Blog posts page 31 of 44

An open letter to FlyBE on usability

Last night I booked some flights with your web site and must say I’m rather disappointed with the experience. We needed to book two return flights with one going out on a different day but both returning on the same flight, and ideally next to each other.

It is a little disappointing that to book two different flights that you have to book each one separately despite obviously being possible on the phone or with non-airline sites such as Amazon. To avoid booking one and finding the other not available and being left with useless tickets we decided to book each using a different computer so that we could try and make sure it went through at the same time.

Extending GridView to access generated columns

ASP.NET’s GridView is a useful control and one of it’s best features is it’s ability to generate the columns automatically from the data source given.

The problem however is that these generated columns are not exposed as part of the Columns collection or indeed available at all so you can’t hide or manipulate the selected columns.

Rojo – how not to publish updates to your site

Rojo has been my favorite on-line reader for a while despite the annoyances and quirks but this weekends ‘upgrade’ got me wondering how incompetent the team behind it is and what exactly Six Apart have purchased.

There were a couple of problems before the upgrade — the one most users would have seen is the crazy unread counts which are almost always wrong — but you can learn to live with that.

LEGO Star Wars 2 on the Xbox 360

I enjoyed the original LEGO Star Wars back on the PlayStation 2 some time ago. The co-operative play element, the LEGO world combined with the Star Wars world (obviously) and a healthy dose of comedy slapstick that surprised me giving LucasArt’s strict control of the Star Wars universe. But then they let Spaced burn a pile of Star Wars merchandise to official music so maybe they’re not all humorless droids.

The original game covered Episodes I-III and so when Steve reminded me LEGO Star Wars II was coming out and would be covering Episodes IV-VI (A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) I knew I had to have it. The only question was which format and in the end I bit the bullet and went with the 360 version at £29.99 — a whopping 50% more than the PC version. Thanks Microsoft.

Inside Apple Software Update for Windows

I was wondering whether Apple Software Update might search for and upgrade the various Boot Camp supplied tools and possibly drivers.

I did a little digging and couldn’t find the answer but did spot that the Software Update sends a few interesting machine details to Apple’s web server….

The HTC TyTN smartphone reviewed

For some time now I’ve been on the lookout to replace my aging Sony Ericsson P900 with something just as powerful but better equipped. With a keyboard high on my wish-list too the choice kept coming down to Danger’s Sidekick II, the Blackberry or the iMate K-Jam.

Reviews of the K-Jam suggested it was a little slow and the Sidekick II has been an age in coming. The Blackberry is a closed platform and looks like a cheap 90’s PDA.