The Rasberry Pi might just bring home brew computing back

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If you havent heard of the Rasberry Pi, you might be forgiven for thinking its something you eat. However, it is actually a ARM based micro computing project brought to us by David Braben. Yes, that David Braben ! The one who wrote Elite for the BBC micro back in the mid eighties that had everyone going nuts with the 3D universe you could fly around in. Now, he’s bringing us a RISC based computer that is small enough to fit in one hand, with HDMI, ethernet, USB, and god knows what else for a mere £15.  Yep, you read that right – £15. Or $25 for the Americans. This is incredible. David’s vision is that this little device, which runs a version of Debian Linux, will inspire kids to get into understanding the nuts and bolts of computing, rather than just play with powerpoint, or Paint programs. Computing is just not taught properly in schools, and David Braben was very worried that we are heading for a computing skills vacuum in the UK, as kids are using PCs and XBOXes that just dont allow you to get under the hood any more. Old school computers used to make it easy to understand how they worked at a low level. Computers like the ZX81 could be understood in their entirety by a teenager. There were no abstraction layers, or video libraries back then. You had some RAM, and bunch of BASIC or assembler command, and a bunch of ports you could PEEK or POKE. Simple. And, extremely educational. Most kids these days would be lucky if they could delve into javascript while in school, and most have no chance of understanding anything about processors.

Hopefully the Raspberry Pi will enthuse younger minds, and we can see some great, fun projects being built on the back of it. It could easily be used as a controller for battling robots, for instance. I cant wait to see what happens.  Check out the Raspberry Pi project

Are Yellow Pages using hard sell tactics?

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At Pendragon Interactive, we have had an account with Yell.com for a listing in their online directory, and in their printed directory for the last couple of years. Last year we realised that our online listing contained details relating to another local company, rather than ours – a circular saw manufacturer no less! We were really annoyed about this, and we complained in the strongest terms to their customer accounts division. To be fair, they were very apologetic and gave us free online listings for the next year, and refunded us for the advertising we had paid for.  This made us feel a little better, but we were worried about the potential damage that may have been caused to our image.

A little while later (june 2011), we were contacted by the sales team at Yell.com, and we were offered more advertising for the next year. I explained that I wasn’t really happy with our experience so far, and we weren’t prepared to pay for any further listing space with them. Well, the sales person was very persistent, and phones repeatedly to try and sell us more ad space, and I in turn, batted him away like an annoying fly. However, mr Sales person changed tactics, and told us that we would have free ad space, if we would only sign the contracts he would send through to us. I told him in very clear terms that we were not prepared to pay for anything, and he was wasting his time.  Don’t worry, he said – just sign the forms he had sent us, and we wouldn’t have to worry about paying anything.  I was under an enormous amount of pressure at the time, and not thinking clearly – so I signed the forms and sent them back. To my chagrin two weeks ago, I received an email stating that payment was now due on our account (£195). I was livid – I sent an email back stating that there was no way we were going to pay this amount, as it was for services we absolutely did not want, and had never been prepared to pay for. In response, they emailed me a copy of the order form – with my signature, and service items listed in full.  I could not believe my eyes – I had been duped!   I had been talked into signing an order forms for the services, that we did not want under the pretense that we would not have to pay for them, only to then receive a demand for payment.

My response to this was to state that I was seeking legal advice, and that my solicitor would require transcripts of the conversations between myself and the sales person (every time you call a company like Yell.com in the UK, they state that the calls are being recorded for training purposes). I also stated that they were using un-ethical hard sell practices that would give them very bad publicity if I were to go public with it. They responded immediately by saying that they would give us the online listing free – but we would still have to pay for the printed version. I pondered my next move – I knew I was in the right, and that there was no way we should pay this invoice. I spoke to a solicitor, and explained the situation – he was sure that we had a clear cut case, and if we pushed it, Yell would back down.  Just as I was about to respond to Yell by instructing the solicitor to send a letter, I received another email from them. This email was quite short, but stated that they were prepared to give us the printed version of the listing free as well, and that they would make sure that no sales persons called us in future. What a result !  Free advertising for the next year, and all down to the idiotic behaviour of a rogue saleman. I assume that they had actually listed to the recordings of the sales calls, and had realised that their sales person had behaved badly.  He had actually asked us to sign contracts for a service that he knew we would be invoiced for, and had told us we would have to pay nothing for it.

I’m really concerned about the way that big businesses are conducting themselves these days – they are using hard sell tactics, and often telling flat out lies to get a sale.

Beware of salesmen bearing gifts !

Need a Bailout? Get a Bailout request form

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Ok, well this is a bit of fun, but it’s on a very serious subject. There are an awful lot of people around the world that are very annoyed that huge banks have been bailed out, rather than being allowed to go under, while the people on the street now have to pay the price. not cool. American banks were obviously the worst, but the banks in Iceland and the UK also behaved very badly with our money, and like the bully in the playground who stole sweets filled with chili pepper, that has gone running back to teacher, the banks have just got their noses wiped, and a big warm hug from the government.

Well, we believe that anyone should be able to apply for a bailout from the government. If you have any debts that you can’t manage, or you have borrowed money, and lent it out five ways, then you can get help from the UK treasury. Just download this form – Bailout Form , fill it in and send it to the treasury.  If enough of us do this, maybe they will take a little notice.

 

TrailBlazerrepairs.com – New website to promote TrailBlazer

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For those who may be interested, we have set up a dedicated web site for our TrailBlazer software now at - http://www.trailblazerrepairs.com/ .  TrailBlazer is a web based repair tracking / repair shop management system – aimed at computer and games console repair centers. Having a dedicated site for this product allows us to put much more information on there about the functionality, add some FAQs and training videos – basically a whole load more resources to help users get more out of the system.

We’ve had some great feedback from clients lately – one of the main points being that it’s very easy to train technicians and other staff to use the system. That’s exactly what were were hoping to achieve, so we are very pleased with that. We’ve also had some criticism that the ordering facilities on the repair list page aren’t working as the client expected, so we will be having a look at that, and trying to improve the features there.

Actually, we have made a list of new features that we want to add to TrailBlazer, and if we can get any free time, we will be getting stuck into them as soon as possible. We want to make information very quick and easy to retrieve, and also put the most important information on the screen at all times. We also want to start adding some reports, such as parts used,  parts to re-order, repairs by technician etc. etc.

Well, I better stop this lallygaggin  and get on with it.

Apple Wizard Steve Jobs dies

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It’s a sad day for the technology community. Steve jobs has died at the age of 56. He had been fighting cancer for a few years, and unfortunately it got the better of him. He was a truly great man, and the world won’t quite be the same without him.

Steve jobs inspired so many people over the years – starting with the home brew computer club, which encouraged so many spotty youngsters to get involved in computing – right up to the amazing stuff he has produced with apple over the last few years. I imagine that Apple will struggle to maintain the high standards and driving vision that Jobs has provided for them. During the nineties, when Jobs was ousted from the board, Apple bombed badly and it’s product range really struggled to capture the market. Once Jobs was brought back into the fold in 1997, the quality and innovation in apple products grew and grew after the production of the first iMacs, and later, the iPod.

Steve jobs had a visionary spirit that very few people have in combination with business accumen. There are many technologists that are great leaders, and can take floundering companies and build them into something bright and shiny, but so few people have such an in built sense of what the user really wants. He was reported to say that there was no point asking the user what they wanted – by the time you had designed and built it, they would want something else. This means that Steve had a sense of what people would really want, and love, in the near future. He could design something, and commit to manufacturing it, believing that when it hit the market, people would fall in love with it. But, he also knew that engineers were often the worst people to design user interfaces. It’s a tough paradox in the computing world that the people who need to work out how to make machines interact with humans, can be terrible at it.

I think Jobs was good at detaching himself from his technical persona, and could see the iPhone, or iPad as something that must just work; and work for anyone – not just computer geeks. A child, housewife, business man or octogenarian must be able to pick it up and be able to use it without reading a manual, or learning qwerks. Jobs got this right, and many other companies have attempted to copy him – most are failing badly, but I suspect they are quietly relieved at today’s news. It will open the market up for shoddier, poorer designed products to take over from an Apple that I suspect will slowly wither and falter.

Steve, you were a great man, and an inspiration to so many of us. We will miss you.

 

P.S. – yesterday was a bad day for legends. Bert Jansch, a truly great folk and Jazz guitarist who inspired many great people such as Jimmy Page and Paul Simon sadly passed away. My father was a huge fan of his, and often played his signature piece ‘Angie’ to us on his guitar.

Pendragon Interactive offer Website Subscription Option

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Just to let you know, that Pendragon Interactive are now offering a subscription service for web sites. You can get a fully designed web site with logo, and flyer designs for £29.99 per month. After a year, you can opt to have the graphics upgraded or overhauled at no extra charge (as long as you keep the subscription).

For £39.99 a month you can get a fully featured Content management system, with custom template, and for £120 a month, you can get an online shop set up, with training on using the admin system, and basic SEO services thrown in.  The SEO services for e-commerce sites is really important, so we can take you through the necessary items, and we can either carry out the advanced work for you, or provide SEO training and support to help you through the process.

Web Site Subscription

All of the subscription plans include logo design, business cards, and flyer designs (printing is extra), as long as the client signs up to the subscription service for a year. Once the first year contract is over, the client is under no obligation to continue with the plan, but can opt for a graphical update if they intend to continue.

 

Amazon have taken us by surprise

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So, the Amazon kindle fire was announced today, and from a financial perspective, it looks like a real competitor. It uses a modified version of the Android Operating System, with a full colour, touch sensitive 7″ screen, dual core processor, and access to a very stable network of music and video. And at such a great price ($199), it’s going to cream the market.

But, this isn’t all. Amazon have also announced the ‘silk’ web browser, which will be used on the new Fire devices. The Silk browser leverages the power of their ec2 web services, and does much of the heavy processing in their cloud servers. This will enable the Fire tablets to run browser apps much faster, and not have to rely on heavy on-board processing. This is going to cut down on load times, and request times giving the user a much snappier user experience.

It seems that amazon have been a bit of a sleeper, and have been quietly planning this huge announcement for a good while. This has probably put the willies up google and microsoft. Especially microsoft. At the moment, they must be wondering where the hell they should make their next move. IE9 certainly doesn’t leverage the Azure platform in the same way.

Google have been concentrating on Google+ lately, and who the hell knows what microsoft have been doing – apart from confusing developers with their announcement that html5 and javascript will be playing a major part in the next version of windows (leaving WPF and silverlight developers wondering if they need to re-train as plumbers).

I’m very impressed with Amazons’ game plan here. This could really kick off a browser war again – which is not good for individual companies, but is great for the consumer.

The stock market is toast?!

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Have you seen this guy on the BBC news site? Alessio Rastani is a very candid Forex and Share trader who spilled some beans on a BBC interview that really needed to be said. Basically, he’s saying that the current financial and trading systems are screwed. There is too much debt in the western world, and Quantitative easing isn’t going to resolve it. I’ve been very worried about the way the American and Euro economies have been going for the last few years. It’s been nuts that banks have been bailed out with tax payers money, when we are supposed to be living in a free trade, competitive capitalist market. Any company that fails to keep good books, or uses shady trading tactics needs to be allowed to go under. It’s the law of natural selection, that we have always been told our business platform is based on.

So, get with it guys – make a bucket load of cash if you can, but for gods sake don’t just keep it in the bank. Buy land – buy physical metal (Gold, Silver, Copper, whatever), but don’t allow your savings to disappear in a cloud of super inflationary bank sodomy over the next couple of years.

This guy is not a hoaxer. If you read between the lines here, this guy is saying – don’t bother saving money, cause it will soon be worthless. If all the nobs with huge savings started spending instead of selfishly hoarding, this recession could be over in no time. Perhaps it’s time that the western markets were given a reboot – we would all lose everything, but at least the hoarding, money grabbing and non spending classes would all end up in the same mess – allowing us to start again with new technological methods in mind, and financial transparency in government. meh.

Amazon release subsidised Kindle Fire : This changes everything

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Amazon have just announced that they are releasing a subsidised colour Kindle reader for $199. This is going to seriously mess with the tablet market. The reason they have done this, is that they know that anyone who purchases one of the new Kindle readers is far more likely to spend money on the Amazon store.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and Chief Executive, said the full-colour, touchscreen device, would be a premium product “at a non-premium price”, and called the new Fire “an incredible achievement”.

This will usher in a new era for the tablet market, that is much more like the mobile phone market in the UK where the devices have essentially become disposable (thrown away at the end of each contract stretch). How are the other lower end tablet manufacturers going to compete with a price like that?  This could really mean the end for the Android tablet market, as you could get two Kindle Fire readers for the price of an LG optimus.

This could actually result in the market being shared between two providers – Amazon and Apple.  I doubt that this new launch will do anything to shake the iPad market, as there is too much brand loyalty there, but it could be a sad day for Android. I for one was hoping that Android would really take off, and we would see more uptake of the open source OS.

Would you like to see the promotional film ? Here it is -

We will really be keeping a close eye on developments. The tablet market is still immature, and somewhat in a state of flux. I’m really hoping that this event doesn’t damage the market, and destroy the incredible level of innovation we have witnessed so far.

How good is Google Plus ?

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Well, I’ve been using Google+ for a couple of  months now, after I was lucky enough to receive an invite from a friend. When I first created my account, I have to say that I found the user experience a little dry. There seemed to be very few features, apart from the ‘Circles’ thing, which is great, but I wasn’t really sure that it was a killer feature. Facebook has been annoying users for ages with their constant re-designs, clunky photo up-loaders, and their more than dubious attitude to intellectual property. However, Facebook has managed to develop some attractive features, and I was really keen on seeing Google improving on them.  I’ve been keen on Google technologies for a long time – they have been pushing the envelope while other companies that should have been stretching themselves have taken it easy – Microsoft were really slow in catching on to web apps, and Google beat the hell out of the with Google Apps (online word processing, spreadsheets etc.). This really impressed me, and I’ve had confidence that Google have the technical brains, and the motivation to push the web to where it should be (rich content – no lag, and platform agnostic). So, on using Google+ initially, I was left a little disheartened. I didn’t really see anything that was going to blow my mind, or anything that could kick facebooks’ tired arse.

On using the features for a while though,  and allowing for loads of cool people to start using the service, I have to say that it is coming to life. The circles feature is starting to make a lot more sense. Rather than just seeing posts from people that have agreed to add you to their list, you can add anyone to your circles, and you can see their posts. This feature is a little like Twitter, in that it doesn’t need to be reciprocated. On the recommendation of a couple of articles, I have added some very interesting people to my circles (including my friends who are also very cool). Now, when I log in, I can click on the circle tag that contains these nice fellows (Following), and I can read through a waterfall of top notch technical posts, amazing photographs, and general thoughts by people who are seriously interesting.  What a great feature Google Circles is turning out to be !

The best thing about google + is that I know it will be carefully developed, and that new features will be tested thoroughly before going mainstream. I really do have a lot of faith in Google, and I know we are in for a real treat in the future. Come on google, knock our socks off!

On the recommendation of TechRepublic, here are some great people to add to your circles -

1. Harry McCracken - He posts interesting stuff and is discriminating about what he posts

2. Jillian C. York - Posts excellent links on global issues in media.

3. Alexander Howard - He focuses on “the intersection of government, citizens and the Internet.”

4. Vic Gundotra - Vic is the executive in charge of Google+.

5. Patrick Beja -  Beja posts a lot of interesting stuff  on geek culture topics.

6. Julio Ojeda-Zapata - This tech veteran posts lots of good stuff, especially about tech in the real world and in business.

7. Baratunde Thurston - The Onion’s Baratunde Thurston  has an irreverent, liberal take on current events.

8. Dwight Silverman - Dwight has been writing books and newspaper columns about tech for decades, which gives him great perspective and scepticism.

9. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols -  Vaughan-Nichols  has a nose for interesting geek culture topics.

10. Patrick Smith -  His landscape photography is incredible, and he often describes his methods for getting the best shots.