Category: End User

End User

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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 🙂

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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.

 

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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+ 🙂

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

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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”
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Apps End User phones

migration from one smartphone to another #HTCDesireHD #SamsungGalaxyS2

Jfyi I am moving operations from the HTC Desire HD to a Samsung Galaxy S2 (I’m just so with it!). This is going to generate a blog post over the next few days because in my mind this should be a straightforward migration but I’m finding this is not totally the case.  I am also coming across User Interface differences that in themselves are not major but are interesting in that they show that there is definitely some differentiation in this market other than just processor speed, pixel count and battery life.

I’m sure that the Apple fanbois out there will snort in contempt at such issues but all I can say is their blissful state of “Jobs dependence” comes at a price that many are not prepared to pay. More anon 🙂

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End User internet

shortcut to google account brings up interesting search results

I find the quickest way to get to my Google admin page is to type in some random letters and bring up a search results page. My account details are then on the top right hand corner of the page.

Funny thing is this invariably brings up some real Google search results.  I just did it with fdgfdsgfg which seems to actually mean something in Chinese!

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End User social networking

The Train – an unfolding drama starring Twitter @EmmaFirth @JamesFirth #swt and a cast of characters

Last night I was chatting to a friend on Twitter and suddenly found myself watching a real life drama unfold. Emma Firth The leadinglady was EmmaFirth, journalist with the Daily Telegraph and also heavily pregnant. Her husband JamesFirth played the part of the 7th Cavalry and the cast of characters included #swt (South West Trains) and other Twitter users too many to mention.

The tweets below represent an abbreviated history of the story in which dozens of commuter trains were stranded for hours with no apparent plan to rescue them. In the end some of them, including our pregnant heroine, broke out of their carriage and made a daring and adventurous dash down the railway line to safety in the arms of her man.

This incident has today made major headlines on the BBC and I present for you below the action as it James Firthhappened on Twitter. Some of the tweets are absent but you can easily follow the story line.

The curtains open and we find EmmaFirth in a crowded railway carriage somewhere outside Woking:

EmmaFirth Bloody stupid trains. Been stuck outside woking for 40 mins on second delay of evening. Grr

tref @EmmaFirth oh dear. You need to relax – try some breathing exercises etc.

EmmaFirth Now 50 mins not moving. At least cavalry of @jamesfirth charging to woking on his ford focus on off chance i ever get to station!

tref @EmmaFirth @jamesfirth If I strain my ears I can hear the bugle sound the cavalry charge

EmmaFirth @tref sods law says his charger breaks down. I’m so going for pizza if that happens!

Continue reading “The Train – an unfolding drama starring Twitter @EmmaFirth @JamesFirth #swt and a cast of characters”
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End User phones

Retro moments – Apple MessagePad2000

The Apple MessagePad 2000

After yesterday’s ministerial round table on IPv6 I chaired an ITSPA meeting on Number Portability. Tim Ward fromTim Ward compares Apple MessagePad 2000 with iPad Neustar wowed us all by unveiling his Apple MessagePad2000. There were few of us in the meeting old enough to remember it.

This museum piece is based on the Apple Newton platform first released in 1993. Tim’s version harks back to 1997 which coincidentally is when Apple dropped support for the platform. He still uses it today instead of using paper – fair enough.

Apple MessagePad 2000The MessagePad didn’t suffer from Y2K issues but funnily enough had a Y2010 problem. Fortunately there are still enthusiast developers around that support it and there is a patch for the bug. These early versions of the iPad (bit of a stretch I know) have held their value well with good condition versions selling for around £400! That’s not far off the price of an iPad.

I did note that the MessagePad2000 doesn’t support flash either. This particular one is still in daily use and is set to last for another few years yet. Nice one Tim:)

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End User social networking

Lincoln – jewel in a sea of tweets #BBCLincolnshire @thelincolnite

sundial on Lincoln Cathedral's South Face represents the "old order"

Lincoln, for those billions1 of you that have never been, is a beautiful romano-medieval backwater towards the right hand middle bit of England, on the way to Skegness.

During the middle ages it was an important financial centre but the bridge across the river Trent at Newark put paid to that as all the traffic shifted eighteen miles to the West. It’s the same old story – people head West to where the money is.

In recent times the good citizens of Lincoln have tried to rectify that centuries old mistake and have built a high speed dual carriageway connecting them with Newark. Also we now have a fine new University that is attracting both money and talent into the heart of the city.

It can truly be said that today Lincoln is a gem set in the rich agricultural heartland that is the county of Lincolnshire. This gem, however is not one content to sit still, to bask in the glare of the flash of the tourist cameras. Lincoln wants to shine out beyond its natural boundaries of river, sea and Great North Road (A1).

Lincoln is now on the digital map and even has a list of top ten local Twitter users (for 2011). This list, which was assembled by the LINCOLNITE, represents a collection of the finest thought leaders2 the city has to offer and despite the author’s claims to the contrary, must surely be an authoritative and conclusive voice on this subject.

Please take some time to ponder on this list and to absorb its undoubted wisdom3

1 I realise the billions bit might give the wrong impression regarding visitor numbers to this blog.  Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and French versions of the site due soon – I’m just waiting for that multi-million pound sponsorship deal.

2 In this case for thought “leaders” read “people who waste considerable amounts of their lives online – the idle Twitterati”

3 I come in at a modest fifth place which of course I am delighted with – just high enough to be noticed but not so high as to give the impression that I spend all my time on Twitter 🙂

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End User online safety Regs

We can start by not letting kids buy games rated for older ages #Bailey

A few years ago when my daughter was around 10 years old she was given a voucher for a free photographic modelling session at Olan Mills.

We went along, she fully made up, and had many photos taken. She was allowed to choose one of them for printing off free of charge. The one she wanted was very glamorous. The one I let her have was different. It was nice, not sophisticated. I didn’t want my little girl “looking like that”.

In the car one the way home I was taken aback by how upset she was. I felt bad about it at the time but by then it was too late. “Just one of things you put down to experience.”

Published today is the “Bailey Report: Letting Children be Children – Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood”.

The report looks at the issue of children growing up too quickly and seeks to find a way to build a safer society for the young. The conclusion is that here is not one single solution but that a mix of approaches is necessary.

Bailey suggests “both putting the brakes on an unthinking drift towards ever greater commercialisation and sexualisation, while also helping children understand and resist the potential harms they face.”

He also says “For us to let children be children, we need parents to be parents.”

It is clear to me that this is one of the most important aspects of the report.

Last year my 10 year old son wanted me to buy him Call of Duty Black Ops for his Xbox. I looked into it and it carries an “18” rating – in the eyes of those who profess to know, unsuitable for a 10 year old.

The problem is all his mates have it. They also have many other 18 rated games. Sons of friends that might be deemed sensible people. They just laugh it off with “I know we shouldn’t let him but…” or “ He used his own money, what can you do?”

I polled my Facebook friends and 14 out of 15 responses were against my letting him have the game. He didn’t get the game, nor did he get any other “18”s. He feels aggrieved.

I had to compromise. I found that he already had a number of “15” rated games so he got to keep those and has had more since. It is difficult to see how parents can manage against this tide of peer group pressure. It only takes one or two to give in to queer the pitch for the rest of us.

Anything that Reg Bailey and the government can do to help will be welcome. We do have to be careful not to cross civil liberty boundaries but why shouldn’t every right minded person want to help?

The Bailey Report can be downloaded from the Department of Education website. I haven’t tried to condense its 117 pages into this single blog post so you should take some time to read it.

Categories
Apps End User mobile connectivity

PC games and how to stop playing them #SpaceInvaders #Galaxions#Solitaire #AngryBirds #XBox #Marconi #Nokia

I was totally astonished a few years ago when I found out how big the market had become for what was then PC games.  I couldn’t understand it – mainly because I very rarely indulge in playing them myself. It was only when I realised how much the kids (ie me) spend on XBox games that it sank in.

This lunchtime I saw someone playing “Angry Birds” on his mobile handset & said the only game I ever really played (Space Invaders and Galaxions aside) was Solitaire and that except for the occasional trip down memory lane I even gave that up many years ago.

It  was only then that I understood why.  15 – 20 years ago I worked for Marconi. Such was the morale in that place that people used to spend whole afternoons playing Solitaire. We got very very good at Solitaire. My record was below 100 seconds. This was a skill built up over long hours of practice.

Then one day someone did it in less than 90 seconds. He had the perfect hand.  All the cards fell right and every click was a winner! This had the effect of stopping everyone in the office from playing – it was the hand of a lifetime that we were never going to beat. It cured me and I have only played Solitaire a half a dozen times since.

All I need now is to figure out how to stop the kids from playing!

On a similar but different note I was talking with a mobile application vendor this morning. He said that of his  12 Tier 1 carrier customers only 2 were asking for support for Nokia and Windows Phone 7 and one of them was in an Eastern European market that had little smartphone penetration! Uhoh. Lots of people are already cured of Nokia it seems though we are still waiting for the big “final push” (enter melodrama stage left).

PS In my book Space Invaders remains the best ever electronic game. Screenshots are courtesy  Wikipedia

Categories
End User internet online safety scams security

Internet scam awareness

I’m very proud of my wife. She got one of those phishing calls yesterday saying that a problem had been reported with a virus on her PC.

She is one of least technically savvy people going but told the caller (who was, from his accent, not from ’round here) where to go without batting an eyelid.

She said we have Radio 4 to thank as she had heard an item regarding such scams on the Today programme sometime recently. Good old Radio4, good old Mrs Davies.

Categories
End User mobile connectivity

Crazy confused world of the mobile deal

I was chatting to someone earlier who took out a new contract with O2 for a Samsung Galaxy S2. £149.99 for the phone plus £13.50 a month for a 24 month contract with 50 minutes and 250 texts. He also got £150 cashback off quidco.com, the initial referring site.

He promptly sold the Galaxy on eBay for £465 – don’t ask me why people buy these on eBay over the odds when a PAYG SIM free version new is £400. Take a look – there are similar bids ongoing.

This person then bought a brand new iPhone 4G off a pal coming back from the USA on holiday for £300.

The upshot is a new iPhone costing him £8.67 a month compared with the £304.99 plus £18.50 a month he would have to pay for a new iPhone contract (ok he gets fewer minutes and texts in his bundle but he is ok with that).

Not everyone has a friend that can bring them back a phone from the USA but I have to say the mobile world is getting crazier by the day.

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End User internet

lament for a book #Amazon

It is with great sadness that I reflect upon Amazon’s announcement that they are now selling more eBooks than books you can pick up, touch, feel, flick through and leave on top of the pile by the bed in the hope that you will one day get around to reading them.

I am as guilty as anyone in abandoning the printed form for kindle running on my iPad but I don’t feel good about it. For some reason this is the one  casualty of the internet age that I am not happy about.  I don’t care about newspapers – I now get them online and through Twitter, Flipboard et al and don’t ever find myself thinking that this is yesterday’s news and out of date.

Books are the one thing I don’t want to let go of. I like the problem of having to go out and buy a new bookcase because we have run out of shelf space on the existing ones.  I like looking along the rows and seeing the different colours and sizes and wide range of authors and topics that display an active mind and wide literary interest. I even like knowing that I have a specific book somewhere but not being able to find it because I can’t remember exactly which shelf it is on in which room.

But because of the internet I rarely read anymore. Even the books I have on Kindle are out of copyright classics, free to download but stored electronically and not read. I just have them because I can and the one book that I have recently read electronically is Kipling’s Jungle Book and I also have a paper copy of this one (a timeless classic – read it if you haven’t yet – you don’t have to be a child to enjoy it).

The internet/world wide web/whatever you want to call it is a fantastic and exciting entity that provides me with a living.

It isn’t all good though and at this point I’d like us all to observe a few moments of silence to reflect on what we are giving up when rushing headlong into a world that steals our time and blurs the seasons into one confused timezone…

Categories
End User piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Judge says IP address alone not enough to prove guilt #DEAct #DEAPPG @edvaizey

US judge Harold Baker has denied a rights holder access to identity data of  ISP subscribers  whose IP addresses were identified as being associated with “illegal” file sharing. The judge said “there is no way to identify whether the computer used to commit a particular offence belonged to the subscriber, or to somebody else using that internet connection”.

In the UK court ruling against ACS Law the judge stated that the use of IP addresses as evidence was “untested”. This is now not the case (although obviously the test case was not in the UK).  Moreover this totally undermines the basic foundation of the Digital Economy Act and the three strikes system being introduced by the government to try and reduce unlawful copyright infringement.

I guess it may yet go to appeal in the USA but you would think that the body of evidence against the Digital Economy Act’s position is surely growing. Unfortunately the DEAct was fueled by emotion and not evidence.

 

Categories
Cloud End User online safety scams

Phishing – direct mail style

Just received my first ever phishing attempt via direct mail! With a second class stamp on it:) The only means of contact are a  ymail address and two Chinese telephone numbers, one of which is a fax line.

The funny thing is if I had received this letter ten years ago I might not have been so certain it was a scam but because it is such a common feature of email spam nowadays I know to just bin it. I wonder what he return on investment is – we are talking an envelope, a sheet of A4 paper, some ink and a stamp. It’s a lot more expensive to do it this way than to send out millions of emails.

I’m not going to reveal anymore details though. The writer has asked me to keep this totally confidential:)

PS the header photo was taken at dawn on the breakwater at Peel in the Isle of Man. Regular readers will know that I am the Mayor of Peel breakwater.

Categories
End User olympics

Olympic mania starts early


I’ve applied for my Olympic tickets in the ballot. Not cheap for a family of six but hey, how often are we going to get the Olympic games at home?

The ISP industry is already trying to get its collective brain round the impending “Olympic problem”. A great deal of planning went into ensuring that users had a great experience during the 2010 football  World Cup in South Africa.  It may be recalled that the UK was responsible for something like 21% of global streaming traffic during the weekday England afternoon match.

I am expecting the Olympics to take us to even greater heights, certainly in terms of actual bandwidth used if not in terms of percentages aka the football – there is likely to be a far more evenly spread demand due to the truly global and eclectic nature of these games.

This problem is near impossible to model. How many people will take the two weeks off and therefore not be in the office to use their internet connection? I imagine that it will be harder for consumer ISPs as even if you are at home watching the games on TV people have now got into the habit of also watching it on the internet/participating in twitter streams/keeping up with real time text inputs.

This is going to be an interesting subject and I’ll post the odd update as we get nearer the games. Note that in doing some cursory research on this I wondered about South Africa’s own internal internet usage during the World Cup.

A search for “internet bandwidth use in south africa during the world cup” yielded the following result:

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, 18 October 2010 — Due to the high demand for bandwidth and other Internet connectivity challenges, video from The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization was delayed on Monday — but should be available soon. Technologists serving on the Congress staff have been working around the clock to resolve the issue.

‘This is an unprecedented level of Internet usage for the country of South Africa, even more than when the World Cup was here,’ explains Amy Donovan, Tech Squad Manager for the Congress. ‘We’re taking video of every single session and will be broadcasting it to the world as soon as our technical problems are solved.

This just goes to show that for some, unlike former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly,  football is not more important than life or death. I didn’t help me with Olympic traffic forecasts either:)

Categories
End User internet

Twicket lovely twicket #digitalbritain #deappg

The domestic cricket season is well under way and my lad plays his first U11s game this coming Friday. Village cricket has also started as witnessed by yesterday’s #twicket match between Wray and the Rest of The World.

The result is immaterial although the home side won (it is sometimes difficult for the likes of Andrew Strauss and Brian Lara to click in at a standard lower than they are used to).

The real result was the broadcast of the match live online on twicket.info using Wray’s new 30Meg symmetrical connection. The game was watched online by thousands with thousands more tweeters following the #twicket hashtag.

The game was played in a farmers field and this broadcast is a great example of how rural communities might benefit once they have decent internet connectivity.

Continue reading “Twicket lovely twicket #digitalbritain #deappg”
Categories
End User mobile connectivity social networking

Location – Foursquare, the Isle of Man and Apple #deappg

harbour lights in Douglas IoM

Last week as the Isle of Man Steam Packet ferry approached Douglas harbour I “checked in” on Foursquare to a location called the “Sea Terminal”. I also uploaded a lovely picture of the watery reflections of the multicolour harbour lights. Beautiful it was.

Then as I got into the car to drive off the ferry I received a text message telling me I had just run up £17.02 (ex VAT) on data roaming charges. Ooo! That was before I had even set foot on the Isle of Man. The notion that I might leave data roaming switched on for the week was out of the question.

I was fortunate in having free WiFi where I was staying. I did however occasionally switch on roaming in order to check in at various Foursquare locations and am now proud to announce that I am Mayor of Peel Breakwater, Fenella Beach and The Grove.

Uhuh! So what do I hear?

Continue reading “Location – Foursquare, the Isle of Man and Apple #deappg”
Categories
End User travel

Easter break

No blog posts this week.  Back after Easter.

Categories
End User internet video

Japan Earthquake – live as it happens on the internet

Japan earthquake

I watched the news of the Japanese earthquake on iPlayer on my iPad. I watched it in bed, whilst having breakfast and then whilst in the shower (the iPad wasn’t in the actual shower cubicle). Coming out of the shower room I bumped into one of the kids  who said he had been watching it his room on his PC.

On my way in I listened to it on the car radio and then the iPad 3G connection kicked and the video started  in my bag in the boot (actually in the Jeep it is called a “trunk”). This was a bit disconcerting. The newsreader said that people on Japan had been standing in the streets in Tokyo watching the news streaming on their mobile handsets.

Coming into the office by 9am the video bandwidth usage on our network had doubled over the norm and I have iPlayer playing in the corner of the room.  We live in a totally connected world.

Our thoughts must go out to the people affected by the Earthquake. It is unbelievably amazing to be able to watch the destruction happening in real time broadcast live from a camera in a helicopter.

Categories
End User net neutrality phones piracy

BBC iPlayer on iPad and Android – high quality – blessing or bandwidthbuster & what about the TV license? :)

iPlayer running on iPad and Adnroid HTC Desire HD

The twitterstream was full of references to the new iPlayer App for iPad and Android this morning so I naturally dived in and downloaded. I have to say the experience is top quality on both. The colours are great and the TV is very watchable on both size screens.

What really came into my mind though was not the fact that I now had a new app on my devices but the fact that this was yet another driver for bandwidth use and also the question of the TV license.

Cisco internet growth forecast

The chart on the right is Cisco’s growth forecast for internet bandwidth use – a 4x growth between 2009 and 2014. Much of this as you can see is driven by video. The Y axis legend is in ExaBytes/Month!

A one of the World’s best content provider the BBC really is one of the drivers of this (Ok YouTube et al are also contributors) and making iPlayer easier to access on more and more devices adds to the proliferation. Of course this also adds to the pressures on ISP networks and fuels the NetNeutrality debate butthat is not for this post. Grown up ISPs will manage their way through.

The debate about the TV License fee is however another issue. The BBC has said that it is not going after non license payers watching using iPlayer online:

“Well, the number of homes that currently have no television licence, but that do have broadband subscription is currently estimated to be infinitesimally small. The chances are if you want to watch BBC TV programmes via catch-up over the web, you are also watching some BBC programmes at other times, live or time-shifted, via a TV set, and will already have a TV licence. ”

This situation will possibly change quite quickly over the next few years.

You only need a license if you are watching live TV which the BBC is now promoting using the iPlayer App. My question is whether the BBC is able to identify online users? The chances are they will only have an IP address to go at which is going to raise the same issues as we currently see with the Digital Economy Act and the RightsHolder industries (of which the BBC is a member). Unless that is the BBC has some spyware embedded in its iPlayer App that somehow records data on who is using it – via  iTunes username perhaps?!

The other notweworthy point is that apps like this are also fuelling the demand for newer faster smart phones. The iPlayer App for Android needs a fast processor to run Flash. It will inevitably evolve towards more and more HD content which will use more and more bandwdth and need faster and faster processors etc etc etc.

We do live in interesting times. BBC statement on iPlayer here.  BBC position on TV License for online streaming here. Header photo (click to see more) is of iPlayer App running on both iPad and HTC Desire HD (Android).

More TV related stuff:

Sony 4K Ultra HD TV

TV detector vans – the truth

Boring TV & better things to do.

Categories
Apps End User Regs security surveillance & privacy

how to get round your school’s web filter #deappg #DEAct

Somewhat a contentious title for a post? Provocative? It is topical though with all the discussion in the media regarding the government’s review on whether web blocking really works or is cost effective (re Digital Economy Act), and also MP Claire Perry calling on ISPs to implement filtering to stop kids reaching online porn.

I just did a Goole search on “bypassing school proxy”. It came up with 847,000 results including a link to “answers.yahoo.com”. I followed one of the links and found a ton of advice on how to get around a school’s filter system. These ad-funded sites are very youth orientated. One of the posts had 198 discussion comments!

My(oft repeated)  point is that blocking ain’t going to work and anyone that naively thinks that most kids will not know how to go about circumventing a block on websites, whatever their flavour, needs to spend some time in a playground.

PS the answers.yahoo.com discussion had been deleted but most of these sites do not have the integrity or the corporate image to uphold. All most of the 847,000 sites (pages) are interested in is your money.

DEAct

Categories
Apps End User obsolescence

lost vehicle registration certificate #digitalbritain

I lost my vehicle registration certificate! I know I know it is my fault. I should look after these things a bit more. Fortunately it is quite easy to replace, as long as you can remember you vehicle registration number (obviously) and you haven’t changed your name or address.

A quick look online told me all I needed to know about how to replace it and I called the DVLA.  This isn’t a complaining post really because I now have a new certificate winging its way to my home address. However the number of levlels I had to go through in the DVLA autoattendant made me wonder if it was a world record.

Having called the number I pushed numbers 1, 4, 5, 1, 1, 1. It took me 2 minutes 33 seconds to get to that last number 1 at which point I got music on hold. At 3 minutes 26 seconds (OK I realise it might have been anal to write all this stuff down but I do have a blog and it does need constant feeding 😉 ) a person came on and by 4 minutes 55 seconds I had a new registration certificate on its way and I was £25 lighter.

I wasn’t unhappy with the experience and the chap at the other end of the line couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.  I do however wonder when they are going to push all of this onto a self help web portal and let him find something more interesting to do with his life other than replacing car registration documents.

PS I am happy to open up the competition to find the longest auto-attendant tree in the world. It should be in the Guinness Book Of Records.

Categories
End User online safety scams security

Phishing by”Microsoft” engineers

I’m getting reports of increased levels of phishing attempts on broadband customers. People get a call from someone purporting to either work for Microsoft or on their behalf. The flavour of the calls go something like this:

  • “We are working on a password security breach”
  • “We are working with Microsoft and your ISP to increase your broadband speeds
  • “We have identified a problem with one of your servers and can fix it for £250”

By and large they want you to click on a link and then of course “you’ve been had”. Unfortunately as in many aspects of life on the internet the only real way to avoid being had is by being internet savvy. There is no quick fix.