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How Sociable is Facebook towards Developers?

September 22, 2011 in Tech, Views by admin | No comments

If Facebook wants to be the social ‘platform’ on which the web resides – a grand vision, but an attainable one – it had better start being nicer to web developers.

For years, Facebook has been a taker, not a giver. What other platform begs you to feed information into it in the form of personal user data, communications, shared web content (and its corresponding metadata), provides proprietary mechanisms for you to identify your own independently-hosted web content to Facebook, and then refuses to let you feed anything out again except by using a tiny suite of ‘widget’ style, iframe-based pieces of javascript: unstylable, uncool, and uncooperative. God forbid you should try to scrape anything to create your own feeds from these stubborn widgets – or from anywhere else – lest you put your own Facebook account in jeopardy for violating their terms.

And should you ever try to interpret the meaning of anything that isn’t ‘being a friend’ – for example you need to engage users with your company – you really must let Facebook call the shots on these interactions, too. It was only a year ago Facebook decided you would rather “Like” an entity than “Become a fan” of it. And now – subscribe? Is that the same as like? Is it similar to what you do with an RSS feed? I don’t have a problem with the evolution of change, but it’s frustrating seeing businesses having to tweak their social media paradigm just because Facebook didn’t get it right first time.

Facebook has taken a lot of unfair flack in the last decade, mainly because of their refusal to be pigeonholed into either a platform for private data (e.g. email) or one for public data (e.g. blogs). Despite a number of iterations in its privacy interface (ranging from the bizarre/arcane to the really-quite-sensible), Facebook still struggles to convince its users that controlling the privacy of their data is not exactly rocket science. It was solely because of its popularity, and the fact it became lowest-common-denominator for personal communications online (read: “it attracted stupid people”) that Facebook suffered an exponential amount of bad press regarding its ‘security issues’. I shudder even writing those words, for one thing Facebook has not had major PR problems within its lifetime, at least as compared with any other social network you care to mention, is security – in the technical sense. It’s merely the media’s interpretation of the word I’m using here.

Of course, Facebook was absolutely right to keep strong tabs on its data and interface early-on. I’m sure it wasn’t as much a branding reason as the fact Zuckerberg didn’t want to get sucked in to the same issues MySpace did, where users were encouraged to ‘personalise’ their pages, ultimately resulting in a social network that was unusable for all.

But surely the time to open-out (I’m not talking about styling one’s profile page) came and went about three years ago? Instead, at this time, Facebook was buttoning-down its strategy so as to retain as much data as possible whilst making it slightly more interactive with the rest of the web. And so was launched the adoption of the “Social Graph” model.

I’m hoping that any changes taking place over the coming months may involve Facebook adopting an open standard. Not the kind of “open” mentioned in Zuckerberg’s blog post from a year ago, but a real kind of “open”.

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Amazing Robocopy

August 30, 2011 in Tech by admin | No comments

There was a time when my home server was a large computer with RAID drives and loud fans that stayed on 24/7. Gladly that time is no longer, and I’ve moved to a more power-friendly netbook-based thing which generates hardly any heat and can therefore be left in a small cupboard without airflow concerns. The disk performance is, naturally, horrific, but it serves files up fast enough for me to stream music around the house.

I now do pretty much all my photo editing work on my laptop, which I take around with me.

As I still have the requirement for archiving large volumes of data to the desktop PC with hardware mirrored drives, unfortunately this machine has to stay. But I can keep it turned-off for 95% of the time, and only turn it on to copy / archive my data to it when needed. As well as saving energy, this should increase the lifespan of my disks by a long way too.

My netbook also acts as a web server from which I am hosting a simple ASP.net application to send WOL (wake on LAN) magic packets to my desktop PC. This is secured using Basic Authentication over SSL. It is therefore now possible for me to securely start my computer up when I’m away from home, then log on remotely using RDP (or establish a VPN connection). However – this is unrelated to my post.

I tend to do the large file transfers when at home, and given the regularity of these transfers, I’ve set up a directory on my main laptop into which I can dump everything ready for transferring, then run a robocopy batch file to move this data across.

Cue: “Amazing Robocopy“. (This is a super batch file which runs the robocopy routine and does a load more. I may have wasted an entire evening writing this batch file.) Hopefully the above gives you the context you need to fully appreciate why I need such a thing.

“Amazing Robocopy” does the following:

  • Checks if the remote machine is on. If not, send a WOL Magic Packet
  • Keeps pinging the remote machine until it responds, then attempts to check the fileshare (CIFS) visibility
  • Verifies some level of stability to the network connection before continuing
  • Run the robocopy and log to a file.
  • Provide the prompt at the very beginning as to whether user wants to shutdown machine when done
  • Provide feedback throughout the process
  • All timeouts and response limits set using variables
The screencap says it all:

 

Amazing Robocopy goes something like this.

It may be best to paste this into notepad before attempting to read.

Notes: download Depicus Wake On LAN for command line, and put it somewhere in your PATH. You’ll need to set the WOL arguments manually, as they can’t be configured with variables.

Also you’ll need to set the robocopy parameters to suit you.

 

: This script does a basic robocopy, but also it does the following:
: - test connectivity to the machine (ping). Send WOL Magic Packet if it doesn't respond.
: - after WOL, wait until the machine appears on the network
: - regardless of whether or not we got the machine up using WOL, we still verify a level of ping response consistency before continuing
: - verify the network path is visible before continuing
: - prompt at the start whether you want to shutdown the machine when finished
: - no further prompts during the process

@ECHO OFF

: SET THE FOLLOWING VARIABLES

: Set robocopy destination into two variables. They are used individually to test CIFS and PING connectivity then combined to insert into robocopy command
: We'll strip quotes from the outsides of these, so feel free to use quotes around each varilable - or not.
Set remotemachine=mat-pc
Set copytoshare="f$\transfer\in"

: Time to wait after sending wol packet, before bothering to try to do anything else (approx startup time of remote machine)
Set timetowol=30

: If, after sending wol and waiting, there's still no response, we'll wait 1 second and try again.
: This is the total number of tries. TBH, may as well set this really high and Ctrl-C if you get bored.
Set pingfaillimit=25

: What do you consider is a good number of ping receipts to get back before deeming your connection to remote machine is stable? 1 = impatient. 10000 = paranoid. 10 = normal.
Set stabilitysatisfaction=10

: Once stability, by the definition of how many pings specified, is attained, we check the copy-to network path is available
: Frankly, if it isn't, it probably won't become available. And you'll have to figure out the problem separately.
: But this gives us the option to keep trying x number of times before continuing.
: Note: this number doesn't correspond to an amount of time. Windows is unpredictable when trying to check fileshares.
Set filesharefaillimit=15

: NO MORE VARIABLES TO SET NOW

CHOICE /M "Shutdown when done?
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET copyshutdown=1
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 SET copyshutdown=0

Set consecutivepingcheckcount=1
Set consecutivepingfailcount=1
Set filesharetestcount=1

:pingandcheck

ping /n 2 %remotemachine% | find "TTL=" >nul
if %errorlevel% == 0 goto reply

@echo No Reply on that IP! Tried %consecutivepingfailcount% of %pingfaillimit% times

IF %consecutivepingfailcount% == 1 (
@echo Let's try to WOL...

wolcmd.exe 001320164898 192.168.0.5 255.255.255.0 9
@echo OK ... WOL Magic Packet was sent. Let's wait for %timetowol% odd seconds then try to ping again...
ping 127.0.0.1 -n %timetowol% >null
@echo Fine - let's try to connect now.
Set consecutivepingfailcount=1
)

Set consecutivepingcheckcount=1
Set /A consecutivepingfailcount+=1

IF %consecutivepingfailcount% == %pingfaillimit% (
@echo We didn't get very far did we?
@echo I sent a WOL, waited, but nothing!
@echo Increase the pingfaillimit variable?
GOTO fin
)
goto pingandcheck

:reply
@echo IP Replied! Checking connection stability... %consecutivepingcheckcount% of %stabilitysatisfaction%
Set /A consecutivepingcheckcount+=1
IF %consecutivepingcheckcount% == %stabilitysatisfaction% (
@echo Connection appears stable!
GOTO checkfileshare
)
GOTO pingandcheck

:checkfileshare
@echo Now checking fileshare
IF EXIST \\%remotemachine%\%copytoshare% (
@echo Fileshare is visible. Good to go. Starting copying.
GOTO docopy
)
@echo Couldn't find fileshare - tried %filesharetestcount% of %filesharefaillimit% times.
Set /A filesharetestcount+=1
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 >null
IF %filesharetestcount% == %filesharefaillimit% (
@echo Failed to find the fileshare. Oh no!
@echo Maybe verify the fileshare is accessible yourself?
GOTO fin
)
goto checkfileshare

:docopy
:first three lines strip quotes if found then combine the machine name and share to give path
for /f "useback tokens=*" %%a in ('%remotemachine%') do set remotemachine=%%~a
for /f "useback tokens=*" %%a in ('%copytoshare%') do set copytoshare=%%~a
Set destination=\\%remotemachine%\%copytoshare%
ECHO on
robocopy f:\transfer\out\ "%destination%" /E /R:20 /W:10 /MOVE /NP /LOG+:logfile.log /TEE /XF *.bat *.log

IF %copyshutdown%==1 (
ECHO off
shutdown /m \\mat-pc /s /f /t 0
)

:fin

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Confessions of a GTD junkie

January 19, 2011 in Tech, Views by admin | No comments

My background is music, my teens were spent in music lessons, music centre rehearsals, practising for gigs, listening to music, and my university studies were classical music.

My speciality is improvisation, and if you put me in front of a huge audience and gave me a grand piano and a song request of pretty much anything I could hum (especially something interesting like a jazz tune), I would confidently play the song without music, form my phrases correctly, play with the rhythms, and make a piece out of it. (A skill which is second nature to me, but seems to impress most non-musical people I know.) I am fearless when it comes to musical improvisation, and I know that small mistakes are sometimes what gives a piece character and spirit.

The same is not true of life.

Small mistakes – or forgotten thoughts – lead to lost sales, decreased efficiency, and generally adds to the feeling that there is something important that I haven’t thought of.

(A small example: having to go back to the supermarket because you bought all ingredients for an amazing recipe except the critical one.)

In reality the small mistakes don’t get in the way of my efficiency and rarely lead to lost sales.

It’s more that the fear of small mistakes, and I’m sure this is irrational, the fear of small mistakes is something that hovers over me like an impending huge mistake in itself, unless I have a mechanism to thwart it. Unless I have a tried and tested system.

GTD stands for “getting things done”, and the theory and tools are a very popular subject for discussion on websites such as lifehacker.org.

I have a strong suspicion that many people who place a little too much emphasis on searching for the perfect method of getting things done (rather than just… getting those things done!) have this same affliction.

To put it in a more positive light, I actually enjoy the process of recording tasks. It sounds ridiculous, but in the same way I get caught up with the intricate process of brewing my coffee, with the exact right brew ratios, water temperature, coffee age, pouring technique; I like to get a bit caught up in the process itself. Perhaps it’s because it gives me time to think about other things. Or perhaps it’s just how my brain is wired. I fought it for a while … futile.

By ‘caught up’ I mean that I sometimes stay up late reading the blogs of people who write various GTD (task list) applications, contributing to discussions, and the like.

I flip from one method to another. Windows application, iPhone application, application that syncs between Windows, iPhone, and ‘the cloud’, hosting own php task-list applications online, I even toyed with the “pen and paper” method, which is whereby you write a list on a bit of paper (or in a book) – magic I know.

(This didn’t work out for me as soon as I realised that I keep different writing books for different things, and that my Moleskine exists for me to brainstorm my life mid-week. It’s useful for drawing connections between notes, writing freestyle, and the like, but not appropriate for recording things in a running list whilst I am on a job, in bed, for good, in a searchable, archivable manner that you can come back to at any point.  Also I have this belief that paper should not be used for things that have to be properly recorded, due to their annoying habit of getting lost when you need them.)

I’m a GTD whore, and I often declare my allegiance to one application over another then change my mind.

I am currently using a sub-optimal solution on my iPhone that syncs with a cloud-based system that gives me access to my tasks on a laptop if I need. It’s extremely flexible, safe, and efficient, but sub-optimal for many reasons I won’t go into here.

I have compared tonnes of apps (for an idea of what I mean, see this list – I’ve looked in detail at every one of them myself, and spent many hours customising a number of them for my needs. Yes, I know. Not efficient).

I probably shouldn’t disclose here how many apps I have also purchased for this.

Confessions over.

Sync with cloud – Today ToDo

January 11, 2011 in Tech by admin | 1 comment

Please don’t read this post unless you are interested in the title. It will bore the socks off you!

With that out the way, here’s what I think about the subject.

First point. Resist ALL temptation to host own service. This will invariably lead to an enormous amount of dissatisfaction with the app itself as even the slightest outage will globally affect the perception of the entire application, potentially losing an enormous number of users, reputation, etc. User data is personal, business critical, and task lists are extremely important to the everyday running of users’ lives. Even if the service runs slow for 10 minutes in one year, it’s enough to put a large section of the user-base off investing their time in ever using the software again. Even if you have the infrastructure and personnel to provide high-reliability 24/7/365 coverage, with globally distributed failover servers, this will fail unless you are Google, Apple, or someone with a proven track record (Toodledo). It can never go well for you! At least if using a third party service, the blame can be transferred. Enough said.

Now for more observations:

  1. People like me are serious about using cloud services, recommending them to business associates, colleagues, managers, and cloud sync can go very well. For the same reason, it can go very badly.
  2. Even some of the high reliability services (Google, Apple, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.) do not have published statistics as to their *absolute* uptime limits. It’s simply not possible as it depends on too many variables (i.e. global politics). At least if you use one of these services, their reputation is large enough to cover any problem.
  3. On the matter of politics (sorry this is really boring), the most democratic way to run cloud sync service is to provide the software to anyone, open source, so they can either run their own private / personal clouds, or so small companies can start up providing free or paid services. This is less relevant to the argument, but it’s worth stating as the utopian ideal. The problem is that the liability for code vulnerability is shifted then to the developer… big pitfalls there!

Onto the issues of interoperability, usability, usefulness, and profit.

  1. We all know Google is King when it comes to providing reliability of service that is free, as well as reliable APIs. Problem is they have a history of changing their APIs (in the name of development) with little or no notice, meaning you may have to be quick-off-the-mark in providing updates. In reality this isn’t an issue, their service offerings have arguably settled down of late, with the exception of new offerings such as Wave.
  2. ToodleDo and other GTD/task-specific cloud-based services are a great way to reach new customers because you get a listing on their site. It would doubtless impress the majority of existing Today ToDo customers as well. I would judge ToodleDo to be the most reputable service provider, but they have their own business agenda which will impact on your users’ data. For example, unless you have a paid account, archived tasks are removed after 6 months. Therefore your users are forced to pay them a subscription charge in order to keep a perpetual log of what they have done. Many won’t care, and you could provide another way to back this up, but this would force users to remember not to forget to back up their stuff. For me this is a deal breaker. I don’t want to pay a subscription charge for keeping a task list, and I don’t want to have to make sure I back-up every 6 months. This will never happen; I’d rather use pen and paper.
  3. The options with Google as far as I know are to sync with their own task list implementation OR have a custom interface using e.g. Google docs or some kind of implementation whereby tasks are stored as emails / attachments. The task list implementation provides the best usability as it’s reasonably good and supports multiple lists. Access is also good, iGoogle, Chrome and Firefox extensions, and the like. The same is true of ToodleDo. (Though it’s not as good in this sense.)
  4. Dropbox or similar file-based cloud service is designed for storage of files, not custom access to their data. It could be a good way to export list summaries for printing, but then so is email. Unless you committed to providing other interfaces for users to get to their tasks on their computers using Dropbox or Skydrive you would be forced to implement some kind of flat file XML/text storage of items, and deal with the ensuing concurrency issues etc. Not nice.

Of course other services should get a look-in, like MobileMe, but they don’t really provide free options as far as I know. I don’t like the idea. As I said, I would rather use pen and paper.

My ideal solution would be for you to develop a personal PHP or ASP web server with HTTPS connection options, because anyone could host their own on a shared host for the same price as ToodleDo, but in reality this probably isn’t an option. (Is it?)

In summary I would say a clever use of Google tasks would be the most suitable and satisfying for the most users.

Roasting my own coffee beans

August 11, 2010 in Tech by admin | 1 comment

I used to be able to buy that Lavazza ground stuff (or Illy, or whatever), put it into a stovetop, and drink it with warm milk.

How things have changed. I now freshly grind my coffee (with a Baratza Vario coffee grinder) no more than 30 seconds in advance of the espresso extraction. It’s the only way to get that freshness and crispness I’m used to. I use a Rancilio Silvia to make my poison, and I can only buy my beans from Monmouth Coffee, where I know they have roasted them within at least the last few days.

The reason is that the beans deteriorate after about 10 days after roasting, in a way that is noticeable in the cup. I’m not a snob, I just have picky tastebuds. I can’t help that.

(It always amuses me, therefore, when people talk about the relative merit of one type of coffee over the other, in a supermarket. How any of it can be considered good is beyond me, when the stuff has been on a shelf for months. I guess it serves a purpose, but – yuk.)

The problem:

  • Freshly roasted beans – really fresh – are expensive in the first place
  • They are more expensive when you throw them away because they are no longer fresh and you didn’t get through them all quick enough
  • Getting freshly roasted beans (really fresh) is costly – postage from mail-order, a trip into central London
  • The beans are never there and fresh, when I want them.

A for-instance:

  • I buy 750g of beans because I made a special visit to Monmouth Coffee, use 125g, then because life is unpredictable I have to go away for 7 days then the remaining beans get thrown away (ack). Then I get back … to no beans (double ack). I have to wait at least a few days before I can get fresh stuff again (ack). During that time I have to visit cafés three times a day. Wow. A LOT of wasted beans, time, and money.

That’s 9 shades of annoying. And 4x ack.

I go away, I come home, I want fresh beans, right here, right now!

Cafés don’t have this problem. They get through so many beans each day they can afford a shipment every day. If they overorder / undersell one day, they can use rollover beans the next day, and reduce the order the following day. Beans always fresh. Not so chez Mat.

The solution:

Buy a home roaster. Store my own green beans for 6 months. Cheap! Fresh!

I have no desire to roast my own beans other than to get around the terrible feeling of coming home to no coffee.

Actually, that’s a lie. I love the thought of defining my own roasting profiles, choosing the type of roast according to my mood, experimenting.

So I am the proud new owner of a Behmor coffee roasting machine. None of this pokey air roasting rubbish. A proper drum roaster thank you. Complete with chaff and smoke management systems.

I’ll post back when I get some results from this thing!

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The closure of Becta

May 26, 2010 in Rant, Tech, Views by admin | No comments

The majority of people who are pleased at the closure of Becta are most likely so because they disagreed in some way or another with their leanings on various issues, for example their take on open source software in schools. These people can safely be ignored, along with those who decry “waste of taxpayer’s money!” when really they mean “it doesn’t benefit me, so I reserve the right to think it’s a waste of money”.

That said, Becta is really no different from any other government quango in the sense that you can argue for and against with the following argument:

  • centralised decision-making can bring efficiencies, savings, continuity to the education system vs. centralised efficiencies prohibit independent thought, local buying, and prevent the school from making its own decisions about systems.

I fall into the latter camp: as an independent, self-employed provider of IT services to schools I believe that schools are simply better-off governed on their own.

Yes, there’s a dearth of IT management talent in schools, and I’m already hearing people saying that many local authorities and schools simply don’t have the know-how to hire talent, manage their procurement, advise senior management on strategy, and otherwise fill that vacuum.

But I am making one prediction: we are soon to realise that there was only ever one reason for this dearth of IT talent in schools in the past: Becta itself.

When you centralise, you may be benefiting those schools who already lack this talent – especially those schools in special measures, under-performing schools, and smaller schools – but you are closing another door: the door that allows local business to get involved. The door that allows schools to make mistakes, learn from them, decide to hire better IT talent, and develop their own corporate character in the long term. And you are closing a door that prevents the individual  interests of a top-end school to flourish, form partnerships with local business, or share best practice themselves rather than send their staff on a course. As for the middle- and lower-end schools, centralisation can stifle growth by prohibiting the more modest developments they may need at the time.

Most critically, however, centralisation of this kind has an adverse effect on school’s desire to hire in-house talent.

And when schools don’t have good in-house IT talent, they don’t get good grades in ICT subjects. They may get big money for the use of ICT as a ‘facility’ but they don’t get known as a technologically advanced school.

The one thing I won’t be glad to see the back of is this pervasive view that dealing with local businesses can be a bit dodgy.

Quangos: like them or not, I believe they prohibit independent thought.

Disclaimer: the writer of this blog is not a Tory!

Browser Ballot

February 25, 2010 in Rant, Tech, Views by admin | 4 comments

Browser ballot. Ballot?

What, like an election? You mean, it’s more than a mere choice, it’s a personal statement of belief, a vote?

It appears that way. Each browser has its manifesto. A page held on a politically neutral website that outlines what the browser stands for.

What the hell?

Today I was doing some Windows updates on a client’s computer, and after I rebooted I saw something that led me to believe their machine had a trojan or spyware. For there was no branding, no explanation, just a box that popped up in an unfamiliar window saying that I had an important choice to make.

This has to be dodgy, right? A virus. Someone trying to steal my data.

The only important choice I have to make right now is what to have for dinner.

No, it’s the European Union ruling against Microsoft, telling them that they have to provide users with a choice of browser. A browser ballot. Yay! I get to vote!

It’s like returning home after your cleaner has been only to find someone took your wooden floor away, and left you a note saying you have an important choice to make. You need to choose what type of floor you would like to use from now on. Wait, you surely bought that floor along with the rest of the house? Like five years ago!

NO! Because a floor is distinctly different to a house. Lots of different people make floors! You should be given a choice! Otherwise it’s unfair on everyone who makes floors!

What the hell? Where is my floor? It’s my house, get out!

This only applies to Microsoft, mind. Your floor would only be temporarily removed if you bought a Microsoft house as your home, not an Apple one, or a Ubuntu one. Oh, and it only applies to Microsoft Homes purchased in the last 10 years. Oh, and it doesn’t apply to Microsoft Mansions (i.e. servers) or mobile homes of any sort (iPod, Windows Mobile). Only middle class homes. It’s because Microsoft are the Barratt Homes of computers. Their bigness makes them inherently bad.

Ok so the difficulty with this metaphor is that everyone in the world knows the difference between a floor and a house, but not everyone in the world knows the difference between a browser and an operating system. You, dear reader, are excused if you do not know the difference, deep down. It’s okay. You are quite normal.

Wait. Even worse to think. More people will vote in this arbitrary browser ballot in the UK than will vote in the general election. Many, many more people. That is so wrong it hurts.

Back on topic, let’s get this straight.

Anyone who actually knows what a browser is has already made their choice.

The remainder (75% of actual people – that is – living human beings with souls who just want to go on the internet without any hassles) do not care.

They will have a decision process forced upon them, be told the decision is important, (what, like abortion? Like looking for a new job?) and then be confounded with a load of options they don’t understand. If they click the window away, it will install a shortcut to the desktop, and come up again on next reboot.

I work in the field of IT Consultancy, and I can testify that to the majority of users, this decision is not as important as who to vote for on X Factor.

The consequence: IT Support will be picking up the pieces, after the sorry mess caused by a load of unsuspecting users who accidentally installed the wrong browser because they had no idea where to click, thus losing all of their settings, saved passwords, and not to mention being bloody confounded because the browser they chose didn’t have the latest version of Adobe Flash, etc.

Make it go away.

My mother doesn’t even know the difference between the address bar and a mouse. Give her a change of browser and she will have to go to night classes again just to learn how to do a Google search. Seriously.

Hell, even the BBC, in tech articles, regularly get operating system and browser confused. That’s how tech savvy we are: rightly or wrongly, our own media can’t even get it right. (Cringe.)

In the name of liberation, choice, freedom? It smacks of jealousy, of fanatical technocracy. It’s almost a religious war. Sure as anything isn’t politics. Or regulation for that matter.

The global tech industry requires solid, effective, and rational sector regulation. The EU has proven its worthlessness once again by entirely missing the point and unleashing its mindless red tape on an easy target. Path of least resistance. What a weak bunch.

It’s micro legislation, and it undermines the fact that the industry is suffering a dearth of real regulation, such as in cyber security, or in the environmental challenges.

Nit-picking at the big guy on a tiny point of interest does nobody any favours.

It’s straight bananas, except far worse.

It sure as anything wasn’t for anti-monopoly reasons because for one, browsers are not a major source of income for anyone (except those who only make browsers… cough cough) and secondly because this will do nothing to put a leash onto the fact Microsoft have cornered the corporate IT market – where the money is.

This is the techno-democracy-brigade equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

I’m starting to feel sorry for large conglomerates (for the random outburst of legislation that clearly applies to nobody else) and feeling anger towards libertarian organisations who supposedly want the world to be a better place.

I’m starting to mutter under my breath words like political correctness gone MAD, and I sound like one of those awful Daily Mail readers.

What’s going on with the world?

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How to get things done

February 12, 2010 in Tech, Views by admin | 1 comment

The whole concept of consolidating one’s thoughts into a list is something that fascinates me.

Why? Because I’m not a listy kind of person. I’m very much an improviser in life, I don’t like to be tied-down to systems or structures, I love to see how things go before I commit – but I still find myself having to write lists.

Herein lies a paradox, and here is the crux of this paradox: because I don’t naturally tend towards structure, and because my brain is so disorderly, and because I am not a natural multitasker, and because I think too much all of the time, (and because the number of clauses in this sentence reflects how my brain works), the only way of getting through my day is to write a list.

It’s a battleplan for actually getting things done.

Otherwise, I am easily overcome with the small things clouding the bigger picture.

This is something I realised a while ago, and so I started to read about the formalised concepts of GTD (getting things done) proposed by David Allen, became a friend of the 43 folders concept, and investigated list-making websites and programs.

Like any true list junkie, I had to feed my habit. This started, aged 18 (that’s 11 years ago), with an unhealthy dependency on using Microsoft Outlook tasks, and since then I have been a slave to the Palm Pilot (2 different models), early days of Nokia mobile phone tasks, the smartphone in 4 different flavours (Windows Mobile introduced synchronisation of my lists from Outlook to a mobile device – wow!), cloud-based services like Gmail’s task lists, synchonisation of lists across a number of different pieces of technology, not to mention the shunning of all the above and the purchase of the entire range of Moleskine notepads (I was feeling renaissance).

Now I come to think of it, I once spent three weeks trying to find the perfect digital audio dictation device that was waterproof so that I could pin-down the ridiculous number of thoughts and bright ideas that my brain has when I am in the shower, as well as driving in my car. No kidding. What a geek.

Invariably, however, after my foray into this new-fangled paper and pen thing, I came back to technology to help me get productive. How old-fashioned. And of late I have downloaded (and spent too much money on) a few good GTD applications for the iPhone.

I have pondered how much money I’ve invested over the years on systems to help me get things done (Things, TapForms, DropBox, Evernote, Done, Outlook, Pocket Informant, and more), and whether or not this investment has matched the gain in productivity I have encountered. Of course, it hasn’t.

But it has made me feel better. I therefore conclude that everyone needs a hobby, and because I don’t fly kites or own a cat, mine is “finding the perfect way to organise my thoughts”.

Like a junkie, I get excited when I sign-up for a new productivity enhancing website. I get excited when I find out the website will sync with my iPhone so that I can always never forget to not forget to Remember the Milk at all times, always, wherever I am.

Then I’m left high-and-dry 6 months later because I discover one TINY piece of functionality that another application has invented which my favourite To-Do list system doesn’t have.

Such is the curse of perfectionism. No, scrap that. Such is the curse of consumerism.

At this point in my life, I have identified the problem. The problem is me.

I am a fickle consumer of things that could potentially make my life more efficient and better.

Is it really me? Or has the perfect system – at least perfect in my mind – just not been invented yet?

You see, in my head there is a specification for what makes the ultimate list application. (This is like the ‘ultimate hit’ for junkies.)

  • Quick to enter thoughts. I mean, from the moment you have a thought, there should be zero delay in recording it. This also covers the requirement to enter lots of thoughts in succession.
  • Clear delineation of functionality from other apps. A good GTD app should not be my calendar, but because I am task-oriented and not time-oriented, I require some kind of time-based aspect. For example, I want to remember to do something in the future but not to have it cloud my list for the current day.
  • Needs to have multiple lists or contexts. (One for work, one for admin, one for home, etc.)
  • Needs to have multiple views and list types that transcend these contexts. (Things for ‘today’, things for ‘someday’, things for a project, things for a meeting, etc.)
  • Needs to act as a record or log for old thoughts / to-do items. I want to track what I was doing this time a year ago. This time 4 years ago. Therefore it must have an export function, to export to a common format, if and when I move on to another system.
  • Coupled with the above point, it needs to export items so as to be platform-independent. I love my iPhone, and will probably settle on it for at least a few years. And I currently use a PC. But what about in 20 years, when we are commanding computers built-in to coffee tables and the like? Tech has changed so much in the last 10 years, and this will only accelerate in the next 10.
  • Back to the now: needs to sync between different devices, and the cloud. My laptop and desktop PC are used when I need to expand thoughts, and my iPhone is my all-in-one that gets taken everywhere. Ideally, this sync should be done via the ‘cloud’, so everything is backed-up, and so I’ve access even when I lose or forget my laptop or phone. I use the Google cloud, because it’s free, and highly available, and resilient. This allows me to store and sync files, email, you name it. Too many of the best apps are written for Mac and iPhone only. No good for me right now.
  • Needs to be pretty. And ingenious. I can’t handle an ugly bit of software.

It turns out there are a tonne of apps out there that do most of the above, but not all. Perhaps that’s why I keep changing apps, not because I’m a junkie.

The best ones seem to be apps that are not quite as platform independent. Things for iPhone, OmniFocus for iPhone – great apps, but if you want to sync with PC or the cloud, they are limited. And they aren’t that ingenious in terms of their user interface.

Remember the Milk for iPhone, great, but you need to sign up for a subscription to their package.

My latest download is an application for iPhone called Today To-Do by Spielhaus.

The fact it’s my latest indicates it’s my favourite in the evolution of GTD on the iPhone so far (that small sentence betrays a lot of enthusiasm for the application right now), but it doesn’t quite fulfill the whole of the above hit-list… at least not yet.

The first application that does so gets a full, detailed review!

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Yes, I know. (And Google SEO)

October 9, 2009 in Rant, Tech, Uncategorized by admin | 3 comments

Dear readers

I know I have very few readers.

But like Radio 4 listeners, you are all passionate and attentive.

(Yes, I flatter myself.)

Therefore I owe you all an apology that my wordpress blog hasn’t been reachable from its domain name hazymat.co.uk for a while. It’s all the fault of WordPress.com, honest.

Okay, I’m talking like I know you all. In reality, the only person reading this is Mr Schlackman (a big shout out, yo). Sorry, I slipped into Radio 1 there. Or Radio 1 Xtra, or whatever.

Anyway, dear readers, I’ve had nobody in real life to talk to about this, so I shall rant about it here.

SEO is a really fun subject to get into.

But one of my favourite parts of reading and learning about it is hearing things from the horse’s mouth.

The horse (aka Google) has a wonderfully dry, witty tone of writing when it addresses common SEO questions.

For example, they write:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”
Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.

Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

“Dear google.com,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

This makes me laugh, a lot. (I have spent too long finding matters of SEO that are normally boring in everyday life, strangely interesting, and therefore Google’s humour makes for relatively hilarious reading.)

Anyway, a special one for Mr Schlackman, if he hasn’t already seen it.

Best Microsoft KB article ever written.

Best Easter Egg (?) ever discovered? It’s subtle, but it’s brilliant.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/281923

This led me to some site searches combining technical terms with amusing words. Such as:

[google search]: site:microsoft.com active directory dog

[google search]: site:technet.microsoft.com ipsec bum

And if you go to this link below (don’t), it takes you to a page that I am dying to know how it got there in the first place given its URL, and what the file *really* actually is, but contains, according to google, within the binary for the ACC file, the C* word. Hilarious.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/e/6/6e68730e-6723-412b-9b3c-d527510f0865/aac-21a_9.aac

BT vs BBC: an exercise in confusing service providers' responsibilities with those of content providers

June 11, 2009 in Rant, Tech, Uncategorized by admin | 4 comments

So much for the democratisation of the internet.

So BT (British Telecom) in their infinite rational wisdom have admitted to throttling bandwidth of connections to the BBC iPlayer.

Fine. The customer purchases a service from a company with insufficient infrastructure to cope with the normal web use of today, and the service provider limits the customer’s usage of their service in this respect. Customers are free to take their business elsewhere: free market and all. I mean, it’s obviously wrong that BT have not been upfront to their customers about limiting the service they provide, but I am presuming they haven’t broken the terms of their contracts with customers.

But they didn’t stop there. A spokesperson for BT added that BBC should shoulder the cost for access to their iPlayer service.

Excuse me?

It’s kind of like BT are blaming the BBC for providing content to their customers. Sure, the BBC iPlayer creates traffic on their network, in the same way that any kind of web usage does. But that’s why the customer is purchasing a service. Paying money. For a service.

The logical conclusion to this would be for every ISP to charge every single company who owns a website that is used by a member of the public with internet. Which is clearly ridiculous.

It’s one thing to secretly limit the service without telling customers, it’s another thing to somehow claim that the companies who provide this content are somehow to blame!

What is that about? Is it a marketing exercise to somehow deflect from the fact BT’s infrastructure cannot cope with the usage levels of their customers? What has that got to do with the BBC?

More to the point, though, BT also admit to prioritising the service levels pertaining to usage of BBC iPlayer to customers who pay more.

This further underlines how wrong they are to claim BBC should fit the bill. If a customer pays more, they can have a less-restricted service. If the level of service they can provide to their customers is proportional to how much the customer pays and has no bearing on whether content providers like BBC pay money to BT, surely this further proves the issue is one of service level agreements between customer and ISP?

I’ve yet to read if spokespersons for other major UK ISPs have jumped on the bandwagon, but my guess is that most other ISPs would sensibly assume they cannot pull the wool over their customers’ eyes in that way.

If anyone has a good analogy that adequately sums-up how amusing and ridiculous this is, I would love to hear it.

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