Paul Hinks' Blog

So at 10:00 am this morning all internet news services seemed to seize up on the weight of people trying to get a glimpse of the new Apple iPad. Pretty much all the live data feeds suffered outages from the pure volume of requests they were getting. And as Apple’s own slide proclaimed, “the last time a tablet was this anticipated it had commandments on it.” But I will say that after watching the intermittent updates coming out of the Yerba Buena centre I was a little disappointed. I’m not sure what they could have announced that would have come close o living up to they hype, but the super-sized iPhone they demoed certainly didn’t. But looking again at the demos and videos (especially this one on apple.com) makes me thing that maybe I misjudged it. It will certainly make a better e-reader than Stanza on the iPhone. I almost want one. If I’m honest I think I’m almost certainly going to get one. I just can’t help thinking that I’m getting a little ripped off.

I’ve been using Google Voice for a while now and I’m pretty pleased with it. There are a few limitations that I’d like to see improved on but in general it’s a great service. And I’ve got a solution for people who want to port their number to Google Voice, which isn’t officially supported, at least yet.
First the limitations. I don’t think my use case is the typical one that the service was designed for. I want to manage the entire household’s calls, directing different callers to different household members, whereas I think the service was designed primarily for a single person with multiple phone numbers. So I end up with lots of groups of callers, some of which call one set of phones and some of which call others. The restrictions on redirecting to another Google voice number really starts to rankle here because it would simplify some of these rules quite dramatically.
One change that would make my life a lot easier would be to forward groups of numbers rather than individual numbers. For example, all unknown or 800 numbers to voicemail. Or to selectively enable do not disturb – allowing calls from certain groups or registered numbers to go through and blocking all others, for example.
I had one instance of apparent system failure, where all incoming calls rang all registered numbers indiscriminately rather than following the routing rules, but otherwise the system seems to work pretty well.
As for number porting, I have found a simple solution. I ported my phone number to callcentric, on their pay-per-call plan, and set up a forward to my Google voice number. I then set up another account (configured to display the caller id of my original number) for making outgoing calls. Since the original number never has calls made on it, it is essentially parked for free at Callcentric, and the new number I actually make calls on (also with Callcentric, but I’m always on the lookout for better deals) is masquerading as that number as well. It’s working very well so far, I’ll give further reports in the near future.

It’s out – get it here.

I’ve had comcast cable and broadband for a few months now. The broadband service is fast (when it works) although it seems that DNS services are slow and the overall effect is pretty sluggish. But nothing has been bad enough to make me put in the effort to change providers. Recently we moved house, and the guy who connected us up decided to give us a new cable box and modem, although he left the old ones with us for some reason. I called them last week to get somebody out to pick up the old ones, and to run a new cable while he was there.
I got home last night to find out that neither my cable or broadband service worked. I called comcast and was shuttled between about ten people before reaching a tech support person who told me that he could see that my services had been cancelled by someone in billing because my equipment had been returned. This was almost funny, but he said that since billing was closed he could not do anything about it, I’d have to call back in the morning. A simple database update and he’s be able to turn it back on in five minutes, he said. Thus I got an entire evening without broadband. But then this morning I call billing who tell me that I was the one who cancelled the service, that I have no equipment because their system shows it was returned, and that it will require a technician visit to the house with new boxes to restore service. I protest that I have boxes – please just mark the account as opened and transfer me to somebody with a brain in tech support. Nothing doing. I got nowhere with the guy for five minutes (Him: “Please give me the serial number of your box” me: “I’m at work and can’t give it to you” Him: “So you don’t have a box”). I finally called him an idiot and demanded to talk to a superior, at which point he cut me off. What does it take to get a company to employ reasonable intelligent, or even remotely helpful, people to answer its phones? Anyway, I’m going to calm down a little and try again. But I’m also going to order DSL from speakeasy about whom I hear nothing but good things, so I really will be canceling comcast in about two weeks.
[ad]

I’ve been looking at some of the ratings Apple has assigned to the apps on its iPhone AppStore. Yesterday I found a recipe book rated 17+, which I assumed to be a mistake. Today I found several other recipe apps rated 12+ – the common theme seems to be anything that references alcohol gets you a 12+ minimum, with occasional 17+s probably depending on the reviewer. You have to wonder how many Mormon reviewers they’ve got. Although there are guides to making cocktails that are only rated 12+, so I really want to know what kicked that recipe book to 17+. Other random notes – a harmless looking CRM client (TopFloor HighRise Client) gets a 17+ for, amongst a long list of other things, “Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References”. It doesn’t look like it’s CRM for crack dealers, but just maybe it is. Healthcare and fitness has a lot of quit smoking apps rated 17+, which is tough if you’re under 17 and want to stop smoking. In other categories referring to alcohol seems to be the best way to get a 17+ (although the rules seem inconsistent and some are rated 12+). The largest selection of 17+s is in the lifestyle section, where the dating and bikini apps are joined by one that creates Marijuana advocacy letters (presumably because that’s really hard to do when you’re stoned) and a couple of interfaces to Craig’s List. More as I find ‘em…
[ad]

The introduction of age ratings to the iPhone appstore recently made a lot of people think that some of the problems over app blocking that have made the headlines lately might be solved. After all, if I submit my app and say that it has an 17+ rating, shouldn’t Apple just take my word for it and post it without even rating it? A little simplistic perhaps but Apple really don’t need to get involved with censoring 50000 plus apps. The model just doesn’t scale. Unfortunately it looks like there may be few teething problems with the new system. Unless the app calling itself “Easy Recipes – Food & Drink” is hiding something that neither its description nor its many positive reviews are hinting it, it seems strange that it gets a 17+ (the highest) rating. The reason is apparently “Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References”. I haven’t bought a copy of the app (I’m tempted but not that tempted) but I really want to see what they’re cooking. Or is it possible that a few too many recipes contained alcohol and either a very uptight employee or a too thorough automated scanner set the rating?

You can see the app for yourself in iTunes.

MacWorld have launched their appguide site for iPhone apps. I think this raises the bar on appstore scrapers – it displays a lot of information and makes it simple to find cool apps. And the editorial content adds a lot of value too – there are just too many apps out there to navigate without some kind of guidance. And they’re giving away iTunes gift cards for reviews – of course they can’t restrict it to purchasers only as Apple can so it’s open to abuse, but historically they’ve been pretty hard on spammers and abusers so we’ll have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Check it out.
[ad]

Typical building in Bradford

Originally uploaded by paulhinks

Bardford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, that is. Found it almost by accident when driving home from Somerset. Very well preserved old town, lots of small cobbled streets. We felt quite at home, almost as nice as Hampstead.