Along with this first post in a year, I have also changed the theme used on the site – I hope you like it.

If anyone else wants to become involved with Wazing their local area, a quick visit to Waze will explain more. The application can be downloaded for most major smartphones – Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian and iPhone, either direct from Waze for those devices which allow third party apps or from the device app stores (including opnmarket on Windows Mobile)

Over the past few months they appear to have been cutting the number of customer facing staff (especially during the evening) creating a worse shopping experience in the process. Firstly they combined the customer service desk with the cigarette and lottery kiosk. The end result of this is that anyone who buys a console game (which despite being in security cases still require you to collect them from customer services) now has to queue with everyone buying cigarettes and lottery tickets. From personal experience this means that a wait of a few seconds to collect this disks is now a 5-10 minute wait and is not really acceptable. Also it means that you have to take you packed trolley of purchases back through the security gates into the store. I emailed the Tesco Comments address (after picking up one of their cards instore) and got a phone call basically telling me that the person dealing with my comment felt this was a bad move but the store management thought otherwise – probably thinking about getting a bigger bonus for reducing costs (hopefully the store will make less money and this particular manager will end up getting less).

In the run up to Christmas I needed to do some last minute shopping so chose a late (10pm) visit on 23rd December. This should of been a relatively quite period where shopping was easy. The store was unsurprising busier than usual but the amount of customers was reasonable. The staff though were busy restocking the shelves and seemed to think that providing obstacle courses for customers through their roller cages was sensible. It made shopping a truely annoying experience, especially when you also had to dodge (and try not to slip on) the plastic and cardboard everything came in. It is about time these staff where briefed on health and safety. Being untidy when the store is closed is one thing but when there are customers about it is unforgivable. Should anyone have slipped and hurt themselves on this rubbish, good look in suing Tesco.

Whilst shopping I also noticed a promotional bay with misleading pricing. Initially I only saw the shelf barker for John West Tuna proclaiming a less than half price offer. Being fairly good at maths I immediately noticed the problem. £5.39 reduced to £3.00 is considerably more than half price. After a run around finding one of the many staff members who could begrudgingly help, they just took the offending barker off the shelf. Later I noticed that they entire promotional end is headed with a ‘Half Price Christmas Specials’ point of sale card and there are numerous other shelf barkers proclaiming the same. The overall suggestion is everything on the promotional end is half price. After purchasing the few things I wanted I told another member of staff (who appeared to be management level) who although saying thank you for letting them know did absolutely nothing.

Yesterday (27th December) I went back into the store and whilst shopping I took the photograph on the left (apologies for the quality – it is taken discreetly from my mobile). This quite clearly shows the main end point of sale card still claiming ‘Half Price Christmas Specials’ along with the one shelf barker claiming the same – immediately above the same Tuna with the same less than half price offer. In fact of the 5 shelves on this end bay only one is half price and one is a buy one get one free (technically half price if you want two of them). The remaining offers are all more than half price.

Despite again emailing the Tesco Comments address (before Christmas) I am still waiting for a reply but get the feeling I will again get the same kind of response as last time – the operator agrees with me but the local store management are going to do nothing to sort anything out. In future I will probably take pictures and report the store to Trading Standards (for misleading pricing point of sale) or Health and Safety (for when the shelf stacker’s are providing an unsafe shopping experience).

Also Tesco recently made a big deal of reducing their fuel prices, with many websites claiming the move (along with the Adsa price reductions) will cause a price war. Well I am still waiting for this to happen in Evesham. Yes Tesco reduced their prices to 109.9p for a litre of diesel but this just took their prices down to the same as Morrisons and Esso. Hardly a price war when Tesco were one of the most expensive in the area. It seems that Tesco just announced the 1p per litre price reduction to the press and they took it at face value without any investigations to find the real truth.

Personally I would love to be able to shop elsewhere, but despite having five different supermarkets in Evesham (Aldi, Co-Op, Lidl, Morrisons and Tesco) Tesco provides the best range. Morrisons has never been the same since it was changed from a Safeway (oddly since most Morrisons prior to the Safeway takeover where very good). The remaining are all small stores with limited product ranges. Perhaps it is because of this that Tesco feels they can treat the customers from Evesham so badly.

Recently HTC have released a couple of new phones based on the Android platform – the Vodafone Magic and the Hero (available on Orange or Sim Free as the Hero and on T-Mobile as the G2 here in the UK). Other manufacturers are also rushing to release Android based devices but the only other one available in the UK currently is the Samsung Galaxy which is available on O2 contract or Sim Free from companies like Expansys. For the Hero HTC have used the latest Cupcake (1.5) release of Android and added the own custom interface called Sense UI. This is an evolution of the TouchFlo interface HTC have used on their Windows Mobile phones for a number of years. This provides a multi screen interface which can have different widgets and application shortcuts added to it to provide a totally unique interface for each user.

In use Android is very slick with responsive actions to all finger presses. The current capacitive screens provide a finger friendly touch interface but do not support the use of a stylus. Personally I prefer to use a stylus as I find it more accurate and faster to type with but the current consumer market is demanding stylus free devices. For new users they probably are easier to learn and use.

Software wise Android comes with the Android Market (the Android version of Apple’s AppStore). This contains many thousands of applications and games, some for free and some which require a payment from a few pence to £30-40 for the latest SatNav applications. Some of these are useful and like all application stores, some are just for fun. My current favourites are Facebook (a Google written facebook app), KeePassDroid (for password management), Daily Dilbert (gives me my daily Dilbert fix), Handcent SMS (a replacement SMS application – miles better than the bundled versions) and Meridian (for playing music). Helpfully all these applications are also currently free of charge.

Using the Hero as a phone is also easy. Sense UI has a phone link always present at the bottom of the screen, which provides a large finger friendly keypad for typing numbers. This also searches your contacts as you type (so to bring up contacts called Paul all you type is 7285 and then pick from the contact list. Also helpfully these contacts can be automatically syncronised with your Google account, along with the Google calendar and email. Call quality on the phone is very good and in my experience the phone holds the call very well as you move between cells (both 2G and 3G).

Battery life on smartphones is typically quite poor and a common cause for complaint. Experiences users of them will know not to expect much more than a day or so without recharging but new users who are used to not having to recharge a phone for over a week are often surprised and annoyed by this . The HTC Hero is not uncommon with a battery life of a day under quite heavy use and a couple of days with average use. To increase battery life it is possible to turn off unwanted radio services (switch to 2G when not in a 3G signal area, turn of GPS and WiFi etc, turn off automatic updating/syncronising of software) which can substantially increase battery life but still not to the week standard phone users expect.

In conclusion I would suggest that users who are not looking for applications stick to a standard phone, but for existing smartphone users or those who are looking for smartphone features should actively look at the Android platform. It has matured well from the initial release and is now a very capable operating system. Like most though it is not for everyone so trying out the interface and usability in a shop would be a good idea.

Portions of this page (the Android images) are reproduced from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

This was in June and the first available appointment was in August, but my parents wanted this to be done sooner and offered to pay for a private consultation once I knew the name of the consultant. Luckily for me I had the  name (Mr El-Abed) through within a few days and a private appointment was arranged for July. The downside being this cost £150 which I am forever grateful to my parents for paying this for me. The end result of the consultation was a choice of either a spinal decompression operation (Microdisectomy) with a success rate of around 90% or an injection with a success rate of 30%. Given the odds the surgical route was the only one that made sense. Also given the fact I was really struggling to walk at the time of the consultation, the consultant put me onto his urgent list – meaning the operation should be done with 2 months.

Around a month later (and a week after I should of had my initial consultation) I was waiting for the operation (Tuesday this week) at Cheltenham General Hospital. The new way orthopedic surgery is done at Cheltenham is for you to go into a pre-op waiting room before the operation and then after recovery then be moved into a ward for final recovery before discharge. This works very well but has the downside that I was unable to let anyone know what ward I would be moved into.

The operation itself went very well, although I remember very little (thankfully as that meant the general anesthetic I had worked well). My last memory is the anesthetist informing me that the injection he had just given me was the one that would knock me out. On TV they always ask you to count down from 10 to 0 but I was out for the count by that time. My next memory is the nurse in recovery asking me if I was awake – I was almost, but I was certainly not very aware of where I was or what I was doing there.

After finishing my time in recovery I was moved to the ward (Alstone Ward). This was a well presented ward with 6 all male beds and a toilet unit. All patients there were recovering from orthopedic operations – the majority appeared to be knee replacements. There were plenty of nurses (and support staff) who were very polite and efficient, helping us with day to day tasks and ensuring we recovered as well as possible. My stay there was brief at 2 days but I was impressed with the service I received and that there never seemed to be an urgency to send me home. In fact it was me wanting to come home that dictated the time I spent on the ward (2 days without internet access was more than enough for me). This was all in stark contrast to media reports of poor NHS hospitals giving low quality service and discharging patients before they were ready. I would also say that I prefer the NHS we have here in the UK to the insurance lead health service in countries like America. Here there is no asking can you afford it before you are treated. If you need treatment you get it with minimal fuss and agro.

Since leaving hospital I have begun the recovery period at home. This will take between 4 and 6 weeks, during which I have some exercises to do from the hospital physio and have been advised to walk around as much as possible. I will be seeing the consultant again in 6 weeks when I hope to be given the all clear and to finally be able to live my life without fear of annoying back pain every few months.

The razor looks more like a disposable at first glance, being all single colour plastic rather than the chrome effect I have become more accustomed to with Mach3 and Fusion shavers from Gillette. It does have replaceable heads in much the same was – with 4 blades with an Endurium coating claiming to keep the blades sharper for longer. In use I found the blades typically stayed sharp for around the same length of time as the 5 bladed fusion heads I normally use.

The actual shave it produced was very good once I had got used to a different shaving technique (mainly because the head doesn’t pivot on the handle as I am used to). It provided a smooth shave and I didn’t get any of those annoying cuts which I always seem to get when I use Wilkinson Sword Quattro razors. The end result was also about as close as I am used to getting with any competing product.

The biggest let down was the lack of holder for the razor. I am used to having a holder which holds the handle with head attached as well as some replacement heads, but KOS chose not to provide this with the Azor.

Cost wise the Azor razor are excellent value for money with the blades retailing for around £5 with 3 blades (a few quid cheaper than the Gillette Fusion range when not on offer). Heads are a comparative bargain though, also retailing for around £5 for 4 and £9 for 8. This compares to around £8 for 4 and £15 for 8 Fusion heads. There is still a huge markup on these heads though. Reports have put the costs of making a Fusion head at being around 5p so it should not be costing KOS too much more too make heads for the Azor.

Along with the new razor, KOS have also introduced some new shaving gels with the Azor branding. These are typical quality products as I would expect from KOS and I place them above the standard KOS gels and very close to the higher Kinexium products. There are 2 different gels in the range – the white pack standard and black pack menthol. I have actually now moved away from the Kinexium products to Azor gels because for the price I believe nothing helps provide a better shave.

Recently KOS have also introduced a range of razors for women which are styled on the Azor range called Azure. At first glance the appear to be the same as Azor but with different colours to appeal to women not men.

There is no industry standard definition of “smart phone”, per se, but the term is used to describe a device that allows you to make voice telephone calls, but also includes advanced features, such as email, or word processing, more often associated with a PDA (“Personal Digital Assistant”) or an ultra portable laptop. Smart phones rely on mobile, or handheld, operating systems for their operation, and there are many different variants – BlackBerry, Palm OS, Nokia Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc. – although applications are typically not interchangeable between the various platforms. Smart phone are becoming increasingly important for business, and personal, use and some analysts predict that sales could increase by anything up to 30% during 2009.

Windows Mobile Phones

To avoid any confusion, “Windows Mobile” is the brand name for the handheld operating system, and applications, developed by Microsoft. Windows Mobile devices typically include a suite of Microsoft applications, including an email application – possibly Outlook Mobile, which allows you to take your calendar, contacts and tasks with you – and a version of Internet Explorer optimised for smaller screen sizes. Microsoft originally announced, perhaps optimistically, that it expected the use of Windows Mobile to increase by 50% during 2008 and 2009, and although the Apple iPhone, and the Google Android platform, have cut into its market, it is still more widely used, globally, than tooling for other mobile platforms, with the exception of Nokia`s Symbian, and Research in Motion`s BlackBerry.

Leading Windows Mobile phones include the Samsung BlackJack II, which weighs in a just 3½ oz., and features a 2.4″ display, 3G, GPS, plus Mobile versions of Internet Explorer and Office, and the HTC Touch HD, which compares favourably with the Apple iPhone, in terms of display size, and resolution, offering 480 x 800 pixel, or WVGA, resolution on a 3.8″ display.

Increasingly, manufacturers – including HTC – are feeling the need to add a user interface layer on top of Windows Mobile, itself, to provide a unique user experience, etc.. TouchFlo 3D, for example, is a finger operated user interface for Windows Mobile designed by HTC, and allows scrolling, navigation and editing akin to the Apple iPhone. Kaleido for Windows Mobile, designed by Digital Airways is intended as turnkey user interface solution for handset manufacturers, but is, nevertheless, completely customisable. It can be used to create feature-rich handsets, to industry standards, but also allows the creation of home pages, which can deliver new user experiences and services to an exiting mobile phone.

The Huntingdon centre is a converted farm with ample parking for the courses and (if the the weather is helpful) some picturesque scenery around for some landscape practice sessions. The tutor on the day (Ian) was very friendly and although teaching around 25 delegates, made time to ensure we all understood the concepts. His joking style also helped me through some of the more complicated topics like depth of field and how to calculate which settings to use for which environment. At the start of the course he also took the time to enquire what we all planned to use our cameras for, and then to tailor some of the examples to these uses.

This initial course covered using the creative modes (P, Av, Tv, M and A-DEP) to get the most out of the camera. Also covered was why lens choice also played a large part in ensuring we got good pictures. The nice part was he did not try and thrust the need for us all to go out and buy the latest greatest L-series Canon lenses (hint – these can cost many £1000). He explained that whilst the kit lens is not the best in the world, it is still an excellent lens for the money (and probably will be for many of us for the foreseeable future). The basic explanation was that Canon – like most manufacturers – produce 3 types of lens – a budget lens (silver stripe) and top end lens (L-Series) and the middle of the range lens (gold stripe). As someone who has dealt with electronics (well computers) for a number of years, this theory holds and makes sense as it allows the manufacturer to produce a product for everyone from the entry level student through to the hot shot professional. I will probably be in the silver stripe range for quite some time until I am confident of my own skills and need a better lens on the camera.

As the course went on we covered many of the possible overrides and what changes to these makes to the camera (like changing the ISO speed to something much higher can introduce so much ‘noise’ as to make a photograph unusable. This helped refresh my memory from days gone by when I used a film SLR camera. After lunch the course (a light buffet is provided as part of the course) seemed to get easier – perhaps as I began to remember some of the terminology used and how different changes cause different effects. Ian also showed us some neat tricks to taking pictures from behind fences and also a very neat trick which actually produced a picture which appeared to show a ghost on the image.

Overall I was very impressed with the course, and have since booked to go on the second part of the course where some of the more advance overrides are covered. There are 2 further parts (3 – using the flash and 4 is software) which at present I do not really feel the need to take as I am not planning on using these features too heavily.

For those who are not lucky enough to have a discount voucher, it is possible to buy both part 1 and part 2 of this course for a discounted price, with an even larger discount available for those who want to book parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 together. I would highly recommend those new to digital SLR Canon photography to take at least part 1 of the course to help them get the most out of the camera. Personally I learnt more in 1 day here than I did in reading months of magazines and dedicated camera books (I have a couple of books dedicated to the 1000d/Rebel XS/Kiss F).

The first thing most people will notice about the application is how similar some of the functions are to TomTom Navigator, which has been largely abandoned for the aftermarket. This helps people migrate from the aging TTN6 with its very out of date maps without a steep learning curve. Since TomTom also own TeleAtlas it can also be assumed that TomTom are probably going to be using McGuider as the replacement. Navigating using McGuider is simple and routes can be chosen from postal addresses, post codes (in supported countries) , points of interest (custom ones are supported as well as the built in ones), points on a map and full co-ordinates. Route calculation speed is not the fastest and long distances can take 2-4 minutes to calculate, but once calculated there is no noticeable lag between current position and listed map position. McGuider gives a highest priority to major roads meaning many minor road shortcuts are missed.  This is good for local residents but does mean you sometimes drive further following McGuider routes than you would with other satnavs. The eta timings are also very ambitious as they appear to use the speed limit of the road instead of more realistic speeds. From experience I now add about 15% to the listed times to get a more accurate eta.

McGuider fully supports custom Point of Interest files using its own proprietary UPI format and a converter is available from Sygic to convert tab delimited text files into this format. There are also a number of third party converters available to convert from other formats like TomTom’s OV2 files. Care needs to be taken with these though as Sygic changed the UPI format slightly when they released McGuider 2009, and older files no longer work. The Sygic converter does have an option to change these older UPI files into the newer UPI format though. For users of PocketGPSWorld speed camera database it is now possible to download newer releases in correctly formatted txt files to be converted easily using Sygics converter. Care does need to be taken with the icons to display on the maps as the only supported formats are 8bit (256 colour) and 32bit bmp files – most graphics applications save as 24bit by default. It is also possible to add custom voice/sound alerts to points of interest, using files in ogg format. PocketGPSWorld have a number available for their speed camera database.

To keep the application up to date there is a McGuider Assistant application provided on the SD card. This requires the card to be inserted into a card reader or the phone to be set to use a mass storage driver. Simply using ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center will not work as the device does not show in MGA. TeleAtlas have recently released both a free map update and application update which should be run as they improve both post code lookups and application usability. For Symbian devices the application update is actually a necessity as it fixes a program crash when using custom POIs.

To conclude McGuider 2009 should be high on the list of potential sat nav software for Windows Mobile and Symbian based devices. It is not only cheap but also well featured. My mgsupport.co.uk is also available for answering any support questions you may have.