Dissapointed in O2
But what is really annoying to me is that by not providing any reasonable upgrade path, in my case O2 are potentially loosing money. Let me explain. If I was to upgrade to the new iPhone I would most likely be expected to pay a fee for the new phone, let's say the £185/£88 and also take out a new 18/24 month contract. However I would then immediatley donate my current iPhone 3G to my dear wife and take out an additional 18/24 month contract so that she can use the old phone. However based on the current upgrade options (or should I say lack of?) I am not likely to upgrade, and may also consider jailbreaking my current phone in 8 months time and saying goodbye to O2 . Instead O2 could have had £185/£88 from me, another 18/24 months of £35 and a second (totally new customer) 18/24 month contract of £30/35 per month without even having to issue a new phone to my wife, the new customer. I may even have handed back my T-Mobile mobile broadband and moved to O2 for and extra £15 per month to use the 'thether' function on the new iPhone.If you have any thoughts/feeings regarding upgrading please let me know.
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Wot no Brent!!
Hope you like the new site theme? There are still some tweaks to finish it off but I’m feeling motivated again so hopefully they will be finished off and also for the same reason you should find me posting more often. In addition to this, my personal site, I’ve also been working offline on a new project, which hopefully you should get to see around August/September this year. I’m not going to give much away right now, but it will be Apple Mac related. As I get closer to the launch date I will start to post more details and project updates here.
Back to this site, I’ve created a DISQUS account which I have decided to use as my comments service for the site. You will only be able to add comments to this and future posts. So far I’ve not added the functionality to older posts, thats not to say I won’t in the future, but for the moment I’m undecided. I’d really appreciate some comments from you on your thoughts about the new site theme.
Are you on twitter? If not why not? If you are please add me to your list of follows as I will be using twitter to send out updates about the site and also for the new project when I’m ready to start talking about it. My twitter name is brentvardy.
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Announcement
Having made the changes to my website especially to the way I now have two feed options to subscribe to I thought it important to announce the changes so that subscribers can check that they are subscribing to the correct feed. I apologise for an inconvenience these changes may have caused. The new feeds are as follows:
Podcast Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/brentvardy
Blog Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/challengelogic_blog
New year, New look
I took this picture in September when on our holidays in Cornwall. It was taken in the new Costa Coffee store in Newquay during a much earned break ;). Anyways I was tidying up some photo folders on my iMac and came across this picture the other day and thought that's just what I need to finish off my new website's look. I've been working on the new site for sometime now and well here it is.
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DVD Sale
Still Raining!
It's still raining...I guess it looks like I'm going to get my third book read this week. My next book is The Google Story by David A. Vise! Watch out for my posting letting you know what I thought of it.
Trevethoe
As I've previously
mentioned one of our favourite places is Cornwall in
the South West of the United Kingdom. One day we hope
to be in a position to move and make a life down
here. We are currently spending some time in a place
called Lelant just a few miles from St Ives. We are
staying in a small peaceful and relaxing cottage off
the beaten track at Trevethoe
Farm. We've been visiting Trevethoe farm for a
few years now and can recommend it to anyone who
wants some time away from the hustle and bustle of
working life today. It's the perfect place to
escape to. The weather hasn't been fantastic
during this stay but we have definately recharged
our batteries and caught up on our reading and
podcasts :).
You can find me on iTunes
Yes I'm now listed in the Podcast Section on iTunes. Click here to Launch iTunes and take a look at my page. Please post me some reviews! Oh and if you haven't already subscribed then you can do so from within iTunes. All my videos are will play on your Video iPod.
Enough is Enough
California: Road Trip
During December last year, it seems so long ago now, we spent 15 days on a road trip visiting the states of California, Nevada & Phoenix in the U.S.A. In all we travelled over 2000 miles from a few feet below sea level to elevations around 8000-9000 feet. Our trip started by driving from our home down to London where we boarded our flight to Los Angeles. We picked up our vehicle at LAX and drove a short distance to our first hotel in Newport beach. It doesn't look much like what you watch on the TV show 'The O.C.'
Read More...New Ipod
My latest addition to my iPod collection arrived today, the new iPod Shuffle. Can you believe how small it is. As a whole I'm generally pleased with my purchase, however I do have one problem with the new Shuffle. Unfortunately it doesn't facilitate the same connector standard on all my other iPods meaning I can't share a cable and therefore requiring a non-existent free USB port. Looks like I'm going to have to do some unplugging and swapping around of cables each time I want to update tracks or charge.
One year on ...
As I said lots of stuff has been going on since my last post and here's a quick update.
1 - Spent time developing a number of large web sites.
2 - Attended multiple training courses in London and Leeds.
3 - Visited Cornwall.
4 - Visited Monaco.
5 - Spent hours writing a Linux Training course.
Finally I've made some changes too which have taken a lot of my time sorting. The first was the decision to close my part time web business, and the second was to accept a new, more demanding and hopefully more rewarding job role hoping it will change my quality of life and enable me to spend more time with Rachel. I also now plan to spend more time doing the activities and work I enjoy rather than, as I have for the last few years, spending all my time outside of work doing more work (web design). The intention is that these changes will enable me to get more video and photography taken, edited and published. I'm also hoping to fit in more personal web design and other personal programming projects.
Bank Holiday Monday
Well the plan was to use the extra day off this weekend to get finished all that stuff I've been putting off for the last few weeks. That all went out the window when we put on an epsiode of Alias Season 3 to watch whilst having a snack at lunchtime. Almost four and a half hours (7 episodes) later we finished the series. Looks like I need to order Series 4 now!
12" Powerbook
Happy Easter
30th Birthday
That's right today, April
Fools Day, is Apple's 30th Birthday. Started in 1976
by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Apple as fought
through rough times to continue to bring us, in my
view, the best Personal Computer to date.
Congratulations!!
I was hoping that there would be some announcement of
some great new product, like a full screen iPod
Video, or new Intel iBook, but it's now looking like
we are going to have to wait until later in the year.
The other rumor roaming the blogs which I was also
hoping was true was that Apple would announce major
discounts for today only when buying a new Apple
product from any of their stores. My car keys and
credit card were on stand by for a quick trip to our
local Apple Store in
Meadowhall for new laptop :).
Hello Again
As I've moved to a new Intel mac, and Apple have still not released universal binaries for their video editing tools you are not going to see any new video posts still for a while. I've got a couple of projects started on FCE and have made the decision to wait rather than trying to recreate what I've started and finish in iMovie. I've still got hundreds of photographs though I can continue sorting and posting, so please start visiting again on a regular basis. And if you haven't already please subscribe.
Almost back up and running
Hard disk problems: Update
While you are waiting for my new posts why not check out my previous posts using the archives or take a look through the video and photo archives?
Video Ipod
I've been hanging my nose over one of these since they were released, just a week or so after I'd purchased my nano. Then today we visited Meadowhall in Sheffield and guess what? There is now an Apple Store there so I was convinced to purchase the Video iPod. It is great and hopefully will help me use my time better. I can now watch those many Video Podcasts I subscribe to whilst on my lunch break at work, whilst traveling and just about anywhere. having only played around with it for a few minutes so far I'm very impressed with the quality and just how watch-able the small screen is. My only concern is that all the video podcasts I subscribe to use codecs which are compatible and will play back ok on the video ipod.
Hard disk problems
Intel Mac
Apple announced the intel path last year and now it's reality. Apple have just announced the new MacBook Pro. Up to 4 times quicker than the current G4 PowerBooks the new Apple laptop is powered by an Intel dual-core processor. Like the latest iMacs the MacBook Pro also comes complete with built in iSight. Costing from £1429 inc VAT here in the UK, it starts shipping in February providing you place your order now. Looks like I need to start saving.
PM and Videoblogging
Happy New Year
Winter Returns
We got back from our Christmas break in St Ives, Cornwall where we have had lovely glorious sunhine albeit it very cold only to be greeted by wintery snows. The photograph to the left here shows the view from my house at about 08:30 this morning. Anyway I digress, my main reason for this post was to simply wish you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2006. I would also like to thank everyone who sent us gifts and cards. They were great thanks, we finally only got around to opening them late last night. If I feel up to it later I'm going to try and publish at least the photos taken in St Ives and try to make a start editing the footage ready to be post.
More Pain
What joy Christmas will be!! If I don't post before...
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
Stapleless
As you can see in comparison to the photo take just a few days after the operation below the wound looks much better now and is healing well. The next hurdle is starting the physiotherapy next Tuesday when I'm hoping I can loose the shoulder strap and start using my arm again.
Post Operation
I still can't use my right arm/hand and although I have some exercises to do every couple of hours, given by the Physiotherapist, I have to keep the shoulder strapped up until I have the staples removed and the hospital starts me on physiotherapy. The strap is also a must so that the tendons and nerve can heal before they get used again. The Staples are being removed 16th December and my first physiotherapy assessment is 20th December.
More Waiting
Newark Hospital
A Week From Hell
This time I was seen by a specialist who gave me some steroid injections and asked that I see him in Newark Hospital next week. I'm now back at home again and am still in immense pain and am unable to use my right arm/hand. I just hope the specialist can do something when I see him next week.