Last year, I quickly created a blue-screen cut out of a strange photo of the police. Today, I was alerted to this rather lovely photo. Apparently, some 6 years ago, the police confiscated this "deadly martial arts weapon capable of decapitating a man." Well, I couldn't resist! Perhaps this can become one of my blog's traditions? So, here's a quick and dirty removal of the bluescreen. …
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The fifth anniversary of my blog went by without me noticing. I don't know if I'm a narcissist, but I quite often find myself re-reading old entries. Sometimes it's because I've Googled for the solution to a problem, only to find I helpfully blogged about it yonks ago - other times I'll read an article and think "Hmmm, I wrote on that subject a while ago," and go off to find what I used to…
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I was chatting with a friend who expressed what I'm finding is a fairly common opinion. Well, yes, I'd love to move to Android - but all my content is in iTunes. I discovered that it wasn't apps which were the problem - buying them again is a pain, but most are free. It's media content which traps people into staying with services that they no longer want. Music, movies, TV, and podcast…
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One of the things that jollies me along during NaBloPoMo (where I have to write a blog post every single day in November) is seeing that people are reading my blog. I like watching the visitor counter tick gently upwards. I also love to see people discussing, arguing, and commenting on the posts I write. When I started this month, I looked at the blog's statistics and decided I wanted to get…
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I don't watch much TV. During the last episode of The Apprentice, my Twitter-feed was suddenly flooded with people talking about Nick Holzherr's app "Whisk". Apparently it was some kind of recipe / shopping / mash up thing called Whisk. Sounded good. Sounded familiar. Then I remembered this from CadburyHack Cadbury UK@CadburyUKBest use of APIs at #CadburyHack - Whisk team for their recipes…
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I'm not a big fan of URL shortners - bit.ly, t.co, goo.gl, ow.ly, etc - I understand the need for them, but they seem to offer a fairly poor service in terms of privacy and usefulness. Take this recent example from Vodafone. Aside from the obvious downsides (user doesn't know where the link will take them, if it's compatible, link looks like gobbledegook, etc) there is a rather more…
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I've just seen this amazing short film - The End by Ted Evans Ted also has a blog which talks about all the awards The End has deservedly won. The premise of the film is simple - what if there was a cure for deafness? What if that cure was mandated? What if you refused? All good sci-fi stuff - with neat parallels to today's society. What really got me thinking was the way technology can…
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This is a very hard post for me to write. I've recently finished reading two autobiographies. Both cover the same story. A boy - a nerd - has success in the fickle world of acting. Both stories tell of series of choices made. In one, the boy soars to great heights. In the other, the boy is bought back to Earth with a thump - seemingly never to succeed again. The first is by Simon Pegg, the…
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I recently took a survey which asked how many hours per week I spent "online". It struck me as a bizarre question. I am always online. Even when I am asleep, my phone is downloading email, my laptops are updating themselves, and my cameras are scanning for intruders. I realise that I am probably a statistical outlier - but I thought it would be interesting to see how many Internet connected…
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I remarked earlier about Helen Goodman MP and her total lack of technical knowledge. An MP being a bit behind the times isn't the greatest shock - but she's Labour's Shadow Minister for Culture, Media, and Sport - that's a big deal! This year, Claire Perry MP produced an "independent" report into online child protection. By "independent" I mean "produced by vested interests including religious …
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Amazon claims that it makes no money from the sale of Kindle eReader hardware. Looking at the prices of eink devices at wholesalers, this looks broadly accurate. They do seem to be selling at around wholesale cost - customers also get Amazon's fabulous support, free software updates, and high quality manufacturing. Yet there is a curious anomaly. Why aren't Amazon selling ePub books? …
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We all know that if you ask people to choose incredibly complex passwords which frequently change, they will write them down on a Post-It note. I've recently discovered another way in which increasing perceived security reduces actual security. On one of my Android phones, I use pattern unlock. If I want access to my phone, I have to draw a squiggly gesture in order to get in. It's like a…
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