs).
And the cherry on the cake? Nothing in the logo symbolises London - in fact the text will be barely readable on smaller versions.
Why won't people get the basic idea that a logo need not cost loads of money? It just needs an identity, such as the London Underground roundel. The company survives because of it's reputation (and in this case, nobody really gets a choice).
New companies get going, not because of the logo (as such), but because of offers and good service. Abbey, which rebranded twice in an 18 month period, recently got really bad reviews on the consumer programme Watchdog. It proves that money should perhaps be spent on internal processes and customer service, rather than rebranding!
Why do people change an established identity at such huge cost? BT did it when the replaced the piper with the globe. Was it really worth it? The piper cost £50 million in 1991 - an amazing 5000 salaries. Of course much of this was probably spent on repainting vans, but this is still a little concerning when you look at the figures.
One could argue that such costs can be covered by the need to repaint vehicles, a more regular occurance on the railways. ONE Railway, a National Express company, has recently announced that it will rebrand itself, much to the relief of a very linguistically confused public. Most of the costs will be absorbed since trains have to be repainted anyway. Regardless, I think most people will agree that painting all the trains the same colour would probably cost less (with a little logo in the corner, perhaps).
So, next time you feel like investing in a logo, bear in mind how many people you could employ (or not sack) for the cost of something you could put together in house or pay a student to do... The student need not even qualify for the minimum wage, judging by some of the designs we have seen...
£45,000 can pay 4 people for a whole year - did it really take that much effort just for the logo?
Another example, the London 2012 Olympic Logo, cost £400,000. You can almost pay 40 salaries with that (albeit in lower paid jobs).
And the cherry on the cake? Nothing in the logo symbolises London - in fact the text will be barely readable on smaller versions.
Why won't people get the basic idea that a logo need not cost loads of money? It just needs an identity, such as the London Underground roundel. The company survives because of it's reputation (and in this case, nobody really gets a choice).
New companies get going, not because of the logo (as such), but because of offers and good service. Abbey, which rebranded twice in an 18 month period, recently got really bad reviews on the consumer programme Watchdog. It proves that money should perhaps be spent on internal processes and customer service, rather than rebranding!
Why do people change an established identity at such huge cost? BT did it when the replaced the piper with the globe. Was it really worth it? The piper cost £50 million in 1991 - an amazing 5000 salaries. Of course much of this was probably spent on repainting vans, but this is still a little concerning when you look at the figures.
One could argue that such costs can be covered by the need to repaint vehicles, a more regular occurance on the railways. ONE Railway, a National Express company, has recently announced that it will rebrand itself, much to the relief of a very linguistically confused public. Most of the costs will be absorbed since trains have to be repainted anyway. Regardless, I think most people will agree that painting all the trains the same colour would probably cost less (with a little logo in the corner, perhaps).
So, next time you feel like investing in a logo, bear in mind how many people you could employ (or not sack) for the cost of something you could put together in house or pay a student to do... The student need not even qualify for the minimum wage, judging by some of the designs we have seen...
Sunday, 13 January 2008
The Asus Eee PC: First Impressions
One of the new technological craze's makings it way to the consumer is the concept of the mini laptop. These devices are designed to be light-weight, less energy-hungry and (most importantly) cheaper. This isn't a new idea and actually it's a little dissapointing compared to technology available almost a decade ago.
No doubt related to the OLPC-like devices, these devices are aimed at users that want computing in places where the laptop is either too bulky, expensive or where the batteries simply won't last.
To meet these requirements a number of trade-offs have to be made, and in the example of the Asus Eee PC we see:
The Solid State Disk provides some interesting properties. The system boots in 15 seconds, it is not vulnerable to shock damage and it uses a lot less power. SSD is not new however, the concept was also used by Psion in the 90s to refer to removable storage cards used with it's Series 3 line of PDAs.
In fact the whole concept of a light-weight laptop isn't new either. In the late 1990s, various manufactorers played around with Windows CE - Microsoft's embedded operating system. Many devices came onto the market, evolving into a 'half laptop' format (examples include the LG Phenom and the NEC MobilePro). Ultimately Windows CE became Pocket PC (in many smartphones), but varients lived on in set-top boxes and thin clients.
The Handheld PC was designed as a companion to a full PC. Targetted at the commercial market, these devices combined PDA functions with cut-down office applications such as word processing and spreadsheets. Importantly, the main attractions were the same as the Eee PC: portability and long battery life. (Price, on the other hand, was a bit disappointing!)
For a student this was an ideal format. You could take notes in lectures, work on essays on the train, keep your calendar on the device and surf the net using wireless networks.
Nearly ten years later I personally think the Handheld PC still outperforms the Eec PC. The devices were created and coded to be power efficient, whereas the Eee PC tries to run desktop software (and even supports Windows XP). It was not unusual for a Windows CE device to run for 10 hours on a single battery charge (even with a colour screen!).
After seeing a device in action, I was a bit disappointed:
Windows CE HPC devices are always on Ebay for about £90 and will do a similar job. The only difference is that they never hit big volumes - which can make getting spare parts (like batteries) difficult. Also, older models do not support full Office formats.
The loss of the HPC concept was a great blow, luckily it seems there are some developments on the horizon. The iriver Wing is rumoured to ship with Windows CE. Let's hope they don't keep that naff keyboard!
No doubt related to the OLPC-like devices, these devices are aimed at users that want computing in places where the laptop is either too bulky, expensive or where the batteries simply won't last.
To meet these requirements a number of trade-offs have to be made, and in the example of the Asus Eee PC we see:
- No hard drive. Hard drives have moving parts and that reduces battery life. Instead, the Eee PC has a solid state drive (SSD).
- Smaller screen. The screen size defines two things about a laptop: size and battery life. A smaller screen improves both.
- No Windows! Windows is a commercial operating system, so it costs money. Instead the Eee PC is based on Linux, which is free. Windows XP is supported, however.
The Solid State Disk provides some interesting properties. The system boots in 15 seconds, it is not vulnerable to shock damage and it uses a lot less power. SSD is not new however, the concept was also used by Psion in the 90s to refer to removable storage cards used with it's Series 3 line of PDAs.
In fact the whole concept of a light-weight laptop isn't new either. In the late 1990s, various manufactorers played around with Windows CE - Microsoft's embedded operating system. Many devices came onto the market, evolving into a 'half laptop' format (examples include the LG Phenom and the NEC MobilePro). Ultimately Windows CE became Pocket PC (in many smartphones), but varients lived on in set-top boxes and thin clients.
The Handheld PC was designed as a companion to a full PC. Targetted at the commercial market, these devices combined PDA functions with cut-down office applications such as word processing and spreadsheets. Importantly, the main attractions were the same as the Eee PC: portability and long battery life. (Price, on the other hand, was a bit disappointing!)
For a student this was an ideal format. You could take notes in lectures, work on essays on the train, keep your calendar on the device and surf the net using wireless networks.
Nearly ten years later I personally think the Handheld PC still outperforms the Eec PC. The devices were created and coded to be power efficient, whereas the Eee PC tries to run desktop software (and even supports Windows XP). It was not unusual for a Windows CE device to run for 10 hours on a single battery charge (even with a colour screen!).
After seeing a device in action, I was a bit disappointed:
- The device costs £200. It is possible to get a laptop for less than £250 these days, so accepting such a cut down device is a bit of a joke. Hopefully the price will fall as demand increases.
- The battery lasts just 2.5 hours, considering that there are no moving parts, this is poor.
- There was noticable heat eminating from the front of the unit. Clearly something is running warm - which I never noticed on an HPC.
- The internal devices are hard to upgrade/replace. SSDs fail faster than hard drives, replacement apparently requires surface-mount soldering - which is no fun at all.
- The keyboard was a bit difficult to use. The NEC MobilePro 770 had a better keyboard.
- No touchscreen. (In fact this is a really weird that laptops still lack this when it was possible 10 years ago!)
Windows CE HPC devices are always on Ebay for about £90 and will do a similar job. The only difference is that they never hit big volumes - which can make getting spare parts (like batteries) difficult. Also, older models do not support full Office formats.
The loss of the HPC concept was a great blow, luckily it seems there are some developments on the horizon. The iriver Wing is rumoured to ship with Windows CE. Let's hope they don't keep that naff keyboard!
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Mosquito Devices at Wivenhoe - Under 24s Beware!
ONE Railway is currently bragging that they have made Wivenhoe station less chavvy. This seems to have come from a combination of more patrols and a Mosquito Device:
"Recent innovations have included the installation of a ‘mosquito’ device, which lets out a high pitched sound that can only be heard by those under the age of 24, thus acting as a deterrent to people loitering at the station." (From onerailway.com.)
A mosquito device was installed at Greenstead shopping centre for similar reasons. For those that don't know, a moquito device exploits the fact that a person's hearing degrades over time. As you get older you hear less. Some of these sounds are really nasty and can make people leave the area.
ONE Railway is acting a bit stupid, for two reasons:
If I ever use the station again, I might take the opportunity to test those noise-cancelling headphones people use on planes. I have a feeling the chavs will eventually win this one...
"Recent innovations have included the installation of a ‘mosquito’ device, which lets out a high pitched sound that can only be heard by those under the age of 24, thus acting as a deterrent to people loitering at the station." (From onerailway.com.)
A mosquito device was installed at Greenstead shopping centre for similar reasons. For those that don't know, a moquito device exploits the fact that a person's hearing degrades over time. As you get older you hear less. Some of these sounds are really nasty and can make people leave the area.
ONE Railway is acting a bit stupid, for two reasons:
- Not all people under 24 are chavs. Switching on such a device will just drive away innocent people.
- The University of Essex is one mile away and students travel by train. Since most students graduate before the age of 24, this is a rather bad way to attract students to travel by train.
If I ever use the station again, I might take the opportunity to test those noise-cancelling headphones people use on planes. I have a feeling the chavs will eventually win this one...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)