Why My UK Mobile Bill Is So Low?

I'm very happy with my new mobile phone provider smarty.co.uk

It's a piece of cake to sign up, transferring my number went like clockwork and now I'm only being charged for the data I use.

If you're into excellent customer service, an easy bananas UX on the website and fairness and honesty I can recommend these guys.

It's not just about the money. 

It's about being treated with respect instead of billing me if I don't use all my data or immediately cranking up the bill if I go over the limit. That's just pick pocket mentality and there's too much of it in business.

If you use this link to sign up, you get a free month, and so do I.

Michael Tellinger - Revelations & Transparency

I have listened to all these Michael Tellinger clips before, and they've been just as rewarding to listen to the second time round when posting. Michael hits the nail on the head again in this video clip. There's a lot of people who are unable to speak up for themselves. It's probably the poisoned water, poisoned food, poisoned radio waves and working in a cubicle like a battery chicken with a mortgage millstone around the necks that stymies any challenge to the status quo, as well as explaining the silent, play it safe, discretion is the better part of cowardice mindset.

But here's the flip side and it's a good one. If you have a spark of courage I find the world is increasingly able to listen to a wider range of viewpoints and deal with a greater depth of transparency. There are so many subjects I've written about here over the last few months that would have been tarnished as bonkers ten years ago and yet I've had an overwhelmingly receptive response (and just a handful of death threats). It's been most refreshing and a key learning, even if there's disagreement with my conclusions.

This is quite surprising, given I'm at the intense end of the research spectrum that could be described as 'may you live in interesting times' analysis of current events. So few have tried to be insulting, and privately I've found every single one you able to listen to quite uncomfortable versions of reality without flipping out if it's one on one.

Is there's an emerging sense of compound revelation coalescing? It's starting to get that biblical feel on occasions if I can invoke that sentiment without being tarnished with useless hierarchical religious associations. 

However, I put it to you that there's lots of interesting prophecy in ancient texts from the Baghavad Gita, the Mayans and the Bible. I care not where I scour for good information. I feel just as comfortable quoting The new scientist, a channeller, ancient religious texts, poets, philosophers and bloggers. 

The more ground I cover the more easily I see that the only people who aren't waking up, are those who don't want to be awake. They seem alive, but are spiritual zombies clinging on to old information that keeps their world as static as possible. Well that's not the way the Universe works. They can only learn that revelatory truth when it finally falls apart. I imagine it will be dramatic.

Kiss my sweet ass

Rob Campbell over in Singapore is warming up for some trouble making. I know this because he asked me on Facebook what I thought of the Nokia N95 and I told him straight. I was hoping to do an in depth review of this model, because its a complex bit of kit and even the iPhone is not yet performing perfectly in the smart phone category, as I've noticed from a few people's twitters, including my friend Steve Portigal who is quite the champion of user operability.

Anyway now that Rob has forced my hand (Charles shakes fist in an inappropriate and very suggestive manner) I'd better just crack on with it and describe my N95 experience thus far.

But before that I want to compare it with the smart phone called the i-mobile 902 I owned in Thailand, 2006 which did 70% of the functions the N95 had, but with a much more sophisticated digital camera and which I blogged about over here, along with examples of the photography. That phone cost me about 280 Euros which if you remember that 1 Dollar converted to 76 Euro cents when it was launched and now will get you 56 Euro cents gives you an indication of what we planners call a 'trend'. I digress I believe an N95 can cost up to 700 Euros, which a year later is at least twice as much as the i-mobile I bought in Thailand - Economics lesson over ;)

So the bottom line is that the N95 is a bit of a slug, either the processing power isn't sufficient or the services that sit on it are too cumbersome. It's not fast enough in layman's language and furthermore my experience with the example I'm packing is that it's prone to shutting down or occasionally needs a reset by removing the battery. But what worries me most is that Scoble twittered today some problems he is experiencing. That's not good because I think Nokia gave him the phone to test-run and he's an A list blogger.

But let me tell you why I think Nokia brands really shine compared to Sony Ericsson. My first experience of Nokia apart from the double chocolate chip user interface was the experience of dropping one to the floor. You know what I'm saying?

No?

Allow me to share a little. Here is my friend Lauren's phone.

Photography Charlie Gower

You question the veracity of the shot?

Photography Charlie Gower

Lauren, we got a deal for that shot. Not a brand book deal. A human to human deal. You get my drift.

Then there is my backup phone.


This is the phone I use when my battery has run out on my swish N95. It looks a bit beaten up doesn't it?

Here's a closer look.


It's a bit blurred as indeed I was when I took the shot (a cheeky red or two) but you can see the screw exposed on that corner still held in place by the molding. My God they build those Nokia phones sturdier than a Rob Campbell mercurial point of view dancing from one Fred Astaire light footed soliloquy to another Falstaffian bluff or other.

Yes the N95 is a flawed, and possibly a precocious genius, but time will tell who is going to own the Smart Phone segment and I can say that I've had a look at the N96 which is quite impressive although I can't say anything about it quite yet. Good on Rob for being a sport and buying a competitive phone to really put it through its paces and I'm looking forward to his write up on the N95 although I don't expect anything vastly different from what I've been saying. Perhaps a little more vitriolic though :)