tcbutler.co.uk

My biggest irritation about the many increasingly complex mobile phones I’ve had over the years has been the time it takes to actually answer a call.

You feel the phone vibrate or hear it ring, then pick it up or pull it out of the case, flip the screen around (in the case of my old MDA Pro) to see who’s calling, fumble your way to the “answer” button… and the call’s already gone to answerphone.

Happily, anyone with thumbs can easily change how long the phone rings for before going to answerphone, if you know these nifty GSM codes… (more…)

I’ve been tinkering. I was grumbling about how bad sites’ own search engines generally are, and it occurred to me that it might actually be quite hard to make one work well. So I’ve started writing my own from first principles. (more…)

The principle of receiving personalised service is great. However, it’s hard to get it right for all the people, all the time, and this was demonstrated when I went for a drink with a friend at Be @ 1 in Richmond last night.

Unsurprisingly, after slipping out of the office at the remarkable hour of 17:45, we were the only ones in there… which made the bartender’s attempts to remember our names even weirder…

“Hi I’m Roy*! How are you guys doing? What’s your name? And what’s your name? Great! What kind of drinkd do you like?”

Once the bar had filled up, Roy’s cries of “Tom mate – do you want another drink?” over the thumping music started to make me cringe. That said, the lure of happy-hour cocktails and the quality of the mojhitos was enough to keep me there for an hour and a half, so even if it was a failed experiment in tailored customer service, they still got £20 out of me.