Goodbye Good Technologies

Bye bye, i won't miss you :) time to find new challenges.

Vodafone UK

Last July i moved the flat and was quite surprised that O2 reception wasn't working everywhere, so i decided to move the network (in my old flat which was only next building it worked flawlessly) after some research and hoping i will get cashback from quidco i moved to Vodafone. Oh dear, that was my biggest mistakes.

At first, vodafone couldn't find my address, after a numerous calls and even visit to the actual shop they did manage to link it. Then i was hoping quidco would register my purchase, they didn't vodafone claimed i never purchased online, but i did, and there were 4 failed trials , anyway forget my 100 quid.

3G network which they claim can handle smartphones is a joke, seriously, it maybe fastest when it works, but most of the time it doesn't and in addition to it whenever you cross the the building line you get GPRS, yes, that's it all the 3G is gone. O2 works perfectly alright in the same spots.

Billing is awful, the website is so slow you can barely wait for it to let you login and load your usage, plus sorting doesn't work, plus iphone app which vodafone released is slow and useless. oh well.

Other services like call catcher, that's when you should get a text if you not reachable and someone tried calling you only works if you disable voicemail. T-Mobile and Orange managed to make it work all the time and guess what? there is a bug for over a year if you out of coverage it wouldn't even send you a text. Great....

The customer services sometimes good, sometimes bad, as usual. But most of the time they have no clue about their own services.

The only great thing Vodafone did recently is Roaming bundles, you get 25Mb for £2 daily in Europe and the same for £5 outside of the world. That's great, no competition.

The twitter team works way better then forum team, and actually answers tweets compared to O2, so another plus.

Everything else they have to fix!

my opinion of xcode4

Well i have been using Xcode 4 for a while now, so can finally say i am not impressed !!! Although i can see some improvement, especially in Editor itself, i have to list the features i miss:

1. Search results are not saved anymore

2. Search filters became a nightmare in each view, there is a separate search filter which makes it constantly switching and moving your focus somewhere else.

3. Schemas are not automatic, i.e. before you could quickly switch between Debug and Release, now you have to go into the schema and change the setting or create a separate Release schema.

4. Debugging is aweful, it takes small window space and variables can't be seen in full.

5. Where is Touch functionality gone? now you can't touch file to kick off compile

6. Products folder, i want to see where is my product is but always defaults to iphoneos, regardless of what we were building.

7. It's not possible to clear Log Navigator, or Issue Navigator

8. Subversion integration is awful: a) you can't switch it off so it constantly pulls, b) if xcode automatically adds files when you create them in the project it doesn't remove them, c) doesn't support externals d) no revert functionality e) no merge

9) No API search on context menu, before you could simply select some string and choose Search API Docs, now you can't

10) API, no more search as you type, now you have actually Search

11) No sort of the files in the editor? really, should i be doing it manually now.

Probably more but i can't remember now.

Overall, i feel like a step back, i feel the xcode 3 was lighter and had more features. Also, not to mention the bugginess of the software.

MacBook Air

Well, Apple has released the update for the MacBook Air fixing everything i wanted from the previous Air and removing the most valuable feature for me - The Backlit Keyboard. I guess some people never appreciate this feature, but for me it's a deal breaker. I love this feature and I use it on daily basis.

I will have to wait a few weeks before grabbing one, perhaps Apple will add it as a configuration option .... So what has improved? I am talking about 13 inch model.

1. 4Gb of Ram - that was my number one request

2. Stereo Speakers, not sure why on earth previous models had mono

3. Screen resolution increase, now 1400x900 (11 inch is 1366x768)

4. Battery life increase to 7 hours

5. Second Usb ports

6. Thinner, well i don't much care i would rather have it lighter :)

7. option for 256 SSD drive

The biggest problem as i said removal of backlit keyboard. Btw, some people ask about i3 processor, but what many don't realise that there is no real difference between i3 and Core 2 Duo, i3 though required Intel graphics card, and we don't really need it !

Vodafone vs O2 with iPhone

It has been long time since i wrote a blog spot in English, sorry folks. Today i am gonna talk about Vodafone vs O2. I have been on o2 for about 2,5 years and moved from vodafone to o2 to get an iphone 2G. There has been downsides with o2 when sometimes data didn't work and of course at the moments when you needed it the most. Then i got 3G and life became better, as network connection is simply faster then Edge.

I don't stream music, but i do like browsing the web, checking google reader, so occasional use, sending emails etc. not much traffic to be honest.

I moved to pay as you go for iphone to wait until 4G will arrive, skipped 3GS. It also happen that at the time of 4G arriving i moved the flat, where o2 signal was only available in one place of the flat, which was very very inconvenient, so i had to move to another network and chose Vodafone, the reason was quite simple:

a) sim only tariff was only 20 pounds with 1Gb data and Wifi plus i should get £100 cashback at some point.

b) Vodafone known to be very good for signal everywhere

c) i had better customer service experience with Vodafone in the past.

It has been 2 month since i am on Vodafone and can really compare the two.

a) VisualVoicemail - only available to pay monthly customers on o2, however it is there and it is working great. Everyone on vodafone (or any other UK network) will tell you to use Hullomail, but they often forget to mention it is coming out of your allowance when you divert calls...

b) O2 app vs My Vodafone app, well o2 app not always work, but at least you can use it straight away, on Vodafone if your account changed you have to wait till next bill produced before it can work again.

c) BT Openzone access, on o2 you simply put your number in and that's it you are connected, not often i needed to enter my number on new hotspot it just remembers you, but on Vodafone you have to enter username/password each time

d) The most important one: 3G, if someone tells you Vodafone 3G is there don't believe them, Vodafone 3G is very very poor INDOORS, so poor that it doesn't exists, it's simply GPRS (yes, not even EDGE). You see we have this pub next my work, and if you standing outside of the pub you have Full 3G coverage but the moment you move inside 1 Meter, none, o2 btw, has HSDPA there.

e) Vodafone for some reason had problems with my account, and had to change it to very bizzare packages, which were not even managable online, so there systems probably going through upgrades for new software, but at the moment it's not what you see is what you really get.

f) for iPad owners, only O2 ingrates a service where if you have 3G version and can simply activate internet for the time you want directly from the device, other then calling customer services.

In Summary, O2 is better connected to iPhone then Vodafone.

Facebook i want to see

Facebook currently has 300+ million users, which is impressive. It has messaging, chat, apps and the rumours suggesting email is coming. It has also changed the look recently trying to make it easier to navigate. To be honest, i am not fun of the apps, but i think facebook is pretty good place to keep in touch, and join groups, organise parties and share news/photos/mood. Sometimes it is even easier to add someone to your facebook rather then getting their phone number ;)

For me facebook is a heavy platform and i want to see the following changes:

1. Fix chat and add functionality, try to compete with icq, msn, gtalk, jabber, yahoo, aol, etc

2. Introduce proper email system and get rid of the buggy messaging

3. Make a Simplified Facebook page, one with apps and all the staff, one if you just want to check your messages, events, birthdays. (i.e. in case of email coming)

Otherwise, i think facebook can be quite a good thing to have in your life.

Enjoy...

CoPilot vs Navigon vs TomTom Address Entry

First of all i have iPhone 3G and here i would like to point out why I think CoPilot's Address Entry is the best.

TomTom and Navigon are just slow, you just have to wait over a few seconds when select Entry Address, more over on TomTom if you want to enter a postcode you have to scroll to the page below and select a PostCode entry which is very non-intuitive. Navigon offers UK postcodes by extra charge.

Second problem, when you select a city you have to wait for the list to start loading and that again takes time.

Third problem, if i want to roughly know how long will it take from London to Brighton, all i want to check is City Center, this option is only available on CoPilot.

So overall, CoPilot is way more intuitive in entering Addresses:
1. It is faster
2. Postcode can be entered straight away
3. City Center option