Tech Stuff

July 3, 2011

I don’t like BT FON

I am sure most people who complain about BT FON are actually on BT Broadband… well I am not on BT Broadband and neither do I actually want to use a BT FON wifi hotspot.

So why don’t I like BT FON?

Well it’s an iPhone problem.

How?

Well…. according to my contract with O2 I have unlimited wifi access (or near enough) and I can use BT Openzone wifi hotspots. I will admit that though I like this useful feature, nine times out of ten it doesn’t work as it should and I fall back on using 3G. I think part of the issue is BT, and I will admit part of the problem has to me. Why is it my problem? Well…. it’s much more about my web usage patterns on the iPhone when out and about. When I use the internet on my iPhone as I suspect most poeple do this, I want to use it quickly and for short periods of time. In theory what the iPhone should do is when I take it out and attempt to use the web is, connect to the nearest wifi hotspot, authenticate and then allow me to have access to the web. I can then check that e-mail, check for train times, tube problems, use Google Maps to work out where I am and where I should be. However I find with BT Openzone is that it takes longer than I think it should to authenticate and allow me access to the web. Sometimes I even have to go via the browser first, before I can use an app. As a result most of the time I have tried to use BT Openzone it seems to have taken ages. So fine if you are based in a coffee shop, not much use when just checking the phone in the street. Sometimes I have found that my app isn’t working, realise that I am connected to wifi, so I turn off the wifi, use 3G and everything is much faster and easier.

So what’s this got to do with BT FON then?

Well as you might know if you have BT Broadband you can configure your router to allow others access via BT FON, thus allowing you to use BT FON hotspots and BT Openzone when you are out and about. It’s a ploy or feature of BT to increase the availability of BT Openzone beyond it’s own network of hotspots and use home broadband connections too. Now this is annoying if you are out and about and want to use your iPhone and there is a BT Openzone in the area, yay… well tough! As if the BT Openzone is actually a BT FON hotspot then this won’t work with your iPhone, you won’t be able to use the hotspot and no internet! So for many people they think yay lots more hotspots that I can use with my iPhone. However the reality is that unless they are “official” BT Openzone hotspots which do work with the O2 iPhone, if it’s a BT FON BT Openzone hotspot then this won’t work with the O2 iPhone, these extra hotspots are basically useless.

I am guessing that many of my BT Openzone connection issues are in fact down to these faux BT Openzone BT FON hotspots rather than specific problems with BT Openzone itself. Really it should either be fixed, or don’t use the BT Openzone SSID with BT FON routers.

Is that it?

Well not quite, a recent problem for me has arisen. The problems with BT FON and BT Openzone of course (as you might expect) happen in the main when I am out and about. But last month a neighbour (and I don’t know which one) must have got BT Broadband and is now broadcasting themselves as a BT FON wifi hotspot. As a result when I get home from work my iPhone fails to connect to my wifi network and connects to the faux BT Openzone network instead. I would just stick with 3G, but 3G speeds are not as fast as they should be where I live, so depend on wifi. So as a result I use my iPhone and find that things aren’t working, e-mail isn’t been delivered, etc… then I remember the BT Openzone glitch, go to settings, “forget this network” and my iPhone connects to my wifi without any problems. Of course once I am out and about and connect to BT Openzone in the wild, when I get home again the problem comes back.

Solution, I don’t have one. It’s just annoying really, so I don’t like BT FON…

Of course if you know different… is it just me?

June 28, 2011

Final Cut Pro X Unstuck

The new version of Final Cut Pro X does not seem to be going down well with users. Many are asking Apple for refunds and at £179.99 though a lot cheaper than the previous version is still a hefty amount of money for many. Apple as a rule does not give refunds on purchases from the App Store but for those customers who are not entirely happy with the new version there may be a chance.

I’ve not gone out and bought the new version, though I do have the older version on my work Macs (we have a site licence) I have not really used it in anger, in the main had a “play” and then gone back to iMovie as I knew it and it was quicker and easier to use than what is a professional application.

Doubt I will buy the new version for my home Mac, partly on the reviews, but in the main as iMovie meets my video editing needs.

June 27, 2011

Podcast Choice #01 – TWiT

I have been asked a fair few times about the different podcasts I listen to. I not only have a lengthy commute to work, but also travel a fair bit for work, so it’s vital to me to have something to listen to. This series will discuss and review the different podcasts I listen to or have listened to. Last week I spoke about the why and how I listen to podcasts, now we look at the actual podcasts I listen to.

This week’s podcast is TWiT.

Your first podcast of the week is the last word in tech. Join Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, John C. Dvorak, and other tech luminaries in a roundtable discussion of the latest trends in high tech. Released every Sunday at midnight Pacific.

TWiT or This Week in Tech is probably the first podcast I listened to. The first episode was released (broadcast) on April 17th 2005. Though I only started listening in June of that year. The podcast has evolved since then into a huge podcasting network and TWiT is still there and broadcast on a weekly basis. Released on a Sunday it is usually the first or second podcast I listen to on the way into work on a Monday morning. It’s quite a long podcast so it also covers my return home as well.

So what’s it all about then?

Well as you might guess from the title it’s the tech news from the last week.

However as with any good show, the reason it works and why I listen to virtually every week is the format, the panelists and the host.

The format is a panel format, tech pundits and journalists (mainly from the US, but sometimes the UK or other places) get together and discuss the news from the week. Tangential conversations are the norm for the show, so as well as news from Apple, Google, Facebook and others, the conversation also veers off into wine, food, television and comedy. Though the panel changes, as people come back again and again, it builds a familiarity that ensures that when listening it seems comfortable.

The host, Leo Laporte, is a US based tech pundit and journalist, whom has a track record in tech journalisim going back years. Though I have to admit the first I heard about him, was when I first started listening to podcasts and TWiT. He is very good at what he does in moving the conversations along and bringing the stories to life.

It is compelling listening and an enjoyable amusing listen too. Oh and in case you were wondering, yes I did base the e-Learning Stuff podcast on this format too.

Find TWiT in iTunes.

TWiT on the web.

June 26, 2011

Camera+ iPhone App

One of my favourite camera apps for the iPhone is currently on sale for just 59 pence (ends 26th June).

If you want to do more than just take photographs with your iPhone then Camera+ is certainly well worth a look.

Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or someone who’s barely touched a camera, Camera+ will make you love taking photos.  Everybody has a creative side… Camera+ will help bring that creativity out in you, all with a fun, innovative, and beautiful design.

★ EXCLUSIVE Touch Exposure & Focus for the ultimate control… Set exposure separately from focus for the ultimate control of your shots… simply touch with a 2nd finger while focusing to adjust exposure until your shot is perfect. [available on iPhone 4 and 3GS on iOS4 only]

★ EXCLUSIVE Photo Flashlight to brighten up your photos… Use the iPhone 4 LED flash as a continuous fill light to improve photo quality, especially for portrait and macro shots.

★ No more blurry shots… Use the stabilizer to steady your camera and get the sharpest pics you can.

★ Put an end to crooked pics… Use the grid to line up your shots and eliminate unsightly angled photos.

★ Highest quality zoom… Camera+ has a 6× digital zoom that simply blows away the competition in terms of quality.

★ Scene modes and flash… Most modern digital cameras all have scene modes to help you get the best photos for your particular situation. And why shouldn’t your iPhone have this great feature? Well, with Camera+, you get to choose from several scene modes including Backlit, Sunset, Night, Portrait, Beach, and many more. If you just want great looking shots with the least amount of fuss, just tap Auto and watch your lifeless pics come alive. And for the times when your photos came out too dark, we have a high quality digital flash to make them look great.

★ Crops let you frame your pics perfectly… If you didn’t line up your shot perfectly when you took it, you can easily fix that with Camera+. And when you want to get a bit creative, we setup a bunch of popular crop sizes for you. With a single tap, you can make your pics square, 4×6, 8×10, etc. We’ve even included a “golden ratio” crop to get the most aesthetically pleasing results.

★ Dozens of amazing effects… We partnered with professional photographer, Lisa Bettany, to bring you a slew of stunningly beautiful effects. With a single tap, you can transform a soulless pic into a work of art. Make your photos shimmer with “HDR”… get down and dirty with “Grunge”… fill your pics with emotion and despair with “So Emo”. And this is just the tip of the iceberg… there are dozens of 1-touch effects for you to experiment with so that you can get the perfect result every time.

★ Wrap it all up with stylish borders… With Camera+, you get several great border designs so that you can put the finishing touch on your photos.

★ Share your creations… Whether you want to show your results to your friends and family or the whole world, Camera+ has got you covered. Share your pics on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Or go the simple route and email them from right within the app.  What are you waiting for? Try Camera+ now and discover that you can truly love taking pics on your iPhone.

It is a very powerful photography app and it allows you to use the iPhone camera in ways which the standard camera app doesn’t even come close.

Plenty of ways to share the images too.

Check out Camera+ in the iOS App Store.

June 23, 2011

Steampunk Laptop

Oh yes please, I would like one of these.

This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts.

Find out more.

June 20, 2011December 16, 2019

Podcast Choice #00

In a previous job I use to listen to Radio 4, but after a while there is only so much of the Today programme and PM I can handle… Not that I don’t like those Radio 4 programmes, but listening to what was going to be the news that day on the way into work and then listening to virtually the same programme on the way back on what was the news that day, I decided it was time to change my listening habits. I use to record the radio a fair bit and listen to that, but back in 2005 something was happening to audio and that was the podcast. Though many will argue that Apple’s support of podcasts in iTunes that came about in June 2005 was more of a problem than a solution, it did mean that it was now much much easier for those who had an iTunes and iPod ecosystem to start listening to podcasts.

Now at the time I didn’t have an iPod connection in the car, so I use to burn the podcasts to CD and listen to them that way. Terrible from an environmental perspective, so moved away from that as quickly as I could.

Back in 2005 there weren’t that many podcasts as there are now, but some of those early pioneers are still here and still broadcast. Many mainstream broadcasters have jumped into the podcast arena and in many ways dominate the iTunes charts, however it is still possible for individuals and others to start podcasting. The e-Learning Stuff podcast is an example of how I have gone from consumer to producer.

So how many podcasts do I listen to a week?

Well it depends on the week, if I have a lot of travelling, as you might guess it’s a fair few. If I am on leave then it’s a lot less. One thing for sure though, is I treat podcasts more like newspapers than a TV series. With a TV series it’s important that you catch every episode, miss a week, and you’ll try and catch up. Now with some podcasts, you’ll want to listen to every episode, especially if is a dramatical or story based podcast. Most of the podcasts I listen to though, are more news like and as a result if I don’t listen to that week’s episode, I generally won’t try and catch up. It’s like last week’s newspaper, you could go back and read it, but to be honest who does, you’re much more likely to go to today’s paper and read that!

So what podcasts do I listen to?

Well I thought rather than just list them, I would write a little about each one, and publish them as a series of articles on this blog. It will also allow me to review new podcasts as and when I find them, likewise go back to old ones if they have changed a fair bit.

The first review will be here next week, hoping to do this weekly, but you know how it is, sometimes things will get in the way.

Always happy to hear podcast recommendations though, so what do you listen to?

June 19, 2011

Twitter Problems

The spam problem on Twitter, which to be honest has always been there, for me anyhow, appears to be getting worse.

Like most people I get spam followers all the time, they follow you in the hope that you will follow them back and they can then flood your stream with their spammy tweets. Most people I know are quite wise to them and as a result either ignore them as I do, or report them to Twitter, which usually results in them getting banned and their accounts suspended.

What I however am noticing a lot more of, are the automated reply bots that start their Tweets with @jamesclay, so it appears in my @Mentions stream. They are usually the result of me talking about something or other, usually the iPad, or the Kindle. I use to get about two or three a week, which wasn’t too much of an issue. However I am now getting three or four a day!

I have written before about the “end” of Twitter, but even I have been surprised by the fact that a) Twitter is still around and b) we still use it.

However if the spam situation gets worse than that may start to put me off using Twitter and I can’t be alone thinking like that, so many people would stop using it regularly, maybe try a different service. The problem with people leaving Twitter is that, that is the main reason people are on Twitter. It’s the people, the conversation and the sharing that makes Twitter work. Without the people and the people using Twitter, then it just won’t work; there will be no conversation.

So am I alone in getting all this @ spam replies, or is it annoying you too?

June 18, 2011

Slideshare WordPress Plugin Issue

I do like Slideshare, a great service that allows you to upload presentations and then either view them easily on the web, or embed them into webpages. Thought I don’t do that much on this blog, I do use it a fair bit on my e-Learning Stuff blog where I embed presentations I have given at conferences and events.

Before I went self-hosted, Slideshare had a simple embed code for WordPress.com blogs, which when I went self-hosted didn’t work. I did a search and found a plugin that allowed me to continue to use the simple embed code.

When it was recently updated to version 1.8 I was disappointed to find that on my blog it stopped working. I did a fair few things to try and fix it, but in the end I downgraded the plugin from a backup. Always useful to retain a backup of your plugins in case something like this happens. I had done a thorough search and hadn’t found a solution, and even a posting on the WordPress.org support forums failed to get any response.

You can imagine my disappointment when the plugin failed again, even more annoyed as I hadn’t done anything. It appeared the simple embed code was working, but the Flash movie that Slideshare use had failed to load. My initial thought it was a Flash player problem, but after checking multiple browsers on different OSs and even doing a check using the “normal” embed code from Slideshare, it still came down to a problem with the plugin.

So, after more fruitless searching, I decided to deactivate the plugin and revert to using the “normal” Slideshare embed code. I had to go through a fair few blog posts and edit them and change the code from the simple embed code to the normal one. I guess there are probably still a fair few archived posts I need to edit, but should have them all done soon.

So what was causing the plugin to fail?

Well to be honest I have no idea, but as I failed to find the issue through searching the web, my suspicion is that it is an issue with the web server, but no real idea what the issue is, how it could be resolved and what I would need to say to the web hosts. Maybe it is just one of those things.

June 12, 2011

Scribbly iPad Stylus

Though I do like the finger approach to the iPad, sometimes, especially when drawing or making notes I think I would like a stylus. When I used Microsoft’s Windows for Tablet PC on an HP Tablet, I really did like using the stylus for various things, just a pity the battery life was so bad (which is different these days I know) and the user interface wasn’t really designed for a stylus, worked better with a mouse!

The iPad with it’s focus on using gestures for navigation does work really well, but is not as intuitive for some things and I think a stylus would do the job.

Having seen this video, I think I might be getting one of these.

Scribbly is the ultimate stylus for your iPad or iPhone.

Replicating the look and feel of an old school marker pen it’s ideal for wireframing, sketching and notetaking!

Free your creative side with the scribbly stylus!

At £10 it’s not a bad price either.

Of course doesn’t mean I will be able to draw better… there’s more to drawing than just the tools you use.

May 27, 2011

Back to the Future…

Check out this quote.

Checking out your favorite movie during a road trip. Downloading and listening to the latest hot tunes at the coffee shop. Surfing the Web at the beach while your friends surf the waves. More than ever before, people around the world are demanding simpler, more convenient ways to access and enjoy their favorite digital content while on the go.

Sounds like the iPad doesn’t it?

So was this quote about the iPad?

No!

It was from March 2006, five years ago, before the iPhone, before the iPod touch and four years before the iPad.

The quote above was from Intel about the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). Back then they also said:

The Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) addresses these needs with small, stylish products you can carry with you everywhere you go. The UMPC devices offer ultra-portable sizes and long battery life, plus full PC and Internet capabilities, so you can access your favorite web pages anytime, virtually anywhere!

I remember back then really liking the concept, so much so that I ordered the Sony VAIO UX1XN, which was a great little UMPC computer that fulfilled the dream

UX1XN

So what happened to the UMPC?

Well it wasn’t killed by the iPad, no it was well dead by the time Apple released that. No it was the netbook and more specifically the Asus EeePC. What happened was that when companies like Sony started releasing products like the UX1XN, and Samsung their Q1 they charged a premium price. The UMPC was not a cheap product, it was much more a luxury. The price did drop quite quickly.

When the Sony VAIO UX1XN was released in the UK it commanded a £2,000 price tag. This was a lot of money for a device the size of a PDA (even if it could run Windows Vista).

In July 2007 I noticed my local Sony Centre had reduced the price to £1,600. Still expensive, but 20% off is quite a reduction. Such reductions usually imply that a new model is just around the corner.

On Amazon in August 2007 you could get the UX1XN for just £1,199 which considering the features of the UX1XN (the cameras, flash hdd) makes the UX1XN seem like a reasonable proposition.

In October 2007 it was just £999 at the Sony story and only £899 on Amazon.

UX1XN

Today used models can be have for less than £500 on Amazon, which is the same price as an iPad!

So when the Asus EeePC was launched with a £200 price tag, the concept of the netbook was launched and the UMPC effectively died. Companies did try and compete by reducing prices, but in the end it was impossible to compete on features and low prices were what people looked at.

Pricing wasn’t the only flaw, there were some others. One of the main drawbacks was battery life, iPad users who probably don’t even worry about it today would gasp at the 1½-2 hour battery life with those UMPC devices. These weren’t devices you would use all day, much more a casual device that always needed to be close to it’s charger.

I remember taking the UX1XN to a conference in Cardiff and back then said

It’s small enough to be unintrusive, unlike a laptop which can be a bit of a barrier, it has two cameras which enable me to send images to Flickr or take short video clips, and the keyboard is usable unlike the fiddly mobile phone type split keyboard of the Q1 Ultra. You can also use it without needing to put it on the table or on your lap which makes it ideal in the conference hall or break-out room environment.

I wouldn’t want to write a long blog entry (like this one) on it, but for entering URLs or posting tweets or jaiku postings, I think it will work just fine.

A big flaw for me was the operating system, Windows Vista was rather too bloated for a device which lacked the power and memory of standard desktops and laptops. This would eventually be solved with Windows 7, but by that time the UMPC was just a distant memory. Microsoft really needed to do what Apple and Google have done and create a completely new OS that works on new formats for devices, but that wasn’t going to happen at that time.

Another problem were the touch screens, whereas big Tablet PCs required a dedicated stylus, the UMPC often resorted to a simple touch screen. However with an OS that really didn’t work with touch and needed a stylus, too often you found that neither worked satisfactorily and the experience was not nice.

However many people like me, saw that these early products, though expensive and having some flaws, they really demonstrated the potential of small mobile computers, something we now see in Apple’s iPad and Android tablets. Looking back at the UMPC we can see what worked and what didn’t, as a result when something like the iPad comes along that solves many of the flaws, price, battery life and OS, but still has the the main features of the UMPS, such as solid state drives (SSD), cameras, touch screens. You start to realise the influence of these devices on companies such as Apple and Google.

Many people see the iPad as Apple’s response to the netbook, I don’t, I think Apple looked at the original UMPC concept from Intel and went, “we can do that, and we can do that better!”