Category: End User

End User

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charitable End User Regs Weekend

Donating Stem Cells (Part II)

It’s the final countdown.

I am writing this expecting my first of four daily injections of granuloycte colony stimulating factor, or “GCSF” anytime soon. A nurse appointed by the Anthony Nolan Trust will seek me out in London / at home and administer a drug which will get them stem cells moving out of my bone marrow into my blood stream ready for the aphoresis machine to filter them out for the adult lady with leukemia who is in desperate need of them.

Unfortunately, on that front, apparently she now has an infection, so they’ve had to stop her build up to treatment. This faced the medics with a bit of a Sophie’s choice apparently. They can cryogenically preserve my stem cells until she’s fit and well enough to receive them (and risk some of them being damaged in the process), or delay the harvest but hope all the planets align with the timings – not just my availability but a 6 day collection cycle which given predictions of narrow windows of opportunity when she may be well enough had to be traded against the slightly more optimal nature of the procedure.

The medical boffins went with the latter, so I am about to be injected and will still donate on Wednesday/Thursday.

Fitting this around work is interesting though……. well, I mean it’s fine Saturday/Sunday, I am just waiting on a nurse to pitch up, but when you are lead in your company for a litigation and the court hearing is on the Monday and Tuesday before the donation, things get interesting.

I know I, and others, can sometimes get down on the former incumbent in our industry….. and its regulator, and sometimes even the judiciary. In this case though, I have to express my extreme gratitude to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom for making the “Robing Room” available for the injections and BT offering their break-out room for the same if need be.

Many of you will have read the first article on this I posted here; and many of your have made or pledged financial support to Anthony Nolan Trust via JustGiving or otherwise. Importantly though, I am pleased to say that this story has encouraged at least 2 people so far to register themselves as potential donors – in amongst all this, and especially amongst the worrying news about the recipient, it’s truly heartening!

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Categories
End User online safety social networking

eTagged.me – you are a pest & @LinkedIn should know better

eTaggedmeI got an email from LinkedIn saying ‘ “xxxxx” (name withheld)  has requested to provide them with some feedback based on their personality using the short link below’.

Apparently eTagged.me, according to them, is “a new way to identify yourself to the world including ratings & reviews from your peers that shows how awesome you are”.

They look dodgy to me. A link was very handily provided for me to unsubscribe from further emails. This link seemed to be from eTagged me but I had to insert my LinkedIn password to unsubscribe. !!!!!

This is totally outrageous. I never asked them for the email in the first place and they want me to give them my LinkedIn credentials to stop them sending me any more junk.

I’ve reported them to LinkedIn. I also looked at their website. There is an email address but I’m blowed if I’m going to send them an email to complain. There needs to be a way within LinkedIn of blocking this stuff but I can’t immediately see it.

Beware of eTagged.me. We don’t need any new social media platforms thanks a lot. At the very least they need to change the way they work so that people can block them without having to enter secure credentials that are none of their business. I realise that access to the large databases that are LinkedIn et al is an attractive proposition but on this occasion they didn’t get it right.

Rant over. I must be going through an angry phase – just stay away from me for a while – okaaay 🙂

ttfn

Wasn’t so long ago that someone stole 6.5 millions LinkedIn passwords – here.

Categories
End User piracy

LBM Direct Marketing up to their antics again – 08000641087

pirate flagFunny what data you can gather from search results. Google, GCHQ et al know everything. I can only tell you that LBM Direct Marketing must have a campaign going again.

I know this because visitor numbers to the blog post what I wrote on their pesky telemarketing activities have shot up. 883 visits in the last few days. My own little efforts at big data eh? (or words to that effect). The number of people searching for that term (08000641087) must be a small fraction of those who have been called.

I wonder who they are working for this time. Pests.

Categories
End User wearable

Eyes in the back of my head – Google Glass mk2

Bb Trumpet after a tussle with the rollerGoogle Glass mk2 to have rear facing camera?

I went to a jazz gig last night, in a church. One of the kids plays in an award winning big band and it was the first show of the 2014 season.

Being in a church we were all sat in rows on pews and it being a community event we knew a few people there.

The problem with this is that if you want to turn around to chat to the person sat on the row behind you it is quite awkward to turn around to face them, when you are sat on a pew. This is an evolutionary opportunity.

Clearly, over tens of thousands of years, we humans will evolve to grow eyes in the back our heads. It must be so because there is already a popular saying about having “eyes in the back of my head”, largely associated with parents of families with small children.

However in this modern fast moving technology dominated world we aren’t going to be happy to wait thousands of years for this evolution to happen. There must be a tech alternative.

The answer is

Continue reading “Eyes in the back of my head – Google Glass mk2”
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End User piracy

Pirate Bay blocking order lifted in Netherlands

pirate flagAn appeal court in the Netherlands has lifted the court order instructing ISPs to block access to the Pirate Bay website. Apparently the level of filesharing traffic has risen since the ban which was seen to be totally ineffective.

This should come as no surprise. In fact on this occasion I don’t mind telling you I told you it wouldn’t work. It would be quite interesting to see how the Pirate Bay usage has changed since our own court orders were put in place here in the UK.

If anyone has the data let us have a link.

ciao.

Categories
End User peering

Football Association founded here @LONAP AGM

FA_plaqueThis morning I walked from Kings Cross Station to The Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen’s Street. I was early, it took half an hour, saved money on a taxi/tube and was good exercise.

When you walk somewhere you see a lot more than when taking public transport. The Freemasons’ Hall stands on the site of the Freemasons Tavern. There is plaque to that effect. Actually the plaque tells us the Football Association was founded there on 26th October 1863.

Bet they had a good old night of it. It’s not often anyone founds anything as big as the Football Association. Wouldn’t mind doing it myself. Not the Football Association obvs. Some other equally exciting (!) Association.

Note it looks as if the season started quite late in those days – assuming they got on with it after founding the Association. Gets earlier every year.

I understand that the 2015 season will shortly be getting under way, allegedly, so I’ve heard. An all.

I’m not a Freemason btw. The LONAP AGM is being held at the Freemasons’ Hall – read more about LONAP here.

Read more about regional Peering Exchanges and specifically IX-Manchester here.

Lots of posts regarding LINX here.

Euro-IX meetings posts here.

Categories
End User peering

Alarm clocks, body clocks and LONAP AGMs #IXP

On the 07.20 from Lincoln Central Station headed to the LONAP AGM (sung to the tune of Homeward Bound by Paul Simon).

Piece of trivia for you. Traditionally when I catch the 07.20 I get a cab to pick me up from the house at 06.50. We are only 5 minutes from the station, especially at that time of day, and I like to make sure I have plenty of time to get there, just in case of a problem en route.

At that time of day there is never a problem. I always get there far too early and end up spending 10 – 15 minutes in the waiting room. Time that would have been better spent in bed.

In order to get showered and ready for a cab at 06.50 I set the alarm 10 minutes earlier than normal at 06.20. This means I wake up at odd times during the night to check to see if it’s nearly time for the alarm, in case it didn’t go off. Result: terrible night’s sleep.

After years of doing this, and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long, I have come to the realisation that

Continue reading “Alarm clocks, body clocks and LONAP AGMs #IXP”
Categories
End User gadgets

Book royalties starting to flood in

In other news royalties from book sales have started to flood in. You may recall that last year I published a book – “The Abandoned Sandy Shoe and Other Chinks in the Curtains of Life“. The first print run sold out in a shot and now online sales have started to kick in.

This morning I was informed by my bank that a total of £11.22 had been credited to my account. This is thrilling news because it it brings forward the break even date but a fairly significant percentage. 1% of infinity is a long time.

The power of the world wide web and ecommerce eh? I don’t have a breakdown of where the sales come from. I’m sure it wasn’t my mum because I gave her a free copy – as you do. Made my sisters pay though. Business is business.

Thanks to everyone for your support  and if you know a friend who reads poetry send them my way.

More get rich quick online links stuff here.

Categories
End User fun stuff

Could a KITT-like car be driving down your road sometime soon?

While setting up a TomTom satnav (others are of course available) for a relative recently I noticed on their site you could purchase a William Daniels voice pack for their devices.

If you are a fan of the classic 80s series Knight Rider like me you will know that Mr Daniels was the original voice of KITT, the pretty much indestructible car with a razor sharp wit that regularly saved Michael Knight’s bacon.

Seeing this reminded me how much I loved the series when I was a kid so I had to buy the DVD boxset (the less said about the 1998 and 2008 remakes the better)

Watching a few of the episodes got me thinking, as 4G is expanding and the computing power that can be tapped via the cloud increases on a minute by minute basis could such a car be built with the human interaction code hosted in the cloud utilising neural network technology?

Yes I know Google are testing self driving cars and some are being put into service in Milton Keynes but I doubt very much these will have a personality at the moment.

Obviously anything safety related would be in the car itself in case of a loss of signal for example but wouldn’t it be a cracking idea to ask your car to drive you home after a session at your preferred watering hole or after a busy day at work, there would at long last be a use for that smart watch you’ve had your eye on.

I doubt the Department for Transport would approve the turbo boost function though, either to allow you to get somewhere quick or to jump over obstacles which would be a shame eh?

Categories
charitable End User Regs Weekend

Donating Stem Cells (Part 1)

For those expecting some deep regulatory insights, alas, they will come in due course ….. But today I am hijacking Trefor.net to talk about my experiences to date helping someone suffering from leukemia.

There’s an adult female out there somewhere, afflicted with this cancer . Alas, that’s all I am allowed to know for 2 years….. and if she wants anonymity I’ll never know any more.

This time last year I had a phone call from Anthony Nolan, the charity that runs the UK’s largest register. I signed up in a moment of philanthropy 15 years ago…… And despite near misses before, this time I was supposed to be a proper bona-fide match.

More blood was taken (all the samples are done by your local practice nurse) and I kept getting holding emails thereafter. The recipients medical team where unsure whether or not to proceed. Then, two weeks ago, all of a sudden we were go…. and in a hurry.

I’ve now had my medical – this was 3 hours of poking and prodding and X-Rays and ECGs in a special unit in University College London Hospital. All apparently seems fine but I await the result. Assuming that’s OK, a week Wednesday I shall be in to donate.

In most circumstances, it’s allegedly complication free. Simply involves 4 days of injections to get stem cells moving out of your bone marrow into your blood, and then 5 hours on a special “dialysis” machine that centrifuges your blood and separates stem cells from the rest. Sounds like a very long blood donation, though involves bigger needles and one more of them.

This is nowhere like the general anaesthetic and excavation of the pelvis prevalent when I signed up….. and easily fitting around work – the injections are administered by a nurse wherever you are that day …… Though that operation may still have to happen yet (if enough aren’t collected). And for some recipients that is the best way of doing it, medically speaking.

I’ll let you know how it goes on the day; I might even live tweet it on the hospital WiFi. In the meantime though, there’s a shortage of donors, especially from ethnic minorities. If you’re between 16-30, you can sign up with Anthony Nolan here – read it all carefully and be sure before you commit!.

If you’re over 30, or it isn’t for you (there’s no shame in that), can I encourage you to give to the Anthony Nolan here via my JustGiving site, so they can continue to do their life saving work…… tissue typing isn’t cheap, and nor is the procedure. That, and they’ll have to keep me in coffee for a day!

PS. People have said that I’m brave – I don’t consider myself that…..the brave one is the anonymous adult woman battling this disease. That said, I will be teetotal for a week or so, which is probably, for me at least, the bravest bit!

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Categories
agricultural End User

Should badgers get the vote and other jolly wheezes #banthecull

Should badgers get the vote? This blog post explores the motion…

When I were a lad with no cares other than the distant dark clouds of impending A Level examinations our form classroom was situated above an arch through which pupils passed at break times. Despite being supposedly the most mature class in school we used to escape the pressure of said impending exams by letting off a bit of steam (I’m sticking to that line).

Our class had a sink and we would have hours fun by filling up cups of water and pouring it on unsuspecting passers by below. This was a fairly inaccurate process because we had to guess when someone would be coming out from underneath the arch – F=mg and all that – it took time for the water to reach pupil height and more often than not we would miss.

Being a highly intelligent class we devised a process that would improve our accuracy. Someone would look out of the classroom window at the other side of the arch and start walking when a victim disappeared from view underneath. When our paceman reached the a few feet from the sink we would drop the water. We did score a few direct hits but never seemed to get into trouble for this.

Fast forwarding to the modern era

Continue reading “Should badgers get the vote and other jolly wheezes #banthecull”
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End User mobile apps

Facebook intrusion continues #privacy #sms #calendar

facebook_screenshotNormally when a droid asks me to let an App have permission to access specific functions on the phone I just blindly accept.

This was the subject of a Twitter conversation before Christmas. Some people said they declined. We were particularly discussing Facebook which I naturally distrust.

I woke up this morning to an offer of an App upgrade from Facebook.   The first thing that jumped out of the page (screen) at me was the fact that they, actually it feels as if Mark Zuckerberg himself is involved, wanted access to my sms messages.

This was a step too far even though I’m sure I must have given this permission to other Apps. No doubt Google has it.

You only have to look at the list of permissions being asked for to get suspicious.

I like the idea that I have a tool that integrates all my media and connectivity. Salesforce.com is trying to head that way for businesses. I can see how trefor.net might want to integrate with the communities hosted on various 3rd party platforms. It’s a way of getting a lot of information about the people that you interact with and for a business that is valuable.

The trouble is that I don’t trust Facebook. Facebook’s approach seems to be tell everyone everything by default and maybe rein back in from there.  I feel this even though it may not be true.

I don’t have the same level of distrust of other platforms. Google I think

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End User food and drink fun stuff

Important announcement on a Sunday morning

george foreman grill

george_foreman_grillThis week we procured a George Foreman grill – family sized and henceforth referred to as the GFG. £20 from Lidl but I’m sure it is also available from other good supermarket and electrical retailers. This follows on from a similar acquisition by our daughter heading back to university for the new term. Hers wasn’t family sized but that is not material to this discussion.

You need to know that the GF is perfect for cooking breakfast on a Sunday morning. Due to the non uniform -sized nature of the raw materials involved (ie the ingredients) there are however some modifications to the normal cooking instructions that you will need to make.

Mushrooms and tomatoes are thicker than bacon and egg so you can’t have the lid down. The recommended cooking times provided by the GFG, with suitable disclaimers regarding food actually being properly cooked – it is an American product, are really only valid if you have the lid down and are thus cooking on both sides simultaneously (that’s at the same time yawl). It’s not as efficient this way but sometimes concessions have to be made for the sake of the art.

An element of judgement therefore has to be applied when cooking breakfast in this way with the GFG.

You should begin by preparing all the ingredients in advance and have them ready next to the GFG on the kitchen worktop. Any form of worktop is ok. It doesn’t have to be granite. Mushrooms should have their stalks remove which is a bit of a waste but necessary for this recipe. Switch on the GFG several minutes before you need to start using it. This is a guess but one imagines that one needs to wait a while for the cooking surface to reach its optimum temperature.

When the grill is hot enough place the mushrooms face down and the tomatoes with the round sides down on the left hand side leaving a suitable space for the bacon and egg that is to follow.

Continue reading “Important announcement on a Sunday morning”
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End User social networking

Never, ever change your Twitter handle by @LindseyAnnison

twitter online profile Here is my experience of handing over my beloved and much-used Twitter handle, plus associated domain names, email addresses and contacts, to a good cause.

To cut a very long story into one (longish) paragraph, Digital Dales started out as a voluntary organisation helping Yorkshire Dales businesses to go online in 1999-ish; watched all our tourist businesses, agriculture and industry nearly be dragged into oblivion by the stinking, greasy smoke of the Foot & Mouth pyres in 2001; morphed into a broadband event organiser, run by a rural broadband obsessive, to try to get everyone online firstly whilst the countryside was shut, and then because it was and is vital to rural survival anyway. In 2013, wanting a change of direction in my own life, I decided to hand over the name to a community group doing Digital in the Dales – Fibregarden, who are installing fibre optics (FTTH) to every home and farm in Garsdale and Dent because BT didn’t feel like doing IT.

I thought it would just be a matter of transferring the domain names, and handing over the Twitter account – change the password, start tweeting, folks. Oh, how naïve!

Continue reading “Never, ever change your Twitter handle by @LindseyAnnison”
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End User social networking

Gravatars and where to get em

I’ve been asked how you get an image in the post whenever you leave a comment on this blog. You need to sign up for a Gravatar account over at https://en.gravatar.com/. This integrates with wordpress and will insert your pic whenever you leave a comment on a wordpress blog.

Even lets you provide different pics for sites with different age ratings. So one angelic pic for blogs like this one and a different, probably masked one, or one of your best mate who you want to pull a joke on, for those sites that are x rated. Can’t believe there are any x rated wordpress blogs. Surely not?!

You may have noticed (there again you may not) that I have been consolidating my icons images on a single headshot image – all part of the branding:)

Categories
End User security

Intro & Password Pain by @LindseyAnnison

I’m grateful to Tref for leaving the corporate treadmill and embarking on this new venture.  Although he never appeared to hate, or even dislike, his day job as some others in the industry seem to (in fact, having seen him in situ in the Timico offices several times, he seemed to positively revel in it!), I am very much looking forward to his posts, especially about monetising this blog, and hence the new company. So, I would first like to say thanks for the chance to guest post and wish him the best of success.

I guess I’d better briefly introduce myself. I have campaigned for ubiquitous, affordable and, in particular, rural broadband since the mid 90s when I was trying to set up my Internet marketing business in the Yorkshire Dales.  I met Tref because he was kind enough to allow a bunch of broadbandits to invade the top floor of Timico for a colloquium a few years ago. I am currently trying to take a break from all things broadband to write more books (I have so far published six), an internet marketing course for SMEs, and to get back to my core skillset (Internet Marketing and Web PR), and my own business which keeps being put on the backburner because of the broadband shenanigans in the UK. I’m a guest/ghost blogger on many sites, copywriter, occasional ranter, and can be found on Twitter. Usually late at night.

I thought I would begin my guest posting with a tale of woe – the Absolute Pain of Passwords. Is it just me or do others have this problem too?

I have several devices – an iOS smartphone (the iThing), an Apple tablet (iThing2), a Windows laptop, a Remembering PasswordsPC (that can boot into either Ubuntu or two different versions of Windows) and a Mac Mini. That makes a total of seven separate devices. And then there are the many times I might need to use someone else’s device eg whilst travelling, when my battery is flat, cybercafe etc.

If I go to log in to, say, a social media account on one of these devices, and I cannot remember my password, then I either have to find one of the other devices that is logged into the account – which can be a pain if I am not in their location – or, and this is where the nightmare begins, hit “Forgot password”.

This action then kickstarts a chain reaction of marginal chaos.

Continue reading “Intro & Password Pain by @LindseyAnnison”
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Apps broken gear Cloud End User

Breaking news – Kodak Hero 7.1 printer is broken again – error code 3527

My Kodak Hero 7.1 All in one printer is broken again! Printers have always been a bit tempermental haven’t they?

I bought this one on 21st January 2012. At the time Kodak were going into administration. The printer looked a good deal so I also bought the 3 year “Instant Replacement” warrantee as a bit of a guarantee against things going tits up with the printer manufacturing.

On 5th January 2013 I took it back to PC World. The print head carriage was jammed and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

Today I’m taking the replacement back to PC World. Identical problem. Kodak’s support pages unhelpfully suggest I remove anything that might be jamming the print head otherwise to get in touch with their support (presumably not free).

It’s OK. I can take this second Kodak Hero 7.1 back to PC world and swap it for another. I quite like it’s functionality. Cloud printing etc. Bit of a nuisance having to go through the whole registration process again but hey.

I paid £129 for the original printer and £32 for the extended WHATEVER HAPPENS warranty. £129 a year for a new printer is not good. £161 for a new printer every year for three years isn’t so bad  I guess.

PS before anyone says anything trefor.net is a paperless business but my family isn’t – homework etc.

Categories
End User fun stuff

All in all it’s just another brick in a wall

There’s something very artistic about a brick wall. The one was photographed in the corridor just outside the office. There isn’t much else to say about it really. I guess there is a scenario that it used to form part of some historic industrial building. The University of Lincoln is built on an old industrial site. One of the buildings, a bar and concert venue, is called the Engine Shed which gives you a bit of a hint to the past.

Sparkhouse is an interesting place to start a business. Interesting tech startups. The guys in the room next to us are into Bitcoin. In Lincoln! It’s something you really imagine happens in darkest Silicon Valley not quaint old Roman/medieval city of Lincoln. The Lincolnite office is just downstairs.

Not done much water cooler networking as yet which is what’s supposed to happen in these innovation centres.  It’ll come no doubt:)  There isn’t a water cooler anyway. You just run the cold tap for a bit. This isn’t Silicon Valley you know.

Anyway here’s the photo. The one after it is of a stone wall I pass on my walk home. Part of historic Lincoln. There are lots of them about. Nice. If anyone has any other good photos of walls then please send them in so that I can share them with the readers 🙂

brickwall

stonewallGotta go. Watching the snooker. Anne is a fan.

Categories
End User travel

Working time

I used to drive to the office.It was a 40 minute trip and consumed a tank of diesel a week. Now I walk to work. It takes 30 minutes. I have over the last two weeks only used a half a tank of fuel.

My walk to and from work takes me past Lincoln Cathedral. It’s a beautiful building. I am very lucky.

When I drove to work I would keep an eye on the time using the clock on the dashboard. Wouldn’t make much difference as to when I arrived mind you. Totally depended on the traffic.

Now that I walk to work I can if I so choose check the time as I pass the Cathedral. There is a sundial. It isn’t particularly accurate but there again it doesn’t particularly matter what time I get to work:)

Of course the sundial doesn’t work when it is cloudy and under those (extremely rare – this is Lincoln) circumstances I can pick up the time from my phone – it gets it from somewhere in the cloud. Today I start monitoring my progress using Runkeeper. Stay tuned.

Click on the picture for a close up of the sundial.

cathedral_sundial

Categories
End User social networking Weekend

Mugshot

mugshotNuff said.

Categories
End User mobile apps

Death of the clock radio? #tuneinradio

image

A few weeks ago our expensive DAB clock radio died. It never worked  particularly well at low volumes which is what we need when lying in bed but it was useful in being able to easily tune into lots of different DAB channels.

We replaced it with the FM clock radio from our son Tom’s room. Tom no longer lives at home and he doesn’t need it. The only problem with Tom’s radio is that whilst it works find you have to manually tune it with the dial on the side of the radio.

So this morning, which is Sunday morning, we are lying in bed listening to the radio when, of course it being Sunday, the Sunday service came on (Radio4). This is always the cue to switch off.

At the same time @mrstevenallen who is a radio presenter and comedian I engage with occasionally on Twitter mentioned that he was on air on 107.5 fm somewhere in deepest Essex . I tried clicking on the links he provided to listen in but none of them seem to work very well on my android. The TuneIn radio app, however, worked a treat so in I listened.

I mentioned to Steve that I was listening and even got a mention myself on the radio (yay fame at last).

After listening for a few minutes I decided to move on – the music was not really to my taste. Instead of faffing around manually with the bedside radio i just tried a few channels  in the “recent” list on TuneIn radio. I hopped around a couple avoiding the inevitable religious content and settled on radio 3.

The clock radio will die off. With TuneIn radio on my phone  providing many more channels at the click of a thumb why should I bother? When I eventually get up the radio will just follow me, using the phone whereas before TuneIn radio I would have had separate radios in the bathroom the kitchen etc etc etc.

The only value the clock radio now provides me is a large digital display showing the time. Being nearly blind I can just about make this out through blurry eyes on the neon display first thing in the morning.

I can’t imagine our kids, who all have android phones, going out and buying a clock radio when they leave home.

Another household appliance destined for a museum display cabinet?

Time go get up.

PS this post was mostly dictated using the wordpress app for android.

Categories
End User fun stuff

The Christmas tree is dead, bring on 2014

xmastreeThese days Christmas, much to my wife’s annoyance, is technology filled. Life is, in fact, technology filled. Us kids sit around buried in our gadgets, often having more of a conversation online than in real life.

We still though like the romantic images of Christmas time. Carol singing round the Christmas tree (I do it even if you don’t), the parties with bright lights and clink of champagne bottles (yes), the excitement of Christmas morning running downstairs to see if he’s been (he came – I must’ve been a good boy).

However everything has its time and now it’s all over for another year. The decorations are coming down as I write and the dead, needle shedding tree lies a shadow of its former self on the wood pile at the bottom of the garden. In our case this is just in front of last year’s tree which is still in the same place as I left it 12 months ago.

The discarded tree seems a total non-technological contrast with everything else that goes on. Twitter, Facebook, tablets, smartphones, trefor.net (:) ) etc etc etc

We are getting our house back, once the noise of the hoover has died down. My body needs a break from its December-long abuse. A period of simple living in which we need to get on with what will be an exciting 2014.

See ya.

PS It’s raining, a lot.

Categories
Apps chromebook End User

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User wearable

Pebble Smart Watch – User Review by @djchug

If like me you are a fan of gadgets and new technology (yes I’m a bit of a geek)  no doubt you would have read in the tech media about the tremendous success that the ‘Pebble Smart Watch’ received through it’s Kick Started crowd funding. (if not Google it) it’s an interesting read.

I suspect through that media coverage led me to consider purchasing a Pebble, so what is it, in very basic terms it’s a bluetooth connected digital wristwatch that connects to your mobile and issues notifications.

As useful as that may be, there is however many other valuable benefits to ownership of a Pebble.  Music control allows the access of your music library on your mobile directly from your wrist, there are fitness apps. if you are that way inclined (I’m no runner) easy to set/review/delete alarms, changeable watch faces (analogue/digital/multi info screens) there are also many useful apps via Google Play or the I tunes store, ( new ones being developed via open SDK) that leads me onto one of the best things about Pebble, yes you got it, it works on Android or iOS.

For me using it for the last few weeks I have found that I no longer carry my mobile with me everywhere I go, I no longer worry if I will miss that urgent business call I’ve been waiting for, miss that email that confirms I have just won the contract or thinking before I jump in the shower that will I get a text any minute now saying my breakfast meeting has been cancelled. Yes you got it it’s also waterproof so now rather than getting out of the shower to answer that PPI call or “I’m calling about that accident you had’ I can now smugly dump the call directly from my wrist, this is the only way the watch communicates back to your mobile.

On to the money aspect, if you shop around you can pick one up off ebay for about £120 the retail I think is around the £160 mark, I have purchased a few apps. so far they are inexpensive I’ve got SmartWatchPro, Big Time, SmartWatch+ and SmartStatus. Big Time is what it says it is, very large clear to read 24 hr digital so it’s now saying 17 47 thats it, it wakes when you move your wrist quickly which conserves the battery but no worries with battery life although I have not yet run it flat but they say 5-7 days life much better that the 25 hours quoted for the Galaxy Gear (that only works with the Galaxy Note 3) I’m sure that will change when they realise they will not sell many with that restriction. What if you buy a Galaxy Gear and fancy a go with an iOS mobile or device (on ebay it goes for about £50)

The other apps. I purchased I did because I like the option of having more data pushed onto my wrist, with SmartWatchPro I get Twitter,  Calendar, Reminders, Weather, GPS, Battery indication for the mobile and a feature I find really useful is Find My Phone, how many times have you rang your own mobile to find it only to find it’s on silent, this will omit a beep on the phone when connected to the pebble.

As I have purchased the Pebble over the holiday period I have yet to use the killer feature for me at least, the amount of times I have found myself in a meeting with a client and knowing that I’m expecting a call to say I’ve just won another contract, obviously I’m not rude enough to keep looking at my mobile but now I will get a small vibration on my wrist with a brief note on the Pebble as to who is calling or who the text is off or who has just emailed the confirmation Contract Won. (I personally can’t wait to get back to work)

So what don’t I like, well not much really, the way you charge the watch is via USB but as it’s waterproof you cant just have a mini USB on the other end, instead you get a special USB to a unique connector, I suspect you can get another one if you lose it but I’m assuming it won’t be cheap to get a replacement, also it’s magnetic and I would like the magnet to be a bit stronger you do have to waggle it about to get it to connect but when it does connect it wakes up the back light, as I have a car USB and many USB plugs dotted about the house/office I’m never far from a charging opportunity but I do keep the cable under lock and key.

The only other issue is that they do say its sapphire glass but I have seen some reports of scratches on the screen so I have purchased and fitted a screen protector only £3.99 from Screen Knight easy to fit too, there are a number of different coloured screen wraps available so you can customise the look but I’m happy with just the black option you can get the watch in various colours but I went for jet black, can’t go wrong with black I feel, did not fancy the yellow option shouting off my wrist.

So all in all so far I’m really pleased with the Pebble and as more apps. become available I’m sure the functionality will  just get better.

Categories
End User fun stuff

Predictions for 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User fun stuff

Christmas Cards and Carbon Emissions

A title that conjures many eclectic images of what I might be writing about, I am sure.

In true “Bah, Humbug” style, I don’t send Christmas Cards. This started as a charity payment in penance for my apathy but the more I’ve reflected upon it over the years the more it seems like a chore. A relic of a pre-digital age. More latterly, I sat down and calculated (by extrapolating a BBC News piece) that the carbon emissions of the Christmas card making and despatching industry in the UK alone is equivalent to sending a laden jumbo jet around the world 280 something times.

Quite incredible that – a handful of posted cards multiplied up over the population reaches such a CO2 emission figure.

Which then leads to the emissions in telecommunications. I once heard that BT consumed 1% of the nation’s power. I have no reference for that but given the number of System Xs still around the network I can half believe it. We even recently went through a time when carbon trading was rapidly becoming a serious prospect for even moderate sized telecoms operators ….. thankfully that has at least been postponed unless you use more than 6,000 MWh on half hourly meters.

But what worries me is that the powers that be (pardon the pun) think we needed a stick to be more efficient. With rising energy prices, and 1kW of power needing, as a rule, 1kW of cooling, we are very well incentivised as an industry to minimise this cost. Regardless of what people may think of the climate change debate, energy efficiency reduces costs and improves profits (providing the capital investment is proportionate of course), which in our highly competitive industry we are all very focussed on.

The former incumbent has perverse incentives to cash cow inefficient legacy technology created by the regulatory construct; the rest of us have been on the case for years. Green levies on energy are just another barrier to incentivising the investment in technologies the Government is desperate to encourage, just like business rates which I have discussed before.

I sincerely hope that the rhetoric of the government of the day plays out, because I fear the alternative to achieving the ends they desire would be subsidies. And we’ve seen where they’ve ended up before.

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Categories
End User phones

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User wearable

Personal alarms and wearable computers – Samsung Galaxy Gear

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

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

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

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

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

You heard it first on trefor.net!!!

Categories
End User mobile apps

Samsung Hub – does anyone use it?

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

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

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

So why use it?

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

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

Categories
Cloud End User media video

BBC iPlayer growth – tablets shifting our viewing habits

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

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

bbc_iplayer_trafficnov13The second pic shows the exponential month by month growth in iPlayer streaming traffic expressed in TeraBytes. Impressivo. Apparently, according to Richard Cooper, the perceived wisdom is that this rate of traffic growth is set to continue until 2025, based I think on the continued development of Video quality and usage until the point comes where the human eye can benefit no more.

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

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

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

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

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