Another Telecom store experience just now, this time on Queen street. The good news is that they have a SIM cutter that will quickly turn a standard SIM card into a micro-SIM. The bad news is they were reluctant to pull it out of the drawer, and were certainly not taking responsibility for doing the …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Is it here or not?
Apple – iPad – The best way to experience the web, email & photos, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. Apple’s NZ store is showing the iPad as available – but there is no mechanism to buy. I guess that means it is not available. All, I’m sure, will be sorted by the time you read this.
Well done Telecom, you made it easy
Telecom’s store also has the mock phones. But they have a nice low use prepay data plan, a friendly guy giving tips on how to cut a mini sim and no form in sight. Nik gave his name and address, and that was that. Indeed they even offered to cut the SIM card for Nik …
Just let me try and buy Vodafone
Three different things getting in the way of customers buying at the local Vodafone store. The first is the wall of unusable phones. The mock phones let you check the look of the case, but they don’t let you experience the most important thing of all – the software. Next is the sign up form, …
InternetNZ: 5 questions
Dave Farrar asked each of the 12 candidates for the 5 InternetNZ councilor spots to answer some questions. I’m one of the candidates, and as they were good questions I’m posting the answers here. What do you consider the (up to) three biggest threats to InternetNZ’s vision of an open and uncaptureable Internet? Insufficient infrastructure …
Reducing roaming costs
Column number five for Fairfax is now posted online at Stuff. The columns are printed in the Businessday section of the Waikato Times, Dominion Post and Christchurch Press. Fine papers all. We are working to get them all online in a Stuff blog. It’s hard, really hard to reduce roaming costs as they are based …
Won’t these scams please go away?
Another scam today, this time from SMSbargain.net. I have no idea how I got there but somehow this page opened up in my browser (despite pop-ups being blocked). I’m pretty sure I was not on a New Zealand based site, but the ad is targeted towards NZ: <update – I found this ad later on …
Well we know where we are going
Well we know where we are going But we can’t see which gate it is. I cannot read the destination on the departure gates in Auckland domestic airport until I am quite close to the gate. This is frustrating. So why not increase the size of the type for the destination on the gate screens …
No customers thanks
Seen inside the BNZ on lower Queen St, Auckland.
Betting on design
A great look at how important the iPhone has been to Apple’s success over at Bullcross. My favorite chart is below. The last two quarters are projections: During this seismic shift in revenue source Apple’s overall revenue rose from $24 billion in the year ended September 2007 to $42.9 billion in the year ended September …
Air New Zealand looks at bulk discounts
Back in January I drafted* a lengthy post on what Air New Zealand could do better, and part of that was on regional airfares. I sampled five regional, seven domestic, two trans-Tasman and two international fares for travel in a month’s time. The results were startling, though not surprising: It’s twice the cost per kilometre …
How to get rid of stock
A great daily deals experiment by MightyApe kicks off today – a marathon. They selling 3500 items, but deals are valid for only 10 minutes. I assume, and I hope for their sake, that the prices will be ridiculously cheap. Here is the first installment. Nice simple design. We shall see.
Apple increases market capacity by 12 times
During the weekend y I found out about Sidhe’s iPhone apps – marketed under the Pik Pok brand. They are a series of games that use a flicking motion to kick a ball – with Rugby, Football (European), Football (US) and AFL versions. Simple and fun. However after I downloaded them they were nowhere to …
Continue reading “Apple increases market capacity by 12 times”
How to launch a GroupOn clone: Groupy Deals
A few of us* founded Groupy Deals earlier this year, and we went live over Queens Birthday weekend. It’s going really well. Check out the GroupyDeals business site as well. *Groupy Deals was founded by Scott Kitney, along with Andrew Hunt, Fay French and myself. Groupy Deals is following in the footsteps of Groupon – …
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Never forget to user test
Install Office 2008 12.2.5 Update, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. Microsoft just keeps getting it wrong on usability. Here what happened when I updated Microsoft Office on the Mac this evening with the latest fixes. After running the update program (top, background), it downloaded and ran the updater itself (bottom). That program then popped up an …
