A Eulogy to '@AsdaCurrySauce' on Twitter

Recently, a gaping black hole and large dent has been left on Twitter since the untimely demise of the @AsdaCurrySauce user account.

To those not in the know, someone or something (or a group of people or ‘somethings’) had created a surreal Twitter account singing the praises of the budget curry sauce. The only way it could be described, is the strange ramblings of a mad man (or men, or even people) with what appeared to be an unhealthy fixation with a lowly jar of curry sauce. Or, quite possibly, the sentient musings of a jar of curry sauce that had possessed a so called scribe to express itself all over the internet like the Stanley Unwin tribute account. Maybe it was a group of students, or ex students that lived off jars of the stuff back in the day due to the astonishingly cheap price of 19 pence (it also used the hashtag of ‘#19p’ to infiltrate Twitter and trend itself - it has since doubled in price to 39p due to inflation I assume). It may even have been created by a current or ex-Asda employee. However it came to existence is entirely unclear and only known by its creator(s) and I believe that one of the people responsible may still be following me on Twitter.

Origins aside, this was a highly amusing character on Twitter that gathered approximately 5000+ followers since its inception. I also had the good fortune to be mutually followed by this entity and we both enjoyed each others ramblings, which was an absolute honour and of more importance than being followed by an actual living and breathing celebrity. The humour involved was a surreal variety that was an acquired taste (no pun intended), a type of humour that was undeniably British and of a somewhat Monty Python flavour. Fortunately, its presence has been burned indelibly into the internet and traces of its history still remain.

Here are some snippets to demonstrate its glorious ramblings:

~

"How to spot an Asda Curry Sauce fan: 1. Frantic weeping 2. Drastic blood flow to genitals 3. Rainbow eyes 4. Hovering Jesus 5. Randy shadow"

"'Hi Jane, I can't make Zumba. The kids gave me Asda Curry Sauce for Mother's Day and now when I look in the mirror, there's nothing there.'"

" 'HI Hugo, I can't make drinks. I just had some Asda Curry Sauce and now there's a bounty on my head because my guts are so valuable.' #19p"

"IN OUR NEW ADVERT, A RANDY KRIS AKABUSI RIDES A HOVER NAAN AND FIRES ASDA CURRY SAUCE AT A CUNNING POPPADOMASAURUS ON THE PLANET BASMATI."

 "If you basted your body in Asda Curry Sauce, people around you would collapse into lust piles and this would make your commute much quicker."

 "Just to reassure fans, the man who had a year-long orgasm after tasting Asda Curry Sauce has now replenished all lost liquids. #watchdog"

" IN OUR NEW ADVERT, AN UNHINGED AINSLEY HARRIOTT DRESSES AS A QUEEN BEE AND ORDERS HIS CONCERNED FAMILY TO LAVISH HIM WITH FOOD AND GIFTS."

 "Some people enjoy Asda Curry Sauce propped against a wall, mouthing song lyrics to their crying reflection in the smudged television screen."

"You could pour Asda Curry Sauce into a handbag before bed and when you wake, a holy shaft of light will be bellowing all the way to heaven."

~

Unfortunately, over the past couple of months it appears that Asda had been applying the thumbscrews on this account as numerous subtle account name changes had been noted and it was clearly mentioned that the account was by no means affiliated with the Asda brand. I personally believe that the account generated some positive PR for the company, and probably helped to shift more jars of their budget curry sauce to more people due to this Twitter account. I hold the belief that ANY PR good or bad is still nevertheless PR and helps to get someone or something even more recognition. Put it this way, Countess Bastardo bought a jar of it as a joke due to me going on about this Twitter account all the time. Turns out, that it tasted truly amazing and I tweeted something in its honour that went along the lines of:

“Had some ‘@AsdaCurrySauce’, chicken, rice, and wedges for tea. Now I can see through time and I’m speaking to Jimi Hendrix on my Tele Box”

This pleased it, and became one of its favourite tweets. We have since bought more jars of the stuff and currently think it’s one of the best budget food products ever made. If this isn’t an instance of positive PR, then quite frankly I don’t know what is. Before it’s disappearance, it was also clear that it was far from running out of amusing ramblings to tweet about – Asda threatening some form of legal action obviously killed it off

Personally, I believe Asda have missed a trick here down to one or perhaps a group of humourless people working for the place. The possibilities could have been endless, such as a small series of surreal and bizarre late night adverts demonstrating the virtues of the budget curry sauce brand which would have benefited the coffers of both its creators and Asda themselves. This could have been cult viewing, and gained even more fans and would have made for at least one example of a glorious collaboration that could have gone super viral. Alas, it was not to be.

In the Bastardo household, Friday tea time is a special event as it’s always declared as ‘Curry Friday’. I will have a jar of Asda Curry Sauce, chicken, and rice in its honour. I only hope that you will do the same.

RIP ‘@AsdaCurrySauce’. The Twitterverse will never be the same again. You brightened up our cigarette breaks, lunch times, and bored internet procrastination – gone, but by no means ever forgotten.

Instagram versus Vignette: The Satirical Verses

This week, users of Android phones now have the privilege to install one of the iPhone's 'killer apps' in the form of Instagram, a relatively simple photo manipulation tool that turns your pictures into something that your Granddad or Uncle may have taken back in the 1970s/1980s using an Instamatic, Box Brownie, or Polaroid camera. Originally, this was an iPhone only app – but now users of thy holy 'Cult of the Divine Green Robot' can now join in the fun that was originally the exclusive club of 'The Jobsian Disciples'.

Needless to say, this has really pissed a lot of people off who are users of the divine fruity speaking tube. The interwebs have been set alight with flame wars, citing that Instagram has now gone to the dogs because 'The Android Infidels' are messing the place up with poor quality images and slowing the Instagram servers down with high levels of traffic generated by the runaway success of the Android version of the app,

The notion that Android users have poor quality cameras and mainly use lower to mid specification handsets is a theory that has more holes than a warehouse stuffed with Swiss Cheese (and stinks like one too). The likes of such image improving apps was born from the fact that the earlier iPhone models before the 4 and 4S had pretty terrible cameras compared to the competition. 

 

For example, the 3GS only has a 3 megapixel camera with no flash, while rival Android models of a similar vintage like the HTC Desire and Wildfire had 5 megapixel cameras armed with a flash just to name two examples of older Android handsets. Even something as lowly as a Samsung Galaxy Mini has a similar specification camera to what the 3GS has for a mere £80, while another 'low end' phone like the Galaxy Ace has 5megapixel with flash, ditto the ZTE Blade II. In fact, when the first iPhone came out the camera on the Nokia N95 was far superior and kicked it to the kerb in terms of image quality.

So, even with budget Android handsets like these – they're better than the iPhone 3GS and cost significantly less. So, boom goes the inane theory that 'The Android Infidels' are messing their servers up with poor quality images. Now that we have squashed that myth, lets move onto comparing the Instagram app, and Vignette.

Instagram:

Since October 2010, Instagram developed an insane cult following of over 30million users and was one of the most successful apps ever created for the iOS platform. Obviously, the creators of the app decided that the coffers had probably peaked and reached a glass ceiling. Rather than be a one trick pony catering for an exclusively iPhone only app, the creators decided on creating an Android version which opens the market up to the lucrative 49% of users they weren't originally catering for.

In the space of a few days, it has been a runaway success which will now multiply the user base exponentially to hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Which will obviously benefit Messrs Systrom and Krieger, and their crew of employees aboard SS Instagram Inc no end. Good for them.

With all the current 'hoo haa' that's been going on because of this news, I've decided that I too want a slice of the 'poseur pie' for tasting. To see what the massive fuss is about these posts I see on social networking sites; filled with ethereal and nostalgic coloured pictures of people's pets, trees, breakfast, some girls tits, and God knows whatever else people want to 'retro-nise' and post for all the slack jawed social network gawkers to distort and spluff their trousers over.

I installed it the previous night, during a point where I got bored of looking at the PC. After a bit of fiddling, I found that the app had a somewhat 'Fisher Price' quality and was rather simplistic compared to Vignette. In fact, it only had something like 18-20 pre-set effects that had no further scope for fine tuning – but the good thing about the app is the fact that results can be obtained instantly whereas Vignette does require the user to work at it; but the results with Vignette due to the comprehensive options available can be mind-blowing for the new user.

Assuming that I probably missed a load of menu's out the previous night, I tried again during my lunch hour in work to ensure I left no stone unturned; there definitely weren't any more options to play with. To be honest, the app is a typical example that follows the minimal design of Apple software and hardware – to just do something without too much fuss or worry, and don't sweat over the complex stuff because we told you to do so – no follow up questions will be answered. Also, the notion of it being a 'social networking community' so that you can share your artistic works with utter randoms is something that doesn't appeal to me. Face it, I have Facebook, Twitter, a (criminally underused and far superior) Google+ and now I have Tumblr as I wanted to see what the fuss was about with that. I'll just post my works using those platforms (if I so desired) and let that be the be all and end all of the matter perhaps; I spend too much time indoors on PC's cultivating a 'Hackers Tan' as it is, thank you very much!

In short, the user base of Android haven't missed anything at all (especially if you're using Vignette); and will probably fail to understand the fuss like myself who doesn't subscribe to 'The Jobsian Cult'. The only users it may benefit are probably the ex-iPhone users that migrated to Android, and had fond memories of using it.

Vignette:

Now, HERE is the killer app. Vignette is probably one of the best ones that's worth getting an Android handset for. The features are long and comprehensive, that cover various aspects of old camera emulation such as 'Toy Camera', 'SX-70'. Black and White, Sepia, Cross Process, Tinted Monochrome, Pastel Colours, Lens Flares, Colour Flares, various grain and frames – pretty much too long to list.

Once you have sat down with it and had a good look at the settings and experimented, some amazing results can be achieved. There are two versions, the free one only shoots in 5 megapixel maximum with some slight feature limiting, while the full blown version enables you to use the full megapixel rating of your phone's camera in question.

If you find the choice bewildering, there's even a random 'lucky bag' option that picks a combination of random effects so that one picture is never the same as the next one you take. Like Instagram, an existing picture can be dragged into the app and altered at will, and you can save pictures as you go along if you do a particularly nice shot and wish to keep the original intact. Border and print effects can be applied too, that turn the image into various retro picture sizes to emulate a Polaroid with film effects like Portra, Velvia and Ilford which work very well indeed.

The pictures posted in this blog speak for themselves, as an A to B comparison. In fact, if I was an iPhone owner and  was showed this app running on an Android rival owned by a friend I'd be pretty red faced and embarrassed by my phone – or like some iThing owners argue the toss quoting a load of bullshit and believing your own lies about your phone being allegedly superior.

The £500,000 question is: I wonder if there will be even more of an outcry if the app was ever created for WinPhone users or Blackberry? Somehow, I feel that some iPurists out there will now desert the app and try to find something that's 'iExclusive'; because their fruity little club has now been 'sullied' by 'The Android Unwashed'. Sad thing is, many apps have been ported to the Android platform and I don't recall anybody being so vociferous in the past when this occurred. 

 

The ultimate bottom line is that Messrs Systrom and Krieger have a business to run, and to put bread on the table. As a result, it may come as a shock to iBores that they're not their friends who have betrayed them by making an Android version – they're out to make money. I only wished I had the 'Epiphany From The Gods'/'Eureka Moment' to make hipsters part with their cash for an app that emulates the results of a camera that you would find in your parents loft. I might not be into the app that much, but good on them and I wish the creators well.

Bastardo’s Android Phone Battery Tips:

 

The humble Android phone. Brilliant, aren’t they? A veritable Swiss army knife of a device with GPS, mp3 playback, video playback to double up as a mini TV, internet access in your pocket, game machine – the list truly goes on. In fact, far better than the iPhone which just appears to tread water in comparison to the cutting edge Android phones that are available (The Galaxy S2 had a dual core processor before the iPhone 4/4S ever did). People won’t look at you and think you're a pretentious cockwomble either, which is an added bonus. Anyway, I do digress.

 

But - they’re cursed with poor battery life.

 

 

Manufacturers seem to cram all sorts of features into their phones, but they don’t appear to be making much progress in battery technology. As little as 4 years back, a phone only needed a couple of charges a week; even my Blackberry Bold 9700 could make 2.5-3 days absolutely hammering it (which I sometimes miss, especially for battery life).

 

 

However, all is not lost. Read on, and discover how you can get by as best as you can:

 

 

Spare batteries:

Carrying an emergency or spare battery sounds like a pain, but you will have the last laugh versus Mr or Miss Fancy Pants with their iPhone who can’t change their battery. After market or genuine ones are available from the usual sources, even better if you buy a special charger that charges the spare cell independently of the phone – so that you have one in your phone while the knackered battery is on charge. They’re usually a universal battery cell charger that can charge camera batteries, with movable pins to cater for many different types. Or a phone dock that can be left near your desktop PC that can be linked to your USB socket for syncing, that can charge a spare battery and the phone at the same time.

  

 

Extended batteries do exist that are double the power, in the case of the Galaxy S2 you can buy a 3500mAh (normal capacity is 1650mAh) that has a thicker base back to take the larger battery cell which doesn’t add too much bulk due to the larger screen and general size. They exist for other Android models, and can stretch your battery life to every other day, or last an entire day if you went stupid with it and had full brightness, GPS, Video, Gaming, and everything but the kitchen sink running at once.

 (Normal battery and extended battery comparison pics: Narrower is 1650mAh stock battery. thicker is the 3500mAh extended. Charge time: 3hrs for 1650mAh, 4hrs for 3500mAh. Width is only increased by just over by approximately half a centimetre or so. Actually feels better to handle and not as cumbersome as you would think)

 

Don’t do top up charges:

This is a blanket rule that covers ALL mobile phones. Far too many people do top up charges, which can make things worse. Where I work, there are 100+ mobile phones, ranging from Blackberry, boring common garden Nokia’s, a few boring Samsung B2100 ‘tough phones’, and one or two iPhone’s. A common problem is many of the sales and engineering staff bringing them back complaining that the battery life is poor. This has been resolved by letting the phone run down to the point where it shuts down entirely, and then giving it a full and decent charge overnight – 9 times out of 10 the phone has then behaved perfectly.

 

The culprit is 'top up charging', especially with charging the phone using a car kit. These devices are never as reliable as sticking the phone on the house mains to charge up, and people are usually only in their cars for an hour or two and they feel a needless compulsion to charge it up – when the battery life has been pretty much fine and can make the rest of the day; the original intention was to be used as a ‘just in case’ charger. Lithium Ion power cells are supposed to be able to deal with top up charges, and don’t have the ‘memory effect’ problem associated with Ni-Cad (Nickel Cadnium) that required the cell to be discharged of power before recharging (as seen in older taped based Camcorders). In my experience, the newer Lithium Ion cells do have problems occasionally and benefit greatly from running down to nothing and giving a good old charge.

 

In short, try running it down to nothing and give it a good belt of ‘lekky’.

PART TWO: EXTENDING EXISTING BATTERY LIFE

(Power savings and APN widget.  The 2nd to top bar has controls for Wi-Fi, brightness, bluetooth, 'screen lit' duration', GPS, data synchronisation, and power save/system power save* on/off. APN on/off is above the applications icon)
(*the latter is on Android 2.3.5 and above for Samsung TouchWiz. Phones may vary slightly)

(Power saving menu, showing 'System Power Saving' which slows processor speed. Has the effect of making the phone less smoother in operation but extends battery life significantly)

Power Savings and APN Widget:

This is a very effective desktop widget that gives a quick 'at a glance' panel to switch various functions off without delving deep into the menu system of the phone.

The 'desktop widget' gives the ability to knock off certain functions, or turn them down to minimal settings: Wi-fi on/off, brightness, screen lit time, Bluetooth, GPS, and lastly Sync that gives you synchronisation to the Google server for email, Twitter, and Facebook notifications. If you have Android 2.3.5 you will also have the option of 'system power saving' (below the 'Sync' tab, click to enter) that will slow down the processor speed of the phone (making menu functions and screen swaps slightly jerky on an S2, but no adverse effects were noticed on the Galaxy Note which has a quicker processor). I have found this to really make the phone last out despite compromising the smoothness of operation slightly, it is well worth the trade off if you switch it into this during work hours when you shouldn't really be using it.

The biggest killers of battery life I have noticed so far are GPS tagging of Tweets/Facebook and Google+ stati, or for using GPS for sat-nav purposes and direction finding. Followed by excessive screen brightness (which can be turned right down if you're in a building, or left on 'Auto' brightness), leaving Bluetooth on needlessly, and leaving 3G/HSPDA enabled for internet access. It is also worth installing an APN widget that severs data connection, which may sound like defeating the object of a smart phone but when you're just using the phone for mainly texting and making calls (like a mobile phone should be), then 3G/HPSDA isn't needed to conduct a phone call or text. I have even had a double capacity battery (usually intended to last two days) expire in slightly under a day when I 'geo-tagged' a load of tweets while going on holiday.

 (Settings menu, showing the 'sync interval' - this can be altered so that it asks for information less often and save battery life)

During work days and hours, I choose to mainly have data connections off using the APN widget and enabling it when I need to check Twitter or other form of internet usage and switching it off once done. This also has the effect of reducing how much data your phone is 'eating' all the time which can also save money, as many people have data caps on their bill which can easily run up excessive data charges. When I go home, the APN is off and I choose to fish all the data the phone needs via Wi-Fi; which is quicker in my case with having a fibre optic broadband collection and 802.1n wireless access which is infinitely quicker than the 3G/HSPDA on my phone. It is also worth checking the settings of applications like Twitter and Facebook for how often they report back for information, having the phone ask for information far too often can reduce battery life further and is worth having a play around with as an experiment.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket:

It's all very well having a phone that doubles up as a TV, tunes player, sat nav, and God knows whatever else. People arrogantly assume that their device must do everything exceptionally well, but to be honest I feel a smart phone is a jack of all trades and a master of none, they're all just a phone and the rest of the gubbins are a bonus. Smart phones are pretty damn awesome pieces of technology (especially with the dual core processor models like the HTC Sensation and Galaxy S2), but when you have it playing your music back, camera, tweeting this and that, video playback and so on it is obvious to see that something is going to give, in the quest for multi functionality and minimalism. Which is obviously going to have a large effect on your battery life. All these smart phones as far as I'm concerned, have got a long way to go to be a multi purpose device where you can leave a load of things at home and take a magical one solution device, the battery life just isn't up to it.

Are you a keen photographer? Then carry a camera around that will always be far superior than a phone

Like listening to load of music and watching films? Stick with a purpose built mp3 or mp4 player like an Archos, Cowon, or (if you really have to) an iPod/iPod Touch.

It makes common sense when you think about it. Also, if your phone breaks you have lost your mp3 player, camera, and sat nav if you rely solely on it for every single thing.

A phone is a primary communication tool that can dig you out of a load of trouble. Imagine the problems you would have if you just took only the phone in your weekend bag - performing all of the above tasks and  ran out of power in an emergency situation, or worse still lost the handset and got lost in a foreign town? At least if you kept your phone to mostly being a phone, then you wouldn't be up shit creek without a paddle.

After all, you wouldn't go applying a hacksaw to your TV and DVD combo in your bedroom just to improve the DVD player. Use a separate DVD player and TV!

Custom ROM (for the brave and/or super geeky):

Finally, the last resort here is for the BRAVE amongst us. Installing a Custom ROM on a phone is a lot like 'jailbreaking' an iPhone (but Google aren't really arsed about you doing it). The process is called 'rooting', where you unlock all the phones functionality from the factory settings giving you the power as 'root user' where you can do whatever the hell you wanted to it. 

Custom features are often built in that normally the phone wouldn't be able to do, such as overclocking/underclocking of the processor (like a desktop PC) to make the phone work quicker than what it was intended to do, or work slower to improve battery life and a whole bunch of other features too long to list. The most famous example is Cyanogen, who have highly specialised programming teams making Custom ROMs for many Android handsets (visit the Cyanogen website, and watch some YouTube videos to see examples of their work in action). These have the benefit of ridding the phone of various crappy programmes or user interfaces that are slapped onto certain phones (such as HTC Sense, or the TouchWiz interface seen on Samsung branded Android handsets).

The main bonus of a Custom ROM is also to breathe life into an old phone and run a newer and more improved version of Android. One example I have seen is the original Galaxy S which on earlier models only left the factory with Éclair (Android 2.1) running Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), Samsung argue blind that this phone is not capable of doing such a thing, but there is outstanding evidence that proves otherwise. Obviously down to the fact that will make some people think twice about buying a Galaxy Nexus S when they can customise it themselves to run the latest version of Android (installing a Custom ROM can invalidate your warranty, so don't blame me if you turn your handset into an expensive paperweight).

So, that pretty much covers it, Those tips should pretty much cover most Android phone users.

Lastly, here's a screen grab of Juice Plotter showing a normal days use. The usage entails 30 mins of listening to music via a set of Bluetooth A2DP earphones (Sony Ericsson HBH-DS205's which also double up as a hands free mic, a snip at £19 on eBay) when I commute to work, 30-45 mins of calls after 1900hrs, and around 20 text messages, and some internet usage during work hours. The yellow parts of the graph denote internet, text and phone usage while the red curve shows returning home and having the phone access and synchronise online via Wi-Fi. You will also notice that the battery barely falls when inactive (during the curves that are only coloured green). This is on the stock 1650mAh battery, and the 3500mAh that I own effectively doubles the life of this (which I shall post for a future blog).