Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bad relationship with Vodafone

Well I have a bag of frustration for you guys. It's crazy how a company that big, can make such a stupid mistakes.
VodafoneImage via Wikipedia

Okay, I'm not sure how this works in other countries where Vodafone does business. But I'll tell you my experience at the moment with Vodafone.

My Nokia N95 8GB died. I used it a lot, and for some reason it doesn't boot up again. It still has guarantee so I thought I would just get it fixed at Vodafone... Let the adventure begin.

So I went to the Vodafone store in Bussum and asked if I could fix my phone. The lady said I should have a receipt which came with the phone 1,5 years ago when they delivered it at my house. Well, I don't have that piece of paper, however I did have a vodafone generated e-mail with all my details on it.


  • My order
  • My details
  • Customer number
  • phone number 
  • etc.


So you would think if I can identify myself, it would be okay. Well that was to good to be true. The lady told me I need a piece of paper which I can  order by calling the customerservice. A few hours later I called them. However because I don't have a working vodafone number and I called with my land-line I couldn't reach the customer service. Brilliant!

I rang another Vodafone service number and the computer lady on the phone told me to check the website.

 So there I go, wondering if I could tweet/chat/facebook or whatever with some vodafone employees. Instead I could log in and sent an e-mail. Luckily, I forgot my password. And if I want to get a new password I can have it texted to my phone. Because my phone is broken. I can't login.

I haven't been the most neat person with my receipts, passwords and stuff. But if I think of it.. Is that really my problem? I mean, since I never go to that "my vodafone" page. I just forgot about it. And indeed; you can lose a receipt right?

I'm now paying a bill every month for a crappy service, a vodafonestore employee who's telling me I'm stupid  and phone which isn't working.

I definitely know one thing... When I'm finished with my second 2 year contract... I'm out!

Update: I finally got to login in my vodafone account and managed to find out that the employee in the was wrong. I don't need my receipt as I have a Nokia...

Really... what do I have to do, to "please" use the Vodafone services?




Monday, November 23, 2009

Social Media presentation

It's already a bit outdated, and however I don't agree with every slide of this presentation. It does contain a lot of exercises which I find pretty good for starting bloggers.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Zemanta

As I mentioned earlier on Twitter  I've been using Zemanta for a couple of days now. As I accidentally invited everybody I ever have sent an e-mail to my Linked-In profile. I got a message from  Andraž Tori I remember meeting him on Blog 08 last year in Amsterdam. However, I never seem to stayed in touch with him. I just want to share Zemanta with you guys. It's a nice browser plugin which saved me some time for the moment. 


See what Zemanta does in 60 Seconds.




I haven't been using Zemanta on every blogging platform I use. I manage blogs on Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarspace and Blogger and only tested it for Blogger. This does works perfectly though. I really enjoy the label (tag) generator and the way you can just search for relevant pictures and chuck them in your text.


Give it a  try and see how it can work for you.  :)

Playstation goes Social

Facebook, Inc.Image via Wikipedia
Console gamers have their time of their lives. People who updated their PS3 system to Firmware V.3.10 have some cool extra features. With this update Sony made it possible to connect your Facebook account to your PS3 account. So what does that mean?

At the moment it gives the opportunity to share your "trophies/achievements", game purchase information and your game event info on your wall. At the moment it's only a "push" system. This means that you can't retrieve data in your PS3 browser. If you'd like to see what your friends are doing you need to go to the PS3 Internet browser and checkyour social networks. I see this as the beginning of consoles going social. Of course Microsoft has had the whole MSN integration. And is a step ahead of Sony. With their new update they also integrated Twitter.

If you want the real "going live" experience you still need to be with Microsoft. There Live features are simply better. However this service is not free. Whereas the PS3 online connection is free.



Official logo of the PlayStation NetworkImage via Wikipedia

If you're looking for a home media set. You should definitely think about a PS3. As I see it, it's an cheap Blu-ray player, with a lot of great features. Not only you can play a lot of games in HD. You can also use your PS3 as a media player. Because of the build-in Wifi in the system you can connect a computer which only serves it's purpose as a server. Can be your laptop, or just use an old PC which you have stored on your attic. The free ps3mediaserver software provides your PS3 access to that computer. What happens is that you can easily stream your "HD" video, your photos or music to your system. You won't have the classic format problems because during the stream the ps3mediaserver software will convert the extensions to a format which the PS3 can play!

I have both a PS3 and Xbox, and at the moment I really enjoy my PS3. I really wonder when Microsoft can convert me to buy games for Xbox 360...

If you want the full feature list on what's updated in Firmware V3.10 check this blogpost.
Don't miss out on the new photo application which you can download!
And the television integration.
And the, ó I can go on forever...

The ps3mediasoftware (Windows, OSX, Linux) can be downloaded here.

Cheers,



Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Add comments on Tumblr 2.

Add comments to your Tumblr blog? Long ago I tipped you guys about Disqus which I still use. It has a lot of great functionalities, which for example allows your audience to comment with their twitter or Facebook account.
Yesterday I got a comment on a post from Lee.
As Lee commented on my post " How to add comments on Tumblr" he mentioned a simply alternative for Disqus. Don't get me wrong, I love Disqus and all the functionalities which Disqus brings. However, if your just looking for a simply commenting system. This does the job perfectly. I enclosed a short tutorial which Lee has posted on his website.

Thanks for the tip!

UPDATE: Check cmmnt.info for the code which doesn't seem to appear in this post.


cmmnt.info - Comments For Your Site

I was looking for a simple commenting system for my tumblr blog.
I came across Disqus which worked really well, but was serious overkill for what I was looking for. Further research led me to believe there was nothing suitable so I decided to make my own clean and simple alternative.
The concept is a hybrid system based on both Blogger and Disqus. It has been made with Tumblr in mind, but will work with any web site. It's free, easy to implement and doesn't require any signup. Check out the sample link below for an example. Instructions follow afterwards. To see it in action in the wild visit my tumblr.

Instructions for Tumblr

  1. Log into tumblr.com/customize
  2. Navigate to Theme and select "Use Custom HTML" if it isn't already enabled.
  3. Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just before the {/block:Posts} tag: 
  4. Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just after the {/block:Posts} tag: 
  5. You can apply CSS styles to the paragraph (p.comments) or link (p.comment a.cmmntLink) if you like, although this step is optional.
  6. You can also append text to the end of every link by modifying the link_text_extra javascript variable. To make the comment links say "5 Comments. Click here to add your feedback!" use add the following code above the previous line of javascript: 

Instructions for other sites

  1. Create a link on any page you want to be able to comment on and give it the class 'cmmntLink'. If this is a blog post, it should be the permalink.
  2. Copy and paste the following code into the HTML, just before the tag:
  3. You can apply CSS styles to the paragraph (p.comments) or link (p.comment a.cmmntLink) if you like, although this step is optional.
  4. You can also append text to the end of every link by modifying the link_text_extra javascript variable. To make the comment links say "5 Comments. Click here to add your feedback!" use add the following code above the previous line of javascript:



Monday, November 09, 2009

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

I saw this keynote a few weeks ago and saw that I didn't post it on my blog. I think that this presentation is a very clear story on how Social Media works. What the F*ck is Social media?! Enjoy ;).