Vodafone has released this video of some kids examining one of the first mobile phones. Maybe it’s just me, but what it shows is how bloody stupid some of today’s kids are. Note the one who reckons the world would have been “in black & white” before mobile phones, and the one who would like future incarnations to turn her “into a fairy”. They need some serious education… and quick!
I got my first mobile phone back in 1994, and I can well remember some of the comments I got from my friends. Like “why do you need one of those?” and “why do you want people to be able to contact you when you’re out?” Of course, the cost of a call – it was more than the BT local land line rate – was always the favourite target (in actual fact, I had always been on a pay monthly contract, and I started out with Orange, and stayed with them, so my calls were never in the 40p per minute range of the crappy analogue phones). Now, they all rely on them.
But why is it that people take the piss out of the past? The present is always at the forefront of technology, and it becomes history tomorrow. Each day is a step forward in terms of technology – tomorrow couldn’t exist without today anymore than today could exist without yesterday. So why ridicule it?
Well, that’s a first! I was watching TV through my Sky box when all of a sudden it said no signal was being received. I rebooted, and still the same. Then it occurred to me… SNOW!
I’ve had Sky since the old analogue days and never in all that time (it must be more than 20 years) has the signal been lost due to snow on the dish. Well, on the LNB, actually. You might lose it for a while if there is a heavy thunderstorm – and once, a pigeon tried sitting on it and that definitely took out the signal – but never snow.
We’ve had a couple of inches here, and it’s still coming down now. The problem is that it’s the wet sort, and that’s where the problem lies. It sticks to the dish and LNB instead of blowing off. In fact the wind is making it worse because it seems to be blowing snow on instead of off.
A quick and very light brush with a long-handled squeegee through the window fixed it.
1&1 has been the victim of a DDoS attack and between 9/12/14 and early on 11/12/14 there was restricted availability to some services and website hosted by 1&1 (this included the dashboard features).
Yesterday evening at 9pm GMT an unknown third party initiated a DDoS attack on 1&1’s DNS infrastructure. The Domain Name System (DNS) is used to attribute internet addresses such as “1and1.com” to IP numbers, similar to a telephone book. During the coordinated attack, many widely spread computers (also known as bot net) sent several hundred thousand requests per second to our DNS servers. The attack resulted in reduced availability on some of our hosting services (such as shared hosting, MyWebsite, servers, e-mail, control panel). Our engineers swiftly identified the target of the attack and have initiated respective countermeasures, making the majority of affected services now fully available. A small number of our customers may still encounter limited availability of their domain names. We are prioritizing work to fully resolve the issue as promptly as possible and apologize unreservedly for any inconvenience. Please continue to check status-1and1.co.uk for additional information.
The issue is now resolved.
I noticed it Tuesday when my traffic approximately halved, when I had expected it to rise slightly from Monday.
Note that 1&1 servers are very rarely (if ever) all out, so it is wrong to say that 1&1 is “down”. It was experiencing technical issues, that’s all.
Here’s the first Philae image from the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (taken from the ESA website) by Philae – the small lander which touched down yesterday,
It’s quite intriguing. After a lifetime of being told that comets are balls of “dirty snow” it looks pretty rocky. It also looks pretty solid, even though we’ve been repeatedly told it’s more like a big sponge since Rosetta arrived earlier this year.
It turns out that Philae’s fixing harpoons didn’t fire on landing, nor did its securing screws manage to bury themselves in the supposed icy surface. So it is just sitting there in a low gravity environment and – it would appear – on the edge of a steep drop. Fingers crossed that it stays put and does what it is programmed to do.
It also seems that when it first hit the ground (the one reported at around 4pm yesterday), it bounced hundreds of metres and took a further two hours to land again. Then, following a smaller bounce, it landed once more seven minutes later and finished in its current location.
Note that ESA images are larger than the one I’ve put here (I resize them to fit the page).
The latest news is that Philae eventually settled in the shadow of a cliff, and this may affect how well it can charge its batteries since the solar panels are not fully illuminated. One of its feet is apparently off the ground. The first bounce took it about 1km back into space before it landed again 2 hours later. After a smaller bounce, there is a suggestion that it is resting against a wall of some sort. It may even be lying on its side.
Although Philae weighs about 200kg here on earth, the very low gravity on 67P means that up there it only weighs about 1 gramme, so it could easily be thrown into space again, especially if comets vent anything like the one in the film Armageddon did. Having said that, one thing we HAVE discovered is that comets – this one certainly – are nothing like we have believed them to be for the last 100 years. There is also a worry that attempting to use Philae’s drill might move it, though this might be tried to positive effect when battery power begins to fail and all other data are obtained. Another possibility is that as 67P nears the sun then there may be more light and Philae will wake up.
You have to remember that there was only ever a 75% chance of success with the Philae part of the mission. Rosetta itself has achieved 100% of its goals, and if Philae never manages to drill, the images sent back by it mean that it has been successful beyond all realistic expectations. The entire mission has been the most spectacularly successful since Apollo 11 in 1969.
I’ve been following the Rosetta mission with interest, and today it has reached its peak as the main Rosetta probe discharged a smaller probe – Philae – to land on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The picture here (courtesy of ESA) is good enough – it shows Philae shortly after it was released by Rosetta to start its descent. Just imagine that this is happening around 500 million km away (it takes half an hour for the signals to reach Earth).
Some of the other images of the comet itself sent back by Rosetta have been incredible for their detail.
The mission overall has been impressive by virtue of the fact that Rosetta has bounced around the solar system for 10 years picking up speed and chasing down the comet, finally meeting up with it in August this year. The probe has travelled somewhere above 4 billion miles in total, and caught up with an object travelling at around 34,000mph and a third of a billion miles away!
And incredibly, after all that, Philae has successfully landed as of just after 4pm GMT on 12 November 2014! Well, half an hour before that, allowing for the signal transit time.
This really is an historic occasion (and I remember watching the moon landings when I was a child).
Cameras fitted for insurance purposes will be allowed providing they:
are external facing and do not film the inside of the vehicle
do not record audio from inside the vehicle
DVSA will under no circumstances accept, comment on, or review audio or video footage provided by a test candidate or third party to facilitate a challenge to the conduct of any theory or practical test or its result. Any footage received in connection with an allegation of criminal activity or intent will be referred to the police.
I notice that certain individuals are claiming that this is evidence of the DVSA back-pedalling. It isn’t. You couldn’t record tests before and you can’t record them now. Nor would any attempt to retrospectively influence a test decision be given any consideration by the DVSA. Anyone stupid enough to try and take things that far would have to go through the courts using private and very expensive routes. Mind you, some people are that stupid.
It should also be noted that DVSA has stated:
If an examiner believes a test is being filmed they will ask the candidate to switch off the camera, if it can’t be switched off or the candidate refuses, the examiner will terminate the test.
Personally, I think DVSA is being too lenient and has merely bowed to pressure from the National Clown Associations. On the other hand, for all practical purposes DVSA has made no real concessions, yet the Associations appear to be well chuffed with their “victory”.
I just hope DVSA realises how far some of the Chief Clowns might be prepared to go if they get hold of video footage of contested tests from any angle.
Incidentally, in 2016 I began using a camera which turns on automatically as soon as the engine starts unless I remove it. I have audio disabled on it, and I have clarified with several examiners that it is not intended to scrutinise them.
It proved its worth a few weeks ago when a pupil failed her test and didn’t know where it had happened (as I often point out, if they knew what they’d done and where they’d done it, they probably wouldn’t have done it to start with). The examiner told me where, and all I had to do was fast forward to the location and send her a link to the HD footage I placed online. It showed her merrily crossing over two lanes on a roundabout – which she wasn’t aware of having done.
Unlike many other ADIs with cameras, I did not for one moment consider that the examiner had made a mistake. If the examiner said she did it, she did it. The footage showed her where.
This story has been all over the news today. The iPhone 6 was only released last week, but there are numerous reports coming in of the phone bending when it is in people’s pockets.
TechRadar appears to be trying to skim over the issue, but they do have a point when they say that withstanding someone’s fat arse on top of it while crammed into a back pocket isn’t something that you will find on the spec sheet.
A few months ago one of my pupils got an HTC One M8 – one of the sexiest phones on the market. I’ve got one, and I’ve treated the screen with a special liquid coating to protect it. My phone is in a luxury leather case, and I have it on a lanyard and only ever keep it round my neck or in a breast pocket. My pupil, on the other hand, kept his uncased and stuffed in his pocket with his keys and loose change!
Most of my younger pupils have iPhones. They are a status symbol, of course, although they are also vastly inferior to an increasing number of other phones on the market today (the HTC One M8 included). But status symbol or not, the physical condition of most of the phones I see is unbelievable. They have cracked and scratched screens as a result of being shoved into tight trouser pockets – and because of being frequently dropped.
As far as the iPhone 6 is concerned, TechRadar says that any phone will bend if you apply enough force. Well, that’s only true if you start talking about extreme forces. What they fail to mention is that the iPhone 6 is flat, whereas the M8 – which is also constructed out of aluminium – has a curved back. This curvature gives a huge boost in overall strength when a perpendicular force is applied. It’s a bit like building a bridge with an arch alongside one which is simply rectangular. The arched one can support much more traffic (and it is why the arch has been used for more than 3,000 years in such constructions).
TechRadar tiptoes around the likelihood of a design flaw. However, the rectangular design and thinness of the iPhone is a design flaw. You can only go so far with thinness before distortion becomes a distinct possibility as a result of forces which thicker versions could withstand with ease. It would appear that the iPhone 6 is one of those things that is only sexy until you touch it – at which point the chances of breaking it increase dramatically.
…move around a lounge or office to bring documents to the person who printed them.
It has to be absolutely the most pointless invention ever. Even when you consider that it is intended to improve security by going to the person printing the document, it still ranks as the most guaranteed failure ever. Fortunately, it is confined to Japan. I’d be surprised that even the Japanese take to it, but it has no chance anywhere else.
It reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons (back when The Simpsons was actually funny, and not now, where people just pretend it is), where Homer invents an electric hammer.
I’m just trying to imagine someone taking such a device on to the Dragons’ Den to try and get funding. They’d be laughed out of the room. One of the dragons recently complained that people invent things just for the sake of inventing them. This is right up there.
Note:I stopped using this after iZettle let me down EXTREMELY badly, almost destroyed my business overnight (and that is no exaggeration at all), and just said “too bad” (that’s not, either). They subsequently apologised and admitted they were wrong, but it was too late. I now use the PayPal card reader option. As of October 2018, I notice this article is popular again, and this may have something to do with an article in Intelligent Instructor, where they only mention iZettle by name when talking about taking card payments. Trust me: iZettle is not the way to go. Go with PayPal – at least until PayPal (which now owns iZettle) assimilates it fully and replaces it’s internal staff with one that works.
I should also now add that I have stopped using PayPal (as of 2023), because instead of assimilating the iZettle reader, the iZettle reader actually assimilated the PayPal one! PayPal effectively turned off all PayPal Here readers overnight in early April. And I refuse to ever deal with iZettle again.
Note: This article was originally written in September 2013 (sub-note: it’s now nearly 5 years as of October 2018). I’ve updated it after using the device for nearly six months now, and following interest from other people. This review is based on my experience at the time, and doesn’t included the extremely damaging experience which caused me to turn to PayPal.
The iZettle website is here – you can sign up instantly and order your reader from there. Believe me when I say that card payments are the way to go for driving instructors. Many are still stuck in the 19th Century – so bypass the 20th Century altogether and move straight to the 21st! If you can’t take card payments then you’re missing a trick, and it’s amazing that people who were umming and ahing about being able to take card payments last year are still at it! Just get one of the damned things and get on with your proper job!
My iZettle finally arrived, and it’s a nice solid piece of kit. It sits easily in the palm of your hand, as the picture here shows, and yet it weighs in at about 120g and doesn’t feel like it is going to blow away in a draught or anything.
Cards with a chip (requiring a pin) go into a slot at the bottom, and there is a swipe slot at the top for non-chipped cards (which are becoming a rarity in the UK).
I set up my account with iZettle at the time I ordered the reader, so it was verified and ready to go when I opened the box. Likewise, I had downloaded the iZettle app for my smartphone and all that remained was to link the two together.
Pairing them is done by enabling Bluetooth on your phone (mine’s always on anyway), and holding the green tick button on the reader for a few seconds. You’re then prompted to enter the last three digits of the reader’s serial number, and that’s it. It connects immediately and announces that you’re ready to insert or swipe a card.
I used it for the first time a few hours later, taking a payment of £180 for a block booking from a pupil. Basically, the pupil put their card in the machine, I keyed in the amount on my smartphone and clicked “charge”, the pupil then entered her PIN, and within 15 seconds the transaction was complete. There was the opportunity to email her a receipt, but she didn’t want that. Absolutely painless, and no visit to the bank required. I love it!
Having used theiZettle for several days now (as of September 2013) I can truly say it is a godsend – ordinarily I’d have made at least one and possibly two trips to the bank for the combined amount of money I’ve taken over several days (or I’d walk around with cash and cheques in my pocket until I got time to go in). If I was going to pick a fault, it would be that I now haven’t got any cash in my pocket!
As of the end of April 2014, I’ve taken payments exceeding £10,000 since September last year. Obviously, this is turnover I’m talking about – not profit – but it has prevented me having to go to the bank much at all, and certainly I’ve not taken a single cheque since I got the iZettle (if people can write cheques, they will almost certainly have a debit card, and if they don’t then you won’t want to be taking cheques from them in the first place).
EVERYONE who once wrote cheques (and some who used to pay in cash) is now using this to pay me. Money goes straight into my account a couple of days after the pupils pay, like clockwork. Some pupils still prefer to pay in cash, of course – some even alternate between card and cash depending on the state of their bank balances – but it has worked out brilliantly. And being on 4G now has made reliability of the phone signal that much greater, at least in my area.
I can use Paypal to take payments, so why do I need this?
Look, no one is saying you can’t use Paypal. Sometimes, that is a perfectly sensible method. The problem is that you can’t easily get people to do it in the car – and if you do, it is long-winded and time-consuming. It isn’t possible if you can’t get a reliable internet connection. Even getting people to do it from home often involves chasing them up because they “forgot”.
There are a lot of things in life you don’t actually need to survive – you can use an abacus to work out your accounts, but a calculator or a computer is far better; you can stick with your old 26″ glass tube TV and still watch movies, but a 40″+ flat screen TV is better; you can make do with just the terrestrial channels, but if you have cable or satellite you get a lot more choice. 21st Century people will always choose the latter option in all these examples.
It’s the same with this. By all means, carry on taking cash and cheques, and making time-consuming trips to the bank. Try and coerce people into transferring money to you via Paypal or direct bank transfer. But the 21st Century ADI will be wanting to make life a lot simpler for himself and his clients by being able to take direct payments in the car.
For the record, over the last month (April) about 70% of my pupils have paid by card, 29% in cash, and 1% by direct bank transfer (because his new debit card PIN hadn’t arrived from the bank).
How much does it all cost?
You buy the card reader outright. It costs £59.00 at the time of writing. Then, there is a 2.75% charge levied on each transaction, so if you sell something for £1.00, you pay 2.75p. If you sell something for £100 you pay £2.75. And so on. The transaction fee is on a sliding scale, and if you take more than £2,000 I any month then the rate goes down – to as low as 1.5% if you take £15,000 or more. iZettle calls it the Smart Rate, and any savings are credited back to you periodically.
Every time you make a transaction, iZettle deducts the percentage fee and then credits the balance to your bank account. It takes about 24 hours for iZettle to process it, then about 1-2 days for it to appear in your account. However, on weekends, iZettle credits it on the Monday. Yes, it would be nice if there was no transaction fee, and the money went into your account immediately, but in the business world things usually don’t work like that.
What does it look like when you use it?
Well, you can see the reader, above. There is an app that you install on your phone, and through it – and your online account area, which you can also access via a PC – you can set up a product catalogue, or take ad hoc payments by just typing in the amount on your phone, and then letting the customer type their PIN into the reader. The system logs the location where payment was taken, and you can send a receipt via email (though you can get receipt printers if your business is in a fixed location). The system keeps a full log so you can monitor your sales, and you can download the data in spreadsheet-friendly formats. You can also issue refunds through the app. It’s all very easy to use.
How long does it take for payments to clear?
Assuming you’re using chip & pin (in the UK, there’s no reason not to be) if you take a payment on a Monday, iZettle pays it to your nominated bank on Tuesday, and it appears in your account within three working days. Mine usually takes one or two working days. If you take a payment on a Friday or over the weekend, iZettle pays it to your account on Monday. If Monday is a bank holiday then the payment may delay until Tuesday.
If these small delays are a problem for you then you perhaps ought to stick with cash.
Do you need an internet connection to use it?
Yes. If you can’t get a mobile phone signal it won’t take payments. Quite honestly, though, that’s not an issue unless you live in an area where you are effectively cut off. I’ve found that even when the signal drops, moving a few metres can often restore it.
How do you get logs?
Or, how to extract data for your accounts. You log into your iZettle account and go to Sales. There, you can either select individual days, or months, and view the receipts for that period. Then you point at Export in the top left and download either a PDF file or an XLS worksheet with the data inside.
Alternatively, you can go into Transactions, choose your time period, then export the data in a single file.
Does iZettle make payments on Bank Holidays?
iZettle is not a UK company. When I used it, apart from the several days delay being paid in the first place, they didn’t pay at weekends or Bank/public Holidays in THEIR country (Sweden). I should point out that PayPal pays same day on ANY day – even on Christmas Day, if your bank allows it – and payment occurs almost instantly. PayPal says to allow “up to two hours”, but mine goes in usually before I can log out of PayPal and into my account.
April Fools’ Day has come early this year. 
My iZettle finally arrived, and it’s a nice solid piece of kit. It sits easily in the palm of your hand, as the picture here shows, and yet it weighs in at about 120g and doesn’t feel like it is going to blow away in a draught or anything.