Author: Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

Time of Day traffic and the Patterns of Life by Colin Duffy

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 3 January, 2014
7 Comments on Time of Day traffic and the Patterns of Life by Colin Duffy

This is a Time of Day telephony traffic graph – I’ve been looking at them for most of my working life. For a normal business day they pretty much always look like this:

This is how business people use telephones on a normal working day.

They generally get into the office and start making calls at about 9am, work steadily up to about midday, then have a spot of lunch. They come back at 2pm and start calling again, then everything starts tailing off about 4pm as people start thinking of home – or beer, or both.

Telephone exchanges have to be built to cope with the traffic at the busiest hour of the day so since the very earliest days of telecommunications telephone companies have been trying to reduce the height of those peaks and spread the load more evenly.

A call at a peaks adds a cost but a call either side of a peak adds a profit.

As you can see, the network is doing practically nothing after 6pm

Tags bank, Christmas, holiday, patterns, public, Telephony, Time Of Day, ToD, traffic, weekend

Apps chromebook End User

Samsung Chromebook crash fix and print drivers – who needs em?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 3 January, 2014
4 Comments on Samsung Chromebook crash fix and print drivers – who needs em?

The Samsung Chromebook was the subject of a number of blog posts in the latter part of 2013. The conclusion was generally good though not perfect with a specific mention of the touchpad locking up quite annoyingly on occasion.

Well in the last few weeks the good ole Samsung Chromebook has been hanging on me to the point where I almost considered it unusable. I figured this was just an extension of the touchpad problem. Don’t think it is. Googling comes up with lots of other people with the same problem with all sorts of suggested solutions that didn’t seem to do it. This included switching to the beta version of Chrome OS. Not sustainable.

One clue came with the suggestion of logging in as a guest to see if the same problem exists. This provides a “clean” instance of Chrome without any extensions you might have installed yourself. Maybe it was an extension problem. I figured I’d bypass the guest login stage and just see if there were any obvious rogue extensions, bearing in mind I’ve not had the Chromebook that long and am wary of sticking in extensions in any case.

Microsoft’s Ctrl Alt Delete doesn’t work for Task Manager on the Chromebook. It’s simpler than that – shift esc. There was nothing immediately obvious. Then I looked at the list of extensions. I had Google Cast, Tweetdeck, Alexa Traffic Rank, Proxlet Tweet Filter (uh? must go with Tweetdeck?), Tweetdeck Launcher and rollApp File Opener. I installed the latter when I was having problems opening a Powerpoint file. I don’t recall it making any difference and have not used it since.

I zapped rollApp. The problem appears to have gone away. Sorted. There you go. All your Chromebook IT issues sorted. Anytime. Just let me know.

Just to finish off I had intended to write a post on how easy it is to print from the Chromebook. Supposedly you have to use the Google Cloud Print Service. I don’t recall setting this up. I just press print and the Chromebook sees my home printer and off it goes. None of this loading driver stuff one has to do with other operating systems. Simples.

Tags Chromebook, crashes, extension, hangup, problem, Samsung, solution, Task Manager

Business ecommerce

Online Xmas shopping – delivery charges almost as much as the goods

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 2 January, 2014
6 Comments on Online Xmas shopping – delivery charges almost as much as the goods

I did most of my Christmas shopping online this year. Amazon. Who would want to face the elbow sharpened housewives and desperate present seeking husbands in the high street scrum?

The shopping, aside from actually deciding what to buy for individual relatives, was easy. The shock came in finding out the total bill when Postage and Packing was included. Although I didn’t leave it till the last minute I wasn’t exactly an early bird shopper so to make sure the presents were delivered in time to ensure happy smiling faces on the big day I paid for first class delivery in each case.

Check out the costs below. I left out the items with free delivery as these were largely bigger ticket purchases with the delivery buried in the total cost. Out of the total cost of £63.27, £22.06 was delivery!!!

Item(s) Subtotal: £15.75
Postage & Packing: £6.72
Total: £22.47

Item(s) Subtotal: £15.19
Postage & Packing: £3.34
Total: £18.53

Item(s) Subtotal: £7.99
Postage & Packing: £6.50
Total: £14.49

Item(s) Subtotal: £2.28
Postage & Packing: £5.50
Total: £7.78

Total items £41.21
Total Postage & Packing £22.06

Total cost £63.27

I think I’m going to invest in UPS shares. There is a service called Amazon Prime which provides free delivery on many items for an annual cost of around fifty quid. This starts to look good value all of a sudden.

The smallest item at £2.28 was a pack of 20 ear plugs for my sister. Never let it be said I don’t buy exciting presents #generoustoafault. Delivery was over 2x the cost of the ear plugs!!!

Interesting to see how the business model for postal services is changing. Other than Christmas cards I doubt that we send many physical letters anymore. Also most of our bills are received electronically. Since finishing work on 20th December I have sent 17 emails from my gmail account. That’s over the holiday period. There will also have been umpteen IMs and sms’. But I still spent £22.06 on postage!

End User fun stuff

Predictions for 2014

Wooooo ooooo oooo. Ooooo ooooo ooooo. I gaze deep into my crystal ball. The mists are parting. I can see something! Can’t quite make it out though.

Wait a minute. Yes, yes, it’s getting clearer. It’s a phone. Someone has introduced a new phone! I wonder who the manufacturer is? Hey it’s Apple, no no no it’s Samsung, or is it HTC or Nokia or someone else maybe? Oh I don’t know. It’s one of them. The logo is a bit fuzzy. It doesn’t really matter. The phone will look pretty much the same whoever makes it.

Hang on something else is coming into view. Strange. Looks very thin. Oh it’s side on. I think it is some sort of laptop, or tablet maybe. Yes that’s probably it. Someone must be introducing a new tab in 2014. Oo exciting eh?

Blimey the camera is zooming out. I can see hundreds of phones and tablets and, wait a minute there’s TVs in there too, lots of em. What’s going on? I seem to be getting sucked into the crystal ball. I’m going down, down, and under. I’m going to have to hold my breath. I’m sinking into the pile of gadgets. Help, help I’m losing sight with reality. I can’t see anything anymore. Only screens. Hundreds of screens.

Perhaps if I log on to one of them I can do a quick Google search to find out what’s going on. But which to chose? I don’t know. I don’t know d’ya hear me. I don’t knooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

Wakes up, rubs eyes, stretches out arms. Must have been a dream. Anyway, it’s all happening in 2014. Read it first (ish) on trefor.net.

Have a good Christmas break, be nice to the mother in law and see you in 2014:)

Tags 2014, predictions

Business UC voip

CTO lunches

Headed to London again for my last CTO lunch of the season. Today I have Stephanie Watson, CEO of MZA Associates as my guest speaker.
Steph is a great girl and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Unified Communications market.

For those unaware of the nature of my CTO lunches we have a guest speaker and up to 10 other invited guests, normally director level individuals with responsibility for IT operations, around a table for a highly informed and stimulating lunchtime debate. The format works brilliantly, the key being the fact that everyone in the room knows what they are talking about.

On this occasion with Steph on attendance the topic is clearly the Unified Communications market (the PBX of old).

UC has for some time been a boring, mature market subject to widespread industry consolidation. This however is changing as the likes of Microsoft and Google move in on the space. Although I’m leaving it until the new year to sort there is a strong likelihood that the primary means of voice connectivity to trefor.net will be via google hangout and Skype. During the process of setting up the business I have made extensive use of google hangouts for video conferencing and google docs for collaborative project work such as sketching out the initial functionality requirements of a blog template refresh.

Now I’m sure that the likes of Cisco and Avaya will have something to say about who are going to be players in the UC space. Cisco has a compelling network integration case and Avaya have a huge installed base. This market is still very much a long game to play but it wouldn’t surprise me to see some real changes in 2014. The combination of Android and the still very much nascent chromebook could well be driving factors.

I doubt that I’ll be summarising the key points of today’s discussion – there are still too many parties between now and Christmas. However expect to see this subject debated extensively on trefor.net in the new year.

Tomorrow is my last day at the Timico desk. My wife briefly laboured under the impression that the new order in 2014 would see an end to, or at least significant reduction in jaunts to London for “networking” events and a corresponding shrinking of the waistline. Whilst the latter is undeniably desirable, the CTO lunches will continue in some guise or another. They are too valuable not to have.
If you are coming along today I look forward to seeing you. If not stay tuned…

End User phones

Samsung Galaxy Gear – dummies on display – no test – time wasted trip

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 17 December, 2013
2 Comments on Samsung Galaxy Gear – dummies on display – no test – time wasted trip

When my phone upgraded itself to Android 4.3 it told me it would now work with Samsung Galaxy Gear. Okaay. So I went to PC World where I had previously noted a quintet of the watches on display.

Malheureusement they were all dummy display versions. I asked whether they had any real ones in stock – after all who is going to buy something like that without kicking the tyres first. Testing it. Expensive tyres. Nope they didn’t carry stock. They thought there might be one available in the Mansfield branch. Fwiw.

Not worth driving to Mansfield to try one out. Anyone else got one? One wonders how many they have sold in the UK. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was in single figures. If Samsung were confident of the product they would be putting them into the stores. They don’t appear to be doing so. Innit?

Tags Galaxy, Gear, Samsung, watch

End User wearable

Personal alarms and wearable computers – Samsung Galaxy Gear

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 16 December, 2013
1 Comment on Personal alarms and wearable computers – Samsung Galaxy Gear

Friend of mine James Firth posted on Facebook that he had rescued an aged neighbour who had fallen down the stairs in her home. She had been stuck alone for five hours before James heard her cries for help. Terrible experience for her but could have been a lot worse.

My first thoughts were to remind myself to get one of those personal alarms should I ever find myself living alone in my old age.

However the solution is obvious. Wearable devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear are going to become suitably advanced so that it can act both as my phone/intergalactic communicator and the alarm in case of emergency. You won’t need to press a button. There will be an app that distinguishes between snoozing in the armchair after lunch and falling down.

The current generation of older demographic, if I can put it like that, is by and large unlikely to own a smartphone or wearable phone. In fact hardly anyone has a wearable one yet, but it will come.

So we have to wait a few years before wearers of dual purpose phone and personal alarms become statistically significant (in the appropriate age range) but significant they will become and a significant dent should be made into casualty numbers for older persons falling down stairs and not being able to attract anyone’s attention.

You heard it first on trefor.net!!!

Business events

Advanced notice – blogging suspended due to #trefbash2013

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 12 December, 2013
4 Comments on Advanced notice – blogging suspended due to #trefbash2013

This is to let you know not to expect anything coherent (ok ok I know what some of you are going to say…) out of this site until probably Tuesday. Technological revolutions can come and go and scoops, news, reviews, snippets, gleanings and gossip will pass by unnoticed.

This is because tonight is #trefbash2013. An annual event designed for the readers of this blog to let what hair they have left, down. There is no hidden agenda at these events. They are simply there to have a good time and this for a substantial majority of the attendees means drinking lots of booze. Last year having started at 5.30 we finally finished at 3am, somewhere in SoHo – anyone who knows me will know that it is a miracle for me to stay awake beyond 10ish – praise be.

This year we are planning to drink more champagne than in 2012 with relaxation further aided by a vodka luge in the shape of an elephant’s head. The vodka comes out of the trunk. I have been told of other shapes that these luges can be sculpted into, for hen parties for example. This is not such a party or such a design.

In 2013 we are hoping to avoid the damages roll of 2012 in which suits were ruined whilst falling off Boris Bikes, heads split open and subsequently glued to bed sheets and trips to casualty. All separate incidents. But we shall see.

Being effectively a two day event you should expect no posting on Friday and seeing as I have a Lonap board meeting all day Monday that too will be probably be devoid of any new material.

I will have photos again this year courtesy of the magnificent Buzz from Timico engineering. If I get a chance before Tuesday I will stick them up.

Sorry if you are not coming tonight. The tickets go “on sale” sometime in September and you have to be fairly quick off the mark to bag one. Numbers are limited by the capacity of the venue and in any case there comes a point where you can have too many people at a party.

To those who will be there I’m looking forward to seeing you. There is a dress code but I have no idea what it is although I have been telling people it’s “pink tutus” so come in whatever is comfortable. I have a new bow tie for the occasion.

Tags trefbash2013

Business fun stuff

The trefor.net story

Once upon a time there was a bloke who wrote a blog. He did it on the quiet in the evenings because he wasn’t sure what people at work would think of it. Over a period of five and a half years he grew in confidence with what he was writing as the readership of the blog grew.

There came a time where the bloke would just start typing and he would publish whatever came out, regardless of what drivel it was. It was a lot of fun to see what did come out. There came a time, as it does for every bloke, where our bloke decided he wanted to spend all his time having fun, writing his blog.

Writing a blog doesn’t usually put bread on the table though so this bloke decided to turn his blog into a business. His kids are a very demanding lot and the bloke was very cognisant of the price of cricket equipment, trumpets and University accommodation fees not to mention Waitrose Aberdeen Angus aged rib-eye steaks and decent red wine.

So this is going to be the story of how the bloke turned his blog, trefor.net, into a business. The tale will cover how he chose to set up his business from scratch. Although the blog had 1,700 post or more it was a very simple organ hosted thanks to the generosity of his employer, a well respected Internet Service Provider serving the business market.

In setting up his business the bloke took on a partner, more of whom later. He needed to find office premises, formally set up the business – a process that involved lawyers and accountants – and find a member of staff. The blog structure needed updating, it needed a long term solution for somewhere to live – in other words here it would be hosted, and it needed a means of bringing in money to pay for everything.

The story is going to be covered, step by step, on the blog. How did the bloke decide what to do at each stage of the game? The process has already started with the advert for a developer. That bit of the story hasn’t ended yet but when it has you will be able to find out how it happened by reading the blog. In fact the whole story is like an ongoing blog post. It’s going to be an interesting journey. Although this process of setting up a business isn’t a totally new experience for the bloke the world changes and there is plenty to be learned by starting afresh.

Come along on the journey and find out how it all happened by returning to this blog on a regular basis.

PS Can’t carry on with that style of writing. It’s too hard going yaknow innit eh?

Ciao bebe

Business ecommerce

Job Vacancy – WordPress Developer for trefor.net based in Lincoln

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 9 December, 2013
3 Comments on Job Vacancy – WordPress Developer for trefor.net based in Lincoln

trefor.net is a technology blog that is widely read by techies in the internet networking and hosting industries. For the last 5 years the site has operated as a non-commercial vehicle and has built up a base of regular readers and commenters. trefor.net attracts over 40k page views a month is linked to from some serious web properties such as the BBC, the guardian and the telegraph.

As of January 2014 trefor.net is changing to be a revenue generating start-up with big plans. Part of these plans include stepping up the rate of content generation but equally important is the underlying WordPress technology platform of the blog.

We want to invest a serious amount of time and effort into the technical capabilities of trefor.net. This isn’t going to be “just another WordPress blog”. trefor.net is going to be a leader. A leader in technical content and a leader in the adoption/showcasing of internet marketing social media and communications capabilities. The business is going to be totally web based. No paper, maybe not even a phone number – why not just use Google Hangouts and Skype for example. We will need to integrate CRM, billing, advertising engines, a finance package, social media platforms – the list is almost certainly a lot longer.

To do this the first employee of trefor.net is going to be a developer. You need to be a geek with ambition. The rewards will be considerable in line with the success of the business and with your own effectiveness.

LAMP experience and specifically WordPress is pretty much a given but the successful candidate will likely be able to turn their hand to lots of different areas of technology. This is going to be a job where you will grow your own capabilities. There is an initial task list but this is all about innovative development and thinking. There is going to be plenty of scope for you to suggest new projects for the site.

The job is going to be based at the trefor.net offices in the Sparkhouse business incubator unit at the University of Lincoln Brayford Campus. We are looking for someone to start as soon as possible in 2014.

You can get in touch using the following media:

Twitter @tref

email [email protected]

Google Hangout +trefor

Skype trefor.net

Required skills:

WordPress, themes, plugins
PHP / MySQL (3+ years preferred)
Solid understanding of LAMP stack
OO & Framework experience (Zend, Symfony, CI etc)
HTML (inc HTML 5 and CSS 2.0, 3.0)

Tags developer, job, Lincoln, trefor.net, Wordpress

Business fun stuff

Bit of news – Trefor Davies to leave Timico at Christmas

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 4 December, 2013
17 Comments on Bit of news – Trefor Davies to leave Timico at Christmas

Bit of news for you. Friday 20th December will be my last day working at Timico.

What’s going on do I hear you say? Nothing untoward. You may know that I was one of the founding directors of Timico and in the ten great years since we started the business we have taken it from four people in the stable block of a country house (it’s true – ask me about it when next we meet) to a nationally known communications provider with 244 staff at four different locations in the UK. In that time we have made 7 or so acquisitions. It’s been an interesting place to be.

Timico now has many thousands of customers including some listed in the FTSE100 – amongst the largest businesses in the country.

Timico is going great guns and we now have a terrific set of operational managers who are well qualified to take the business on to new heights. This is very satisfying on a personal level but I now also find myself wanting to move on to achieve other things.

For the past few years I have been writing this blog and despite it being somewhat of a hobby have seen a steady growth in its readership. My immediate plans are to make the blog more of a full time activity and to turn it into a business in its own right.

Although trefor.net will be physically located in offices at the campus of the University of Lincoln it is going to be a fully automated and fully internet based business. No paper. Maybe not even a phone number. Who needs a phone number when you can do a Google Hangout or Skype or just a mention on Twitter?

There is a new universe out there that is totally unexplored. The New World before Columbus sailed West. Will I sail over the edge? Well who knows but I can tell you that I’m going to cast off from the known world and go exploring. The new world of the web is a bit like a map of Africa before anyone entered the interior – at this point in time all we have is an idea of what is around the edges.

One of my first steps will be to find a developer who can work with me. Developers are the ship-builders of the new world. If you are a developer and are interested in chatting about this please get in touch. No Recruitment Agencies please. It’s going to be a fun place to work with interesting personal development opportunities and the chance to make some money.

In the meantime I will be with Timico up until Christmas. If you are a customer, supplier, member of staff or someone I have dealt with in the industry I would be happy to discuss my plans. In particular the message to Timico customers is that I remain a shareholder in the business and you can be assured that your services are in good hands. Timico staff should also feel confident that they are working for a growing business that is going places and will provide them with great career opportunities. There will in any case be an ongoing relationship between Timico and trefor.net. You know it makes sense.

If you want to keep in touch follow me @tref on Twitter or keep reading this blog:)

Ciao, bebe…

PS for Timico staff in Newark I’ll be buying the drinks in a pub (spot tbc) somewhere in Newark at lunchtime on Friday 20th Dec – you are all welcome to join me:)

End User mobile apps

Samsung Hub – does anyone use it?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 3 December, 2013
2 Comments on Samsung Hub – does anyone use it?

Last night I was settling in for the evening when my phone asked me if I wanted to update Samsung Hub. I said “oh alright then” and accepted the update.

Then I thought “Samsung Hub?? I’ve never used it!”. Looking at it it’s just another shop. Thinking about it I did notice Samsung Hub when setting up a new Samsung Galaxy (I’m on my umpteenth inc replacements for faulty USB ports, “water damage” and other miscellaeneous manufacturing faults.

At the time I discounted it – I don’t need any more sources of apps or means of spending money online. In fact I’m happy to be proved wrong but I doubt that Samsung Hub offers anything that other online stores have.

So why use it?

Answers on a metaphoric postcard, magic carpet or any other means of entering into a discussion on this most unimportant of subjects.

PS I note from the screenshot it wasn’t last night it was 05.21 am. Must have been asleep – I do these things on autopilot. Bit worrying innit?

Tags apps, Samsung Hub

Cloud End User media video

BBC iPlayer growth – tablets shifting our viewing habits

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 2 December, 2013
1 Comment on BBC iPlayer growth – tablets shifting our viewing habits

Richard Cooper runs the BBC’s online platforms. He was guest speaker at the ISPA Conference last week and his subject was naturally iPlayer which with 245 million requests in September has enjoyed 23% year on year growth.

I took pics of some of his slides – this first one shows the increase in requests. The step function in January is interesting. The BBC have labelled last Christmas as the year of the tablet. The growth in traffic is largely down to the increase in people getting tablets as Christmas presents. Apparently you could almost plot the rate of opening of presents based on the growth in the traffic on the day.

The second pic shows the exponential month by month growth in iPlayer streaming traffic expressed in TeraBytes. Impressivo. Apparently, according to Richard Cooper, the perceived wisdom is that this rate of traffic growth is set to continue until 2025, based I think on the continued development of Video quality and usage until the point comes where the human eye can benefit no more.

Finally we have a chart that shows how TV viewing habits are changing now that people are watching programmes on more than just the TV. Internet usage peaks at approx 5pm – this includes all web browsing. TV watching peaks just after 9pm and iPlayer requests peak around an hour later. People are taking their tablets upstairs and watching in bed.

A few observations spring to mind. People are starting to do everything online. Music listening is moving to streaming, movies are moving to catch up TV and video on demand and why would you bother with physical copies of games? The time is rapidly approaching where people won’t bother with hard copies of anything (me excepted – I’ll be a book buyer until I pop my clogs – I am of a certain generation and won’t buy an eBook). On this basis there’ll be hardly anything left for people to open on Christmas Day – it’ll all just be brown envelopes with gift vouchers & subscription codes for downloads. The frenzied throwing of paper around the front room will become a thing of the past. Sad really.

The other snippet is that apparently with 4k video you need to be sat 8 feet away from a 10 foot diagonal screen to get the benefit. Screen tech is getting better than our own eye tech. Not sure I completely understand this one but it’s all to do with pixel counts of screens versus what your eye can interpret. Maybe someone can elaborate. Just maybe (I think that’s an advert for something – not sure what).

Whatever happens it’s going to be some time before traditional broadcast TV is replaced by streaming video – there just isn’t enough bandwidth available. Bring it on.

PS pics aren’t perfect soz – better than nothing as you can see the data.

Tags bandwidth, growth, iplayer

End User gadgets

Chromecast footnote

I have to say that having bought the Chromecast just 11 or so days ago it is now in regular use in our house and I’ve watched more YouTube in the intervening time than in the previous year. Fwiw I particularly been watching old episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour. Timeless classics though clearly, from the quality, produced for much smaller screens than the 42″ job in our TV room.

Terry Hughes’ first review of the 25th October has replace the “how to bypass Virgin Media filters” as the most popular post on a daily basis.

What next gadgetwise?

Tags Chromecast

Business online safety spam

Google blocking Microsoft Office365 mail as spam

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 2 December, 2013
1 Comment on Google blocking Microsoft Office365 mail as spam

I note from Twitter this morning that Google is blocking some emails from Microsoft Office365 to Gmail recipients as spam.

The message reads: [157.56.116.103 1] Our system has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your IP address

I note also that the ip address is ascribed to AS8075 (ours is AS8607 fwiw – pretty contemporary) otherwise known as Microsoft Corporation. This address has been identified in the past as a source of spam – check out Project Honeypot. That link also displays some example mail messages that are clearly spam – “loans available”, “Attention ATM card beneficiary” and so on.

I sense a wry smile as you read this. Global commercial internet wars! “Google tries to shut down Microsoft email”. I suspect though that there will be no malice aforethought here. Managing mail platforms is a 24×7 job. As an email service provider you can’t afford for your server IP addresses to be blacklisted because of some customer generating spam. It might not even be that customer’s fault. It’s almost certainly an infected PC.

spam attacks Microsoft will have a huge team of people managing their email platform. That spam was identified is also a testament to the Google anti spam capability which is widely considered to be the best in the game.

The pic inset is an old screenshot depicting incoming spam attacks – the legitimate mail has had to be amplified x10 so that you can actually see it. Fortunately the vast majority of the spam never makes it to the desktop.

IP addresses blacklisted as a source of spam don’t usually stay on the blacklist for very long – 24 hours maybe but it can certainly be a nuisance for those trying to send or waiting to receive emails.

I don’t think email has a long term future in any case or at least it is going to have niche applications (spam etc :)), but lets not get into a lengthy debate.

Ciao

Tags google, Office365, spam

Business Regs spam

A cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up with the TPS

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 30 November, 2013
9 Comments on A cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up with the TPS

Cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up for TPS

Ideal Solar Solutions Ltd are based in Derby. They rang me at 10.27 this morning to try and sell me something, or at least to say that they were in the area on Monday and it would be good if they could arrange to come around to see me.

Actually they wanted to see both meself and Anne. Experience must tell them that decisions on big capital spend items such as solar panels are not made alone.

Unfortunately for them Anne was not around but also unfortunately I recorded the whole conversation – just to make sure that I got the name of the company right etc.

Their website is here. It’s got all their contact details.

Thing is they shouldn’t be calling me. I told them that I was signed up to the Telephone Preference Service and that I would be reporting them to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

They and their ilk are a blight on society. I realise that they are trying to earn a quid but don’t they understand how difficult it is to make sales with cold calling like this. Far better they did a sensible Google Adwords campaign and attracted people actually looking for solar panels. It would meant that the poor telephone sales girl who was clearly reading from a not particularly well written script didn’t have to endure days of fruitless calling speaking to people who didn’t want to talk to her and who might report her employers to the ICO.

When calling me they withheld their number but if you need solar panels you can call them on 0844 472 2941. It’s on their website. Give em a ring. They haven’t asked you to call but I’m sure they won’t mind.

I note that they carry the logo of the CPA (Consumer Protection Association). The CPA needs to update its Code of Practice, assuming they have one – I couldn’t find it on their site, to include not calling people who are signed up with the TPS.

The recording of the call is here if you are interested. They didn’t ask me to record it but there again I didn’t ask them to call me. It’s a bit noisy but hey… I was recording off the speakerphone of a dect phone. You do hear the occasional ping – it’s my Chromebook – I was in the middle of a hangout with my daughter.

Tags call, cold, TPS

Engineer phones

I dreamt last night I was upgrading to Android 4.3

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 29 November, 2013
1 Comment on I dreamt last night I was upgrading to Android 4.3

This is another musical post to be sung to the tune of Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat from Guys and Dolls. If you don’t know it look it up.

Whilst I was in bed I dreamt last night I was upgrading my Android, a great big download that took me quite a while. 730MB. Blimey. That’s more memory than they had on the Apollo space mission to the moon (etc). It took what seemed ages though I didn’t time it because I didn’t know when it started.

I quite like it when I see my phone upgrading itself. Makes me think I’m being looked after by the great Android god in the cloud. These upgrades aren’t without an element of fear though. The fear of the unknown. You hear stories about “how my phone has never been the same since”. Perhaps stupidly I trust the major global corporations that provide me with these services. I trust that at least they won’t get the upgrade wrong. They only need to step out of line once for them to lose that trust but so far so good. Not everyone’s experience.

Now I will say that a few thoughts have entered the bonce since capturing the screenshot of the upgrade. First of all I thought Oooh. I can use Samsung Galaxy Gear. Aside from the fact that I didn’t know I couldn’t use it already with my SGS4 my next thought is hmm, I haven’t heard good things about it. I did see some in PC World last weekend and they looked plasticky. Also I’m not going to pay two hundred odd quid to try it out and find I don’t like it, especially as I don’t wear a watch. And that is even though I happen to believe that the smart watch is the way forward. I bought my Samsung Chromebook for roughly the same price as the Gear.

The next thought I thunk was that I was looking forward to the improved graphics performance. Unfortunately this is not particularly noticeable. It seems as slow as ever though I ascribe that to Samsung software and not Android. What was instantly noticeable is the flickering screen when displaying multiple browser tabs. I’ve just checked and it is still there. A backward step. Definitely.

You can see from the screenshot all the other features that have been improved in this version of Android. I obviously welcome the security update. Who wouldn’t eh?

That’s all. I might pop down to PC World and see if they will let me have a play with a Gear.

Ciao bebe.

Tags Android 4.3, Galaxy, Gear, Samsung

agricultural End User

The Christmas tree season is upon us

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 27 November, 2013
No Comments on The Christmas tree season is upon us

As my express ~~speeds~~ trundles at a modest pace in a Southerly direction, laden with the additional passengers of two earlier broken down trains (or simlar) I note a conversation on Twitter turning to Christmas trees and decorations.

At this juncture it would be remiss of me not to draw your attention to a post from one year ago in which the science of growing Christmas trees was explored along with techniques of wrapping kids using a tree bagging machine.

We Davies’ do not consider putting up Christmas decs until around mid December but I do realise that there are some enthusiasts out there who like to get in the swing early. Presumably they don’t use a real tree if they put it up in November as all the needles will have fallen off by the big day.

It is at Christmas that cultural differences do come to the surface in our house. Anne likes outside lights, I don’t. Unfortunately (it’s all about perspective) I think ours are broken. Ah well. We also have the annual hunt for the sets of Christmas tree lights that work. In the old days it was a matter of hunting down and replacing the bulb that was broken – otherwise the whole lot wouldn’t work. And you could only get one type. These days lights are almost disposable – if they don’t work just buy another set. Unfortunately I haven’t quite got that in my mindset yet so we still have to separate the good from the bad, once they have all been untangled, which is another story.

This Christmas will also represent a (quite sad) milestone where all four kids “know”. It makes it easier in some respects as we don’t have to wield threats of instant torture for revealing the truth but it represents the passing of an era, a great era in the life of any family.

Now that I’m momentarily (we have to remember it is still only November 27th) in a nostalgic Christmassy mood I have to reconfirm that I am a huge fan. Two of our kids are now away from home and it is we the parents who now are the ones that get excited about the holiday.

Also I’m not a Christian but I like the tradition, the constancy of the time of year. We do the same things year after year. This tradition is expanding to include events like the #trefbash which is in it’s fourth year and also the Carol Singing night in the Morning Star pub in Lincoln. We get together around the piano and bash out a couple of hours of carols accompanied by a few pints and some mince pies. This is open to all – if you want to come the details are on Facebook here.

Happy November.

Tags Christmas, science, tree

Business mobile connectivity ofcom Regs

Orange avoids banana skin – Ts & Cs changed to allow VoIP

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 25 November, 2013
1 Comment on Orange avoids banana skin – Ts & Cs changed to allow VoIP

EE subsidiary Orange appears to have avoided a slippery situation by amending its terms and condition for mobile internet use

The pic below is a screenshot of a YouTube video ad published by EE on July 31st 2013 to push Orange PAYG mobile. It majors on the fact that you get “a shed load of data” (1GB) when you top up your Orange mobile PAYG sim with £10. It’s an attractive ad.

However this advert was misleading as it explicitly showed the logos of Skype, Whats App, YouTube and SkySports. Whilst the guy in the ad doesn’t specifically mention these services the impression you get is that you could use your shed load of data to access them.

What the average punter doesn’t know is that the EE t’s & c’s for Orange at the time specifically prohibited the use of these services. Page 45 in issue 12 (September 2013) of EE’s booklet (EE81006958_0913) contains lots of very small print of “legal stuff” – in other words its customer terms and conditions.

Page 45: Internet on your phone/data tethering for consumers

ORANGE DATA (including mobile broadband): Mobile internet browsing or tethering (whether as part of an inclusive allowance or not) is not to be used for other activities (such as non-Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing).

In their November brochure the TCs and Cs appear to have been changed and VoIP is now allowed. No mention is made of the other services previously proscribed but presumably this means they are also allowed.

Over the past 12 – 18 months The UK VoIP industry trade body ITSPA has been complaining to regulator Ofcom and others that some mobile networks have been exhibiting anti competitive practices by specifically banning the use of Over The Top VoIP services on their data services with Orange being a specific culprit.

The EE response has been that older networks can’t cope with the levels of data traffic generated by these services and that the restrictions were imposed to protect other users’ traffic.

EE now seems to have relented. I doubt that this was down to any ITSPA pressure though this may well have helped. More likely in my mind is the fact that a lot of Orange’s network traffic will have moved to the newer 4G service which will have freed up some bandwidth on the older 3G network making VoIP more palatable.

The final inset picture is of the latest EE T’s & Cs showing the change in terms. Click on the image for a pdf of the full page. It’s nice to be able to put this episode behind us. Well done folks.

Tags EE, net neutrality, Orange, voip

Business internet Net

GNS3 crowdfunding reaches 460% with 12 days to go

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 25 November, 2013
1 Comment on GNS3 crowdfunding reaches 460% with 12 days to go

Many of you will be familiar with GNS3 – the open source network simulator. GNS3 is used by a number of network engineers I know who swear by it.

Well the folks at GNS3 want to take it to the next generation and have used crowd funding to finance the development. It makes you feel good to know that so far, in their quest to raise a mere $35k, they have hit $160,937 or 460% of their target. And that’s with 12 days to go!

It says a lot about what the global network engineering community feel about GNS3 that they have received such support. Funders get advanced copies of the software which won’t go on general release for a year.

Well done to GNS3 and good luck with the new dev.

atb

Business chromebook wearable

Microsoft putting staff into PC World stores

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 25 November, 2013
No Comments on Microsoft putting staff into PC World stores

Microsoft are staffing PC World stores to assist in the selling of Microsoft products in the run up to Christmas.

I’ve noticed that occasionally an update appears in my LinkedIn timeline saying that someone or other is now a Microsoft Ambassador. Students usually. On Sunday I was stood at the Samsung section of PC World looking at tablets and a sales assistant came up to me asking if I needed help. She was wearing a Microsoft polo shirt and turns out was actually employed by them as an Ambassador.

Had a chat with her and shared my experiences with Windows 8 PCs (I reverted to Windows 7 and then subsequently to the Chromebook) and Windows Phone on the Nokia Lumia 920. Her take was that most people are still looking for standard types of PC. Although personally I am writing off Microsoft (I expect it to take 20 years) they are certainly coming out fighting. I saw two Microsoft Ambassadors instore.

It looks like the merchandising from the big consumer players is hotting up in the run up to Christmas. It’s amazing how many tablets and different varieties of laptops are on show. Just based on PC World you would think that the whole tech world was based around Microsoft, Samsung and Apple.

Although Chromebooks are uber cheap it seems obvious to me that the reason for this is partly the need to differentiate. The small solid state hard drive helps with this. On one pod PCW had three Chromebooks on show including the HP version I thought had been recalled due to power supply problems.

I left PCWorld with wallet weighing the same. No additional receipts to bulk it out (it’s never cash!). Might well buy a tab or two though – just to leave lying around the house. Handy.

Pic is 5 Galaxy Gears – say that ten times quickly 🙂 Looked a bit plasticky to me.

End User gadgets media Weekend

Sony 4KUltra HD TV KD-55X9005A and XBox1 Console sales

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 24 November, 2013
7 Comments on Sony 4KUltra HD TV KD-55X9005A and XBox1 Console sales

Continuing with the weekend posts I swung by PC World and Currys. Looking for a speaker system to add a bit of richness of experience to the Chromecast we installed last week. PC World hardly has anything – they are moving back to their computing roots.

Currys is where it is at for this kind of stuff. I was unnaturally thrilled to come across this Sony 4K Ultra HD TV (the good old KD-55X9005A). A snip at £3,299. OK it is a nice TV. The picture quality was great. However £3,299 puts it in the more money than sense bracket. Since when has that been a problem for the multi-millionaire looking to impress the bloke in the next mansion.

I imagine that the promo video it was playing on the loop was one of the few bits of content you could get for it. Apparently you get 8 “free” Blu-ray discs to watch when you buy the TV. I managed to find 10 movies available in 4K format on one site and 11 on another – all Blu-ray. I’m sure there will be more.

It is early days for 4k TVs. Of course prices will come down. However I may be wrong but I can’t imagine that Currys will sell many this Christmas. If you are going to blow the dough you might as well buy the Bose sound bar for three hundred quid. Great offer.

The XBox1 console on the other hand is a different kettle of anchovies. If you ain’t planned ahead on this one you’re not going to be taking it home from the Lincoln Currys store, nosireebob.

Currys look as if they were caught by surprise with the rush because they have had to scribble a quick sign guaranteed to disappoint the eager gamer looking to upgrade his or her experience for the festive season.

Can’t understand why you’d want it meself but I don’t think I’m representative.

I leave you with a video taken of the TVs in Currys Lincoln. I am easily impressed and thought that the splendid array of colour was very nice.

Ciao beb.

Tags 4K, Currys, KD-55X9005A, Sony, TV, UltraHD, xbox1

Business spam Weekend

Tesco spam – more expensive than ham!

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 24 November, 2013
No Comments on Tesco spam – more expensive than ham!

Tesco spam more expensive than ham.

It’s the weekend so I thought we’d have a bit of fun. Just been to Tesco to get a few staples – bread, milk, custard. As ever I left with far more in my trolley than what was on my list.

Passing the tinned meats section I spotted some spam! I haven’t had any spam since I was a kid, other than the crap that gets caught in my spam filter. When I was a kid spam was the everyday meat “replacement” for those of us who lived in shoeboxes on the central reservation of the M4 (etc). Now spam is priced as if it were luxury goods!

The two pics inset show the price of spam and the price of tinned ham on the shelf next to it. Spam is £1.99 for 340g (58.6pence per 100g) whilst the tinned ham is only £1.89 for the same weight.

The ham doesn’t look particularly appetising mind you but there again neither does the spam. I still bought a tin.

Tesco spam – just about acceptable but only for old times’ sake.

Having bought the tin I am willing to let someone else have it if you can persuade me your need is greater than mine. I will need a postal address. Addresses that don’t mention shoeboxes will be ineligible.

PS fwiw Tesco have 25% off wine if you buy six or more bottles. We have a party coming up so I bought a few bottles of Heisdieck Monopole blue top. The bottles were down from £30 to £15 with a further 25% off making them £11.25 each! At that price I don’t even have to like the stuff.

Loads of spam related stuff on this site – follow the spam category here.

4g Business mobile connectivity

O2 4G rollout schedule & EE 4G in Lincoln

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 22 November, 2013
4 Comments on O2 4G rollout schedule & EE 4G in Lincoln

I’ve been getting updates re the O2 4G rollout schedule.

29th August – London, Leeds, Bradford
27th September – Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Coventry
17th October – Liverpool
24th October- Glasgow
31st October – Manchester
19th November – Newcastle, Edinburgh, Huddersfield and Wetherby

I’m not sure how the logic works for this rollout. I can understand how networks go for the big metropolitan areas first to get the biggest bang for their early buck. How did Huddersfield and Wetherby slipped into this list? Either there is a little dice rolling going on or someone accidentally pushed the wrong button. Maybe some Telefonica director has a holiday home in Huddersfield? Plausible. Don’t diss the thought 🙂

I look forward to seeing my home town Lincoln on the list. It is very close to being announced by EE – there is a 4G signal in the city. I happen to know that one cell site is already up and running with two more in the pipeline. Watch this space.

Check out the O2 and Vodafone 4G test trip in London here.

Tags 4g, cellsite, EE, EE4G, Huddersfield, Lincoln, O2, schedule

End User gadgets virtualisation

Update on Chromecast story – chrome literally being cast

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 22 November, 2013
2 Comments on Update on Chromecast story – chrome literally being cast

Chromecast is now working for my browser. Yesterday I mentioned that I’d found the icon for using Chromecast from my chrome browser but hadn’t had time to test it. I’m working from home today so I’m sat in the TV room ~~having a play~~ testing.

The pic shows my Google screen on both the Chromebook and the TV – it’s a Doctor Who special Google doodle if you’re interested.

Interesting thing is that I can be in one window on the Chromebook whilst another window shows on the TV.

Also interesting is the fact that the cursor that appears on the Chromebook doesn’t appear on the TV and there is understandably a lag between when I type and when it appears on the box. This isn’t a big deal. It’s just interesting (I think I may have mentioned).

The whole experiment with the Google environment does point towards the need for good quality high speed connectivity to make it all work. The photo in this post was taken with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and uploaded to Drive. I used online photo editing service pixlr.com to edit the photo fetched from Drive, subsequently saved to a specific blog images file back in Drive and then uploded to WordPress on my server at Timico (running VMware instance fwiw).

There was a little delay with each process step but not too bad – certainly bearable.

Ciao.

Tags browser, chrome, Chromebook, Chromecast

Apps End User gadgets media

Chromecast – a second review

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 21 November, 2013
5 Comments on Chromecast – a second review

Having read Terry Hughes’ Chromecast review I eventually got round to rushing out (metaphorically) and buying one from Amazon. It was forty two quid or so ($35 in the USA) but the cheaper ones involved longer shipping from the States or an additional postage charge so ripped up the budget and clicked.

The Chromecast is now installed and in use. I have some observations:

You have to actually physically switch on the Chromecast dongle – it doesn’t just power up in the “on” state
Installation from Chromebook didn’t work. I don’t know why. I moved on to do it from the S4.
Installation from my Android was very simple. I guess this is it’s core use market/scenario (if that’s the right phrase)
The dongle sits nicely and unobtrusively at the back of the TV and is powered by the USB port of the TV (didn’t realise I had one but now I do – phew – Anne would have complained if there was another dangling cable)
It is very easy to use. In my case I just selected HDMI2 input and hey presto…
It is also easy to “cast” content onto the TV from your phone – there is a small icon to select inside the app view.
Now this is where it starts to get interesting. You can use Chromecast to stream movies, music, YouTube and Netflix. I only use YouTube to store the occasional vid for use in embedding in this blog – as in this post for example. I have no interest whatsoever in Netflix content – though many others must be as it takes up a significant chunk of ISP bandwidth. I have no movies to stream (and rarely watch them anyway – 90mins?!) and all my music is on my phone.
The latter point is definitely interesting. This is all about driving traffic into the cloud. In moving operations to Google Apps, Chromebook and cloud storage I began the process of shifting my music to Google Music (or whatever it’s called) but I stopped for some reason. I think it might have been because it involved entering my credit card details. Obviously Google wants to make it easy for me to buy more music.
Currently any music I buy is in CD format and I then upload it to my phone. In my new cloudy ecosystem I may have to rethink this. Although I like having a CD in its case to touch and feel this might be because I’ve grown up with that experience. My kids think nothing of buying music from iTunes and never having a “hard copy”.
Chromecast is likely to change my habits here. I had already been thinking of buying a surround sound system for the TV room and this may top the balance in its favour.
I will also say that I was astonished at the quality of HD streaming on our TV. Although the TV is HD “ready” we have never had an input source to supply the HD – no Blueray, no Sky, no Virgin etc. The HD footage I took with my Samsung Galaxy S4 – this ride on Stephenson’s Rocket for example, was really good quality full screen 1080p on our 42″ box (flat panel).
It was also very easy for multiple users to take advantage of the Chromecast. One of the kids came home from a music rehearsal and had downloaded the App and got it working in seconds. The kids are much bigger users of YouTube than I and he was streaming jazz videos in no time, (until his mum wanted to watch the news).

In conclusion – Chromecast – very easy to set up and use, obviously aimed at delivering content from the cloud, and could well move my music listening to streaming from that cloud. It’s all driving bandwidth use. Onwards and upwards.

I note Phil’s comment re waste of space. It does need to support more apps. I didn’t try seeing if I could surf using it but I ~~suspect not – it would have been more in my face~~. Rewind – just noticed this icon in Chrome – not tested it but looks positive.

Update on casting from Chrome browser here.

Update 17th March Google Chromecast to become available in the UK – leading to lots of visitors to reviews on this site

Tags Chromecast, google, music, review, YouTube

End User phones

Comparison of Samsung Galaxy S4 with Google Nexus5 phones – speed

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 20 November, 2013
2 Comments on Comparison of Samsung Galaxy S4 with Google Nexus5 phones – speed

It’s handy working at Timico because people are always buying new gadgets to have a play with. Jared from IT has just got himself a Google Nexus5 and we thought it would be a good idea to make some comparisons with my Samsung Galaxy S4.

The first thing I noticed about the Nexus5 was that it has a much nicer feel to it in the hand than the S4. S4 is shiny and slippery. The Nexus5 is more matt and doesn’t feel like it will drop out of your hand too easily which is a good thing when you take a look at the battered nature of my not so old S4.

We did a couple of experiments. This first video shows both Nexus5 and Galaxy S4 being switched on simultaneously. The S4 looks as if it is booting up faster but the Nexus5 comes up with the lock screen several seconds ahead of the Samsung. Not scientific but a good peformance indicator I think. In defence of the S4 it will also have a lot more applications loaded but I’m not sure how much affect that will have on the startup time.

The second vid shows a photo being transferred from the Nexus5 to the Galaxy S4. Android to Android but from different models/manufacturers. It is impressive. The file is 3.5MB.

For those of you who are interested here is a side by side picture taken with each camera:

And finally a video out take – click here (fwi really is w).

Tags compare, comparison, file, Galaxy S4, google, Nexus5, Samsung, speed, test, transfer, xfer

End User fun stuff

Food for thought

Got a question for you. Is it cheaper to eat lots of carrots so that you can sit at home on a dark winter’s night without having to switch the lights on or is it cheaper to pay for the electricity?

I think for the purposes of this debate one has to assume that the consumption of an adequate amount of carrots really does allow you to see in the dark.

Obviously the amount of carrots that need eating for it to work will be different for different people so you will have to make some assumptions. The best answer wins a pair of tickets to the sold out trefor.net xmas bash in London on 12th December.

As Confucious said “It is better to eat one small carrot than to sit alone in the darkness”.

It’s true…

PS read another carrot post here or perform a search on this blog.

Tags carrot