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  • The Influence Project

    What is your influence? If you decided to spread some information on the internet, how well do you think you’d do?

    Well, the “Influence Project“, set up by Fast Company (a popular business magazine) is aiming to answer that.

    We started with a simple question: Who are the most influential people online right now?

    That’s what The Influence Project is designed to answer. By participating, you will have your picture appear in the November issue of Fast Company magazine as part of an amazing photo spread. The more influence you demonstrate, the bigger your picture will be.

    You may discover that you’re more influential than you think.

    Influence is not only about having the most friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother to check it out? And what’s the likelihood of those people then forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread?

    This is the type of influence we’re looking for. We want to find the most influential person online.
    Who knows? It might even be you.

    To get started you simply go to their site, sign up (either the old fashioned way or via your Facebook account), and then pass around the URL that’s generated for you – the more people use it, the more influence you’re given.

  • Dreams? More of a nightmare

    Let’s set the scene – my mum is in her 60’s, retired and, due to health reasons, often has to use a walking stick or mobility scooter.

    She orders a bed from Dreams. Not any old bed, but a top of the range, £2000 adjustable bed. Bearing in mind most people probably spend a couple of hundred, you’d think they’d be tripping over themselves to look after her.

    Sadly not.

    She visited her local store and placed the order. The bed, in due course, turned up. Unfortunately, due to a narrow hallway it wouldn’t fit1, no matter what the delivery people tried (including the window). It was only at this point she found out about a 20% charge for returning it (it hadn’t been mentioned to her before and she only found it printed on the back of the receipt) – which they say is because “it’s no longer new”. It’s still in its plastic and hasn’t been used but, for whatever, reason they say they can’t see it as new anymore.

    Only after agreeing to buy an alternative bed with a slimmer base did they knock this charge down to 10% (although they say they’ll have to charge 20% if they don’t order a replacement). So how can she make sure that this one will fit? Well, she can’t. She rang Dreams and said it wasn’t up to them.

    So, she’s stuck. Pay 20% and go elsewhere or pay 10% and stick with Dreams, in the hope that the next bed will fit.

    I checked the website and found that this 20% is now shown in their Terms & Conditions, so I rang them. It appears that this is because, due to the Distance Selling Regulations, if you order online or via the phone they can’t charge to refund the item – hence its now shown on their website (so beware of checking website for T&Cs before ordering from a store – they may not match!). Which is interesting. My mum is going to look into this further but it’s likely if she orders online, the store will charge her first refund at 20%.

    During all of this, my mum has been met with disdain and generally poor attitudes from Dreams.

    Sadly, she’s not the only one with problems. And there’s more.

    1. she wasn’t expecting this as the bed was smaller than the hallway – the issue was angling it through the door ↩︎

  • PC security for the new user

    I’ve always been a believer that new computer users should get themselves a good manual or enrol on a course – just ask the resident family “computer expert” how many times they’ve had to bail out a family member who’s badly infected their PC through not knowing what they were doing – “But it said I’d won an iPod?”.

    And forums, often providing a a potential solution to the c0mputer user having problems, can just makes worse. On one such forum, it is often visited by professional and amateurs alike. One of their most striking (and annoying to me) recommendations is for people to ditch commercial anti-virus products for the free equivalents and to generally make the amateur PC user feel worried that their security is at constant risk.

    Lets cover that anti-virus recommendation first of all. It’s rubbish. The free equivalents are not as good as the full price equivalents – if you can afford the commercial version, buy it. The free one should be reserved for those poor enough that they can’t afford anything else.

    And making them feel paranoid about security means that many talk about turning off cookies and JavaScript, expecting either to be introducing vulnerabilities to their computer. And the result? Well, one user had problems after installing the latest updates to Firefox. In their response they said…

    I try very hard to follow advice on this board so far as anti-virus and stuff goes. Norton and McAfee are no-nos.

    I run SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, Security essentials, CrapCleaner, Spyware Blaster and Sunbelt personal firewall.

    So, Norton and McAfee are “no-nos”. Great.

    And, then, look at that list of software – yep, they’re running a full security program (Microsoft Security Essentials) along with an additional firewall (Sunbelt Personal Firewall) and 3 additional Antispyware products. Wow. But, hey, they’re all free.

    And it took a few replies before anybody suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was this combination of clashing software that might have been causing the Firefox problems (which they promptly rejected, uninstalled Firefox, installed Opera and then complained that didn’t work either).

    My recommendation – one, commercial, complete security solution (spyware, anti-virus, firewall). Don’t listen to those who say “Don’t buy Norton, your system will grind to a halt”. Yep, old message – the latest versions are much better at keeping resources low.

    In fact, Norton Internet Security 2010 is the package I’d recommend. You can get a 1 PC licence for under £11 and £28 for user on 3 computers – hardly a bank  breaker.

  • Apple – style over getting a signal

    Apple – style over getting a signal

    I’ve not hidden in the past my dislike of certain aspects of Apple products that I don’t like.

    And today’s news that there are reported problems with the iPhone 4’s data connection didn’t surprise me. It appears that they’ve embedded the antenna in the bottom corner of the phone and, held in hand, it rapidly looses signal (especially, it would appear, it you’re left handed). That’s not too good.

    (more…)

  • Type better on your Android

    The problem with touch screen keyboards are that they, for one reason or another, slow to use. If you’ve never come across the concept of “swipe” keyboards, the idea is that that you don’t life your finger and simply drag your finger across the keys – it’s quicker but the software has to be smarter as a result.

    There are a couple in the market, ShapeWriter being my favourite (but this is no longer available). The other is SlideIT, but I found the GUI horribly off-putting. However, Swype (which is now being bundled on some phones at launch) is now available as a free Beta to try out. It’s not in the marketplace, so you have to get it via their website.

    Swype is quick, but seems to lack some of the features of ShapeWriter that I like – for example, not needing to indicate repeated letters and one key to change case. I’ll try both and report back 😉