Phil Spray

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Steve Jobs has been on his feet again at WWDC. As usual, there was much speculation beforehand about what could be expected, not least the revelations from gizmodo about their prototype iPhone.

Anyway the highlights of the keynote are that there is indeed a new iPhone and it will be available for pre-order from 15 June for delivery on 24 June. Cool features include a unified inbox, threaded conversations, a front facing camera and of course the piste de resistance 'Facetime' also known as video calling. Personally I feel that the final aspect is a bit of a gimmick really, especially as it will only be possible initially over wi-fi and between two new model phones. 

Other interesting announcements include iMovie coming to the iPhone, the ability to select Bing as your default search engine on the iPhone and an updated version of iBooks which will be available on the iPhone.

In some ways this keynote was a bit lacking, the hype would have had you believe we could have expected everything from a new iWork/iLife package, web based itunes, updated iMacs or a new Apple TV but none of this materialised. Considering the amazing demand for iPads since the launch earlier this year I guess Apple decided it had enough on the go for the time being.

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For my birthday my wife booked us a table at a new thai restaurant which has just opened in town. She told me we were going out to eat but kept the choice of venue a secret. I was pleased when I realised where we were going as the place is right near work and I've been walking past for the last few weeks thinking I would really like to give it a try.
The restaurant itself is quite large and airy with a nice traditional yet modern feel to it. I'm guessing that they hope to grow over time as there were loads of tables and I can't imagine it is full very often. The menu was a good mixture of classic thai food and other asian style dishes including excellent noodles. 

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Friday was a big day for Apple fans in the UK.

Almost 2 months after the iPad was launched in the USA it finally became available here too. 

Many people were so keen to get their hands on the latest device from Cupertino that they queued outside Apple Stores around the country from very early in the morning. 

I haven't got an iPad of my own yet, partly because my wife has yet to agree that I actually need one but also because I'm still not sure that the price is quite right. Having read what others have said about their experiences so far though, I'm sure that it's only a matter of time before I decide to shell out.

In my opinion, the design and concept of the iPad will be game changing for technology. Sure it has its downsides and the first edition of any new device is never perfect but the way it allows the user to interact directly without needing a hardware mouse or keyboard is the kind of idea which made Star Trek: TNG seem so futuristic in the 90s. 

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So it has finally happened then, as expected the UK has its first coalition government since World War 2. 

David Cameron managed to persuade Nick Clegg that they could find enough common ground between the two parties to be able to happily live together in power. During the past week they have issued a programme for what the coalition plans to do with compromises on both sides.

Personally I welcome this new coalition, as it presents a new challenge. For too long politicians have been able to win an election and push on with ill thought through policies and knee jerk schemes which only end up costing more than expected and not delivering what they promised. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that having to share power means there has suddenly been a seismic shift in the way business happens at Westminster. I believe that there will still be some tough challenges for the two leaders, especially in terms of squaring some of the more controversial policy matters with their grassroots supporters. Indeed by signing up to coalition with the Conservatives, it may well have cost them some of their support. 

I will be watching the developments of this new government with interest and you never know, I might actually blog about it now and then!

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So there was a General Election in the UK yesterday and following one of the closest fought campaigns in the past 20 years, the outcome is anything but conclusive. As it currently stands the Conservative Party has 306 seats, the Labour Party has 258 seats and the Liberal Democrats have 57 seats. This means that no one has a majority in order to take control and form a government. 

Since this situation became apparent early this morning, the politicians have been locked into a three way dance, with both of the major parties making overtures to the Liberal Democrats in order to establish if they could form a coalition. To my mind a Lib/Lab pact is the most likely outcome simply because of the similarities between the two. Having said that, David Cameron made a very strong speech this afternoon which was clearly aimed at wooing Nick Clegg. 

From a wider perspective, this is the worst possible outcome. There is already much discussion of the effect that the instability could have on the money markets with the pound falling significantly in value against the dollar over the past few hours. Added to this, I can easily imagine that whoever takes the helm either as a minority government or a coalition will want a proper mandate and end up going back to the people and calling another election in the next few months. 

One of the aspects of an election which often gets forgotten once the results are announced is the massive efforts of all the campaigners up and down the country who put in long hours and many miles of walking to promote their chosen candidate. They should all, regardless of the outcome, be praised for their hard work and enthusiasm 

I have watched the coverage today with interest and remember what it was like to cover an election as a journalist. I have been enormously impressed with the efforts of reporters and presenters who have put in the hours and worked incredibly hard obviously with very little sleep to keep viewers, listeners and readers informed. I hope they all get some time to recover over the next few days. 

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Our friend Chrissie had a baby in January. She's grown so fast in the
past four months.

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So Steve, Phil and Scott have done their thing. Multitasking, folders, a unified inbox with capability for more than one exchange account are all features that will finally persuade me to upgrade to a 3GS in the summer. The real news though is about iAd which will enable the creation of in app advertising with some of the revenue being past on to developers. This is potentially crucial for the future of mobile advertising. I can see that there will be some debate how popular it will be, some users might dislike the intrusiveness of the in-app ads but this should drive the good developers to look at making the transition from content to ad as seamless as possible. This announcement comes only a few days after Apple's game changing launch of the iPad which I know some people might be sceptical about the new device, personally I think that it is far too soon to judge the potential and innovation of the iPad and in time it will be talked about as a pivotal moment in computing development.

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So the worst kept secret in Britain is finally out of the bag as Gordon Brown went to Buckingham Palace yesterday to ask the Queen for a disillusion of Parliament and to hold a general election on 6 May. The media have been gearing up for the announcement for months. Something which was made obvious by the wall to wall coverage yesterday. So we are now in for a month of hard fought campaigning which will no doubt get acres of coverage. A highlight will be the party leader's TV debates which promise a new element that could have an unexpected effect on the polls. One of the biggest problems at every election is voter apathy. Although turnout increased in 2005 compared to 2001 it was still nowhere near the 70 percent or more seen for previous national polls. With the recent expenses scandal hanging over Westminster like a cloud and many people frustrated at the perceived similarity of the main parties, some voters are probably considering staying at home but I would urge everyone who can to take the time on 6 May to have their say.

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Thanks to Adam Vincenzini I managed to use an invite code to mflow this week.

The service is the latest web creation to get the twitterati excited and I can see what all the fuss is about. The simple idea is to combine the social interaction of Twitter and Facebook with the music library of iTunes or Spotify. Now users of LastFM might say they've been doing something similar for ages and I am a big fan of that site too. Mflow does seem to do something different though, mainly I think because of the focus around following people. Last FM is all about building your own listening library but mflow seems to encourage more sharing of popular tunes.

There is another factor to the mflow experience which I haven't really explored yet and this is the idea that if someone buys a track that you recommended, then you get rewarded. As I've only been registered with the service since Friday and it is still in invite only beta it might take a while for this to really gain momentum.

Overall though, I'm really impressed with mflow so far, the design of the app is pretty slick and they've really embraced social media with a nice posterous blog, as well as presences on twitter, facebook and flickr. There a few features I would like to see, such as the ability to tweet what I'm listening to and for my tunes to be scrobbled to Last FM but it is early days and I'm sure these will come in due course. So I would definitely recommend giving mflow a go if you get the chance. I currently have five invites so if you would like to try it then drop me a message.

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I still haven't really got used to watching 3D films. The glasses sit funny on my face (unlike my wife I don't wear glasses normally) and after a while I have to lift the glasses up as I get a weird seasick sensation. Perhaps I'm thinking about it too much? Anyway, we went to see Alice in Wonderland last night, in 3D. The first thing you probably need to know about this film, if you didn't already is that it's directed by Tim Burton. That pretty much guarantees a few things, firstly that his girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter will be in it, that Johnny Depp is likely to be in it and that a lot of the visuals will be pretty dark and spiky. Alice qualifies on all three counts. Johnny Depp plays the psychologically deranged 'Mad Hatter' with the most interesting eye make-up. Bonham Carter plays the arrogant and pompous but slightly child-like Queen of Hearts. All of the Underland scenes are suitably dark and spiky, except for those in the castle of the White Queen (played by Anne Hathaway) but the atmospheric lighting and digital effects still give it a certain edge. Personally I felt the plot was a little slow in places, especially the early scenes where Alice is at the garden party to receive a proposal from Hamish (played by Leo Bill). I also wonder if ginger haired actors only ever get to play weak sensitive characters? Anyway yes the first few scenes are quite slow. Things get much better when Alice falls down the rabbit hole though, and the pace picks up considerably. Mia Wasikowska puts in an excellent performance as Alice and she is supported brilliantly by the aforementioned stars Depp, Hathaway and Bonham Carter. The Tweedles played by the brilliant Matt Lucas should also get a special mention for managing to make even the smallest of gestures or vocal nosies to raise a laugh. Overall I would certainly recommend this film, not least to enjoy the unique approach of Tim Burton combined with the new digital techniques afforded by modern cinema. Just try to avoid feeling seasick from the 3D glasses!

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Nigel Farage attacks the new EU President I watched Question Time last night and one of the guests was the former leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage. He got a pretty hostile reaction over a tirade of insults he made about the new EU President, Herman Van Rompoy at the European Parliament earlier this week. The specific question linked the attack by Mr Farage to the bullying accusations made of Gordon Brown. There is no doubt about it, the attack was extremely personal, and even went as far as describing Belgium as "virtually a non-country." Unfortunately, this kind of over the top personal attack seems to be the only kind of coverage we ever see in mainstream news bulletins of the European Parliament and I can't help but wonder if it doesn't leave people thinking that's all that ever happens in Brussels or Strasbourg. I have heard speculation that Mr Farage is attempting to be so over the top and offensive that he gets himself suspended from the European Parliament which would be the perfect publicity vehicle for his attempt to take on the Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow in his Buckingham seat. It does make me wonder though, if he might just have overdone it already.

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So it all started with the serialisation of a book. The way these things often do in politics.

Now we have claim and counter claim regarding Gordon Brown and the allegations that he may have bullied staff working at Number 10.

The story would probably have fizzled out this morning, had it not been for Christine Pratt and the National Bullying Helpline.

She helpfully came forward to explain that staff from Number 10 had called the office of her charity, and even downloaded information from the website.

I do wonder if it is common practice for bullying helplines to ask where people work? I suppose that most of their callers would be talking about experiences at work, but do they actually ask for a company name?

Either way, it seems to me this is fairly Westminster Village stuff. I very much doubt that the general public are really concerned about the nature of the allegations. I would be very surprised if most of them can remember the original source was a political journalist whose book was being serialised in a Sunday paper. In some respects, I think people expect the PM to be tough, to demand better from civil servants and react passionately when things aren't going right.

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I don't normally like to criticise the way companies do business. There are plenty of people doing that on the internet already.

There is one company however, who have served us so spectacularly badly over the past few days that I have singled them out for special treatment.

[I should point out that this post goes into a bit of a long story here, if you want the condensed version feel free to jump to the last paragraph!]

For Christmas, my father in law decided he would buy us a new TV, he knew we had been considering getting one for a while and thought it would be a good present. We were of course very grateful for that and accepted his kind offer.

So, during that dull void between Christmas and New Year we went into Currys and looked at the TV's they had available. We had already decided that the best plan would be to get the TV delivered so they could take away the old one to be recycled. (we changed our mind about this in the end but still foolishly opted for delivery). Having settled on a particular make and model of TV, we went home to order it online. The whole ordering process was very simple and straight forward and within a few minutes we had paid for a 37" TV to be delivered on 7 January.

Unfortunately, Currys couldn't make that delivery happen because of the snow and ice. I wasn't that disappointed, we still had a working TV so I re-arranged the delivery for the following Friday, the 15 January or so I thought.

On Tuesday 12 January I returned to my desk from a meeting to find a message on my mobile voicemail from a Currys delivery driver stating that my TV should have been on his van that day but it hadn't been loaded for some reason, and to call the customer service number to re-arrange delivery. Except that I wasn't expecting them to deliver it for another 3 days. Having called the number I discovered that a delivery had indeed been booked for Tuesday 12 January without my knowledge. Anyway I didn't worry about it too much as I managed to rebook the delivery for the Saturday 16 January, which would mean neither of us would need to take time off work to accept it.

Part of the deal with Currys is they give you a number to call after 9pm the evening before your delivery is due for an automated system to give you a time slot. So on Friday night I called the number and was duly told that my TV would be delivered the following morning between 7.30am and 11.30am. Great I thought, we can get up and do chores around the house and then go out and enjoy the day after the delivery guys have been.

Well, 11.30 yesterday morning came and there was no sign of the expected delivery. Leave it half an hour I said, they might have been delayed by traffic or whatever. We left it for a full hour and a half, but still nothing so I called Customer Services. I was told that they couldn't see my delivery slot on their system, but my goods were due to be delivered today so the person on the phone would email the "distribution centre" to find out what had happened and get them to give me a call.

An hour and a half later, we were still waiting. No phone call, nothing. So my wife called the same number again. This time she is told that the "distribution centre" have up to 4 hours to respond to emails. The person she spoke to said again that he would try and contact them to find out what had happened, and either he or they would come back to us before the end of his shift at 3pm.

As you might guess, we arrived at 3.30pm and still there was no phone call, so I called again. This time I was told that my goods had not even been loaded onto the lorry and were never going to arrive. Needless to say, this made me quite cross. I asked to make a complaint and was given a complaint reference number, although I was never actually asked what my complaint was. The person on the phone offered to rebook the delivery, but we have now decided that we will cancel the order and take our business somewhere else.

Now, I am not an unreasonable person, I understand that the weather can effect deliveries and sometimes they just can't go ahead as planned. That's fine, I didn't have a problem with that. The issue is having to wait 5 hours from when a delivery was supposed to have been made, to be told that it was never actually coming in the first place. That kind of communication failure is an appalling way to treat customers and one that will cost Currys my business in the future.

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Now things are beginning to get back to normal, I've finally got chance to write a bit more about the weather we have had over the past few days.

I'm sure you don't need me to to tell me that the conditions recently have been quite unusual for the time of year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not handing this blog over to weather forecasts though.

The trouble is I'm bored of the snow now. I mean when we had that first lot back before Christmas it was a novelty. Now though, as the cold weather has lasted for almost 4 weeks I have had enough.

If we could all get back to normal now, and focus on the excitement that a forthcoming election will bring that would be great.

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Having just moved house, we were hoping for a quiet few days before Christmas to get last minute preparations done, maybe unpack a few more boxes before the big day itself. It seems though, that wasn't to be, as not content with a bit of the white stuff at the weekend, we got a heavy covering yesterday afternoon and evening.

The net effect of this was the journey home from work turned into a nightmare for many, with roads gridlocked and vehicles struggling to get up the smallest of gradients. Personally my first problem was that I had been planning to get the bus home, but all services were suspended at lunchtime. Having managed to secure a lift home with the wife we then spent a total of around 4 hours driving from Newbury to Thatcham. A distance of some 3.8 miles which would normally take about 15mins.

The good news was that we made it home safely about 7pm last night, while unfortunately many others were forced to either abandon their vehicles or stay in emergency rest centres. The weather does seem to have been a bit better today, and certainly there has been no more snow although they are predicting further freezing temperatures overnight so I am not looking forward to the journey to work tomorrow morning.

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So as I have already said on Facebook and Twitter, we finally exchanged contracts on the new place on Friday, with the move planned for next Friday (11th Dec) As you might expect, this is a pretty big deal for us. After 4 years of happily living in Salisbury, we are heading north to be closer to work, parents, friends and other stuff. Despite the short time frame, there is still loads to sort out including trying to find a removal firm who can actually help lug all our stuff the 50 miles up the A303. We thought we had it sorted of course, but in typical british style it has all gone a bit wrong at the last minute. It means that between now and the end of the week, we will be living an increasing number of boxes and bags, as things get sorted into that which has made the cut and is coming to the new place, or the other stuff which isn't. The most annoying thing as far as I am concerned is that because the place we're moving to is currently connected to the world using the Virgins*, we will need to have a BT line put in and god knows how long it will take to get broadband set up. The up side is that the new place can apparently take advantage of the BE Broadband network which is a bit of a result. *We had the Virgins here for a while, but what with being a pair of social butterflies (yeah right!) the package just wasn't value for money with TV channels that we never watched.

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