Mike Slocombe

It’s A Wild, Wild, Wi-Fi World
New figures from a US survey by Pew Internet Project reveal that cables are becoming, like, soooo 1990s as more and more people connect to the internet via wireless connections.
The study, released yesterday, shows that some 34% of internet users have surfed the web or checked email on a computer or smartphone/PDA using a Wi-Fi connection or mobile phone network.
Wi-Fi In The House
Wi-Fi is also proving a hit in the home, with nearly 20 percent of US Internet users now having domestic wireless networks – up a hefty 100% from the same time two years ago.
“We know that ‘always on’ broadband connections really deepen people’s relationship to the Internet; adding ‘on the go’ to the mix takes this a step further,” commented John Horrigan, associate research director at Pew.
“The convenience of wireless access gives people the chance to fire off a quick e-mail to someone while waiting in a doctor’s office or check the news headlines on the way to work,” he added.
The figures show that wireless folks are more addicted to email than other web users, with 72% checking their email ‘on a typical day’ compared to 63% of home broadband users and 54% of all internet users.
They’re news junkies too, with nearly half (46%) going online to read news compared to 38% of home broadband users and 31% of all internet users.
Of course, these figures should be taken with a Table Mountain of salt, because it’s ruddy obvious that someone who relies on mobile email for work is going to be using wireless connections more often than your average home user.
Where they connect
The report looked at where people hook up wirelessly and found that the majority (27%) log on in web cafes or other non- work/home environments.
Some 20% of internet users said that they’ve gone online wirelessly at home with 17% connecting at work. Naturally, there’s a fair bit of overlap, with people connecting at two or three of the places above.
It’s a shame the survey didn’t ask how many were hooking up to free networks and how many were grabbing a sneaky piggyback ride on other folks’ unprotected connections, though.
But there’s lots more analysis of varying interest here: Pew Internet (PDF)
26 February, 2007
Twelve Steps To Beat Email Addiction
Apparently the problem of ’email addiction’ has got so bad amongst some permanently-connected workers and Blackberry toting bosses that some “executive coach” dudess in Pennsylvania has come up with her “12 steps to cure e-mail addiction” plan.
The 12 step plan was devised by executive coach Marsha Egan after several of her clients revealed how their email addiction was taking them right off the rails.
One exec found he failed to impress a client on the golf course after he simply had to check email on his BlackBerry after every single shot, while another was unable to walk past a computer – any computer – without reaching for the ‘check email’ button.
One seriously twitchy email addict was so desperate to receive email, that he regularly sent himself messages just to check that the email system was working.
Thankfully ol’Marsha’s on hand to help cure these poor souls, and with an eye to opening up future business opportunities, she wasn’t one to underplay the ‘problem’ for big businesses.
Ratcheting her hyperbole control up to eleven, she warned that, “There is a crisis in corporate America, but a lot of CEOs don’t know it.”.
“They haven’t figured out how expensive it is,” she added.
That’s as maybe, but we suspect clients who need someone to tell them how to sort out their own email might soon learn how expensive her “executive coaching” courses might be.
The Twelve Steps (our comments in italics):
1. Admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every ten minutes.
What?! And miss out the prospect of being the first to tell the office a freshly emailed joke?!
2. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
Oh right. That’s a bit like saying, ‘commit to only taking one phone call a day’ or ‘only have the one beer in the pub.’
3. Create files where you can put inbox material that needs to be acted on.
We’ve already done that. And now it’s full of hundreds of unanswered mails.
4. Make broad headings for your filing system so that you have to spend less time looking for filed material.
Surely it’s easier just to use the email program’s search function?
5. Deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.
Oh great! Let’s make another big directory for unanswered mails!
6. Set a target date to empty your in box. Don’t spend more than an hour at a time doing it.
An hour? A week more like!
7. Turn off automatic send/receive.
Are you mad? Without a regular stream of office jokes and links to pointless website distractions the office would grind to a halt.
8. Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
We already do that and it’s set to ‘whenever we can’
9. Involve others in conquering your addiction.
People! Quick! Stop us opening this email!
10. Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
Er, hello? How do we do that? Go around unplugging our co-workers computers?
11. Save time by using only one subject per e-mail; delete extra comments from forwarded e-mail, and make the subject line detailed.
We’re lucky if we even manage to include anything in the email subject line. Most usually say something like, “FW:FW:FW:”
12. Celebrate taking a new approach to e-mail.
That’s the best idea you’ve come up with so far. Let’s get down the pub!
CNN
21 February, 2007
Mac Users Need To De-Smugify About Security: Researcher
We’ve been bombarded by the smug, highly slapable face of the Mac bloke in Apple’s omnipresent advertising campaign telling us how incredibly secure Macs are, but an independent researcher begs to differ.
Researcher Kevin Finisterre feels that far from walking around with an air of superiority over their Windows counterparts, Mac users should also start taking security threats seriously.
After highlighting security holes in Mac applications on his Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB) website, Finisterre said he was initially shunned by some of the Mac community, but his concerns were vindicated when Apple recently issued a patch to plug holes outlined on his website.
The update fixed holes in iChat and Finder as well as a flaw in the user notification process that could potentially let malicious users gain system privileges.
Finisterre says he started the project in response to Apple owners’ blasé attitude to security, commenting, “Try calling any Apple store and ask any sales rep what you would do with regard to security, ask if there is anything you should have to worry about?
“They will happily reinforce the feeling of ‘Security on a Mac? What? Me worry?’.”
Finisterre said he hoped that his campaign has made people realise that there are, “most definitely some things under the OSX hood that need a closer look,” although Mac experts are quick to point out that none of the exploits on his site have been used to successfully hijack an Apple computer.
Things can only get better
Claiming that Apple hadn’t been too interested in opening a dialogue about security matters, Finisterre said that things were now changing for the better.
“They have certainly given some extra efforts on the backend to open up lines of communication, at least with me.”
“That sort of progress is what I am after rather than a particular set of bugs,” he commented.
Via
20 February, 2007
Beardy Big Cheese At Google Predicts Internet Growth Driven By Mobiles
One of the big cheeses at Google, vice president and chief ‘Internet evangelist’ (say wah’?!) Vinton G. Cerf has been shining up his crystal ball and coming up with his predictions for the future.
Looking deeper, deeper, deeper into his shiny orb (oo-er), the beardy Cerf revealed that it won’t be personal computers fuelling the growth of the internet. Instead he reckons that the expansion of the worldwide web will be powered by mobile phones, with countries like India snapping up zillions of the fellas and getting online en masse.
Talking to Yahoo, Cerf whipped out his Big Book of Internet Facts (BBOIF) and observed that the amount of people accessing the web has expanded quicker than Fatty Arbuckle’s waistband at a pie eating contest, with the numbers soaring from just 50 million in 1997 to nearly 1.1 billion today.
Despite this, the web still only reaches a miserly sixth of the world’s population, prompting Cerf to comment, “You will get those other 5.5 billion people only when affordability increases and the cost of communication goes down.”
“The mobile phone has become an important factor in the Internet revolution,” he added.
Flicking further through his BBOIF, Cerf said that there are 2.5 billion mobile-phone users worldwide with numbers rocketing in developing countries led by China and India.
India is already adding seven million mobile-phone users a month – enough to tempt British telecom giant Vodafone to shell out over $11 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile outfit Hutch-Essar – with new Internet-enabled features and services likely to reel in more online users.
Naturally, Google wants a slab o’the action, and has been expanding its research and service offices in India, hoping to increase the current meagre total of just 40 million people online – just 3.5 percent of India’s enormous population.
Via
20 February, 2007
Nikon Coolpix P5000 Announced
Nikon has announced several additions to its new Coolpix lineup today, but the one that’s caught our eye is its high-end Coolpix P5000 prosumer model.
The specs look enticing: 10 megapixel sensor, stablised 3.5x zoom, high ISO range, 2.5-inch screen, add-on lenses and a neat, all-black compact design (3.9 x 2.5 x 1.6 in.).
We like proper image stabilisation (rather than the ISO-booting sleight-of-hand touted by some makers) and the P5000 comes with optical lens shift VR (Vibration Reduction) technology borrowed from Nikon’s upmarket SLR camera systems.
With clever-clogs angular velocity sensors (we could have used some of them last night in the pub) measuring camera movement, the camera automatically calculates the amount of compensation required, with the VR lens unit adjusting position to negate offset camera shake.
Nikon claim that their VR system provides sharp images up to three steps slower, which should give the camera an edge over some of its rivals in low light shooting.
In line with most of its rivals, the P500’s ISO range soars up into the grainy heights of ISO 3200 capability (at a reduced 5M capacity), with an Anti-Shake and High-Sensitivity mode automatically selecting the optimal rating.
Photographers who can’t stop themselves fiddling and tweaking about with any dial they can get their hands on will enjoy the camera’s Program, Shutter Priority,
Aperture Priority Auto and Manual modes, backed by 16 scene-optimised Scene modes and seven different movie modes.
They’ll also enjoy the optical viewfinder, even if it is a bit of a squinty affair, with the rechargeable Lithium-ion battery EN-EL5 promising around 250 shots on a single charge. There’s a vaguely useful 21meg of internal memory with a SD card slot offering SDHC card compatibility.
Nikon have also announced optional accessories including a 0.67x Wide-angle Converter and a 3.0x Telephoto Converter lenses, with the camera’s built in hotshoe ready and willing to accept flashguns from Nikon’s advanced Speedlight range.
DPreview
20 February, 2007
UK Punters Are Feeling The MP3 Music Love
A new survey by Q Research discovered that a third of UK consumers aged 11 to 25 were slapping down up to £5 a month on digital tunes, with three per cent shelling out £25 or more a month.
Not all the kids are feeling the digital love though, with 45 per cent of respondents spending but ne’er a bean on music.
A hefty 85 per cent of respondents were found to be owners of MP3 players with the ubiquitous Apple iPod being the most popular device by a long chalk.
The survey found that the young ‘uns were the biggest users of free download services – almost half – but 43 per cent of under 16s were still paying up to £10 a month, with a hardcore nine per cent splashing out as much as £10 to £25 a month.
When it comes to the real big spenders, the lucrative 20-24 year olds sector were flashing the most cash, with two thirds spending up to £10 a month on downloads, and 16 per cent spend from £10 to £20 a month.
Downloading tunes direct to mobile phones is still a niche interest though, with punters put off by the high cost.
Liz Nelson, chairman of Q Research, commented that the survey showed that, “while there is already a very buoyant market for paying for MP3 files from the internet among young people, they are very aware of the cost of downloading files to their phones.”
“This finding is underlined by other projects we have done, where we have discovered opposition among young people to watching video or receiving video ads to their mobiles because of the cost,” she added
Source
20 February, 2007
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Released
After a lengthy sojourn in beta, Adobe has finally released version one of its Photoshop Lightroom photographic software
Aimed at pro/enthusiast photographers, the software aims to “simplify photography from shoot to finish” by providing a simple interface for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs.
Boasting support for more than 150 camera raw formats, the program lets users edit, adjust and experiment with photographs while protecting the original data, whether it be in JPEG, TIFF, PNG or RAW formats.
With more and more users shooting digitally and hard drives rapidly filling up with zillions of image files, there’s gold in them thar hills for software companies providing solid image management tools, and Adobe is hoping to nudge ahead of respected rivals like Portfolio, ACDSee and iVew MediaPro (now swallowed up by Microsoft).
Naturally, Lightroom comes with a super-slick interface and a veritable shedload of tools for viewing, organising and managing your precious snaps, including batch processing, file renaming, DVD back-up and keyword searching.
The new Key Metadata Browser comes with an improved ranking and rating system, sporting colour labels and a pick/reject system.
Photos can be fine tuned using tools for globally correcting white balance, exposure, tone curves, lens distortion, and colour casts, with “task-oriented modules” helping users get through typical workflow jobs.
There’s also a new tool for tweaking hue, saturation and luminance, and Clone and Healing brushes for dealing with the pesky bits of dust that seem to head en masse for our Nikon’s sensor the second we change lenses.
Photoshop Lightroom runs under Mac OS X 10.4 or Windows XP (and, presumably) Windows Vista, and will be knocking out for an upmarket £125 (excl VAT) before April 30 rising to a hefty £175 (excl VAT) after that date.
Photoshop Lightroom
19 February, 2007
Vista Launch: Boxed Copy Sales Down, PC Sales Up
Although punters waited an eternity for the chuffing thing to be released, first-week retail sales figures for boxed copies of Windows Vista were almost 60 per cent down on sales registered for the first week for its predecessor, Windows XP.
The figures, from the market research group NPD Group, calculated that the dollar value of Vista retail box copies shifted during the week of 28 January crashed 32 per cent compared to the value of XP box copies sold during its debut in October 2001.
It’s not all bad news for Billy and the gang though, as the sales of new PCs running Vista went through the roof after Vista’s launch, up a massive 67 per cent over the same period last year.
Conceding that direct comparisons are difficult as many stores were clearing out their XP inventory prior to Vista’s launch, Chris Swenson, a software analyst with NPD commented that the figures, “still reflects a fair bit of growth.”
Swenson added that the seemingly contradictory figures are down to consumers twigging that they need a beefier system to be able to run the bells and whistles of Vista, so some are going out and buying a new PC rather than upgrading.
There’s no such confusion with Office 2007 sales however, which recorded very strong retail sales, more than doubling the first week sales for Office 2003.
There’ll also be much hand rubbing at Microsoft with the news that consumers are upgrading to the higher end versions of Vista, with the average selling price recorded at around US$207 – up two thirds on the average selling price of XP.
“So, although total dollars were down compared to XP, I think the preliminary data shows that Microsoft’s gamble on a new high-end Vista SKU will help keep dollar volumes from declining as rapidly as unit volumes in the near term,” observed Swenson.
Via
19 February, 2007
Wikipedia Goes Top Ten In The US
Wikimedia Foundation’s popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia has now become one of the most popular websites in the US.
According to analysts comScore Networks, Wikipedia elbowed itself into a top ten place for the first time in January, with its 42.9 million unique visitors earning it a ninth place ranking.
This puts the site ahead of web big-hitters like The New York Times, Apple and Viacom, who ranked 10th, 11th and 12th in January 2007 by comScore’s figures.
Although Wikipedia has hit the top ten spot in other countries, its rise in the US has been dramatic, with the site only managing a 33rd spot with 18.3 million unique visitors in January last year.
By July 2006 it has soared up to the 18th spot with 28.1 million unique visitors and by November it was hovering outside the hallowed top ten slot with 39.1 million unique visitors giving it a 12th place ranking.
ComScore explained that the Wikipedia total also includes other Wikimedia sites, like Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wikinews, but said that the vast majority of the traffic comes from the Wikipedia encyclopedias.
Although it seems like it’s been around for ages, Wikipedia only started in January 2001 but can now boast 1.6 million articles on its English-language site, and over 5 million articles in other language sites.
Wikipedia sites also perform well globally, with comScore ranking them sixth overall in December 2005, ratcheting up a total of almost 165 million unique visitors.
Wikipedia
19 February, 2007
Samsung ML-2510 Laser Review (87%)
After one battle too many with our ever-flaky Epson printer (see: My Printer Hell), we elected to get ourselves a cheap laser printer for knocking out black and white documents (and those annoying PDF manuals that now keep coming with new products).
The printer was a cinch to set up, and for a laser it’s a compact jobbie too, measuring a reasonably modest 14″ x12″ x10″ (378 x 299 x 227 ) – perfect as a desktop printer for the home/small office.
The Samsung ML 2510 hooks up to the PC via USB, although Samsung have also included a parallel port for users still trundling on with steam-powered desktops (but there’s no Ethernet port for networking, unfortunately.)
We were certainly impressed with both the Samsung’s print quality and speed. Text came out every bit as crisp as you’d expect from a laser and our test prints managed to just surpass Samsung’s claimed 24 pages per minute, peaking at an impressive 26ppm.
Capable of 1200 x 600 dpi output, the ML-2510 handled text cleanly and crisply, although – as with most lasers – photos weren’t too hot.
The printer tray at the bottom stores a useful 250 sheets, so you can let it get on with big jobs unattended, with the printer fairly quiet in operation.
With just a combined toner and drum to replace, maintenance is something of a no-brainer task, taking less than a minute.
Replacement toner cartridges can be picked up for fifty quid or so and should be good for around 3,000 pages; working out at around 1.6p per page (not including the paper).
It’s worth noting that although the ML-2510 comes with a free cartridge, it’s a bit of a cut-down number and can only handle 1,000 pages.
Still, that’s really nitpicking when you consider that you can pick up this fast, cheap-to-run and excellent printer for around £70. As cheap as cut-price chips!
Our verdict
Features: 82%
Ease of Use: 87%
Build Quality: 88%
Overall: 87%
SPECIFICATIONS:
Monochrome laser printer
Format A4, 76 x 127 mm, Legal (216 x 356 mm)
Paper Classic paper, Transparencies, Labels, Cards, Envelopes
Resolution 1200 x 600 dpi
Speed Up to 24 pages per minute
Computer Interface Compatible USB 2.0
Optional Exthernal Ethernet box
Compatible Platforms Windows 95/98/Me/NT4.0/2000/XP/2003 Server,
Divers Linux including Red Hat 8~9, Fedora Core 1~3, Mandrake 9.2~10.1 et SuSE 8.2~9.2,
Mac OS 10.3
Cartridges Monobloc toner catridge
Dimensions (mm) 378 x 299 x 227
Weight (Kg) 5
Other 1st page printing time: 8.5 s
Sound level: printing 50 dB /35 dB on standby
Max monthly prints: up to 10 000 pages/month
Integrated memory: 8 Mb
15 February, 2007