Mike Wilson » Uncategorized

Strange website traffic

Mike — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:06:21 +0000

Here’s a chart of all the unique traffic to this blog from December 2011, over the holiday season and into 2012. It’s interesting to see traffic fall off dramatically in the days leading up to Christmas and New Year. Boxing Day was the highest day for visitors and surprisingly around 530 people logged onto www.mikewilson.cc on Christmas Day!* Excluding the lowest and highest point, the range is (max: 650, min: 375) which is almost exactly the same range of visits as I had back in October (but now with more overall unique visitors). The slight upward trend in traffic is encouraging:

*A day is considered +/- 12 hours from GMT. As a lot of traffic comes from the US and Canada, they may be reflected a day earlier or later in the chart.

Another amusing website #fail

Mike — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:34:09 +0000

I was comparing car insurance quotations at www.confused.com today when I noticed that after they’d gotten my email address, not content to send a simple welcome email they sent three.

So I followed their link to unsubscribe, which took me to a page which accepted by email address and then did nothing with it. It was then that I noticed their corporate spam policy. “That’s very interesting”, I thought..

…this is what I saw when I clicked it…

Main menu navigation fail!

(If anyone from confused.com wishes to follow up this article with me, please leave a comment with your email address (kept private) below).

Southern Electric “Live chat” fail

Mike — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:31:56 +0000

Do they have a preferred browser in mind?

“Thank you for trying to contact Southern-Electric. Unfortunately we cannot continue chat because your browser is not supported.”

(to be fair to Southern Electric, their live chat is supposedly powered by eGain* Chat “http://www.egain.com/” – so this may just be a poorly tested choice of web chat software).

Happy Valentines day!

Mike — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:46:46 +0000

Happy Valentines day!, originally uploaded by MikeWPhotos.

Happy Valentines day to both my regular readers

Small kitten, big mouth.

Mike — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:01:33 +0000

Small kitten, big mouth., originally uploaded by MikeWPhotos.

My most popular image on Flickr so far…

(really this is just an excuse to test Flickr’s blog integration)

Second night observing

Mike — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:15:58 +0000

What a night. Even after studying amateur astronomy for seven months, nothing prepares you for actually having a go yourself, on your own.

Simple things that perhaps well practiced astronomers do, like having all your gear in the right boxes to carry with you or allowing the scope plenty of time to cool were a little lost on me this evening. The weather forecast was for 80% cloud cover and whilst the night started badly (thunder, rain and 100% cloud cover), the clouds broke to reveal the glistening beauty of the night sky.. billions of shiny objects in the sky, a natural celestial boutique more attractive than even the most well furnished Apple store.

The camp site that I’m on (we rented a six berth mobile home) isn’t in the darkest location – there was still quite a lot of light pollution (much of it coming from the camp site itself) and I didn’t want to disturb the other patrons with my beeping and whirring, so I packed up my kit and headed off down the road away from the camp site in search of a dark spot.

I was however denied as the site had floodlit the road and the only dark areas were precariously close to a national speed limit A road, and as desperately as I wanted to use my kit, I did want to live for next time.

So I carried my kit (it’s heavy and bulky, and it’s gone 2:00am) across the site to a more secluded location on top of a small mound.

There I unpacked and begun the alignment procedure. However this alignment procedure is accompanied by a cocophany of beeps and motor whirrs. I rapidly turned down the motor speed and without a moments thought, pushed the handheld guidance computer into my shorts and muffled it. Silently does it. The name’s Mike, Mike Bond…

So I tried aligning the telescope to one of the stars that I thought I knew. Bugger – just like the first night two days ago, I totally misread the sky and picked the wrong one. Suddenly, I noticed a bright light in the sky to my left. I turned and it vanished. A few moments later it was back, brighter than before – it was the brightest object in the entire section of the sky.

The “SkyVoyager” software on my iPhone was telling me that this bright object was in fact, Jupiter. Yes, THE Jupiter (the big angry gas giant with the four moons).

I slewed the scope towards Jupiter and peered through the finderscope (a smaller, wider field scope mounted on top of the big one). There it was in the crosshairs. Good. Next I chose a 32mm Plossl eyepiece (the widest I could find) and took a look. I saw what looked like a small glowing doughnut. Turning the focus wheel, the majestic red gas ball popped into view. It was an amazing experience, almost religious-like – to see Jupiter, AND it’s four moons in tow, like a mother duck and her four ducklings.

Grabbing my iPhone to take a picture I wiggled the iPhone camera in front of the eyepiece and saw bright dots flicker in and out for a few moments. But before I could focus they were gone beneath a veil of cloud.

I have still to align the scope properly and navigate around the night sky, but for now I can sleep satisfied. I have seen alien worlds with my own eyes and I am pleased.

iPhone OS 4.0 Preview today

Mike — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:50:36 +0000

And so it’s finally here. No, not the iPad – but the preview of the iPhone OS that will be released later this summer over iTunes to existing iPhone and iPod Touch users (iPod Touch users often have an upgrade fee to pay). At 6pm GMT, Steve Jobs unveiled a host of new features for the OS that both iPhone and iPad share – 1,500 new APIs, a new advertising model (iAd) and a set of new ‘services’ to allow application developers to interact with the Operating System at a deeper level. Like the ‘notification’ service that was announced last year (allows messages to be shown for applications that are not actually running), we now have background audio and background location services so applications can continue to play audio and read the GPS even while in a semi-shutdown state. It’s conceptually multi-tasking but there are technical differences – the most important being that application developers must make their applications work with the new device services and there’s probably just a couple of months to get ready before the OS 4.0 goes retail. Some devices such as the previous generation iPod Touches and iPhone 2G & 3G won’t get the multitasking features at all, since even with Apple’s new ‘service’ architecture there’s obviously not enough hardware resource to go around.

Interestingly, Apple’s latest device – the iPad – isn’t due to get the OS 4.0 update until ‘fall’, despite the overwhelming likelihood that a new fourth generation iPhone is due for release in June.

In the meantime, there’s not much else to report other than I have been trialling OS 4.0 this evening and it’s buggy. Hopefully these bugs will get sorted over the next few weeks and in the same timeframe I’ll be putting out some apps of my own (fingers crossed!).

Pricing the iPad for the UK

Mike — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:03:26 +0000

The iPad has officially launched in the US and is now available for delivery or in-store collection over the pond. Assuming you want the Wi-Fi only model (sans 3G and GPS) and you can have one in your hands for just $499 plus taxes.

At the iPad’s unveiling in January, Steve Jobs referred to the pricing as ‘unbelievable’. At present the only thing unbelievable about the pricing is that it’s unbelievably not there. There is no sign of any magical release date for those of us wanting an iPad in the UK and although speculation on some blogs suggests an April 24th release date there’s still no official word from Apple on availability nor price.

So I’m going to speculate on the UK price, just for fun…

The 32GB WiFi only iPad currently retails for $599 on the Apple.com US store. Also retailing for $599 is the 2.26Ghz Mac Mini, the same Mac Mini that is available to UK customers via the Apple.com/uk store for £510:

This puts the price of the 32GB WiFi only iPad at £510 inc. VAT. The 16GB WiFi iPad costs 16.69% less which puts the cheapest iPad model at £418.20.

Given that the iPad is unlikely to sell for less than £399 due to currency exchange rate volatility and Steve Job’s own admission that doing business in the UK is more expensive than doing business in the US – I think £418.20 isn’t far off the mark.

However bear in mind that when the iPhone launched in the US it was available at the time for $399 (£200) whilst simultaneously retailing at £269 in the UK which is an approximate “Ripoff Britain” markup of >25%. An equivalent markup applied today would see the iPad available for £478.81 (£383.05 inc VAT + 25% Ripoff Britain markup). At the absolute top-end for the lowest end device, Play.com a fortnight ago accidentally ‘released’ an exorbitant price of £499 for the same iPad version, VAT free (Play.com are based in Jersey) but quickly withdrew the price from their Google Shopping data feed.

The real retail price is likely to be somewhere between the two but probably closer to £420 as Apple need these new devices in as many hands as possible (so that they can sell you additional content for it later).

And for those of you

planning your purchase, make sure you save money for the accessories (plus the inevitable man-bag you’ll now be carrying) as well as the App Store’s inflated iPad app prices.

Back to Objective C for me – I’ve got an iPhone app to finish for my favourite online accounting website :@)

Getting started with share dealing

Mike — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:35:18 +0000

I should say I don’t currently own any shares other than those in my companies, and although I provide stock market automation software and calculators, I don’t have any direct experience other than selling the shares that I was given when I was younger.

Running a small business and a small family doesn’t leave one with much time to manage a fund and I’m not flush with enough cash to warrant using a broker and I’m not totally comfortable in my own knowledge of the markets to make large investment decisions. However the current interest rate on my personal savings account isn’t the best (2.5% gross) and it looks like there’s no time like the present to continue my financial education by acquiring a few shares.

After a bit of research I found what looks like the best company for making small trades, www.iii.co.uk (thanks to MoneySavingExpert!) who charge £10 per trade (that’s for buying and selling) and no maintenance fees even for ‘inactive’ accounts. They act as your nominee effectively holding the shares in their name which is more convenient for me but might mean I could lose out on some of the shareholder perks that some companies offer their shareholders who have their real names on the certificates.

As far as picking the companies, I like the look of Vodafone stock as a first choice in the ‘no brainer’ category. The share price is currently 145p, up from 135p last month. They’re the UK’s fourth largest company and one of the FTSE 100 (this an index of the top 100 UK companies) highest yielding stocks. In other words, paying out returns higher than my bank does. At 6.1% that’s not a bad yield for a small trade. Vodafone has debts though, lots of it, but it is a relatively stable share that pays out.

Apple on the other hand is a company sitting on a big pile of cash. It is also a steady grower, somewhat faster than Vodafone so on paper it looks like a good investment. However it doesn’t pay out dividends, choosing instead to retain the profit and reinvesting it in the company to fund extravagant and expensive projects. Realising a profit on Apple would mean planning an exit strategy and getting out later. It looks like a good time to get on board with Apple stock given the recent announcement of the iPad (don’t be fooled by the “Big iPod” press – it’s a content distribution platform that will make Apple — and a selection of developers, quite rich). There’s also an OS refresh this year as well as the introduction of the Intels powerhouse Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs into the Macbook range and quite likely a new iPhone, too. As it happens, I’m developing on the Apple technology stack nowadays (more on this later) and from everything I can see, this is a growth market.

I’ve put together a spreadsheet to assist with my calculations. From what I can see, if I purchased 150 AAPL (Apple) stock today at around 209.70, I would have to sell at 223.03 in order to break even on the sale and cover the costs. If I hold the stock over the summer, I think this is likely. There, I’ve said it – Apple stock is going to increase over 13.3 dollars from now to July. Good, except I originally misread Apple stock as 209.70 cents instead of 209.70 dollars, so that’s rather too much money for a junior, inexperienced investor!

I’ve also calculated that if I picked up just 100 Vodafone (VOD) stock, I’d need a rise of 20p on the share to make a profit. And anything that Vodafone pay out between now and sale time will only decrease that margin. Also good.

So what should I do? Put everything into Apple, everything into Vodafone, or split between the two?

And does anyone know a better broker than iii.co.uk for handling these simple first newbie trades for me? I’m new to all of this, so please take my advice with the value that you paid for it

If you would like to download the spreadsheet I used for these calculations, please click on the image below:

I’ve got an iPad!

Mike — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:21:15 +0000

The iPad is due for official retail release in the UK in April starting from £389 (inc VAT) for the WiFi only, 16gb model. Thankfully, it looks like the price difference between the US and the UK is negligible and you might even be better off purchasing in the UK if you’re VAT registered and can reclaim the VAT.

Thanks to the wonders of paper, cardboard and glue I have built myself my own iPad. Why? So that I can acclimatise myself with the size and shape of the device and get an idea of how I need to be adjusting my current iPhone apps (unreleased at the moment) will feel on the bigger form factor and also to see if I can take advantage of the new iPad only store to develop some custom applications especially for the iPad.

My first impressions on the iPad size and shape are that Apple has the size almost perfect. It’s a little thicker than I expected (almost as thick as an opened Macbook Pro) but in reality it will be tapered at the edges (like the iPhone) although like the iPhone, adding a case will bulk it out and ruin the lines a little. In portrait mode you could feasibly hold the iPad with both hands and type using your thumbs and website navigation (one hand holds the other hand gestures) looks like it’ll be a winner, too.

The iPad can automatically scale iPhone applications and I can understand why Apple do this, especially for games, but it’s obvious that any navigation & utility applications are going to need to be reworked and reworking the UI from scratch as I cannot imagine how disorientating it would be using an iPhone app that whizzes a single ViewController on and off the screen. Much better to recode an iPad-only and iPhone-only version of each application.

What do you think? Is the iPad a glorified and oversized iPod Touch or is it the beginning of a new era of tactile computing?

Link: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/make-your-own-paper-ipad-08-02-2010/