The World Through My Eyes

Car insurance! The boring bit of buying a new car, wouldn’t you say? Fortunately, the pleasure of picking an insurer is a good few months away from me, but it wouldn’t hurt reading up about it now! As luck would have it, I was requested to review a new website, Car Insurance List.
The first thing that struck me, was that the website was undoubtedly, American! As with many products, insurance types and prices vary greatly from country to country and a website with such a strong focus on the American market would have been a bit of a put-off. This is a shame really as CarInsuranceList really does contain some great information on purchasing car insurance in general, regardless of where you live!
Navigating between pages is easy thanks to a menu on the side as well as clearly marked lists at the top and bottom of the page. While the design isn’t mind blowing, it’s easy to read text on the page which is the main criteria for such a website.
The pages detailing different types of insurance will prove to be invaluable for many as a lot of industry jargon is explained in plain English allowing for simple comparison between policies - it should enable you to point out what extra benefits you are getting from some policies and whether it is worth paying a little bit extra for them.
While this will cover the basics, there will undoubtedly be some who want to know even more! This too is all there - there is an up to date collection of car insurance news for those who really want to swot up and a small collection of related articles as well. So, there should be no shortage of reading material; you should be a car-insurance expert in no time!
There’s not a lot wrong with this website but I would once again emphasise the internationally-applicable nature of much of the data contained on the website as at the moment it does seem to be portrayed as if all visitors are buying insurance in America. Car reviews are very brief - perhaps adding an element of visitor interaction (customer reviews etc.) as the website grows would be a great touch.
In summary, the real attraction to this website for me, is that information I would otherwise have to spend hours searching for is available in the same place. While it is geared for those living in the U.S. it’s visitor base should not be limited due to this

Think of Car Insurance List as a small but highly resourceful and informative car insurance comparison website.

This is a question many people ask me following my ‘Why the Japanese are so much better than the German’s at making cars’ monologues by the end of which much of the female audience are deep in conversation with each other about hair, make-up and other things girls talk about (I’m not stereotyping), the auto-savvy audience are telling me about the extra horse power the Beamer’s turbocharged Wankel shaft g-whiz kabookababa engine delivers and the rest of the audience that have survived the monologue, tell me I ‘lack class’. Today, I heard an advert on the local advertising station (some people still call The Wave a radio station for some bizarre reason) about the Audi A4 that went something like this (I don’t have the exact transcript, but my imagination more than compensates for that)… “You are on a motorway. In the distance there is a car. But what if the car slows down when you’re not looking…sneaky eh? That’s why the new Audi A4 comes with Intelligent Cruise Control that adapts your speed to the vehicle in front…Vorsprung Durk Technik etc. etc.” Nissan had that stuff as standard on some Primera’s years ago! That’s the thing with these companies….they make a big fuss about absolutely nothing! Ok, I had a real point to make, but I don’t have time/remember exactly what it was, so yeah, basically, the bottom line is, BUY A NISSAN instead of some executive German Car *BMW* This was just for you lot at school, especially Alex and the economics class.

I don’t like German cars (bar Audi). I don’t like German computers either, and with good reason too.
Having been on holiday for 2 weeks, on our return the C180 wouldn’t start.

The reason was that the battery was flat. So flat in fact, that even the remote central locking wouldn’t work, so we had to open the doors with the stick-key they provide. What’s more is that Mercedes being the bright sparks they are, hadn’t put the battery in the bonnet. They’d put it in the boot. So, what’s the problem with that? Well, the boot switch uses up battery power which our car didn’t have any of. A bit of a problem, don’t you think?

The only other option was to use the key stick to open it but with it being freezing outside after 5 minutes of trying I gave up.

So I thought to myself, what would one of Mercedes Benz’s engineers have done in this position? Frankfurter was the first that came to mind but after giving it a little more thought I realised that back in 1999 cars came with manuals (man·u·al - a small book, esp. one giving information or instructions).

So off I went on my mission to find out how I could get to the battery or open the boot. Absolutely nothing. Well, there were bits about how this engine was ‘maintenance free’ and all that junk but really, this manual was a lot like my English coursework, 1 part content to every 4 parts of pure waffling. (There were no red scribble marks and comments on it though)…

What then could I do?

Screw the whole Mercedes engineer crap, what would I, a guy who relies more on YouTube and Yahoo Answers than his maths teachers for help with maths homework, do in this position? Like my answer to most things people ask me, I googled it!

After a few failed searches, a search for “c180 battery boot jumpstart” I came across a very useful post on a Mercedes Benz User Forum. Some very friendly dude had said: “Patient use of a thin oil and gently working the lock with the key will eventaually free it up.”

I don’t do patience, so I just picked up a can of WD-40 and sprayed away into the key hole and as if by magic, the boot opened. I was in awe. No, I really was…

That was the easy bit, yeah? Now that I could actually get to the cleverly-placed battery, it should all be a doddle, surely. All I needed to do now was to jump start the beast. Except for one little thing, I’d never done a jump start before and I didn’t know where the cables go in and what to do first and how to make the sure the battery didn’t explode and whatnot. Cue, YouTube.

In barely a minute I’d found a pretty high budget tutorial video, heavily endorsed by the Swedish car maker, Saab. I made some quick notes, and just to check that this wasn’t a load of rubbish (a lot of the internet is these days), I just cross checked off another website I found through a Google search, which was telling me to take the same steps.

So with the assurance that as long as I followed the instructions and didn’t mess up; there would be no major explosions of acid, I took a step into the chilly outside air, took a deep breath in, and with my handy notes in hand, proceeded to get the jump leads out of the other car.

Now, crunch time. The question that’s been plaguing your minds, I’m sure…just how well did it go?

I’d love to tell you, but the sad truth is that just then, right after I’d done all the hard work, the AA patrol van turned up.

Hi everyone!

No - I’m not dead, I’ve just been busy with school work, personal life and a shiny new forum called Blogger To Blogger.

I’d like to tell you a bit about my latest idea if I may and also apologise for the lack of time this, amongst other things, has left for blogging. Anyway, Blogger To Blogger is an all new forum community with the aim of offering a boost to new blogs as well as providing a one-stop shop for bloggers to keep up to date with what’s going on around the blogosphere. Additionally, I’d like it to serve as a place where bloggers can network with each other and post notices if they are looking for a designer/coder, writer or whatever they may need to fulfil their desires!

So far, I must admit, we’re quite a way away from serving all these purposes which is why I’m soon going to launch a contest with some pretty decent prizes which should help us get some fresh ideas on improving the whole community - stay tuned and remember where you heard that juicy bit of news first! So there’s a long way to go but with the encouraging feedback received, we’re hopeful that with your help we can make it a great place and succeed in our mission of uniting the blogosphere!

Oh, and we’re also offering free blog reviews to members

So, head down over to www.bloggertoblogger.com - you know you want to! (Well, ok maybe not, but you know that I want you to…)

Back in December, I’d blogged about a new advertising solution called ‘AdRoll’ and how it could be the solution to all our problems. Well, it isn’t. Not yet, anyway.

AdRoll is a typical advertiser meets publisher website, but with a twist - they’ve tried to incorporate some social networking aspects into the website so advertisers and publishers can communicate. However, the primary aim of the service seems to be offering opportunities for even small blogs/websites to be exposed to advertisers.

The idea is, similar websites form groups and whereas an advertiser is unlikely to be interested in a website with only say, 10 unique views per day (even if the publisher has an idea target audience), however, when these small, related publishers join together, they’ve got more scope of attracting advertisers.

So, I’ve got a smallish blog, perfect to test out the program! And so, I did. What I can say is that I’ve had no luck with it - I’m one of the few people who (proudly) blogs for pleasure and not for the search engines. So my posts are on all sorts of topics, attracting all types of people - good in ways but bad from the point of view of gaining an advertiser. I’ve had no interest yet and neither have the majority comparatively bigger websites. Although there are a few niches that have done really well.

However, I wouldn’t discard the service just yet. It’s still very small compared to the other players in its field - and once it gets a few big breaks, I wouldn’t be surprised to see drastic changes in the amount of activity on the website. The question now is whether AdRoll can get these ‘big breaks’ and attract more advertisers in the near future.

This is an interesting article I was e-mailed. It’s written by someone called James Coney.

I’m going to get myself an 0870 number for my home.
Why? Quite simply, revenge. I am sick to the back teeth of companies making me pay to speak to them. So, since the-future-Mrs C and I rarely get any phone calls to our home line other than those on business we are going to turn the tables.
According to the web I can get an 0870 number for £9.95 so for every call made to me I get 4p per minute. A second landline costs £74. After 2,000 minutes of incoming phone calls (five minutes a day) I am in profit.
This new phone number I am going to give out to directory enquiries and every form I have to fill in for a bank, online shop, utility etc. Even cold callers can have it.
Of course, to further my own enjoyment I am going to connect this phone line to a very long answer machine message, which I envisage going something like this.
“Hello, you are through to the phone line of James Coney. Your call maybe recorded for training purposes. Your call is important to me. In a minute you will be presented with three options please listen to them and choose the appropriate one. If you are hoping to make me change my phone line, gas or electricity please press one. To call me about a new service on my bank account please press two. Or to speak to me directly press three……..I am sorry James Coney is busy right now. Please try again later.”

So, when are you getting your new line installed?

I don’t normally write about cricket, simply due to the fact that I don’t usually like reading about cricket - it’s just not as fun after it’s been transformed into little shapes on a piece of paper. But extreme times call for extreme measures. I’ve kept my mouth shut over some ridiculous events that have happened in recent years such as that farce of a word cup final in 2007 between Australia and Sri Lanka and a few other events. The sad fact is that politics amongst other things is screwing world cricket up. The Australian cricket team could and has got away with what I can only describe as the equivalent of murder.For many years now, the Australia Group have been the leading name in world cricket. Group refers to their talented cricket team, their even more talented cricket board and not-so-talented ICC umpires; no names mentioned, every cricket-follower knows who they are. Malcolm Gladwell tells us that everything has a ‘Tipping Point’ and I’m glad that world cricket is drawing ever closer to this mysterious phenomenon.

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As Sky is becoming the epitome of pathetic customer service, I thought I’d feature them in the title of this post, but it’s true, there’s a lot to be learnt from the way business is conducted in India. Whether or not the techniques used there would work in the UK, or even US economy for that matter, is a completely different story though. But while I spent two weeks treading (and trading :D) the bustling streets of Goa and Pune, there’s a lot I picked up about how business is conducted in the areas:

1. As the salesman, you’ve got to bargain otherwise you can kiss, well wave, your customers goodbye.
It’s amazing how much you can bargain even at pretty well-established shops. I bought shades (OKLIY shades to be precise) and a belt apparently worth Rs. 700 for Rs. 500 after some bargaining with the salesman - you wouldn’t see any shops back here doing that would you? So maybe the two items were only worth Rs. 450, but I felt really good after getting Rs. 200 off!

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Hope everyone’s having/had a great new year!

Seeing as everyone was in a festive mood, I’ve decided to change the theme - the old one was getting boring… So, here’s a shiny(ish) new theme for you to explore and hopefully enjoy.

Just be aware that there are some niggles that need ironing out…niggles…is that even a word? (Just came to mind while typing, it’s like I’m on auto-pilot).

In the meantime, please leave your comments about the new theme and whether or not you preferred it to the old one!

Just a fortnight after posting my ‘I’ll be away for a while but enjoy your holidays’ post (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc) I’m back blogging, sorry to those of you who thought you’d be getting a break frome me, ah well…

I’ve just been on holiday in Goa which has been awesome… I got to ride a jet-ski/water scooter, swam, ate fish and took the best pic of the holiday:  (Will upload it soon…)
So till next time, you’re gonna have to eagerly anticipate the wonders of this great picture I talk about- enjoy!