Since getting my N95, I’ve been using a small number of mobile optimised sites that I’d thoroughly recommend:
If you’ve ever considered building your own web business, read this great post from Guy Kawasaki about how he built his Truemors site on a tight budget. I’m especially impressed by the low development costs, and I might have to consider trying out LogoWorks for my next site (given my lack of graphic design talent).
Not surprising, but it’s nice to see that the BBC have understood that we’re living in the 21st Century. Other media giants should learn from this example.
Not in a serious way, but I’m finding it very easy to buy some of the best PS2, Xbox and Gamecube games that I missed out on when they were released. It’s difficult to resist when really highly rated games can be picked up for £6-8 inc delivery. I must stop though, as I doubt I’ll ever find the time to play through the games properly.
Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (PS2), Outrun 2006 (PS2), and Crimson Skies (Xbox) are my most recent purchases. Now I just need to find a cheap copy of Burnout 2 on the Gamecube.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it before, Techmeme is definitely worth a look.
It seems to do a great job of distilling the important tech stories of the day into a single, regularly updated page. Much easier than trying to manually filter out the important stuff from multiple RSS feeds.
It’s like a serious and very picky version of Digg or Reddit.
I managed to get a Nintendo Wii when it was launched in the UK a couple of weeks ago. I’ll probably post about it when I’ve had more chance to play with it, but I wanted to do a quick post on the Wii Internet Channel (basically a version of the Opera web browser) that was released today.
On first impressions, I’m very impressed. It renders Carsurvey.org very well, has reasonably useful zooming, and works beautifully with the Wii Remote (the vibration as you move your cursor over a link is great).
However, I’m beating round the bush here. All that matters is that YouTube works, including full screen playback. For some people, a small wireless device like the Wii, which shows photos and plays YouTube videos on their TV, will be well worth buying, regardless of the fact that it also plays games.
I’m a huge fan of Paul Graham’s writing, but having just read The Single Founder Myth by Mike Taber, I find myself agreeing with Mike more than Paul.
Mike links to a Joel on Software post from 2000 called Ben and Jerry’s vs Amazon, which despite being over six years old, makes the choices faced in running a startup very clear.
I’m not sure I qualify as running a startup anymore, as Carsurvey.org is over 9 years old, but I run CSDO Media as a one man band, and I definitely prefer the organic “Ben and Jerry’s” method of growing a company.
Less than 12 hours after coming up with the idea, I’m happy to launch CarFilter.co.uk
It’s a simple site for searching UK car reviews, based on Google’s new Custom Search Engine
Inspired by the review Matt Cutts wrote, I spent some time writing lots of URL patterns that would filter only the review pages of most major UK car sites. I’m pretty happy with the result, which I think gives nicer results than just a plain “model manufacturer reviews” search on Google UK
I’m a bit of a fan of Budvar Lager, but it’s quite difficult to buy it in reasonable quantities anywhere near my home. My local ASDA used to sell it, but I haven’t seen any there for about nine months.
As usual, I did some searching online to see if I could find someone who would sell me Budvar at a reasonable price.
Firstly, all the specialist Internet drinks sites proved to be useless. They’re fine for premium wine and spirits, but the postage for crates of lager is just too much. I don’t want to pay £35 or so for 24 x 330ml bottles of lager. I like Budvar, but not that much. Kronenbourg 1664 is nearly as nice, and is often on offer at my local ASDA.
Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s all claim to offer Budvar online. Below is a brief summary of my experiences with their services:
Tesco:
My first order was with Tesco. They had a good offer on for 24 x 330ml bottles of budvar for £18 each + £5 delivery
First annoyance is that you have to create an account and log in to browse the site. It really puts you off checking out what they have on offer
The site is functional, but is not very pleasant to browse. The text is too small, as are the photos. I wasn’t tempted to browse past the lager section
Delivery slots were hard to get. I had to book over a week in advance. The delivery slots were also two hours long
Despite the above issues, three crates of Budvar turned up as requested. The annoying thing is that they now no longer stock Budvar at all 
Overall marks: 6/10
ASDA:
This felt like a trip back to 1998. Their site (just recently updated) works with Safari, but doesn’t like Camino. I was shown a page suggesting I upgrade to Internet Explorer 4 or higher, or Netscape 4.5 or higher. There was a link to a non-existent page on Netscape’s website. No mention of Firefox etc. This is a disgrace in 2006
Their site in general is comparable to Tesco’s site. ASDA’s navigation is worse, but their product details are better
They do allow you browse (using Safari) without logging in, and they showed Budvar as being available. Once I created an account to place an order, Budvar wasn’t listed
I raised a query about this through their website, which states that they will back to you in 48 hours. It took them roughly two weeks to call me (it was long enough that I can’t be specific about the number of days). The guy I spoke to said that the site you see without logging in is just a demo, and that products shown there might not actually be available
When I asked about why my local store didn’t stock Budvar, and why I couldn’t order it, he suggested filling in a form elsewhere on the ASDA website. Somehow I have my doubts that this would result in me being able to buy Budvar anytime soon
I’ve been bombarded with emails by ASDA since creating an account. Many more than either Tesco or Sainsbury’s. So much so that I’ve asked them to stop sending me emails
Overall marks: 3/10
Sainsbury’s:
Sainsbury’s site is nicer to use than either ASDA or Tesco. Bigger text, clearer navigation, no login required to browse the site
They stock 4 x 330ml bottles of Budvar for £3.99, but you save £1 if you buy two packs. So basically it’s £21 for 24 x 330ml bottles. More expensive than Tesco, but at least they still sell it
Delivery was available within two days, and the delivery slot was one hour. Noticeably better than Tesco
As it was pleasant to browse the site, I order some Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream (on offer) and 20 bags of Bacon Wheat Crunchies (not available at my local ASDA)
Everything turned up on time, although I only got 48 bottles of lager, rather than the 80 I ordered. They do warn you that this might happen. The 20 bags of Wheat Crunchies were delivered filling a single carrier bag to capacity 
(they don’t sell multipacks). The lager was in carrier bags with 8 bottle per bag. Surely it would have been easier to deliver two crates as Tesco did?
I’ve just been emailed a £5 voucher for my next order, which will cover the delivery charge. They also offer free delivery between Tuesday and Thursday if you spend more than £70
Overall marks: 8/10
Conclusion:
From my admittedly limited experience, Sainsbury definitely seem to have the edge over Tesco in terms of the customer experience, and ASDA have some serious catching up to do