Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

3 days to go!

Monday, December 8th, 2008

If you’ve not been following our Christmas Presents campaign in aid of NSPCC Childline and the UN Foundation then, where have you been?

So far a fantastic £1100 has been donated – we have 3 more days to make our £1500 target!

So if you or your firm hasn’t  donated yet, please do here.  Remember for every £5 / $10 donated we’ll put a ticket in the draw to win the fantastic prizes below – the more you donate, the more opportunities you have to win.

christmas presents FINAL

Skypephone S2 added to prizes

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

S2Skypephone_1Thanks to all today’s donors – we’ve just hit £900… still some way to go to our £1500 target though so please head over here and donate to these two worthy causes!

…and if you needed any more incentive than the ton of prizes we already have and that warm feeling of doing something nice, the fantastic people from Skype have also given us a 3 Skypephone S2 to add to the prize pot.  Awesome :-)

Thanks for your donations!

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

UPDATE: So far we’ve raised £890. We need another £610 by the 10th to reach our target!

Many thanks to last week’s donors, including David Salgado, Darren King, Aaron Homer Vergara, Chris Walters, ‘Lulucachoo’ and Sam Elkin for their generous donations.  Also to the Vodafone ‘Live Guy’ team who added another fantastic prize to the pot: a Dell Mini Inspiron netbook with Vodafone 3G broadband.

If you haven’t already, you can donate directly to the 2 good causes we’re supporting – NSPCC Childline and UN Foundation – via the MIR Christmas Presents page here… We’ve a huge pile of netbooks, phones and gadgets you can win if you donate with more prizes due to be added this week.

Checkout some of the mobile-technology enabled projects the UN Foundation runs world-wide below:

UNF_mHealth_for_Development_Brochure.pdf (page 5 of 12)

New Prize: Vodafone Dell Mini Inspiron Netbook

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

LATEST UPDATE: £800 donated so far – that’s enough for 16 children, traumatised by abuse, to spend one hour with a social worker rebuilding their trust in adults.  Please help us reach our target of £1500 by 10th December!

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Pop_4

The awsome people from Vodafone’s ‘Find Live Guy‘ campaign have added another prize to the excellent pot for Mobile Industry Review’s ‘Christmas Presents’ campaign in aid of NSPCC Childline and the UN Foundation.  It’s the Dell Inspiron Mini Netbook plus three months free Vodafone broadband.  Ewan’s had one on a Vodafone contract for some time and loves it.  So click here to donate to these two great causes and get a chance to win this or any of the other great prizes!

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live_guy

If you haven’t already you should definitely also check out Vodafone’s ‘Find Live Guy‘ site – it’s a fantastic interactive game.  Live Guy is in London tomorrow and by following the site, his twitters, You Tube videos and Picassa photos you can work out the places he visits during the day and ‘track him down’ (in person or online) you can win a Vodafone Dell Mini Inspiron Netbook like the one we have for our draw (Two chances to win?  We’re spoiling you!).  He’s been all round the country giving out his net-booky goodness this month and tomorrow (28th) is his last day so don’t miss out! The previous clues have been pretty cryptic!

Christmas Presents at Mobile Geeks

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

If you’re in London (All Bar One, New Oxford St) for Mobile Geeks of London tonight be warned that I will be there collecting donations for our MIR Christmas Presents campaign supporting Childline and the UN Foundation.  As a special treat I also have a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of champagne which we’ll be giving away in a mini-draw during the evening.

If you can’t make it tonight, take a look here to join in online.

Mobile Geeks of London information from Lord James of Whatleydude here.

MIR CP Prizes 600

“Mobile-Crushes” – They end now!

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Now I know I’ve said it a couple of times in the past few months, but I’m looking for a new phone. The reason I haven’t yet bought one isn’t because I can’t be bothered to purchase one, or because I can’t afford one; in fact I’m more than happy to now pay a little bit more for a mobile than I previously would. The problem is I haven’t yet found anything… Well until the other day.

My Mum gets Carphone Warehouse letters in the post; and the other day I arrived home from School, seeking out any interesting post for myself, when I came across a little Christmas brochure. I expected to see the usual mix of non-interesting and far-fetched mobiles, which have very limited appeal to someone who is as indecisive as I.

Then I came across the LG Cookie.

I’m not an LG fan by any means, yes their phones are nice, and I have to say although I appreciate the minor attempts at creativity with their naming processes; previous experiences of LG’s have taught me that they’re not my cup of tea. Should I mention I’m not a fan of their interfaces, or just generally how they work and feel?

However, the Cookie did catch my eye! It looks nice, it’ll be a new experience, it’s a touch-screen (another learning curve), and also the ability to use an on screen QWERTY keyboard, and importantly its price.

I don’t know what to do.

Now this could just be a sporadic urge to go and spend money, and get something just because I’ve seen it, and I like the price; but then I think… LG. An interface I know I won’t like, and will struggle to get grips with, and I fear I’ll see all the flaws in my purchase just after I’ve broken that “unbreakable seal” on the box.

It’s hopeless! I do this with every wonderful find I come across, and I deliberate an item and a possible purchase so much that it either becomes outdated and therefore useless, or I decide I don’t like it although secretly still wanting it, or I’ll find something else to admire and want.

I know for one, I can’t be the only person who does this; and I know for one that it’s probably a good safety precaution my mind has implemented to stop such impulse buying – a trait I really try to avoid at all costs.

Now I wonder, why is it I find mobiles such as the Cookie, and previously before it the LG KS360 before that, and there was also a Sony mobile before that too; why is it I loose interest, and forget about it, and then find some other mobile-crush?

Could it just be that no matter how lovely one major aspect or feature of a phone is say, it’s price, a new built in gadget or a sleek, slender design; it really isn’t enough to make a mobile good, or at-least good enough to buy.

What I’m beginning to see is that mobiles tend to be about one major factor, be it its connectivity, a particular design focus, a built in application, the camera, the media, the price, or its “technological achievements”.  I don’t want just one particularly above average feature as reason to invest in a mobile; I want a device that has equally good features which aren’t just surfing above the acceptable quality in phone.

So my next mobile-crush won’t be on a weak whim, a spur-of-the moment encounter, it’ll be something which offers more than one better than alright feature, and something I won’t fall out of love with.

Feel free to e-mail me anything at Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

Esendex are doing their bit

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

LATEST UPDATE: £600 donated so far – that’s enough for 60 one-to-one online counseling sessions for children distressed by abuse to ask for help for the first time.  Please help us reach our target of £1500 by 10th December!

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So far the ‘Christmas Presents’ campaign to raise money for Childline and the UN Foundation has been supported by generous individuals and freelancers.  Today Esendex – the clever people that do all kinds of things with SMS – stepped up and made a very generous corporate donation to support these two great causes.  We’ve reserved them some tickets in our charity draw to share in the office.

Thanks to everyone at Esendex and good luck in the draw!

If your firm would like to make a donation please do so here and be sure to let me know.  Alternatively just e-mail me at ben.smith@mobileindustryreview.com and I’ll sort it all out for you!

MIR readers ROCK! (and win free prizes)

Monday, November 24th, 2008

childlineThanks to all who’ve donated to the Mobile Industry Review ‘Christmas Presents’ campaign to-date.  Particularly recent donors Mike Butler, Jamie Klinger, Kara Hoisington and Jo Jensen.

I’ve just come back to my desk to find £100 has been donated so-far today… That’s enough funding for an NSPCC ChildLine worker to answer calls for 5 hours, so children in desperate need can get the help and confidential advice they want from a friendly counselor.

UNF

Wow!

…and all of those people have been entered into the draw to win a fantastic great pile of free stuff too.  So it’s win-win (as we say in consultants’ school).

If you haven’t, please do donate now.  Quite a few people are just e-mailing me at ben.smith@mobileindustryreview.com to sort out their donation for them and to help with payments in Euros and company donations.  How easy is that?


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