It's always interesting to read over older Sci-Fi books and see what they got right about their future. I was re-reading Cory Doctorow's excellent "Makers" recently, when I came across this passage: Now the place was spotless -- and what's more, it was minimalist. The floor was not only clean, it was visible. Lining the walls were translucent white plastic tubs stacked to the ceiling. "You…
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I'm really enjoying driving the BMW i3. I'd love to have it tweet its driving efficiency, or upload its location to my server, or let me turn on its air-conditioning when the temperature gets too warm - there are a hundred interesting things to do with the car's data. The official app has some of these features - but is slow, ugly, and a pain to use. BMW used to have an API available for…
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Nominet has, after much prevaricating, launched its latest money grubbing venture plan to revolutionise the UK Internet industry. Rather than having fusty old example.co.uk or example.org.uk businesses can go straight for example.uk - Mind = BLOWN! There are, of course, some obvious downsides to this plan. It's always been the case that people could register misspellings of domains and…
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The good folk at THZY-UK have sent me a gadget to review - the YHDO Security Camera with Night Vision. I'm comparing this to other cameras I've reviewed in the past - including Y-Cam and Sercomm models. The first thing to note is that this is one of the cheaper cameras on the market. At around £40, it's a third of the price of the Y-Cam models. But does that low price means it …
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One of the questions we frequently get asked at work is "would you recommend the company's products and services to your friends and family?" It's a question which I've been asked in just about every company I've joined - and it's getting increasingly harder for me to answer. Obviously, if you work in a B2B company making industrial blast furnaces, it's unlikely you're going to recommend Aunty…
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In every company I've worked for, the Intranet has been where good ideas are sent to die. Outdated org charts, canteen menus which are updated sporadically, attempts to write an FAQ for the antiquated expenses system, and a maze of links dedicated to the Byzantine HR process. One thing I've never seen was information which could in any sense be considered confidential. Don't get me wrong,…
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Regular readers will know that I take a keen interest in Twitter spam. It seems the more popular a network gets, the greater the propensity for spam. A shame, but it seems to be the way of the world. Recently, one of my Tweets which mentioned SoundCloud was retweeted in rapid succession by a variety of accounts. Take a look at the mugshots below and see if you can spot a pattern. Ok, let's …
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There's a meme which makes its way around the 'net whenever a popular service makes a significant change. I've seen this said about Reddit, imgur, Twitter, Facebook, Xbox, Spotify, FourSquare - and just about every other modern product. It imagines a Product Manager thoughtfully contemplating the future direction of their service. In the 1990s, I was a teenager and my parents gave in to peer …
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If you've been following this blog, you'll know that Google unjustly shut down my YouTube channel. They've now reinstated it - but I can no longer trust them as custodians of my data. So, here's a quick tutorial on how to download all your videos - and metadata - from YouTube. The Official Way Google offers a "takeout" service which will allow you to package up all your YouTube videos for…
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(Trigger Warning - violent swearing and criticism of your employer / focus of your fanboi-ism.) Google knows me. I've been using Google since long before they were fashionable. I have a Gmail account (in my name), YouTube (also in my name), an Android developer account (name and bank details), Play account (name, credit card, and PayPal), and I've successfully reported security bugs to them. …
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The planet Earth has completed yet another cycle of carrying me around the sun, and so it is time to cast an eye backwards. Despite this blog, I'm not much of a diary keeper. Since the demise of FourSquare I've not kept particularly good track of where I've been or what I've been up to. Still, let's see what memories of the last year I can dredge up, eh? December 2014 I created a…
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How often have you seen a meeting request which says... To join the conference call, please dial 0306 999 0348, then type in your access number (07700 900 951) followed by the hash or pound key. What a faff! If you're reading the message on your phone you have to flip back and forth as you try to remember which numbers to dial. Well, there's a better way! You all know the standard keys on a…
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