Book Archives - trefor.net

You will have been staying with your auntie on another planet if you are a regular visitor to this blog and not have noticed that I’m having a book launch on May8th (see here for details). I’ve been spamming my social media channels about it (sorry to those followers that remain 🙂 ) and I’m expecting a packed house.

Recognising that most people in the world won’t be able to come as all flights and hotels will be full (etc) together with the fact that the Morning Star will only take 100 people at a push I thought I’d stream the gig live online.

Up until recently I had intended to do this using babuser.com, that being the only streaming facility I’ve used. However I was pointed in the direction of Google+ Hangout Live Stream broadcasts and boy oh boy is that a cool service.

Your Google+ account is linked to your YouTube account and at the click of a button your hangout is streamed live both in your Google+ stream and YouTube. What’s more you can embed the stream in your own website and Google records the broadcast for reuse afterwards. You can thereafter chose to make it public or private.

The beauty of this is the level of engagement you can achieve on the various social media sites – comments/discussions and shares can abound. I looked at it for my book launch but clearly this is something that businesses can use that takes a Webex style presentation session to a more powerful and public level.

You can watch my efforts in the video embedded below. It is only me playing about and the fact that I had two laptops open side by side means lots of echoey feedback. The lighting isn’t great either so the audio and the quality of the video is something you need to work on.

The nice thing about the Google setup is that you can invite several friends to participate using their phones and at anytime select their video feed to be the main one in the broadcast. You have the basic setup for a professional studio or outside broadcast, albeit a simple one. The only shame is that the Android app doesn’t have the buttons for setting up the broadcast from a handset. You seem to need to use the desktop version.

I’m going to need a volunteer or two for next Wednesday and will be testing this on site over the Bank Holiday weekend. Lemme know if you want to hook up in a hangout. I’m [email protected]. Ciao baby.

the phonebook Got home last night to find a brand new phonebook on the doorstep. Fair took me by surprise as I didn’t realise they still did them.

What struck me was the size of it. Tiny. Thinner than my index finger. I wondered whether this was because they didn’t have every Lincoln number in it but they must have because mine was there which scientifically proves everyone’s number is there. Presumably fewer businesses are advertising in it these days.

When Anne and I first bought a house together she sorted out the phone line. It was before we got married and when she filled out the entry for the telephone directory she quite naturally used her own name. This caused problems because nobody could find our number. They all expected it to be under my name – HT Davies. Even the H used to cause problems – many people don’t know that Tref is my middle name. We changed the entry the following year¹.

In those days people actually used to use the phone book. The phrase “it’s in the book” was quite common. That was before people had their own mobile phones and before the internet. Nowadays not only do people rarely use the home phone line but the concept of looking up someone’s telephone number “in the book” is redundant.

If I need to call someone I will already have their mobile number in my mobile directory. If I don’t have that number then I will likely ask someone to text me so that I know where they are or I’ll drop them a line on Facebook or Twitter.

That’s all.

PS Some of you may think the photo would have been better positioned upright in portrait mode because you keep tilting your head to try and read it. It’s like that because this blog likes to push the boundaries and sometimes that is uncomfortable for people. Also the header pic is slightly out of focus – that’s either artistic or it’s because I couldn’t get it to focus that close up on the phone – you decide 🙂

¹ that’s the last concession she ever had to make – I know who the boss is in our house 🙂