Author: Trefor Davies

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

Categories
End User gaming

The language of the XBox Live hack Call of Duty World at War Nazi Zombies

I have spent all my life learning new languages. It began with simultaneous Welsh and English, moved on to French and then on to Fortran, assembler and Basic.

After that came the language of business interspersed with Ethernet, Internet Protocol  and a thick compendium of acronyms long and short pertaining to the world of communications. It continues with social media – tweets, likes, hangouts, circles.

Now I find myself even having to understand the world of online gaming as my youngest son’s Xbox live account has been hacked. He was playing Nazi Zombies on Call of Duty: World at War and received a message on his screen saying “haha you’re dead” or words to that effect. His rank has also been reset and he can no longer play online because he needs to be level1.

Following me so far? I’m sure you are (dudes). Apparently he was in a “modded” lobby and the only thing you can do is send a complaint about the user seemingly doing the hacking and not use this type of lobby. If you find yourself in one by accident get the heck out of there quick via the centre guide button on the controller or turn of the system before the changes can be stored on THEIR servers or you will find yourself neg xp a second time.

You also need to watch out for “infection lobbies” and, for WaW the “God mode mod” where you will see players flying all over the map, who you can not kill no matter how much you shoot them. When you score a kill the score will be incorrect and things may display incorrectly on the HuD, too.

I hope that helps – always happy to provide advice. The only thing I’m not totally clear about is the fact that I think he has now lost the cash he (I) forked out in points to buy the game in the first place.

If I were you I wouldn’t let them play this sort of stuff but I‘m clearly not the best role model. You try dragging a kid away from the screen, innit.

Sorted.

Whateva.

Nng

Categories
End User scams

Pre recorded phone message scam on mobile

I just got a pre-recorded message spam on my mobile phone trying to sell me some kind of insurance or other %^&*.  Aaaaaargh. The number was of course withheld.

This is a public statement concerning the despicable nature of people that perpetrate this type of intrusive scam. You are in the same category as ACSLaw in terms of low life.

Rant over – if anyone else wants to get it off their chest here I will authorise all comments unless you swear too much and I find it overly offensive.

 

Categories
Apps End User mobile apps

Time is money

In the interest of research and proper use of the technology I followed the hashtag #londonriots. On Tweetdeck that hashtag stream is moving so quickly as to be not of any use. My own stream has, at a guess, 70% of tweets relating to the riots.

This is of course the complete other extreme to my offline experiences on holiday. People are clearly mesmerized by the whole situation. I can understand it – I was in Austin Texas during 9/11 and it was difficult to do anything other than watch events unfold on the TV. Today they combine TV and Twitter.

It does underline the way our lives have changed. This is an addiction to data. We take onboard so much information it is impossible to know what to do with it. In fact most of it is discarded which underlines the total waste of the time spent gathering it in the first place.

I could apply the same logic to photos. Last week on holiday I took 849 photos consuming 2.3GB disk space. That’s more than the 1.54GB (2,177 photos) as much as I took in the whole of 2003.  Year to date in 2011 I have taken 9,985 photos using 49.9GB of disk space and there is still almost half the year to go. Ok this does now include videos and the photos are of higher quality than in 2003 but it is still a big change and very representative of the information overload in our society.

The point is how to manage all this data and how to apportion the right amount of time to it. I still don’t have the answer but it is somewhere in between how I got on on holiday in Mull and the start of this week with all the online reporting of #londonriots. What I do know is that whoever cracks the problem, if there is a solution, is going to make a lot of money out of it.

Categories
End User internet

Holiday offline

our wild campsite on Mull

It seems a long time ago since I actually set off on my offline holiday. That is partly because it somewhat reaffirmed the third law of the internet. This is one where time goes far more quickly when you are using the internet.

Without the internet the pace of life is far more relaxing – proof is this video of Highland Cattle. They look pretty chilled to me and I bet not one of them has ever been online.

So what does a person do when not online? In no particular order reads a history of the UK after the Romans had left, plays scrabble with son, keeps a diary, goes walking in the hills, swimming in the loch, visits the Abbey at Iona and Fingal’s cave, picnics at Calgary Bay, camping in the hills around Loch Ba and at the shores of Fidden, has coffee on the terrace looking out over the bay at Tobermory, visits Duart Castle, sees red deer, roe deer, sea eagles, mountain hares, dolphins, minke whales, goes to bed when he feels like it and wakes up early, hears nothing but the sound of running water, the wind off the sea and the lapping of the waves on the beach, visits a distillery, sees cheese being made, visits the local agricultural show, sees sheepdogs in action, cattle and sheep being judged, talks to walking stick makers and traditional tartan cloth weavers, visits the Boathouse on Ulva, pitches the tent in the rain, takes the tent down in the rain, catches the sun and watches it set over the islands in the West, fights off midges, washes the dishes in the stream, hears the eagle chick cry out across the loch for food, eats well, drinks only water and tea made from the water taken from the stream, drives 6 miles off the road to the campsite, gets rides off a friendly farmer and an estate owner and dries walking boots in front of a log fire.

I’m back now but the time did not seem to race by and I feel as if I have had a long and great holiday. Whilst I have been away there have been global stockmarket crashes, riots in London, tanks rolling in in the Middle East. They should have all gone offline.

If you are going on holiday leave the internet behind. Nothing will really have changed when you get back.

Categories
End User internet

radio silence in 2011

It’s Friday, five thirty and the beginning of my summer holiday. This year it is split into two. A week camping at the beginning of August and a week surfing in the Gower at the end of August.

This first week is going to be an interesting one because the camping trip is going to involve absolutley no technology other than wheels to get us there and a map and compass to get us around. I’m off with son2 (kid3) to the Isle of Mull and there will in any case for the most part be very little connectivity even if we wanted it. It’s going to be social networking the old fashioned way.

I am going to be recording the trip using a pen and notebook with the once concession to technology being the digital camera. It almost feels as if I am about to parachute onto a different planet. Watch this space for the report on this sociological experiment, but not until I get back.

If you are taking some time off this summer then have a good holiday wherever you are whoever you are.

Categories
broadband Business

Wholesale Broadband Connect (ADSL2+): Latest BT Rollout Plans

The latest most up-to-the-moment skinny on BT’s plans for rolling out Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC), the company’s ADSL2+ product.

Just had an email from BT Wholesale announcing the intention to “significantly extend the availability of Wholesale Broadband Connect – copper to around 90 per cent of UK premises during Spring 2013. This means an additional 2.5 million premises will have access to up to 20Mb/s broadband (ADSL2+). The expansion of the rollout plan is set to bring the total number of UK homes and businesses with such access to roughly 22.5 million. “

The current WBC enabled exchanges serve more than 17.6 million premises. The up to 90% rollout plan is set to include more than 400 additional ‘rural’ exchanges, serving more than 900,000 ‘rural’ premises.

“As BT Wholesale expands the footprint for advanced copper broadband, as previously advised, it will gradually withdraw its legacy broadband products. For example, IPstream, which offers speeds of up to 8Mb/s will be retired within the advanced copper broadband footprint by Spring 2014, as more and more customers are migrated onto more advanced services.”

I’ve cut and pasted some more detail below in the form of questions.  BT has of course a business to run and the process of extending ADSL2+ to more exchanges is part of this. We shouldn’t forget that the ultimate goal should be to get fibre to every premises in the UK which in the short term does not necessarily stack up with the BT commercial proposition.

Q. Is your legacy broadband retirement plan connected to this ~90% rollout intention?

A.  They are not directly linked but do complement each other.  We are looking to withdraw legacy broadband services in line with falling demand whereas our next generation broadband services will roll out wherever it is commercially viable.  This extension to the rollout plan means that many more end users should be able to get next generation broadband services as traditional broadband services are retired.

Q.So what’s the latest position on BT Wholesale’s WBC advanced copper rollout plan? 

A. This table outlines our current plans*:

  Exchanges in WBC footprint Homes & businesses served from WBC- enabled  exchanges UKpenetration 
Enabled today (July 2011) 1,336 17.6m ~70%
“Up to 80%” announcement 1,804 20m ~80%
“Up to 90%” announcement 2,604 22.5m ~90%

* May be subject to change

 

 

 

 

Q. How many Market 1 exchanges have been enabled to date and how many lines do they serve?

A. This table outlines the Market 1 position*:

  Exchanges in Market 1 footprint  Homes & businesses served from WBC- enabled exchanges Market 1 penetration(nb Market 1 comprises 11.7% of UK lines)
Enabled today (July 11) 11 54.5k 1.88%
 “Up to 80%” 137 380k 12.82%
“Up to 90%” 539 1.32m 44.44%

* May be subject to change

 

 

Categories
Business Cloud competitions

Announcing the Timico fairy cake champion

Timico fairy cake competition

At Timico we now have a champion fairy cake maker to add to the long list of other cake making honours within theTimico fairy cake competition company.

This time the winner is engineer Stephen Burdock who spends his days sorting out  customer problems and clearly must spend some of his evenings practising his baking skills.

As usual the standard of entries was top notch and the produce is available to purchase at £1 each – all moneys to charity.

Thanks to the judges, including Powernet’s marketing manager John Heritage and to all the other entrants who put so much effort into the competition.

The picture on the right is a cross section of the winning cake before being demolished by the judges. It’s nice to see blokes winning these competitions:)

Categories
Business Cloud datacentre

Hot off the Hollywood press – new video of the Timico Newark data center in progress


The video stars Timico Technology Group Chairman Tim Radford talking about the plans for the data center business.

Categories
Business Cloud datacentre

Timico Data Center Build Update – The Inside Story

Timico HQ

Progress is rapid with the new data center build. In fact I was to some extent lulled into a false sense of pace (if that’s the right way of putting it) because the photo I take every day from the same spot didn’t seem to be changing much.
rear view of new Timico data center build
Casting my photographic net on the other side of the building however gave a completely different picture and on Friday afternoon I wandered down, hard hat and all to take a look. I’ve take a few shots that give quite a good feel for what is going to be delivered in the new build. This first photo is a ground floor view of the rear.

The generators have not been delivered yet but one will go on concrete plinths either side of the central column.

front view of new Timico data centerMoving round the front there is still a big hole in the middle. They are still moving a lot of materials in. This should be covered up within the next couple of weeks.

The big central opening on the top floor will be where the Timico board room is going to be.

Moving inside we have a plant room and views of the first data hall. This will house 72 x 4KW racks using cold aisle containment and free air cooling – this should mean that for substantial parts of the year we don’t need to power the air conditioning.

Timico Data center plant roomTimico data center data hall 1

Were the facility to be exclusively used for hosting virtualised services then the capacity of each rack
can be as high as 100TeraBytes.

In reality the capacity is very much dependent on the mix of resources you have in the rack – high speed/expensive drives versus bigger. This is very much dependent on the application.

under the floor of the new Timico data centerTimico data centre data hall 2 under construction

The shot on the left here shows the flooring under construction. The floor tiles are heavy duty as the floor has to support a considerable weight of the fully loaded racks above.

You don’t wanbt to move a full rack if you can help it, at least not without the use of a fork lift truck.

first floor engineering offices in new Timico Data center NOC at Timico data center under construction

Upstairs on the first floor we have the development engineering offices (left) and the Network Operations Centre.

You can see the raised floor again in the NOC though this does not need to be as heavy duty as in the data halls on the ground floor. The end wall will be flat and covered in monitoring screens.

To finish off here are a couple of photos of me with a view of the existing Timico HQ building from the top floor of the new and one stood on the actual floor of the data hall to give some perspective.

Trefor Davies in the new Timico data center buildingTrefor Davies stood next to the raised floor of a data center hall

There are a few more photos below including ones I consider to be quite arty 🙂 if you are interested.

Continue reading “Timico Data Center Build Update – The Inside Story”
Categories
broadband Business

FTTC Broadband Cabinets – The Inside Scoop! – As Never Seen Before

FTTC cabling under the "manhole"

Yesterday’s post showing new photos of FTTC broadband cabinets prompted a flurry of off-blog communication. The photos are of the the larger FTTC with a capacity for 200 pairs using 4 * 100 pr SMPF connections.

The smaller cabinet has only 2 * 100 pr so has a capacity of 100 pairs. I have been very kindly sent some drive by (walk by) photos of the insides of a smaller cab taken when BT engineers were doing some work. The photos are of both FTTC and PCP cabs showing the cable pairing capacity/wiring loom.

Openreach engineers working at an FTTC cabinet inside a small FTTC cabinet

inside a small FTTC cabinet inside a small FTTC cabinet

 

 

 

FTTC cabinet wiring

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
broadband Engineer

FTTC Broadband Cabinet Update – New Photos

The photos I have been using for FTTC broadband cabinets were just not the right ones.  Thanks to reader Andrew Benham I have been able to rectify this and include below some new ones for your pleasure and entertainment.  I particularly like the one with the smaller older cabinet which is not FTTC, buried in the undergrowth. Don’t ask me why, it’s a personal thing.

You can see there is a significant size difference between the two types of cab. Click on each photo, including the one in the post header for bigger versions.  FTTC is the most popular subject for searches on this blog.

 

photos:  Andrew Benham who has kindly offered then on a copyright free basis

Categories
Cloud End User security

The Pocket Cloud (Innovation #1259) – Security Issues Answered

The Pocket Cloud…business critical data storage in a secure USB-connected non-wireless device.

the pocket cloud

the pocket cloud

The fiendishly clever engineers at my place of work have come up with a new innovation, The Pocket Cloud (pat pending TM applied for etc), a highly innovative means of storing important business critical content in a totally secure manner.

Built in security features include an USB connection – this is a totally wireless free device which completely eliminates drive by data theft.

The Pocket Cloud comes with “uber” portability as it fits neatly into your pocket and can easily be removed from an office location whenever there is a flood/fire/earthquake (delete as appropriate – other forms of disaster are available). It should be incorporated into every Disaster Recovery plan.

At times of Disaster The Pocket Cloud also has a secondary role as a cloud based stress ball thereby satisfying Health and Safety requirements as well as those of IT.

If you have any questions or are desirious of acquiring a Pocket Cloud please get in touch.

Categories
Business Cloud online safety Regs

The Google View of the Forthcoming UK Comms Regulatory Landscape #deappg

Google’s Sarah Hunter impresses at the Communications Bill Forum.

Google’s Head of UK Public Policy, Sarah Hunter was a breath of fresh air at last week’s Communications Bill Forum.  Firstly she was one of the few speaking without just reading out a prepared speech. It can get boring listening to someone reading out their notes.

Secondly she offered a perspective based on a platform as opposed to most of the other speakers who were largely either content providers or  pipes.

  1. The government should not make policies that favour specific industries without considering the wider impact elsewhere.
  2. Open platforms should be protected – both content and pipes need them and they are expensive to build and maintain
  3. Keep a sensible approach to data protection. In other words allow targeted advertising.  The direction the EU is going is not good in this respect.
  4. Encourage and promote investment in computer science and engineering – engineers are taking over the world.
  5. Concentrate on consumer education – digital literacy and consumer empowerment. In other words keep kids safe online by education (and not mandatory web filtering – my words).
As always we have to strike a balance and how well the government does this will greatly influence how UK industry thrives online Her first point was a reference to the proportionality of the Digital Economy Act.
The data protection issue is a difficult one.  Whether they like it or not I get the feeling that the long term future of revenue generating for businesses operating online, certainly for content providers, is going to be substantially driven by advertising.
If this is the case then the advertising model needs to be one that works for all parties, including consumers and this either means we accept the degree of “intrusion” being sought by the likes of Google, Phorm et al or we very carefully define what is and isn’t permissible. Not the subject of a short blog post but perhaps one that might usefully be covered in a 2 year debate running up to the next Communications Bill.
Categories
Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Priorities for the new Communications Bill #deappg BSkyB Guardian Google

I attended a Forum last week entitled “The industry priorities for the new Communications Bill”. We were given a ten minute talk by representatives from each of the BBC, C4, COBA (Commercial Broadcasters Assoc), Wall to Wall (independent media prod’n), Virgin Media, Google, BSkyB, BT, ITV, UKTV, Mobile Broadband Group, Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (ie video games) and Guardian Media Group. Quite top heavy with content production.

It is interesting to note that in the last Communications Act (2004) the word internet does not appear. This may be because the government of the day wanted to avoid regulation in a nascent market – let it grow unhindered. Whilst the talk is still of light touch and self regulation I can’t help get the feeling that this time round there is a big shadow of government looming over the proceedings.

A few themes came out of the meeting.

The market needs to provide a level playing field that allows competition and encourages investment. This may include addressing issues that allows UK plc to compete in a global market – regulation overseas is often different to that in the UK and can cause difficulties for UK companies trying to operate globally.

Some content providers were calling for increased regulation to protect Intellectual property. There were interesting contrasts here:

David Wheeldon of BSkyB believed that the government should go further than it had in the DEAct to combat IP piracy and seemed to robustly reject some aspects of the Hargreaves Report (“it should be up to Rights Holders not government to decide how to exploit their IP”).

On the other hand Andrew Miller, CEO of the Guardian Media Group recognised that content provider organisations needed to adapt to the changes in modern technology and society to survive. For example in the UK The Guardian is seen as the 3rd or 4th biggest newspaper. However the Guardian websites gets 50 million unique visitors a month and is a recognised and trusted global source of comment and opinion. The Guardian Media Group is clearly trying to move with the times.

If I were the government putting this Bill together I would be focussing on what will help UK plc to grow in the global market and to avoid making it in the words of Google’s Head of UK Public Policy, Sarah Hunter “a dumping ground for regulations as appears to have been the case with the Digital Economy Act”.

There are 2 years of deliberations before this Bill makes it to law. We need to make sure that we get this one right and not leave it to a last minute indecent rush as happened with the DEAct.

Categories
competitions End User

#Beckham baby named Harper Seven – defeats all name competition entrants

I’m thrilled to tell you that the Beckhams have named their baby daughter Harper Seven. Nobody came close to guessing this. Becks has played a canny game here as he knew people were thinking of place names. Instead he went for a time – he is quoted as saying “It’s about time we had a girl”.

The actual birth was, I thought 07.55am so either the Beckhams have gone for the nearest obvious name (who ever heard of a girl called seven fifty five?), their clock was wrong at the actual time of naming or half past seven was the time of conception.
We may never find out.

What is sure is that the England ladies football team will be looking forward to 2029 when Harper (or it be Seven?) will be eligible to play. She may of course opt to play for the country of her birth. By then it will probably be down to who is offering the most lucrative sponsorship contracts but hey, that is for the future.

For now let us all join in congratulating the Beckham family on their new addition and hope that in these exciting early days they are given the appropriate degree of privacy. Those of us who also have kids know how hard it can be to keep looking good after being up half the night feeding the kid and changing nappies (diapers).

There is no competition winner but I am pleased to provide a prize for @18days for letting me know the name and @timcoop3r for providing me with a link to the BBC website carrying the news of the name. If you guys want to let me have your postal details I’ll send you a mug each 🙂

Categories
Business Regs surveillance & privacy

And the winner is – ISPA Internet Hero and Villain

I am pleased to report that this year’s Internet Hero is Professor Ian Hargreaves. His report on the problems associated with online copyright infringement was a sensible measured work that has been well received by many.

The villain is ACS Law/Andrew Crossley. Nuff said.

The awards were announced at the 2011 ISPA Awards held last night at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in town. As usual I was there. As usual I have pre written this post as I will not have the chance or inclination to write it in the morning.

There were some good candidates for the Hero and it took some discussion. The villain was an easy one to chose. May he rot forever in ignominy.

Categories
competitions End User

Guess the name of the Beckham baby competition – big prize

I don’t know about you but I’m a big fan of the Beckhams and have been following all the latest news about the imminent birth of their fourth baby. I’m a big softie really.

Anyway we have been speculating around the office as to what the name might be. Milton Keynes,  Northampton, or even Peckham? Of course I’m not sure I even know what sex it is going to be (even though I have MarieClaire and Hello Magazine bookmarked) although that probably won’t matter when it comes to a name.

So in the interest in participating in the fun around the birthday I have decided to run a guess the baby’s name competition. Please enter your guesses as comments. The winner will receive a fine Timico mug in the post. I’m sure that this will be something they will cherish as a memento of the birth for years to come.

On this occasion, because it is such a happy event, entries are also open to Timico employees, their families and anyone they have ever met – even very casual acquaintances  whose name you can’t actually remember.

I’m looking forward to following the birth live on Twitter – If I know those clever folks at @hellomag they will have secured the tweeting rights. Follow the #hellomag or #beckhambaby hashtags to stay up to the minute with all the contractions (or incisions).

To get the ball rolling I am going to suggest Brian if it is a boy and Catherine if it is a girl. Good luck. It’s a great mug to win. Note if there are any issues re spelling etc my decision is final 🙂

PS I wonder if the Beckhams would like a Timico mug. They always come in handy you know and with 4 kids…

PPS I met David Beckham once you know at the launch of Virgin Media Business – photo here.

 

Categories
End User internet

The technology / family life balance

An international study into how we interact with technology, led by the University of Cambridge, has found that a third of parents feel modern communications technology is disruptive to family life, and that one in three people have felt overwhelmed to the point of needing to escape from modern communications technologies.

Coincidentally this is a subject I have been giving some thought to myself, partly because when you have your head buried in a computer/phone/iPad life seems to whizz by (see original research output on the 3rd Law of the Internet).

The pace of life need slowing down so that we can enjoy our environment and our families before the axeman cometh!!

I have already been culling social networking platforms – my 4sq, Scoville & Empire Avenue accounts are being left to wither and die. Facebook is retained for the moment for contact with the family. Google+ is emerging but as you may know though, Twitter is king.

Part of the problem is that I want to minimise the time my kids spend zombie like in front of screens – if I am one of those zombies – or at least a deaf mute – I don’t have a strong argument. Screens do not equal balanced family life with kids happily out playing sports, doing their homework or practising musical instruments in other rooms whilst we grown-ups get on with useful and fulfilling adult tasks, basking in our success as parents1.

We, the world, have not yet worked out the optimum technology/life balance – probably because the right technology is not there yet. The organisations that provide the platforms to do this (I use the plural because we need this to be a competitive arena) will be big winners. We may already know their names but I am not sure we can say for certain who they are.

If you are a Twitter follower and wonder why there are henceforth gaps in my tweets of an evening it is almost certainly because I have started to read Britain after Rome by Robin Fleming.

I have hundreds of books in my house and part of the life balance process is to read real books again. Of course my wife can’t really differentiate between books and computers – I still don’t hear her when I am reading! Hmm 🙂

1 Look I know this isn’t what happens in real life but you all know what I do for a living – I have my head right up there in the clouds.  In the meantime look out for my next post on Google+ 🙂

 

Categories
End User social networking

Hanging out with the boys on Google+ @ruskin147 @Billt @jeffjarvis

Tried a couple of impromptu hangouts on Google+ over the weekend. The first was one hosted by BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and was prompted by one of his tweets.

This, my first hangout, was seriously easy to join. Because it was my first I had to download a Chrome plug-in but this happened in the time it took me to move from the noisy TV room to the quiet serenity of the conservatory, a place far more suited to a video conference.

The photo shows the hangout with RC-J (@ruskin147), @billt and @jeffjarvis. The only difficulty was deciding who would be the next person to talk as all 4 of use are fairly verbose individuals but this seemed to happen easily enough.

hangout screenshot courtesy of @ruskin147

I attempted another hangout with @superglaze later using my mobile phone but the google+ plug-in for Android is either understandably not as complete as the website or not yet as easy to navigate.

Google+ is easy to access from gmailGoogle+ is an attempt to steal Facebook thunder. It is late to the game and although it is still very much early days I can already see ways where it would be far more useful to me than Facebook.

Firstly it is easily accessible from gmail, which I always have open on one of my screens. Also it isn’t difficult to see Webex style collaboration being added to the functionality in future. I can already share documents in Google Docs and have side conversations using Instant Messaging.

I have also disabled email notifications for most of my social media activity to cut down on clutter but Google+ notifications appear discretely on my gmail screen which is far more acceptable.Google+ notifications arrive discretely in your main gmail screen

It’s a no brainer for personal use and certainly out competes Skype for the small business. I’m not yet sure whether it would fit with control and compliance requirements for larger businesses although Google Docs has some high profile advocates such as the Daily Telegraph Group.

Seeing as I was there I took a bit more of a look round my Google Docs account. I can now rent 20GB of cloud storage a year for $35. I have never considered doing it before but actually may change my mind. I would probably want more than 20GB but as a backup to my external hard drive for family photos sounds like a reasonable cost.

Although it is early days for this new platform I get the feeling in my waters that Google+ will become the Facebook for grown ups. I seldom use Facebook now (ok,  ok I know I’m not really a grown up) other than for keeping in touch with the kids.

Facebook has announced that it will be making a big announcement on Wednesday – apparently around offering an embedded Skype service. Microsoft owns Skype and a chunk of Facebook. It doesn’t take a big leap of the imagination to see Microsoft buying the rest of Facebook (v expensive mind) as part of its hitherto not so successful march into the cloud. It would also give Microsoft a better chance of succeeding in the mobile space as integration with a Facebook based online platform would give it more of an equivalence to Google and could potentially drive far more consumers to using Windows Phone 7 on Nokia – whenever that comes out.

This is about big business with very big bets on the table.  Exciting times and for most of us whilst we aren’t the ones placing all the bets it is easy to feel part of the game because all this technology touches us. I certainly feel as if I am catching the wave.

Categories
End User social networking

Initial thoughts on Google+

Received an invite to Google + yesterday (many thanks to James Fairweather). Initial thoughts are that it could have potential.  The homepage format is not too dissimilar to Facebook but it seems to be easier to find contacts and the Circles feature looks as if I might be able to easily filter who gets what information. I have already deleted one circle though as I don’t think I can manage too many.

Slight cautionary note and that is when you sign up to the mobile version it assumes by default that you want to upload every photo taken on your phone and allow access to your location. The former could work out very expensive and the latter I am uncomfortable with.  I unchecked both boxes.

Not going to say much more at this point as invitations are still switched off and I think I need more than three contacts on Google+ to have an informed view as to how good a platform it is.  Also if hardly anyone else is on it then I wouldn’t want to be seen to be gloating (well probably not) to those who aren’t.

Categories
broadband Business

BT Calling Time on 20CN Broadband #ipstream #datastream #retirement

I learned today that BT Wholesale is taking steps to phase out 20CN broadband products IP Stream and Datastream and is entering discussions with industry (ie me & others) re the future of SDSL.  I don’t think there were many Datastream based ISPSs (Tiscali being one that springs to mind) but the withdrawal of IP Stream  is good news for the many in the country whose broadband speeds are “up to 8Mbps” max.

The replacement will be based on 21CN technologies that include ADSL2+ ( “up to 24Mbps”) and FTTC (“up to 40Mbps) though if you live in an area that is only currently served with 8Megs I wouldn’t get your hopes up re the latter.

BT expects to have completed the withdrawals/migrations by the spring of 2014. It will go like a shot.

Whilst not part of the communication from BT I understand that the drivers for the change are partly equipment obsolescence and partly to stop spending cash on a 20CN network that still has growing demand.  Vendor support for the ADSL DSLAM kit is stopping and it doesn’t make sense to invest in the older more expensive 20CN network when to do so for 21CN is better all round.

ISPs like Timico will have plenty of time to migrate customers from one technology to the other and I imagine that these customers will by and large be eager to make the change.

SDSL is likely to be replaced by FTTC/FTTP.  There are far fewer exchanges supporting SDSL than ADSL and these will almost certainly be in more densely populated areas and near to businesses.

More news on this in due course and as necessary.

Footnote 1/7/11

Looks like I read the briefing in haste – so here is a leisurely repentance. Datastream is going UK wide.  IP Stream is only going within the WBC footprint. This means if you are an 8Mbps user in an area that already supports 24Mbps you will have to move over whether you like it or not.

Unfortunately for those on the digital  periphery it means that you will probably continue to get your old service.  Sorry to get anyone’s hopes up.

 

Categories
Business online safety piracy Regs security

SilkRoad FTTC and Bitcoin!

Interesting to note that 8 out of the top ten keywords for visitors to this blog over the last month have been related to either FTTC or silkroad with 4 each.

I can understand the FTTC interest and I was an early writer on this subject so get decent Google rankings. As far as SilkRoad goes either there is not much written out there about the subject or there are huge numbers of people trying to find out more about it – human nature I guess!

As far as Bitcoin goes the underground currency seems to have recovered following the Mt. Gox crash. My original source for info seems to have stopped publishing at the time of the crash – 19th June. However it is now visible elsewhere and is trading at not far off the levels seen at Mt.Gox before the crash (for what it’s worth!).

PS whilst the two subjects seem totally separate FTTC and SilkRoad do obviously inhabit the same online universe. People will be using FTTC to access Bitcoin trading sources. I’m not sure that we will ever see the day when BT accepts payment for FTTC using Bitcoin though.

Categories
End User social networking

Is #Google+ going to be the answer to my social media management problems?

The Twitter stream started up this morning with a favoured few people talking about their initial reactions to Google+. This is the new Facebook competitor from Google. I am not on the Google+ trials. There is a modicum of envy in this post but not too much.

I want to play with Google+ as a new toy. Something that will allow me to drop into conversation “Oh haven’t you got it yet? I’ll see if I can get you an invite” 🙂

However there is also an element of trepidation.  “Oh no not another social networking platform”.

Clearly Google wants a competitor to Facebook that will stop any erosion of marketing money away from its own coffers. Not so far back it tried Google Wave, the new email experience. As I recall it was meant to be a step in the Facebook direction. That product was far too clunky and I dropped it very quickly. I don’t know anyone that uses it now.

The initial comments from the cognoscenti (ie those give trial accounts) seem favourable but notwithstanding this  I truly hope that it will be easy to populate a friends list.  I spent a long time tracking down old friends on Facebook and the idea of having to rebuild the list on a new platform seems daunting to the point of not wanting to do it.  Somehow though I can’t see Facebook just letting Google extract a whole data set in order to make it easier for them to compete.

My networked life is now partitioned thus:

  • Twitter is my main means of communication – to the extent that my next batch of business cards will only read “@tref”. It’s all anyone should need to find me.
  • Facebook is constrained to people I actually know and in truth I now only use it to keep in touch with my kids
  • LinkedIn – I have changed my views on LinkedIn. This site has evolved and I can see that it could be quite a useful business tool.  I don’t use it much and in fact I don’t see why a super platform that allowed me to have a single list of friends but enables me to partition them into work and play should not be possible. Might Google+ be this? Don’t know yet but it would get around the need to have too many sites to manage.

Otherwise the other communications methods available to me are Microsoft Exchange email for work and gmail for trefor.net (play!?”).  My phone integrates both these platforms including contacts. It can also do the same for Facebook and LinkedIn. I already find multiple address book entries an issue though. Using a single social networking platform would get around this.

So there you go.  I want Google+ to be Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all in one giving me a single platform to manage everything including my emails.

Who thinks this is what Google+ is going to be? I guess we will find out soon enough. You can put a request to be a trialist here.

 

Categories
End User social networking surveillance & privacy

My personal guidelines for following people on Twitter

I have been using Twitter for over three years now. Although there seems to be a huge industry and ecosystem building up around the platform I view it all simply as

  1. an alternative to a newspaper (I often hear news first on Twitter) and
  2. a social networking tool – basically what it says on the tin.

Whilst there is no real science as to how I go about using Twitter I have surprised myself and evolved a few rules of thumb to help manage my timeline.

By and large I only follow people, not businesses – usually characterised by “we are having an offer on left handed widgets this week” or similar. This is not a hard rule because there are some businesses there that I take an interest in – competitors and suppliers typically. It might also be a business local to where I live. Sometimes these factors outweigh the fact that their tweets might not be that interesting.

I also typically don’t follow people who are clearly trying to sell me something; “marketing experts”, “financial services experts” or people offering “advice to business”. Usually the timelines of these twitter accounts have one way selling advice/messages. I have sometimes taken a gamble here and found that I made a mistake (eg timeline gets filled with advice, often repeats) and subsequently unfollowed that person. Usually they unfollow me back very soon after. This isn’t a personal thing.

Basically I feel it is a two way street. Normal people that I can have normal conversations with are ok. So if someone follows me who is a “normal person” I follow them back after taking a look at their tweets. I often come across people I follow through specific hashtags (eg #deappg, #deact or #digitalbritain). Birds of a feather and all that.

I sometimes follow people who then don’t follow me back. This is ok – I have taken to following people who’s judgement / comments I am interested in. I don’t look for reciprocity though it is nice if they do follow back.

I tend not to follow celebrities. Usually they have enough followers anyway and are unlikely to be particularly interested in engaging with me.

I recently started to look to see who was unfollowing me, largely to try and understand whether I was annoying people (I’m a great believer in live and let live – life is too short to go round being an irritant). The vast majority are the businesses and “experts” who I haven’t followed back recently – a result really. No harm done.

Sometimes normal people unfollow me. This does make you think a bit but actually in real life you don’t make friends with everyone you know – some people just don’t gell. It’s normal and it must be said that not everyone can cope with the stream of drivel that sometimes comes out of @tref. My Twitter stream is just an extension of my personality – like it or lump it.

It’s a simple philosophy. I am here to engage and to learn and to have fun and occasionally to promote my blog posts and my business. That’s all folks.

Categories
End User social networking

Man flings bling in farewell to 4sq – renounces location based networking

I, Trefor Davies, being of sound mind and disposition, hereby declare that I have deleted the Foursquare app from my Samsung Galaxy S2 and intend to take no further active role with said location based social media platform.

This act, performed arguably whilst I was on a roll – ranking 4th amongst my contemporaries and rising in the 4sq table, is done to save my sanity and that of my children and to free up a significant portion of my weekend, recently dedicated to “checking in” at every location I thought I could get away with without being blamed for “rapid fire checkins”.

There are a number of reasons for this highly public (visible to everyone on the planet with an internet connection) position statement.

  • Firstly I found myself stopping the car outside places just in order to be able to check in. This even extended to taking detours to places that I had not previously checked in to in order to get bonus points for new locations.
  • Secondly I found myself more and more regularly checking in to places only to find messages telling me I was lying (your phone doesn’t think it is anywhere near said place). This happened a few times over the weekend including Sunday afternoon when I was sat in the snug of The Strugglers pub on Westgate in Lincoln (I am mayor of The Strugglers – not as difficult a feat as it might sound as you only need to have visited somewhere twice to achieve this status). My efforts to “play” were being undermined by the unreliability of either the 4sq platform or its relationship with the mobile networks.
  • Thirdly my kids were starting to get annoyed & were playing the neglectful parent card, the little rascals.

I started the 4sq journey to see where it would take me. My conclusion is that it is too oriented in favour of the venue. There is nothing , beyond the dubious kudos of being mayor, provided in return for checking in. I see some venues offering a free desert, or half price coffee etc for the mayor. Achieving mayoral status in many places means going there every day – the competition is the daily commuter stopping at a coffee shop to pick up his or her caffeine fix. It is not for the faint hearted.

As the market mature and (if) usage increases this may change but for me for now it ain’t working.

So days out with the kids are now restored to being days out with the kids. I am returning my mayoral trappings (ie bling) and reveal that the following places are up for grabs:

Lincoln Rugby Club, Lincoln Cathedral (probably the hardest one to let go – what a catch), The Bailgate Methodist Church (check-ins whilst picking up from scouts), Whisby Nature Reserve, The Morning Star, Fenella Beach, Peel Breakwater, The Grove (all 3 done whilst on holiday in the Isle of Man), The Strugglers, Newark Beacon, Timico, Super Hand Car Wash, Activities Away and The Eastgate Tennis Club.

I was on the verge of a few more mayorships after last weekend but someone else can have them too. Farewell Foursquare, farewell.

Categories
Business events

Timico annual watersports evening and BBQ

Timico Kayaking polo team captain Gemma Jankiewicz carries the ball

Trefor Davies at the Timico annual watersports and barbecue eveningLast Timico annual watersports and barbecue eveningnight we had our annual Timico watersports and BBQ evening. Another highly successful bash I must say.  The weather was somewhat damp to start off but seeing as everyone was going to get wet anyway it didn’t matter and the sun came out before we started the barbecue bit.

The format is becoming settled. We all jump in and get wet – ideally making stupid noises and impressive summersaults (nil points generally for the latter).  Then we have a go at seal launches on sit on top kayaks.  After that we crack on with team competitions.

This year it was a kayaking polo match with team captains Gemma Jankiewicz and Katie Nicholas leading the way.  At the risk of boring you with work stuff I have to say that Gemma and Katie are great examples of our graduate recruitment scheme working to everyone’s advantage.

Finally, when we are all plum tuckered out we retire to the deck for a barbecue and a few tinnies, unless of course one is driving in which case a cup of tea is fine 🙂

That’s all.  Last photos are of Gemma (left) and Katie (right) and Simon Spear (I think) scoring a goal – not the winning one – that would have been me a little later on 🙂

gemma jankiewicz Timico Timico kayak polo in actionkatie nicholas

 

Categories
Business internet online safety Regs

ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum – ISPs likely to promote opt in parental controls to block kids access to porn

Attended the ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum this week. The debate, sponsored by Claire Perry MP was on the subject of online child protection. The issue, as previously posted (just search for Claire on this site), is that Claire Perry wants ISPs to block access to pornographic websites by default, requiring people who want to go to these sites to opt in.

This must have been one of the most informed debates I have been to with an A-Z of stakeholders (100+ people) present ranging from what looked like the committee of the local parish church, academics, libertarians, ISPs, MPs, security technology vendors, press, child safety organisations etc etc.

Several things stuck in my mind:
Internet Minister Ed Vaizey and MP Claire Perry emphasised their position that ISPs need to do something to protect kids or they will legislate.

Many references to studies on the effect of pornography on children were made.

Continue reading “ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum – ISPs likely to promote opt in parental controls to block kids access to porn”
Categories
bitcoin Business

Bitcoin currency crash due to problems at Mt.Gox exchange

The Bitcoin currency suffered a huge overnight crash in value at the Mt. Gox exchange. An announcement on the exchange forum says “One account with a lot of coins was compromised and whoever stole it (using a HK based IP to login) first sold all the coins in there, to buy those again just after, and then tried to withdraw the coins. The $1000/day withdraw limit was active for this account and the hacker could only get out with $1000 worth of coins.

Apart from this no account was compromised, and nothing was lost. Due to the large impact this had on the Bitcoin market, we will rollback every trade which happened since the big sale, and ensure this account is secure before opening access again.”

So everything should get back to normal then… For the moment my money stays in the shoe box under the bed!

I covered Bitcoin last week in my post about Silk Road. The folks at Mt.Gox are rolling back to a pre crash position so people should not lose any money.

See below to see the “crash”. Clicking on the photo will take you to the server showing previous trading history of Bitcoin.

bitcoin trading valuation chart at Mt.Gox

Categories
broadband Business

FTTx Update – BT Superfast Broadband Will Soon Surpass 5 Million Homes

At some point in the coming month BT’s superfast broadband service will surpass the 5 million home mark.

I’ve been a bit quiet on the fibre updates recently. I just sat in on a BT conference call on the subject. BT is contemplating changing the frequency specification on its “superfast” broadband product which will bring speeds potentially up to 80Mbps instead of the current 40Mbps.

I questioned whether this would reduce the reach of the service but apparently it increases it. The issues are potentially higher levels of cross talk and interference on lines but the higher frequency position is the standard that has been adopted elsewhere in the EU – must be ok then.

For punters it shouldn’t make any difference as BT is likely to specify both services at the same level. In other words they will say 80Megs and the underlying delivery technology will be irrelevant. This won’t quite be true because those benefitting from FTTP should get the stated maximum throughput whilst the FTTC lines will average out at a lower speed over their copper lines.

The current FTTP trials have slipped by 6 months. This is down to the odd technical hitch but also whilst BT gets a better handle on the delivery costs. By the end of the trials they should be in a position to decide what is the most cost effective technology. I can’t imagine it will be FTTP but am prepared to be pleasantly surprised. As it stands BT is currently sticking to its position that it will use FTTP for exchange fed lines and FTTC for cabinet fed with 25% of lines in areas where BT has targeted for FTTP being FTTP.

In the near term it won’t really make much difference to end users which flavour they get. Their usage behaviour doesn’t seem to change much whether they have 40Megs FTTC or 100Megs FTTP. This does suggest that the world has not yet produced services that need the faster speed. However build it and they will come, as the saying goes.
BT expects to pass its 5 millionth home with superfast broadband by the end of June 2011.

Categories
datacentre End User phones

Smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S2 vs. HTC Desire HD

HTC Desire HDPeople who know suggested I should move phone operations from HTC Desire HD to Samsung Galaxy S2 so I have. My main motivation (and you have to take this as read) is not to just have the latest and greatest gadget. Things are moving so quickly in the tech world that I need to stay in touch with the art of the possible. It would also be a good exercise in seeing how easy it was to do the migration.

In reading this post you have to consider that I am not a gadget freak and I don’t spend my life understanding the nuances of different versions of OS or processor hardware specifications. I may therefore make mistakes in setting up a new phone that the geek would not but in this I can’t be any different to most people. My other criterion for success is that I shouldn’t have to rtfm, ie have to look something up in the online support.

I have two benchmarks for comparison – the HTC Desire HD and the iPad both of which broke new ground for me.  iPad was very easy to set up but has clear deficiencies and the HTC represented a learning curve in smartphone tech.

The features I use most on the HTC are Tweetdeck, Dropbox, camera, voice recorder, internet and gallery, mail, calendar, sms and foursquare with a smattering of Bambuser,and ESPN (seasonally) thrown in. I use the internet rather than plugins to access Facebook (keep in touch with my kids) and LinkedIn (rarely) as I haven’t found these plug ins to be much cop. For some reason I don’t use the phone for Empire Avenue and I’m actually currently struggling to get my brain round why I might want to access that particular network.

So in moving from HTC Android to Samsung Android it would be useful for me to see how seamless

Continue reading “Smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S2 vs. HTC Desire HD”