Thursday, December 20, 2007 Right

67% Geek

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 Wrong

11

iPhone down. Send help.

I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket to introduce my mother to Turin Brakes and it said: 'You have no music. You can download it from iTunes'.

'Thanks,' I said. 'But there should be at least 6GB of music, video and pictures in your tiny brain.'

'No,' it said. 'I'm empty. But you can download music and videos from iTunes.'

Then I plugged it into iTunes, and iTunes said: 'You've got 6.3GB of stuff on here. But it's not music, video or pictures, so you can't delete it.'

'Oh dear,' I said. 'Perhaps you could help me restore the iPhone to it's factory settings, delete all the data and let me re-upload my stuff?'

'No, sorry,' said iTunes.

'Dammit,' I said.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Do they know it's PR?

I hope that, by now, you have all seen the LEWIS version of Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'. If not, here goes:



Here's what the critics are saying:

"Unmissable!" PR Geek

"Marginally better than Band Aid 20." Big Ben on Parliament

"Three thumbs up." Sunday Drinker

"That guy actually looks like Bono. Didn't think much of Francis Rossi though. ;-)" PR Blogger

"After all the fuss after the truly hideous Lewis PR video 'rap' you would have thought they have learnt their lesson. Sadly not as this toe curlingly bad example has just been posted online." Cowshed Productions

Monday, December 17, 2007 Qik makes me want a Nokia N95

It's no secret that I love my iPhone. I won't bore you with why... Aside from the fact that it's so pretty. And that it's touch screen is so good. And that the video playback is amazing. And that the browser is mind-blowing. And how it's integration of search, maps, contacts and phone is so slick. OK, I got boring.

But I paused for two seconds when I saw the N95 before buying the iPhone. And now I've seen Qik and it's clever video streaming service, I'm beginning to feel left behind. And I hate that feeling.

For £24 a month on 3, it's almost worth getting...

(Spotted via Scobleizer. Check him out ignoring the basics of road safety. Rock n' roll!)

Sunday, December 09, 2007 Festive Food Review #1: Pret Elderberry & Blackberry Spicy Winter Pick-Me-Up

Welcome to the first in my series of seasonal food reviews. As busy senior executives, we don't have time to prepare our own lunches. But we all still want to enjoy fine, freshly-prepared food. At Christmas, I want mine unashamedly themed.

Pret's cheeky little seasonal smoothie combines the freshness of sharp fruits with the warmth of Christmas spice. It's slightly less gloopy than the standard mango smoothie or similarly-coloured Vitamin Volcano. But it's a great balance of flavours, and a refreshing and healthy nod to Christmas.

prgeek rating: Christmassy but good for you. 8/10.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007 PR geek pie

I felt a disturbance in the blogosphere recently. Something was different. Now I know what caused it - Drew B's redesigned his blog. This doesn't happen often. Instead of the stark, distopian vision of the London city skyline (which echoed his old job at Millbank Tower), Drew now appears himself.

He's whizzing along through funky East London. He's listening to his iPod Touch. He's holding a Starbucks Gingerbread Latte. The picture's cropped but I'd put money on the fact that he's sporting a geek pie and rockin' some Stussy kicks.

Google hearts iPhone

A new Google.com homepage for iPhone has been launched, with fancy iPhone-style tabbing and Edge-friendly speediness. But nobody can get it to work in the UK as our iPhone's keep redirecting to the normal site. How frustrating. I want it NOW.

Monday, December 03, 2007 Do the Lambrini?

Anyone spotted that the new Lambrini advert - 'Do the Lambrini' - is a ripoff of Dutch dance craze Jumpstyle? You know how you can tell? Because the Dutch don't drink Lambrini.

It's a ripoff I tell you! (Now go and search 'jumpstyle' on YouTube. There's a lot of good stuff on there.

The 'Do the Lambrini' advert:



Jumpstyle:



OK, OK - Jumpstyle done by professionals in the Scooter vid that either started it all or was a shameless cash-in, depending on your personal opinion:

Sunday, December 02, 2007 Has Phase Two begun?

My local Starbucks is closed as it's being given a 'new look'.

Seeing the boarded-up windows reminds me of the 'Phase Two' Onion story from 2001. I'm keeping watch in case the logo is "slightly altered to present the familiar mermaid figure as a cyclopean mermaid whose all-seeing eye forms the apex of a world-spanning pyramid."

Saturday, December 01, 2007 iPhone ringtone

I'm now enjoying 30 seconds of REM's timeless classic 'What's The Frequency, Kenneth?' every time someone rings me on my iPhone. Or Orbital's 'Chime'. Or a little piece of The Smiths' 'How soon is now?'.

How? Hackery, that's how.

1. Create your ringtone in GarageBand. Import it from iTunes and cut it, or just belch into the microphone. Doesn't matter.
2. Export.
3. Rename exported file (which will have an .m4a extension) to .m4r.
4. Drag (or import) the renamed file into iTunes (which will recognise it was a ringtone).
5. Sync.

I'm sure they'll block this soon. When ringtones come to the UK they'll be wanting you to pay extra to use them...