Orange joins the data club

This just in from the Blogroll via Ewan @ smstextnews:

"Well, will WONDERS never CEASE?

Butter me in jelly and call me Christopher!

Look again. Yes, Orange, uh huh, ORANGE are launching an unlimited data add-on. This is from the company who most recently brought us the unbelievable and downright laughable ‘unlimited’ off peak data deal if you signed up to their 75 quid a month price plan. As if ‘off peak’ was any use.

Muchos kudos to SMS Text News reader Barry O’Connell for spotting this in The London Times!

So, the future’s bright, right? Have a read..."

The link Ewan is referring to is here.
But cutting to the meat of it - (as we do often do) - it works out like this:

Contract: Internet “snacks” – 30p for 15mins with daily cap of £1.50 or a “bundle” priced at £1 per day or £5 monthly for evening/ weekends or £8 monthly “anytime”.

Pay-as-you-go: Internet snacks – 40p for 15 mins with daily cap of £2 or a daily £1 bundle

Orange has (at last) joined the elite!

This is great news for Mobizines users -

T-Mobile, 3 and now Orange are clearly leading the way with their data bundles...
Vodafone are following up this summer and o2?

Well put it this way - they're not on our Christmas card list.
What about yours?

PAYG or FAYG?

Are you Pay As You Go or are you Fleeced As You Go?

That is the question...

We all know the Mobizines Service is Free right? RIGHT?!
Right.
And we all know that the operators are very slowly coming round to the idea that we might not want to pay through the nose for our data charges, right? RIGHT?!

And although some people take issue with this - at least the operators are trying...
They are trying right? RIGHT?!

WRONG!!!

I get in this morning and start my usual 'pre-work blogroll browse' and thanks to the lovely Technokitten...

(whom I also happened to meet at a mobilistic soiree last week - cheers lass)

...I have now been enlightened to the world of PAYG Data Charges.
To use a common web phrase... OMG!

Vodafone seems to be leading the way with a whopping £7.50 per mb!

That's insane!
Almost as bad as their (current) contract prices!
But hey - it could be worse...

You could be paying for mobile data in Canada, OUCH!
Now THAT hurts.
(thanks to Ewan @ smstextnews for that one)

Edit: I've just been told off for being too negative - I'm going to go and do some research on PAYG prices - see if I can find the best offering.
Not just the worst.
BBS.

Tube Map you say?

"Whassat den?!"

Well - we've been trying to collate a list of all the apps we like/admire/use daily to share with all of our lovely readers out there (all five of them).

So far Jim and I are yet to receive anything back from the group email we sent out last week along the lines of:

"Oi! Give us something for the blog!"

But to be fair to the guys upstairs - they do work hard - and the next release isn't far away.

SO!

In the interim - one of our 'blogrollers' - the lovely technokitten to be precise - reminded me of a handy little app we found a while back via the wonders of Transport for London.

Basically - on some handsets you can download a lovely interactive Tube Map via their wap site.
Unfortunately you're unable to get to this if you use an N73 or an N95 for example.
Ah-ha!
That's what TFL would have you believe!

We managed to find the source of the downloads and we've decided to share it with all you lovely people.
Got a phone? Gonna be in London Town anytime soon?
Then get this super duper Tube Map!
It's easy peasy... Ready?

Get your Firefox browser + WAP browser plug-in (if needed) and go to here:

http://wap.tfl.gov.uk/kcml/tubemap/downloads/

Once you get there use the following as a guide:

6230 - does 128px screens - Er.. 6230 then.
6600 - does 176px screens - That'll be your N70 etc...
S700 - does 240px screens (QVGA) screens - N73, N95, etc, etc...

Huzzah!
Tube map wonderment for all!

Why do you have to go to the above wap/website to get the map?
Well - you don't.

Go to the official wap site site on a 6230 and you're laughing.
Go there on an N73 however and you will not be shown the link to download the app.

Boo! Hiss!