chris dalrymple - blog

Recently my trusty Audi Quattro failed it's MOT rather spectacularly, resulting in it now being sat, rusting in a friend's driveway.

Because I live in the middle of a city and walk to work a car isn't strictly necessary. However it's always useful to be able to get out and about when I need to. Step in WhizzGo, 'pay as you go' car rental company. They have cars parked across Leeds (and a few other UK cities) which you can book online and access by pressing a swipe card on the screen which unlocks the car.

Cars are charged by the hour (About £4.70 including petrol) with up to 60 hours a day free. There's a range of cars available - all Citroens - and you get a free, warm, fuzzy feeling knowing you're helping to take a car off the road (or at least leave one abandoned on a mate's driveway), plus it could work out lots cheaper than owning a car even if you use it regularly.

I've used the cars a few times and apart from one instance the cars are clean and parked where you expect them. No MOTs, no repair bills, no insurance costs. This is how car ownership should be.

Labels: car rental, cool, WhizzGo

The large gaping hole in my bank balance is testament to one thing - I caved (very early) and bought an iPhone.

Partly I blame my new-found Mac fandom, partly Mr Stephen Fry, and partly because it's just so gosh damn pretty.

So, I've had the thing for nearly 1 month now, and I think the best summary is from Mr Fry's blog - 'Not sensible, but, oh the joy of it!'. The thing is just so good to use. It's been said many times before, but it's a thing of beauty. Using it is easy. And despite the fact no mobile phone is worth £895 or however much it's going to end up costing me, it nearly seems worth it.

A few things that are good/bad:

• Email doesn't do the auto portrate landscape switch thingy like safari does
• Gmail isn't as good as it should be, but with Gmail IMAP support (which I'm still waiting for on my account) it should improve.
• 2.5G is slow (but you already knew that). However it is bearable.
• Safari is great. Really intuitive to use, and it's great to have the full internet on your phone.
• The camera is actually ok, and I've been happily using it to blog with.
• It's meant I've been able to leave my laptop at home when I just needed a web connection and email.
• The phone part is easy to use - in fact in some ways easier to use than my SE K800.
• The battery life is excellent, despite initial worries.
• I really love using it.
• It's a pain putting in WEP keys when you want to connect to a secure wifi network, especially without copy and paste.
• The keyboard learns very quickly, and I'm now nearly as quick as on my SE.
• It needs to be opened up to 3rd parties (but again, you already knew that).
• Ringtones are stupid. Really stupid - I can't upload my own and I can't find any to buy if I was that way inclined.
• It's great to use... etc...

Overall as a piece of hardware, the iPhone really is nothing special (shininess aside). Spec wise it's actually not that much of an improvement on my old O2 XDA IIi (Wifi - check. Touch screen - check. Not 3G - Check). But it's the software that's really special. That's what makes it such a beautiful device to use. And it's also (hopefully) what they can improve with firmware updates, and opening up to third parties (coming in Feb). Go on Apple. You know you want to.

Labels: iphone, review

Jason Bradbury, him of Gadget Show fame, recently did an experiment in viral marketing which is useful for anyone looking to try something similar.

Jason has the advantage that he is a 'Famous', but there are good tips in there for us mere marketing mortals.

The whole thing came about as part of a Gadget Show challenge to get as many hits to some viral content as possible, and whilst co-presenter Suzi Perry went down the 'taking your clothes off' route with a Tamba Internet doing most of the hard work for her, Jason decided to caterpillar in garish 80s getup around London. You can see the results below:

Rather handily, Jason's put together a few posts giving some useful hints as to how to be successful on YouTube: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5.

Labels: gadget show, marketing, viral