that canadian girl

I’m disgusted to find out that Ofcom is about to allow more advertising on commercial television channels in the UK. Somehow, in response to people using more personal video recorders like Sky Plus, Ofcom’s been fooled in believing that the answer is to slap on some more ad minutes into every show.

The geekier masses have migrated towards online sources for entertainment, and I’ve got a feeling that if UK television is heading the same way as American shows, crammed with obnoxious and imposing ads, more Brits will start relying on Joost, Bittorrent, iTunes podcasts and other services.

The advertising industry is so sick, all the way to the core, I don’t think it’ll ever recover. If you agree that this new suggested ruling, allowing more ad breaks, should be stopped, please let your comments be heard by Ofcom, do it now, and pass it on to others around you!

“Thousands of homes face losing phone lines after cable thieves struck. Police were alerted today at 9.30am to the theft of high-value cables near Cambourne. […] A mobile police station has been sent to the area and high-profile police patrols have been mounted in a bid to reassure residents.

BT engineers are working on restoring the lines but it is not known how long this will take. DS Chris Balmer said: “We do not yet know the exact number of homes which have been left without phone lines however we believe it could be a few thousand.

“BT are working as quickly as possible to restore the phone lines. If you area aware of any elderly or vulnerable residents please check on their welfare. If anyone saw any suspicious activity around manhole covers please contact me. Scrap metal thieves who rip up telephone cables were warned by police they are putting lives at risk”, reported in the Cambridge News.”

Seriously, what’s that all about? No phones? No internet?

However, to lighten the tone, I thought I’d accompany the news with some interesting archeological findings, also reported recently.

“After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.

Not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200 meters and headlines in the US papers read: “US scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibers, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians.”

One week later, the Kenyan newspapers proudly reported the following: “After digging as deep as 500 meters, Kenyan scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using wireless technology.”

…isn’t that he’s lieing, cheating and being a downright fraud to avoid paying back his debts, which apparently amount to tens of thousands. It’s that police search & rescue and detective resources, which are already scarce, were wasted on a man who consciously went into hiding.

These are resources that should have been spent on fighting crime, supporting communities and working on other unsolved cases which deserve the attention.

Mr and Mrs Darwin, you are greedy, selfish people and I feel sorry for anyone who failed to receive due care from the police and local authorities because of your shortsighted behaviour. Did you really think you’d live on forever without being caught? Idiots.

Below, I’ve copied an email I received from the administrator of the Cambridge Congestion Charge forum. I haven’t had the time to edit it or summarise it for my readers, but if you live in or work in Cambridge, please read this, go fill in the survey and let your councilors know that before they smack us with a charge, they’ll need to come up with some solutions.

In my eyes, the first changes they should make are:
1. Encourage carpooling by improving routes reserved to buses and cars with two or more people in it;
2. Improve bus service so that it doesn’t take 3 times longer to get from A to B on the bus than in your own car (see Ottawa’s OC Transpo bus service for an example of a well thought-out plan);
3. Do not include Science Parks in the areas covered, because that’s just money grabbing rather than problem-solving and makes the city look like a bunch of greedy idiots.

Without further ado, here’s the email… Share this information far and wide!

————————-

Hello,

Firstly may I thank you for registering on the Cambridge Congestion Charge website. Secondly may I take this immediate opportunity to say that this will not be sending out regular emails to you.

The Cambridge City Council has launched its public consultation. This basically seems to consist of an online web questionaire and a series of public roadshows around the Cambridgeshire region. I would urge you to take the online questionaire if you haven’t already done so, and visit one of the roadshows as well as contact your local Councillor (easy to use contact details are at the bottom of this email). In the run up to Christmas and New year this important issue may slip your mind and then it may be too late for you to get your point of view across.

As you may know one of the main driving points behind introducing a congestion charge in Cambridge is the investment of a substantial amount of central government money into Cambridge’s transport infrastructure. This money has been offered in return for introducing a congestion charge.

The full proposal document which will form the basis of the City councils bid to get the central government money has been written and is available for download from http://www.cambridgecongestioncharge.co.uk/cambridgecongestioncharge/cambridgecongestioncharge.pdf (copy and paste this link if you need to). The document gives insight into the extensive planning that the council has already made and pinpoints the locations of cameras that would catch motorists that don’t pay, along with plans for mobile vans operating at random locations. I strongly urge you to read this document as either way it will change your way of life in the near future. It is quite long and you have to read it closely to establish exactly what they want to do (such as make Huntingdon Road a one way street for cars going out of the city) but it really is worth it. If you don’t find out about it now and make your views known you may regret it in just a couple of years time.

It also seems that normal “Joe Public” will have to pay a charge of £5 per day at current pricing which doesn’t take into account inflationary increases.

Some useful links and information for you:

City Council Proposal Download
City Council Online Survey (watch out for closed and / or misleading questions & note that this is very difficult to find on the City Council website)

City Council Road Show Locations (watch out for odd opening times)

• The small hall, Guildhall, Cambridge - December 11 - 3-9pm
• The recreation ground, Histon and Impington - December 12 - 3-9pm
• The dining hall, Chatteris Community College - January 10 - 4-9pm
• King Edward VII Memorial Hall, High Street, Newmarket - January 21 - 3-9pm
• Sawston Village College, Sawston - January 23 - 3-9pm
• Commemoration Hall, Huntingdon - January 24 - 3-9pm
• The Grafton centre, Cambridge - January 26 - 9am-5pm
• The Grafton centre, Cambridge - January 27 - 11am-4pm
• Trumpington park and ride, Cambridge - January 30 - 6.30-8.30am and 5-8pm
• Madingley Road park and ride, Cambridge - January 31 - 6.30-8.30am and 5-8pm
• The Maltings, Ship Lane, Ely - February 5 - 3-9pm
• Haverhill Arts Centre, Haverhill - February 6 - 3-9pm
• The Free Church, Market Hill, St Ives - February 13 - 4-9pm

Link to Contact details for all Cambridge City Councillors including email addresses, postal address and phone numbers: http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/about-the-council/councillors/

Please remember to make your view known, especially directly to the council, and please feel free to come back to the cambridgecongestioncharge.co.uk website and continue contributing.

If I can be of any assistance to you regarding this matter or using the website please do not hesitate to ask.

Best Wishes,

Cambridge Congestion Charge Website Administrator
www.cambridgecongestioncharge.co.uk

So Christmas the holiday season is coming, and as if we needed any more political correctness madness going on, Santas have been warned not to use their age-old “ho ho ho” laugh to greet children as it may be degrading to women.

Santas in Australia’s largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas’s traditional “ho ho ho” greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney’s Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say “ha ha ha” instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.

“Gimme a break,” said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.

“We are talking about little kids who do not understand that “ho, ho, ho” has any other connotation and nor should they,” she told the Telegraph.

“Leave Santa alone.”

A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was “misleading” to say the company had banned Santa’s traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

To echo Julie’s thoughts, gimme a fucking break! I thought the Aussies were chilled, don’t-worry-be-happy people? Are they becoming brainwashed by our Western world political correctness insanity? It’s mindblowingly ridiculous that someone even SUGGESTED that!

Thanks to Celia for finding this article from Sydney APF

Last night, I had a little whingefest about David Cameron’s statement that there are “too many immigrants” coming to Britain, which prompted me to highlight that fully legitimate, well educated migrants like myself didn’t appreciate being included in that statement after all our contributions in taxes and hard work.

This morning, I was very interested when I saw that Tony Sharp, a Conservative councillor for Brickhill Ward in Wellingborough had responded to my post. He quite rightly pointed out that Mr. Cameron’s statement was referring to “low skilled workers” as opposed to Highly Skilled Migrants, who are apparently more welcome. [Welcome to the traffic from the ConservativeHome blog, btw!]

In his comment, Tony mentioned a post he wrote a few weeks ago on the issue some Highly Skilled Migrants are having to deal with. In summary:

The entry criteria was tightened last year. Fair enough, there is nothing wrong with reviewing and updating a policy for new applicants that exists to benefit this country. But in one of the most spiteful, wrongheaded and self damaging decisions yet taken by Labour, it was decided to also apply the new rules retrospectively to those Highly Skilled Migrants (HSM) who had been granted entry under the old rules. Many of the HSM already working here are being told they no longer meet the criteria and are being refused the right to remain.

Now, I’m gobsmacked for two reasons here. The most obvious being that moving the goalpost on existing migrants is just the kind of madness I expect from immigration nowadays. And the second, that the criteria are being tightened. Here’s why that surprises me - When I moved to the UK, I did not qualify for a work visa as Highly Skilled Migrant. University degree in Communication & Marketing, enough funds to support myself, multilingual, no criminal record, people both in Canada and the UK who have known me for a long time and could vouch for me. That wasn’t good enough. But for once, today, I’m happy not to be under the HSM program, because getting the rug pulled from under my feet would set me off on another rant, and no one likes to see that.

In fact, for Mr. Sharp’s benefit and anyone else interested, here’s the breakdown of my progress towards becoming a British Citizen. It’s the long and winding road, as opposed to the HSM program.

1. Dec 2001-Dec 2002: Working Holidaymaker visa - That was nice and easy to get and not too expensive either. They were just getting me hooked, the bastards!
2. May-August 2003: Working Holidaymaker visa was still valid for a few months, so it covered me for that summer
3. May 2004: Planning on moving to the UK permanently on a Highly Skilled Migrant visa, but I was told I did not qualify for it. Thankfully, my gorgeous British man (we were engaged at the time) agreed to scooting the wedding forward a year, so I was granted a fiance visa on the requirement that we got married within 6 months of me arriving in the UK. However, until I was married, I was allowed to reside in the UK, but not work.
4. July 2004: After the wedding, I returned to my favourite place in the world, Croydon, to get a married visa, which finally allowed me to take up employment.
5. August 2006: Two years of marriage, which I now need to prove to my Croydon mates in letters, bills, pictures, holiday tickets. I literally showed up with a suitcase of information, yet they still looked at me like I was some suspicious drug smuggler with a fake marriage arrangement. But I was granted a leave to remain visa (basically permanent residency).
6. We’re now in August 2007 and it’s now up to me to apply for British Citizenship, but after the circus which I’ve described above, I’m in no rush to go do the Britishness Test. I consider myself as British as some people who’ve lived here all their life: I say knackered, bloody, can’t be arsed, I can tell a good pint from North American swill, I watch Red Dwarf, Peep Show and Spaced. I whinge about the Tube every time I go into London. I’ve passed my UK driving license on the first go. What more do you want? Oh, for me to go answer a handful of pub quiz trivia questions on the history of Britain to prove I’m really Britanicised? Well… bollocks to that for now. I’ll travel on a Canadian passport!

All this to say, low skill or high skill, it’s a pain to migrate to the UK, and I would love to see an improved process so that others like me don’t have to go through this chaotic process.

Evening kids, and welcome to Vero’s daily bitch-out about something or other.

Today, I’ve got a bone to pick with my old friend David Cameron. For those who either a. aren’t based in the UK, b. aren’t interested in politics or c. live under a rock, he’s the leader of the Conservative party.

Immigration over the past decade has been “too high” and needs to be better controlled, Conservative leader David Cameron has told the BBC’s Newsnight. People’s concerns were “not because of different cultures” or the colour of someone’s skin but pressure on schools, hospitals and housing, he said. [BBC News, today]

I won’t go on much about the latter statement, because I agree that there are pressures on schools, hospitals and housing, all of which scare the bejeezus out of me. But just quickly, a. education in the UK, unless you pay vast amounts, your kids will inevitably be truant chavs it seems, b. the hospitals and local clinics I’ve seen so far made me feel sicker when I left than when I’d walked in, a stark opposite to the clinically clean Montfort Hospital or Children’s Hospital I’ve been to in my Canadian youth, and c. house prices are exorbitant and unrealistic, if you’re not already in the UK, just watch an episode of Location x3, you’ll agree.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the UK. I (generally) love people’s less brash and aggressive attitude than one would find in North America. Humour, culture and music, I feel far more in tune with than any North American guff that gets produced. And friends and family, which I have here, I adore too.

What I will go on about is how, as far as legal immigrants are concerned, we have to jump through such hoops to get into this bloody land of King Arthur, Amy Winehouse and fish & chips. After those pirouettes, I expect no less than to be welcomed with open arms.

I’ve paid disgraceful amounts in visa fees (4 visas in total, one more to come possibly), filled in the worst forms I’ve ever seen without complaining, spent some severely traumatising days queuing at the Croydon Home Office, being herded like a sheep and treated like a criminal*. I’m University-educated, well-spoken… usually, and I make enough money to fund myself and give up a generous chunk of my monthly salary in taxes - so hearing that there’s too many immigrants around winds me up just a tad bit.

There’s unquestionably some work to be done in the key areas that keep a “First World” country up and running, there undoubtedly are some immigrants which don’t give to the country as much as they take, but please Davie, don’t paint us all immigrants with the same bold magnolia paintbrush. Look at your own populace and join Ann Widdecombe in her war against the UK’s very own benefits culture. Oh yes, that’d be fun!

Otherwise it’s you and me, handbags at dawn, baby!

[* Andrew presses me to add “and paid some unbelievable parking fees!”]
[Disclaimer: The theories above are provided under Creative Commons license, on an as-is basis and the author takes no responsibilities over any of her own words and accepts that the statements above are like Swiss Cheese. She’s in rant mode tonight.]

“A man has been arrested after being spotted allegedly sitting in a street with a laptop using someone else’s unsecured wireless connection. Is it immoral to do this?”

This BBC article made me laugh. It must’ve been a slow day for the coppers in that area for them to resort to arresting cheeky wifi thieves.

Couldn’t help but pipe up on the topic. I personally don’t think it should be considered a crime to nick somebody else’s open wireless connection. Now, I’m not condoning using your neighbour’s connection to do your illegal bidding or max out the connection on BitTorrent, but the occasional browsing via your phone or laptop when you’re in another area where the nearest legit hotspot is miles away, it’s a pretty inoffensive activity.

What no one has mentioned so far is the risk of using an open connection. It’s quite possible for someone to setup a wireless connection as a trap for naive people who choose to use it for online banking, online shopping or logging in to email and other accounts. Snap their details on it’s way to the World Wild Web and you’ve got yourself some very useful personal information to pay for your next shopping spree.

Now, to the real guilty party - If you’re enough of a doofus to leave your wifi open, you should expect somebody to borrow the connection. In fact, if you’re that doofus, pay your router a little visit and go stick a nice little password on there. It takes 5 minutes and it stops the freeloaders.

Having just read David Pogue’s review of iMovie ‘08, I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t appeal to me and I won’t be rushing out to get a copy. Going from a somewhat buggy but generally nicely featured video editing application to what sounds like a painfully basic piece of software doesn’t strike me as such a great idea.

IMovie ‘08, on the other hand, has been totally misnamed. It’s not iMovie at all. In fact, it’s nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It’s designed for an utterly different task, and a lot of people are screaming bloody murder.

The new iMovie was, as Apple admits, designed primarily for throwing together movies quickly. It lets you scan through a clip to see what’s in it, isolate the good parts, and rapidly drop them into a sequence.

But iMovie 6 was just as good at those tasks; you could scrub through, chop and drag its clips just as easily. Meanwhile, iMovie ‘08 is incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable. The old iMovie offered the essential tools of professional programs like Final Cut Pro without the cost or complexity.

The new iMovie, for example, is probably the only video-editing program on the market with no timeline—no horizontal, scrolling strip that displays your clips laid end to end, with their lengths representing their durations. You have no indication of how many minutes into your movie you are.

What more can I say? Other than “Bollocks to that, I’m sticking to the old one!”

Today, there were far too many news items on which I wanted to comment, so rather than write five separate posts, I thought I’d merge them into one highly artistic drawing.

1. Nokia admits to battery issue: I’ve blogged about this on Taptology earlier this afternoon, but the gist of it is that Nokia is having to recall 46 million batteries due to overheating and a risk of them going pop inadvertently.
2. Kids need to walk to school: In my days, we had to walk uphill both ways in 5ft of heavy snow, but today increasingly overweight kids are getting dropped off at the school door by lazy, time-poor parents, resulting in an all around jolly (read “fat”) family. If there were less cars in the city, we’d be solving the Cambridge Congestion Charge issue at the same time!
3. Mattel recalls toys for containing lead and small magnets: Toys with unsafe small magnets and lead-based paint is cause for a recall, ensuring kids don’t swallow two magnets, as these might be cause for indigestion or magnetised-together bowels. Sorry but I’m finding that mental picture far too funny for my own good… Plus a bit of lead paint is good character building, my dad would’ve said when I was a kid.
4. Too much caffeine: A girl was taken to hospital after ingesting 7 double espressos. Methink she was just doing some necessary preparations and practicing for those long “last night before essay hand-in deadline” sessions.
5. Scotland throws a strop asking for its independence (and some pocket money, plskthx): Another one I covered a little earlier (with a great comment from Liz) - Scotland’s SNP government has set out its plans for a referendum on independence, despite opposition from the other main political parties.

And that’s the news for today! That Canadian Girl: Reading the news so you don’t have to

I find it difficult to believe that no one along the line from high manager to the mailroom guy spoke up to suggest offering e-billing earlier to customers. Is it a requirement to be devoid of any common sense to work at AT&T?!

I can hear the trees crying for their lost brothers and sisters from here.

[Via Engadget]

Like a stroppy teenager, Scotland is stamping its feet, looking for independence. There are plans and talks of a referendum and need for an open conversation. Oh here we go, it’s bloody Quebec all over again!

So let’s open the conversation, then…

Scotland: “We want independence!”
Rest of GB: “Can you sustain yourself financially?”
Scotland: “Well… not really… but…”
Rest of GB: “There. Conversation over. Go to your room and don’t come down til you’ve got those crazy ideas out of your head!”

Last week, I let a bit of steam out about the ridiculous Congestion Charge plans in Cambridge. But, unfortunately for Shona Johnstone, I’m not done with her case. The logic in her radio interview with Andie Harper is like Swiss cheese.

First, “I don’t think many people have appointments at Addenbrooke’s before 9:30am”. I’ve only looked at a few clinics’ opening hours and, while this is far from an exhaustive or scientific attempt at research, the first one, physiotherapy, opens at 8:15am. Shona: 0, The Rest Of Us: 1

Second, Councillor Johnstone seems to have an issue with London commuters. There’s no questioning that Cambridge, also known as the Silicon Fen, is full of life, brimming with successful and exciting businesses, startups in the Science Park and promising students, who often stay to work locally. There’s no brain drain conspiracy, and Cambridge is far from a commuter town. So Shona, take off the tin foil hat, it’s cute but you’re wrong. Shona: 0, The Rest Of Us: 2

This nicely brings me on to my suggested solutions…

Do not include Science Park and Park & Rides into the affected areas: I suspect the P&Rs aren’t going to be included, but based on the zoning map that’s been circulating, they’re not yet excluded clearly enough for my liking. As far as the Science Park goes, it would be completely and utterly bonkers to include it. The businesses settled there have selected it specifically for being on the edge of town, away from the city centre traffic. Staff won’t want to pay a fiver a day to get to work, and employers won’t want to cover the cost of roughly a thousand pounds per staff member. They’ll simply bugger off to Milton, taking their business out of Cambridge. That doesn’t strike me as a positive move for the city.

Improve transportation FIRST to see whether the situation alleviates: Currently, taking the P&R is a pain in the @$$; at peak hours, it’s so packed that you have to wait for the next one, which might not come for another half hour, for all you know! At other times, the entire P&R parking is full, forcing you to change your plans altogether and drive into town. So the logical first step is to invest in public transportation improvements, and make people more aware of the great service available. If it IS better than driving into Cambridge, dodging cyclists and swearing at the price of parking, we’ll do it. We won’t need to be coerced into it.

Finally, if the Congestion Charge must go ahead for the centre of town, give carpoolers an exemption. Anyone who makes an effort to reduce the number of cars on the road by sharing the journey to work, that should be recognised. In Ottawa, certain lanes are reserved for taxis and vehicles containing more than two people, giving carpoolers a valuable advantage over everyone else. That’s a far more positive way of encouraging public transportation and carpooling.

So hopefully, the councillors will see sense and reconsider the Congestion Charge plan, opting for positive reinforcement rather than ripping off the local community. If they don’t, I’ll get my protest hat on, and we’ll go have a little party on Shona’s doorstep, how about that?

If you live in the Cambridge area like I do, you’ve probably also had a heated discussion about the congestion charge which could soon come into place across Cambridge.

Looking at the Congestion Charge map (Downloadable PDF, source article), it’s like someone gave an idiot a big black Sharpie and told them to go nuts on a map of the city - the whole of Cambridge within A14 and M11 boundaries is included in the congestion charge area! That’s inclusive of all the Park & Ride stations, the Science Park and the Addenbrooke’s hospital.

Of course, it’s for the good of the city, since “Cambridge is a medieval city and it simply wasn’t designed for motor cars”, says Shona Johnstone, Sharpie-armed village idiot council leader.

Sure, I appreciate that the center of Cambridge - in my eyes defined as the Grafton Centre and Lion Yard area - isn’t made for high traffic density. I also appreciates that this only applies to the hours between 7:30 and 9:30 in the morning.

But the Science Park? The Park & Ride areas? You’ve got to be kidding me! Isn’t the whole point of those being on the edge of town keeping cars outside of city centre and encouraging the use of such services?

I’m reasonably convinced that the owners of buildings in the Science Park will come out with pick axes against Johnstone, and that these areas will be excluded from the final ruling, but someone still thought it was worth putting forward the suggestion to include ALL of Cambridge in the Congestion Charge area. This leaves me with that niggling feeling you get when you sense that idiocy might still prevail over simple common sense, and that a repeated headdesk motion may be the only thing you’ll be left with.

Cambridge Council is wasting its breath on me trying to tell me it isn’t doing it for the revenue they can get from the thousands of people who enter the boundaries of the city every morning. Why else would it include high density, yet city-fringe areas? We’re not the ones wrecking havoc amongst the pretty stone streets of town centre. The only bloody benefit I see is that they might get cyclists off Mill Road.

So if you’re as convinced as I am that Cambridge needs to look at alternatives before dipping into our collective wallet, take action! You’ll find the petition against the Congestion Charge here and the Facebook group dedicated to discussing the issue here. The “official” Cambridge Congestion Charge discussion group is also a good place to go vent your frustration and find out what actions can be taken.

I would suggest that Cambridge look at the OC Transpo bus system in Ottawa, Canada - my hometown - amongst some, for tips on how to do a better job at offering us a more suitable public transportation service. I never appreciated OC Transpo until I came to the UK and realised that most towns have completely disjointed, technologically-incompetent companies running the show, leaving us standing in the cold rain - literally. Even in bloody mid-July!

Oh no, now I’m getting started on the weather, I really better stop here.

Nigerian schoolchildren who received laptops from a U.S. aid organisation have used them to explore pornographic sites on the Internet, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Thursday.

NAN said its reporter had seen pornographic images stored on several of the children’s laptops.

Well, what? Did you expect otherwise?

[From Reuters, via gapingvoid on Twitter]

Get your wellies, raincoats and a small boat. You’re going to need it tomorrow according to MetCheck. A quick search for Cambridge is forecasting over 60mm of rain tomorrow morning.

Thank Dog, I live at the top of a hill!

If I have to read any more iPhone-related news, I’m going to be sick. Getting through my RSS reader feeds today involved catching up with posts going back about three days. And no joke, I think at least 75% of posts were iPhone news.

There’s been so much Kool Aid drinking that, as Hugh points out, people have hardly noticed that someone’s trying to blow up London.

Please tell me about kittens and pretty things instead.

On the eve of the launch of the iPhone in the US, I thought I’d finally come out clean with my views on it.

[Yes, I know you’re all sick to death of hearing about the iPhone, but bear with me; I’ve been quiet about it since the day it was announced, and even today, I haven’t completely made up my mind on how I feel about it, and I need to verbalise my thoughts.]

It’s going to be a shiny, sleek and unique gadget. It’s going to take the world by storm, and wallets by the throat. We’re all going to drool over it, have a flick at the screen and a poke at the SDK (well not me, but you know…) Oh and we’re going to hear about it for a few more bloody months…

I want to wish the iPhone into being as good as we all hope it will be, but I can’t help but have some reservations.

First, that’s one great big screen to try and protect. Don’t know about you, but my phone, my keys and my lipglosses often have happy little tea parties in the bottom of my handbag, and I’m not sure the iPhone would be keen on the company. Granted the plastic screen has been replaced with a tougher glass one, but even while protected in a big iPod sock-type-thing, it’s a big screen against which pressure can be applied by a not-so-careful owner.

Also, the battery life is bound to be pretty poor with such a screen to power, regardless of their claims (scroll down this article for the comparison). I already found Shitbrick* and my N95 to suck the life out of the battery something senseless the moment I used the web browser, so while they’ve upped the claimed battery life, I struggle to believe that it’ll really be that great.

But my main concern is really, honestly… just how long it’ll be before I can get my greasy mitts on an iPhone… Not necessarily OWN one, but have a good little play for a few days and decide whether we’re made for each other.

Until then, however, I’m thoroughly enjoying the company of my wonderful and versatile N95. *cradles N95 in her arms* Don’t worry you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, little thing! It’s lived up to expectations, and continued to amaze me. Will the iPhone also live up to expectations?

Well, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow morning, won’t we?

[* That’s the loving name I gave to my N70 after it started throwing a wobbly at random, telling me to “Close down applications. Running out of memory!” when nothing was open, then being too busy throwing that wobbly to let me calm it down. What a pile of crap, paperweight at best!]

These days, so many companies skimp on customer service, hiring teenage-bots who can’t make decisions in-store or outsourcing to a call centre that’s so disconnected from reality, there’s no hope of finding help there. And inevitably, it results in unhappy customers.

Back in the good ol’ days, I recall being told “Please a customer, they’ll tell at most 7 people. Anger a customer, and they’ll tell 21 people.” That was pre-blog. We all know that, with the cozy little designer soapboxes we call blogs, we can now amplify that message. Seven becomes a few dozen, and 21 becomes many thousands. I should know, I gave Red Letter Days its fair share of bad press a couple of years ago.

Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer recounts the events of the past few days where Terry Heaton buys a $269 digital camera to find out the box is empty once he gets home. CompUSA tried to play dumb with him, refusing to refund his money and saying he should’ve checked the box before going home, but Terry broadcasted his experience and, while he didn’t manage to get the attention of anyone with half a brain at CompUSA the day of his complaint, promptly got the attention of thousands of Diggers, BoingBoing readers and FoxNews readers.

Terry’s short but eventful past few days in more details here.

If you’re part of your company’s marketing team, and even if you aren’t, is YOUR company doing everything it can to keep customers happy? If not, make it your job to remind those in charge that without customers, there’s no business happening, so treat ‘em well!

Lately, I’ve been getting a bit sick of staring at a screen all day. Email in, email out, do this, do that. Blergh!

But looks like Google has solved my problem, again! Gmail Paper is a new service, just arrived to the UK after some US trials, which allows you to request paper copies of your emails. These are delivered in 2-4 business days, leaving you the alternative of reading all your mail on paper.

And for those who are concerned about the environment, you needn’t worry, they thought of everything. “Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier.”