Re: [backstage] Fwd: Slashdot| Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 01:29, Richard Lockwood wrote: > Macs are consumer hardware - and it's never been suggested that > they're anything else. > Hold on a second. I have a MacBook in front of me and within arms reach I have an Eee. Let's see: The MacBook has a screen. The Eee has a screen. The MacBook has a keyboard. The Eee has a keyboard. The MacBook has a trackpad. The Eee has a trackpad. The MacBook has USB ports. The Eee has USB ports. The MacBook has an Ethernet port. The Eee has an Ethernet port. The MacBook has a video output port. The Eee has a video output port. The MacBook has a CD and DVD drive. The EEE doesn't. It's a netbook. The MacBook has audio output ports. The Eee has audio output ports. The MacBook has a hard drive. The Eee has a hard drive. The MacBook has a removable battery. The Eee has a removable battery. The MacBook runs a POSIX-compatible FreeBSD-based operating system. The Eee runs Debian Linux. The MacBook is a consumer hardware device, but the Eee isn't. Apparently. I'm not sure how that works. There's lots wrong with Apple, but lets be clear: they make computers, not toasters. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPad
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 22:37, Mo McRoberts wrote: > So, what does everyone think? > I quoted it earlier on my blog - Alex Payne (@al3x) states succintly what the problem is with closed platforms like the iPad: "The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write." - <http://al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html> I'm preaching to the choir here - the first computers I used were both open and booted straight to a BASIC prompt (BBC B booted straight to BBC BASIC, and the Amstrad CPC 6128 booted to AMSBASIC). Back then, games and accessories were pretty expensive - £25-£30 (£30 in 1990 money is £45 in 2009 money, remember), and no Internet, meant the only thing to do was to play around and write code. Now, to programme on my Mac, I have to install a special developer kit from the DVD. On Windows, you can hack, but it's not at all clear how to unless you really rummage around a bit. Okay, so Apple have made a closed platform. Big deal. What concerns me more about the iPad and the rise of proprietary App Stores (there are people saying that there ought to be app stores for Windows and Mac OS X!) is the reaction of the geeks is "don't worry, web apps will save us". I've seen so many people say this - Joe Hewitt, Chris Messina and many others. Except web apps won't save us. Web apps will always be a second class citizen. How about any software that requires a bit of oomph? I bring up three examples always: Final Cut Pro, Eclipse, Crysis. Last time I checked, browsers weren't much good at chucking polygons around compared to the cheap and widespread graphics cards in everybody's computers (don't let the length of the spec fool you: HTML5 does not contain OpenGL hidden inside!). And they will never have full platform access. On the iPhone, how do you get access to the Notifications API from a web app? (Best I can think of is e-mail or Twitter.) And what if there's data that's supposed to be a little bit more private? And, it doesn't solve Alex Payne's issue: it basically splits the world into two - the haves and the have-nots. The haves live in a world of computers, compilers and servers. The have-nots, even if they have great ideas, don't get to play in that world. They don't even get to play at the shallow end and build webpages or write JavaScript hacks (sorry, no Firebug for you, no text editor, no filesystem even!). -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPad
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 22:37, Mo McRoberts wrote: > So, what does everyone think? > It's very pretty, but I think it represents one of the more significant moments in Apple's transition from computer company to rich-media toy company. Which is great and all, but for the things I do, I use computers, not rich media toys. A quote from Apple COO Tim Cook: "We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make" Err, no thanks. No more Macs. I'm done feeding this beast - for the same reason I was done feeding the Microsoft beast a few years ago. I'm not sure what I do now. I'll continue using the Mac I have until it needs replacing. Then whatever I get won't be a Mac. If Linux still doesn't quite fit, I'll hack together a Hackintosh. I'm hoping that in the next year or two, I can finally move over to the open source Promised Land. ;) See http://tommorris.org/wiki/Things_preventing_me_from_moving_to_Linux_full_time -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 16:57, Ian Forrester wrote: > Somewhat related to the discussion already going on? > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jan/25/firefox-open-video-support > > Idealists or pioneers? > > Interesting block at the bottom, > > "Web video has never really been open, unencumbered and free. We've had Real > Networks RM format, Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's Windows Media Video (now > standardised as VC-1), the DivX and XviD codecs, and Adobe Flash among > others. There might never be one open standard, simply because some content > owners will want to include DRM (Digital Rights Management) copy restrictions. > > However, the web would benefit from having an open, unencumbered and free > video format that enabled HTML programmers to include a video as easily as > they now include a headline or a photo, wouldn't it? How do we get to that?" > What I don't understand is that of the three main desktop platforms Firefox gets installed on - Windows and Mac - both have H.264 decoders *on the machine already* in the form of Windows Media and QuickTime APIs. Microsoft and Apple have presumably solved whatever licensing problems exist for H.264 decoding. Urgh. This kind of stuff shouldn't be a problem. Really. So, to watch one type of video online, I use Firefox and to use another type of video online I use Safari or Chrome. And because standards bodies, browser manufacturers and patent holders cannot resolve their differences sensibly, it's back to the good old days. Paul Downey (@psd) nails it when he says that standards are peace but the standards process is war. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Changes to the list
On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 18:54, Ian Forrester wrote: > Hi all, > > We're making some changes to the whole way backstage is setup and one of > those changes would affect this list directly. > > MajorDomo is a pain and lacks the lovely new shiny features of things like > automatic archive, rss, thread notification, search, etc. But it does have > the advantage of email delivery, open and free signup. > > So if we did decide to switch mailing system/message board, which one would > you all prefer? > Something that is compatible with Gmane. slrn and NNTP beat out almost all mail clients and all web forums I've ever seen, and allow me to enforce a pretty good separation between mailing lists and real life e-mail. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Free as in 'Freedom'
ftware and argue by analogy. There's a reason there are a hundred different Linux window managers - it's partly cultural, but it's also partly because of the liberty that software writers have to do that. But if you are arguing for a dramatic change to IP law, the best you can come up with is a very clumsy list of rather arbitrary and strange concrete counter-factuals like "hey, did you know, we could have more window managers if we did this" (or whatever). Okay, great. Not very convincing, is it? As an analogy for why I don't really like these counterfactual arguments about copyright and IP, let me point to an analogy. Some people who argue that abortion should be illegal provide a very bad argument against abortion which circulates around called the Beethoven argument. It goes like this: "If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?" (There are different variants, but the general gist is the same.) After reciting this, they wait for you to say "Yes", at which point they say "My oh my. You've just told Beethoven's mother to abort the greatest musical genius ever!" or words to that effect. (Again, sometimes it's Einstein or Martin Luther King or Jesus or whoever.) There are factual problems with the argument - feel free to consult Wikipedia if you care about the details of Beethoven's family situation. But the problem is that the counter-factual doesn't actually provide you with good reason to not abort the child. There is no way of knowing that any potential child is a genius until it becomes one. We haven't yet got some kind of magic device we can wave at pre-born infants to find out whether they are going to grow up to be serial killers or serial bestseller writers. (And even if we did, we'd have some pretty serious ethical objections to doing so.) You can't derive any relevant moral duties from the counterfactual because the counterfactual represents more knowledge than it is possible to ever have in situations of that type. That one counterfactual doesn't rule out other counterfactuals - imagine a woman who is pregnant with Future Hitler, someone who is predestined to become a ruthless dictator and murderer. She decides to have an abortion. Because she didn't give birth to this child, some causal connection causes her to become pregnant again and give birth to, oh, Future Mandela, some beacon of hope, charity and humanity. Does the latter sequence of events 'cancel out' the former? If you can infer the immorality of abortion in the Beethoven case, does the killing of Future Hitler and the creation of Future Mandela in the second counter-factual justify abortion? So, yeah, counter-factuals seem like a bad way to go in the debate unless there is some nice way of finding a neutral, scientifically respectable way of measuring the actual outcomes of different intellectual property scenarios. Is macroeconomics a science yet? ;) Sorry for prattling on for so long. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Google Wave
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 17:20, Ian Forrester wrote: > Now Google Wave invites are out there and more of you have had a chance > to play with wave. What do people think? And why is no one building a > decent client for it? > > Am I the only excited person? > I had a Wave Sandbox account for some time. Thought it was very 'meh'. Blogged about it here: http://tommorris.org/blog/2009/08/08#When:15:50:47 -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] "free london's data" event
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 17:18, Brendan Quinn wrote: > We want the input of the developer community from the outset prior to > making any decisions on formats or platform. We would therefore like to > invite interested developers to City Hall so that we can talk to you > about what we want to do, get your views, and seek your input on the > best way to deliver for London. > You do know that quite a fair chunk of the developer community is going to be at BarCampLondon7 on the weekend of the 24th... -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?
On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 18:19, Brian Butterworth wrote: > BUT > The plus denotes a PVR > and two letter > denote HD > There's no wonder 8% of the public think the TVL pays for ITV Well, we've got: * Internet * Internet+ - lets you save files! * Internet HD - appears in high resolution * Internet HD+ - appears in high resolution AND lets you save files And of course there are different regulatory guidelines for each one. We haven't yet figured out how Internet HD+ is going to work, so let's consult with "stakeholders" and rightsholders but not users... The semantics of this have doomed it from the start: the job of the BBC and of the regulators and the broadcasting infrastructure is to get the stuff into my home. It's not a protocol-level issue, nor a branding issue, whether the content is high-resolution or not or whether, once I've got it, I record it onto a hard disk recorder or not. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Thoughtful post on AH
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 07:28, Nico Morrison wrote: > MySQL since it's acquisition by Oracle/Sun doesn't seem a good example. I > do not know the others listed in the academic article. Donation models do > not count. > In the Ruby community, the core developers of JRuby were employed from 2006 through 2009. Now they are employed by Engine Yard, a Ruby on Rails hosting company. At least one IronRuby developer is employed by Microsoft. Mono has been heavily supported by Novell, I think. This would seem to be the primary method of doing open source commercially: large companies finding that having certain projects mature and production-ready are beneficial to selling servers or operating systems or IDEs or whatever it is they sell, so employ the people who work on those projects to make them better. This is sort of a 'donation model', but donation doesn't have quite the same connotation as a full-time employed position. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
happen is that there will be less redundancy in reporting. In terms of radio, I listen to a few BBC podcasts, and supplement them with a few NPR shows from the US, and even a show from Australia. I'm not sure why the BBC don't syndicate some of these programmes - probably because they fear getting angry letters from people saying that they don't like listening to Ozzie accents. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] The BBC as sheep... and irresponsible ones too
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 19:06, Richard Lockwood wrote: > Me, I reformat them, smash 'em up with a lump hammer and stick 'em in > the "general metal" recycling at the local recycling centre, on the > basis that it's more trouble than it's worth to get data back, just to > get my bank details, or my Second Life password.; > > Where's your problem? I had a laptop HDD die on my last year. I had to coax the Apple Geniuses (specifically, the manager) to let me have my own hard drive back after the repair. It's been formatted about four times, and now it languishes in a folded-up, sealed electrostatic-resistant baggie. I'll probably use it - bagged - as a paper-weight for a few years, until whatever data might still be hidden within is of no continued sensitivity. Then I'll chuck it out. Does this make me paranoid? I heard that when making Lord of the Rings, the producers loaded a post-production working copy of the movie onto an iPod for them to take to London for the composers and musicians to produce music to. Person carrying it was damn close to getting the thing mugged. It's almost like there aren't free and open source encryption tools... -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] User story: finding a radio show
My mother is a chronic Radio 4 listener and heard a little bit of a programme the other day when in the car that she thought a friend would be interested in. All she remembered was it was "about language and culture". She had the mistaken idea that it was on in the morning. She told me that she had been on the Radio 4 website looking to find it but had no luck. Admittedly, it was quite broad search criteria. I had a go at doing something about it today. First thing I did was make a directory on my Mac, then ran the following command: curl -O http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm/2009/02/[01-28].xml Then I tried grepping that data, but it wasn't pretty-printed and so gave me the whole day's worth of programming for each result. So I ran the following: xmllint --format *.xml > combined.txt This pretty-printed all the XML and wrote it out to a text file. I then opened the resulting file up in MacVim. Here I had a metadata-rich 33250-line text file containing details of all the programmes broadcast on Radio 4 in the last month. I tapped "/" to start a search and typed in "language". It took me to the short_synopsis element of a programme element. I looked at the id, and appended the relevant namespace on the front to give me http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hlcr2 - I loaded the page in my browser, read the long description to my mother, who said something along the lines of "Ooh, yes, that's right!". She then forwarded that link and the link to the show page to her friend by e-mail. Total time for me was about ten minutes. But the point was that she wasn't able to do it herself - she had, as I said, gone through the listings pages and the Radio 4 website and couldn't find it. All this makes me very happy about the BBC's provision of excellent metadata as XML, RDF, ASCII and HTML, without doing any silly API or Web Services nonsense. It's great not only because people can build applications on top of it, but just because nerdy people can find stuff easier. A suggestion for making this better: a sort of 'fuzzy' programme finder - a very user-friendly search page linked to from iPlayer and Listen Again (etc.) that would let you do natural-language searching of programmes, sorted by recentness. So you could go on and select that you saw something on TV or heard something on radio, maybe specify a channel, maybe specify roughly when and throw it a few keywords. (I have to say, I did then just type 'language' into the BBC search, and the first result in the TV & Radio Programmes box was the right one. Having spent the last decade or so getting frustrated by the *ahem* less-than-optimal search on bbc.co.uk, that's not the first place I thought to look.) -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Mozilla to support open video natively
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 00:04, Dave Crossland wrote: > 2009/1/26 Dogsbody : >> Mozilla Firefox 3.1 will include native support for video in the browser and >> they have chosen Theora as the format of choice. > > Great news! :-) You'll be able to rickroll yourself and others free from the oppressive yoke of the Adobe Corporation! Stick it to the man! http://tinyvid.tv/show/3d198wqepg78m -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC tells ISPs to get stuffed
On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:47 AM, Andy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mr I Forrester wrote: > > "Relationships between the BBC and internet industry have plunged to an > > all-time low, after the BBC's internet chief Ashley Highfield used a > > blog post yesterday to tell ISPs to get stuffed - and even threatened to > > name and shame them." > > For those who actually want to read the original blog post it is at: > > <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/04/hidden_costs_of_watching_tv_on.html> > > I think Ashley did make a slight mistake though: > > The Telegraph suggested users stream content rather than download to > > save money. We don't think this makes any difference. > > It makes a huge difference when billed by the byte so to speak. > The Streaming iPlayer is lower quality (so lower bit rate) and the data > transfer is one way. Download iPlayer is higher bit rate and sends data > both ways, and it is hard (if not impossible) to tell in advance how > much is uploaded. > Balanced by the fact that you don't often stream stuff during the off-peak times when a download service might feasibly do a large chunk of it's downloading, and the fact that you don't generally download the same programme over and over again, while you may do so for streaming. > What we really need is Unlimited monthly quota on all plans because the > average man in the street does not understand all this quota rubbish. > > Oddly foreign countries can offer Unlimited monthly download/upload with > speeds of 100Mb down AND up for less than we pay in the UK[1]. BT is > crippling the countries Telecoms infrastructure and Ofcom does nothing! > True, but that won't stop the ISPs here from crying crocodile tears about having to provide the unlimited service which their marketing departments have sold to consumers. Of course, I'm betting that they'll go to the government next. What a bunch of irritating whingers they are. I hope that if they try and get the government to redefine 'unlimited' as 'limited', they'll get laughed out of the room. Asshats, the lot of them. If it weren't for the bright sunshine and fresh spring breeze, I'd be emigrating to Scandinavia to get a decent connection about now. We need to destroy the ISPs and BT in order to save the Internet from their malevolent incompetence. As I said, asshats. Somehow it's the consumer or the BBC who is to blame for the fact that their business model sucks. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] What would you love to see coming out of BBC Vision in the near future?
On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 7:13 PM, Ian Forrester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi All, > > I was hoping to get a brainstorm of ideas for APIs and Feeds you would love > to play with in the near future, while focusing on Vision/TV > > I got most of the obvious stuff like, > > - A 31 day schedule in XML > - TV schedules as a API with past and future ability > - Direct links to iplayer programmes > - XML/RSS/ATOM/JSON of upcoming iplayer programmes > - XML/RSS/ATOM/JSON of programmes about to drop off iplayer > - Links between programmes and their programme catalogue entry > - The Programme Catalogue! :) It'd be nice if the BBC could publish RDF of their whole programme catalogue and add it to the already growing sphere of Linked Open Data: http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData Hook the programmes in with parts of the diagram on the page - eg: - for all programmes, link them to the DBPedia resource for that programme if it exists on Wikipedia - for actors and presenters, link them to their DBPedia resource - for music programmes, link bands and songs in - for news and factual programmes, link them to online stories that cover the same story - for review programmes (like Newsnight Review), link in the relevant discussed books/authors/films/plays etc. - for things which happen in a particular place, link them into Geonames - for dramatic re-enactments, link them to what they were re-enacting (historical events, books, plays etc.) - in political coverage, link through to details about the relevant politicians and legislation Less hacking RSS and Atom to do things for which they were not intended (they are feed formats, not universal containers). -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] SemanticCamp London, 16-17 Feb 2008
Hey folks, Signup is now open for SemanticCamp London, which takes place on the 16th and 17th of February, 2007, at the Department of Computing at Imperial College, London. Following the success of BarCamp London 3 in November, SemanticCamp is an attempt to bring the BarCamp magic to a niche topic - the Semantic Web in it's various incarnations. Ideas, implementation, technology and vision around making the Web a giant distributed database, or something thereabouts. SemanticCamp is a free, two day participant-driven event. Put your ideas up and give a talk, or lead a discussion. It's like a conference with all the boring bits taken out. http://semanticcamp.tommorris.org -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPod touch // iPhone development
On 9/20/07, Martin Deutsch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The new Apple Store in Glasgow also had some demo units when I was in > yesterday. > I really wanted to like it, but found the interface a little bit too > sluggish; the accelerometer didn't always recognise me turning it over, and > I found typing to be a right pain. > > It is very shiny though... > I had a gander at the new toys at the shop in Regent Street. Very thin, shiny - albeit covered in fingermarks - and a feat of good design. Tempting, but I think I'll stick with the 5G iPod I bought last year. > (Also, the people of Glasgow either don't seem to have realised - or are too > polite - to clog up the MacBooks and iMacs checking their email, or online > banking, or the like. Quite handy if you actually want to buy something.) > Bleeding 'eck. I trust Apple's record on security, but not so much that I'd do online banking on a public machine. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:46:04 +0100
ML Editor, iTerm (terminal emulator), QuickTime Player (with Perian plugins), Azureus and Oxygen. (And in that interminably ever-expanding top-right hand bar, a last.fm client and the Plaxo Sync thingy as well as all the standard buttons). As for whether OS X is inimical to the goals of Backstage? It's no more than any other commercial software. And there are some really nice advantages to it. You can buy a Mac now which comes with the full development stack (Xcode, Objective-C etc.) in the box. The idea that we are all fanboys is ridiculous. Talk to any Mac user who's been on the platform for more than six months and they'll give you a list the length of your arm of what's wrong. I've been on the Mac platform since 1999, and there's a ton of things wrong with it. But it's got a lot right about it. Yours, -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] WMV9 on Mac
On 6/12/07, oliver wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi gang, Completely the wrong list one imagines, but with all the current banter about DRM, cross OS operability, etc etc, it reminds me that I'm yet to get WMV files to play on my Mac. Specifically these new fangled WMV9/drm protected thingybobs. Googling such seems to produce people wanting to strip the DRM off porn they've downloaded, which is not what I have in mind, I just want to play legal content, and preferably without installing Windows Media Play (if thats the only solution). Anybody had any luck? I'm currently using VLC, which seems to play some files. You need to get the Flip4Mac plugin 'WMV Components for QuickTime'. They do a free (as in beer) plugin that lets you view Windows Media files in QuickTime - http://flip4mac.com/wmv.htm - and they do some commercial plugins also. I'm using the free one, and it works pretty well. I'm not sure what they'll do for your WMV9 with DRM files - but, to be honest, you shouldn't have bought those things in the first place. They're worse than cigarettes. If Flip4Mac doesn't work for what you want, you could always drop me an e-mail off-list and I'll help you find another way... ;-> -- Tom Morris http://tom.opiumfield.com/blog/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
On 6/12/07, Dave Crossland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: My sister had an iPod. Her computer broke. She got a new one. She put the iPod in to copy the music back to the new computer. iTunes asked her if she'd like to use the iPod on this computer. She clicked yes. She immediately found her iPod was wiped. She cried. I got the sobbing phone call. DRM MADE MY SISTER CRY. Good enough? :-D An all-too-common story, but (and I hate to say this) it only proves that you need to keep good backups and that the iPod's Music Mode is not a backup (without the use of third-party software). Then again, my mother almost wiped my father's MP3 collection yesterday. If I hadn't been standing next to her and telling her to get her hand away from the mouse and let me click 'Cancel', she would have done it too... (and, yes, I know that I ought to practice what I preach and help them setup a backup schedule - but does the fact that the doctor is an alcoholic make his advice about cutting down on alcohol usage wrong? Of course it's not.) -- Tom Morris http://tom.opiumfield.com/blog/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
On 6/12/07, Dave Crossland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: It appears widely understood that DRM is not acceptable to the audience. Except inside the BBC, alas. Meh. The BBC will just waste a lot of money on DRM, just as they once wasted money on LaserDisc - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project Everyone will think it's really a bit rubbish, and just continue to share BBC content over BitTorrent as they do already. The BBC will realise that this is actually the optimal solution and just continue with their blind eye treatment. I've tried Joost, which is close enough to what the iPlayer will be, and ran off in horror. This is supposed to be the 'easy' way of doing it, but compare and contrast: 1. Hang around on Twitter for a few hours and bother one of your trendy Web 2.0 friends to give you an invite code to go and download a fairly large application. Install said application. Have it give you cryptic error message about how you are behind a firewall and can't use Joost. Spend half an hour on website trying to find out how to solve problem. Give up. 2. Go on to BitTorrent website of choice. Login. Find the programme you want to watch. Click 'download'. Azureus boots up and starts downloading show. Wait. Once it's finished, right click on it and choose 'Open'. Click 'play' and watch. In terms of usability, I far prefer user experience two. (Of course, it's just an academic exercise. We're nice boys and girls, we don't infringe copyright. Ever.) It works on any platform most of the time. Now, the speed may be rubbish for the download. But once you've got it, you've got it forever and you can back it up on to DVD. Then when you're a bit short of something to watch, you can browse through your archive and pull up something interesting to re-watch. Of course, the BBC could just not bother with the iPlayer - send a few quid under-the-table to the UKNova kids to beef up their servers (stick it under, um, R&D funding) and spend the rest on commissioning better programmes, and we'd all pretty much be happy. But that would require someone to actually use their brain. It's far easier to outsource your thinking to Microsoft, whose answer to pretty much everything is "Windows Media Player". I wonder why. The argument for us for the iPlayer is a bit like the argument for God. Of course, none of us are going to [believe in/use] [God/the iPlayer], we're not that stupid. But the ignorant proletariat out there needs a [comfort blanket/DRM application]. We can't deny them that, regardless of your boorish, high-faultin' academic-y arguments about it's [nonexistence/utter silliness]. If the iPlayer works, hopefully, all it'll do is distract the bureaucrats and legal types away from what everyone is doing on BitTorrent. That is it's criteria for success - how well it keeps the BBC hierarchy from noticing reality. -- Tom Morris http://tom.opiumfield.com/blog/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Hack day in London
On 4/19/07, Ian Forrester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I think there will be a small but deadly group of XSL developers working together on some killer web applications. Absolutely deadly. I'm bringing the revolver. Ian, you bring candlesticks, and I'll ask Sheila if she can rustle up some lead piping. We're gonna beat the shit out of that Dr. Black character in the Billiard Room, I tells you. Alternatively, I'll just bring along my copy of Dr. Kay's bible. -- Tom Morris http://tom.opiumfield.com/blog/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Hack day in London
On 4/19/07, Ian Forrester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Anyone on the backstage list must be l33t enough ;) I've put my application in. Let's hope I'm l33t enough. Perhaps I need to build a semantic Ruby-on-Rails powered Ajax and BitTorrent coffee machine with a giant JSON-and-Marmite-powered Twitter wiki 2.0 laser on the top. I'm not totally sure what that is, but it sounds cool. -- Tom Morris http://tom.opiumfield.com/blog/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Tube on Twitter
Hi all, Ian has been bugging me to delurk, so I thought I'd post something I put together the other day that should be interesting and/or useful for the Londoners on this list... http://blogs.opml.org/tommorris/2007/02/22#twitterTubeTracker Basically, I've launched a little mashup which takes the Tube data, checks it every fifteen minutes and sends any errors to Twitter. You can then subscribe to a particular feed in Twitter and get updates to your Jabber account or phone. It also now means that I am collecting historical information about Tube performance. I have also just published another Twitter feed for the San Francisco BART network: http://twitter.com/bartsf There are a few problems - the key one being the length of each particular update. I'm probably going to write a script to shorten certain words, and perhaps to split up long updates in to two part updates. I'd also like to allow the "Web 2.0 user generated content" horde in, but I can't do that yet. I'm waiting for the folks at Twitter to improve their API and then I can start letting people generate their own transport delay information. I developed it because I wanted to scratch an itch - to know before I get to the Tube station whether the Circle line is running okay - and because I don't like premium rate text services where you pay like 50p to find out only a couple of bits (in the Shannon sense) of information. I'd like to do more public transport projects like this. If anyone knows of any public transport systems with XML/JSON/etc. data available about running status, please e-mail me as it takes me only a very short amount of time to do that kind of thing. Yours, -- Tom Morris http://blogs.opml.org/tommorris - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
