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 BECTA, Control, Digital Freedom, Hypothesising, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Personal, Personal, Political, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
Clay Shirky provides a fascinating insight into how a collaborative approach utilises more skills, and empowers more people than the old institutional model. Rather than coming from an Open Source background, he uses the example of Flickr to convey his point (and then takes a stab at Ballmer). It’s an interesting presentation, and shows how you can make the most of the information/data available in a field.
However, there’s an angle to his talk which isn’t covered in this short presentation; which I imagine is due to time constraints. That’s the opportunity for cross-discipline collaboration, and what that means for us.
One of the more interesting points made by Clay, is that he poses the current ‘$1 million question’ - Are Bloggers Journalists? - and then turns it on its head.
Journalists, and journalism came about to fulfil a societal need. How to communicate with the majority of the population. Gutenburgs’s printing press was a percursor to European journalism, and for the last 400 years or so, journalism has been an integral part of mass communication.
However, we now have a little something called the internet - which, as Gutenburg’s printing press did all those years ago, revolutionise access to information. The infrastructure required to become a ‘messenger to the people’ is in place for people to with it as they wish - create facebook pages, youtube videos, or wordpress blogs. Once the infrastructure becomes freely accessible, the applications of it become massively varied.
In Clay’s talk, he mentions a ratio. 80% of people do 20% of the work, and vice versa, using a lovely graph of the long tail:
An Example of the Long Tail Graph
Though a graph illustrating a different set of data, the concept can be re-applied to Open Source Project contribution. The Green area applies to the ‘core’ developers, who may even be employed by the project. The Orange applied to the people directly involved with the project, and perhaps some power users, and the Red section applied to everyone else.
The wonderful thing about the Red section, is that you get lots and lots of people contributing very little. However, it’s these people who can really add value to a project. With so many projects now existing across different distributions, each system becomes pretty unique. Where bugfixes and irrationailities can be spotted and reported on by end-users running their unique system - the value added is huge.
There’s also a question of expertise. The guys in the Red Section are the programming experts, who are commiting code. Those in the Orange Section are the users/implementers of the code - so will typically have a clear understanding of the direction of the project and the needs that the project needs to fulfil. Whereas in the Red Section are people who use the package, but often alongside other packages of greater interest/relevance to their line of work. It’s this cross-discipline collaboration that is unprecedencted.
Getting average non-geeky end users to use Open Projects is a massive challenge, but one that is going to bring massive benefits to Open Source Software. Some people talk of the digital tipping point from a technical standpoint - “Woo, when we get this critical mass we’ll overtake Microsoft within the next 5 years.” To be honest that doesn’t bother me. Judge MS as you wish, but that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because the potential contribution that end users can make to Global Knowledge, through Open Projects.
It’s going to be possible for a biological scientist and and engineer to be reviewing the same problem for different purposes. It’s unlikely that these two disciplines would ever communicate were it not be for this open project, and it’s also possible that only with the combined knowledge and expertise of these two disciplines, the problem can be solved.
This is what excites me most about free software, and to think we’re only just at the beginning.
Posted by Andy under Freedom, Microsoft, Stupid, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
* To all my friends who have received the SPAM mails recently, I apologies profusely.
It’s quite annoying when you receive SPAM from one of your own email addresses. In my case, it was plum202@hotmail.com.
It’s an address I registered and used way-back-when - and hasn’t seen me using it for the last 5-6 years.
Anyhow, I logged onto it, and tried to close my account. However, I could not do so as there was a ‘billing account linked to your Live ID.’ I was advised to goto https://billing.microsoft.com to resolve this issue.
However, on landing at https://billing.microsoft.com - I was greeted with a message to say “This Live ID does not have a billing relationship with Microsoft. Please Click Here to join.
Silly Microsoft.
Anyhow, I phoned their customer support… three different numbers I was passed between til ending up with some Hotmail specific department. I spent over an hour on the phone in total, and finally ended up with the support guy passing an email onto someone else to take a look.
The best thing about it - the guy set a gmail.com address as the reply-to: address.
I thought I’d ask him a few questions and get him to give me some advice on hotmail versus gmail. He duly obliged, telling me to goto google.com and sign up there ‘or something like that.’
Yeah.. bear this in mind when you next choose a Webmail provider.
Posted by Andy under Birmingham, Control, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
Over the past few weeks I’ve been helping my Uncle out by setting up a few computers for him. He wanted a laptop to take out ‘on-site’ - and a Desktop for a new employee.
Unfortunately, the ASUS eee901 is not yet available, and the 7″ series is slightly too small for his perceived ‘on-site’ usage, so he ended up getting a Toshiba Laptop and HP Desktop - both running Windows Vista (against my advice).
So, three weeks on, he’s not happy with Vista at all. Having already spent a fair bit of cash on the two machines, he was little disappointed that some ‘core software’ (his term) was still not installed. The new “Live Mail” application was also far too complicated compared to his Outlook Express - the change in UI wasn’t welcome.
So, I installed Mozilla Thunderbird onto both computers, and OpenOffice.org. I do have to admit to setting the default file-format to Windows 97/XP/2003 formats though (.doc, .xls and .ppt). I’d like to not do this, but for simplicities sake when dealing with clients - it was the easier option.
Aside from running the proprietary accounts software “Foundation Evolution” - I’ve got the company running on a very open-’saucy’ setup. The best thing about it has been the change in attitude towards the software since originally buying the PCs. After initially thinking that my enthusiasm for the ASUS eee was due to the Linux OS on it - it seems likely that when the 9″ series come out, that will be an addition to the “Construction Computing Team”.
The best new was though that I received a call this morning asking me how to install OpenOffice.org on all of the computers and get rid of MS Office & install Thunderbird on all the machines. With the old setup, there would have been a training overhead in having to run different versions of the same software on all four PCs - however, with the Open Source Setup, all the computers, despite being purchased at different times, can run the same software - giving the users the opportunity to use the computers to help run the business, rather than having to work out how to use that particular version of the program.
Smile 
Posted by Andy under Birmingham, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
I’ve been thinking alot recently about the power of free software and how it could be put to better use to innovate in companies. At the moment, most of it is used to replace old proprietary blobs around offices, and has very much the same components as the old system - only cheaper.
However, with free software there are many more benefits that just being cheaper than paying for a legacy software license for things like file storage and printer servers. There are many cases when I look at small/medium sized companies and see how their entire business model could benefit from adopting an Open Source system as the backbone to what their business does.
In the past, IT has been a tool which allows businesses to go about their business - only recently has it actually become the business of businesses. It’s a shame though, because as more and more businesses sell services based on free software - in essence it becomes standard customised solutions at a slight discount to the client, and without licensing overheads for the vendor.
What I’d like to see is the promotion of open source and open standards, and the ability for as much software to work in tandem with other stuff. There’s a heck of a lot of quality free software out there that companies should be able to utilise. Rather than simply provide free software on a plate, efforts should be made to educate the users on what exactly they are getting. How extensible the packages are and how to utilise them to their greatest benefit.
I don’t know how other people feel, but setting up a new company legally incurs some costs - and when you add MS licenses to the mix, for just a single PC, it can double the cost. I’ve recently set up a business who’d just bought a couple of new PCs. They both came with Vista (laptop and Desktop). I’ve been runnning purely Open Source Software on those two PCs for the company (aside from Vista) - and they’re very happy with all the software, it does exactly what they need. The next step is for me to speed them up, by switching them over to ubuntu. I can see this happening within the next six months. However, I’ll also leave 1 Windows XP machine intact, so they can use it for remote-desktop connection for running some legacy software.
Neat!
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 Africa, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Microsoft, Personal, Projects, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
What a surreal experience.
This morning, I logged into Google Webmaster tools to check what people have been searching for when accessing my blog. One item stood out more than others.
Guido Sohne facebook
Guido Sohne has only been mentioned in my blog once, on an article he wrote entitled “Things have gone too far.” I guess in some ways this article is part of what inspires me to work with ‘free software.’
Guido’s philosophy re: free software
After clicking on the link on google to see whereabouts I came in the rankings, I was shocked to see that Guido has unfortunately passed away, 6 days ago aged only 34.
Rest in Peace Guido.
Obituary of a friend.
Posted by Andy under Digital Freedom, Freedom, Ingots, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Projects, Software, Ubuntu, Update, twitter
OOXML
Unfortunately last Wednesday, MS (n)OOXML was fast-tracked to becoming an ISO standard. There’s alot of controversy in the geek-world about this decision (and rightly so) - but it’s something we’re all probably going to have to live with. Check out Zeth’s Article for a succinct and simple analysis of the issues.
Birmingham Bloggers
In what started out as an offer of some free hosting, I’ve now helped shockhead (Pete Lewis) set up a few Brummie related IT ’solutions’. The biggest one is currently up at http://dev.zrmt.com. Thanks to Paul Bradshaw, we shall soon be setting up a permanent home @ http://planet.birminghambloggers.com.
There’s alot of Brummie stuff I’ve been made aware of this week, thanks to the repercussions from a Bloggers Meeting earlier in the week.
We also have an IRC chatroom @ ##brum on irc.freenode.net.. and a nice non-geeky web-frontend at http://dev.zrmt.com/brumspace.html. For non-geeks, this is basically a 90’s style chatroom. My nickname (handle) is andylockran… I bet you wouldn’t have guessed.
LNMF.info
In tragic circumstances in December 2006, a good friend’s mother was killed in a freak horde-riding accident. However, so that her memory may live on, a fund was set up in her name, and a number of fantastic projects have been run in order to build a boarding chool in Bidar Province, India. I’ve set up a WebSite to keep people up to date about what’s happening with the project, and it’s coming very close to completion. It works well in firefox and opera (and IE7).. but I’ve had some issues with IE6 and Safari. Please check it out (and pass me feedback on how it works in your browser to andy@SPAMTRAPlnmf.info).
Make IT Modular
I’ve been doing a bit of charity work recently, and wanted to share a bit of advice that I think is pretty generic to Charities and Small to Medium Business. One things I am passionate about (with my geek hat on) is Open Standards. I hopefully aim the articles at a more general end-user.
The article is part of an ongoing collection of blog-style articles that are presented in a more professional way than this blog. I often find I’m repeating the same message in lots of emails - so it’ll hopefully become a useful resource that I can point clients/charities to.
Ingots
Now that this blog is reaching a bigger demographic - I urge the new readers to take 5 minutes out of their day to have a look at the Ingots. If you thought that the ECDL was the only computer qualification worth having - this one could be right up your street. The INGOTs stand for InterNational Grades in Office Technology - and are the brainchild of a Tamworth based company. Big up the West Midlands!
Twitter
Twitters proven to be a nice way of breaking up the day. It’s nice to see some random stuff pop up now and again. It’s amusing to see the ramblings of loudmouthman and his Humphrey Littleton-esque style departings. Also the collaborative book review by paulbradshaw et al. I though to be a neat little idea.
Documentation
I’ve been working on lots of documentation this week and my head hurts. I need sympathy.
Posted by Andy under Digital Freedom, Freedom, Gentoo, Ingots, Linux, Microsoft, Political, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Stupid, Tech Geek, Ubuntu
What a silly idea - but It’s not mine.. it’s someone elses.
Why not have a cross-platform document library that can be ‘open sourced’ and thus developed by no-one single vendor as a means of standardizing file formats.
The specification of the file format would become less important - as any changes to the format would be available for all to see. The whole process could be overseen by a few developers repressenting a number of different vendors on a “development council.” This would also allow the format to develop logically and smoothly, rather than the archaic method of jumping up to a new format - leaving those using the old one behind.
The idea of a document format becoming obsolete/unreadable always seemed to me to be a problem for the future. However, I recently read that a Service Pack to XP will make some document formats unreadable. A church in America is moving to the Open Document Format in order to provide continuing accessibility of their priests’ sermons.
Is it practicable?
Can it be done - well. Hands up if you don’t think a group of volunteers can create software than runs 75% of the internet. Doing this is probably more practical than continuing with the current approach. The move to XML is meant to be one that opens up documents - and allows greater cross-format compatibility. I can produce a spreadsheet and a word document using XML. I can integrate and sort things better than I’d ever have thought possible. Freedom of Information is just beginning. Let it continue.