Backed Up

Posted: Mon 1 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Media, Photography, Technology | Leave a comment »

One thing that’s changed over the last four years is the way that I back up data. I used to have a big-ass (for the time) hard-drive that held all my backup files, but I haven’t (hadn’t) fired it up in years.

Now I use DropBox for most things – at least the things that aren’t commercially sensitive or need extra security, etc. I don’t necessarily trust/rely on them, but it tends to be where most of the stuff sits (as well as on through another paid-for service for my work stuff and so on) and it suits me to use them for the moment.  That may change a bit over 2015, there’s a more secure and privately-held service that might do better, but for now, DropBox suits me.

However, I recently realised that all my photos and music files were still sat on that old hard-drive. Which has sat untouched for four years, through four or five moves. Oops.

I fired it up over the weekend, thought I might as well bite the bullet and see if all’s well or if it’s dead and I’m screwed.

Thankfully, everything worked first time. I’ve pulled all the music data off, and that’s now sitting in multiple locations again. Next will be the photos – although I’ve also spent some time looking at old images and seeing what’s what (and just looking back at events of the last eleven years, which is what the drive holds)  It’s been quite the journey…

Speeding Up

Posted: Thu 25 September, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Over the last few months, I’ve had some significant issues with my broadband and phoneline – most of which are still unresolved, due to BT’s insistence on blaming the customer rather than the infrastructure.  Some of the issues have been down to the distance I am from my ‘local’ exchange – right on the border of even being able to have broadband at all.

This week, though, BT have finally activated their fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) product, Infinity, on my exchange. It’s been “in the process” since March, with promised date after promised date, but it’s finally here.  And I’ve signed up to it.

The difference promises to be stunning – a 75-78mbps connection, instead of my current 2 (on a good day)  That’d be worth it on its own.  Hopefully there’ll also be improved stability – if it’s as dodgy as my current connection, I’m going to be having serious words with the shysters at BT. And happily, it’s not going to cost me much more. On current evidence (and I’ll wait for the first bills to know for sure) it also won’t cost me much more – by my reckoning, less than £10 a month extra.

I hope it’s worth it.

Miscalculation

Posted: Mon 18 August, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Geeky | Leave a comment »

People always say that if there’s one thing computers can do, it’s count.

That really doesn’t explain this particular status message…

Download number two of oneWhich is a bit of a worry

Minimum Viable Product

Posted: Thu 12 June, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Creativity, Customer Services, Cynicism, Design, Geeky, Thoughts, Web Development, Work-related | 2 Comments »

One of the buzzwords in the current (but please God, not much longer) workplace is “Minimum Viable Product“. It basically means “The customer gets what they’ve asked for, and nothing more”.  In other words, “Yeah, fuck it, that’ll do”.

It’s a good concept when a business is starting, when you’re writing the first versions, where it’s a product idea and you don’t know if it’ll work, and/or what’s going to be the popular or desired features. So you write the minimum to launch it, make things work without bells and whistles, and find out what people want. It stops you from diving down the wrong path (and yes, mixed metaphors, live with it) and wasting time that’s valuable, that could be better spent on creating the things people do want.

It’s great for a startup, for a new product.

It’s NOT great in any other eventuality, and particularly not for an established product with customers paying shedloads. It leads to inconsistencies, weird functionality, and general oddities. Buttons disappear, sections are different, and it’s all a bit amateur.  And that’s exactly what we’ve got.

But can you persuade them? Nope. It’s the buzzword, it’s How Things Must Be.

Which just isn’t healthy.

Breaking Things

Posted: Sun 13 April, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Geeky, News, Security, Stupidity, Technology, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Last Friday there was a big(ish) story in the BBC and Media about the convicted paedophile who is requesting his laptop – complete with ‘non-obscene’ images of one of his victims. Dorset Police were quoted in the story as saying it would be ‘unlawful’ to delete/remove those images from the laptop, because they’re not technically obscene or showing nudity.

Now, aside from the fact that there’s something so blatantly wrong with this entire process (and why wasn’t the laptop just removed/destroyed as part of the evidence and ‘proceeds of crime’ bollocks?) then surely this is a perfect opportunity for a tragic IT-related ‘accident’?

Make sure it’s believable, could happen, and is feasible, and it’d be the devil’s own job to prove anything.

For example, a liquid spillage. Or leaving the machine next to – I don’t know – some kind of large magnet. Maybe the metal scanner in a doorway. Or just mis-filed in such a way that a) it can’t be found or b) it got destroyed. Lost property, IT security, avoidance of possibility for divulging person information.

There are many, many ways in which this could’ve never been an issue. The mis-filing and “sorry, can’t find it” would be easiest (and probably hardest to be disproved) but any of them would work nicely.  It’s more of a problem now, because they’ve admitted that a) it exists and b) it’s currently in an OK state. Ooops.

Notebooks

Posted: Tue 8 April, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Design, Domestic, Geeky, Reviews(ish), Stationery, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Shelterwood Field Notes notebooksOne of my loves is – as sad as it sounds – stationery. Pens, Inks, and particularly note-pads of various types. I use them a lot in my work, taking notes, keeping track of ideas and projects. Well, that’s how I justify things, anyway.

Recently I’ve been getting savage temptations from a company called Bureau Direct, who have a huge range of everything I love using. I’ve been impressed by their service, their range, and the speed and efficiency of their service. Sadly, their weekly promotional email is like temptation itself.

The most recent addition to my collection arrived over the weekend – a pack of three limited-edition “Field Notes” notebooks called “Shelterwood“.

They’ve managed to get a fine layer of American Cherry wood as the cover – I have *no* idea how they’ve managed it, but they have. The covers are still flexible, but they’re a razor-thin laminate of ‘proper wood’. Naturally, all the covers are different (as you’d expect from wood) and they’re ace. The books aren’t as big as I’d thought they might be – about A6, I’d guess – but that’s fine, and makes them different from my normal notepad-size too.

It turns out that Field Notes do these limited editions on a regular basis – I suspect I may end up with more…

Tweetastic

Posted: Mon 24 March, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Geeky, Twitter | Leave a comment »

Apparently, over the weekend Twitter had its eighth birthday. (On March 21st, to be exact)

It also turns out that I joined Twitter seven years ago yesterday.  (And another friend joined a year after that, as we discussed over the weekend)

I hadn’t appreciated that Twitter gained over 2 million users in its first year (It must’ve done, because my user ID is just under 2,000,500)

However, in that next year, it gained another 26 million users – my friend’s user ID is just under 28,100,000.

And now the new user IDs are coming close to 2 and a half billion – a recent one I created (for another project) was just under 2,400,000,000!

That really is quite huge.

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