Showing posts with label online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online. Show all posts

16 January, 2007

Welcome connected internet readers

A big welcome to all readers who are coming here from Connected Internet!

I first discovered Connected Internet back when I was travelling in Australia, as I was searching for ways to get extra features in gmail.. Connected Internet were linked to and I had been browsing the site whilst in my IT Support job in Sydney. I let Everton know that you could turn on features in gmail by changing your settings to English US, away from English UK.. He wrote a post, thanking me and I have been a loyal reader since!

13 January, 2007

openID

As you may or may not know I am interested in Security, especially online and to do with your identity. I believe when you are online you have a right to privacy, but also you have the right to know that those who you are communicating with are who they say they are...

Its both a complicated situation, made worse by proprietary systems, and holes in systems. When online, I don't want anyone knowing who I am; but if I do want that then I want that site to have a guaranteed belief, and that they trust me (based on my past behaviour).

Thats why I have signed up for OpenID ... Read here to see how it works. The gist of it
is that I log myself and my website to an OpenID server, and through authentication it proves thats me. I then use my openID to sign comments and then they know who its from!

Anyway now to get OpenID set up on my blog, so that trusted users can also leave comments. For the record my openID is jezarnold.myopenid.com

ClaimID allows me to claim sites that I have written, or are written about me. It also allows me to deny when I have not written a site, or this a different jezarnold. http://claimid.com/jezarnold
These sites are a start.. but there is something else that is holding me back from a thorough online presence.. email. I still can't believe that today, with email 20 years old, that an email I send is not 100% certain of reaching the addressed person. Also if I receive an email, I also want to be 100% guaranteed that it is off who I think it is.  Why do I want this? Well, I want ALL my bills/banking/correspondance done online, but I still do not have 100% trust in those sites. When it is.. well, I need to believe it can secure my data.

21 December, 2006

del.icio.us links

del.icio.usI have been using del.icio.us for some time now as my primary bookmarker. I used to save loads of pages within Firefox/IE, and I would have trouble syncing between different browsers, and especially different computers. I tried using GooSync and Foxmarks, but its just... hassle. Del.icio.us makes it simple.

All I do now is use firefox and the firefox del.icio.us Bookmarks addon, and save the page. The best thing about this?? The fact I can add tags, so when I search its easier. I just wish, the 3500 pages I uploaded from Firefox could be automatically added with the best tags. Another thing is that I wish I could add my tagcloud to the Links page on my blog.

Any suggestions?? oh yeah, for my links view jezarnold

14 October, 2006

the future of smarthouses

Now I wish I had the technical & business skills to be able to approach someone for Venture Capital. I have this kickass idea, that one day we are all going to be going "Why didn't I think of that!" .. and as I have no chance of getting the cash together, I am gonna write it up here and look back in ten years..

Its all about computers / smartphones / internet / networks and our homes.

Basically at the moment we have one, maybe two or three, computers hooked up at home connected to the t'interweb. Each of these computers have there own internal harddrives, and all require significant power to keep running. They all require a degree of knowledge to operate, so if something goes wrong, you have a rough idea of what to do. If something goes drastically wrong, then you have to start again, or pay a significant amount to you local computer store to get things working again.

So whats the most important thing on your computer? Its the data. Everything else is covered by insurance, but you can't replace the data. Its like if your house burns down, you can't replace your pictures can you? The future of computing resides in backup. Not just in one place either.

Home Servers. Fireproof/thiefproof and totally secure. Nothing is totally secure, so the data will be backed up offsite. So, if you are going to have a home server, why bother with PCs. Why not have virtual machines.

VMWare are a company that have seen profits rise by 60% each year (can't remember where I read that) and its helped by Dual Core chips.. or quad core .. or n-core.. On a server you load a copy of the operating system, and all the software you are going to require. From there you run out to Thin Clients (TC) and they show and allow you to operate all of your applications, on a cheap computer. Yes, thats right cheaper computers.

For those users whose computing requirements are office/email/internet/music/films/photos, a TC will be fine. Even if you want to create images, or write programs, as long as you add some more memory, it should work no problems. And thats with todays TC machines. You can attach a TC to the back of a flat screen monitor, attach some USB ports for Keyboards/mouse etc, and a a decent networking connection, and there you go all set up. How much money will this save you? Less money on the machine in the first place, and even less energy costs.

Each user authenticates with a fingerprint, and they get logged in to there profile. This is stored on the house server, and backup up remotely. Oh did I mention your mobile use? You use a smartphone. It logs into your profile, and with WiFi you can make calls, or browse the net, write some IMs or emails, do some work. It will be that simple.

With IPTV not long away now from being everywhere, we are soon going to have all entertainment on a screen near by. Oh and another thing, you will be able to control the house. Dim the lights, turn on the washing machine, set the cleaning robot on its way, CCTV when you are away, all these things..

What do you think? The best way for this is the ISPs create a service, where they set it up and lend you basic equipment for free. You want something better, then pay for it yourself! You will have a service plan, and a Technician can be at your house in four hours to fix things, or they may be able to do this remotely. This obviously needs some kickass company to be able to get these things together, but I have heard that the Freebox in France, is going in this direction. Perhaps my favourite company, Google can make a google box, and get it installed where ever there is a monitor in your house...

anyway like I said, its only an idea!!

more google news?

What is it about Google and the media constantly looking at what they are doing next? As you may be aware (unless you have been living under a rock) Google bought YouTube for $1.65billion in Google Stock last week. Some say its a bargain, some say Google are now going to face huge lawsuits for copyright materials; I think that Google want to take on MySpace. I can see Orkut going through a 'merger' with YouTube soon, to bring a community focus to YouTube.. but then again what do I know?

Been playing with the new Google Groups this week. At work I have volunteered to create and manage our Teams Guidebook. Basically, I want to create a collaborative document that I can create and my colleagues can help keep updated. I found some ideas online, but they all wanted getting paid and I wasn't going to pay for this. Google Groups seemed the best idea, as you can create non-searchable, members only pages and discussions. I started getting it all ready, when a colleague points out that we can't keep commercially sensitive information on there. "Yeah, I know!" I reply, "its just guidelines on how to do your job better." so he comes back with "But our processes are commercially sensitive" ... oh... So I binned that idea, and now we are looking at Microsoft Sharepoint. I hope we don't have to pay for this..

Google have also combined Spreadsheets and Writely into Docs which is obviously taking a hit at Microsoft Office. You know that the BigG went into partnership with Sun Microsystems recently? You didn't? Anyway Sun are the owners of Open Office, and Google have some of there programmers down there improving this free opensource software. Eventually, we are going to have Docs & openOffice working together - on your home PC you can use all the functions of OpenOffice, and as long as you are on an internet connected PC you will be able to work on your docs online.. very clever.

Next year, I forsee the launch of an online storage from Google which you will use to back up photos, docs, etc. I reckon they will give everyone a minimum of 2Gb of storage, link it in with Google Search/Gmail/Calendar/Reader/Picasa/Open Office and there we have a FREE kickass package..

Does that make sense? I hope so.. Maybe I will finally be able to ditch the expensive Microsoft packages, and do everything online!

02 October, 2006

google products

Am I a Google Fanboy?? I am a big user of Gmail > Google Calendar > Google RSS Reader > Google Writely > Picasa > Google Analytics > Google Maps/Earth > what is it about this company that makes products i just love using??

Is it the simplicity, in that the minute I open it I naturally know how to use it? or the elegance of the design, and that everything is where it should be? There are plenty of us Google fanboys out there, and a few thousand blogs about anything that may be coming out soon... even if its wild rumour!

I even PAID for my gmail invite :) a couple of dollars back in August 04!! I love the integration of Calendar with Gmail, just wish that Google could do a great To Do list now (perhaps in line with Getting Things Done??) ... who knows??

What are the websites you visit?? for me its BBC news, Times Online, Guardian, Flickr, YouTube, Gmail, and Google Reader. I have Firefox 2.0 load up all of these in Tabs, but what about all the other websites.. Well If I am interested, then I grab the RSS feed and load it in to Google Reader. That way anything new comes into that, and I go to the page if I am interested!! What a great idea!! don't you think??
So I use writely to write documents on the fly.. Picasa to manage my extensive photo collection (5000 + from Travelling alone!!) and also any images I like online.. Analytics to manage website stats.. and finally Maps to find somewhere (surprising that..) and Earth to look around the world!!

To be fair, I don't like multinationals. Why? I think its something to do with why I don't like salesmen. I don't like the grip they have on people.. SoAndSo company has substantial shares in ThisAndThat media group, who make the Daily News. Is it a coincidence that the DailyNews never has a bad story about SoAndSo? I also don't like it when a Multinational release a product that just does NOT work how its advertised, or they then go and release something 'slightly' better two weeks later..

Google don't really fit this mould (just yet..) there motto is 'Don't be Evil' and I still believe they have this ethos.. maybe in time the TRUE Google will come out, but as long as they don't release my search history to any Tom, Dick or Harry they will be good in my eyes!!!

26 July, 2006

The blogs working!!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my web host providers, who last night fixed two problems with my siteground hosted web pages..

MX records are now working, and my email for this domain is now being routed to gMails Hosted emails. Also Siteground Tech Support fixed the blog last night, and comments and actual blog posts are all working as they should!!

Thanks again Siteground

10 July, 2006

Aaaargh! Sorry…

So there I was about two weeks ago happily enjoying the World Cup.. Everything was great!! In fact I was on such a high, I decided to go and completely mess my blog up.

I started afresh.. New host .. New blog provider .. Why oh why???

25 May, 2006

The Future of this Blog

This blog was created back on April 03 2005, and back then the idea was to write a journal for when I was going travelling through NZ, Australia, Fiji and the USA. I had no idea what I was going to put within these hallowed pages! In fact I foresaw:
"Well this blog is gonna be showing you the highlights and downsides to travelling the english speaking world, as well as any of my rants about President Bliar and his New Labour crones... I'm gonna share my love of snowboarding with you. I'm also going to share with you my latest jokes.. strange but true happenings on the tinternet.. what books I have read.. which movies I have watched... what music have been listening to... what crap is on the TV this week.. and anything thing else that I can bother to share with you!"

It started off with little things about how the preperation was going.. Mostly the snowboarding prep for NZ.. A little note about my Girlfriend Zena.. something about my 30th Birthday .. but it soon started to be a little travel diary.

Thats whats it gonna continue as.. Jez Arnolds Traveling Experiences. Be they in the UK, or be they abroad in some fabulous city, or amongst the wilds of Africa.. Its just gonna be my travel blog. About me and Zena, and the wonderful things happening in our life (good n bad!)

Absolutley NO WORK or the boss may pull me up.. (unless I am leaving for pastures new!!) There may be a few bits on current affairs, nothing too boring though! I am sure you will all find it thrilling!! Let me know if you want anything different!

Anyway I am now back back and settled. My contact telephone number in the UK is +44 (0) 7970 869599 or email me.. if you don't know it, then leave me a comment! Look after yourselves!

23 July, 2005

Friends networks

Friendster, Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, Myspace, 43things .. does anybody join these friends networks?? stupid question really, when I am a member of four at the moment..



But why did I join?? I guess its because I am very interested in this connected world of ours. I have always tried to get into internet crazes, the so called "killer apps", early even if I never really use them to the full advantage. I joined Hotmail early on, along with a load of other free webmail accounts. I dont use my any of them anymore except for my gmail.. I joined ebay as well, but i have a user rating of 4! (even Zena has a higher user rating, and she joined years after me!! but she loves to shop...) I have listened to podcasts, and I am writing my travel journal online..



but friends networks?? the network with the most people I am connected to is Hi5, but you have a look at my friends friends and they all seem to be a lot younger.. Bebo is clever and reminds me of friends birthdays and people can put up pictures and online journal entrys.. but no-one really uses it anymore.. the last time I logged in (before a few minutes ago - its changed for the better) was before I came away. MySpace and 43things are two I have just joined. But I cant be bothered to send all my friends I have through Hi5 and Bebo, another request to join my friends network..



Apparently the best one to join is Orkut. Recently in the news because some Brazillians are using it to trade drugs online !! Its NOT the reason I want to join, its because its closely affiliated to Google, who seem to be getting most things right online at the moment. Trouble is you cant just join them. You have to be invited!!



Oh yeah, if you want to join me on my Friends networks then click on the following links for each one...  >> Hi5 - http://www.hi5.com/i?l=XNE35A8  >> Bebo - http://www.bebo.com/invite/4808936a5068489b  >> MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/22593992  >>  43things - http://www.43things.com/person/jezarnold  >> 



Also if you want a real good email account (much better than hotmail or yellowsnow email) let me know..



UPDATE 25 July 05 - Well here I was in the internet outpost the other day, just typing up my blogs and stuff, when I glanced over to what my neighbour was up to.. she was on ORKUT! she was this brazilian girl, I have never met before, but I asked her to invite me to ORKUT.. Sweet!! so if you have invites in your inbox from me for ORKUT go and check them out.. if Carlsberg designed Internet apps, then it would probably be the best in the world!!

05 May, 2005

Ipod 30Gb Photo

Jez_and_ipodThanks Kate!!!



I have been meaning to get an Ipod Photo for some time now, and when I found out Kate was gonna be in California for a coule of weeks before Mike, Roxy and her left for NZ I thought I would ask her for to get me an iPod 30Gb Photo, so that I can use it to take my music and also upload my photos when I am away with the camera that I am going to get..



Anyway it took a couple of weeks to arrive from the States, but yesterday it arrived.. Lovely Jubbly!!