http://homepage.mac.com/symonc http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss symonc@mac.com © Symon Chalk Wed, 26 Oct 2005 10:13:16 +0100 Wed, 26 Oct 2005 10:13:19 +0100 iBlog 1.4.5 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C1919889289/E20050920235606/index.html Turn off the review mode so that you don't get the shot you've just taken displayed immediately afterwards.

Yes, I know it sounds odd but think of it this way - taking pictures is all about composition; it's all about making sure that you get the best possible framing of a scene. Things like exposure are secondary, firstly because we can manipulate them after-the-fact, and, secondly, because bracketing gives us the ability to make several "guesses".

When I got my DSLR (a Pentax *ist D, if you're interested to know) the first thing I did was turn off the review mode because my experiences had taught me that I took better pictures when I concentrated on composition, on focusing (in both senses of the word) on the scene in front of me rather than checking the histogram after every shot. The most frustrating experiences I had as a photographer were, shortly after switching to digital, carefully checking the review only to find that the great picture I thought I'd taken wasn't there. In fact it was, a lot of the time, but the general poor quality of the screen, combined with poor visibility (trying to view a camera back LCD in bright daylight is no fun) meant that I thought I'd missed the shot I was after. What actually happened was that I had the shot in the bag (which I would later find out) and all of my messing around with the review meant that I'd missed "the" shot that inevitably appeared seconds later.

So, in short, turn off review mode and stick to taking pictures using the viewfinder as your guide. If you need to check exposure, do it after you've captured the moment.  ]]> Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:56:06 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C1919889289/E20050920235606/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1087726630/index.html One of the things that I'm sick and tired of hearing about is the concept of choice as seen by companies like Real Networks and Microsoft. Both of these companies have used the term choice when referring to their product offerings in the realm of digital music. More importantly both companies have used these terms to try and create the impression that Apple, with its iPod, iTunes and iTunes Music Store products, gives you no choice, whereas they do. Let's correct some of the myths here.

There is a choice in the digital music market, but it's a very narrow one. You have the choice of buying a digital music player from a number of manufacturers, but behind that choice you are limited to the encoding and DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies that the manufacturer has chosen to adopt. This immediately constrains your initial choice. You can buy a music player from Rio or Creative or Dell, but the encoding and DRM for all these products is the same. What this means then is that the choice of music player must be made with an understanding of the underlying technologies that allow you to save ripped or downloaded music. So with this in mind let's look at the market and the real choice that exists.

Microsoft Windows Media - most players will happily work with Windows Media Audio (WMA) encoded audio files, including those ripped from CDs or downloaded from online stores. There are notable exceptions, but the majority of manufacturers who are making only hardware are using the Microsoft Windows Media system.

Real Networks Rhapsody - a smaller number of players work with the Rhapsody technology offered by Real Networks. In a lot of cases such players also support Microsoft Windows Media, but the number of products in either category (Rhapsody only or Rhapsody/WMA) is much smaller than pure WMA devices.

Sony Connect/ATRAC - this is a totally proprietary system that, until recently, didn't even support MP3 files. Sony manufacture the only Connect/ATRAC devices and are the only company (thus far) to offer downloads in this format from their online music store.

Apple iPod/iTunes - this, like Sony's offering, is another totally proprietary system. Apple is the only iPod manufacturer and is the only company (again, thus far) to offer downloads in its proprietary iTunes Music Store format.

Others - there are several other players in this field, each offering its own proprietary encoding and DRM format and, usually, a specific device (or in rare cases, a handful of devices) that work with that technology.

Okay, so with that out of the way what choice do we really have, it's simple: Microsoft Windows Media, Real Networks Rhapsody, Sony Connect/ATRAC, Apple iPod/iTunes and the odd other device and proprietary format. So our choice is actually a lot more limited than both Microsoft and Real Networks have implied. So what do they mean by choice?

Both Microsoft and Real Networks (and Sony and most of the so-called independent hardware manufacturers) have claimed that they offer choice whereas Apple do not. This is wrong. It is misleading. Worse yet, it is deliberately misleading to the point where consumers (the buying public like you and me) are confused by what everyone means when they say choice. It is misleading because the choice isn't one of multiple devices (which does exist) but one of a smaller offering of devices for a specific encoding and DRM technology.

In the case of Real Networks the number of compatible devices is small, but still larger than the number of devices offered by either Apple or Sony (this may not truly be the case as Sony offers a large number of devices, but they make all of them - you get no choice of device manufacturer). In the case of Microsoft Windows Media the number of compatible devices, as is to be expected, is much higher. Apple only offer iPods and Sony only offer their ATRAC devices. So in this light, both Microsoft and Real Networks offer greater choice of hardware. However, the hardware is still constrained to their encoding and DRM technology and, importantly, only works with Microsoft Windows. Sony also only supports Microsoft Windows. Apple supports both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

So you have a choice of music player, big deal. Well, yes, it is a big deal. You see the choice here is that you, the consumer, can choose to buy pretty much any device you want, but when you make that choice you are also choosing (sometimes unknowingly) to adopt a specific encoding and DRM technology and all the baggage that goes with this. If you buy a device from Creative or Dell or Virgin you are choosing (again perhaps unknowingly) to adopt the Microsoft Windows Media technologies. If you buy a Sony ATRAC device you are adopting their encoding and DRM. If you buy an Apple iPod you are choosing iTunes, the iTunes Music Store and AAC/FairPlay (AAC is the encoding format, which is actually a bona fide standard, being part of the MPEG-4 standard, as opposed to an industry standard like Windows Media. FairPlay is the name of Apple's totally proprietary DRM technology).

So now we can see that our choice is actually not as wide as is made out. When we go out and buy a player we are potentially choosing something that we may not want, the encoding and DRM baggage. This is why Microsoft and Real Networks are being misleading by saying that they offer more choice (or any choice) whereas Apple does not. They offer one part of a choice - the encoding and DRM technology. Their hardware partners offer slightly greater choice - the various music players they manufacture. The fact remains though that once you've chosen a player you've chosen the encoding and DRM that goes with it, and the choice in that market is very small indeed.

Footnote: pretty much all the music players in the market today allow you to play MP3 files, the most common format for music ripped from CDs (and downloaded from peer-to-peer services, but let's not open that can of worms today). The most notable exception to this was Sony with its ATRAC devices, but they've now rectified this mistake. That pretty much every player on the market can play MP3 files is important because it undermines to a great extent the untruths that both Microsoft and Real Networks have bandied around concerning the iPod. The iPod can play MP3 files (as well as vanilla AAC and Apple's AAC/FairPlay files), which is a level of choice that Microsoft and Real Networks happily gloss over.

--

Disclosure: I own an iPod, which I've owned for about 2 years. I bought it because at the time it was the only decent player on the market. It's coming due for replacement (the battery is down to about two-to-three hours and the headphone socket is loose, causing intermittent connection). I will be buying another iPod to replace it. Why? Simply because the iPod remains, in my eyes, the best made device out there. Not only that but, despite all their bluster about choice, neither Microsoft or Real Networks (or Sony or any of the others) support the Macintosh and I use a Macintosh as my personal computer (I also use Windows, but mainly for my work). So for all their brave words neither Microsoft or Real Networks offer me, or any other non-Windows user, any choice whatsoever... ]]> Tue, 19 Oct 2004 13:57:12 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1087726630/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E2115199212/index.html If there's one topic most likely to get developers all frothy at the mouth it's a discussion about tools (no, not the DIY kind - I mean software development tools; IDEs and the like). Development tools are a very personal thing for coders, very much like the choice of tools for a carpenter or plumber.

I have very distinct requirements for the tools I use, which I know not every coder will share. This is why I'm getting so worked up at the moment having just moved to Java development from a long (~two years) stint of doing C# work. The majority of my C# work has been undertaken in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and now that I'm not using it, boy do I miss it. I know that a lot of coders dislike the Microsoft development tools, but I've come to feel at home using them (after turning off all the annoying, intrusive gimmicks) and now anything else feels poorly thought-out and, in many cases, a poor imitation of the Microsoft IDE.

Now I've moved over to Java for my current project I'm still reeling from the poor quality of the tools available. Actually, that last comment is a bit inflammatory - the tools aren't poor quality (certainly that's not the case with both Eclipse and NetBeans, both of which I've evaluated recently) it's just that they don't cater to my exacting requirements, which, after all, have been refined over the years using Microsoft tools.

Quick sideline: I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, I just feel that they've put a lot of thought into their development tools (which are easily the best products they put out there). Mind you, since Mono was released I've been using that under OS X more and more...

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I've been seriously unimpressed with the Java IDEs, partially because the way they work is a bit alien to me (I cannot for the life of me get my head around projects in NetBeans and I've all but given up trying to get the refactoring plug-ins for Eclipse to stay plugged in). My other big gripe is that most of the IDEs are written in Java and, frankly, they're not the good advertisements for desktop Java applications that they should be (a notable exception here is Eclipse, which really shows off the SWT to good effect). I had a play with using Visual Studio to do my coding in but, although it supports Java syntax highlighting it doesn't build and I couldn't get Ant working with it (it's probably very easy but I just haven't had time). So now I've switched all of my Java coding onto the Mac., using Xcode. The reasons for this are quite simple: I've reasonably familiar with Xcode having used it for Objective-C/Cocoa projects, it supports Java editing and building and, best of all, it isn't a Java application so it's nice and responsive... ]]> Wed, 08 Sep 2004 12:38:20 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E2115199212/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E2031731419/index.html I can't believe that it's been almost two months since my last post. I was sure it was only a week or two ago... This is the problem with summer, everything happens so fast. While I enjoy the sunshine (when we have some here in the UK) it's not my favourite time of year. Personally I prefer the autumn and winter. There's nothing quite like stepping into a nice warm home (especially given that we tend to keep the log burner going all winter long - saves the central heating bill somewhat) when the weather outside is chilly. The days in autumn and winter seem to last longer and I typically feel more awake and alert (instead of sleepy and lethargic from the heat).

Putting seasonal preference to one side, it has been a busy two months. My current project has taken a turn for the better... and for the worse in some respects. For the last several months I've been working on a control system (an industrial-type application) using C# (the client-side is all Windows & .NET with the back-end being Linux & Mono). Due to some problems with the micro-controller we had been using we've now switched to Java (the turn for the worse), but the good news is that we now have a cross-platform application (yes, yes, Mono is cross-platform but the GUI handling still needs to mature - for its faults Swing is fairly mature and supported on pretty much all the platforms that Java runs on) and a scaleable roadmap for the on-going development of the system.

Now I don't really have anything against Java, except that it feels immature compared to C#, which is ironic given that C# is the young upstart of the two. Things like auto-boxing are now being added to Java, but only as a result of them first appearing in C# and becoming killer features. Although important, things like auto-boxing aren't my primary reason for disliking Java. I find some of the missing language features (like enums and stack-allocated structs) to be no-brainers and iteration without foreach is just painful (why so much code to achieve so little). I also really, really miss attributes, especially when coding JavaBeans (I confess to being lazy and not bothering with BeanInfo simply because it is, at the end of the day, redundant code). I think, however, that my biggest dislike is the Java event handling mechanism. Compared to the simplicity of event delegates in C# the Java version is cumbersome, requiring a lot of code to achieve very little. When I first looked at Java, many moons ago, I thought the whole inner classes thing was neat - it was certainly better than the C/C++ alternatives (event handlers, bah! we don't need event handlers, we have callbacks). Now it looks just as clumsy as the Heath-Robinson affairs bolted onto C/C++ applications to achieve the same ends.

Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll actually keep up with posting this time round. You never know I might even get around to posting the pictures from my holiday that I promised way back in June! ]]> Mon, 06 Sep 2004 16:35:08 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E2031731419/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1112843796/index.html Check it out here.

I scored 39.44773%, making me a "Major Geek". No comment. ]]> Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:33:04 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1112843796/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E114367643/index.html Back when space exploration was a big deal (late '70s and early '80s) the world was recovering from a seemingly endless progression of wars and violence that had been part of the twentieth century since it had begun: the Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Falklands - not to forget the ongoing African, Asian, Middle East and South American conflicts.

As a child growing up during this time I saw the world as largely peaceful, as our former aggression turned to competition in leading the race in science and exploration - especially space exploration. Okay so this was the view of a child with little understanding of the world, its religions and politics, but it was a view that was encouraged by the state of the world at that time.

Now I'm a father I've started looking around the world and despairing at the general state of things (more wars on more continents than I'd even heard of as a child; terrible crimes, greed and violence). I don't particularly want my children growing up with Al Qaeda, Enron, Iraq, Ian Huntley/Maxine Carr and September 11th as formative memories. I really want my children to retain their innocence and sense of wonder, as I was lucky enough to do so, rather than develop cynicism and apathy.

Perhaps then events such as the recent SpaceShipOne flight, the continuing Ansari X challenge and China's emergence as a space exploring nation will rekindle the competition that we seem to need in order to evolve as a species. I, for one, really hope so... ]]> Fri, 02 Jul 2004 15:54:11 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E114367643/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1754991943/index.html If you want to see what the future of computing will be like you need to check out the Croquet Project. I'm not going to go into too much detail about it here, mainly because the web site covers off everything you could possibly want to know and then some...

What I will say is that you really ought to check this out as Alan Kay, one of the principal figures behind the project, is well-known as both a visionary and a prophet in the computer industry; think Smalltalk, (object-oriented programming), the Dynabook (laptops), GUIs (Xerox Star & Alto), the list goes on and on... ]]> Thu, 01 Jul 2004 17:21:02 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1754991943/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1565028963/index.html Here is an excellent posting by John Gruber on the whole Dashboard/Konfabulator kerfuffle (if you don't know what any of this means, don't worry, it's really nothing very important). I completely agree with the points that John raises, unsurprising really given that they echo some recent thoughts of mine on the subject:

"Now think about this situation from the point of view of a big software company like Microsoft. They could come up with the same idea as a small ISV but take a year longer to get it to market (because of internal resource issues, testing, marketing, etc.) When they do finally bring the product to market it's likely to be better polished than the ISV offering, purely because the ISV has very limited resources and a need to get their product to market so it can make them some money - Microsoft doesn't have these same pressures (sure it has some of them, but not all of them and not of the same intensity that a small ISV will experience). When Microsoft does finally launch their version of application X what is the reaction? Most people will simply dismiss it as Microsoft being plagiarists or Microsoft muscling in on someone else's market. The simple fact is, however, that two companies had the same idea and both decided to develop it." ]]> Thu, 01 Jul 2004 15:36:22 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1565028963/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C1707202625/E716396543/index.html Mono has finally gone 1.0! Now I just have to wait for the OS X installer packager to appear... ]]> Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:42:41 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C1707202625/E716396543/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1911561967/index.html Okay, this is impressive: Apple has released its implementation of IETF ZeroConf networking for not just Window, but Linux/Solaris/FreeBSD and Java too. I've been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time now... ]]> Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:39:59 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1911561967/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1615588077/index.html So I started work this morning the same as I pretty much always do: make some coffee, log in, check my email, etc., etc. My inbox, as usual, contained an assortment of junk (some always seems to bypass the Mail.app scanner), the odd newsletter (from those heathens who haven't heard of RSS) and the various detritus that comes from running a business (and personal life) predominantly online.

After sorting through the stuff I could deal with immediately (I'm a follower of David Allen's GTD, thanks to a post by Scoble) I started looking through the other mail. It was then that I noticed a message from someone at Near-Time - the company whose product, Flow, was the reason behind the original "worst nightmare" post. At first, being totally honest here, I was slightly annoyed at yet another email from these guys. You see I'd downloaded a copy of Flow on Monday, as Near-Time had just released it, but run into some problems with the registration. Someone at Near-Time had picked up on this (without me contacting them - impressive!) and mailed me to say that they'd fixed the problem (doubly impressive!). On Tuesday I'd successfully registered and received my confirmation message - job done. So why was I getting another email from them now?

I read the mail:

"From: Scott Hoffman

Symon,

I am contacting you regarding Flow and a Blog you posted on April, 22nd. I wanted to send this email earlier but waited until we released the product."

Uh-oh, this didn't look good. In fact it was starting to look like the kind of thing that makes solicitors (lawyers) very happy. I read on...

"First let me apologize for the issue you encountered during registration, we overlooked a test on zip code registration but I believe we have resolved it."

Huh? Where did that come from? How many people about to threaten legal action (or the legal Horseman of the Apocalypse: a Cease and Desist demand) comment on a technical issue? Intrigued, I read on some more...

"Second I wanted to send a complimentary full use registration code for Flow to you. I hope you will find Flow to be a powerful application for your use.

Please contact me when you have a moment to discuss your experience and thoughts on the application. You can send a Flow message to me with the ID provided or use email or iChat."

Wow! This just blew me away (so much so that I had to ring my wife to tell her). Firstly this was confirmation that someone actually read my 'blog. Secondly, here was a total stranger spelling my name correctly! Hell, even people who I've known for years trip up when they're IM'ing or emailing me (and let's not even get into texting, you'd just be amazed how many variants of my name there can be). Thirdly I was being given a $99.95 registration code purely because I'd 'blogged about this company and its product.

Later in the day I IM'd Scott to chat with him:

Me: "hi, hope i'm not disturbing you?"

Scott: "not at all, how are you"

Me: "fine thank you, yourself?"

Scott: "i am great, i am at the WWDC in SF"

Wow (again)! The guy was taking the time to chat with me while at the WWDC - if I'd been at the WWDC I'd have blown off Kirsten Dunst trying to ask me out on a date (maybe not, but as it's unlikely to ever happen it makes for a good comparison) - and he was polite (something I ought to 'blog about someday, we Brits are meant to be the polite ones in the world but that just isn't true in my experience, just witness my comment above about being at the WWDC...) Anyway, the conversation went on with me thanking Scott and Near-Time for their generosity (and not trying to sue me or anything) and Scott thanking me for 'blogging about them and Flow.

The upshot of all this? There are some damn nice people in the world and some of them work for damn nice companies. Oh, yeah, there's something about the power of social networks, 'blogging, good publicity, yada yada yada... I'll let someone else go into details about all that, I'm still all excited that someone actually reads my 'blog... ]]> Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:53:00 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C726664642/E1615588077/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1004488878/index.html I've just this evening finished reading the latest Stephen Kind Dark Tower book (Volume V - Wolves of the Calla) and got to the afterword where Stephen King mentioned that this guy called Frank Muller had been injured in a motorbike accident and that he and some other top-row authors had set up a fund to help. Stories like this are, sadly, a dime a dozen (to borrow the US expression) and normally I'd be sympathetic but unlikely to pursue the matter, however in this case the name Frank Muller was familiar so I wanted to find out some more.

In the afterword of Wolves of Calla Stephen King mentioned that Frank Muller had done a lot of audio recordings of his books, it was then that it struck me - I was listening to a Frank Muller recital of The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. I'd also heard recordings he'd done of other Stephen King books. Determined to confirm this I went to Audible and, sure enough, a search on Frank Muller's name pulled up a list of books, many that'd I've already listened to and others that I'd put on my wish list. I then noticed a recording called The Wavedancer Benefit, which was an evening of recitals by famous authors (King and Grisham, amongst others) in aid of the Wavedancer fund - I've now bought this recording (the first full price recording I've bought from Audible) in order to make a contribution, albeit a small one, to the recovery of a talented artist who I hope, in the future, will be able to delight again with his excellent recitals. ]]> Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:41:07 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1004488878/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1453521070/index.html My finances are about to take a turn for the worse - Apple has released the iTunes Music Store in the UK!

Okay so it's been a long time coming and there are some issues with the independent labels having not signed on (who's willing to bet that the "example of a monopolistic American company trying to dictate terms" is more like Apple trying not to get taken to the cleaners by cut-throat wannabe record labels with a puffed-up sense of self-importance) but I'd be very surprised if these factors have the affect everyone keeps saying they will (keep in mind that the US iTMS had similar issues when it started but they've pretty much all been overcome now).

Since everyone else seems so found of making predictions about the imminent death of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store I've decided to add my own totally unfounded prediction (I've deliberately steered clear of including any facts so as to not taint this prediction with any element of reality, thus keeping it inline with the majority of other iPod/Music Store opinion currently touted in the popular press). Anywhere, here's my prediction: the European iTunes operations will out-sell all existing European download services (the entire OD2 cadre, Napster, etc.) within a month of being online. ]]> Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:10:10 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1453521070/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E838931966/index.html I've just come back from a week away in Dorset and already I'm missing it. Even though we were camping (although we weren't exactly slumming it as we borrowed Caroline's parent's trailer tent, which includes a fridge and microwave) and the facilities were much more basic than at home it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience that, in hindsight, I didn't really want to end. Now some of this feeling could be "grass is greener" syndrome, but I suspect it's a bit more than that. I think that the reason we all enjoy our holidays so much, regardless of what we do and where we go, is because of how much simpler our lives become all of a sudden.

Look at it this way: at home you worry about getting to work on time and the work you've got to do. At work you worry about getting home on time and the housework you've got to do. When you go out you worry about being home too late and having to get up early the next morning. When the post comes you worry about bills and when payday rolls around you worry about your spending. Basically you spend roughly 50-60% of your life worrying about something.

Now look at going on holiday: no money worries - it'll get sorted when you get home. No work worries; no housework worries (okay, maybe there is some housework but you tend not to worry about it and just get on and do it). Life is altogether simpler and slower - you relax, you leave things to take care of themselves.

The upshot of all of this is that I've promised myself I'm going to adopt a more holiday-like approach at home and work. Rather than worry about everything I'm just going to carry on, content in the knowledge that whenever I go away I end up doing all the things I need to do I just don't worry about them anywhere near as much... ]]> Mon, 14 Jun 2004 21:12:00 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E838931966/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1479164349/index.html This makes me think of V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from Disney's The Black Hole... ]]> Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:22:05 +0100 http://homepage.mac.com/symonc/C2126641663/E1479164349/index.html