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The Booking.com Sitcom and breakfast

  Have you ever had a booking experience so bad, it left you feeling like you were stuck in a bad sitcom? That’s what happened to me recently when I tried to book a room through Booking.com . I thought I was getting a great deal – a room for £35, plus an additional charge that I thought was for breakfast. I had used the Booking.com app to search for a hotel room, and I had applied the breakfast-included filter which added a £4 fee. However, when I arrived at the hotel, I was informed that breakfast wasn’t included and that there was an additional charge for breakfast on top of the one I had already paid. After checking my booking details, I realised that Booking.com had charged me an additional fee, despite not actually providing breakfast. This was highly disappointing and infuriating as I had specifically selected the breakfast-included filter and been charged an extra fee. I was expecting the £4 fee to cover breakfast, so I was surprised to find out that this was not the case. I
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The word "Smart"

Smart - A word that has been attached to electronic devices also know as gadgets to make them look like they have some form intelligence or have clever abilities.  From smart TVs, smart phones, smart kettles, smart fridges, smart ovens to smart glasses what they all have in common is a feature or features that take them beyond their initial concept.     But how does one define smart and does adding extra features such as connectivity, control options or enhanced functionality actually make the device smart.   We've seen telephones from their infancy in the early days that were wired at home (and still are) to being carried around by everyone and from which we now plan, communicate, record  and coordinate our every  lives to the extent if  the "smart phone" is not with us; we cannot function or we forget what it "used" to be like without having the constant need to record our everyday movements or the check in with what is "happening" in the world.   We

The Fruit Watch - First day opinions

I've been a user of smart watches for the past 2-3 years, first backing the pebble on kickstarter, the cookoo , purchasing a sony smart watch one ,  purchasing a pebble steel , backing the pebble time  but always said on twitter I'd not get an apple watch, that it will be like a bracelet once the battery runs out and that pebble is really the one for me given the multi OS support (android and IOS). Well eating my own words I ordered the apple watch on 10/4 at 08:05 am and it was due to arrive on 26/5.  Another person I followed on twitter who lives within my area ordered there's at 08:02 and got it on the 24/4.  On Tuesday 5/5 I had an email to expect delivery on 6/5 and yesterday it arrived. So what changed my mind.... it was certainly nothing to do with apple as I think iOS 8 in its recent incarnation and the Iphone 6 plus are both aesthetically pleasing but are bug ridden hardware and software.  It was because it's apple given they have predominantly been my choi

Fruit phone again

The nexus 6 really needs to be a killer device. I've recently had a note 3, lg 3 and now z2. All hardware specs are great on paper but the android implementations are riddled with bugs and hardware that fails. Note 3 the gps borked by samsungs latest iupdate, g3 that overheats then you can't remove device administrators bug and now the z2 another device that overheats when using the camera and now the settings app fails to load to enable me to move apps to sd which did look like its a missing option.  To date I still have my nexus 4 as a spare, nexus 5 with my work sim which I still believe is underpowered and finally my xiaomi mi2sc.  I know tomorrow if i spend £700 on the high end fruit phone it will work, can run and store over 100s over apps and the hardware is good. Albeit the 5s with 1gb is not enough.  For android I can't find any decent comparison and am just disappointed because I love the vanilla os but somewhere along the line I find a reason not to keep it

State of podcast address on Windows Phone 8

I've recently purchased a Nokia Lumia 1020 running on Windows Phone 8. Quite scary really coming from iOS and Android as I like windows phone but found the experience one step up from a feature phone. Well the camera on the Lumia is the reason why I jumped ship and have decided to see if I can do better then just get by. One of the applications that is a must is a podcast client. After giving up on car radio and music whilst driving podcasts are there to entertain me all 35 of them. However whilst listening is the end result the journey of getting there is just as vital and with as minimal intervention from me. I can remember before iOS allowed background tasks to run the daily task of opening the podcatcher and waiting for them to come down. Equally being able to easily select what I play and especially remember where I left off or playing the next track automatically whilst driving are equally important. After 10 years of listening to podcasts I have set of minimum requirements

Galaxy Note 2 Bluetooth Woes

In a last ditch attempt to resurrect my note 2 before I get rid of it after only 3 weeks is anyone experiencing bluetooth issues either with phone or ad2p. I have 3 ad2p devices a car kit, a jabra Bt speaker for the car and a plantronics headset. All frequently lose Bt connection either for both the phone or media part for ad2p.  I have tried to use tasker and various plugins or apps that claim to fix reconnection issues but all have failed. I like the note 2 as an iphone replacement but like the note 1 this issue still exists.  I have found with tasker that I need to separately connect to the car kit first on ad2p, wait and then to the phone to establish a reliable connection. This is done using bluetooth auto Connect app.  Buy whilst playing podcasts with dogcatcher, beyond pod or pocket casts whilst running sat navigation software it can cope with the pause and resuming of the podcast when playing the routing instructions.  However it is randomly pausing the podcast or losing ad2p c

2012 My Year in a mini - review

2012 has now gone and we are officially in 2013 narrowly avoiding the end if the world on the 21st of December - End of the world – as it didn't happen | Science | guardian.co.uk I wrote this piece a month ago and thought I'd better post it. For technology in the Apple world we have seen the iPhone 5, IPad 4th generation and iPad mini and I expect to see Apple release the same products again with minor iterations in 2013. They will be billed with the usual hype that its the best thing ever, you need it and like sheep I will notably follow and but them. I tried the Galaxy note last year and it was a good experiment and whilst android had moved on with the number of applications available. I still found there were bugs with Bluetooth car kits, I needed to root the phone to use it to its full potential with Tasker and it was plagued with battery life issues. Whilst certain people sweat they can get a full day on a Note; I cannot and need two batteries. The iPhone