Re: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer

2009-10-23 Thread Mo McRoberts


On 23-Oct-2009, at 01:14, Tom Loosemore wrote:


There’s no (public) evidence,
beyond the existence of Kangaroo, that other broadcasters are  
actually all
that interested in a one-stop aggregation portal (I’d be tempted to  
say

“more fool them”—right now, they need all the help they can get).


coughs http://testtubetelly.channel4.com /coughs



Oh, I take it back, “prototype” though it is! Some listings  
integration wouldn’t go amiss, but at least somebody’s doing  
*something*.


M.

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RE: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer

2009-10-23 Thread Andrew Pipes
Can you expand on that note about listings please Mo? 

Do you want more date/time information about when a programme was
broadcast surfaced? Or a better interface for exploring back in time
instead of by letter/source? At the moment we're just trying to keep it
as simple as is necessary.

We're on a shoestring, but we should be able to pipe in better TX
information, at least.

Admittedly we kind of buried the yesterday's telly feature too:
http://testtubetelly.channel4.com/programmes/days/yesterday 

andy

-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts
Sent: 23 October 2009 08:09
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer


On 23-Oct-2009, at 01:14, Tom Loosemore wrote:

 Theres no (public) evidence,
 beyond the existence of Kangaroo, that other broadcasters are  
 actually all
 that interested in a one-stop aggregation portal (Id be tempted to  
 say
 more fool themright now, they need all the help they can get).

 coughs http://testtubetelly.channel4.com /coughs


Oh, I take it back, prototype though it is! Some listings  
integration wouldnt go amiss, but at least somebodys doing  
*something*.

M.

-- 
mo mcroberts
http://nevali.net
iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com  Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net  Twitter:  
@nevali

Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook -
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RE: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer

2009-10-23 Thread Andrew Pipes
Thanks Mo. Yes, agreed on all counts.

But no, TTT is not a prototype of what's to come on Youtube :)

andy

-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts
Sent: 23 October 2009 10:43
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer


On 23-Oct-2009, at 09:36, Andrew Pipes wrote:

 Can you expand on that note about listings please Mo?

 Do you want more date/time information about when a programme was
 broadcast surfaced? Or a better interface for exploring back in time
 instead of by letter/source? At the moment we're just trying to keep  
 it
 as simple as is necessary.

The latter, although actual programme metadata is useful (because you  
dont necessarily know from a summary or title whether its the  
episode of something youre looking for, whereas you may well know  
that you saw last weeks broadcast).

Primarily, it was the ability to browse by channel+day, both for  
things which have already aired, and the upcoming programmesmuch as  
iPlayer tries to do (though iPlayers UX quite often bugs me in this  
respect!)

e.g., if somebody says did you see that documentary on More4 on  
Tuesday about how right-wing extremism is making its way into parish  
councils?, it should be trivial to track down based on the available  
informationat worst there are a limited number of programmes which  
would have aired on More4 on Tuesday, so even if you dont know the  
title, it should be easy to find with the aid of listings tie-in.

Similarly, if you know a programme is airing at some point in the next  
12 hours on a channel, being able to see (quite prominently) at a  
glance whether its available/coming soon/will be up later+ETA is  
quite useful.

I know its tricky when you pull in solely on-demand content, but  
sheer popularity only goes so far as a useful metric for end-users.  
More metadata! ;)

My expectation of a good aggregator is one which takes the best  
aspects of iPlayer+4oD+ITV Player+etc (and by that I dont just mean  
the raw content!) and presents a unified view of that. TTT certainly  
manages the latter, but my gut feeling is that its a more close fit  
with YouTubes fairly lightweight metadata than iPlayers (and  
presumably 4oDs) richnessand rather than using whats available  
wherever possible, it mostly seems to drag everything down to  
YouTubes level. I could be misreading it allI havent explored  
deeply, but then arguably I shouldnt have to in order to get a good  
idea of what it can do.

What I dont get is why is it separate from 4oD and a strictly  
limited-budget experimental thing? Why not just have 4oDs web  
interface support multiple content streams? Political issues?

(Actually, given the YouTube deal, is this a prototype for whats to  
come?)

Er, hope that helps in some small way!

M.

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Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Scot McSweeney-Roberts
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 13:31, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote:


 http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html


I noticed this line in the dot.life article

But when I tried to install a free open-source audio editing program,
Audacity, it appeared more complex to get hold of an Ubuntu version than the
one I've used on a Mac.

What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity
installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager.

I'm starting to think that the first thing a fresh Ubuntu install should do
(especially if it's straight from the factory) is show a video highlighting
the features of Ubuntu and one of the first things shown should be how to
install software. In general, installing software a much better experience
then what you get with WIndows and Macs but it's also very different, so you
end up with people claiming installing software is dificult.


Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Sean DALY
Thanks for this Tim

One thing this story illustrates is that new users react to the
desktop or graphical user interface, not the underlying GNU/Linux
distribution. This concept of alternate desktops is foreign to Windows
and Mac users, since those OSes come with only one desktop.

Gnome and KDE, the two predominant desktops used in GNU/Linux distros,
are not marketed as separate products; as such they are invisible
and to newcomers, the desktop is assumed to be part of the system,
whether Ubuntu or Fedora or openSuSE or Mandriva or
$yourfavedistrohere.

As new users assume that desktop=distro, a lousy experience through
e.g. not knowing what a  package manager is or does becomes I tried
Linux and couldn't do X. Never mind that Microsoft has very carefully
and diligently worked on making Windows play nasty with other
systems...

I contribute to a children's education project with a kid-friendly
desktop based on GNU/Linux which has over a million users in thirty
countries. We may be nonprofit, but we are not hobbyists. Mr
Cellan-Jones knows about this project, having reported on it in Rwanda
two years ago and again recently. He might be surprised to learn that
he could use Ubuntu (or indeed most distros) with the Gnome desktop,
the KDE desktop, the Xfce desktop... or Sugar, the same desktop he
saw on One Laptop per Child hardware in Africa.

It's interesting to note that Windows, like all traditional
office-desktop paradigm GUIs, is confusing to young children and
kid-friendly alternate desktops for Windows are perhaps the only
exceptions to the vanilla interface approach. (An excellent alternate
desktop for grownups from Xerox called TabWorks actually came standard
on Compaq hardware in the mid-1990s, but fizzled.)

In his comment on Popey's blog, Mr Cellan-Jones repeated a tried and
true adage of broadcast journalism: Never work with children, animals
or technology. My co-contributors and myself manage to do 2 out of 3,
and only the openness, security, reliability, flexibility, standards
compatibility, networking, and low cost of GNU/Linux makes it
possible.

It's tempting to condemn the BBC for Mr Cellan-Jones' statements;
after all, Microsoft's illegal efforts to impose and sustain its
desktop PC monopoly are a matter of public record. And GNU/Linux's
tiny PC market share (servers and supercomputers are another story)
hides a multitude of vibrant projects. However, the BBC does get the
story right, too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8117064.stm

Sean.



On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote:
 http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html

 I have a feeling Popey is on this list... :)

 Read, comment, try not to hurt each other etc... :)
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Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Andy
2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk:
 What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity
 installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager.

The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu.
However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of
adding or removing applications to the system.

Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications?

The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove
Programs doesn't it?

Andy

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Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Matt Jones
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Andy stude.l...@googlemail.com wrote:
 2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk:
 What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity
 installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager.

 The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu.
 However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of
 adding or removing applications to the system.

 Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications?

 The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove
 Programs doesn't it?

 Andy

 --
 $ fortune
 bug, n:
        A son of a glitch.
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It has been renamed(Or more accurately, replaced) for the next
release. It is now known as Ubuntu Software Center.

Matt.

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Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Scot McSweeney-Roberts
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 20:04, Andy stude.l...@googlemail.com wrote:

 2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk:
  What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity
  installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager.

 The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu.
 However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of
 adding or removing applications to the system.

 Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications?

 The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove
 Programs doesn't it?

 Andy



I think there are 2 problems

1) At the moment it's labelled Add/Remove but it's not immediately obvious
what's being added/removed. I could swear it was called something more
obvious in previous versions, but I can't remember what (I tend to use
synaptic over add/remove, so it could change and I'd not notice).

2) In WIndows, Add/Remove is never really used to add software and it
doesn't have a software catalogue inside it. Someone coming from Windows
will probably not expect it to be as useful as it is. At least people are
getting used to concept of app stores, so if it's explained as an app store
for Ubuntu where everything's free new users might work out what it does
sooner.


Every time I hear the line software is hard to install on Linux I cringe.
Maybe what's really needed is for Microsoft to start shipping an app store
for Windows that has a least a vague similarity to way things work on modern
Linux distros.



Scot


Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu

2009-10-23 Thread Tim Dobson

Scot McSweeney-Roberts wrote:



On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 13:31, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net 
mailto:li...@tdobson.net wrote:



http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html


I noticed this line in the dot.life article

But when I tried to install a free open-source audio editing program, 
Audacity, it appeared more complex to get hold of an Ubuntu version than 
the one I've used on a Mac.


What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity 
installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager.


I had assumed he had and just was confused. It would be interesting to 
make contact with him and find out.


I'm starting to think that the first thing a fresh Ubuntu install should 
do (especially if it's straight from the factory) is show a video 
highlighting the features of Ubuntu and one of the first things shown 
should be how to install software. In general, installing software a 
much better experience then what you get with WIndows and Macs but it's 
also very different, so you end up with people claiming installing 
software is dificult.




That's a good idea.

I seem to remember Linspire 5.0 did this or something. Then I realise 
Linspire for what it is (great heaps of fail with added 
corporation-friendly buzzwords).

I think it could be implemented crudely fairly with firefox 3.5 and html5.

If you create like a simple portal with like 5 things down the side 
(welcome, using the gnome menu, installing software, where to find help, 
how to do xyz) it would be trivial to get it set as a homepage or something.


this isn't idea as it assumes connectivity and various other stuff but 
still, for a very quick hack it's quite cool.


There's already a massive repository of screencasts but doing new ones 
wouldn't be too difficult.


Tim

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