Published October 16th, 2007
in satellite phone, airline safety and tv cliches.
There are few places my GSM phone doesn’t work in Ireland. Even abroad, thanks to the roaming agreements of the network, I am rarely out of touch.
Yet there are many TV programmes about shipwrecks and plane crashes on remote islands where “the vessels radio won’t broadcast”, why don’t people use their mobile phones? Well assuming they were not shattered or lost amongst the wreckage the key problem is the signal strenght. Towers are expensive, and so are only positioned near cities and towns. Networks are not in the habit of constructing towers on uninhabited tropical island on the off-chance that someone rich yachtsman will want to call his office in New York mid-picnic.
The rich yachtsman, or drug smuggler, would have a satellite phone, in addition to a GSM. Infact a satellite phone is not as expensive as you’d think. In Australia they are routinely used, or so I ave been led to believe from watching MacLeod’s Daughters.
So, getting back on track, why isin’t every ocean going plane and vessel equipped with a scattering of satellite phones in buoyant international safety orange strong boxes. These could be used by the cliched survirors on a tropical island.
Unfortuntely that would not work on an island controlled by Dharma, or in Africa which satellite providers have deemed uneconomic?
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Published October 16th, 2007
in marketing.
Today I met a businessman who was very excited with his new mobile phone. Like a child he showed me the quality of the still camera and video camera, the flick action used to enable the camera and so on. I must admit I was impressed, and as my 2002 Nokia 3330 is beginning to be a bit embarassing I am in the market for a new phone.
My requirements are
3G
The browser is useful for using google on the move
A decent quality still camera
Speakerphone
A fast menu system
am I the only person in the world that cares about the speed of a phones response, I mean if I was to get to Zachary in the phone book I should be able to press down, Z and be there a split second after I hit Z, but unforturtunately so many phones have awafully slow user interfaces where there is a pointless 1 second lag)
Nokia or Motorola
I like their menu systems
After playing with my collegagues phone for 10 minutes I was sure it was the phone for me. The price point was even acceptable. I took out my notepad and wrote down “Get Nokia…” ah whats the model number… I looked at the front, and the back but there was no hint. I flicked through the menus and there was no information. All I could get was the IMEI. Eventually I took out the battery and found the details in tiny print next to a barcode.
Nokia already make it hard enough to decide which phone is best with the endless model range, that seems to have no logical categories, but when I eventually found my favourite phone, and even held it in my hands it shouldn’t require that much effort to find out the model.
Car marques always display the model for all to see, some even tell what engine and fuel is used, for example BMW 530 (3.0 litre diesel).
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Published October 16th, 2007
in memories, lighthouse family and music.
Lighthouse Family were a British duo of Vocalist Tunde Baiyewu and keyboard player Paul Tucker. Lighthouse Family was active from the circa 1995-2003. The two men formed the act in 1993 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK after meeting at university. Their 1995 debut album Ocean Drive sold more than 1.6 million copies in the UK alone and established them as a popular easy listening duo throughout Europe.
Although none of their singles reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, they did reach number one on the Australian Singles Chart with the song “High”.
The voice of Tunde Baiyewu is pleasing to listen to. I have a theory that singers are born lucky, with the “right” voice; it must be pleasing to listen to as a speaking voice, and it must be controllable by pitch as a singing voice.
I have a please speaking voice, and have done voiceovers for radio commercials here in Ireland, but alas I think I am not blessed with a singing voice. I can hear the sounds in my head but I cannot make my voice output what I want. This is a common complaint, I suppose I am lucky I realise my weaknesses.
At secondary school I was exposed to the Lighthouse Family in my friends first car. It was an old Volvo with no aerial and so the radio could only receive long wave, in Ireland there were only two stations receivable on long wave; BBC Radio 4 (Long wave version), and Long Wave 252. The latter was actually broadcast from Ireland, but was peopled by american accents talking to a British audience. In 1995/1996 the station must have suffered from budget cuts because they played Lighthhouse family constantly; or was it just how it seemed?
Getting back to facts Lighthouse Family split up in early 2003 because of what they called a “heavy promotional schedule” following the release of Whatever Gets You Through the Day in 2002. This led to both men pursuing individual projects. Baiyewu is now a solo artist, while Tucker joined a rock band, The Orange Lights.
According to their manager, the band has not split up despite being inactive; “there is always the possibility of another Lighthouse Family album one day.”
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Not quite… but while searching for information on the “jfk assassination” - as we all must from time to time - we here at Ambrand Dot Com stumbled across a webpage on a .gov domain with some porn keywords, shock and awe… that breaks all the rules.
http://st8.x.somersettx.gov/porn/st8/432.html
The Domain somersettx.gov belongs to the City of Somerset, TX.
The text must be
- a honeypot
- the result of the webmaster using a free FTP program; one that uploaded its junk without notifcation. Back around 1999 I had the misfortune of a dirty FTP program (hey I hadn’t heard of WS_FTP), the program in quesion whose name has been lost in the mist of time inserted a banner ad at the top of every page of html
Do you have any ideas? The second appears the most likely as the numbering scheme of the html pages is almost infinite, but what about the subdomain, who set that up in the first place? If you have any ideas let us know below.
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