You may have noticed I have a tendency to stick photos in blog posts. I like to think it adds a bit of colour, enhancing the reader’s experience 🙂 I take most of them using my Galaxy S2. I always have it with me whereas it is a pain to carry the camera around. The camera does take better pics in the main, user skill level permitting.
I always seem to have 11GBytes or so free space on my phone and never get anywhere near to filling it up. My camera uses up its battery before filling up the memory. This would probably also be the case with the phone but I husband the power levels on that device – it’s mission critical.
After the weekend I transferred 1.4GB of photos and videos to my laptop – the total space used on the laptop by vids and pics as 167GB!
I could still fit all the music on my hard drive onto the phone and still leave room for photos. I have 10.5GB worth of music though I hardly ever listen to most of it (I really do need to change my play list but I like Pink Floyd, Donna Summer, Bronski Beat and Joe Jackson 🙂 .
The size of the photo and video storage space is going to grow far more quickly than that I use for music which is pretty static – it’s an age thing. The chart on the right shows the growth in storage used for video and photos on my hard drive over the past 11 years. the last column is 2012 which has 7 months to go & we haven’t hit the summer holidays yet.
I store these pics in a variety of places. The question is how much is it worth to me to store them all online. 100GB is $199 pa on Dropbox. Microsoft SkyDrive is £32 per 100Gigs. Google Cloud storage is $12 a month ($144 pa) for 100GB but you also have to pay $0.12 per GB data xfer costs (from USA and EMEA – $0.21 from APAC) to access what you have stored (uploading seems to be free). I guess that’s ok – thats only $12 to retrieve the whole lot.
Assuming I want to store all my photos on Google that would cost me twenty bucks a month (y’all) – roughly fourteen quid. I’m a heavy user but whatever the right number is for you this is probably going to be a cost we will all have to factor into our monthly household budgets in future.
I realise it shouldn’t have come as a shock to me but one day over the long weekend I got home to find a copy of the Yellow Pages directory on the doorstep. It was a shadow of its former self, so much so that the notion of someone being strong enough to tear a telephone directory in half is now a pathetic anachronism.
It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be opened in our house. Even my wife, the least web/tech savvy of us all, would use the internet to look up services. You do have to ask yourself who is going to use it, or even who advertises in it. I guess they are still after the reasonably significant percentage of us that are not yet online. The size of the actual directory (click on header image for full shot so compare with car key – also it was only around 1cm thick) as a percentage of its former self probably reflects the percentage of people still offline.
I may flatter myself in thinking that the readers of this blog are savvy intellectuals, sophisticates, oozers of erudition, people of the world – both real and ethereal. They appreciate the finer things in life. I can tell by the standard of comment. That being clearly and undeniably the case I am pleased to be able to present, for your entertainment, a further series of photographs very much representing me enjoying the good things in life.
Before I go any further however we should clear the air. If you are of a jealous disposition you should not read on. Also political views are not part of this debate. After all even Aneurin Bevan MP, socialist hero and creator of the National Health Service, used to save up so that he could indulge once a month in a seriously hedonistic night out at the Savoy Hotel. The envious should leave now, reading no further, and immerse themselves in the cold bath of self pity. Go.
Today’s photographs are a selection taken from an extensive collection assembled over two days of my stay at the Celtic Manor Resort Hotel whilst watching the Wales Open Golf Tournament. I was there as a guest of Wesley Clover, the Terry Matthews VC business. Note there is a megaprize competition at the end of this post – haven’t had one for a while.
I have included a range of subject matter that gives you the best flavour of the experience. I warn you now, if you expect to see anything of the first 17 ½ holes then you will be disappointed for most of the action takes place from the corporate hospitality tent overlooking the 18th green. For the cognoscenti the 18th is a monster 575 yards par 5 and if you don’t hit the green with your approach shot you are knackered. Your ball will either end up in a bunker or if it falls short, the water. You need to know that the front fringe is mown short and slopes steeply back into the lake before it.
After a hard day of watching golf I retired to the relaxing comfort of the spa. There are no photos of this bit as it would not have been appropriate. Also the steam from the steam room would probably not have been good for my phone.
Later we were ferried by Keith in a Mercedes limo to the excellent Clytha Arms near Raglan to participate in their annual Cider and Perry Festival.
The Clytha Arms is great. If you have never been you should make a detour to visit. In fact the same applies for any of the locations I mention herein. The Clytha is a classic country pub and the meeting place for the local hunt. The food is great though we didn’t partake, saving ourselves for the curry at the Kings Arms back near the Celtic Manor. The Kings Arms as some of you may know is sadly no longer a pub but at least it has been replaced by a purveyor of fine curries. Before I finally leave the subject of the Clytha I should tell you that most of the attendees at the cider festival seemed to be staying in tents at the back of the pub. There are 100 pitches available. A bit crammed in it looked to me but hey…
Btw I make no apologies for being photographed drinking at a cider festival. We all have to let our hair down sometimes (#2 back and sides – mine).
There were plenty of small souped up cars with big attention-seeking exhausts in the car park. Apparently a regular feature of the country life if you are a young man. When we turned up in our Celtic Manor transport it must have seemed quite a contrast. We were obviously not camping. Incidentally I’m a bit dismayed that I left my Cider Festival souvenir glass in the limo on the way home. Ah well.
I should also mention that one of the reasons for going was that one of our party was Simon Gwatkin (seen wearing jacket in the pic). The Clytha used to be Simon’s local and he wanted to taste one of the Gwatkin Ciders on offer at the festival – never tasted it before. We all had one. We needn’t have bothered. It was rough as anything!
After lunch on the first day we were treated to an interview with the brothers Molinari. These boys were part of the victorious Ryder Cup team from last Autumn. Having seen the course (18th green), the hospitality area and hearing stories of hte celebrations I wish now that I had made the effort to go.
Before I finish I have a little competition for you. Who are the two guys I’m being photographed with in the last photo? Usual prize. None of those in attendance at the golf are eligible to enter in this case.
The last photo is of me in front of the Bentley Mulsanne usedto ferry me to the railway station at Newport. That’s Terry Matthews’ chauffeur Michael in the photo with me. The car is a very nice 7 litre twin turbo job (not that I’m particularly a car person) that retails for £259,191.07. The seven pence seems a bit petty to me but who am I to say???
Oh and by the way Miguel Angel Jiminez was waiting in reception with me for a car and I was with Gareth Edwards in the lift though we didn’t speak – the lift was full and someone else was chatting to him 🙂
who are these guys I'm with? Megamug prize competition
It was only yesterday that I waxed lyrical about the British summer, cricket, olympics et al. Well there are as we all know two aspects to our summer. One is as described yesterday. The other is the reality of today. This is the reality of rain stop play, of umbrellas and Cliff Richard singing on the Wimbledon Centre Court (a thing of the past since they built the roof of course but technology will never completely make the summer) and the family sitting in the kitchen whilst you try and get the barbecue lit.
This post is published in the interest of editorial balance. The views expressed herein are totally independent and whilst biased towards sunshine are able to appreciate the richness of countryside that our variable weather brings, except when my glasses get wet.
I’m now on my way to London for the ITSPA vendor workshop. That is all.
Today is one of those absolutely stunning British spring mornings. You feel it everywhere. The smells, the gentle warmth of the lightest of breezes, the clear blue sky with just the faintest of clouds somewhere on the far horizon, the birds singing happily to themselves in the bushes. It’s the kind of day where I’ve often thought about turning the car around and heading for Skegness instead of going to work. I’m a rebel at heart. I didn’t do it today – not enough holiday to spare 🙂
We are in for a fantastic summer. Forget banking problems, the Euro, Greece, Spain (et al). Forget that jobs list1. Think cricket, tennis, Olympics, Diamond Jubilee, festivals, even think European Championship football if that is your bag. Think tall cool drinks under shady trees, picnics on the riverbank watching the boats drift slowly by. Lie back and gaze up at the rays of sunlight filtering though your straw hat. Light up the barbecue then, when you have eaten and your faces are sticky with bbq sauce and butter off the sweetcorn, throw a few small logs on the embers and enjoy the firedance, plucking away at your guitar until it gets dark and the empty bottle of wine or the realisation that it is almost bedtime tiredness drives you inside.
Life is short. Enjoy it.
1 except for the mowing the lawn bit – that needs doing to make everything else enjoyable, besides I like mowing the lawn.
Had an email overnight from someone at WAYN.com – “the world’s largest travel and lifestyle social network” – sigh! The email source address was whereareyounow.net. I checked. WAYN now has 19,720,691 members.
Good luck to him. I wish WAYN and all who travel with him well but I have to say farewell, adios, auf wiedersehen, goodbye, waving tearfully from the jetty and turning my back slowly on the departing entourage as it moves off on its travels around the world wide web.
I’m sorry but I am not ready for another social network. WAYN has budget mind you.
I’m sat in a pub in Covent Garden in a race against time. I’m meeting Dr Sue Black at 4pm for a chat about stuff. She is, unfortunately, on a train stuck in the sidings at Wimbledon because someone is trying to commit suicide in Wimbledon station.
These things happen. V sad. The problem is that my phone is running low on juice as is Sue’s. I have the laptop but nowhere to plug it in. I could probably move to find somewhere to charge my phone (I only have a USB cable to attach it to the laptop) but I then run the risk that Sue’s phone battery will run out and she won’t know where I am. I don’t actually need the phone at my end as long as I have power left in the laptop because we are staying in touch using Twitter.
I have plenty of time. It is now 4.48 and my train is not until 7.06 (pm). I can plug both phone and laptop in on the train so I just need to husband resources until then. Also there are only so many glasses of mineral water a man can take…
Little glimpses of life in the early days of the mobile internet – real life drama lived out in Twittercolour on the www.
Ok you all. What do you know about luxury travel? Have you ever been on a coach where the seats move sideways so as to not have you crushed against the person next to you? Well I have. Here is the evidence – you might need to click to enlarge each pic to see what I am talking about. Technology at its best. Manyana…
Since publishing the original post on this subject that described how to access Pirate Bay using free proxy servers I’ve had a few people point out other ways. Some were left as comments on the post itself. Some came in by email.
The most innovative is where Google Translate service is used as a proxy server. Take a look at this link:
That page is the normal Pirate Bay running though the Google translate servers, translating any African on the page to English. Obviously there is only English on the page so it displays like normal. Apparently, according to “umm hmm” from the TheSlyrateBay.com who fed me the info, this is not a preferred method as it can sometimes be slow and a bit clunky if the Google servers are experiencing high traffic (fwiw).
Many sites have been also set up as proxies to provide easy filter bypass to get to Pirate Bay – some have been pointed out in the comment stream of my earlier post – others will be easily findable online if you look – it won’t be hard.
We all need our private space. This true in our virtual lives as much as in the touchy-feely-smelly real world that we once inhabited. In those days man could retire to his shed if he felt the need for a bit of time to himself. He would only let you in if you were a pal.
There are no sheds online. What do we do about privacy when using the internet? The fact that Google seems to know what I’ve been up to is a concern. Do we all sign up with proxy services? The proxy service provider will still know what you are up to. Switching on “private browsing” seems a bit of a faff and all that does is prevent PC from storing usage data.
A reader (thanks HmmmUK) just Tweeted me a link to the Google Opt out page:
“Opt out of customised Google Display Network ads
Opt out if you prefer ads not to be based on interests and demographics. When you opt out, Google disables this cookie and no longer associates interest and demographic categories with your browser.”
I thought “great, the answer to the problem” and proceeded to that page to opt out. Then I paused
I’ve ordered a Samsung Galaxy S3. I don’t know if it is the right thing to do. Part of me says moving to a new phone means that you should be moving to a significantly better device – I have an S2. Every new phone seems to be “just an iteration” of the incumbent spec. Certainly that’s how it seems with the iPhone and also with other devices that Samsung has brought out since the S2. I’m still on the original iPad!
On the other hand we live in a very fast moving world where even the smallest competitive edge can make a real difference. Can we ascribe this to our use of smartphones? I don’t know, perhaps. I think the S3 probably has just enough on the S2 to make it worth the upgrade. I need to do it because otherwise before I know it everyone else will have moved on to the S7 or S8 and I’ll be so far behind the times I will really have to think of packing it all in.
In an idle moment last night whilst simultaneously watching the snooker and browsing Twitter I asked the important question of our time. Does anyone have a favourite agricultural equipment? This was totally random but it was amazing how many people responded – all blokes.
Rob immediately came back and said “David Brown tractor” as his dad used to build them. That’s cool especially as it turns out David Brown used to own Aston Martin (hence DB5) and Lagonda. I wonder how many gears that tractor has.
I thought plough had a certain earthiness to it. Note the video at the bottom of this post was taken in October 2010 just outside Lincoln (England) at the World Ploughing Championships. Check it out and note the O2 LTE upload medium.
I’ve just been on the Pirate Bay website. It looks decidedly dodgy. Ads for pornography and flashing boxes inviting you to “fix it now”. Not been on it before. Thought I’d do so before the court order kicks in.
Today a court told the biggest consumer ISPs to block access for their customers to the Pirate Bay website. Most ISPs are not affected by the order but now most consumers in the UK wanting to access the “services” provided by Pirate Bay will have to do so using encrypted paths provided by proxy servers or by accessing a mirror of the Pirate Bay site.
There is a twitter account specifically set up to provide updates of where you can find mirrors. They don’t
I spent a day at Infosec2012 this week. I could easily have spent another day there as I only met a fraction of the people that would have been good to talk to. It’s not often I say that about a trade show.
I stopped by the Sophos stand for a looksee. James Lyne, Director of Technology Strategy of Sophos does a magnificent talk on security. He prefaces the talk with a warning not to visit any of the websites he mentions yourself because of the certainty of picking up malware. I’d take his advice.
James picks up malware for a living! On any given day the Sophos labs identify 185,000 new discrete pieces of malware. Yes you did read that right. One hundred and eighty five thousand different pieces of malicious code designed to try and penetrated your computing device with a view to stealing your cash, new every day.
This malware is computer generated and churned out in a wholesale manner. The whole game is run by organised crime and is big business. Customers get access to a control panel that they use to organise criminal “campaigns”. This control panel (screenshot inset – hacked by JL) gives them feedback on their successes – how many machines infected with what, for example. They can also use it to pick their “threat vector” ie what sort of virus/trojan/malware they want to use for their particular spamshot/offensive.
These platforms even have APIs so that crooks can build them into their own resources or add their own specific features!
The gangs involved collaborate. They collate data on anti-malware products produced by Sophos, McAfee et al and can tell in real time whether these companies can detect specific threats. In real time! They also collectively contribute to produce a blacklist of IP addresses used by security products manufacturers so that they block access to their online resources from these addresses.
Many people get caught out. Very many people. They must otherwise these guys would not be in business and I’m sure that most of us know someone who has lost cash or had their PC compromised.
What on earth can you do to protect yourselves in the face of such criminal activity? Sometimes there is nothing you can do as many devices have known vulnerabilities. I saw James Lyne tap into an iPad using a fake hotspot and steal some data. He used a known iPad vulnerability. I switched off the WiFi on my own iPad and even considered wiping all those hotspot credentials stored on my pad that make it easy for me to log on the next time I visit!
It does make sense to make sure that all your software is patched up to date, especially applications such as Adobe. It might sound obvious too but don’t click on a link you aren’t sure of. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you use Microsoft, Apple or Linux. Use sensible password policies. It also makes sense, if you can, to have one separate PC that you only use for banking or ordering stuff online.
I left the show with my head buzzing and thinking I didn’t stand a chance in the big bad world of the interweb. I certainly will be reviewing our home cyber security defences. Stay safe now.
PS you should take a look at Sophos, a British company turning over £600m with 2,000 staff! Not bad.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man on his way home from work on a Friday night must be in search of a decent pint of beer.
We are indeed fortunate, on this scepter’d isle of ours, in having a wonderful brewing heritage that yields a terrific diversity of ciders, bitters, lagers, ales, milds and of course stouts. There is a drink for everyone.
Afficionados of the ancient brewer’s art will know that, lagers aside, most of these beers are ideally served at room temperature or cellar temperature at best.
This is particularly the case in the modern age where big business, dominated by men in suits seeking to maximise profits, abounds with “creative” ideas intended to extract as much cash as possible from a hardworking public.
One such creative idea is the notion of “extra cold” beer. It’s the same stuff, out of the same barrel but served through a different pipe and cooled by a further 3 degrees. Some people surrender to the hypnotic effects of the advertising budget and opt for this cold concoction.
Not I for I am a man of tradition, especially when it comes to my pint. Tonight whilst waiting for a Guinness, dispensed in two stages and then finally topped up after the liquor has settled for a minute or so, I was treated by the barmaid to a technical tutorial in the science of beer pouring.
Extra cold Guinness is preferred by bar staff to the warm stuff. This is because the extra cold variety pours with a much smaller head and therefore does not normally need the final topping up stage of its warmer sibling. The publican, with time and motion always at the forefront of his busy mind, clearly favours this more profitable option.
At my own local this does not affect our enjoyment of the experience and to my knowledge I personally have never been subjected to any exhortation, subliminal or otherwise, to opt for the extra cold variety.
Long may this continue – bottoms up and have a good weekend.
Just took a call from a mobile number on my mobile. It was an Indian sounding lady representing the Consumer Advice Bureau. She wasn’t trying to take money off me or sell me anything or any scam like that which is a nice change. So many of these cold calls are from dodgy sources.
Anyway she was calling to advise me that I could save 70% on any payments I made on unsecured loans thanks to new government legislation. Yay.
Never before in the field of trefor.net blogging have I devoted such a large header photo to a post. According to Scott, my style guru and graphic designer the header is meant to be quite thin giving a tantalising glimpse of what lies within and tempting people to either click to see a bigger image or read the post below.
This one is almost three times the normal size!!! The subject merits the attention for on my way to an ITSPA meeting in a taxi this morning I saw a vision. In this vision Vodafone loomed large and loud and in my face. Well at my elbow actually because sat in that London taxi my eyes fell upon a mobile phone charging point compatible with multiple phone types.
Wow! Cool! So good I could envisage people asking the taxi driver to drive round the block a couple of times to give their phone more time to charge.
The taxi driver gets a few quid a month for hosting the “service”. Vodafone gets great publicity and feelgood factor. They made me think what a great bit of PR. Whoever thought of this in Vodafone’s marketing department deserves a bonus.I will seek them out
Just heard that apparently the government is considering pulling the “snooping” bit of the Queen’s speech. Been told it is on the Times website which I can’t access. I’ll pass on more as I get it but it will also be on all the major news sites. Others feel the need to verify but I think this one is worth taking a punt on.
BBC is currently trying to validate this but if it is true then it is a major victory for common sense.
If what I say is all boloney then I’ll delete this post – I have the power 🙂
19.00 hrs – latest news from the Beeb suggests they aren’t pulling it but taking the foot off the gas a bit. Prepare for political wheezle words.
One of yesterday’s posts had a song title from the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, one of my favourites and probably the greatest rock masterpiece of all time. This one is also from the same album.
My daughter is off to London today with a pal. It’s an 18th birthday trip. Night out on the town taking in Legally Blonde, stay in the hotel at County Hall followed by a day’s retail therapy in Oxford Street with her birthday money.
All she needs, apart from overnight clothes are her cashpoint card and her HTC Desire HD. Her train ticket reference was on the phone, hotel booking details – on the phone, tube map – on the phone. Get the drift? She is a child of her time. It won’t be long before she doesn’t even need her bank card. It will all be on the phone.
My only contribution to the trip, apart from an element of funding and a lift to the station was to remind her to make sure she took her phone charger with her.
I know she hasn’t left home yet really and even when she has gone I know she will still be coming back occasionally, when she needs something. Hey – that’s why I’m here 🙂
Anyone seen Legally Blonde? Also note the absence of a prefix to the word phone – “smart” is so yesterday.
PS oh and if anyone has a favourite song that they would like a technology oriented post written about let me know – keep it clean. I think I’ll be working my way through Sgt Pepper, somehow.
It’s been another busy day in the internet game. It’s a modern day great game really, full of intrigue, suspicion and plot. Cat and mouse, combatants fighting it out for world domination etc etc you know what I mean.
In the days of the actual great game it would take a long time, weeks maybe for news to filter back from the frontier. These days it is mostly virtual and we hear about it in real time, or mostly so. The battle field is also virtual though people can still get hurt.
I spent much of the day talking about the modern great game, had I but realised. This is
In a dramatic statement made after hours1 last night Apple announced a complete re-branding exercise under the new name “Kumquat”.
“The Apple brand has served us well and has made us the unbelievably big global giant we are today” says CEO Tim Cook. However with Steve Jobs no longer around, the share price at over $600 and the Market cap approaching $600Bn this can’t go on forever.
“There is a limit to how many iPods, iPads and Macs our fans are willing to buy so to sustain the growth we need to give them something else.”
That something is the Kumquat. The Kumquat is everything that Apple was but as a more upmarket and exotic fruit we expect consumers to be willing to pay even more for their addiction. Existing sub brands (iPod, iPad etc) will remain unaffected though replacement stickers will be available online and at Apple Kumquat stores and greengrocers in your locality.
The announcement has been greeted with some surprise
Actually that post title was a bit misleading. It should have read “frustrated of Lincoln”. The FTTC broadband availability checker has been saying 31st March for FTTC at my house for a good six months now.
For a long time I considered this to be a reasonable target date – 2 out of 4 Lincoln exchanges have already been upgraded. Moreover I’ve seen teams out laying fibre up Lindum Hill (down the road from me in Lincoln) and when asked they confirmed this was for FTTC broadband.
As we got nearer the deadline I noted that they still hadn’t upgraded my cabinet – it is easy to find out which is your cab – you just follow the telephone wire back from your house. Last weekend I noticed that the availability date for my line had totally disappeared from the checker.
I get so many enquiries re cabinet availability that it isn’t feasible to ask Openreach for information on every one but on this occasion I pulled rank on myself and decided to use my contacts to find out what is going on. All I can find out is that my exchange is not due to be upgraded until the end of June. This potentially means that my own FTTC broadband connection could be months after that date. The checker data base is knackered because this info is not in it.
BT of course say that the dates they give are “only indicative”. TBH I wouldn’t plan anything around availability of FTTC. It will come when it comes. Openreach does have a difficult job to do but the company doesn’t do itself any favours with what can only be described as terrible expectation management. Also it can’t be so difficult to provide their engineers and planners with some mechanism for properly reporting progress with network roll outs.
The smartphone revolution continues. Probably the biggest single game changer has been the incorporation of the digital camera. We all have memories of photos taken during major world events, the Arab spring, the London riots and no doubt the coming London Olympics.
Photos of the mundane can be just as interesting and unexpected. I offer here some shots from an average week at the Timico coal face. I’ve omitted some of the more exciting pics because wanted to give you a real feel for day to day work at a business ISP.
I’ve left out any shot containing the datacentre or the 24×7 NOC because these have so much coverage of late that I have a feeling people want to see other aspects of the job.
Also there is no point here in mentioning the fact that we won an ITSPA Award because I did that in this post and Vint Cerf is covered here.
So there you go. It isn’t a glamorous life but somebody has to tread that mill. The hotel, Stapleford Park, might want to get an expert in to sort out the damp that is clearly visible on that drum.
I don’t always get to stay at this type of hotel – sometimes they are fully booked and I end up staying at the Kings Cross Travelodge as I did last night. There is a story behind that which I will share with you next week1but you can picture the scene – living like a duke one day and being woken up by incessant noise of tube trains and the beep of reversing lorries the next. I’ll also be posting about some of the content of the #Timico2012 customer conference. V interesting stuff from Cisco, and O2 in particular.
My daughter is in her last year at school. She is a clever hard working girl1 and will do well for herself. She has had 4 good offers from top universities but hasn’t yet made up her mind which one to accept. She is off on her last “site visit” this week. An “overnighter”.
Students from two of the universities have now rung her to “see if there is anything they can help her with, any questions etc?”
This is remarkable and just shows how competitive it is out there, at least for good candidates. It is also mirrors life in the big bad world outside. This is a world where you can’t afford to leave things to chance. Every aspect of your business has to work for you. If you sit back and wait for that customer to place (or renew) his contract you can kiss goodbye to that customer. It means you aren’t giving him enough attention.
I am comfortable that an university that applies business process to its recruitment campaigns will also produce graduates well equipped to face that big bad world. The decision now is all hers. I have done everything I can to help when asked but now for the first time she is on her own. I can’t make that decision for her. Exciting times!
I don’t know about you but the fact that my kids are now at university age makes me wan to step on the accelerator when it comes to progress. It only seems like yesterday that I was there and the time has whizzed by. So much to do, so little time. Lets get on with it 🙂
Seeing as it’s Friday afternoon and I’ve had a hard day’s filming (which for the first time ever included makeup btw) and it’s my blog so I can write what I like I thought I’d share this link with you. It’s my son Tom who is at Warwick University1 appearing on the Scott Mills Show on Radio 1. Apparently goonpigs is a bit of a catchphrase of Scott Mills – I’ll leave the rest for you to listen to. It won’t take long. Have a good weekend and lets hope Wales win the grand slam eh?
1 Doing History and Politics – I know I know but I couldn’t persuade him to do sciences. You can bookmark his own website here
You may have gathered from the post on Friday that I was off to Cardiff to watch the rugby over the weekend. There were four of us in the car – two adults and two “young adults” and I was in the luxurious position of not having to drive.
You have to picture the scene. My pal Huw driving with me on the laptop in the front passenger seat and the two kids on iPad and iPhone in the back. The connectivity was ok by and large. I guess that means that when we went in and out of data coverage we put up with it because after all, we were driving along in a car at 70mph.
This must surely be something that one day in the not too distant future we will look back at in amazement – “believe it or not you used to get black spots with no coverage”. Our use of mobile technology is growing at such a rate that it demands nay shouts out for ubiquitous high speed data connectivity.
This may mean that we have to pay more for the service. As the models change to reflect usage growth we are already seeing upward pressure on data prices in both fixed and mobile worlds. At this stage of the game for me, and I may be a consumer lone voice in the wild wild mobile web here, it is more about coverage than cost. My kids may not agree of course but on the way down I needed connectivity for emails and other work stuff and on the way back I wanted to watch Wales beat Italy on iPlayer. I was fine for emails but not for the streaming.
There is one thing in particular that the mobile data and computing revolution will render obsolete and which relates to kids when travelling. The first person to guess what this is wins a prize. This is normally a mug but I may be able to find some other goodies and if so will offer the winner an alternative. Timico staff may enter this one.
As a footnote here in Cardiff we stayed with my sister who gets north of 30Megs out of her Timico FTTC. Aaahh. It was also interesting to see that the last thing we did after our evening mug of cocoa was that before going to bed we all made sure our gadgets were plugged in and charging ready for the next day 🙂
Discovered My Data Manager this week thanks to Rob Bamforth of Quocirca. It’s a wonderful little app that lets you see how much data each app uses on your smartphone (I must stop calling it that – it’s so 2011).
I have only been using it since Tuesday when I was out of the office for a couple of days. It may be seen that in that time I notched up 46.3MB of mobile data usage and 36.9MB of wifi. You can see for yourself what I was using it for – I am a very connected person or addicted to Twitter – you decide.
Other than being a reflection of social habits and mobile usage the data does suggest that in a month I am likely to use around 480MB which is just under the threshold of 500MB typically used by mobile networks for “fair usage”.
I don’t believe it. I’m sure I use far more than that though it is divided between the iPad and the mobile. I’ll see what the number for the whole month looks like and report back. It would also be interesting to hear from others what their usage profile is (without giving away any secrets! )
The rest of this post is just a bit of fill in so that the text finishes off roughly in line with the bottom of the picture on the right.
Anyone else wishing to engage in polite conversation, inanities and observations regarding the rugby internationals coming up this weekend should do so through the usual channels.
I’m off to see Wales v Italy in Cardiff. Look out for me on the TV. Taking one of the kids. It was his idea.
There are still tickets available – not surprising at £75 high up in the corner!! I would also like to remind those who still owe me for bets on the England v Wales match it’s about time they paid up 🙂
There is frost on the ground but it is a bright morning and I am on the way to London. I’m using the train WiFi which according to the speed tester is giving me 3.1Megs. I don’t know what it’s max speed is but the train is not very full – when it is full it certainly doesn’t feel like 3 Megs & I sometimes oscillate between WiFi and 3G and mostly 2G. Currently 3Megs feels fast enough.
We put up with poor connectivity on a train and accept that when we go in to a tunnel it disappears altogether. We shouldn’t have to.
I’m off to Olympia for UCExpo – it’s a good place to get together with people and I have a few meetings lined up over the two days. In my experience connectivity at Exhibition Halls is poor. I once did a VoIP video conferencing demo over 3G. It was all fine in the dry run but of course once the place filled up with thousands of punters it was a different matter. I could barely get the client registered let alone use it in a demo. The patter had to kick in big time:) I don’t know why we should put up with poor connectivity at these places. There is no reason for it. They know we are coming. Perhaps I’ll be surprised.
Between Kings X station and Olympia connectivity will be pretty variable and of course on the Underground it will be non-existent, mostly, though there is no need for this to be the case.
Most pubs I’ve been to in London recently offer free wifi. 20 minutes and a stop in Newark to pick up some punters later the on-train WiFi speed is down to 1.1Megs.
Is Utopia a country with perfect connectivity1? What is that connectivity speed? It’s not 1 or 2 Megs. It has to be fast enough for us never to notice any delay. Bandwidth on demand. With the massive growth in mobile apps this connectivity has to get a lot better a lot more quickly than it is doing so. It’s all very well being ok when you are sat in your living room and using your home WiFi but that on its own isn’t good enough any more.
I’m up to 8.4Megs at Peterborough station but that may be my SIM kicking in with HSPDA. Outside the station, with more people on board it is down to 0.11Megs. This is more like it. It makes my whinging more valid.
I would say 100Megs per person would be a good number to have but it will be a moving number. It is going to depend on what you are doing at a given point in time. Bandwidth needs when just sending texts are different to when uploading photos for example.
I’m getting nearer to the big smoke. What’s happened to the sun? Thatsenoughfornow.
1 Ok ok add in perfect health service, zero unemployment etc but I’m trying to stay focussed here.
PS Bloke sat behind me is reading out his card details to someone over the phone! Including security number. I could have written it all down. Perhaps someone did. Personal security will be a blog post for another day.
It’s that time on a Friday afternoon when a young man’s mind strays off the subject of work and onto lighter matters. Spring has arrived. Benevolent lovely spring that prises open daffodils and encourages birds to raise their bright eyed heads to the sky in full voice. Girls smile and bring gladness to the heart.
In my email inbox a message arrives.
Dear Trefor,
I am following up on my email from last week that you might have missed first time around. I wanted to invite you to come along to our ‘Kofax Customer Connect Event’, with keynote speaker Derek Miers, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research on WEDNESDAY 18TH & THURSDAY 19TH APRIL 2012 at Westminster, London, UK.
Attend this event to learn how your organization can benefit from Capture Enabled BPM initiatives and take part in our interactive and lively speed workshops, where you drive the agenda.
If you don’t want to miss out, but can’t get the budget for travel approved Register for our Capture Enabled BPM Launch event as an online participant and guarantee your place on this first of a kind event.
Kind Regards,
Jenny
Dear Jenny
Where on earth do you guys get your mailing lists from. I almost certainly did not reply to your email from last week for a number of reasons.
It was unsolicited and one of many similar mails I get every day that I by and large treat as spam and ignore.
I have never heard of Kofax
I have no idea what Capture Enabled BPM is (though I do now because in the interest of scientific research I have scrolled far enough down the email trail – and it is of absolutely no interest)
All the best
Tref
PS I wish there was a list of databases that have my email address on it so that I could systematically unsubscribe from them all instead of having to do it individually. I’ve stopped leaving my business card at exhibitions because of all the unwanted mail it seems to generate.
Note I’ve left the original links from the email in in case any blog reader wants to go – looks like there’s a free dinner – I bet Kofax is a generous company. There is no info at all on timings other than the date – it’s at your own risk:)
Right back to birds, gladness and, oh, my presentation preparation for our customer event. Have a good weekend 🙂
Today is all about privacy. No Google doodle to go with it because Google is at the centre of the debate with its harmonisation of privacy rules across all of its services.
The European commissioner of justice, Viviane Reding says there are “doubts” over what Google has done. I’m not going to go into detail on the ins and outs – read about that in the Guardian. Commissioner Reding though in my experience is someone worth listening to so she is expressing concern there is likely to be something in it.
It is worth thinking about privacy for a moment because in our modern age it is a hugely complex subject.
If I do a search for “Trefor Davies” Google comes up with
You may have noticed I have a tendency to stick photos in blog posts. I like to think it adds a bit of colour, enhancing the reader’s experience 🙂 I take most of them using my Galaxy S2. I always have it with me whereas it is a pain to carry the camera around. The camera does take better pics in the main, user skill level permitting.
I could still fit all the music on my hard drive onto the phone and still leave room for photos. I have 10.5GB worth of music though I hardly ever listen to most of it (I really do need to change my play list but I like Pink Floyd, Donna Summer, Bronski Beat and Joe Jackson 🙂 .
