What is the most impressive IT demonstration you've ever seen? Almost everyone has something which springs to mind. Perhaps it was some time ago and has now become the norm, but back then it blew your socks off.
Well, I've just had one of those moments. It was a country mile ahead of the first time I saw ClickTowers on Google Earth. This, my beloved readers, was probably something I will never forget.
This was the next best thing to making time stand still or looking into the future.
Imagine being able to play a piece of music into a microphone. Almost any piece of music. I chose the relatively obscure "Song of Life" by Leftfield on my mobile. Within 5 seconds, the supercomputer had identified the track from its databased catalogue, found the exact position we were listening to and then begun playing the music 5 seconds ahead of where my mobile phone was. Amazing. I must have tried 6 tracks and the system was faultless.
My hosts, who have interests in furthering raw unadulterated computing power, asked for their identity to be kept under wraps. This isn't something they're productising in anyway and don't want the publicity. It's simply a demonstration- a very impressive demonstration. Sadly, I can't see how this power, or concept, can be leveraged into anything useful (besides, Shazam has that covered), but it just goes to show what they mean when they talk about being able to process TeraFLOPS (floating point operations per second) of information. By way of comparison, Wikipedia rates a Pentium4 at a few GigaFLOPS. Also impressive is the database reads that process entailed. My mind is blown, I may post a more balanced view when I've settled down a touch.
Tags: technology, IT, supercomputing, HPC, FLOPS, TeraFLOPS, Wikipedia, demonstration, power computing, extreme computing, Shazam
Monday, August 21, 2006
Web Access Crippled by 'Downloader' Virus
I consider myself to have been fairly lucky (or solidly locked down) when it comes to PC viruses. However, at the weekend I was hit by the Downloader virus. I immediately started running updates on all 3 security products I use and began some full scans. The virus is embedded into a file called epl.exe and Symantec had trouble quarantining and/or deleting it.
I've not done much research on "Downloader"- mainly because Symantec eventually claimed to have deleted it. However, it looks like it is still there because Symantec told me again that it has deleted it. I very much doubt that I've been infected twice, but probably it never actually went away.
It's something I'll have to look into more seriously some time.
Surf safely kids. It's a jungle out there.
Tags: technology, IT, PC, virus, Downloader, Symantec, epl.exe, Norton, antivirus
I've not done much research on "Downloader"- mainly because Symantec eventually claimed to have deleted it. However, it looks like it is still there because Symantec told me again that it has deleted it. I very much doubt that I've been infected twice, but probably it never actually went away.
It's something I'll have to look into more seriously some time.
Surf safely kids. It's a jungle out there.
Tags: technology, IT, PC, virus, Downloader, Symantec, epl.exe, Norton, antivirus
Are Kids becoming Desensitised?
What do you have to do to excite kids these days? On Friday my lunch was pleasantly interrupted by the annual Bournemouth Red Arrows display. I'd have been gobsmacked as a child to see these daredevil antics. However, the children sat near my position on West Overcliff were seriously non-plussed, asking very practical questions such as "Why are they red?", "Where are they going?" and "Why are they smoking?". Good questions, but all the ooohs and ahhhs were coming from the parents.Even when a lone jet surprised us by screaming right over our heads from behind, I swear that I saw nonchalant shrugs from some kids. Is this a symptom of modern life, or was it always like this?
I have to commend Camster Factor for their great photos posted on Flickr.
Tags: Bournemouth, Red Arrows, aerobatic, RAF, Royal Air Force, Dorset, UK, aviation, BAe, Hawk, kids, children
Friday, August 18, 2006
Oakenfold gets Grief
Thank goodness, it's not me getting old. I've been validated. I am young. Why?
Well, I was non too complimentary about Paul Oakenfold's latest Essential Mix on Radio1. Given that the three people who read this blog chose not to write in to me, I was thinking perhaps that I'd been harsh. Maybe that's how the kids mix these days? Afterall, those Radio1 producers have more fingers on the pulse than my small hands (it's all lies) permit.
How relieved I was, then, when I saw the Radio1 web page inviting comments with the headline "Worst Essential Mix Ever?". Following the link made me realise that I was relatively middle of the road. The militant branch of Anti-Perfecto was out in full force.
Tags: music, dance, DJ, clubbing, Paul Oakenfold, Perfecto, BBC, Radio1, Ibiza, Cream, Amnesia, Tiesto, Big Brother, Annie Mac
Well, I was non too complimentary about Paul Oakenfold's latest Essential Mix on Radio1. Given that the three people who read this blog chose not to write in to me, I was thinking perhaps that I'd been harsh. Maybe that's how the kids mix these days? Afterall, those Radio1 producers have more fingers on the pulse than my small hands (it's all lies) permit.
How relieved I was, then, when I saw the Radio1 web page inviting comments with the headline "Worst Essential Mix Ever?". Following the link made me realise that I was relatively middle of the road. The militant branch of Anti-Perfecto was out in full force.
Tags: music, dance, DJ, clubbing, Paul Oakenfold, Perfecto, BBC, Radio1, Ibiza, Cream, Amnesia, Tiesto, Big Brother, Annie Mac
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Whose problem- my network provider or my handset maker?
Ok, so today I decided that my long reported synchronisation problem between my Nokia N70 and PC should be nipped in the bud. It's become a major productivity problem. As I sit here typing this, I'm losing the battle and, after an hour on the phone with Orange, my grip on the will to live.
You can read more here, but to summarise, the phone synchronised fine for about 6 months. Now, Nokia PC Suite (version 6.6.16) says that it is connected to the phone (and indeed you can browse around it in File Manager), but when you select Synchronise > Synchronise Now (which isn't ghosted by the way) the system tray icon flashes for a while, but nothing otherwise happens. When you click Settings, you get no response at all.
Nokia's FAQ troubleshooting is very limited- it says something along the lines of "make sure you are using a Nokia cable". I am. I'm using a CA-53. It came in the same box as the phone. So did PC Suite.
To check that is wasn't the cable, I purchased a Bluetooth USB and that brings me to the same problem. I have to therefore assume the cable wasn't the problem. Just to rub it in, a first time use of iSync on the Apple worked fine over Bluetooth. I have therefore to also assume that the phone is fine.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling PCSuite. No progress. Same problem.
Although I didn't buy the phone from Nokia, they obviously are more likely to have the knowledge to support me, so I went to their website. I posted my problem on their discussion boards where, it seems, there are many disgruntled users. In fact, what has solved the problem for some people hasn't helped others so there are clearly many causes of the problem. The attitude of the Nokia's moderator on these boards is not exactly 'can-do'. They steered me to the support page where I had to describe the problem all over again. Why the moderator couldn't flag it up on behalf struck me as lazy. So, after typing out the problem as helpfully as I could, what happened? The page wouldn't submit. There was a web site error.
OK, so I resorted to the phone number. After selecting the appropriate options I was invited to ring a premium rate number where I'd be charged 75p per minute to have the pleasure of reporting that my phone doesn't work. All is forgiven Microsoft- at least you guys listen, tell us when we're buying a beta and to expect flaky product and immature support.
At this point I decided that I'd tried everything reasonable under my own initiative and that I should take up my consumer rights with those whom my contract is with- I bought the phone from Orange. Orange say that they aren't trained to deal with problems relating to Nokia's PC Suite. I can understand that, but surely they have some responsibility, as the phone retailer, for the product being fit for purpose? Afterall, it was Orange that decided that they would help with the phone and not the associated products (which were all in the same box), not the consumer. Could they take up my grievance with their supplier, Nokia? Not according to them. Orange provide the network. Nokia supply the phone and accessories. I need to go to Nokia. I'm sure that my contract is with Orange- I bought the phone from Orange. Orange provided the phone.
I have to say that Orange graciously offered to credit £5 to my account so I could call Nokia. That really is a great offer on the part of the Orange employee but I was concerned that my accepting it would compromise my statutory rights.
If you have a problem with your TV, you take it back to the retailer. They would liase with the manufacturer. Obviously, not with phones.
So, I'm resolved to live out my lacklustre relationship with my N70 until my next upgrade is due. Nobody is interested in helping. And this, I believe, is why the take up of smartphones isn't what the industry had hoped for. They're simply not 'consumer' enough- as a product or service. I'm a tech nerd and still can't do it.
Tags: technology, telephony, mobile, 3G, Nokia, N70, productivity, synchronisation, Orange, problem, customer service, smartphone, support, PCSuite, PC Suite
You can read more here, but to summarise, the phone synchronised fine for about 6 months. Now, Nokia PC Suite (version 6.6.16) says that it is connected to the phone (and indeed you can browse around it in File Manager), but when you select Synchronise > Synchronise Now (which isn't ghosted by the way) the system tray icon flashes for a while, but nothing otherwise happens. When you click Settings, you get no response at all.
Nokia's FAQ troubleshooting is very limited- it says something along the lines of "make sure you are using a Nokia cable". I am. I'm using a CA-53. It came in the same box as the phone. So did PC Suite.
To check that is wasn't the cable, I purchased a Bluetooth USB and that brings me to the same problem. I have to therefore assume the cable wasn't the problem. Just to rub it in, a first time use of iSync on the Apple worked fine over Bluetooth. I have therefore to also assume that the phone is fine.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling PCSuite. No progress. Same problem.
Although I didn't buy the phone from Nokia, they obviously are more likely to have the knowledge to support me, so I went to their website. I posted my problem on their discussion boards where, it seems, there are many disgruntled users. In fact, what has solved the problem for some people hasn't helped others so there are clearly many causes of the problem. The attitude of the Nokia's moderator on these boards is not exactly 'can-do'. They steered me to the support page where I had to describe the problem all over again. Why the moderator couldn't flag it up on behalf struck me as lazy. So, after typing out the problem as helpfully as I could, what happened? The page wouldn't submit. There was a web site error.
OK, so I resorted to the phone number. After selecting the appropriate options I was invited to ring a premium rate number where I'd be charged 75p per minute to have the pleasure of reporting that my phone doesn't work. All is forgiven Microsoft- at least you guys listen, tell us when we're buying a beta and to expect flaky product and immature support.
At this point I decided that I'd tried everything reasonable under my own initiative and that I should take up my consumer rights with those whom my contract is with- I bought the phone from Orange. Orange say that they aren't trained to deal with problems relating to Nokia's PC Suite. I can understand that, but surely they have some responsibility, as the phone retailer, for the product being fit for purpose? Afterall, it was Orange that decided that they would help with the phone and not the associated products (which were all in the same box), not the consumer. Could they take up my grievance with their supplier, Nokia? Not according to them. Orange provide the network. Nokia supply the phone and accessories. I need to go to Nokia. I'm sure that my contract is with Orange- I bought the phone from Orange. Orange provided the phone.
I have to say that Orange graciously offered to credit £5 to my account so I could call Nokia. That really is a great offer on the part of the Orange employee but I was concerned that my accepting it would compromise my statutory rights.
If you have a problem with your TV, you take it back to the retailer. They would liase with the manufacturer. Obviously, not with phones.
So, I'm resolved to live out my lacklustre relationship with my N70 until my next upgrade is due. Nobody is interested in helping. And this, I believe, is why the take up of smartphones isn't what the industry had hoped for. They're simply not 'consumer' enough- as a product or service. I'm a tech nerd and still can't do it.
Tags: technology, telephony, mobile, 3G, Nokia, N70, productivity, synchronisation, Orange, problem, customer service, smartphone, support, PCSuite, PC Suite
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Windows Live Early Impressions
I've been comparing Blogger to Windows Live for publishing posts to my Blog. The fact that I'm writing this review through the web interface of blogger sums up my experience so far.
After setting up a Test Blog, I posted once using each method. With more confidence, I made the first post to the ClickRich Blog with Windows Live but I'm still experiencing teething problems. I suspect that in making Blogger user friendly, much control has been taken away from tools such as Windows Live- such as editing the layout and adding images. I'll try persist and see if I can make it through the niggles because it would definitely be a more productive tool.
After setting up a Test Blog, I posted once using each method. With more confidence, I made the first post to the ClickRich Blog with Windows Live but I'm still experiencing teething problems. I suspect that in making Blogger user friendly, much control has been taken away from tools such as Windows Live- such as editing the layout and adding images. I'll try persist and see if I can make it through the niggles because it would definitely be a more productive tool.
Windows Live Edited Post
This post was created with Windows Live. I couldn't add the image I wanted to because apparently its not supported by Blogger. I think the truth is in the detail on that one. However, it did offer me the option of creating an FTP facility for the image which would have worked.
Bold
Italicised
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Google buys Neven Vision... read why
In buying Neven Vision, Google is one step closer to my Visual Search Engine. The pieces of the jigsaw are coming together.
Tags: technology, search engine, IT, Neven, image recognition, visual search engine, visual, acquisition, Google, device, appliance, biometrics
Tags: technology, search engine, IT, Neven, image recognition, visual search engine, visual, acquisition, Google, device, appliance, biometrics
Open Source Buildings
Crazy? Think about it...
Modularity. Reuse. Generic platform, customised configuration. Convergence. Increasing rate of change. Technology.
The Open Source Building Alliance is bringing this together and builds on MIT's work with PlaceLab.
Tags: technology, buildings, innovation, open source, MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, OSBA, Open Source Building Alliance, PlaceLab, experimental
Modularity. Reuse. Generic platform, customised configuration. Convergence. Increasing rate of change. Technology.
The Open Source Building Alliance is bringing this together and builds on MIT's work with PlaceLab.
Tags: technology, buildings, innovation, open source, MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, OSBA, Open Source Building Alliance, PlaceLab, experimental
Pocket Sized Projectors
I'm trying to think of quite what the benefits will be to the end user for small projectors built into portable devices like mobile phones and laptops, but I have to say that I'm very taken with the idea. I suppose this is probably one of those technologies, like SMS, that will just create its own demand. Like Henry Ford said- before the advent of the car, if you'd asked people what they want, they'd probably have asked for a faster horse.
The company behind this technology, Light Blue Optics, have been nurtured through the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), a technology transfer unit of Cambridge University in the UK and MIT, Cambridge, US. Their website is something of a showcase for innovation so worth staying tuned to. The site is packed with articles, so would benefit from an RSS feed.
Tags: technology, display, innovation, Blue Light Optics, photonics, Cambridge University, MIT, projector, network, portable, Henry Ford
The company behind this technology, Light Blue Optics, have been nurtured through the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), a technology transfer unit of Cambridge University in the UK and MIT, Cambridge, US. Their website is something of a showcase for innovation so worth staying tuned to. The site is packed with articles, so would benefit from an RSS feed.
Tags: technology, display, innovation, Blue Light Optics, photonics, Cambridge University, MIT, projector, network, portable, Henry Ford
New Blogger in Beta
Blogger, the thing which provides the environment around, behind and under what you are reading now is going through a revamp. According to ZDNet the days of me having to manually code the tags in HTML will be over... and there was you thinking that ClickRich just sits there and does all of this from drop downs and forms.
Further searching found Blogger's own announcement where a tour showed other new features including locking posts for designated viewers, some drag and drop editing facilities, more feed options and information on blog activity. There is no mention of integrating Google Adsense (Google's online advertising service) which seems a missed opportunity given that Blogger is owned by the one and the same Google.
Unfortunately, only a few bloggers will be using the beta for a while yet, but progress on the horizon- that's good enough for me.
So, for hopefully one of the last times, here are those tags... enjoy:Tags: technology, Internet, web, blog, blogging, Blogger, beta, Google, tag, label, Adsense
Further searching found Blogger's own announcement where a tour showed other new features including locking posts for designated viewers, some drag and drop editing facilities, more feed options and information on blog activity. There is no mention of integrating Google Adsense (Google's online advertising service) which seems a missed opportunity given that Blogger is owned by the one and the same Google.
Unfortunately, only a few bloggers will be using the beta for a while yet, but progress on the horizon- that's good enough for me.
So, for hopefully one of the last times, here are those tags... enjoy:Tags: technology, Internet, web, blog, blogging, Blogger, beta, Google, tag, label, Adsense
Monday, August 14, 2006
Oakie- stick to Remixes and Producing
Paul Oakenfold is probably the biggest name DJ out there. Yes, he's the bloke who did the Big Brother theme. He even cropped up in the credits of the new Pink Panther film which I watched at the weekend. However, on the performance of the last two times I've heard him in a club, he should probably stick to what he's REALLY good at- remixing and producing.
Don't get me wrong, he's perfectly adequate at holding a crowd, but in a world rammed with talent, I find the big intros by the likes of BBC Radio 1 this last Saturday nauseous. I'm sorry Annie Mac, he's not the highlight of your week in Ibiza. You might need to justify that to your accountants but he was, at best, OK. Look past the legend. I don't mean to sound bitter but let someone else take to the stage-like DJ booth at Amnesia for Cream. Can they not hear that Paul dropped the beat in at least two mixes... you couldn't hear the euphoria of the crowd like you could with other DJs on the night.
Ironically, the last time I heard Oakie live was Cream @Amnesia in Ibiza too. We were lucky enough to be up in the gods, and I remember even on that night in 2004 we didn't have high expectations of his set- in fact, most people had turned out to see Tiesto who unfortunately had to cry off ill. An OK night, but not top drawer.
Tags: music, dance, DJ, clubbing, Paul Oakenfold, Perfecto, BBC, Radio1, Ibiza, Cream, Amnesia, Tiesto, Big Brother, Annie Mac
Don't get me wrong, he's perfectly adequate at holding a crowd, but in a world rammed with talent, I find the big intros by the likes of BBC Radio 1 this last Saturday nauseous. I'm sorry Annie Mac, he's not the highlight of your week in Ibiza. You might need to justify that to your accountants but he was, at best, OK. Look past the legend. I don't mean to sound bitter but let someone else take to the stage-like DJ booth at Amnesia for Cream. Can they not hear that Paul dropped the beat in at least two mixes... you couldn't hear the euphoria of the crowd like you could with other DJs on the night.
Ironically, the last time I heard Oakie live was Cream @Amnesia in Ibiza too. We were lucky enough to be up in the gods, and I remember even on that night in 2004 we didn't have high expectations of his set- in fact, most people had turned out to see Tiesto who unfortunately had to cry off ill. An OK night, but not top drawer.
Tags: music, dance, DJ, clubbing, Paul Oakenfold, Perfecto, BBC, Radio1, Ibiza, Cream, Amnesia, Tiesto, Big Brother, Annie Mac
Google Desktop Lease of Life
I'm feeling that I'm some way behind the techno-masses on Google Desktop so I'm going to refrain from a protracted review. Instead I shall say that it has given a whole new lease of life to my Windowing. Ok, so the Gadgets are clearly lifted from Mac OS X Widgets, but who cares where the inspiration comes from?
The Google Desktop search is remarkable (a proper indexed search) and makes Microsoft's delay to introducing WinFS look bordering on the farcical. Possible room for consolation for Redmond is that in Google Desktop's indexing of my harddrive, it has neglected to pick up on keywords in MS Office file properties.
I'm still playing with the rest of Google Desktop like a kid in a sweetshop (not even started to test any of the other Gadgets on offer) so more to follow later.
Tags: technology, desktop, Google, search, Mac, OS X, Gadgets, Technorati, Widgets, Microsoft, Vista, WinFS, Office
The Google Desktop search is remarkable (a proper indexed search) and makes Microsoft's delay to introducing WinFS look bordering on the farcical. Possible room for consolation for Redmond is that in Google Desktop's indexing of my harddrive, it has neglected to pick up on keywords in MS Office file properties.
I'm still playing with the rest of Google Desktop like a kid in a sweetshop (not even started to test any of the other Gadgets on offer) so more to follow later.
Tags: technology, desktop, Google, search, Mac, OS X, Gadgets, Technorati, Widgets, Microsoft, Vista, WinFS, Office
Recruit a Geek- TODAY!
Well, this week has got off to a funny start. Some colleagues are actually asking what they need to do to become a geek. The answer- get blogging. The chat was even lubricated with a Starbucks Vente Latte so they're half way there.
The world is going blogging mad. It makes sense really, with David Sifry reporting that the Blogosphere doubles in size every 200 days, statistically, someone else in this company needs to join the melee if that growth is in anyway to continue. I'm one in about 30 of us at the moment. Plenty of increase still available then...
Hopefully, reading this blog won't put my colleagues off. By the end of the week, we'll be running an all night hacking session with more pizza than you can shake a dongle at.
Tags: technology, Internet, web, blog, blogging, David Sifry, blogosphere, Technorati, RSS, Starbucks, latte
The world is going blogging mad. It makes sense really, with David Sifry reporting that the Blogosphere doubles in size every 200 days, statistically, someone else in this company needs to join the melee if that growth is in anyway to continue. I'm one in about 30 of us at the moment. Plenty of increase still available then...
Hopefully, reading this blog won't put my colleagues off. By the end of the week, we'll be running an all night hacking session with more pizza than you can shake a dongle at.
Tags: technology, Internet, web, blog, blogging, David Sifry, blogosphere, Technorati, RSS, Starbucks, latte
Saturday, August 12, 2006
500 years of Ancestry data up the swanny?
I've been storing up research on 500 years worth of hundreds of ancestors and related data using the Ancestry Family Tree software. I was running this software which I'd downloaded from Ancestry.com on a work PC. I no longer have access to that PC (it's been recycled), but I made sure that I'd grabbed the data file (.aft) and all the back ups (.afz) so I could set up the application at home and retrieve my information.
However, when I went to download the AFT software from the site, I saw that it had been succeeded by Family Tree Maker and a web based equivalent. The web based version I am hugely in favour of, but I though I'd stand more hope of handling any potential file format problems with an installed app in the first instance.
I installed Family Tree Maker at home and was relieved to see the promise that it can open an .aft file. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Even though .aft is one the Open file drop down list file types, when you try it, FTM says that it does not recognize the format of the file.
I welcome progress, but hope I have not lost years of research! I thought I'd made adequate provision for backups, but I'd not forseen this. So, I've asked in support from Ancestry.com, so fingers crossed.
In future I will save backups in a more open standard such as GEDCOM. I'd like to hear from anyone else who has come across this problem.
Tags: genealogy, ancestry, family tree, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.co.uk, Family Tree Maker, Ancestry Family Tree, .aft, futureproof, compatibility, backwards compatibility
However, when I went to download the AFT software from the site, I saw that it had been succeeded by Family Tree Maker and a web based equivalent. The web based version I am hugely in favour of, but I though I'd stand more hope of handling any potential file format problems with an installed app in the first instance.
I installed Family Tree Maker at home and was relieved to see the promise that it can open an .aft file. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Even though .aft is one the Open file drop down list file types, when you try it, FTM says that it does not recognize the format of the file.
I welcome progress, but hope I have not lost years of research! I thought I'd made adequate provision for backups, but I'd not forseen this. So, I've asked in support from Ancestry.com, so fingers crossed.
In future I will save backups in a more open standard such as GEDCOM. I'd like to hear from anyone else who has come across this problem.
Tags: genealogy, ancestry, family tree, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.co.uk, Family Tree Maker, Ancestry Family Tree, .aft, futureproof, compatibility, backwards compatibility
Friday, August 11, 2006
What's happening to our phones? What's 21CN all about?
I met with a senior director of BT recently and he was really excited about something. He was falling over himself to tell me all about "21st Century Network" or 21CN as they call it. Working more at the application and systems levels, I found it hard to see what was so special. Sure, I can appreciate that £14billion will buy BT something very impressive, but at the end of the day don't telecom networks just get faster, more resiliant, higher bandwidth? We know that we've reached optical so surely nothing can be faster than that. So that leaves resiliant and higher bandwidth right?
Well, yes that is right. But I've been digging around on YOUR behalf and there is another dimension to this.
In essence 21CN is replacing the traditional phone network, PSTN, with an IP based solution. So what that first tells us is that BT will not just be interested in phones. Or rather, any IP-enabled device (which will be most things in a few years) will be able to be a phone given the appropriate software. BT will not be billing addresses. Accounts will not centre on the phone line. BT will be billing humans.
Services will be driven out of the core of the telecom network. What does this really mean? Well you might not realise it, but you're probably compartmentalising your life into your landline answerphone, your mobile answerphone, your email account etc. Well, this will unify all your services architecturally (although I'm sure the retail market will be competitive as ever). You will access your communications from any device at any time. You might feel that you have this already, but in reality it is being delivered by a mish-mash of technologies enabled by providers and applications that are a veneer across the top of many infrastructures. That costs. That costs alot. That's flaky.
That also has limitations. At the moment you cannot transfer your voice call between devices beyond a phone switch. And what if you want to continue your conversation as an Instant Message chat because you've stepped onto the bus? Seamless. No longer will your contacts need to be synched between different parts of your life. It isn't just stored centrally, at the deepest level, but it's everywhere- ubiquitous.
Bandwidth becomes unlimited.
Then things get really clever. Imagine if you buy your applications as services from your telco. A whole world of applications as yet unimagined is going to explode into out lives from 2007 and I, for one, can't wait. I think we forget how much of a chore it is to constantly log in and out of applications through our modern working lives. I'm going to start counting. But, 21CN holds the possibility of never having to log in ever again. Never will any consumer or SME ever need to buy data storage hardware again. You will pay per byte for storage. You will pay for data transfer in many different ways. Your application will decide how to route a packet of data. Sending a Petabyte of data from London to New York in the next minute will not only be possible, but it will be priced differently to if it doesn't need to be there until 24 hours later.
And it will be cheap. In the last 10 years the cost of calls has dropped by 80%. This will continue and, I believe, accelerate.
So, when you hear BT talking about 21CN, sit up and listen. So far, it takes some leap of imagination to picture what they are describing, but as the time approaches for services to launch the message will become clearer about what it means to us.
Tags: technology, telecoms, telco, phones, futurology, bandwidth, BT, British Telecom, 21st Century Network, 21CN, IP
Well, yes that is right. But I've been digging around on YOUR behalf and there is another dimension to this.
In essence 21CN is replacing the traditional phone network, PSTN, with an IP based solution. So what that first tells us is that BT will not just be interested in phones. Or rather, any IP-enabled device (which will be most things in a few years) will be able to be a phone given the appropriate software. BT will not be billing addresses. Accounts will not centre on the phone line. BT will be billing humans.
Services will be driven out of the core of the telecom network. What does this really mean? Well you might not realise it, but you're probably compartmentalising your life into your landline answerphone, your mobile answerphone, your email account etc. Well, this will unify all your services architecturally (although I'm sure the retail market will be competitive as ever). You will access your communications from any device at any time. You might feel that you have this already, but in reality it is being delivered by a mish-mash of technologies enabled by providers and applications that are a veneer across the top of many infrastructures. That costs. That costs alot. That's flaky.
That also has limitations. At the moment you cannot transfer your voice call between devices beyond a phone switch. And what if you want to continue your conversation as an Instant Message chat because you've stepped onto the bus? Seamless. No longer will your contacts need to be synched between different parts of your life. It isn't just stored centrally, at the deepest level, but it's everywhere- ubiquitous.
Bandwidth becomes unlimited.
Then things get really clever. Imagine if you buy your applications as services from your telco. A whole world of applications as yet unimagined is going to explode into out lives from 2007 and I, for one, can't wait. I think we forget how much of a chore it is to constantly log in and out of applications through our modern working lives. I'm going to start counting. But, 21CN holds the possibility of never having to log in ever again. Never will any consumer or SME ever need to buy data storage hardware again. You will pay per byte for storage. You will pay for data transfer in many different ways. Your application will decide how to route a packet of data. Sending a Petabyte of data from London to New York in the next minute will not only be possible, but it will be priced differently to if it doesn't need to be there until 24 hours later.
And it will be cheap. In the last 10 years the cost of calls has dropped by 80%. This will continue and, I believe, accelerate.
So, when you hear BT talking about 21CN, sit up and listen. So far, it takes some leap of imagination to picture what they are describing, but as the time approaches for services to launch the message will become clearer about what it means to us.
Tags: technology, telecoms, telco, phones, futurology, bandwidth, BT, British Telecom, 21st Century Network, 21CN, IP
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
News Map GUI
Many thanks to John Ludwig whose post led me to the NewsMap. Now this is a fantastic example of a great GUI. Not only does it cleverly use size, colour and shades to denote the scale, topic and age of each top story on Google News in a tapestry, but the screen holds its validity as you resize it. According to the file extension, this presentation layer seems to have been built with Macromedia ColdFusion MX and looked great on my MacBook Pro with Safari and Windows Laptop with IE6, no matter how I resized the windows.
It reminds me that I should catch up on where Macromedia is at with ColdFusion. Is this observation part of a concerted client device independence strategy? Is this inherent to ColdFusion or something Marumushi worked hard at?
Marumushi have a whole range of clever visualisations of data to play with.
I WANT THESE IN MY COMPANY'S FACILITIES AND OUR MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM.
Tags: technology, web, Internet, useability, GUI, Macromedia, ColdFusion, Marumushi, visualisation, Google, MIS
It reminds me that I should catch up on where Macromedia is at with ColdFusion. Is this observation part of a concerted client device independence strategy? Is this inherent to ColdFusion or something Marumushi worked hard at?
Marumushi have a whole range of clever visualisations of data to play with.
I WANT THESE IN MY COMPANY'S FACILITIES AND OUR MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM.
Tags: technology, web, Internet, useability, GUI, Macromedia, ColdFusion, Marumushi, visualisation, Google, MIS
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Technology Usage and Wealth- the Postcode Survey
Ilkley is a town nestling at the foot of the Yorkshire Dales. Nothing too controversial ever happens there, so when you do read about Ilkley in the news, it is often as a result of some sort of survey into wealth or affluence. For example, in this HBOS survey, Ilkley is named amongst places such as Altrincham, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Harpenden as having an average house price which exceeds the Inheritance Tax threshold (the only place in Yorkshire on the list). On a different aspect of life 'affluent' Ilkley is reported as having an infant mortality rate of 5 times less than Bradford and Keighley- just 16 and 5 miles away respectively.
Well now another survey, this time in the area of technology, singles Ilkley out for special attention. The research by UCL and published through Spatial-Literacy shows that Ilkley is made up of the highest but one of seven groups of people measured by tech savviness (and top but two of all the twenty three subtypes), and twins them with such postcode districts as Alderley Edge, Cheltenham, Woodstock and Wirral. If you know anything about these areas, the inevitable conclusion you have to draw from this is that technology usage is associated with wealth. This needn't be as obvious as it seems, but this survey is probably the most detailed study yet as it looks at all 17 million postcodes cross referenced against Experian (credit reference agency) data.
Tags: technology, usage, survey, post code, postcode, wealth, spatial literacy, UCL, Ilkley, Alderley Edge, Cheltenham, Woodstock, Wirral, Richmond, infant mortality, HBOS
Well now another survey, this time in the area of technology, singles Ilkley out for special attention. The research by UCL and published through Spatial-Literacy shows that Ilkley is made up of the highest but one of seven groups of people measured by tech savviness (and top but two of all the twenty three subtypes), and twins them with such postcode districts as Alderley Edge, Cheltenham, Woodstock and Wirral. If you know anything about these areas, the inevitable conclusion you have to draw from this is that technology usage is associated with wealth. This needn't be as obvious as it seems, but this survey is probably the most detailed study yet as it looks at all 17 million postcodes cross referenced against Experian (credit reference agency) data.
Tags: technology, usage, survey, post code, postcode, wealth, spatial literacy, UCL, Ilkley, Alderley Edge, Cheltenham, Woodstock, Wirral, Richmond, infant mortality, HBOS
Monday, August 07, 2006
What will Foo Camp deliver this year?
Last year Foo Camp, the invitation-only geek ideas-fest, caused a bit of a stir by not inviting one or two folks who felt they were a shoe in. They went on to found an alternative event... Bar Camp.
So, with Foo Camp set to kick off, what will happen this year? As always, this is a low key event- not needing to market itself to draw a crowd. However, this means that in the build up, you see many a technologist lamenting the lack of an invite. Is this deliberate on the part of the organiser, Tim O'Reilly? Does he have his finger on the pulse? Has he got it wrong? Does he turn over the invitees to keep things fresh?
Who knows? Well, I will have to ask one of those who has been invited how it went (and how he got on with the tent).
Tags: technology, Foo Camp, geek, conference, unconference, wiki
So, with Foo Camp set to kick off, what will happen this year? As always, this is a low key event- not needing to market itself to draw a crowd. However, this means that in the build up, you see many a technologist lamenting the lack of an invite. Is this deliberate on the part of the organiser, Tim O'Reilly? Does he have his finger on the pulse? Has he got it wrong? Does he turn over the invitees to keep things fresh?
Who knows? Well, I will have to ask one of those who has been invited how it went (and how he got on with the tent).
Tags: technology, Foo Camp, geek, conference, unconference, wiki
Power Mac becomes Mac Pro and Intel
Further to my earlier hint, Steve Jobs has finally unveiled the replacement for the Power Mac and unsurprisingly it has Intel Dual Core (Intel Xeon) under the hood.
The Mac Pro... Windowstastic.
Tags: technology, Apple, PowerMac, Mac Pro, Dual Core, G5, PowerPC, Intel, Xeon, Leopard, World Wide Developers Conference, WWDC
The Mac Pro... Windowstastic.
Tags: technology, Apple, PowerMac, Mac Pro, Dual Core, G5, PowerPC, Intel, Xeon, Leopard, World Wide Developers Conference, WWDC
MacBook Pro Trial
Here at ClickTowers we have two new MacBook Pros on trial courtesy of Apple. So firstly, apologies that this is taking longer to type, but I'm just getting used to all the basics. Hopefully you will wait for me at the end of the post.
So far I have to say that this has been a pleasure. Macs feel good. It's a product design thing- this is simply a highly desirable machine and using it makes you feel good. After all the expectation of contacting our office IT folks to arrange to set the machine up on our network, I just plugged the MacBook Pro in and it worked. Ok, only at the network, wireless access point and file server level, but that's easier than I expected. By the end of the week we should be running Entourage on one and Parallels Windows XP with Office on the other. That's right, Microsoft.
Then we'll be road testing them for a couple of months and deciding what role they will play in our technology strategy. I have to say that no matter how clinically you approach your technology architecture, you can't fail to be impressed by things such as the power supply being attached with a magnet so that if someone trips over the cable, it just detaches without causing any damage to equipment... or the mains power light being on the MacBook Pro connector end of of the cable rather than hidden on a black brick under the table... or the built in camera... or the remote control...
Tags: technology, IT, Apple, MacBook Pro, OS X, WindowsXP, Parallels, Entourage
So far I have to say that this has been a pleasure. Macs feel good. It's a product design thing- this is simply a highly desirable machine and using it makes you feel good. After all the expectation of contacting our office IT folks to arrange to set the machine up on our network, I just plugged the MacBook Pro in and it worked. Ok, only at the network, wireless access point and file server level, but that's easier than I expected. By the end of the week we should be running Entourage on one and Parallels Windows XP with Office on the other. That's right, Microsoft.
Then we'll be road testing them for a couple of months and deciding what role they will play in our technology strategy. I have to say that no matter how clinically you approach your technology architecture, you can't fail to be impressed by things such as the power supply being attached with a magnet so that if someone trips over the cable, it just detaches without causing any damage to equipment... or the mains power light being on the MacBook Pro connector end of of the cable rather than hidden on a black brick under the table... or the built in camera... or the remote control...
Tags: technology, IT, Apple, MacBook Pro, OS X, WindowsXP, Parallels, Entourage
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
When will the OS cost more than the PC?
There was a time when a computer cost about $1,000 and the OS was about $100. Many factors have come together to drive hardware costs down (most of which are embodied within the Dell Corporation). However, operating systems from Microsoft have stayed at around the same price point. Therefore, the OEM OS license makes up around a third of the price you pay for an entry level PC which works out of the box.
Here's an example. Right now Dell are shipping their entry level PC (with monitor) for $299. It is preinstalled with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and that's included in the price. Pricegrabber found me CDW selling the same OEM license of XP Home Edition for $101.99. Therefore, in the Dell package more than a third of the price is comprised of the OS. I wonder what the proportion would be if you excluded the monitor? Incredible.
Not only is that an amazing indicator of the pace of change in the industry over the last ten years, but it also makes you wonder whether the OS will eventually be more expensive than the PC. How will that change buying patterns?
Tags: technology, IT, PC, Microsoft, Dell, WindowsXP, Home Edition, economics
Here's an example. Right now Dell are shipping their entry level PC (with monitor) for $299. It is preinstalled with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and that's included in the price. Pricegrabber found me CDW selling the same OEM license of XP Home Edition for $101.99. Therefore, in the Dell package more than a third of the price is comprised of the OS. I wonder what the proportion would be if you excluded the monitor? Incredible.
Not only is that an amazing indicator of the pace of change in the industry over the last ten years, but it also makes you wonder whether the OS will eventually be more expensive than the PC. How will that change buying patterns?
Tags: technology, IT, PC, Microsoft, Dell, WindowsXP, Home Edition, economics
SyncML- what's that all about?
My recent post about frustrations with my Nokia N70 led Undone to comment that I should try a http synch of my contacts and calendar to an online service such as Zyb. Being the dutiful blogger, I do everything my readers suggest (I wonder where I find the time too) so I watched the video as to what it's all about, read a little bit more to ensure I wasn't sending my contacts straight to Mr Bin Laden (turns out it will be in the hands of some trusty Danes) and then went through the set up process. How easy was that? Simple, and with every step explained, right down to the phone specifics. Now I can see and manage all my contacts and calendar entries online through a very rich and intuitive interface. All the contacts fields seem to transfer ok (including images and notes). The calendar was a little less successful with the recurring meetings and all day events not being transferred. When will I be able to upload my tasks and notes too?
Zyb is free to use as a back up and to transfer info between phones. They're quite open that they will charge a modest fee for extra services which they will introduce. Can't argue with that. One such service I will be delighted to pay for...as long as it's not too much... is to sync between Zyb and Outlook. Then I can throw away the menace of the cable and, hopefully, bring the whole sync between phone and laptop back to life (yes, that's right- still no fix to the original problem).
Tags: technology, mobile, internet, Zyb, phone, productivity, office, Outlook, tasks, notes
Zyb is free to use as a back up and to transfer info between phones. They're quite open that they will charge a modest fee for extra services which they will introduce. Can't argue with that. One such service I will be delighted to pay for...as long as it's not too much... is to sync between Zyb and Outlook. Then I can throw away the menace of the cable and, hopefully, bring the whole sync between phone and laptop back to life (yes, that's right- still no fix to the original problem).
Tags: technology, mobile, internet, Zyb, phone, productivity, office, Outlook, tasks, notes
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
That was Yorkshire Day
As Yorkshire Day draws to a close across British Summer Time, I ask you to raise your glass of broad acres' finest and drink a toast to moors, dales, snickets, short arms/deep pockets, stubbornness, white roses, queer folk and t'internet baht 'at.
But not whippets. Definitely not whippets. I'm a Yorkshireman (if you hadn't guessed) and I don't know anyone with one.
Anyway, for those who were caught outside the county today, I recommend using Flickr to find images that bring the homeland back- for me I suggest SovietUK's Ilkley set... but there's plenty more inspiration out there.
And in conclusion, it's not grim up north.
Tags: Yorkshire, Yorkshire Day, Ilkley
But not whippets. Definitely not whippets. I'm a Yorkshireman (if you hadn't guessed) and I don't know anyone with one.
Anyway, for those who were caught outside the county today, I recommend using Flickr to find images that bring the homeland back- for me I suggest SovietUK's Ilkley set... but there's plenty more inspiration out there.
And in conclusion, it's not grim up north.
Tags: Yorkshire, Yorkshire Day, Ilkley
The World's Greatest Site gets new Blog...
...in my opinion.
That's right (as if you haven't guessed what I'm talking about), the mighty Justgiving has a new home for its blog on Typepad. It looks like it has the making of being a more potent tool for folks fundraising for charities. Very Web 2.0.
It's great to see people really making their fundraising pages work for their chosen charities. On the Another Chance to See site (inspired by Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine's trip around the world to see endangered animals), they're using their Justgiving thermometer to track progress of their fundraising for one of Douglas's favourite charities, Save the Rhino.
In another example, a group are raising funds for Sam, a little boy who was paralysed in a car accident, by selling books via Justgiving.
Inspiring. It's not all marathons you know.
Hop to it. Do something daft and raise some doh.
Tags: Justgiving, Firstgiving, blog, web 2.0, charity, fundraising, stuff4sam, Save the Rhino, Douglas Adams
That's right (as if you haven't guessed what I'm talking about), the mighty Justgiving has a new home for its blog on Typepad. It looks like it has the making of being a more potent tool for folks fundraising for charities. Very Web 2.0.
It's great to see people really making their fundraising pages work for their chosen charities. On the Another Chance to See site (inspired by Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine's trip around the world to see endangered animals), they're using their Justgiving thermometer to track progress of their fundraising for one of Douglas's favourite charities, Save the Rhino.
In another example, a group are raising funds for Sam, a little boy who was paralysed in a car accident, by selling books via Justgiving.
Inspiring. It's not all marathons you know.
Hop to it. Do something daft and raise some doh.
Tags: Justgiving, Firstgiving, blog, web 2.0, charity, fundraising, stuff4sam, Save the Rhino, Douglas Adams
Visual and Audio Search Engines
Popgadget reminded me of an idea I looked into a while ago. If you take the search engine and put an image recognition wrapper around it, could you create something which tells you what real world images are of? I call it a Visual Search Engine. Clearly this works in niche applications such as biometrics and the manufacturing industry, but what about something with as broad appeal as Google? Unfortunately for my bank manager, my research showed that someone has this seriously in hand, but Popgadget has showed how a UK designer called Callum Peden has added a new dimension to this- a Google Device. You'd have to question why you wouldn't just use a phone with in-built camera, but I'm intrigued by the notion of Google moving into appliances and devices. Will it happen one day?
This is possibly also an opportunity to mention an Audio Search Engine called Shazam I was made aware of several years ago and, to this day, remains the mainstay of my party piece repertoire. Basically, forget their website for a moment and engage your mind's eye. Imagine, when you want to know the name of some music you're listening to, just dialling 2580 (down the centre of your phone) in the UK and holding your phone to the music... wait a few seconds and a text message arrives with the artist and title. Marvellous eh? Yup, and this actually exists... right now. It's one of technology's best kept secrets (which doesn't say much for their marketing).
Tags: technology, search engine, IT, audio, audio search engine, visual search engine, visual, Shazam, Google, device, appliance, biometrics, manufacturing
This is possibly also an opportunity to mention an Audio Search Engine called Shazam I was made aware of several years ago and, to this day, remains the mainstay of my party piece repertoire. Basically, forget their website for a moment and engage your mind's eye. Imagine, when you want to know the name of some music you're listening to, just dialling 2580 (down the centre of your phone) in the UK and holding your phone to the music... wait a few seconds and a text message arrives with the artist and title. Marvellous eh? Yup, and this actually exists... right now. It's one of technology's best kept secrets (which doesn't say much for their marketing).
Tags: technology, search engine, IT, audio, audio search engine, visual search engine, visual, Shazam, Google, device, appliance, biometrics, manufacturing
More bad news for NHS IT, but let's not lose focus
According to e health insider, the NHS PAS outage reported in an earlier post as being due to be resolved by last night... is still down. Some Trusts face being without systems until Thursday.
We need to keep this in perspective. Yes, it is a disaster. No, this should not have happened with the plethora of systems and knowledge available today. However, many people are taking this as an opportunity to knock the vision of an integrated nationwide electronic patient record. I disagree with this tactic wholeheartedly. Why? Well, if I have a life threatening illness, actually any illness requiring intervention by a surgeon, I would happily travel the length and breadth of the country to find the best qualified surgeon, with the best measured results, for my specific condition. I do NOT want to be constrained by what the chaps at the local golf club... ahem, sorry, General Hospital can do.
A car crash does not make the car a bad idea.
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, NPfIT, Electronic Patient Record, NHS, CSC, Hitachi, Connecting for Health, CfH, outage, failure
We need to keep this in perspective. Yes, it is a disaster. No, this should not have happened with the plethora of systems and knowledge available today. However, many people are taking this as an opportunity to knock the vision of an integrated nationwide electronic patient record. I disagree with this tactic wholeheartedly. Why? Well, if I have a life threatening illness, actually any illness requiring intervention by a surgeon, I would happily travel the length and breadth of the country to find the best qualified surgeon, with the best measured results, for my specific condition. I do NOT want to be constrained by what the chaps at the local golf club... ahem, sorry, General Hospital can do.
A car crash does not make the car a bad idea.
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, NPfIT, Electronic Patient Record, NHS, CSC, Hitachi, Connecting for Health, CfH, outage, failure
Integration Engines Turned on their Head
Integration engines have emerged over the last 5 years or so to enable businesses to orchestrate interoperability between systems and facilitate electronic data interchange. Platforms such as BizTalk from Microsoft and Ensemble from Intersystems lead in the marketplace. At the same time, industry specific standards have emerged, such as HL7 for healthcare and "adaptors" are available to help developers of BizTalk and Ensemble to work with these standards.
However, today Shahid's Healthcare IT blog pointed me at an example of this adaptor layer taken to the next stage. A whole integration engine specific to an industry vertical. This might not be a new thing, but Mirth is the first sector focussed integration engine I've seen. In this case, WebReach Inc have made their interface engine (as they call it) open source which has obvious cost advantages when you cannot spread the platform investment across other parts of the business; e.g. billing and procurement EDI.
I did notice that on the website there is no mention of SOAP as a supported messaging protocol with Mirth. Not sure if this is a deliberate ommission.
Has anyone else seen anything industry specific before?
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, integration, integration engine, Mirth, WebReach, Microsoft, Intersystems, BizTalk, Ensembe EDI, Electronic Data Interchange
However, today Shahid's Healthcare IT blog pointed me at an example of this adaptor layer taken to the next stage. A whole integration engine specific to an industry vertical. This might not be a new thing, but Mirth is the first sector focussed integration engine I've seen. In this case, WebReach Inc have made their interface engine (as they call it) open source which has obvious cost advantages when you cannot spread the platform investment across other parts of the business; e.g. billing and procurement EDI.
I did notice that on the website there is no mention of SOAP as a supported messaging protocol with Mirth. Not sure if this is a deliberate ommission.
Has anyone else seen anything industry specific before?
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, integration, integration engine, Mirth, WebReach, Microsoft, Intersystems, BizTalk, Ensembe EDI, Electronic Data Interchange
Monday, July 31, 2006
NHS's Strange Mode of Failure
The title of this post isn't some sort of engineering metaphor being used to explore the tribulations of the UK's National Health Service. Although it could be. No, this post is about a massive IT failure which has resulted in NHS employees not being able to access Patient Administration Systems (PAS) across Birmingham and the Black Country, Cheshire and Merseyside, Cumbria and Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire and Staffordshire and the southern part of the West Midlands. PAS systems are used to administrate hospital bookings, so as well as managing the patients, the systems schedule the facilities of the hospitals too. The systems, which are centrally hosted by CSC and their supplier Hitachi, have been off line since Sunday morning. I've only been able to find information on the BBC and The Guardian so far, where it is claimed that the problem was caused by a Network Area Storage failure. According to a spokesman from NHS Connecting for Health "The nature of the incident meant that service could not immediately be provided by the back-up systems." Now that is a strange failure mode.
It wouldn't be strange for a home user. It wouldn't be strange for a small business. However, it's quite strange for anything supporting more than several hundred users and extremely strange for as large a deployment as this.
I hope there's an enquiry into how and why this happenned. It's a terrible indictment of the state of IT in the NHS.
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, NHS, CSC, Hitachi, Connecting for Health, CfH, outage, failure
It wouldn't be strange for a home user. It wouldn't be strange for a small business. However, it's quite strange for anything supporting more than several hundred users and extremely strange for as large a deployment as this.
I hope there's an enquiry into how and why this happenned. It's a terrible indictment of the state of IT in the NHS.
Tags: technology, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, NHS, CSC, Hitachi, Connecting for Health, CfH, outage, failure
What the UK needs is a Cafepress impersonator
Ok, it wouldn't be very creative to just copy Cafepress, but their business model of printing your pics on all sorts of merchandise for your own, or other's, delectation would work well here in the UK. I must have placed half a dozen orders with Cafepress over the last 2 years and I've probably spent the same again on the US Postal Service to get the goods to me. There are imitation sites in the US such as Threadless but whoever does this in the UK will make a fortune.
There you go... free advice.
Tags: technology, Internet, website, business, Cafepress, Threadless, UK, merchandise, printer
There you go... free advice.
Tags: technology, Internet, website, business, Cafepress, Threadless, UK, merchandise, printer
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Foxhills in Surrey
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Nokia N70 Update
Further to my earlier post about my Nokia N70, I'm still "generally satisfied" with the product. There seem to be a myriad of features which my network (Orange) doesn't support such as Push Talk and Orange Synch- or is it just me who isn't able to use them? Also, the Symbian OS does not provide enough utility for me to manage the files and applications on the device. Specifically, I can't remove some of the games which came preinstalled.
Anyway, my current main gripe is that after 6 months or so of working fine, the PC synch is being stubborn as an Ox (no disrespect to any of our four legged friends who might be reading this). The cable connection icon on the phone only seems to be working intermittently. When you first plug it in, it works and then seems to change it's mind after anything from a few seconds to a minute. When you do seem to have a good connection (according to the icon) the PC Synch software runs on the PC, but does not react at all when you press "synchronise" or "settings" (and it's not because they're greyed out).
I have the same problem with both my home PC and my work laptop so I can only presume it is something at the phone end or in the cable. The fact that the icon does appear at first suggests that the cable is fine.
This is beyond the limit of the inbuilt Help menus and is driving me nuts.
Tags: technology, telephony, mobile, 3G, Nokia, N70, fault, synchronisation, Orange, Symbian
Anyway, my current main gripe is that after 6 months or so of working fine, the PC synch is being stubborn as an Ox (no disrespect to any of our four legged friends who might be reading this). The cable connection icon on the phone only seems to be working intermittently. When you first plug it in, it works and then seems to change it's mind after anything from a few seconds to a minute. When you do seem to have a good connection (according to the icon) the PC Synch software runs on the PC, but does not react at all when you press "synchronise" or "settings" (and it's not because they're greyed out).
I have the same problem with both my home PC and my work laptop so I can only presume it is something at the phone end or in the cable. The fact that the icon does appear at first suggests that the cable is fine.
This is beyond the limit of the inbuilt Help menus and is driving me nuts.
Tags: technology, telephony, mobile, 3G, Nokia, N70, fault, synchronisation, Orange, Symbian
Friday, July 28, 2006
Skype and Jajah- how much room is there?
When technologies are heavily based on commodity, you wonder how much room there is in the marketplace. Or at least I do. There's little room to differentiate, so do Skype have the whole market in the bag?
No, of course not, and along comes Jajah to prove it. Free calls between registered users- globally. They make their money on 'off network' calls. Sound familiar? Well, how about this- you need to install NO software. In fact, you don't even need broadband! Why, well you use their website to register, log in and set up your call by entering YOUR phone number and the person's who you're calling. From then on in, it is like a normal landline/mobile call using your normal landline or mobile phone.
Impressive. Ok, so I've not tried it because something says this is too good to be true. Am I being too British about this? Probably.
Oh, and they have a Jajah blog too.
Tags: technology, telephony, VoIP, Skype, Jajah
No, of course not, and along comes Jajah to prove it. Free calls between registered users- globally. They make their money on 'off network' calls. Sound familiar? Well, how about this- you need to install NO software. In fact, you don't even need broadband! Why, well you use their website to register, log in and set up your call by entering YOUR phone number and the person's who you're calling. From then on in, it is like a normal landline/mobile call using your normal landline or mobile phone.
Impressive. Ok, so I've not tried it because something says this is too good to be true. Am I being too British about this? Probably.
Oh, and they have a Jajah blog too.
Tags: technology, telephony, VoIP, Skype, Jajah
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Orange E-Campaign Stops Before it Starts
Apparently Orange are experimenting with a new way to experience the Internet. Well, that was what the text message they sent me said. Unfortunately, I figure they told too many people at once because the Apache webserver they led you to was showing a 500 Internal Server error.
Curiously, the URL in the text message contained the folder /opera. I wonder if they've finally realised that the browser the Nokia N70 ships with on the Orange network is far slower than Opera and they want to show you this.
Tags: technology, business, marketing, campaign, mobile, browser, Opera, Orange
Curiously, the URL in the text message contained the folder /opera. I wonder if they've finally realised that the browser the Nokia N70 ships with on the Orange network is far slower than Opera and they want to show you this.
Tags: technology, business, marketing, campaign, mobile, browser, Opera, Orange
Microsoft makes Biggest move into Healthcare yet
In what I think is an effort to kick start its Healthcare efforts, Microsoft seems to have moved away from its core strategy of selling platforms and enabling partners. The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has bought Azyxxi (pronounced ah-zik-see), a Washington Hospital Centre incubated business who have implemented retrieve and display technology in their own hospital. Microsoft have also bought quite a sizeable team (when you think this is internal to a hospital) of nearly 45 people.
Unfortunately the article in the NYTimes is under subscription so I can't just cut and paste it or provide a link.
I wonder how Microsoft's healthcare developer partners will take the news? They might fear that they will end up competing with their own technology provider. Maybe they will welcome Microsoft's, perhaps long overdue, recognition of the healthcare vertical.
Tags: technology, business, Microsoft, Azyxxi, Healthcare, IT, Washington Hospital Centre
Unfortunately the article in the NYTimes is under subscription so I can't just cut and paste it or provide a link.
I wonder how Microsoft's healthcare developer partners will take the news? They might fear that they will end up competing with their own technology provider. Maybe they will welcome Microsoft's, perhaps long overdue, recognition of the healthcare vertical.
Tags: technology, business, Microsoft, Azyxxi, Healthcare, IT, Washington Hospital Centre
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Successor to PowerMac to be Announced?
The word on the street is that at their World Wide Developers Conference, Apple are due to announce the successor to the Power Mac G5. The G5s are the only computers in Apple's line up to still use the PowerPC processor, with the rest of the range moving over to Intel. I could put two and two together and guess that...
...nah, we'll wait for the conference to open on 7 August and for Steve Jobs to deliver the keynote address. As if there wasn't enough to look forward to with the unveiling of the Leopard OS.
Tags: technology, Apple, PowerMac, G5, PowerPC, Intel, Leopard, World Wide Developers Conference, WWDC
...nah, we'll wait for the conference to open on 7 August and for Steve Jobs to deliver the keynote address. As if there wasn't enough to look forward to with the unveiling of the Leopard OS.
Tags: technology, Apple, PowerMac, G5, PowerPC, Intel, Leopard, World Wide Developers Conference, WWDC
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monopoly
In a story breaking on the BBC site, future versions of the Monopoly board game will have the paper money replaced by a cash card and electronic bank.
Part of me laments the loss of the feel good factor of cash and the fun I used to have in stashing my notes away, but I suppose the makers need to get with the times.
One question- do I need to wait for my chip and PIN number to come through the post before gameplay begins?
Tags: technology, games, Monopoly, Parker Brothers, cash, paper, money, cash card, transaction, bank, humour, humor
Part of me laments the loss of the feel good factor of cash and the fun I used to have in stashing my notes away, but I suppose the makers need to get with the times.
One question- do I need to wait for my chip and PIN number to come through the post before gameplay begins?
Tags: technology, games, Monopoly, Parker Brothers, cash, paper, money, cash card, transaction, bank, humour, humor
Consolidating GTD Collection Points
Merlin Mann, in his 45Folders Blog, today focusses in on the collection phase of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. He ends by describing how important it is after the initial sweep to maintain your collection systems and keep them by your side at all times.
A colleague and I, both keen advocates of GTD, have taken this to the point where neither of us have a landline desk phone. The reason is that this removes an extra collection point- the landline answer phone. If we were to have one each, it would add time and complexity to collating tasks into our personal productivity systems (especially when away from the office).
Sure, our mobile bills are a little more, but that's the least of our worries.
Tags: personal, productivity, GTD, Getting Things Done, David Allen, 43 Folders, collection, mobile, telephony, landline, answerphone
A colleague and I, both keen advocates of GTD, have taken this to the point where neither of us have a landline desk phone. The reason is that this removes an extra collection point- the landline answer phone. If we were to have one each, it would add time and complexity to collating tasks into our personal productivity systems (especially when away from the office).
Sure, our mobile bills are a little more, but that's the least of our worries.
Tags: personal, productivity, GTD, Getting Things Done, David Allen, 43 Folders, collection, mobile, telephony, landline, answerphone
Monday, July 24, 2006
Google Dips a Toe in the Columbia River
Ever wondered what it takes to cool the thousands of servers Google uses? Well, a new hosting facility is being built by the Columbia River, Oregan to provide Google with access to cheap hydroelectric energy in the area... and they need it. Look at the cooling requirement of the building in this series of pictures.
The page you're reading now will physically be in that building one day. Wierd.
Tags: technology, web, internet, hosting, servers, Google, Columbia River, hydroelectric, Oregan
The page you're reading now will physically be in that building one day. Wierd.
Tags: technology, web, internet, hosting, servers, Google, Columbia River, hydroelectric, Oregan
Do Safety Features Breed Unsafe Behaviour?
An order for a Bournemouth bar to switch to polycarbonate 'glasses' on safety grounds is being challenged by the owners. They want to retain glass in a move to attract a more sophisticated clientele. I can see their point although two recent glassings do rather suggest that the clock is ticking.
I've heard things of this ilk described as "The Volvo Effect"- that is the propensity of drivers of very safe cars to drive with less care and attention than they otherwise might. The sub conscious can tend to think that you're immune to the consequences of lane drift etc.
Talking to an architect and an interior designer recently, they were suggesting that barge boards designed to protect walls in public buildings can actually engender a 'culture of disregard'. Staff and visitors see the boards and actually bounce trolleys and such like off them and drag bags along them. The professionals argue that in many circumstances it is better to create a desirable building which people respect- unwittingly or not. Apparently, how people react is not affected by their level of education or background either- everyone respects interesting and arresting buildings.
Tags: architecture, Bournemouth, glasses, polycarbonate, care, attitude, psychology, barge boards, buildings, interior designer
I've heard things of this ilk described as "The Volvo Effect"- that is the propensity of drivers of very safe cars to drive with less care and attention than they otherwise might. The sub conscious can tend to think that you're immune to the consequences of lane drift etc.
Talking to an architect and an interior designer recently, they were suggesting that barge boards designed to protect walls in public buildings can actually engender a 'culture of disregard'. Staff and visitors see the boards and actually bounce trolleys and such like off them and drag bags along them. The professionals argue that in many circumstances it is better to create a desirable building which people respect- unwittingly or not. Apparently, how people react is not affected by their level of education or background either- everyone respects interesting and arresting buildings.
Tags: architecture, Bournemouth, glasses, polycarbonate, care, attitude, psychology, barge boards, buildings, interior designer
New Tactic for Al Fresco Drinking in Bournemouth
Certain in the knowledge that this blog will not reap enough initiated readers to ruin our fun, I'm going to let you into a little secret which MissClick and I have adopted. The problem we are solving is that on the most glorious days, Bournemouth can be inundated with 60,000 beach crawlers. Therefore all the decent pubs and bars with outdoor space are packed, leaving you queuing at the bar, fighting for seating space and generally being disappointed by the experience. We've found how to have an enjoyable, peaceful drink in Bournemouth on days like these...
We head for one of the great hotels... The Royal Bath and The Marriott Highcliff have been tried and tested so far and have proved to be not only chav free experiences, but all round pleasant afternoons. You'd think that they'd be really expensive but for a round or two I've not noticed the wallet becoming thinner noticeably faster than at anywhere else. In fact, the jug of Pimms for £15 at The Royal Bath is a great accompaniment to relaxation in the sun and sandwiches are available for little more than at the chain bars across the town centre.
If you're lucky, you might even get a recliner. How decadant is that?
Tags: Bournemouth, drinking, relaxation, The Royal Bath, Marriott Highcliff, de vere, Pimms, sunshine, summer, al fresco, Dorset, South Coast, UK
We head for one of the great hotels... The Royal Bath and The Marriott Highcliff have been tried and tested so far and have proved to be not only chav free experiences, but all round pleasant afternoons. You'd think that they'd be really expensive but for a round or two I've not noticed the wallet becoming thinner noticeably faster than at anywhere else. In fact, the jug of Pimms for £15 at The Royal Bath is a great accompaniment to relaxation in the sun and sandwiches are available for little more than at the chain bars across the town centre.
If you're lucky, you might even get a recliner. How decadant is that?
Tags: Bournemouth, drinking, relaxation, The Royal Bath, Marriott Highcliff, de vere, Pimms, sunshine, summer, al fresco, Dorset, South Coast, UK
Technorati Refreshes Itself
David Sifry today announced a relaunch of Technorati to coincide with its 3rd birthday. Technorati has always been really useful for its core functionality- blog searches. There's been some incremental tickling round the edges, but the revamped site now seems bang up to the mark in terms of ease of use and new features. It also looks like a few things have been ironed out behind the scenes in terms of updates and stability, but time will tell on the latter.
Unlike the quick visits I've been making over the years, I can now expect to lose many hours to Technorati over the coming weeks.
One complaint is that I look a bit of billy no mates- with only ClickRich favoriting the ClickRich blog. I'm sure my, ahem, intelligent readers have more important things to do!
Tags: technology, Internet, blog, blogger, blogging, search engine, Technorati, web
Unlike the quick visits I've been making over the years, I can now expect to lose many hours to Technorati over the coming weeks.
One complaint is that I look a bit of billy no mates- with only ClickRich favoriting the ClickRich blog. I'm sure my, ahem, intelligent readers have more important things to do!
Tags: technology, Internet, blog, blogger, blogging, search engine, Technorati, web
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Pirelli Advert
Here is an advert unlike anything I have ever seen. To use the word advert belies its genius. Even John Malkovich cannot be accused of selling out here. This is intense.
If you hadn't checked the URL, you'd be left wondering what it's all about until quite a way through.
Tags: advert, innovate, pirelli, video, film, Malkovich, advertisement
If you hadn't checked the URL, you'd be left wondering what it's all about until quite a way through.
Tags: advert, innovate, pirelli, video, film, Malkovich, advertisement
Female stereotypes in IT
Information Technology is a male dominated industry. Every one knows that. Lots of steps are being taken around the world to redress the balance. We all know that too. Are we waiting to see what the results are? NO... everyone just wants to see how the Australians are handling this, and expecting a good laugh.
True to form, the Oz strategy is to take IT rolemodel women and show them in a sort of Pirelli calendar. Exactly what we expect. Well done Australia.
Those who think that Sonja is a little close in composition to a certain UK TV advert which I was involved with in 2001, need not fear that I was in anyway involved in this calendar. I'm just a blogger.
Tags: technology, IT, women, calendar, glamour, stereotypes, pin up, sexy
True to form, the Oz strategy is to take IT rolemodel women and show them in a sort of Pirelli calendar. Exactly what we expect. Well done Australia.
Those who think that Sonja is a little close in composition to a certain UK TV advert which I was involved with in 2001, need not fear that I was in anyway involved in this calendar. I'm just a blogger.
Tags: technology, IT, women, calendar, glamour, stereotypes, pin up, sexy
When is RFID not RFID?
HP are keen for their new radio chips (or "Memory Spots") to not just be seen as another RFID technology. Developed at HP's labs in Bristol, UK, these chips will be able to store about 512kB of data- including video, sound or text.
Only readable at very short range, HP is being coy about the commercial applications (or they're not really sure). Putting the chips on patient bracelets with a full electronic patient record is a leading healthcare contender.
Tags: technology, IT, radiochips, memory spots, RFID, HP, healthcare IT, electronic patient record, Bristol, healthcare technology
Only readable at very short range, HP is being coy about the commercial applications (or they're not really sure). Putting the chips on patient bracelets with a full electronic patient record is a leading healthcare contender.
Tags: technology, IT, radiochips, memory spots, RFID, HP, healthcare IT, electronic patient record, Bristol, healthcare technology
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Will Hack force Skype to Open Protocols?
With the alledged hacking of Skype's proprietary protocol is Skype's best long term tactic now to publish that protocol and enable developers to create alternative clients and hooks in other products? Will the efforts of the Chinese techies, who have built their own client to operate over the Skype network, open the floodgates?
Skype's first thoughts will be around panic, verifying the story, possible legal action and taking technical steps to protect their intellectual property and avoid instability on their network.
Should Skype turn this threat into an opportunity? Think of the extra users that 3rd parties could bring. Skype are probably the only VoIP player to be in a position to build a formidable barrier to entry by being integrated directly into a myriad of apps. If they can control the accounts, and therefore secure revenues, then this could be the opportunity of their lifetime.
Tags: technology, IT, VoIP, IM, Skype, open protocols, hacking, China
Skype's first thoughts will be around panic, verifying the story, possible legal action and taking technical steps to protect their intellectual property and avoid instability on their network.
Should Skype turn this threat into an opportunity? Think of the extra users that 3rd parties could bring. Skype are probably the only VoIP player to be in a position to build a formidable barrier to entry by being integrated directly into a myriad of apps. If they can control the accounts, and therefore secure revenues, then this could be the opportunity of their lifetime.
Tags: technology, IT, VoIP, IM, Skype, open protocols, hacking, China
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Freescale- One To Watch
Freescale is not a company known to most consumers. However, they are working on technologies which will thrust them to a near Intel-like status in the public limelight.
The first technology to put on your radar is UltraWideBand (UWB) as enabled by Freescale's Direct Sequence UWB chipset. This technology will take Bluetooth-like communications to where it is needed... more than 1GB/sec, minimal power consumption and plug-and-play connectivity. This will enable many industrial applications and, in the home, all manner of wireless media comms.
The second technology is the Magnetic Memory chip which uses magnetic switches rather than electrical charge. So why is that different to a hard drive? Well, there is a holy grail in enabling rich OSs such as the Windows platform to boot up near instantaneously. Accessing data from a harddrive is too slow. You need to use memory. The workaround in Vista might be to maintain power whilst the PC is effectively on standby. Goodbye environment. Flash has long term data degredation problems so is not appropriate. However, magnetoresistive random-access memory (Mram)might just be what is needed to boot up from.
Watch this space.
Tags: technology, IT, computing, power, MRAM, UWB, Freescale, Bluetooth, Ultrawideband, environment, magnetoresistive
The first technology to put on your radar is UltraWideBand (UWB) as enabled by Freescale's Direct Sequence UWB chipset. This technology will take Bluetooth-like communications to where it is needed... more than 1GB/sec, minimal power consumption and plug-and-play connectivity. This will enable many industrial applications and, in the home, all manner of wireless media comms.
The second technology is the Magnetic Memory chip which uses magnetic switches rather than electrical charge. So why is that different to a hard drive? Well, there is a holy grail in enabling rich OSs such as the Windows platform to boot up near instantaneously. Accessing data from a harddrive is too slow. You need to use memory. The workaround in Vista might be to maintain power whilst the PC is effectively on standby. Goodbye environment. Flash has long term data degredation problems so is not appropriate. However, magnetoresistive random-access memory (Mram)might just be what is needed to boot up from.
Watch this space.
Tags: technology, IT, computing, power, MRAM, UWB, Freescale, Bluetooth, Ultrawideband, environment, magnetoresistive
Friday, July 14, 2006
Post-relational What?
I was visited today by a couple of chaps from Intersystems. My main hope from the meeting was to understand what 'post-relational' means when describing their database product Cache, and what benefits that brings. To be honest, they couldn't really satisfy my first hope thoroughly. Rather than storing data in rows and columns, it does some clever trickery around multidimensional arrays which means that you make fewer hard disk read/writes and you only store data (rather than the blanks in the fixed length fields).
Hmmm... onto the benefits. More promising, but how do you know what to believe? These gents were suggesting that if you rip out a MS SQL Server or Oracle database and do an ODMS or object port to Cache, then you can expect anything from a 4 to 7 times performance increase. Really badly written apps, or apps optimised for Cache could be as much as 200 times! Really? How do you measure that? Who can corroborate that?
The rest of the pitch was based on handling concerns. Yes, you can treat it like a relational database if you like. Yes, SQL statements run fine. Yes, objects using ADO .Net 2.0 will use the database unhindered. However, the jury is out as to what options you have if you are, for example, porting from MS SQL Server 2005 and using the integrated Business Intelligence-type services. Do you need a Business Objects to replace that?
My biggest question is that if it is so good, why is it not perceived as some sort of benchmark? Of course, what the salesmen won't tell you is what is wrong with it.
I'd love to know people's practical experience with Intersystems Cache.
Tags: technology, IT, computing, database, Intersystems, Cache, Microsoft, SQL Server 2005, Oracle, post-relational
Hmmm... onto the benefits. More promising, but how do you know what to believe? These gents were suggesting that if you rip out a MS SQL Server or Oracle database and do an ODMS or object port to Cache, then you can expect anything from a 4 to 7 times performance increase. Really badly written apps, or apps optimised for Cache could be as much as 200 times! Really? How do you measure that? Who can corroborate that?
The rest of the pitch was based on handling concerns. Yes, you can treat it like a relational database if you like. Yes, SQL statements run fine. Yes, objects using ADO .Net 2.0 will use the database unhindered. However, the jury is out as to what options you have if you are, for example, porting from MS SQL Server 2005 and using the integrated Business Intelligence-type services. Do you need a Business Objects to replace that?
My biggest question is that if it is so good, why is it not perceived as some sort of benchmark? Of course, what the salesmen won't tell you is what is wrong with it.
I'd love to know people's practical experience with Intersystems Cache.
Tags: technology, IT, computing, database, Intersystems, Cache, Microsoft, SQL Server 2005, Oracle, post-relational
Thursday, July 13, 2006
IT Security misinformation in the NHS
After a review of a lightweight FujitsuSiemens tablet PC a reader commented that "I was dismayed by a Trust IT engineer response to a question about the timetable for wireless networking to the effect that the best wireless security can be hacked -wirelessly-in 10 minutes so the Trust is not considering it".
This is typical of someone who knows enough about IT to be dangerous being put in a position where someone actually respects their opinion. The IT "engineer" {choking on the abuse of the word 'engineer'} is living in the past. This was almost certainly true of Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) which could be decrypted from a finite number of data packets by finding patterns of known words in the header.
However, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) sorted all that long ago (was it Windows XP SP2?). Get over it and get using Wi-Fi.
Tags: technology, IT, mobile computing, mobility, TabletPC, WPA, wireless, WiFi, FujitsuSiemens, security
This is typical of someone who knows enough about IT to be dangerous being put in a position where someone actually respects their opinion. The IT "engineer" {choking on the abuse of the word 'engineer'} is living in the past. This was almost certainly true of Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) which could be decrypted from a finite number of data packets by finding patterns of known words in the header.
However, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) sorted all that long ago (was it Windows XP SP2?). Get over it and get using Wi-Fi.
Tags: technology, IT, mobile computing, mobility, TabletPC, WPA, wireless, WiFi, FujitsuSiemens, security
Business... Make it personal
In this modern age of IM, blogs and emails I've just had an extremely refreshing experience. I've had a one hour phone call with the CEO of a large technology company we are wanting to do some business development with around a BIG opportunity. We must have spent 90% of our time NOT talking business or technology. We've not met before and covered about everything from William Pitt the Younger to the demise of native Indians as Europeans populated North America.
I've little doubt that this 'small talk' was essential to building trust and therefore securing the partnership. Don't forget that business is done between people. Make those calls.
Tags: business, dealmaking, conversation, relationships
I've little doubt that this 'small talk' was essential to building trust and therefore securing the partnership. Don't forget that business is done between people. Make those calls.
Tags: business, dealmaking, conversation, relationships
Monday, July 10, 2006
My 200th post, so put your feet up and watch this...
I can't believe that this is my 200th post on the ClickRich blog. So, I'm going to put my feet up and celebrate by watching this video by Frenchman Claude Lelouch who attached a camera to the front of his Ferrari in 1978 and handed it over to a Formula 1 driver who blasted round the open streets of Paris at speeds of up to 140mph. On release, Lelouch was arrested but to this day he has never revealed the identity of the driver.
A fine French achievement to detract us from Zidane's attrocious behaviour.
Tags: video, Formula One, Formula 1, Paris, motor racing, Lelouch, Ferrari, 275GTB
A fine French achievement to detract us from Zidane's attrocious behaviour.
Tags: video, Formula One, Formula 1, Paris, motor racing, Lelouch, Ferrari, 275GTB
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
How sites used to be...
I was chewing the cudd with an old tech buddy tonight, lamenting how easy tech leaders have it today. "You can have a website without ever having touched a server", "I remember when we used to pay £36,000 per annum for our hosting" etc etc. We then started talking about "what the web used to be like". So, I thought I'd have a look to see what an antique website might look like. I figured that not-for-profits and associations might be fertile ground and sure enough came across The Channel Swimming Association.
Isn't it quaint? I love it. You can't help but spend money on their 'regalia'... oh, but wait- you can't. You need to email them your credit cards after placing the order online. Superb. I love the level of manual intervention required to fulfill the order.
You have to ask yourself the question... why need they do any more? In no way am I intending to write a post which is either patronising or snobbish. It's a great website. I might even swim the channel to prove my sincerity.
Tags: technology, web, Internet, browsing, swimming, channel, The Channel, Channel Swimming Association
Isn't it quaint? I love it. You can't help but spend money on their 'regalia'... oh, but wait- you can't. You need to email them your credit cards after placing the order online. Superb. I love the level of manual intervention required to fulfill the order.
You have to ask yourself the question... why need they do any more? In no way am I intending to write a post which is either patronising or snobbish. It's a great website. I might even swim the channel to prove my sincerity.
Tags: technology, web, Internet, browsing, swimming, channel, The Channel, Channel Swimming Association
Early Firefox assessment
Recently, I reported the need to install Mozilla Firefox, so what do I think? So far so good. The download was very smooth with my history, favourites and cached data ported over automatically from IE. This made the transition far less problematical.
So, what about the user experience? Well, it seems faster than IE6.0 and I like the tabbed browsing, although I think it will become more profound as you get used to it (I was naturally trying to Alt-Tab between windows). Equally it was frustrating that some sites wanted to open new windows rather than use the tabs. Hardly surprising really.
I found a few pages being rendered differently to IE6.0 and certainly not as the web designer intended. However, none of these occassions really disrupted my life immensely. Once such instance was in the Blogger.com editing facility, the other was on our corporate website.
Oh yes, and the first time I came across Flash there was all this business. Not an unsurmountable problem, but it makes you think about cross browser compatibility.
I'd summarise my experience with Firefox as really good so far, but it is interesting to see to what extent sites are largely optimised for IE. It's been educating.
Tags: technology, Internet, browser, Firefox, Mozilla
So, what about the user experience? Well, it seems faster than IE6.0 and I like the tabbed browsing, although I think it will become more profound as you get used to it (I was naturally trying to Alt-Tab between windows). Equally it was frustrating that some sites wanted to open new windows rather than use the tabs. Hardly surprising really.
I found a few pages being rendered differently to IE6.0 and certainly not as the web designer intended. However, none of these occassions really disrupted my life immensely. Once such instance was in the Blogger.com editing facility, the other was on our corporate website.
Oh yes, and the first time I came across Flash there was all this business. Not an unsurmountable problem, but it makes you think about cross browser compatibility.
I'd summarise my experience with Firefox as really good so far, but it is interesting to see to what extent sites are largely optimised for IE. It's been educating.
Tags: technology, Internet, browser, Firefox, Mozilla
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
My African ignorance
Ethiopia.
To me, the mention of this nation conjures up images of droughts and starving children. This is why, when I read that Ethiopia produces 90% of its electricity power from hydro, I nearly fell off my chair.
When I alight this train, I'll have to take 30 minutes to learn more about this vast country.
Tags: geography, Ethiopia, energy, hydro, power, electricity
To me, the mention of this nation conjures up images of droughts and starving children. This is why, when I read that Ethiopia produces 90% of its electricity power from hydro, I nearly fell off my chair.
When I alight this train, I'll have to take 30 minutes to learn more about this vast country.
Tags: geography, Ethiopia, energy, hydro, power, electricity
Monday, July 03, 2006
Great tool for documenting software requirements
The problem with documenting IT requirements is that you either reinvent the wheel in the detail you go into, or you leave gaping holes. Either that or the tool is too technical for a business user so they cannot express their needs.
But now we have a tool from STP which cleverly uses MS Visio, Excel and Word to help formally capture requirements in a structured way. This is no substitute for Unified Modelling Language, but then few true business analysts use UML (it's the domain of the developer analyst).
stpBA Storyboarding allows the user to drag and drop screens, controls and other components in the Visio environment and automatically drafts Functional Requirement documents in Word and Excel. Of course, versioning is all looked after and there are some neat screen grab tricks for where you are starting with a legacy system.
Tags: technology, IT, development, software, business analysis, analyst
But now we have a tool from STP which cleverly uses MS Visio, Excel and Word to help formally capture requirements in a structured way. This is no substitute for Unified Modelling Language, but then few true business analysts use UML (it's the domain of the developer analyst).
stpBA Storyboarding allows the user to drag and drop screens, controls and other components in the Visio environment and automatically drafts Functional Requirement documents in Word and Excel. Of course, versioning is all looked after and there are some neat screen grab tricks for where you are starting with a legacy system.
Tags: technology, IT, development, software, business analysis, analyst
When people are cleverer than you
Don't you just love it when you step back home after delivering a Technology presentation at a Healthcare conference, sit down to read your RSS feeds and see that someone has done a far better job of the subject matter on one of your slides?
I'm referring to Electronic Medical Records. I referred to half a dozen reasons as to why they're a good thing...
... Let me introduce you to the person who has thought of 50 reasons. Actually, the best I can do is to refer you to the EMR and HIPAA blog because I don't know who's behind it.
The first 13 reasons are here.
Reasons 14-26 are here.
Stay tuned to see the rest.
Tags: healthcare, IT, technology, Healthcare IT, EMR, EHR, electronic medical record
I'm referring to Electronic Medical Records. I referred to half a dozen reasons as to why they're a good thing...
... Let me introduce you to the person who has thought of 50 reasons. Actually, the best I can do is to refer you to the EMR and HIPAA blog because I don't know who's behind it.
The first 13 reasons are here.
Reasons 14-26 are here.
Stay tuned to see the rest.
Tags: healthcare, IT, technology, Healthcare IT, EMR, EHR, electronic medical record
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Open Mic for President
On hearing this clip of Al Gore turning comedian on Davenetics Blog, I figure this should be part of the presidential campaign. An open mic spot. It's perfect.
On a serious note, this is a clever tactic. Making your audience laugh (especially at yourself) is engaging and disarming. Al Gore goes on to discuss what the audience can do to reduce their impact on the environment- it's not the most seemless of links between the comedy and tough talk, but hey, that's why he keeps coming runner up.
Tags: US, politics, Al Gore, presidential, environment, energy, climate change
On a serious note, this is a clever tactic. Making your audience laugh (especially at yourself) is engaging and disarming. Al Gore goes on to discuss what the audience can do to reduce their impact on the environment- it's not the most seemless of links between the comedy and tough talk, but hey, that's why he keeps coming runner up.
Tags: US, politics, Al Gore, presidential, environment, energy, climate change
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