Idiot Zoo

Why I care who's paying

2012-01-23T17:07:00.000Z

A while ago I posted this while mulling over a task manager web app called NirvanaHQ. Although I flirted with it for a while, I've decided it isn't for me in its current state. I've just registered for Wunderlist which looks promising, but the same questions rear their head: If it's free, who's paying?
The reality is that somebody must. There's a reasonable sized team behind Wunderlist. The software is pretty and seems to work. That takes a lot of time and effort. Then there's the hosting. It's quick and responsive and seems to have a reasonably large user base... all of this costs, yet the service is free and there's no advertising.

So who's paying? I've got two reasons for wanting to know.

You may have come across the theory that Google products are not search, adwords or google apps. No, they're the bait to bring in the people. We're the product and Google sell us, the users, to advertisers.

I think that comes from a reasonably bleak view of the world, but there's definitely something to be said for the amount of information that's put in hands of technology companies. So if my information has a value to anyone other than me (which I seriously doubt), then I'd quite like to know what's happening with it.

Ignoring the paranoid view of how my every thought and movement is being logged and offered for sale later, what really matters to me when looking at a service like Wunderlist is: does the company have a sound financial footing, a good business model, the ability to retain staff. In short, if I start using this service will it still be there next week?

NirvanaHQ has been in beta for a long time now. My understanding is the company behind it does other web development. Perhaps this has been paying the bills. Wunderkit, who develop wunderlist don't seem to charge for anything they do... While cost free is a lovely thing when the news keeps saying we're in a time of austerity, how can I know it's reliable in the medium to long term once the investment capital has run out?

I know the sensible thing to do is acknowledge the business acumen of the venture capitalist who has given this startup a whacking great chunk of cash. Unfortunately there have been too many cases of someone taking that cash and blowing it all.

In which case, what happens to all my carefully planned tasks?

Drupal and Nginx

2012-01-18T08:51:00.001Z

I'm responsible for this website which is hosted on a Linode vps. Recently we've switched from using Apache to Nginx. In this post, why and what we've found has happened as a result.

I've found Linode to be excellent. Their prices and service are good, the basic linode offers plenty of disk space and data transfer. They're also fast.

However having read about how fast and well designed the Linode system was, we were seeing very poor performance on our Drupal site. There can be lots of reasons for Drupal to perform badly; it's complicated, makes heavy use of MySQL queries and can be significantly extended with extra modules. According to my understanding, each module used increases the amount of memory used by php on the server. We have quite a lot of modules, our site makes heavy use of views and I'm sure could be optimised to be more efficient, but I still wasn't happy with the server's performance.

We have the entry level Linode with 512MB of RAM. By modern standards this isn't very much, but should be enough for a Linux server to host the Drupal site in question. However we were seeing significant performance lags and more drastically there were times when the server would hit the swap file, start to thrash and become completely unreachable.

Apache seemed to be the bottleneck. As it spawned child processes to handle multiple connections, each one using as much memory as php needed to render the site, we were running out of RAM. Some simple tests with browsermob found the server could only handle 14 concurrent connections before hitting the swap file and starting to thrash.

Foolishly guilty of sticking with Apache's default config on Ubuntu server, I spent a bit of time optimising the config and could get Apache to a state where it didn't exceed the server's available memory but then it still couldn't handle more than 14 concurrent connections. Also, the data transfer to browsermob peaked at about 6MB, averaging closer to 4MB.

So, bring on Nginx. I've used Nginx with PHP-FPM. This runs php as a separate service. I installed both of these with aptitude.

Config is reasonably straight forward, but Nginx doesn't have the same dynamic config approach as Apache. So .htaccess files don't do anything. For most users this is better, as it reduces the need to access the file system to consult these files for each page request. For URL rewriting to work the site config for Nginx has to be right. It wasn't difficult to find a reference config for drupal. I used this one.

The end result...

Blistering speed compared to Apache. The same browsermob tests report up to 60MB throughput from our server with an average of 57MB. Yes... 10x the speed. Visiting the site at our office over a fast, but domestic ADSL connection it feels like it's hosted locally. I can't overstate how much more responsive the site is. For one user on a development system you probably won't notice, but for a busy site the difference is significant.

Stable memory usage and high user concurrency. Nginx doesn't use more RAM for more connections. Using the free browsermob account the load test ramps up to 25 concurrent users with no problems at all. I've played with Siege running locally and can achieve over 2000 requests per second, vs apache scoring about 550.

So Nginx with php-fpm seems to be faster and more efficient than Apache, but where it really excels is serving static content. Serving up a static rendering of our site's homepage our server can now handle over 4500 requests per second vs Apache's 600.

I've been playing around with the drupal module Boost. It doesn't currently seem to work properly with Drupal7 (creates but doesn't clear the cache) but the performance benefit for busy sites with lots of anonymous users is dramatic. Boost creates a static html rendering of the drupal site. The correct Nginx rewrite config means it serves up the cache without having to touch php or mysql. The result is incredibly fast. Worth noting that normal drupal caching uses the database. It still helps performance but php and mysql remain a bottleneck.

Of course there is a halfway house, and you'll find lots of documentation for it, and that's to use Nginx as a reverse proxy for apache. In combination with Boost this would offer a very significant performance increase for sites with lots of anonymous users as Nginx can serve the static cache directly when it's present. Personally this felt like increased complexity. I decided not go down this well trodden path because we were short of RAM. Running more services didn't seem to be the best way to go.

So that's what we've done, and I'm very happy with the results.

The proper channels

2011-10-12T16:41:00.000+01:00

If you want to achieve something, there's often two ways to do it. The proper way, or the way that will actually get results. Do you have procedures and processes that get in the way and other people have to work around?
Recently going through the proper channels meant I couldn't do some filming at my preferred location. I could have gone directly to someone I have a personal relationship with, but thought it worth trying the 'correct' route. It didn't work because the person I spoke to wasn't empowered to make the decision.

Aside from being slightly irritating it left me thinking about authority and how delegating responsibility also means delegating authority, yet so often this doesn't happen.

We delegate a task to someone, yet don't allow them to make decisions about how to do that. We expect them to come back with information so we can make a decision, yet somehow we think they're 'owning' the task. Then we complain when they don't show enough motivation or enthusiasm.

To do this right means giving up control, something that might be very hard. But it's necessary. Failing to do this means a decision bottleneck at best, but risks seriously demotivating and undermining staff.

Bring them in line with your thinking, help them to understand why certain decisions are taken, overrule them only in emergencies, accept that sometimes the decision won't be right but then discuss this and things will get better.

Marching orders

2011-08-04T09:22:00.000+01:00

I'm not the most political of people, but I do try to keep abreast of what's going on in the governance of the country I live in. I read a few political blogs and I've noticed something that I'm increasingly finding irritating. It seems you can't be a lefty/liberal/etc and a Christian.

This is patently not true, but increasingly I'm finding left leaning political writers seem to assume their audience are atheists/agnostic/anything other than followers of Christ.

Meanwhile at the last election there was quite a lot of noise around suggesting that Christians should support prospective parliamentary candidates who were Christians themselves; 'we need to have more Christians in government' was the justification.

Now I agree with that, however it's a poor approach to how faith should influence one's politics.

I'm part of a large church with some 800 people floating around. We talk about the 'church family' and like a real family, you don't get to choose who they are. Within that number are many people I fundamentally disagree with on many things. We're united in Christ, but not necessarily in views on the welfare state, for example.

In short, I'm always going to base my voting decisions on policy and track record rather than what I may have in common with the person who's name is on the ballot paper.

However I think there's a more fundamental issue for the 21st century church.

Faith should, nay must influence all aspects of our lives and that includes politics. In reading the Gospel I find in Jesus a man who deftly avoids being drawn on political issues; more concerned with the attitude of people towards others than their political affiliation. That the right seems to have claimed Christianity is as much nonsense as the left's rejection of faith.

I regularly read two blogs, Liberal Conspiracy and Cranmer. Both well written, challenging, insightful, heavily biased and frustrating. I admire and value Cranmer's analysis of all things religio-political but oh how I wish it wasn't laced with such heavy political bias. Liberal Conspiracy draw together fantastic insights from the left of the political arena, but how I wish they weren't so hostile to Christianity.

The reality is these two blogs both exist precisely because of their various political and religious affiliation. They're not attempting any sort of balance.

These are difficult times for the UK. It seems the large state apparatus of the last Labour government is unaffordable. But the cutbacks and small state ideas of the current coalition seems to offer poor support for those who've relied on the state for so long.

I'm not interested in the rights and wrongs of this. I am interested in how the church of Christ across the UK challenges both the left and right to do better for our nation. Something we'll struggle to do if we allow political affiliation to inform and compromise our faith.

The choice is yours

2011-07-18T08:31:00.000+01:00

If you're a manager/supervisor/whatever you'll regularly have encounters with those who's work you oversee. In each of those encounters you can encourage, inspire or challenge (in a positive way), or you can do the opposite.

It's very much your choice.

There are those who naturally encourage and bring out the best in others; born leaders who, even when giving you a telling off, will leave wanting to do better, to impress. The rest of us have to learn.

It's in the review, the telling off, the disciplining of staff that this is the most important.

If something hasn't been done well, hasn't been done at all, or there's an issue of personal conduct that needs to be tackled, this probably isn't going to be an easy conversation. It shouldn't be. I've encountered too many managers who deal with this conflict by embracing the confrontation.

There's certainly a time and a place for a no nonsense, straight to the point, tell it like it is approach. But imho the place for that is either when there's already a healthy working relationship, or nothing else has worked.

It's particularly a problem for people who don't like conflict. I'll come clean and admit that I don't. That informs my management style, and I'm quite sure has led to me not tackling things as strongly as they needed to be. However, I think that's far less damaging than going all guns blazing when it isn't required (which is very rarely).

The classic management advice is to give a turd sandwich. Open with something positive, deliver the negative, round off with another plus. It's simple and it works, but too many managers fail to do this, or end up delivering 'positives' that are really not all that positive.

Ultimately consider two things: 1, your goal is to get things done better. If the interaction ends with the staff member understanding things are not as they could be, but you value them and trust they are capable, that's going to be much better than giving them another dressing down and leaving them demoralised. 2, to lead/manage is to serve. Just as you are serving those to whom you're accountable, you are equally (if not more so) serving those you manage. The job of any manager is to ensure people have what they need to do their work. Feeling valued, trusted and empowered is part of that.

Are BT slowly imploding?

2011-07-17T15:15:00.001+01:00

I have a suspicion that BT is a company in crisis. It isn't necessarily reflected in their financial performance (yet) and they probably don't know it; at least senior management probably don't. So where do I draw such a conclusion from?

Well here are a some unrelated anecdotal thoughts. firstly there's the fact internet connection speeds haven't changed, for most of us, for the past few years. The best anyone can get on a BT exchange line is using ADSL2+. Speeds are a long way from matching offerings in other countries and and BT seem in no hurry to offer the next level of improvement, which required running fibre to the cabinet (fttc) or even fibre to your house... that would be nice. Ok, there's BT Infinity which is a fttc service, but roll out of that is slow at best; in many areas there's no hint as to when it might arrive. Meanwhile in cable areas Virgin Media are offering much faster internet services than BT.

Then there's the fact that when an organisation like the BBC buys a short term ISDN line, for which they pay about £1k, BT offer no meaningful level of service guarantee or support level.

I witnessed this recently. The first thing that surprised me was the BT engineer who installed the line spent longer on hold to the service centre than I would have been prepared to wait. Apparently this is normal. He turns up on site, does the work, then spends an age on hold so he can ask someone to activate the circuit. When their own staff spend as long as the customers on hold, there's something wrong with how things are managed.

This time last year, at the same event, the ISDN circuit failed. BT were contacted. Three days later, long after the line was needed, BT turned up on site to fix it. In years gone by a BT man stayed on site to deal with any problems that may arise. Not any more. Goodbye customer service.

A while ago there was quite significant deregulation of the comms industry, and this ~~forced~~ allowed third party companies to site equipment in BT exchanges, the so called Local Link Unbundling. This is what led to faster domestic internet speeds. BT were forced to raise their game, they certainly didn't want to. Now the same thing is happening with more of BT's infrastructure, particularly the telegraph poles and street cabinets. Again BT are resisting this by allowing access only after making exorbitant charges.

It seems BT don't consider the 1400 households where I live to be worthy of any improved connectivity. It's only a matter of time though before someone else does.

If BT don't want to provide good customer service, improve connectivity or be willing partners with those who do, the company will slowly decline.

I think we're seeing that happening now. It'll be interesting to see where we are in five years time.

Grrrrr Seagate and your shoddy disks

2011-06-28T14:26:00.000+01:00

Should anyone be tempted to buy a Seagate Green 1TB drive model ST1000DL002, let me save you some bother.

Don't. I've got four of them, they're all equally rubbish.

The problem is random seek performance which is considerably slower than specified. They claim 12-13ms, which is pretty slow these days, but that's because these drives spin at a relatively slow 5,900rpm. All part of their green credentials; less speed means less power required plus less heat and noise generated.

However all four of my drives best at 16.8ms average seek. That's quite a bit slower. I've got these in a raid array that as an array ends up hitting over 20ms average seek.

Rubbish.

In contrast, the now quite old Western Digital Black I use as a boot drive measures at 9ms average seek, which is just about what the spec suggests.

So that'll be the last time I buy Seagate.

We own all your ideas

2011-06-14T08:52:00.001+01:00

Recent legislative moves by France suggest their government is supportive of US style software patents in the EU.

This is a worry because at the moment software isn't patentable in the EU or UK. The problem with the US system is well debated but in essence is this: companies are able to patent an idea, often a vague description of that idea and what the software process will achieve but, crucially, without having to actually write that software.

This has lead to the rise of patent trolls, companies such as Lodsys (currently suing iPhone app developers, apple and indeed everyone from adidas to the wall street journal).

Lodsys are a fine example of the worst of the breed. The company doesn't actually produce anything. It only exits to hold and defend a portfolio of patents. Businesses like this contribute nothing other than to keep some lawyers employed.

So many ideas have been patented in the US that it's probably almost impossible to write software that doesn't infringe at least one patent.

And to be clear, it isn't a matter of copying code, that's covered by copyright.

I'm not a software developer and the chances of me being sued are somewhat small. However we should all be concerned about something that, in the view of many, stifles creativity and competition.

After all, the trouble with patenting ideas is 'there's nothing new under the sun'

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:York,United Kingdom

What's the point of this?

2011-05-27T11:57:00.001+01:00

This is a waste of everyone's time:

An irresponsible dog owner isn't going to stop and look at this poster. If they did, it likely wouldn't make any difference to their behaviour. After all, PC Copper threatening the risk of an occasional £75 fine vs always picking up dog waste... Sounds like a good deal to me.

The implication of this is other places may actually say yes to dog fouling. In fact if I were put up a poster with my stupid grinning face next to a massive pile of turds saying "Yes! to dog fouling" would everyone suddenly go "oh. Ok then"? I somehow doubt it.

People who are lazy, stupid or generally irresponsible are not best reached through the use of posters. The very people who will look at this are those who will agree that 'something should be done'.

Enough of these same people obviously think taking this picture and putting together an uninteresting poster is actually doing something about the problem. It isn't.

If there really is a problem then really do something about it. That will mean confronting people, fining them, perhaps having a mob with flaming torches hunt them down. Because I doubt there's many in the Redcar & Cleveland area who genuinely think letting their dog take a dump on the pavement and leaving it there is really ok.

Management style

2011-05-16T09:01:00.002+01:00

For a while now I've been thinking about management; the good, the bad and the plain unpleasant experiences I've had over the years have given me some insight into the whole business, so I'll share some thoughts over a few posts in case it's useful to anyone.

What's it all about?

Let's get down to basics. If you're a line manager, what does that job entail? More specifically if you had to sum it up in a sentence what would you say? (do comment below, I'd love to know your thoughts)

I answer that questions as: to ensure those I manage are equipped to do their job and are held accountable for the work they do/don't do.

Sounds simple enough, but start unpacking that and it quickly becomes big, occasionally complex and multifaceted.

It seems obvious but those you manage need to know what their job is.

Whether you're dealing with someone who in turn manages dozens of others, or the office cleaner, they need to know their responsibilities, authority to make decisions, who they're accountable to and for what.

Perhaps what makes this difficult is the irritating problem of people being different. What may be obvious to me, may not be obvious or even occur to you. It's a mix of personality, experience, motivation, etc.

Ask me to clean the toilet and I might clean the whole room, wash down the walls, vacuum the cobwebs, clean the basins, scrub the floors, check the supplies, etc. Or I might just squirt some cleaner into the bowls.

If I do the latter, you, as the facilities manager, may justifiably take me to task for doing a poor job, but did you clearly define it first?

It's a simplistic example but the same holds true no matter what the job... Before someone can do it well, they need to know what it is.

A few years ago I was in a role that was very poorly defined. It was basically defined as doing what the last guy did. Fine, but even though I sat next to him for 18 months, I never really knew what he did. From the outset I asked questions about what they wanted, desired outcomes, success criteria... I got nothing I could work with. Partly I was wrong for the role, but mainly it was simple bad management. I couldn't know I wasn't right for the role because my manager couldn't explain what the role was.

As a manager you'll build a relationship with those you manage, learn their skill set, understand their motivations, basically get to know what makes them tick. I think this is important for any manager. Fail to do this, just go by the book, and you'll probably end up with unmotivated, frustrated and generally fed up team members.

I'd like to leave you with an idea that I'll no doubt return to... Repeatedly. A good manager is, in a large part, a servant to those they manage, not the other way around.

Software protection - please end the madness

2011-05-11T13:21:00.003+01:00

I've moaned before about software protection and how, in my experience, all it serves to do is prevent legitimate users from actually using the software they've paid for. Here's another real world example of just that.

Seaward make portable appliance testers (PAT) and to go with them a rather poor yet very expensive piece of software called Patguard Elite 2. This uses an online challenge/response activation system which locks the software to specific PC hardware.

There's seemingly no way to de-activate the software from a computer that's working, and should your computer's hard disk crash (as happened today) the only option is to call Seaward technical support.

When you can eventually get through to Seaward's technical support (which seems to be only one person) it will take them two working days to sort this out.

That's right.... two days.

I'm not trying to have a pop at the under staffed tech support department, this isn't their fault.

As ever, I know this software is being distributed illegally on warez sites, so the copy protection hasn't stopped people copying the software. It has prevented me from doing the job I needed to do today, wasted a lot of my time and made me very angry.

Well done Seaward.

Shortcomings in my internets

2011-03-26T22:55:00.001Z

I've been trying to work out the best way to deal with the very large quantities of data I have sitting around on various hard disks.

For the most part I'm not bad at the backup. There should be at least two copies of everything on separate disks, but all in the same room. Not great then.

So out of interest I've taken a look at a few online backup services. The most encouraging is backblaze. As much storage as you can eat for $5 a month.

However if I were to use this, uploading constantly, it would take over 233 days to do a full backup of just one of my disks.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this cloud business is all well and good but connectivity just isn't good enough. Apparently where I live it might get... Ooooh up to twice the current speed within the next three years.

Sigh

Handwringing doomsayers

2010-12-30T14:54:00.003Z

It occurred to me today that my entire working life has been touched by the negative vibes of those who claim the 'end is nigh'.

My first proper job was as a temp at the Meat Hygiene Service. As part of the UK civil service it was constantly under pressure, and I happened to be there just as the BSE crisis hit. That was interesting.

Later I worked in education looking after IT in a large comprehensive. There too the money was always running out, education policy was always bad and the young doomed in some fashion to stacking cones or flipping kebabs.

The end of 2010 signifies my departure from the BBC where I've been a staffer for almost nine years. Throughout that time negativity has been a companion; each charter renewal has been 'the last', the BBC Trust would break the corporation, Ross/Brand have ruined everything, standards are slipping... etc.

There is an element of truth to all of this and often the negativity is based on legitimate concerns, especially in these organisations so often used as a political football. But the stream of negativity can twist perception of the current reality, and taint how people perceive and carry out their jobs. Bottom line, it often doesn't help.

As of January I will be working full time for a church. It's a role I've been doing part time for the last year, so not a major change, but a change nonetheless.

The church too has its naysayers; there isn't enough money, we're managing decline, our old buildings are too expensive, people are not committed enough, "Miss... Richard Dawkins called me names!"... etc.

I'm guilty of this too. I can have a tendency to latch on to the negative, even embracing it sometimes. Sound familiar? But, unless this leads to positive action, we just contribute to the hand wringing.

Truth be told I'm not that negative a person and I'm sure neither are you. In reality I tend to have an attitude of 'all will be well in the end'.

So as 2011 begins, the nearest thing I'll be making to a resolution will be to avoid contributing to all of this negativity. Rather to challenge it and accentuate the positive... There's a song about that.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Belfast,United Kingdom

Diet from a fictional land

2010-12-05T22:22:00.001Z

In common with so many people, I could do with losing a bit of weight having gradually got... well, fatter over the last 10 years.

It's something I've been trying to do something about, in a slightly half hearted way, for some time with extra exercise, trying to be more sensible about what I eat, etc and although I've managed to stave off putting any more flab, I don't seem to be able to shift it.

So I'm going to try something called the Shangri-La diet. It was thought up by a chap called Seth Roberts, a professor of psychology somewhere in the US, and is based on essentially tricking the body's hunger regulator.

Roberts' theory is that our brain quickly associates calories with flavour; eating food that's both tasty and high in calories makes us want more. Taking in flavourless calories (sugar water or extra light olive oil) have the opposite effect, reducing hunger.

In his book Roberts makes a convincing argument for his theory which explains not only why junk food really makes people fat, but also why obesity is on the rise and why most diets don't work well for most people (and why they work at all in the first place).

Of course the proof of the pudding is... well hopefully in someone else eating, because I've had enough thanks.

5pm and still in the office

2010-12-04T00:30:00.004Z

So I am an idiot. I've spent far too much of the last eight and a bit years of my life repeatedly falling for the same big fat lie.

It's limited my social life, hobbies, time with my family and even compromised my marriage on occasions. It's the 'macho culture of long hours'; a corrosive, unhealthy and unproductive approach to work that promises a great deal but delivers very little.

Chances are you've experienced this: the moment when it's time to go home, but you can't be the first to stand up, put your coat on and walk out the door... because you'll receive disapproving looks, you might not get a pay rise, people may tut, you'll be viewed as a slacker, you'll be letting colleagues down.... Any and all of the above can come in to play.

I've been that guy who almost always says 'Yes' and each time in the back of my mind I've expected something in return, recognition, money, career prospects, opportunities, the chance to work on that interesting project... But sadly when one 'goes the extra mile' 'it's rarely rewarded.

In fact it's much worse than simple lack of reward. The macho culture of long hours skews the measure of what can be achieved in a working day. Instead of the seven hours I was paid, I'd routinely work nine or even 11.

Then something strange happens, even on days when not very much is achieved, you've still done 10 hours. That way you can really appear to be productive.

The phrase I've used: Macho culture of long hours I heard from Julian Richer, owner of Richer Sounds. Unusually for a successful businessman it's something he doesn't tolerate in his company. In fact as far as he's concerned, if his staff are routinely working over, something's wrong and it should be dealt with.

I'm about to have a change of employment and I know that in my new role I'll have to work hard. But I also know I won't have anyone tutting if I leave the office at 5pm; that if I stay later and put in dozens of extra hours each month I'll be asked if I need some extra time off.

If you're suffering from the long hours culture, challenge it. If you put the extra in the hope of recognition, ask yourself if you've ever really had any, and if it made any difference to your life...

Then at 5pm, go home.

They're potentially (but probably not) watching you

2010-11-18T17:50:00.003Z

Britain is apparently best at cctv which is nice... But a spat that's been played out in the pages of York's local paper has suggested the council may have spent lots of money installing cameras, but that doesn't mean anyone's actually watching them.

There are tales of people contacting the police for help when a bike's stolen only to be told there's no useful footage. So just what do the cameras do for us?

Today I visited a CCTV control room. It was very impressive, and a useful part of that town's efforts to make public spaces better and safer. But the chap I spoke to set off my Freakonomics alarm bells.

I'm paraphrasing but he said something like "over the past 15 years crime has fallen because of these cameras". While that may be true, how does he know?

Crime and anti-social behaviour has improved in this town centre over the last 15 years but is that because of the cameras or something else? Have the trouble hot spots just moved to somewhere away from the cameras?

This used to be a mining area so maybe over the past 15 years the legacy of closing the pits and the resulting unemployment is slowly starting to subside.

Basically I don't know, but I suspect nobody else does either. So let's continue to treat claims like this with caution and not confuse correlation with causality.

That City of York council might not be thorough in monitoring their cameras doesn't concern me unduly. Could it be that across the country the justification for installing them have subsided for quite different reasons and the cameras end up watching the traffic mostly.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Accountability in 'the cloud'

2010-10-24T11:42:00.004+01:00

Ignoring the irritating marketing term of 'the cloud', I'm all for putting stuff online. I'm a big user of dropbox, which lets me store files in a datacentre somewhere. I use google docs from time to time, which lets me access a file from anywhere I happen to be. I use Evernote on my laptop, phone and work desktop. It's all good.

But... what about responsibility for that data?

Call me paranoid, but what about backup and restore? I just can't get away from the fear that all my data might get lost and the response from whichever company loses it would most likely be 'meh'.

I'm feeling this more than ever as I start to use a fantastic GTD online wotnot called nirvanahq.com In Beta at the moment, it's growing slowly and the development team are adding and refining features following user feedback.

The problem for me is whoever's running the site is completely unaccountable to me. They're developing something as a business but right now they're not taking any funding from it and I have no idea how they're paying for it.

The upshot is that although the beta site looks great, and I really want to use it, dare I trust my organisational life to it?

I've felt the same way about Toodledo.com, an offering I use at the moment. It's more established and has pay plans in place, but as a user there's no information about who runs it, how profitable it is or in fact any information that might help me decide whether I want to trust in the platform.

If any of these businesses are in trouble, will they tell their users? Doubtful. If the business folds, would users be told then or would the first sign of trouble be when the site drops offline?

Outdated as it may be I find myself craving good old locally installed desktop software (with sync to a mobile device of course) which lets me do whatever I need to do, and makes looking after the data my responsibility.

I know many people will steam ahead and stick everything 'in the cloud' given half a chance, but I suspect the real vision of cloud computing isn't going to convince people like me until there's a simple, coherent way to backup your own data.

Three quarters gone, some progress

2010-09-17T16:02:00.003+01:00

So I've been attempting to better organise my time using GTD for nine months now. Time enough to cook up a baby but not, it seems, sort myself out.

In fact things are a lot better than they were. I'm managing to get pretty much everything done required of my by my two employers. What's suffering however is the other stuff; the doorframe still needs painting, I need to sort out the loft, and our van needs undersealing... just to name a few things. So essentially work... works, but home doesn't yet.

So there's more to do.

There are two, pretty obvious things that I've learnt: The finest organisational system in the world doesn't work if you don't use it and being incredibly organised doesn't help if you fundamentally have too much to do.

The question I face at the moment is do I have more to do than I can actually achieve, or do I just have much further to go in terms of efficiently using my time?

Software protection drives me mad!

2010-05-24T23:20:00.003+01:00

Software companies deserve to get paid, those who tirelessly create code need paying, etc etc etc... But nothing makes me want to turn to software hacks and cracks quicker than copy protection systems.

I've recently spent a lot of money on a piece of video editing software (Avid Media Composer). Tonight it crashed and then wouldn't run any more. So I removed it, reinstalled it and then couldn't get the software to activate.

Trawling through the Avid support site reveals nothing of any help, and the forum isn't offering much either.

It's a maddening situation because the copy protection that's designed to stop people sharing the install CD with their friends has actually stopped me, a perfectly legitimate user, from using the product for which I've paid.

This is nothing new either. I once turned to an illegal download of a product because even though I'd bought a valid copy, the copy protection dongle broke and my only option was to find a crack on some nasty warez site.

This annoys me. Software companies, yes you need to protect your interests and I understand why this is a problem for you. But if you make it difficult for me to use your software legitimately I'll find another way, or ultimately choose a different product.

The evangelical right

2010-05-02T16:15:00.001+01:00

Just as 'evangelical' Christians and the republican party seem inextricably linked in the US, it seems prominent 'evangelicals' are now increasingly involved with the Conservative party.

Now I don't have a problem with people of faith being involved in politics, in fact I welcome it. We should have more. Those who argue someone's faith is a personal matter and has no place in public life, let alone in government, are missing the point of what it is to be a Christian.

The trouble is certain left wing personages are attacking these links with rich, 'evangelicals' who hold views that not all Christians share because they're able to buy influence. And I think this raises an important point.

The term 'evangelical' has become loaded. Whereas it might once have talked about a church that was lively, welcoming and outward facing, say it now and it usually means anti abortion, anti gay, anti single parent, pro creationist, etc.

For me the issue is not that there are people like Phillipa Stroud entering politics. (In Today's piece in The Observer she's somewhat demonised for her position on homosexuality. But notably somone the paper tracked down to comment said she was a positive person who wanted to help people.)

No, the problem here is the funding of politics that allows rich people with an interest, no matter what it may be, to buy a level of influence. If it isn't individuals, it's trade unions. Either way it's hard to ignore the opinion of someone who's writing cheques for £200k.

All that said, would we rather the likes of Mr Vardy buy influence over policies he feels will benefit society, or business leaders who want to benefit themselves, which has been the charge traditionally laid at Tory party benefactors.

Philippa Stroud has a history that understandably upsets gay people. But she does seem to genuinely be interested in helping others, whether you consider her misguided or not. Frankly it's people like that I want in politics. We can argue about the rest.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The old voting conundrum

2010-04-14T22:58:00.003+01:00

Although I'm already a little bored of the upcoming UK general election I have been giving quite a lot of thought to who I should vote for.

I've been eligible to vote for 15 years, and have always voted the same way. However I've recently been interested by policies being toted by other parties. So I visited a few websites that claim to help offer a solution to the confused voter.

There's no shortage of these simple questionnaires that distill policies into simple statements that you either agree or disagree with. These things always have to be taken with a generous pinch of salt, not least because it's easy to make some simple mistake with the methodology that introduces the bias of whoever created the questionnaire/website/etc.

However what's interesting for me is that I've now completed four of these things and they've all pointed the same way. It isn't entirely the opposite of my usual political leanings, but I have found the party I have always voted for comes a distant third in the results.

A few years ago, possibly at the last general election, I heard a talk from someone involved in political research. Something he said that stuck with me was along the lines of, anyone who isn't a member of a political party shouldn't be partisan. In other words, just because you've always voted a certain way, doesn't mean you always should.

It's incumbent on us, the electorate, to engage with politics; to seek to understand the policies of each party and then vote with our eyes open, knowing exactly what the party stands for.

Of course things are not so simple in practice. I live in a safe seat. To be honest it doesn't really matter how I vote, we'll end up with the same MP.

Without wishing to give too much away, the party second on my list of political leanings is not going to get into power. Some would say this means they can put together a list of very attractive sounding policies; they'll never have to deliver them.

All of this gives me a lot to think about. Should I vote for the policies? I don't believe we should allow ourselves to be taken in by personalities, but they do play a part. After all do we want Brown/Clegg/Cameron (delete as appropriate) as our next Prime Minster?

I said at the start of this that I was already fed up with the election. But as this plays out a bit further I wonder how many other people, like me, might find the party they've always voted for isn't delivering the policies they most want to support.

January Blues

2010-02-08T17:56:00.000Z

Sitting in a coffee shop waiting for someone, who probably isn't going to turn up, I'm musing on what hasn't been a good couple of weeks.

So far, a few weeks into a previously mentioned new split job working arrangement and I don't seem to have more time available (although focus is much better).

There have been a few occasions recently when I only seem able to do the wrong thing.

And then today somebody stole my iPod. Although I do love gadgets I'm not overly materialistic... Easy come, easy go and all that. But this small act of theft came close to pushing me over the edge.

That's not a good place to find oneself.

But before you worry this is slipping to the worst of all blog entries, laced with self pity... My greatest concern is what my response should be.

Yesterday morning (Sunday 7th Feb) Matthew Porter's sermon in St Michael le Belfrey was about the response we should have to trying circumstances.

The message... More Praise.

So as I deal with some personal issues I praise that though they're significant to me, I still have a job, a roof over my head, food to eat and an iPhone on which to type this blog entry.

Out of my concerns, struggles, irritations and frustrations can come anger and bitterness or more praise.

One will be helpful, the other... won't.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2010 and still no space odyssey

2009-12-31T15:29:00.003Z

It's traditional to make resolutions for the new year to come. However I don't really have to try too hard for change as in January I go part time at the BBC (after eight years) and take up another part time position as technical manager for a large church.

It's a job I've effectively been doing as a volunteer for the last few years but having the paid time means I can do it properly and hopefully get some life back.

I've written before about how I, and seemingly everyone around me, is too busy with no life balance. Recently I've become aware that I've been operating at my limit, occasionally beyond, as I try to do a paid job, work for a church and somehow try to fit in other things I want to do.

I'm not an artist, but I do miss being able to spend time on creative outlets of photography and music.

This year I want to get back to making music. I also want to take my wedding photography forward, got one job booked, want some more.

But I'll still be juggling two potentially demanding jobs so organisation is the key. Those that know me will tell you this isn't one of my strengths. I'm very good at detailed planning but keeping track of the day to day is a different matter.

So I'm turning to technology (iPhone) and have just bought a copy of David Allen's book Getting Things Done. I'm told GTD appeals to people with complex lives who like frameworks but dislike rules.

I'll post thoughts here as I get my head around GTD and how I can implement it appropriately for my situation.

But I do have some resolutions after all:
- consume less (energy and food)
- make music
- take more photos
- make more time for my wife
- make more time for my God
- leave work at the end of the day and leave it there.

I fear it's the last of these I'll struggle with the most.

Time will tell.

Happy new year.

Is HD tv pointless?

2009-12-27T13:48:00.000Z

For some foul reason I was watching Herbie fully loaded the other day on BBC1. I was at my parents where they have a nice 32" Sony Bravia and a HD freesat receiver. The film was also on the BBCHD channel so we switched to that. It was noticably higher def. The racetrack fence wire could be clearly made out etc. But was it any better? And after a few minutes did we even notice any more.

You have to try quite hard to buy a tv that isn't HD ready these days and, with Sky (cue spitting noise) leading the way HD is now available via satellite to the UK. So far I've resisted, sticking to an aging CRT tv and using our excellent Topfield Freeview PVR.

To shoot HD means the cameras have to be better, and I think that shows on standard def broadcast.

But here's the big HD con. High Defininition as promised by Sky is usually nothing of the sort. The broadcast resolution may be higher but the feed so heavily compressed the resulting quality is terrible.

It's a bit like smearing your expensive HD tv with Vaseline. High resolution is meaningless if the detail is smeared by heavy compression.

HD broadcasting is marketing fluff. More is better. That's easy to sell. So HD is more and must be better. Even when it isn't.

Finally, consider that first example of the terrible film. When someone left the room I switched it back to standard def. When they returned, they didn't notice.

So by all means buy a high def tv if you need a new one. And buy a blueray player as HD discs benefit from a nice high bitrate and films do look good. But as I sit watching sky HD (away from home) I can tell you it's a complete waste of money.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone. Yeah iPhone. How cool and culturally relevant am I?

iPhone's won me over

2009-12-26T20:02:00.005Z

For some reason I always go for the underdog. Maybe it's just the British disease, who knows. But when everyone I knew was getting an iPhone I went for the new kid on the block, Google Android on a T-Mobile G1. A decision I've regretted for the last year.

I've moaned about Android before so no need to go over old ground but suffice to say my experience of Android has been of an inelegant OS that until at least v1.6 wasn't ready for general use.

I still think Android will be a significant positive force in the smartphone market, but Google's decision to launch their OS on the severely underspecified G1 really annoyed me. I accept early adopters pay a premium and suffer heavy depreciation etc but my G1 is only running the later Android goodness courtesy of the excellent work done by rom cooker Cyanogen. The G1 is unlikely to ever see Android 2.0 whereas the Original iPhone is happily running the latest version of the iPhone OS.

Which brings me to my iPhone; a second hand original GPRS only iPhone from a friend and it is, quite frankly, brilliant. It syncs with my Kerio Mailserver via Activesync, google calendars with Caldav and in true Apple style 'it just works'. I should add that I managed Activesync support on the G1 with an app called Touchdown. Works but the G1 memory is inadequate for the app and it doesn't integrate with the google calendaring app, which for some reason annoyed me.

Using a 2g iPhone on T-Mobile (who don't have EDGE) means web access is slow and painful but what use is speedy data access when you don't have the app support to do what you want.

As soon as my current contract ends it's bye bye to T-Mobile and a swift move to another provider and a 3GS. When it launched the iPhone was a game changer in the smartphone market and everyone else is still playing catch up as far as I can tell.

Helping the poor

2009-12-23T08:58:00.003Z

As I sit writing this I'm in Pret, enjoying a coffee and chocolate croissant that's cost me about £3, money I don't think about spending, despite having just passed the Big Issue seller outside M&S. Poverty can become invisible to us if we choose not to see it. It can also be well hidden. How many well to do families have recently fallen on hard times because of job losses in financial services. I wonder how many don't admit it and try to hide it from friends.

Last Sunday Tim Jones, vicar of St Lawrence's church in York, said in his sermon that it was better for people in dire financial circumstances to shoplift rather than turn to say burglary or prostitution.

Whilst in principle I agree with these sentiments what Rev Jones actually said was "my advice as a Christian Priest is to shoplift". He qualified that he does not consider stealing a good thing but the least of a number of potential evils that desperate people might turn to.

He then sent a transcript of his talk to the local press.

There can be no doubt that he knew what sort of response his statements would get and that he wanted this out there in the media.

However I doubt he expected quite such a widespread reaction with media across the world covering a story that started in a small church in York and retailer groups condemning his statements.

The problem is that stealing isn't ok and claims from any shoplifter facing prosecution that they were stealing to avoid the alternatives of burglary or prostitution are likely to fall on deaf ears.

Whilst I haven't looked up stats I know the retail industry reports most shoplifting is of higher value items, not essentials.

What's more, most people in our society who become involved in prostitution or burglary do so because they have a substance abuse problem, usually an expensive habit to feed, and not because they can't afford to buy bread.

For me Rev Tim's argument is flawed and his reasoning questionable but maybe that isn't the point. Maybe he just wants to spark a debate. Playing devils advocate often works and he has managed extraordinary media coverage.

Time will tell how this pans out and whether he's branded as rogue vicar talking nonsense or people engage with the debate.

I can't help feel Rev Jones has gone about this the wrong way and risks overshadowing the tremendous good the Church is already doing. For example Christians Against Poverty, a national dept counselling charity that's helped thousands of people out of crushing debt. Or closer to Rev Tim's home there's the fantastic Family Matters York.

There is a big issue with the distribution of wealth in the UK. I'd like to see more people engaging in a debate about what to do about this, how to help those most disadvantaged in our society, particularly the homeless. The Church ought to be at the forefront of this and so many other social issues, challenging the well off and comfortable. All to often that isn't the case.

Has Tim Jones helped?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Everybody's too busy

2009-11-26T22:35:00.005Z

I once heard it said "the devil trembles when we pray but laughs when we get too busy", or words to that effect. Just of late it seems everyone's too busy. I really do mean everyone I encounter.

Ecclesiastes 2:24
A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,

The trouble is that for me, and it seems so many around me the balance has tipped into something that isn't satisfying. I found myself wishing for another few hours in this afternoon to try and get everything done. There can be no satisfaction because the job can never be done. There's always more being asked/demanded/required. Even those doing something with a definite end point seem under pressure to get there quicker.

There seems to be a climate of fear across so many organisations large and small. "We've all got to just do what it takes." That's what so many people seem to hear from their managers at all levels and behind it is the usually unsaid "you're lucky to have a job".

I am lucky to have a job, a good job and one that for the most part I enjoy. I spent yesterday doing some virtual Christmas shopping for radio, I get to record live bands and present a music programme... Brilliant. I dreamed of such things as a teenager, well maybe not the Christmas shopping...

But without time to be creative, to enjoy the work, to find satisfaction the greatest of jobs becomes a joyless struggle.

I'm not sure what the answer is, especially for someone with a fairly strong work ethic and a determination not to let colleagues down.

Maybe a national week of work to rule.

All ideas welcome.

Life with a windy hackintosh

2009-10-06T09:05:00.003+01:00

I dropped my expensive macbook pro. It broke. Fortunately insurance paid out and I bought a new one. Then I dropped it, in exactly the same circumstances (although this one didn't break). So yes, I'm an idiot. Because I'm not as wealthy as Stephen Fry I can't afford to keep buying Macs so decided I needed something cheaper as a day to day carry about computer.

I'd been interested by netbooks but the few I'd looked at didn't suit my needs. However the MSI Wind U100 seemed to be getting generally good reviews, and a lot of people had successfully installed OS X.

I ended up with the Advent branded version called the 4211C (£200 from the PC World online refurb section). Installed a bigger hard disk, another gig of RAM, OS X Leopard and I'm very happy. I also bought an extended battery, it adds weight and bulk to the machine, but also doubles up as a handy carry handle. That wouldn't be for everyone but it gives me a good 5+ hours use. I like that.

I've been using this machine now for several months and it's become my main day to day computer. The wind is a well built little machine for the money with a very usable keyboard and a nice bright screen. It runs OS X well. The user experience is nicer than the installed Windows XP Home, then again I do just prefer OS X. Give it some serious thinking to do and you soon encounter the limitations of the Atom N270 processor, but I'm even using the machine to put together some radio programmes for the BBC. Rendering the project on Reaper can take a little while, but that isn't the end of the world.

There are a few little niggles with Leopard on the Wind however. It's necessary to mess about with some drivers (.kext files) to get the display working in the correct resolution. Sound isn't perfect: on install it's built in speakers only. A bit of messing about can give you the headphone socket but no mic or external input. I also haven't managed to get the webcam to work at all. Wifi is something of a compromise: the standard realtek card isn't recognized by OS X, but realtek have made a utility that makes it work well enough. On the subject of networking the ethernet needs a manual DHCP prod after the machine's been asleep.

That's quite a list of niggles, but for me it really hasn't been a problem. What I've gained in a small, cheap, highly portable and adequately powerful computer running my favourite OS makes it worth dealing with these things.

I do hope Apple enter the netbook fray and build something like this, complete with the perfectly smooth user experience us Apple users have come to expect. In the meantime idiots like me who can't be trusted not to drop their Macbook can instead potentially destroy something that's about a 7th of the cost.

Would you second this?

2009-08-26T22:09:00.002+01:00

Something currently doing the rounds of e-mail, that you may come across at some point is a letter supposedly sent by an American housewife to a local paper. I received this from a Christian friend with the tag line of "Will you second this? I do".

The full text is below, but in essence it's a pro-American, pro-war, pro-army, anti-Islamic list. I'm not going to go into my thoughts on other religions, or any religion for that matter. But the sad thing about this letter is the way it uses the name of Jesus Christ. The idea seems to be that if you're pro-Christ, you must be anti... everything else.

For me this represents a fundamentally skewed view of the Christian faith.

Christ commanded his followers to love their enemy and to forgive others their sins. How many people across the globe regularly say the Lord's prayer that contains the phrase "forgive us our sins/trespasses, as we forgive those who sin/trespass against us."

For Christians this means forgiving the moron who cuts you up when driving. It means forgiving the inconsiderate colleague. It means forgiving the terrorists who blew up a train on the London underground. It means forgiving those behind the 9/11 twin towers outrage.

As that great philosopher Sheryl Crow once said: "No-one said it would be easy, but no-one said it'd be this hard".

So no. I can't second this:

Written by a housewife in New Brunswick, to her local newspaper. This is one
Ticked off lady..

'Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started
By Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 and
Have continually threatened to do so since?

Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day, in
Downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from the nation's capitol and in a
Field in Pennsylvania ?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning
Or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured
By a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in
A brutal insurgency.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for
Incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring
About the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by
Beheading in Afghanistan .

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off
Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat..

I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out
And fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in
Mosques.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blows themselves up in search of
Nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide
Bombs.

I'll care when the Canadian media stops pretending that their freedom of
Speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the
Ground or their families waiting a home to hear about them when something
happens.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a CANADIAN soldier roughing up an
Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:

I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to
Move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank ..

I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and
Fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that
His holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your
Heart of hearts:

I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and
Other times 'Quran.' Well, Jimmy Crack Corn you guessed it,

I don't care!!

If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends
Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous
Behaviour!

If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you
Choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed
By radical Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:

'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in
The world. But, the Soldiers don't have that problem.'

I have another quote that I would like to add, AND.......I hope you forward
All this.

One last thought for the day:

Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:

1. Jesus Christ

2. The Canadian Soldier.

3. The British Soldier.

4. The US Soldier, and

5. The Australian Soldier

One died for your soul, the other 4 for your freedom..

Orange really has got better

2009-06-25T22:44:00.004+01:00

So it's been a while since my Orange broadband connection suddenly seemed to be getting a half decent speed... And, it's held up.

So I have a new benchmark. A domestic Orange 8Mb ADSL line is giving a real world 6Mb+. This contrasts sharply with BT Internet domestic 8Mb which gives under 2Mb. Not only that but at work we have a BT Internet Business connection. This promises to be faster with lower contention ratios. Download speed still doesn't even reach 2Mb though and upload is no better than Orange.

BT, you really are holding Britain back.

Orange broadband suddenly seems better

2009-06-07T21:40:00.002+01:00

Because I live in a village our local exchange isn't scheduled to support LLU (Local Link Unbundling) until about 2012 which means we don't have access to all those tasty ADSL2+ services offered by the likes of Bethere.co.uk

I've used Be's service and it's very good. A reliable 15Mb/s realistic download speed is pretty good in my book.

But we've got the Orange broadband Max 8Mb service. I've always found any 8Mb service only seems to offer a realistic 2Mb downstream at best. My parents have BT Internet's 8Mb service and it's terrible.

However I tried the BBC iPlayer network performance test and it reported I was getting 6Mb/s download and the Orange connection now seems to be able to support upwards of 5Mb/s streaming.

Last time I checked I was only getting around the 2Mb/s mark... so what's happened? Is this some sort of fluke or have Orange/BT done something with their networks in recognition that it really isn't ok to charge for an 8Mb connection and only provide 2Mb.

I'll keep an eye on it.

Virtual piracy

2009-04-18T16:28:00.005+01:00

It was the era of tapes and Sony Walkmans but vinyl was still king and CDs only found a home in hifi cabinet of serious audiophiles. I used to tape songs off the radio, usually Radio 1's top 40 countdown on a Sunday evening (long before the dreadful Fearn and Reggie). This was of course illegal. I knew lots of people who did the same but somehow the world kept on turning and people kept buying records.

Record company execs weren't happy that it was easy to record from vinyl onto audio cassette and then lend, or even give this copy to someone else, but the first time I remember the copyright protectors declaring the end of music for all time was the advent of the twin tape deck. At the press of a button you could copy a tape, sometimes even at high speed. But somehow the world kept on turning and people kept buying music.

Fast forward a few years to the next big technology jump - the domestic PC CD burner. Not only could you now copy music, but it was an exact copy (more or less) with no loss of quality. This really would bring about the end of music. But somehow the world...etc etc.

Today's 'end of the world' technology has been around for a surprisingly long time with MP3s circulating from the early 90s. Initially those distributing large numbers of MP3 files tended to do it on website. Easy to deal with those, just shut them down. What's really spoiling the business lunches of record company execs is bittorrent - filesharing.

Bittorrent allows me to make files on my computer available to other people. As others download the files, they make them available too. The result is a world wide network of computers all offering the files meaning the download is spread across lots of machines. It's very clever, very efficient and quite difficult to deal with.

If you've been paying any attention to the news circulating around nerdy tech circles then you'll know about this. The Pirate Bay people were offering a bittorrent tracker, and so were an easy target. Targetting those who are actually doing the sharing is much harder, not least because there are so many.

Here lies the crux of the problem; a generation of people now exist who think media (music, TV programmes, movies, even newspapers) cost nothing.

There are lots of places 'blame' can lie for this and I think it's too simplistic to argue that filesharing is entirely responsible. It has a big part to play, but so does advertising supported services that are so common.

People who create should get paid for their efforts unless they choose otherwise. Therefore taking music, movies, software, etc for free when you should pay for it isn't fair. However what's equally unfair, particuarly in the music industy, are the HUGE profits made by record companies when the artists may get very little if anything.

What's particularly concerning is that across the world increasingly complex and punitive legislation is being used to combat copyright violation. It's bad in the US and could get particularly bad in the UK.

Because of all this it's incumbent on responsible adults to lobby politicians to combat unfair and unreasonable legislation. Be under no illusion that highly resourced companies with lots of lawyers are doing exactly this. We should question and combat the FUD circulated that copyright violation is theft (it isn't), that copyright violation is funding terrorism (there's no evidence it is) and that any change to the status quo will ruin the world (it won't, but it might ruin the bank balances of a few individuals). We should demand fair use; a system that allows the use of music clips, movie clips and credited photos for no commercial gain, and allows trialing of software without restrictions.

Just as importantly we should also do our bit to educate others, particularly the young, that just because you can get something for nothing, doesn't mean you should.

I could go on. A great deal needs to be overhauled, not least the highly questionable Performing Rights Society in the UK. The bottom line is fairness. Treat me unfairly, force draconian DRM measures and awkward software copy controls and I won't treat you fairly in return.

In other news...

2009-04-04T00:20:00.002+01:00

It was nice to put together the ragbag of bits that is by PA system for the first time in a year and find it all works as expected. Got an irritating and difficult to trace fault with a Tascam digital mixing desk. The desk keeps losing track of where one particular fader is. Tried replacing it, no different. Probably means there's some impedance measuring going wrong. Actually I have no idea how it works... only that sometimes it doesn't.

What's the point of Duffy?

2009-04-04T00:19:00.002+01:00

that something or other avenue song was ok... but for the most part she sounds like someone who's accidentally swallowed a party squeeky thing. Rubbish.

Too much to do

2009-03-31T08:05:00.003+01:00

Concerned at how I'm beginning to struggle to get things done, with a little too much falling by wayside I recently had a chat with a friend of mine who's into the whole personal development time management side of things. Turns out I'm just trying to do too much. So it's less my inability to manage time effectively and more that I just don't have enough of it, or more accurately that I'm trying to do too much with it.

With spring now here I think the first thing I'm going to do is make sure that I take more time out to really do nothing, or at least relax and read.

The whole sabbath thing is probably the key to this. I haven't been observing it particularly carefully. Ok I haven't been observing it at all. I subscribe to the idea that the day isn't all that important. What matters is there's a day, a whole day that's devoted to resting, to spiritual matters, to God.

That I haven't been sticking to this eminently sensible idea is daft and I'm really beginning to feel it now. So as of this week, Sunday (for that is the day that fits best in my week) will be that little bit more special. Let's see if that helps.

Any economists out there?

2009-03-23T21:14:00.005Z

For as long as I can remember whenever I've heard talk of national debt I've found myself wondering who a nation can be indebted to. I always figured it was a richer country (which it is in the case of many) or banks, or some really rich guy who had a few spare dollars he found down the back of the sofa.

But right now, as far as I can tell, every country is hugely indebted by sums of money that are completely mindblowing. When the richest country in the world is in debt, all the banks and indeed some previously well off countries are broke and the economy is seemingly falling apart... From who are we borrowing money?

Twittering Archbishop

2009-03-18T09:03:00.003Z

It seems Archbishop of York John Sentamu has joined the twittering masses so you too can keep abreast of his latest thoughts, even as he's having them.

Though he's new to Tweeting, or so it seems, it's slightly disappointing how few people he's following. One thing that's often struck me about Sentamu is his disconnectedness with people in the church. He just doesn't seem interested.

I like his focus on international injustice and on making the church relevant to modern culture. However I do wonder if he isn't doing enough to take people already in the church with him... Just a thought.

is modern paint rubbish?

2009-03-14T13:43:00.002Z

I've been decorating a small room for what feels like 900 years. Interestingly all domestic wood/metal paint now seems to be water based. This is good for the environment, and doesn't have the same tendency to give you a headache.

The downside seems to be that it just isn't very good. I've been painting something that was white a subtle off white colour and it's taken four coats.

I'm really bored with painting.

Good room, good mics, what more do you need?

2009-03-05T23:57:00.002Z

Just got back from recording two live band sessions for BBC Introducing. Sounding pretty good considering... Considering that is the whole evening takes four hours and in that time me and my colleague take all the gear to the venue we use (a church building) setup record two bands and then pack up and put it all away.

We're getting pretty good results too. Often as good as those from much higher profile and better equipped studio facilities on big bucks network radio. Partly that's down to our extreme skill (we're modest too) but mainly it's about the space.

Half decent instruments in a good space with some reasonable mics are going to sound good. Get the space wrong and you spend an age messing about trying polish that particular turd.

We're lucky in that the mics we have are good ones. So even though the mixing desk is cheap and the compressors are Behringer (shudder) the results are still pretty good.

Roland Digital Snake - a thing of wonder

2009-03-01T12:30:00.005Z

Anyone who's done a significant amount of live sound or location recording will be familiar with the joys of lugging around huge heavy multicore cables. This is the way of getting the signals from the stage to the mixing desk. Good quality cable is expensive and cable of any quality is heavy. Then you have the interference and loss problems of long cable runs, especially when lighting's involved.

Bring on the (relatively) affordable Roland Digital Snake. It uses gigabit ethernet to link the stage and front of house boxes. The stage box contains mic preamps, so low level mic signals don't have very far to go. Then it's all converted to digital at 96k 24-bit. Nice.

At the other end there's a front of house box that brings it back out in analogue. There's a simple controller that lets you set the channel gain, pad and switch phantom power. The base system is 16 channels with eight returns. At approaching £2000 it's considerably more expensive than a long piece of cable, but far more flexible.

For example if you're working in a building with structured cabling installed, you can run the digital snake through that (although don't plug it into a network or you'll upset people as it all stops working). You can have the boxes 100m apart, but if you fancy going further, just stick a gigabit ethernet switch in the middle and go another 100m.

Having played with one of these for a few jobs it just works. Roland have kept it simple and done a great job of building something that's really as easy as it could be.

The only criticisms I have are: the controller isn't always as reponsive as I'd like. When you switch channels it takes about a second before you can change the gain. Not a problem really, but slightly irritating. I'd really like the FOH box to have ADAT outputs. Digital desks are very common these days so by breaking out in analogue there's another unneccessary digital conversion.

These are small gripes however, it works, it's light, and... well, that's enough.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children

2009-02-24T22:23:00.005Z

I am against all forms of child abuse. I am against imposed internet filtering/censorship.

"What, you don't support internet filtering? Why do you support terrorists and paedophiles?"

I think the first two statements I made can sit happily together. Unfortunately a coalition of children's charities don't agree and seem to believe the only way to stamp out the evil of child porn is to ensure all internet providers are blocking it.

There are lots of problems with this approach and key among them are that I, and many others far more expert than me, don't believe it makes the slightest difference.

The other day I was standing outside a railway station. Across the road a family stood at a bus stop. The mother (I presume) was screaming abuse at a young boy. He must have been 10 or 11 and was being told he'd ruined the weekend, she and everyone else hated him and he was stupid. It was a foul mouthed tirade, a horrible thing to see and I really felt for the poor kid. But what did I actually do? I simply turned up my iPod so I couldn't hear and read my magazine so I couldn't see.

Internet technology has made it more likely that child porn will be seen by someone who finds it as abhorrent and upsetting as indeed they should. A number of these people have made the mistake of blaming the internet technology for this arguing since the technology brought this into our home, technology can stop that from happening.

Well that's true, it can. But unfortunately, and this is what really matters, it can't stop abuse from taking place, from having taken place or counsel the individuals concerned.

It's the internet equivalent of turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to child abuse in the street. Has internet technology made child porn more prevalent? I don't know, but really nasty stuff has been around for a long time before affordable broadband internet access and the kind of people this appeals to will seek it out in whatever form it takes.

So not only is it a waste of everybody's time and money (and it is very expensive), it's also potentially doing some serious societal damage. Once a government controlled internet censorship system is firmly in place how long before it's seriously misused? It may start with preventing access to known child porn sites. Then it's employed to help prevent terrorism... after all you don't want the terrorists being able to find bomb making recipes online do you? Then it's used to help 'keep the peace' and ultimately to 'quell dissent'.

That may sound like paranoid rantings, but it is a very slippery slope and one best avoided no matter how well intentioned at the start.

Nobody is going to campaign in favour of child porn and access to it. However I will campaign against internet censorship, and that doesn't amount to the same thing. Because the protection of children is important and emotive many are scared of accusation that they either don't care or much worse and that gives a very weak argument far more power and political weight.

What I would add is there are lots of ways individuals can choose to effectively restrict access to unsavoury and illegal material online. There are personal internet filters available but my favourite is to use openDNS. It's a free service that will work with pretty much any computer/network and does a really good job of controlling the blocking of content based on categories. I use it on the networks I maintain.

The key to this is choice. I will choose what I want to block. I do not want that choice made for me by someone else who thinks they know best because how do I know I can trust them?

Language it's a beautiful thing.

2009-02-20T14:30:00.002Z

Right now I'm sitting on a train opposite a very pretty girl who, while on the phone to her dad asked, and I quote "is my room full of shit?". This made me wonder what sort of plumbing emergency might cause such a thing. Later she stated to her friend that her dad was "literally up to his neck in shit". In which case it's fair to assume that some of it may have made it into her bedroom. I can understand the concern.

Android after a few months

2009-02-18T16:16:00.006Z

Since November 08 I've been the owner of a T-Mobile G1. For those not in the know, this is the first phone to use Google's Linux based smartphone OS called Android. Android is quite a big deal for the mobile phone world for two reasons. Firstly it means manufacturers don't have to pay hefty license fees to a company like Microsoft, secondly because it's an open source OS manufacturers can tinker with it to make it an ideal fit for their device.

So Android's lovely and we should all embrace it. Well... no. There are a number of problems right now, some of which are the fault of Android (Google), others are down to the inadequate hardware of the T-mobile G1 phone.

The G1 is made by a company called HTC who've been making Windows Mobile based devices for years. I've had two of them and been pretty happy with both. The phone we all call a G1 is in fact an HTC Dream and it's a bit poor. HTC have made several phones with a screen that flips up to reveal a keyboard. Each of these has been a slight evolution of the previous model. The G1 does away with all this sensible design and uses a strange hinge that leaves the keyboard blocked by a huge lump of phone. Also the keys have such a low profile that they're actually quite hard to use by feel. These are minor gripes compared to the pathetic battery life and internal memory capacity. Anybody who's used to working with 3G networks knows that 3G eats batteries for breakfast, leaving nothing by lunchtime. The Dream needs a considerably bigger battery. The phone also hasn't got anywhere near enough memory, 8GB of internal memory would have been about right. But my biggest gripe is with Android itself.

I mentioned the lack of internal memory. The G1 does have a card slot and now comes with an 8GB card, but this is almost entirely useless for most people because Android's security model doesn't allow applications to live on the memory card, they can only live in the phones internal memory, which is tiny. Effectively what we have is hardware designed for Windows Mobile, not Android.

To be honest I can't help but feel this OS simply isn't ready. All the basics are there. The OS works, it's stable and by all accounts the API is nice enough to use so developers are happy working on it. But the included applications are a long way off. Considering this entire OS and all its included apps are from Google why is it that Google Maps and You Tube are a pale imitation of their counterparts on the iPhone? The browser isn't bad, but doesn't handle zooming in a very elegant way. But the e-mail client is quite possibly the worst piece of e-mail software I've used for a very long time, on any platform. I'm not going to go into what's wrong with it, but suffice to say it feels like I've stepped back about 10 years. Some folks have created a forked version of the Open Source code in the form of K9, an attempt to better the bundled mail app. It's better, but still woefully slow and awful. Clever people who understand these things will tell you that Google have optimized Android for the wrong thing, low memory use instead of fewer processor cycles. Memory is cheap both to buy and to run, but processor time costs precious battery life.

You'll be getting the idea that I'm not happy with my G1. You're right. I'm not. It's a long way from being what it should be. This phone is being marketed as a rival to the iPhone and in pretty much every way it just isn't. I have no doubt that Android has a reasonably bright future but I'm very disappointed that Google chose to release it when they did. Many people will have done exactly what I did, bought the G1 because it has Google's name on it and expected great things. Instead what we've got is a developers toy that probably won't be ready as a viable platform until the end of 2009/early 2010. By that time Android will have come on a long way and there will be new hardware on the market.

Sadly those of use who were early adopters with a G1 will probably find T-mobile/HTC lose interest and we won't get the juicy updates. I understand Flash has been announced for Android. I'm willing to bet it won't run on the G1 with its limited memory.

So after several months of use I'm afraid I can't recommend the G1 to anyone. The slick simplicity of the iPhone betters it in every way. I'd even go for one of the current crop of Windows Mobile devices over the G1 if I had the option. Unfortunately I'm stuck in a contract until May 2010

Turning 32

2009-02-18T11:44:00.001Z

So today I've turned 32. Like all human dates it has no real significance at all, but it does leave one feeling the inexorable march towards the grave. Still as someone living in grace I don't really have to worry about that.

I could spend time worrying about how much stuff I'd like to get done before I have to stop. However my family has bought Guitar Hero for the Wii so now I can spend even more time procrastinating rather than getting on with something useful.

Welcome

2009-02-17T23:27:00.000Z

Often baffled by blogs I've always considered them to be largely pointless unless published by someone who's opinion may actually be interesting to others. So the BBC's editorial blogs, CEO of a large company etc... that all makes sense. The rest? Total waste of time.

So I'd long ago decided I wasn't going to contribute to the ever growing quantities of wittering nonsense that seems to make up most of web 2.0 yet here I am doing just that.

I suspect this mainly this will turn out to be a cathartic exercise. I find myself ranting at family and friends about things they don't really care about, so instead I've decided to publish my thoughts and rantings here.

I remain quietly confident that nobody else is actually going to read any of this. Which is absolutely fair enough. If however I manage to share something even remotely useful to a fellow human somewhere on the planet that's more than I could possibly hope for.