I'm a big fan of OAuth - despite some claims to the contrary. It's an excellent way of teaching people not to stick their username and password into any old site which asks for it. Which is why I'm so incredibly disappointed in Twitter's implementation of mobile OAuth. For a service which started out operating by SMS, Twitter takes a surprisingly unenlightened view of mobile. It's main mobile …
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This could be the most important email I ever sent... Subject: Come One! Come All! Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:27:51 -0000 Yes, this Sunday our charming colonial cousins will be playing the American Football Superbowl!!!!!!! If you're anything like me you can contain your excitement at the thought of watching a bunch of Yanks try to play rugby while dressed up like nancy boys... but come anyway…
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I'm a manic book reader. When I'm on holiday, I like to try and read a book a day. So, my recent two weeks off was the perfect time to indulge. Here, for those of you that care, are what I read and what I thought. In no particular order... Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde Jasper Fforde is one of the few truly original writers. The plot is so-so (a mystery, a quest, a conspiracy) but the…
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Facebook has a funny idea of society. From telling you to reconnect with dead friends, to offering your partner up as a "single" in your area - Facebook has a habit of getting things wrong. My partner and I, like many married couples, live together. We speak over breakfast, commute together and send each other emails and texts throughout the day. But we don't do any of this on Facebook. This …
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Voting is now open for the Open Rights Group Board of Directors election. I'd be delighted to answer any questions you may have. Post them as a comment here, send me an SMS or an email and I'll do my best to answer. A quick look over the candidate statements shows that we're all fairly well aligned. For no reason other than they're very Web 2.0, I've made a Wordle of the candidate statements. …
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I've written a very basic JIL widget to launch dabr. You can grab it from shkspr.mobi/Dabr.wgt I've tested this to work on the Vodafone 360 H1 - but it should work with any JIL handset. Because it isn't certified, you may need to dial *#35767# to remove the H1's security check. The code is very simple. The JIL SDK allows you to call specific phone application - in this case, all I've done i…
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Jasper Fforde releases upgrade patches for his books. If he has made an error of fact, created a plot hole or missspelt a word - you can download an upgrade for your book. How cool is that? He also has a "cut scenes" repository where you can see the chapters which were cruelly cut by his editor. There's even a director's commentary available. Along with behind the scenes material, …
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I've been blown away by the number of comments and visits to my original review of the 511EB. To clarify some of the points and answer some questions, I've decided to post another video review. This shows the speed of page turning and some of the idiosyncrasies of the eReader. Run VT, Errol! Startup Screen Click to download full size I've set my startup screen to show my phone number and…
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As you may know, I'm a supporter of the Open Rights Group. They're the campaigning group dedicated to protecting our online civil liberties. I pay them £5 per month, I think you should join them too. I'm not just putting my money where my mouth is. I'm also standing for the Board of Directors. I was nominated by the wise and talented duo of Suw Charman-Anderson & Basheera Khan. As part of …
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I've written before about how newspapers are reacting to the changing media landscape. Every so often, I spy something that reminds me just how far they need to go in order to fully "get" the web. This latest example is from the Financial Times. I have huge admiration for the FT. Their reporting is usually spot on, their website is mostly excellent and their mobile site is very credible. But …
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A quick explanation of how I integrated AudioBoo and Phreadz with Dabr. I'm a big fan of AudioBoo - for those who don't know it, AudioBoo allows you to record some audio on your phone and then publish it to the web. It's like instant podcasting. Originally only for the iPhone, AudioBoo now works on Android and there's an S60 version comeing out "soon". I'm very proud to announce that as of r2…
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When I was younger, I was taught that a roll of papyrus in ancient Egypt cost the same as the monthly wage for the average citizen. Nowadays the cost of paper is negligible. That's how it goes with new technology - it's frightfully expensive to begin with, but after a while it's as ubiquitous and disposable as paper. Ebook readers are the latest in a long line of "written-word" technology. F…
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