Posts by Ben Cockburn

3 Mobile also went down at the same time as Facebook and Virgin Media. The Downdetector charts are very, very similar. I wonder if they're all connected?

Broken link to the A300 article?

New iPad icon upscaling

The iPhone 3GS had icons with dimensions 57x57 pixels and the iPhone 4 doubled that to 114x114. iPad 2 to New iPad started with 72x72 and went to 144x144, so although the pixel ratio remains the same and the upscaling requirements seem the same, the iPad 2 icons already had 60% more image detail to spread, giving a less noticeable upscale. Also, I think it was the iPhone 4 iOS release developers have been able to use higher than natural resolution image for their icons, which the iProduct then automatically downscaled to the appropriate size, whereas iPhone 3GS and earlier you had to produce a 57x57 jpg to get it to display, so the images used for the iPad 2 icons may already have contained more detail than you expect.

Business model going strong

Although the UK affiliate networks have largely cleaned themselves of adware affiliates, it's unfortunately still quite common practice, particularly in the European markets where comparable operations had none of the controversy of the silent 'drive-by' installations 180 solutions/Zango and their ilk in the US were culpable of (even if you believed they didn't knew what their affiliates were doing). In addition there are still a lot of 'search engines' and traffic purchase operations that will sell you traffic that is actually sourced from adware-infected computers.

Still, advertisers aren't stupid, none of the big brands want to taint their reputation by association with such underhand practices and the evidence they were influencing a purchase is hard to come by with the adware engines, so eventually these operations will be pushed right to the fringe where only the desperate are prepared to tread.

And another

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=wallsend&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=21.245077,67.675781&ie=UTF8&ll=54.998727,-1.553063&spn=0.005016,0.020599&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=54.998648,-1.552958&panoid=w1j0QT-S1_D1aN5ar9AflA&cbp=12,238.13640096319324,,2,-5.869140624999992

Storm

I've had a Storm as a evaluation for the last couple of weeks and must admit to being disappointed. I'll qualify this by saying I use a Blackberry Curve for work and have been impressed with that phone, and have borrowed an iPod for a couple of weeks while the owner was on holiday. First up the battery life was absolutely rubbish - with a brand new battery I wasn't expecting to leave the office at 5.30 with it fully charged and for it to be dead by 11pm following fairly light use. Even switching off the 3G resulted in it lasting less than 24 hours.

Possibly as a result of it's energy thirst, the metal battery cover does get worryingly hot when you're using the apps. Not quite flaming laptop proportions but then considering where people usually keep their phones it probably makes for a good contraceptive...

I've got it until tomorrow so will see about upgrading the firmware that people have mentioned, maybe that will improve things.

The camera is pretty poor in anything other than good conditions and 5 seconds is far too long to be waiting for a photo after you press the shoot button. In dark conditions the photos are grainy and the light flashes a second or so prior taking the photo, causing everybody to think the deed is done and start to break up the pose when it does take it. Asking everybody to pose again gets very frustrating.

Compared to the iPhone the clickable screen is better when you're navigating around the system menus, as it noticeably eliminates mistaken clicks, but when the icons reach the size they do for the qwerty keyboard or some of the menu screens the force taken to press the screen increases the thumb/fingerprint size the phone detects, therefore causing the selector to wander a bit right before you press - frustrating and a definite step back from the Curve's dedicated keyboard.

The Pearl SureType entry is OK, but you aren't going to be interested in typing lengthy emails in it. I definitely preferred the iPhone's touch screen keyboard set up, the fact that a mere brush of the screen meant the large-fingered can accurately select letters was a happy experience in comparison to the Storm, despite the small size of the screen keys.

Finally, the browser - maybe I'm just too used to Opera Mini on the Curve, but there is something counter-intuitive about using it. It's not bad for reading sites, but trying to enter text/submitting searches into websites is an absolute pain and the phone tends to become unresponsive while you're using the internet. pressing the screen to zoom is haphazard and you can easily click a hyperlink by mistake. Can't recommend it at all.

Good things: The system is generally responsive (though becomes less so with the more apps you run) and the screen is top-notch, the built in software installed (messaging, camera, app installation etc) works very intuitively and the look and feel of the entire UI is much more polished than the decidedly threadbare Curve. Plus Brickbreaker with a touchscreen is sooo much better than with the erratic Pearl scroller :o)

I do like it, but the iPhone does what it can do that little more slickly than the Storm, so for me this is very much a case of waiting for v2.0 before I'd commit to a 18-24 month contract. Particularly given the battery life.