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Freelance writing

Apple vs. Google: It’s war!

by Dean on September 20, 2009

ammo Apple vs. Google: Its war!

Written for PC Plus magazine (issue 287), this article looks at how Apple is battling Microsoft on one side and the search colossus Google on the other. Here’s an excerpt:

Apple’s rejection of Google Voice for the iPhone (and subsequent threat of investigation by the FCC) has been cited as the tipping point for Eric Schmidt’s departure.

But rather than being an anti-Google move, Apple’s reason for banning Google Voice has more to do with preserving its core ‘walled garden’ business strategy.

Apple claims that the Google Voice application “replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, I.e. disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail.”

You’re just not allowed to mess with the iPhone. Apple is fiercely protective of its eco-system and it’s built a $8 billion business based on retaining total control of it.

If you buy into the Apple way of doing things, you can only run the software that they approve of. Focusing on innovative design and usability, one Apple product acts as a lead-in for another.

Buy an iPod and you’ll try iTunes. You’ll download AAC-encoded music, QuickTime-formatted video and OS X-powered mini-apps. Before you know it, you’re an Apple junkie.

The more you invest into the Apple eco-system, the more difficult it becomes to abandon it in favour of something else.

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Secrets of the Roman Baths

by Dean on August 31, 2009

bathspa crw 6474 Secrets of the Roman Baths

Heritage magazine recently commissioned me to do an article about the history of the Roman Baths in Bath. It appears in the issue on sale in September 2009.

At the heart of the Roman Baths in the City of Bath, 240,000 gallons of hot water bubbles up every day into the ‘Sacred Spring’. This steamy, mineral-rich water is said to have amazing properties. The Celts believed it was where the goddess Sul lived. The Romans bobbed and bathed in it, associating the water with Minerva, their own goddess of medicine and wisdom. While the Victorians not only swam in the water, they drank it, seeking homoeopathic cures to illnesses such as rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago and gout.

Today, the Roman Baths attract more than a million visitors a year. It’s Bath’s premier tourist attraction – a superbly-preserved Roman bathing house patched up by some elegant 19th Century re-engineering.

Take a tour and most of the original Roman building that stood over 1,900 years ago is still accessible. In fact, when you look down from the Victorian-built terrace to the emerald water in the Great Bath below you’re only seeing a small part of the overall site. The Roman Baths are actually six metres below the current street level. The rest stretches out underground, beneath nearby streets and the Abbey churchyard.

Bath and North East Somerset Council are currently updating the Roman Baths to “keep it at the forefront of the competitive visitor attractions industry.” The idea is to look beyond simply showcasing the silent monument and to explore the human stories of the people who used it.

Improvements are ongoing and include: new digital photo displays, more detailed scale models, costumed actors, animated projections, interactive exhibits and virtual 3D reconstructions. Lifts have also been added to boost accessibility. If you’ve already visited, there’s now every reason to go back for another look.

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The end of the road for Ofcom?

by Dean on August 30, 2009

dead end The end of the road for Ofcom?

A news article for PC Plus magazine that reflects on Conservative leader David Cameron’s criticism of the communications regulator Ofcom. Here’s an excerpt:

[David] Cameron could be aiming his reformist quango-gun in the wrong direction. Ofcom is primarily funded by payments from broadcasting licensees and communications providers. Government grants are only provided for specific projects. The regulator even pumped £223 million back into the Treasury last year.

And when it comes to looking after the interests of the taxpayer, Ofcom don’t appear to have been putting a foot wrong. It has long sought to curb exorbitant mobile roaming charges, while its commitment to Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) has improved competition in the UK broadband market.

Further help in that area has come from Ofcom’s newest investigation into real-world broadband speeds, which damned many broadband providers for failing to deliver the speeds they advertise.

Over 60 million separate service performance tests were carried out in over 1,600 homes between November 2008 and April 2009. The results showed that the average broadband speed in the UK was a sluggish 4.1Mbps and that only nine per cent of sampled customers with 8Mbps packages actually received speeds of over 6Mbps.

The full article appears in issue 286 of PC Plus magazine.

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Mogollon interview

by Dean on August 1, 2009

mogollonxv Mogollon interview

New York-based creative agency Mogollon has made a name for itself in the music business. I chatted to co-founder Monica Brand for this article in Computer Arts Projects.

Look up Mogollon on Google and the word describes a prehistoric desert people of the American south west, a spectacular mountain rim, a country rock band and a New Mexico ghost town. It’s also the name of the New York-based creative outfit founded by Monica Brand and Francisco Lopez. With a mission to “produce innovative visual work,” Mogollon has built up an enviable roster of clients that includes Madonna, VH1, Warner Bros. and Absolut Vodka.

By any definition, Mogollon can be considered to have ‘made it’.

Beyond their core music work, Mogollon has produced brand identies for CC SKYE, Lisa Linhardt and Vagabond; digital ads for Absolut Vodka; plus film production design for TM Productions.

Ask Monica Brand what her favourite project is and she’s faced with a huge choice. The Escher-inspired logo design on the Sounds of Om CD cover? The Japanese-style waves and dripping clouds that define the website for jeweller Stacy Nolan? Or how about the magazine work they’ve done for the likes of Blender, Tush and Hint? As far as we’re concerned, the art direction for Lisa Lindhardt’s jewellery studio (‘A village east’) is quite simply breathtaking.

“Honestly?” She says. “The covers that we do for our own music mixes are our favourites, and ironically enough, they are our clients favourites as well.” Francisco Lopez regularly puts together the streaming equivalent of the old mix tape for Mogollon FM and makes the collections available on their website. Each selection has its own virtual cover art. And while this might seem like an indulgence, each virtual album is a promo tool, an ongoing digital advert for Mogollon’s artistry.

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Has the MySpace bubble burst?

by Dean on July 16, 2009

1193483 55169891 Has the MySpace bubble burst?

Another article for PC Plus magazine (issue 285) that asks whether the age of MySpace is over and if Facebook has peaked? Is the social networking bubble about to burst? Or maybe the party has just moved on to Twitter…

When Rupert Murdoch handed over $580 million of News Corp’s money to buy MySpace in 2005, it seemed like a visionary deal. MySpace was an Internet success story, bravely mashing together blogging, messaging, photos, audio and video into hackable pop culture home pages.

Wired called MySpace a “nonstop global block party of music, video, and hookups”. And everybody was invited…

Three-quarters of the UK’s online population are believed to have a social network profile. Most spend a significant chunk of their time online and check their profiles (for new status updates, messages, trends, games, pointless quizzes or shared multimedia files) at least once a day.

While Facebook claims 200 million users worldwide, MySpace still boasts 130 million. That’s still huge by anyone’s standards. In some respects, the challenge for MySpace isn’t so much gaining new users, but retaining their attention.

The full article appears in PC Plus, issue 285.

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Review – Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro

by Dean on July 15, 2009

mrsite1 Review Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro

Another review for PC Plus magazine, issue 283. Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro offers you everything you need to get a website up-and-running. In a box.

You could argue that Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro has no place in the pages of PC Plus. At first glance, this one-size-fits-all approach to website construction is far too simplistic and restrictive. For anybody with an ounce of web knowledge, it’s a frustrating experience – like trying to paint a fine watercolour with a stiff bristle B&Q broom.

But what do you expect? Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro boils down the mechanics of a new website build into six simple steps. Log onto www.mrsite.com/create and the software will help you register a domain and get your first pages online within a few minutes. No technical knowledge required. No jargon. No fuss. No imagination. No flexibility… There isn’t even anything useful in the box except a manual (so don’t pay an extra £3.50 for a boxed copy). The whole process takes place online.

Of course, this almost effortless simplicity is exactly what some people want. There’s a memorable episode of The Simpsons where Homer runs for Sanitation Commissioner with the slogan: “Can’t Someone Else Do It?” This outsourcing is the essence of what makes the Mr Site software and any ‘in a box’-themed product so attractive. Not only are they convenient, but you don’t have to put much effort in to make them work, and the end results are usually pretty decent.

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Review – Fujitsu PalmSecure Login Kit

by Dean on July 14, 2009

palmsecure Review Fujitsu PalmSecure Login Kit

My review of Fujitsu’s PalmSecure Login Kit appears in PC Plus, issue 283. The PalmSecure Login Kit, as its name might suggest, uses the palm of your hand as a next-generation password-replacement system. Here’s an excerpt of the review:

Biometric technologies waiting in the wings include DNA matching, ear shape analysis, even body odour recognition. It seems that our bodily smell consists of a unique blend of chemicals known as volatiles. These chemicals can be extracted and analysed by ‘electronic nose’ biometric systems and subsequently converted into data strings for pattern matching. “That’ll be £10.99, sir. Could you excrete some scent towards the scanner please…”

A much more viable alternative to fingerprint recognition is the vein pattern recognition technology used in Fujitsu’s PalmSecure USB mouse. The technology works by identifying the vein patterns in your palm. These vein patterns are unique to each person and the structure doesn’t change as the body ages.

For this authentication technology to work, an image of the vein needs to be captured using near-infrared light emitted by a scanner. Deoxidized hemoglobin in the blood flowing through the hand absorbs this radiation, causing the veins beneath the skin to appear as a distinct black pattern. This pattern is then simplified, encrypted and stored as a master template.

There are several advantages to vein pattern recognition. It’s quick to authenticate, clean and contactless, plus it’s difficult to cheat the system as it relies on analysing a subcutaneous pattern. In fact, Fujitsu says that the technology is close to foolproof — it apparently works to a false acceptance rate of less than 0.00007%.

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Review – Kaspersky Internet Security 2010

by Dean on July 13, 2009

kis2010 eng Review Kaspersky Internet Security 2010

A slice of my review of Kaspersky Lab’s Internet Security 2010 software, written for PC Plus magazine. The full review appears in issue 285.

Like a EA Sports videogame franchise, Kaspersky Lab has rolled out new 2010 editions of its flagship Internet Security suite and standalone Anti Virus package. It’s a chance for Kaspersky Lab to point point out that it detects over 17,000 new and possible threats to your computer every day; an opportunity to make you think twice about whether your current security measures are really coping with the 2.4 million malware threats currently listed in the Kaspersky Lab database.

Peace of mind is a yearly subscription away.

Of course, it’s questionable whether this 2010 version is really any better at combating Internet evil than its predecessor. Isn’t it just an incremental update? An annual spit-and-polish with some new, bolt-on extras? Well, yes. And no. You could argue that, as the threats to our PCs evolve, so the technology to spot and eliminate them also needs to change.

There are always new ways of approaching the problem – updated virus definitions, a bulked up malware database, trusted application management and new crowd sourced early-warning systems.

Protecting a typical PC against Internet threats is much like a game of Desktop Tower Defence. Using only Pellet Guns and Squirt Towers will still allow a few Creeps to get through. You also need Dart, Swarm and Frost Towers in your arsenal to handle every situation. Because those Creeps will keep on coming.

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Interactive design – “Controlling clicks”

by Dean on June 1, 2009

whitevoid 1 Interactive design Controlling clicks

Another feature for Computer Arts Projects magazine. This one looks at some innovative website experiments with outstanding graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It goes something like this…

According to web usability king Steve Krug, the first law of interface design should be: “don’t make me think.” He’s written a best-selling book about it, preaching that good web design should be simple, structured and obvious.

And he makes a strong case. He believes that the majority of Internet users crave a “reassuring sense of familiarity” when they visit a website. They like to know where the main menu is, what their options are and where they can click next. “Users like conventions,” says Krug, “even if designers find them constraining.”

Then again, some websites push the boundaries. On www.egofoto.net, photographer Senol Zorlu showcases his portfolio work on a stunning, scrollable photo-wall built in Flash. While Japanese clothing company Unicloq goes to town with a bold, fast-cutting combination of info-graphics and video footage.

Web design in 2009 is characterised by dramatic visuals – think Flash animation and bold artwork; oversized typography, 3D effects and full-screen video. But designers are also keen to develop fresh and innovative UIs to engage and interact with website visitors. By sidestepping conventional page furniture, sites like these can stop you dead in your tracks.

The guiding principle isn’t so much “Don’t make me think”. It’s “go on, surprise me!”.

There are some great websites on show here, including: Sour Sally, Thank You begins with a T and Barcinski JeanJean.

The full text of this feature appears in the ‘Interactive issue’ (#125) of Computer Arts Projects.

Oh, and for anybody wondering what the GUI depicted in the image here is, it’s WHITEvoid’s incredibly speedy (and Webby Award-winning) 3D portfolio system built in Papervision3D.

[There's currently no link to this article. But you can find issues of Computer Arts Projects at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk. Want to know more? Find Computer Arts online at www.computerarts.co.uk.]

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The ‘Cloud’ and Windows Azure

by Dean on May 24, 2009

cloud computing The Cloud and Windows Azure

Back in October 2008, Microsoft announced its ‘Windows in the cloud’ strategy – Windows Azure. The sober description of Microsoft’s new push into web computing is that its Azure platform will give its customers “the power of choice to deploy applications in cloud-based internet services or through on-premises servers”.

The more exciting definition is that Azure will offer lightweight versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint online.

A turning point for Microsoft

Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has called Windows Azure a “turning point for Microsoft”. But web computing is hardly a new idea. We already do a lot of our day-to-day computing in the so-called ‘cloud’.

Our calendars might be online in Google Docs; our expenses stored in an Excel-compatible file sat on a distant Google data server. We bank online, we shop online. We catch up with TV shows using the BBC iPlayer and own virtual albums on iTunes. Using a webmail service like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail we can access our messages on a laptop, desktop, mobile phone or at an Internet café.

This sort of device-independent, go-anywhere access to our important ’stuff’ is arguably the future of personal computing.

What is ‘cloud computing’?

Cloud computing is essentially a combination of remote data hosting and Internet services, a nickname coined after the cloud shape that’s used to signify the Internet on network diagrams.

But there are different elements to this ‘cloud’. At its simplest, cloud computing describes using web 2.0 services like Google Docs, Zoho, Blinksale and Adobe’s Photoshop Express. As long as you have access to a web browser, you have access to your data, regardless of whether you’re using a Mac, a Windows PC, a Linux-powered netbook or a smartphone.

Working in this way, the role of the computer gets downgraded, recast as a tool to access your data rather than store it locally. So it doesn’t matter if you lose a laptop or the hard drive fails.

Lenovo is transferring this idea to small business computing with an initiative it calls ‘Secure Managed Client’ (SMC). Instead of giving employees a full-blown PC, Lenovo’s M57p and M58p desktops can be shipped without a hard drive (or with the hard drive disabled). All applications and data are stored safely in an off-site corporate data centre instead. It’s a variation on the ‘thin client’ idea trialled in the late 1990s.

Internet fad or a real future?

Microsoft isn’t the only one to notice that cloud computing is coming of age. At this year’s Macworld Expo, Apple announced an online component for iWork ‘09. Dubbed iWork.com, it provides Apple users with a web workspace where they can share their iWork documents with colleagues.

Apple already operates the MobileMe portal, a suite of services designed to synchronise email, calendar, contacts, photos and to provide online storage. Palm has also embraced the cloud with its latest smartphone. The Palm Pre runs Palm’s new webOS, which enables its core applications to communicate dynamically with the web.

At the other end of the cloud computing scale, Amazon’s Web Services provide unparalleled computing capacity to developers and businesses. These cover services such as application hosting, storage, content delivery and e-commerce. The collaboration tool Smartsheet is hosted on Amazon servers, for example. While 37Signals, the team behind web apps such as Basecamp, Highrise and Campfire, use Amazon to back up their 1TB file server.

Microsoft is playing catch-up. Like Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine, the Windows Azure platform will offer developers the ability to run and host applications remotely. Microsoft has already opened data centres in Washington D.C and San Antonio, Texas. Additional data centres are planned for Chicago and Dublin.

But crucially, Microsoft hopes that by offering a familiar development environment (Visual Studio 2008, .net, SQL Server and Hyper-V), anybody au fait with ASP.Net programming will be able to create a Windows Azure application just as easily.

The new virtual workspace

Little by little, core desktop applications are being threatened by web-based alternatives. Google Docs, for example, aggregates Google’s key online office applications – Gmail, Google Calendar, the Writely word processor, spreadsheet, PDF and PowerPoint viewers. Zoho offers a similar online office suite and Microsoft has teased with the prospect of an online version of Office to accompany this year’s ‘Office 14′ refresh.

What’s surprising is that Microsoft doesn’t see cloud computing as a threat to its existing products. Surely cloud-based applications could threaten sales of Office and impact Windows 7? Some analysts are already talking about Web 2.0 apps and Internet computing in terms of a ‘cloud OS’.

In the meantime, there’s evidence to suggest that Google employees are actively using an unnamed operating system, potentially a version of the Android OS. When your software is powered by a web browser, why do you need to invest in Windows?

Of course, Microsoft would argue that Google Docs hasn’t yet replaced Microsoft Office, despite the fact that Google Docs is free and accessible from anywhere.

But Microsoft is also in the business of making money from its software. The web-based version of Office will reportedly be available via Office Live and it won’t be free. Stephen Elop, Head of Microsoft’s business division, commented: “we expect that the full range of Office utilities, from the most advanced to simpler lightweight versions, will be available with a range of options: ad-funded, subscriptions-based, traditional licensing fees and so forth.”

What’s next for cloud computing?

The analysts at Gartner predict that 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies in the US could be paying for Internet computing services by 2012. They have the potential to transform IT, cutting costs (possibly jobs) and improving efficiency.

But there are also questions around trust and reliability that need to be addressed. Where is your data going to be stored? How secure is it? What happens if the system breaks down? Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) suffered an eight-hour outage in 2008, which in turn crippled the companies that depended on it. The lights went out twice on Google’s Gmail earlier this year.

Can we really trust our data to a cloud?

“A cloud is amorphous and indistinct,” says SearchDataCenter.com’s Chuck Goolsbee. “You can’t audit a cloud. It is virtual. Sure, we all know that it translates to a physical manifestation at some point, but can you touch it? Can you audit, with absolute certainty, its file systems, logs and physical access? Can you be absolutely certain that it is physically secure? Can you be absolutely certain that its virtualized file systems are not mingled on a physical disk with somebody else’s data?”

One thing is clear. The viability of cloud computing is no longer in doubt. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions and unresolved issues that need to be addressed. Cloud computing will be one of the big technology trends of 2009. Just how big is open to debate.

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