Podcast: Hotel Complaints
A BBC piece I did on how to complain about service without looking like you’re out for a freebie. http://www.loosewireblog.com/files/0305.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
At The End of The Day, It’s All About Clichés
We journalists are a boring, predictable lot. Whether we’re in the UK, US or Australia we all use the same clichés. Well, cliché, actually: ‘at the end of the day’. Knowing I was a sucker for monitoring the Internet cliché Factiva (co-owned by Dow Jones, who owns WSJ, the paper I write for) sent me… Read More »
How to Hold a Book
I did a piece a few weeks back for WSJ.com (subscription only, I’m afraid) and The Wall Street Journal Asia about bookholders. These are devices made to help folk read more easily. As one of my old bosses said: “neanderthal”. But I still love to hold a book and would definitely opt for paper over… Read More »
Teaching Kids to Get into Interactive Debt
Next mealtime, expect your kids to pester you to take out a loan on a new Scion. They’ll probably have filled in the forms for you. A month ago the NYT wrote about how a kids’ virtual world website, Whyville, was cutting a deal with Toyota to promote the Scion, allowing the youngsters to buy… Read More »
The Strange, Short Life and Death of ‘My Private Folder’
Microsoft has introduced a new application for Windows XP users, and even more quickly, killed it off. The app was free, but what was the company thinking? A piece by Mark Hachman and Natali T. Del Conte at PCMag on Friday says that “If you’ve heard of Microsoft Private Folder 1.0, forget it. As of… Read More »