Commentary – Page 57

I have a dream…

Last night I dreamt of a future. It involved talking to people about my new companies, sailing a little wooden boat and travelling a lot. I woke up exhausted. But the present is why I’m not going to be able to commit to being involved in anything new. This includes putting some things (like lategaming … Continue reading “I have a dream…”

Last night I dreamt of a future. It involved talking to people about my new companies, sailing a little wooden boat and travelling a lot. I woke up exhausted.

index.php — Image from http://swallowboats.co.uk

But the present is why I’m not going to be able to commit to being involved in anything new. This includes putting some things (like lategaming and City of Tomorrow) on the back burner and we’re still talking about what to do about StartVI. If I don’t have the time for it, then we need to find someone who does.

For the next two months or so, I’ll be concentrating on updating the Northern Ireland Digital Content Strategy (PDF) with some colleagues both from industry, academia and InvestNI.

The Strategy was launched in 2008 and described the need for organisation within the Digital Sector in the province. It paved the way for Digital Circle.

If you want to be involved in re-writing the strategy document, then please comment below.

Kindergarten Technology

Cult of Mac has a feature on a kindergarten in Maine which has equipped over 200 students with iPads. My comment: Technology isn’t going to turn a child into a genius any more than strict adherence to the three Rs and paper and pencils turned anyone into a genius. Exposure to technology has many benefits … Continue reading “Kindergarten Technology”

Cult of Mac has a feature on a kindergarten in Maine which has equipped over 200 students with iPads.

My comment:

Technology isn’t going to turn a child into a genius any more than strict adherence to the three Rs and paper and pencils turned anyone into a genius.

Exposure to technology has many benefits – including important socialisation. I notice this because we have a split family, together at the weekends. The children who live here 7 days a week are exposed to every type of technology and are confident to try. The children who do not are nervous about new things and have less well-developed reading and manipulation skills (for their age).

I help my eldest with his homework but it’s not hard to see how little homework engages the child. We’re living in the most distracting era the world has ever known but we’re still expecting children to learn by scratching carbon sticks onto dried wood pulp?

Our learning tools have to be competitive with the leisure tools that kids have access to if you want them to want to learn. Back in my day, books were extremely compelling but still made of ink and wood pulp. I appreciate them due to my age. Kids need to have an experience of learning that compares to the other distractions in their lives.

Storm by Tim Minchin

I repeat: isn’t all of this enough? Why gild the lily? Bertrand Russell offered “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities”. Related posts: Design for Business Conference 2010 8/100 Ways to Save a Bad Time at a Conference It could be a five legged chair? Mobile Me ‘me.com’ addresses … Continue reading “Storm by Tim Minchin”

I repeat: isn’t all of this enough? Why gild the lily? Bertrand Russell offered “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities”.

The Case For Training Your Staff and Paying Them Well.

CFO asks CEO “What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?” CEO: ‘What happens if we don’t, and they stay?” – Tweet from @eranium Related posts: Coming Out T.O.M.O.R.O. A case of mistaken identity Masked Marshall on Staff Favourites

CFO asks CEO “What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?”
CEO: ‘What happens if we don’t, and they stay?” – Tweet from @eranium

Permanent Secretary of Cabinet Office wants Apple in Government

From the BBC: Ian Watmore — permanent secretary of the UK’s Cabinet Office, and in charge of a government efficiency drive — is calling for the UK government to end its dependence on Microsoft products, according to the BBC. Microsoft products are currently used by about 90 percent of civil servants in the UK. The … Continue reading “Permanent Secretary of Cabinet Office wants Apple in Government”

From the BBC:

Ian Watmore — permanent secretary of the UK’s Cabinet Office, and in charge of a government efficiency drive — is calling for the UK government to end its dependence on Microsoft products, according to the BBC. Microsoft products are currently used by about 90 percent of civil servants in the UK. The government is committed to using more open-source software to save money, says Watmore, although this is being balanced with attention to the threat of hacking.

Watmore notes that he would nevertheless like the UK government to turn to Apple more often. “I personally would like to see people move off Microsoft products onto open source or use Apple technology,”

I wish he’d replaced the letters in bold with the word “other“. Replacing Microsoft with Apple isn’t the goal here. Creating an environment based on open standards and protocols and file formats should be the aim. Shame on him.

iPad 2

I’ve been using the iPad 2 a lot this week – especially because the evening after I synced with my Mac, the Mac decided to develop a disk corruption issue. So Saturday morning was spent backing up my data so that I could do a quick re-install on Monday night (because, stupidly, I left my install disks in the office.) and it took all of Tuesday to restore my data because USB is rubbish protocol to transfer a lot of data. My Mac spent all of the downtime shut down and in a drawer until I could apply the remedies.

So iPad was my main machine from Friday evening until Tuesday evening. Not too long, you might say, but then I’m a heavy computer user.

And pretty much replace my laptop it did. With the HDMI adapter it mirrored flawlessly and allowed me to present at multiple meetings from within Keynote but also from within Pages and other apps. I was able to live demo games like Hungry Monsters to people on a massive projector screen. And it worked easier and quicker than any laptop I have ever used. There’s something to be said for simplicity.

I found myself more focused when writing up a report (with a three hour deadline). I found Keynote on iPad to be an absolute pleasure – even when I had to cut and paste multiple graphics between two different presentations. And it lasted the full day allowing me to wander around town with only the smallest of satchels containing only the iPad and a VGA adapter.

So when I read articles that say the iPad is the Holy Grail of Computing, I find it difficult to disagree. My family have a lot of 1st generation iPads and it is those family members who have the least IT problems. They don’t complain about browser crashes or slow internet. They don’t seem to have email problems and they’re really happy with the number and diversity of apps they have installed. For myself as the tech support guy who supports a family of non-techies, the iPad truly is the holy grail – even more than Mac OS X, which was a revolution in itself. iPad is just light years ahead of “general purpose” computers in terms of ease of use.

iPad is many things but I am becoming convinced it is not an eBook reader. I just don’t really enjoy reading plain ebooks on the iPad. I’ve not really tried Arlene’s Kindle with long form text but I don’t enjoy reading on the iPad – other than the copious amounts of text I consume on t’Internet. But where iPad shines is in the “modern” replacement for the book. Whether it’s the great apps by TouchPress or the amazing Alice for iPad (Youtube link), then there’s a change in what “books” are. And it’s bigger than the difference between hand-scribed books and the introduction of the Gutenberg press.

It’s not all roses of course. The lack of a “file bucket” to save things to can be a pain and it means extra steps to be a bit clever about sharing files. Thankfully, Dropbox provides an extremely compelling solution (and if you sign up using this link, I get extra space…wheee!) which syncs files between my Mac, my Windows installation, my iPad and my iPhone. In truth, I could keep everything in the Dropbox cloud and be extremely happy. But that’s my only criticism of the iPad and even that has a very nice workaround. – and if you use GoodReader (which has download-and-send-to-Dropbox support), then the workaround is complete. If only Apple supported iDisk this well. They could do a lot worse than to dump iDisk and use some of their $50B war chest to just buy Dropbox. Seriously – it’s that good.

Photos in iOS is possibly the most mind-numbing app. You can’t rotate photos. I mean – what? Considering the iPad has trouble orienting screenshots to the correct “gravity”, it seems like a curious and frankly frustrating omission.

Calendar on iOS is also weird in that you can’t swipe sideways between months but have to use a tiny arrow at the bottom. It’s like the developers forgot that they were developing for a touchscreen.

And notifications on iOS still suck as well. It’s the #1 thing I hope to see changed in iOS 5 (which we’ll likely see previewed at WWDC in June). There’s no way iOS should be saddled with modal alerts like we have now. The way they are implemented means that not only do I turn off the Alerts but when they come in, I’m tempted to write them down on paper as I dismiss them to help me remember what they were. That’s a nonsense. Maybe in iOS 5, a two-finder swipe down in Springboard will bring us to a Notifications manager? It could be that simple.

But none of these irritations change the fact that the iPad 2 is the best computer I’ve ever used. It’s ultra-mega-portable and when I combined it with a Bluetooth keyboard, a VGA adapter and a 19″ monitor, it turned into a usable workstation as well. Now that was a revelation.

Some things don’t change.

Image and article credit: The Irish News, March 23, 2011. When I was in the OTC (Officer Training Corps – the Territorial Army for University Undergraduates), a similar display of paramilitary force was pretty much the norm every time we went to stay in a camp – be it Ballykinler, Garelochead or elsewhere. The senior … Continue reading “Some things don’t change.”

Image and article credit: The Irish News, March 23, 2011.

When I was in the OTC (Officer Training Corps – the Territorial Army for University Undergraduates), a similar display of paramilitary force was pretty much the norm every time we went to stay in a camp – be it Ballykinler, Garelochead or elsewhere.

The senior cadets would stand at the top of the billet, dressed in fatigues and black balaclavas and pose with their SLRs in front of Union Jacks and Red Hand flags. They’d belt out verses of the Sash and be very critical of those of us who didn’t know it – demanding that we perform The Soldier Song instead. Another song I didn’t know. Or ignore jibes about how they knew I was a Taig because I looked like one.

It even got to the point where I’d volunteer for guard duty in the evenings. Which was the most boring activity in the world.

Was it all intimidating? Yes. As a Catholic in the early nineties who had dared to join the British Army (even just as a weekend soldier) it was intimidating because it damaged the trust that the training was meant to instil.

I was raised as a Catholic but consider myself an atheist. I’m a proud British subject and an Irishman by nationality. I love my country and I’m proud of the Cross of Saint Patrick in the Union Jack.

I loved being in the British Army. We learned about first aid, orienteering, took trips in RIBs and helicopters, camped in the pouring rain in Scotland and the blustering, freezing gales in the North West of Ireland. We learned about rifles, how to shoot, make them safe and how to respect their power. And I appreciate the work our military does – even though I may not agree with the government which directs it.

And every now and then I am re-introduced to one of the balaclava-wearing bigots in my day job and I do my best to forget. Unlike the children in these photos, these bigots were adults. They knew exactly what they were doing.

City of Tomorrow

I launched a new blog today: City of Tomorrow designed to help capture ideas for the development of cities in the near future. What is City of Tomorrow? City of Tomorrow is a Civil Imagineering (as opposed to Civil Engineering) project to have individuals imagine the city of tomorrow and then explain this from the … Continue reading “City of Tomorrow”

I launched a new blog today: City of Tomorrow designed to help capture ideas for the development of cities in the near future.

What is City of Tomorrow?

City of Tomorrow is a Civil Imagineering (as opposed to Civil Engineering) project to have individuals imagine the city of tomorrow and then explain this from the point of view of an observer in the future. We want to think of, and describe, features of our future cities and hopefully imagineer dates by which these things will be achieved.

What do we hope to achieve?

We’re at the Imagineering stage so we’re just looking for ideas. As we get closer to the dates mentioned, then we’re going to look for ways to implement these things.

When?

For the purposes of this web site, the date is now 2025 AD or later. We all live in magnificent cities which have witnessed more than a decade of revolution in architecture and design, in transportation planning, in social re-engineering and a complete re-write of the planning laws.

The writers here will provide a retrospective look at what happened in the past to get to where we are (in the metaphorical) today. We’ll provide important dates of when things happened, attempt to give links and credit to people who made the greatest changes and at some point in the future (in real time) review how much we got right, how much we got wrong.

Part of this comes from attending a CityCampLDN (CityCamp London) in February and meeting some of the “civil entrepreneurs” who attended.

CityCamp LDN brings together city leaders at all levels from government, business and community organisations to reimagine the way in which technology can help to reshape the future of London.

I know we have more folk who are interested in this – and this is definitely not a Belfast-centric piece of work – but we have to think about our cities first just due to the population. I hope that progressive town and borough councils will steal these ideas – I hope even more to get them engaged.

Later in 2011, I’d like to hold a City of Tomorrow event in Belfast and/or Derry-Londonderry to see if there are others interested but for now I’d appreciate any comments or tweets you have.

Broadband

My broadband has been falling down a lot recently. It’s a standard BT Home Broadband, running at the fastest it can run (which means it’s running a lot slower than advertised). I pay about £30 a month (when you include the line rental for the land line – which I don’t use). This is a … Continue reading “Broadband”

As you can see, while the download is not too bad (though I rarely get throughput of over 2 Mbps), the upload speed is really poor. Compare that to a Speedtest result on my phone on the Three 3G network.

and lastly, compare this with $30 a month in Korea.

Good broadband infrastructure is important for our developing economy. It doesn’t matter what fat pipes are added if the problem is still last mile access for home and business users alike. It’s not that our broadband is expensive or cheap – it’s “competitive” – competitive being the world they use after they compare their product to the acknowledged worst in the market (cf “competitive” salaries).

There is an issue that the folk deciding on what “good” broadband is, evidently don’t have a use for it.

Netflix not happy to disrupt media industry once. Pulls rabbit from hat.

NYTimes: Netflix Is Said to Be Close to Acquiring a Television Show Netflix may be on the verge of acquiring its first original television series, “House of Cards,” a drama to be directed by David Fincher. … Picking up the exclusive rights to a television show would effectively make Netflix a network similar to ABC … Continue reading “Netflix not happy to disrupt media industry once. Pulls rabbit from hat.”

NYTimes: Netflix Is Said to Be Close to Acquiring a Television Show

Netflix may be on the verge of acquiring its first original television series, “House of Cards,” a drama to be directed by David Fincher.
…
Picking up the exclusive rights to a television show would effectively make Netflix a network similar to ABC or HBO and would underscore just how disruptive the company has become to the media business.

That makes Netflix a company to admire. And makes you wonder why there aren’t more ‘original programming” internet television stations out there. The cost of streaming would be part of it, obviously, but it makes me wonder if there’s a model for peer-to-peer television networks. That would be awesome.