Posted by Andy under BBC, Microsoft, Political, iPlayer
Erik Huggers has been appointed director of future media and technology at the BBC, replacing Ashley Highfield. Mr Huggers joined the BBC in May last year as group controller of future media and technology, launching the new version of the iPlayer, the on-demand internet service. Mr Huggers will be responsible for the BBC’s output on the internet, interactive TV, mobile, and other emerging platforms.
Before joining the BBC, Mr Huggers was at Microsoft, where he launched the MSN portal in the Benelux countries and was responsible for Windows Media in Europe. One of Mr Huggers’ tasks will be to resolve the row between the BBC and internet service providers, many of which feel the BBC should pay compensation for the extra demands the iPlayer demands makes on their networks.
Rob Minto
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Posted by Andy under BBC, Chaos, Conspiracy Theory, Control, Debian, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Political, Python, SBLUG Planet, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
Too many D’s for my liking… but a fantastic marketing point.
After David Davis resigned from the Commons today, the speech he gave focused on where technology and policy collide.
We will have, shortly, the most intrusive identity card system in the world, a CCTV camera for every 14 citizens, a DNA database bigger than any dictator should have with thousands of innocent children and millions of innocent citizens on it.
We witness and assault on jury trial - that bulwark against bad law and its arbitrary abuse by the state, short cuts to our justice system will make our system neither firm nor fair and the creation of a database state opening up our private lives to the prying eyes of official snoopers and exposing our personal data to careless civil servants and criminal hackers.
It’s definately time for the debate to happen. Just because we can do things with technology doesn’t mean we should.
Posted by Andy under BBC, Ubuntu
One of the things that I think is missing from the BBC news WebSite is the name of the journalist who penned the article. There are hundreds of articles on the BBC WebSite which are all unattributed. Some of the articles are fantastic, whilst others provoke interesting debate.
In order for people to understand the stories better, by being able to know more about the background of the article, I think it would be good for the BBC to subtitle each article with the authors name, thereby allowing directing to disputes regarding the article.
Debates on the articles should be left to the BBC blogs - and more and more are appearing on the site. However, newspapers and magazines publish their authors’ information with the articles, therefore I think the BBC should too.
Please sign the following petition if you agree, and please pass on the URL:
http://www.petitiononline.com/bbcauth/petition.html
Posted by Andy under BBC, Conspiracy Theory, Control, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Personal, Political, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
I think it’s about time that people became aware of the advantages of the GnuPrivacyGuard.
Why?
According the to BBC the government are considering keeping a database of every phone call made and every email sent. Now, it’s already possible to do this with your current email communications - and very few people bother to encrypt their mail to make sure that only the recipient can read it.
Email passes over a network in plain text - thereby anything sent in a email is easy to ’sniff’ out and read. With gpg - you encrypt the mail with a password - then the only person that can read the mail is the person that knows that password.. the recipient of the email.
It’s a clever system, so here’s a link to Red Hat Magazine’s article on GPG.
For a Windows-based solution, try WinGPG.
If we can’t change the system, then we at least need to protect ourselves from it.
Posted by Andy under BBC, Debian, Digital Freedom, Facebook, Freedom, Gentoo, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Political, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Sun, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
BBC Click! Online - Watch the Show
Ok, so they ‘bend’ RMS’s definition of ‘free’ software in some places - but it’s still a fantastic 25 minute program for John Doe.
Enjoy!
Posted by Andy under Africa, BBC, BECTA, Conspiracy Theory, Debian, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Personal, Political, Projects, Python, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
Having just read Rory Cellan-Jones article on the BBC News Website about the OLPC choosing to use the Windows XP operating system, I felt it sensible to put forward the reasons why I think it may/may not be a bad thing, and who’s going to benefit from the deal.
Education versus Training
Unfortunately, I think the UK IT Education System passed under this bridge so far up river, that it would require getting out of the river, and a hard trek upstream to ever get back to fixing the problem. Since 1997 (the year I started secondary school, and the year the Labour government came into power), there has been a worrying trend toward using the education system as a training system. I enjoyed my first couple of years IT lessons - we played with things like Logo - and used some very simple database software (key-plus?) to understand the power of databases. We also used MS Excel to enter data into spreadsheets, and learn some basic formulae - as well as being told how to write the same formulae on the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software I had at home.
The difference that occurred in Year 9 (when RM ‘upgraded’ the IT suite at school) - was that we were now using MS Office. Sure, we’d had Word and Excel on the PCs before, and I guess the financial costs of upgrading to Office rather than having the two separately are minimal, especially once you take into account the “educational discount” that schools are entitled to from Microsoft.
This meant that everything we did was MS based. The simple database has gone, we were using MS Access. In essence, IT lessons involved being trained in how to use basic productivity tools for our future office careers; which, in my opinion, is not something that the Education System should pay for. I’d prefer to see people have an understanding of the difference between the ‘web’ and ‘email’; the difference between what a Spreadsheet can accomplish in comparison with a Database; and hopefully a way for people to be taught on looking after their data, online and offline.
Advocacy as a Business Model
I recently watched a lecture given by Nicolas Negroponte in 1984. In it he discussed his ideas for the future of Computer Interfaces. It was an interesting talk, as he spoke about experiments he was doing in some African Countries on UI design. However, he also noted that he’d done a dry-run of these experiments in New York previous to heading out to the African Continent.
In the school in New York, there was a child of around 14. He didn’t know how to read and was seen as needing Special Needs treatment. However, he was simply left to fend for himself in the IT rooms. One of the days, a local council worker came to visit the school, and happened to notice this child in the library, so asked him what he was doing. He showed him what he’d created on the screen using the ‘LOGO’ program. The council visitor was suitably impressed, and asked him if he could do a little variation on his work. Rather than simply say ‘no - I don’t know how,’ the child reached for the manual, worked out how to do it - and did it - clearly pleasing the visitor.
The visitor then went to the Principle’s Office (his reason for attending the school in the first place) and happened to mention the child. The principle was certain that the visitor was the victim of some kind of ’set-up,’ therefore took the visitor down himself to see the child demo his abilities. Lo and behold the child was able to do a further variation on his work by looking through the manual.
When asked why the child could read the manual, yet could not read the books provided to him in class, his answer was akin to the following: “What the teachers give me in class is boring, and I don’t get anything out of it. However, when I’m on the computer and working, I can see the results of my efforts straight away and get rewarded for them.”
OLPC - Sugar UI
The Sugar UI for the OLPC project, for me, was a symbol of the ‘LOGO’ program for this child. Someone that the teachers has written off as a massive underachiever had been able to produce ingenuity and learning independently - given the resources to do it. Encouragement wasn’t necessary, as the learning process is something organic to the human mind.
The Sugar UI isn’t about being Free and Open Source (thus cheap) - it’s about so much more than that. However, it’s also not the be-all and end-all of the OLPC project. There are thousands of Open Source applications that can run on top of Windows XP that the OLPC users will be able to access. It will also open up their opportunities for developing for FLOSS software on Windows Desktops - and thus be able to access the Windows Market in developed countries.
Why did OLPC do the deal?
For those of you that have been following OLPC, you’ll know that the ‘Intel Classmate’ has played some underhand tactics in order to get their processor on the OLPC - and then pulled out once they’d hijacked the relationships that OLPC had with important African leaders. There’s so much corruption in Africa, that XP was probably an (unofficial/off the record) requirement. Sometimes you’ve got to get in bed with the bad guys to help the small guys.
Where does this leave OLPC in the future?
OLPC ‘Ltd.’ will always be the pioneers to the concept of OLPC. The aim is a noble one, yet in what is essentially a commercial market - pure advocacy fell to the power of multi-national marketing. However, it has opened up a new market in the developed countries too - of Ultra Mobile Personal Computers - many of which run Free / Open Source Software. This can only be a good thing in the long run, with more and more people using FLOSS and seeing the benefits. Coupled with the coming-of-age of Ubuntu, and the fantastic marketing effort that’s coming with that, Nicolas Negroponte can be confident that where his company may have compromised - his idea is still being pushed by those supporting him.
Posted by Andy under BBC, Birmingham, CentOS, Chaos, Control, Debian, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Gentoo, Linux, Marketing, PCI DSS, Personal, Political, Projects, Python, SBLUG Planet, Software, Stupid, Tech Geek, Ubuntu, openLDAP
I was having a discussion with a few mates in the pub this evening about my blogging ‘antics.’ They’ve berated me for blogging before, but as it’s becoming more and more widespread I can see them getting more interested in my motivations for ‘blogging.’
One of the friends commented that it was purely the fact that he knew me that made the blog interesting. For someone that didn’t know me, the blog would be pretty dull and of no consequence. At this point, another chipped in saying - “Only bloggers read blogs.” Is this true? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
My motivation for starting the blog was that it was a place where I could share my technical insights. Not profound insights such as the advent of structural-object-abstract programming methods that I’ve just decided are going to be the Web 3.0 - but short howto’s and the like, and to publish a few ‘Gotchas’ - problems that have few symptoms and a nice easy solution - but take hours of work to solve. I blog advice - There’s nothing quite comparable experience.
(un)Fortunately, which ever way you personally look at it - my blogging has branched out to cover all sorts of things. From the time when some guy smashed the window of my car, to re-living and walking through my car accident in 1999, to a short article on why to avoid Red Hat’s bundled openLDAP implementation because it’s crap.
I think it’s an interesting concept, for non-bloggers and bloggers alike. Who reads blogs? If you have a regular commentator on your blog, do you add him to your blogroll as a thanks for lifting your self-esteem by having him visit your blog? Do you think you have a regular readership, or just random visitors popping in and out after being directed from Google?
I don’t think it’s a negative thing that bloggers read blogs. It’s great. From the attendance at the spontaneous meet-up last Friday, it’s clear to me that there’s a nice little community of bloggers in Birmingham. However, this is a meeting of a cross-section of the readership who it’s worth meeting face-to-face in order to better your own blog.
Is blogging journalism? Is it art? Is it a cry for help from some pathetic moron wanting to share his story with the world? Is it ‘new media’? Does it matter?
I blog tech because I think some people read it and it helps them - and also as an easy reference for me. I blog ‘about me’ as a way to vent some thoughts and get some feedback from an audience who I think would be interested. This audience is dynamic, therefore I categorise my posts different to respect that.
When doing my Psychology degree, one of the things we covered was ‘online personalities and freedom of information.’ This blog is in the public domain. If it were a diary, having it leaked would immediately bring headlines of ’scandal and gossip.’ My blog is sort of a base for my online identity. ‘andylockran’ lives here. I happen to pop up on a mailing list or a forum or IRC and you want to know more about me. Much of it is here. It’s a bit like ‘CV 2.0.’ The web is my field - if I don’t market myself well on the web, how the hell can I expect anyone to be able to trust me to market their products on the web?
The best thing about it for me is the feedback, both positive and negative. Setting up a blog exposes you to both - and it gives you the opportunity to have a voice.
Posted by Andy under Adobe, Apple, BBC, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Microsoft, Political, Projects, Software, Stupid, Tech Geek, iPlayer
My adobe saga is ongoing. I received a further email today, which fails to address my point, and is encouraging me to go around in circles with my correspondence to Adobe.
Thank you for contacting Adobe Customer Services.
We guess your query is to amend the EULA policy, unfortunately that is not possible for now, may be in the nearest future, please stick to the policy, only install on your PC or other wise buy a full version flash media Server which you can install any where you like.
Thanks.
Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Although a side-product of my correspondence may be that the EULA for flash-player may change (or be made clearer) - my main concern is whether or not it is legal for me to use the flash-player on my initially-a-’Media Centre’-but-now-a-PC Computer.
As identified quite correctly by popey in #ubuntu-uk - there’s no defintion for “Media Centre PC” - therefore I shouldn’t be worried on this point. It was my paranoia, rather than anything specifically in the EULA which led me to think I was running a “media centre.”
However, reading through section 3.1 of the EULA makes interesting reading. If we ignore the “examples list” (in italics) - then it becomes quite clear.
3.1 Web Player Prohibited Devices. You may not Use any Web Player on any non-PC device or with any embedded or device version of any operating system. For the avoidance of doubt, and by example only, you may not use a Web Player on any (a) mobile devices, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, phones, web pads, tablets and Tablet PCs that are not running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, game consoles, TVs, DVD players, media centers (excluding Windows XP Media Center Edition and its successors), electronic billboards or other digital signage, internet appliances or other internet-connected devices, PDAs, medical devices, ATMs, telematic devices, gaming machines, home automation systems, kiosks, remote control devices, or any other consumer electronics device, (b) operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television systems or (c) other closed system devices.
However, I do feel quite silly in pursuing what is now a dead end.. therefore I address Adobe with the following.
Thanks for letting us use flash-player on Linux - but please make the examples list more Linux (and even apple..) friendly 
Posted by Andy under BBC, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Microsoft, Political, Software, Tech Geek, Yahoo!, Zimbra
In response to this BBC article.
Looking at the ‘big picture’ we can see that there’s a fair amount of potential conflict in such a merger between these two behemoths - however, there’s also much that MS can gain from a takeover. Yahoo! is a strong brand, but has played second fiddle to google for far too long, in the UK at least.Their attempt at partnering with BT to increase their UK market share didn’t have the desired effect, and Yahoo! are clearly struggling against Google who are even more on the ascendency.
I think there is a clear difference in philosophy between the two “Internet Portals” as they were once known. Google have always been open, and allowed the user to view the ‘net’ as it was. Their homepage historically has always been very ‘empty’ (before the days of iGoogle) - whereas Yahoo! wanted to frame the net and view it within a Yahoo! environment, so to speak. This has ultimately backfired, with the generic ‘net’ far more creative and awesome than any ‘branded’ net could be.In such a way, the relative paths of Yahoo! and MS appear to go down the same path. Providing their customers with a quality service - as long as you’re a customer you’ll reap the benefits. Whereas Google have gone for a more “laissez-faire” approach. They contribute (but don’t control) a number of software projects. They donate their time and expertise in the way of the “Google Summer of Code” - which many companies and individuals have benefitted from - yet they can still wrap-up and package competitive SaaS software.
Moving to a different point, the main worry of this merger (should it go ahead) is what would happen to Zimbra. It was recently acquired by Yahoo! possibly to fortify their ageing web-mail interface. As one of the most prominent exchange-challenging mail server suites - I’m quite worried that an MS buyout could see that project severely disabled in the name of “killing competition.” If so it would mark Microsoft’s first attempt at being able to knock open source development… we shall wait and see.
Posted by Andy under Adobe, Apple, BBC, BCS, Digital Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, NHS, Political, Software, Tech Geek
My recent post on the BCS questioned whether or not I should join. I’ve decided (also thanks to a fantastic response from Mark Harrison) to do so, probably around March.
The main article that attracted my interest enough to write the previous post, also posed a question that I have an alternate view on. The article covered:
Should BCS take a proactive role in bringing concerns of an ethical nature involving the use of IT to the public’s attention?
The main paridigm of the article was that due the the members of the BCS having split affiliation between the different political parties, and therefore the politics of the individual issue - it was perhaps not in its best interests to voice an opinion - as the membership would have to be polled. The issues brought up for discussion in the article were the ID Cards - and the NHS Central Repository of Patient Information.
In my opinion this is exaclty the sort of thing I’d like an ‘independent’ and ‘chartered’ IT organisation in the UK to be doing. I don’t expect such an organisation to promote/demote the actual policy - but be more involved in how the policy is implemented. Rather than contesting the need for this central repository - the organisation should be analysing and offering different methods of fulfilling the functional specification.
For ID cards, the BCS should be using their collective technical expertise to make sure that there are no ‘weak points’ in the infrastructure of such a critical database. The security should be audited by the BCS (paid for by whichever consultants happen to be doing the implementation). However, the BCS should not question the policy itself. In my opinion that is where the BCS would become internally divisive.
Other areas in which the BCS should operate is in analysing future market trends. The BBC iPlayer debate being something I’ve yet to see the BCS have much publicity over. Someone ‘educated and informed’ and most of all ‘independent’ needs to comment on what the BBC’s policy actually means. The repercussions of the BBC’s decision on small businesses and the IT sector in the UK need to be addressed publicly. The BCS are the only organisation (to my knowledge) that have the respect and perceived independence to be authoritative on this issue. Organisations like the OSC and ORG have done a fantastic job thus far - but as they are more ‘radical’ - their views are easily rebutted by the ‘average joe.’
I think this is a desirable role for the BCS to take - advising people like John Pugh on the technicalities and viable options - rather than have people talk about ‘principles’ which are currently impossible to pursue. If there’s already another organisation that fulfils this role, (as I’ll consider joining that one too,) please let me know.