Comments

By robert, January 24, 2010 7:09 pm

I have had to delete a selection of worksheets from my site.  The worksheets in question all featured a small number of symbols to which the copyright was owned by Widgit.  Unfortunately due to their restrictive and inflexible licensing policies, I have been unable to reach an agreement with them over use of their symbols.  I apologise if you were looking for these resources.  It is my intention to replace them with Widgit-free versions at some point in the future.

The background

We have used a selection of software packages from Widgit software for many years.  The staple favourite amongst my colleagues is writing with symbols 2000 (WWS2K).  This product allows you to enter text with symbols above, and also to create grids of text with symbols.  The software was never very user friendly and was replaced by Symwriter and Communicate in Print.  When WWS2K was discontinued, our school was persuaded (some might say conned) to upgrade to Symwriter which was meant to offer similar functionality.  We also purchased a smaller number of copies of Communicate in Print to compare the products.

It seemed we now needed two products to do what we had been able to do with one product before.  That isn’t progress – that’s software company greed!  Neither product was particularly intuitive to use and so symbol use at our special school dropped to lower levels as a result.

As I’ve mentioned on my blog before I share my resources to help other teachers.  I also hope that some of them may serve as examples of good practice.  It’s easy to forget that software companies exist only to make money – as I found out in my dealings with Widgit software.

The reason

I contacted Widgit software after reading copyright information from their site.  Not finding their site easy to navigate I’d searched Google for their copyright terms.  I then emailed Widgit to request permission to share 17 worksheets, most less than a page in size and containing a small amount of text (and thus symbols).  I was amazed to find that the copyright information on their site was out of date and amended immediately following my email.  (In fact it was changed again later in the week – that’s twice in 8 days).

Emails went back and forth between myself and Widgit regarding my request to share (for no cost or profit) these 17 science worksheets.  In fact Widgit obviously liked the material because they said the following:

“You do have some good worksheets here and we would be interested in working with you to make these available in Communicate: In Print as downloads on our website. We would use your ideas and do the work. We do work with a variety of people that make resources for our site who currently receive a royalty for their ideas. Would you be interested in this arrangement?”

I offered Widgit the change to distribute my worksheets royalty free (I’m not interested in making money from my resources) if they would allow me to distribute the 17 worksheets I had already submitted for approval.  I tried to explain to Widgit that my worksheets served as free advertising but they seemed more interested in getting me to pay.   (You’ll see that my resources site pulls in a steady stream of downloaders – that’s free advertising!).

I can’t blame Widgit.  Their software is clunky, unwieldy and difficult to use (say my colleagues) and the only unique selling point they have is the collection of symbols.   They maintain their stranglehold on the copyright of these symbols in order to stay in business.  It’s a pity that their licensing terms are so draconian and inflexible – but businesses who sell to education are in it for totally different reasons to the teachers who use them!

(And for your information the symbol at the top of the page is facepalm – it seemed appropriate to describe Widgit’s attitude!)

Update: Just to add these views are my personal opinion, formed after speaking informally to colleagues where I work.  As with all my blog posts they do not represent the opinions of my employer.

Comments

By Rob, September 8, 2009 9:21 pm

I heard about Graze.com from a friend and had to try it out.  The idea of the product is that Graze sends you healthy and nutritious snacks that towards your 5 a day.  Their website allows you to customise the product in countless ways, both in terms of what you receive and when you receive it.

When you sign up for Graze.com you are given the choice of pre-created boxes or the option to build your own (the most popular choice).  As part of your box you receive a portion of fresh fruit, and two smaller portions of snacks.  You can opt to swap the mid-sized box for olives (instead of dried fruit etc) but this substitution costs extra.

Graze works without commitment.  You can order regular boxes (with the options to skip/push back the next box) or order one-off boxes to any address.  Boxes are shipped by first class post and are designed to fit through the average letterbox.  I’ve received two boxes to date, the first taking two days to arrive and the second arriving the next day.

You also get to customise the snacks you receive.  As well as adding olives to your order, you can rate the foods you like and don’t like so that you only ever receive foods that you will eat.  You can also mark foods try (the default setting) so that you get sent them to try out, a good way to see what new things taste like.  I binned all the dried mixes that have chilli in – so I can be confident that I will not receive them.

After a box is shipped you get an email telling you it is on the way, and what it contains.  You then have the option to rate the items you receive once you have tried them, customising your boxes further to meet your tastes.  You can also see nutritional advice and information about the company on what is a slick and well designed website, which is quick and responsive to use.

The box includes a napkin and bamboo forks.  These allow you to eat your fruit (and olives) anywhere with no mess.  The box can be recycled and the plastic packaging claims to be recyclable although without identifying the exact type of plastic it is impossible to say for sure.

I’ve taken a selection of photographs showing the unboxing of a Graze.com delivery, so you can see for yourself what they contain.

Final verdict.
I’m impressed with the website; the system is extremely user-friendly and offers a good experience for the consumer.  I was less impressed by deliveries that take two days to arrive, but that reflects the state of our first-class post system and not Graze.com.  It does mean that you can never count on a box to arrive on a particular day, for example I would not arrange for a box to be delivered to work on a Friday just in case it was held up in the post.

The main obstacle to the success of Graze.com is the price.  If they ever get this down they could be on to a winner.  A standard box costs £2.99 and one including olives costs £3.49.

My first box included around 120g grapes (with irritating tiny stalks that were a pain to remove due to the way they had been trimmed), a punnet of olives and a small punnet of chocolate coated peanuts.  I estimated the total cost of the snacks at under £1.50 had I bought them in the supermarket.  Of course you are paying a premium for the preparation and convenience in the same way that you do for pots of fruit salad in Tesco etc.

My second box (shown in the photographs) consisted of approx 130g fresh pineapple (with a clever sleeve to help keep it moist in the pack), a punnet of olives and small punnet of honey coated peanuts.  Again I’d estimate the cost in a supermarket at under £1.50.

Will I be using Graze.com on a regular basis?  Probably.  I love the website and some of the dried fruits/seeds they offer.  The key to making it special is to select mixes of fruits and seeds that you probably wouldn’t get so easily in the supermarket.  The choice of fruit (which you have to include in a box) is limited at the moment, although I would hope that Graze offer more choice as they become established (or perhaps the choice to add 2 extra medium punnets to replace the large punnet of fresh fruit).

Comments

By Rob, August 22, 2009 7:58 pm

The Nokia 5800
Recently I was the proud owner of a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone.

After my last Nokia was barred (from all networks) I managed to get my money back with some assistance from Paypal.  I was back at the point where I could go either way – an iPhone or another Nokia 5800.
It took a week of deliberations and I was close to buying an iPhone, although I eventually decided to replace my Nokia 5800.  I decided to gamble on Ebay again – I have had lots of other phones off there without problems.  I bought a new unlocked Nokia 5800 but this time with the Comes with Music package.  The phone cost a mere £10 more than the phone I returned so it was a bargain.

I made a list of the reasons I went for another Nokia:

• I like the remote control – very handy when I’m dog walking
• Works with a range of Windows software
• About a third of the price of the iphone
• I don’t really use Apps on the phone apart from the odd email check or GPS location check.
• I had a stock of screen protectors and case for the Nokia
• I was worried about breaking the glass screen on the iPhone (and iPhone insurance is quite expensive, and there is an excess on my contents insurance)
• The Nokia is unlocked to all networks – handy for if my network won’t renew the retention deal I have
• free music downloads for the year
• an alphanumeric keypad (onscreen) for entering text, quicker than onscreen QWERTY

Of course the phone doesn’t interface with my car audio, so I have to resort to the aux input.  However the draw of unlimited free music was enough to swing it – more on the music store below.

Nokia Comes with Music
Nokia supply their own software – Nokia Music for use with their handsets.  It is still in its infancy and the functionality falls way short of iTunes.  It also struggled with my collection of mp3’s (causing me much frustration) until I mended the ID3 tags using MediaMonkey.  I could have chosen to use a third party application (or even Windows Media Player) but I went for integration with the music store.  I had to spend an hour or two reorganising my collection and sorting out my album art since it didn’t find all the art that I had in iTunes.

Signing up for Nokia Music is straightforward and involves creating an account and then entering a PIN code to activate your subscription.  This also locks your PC and your phone to your account.  There has to be a catch to free music (at Nokia’s prices) and the DRM is it.  Any music you buy is restricted to playback on your PC and phone – no CD burning or transfer to another player.

Buying music is simple – simply click the download button (either for individual tracks or a whole album).  The software then downloads the music and saves it (with embedded album art).  You can request the software automatically copies purchased music (and/or playlists) to the phone when you connect, meaning that you always have your music with you.

Copying music from your library to the the phone is a simple right click away.  Building playlists is similar to the process in iTunes, simple and intuitive.  Ripping CDs is similarly easy, with artist and album art sourced over the internet.

The software is far from perfect, and the hopefully it will also become more responsive as later versions are released.  Many of the features of iTunes can be replicated including shuffle play, which involves dropping lots of music into the play queue and then hitting the random button.  It is also possible to burn CD’s from your music collection, DRM permitting.

I’ve found lots of holes in Nokia’s music collection, however there is still a large range of tracks available from a range of genres.  The music I’ve downloaded is a selection of old and new materials, and a mix of single tracks and whole albums.  I expected to feast on free music, but there with only a fixed amount of listening time I’ve downloaded 120 tracks in my first 6 days.

Removing the DRM
It is possible to legally remove the DRM (according to the websites of various software products).  I tried Tunebite which is able to search your hard disc for DRM’d music and then create an unrestricted version of the tracks (complete with album art).  This means that at least I will be able to port my collection to whatever phone I buy next!

Final thoughts
I hope to see more people consume music like this in the future.  The record companies have got to look again at pricing for digital music.  Why should a download of an album cost the same as buying a CD which has manufacturing, shipping and energy costs?  When the record companies see past their greed and look to what consumers actually want, we may tempt more people away from file sharing and in to legal music downloads.  If this happens then this brave experiment by Nokia seems doomed to fail.

Update: New firmware v 40.0.005

Comments

By Rob, August 11, 2009 12:53 pm

I placed an order with Ebuyer.  I’ve used them before because they are cheap and service has never been a problem.  I decided to use them for an urgent order – I only had a one day window for delivery but they had never let me down before.  I paid their premium for next day delivery, and all the items on the list showed as allocated so I assumed the order was on track.

I waited in the next day, and started to become concerned by lunchtime that my order hadn’t arrived.  I checked the order status page and it told me that my items had been allocated, to be delivered by today (the delivery date).

I contacted E-buyer and it turns out that one of the items was out of stock despite being shown as allocated.  I had not received an email or message anywhere that would let me know that E-buyer had failed to meet the delivery schedule (agreed when the order was placed).  Had I not have contacted them myself I would have been totally unaware that my order was not proceeding as it should.

I have posted below the response I received from E-buyer.  It shows a distinct lack of accountability or responsibility for the order problems and only a passing apology for messing me about and causing me to waste a day waiting in for their delivery.

I can only advise others to proceed very carefully if they place an order with E-Buyer that they need urgently.  Clearly E-buyer have issues with their system that need to be fixed (like notifying would be buyers that their items are out of stock).  Caveat emptor!

Final word from Ebuyer

Thank you for your response.
We have developed a suite of Order Management Tools that are unique and provide you with the ability to manage your order right up to the day before delivery.
Our intent was to provide you with as much information up front to avoid confusion on how your order would be fulfilled and within what timeframe.
We wanted to make sure that the tools worked in an intuitive and
informative way to online buyers so that you knew exactly where you were every step of the way.
Upon selecting an order from the Orders screen you will be in the ‘View Order’ section. This screen will give you the overview of the order, detailing billing and shipping addresses, the order line status and price and your overall order status.
The ‘Order Progress’ tab shows you a graphical image of your order progress making it simple to understand where each part of the order is every step of the way. If a block is green then your order has passed that status successfully, if it is red then your order will need some attention from you. Each block will offer information on each status with text to explain exactly what status your order has reached.
I apologise however for any inconvenience or annoyance caused and can confirm that the order is cancelled.

Have you had a similar experience with an online company?  Should we accept poor service as the price we pay for cheap goods?   Personally I think it is possible to have both but very few companies seem to be there yet!