martinlittle.com:thinkThin

There are already two listings on ebay, both kicking off at forty quid for two. I'm taking a stand and refusing to pay that much (and I ***may*** be able to squeeze in for free), but in case anyone has one spare ticket and feels like helping me out, please let me know...

On the brighter side, I finally picked up the Godfather boxset, which I've been after for quite some time. Yes, I know HMV sucks, but they were offering it for 30 quid instead of 50. I'm quite excited about seeing the films -- I've only ever seen part of the first one. Being a Godfather myself, I'm interested to see how much carries over from real life into the film, and vice-versa. ;-)

[Update on Sunday 2nd November at 17.55 GMT]: It seems the whole ticket handout hasn't quite gone to plan, leaving a lot of people unhappy. Jim pointed me to another Edinburgh blogger who thinks we should just be happy with our lot, before the world thinks we are just whiners. I disagree. What exactly is the point of STACKS of our tax money going on an event that is going to do absolutely nothing for the residents of Edinburgh. Yes, more people may come and visit us and bring cash into the city, but surely, for MTV to knock out a (relatively) small concert in Edinburgh should be part of the fun of the whole event. Either way, I'm still looking for a ticket...

• my brother has got a new phone. Watch for moblogging madness to ensue. He's also back in town for one night only tonight
• two good articles in the New York Times, one about the basics of digital photography compared to analogue and the second about online framing
• another friend of #mobitopia, jibbler has released a postcode to grid co-ordinates file
• Micheal Stipe of R.E.M. fame is playing the MTV awards in Edinburgh. I need to be there
• Netgear is working on digital media tools
• goegraphic information in photos, could be cool for moblogging

I can completely empathise with him on this one. My parents are pretty good with their computer, but one of the recent virus attacks prompted me to check everything was up-to-date on their XP box. After over three hours downloading XP updates over a 56k modem, I was almost in tears. Mix in a few friends, multiply by cousins and season with uncles, and the time consumed is not insignificant.

Using the good old 80/20 rule, I think the large majority of people could be perfectly happy computer users with a significantly simplified device -- email, browser, word processor, spreadsheet, instant messenger & printing capabilities would almost cover it. Sticking that lot on a box with an auto-updating virus checker would remove so many of the support calls without noticeably impinging on flexibility. Many people happily live in this space. A carefully configured XP box can almost do the job ... but you need someone to do that initial configuration. The key word in that second sentence was could. A grand at PCWorld can buy you a whole lot of trouble: scanners, printers, webcams, a broadband connection, some wireless networking ... and you're quickly back in the personal tech support arena.

As noted in the replies to Steven's original article, somewhere in there is a fulltime job (I know -- I've looked for it quite a few times already). Here are the problems:

• people are used to referring to their local expert, getting advice for free. Suddenly charging friends fifty pounds an hour to install a virus checker is just not going to go down well.
• the job could easily become very boring. Installing a wireless router is only a challenge so many times

[Note to my friends, cousins, siblings and uncles: no, I'm not about to start charging you for help; yes, I'll still help you unbreak your computer and set up your moblog. ;-) ]

Pink clockfaces on the Balmoral Hotel for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. ThinkPink.

Looks like the service is now live in Edinburgh. I just need a car to test it with now.

WAH -- Habitat has the Christmas decorations out already!

Similar in many ways to my SliMP3, but with a nice little built in colour screen, customisable Java interface, wireless and speakers.

Speaking of my SliMP3, I have to admit that it still isn't fully installed! I've got it hooked up to a spare ME102 I had, but the playback is not continually smooth, even across my quiet wireless network. Further investigation required.

The cool news is that the Flaming Lips are playing a free concert in Princes Street Gardens. Something to really look forward to!

Today has been really nice. I think I could quite happily live a lot more days like this (UH HUH). We had lunch (from 1.30pm to 5pm) at Lochgreen, which was just voted the best hotel in Scotland & Nothern Ireland by the AA thanks to my Uncle Cameron, who has been over from the States for the last three weeks. We started with canapes in the drawing room, then lunch itself, finishing with a tasty cheese selection. Back to the drawing room for coffee and port. Ahh, yes.

There were plenty of nice cars in the car park, but dad decided to take his own car home. Nice wheels, huh? ;-) Ther rest of the pictures from today are here.

One of my oldest and most respected friends is now a year older. He recently told me this wise sayiny: Perfect Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance. Word.

On Friday morning, quite a few of us went to the tenth floor in our building to watch Concorde come in. It looked absolutely fabulous. I felt I really had to see and hear it take off, so I left the office about at about 1.20, for the 2pm takeoff. Normally the airport bus jets out to the airport with little effort. Of course, today the bus was (very) late, plus there were roadworks and the road was busy anyway. I changed transport methods after one stop, opting for a personal bus instead! At 2pm on the nose, my taxi was finally somewhere I thought I could get a vantage point, so I jumped out and zoomed across a road, close to the fence. Luckily for me, the takeoff was slightly delayed, by about 20 minutes, giving me time to get a videocall placed to work (twenty tries to place one call is not a great way to increase usage!).

My vantage point turned out to be spot on, giving me a very clear view of Concorde. It was a fabulous thing to behold, but having two phones and a camera in my hand certainly didn't help me capture a good picture. :-( Thankfully plenty of others did.

I really was sad to see Concorde go. Yes, there are plenty of financial and environmental issues raised by the plane, however it was an incredible technological achievement (as well as looking great) and to be saying goodbye to it when there is nothing better to replace it seems strange in this Moore's law world.

Since the retiral was stated, I really have considered splashing the cash and going for a ride, but I just did not have the cash (cheapest ticket was 2k, going Concorde one way, economy back). Ah well.

The BBC has a great site covering all things Concorde, and the Guardian has three good articles. Time for me to go and shed a tear.

I thought l had lost this picture when my phone reformatted but lo, it has resurfaced! This was taken as we headed along the side of a picture perfect Loch Lomond, en route to Taynish.

I called her with my congratulations, and she pointed me to a short film she was in called The Girl in the Lay-by. You can go to this cool site and watch it!

The Raindance jury deliver their verdict on November 7th, so as soon as I hear any more information, I'll update.

Concorde has now left the building.

No way, it actually worked!

Waiting for takeoff!

Notice any change in the moblog?

Look hard!

Quality jazz guitar from Kevin Mackenzie.

Meeting dwlt.net for beer & jazz.

This picture was taken from the end of the peninsula we were on, looking towards Ulva. The views we had travelling to the house and whilst we were there truly took my breath away at times. Scotland really is beautiful.

Here are the galleries:

• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday
• Monday
• Tuesday

Amazing scenery!

Yesterday Three launched in Denmark (Danish), but thankfully they do seem to be learning.

As I said previously, Three needed to get video calling sorted, make proper Internet access available and work on their content, for them to survive in the market. Incredibly, it seems all these areas have been addressed!

Video calling is now included in the regular package costs. You can get 150, 300 or 600 minutes of voice or video calling for EUR 20, EUR 33 and EUR 60 respectively. These charges put video calling equal to or cheaper than normal voice calling. THIS is how to kickstart subscribers actually using video calling on your network and gain some positive publicity for it!

Internet access packages are being offered. You can either pay EUR 4/month and then EUR 1.5/MB or else EUR 50 for 50MB. If true 3G speeds approaching 384kbps can be reached, this is going to look attractive compared to what is out there at the moment.

On the content front, it looks like Three are making some changes (English link) to their previous approach. Advertising for content partners who can do unique, creative and exciting things on the main page of their English site is a good step forward, although I can't see it on the main Danish language site.

As always, there is a downside. There's only one phone on offer! The Motorola A920, locked, is all that is available at launch. It seems that that will change when the A835 rolls out, but then, a choice of two Motorolas only. It looks like those rumours of NEC handset supplies drying up are true.

So, Three move bravely forward, learning as they go. Let us hope that they apply these changes to the current setups in the UK, Italy and elsewhere.

Big thanks to Isaack Rasmussen for the heads up on this as well as translating the key information and some background.

Birthday food with Sandy. Very happy birthday.

This weeks edition of The Economist has a great special survey covering telecoms, from mobile through fixed line and broadband to equipment suppliers. Unfortunately, all but the first article requires paid subscription to view online, so it may be cheaper to just pick up a hard copy. Here's a few if the highlights...

The first few paragraphs of Beyond the Bubble (no subscription required) cover a quick bit of history of telecoms which I found interesting:
IT ALL started with a ball hoisted up a flagpole. International telecommunications began in 1801, when the first link was established between the optical telegraph systems of Sweden and Denmark. Both networks consisted of lines of towers, each with a set of moveable panels on top. By replicating the configuration of panels at the next tower along the line, it was possible to transmit messages over great distances with unprecedented speed. Such were the military benefits of this technology that a telecoms boom ensued.

Faced with the threat of an attack by the British fleet under Admiral Nelson, Sweden and Denmark had linked their telegraph networks to give them early warning. When Nelson attacked Copenhagen on April 2nd 1801, the news was transmitted to Sweden using the first ever network-to-network (or “internet”) protocol. The panels on the Danish telegraph tower at Kronborg were configured to indicate that Copenhagen had been attacked. Across the Oresund strait, the Swedes hoisted a flag to show that they had received the message. The system worked flawlessly—except that the Swedes did nothing to aid Denmark, and the Danish fleet was defeated. Not for the last time, the expectations raised by international telecommunications were disappointed.

On of the most important statistics I took from the article was that nearly twice as many people have a mobile phone subscription as use the Internet -- this is massive! Give the substantially lower cost of owning a phone compared to a computer (I'm generalising) this shouldn't seem SO surprising, but double ... wow! Further, in developing countries, mobile phones are routinely the first phones people have, bypassing the decrepit infrastructure of fixed line operators. These phones are ofen shared amongst others. Whilst it is very safe to assume that the phones we're talking about here are not the latest handsets with XHTML browsers, cameras and colour screens they will still have basic functionality which will only increase. Taking the penetration and growth information, the opportunities for services (both commercial and non-commercial) are absolutely huge.

Several of the articles conclude that mobile telecom operators should now be spending their money on services and buying hardware for provding those services, as opposed to core bandwidth which is now seem as ample with newer technologies. As we know, data services are where it is going to be at in the future. Julian Horn-Smith, Vodafone's COO, has a few interesting quotes: We need to see things from the point of view of the customer rather than the supplier [...] Frankly, which kind of technology is driving those services is of secondary interest. He also goes on to talk about moving to 3G services, aiming to get people hooked on Vodafone Live! (doing pretty well so far) and then gently move users over to 3G. "... so we won't market 3G per se -- quite a change from the past hype, as the article says.

Other articles in the survey cover Vonage, a company and technology I had heard of briefly but who seem to be on to a real winner with voice over broadband and WiFi: Unless WiFi is added to mobile phones, most people will not carry a WiFi-capable device, so hotspots will have limited appeal.

The message for us all is pretty clear: think mobile services.

The bus from my village to Glasgow is kind of empty...

My uncle is over from the States.

On that inflection note ... Russ is making a break for it back to Califor-nea-aiii-ay. Gotta love the nonchalant approach he's taking to changing country! Word to that style.

Once I got to the scene of the accident, it was even weirder. A bus was stopped at the side of the road, a car was on the other with a bash in it. Then there was a motorbike in the middle of the road, lying there. A big green motorbike, not some flashy idiot bike.

I made it home then walked back past the scene as the vehicles were being removed, unsure what had actually happened... Today's Scotsman has the full story, and it doesn't make good reading. :-(

Three services have had a makeover. The initial page takes even longer to load now. Result!

Jenny is my token famous-actor-friend. :-)

Giving Rich a hand with some fast wirelessness.

Found this alcohol-free beer when I was tidying, a year out of date!

Saturday had an was an early start, when I headed off to collect a mystery parcel from the Parcelforce depot. It took me a while to get there, and when I get home and opened it, I found I'd accidently been sent the wrong thing (a bread bin, instead of a pedal bin). After a good birthday lunch for my mum at Cafe Marlayne (mussles cooked in goats cheese and Pernod were out of this world) I got down to John Lewis and got my bin situation sorted. I also picked up a washing bowl, so my kitchen is looking clean and smart now. :-)

I caught up with Neil and the boys for a few drinks just up the road on Saturday night. The Merlin held an incredible cross-section of people, from a group that must have been out all day, through two weirdly dressed couples, to a hen night where the dress code appeared to be less is best. Neil and Colin gave some great commentary on one and all, so it was for our own safety that we eventually left. Someone was bound to finally overhear the million decibel thoughts of the drunkards.

On Sunday, I once again was up sharp, to do some online catching up, and then lunch with Robbie et al. Now it's time for some more online catchup. As Rafe has just said, "I'm suffering from time compression"! Why is there no commodity market trading time?

Over the last week or so, I've really noticed a big change in the way I get new information. Email used to be a big thing for me, but now I actually get mostly spam (grrr) and notification emails, plus a few friends mail me (these, of course, make email totally worthwhile :-). The rest of the time, personal conversations are carried out via instant messenger, SMS or else even voice on a (mobile) phone. Tech information, which all used to come via email, is now almost exclusively delivered via my aggregator (using RSS) and it is often then pulped and discussed on #mobitopia.

Email, once the killer app, does now seem to have had its day. Filtering all the junk out is just such a timewasting experience, both on the developer front and on the end user side of things, plus it is all too fiddly for the regular person in the street to set up decent filters at a server level, to save themselves downloading all the junk in the first place. Once again, it's all coming back to RSS! My brain is kind of fuzzy on this right now -- I'm sure Dave's post will be significantly more enlightening!

A few quiet beers goes all wrong for Neil.

I know them.

More of Anur-dude.

Kathryn, Keith & Anurag @ Monboddo.

Beers with the dude.

• Robbie got to be 2; I got to buy lots of cool Lego for him, and then show him how it went together. All afternoon. And evening. [Bonus Lego link here].
• my parents are on holiday in North Berwick, so I popped down to see them last night. We had a great walk around, then they made great food and I ate it all. :-D
• I opened the Edinburgh chapter of the Thursday Curry Club today at lunchtime. I'm waiting for my membership pass
• Mr Shukla, a long-time work friend with whom I share a lot of fun stories and memories, heads back to his native Croydon India tomorrow. All the best, dude! Drinks tomorrow are at Monboddo. All welcome.
• The weekend is mine ... apart from birthday lunch for my mum, some computer work (four flavours!) and chilling out with Robbie

De-licious!

The man himself.

Throwing some Nepalese action into the mix!

It looked lovely. Hope this picture does it justice.

The RNLI guys decided to do a training launch. Very cool.

Looking out. The sky was beautiful!

In NB to see my parents, where they are on holiday. This is looking across the bay to the harbour.

Last weekend I was out, waiting for a friend, and needed some weather information to plan the rest of the day. I had time to kill, so took a leap into the world of content known as Three. Ignoring the pitiful download speeds I (and others) get in and around Edinburgh, and the pain of using a Three handset (mine is an NEC e606), here are my thoughts from the experience.

For kick off, here's the Three content costs: A 5p; B 10p; C 25p; D 50p; E 70p; F 100p; G 150p.

Weather

Going to my personalised Yahoo! Weather via WAP on my P800 quickly gave me a localised Edinburgh forecast for the day including the current temperature. The GPRS connection may well have cost me about the same amount, but it was faster and I'm able to set up preferred locations, speeding my information gathering further.

Football

The goal alerts could be cool if you were a diehard supporter, but I can already get those on my regular GSM phone. There is a slight price discrepancy here in favour of Three, but that can be quickly ignored given the limited range of teams able to be tracked. The Orange service seems to cover all the major football teams, as well as a several other sports.

Finance

The Three finance service, on the other hand, would appear to purely monitor UK FTSE shares. Setting up a portfolio was a struggle. Ugh.

Video Calls

1. lack of other people with video phones
2. lack of other people with video phones
3. lack of other people with video phones

Video calls are one of Three's biggest USPs -- they should be exploiting that fact like crazy! Getting phones in to the hands of punters needs to be a priority, but launching a PCMCIA card or partnering with an online service to allow video calls directly to PCs would be an ideal approach to getting businesses hooked. They are sorely missing that trick.

Summary

The prospect of fast mobile Internet connectivity still has many people and businesses foaming at the mouth in anticipation but, as Andrew Orlowski notes, Three's "walled garden" approach is putting them off. Three need to get a data card out there and get the corporates playing with the network.