A Donkey on the Edge

RFC822 Address (a bit of tech nonsense of a Friday eve)

Ahh looks like the old MT vs. Wordpress flame war may be heating up again. Not a fan of the bitching and defo supportive of Project Melody initiator Byrne Reese’s attitude that the Melody crew needs to keep to a positive message and stay away from the flame wars…

That said, I love some of the copy…

This does not surprise me at all. Wordpress is an absolute triumph of flair and marketing over engineering. It’s pretty, featuresome and buggier than a swamp.

I mean come on, “pretty, featuresome and buggier than a swamp” not only do I agree with the guy’s point but that took some wordsmithing;-)

Can I just quote Stephen Fry on Stephen Jobs please?

Everyone is quoting the really great stuff from Stephen on the importance and likely reach of the iPad but after following Lynetter’s link I was struck by a different part of Fry’s text

Today had special resonance. In front of his family, friends and close colleagues stood the man who founded Apple, was fired from Apple and came back to lead Apple to a greatness, reach and influence that no one on earth imagined. But a year ago, it is now clear, there was a very strong possibility that Steve Jobs would not live to see 2010 and the birth of his newest baby.

That’s from a blog post, not a chick-flick. Sitting in the library here at lunch I actually felt the tears coming…

The other side of a shiny new coin

The Free Software Foundation has been running the defectivebydesign.org campaign for a number of years now, so it’s no surprise they set up a protest camp outside the Yerba Buena centre yesterday.

The group set up what it labeled “Apple Restriction Zones” along the approaches to the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, informing journalists of the rights they would have to give up to Apple before proceeding inside.

That said, they’re still spot on and we should all be asking manufacturers to respect our fair-use rights under existing copyright law. The FSF put it like this in their newsletter this morning:

DRM is used by Apple to restrict users’ freedom in a variety of ways,
including blocking installation of software that comes from anywhere
except the official Application Store, and regulating every use of
movies downloaded from iTunes. Apple furthermore claims that
circumventing these restrictions is a criminal offense, even for
purposes that are permitted by copyright law.

Organizing the protest, Free Software Foundation (FSF) operations
manager John Sullivan said, “Our Defective by Design campaign has a
successful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. We
organized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Apple
stores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music. We’re
here today to send the same message about the other restrictions Apple
is imposing on software, ebooks, and movies. If Jobs and Apple are
actually committed to creativity, freedom, and individuality, they
should prove it by eliminating the restrictions that make creativity and
freedom illegal.”

The group is asking citizens to sign a petition calling on Steve Jobs to
remove DRM from Apple devices. The petition can be found at:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad

I’m signing it and I hope you will too.

The platform as orifice?

Yeah…

So allow me a few thoughts on Apple’s entry. First off, if iTunes and the iPhone are any indication, the iPad will be a closed system, controlled by Apple. As with the iPhone, only approved apps will get to play. And as with iTunes, only those who cut a deal with Apple will get distribution on the new device.

Which means, in essence, with the iPad Steve Jobs will create yet another orifice through which value must run.

Hillary Clinton on internet freedom

Love these comments from Hilary Clinton as they rekindle my belief that micro-markets, micro-credit and micro-insurance supported by converged, federated and mobile networks will have an increasingly large role to play both in the first-world and elsewhere.

By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunity where none exists. Over the last year, I’ve seen this first hand. In Kenya, where farmers have seen their income grow by as much as 30% since they started using mobile banking technology. In Bangladesh, where more than 300,000 people have signed up to learn English on their mobile phones. And in sub-Saharan Africa, where women entrepreneurs use the internet to get access to microcredit loans and connect to global markets.

I’m beginning to think there must be vast untapped resources to be found in the gaps between traditional financial instruments and institutions and the new micro-finance markets. I reckon there’s a serious business opportunity for a team with experience in mobile social and transactional spaces…

(via Lynettr)

Software patents vs. collaborative creativity

This latest example takes the biscuit. I have read several documents produced by a number people inside and outside of the mobile industry that clearly describe the service or one just like it. Also, Nokia, Craigslist and others are already doing this.

One of my colleagues described it as the “ubiquitous flea market” an online system to match-make and alert participants on the basis of shared location data mashed up with the matching of stated haves and needs.

What irks me is that this is just the natural progression of a good quality mobile network enriched by the advent of smart mobile computing on top of the internet. In case anyone forgets, the network effects we’re all benefiting from come from us (the subscriber) and are built with our money, financed by all those 24-month contracts we’ve been signing up to. In a sense, this is just best practice and should be available everywhere. If this patent goes through, the service will be closed, difficult or impossible to federate, you’ll have to wait forever for the business to create a client for your phone and in the end the service may not even be that good…

A much better scenario is for all of us to try and build the service (and a rich ecosystem of client apps and widgets) and let the users decide which market experience they want to invest their time in.

To get an idea of how potentially ridiculous software patents are, take a look at some previously approved patents for the European Union I love the one about selling using ecommerce.

Sigh… I guess big IP marches on…

John Resig says: "Google Groups is dead"

This post isn’t so much about the usefulness of mailing lists as a discussion medium, it’s the complete failure of Google Groups as an adequate purveyor of public discussion software. For the jQuery project we’re already in the process of moving the full discussion area to a forum that we control. We should have it set up, and everything moved over, within the next month or two.

The primary problem with Google Groups boils down to a systemic failure to contain and manage spam. Only a bottom-up overhaul of the Google Groups system would be able to fix the problems that every Google Group faces.

I got an email last week from the jQuery mailing list admins explaining the list had just completed the move away from the Google groups offering.

John Resig has posted a very long and very articulate explanation of why he left Google. It makes interesting reading and I have to wonder as one of the commenters did whether the failure to deploy any sensible moderation or spam controls (even though Gmail filter the very same spam that Groups publishes) was really an effort to put the service to sleep…

So anyway, I’m off to try out John’s new service. It’s using Zoho Discussions apparently. We’ll see how successfully that goes:-)

Brainstorms and thought showers

Nicki first mentioned the “thought shower” thing to me when she was working at the BBC. At the time I thought it was both a bit amusing and a bit disapointing—another example of political correctness going crazy…

But one of the interesting things you pick up when working with website users is that they always surprise you and that you’re really asking for trouble if you start making assumptions based on even fairly reliable information. Nothing beats a real user talking about their real experience of your site.

Which is what led me to Ouch the BBC’s awesome resource for all to talk about their issues around disabilities. I looked up the “thought shower” thing and found this:

Does everyone HAVE to be pc?,
Can’t some of us Not be pc, as long as it’s not
offending anyone???

Fantastic. The brainstorm v. thought shower thread is here and makes interesting reading. For those that hadn’t come across the term before, a “thought shower” is what some well-meaning person in the NHS thought the term “brainstorm” should be replaced with so as to not offend people with epilepsy.

Able Planet Clear Harmony NC200 foldable headphones

So I got an email from a pr in the states before Christmas asking me if I wanted to try out a set of noise-canceling headphones and having heard a lot about active noise-canceling but never having experienced the active flavour first-hand I said sure. That, and I’m a disgusting ligger who’s always up for a freebie and just can’t say no.

The first thing that got me is the price point. These are considerably cheaper than anything I’d previously considered (currently fifty quid on Amazon). I had to wonder what they cut out to get the price down.

I should add another disclaimer: While I enjoy a wide range of music from Maria Callas to Madam Mim via Terry Allen and Jonathan Richman I’m no audiophile. Also, when I needed great audio and good noise canceling I called up Ben, who is an acoustics professional and said “what do I get” and he set me up with some Sennheiser HMD 280 PROs (which have fantastic passive noise reduction as they were designed for external broadcast). Point is, what I’m used to on a daily basis make everything else look like rubbish…

Out of box experience

So back to NC200s. Overall, a satisfying out-of-box experience without too much battling with sticky tape or molded plastic. First impressions are nice. These puppies have a satisfying weight to them which gives them a quality feel. Add to that the material used is that stuff that feels like leather with almost a ‘wet’ feel. Overall, the headphones are nice to handle.

The folding mechanism wasn’t instantly understandable (collapsing the headband takes a little presure at first) but I like the size and form factor. Collapsed and stowed away in the neat little carrier pouch I can pack these in the laptop back with no worries.

Finally, getting the battery in took a couple of minutes. It felt like I was going to break something as if I had put it in the wrong way and pressing the cover shut was going to break something… Of course in the end, it was just me being daft and actually the little compartment and cover work nicely.

Also, I know it’s a little thing but the battery is included in the package which is a nice touch

Listening to music

This was the hardest part of this test. The NC200s are designed to work without the battery installed, but the sound is very low and I was reluctant to really crank the amp in case I was getting it wrong and the volume was just about to flash and blow my eardrums. Basically, I quickly gave up trying to assess the audio quality with the noise-cancelling turned off. My guess it that it’s Ok but nowhere near as nice as the Sennheisers (which of course isn’t a valid comparison)

Once over your skull, the head the headphones have a nice, comfortable feel. They’re just heavy enough to feel stable but light enough that I could imagine wearing them all day.

Another nice touch to the setting up to listen experience is the removable cable. I like the idea I could order different types of cable (maybe getting one with a mic?).

So about the noise-reduction

The Clear Harmony NC200 foldable headphones have the manufacturer’s own patented system (LINX AUDIO technology) which is apparently the state of the art in active noise cancellation. So I was psyched about this and the night they were delivered I ran around the house talking to my wife with the phones on and testing different sound levels and noise types. Bummer, I couldn’t detect any notable difference in noise reduction. I was so sure the headphones where broken I put them away for a week before trying them again…

Then I took them to the office and that’s when things started getting really interesting. I work in a recently completed, fancy corporate headquarter building and had never noticed how much ambient noise my brain had been filtering out.

Wearing the NC200s at work was a complete revelation. The LINX AUDIO active noise reduction genuinely got rid of all the low frequency rumble which I guess comes from climate systems and other building machinery.

What a revelation! Now when I sit at my desk I can pick up all these extra sounds I hadn’t noticed at first. Then I flick the little power switch and boom—silence:-)

This is where these headphones really begin to shine, I haven’t taken a plane trip with them yet but I’d bet they really help on a crowded 777.

So what’s the deal?

Well, I think you really have to know what you want from your headphones when deciding whether or not to buy these. Clearly you’ll be disappointed if sound purity is your main driver. On the other hand, If you want a pair of cans that won’t break the bank and will live happily with you as you move from airport lounge to office and back you may find these a compelling option.

I’d say primarily because Able Planet are packing in a lot of value for the price point, the NC200s get an Edgedujour rating of 7/10

Moving from "I like this" to "I'm buying that"

An upbeat view on the year ahead from James

The world has changed. Facebook delivers shopping tips from our friends, the pocket browser is becoming the norm, your phone is developing a sense of direction and we all want one-click commerce. In short, the conditions for economic innovation look ripe.

Love the idea that the new big ideas for business will likely appear quite strange (hey, if we’re nearing the end of a Krondatieff winter the cycle of regrowth is most likely going to start with the unusual—the usual having run its course) and most certainly agree they might include “buy” buttons on smartphones:-)

2010 Vibrations: Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda

Well it looks like Caitlin Zaino is up to more rockin publishing
for 2010.

Red Bull is so 2009. This year, it’s all about anti-energy drinks…

Love it :-)

Achievement and motivation

Adaptive Path’s Andrew Crow on peer generated achievements in Halo 3:

In large games, teams usually self-organize based on skillset. Some players are great snipers, others good with a rocket launcher, etc. Once you are known for your skill, the other team members will leave those valuable weapons to you, because, in your hands, the team will benefit. Sometimes people will even bring weapons to you so that you can do your thing. This affordance is a reward for the respect that team members have for one another. It’s not measurable, but it’s valuable.

I love this observation, and in particular how this kind of thing could be built into our interactive products.

LED traffic lights don't melt snow

Franco just sent me this utterly wonderful example of what happens when design is divorced from context-of-use:

It turns out, perhaps in an homage to bad engineering everywhere, that the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs was previously relied upon to keep traffic signals unimpeded.

Also, there is just something so ‘human factors’, so deliciously broken about humans relying on what is—on paper—a defect to support their activity. It reminds me we should never assume we fully understand a system, and we certainly shouldn’t be afraid to claim that without testing, we can’t be sure.

Score +1 for user-centred-design:-)

The enraged mutton is back in business

BulkRegister was the last major U.S.-based pure-play registrar in the market. Its acquisition by eNom marks the end of an era in the history of domain names and the Internet as a whole. (more info here)

Wow, I knew Bulkregister was good, but I had no idea the industry was evolving in that direction. It’s a shame, I’ve had great service from Bulkregister over the years, but recently the new owners Enom have really been making a pig’s ear of the domain registry service.

I felt the greasy end of their incompetence over the weekend and even after a lengthy bout of support ticket ping-pong they refuse to do the right thing. So it looks like I’m in the market for somewhere sensible to maintain my domain registrations.

I guess prices have cooled off a bit in Europe so I might try a UK shop this time. Has anyone got any recommendations?

An implausible use of wireless bandwidth

Love this Guardian article by Cory Doctorow. It still amazes me that mobile operators spend fortunes trying to put the customer at the heart of the business but don’t follow Cory’s simple suggestion that giving customers self-determination would solve most of their customer engagement issues at a stroke…

What’s more, streaming requires that wireless companies be at the centre of our daily cultural lives. These are the same wireless companies that presently screw us in every conceivable way: charging a premium for dialling an 0870 number; having limits on “unlimited” data plans; charging extra for “long distance” text messages. They’re the same wireless companies whose hold-queues, deceptive multi-year contracts, surprise bills, and flaky network coverage have caused more bad days than any other modern industry.