But I have been able to crack on with some website work and as always it’s great when the client is accomodating, helpful and all round just a nice guy. Say hi to www.davidbelbin.com (then go buy one of his books!).

I’m also adding some functionality for a previous client, so I’ve got plenty to keep me busy AND I’ve found time to gently kick start my reading habit. Tackling the last of the Larsson trilogy which is a fun read in a Dan Brown kinda way. Mind you, I did read half of From Russia With Love before realising I’d already read it, oops.

The only other moment of excitement has been paying £4 for the privilege of receiving 4 rather shady looking photos of my fizzog. I need to renew my driving license and, amazingly, the photos actually look like me! (and no, I’m not showing you them).

Right, time to mark off another day in the “Hurry up I want an iPhone 4!” calendar.

Oh yeah, and football. World Cup and all that. If you need me, I’ll be in front of the TV.

Genius might be over-egging it a bit but suffice to say the experience was far far more positive and is an excellent example in how to get customer service right.

So, my old iPhone (just over a year old) had, over time, developed a crack on the back of the case, running a 1cm up the phone from where the cable dock is located. Not something I noticed as I have a case which covers that area.

A quick Google suggested that I should take it back to the store as they would likely just replace it. I was sceptical as it was past the year warranty but thought that if they wouldn’t replace it they might be able to suggest a way to fix it, or at least stop the crack getting any worse.

So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and after managing to get there without purchasing any new shiny Apple products (I deliberately left my credit card at home, yes I am THAT weak willed), I handed over my iPhone. A quick inspection confirmed that it was something that wasn’t fixable, they’d have to replace the handset.

A quick check of my details confirmed that, yes, I’d had the handset for 13 months, one month past the warranty but hey, they’d still replace it (granted this is the older model of iPhone, so they are probably happy to get the stock moving out of storage!). A quick signature and the new handset was mine. In and out in 10 minutes, and a nice smile on my face.

Alas that is not the end of this story. Yes, there is more. Sorry about that, but thanks for reading this far, seriously, I do appreciate it, I know I can waffle on a bit at times so I do appreciate you wasti spending your precious time reading this. I do. Thank you.

Where was I?

The next day, out and about with my new handset in my pocket it started to vibrate like I had an incoming call. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and… nothing. No call, no message, nothing. Odd. Put the phone back in my pocket and.. *buzzzz* and yet, still nothing.

And so it continued to the point where I could leave the handset on the table, and watch it randomly mute and unmute itself, triggering the vibration each time.

Back to the Genius Bar this morning where, after showing what the handset was doing it was, once again, replaced. In and out in 10 minutes, with an apology for the “Genius” and with a big smile on my face.

Lesson to learn? I know that not everything works all the time, things break, or aren’t properly made, such is life. It’s how you, as an organisation, deal with me at that point that makes or breaks my relationship with you.

So yes, having to get a replacement handset replaced isn’t ideal, but a quick acknowledgement, an apology, and some sort of corrective action is all it took to keep me happy. Case in point, if they’d said my original phone, with the crack in the case, couldn’t have been replaced but had suggested a way to fix it, that would’ve been ok as well.

So, well done to the Genius Bar in the Apple store in Glasgow, you’ve restored some of my faith that some organisations do know how to treat customers properly. Thanks (and ta for the shiny new handset!).

Yeah, those things. The things life sometimes likes to throw at you, like that annoying teacher who would randomly ask you a question just to make sure you’ve been awake for the past hour. That.

Hmmm I should maybe be a little more polite about teachers, they do an amazing job, are hugely underpaid and undervalued and all round wonderful people (hey Mum, hey Dad!).

Anyway, this is a brief tale about one of those types of lessons.

I’ve been managing to keep a fairly regular schedule at the gym, visiting 3 times a week, and concentrating on cardiovascular exercise as I’m still focussing on losing weight. In other words I’ve been mostly sitting on a bike pedalling up and down ‘hills’ for 30-40 minutes at a time.

Of course to keep things balanced I have also been using the variety of big mechanical machines, with all those fancy levers and pulleys, and the ability to attempt to try and lift what feels like a small cow. It’s a bit of a strange setup that one, and I think I’m not the only person who is sick and fedup of the cows hogging the treadmills.

I digress.

As most of my time is spent sitting on the bike I’ve taken to watching movies, propping up my iPhone on that clever digital display that tells me how fast I’m going, how many kcalories I’ve burned, the distance I’ve travelled and so on. I get warmed up, hop on the bike, set the time and program I want to complete and then decide what I’m going to watch.

Having run out of movies I started watching episodes of Flight of the Conchords. I’ve seen some of them before but I like the mix of gentle humour, xenophobia and music (always a winning combo!). It can be quite subtle at times, with only the odd real laugh out loud moment.

So, obviously, just as the six foot tall Mr.”I Have No Neck And My Shoulders Are Three Times The Width Of My Waist” decides to hop off the machine directly in front of me, just as he almost catches his foot and has to hop a little to catch his balance, a hop that takes him a half turn in my direction, right at that very millisecond is, as I’m sure you’ve all guessed by now, one of those moments where I’ve blurted out a big “HAAAA!!”.

It must have been funny to have been an onlooker at that point. You would have observed me staring at the screen of my iPhone then bursting into a quick clap of laughter, just as a very large, muscley and quite scary looking man almost trips off the machine directly infront of me.

You’d then have witnessed me suddenly realising that the aforementioned Big Scary Man was glaring at me, my nervous look at him and my odd attempt at an apologetic smile, and then my frantic attempts to cycle away as fast as possible.

On a stationary bike.

I’m not going to cover all of the screens though, just the new applications.

New Apps
The following are all new since my last update:

• Tweetie – replaced Twitterific due to a richer featureset (although a new version of Twitterific will be out soon)
• Flickit – replaced Mobile Fotos as my “upload to Flickr” choice. Lovely, simple, slick application this.
• ITN News – part of me is still disappointed the BBC app was so bad, this one is easy to use and quick to load, uses images and videos well.
• Groups – as mentioned earlier, this is a slick replacement to the default Contacts app. WAY better, and some really nice touches.
• ConvertBot – WILL replace Units, originally downloaded as it’s by the same people who make the wonderful WeightBot.
• Tipulator – mainly because it featured in one of the iPhone adverts. Nice app though, and yes a calculator COULD do the same thing… shut up.
• G-Park – more handy than it sounds, park your car, ‘mark’ the spot and even take photos and add notes to make sure you don’t get lost.
• Dictionary – from Dictionary.com. As a writer I’m constantly asked what words mean so this is very handy
• LinkedIn – for various reasons my usage of this website has increased recently, so thought I’d try the iPhone app
• RDP – Remote Desktop Client, handy for when I can’t be arsed running upstairs to the PC
• Allowance – pulls your O2 data to let you see what call, text and data allowance you still have
• Ego – nice little app that lets you take a quick look at your own web stats, including RSS Feeds, Google Analytics and more
• Analytics – I use Google Analytics for all my websites and this app allows an in-depth look at current stats. It’s better than the Google Analytics website if you ask me
• Tumblr – not used much to be honest, most of my Tumblr activity happens through the browser

And yes, I do delete applications. I’ve probably deleted more than I’ve kept!

Layout notes
The main four applications that are docked in the bottom bar all show notifications of events, that’s the main reason Safari is no longer there. The rest of the screens are ordered by usage, somewhat arbitarily I admit, but it works for me.

I’ve gotten most of my Apps by word of mouth from friends, but I do monitor the RSS feeds from MacApper and the iPhone Central website.

The phrase itself remains particularly apt, probably more so than when I first used it and, with reference to the exponential growth of Twitter, it is coming back into prominence. Social media applications, and the use thereof, shows no sign of slowing. This is a good thing because I firmly believe that social media applications (think Facebook, Twitter and the like) can be useful to many and the basic model of all of these things is based on the premise that “the more people that use them, the more valuable they become”. Which, of course, is (sort of) in direct conflict with those of us fighting information overload.

Of course, we only have ourselves to blame, as the bulk* of the online information we digest is driven by either opt-in or by deliberately choosing to monitor or follow a particular thread of information. This point is crucial. If you feel you are being overloaded by the amount of information you are choosing to receive to parse, be it by RSS feed, email, or directly from a website, then you can choose to reduce that load.

Twitter remains a bit of a mystery mind you, every morning I gain another follower or two, sometimes based on a product name (hello Dyson Airblades) and sometimes on a completely random basis. Or at least I assume they are random because I don’t recognise the person following me, nor do I recognise their website (yes, I do check profiles in case it’s just a username I’m not familiar with) and, as of yet, there is still no easy way to find this out. I’m presuming that this is the same for everyone, and it is just the usual clamouring for ‘Friends’ that so many people seem to think a good thing to do.

Each new social media application brings with it yet another raft of gurus trying to exploit and harness the “wisdom of the crowd” for themselves in a hope of forcing a “Tipping Point” even if their idea isn’t “Made to Stick”. What they don’t get is that this is not just another marketing bandwagon to jump on, not this time. The phenomenon of social media and the way it allows people to connect can be very powerful, but the important piece thing to understand isn’t the fact that people all over the globe are connecting, but because it’s PEOPLE that are making the connections.

The opt-in model is still the most powerful part of all of this, ensuring that those people who are passionate about a product or service can seek each other out and share their thoughts and ideas. Over to Matt Haughey who suggests that companies should:

make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends

Twitter continues to be the buzzword of the moment, the numbers rise and more connections are made. I glad to say that I am benefitting from being on Twitter, something I wasn’t sure of even a few months ago. Particularly as some of my peers are now on there, posting ideas and links to articles of interest to my profession. The iPhone is a boon for such things, particularly as Twitterific and InstaPaper to keep a track of “to read” articles and blog posts (Twitterific has built-in Instapaper bookmarking capabilities).

So whilst I’m not blogging here, or on either of my other two blogs, you can find me on Twitter, or read the links I post to my Instapaper account, browse the random things I find and post to my Tumblr account, or keep an eye on the websites I bookmark using del.icio.us. You can see my photos on Flickr, and see what music I’m listening to on Last.fm.

It’s a bit scary seeing all of my online data listed out like that. What’s even worse is that I do have an RSS feed that monitors them all… talk about information overload!

* I’m aware that many social applications (or whatever we are calling them today) generate a lot of email notifications, but again, you can usually either turn them off or, you know, opt out of that application.