Steve's Blog

London Fashion Week is coming

2011-02-13T22:28:00.000Z

I thought I'd write a quick blog post on London Fashion Week and what the trends are going to be (mainly because I get the chance to enter a competition and be there).

Well what are the trends this year? Of course it's going to be iPhones, they'll still be the phone of choice of the discerning fashionista. There will also also be a smuttering of Android phones (though more on that later) and even some Microsoft WP7 devices. Of course it isn't really the phone that counts, but the bling case you bring it in!!!

Though iPhones are still King of the Hill (only iPhone 4's of course, none of the curved back 3's or 3GS's, don't even pretend they're hip), there's bound to be a smattering of tablets (well they'll be a lot of those there - they call them "diet pills" or even "disco biscuits") but of course it's the computing kind we're talking about. Many still think Apple's iPad is still be d's b's, but Android is starting to topple that crown and the Samsung's Galaxy Tab (we're still talking tablet computers here, don't go all psychedelic) has a Super AMOLED display that is to die for and new devices are appearing every day, shame HP's Touch (maybe a bad name considering past allegations of senior management behaviour) won't be ready in time, or it be the one.

If you want to win The Ultimate London Fashion Week Blogging Experience with WIWT.com and Vodafone VIP, visit Poppy Dinsey's blog.

Launch48 idea

2010-09-20T16:34:00.000Z

There's quite a few people in the London tech scene who like technology and are willing to pay for it. Many will buy retail products as they wish to have instant gratification in getting the latest tech products.

However there's a lot of people that while still wishing to get the latest and greatest will wait and search around on the Internet to get the best bargains.

There's potential for a site, which is set-up as a member's only site and members can refer friends. The site would make deals for high value white goods such as flat screen TVs, cameras, HiFi.

The site would go direct to manufacturers and commit to buying a certain amount of product (of a specific type) and agree to pick-up and distribute. Product would have a full manufacturer guarantee.

The offer would be put on the site and members would commit to purchasing (money would be collected to escrow or they'd agree to allow card purchase to go through when offer activates i.e. minimum number of orders received).

Since the offer would be the price wholesalers get, savings could be considerable (generally wholesale make 100% and retail at least 40%). Therefore savings (to the end-user) could be 50% retail and the site would still make a profit (this doesn't go for all products i.e. Apple are notoriously low margin).

the model would work as people with a high disposable income refer their friends who would also be interested in this type of offer and so it spreads virally.

Products such as say a high-end Plasma TV mat retail for £4,000 - 5,000 and if they were sold at £2,500 that would be attractive. However to buy direct from manufacture, you'd need to commit to the hundreds of items. Also you'd have to commit to a single product.

This could also extend to very high value items such as cars (being aware that you'd have to pick car companies that didn't mind going against existing dealerships, but some would) and again you'd have to pick a specific model/configuration, but discounts could be worth it.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Moyles show tops UK podcast chart

2005-08-03T00:51:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Moyles show tops UK podcast chart

Podcasts are now mainstream. Chris Moyles' breakfast show is being podcast (well the best of the week) and has instantly (or at least within 10 hours) has gone to the top of Apple's podcast directory.

Users still need to sync their iPods with iTunes or another podcast client in order to realise the benefits from podcasting.

Here's an opportunity for someone to make a device that can connect over WiFi or even DAB and download RSS/Atom feeds and podcasts so a user can read/listen to information whenever they want and it will always be current.

Time support site is shut down - Desktops - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

2005-08-03T00:45:00.000Z

Time support site is shut down - Desktops - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

Demon vs Godfrey (1999) hits another site. The tinycon.com (unofficial) site for ex employees of Tiny.com and Time Computers and customers disappeared off the Internet.

It seems the hosting cmpany SiteHQ worried about defamatory content pulled the plug.

The Godfrey/Demon case puts liability on the ISP/hosting company if they are made aware of potentially defamatory content, and they have to make a judgement call if it's defamatory or not. If they decide it isn't and a court decides it is, they can be held liable. So ISPs will just make the content unavailable so they cant be sued (or only put it up with legal disclaimers or get-outs).

BitTorrent goes upmarket

2005-08-03T00:38:00.000Z

BitTorrent goes upmarket

BitTorrent could be the answer to on-line content delivery it's demise. The latest version doesn't require centralised torrents making it difficult to shut down sites.

BitTorrent is very clever decentralised peer-to-peer (p2p) software that ensures data is actually downloaded from a variety of sources and the client puts the pieces together again, so it may only pull a few KB/s from individual peers but several 100Kb/s from the aggregated peers.

Each client then also serves the content it's pulled to other peers.

This actually makes very efficient use of available bandwidth and eases content delivery and piracy, though there are DRM (digital rights management) systems that can work with BitTorrent.

BitTorrent accounts for a large percentage of p2p traffic, if the DRM issues can be sorted it could change the way content is distributed.

802.11n rivals agree to merge | The Register

2005-08-03T00:30:00.000Z

802.11n rivals agree to merge | The Register

This is a good thing hopefully allowing network speeds of up to 540Mb/s. The proposals would still require European approval through ETSI (802.11a though an IEEE standard isn't approved for EU use so there's an 802.111h standard which is 802.11a modified to meet EU standards). So even though 802.11n sounds like a good idea, it may take a while for equipment to be available even after the IEEE ratifies it.

Techworld.com - Ofcom auction opens low-cost mobile calls

2005-08-03T00:23:00.000Z

Techworld.com - Ofcom auction opens low-cost mobile calls

Unfortunately it's not quite as plain sailing as the article makes out. Though Ofcom is auctioning between 5 and 10 licenses for national UK coverage, there's no guarantee that roaming off traditional GSM networks will happen, that would mean cooperation from the MNOs (mobile network operators) which isn't guaranteed.

Hopefully Ofcom will mandate roaming allowing existing handsert users to easily move off a GSM network onto a local pico cell which could significantly reduce call charges which would suit in-building "hotspots" within a business or local area.

Of course a licensee could elect to use the spectrum for another purpose complietely like fixed wireless (broadband) access, though the bandwidth is limited.

Reserve pricing is set at £50,000 to stop "frivolous" applications.

Microsoft to side with HD DVD for Xbox 360

2005-08-01T14:02:00.000Z

Microsoft to side with HD DVD for Xbox 360

There's not really much of a suprise in the article, MS adopting HD-DVD rather than Blu-ray. It's even less of a suprise Sony are going with Blu-ray (as the article implies) as they developed the format!!!

LINX offering 10Gb/s

2005-08-01T12:46:00.000Z

Net4Now :: News Story

LINX, the London INternet eXchange which was started when BT joined the ISP foray many years ago (as previously the 4 UK ISPs maintained a mesh between themselves and having a 5th company come along meant 4 new connections to the existing 4 ISPs) has grown at an astounding rates and is now one of the biggest (if not the biggest) peering points in the world.

They are now offering 10Gb/s Ethernet connectivity and Limelight Networks are the first company to take on a 10Gb/s port. Limelight are a content provider rather than an ISP so potentially need to have enough bandwidth to supply all the other peers taking content, which means we'll likely see 100Gb/s connections in the future.

Net4Now :: News Story

2005-08-01T12:36:00.000Z

Net4Now :: News Story

This is not unexpected, Easynet have been "pushing" their LLUStream service for a while and One.tel like every other broadband supplier will be looking to reduce costs.

Though the LLUStream is a workable wholesale offering, there could still be issues in provisioning and/or customer faults as Easynet still utilise BT for the copper infrastructure and there are potential problems when things go wrong (i.e. customer complains to One.tel/Easynet who say it's a BT fault, BTsay it's the LLU operators fault). Though most of the process is there, it's still relatively new and there will be teething issues which will be worsened with a 3rd party reseller.

VoIP provider adds virtual PBX to list of services

2005-07-29T13:27:00.000Z

Net4Now :: News Story

Another VoIP offering. It's all very well offering sophisticated VoIP services (in this case virtual PBX services) but there are many hidden costs that customers should be aware of.

Replacing a traditional phone system with an IP one is not necessarily an easy process. Firstly the LAN probably needs updating so that it supports QoS to the desk, then there's the cost of the IP phones themselves and connectivity back to the ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider) itself.

Many offerings are over standard DSL links, which don't support QoS and even leased lines may well hit the ISP on a contended backbone.

Adding all these costs up may make the service suddenly very unattractive (especially for single site companies) and traditional forms of telephony may work out much more cost-effective using IDA or CPS type services.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | BT quits race for broadband share

2005-07-29T13:08:00.000Z

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | BT quits race for broadband share

This only applies to BT Retails, BT Wholesale still accounts for the bulk of DSL in the UK (6m+ customers and LLU 60k). Cable accounts for another 2m'ish but that still puts BTW way out in front.

Stopped by the Police

2005-07-28T22:51:00.000Z

On Tuesday night I drove back from Bristol, it was late and I dropped a friend in Bethnal Green. While driving through Islington a Police car turned into the road that I was stationary on (waiting at some traffic lights) drove past, looked at me and did a U-turn.

They then proceeded to follow me for about 1/2 a mile (actually they were a few cars behind me) and then the blue lights came on.

I stopped and a nice Police woman tapped on the glass so I got out. Then a Policeman came over doing the DVLA check etc.

They did the usual of "Is this your car? Is it registered to you, name address?" etc. The woman notified me that they she was going to write down where they'd stopped me and asked if I had any ID, so I produced my driving license. I asked why they'd stopped me and was told "because of what I was wearing and I was hunched in the seat and looked suspicious".

All they would have been able to see was a black jacket and maybe my hoodie, and I'd just driven for almost 3 1/2 hours so was knackered, which I did explain to the woman.

Anyway the radio obviously reported back that the car was registered to me, so they actually apologised and sent me on my way.

Moral, don't wear hoodies and don't drive through central london late at night ...

Bomb scares in London 'burbs

2005-07-28T22:45:00.000Z

Last Saturday I was having a quiet drink in the pub for a friend's birthday when suddenly blue and white "Police Line - do not cross" tape started appearing everywhere.

It was a bomb scare. The Police guarding the area didn't know what was going on except that the area was a no go.

All in all there must have been about 50+ Police, a bomb squad unit and 3 fire engines. The bomb squad had a truck with what looked like a sealed rear section with a periscope coming out the top.

They suddenly announced that the streets had to be cleared and we were locked in the pub, unfortunately no free drinks which was disappointing.

They then proceeded to unroll a large drum of wire and connect it to what looked like a tube on a car jack (a detonator?), but quite quickly rolled it back in and declared the area safe.

Today (Thurs) it seems there was a large Police presence on the underground and even sleepy Belsize Park had two stationed there all day (Kentish Town seemed to have at least 3 or 4).

Jobs - still looking

2005-07-19T21:25:00.000Z

Still not found a permanent job. I've been doing some consultancy, but need to find some more. So if anyone is looking for someone in the Internet/telco space do drop me a line.

Fred my cat

2005-07-19T21:11:00.000Z

Fred sitting/lying on his back which he quite often does. He's cute though.

Religion

2005-07-11T23:57:00.000Z

Here's my quick rundown on religion.

Basically it all started with the Sumerians, who had a pretty decent knowledge of astronomy etc.

Along came the Egyptians, they had lots of gods, but they had a heretic pharaoh originally called Amenhotep IV but he changed it to Akhenaten (the Aten was the Sun god). He was maried to Nefertiti. They started a religion based on the one god (the Sun). Some of the prayers of this time were very similar to old Jewish prayers.

At some point around this time Egypt went back to its old system of beliefs, either Akhenaten died or fled (or his followers did). He left a son, Tutankhaten (later Tutankhamen).

The Israelites aren't mentioned in Egyptian history until several dynasties later.

So the Moses story could be followers of Akhenaten leaving Egypt (and crossing the red sea could be possible, there are various reefs that though broken now, could have spanned sections of the sea). After Moses came down from the mountains, he came to find people worshipping a golden bull i.e. the old Eqyptian religions.

The Jews went on happily for a while and then came along the Romans ("what did the Romans ever do for us?" ...). Herod was a puppet king installed by the Romans. He was worried about someone being born, why? Well if the newly born boy was decended from the line of King David, he should have rights to the Kingdom of Israel.

So potentially Jesus was really a king. He was definately jewish and probably quite pious, the last supper was "Pass Over" the most religious Jewish festival. It's also likely he was quite wealthy as being able to hold pass over in an Inn would have been difficult (imagine trying to book Xmas lunch - you have to book ages in advance and they generally charge a fortune for the privilige). There's the whole Priory of Sion that goes with this legend too.

Anyway there were lots of factions of Christianity that sprung up and follwed the teachings of Jesus (well maybe anyway, they followed the teachings of his disciples, remember Jesus was a religious Jew), but there were many arguments (and the Catholic Church doesn't particularly like early gospels or ones that don't make Jesus a deity). The Romans didn't much like all this squabbling so they called everyone together and made them agree on the various dates (and them bashed them around a bit to make them fit with the Roman pagan festivals). Jews have Saturday as the sabbath, Christians have Sunday - remember early Christians were likely to be Jewish, so the Romands imposed it because they celebrated the day of the Sun (day of Sun. Sunday). It just so happens a lot of other Christian religious days fall on Roman pagan festivals. The bible wasn't knocked together until quite a while later, after Rome had converted.

Then we have Islam, basically just another split from the original Jesus/Jew to Christian. Happened a bit later but Mohammed could well have been Jesus and went in another direction.

Of course this is just opinion ...

Michael Epstein

2005-05-24T00:34:00.000Z

Assuming there are no delays in transporting Mike from Israel, the funeral will be at Southgate cemetery (Middlesex synagogue) at 11.45pm on Friday 27th May 2005.

There will be drinks at his parents house in Highgate after.

Mchael Epstein

2005-05-19T15:01:00.000Z

My cousing, Mike died last night. He'd been fighting cancer for a while and was in Israel awaiting new stem-cell treatment. Unfortunately he was so weak from the previous chemotherapy treatment they couldn't do anything until he got his strength back, but he just got weaker.

He had a few troubles in his life, but in recent years lived a happy life in the South of France and built a beautiful home.

He leaves a wife Cathy and daugher Lea and son Ben (from his first marriage) and will be sorely missed.

Apple Powerbook 12"

2005-05-18T22:17:00.000Z

All I can say is that its a lovely machine. Since I lost my work laptop (well had to give it back) I've been playing with a JVC MiniNote, but I had to give that back too (though it was quite nice, it's not really useful as a work system).

I managed to use a contact to get a discount and took the plunge and bought a Powerbook, the screen's nice and the keyboard is perfectly adequate for typing on. It's a great machine.

It comes with Airport Extreme, Bluetooth (and an internal modem and Ethernet). It joined my home (WEP) wireless network first time, though it didn't seem to want to register my .Mac account (though it was all OK when I logged into the mac itself).

It's got Tiger, which to me doesn't seem that different from Panther - though I was never a "power user" in terms of the nice gui stuff.

Just need to install Office, and it will be a perfectly usable portable system.

Not posting much

2005-05-12T23:51:00.000Z

I went to France to see my cousin again, who's not well. He's now gone to Israel where hopefully he's going to start a new form of treatment that isn't available in Europe. Unfortunately they cant do anything for the moment as he has to get his energy up as he's lost loads of weight and is suffering from malnutrition (from the treatment over here).

I then got back and have actually started some work (only short term consultancy) but it's at least it's good work and hopefully may make a difference.

MSN spaces

2005-05-10T13:44:00.000Z

Just created one, very easy from MSN Messenger - took about 30 seconds from MSN Messenger.

Oh well another system to keep updated ... or not ...

Anyway here's my space.

AXE Shower Gel - Is Your Shower Hottie Ready?

2005-04-15T15:31:00.000Z

AXE Shower Gel - Is Your Shower Hottie Ready?

Silly Shockwave game, it will appeal to FHM readers (Lynx promotion). Needs Shockwave 10.

My first PSP bug

2005-04-12T22:20:00.000Z

I got my US import copy of Metal Gear AC!D today and put the UMD disk into my Japanese import PSP. Started the game and went through the slow game learning cycle (well it's written for kids).

I got to the 1st stage and saved the game. I then shut down and went to do something sensible (well maybe slightly more productive than playing PSP games).

Later in the evening I turned on the PSP and loaded the game, went to load the saved version which went fine, but it returns you to the "options" menu instead of the main "start" menu so you cant play the game. The only thing you can do is hit the "home" key which returns you to the PSP main menu (i.e. out of the game completely) or you can navigate from the options menu back to the game start screen but that's like starting the game from the PSP itself.

Maybe I'll have another play and start from scratch again and try and save once I've got into the game proper. It could be that as the game hasn't really started you cant restore from there, but it does look like a bug.

France

2005-04-06T23:42:00.000Z

Well I eventually have taken some holiday. It's been a couple of years now.

I went to see my cousin who lives in the South of France about an hour inland from St Tropez (it's in the mountains, not on the coast). He lives in Ampus, well he's in the commune of Ampus as his house is in the middle of nowhere with about 3 other houses. Ampus has a population of about 340.

I spent a lot of time in Tourtour which is a beautiful town about 10 minutes away (well Ampus is about 6 minutes the other way), it's much bigger with a population of about 470. I went for the Festival des Oeufs (i.e. egg festival) which was fun - I even got involved in making things.

If anyone gets a chance to visit the area they wont be disappointed, fantastic scenery wine and food.

I'll post some more pictures soon.

2005-04-06T23:40:00.000Z

View over the Gorge de Verdon

PlayStation.com - PSP

2005-03-24T23:27:00.000Z

PlayStation.com - PSP

I actually got a Japanese Import from Play Asia which was the value pack which included various extras and Ridge Racers (the game).

The PSP is lovely and the screen fantastic. To be honest I haven't played with it much, but the graphics are amazing and though obviously not real, the 3D graphics are pretty realistic.

Unfortunately though I've told the system that everything should be in English, some game bits still seem to be in Japanese, which means I cant read them.

It comes with WiFi support (again not tried yet) and can be used in AdHoc mode for PSP to PSP gaming or through an access point. There's a USB connector (though there doesn't seem to be a USB cable supplied) and a memory stick slot (supporting memory stick duo).

As soon as some UK games come out. I'll write an update, hopefully they'll work as the UK is region 2 as is Japan. I really think Sony have come out with a winner here, and though the Nintendo DS is out over here already, the PSP will knock it into insignificance as soon is it arrives on UK shores.

Sam's Archive

2005-03-15T18:05:00.000Z

Sam's Archive

An interesting site on the destruction of the Earth (well what's the best method of doing so). Some are potentially based on scientific principles. Some of the ideas are really pure science fiction (and taken from science fiction books).

This leads directly on to a general annoyance when people say "we're destroying the earth". This is rubbish, whatever us feeble humans do the Earth will sit there and laugh at us. It's been through a lot more than we can throw at it in past times and will go through a lot more in future times.

Of course we might destroy many of the living species (including ourselves), but that's evolution for you. The dinosaurs were doing pretty well and along comes an asteroid and "makes their day", so by us messing up the environment we're just doing another species a favour and maybe speeding its evolutionary process. Maybe it'll be insects that evolve and become the next dominant life form, then they evolve and who knows what?

Just to sum up here's my theory of evolution on Planet Earth. It's all a big game as something always comes along to make a mess of life on earth whether a natural disaster or something made by the planet's inhabitants. So the evolution game, GET OFF Earth. Develop space travel or maybe some interdimensional transport system, it doesn't matter. Once your species has that ability it can leave before any natural or otherwise catastrophic disaster can destroy it.

Of course once you've left, you're probably going to want to come back again every once in a while and have a look at how things have turned out ...

2005-03-11T15:46:00.000Z

Here's a nice Clown fish I took a picture of when on holiday diving.

MINI.co.uk

2005-03-11T15:15:00.000Z

MINI.co.uk

Well I went and did it and purchased a car. I got a 2nd hand Mini Cooper S. Though not quite an Audi TT (which is the car I had when employed) it moves pretty well and insurance is a LOT cheaper.

It's got quite a few optional extras (some of which come as part of the Chill pack).

Why did I get a mini? They look pretty good, they run well and in terms of London parking, apart from a Smart Car, there's not much to beat them.

So all I need to do is give it a good run, which I guess I can do going to job interviews ...

Camden Council: Parking

2005-03-09T15:33:00.000Z

Camden Council: Parking

Well I can honestly say I disklike Camden Council, they are unhelpful to the extreme.

Up until recently I had a job which came with a company car, I had a resident's parking permit. That was OK, my employer just provider a letter with a copy of the V5 (UK car registration document) that said I was the driver, and all was well. When my employment terminated, I gave back the car. I still have a valid permit, but no car.

Fortunately my sister (who is "burdened" with 8 month old twins, so doesn't get out much) leant me her car. All well and good. She even wrote a letter saying I had permanent use of it, and gave me a copy of the V5. Included in the letter was a statement saying my father is disabled and I'd be driving him around (he is genuinely registered as disabled).

I then went to the local Camden offices and presented the paperwork, hoping they'd transfer the permit to my sister's car, even just for a few weeks while I go for job interviews, and occasionally drive my father around.

Of course no such luck, they point blank refused. They will only issue permits for registered owners, hire cars and company cars (and of course all the other permits like businesses getting multiple permits etc). They wont issue permits for friends' or relatives' cars, that's the policy.

I wasn't amused, and complained to my ward councillor (who I must say was extremely helpful). Haven't heard a response yet, though I doubt they'll have much better luck unfortunately, especially since the councillors are having an ongoing battle with Camden about accountability of the Parking Solutions bit (i.e. there isn't any).

Euro Tech News

2005-03-09T15:09:00.000Z

I've created a new blog, Euro Tech News. My personal blog will remain and I'll post anything that particularly interests me, but I'll use the new blog for more techy stuff.

Anyone syndicating this, please feel free to pick-up the new one, which will be much more industry focussed.

The URL for the new one is http://eurotechnews.blogspot.com

Steve

O2: The leading mobile phone site on the Web

2005-03-04T21:00:00.000Z

O2: The leading mobile phone site on the Web
O2 as they're now known as are a mobile operator in the UK. My ex employer recently moved their business to them and when I was made redundant I had to transfer my phone contract to a personal account.

I have two SIMs, one I use for everyday use in my phone, while the 2nd one is in my iPaq (6340 - I'll write something on that another time). When I was under a business contract the iPaq SIM was actually on a "Blackberry" rate, which is great, not much voice, but a fair ammount of data traffic per month. Unfortunately the Blackberry tarrif isn't available to "consumers" which I now fall into the category of.

This meant I had to chose two voice tarrifs and add a GPRS data bundle to one of them, a real pain as the ammount of data is severely limited, then they charge per MB (at an extorsionate rate).

They must understand more people are going to use phone for data use, even O2 sell a PDA (the XDA range), but as a consumer you cant get a data deal.

Another irritation is that they are billed seperately, I believe Orange are now offering a deal whereby you can have two SIMs using the same number (i.e. mobile number), which is perfect for a data user. Your main SIM goes in the phone and your data SIM goes into your PDA/Blackberry. Maybe I'm going to have to port ... of course this assumes that Orange's GPRS service works (I've heard bad rumours, but nothing specific).

We'll see how it goes and what my first bill is.

Ensure that benefits and savings outweigh investment and upheaval of convergence

2005-02-23T14:56:00.000Z

Ensure that benefits and savings outweigh investment and upheaval of convergence

Article I wrote about convergence and whether it's the right route for everyone. Full page in the printed magazine too.

Summary of the article: -

Three steps to convergence, non-converged, co-operative convergence and intelligent convergence.

Non-convergence is where a company has networks dedicated for different purposes, such as the internet, voice communications or a virtual private network. This can be inefficient as the company pays for multiple networks regardless of capacity used.

Co-operative convergence is the most common set-up today. Large corporations and public sector organisations work with carrier partners to tailor-make a set of metrics for all their network traffic. These ensure that business-critical data is prioritised over the shared network.

The in intelligent convergence, where the carrier's network will have the intelligence built-in and ascertain the type of traffic passing across it and treat it in an appropriate manner. They'll be "off-the-shelf" metrics.

The goes on about it's not all that simple and there may be large costs in re-engineering customer LANs to ensure they can maintain QoS metrics across their own infrastructure.

Update on XP64

2005-02-18T15:54:00.000Z

It really is fast, here's a spec of the system: -

Biostar K8NHA-M Grand motherboard which has an NForce3-250 controller.
70GB Maxtor SATA 10K RPM drive 1, 200GB Seagate SATA 7200RPM drive 2.
On board Ethernet, 8 x USB, 2 Firewire, sound etc ... 1GB RAM.
AMD Athlon 3400+ CPU.

Compared to my old Dell (dual PIII 500MHz), SCSI disks etc. stuff flies, open Outlook and it's there and ready maybe a couple of seconds after you've double clicked on the icon (it used to take maybe 15 to 30 secs).

There are pecularities though, some of the media files weren't linked to, and some of the system apps were also wrong (XP64 had them pointing in the WINNT directory, rather than under the WINDOWS directory). Media player was also oddly installed, and that had to be manually fixed, running it set the correct file type associations and all was happy.

Printers are also odd, it wont allows 2000/XP drivers to be used, so currently I cant print at all. Maybe MS will have a fix for this soon? Be nice to see some content on the beta windowsupdate site, I'm sure MS are doing things internally, they should release some of this to the public.

Version 1218 was PANTS, I really wouldn't install that, it should never have been made public it was so full of bugs.

This version is 1289 (build 3790) (RC1) and it's usable. As said, not ready for production, but usable.

Maybe I should install a UN*X variant, that should also fly (though I might have a few problems with the graphics drivers).

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Home Page

2005-02-17T17:21:00.000Z

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Home Page

Well it had to happen, my PC at work died today (it's been BSOD regularly for a while now), don't quite know what's wrong, but it's failed to boot properly after and it's in a horrid state so the people who look at these things took it away muttering. This is an old Dell running XP SP1 (SP2 failed to install - shows what a happy state it was in :).

Since I'm only here for another week, it's probably not worth trying to find out how to fix it, all my mail's on the server etc.

Anyway I bit the bullet and whipped out my AMD Athlon64 system out (which is my own system) on a NVidia NForce3 motherboard. It's got Windows XP Professional 64bit on it. Though I wouldn't recommend this for most people, when it works, it really does show off and is blindingly fast. Of course this is with the NVidia beta 64 bit NForce drivers too.

It is quirky, 32 bit drivers can crash it into a state where it's unusable (I had to go into safe-mode to remove them), I can still use ActiveSync and my iPaq with Outlook which is good, because I'd be lost without that. Logitech Camera, Plantronics headset and Wacom tablet (USB) weren't so lucky.

With the new NVidia NForce4 stuff coming out supporting single or dual single/dual core Opterons, with XP64 (or Linux/Solaris) they are really going to fly.

Apple - Mac mini

2005-02-04T14:15:00.000Z

Apple - Mac mini

Just got my Mac mini, it looks a lot smaller in real life, very cute, almost cuter than the cube which I always thought was one of the cutest machines ever produced.

There's a site showing how to overclock the mini, not for the faint hearted as you need to solder/unsolder tiny surface mount resistors on the mainboard. However if you're daring it does look like upgrading a 1.25GHz version to 1.42GHz is viable (which gives a 14% speed increase), while upgrading 1.42GHz to 1.5GHz only gives a 6% increase so is it worth voiding the warranty, fiddling around etc. Upgrading to 1.58GHz seems to make the system unstable.

I now have to open mine up, and replace the onboard 256MB memory with a Crucial 1GB DIMM (considerably cheaper than the Apple upgrade, and in theory can resell the orig memory - of course if anything goes wrong I should have the original memory installed for Apple to do anything under warranty). Hopefully install it all tonight.

Redundancy

2005-02-03T14:45:00.000Z

Well I'm not impressed :( Shame - I've really liked working at Demon/THUS but the "package" on offer, is minimal to say the least. Really encouraging for 10 years committment to a company.

Still looking for a new career, anyone need a "fluffy geek" (i.e. good understanding of technology, but more used to working in a strategy/marketing environment).

The telco market doesn't look that promising, but open to a change.

Quite like to get involved with start-ups, maybe in a non-exec role advising on future technology trends etc.

Please contact me if you'd like CV/resume details etc.

Steve

Sveasoft

2005-01-23T01:47:00.000Z

Sveasoft
I'm currently using a Cisco router (1700 series with ADSL wic) and a Linksys WRT54GS for wireless connectivity.

I've upgraded the Linksys so it uses the Sveasoft firmware (currently Alchemey-6.0rc6) which is only available to Sveasoft subscribers (yes I paid my $20 annual subscription). They've done some nice additions to the bog standard Linksys code.

This shows how open source software works and can make money. Sveasoft make money from subscriptions and from "feature bounties" i.e. someone (or more than one person) on the forums paying one of the developers to add a feature. When the software is stable, they release it to the "public" and anyone can download it.

Linksys also win, as they can add the Sveasoft enhancements to their codebase, so take the features they want. This means bugs get fixed quickly and the product actually becomes more feature rich.

I believe the story goes that linksys didn't originally make their code open source, but had a few problems with the FSF as they based WRT series on a Linux codebase. After a fight they didn't just release the code, but also the complete toolchain so anyone with an x86 Linux system could build a .bin file which could then be uploaded to the router.

This is a win/win situation. Linksys sell WRT units, Sveasoft make some money AND Linksys get a base of developers adding features and fixing bugs which they can add back to their codebase.

demon.net home page

2005-01-22T23:12:00.000Z

demon.net home page
Last week was a bad week. I wont go into specifics of why at this current time, but I was notified that my "job is at risk" which means my job is going to be made redundant at the end of Feb.

It's all been a bit of a shock, but these things happen.

I've been at Demon Internet since '94, but was officially employed in March '95 so that's almost 10 years to the day that I'll have been there.

I was part of the original group of people that had a meeting with Cliff Stanford and thought Internet could be successfull in the UK prior to anything actually having been decided. I was one of the founder members when it did launch in June 1992.

I also instigated the vPoP (virtual Point of Presence) which is where Demon bought backhaul from Energis who had local numbers throughout the UK and terminated them in a single data centre. This directly lead to the formation of the 0845 (non-geographic) number range which changed the face of Internet in the UK.

So I'm (potentially) looking for a new job.

My role at THUS (Scottish Telecom acquired Demon in March 1998 and floated as THUS in November 1999) has been "Head of Product Futures" where I've owned the Product Roadmap. I've also been involved in the regulatory side of things and am a media spokesperson - having written articles etc that have been published both in local and national press.

I would describe myself as a "fluffy geek". Though I have a good technical knowledge, I've not been directly involved with technology projects for a while.

So if anyone knows of any Internet/telco strategy type roles or wants someone who can explain technology to non-techie people, do get in contact.

Steve

KenRadio Broadcasting - Content

2005-01-14T12:26:00.000Z

KenRadio Broadcasting - Content

Sorry you have to register to view the site, but it's an article entitled 'Steve Jobs rules the world with "mini me"', which is about the launch of the new iPod shuffle and Mac mini.

The Mac mini is obviously Mr Job's 3rd incarnation of the Cube (NeXT Cube, Mac Cube now Mac mini) and it looks like this time he may have got it right. Instead of charging a premium, he's given it all the features you need in a base unit and at a sensible price.

It's the perfect box for a PC user who buys an iPod and realises they need to upgrade to run iTunes, why bother with a new PC just go for the Mac - use your existing keyboard/mouse/monitor.

The iPod shuffle will hit the solid state MP3 player market right in the belly with a punch to hurt. It may not be perfect (I'd want to screen, but they'll need an iPod shuffle2) but it will attract all those iPod wannabe's who cant quite afford an iPod mini.

Seems Crucial (the memory people) who had a memory upgrade for the mini yesterday morning, removed it yesterday afternoon, have put it back today (it uses standard PC2700 memory anyway) - about half the price of Apple's and you can sell the Apple DIMM (of course you also void warranty).

p.s. I've got an old NeXT slab, it needs a disk and memory and if anyone knows how to fit it out and get some software on it, do let me know.

Vonage - The Broadband Phone Company

2005-01-10T13:41:00.000Z

Vonage - The Broadband Phone Company
Vonage have come to the UK, £9.99 per month (about $15.00) for the residential service which includes the Linksys ATA (analogue telephone adapter) which has two phone ports and a 3 port Ethernet switch.

You need an existing broadband connection, which could be cable or DSL. If it's DSL you're paying about £10 pm for the line rental and £20'ish pm for the ADSL. It all adds up. Vonage does give you the advantate of a 2nd line, but various CPS (carrier pre-select) services give you similar primary services for about the same price (i.e. about 10 quid per month all you can eat UK dialing).

Also most broadband in the UK is actually provided by BT Wholesale (about 4.1M BTW ADSL customers, maybe another 30,000 from local loop unbundlers). Most of this is consumer broadband, which is 512Kbits/s downstream and 256Kb/s upstream, but contended at 50:1. That means up to 50 people sharing your Internet bandwidth. Generally it's not that bad, and a lot of Internet protocols are bursty (BT's network statistically multiplexes the data streams) so most of the time people wont notice the contention too much. However voice traffic isn't bursty, it likes to have a clear network path where packets travel in sequence in nice equal time periods etc (i.e. consistent latency and jitter for the techies).

There's going to big consumer take-up of VoIP services, then a consumer backlash as no-one can currently guarantee any kind of QoS metrics and calls cut-out or pop and crackle.

When LLU eventually does take off, and DSL with QoS is offered, then VoB (voice over broadband) will stand a fighting chance.

Bungie.net : Games : Halo 2

2005-01-10T12:57:00.000Z

Bungie.net : Games : Halo 2, Xbox site

Well what can I say ? I've NEVER been good at video games, well that's a complete misnomer, I've been completely pants at video games. Having worn contact lenses my eyes would dry out after 10 minutes of playing on a PC or even console. Even after I stopped wearing them, things weren't much better.

This weekend I plugged the Xbox into the plasma, and WOW. I actually completed the first section of the game, OK it took me most of the day and I was only on easy level, but hey it's a start. I had to re-adjust one of the control sticks (i.e. invert it) but actually enjoyed it and the graphics were stunning.

Halo2 is great fun.

3G

2005-01-05T18:23:00.000Z

3rd Generation networks are springing up all over Europe (well they've had licenses for a while but are actually launching).

In the UK "3" was the first to launch, they had a roaming agreement with O2, and for most of the country customers would pretty much use they O2 network. 3 launched a consumer service based on cheap price plans and giving away video content and video calls. They needed to do this as they were a new entrant and needed to get a customer base. They still haven't launched any data services (no Internet access through your 3 phone).

Meanwhile the GSM networks sat around and bid their time, building out networks and working out their best course of action.

3G licenses were NOT cheap (in the UK they paid about £5 billion EACH for the right to role out a network) and for that they have to meet certain license conditions like reach 60% of the population by 2010 (I think). The GSM networks have a slight advantage in that they have existings masts around the UK, but the technology is completely new and it's a completely new build of infrastructure.

3 of course being the newbie didn't have that luxury they had to start from scratch, so when 186K went under (a UK telecomms provider with some national network), they bought it allegedly for £1, but took on all their debt (which was a lot).

Vodafone and Orange launched their 3G services in the 2nd half of 2004, but only data services. Why, well a lack of decent handsets and businesses use data for connecting mobile staff, remote working etc and businesses will PAY for it.

Vodafone and Orange have since launched consumer services, but though available they're not vastly pushing it yet. Vodafone have already got an active base on Vodafone!Live and the 3G experience will just enhance this.

O2 are biding their time, they've just announced their going to use imode in the UK, 3G will be a good system to launch this on, hopefully they also ensure that they encourage content providers by having sensible revenue shares like NTT Docomo do in Japan (not like WAP on GPRS/GSM in the UK). Who knows what T-Mobile are up to.

When all the existing GSM network do launch 3G, the I'd guess the GSM networks are going to be used for cheap and cheerful consumer services (until the frequencies get re-allocated to 3G, which wont happen at least until 2010), and when this happens anyone basing a 3G network on cheap price plans is going to lose customers fast as consumers just want cheap calls and a no frills service. Unfortunately they don't have any network loyalty and with number portability they can even move their number with them.

I'll make a bet that one of the networks gives back it's license rather than pay the penalties for not meeting the conditions, and having shareholders revolt.

KenRadio Broadcasting

2005-01-05T18:22:00.000Z

KenRadio Broadcasting Here's a site I write product reviews for and articles.

I've written about various topics like 3G (mobile), tablet PC's, ENUM, SMS, convergence and many more.

Ken Rutkowski does a daily tech-talk chat show, and I've appeared on it a couple of times.

You have to register to get to most of the content on the site, but there's some good stuff there, also join the newsletter (that also goes out everyday).

OpenLLU - Open Local Loop Unbundling

2005-01-04T12:24:00.000Z

OpenLLU - Open Local Loop Unbundling
This is my personal gripe at the moment, unfortunately I don't think it will actually be solved.

This is a site I set-up explaining some of the issues of the process of local loop unbundling (LLU) in the UK. LLU is the process where ISPs and (what were) Telecomms companies can put their own equipment in British Telecomms digital local exchanges.

The companies going down this route are all fighting each other when they should be fighting BT. If everyone joined forces and pooled resources, they'd have a fighting chance to build out a braodband network that could compete with BT in terms of size (i.e. exchange penetration) and services.

In 2006 BT start to role out their 21st century network (21CN) which replaces the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) with one based purely on IP, they hope to turn off the last PSTN line in 2009. If the new entrants got together and collaborated, they could have their own competing 21CN NOW.

Azureus : Java BitTorrent Client

2004-12-31T14:34:00.000Z

Azureus : Java BitTorrent Client
Just installed it on my iMac and it seems to work ... well I downloaded a torrent (Mr Lacey's Podcast) so it does actually work which is more than I can say for the MacOS X version of the bittorrent client from brittorrent.com.

PDP-505XDE Pioneer Plasma TV�-�Visual�Entertainment

2004-12-31T14:26:00.000Z

PDP-505XDE Pioneer Plasma TV�-�Visual�Entertainment
Well yesterday I went out and did it and bought a Plasma. I've been promising myself one for ages.

If you've ever seen the new PDP-505XDE it just beats EVERYTHING out there, of course it's going to be short lived and someone will come out with a better screen r.s.n. but hey it works for me.

The media box that comes with it has a slew of interface including HDMI, so I had to get a DV-868AVi-S DVD player which also happens to do DVD-Audio and SACD, just need to get the 5.1 system now to meet (and a new house to put it all in).

I played some of Gattica (which I got as a Superbit DVD, no extras, just movie encoded at a higher bitrate than the normal one), picture is STUNNING. In some ways it shows the artifacts from the film - as an aside while at IBC I saw a demo of the last James Bond film in HDTV on the plasma, it REALLY showed up the CGI stuff which didn't look real, while on a normal system (i.e. non HDTV) looked great.

It's definately the best one on the market at the moment.

Random Thoughts - Steve Lacey

2004-12-31T14:14:00.000Z

Random Thoughts - Steve Lacey
I know Steve from way-back (tm), nice guy. I haven't seen him since he moved to Seattle to go work for the dark side ;) but now listening to his podcast - why does everyone get into podcasting now ? Very odd, I guess it's the next evolution from blogging, though I'm still not convinced why I'm doing this!!!

Planet Sun

2004-12-21T16:22:00.000Z

Planet Sun Cool blog site for Sun employees.

Steve

weaverluke: digital ID�as easy as 123?

2004-11-12T12:30:00.000Z

weaverluke: digital ID�as easy as 123?

ENUM is NOT a telephone directory in the normal sense, it's a way for a user to specify rules of how they want calls directed.

i.e. for telephone number +442071231234 there are NAPTR records and these might specify
mon-fri b/n 8am and 6pm try SIP:steve@kenradio.com
mon-fri other time tel:+447775xxxxxx
sat-sun Email:steve@home

Of course there should be ENUM entries for all the telephone numbers.

Steve

My first blog

2004-07-22T11:41:00.000Z

Well it's Thursday, I had to do it eventually, of course nothing really much to say.

My sister's son was circumcised, luckily I didn't go to the ceremony - bit squeamish like that.