Spore: The game that money can’t buy

Spore has been one of the most highly anticipated computer games of the last few years, and over the past few months many internet forums that I frequent have been buzzing with excitement about the revolutionary gaming experience that game has been expected to provide. As an avid gamer, I of course have been looking forward to buying my copy of the game and seeing what all the fuss is about. However, in spite of the fact that the game launched successfully on 5th September I haven’t purchased it  – worse than that, it looks like I won’t be able to play it at all as there doesn’t seem to be a way of actually buying the game.

What I’m referring to here is the crippling DRM that the makers of Spore, Electronic Arts, have used to ‘protect’ the game. The SecuROM DRM software ensures that any legitimate copy of the game cannot be installed more than three times. Once a player has exhausted their three allowed installs, nothing but a call to EA customer services pleading innocence and providing information to verify the legitimacy of their copy will enable them to keep playing.

Now I may be missing something here, but it seems to me that EA are in effect charging customers to rent their game, not to buy it. And it seems I’m not alone in holding that view – a quick glance at the Spore entry on Amazon.com shows that 2,016 of the 2,216 total reviews give the game just one star; the vast majority of which cite DRM concerns as the main reason for the low rating.

On the surface of it, aside from the questionable principle of treating customers as guilty until proven innocent, limiting people to installing the game three times may sound like a non-issue. However in my experience there have been a whole raft of reasons to install games I own more than three times. Off the top of my head these have included when:

• I’ve needed to reinstall or upgrade my operating system
• My hard drive has failed and I’ve replaced it with a new one
• I have uninstalled a game as I know I won’t be playing it for a while, and have since decided to install it again
• I’ve bought myself a new computer
• I want to play the game on more than one of my own computers

EA have been quick to point out that according to their figures people like me, who install computer games more than three times, are in a very small minority. To an extent that may be the case, but really the point is irrelevant. Surely any paying customer should have the freedom to install the game as many times as they need to in order to continue playing it?

What baffles me about EA’s approach to using DRM is that by attempting to thwart software piracy they have alienated a large proportion of the player base they most need on their side when making the launch of any new game successful; namely the hardcore gamers that will make or break the game by spending countless hours playing and then telling the world how good (or bad) it is. It just so happens that most hardcore gamers are fairly tech savvy and don’t react too kindly when games developers burden their hardware with overly restrictive DRM that uses system resources to repeatedly ‘phone home’.

Even before the official launch of Spore, a fully working cracked version was available to download online. It shouldn’t come as any surprise at all that someone managed to bypass the DRM in place and distribute a complete version of the game illegally – the overwhelming majority of games in the market today face the same problem. The massive issue that EA faces is that they have broken a golden rule with the launch of Spore; they have given the customers who paid for a legitimate version of the game a worse gaming experience than those who downloaded a copy illegally. Players who downloaded a cracked version need not worry themselves about the DRM using resources on their computer, and could reinstall the game as many times as they wished to.

Despite a lack of direct evidence to compare the reasons various players may have chosen to acquire the game through legal or illegal channels, I would wager that there is a substantial group of people out there who would have happily paid for a legitimate copy of Spore had the DRM not been in place, but on finding out the nature of what they would be paying for have downloaded an illegal copy instead.  

A couple of months ago I spent a few glorious hours playing on Populous: The Beginning, a game I have extremely fond memories of that was released ten years ago by Bullfrog (who have since been bought by EA). Installing and launching the game was a surprisingly straightforward affair, but it did make me wonder – if when I had tried to install the game I had received a message telling me that I had used up my quota of installations and needed to contact EA customer services to be questioned about the legitimacy of my game before I could continue to play, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

I’m disappointed that I haven’t been able to play Spore, and have considered the possibility of throwing caution to the wind and buying the game knowing the implications. But ultimately if it requires potential customers to send a message to EA by refusing to buy games that use such restrictive measures to convince them that the use of DRM is causing more harm than good, avoiding a few hours of enjoyment playing the game seems a small price to pay.

Why financial incentives are bad news for first time buyers

Yesterday the government announced that it is taking decisive action to revive the ailing UK housing market by raising the stamp duty threshold from £125,000 to £175,000 for the next 12 months, as well as offering ‘free’ loans for five years to first time buyers for up to 30% of the value of new homes to help get people onto the ladder. Chancellor Alistair Darling has also hinted that new measures to improve the availability of mortgage finance would be unveiled in the near future.

At a time when house prices are in freefall, mortgage availability is low and the economy is heading for recession, there are arguably much better times to make your first tentative steps onto the property ladder. In my view the most responsible advice to first time buyers right now would be to hold off from buying a property if they can, and wait patiently for prices to fall back to sustainable levels.

What riles me about these new measures is that the government are blatantly throwing taxpayer money away in an effort to stop property prices from crumbling – a conclusion that appears to be more and more inevitable each day. According to both the Halifax and Nationwide monthly property price figures, the rate of property price falls is still increasing with no signs of the market bottoming out just yet. So there’s every chance that first time buyers tempted by these new measures into buying now may find themselves in negative equity in the very near future. The changes are implemented under the guise of offering a helping hand to those struggling to get into the market, without paying attention to the fact that collapsing house prices are themselves a hugely positive thing for those wanting to buy their first home. Assisting new buyers in purchasing a property at unsustainably high prices doesn’t look like a logical strategy to me, in fact it seems downright irresponsible.

The government seems obsessed with the notion that they have to be ’seen to be doing something’, when in actual fact the most sensible way to address the current instability in the property market may well be for them to do nothing at all. You don’t need to be an expert in economics to recognise that the property price increases of the last 10 years were unsustainable, and throwing good money away in an attempt to keep them artificially high is clearly a terrible idea.

I’m equally shocked at the proposal that people will be offered ‘free’ loans for five years to assist in buying a new-build property. Isn’t it convenient that after companies like Barratts and Taylor Wimpey have seen their share prices take a complete battering, measures are being put in place that will see buyers encouraged to buy new-build homes directly from such companies. Quite what will happen if these loans haven’t been paid off in five years and borrowers find that their house is worth substantially less than what they paid remains to be seen, though potentially it represents another massive liability to the taxpayer.

I will be keeping my fingers firmly crossed that the growing army of potential first time buyers out there (myself included) will give these changes a decisive thumbs down. On the basis that not so long ago a lot of people were still signing their lives away on mortgages of over seven times their salary however, I won’t hold my breath.

10 ways to get the most out of your 3G iPhone battery

Everyone that I speak to who owns a 3G iPhone seems to have a different experience when it comes to that tricky question of how long the battery lasts in between charges – some seem to make it through a good few days, whereas others barely manage one. In my own case I seem to be able to scrape about two days between charges, but in an effort to improve on that (and help out anyone who is getting considerably less juice out of their phone) here are my top 10 tips for getting the most out of the 3G iPhone battery.

• Disable 3G when you don’t need it
  Using a 3G connection when talking or browsing on the iPhone drains the battery substantially faster than using an EDGE connection. Browsing speeds are slower over EDGE compared to 3G, but call quality is decent on either connection.

  How to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Set ‘Enable 3G’ to on or off as required

• Disable 3G if you get a weak/intermittent signal
  If you’re in a location where the 3G signal is very weak, the iPhone will have to work harder to keep reconnecting to the network which will drain the battery faster. Switch over to the EDGE network to avoid this if you’re in such an area for a long time.

  How to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Set ‘Enable 3G’ on or off as required

• Use a WiFi connection for web browsing where possible
  Browsing over WiFi is not only faster than using an EDGE or 3G connection, it drains the battery less too. Use a WiFi connection whereever it’s available.

  How to: Settings -> WiFi -> Select a network

• Disable location services when you’re not using it
  Location services controls the use of GPS on Google Maps and other applications that make use of the iPhone’s location, such as geotagging photos when using the camera. While location services is switched on so is the GPS antenna, which will drain power even when you’re not using a relevant application.

  How to: Settings -> General -> Set ‘Location Services’ to on or off as required

• Turn off Push notifications or increase the fetch interval
  This controls the frequency that your phone will automatically check for new data, such as downloading email for any account you’ve set up. The more frequently it checks, the faster it will drain the battery.

  How to: Settings -> Fetch New Data -> Configure as required

• Turn on Auto Brightness
  Auto Brightness will automatically adjust the brightness of the screen depending on ambient lighting conditions, so by switching it on your phone won’t be wasting additional power on the display.

  How to: Settings -> Brightness -> Set ‘Auto-Brightness’ on

• Switch on Airplane mode if you have no signal
  If you’re in an area where you know you’ll have no signal at all, the phone will automatically keep trying to find a network. By switching on Airplane mode you can prevent the phone from doing this and save some battery power.

  How to: Settings -> Set ‘Airplane Mode’ to on

• Calibrate the battery indicator every two months
  You can calibrate the battery indicator on the iPhone to make it more accurate by fully charging it up and then fully draining the battery. Do this every couple of months to ensure that what you see on the indicator is a reliable representation of how much power you have left.
• Charge your iPhone regularly
  Charge your iPhone whenever you can to keep the battery topped up. It’s not possible to ‘overcharge’ the device as was the case with some older phones, so you don’t need to worry about damaging the battery by leaving it plugged in.
• Keep your iPhone cool while charging
  It’s important to charge the iPhone in a cool location – if you use a case you should remove it while the phone is charging. Charging the phone in a high temperature environment can dramatically reduce the lifespan of the battery.

For more information about the iPhone battery, check out the battery information page on Apple’s website.

On becoming a conscience consumer

It seems I am being reluctantly drawn out into the open to air the terrible secrets of my unethical ways, after Louise Bolotin tagged me in a meme first started by Dom over at PR-otagonism that examines the products and brands we regularly use that we’d probably be less than happy talking about in public.

Whilst I’m arguably not the worst thing that’s happened to this planet, there are still many ways I know I could change my behaviour to be that bit greener or more ethical. So without further ado, here are my top 3 sins ranked by shame factor.

1. HSBC
   When you think about it it’s pretty crazy that when most of us are in our teens we begin a lifelong relationship with a company we don’t know an awful lot about, and I would wager that most people don’t give another thought as to what happens to all the money they deposit with a bank. Apparently in the UK you’re more likely to get divorced than change who you bank with – I have my current account with HSBC for no other reason than the fact that both my parents banked with them when I opened my account when I was about 14.

   HSBC aren’t all bad as banks go, though their customer service often leaves room for improvement. However last year I started working for the Co-operative Bank, and as such have been rather more exposed to their customer-led ethical policy that governs how customer’s money is used and who they do business with. So, for example, they’ll turn away business from governments or companies that fail to uphold basic human rights, or from organisations that test cosmetics on animals.

   But in spite of all this I still haven’t made my new Co-operative account my main account. Why not? Sheer laziness. It’s not even difficult to switch – just a matter of telling your new bank to move over all your standing orders, direct debits and other gubbins, then sitting back while between them the two banks do all the legwork. Consider this my pledge to do something about it. 

2. Plastic bags
   I must say that in the past I’ve been a bit skeptical of the idea that plastic bags will be the downfall of our civilisation, however due in part to a number of high profile campaigns to demonise them I’ve been forced to re-evaluate. Clearly the fact that in the UK alone we get through about 10 billion of the damn things in a year reflects the fact that the disposable bag represents a very deeply formed habit in our consumer behaviour.

   I can’t think of a supermarket chain these days that doesn’t offer some form of reusable bag, and the fact that customers have more choice when it comes to how they transport their shopping definitely feels like a positive step. However the problem with reusable carrier bags is that they require you to make a conscious change in your behaviour at a point at which you’re not likely to be thinking about what you’ll be using to pack your future goods: the point at which you leave the house. My thoughts at that moment in time tend to revolve more intently on whether I’m about to lock myself out and whether that haircut is long overdue again.

   As such I get through more plastic bags than I’m particularly happy admitting to. Whilst I would love to resolve my bad habits all on my own, I can’t help but feel that the more supermarkets do to punish us for using disposable bags (by charging us, or perhaps whipping us as we exit the store) the more likely I am to plan ahead and take some reusable bags.

3. Apple
   Ok, so Apple aren’t rotten to the core – in fact they have a reasonable track record on green issues and do a fair few things like recycling schemes to bolster their credentials. But let’s face it – companies like Apple are all about the bottom line, and the brand epitomises my must-buy-the-latest-gadget attitude to technology. Over the last 3 years I’ve bought four iPods, two iPhones, two iMacs and a PowerBook laptop, all of which I’m sure adds up to a substantial environmental impact. To my credit every last-generation Apple product I’ve used has moved on to another loving home, so nothing but the packaging has ended up in a landfill. But I do wonder sometimes if  my technolust may in fact be driving me to excessive consumption.

So that’s got that off my chest – feel free to comment and confess that you’re just as bad (or preferably worse) so that I can regain the moral high-ground and my composure as quickly as possible.

Data roaming and the art of exploration

Not so long ago, preparing for a week abroad in an unfamiliar city would have involved me buying a decent map, doing some research into finding the best attractions to visit, as well as hassling any friends and family that had been there before for tips on good places to eat and drink. Over the years I’ve caught myself making several adjustments to the way I plan and execute a trip, largely made possible by the wider availability of internet access and new and improved features on whichever mobile phone it is I’m carrying at the time.

So when I visited Barcelona recently with my iPhone 3G in tow, I found myself making even more changes to my behaviour. Planning the holiday involved downloading a PDF map of the metro system to my phone, finding some restaurants with positive reviews on Qype and then tagging them on Google Maps, and installing a free Spanish phrasebook application to compensate for my inability to juggle more than a few languages without them all bleeding into one amorphous mess. 

While all of this was new and exciting, the fundamental change that should have made all the difference to my holiday was being able to rely on the GPS built into my phone, meaning that my exact position could always be pinpointed on a map within seconds, and therefore I would never get lost no matter how many how many back streets I might traverse. Well that’s the theory anyway.

This compelling and glitzy technological vision all rather falls down at the point at which the iPhone’s generous data tariff (unlimited data included within the price of the contract while in the UK) becomes somewhat less generous when overseas. When travelling in the EU, downloaded data is charged at a hefty £3 per megabyte, which while cheaper than the whopping £11 per megabyte charged until a few months ago is still expensive considering that a megabyte doesn’t get you very far. The iPhone does give you complete control as to whether you enable data transfers abroad or not, although if you keep data roaming turned off Google Maps and GPS will be unavailable.

As a tight-fisted miser who doesn’t fritter away money easily, the thought of spending a few quid for my phone to tell me where I am utterly appalls me, and so I did absolutely everything I could to avoid paying. This included a couple of somewhat frantic searches for unsecured wifi networks with which to use the GPS, and a couple of heated arguments on the subject of the direction of north (I rarely won). I must admit there were one or two occasions when I did come perilously close to enabling the dreaded data roaming on my phone to find the best way back to the hotel, but managed to convince myself out of it at the last minute, as switching it on would mean “letting the phone win”.

One neat trick that did help me out, which I found out purely by chance on a previous holiday to Amsterdam, is that the iPhone stores copies of recently viewed maps which can be looked at again without the need for an active data connection. Therefore by doing a quick sweep of a city in Google Maps at home before a trip you can always have some information to hand.

Despite the fun and games that ensued in my quest to avoid paying O2 anything more than is absolutely necessary, it would ultimately be great to see better co-operation between mobile carriers to provide compelling data roaming rates to consumers, especially within the EU. Even if this is a pipe dream, is it really too much to hope for some provision for people using essentially the same network abroad as they do at home? In my case the Movistar network I was connected to during the trip is owned by Telefonica, just like my contract provider O2 – who incidentally also just became the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in Spain. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to provide a bit more synergy here.  

For most of my trip I did end up carrying a crude tourist map of Barcelona with me that was provided by the hotel, and by the end of the holiday it certainly looked well thumbed. However I definitely feel that with a little more incentive from mobile networks to make data roaming more attractive, it won’t be long until these ubiquitous maps are consigned to the dustbin of history.

Estate agents pull more dirty tricks; world tries to look surprised

Not a week has passed since I posted my thoughts on the tools prospective home buyers can use to expose lying estate agents when I noticed the first signs of retaliation from the other side of the battlefield. It seems that a number of agents are trying to circumvent the way in which buyers can glean valuable information about a property’s pricing history by using tools like Property Bee.

Property Bee currently works by storing a local copy of the core data associated with a property listing on websites such as rightmove.co.uk, and when the same listing is viewed again at a later date it flags any changes that have been made – such as if the asking price has been adjusted.

In the last week I have noticed a couple of agents making a number of their properties that have been on the market for a while mysteriously disappear from the rightmove listings, only to magically reappear again a couple of days later. As I’ve been keeping my eye on the local market for quite some time I could spot these, however Property Bee displayed them as completely new entries – so anyone using the tool for the first time would make the assumption that these properties were new to market.

It’s not like I’m surprised that agents are doing what they can do prevent the flow of infomation to buyers, as particularly in the current economic climate they need to explore every possible avenue in order to secure that elusive sale. Clearly agents don’t like the fact that prospective buyers can instantly tell if a house has been on the market for two years and has never dropped in price, as if the buyer has any common sense they ought to know not to bother arranging a viewing. In the agent’s view, a little knowledge is definitely a dangerous thing.

One of the major problems facing estate agents is that for a long time we’ve largely had to trust them about the information they give us about a property’s history on the market, and now that we’ve had a taste for some more objective data it’s unlikely that buyers will give up access to that information without a fight.

It therefore seems that agents may well be entering a game of cat and mouse with prospective buyers, as it seems unlikely that either side is going to back down quietly. Nobody can say what the next strategic move may be from either side, though I wouldn’t be surprised if estate agents start to lobby Rightmove to make some changes to how their site works in order to prevent tools like this working in the way they do.

From a buyer’s perspective I would still strongly recommend the use of the Property Bee addon to get as much information as possible about a house you may be interested in, as so far I’ve only seen a couple of agents attempt to combat it’s effectiveness. Quite what the picture will look like in the coming months, however, is anyone’s guess.

Are we giving away our location too freely?

Ask someone in the street what they think about the idea of governments tracking the location of innocent citizens and you’re likely to get a somewhat hostile response. In general people don’t like to think about the possibility of faceless organisations recording our every move; it’s creepy and the information stored about us is seen as potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.

But increasingly it seems that we may be freely giving away this kind of information online to friends, strangers and companies, who we may not be able to trust any more than a government to use the data responsibly.

I’m fairly happy that I’ve left a trail over several websites, including this one, that indicates to anyone that cares that I live in Manchester. It doesn’t really bother me. But should I be more concerned if people know that I am located at +53° 28′ 27.22″, -2° 14′ 37.26″?

This is exactly the predicament I found myself in yesterday when I noticed that the Twitterrific application on my iPhone has been happily publishing my location to the world via Twitter. I don’t remember asking for this feature to be switched on, but in the endless world of configuration options I may well have authorised it.

Putting my concerns about having this information in the public arena aside for a moment, there are actually a few reasons this may well be a good thing.

First of all it’s not all bad news for me that devices like my phone can actually determine my location. Having the world of Google Maps at my fingertips is always handy when I’m stuck in an unfamiliar city. And websites such as Loopt (currently available only in the USA) will soon be able to share my location data with friends so that, for example, I can receive a notification when one of my contacts happens to be within 100 meters of me.

Loopt tackles the delicate issue of exposing such personal information as a person’s specific location from two angles – firstly by assuring users that Loopt won’t sell the data it collects to third party companies or send commercial messages to users, and secondly by educating users as to making informed choices as to who they select to allow access to their data.

But in the wrong hands the information available about me would certainly be of use to a potential stalker, jealous lover, kidnapper or murderer if my life were anything like that exciting. Back in the real world I’m more concerned that I may be hassled by acquaintances in my vicinity that want to meet up for a chat when I’m either too busy or just don’t want to be disturbed by them. Equally I’m not sure that I’m totally comfortable with the idea that my friends can track my location on a website as I walk around the shops.

Location-based services would seem to be have one obvious thing in common with social networking sites – they both rely on attracting a critical mass of users to really take off. Would you be using facebook if it had only 100 users worldwide?

So far no service that tracks and shares user locations has reached a state of mass popularity, but it may well be a matter of time until a product like Loopt really takes off and we suddenly see the service swamped with people clamouring to be a part of the next big thing. Whether such services will ever become as ubiquitous as social networking remains to be seen – certainly there are many opponents who question whether enough people will ever wish to publish such sensitive information as their precise location online. But I do wonder if these were the same people that argued that the idea of people making public such details as their age, interests, conversations and a list of their friends would never take off.

How to create free iPhone ringtones using your Mac

If you own an iPhone and live pretty much anywhere except the USA, you’ve probably noticed that you’re not able to create ringtones for your phone from iTunes just yet. No doubt one day in the near future Apple will gift us with the ability to purchase ringtones from the store, however in the meantime the world would be a happier place if we all don’t have to hear ‘Marimba’ every time we walk down the street.

I’ve been asked a few times as to what the best way of creating custom ringtones for the iPhone is, and seeing as how it took me a fair bit of digging before I could find a way that worked, I thought I would share my method here.

First off, you will need:

• An MP3 file that you would like to turn into a ringtone (this method of creating a ringtone won’t work for protected files you’ve downloaded from the iTunes store)
• iTunes
• A copy of Audacity, a free MP3 editor

Once you’ve sorted out the above, the action begins – there’s a fair few steps to go through but most are very straightforward and the whole process shouldn’t take more than about 5-10 minutes.

• Find the MP3 file you want to convert to a ringtone. If it’s in your iTunes library, right click the song and click ‘Show in Finder’.

• Make a copy of the file (right click it and click ‘Duplicate’) and move it somewhere convenient, like your desktop

• Open the copy you’ve made using Audacity (right click the file and select ‘Open with – Audacity’)

• Use Audacity to do whatever you want to turn the song you’ve chosen into ringtone material. This may include trimming parts of the song out (select the bits you don’t want to hear and press backspace) or fading a section in (select the part you want to fade in and click ‘Effect – Fade In’ on the menu bar). I would recommend editing the song so that you’re left with between 30-40 seconds of material.

• When you’re done editing, export your ringtone as an MP3 file. Do this by clicking ‘File – Export as MP3′ in the Audacity menu bar and saving it to your desktop

• Import the MP3 file you just created into iTunes

• Go to your iTunes preferences and under the ‘Advanced – Importing’ tab make sure that the ‘Import Using’ setting is set to AAC if it’s not already

• Back in your iTunes library, find the MP3 file you’ve just imported, right click it and select ‘Convert to AAC’

• When the file is done converting, locate it in the Finder (right click the file in iTunes and click ‘Show in Finder’) and rename the file from Filename.m4a to Filename.m4r - you’ll get a warning checking that you really want to do this – make sure you say that you do

• Remove any copies of the files you’ve been working on from your iTunes library and your desktop, except for the m4r file you’ve just created

• Double click the m4r file you created to import it into iTunes as a ringtone.

• Sync your iPhone with your mac, making sure that the ringtone you created is configured to be sent across to your phone. You can do this by clicking on your iPhone in the devices section of iTunes and going to the Ringtone tab.

• Enjoy your ringtone!

Can T-Mobile replicate the success of Apple’s app store?

It seems that details are slowly appearing about a new initiative from T-Mobile USA to create a competitor to Apple’s app store that would service all of their customers.

This should be an interesting one to watch, as T-Mobile USA have a customer base over three times larger than that of Apple’s iPhone, so potentially could attract interest from a sizeable chunk of the developer community as well as reaching a broader consumer audience.

However when sizing up both sides it would seem that Apple may well have the upper hand in this arena. Every single one of Apple’s customers that wish to use the app store are using essentially the same mobile device running the same software, hence every piece of software available on their store will work with all of their customer’s devices. T-Mobile in comparison have customers using phones running Symbian, Windows Mobile, Sidekick software and more, not to mention the silhouette of Google Android looming on the horizon. Applications for each operating system would have to be developed independently, which could turn into a logistical nightmare for T-Mobile as well as for developers wishing to reach the largest possible chunk of customers.

Apple’s design philosophy can sometimes seem like the marmite of the tech world; their closed and authoritarian approach certainly has a few critics. However when setting up a platform for developers to create and market applications to their customers effectively, the setup does appear to have some obvious advantages.

Whilst T-Mobile may be busy planning a contender to the application store, it will be interesting to see how well they fare when starting out from such a dramatically different position to Apple.

Fun new ways to expose lying estate agents

Earlier today I had a call from Linda* – a local estate agent who was contacting me to find out if I would be interested in buying a fantastic new to market 2-bed apartment in town. At £139,950 it is a complete bargain and will be snapped up quickly, despite the current ‘blip’ in the market.

Now, if I weren’t so acutely aware of the current housing crash, rapid rise in the number of owner repossessions and uncertainty in the financial services sector (in which I’m lucky enough to work), I may have been interested in taking her up on the offer of a viewing.

But there was a more obvious reason that made me give her the cold shoulder and consciously decide to avoid dealings her agency in the future. She was lying through her teeth.

The ‘new to market’ apartment wasn’t really all that new on the market – in fact it first appeared on the agency’s books back in January this year. And despite pushing the bargain price of £139,950, over the last 6 months the asking price of the property has already dropped just over £30,000 from a high of £170,000. Whilst there may yet be someone out there willing to part with their own hard-earned cash the bank’s money for this place, common sense suggests that person isn’t going to be me.

So – how could I be so sure she was lying? Well, over the last few months I have been using Property Bee, a neat little Firefox addon that keeps track of all sorts of housing data that it collects from property websites while you’re searching for your dream home.

Every time I go to rightmove.co.uk and perform a property search, Property Bee takes a snapshot of the data in the results I’m looking at and stores it on my local machine. When I go back and perform a similar search again on a different day, Property Bee compares the current data on the website with the archived data that it’s stored, and shows me what’s changed – whether that be the price, title, description – or even the number of bedrooms (yes, I’ve seen it happen).

If you want to, you can configure the addon to work ‘in a bee’ – this means that your data is shared with other users (and vice versa), meaning you can benefit from seeing any data that has been collected by other people at any time in the past. Depending on how many people have been making searches in your area and sharing their data this can provide a wealth of information that can be used not only to tell whether an agent is lying to you, but also to indicate how desperate a vendor may be to sell up.

The addon even highlights any recent changes to property details in bright colours, so if you’re quickly flicking through search results it alerts you visually to anything interesting so you don’t need to scour every entry each time.

As a potential buyer, Property Bee is definitely one of the most useful tools available to keep track of the local housing market if you’re not a fan of maniacally scribbling notes on a pad. It would seem that estate agents are the losers here, as so many of their sales techniques revolve around controlling the flow of information to potential buyers. Seeing that information become more freely available undermines their ability to sell, especially in an ailing property market. But it’s not all bad news – perhaps by publicising the widespread drop in property asking prices vendors will be snapped out of their state of denial and will wake up to the reality that at least today their asking price may need to fall if they want to secure a sale.

I’m not completely cold hearted – in fact I feel a little sorry for the lonely estate agents I walk past on my way to work, who in between bursts of minesweeper and solitaire must surely be concerned about redundancy looming on the horizon. But while agents continue to lie to me about properties, as well as blindly chanting their tired mantras (“property prices always go up, renting is dead money!”) I’ll not lose too much sleep over using all the leverage I can to get one over on them.

*Names have been changed to protect estate agent kneecaps. I know, too kind.