Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
Region locks – My 2¢
Since I started using Amazon EC2 as a web proxy I’ve found that I’m exploiting it pretty regularly. Every time that I see one of those ‘you can’t access that content from your country’ type messages I have a choice. I can give up and move on, or I can fork out 2¢ to spin up […]
Filed under: could_do_better, media, technology | 2 Comments
Tags: amazon, aws, ec2, lock, micro payments, micropayments, payments, proxy, region, region lock, SSH, tunnel, video
My friend Randy posted a few days ago on Grid, Cloud, HPC … What’s the Diff?. I started to make a comment on the blog, but it was getting too long so I moved it here. Randy does a good job of pinning down both performance and scalability, but in my experience productivity trumps both. This […]
Filed under: cloud, technology | 1 Comment
Tags: cloud, grid, MPI, parallel processing, performance, productivity, scalability
It seems that our politicians are easily fooled by the telecos and their regulatory capture. Just yesterday the UK’s Culture minister Ed Vaizey announced his support for a ‘two-speed‘ internet. The idea is superficially attractive – content providers pay a premium to have their stuff delivered faster, and the consumer benefits from improved service. It’s like […]
Filed under: technology | 2 Comments
Tags: broadband, net neutrality, network, neutrality, telco
My Kindle died two days ago :( Thankfully Amazon were pretty prompt in dealing with this. I called their Kindle helpline[1], a new one was sent out, and it arrived this morning :) It didn’t take long for me to restore all of my content, and things like bookmarks seem to be intact :) Unfortunately […]
Filed under: could_do_better, did_do_better, grumble, technology | 4 Comments
Tags: amazon, backup, collections, ebook, export, import, kindle, restore
Is zero weight a feature?
As I’ve spent more time with my Kindle I’ve been paying more attention to eBook prices. My conclusion is that zero weight (or perhaps just the novelty of eBooks) is a feature, and one that the supply chain thinks is worth a premium. Pricing Typical pricing for eBooks seems to be the same (or just […]
Filed under: could_do_better, technology | 4 Comments
Tags: amazon, DRM, ebook, grey market, international, kindle, pricing, second hand, used
When I registered thestateofme.com some years back it was for a project to allow synchronisation of RSS aggregator/reader state across a number of systems. I never wrote any code because things got overtaken by events. Firstly I discovered RSS Bandit, which had a mechanism to sync state via a WebDAV server (and a number of […]
Filed under: cloud, could_do_better, media, technology | 7 Comments
Tags: audiobook, bookmark, cloud, ebook, media, player, reader, state, sync, synchronisation, video
iOS 4 on iPod Touch 2G
I heard quite a few friends whining that iOS 4 wasn’t a good ‘upgrade’ on their iPhone 3G(S)s, with many reverting back to versions of 3.x that were considered faster or more stable. I was therefore somewhat sceptical about upgrading my iPod Touch 2G, and would have left it be if it wasn’t for so many apps […]
Filed under: technology | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2G, 4.x, iOS, ipod, iPod Touch, Touch
Call routing
Joe asked me about call routing following my post about office VOIP. It’s not a straightforward subject, so I thought it probably deserves a post of its own rather than just a comment reply. Point of entry – SkypeIn Having used ‘one number’ for a while in my old banking IT job I wanted to […]
Filed under: technology | Leave a Comment
Tags: ata, ribbit, sip, skype, SkypeIn, voip
OK. I very nearly bought a new tablety netbook earlier in the year, and I’d still like an s10-3t (or similar)[1], but I’m in no hurry to buy a new netbook and here’s why. Netbooks are good enough. They’re good enough for web surfing. They’re good enough for watching SD video (maybe even 720p if […]
Filed under: technology | 3 Comments
Tags: Asus, HP, iPad, lenovo, netbook, s10-3t, s10e, tablet
Office VOIP
This post has been a long time coming, in part because it took so long to get everything working. It was almost 6 months ago that I decided to go down the VOIP route when my company moved to a new office. It’s a decision that I’ve questioned many times, though I think it was […]
Filed under: technology | 6 Comments
Tags: 7940, Cisco, CTI, POTS, ribbit, sip, Snom, Voicehost, voip
