Didn't see that coming

I think I experienced one of the worst rides of my short life this weekend. And I mean in the drivers seat. 

The BMW 1 Series... 118i to be exact was the car of the day that needed to be driven to Langebaan and I volunteered just to get behind the wheel and experience a car I was initially interested in purchasing while scoping out the car scene back home. Yes, how could I want to buy a car and not taking it for a test drive? No... I'm not that dumb. Just gave up on the option when I had a squizz at the prices it was being sold at.

Driving Miss Crazy
It was pretty easy getting all my things into the car, figuring out the remote control key and then opening up the boot, which was disappointingly small. I got into the drivers seat and started the car with the start/stop button and plopping in the clutch for the car to start. Laying out a comfortable driving position is what caused the first problem cause it pretty much sucked trying to get my seat at the right height (Yes, I'm disadvantaged in size; 5ft 4inch is not amazing but I still rock). I won't lie, I battled for about 10 minutes cause every position didn't feel right and looked like I was hugging the steering wheel. I had to get out of the car to get the seat heightner working in the pouring rain. Once that was done, did I only notice how kak the layout is with the clutch, brake and accelerator.

The car for the day - on the left if you didn't get the drift

Close your eyes
Imagine your pedals in your car... now move your clutch to the right a bit so there is a foot rest where it was and angle your foot to the right. Well that's how it is and super close to the break which in my opinion, is uncool. So the whole time my left foot is at an angle when changing using the clutch to change gears. Major fail BMW.

Number 2 or 3; the seats are uncomfortable. Enough said. The steering wheel is super cute but for a car that has power steering, it's horribly stiff. Could this be due to the size of the wheel? I have no idea but it felt like I was driving my old Corsa which had the same size sports steering wheel aka the tractor turner. I'll just let that one go.

What got me the most, wasn't really all of the above but how hard of a ride she is. Seriously... I felt like I was on the road, bum on the ground, getting an ass massage. Hard, bumpy drive and I'm not sure if that has to do with it being a racing suspension - it probably does - but dear god, driving at 120 on the West Coast road makes for a very unpleasant ride. Speaking of the West Coast road... she did overtake well but had to drop her down a gear or two to get the proper speed and power to overtake. There was none of that putting foot down on the accelerator and she would be off, style driving. That could also be turned on me and said that's the point of driving. Yes, I agree but she lacked the power that I've experienced in my Audi, my friend's Audi, Volvo s40 T5 and well my uncle's BMW 3 series etc.

The free massage comes to an end...
When I finally got to Langebaan and arrived at my destination, I met up with the person whose car it was and she asked me how it went? I said... it's nice but quite a hard ride (I was being nice yoh). She then asked if I would buy the 1 series? I 'aaaaaaaahed' for about 10 seconds and she said what pretty much summed up it up: "You're either an Audi fan or BMW fan".

And that my friends... is how the story goes. I Robyn Cara Silverstone, am officially an Audi fan and thats the reason why my legs go weak at the sight of the Audi R8 or why I smile when I get into my A3 everyday and why I continue to dream of driving an A5. I am smitten with those four rings of awesomeness.

So BMW fans... let  me know if I've misjudged your brand

Doing it all wrong

Like most people, I don't like to admit when I've done something incorrect, wrong, not cool or made a boo boo. I can go on forever the types of no-no's that are applicable but lets cut to the chase.

Made da circle beega
I used to blog constantly on the Letterdash platform under the women24 community and decided to move my blog onto blogger to start afresh with a new adventure and 'new' Robyn. My style and tone is definitely my own - or so I've been told by people who know me and read my blog - I say it's my twin I decided to chow down on when I was still in the womb. Anyway, it's my wonky style, getting across the idea.

Dear Robyn here decided I would focus this blog for more of my thoughts on the industry and trying to write more technical blog. Big fail number one. Now I ain't the most technical person on the planet and people tend to lose me when they bring up all these magic words. I understand it in my own language and considering I work online it's a blimmen' miracle I still love this industry. I'll leave the techinical pieces to the Mashable's and Techcrunch's of the world thanks.

In future, I'm going to blog, what I did at the beginning; keeping my followers - whoever you may be - up to date with the random musings I write about. This is normally about what's potting in my life from friends, family, Sea Rescue (NSRI), the online industry, television aka Bones, gadgets and maybe have my own styled technical posts.

Rollin'
I need to get back to basics, speak in my style, keep the conversation happening - which is what happened on my old blog - and enjoy my blogging, otherwise... what's the point?

So, I'm going back to simply... my way.

Hope to carry on the conversation again

Twidroid vs HootSuite Lite

Now it may seem unfair comparing an app that has had time to develop into what is has become vs one that has just launched itself on the market - excuse the pun - but it's there. I am fairly addicted to Twitter now so it seems fair for me to play with with both and see which suits my style and choose the winner.

HootSuite Lite

The bird has turned into a robot covering version 1.6 upwards which thank god meant I could use it on my HTC Magic. I'm an AVID HootSuite fan and use it everyday... at work. I can monitor my personal stream and the company I'm working for. The great thing about it; scheduled tweets and the owl.y shortner which is one of the best in the business for tracking your URLs and accessing stats. It just works and it's extremely easy to use, especially when explaining work colleagues how to use it. That brings me onto another point, multiple editors on your Twitter stream via HootSuite. I'm blabering on but you get the drift. I are a fan.

But here comes the but. HootSuite Lite is okay. It's not fantastic and it hasn't blown me away. It does its job. Home screen is like everything else; everyone you follow. To get to the profile you need to access your specific stream, so you have to go back to go forward. Once I'm where I need to be the tabbed options are now at the top of the screen only thing is, they aren't that explanatory. Let me explain; the people you follow, your followers and your lists all have the same icons. Shouldn't you differentiate? Once I have a diddle daddle on my stream, I pressed my 'back' button only to exit the application thinking it would take me back to my stream page, so I had to restart it.

Image: Mashable

I quickly jotted down a list as to what works and what doesn't while I opened the app.

The good:

• Big text
• Streams for multiple profile use
• The ow.ly shortner for tracking the URL which only works if you pay $1.99 for the upgrade
• Image platform to ow.ly, again helpful with tracking
• And a feature that will be on both pro and con; the Ads by 140 proof which is integrated into your tweets shown

Needs work:

• The 'back' button option without it closing
• Tabs need a major work and need to be a stable feature
• Ads by 140 proof - people may get irritated
• Going between streams and profiles - going back to go forward at times
• Tabs aren't really helpful at all. One icon for following, followers and lists

So where do I think it lies? It's going to take a bit of work for it to get up to the level where twidroid is, especially as a free app.

Twidroid

I've used twidroid for about 5 months now and have been extremely happy with it. The developers are constantly updating it and making it the best it can be. As a free app, it's definitely one of the best on the market and extremely popular on the ever growing Android market with 400K in downloads. Unlike HootSuite, you don't get the option to have multiple streams and will need the PRO for it but that is what I can use Lite for should I need to tweet off my phone for work. I don't have many cons for twidroid but as it stands the only real issue at times is the text size with regards to the layout of the homepage and your profile pages. Anyone with a bit of an eyesight problem is going to battle.

Image: twidroid

Why I use it?

• Tabs are at the bottom and the icons differentiate what the options are
• Image uploading is simple and quick
• The option to follow or unfollow while on a profile
• Easy menu options as in one click and I am where I need to be.
• Option to RT with a comment
• Usability is probably the best word in my opinion

Again, it needs to be reminded that twidroid have had time to develop the app but then again, HootSuite which is a pretty big player in the game, should have had a proper play around on all the Android Twitter apps out there and developed a competitive app to what the best is; again in my opinion; twidroid

It's definitely going to get interesting between twidroid and HootSuite, especially if the Lite version can up it's game to get to where the twidroid free app is sitting; as an Android twitter app leader.

Enough of what I have to chirp about. If you're an Android user, let me know what your opinion is on the best Twitter app out there?

Look at your man... now back to me

Been meaning to post this the whole of last week. Slow on the uptake but can now say this is a hilarious advert, worth it's 'viralness'.



And the follow up is even better...



In fact, just go to the Old Spice YouTube channel and have a great laugh.