The UK Culture Secretary, Mr Andy Burnham, has recently suggested that we censor rate websites. With the predictable backlash. But don't blame Andy! It's not his fault. Allow me to explain...Here's some pornography for you...Phwoar! Look at the tits on that!Here's some child porn.Sickening. How could Leonardo Da Vinci bear to paint such monstrosities?My local school is putting on a play full of under-age, pre-marital sex. With foul language, wanton violence, drug abuse and teenage suicide.My …
Continue reading →
[Disclaimer - all personal opinions. I work for a mobile operator (Vodafone) but these are not their thoughts, opinions, plans or ideas.]I've been reading a few articles about how social networks and mobile operators feel like they own their customers.I think personalisation is a great thing. If Facebook or my phone company can give me a personalised service - or discounts that I'm going to use - then I'm all for it. However, how much of your personal privacy would you be prepared to…
Continue reading →
I've been playing around with Linux on the Xbox for a while. I finally decided to stop piddling about with the stock drive and create a fully featured network server. I shall call this beast.... The xNAS! While doing this, I found a lot of badly presented and conflicting information. This is my attempt to right that wrong. I've attempted to add some of these steps to the Wiki, but it's not accepting changes at the moment. This tutorial assumes you are using Xebian and an original Xbox. …
Continue reading →
Where am I?Most high-end Nokia phones come with a QR reader. If your phone doesn't, I have a list of QR code readers - compatible with most camera phones. …
Continue reading →
Twitter == Addictive. CrackBerry == Addictive. Twitter + BlackBerry == toxic levels of addictivenessicity. This is a quick review of some of the mobile Twitter interfaces and how well they work on the BlackBerry. I'm just looking at mobile web interfaces (for now). Mobile Twitter First off - the official mobile Twitter interface - http://m.twitter.com It's fairly plain and uninteresting. At the bottom of the screen, we see a few options. You can even perform basic follow / unfollow…
Continue reading →
((Work In Progress - still need to add pics, videos and links))Yesterday, myself and a few hundred other bloggers, geeks, marketing droids and other social media maverns descended on Wallacepace St Pancras for the inaugural Social Media Camp London 2008.This is just a quick post to say what I did, what I liked and what I thought could go better,First off, enormous thanks to Vero for single handedly organising the whole shebang. Her Whuffie must be through the roof by now. The venue was…
Continue reading →
Yesterday, I was a little pissed off with Lufthansa. How hard is it to supply a vegetarian meal on a plane? Anyway, today they have totally redeemed themselves. I love online check-in because it means that I don't have to faff around at the airport, I can choose my own seat, it reduces queueing and, because I usually only travel with hand luggage, keeps everything running quickly. What I don't like is having to print off a boarding pass. I'm either nowhere near a printer or I find myself…
Continue reading →
As some of you know, I got married dressed as Darth Vader.While we were on honeymoon, Liz and I were hounded by the paparazzi. Well, they rang while I was lounging by the pool.The Newbury Weekly News were invited to the wedding and made us a spectacular wedding video. Also, The Sun and The Mirror ran little pieces. First to offer us untold riches for our tale were Full House Magazine. Click the picture to read the article. A few weeks ago, we sold out story to Now Magazine for their…
Continue reading →
Following on from my encounter with the police, I decided to file a complaint against Office 4825 for refusing to show me his ID via the BTP's public complaint form. Dear Sir or Madam,Office 4825 of the British Transport Police refused to show my his ID or Warrant Card when asked. I had been stopped under S.44(2) of The Terrorism Act 2000. The incident happened at around 0854BST on 19/08/2008.The officer was, I consider, rude and unprofessional. He made a protracted phone call using what…
Continue reading →
Well. Yes, probably. I have a small character flaw. I don't like authority. I question authority. I overreact sometimes. This is me being stopped under Section 44(2) of The Terrorism Act 2000. I informed the police that I would be videoing and streaming to QIK. The video was cross posted to Phreadz and discussed on BoingBoing. (Note - the Qik video service died in 2015 and I rehosted a copy of the video on YouTube. The video is missing a few minutes from the end.) So, is my…
Continue reading →
The unstoppable rise of QR codes continues! Last week I picked up two of the London free-sheets. Both of them sporting scanable codes. CITY A.M. uses the code to take you to its mobile friendly site. They recommend the i-nigma reader which you can get by texting "i-nigma" to 88010 (in the UK). Page 7 of thelondonpaper. Opodo uses a QR code to offer £20 off flights. Interestingly, they assume that people have knowledge of QR codes and don't provide any explanatory text or other …
Continue reading →
There's been a lot of talk over the last year about web-mobile transcoding proxies and all the pitfalls (and pratfalls) that go with them. Last year at mobileCampLondon I gave a talk to people interested in the subject. At various industry events people come up to me to talk about the issue. Recently, this topic has been reignited with an interview with Jayanthi Rangarajan in Mobile Marketing Magazine - so I thought I would share my thoughts and opinions. I was partly involved with the…
Continue reading →
