November 12th, 2009

Cloud storage: Impossible to fill?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:00 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Discussion, Google, Multimedia, Productivity, Virtualisation, Windows Live

Tags: Storage, Hardware, Zack Whittaker

There are vast numbers of online storage solutions, services and products at the moment. More often than not they’re free, being paid for through advertisements, and most offer a number of gigabytes; some into double figures.

But taking a look at a random selection, some including email services like Gmail and Hotmail (which offer very much the same thing in a different format), are they giving us too much storage? Are the cloud storage providers giving us infinite capacity?

Side note: semantics and technicality could shoot me in the foot here. When I mean “infinite”, I do not mean a never ending supply of data storage, rather the storage we currently have in the cloud will never be filled by us as individuals.

Take SkyDrive as a perfect example. Even though you have 25GB at your disposal, you can only upload 50MB at a time. There seems no logical reasoning to this, with the possible exception of not being able to abuse the storage for uploading of illegally downloadable films and videos. However, this restricts you somewhat.

If it were to be fully open, you could literally drag and drop an entire system image into your cloud and take it anywhere with you. Then again, you can create a restore image and use WinRAR or HJSplit to cut them into tiny 50MB sized pieces and upload manually.

I don’t think every user truly has 25GB space, though. It would make logical sense for the “drive” you have to be a dynamically expanding (virtual) hard drive. If every user used their 25GB today, the datacenters would be overfilled by tenfold no doubt.

The point is, as most online cloud services offer these vast storage quantities, you are restricted in how much you can upload in one go; this makes it ideal for documents and music files, but not for massive files like movies and large videos.

The same applies to Gmail, of which emailing something to yourself acts as pretty much the same concept. The 25MB limit is purely coincidental, but limits the user once again.

Using this time calculator, my own connection, a stopwatch on my phone and a bit of graphics editing, I’ve concluded to fill up a 25GB drive such as SkyDrive, it would take you:

… and that’s continually, without sleep, walking the dog or even going for a pee. Although, I guess maybe you could pee during the upload, but you get my point.

Still, you could always bypass the whole system and map your cloud storage to your other local computer and drag and drop that way.

Has cloud storage become unfillable?

November 9th, 2009

10 technological changes in 10 technological years

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:39 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Discussion, Events, Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Multimedia, Social networking, Uncategorized, Weird and wonderful

Tags: TV, Computer, Internet, Productivity, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Online Communications, Zack Whittaker

My goddaughter is now of an age where she can talk, understand, and learn pretty well. She’s six, so she’s pretty on the ball with things already. The things that she experiences and sees are so different to mine, and she’s only 16 years younger than me. Times change quickly, I know, but it hit me like a wave of elderly welfare benefits disguised as a petrol tanker last night.

The differences between her generation and mine, even though separated by a few years, are stark and somewhat terrifying in hindsight.

1. There were nine planets in the solar system.

For years it was always nine planets and then one day, they decided it was either going to be eight, or about twenty. They chose eight. After seven years of primary education, the world I knew it was, well gone actually; they had just declassified it as a planet.

2. A BlackBerry was a fruit, and so was Apple.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if people heard either “blackberry” or “apple” and genuinely thought of the fruit. But I cannot seem to shake the association now built with my mobile device. People say, “have at least one of your five a day”, whilst I have my BlackBerry in my hand making a call. I’d say that counts, right?

3. To load up a program, you’d have to slam in a cassette tape and wait 20 minutes for it to load.

My first computer, a CPC-464. It was so heavy you could have used it as a concrete block in a mafioso novel. A ten year gap is a bit of an exaggeration but I knew people still word processing back then on green-screened computers. When the 5″ floppy disk came out, we saw that as a mini-revolution in itself.

4. You had to dial into the Internet.

You couldn’t just have the Internet flowing in and out of the computer like an out of control waterfall. No, you had to tell it to dial another computer and information would be sent to and fro through, what was essentially a computer-to-computer phone call. What’s even more weird is that it’s still available, even today.

5. A single gigabyte hard drive simply couldn’t be filled, through no will of trying.

My first computer bought for the family at Christmas 1996 (yes, it had Windows 95) had a 64MB memory and a single gigabyte of storage. My dad said, “we will never, ever fill that”.

6. Video tapes the size of Bibles would be the only way to record a television programme, and even then it’d only be able to record an hour and a half at best.

Even though I’m far too young to remember the Betamax vs. VHS war, I most certainly remember hoping to watch back an episode of The Simpsons which I’d recorded on the oldest VCR in the world, and it failing miserably with tape lodged and jammed in every bit. It was heartbreaking.

7. The only porn we could find was the shredded remains of a dirty magazine under a bush in the local park.

This generation of Internet kids has seen more porn than any other generation of children, ever. When I was a lad, one morning you’d be lucky enough to find a shred of it near where the local dirty old man sleeps in the evening. “Kids having kids… blame the parents”: no, blame the Internet.

8. There was only one computer in the house, and if there were more, only one would connect to the Internet at a time.

No such things as wireless back then. The only wireless you’d know of was the radio, and that would have been a main source of entertainment. It may sound like wartime England, 10 years ago wasn’t that far away. Windows XP hadn’t come out yet, I was still in a school uniform and the computers we used were running Windows NT.

9. There were no such things as flat screen televisions.

At least commercially, anyway. I come from a generation where our eyes are slightly closer together yet facing slightly the opposite way from being transfixed by a CRT television for all these years. And I laugh now at the “radiation warnings” from the sticker on the side of the box…

10. Twitter was called “text messaging” and the “tweet” only went to one other person.

Yes, a new phenomenon which many don’t realise that was basically text messaging. While sending a text is still far more popular than Twitter, the days where news would slowly seep its way through a friendship group (nowadays a “social network”), whereas now you can update literally anyone and everyone in the space of 160 characters.

A lot can happen in ten years.

November 6th, 2009

Facebook profile privacy: Take control, student style

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 1:25 pm

Categories: Careers, Discussion, Multimedia, Security, Social networking, University, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Facebook, Advertisement, Privacy, E-mail, Online Communications, Zack Whittaker

A question arose in one of my seminars yesterday, asking whether universities spy on students through Facebook.

Yes, they do in many cases. But then the discussion evolved into another topic and this got me thinking. I get emails all the time asking about Facebook privacy settings and those who are worried about certain things being discovered, and the employment problems for future reference.

With the multitude of settings, and more often than not rather confusing and somewhat contradictory, how do you effectively lock down your photos, notes, profile and information, to not only certain people but everyone else outside your close-knit networks?

There are articles already on how to lock down your Facebook through the in-built settings, and this one is particularly good. However there are tricks and subtleties I’ll mention here which you may not have considered before.

Feel free to leave verbal heckles, but in the meantime - are you sitting comfortably? Shall we move on?

Network hacking to avoid staff/student snoopage –>

November 4th, 2009

Best use for touch hardware yet? FarmVille

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:13 am

Categories: Hardware, Mobile computing, Multimedia, University fun, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Mouse, Multi-touch, FarmVille, Mice, Games, Hardware, Peripherals, Personal Technology, Zack Whittaker

Day in and day out here I write articles spanning all kinds of relatively boring topics to the untrained eye. Today, after my previous article analysing the business model (yawn) of online game phenomenon, FarmVille, I discovered a rather interesting twist to the gameplay.

FarmVille is grid based, similar to SImCity in the way that every item uses up a number of squares on the canvas you have. A chicken will take up one square, a plantation patch will take up 4×4 squares, and buildings take up far more.

Considering the game is so hefty on the computer’s resources through Flash consumption and CPU usage, even with scaling the graphics down a notch, even moving the mouse can be laggy, slow and sluggish.

But throw in the multi-touch capabilities of my laptop, I can simply tap away using multiple fingers at a time and plough, plant and harvest my entire canvas of crops in a fraction of the time simply by not using the mouse cursor.

Flash doesn’t support multi-touch just yet, but perhaps with the help of the iPhone popularity, it will soon be around the corner. But for gaming purposes, a single finger at a time is still far quicker than the mouse.

Is this the only practical use I have found for multi-touch computing? Perhaps so, yes.

November 3rd, 2009

Google Wave: Has potential, but let loose too soon

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:12 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Google, Multimedia, Next-generation technology, Productivity, Skills development, Social networking, University, Weird and wonderful, e-Learning

Tags: Google Inc., Google Wave, E-mail, Corporate Communications, Online Communications, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

Google Wave has annoyed me so far. Because I am set in my ways and stubborn enough to brandish anything new, exciting and radical to my everyday routine as “a giant waste of my time”, I saw Wave as more of a challenge than anything else.

At the moment the only real factor it has in its favour is the real-time collaborative space, and of course I see this as a positive from a students’ perspective in a university enterprise arena. But besides that, it has very little substance. Sure it has the avatars, the ability to change the colour of certain items here and there, and it’ll give you a contacts list. Besides that? Mostly unfinished features and no obvious end-game.

One of my favourite features so far is the “Sign out” button in the top right hand corner. This has been particularly useful when pulling out my own hair, trying to work out what the hell is going on, and becoming confused as to what is being said.

Read the rest of this entry »

October 20th, 2009

One second: The time it takes to wipe three years of work

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:43 pm

Categories: Discussion, Gratuitous rant, Hardware, Multimedia, Offers, Productivity, University, e-Learning

Tags: Hard Drive, Disk, Machine, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows 7, Operating Systems, Software, Zack Whittaker

It only takes a single second, some would argue a micro-second, to wipe an entire hard drive. Without the need for electromagnetic pulses or an industrial liquidiser, all it takes is a single spark of electricity to cause havoc with your entire electronic life.

How do I know? Because last night I hit the realisation that I lost everything in a blink of an eye. Here’s how, kids.

Two days ago, I was in my home office working on my degree work for the week. Just as I finish writing up a seminar, I stretch my legs, kicking out the all important power cable at the back of my machine. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, so I was annoyed at potentially losing what I had been working on but not particularly fussed. Read the rest of this entry »

October 15th, 2009

Internet Firechrome Safari: A browsing identity crisis

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 9:43 am

Categories: Discussion, Multimedia, Productivity, Research, Web 2.0

Tags: Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Web Browser, Web Browsers, Internet, Zack Whittaker

The importance of the web browser in our everyday lives has become a focal point of conversation to many. But to throw an interesting slant on browsers, can the average user just get away with using one?

There have been times when I have waded into the browser-battle debate (most notably here). But now I think that the world has it wrong. It shouldn’t matter which browser you use. For me and many of those I work with, it is not a case of “Internet Explorer or Firefox”; it is a case of “Internet Explorer and Firefox”.

(Well, first and foremost, forget the Safari element because running that browser on Windows is like being voted the most attractive person in the burns unit. It sounds all good and well but if you put them into comparison, it really isn’t as good as you would have hoped for. It just sounded like a good headline.)

I play FarmVille but my Firefox browser it gets slow and sluggish, and the Flash element automatically downgrades the quality to try and compensate for all of the things going on within that session. After a search around, I discovered that Google’s Chrome browser was great for FarmVille. While at first Chrome was a “dedicated FarmVille browser”, I have since expanded by browsing to Facebook then and other interconnecting sites.

I am pretty much forced into using Internet Explorer - which may I add, still suffers from frozen tab syndrome - when using Outlook Web Access on campus. But there are times when I will open up a few tabs in Internet Explorer and leave them as they are; my email, the staff directory (global address list) and a status window which is my welfare switchboard for the entire set of buildings under my umbrella.

The point is, is that now I not only use Internet Explorer for email, I also use Firefox primarily for the tab-saving element to bookmark items for later, and Chrome as well initially for gaming but now for broader use.

So in this day and age with multiple sites and online services requiring certain prerequisites or browsers to function, most of us cannot go through a single working or studying day without having to change browsers at some point.

Perhaps a more liberal attitude towards browsers should be considered by the consumer. Whether I would still call Firefox my primary browser, I don’t know because in all honesty I use at least three because there is no browser which offers the full functionality that I need in all circumstances.

Do you use multiple browsers and if so, why?

October 9th, 2009

Google's ongoing quest for home page simplicity

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:46 am

Categories: Google, Multimedia, Productivity, Research, Skills development

Tags: Google Inc., Home Page, Mice, Web Browsers, Hardware, Peripherals, Internet, Zack Whittaker

For those who aren’t in the know, the secret of Google’s success is the home page. This clever design almost one of a kind in that the home page was the only page. All you had was a search bar and a couple of options, but the speed in using the site was phenomenal.

More often than not, you double-click your browser on your desktop and begin typing your search term. Because after loading the site, you don’t need to click. Type in the term and hit the return key. All people do from the home page is search, with the odd exception here or there, but it is rare.

But since then, the home page has become a little cluttered. Google have opened up the floodgates to more services, more search sites, more business links and advanced options… perhaps not for long though.

The company seems to recognise its grass-roots in the simplicity of its home page and is regressing through a live experiment. By adding a bit of JavaScript code to the address bar of your browser once Google has loaded, it will display only the logo, the search bar and the buttons.

Hover over the page with your mouse and the rest of the options, links and services will display. But the beauty of this is that there is no inconvenience; those who search as soon as it loads don’t use the mouse so the simplistic look works.

Once Google has loaded, copy and paste this into the address bar, and hit return. Reload the page and you should see the simplistic view.

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=abac7a90f5a3784b:LD=en:
NR=10:TM=1254990196:LM=1254990236:S=uB6F4jDnMP_DuxtT;path=
/; domain=.google.com”);

To find the codes and more, the Blogoscoped pages and The Register have the details.

October 1st, 2009

FOWA 2009: Microsoft Surface 'proof of concept' actually pointless

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:49 am

Categories: Events, FOWA London 2009, Hardware, Microsoft, Multimedia, Next-generation technology, Skills development, University fun, e-Learning

Tags: Microsoft Surface, Device, Microsoft Corp., Education Authority, Projectors, Taxes, Hardware, Components, Financial Planning, Finance

The young whipper-snapper I spoke to, a computer science-studying university student at Nottingham Trent University, showed me a demonstration of the Surface table. I had seen it before and while I was initially impressed with the technology, we seemed to hit a defining moment when we both realised that the device was utterly useless.

The device itself is quite impressive, to the point where you gaze upon its innards and see the projector and the vast amount of cabling. But to be fair it is fairly simplistic for what I thought was a breakthrough device. For a camera, a few cables, a projector lamp and perhaps a few little bits and bobs here and there - as well as the outer casing which I believe was perspex - this device cannot justifiably cost $15,000.

This Microsoft intern, the student, like me yet nothing like me, seemed to be pushing his way desperately through the one-on-one talk we were having. He was showing me the feedback from the table and using interactive objects, which are essentially ordinary objects with a barcode on the underside. While I can see this as an interesting way to input data from an object to the device, it still has flaws and doesn’t work every time. It stumbles on things it doesn’t know or see properly

After a few interesting (and pushing) questions from myself, he threw in the educational factor on the defence. By claiming that schools can use the Surface device as a tool to engage with students, make and build applications and learn in the process, the Surface device is a perfect piece of kit for schools.

Wrong. As the same with universities and other educational establishments, if they can make it cheaper, then they will do. One of the games involved rearranging tiles with letters on to create a word. Local education authorities are not going to shell out the vast proportion of their IT budget on a single, damned glorified table which they could access the same learning process from using cut out card and pens.

When I told him this fact, he looked baffled and thrown away for a short time. His mind switched over to “PR Mode” and carried on discussing other points about the device. Nevertheless, after numerous blows to his ego and his knowledge and understanding, I saw in his eyes that he gave in to the journalistic pressure of an educational equal.

Not only did he admit that it was a mere proof of concept device, he couldn’t honestly pick a genuine use for the Surface table. Regardless of this, a number of hotels and big corporations in the US have bought one for their receptions and waiting areas. But it is not for the small businesses, the educational sector where it is the taxpayer’s money going into these “investments” or anyone else for that matter.

I could see the tears well up in this young gentleman’s eyes as he realised the Iron Curtain of Microsoft falling down around him. I did, however, try and recover from crippling this young man’s ego by telling him “the technology was impressive”. But that’s all I could really say without lying to him.

August 31st, 2009

An open letter to the RIAA: Illegal file sharing problem solved?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:11 am

Categories: Discussion, Government, Legal and political, Major breakthroughs, Money, Multimedia, Piracy and file-sharing

Tags: Revenue, RIAA, U.K., File-sharing, Peer To Peer (P2P), Taxes, Free Trade, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Personal Finance, Internet

Dear the Recording Industry Association of America (the “RIAA”),

I know I’ve said some harsh things before, and to be honest, I still stick by them. The Family Guy musical sketch describing the characters’ opinions of the FCC could well be replicated here in view of your own organisation.

However, today I offer you a potential solution to the illegal file sharing problem that seems to have gripped the world stage.

In a nutshell, if you live in the United States and are caught downloading illegally, you can consider yourself already bankrupt, as the RIAA will sue you into the ground. However, under new legislation in the UK, instead of hefty fines, the Government could order your ISP to cut off your broadband connection.

This has annoyed the ISPs on this side of the pond because they claim while they provide the service, it is not their job to police how their customers use it.

The problem

I honestly believe that with the price of media at the moment, the vast majority of people would be content in buying media online - provided they could have it there and then in a download. The problem is that many popular items are simply not available online to buy. Granted, this has changed with the Amazon and iTunes wave of technologies and services, but it still isn’t up to scratch.

Also, the peer-to-peer technology and online file sharing is an open Pandora’s Box and now cannot be closed. You can attempt to take random people to court and financially send them back into the Stone Age, but you cannot convict everyone.

The recording and broadcasting industries must change to survive. You cannot sustain the business model you once had because the times have changed, along with the content delivery system and the generation of people.

Read the rest of this entry »