O2 and T-Mobile, urging customers not to upgrade
October 28, 2008
Some UK mobile operators have begun trying to dissuade customers who are near the end of their contracts from upgrading their handsets.
The operators are instead offering such customers discounts on their monthly tariffs. The strategy is tailored to this financial quarter, when customers are beginning to feel the effects of the credit crunch. It means the operators do not have to spend as much money on new handsets, which they would typically give to customers for free or at low cost in exchange for staying with the network in question.
As of last Monday, O2 began offering customers the choice of deferring their upgrade until January. If they do so, they can receive a £15-a-month discount on their subscription. That the offer will be reviewed in January.
T-Mobile is taking a similar approach to customer renewals.
All T-Mobile’s customers who are at the end of their contract will still have the choice of upgrading their handsets during the last three months of this year, but fewer may be entitled to a free upgrade, following a review of the eligibility criteria for mobile-phone upgrades.
In the past, when everybody had lots of money, they could go somewhere else if they didn’t get an upgrade, Now the operators are tapping into their customers’ desire to save cash, when customers are beginning to feel the effects of the credit crunch.
Are you coming to the end of your contract? would you be tempted to take a cash discount? or are you waiting to get that ‘must have’ upgrade?.
Think Firefox is fast? Try Minefield
October 24, 2008
A colleague today showed me a cool, new browser that he’s been using to browse the web at blisteringly fast speeds. The browser? Minefield. The author of the code?
Mozilla.
Yes, that same Mozilla that makes the Firefox browser. Minefield is, in fact, a way to glimpse into the future of Firefox, as it’s a pre-release/alpha version of the Firefox browser.
After spending some time with Minefield, one thing is clear: the future of Firefox is fast. Lightning fast.
How fast? Some claim that it has the fastest javascript engine on the planet, which means it leaves Google’s Chrome browser in the dust. In my own unscientific tests, I’d say that this assertion is correct. Ars Technica pegs Minefield as 10 percent faster than Chrome.
You can download the latest nightly build for Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows, but be warned: it’s alpha code. While a quick search of the Web shows few complaints as to stability, Minefield may not be for you. It doesn’t support some of my favorite Firefox extensions, but it actually has surprisingly good support for extensions, given that it’s a fast-moving project.
Feeling brave? Or simply feeling like your browser is too slow? Give Minefield a try. It’s a separate install so it won’t affect an existing Firefox install, Currently i’ve been using it in my Linux box (debian), but might give it a try in windows pretty soon.
Low income homes to trial free web access scheme
October 23, 2008
The government has chosen the first two areas, Oldham and Suffolk, where school pupils will get free access to computers and the internet at home.
Schools minister Jim Knight said that the ‘home access’ pilots will start in February next year and provide up to 20,000 seven- to 18-year-olds from low-income families with financial support to get online.
They will receive a grant to pay for a computer, software and internet access for one year, plus technical support for three years. Parents who want their children to have higher-specification equipment will be allowed to top up the grant to cover the cost.
Local advertising campaigns in schools and communities will tell families about the scheme and the potential educational benefits of home internet access. The campaigns will be supported by dedicated advisers and a helpline.
Today’s announcement is the first part of a £300m programme, announced by prime minister Gordon Brown in September, to make sure all children have home computer access. About one million children do not have access to broadband at home.
Although i personally think this is a great scheme and it will defiantly help lots of parents & children, i am left wondering when it will roll out across the whole of the country? and how long that will eventually take?
Google Android phone source code
October 22, 2008
Less than a month after the search giant unveiled news of the first Google Android phone, the company says that today’s news represents the start of the first truly open and fully featured mobile platform.
In what is arguably a fairly significant milestone for the Android Open Source Project, it is hoped that this move will encourage developers to build more applications that run on Android-powered devices and contribute to the core platform. Developers can now contribute code, with a full set of APIs that allows the platform to host applications written by third-party developers.
By making this move, Google is targeting developers, OEMs, carriers and all other potential code contributors.
In a statement Google said that, “Android is a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations. With the availability of Android to the open source community, consumers will start to see more applications like location-based travel tools, games and social networking offerings being made available to them directly; cheaper and faster phones at lower costs; and a better mobile web experience through 3G networks with richer screens.”
The code can be found under the Android Open Source Project web site.
Free Video Distribution Service
October 21, 2008
Creating videos is a great way to attract traffic but submitting them can be time consuming.
TubeMogul is a free service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed
Google 2001 - A Search Odyssey
October 21, 2008
In honor of Google’s 10 year anniversary they have brought back their 2001 site (with index). Take a peak at how things used to be. Was your site around then?
Debian Blue Ray ‘Lenny’
October 20, 2008
Every new stable release of Debian GNU/Linux breaks a few records and “Lenny” will be no exception. With over 25,000 packages for 13 supported architectures, the upcoming release of the world’s largest Linux distribution will come on 414 CDs or 64 DVDs.
But now, for the first time ever, Lenny will also be released as a set of 25 GB Blu-ray discs: “Debian are now producing some Blu-ray images alongside the existing CD and DVD images with each weekly ‘Lenny’ build. As a standard Blu-ray disc will hold up to 25 GB of data, that means that, for the first time in several years, users should be able to fit all of the packages for one architecture on a single disc. The downside of adding yet another image type is that potentially Debian could use up huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth on our central servers and mirrors to accommodate them.”
Stephen Fry - Happy Birthday to GNU
October 15, 2008
Happy Birthday to GNU
Mr. Stephen Fry introduces you to free software, and reminds you of a very special birthday.
Directory Submissions Worthwhile?
October 14, 2008
Directories like Yahoo’s Directory and DMOZ.org have been cited by several search engines as logical places for inclusion as part of an effort to acquire inbound links.
However, as of October 2nd, 2008 Google no longer includes this recommendation in their Webmaster Guidelines.
The audience for directories as far as direct traffic is minimal at best, but if a directory is well managed and offers specific categories for specialized niche topics, then it may be worth inclusion. just like any other kind of online marketing, if it’s good for searchers, it’s good for search marketing.
Search engine spiders/bots will find your pages through links from other web sites. Think of links as the electricity that bring your web pages to life in the search engines. Strong sources will deliver more power as will a large number of sources.
The key is that they are topically relevant and created in a way that technically allows search engines to follow the links to your web pages. See “Ensure Your Site is Crawlable” for more on that.
Debian Lenny
October 13, 2008
For a while it looked as if “Lenny”, the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux, might arrive as originally planned - in September 2008. But as the month has past by without any update, it has become clear that the project’s much awaited version 5.0 has not achieved the required levels of stability and reduction in the number of bugs to be released to the general public.
However, for those who are new to Linux, it’s worth reminding that Debian does not have a fixed release schedule and all of its stable version have followed the “released when ready” policy.
Of course, the next question is: when will it be ready? Unfortunately, the answer is unlikely to please those who expect a timely release as the removal of the remaining release-critical bugs might still take months rather than weeks - according to some estimates. So is there any way to speed up the release? Yes, says Alexander Reichle-Schmehl. Anybody, even those without any programming skills, can help with making the release possible.
In the meantime i’ll continue to sit and wait (sigh)…
