Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorich

Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorich

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Can anyone help?

I'm thinking of blogging on our way across Scotland later this year but note that the Bloggermobile page says that only O2 and Orange are supported in the UK. I plan to post by email. I'm fairly sure I've seen posts with 'iphone or Blackberry at Vodafone' at the end of posts from mobiles but can't find them now!

Is there anyone out there using Vodafone? I'd rather use this because the coverage tends to be better than Orange in the Highlands.

Any help will be much appreciated and if I can ever return the favour on any subject I'll be more than happy to do so.

23 comments:

AlanR said...

Hi Gibson,
Yes i am on Vodafone with a blackberry and can blog with it. It is quite demanding on battery life so take a couple of spares. Fortunately batteries for phones are quite reasonable now.
Gail from M and G fame have used Blackberry much more than i have so if you need anything technical you have options who to ask.
Glad to see the blog is back to normal access btw.

afootinthehills said...

Thanks very much for that Alan. I can now investigate things further. I have no use for a smartphone other than for blogging, so if get it wrong it will be a costly mistake I guess.

I can't explain what happened with the blog. I was locked out myself for a time and kept being asked if I wanted to sign up for a new Google account!

Many thanks again.

AlanR said...

I can’t wait to get Sheila’s HTC when she upgrades. It’s so much easier to blog with than the BB. Martin (Phreerunner) also uses BB but i think he is with Orange. We have spoken about blogging with it in the past and from reading his blog he seems to have great success.
I remember having a bit of a problem setting mine up but Martin had no trouble at all.
If you have any probs i will try and help. Just ask.

afootinthehills said...

Thanks again Alan. Yes I knew that Martin was with Orange and used BB. Thing is, I want something on PAYG no more expensive than the basic BB Curve simply because I have no use for a Smartphone other than for blogging. I know just about zero as far as Smartphones are concerned other than the various brand names!

Thanks for your help Alan.

AlanR said...

Same here. I am on PAYG. I have both Vodafone and Orange. So that i can swop sim cards if one area is better than the other for coverage. Unlocked phone.

Sir Hugh said...

I use an iPhone 3 with Vodafone and Googles's Blogger. I have a dedicated email address set up with Blogger which I send my posts to, and have used all this in Scotland and on my Lowestoft/Lakes walk, and on my Welsh border walk last summer. Apart from scarcity of signals I did manage to do a post for every one of my 58 days last summer. From chatting to others along the way I think Vodafone has marginally more cover than Orange in these sorts of locations.

Phreerunner said...

Alan's correct, my BB/Orange system works well for blogging. I'm on a contract - an heirloom from the days of work; when I left I took the contract with me. PAYG would be much cheaper, but I've heard that it can be trickier to 'maintain' when overseas, so inertia (lack of) keeps me with the contract. I believe Vodafone works better in Scotland, but thanks to my predeliction for 'going high' I seem to have struggled by with Orange.
I found the BB easy to set up for the blog (entirely down to luck - I have no technical expertise whatsoever), but had expensive problems when I tried to 'sync' it with our computer.
Good luck, anyway, Gibson.
BTW - my posts from Canada are by laptop, using a wireless connection.

afootinthehills said...

Sir Hugh

Many thanks for your help Conrad. I suspect it was your posts using Vodafone that I refer to in my plea for help. Knowing that both you and Alan use Vodafone successfully means that I can now go ahead with confidence. I'll probably take the plunge on Friday while in Perth.

I hope the date for your knee operation is not too far away and that all goes well, which I'm sure it will. I think you said elsewhere that you were hoping to have it done at Kendal? A friend had a successful hip replacement there a few months ago and spoke very highly of the team that looked after him. Fingers crossed that your op is performed there too and it's not too long before you are off on your travels.

Thanks again and take care.

afootinthehills said...

Hi Martin and thanks for your help.

Yes, if ever there was an advert for the successful combination of Orange and BB for mobile blogging it's your good self! Having used both Vodafone and Orange I know the former is better in Scotland - in the Highlands at any rate - although Orange coverage is much better than it used to be. It wouldn't exactly have been the end of the world if I'd had to use Orange since, like you, I spend most of my time high.

I'm not too worried about setting up the BB for the blog (famous last words) but I have heard of difficulties in setting up email accounts on BBs. I'll just have to assume that all will be well on that front. I've also read, and Alan R confirmed this in his comment, that battery life is pretty poor. What with spare batteries for the camera, Satmap and BB, together with various chargers, it's just as well I'm not trying to go Ultralight!

Thanks again and enjoy the snow.

Gayle said...

As has already been mentioned by Alan R, I do all my mobile blogging from a Blackberry (Orange in my case, but I've previously mobile blogged using the same method using a Vodafone phone, albeit not a BB). I'm on PAYG.

I use the same method as Conrad for sending posts to my blog - I type them as an email and send them to my Blog's email address. That way I use little battery, because I don't have to go online at all (a double bonus as I don't pay for any data usage) - one battery usually lasts me about five or six days and I carry two spare batteries.

When I first got my BB I called Orange Customer Services, they put me through to Technical Support and they talked me through the entire set up. Everything went smoothly and by the end of the call I had my email addresses set up on my handset.

In 2010 I briefly signed up for a contract for a more up-to-date model of BB Curve, and the set up of email on that was even easier than for my original second-hand handset - I followed some instructions on screen and within minutes email was working (as it went, I had a change of heart and returned the phone after a week and have stuck with my original one ever since).

The downside of BB on PAYG is that to send emails you need to sign up for the Blackberry Service, which (unless things have changed since I last looked, quite a while ago now) involves a monthly fee. I seem to recall that my decision to go with Orange was based on Orange charging the lowest montly BB service fee.

Gayle said...

Sorry - that was a bit of an epic comment. *Really* must learn the art of succinctness!

afootinthehills said...

Hi Gayle

No problem with your 'epic comment'. The more information the better! I also plan to post by email and I assume from what you say that you can write the email off-line, which hadn't occurred to me. (You can tell I've never had a Smartphone before).

The BIS is £5 a month with Vodafone and as far as I can tell is the same with Orange. One downside for me, with both providers, is the minimum £10 a month top-up since I won't come close to using this on a monthly basis. I suppose I'll just have to pay up and smile (well maybe not smile exactly).It's possible I've misunderstood all this, so will check at the Vodafone shop tomorrow.

I've had a look at demonstration videos on YouTube showing the email setup on the Curve 8520 and 9300 and it looks remarkably straightforward.

Thanks for taking the trouble to write such a helpful comment. It's much appreciated.

Sir Hugh said...

I forgot to mention that I also have a Mili Charger for my iPhone. This is like a sleeve the phone fits into and it charges the phone up when you have charged the Mili- for more info I suggest you Google Mili. Using this item doubles your battery life and has the advantage of being able to be left with camp site wardens etc. to be charged without having to part with your phone.

afootinthehills said...

Thanks Conrad, I'll have a look at this.

Gayle said...

Regarding the £10/month top up, I've not come across an obligation to top up at specified intervals. I only top up when my credit gets low, which certainly isn't every month.

afootinthehills said...

It appears that to get 500 MB of web access and free texts, for example, it's £10/month. They call all their Options 30-day Vodafone Freebees (?). To cut a long story short I went to the Vodafone shop today and existing PAYG customers don't have to make any commitment to £10/month top up. To prevent me from losing the will to live,I investigated no further and am now the owner of a Curve 8520! And I've even sent an email from it, so the setup went well!

Just got to set up mail2blogger.

afootinthehills said...

Just a question for some kind soul - when setting up mobile blogger I take it I have to 'register the device' even if I'm going to be emailing posts? I don't want to start the setup process, get something wrong and create problems for myself.

Many thanks as usual.

Gayle said...

Once you've set up your Mail2Blogger email address, you shouldn't have to do anything else, you can simply send an email (from any email device) to that email address and it will appear on your blog.

To include photos with your blog, simply attach them to your email. You can attach more than one photo, but they will always appear at the top of your post (which, personally, I don't find to be a problem).

I'll expect to see a 'just testing' post shortly ;-)

AlanR said...

Hi Gibson,
My Vodafone payg sim which i have had for ages just tops up as and when i feel like it. The orange payg on the other hand now has a monthly top up but it hadn't originally when i got it last Christmas.
The reason i changed it was because of using the internet. You have to keep about £5 on your phone to use the net. If you drop below this the service is suspended and you cannot get or send data. Having the monthly top up ensures that you always have data services. Mine is a rolling contract of 1 month so it's easy to put an end to it if i wish.
Just thought i would share the info.

afootinthehills said...

Hi Gayle

Your expectations have been fulfilled!

afootinthehills said...

Hi Alan

I'm told that having paid £10 at the shop (£5 going to BIS) I now have 300 free texts, which I'll never use, and 500MB of web access until next month. If I don't top up one month I won't be able to browse the internet but obviously can still send email on the BIS. I'm happy with that.

Thanks for sharing this - mobile phone companies do seem to make things complex!

Jamie Bassnett said...

Totally agree with Gayle the Mail2Blogger setup is by far the easiest. I have this setup and have a contact on my address book called Blogger with that address set top to it so if I want to blog anything I just write the email then send it with attached photos to that contact. You don't get much control over the formatting of the post, but it is way easier than most other alternatives. You can even write the post and save in drafts on your phone then send it once it is complete, at the end of the day it is just a standard email so can be treated like one.

afootinthehills said...

Hi

That's exactly what I've done and it works perfectly. Looking at Phreerunner's, Gayle's and Alan Rayner's mobile posts they don't look a lot different from when they are done on a computer, so that's good enough for me.

Thanks for getting in touch - I really do appreciate it.