Posts by mittfh

Hang on a tick...

Yes, it's all very well sharing tips on how to prevent your web searches being able to be tracked by the search engine provider and their advertisers...

...but all those web servers and databases don't run on fresh air. Companies can either follow the Microsoft approach (selling bloatware to you at inflated prices) or the Google approach (provide advertising space).

While ads could theoretically be context-free, the click through rate would be very low (possibly even insignificant), making companies wonder why they were going to the bother of paying to advertise. However, if the search engine looks at what you're searching for, and finds adverts with keywords attached that match what you've searched for, the click through rate will be much higher, companies will be satisfied they're getting more visits / purchases as a result of their advertising, and will consider paying for more advertising with the search engine.

Google has an advantage over other search engines (other than its sheer market size!) in that as it also owns its own advertising network, all the juicy data you give it remains completely in house. They don't sell your data to third parties because they have no need to. It would, however, be interesting to know how much of your search history is passed to the advertiser - just the search which resulted in you clicking on their ad, or everything (probably unrelated) you searched for beforehand? Also bear in mind that although they can track your machine, unless you're stupid enough to be browsing on a mobile phone with location information turned on, particularly if you're using a dynamic IP address, your Geo IP information could be anywhere within a couple of hundred miles of yourself. As others have said, given most browsers have ad blocking extensions, any information the companies do collect on you will go to waste (other than saying someone that matches your profile isn't interested in them) because they'll have a zero click through rate from you!

Can we have your liver, then?

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,

And things seem hard or tough,

And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft,

And you feel that you've had quite enough...

(You know the rest!)

(Come on - you can't mention organ donation and livers without Eric's Guide to Astrophysics!)

Easy solution

Declare the current results null and void, then re-run the competition after double and triple checking their in-house solutions are correct!

Coding in schools

When I went through the school system in the 1980s, PCs were relatively unheard of, as were ICT suites. Instead, most classrooms had a BBC micro in the corner, and pupils would take it in turns to use it, doing simple word processing in English lessons or LOGO!

I only remember the computerised version (without attached floor turtle), although there were computer-controlled turtles available that could be programmed from the computer, or standalone turtles such as the "Roamer" which didn't require an attached computer, but had keys to enter LOGO-style commands mounted on top of the shell (just below the hole for a pen).

That can get pupils thinking in terms of logic and pre-planning sequences of actions beforehand.

However, the skills seem to have migrated upwards in age - a few years ago, writing a set of instructions for "making a cup of tea" were part of the KS3 curriculum. It's also typically KS3 where they first encounter the likes of Access and Excel, and whatever resources are used to teach them seem to turn a lot off - I had a brief spell as a secondary ICT teacher a few years back and discovered most pupils had a preconception before the first lesson that spreadsheets and databases were hard. Never mind simple control systems (which was a shared topic between ICT and D&T).

Ideally, introduce them to the concepts as early as possible, build on them in a variety of different contexts (i.e. not just as part of dedicated ICT "Now we're going to learn to program a computer"), build on them in computer clubs etc. so that by the time they reach secondary school, most aren't afraid of computers and a significant minority will be sufficiently interested in them to do computer science (as opposed to half a dozen different varieties of "Useless Qualification In Using Microsoft Office")

Find contexts that genuinely interest pupils, rather than an exam board's idea (e.g. the infamous DiDA "Five a Day" SPB), but perhaps more importantly encourage them to think for themselves across the board - DiDA was a nightmare to teach because pupils were too used to being "spoon fed" in other subjects, so expected everything they needed to be done handed to them on a plate. They couldn't understand the concept of spending even half a term doing preparatory work which would not contribute directly to their exam grade (the actual syllabus calls for 2/3 of the year to be spent building the skills, so the remaining 1/3 can be spent on the project itself. Needless to say, the school I was at's preferred approach was a 1/2 term overview, followed by the project, which was effectively spoon-fed them. Marking down previous assessments of the pupils' work (because it didn't meet the exam board's criteria) was frowned upon, and I'm pretty sure the other teachers completely ignored the guidance that stated that the more help you give pupils in their project, the lower the mark they get. That's before the unhealthy concentration on those targeted C+ but currently achieving less, and catch-up sessions at lunchtimes, after school, during holidays...

Of course, the main problem with implementing a decent approach to ICT is that the vast majority of teachers don't have much experience with it themselves. After all, you have to find someone who not only understands IT and is qualified in it, but has the desire to teach and the right personality - not only to inspire and motivate the pupils but to grab their attention within five seconds of entering a classroom (especially the disaffected) and holding that attention until the end of the lesson.

Other companies

Google's hardly the only company to offer multiple products and collate / aggregate information about what its users are doing with them. Therefore surely it makes sense to have a single overarching privacy policy rather than a separate one for each product?

The information they collate is probably used to improve their products, as well as offer targeted ads and search results. Because of the size of their portfolio, they don't need to flog the statistics database (or any other associated info) off to a third party. They also heavily trailed the upcoming changes in advance across their entire portfolio (even including the phrase "This is important."), which is more than can probably be said about many other companies.

Never mind there's a possibility that Microsoft probably have access to a substantial amount of user data - not just from across the "Bing" platform but possibly also from Skype, Facebook, Facebook app / game developers and Instagram.

However, it would still be useful if they provided a means of viewing the information that's been harvested about you, and separate controls to (a) allow yourself to opt out of any / all information harvesting, (b) control what the information harvested is used for (e.g. particularly for businesses it could be useful having access to 'generic' search so they can see where they'd come in Joe Public's searches for their name / products / employees.

Alternatively...

...use your built-in navigational aids - namely your optical processing equipment (eyes and brain).

As others have said, SatNavs are supposed to be a guide only, and are only accurate down to a few hundred metres (so they probably can't tell you "No, not this road - the next one!"). If it tells you to turn right in 800 yards, you don't screech to a halt and take the nearest drive / track / lane then blindly go on because there's insufficient room to "turn around when possible".

They always prioritise classified roads, so unless you're trying to get to the back end of nowhere, chances are they're not going to send you down a single track unclassified road with Cornish Hedges on either side!

Hot corner etc.

It sounds as though rather than clicking a start button, just moving your mouse / pointer into the general vicinity of where it would normally be will cause a full screen Metro-style launcher to pop up. I guess MS think the extra effort of actually clicking the button down in that corner is somehow counter-intuitive, and by expanding the menu to cover even more screen space than the XP-7 versions will make it even easier to find your applications. It wouldn't surprise me if they've seen GNOME 3 and like it (icons for every application you've got installed arranged in a grid, so you don't have to hunt through any menus whatsoever).

Now in the tablet market, people have been mentioning the iPad and Android tablets - it'll be interesting to see if in a year or so's time people are producing tablets running full versions of Linux - after all, the RasPi runs a full version of Linux (I believe it'll be Fedora) on an ARM-11 700MHz with a measly 256MB memory.

Start screen?

It sounds as though instead of a Start Menu that can occupy up to 1/4 of your screen when the orb is pressed, instead the bottom left hand corner will be a "hot zone", so simply moving your mouse / pointer to that corner (without clicking) will launch something that will take over your entire screen.

Ugh.

Did they take a look at GNOME 3 / Unity and think "That's a cool idea!"?

Why are so many UI designers narrow-mindedly concentrating their UI design efforts purely on the tablet market? People have been predicting the demise of the desktop PC for years (decades?) and it hasn't came about, at least partially because the platform (while static) is far more customisable (for both OEMs and power users) than a tablet - including the easy ability to upgrade bits as they become obsolete thus extending the life of the device, rather than having to scrap it and buy an entirely new one when it reaches obsolescence (or in the case of a certain fruity company, when a slightly better model is released in a year or two's time). What works well on a tablet PC where, despite the screen potentially having a high resolution, you're likely to be using comparatively large and imprecise pointing device (fingers), won't necessarily work well on a desktop PC, where you're using a mouse whose pointer doesn't obscure a significant portion of the screen, has a much greater degree of control, and can manipulate desktop objects small enough to be buried under a finger. One size does NOT fit all.

Testing, testing...

Looking at Minty's comment, and the "plain text only" imperative that still sits in the post box, can't resist a test...

<em>This is emphasised</em>

<strong>This is strong</strong>

<strong><em>This has strong emphasis</em></strong>

Can we do ^Super_Subscript?

Warming

It's possible (perhaps even probable) that the Earth is naturally warming - the extent to which anthropogenic emissions contribute is debatable.

It's certainly true that the earth has experienced warmer periods in the past, but in the past the earth's population was significantly less than at present, and buildings / communities weren't as fixed as at present. If a community noticed sea level rise 1,000 years ago, they'd just incrementally move their houses further inland (or even relocate the community further inland).

Over the past hundred years or so, buildings have tended to be more fixed - hence from Victorian times onwards people have built sea defences to try and stop the sea encroaching further inland. So whereas sea level rise wasn't a problem in times gone by, it's A Big Problem now. After all, if due to a landslip you find your house which was previously 1/2 mile from the cliff edge suddenly gets a lot nearer, you probably won't be able to insure it or sell it, and you can't just move it to a vacant plot further inland as someone else will own that plot, so you'd have to (a) buy it, (b) obtain planning permission to build a home there, (c) build a brand new home there (modern buildings aren't portable!), and (d) hopefully dismantle the old home before the sea does it for you.

Regardless of the extent to which anthropogenic emissions contribute, it's likely that reducing them won't stop the warming process. So rather than bleat on about drastically reducing energy consumption, maybe people / organisations / governments can start modelling what effects are plausible (for example, we're already seeing increased instances of extreme weather events compared to a few decades ago - and in the UK although total annual rainfall hasn't changed much, it's more likely to be dry for most of the month then the month's quota to arrive all at once, which puts extra pressure on storm drains and culverts) then start working out ways we can adapt.

Lunar-tic

Well, you can't exactly fault him for having high ambitions...

...and it certainly beats his main rival's campaign claim to fame:

'I believe in an America where

millions of Americans believe in

an America that's the America

millions of Americans believe in.

That's the America I love."

Oh, and deity help us if any of them do get into power and either invade Iran or shut down its oil and gas production, the bulk of which is sold to the the likes of Russia, China and India. Given that China holds the majority of America's debt, it's probably not a good idea to piss them off too much...

Perhaps...

...instead of skipping it, he carefully dismantles it, so allowing him to re-erect it in wherever he moves to (or, if that's not possible, sell or auction the components off - which would net him a bit of money to boot). Of course, take lots of photos of the place from all angles before dismantling so a record's left for posterity.

Easier solution than PINs...

The place where I work (on the other side of Offa's Dyke!) is steadily rolling out new printers with ID card readers: you submit your print job to the queue, then swipe your (RF)ID card, choose which jobs to print out (the software and ID card are both tied to your network account), then log off. If you don't log off within 2 minutes it automatically does so. Incidentally the ID card is the same one that lets you into the building, so if you forget or lose it, not only can you not print anything off, you also have problems getting into the building in the first place...

First Australia, then the US...

...how long before European courts follow suit?

Of course, it's possible that having had a few court cases already, Samsung now know the exact specifications / design features that Apple are moaning about, so can pre-prepare a robust defence (including in some cases finding examples of prior art to debunk the granting of the patent(s) in the first place!)

What's the betting...

It will either:

a) take longer than predicted

b) cost more than predicted

c) deliver less than predicted

d) all of the above

Given the competency of the current government so far, I don't hold out much hope of them being significantly better at managing IT projects than the last lot, so I'll vote (d) :)

Public versus Private

Facebook appears to be designed to encourage you to share everything with everyone (and their dog).

Google+ appears to be designed to encourage you to share everything with selected people (those in your circles), so just because someone doesn't post much publicly (you'll only find a handful of public posts written by me), they may be very active in their own circles.

Perhaps an optional feature Google could add is the ability to display the number of posts / comments you've made across all circles - not the content, just the aggregated total. That way, if you were checking someone out, you could see that they weren't very engaged with the world at large, but were very active in their own social circles.

And maybe, just maybe, it will gain a few extra converts when Facebook roll out their timeline...

Given the large number of channels...

Perhaps rather than use numbering, use a hierarchical list supplemented by a search feature. Even better if they implement something similar to the RDS PTY feature (Programme Type), so a search for 'News' will pull up not only BBC News / Sky News / Al Jazeera English / Russia Today / CNN (funny how ITN decided not to join the 24/7 party), but also news programmes scattered across all the other channels; and 'Children's' would bring up Channel 5's 'Milkshake' alongside the offerings of CBBC / CBeebies / CITV.

That is, of course, assuming the broadcasters correctly code up the programmes they transmit!

User Interface

Surely from a consumer's point of view, a common user interface would be more appreciated than a different one for each manufacturer?

If the EPGs on existing STBs are anything to go by, if the YouView consortium can produce a decent UI and get it through consumer testing, it'll be much appreciated. Some existing EPGs are horrendous, not to mention the car crash that was Teletext Extra (horrendous colour scheme, banner ads littered everywhere)

Not to mention the dozen-or-so different routes STBs / digital TVs made by different manufacturers offer for retuning - how many other consumer devices require you to RTFM and navigate through a minefield of menus to perform a task required every couple of weeks or so (or whenever a new channel appears / old channel disappears / existing channel changes frequency or LCN)?

Cheap Kindle

The $79 Kindle is ad-supported. That's not the version we're getting over here.

What we're getting is the $109 version without ads. That works out at ~£70 at today's exchange rates. Add 20% VAT and the price rises to £84, so it's only £5 dearer than the US equivalent - and some of that might be swallowed up in import duties etc.

The Fire uses Amazon Cloud, which according to The Guardian is only available in the US for legal reasons. They think the unavailability of the Touch versions in the UK is something to do with Whispersync.

Elfin Safety

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere about an organisation that had reported 3,000 workplace accidents within the course of a year.

The organisation? The Health and Safety Executive.

So H&S inspectors falling victim to "accidents" at the BOFH's workplace doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It's also deliciously ironic since the inspector claimed the workplace was a "deathtrap to the uninitiated" yet conclusively proved that for all his words, he was uninitiated himself.

Of course, when there's only one halon release left, they'll presumably entice The Boss down into the server room, so creating another vacancy for the managerial equivalent of a redshirt...

The fansite's a dot org

So it's only logical the court can impose a "no profit" restriction. I wonder (a) how widely this will be reported, and (b) if the unofficial site has a spike in hits as a result...

Then again, I noticed yesterday that there are two profiles claiming to be the singer on Google+, neither of which are verified. I wonder how long the fake one (or two) last... :)

Tit for tat

"You sue me, I sue you."

It would be fun if Samsung recruited lawyers of similar calibre to Apple - and maybe applied for an injunction in the US as well. Imagine if neither device was able to be released while tied up in litigation... :D

At last!

A KS4 IT qualification which isn't about MS Office, MS Office and, erm, MS Office.

I looked through the specs for about half a dozen courses a few years ago, and pretty much all focussed much of Year 10 on "productivity software", i.e. designing databases and summing spreadsheets; with a bit of wordprocessing and presentation software built in. In the second year, they may branch out to web design (Dreamweaver), basic Flash animations, basic photo editing (PhotoShop) and basic video editing (usually in WMM).

Maybe have a module on how to use spreadsheets and databases, but I imagine most pupils won't be designing them or writing complex SQL queries in later life. Javascript would probably be the best language to teach 'em nowadays, what with the web app being king. Perhaps better than how to edit videos would be to how to shoot interesting videos that people will actually want to watch :)

Hindenberg combustion

Hydrogen is (a) lighter than air, and (b) burns virtually colourlessly (to the naked eye), so although burning hydrogen was mainly responsible for the demise of the airship (and possibly the crew members within the nose cone), it was far more likely to be diesel combustion responsible for the demise of passengers, as diesel is a liquid and therefore heavier than air.

There won't be any passengers on LOHAN (unless you count the Playmonaut), and as hydrogen-filled airships had been circling the globe for years without any problems before Hindenberg, there shouldn't be much risk if the balloon does go Boom! You'd just need to devise a mechanism that would automatically detach the plane and payload in the event of premature balloon failure.

@AC 12:13pm

It should hardly come as a surprise, since the current government seem intent to remove ringfencing from everything (presumably with the intention that when the budget is cut, they can point the finger of blame at LAs / schools / privatised services rather than themselves).

FTTC may work for urban areas (cities / towns / village centres) but more far-flung properties are going to need something other than variations on a theme of ADSL. Some form of nationwide wireless access would be useful - for a start it would enable social care assessments to be completed electronically, from the client's home, directly onto the local authority's social care database rather than on paper (as has been traditional) or offline tools (which mean the assessment is lost if the laptop / tablet is lost / stolen between the client's home and the office).

If only...

Zynga games could be hacked to allow you to do stuff without having hundreds of "friends" actively playing the games, or requiring you to part with vast amounts of real money to do anything useful.

Those limitations quickly turned me off the "freemium" "social games", as to make significant progress requires you to have oodles of "friends", all of which are (a) online 24/7, and (b) are willing to throw real money at the games in order to buy stuff with "cash". Oh, and (c) trying to direct the output to Friend Lists is annoying - click the padlock, select customise, select Specific friend, type in the name of the friend list, click OK, click Post. G+ is soooo much easier to send stuff to specific groups of people - and if (when) they develop an apps platform, they can ensure only people who already play that specific game get spammed, that could encourage Zynga addicts away from FB. Although it would be much nicer if Zynga and any games company that either spams contacts mercilessly or runs a "freemium" service are barred from G+ :)

Meanwhile, installing Skype on mum's Windoze box tries to persuade you to install a games platform - anything to do with their Facebook tie-up?

Hmm...

While it may be a rival for Flash (and probably won't drop LSOs on your computer), it'll be interesting to see (a) how long it remains free, (b) if the free version turns into shareware / freemium [i.e. basic functionality for free, pay for increased functionality], (c) how 'clean' the code is. If pseudo-WYSIWIG HTML editors are anything to go by, it may do the job you require, but the code will be horrendously mangled, do lots of stuff you don't expect it to, and take 30 lines of code to do what could theoretically be done in 3 (OK, slight exaggeration there, but if you've ever looked at the HTML code spat out by almost any pseudo-WYSIWIG editor, you'll know what I mean)

I wonder...

...if Acorn Computers ever regretted spinning ARM off into a completely separate company? :)

If only Acorn had bothered marketing themselves more, they might have lasted longer - after all, they had a 32-bit WIMP GUI back in 1988 - that' s 7 years before a certain Redmond based company caught up...