Winter Gardening In Copenhagen?

Unlikely! There was more snow in Copenhagen in the 6 days we were there, a foot's worth (30 cm), than for the entire month of December in London. It also never made it above freezing during the Christmas period, so the snow that fell stayed there. Bizzarely, even through all that snow the airport, the trains and the roads never closed down. Sure a few trains were delayed, and people took longer to drive places than normal, but all in all nothing stopped. Well a few flights were cancelled, but these were flights to other airports that were closed such as Brussels, Paris and London. Perhaps the folks at Heathrow should go and have a look at how Copenhagen manages to keep running even through twice as much snow as that which closed Heathrow for days and caused chaos for several more.

We were incredibly lucky to make it out of Heathrow on the Tuesday before Christmas. At that stage, more than 3 days after the 10 - 15 cm of snow had fallen in London, only a third of flights were leaving Heathrow. Crazy. We were on an evening SAS flight which is typically a business travellers flight so I can only assume that SAS cannot afford to lose business Customers so made damned well sure that the flight got off the ground. Out of 5 flights they had that day, 3 of them were cancelled. Oddly there were still empty seats on the flight we took. How on earth does that work? Don't know. I am just thankful that we got off the ground.

What I saw at Heathrow though was terrible. A full 3 days after the snow had fallen the place still looked like a refugee camp. there were people sleeping on mats all over the departures area. Also the refuge of even hundreds more than had spent the previous nights there. There were mats and sliver foil blankets left all over the place. Were these waiting for more people to come back and sleep the night we left?

At the front of the airport large tents were set up for people, who did not have flights, to congregate (and sleep in?) and the Salvos (god bless the Salvation Army) were handing out food and warm drinks.

I felt guilty getting through the airport when so many people were left in a state of anger, confusion, desperation and sheer shock. It was horrible. O.K. I can understand that if we had feet of snow that there are going to be issues getting planes on and off the ground, but 15cm of the stuff 3 days beforehand? Seriously is it that difficult. I remember on the Saturday the news reporting that someone at Heathrow saying not to worry as they had plenty of de-icing chemicals to sort the problem out. Well guess what de-icing chemicals should be used on the ice and not used for drinking. Surely this is what must have been happening?

I certainly hope that the review of the chaos that is being held finds out the root cause of the problem and that something can be done about it. The answer here is yes, and it will probably cost money. I suggest that it it probably money well spent. Either that or Heathrow remains the laughing stock of major international airport hubs.

Unfortunately the people that are affected by it (and I stress I actually wasn't) are not laughing along with the joke.

I truly hope that all the people who were affected by this utter shambles, and lets face it that's what it was, made it home safely and in time to celebrate Christmas with families.

Now wasn't this blog supposed to be about Gardening in winter in Copenhagen? Hmmm sorry a little side tracked by the Heathrow issue ;-). When it comes down to it though you have Buckley's and none chance of gardening in Copenhagen in winter!

Snow ...

... and more snow!

and more snow pictures (and Christmas pictures) on flickr

Have fun

M

Winter Garden.

Wow, it has been a while since I blogged here! It's sort of been because there has been a distinct lack of activity in the garden these past few months. This was kicked off by the fact that I never see the garden in daylight any more. I get home from work at 5pm ish most days but with the clocks going back in October it is pitch dark by this time. When the weekend comes around sometimes there is no time due to other activities to get in the garden! Not to worry really there's not a lot to do at this time of year!

Now the snow has hit, for the 2nd time this December, I thought I would share a few pictures of my local area. The picture above was the view from my front door last Saturday (18th December) after the snow. Below is a view of the back garden and the neighbourhood from the top window of our house.

This was from the first round of snow on the 2nd of December. The second drop we had was a lot heavier, causing severe disruption to all life in London. Heathrow airport has been stuffed since! Crazy.

A few more snaps of the carnage can be seen in my Flickr photostream

Anyways have a great Christmas and New year, and I hope to write more next year! Hoping to get some mobile apps up and running as well which I will be able to share here as well. Possibly not mobile apps about gardening ;-)

Have fun.

Cheers

m

SMS Is Not Dead!

Sometimes I get a little tired of hearing the question 'What value does the mobile network (carrier) add?' when discussing the relationship between the Customer, who owns a mobile phone, and their experience and relationship with it. In the past few years with the explosion of 'smart' phones, increasingly mobile networks are losing their relationship with the Customer as it gradually gets prised away by the likes of Apple and Google via the iPhone and Android.

Many years ago, location was the golden egg of mobile phone networks. Mobile network operators would be able to sell access to a Customer's location to application providers and make money in the application space. Well that didn't quite work out did it? Phones will now gladly present their location directly to the application developer and so bypass the network altogether.

The same can be said of payments. Customers will always want to pay on their mobile phone bill as it's so simple right? Along comes Apple with 10's of millions of dedicated iTunes Customers who again simply by-pass the network and bill direct to their credit cards. Thankfully other market place owners don't have such a captive market, who have registered their credit card details via a PC, so there may well be a chance for the carriers to wretch some payments, on Customer bill, back. In fact this relationship between application developers and network should be rewarding for both sides for a change.

When it comes down to it though the entire world does not own a smart phone. In fact the majority of the worlds' mobiles are not smart, and although it is clear that growth in the smart phone arena is massive, the rest of the world should not go unsupported when it comes to tools to communicate. Well guess what they don't. There is this thing that is common across almost every mobile phone and mobile carrier globally. Something that was invented to allow base station installers to send test messages that has exploded into possibly the standard way of communicating between friends with mobile phones. That's right. The simple 160 character SMS.

Given the volume of messages sent globally every year, and the volume of messages sent individually:

• The average US teen sends 3334 SMS a month
• There were 6.1 trillion SMS sent in 2010. That's 200,000 SMS sent every second.

it simply astounds me that there are precious few SMS applications of any real note out there. This is one of the only distribution mechanisms that can reach almost every single GSM phone in existence across every single carrier. Of course there are some noticeable handsets that don't support SMS, such as John's Phone, but you cannot please everyone ;-) A couple of applications that have appeared recently are:

• Fast Society is a free iPhone app that groups contacts into an instant, short-term team, combining group text messaging and one-touch conference calling. – iPhone only
• GroupMe makes life easy for you and your groups with free group texting. It’s your real life network, in your pocket. – also does conf calls from the number assigned to the group. Very nice.

but on the whole there are very few that engage with SMS other than using it as a sharing distribution channel. OK there is nothing wrong with this, but there is so much more that could be achieved. Sure the development of smart phones leads to exciting new access mechanisms to engage Customers but SMS is almost universal. So why are there precious few SMS based applications as opposed to several 100,000 web based apps? Because the distribution mechanism costs! Sending an SMS has a cost that someone has to pay. In the US the recipient pays. In most of the rest of the world the sender pays. In Italy, during the 2006 World Cup the 3 network paid its Customer to receive text messages. This of course provided an excellent hacking opportunity for canny Italian 3 subscribers to hack web based services to send them SMS messages such that they would be paid by their network! Cheeky! Very Cheeky indeed! That being said, there is a cost for SMS that is either paid for by the Application provider, or the users.

So service providers cannot afford to distribute via SMS. Herein lies a very clear statement that can be addressed by the mobile networks. Mobile Networks go out of our way to entice Customers with massive packages of SMS'es that they can use each month, or they are given away for free. Why then, as we control the distribution mechanism, and access to it, and knowing that our Customers use the distribution mechanism so heavily, do we not go about making tools and products to allow our Customers to engage with their favourite distribution mechanism. If access was free you can rest assured that this would have been done years ago by application developers. Hey guess what. At the moment it is not free and the only folks who can have success in large scale SMS messaging application development are the mobile networks.

There are tens of use cases that I can think of at the drop of a hat, outside the garden shed SMS alert applications, that simply could not be delivered in a cost effective method by the application developer. I am convinced that if they could that they would have done so long ago. Why then, when the mobile networks are continually being asked what value do they add, don't the networks act to try and provide value in a communication and distribution service that they have complete control over? I am really not sure. Is it simply that we are blinded by the app ecosystems that have exploded in the past few years. Is it that we are simply missing a trick? I have my thoughts, and need to try to do more to do something about it. The point being if you own the distribution mechanism I think its a crime not to exercise it, other than giving your Customers bundles of messages to use each month. If you don't the next thing you know Google will have their own SMSC and take another chunk of your Customer. Will google Voice move into further SMS functionality on top of SMS to Email? If they do you can rest assure that there will be some interesting applications that come with it.

Time to act on and play with the resources that the Mobile Networks still have!

Cheers

m

Gardeners' World On Flickr

I have been trawling through the BBC2 Gardeners' World Flickr Group photos. There are some seriously great photos up there. A great time filler although right now I need to be doing something else at the moment!

Still weekday gardening seems to be at an end for now. With the end of Summer Time this past weekend it is close to pitch dark when I get home now. This leaves weekends only for the larger garden chores. Still I guess I could get my miners hat on to light the way in the garden? Unlikely. Think it will be a weekend endeavour now. Ho hum.

With the impending darkness in mind yesterday saw a frenetic bulb planting session undertaken. I think we were a little late with the whole bulb thing so lets see how they turn out, if they turn out. Looking forward to hopefully being surprised!

'spose with the ack of gardening malarky going on there might be some time for mobile blogs. Lets see .....

Ciao for now

Murray

Autumn Colour

The last folks who looked after my garden knew what they were doing methinks! Its Mid autumn and my garden is still full of colour! This through no fault of my own! I have been happily photographing the results of the previous owners handy work! I only hope that this time next autumn that the garden is still as colourful! Thought I would post a couple of photos of the Autumn Garden. There are more available on my Flickr Photostream in the Autumn Garden Set

The following is a bunch of Aster Amellus 'Sonia' - Michaelmas Daisies. These things are seriously going crazy. Still bursting with colour even despite the frost we are now getting.

Another View in the sunlight this time. I waited for an hour coming back every 5 minutes in the late afternoon to finally get this view of the flowers in sunlight!

Of course for a more traditional Autumn scene in any Garden, the view through the window on a seriously frosty morning.

It has been a very warm September and until recently a pretty good October. So nice in fact even the Rambling Rose has put in another appearance!

One of my favourites, the Cosmos Atrosanguineus or Chocolate flower is still putting up a brave appearance as well. These flowers have been in bloom now for a couple of months over the end of the Summer and now through Autumn. They genuinely give off a chocolate scent which can't be sneezed at!

Of course we have had our fair share of rain as well through Autumn. At one stage a couple of inches of rain in 2 days in W5. Great weather for ducks, unless the particular duck in question is an aqua-phobe I guess?

As highlighted above. More Autumn Garden snaps can be seen in my n the Autumn Garden Set on flickr. There is also a Summer Garden Set with loads more snaps contained. Need to decide next year maybe how I might organise this. Might make some monthly sets to track changes in the garden.

Cheers

M

IT's Days Like Today You Pray The Folks On Gardeners' World Know What They Are Talking About!

So inspired by Gardeners' World, from last Friday, I decided that I would scarify my lawn today. I have two areas of lawn, one at the front of the house, and rather surprisingly, one at the back of the house. The weather has hampered efforts to get both the front and the back done however. The Front is complete, as can be seen on the left but I only managed to get halfway through the back lawn.

As you can see the lawn now looks pretty grim, so right now I am praying that the folks on Gardeners world know what they are on about and next Spring I should have a nice lawn to start mowing again! I don't find out until Spring so by then they will probably be long gone anyway so I won't be able to chase them down ;-).

Maybe they are playing a horrible practical joke on lawn growers around the UK! "I know, lets make everyone stuff up their lawn this week. Then we'll open a lawn consultancy and make a killing" ;-). I am sure that they are not that way inclined! Still you never know.

So Autumn lawn maintenance is pretty simple but it is pretty hard yakka. Especially after spending an hour an a half this morning doing some back breaking community gardening in the Denison Ludlow Green. The people that live around the green own it, so once in a while we do some gardening there. This was the first time I made it, and today we were digging out the edges. OMG! Hard work! Not sure my back has recovered, although not helped by working on the lawn afterwards.

So the steps to take (and I will let you know next Spring if this actually works!):

• Mow the lawn first and rake up any loose cuttings
• Using a Springtine rake, rake through the lawn first up and down and then across. This will lift out any thatch and dead grass underneath the green grass on top. Thatch gets in the way of water and fertiliser (if you use it) getting to the roots of the grass so apparently you have to get rid of it once in a while! The picture below shows just how much thatch had built up in my lawn!
• Then aerate your lawn. Taking a pitch fork dig in and loosen the ground every 10cms. This lets air get to the roots of the grass allowing it to grow better.
• Then get some Autumn lawn food to sprinkle on. Something with phosphate and potassium. Whatever you do don't use a nitrogen based fertiliser! A bad choice in Autumn as it results in fast leafy growth which just gets obliterated in winter.
• Water the fertiliser in amd if there are any bare patches re-sow with some more grass seed.
• Rake the new grass seed in.

Simple! If somewhat backbreaking work! Below you can see how much thatch you get out of your lawn. This picture was taken after mowing and after I had raked all of the lawn clippings away! Crazy stuff.

SO I am hoping that after all of this work, and I still have the back lawn to complete, that next Spring the lawn will look something like it did when we moved in! See below. If it doesn't I will be disappointed and write a pointed letter to Gardeners' World ;-)

Anyway have fun! After 4 hours solid gardening I am off to sit still for a little!

Cheers

m

Roll On LTE and The Introduction Of Truly Mobile Content Services

I finally got the Froyo upgrade to the HTC Desire mobile that I am using. After all the hype, and waiting, it was actually rather a disappointment. Sure it’s good, and it gives me access to the latest Android firmware features and all of the applications in the Android Market Place that require Android 2.2, but all in all my phone is still pretty much the same. Sure I can now use Google Voice Actions through the Google Search application but to be honest speaking into your handset to start a call makes you look as though you are slightly demented. It’s akin to using a hands free kit while walking down the street! It just doesn’t look right having a conversation to yourself! Also after the voice action is misinterpreted such that getting directions to your post code, which ends in ‘1X’ actually has you driving to a location that ends ‘IN HEX’ the novelty wears off pretty quickly! ;-) That being said Hexadecimal directions add a little bit of a challenge to what is usually a standard drive home!

So although great to have the latest Android update for the phone, all in all a little bit over hyped. That being said there is one slightly less obvious feature that I really think can become a game changer for mobile carriers. This is the tethering support, that I am very surprised my mobile network has not turned off. Given how many 3G dongles that are sold on the network. If you have the HTC Desire, there is now no need to pay for a 3G dongle for your PC as well. Simply hook up your Desire to your PC via a USB cable and bingo, you are on network. Even better HTC have added a WiFi Hotspot application that allows you to tether your PC, or other mobile, via WiFi. This is very cool indeed and just what is needed. At work the mobile network that I have my iPhone on has almost zero reception. Now I can use it via WiFi on the mobile network that the HTC Desire that I am using is on! OK so its overkill but I think it demonstrates a point.

With LTE slowly rolling out across mobile markets it might not be too far in the future where your mobile becomes the only device that you use to access the internet from every other device in your house, or while you are on the road. Think about it. LTE can offer downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbit/s, an uplink of at least 50 Mbit/s. In theory you could hook up any internet enabled device to your mobile, that acts as a portable WiFi hotspot, in order to connect you wherever you are! Assuming you are in network coverage ;-). 20Mbit/s should be enough to supply you your HD TV streaming service, and you still have plenty of bandwidth to play Farmville on your PC while you are ignoring the TV. In theory, almost every single one of your data services could be supplied through one mobile phone, that you pretty much well carry everywhere.

Here is the key as well. As you have your phone on you at all times you have all of your services as well permanently with you. So as your phone has a HDMI out socket you can watch your Sky TV anywhere, as your Sky TV account will be linked to your MSISDN as this becomes the distribution mechanism for it! Very cool. At the moment if you go out of your house, bang there goes your Sky viewing. The deal that Sky does with the Mobile network to deliver its content means that the carriers are no longer a dumb bit pipe. They are a bit pipe that makes money from Content Providers. Google will also be lining up to pay to have their services delivered ;-) What’s even better is that on most TV’s in the future you won’t even need your HDMI Out socket on the handset to stream content to them. They will simply hook up wirelessly as well. What’s even better than that is that soon enough your mobile will be able to project a powerful enough image from its built in projector so you won’t even need a TV. Just beam the stream onto a wall. No free wall nearby? Don’t worry just stream the content to your AR glasses via blue tooth. Just don’t do this while walking or driving. It could be hazardous.

Seriously, the options for LTE from a mobile operator are endless. Some of them involve simply being a dumb bit pipe, but hopefully the service fee that a Customer pays to have their Sky HD TV service available where ever they are is distributed between Content Provider and mobile network. When this is done mobile networks can be dumb bit pipes and be proud of it!

The downsides:

• You lose your phone, you are pretty much well stuffed! You should have a backup SIM stored safely somewhere.
• You leave your house and everyone else in the house loses their internet connectivity. Too bad if little Johnny has to finish off his homework while you are on a business trip. I am sure the mobile networks would be smart enough to have some kind of dual SIM such that the one in your phone shares the same account as the one left in a phone, or a fixed device at home ;-)
• Mobile networks will probably cap data usage. This can be currently seen with the initial contracts that are being offered on LTE, The more you pay the higher data speeds you get. OK, but if you cap the usage of data then I am going to be less likely to attempt to use all of my data services as at the end of the week I will probably run out of data! OK to be fair if the network is priced competitively then I will probably be able to tailor my network usage to the correct package ;-).

LTE, if it works to specification, and the network has the appropriate coverage, has a massive amount of potential for both Content Providers and Mobile Networks. Tidy. Very tidy indeed!

Cheers

M

How Much Rain Have You Had?

The difference between rain in the UK and rain in Australia is that in Australia typically you never have enough of it, unless you live in the tropics and have wet seasons! Every drop of rain in Australia seems precious and as a result its reported every time there is one! Every weather forecast I can remember, in Australia, told you the amount or rain that had fallen in various locations around the country. Better than that, they told you how much rain had fallen in different locations around the city you were in. For some reason this became important to me as a kid growing up. It might have had something to do with the fact that I spent 3 years living through at the time was one of the worst droughts on record in a tiny country town that rarely saw water unless it was muddy and gurgled up from a bore hole!

Contrast this to the UK, where apart from the odd summer where it doesn't rain often (with this year thankfully being one of those) it does rain far more often than it does in most parts of Australia. OK so that is stating the bleeding obvious I guess. That being said though the quantity of rain is very rarely reported on the weather. It seems to be enough to say that it will rain at some time in the next 24 hours, but very rarely do they ever say how much it will rain, and even rarer will they tell you how much it did rain in the past 24 hours. Sure if there has been some torrential rain they might mention that it rained 50 mm's in some random place in the past day but rarely will they say this.

I guess it all comes down to the frequency with which rain events happen in the two different countries. It's a given that it will rain on several to seven days on any given week in the UK, however in most places in Australia if it rained on two consecutive days sales of Arc building supplies sky rockets. It's just not as common a phenomenon.

So for the past 10 years I have been stumbling around in the rainfall measuring wilderness, not knowing if I should head to my local DIY store in order to refresh the Arc building supplies, as I simply have never known how much has been raining! Sure I know that something has fallen from the sky but not whether I will have to swim to work the next day!

Finally though I have done something about it. The wilderness has been cleared and I am back in the realms of rainfall civilization as last Monday I was given my very own rain gauge! Tidy! Very Tidy indeed! The above picture shows the top of my shiney new rainfall gauge! You know what though? For the week after I got it it didn't bleeding well rain! I was unable to test it! Typical. Get a rain gauge and it doesn't rain. I think I could start controlling the weather you know. If I bring that rain gauge in over night I bet you it would start to chuck it down!

Finally though last night we got a dousing of the wet stuff, and I am happy to report that in W5 over the course of the evening and night of the 6th of September, we had 11mm of rain. Today (the 7th) we had 1mm further rain until 5pm ;-)

Have fun

m

Mobile News For The End Of Week 34

Hmmm don't know what to do. I know I will get GOOG to tell me what to do next! http://awe.sm/59eSe Thanks Eric ;-) - this was actually a story about streaming search results, so instead of getting the suggested search terms you see as you have partially typed in a keyword search you would instead see the actual search results. I think this would be incredibly confusing but if launched would be interested to try. At the bottom of the story is Eric Schmidt’s reference to what he actually thinks people want Google to do for them. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”. Seriously I hope this is not the case! It would be a sorry day that we had to rely on a search engine to tell us what to do! What do you think Google would tell you? “You want to click on this strategically placed advertisement” ;-). Just image the amount of profiling information required to tell you what you want to do next?

Google Goggles coming to iPhone http://awe.sm/59eSk If they could port Navigation, Gesture Search and Sky Map that would be great ;-) – an announcement that Google are going to provide Google Goggles on iPhone has to be good. Not that I particularly use Google Goggles on android. For me the current state of the application is a novelty, but as image recognition advances you can see how the product could advance from a novelty to a valuable resource. It’s Android applications like this that make me like the platform. Other applications such as Navigation, Gesture Search and Sky Map are also great. The Talking RSS Reader is also very cool although I think that was developed by someone at Google as opposed to Google. If all could be ported that would be fantastic. I guess there are always going to be differentiators between software platforms that make one have the edge over the other. As is always the case though there are several edges so the pros and cons between platforms typically out-weigh each other. Thank god WAC is going to come along and standardise the development environment for mobile such that all applications have a standard runtime to be deployed in. That way all phones will have access to all applications. Cool. I am so forward looking to WAC . Well at least the one Samsung device on which it will run.

Windows Phone 7 web browser review and comparison with Android and iPhone http://awe.sm/59eUC #WP7 no Flash or HTML5 at this stage – OK theres not much in the comparison of the mobile browsers between iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile 7. OK so its not that scientific, but the review in this video hits on what most people might find of issue. Interesting that currently Windows Mobile 7 browser does not support flash or HTML 5. Apparently Windows are not commenting on when they might. This leaves Android as the only environment that does support Flash. Lets see if WM7 follows and has a differentiator against iPhone. You would have thought that they would do this from the start so they have something to crow about over the iPhone?

RT @orelien Foursquare celebrates four consecutive days of record signups http://ff.im/-pCoe1 – as I mentioned in my last blog the launch of facebook Places should be seen as an opportunity by the current check-in service players. Places allows a perfect distribution mechanism to facebook’s 500 million users. Well OK currently only there US users. Both Foursquare and Gowalla are highlighting significant usage increases since the launch of Places.

RT @androidcentral Motorola Flipout shows off itself in a demo video http://bit.ly/9cmmlR -> interesting form factor – a square phone with a flipout keyboard. That’s different. Well not really, there have been a few square mobile phones before (check out a google image search for a square mobile phone), but its not that common. I have not had a play with this phone yet but I am intrigued to have a look at it. I wonder if not having to worry about developing the OS, this phone has and Android OS, has allowed Motorola to have more time to play with the form factor. I wonder if we shall have some further intriguing design concepts coming out of the other Android OEM’s. Fingers crossed

RT @mashable The State of the GeoSocial Universe [INFOGRAPHIC] - http://mash.to/2ugc2 - numbers of users of social services from mobile – this infographic, although not actually providing numbers, highlights the usage from mobile of various internet communities and products. Fantastic to see that significant traffic now generated from mobile. Well fantastic if you currently work in the mobile industry, or want to. It’s clear that mobile internet access is not a fad. People want it. The immediacy it brings is clearly seen as a positive thing by the internet consuming community. There is a long way to go for many PC based web services to mobilise their content. This should supply those that enable mobile services plenty of chance to increase their reach into the market as well, if only they could see this.

O2 Now adding an eco rating to each of their phones e.g. The Samsung Galaxy S http://awe.sm/59gar details -www.o2.co.uk/thinkbig - OK so I wrote a blog about this here. It’s a good idea, however I think their implementation of it is slightly flawed. Interestingly Apple have refused to partake in the eco assessment. It’s svolutary so no-one can force them. You know if they got a low number though they would instantly be slammed in the press! The Guardian provides an article here about how Apple have not joined in the program. Have a look at the comments below the article. Many Apple haters there! Truly amazing the passion with which people both love and seemingly hate Apple!

Everything your Android phone can replace: 45 gadgets with a total weight of 110 Pounds http://awe.sm/59gcA (via @mob4hire )- I liked this article. Convergence is truly upon us with the smart phone. This article lists 45 gadgets that you no longer need to carry as you have access to their functionality from your Android phone. Interestingly they did not include a PC. I so rarely use my PC now at home. Well not for surfing anyway. I do work, and write these blogs on it (some might say this PC should be removed from my possession immediately based on this. Ho hum. I did not force you to read this did I? I think I would have used far more persuasive means to make you read this if I really wanted to ;-) ) but for surfing and instant access to web content I very rarely use my home PC. So we could possibly add that to the list. My home PC weighs a tonne as well!

RT @IntoMobile Pinball Magic Turns your iPhone into a Working Pinball Machine! http://bit.ly/93ZvqF - most important mobile news in ages – very cool little application! Well I am unable to download the pinball game as it appears that at the moment you can only purchase this in the US . I love the financial model for the game though. Have the game for free, but if you want the whole playing experience you have to buy the pinball cabinet separately. Being a pinball fan I love the application concept as well ;-) If, or when, this is available in the UK I will be purchasing ;-)

Want People And Industry To Change? Hit The Hip Pocket! http://goo.gl/b/bgEe - new blog entry influenced by the @O2 eco rating – remember if you have a different idea, but don’t implement it then you are a failure. Umm yeah right. Thanks for that. As discussed above O2 introduced an eco rating to their handsets today. This had me thinking about an idea I had for taxing carbon on everyday products a few years ago. Nothing ever came of it but it was an interesting thought at the time. I feel like a failure for not having completed the implementation. Actually in all honesty I don’t really. ;-)

Microsoft To Pay More Than Half A Billion Dollars To Jump-Start Windows Phone 7 http://awe.sm/59lbS - wow that's a serious amount of wonga! Estimates of 400 million alone on advertising. Oh man there are going to be a lot of windows mobile ads this Christmas! :-(. MS did the same when they launched the Xbox to try and crack the market. They have been successful in gaming but will they be successful again in mobile? The Xbox tie in might drive some sales. So will good handsets hopefully! That is if there are any! ;-). I have yet to be able to have a play with windows 7, but look forward to giving it a try.

That's about it for this week. Well that's it for the bits and pieces that caught my eye anyway.

Have fun! Bank Holiday Weekend! Yessss!

Cheers

m

Want People And Industry To Change? Hit The Hip Pocket!

The Announcement today that O2 were adding an eco rating to each of their handsets had me thinking back to an idea I had 5 years ago. Firstly though, about the eco rating that O2 have introduced to each of their handsets. In O2's words they use a tool to:

"assess our suppliers and their products against a range of sustainability criteria. Energy consumption; substances used; packaging and the way the company operates in its local community are all taken into account."

This results in an eco score out of 5 for each handset. This only works for supplies that participate within the scheme and as an example the Samsung Galaxy S gets an impressive eco rating of 3.6 out of 5..... well is this impressive or not? I have no idea and here in lies the problem. I really like the concept of the eco rating against a product that I am going to buy as it means that I can make an informed decision about what I am going to buy and how it potentially impacts the world around me. However a number gives me no visibility as to how this was awarded and as a result I cannot really make an educated judgement. Also it's just a number. What does 3.6 out of 5 actually mean. Does this actually mean that The Samsung Galaxy S is only 72% kosher with 28% nastiness? There is no visibility as to how the score is calculated therefore it is relatively meaningless. If I buy it are 28% of the buttons on the key pad dangerous to use? Will they dial a 5 when I hit the 6?

That being said, interesting move by O2 to add an eco rating but please:

• provide visibility on how the score is actually assessed and what criteria each device has achieved
• provide a mechanism such that I can compare devices eco ratings easily without having to navigate to each device individually. This might be available but I sure as heck could not find it.

This would at least allow the consumer to make an informed decision, and would not make the concept sound like marketing gumpf. Again I would like to add that I applaud the concept, I just wish that the process was a little more transparent.

Anyway enough of 02. As I said, about 5 years ago I had a similar idea, however it was on a far greater scale. I wanted every single product to have a carbon rating, i.e. a value that allowed a consumer to see how much carbon was produced to get a product to a place of purchase. OK so my rating was purely carbon based and didn't have a measure of Corporate Social Responsibility, but maybe that could have been added later ;-).

So that is all well and good. Consumers would be able to see the carbon footprint of each of their products. I seriously wanted this on everything. So instead of seeing the price per unit, or the price per 100 grams of a product, instead you would see the carbon produced figure for the same measure. This would be for TV's, your packet of crisps, your fruit and veg, your pot of honey etc.... Yes really everything! So that is all well and good, a consumer would be able to see exactly how their consumption would have an impact on the environment. For me though that was not enough.

What I really wanted to see was at the cash register, or online checkout, that instead of paying VAT, or sales tax, or possibly on top of that tax, the consumer would also pay a carbon tax. This would be the only way, in my view, to get consumers to change their mind and alter their consumption for the benefit of the planet. I am sure pretty soon off season fruit and vegetables imported from all places around the globe would be off most peoples menus. The carbon tax, increased because your bean has been flown in from Kenya, would make buying carbon wasteful products prohibitive. People would learn to use products that were in season or created within reach of where they lived.

Yeah I know this is short sighted, but I still think there could be a measure of this kind of carbon consumption introduced to encourage people to change. As I say, although people know about the issues or have heard about them, the only way to make a wholesale change on society is to hit them where it hurts. The hip pocket. Lets face it this is how most people vote nowadays. What's in it for me. What political party is going to leave me with the most money in my pocket? Well why not try this with consumption? Yep I will eat seasonal vegetables as they are they provide the lowest carbon footprint and are therefore the cheapest to buy. Simple.

Of course its not simple. Tracking the carbon produced during the production of a product is almost impossible without certain amounts of guess work and therein lies the problem. There would be a lot of high powered carbon analysists who would be paid massive amounts to come up with small numbers with respect to the Carbon produced in the production of pesticides used to grown beans in Kenya. There are just too many ingredients in the creation of even the simplest things, that it becomes almost impossible to measure. Still there must be ways to measure a reasonably accurate measure. Is there such thing though as a reasonably accurate tax. Unfortunately no.

Sure there are hurdles in the plan but that did not stop me! It was not just fruit, veg, crisps and everything in your shopping basket that I wanted this carbon tax slapped on. Cars for instance. You would pay carbon tax for the production of the car and then you would pay a once off tax for the carbon that the car produced during it's lifetime. This would put a dent in new car sales, but how long would it be until we saw a hydrogen fuel infrastructure rolled out across a country that hit gas guzzlers with a monstrous carbon tax. Pretty soon I imagine.

Yeah these changes would be pretty drastic, but I bet if you hit the hip pocket then society would change pretty quickly. Oh and all the tax raised. Well obviously this would have to go into renewable energy and finding replacements for our carbon rich energy consumption!

Sure it's simplistic, but you never know it might just work. I have all the Carbon measuring tools and integrated systems for managing this tax sorted out in my head. So if you want to make a go of it let me know and I'll formalise the idea and business plan ;-)

In the meantime:

• well done O2, but please be a little more serious about it so we can see its not just marketing bullshit.
• and think the next time you buy something. Our choices can have an impact on the very planet we need to survive.
• If you are really cluely invent the warp drive so we can ask friendly neighbouring planets if we can squat there for a while when our planet can no longer support us!

Have fun

Cheers

m

Mobile, And Facebook News For The End Of Week 33 and beginning of 34

So Thursday afternoon, west coast US time saw the much hyped facebook announcement regarding their location product and third party location API's. As can be seen by the logo a little unfortunate that it is comprised of a four in a square. This product launch even generated press coverage on Radio One, so you know it must be important.

As expected Facebook Places launched in the US yesterday http://awe.sm/59VYr iPhone only at this stage - A shame that the launch is iPhone and mobile site on HTML 5 devices only. Given Mr Zuckerburg apparently uses Android now I am surprised an initial launch was not also available on Android. Still I imagine it is not far behind

@gowalla Starting tomorrow, Gowalla check-ins you chose to post to Facebook will be shared as check-ins, not simply a status update. - The product also includes third party developer API's, as everyone expects an internet product to now have ;-). Gowalla and foursquare are among the initial launch partners. Check-ins on these services will now be posted to facebook as checks-ins on foursquare Places. Other launch partners include Yelp and Booyah. The trade off for providing access to third parties for facebook is that they get to embrace the cool of these early start ups while these companies get to embrace the facebook community for distribution. Following the launch of facebook places both foursquare and Gowalla announced their busiest weekends activity.

RT @mashable Privacy Group Voices Concerns About Facebook Places - http://mash.to/2rEfw That was quick ;-) - It didn't take long for the naysayers to jump on the privacy bandwagon! Seriously if you are concerned about this simply don't use the services. No-one is forcing you to use them. I agree that sharing location can be a sensitive issue and if you are concerned then understand the privacy limitations and work within them. Foursquare have clearly stated how they manage privacy and how users can control what information is displayed through use of their product. I still have concerns over Gowalla privacy and this impacts my usage of the service. If you have taken time to understand how the privacy works and still have issues with the service then don't use it. If you work in privacy group in a large German company, or any German company for that matter, .... well probably best not use these services either ;-)

As hoped @foursquare and @gowalla partner with Facebook Places http://awe.sm/59VZQ Great for distribution! - as mentioned above, facebook places allows 3rd parties to integrate with the Places product. A great move for all involved. The new start-up community of check-in services gets to embrace many millions of facebook users, thus benefitting from increased distribution. Facebook hopes to get a bit of the cool factor of these services to rub off on its now old school product ;-). I do wonder though if facebook might end up smother these infant startup services with kindness though. Is anybody else a little worried that foursquare servers might not be able to cope with a massive spike in users?

RT @mashable Location-Based Text Message Ads Get a Major Boon - http://mash.to/2rAkc -> SMS Not dead - for the many billions of users of mobile users that do not own a smart phone SMS is not dead. Billions of SMS messages are still sent daily and it is a communication mechanism that is understood by almost every mobile user. Not everyone has a browser and a facebook app. Precisely why I like the twitter SMS services that are available. SMS is not a dead medium and this is a novel use for it, assuming that you have opted in to receive messages. Again Pricacy crusaders should probably avoid opting into this one as your brains might melt with concern.

Ofcom research about media consumption in the UK http://awe.sm/59VbU Smart phone ownership now 26.5%. Fbook consumes 45% mob net time - OK so smartphone usage might not be universal and SMS might be a means to communicate, but in the UK smart phones will be sold with breakfast cereal next year! The growth in smart phone usage is driving a surge in media consumption. At the moment your average UK resident consumes 25 hours of media a day! This is as most now have 2 smart phones ;-) Well OK this is not quite true, but if you are looking for the headline .... well probably don't use the one above ;-). Still smartphone usage and media consumption do flwo hand in hand.

RT @TechCrunch The Paranoid (and Germany) Can Relax, Facebook Dials Up Privacy With Places - http://tcrn.ch/ddqgEC by @evelynrusli - more privacy concerns about check-in services? Here's an explanation of how facebook handle it. Have a read. See if you are happy with it. If not then please don't use the service. The last time I checked facebook were not forcing you to do so?

RT @IntoMobile Leak: Photos: Nokia N9 [MeeGo, QWERTY, Finland's next flagship?] http://bit.ly/9cdhvV - Nokia's next flagship device. Fingers crossed it doesn't behave like a massive ship unable to change course to avert an impending disaster. One must reserve judgement until the device is launched.

RT @mashable Foursquare Experiences Record Signups After Launch of Facebook Places - http://mash.to/2sfre - As mentioned above. Will facebook inadvertently kill with kindness? Can foursquare cope with the load. Gowalla also commented about the massive spike in usage over the weekend on twitter.

More than 100 million people a month now use Google Maps for Mobile http://awe.sm/59XYR thats quite a few ;-) - Google know how to kill a party don't they. The day of launch of facebooks fledgling Places API's with the many fledgling companies integrating with it, Google drop a 100 million monthly users of Google Maps bomb on them. Nice timing Google ;-) Seriously impressive figures though. I think someone should let Google know that 2010 is the year of mobile! Or do you think they already know that ;-)

Providing the tools to allow your customer to have a sense of ownership of the product they use is essential http://goo.gl/b/v2CN - a blog entry I wrote about the benefit of talking to your Customers and how if you actually take the time to listen to them that in general the world will be a happier place! Sometimes it astonishes me that people forget that the Customer is actually an important piece of the product lifecycle. Some might suggest that without Customers there is no real point in making products.

Working with location-based apps will help prepare your business for the day when checkin apps are mainstream - http://awe.sm/59cVD - I touched on this in a previous post. Check-in services and other LBS services are not going to be going away any time soon. Companies that learn to embrace them and find out how to engage Customers within them are going to benefit hugely in the long run. They are not a passing fad. Imagine if you had access to millions of Customers and their location and didn't make something of it! Seriously! Are you mad??

Mobile operators expect voice revenues to be overtaken by app downloads in 2013 http://bit.ly/bVzdeb Really? Really? How? via @feebeyer - again. Seriously! Are you mad? I do note that there is no source of the information in this article that says carriers are going to make more money from app downloads then they will from voice by 2013. Whoever actually said this can you please put your hand up? I will submit your name for the optimist of the decade award. Is it the WAC application store that is going to drive this carrier revenue? Maybe if you add up all access revenue and start charging content providers for content distribution, i.e. remove net neutrality, then maybe you might get a dent into that falling voice revenue! But if you charge for content distribution do you think some other players might get into the market and deliver free content based on an advertising model? I am not going to name names but when you think about it I am sure you could come up with one. Hey carriers have to make money, and there is still plenty to be made in content, access and distribution. I just have serious doubts about the statement that carriers will make more money from app downloads than voice within the next 3 years. There are other ways to make money though which I would be happy to discuss! We could even make money from access! ;-)

Cheers

M

Can You BBQ Left Over Pizza?

The answer is a resounding yes! So in a new section of this blog, possibly titled 'What Can You Cook In Your BBQ', every now and again I am going to see what you can cook in your BBQ, as it says on the tin, and report on the outcome here! I may also have left this a little late with respect to the fact that BBQ season has almost past us :-(. But still we could have an Indian Summer so there might be all sorts of chances to see what goes and what doesn't in the realm of the BBQ ;-). Also no matter what the weather a BBQ will be held in my backyard on Australia day next 26th of January. I hope it's not snowing, but even if it is I am going to give it a whirl. Here I will attempt to report on whether or not it is possibly to BBQ an Australian.

So have you ever regrettably, in a moment of weakness, ordered pizza from a well known pizza brand? You know the ones who bake their pizza's on a cardboard base? Well in a moment of sheer laziness we did this last night. The taste is bland as the cardboard the pizza is baked on but if you are lazy sometimes you don't always get something edible!

When we do this we inevitably end up with left over slices which end up in the fridge. See picture above. Sometimes these get consumed, however usually, in our case, they end up in the rubbish. Tonight however, inspired by a late BBQ season session for lunch, I started to think maybe it was possible to reheat the left over pizza slices on the BBQ. Not entirely sure why this thought entered my head, as we do have a perfectly functional oven, but enter my head it did. I was not going to rest the BBQ tongs until I had a chance to determine whether or not Pizza could be reheated on the BBQ!

I thought through the cooking options first. Would I try to cook the slices on both sides? This would create a challenge due to the relatively loose toppings on the top of the pizza. Although the cardboard pizza company uses only the finest ingredients that can be compressed together in a factory, each of these components, they are not really items of food after all, sits relatively loosely on top of the cardboard base. This plan was quickly eliminated as the correct reheating method. After all you don't flip the pizza when you are making it, nor do you flip it when you reheat it in a conventional oven. So as can be seen on the left, the slices were simply laid on the grill.

After a few minutes, with the BBQ lid down, piping hot pizza! To be honest it was possibly even nicer than it was the first time around. This was possibly due to it actually being hot as opposed to being lukewarm, as they typically are on delivery! I wouldn't say that the pizza was fantastic, however it was definitely better than the previous evening!

There is not much you can really do to make cardboard pizza bases taste interesting though. Still they did hold up very well on the grill as can be seen from the picture on the left. As you would expect there are grill marks on the slice, however it has not burnt. This pizza chain clearly uses quality cardboard! Maybe it is the very nature of the cardboard that made the grill reheating possible. Next time I make my own pizza, perhaps I should try reheating them on the BBQ as well to see if I get the same results? The only trouble is when I make pizza there is usually no leftovers to try with ;-) Maybe this is due to the fact that most of the pizza I make ends up crushed by whiskey or left on the ceiling as a result of a nasty base making accident? See photos below.

Anyway, should you have any left over pizza with a high concentration of cardboard within it, then do feel free to try BBQ'ing it without fear of an imminent cheesy disaster! BBQ'ing leftover pizza works, and it works quite well!

Cheers

M

P.S. Ohhh I should add if you only have a coal BBQ I would not spark it up to reheat pizza slices! It really would not be worth the effort! The only reason I tried is because we have a gas fired BBQ which takes a second to spark up and one or two minutes to heat up ;-).

Below is an example of the typical Laphroaig Scotch Whiskey Rolling pin that is essential in the production of my pizzas. This gives a nice smokey and petey flavour to the dough. Also the fact that the scotch is aged in oak adds a little extra to the taste.

After rolling in scotch, it is necessary to get the base back down off the ceiling before attempting to do anything else. This step occurs due to overzealous base stretching antics as can be seen below.

After ceiling extraction we usually end up with something edible however, as can hopefully be seen below. When I say hopefully I hope the picture does it justice, as opposed to you hopefully being able to see the picture.

What Is The Purpose Of Snails?

Is it just to serve them in garlic butter? Not sure. Although I find them to be fascinating creatures, other than consuming delicate leaf matter in the garden they don't seem to serve another purpose? Do they consume other garden pests, or are they part of the food chain for some other creature? It's not as if you see the urban foxes chowing down on them at lunch time. Well perhaps more an evening snack as you don't see many urban foxes at lunchtime. Again, when talking about foxes I am not referring to tarted up slappers, but the 4 legged variety ;-). You know the ones that used to be hunted by packs of dogs and groups of people on horses. Again if this has confused you I am still referring to the four legged variety.

I have just spent an hour or so pottering about the back garden, hanging out with the frogs and snails. A little bit of hedge trimming, mowing the lawn and edges interrupted the pottering for a little, but there was pottering to be done all the same. There are many frogs and snails, either hopping about when disturbed, or generally not moving very fast at all if disturbed. So frogs I get. They will get rid of the mosquito larvae hanging about or generally consume other insects that you might think are annoying. As it turns out if they are good for the frogs they should be far from annoying for us! But do snails provide a similar consumer service for us? Or in their consumer service to be serviced up in piping hot garlic butter? Note this only provides a real consumer service in France, and French restaurants elsewhere. Come to think of it Frogs provide a similar service in France as well! What is it with the French and their consumption of Garden wildlife? ;-) Next thing you know they'll be eating horses! ...... Oh. ;-)

I know your common garden snail typically gets in the way of your delicate plants and vegetable crops by frequently dining on them, but do they provide any other beneficial service in the garden? I really don't like the thought of disposing of them and if I have been I have simply been putting them out with the garden recycling bags. Ealing Council provide these and although the snails probably don't meet a fortunate ending by being put out in these bags, they are at least getting a good feed on the way ;-).

Question is, are snails good for the garden? Should they simply be left alone to chow down on your plants? After all people love salad leaf so why shouldn't snails get in on the action once in a while?

I will have a look about in the coming days and see if I can find an answer.

Cheers and have fun!

M