Great Wireless Network Names

I’ve always gone for rather boring SSIDs in the past (but at least I did go to the trouble of changing them from the default).

My two favourites are definitely:

“Router, I hardly know her” – (which appealed perfectly to my underdeveloped sense of humour..)  Anyway, he’s obviously a prudent chap… you can tell from the padlock symbol that he ‘uses protection’ too!
 
and

“Abraham Linksys”

You just can’t have as much fun with Thompson routers sadly.

“SUPERthanksforasking” comes in a close 3rd (just for the hell of it).

Found here.

McKinnon loses appeal

From Outlaw.com 30.07.08:

NASA hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his appeal against extradition to the US. Five Law Lords have unanimously rejected his argument that plea bargaining by US prosecutors undermined his human rights

US prosecutors are seeking his extradition. McKinnon has opposed the move and appealed it through the courts, eventually reaching the UK's highest court, the House of Lords.

McKinnon claimed that he was told that he would serve a three to four year sentence with less than a year in a low security US jail before being allowed to serve the remainder in the UK if he pleaded guilty and did not oppose extradition.

If he opposed extradition and did not plead guilty he would receive a sentence of eight to ten years at a high security US jail with no repatriation, he was told.

McKinnon's legal team argued that the size of the disparity between these two sentences put McKinnon under such pressure to plead guilty that it interfered with his human rights, and put him under impermissible pressure to surrender his legal rights, particularly his right to contest extradition.

The Law Lords rejected that argument. "In one sense all discounts for pleas of guilty could be said to subject the defendant to pressure, and the greater the discount the greater the pressure," said Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in the ruling. "But the discount would have to be very substantially more generous than anything promised here before it constituted unlawful pressure such as to vitiate the process.

Okay, I except that part at least: for the plea bargain to be justifiably considered unfair - to the point of infringing McKinnon's human rights - the disparity between sentences would need to be a good deal greater.  Otherwise, McKinnon's argument against his extradition appears fanciful to say the least.  But does he really deserve to be extradited?

Well, according to the PC Pro blog:

Let’s get this straight, Gazza did it. There’s no second gunman lurking, he wasn’t framed by the mob, nobody forced, threatened or otherwise made him hack into US military computers. He was bored and decided to peek up America’s skirt. 97 times.

Happily though, Gazza, the cheeky little scamp he is, decided that merely hacking into their machines wasn’t enough and also left mocking little messages critiquing US foreign policy, which is a bit like kicking a big, angry bear in the bottom and then sticking your head in its mouth when it doesn’t immediately bite your foot off.

And if you were left in any doubt as to their feelings on McKinnon:

.....Gary McKinnon is going to be extradited and deserves it.

This battle shouldn’t be fought over McKinnon, he doesn’t deserve the attention, but my sense is that sooner or later somebody will come along who does, and then hopefully, all these headlines will be justified.”

Wow.

Microsoft tries taste-test with Vista doubters

From WinInfo Daily News 30/07/08:

Not surprisingly, Microsoft's recent "blind taste test" of Windows Vista has yielded the kind of PR bonanza that Microsoft couldn't beg, borrow, or steal just a few weeks ago. This week, the company released a slew of videos showing some of the 140 consumers videotaped in San Francisco using Vista for the first time. But the users weren't told they were using Vista, as they were selected specifically because they believed that Vista wasn't any good. Instead, these people believed they were using a future Windows version, code-named Windows "Mojave."

The comments made by these individuals are emblematic of the problems Microsoft now faces when it tries to market Vista to a world that, apparently, has already made up its mind about the OS. "I heard negative things; I never tried it myself," one woman says.
"I wouldn't touch the thing." "It's horrible, it has so many problems." "I've heard nothing but bad things about Vista, really." On and on it goes. On a scale from 1 to 10, the average pre-rating for Vista was 4.4, Microsoft says.

Then, the users were shown "Mohave" and walked through (Vista) features like backup and restore, parental controls, recording TV, and making DVD movies. The comments changed dramatically. "Wow!" "I like that security feature." (Breathlessly) "That's great." "It's awesome." "Really cool." "It's really impressive." "It's totally different from what I heard it would be like." "It's an awesome program, but you have to see it for yourself." The average rating after the hands-on demonstration was 8.5. "Many would have rated it higher, but they wanted more time to play with it themselves," Microsoft notes.

Most tellingly, perhaps, not one of the 140 participants rated Vista lower than their initial pre-rating after having actually used the OS. And 94 percent of respondents rated Vista more highly.

Microsoft should have done something like this say, 6 months ago, at least. Vista has suffered an inordinate amount of bad press based on staggering misperceptions, vacuous sniping and groundless complaints – almost all originating from the extreme anti-Microsoft sect. The notorious ‘switcher’ ads ran by Apple have gone a good way in fanning those flames, further unfairly tainting people’s impressions of Vista. The Apple fanatics lemmings who live cosily in their chamber of blissful ignorance and unjustified pomposity make up a good portion of that sect, of course. Don’t worry: you’re not alone - I hate them too!

But seriously, I don’t consider myself a Microsoft-lover and I recognise that Vista isn’t perfect. Still, the Vista-haters out there who go around touting their mindless misperceptions just kill me. Suffice to say that Vista-haters who carelessly strike up a conversation to try and indoctrinate me around to their way of thinking, invariably wish they never started.

Death of the 'TV set'

From the Times 21/06/08:

Two years ago, it seemed impossible that the internet could ever replace the television as the hub of home entertainment. Now it's common to see groups of youths gathered round YouTube, or swapping viral clips from Big Brother rather than bothering with the whole tawdry televised affair. Cheap and easy broadband has made internet TV possible; and for those who still prefer their giant plasma screens to their PCs, new-generation televisions are coming with web browsers built in.

I remember that only recently Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur from Net @ Night were having just this discussion. They opined that the internet had already made substantial inroads to TV's previously unchallenged audience levels and further, net-vision would definitely take over from regular ‘TV’. That might, perhaps, sound a tad farfetched but is it really? When you think about the monumental growth and importance that the internet enjoys today, it’s not that tough to believe. So will we soon be in an omnipresent, always-on inter-connected world where everything is connected to everyone and vice-versa? Where TV shows are available anytime, anywhere on virtually any device?  Well, we’re certainly heading that way.

But what is TV anyway? Is it a method of content delivery, a bit of hardware or the very content itself? Advances such as iplayer and other online catch-up services for regular ‘TV’ content, are already blurring the conventional perception of ‘TV’. Isn’t TV 21^st century style just the availability of entertainment-based content by whatever means on a wide range of devices? I mean, I watch ‘TV shows’ on my ipod without feeling the need to sit myself in front of a screen in the living room. TV, as we knew it, might already be dead.

As an aside, I’ve said for several years that I could gladly survive without a TV and in fact did during two years of my degree, although, to be fair, I was abroad for one of those so could hardly have taken it with me. I could have tried, I suppose, but the baggage handlers wouldn’t have liked it! I certainly wouldn’t, however, be nearly as happy surviving without the internet for any length of time. After all, being without it for the first week of living here in the new house nearly killed me.

Great iPhone ad

Given that the world has gone iPhone mad again recently with the release of the 3G model, I was particularly amused to see these ‘honest gadget ads that won’t be convincing many people to buy anything’.

Great stuff!

How to back up … correctly

Found via How to Geek 30/05/11.

Painfully true.

Which reminds me: my old external hard drive which was my primary backing up drive but is now my secondary backing up drive because it went on the blink (slightly) is now my tertiary backing up drive because I bought another external hard drive to become my primary backing up drive after I relegated the previously new primary backing up drive to become the secondary when I got the third.

No, that’s not quite right… or is it?

Anyway, the one that’s on the blink is now even more on the blink and probably has to be retired all together.  Which means, I need a, what, quaternary drive to…

Oh forget it.  I just need to back up again.  Bugger.

Laptops in bed and cyber widows

From the Daily Mail 11/07/11:

• “How men use technology to avoid intimacy in relationships”

Ah, there you go. Thanks for that bullet point, Daily Mail. When I read that, I thought this article was going to be about chaps heading into Ann Summers and coming out with something expensive which vibrates to avoid having to suffer the pains of sex any longer. Turns out your article had so much more in store.

My dislike for the Daily Mail aside, this is all very relevant stuff – particularly for under-pressure lawyers who rarely seem to be able to discern where the working day starts and ends. A lot of us are becoming surgically attached to our email (I know I am) and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I also know (more or less) where to draw the line. And if I misjudge it, my girlfriend soon tells me – one way or another.

There’s nothing wrong with breaking out the laptop and checking emails after work, but everyone needs to know when enough is enough. Surely it’s not that difficult?

Some evenings, we’d barely say more than a few words to each other,’ says Victoria, 38, a full-time mother.

‘When Craig came home at night, he’d have something to eat, then he’d open up his laptop to respond to work emails.

I still think this ‘technology-is-killing-my-relationship’ stuff is an utter fallacy. Technology use and spending quality time together needn’t be mutually exclusive. It’s down to users taking responsibility for your own conduct and not using modern communications as a pretext for why an ailing relationship is on shaky ground.

But hey – at least the Daily Mail got to fill up some column inches with this tripe. In between the bikini shots of whatever c-list trailer trash their photographers could snap, of course.

‘His virtual self became more important than his real self. We didn’t row about it — I’d try to make conversation, get no response and give up.

Maybe you’re just a boring conversationalist with nothing interesting to say, Vicky? Or perhaps you should have pinged him an email.

It wasn’t that we weren’t getting on. We just stopped communicating. Then, one evening, he sent an email to me that was meant for a colleague. It wasn’t racy or intimate, but it was flirty and jokey.

Oooh – flirty and jokey. The best kind then!

‘I felt sick to my stomach.

Oh, Christ... here we go...

He told me there was nothing in it. I believed him, but I realised he had more intimacy with this woman than he did with me.

I think that rather depends on your definition of intimacy. But still.

‘These days, people are on their mobiles at dinner; they spend hours on the computer or watching TV; and they are more connected to their Facebook friends than to the person they promised to love and cherish until death do them part.

I don’t use my mobile at dinner - that’s just rude. Plus it might get greasy in the process. But we do usually watch TV, stream something or are held up in separate rooms sulking after an argument. I thought that was just modern co-habiting bliss?

Facebook is cited in one in five divorces, according to lawyers, while a survey by website Divorce Online found that the phrase ‘mobile phone’ occurred in one in eight divorces citing unreasonable behaviour.

Yes, but that’s usually because the aggrieved partner has threatened to wedge it up their former lover’s a*s for cheating on them.

And let’s face facts: you can’t blame phone manufacturers adding cameras to their phones for your partner’s wandering eye. It’s the damn fault of the mobile network operators who make it so easy to send that snap of your naughty bits to a colleague for kinky thrills in a matter of seconds. Trying to do the same with Polaroids just wasn’t the same.

‘Technology is interrupting our relationships and allowing us to avoid each other. It has become a way of avoiding real relationships and intimacy.

Oh please! Technology can bring people together just as much as it can drive them apart. It’s how it’s used that matters. And this isn’t anything new; I’m sure television was looked upon as destroying the quiet tranquillity of family life when it first hit the big time. The fact that your hubby would rather exchange dirty emails with a colleague about how he’s going to ravage her over the boardroom table next week instead keeping up the pretence that your sham of a marriage is working, doesn’t mean that technology is to blame.

Maybe it’s time to start looking closer to home for the cause of your problems.

Just a thought.

Orange threaten to fine workers for using Firefox

From The Register 08/07/09:

[T]he corporate world is taking its sweet time upgrading from Microsoft's eight-year-old Internet Explorer 6, a patently insecure web browser that lacks even a tabbed interface. Take, for example, the mobile and broadband giant Orange UK.

According to a support technician working in the company's Bristol call centre ...Orange UK still requires the use of IE6 in all its call centres, forbidding technicians from adopting Mozilla's Firefox or any other browser of a newer vintage.

This technician tells us that about a quarter of the Bristol staff had moved to Firefox after growing increasingly frustrated with IE6's inability to open multiple pages in the same window and overall sluggish performance. But a recent email from management informed call-centre reps that downloading Firefox was verboten and that they would be fined £250 if their PCs experienced problems and had to be rebuilt after running Firefox or any other application downloaded from the net.

"Under no circumstances should Firefox be downloaded," the email read. "Downloading any application from the internet is against Orange policy. There is NO support for Firefox in the operational environment. Orange Web applications are all designed to run on IE6 and therefore there is a likelihood that functionality will be impaired on Firefox."

Oh, you mean because Firefox adheres to acknowledged web standards, for instance? Hmmm. And surely no support for Firefox is preferable over support but for the odious and outdated IE6?

The company for whom I previously worked, like so many others, seemed perfectly satisfied with running IE6 despite its horrendous record for security. Surely enough time has passed since IE 7 launched – now superseded by IE 8, of course – for companies to have found the time to upgrade.

I realise many companies’ intranet sites are pernickety creatures and were written for an era when IE 6 ruled the day – which meant coding around the loathsome browser’s idiosyncrasies. But surely there has to become a point when enough is enough – even if that means making a tweak to your intranet sites?

Interestingly, I read earlier that Digg are planning to stop supporting IE6 for submitting Diggs, though web users may still view Digg.com using IE6. You know, if they really hated themselves.

Microsoft patch hoses computers running ZoneAlarm

From vnunet.com 10.07.08:

Hundreds of thousands of ZoneAlarm firewall users have been locked out of the internet by Microsoft's latest round of software updates.

Microsoft released four 'important' fixes as part of its regular Patch Tuesday update, one of which left ZoneAlarm users without web access.

The MS08-037 fix is designed to plug a vulnerability in Windows' implementations of the Domain Name System protocol, but has been responsible for "compatibility issues " with ZoneAlarm.

I was afflicted with just this problem yesterday morning when I booted up my XP machine. The previous day I’d been playing around with a couple of new programs as well as installing the 4 patches Microsoft pushed out for July so immediately thought that one of them was responsible. Having established my internet connection was just fine on another computer, I ran a system restore which rolled my machine’s operating system and program files back to a previous state. Thankfully, this finally allowed me to connect to the internet. It was only later in the day that I became aware of the ZoneAlarm problem and that this was the cause of my earlier troubles.

While Zone Labs have now released an updated version of their firewall and internet security suite, they offered three workarounds in the meantime:

1. Uninstall the MS patch – what I effectively did

2. Change the internet security zone setting down from ‘high’ to ‘medium’.

3. Adding the relevant ISP's DNS servers to ZoneAlarm's trusted zone.

For what it’s worth, this problem only hit me since I left Automatic Updates fully on since I last did a clean install of Windows. Previously, I had been in the habit of leaving the setting on ‘Notify me but don't automatically download or install’ after the 2006 debacle when Microsoft started pushing out WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) via Automatic Updates. As Brian Livingston commented in his article, Dump Windows Update - use alternatives, “the code, which qualifies as spyware under any objective definition, was programmed to contact Microsoft's servers every 24 hours.”

That didn’t sit well with me at all. In case the Redmond giant tried to pull a similar stunt, I adopted a ‘wait and see’ policy for a few days or so after patches were released to observe how they were faring on the machines of the millions of users who jumped straight in and got the updates immediately. That way, if anyone’s system was going to be hosed, it shouldn’t have been mine. Suffice I say after this experience, I’ll be returning to my previous ‘patch practice’ and holding off for a while before installing the monthly batch of patches.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I’m going to be sticking with ZoneAlarm. For one, this fiasco wasn’t actually their fault and now the dust has settled, I don’t think apportioning blame is the best thing for anyone here. Software conflictions remain a fact of life and as long as there are remedies ASAP, it’s something we all just need to live with. While ZoneAlarm isn’t perfect, I’m not convinced there are more effective products that come with fewer overall grievances to choose from right now.

Googling with Bing

 

In fairness to Microsoft, their new search engine, Bing, is actually pretty good and a huge step forwards from Windows Live Search. Having tried it on and off for a few weeks now, I’m continually impressed by it and would say that for certain types of searches in particular, it’s actually superior to Google.

Of course, one of Microsoft’s biggest challenges in successfully competing in the online search space is removing the connection people make in their minds about searching online and the name Google; arguably Google is far more than just the industry standard now – their name is synonymous with online search.

And this video from College Humor recognises that.  Brilliantly.

Sexting dos and don’ts (yep, they exist... apparently)

From Motherboard.tv 09/06/11:

Obviously everyone knows what sexting is, but I would just like to explain it because I send these articles to my grandmother, and I don’t want to have to break down sexting to her face-to-face.

I don’t think anybody’s grandmother needs to know what sexting is. If she wants to swap X-rated polaroids with the rest of the church congregation that’s her business, but camera phones are just too much for the over 60s to cope with – particularly when there’s nakedness involved.

Basically, you take about a 100 pictures of your a*s in cute underwear and then one comes out good so you text it to a dude. ... The whole point of sexting is that as soon as the recipient gets it, they will speed over to your house for some hot sex.

As with any type of social exchange, there is a certain etiquette that needs to be followed.

Oh really?

For starters, don’t send a sext to someone who might not be down.

“not be down” ... I’ve no idea what this means.  I’m guessing it’s ‘up for it’ but I might be wrong.  Remember: I’m the chap who had to Google Andro’s use of the term “pwned” (something I still don’t fully understand) and, more recently, “fraped”.

If you want to test the waters, say something like, “do you like me? Y or N.” If they respond in a negative way, just pretend that you are drunk at a party and someone stole your phone.

Hold up: just because someone likes you, it doesn’t mean to say they want their phone polluted with an impromptu up-close-and-personal shot of your genitalia. That’s just not cricket.

When sending a picture, make sure it’s not trashy. I knew a kid whose ratty girlfriend sent him pictures of her [... you can read the rest of the this sentence over at motherboard.tv ;-) It made me chuckle. ].

Really? Can sexting ever NOT be trashy? Isn’t that part of the appeal?

Sexting is a dangerous game sometimes, but it’s always worth it. You can’t expect to get d**k pics if you don’t send out some artsy shots of your boobs strategically covered with suds during a bubble bath photo shoot.

…said the contract law lecturer to his class, trying to find a modern day example of quid pro quo in action. 

Bing – Forget Search – it’s a ‘Decision Engine’

 

Having broken the habitual grip that Google held over me, I’ve been trying out Bing on and off in the past week or so and the results are considerably better than I’d anticipated.  Whatever you might feel about the credibility of Bing as a competitor to Google, though, Redmond’s new ad shows a level of humour creeping through that had previously been reserved for internal (or at least limited) audiences only.  Long may it continue.

Great stuff.

Children to be fingerprinted as part of library loan process

From The Telegraph 28/05/10:

Students in Manchester are having their thumbprints digitally transformed into electronic codes, which can then be recognised by a computer program.

Under the scheme, pupils swipe a bar code inside the book they want borrow then press their thumb on to a scanner to authorise the loan. Books are returned in the same way.

But critics said they were “appalled” at the system, developed by Microsoft which is also being trialled in other parts of the country.

“This is quite clearly appalling,” said Phil Booth, national coordinator of NO2ID, a privacy campaign group.

“For such a trivial issue as taking out of library books the taking of fingerprints is way over the top and wrong.

He added: “The money for such a system could be spent on actual school resources. How about some more books for the library instead?

Things aren’t that simple, of course. If resources are being directed at monitoring loaned books . Potentially, this system could allow for the school library loan processes to be automated to a far greater extent than they are currently.

Overall, I’d say this one isn’t quite as ludicrous as it initially appears. The idea of substituting a library card for a finger print is convenient – particularly for kids. 

"We have researched this scheme thoroughly. It is a biometric recognition system and no image of a fingerprint is ever stored. It is a voluntary system,” she said.

"The thumbprint creates a mathematical template. All parents have been written to and we have told them what the system is all about. From the responses we have had there has been overwhelming support."

If I were a parent, I don’t think I’d have an issue with this.  Moreover, children in schools all around the country are already fingerprinted as part of the payment system for school dinners.  I think NO2ID should focus on frying bigger fish quite frankly.

UCL fines student for demonstrating entrepreneurial flair

From The Times May 31/05/10: ­­­­­

The founder of a student flirting website has been fined £300 for bringing his university into disrepute.

The FitFinder, set up last month, combines Twitter and Facebook to allow students to exchange saucy messages on campus. The site received four million hits in its first month and has rapidly expanded to universities across the country.

Rich Martell, 21, a final-year computer sciences student at University College London, has taken the site down under pressure from university authorities, who were concerned that it was distracting students from their studies. Staff claim to have been contacted by a number of other universities unhappy about FitFinder.

Really? Why on earth would it concern staff at other universities?

The letter added that non-payment of the fine, which is the maximum that can be awarded by the Dean for misconduct, would result in Mr Martell’s degree results being withheld.

FitFinder has gained national attention since its launch in April for its risque content and its wildfire-like spread.

The same could be said for many Facebook groups and indeed other social networking sites.

The site allows students to “spot” attractive people in libraries, cafes and lecture theatres, and post a message about them on the publicly visible site in the hope of getting a response. The site has been criticised by women’s groups, who cite sexually explicit comments as evidence of its offensive tone, while supporters argue that it is nothing more than friendly banter and a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun.

I’m sure women have used FitFinder prolifically to post comments about men. Should men’s groups get their panties in a similar twist?

Mr Martell has vowed to resume the service as soon as the safety of his university degree is guaranteed and said that it was an unfair reaction to a social networking site that he sees as no different to Facebook or Twitter. “If a UCL student posted something offensive on Facebook would they hold Mark Zuckerberg [the site’s founder] responsible?” he asked.

This is utterly ludicrous in my opinion and smacks of an out-dated and overly prudish stance from a university which claims to move with the times. UCL should be encouraging Martell’s entrepreneurial flair and skill – not fining him for his creativity.

Social networking is here and is a reality – for all of the evil it has wrought on the world, it’s done a lot of good too.

Is FitFinder truly any different from a student setting up a facebook group for the same purpose? Plus, with being popular, Martell has only provided a service which people clearly want. Bad show, UCL. Bad show.

Wii Fit calls girl fat

From vnunet.com 21/05/08:

"Nintendo has admitted that its Wii Fit game may not be suitable for children as its calculations of body mass index are designed for adults.

A row erupted after 11 year-old Tabea Paul was told by the game that she was overweight.

The girl's parents were angered by the suggestion, and have said that the game could have given the child an eating disorder."

What I loved, though, was the response to this story in an email from vnunet.com weekly news report:

"An offhand prediction based on a very 'rule-of-thumb' calculation would not cause an eating disorder in a young girl unless she already had a range of much more deep seated psychological issues, probably brought on by years of smothering by over-protective parents.

That the game might have been wrong in this case is secondary. In any person's life they are going to be confronted by things they don't like and sometimes they aren't going to be true. That's life and people really need to learn to deal with it."

Amen to that.

Avoid airport hassle by hiding your data

From The Guardian 15.5.08:

“Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.

But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too.”

What puzzles me is exactly what the criteria border officials use to decide which laptops to search and which to wave through. How exactly do you identify someone who is likely to have child pornography on their computers or otherwise got something to hide in the real world?  Are those searches performed purely at random?  Or, if you're of a more cynical disposition, you might be of the opinion that a person's ethnicity factors in considerably - particularly as regards perceived threats to national security.

Anyway, the article goes on to advise that simply encrypting the whole drive is not necessarily the answer here; the official will merely demand you enter the password. And while you can refuse, they too can refuse to allow you entry.

Instead, hiding your data with a hidden, encrypted partition is the way to go. PGP and TrueCrypt are two well-respected offerings as highlighted in the article. TrueCrypt is especially excellent and free, open-source software as well. There is a thorough - if a little geeky - podcast detailing the ins-and-outs of the latest version of TrueCrypt by world renowned security guru Steve Gibson as part of the Security Now section on TWiT. When I first listened to it earlier this year, I was fascinated to head that far from slowing down system performance as you might expect encryption to do, Steve found it actually increased system performance on any machine it was installed on. I have used the paid version of Steganos Safe for the past 2/3 years and find it excellent for my needs. Last year, they even made a free version available, Safe One, which limits you to creating two, 1GB encrypted drives.

Of course, there is always the option of just not carrying confidential data on your laptop when you travel across national boundaries, or encrypt it on a USB key and secret it about your person. Or, if you’re feeling very sneaky and secret-agent-ish, encrypt it on a memory card for your camera.

Gamer Girls

I was kind of interested to read earlier this week that females made up 41% of the video gaming market in Australia. That, actually, was a little higher than I had expected. Slowly, it seems, the industry is shrugging off the stubborn stereotype that gaming is solely the preserve of teenage boys and socially inept middle-aged men who still live with their parents.

While I haven’t looked that closely into the statistics in the UK, from what I’ve read the situation over here isn’t that dissimilar to that in Australia. Also, from a worldwide perspective, there can be little doubt that gaming amongst females is on the rise. Whatever your view of gaming, that trend isn’t necessarily a bad thing; there’s a lot to be said for gaming and it can prove a great way of reliving stress and relaxing. While negative arguments can also be made out involving the perceived uselessness of gaming and its perceived tendency to incite violence and copy-catting, let’s face it: there are a lot worse things that people could be doing with their time. What is noticeable, though, is the distinct lack of titles pitched at females – something the article points out too. That will surely change in going forwards as the industry responds to their changing customer base. So yes, in the future, there may well be more games directed at females that aren’t part of ‘The Sims’ series. Seriously!

I’m not a big gamer and have never owned my own dedicated console. I have, however, played PC games on and off over the years and am a particular fan of First Person Shooters. Most notably, I became certifiably obsessed with Half Life back in the summer of 2001. I hope my hard-core gaming days are behind me: 18 hour, non-stop gaming stints are only feasibly possible when you’re a caffeine-fuelled, compulsive teenager. For what it’s worth, I’m also rather partial to various racing games, Grand Prix 4, various rallying titles, and the Need for Speed series.

Note to self: must also get that copy of Grand Theft Auto IV I’ve been eying.

Anatomy of an internet troll

Hehe… love it!

From How to Geek

iTunes costs a lot; Zune Pass costs a little. You do the math

From Engadget 11/05/09:

We've been wondering when we'd see the next Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft, but it looks like the company's throwing a change-up: its latest 30-second spot features Wes Moss, Certified Financial Planner, explaining that iTunes "costs a lot" while Zune Pass "costs a little." The argument, of course, is that at a buck a song (or more), filling up your iPod costs way more than the $15 / month cost of the Zune subscription service.

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have recognised that Wes Moss, Certified Financial Planner, is a contestant from series 2 of The Apprentice that aired a few years ago. By ‘the Apprentice’ I mean the US version with Donald Trump - you know, the ‘real’ Apprentice …. the one actually worth watching. Wes, as I recall, didn’t fair too well in Trump’s boardroom who was fired about mid way through the series. But not before he had chance to show off his driving ‘skills’ at the wheel of a small lorry, who manoeuvred it through the backstreets of New York as if it were a dodgem car.

For what it’s worth, I have never actually bought anything via the iTunes store, though I do use it to automatically download new podcasts for my iPod, which form the majority of the content I consume while commuting. I have a large enough music collection for my needs and certainly don’t consider myself rich enough to be downloading en masse from the iTunes store. Equally, if I were a Zune user, I’m not sure I’d be rushing to sign up for this monthly-subscription based account - as engadget point out:

“most people have plenty of music from all kinds of sources already, and an additional monthly bill in the current economy doesn't seem all too appealing”.

Quite right. But “all kinds of sources” strikes me as a touch euphemistic. I’m reading those words primarily as meaning ‘bit torrent’ and other dubious sources.  ;-)

Adjudicating in 140 characters or less

From the Solicitors’ Journal 27/04/09:

A magistrate accused by a colleague of inappropriate “tweeting” – posting texts on networking website Twitter – has resigned.

Professor Steve Molyneaux, aged 54, posted updates from Telford magistrates court under the user name “ProfOntheProwl”.

According to the Mail on Sunday one of the posts read: “Just about to hear application from three robbers from Manchester as to whether to remand or not.”

Another read: “Called into court today to deal with those arrested last night and held in custody. I guess they will be mostly drunks but you never know.”

Mr Molyneaux, who had been a magistrate for 16 years, said everything he reported on Twitter had been said in open court, and denied posting while a hearing was in session.

He told the BBC that the judicial system needed to embrace technology to improve transparency and let the people see that justice had been done.

He announced his resignation on Twitter.

I’m all for the judicial system embracing technology and improving transparency but I’m not sure this is the right way to go about it. After all, I’m not sure that having a magistrate tweeting: “I guess they will be mostly drunks...” etc. is particularly conducive to letting citizens know justice will be done.

Magistrates have a tough time conveying a reputation of robust and unbiased cogs in the judicial machine as it is without one of their more tech-savvy members tweeting his every thought on a case. Whether Professor Molyneaux was tweeting ‘in session’ or not isn’t really the point: it was still inappropriate. Given the reciprocal nature of tweets, it’s interesting to wonder just how his followers’ responses shaped his thinking. Either way, the simple fact remains that a key figure – and I use that term loosely – in our judicial system to be tweeting doesn’t really convey the right message: that the magistrate is open-minded, unbiased and will adjudicate solely based on the evidence put before him.

Still, maybe the idea has potential for a 21^st century judicial system. While a magistrate should not be seen to tweet, perhaps it would be acceptable for a court clerk to - as an extension of his administrative duties? Maybe, in jury trials the idea could be expanded even further and a Facebook group set up for the jury to engage in. Let’s not leave the public out though: maybe a live video-stream of the proceedings, a YouTube video of the ‘trial’s highlights’ and associated chat room for the public to put their own thoughts to the judge in real time. Such changes would no doubt be referred to as the ‘Justice 2.0’ wave, or would ‘social adjudicating’ be more fitting?  No?

But seriously, all things considered, I think the justice system is arguably better off without the Prof’s tech-savvy contributions. And as for tweeting confirmation of his resignation? Well, nice touch, Professor Molyneaux.