Categories
End User phones

Initial review of Google Nexus5

Hugo Pickering has been good enough to let us have his thoughts on the Google Nexus5. He did so in a comment on my unreview of the device but it is very much worth a post of its own so here it is. Thanks for the feedback Hugo:)

Hugo writes:

The N5 finally arrived after the Parcelforce driver failed to read the note on the garden gate telling him to walk through to my office, entailing a trip yesterday to pick it up from the post office in Chipping Norton. Setup and transfer of all apps and data was very easy, once I had taken advice from Adrian Wooster and used the excellent app SMS Backup+, which does exactly as it says on the tin.

The familiar Android interface hasn’t changed dramatically in KitKat, but I might have preferred more icons on screen at once with a bigger screen, rather than bigger icons than before. The screen itself is fantastic, with greater colour depth and clarity – photos look sharper and the detail is stunning. The camera is a huge improvement, with much better low light shooting capability. Auto Awesome looks good, enhancing photos as you go, and then backing them up to Google+.

I’m still not sure about Hangouts hijacking SMS so that all texts have to go through it, which seems a bit draconian, but understandable as it makes everything easier to backup for future migrations. I may experiment with some SMS apps to see if anything else works better, as I guess developers will want to cash in on this.

A few apps seem to struggle with KitKat, notably Movember (yes I am going hirsute for the month –http://mobro.co/hugopickering), which seems to be an issue accessing the camera or gallery – maybe the app needs updating. Those apps that have been updated and optimised for KitKat work really well, such as Ookla’s Speedtest – a hugely improved interface and UX.

Speed is another big overall improvement, with apps loading faster and swapping between them with no lag. Hardware-wise, the phone is taller than the previous model, but the same width and thickness. The change to a rubberised back is very welcome and will help to reduce breakages of the old N4 Gorilla Glass back. The phone quality is excellent and the internal speaker seems louder than most phones which is great.

So overall I’m pretty pleased. Now to sell the old N4 on eBay – anyone?

Categories
broadband Engineer

Evidence that video is driving home internet use

Home broadband usage driven by TV streaming

Evidence is emerging of what applications are driving home broadband usage at the Davies house.

broadband usage wife at workThe two graphs presented herein for your entertainment and delight are of the broadband traffic over our Timico 80/20 FTTC line at home over the last two days – Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first graph shows very little happening during the day. As it happens my wife Anne was at work – she is a supply teacher. There isn’t that much going on in the evening either really although were were hitting 10Mbps at 10.30 pm.

DSL usage wife homeThe second graph shows the traffic when Anne was at home during the day. What a difference!

Most of the bursts are running at around 1.2Mbps and lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.

Now I happen to know that Anne, who always keeps herself busy, often has cookery programmes on during the day in the kitchen. There is so much to catch up on – Master Chef, Great British Bakeoff etc etc. She plays them on her iPad.

The bursts of traffic look very much as if they represent this kind of TV programme watching. Also interesting is the bandwidth required. It isn’t very much although I’m not sure what codecs were being used by iPlayer.

The other usage must basically represent everything else though the spike at 10.30 looks like a download – I know not what. All this just goes to show what this tinterweb thing is being used for. This is in no way an accusation that Anne sit around all day doing nothing – if you knew her you would know she is a very active person. I would however say that she was very representative of the average consumer even if I am not.

You can check out our home broadband data usage trend here.

Ciao bebe…

Categories
Cloud End User fun stuff Weekend

Fireworks in Lincoln for Bonfire Night #GuyFawkes

This is a simple post with a short video showing the fireworks that were on display at the Lindum Sports Club in Lincoln on Sunday night.

Simple as that really:)

PS I’ve categorised this post under cloud though as I recall it was a fairly cloudless night 🙂 Also I know that Sunday night wasn’t actually bonfire night – tonight is. However it is sensible to have it at the weekend and not a school night. Oooooh, aaaaahh.

Categories
Engineer online safety

More on Team Cymru

team cymruSeeing as  I mentioned Team Cymru (Teem Come-ree) yesterday I just noticed that I’ve had their quarterly newsletter (Cymru Quarterly) on my desk since June. This is a personalized high quality newsletter that I specifically signed up for. I remember when doing so they asked me a second time whether I really wanted the newsletter in hard copy. I rarely read hard copy but in their case I did so I’ve been getting it through the post.

I’ve just noticed that on the cover of this edition they ask me whether I want to continue receiving the newsletter. In order to do so I have to click on a link and fill out a survey.

This is pretty cool and efficient. I get a fair bit of junk mail/magazines that I never look at and which are a total waste of space (and money). I’m not going to carry on with the hard copy. I follow them on twitter @teamcymru and am happy that I get my news in that way and save them some cash.

I wonder if they will be supporting Wales v South Africa at the Millenium Stadium on Saturday 🙂 They are based in Florida mind you. I expect they are so busy they will have forgotten the match is on…

Categories
Engineer peering security

Team Cymru – the correct pronounciation

On a completely different note whilst I was at the Euro-IX conference last week someone gave a talk that included something about Team Cymru. Team Cymru are a top bunch of guys in the cyber security space.

However there is something that urgently needs addressing about the organisation and that is how you pronounce their name. I’ve been hearing Team Kim-roo which is understandable but totally incorrect. I’m sure that the good folk at Team Cymru will not mind me saying that the correct way to pronounce the name is Come-ree. It is the way that the Welsh would say it.

There. I’ve got that one off my chest. Cymru am byth!

Categories
Business fun stuff

Communication modes for the 21st century

Just rang to book my car in for a service. After navigating an auto-attendant and then  holding for some time I eventually got through to a receptionist who was clearly not at the department I’d navigated to. Ok. It happens. Phones get busy etc etc.

She asked me if I’d like someone to ring back which is fair enough. I do want to get my tire tyre pressure sensor system sorted out. It’s annoying being told that one of your tyres has a problem when it doesn’t. I readily gave her my mobile number and said my name was Tref (actually I pronounced it Trev but it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this conversation – I don’t want to complicate the spiel). What she really wanted was my surname which in case you don’t know (she didn’t, obvs) is Davies.

She then politely referred to me as Mr Davies and said someone would get back to me. Fine.

It’s interesting though how people communicate isn’t it? I’m not particularly having a go at the dealer. It’s an honest enough business (did I really say that?) earning a few hundred quid for doing not that much to your car because you are hamstrung by having to use a dealer for the particular problem.

It’s interesting how we, the business community, communicate with people, our customers. I didn’t really want to talk to someone at the car dealer, other than I wanted at least a ballpark understanding of how much they were going to charge me for the service. I’d rather have been able to book online or chat to someone via IM.

I want to be able to go to someone’s website, see that a relevant agent is available to chat to me, be shown a list of available time slots I could book for the service by that agent, see the range of charges and then agree to book the car in. This might be an interface through the Facebook page of that organisation, where there is a ready made IM system, or it might be through another platform – Google+ say, or Skype or it may be all of them.

I as a punter would clearly be willing to share some of my personal details with that business by virtue of the fact that they would now have my Facebook/G+/Skype address (etc). After all I’m willing to let them have my mobile phone number to call me back. From a business perspective this is great. It’s what Salesforce.com with it’s social media integration is trying to get at. Lots of information about customers.

From a punter’s perspective it would make things a lot more convenient than having to hang on the phone. I could be waiting in a window whilst doing something else. I could always escalate the conversation to a phone call if needed once connected.

Back to my immediate needs this car dealer, a substantial business in the East Midlands, was not on the front page of a Google search for Lincoln car dealers – not even for “Jeep car dealer in Lincoln”. I didn’t bother looking on page 2. So it has some way to go before understanding how to navigate a web orientated world. It looks therefore as if I will have to continue to use its existing booking service as long as I have to use that dealer. An hour or more later I still haven’t been called back.

Now before anyone starts thinking about leaving a comment re how Timico works (it’s happened before) hold your fire. Whilst I’m happy to be proved wrong I suspect that nobody has the system I have just described, yet. We do have web chat as do many other companies but it is not integrated with any social media platform. It can’t be far off general realization though and I do accept there are a few stumbling blocks such as the fact that people may not want to open up their Facebook selves to third parties.  But it  has to be the way ahead1.

As far as being called Mr Davies it doesn’t sit comfortably with my inner kid. My business card, such as it is, mentions only my twitter handle @tref and my websites. It’s not a Madonna-like branding thing. It’s just that I’m not a formal kind of guy.

That’s all for now folks.

PS my tyre pressure sensor system has needed doing for a while. I’ve been putting it off because I know it’s going to be expensive. Call it an early Christmas present!

1 Specifically irksome as I very specifically don’t trust Facebook. It doesn’t have to be Facebook. It could be LinkedIn or Google or Microsoft et al. None of them are really trustworthy  but you have to go with one of them. It’s unavoidable unless you want to pick up that plain old fashioned telephone and wait…

Categories
Business Cloud hosting

WHD.local event in London – free Samsung Galaxy Tab

Earlier this week Lonap agreed to promote a WHD.local event that is being held in London next week. It’s the baby brother of the big one in Germany in April. Lonap Director Will Hargrave is doing a very interesting talk that you should all go along to. Also there is a free lunch and free drinks at the post conference networking event.

The old adage has it that there is no such thing as a free lunch but on this occasion it needs to go further because they are also offering a free Samsung Galaxy Tab!!!!!????? wtfwtfwtf (that’s a NLA).

The only thing is you have to visit every booth on at the trade show and get a stamp on a card. So you do have to do something but in my mind that’s a gift horse you definitely should not look in the mouth. I’ve not looked to see who is exhibiting or how many there are (ok if it is hundreds of companies I’d look that horse in the mouth but I doubt there are).

Other than the fact that I am a Director of Lonap I have no vested interest in promoting WHD.local, and all Lonap is getting really is some exposure unless enough Lonap members sign up in which case we get a private room in which to have our own private lunch.

The reason I have posted this is because I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a trade show giving each of its attendees a Tab before. Is this a first?

Click on this link if you want to go. LWGVWE4 – Click here to sign up for WHD.local 2013!

Also let me know if you do sign up. I’m not going to be there due to other commitments but if enough people get in touch I’ll arrange the private get together.

html of the official invite is linked to here – Mailing_LONAP_EN.  There’s some more photogenic stuff in there including a picture of Will. I couldn’t be bothered to work out how to embed it so you just get the link.

Hasta la vista baby…

PS my signoffs are getting somewhat off the wall. I must be going crazy hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Categories
End User phones

The Google Nexus5 unreview

social network sharing on the trefor.net blogThe Google Nexus5 took me a bit by surprise. I don’t anally watch the space and nobody mentioned it when I visited Google in London on Wednesday. Maybe it caught them by surprise too.

It’s getting to the point where the devices are coming too thick and fast to review them all, notwithstanding the fact that unless you are a favoured globally read media star who gets a freebie (coming clean here, I’m not) it gets to be an expensive thing to do, changing your phone every few months.

Anyway I don’t need to have a physical Nexus5 device to do a review. I can tell without even looking. It will have a few software and hardware improvements on its predecessor. I happen to know it’s a bit cheaper as well, which is good and a sign of the way forward – the point is coming where it’s difficult to add any new sexy features because they have already all been implemented (the “beam me up Scotty”  teleporter app being the exception here. That one is still at the artist impression stage although it is the ultimate app.

Having said that if anyone has a Nexus5 and wants to  do a review then feel free to drop me a line. Also I just took a look and this month amazingly trefor.net has readers from 147 countries though the majority are in blighty. Check out the whole list here > Readership distribution of blog.

PS the pic is a random image selected from my library of uploads. I’m clearly feeling bullish 🙂

Ciao baby.

Categories
End User piracy

Virgin media filter block post resurgence in popularity

Last year following the court order imposed on the large consumer ISPs requiring them to “block” access to Pirate Bay I wrote a blog post outlining how to bypass the Virgin Media filters and discussing the futility of the court order. I also recently added that the same methods were usable to bypass the BT, Sky and TalkTalk filters.

This week we have seen another twenty or so more domains added to the list of proscribed sites. Yesterday the daily visitor rate doubled to over 1,500 uniques and the trend is continuing today. This blog is one of tens of thousands of sites telling you how to bypass these filters so the total number of people looking for the information must be very large.

I’m not condoning copyright infringement – I’ve written an ebook myself and would be dismayed to think that people would not want to recompense me for my hard work. I am however saying that the blocking order is a waste of time.

Ciao bebe…

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

Train wifi too congested but 4G fine

Just a 4G quickie. Catching a busy commuter time train back nowf and couldn’t even get a sniff of a connection on the on board wifi. Almost certainly a good thing – if it can’t hook up using DHCP then there are so many people trying to access it that the performance will be so bad as to effectively be unusable.

Categories
4g broadband Business mobile connectivity voip

4G as fixed broadband replacement? – successful case study

4g broadband can be used as a replacement for a fixed broadband service

Blog reader Mitch left a comment about how he now uses VoIP over a 4G line that has replaced his fixed broadband connection.  His broadband had always been rubbish and 4G is now giving him speeds as fast as fibre broadband. I asked if he would be willing to tell the story. It makes for a very interesting read that many will be able to identify with. It may also give hope to those folk in the “final third” who are the 2nd class citizens of the UK when it comes to connectivity.

Categories
Business voip

Mobile VoIP client is a no brainer when travelling abroad

timico-mobile-clientThis is an out and out advert for mobile VoIP services. If you haven’t already noticed I  am in Helsinki at the moment.

My phone won’t pick up a mobile service. Bit irritating but not the end of the world. I dropped my wife an email letting her know I missed her already but she was probably not going to hear from me and not to worry.

The WiFi is great here, everywhere in the hotel and in the conference room. I’ve been able to carry on working. Then hey presto I remembered I had my Timico mobile client on my Samsung Galaxy S4.

I called home. The call quality was crystal clear. Had a nice chat with Anne and was reassured that everything was ok.

Not only did the call cost nothing, or worst case a local UK call charge, but the quality was much better than a cellular call would have been.

Only problem now is the two hour time shift & coordinating calls when we are both around and available.

Että kaikki ihmiset.

Categories
Engineer media

29% of USA ISP traffic is Netflix

Interesting talk from Nina Bargisen of Netflix. What surprised me was the chart she showed of the main traffic drivers on ISP networks in the USA. Netflix comes out top, representing 29% of all traffic carried by ISPs in the US. YouTube is only 15% of traffic with http coming third at 11%.

The thing to consider here is that as people move to higher quality video -3D,  Super HD, Ultra HD (4k) and ultimately 8k format the percentage of traffic that is video is clearly going to grow. Also clear is that this move to higher bandwidth video is going to seriously drive bandwidth requirements – both in operator networks and at the home broadband level.

Netflix recommend that you need 12Mbps bandwidth to carry 3D and between 5 and 7 (optimally) for Super HD. In the UK you would therefore be able to stream one 3D video or two Super HD, assuming an average download bandwidth of 14Mbps. 4k video will need 15Mbps per stream.

If for the sake of argument we assume that Netflix and YouTube represent all the video traffic in the USA then as 4k comes on stream and the bandwidth required to support it therefore doubles then video could well end up at almost 90% of all internet traffic. I realise that other applications will also grow their bandwidth needs but I don’t think I’m a million miles off the mark.

It’s coming folks. Better get your broadband speeded up. Pic below is of the chart shown by Nina at the conference.

PS no idea why people watch TV – the only good stuff on is Time Team and Storage Hunters and I’ve already seen Mary Poppins quite a few times.

USA ISP traffic statschart courtesy of Netflix and Sandvine

 

Categories
End User travel

Urho ice breaker Helsinki Finland – big boys toys

helsinki sunThere comes a time in a man’s life when he must visit an icebreaker. The cognoscenti amongst you, and I know there are many, will know that an icebreaker is the ultimate boy’s toy.

icebreakerYou may talk about fast cars (0 – 60 in 3.5 seconds) or the latest and greatest (Android) gadget but let me tell you that none of them come close to being as cool as having your own icebreaker. Urho, moored for the summer months in Helsinki, is such a beast. I visited Urho  on Sunday.

An icebreaker is something where size really does matter. A few numbers would aid the understanding. Five main diesel generators engine roomwith 22,000 horsepower can generate 17 MegaWatts of power – yes I said 17 MegaWatts!! That’s enough to supply 708 houses with standard 100Amp feeds. Basically a small town. They typically use 40 tonnes of diesel a day but can peak at 100 tonnes.

The diesel generators don’t power the ships four engines, two in the front and two in the back (sorry none of this bow/stern stuff, nosiree Bob :)). These are driven by electric icebreaker engine control roommotors. The stress put on diesel engines would be too great of they were directly driving the propellers. They have to go from full power forwards to full power backwards at the flick of a switch.

There is more. A normal ocean going ship will have “stabilizers” to minimise discomfort to its passengers. Not on an icebreaker. An icebreaker has “destabilisers”. 1,000 tonnes of water can be pumped from side to side of the ship to create a rocking effect. You have to have good sea legs to work on an icebreaker. As the ship’s sides rock against the ice some lubrication is provided by air bubbles released from underneath.

The main method of crushing the ice however is from the sloping bow (oh ok then). The ship “climbs” over the ice and crushes it with its weight. Doing this is obviously quite stressful on the ship itself so as you can imagine it is built from very thick metal plates. There was some debate afterwards about the thickness of these plates. I thought they were 3.5 cms thick but others said 9cms so I’m not sure. Anyway they are thick plates. The median thickness of the ice in the depths of winter is 80cms.

The season is of course the winter. The seas around northern Finland freeze every winter. It’s a tough part of the world to live in – Helsinki is only 60km from St Petersburg. The country still has to function so the icebreaking service is provided free of charge as part of the standard shipping license fees paid by each boat operator.

Each of the four icebreakers assists around 250 ships a year. I say assist but really I mean rescue. The icebreakers come to the aid of ships locked in ice. In fact they only come out when the ships are stuck. Typically they will circle a trapped ship and this usually does the trick. Occasionally they will have to tow the “customer” (struggling to find other suitable nouns so I don’t have to keep using the words ship and boat).

The freed boat will follow the icebreaker, sometimes as close as a few metres behind because the pressure of the ice field soon closes the gap.

The ship’s company of 21 persons includes a captain and four watch officers together with engineers and other ranks. The officers and other ranks eat and live separately. Watches are 6 hours on six hours off. It’s an all consuming lifestyle during the season.

These icebreakers are big. pool signThe accommodation is also fairly extensive and includes a gym including a ping pong table, sauna (two – officers and other ranks) and even a pool. The pool was empty when we were there. Empty of water that is. Note the sign reads “allas tyhja”. That is for the benefit of litigious American readers – in case they are daft enough to dive in and hurt themselves.

So there we go. Icebreakers. Every bloke should visit one at least once in their life. Been there, done that. Tick.

As a footnote I visited Helsinki for Euro-IX 23. On the Sunday morning the sun, low in the northern hemisphere sky, was dazzling. Helsinki looked beautiful.  Later and without warning the mists descended and you began to get a sense of what like would be like in the winter at such latitudes. Stay warm and take care…

🙂

Categories
Engineer internet

20th Anniversary of FICIX at Euro-IX 23 Helsinki

euroixI’m at Euro-IX 23, the 23rd six monthly get together of the people that run Europe’s internet peering exchanges. Without these mutual not for profit exchanges your internet connection would cost a fair bit more.

Euro-IX 23 is in Helsinki because 2013 is the 20th anniversary of the founding of FICIX, the Finnish internet exchange.

It’s very much worth looking at the connectivity provided by FICIX over the last 20 years.

1993 10Meg Ethernet hub soon upgraded to a switch
1996 155Mbps ATM
1999 622Mbps ATM
2002 1GigE
2004 10GigE
2013 100GigE ready with first ports expected to be provisioned in 2014

This roadmap is interesting because it is an illustration of how the internet has grown over the last 20 years. It also shows the flow of technology during that time including the demise of ATM.

Time was all your home broadband surfing would have been made over an ATM backhaul connection (the link between the telephone exchange and the internet. Now it is almost certainly done over 10GigE.

Unless you are in the business the chances are you won’t understand any of these terms in which case just note the flow – 10>155>622>1,000>10,000>100,000 millions of bits per second. Remembering that the average broadband speed of something like 14Mbps is faster than the total aggregated connectivity of the whole of Finland in 1993.

Cop this Euro-IX video to understand how the internet works and what peering is all about – you don’t need to be a techie to watch.

Video and header image/logo courtesy of Euro-IX.

Categories
Apps chromebook End User gadgets

How to do a print screen using Chromebook

error message using east cost wifiThis is dual post really because I was going to write briefly about an error message that came up when using eastcoast.co.uk’s wifi. I couldn’t access Google drive because open DNS is blocking it! Rather than stick the text of the message in I thought I’d just do a screenshot but there was no obvious way of doing it.

A simple Google search came up with the goods and it is quite impressive. You do a ctr shift  []]] (the key above the number 6 – took me a while to find it) and the cursor changes to a + select tool. You can chose which bit of the screen to print – uber impressivo.

This might be old new s to some of you but as you know it sometimes takes me a while to catch up 🙂

Categories
Apps Cloud End User gadgets media

Google #Chromecast in the UK – review 5 days in #YouTube

Terry Hughes has just got himself a Google Chromecast dongle. In Google’s own words “With Chromecast, you can easily enjoy your favorite online entertainment on your HDTV—movies, TV shows, music, and more from Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Google Play Movies and Music, and Chrome.” Must have been Google’s spiel because I wouldn’t spell favourite like that.

Anyway I spotted on Facebook that Terry had gotten (just pulling your leg) a Chromecast and he agreed to do a review for the blog. Not being much of a TV buff myself it’s the only way it was gonna happen (there I go again) in the near term.

Here is what Terry has to say on the device:

Google ChromecastI’ve used various media steaming devices for several years, Apple TV, Android MK802, etc, all with various results. Today, I am a UK owner of a Google Chromecast device, purchased from Amazon.com, as one of a limited number of purchasers who got it for £34 including shipping and handling. This a quick review, considering I have only owned it for 5 days.

This device is a $35 streaming dongle that plugs into your TV’s HDMI port. You can use it to stream online videos from YouTube, Netflix, and Chrome browser, and use your tablet, mobile phone, or computer, as a remote control. (PC or MAC)

If you use your phone to start it off (Samsung Galaxy S4 in my case) it doesn’t stream videos directly to your Chromecast dongle. Instead, it just tells the device which video it should stream from the cloud. That means that you can use your phone for something else, once the stream starts. I even rebooted my phone whilst streaming to test this.

Simple Setup

It really is as simple as plugging in the device into a spare HDMI socket, and connecting power via the supplied adaptor, or from a TV USB port if you have one.

Now Google doesn’t currently allow Chromecast in the UK Play store (October 2013), so I had to get it via other means to setup the initial way in which the Chromecast device know about your router details. I expect this to change quickly during the next Google Event at the end of the month.

Once plugged in, enter the password of your local Wi-Fi network, and you’re all set to run. The device has Wi-Fi built in and doesn’t need Wi-Fi on your TV.

Streaming YouTube

My main use for Chromecast right now is YouTube, and I have now streamed my fair share of videos from that site in the last few days. Overall, streaming worked really well, simply by clicking an icon that appears in the YouTube menu, and choosing where to stream too. Why Choose? Well, you could actually have multiple Chromecast devices in each room. I don’t as yet 😉 I have now successfully got this to work from the above phone, Nexus 7 Tablet, and Asus notebook, all with wireless connection to the same router.

What other Apps work?

In total (so far) I have managed to get working:

Google Play for movies and music

Netflix

Chrome browser (with extension) for desktop and video playback (mp4, m4v, avi and mpeg)

BBC Iplayer via Chrome browser

What do I think?

I love it! After using Miracast, long HDMI cables, small PC under the TV and more, it’s now my main device for streaming YouTube, Netflix and more in High definition, with good sound and obvious lip-sync for movies.

FOR

Streams Android to a big TV

Works with MAC, PC’s, Tablets

Easy to setup and transport

Cheapest media adapter

 

AGAINST

Early days, so limited apps (Pandora, Hulu Plus, and HBO Go are all expected to be next )

Mirroring limited to browser tab

Windows Phone not supported

Chrome is the only supported browser

Can’t store files directly on the device.

THE END

Thanks Terry – I owe you a beer

Footnote – this post is getting quite a bit of interest. Google Chromecast seems to be available to buy in the UK at Amazon.

If this review was useful you should also check out these other Chromecast reviews on this blog here and here.

Update 17th March 2014 – Google Chromecast to become available in the UK – leading to lots of visitors to reviews on this site.

Categories
Business Cloud datacentre virtualisation

Joe Baguley of VMware is guest speaker at CTO Lunch

trefor davies with joe baguleyVMware CTO EMEA Joe Baguley was the guest speaker at my monthly CTO Third Thursday lunchtime discussion session yesterday. These are hugely useful debates over lunch on a subject relevant to today’s IT Director. We have a guest speaker and on this occasion it was Joe Baguley, CTO of VMware.

We heard about developments at VMware and the strategic direction in which the company is going. This isn’t good news for everyone. VMware are currently pushing out software defined networks and software defined data centres. The idea is that all the smarts are provided by VMware and all the end user IT Director has to do is provide low end commodity hardware. Not what the likes of Cisco, who are VMware partners, would want to hear.

The lunch lasted from 12.30 until 5pm so we covered a lot if stuff. I’ll leave you with one interesting snippet. Apparently Googler uses laptops for its cloud services. In this way if the power to the datacentre goes down the machine itself provides the UPS via its own battery. Innovative I say. I don’t know any more detail than that but it certainly sounds plausible.

The header is of me and Joe at the Timico Cloud launch earlier in the year. I forgot to take pics yesterday!

PS very personable bloke Joe 🙂

Categories
4g Business Cloud mobile connectivity

4G remains impressive

Using up the last of the battery on this Chromebook from my garret at a Travelodge in London. I’m hanging off the Huaweii MiFi with a 4G sim. I’m sure I’ve said it before but I have to say it again the experience is terrific. Seriously useful for business. Pages load up almost instantly. It’s as if I was using my home WiFi and my FTTC line. Fair play:)

Categories
chromebook End User

Life without a laptop – Samsung Chromebook charger left at home

Samsung chromebooks have no future unless they change to USB micro charger.
I’m on the train to London.  I’ve left my Samsung Chromebook at home and only have 2 hours of battery left. I ran it all morning on the battery thinking I’d plug it in on the train.
It isn’t the end of the world.
I’m using my Samsung galaxy s4 to write this post. However I will say that Samsung’s days as a chromebook manufacturer are numbered unless they change charger connectors. Theirs is a tiny proprietary job.
The new HP chromebook has a microUSB connector for charging. I always carry at least one micro USB cable.
Nuff said.

Categories
broadband Business

Does FTTP on Demand compete with Ethernet fibre connectivity?

FTTP on demand – will customers go for it?

Yesterday was at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton to give a talk on connectivity to a community of businessmen and IT types. Hampshire is, like many counties, very rural and there was a degree of complaining from the audience regarding the availability of decent connectivity.

Although the BDUK funded Next Generation Access project is rolling out to supposedly cover 90% of the country that still leaves a lot of people without access, or at least with the pitiful 2Mbs that the government it its wisdom has decided is good enough for the last 10%.

One chap mentioned that he had 20 rural sites that needed connecting. My answer to him was Fibre To The Premises on Demand which is currently being trialled by BT. FTTP on Demand has a fibre connection from the cabinet to your premises. The comparison is with Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) which has a copper cable between you and the cabinet. FTTP therefore, in principle offers the prospect of much faster throughputs than FTTC. Initially FTTP on Demand should provide 330Mbps down and 30Mbps up, once you’ve paid for the connection. The connection charge will almost certainly not be the few tens of pounds you might fork out for a new phone line. It’s more likely to be in the low thousands of pounds.

Notwithstanding that there is a fair chance that FTTP would do the job for many rural areas. This then prompted me to compare an FTTP solution with a standard Ethernet fibre connection.

What is the difference between FTTP and a fibre Ethernet connection?

FTTP whilst being fibre all the way to your premises runs over the BT 21CN Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) network. This is the backbone network that carries most BT broadband traffic. Because BT has a near monopoly the pricing for this is regulated “to ensure a level playing field” but is fairly expensive (regulated price is £48 per Mbps). To make broadband services economic to provide an ISP will rent a certain amount of bandwidth over WBC and use it to service multiple customers. It is therefore a shared network.

In reality this works very well, most of the time. Although FTTP isn’t a production product yet the mechanics are similar to Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC). A network with say 40Mbps amount of capacity to carry FTTC traffic will be able to serve multiple 40Mbps FTTC lines because they won’t all be using it at the same time. Ok if everyone was online downloading torrents at the same time that is likely to cause problems but by and large that doesn’t happen and ISPs have their own ways of dealing with the situation.

ISPs productise this type of connection and normally limit the data transfer bandwidth in a bundle of Gigabytes. They do this because a given sized backhaul connection will be able to handle a certain number of bytes in a given time period. This usage capacity is usually determined for a window at the busiest time of day.

Some ISPs offer “unlimited” packages. BT is one. BT offer an unlimited data bundle for their 80/20 FTTC product (they quote something like “up to 76Mbs down and 17Mbps up”)  for £61 plus vat including calls and line rental (plus another fiver for a static IP). The Timico equivalent is £60 for the same product with 500GB a month of data. The Timico version might not sound as good as BT’s but the reality is that very few people ever come close to 500GB in a month. My “best” ever month was 250GB last December and I am a very heavy user. Also if average usage grew to levels unacceptable to BT you can bet your bottom dollar that they would either increase their pricing or stick in a limit.

There is a point to this bit of the discussion which I will come back to later.

Ethernet, as opposed to FTTC is a different product altogether. It is still fibre to the premises but relies on an unregulated backhaul network that very much has competition. The cost of the backhaul on Ethernet is anything up to ten times lower than that of FTTP (that’s what a bit of competition can do). Also Ethernet provides symmetrical uncontended connectivity. Ie it is the same speed up and down and you don’t share the connection with anyone else (though you can buy contended Ethernet which will be slightly cheaper).

Although the backhaul bandwidth is cheaper for Ethernet the fact that you are paying for it all means it is more expensive than FTTx (P or C). The flipside is that you can shift an awful lot more data in the month. A 100Mbps Ethernet connection should let you transfer 32Terabytes a month – massively more than the 500GB bundle I quoted earlier for FTTC. Also remember that Ethernet is symmetric – a 100Mbps connection is 100Mbps in each direction, whereas FTTP is 330 Mbps down and 30Mbps up.

Although there isn’t an official line on this it seems clear to me that BT has set the asymmetric levels for two reasons. Firstly so that they can boast a 330Mbps product in their commercial battles with Virgin Media’s cable service and secondly so that the product doesn’t clash with Ethernet.

A business buying Ethernet will be doing so for a number of reasons including reliability, Service Level Agreement and latency but also because they need faster upload than FTTX provides.

A 100Mbps Ethernet service retails at around £750 plus VAT. A business using the 80:20 FTTC service (in the absence of FTTP it’s the nearest one I have a price  for at the moment) and based on £60 for 500GB (we have to assume some kind of benchmark for this calc as I don’t think it is realistic to assume unlimited bandwidth for £60 – as I say the price would go up if people started hammering it) a company would have to be using around 6Terabytes of data a month to justify the move to Ethernet, unless they needed the symmetrical performance (and the other benefits). They might also want a lower latency product which Ethernet provides. If my memory serves me right the round trip time between a site using Fast Ethernet and docklands will be a fifth or lower than that of FTTX.  That’s less than 10milliseconds compared with 40 to 50 milliseconds. Ethernet could be even faster depending on location.

It is easy to envisage a chart that plots  where the cost of FTTX will intercept that of fibre Ethernet based on the growth in usage. FTTX bandwidth costs may well come down but it will also do so for Ethernet. I don’t know when the lines will cross but they will do so and that point will tell us when the country will move entirely to a fibre based network.

My forecasts for my own personal data storage needs suggest I will be adding nearly 2TB a year in storage by 2020. Unless I start consuming a lot of Ultra high definition video it suggests to me that it’s going to be a very long time before I need to upgrade to a symmetrical Ethernet service. A 30Mbp uplink as provided by the current FTTP capability would let me upload 10Terabytes in a month (all these numbers are approximate) which my calcs suggest is more than enough for my forseeable needs. Even my 80:20 line which only gives me 35:7 due to the distance to the cabinet will be good enough until at least 2020.

There are other factors which will drive the world towards fibre (as opposed to FTTC). The cost of running the network will be one – fibre has a much lower operating cost once it is in place as it is more reliable. The speed of adoption of download bandwidth heavy services such as streaming Ultra HD video is another.

I didn’t really know where I was going when I started this post. I am a big fan of rolling out FTTP. It is the most sensible long term proposition. It certainly still make sense in the near term for areas of the country that can’t get FTTC. That’s 10% of the population at least.

I’m going to leave it at that. I’ve rambled on long enough.

Ciao baby.

Categories
Business fun stuff

Online marketing – it’s in the DNA

The Davies house is yet again at peace. Child 4 is upstairs, no doubt playing on the XBox, having been soundly beaten at table tennis  in the conservatory. Number 3 is out a band practice – they have a gig tonight at the Lincoln Drill Hall. The other two are no longer at home.

I’ve whizzed through my jobslist. Apples picked, wood sorted in back garden, ski gear purchased for #4, tree moved (yes), methylated spirits sourced for tonight’s cheese fondue. Mrs Davies is down town foraging for some provisions in the market.

I have to pick the band up at 4.45 to transport them to the venue – drums and double bass and 5 lads. That’s ok. They are called The Pylons – check out their Facebook page. Their website is here. They are also on Twitter.

Uhuh you say. Well I guess where this is going is that these are 15 and 16 year old lads and they already have a handle on all the tools they need to promote their band. Their EP is currently in production, being recorded in a friend’s garage. They have more technology than your average pro studio would have had only a few years ago. They are a connected generation. They know how to make it work.

 

Categories
chromebook Cloud End User

Chromebook just crashed

samsung chromebookMy Samsung Chromebook just crashed. Just like that. Fortunately the recovery process was like lightning – even restored the browser tabs. Most of the time taken to recover was downloading the web pages. How many times have we all gulped when realising that we are about to have to reboot the old Microsoft PC. It would have been time to stick the kettle on.

Categories
Business scams

From +447456272496 Please call 08445718136 quoting your reference 776811

llanfairpwllATTENTION! We have tried to contact you, It is important we speak to you today. Please call 08445718136 quoting your reference 776811. Thank You.

Gah this is sooo frustrating. The person didn’t say who it was sending the text and I don’t have the number in my address book. What am I going to do now? It will be so embarrassing if I ring and get their name wrong – I don’t like to just say “hi” do you? It gives a far better impression if you can call them by name. I realise that they didn’t use my name either but that’s understandable in a text message isn’t it? Using my full name, Huw Trefor Davies would take up far too much space though they could have just said Tref and I would have been fine with that. Maybe they didn’t think of that.

Perhaps their name is a really long one that would take up most of the message – like Mr Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It’s plausible, isn’t it? People do get called after place names, maybe they were born there or summat!

I don’t think I’ll bother.

Categories
Business online safety Regs security

Government Minister responsible for leaking secrets to enemy spies?

I note that old Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, has taken his communications services into his own hands and  installed a WiFi connection. The Telegraph article doesn’t go into any great detail as to what the WiFi is connected to. You get the impression he has ordered a separate broadband line to his office.

I was pondering on a comment on this article. Should we the great unwashed have a view on this? On the one hand if he is just using the WiFi to hook up his iPad etc just to catch up with his pals on Facebook and Twitter what’s the harm in that? I’m not sure he uses Twitter mind – I could only find a couple of parody accounts in his name. Maybe he uses an alias. I digress.

On the other hand he could be opening up the whole government communications infrastructure to foreign spies hell bent on infiltration and bad things. FM could be the cause of us having enemy sleepers (is that the correct terminology, it’s been a while since I read Le Carre – curse you #Twitterthiefoftime) deep into Whitehall ready to spring into action when the activation code word is broadcast on the BBC Radio4 Today programme or in a classified ad in The Financial Times (or Telegraph).

It might be argued that all the security that makes Government systems so clunky as described in the Telegraph article is all a waste of time anyway when it seems inevitable that Edward Snowden will one day leak all the secrets. We may well find that most of the info is routine stuff like what is Francis Maude’s favourite sandwich filling. Could of course be of use to an enemy seeking to poison him. Look out for yourself Francis. Take care now.

Whatever happens I’m all in favour of reducing the cost of Government, especially if he is paying for the broadband himself which I doubt but don’t know really. If we the unclean are paying lets hope he got a good deal – 50% off for the first six months or something like that. Maybe even unlimited calls to geographic numbers bundled in.

It’s not a Friday afternoon but I feel a competition coming on here. What keyword will our fiendish enemies use for a wakeup call and where will they publish it? It might be a phrase.

“The snow geese have arrived early this winter” is not an eligible entry – that one is too obvious and would immediately put MI5 on the alert. Or is it MI6?

Entries in the comments section please. Winner gets a terrific Timico megamug which they can collect in person at #trefbash2013. As a supplementary question if you want to guess what is FM’s favourite sandwich filling then I may use that as a tiebreaker in the event of a draw.

Your mother wears army boots.

Categories
4g Business chromebook mobile connectivity

54 minutes 315 Megabytes 4G conference call using Google+ Hangout

sweyn hunterGoogle Hangout for 54 minutes using Samsung Chromebook and EE4G Huaweii MiFi clocks up 315Megabytes.

Just had a very pleasant 54 minutes video call with Sweyn Hunter using Google+ Hangout. My Huaweii 4G MiFi (courtesy of EE) tells me that it used approximately 315MB of bandwidth – probably slightly less as I did some emails before hand.

At Sweyn’s end he had “good old fashioned BT ADSL” with maybe 512k uplink speed. He lives in Orkney. The video quality was great though it did freeze two or three times in the 54 minutes. The only slight issue was an element of half duplex/one way speech in that if he was speaking and I tried to speak at the same time. I quickly got used to that and it didn’t detract  from the quality of the conversation.

Also 54 minutes was a long hangout for what was just a casual chat – I’ve never met Sweyn but converse with him from time to time on Twitter – @sweynh – I’m sure he won’t mind me telling everyone. The point being that if we were comfortable having a 54 minute video conversation the quality must have been good – otherwise we would have cut it short.

Sweyn is an interesting bloke I’m sure he won’t mind me saying – you should follow him. He is organising an Island Govcamp in Orkney next year on 6th and 7th September.

Might try a hangout using O2 and Vodafone sims in my various phones next time. It will be interesting to see if personal video calling is going to at last get mainstream with 4G. Bandwidth cost is still going to be an issue. You can work out for yourselves how quickly you will eat up your own data bundle.

Categories
4g Business mobile connectivity

4G better than hotel WiFi – official

Sat in my garrett at the Cromwell Hotel in London getting ready to to a 5.30 meeting. There is great 4G coverage here from O2, Vodafone and EE. The hotel WiFi is totally pants. It’s so slow it won’t even connect.

During my 4G test trips I already concluded that it is better to use 4G than the WiFi of a pub or cafe. I can tell you after my scientific survey (sample size one)  that this is also the case in hotels.

It’s such a pleasure to have the connectivity on the move. This post is coming from my Samsung Chromebook hooked up to the Huaweii MiFi loaned to me my EE. On the train on the way down I also used the MiFi – it was tucked in my coat pocket so to all intents and purposes the Chromebook was “just accessing the internet directly”.

Now all I need to do is to figure out how to convert Microsoft presentations to Google format (see previous post).

Pics below are screenshot of speedtest on O2 4G on Samsung Galaxy S4 plus screenshot of “error” message when it failed to connect to Cromwell Hotel WiFi.

wifi connection at Cromwell Hotel O2 4G connection in London
It’s offical, at this Best Western Hotel, 4G is best 🙂

Categories
Business chromebook Cloud

Samsung Chromebook test #3 – writing presentations

samsung chromebookIs the Samsung Chromebook any good for creating presentations? I’m about to find out. I have one to finish and am now off out to London for a couple of days – IPExpo and a dinner in Westminster ce soir. I also have to finish a presentation I’m doing next week on behalf of NewNet so it needs to be done whilst travelling.

I have my old Dell laptop out but the weight difference between it and the Chromebook is making it a no brainer. The Dell stays at home. I guess it is possible to buy thin, light laptops but not at £229.

I’ve moved the original presentation, started using Microsoft, onto my Drive. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Categories
End User social networking

How do I manage Android phone based interruptions from social media alerts?

pink roseI’ve just realized that my Android phone is interrupting me now as often as the toast popup (or whatever it is called) on the laptop that tells me when a new email is in.

I’m getting notifications for new Google+ alerts, Twitter mentions, follows and Direct Messages, Facebook replies & messages, LinkedIn endorsements (lots of those for some reason), profile views, replies, messages, likes, invitations to connect and comments, email alerts from multiple accounts and plain old fashioned text messages. There is another symbol that I regularly get but can’t remember what that is at the moment. I rarely get a notification from Pinterest mind you (fwiw).

Whenever one of these alerts comes in my phone whistles or vibrates. I then look at it and often follow up by looking on my laptop/Chromebook to see the same information.

We are talking social media overload here. I can live with looking at my phone under the sheets during the night so that my wife doesn’t see the glow but daytime alerts are getting a bit out of hand.

I need help. Help! 🙂

PS inset photo of a rose is purely because when I was looking for a suitable image for this post I came across it and thought it looked nice:)

Categories
Business events

Champagne drinkers outselling the rest 22hours into #trefbash2013 launch #bigdata

champagne_thumbBigdata is trendy and I have a little bit of big data here for your interest (or not – might be totally boring). Out of 75 tickets “sold” in the 22 hours since the announcement of  #trefbash2013 went live 24 were “champagne drinkers”, 17 “volume beer drinkers”, 14 Hard core vodka types”, 13 “friends of Tref” and 7 “sophisticated  cocktail drinkers”.

Considering that most of these people are in the tech industry the fact that champagne drinkers are leading the way says volumes about the amount of cash sloshing about in this business. I suspect that had there not been a champagne category then most of them would have gone for the cocktail drinker tickets.

In a male dominated engineering world there are always going to be a fair number of volume beer drinkers. These guys I guess are more likely to stay the pace than any of the other ticket types except perhaps the friends of Tref. Considering this was the teetotal ticket type (poetry there) I am both surprised and touched by the fact that 13 of you have held up your hands and said we were pals. Thanks guys 🙂

Like the two year run up to the US Presidential Election this is a story that will run and run, at least until all the tickets have sold out and we have recovered from the party.

Ciao baby (puts middle finger into mouth and makes champagne cork popping sound)…