December 2008 – Page 3

The WordPress Big Upgrade

I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.7 and it wasn’t without it’s hairier moments. Was it the fact that half a dozen plugins stopped working? Or that the first time I tried it, it crapped out because of a weird symlink that I don’t remember creating? Anyway – the rest seems to have gone without much of … Continue reading “The WordPress Big Upgrade”

Anyway – the rest seems to have gone without much of a hitch though, as you can see, I’ve had to make some minor changes here and there and my twitter notifier seems to have some sort of spasm which means you’ll have to actually follow me or something.

I’m not looking forward to having to upgrade all of my WP blogs though. That’s a serious amount of updating to be done and I think I’ll wait til some more of the plugins have been tested with 2.7.

CoWorkingBelfast has a home at last…

I was very happy to see Andy post this on Twitter just a few minutes ago as we’d been sitting on it for so long, working out numbers and trying to figure out how to pay for things. The Good: The rent and rates are affordable and the room itself is great for the purposes. … Continue reading “CoWorkingBelfast has a home at last…”

I was very happy to see Andy post this on Twitter just a few minutes ago as we’d been sitting on it for so long, working out numbers and trying to figure out how to pay for things.

The Good: The rent and rates are affordable and the room itself is great for the purposes. The cafÃ© below is also not bad and the food seems pretty healthy. The room itself is very nice, has heaps of natural light and is in a popular part of the city. I think the atmosphere in the room will be very enjoyable for dynamic, ‘agile’ companies. It’s not going to suit everyone – and that’s fine – CoWorking isn’t meant for everyone.

The Bad: We’re realistic. This is a temporary home – it’s going to take us a couple of years to build to the point where we have enough people and momentum to take CWB to the ‘next level’. The vision for CoWorkingBelfast has always been ‘an entire building’ so we’ll start here and see where we go. There’s no parking though – which is a pain and an expense but that’s going to bite you anywhere in the city. You should be using public transport anyway.

The Ugly: We’ve still got a heap of paperwork to do and we could do with a reasonable solicitor to help us through some of the muddle. Nightmare. Anyone got much experience with non-profits and want me to owe them a favour?

Disconnected Conferences..

On his blog, Evert waxes about how conferences tend to have poor wifi: What’s needed is for someone knowledgeable to carry out a site survey and to use the results of this to work out a radio-plan. Take in consideration all possible sources of interference, the network load (i.e. amount of bandwidth needed) and make … Continue reading “Disconnected Conferences..”

On his blog, Evert waxes about how conferences tend to have poor wifi:

What’s needed is for someone knowledgeable to carry out a site survey and to use the results of this to work out a radio-plan. Take in consideration all possible sources of interference, the network load (i.e. amount of bandwidth needed) and make sure that you implement correct channel management and you should be OK. Coverage area and number of users can just be plugged into this matrix as it is scaleable.

Hm, hold on there. WiFi connectivity was spotty at OCC BBQ and wasn’t that you I saw in a suit pottering around with WiFi access points at the Digital Island Meetup/BizSpark Launch in November? I couldn’t get connected to WiFi there either. It’s not kosher to throw stones and I’m not throwing stones here – I’ve previously documented my own experiences with WiFi at events.

The problem is, in my opinion, shitty equipment. Whether it’s the oft-documented Free Public WiFi misfeature (Thanks, Microsoft) or the fact that some people don’t turn off their torrent applications when they connect to public wifi – I’ve seen it happen. All WiFi equipment is made by the lowest bidder. It’s all turd. And it’s worse when Windows creates ad-hoc networks at random without permission. That’s just arsehole behaviour.

The problem is… WiFi is shit.

Firstly it’s entirely based on collision detection. And it’s on a shared medium. So every time you add a new user on there it’s going to decrease the chance you can get any data. We hated this when it was a wire and we hate it when it’s wireless. But it’s a standard. So what are you going to do.

People should not expect massive data rates. They don’t need massive data rates. You need less than a megabit a second for decent WiFi. Anything faster than that and you’re just pissing into the wind. Use a damn wire already.

License Fees

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/ The BBC is paid for directly through each household TV licence. This allows it to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests. The BBC provides 8 interactive TV channels, 10 radio networks, more than 50 local TV and radio services, … Continue reading “License Fees”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/

The BBC is paid for directly through each household TV licence. This allows it to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests.

The BBC provides 8 interactive TV channels, 10 radio networks, more than 50 local TV and radio services, the BBC’s website, and the on-demand TV and radio service, BBC iPlayer.

I resent paying the license fee because, to be honest, I don’t watch linear broadcast television. I multi-task my time near the television so that my attention is elsewhere during ad-breaks, I time-shift my media and frankly I’m not interested in Eastenders, Strictly Come Dancing or any of the other prime-time programming.

So. I’ve been paying the license fee all these years – and there’s currently a project to digitise all of the BBC’s analogue content – shouldn’t this material be available to me? It’s being funded by me, why can’t I watch it when I want?

They need to open the walled garden…

SineWaveSpeech

Fascinating page about perceptual pop-out when applied to images and sound. I have no idea how this will help me in the future but sine-wave sound seems to me to be an excellent way of trivially encoding something. This means you can have a low bar to entry but at the same time keep the … Continue reading “SineWaveSpeech”

Fascinating page about perceptual pop-out when applied to images and sound.

I have no idea how this will help me in the future but sine-wave sound seems to me to be an excellent way of trivially encoding something. This means you can have a low bar to entry but at the same time keep the trivial onlooker bewildered.

Here’s some more.

Dont often see a full one

Of course I’m going to need to get a better camera. Related posts: The Broadband Blueprint (re DETI Telecoms Consultation) John Donne was full of shit. itv.com full of FAIL I’m so full of interesting information, I feel like the latest edition of something or other.

Of course I’m going to need to get a better camera.

Damien’s iPhone Survey

Damien Mulley, one of the most popular and prolific bloggers on the island of Ireland recently posted a survey about the iPhone for Irish users. Here’s the results. And some select slices… Irish iPhone users are highly loyal super-consumers who are immensely happy with their phone and 72% would recommend it to their friends. The … Continue reading “Damien’s iPhone Survey”

Damien Mulley, one of the most popular and prolific bloggers on the island of Ireland recently posted a survey about the iPhone for Irish users. Here’s the results.

And some select slices…

Irish iPhone users are highly loyal super-consumers who are immensely happy with their phone and 72% would recommend it to their friends. The vast majority have said their next phone will also be an iPhone despite battery life being an issue for 56% of users.

Just after the launch of the iPhone (but before the device became available) many mobile operators (and executives from Palm, RIM, Microsoft) scoffed at the possibility that Apple could waltz in and create something from nothing but it seems they have succeeded.

The iPhone may have its detractors (and it certainly has a list of faults) but it creates customer loyalty probably in excess of that of the Mac. I’ve certainly found myself able to leave the Mac at home and ‘survive’ just on iPhone for an entire day (yes, it leaves a backlog of things that I need to do but that’s not the essential stuff).

The iPhone proves that consumers will pay for music, applications and games on a phone and the amount Irish iPhone users are spending shows that future revenue streams for phone manufacturers and telcos will come in after the initial purchase of a device.

Apple have outdone themselves and, to be honest, shocked the mobile world by producing a success. Apple have more than 10 000 apps on the App Store currently and have reported over 300 million downloads (in less than six months). The size of the Apple App Store market is estimated to be worth $1 billion (which will allow Apple to pocket $300 million).

The ability to impulse-buy applications and music makes the App Store an instant hit. Issues remain on the policies from Apple regarding applications permitted on the store (which seems more and more arbitrary as time goes on) and on the different rules for different people on which APIs are permitted to be used.

I was recently told by InterTradeIreland that there may be a niche in the market for iPhone applications but they were concerns about whether there was a market in the niche. I think this information helps put those concerns to bed.

How many applications downloaded:
Average 26
300+ for some
Minimum 3

While it’s easy to fill up on Free applications, it’s also possible to spend hundreds of dollars easily when you consider how cheap a lot of applications are. With more than 16 million iPhones out there, a good hit will guarantee revenue and there are folk in the UK and Ireland making thousands per month from their App Store sales. Not something they may be able to retire on, but still considerable and also a market that didn’t exist six months ago.

It’s in your XNA

Though no-one could ever accuse me of being a Microsoft-fan, I tend to be hot-and-cold with them. There are some things that they did which were simply breathtaking for their time – Word 5.1 for example. And their new BizSpark program. And pretty much some of the XNA stuff I saw over the last few … Continue reading “It’s in your XNA”

And their new BizSpark program.

And pretty much some of the XNA stuff I saw over the last few days.

Well done Redmond. Respect.

Approval

Yesterday I pointed out Marta Kagan’s excellent slides on “What the f**k is Social Media” and some of the messages we should take home from these slides were on slide 28. Which is essentially why I get incredibly frustrated with the approvals processes needed to communicate with anyone, anywhere outside of my own office. In … Continue reading “Approval”

Yesterday I pointed out Marta Kagan’s excellent slides on “What the f**k is Social Media” and some of the messages we should take home from these slides were on slide 28.

Which is essentially why I get incredibly frustrated with the approvals processes needed to communicate with anyone, anywhere outside of my own office. In the areas I control (or have my own authority), I might do or say thing that I hope will polarise people (see Slide 66 of Marta’s slide pack). Polarising people is good – indifference is bad.

But over the last week I’ve had to wait a week for Press Releases to be authorised. And had to have an invite to an evening event (that I’m funding) okayed by two different companies because they offered to speak at it. It’s times like this that my frustration begins to grow – why can’t people just get with the program?

Get on the fucking clue train.

..won’t someone think of the children? THE CHILDREN!!!!!!

Ed Curran, columnist and general shithead at The Telegraph writes a urine laden article entitled “Thanks Jonathan Ross, for making BBC clean up the airwaves” in which he gargles: Itâ€™s an ill wind … I am hopeful that a new sense of responsibility and concern for public taste will now emerge out of the ashes … Continue reading “..won’t someone think of the children? THE CHILDREN!!!!!!”

Ed Curran, columnist and general shithead at The Telegraph writes a urine laden article entitled “Thanks Jonathan Ross, for making BBC clean up the airwaves” in which he gargles:

Itâ€™s an ill wind … I am hopeful that a new sense of responsibility and concern for public taste will now emerge out of the ashes of the broadcasting standards which you and your friend, Russell Brand, set on fire.

While Channel 4 is spending MILLIONS to promote new ideas that will stir up trouble and more importantly make us think, the BBC is now wasting my damn license fee dumbing down their programming to the level of CBeebies?

Fuck that, Auntie Beeb. And fuck you too, Ed Curran.