Michael Henley

Yesterday (Wednesday 11th) was the school’s founder’s day, meaning that from about 12:30pm the process of shipping all 1000+ pupils and staff over to St Paul’s Cathedral in central London took place. This meant that myself and the others on twitter were split up in during the transit and service, and so we found that twitter was to be the desired medium for communication. Worked surprisingly well, and was an amazing use of it.

When there are seven or eight twitterers out and about, doing similar things in the same area it works very well. Whether it be for covet mass communication during the service (not actually used of course…) or for coordinating the after-service jovialities, twitter was very useful. I use my twitter as much as possible in the every day environment of school, but the use of mobile phones in classrooms is understandably frowned upon, and this means that this is limited at best, except for the odd uncontrollable outbust of anger or hilarity…

An added bonus is that it in fact turns out to be a much cheaper way of mass texting. We all have our phones connected to our twitter accounts, and have notifications set up for each other, meaning that when we post from our phones, this is automatically forwarded to all of the others, and so I am getting a text to 8 people for the price of one. The way that twitter is established means that we can also reply to the sender directly (albeit less privately) and achieve much the same results as we would if we used bog-standard texting.

Being able to access the status updates from many different platforms, be it the web via a browser, the desktop via one of the many twitter apps (I am currently testing the mutli-platform multi-service AIR app Appily for this), or via the phone through texting, there isn’t really much else I could ask for from twitter. It has moved on from its original purpose of posting status updates though I think. While it is still used for status updates, it is also used to a large extent for general communication on the same level as a service like MSN Messenger or SMS. This can only be a good thing, provided those involved are using protected updates…

Well as I said before, we went off to ExCel in London’s Docklands to the Future of Web Apps conference on Wednesday. It was simply amazing! We arrived at around 8:45am, and were greeted by the booths with passes. Of course this was too simple, as they didn’t have my pass there… That said, the organisers there were amazing about it, and simply gave me a blank pass which got me in. Whether they would have done more stringent identity checks had I asked for a pass above the £5 expo-only pass, because they didn’t even check my name, I am not sure.

Once the initial ‘drama’ was over, we explored the expo-floor. It was a ghost-town at this time in the morning, which it turned out was because a lot of people were already there, but in the ‘Showcase Stage’ where some of the paid talks were taking place. First things first, onto the free WiFi provided for attendees of FoWA. For this the ‘Microsoft Lounge’ provided the perfect seating arrangements – Microsoft Visual Studio, and Expression-branded beanbags. Much Xbox 360, and Halo 3 playing ensued, as obviously it would have been rude to not play when Microsoft had provided six networked Xboxs for our amusement…

Once the conference got going, we had a wander around the floor, and some of the exhibits were really good. Meecard looks very interesting, and may finally lead to an end of the many different new services cropping up which are effectively a clone of an existing service, but with one new special feature which means everybody must switch. Instead, I can set up a meecard (such as my own here) which can have as little or as much data on it as I like, and links to most of my social services. While something like Google Reader is a News Feed Aggregator, I see meecard as a Social Aggregator, bringing all of the social services I use to one easy to find and comprehend place.

Another of note was Wakoopa, who not only had hacked iPhones there to attract people (it worked!) but also were talking about their next big planned development – to log which Web Apps you use (should you choose to allow it to). This means that it will record how long you spend on, for example, the GMail webpage. I queried on the privacy implications this raises, and they assured me that instead of sending your web history to Wakoopa for analysis, the Wakoopa client will instead look for specific sites which they can log, and only send usage info for these, so it does remove some of the privacy issues, although I am not sure how comfortable I would be with something putting my specific web usage onto a public page, and what info they displayed would be of great importance. That said I will be looking at these new features with interest if, and when, they are released.

The Microsoft stand was also interesting. They were talking about ‘Expression’ – their competitor to Adobe’s Creative Suite. A friend of mine, who is an avid user of Photoshop, with some astounding results (see here), mentioned that from the looks of it Expression was more accessible to users who were unfamiliar with Photoshop. For someone like me, who has always been scared or beaten by Photoshop, this is good news. One thing I did find very amusing was that the main computers that Microsoft had for Expression were MacBook Pros. One was running Windows Vista through Boot Camp, and the other was running in OS X, but it was a surreal site, and the last place I thought I would see those!

The other main highlight was meeting Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht – the hosts of Diggnation. It was purely by coincidence, in that we were sat in the foyer of ExCel, and they walked in. After about 20 seconds of umming and ahhhing we decided that there was nothing to lose, and went to introduce ourselves. This was amazing, and they were great guys, although they couldn’t talk for long because they were running late in preparation for Kevin’s keynote speech, and for the later live filming of Diggnation.

The Diggnation filming began at 7:30pm, and lasted for an hour. This was fantastic to see, and a great experience. Kevin & Alex basically got rock-star treatment, arriving on stage to cheering, applause and blaring music. One thing I noticed was that Diggnation had actually filled the ‘Showcase Stage’ at FoWA more than Kevin’s Keynote speech about lessons learnt from setting up Digg and Pownce, which said something about the popularity of this particular podcast! The ‘episode’ was great, and they were very good, managing and entertaining the crowd, as well as doing what they were there to do.

Photos from the day can be found on my Flickr here, and on Alex Muller’s here

Here at FOWA, on the free WiFi. The conference is amazing! I love it. Some classic moments such as seeing Microsoft demoing their Expression system on MacBook Pros (admittedly one was running Vista in Boot Camp but still…)

More to follow,  but in the mean time – Just found this on Flickr. Awesomeness!

Well we are off to FOWA tomorrow morning for what is looking like a fantastic day. Spending the day on the floor, and then going to the Diggnation Live filming. Plus I get to leave home later than usual which is always a bonus! We will however not be able to see any of the speeches, because we didn’t spend £250 on the passes which get you those.

However today, Thomas Vander Wal is coming to talk at school, thanks to him knowing our Director of ICT. The talk will be about Thomas’s speciality – Social Tagging and Folksonomy. Should be really interesting. Hopefully we will get a preview of what he will be saying when he talks on Thursday at FOWA.

Next Wednesday a few of us are being let out of school for the day to go to FOWA – The Future of Web Apps Conference. This is at the ExCel centre in London’s Docklands, and looks like it is going to be amazing. We’ve only got the £5 floor passes so we won’t be going to any of the talks, but we have been told that the speakers etc. can be found on the floor when they are not presenting. Who would I want to speak to? I am not sure… I think it would be amazing to meet Kevin Rose and others like him. For someone like me, these are the ‘celebrities’ although I think that could turn out being more of an insult than a compliment!

On the same day, after the conference has finished, there is a live filming of Diggnation – Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about some of the week’s stories from Digg, and we will also go to see this.

Personally I can’t wait, and neither can the others from what I have gathered. One Week!

Firstly my thanks to Thomas Ricker, and Engadget for their live-blog of the event, which I followed this morning. Really good, as ever.

Well, as expected, we saw the announcement of the UK iPhone, running on the O2 network. My prediction of them launching immediately was (sadly) off, and they will be available from November 9th. This begs the question what the curtains, and the store closure until 4pm, is about. I am off to Regents Street this afternoon with some friends anyway, so we will see what (if anything!) is different.

The UK iPhone is the same as the current US model, and so we did not a see any form of hardware upgrade. Steve hinted that by this time next year we will have a 3G iPhone, in saying that they expect the battery life issues to be resolved by then. It is therefore running EDGE, which is bad news frankly. The EDGE coverage on O2 in the UK is shocking – indeed the demo model that Journalists saw this morning wasn’t even detecting EDGE in the Apple Store Regents Street, in Central London! While EDGE may be the major coverage service in the US, here and in much of the rest of Europe 3G is the way the networks have gone. It is a shame that this hasn’t been taken into account, as it will mean that the iPhone will probably get bad press from day one when it goes on sale officially here, with the features like Internet Browsing and Song Download needing WiFi connection to be remotely useful. Note that O2 has said that they have partnered with ‘Cloud’ to provide free WiFi in over 7,000 locations. Whether this makes up for it I am not sure…

While the announcement was good, I can’t say that I was wowed by any of the announcements related to Apple. Indeed one of the only ‘at last!’ moments was O2′s announcement that as of October 1st they will make all of their contract plans unlimited data.

Regardless this was a great morning, and I am hoping that by the time I get there at 4pm today, they will have put out the iPod touchs in the store for general consumption. I get to play with a multi-touch display at last!

Well the plot thickens! From what I have seen it looks like Apple have closed the Regents Street Store and put up large black curtains over all of the windows. An announcement outside says that it is closed until 4pm tomorrow for a private function. We know that this is an invite-only special press event. From all of this I will happily speculate that Apple are setting up the iPhone displays, possibly as I type, and they will launch tomorrow morning immediately. Whether this will be a ‘Gen. 2′ with 3G and larger capacity we will have to wait and see.

The other question on my mind is who will give the announcement. It could be Steve Jobs himself, or it may be someone else, such as the ‘head’ of Apple Europe. Either way I can’t wait if I am honest – I have been wanting to play with an iPhone for a long time and this looks like it may be my first chance.

I am also wondering whether they will launch the iPod touchs in the UK, as not having them out until the 28th once the iPhone is out seems a little counter-intuitive, to me at least.

Regardless, I finish early tomorrow and so will be heading off straight to the Regents Street store to be in line to play with Apple’s latest shiny new toy!

Apple have scheduled their first ever UK press event for Tuesday at 10AM BST, taking place in the Regents Street Apple Store. What will we see here? For them to do it in Europe, or the UK, suggests that they will announce something UK or Europe specfic. Therefore I am thinking that they will announce the iPhone 2nd Gen. (whatever that will entail… 3G, 16GB?), or they may announce the Beatles on iTunes (why that is such a big thing I am still not sure, and yet it seems to be something which we are all just waiting for…). Seeing as the UK is the ‘home’ of the Beatles it would make sense. The killer would be if the almighty Steve himself flew across the pond for the event. Anybody got his itinerary?…

Just a quick software recommendation today. When away from home, even if I am able to take my laptop with me, there is always something that I want to do that can only be done while sat at my desk, in front of my Desktop machine. This is where LogMeIn Free comes in. This is some software which you install on your machines, and then sign into the website. There you see a list of all the machines associated with your account, and tells you which ones are connected to the internet and are accessible.

In the free version what you can do is limited, but I have found that it does all I need – offers Remote Control of my machine, and allows me some basic Admin control. I can take control of my screen from any web browser in the world (even I found, those in censored China!) and so from there can use something like GMail to send myself a file or print a document to the local printer at home. The Admin offers the basics, allowing control of Windows security, such as password changing etc, but also offers a very useful range of system restart options, ranging from Normal to ‘Hard Reset’.

At home I am the de facto IT Support, and considering I am the only one who knows the passwords to nearly everything, it is likely to stay this way. If I am away on a trip and something goes horribly wrong, this allows a quick check and hopefully fix, instead of trying to visualise the screens the user is seeing, and guide them through the troubleshooting and fix process.

Overall a really useful app which I think is irreplaceable! See more and get it here

I thought I would jump on this bandwagon, if only to prove that I don’t approve of or agree with everything Apple does from on high at Cupertino. As you will know, Apple held their special event on 5th September at Moscone West. After the first few months of iPhone sales figures etc had come in, Apple knew what we all said from the beginning – a 4GB iPhone was simply too small and the demand clearly wouldn’t be there if there was a larger capacity version around. Indeed the only reason I believe anyone would even contemplate buying one of the smaller capacity phones would be the price.

Having said that, if I were an iPhone owner (and one of the only reasons I am not is that I am in the UK), I would not be best pleased with Apple at the moment. Of course technology moves on, and buying at the wrong time is always a risk – I waited 6 months to buy this laptop simply because I read the rumours of an update on the horizon. Equally I would say that buying on the day of a product’s launch can’t possibly be too early. The early adopters were screwed over by Apple. Of course this won’t stop them from buying another Apple product – and it wouldn’t stop me. We all know the risks. I do object to the half-hearted measures Apple and Steve have put out there to try to placate their customers.

If they are $200 out of pocket, then how is a $100 store credit going to go anywhere to solving that? I would say that it should be either just paid back into their accounts so that they can spend their money anywhere, or they should be getting more. Profit is profit, but sometimes I wonder how long Apple’s rock-solid fanbase will keep the shit from sticking to them… This is the summary of Apple’s whole ethos though. They know that regardless of what they do, their ‘fanboys’ will keep defending them better than any $5,000/hr lawyer could, and so they are willing to sit in their airtight campus, not informing anyone of their upcoming products, and doing whatever they want. Their products are revolutionary, but that can only keep them safe for so long.

In saying this I am being quite hypocritical. I am writing this on my 3 month old MacBook Pro, listening to music on my 3rd Gen. iPod, and eagerly awaiting the 29th September when I will travel for over an hour to go to the Regents Street Apple Store simply to play with the new iPod touchs and worship at the altar of Steve. That said if I had bought a 4GB iPhone a few months ago, to have it discontinued, or if I had bought an 8GB iPhone only to have it dropped in price a few months later I wouldn’t be happy. This is primarily because I have found that Apple does not rush any decisions. This is one of the reasons I believe they keep so quiet about new products – so that they can plan out in minute detail what they are going to do over the few months after launch etc. This means that they have intended for a long time, possibly even before the launch of the iPhone, to drop the price in September. This is no doubt why they have only released the iPod touch now – they can now use the consumers of those as Guinea Pigs, and see if the demand for it, and for a 16GB iPhone, which I expect is on the horizon, is there. As John C. Dvorak says, never buy the first gen. of an Apple product. For once I am thankful I live in the UK, because we will probably get the 2nd Gen. of iPhone.

I wonder why Apple ever launched the 4GB iPhone – the only reason I can think of is that they were desperate to prove from the word go that their phone would beat all the competition simply because they made it, and so introduced a cheaper option to maximise sales figures of the iPhone as a whole. Still, I look forward to the 16GB (or larger because although more acceptable, 16GB is still too small for a device where video playback is one of the key features) iPhone and iPod touch, and will be buying one. It just hope that Apple don’t ‘suddenly’ figure out how to fit 32GB inside the 8mm thin case and revise the iPod touch up to Gen. 2….