/bin/tim

June 27, 2007

BBC iPlayer

Filed under: General, Microsoft, Movies, Tech, Vista — tim CARMICHAEL @ 11:55 am

Today the BBC announced on the news that they will release the on-demand iPlayer so licence payers can watch programmes up to 7 days after broadcast free of charge on their PC  Unfortunately my demographic of non-ethnic, male professional, IT aware meant I couldn’t take part in the iPlayer trials, but now the beta will be available to everyone on July 27th. Like 4OD and Sky Anytime before the iPlayer will only support Windows XP SP2 as an OS, so my Vista Home Media Center still can’t participate in any of the current on-demand services available to me.  The ITV version is coming soon, but I’m not sure what their criteria will be.

 There is a darker side to this though, as both Sky Anytime and 4OD silently install Kontiki P2P service so that your PC now becomes a distributed server for other users.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with P2P as a technology, but you are giving up bandwidth to act as an unpaid server for Sky or Channel 4, and doing so without being told or compensated.  You also have no control over how much bandwidth you contribute and when its used.  I will be looking into how I can take control of my bandwidth when I have time and will post my results.  Not sure what technology the iPlayer service will employ.

June 26, 2007

Old Spice

Filed under: General, Music — tim CARMICHAEL @ 11:55 am

So, the Spice Girls are getting back together… interesting.  I remember where I was when I first heard ‘Wannabe’, it was 1996 and I was suffering on a hot, unhealthy train from London Canon Street which was stopped at Tunbrige Wells behind a broken Eurostar as was common during that time.  I remember thinking that despite my FM receivers poor sound quality, this track would be number 1. 

However 11 years on and the worlds a different place.  Surely it won’t be enough for Posh to just to strike a pose and point, she’s somehow beyond that … or maybe that’s all we, the public, want, some nostalgia.

June 25, 2007

BBC Archives

Filed under: General, Movies, Tech — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:40 am

We finally got our login to the BBC archive after waiting ages.  I completely failed to qualify for a login because i was the wrong demographic (male, young(ish), IT literate and professional).  Now I know this sounds really bad,  but in an inspirational moment I signed up Vicki and she met the demographic criteria (being female made the difference) so now we have access.  There seems to be about 8000 shows available including Eastenders episode 1.  There’s certainly no depth to any of the featured series but it does show promise.  I’m not entirely sure how far the BBC will go with this and whether it will become permanent.  I am hoping it will become pervasive so if for instance I want to watch the 1978 British Grand Prix or Going live from September 19th 1992, I would be able to find and view it. But already Vicki found value in a play that is published that was shown only once that she could not get a copy of for one of her lessons.

So keep up the momentum BBC!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Filed under: General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:38 am

June 22, 2007

LinkedIN

Filed under: General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:40 am

I’ve blogged about this professional networking service before, but time to do it again.  They are gradually improving their data mining capabilities, which is changing the face of what LinkedIN represents and how it is used.  I envisaged LinkedIN was a way for me to not lose touch with people I know, but I have recently found that it is being used by recruiters as a way to acquire candidates.  I get no end of requests from headhunters and recruiters who I have never met before.  This got me thinking because I was going to enter a whole load of business cards from people I have met over the years,  but in reality if I never met them more than once, do they belong in my network ?

LinkedIN themselves are pushing this barrier with a new data mining technique that analyses my contacts contacts and tries to guess people I might know but am not linked to.  So far I would say they are 50/50 accurate with people I know but had forgotten about and people I have never met.  So back to the question of value.  Some people on LinkedIN are known as Lions and have 500,100 perhaps 3000 contacts.  I have about 160, all of whom will know who I am.  Are the others any real value ?  Just having met someone once doesn’t really add any value.  So I have decided to discontinue the idea of entering any business cards and stick to people I know and have met more than once or worked with.  I can’t really claim to have  properly known more than 1500 people in my entire life. so 10% in professional circumstances seems fine.

So in conclusion I intend to be more disciplined with my LinkedIN account and just use it to do what I first intended and not lose touch entirely with people I don’t see so often. 

June 20, 2007

In Windows, no-one hears you scream

Filed under: General, Microsoft, Tech, Vista, Windows XP — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:01 am

In the true spirit of the Windows 3.1 usability labs,  copying and deleting files in Windows is as flawed as ever.  I sometimes wonder whether the coders and PMs for the Windows file management components must actually use Linux or OS X.  I’m sure they can’t use Windows, or, they have never tried to copy or delete a large amount of files within which one is open by another process, at which point Windows helpfully stops and doesn’t continue…WHY? … How can this make any logical sense?  OK I know I should use Robocopy to ease my copy woes, but why doesn’t MS help and put the functionality of Robocopy into plain old copy ? </rant>

June 19, 2007

Catz

Filed under: General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:01 am

In honour of the great cat photos here http://www.dropline.net/cats/ I have published one of our own dynamic duo, Marks and Spencer.

ms

June 18, 2007

Out of Touch

Filed under: Dev, General, Microsoft, Mobile, Tech, WindowsMobile, altaVENTE — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:01 am

OK, I tried my very best, but a PDA is no substitute for a phone.  The HTC Touch should have been a ideal converter for me because it is slim, and actually, surprisingly smaller than my favorite HTC Excalibur smartphone.

I have now been able to hone in directly on why it could not convert me away from a smartphone, which was caused by one single catalyzing event.  I simply wanted to Shazam a track I heard on the radio, so I pulled out the Touch and tried to unlock it, which took too long.  Then I tried calling Shazam,  after calling 2 other numbers in error then canceling I finally got Shazam dialed, just as the track ended.

So, what went wrong ?  Well here’s my analysis;

  • The screen isn’t bright enough to use accurately as input on a sunny day
  • My fingers are too big so I have to deploy and use the stylus, which takes time.
  • The touch screen isn’t positive enough, I don’t know if I have pushed the button or not (which is compounded because of the slow processor)
  • I don’t know if I hit the right button, invariably not!
  • I like and need real physical buttons to press
  • and lastly, specifically in the case of the Touch, the CPU is just too slow.

As Vicki succinctly put it, how can it be a phone without buttons ?

So, I’m afraid it wasn’t the Touch that could win me over.  I’d like to think the iPhone could, but it shares so many of the same issues that I have with the Touch that I think it will be a tall order, but one I am going to take on.

June 17, 2007

Is an ADSL router now a consumable?

Filed under: General, Tech — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:01 am

Since I got connected to ADSL I have been through 11 routers.  For some seemingly impossible to fathom reason,  the router reaches a point where the line speed begins to degrade irreversibly.  Even hard resetting the device makes no difference, only a new router will help.  Take the latest situation where my line speed had dropped to 5264kbps and nothing I or my ISP could do would increase the rate.  The decline, as usual was gradual, losing about 100kb per week.  Installing a brand new router (a Netgear DG834N) and immediately my line speed is back up at 8096kbps.  Magic.  Unfortunately I know the netgear is doomed to the same fate as its brethren in 6 or so months. I make a point of always buying a different router, so I’ve had representatives from all major brands on the market.  Changing cables makes no difference and the reversion to normal working has no input from BT or my ISP, so it can only be that the router wears out and has become my latest consumable.

June 16, 2007

Warning Will Robinson, Warning!

Filed under: General, Tech — tim CARMICHAEL @ 10:01 am

Lost in Space is my first recollection of colour tv after black and white.  The colours were so vibrant, I remember being amazed, almost brighter than real life. 

Well now for a mere $24K you can recreate that feeling with a full size replica of the robot B9 built from the original prop by a ex-B1 bomber pilot.  Not only does it look good, you have to read the testimonials here to realise what love of a product and good customer service means  http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/testimonials.html

RobotFamily

June 15, 2007

Remix

Filed under: General, Music — tim CARMICHAEL @ 11:01 pm

I always amazed how remixing or sampling a track can make me love something I hated.  Take for instance the perennial ‘Groove is in the heart’ , I dislike it, and I particularly dislike the unique start… but listen to that same sound sampled into ‘Like This Like That’ by Sesa ft Sharon Philips (as played by Pete Tong tonight)and I just love it, very much how Will Smiths ‘Miami’ took a sample from the whispers  track I didn’t like and made it great.  Same true of beautiful by Christina Aguilera which is great remixed, anything remixed by Bob Sinclair, Jacques Lu Cont and of course NERD’s Rockstar remixed by the master, Jason Nevins.

June 14, 2007

Black is Back!

Filed under: Cars, General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 8:45 pm

I always thought the Merc CLK63 looked a bit weedy compared to its predecessor.  I had a CLK55 and it really looked cool, the second generation went too girly for me.  So I am pleased to see the Black Series CLK63 which looks fab!  Same strides ad the F1 pace car.  The engine noise was the best thing about my CLK55, it just growled,  hear the new CLK63 here in Merc’s promotional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un4H97oMS14

clk63amgblack

June 13, 2007

Lewis … who ?

Filed under: Cars, F1, General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 8:45 pm

Unfortunately due to severe over exposure and repetition, the word Hamilton has officially been worn out in the UK.  Stocks of the word Hamilton had been running low since early April, but were completely exhausted by an irresponsible review programme broadcast by ITV last Saturday afternoon.  Its feared that the global supply of the word Hamilton may take years to recover, even with severe rationing in place, meanwhile overuse continues unabated.  It is rumored that ITV have located and acquired a substantial stock of the word Hamilton in Hamilton, South Dakota, and this stock is to be used exclusively by Steve Ryder during commentary on this weekends US Grand Prix. 

A spokesman for the Hamilton conservation fund said ‘the situation is very worrying, we could be looking at the complete extinction of the word Hamilton worldwide, and this may happen within this season.  I urge Lewis to change his name before this happens, as the situation is grave.’

However we can all do our bit by reducing our Hamilton footprint, by not speaking his name unless absolutely necessary.  If the general Hamilton output can be reduced then the word may survive albeit at a low level.

June 12, 2007

ZFS for Windows

Filed under: General, Linux, Microsoft, SUN, Windows XP, altaVENTE — tim CARMICHAEL @ 9:09 pm

Is not here yet … sorry if you thought I was announcing it, or had written a driver in my spare time.  I’m just as annoyed as the next geek that SUN’s brilliant filesystem is not available under Windows for use at home. or is it ….

I was pondering whether I could build a Solaris 10 based home server with a ZFS pool. Well of course I could, I really meant should.  Microsoft WHS is quite well packaged and NTFS does have some elements of ZFS (or at least those that I need sans 128 bit addressing) so is it worth the bother?  I’m still pondering, but I do like the extreme geek factor involved of a stripped out ZFS only Solaris home server.

June 11, 2007

Elevating MSI

Filed under: Dev, General, Microsoft, Tech, Windows XP — tim CARMICHAEL @ 9:09 pm

One of the big (supposed) benefits of Windows Installer technology is the capability to install applications easily without admin privileges because MSI would elevate privileges to facilitate the installation process.  Turns out this doesn’t work so well and when logged in as a regular user the MSI will fail to install and you will need to (rather inconveniently) log in as administrator and start the install again.

Now if the MSI ships with a companion setup bootstrap program then you can right click it and choose ‘Run AS’ and then provide admin credentials interactively without logging out and everything is sunny again (except any user specific items get created in the Administrators profile, but you cant have everything).

However, right clicking an MSI does not provide a Run As option … why?  Indeed, why oh why…. 

There is a solution though, turns out its not that it can’t be done its just that Microsoft chose not to make that option available by default.  Just add a registry key and you will get Run As for your MSI files.  Copy the following into a .REG file and then double click the REG file you created and import these settings into your registry. You will have to do that as Administrator.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\RunAs\Command]
@=”msiexec /i \”%1\”"

Happy Running As!

June 10, 2007

XCOPY RIP

Filed under: Dev, General, Microsoft, Vista, Windows XP — tim CARMICHAEL @ 3:38 pm

I was just updating a script (which I really should migrate to PowerShell) on Vista and I found that the classic command line utility XCopy is now deprecated in Vista, meaning its still there but on the way out.  I discovered this when I was updating some parameters and checked the help, which helpfully informed me that XCopy was now deprecated and I should use RoboCopy.  Robocopy has always been a ResKit tool that I have never relied on to be present on the base OS, but it does indeed ship with Vista.  A bit of googling and I found Jon Box of Microsoft also found the same issue as me.

So farewell XCopy, we knew you well, and now we need to get to know your descendant as well. RIP.

June 9, 2007

Lobster

Filed under: Dev, General, Microsoft, Mobile, Tech, WindowsMobile, altaVENTE — tim CARMICHAEL @ 9:24 am

I bought a Virgin Mobile Lobster as its a cheap WindowsMobile test device at £42 delivered with 200 minutes on PAYG.  Its a WM5 device but fine for testing.  You certainly wouldn’t want to use it as your phone, well not if you have any sense of style. 

Its unique feature is that it has a TV function which allows OTA streaming of TV pictures to the Lobster.  Now obviously this streaming requires some special equipment to function, in fact it looks like a full size TV has been stuffed inside the case its so big and thick.  I believe its called to Lobster because the case look like a lobster claw, just looks ugly to me.

Anyway, if you want one you can get it here http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/lifestyleLanding.do

June 8, 2007

Going for a spin

Filed under: General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 9:24 am

I saw this on the BBC news this morning. In the US a 21 year old chap in a wheelchair was passing in front of a huge truck just as it was leaving a gas station. Somehow (I can only wonder), the handle bars of his chair became tangled up in the trucks front grill.  The truck driver then drove off down the highway at speeds of up to 50mph with his new passenger up front.  Passing motorists alerted the police who eventually found the man  unhurt but still attached to the front of the truck.  

Apparently the passenger was completely unhurt as his seatbelt had kept him the chair, and his only complaint was that he spilled his soda …

June 7, 2007

Cool but no practical use to me

Filed under: General — tim CARMICHAEL @ 7:07 pm

The new BAA flight tracking service is a very cool showcase of technology.  Basically you can mine their flight transponder database and watch flights in real-time (but in the past) fly in and out of Gatwick on a 2D map. Clicking on an aircraft as it moves shows its flight number, airline, aircraft type, speed and height.  FANTASTIC!

So now I can replay my flight to Frankfurt yesterday from Gatwick and see the exact flight path both in and out. COOL!

http://lgw.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html

flightssmall

Touch and Go

Filed under: General, Mobile, Tech, WindowsMobile, altaVENTE — tim CARMICHAEL @ 12:33 pm

Oh dear, 24 hours in, and things are not progressing well.  I have a theory, there are two types of people; phone people; and PDA people.  I’m clearly a phone person.

I’ve really tried to make this experience work, and the HTC touch should have been a persuasive device, but it fails for me on so many areas.  I can’t fault the build quality or the look and feel.  Its small too, surprisingly, smaller than my all time favorite the HTC Excalibur, and barely any thicker.

So why is it not right for me ?  Well I think the most obvious thing is that for me, WindowsMobile Pro adds no value over the Excalibur’s WindowsMobile Standard, ie it doesn’t do anything more or substantially better.  However good TouchFlo is, you can’t get away from the fact you need a stylus for some (many) tasks.  The touch screen requires quite a hard press, disconcertingly hard in fact.  I know the logic is to prevent accidental touches, but its preventing 1 out of 3 intended ones for me.  This also has the unintended side effect of making the device feel really slow to use.  A real shame.

The skin is not deeply integrated enough into the underlying OS,  even just extending the theme a bit more would have helped. Some of the minor annoyances in the skin should have been fixed before release such as the weather module. Its most local point for me is London which is a hundred miles away, so its pointless having it other than my natural concern for the wellbeing of London’s citizens, I might as well set it for New York. This could be easily fixed by using a better provider. Detail, Detail, Detail.

So what does this tell me?  Well WindowsMobile Pro is still not for me, which will mean the Apple iPhone is not for me either.  I’m simply not PDA person despite wanting to be.

As a side note, I know I’ve said this before to many MS people, and through the CrossBow beta, but please, please, harmonize the UI terms between Standard and Pro.  I still have to double take on which setting is which on each type of device which makes setting the Touch up from my i720 a constant translation of terms.

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