The fate of WebOS has had people pondering since HP announced it was going to stop developing WebOS.  It has been suggested that HP should open source WebOS rather than just killing it.  It turns out that that is exactly what they are going to do.

Now this raises an interesting question, could WebOS be more open than Android?  Many of us know that you can download most of the Android source, and that you can build Android and put it on your phone, but it’s not a community driven project, indeed it seems to somewhat shun the community.
I seem to recall that when Richard Stallman came to Aberystwyth University, he said something like “Android is not open, but it’s the best we’ve got right now”.

I know a number of people who have rejected the iPhone and the Apple culture because it is extremely closed.  These people have promoted Android as the open alternative.
My question to these people who wanted the open option: When HP opens up WebOS, will you all be jumping ship to the truly open source mobile OS?

When we purchase a piece of Apple hardware or software, we must accept a EULA before we use it.  It’s pretty standard in the proprietary world to put measures in place to restrict a user’s use of the product.
I am pretty confident that hundreds of users click “accept” every day without reading such a license , let alone understanding it.

I have fallen in to this trap too, what “freedoms” am I signing away to Apple?  Over the next few weeks I’m going to sit down and read the EULA for Mac OS X Lion, iTunes, and iOS 5.  Am I really happy with signing these “freedoms” away?

The other week when I opened iTunes, it took me straight to the store, I’m not sure why it did that, but on the front page I caught a glimpse of Hugh Laurie’s new album.  Within ten minutes I had sampled the tracks, bought it, and sync’d it to my iPhone.

When I go food shopping, I have a list.  I know I want tomato sauce and I know Faye likes Heinz, when I come to the sauce aisle, I don’t have to sift through Asda Ketchup, Bransdon Ketchup, other brands alphabetically sorted, then find Heinz.  I just look and there it is, one Heinz bottle behind another Heinz bottle…
If I go to the book shop, more often than not I see books with their spine facing me, or if a book if front facing and has other books behind it, they are the same book.
Why then do record shops feel the need to display different albums behind each other, indeed different artists, and on occasion different genres?  It makes no sense!

Most recently I’ve bought music from iTunes.  Previously I’ve bought music on CD via Amazon.  Both of these services let me sample all/some of the tracks, and offer me more music that I might like.

There are obviously people who do like browsing through music, but I can see why record shops across the country are shutting down, they just can’t compete with online/electronic services when it comes to ease of use…

Computers were once large, unwieldily things, operated by a series of trained individuals.  Today, you have read this merely by punching a few keys (onscreen or physical) or clicking a link or two, everything from fetching the data on a disk, assembling it, processing it, sending it to you and assembling, processing, and displaying that has been done for you.

Computers have evolved to make jobs easy.  Once upon a time when your boss asked you to send a personalised letter out to a few hundred people, you would have had to have found each contact, copy the relevant details onto the letter, then the relevant details onto the envelope.  Today when your boss asks you to do this, technologies such as mail merge mean that you can point your letter and envelope templates at a bunch of addresses and have your computer churn out all of the details you need.
Why, then, do people still try and do this manually?  Why do people still manually search through electronic documents, one document at a time?  Why do people paste screenshots into Microsoft Word!?

I argue that some functions of a computer have become really simple, while other concepts are still quite obscure.  While someone might be able to piece together a simple mail merge using their address book, the thought of using the same principle to read details from a spreadsheet and input them into a word processing document just never crosses their mind.

This very situation has arisen before.  I was working in an office almost two years ago, the staff regularly used such things as mail merge for letters using the companies network address book.  They were migrating to a system where they needed a form filled out for every directory created (detailing access rights, when deletion was due, etc.), the problem was that they had already created a shed load of directories…The staff had started to catalog these by hand, getting somewhere between twenty to sixty forms done a day (they had other duties as well).  
For me, it took a day of messing about with some VBScript and I could list all of these directories in a text file.  I could import this text file into Excel using ” as a delimiter, this meant I could separate the path names as the form requested.  I found that it was very easy to see what group of directories had what attributes and found I could copy & paste an awful lot.  When finished, all of this was mail merged into the Word document which held the form.  After a day of downtime, I could now process eighty directories an hour.
OK, the VBScript was a little specialist, but no general user thinks of doing this kind of thing.

Users generally don’t even know what applications are there for.  Most people know that if you want to put a nail in a plank of wood, a hammer is the tool for the job, not a kettle.  Sure the kettle is hard and has a handy handle, but that’s not what it’s for.
The word processor is so often misused.  Many people seem to use their word processing application as a place to paste that image they just copied (or screen grabbed), they then send this document to other people using email.  At school we were encouraged to use Microsoft Word to create a poster, this was supposed to be both fun and educational of which is was neither.  Word doesn’t lend itself to creating posters, alignment of images, text boxes, and the like go squiffy when you decide to rearrange another element. 
Though other members of the Microsoft Office suite are also abused.  Excel is used to standardise the input of information, and PowerPoint has been known to create ‘screen savers’.

While it is easier than ever to write a letter, few people know how to write one, those who do will use a word processor and completely ignore the fact that for the last however many years they have placed the receiver’s address in the top left corner and the sender’s address in the top right, instead we get a mishmash of one address below the other on different sides of the page, or a complex arrangement of spaces and tabs, which gets completely thrown when you change the margin sizes…
I can’t recall the number of times I’ve been sent a document and found that when the author wanted to break to the next page they have held their finger on the ‘return’ key until the cursor jumps to the next page, without a thought that perhaps the software might do this for them, forgoing them the hassle of removing the extra empty lines when the add more text later on and find the page blow suddenly starts halfway down the page.
Headings are another one, people want something large and bold, so naturally they set the font size to around 18 and make it bold, they then moan that after writing 20,000 words for their report that all the headings are slightly different.  If they had used the various headings (you know, the ones generally found in the top left of your word processor), then all the headings would be the same, and could be changed in one fell swoop by adjusting the documents styles.

Email is still used to transfer important files around an organisation.  Despite the fact that email wasn’t developed to transfer files, it is a terrible waste of resources, with each recipient holding their own copy of the file.

It is so easy to shove a mouse around a desk that people are no longer taught how to use the tools placed in front of them, and these same people don’t seem capable of using two of the worlds biggest resources available to them: The Internet and Google.  If you don’t know how to do something it’s bound to be explained on the internet…

Thankfully computing is now heading in the right direction.  Our smart phones and online services do even more for us than our computers do, they organise us and our data – be that photos, music, emails, etc.  People don’t have to worry so much what format their data is in.  Especially in the new wave of smart phones and tablets, we are finding new and intuitive ways to achieve tasks.
These ‘post PC’ devices are generally managed from a PC but after reading an article in issue 90 of the iCreate magazine, a reader had written in and said that they had used their iPad for six months (since last summer) and had not plugged it into their computer, this shows us that people are using these as standalone devices connected to other devices through the Internet.  The iPad or online service was organising photos, music, email, RSS feeds, etc. The user just had to get on and use it.

A new wave of computing is upon us and I hope it strips the complexity from tasks, rather than stripping away the functionality altogether.

While one can’t deny that this is a good thing in terms of openness, Chrome still supports Adobe Flash, and many websites offer H.264 encoded media over WebM encoded media.  Microsoft IE and Apple Safari don’t support WebM, while Mozilla Firefox and Opera support both H.264 and WebM.

It got me wondering, will Google strip out MP3 support from Android devices?  MP3 is also encumbered with patents and requires licensing (thought that could change in the future).  Will Google persuade users to re-encode their music libraries into Vorbis?  Or perhaps into WebM?

I started to think about what it would be like if I had found myself left on a deserted island five years ago (2005), what sort of technology would I have missed?

To set the scene somewhat, in late 2005 I was a second year Sixth Form student studying for an AVCE in ICT, an A-Level in Music Technology, and an AS-Level in Economics.
I had recently built my first computer, a Pentium 4 with a whole 1GB of RAM and a Club 3D GF7300GS graphics card, my mobile was a Sendo S230 and was rarely used.  I was being educated using the Microsoft environment, Windows XP, Office, Visual Studio, with some Adobe CS2 stuff too.  I was using a mixture of old System 8 Macs and newer eMacs running OS 10.3 in the recording studio.

Sendo S230 - My first phone

Back in 2005 Apple was still using PowerPC processors, was selling OS 10.4, Tiger, and was enjoying the boom of the iPod in the forms of the Classic, and the newly introduced Shuffle and Nano (which replaced the Mini).  Microsoft was still plugging Windows XP, Office 2003, and Internet Explorer 6.  Flash was still a part of Macromedia and Adobe had nothing to do with it.  Mobile phones were getting polyphonic ringtones and flashy colour screens, but were still quite primitive.

Had I gone missing around November 2005 and been found a week ago, I may be sitting here now wondering why all of my friends had deserted MySpace, or why the Dennis forums didn’t work the same as they once had.  Using my old Sendo S230 I might finally find that friends were now on this site called Facebook, a site made for all sorts of social interactions from leaving private and public messages and instant messaging, to playing games and sharing photos.  Of course I may still be getting used to this iPhone that has been placed in my hand, baring in mind my old Sendo had basic functionality (phone, text, simple games, stop watch, etc) and that I would have been removed from similar technology for five years, an iPhone would have been a wonderful and surprising leap.
Looking across someones shoulder I might see a stylish board which gains input through the screen, this device would have been an iPad or some Android clone, had I seen this device before a new laptop I would probably run to the window to see if people were riding flying cars thinking “Just how much has technology advanced?”.

I would have completely skipped Windows Vista and might have been quite happy to sit down at a Windows 7 box, Windows 7 might even be running on a Mac, what the hell would I think then!?  Just a few months after I had disappeared Apple would announce a transition to Intel’s CPUs allowing users to run Windows.
Back in 2005 CRT monitors still dominated most of where I looked, today I can’t say when I last saw a CRT monitor in use, it might have been back when I worked at Sun…

Today mobile technology is so much more advanced, just look at smart phone hardware and software today, 1GHz chips and hundreds of megabytes of memory.  Five years ago those sort of specs wouldn’t have been terrible in an office desktop…
My iPhone has 16GB of storage space, compare that to my old Sony Ericsson which had a measly 256MB.

Granted the last five years hasn’t been the most exciting with regards to technology, but I think many people are happy with the progress.  Multi-core chips and more advanced operating systems help people work faster every day, mobile phones now manage our emails, calendars, and provide us with relatively powerful computing power on-the-go.
The next five years could see everything doubling or more in power again, I think we might see more tablets come into use, though they may be a fad…No one knows!

Coming to Aberystwyth back in 2006, I recall moving into my house in PJM (91, room C) with my family, Mum fussing about unpacking everything in my room, and my sister shoving all of my kitchen stuff in my cupboard (I never knew exactly what I had in that cupboard until I moved out the following summer).  I recall them leaving and being terrified to go downstairs, when I had plucked up the courage to go downstairs to meet my new housemates I was greeted by a friendly face offering me a cup of tea.  This friendly face was, of course, Faye’s and we spent many hours sitting in that kitchen drinking tea.
The year went on and I met new people, learnt new things, and had some wonderful times.  Perhaps most memorable is the ‘snow day’ in late February 2007, the revision sessions with seven of us crammed into my PJM room and generally ended up with Street Fighter being played on my SNES, and the long summer days playing frisbee on the University grounds.

After a long summer working, second year was upon me.  New lessons to be learnt, both in University (computer architecture, network programming, data structures and more) and in life (managing bills and other household issues).  Shortly into my second year Faye and I started going out, meaning we’ve been together just over two and a half years as I write this.
The second year saw me get an interview with Sun Microsystems and after an exam in January 2008, I was offered the job.  Revisions sessions got bigger and moved to lecture halls with projectors and elaborate slide shows.
The most memorable events of second year has to include mine and Faye’s “one month anniversary” dinner (after spending all day working, we were just about to get ready to go out when a friend knocked on the door and had us talking for three hours.  After getting ready and finding a restaurant that was still serving, we managed to order lots of tapas, but they refused to make us paella), and going to see Bill Bailey perform Tinselworm in Birmingham.

As soon as second year finished, I was plunged into yet new situations.  Moving from Aberystwyth to Camberley, I started work at Sun Microsystems.  Rather than go into any sort of detail here, I’ll direct you to my various postings of which there was one a week detailing what I was up to in Sun.
Sun gave me a lot of new skills, and made me realise what I was interested in and that what I learnt at University might actually not be much use in the big wide world…
I loved being at Sun, everything about working, and working for a company that did what I wanted to do, and in a way in which I wanted to do it.  I hope that I have a similar employer in the future.

After spending the summer working for the MOD, I entered my final year of University.  It was difficult to get back into lectures, and I found coursework terribly difficult to get on with.  I was constantly pining to be back at Sun, back at my desk in GMP03 collecting tickets, tinkering with servers, and having a chat and a laught with the great people around me.
Of course, I had to go on.  The first semester didn’t hold much for me, apart from an overly crowded timetable.  After a terrible Christmas, I was back to do terribly in my exams (all passes, but not great ones).
Semester two came and went.  It was filled with loathing for my degree and a want to break out of the formalities and just learn things that would be relevant to me.

So would I do it again?  If I knew then what I do now, well, I wouldn’t do a computer science degree would I?  I’d already know it all
Seriously, University itself hasn’t always been a happy experience, and of late it’s been the cause of much anger.  But the people I have met and the relationships I have gained have been so great, how could I turn that down?

So, after four years, it comes to a rather awkward end: I’m still here in Aberystwyth, I will be for the next 24-30 months as Faye finishes her masters in fine art.  I am looking for work, hopefully something IT based, but I’ve just got to pay the bills.
If you are thinking of coming to Aberystwyth University, I’d advise that you have made the correct choice.  If you want to email me about it, I’d be happy to answer your email, and if you have an interest in anything you see on my blog or on my website, I would be thrilled to meet up and share a quiet pint chatting about it with you!  Drop me a line to arrange a time.

If you know me and are reading this, now, in six months time, or six years time, send me an email and say hi, I’d love to hear from you too

I spent Sunday in London too, walking around shops and generally seeing the London sites. I still marvel at the London Underground, I think it is an awesome service, I love it!
I’m also marvelling at the state of modern technology. I love that I can hook my phone up to my laptop for internet use, which is what I’m doing at the moment, whinging my way down some train tracks out of London Paddington while writing this blog post. I think its brilliant!

Anyhoo, off home to Melksham now. Will be seeing family and friends for the next week or so, as well as trying to tidy my dissertation code.

First up, I’d like to say that the lack of an SD card reader really doesn’t bug me. All my photos are stored in iPhoto, I transfer them there via a cable from my camera. And this is, perhaps, one of the reasons why people seem to hate the fact there is no viable file system on the iPad. Windows users are used to dragging files around, Mac users (with the introduction to iLife) have enjoyed the magic of self-organised photos, movies and music. Windows users have applications available to them, but many don’t see to use them, Mac users seem to like the increased productivity iPhoto and iTunes gives them.
I believe in a number of years, all these files will be gone. File space and network speeds will mean that compression is no longer needed, so people will only have to concern themselves with Photos, Documents, Music, Spreadsheets, Movies, etc…Apple know that the desktop isn’t ready yet, but the mobile platforms of today are.
Having said all of that, Apple have created an accessory for connecting a camera via USB or by using a SD card.

The lack of Flash doesn’t worry me either. I visit very few sites that require Flash to get the most out of the site. Most Flash on the web seems to drive adverts. It’s a shame that Flash games won’t run, but I tend not to play games that often…
Flash videos can go, with the introduction of H.264, YouTube doesn’t need Flash and neither does a number of other sites offering video streaming.

iPad. I guess it could conjure the image of an Apple branded nappy:

However, I feel the name has slightly more technical and historical background.
In the late 1980′s Xerox PARC’s Mark Weiser coined the phrase “ubiquitous computer”, a term to mean “computing all around us”. He believed that we were entering a new era in computing. We’d had the mainframes (one computer to many people), we’d had desktops (one computer to one person), but now we were entering the ubiquitous era, with many small (perhaps task specific) computers serving many people in everyday life.
PARC created three devices in the early-mid 1990′s, the tab, the pad and the board.
The tab, a small palm device that ran applications on a server and the GUI on the device, it encouraged computing on the go and had the vision of always being connected to the network.
The board, similar to an interactive whiteboard today, allowing many people to interact with it both over the network and physically.
The pad, a smaller more personal board, one could use a tab to drive a board. Pads ran on workstations with forwarded graphics.
Today’s iPad, in my mind, fulfils pretty much what the Xerox PARC Pad tried to accomplish almost two decades ago. The iPhone/iPod Touch is similar to the tab.

The iPad’s hardware is something to marvle at. Whatever Apple have in there it’s super power efficient as Apple claim the iPad will last for ten hours on a single battery charge, and it all squeezes into an incredibly thin package.
The tablet is powered by a 1GHz Apple A4 chip. The A4 chip is a CPU and GPU all on one chip. I’m guessing the added bonus of having this combination is perhaps less power consumption and added room in a cramped space. I can see the next-gen iPhone having an Apple chip. The A4 drives all of the applications and the 9.7″ screen which runs at a 1024×768 resolution.
The three capacities given are 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, each costs $100 more than the previous.
Apart from that, I think it will be interesting to see the first break-apart.

Pricing isn’t too bad. The 16GB model is $499 as of 31/1/10 that’s £312.79! Perhaps Apple will up this to £350, though I fancy that they’ll charge around £400 for it.

I’d like to see how the iPad is recieved when it is released. I’m also looking forward to seeing the second and third generation iPads.