let's be social

Solihull Council are interested to know, as they would like to lobby the ISPs and look at how they may be able to improve things.

Please take a minute to fill out the very quick (only 8 questions) questionnaire on the link below.

http://www.letsbesocial.co.uk/solihull-internet-speeds/

If you would like to link to this form, or embed it in your own blog, the link and embed code can be found at the bottom of that page.

When I got home last night, I had a scout around several technology sites to see what the Apple fuss was all about.
The fabled Apple tablet had finally been announced, and they had called it iPad.

OK, not the greatest name, I won’t be moaning about it, after all, there are lots of product names which sound stupid at first, but after a while you get used to them, and then all of a sudden, you wonder why anyone would have named it something else. Let’s also not forget that Star Trek fans will already be aware of ‘the pad’ as a data viewing device. You don’t do serious computing on it, you have larger computers for that, you just read/view things on it. Gene Roddenberry’s view of the future seems to have struck gold.

So onto the iPad itself. Do I like it? I hated it at first. A big iPod touch, an iPhone without the phone, a kind of pointless mobile photo frame that plays video etc. In all honesty though, now I have thought about it, yes, I do like it. I wish it could do more, such as use a stylus to do proper graphics work with it, have a full OS on it, bluetooth for wireless headphones and so on, but then I come back to the core functionality of it, and I realise that it’s simply the Apple netbook. They dropped the keyboard, installed their own slimline mobile OS rather than a slimline mobile version of Linux (have you actually used Windows on a netbook? Yes you can, but it’s so slow it becomes almost an achievement rather than a joy to use), and added their app store.

This is why it’s the perfect netbook. It has the speed and useful day to day things you need on your small mobile device, but it also has access to the largest online store for applications, music, videos, and now books.

I won’t be buying the all singing all dancing 3G enabled 64gb model, but I think I will give the 16gb WiFi only version a try. I have a Three MiFi for my 3G data needs on the go which I already use on my 13″ MacBook Pro, and that serves me well, so no need to pay the extra.

Also, I have been seeing a lot of people complain about the price. Is it that expensive compared to similar spec netbooks? I don’t think so, certainly not the ones with 16gb or larger flash drives. Netbooks are also not made of aluminium and glass, they are cheap plastic. This thing is also less than half the thickness, and is totally silent. Every netbook I have had sounds like a little wind tunnel when they are working under pressure (and that is most of the time on a netbook).

It’s not as bad as I thought initially, it’s actually exactly what you need on the go. It won’t be a laptop or desktop replacement, it’s just exactly what a netbook should have been all along.

And lest we forget, all the original netbooks relied on linux, it was the consumer that demanded Windows because of the ease of adding applications, and ease of use. The latter two points are exactly the reason why this will be a success, as Steve Jobs said, there are already 75 million people who know how to use the iPad. There are also almost 150,000 apps in the iTunes store at the time of writing this.

After my initial feelings of ‘meh’ I have decided that Apple deserve a pat on the back (perhaps an iPat) for steering an existing market back on course. They weren’t the first to make mobile devices with a streamlined OS and set of apps, and I doubt they will be the last, but they have spent a few years researching what the device should be, and seem to have made the very device we didn’t know we wanted.

I had an idea today, why not see how many people we can get out of the house on Saturday the 30th of January, and to walk along well known routes or areas where they live, and take a photo every few metres. Maybe 10, maybe 50, who knows.

Then, you could turn around, and walk back up the other side, and take the pics from the other side. You could then turn these into a video, and post it online.

I think it would be fun to see how many people we could get out doing this. Bonus points if you did one following behind someone else doing one!

There are a number of social media sites out there where things like this could be shared, and it would be a good chance to get out of the house, meet some other people who are mad enough to do the same thing, and then perhaps meet up in a pub afterwards.

Areas I am thinking of initially will centre on Brum, but if enough people live in other areas, there’s nothing to stop you posting details below where you would like to do it, and promoting this post to get more interest!

Initial thoughts would be Digbeth, High St, New St, Colmore Row, around St Philips, Paradise Circus, Corporation St, maybe up and down some of the smaller roads, who knows!

It’s a bit of a random idea, I haven’t thought it through, but it sounds like fun so far!

As for how it would work, well, that’s down to how many people would be interested, so do leave a comment if it sounds like fun to you. Perhaps break up into groups if there are lots, then agree where you want to go, or all head out in a mass pack of loonies with cameras scaring the local populace.

I’m going to talk about your data for a while. It’s probably the most important thing you have on your PC, but do you do anything to make sure it’s safe?

I get quite anal about backups, it’s been part of my role across many jobs over the years, and I have also been a victim of data loss through a PC dying in a rather spectacular way, but the more I speak to people, the more it becomes apparent to me, that I am in the minority.

So, what does it take to back things up? What is the difference between disaster recovery, and just backing things up?

You’ll be pleased to know that it’s all relatively simple, and quite cheap to do, but can also get rather complex, and expensive if you want it to be, so it’s something that anyone of any technical ability should be able to get to grips with, and make a start on quickly.

First things first, the simple backup.

This is the easiest thing to do, and the two main options open to you, are backing up your files to an external drive (whether it be a USB hard drive, or a shared network drive), or backing up online.

I do both, but that doesn’t mean you have to. An external drive is relatively cheap (around £50 for 500gb), and online backup services start from about £4 per month for unlimited backup space.

The pros and cons? Well, if you backup everything to an external drive at home for instance, and your PC and backup drive get damaged in a home incident of some sort, then you have still lost everything. This isn’t an issue if everything has been backed up online, however these backups take a very long time to get everything initially backed up, and you need a relatively good internet connection to make it worthwhile.

I would say the online backup option is by far the easiest for the price, you simply setup an account on the provider’s website, install a little client application on your PC, and that’s it done. Within a few days (or weeks if you have a lot of data) everything will be backed up, and any new files will be backed up automatically.

If you have an external drive, you can use Windows Backup if you’re a Microsoft fan, or Time Machine if you use Apple systems. Or you can simply select the files you wish to backup, and manually drag them over to your backup drive if you find this easier.

I use an external 500gb LaCie hard drive, and also BackBlaze for my online backups (it costs just under £4 per month depending on the exchange rate)

Disaster Recovery

This relies on having your data backed up, but also takes into account where these backups reside, and something called ‘imaging’.

Imaging means you take a ’snapshot’ of your PC’s hard drive. This doesn’t just backup your data, but also copies all of your operating system, setting, and basically everything on your computer.

Why go this far?

Well, the easy answer is, because it’s easier. While it may not sound it, once you learn how to do it, backing up absolutely everything is easier than manually selecting things to backup, and also means that if your PC’s hard drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen, you can recover absolutely everything in one fell swoop and be up and running on a brand new system within an hour or two.

On my Mac I use a piece of software called Carbon Copy Cloner (which is free for my needs, although ad supported) and this copies my whole hard drive to my external drive. I can also boot from this if I really wanted to on any other Mac, so I had my own software, settings, and data available.

On Windows there’s a similar package called Acronis, this isn’t free, but it is quite cheap.

The important thing about disaster recovery is that you should make sure your image is stored ‘off-site’. Perhaps you could update the image once a week, and leave the hard drive in a locked drawer at work, or at a friend’s house, or even a fire safe at a secure facility if you are really paranoid about your data (I’m not quite that bad).

So what’s your excuse?

For the sake of a £50 hard drive, or roughly £50 per year, why don’t you back your stuff up?

Are your photos, music, videos, personal documents which you have written all without value to you?

I have had a digital camera since the day my daughter was born. Every important moment in her life (and therefore mine to a certain extent) exists in digital form on my PC. As well as a lot of music I have purchased online which I need to keep safe, and the time and effort involved in ripping CDs and DVDs again if I had to.

Several people I know post most of their pictures on Facebook, but they only store them in a very low resolution. Not the quality you would need if you wanted to print them for a photo album in the future. Some people store them on Flickr, this is better, but I don’t post personal pictures there, I don’t think most people do. Many people have started moving all of their documents to Google Docs, but what happens if your account is compromised and those files are deleted?

Cloud computing is great, and helps with working online, sharing docs, and collaborating, but I simply can’t rely on it as the sole source of my data.

£50 doesn’t sound so expensive now does it?

Come along and join us for this month’s meeting on the 27th of January, in the Inn On The Green pub from 5:30-7pm

What is a Social Media Surgery? They help support community, and voluntary groups in an area in their use of Social Media. The surgeons are volunteers, and are not there to say what your blog or website should be about, or discuss community issues they promote, just how to use the tools available to you, of which virtually all are free to use.

Please bear in mind that these events are for non-profit organisations, community groups, or individuals who wish to promote local issues, news, and events etc.

Let us know if you would like to attend on the form after the link, there’s also a map of where to find us.
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I was looking for one the other day when it started to snow, and couldn’t find one anywhere.

I have a networked webcam I could use, but I don’t have a location, my employer’s network security is far to strict for this, so any offices I have access to are a no go.

The camera works over cat5 or wifi, and I would set it to update a picture on this site every 30 seconds over FTP.

I think people would appreciate something like this, either because they aren’t near a window, they are at home, generally nosey, or to see how busy it looks before going shopping.

So does anyone know somewhere with windows facing the town centre area which would let me install the webcam over the winter season?

I hate the X-Factor, and all it stands for nowadays. It was fun at first, but I think it’s run its course now, and needs to be put out of our misery.

I found this on Facebook today, Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No 1.

Can social media make this happen?

I’m willing to give it a go, I’ll post the following on Twitter from time to time, and on my Facebook feed, hopefully friends and followers will do the same, and the on December the 13th buy the RATM single, and see if this works!

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ATTENTION TWITTERERS: The trending topic for this is #ratm4xmas

Copy and paste this post into your Tweets:

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE FOR XMAS No.1 #ratm4xmas See here for details http://bit.ly/inthename PLEASE RT

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For a first event it seemed to go quite well, there were 13 visitors in total, although most were from various parts of Solihull Council and it’s partners (I have been promoting this internally as well as on Twitter and this blog).

I’d really like to see some more people attending next time, it’s on the 10th of December, 10am-12pm once more, so please add it to your diary to remind you

Why not become a fan on Facebook? Are you following us on Twitter?

Thanks to David Viner, Gavin Wray, Paul Hadley, and Kate Hughes for volunteering to be the surgeons.

We had Cllrs Bell, Reeve, and Hawkins at this SMS, and all were deeply engrossed in conversation with their surgeons.

Visit the blog for more info

Google have given me 12 more invites, I had already promised a few to people, so I am finding out if they have had an invite from someone else or not yet so they don’t get wasted, but I will give the rest away *to people I know*.

As Google made you jump through hoops to get on the original list, I think I will ask for a haiku too

Leave a funny/meaningful/random haiku in the comments. Ones I like most will get an invite (I have at least 6 to give away, maybe as many as 10). (Tell me your Twitter name in case it’s not evident who you are from your Wordpress account)

If you’re a totally random stranger who I have never heard of, then don’t waste your time, I will not be picking you.