Author Archives: alex

The facebook problem

Posted on February 27, 2011 by alex

When a for-profit company gives you something for free, with little chance of ever charging, you have to ask, “who is the customer and what is the product?” Facebook has (reputedly) 500 million users, none of whom pay a penny … Continue reading →

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Posted in Life, Politics, Social Networking, Technology | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

MyIET – not another networking silo, please

Posted on November 27, 2010 by alex

The  IET, or Institution of Engineering and Technology, is introducing ‘MyIET’, which is a member’s personal portal on the IET website. However, it’s also got status updates like twitter, a discussions and comments forum, etc. It looks like they have … Continue reading →

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Putting CM6 (Android 2.2 Froyo) on a UK Vodafone HTC Magic

Posted on September 26, 2010 by alex

I’ve got an HTC Magic by Vodafone in the UK. It’s a very nice phone. Unfortunately, it is also abandonware. It is now virtually out of contract. And before I rooted it and put CM6 on it, it was stuck … Continue reading →

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Posted in IT, Technology | Tagged | 9 Comments

Banks: the problem with ‘too big to fail’

Posted on September 25, 2010 by alex

We hear it time and again.  Such-and-such bank is too big to fail. To me, that simply means too big. A bank failing needs to be like a ripple in a pond not like a tsunami crashing all before it … Continue reading →

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Posted in Business, Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Abandoning Twidroyd

Posted on July 11, 2010 by alex

Twidroyd/Twidroid is a Twitter application for the Android platform.  I really quite liked it, until they were bought by Tweetup.  Why?  Well, during the name change they added a huge EULA.  However, the important part is (highlighted part by me): … Continue reading →

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Posted in IT | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Local councils having a busking policy?

Posted on June 17, 2010 by alex

Bizarrely, in the news today (17th June 2010) it turns out that Exeter has a policy for busking in the city. Stunning, isn’t it. Apparently, said buskers have to audition for a place in the city so that they can … Continue reading →

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Posted in Life, Politics | 1 Comment

About Googlegate

Posted on June 17, 2010 by alex

I was reading this at El Reg. I like Privacy International. I share many of the same values but I’m not sure that Alexander Hanff has any idea of how code is written at Google. I don’t, but I’d hazard … Continue reading →

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Migrating Mail – Part 1

Posted on June 13, 2010 by alex

At the time of writing, June 2010, I run my own mail server.  I started running my own mail server when commercial providers didn’t have good spam detection, didn’t store much mail and weren’t as convenient as using your own … Continue reading →

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Opinion: To iPad or not to iPad?

Posted on May 20, 2010 by alex

This is the first of two posts on Apple.  This one deals with their consumer products, the iPad, iPhone, etc.  The second deals with how I perceive they are relating to developers. Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting opinion piece on … Continue reading →

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Posted in IT | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

More fun with BAA: T5 still hopeless

Posted on May 20, 2010 by alex

Heathrow Terminal 5 is a disaster.  It’s a year since I last travelled through and, if anything, it has got worse.  I had a return trip to Canada over the last two weeks.  Going out wasn’t too bad; coming back … Continue reading →

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