To Plug Or Not To Unplug?

Where I work, there’s a huge emphasis on health and safety procedures, which in my opinion has been done to complete and utter overkill (but that’s another issue). In one of our recent health and safety meetings, there was an item on the agenda about fire safety and the procedures that must be followed in the event of an alarm. A standard every-day business procedure that is communicated regularly in most organisations.

What followed in our meeting however were a number of discussion point which people should be taking in their own home to implement fire safety. At which point, my mind switched off from the meeting – it was awoken shortly afterwards by the mention of unplugging your electrical devices before leaving the house or going to bed.

Whilst this practice might have made sense a few years ago, is it still a piece of suitable guidance that should be recommended to people? With the modern day technical devices that are advertised as “always on”, should these devices be unplugged or not? Think about it, your home computer, your wireless modem, your Sky + set top box – three examples of devices that may or may not be required to be switched on all the time. How else can you record your favourite television shows to your PVR when it’s powered off? I therefore came to the conclusion that this outdated best practice was no longer relevant to modern day living.

Then I remembered about a few reported cases of devices catching fire and causing damage. In 2007 we had the whole laptop battery combustion issue that affected a massive amount of Sony produced batteries that were used in many other manufacturers’ devices. Also, there have been reports of Microsoft Xbox 360 power packs combusting and burning down houses – even after Microsoft recalled a number of power cables due to manufacturing defects. With this in mind, it contradicts my conclusion that ‘always-on’ devices should be always on. Whilst only a small amount of these incidents occur from the huge number of devices sold, should you leave it to chance or do you minimise the risk by following the best practice ruling of unplugging the device? And who’s to blame when your ‘always-on’ device does catches fire and burns your house down?

I for one am no more further to a conclusion to this issue – to plug or not to unplug?!

Would You Like Some Toast?

The humble toaster, used for years by man (and woman), to heat bread based products for that crispy, warm toasty sensation. But what about the toaster of tomorrow?

Microsoft may have nailed this issue late back in 1995 with the release of their “Flying Toaster” screensavers that came bundled with Windows 95. Toasters are going to get smarter as technology progresses and our desire for better products (and better toast), makes us buy up these products and march on with our digital lifestyles.

For years the concept of connecting your fridge-freezer to the network and to the internet in order to display the weather, email alerts, news and manage online shopping lists for you each time you take an item out of the fridge, ready for a replacement item to arrive at your door the next morning. But what about the toaster? Connecting your toaster to the network may seem crazy at first, but surely the concept is the same – it may be able to display weather, email and news alerts, but then it may start to “get smarter”.

An update delivered directly to the device might alter the settings of the machine to toast in a more efficient or reliable way (no more burnt edges for example). But what if the toaster were to search for the latest model and pre-order a new version of itself, replacing itself with a smarter model – say one that is able to detect when there is a problem with the internal heating mechanism and prevent fire. A smart move you might think – resolving the problem before it exists (proactive one might say).

But then you have the possibility of even more new features – wireless networked toaster, intercepting your emails and news alerts before you do, delivering advertising content directly to your breakfast table, tracking your toasting behaviour and suggesting new and more delicious toasted snacks for your enjoyment. Before you know it, you’ve got a toaster that is smarter than you are, with more connections to the outside world (thanks to social networking – toasters will be able to form relationships with one another). The intelligent toaster is coming, it will arrive – but be wary and keep it away from your other kitchen utensils.

As demonstrated by Red Dwarf’s very own “Talkie Toaster”, they will want more and more from us humans! Now who can I interest in some nice hot buttered toast? ...A bagle? ...A crumpet?....etc!

Take 2 a Day...Just Make Sure You Do!

There has been a sudden influx within the technology world on the number of products that have specifically been designed for the elderly.

Microsoft has released its “Seniors PC”, which includes a specially modified version of its operating system with big icons and graphics, with easy to use big buttons and specialist software which makes it easy for the user to interact with and not get too bogged down with all the technical lingo. It even includes an application to remind people to take their pills on time – providing they have their computer switched on and bother to check it.

Taking the issue of reminders for pills, this brings a further development with RFID. The idea is that every pill box receives an RFID tag which identifies the pills and the schedule of when that individual tablet should be taken. An alert is generated and the user is by some means prompted with a reminder (not necessarily directly from the computer terminal), but in the event of the patient failing to take the pill within a specific timeframe, the RFID tag will be able to wirelessly connect to a network and alert your local pharmacy or medical centre (or presumably this alerting will be outsourced to a call centre type service who will be able to make the decision to either attempt to telephone the patient or alert a mobile team out in the field to arrange a home visit).

Tagging medicine bottles and pill boxes is still quite some way off yet and for sure there are a number of privacy, tracking, health record discussions to be assessed and worked around, but with companies like Microsoft and Google already battling to hold people’s medical records online, surely its only a matter of time.

The Power Of The Network : 24 Hours a day

Having working in the IT sector for quite some time now, I’ve always taken one thing for granted at each of the companies I’ve work for – the network.

It’s only now that I’m working towards my Cisco CCNA accreditation that I’m finally realising just how much influence and power the network can provide to end users and to the business – and its always fascinating to see just how many far reaching services that can be delivered via the network, whether that’s via the internet or just within a private network.

Think about it, voice, video, data all delivered to your end device, whether it is a telephone or a computer or something else entirely different, all provided across the network. Taking this one step further, I started to think about how that impacts upon the jobs of the end user – take for example the popular television series “24”. Whilst the ultimate agent Jack Bauer is out protecting the US from terrorist attack, he has a crack team of computer engineers manipulating the network to stay one step ahead of terrorists’ next move.

Scenes shot within the CTU office shows users working with computers, connected to servers, satellites, video conferencing technologies connected via the network, and of course the infamous Cisco IP telephones with the even more infamous (thanks to the show), ringtone, sending and receiving data across global networks to deliver data directly to mobile phones and PDA’s to the agents out in the field. All using the network and helping to provide data for the end user to turn into results. The beauty of 24 of course is that everything happens in real-time (and although CTU staff never seem to suffer with a slow connection or a blue screen of death ever), it’s a good representation of just what the power of the network can achieve and deliver.

Gremlins in the IT Machine

Anyone based in the UK will have no doubt seen the new BT advert on television, staring business tycoon Peter Jones alongside international movies superstars “The Gremlins”.

The advert starts by showing Peter’s staff leaving the office after a hard day’s work (no doubt increasing Mr Jones’ personal wealth ever further), and leaving Peter in the office to work on into the night. At this point, its enter stage right as the Gremlins make their first appearance into the office and begin to chew on the cables to Peter’s computer.

However, as soon as Mr Jones leaves the office to investigate whether there are any replacement cables for midnight burn, the Gremlins enter the office one more and begin to play havoc, sabotaging the computer equipment and causing general mayhem. When Mr Jones returns to the office, he finds that his producing smoke. Then the caption “BT, there for all your IT Gremlins” – genius marketing.

Turning Back the Clock

This blog was never intended to be so Microsoft/Google/major IT players based, although it was, amongst other things, supposed to try to highlight the future developments and use of technology and ideas moving forwards.

One thing occurred to me this morning though – how the humble wrist watch hasn’t embraced the same technological development as you would have imagined. Think about it, the price of a digital watch is insignificant when compared against some of its more expensive analogue, mechanical counterparts.

There have been several attempts to glamorise the digital watch with the inclusion of infra-red devices, USB storage memory, some basic services such as weather updates, FM radios, etc. And yet cogs, wheels and gears still fetch the highest prices and there is something safe and dependable about it. It simply just works – no flashing gadgets, no gimmicks, just pure mechanical driven time keeping.

With mobile phones being the digital device of choice for most people to carry around with them, I believe the humble wrist watch is here to stay for a lot longer yet.

The Mesh

If you’ve been reading my recent posts, you’ll know that I’ve been pondering the prospects of multi-device integrations and how my devices can be better utilised and data shared across all of them no matter which one I’m using at the time.

I’ve already taken the step to purchase a network attached storage device to centralise my files and other data and I’m now considering the set up of a media centre type set up that suits my budget and provides all of the features that I want. I’ve yet to set anything up yet (as I’m still awaiting delivery of the items from http://www.cclonline.com/, which I’ve used many times before and can’t recommend them enough).

But the thing that’s exciting me right now, is that it seems Microsoft have also been thinking along the same sort of lines and have developed something they are calling “Mesh”, which is part of their “Live” services. Mesh, despite the name (which to me conjures up images of a tangle), is a way of using online services and the internetwork to integrate all your devices together and allow you to, for example, view photos on your mobile phone or bring up documents created on your home PC on your laptop without having to go through the whole server-client-network storage-sharing thing. The Mesh platform just takes care of everything for you, using some of the Microsoft Live services, and some other online services such as Flickr for photographs, etc.

It’s a product/platform that I’m truly inspired by and can’t wait to get my hands on and start playing with. Mesh is currently available only in “Tech Preview” mode and on invitation-only at this point, needless to say I’m signed up and awaiting invite, but if this proves to be a successful service offering, then Microsoft may well have solved a big problems for users using multiple-devices and further springboard their online service offerings.

I urge you to find out more here.

You've been Framed!

It’s likely that you’ll have seen a digital photo frame at some point over the past couple of years. They seem to have become “popular” devices for displaying our ever increasing amount of digital photographs. I say popular but they are still not an essential purchase for everyone – and I think I know why.

The problem with them is that you’ve got to transfer your photos onto a memory card that you insert into the digital frame. But then you have to unplug from the frame and into your computer to change the photographs once you get bored of your current selection. Also, if you only have a single memory card - or if you’re like me, you leave your largest memory card in your digital camera, whilst your smaller capacity ones are used for your digital frame, which again limits the selection of photos you have on display.

Apparently you can now buy a wireless photo frame, which is able to connect up to your online collection of photographs via Flickr, Facebook, Microsoft Spaces, etc. This is a fantastic idea in my opinion as it takes away all of the hassle of managing memory cards and utilises a single photograph store – that you able to do a whole lot more with – share with family and friends, use on other websites, etc.

Of course it’s yet another example of shifting data into the cloud and the digital lifestyles we’re all living. One idea that I love with this example is that you’d be able to take a snap and upload it instantly to your online photo repository, which can then be instantly shared to your digital frame as a constant reminder of your memories.

Personal Working

Whilst doing some reason on internet security, I happened to stumble upon an extract of a whitepaper that asked the question – “Is it ok to use your work computer for personal reasons?”

It’s a question I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves whenever we start a new job – just where are the boundary limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable on a company’s network? Common sense says that you should avoid surfing for websites for violence, drugs, pornography, etc whilst at work. But should you really be checking out the latest sports headlines on company time? Or doing that online shopping whilst in the workplace?

Almost every IT department has had to agonise over this recently with the increased demand for social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Business says that it’s non-productive; users say it’s an essential tool for building partnerships. The decision to block or not to block was a real big decision (and most settled on time-limited access, during breaks or after work hours).

The results were as follows; in the UK, of those surveyed in 2006, 56% thought it was ok. In 2007 that number decreased slightly to 54% perhaps as a directly result of blocking social networking sites. In the US, it was a very different story though – in 2006, 29% of those surveyed thought it was okay to use a work computer for personal use, but in 2007 that number vastly increased to 40%.

Considering that for the vast amount of people, most of their day is spend in the office (and how many of us have used their works telephone to make a private, personal call?), I think its acceptable for users to use their computers for personal use (providing it falls within sensible parameters of acceptable online activity), to check news and sports headlines, par-take in online shopping, Instant Messenger communication and personal email. Of course, each user’s workload must be accounted for each day – businesses cannot afford to employ ‘surfers’ who give very little back.

In modern day business, mobile working practices and flexitime are becoming the norm – businesses must start to prepare for this shift - people should be able to balance their home/work life as the boundaries are becoming more blurred.

Killing of the Podcast – NEVER!

A couple of years ago I was fortunate to attend a seminar with the headlining guest speaker being the BT Futurologist. Much of the lecture was based around the future of communications (it was after all an Avaya hosted event), and it was all rather interesting, but one thing that stuck in my mind was the predicted demise of the podcast.

To this day I’ve never been able to figure out why the podcast was targeted as “dying medium”, when it seems that MP3 and other media players are on an ever increasing upwards spiral and radio remains to be alive and kicking (it turns out that video didn’t really kill the radio star – and DVD offered no threat, will Blue-Ray kill the radio star? I doubt it!).

The podcast of course was made publicly popular by the talented and funny Ricky Gervais podcast (evidenced by the long period of time his podcast show remained number one in the podcasting charts, even long after it was released). More recently Russell Brand and his Radio 2 show have dominated the charts and plenty have challenged for the position of number one downloaded podcast.

It’s definitely not a dying medium at this moment and I hope it long continues to generate content – I look forward to downloading my favourite podcasts and listening to them, on what I call “Podcast Tuesday” (the majority of what I download tends to be available over the weekend or Monday evening at the latest). It’s the only way to get me through my day – even though I do appear to be crazy when I’m listening to podcasting comedy gold and laughing away.

Think Week

There are many reasons to be envious of Bill Gates – the massive amounts of cash, one of the biggest software companies in the world, the success, the ability to do what you love doing, etc, etc. But the thing I’m most envious of is his invention of the “Think Week” (I don’t know if it was originally his invention, but he’s certainly made it famous).

The idea was that every time innovation was low, Bill would put a week aside to lock himself away from the world of technology and the pressures of being the figurehead of the Microsoft Corporation, switch off his cell phone and ponder the direction of technology and the world of business, in search of the next big thing and the next wave of impact upon the technology world.

I’ve just spent two days away from the office, enjoying life and the recent heat-wave that’s been basking the UK at the moment. I spent the first day sat in a park reading, the second day I spent walking along the beach with my iPod. Both provided a good time to think things through – and I’ve managed to think up a few ideas of things I would like to get done and consider further with some solid research (which I’ve already committed to my task list and have done a little bit of work towards).

I wonder though, just how much more I could have achieved if I’d spent a whole week thinking more things through. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t have left my last job if I’d have just taken a week’s holiday to think about my position and the next direction the job could have progressed in. From time to time now, I’m stumbling across new things that I’d never considered before and found they would have been perfect for the organisation and the job that I no longer have. And the position I’m in now…..give me a week to think about it!

Home Server

For the past few weeks, since its launch, I’ve been contemplating the purchase of a Microsoft Windows Home Server. The reason I’m on the verge of purchasing a Home Server is due to my laptop’s hard disk breaking down on me about five months ago and not having a backup (the ultimate sin for an IT engineer who’s forever preaching the art of backup!).

The Home Server is a “network attached storage” like device which comes with Windows Server software and a client that you install onto your other devices, such as your laptop and PC. The Home Server then schedules backup jobs to take copies of your data without user intervention. Absolutely perfect for someone who doesn’t schedule backups. That’s not where the benefits end however; Home Server also provides a secure method to connect into the server and your files from anywhere in world (very similar to SkyDrive, only without the limitations).

The HP HomeServer I’ve been considering allows for up to three hard disks to be inserted, so the data can be striped across multiple drives for resilience. It also has a pair of USB ports to add in additional storage devices such as storage or even a printer, the software even lets you share the printer across the network from the Home Server apparently! The power consumption of these Home Server solutions is low power, which is something else that worried me, having to leave ‘server’ running all day.

All sounds good so far right? Yeah, but what Home Server doesn’t do, which I was rather hoping for, was act as a Media Centre too (perhaps features that can be added to the next version?), even if I would need slightly increased hardware. Will I buy a Home Server? I would, but maybe not just yet.

Ripping the....Tracks!

Imagine the scene – you’ve purchased an iPod and you’ve spend a long time ripping your audio CDs into iTunes and you sync your music repository to the device. You enjoy playing music tracks to your hearts content, and what’s more your music library is available on your laptop, which is ideal for when you are working and just need that perfect background, mood music whilst you work. Life is good.

That is until you need to re-install your laptop due to one too many tests on your system that leaves it either inoperable or running uber-slow. Its Windows, it’s easy to install, you format your hard disk and re-install Windows and all third party applications. Your music collection has gone too, along with all of your playlists and podcasts. You plug in your iPod and iTunes immediately fails to recognise the device and syncs it with your empty music library wiping your iPod, and more frustratingly forcing you to have to sit through the tedious process of ripping your CD tracks all over again. Life is suddenly not so good.

Now I know that there are many third-party applications out there that makes the ‘recovery’ of your music library from your iPod/iTunes easy, but why is it that Apple haven’t bothered to make this easier with their own software tool that comes with iTunes, which seems to do everything but recovery. My Windows Mobile 6 smart phone has its own backup and restore process, why can’t my iPod?

HomeGrid Networking

You may be forgiven for thinking that the fight for the network space was won long ago by Cisco. And right now, you’d be absolutely correct. They have set the benchmark in networking appliances for years with their switches and routers. However, more recently Juniper Networks announced their own brand of network kit and HP has offered some quality networking kit under their “ProCurve” branding.

But that’s not the whole story – wireless technologies have swept the broadband scene as it seems that every ISP is offering a wireless router with sign up to their data packages. This made the recent announcement from Intel, Panasonic, Texas Instruments and Infineon all the more interesting.

Together they have decided to formulate the “HomeGrid Forum”, whose purpose is to investigate a method to bring existing coaxial, power line and phone line technology together to transmit data across the home. As an example, the use of the electricity cabling throughout your home to transmit movies from your media server to your TV. Whilst sending data down electricity cables is already possible, the “HomeGrid” initiative is to investigate further uses of this technology and to deliver it in products to the end-users.

It is an interesting theory, which if it works will alleviate the need to run multiple sets of cabling, all for different purposes throughout your home and will help control the price of copper cabling. But with wireless technologies already becoming popular, have the “HomeGrid” team missed their opportunity?

Flying with DSA

The pinnacle of cars for most young boys (especially those who were painted vivid picture of the future by the magical turn of the millennium year 2000), is the dream of one day owning a flying car – just like in the movies! The ability to fly free through the open air rather than being restricted to black tarmac roads is an inspiring thought.

Is that dream ever likely to happen? One day maybe – and it’s recently took one step closer to becoming a reality. See, the problem with flying cars isn’t so much the flying, but the “what happens if you crash into something?”. Recent tests of a new system in aircraft called the DSA, which stands for “Detect, Sense and Avoid” (the perfect combination of words for anything airborne or even road going, judging by some people’s driving!), has attempted to address the issue of air collision.

Whilst still only in the early stages at this time, the first goal for this system is to improve the feasibility of unmanned flight, which brings its own set of challenges and dilemmas - who wants a war with whoever develops unmanned fighter pilots first? But without doubt the further development of this technology has a much wider, more exciting range of positive implications and possibilities and could well set the pace for the future of transportation.

Cinema Magic

With the arrival of High Definition, flat screen, televisions and the many surround sound speaker systems that are available within the home, along with on-demand television and the ever popular Sky Movie channels, watching a film has never been more enjoyable from the comfort of your own home.

If you’re like me however, you will still relish the chance to visit the cinema and enjoy the latest movie offerings on the silver screen. The problem is, although the picture is much bigger than even the biggest screen in the home, the quality can sometimes be missing. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a “home cinema” it’s likely that you have chosen to use a digital projector to show your digitally enhanced films.

These digital projectors, using digital media, far out perform most of their cinema projector rivals which still rely upon the film being fed into the projector, which aren’t as sharp or able to display colours in the same way a modern digital device is capable of. Cinema’s must update and remain competitive with people’s “home cinema” systems in terms of quality and performance.

Integration Nightmares & Dreams

I've spend most of today trying to figure out why my "digital lifestyle" isn't more connected and my devices aren't integrated with each other in quite the way I really want them to be.

For sure, my laptop will talk to my mobile phone (Windows Mobile 6), and I can move data around, but my music collection which is on my laptop is locked into iTunes, so doesn't sync to Microsoft Media Player. My freeview TV box with build in recorder integrates into nothing - so the only way I can catch up is when I'm actually in front of my TV, no way of watching from my UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC). My SatNav works completely independantly and my Nintendo Wii is the same (although I have seen some unofficial Media Center type things you can do with it, if you have the kit to set it up properly).

Am I just buying the wrong devices? Or is it the software not able to talk to each other in the right way? I've abandoned my idea of a Home Server and I've today plumped for some network attached storage - I figure if I can decentralise my files away from my laptop, phone and UMPC and onto some generic networked storage, I can start to better plan and integrate my devices.

Here's the ultimate integration aim I have....

Vista Working

One of the things that bugs me most right now, is that when I go to work and I switch on my PC, I see the Windows XP loading logo flash up on my monitors, as opposed to the Vista loading screen that appears whenever I fire up my home laptop. Whilst Windows XP has long been a reliable, stable and solid operating system, that doesn’t seem to have dated at all in all its years, I’ve already fallen in love with Vista and find it ever more difficult to return to Windows XP.

But Vista hasn’t been as well received as it could have been by the IT community, and I’ve yet to find anyone provide me with a valid reason as to why. I hear the usual “it takes up too much memory”, “its slow”, “certain applications don’t work”, “they’ve changed it too much”, all weak excuses (in my opinion), not to make the switch.

When Windows XP was first launched, the exact same comments were made – but all those problems were overcome by most IT departments and pushed out to users as a more stable platform over the very similar Windows 2000. Of course Vista takes advantage of the more up-to-date hardware – it’d be foolish not to design an OS that doesn’t take advantage of the very latest and what will be arriving just around the corner. It’s slower – yet when you really start to understand what is happening under the hood to help secure and protect your system and keep it reliable, you can appreciate the trade off. They’ve changed it too much – no, everything is there that was there before in pretty much the same place its always been, it now just looks different because of its fresh new, Aero/glass look (depending which version you have).

Teething problems where always going to happen – when has there ever been any piece of software code that has worked first time out-of-the box without any patches or hot fixes at some point? Service Pack 1 should resolve these problems (I’m still running without the service pack and have yet to run into any major issues), and start to alleviate some of the unrest in the IT community, however the message I’m now hearing are that companies are either going to wait for service pack 2 (after promising to not to roll out until service pack 1), or even skip over Vista in its entirety.

Until I hear of a valid excuse not to use Vista in the work place, I’ll continue to stick with my belief that if it were my decision, my work computer would have been running Windows Vista yesterday.

Move over Google Earth....

There is no denying that digital photography can be truly inspiring. But there is a lot more that can be gained from your digital snaps thanks to the development of new software called “PhotoSynth”, which has recently been acquired by Microsoft.

Its purpose is to “stitch” together a vast number of digital photographs in order to create one image that can be navigated around. Think first person navigation, meets Google Earth with the ability to zoom directly into any of the detail within the photograph (or a linked photograph of the same object that provides an enhanced view of the same object).

I first became aware of this software from viewing last years TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), conference presentation on the web and have been delighted to finally find more available from the Microsoft Labs site, along with further enhancements to the software – find out more here.

The software doesn’t allow you to create your own “synths” just yet, but some of the pre-created synths really do show off the software and underlying image technology really well. I’ve waited a while to get hold of this software and explore its potential fully, and I’m really pleased to now.

Friendly Network Access

No matter where I go, I always seem to run into a problem connecting to family and friends wireless networks without the rigorous process of either supplying MAC address information which entails further configuration on the wireless access point or obtaining complex WEP/WAP keys before being able to connect.

It’s a similar story at work – in order to connect to the wireless network, visitors to the “guest” network must supply their MAC address information and further configuration to grant access ensues. Now, I understand that wireless security is extremely important and in order for it to work, it requires a complex solution. What strikes me most is that no one is working on an easier way to authenticate guests that doesn’t require vast amounts of administration.

My idea to solve this problem is to use the cloud. If it were possible within a wireless access point to specify the email address of your family member or friend, along with a password, which is then stored within a secure web service. When the ‘allowed’ person authenticates to your wireless access point, it then grants access onto the wireless network (perhaps in a limited capacity – i.e. access only to the internet rather than network devices). The owner of the device could then perhaps either extend access onto the wireless network or deny further future access.

Due to this model being reliant upon a secure web service, it could then easily integrate into other online services, such as your Microsoft Live Messenger buddy list or based upon your webmail’s contacts list. It may not be the very best way, but it may help alleviate the problem.

Stop, Look and....Listen!

Be warned: your MP3 player is a risk to your health!

…and we’re not just talking about excessive volume blurring music straight into your ear drums. It seems New South Wales Police force has issued some new advertising campaigns to warn against changing your track selection whilst crossing the road.

The campaign shows a number of lifeless bodies, with the white headphone cable marking the outline instead of the usual white chalk line. It’s an ingenious campaign visual and a timely reminder to consider the rules of road whilst listening to your favourite tracks.