I have reached a settlement with Sky.

tl;dr

Sky News stole my copyrighted work and distributed it without credit or payment.

I asked them to pay £1,500.

They refused.

Full Story

During the recent O2 brouhaha I recorded a video showing how the issue could affect people. I deliberately gave it the standard YouTube licence rather than the Creative Commons licence.

Later that evening, I was alerted to the fact that Sky News had broadcast my video without first seeking permission.

Just did Sky News spot about the @O2 controversy. From sound of what came down my earpiece they also used @edent's vid https://t.co/tBr2SoAp

25/01/2012 17:41 via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@gcluley

Graham Cluley

I grumbled a bit on Twitter and was contacted by a representative of Sky News. He was very quick in ascertaining that my video was used without my permission and arranged to prevent it being shown again.

I was not happy about this state of affairs. BSkyB and News International have been very vocal about digital piracy and copyright infringement. They have relentlessly pursued a copyright maximalist agenda which – I believe – is damaging to the creative industries. Not to mention rampantly hypocritical.

Sky News accept user generated videos, with this stern warning:

Copyright protects the interests of the people and companies who create these products. If the content or product or marks in your video are owned by someone else, you are infringing copyright and run the risk being prosecuted.

It is important that you understand that you cannot take other people’s creations and use them as you see fit.

Uploading somebody else’s video is no different to taking something from a shop without paying. Copyright infringement damages the music, film and television businesses and the future development of music, film and TV programmes.

From Sky News’ Frequently Asked Questions about user videos. Emphasis added.

Sky News have a history of ignoring copyright and infringing the moral rights of authors.

Unfortunately, the Digital Economy Act doesn’t allow me to sue Sky News for distributing my content for free without my permission. An individual can lose their Internet access for sharing a movie, however there don’t seem to be any sanctions against a large company for sharing my copyrighted work without permission.

I don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against Sky. So I decided to settle for cold, hard cash.

Originally, Sky made the following offer:

For a short youtube video like that we would normally pay around £50 & would be more than willing to pay an extra £25 for the fact you weren’t asked in the inconvenience it has caused you.

The NUJ publish a freelance rate card. The rate for freelance video should be around £300 per minute.

I farted in Sky’s general direction. I wanted £300 for the broadcast of the video, plus £1,200. I calculated that as £400 for them failing to ask permission, another £400 for them infringing my copyright, and then £400 for them violating my moral rights.

Even if they didn’t agree with the above reasoning, it is usual to charge four times time standard licence rate when a copyright owner is asked to assign all rights away. Effectively, Sky News had unilaterally assigned all my rights to them – so I felt justified asking for this sum.

Overall, I thought £1,500 was reasonable – especially when you consider that the Daily Mail paid £2,000 for using photographs without permission.

Sky came back with an offer of £300.

I pointed out that s107 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 had provisions for fines of up to £50,000, or a six month prison sentence. In comparison £1,500 seems modest.

Sky replied:

As I indicated, we do not yet agree on a sensible figure for this use.

Bearing in mind you are now invoking the Copyright Designs and Patents Act I have placed this matter in the hands of our lawyers.

This does not represent an unwillingness to come to an agreement between us but, unfortunately, it is likely to slow the progress slightly.

Now I’m waiting to hear back from their lawyers. I wonder what their hourly rate is?

I’ll update this post when I know more…

A Settlement

I have accepted an offer of £300. A few minutes ago, I received this email from Sky:

After consulting with our Sky lawyers our position is that we believe a £300 settlement is a fair and appropriate sum.
Our position is:

• The £300 is in respect of what you describes as “infringement of copyright” rather than any “union rate”;
• Contrary to what you claim, we did not act as if you had assigned us all rights. Specifically, we did not claim ownership nor seek to profit from it by licensing to others;
• Criminal liability will not attach in relation to an inadvertent use of footage;
• English law does not recognise violation of moral rights;
• There is no authority that an infringement in these circumstances attracts four times the usual licence fee. To the contrary, the usual measure is what the reasonable cost of licensing would have been.
• Our offer is generous for the reasons above and we will not increase it.

May I also stress that when you are relating this issue to third parties on whatever platform I would consider it unfair if you did not relay the fact that we immediately acknowledged your copyright and sought to bring redress. I stress, once again, that we take copyright and its infringement very seriously at Sky News.

I’m not a copyright lawyer, so am in no position to argue against their formidable legal might. I have invoiced them for £300. I must point out that – once I contacted them – Sky were very quick to take down the infringing content and have been unfailingly polite in their dealings with me.

I will be donating £100 to both The Open Rights Group and MySociety. And drinking the rest.

Thank you for all your comments, tweets, and messages of support.

Footnote

I’m currently on holiday – so comment moderation and updates may be delayed.

I tried to collapse the probabilities by uttering a most unusual secular prayer for a man…

Don’t be pretty…. don’t be pretty… don’t be…

“Mr Eden?”

Maybe that’s the nurse. She’s barely out of her twenties. Yes. Obviously the nurse. They don’t make doctors that pretty, surely.

“Come this way. I’m Dr Lena.”

Arse. She was very pretty.

“What seems to be the problem?”

Despite acres of research with doctors Google and Wikipedia, I’m still not entirely sure what it is I am suffering from. So I take a deep breath and out pour the words that no man ever wants to hear himself say:

“I’ve had an ache in my right testicle for about a week. Last night… I think I found a lump.”

DAH-DAH DAAAAAAH!!!!!

An actual diegetic fanfare… I am momentarily confused. Am I living in a film? That would make so much sense…

Dr Lena blushes beautifully and flips her iPhone on to silent. “Sorry about that,” she says.

In a sense, it’s an excellent way to break the tension of what is about to happen. With very little fanfare she says, “Ok, hop on to the bed, pull your trousers down, and let’s examine you.”

My stupid animal brain is now faced with a quandary. When a young lady (did I mention how crushingly gorgeous she was?) asks you to pull down your trousers so she can have a rummage, it seems… well… rude not to be…

But, luckily, the more mature part of my brain kicks in. Relax, stand down, think of Margaret Thatcher stealing your milk. Deep breaths. Calm.

But, of course, the insecure part of my psyche is going “Oh gods! Your penis is minuscule! If you don’t at least get a semi, she’ll laugh you right out of the surgery!”

But, of course, she’s seen it all before. Some, no doubt, in a far worse state. Whatever level of flaccidity nothing bad is going to happen.

But simply as a matter of professional pride…?

Keep it together… keep it together… Relax.

Dr Lena locks the door. She walks over to me as I lie prostrate on her bed the bed.

She leans over.

“Oh!” she giggles nervously.

I swear – I am not making any of this up. Honestly.

“Would you like me to fetch my colleague?”

I smile confidently, “Am I too much for you to handle by yourself?”

She licks her lips and calls for a buxom nurse to assist.

Ok! Ok! That last bit I made up. My mind wanders very quickly when I’m under stress!

“Would you like me to fetch my colleague?”

I look confused.

“You’re allowed a chaperone if you want,” Dr Lena explains helpfully. I decline.

“So, show me where exactly this lump is.”

I look down. My penis has decided to misbehave.

In terms of penile span, I appear to have achieved my objective of exactly average length without any hint that I find this ridiculously good looking, intelligent, well spoken, highly educated, dream of a woman in any way attractive.

Except the damned thing is now laying squarely over the offending testicle.

With one hand I gently move my pizzle out of the way. With the other hand I indicate where on the testicle the lump is. Dr Lena takes over.

As she proceeds with her examination, I’m struck by an awful thought. My right hand is laying limply by my side. My left hand, however, is still tenderly gripping my cock. While the wholesome doctor is groping my balls, I’m casually hanging on to my willy like a dirty old man. If I remove my hand now, I’m only going to draw attention to it. If I leave it there, am I going to look like a lonely old man who gets his jollies by self-pleasuring while female doctors fumble around on his goolies?

I feign to scratch my ear. I have a really itchy ear. Yes. Nothing suspicious about that.

“Hmmmm,” the good doctor says. Not the sort of sound you want to hear. “Is that it there?”

She squeezes and there is pain. The pain is tempered by the realisation that I have no interest in dominatrices. Pain, it turns out, ain’t my bag.

“Yes! That’s it!”

“Well, the good news is –”

My heart sings! My penis remains silent.

“– The good news is that it isn’t attached to the testicle. It’s on the epididimus, that’s the tube which runs from the testicle..”

She doesn’t say to where it runs – but we both know it’s not down to the shops for a packet of crisps.

“It’s probably epididymitis.”

All of a sudden I relax. My research indicated that epididymitis was the best prognosis. I’m no longer hanging over the prospect of bollock cancer! Galloping knob-rot is off the cards! My balls shall remain incision free! A weight lifts from my shoulders.

As it does, I realise that I’m still half naked. Only now, I’m half naked and smiling. This somehow makes me feel even more naked than I did before. I literally feel like I am only wearing a smile.

Dr Lena is a kind and noble doctor – and graciously turns her back while I perform the rather ungainly exercise of sliding off a bed, with my trousers round my ankles, while pulling my pants up.

Epididymitis is usually caused by a bacterial infection. It’s just one-of-those-things. Usually.

“The other cause,” says Dr Lena, “is sexually transmitted diseases.”
She looks me straight in the eye. I melt a little.
“Is that something you would like to discuss?” She asks.

In a way, I’m happy that she thinks I’m the sort of bloke who sleeps around, has his way with all the girls, and gets an exotic array of STDs. She’s seen the goods and thinks the ladies about town can’t resist me.

I break the news to her that I am happily married and that neither of us really has time for an affair.

She gives me a sample jar to piss in – just in case.

The cure for epididymitis is nothing more than a strong course of antibiotics. Dr Lena writes out a prescription with penmanship that would make a poet blush, then sends me on my way.

And I am cured. The antibiotics do the trick, my STD test comes back negative. I am a free man!

Your Balls

If you are in possession of a set of testicles, do me a favour and check them for lumps and bumps. If you find anything unusual, pop to your GP straight away. It won’t be too embarrassing, nor too frightening, nor too stressful.

Women, if you want to make yourselves useful, find a gentleman friend and offer to examine his balls. He will almost certainly be very grateful and – if you’re lucky – will reciprocate by checking your breasts.

Everyone’s a winner!

Six Months Later

It’s back. It came back a few weeks ago. Another course of drugs – which worked for a while – and another test for chlamydia and gonorrhea – which showed I still wasn’t sleeping around.

But it’s still there. A dull and nagging ache. A tiny, but annoying lump that twinges every now and again.

So, today I am spending at a urologist. Where I will be prodded, poked, made to give specimens, ultra-sounded, analysed, and exposed.

I’ve looked up the urologist on the Internet. He’s not as pretty as my Dr Lena. Which is probably for the best.

I’d only vaguely heard of Howl’s Moving Castle before I saw the Southwark Playhouse’s latest show – although, to judge from the audience, it attracts fanatically devoted readers.

Entering Southwark’s vault is a treat in itself. Cavernous, bare bricked arches, flaming torches on the wall, and a plain white cardboard set.

A white set. Very Peter Hall, I thought. But from the second the show started the set came alive. Highly intricate projection work, surround sound, video, music, narration, all spun together to create what I can only describe as “live action cinema.”

It reminded me of the Las Vegas show EFx. Magic, mystery, and multi-media. Magical spells shot from the tips of magicians’ wands – in EFx practical effects were used (fireworks, to you and I), in Howl the high-definition projectors cast a dazzling array of spells on to the set and even the performers.

The story was brisk and engaging – although some of the aforementioned devotees thought it should have been longer. The acting and directing first rate. Not knowing the story, I’ve no idea how much writer Mike Sizemore nicked from the original author – although I doubt she made jokes about super-luminal neutrinos – but it’s hilarious and heartfelt.

My only criticisms? Working with special effects can be tough. Used too often (like the fire-demon jumping from place to place) they loose their impact – yet used only once (the surround sound dragon) feels like a wasted opportunity.

In places the music drowned out the performers – possibly due to the acoustics of the room. The actors funnel so much energy into their characters that it would be a shame to mic them up. Perhaps a slight fiddle with the volume knob?

It runs until 7th of January. Well worth seeing.

Yes, it’s a marketing slogan, but I think it illustrates the way we think of ourselves.

Each of us is the star of our own show. However empathetic we are, we only see through our eyes.

As the world hits 7 billion people, it’s time to realise that there is not “an over-population problem”. Rather, “we are an over-population problem!”

Each of us is contributing to over-population. There are many ways we can mitigate our impact – go vegetarian, recycle, practice energy efficiency – but there is a zero-effort solution.

Don’t reproduce.

How Not To Have Children

• Don’t have sex.
• Use contraception.

That’s pretty much it. It’s cheap (or free in many parts of the world). Reliable. And incredibly easy. It’s a positive choice you can make to keep the population at a sustainable level.

Child Free – Not Childless

Being child free is a choice. It’s not for everyone.

The use of the world “Childless” – as though there is a deficiency – is not applicable to me. If you can’t have the children you desperately want then, yes, you are childless – and my heart breaks for you.

But, for me, it’s a positive choice. I am free from the pain, heartbreak, responsibility, agony, and boredom of rearing a child. I am childfree

We’re Not Special

As I mentioned, we’re all stars of our own shows, but that doesn’t make us special. Every single one of us is here because every ancestor managed not to die before procreating. In a Darwinian sense, each of our ancestors was able to adapt to their environment and reproduce.

We have to think of our responsibility to the whole of our society, our civilisation, our species.

It is the act of a monstrous ego to assume that one’s genes are special and deserve to be passed on. Unless you have an extra-special mutation which will be useful to the species, you are just one of billions.

Some Resources

If you do decide to go down the child free path – and it is a choice – you may find these resources helpful.

BBC article with a good set of comments.
A selection of resources and blogs about being Child Free.
Bella has a (mostly female) section about modern Child Free topics.
Wikipedia article on being Child Free.
A (mostly American) forum for discussing Child Free issues.

Most of them are fairly biased towards the female experience. There’s usually some discussion from a male point-of-view, but it is in the minority.

I didn’t know anything about the tax issues while I was working there – other than the fact I had some colleagues working in Luxembourg – otherwise (I like to think) I may have raised the matter internally. Not that the accountants would have listened to me…

Since leaving Vodafone, I haven’t felt able to criticise it too harshly. Partly because many of my friends still work there, partly because I still do business with Vodafone, but – mostly – because I felt like a hypocrite.

As is normal in large, publicly traded companies, employees were awarded shares. Every year part of my remuneration was in the form of shares or share options. When I was made redundant from Vodafone, many of those shares vested.

However, for rather boring tax reasons, I wasn’t able to sell all of them to help fund my new business. So I hung on to them. Until this week.

Two days ago, I sold every last share I had in Vodafone.

I don’t know if you’ve ever sold shares before – but it’s incredibly stressful. The easy way to do it is to set a sell price. So you say “If the shares hit X, sell”. Then you sit back, relax, and wait for your target to be hit.

That’s not what I did. I did it the scary way.

You say how many shares you want to sell, hit a big scary button, then you get given an offer for your shares. You then have 15 seconds to accept the offer!

That 15 seconds passes really fucking quickly. Is that enough? What if I get more next time? What if I get less? It’s like a giant slot machine of doom. You hit “spin” again. In that 15 seconds you’ve lost £37.50. You hit spin again. You’re now up £50 – all in the blink of an eye. So you spin again – it must be on an upward streak, right? Wrong! Down a tenner – all in the space of a minute.

It’s enough to drive you insane. But that’s not the worst part.

Eventually, you hit sell. It’s an elating feeling. All those years of hard work. All that patience. All the times you silently said to yourself “one day… one day”. Now suddenly realised as cold, hard cash. No more waiting. No more worrying. No more little nest egg.

The next day I did the stupidest thing imaginable. I checked the Vodafone share price.

Fool! It was up. Only a single point. But it was up. Had I waited a day, would I be richer? If I’d had the courage to wait just five more minutes? Would I be happier?

What if they went up the next day? And the day after that? Far from being a canny investor, was I just a schmuck? Every time I saw the share price would I silently curse myself for being an idiot? Oh no!

The next day, the Vodafone share price was down nearly 4%! I’d done it! I’d beaten the stock market! I was one of the masters of the universe! I was a share trading genius. Time to pack up my job and become a trader.

Or not. That single minute of panic was enough for me. I don’t think the highs of the occasional win would offset the inevitable, terrifying losses. It wasn’t pleasant gambling with my own money; I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I lost someone else’s hard earned cash.

So, on the one hand, it’s good to know I’m not an utter psychopath. On the other hand, I’ll never become one of the 1%.

I am indebted to Interactive Investor for making my share dealing as cheap and hassle-free as possible.

What am I going to do with my money? Go on a massive blow-out bender? Piss it up the wall? Stash it in the Cayman Islands?

Nah! I’m going solar powered! And that, dear friends, is a tale for tomorrow’s blog…

It appears to show a group of police officers gathered around a blue box. No one seems to know what the box is for. I’m sure it’s got a rather prosaic function – but that doesn’t stop the speculation!

As soon I saw it, I could think of only one thing; chroma-key! (Or Colour Separation Overlay if you’re the BBC). It’s more commonly known as “blue screen”. It’s the special effect which allows you to remove the background and replace it with something else.

So, using my rather unimpressive GiMP skills, I created this version of the image with the blue box removed.

Mike Stead created this quick image.

And I produced this (rather obvious) effort.

You can download the original image or my alteration with the transparency.

I emailed the manufacturers to see if they had any objections – and to see if they were releasing any updates. With their kind permission, I’m posting their reply in full.

Dear Mr Eden,

We are delighted that you love our game ‘Ex Libris’ and understand your frustration about the limited number of cards in the pack, but I’m afraid that we would strongly object to you creating ‘ unofficial’ new cards for Ex Libris that you either publish or post on your web site.

We have several reasons for objecting, but the primary reason is that you would be breaking all manner of copyright laws (UK and US) in publishing these cards without the permission of the author/publisher/agent of any work still within copyright. As I am sure you know, a book does not come out of copyright until at least 50 years after the death of its author. We would be exceedingly unhappy if you were to even suggest that your cards are ‘New Cards for the Game of Ex Libris’. This would create the impression of an association between Oxford Games and yourself, which does not exist.

As you may imagine, it took a considerable effort to obtain the necessary permissions for cards in the original deck. And some authors’ estates did not grant permission (Agatha Christie’s for one) even though we produce Ex Libris in association with the Bodleian and British Libraries.

Finally, please be aware that we are currently working on a new set of cards for Ex Libris, which we may make available online in some form or another. We will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I trust you understand that , well intentioned as they certainly are, we cannot endorse your efforts.

Kind regards

Leslie Scott

Oxford Games Ltd

So, the good news is new cards are coming! The bad news is that I cannot (legally) create my own to share (freely or not). To make it clear, I did not intend to create an impression of any association with Oxford Games.

I am particularly indebted to Emily Goodhand – aka “CopyrightGirl” – for providing a some advice.

@edent mm interesting idea, looks like a fun game too! I wonder if the game is licensed itself? Well, given that Infopaq decided that 11..

08/11/2011 14:55 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@copyrightgirl

Emily Goodhand

@edent words constituted a substantial part, the chances are that the reproduction of a paragraph is going to infringe if you sell it..

08/11/2011 14:56 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@copyrightgirl

Emily Goodhand

@copyrightgirl fair enough. To give the cards away for free would also need permission?But, yes, great game. Worth buying :-)Thanks!

08/11/2011 14:59 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

@edent it'd have to fall under a defence but I can't think of one that it would count as... :-s

08/11/2011 15:13 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@copyrightgirl

Emily Goodhand

The “Infopaq” comment refers to a European Court of Justice decision which stated that even an 11 words excerpt was copyright infringing.

Which, is a bit annoying, but there we go. There is nothing to stop me creating cards for my own private use – or even creating cards from books in the public domain. But nothing from works still in copyright.

Many thanks to Leslie at Oxford Games for the swift and courteous response.

Here are the rules:

• Everyone has to write the opening line of a novel, based on the novel’s summary.
• One player has the real opening line to copy down.
• One other player (the guesser) has to guess which of the opening lines is the real one.
• If you fool the guesser, you win the point. If the guesser is correct, she gets the point.

Simple and perfect. You don’t need to be well read – you just need enough of an imagination to write what you think someone else will think the opening line of a novel is.

There’s a minor problem – there are only a limited number of cards and none of them are very new. There’s no Harry Potter, We Need To Talk About Kevin, or American Gods.

As with any game, it can get a little bit repetitive – once you’ve played it a dozen times it can become a bit obvious which are the real extracts from the books.

So, what’s needed is a whole set of new cards.

The rules say:

Each card gives you the title, author and plot summary of a novel or short story.

The card also has the opening and closing sentence of the book.

So, for example, the new card for John le Carré’s “Our Kind of Traitor” would say (SPOILER WARNING!)

Title: Our Kind Of Traitor
Author: John le Carré
Plot: A young Oxford academic and his girlfriend take a holiday to Antigua. By chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. Dima propels the young lovers on a journey to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain’s Intelligence Establishment.

Opening Line: “At seven o’clock of a Caribbean morning, on the island of Antigua, one Peregrine Makepiece, otherwise known as Perry, an all-round amateur athlete of distinction and until recently tutor in English literature at a distinguished Oxford college, played three sets of tennis against a muscular, stiff-backed, bald, brown-eyed Russian man of dignified bearing in his middle fifties called Dima.”

Closing Line: “Was it sex? Was it drugs? Was it arms? For want of a shred of evidence it was none of them. Terror, the great catch-all these days, has also been considered, but rejected out of hand. No group has claimed responsibility.”

Making It Happen

I was planning on writing a Calibre Plugin to automate the generation of cards from my fulsome library.
It would be fairly easy to extract the author, summary, and cover image.
However, finding the first line from a book is a slightly tricky matter – not to mention how you determine where the last line is.

So I think I’ll stick to manually for the time being.

I think this could be a great way to revatilise a wonderful game. Only a few – non-technical – problems.

Would I face a massive lawsuit from the good folk at Oxford Games? Would the insanity of the UK’s copyright laws stop me?

More importantly, would anyone be interested in this? If you’re an Ex Libris player and would be interested in some new cards – please leave a comment on this post!

• Verizon Droid
• Stock Market
• Hotels

Errr…..? What? If you’re following me on Twitter for any of the above, perhaps you’d like to consider your life choices.

So, I opted-out of Klout.

Their opt-out page is full of feel-good nonsense to try and convince people not to remove their own profile. It didn’t work on me. They asked for my reasons for leaving, and this is what I told them:

Three reasons.
1) You think I’m influential about things that I’ve never tweeted about (Stock market? Verizon?)
2) I didn’t ask to sign up.
3) It’s taken you too long to offer this opt-out. If I’d known from the start I could have opted out, I would have been fairly relaxed. The fact that you’ve resisted for so long to offer the opt-out makes me think you’re not trustworthy.

I am indebted to LoudMouthMan for taking Klout to task. I’m sure that without his persistence, Klout would still be peddling lies about me.

For a good overview of why “influence measument” site like Klout don’t really work, read The Fallacy of Presumed Influence by Jonathan Macdonald.

12 months ago, I was working at IPC Media – doing all sorts of interesting mobile stuff for them. Launching around 28 mobile versions of their existing websites.

I then went and joined WAC for a few months, going of to MWC, and really getting stuck in to their standards processes.

I am currently at InMobi – the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network – where I work as the “Developer Community Manager”. Primarily for Europe, but also bits in Africa and the USA.
(As ever, this blog is mine and doesn’t reflect the views of my employers. If you want to, you can read my work blog.)

I’ve also been doing a bit of consulting for a wide range of clients – the Natural History Museum, B&Q, the FCO, and some smaller organisations.

Aside from working and running my own business, I’ve also been attending debates in the House of Commons, jetting off to South Africa, San Francisco, and … errr … Cologne!

I’ve helped launch QRpedia – which has been a fantastic experience.

Dabr is also going from strength to strength.

So, a busy year behind me. From the way things are going, looks to be a busy one ahead of me :-)

The “warning” alleges that a company put a flier through your letterbox claiming that they were unable to deliver a parcel – and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911. Apparently this will immediately charge your phone £315.

Before we go any further, this “warning” is a hoax. The original scam was closed in 2005!

So, why is this propagating now? One reason that I can find is that this misinformation is being spread by Surrey Police.

When people normally receive a chain email they – I hope – do a little bit of research before spreading it to their address book or social network. But when it comes from a highly trusted source like the police, most people would assume that it’s a legitimate source of information.

That said, there are a few “howlers” in this email that should cause anyone to think twice (and I don’t mean the use of Comic Sans!).

Firstly, the CrimeStoppers URL – http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/helping-prevent-crime/scams/postal-delivery-scam – doesn’t work! Clicking on it redirects you to the front page of the website. There’s a tiny box on there about the scam.

That redirects to http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/fraud/types-of-fraud/common-scams/postal-scam-email-from-parcel-delivery-service-65455465 – which confirms it’s a hoax.

It would be really good if CrimeStoppers could make the hoax warning more prominent on that page.

Secondly, if the police, Trading Standards, and the Post Office all know about this scam – why haven’t they simply shut the number down?

Finally, it’s always worth double-checking, no matter what the providence. A quick Google for 0906 611911 shows hundreds of reputable sites (and the Daily Mail) showing that this is a hoax.

From the perspective of memetics, it’s interesting to see how a highly reputable source can be used for spreading the “infection” of a false meme.

Hopefully, Surrey Police will publish a retraction.

This is the blog version of the discussion I lead.

Kids And Phones

Kids love their phones. Can we use that love to encourage them to learn how to code?

Here’s a great stat about teens and mobile phone ownership:

Two-thirds (65%) of children aged 8-15 own a mobile phone

• 49% of 8-11s
• 82% of 12-15s.

Pretty stunning stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. The only problem is, those statistics are from 2006!

Ofcom has been commissioning studies into phone ownership for several years. They give us a great insight into phone usage among kids.

For example, more recently, we see this gem of a stat.

The correlation between age and mobile phone use is particularly strong, with the proportion of children using a mobile almost doubling between the age of 9 (52%) and 15 (95%).
[...] children are acquiring mobiles at a younger age and using them more.

Again, wow! 95% of kids have a mobile. Oh, that stat is from 2008!

Let’s go bang up to date with the most recent Ofcom study.

Smartphone ownership in 2010 comprised

• 3% of 5-7s,
• 13% of 8-11s,
• 35% of 12-15s.

A third of kids have smartphones. I’m not sure that we need a whole bunch more statistics to tell us that mobile phones – especially smartphones – are highly desirable to kids. Both boys and girls.

Click to Embiggen.

Social Exclusion

PC ownership isn’t as rare as it once was – but it’s still a pretty big barrier to entry. Especially if you have to fight parents and siblings for time on a shared computer.

Phone ownership is fairly wide across all levels of society. As this report shows.

Click to embiggen.

Which Phone?

Before running off into discussions about what should be taught – let’s take a look at which platform is the best for kids.

Taking into account kids’ smartphone ownership rates, we get a chart like this.

While BlackBerry is very popular at the moment, Android has already started to eclipse it.

The rise of Android is unstoppable when you consider how cheap the phones are getting.

This is the Huawei Ideos:

The Ideos currently retails for US $80 in Kenya. Eighty bucks for an Android 2.2 smartphone. With 3G, Wifi, GPS, touchscreen, and all the other fun stuff the more expensive phones have.

Here in the UK, we’re seeing more handsets come in at the sub £100 mark.

There are going to be a lot of these cheap but capable smartphones in Christmas Stockings this year.

However, even at £100, that’s still too expensive for many students. But I don’t think it’s too expensive for schools.

Back in the mists of time, when I was a child, our family was lucky enough to own a BBC Micro. This was one of the first mass-produced computers intended for educational user. Most schools had at least one kicking around. But they weren’t cheap.

In 1981, the BBC Micro Model A cost £235. The B Model cost £335. (Source: Wikipedia’s BBC Micro Page

Adjusted for inflation, that’s £750 and £1,050 respectively. A huge quantity of money.

At £80 per phone, a school could quite easily buy a couple of Android handsets to go in each computer lab – and, perhaps, let them be loaned out to students.

Android Advantage

There are two other app development platforms worth considering; BlackBerry and iPhone.

While BlackBerry is popular (for now) it is an absolute pig to program for. It has a level of complexity that is just painful. Added to the problem is its ridiculous signing requirements and you end up with a platform with is quite unusable for kids.

iPhone is the darling of the industry – and very easy to code for – but has three very serious drawbacks.

1. Expensive. iPhone ownership is low because the hardware costs are so high.
2. Limited platform. You can only create iPhone apps on a Mac. If your school has a few hundred Windows XP computers – you’d have to replace them all with expensive Macs.
3. Hard to distribute. If you’ve written an iPhone app, it is relatively hard to put it on a dozen iPhones – unless you want to get it certified by Apple, which could take a while!

So, Android has the upper hand.

1. The development kits is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and will run on very modest computers.
2. Android programming is done in Java. Lots of free tutorials out there.
3. 3D programming is available with OpenGL.
4. There are no distribution restrictions. If a kid has written a fart app – they can spread it round the school to their heart’s content, using nothing but BlueTooth if they wanted.
5. Opportunity to make money. If you want to distribute or sell your app through the Android Marketplace, the registration fee is only $25. A school or club could easily register and get all their kids work up on the global stage.

So, how do we capitalise on that and get them interested in coding?

I think that, rather than getting kids to program big boxy computers – where they can only make use of their creations in the computer lab, or a PC they share at home – we should get them writing apps.

Not Angry Birds (although that’s great from a physics & mechanics perspective), and not FourSquare clones (although, again, great for geography course work), and not InstaGram filters (could be useful in an art class, I guess), and certainly nothing like Rosetta Stone (may be useful if they’re learning a foreign language, perhaps)…

Ahh…. you see, apps can be useful in most classes. Not just for an optional “programming” module.

More than that, they’re cool. I don’t know if kids still say “cool” – but apps have a high social cachet. “What’s that app you’re using?” “Oh, just something I wrote!”.

Yes, we can start off on “Hello World”, then fairly trivially move on to inputs, then conditional statements, then reading sensors, then drawing graphics…

Before you know it, kids have built an app which plays a Justin Beiber clip every time they answer a question correctly in a history test – but only while they’re in the playground.

Isn’t Someone Already Doing This?

Indeed they are! The CDI AppsForGood team go in to inner city schools and get kids to design apps which will be useful to them and their peers.

I was rather dismissive of the idea when I first heard about it – but I have since seen the error of my ways.

So, my CodingForKids pledge is two-fold

1. Work with AppsForGood to help them achieve their aims. Be an expert advisor to their students. Involve the companies I work for with the project.
2. Find and promote Android programming resources specifically designed for kids. Promote apps which have been built by young students.

We Need You!

If you want to get involved, please visit the CodingForKids Wiki and see how you can help.

I suspect it’s because of two things.

1. We trust our friends’ judgement.
2. We are experts in our fields and, therefore, trust our own judgement in matters we don’t fully understand.

Compare and contrast the following two statements.

On the announcement of the original iPod, one influential pundit declared…

“No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.”
Source: Slashdot.org’s original iPod discussion

On the search for the Higgs Boson, Stephen Hawking said

“I have a bet of $100 that we won’t find the Higgs [Boson].”
Source: BBC News and The Times

One is someone who has studied markets and technology trends, the other who has studied physics. Both are highly respected in their field.

However, one is making social and economic predictions, the other mathematical and scientific predictions.

One is backed up by data, the other by “anecdata“.

In reality – we’re comparing apples and appletinis. There’s a superficial relationship – both are making predictions – but a whole world of difference between what those predictions mean and what backs them up.

The Fallacy Of Trust

When someone – even someone we trust – brings us a new idea, it often pays to be sceptical. This doesn’t mean dismissing anything new out of hand. This doesn’t mean demanding unreasonable standard of proof. This doesn’t mean ridiculing anyone who disagrees.

It means asking some very basic questions to determine their credibility.

When I am trying to assess whether a new product is a scam, I usually ask the following questions.

1. What’s my gut reaction? Does it fit in with my understanding of the world?
2. Does it ask for belief rather than proof? Am I just expected to just accept someone’s claims?
3. Does it introduce a totally new piece of knowledge into the world? Extraordinary things can happen – but they are rare.
4. Does it rely on endorsements from celebrities?
5. Are they asking for money?

This is usually enough to see through most charlatans.

Recent Scams – Airnergy, PowerBands, Valkee

I’d like to take three recent examples of products which bear scepticism.

I pick these because I know some otherwise very intelligent people who have taken these scams on trust. Because they either trust the friends who endorse them – or because they believe they are an expert in one field, so can’t be fooled in another – they’ve ended up backing the wrong horse.

Airnergy

The Pitch

This pocket sized device will harvest stray WiFi signals from the room and use them to charge your phone’s battery.

Gut Reaction

There are lots of “ambient energy” devices – piezo electrics, solar power, kinetic energy etc – so it seems reasonable that you could harvest WiFi energy in a similar way.

But surely there can’t be that much of it?

It seems like it could work – but only if you ignore the basic laws of physics.

Proof

No proof was forthcoming. Several physics experts pointed out that the total amount of energy emanating from a WiFi access point wouldn’t be enough to trickle charge a phone. The physicists backed up their work with equations and links to proof. RCA asked for faith.

Knowledge

Proponents claimed what they had done was revolutionary and such a trade secret that they couldn’t possible reveal how they’d done it.

When it was pointed out that they had discovered a whole new branch of physics and could probably win a Nobel Prize rather than sell a $40 gizmo, they again told people to believe rather than look for proof.

Endorsements

Using the good name of RCA really propelled this scam. Why would a company like RCA endorse such a product unless it was real? Sadly, like many celebrities these days, RCA doesn’t really exist.

Money

$40 for a product. True, not a lot of money, but considering how much it costs to charge a phone, it’s extortionate. To fully charge an electric car costs just a few pounds – paying $40 to save maybe $10 on a lifetime of phone battery charging is a false economy at best.

Conclusion

Scam.

I was in email contact with the inventor. Here’s what he had to say:

On August 27, 2010 4:28 AM, Terence Eden wrote:
——————–
Hi Hank,
Just wondering when the Airnegy will be released.
Or was it a hoax all along?
——————–
On 09/12/10 10:32 PM, Hank Caskey wrote:
Hello Terence,
Our team was showing this product to retailers and carriers at IFA. It is still coming.
——————–
Date: January 17, 2011
Just wondered if Airnegy will be at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year?

And I never heard back…

PowerBands

The Pitch

Wear a hologram on your wrist and you’ll get measurably better sporting performance.

Gut Reaction

No. What could possibly cause this? This doesn’t fit in with anyone’s understanding of how the world works.

Proof

None whatsoever. Indeed, the company is so brazen as to state

Power Balance does not, and has never, made any scientific or medical claims about its products.

Knowledge

Just… what? Mumbo-jumbo dressed up in highly compelling language.

It would require such a huge leap in understanding of physiology that it bears really close study.

Endorsements

Multiple. All from celebrities – none from sports scientists.

Money

Oh yes. Total cost of production, a few pennies – retail cost of £30!

Conclusion

What’s interesting is that there maybe a psychological boost via the placebo effect. But independent testing showed no performance increase. The full report from the BBC is worth a read.

Valkee

The Pitch

If you shine a light into your ears, you’ll recover from depression, get over jet-lag, and have superior mental performance.
This is backed up by scientists.

Gut Reaction

From the earliest human civilisations, “medicine men” have been selling snake-oil. Powerful tonics which cure all manner of ailments.

Indeed, Coca Cola was originally sold being able to cure many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence.

So, it pays to be sceptical of any new medical advance – especially one which claims so much.

It’s not impossible – and it is backed by seemingly reputable scientists – but does its central claim “feel” right? Shine a light in your ear and feel better…?

Proof

This is an interesting one. They claim that several Finish University scientists are working on this.

The VALKEE bright light headset has been researched in a series of clinical tests by the University of Oulu. In a recent clinical trial, 25 severely depressed patients were treated with a daily dose of 8-12 minutes of light with the VALKEE bright light headset. Over a period of four weeks nine patient out of ten experienced total relief of symptoms, which is a revolutionary result. Currently VALKEE is being studied for seasonal affective disorder in open and placebo-controlled studies. In addition, the research is being conducted for other depression types.

Want to see the evidence? Well, they won’t let you.

They haven’t published their data (the first step). They haven’t convinced any reputable journal to publish their findings. The data which they claim to have hasn’t been peer reviewed.

Indeed, last year, they were saying

please be patient and expect to get answers to many of your burning questions during the early part of 2011.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped them selling the device before they’ve completed clinical trials.

Let us, for a moment, take a look at the scientific claims on their “evidence” page – there are only three.

1. “Valkee has CE Class II(a) medical device certification.” All this means is that they have certified the device not to cause any harm. Incidentally, the certification covers everything from tongue-depressors to heart-valves. So that doesn’t tell us much.
2. The research paper is a single page – which, admittedly, isn’t uncommon when introducing an idea. But it is a long way from proof. There’s room to mention the blind trial – but not the results.
3. Finally, their last (single page) paper hints that they’ve found particles in cadavers which may be sensitive to light. No indication that they actually are.

So, this adds up to “We have a tongue depressor, which we think may cure depression, but you can’t see the statistics. Look! We found a thing in the brain!”

It’s not terribly convincing, is it? If they had proof, they would show it. Instead, they’re asking for our faith. And our money.

Knowledge

Anyone can quickly figure out three things.

1. The brain isn’t designed to get light in to it. If your brain is receiving light; there’s a hole in your head. That’s not healthy!
2. Drawing a straight line through one ear canal to the other on a human skull does not intersect the brain in any meaningful way. Indeed, here’s the diagram from Valkee’s own paper.
   
   There’s not much there with which to interact.
3. Even if the brain was receptive to light, and the ear canal was the perfect way to do it, how strong would a light have to be to pass through skin, bone, and blood vessels? Take an LED and hold it to, say, the palm of your hand. How much light gets through?

To believe that the Valkee works would mean believing several highly unlikely things. However – unlikely things do happen. So let us not dismiss it straight away.

Endorsements

Lots of very successful people have poured money into the venture – including Former Nokia Executive Vice-President Anssi Vanjoki, and Esther Dyson. The website and marketing is replete with testimonies from anonymous CEOs and other luminaries.

Anonymous isn’t another word for “fictitious” – but it should raise alarm bells. While Esther Dyson is an extraordinarily clever person – is she a scientist? Or has she simply been conned in the same way that many intelligent people were conned by Madhoff?

Money

This device includes two LEDs, some wires, a headband, and a timer. Total cost to you, sir? €185.

Does that seem reasonable? For a device that will totally cure depression? Total cost of manufacture can’t be more than €10.

Conclusion

Valkee is a scam – pure and simple. Like all good scams it has the hint of mystery, a soupçon of cure-all, a dash of celebrity, and a strong desire to part you from your money.

Dare To Dream

Business is not science. Too many people treat science as though it can be overcome with sufficient wishful thinking and a good business plan. That’s not the case.

Consider the following statements:

• I can turn lead into gold.
• I can cram more information into a signal than Shannon’s law will allow for.
• The phone will replace TV.

I don’t doubt that someone, somewhen, will be able to do the first two. But it requires such a jump in our fundamental understanding to the laws of the universe that it would require an extraordinary level of proof.

“The phone will replace TV” would have been an idiotic statement twenty years ago – but today it’s (almost) a reality.

The key difference is there is nothing in our understanding of the universe stopping phones being TV. Nothing to stop wristwatches replacing phones. Nothing to stop wristwatches transmitting holographic video.

But there is something stopping perpetual motion. There is something which stops light from entering our ears and interacting with our brain.

Don’t get me wrong – there are companies and individuals revolutionising business every day. But there are very few who are revolutionising science.

Those that are about to revolutionise the world demand our utmost respect – and deserve to have their claims challenged fairly.

Taking claims on trust is abdicating our responsibility to each other. We have a responsibility to challenge extraordinary claims. To make sure that evidence is supplied. To protect ourselves and our friends.

There are people wearing power-bands, shining light in their ears, and waiting for a Nigerian Prince to deposit a million dollars in their bank account. Don’t let that happen to you.

However, after having just had a particularly disturbing encounter with a recruiter, I thought it might be worth stating these rules up front. These are personal to me – but I expect they apply pretty broadly to most people.

1. Don’t email my work address.
2. Tell me who your client is up front.
3. Don’t lie to me.
4. Don’t alter my CV.
5. Don’t “connect” on LinkedIn.
6. Spell my name correctly.

Let’s take them in order.

Contact

Don’t email me at work. You don’t know if my boss monitors my email. You don’t know if I’m in the middle of a presentation – where having an Outlook Pop-up of “New Role For You” could be a career limiting move.

This is just basic manners. I don’t know a single reputable recruiter who would contact a prospective client at work.

Oh, and ringing my work number and telling the receptionist that you’ve got a job for me? Not smart.

Don’t bother contacting me through my LinkedIn profile. If you can’t find my phone number and email address, I don’t want you representing me. I’m not going to add you as a contact until after you get me a job – although I’ll happily introduce you to other suitable candidates if I can.

Who

I’ve pissed off a lot of recruiters by asking this simple question. I have my reasons.

To start with, there are certain companies I don’t want to work for. In addition, I can’t craft a CV or application unless I know who it is going to.

I’ve no desire to work hard on an application only to find out the role is for a company which tests cosmetic cigarettes on kittens.

Second, and more prosaically, I need to know where it is in order that I can see if I want to commute there.

Essentially, after a lot of effort, I don’t want to find that you want me to work on the outskirts of Wapping for the News of the World.

Very occasionally, I let the recruiter play the “I can’t tell you – but I’ll give you a clue” game. That’s where they don’t break client confidentiality – but say “A large religious organisation whose nearest Tube station is Goodge Street.” That way I don’t waste anyone’s time by applying to the Scientologists.

Don’t Lie

Don’t tell me you have a killer job at NASA when you don’t. Because, regardless of the company, I’ll check it out myself to see if the job really exists – or if you just want to put more clients on your books.

Don’t say that they’re looking for senior position when they want a junior.

Don’t say they’re willing to pay top-dollar. Give me the salary bands and let me discuss that with the company.

Don’t say they’re happy for me to serve a 3 month notice period – when they need someone to start ASAP.

Annoyingly, I’ve had all of the above happen to me.

My CV

I wouldn’t claim my CV is a work of art – but I’ve spent some time perfecting it. It’s designed to get me through the door and in to an interview – and it works.

I’m always happy to take advice about what sort of parts to emphasise but I’m not going to drastically change it.

If you really want me to take off my phone number and email address, I won’t. Any competent company will Google me to find it.

Do not, under any circumstances, alter what I put on there. If I go to an interview am asked about something which I didn’t include on my original CV, I will not be best pleased.

I now, as a rule, only provide PDF CVs. That way, there’s less chance of a recruiter altering my work.

LinkedIn

If I haven’t worked with you – I’m not going to connect with you. If nothing else, it sends off a big red flag to my co-workers that I’m planning on moving.

If you try to connect to me on LinkedIn, it tells me two things about you.

1. You’re too cheap to buy InMail. You don’t need to send me a bogus request – you can pay to email me.
2. You couldn’t be bothered to do an Internet search for my email address.

In either case, the answer is the same; “no”!

Spelling

Bonus! Suggested by Mat Stace.

If a job pimp sends unsolicited email, and spells your name incorrectly, it's fine to be a bit rude in your reply, right?

22/09/2011 23:47 via Twitterrific for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@MatStace

Mat Stace

I get this so often. My name is “Terence”. Get the right number of Es and Rs, please. Note: the letter A should be conspicuous in its absence.

Conclusion

I’m always happy to hear from recruiters – as long as they’re happy to follow the above rules.

If I can’t take the job you’re offering, I’ll be happy to recommend someone else.

The absolute highlight of the trip was being eaten by a lion!

If you’re in Joburg, visit Lion Park – an amazing place.

Other highlights included….

I went up Table Mountain.

I saw Robbin Island from Signal Hill.

I visited the Apartheid Museum.

I used Untappd to check in to some great South African beers & ciders.

I discovered just how well used SMS is in South Africa.

Want to know how big SMS is in South Africa? http://t.co/M5mLWz7

26/08/2011 17:20 via TwitpicReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

As well as learning about Africa’s mobile movie scene – including feature films shot entirely on mobile.

I found a phone / taser.

This "phone" is a multi-shock taser. Yours for ~60. Shocking! http://t.co/WKzJX6i

26/08/2011 12:26 via TwitpicReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

And I saw some great hotel lighting UE.

Every single hotel room should have light switches like this #UI #UX #DesignOfEverydayThings http://t.co/R4GMrHS

25/08/2011 05:37 via TwitpicReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

South Africa was an amazing place to visit. Friendly people, beautiful scenery, and great beer. I hope I can go back there on a proper holiday soon.

Twitter’s way of linking URLs is broken. It’s annoying to users, and a pain in the arse to developers. This quick post talks about the problem and offers a solution.

I’ve raised a bug with Twitter and I hope you’ll star it as important to you.

Preamble

A common trope in programming classes is “how do you detect valid email address?”

It should be obvious, right? A string of text, an @, a domain – probably ending in .com.
As it turns out, it’s not that simple. “who+o’toole@invalid.museum” is a potentially valid address, for example.
There are literally thousands of ways to detect the potentially infinite variety of email addresses.

The same is true for URLs – and slavish adherence to guidelines is killing Twitter’s usefulness.

The URL Matching Problem

Which of these strings should be turned into hyperlinks?

www.bbc.co.uk

example.com

http://test

https://test.test

ftp://news.com

As it happens, Twitter only matches “https://test.test” and none of the others.

Twitter’s matching regex is, as far as I can tell, this

If it starts with http:// or https:// and has a dot in it - it's a URL

I think this is a serious weakness. Twitter users are sharing URLs which their followers can’t click on – Twitter is also linking to URLs which don’t exist.

I’ve picked these examples more or less at random.

Solution?

Much like the email regexes, I would take a much more lax approach. Essentially, if it looks vaguely like a URL – link to it.

I would suggest the following rules:

• If it starts with a protocol – http:// ftp:// tel: etc – create a hyperlink.
• If it starts with www. – create a hyperlink.
• If it ends . then a valid TLD – create a hyperlink.
• If it contains a valid TLD followed by a slash then some other characters – create a hyperlink.

The “correct” method would then be for Twitter to perform an HTTP HEAD request to see if the URL is potentially valid. There are three drawbacks to this.

1. It may place excessive load on Twitter’s servers to process and cache these requests.
2. The URL may be that of an Intranet site – and thus inaccessible to Twitter.
3. The URL may be valid but temporarily inaccessible.

Regardless of the method, surely it’s inexcusable that “www.example.com” isn’t detected as a URL whereas “http://bork.bork.bork” is?

ACTION!

If you think Twitter’s approach to hyperlinks is wrong – please make your voice heard at the bug report.

Four cities, three countries, two weeks, one massive continent. Africa.

I’m flying down with InMobi, my employers (this blog post is personal and doesn’t reflect company policy etc).
We’ll be visiting all the local mobile developers and researchers and seeing how we can help them. I’ll be posting work related stuff on the official InMobi blog – but I’ll be posting on shkspr.mobi any personal thoughts, reflections, and fears.

FEAR!

Yes, I have the fear. I’m fairly well travelled, but I’ve never been to Africa. I’m excited, full of wanderlust, and a tiny bit terrified!
Perhaps, gentle reader, you can help put my mind to rest over some of the concerns I have.

Vegetarian Food

Even in Western Europe and the USA, I can’t always be guaranteed of getting a vegetarian meal in a restaurant. What’s the situation like in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria for vegetarians?
I’ve been advised not to eat salads because they’re often washed in tap water – should I just surrender my principles and eat a bit of meat while I’m out there?

Mobile Technology

All the countries I’m visiting have good GSM coverage – that’s partly why I’m going!
I’ll be taking along my Android phone, and probably a backup device. But what about roaming costs?
Should I buy a local SIM while I’m out there – or will I get better rates with Truphone or Maxroam?
I’m only going to be a few days in each country – are there any pan-African solutions?
Solar chargers and emergency batteries are also a good idea – any tips on which ones are good?

Health

I’ve just received all the vaccines I’ll need, plus anti-maleria tablets. Any recommendations for lotions, potions, or pills to prevent getting sick while I’m out there?

Anything Else?

Like I said, this will be my first time in Africa. Are there any other bits of advice you can give this nervous traveller?

Why are you following me?

I know who I want to share my “I hate my job” posts, and “Oh, my cat is so cute” pictures – but I talk about a wide range of things, not all of which you’ll be interested in.

At the moment, I’ve got nearly 150 people following me – and I don’t know which circle to put them in!

So I asked a simple question – what do you want to hear from me – and got a staggering response.

This is something Nik Butler and I have discussed.

Google needs to let people choose which circles to follow.

I imagine a UI which allows me to set a circle as private (“Work”, “Family”, “Political ranting”) and set some circles as public (“Kitten pictures”, “Industry News”, “Political thoughts”).

When you follow me, you can say “I hate kittens, but I love politics – I’ll follow one circle and ignore the others.”

At the moment, I don’t have the time to categorise 200 people into what I think they’re interested. And they don’t want to be bombarded with QR codes when all they really want is LOLCATS.

So, come on Google, sort it out – let people choose which circles they want to be in.

Please RT!

Today, I am pleased to announce that Chinese artist, political prisoner, and sower of porcelain sunflower seed, Ai Weiwei uses dabr!

On last night’s Newsnight, as part of a package on Ai Weiwei’s release, they showed him using Twitter. Here’s a screenshot.

Click for larger image

One interesting thing, none of the user’s avatars appear. That’s because, at a guess, the images are retrieved from Twitter’s servers which are blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Indeed, if we zoom in on the text we can see the letters “GFW”.

My Mandarin is too rusty to translate the rest – can anyone else help?

So, looks like my next addition to Dabr will be to use an image proxy to ensure avatar images make it through China’s firewall!

Thanks to Kristian Carter for alerting me.

Ai Weiwei uses @dabr! #Newsnight

22/06/2011 22:15 via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@Kristiansblog

Kristian Carter

Awesome!

As you've discovered I will become @ITVLauraK in September! Thanks for all the lovely tweets - Back in Westminster tomorrow

22/06/2011 13:31 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@BBCLauraK

Laura Kuenssberg

Which got me wondering.

Why doesn't @BBCLauraK simply rename her account to @ITVLauraK in September? Or are her followers the BBC's property?

22/06/2011 13:48 via Shkspr's SSL DabrReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Twitter allows any user to change their name and keep all their followers. All of Laura’s followers, friends, favourites, tweets, retweets, and lists will dissapear when she swaps to a new account.

Or will they? Is @BBCLauraK the twitter account for the BBC’s Chief Political Correspondent? Or is it Laura’s account?
If the former, I’d expect it to be taken over by her successor and renamed @BBCgordonGopher (or whoever).
If the latter, it makes sense for her to rename the account to @ITVlauraK (or whatever).

Looking at her feed, it’s broadcast only with almost no “personal” tweets. Certainly no “Urgh, hungover” or “Trains late again!” tweets.

So, it probably makes sense for Laura to hand over control of the account when she leaves.

Impact On You

How much work tweeting do you do from your Twitter account? If you left your job, would your bosses be able to demand you surrender the account to them?

Sure, if you’re tweeting from @NameOfYourCompany – it’s their account. But if you’re @CompanyName_Bob – do you get to keep it when you go? What if you’re just @You – and you tweet about the company you work for – what happens to all that good-will when you go?

Work Phone vs Work Email

When I first joined Vodafone nearly a decade ago, I was given a mobile phone number. Our office was quite revolutionary because there we no desk phones! Of course not; we were in the mobile phone business.

This confused some people greatly. I’d give them my number and they’d say “yes, but how can I reach you at your desk?”
And I’d say “Errrr…. I always have my mobile with me. Assuming it’s me you want to reach, ring that number. Why would you want to talk to someone who happened to be sitting near where I work?”

Since then, I’ve kept the same mobile number. If you want to reach me – that’s the number you call. No matter who I end up working for, that’s my number. When I move roles, I take my number with me. When I leave a job, I take my number with me.

Yet I don’t take my email address with me. Mails to terence.eden@vodafone.com will go unanswered – I hope!
I can understand that – I don’t want confidential documents forwarded to me. The domain name would make it look like I was still affiliated with an old employer.

But my phone number comes to me, Terence Eden. Wherever I am. Whoever I work for.

My Twitter account – @edent – is personal. It’s mine. No boss can take it away from me.

What about yours?

I’ve finally received a reply…

Dear Terence,

Some time ago you contacted us regarding the following eBook title, “One of Our Thursdays is Missing (eBook): Thursday Next Series, Book 6″ (ISBN: 9781444713039). We have had our eBook supplier investigate the content issue of this eBook title in conjunction with the publishers. They have confirmed that this title has been corrected.

Our suppliers have said, “We apologize for any delay that it has taken to resolve this issue. Issues with content require corrections from the publisher and can often take weeks or months to resolve.
Unfortunately the time it took to correct this issue was due to delays from the publisher and not OverDrive.”

You will now be able to purchase and download the correct content for this title if you wish to do so. Please accept my apologies for the delay.

Kind regards,

In fairness, they did refund the cost of the ebook. Rather annoyingly, they revoked my access to download it again.

I realise that it must take some time to find a sober editor in a publishing company – but 12 weeks to replace one image with another really doesn’t seem right.

It’s sloppy errors and poor customer service like this which will kill the eBook revolution.

Or, perhaps, that’s just what some publishers want…?

Let me explain…

“The two things you’ve got to spend your money on in life are your bed and your shoes; if you’re not in one, you’re in the other.”
Ancient proverb

I have been prone to RSI in my hands and wrists. Seeing as I make my living using my hands to make computers do magical things, I think it’s wise to spend money to protect my hands.

“The two peripherals you’ve got to spend your money on in life are your keyboard and your mouse; if your hands aren’t on one, they’re on the other.”
Terence Eden

I may detail my love of my keyboard – the Microsoft 4000 – in another post. For now, let’s talk mice!

Or, skip straight to the Linux install instructions.

Three Generations of Mice

I’m in love with the Evoluent Vertical Mouse. I got my first (the generation 2) in 2007. A few years later I got a 3rd generation so I could use one at home and one at work.
Enter the 4th generation – the VM4R. There’s a VM4L for those sinister south-paws, and a VM4S for those with smaller hands.

Here’s all three of my mice playing together.

The VM4R is similar in size and shape to the previous versions.

It has a wider base and a larger lip to stop your finger from dragging along the desk.

Unboxing

No tech review is complete without an unboxing. Here’s mine.

Impressively, Evoluent use “environmentally-responsible” packaging. Essentially a cardboard box and some bubble wrap. I was nervous that this wouldn’t be enough to protect it in transit – but the mouse is pretty tough.
The box contains some brief instructions and a mini-cd containing Windows drivers.

The Good

There’s just so much to love about this mouse! I’ll contain myself to a few points.

Vertical = Less Pain

Pain and comfort are subjective. But since using the Vertical Mouse range, my wrists have been free of pain.
There are a vast number of reviews on the Evoluent website, including this one:

“The vertical mouse received very good feedback from the product testing. Our product testing team of physical therapists, ergonomists, MD’s and administrators found the mouse to be comfortable, easily adaptable and promoted a neutral wrist/forearm postures.”
Greg Ryan, University Health Services, University of California at Berkeley

I can’t say that this will fix your health problems – and you should certainly see a doctor immediately if you’re experiencing RSI – but this device has bought back the joy of computing for me.

Thumb Buttons

My index finger is near worn out from 3 decades of clicking crappy mice. I’m now able to map the buttons so that my thumb can click. A lifesaver for me. As a bonus – anyone who sits at my desk finds themselves unable to fiddle with anything because they can’t work out how to click!

The VM4R now comes with two thumb buttons. I’m not sure what use I’ll put the other one to yet!

The Need For Speed

The VM4R comes with a dedicated button for switching the speed of the mouse pointer.

A simple click sets the speed which can easily be seen via the LEDs.

This is a vast improvement on the 3rd gen model where the button was underneath the device.

The advantage is that you can use a high-speed mouse so you don’t have to move your wrist or arm very far as you go from one end of the screen to the other. It also means you can rapidly change to a lower sensitivity when you’re working on something which needs very fine grained control – like pushing pixels in Photoshop. I imagine this mouse is great for gamers who require a fast reacting device.

The Bad

There’s very little that I would change with this mouse. I note three minor quibbles.

Scroll Wheel Clicking

Scrolling with the wheel makes a really loud clicking sound. With the 2nd generation mouse there was no clicking. The third generation lightly clicks as you scroll. The clicking on the VM4R is loud and, to my fingers, slightly stiff.

Personally, I prefer a free-spinning wheel. But it’s not the end of the world.

Suitability of Chrome

Fingers sweat. It’s not pretty, but there it is. Human skin leaks all kinds of gunk – some of which is corrosive. I found the surface of my 2nd generation mouse was gently worn away over time.

The 3rd gen mouse is made from a different material which doesn’t seem to suffer from this problem.

The chrome on the VM4R looks lovely – but I wonder how long it will remain pristine. It’s already picking up fingerprints.

LED

There’s no way to turn off the glowing Evoluent LED. I doubt it’s much of a power drain, but it’s the sort of thing that might get a bit annoying in the dark.

…and The Beautiful

It looks like a spaceship!

This is a gorgeous mouse. The lights, the chrome, the shape, all conspire to make it an eye-catcher. Expect to get lots of questions about it if you’re in a busy office.

Buy It Now

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending the Evoluent line of pointing devices.
You can buy the Evoluent VM4R from Amazon (affiliate link) or directly from Evoluent (although international shipping is expensive).
The upgrades in VM4R are impressive – but if you don’t often need to change pointer speed, or use thumb buttons, buy the VM3.

Linux Geekyness

The basic mouse functions work automagically in Linux (tested on Ubuntu 9.10 and higher). The buttons are responsive, the wheel scrolls, changing the pointer speed works, etc. A point to note is that the the wheel click does not paste – to get that, you’ll need to remap the buttons.

Remapping the buttons is slightly trickier, however. Not least because of Ubuntu’s seemingly random changes to how it handles pointing devices. If you’re happy with the buttons just as they are, you’ll be fine. If you need to remap the buttons due to mobility issues, read on….

A quick “xinput list” gives us the device name.

"Evoluent VerticalMouse 4"	id=8	[XExtensionPointer]
	Type is MOUSE
	Num_buttons is 14
	Num_axes is 2
	Mode is Relative
	Motion_buffer is 256

Despite reporting 14 buttons, there are only 6 physical buttons available.
Running

xinput query-state "Evoluent VerticalMouse 4"

tells us which buttons are being pressed down. Here are the results (the brackets signify the action, if any, that happens when you click the button).

1. Index Finger (Left click)
2. Ring Finger (Middle click)
3. Little Finger (Right click)
4. Scroll Up
5. Scroll Down
6. -
7. -
8. Top Thumb
9. Wheel Click
10. Bottom Thumb
11. -
12. -
13. -
14. -

Remapping The Buttons

There are two ways of remapping buttons. The lazy way and the correct way.

The “Lazy Way” – xinput

We can use xinput to set which buttons do what. The command is pretty simple

xinput set-button-map "Evoluent VerticalMouse 4" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
                                      Button 1---| | |
                                        Button 2---| |
                                          Button 3---|

So the first number is what you want Button 1 to do. So, if you want your index finger to be the wheel-click, and all other buttons to stay the same, the command is

xinput set-button-map "Evoluent VerticalMouse 4" 9 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I like to have my thumb be the clicker, the wheel click paste, my ring finger right click, the index finger and little finger do nothing. So I use

xinput set-button-map "Evoluent VerticalMouse 4" 0 3 0 4 5 6 7 1 2

You can get that command to ruin at start-up. Different versions of Linux will do it differently – I’ve detailed some of the ways you can do this in Ubuntu in the forums.

The “Correct Way” – Xorg.conf.d

Ubuntu has an annoying habit of switching around how you configure the mouse – and no easy way to configure it graphically! This method should work on Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04.

Running lsusb tells us that the USB ID is

1a7c:0191

Create a new conf file

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-evoluent.conf

Use the following as a template

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier      "Evoluent"
        MatchUSBID      "1a7c:0191"
        Option "ButtonMapping" "0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 10 11"
EndSection

Substitute your own USB ID and preferred button mapping.

Hey presto! Your buttons are mapped.

Another year, another OpenTech. I found last year’s OpenTech conference to be awe-inspiring. This year’s was equally good.

This is a quick rundown of the sessions I attended that I found particularly interesting.

How can we win the Information Wars?

A roundup of what the Open Rights Group has been doing over the last year.

Always good to hear from them. Interesting to learn about the tensions of being up against a company for some issues – yet supporting them in others. Good to see that they’re still banging away at the digital civil liberties drum.

Ada Lovelace Day

Once again, Suw eloquently demonstrated the need to get more women interested in “tech” by promoting positive role models. The Finding Ada project runs an international event to help raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Codifying sustainability

How can you trust what you read in a report?

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035″.
Source: BBC News

In the “good old days” we relied on footnotes which, imperfectly, lead us to the original research.

The AMEE project aims to provide an unimpeachable set of references for every claim – allowing you to track the providence of a quote, statistic, or datum. Vitally important.

Building Digital Culture for Free: Can the Hacker Ethic and Comons-Based Peer Production make a better world?

Bill Thompson is always an entertaining speaker. Here, he was discussing whether “hackers” have won the culture wars.
You can buy The Hacker Ethic on Amazon (including Kindle). Very reasonably priced.

This raised two interesting questions.

1. How many deaths were caused by Gutenberg and, ultimately, did his invention help propagate his world view? In other words, is Open Source being turned against us?
2. Are our inventions too disruptive to find acceptance in the mainstream?

At times, the questions started to get a bit political – especially around the true definition of Open Source.

#opentech "SPLITTERS!" it's all getting a bit People's Front of Judea in here.

21/05/2011 14:24 via Shkspr's SSL DabrReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Fluffy and poisonous – Why UKuncut has worked and how you can help.

I’ve been reasonably impressed at how quickly UKuncut has gathered grass-roots support around what is, potentiall, a dull subject – tax avoidance. I doubt the trades-union would have been able to garner anything like the support we’ve seen for UKuncut.

But I question whether they have been all that effective. Vodafone’s share price has risen dramatically and they are constantly among the top UK brands.

#OpenTech I really don't think agitprop theatre has ever worked. I don't think @UKuncut is any different

21/05/2011 14:03 via Shkspr's SSL DabrReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

The answer I got back was well thought out and – to my mind – very helpful in understanding their aims.

#OpenTech very impressed with @UKuncut's answers. Like the idea of "gateway activism" & memetic seeding.

21/05/2011 14:33 via Shkspr's SSL DabrReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Watching the Press

#opentech really impressed with @davorg's simple deconstruction of how the press lies.

21/05/2011 15:25 via Shkspr's SSL DabrReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Outpost

This was Tim Ireland’s idea to crowd-source fact-monitor all MPs. A fine and noble idea and very well presented.

My only concern is that it avoids becoming partisan. I don’t care if Politician X is a socialist, capitalist, atheist, or church-goer. They shouldn’t be attacked for that. They should be held to account for any dodgy-dealing, fact free agitating, and dishonest conduct. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.

QR Codes – easy access to data

My slot! Prior to the event, I was interviewed by Imperica. I spent the first half of the day sticking Avery labels with QR codes all over the building.

Video

Slides

Reaction

I’ll let other people commentate on my presentation.

#opentech QR codes trumps Google Refine as the most exciting thing. Snap the code on your camera and get data back - get data, link to data

21/05/2011 16:26 via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@pdbrewer

Paul Brewer

future possibilities for use of QR codes - councils need to get with these opportunities #opentech http://yfrog.com/h891651009j

21/05/2011 16:33 via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@anngriffx

Ann Griffiths

Great #OpenTech quote on subversive use of QR codes "Your local graffiti laws may vary"

21/05/2011 16:35 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@cyclestreets

CycleStreets

Lots of great ideas here: RT @edent: Slides from my #OpenTech session on QR Codes http://slidesha.re/mIRVBw

22/05/2011 06:52 via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@markbraggins

Mark Braggins

Overall

An amazing and inspiring day. The entry cost per participant was £5. I’ve paid a lot more for worse conferences. I was glad to see so many civil servants there – hopefully they’re getting the message.

I’ll leave the final words to James Cattell. This sums up exactly what OpenTech is all about.

Left #opentech with 2 questions:What needs changing in the World?What's stopping me from doing it?

21/05/2011 16:36 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Jacattell

James Arthur Cattell

Twitter’s secure API hides the contents of the tweets you are reading. But it doesn’t hide the images of those you converse with.

Raised as Issue 2175.

A Bit More Detail

Twitter has a secure (HTTPS) and insecure (HTTP) API.

When calling the secure API, all the content of the returned message (tweets) are encrypted. Eavesdroppers only see the cipher-text – essentially garbage.

However, within that cipher-text are links to insecure resources.

For example, a user requesting my tweets will get an object which contains a link to my avatar image.

Twitter is currently returning the insecure link:

"profile_image_url" :
    "http://a2.twimg.com/profile_images/1283757621/Sketch_Avatar.jpg"

Twitter should be returning the secure link:

"profile_image_url" :
    "https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1283757621/Sketch_Avatar.jpg"

Exploiting This Weakness

A user (Anna) will request the encrypted text of my tweets
She then requests the unencrypted image.
An eavesdropper (Eve) is listening in on the connection between Anna and Twitter.

Anna ---->Eve---->Twitter  (Secure request)
Anna <----Eve<----Twitter  (Secure response)

When Anna makes the initial request to Twitter, the malicious Eve can’t see what they’re talking about.

• The request “https://example.com/twitter/edent” is itself encrypted. Eve only sees an encrypted request to example.com – not “twitter/edent
• The response containing all the tweets is also encrypted

Anna ---->Eve---->Images  (insecure request)
Anna <----Eve<----Twitter  (insecure response)

Anna then makes the subsequent request for the twitter user’s image, a malicious user can see

• The URI of the request.
• The content of the image.

Impact

Truth is, this has a pretty low security impact.

• There is no way to determine a user’s name based on the URI for their image. (Unless you already have both).
• An eavesdropper has no way of knowing if the image is from the timeline, a reply, a DM, a search, a retweet, or the public timeline.
• Images may be locally cached by the user’s browser – so frequency analysis isn’t reliable.
• A malicious user could alter the image in transit.

Worst case scenario is that if a malicious man-in-the-middle knows which images relate to which Twitter users, they know the intercepted user has seen at least one tweet from that user.

Let’s say Anna is communicating with Bob. Eve is trying to eavesdrop.
If Bob has never tweeted, and Eve sees repeated requests from Anna for Bob’s avatar, she may reasonably surmise that they are exchanging DMs.

Overall

This is a pretty low-impact privacy risk.
It can be fixed by Twitter’s API returning HTTPS URIs where possible.
In the meantime, developers can replace “http://a2.twimg.com/” with “https://si0.twimg.com”.

This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing

I've been pleasantly surprised by ebuzzing. They're part of the Wikio Group, who are focussed on getting bloggers to post about about brands that they like – and get paid for it.

Despite running a backwater blog on obscure mobile phone related nonsense, I often get emailed by companies wanting to promote themselves here. Sometimes they offer review goods to keep, sometimes cash, sometime they don't want anyone to know they're paying for the post.

As a blogger, I've no real way of assessing my market worth – nor how to deal with the tax implications of being sent free "stuff". I've got a pretty clear idea of the ethics – always reveal if you've been paid to blog – but I'm slightly unsure of the legals.

That's why I think ebuzzing is a great idea. A fixed payment for blog posts and a clear set of ethical guidelines.

Payments are either per post – this one is netting me £30 – or pay per view – usually around 2p-5p.

Posts have to be approved by moderators. This could be a bit tricky – do you want someone telling you what you can and can't write on your blog? I've found them to be very fair. Despite my less than fulsome praise for the Dell Duo the only changes ebuzzing wanted were to ensure that I'd correctly included the links to the client's content and that I'd spelt their name correctly. No heavy-handedness at all.

Posts have a minimum word-count and have to feature links to the client and any marketing collateral they want. Usually an embedded image or video.

I must confess that I've found some of the campaigns a little lacklustre. Sometimes they're little more than "embed this video and ask your readers to discuss why they like cheese." To me, that's an advertorial rather than a genuine discussion. Of course, if you don't run the cheese campaign, you don't have to.

My Perfect ebuzzing Campaign

This campaign is also an opportunity to imagine your perfect campaign: who are the brands you’d love to work with? What would be the best way, in your opinion, to create an original experience between your community and those brands? We’d love to hear your ideas!

I think any successful campaign has to focus on two things.

1. What the blogger can – or would – do with the product.
2. What the reader can get out of the promotion.

I'd love to see more exclusive content, more competitions, and more blog-focused promotions. Sending people off to join a Facebook group feels a little 2009 to me. Pick winners from the best blog comments – similar to the Ping Pong competition on Vikki Chowney's blog.

I could also imagine a phone manufacturer posting photos of landmarks taken with their hot new phone. Then get bloggers and their commenters to post photos of the same landmarks taken with their crappy old camera-phone.

Sign Up

If you're interested in signing your blog up, you can find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk. There are no joining fees and you're free to pick and choose what you'd like to blog about.

Sharing propelled by ebuzzing

As part of the Wikimedia Derby Backstage Pass a group of participants were invited around the mothballed Silk Mill Museum.

You can hear the full interview on the BBC iPlayer

As the iPlayer removes shows after a week, I’ve liberated the clip of me chatting away.

Thanks to Mark Ansell for performing the interview.

A couple of pictures of odd signs hidden away in the museum.

More photos available on Richard Mackney’s blog.

This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing

I love my little Dell Laptop – it's served me well over the years. And it has become a magnet for stickers – some for companies who have long since gone bust! Recently, I've upgraded the hard disk to a pure solid state drive. The speed increase is incredible. Coupled with adding an extra GB of RAM, the machine is now faster than ever. It's just a pity that Dell limited the machine to 2GB of RAM. But, there's no denying it's getting a little long in the tooth. Video playback is only possible at fairly low resolutions, editing is a nightmare, there's no built in camera, and I think the headphone port is on the way out.

I Hate Tablets

Tablets are great if all you want to do is watch a movie or do some idle scrolling. That's no good for me – I need to work on my machine. I hate using touchscreen keybaords – either my fingers are too fat, or the screens are innaccurate. Even the best oleophobic screen gathers fingerprints and scratches if used for a sustained period of time. That said, I do like tablet's portability. I like the ease of use if I am just surfing. But unless I can plug in a keyboard and mouse – or any USB peripheral – a tablet is functionally useless to me.

Enter The Duo

Is the Duo the best of both worlds?

Dell's Inspiron Duo laptop is an intuitive machine, hailed as “the new convertible” thanks to its innovative flip-hinge design. Switching effortlessly from tablet to laptop, it’s perfect for both work and play.

I wouldn't call it intuitive – but it is innovative. It's only £450 for the base model – which is cheaper than an iPad 2. The tech-specs are fairly good – but not dramatically so. For a device which is going to be moved around a lot, I would have expected an SSD as standard. As it is, it's not even one of the customisable options. Some enterprising people have cracked the case open and added their own SSD. But it's not for the faint-hearted. There is, however, a rather odd "AudioStation". Essentailly, it's a dock for the Duo. Quite why it needs it when you can stand it up using the keyboard, I don't know. At £99 for a charging station with built in speakers, it's not high up my list of must-haves. There are only two USB slots available on the regular chassis and – bizarrely – no HDMI or VGA output for connecting to an external screen. In keeping with the "seamless" ideals, there's not ethernet port – this is a WiFi only device. There's no 3G support – so you'll need a USB dongle or to tether to your phone. The battery – which doesn't look to be easily upgradeable is good for 4 hours. Again, it's ok, but it's not astounding. The Duo also comes with Windows 7. I suggest you reject the Windows EULA and ask Dell for a refund of the Windows License.

Ubuntu Support

Despite Dell's much vaunted support for Linux, it appears that support for the Duo is incomplete. The touchscreen mostly works – but there's no multi-touch yet. Similarly accelerometers don't detect that the screen orientation has changed. There's a long running thread on Ubuntu Forums which should step you through the rather easy set up of Ubuntu. There are a few manual files to edit – but the basic hardware is well supported. Other Linux distros should work just as well.

The Competition

Want to win one of two Dell Duos? Of course you do!

Eligible contributors (18+ and UK resident) will be in with a chance of winning 1 of 2 Inspiron Duos, and 10 runner-up prizes of We7 premium memberships (3 month), just for letting sharing with us your favourite work and play tracks through the work, play, love application. The closing date for the competition is 21st April 2011.

Dell have set up a Facebook page which has their new Work and Play application. To enter, simply select your 10 favourite tracks for Work and Play. So, think of the tracks you use to inspire you in work and play – tell Dell – win a laptop. Nifty!

Conclusion

I'm certainly leaning towards the Duo as my next laptop. If Dell were to include a working version of Ubuntu – and perhaps an SSD as an upgrade option – it would be a no brainer. As it is, I'll see how Ubuntu develops as the community hacks away at it. I've already proved to myself that I can easily upgrade a laptop's hardware – but I'm not that keen to go poking in the guts of another machine. The Duo certainly represents value for money – especially if you're a Windows user – but I'd be prepared to pay a little more if they offered some more flexible options. As will all my sponsored posts, your feedback is important to me. Vote in the poll or let me know in the comments what you think.

Partage propulse par ebuzzing

I tried a few generic book lights but they were either too dim, didn’t fit correctly, used obscure batteries or – as with the official booklight case – ensconced in vegetarian unfriendly leather.

Then, I discovered the Verso Arc Light – manufactured by a company called LightWedge.

It’s got everything I was looking for in a book light.

• Small and light
• Rechargeable via micro-USB
• Bright
• Fits other eBooks

Gratuitous Demo

Before I get into the specs – here’s a demo of how it works.

The movement on the light is slightly odd. I like the way it gently slides out – but it does make it feel a little flimsy.

Rechargeable

I looked at a number of ebook lights and their either required batteries – which may be hard to find if you’re on holiday – or a proprietary charger.
Lightwedge have done the smart thing and made the Arc Light rechargeable via the same connector as the Kindle. That means when I go away I only need to take one cable to charge my Kindle, light, phone, and BlueTooth. Viva USB!

Bonus – it even has a charging light to let you know it’s charging and when it is completely charged.

It took a few hours to fully charge, but you can charge it a little at a time. It will even charge and light at the same time.

At 15 hours of light on a full charge – you shouldn’t need to plug it in too often.

Accessories

As well as coming with a standard micro-USB cable (no US plug – just the cable) there are two adapters to make the light fit other ebooks – they specifically mention Kindle 1,2,3,DX, Sony PRS-300 & PRS-600, Kobo and nook.

I found that the fit was snug, even with a gel-case on my Kindle.

It’s unlikely to fall off unless you give it a sustained shake.

It’s padded, so it won’t scratch or mark your device.

Price

The Arc Light retails online for US$40 (~£25) – and that’s before shipping from the USA.
Luckily, I found a dealer in Ireland selling the Verso Arc Light on eBay. Total cost including shipping was €25 (~£22) and was delivered within a week.

Let There Be Light!

The light is bright and covers the whole screen. Naturally, it’s slightly darker towards the bottom of the page – but still bright enough to read easily.

Verdict

As I said, it feels a little flimsy. Others have complained about build quality – but mine seems all right so far.

I would have liked a little carry case or pouch to keep it insulated from knocks and bumps while it isn’t in use – but that’s a minor niggle.
The USB cable it came with was fine for charging – but didn’t seem to support data transfer from my phone. As cables are ten-a-penny, it’s not much of an issue.

Overall, a great accessory and a must-buy for any Kindle owner with a partner who needs their beauty sleep!

Introduction to State of the Browser from London Web Standards on Vimeo.

Slideshare seem to have screwed up some of the formatting, but here are the slides.

Full details of the day on Lanyrd.

Thanks to Nick and the rest of the team for inviting me. It was an excellent day full of demos, discussions, and debates.

So, how do we go from http://4sq.com/fgIWov
to
?

1 Expand the URL

Get your Bit.ly API Key.

http://api.bitly.com/v3/expand

   ?shortUrl=http://4sq.com/fgIWov
   &login=YOUR_BIT_LY_USERNAME
   &apiKey=YOUR_BIT_LY_API_KEY
   &format=txt

You can, if you prefer, get the info back in JSON or XML. See the Bit.ly API Expand Documentation.

2 The Foursquare URL

Bit.ly gives us the URL which includes a checkin ID and a signature.

http://foursquare.com/edent/checkin/4d7e5b4f9df3f04d7400c394

   ?s=afH3jJg3L9HpLqVIwiqp-YpNL5k

3 The Foursquare API Call

From this, we construct an API call to Foursquare. It looks like this

https://api.foursquare.com/v2/checkins/4d7e5b4f9df3f04d7400c394

   ?signature=afH3jJg3L9HpLqVIwiqp-YpNL5k
   &oauth_token=YOUR_FOURSQUARE_OAUTH_TOKEN

NOTE the Foursquare URL says ?s= whereas the API call requires ?signature=
That caused me more frustration than it should…

Getting your OAuth token is a little cumbersome – follow the steps at the Foursquare Developers site.

4 The JSON Response

I’ll cut the cruft out of here, so you only see what you need to display images.
The response gives us the link to the full sized image – as well as several different sizes should you wish to display thumbnails.

5 Gotchas

Again, nothing in life is easy. Not all foursquare checkins have an image associated with them. In which case, we can do one of three things.

1. Display no image
2. Display the user’s avatar – if it’s public
3. Display an image of the venue – or one of the icons associated with it.

6 Embed.ly

Dabr uses the awesome Embedly service. Rather than having hundreds of different regular expressions and API calls to get embedded images, Embed.ly gives us a single end point to call.
So, rather than rewrite huge chunks of Dabr’s code, I’ve submitted this to the clever-clogs behind Embed.ly – that way, everyone can benefit.

Any questions, comments, or clarifications – please let me know in the comments box.