Buying an iPad in Hanoi is weird
Posted: March 2, 2013 Filed under: IT | Tags: apple, ipad, iphone, tech 5 Comments »
I can think of few places more Apple crazy than Vietnam.
Above and beyond the omnipresent hardware the logo decorates more than just the machines. I’ve seen Apple jeans, big gold Apple jewellry, even Apple lights. In my last post when we had to think up potential competition prizes the answer to “Does it have to be an iPad that we give away?” was yes.
All of which makes the rest of this post even more odd.
I tend to be fairly pragmatic about the whole Android v Apple thing. Personally for me it’s Apple for laptops everything else Android. So when my wife said she was going to buy an iPad I tried to talk her out of it.
Going along with her to store I was bemused as to just how long it took. This is Apple right? It just works. No? But as I browsed and browsed and eventually gave in and sat in the waiting area (complimentary green tea) it was taken out of the box and, from what I could see from my vantage point, generally messed around with. But annoyed at how long something is taking is pretty much my default Vietnam mood so I just inwardly screamed and tried to tune out.
Eventually at home and I’m trying to get the thing working and…it’s set up to the shop’s account.
Basically they had opened the box, installed their own account and filled it full of software and pirated music and handed it over. After head scratching I managed to delete that account, install our own, the machine crashed and died. My wife went back to the shop to replace it – this time with instructions to just take the box but again they insisted. Their argument being – no, this is how the iPad works.
I read of a similar experience in online reviews at other Hanoi outlets.
When I first bought an Android phone here they wanted to do the same thing and I almost literally had to wrestle it out their hands. Boxes are always opened. Frequently plastic films overlaid over your machines is default too.
My reckoning is that a great deal of people who buy iPads here don’t have laptops to tether them too. Most won’t have credit cards either. So, when you buy them you need to have everything up and running and after that – well that’s that – it’s a dead machine.
And it’s not just iPads. Suggesting to sister in-law-Trang that she could do Cart updates to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare at the same time with an app on her iPhone she admitted she couldn’t download apps.
So is this the norm? And if it is, then how come Apple is so popular? Is this really power of brand over usability?
A masterclass in NGO tweeting
Posted: August 22, 2012 Filed under: environment, IT, Social Media | Tags: ngo, social media, tweeting, wildlife Leave a comment »
I recently wrote a short piece on NGO use of Twitter which I’ve now shelved as a result of the above.
It’s a masterclass. There is so much that bugs me about the way NGOs misuse the platforms. Firstly your life may be workshops and conferences but that isn’t the end product of what you do. Don’t tweet the work, tweet the results. I’ve lost count of how many NGO people I’ve unfollowed because they’ve decided that a conference is the most interesting thing they can find to share.
The other problem with personal Twitter accounts of NGO employees is that all they do is retweet the corporate feed. If you’re following that then you don’t want it subsequently retweeted by every employee. One senior NGO tweeter I recently unfollowed would retweet messages two or three times, obviously trying to get hit numbers up.
Scott’s a mate and I was priviledged to work with him briefly at WCS. By his own reckoning he’s no techie. He’s still trying to work out how to get films off the internet. But what he does have is the ability to work out what’s interesting and what isn’t and he responds to others. Missed out here are the tweets from an FT correspondent and assorted retweets from those of us cheering on from the sidelines.
It seems obvious to tweet events like this and yet I’m not seeing it anywhere else, not in Vietnam at least. Most NGOs are too paralysed by fear of getting something wrong that they instead continue to share only retweets from head office.
This is storytelling, brilliantly done. Typos, blurry pics etc – it doesn’t matter. It’s live and more effective than a hundred multipley signed off, written by committee, statements that only find their way to this platform once sanctioned, old news and having had all life and interest well and truly trampled from them.
Finally, the tweets are giving us something. In the past I’ve tried to explain to an NGO comms boss that their tweet feeds are like a bloke who only turns up at the pub when he wants a favour or to borrow some cash. Nothing for weeks on end then suddenly you want us to retweet, or write to our MP or donate cash. Many of us will give to the right people at the right time but you have to give a little first.
* NB, this is my first time using Storify. I was impressed but not all the functionality would work in embedding it here. That might be my lack of expertise, it may be the tools or it might be the clunkiness introduced by assorted social media blocks in Vietnam. In the end I’ve got a screen grab instead – click it and it’ll take you to Storify with the full functionality.
The Best of the Silver Surfers
Posted: August 16, 2012 Filed under: change, England, family, IT | Tags: family, internet, twitter Leave a comment »My first big trip pretty much coincided with widespread usage of email.
I’d write great long emails home and my Dad would collect them, print them off and share them with my Mother. The occasional large print version would get provided to my Gran.
I started Skyping home when I first had internet installed in my little one room flat on Quang Trung. Somewhat frazzled by the ongoing dramas at KOTO it was great not just to talk to my Mum and Dad but see them as well.
For a number of years my Mother has been promising herself, myself and my Dad that she was going to master the internet. She didn’t want much, just to be able to search for things for the garden and to look at cottages to rent when they had a few days away.
She is of a generation that didn’t just had to master computers. She first had to master a keyboard, then a mouse or trackpad. To most of us the idea of cut and pasting is second nature and yet every step had to be learnt. She talked of doing courses but there were very few out there that start at the very beginning.
But after Christmas last year we started getting tentative, short emails from my Mum that had obviously taken a while to type. My Dad, enjoying his iPad, decided that my Mum would be more suited to using one too. There have been great strides since.
I’m rather proud of her when she “likes” thing on Facebook. It makes me giggle when I see her following her gardening heart throb Monty Don on Twitter alongside cousin Vicky’s Vallum Farm, the Hexham Courant and the Hairy Bikers. Occasionally, I’ll know she’s still out there when she favourites a tweet of mine or joins in communal nagging of me with Loan.
My Dad shares pictures taken from his phone of my nieces and nephews via a family only G+ circle and I try to remember to do the same. Holiday photos are shared as they’re taken. Essentially postcards several times a day. Meanwhile we normally get a text at the weekend with a request for a Skype chat where Loan and I mock bicker in front of them about which was of us is the most hard done to.
The football season starts this weekend and via SMS, Viber or Google Chat I’ll be sending goal updates to my Dad and, most likely, interrupting his bowls.
I enjoy it all immensely. Just as I enjoy sharing a little of my life via this blog. I can’t imagine being without these tools now and I’m very proud of my “silver surfers” back home.
Of Kindles, VPNs, torrents and clouds
Posted: April 29, 2011 Filed under: change, expats, IT, Reflections | Tags: 4od, amazon, facebook, iplayer, kindle, music cloud, overplay, pirate bay, utorrent, vietnam, vpn 14 Comments »
Much of the revolution in how we consume our TV, music and film has been played out while I’ve been overseas.
So I tend to regard it as just how I have learnt to get access to all the good stuff I left behind – rather than remembering that others have changed too.
But there are other issues that have influenced me. I used to happily pay to download albums from iTunes, only for them to make it ridiculously difficult because of my location. Searching for an album one day I gave in and downloaded it illegally. What can I say, it’s become a hard habit to break.
I’m also accessing BBC illegally via the iPlayer and VPN. Daft really, I pay $10 a month to Overplay to make this possible and from this the BBC gets nothing. I’d much rather pay direct – if they’d let me.
But in Vietnam the VPN does have another benefit – namely it allows me to access Facebook (blocked, not banned, in Vietnam) without further fuss nor pop up ads.
Like everyone what I’ll pay for, and how much, is changing. Paying western prices while living in the east doesn’t sit well when my wage isn’t what it was. Grand Designs Series 11 seems vaguely over priced in pounds ( 26.46 GBP – via iTunes) but put that into Dong and it’s nudging a million (903,600 VND). Too much. Even if I eat up-market here that’s a lobster buffet at the Sheraton.
The fact that I even checked iTunes is as a result of it, for whatever reason, not being available on uTorrent/Pirate bay. Together they have, illegally, provided us with a steady stream of movies. Coupled with the VLC player, we’re also able to download English subtitles which makes it easier for my wife to deal with the assorted English and American accents.
Of course with pirate DVDs available locally at less than a dollar each it’s quicker just to nip out and buy them – but dodgy quality, crazy subtitling and risk of investing in something that turns out to be unwatchable turns me off.
I always intend to go to the cinema more and partly it’s just laziness but also it means dealing with kids with bleeping mobile phones and people loudly munching pop corn. I am turning into such an old git.
Meanwhile iPlayer, 4OD etc, rather wonderfully come with the subtitles included.
So what am I paying for?
I’m paying for books – for the Kindle. The best Christmas present I ever had. Living overseas – the access to books is a revelations.
For a book without pages, cover etc then costwise anything under a fiver sounds about right. Until I had the Kindle then I always struggled to find time to read outside of beach holidays but suddenly I am consuming books again. I’ve read a dozen since Christmas – my brain feels better for it. Amazon is my friend.
I am at a loss as to why all magazines aren’t delivering content this way. I don’t pay for much but there are half a dozen UK magazines I would gladly if they could be sent to the Kindle. Incredibly I have a further 10 books already waiting to read – I am actually giving Amazon money before I can even have time to use the product.
Some years ago now I gave away my entire music collection and it lives on only on an iPod and hard drive – but I want my music cloud. Music may not seem as valuable as it once was – but I need this saved somewhere where it will always be there, even when I am somewhere else.
Which brings me to the issue of having fewer physically tangible possessions – not in some mystical, trippy hippy way but being able to live in a house that isn’t cluttered by CD cases and book cases. They increasingly seem like such a waste of space and resources. All that paper and plastic is a crime. And perhaps I have moved on so much that the process of clearing and packing is always in my mind.
I don’t shop like I used to. Again, part of this is because of where I am – I couldn’t buy a shirt that fit even if I wanted to – but it seems that all my entertainment is stored in my laptop, Kindle, iPod, phone etc. I spend my money on buying these devices rather than the entertainment that they store and provide for me.
There are times when I am lying propped up on pillows on my bed – laptop is perched against bent legs and both Kindle and mobile phone are balanced on my belly and chest.
In the old days I would take a lunch hour walk around Newcastle and almost always come back with a shopping bag - now, eating and drinking out aside I rarely buy anything.
As for all the above technology – I don’t see myself as an early adopter, there have been people doing most of this stuff for years now.
The difference, perhaps, is that I have had to learn it or miss out on music, movies, books etc.
