Roamer.com

The Zombie Apocalypse has begun … Maybe

Roamer — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:23:59 +0000

Well guys ‘n gals, it seems like all the requests for council’s Zombie Apocalypse plans that were submitted in the UK may have given us a head start, as it seems that the flesh eating zombies have started to show themselves … in Miami – take a look at the news report here

Get your zombie defence kit sorted out soon – just in case!

-Roamer.

The Apprentice 2012 (UK) – Jane McEvoy – seen on Apprentice previously

Roamer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:38:40 +0000

Ever usince the first episode of The Apprentice 2012 (UK) I thought I recognised Jane McEvoy (Who was fired in episode 4) from somewhere….. and then I remembered, she was in an episode of The Apprentice Ireland (Season 3 Episode 9) as she was the owner of one of the Irish companies (McEvoy Family Foods) who’s products were re-branded and marketed to Spar, and she had quite a few things to say about the pitch and branding from what I can remember, so for anyone who is interested here’s a link to part of the episode she was in 2 years ago in The Apprentice Ireland S03E09 part 2

Now, I wonder if her involvement with The Apprentice Ireland might have helped her with getting on to The Apprentice (UK) ? Or indeed by the state of the package design they had in the Spar task they maybe should have thought twice

;

-Roamer.

Twitter network fail

Roamer — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:18:10 +0000

Today at around 1pm utc Twitter crashed out and hasn’t returned yet, at least to me. There have been some reports that people using tools such as the Seesmic desktop have been able to continue tweeting, but for me using Tweetdeck on the iPhone every just comes back as a big fat fail

Here’s hoping that they are able to pull the service back together soon, and when they so, please follow us @roamerdotcom

Update as of 16:19 BST

Twitter is current under a denial of service attack, their last update on the Twitter status page suggests that the site is back up, but currently I’m still unable to get any response in Tweetdeck or their main website.

Update as of 17:10 BST

It looks as if Twitter has returned, although if they are still under a ddos attack we could lose service anytime, but for the moment it’s back, and I’ve got Tweetdeck back and functioning well.

-Roamer

iPhone 3gs – more data device, less phone

Roamer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:34:05 +0000

Since getting my iPod Touch 2g back in March, the only thing that bugged me was that if I needed to use it outside the range of a usable wifi point I had to start Joiku on my Nokia N95, which worked well but also ran my N95 battery down quickly – and my N95 barely lasts a 12 hour day lol. So, I came to the decision that I wanted an IPhone, and it just so happened that the new iPhone 3gs was going to launch a few weeks after deciding to buy one not long to wait, but, contract or pay and go?

After a lot of weighing up options, I came to the conclusion that pay and go was the way to go. You see, I’ve got a great contract with Orange – after being a customer for 14 years! LoL – so I really only wanted to use it as a data device, and, as O2 in the UK give 12 months free Web and WiFi it was a no brainer. Now the other reason for not wanting to take a contract was that Apple’s release cycle for the iPhone seems to be about every 12 months, and I didn’t want to be stuck with 6 months to run when the next iPhone comes out. I decided that as I’d get on fine with my 8gb iPod touch, I’d just get the 16gb 3gs instead of the 32gb version. On Pay and Go the phone sadly was £441, plus a minimum £10 top up to be able to activate the free Web & WiFi, so it ended up costing me £451. This of course is a lot of money to spend out, but as I’ll be wanting to upgrade as soon as the next version comes out I’ll keep this one in good shape by using a full screen protector, and a Belkin skin and then sell it on eBay boxed with all the original parts for probably £300 depending on price drops in the meantime, so the next upgrade will probably end up costing me around £150, and for that I’ll have the latest version with web access for another 12 months – as longer as they keep offering it of course).

All on all, it’s worked out very well, and now my only other decision is which phone I should replace my Nokia N95 with, as it’s looking worse for wear and I’m overdue a free upgrade by quite a few months lol.

Ipod Touch -a wonderful device

Roamer — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:27:19 +0000

Well, after having my Ipod Touch 2g for 10 days I can confidently say that it’s one of my best purchases in a long while. I now use the device every single day without fail, and to say that I like the email client on it would be understating it

Long time no typing

Roamer — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:57:22 +0000

Well, here I am, 9 months or so since I last posted up on here, mainly due to the fact that I’ve been getting stuck in to a new development system at my day job, and it’s taken me away from doing alot of things, but now i’m going to start dedicating some time to posting new topics on here, and a few new things besides.

I’m currently looking into the technical aspects of setting up a podcast using Skype to do the voip conference calling, headset/microphone selection which i know TheDoc will have something to say about, and loads of other things as well. I’m homing in on the Plantronics DSP-550 as the headset choice currently, but i’m still open to suggestions from anyone out there, as i’m a noob at the tech side of podcasting. Also any ideas on the recording side of things, which Skype recorder would you recommend?

Answers on a postcard please

QXL to close UK auction site.

Roamer — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:22:16 +0000

QXL have announced today their intention and timeline for shutting down their UK auction site qxl.co.uk

They state the the site will cease trading on friday 30th May 2008, the last date for listing items will be the 9th May, and the last day to bid and buy items will be the 19th May.

Now although I have had a qxl account for many years I have never actually bought or sold anything due to the fact that i’ve found eBay to be much better as far buyers are concerned.

What are peoples thoughts? Are you going to miss QXL? Thoughts on why etc are all welcome

- Roamer

Freesat to launch on 6th May

theDoc — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:48:44 +0000

Freesat, the free to air satellite service from the BBC and ITV, is set to launch on May 6th. The service will provide a Sky style 7-day EPG with Freesat branded receivers available initially from Grundig (standard definition) and Humax (high definition), with a high definition PVR available from Humax in a few months time and receivers from other manufacturers expected later. Initially Freesat will be available from Comet, Currys, Dixons and John Lewis, but after the launch period receivers will be available from a wider range of retailers. Freesat will particularly appeal to people wanting an HD receiver or a PVR as these currently incur a subscription charge from Sky.

Amazon aStore on your own domain – Search Engine Friendly too!

Roamer — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:30:21 +0000

Hi all,

Ok, after a long time of debating this, I’m finally at a point where, in a few days, I want a few people to beta test a new piece of software, and hopefully a lot of people out there who use Amazon’s astore offering will like the sound of it.

As we all know, ever since Amazon launched astore, the problem has always been how to make the store appear on an actual domain instead of the normal http://astore.amazon.com/blah-20 or http://astore.amazon.co.uk/blah-21 domain. Alot of people use the iFrame method, which – although it allows you to integrate it successfully – doesn’t allow search engines to traverse your store at all, thus you will never get any traffic from search engines. also you can’t integrate any advertising systems into the astore to generate extra revenue.

These are some major hang-ups to people making money without having to have the technical know how to write their own solution, or having to pay $99 for a product such as Associate-o-Matic – In itself a very good product – but what if you could “domain-ize” your Amazon astore for a much smaller outlay? sound good? then read on

I have developed a piece of software, which is still in alpha testing, but soon to be released to a small beta group. This software will allow you to have your Amazon astore on your own domain, have advertising units to generate extra income, and all for much less than any other system out there right now. This will give you a fully crawlable store, so that with a bit of extra content per section – which it will also let you put it, you should get some good search engine results

So, I’d like to offer this software out to the first 5 people who comment for free as long as I get some good user feedback, and of course I’ll give the 5 people full support to get them up and running

So please, if you’re interested in it, comment below with an email address and the first 5 will definately be the beta testers, oh, and if anyone can come up with a name for the product, the person who comes up with the best name will get a copy free of charge once it’s released, and of course we’ll use your suggestion as the product name

-Roamer.

Virgin Media – Customer Dis-Services

Roamer — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:14:17 +0000

Well, hopefully this will be my last ever posting about Virgin Media.

I was going through my credit card bill yesterday, and found that they had charged my for a month after I’d switched to my new provider ….. so a phonecall was is order.

First customer service rep I talked to seemed to be helpful, put me on hold for a moment, and then the phone was picked up again, I was asked for my telephone number and hay presto – I was told that it wasn’t a Virgin Media Telephone number – well no, I was ringing up for an ADSL billing problem LoL – then she forced me to take down a number for their customer services – the one which I had already rung, and yes, she was telling me that I had to ring back…… not a happy bunny ….. I basically said that she was the second person I had talke to and that I’d like her to redirect my enquiry back to someone who can deal with an ADSL billing query…. hold music …. don’t you just hate hold musak?

So, finally I get through to someone, and they sem to be helpful, after asking why my “transaction date” had changed to the 27th in Feb instead of the 28th which it had been for ages, he said he didn’t know (no surprise there I guess), and I asked why they had taken a payment on the 28th Feb when I’d switched to my new provider on the 12th Feb, he said that it was basically because my contract billing date was the 26th of the month, and they’d therefore billing me until my end date of the 28th – great, ok, fine, contract is a contract, but then if that was the case then why was has the transaction date changed? dunno was the response….

And then, the greatest Virgin Media money maker (whilst customers are leaving them), are you reading closely? THEY DON’T REFUND UNLESS THE CUSTOMER SPECIFICALLY ASKS FOR IT. Yes, you heard me correctly, if YOU don’t ring them, THEY will not give you YOUR money back. I questioned this policy with them and he stated that they couldn’t do it as they didn’t know where the money should be paid back to as they wouldn’t know if a card was still valid or not – very odd, since they’d just TAKEN money from MY credit card, so they KNEW it was valid, and he also stated that if they took payment via Direct Debit that they couldn’t refund to a DD – why he was telling me this I’ll never know, but he seemed to need to tell me even though I’d only EVER paid by credit card, and therefore a refund was never an issue to them. Also if giving a refund was such a minefield – wy didn’t they try making contact with myself and find out where I would like MY money refunded to? He said it wasn’t their policy to do so, and it was up to the customer to contact them to gain their refund.

I told him to refund onto the card and also told him that I was VERY glad to have moved away from Virgin Media, I mean, they have kept hold of money that hould hae been refunded to me for over a month, and think about how many other people may be in the same situation as me currently, and how many of them do you think will know that they have to contact them in order to gain the refund that they are entitled to? not many, and so Virgin Media are able to stash this cash and earn interest from it, but of course when you get a refund you don’t get the interest on the money you are owed as well, so as far as Virgin Media goes, it’s a win win situation for them.

Thankfully, I’m away from Virgin Media now, and am very glad, my own company is now supplying a great service to myself, and I will soon be launching this service to the general public, at a good price, for a good service and a good transfer limit with a HUGE off-peak usage as well. Keep reading, or indeed subscribe to the feed in order to find out more when it launches

-Roamer