Recently I tweeted to say that my Sky+HD box was sticking on standby. This was picked up by @SkyHD who asked me to DM them my details and they would get someone to look at this.

I sent the details and I heard nothing back. I didn’t concern myself too much as the box started to work correctly again. Then a few days ago it started to stick on standby, and I tweeted once more about this.

I got a standard reply again from @SkyHD who asked me to DM my details and so I did once more. I then actually got a call, and the girl booked me an engineer to come and swap my Sky+HD Box.

Later on I got a tweet reply that told me to try forcing a software update for my box by switching off at the mains and then holding down “back up” on the top of the box.

Unfortunately this didn’t resolve my issue and this morning, I had the engineer visit and swap the box.

I was a Virgin Media customer for several years (I even worked there for a while) and I never had any serious problems. I have now been a Sky customer for less than two months and I have had three separate engineer visits. I’m hoping this isn’t the start of things to come.

If anyone knows if there are any plans by Virgin Media to increase their network coverage to cover the L1 area, please let me know.

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I recently got to thinking about the Mayor offers that are made on Foursquare by certain companies and it made me wonder about who should be allowed to be Mayor of a place.

I hate to single out one person, however for the sake of transparency I will choose one whom I know.

In my example I have James Kane of Kanes Tea Rooms who was also the subject of a recent blog post.

When I was last at Kanes Tea Rooms, I noticed a sign that invited people to “Follow him on Twitter @KanesTeaRooms” and to “”Like” on Facebook” and “Check-in on Foursquare”. The sign said about offers that are available to the Foursquare Mayor.

This seems awfully well placed and a great way to improve your social presence. I visited a few times on each visit I checked in via Foursquare and was awarded the title of Mayor.

A few days ago, I received an email to tell me I have been ousted as Mayor by James Kane. While, it is a little disappointing to lose any Mayorship, it made me wonder about the use of checking in at your own business that you might use foursquare to promote.

The way I figure it is that if you are at a business more often than the proprietor you no doubt have a shared interest in the company. I can see no way an “average customer” could hope to check in at a business more often than the boss.

I might be thinking about this completely wrong, and it might have a reason. However it got me to thinking, and therefore I decided to ask you my readers what your opinion is.

Image by PartTimeLegend via Flickr

I write this based on the idea of being Mayor of your own business and not as a direct criticism of anyone person. I enjoy the friendship of James Kane and others in related circles. I use James only as a reference point for discussion. I am however very disappointed to have lost the Mayorship title.

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At one point, I was considering leaving foursquare as I just didn’t use it. These last few days, I have actually begun to enjoy my foursquare usage.

If it’s not battling for the mayorship of places with Simon Pickles, it’s meeting new people.

Many of the people I have foursquared I follow on Twitter. I don’t post my foursquare checkins to Twitter not because of security concerns but, because it’s annoying.

However if I get the “I just ousted @PartTimeLegend as mayor of x” tweet, I reply and I follow back. If the person doesn’t hold a conversation as with other twitter users. I will unfollow them.

The last few days, I’ve just been going out and enjoying finding the places showing up when I check for places on foursqure.

It’s great to see more people using it now in my home city, I remember having to map most of the city at the beginning of the year.

Do you enjoy foursquare? Are you battling me for the mayorship of a venue?

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As we are aware on the 7th of June, the iPhone 4 was announced, on the 15th of June preorders were taken and the 25th it went on sale.

I have never owned an iPhone, I have always considered it, yet never bought one. So I watched this rather intently as I think my next phone will be the iPhone 4.

I’m not going to bore you with the specifications, just know it has all the features I want from a phone.

My current options are:-

1) Wait till December, and upgrade with o2.

2) Buy a phone SIM free from Apple for £499.00

My current phone is a BlackBerry Bold 900, with a current recycling value of £100 meaning I would need to raise £399.00 towards the phone.

I guess £399.00 is a lot of expense, when I can no doubt convince o2 to give me on come upgrade.

Unless of course my readers, wish to help.

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Due to a recent glitch on Twitter, many people (myself included) have found their tweet counts reduced in most cases by several thousand.

I was somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 tweets when I checked and now I am at less than 1,000.

Many people will argue that this is of no significance, as it is the quality and not the quantity of your tweets that matters. To these people I ask if you have ever visited a web forum, registered and tried to talk to an established user base only to be called a n00b/n00b/newb/newbie?

The simple fact remains that we attach a value to our counts as a way of quantifying our engagement.

When I follow new people, which I do (along with regularly unfollowing others). One of the things I consider is their tweet count. A low tweet count, I wonder if they use twitter or if they simply signed up because all their friends said it was cool.

With tweet counts having been reset, I must now find a new way to judge new people to my timeline at a glance.

Unless that is, the Fail Whale can become the Win Whale and give us back what we once had?

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Today, I got up and waited by my gate for the postman to arrive! At about 09:30 he arrived, and was rather friendly and jokey about the whole thing. I showed him how to work the intercom, and he said he will know for in future.

He brought me 3 Sky routers, which Sky have told me I can keep so I have some spares.

That said, I am surviving on the broadband speed I have been given. Having come from 50mb to this, I am a little concerned I will miss it.

Having recently moved home and deciding to get Home Phone, Broadband and TV from Sky, I was impressed with the service I got from Sky when they came out and fitted my TV service and with BT when they came and attached my phone line.

However, Sky have decided that Royal Mail should be used to deliver their broadband routers. A move, that still might lose them a customer. Why? Because after 2 weeks I still haven’t received my router.

I came home on Tuesday the 25th of May to a “Sorry, we couldn’t be bothered you were out” card. With an address on the back, that is about an hour from my home.

I attempted to call the number on the back of the card, to which no one answered. I then went to the Royal Mail website and arranged a redelivery for Saturday the 29th of May. I waited in eagerly and when I heard the door bell, I answered to the postal worker who was bringing other items. He said he didn’t have anything for redelivery and would look and bring it on Tuesday.

Tuesday, I came home to no parcel. I got a response on Twitter from @RoyalMail offering to help. I decided this would be a good way to resolve this, and I replied explaining the situation.

Luke, at @RoyalMail advised me that the delivery office had lost my parcel and this is why it had not been delivered to me. He claimed that they would find it and contact me to arrange redelivery.

On Thursday I came home another “We’re not sorry, we can’t be bothered” card that said “SECOND ATTEMPT” on it. Well done, it was your second attempt. I told you when to deliver it and you ignored me, do you want a cookie?

Luke, then says he will arrange for the parcel to be brought on Saturday. This is now a week and a half since original delivery. I agree and on Saturday, I wait for the Postal Worker to bring my parcel.

I hear letters being posted and I run to the door to catch the Postman walking away. I ask about the parcel and he says “I’ve got no parcel”. He explains that the parcels are brought on a van and that he got a lift from the van

driver who had no parcels for my area.

I respond to Luke with no response. I try to call the delivery office with no response. I call “customer service” and get a disinterested CSR who says “Oh, Twitter. We have one of them?” and keeps saying “Well, it should arrive before 2pm. We shut at 1pm so if it doesn’t, you’ll need to call on Monday”.

I went out after 2pm with no parcel delivery and no attempt to contact me.

Yesterday, I get a response from Luke who tells me that the driver came to my property but couldn’t gain access. There is an intercom at the gate to my apartment complex that he can call me via, he chose not to. I came home last night to a “We’re just taking the piss now …” card. The normal postman brought as the driver didn’t even try and get to me.

Luke, then said he would rearrange delivery once more. I gave him an alternative address and he told me everything was arranged. Today, he tells me they will not deliver to an alternate address.

We now wait with a further delivery for Saturday, and an assurance that this time the driver has been fully trained on how to push a button and may even be able to speak. I don’t hold much hope, and I plan to take my complaint further.

For those wondering why I don’t collect the parcel. The office is only open during working hours during the week, it actually closes before I finish work. At weekends it is open until 11:00am and is located roughly 1 hour from my home.

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A few weeks ago I saw that @KanesTeaRooms was advertising that their 100th follower on Twitter would receive a free breakfast. Being an ex-student, I’m always keen to get something for nothing.

I hit that Follow Button, and I am the 100th follower. I waited a little while, simply because I have just moved home and I had other things to deal with (some of which I will be blogging soon).

I decided that Saturday was going to be the day I would visit, and I walked up to find them.

I looked them up on Twitter to get the address:

(0151) 298 1415

I had a little difficulty finding it at first, as I don’t know the area. However if you’re looking you will find them between the two entrances to T.J. Hughes.

Once inside, I walked up to the counter and asked for James who promptly appeared from his kitchen. He greeted me with a smile and told me I could have anything I want from the menu.

At this point I was rather hungry, and I had a traditional full english breakfast with a pot of Earl Grey tea (black no sugar).

I sat down with my pot of tea, and poured myself a cup and began to enjoy my rest and update Twitter as you would expect.

After a few minutes a plate filled with eggs, bacon sausages and accompanied by toast was brought to my table. It looked and smelled delicious and I began eating.

After a few minutes James, came out once more and started talking to me. We talked about his recent search for a vocal coach, about a cake recipe he had gotten from a friend on Twitter and about a guitar he bought for £47 when he was younger (don’t drop any money ).

He recommended a few people to follow on Twitter and also mentioned that he would be getting Wi-Fi in the restaurant soon. He said they had offered to set it up for him for £100 and I said I’d happily do it for him. So there may be a new story to come.

I know you’re probably wondering about the food, so let me show you the result.

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A few days ago I noticed that my old friend Cees-Jan, had added some buttons on his site marked as Flattr. I was interested to find out about the service provided by these buttons.

Image via Wikipedia

I decided to follow the link and I found it is a “social micropayment platform that lets you show love for the things you like”.

I must admit the very idea did indeed intrigue me, and I decided to join up.

It was then that I saw it was in a private beta, and so I entered me email address and waited.

Once I received my Flattr invite, I continued to sign up.

Once I signed up, I found that they want you to pay to be a member. A part of their “give to get” policy, something I don’t belive will make them very popular with small time bloggers (myself included).

Paying for a service where people can give to you seems crazy when we already have services such as PayPal.

I don’t accept donations via my site, as it’s ad-supported and they more than pay my hosting bill. I’m not joining a service that wants me to pay to receive. I’m the talent, I should get paid not pay.

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I’ve long said that meeting people off the internet in real life is one of the worst ideas you can ever have. Oh, how I learnt this self-fulfilling prophecy well on Saturday.

I had seen that @amateuradam, had posted a tweet asking who lived in Liverpool as he was heading up. I decided to respond and say that I live in Liverpool.

We decided to meet and go for a drink or two (hundred).

I called him and said “I’ll meet you outside Atlantic Pavilion…” to which he agreed. I walked down to our meeting place and waited for him to arrive.

After the decided time had passed, I started to wonder what had happened to him. It was then that I met @laurenhenry0x as I heard her speaking to her friend about Twitter.

I asked if they would be so kind as to ask Adam, where he was.

To cut a long story short, we were able to find him and he soon arrived. We walked up to Wood Street and began our night of drinking too much in Bar Cava with some nicely flavoured tequila shots.

Onwards now to Revolution, where we sat down and started talking. Onwards now to get Adam some healthy food from Burger King (you’d think a doctor would know better).

We then walked down to The Hilton, where Suman arrived ready for their set. I’d love to say I remember any more of the night, however I woke up at home with only a business card of a musician called Dino Baptiste.

If anyone knows what happened that night, please let me know. Unless it’s embarrassing.