Author: Trefor Davies

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

Categories
End User fun stuff

Norwegian Wood part 2

I learned to play the guitar when I was a kid instead of swotting for my A Levels. My mam and dad almost certainly got fed up to listening to renditions from the “Beatles Songbook”.

One of my early masterpieces was Norwegian Wood. Last night we had some friends round for a barbeque. Our bbq is also a firepit and when the eating is done we throw on some sticks, toast marshmallows, chat and maybe even strum the geetar.

On this occasion I was reminded of a line in Norwegian Wood – “I sat by the fire, biding my time, drinking her wine”. Knowing it would be of huge interest to all Beatles fans out there I took a photo illustrating the moment.

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PS I am available for parties. I’m not particularly good but as long as everyone has had plenty of wine I sound fine:)

Posted using WordPress for android on my Samsung galaxy S3

Categories
End User olympics

Getting acquainted with Henry

Telling it like it is in real (ish) time. From left to right Dr Henry Kissinger, Trefor Davies and Calum Malcolm at the Cisco House at the Olympic Park.

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Life is for living.

Posted from my Samsung Galaxy S3 courtesy of Cisco WiFi.

Categories
End User olympics

The view over the Olympic Park from the Cisco House

Nuff said.

Posted from my Samsung Galaxy S3 over Cisco’s 50Mbps WiFi

Categories
End User olympics

The importance of psychology

It’s been interesting to hear the observations of expert commenters that athletes perform better when the are relaxed. If  they are not in the right frame of mind their chances of success are greatly reduced.

When you think about it this applies in many areas. In cricket, for example, your mind has to be totally in the right space to win. The same team can win one game but lose another against the same opposition just by not having their minds in the right space.

Watching the beach volleyball last night it was clear that the Brazilian pair did not gell and they were thrashed by the Chinese.

These are lessons we should take onboard in our business lives.

I also hear the mantra “it’s the taking part that is important”. Well of course taking part is important but so is winning. You try telling Victoria Pendleton or Christine Ohurogu that silver is ok when for the last 4 years their mind has been totally focussed on winning gold.

Taking part is nice but it is better to be a winner. Again it’s all about attitude. Mental strength.

Categories
charitable End User

6 months after RNLI cheque presentation – Skegness in summer

A panoramic view from Skegness pier on a hot and busy day in AugustWhat a difference 6 months makes. Went to Skeggy today with son Joe. It was packed with tourists enjoying the 26 degrees heat of the British summer. Can’t say it was bracing at all. There was a gentle offshore breeze which made it very pleasant.

Interesting to compare the scene with February when I presented the RNLI with their £6k cheque following the world record attempt for most comments on a blog post.

Spot the tourist - the icy windswept wastes of Skegness sea front - a terrain ruled by the donkey in summerThe pic on the left is The scene in Skegness in summer - near the RNLI stationthe scene in February and the one on the right was today.

If you’ve never been you should go to Skegness – in August obviously. It’s a great British family seaside day out – beer ice creams, fish and chips, deckchairs, amusements etc etc.

Make sure you take plenty of sunscreen 🙂

Categories
End User olympics

The hidden cost of the London Olympics

accoutrements needed for a trip to NewquayDrove four 18 year old girls to Derby yesterday morning. They, along with three other pals were catching the train to Newquay for a week on the lash a week of post A Levels recuperation. They deserve it.

We had originally booked them on a low cost flight from East Midlands but the operator cancelled it and a hasty change to rail was needed. The best route was Lincoln – Kings Cross – Paddington – Newquay. £65 all told in second class. I did suggest they treated themselves to first as it was still cheaper than the costs of the flights but that didn’t get universal approval.

What’s more amid the pre-Olympics hype about London transport congestion the party grew nervous about going anywhere near the capital and opted for the Derby route which was £20 more expensive but perhaps a safer bet. They had a date with a cocktail in Newquay they didn’t want to miss.

With hindsight there have been no transport problems in London, due mainly to the hype that has scared anyone not going to the Olympics away from the place. So the girls could have gone in more comfort for less money!

As a footnote, I have a big jeep. The girls had a lot of luggage. It all fitted, just, into my car. I think the parents might collectively have to review the return travel arrangements as the person lined up to pick them up next Monday night was doing so in an Alpha Romeo!

Also it’s a good job they didn’t fly. The excess baggage charges would have paid for a limo to take them all down in luxury. They even took a laptop with them!

Categories
End User olympics

A number of different views of the Olympic rings at Tower Bridge

The Olympic rings at Tower Bridge

After the Global Business Summit at Lancaster House on Friday I went to Tower Bridge to look at the Olympic rings – lit up at night. Here are a number of pics from the evening:

light show at Tower BridgeYou can’t see the rings in this first pic as they don’t turn them on until after the light show.
historic London - views of The Tower of London, Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast

Pretty impressive setting I’m sure you’ll agree.

We caught the Canadian news readers doing their stuff in front of Boris’ office.
Canadian TV crew doing their stuff in front of Tower Bridge

inside an English pub - for American readersThen finally I took this photo of the inside of a nearby pub – not because I went in for a drink – just because it was so bright and colourful as I was passing.

London can be a wonderful place to visit.

Categories
End User olympics

GB cha cha cha GB cha cha cha

magnificent panoramic view of the kayak slalom venue at Lee ValleyIf you are the single person in the UK not caught up with Olympic fever you need therapy. This is big time excitement. There is no way you should be doing anything other than sitting in front of that box taking in cycling/yachting/rowing/running/long jumping/kayaking/swimming/tennis/ano etc.

That said I played golf this afternoon when Murray was whopping Federer. Parental duties you know. However I have also just returned from the Olympic city where on Thursday at the Lee Valley kayak slalom venue we watched Britain’s Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott paddle to gold with team mates David Florence and Richard Hounslow taking silver in second.

One of the major features of these Olympics has been the support of the home crowd. I’ve got to tell you the TV doesn’t do it justice – you just don’t get a sense of the noise. Fear not dear reader for I have recorded it for your entertainment, education and general edification.

I herewith present to you a number of short videos that should give you a taste of the atmosphere at Lee Valley on Thursday.

Firstly the start of the British gold medal run:

Then a little later in the run – perhaps even louder:

The crowd doing a Mexican wave:

Flags of nations rippling in the strong breeze:

Categories
Business olympics

Global Business Summit at Lancaster House during London 2012 Olympics

The Gobal Business Summit at Lancaster House during the London 2012 Olympic games

me with old uni pal Dr Phillip Davies - MD of component manufacturer RakonI was very privileged to be invited to the Global Business Summit at Lancaster House in London on Friday. This was a showcase of the best of British Technology Businesses and the guest list was a mix of UK and overseas business leaders. It was one of a series of sessions promoting different UK market sectors and ours was the last one. Being right next to Clarence House security was about as tight as it can get. The cops here always carry guns. I had forgotten my passport at home but fortunately my driving license did the job for photo ID.

Vince Cable - click to see more of the VIP guestsWe were treated to a keynote speech by Vince Cable, UK government cabinet minister with responsibility for business and by CEO of Facebook EMEA, Joanna Shields. I won’t comment on the specific of the speeches by either of these two or by any of the other speakers in the morning and afternoon. They were all positive, upbeat messages from people involved in the technology industries of which we should be proud.

It must be said that we do know how to put on great events in this country. Obviously there are the Olympics which on the face of it are a huge success. This was very much a networking chatting with Vince cable and Colin Duffy, CEO of Voipfoneevent. As well as showcasing technology they were showcasing the best in British food and drink. We did our very best to sample it all – good manners and all that.

The food and drink was sponsored by the suppliers, I’m told. I’ll name a few: Bibendum, Nyetimber champagne (I realise we aren’t supposed to call it champagne but you may have noticed I’ve been feeling rebellious of late and it is just as good as the French stuff), Chapel Down and Primrose Hill wines – great I can recommend them.

The food was terrific – little bowls for lunch so that we could circulate and chat. Crab, braised beef, quail spring to mind. The canapes at the cocktail party after the talks were also very tasty – steak and chips, seared tuna, pea puree, amongst others. We had them with gin and tonics made with Tanqueray and Sipsmith gin and a cocktail called “English Country Garden” whose constituents I don’t totally recall (perhaps for obvious reasons) but which included Chase vodka and some kind of elderflower juice. I’ve included a short video of the Bibendum staff mixing the cocktail.

We aren’t supposed to take photos in “Royal residences” but everyone was doing so and the bar staff even took some of the shots for us. Also there were loads of official photographers clicking and recording away. No prizes but can anyone guess what the tapestry is behind the cameraman in the photo inset right. It’s quite famous. The artist’s name will do as an alternative.

Also click on the photo of Vince speaking to see some of the other guests – names? Finally who is in the photo of the panel? – click on it to enlarge and see more. As I said no prizes this time as I’m on holiday but lets see if anyone comes up with right answers.

can you name the tapestry behind the camera?

See ya…

Categories
Business olympics

Great ad by British Airways – London2012 Olympics

great advert by BA during the Olympics in London

This photo speaks for itself – superb bit of marketing by British Airways in the London Underground during the Olympics 🙂

Categories
Business Net olympics

Logistics & Security at the London2012 Olympics

The Olympic rings at Tower BridgeTravel to and from the games: – a joy – the train to Cardiff was standing room only but we had booked seats – no problem. I travelled back in first class early the next morning with the lad so don’t know how the people up the back were. Most of the fans from the previous night will have either gone

reading material in the 1st class lounge at cardiff stationback that night or still be in bed sleeping off the beer. For the record the lad had two hot chocolates, a diet coke, a Fanta, a packet of hand cut crisps and a croissant – taking advantage of the free food and drink up the front.

At Kings Cross I noted no queues at taxi ranks.  Easier by and large than a normal day in town.

no queues at the taxi rank in Kings Cross StationConnections in London to get to Lee Valley for the kayaking – trouble free and swift with plenty of seating. We sat in first class between Tottenham Hale and Cheshunt despite not having the right ticket – you know I’m a reb. Nobody checked the tickets in either direction anway.

On the way back we joined the 12,000 spectators emptying out of the venue for the 30 minute walk to the station. At the station we got on a train straight away and were whisked away within 30 seconds – unbelievable. In fact almost every connection we had to make had a minimal wait. The train was full but hey…

friendly cops at Lee Valley

she's a fair cop guv

it's a specialist job, pointing

Security at the games – reassuring without causing lengthy delays. The coppers were very friendly and happy to indulge tourist Tref with photo calls. The women PCs smiled beautifully (steady Tref). The presence of armed police showed the underlying serious approach to security.

The pointers too were very friendly and efficient. The numbers of staff on hand to help was overkill but you didn’t feel that. They were great and all out to enjoy the occasion.

The presence of the military was also comforting. The troops approached their last minute call up with professionalism and I have to say we all felt that much safer with them around. They looked confident in everything they did &  also had a special Olympic cloth badge (fwiw:)

Other logistics – the number of portable toilets stood out – I don’t think I ever say anyone queuing to go to the loo – got to be a result.

We arrived at the Lee Valley venue at lunchtime which consequentially meant huge queues for the food concessions. Because of this we waited until one of the breaks in the sport and were able to buy food with very little wait. £9.5 for fish chips and mushy peas if that’s your fancy. A sausage bap and a diet coke were around seven quid. Good quality nosh but v expensive. One man handed over more than fifty pounds to feed his group.

Connectivity – as in the Millennium Stadium I didn’t get on with the WiFi but didn’t need to because the 3G was good – 3.8Megs down and 1Meg up. WordPress for Android with a few photos didn’t work very well. Admittedly one was a panorama shot which seems to mess it up. This post was originally written at Lee Valley but I’ve had to retype it on the laptop at home.

I’m back at the Olympics next week and will try and take advantage of the WiFi at that time and report back.

Categories
End User olympics

No WiFi on train but power points more important

John and I are wending our way back from Cardiff to London in First Class with First Great Western. I like to teach my kids the right way to travel.

FGW doesn’t have WiFi like Eastcoast does but actually I’m finding that power is more important. 3G is good enough and having a fully charged phone for this afternoon’s Olympic kayak slaloms at Lee Valley is more important. I think 24 hours of battery life at flat out use needs to be the benchmark – 2 days for contingency. We aren’t there yet.

The lad is dozing whilst listening to some sounds on his phone. His copy of the Times newspaper made him nod off:)

I’m feeling a little rebellious. Last night we took a vuvuzela type horn into the GB v Uruguay match. It was on the list of prohibited items but if the Uruguayan supporters could take an entire drum kit into the ground it would have been entirely unfair to confiscate our modest source of atmosphere and excitement.

Today I am wearing my HP branded Commons and Lords Lions tour polo shirt and we have a Nike day bag. Totally against he rules laid down by the Locog heavIes. We also have a packed lunch which is apparently ok provided we don’t take too much – presumably in case we start selling food inside the venue. We could undercut the concessions and make a fortune, our only overheads being a modest Waitrose bill and the cost of the tickets. The latter has been covered by the mortgage so repayments will hardly be noticed over the 4 years between Olympic games.

I read somewhere yesterday that some politician (I can’t remember his name, which will obviously be a disappointment to the individual concerned) has said that the food prices are in line with other major events and that a family should be able to feed themselves for forty quid. That’s as may be but for most people forty pounds is a lot of dosh and I bet his family only consists of four people. Being a highly virile couple we have four kids which by my reckoning works out at sixty notes for lunch or roughly twelve pints of lager if you live in London as many readers of this blog do.

What a choice. Feed the kids or drink lots of lager. I suppose I could drink slightly fewer lagers and save some cash for a curry or a kebab afterwards (the hidden costs of a night out on the town). No no no only joking. Honest :).

Look out for me In the kayakIng crowd in my red HP polo shirt. Hasta la vista baby.

More later on my OlympIc holiday, from the WordPress dashboard of the Samsung Galaxy S3…

Categories
End User olympics

Millennium stadium postscript – 3G data performance & Galaxy S3 battery life

The mobile data service turned out great.I suspect if you weren’t on o2 it might have been a different story though I have no evidence of that.

The upload capacity did come under a bit of strain. It started at round 1.6 megs and dropped to 0.85 megs at half time but that is still good going.

I only really had 2 problems. One was with WordPress for android – it didn’t like the panoramic photo I included in the post.

The second was battery life. I hit the s3 hard with a lot of internet use and photographic activity. I was at the millennium stadium for two matches. By the second half of the second match the battery was running low so I switched off as I needed to make phone calls afterwards. This still wasn’t bed. After roughly 4 hours of pretty solid use I was down to 24% battery power remaining.

The catering at the ground was a different story – It was sIxquId for a sandwIch! My son queued for 45 minutes for a pizza only to find they had run out when he got to the front of the queue. This was during the first match! Whoever the caterer was I don’t have anything good to say about them.

It dIdn’t spoil the overall enjoyment of the evening which was a super family affair. The caterers could have taken a lesson from McDonald’s where I fed my son afterwards. It seemed as if the whole of the 70, 000 present at the ground went there. The queue went down quickly and it felt that those burgers were being served at speeds Usein Bolt would have been proud of 🙂

Posted using Samsung Galaxy S3.

Categories
End User mobile connectivity Net olympics

Olympic report from GBP v Uruguay

The game hasn’t started yet but the atmosphere is building up.this is a great family event but be warned. Queues are horrendous for the catering concessions and not a McDonald’s in sight – so much for the exclusive sponsorship. Maybe they only care about the London venues.

The mobile data connectivity is superb though I’ve not been able to figure out how to register for WiFi. I’m not a customer of BT broadband (I am but via BT Wholesale) and though I have a KeZone account with an Openzone roaming agreement I can’t see how to use it.

This actually doesn’t matter because much O2 SIM is giving me a fantastically reliable 7.5Megs down and 1.5 Megs up.

I have 3 pics for you. 1st is a panoramic shot of inside the stadium – just worked out how to do it properly.

The second shot is a screenshot of the speeders for the mobile data.

Finally there’s a photo of the 3g small cell antenna deployed in the stadium.

Enjoy:

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WordPress for android via s3

Categories
End User olympics

Test post

Am at the footy at the millennium stadium & trying to upload a post with pics. WordPress for android keeps crashing when I try to publish. This is to see if it uploads without photos.

Categories
agricultural End User

50 mighty quadtracs all in a row

The gathering of the mighty quadtracs was foreseen. 50 of these giants of the agricultural world formed the biggest ever congregation of their kind at Hemswell in Lincolnshire last Saturday.

5 minutes at 3.5kph (speed set so as not to run out of field in the regulated time) saw a new world record set for the most number of quadtracs simultaneously working a field.

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Before harvest:

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After harvest:

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The event raised thousands for cancer charity in memory of John Rainthorpe with over a thousand cars worth of spectators in attendance – amazing.

The quadtracs came from far and wide with two of them travelling 433 miles from Scotland (on the back of a lorry – they would still be on their way otherwise).

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For more see here.
Posted using WordPress for android.

Categories
End User travel

On holiday

Camp fire at Woodall Spa

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Posted using WordPress for android.

Categories
broadband Business

Why We Need High-Speed Broadband Connectivity: London2012, Bell Ringing World Record Lincoln Cathedral

I’m working from home this morning – car is in first thing having something sorted. At 8am I nipped round to Lincoln Cathedral to film the London2012 world record bell ringing attempt. There were 7 bell ringers in Minster Yard as well as the ones inside the cathedral. A small but perfectly formed bunch:)

Anyway I got home and immediately started to upload the 500Meg video file to YouTube – time is of the essence in the news business. What a waste of time. I have one kid downloading Ubuntu for RaspberryPi and two others engaging in online warfare with unknown foe.

Decent levels of broadband connectivity bandwidth are clearly an everyday necessity.

The video is still on the phone so it is probably uploading to Google+ quietly in the background, hogging some bandwidth.

Roll on superfast with stripes connectivity.

Categories
Apps End User social networking

social sharing toolkit snippet

This morning I found that one of my blog posts had the word “bookmark” inserted at the beginning. Weird I thought. This afternoon I did another post and lo and behold it was there too. In fact it was on every post I’d ever written. Very weird.

So I went down to see Ian Ward, one of our resident web design gurus and we both started fishing about to see what the problem might be. Perusing through the plug ins we noticed that “Social Sharing Toolkit” had an  upgrade available. This was to fix a problem where the plug in was “inserting words” into blog posts.

We clicked “upgrade” and hey presto, problem over. I must have subliminally upgraded the plug in first thing this morning. The watchful eyes of the wordpress community spotted the problem and now it is fixed.

End of story. Interesting eh?  Eh??

Categories
Business ofcom Regs

So much to do so little time…

Not sure whether I mentioned it but I’m off on holiday after this week – going to see the London2012  Olympics.

You would think that the world would drop everything and focus on the biggest sporting event to hit the UK (ok mostly London) since ever. I’m amazed at how much is still going on in the world of internet legislation. So much so that most of it will have to be left to others for comment.

We have consultations over the Draft Communications Data Bill. Then the Interception of Communications Commissioner has published his annual report – interesting reading I’m sure.

Oh and did you know that the Welsh Government (iechyd da)  announced that it has selected BT to implement the Next Generation Broadband Project for Wales. BT was also the successful bidder in North Yorkshire which has become first county to deploy BDUK broadband (if I can call it that). Note the Welsh Government is also launching a Business Crime Unit.

Next up is EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes who has outlined the European Commission’s general conclusions following on from last year’s consultation on wholesale access to telecoms networks – good stuff.

You don’t need me to tell you that Ofcom has published its Communications Market Report for 2012 – I’ll definitely be reading that but not whilst I am on holiday.

You may not have noticed that the IP Crime Group, which was formed in 2004 by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to bring together experts from industry, enforcement agencies and Government to work together on piracy and counterfeiting issues, has published its latest annual report.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills launched a consultation on enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law. In addition to goods, the consultation also looks at services and digital content.

Finally uSwitch has published a report on broadband billing.

All exciting stuff eh? Unfortunately you will have to gen up on all this yourselves as I won’t have time to do it. All good reading for when you’re on the beach.

Ciao.

PS Lists and links have very kindly been provided by ISPA.

Categories
Engineer olympics

Which #Olympic events are going to attract most online interest? #London2012 #Locog

Usain Bolt - billions of fans want to see him win at the London 2012 OlympicsI’ve got tons to do but I’m on holiday after this week (yay) and the Olymic coverage is building up to near frenzy already (gawd knows what it will be like when it really gets going) so I’m doing Olympic posts.  For the avoidance of doubt that’s the London2012 summer Olympic games if any of the Locog police are reading.

You will remember the post I wrote ages ago about the BBC’s own forecasts for iPlayer traffic based on the which sport is happening at the time. Now of course that time is upon us. Today the ladies of  Team GB football are taking on the mighty All Blacks at the Millenium stadium. Actually I don’t know if they are mighty or whether they are even called the “All Blacks”. I mean New Zealand ladies.

I’ve never watched a ladies football match, at least not in its entirety. I did watch “Bend it like Beckham” which I thought was a very enjoyable movie but  I digress. The Beeb reckons that this first ladies match will be more popular than the men’s game tomorrow. Do they know something?

BBC estimates of iPlayer busy periods during London 2012 Olympics - click to enlargeThe Beeb has in fact identified six sessions it has labelled as having the highest iPlayer demand. These are the opening and closing ceremonies, the mens 100m and 200m finals (good old Usain – don’t let us down), Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton on the afternoon of Tuesday 7th August (yay cmon guys) and the afternoon of Saturday 11th which has the finals of the men’s footy, hockey and basketball (yawn).

As I write I’m scanning through the BBC’s schedule showing its demand forecast and I’ve just found something that casts the whole process into doubt. On a scale of 1 – 4 where 4 is the highest demand the women’s beach volleyball finals are only rated a 2. How credible is that?

That’s it for now. I normally adopt radio silence when I’m on holiday but this time I will be posting live from Olympic events using my trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 and WordPress for Android. I must get a speed tester app on the phone. Also I’ve not gone yet 🙂

Click the inset box to see which events the BBC thinks will be busy.

Categories
Business internet mobile connectivity net neutrality

Broadband Stakeholders Group Open Internet Code of Practice

The Broadband Stakeholders Group today released an “Open Internet Code of Practice”. This is a voluntary CoP promoting net neutrality.

Specifically:

  • users should be able to access all legal content
  • there should be no discrimination against content providers on the basis of commercial rivalry; and
  • traffic management policies should be clear and transparent

I’m not going to delve into the detail of the BSG announcement which is available here. What I am going to do is name the current signatories who are all in the main consumer service providers:

  • BE, BT, BskyB, KCOM, O2, Plusnet, TalkTalk, Tesco Mobile, Three

The significance of this list is in who is not on it, particularly the mobile operators. You can work out who they are yourselves. Some of them are already known to block the use of Over The Top VoIP services (eg Timico’s own VoIP, Skype et al) on their mobile networks which of course goes against the principles of the CoP being announced today.

Whatever their reasons for not signing these mobile networks will have to change their positioning as 4G gets rolled out. The bandwidth requirement for VoIP  services will be relatively small compared with that required for general use on 4G networks so the “lack of capacity” argument should not work.

4G is a fairly major inflection point for mobile networks. I don’t have any forecasts but during the life of the 4G (LTE) technology we should see the mobile business model transition from being minutes driven to data driven.

I suspect that growth in “data bundle” income may not offset any reduction in voice minutes revenues so the mobile operators are going to have to work out how to find cash from elsewhere. This may come from advertising, financial micro payments, device and personal security and I’m sure many more that I haven’t thought of.

For the moment I’ll leave you to figure out for yourselves why the non-signatories have not stepped up to the plate. I can’t see how they can stay away for too long. It isn’t the actual signature but the principle of how they treat their customers who will end up voting with their feet.

Categories
broken gear End User

Aargh it’s 30 degrees and the Eastcoast train aircon is broken!

the temperature in London today hit 30 (feels like 32 according to my phone) and the train aircon is broke!It’s the hottest day of the year so far. People are frying eggs on car bonnets and the homeless have left London for cooler climes – it’s too hot underneath the arches for a comfortable kip.

The suits are sweating buckets and wishing it was acceptable to turn up for work in shorts. The ladies are looking lovely in the summer sun.

Most people are complaining about the heat. Those that aren’t are taking the mickey out of friends  just packing for their annual holiday in Marbella or Benidorm  or Lanzarote or Torremolinos – you know  – places less warm than London.

School’s out. Urchins run wild in the radiatingly hot city streets, shrieking under plumes of water escaping from broken fire hydrants. Their parents, sapped of care, languish in the little shade afforded by the concrete tenements they call home. There is no breeze. There is no letup from the infernal heat.

In fact neither is there any air conditioning on this train – the 18.30 Eastcoast from Kings Cross to Edinburgh stopping briefly to let me off at Newark to get my connection to Lincoln. I’m on my second can of diet Coke and second bottle of sparkling water with ice!

This must be what it is like on the Chennai to Bangalore Express (dep 13.00 arr 14.45 daily). At least those in steerage can catch a little breeze sat on top of the carriage

Ah well.

Yes please love – another bottle of mineral water with plenty of ice. Thanks…

PS I realise there are no fire hydrants in London. These are images more typical of New York in summer. Also the choice of Indian train service was purely random. However they both made the cut for artistic effect. Final answer.

Categories
End User olympics

Calm before the Olympic storm?

Usain Bolt - billions of fans want to see him win at the London 2012 OlympicsIf it’s Tuesday it must be London. Not if you’re a tourist. I’m down here for meetings but the place is remarkably calm. No queues at the taxi rank at Kings Cross Station, not many people around.

The taxi driver told me it has been one of the quietest summer he has ever seen. The regular tourists have stayed away. I’ve even been able to get a great last minute deal on 5 star hotel at a rock bottom price – only a few quid more than the Kings Cross Travelodge that is my usual haunt.

The London2012 games will soon be upon us and excited I am. I’m confident that they will  be a huge success and the PR failures of Locog will fade from the national memory (not mine though – i don’t forget these things:).

clean exterior at the refurbished London Kings Cross Station

I’m taking a chunk of the Olympic fortnight off. Not all of it – I’m off to a British Business Embassy meeting with Dave, George and Vince (apparently) on Friday 3rd August. If you’re going I’ll be the one wearing a suit! (I know – WTF do I hear you say?).

I’ll be with son number 3 (kid4) at the Team GB versus Uruguay clash of Titans at the Millenium stadium and with sons 1,2 and 3 (there are no more as far as I am aware) at the Kayak Slalom finals at Lee Valley wild water rapids fun centre.

Then the following week I’m at the ladies high diving final with Cisco, the men’s handball semi finals with KCom (yea I know – I’ll tell you what handball is when I get back from holidays if I remember) and then finally I’m with BT Wholesale at the closing concert in Hyde Park on the Sunday.

Thanks for all the invites for what are very important relationship building networking occasions.

I did um and ah a little about revealing all these tidbits but what the heck. Life is for living.  The Olympics will not be here again in my lifetime and it is a useful way of building up to saying if anyone wants to invite me to the athletics at the Olympic Stadium itself then there is a fair chance they will become my new best pal. Preferably Mens 100m or 200m finals or any other blue riband event.

Catch you later, maybe…

Categories
Business storage backup & dr

Storage needs on the up

I did some backing up last night. As well as using Google+ for photos I store them on two hard drives kept at separate locations – one at home and one in the office.

The drive at home is 500GBytes and only has a few tens of gigs of space left. The one at work is a TeraByte palm drive and has plenty of room on it.

You may have noticed a bit of a theme to posts in recent weeks/months relating to the growth in storage requirements based on people taking more and more photos. As my home drive was starting to fill up I thought I’d revisit my usage pattern (if that’s the right way of putting it).

The chart below shows the amount of storage needed for photos and videos on a year by year basis. The early years are just noise. 2007 looks like a bit of an aberration – a rush of blood/new camera/special occasion maybe.

From there on there is a definite trend appearing. Remember that we are only half way through 2012 and I haven’t had my summer holiday yet. I am using the same camera technology thisyear as last with the exception that the Galaxy S3 has the burst mode which is naturally going to generate more Bytes.

Trefor Davies' growth in storage requirements for photos and videos

Categories
End User internet mobile connectivity olympics

Preps in place for the punters and their phones – London2012 Olympics

Usain Bolt - billions of fans want to see him win at the London 2012 OlympicsI’ve discussed what BT has done make sure the athletes, journos and hangers on have a great communications experience during the Olympics. That’s fine. For me though the biggest test is going to be what kind of experience we punters have.  There will be far more of us and we will be wanting to upload stuff and tweet just as much as the highest profile media type.

Continue reading “Preps in place for the punters and their phones – London2012 Olympics”
Categories
Apps competitions End User

Mobile Phone #Photo #Competition Shortlist – some great pics – get voting

It’s been a tough one but boy have we got some great pics in the trefor.net phone photo competition. The standard of entries was very high and the judges have had to be brutal in the shortlisting process.

For total transparency the judges were myself and Scott Wroe – Timico’s head of graphic design. Neither of us entered the competition ourselves. We had around 150 entrants and although I did suggest that we would have a separate class for “edited” photos in reality most of the entries were straight off the camera so we have bundled them all into one single mega category. If you entered but have been left out of the short list I’m sorry about that but we have tried to be as objective as we can.

I did get a few suggestions for a polling process but to keep things simple and to allow you to give your views on the photos I’ve decided that voting will take place using the “comment” method. In other words chose a single winner and leave a comment telling me which picture you think that winner should be. By all means tell us what you think or how you went about chosing that particular photo as your winner.

You have until 5pm Lincolnshire time on Friday 27th July which is when the Olympic games start and when I go on holiday. I will count up the votes at that time and tell you who the winner is.

One vote per person please. A person is defined by a discrete email address. By all means get your friends to vote for you. Please don’t abuse the process by conjuring up multiple email accounts and voting for yourself many times. This is a white hat blog and its readers are trusted.

I will award as many prizes as looks right. If there are 5 photos that get far more votes than the rest then there will be 5 prizes – Timico mugs. The standard of the competition has been so high that it merits a better first prize than the mug. I will take the winner out for a curry or simlar provided that person is within sensible easy reach. Perhaps we can meet in London or somewhere.

We have had entries from as far afield as India, Indonesia and New Zealand.  A meal out won’t be practical in these cases so if you win you will have to settle for the mug and the deep satisfaction of knowing that you have won a major international photographic competition which will be forever visible as long as this blog remains on the world wide web.

My thanks to all of you who took the trouble to enter and good luck to all those on the shortlist. Get voting…

PS I’ll sort out the prizes when I get back from holiday.

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Categories
broadband Business

FTTC Update – Light at the End of the Fibre (Almost)

gpo cabinet

GPO cabinet 10 in LincolnBT FTTC cabinet 10 in LincolnFibre broadband install

Looks like my FTTC cab is in situ at last – progress. I think I have found out why there is a delay to the fibre broadband install though. The old cabinet (number 10 in Lincoln) is full. There is no space to feed in any fibre tails so it is going to need a new and bigger pressed Aluminium cab fitting.

I got this from the Openreach engineer who has just been to sort something out for me. He checked the cab and indeed it was chocker.

The work involved in fitting the new one is just a couple ofGPO cabinet 10 in Lincoln - right next to a pedestrian crossing days but I guess that Openreach will have had to reapply for planning permission. To complicate matters the old cab is on the pavement right next to a school pedestrian crossing. There will be some umming and aahing in the planning department over this one.

In the first photo on the right you can see where they dug in the new duct work leading to the existing chamber on the corner – there is no way this cab would have fitted next to the existing one by the pedestrian crossing. Note of course the cab wasthe old GPO cabinet 10 in Lincoln probably there before the crossing – they used horses in them days.

The last photo is a close up of the “full” old cab. One does wonder why they didn’t apply for planning permission for the new shell at the same time as the new FTTC cab.

The planning permission bit is guess work but I’m probably not far off the money.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs surveillance & privacy

#DEAct continues to cause problems as Parliamentary joint committee highlights concerns with cost sharing mechanisms

The Digital Economy Act, which you may recall was rushed through by the last government with inadequate consultation in the desperate dying days of its tenure continues to create a stir. This time the joint committee on Statutory Instruments has strongly criticised the Draft Online Infringement (Initial Obligations) (Sharing of Costs) Order 2012 which Ofcom is also currently consulting on.

The Order has been brought by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) no doubt trying to clear the decks before they all shoot off to watch the London 2012 perform official duties at the olympics. In its report the joint committee says:

“This instrument is drawn to the special attention of the House on the grounds that it gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House and it may imperfectly achieve its policy objective“

Criticisms include:

  • Concern that the Order had been laid in the House whilst consultation was still ongoing and is not based on full information
  • Lack of detail from rights holders or a commitment that they would actually use the notification system to its fullest (what’s that all about? why would they go to so much effort to get a law passed to support their private business interest and then not use its powers?)
  • Insufficient evidence is provided to judge whether £20 “appeal fee” is the appropriate amount given that significant parts of the structure of the scheme and the appeal mechanism are still undecided.

The whole sad, sorry story continues.

PS thanks to ISPA for being around to constantly monitor this stuff. Someone has to read through and interpret the detailed legal blurb that comes out of Parliament.

Categories
Business business applications

Dell Vantage Club & Google+ instant uploader

view out of the dining room window of SoHo House club on Greek Street

Another interesting photographic weekend with the Galaxy S3. I was in Liverpool for a family party, staying at the Crowne Plaza on the Waterfront. Lots of photos – 3.3GB worth – 1,134 files. The hotel had a free option on its wifi, notionally for email & light browsing. I didn’t do any speed testing but when I got home, 150 or so of the pics had already been uploaded to Google+ using the free wifi and instant uploader.

This has to be the way to do it. You find your pics automatically backed up without thinking, as long as you chose the “wifi only” setting on the phone. The rest of the pics were taken off the phone before they had a chance to upload – I’ll have to adjust my “transfer policy” to give them time to upload.

me with me dear old MamThe inset photo is of me and me dear old Mam on Friday night at a private Davies dinner in the hotel. The header photo is the view from the private room at the SoHo House club on Greek Street in London Town. I was there for a Dell Vantage Club event where the topic of conversation was BYOD. I have to say I am becoming increasingly impressed with these Dell events. Dell is restricting the Vantage Club to 350 CIO/CTO types and it is a great forum for networking with others in the industry. I even bumped into a Timico customer there – great stuff.

PS I’m going to also have to start a policy of filtering the photos I keep on the laptop and offloading the rest to an external hard drive where they will provably never again see the light of day.