I am a Sky News viewer. That’s my guilty confession. I don’t so much sit and watch it as have it on in the background when I’m at home. It’s essentially moving wallpaper for my living room, often ‘watched’ without sound.

I choose Sky News because it’s the least distracting of the news channels. That used to be true of BBC News 24, but there’s something about the presentational style now that distracts me. I don’t know what it is, or whether that’s a good thing for attracting viewers who actually want to watch, but it’s turned me off.

I also like the fact that they respond and change scripts when I send them moany emails pointing out the factual errors in their medical reportage, whereas the BBC generally ignore me.

So, as a Sky News viewer, the iPad App has been marketed very heavily at me. Frankly, I’m fed up of seeing the adverts.

The app is fairly new, and has received a lot of praise from all over the place: Tech Radar basically loved it, Zath thought it was one of the iPad’s best apps, and Crowded Brain gave it 9/10.

The app is often praised for its innovative presentational style and ‘immersive’ experience. It has two main gateways, both of which are video focussed. There is a traditional ‘order of importance’ approach, where videos and headlines from stories are dynamically (read: messily) arranged with size and position indicating importance. Hit a video and it starts to play, while contextual information flies in from the sides. The contextual information is generally more video content on the same story, textual content, or interactive graphics.

Alternatively, the ‘timeline’ view gives me a virtually minute-by-minute index of what has been presented on Sky News over the last 24 hours, and allows me to jump to any bit of it, with the contextual fly-ins as above.

Conclusion: I hate it.

I really do very strongly dislike this app. I just don’t think I’m a person who enjoys consuming news through video. I might have Sky News on all the time, but I guess I don’t really watch it. Save for some recent very big stories, few newsworthy items lend themselves to videos – moving pictures rarely add all that much to understanding. I’d far rather scan-read a written article than spend three times the time being spoon-fed a simplified version of the issue via video.

I didn’t realise how strongly I felt about this until this app came along. I rarely click the videos in online news articles, but they don’t bother me – I just ignore them. But when you go down this Sky News route of removing almost everything but the video it becomes painfully clear that this isn’t the way I like to consume my news.

I’ll concede that the app is visually striking – though I wouldn’t necessarily call it attractive. I’ll concede that it’s innovative – I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. But I’ll conclude that it’s not for me – when it moves to a subscription model, I won’t be paying.

This is the third in a series of posts reviewing iPad Apps. Yesterday’s review was of the iWork Apps. Check back tomorrow for my review of Who Wants to be a Millionaire HD. Yes, really.

I’ve been a Mac convert for about a year now. When I made the leap, I bought both iWork and Office 2008. That may sound extravagant, but the former NHS licence for Office meant that I got a copy for a nominal fee of £5 or so, and the Apple NHS discount when I bought my MacBook meant that iWork was very cheap too.

Having made the leap to Mac, I initially tried using iWork, but when I found that Import and Export of Office formats was less than perfect, I moved back to Office.

Many people hate Office 2008, but I’m firmly in the ‘love it’ camp. The transition from PC Office to Mac Office took a few feet-finding days, but the workflow was just dramatically better. On the occasions where I made the leap back to a PC, it felt like making a major leap back in time to a really old version of Office.

In the last couple of months, I’d begun to read more and more about the wonder of iWork, and more specifically, Pages. It too seems to divide people into lovers and haters. Having read so much about it, I decided to give it s go on a couple of pieces of work I had to do. At first, the learning curve was steep, but after no more than a couple of hours, I was flying.

I’ve previously commented on OSX’s brilliant ability to just butt out of the way and let me get on with what I want to do, and now I’ve discovered that the same is true of Pages. It takes care of the document, I take care of the content. This is particularly true now I have all my own templates set up. It’s great.

Keynote is similarly fantastic, and if I’m doing a presentation from my own laptop, it is always first choice. Unfortunately, it doesn’t degrade to PowerPoint format brilliantly – all transitions are lost for one thing. So I find myself using PowerPoint more often than I’d like.

Numbers is a program I never understood. It looked horribly confusing, and I just never bothered to make that leap.

Then my iPad came along. Page and Keynote went straight on board, and I loved them. I specifically loved the integration with iDisk, which I hadn’t read about in advance. I keep most of my documents on iDisk, and this meant that I could view and edit them on the go.

The software is genuinely powerful, and I was really very surprised by how good it was. It does have irritating niggles, though. Pages on the iPad can’t support footnotes, for example. That would be kind of acceptable if it handled the limitation with grace, but it doesn’t. Almost all of my work documents contain either footnotes or endnotes. If I copy a document containing these from my iDisk, when I open the iPad copy, it strips them all out. If I then edit the document on the go and re-upload to iDisk, there are no footnotes. This effectively means that I can’t edit most of my work documents on the go. Fail.

Keynote is great for writing and giving presentations on the go, or pulling them from my iDisk and giving them. I thought it would be the iWork App I used the most, but actually, I haven’t really got to grips with it yet, so can’t really give it a fulminent fair review.

Having liked Pages and Keynote on the iPad (despite their limitations), I thought I’d give Numbers a go. I had some data collection to do, and thought doing it on a uber-portable iPad would make life easier. And boy, it did.

The iPad’s form factor was perfect for data collection, and the fact that I could upload the data to my iDisk and thereby access and process it easily in Numbers on the Mac actually converted me to Numbers on the Mac. And, like Pages, now that I know my way around, it is my first choice piece of spreadsheet software. And not all of my spreadsheets are as interminably dull as the one pictured with this post – it’s just the only one that didn’t seem “sensitive”.

Again, the iPad version has it’s foibles – it can’t cope with Headers and Footers, which is just bizarre, and strips them out like Pages strips out footnotes.

But, especially for Numbers, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages many times over.

I’m now firmly in the ‘love it’ camp for iWork on the Mac (though for work purposes, Office is essential too), and I really like iWork on the iPad. There are bizarre bits around the edges that limit the usefulness of the software, undoubtedly, but it still is very usable for a lot of tasks.

I’d recommend it.

This is the second in a series of posts reviewing iPad Apps. Yesterday’s review was of The Times App. Check back tomorrow for my review of the Sky News App.

I used to be a regular newspaper reader, and had The Guardian delivered daily for some years. But, in 2007 I moved to my current house and couldn’t find a newsagent who delivered. Being a lazy git, I can’t be bothered to take the hundred or so steps from my front door to the nearest shop to buy a paper, and so my readership lapsed.

Instead, I turned to getting my news online more and more. Especially via the Guardian website, where I could keep up with the writing of my favourite Guardian columnists right up until most of them left the paper, when my interest waned a bit.

Someone once said that from the outside, The Guardian looks like an exclusive club, and hence it struggles to build it’s readership. I think there’s some truth in that. I don’t feel the same connection to The Guardian that I once did. Nancy Banks-Smith’s TV reviews, Guy Browning’s columns, Anna Pickard’s columns, Gareth McLean’s thiny-veiled gossip columns, Emily Bell’s MediaGuardian leaders: These (and others) were the skeleton on which I hung my consumption of The Guardian, and once they evaporated there was nothing left but a mass of unstructured news I could get anywhere else. Heck, it’s not been the same since they axed Ros Taylor’s Wrap, and that wasn’t even a newspaper feature.

I guess what I’m trying to describe is my descent from Guardianista to media tart, moving from news outlet to news outlet depending on the news stories that were being hawked at any given time. And that’s pretty much where I am now. Google Reader gives me selected news from across the web, Twitter fills in the gaps, and I’m out of the habit of reading a single organ’s daily summary.

But then my iPad came along, and the opportunity arose to download The Times on a daily basis. And it is The Times – not some sliced and diced hint of the news, but an actual full-fat version of The Times formatted for the iPad, even including the crosswords and sudoku. And it is great.

One of the most important things about it is its release time. The Times has been available to download every day when I’ve woken up. I believe it’s released around 4am, but I’ve never bothered to wake myself up to check. Essentially, being there for the time I eat my cornflakes is what this app requires – and actually beats the paperboy who used to deliver.

I didn’t used to like The Times’s journalism much. I used to read it quite a lot when it was a broadsheet, but when it switched to tabloid it seemed to simultaneously switch to picture-led storytelling, which is a danger of the format. It gained ‘silly’ page three features, true tabloid style, and lost a lot of the genuinely interesting Times 2 human interest stuff. I don’t know if / when any of that changed in the print version, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be the case so much in the iPad edition, which feels much more like The Times of old.

In iPad terms, the experience is great. Landscape viewing tends to work best for me, with my iPad propped up in its case. News articles cross pages, swiping from right to left, whilst more in depth features tend to have the header on the right-left swipe, with a downwards pagination for the rest of the article. Pictures are often linked to videos or slideshows, accessed with a tap. And a ‘contents’ pop-up bar allows jumping quickly to any part of the paper (or a quick review of the headlines). Like most descriptions of user-interfaces, that makes it sound awfully complicated. It’s really quite intuitive.

The nature of the beast is that copy tends to lag behind current events, but articles are sometimes updated over the course of the day, and on heavy-news days, an additional 5pm edition is published. Brilliant.

Another benefit is the price… An online subscription, which includes access to the pay-walled website and the Sunday Times app costs £2 per week – bizarrely cheaper than the £9.99 subscription to the Times App alone.

But it’s not all good news. Because The Times is paywalled, there’s no social features. No ‘share this’, no ‘this is what others liked’, no ‘leave a comment’. It’s one-way communication, and feels a little out of step with modern life.

There’s also no search, which is a little bit of an odd omission, and there are ads – I’d estimate about five full pages per edition – though they’re easy enough to flick past and ignore.

Overall, I think the iPad experience of The Times is great, and I plan to stay subscribed. Whether that will change when The Guardian’s app is released later this month remains to be seen, but it will take something very impressive to blow The Times out of the water.

This is the first in a series of posts reviewing iPad Apps. Check back tomorrow for my review of the iWork Apps.

The iPad 2 was released in the UK a couple of weeks ago, and caused quite a stir. Just a week or so beforehand, I’d bought an original iPad at a bargain price, and I’ve been loving it ever since. I haven’t coveted the iPad 2 at all – the original one is perfect for my needs.

So, with the number of iPads increasing, I thought it would be nice to review some of the Apps I’ve loaded onto my device, to help new owners decide what they want.

Hence, all next week on sjhoward.co.uk, I’ll be doing a series of App Reviews – one a day, published at midday.

If you’ve read my reviews in the past, you’ll be familiar with the fact that I’m not a great reviewer, and tend to ramble more than a bit without ever really reaching a conclusion. I don’t think it’s ruining the blogging magic too much to say that this series of five reviews is already drafted, and fits in with that pretext pretty well.

The first App coming before me for judgement is News International’s “The Times” iPad App.

Will I like it? Will I hate it? The suspense is killing me!

Find out on Monday!

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my switch from PC to Mac, and said I’d also explain how I’d come to switch form BlackBerry to iPhone. So here I go…

Vodafone Logo

Back in December 2008, I was using a Nokia 6110 Navigator, and felt I needed an upgrade to something a little more modern and useful – so I started looking. I decided that I needed a true smartphone, and felt that I probably wanted something on the Vodafone network as I knew them and liked them.

That ruled the iPhone out. But I’d decided I didn’t really want one of those anyway – I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of a touch screen, and heck, this was a phone that couldn’t handle MMS or cut-and-paste. In many ways, it would be a downgrade.

However, I was attracted by the iPhone’s big screen… and also by the idea of a BlackBerry, which I’d heard were ‘rock solid’ for email – and email was one of the big things I wanted my new phone to do better. So I looked at the newly released BlackBerry Storm, and quickly came to love it.

I’d read all the negative reviews, but playing with it repeatedly in-store reassured me that it was right for me. The ‘click’ of the screen helped me to overcome my fears about using a touchscreen, and the reputation for rock-solid email convinced me further.

In March 2009, as I blogged at the time, I upgraded.

BlackBerry Storm

And I loved it. It connected with most of my email accounts out of the box (with the exception of my NHSmail account, which I never anticipated it connecting to), and it worked exactly as I wanted it to. The SurePress screen was a massive hit. The battery life wasn’t great, but I’d planned for that and bought a charging dock to keep next to my bed, and used the phone as my alarm clock. The perfect solution.

But over the next 12 months, things began to niggle me. The Storm crashed quite regularly – perhaps once a day, a battery-pull would be necessary to reboot the device to get it working again. And rebooting a Storm is not exactly an instantaneous process. Syncing the phone over-the-air worked brilliantly for my Calendar and Contacts, but when I wanted to connect to my PC to transfer photos from the device, it was more than a little laborious.

As time went on, I simply became more and more frustrated with the device, and had my mind set on a high-end QWERTY BlackBerry as my next phone of choice.

But then, I discovered Mac. I bought my MacBook Pro, and started playing with the iPhones in the Apple Store. I discovered that my previous complaints about the iPhone had largely been fixed, and that typing on a touch-screen was actually quite easy. The seamless syncing between my new MacBook and the iPhone also seemed attractive. The seeds were inevitably planted.

Whilst particularly frustrated with my Storm one day, I vented my anger through twitter, citing my frustration with the Storm and desire for an iPhone. Having seen my Tweet, in a show of exemplary customer service, Vodafone called me, and within the week I had a shiny new iPhone 3GS (and, as it happens, Vodafone also reduced my monthly contract cost).

And, much like the switch from PC to Mac, it wasn’t until I started using it that I realised what I had been missing.

iPhone 3GS

The iPhone just works in a way that the BlackBerry didn’t. As per the comment on my previous post, the iPhone is more transparent to the task than the BlackBerry could ever hope to have been.

The App Store makes the iPhone sing in a way that the App World could never do for the BlackBerry. The App Store experience is seamless, the App World experience, well, isn’t, to say the least.

And, perhaps most surprisingly, since the release of iOS4, the iPhone connects to all of my email accounts – including NHSmail – without a hitch. Surprisingly, I think the iPhone has actually surpassed the BlackBerry for email solidity.

The MacBook syncing is as straight-forward as I’d hoped, and typing is as easy as it seemed in the shop. And I’ve never had to perform any equivalent to the constant battery-pulls I had to endure with the Storm.

Once again, Apple has won me over simply through offering the better user experience. I can’t quite say that I don’t miss anything from the Storm, but there is only one thing that I miss – the little notification LED on the top of the device. But then, I’d had to hack that with BeBuzz to make it useful to me. All-in-all, there’s no question in my mind – I prefer the iPhone.

Also, Vodafone has amazed me through their exceptional level of customer service – a level of service which has improved immeasurably from a couple of years ago to become truly First Class. I was impressed when they upgraded me to the Storm, but this time even more so – picking up on a single tweet and responding to it in such a supra-satisfactory way is truly impressive of any company, and has certainly guaranteed my custom for many more years to come.

Apple Logo

Twelve months ago, I was ‘a PC’, as the ads would have it. I’d used Windows for most of my computing life, and had no real reason to change. To me, Macs were incompatible with everything I use, great for graphic design and little else, and owned only by pretentious idiots with more money than technological sense.

Now, I have a MacBook Pro and and iPhone.

So what changed? How did Ballmer lose his grip on me in the face of the cult of Jobs? Well, I came to the dawning realisation that Apple products are better for my needs.

My old Toshiba laptop was happily running along on Windows XP, but nearing the end of its lifespan. After four years of abuse, it was running slowly, becoming occasionally tempremental, and making worrying noises now and again. I decided it was time for a new one.

At the same time, I’d be trying to find the perfect operating system for my Acer Netbook. It came with a fairly rubbish pre-installed flavour of Linux, and I’d been experimenting with Ubuntu, Moblin, even Windows 7 (which ran so slowly it was comical). I had come to realise that operating systems could be done better than Windows – though I wasn’t sure I was ready to leap to Linux for the purposes of my main computer system.

One of the most negative aspects of my experience with Windows XP on the laptop was it’s constant nagging. Everytime I opened the lid of the laptop, it would have a handful of messages to tell me it had connected to a wireless network, updated its virus scanner, and an update or six were available – which would probably require a reboot taking at least ten minutes. My limited experience of Windows 7 on other computers and on my netbook hardly convinced me that Microsoft had reversed this trend.

What I needed, I realised, was an operating system that gets the hell out of my way, and just lets me do what I want to do – much like Moblin on the netbook.

Now around this time, many of my online acquantances were changing to MacBooks. I was mildly curious about this, but I was fairly sure that Mac wasn’t for me. I didn’t want the hassle of converting documents to use them on Windows machines, having to find alternatives to the software I use that are ‘Mac Compatabile’, and peripherals probably wouldn’t work with it either. No, I was sure I wanted to stick to Windows.

Then, with curious timing, an Apple Store opened near me. Being a bit of a tech-head, of course I naturally went to have a look. Initially, I gawped from outside at the hoards of people, wondering how people could spend so much money on such ‘toys’ instead of proper computers.

MacBook Pro

Within a couple of weeks, I ventured inside. Having never really examined one in the ‘flesh’ before, I was amazed by the MacBook Pro. It was a thing of beauty. It wasn’t a noisy great hulking grey plastic lump of ‘tech’ like my laptop. It was metal, and shiny, and sleek. It looked like it had been designed, rather than just being the result of an unholy union between screen and keyboard. It impressed.

Still, I scoffed at the large trackpad. Recalling that Macs have only one mouse button, I assumed one had to tap to click, and no right-click would be possible. I’ll admit to being more than a little impressed when I tried it, and found that the trackpad actually physically clicked…

And, over time, the seed planted by the Apple Store grew. I learned that that right-clicking was not only possible, but easy – just click with two fingers. I noticed how the Macs sped along, even when multitasking, compared to my slow, clunking laptop. And gestures like two-fingered scrolling and four-fingers for exposé came naturally, even from just playing in the shop.

More than anything, the more I learned about Mac OSX, the more I felt some design had gone into that too. It didn’t feel like the latest iteration of something that had gone on forever. It felt thought-through, somehow fluid, and complete. It just worked, and kept the hell out of the way.

I was given yet more confidence to make the switch by the support offered by the Apple Store. The idea that they were there, on hand, to help with any questions or struggles I had was manifestly reassuring. And the idea of being able to take a misbehaving laptop straight to the Genius Bar for repair sold me too.

So, after a little research, I took the plunge. I made a Personal Shopping appointment, took along my NHS ID and got a hefty discount off a new MacBook Pro. The shopping experience itself was brilliant. I had an attentive assistant’s undivided attention, and he was clearly knowledgable. He knew all about the machines, how they worked, and how to do stuff on them.

He didn’t try to up-sell – despite me expecting him to, when I asked if the 13″ would meet all of my needs. Ask that in PC World, and they’ll undoubtedly try to sell something horrendously overpowered to bulk up the sales figures.

The guy was trying to tell me all about the benefits of iLife – I wasn’t really interested, I assumed this was Apple’s version of bloatware that I’d remove within days.

He offered to take in my old laptop and transfer everything across, but I figured that I could do that myself – though he assured me that they’d be there if I got stuck.

I got the MacBook home, and loved it. Transferring everything across was easy, especially as most of my documents and the like are stored with DropBox. Transferring music involved a simple iTunes backup on the old computer, and restore on the new one. Easy.

The ‘bloatware’ of iLife turned out to be excellent. I use Mail, Address Book, Calendar, iPhoto, and iMovie regularly, and GarageBand for podcasting. Everything stays in sync with my Google services flawlessly – I now rarely find myself logging in to the Google Apps online.

I was initially frustrated by the lack of a “maximise” button on the Mac, but once you’re used to working in windows that are only as big as they need to be, you quickly learn to appreciate the advatanges of working in multiple windows. As I write this, I have a couple of chats window open on the right of the screen – something I never would have done under Windows XP as I would naturally have maximised this one window. I’ve also adopted this new-found multitasking behaviour on the Windows systems at work – and often try to stroke the mouse, as I do my Magic Mouse at home!

Whilst I have iWork on the MacBook, I also bought Office for Mac for pennies via NHS Discount, and find myself using that instead. Again, the layout of the software is rather different to what I’m used to under Windows, but it is in many ways more intuitive through being less formal and more fluid. Writing a PowerPoint presentation a few weeks ago seemed easier on Office for Mac than on regular Office – even though it’s regular Office that I’m used to. And I had no problem at all loading it onto a memory stick and presenting it at work.

MacOSX does what I wanted – stays out of the way. And I’ve come to appreciate that features like exposé, which look like flashy gimmicks in the shop, are invaluable – I actually don’t know how I managed without it! And I can honestly say that I haven’t found anything – anything – that I could do on the PC but can’t do on the Mac.

So, laptop wise, I’m a Mac Convert. I prefer the way Macs work, look, and feel. They are a better match for me than Windows PCs – though I accept that some will prefer the latter – I’m a convert, not a cult member.

I was going to write about how I was later converted from Blackberry to iPhone, too, but given the length of this post, I think that will just have to wait till another day.

Having a usable computer based internet connection when traveling is great. I am a convert to surfing on the train, and have been for a couple of years now. On top of that, having reasonably priced access to the internet when staying in hotels is always great too.

To this end, I’ve used a number of set-ups over the last few years. Initially, I used bluetooth tethering over 3G with my then everyday Nokia phone. This was great. I didn’t have to carry any extra kit, and I only had to get the laptop out on the train to surf – the mobile never needed to leave my pocket. Great for those moments when you’re absorbed in something and suddenly realise you’re pulling into your station, as there’s little to pack away (as someone who’s very easily distracted, this often happens to me…).

The problem is that this method is slow. And I mean S-L-O-W. At the time I didn’t mind, as I was a virtuous individual who spent most of the time completing BMJ Learning modules on the train. These aren’t exactly data heavy, but even moving from one page to another in those was, well, tiresome with a slow connection.

Contemplating Hagen–Poiseuille’s law (yes, really, I am that dull), I reliased that the Bluetooth ‘pipe’ was the limiting factor to the speed of connection, and started carrying a USB cable. But that was all a bit hassley, getting out the phone, plugging it in, getting it and the computer talking – just hassle, and more often than not I just bluetoothed it.

Over time, my demands became greater. As I said above, I’m easily distracted, and so I started to want multiple tabs open in my browser, just like I do at home. This made my previous system grind to a halt – and as I was paying via my contract phone, I was constantly terrified that I was running up a bill the size of a small nation’s GDP (though, in reality, this never happened). So I went hunting for a new solution.

As a Vodafone fanboy and long-term loyalist, I went for the Vodafone PAYG USB dongle-thingy, That may not be its proper name. The reason I chose it was the fairly fair pricing, in that PAYG credit never expires – unlike all other operators.

But this dongle has its own problems. The biggest problem for me is that it doesn’t (easily) support Linux. When I’m traveling, I’m most often carrying my netbook. This has had a number of Operating Systems installed on it during its lifetime, but has most often run Linux (currently running Moblin, actually). It is possible to jimmy linux into talking to the Vodafone PAYG USB dongle-thingy, but it ain’t straightforward, and it isn’t terribly reliable.

The other problem with this solution is the resilience of the Vodafone PAYG USB dongle-thingy. When on a train – and from the design of this device, this must come as a surprise to Vodafone – there are network blackspots. Tunnels, for example. I can accept losing connection briefly during this spots, I don’t expect mobile networks to defy the laws of physics. But I cannot accept the absolutely ludicrous amount of time it takes the Vodafone PAYG USB dongle-thingy to pick up a new signal and make the connection usable. Particularly when using a jimmied linux connection, it seems to take hours. This isn’t a problem for connecting in hotels, but on trains, it is a nightmare.

Actually, the situation got so bad that when traveling on National Express trains, I started to rely on their Wifi – which anyone who has tried to use it will tell you is a serious test of patience. Oh, and then they made credit expire after 30 days, just like everyone else.

So last week, I decided to try something new, in the form of a 3 Mifi doofer. I didn’t expect much. We’ve all heard horror stories about 3’s coverage, and I’m fairly sure that even they would admit it isn’t the best.

But I have been unexpectedly impressed. The device is simple to operate, even though its five multicoloured flashing lights can be a little befuddling at first. The connection is the fastest mobile broadband connection I’ve experienced, and when a signal is lost, it regains it very quickly and seemlessly.

There’s no hassle factor – switch it on, and my laptop just connects, it being one of my preferred wireless connections, and the device doesn’t even need to leave my bag most of the time. When checking my emails in my hotel last night, I actually forgot I was on a mobile connection. I was watching TV, netbook on lap as usual, MiFi dongle plugging in and charging on the other side of the room. Fantastic!

Initially, I was put off getting a Mifi dongle because of the cost. But actually, the cost is a lot more reasonable than it first appears. For example, when I’m away for the weekend, I’m never really going to want to stream music or watch the iPlayer. I want a decent connection for bits of work and checking my email.

3 gives a 1GB allowance for £10, though admittedly this only lasts for 30 days. But looking at this from a different perspective, this is effectively all-you-can-eat internet for my purposes across a weekend, both at my destination and during my journey. Hotel Wifi would probably give me 24hrs continuous access for that kind of price… Much less convenient, and – for the same level of usage – much more expensive.

So the Mifi dongle is great for me. And for people who want the level of net access on the move that I want, I’d recommend it – so I thought I’d let you know.

I’ve been a member of sparekeys.com for nearly a year now, after being attracted by their clever idea: send them your spare keys, and if you lose yours, they’ll drop them round within an hour. As I said, a clever idea.

So I paid my subscription, and packaged up my keys and sent them. Pretty soon, I got confirmation that they’d arrived, complete with photographic proof. And that was that. Until Sunday night.

On Sunday night, I had cause to call them out. So I requested that they called me, and within ten minutes they did. I passed the security checks, and was given a password in exchange for a description of myself.

Within less than an hour, a courier was at my door: “I’ve got a delivery” “My keys?” “Can’t tell you until you give me the password”

I did, he gave me the keys, and it was all over. From the initial phone call to the keys being in my hand took less than an hour… On a Sunday night. In Newcastle. Who else would even attempt to rival that service?

And the piece of mind that brought cost just £30 a year or so.

I cannot recommend them highly enough. Simply brilliant service.

I’ve been a Vodafone customer for about seven years now, and – having previously experienced most of the major mobile networks – I reckon Vodafone is the best.

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted a new phone – the Blackberry Storm. However Stephen Fry opines on the subject, I still believe it is an excellent Blackberry, and I’m a bona fide member of the ‘love-it’ club when it comes to the Marmite-like SurePress screen.

The snag was that I still had five months to run on my previous contract, which had supplied me with the great-for-its-time Nokia Navigator.

My old contract was relatively cheap, and so I decided in my own mind that I was happy to buy myself out of it for the immediacy of a new phone, and I marched into my local Vodafone store all ready to pay – but was told this wasn’t possible.

Apparently, it’s against Vodafone policy to allow people to buy out of their contracts – presumably as it potentially loses them revenue from the calls and texts that people would’ve made in the bought-out period.

Yet on my walk home, I realised this was an utterly flawed policy, for there was nothing to stop me sticking my Vodafone device in a drawer unused, and signing up to O2 and getting a shiny new phone. There is no price differential from my point of view, but Vodafone would lose a customer.

As soon as I got home, I sent Vodafone an email pointing out this absurdity.

Within the hour, I had a phone call back telling me that the policy was indeed absurd in my case. They apologised for messing me – a loyal customer – about, apologised for my tariff (“It’s like something from the 80s!”), and apologised for not treating me more like royalty.

They then offered to do me a free upgrade five months early, with no need to buy myself out of my contract. They gave me a premium tariff, better than that available in the shop or online, a free Blackberry Storm with free delivery, and – for the first time in recent memory from a big company – the assistant gave me her name and direct number for if I had any further problem with either the handset, my tariff, or anything Vodafone related.

And all this for an increase in my monthly outgoing of about a fiver for eighteen months.

A couple of weeks in, and I’m still a very happy bunny. The phone is great, the tariff is liberating, and I have a level of smug satisfaction beyond compare.

This is the kind of service I’ve come to expect from JLP or First Direct, but to unexpectedly receive that level of service from Vodafone is – without doubt – a joy. I just hope they keep up the excellent work.

Summer Books

The Summer Books series, which has hopefully kept both sjhoward.co.uk and Gazette Live readers entertained over the last three months, was an idea conceived back in June to stave off a summer of desperate, straw-clutching silly-season posts about random topics. I think it’s worked rather well.

But it’s also revealed some interesting things about my sjhoward.co.uk readers. For example, the most popular of the reviewed books from the point of view of orders placed through sjhoward.co.uk/shop has been Never Push When it Says Pull: Small Rules for Little Problems by Guy Browning. That single book has outsold its nearest Summer Books rival by a factor of almost ten-to-one, which certainly surprised me, considering the relative national best-sellers that have also featured.

So why should this be? Is it because people hadn’t previously heard of Never Push… and liked the sound of it, whereas they’d already read many of the others? Is it because many of my readers are Guardian fans, and have previously enjoyed Browning’s columns? Or is it because Never Push… was the only downright good fun book I reviewed?

Whatever it was, I’d like to thank everyone that’s supported the site by buying the reviewed books (and others!) through sjhoward.co.uk/shop. From the point of view of funding the site, the series has been a remarkable success, with profits from sales of the featured books actually outstripping the sjhoward.co.uk advertising revenue for the summer.

So thanks for your support over the summer – I hope you enjoyed the series, and I hope you’ll stick around and continue to read sjhoward.co.uk into the autumn and beyond.