Jul 29
Personal David
3g, bandwidth, internet, mobile, vodafone, wireless
Ethernet unplugged
Recently, my home router broke down, and for reasons that don’t need going into here, it would be a week before I could replace it. This left me with the prospect of only having internet access via a Vodafone PCMCIA 3G data card which I had as a free gift when I bought my laptop in December 2005. It’s a fairly slow modem, and I was paying by the megabyte (although finding out how much per megabyte I’d be paying became a whole other problem for another blog post).
I received this free 3G modem with my laptop.
This meant I had to use all those bits of bandwidth carefully. My data rationing was unplanned, and required some quick thinking about all the things I use and have running automatically. The interesting thing was to see what I immediately went without, and the things I felt I couldn’t do without.
First of all, most obvious, no more media. Primarily, this addressed streaming media Spotify and Youtube, but it also meant I had to go without my podcasts too. Many audio podcasts are easily 40MB or more, and video podcasts can easily eat up 500MB. The next thing to do was all my internet dependant back ups. Most importantly my off-site backup to Jungledisk had to be stopped. Then I had to cancel my background tasks that would download backup copies of my PIM data and this very website.
The things I found I couldn’t do without were E-mail, Twitter and Facebook. These represent just about all of my communication and social interaction on-line. Although, compromises were available. For e-mail, using my e-mail application rather than web-mail cut down on some precious bits. Then, both Twitter and Facebook have mobile sites, which are available to desktop browsers, they helped a lot. The only full-blown best-on-broadband sites I needed were for things like ordering my groceries for the week.
In the end, I called Vodafone, and in all the time I’d been on their connection, I’d only consumed approximately 250MB, for the whole week. I could have done better, but I didn’t think it was bad at all. There is more to tell about my Vodafone mobile connection, but that’s for another post!
It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a dial up connection, and since I’ve been on broadband, I’ve never had to ration myself to only using so much data. The expereince of limiting everything I did really showed me how important high-speed/broadband internet is. Without high speed, and unmetered access, almost everything we do would be impractical. Never mind the luxury of streaming Youtube and the like, but even the ability to download new software and updates would really limit all of us, and would make the internet a more dangerous place by virtue of less security updates getting where they need to go.
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Jul 6
Editorial David
console, Games, internet, iplayer, laptop, television, video
How much of a need is there for a TV these days?
I’ve been thinking about what sort of electronics I’d want if I were setting up my own home (i.e. living alone). I know I watch virtually no TV series any more. What few things I do watch, I could easily watch on the internet (via such things as the BBC iPlayer).
As time has gone on, much more of the video content I watch is only available on-line, via podcasts. I also just watch less content, I read more, either e-books or websites. I interact with people more and generally try to get more useful things done around the house.
Although, I know that if you’re watching with someone else, watching things from a computer screen is not the best viewing experience. One solution would be to have a projector to plug into the computer as and when needed, but this is an expensive option. Some people also have games consoles (and I might do this in the future since gaming on Linux still comes with a certain amount of pain), which need some sort of screen too.
So I’ve ended up at the uncomfortable conclusion that 99% of the time, I would not need or want a TV, but I’d probably still end up begrudgingly buying one, for the purpose of entertaining guests.
What do you think about this? I have set up a twtPoll about this, which you can vote on.
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Feb 16
Editorial David
encryption, internet, leo laporte, podcast, privacy, security, spinrite, steve gibson, twit
Time for my next favourite audio podcast; “Security Now”, from Leo Laporte’s TWiT network.
Security Now
As the name implies, this show is all about security, of the computer and internet variety. Again, this is one of the few podcasts I’ve come which really demands you to think and understand. Although, even if you can’t follow the most technical content, there is a constant stream of practical advice given to help you protect yourself from the shadier elements of the tech world.
The show is hosted by podcasting machine Leo Laporte (Wikipedia), and by software engineer and security researcher, Steve Gibson (Wikipedia). Leo is a well known tech presenter, and currently runs the “TWiT” network, where he produces around 14 podcast series, as well as producing a live stream of video from his studio, running at least full office hours. Steve Gibson is known for coining the term “Spyware”, and creating the hard drive repair program, “SpinRite“, among many other achievements.
The show comes out weekly and is about an hour long. They work on a system of having listener feedback every even numbered episode and every odd numbered episode we have Steve telling us about some aspect of security, privacy, or encryption.
Over on Steve’s GRC.com website, you can also obtain low-bandwidth 16kbps MP3 versions of each episodes, along with full text transcripts of every episode. Transcripts are a fantastic addition that I haven’t seen in any other podcast, and with a series as technical as this, you surely need a transcript, at least sometimes!
Well, if that has interested you, here are the links you’ll need.
At the time of writing, this was the latest episode of Security Now.
[audio: http://aolradio.podcast.aol.com/sn/SN-182.mp3|titles=Security Now 182 Your Questions Steve's Answers 59|artists=Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson]
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Jan 26
How-To Guides David
audio, internet, invites, jukebox, spotify, streaming
Hello everyone,
More news on Spotify invites! First of all, I have discovered that I have more invites to Spotify to give away, so please leave a comment if you’d like an invite.
An example of searching for music on Spotify
Also, I had an e-mail from reader Åsmund, who asked:
Hello, I was just wondering how you got invites on Spotify. I have no invites at the moment on my account.
Thanks again for the invite by the way 
Fortunately, there is an easy answer to this question.
- Login at Spotify’s website: https://www.spotify.com/en/login/
- Next go to the share page at https://www.spotify.com/en/account/share/
- Click on “Create Invitation” and follow the instructions.
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Oct 29
Editorial David
audio, internet, long-format, multimedia, netcast, new media, podcast, video
I am an avid netcast viewer (I’m using the word “view” as a blanket term for watching or listening). Content produced by individuals on the internet has really taken over my viewing habits. There is very little broadcast TV & radio I listen to now, compared to what I watch and listen to from the internet.
There are two key benefits to internet delivered content compared to broadcast content. First is that it is on-demand; you view it when you choose. Secondly, you are able to enter search requests for what you want to view. You cannot search within individual shows, but you can search the text describing individual shows.
Next, some shows that I get are nice little 7 to 15 minute episodes that take very little time out of my day to view. Although, some shows are bohemouth 50 to 100 minute shows. Not only do these provide a headache for either finding a long enough slot in my day to view or for remembering where I stopped listening each time, but it’s also pretty hard to find an any specific moment with content I may need to refer to.
However, there is something that netcast producers can do, and are starting to do, to cure this problem. CBC Radio’s science show, “Quirks & Quarks” is usually over an hour long. However, when their netcast comes out every week, it is split into 5 or 6 parts, one for each section of the show. Also, the popular Linux netcast, “The Linux Action Show” is also just about to start doing a similar thing. Rather than doing their usual long format show. They will be producing short, on the fly shows to cover the latest news as and when it come out.
I think this approach to long-format internet multimedia content is excellent and provides a number of benefits to viewers:
- Easy to keep track of where you’re upto in a long show.
- Allows you to delete the parts you’ve listened to as you go.
- Makes the content more searchable.
This post has been written in response to the following blog posts:
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