04 Feb 10 Apple iPad – Guess the review – What can we learn from history?
Apparently Apple has launched its iPad – news has even made it to Worcestershire! Apple fans love it. Geeks hate it. Why is that so predictable? Or is it? I’m just predicting that’s what the response will be. I haven’t read a single review yet, so before I do, based entirely on twenty years of Mac use, here is what I think the conclusion will be:
If history is anything to go by, the iPad will be innovative in its own way – but not by some other people’s definition of innovative. It will probably disappoint the techno-purists because it will use whatever edge it has to satisfy some kind of mass market potential (and critically it won’t be Microsoft or Linux). And the same techno purists will be quick to point out that some gizmo or other does some or all of it’s functions better and uses some or other connectivity or processor or screen that ‘rocks’ (said in the way only geeks can pronounce it) while the iPad ‘sucks man’ (again said in John Major meets Michael Moore geek accent). It will extend the Apple ethos of the Digital Hub making it a natural add-on to the rest of the i-suite of things out there, which will again anger someone for some reason.
Basically, it will infuriate the anti Apple brigade simply because it will be made by Apple. That has always been enough to bring out IT geeks the world over to burn effigies of Steve Jobs.
Steve Wozniac, co-founder of Apple back in the day and ‘not bitter at all’ exile these days, will appear in some Tech mag and tell us how he came up with the idea in the first place, back in the 1980′s and it would be much better if it employed some unpronounceable concept that only he understands.
Over time, the release version will prove to be underpowered and comparatively slow, lacking in memory and it will be unstable until about version 1.3. This is because everything Apple make is a great idea but a bad execution in it’s launch version. It then burns out quickly or the screens break or some such disaster befalls the early adopters. The second version is more robust, but the software is flakey or the connectivity is poor. You don’t really get a polished version out until third time around – which will be good. However, for all it’s early problems, it will capture people’s imagination better than any of its rivals have and it will redefine the market place for these devices.
Several niche companies and several large companies will file patent infringement cases on its technology, interface or other aspects of it. These will variously go on for years and no one will remember what they were all about when they eventually get settled.
It will be plaigiarised – or perhaps I should say it will inspire Microsoft and others like Nokia, Dell, and a load of firms from China – who will claim they were working on their version of it all along. These will get launched about a year later and spontaneously look remarkably like Apple’s product. They will be called ‘ePads’, ‘xPads’ and ‘MyPads’. Everyone will then get sued by Always Ultra who whose own iPad product will do something completely different. All the Windows based clones will be really fiddly, stuffed full of lots of features and complicated interfaces. They will impress the editors of computer mags but inadvertently reinforce the Apple iPad (or whatever it gets called) as a people’s favourite.
A final word or warning: You will need to watch out for slightly insecure and over-paid people conspicuously taking their Apple iPad to the pub and making sure everyone can see they have one.
13 Jan 10 Rohan diving into the dim and distant past
I got a Facebook message from Mark Palacio a long-time friend who I met about 25 years ago when we both worked at Rohan. The Rohan Blog, Rohantime has a carousel on it’s home page with a picture of me diving off a cliff into the sea in Malta while directing a photo-shoot for Rohan.
Click to launch full size image
It was Feb 1988 Blue Lagoon Malta, shooting a catalogue with Paul Howcroft, Adam Croxen, some models and the photographer Mike Heffernan. The photographer said the shots were a bit wooden and I was standing on the cliff top above the sea and I said, “If I jump, can you get a shot”. He got out a 35mm motorwind camera and at the last second I decided to just dive off the thing. Long way down, it hurt, soaked all my money and ruined my watch – but it was used as the catalogue cover. It was a good time. We stayed in a castle in Malta and it was at that time that Paul Howcroft promoted me to become Rohan’s Marketing Manager.
Given the mayhem of litigation that took place between Rohan and me, Paul, Adam and Mark a couple of years later, it is hardly surprising that they declined to give me a name check!
It’s interesting how Rohan crops up from time to time as I go through life. I got contacted on the 30th anniversary by their designers looking for any Rohan samples I may have had. I was contacted by newspapers both national and from Skipton (where Rohan launched). About three years ago, I was stopped after a presentation and asked about my time at Rohan by someone I had never met before.
There was a lot of bad blood for a long time between me and Rohan, but it would be good to get to know them again. I can see that Tim Jasper (who I first met when he was a customer at Rohan’s Bristol shop) is Brand Director at Rohan and the founder, Sarah Howcroft is back there working on Social media for them.
12 Jan 10 Stoke fans Wiki revenge on ‘horse faced, dutch prick’ van Nistelrooy
After Ruud Van Nistelrooy appeared to rubbish the chances of Stoke City buying him or, more likely, taking him on loan in the January 2010 transfer window, an offended Stoke fan took revenge by altering van Nistelrooy’s wiki page to read as follows:
Ruud Van Nistelrooy is a horse faced, hay eating, dutch prick who currently (doesn’t) play for Real Madrid. There’s a picture of him over there on the right. Go on, have a look…..a face only a mother could love. If he’s better than Stoke City Football Club, I’ll eat my own arse.
A picture for posterity needed to be published (click image or this link to launch full size):
06 Jan 10 Stoke 3 – 2 Fulham
For weeks now Stoke have been threatening to give someone good hiding and it was very nearly Fulham. While recent results suggest Stoke have been going through a dip in form, the results are deceiving. I don’t want to come across all Tony Mowbray, but there are times when Stoke have been breath-taking this season and still lost. There were plenty of critics competing to damn the tactics last season. More disappointing, this season, even with a change of approach, commentators reluctantly eulogise about Stoke through gritted teeth. For Stoke fans listening to Gary Linekar raise his eye-brows weekly to announce the last game on MOTD, with a big sigh “…and now to The Britannia Stadium, so switch over to Newsnight, it’s more entertaining”.
But then tonight it came together, in a way that I hope proves to be a tipping point. Three goals from the The Good (Tuncay), The Bad (Ab Faye) and The Unexpected (Mama Sidibe) actually flattered Fulham who should have gone in at half time 5-0 down. Stoke were hard, yet sophisticated in defence with Ryan Shawcross easily managing Andy Johnson and hinting at why Stoke have, this week, placed a £20Million hands-off label all over him. Huth showed quietly why he is a German international and Ab Faye seems to have rid himself of the kryptonite poisoning from which he has been suffering of late. In midfield Stoke were just magic. Tuncay flitted between midfield and attack always creating things and remaining unplayable. Etherington must have been spending his born again time at Stoke chatting with club ambassador Terry Conroy, because he looks like the best winger Stoke have had since that time. Liam Lawrence returned to great effect and all in all, the team massacred Fulham in the first half.
I have declared that the second half did not take place. Tuncay did not get injured , Fulham did not score twice, one of which was not a magnificent looping shot from 40yards and this was not Fuller’s last game for Stoke.
Great night to be a Stoke fan.
16 Dec 09 Rage Against The X Factor
#Xfactor I read that Simon Cowell said that the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s (RATM) 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to Christmas No 1 ‘stupid’ and ‘cynical’…”
Which of course it is, but to be even handed about this, the use that Cowell makes of mass media is cynical.
Cowell has his own private TV channel-to-market. He overwhelmingly uses it to manufacture pop stars for his own label, and promote other artists of his. He also times the whole thing to cash in on the most lucrative time for music sales. This is overwhelmingly to his benefit and no one else – cynical would you say?.
What makes me sad is that while The X Factor is aired, there cannot be another proper Christmas song like Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade), Happy Christmas – War is Over (John and Yoko), I Believe In Father Christmas (Greg Lake), Stop The Cavalry (Jonah Lewie) or even White Christmas (Bing Crosby). Those songs have some lasting appeal and seasonal poignancy, but the X Factor ‘product’ is generally forgettable or even disposable, as are many of the ‘stars’ manufactured by the show. YTou don’t think so? Series 1 – Steve Brookstein; Series 2 – Shayne Ward; Series 3 – Leona Lewis; Series 4 – Leon Jackson; Series 5 – Alexandra Burke; Series 6 – Joe McElderry. While Leona Lewis seems to have cracked it, it’s about time. The others are all very distant memories and one suspects that Alexandra Burke will be next years Leon Ward and this year’s winner, Joe McElderry, will ultimately be another Shayne Ward.
I have no specific problem with Joe McElderry. I am sure he is a nice guy, he does have a good voice, he looks like Donny Osmond did when he used to activate hormones in teenage girls and at least Joe has won a ‘talent competition’. Or has he? Cowell says the RATM campaign is aimed at him. I rather think it is aimed at the thing he has built. “Is this a singing competition” judge Danii Minogue asked before judging against the diatonically deaf duo of Jedward. However, in a previous week, having savaged their every performance, Cowell kept them in the show at the expense of Lucie Jones, one of the better vocalists in the competition. Cowell’s cynical support of Jedward was clearly to maintain ratings and ad revenue, because they were less talented, less entertaining and less likely to win than any other act. FFS they were booed every bloody week.
So, while I don’t really like the Rage Against The Machine single (you are not really meant to, it is acid in the eyes sort of art), but I hope it succeeds. Not for its own merits, but to open up the future possibility of some proper Christmas songs which are not so cynically mass marketed.
15 Dec 09 Software for nothing
Quick note to self really. I am researching a piece of written work about whether you need any expensive software, or any software at all to run a business.
I have a friend who works from home, but he found it tricky to concentrate with all the distraction and then if he had to go into town for a meeting it would be a waste of much of the day getting there and back.
So he started to work from the local library. There is free wi-fi and good desks and chairs – coffee machine, cafe, right in the middle of town and totally free. They even provide computers – but you have to have a liobrary card and they limit it to 1 hour, but the principle is there.
Now, I have been using a free invoicing system called Zoho for a while which also has an online version of word and excel. So what about everything else? Is it possible to run a business for free?
So I started to think that you could run a business for free. Yoiu could get accounti
To be continued…
11 Dec 09 Dropping Pianos on Accountants
Dropping A Piano (Accountant underneath)
‘Accountancy Recruitment’ is a two word title, both words being metaphors for ‘sedative’. Have you ever seen a job ad for an accountant that read “…exciting opportunity for the right accountant”? It is somehow not believable, an oxymoron. My first thought is that the ‘right accountant’ would have to have so little electrical activity in the brain that magnolia paint would be an exciting opportunity.
But then every now and again you come across an article such as Chris Cutting’s what happens when you drop a piano on an accountant. The point he makes is that in a given set of circumstances there will be many who will follow the same set of ‘rules’. The things you always do, the sum total of experience and education. For most, the temptation is, when something goes wrong, to tighten your resolve and do more of the same things as properly as you know how. The result is that you end up doing it wrong again, only this time thoroughly.
Those who know me, will know that one of my favourite phrases is “If you keep doing what you do, you’ll keep getting what you get”. For marketeers and designers, this is a self-evident truth. People will call us in to make a difference and then systematically try to force us to spontaneously provide exactly what they had that they decided needed changing. I once worked at BP and we had a load of consultants swanning about the place. If you went to fetch a coffee, they would declare your seat a ‘Hot desk’, sit there and not leave it until the end of the contract. But one such consultant from Andersens imparted the following wisdom upon me. “If it ain’t broke …break it”. It basically means that you can keep doing something for years and watch it work. Then one day it won’t work, the world changed while you weren’t looking. But because you have always done things the same way, it leaves you bereft of alternatives.
The points he, and Chris Cutting make is a good one. His is remedial, suggesting that you need to periodically tear down systems and proceedures and rebuild them. Chris’s, on the other hand, is preventative. He says that you need to find the sort of person who will have it within them to look up from time to time, spot the problem and break the inertia to avoid the problem.
For the right accountant, that is an exciting opportunity, and I imagine that finding the right accountant is not always the easiest thing to do.
The only thing I would add, is that if anyone does manage to drop a piano on an accountant, can they film it and get it on YouTube – there are lots of good SEO, Social Media and Marketing reasons why you should.
22 Nov 09 Cumbrian flood – worse than the flood is the flood publicity
Responding to The Guardian’s recent article After the deluge, a sodden Cumbria begins to clear up
"…a tightly cut shot of the biggest puddle they could find"?
It occurred to me that the flood is not really the worst of it. After the cameras have gone, after the politicians have had their photo opportunity, after the waters (both real and metaphorical) have receded, you are left with one big mess to clear up. As always, you will have to do this yourself. All the political promises and commitments will disintegrate as soon as the publicity opportunity presented by your misfortune has passed.
As a victim of the 2007 floods (I live near Upton Upon Severn, Worcs) I am afraid to tell flood victims that their troubles are only just beginning.
For a couple of weeks, your towns will be filled with satellite dished transit vans and Ugg wearing radio and TV types hugging their North Face Jackets and sipping paper cups of tea between 30 second ‘live reports’ where they talk of ‘carnage strewn streets’ and other sound-bitten nonsense in front of tightly cut shots of the biggest puddle they can find.
For the first time in living memory you will see a recognisable politician or two: Gordon Brown and David Cameron will both turn up wearing their concerned faces and suggest everything from money to action but promise only to review things and report at some undefined point in the future. And then as soon as a cat gets run over outside Parliament, they will be gone and onto the next photo opportunity. In the next couple of months Kate Silverton (or similar) will show up and do an environment special for TV. In about six months Prince Charles will fly in and shake your hand. All of them will be doing it to fulfil their own remit and agendas. Strangely it won’t do you any good at all.
You will be left with a big mess, ruined houses, cowboy builders moving into your area and insurance companies. It took us eight months to get Zurich Insurance to even respond to our calls. They sent some loss adjusters round from time to time who started by throwing all our belongings away and variously described our situation as “a bit of DIY” through periodic derisory “final settlement offers” of £20k, then £25k and so it incrementally crept. The process slowly marches with infuriating inertia designed to make you desperate. If you snap and shout they offer you a few grand hoping you will take it so that they can kill off the file on their desks. To put it into perspective, they were trying to settle our case for £100,000 less than it cost to repair the property – and it took them over a year to get even that far. We were left entirely to own devices, we were taken for a ride by builder and engineers and all with the insurance industry nowhere to be seen. We were out of our house for two years, only moving back in in June this year. The bill ended up being £120k – all of it hard fought miles for us and achieved in spite of the insurance company, certainly not with their help.
At some point, you will be subjected to skewed research exercises asking all the wrong questions. The research will all be designed to conclude that you actually need something cheap like better flood warnings when everyone else knows that you need serious investment in flood defenses.
You will spend months and years living in holiday flats and other temporary accommodation. Your childrens’ right to attend local schools will then come under threat, you will never receive complete compensation for all you have lost and when it is all behind you, you will not be able to sell your house.
If you are a victim of this flood, this is probably not what you want to hear, but you might as well hear it from someone who has been through it rather than any number of people who don’t know what they are talking about and feel that now would be a good to time to tell you how you are feeling, what you should do, where you should live and why it’s all your fault for living on a flood plain – Even if you haven’t personally been flooded, try selling your house and moving now your area is blighted by flood publicity.
29 Oct 09 I’ve found Grandma stuck in the Motherboard
In response to The Computer Swallowed Grandma
Oh I think I’ve found a grandma
Inside my motherboard
She was frying up the chip set
And shouting at The sound card
She hijacked the internal buses
And took them for a ride
And before she could jump off
She was at it with the main drive
But Grandma didn’t know
If she should wipe or copy
So she looked inside it’s bytes and bits
Saying “Is your drive hard or floppy?”
“Illegal operand”
The computer verified
“You must be corrupted
Access is denied”
“Bloody piece of junk”
Grandma answered seething
“Please shut down” the computer said
“My CPU Overheating”
“Your CPU, YOUR CPU?”
Said Grandma with a thwack
“Don’t you mean the ‘slotty box thing’
With spaghetti round the back”
“Does not compute Does Not Compute”
Computed the computer
“UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME:
Please reboot your router”
“If I reboot you’ll know it”
Said Grandma exasperated
“What’s the router anyway?
It’s all so complicated”
“The router’s by the phone
It’s the ugly device
That will not match the wallpaper
and has lots of flashing lights”
“Well why did you not say so”
Answered Grandma going insane
“You’re supposed to make life easier
But you just hurt my brain”
“Callibrate your monitor”
The computer rudely beeped
“Do what?” said gran “Try again
In English if you please”
“In fact stop, you bloody box of wires
While I give you a lesson
Put yourself on stand-by
For an interactive session”
You will not call me ‘user’
I don’t approve of drugs
You will not accuse me of illegal operations
and make me feel like a thug.
I don’t ‘login’, I switch on
I don’t ‘key-in’ I type
It’s not a monitor, it’s a telly
It’s called ‘computer phone’ not Skype
If you have a virus,
Kindly keep it to yourself
I’ve lived three score and ten
In largely perfect health
I really don’t appreciate
Meaningless error codes
If something’s wrong, soldier on
It’s how we won the war you know
And finally would it hurt
Sometimes to just say ‘Please’
Now shut up, power down
And make me a cup of tea.”
29 Oct 09 The Computer Swallowed Grandma
I received this from my mother
Yes, honestly its true!
She pressed ‘control’ and ‘enter’
And disappeared from view.It devoured her completely,
The thought just makes me squirm.
She must have caught a virus
Or been eaten by a worm.I’ve searched through the recycle bin
And files of every kind;
I’ve even used the Internet,
But nothing did I find.In desperation, I asked Google
My searches to refine.
The reply from them was negative,
Not a thing was found ‘online.’So, if inside your ‘Inbox,’
My Grandma you should see,
Please ‘Copy,”Scan’ and ‘Paste’ her
And send her back to me.
This is a tribute to all the Grandmas who have been fearless and learned to use the Computer…….. They are the greatest!!!
We do not stop playing because we grow old;
We grow old because we stop playing .
NEVER Be The First To Get Old!
And here is my response: I’ve found Grandma Stuck in the Motherboard
