The Galaxy S2 was a really slim and attractive phone and despite the increase in size this is a tradition the Note 2 continues in style. In order to protect my S2 I went for a large two layer case comprised of a rubber inner layer and a hardened plastic shell; this worked wonders and to this day it hasn’t sustained any major damage. However this added protection really added to the overall size of the phone and made it quite bulky to hold.

With my Note 2 I was offered a different and more innovative choice; a Tech 21 Impact Snap case from Mobile Fun. What sets this unusually thin hard plastic case apart is the progression from a thick layer of rubber or silicone to thin orange strips of a smart substance called D3O. These line the inside edges of the case and whilst they feel soft to the touch, on impact the material hardens to absorb the force that would otherwise be transferred to the handset.

The case fits tightly and has cutouts where required, including a generous opening for Samsung’s S-Pen stylus which I found actually helped me remove it from the phone more easily. There is also a slight lip over the front of the phone which ensures that should the phone land face down the screen will not directly impact the ground..

If I were to suggest a way of improving the protection offered by the Tech 21 Impact Snap case it would be by pairing it with a Galaxy Note 2 Screen Protector just to keep that 5.5″ screen safe and scratch free.

Thank you.

I am who I am, because you are who you are.

Having studied Psychology, the ‘person in social psychology’ is an extremely complex issue. When you ask a person to define ‘who they are’ – they very often describe social relationships. “I’m a rugby player” describes a person, because we can then draw on the social norms associated with rugby players, drinking, fitness, fairness and camaraderie.

In our consumerist society, the western adoption of ubuntu would probably go along the lines of:

“I am who I am because I’m better than him”

In the race to the top, in constantly looking as individuals to better ourselves, the first thing that breaks is community. The social fabric of communities that helped build up the work ethic in the early development of the industrial revolution has been reversed, when now the paradigm is to try and better oneself in comparison to one’s peers.

The problem with this approach is that it breaks community. Instead of looking for shared prosperity, we are looking to break it. The recession of 2009 is evidence that such an approach is not sustainable, nor what people would actually want. I can assert with confidence that the majority of people would be uneasy to say all they want to do is be ‘better than their neighbours’.

The root of the problem then lies in the social system, which is manipulating our individual psychology for prosperity. We are told by adverts to want the next big thing, we need to get bigger houses, more TVs, the latest iPad.

The good news, for me, is that it is the system that is manipulating the individual, rather than an inherent belief in an individual to want to better their peers. The vast majority of people look to share their prosperity with their friends, family and future offspring. There are other factors involved with the status quo, but I will not go into them in this post.

So if we go back to the root, if we look carefully at how we behave. Think about the pound that you spend; the time you use up. It is possible to turn the system on it’s head. I’m lucky enough to have been involved in the ‘Open Source’ movement – this is moving away from software being regarded solely in terms of monetary value, and instead being given a social value. We exchange it for free, so that each of us may have a more prosperous resource from which to work.

Certainly, there are more challenges to be faced when using the same structures to share material goods, but these are not insurmountable. I’m sure anyone that’s worked in retail will be fully aware of the mark-up put on products. If buying through a third party supplier, it’s possible for the end distributor to make far more money on ‘mark-up’ that was earned by the manufacturer. I’d argue that the main reason for this is that the ‘buffer’ between the distributor and manufacturer is large enough for it not to have to play on the conscience of the distributor. If we move to a more local economy, then I’d suggest that these discrepancies in ‘value’ versus ‘price’ would be much narrower.

• Chris Loughran – Dad
• Jim Loughran – Uncle
• John Loughran – Elder Brother
• Simon Loughran – Younger Brother
• Chris McCarthy – (ok, so I did have to get one experienced cyclist in to help us).
• Me.

The reason I’m doing it is to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society.  Unfortunately last year my Nan lost her battle with Dementia and passed away at the end of November.  It was a very tough time for the family, but unfortunately it was not my first experience of the condition.  Both my mothers’ parents also had the condition.

I remember posting many years ago about John Suchet‘s battle in coping with his wife having the condition.  He pointed out that it was not a condition which necessarily caused the contractee to suffer, but the family and loved ones that surround them.  It can be a very painful condition, moreso when you are left to comprehend the suffering of an increasingly lonely partner.

What does make a big difference though is education and experience.  I was a few years younger when my Gran started showing the signs of dementia, but old enough to have been by her bedside for the last few days of her life.  Understanding the condition made it much less of a chore, and though it was obvious to see that many in the family were in distress, I always felt happy that my Gran wasn’t the one suffering – and if we took to her new character and interacted with her ‘in her world’ then she was extremely content.

The Alzheimer’s Society is a fantastic charity, and due to my girlfriend having worked with the Alzheimer’s Society last year, I’ve been able to gain an invaluable insight into their work.  Funding both care and research into dementia, the Alzheimer’s Society are fighting on all fronts against dementia.

The donation page at the moment is still setup from the donations from my Nan’s funeral.  I hope to get the login details off my Uncle soon so that we can re-theme the site to raise the funds for the cycle.

I look forward to your support over the coming months – I need all the peer pressure I can muster to force me to keep training (and keep patience during a 5 hour+ cycle with my family).  Please share your stories of dementia and I’ll be riding for you too.

1st Training Run - http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/40492892 

I’m really enjoying working with a great new team, and the support and help they’ve given me so far as I settle into the new role.  The challenge I face is how to make my mark on the company without adding ‘red tape’ to their development work.  I know all too well that having to fill in too many forms and statuses can make the job of administering/developing very tedious.  The key part is capturing project timescales, rather than developer timekeeping.

The next few months will be incredibly challenging, but hopefully even more enjoyable.  I look forward to sharing a bit more information about our ‘stack’ and what tools we’re using in the future; I also hope to get feedback from the people reading this blog about what they use.  We’re playing around a bit with Agile Methodology, whilst trying to transition from the existing methods.

I’m also hoping to use the blog a bit more – much of my time over the last few years focused on my online presence on Twitter, LinkedIN and Facebook – a much lazier approach to ‘Social’ Media.  I’m also hoping to kick off a few side-projects and keep my technical skills up to date.

We both have files held on our systems that we simply can’t afford to lose. We also work wirelessly. For those reasons Apple’s TimeMachine seemed like a really good option. However, at the £250GBP price tag and already having a home server, a bespoke solution appealed to both the geek and cost-saver in me.

After collating information from several different sources, please find below the steps required to setup and configure an Ubuntu instance to take backups from your Mac via TimeMachine:

Download netatalk 2.2 (The version held in Ubuntu repositories is 2.1 and Lion requires 2.2)

Natty i386: https://launchpad.net/~stefanor/+archive/ppa/+files/netatalk_2.2.0-0ppa2~natty1_i386.deb
Natty amd64: https://launchpad.net/~stefanor/+archive/ppa/+files/netatalk_2.2.0-0ppa2~natty1_amd64.deb
(Others here: https://launchpad.net/~stefanor/+archive/ppa/+packages)

Install netatalk
via dpkg -i <netatalk package name>

Edit /etc/netatalk/afpd.conf
The only line you want: “- -udp -noddp -uamlist uams_randnum.so,uams_dhx.so,uams_dhx2.so -nosavepassword”

Edit /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default
Remove the default line for ~/ (if it exists) by commenting it out (a # should do). Add a new line: “~/.TimeMachine “$u Backup” allow:jamesanslow cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv,tm” – REPLACING “jamesanslow” with YOUR server username.

Create your Timeachine directory
mkdir ~/.TimeMachine should do it fine

Edit /etc/netatalk/netatalk.conf
Add/append/uncomment/leave the same the following important lines to:
ATALK_NAME=`echo ${HOSTNAME}|cut -d. -f1`
ATALK_UNIX_CHARSET=’LOCALE’
ATALK_MAC_CHARSET=’MAC_ROMAN’
export ATALK_UNIX_CHARSET
export ATALK_MAC_CHARSET
CNID_METAD_RUN=yes
AFPD_RUN=yes
AFPD_MAX_CLIENTS=20
ATALKD_RUN=no
PAPD_RUN=no
TIMELORD_RUN=no
A2BOOT_RUN=no

Create a new file in /etc/avahi/services/afpd.service
Copying in the following:
<?xml version=”1.0″ standalone=’no’?><!–*-nxml-*–>
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM “avahi-service.dtd”>
<service-group>
<name replace-wildcards=”yes”>%h</name>
<service>
<type>_afpovertcp._tcp</type>
<port>548</port>
</service>
<service>
<type>_device-info._tcp</type>
<port>0</port>
<txt-record>model=Xserve</txt-record>
</service>
</service-group>

Restart netatalk:
sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk restart

Connect to your server from your mac
Go to Finder and your server should appear in the left hand side. If not, CMD+K to manual connect.

Create your sparse backup file
Open up a terminal on your Mac. Move (cd) to the folder where your server’s mounted. This should be /Volumes/<username> Backup. So for me that would be “/Volumes/jamesanslow Backup”. Then run this command to create your backup file (replacing 512g with the size you’d like your TimeMachine to be in Gigabytes):

hdiutil create -size 512g -fs HFS+J -volname “Time Machine” `grep -A1 LocalHostName /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist | tail -n1 | awk ‘BEGIN { FS = “|” } ; { print $2 }’`_`ifconfig en0 | grep ether | awk ‘BEGIN { FS = “:” } ; {print $1$2$3$4$5$6}’ | awk {‘print $2′}`.sparsebundle

Configure OS X to show all types of media for use in TimeMachine
Set OS X to show all types of media, such as ours by running this command in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Go for it. Open up TimeMachine, select your network TimeMachine instance and get backing up!

One of my recent purchases has been the Amstrad Emailer Plus. It’s an interesting little device originally sold in 2002 by Amstrad for circa £200, dropping to £15 only two years later in Tesco, and finally discontinued on July 14th 2011.  As you can see, it is quite a chunky but pretty device – as well as providing convenient access to email – so why did it fail?

Though the market for email on a household phone is probaby quite a small one – the Emailer Plus definitely has the ‘geek’ factor as well as being a little bit ‘retro.’  I bought one, not because it can give me access to emails, (I can do this well enough from my Samsung Galaxy S2 already,) but because it has got personalty.  The big blue display not only displays a nice clock in standby mode, but it also has the ability to play ZX Spectrum games, and other little tidbits that when integrated properly could make the big display quite useful.  The standard issue BT phone I have on my desk at work costs more than this, but offers much less in terms of functionality.

The failure in the Amstrad Emailer Plus is down to a naivety in understanding the direction that the internet and email was taking.  In the early days of modems and dial-up internet, it could cost 5p per minute to get online – webmail wasn’t taking off because staying online to write emails was costly – so it was better to have an offline client to do the writing.  The Amstrad Emailer required a ‘phone home’ call at least once a day – with a cost of 14p per call.  It’s a bit of a premium price to pay for receiving a bulk email delivery – plus, unless you were sensible enough to group your outgoing emails up into a single batch – the outgoing cost was also 14p per connection.

It’s a real shame, as I think had Amstrad had the foresight to see that the screen was valuable real-estate, the Emailer could have been a market-changing device.  It has the ability to host ‘widgets’ or ‘apps’ as they are now commonly known.  Amstrad have learnt it all now, with their ‘Amscreen’ – a backwards piece of technology consisting of essentially a flatscreen with a red LED ticket attached to the top in a bulky, ugly black case – being used to broadcast advertising.  The technology itself isn’t expensive or interesting – the real value is in where the screens are.  I recall a seminar at Warwick Business School a few years ago, with the General Manager of McDonalds in the UK.  When asked ‘What is McDonalds’ core business?’ most people responded with ‘selling burgers’ – when he replied that it wasn’t, the majority looked fairly confused.  His answer was ‘acquiring prime real-estate, to prevent our competitors selling burgers.’

In the same way, strategy needs to look at pushing alternatives to the core market of a project.  Sure, there may be a specific target market to aim the product at – but individual markets are a finite resource.  Look at alternative uses for your product – can it be abstracted and re-marketed at a different sector?  Do you have to sell it for it to benefit you?  The end result for the Amstrad Emailer was for Amstrad to use it as a loss-leader for selling their Emailer service.  It’s a shame that the device couldn’t be rescued from obscurity by diversifying.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make some use of it and deny this technological marvel it’s resting place on some gadgetry wasteland for a few more years to come.

I was driving down the M6 the other night, past junction 8 where the M5 splits off – and the Active Traffic Management was turned on.

At one point, we were all going along nicely at 40mph, as indicated by the overhead signs. All lanes were open, and there were no workmen about on the roads.

At the penultimate gantry before the M5 lane forked off the main carriageway, the overhead signs had been set to 20mph. With the majority of traffic moving along nicely, 11pm and no obstructions in the road, the driver of the lorry must have not seen the drop by 20mph. Unfortunately, the car driver in front of him had – and with the threat of the speed camera sign, had slowed his vehicle fairly abruptly.

This sent the HGV swerving into the middle lane, causing me to pull out into the fast lane – luckily fully aware that there was nothing coming up on the outside.

It’s exactly stupid and irresponsible uses of technology like this that make me wonder why Active Traffic Management was put there in the first place.

With the sad events that have occurred on the roads over the past few days, I can only hope that someone has the good sense to review this technology before it too contributes to the rising death tolls on our motorways.

Unity.

I have to be honest; when unity first appeared I though it looked like a very interesting idea – and since studying UI design at University (even doing a project on UI design in Gnome2) – there were lots of opportunities to be taken up by differentiating Ubuntu through it’s clean, friendly, UI-driven linux desktop environment.  However, Unity seems to be on a pathway to division.

A key paradigm across all my software development has been “developers are not the users” – and ‘clever’ design lies in simplicity, not complexity.  Users should be able to intuitively pick up and go without having to think about how the desktop works.  I personally believe this last bit to be especially true.  Many people are of the belief that using a computer and mouse is unnatural; that may well be so – but through consistency of action, and predictability of response – all systems can be easily learned.

The big issues that I have with Unity at the moment, are that simple things are no longer simple.  When left click used to mean ‘action something’, and right click brought up a menu – users were able to innovate and design and mess with their own desktop.  With the unity approach, even experienced computer users are having to open google to work out how to add an application to the sidebar.  I no longer know where to find things in the menu, and am finding myself having to rely on pressing a combination of keyboard buttons and mouse movements in order to do relatively simple things.  I can’t see an easy way of adding an application to the launcher, and there appears to be very few casual customisation options available to the end user.

Of course, the caveat to all this is that it’s still an unfinished product.  I see the non-LTS releases of Ubuntu as glorified BETAs – showing the developers and community the vision for what can be put into an LTS release.  I’m not sure where or how I’m going to cope with future upgrades, but for now a quick ‘aptitude install xbuntu-desktop’ has put me straight back into my comfort zone.  I hope that’s not the same story with too many other people.