A new(ish) start
So, here we go - a new domain for a new start. I've kept a few entries from the old site that were popular with Google search results, and kept some of the pages too, but most of everything else has been cleared out for a fresh start.
This layout is simple (and has some funnies going on with links...but I'll get to that!), but I think it fits the overall tone of the site from this point. I want to focus on things that interest my readers; I want to talk more about the differences between Chrome and Firefox than the differences of what I had for lunch today and what I had yesterday. People just don't care about that sort of thing!
Anyway. Sit down, grab a drink, make yourself at home. If you want to subscribe to the feed, it's a different URL to the last site (click ye olde orange feed icon, top left) so you will need to resubscribe if you were subscribed before. Sorry about that, but I did want to keep things kind of separate.
So yes, here's to a long and happy web life. :D
HTC Wildfire - a review
So, I have been looking for a new phone and was thinking about getting the iPhone 4 or the HTC Desire. I was quite fond of my previous HTC, the T-Mobile branded G1 (aka HTC Dream), but it was crashing a lot. I ended up with an HTC Wildfire (that's it over there on the left. Pic of box taken with phone. Wheee).
Now, the Wildfire was not a choice as such - I went into the shop to see what deals I could get on plans, I wanted to go for the cheapest plan I could and see what phones came with it, if any. In the end I stayed with my current network (T-Mobile) as they had the best deal on cheap contracts, it seems. They offered me a variety of basic phones, but there were only two Android ones - the T-Mobile Pulse, which looked very nice but had a rather old version of Android on it (older than the version I had on the G1) and while I thought it looked great, I did want something a bit more futureproof. The other Android was the Wildfire, a new addition that had just come out, running Android 2.1 via HTC Sense. I went for it.
I was immediately disappointed by the phone. I expected it to be more or less the same as what I'd been used to; as it was a free phone I hadn't had a chance to try it in-store and kind of regretted that - it wasn't at all the same. For a start, I noticed the lower resolution. The G1 had a 320×480px widescreen (16:9) resolution (the same as the original iPhone's) on a 3.2" screen running at 180dpi. The Wildfire has the same 3.2" screen, but it's a 4:3 resolution of 240×320 (dunno how many dpi, but it's less than the G1), which is about 2/3 what I had before. The colours were not the same either - the Wildfire boasts the same 16-bit colours as the G1 but does not deliver them. I get patchy, dithered colours reminiscent of the old 256 colour system.
No matter, I told myself; I can get used to a smaller screen. It's only then, of course, that I realised that the Android Market wasn't showing me a lot of the apps I used to have installed. I searched for them - nothing. I learned why - a lot of Android apps require the default screen resolution of 320×480, which most of the phones have. The Market won't show items that won't fit on your screen, and even those that do say they'll fit on your screen end up looking very squashed, for the most part.
Then there's HTC Sense, which is HTC's UI on top of Android. Now I'd never been hot on the vanilla Android design, but it was ok and I got used to it. I thought HTC Sense would be a great addition to Android, finally some shininess! ... er, well, not really. The awkward colours mean that it doesn't really work for one, and secondly I'm not sure who designed the HTC Sense UI but it's like HTC took every app on Android and uglified it. Not a fan at all, and I immediately reverted to vanilla Android Home instead of the Sense display. It's a shame, because they have done some rather nice tweaks to some of the apps (the rest, I really wish they'd left alone) but with the ugly interface, I'm really not inclined to use them. That and a lot of the apps are useless anyway - one is "download Navigon" and is nothing more than an advert for a navigation app. Even if you do download Navigon, it doesn't go away. You can't delete it or hide it. Grrr.
One thing I LOVE LOVE LOVE is the fact that I can add my Facebook, Twitter and Flickr contacts, and link them to my phone contacts so that if the person has an updated email/phone number on one of those accounts, it'll update it on my phone. But the problem with that is, once you add those items, Mr Wildfire thinks you will want to be automatically updated of people's statuses/etc when they call you or you call them. Er, no thanks. I'll check my Facebook et al when I feel like it. Oh and note to Mr Wildfire: I set a contact's default number for a reason. I want that number to show up first when I type their name into the recipient field; I don't expect you to list all their numbers in numerical order. That inevitably means I will send things to the wrong numbers, since all landline numbers here start with 01 or 02 and mobiles start 07. That means if I have my friend Bob Jones with a number of 01234 567890 and his mobile number of 07123 567890, when I start typing "Bob" into my recipients, it'll autofill the first number in numerical order - the landline number beginning 01, even though the mobile number is set as his default number. Do not want. Also, I would have thought it would prioritise 'Mobile' numbers over 'Home'/'Work' when texting, as it is more likely I will want to text another mobile than a landline... Eh. Oh, and that's another thing - when you're making a call, it seems the proximity sensor isn't working properly, as my ear pressed a load of stuff on the screen - cut off the call, muted me, etc etc. Hmmm.
And you know the one thing I really wanted on Android - the indication light that flashes different colours depending on what I've received? Ah yes, the Wildfire might as well not have one. It only flashes green (or orange when charging), it doesn't have a multi-colour LED like the G1 and the more expensive phones. Wah :( It also turns itself off after 5 minutes, so if you happen to be in a meeting or some other place where you can't look at your phone every 5 minutes, you'll miss a notification.
But it's not all bad! Honest! I have had the phone a week now and I've actually grown to love HTC Sense's home screen. Still not so hot on the apps (ugly) but the home screen actually fits in much better on the phone than the vanilla Android one. My complaint now is that it eats a lot more battery power :P I got 3 days' battery on vanilla Home, I get a day and a half on Sense, which has more funky widgets and has 7 screens to put them on instead of just 3. The on-screen keyboard took a bit of getting used to, but the predictive text - while largely a rip off of the iPhone's - makes it much easier to use than the version on the G1 (which I hardly used in favour of the slide-out one). I also love the look of this phone - even though I would have preferred it in white (and there IS a white version! It just wasn't available at the store I went to :( ), the grey/black combo looks sleek and professional. It fits snugly in my pocket, unlike the G1 which was a bit too big.
All in all, I have actually grown very fond of this phone and despite the screen resolution/colours and ugly apps (apart from the weather app. That has gorgeous graphics), I'm really glad I got it. I got a cheap contract, and got a cheap (ish. It's not cheap on its own, but compared to the other smart phones) phone with it. For the price I'm paying, I could have expected something that wasn't a smartphone at all, or something that is but was nowhere near the quality of the G1. But I didn't get that, I got something which - yes, it's not as good as the G1, but I'd say it's about 90% the smartphone the G1 was. It may have less of a screen resolution and less colours, but it has almost 4 times the memory and storage space I had on the last phone, as well as an LED flash and brightness sensor. Ok, so the former I don't really use (other than as a torch/flashlight :P ) but I actually really like the latter. The G1 never really did go bright enough... You'd get a bit of sun and that was it - screen was invisible. I've not had any sun yet to try the Wildfire on, but it certainly seems to be able to go much brighter than the G1.
But yes, I'm actually very happy with it now :)
Facebook knows all about you... Even if you don't know about it.
I might be late to this but it's something I discovered recently.
Let's take a fictional character and call them Joe Bloggs. Joe doesn't subscribe to all that fancy schmancy internet nonsense and has no clue what a 'Facespace' or a 'MyBook' is. He checks his email every now and then and might browse the web from time to time, but that's all he really does on the internet.
So imagine his surprise when he gets an email from some Facebook thing telling him he should sign up, because all his friends are on it. He'd dismiss it, only - it really is listing all his friends. How can Facebook know who his friends are? How does it know that Jane Bloggs is his sister and John Bloggs is his father? How does it know so much about him when he knows nothing about it?
The answer is that Facebook collects emails and search habits. You know that 'enter your email details to search your contact list for friends on Facebook' feature? Be careful with it. Facebook keeps all the addresses it finds and associates them with you. If you've got those email addresses in your contact list, they must be your friend, right? Repeat this for all the other members on Facebook who are doing the same thing and Facebook can build up a pretty good picture of who you are.
Facebook also allows you to list various family members on your profile, and if said member doesn't have a Facebook profile, it asks for their email address. Facebook then knows when someone invites you to Facebook that you're the brother of X and the father of Y and whatever else.
Facebook's privacy has come under fire recently and I'm not surprised - I admit to using the email search feature when I first joined Facebook and nowhere do I remember it saying it would collect all my contacts' email addresses and retain them in order to guilt-trip other people into joining. I had another look at it recently (without actually entering my details, of course) and I still didn't see it. Admittedly, I have not read their very long and very complicated privacy policy in some time so it is likely to be mentioned there.
Am I going to delete my Facebook profile after this? I'm not sure. It is a great way to keep in contact with people I haven't spoken to in years but if it's profiling me behind my back, I'm not sure I agree with that. Facebook are by far not the first or only company to do this, of course, but they are so far the most high-profile and media attention-worthy. With millions and millions of members, they can make some hefty $$$ from all this if they really wanted to (and there are rumours that they do want to. Imagine what advertisers could do with that data!). Then again, if I did delete my profile, Facebook never really deletes a profile in case you want to reactivate it. So they've got my info anyway, whether I gave it to them or not, and whether I want it there or not. Fun.
Scary stuff, if you ask me.