Technology Archives - Page 11 of 24 - Antony Simpson is an Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.

Adios Vodafone – After A Nightmare Trying To Upgrade

Friday 19 June 2015 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Recently my old iPhone 5 battery started dropping it’s charge. So as a loyal long term Vodafone customer, one that had been with them for years, I decided to speak to them about an early upgrade. They said I could and I opted for Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus (64GB, GOLD) as a new handset, which they said would be delivered the next day.

After three weeks of telephoning Vodafone customer services practically on a daily basis and receiving many broken promises, I still had no new handset. I felt frustrated, that the order was no further forward and like anything that they said to me on the phone would be a lie. Despite how I felt, I always remained pleasant and patient. But I decided to cancel my telephone upgrade order and re-order the upgrade in store.

My local store had Apple iPhone 6 Plus (64GB, GOLD) in stock. Hurray! But wait, I couldn’t have it because of their IT systems still showing the original upgrade order as open – despite me cancelling it and reassurances from Vodafone customer services on the phone that I would be able order in store. I tweeted my frustration to them, not that the staff in store, on the telephone or on twitter seemed to care.

I’d lost my trust in them. A search online revealed that I wasn’t the only one experiencing issues upgrading. Vodafone’s problems seem to be:

Their IT systems. An order gets canceled because they don’t have the handset in stock, but the order still shows as open and gets stuck.
The warehouse stock levels, warehouse management (in terms of ordering more handsets before they run out) and distribution.
No complaints department or way to escalate order issues to get them sorted.

Up until this experience, Vodafone have always been good with me. But this experience felt like a bad joke. I decided to show them what I thought of this experience by walking away and taking my wallet with me.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Review: Sun Jar by Suck – Disappointing & Flawed Design

Saturday 3 January 2015 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

sun-jar-by-suck-my-photo — My Photo of the Sun Jar I bought myself.

A Jam Jar stores Jam.
A Sun Jar collects and stores Sunshine.
So that you can use it at Night.

…Or so the Sun Jar box says.

The idea is great: use a solar panel to charge a rechargeable battery during the daytime and then when a sensor senses that it’s dark use the battery to power a small LED light bulb.

The Sun Jar features:

Two modes: Auto mode and Charge mode. In auto mode the sensor is supposed to detect when it’s dark and power the light bulb.
A solar panel, rechargeable AAA battery and LED light bulb.
Waterproof – meaning that it can be used both indoors and outdoors.
Comes in a choice of light bulb colours: orange/yellow, blue and pink.
The frosted material gives a glow to the light.

But unfortunately, due to a flawed design the Sun Jar is disappointing and essentially useless. The Sun Jar isn’t bright enough to be used on it’s own as a night light; but switching on any sort of artificial light causes the sensor on the Sun Jar to switch off the LED light bulb. Making the product essentially useless.

What’s annoying is that Suck, the creators of the Sun Jar, could have easily solved this problem. They could have had three modes on the Sun Jar: Auto (use of the sensor), On (sensor off but light bulb lit) and Charge (sensor off and just charging). It’s shocking that they didn’t discover this fundamental design flaw in the product prototypes.

The Sun Jar could be significantly improved by alternating the colours of the lights. This could have been done through each Sun Jar unit having a number of different coloured LED bulbs. It would be even better, if through a switch, the customer could choose what colour light will be produced or set it to random.

My final thought on the Sun Jar is that it was expensive, costing £20. I don’t think I would have felt this was expensive if I had been able to use the product as I intended: to be a night light, along with another night light to give adequate light.

The Sun Jar is available to buy on Amazon, but honestly, I wouldn’t bother until they’ve made significant improvements to the design.

Review soon,

Antony

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20,000+ Visitors in 2014 – Not Bad For A Little Personal Blog! :)

Friday 2 January 2015 / Antony Simpson / 2 Comments

Reading Time: 3 minutes

jetpack-2014-numbers — Jetpack Annual Report 2014 – Crunchy Numbers

The numbers are in and according to my WordPress Jetpack Annual Report in 2014 I had 20,000 views of my blog. Not bad for a little personal blog! Click the image left to see the screenshot. Any image in this post can be clicked for full size.

My hosting provider Vidahost (who you can learn more about here) provide AWStats software. According to AWStats I’ve had (see image below):

58, 101 unique visitors to my blog in 2014.
Who have visited 149,103 times in 2014.
And have resulted in over a million hits in 2014.

antonysimpson.com-awstats-2014 — AWStats from Hosting Provider Vidahost.

The WordPress Jetpack Annual Report reports that my biggest referrers in 2014 were from social media sites Facebook and Twitter:

jetpack-2014-finding — Jetpack Annual Report 2014 – How did they find you?

jetpack-2014-attractions — Jetpack Annual Report 2014 – Attractions

The WordPress Jetpack Annual Report indicate that my five most popular posts in 2014 were:

jetpack-2014-posting-patterns — Jetpack Annual Report 2014 – My Posting Patterns

I’ve really grown my blog in the last few years, with Reviews of books, films and technology seeming to make the big difference to increasing the number of visitors. But what keeps my visitors returning seems to be blogging about my personal life. Below is the result of a readers survey undertaken in 2014. It that shows that readers enjoy the current content I create and would like more of everything. It shows that 80% of readers surveyed said that they would like more personal blog posts:

type-of-posts-readers-survey-2014 — Readers were asked: What sort of blog posts would you like to see more of?

I think these statistics are great. In the next year and beyond I hope to continue to grow my loyal blog readership.

The blog costs money to host and takes up a considerable chunk of my time. So if you have a product or service that you’d like to advertise on the blog, please don’t hesitate to Contact me. Your advert could reach 20,000+ unique visitors a year.

Blog soon,

Antony

Review: My Cats (Dylan & Russell) Enjoy Playing with Automatic Laser Toy by FroliCat

Sunday 16 November 2014 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I haven’t blogged about Dylan and Russell my gorgeous bengal cats in ages. They’ve really grown up, but they are still very playful. Which is why I bought them this Automatic Laser Toy by FroliCat.

The Automatic Laser Toy shoots a red laser across the floor in a circular motion for the cats to chase. It has has four speed settings (slow, medium, fast and variable) and allows you to decide how long playtime is for by setting a timer (5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes).

Dylan and Russell enjoy playing the Automatic Laser Toy game. Here’s a video showing them playing with it:

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The Automatic Laser Toy must be placed in the centre of the room, meaning you have to be careful not to trip on it. It works on AA batteries which is good as it makes it portable, but it does mean that as the batteries get low the Automatic Laser Toy slows down. The internal motor is noisy.But my cats love it!

Every time the Automatic Laser Toy is on Dylan and Russell chase around after the light. If you’ve got cats, yours will love it to. The Automatic Laser Toy by FroliCat is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

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