O2 APN settings for Pay As You Go Internet and MMS

After much searching and discussion with O2 Customer Care, I finally found these APN settings for supporting both MMS and Internet with an O2 pay as you go SIM, in a HTC Desire S. Original detail posted here


On your HTC Desire S (possibly other Android Phones) go to > Settings > wireless and network > mobile networks > Access Point Names


then hit the menu button and add a new APN. Don't forget to save once you have added the detail ;-) 


Name: O2 PrePay Web/MMS
APN: payandgo.o2.co.uk
Proxy: leave empty
Port:  leave empty 
Username: payandgo
Password: password
Server:  leave empty 
MMSC:  http://mmsc.mms.o2.co.uk:8002 
MMS Proxy: 82.132.254.1
MMS port: 8080
MCC: 234
MNC: 10
Auth Type:
APN protocol: IPv4


Don't forget to hit the menu button and save!!


Once you have done this you can then MMS pictures to twitter. Well you can if you are an O2 customer! ;-)


Have fun.


Cheers


m

This Years Poppies Are Popping A Month Later Than Last Year

Last year I noted that the Poppies popped on the 22nd of April. Today, the 22nd of May, this years first poppy emerged.

Must be something to do with the wettest drought I have ever lived through! The month of rain and ongoing cooler temperatures have stalled this years poppies.

This past week though we have had warmer temperatures an even some sun! Cue the poppies making a comeback. :-)

Very nice!

Cheers

M

What's The Best Smart Phone Ever?

So what's the best smart phone ever? According to Siri, the iPhones reasonably average voice commanded assistant, it's the Nokia Lumia 900! Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave!

Announce A Hose Pipe Ban To Get The Wettest April On Record!

 In the south of the UK a hose pipe ban was announced in early April. Since then I think it has rained almost every single day! Yesterday we had over an inch of rain in W5. It is almost certainly going to be the wettest April on record, however in all seriousness, although it clearly helps, it doesn't make the complete difference after the driest 18 months we have just had! Despite all of this rain, in fact due to all this rain, the garden is going ballistic again this Spring. The tulips have come and have now mostly gone, although a few are still showing off their colours!

 My favourites, the peonies are springing back (pun intended - yes I know how bad it is ;-) ) into action:

 

The flower beds have been taken over by Euphorbia. when the sun shines on these, not that we have had any of that recently, they really do provide a magical green:

   

A few bleeding hearts are sprinkled throughout the beds. You can probably see why they are named this:

   

 The bluebells are back. these always remind me of an impressionist painting:

   

 The Iris pond - read large pot filled with water, is exploding again:

   

 The forget me nots are providing some welcome low lying colour throughout the garden beds:

   

 The pulmonaria are doing similar to the bluebells:

   

The trees are flowering:

   

Then there is this. No idea what it is but an intriguing flower all the same:

 

If you have any ideas please let me know!


There is a load more happening throughout the garden. Weather permitting I will get out in amongst it over the weekend and clear up some of the mess, and see what other intriguing growth is going on! As I mentioned earlier, largely, gardening has taken a back seat while the garage is replaced. Although I really do have to get out and clean things up a little this weekend!

Cheers


M

Commercial TV Needs To Understand The Concept Of Social

I cannot help but think that commercial TV stations are being bypassed by OTT applications, in the exact same way that mobile carriers are being bypassed by OTT application developers. We always hear about mobile carriers simply becoming bit pipes to deliver content by application developers. The same paradigm is true of TV networks.

With the common availability of PVR's that will record entire series of programs for you, who can actually spare the time to watch live TV any more? Sporting events aside, Why watch live TV programming with advertisements when you can invest two thirds of the time to watch the same content that has been recorded by fast forwarding through the advertisements. You don't even have to wait that long. Take a classic example of any 'talent' show broadcast on Saturday evening. Wait 30 minutes after its scheduled start and then watch and not be bother by needless advertising! this is exactly why ITV are having kittens about The Voice clashing with the scheduled start time of Britain's Got Talent. People still watch BGT, but they do so thirty minutes later, and fast forward through all the advertising. ITV have now moved the start time of BGT, to avoid a clash with the Voice on BBC, but are still complaining of a three minute over-run of the Voice!

The delayed watching of television programs of course will kill off the viability of commercial TV. The whole paradigm of commercial TV requires people to watch advertisements. Why would I invest the money in TV advertising, if increasingly no-one actually watches them? Without eyeballs on TV advertising, commercial TV has to suffer

This is precisely why the social aspect of sharing the television watching experience is important for commercial television. Why? As sharing the TV experience usually (not always) involves sharing the experience of watching live TV. A classic example is the zeebox application that allows you to create a chat room with your friends and watch a television show, while having a dual screen discussion. Guess what, before you know it, as you are watching live TV, you may very well end up discussing the advertisements as well. There really can be nothing better than this for someone advertising a product. Generating a buzz, preferably positive, as a side effect of dual screen television watching.

A nice feature, that should be built into the dual screen experience is then being able to share links to the content, yes even the advertisements, to share in real time on your social networks. People love sharing innovative and funny, or even disastrously poor advertisements with their friends. Why haven't the incumbent TV  stations done this? Why are their a proliferation of applications like zeebox springing onto the market that allow this? To be fair I cannot easily share a link to a TV ad from zeebox either, however i bet it appears in an app before it appears in anything a TV station offers! ;-)

The more social TV catches on, the more people will feel left out if they are not watching and discussing with their friends at the same time. This will draw more people back into watching live television and hey guess what - watching more advertising! The thing is though, for me, apart from the odd hash tag thrown up on the screen, so far the TV networks have failed somewhat to really engage in the social experience of TV. TiVo is a classic example of the lack of social by incumbent TV players. TiVo could very easily be zeebox. It isn't though. A massive play by Virgin into the TV market, I am sure costing a massive investment, but not a social aspect in the product to be seen.

As I mentioned early I cannot help but feel that the OTT application developers are treating existing TV infrastructure in the same way they are treating the mobile networks! All this being said there is still so much that existing TV networks (and yes even mobile carriers) can do to embrace the world of social, as opposed to fear it. More on that later though! ;-)

Cheers

m

Local Foxes Putting Their Mark On Our Garage Foundations

 

 Despite copious amounts of squalling rain and wind yesterday the builders finished off the foundations for our new garage. Due to the wet the concrete hadn't really set too well, as one of our local urban foxes discovered last night. The picture above shows the footprints of the fox traversing the wet concrete. I guess he didn't carve his or her name into the corner! ;-) The picture below shows the complete foundations now laid. Next step the plumbing followed by the concrete slab. It's tipping it down again this morning so let's see how much progress is made. It has been very quick progress so far!

   

Cheers

m

Advertising In Virgin Media TiVo EPG - Why I Don't Like It

Over the weekend while I was trawling the Virgin Media TiVo EPG (Electronic Program Guide) I saw the above Advertisement for the HTC One smartphones, in the recommendations bar. Although it does have a yellow 'A' in the top corner I would not say that this is clearly marked as advertising content. The appearance of this advertisement coincided with the advertising campaign on TV for the HTC One smartphones as well.

At the time I tweeted about it, suggesting that the advertising in the recommendations bar was ugly. @VirginMedia tweeted me back asking what I would like to see instead. If I want to see advertising, for physical goods, in the recommendation bar of the TiVo EPG then at least I want it to be socially aware and offer me recommendations as opposed to unintelligent product placement. Read on. 

The reason I don't like the advertising in the Virgin Media TiVo EPG is that it is not a recommendation. It is a paid product placement that is not recommended to me based on a specific reason. Sure, to be fair, most of the recommendations in the recommendation bar in the TiVo EPG could be paid product placements but at least they are for television shows and not physical goods such as mobile phones. At least they have relevance to a television EPG. As an example when Virgin Media have a new show on a particular channel I think they are entitled to promote it via content management. This, at least, relates to television programming as opposed to promoting physical goods. As long as this content managed content is not too frequent, from my perspective, this is OK.

Virgin Media play a lot in their TiVo advertising, on TV as well as the starter pack you receive when you get TiVo, that they will recommend content to you based on the preferences that you tell them about. TV today demands a service like this as it is so hard to find content that you like in the overwhelming choice of channels. To tailor the TiVo  recommendations towards things you will like, you can seed the system by telling TiVo what you like and dislike. This is done by selecting the 'good' thumbs up button, or using the thumbs down button to tell TiVo what you really dislike. There are even different levels of good - from one to three thumbs up. Based on these settings, recommendations should be made to me in the recommendation bar of the EPG. Not only this, but recommendations are automatically recorded for me to watch later.

The advertising, over the weekend, that appeared on the recommendation bar, appeared to have no relevance to my preferences as it simply tied in to the promotion that was happening on TV at the same time. Again it also had nothing to do with TV. I don't want advertising for physical goods clogging up the TV service that I use, especially when I pay to use the TV service! If my monthly fees for Virgin Media TV were subsidised by this advertising then it might be different! I think I would submit to advertising if my monthly bill was dropped accordingly. ;-)

Also if the advertising was based on my social network preferences, again it might be different. I.e. if these advertisements were served as recommendations based on what my friends and contacts were talking about on the social networks that I use, then they would have far more relevance to me. As I have previously mentioned though, I think that TiVo does suffer from a lack of social integration. I think services like zeebox will be far better placed to make use of social preferences, with respect to advertising, but that is another story!  

So that is what I would like to see @VirginMedia. A tighter integration with TiVo into the social networks that I use, and if you have to have advertising in my EPG, either a discount on my monthly bill, or make the ads relevant to me based on my social networks. Thanks! ;-)

If I wanted unintelligent product placement I'd watch a Bond film!

More later.

Cheers

m