Tuesday 15 December 2015

Microsoft OneDrive: Father Xmas decides he doesn't want your presents back after all.

Breaking News


Microsoft has decided not to reduce the 15 GB of free storage to 5GB (and to continue the 15 GB Auto-upload Camera roll bonus) for existing users BUT you must actively let them know you're interested in keeping this free storage.

Get your free OneDrive storage back by clicking here, logging into your OneDrive account and enjoying the sight of the 'Success' page

 ***********************


In case you haven't read your school report about how naughty you've been here is the chapter and verse from Microsoft on the subject


Having begun the long haul of transforming itself from the bête noire of the computer world Microsoft into the newer, shinier and friendlier Microsoft someone high up decided to make his or her mark.

To achieve the amazing reverse transformation back to bête noire MS had to crash some cherished industry adages. The tradition of IT development has always been bigger, cheaper, faster. "I know", thought some bright spark at MS, "let's re-think that".

In case MS just doesn't geddit let me spell it out.

Scene - the sitting room.

Dad, "You know your Xmas toys from last year, I'm taking them back so I can give you things that are not as expensive and not as good instead. Oh yes, and by the way, it's your fault because you didn't look after them properly."

Plenty of folk have commented on the folly of the image reversal process MS has decided upon so I won't labour the point any further. One thing uncommented on however is how you don't own what is in the cloud

Corporations do own what is in the cloud and they can rent it to you for money or for nothing but they never stop owning it and as Microsoft has amply demonstrated corporations can exert their ownership over it whenever and however they please. 

This should be the OneDrive salutary lesson from Microsoft for all those who think they "own" great digital hoards of mp3's, movies and storage space in cyberspace. Erm, they don't.

The CD, DVD and book collections on your shelves are yours. I hope you find that a comforting thought. I think I do.
 

Saturday 12 December 2015

The Best Tech Podcasts of 2015

First of all it's hats off and thanks to all those creative people making the podcasts listed below.

However good or bad I claim the podcasts reviewed below to be their creators are doing something I couldn't do which is to make a podcast.

P.S. If you click on the podcast titles below you'll get the rss.xml file.


The 361 Degrees Podcast

Ben Smith, Ewan MacLeod, Rafe Blandford

An oddity of this podcast is that it insists on having "seasons" like "Breaking Bad".

That said the chemistry and production is just exactly right. If BBC producers listened to this podcast and learned here how to do tech podcasts properly they would make stuff like this and we would be spared the irretrievably dire BBC 'Click' and the better but a bit bland 'Tech Tent'. 

It's entertainingly waspish and never better than when the panellists are having a go at each other. There's a high wittertainment factor and constant leg-pulling of Rafe Blandford. 

Recent laugh-out-loud moments include when Rafe visited Africa between "seasons" and Ben Smith speculated that this was to see how much of it Rafe's family still owned.

Very high technical knowledge on show on the panel and it has Rafe, one of the gentlemen of the industry. Really, what's not to like?

An important note for folk either too busy or too bored already by this blog to read any further; this is the best tech podcast out there.

All About Windows Phone

Steve Litchfield and Rafe Blandford

This is the thinking man's or woman's guide to Windows mobile tech and is so civilized and sounds again like the kind of tech podcast the BBC should be making (but can't seem to manage). It also features the genial industry expert Rafe Blandford. My oh my, Microsoft owe a debt of gratitude and about a million pounds to the two presenters for their steadfast and unswerving promotion of and devotion to the Windows Mobile Phone world.

The Phones Show Chat

Steve Litchfield and Ted Salmon

This is the thinking man's or woman's guide to general mobile tech. Again, civilized, knowledgeable and charming. Easily makes my top three tech podcasts of the year. See below. Guest of the year for me (notwithstanding some excellent other guests) was the simply wonderful Holly Brockwell, whom I hope Steve could persuade to become a regular. 

CNET UK Podcast

Luke Westaway and others

Well, whenever it takes itself a bit more seriously it can sound just about all right as recent episodes have shown. Also, whoever gives a platform to Katie Collins to strut her tech stuff as this podcast does from time to time gets a vote and a listen from me. Otherwise it can suffer from the presenters feeling they have to turn every news item into a "larf". I wish they wouldn't do this. It gives it a lads-down-the-pub feel.

Tech Talk UK podcast


Kevin Wright, Nick Robinson

Whenever the adulation of Apple starts as it sometimes does this podcast can get just a little cringeworthy and predictable.

Footnote


In a rather touching way and with charming honesty the main presenter revealed in the Autumn he had given up doing this podcast "finally" but then decided to continue. I'm rather glad he did because for all the eulogizing of Apple I realized I would miss this podcast if it wasn't there and I think I should not be so quick to find fault with people.

Mostly Android

Kevin Wright, Richard Yates

This is a new and goodish tech podcast and worth a listen except that on the downside you have to accept that Microsoft can do practically nothing right according to its two presenters, and their anti-Microsoft stance can be a little wearying at times.

Don't take my word for it.

Take Richard's.

"I hope Microsoft give up fairly soon." - in the podcast of 06 December 2015.


Tech Weekly podcast

Olly Mann

It has got a whole lot better of late having been placed in the safe hands of Olly Mann. It can still get a little earnest and worthy - a kind of watered down "In Our Time" but it's much better now than the disastrous outings of before after Alex Krotoski left and new presenters appeared using Uptalk

As you might expect from the Guardian, this podcast has a leaning towards stories about women making it big in the Tech world. Hooray! And lots of stories about university computing departments being full of males. Boo! 

Click 

Gareth Mitchell, Bill Thompson

I wrote a savage review about this and then deleted it. Suffice it to say this podcast is not for me. Here's a bit I didn't redact...
It takes a lot to put me off a tech podcast but this show manages it. I no longer listen. I can't bear it. Where to start? If you remember Blue Peter in the 60s and 70s, Petra the dog, the Blue Peter Garden and Ukrainian folk dancers endlessly appearing in the studio you will get a feel for this podcast is put together. The aforementioned represented what the Beeb decided children liked. This podcast is what the BBC think appeals to techie listeners and if it doesn't, well it jolly well should do.  On its website Click is described as "BBC’s flagship technology programme". 

Ora pro nobis.

Wired.co.uk podcast

Its presenters seem to last about as long as Premier League Managers. Olivia Solon left the show to go the Mirror. A loud boo. The show reached a dizzying peak when suddenly it was left in the hands of its three female presenters in summer 2014. The chemistry of these three women giggling with some hefty technical insight to boot at stuff going on in the tech world was very, very good. Condé Nast should have taken note of how well the podcast worked with its gifted 3 female presenters in charge but didn't. I must just name check the others; Katie Collins - see above and Liat Clarke. (Congrats, Liat, on your baby!)

Tech Tent

Rory Cellan-Jones

Picking up and showing signs of life but as it's on the BBC World Service there's a distinct BBC World Service drag factor the podcast has to battle with constantly. 

You know the kind of thing.

"We're in Cambridge in England this week."

(And it has all prices translated into dollars as pounds are clearly just too hard for WORLD SERVICE listeners to understand.)

This BBC World Service feel gives it all the family-friendly, comfortable homeliness of an international airport and the presenters feel the need inevitably to go globe trotting to report back from somewhere. The producers might be better off sticking a panel round a microphone. The best tech podcasts do it.


Coolsmartphone

Leigh Geary and others


Not bad if a little lacking in pace and downbeat. Definitely worth a listen, though, the presenters might cheer up a bit. Must listen to more episodes.

Tech's Message

Nate Lanxon, Ian Morris

Although the pun in the podcast title lands with a bit of a thud this podcast isn't half bad and Nate Lanxon seems more at home here than on Wired. Interesting and worth listening to. Good co-presenter too and importantly for a good podcast the presenters can and do disagree with each other sometimes.

The TechXpats Podcast 

Stephen Penny and others

I have heard only a couple of these so I'm not well-placed to comment. A very long tech podcast (One I heard clocked in at a staggering 1 hour 48 minutes) which tends, probably inevitably, to meander. Well-informed presenters though but, and I want to be as kind as I can here, one of them has such an accent that it is difficult sometimes to follow what he says. I intend to listen to a few more episodes.

[Cue small fanfare]
And the winners are...  


1) The 361 Degrees Podcast

2) All About Windows Phone

3) The Phones Show Chat

 

They are my top three tech podcasts of 2015

 

A Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. 



Sunday 15 November 2015

The Life of Jeremy



A hundred days have now passed since the Labour Party elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Actually I don't know whether they have, it just feels like it. Anyway it might be time to write a few words about Him.

Disciples

He has a multitude of followers but they seem divided into two sorts of disciples. There are the shouty, pierced ones who march about and protest and the Islington ones; the kind you see in Private Eye's, 'It's Grim up North London' . Islingtonites do not often march about. They write tweets.
While both groups of disciples support "anti-austerity" and oppose all cuts, naturally,  the latter think of themselves as being at the smart end. Think Jeremy Hardy meets Clare in the Community.
 
Loaves and Fishes

Both sets of followers have an easy solution to problems of the economy which is [sound fx: fanfare] to print more paper money (obviously) and distribute it to the deserving part of the population. You can fill in your own blanks as to who the deserving ones are. (Why in the name of all that is holy throughout all the centuries did people and countries not discover the truth Jeremy's disciples have discovered that printing more notes makes you richer?)
To fend off easily attacks from economic infidels "printing more notes" is called "quantitative easing" and distributing this money is called the much more praiseworthy and good-egg-sounding word, "investment". 

Wickedness

There is a whiff of political incense about Saint Jeremy who lives in an unearthly world where police can enter and arrest bad people in the Islamic State. This would obviate the need for the wickedness of killing ruthless enemies before they have been brought before a court. History, however, has been kind here to the UK which might easily have been led in the Second World War by leaders frozen into inactivity when faced by the Nazis because our police could not arrest Germany.

Meditation

Actually, followers of JC (wasn't it so delightfully apt he should bear those initials?) do not mind a bit of frozen inactivity all that much. Frozen inactivity enables you to criticize the government at your leisure without the need to be have to act decisively (and often with imperfect information) when faced with "events, dear boy, events". Do you remember the moment from "The Life of Brian" when Judith, the "Welsh bint" brings news of a Roman atrocity to the committee who with chuckling smugness at her 'feminist grandstanding' set out to write "a fresh resolution" - not the right thing but very simply the only thing in the world they are capable of. Quiet and superior philosophical reflection is born in the moments of religious devotion provided by frozen inactivity.

Prophet

Please remember that Saint Jeremy is faced by wickedness (see above) at every turn. Homophobia, Islamophobia, Austerity, Sexism, Nuclear War, Denial of LGBT (have I got those initials right?) rights, Gender Bias, Racism and the list goes on. He delivers his careful and thoughtful solutions with polite, measured, avuncular, benign and gentle illogicality. Jeremy reminds me of the description applied to his prophet, Tony Benn, of whom it was said, "He immatures with age." 

Icon

PMQs are certainly different with JC. As he read out the latest e-mails Jeremy had received from Mrs Trellis I was taken aback when I heard him say, "I asked the Prime Minister this question six times last week and didn't get an answer". And there it was. It happened.  Jeremy before our ears became unmistakeably that valued national treasure, the angry pensioner in the post office.

War is Wrong

Talking of war as I was, and there's an awful lot of it about at the moment, I do hope we are spared Saint Jeremy as leader trying to face down Russia by frantically waving a white flag and shouting, "Don't attack us. We have no nuclear weapons." 

I hope we are spared, full stop.

Here endeth the lesson.

Sunday 8 November 2015

Microsoft OneDrive - Season Two - The return of the Bête Noire



In case you haven't read your school report about how naughty you've been here is the chapter and verse from Microsoft on the subject


Having begun the long haul of transforming itself from the bête noire of the computer world Microsoft into the newer, shinier and friendlier Microsoft someone high up decided to make his or her mark.

To achieve the amazing reverse transformation back to bête noire MS had to crash some cherished industry adages. The tradition of IT development has always been bigger, cheaper, faster. "I know", thought some bright spark at MS, "let's re-think that".

In case MS just doesn't geddit let me spell it out.

Scene - the sitting room.

Dad, "You know your Xmas toys from last year, I'm taking them back so I can give you things that are not as expensive and not as good instead. Oh yes, and by the way, it's your fault because you didn't look after them properly."

Plenty of folk have commented on the folly of the image reversal process MS has decided upon so I won't labour the point any further. One thing uncommented on however is how you don't own what is in the cloud

Corporations do own what is in the cloud and they can rent it to you for money or for nothing but they never stop owning it and as Microsoft has amply demonstrated corporations can exert their ownership over it whenever and however they please. 

This should be the OneDrive salutary lesson from Microsoft for all those who think they "own" great digital hoards of mp3's, movies and storage space in cyberspace. Erm, they don't.

The CD, DVD and book collections on your shelves are yours. I hope you find that a comforting thought. I think I do.
 

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 XL - a Personal View of Their Design

On the subject of the long-awaited Lumia 950 and 950 XL I do wish that more care had been taken about the design of the new flagships. Just to make it really, really clear I am talking about the physical form of the phone not about the beautiful and feature-filled Windows 10 Mobile OS.

It isn’t that the new Lumias are bad-looking but after all that wait I had hoped for something rather better than “not bad-looking”. On first view they look like good, solid, sturdy, workhorse mid-range smart phones. As they are priced to compete with the iPhone 6S plus or the Galaxy 6 whatever it is called now they won’t do half as well as they deserve. I don’t want to let MS off the hook here. It is not as if they haven’t had time to work on this. We are talking years of development.

New smart phones have to take the first part of that name in its other sense too and smart phones now have also to serve as fashion items. Sheer styling is one of the many, many reasons for the ubiquity of the iPhone. They are beautiful tech objects. Whether you like living in that walled garden or not when you fork out all that money for an iPhone you become the owner of something very, very much better looking than “not bad”. The functionality of the new 950 and 950XL will be fantastic. I don’t think there is any doubt about that. I have also the nagging feeling that the design was also handed over to a tech department where it should have been hived off to a team with whose sole brief was to design a beautiful smart phone.

I have to confess to being a little disappointed about new Lumias and I do recognize this is a strange thing to say when they have hardly been on sale but I’ll have a go at explaining my odd view.

I think this really is Microsoft’s last chance to make it in the mobile world and I say this as a very big fan of Windows mobile.

What Microsoft could or should have done is hand say a Huawei P6 or P7? (I’m trying here to reach back in time to when I guess Microsoft were designing the 950 and 950 XL) to the design team and told them something like ‘Make the new Lumia flagships look like these or even better.’

Instead, I have the feeling Microsoft concentrated on getting the internals and software just right and I’m guessing the new Lumia 950 & 950 XL will have superb functionality so outclassing other flagships such as any Android top of the range and the new Apple iPhone 6S Plus. All that said, this is just not enough these days. Flagships have to look the part too because Microsoft are trying to sell in a market where styling is all important. Smart phones are also fashion items made to be bought and carried by normal people. Ignoring for a moment what version of Snapdragon the new Lumias will be carrying and most people will ignore this, if you stand a Huawei P8 next to a Lumia 950 XL the difference in sheer stylish elegance will be all too apparent.

In other words I think it is time for some brushed aluminium to make its return to the Lumia world as in the 830 and 930. (There's a ‘stop press’ here with the rumour dated Oct 3rd that " Microsoft is allegedly working on a new metal-frame "affordable flagship" so the prudent advice might be to watch this space.)

http://www.gsmarena.com/microsoft_is_allegedly_working_on_a_new_metalframe_affordable_flagship-news-14293.php

You should never let tech teams design chassis’s or the externals of a phone. This is the equivalent of letting husbands choose wallpaper.

The UI of Windows Phone for me is streets ahead of that of iOS and Android but needs the right showcase. I hope I’m wrong with my faint praise for the ‘not bad’ styling of the new Lumia 950 & 950 XL models and that they fly off the shelves and prove me hopelessly mistaken on all I’ve said above.

Browsing around on the internet I’ve noticed one or two people making reference to the fact that a third party manufacturer has already launched some new backs for the 950 and 950 XL and these backs have an aluminium band so ‘solving’ the flagship look ‘problem’. Hmmm. To labour my already over-laboured point; it’s a shame, I think, that some manufacturer believes that the new models need doctoring on launch and have even launched their own product line to cater for this. The Lumia 950 and 950 XL are top of the range flagship phones, after all, going straight up against the top of the range Android and iPhone offerings. A market for third party backs shouldn’t really exist, methinks. The very fact it does tells its own story.

Personally, I intend to wait a year till the Lumia 950 XL reaches an affordable price for me. Windows Mobile has by a country mile the best interface of all mobile phones, in my opinion. I would like to see it thrive.

Reversing Decision to Close Twitter Account because I want to write a new set of reviews about Tech podcasts

All I said about Twitter remains true but I want to write a new set of reviews about Tech podcasts and to give these reviews the faintest breath of hope of being read I can do one of two things: write the article on a piece of paper and throw it away in the street in the hope someone who speaks English finds it and wants to read it or...put a link to it on Twitter.

Monday 19 October 2015

Why I have closed my Twitter Account

I was never an avid user of Twitter but of late I've found myself using it less and less. While it has tweets from the reflective, witty and cheerful there are far too many posts of the most spiteful and hateful type by the most spiteful and hateful and I have never bought arguments along the lines of the yes but Adolf Hitler was kind to animals type as a defence.

Let me just reflect on some of Twitter's ignoble contributions of recent times.

Twitter gave a platform for the professionally outraged to hound a Nobel Prize winning scientist from his post over a weak joke about women making unsuitable scientists as they were too attractive in science labs.

Twitter gave a voice to a hateful mob of acolytes when they praised a racist bigot who became, irony of ironies, an equality officer at a university.

Twitter helped the anarchic pimpled and pierced ones to raise an obscure politician from deserved obscurity to leader of Her Majesty's Opposition and all this means that we now stand only one election meltdown moment of madness away from having a Trotskyist as PM, leaving NATO and using the famous white flag policy as our principal first line of defence.

As a parting shot.

Just what is Twitter anyway?

The market doesn't know as the recent sackings at Twitter HQ reveal. Will we all in five year's time look back and say, "What was all that Twitter thing about anyway?" I think so. A way for those seeking real friends to find "friends" or "likes" or whatever buzz-word is voguish.

So, I will leave Twitter today to the hateful and the spiteful and to you, brave souls, who can bear them.

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Binge-watching for Beginners

The best box-sets/seasons/series ever

Big Love - Binge-watching value 8/10

Big Love: Complete HBO Season 1 [DVD] [2008]


On paper, as they say, this shouldn't be any good. In fact it should even be a little tacky. A businessman with 3 wives. They are Mormons living "The Principle" or polygamy, as we know it better. I've seen the first 3 seasons and these are the best of the 5, I've read.

The second season is a peak for me and I had to ration myself to an episode a night to avoid binge-watching. It is good because the acting is so good and dead-pan and the story line is the DVD equivalent of a page-turner and if all that wasn't enough it has Chloë Sevigny.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000S6UZM4?ref_=pd_ys_iyr23

The Americans - Binge-watching value 8/10

The Americans - Season 1 [DVD] 

Russian agents living in deep cover in the USA. It inverts all your instincts about rooting for the good guys. Hooray, the KGB did it; they killed the FBI agent. Wait. What am I saying?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CUJNP92?ref_=pd_ys_iyr8 

Weeds - Binge-watching value 7/10


Weeds - Season 1-2 - Complete [DVD]

I saw the first 3 seasons, the best by reputation. Hockey mum selling marijuana. The 3rd season is the best - a kind of poor man's Breaking Bad. The plot gets better as it gets darker.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000Z63YWA?ref_=pd_ys_iyr22

Masters of Sex - Binge-watching value 8/10


Masters of Sex - Season 1 [DVD]

Michael Sheen becomes a convincing sexologist. It's a slow-burning Mad Men style plot lovingly referencing 1950s mores.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HVAK6YW?ref_=pd_ys_iyr26

Breaking Bad - Binge-watching value 10/10


Breaking Bad - Season 4 [DVD]



If classical music has the great 3 of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart then this is the telly equivalent as it is one of the big three (the other two will be reviewed further down.) The DVD cover is from the 4th season, for me the best. If you haven't seen this yet, you're very, very lucky because you've got it all to come.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007TH0ZO8?ref_=pd_ys_iyr36

Mad Men - Binge-watching value 9/10


Product Details


A slick and stylish deconstruction of the consumerist world of the 1950s and 60s.

I really hate the description I've just written but refuse to slay it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0014XVTIY?keywords=Mad%20men&qid=1441203900&ref_=sr_1_5&sr=8-5

More later
  

Wednesday 12 August 2015

The Times, They Aren't A-Changing - Corbyn and all that

Update.


As I write this Jeremy Corbyn looks set fair to become the next Labour leader.

Along with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw, Jeremy Corbyn is an unflawed example of a useful idiot. Look it up, please, if you are unaware of this useful expression. I was interested to read that although attributed to Lenin there's no evidence of the expression in his writings.

Corbynites are taking currently great comfort in the following.

Jeremy Corbyn is being rubbished by the Daily Telegraph and therefore the Tories fear his victory in the Labour leadership race.

It is difficult to write this without appearing as condescending as Corbynites are to critics of JC. (In the light of his startling recent rise he was born to have those initials but I'll try.) 

The Daily Telegraph is rubbishing inter alia Jeremy Corbyn's economic illteracy and his desire for the UK to leave NATO because, I'm afraid, his ideas are weird. 

My oh my, I've got my doubts about anyone doing anything to disturb Jeremy Corbyn's acquisition of the Labour leadership. The Labour Party is about to condemn itself to annihilation in 2020 and if Labour Party people are foolish enough to elect JC as leader they deserve this.



OK, I should start with a short glossary of terms because if one day this esteemed blog ever gets a reader he or she will hang or condemn me by noticing where and how I have used the term "left wing" or whatever.

Glossary

Left Wing - radical

Radical - radical

Anti-austerity - radical

Extremist - radical

As "radical" means from the roots I need to borrow it from any so-called political wing to try to use it neutrally. Where I use it below it means any of the interchangeable euphemisms above.

If you're still here I'll go on.

Next pitfall

I should answer your unasked question, "Where is he coming from?"

I am a conservative though not dyed-in-the-wool and I'm full of doubts. I don't care much for George Osborne but like David Cameron more or less I suppose, wish I liked Boris more but think he's an election winner at least, Socialism dismays me, communism and/or Putinism disgusts me and the Labour Party bewilders me. I think UKIP, irrespective of ANY little merit they might have had once, has been hijacked by detestable people, who are as bad as their radical (see glossary above) critics. The Lib-Dems and Greens make me think of meadows and buttercups and ponies.

Don'tya Love Labour?


Only the quixotic genius of the radicals of the Labour Party could come up with a reason for an electoral defeat by claiming, as they have done many times before, that their message wasn't radical enough.


You have to be a grey voter, and I am certainly that, to remember Michael Foot. Radicals like Owen Jones can read about Michael Foot and watch Michael Foot in documentaries but they can't remember him. You just had to be there. 'Tis one of the only benefits of being older.

Jeremy Corbyn is a reincarnation of Michael Foot.

True, time has passed and dear old Michael Foot was elected as the antidote to Benn but here are the similarities:

1. Jeremy Corbyn is oldish. Jeremy Corbyn will be the next Labour leader and 70 in 2020, the same age as Michael Foot was in 1983.

2. Jeremy Corbyn is a fanatical CND supporter.

3. Jeremy Corbyn is radical.

On the downside for the Corbynites, Jeremy Corbyn should be a little worried by a couple of things, which might look insignificant at first glance.

1. Michael Foot packed halls with devotees before losing in 1983. Jeremy Corbyn is packing halls now. A radical at a rally shouting loudly has only one vote no matter how loudly and passionately he shouts.

2. Jeremy Corbyn has been adopted as the Messiah by the Twitterati. (I notice that a Twitter Twit compared him with Gandhi and JFK, the other day.) The election in May 2015 caught out Twitter badly as radicals buoyed each other up and believed their own propaganda.

3. Jeremy Corbyn has been endorsed by Owen Jones. Yes, the man who brought you the magnificently wrong.

Russell Brand has endorsed Labour – and the Tories should be worried

http://archive.is/lY2Dw#selection-1547.1-1547.70

Owen Jones is an archetypal young, radical firebrand. There are literally millions of radicals like him.

Nonetheless they are outnumbered by the small c conservatives in Britain. 'Twas ever thus. Radicals are claiming that change is coming. That the untainted rich, virginal seam of disaffected non-voters will form the basis of Jeremy Corbyn's success is pants and self-delusional.

Once Jeremy Corbyn is Labour leader and it dawns on shy voters that he could one day scrap Britain's nuclear weapons (to the delight of Putin - international politics is playground politics. The subtlety of our not owning nuclear weapons so not being a nuclear threat will be lost on the Russians.) shy voters will shyly vote away this danger just as they shyly voted away Westminster becoming dominated by spiteful, nationalistic Scots in May 2015.

Thank you for reading.

Please remember.

A radical at a rally shouting loudly has only one vote no matter how loudly and passionately she/he shouts.

A radical on Twitter has only one vote no matter how loudly and passionately she/he tweets.

Prediction


The Labour Party, unlike the Tory Party, don't do coups so it will have to wait for Jeremy Corbyn to be defeated in 2020. After recriminations and dear old Jeremy acting as caretaker leader until a new leader can be elected (and tempting radicals to say 'hang electoral success, let's hang on to our glorious principles and dear old Jeremy') either a woman (radical or not, it won't matter) or the "King Across the Water" David Miliband will return to give the Tories a tough election fight in 2025.

Monday 27 July 2015

(Mostly Mobile) Tech Podcasts


I like listening to podcasts. Here are some of the mostly mobile tech podcasts I follow (or don't) together with links to their XML feeds or sites. The BBC, so strong in most things radio, seems to have bowed out of the fight when it comes to tech podcasting and several of the non-BBC podcasts below have a real Radio 4 feel about them.
There's a little review of each but if you can't be bothered reading these you can scroll down to the bottom of the page, scoff at, say "pfff" or something worse of or perhaps even agree with my top three. It's all for fun and if you are a presenter and your podcast hasn't made my top three, thanks anyway for your stuff because creativity takes time and your efforts are appreciated if the content isn't always (by me).

Read on MacDuff...


Steve Litchfield and Rafe Blandford

This is the thinking man's or woman's guide to Windows mobile tech. They seemed to have settled now for two presenters.  It is so civilised and sounds like the kind of tech podcast the BBC should be making (but aren't). It has arguably the finest radio presenter in the business in the genial Rafe Blandford. I have the feeling that he is on the way to even greater things and we are catching him at the beginning of a mainstream TV/radio career. The BBC should snap him up. Makes my top four tech podcasts. See below.


Steve Litchfield, Ted Salmon, Gavin Fabiani-Laymond, David Markrich

This is another thinking man's or woman's guide, this time to general mobile tech. Civilised, knowledgeable and charming. Makes my top four tech podcasts. See below.

David Markrich and Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

Good humoured and congenial conversation from two presenters who know their tech stuff. It's gone monthly and I have the feeling it will soon disappear as its presenters go off to do other things. (Updated on July 18 2015. Indeed, this podcast seems to have disappeared and replaced by a 404 error message.)

Created by Ben Smith of Wireless Worker and co-hosted by Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review and Rafe Blandford

One of those 'strength to strength' podcasts. The chemistry is just right. If BBC producers listened and learned how to do it and we would be spared the weakening and over-earnest 'Tech Tent' and the irretrievably dire 'Click'.  Entertainingly waspish and never better than when the panellists are having a go at each other. High wittertainment factor. Constant leg-pulling of Rafe Blandford - the others claim he lives on an landed estate with servants in attendance etc. Very high technical knowledge evident on the panel and it has Rafe, one of the gentlemen of the industry.

Luke Westaway and others.

Suffers from the presenters feeling they have to turn every news item into a "larf". I wish they wouldn't do this. It gives it a lads-down-the-pub feel all the time. Gave up listening to it for this reason. I must listen to this again sometime to see whether it has improved...
Well, I did listen again but  it still has the lads-down-the-pub feel . It might be your thing. It isn't mine. One presenter starting crooning in a silly voice as they went through their intros. I'll try listening again one day. 

One day.

Darien Graham-Smith, Tim Danton, Sasha Muller, Vaughn Highfield, Tom McMullan, Jonathan Bray

It occasionally lacks a little needed "edge" if Tim Danton is missing. And Barry Collins has never been properly replaced. If you're reading this, Barry, do, do please return. Sadly, I feel I have to demote this from my now top three Tech podcasts for the simple reason that there is an increasing use of "uptalk" on the podcast. Here's a YouTube video to explain what "uptalk" is and why it ruins what you have to say. (Darien is not guilty of uptalk - one or two others are.)


Kevin Wright, Nick Robinson and Richard Yates

It has a presenter who moans such a lot in a mighty Ipswich accent and claims not to be a fruit-related company name fanboy. I'll leave you to be the judge of the latter. The gushing adulation of Apple by the lead presenter has been getting steadily worse of late and the podcast is beginning to get a little cringeworthy and predictable because of it. Richard Yates is a splendid sometime addition to the team and provides some much needed balance.

Tech Weekly podcast

 
Presented by Samuel Gibbs, Simon Barnard, Martin Love and Hannah Jane Parkinson.

The whole programme has seen a re-launch in a 'magazine' format sans Alex Krotoski. It has also entered the dark age of Uptalk. I tried to listen but it was no good and I couldn't continue. To experience Uptalk for yourself just imitate Hannah Jane Parkinson; one of the best exponents of Uptalk on the air, ever. 

In case you don't know Uptalk, just say 

My name is [insert your name] and let your voice rise at the end as if you're not sure what your name is and as if you are frightened you are upsetting your listener by telling him or her what your name is and as if you desperately want them to agree with you what your name is but most of all as if you desperately want your listener to like you. 
    
This is the Guardian tech podcast for dedicated Guardianistas everywhere. And why not? As Barry Norman used to say. Expect lots of stories about women making it big in the Tech world. Hooray! And lots of stories about university computing departments being full of males. Boo! It can also get a bit sweary if any Guardianista hate figure or theme (e.g. er? pornography? sexism?) features in a news story. It experiences often a bewildering change of personnel and so lacks any kind of structure or continuity. Occasionally it does get really quite boring especially when they do a "one-off" podcast, yet again, such as a whole programme interview... yet again. No signs of improvement. When Charles Arthur comes on it perks up but he never does these days. 

Click


The show is currently presented by Gareth Mitchell and with expert comments from Bill Thompson.

I wrote a savage review about this and then deleted it. Suffice it to say this podcast is not for me. Here's a bit I didn't redact...

It takes a lot to put me off a tech podcast but this show manages it. I no longer listen. I can't bear it. Where to start? If you remember Blue Peter in the 60s and 70s, Petra the dog, the Blue Peter Garden and Ukrainian folk dancers endlessly appearing in the studio you will get a feel for this podcast is put together. The aforementioned represented what the Beeb decided children liked. This podcast is what the BBC think appeals to techie listeners and if it doesn't, well it jolly well should do.  A by-the-way, the expert Bill Thompson sounds uncannily and spookily like Charles Arthur from the Guardian. On its website Click is described as "BBC’s flagship technology programme". Ora pro nobis.
I MUST bring myself to listen to this again. I will steel myself and do it. I want to be fair.


Wired.co.uk podcast


Liat Clark, Katie Collins, James Temperton and Michael Rundle

Nate Lanxon reminded me of Alan Partridge. Sorry, I couldn't help it. He did. Olivia left the show to go the Mirror. A loud boo. The show reached a dizzying peak when suddenly it was left in the hands of its three female presenters in summer 2014. The chemistry of these three women giggling with some hefty technical insight to boot at stuff going on in the tech world was very, very good. Condé Nast should have taken note of how well the podcast worked sans Nate but didn't.

Suddenly, out of the blue, one day we found ourselves listening to "Nate's last podcast" and then he was gone...

Someone once wrote in suggesting Liat did an audio book. Yes, oh yes.

It's gone a little more serious but in a good way. You miss Liat when she isn't there, which happens too often. It has still never recaptured the heights of Summer 2014 with 3 female presenters in charge.

Tech Tent


Rory Cellan-Jones

Lacks something. Perhaps this podcast is trying too hard and doesn't sound laid-back enough. I don't know. I'm not a radio producer. (Also, BBC World Service podcasts as a rule are rarely as good as those on Radio 4 - they're too generic - just compare 'More or Less' Radio 4 and WS versions.)

 No improvement  so I stopped listening. I'll try again later in the year.

 Drum rollllllllllllllllllll.....................

The Top three Podcasts of 2015

(tough call - all are very good)


1) The 361 Degrees Podcast

2) All About Windows Phone

3) The Phones Show Chat