Nokia N95 8GB on Vodafone
Am I asking too much to want my cake and eat it too?
The black Nokia N95 8GB is my third new phone in as many months. The first a sony K850i was sent back as it's user interface (UI) turned out to be too weird and fiddly with the Vodafone firmware. The LG Viewty bought from Hong Kong was sold on as I didn't realise it didn't have wifi and my latest tool/toy the N95 seems to be the mother of all phones.
I have only had it a day or so and am pleasantly blown away at not only the UI but by all the apps floating around out there.
The only issue that arose on day one was the realisation that the 'Unlimited Data' package I was sold by Vodafone was infact limited to 120meg.
Hang on.. let me pause for a moment so you can realise jut how ridiculous that is.
The Nokia N95 8GB prides itself on being able to use Vodafone's lightning fast High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). Vodafone brags that their network can handle up to 7.2Mbit/sec.
So if my maths serves me correctly, on a connection running the mythical top speed of HSDPA, my entire monthly data allowance would last me around 17 seconds.
This is hardly what I would call unlimited. Especially when T-mobiles Web and Walk offer up to 3GB and an Iphone on O2 offers true unlimited data (all be it at 2G speeds).
So this morning I looked at my data-crippled phone as it chomped at the bit aching to behave as it was bred and decided to call Vodafone.
I got myself a hugh double scoop of coffee and dialed 191 expecting to be listening to some old pop track for an hour. Less than a minute later and i was talking to a human called Amy. This was a bit of a shock as I always remember Vodafone as being a nightmare for keeping people hanging on the line.
Within a few minutes she agreed that I had been duped into an unlimited contract that was nothing of the sort. She said 120 meg is nothing and that she would upgrade me to unlimited at no extra cost. I was in shock. This was all to good to be true. I asked for her to email what she had said just so as i had it on file.
I could only imagine that i was not the first to raise this issue and infact Trading Standards were in fact breathing down the necks of this mobile giant ordering them to make things right.
I was a very happy bunny and the call ended with me thinking all wrongs had been righted and that I was going to have to eat my previously harsh words in this very blog post.
Not so.
When it looked like I was not going to get an email i picked up my mobile and dialed 191. No connection. All I got was the error tones. I called a landline.. the same tones.
I could not believe it. I had been cut off.
Luckily I have a land line handy so i could call vodafone customer services. And i did.
Within a few minutes with the assistance of another advisor we had ascertained that Amy had assigned to my phone a data card tariff which had cut my phone services off. WTF.
Not only that, but the tariff I have been on for the last few years is now unavailable to me. I was only kept from migrating away recently because I could keep my pretty decent free minutes and texts with free weekend calls to both landlines and mobiles! They blocked me out from it and now I am not allowed to get back in! Surely they are in breach of some kind of contract here...
"Ok", i said. Trying to remain composed.
To cut a long and stress filled story short.. Vodafone have buggered up my contract and stomped on any faith I had left in them. To top this they have absolutely nothing bigger than 120 meg for on-the-phone data and I think this is just ridiculous. Especially when T-Mobile offer 3gb on an unlimited (fair use) tariff.
Vodafone's offerings are hardly cutting edge. Why advertise spangly new 'VMI' (Vodafone mobile internet) if all it is good for is downloading a few email headers and surfing wikipedia in the pub quiz?
So, the way things stand at the moment are they are offering me an extra 100 mins a month making it 300 free minutes to any landline, 500 free texts, Vodafone 'stop the clock', which means after the first three mins on a weekend and every evening I can talk for an hour at no charge. On top of this they will give me £30 credit on my account and a free month of the £7.50 bolt on data tariff to see if i like it.
This is the absolute best they could offer me. The only thing I really wanted is a few mins and a decent data tariff, which they don't can't give me. They can't even give me my old tariff back.
So i have about 14 days to make up my mind and in the first 14 minutes of this, my friend Giles has informed me that I can have a free Nokia N95 8GB on their Flex 35 contract (900 units, either text or mins) and for an extra £7.50 Web and Walk which is up to 3GB !!!
I seriously think that Vodafone are missing a trick here. If they really thought 120 meg was enough for anyone why not have the confidence to offer 1GB a month or even 500meg for starters? Why not put their meg where their mouth is.
Today mobile phones should enable us to leave our laptops at home. They have the capabilities to run a multitude of apps and stream data from cameras with decent resolutions. Never-the-less, some of our mobile network providers (namely Vodafone) seem to want us to stay in the dark ages.
The Democratic Image - Photography and Globalisation
The report from The Democratic Image - Photography and Globalisation held in Manchester last April covered this groundbreaking event that sought to investigate how digital technology was aiding representation in a connected world.
My initial invite came out of the blue after a listener to my podcast recommended me to one of the 'Look 07' organisers. Before I knew it I was giving a talk on Photography and New Media to some seriously influential movers in the world of photography and journalism. Pedro Meyer of Zone Zero and Geert Van Kesteren the Magnum Photographer behind Why Mister Why were amongst the many that left a lasting impression on me. (In the photo above.)
I didn't blog my experiences at the time as the moment it ended I was continuing further north to commence an expedition by canoe down the river Spey in Scotland. Once at the end of that successful trip I was back in the thick of work and assignments.
Now it seems I can summerise by means of clipping my mention and linking the whole report below. Please take the time to read what Redeye do as Britain's largest photographers network.
NOTES ON THE BLOG In collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery and hosted at openDemocracy.net (http://thedemocraticimage.opendemocracy.net), The Democratic Image blog launched on 11 April and posed the following question: Time magazine has voted you `The Person of the Year’ for `seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. As a `pro’, what is your take on the democratisation of art and media in the digital age? First to respond was Christian Payne, the blogger and podcaster behind OurManInside.com, who thanked Time `for the recognition’ and the `corporate media [...] for making me switch off, for making me sick at heart, for making me angry’. Thanks to them, he turned to his computer `to get a bearing on some kind of meaningful truth’. For Payne, the Internet revolution counters the mediation of Big Media, allowing `diversity’ and `a deeper, wider, discourse’ that has enabled him, in his words, to `make up my own mind’. Switched on again, Payne became a blogger, primarily of images. More than that, the medium inspired him to self-finance a journey to Northern Iraq in 2006, video-podcasting a photo-documentary about the Kurdish Peshmerger warriors under the title of `Those Who Face Death’.Payne is very clear of the political importance for image makers like him of increasingly accessible new media, which in his view `are reviving our dwindling hopes for genuine freedoms’. But he is equally clear that the only alternative to corporate mediation for the new `pros’ striving for these freedoms is an alliance with other bloggers, podcasters, and other internet users, in which new work can be mutually financed and supportively criticised online. This raises the issues of the blurring between image makers and audiences, and of how cooperative might the Internet be. What structures might enable real collaboration beyond the much celebrated interactivity touted by the corporations behind the Internet? And to what extent are corporate interests foreclosing the emergence and maintenance of truly democratic internet use that might conflict with their values?
If you would like to read the whole report.. Please click here.
Woyzeck, a review and photos.
The set design was minimalist on first glance but soon became filled with props and half human-half animal machines i really hope i won't be dreaming of in the next.. well ever really.
I was ready for the darkest set i have ever had to photograph, but in reality, although on the edge of what my camera and reflexes could handle there was a great use of light. It seemed to always appear just in the places needed but not as invasive as your standard spot or flood. This meant you were drawn around the play from mood to mood, corner to corner as the actors played to every space of the room in more dimensions than i have experienced before.
Coupled with the occasionally introduced smell... (yes there are scents used to set the scene too) and I was really transported into the emotional turmoil set in a twisted expressionistic landscape and an insight of how human obsessions can lead us away from our rational side. Such was the performance a picture of madness that I actually had to go back stage after and see if the actors were infact sane, normal individuals... You can tell I don't go to this kind of theatre much.
Music, dance, song and breathtaking acting almost stopped me from doing my job as occasionally i would lower my camera, transfixed, sucked into the emotional eddies being played out before me. No wonder people are getting bored with the insipid triteness of the TV. This is where the real acting is. Sorry if this is not a revaluation to others but I have always been a once a year pantomime kind of guy. Not any more. I would go to watch these guys play anything. It was heart and soul performances from all of them.
So if you haven't already guessed it.. I highly recommend Woyzeck. A twisted depiction of class versus morality, madness opposed to enlightenment and a tale of a downtrodden individual manipulated by the upper-class only to eventually lose his mind and commit murder.
I can get my hands on few free tickets if any of you guys out there would like to go and experience this evening of wonderful yet disturbing theater.. Just email or call at my normal contact details.
Warning- Contains nudity and scenes of a violent and sexual nature. Not suitable for children.
