I have been reading a wonderful account of how The ANC in South Africa developed and used encryption to avoid persecution by the Apartheid regime. The article is a good 15,000 words and will take you some time to read. It is a fascinating account of how an ersatz encryption technology was developed by enthusiastic amateurs using acoustic couplers, DTMF, tape recorders, and early mobile phones. …
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In app design, we often talk about designing for the user in context. For example, a taxi app can't rely on a perfect GPS signal in a crowded city, a user in the countryside may not have brilliant bandwidth, battery life is not infinite so we should limit certain features when power levels are low. The common theme in those examples is that we are designing for the phone's context, not the…
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As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm sick of people not being able to spell or pronounce shkspr.mobi correctly. So I've decided to double down and start using my alternate domain 莎士比亚.org. It's pronounced "Sha-shi-bi-ya", if that helps. Getting my email account set up with my hosting provider was easy enough but it turned out to be quite tricky to send email to my account. This is what happe…
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Updated - see end of post! I am not a happy bunny. Last year, while trying to buy a house, Symantec's MessageLabs decided to block my Estate Agent and my bank from receiving any emails from my personal domain. In the middle of a rather stressful house purchase, I had to swap my email addresses and convince the parties involved to all to use the new one. This year, they're blocking me from…
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I've started talking a lot more over VoIP. The microphone on my MacBook Air is basic, but serviceable - so I thought I'd treat myself to a new mic headset. I went with the HP Premium Digital Headset from Amazon. The headset is USB - and worked instantly with Ubuntu Linux: It even has a dedicated "mute" button to cut off the microphone. Handy when on a conference call. The only problem was,…
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Let's play "Spot The Difference"! The review on the left comes from the North American version of Plants vs. Zombies™ 2 whereas the one on the right is from the Worldwide version of Plants vs. Zombies™ 2. The above screenshot was taken shortly after the release of the North American version. The scores as of today have harmonised (4.2/5 vs 4.4/5) but there is still a disproportionate number of…
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The most distressing movie moment I experienced when I was a child, was watching R2-D2 being shot by a TIE fighter towards the end of Star Wars. (Spoiler!) The sheer callousness of a "baddie" deliberately inflicting pain on a cute a loveable character is, I suppose, understandably upsetting - especially to a small child. I also got upset at C-3PO being dismantled in The Empire Strikes Back, and …
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Earlier this year, I received an offer from a sleazy marketing company to place adverts on this blog - on the express understanding that they were not identified as sponsored posts. I reported the company - Media Discovery - to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) who, after a perfunctory investigation, decided not to prosecute. They bought the unlikely story that Media Discovery had a…
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Being a review of 2013, from my FourSquare check-in and blogging perspective :-) The year started off cold and snowy in Woking. I was busy teaching a Code Club in the local library. For our anniversary, Liz and I went on holiday to Las Vegas. The jetlag was unfortunately crippling, and the Beatles' Love show was cancelled 5 minute in - which was very upsetting. That said, we had front row…
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I've only had my solar panels for a few weeks, but I'm already trying to hook them up to the Internet of Things. I'm using the Fronius DataManager card. The API is fairly well documented - but you should be aware that it offers no authentication! The API is Read-Only - but I would still recommend against opening up your firewall to allow unfettered access. Aim I want to draw a (static) graph …
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I was listening to a podcast recently which was kind enough to mention one of my blog posts. The presenter said: ...and you should Google for this, because I'm really not sure how to pronounce this. Is it shu-huk-spur? dot mobby? Le sigh! It's a conversation I have most weeks when I'm on the phone to someone - usually a call centre - and they ask for my email address. "Sierra Hotel Kilo…
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Earlier this year I found a security flaw in Samsung's handsets. Of course, I responsibly reported the flaw to them. It would have been nice if Samsung offered a Bug Bounty like so many other companies - but I was satisfied having helped save the world in my own small way. However, last week I received an unexpected email from Samsung: This year you helped us secure Samsung mobile devices for…
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