What’s Your Address?

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We’re currently in the process of switching from BT to Virgin Media at home. Our reasons are numerous and I won’t go into them here*. What has struck me as odd during the sign-up process to Virgin though, is that broadband suppliers are still dishing out branded email addresses to their customers.

Don’t get me wrong; I can completely understand the reasons from a supplier’s perspective. Primarily, whenever their customers send out an email, an advert for Virgin is sent out along with it in the form of @virginmedia.com address. A few free email addresses also helps to bulk out the list of features when advertising broadband packages. That’s absolutely fine. I get it.

What I don’t understand is why customers continue to use them. For one, you’re choosing an email address which is potentially going to disappear at some point in the future, should you switch to another supplier. At that point you’re going to have to change the address on all of the websites you’ve signed up to, as well as having to inform everyone else you know that you’ve had to switch your emails to another company.

Of course, there are always going to be people who don’t realise they could get an email address with someone else, but in this day and age these people should be few and far between. This is especially true when using Virgin Media, as you’re informed when you log in that your emails are going to be handled by Google and Gmail anyway. And if you’d have signed up directly with Google, your email address would end with the much shorter @gmail.com.

There are a couple of people in my office who have told me they use these addresses. One has even mentioned that when she switches back to BT from Virgin in the near future, she’ll be switching from her Virgin account to one of BT’s email addresses and letting everyone know of the change. She even complained that the process of switching is a complete pain.

My question is, why? There are a myriad of free email hosts, including the ever-decent Gmail, who will give them access to the same address no matter who their broadband supplier is. What genuine reason might there be for someone who is perfectly able to sign up to any free email provider, to instead keep using the address their broadband supplier gives them?

*BT are diabolical

Becoming an Author

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I’ve always fancied being an author. A novelist in particular. I love the idea of my work being read by others, though I never get around to finishing anything I start. In fact, it barely ever gets off the ground. I come up with half-arsed ideas which don’t lead anywhere and I seem to lack the concentration it takes to get to grips with such a large undertaking. I need focus.

I often go out and buy new notebooks with the intention of filling them with ideas; passages I’ve written which could make it into a larger work; character profiles; ideas for locations. But they never get filled. I carry them around with me for a while, before they start to be used for other, less artistic works. Such as the shopping list.

I bought one the other day. It’s a Moleskin clone from Ryman’s. It feels just as nice to the touch, but less than half the price. But that’s by-the-by. I’m not here to talk about the price of paper. I’m here because I want to write. I need to learn to concentrate and not imagine there are a million-and-one other things I could do instead. When it comes to fictional writing, I am the world’s greatest procrastinator. There is always washing up to be done, or clothes to be dried, or cushions to be straightened, or cats to be stroked. It’s the little things which continually distract me from doing what I really want to do. And by the time I’m distracted, it’s already too late; my mind has wandered. There’ll be no writing on those days.

Eventually, a few days will go by and I’ll never return to the story I’d started. Perhaps I need to give myself more opportunities to write. But I doubt a publisher is going to give me an advance to enable me to quit work and write full-time, especially given that I don’t yet have anything to show them. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. I just need to beat my mind into submission first.

Although I’m fully aware that this blog isn’t read by a huge number of people, if anyone out there has any hints and tips for writing, I’d be very glad to read them.

Derby Velodrome

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Those who know me will be fully aware that I’m not a very sporty person. Obviously, there is the cycling I did last year and I do try and get to the gym (sometimes), but I’m not one to watch a sporting event. I can’t really think of anything else I’d rather not do. But one thing I am excited about is the proposal to build a velodrome and Olympic-sized swimming pool in Derby.

Derby is a city that’s had a fair amount of investment in the last few years. There was the construction of the Westfield shopping centre, the redevelopment of the old railway sidings into Pride Park, the improved railway station, the fancy bus station (with it’s hotels and casino) and all of the many other bits and pieces which are still ongoing, but too many to mention. There is a website you can visit to take a look.

It would seem that the plans for the velodrome have been in the works for a while, but they have only just come across my radar (a link I saw on Twitter). It has been designed by Mace, who have recently designed the velodrome for the London 2012 Olympics and it seems that a little bit of the glamour has rubbed off on this.

The proposed Derby Velodrome design. It's a fantastic-looking wave-shaped building with a budget of £20m.

Obviously there have been naysayers (see the comments), who claim that the money should be spent on health care, or creating jobs, or improving the other delapidated facilities which already exist. There are also arguments to suggest that the designers should stick to a tried and tested design; i.e. a concrete box. To those who believe the money could be more wisely spent in other areas, surely they understand that the only way to compete and improve the local economy is to promote ventures such as this? Derby (and every other city) is in constant need of attracting people and outside investment, and this would help to put Derby on the sporting map (an ensure a lasting legacy). Sure, a new or updated leisure pool would attract a few families to the city for a day out, but an Olympic-sized pool and velodrome would help attract investment and future expansion.

I also obviously agree that other services need constant investment, but if you pump all of your money into health care you end up with a healthy population living in a continually dreary place. Investing in sporting facilities and improving Derby’s sporting image will help to develop an all-round healthier place in the long-term.

The trouble is, unless money is being spent on something that makes an immediate impact in people’s pockets, the public are going to get annoyed. No matter what the council were to invest in, there would always be someone telling them they’re doing the wrong thing. There’s no way to win, except to get on with it and improve people’s lives whether they like it or not.

The Velodrome will be built next to Pride Park Stadium

And that’s what these developments will do. Some people don’t think so right now because they don’t have the vision to see beyond today.

As I said earlier, I really don’t like sports. I can’t swim and in all honestly, the thought of watching people cycle in a velodrome sends me to sleep. But the council will recoup the money spent on this in no time at all; it will bring new people and investment into the city; it will make Derby a centre of excellence for cycling; and it will leave more of a mark than just upgrading the run-down leisure pool facilities currently on offer. You never know; it may well bring in enough money to sport and leisure in the city that the council have enough to upgrade those as well.

As to the design, I personally hope the final design ends up as innovative and unique as the current proposal. Anyone can build a square; just look at the top of the Westfield shopping centre in the middle of the city. But let’s have something different and funky that leaves its mark, rather than a bland slab that will fade into the background. A unique design will attract greater investment. A concrete square will not.

The Despicable Rise of Freemium Gaming

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Ever played a freemium game before? You know, they’re those titles on iOS (and I’m sure on Android too) which let you download for free, but then hold off with some of the better features until you’ve given them some cash. Or those titles where you progress to a certain level with the expectation that you’re going to be able to continue, but then you run out of coins or something, and you’re forced to hand over real cash in order to go any further.

In my day, those games were called demos. You got a small chunk for free and then you had to pop off to Game if you wanted to get the full thing. And that was absolutely fine. There’s always room for a demo or two. I also believe there is a place in this world for games which only give you a certain number of features before you hand the developer some money. But what I don’t believe is right is the abundance of games which charge an extraordinary amount of money for so very little.

My Country loves your money.

Take, for example, My Country on iOS. It’s a pretty basic city-building game, which is actually quite fun to play when you have a couple of minutes, though it doesn’t really have much of what you’d call longevity. You place buildings, hire employees and continue on until you’ve filled your screen and earned a shed-load of in-world cash. However, the difficulties start pretty soon after you begin the game. In order to hire certain employees, you must collect certain objects whenever you place, upgrade or collect profit from a building. But some of these objects are so few and far between (and placed randomly) that you’re forced to spend real money in order to purchase more in-game currency, allowing you to skip the process of random item dropping and get on with hiring employees. The same goes for expanding into certain territories; mostly you’re fine with the in-game cash, but often the only way to expand is to spend insane amounts of real money.

And let me tell you how insane these amounts get. In order to purchase various amounts of “CountryBucks” which lets you do various things, you’re looking at:

  • £1.49 for 20
  • £4.99 for 70
  • £13.99 for 200
  • £34.99 for 500
  • £69.99 for 1,000

I can’t be the only one who finds this all a little bit excessive, can I? I mean, Modern Warfare 3 is currently less than just £30, so how can a game as tedious and disengaging as My Country possibly warrant charging almost £70 for absolutely nothing?

Worst of all though, is that proper, established game studios have started jumping on the bandwagon. Yes EA, I’m looking at you. EA have recently come out with a spate of titles for absolutely nothing, but which then rely on the freemium strategy of raking in the cash. I’m pleased to say that people aren’t willing to take this lying down when it comes to EA. Smaller companies can get away with it as it’s really become an expectation that their games are funding in this manner. But I think EA have gone off on a tangeant that they really should have steered clear of.

Take, for example, Theme Park. Theme Park is an absolute classic game and I was rather pleased to see it in the App Store. I was also pleased to see that they weren’t going to charge anything for the game. Result! But, of course, there’s always more to it than that and I was extremely disappointed to find it was freemium. As were many other people, which has resulted in the game receiving (at present) 1,897 1* reviews. Lack of freedom of play – and the fact that to do anything at all you have to hand cash over for in-game tickets – have meant a backlash against this title in particular, although it’s by no means alone.

How to destroy a classic.

There’s also Tetris. Now, how could you take Tetris and screw it up? Tetris is the greatest puzzle game there has ever been, it’s also one of the most addictive and it’s the reason why there is still an original GameBoy sat somewhere in a drawer in my parents’ house. But what did EA do to it? They went and offered a subscription service for £20.99 per annum, which gives you in-games coins to boost your score. Which effectively means, if you have the money, you can cheat the game. Where is the fun in that?

You know what I want? I want to spend £5 on a game like My Country. Or Theme Park. Or Tetris. I want to spend £5 and then play the game whenever I want to, without having to fork out extra for it. A game should be fun. It should be relaxing. It shouldn’t mean the stress of having to work extra hours in order to pay for additional content. Which, let’s face it, means absolutely nothing at the end of the day. It shouldn’t mean giving kids a game and then charging their parents a fortune for extra bits, or making them go out to buy an iTunes voucher with their pocket money. There needs to be an end to this disgraceful act of money-grabbing on the part of all developers, but especially the larger studios. We all know you need to make money, but there are alternative methods. Charging people for the game in the first place is the obvious one, but what about in-game advertising. There are options here which don’t involve ripping people off. Developers, please choose them.

Importing Christmas Tracks

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I’ve just spent a little bit of time importing a Christmas CD to iTunes which had been compiled by a friend. Although the songs are very easily recognised, I was slightly worried by the fact that there was no indication at all as to the artist. The tracks had been re-recorded and re-released by so many people of the years that I was concerned about getting them all right. Especially now that iTunes Match would be attempting to track down a copy once I’d added it.

It seems that I need not have feared. I used SoundHound, which is currently free on iTunes and one of the pressies Apple are giving us this year with their 12 Days of Christmas promotion.

SoundHound listens to the song you’re playing at it tells you what it is and who’s singing it. And it got every single one absolutely correct. The only issue it had was with a random Christmas song by Alvin & The Chipmunks, although after skipping ahead to later in the track it was able to pick up the chorus.

Obviously, one set of songs is not enough to determine whether it would get anything you could through at it right, but for absolutely nothing this app has saved me what could have amounted to hours of searching.