The prospect of balmy, sunny days around the corner makes April one of the exciting months of the year. But there’s another reason which adds to my excitement, for in April every year it’s time to renew my mobile phone contract. I have been with Vodafone for three years now and was contemplating leaving Vodafone for exciting offers on O2 or Tmobile. I am after a Blackberry Pearl 8110 with the Blackberry Internet Solution™ and the added functionality of a GPS. Not that I drive, but a GPS is quite handy even while walking point to point (Sounds funny using GPS for Pedestrians, it’s more of a “it’s there, try it” thing). And of course, a Blackberry is no good without the Emails and Internet.

After much thought and deliberation, I rang Vodafone last week to find out about my options of owning a Pearl with the same network. Vodafone doesn’t advertise Blackberry Pearl for individual users…I wonder why!? As Pearl is one of the hottest selling Blackberry devices. However, for business users, they do have attractive tariff. After speaking to their customer services, I was quite convinced that Tmobile is a better option until I stumbled upon the offers by O2. Both the networks offer decent tariff for a Blackberry along with the voice and data plan. I finally decided to call it quits with Vodafone and informed them of leaving and requested for my PAC code. I was assured that the PAC code would be sent within 4-5 days. To my surprise, instead of the PAC code, I got a call from Vodafone retentions department with an offer which not only matched the other two networks but also bettered them. But the only hitch, no GPS subscription with Vodafone as it costs an additional fee!

Vodafone certainly offers free GPS Subsription for Blackberry customers, but I was told that they have stopped including this as a package from the day before they called me. A big lie! Just checked their site this morning on the GPS is still free for 12 months. In any case, Vodafone is offering the GPS service in association with Telmap and it’s possible to buy this service for a one off £39.99 Annual Fee or a £4.99 monthly fee. Sounds good! I took the bait and the device should be delivered anytime soon.

Also, today is the day I complete exactly one year as a Marketing Analyst at ArenaFlowers.com. A year has passed so quickly!

It is amazing how many thoughts and ideas emerge in a forum discussion offering interesting insights into many aspects of a particular topic. I find forums quite useful for many everyday issues I come across where I lack the necessary knowledge or approach to get out of it. Recently, I was gifted a Bose Triport headphones to go with my iPod and though it is an incredible product with brilliant noise amplifying abilities, it does have a major setback. Bose ships these earphones with three pairs of detachable eartips. No matter how careful you are, you end up loosing these eartips very quickly…at least I did. The earphones never stick to your ears and most Triport users are constantly seen holding the earphones closer to their ears to ensure it doesn’t fall off. It is extremely frustrating and you never get to enjoy the music peacefully. And within two weeks of receiving this as a gift, I had lost all my eartips. And the Bose earphone is designed in such a way that you cannot use it without the eartips. How annoying!?!?!

Anyway, my quest to find replace ear tips lead me to find other Bose users who have experienced similar difficulties. Most of these customers have vented their frustrations on forums and I not only found a good number tips from where to get them but also that I could order the eartips directly from Bose free of charge. And of course I found all these on forums. Basically, forums are a great way to connect with like minded people and it makes perfect sense for businesses to host a forum to interact with customers.

The dearth of online forums and message boards in the florist industry is a bit surprising considering that its such a huge market. Of course forums and message boards do not belong to the same age as blogging, social bookmarking and networking, as they are the predecessors of the existing mediums. But forums are great resources where a community of like minded individuals share there knowledge and ideas. Also, it provides a firm base for businesses such as ours to build customer relationships. However, starting and managing a forum is an arduous and time consuming task. Nevertheless, we are convinced that we should be starting a forum to connect with our customers and suppliers. Thanks to Bose’s problematic headphones!

If any of you are experiencing similar issues with Bose Triport Headphones, call their Customer Services on 0800-085-9021. It’s been a few weeks since I complained and am yet to receive mine. I contacted them last week to check the status and was told that they have run out of stock until end of April. Though the headphones are good, I would give a big Thumbs Down for the product unless they come out with an enhanced version. Sad that many of us owning the older versions feel cheated. Sennheiser has better ones!

After much deliberation, I finally laid my hands on to Apple’s newest offering, although it stays with me only for a few days. I really would have loved to own the iPod Touch, but Apple announcing the launch one month after I had replaced my stolen White 30 Gig iPod with Black one (There goes the 30 day refund policy) ensures that I hold on to it for a while. Nonetheless, I have the iPod Touch for the next few days before it flies out with Nandu to reach the safe hands of Ashu, who undoubtedly would be delighted with this new gadget instead of a regular iPod.

In the recent years, Apple has leapfrogged it’s nearest competitors by introducing socially influential uber cool gadgets which has changed general perception of digital music. Honestly, a few years back, before the introduction of iPod, I considered MP3 music as pirated music as I had never seen a legitimate store selling compressed music in digital formats. iPod arrived and conquered the digital music world’s changing myths, owing much to the fact of delivering content using it’s proprietary iTunes software.

Although there are numerous portable music players available in the market, which are as intuitive, user friendly and colourful as iPods (Players such as Zune, Creative etc), iPod seems to have helped capture people’s imagination in a much wider market. The evolution of the iPod Range from the 1st generation to the all new iPhone has been equally sleek and innovative. Since its arrival as the 1st generation music player, iPod has slimmed and shed weight while adding numerous intuitive features. Any new product by Apple is sure to create a buzz and this is evident with iPod Touch and the iPhone.

The iPod Touch is more of a stripped down version of an iPhone, albeit it’s dazzling interface and innovative design makes it a killer among all the iPod products. In terms of exterior, it is the usual smudge prone chrome and glass exterior, now a common feature among all iPods, which ensures that the player definitely needs a protective film. However, the oddity of the iPod Touch is in the black top corner plastic casing, which looks unimpressive with the Chrome plated finish on the back. For a company of Apple’s standards, which relies heavily on design, the casing is a bit incomprehensible. On the top left edge of the player is power button to activate/deactivate the player and a button below the touch screen interface to call the menu on screen. The touch screen navigation is the USP of iPod Touch and with the large screen makes it worthy enough for crispy video, pictures and browsing through the added Wi-Fi compatibility.

Like all other iPod products, the iPod touch comes with minimal accessories, laid out behind a black plastic cradle on which the iPod touch is packed in a flimsy plastic film neatly packaged in an attractive box. The box also packs a user guide, a USB cable, a cleaning cloth, a dock adaptor, two Apple stickers, and a pair of the now popular iPod earphones, along with a small bit of plastic which acts as a viewing stand for the player.

I had very little time to sync my iTunes to the iPod Touch, but I assume it is bit of an ordeal as my library has more than 15GB of songs as against the paltry 8GB iPOD. When I tried syncing this morning, it only copied recently purchased songs and failed to show my library under the syncing options to select and add songs. I guess, it needs a bit of investigation in this regard. Anyway, I will explore this in detail this weekend.

All images courtesy Apple.

Sounds like an absurd title until you hear it completely. Not surprisingly, this is an ad campaign for Nokia’s new gadget killer, Nokia N95, one of my recent additions. To begin with, I am a gadget freak. I love all newly introduced technological marvels and go out of my way to gain possession of whatever is affordable. For the last seven years, ever since I started using a mobile phone back in India, I have been a proud owner of number of phones, including a Nokia 8850, 6820, 3110i, 9500, N70, Motorola A925, Samsung N620 and E720. But none of these phones have excited me as much as the N95.

I had been waiting for the phone since Christmas and was quite pleased to see it being launched in the UK during the Long Easter Weekend in April. I called my network immediately and managed to negotiate a decent deal, without a hefty deposit on a twelve month contract (For a N95, that is a real bargain). Around that time, I was in the process of changing jobs and I requested my network to deliver the phone to my new work place. The first day of my new job, I was more excited about receiving the phone than I was for my new job.

The Courier man walked straight to my table and delivered the package. I spent the rest of the day at work, giving regular furtive glances to my yet unpacked phone and at close, I hurried home with the parcel. Once I reached home, I unpacked it and out came the incredible THING…it sure is not one THING…its MANY!