The Curse of the Drinking Classes

Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

2010-02-19T18:07:00.003+11:00

I've just replied to an upset customer who, although he comes from that rather snotty school of digital self-righteousness, made a number of valid points about the service we'd provided him. Which is frustrating, because I'd like to be able to help him.

You see, I have the unfortunate job of getting in-between content producers and their digital customers. It's my task to give effect to the requirements and restrictions that producers demand, some of which would lead you to question if they really know what the Internet is or how it works. That, of course, only includes the producers willing to negotiate online rights for their content - a whole lot more would like to pretend the Internet doesn't exist at all (and that their content isn't already being distributed on it whether they like it or not).

Having said that, most of their requirements are perfectly reasonable - mostly, they'd just like not to be ripped off. If no-one pays them to make content then they won't - they'll find something else to do for a living and all we'll have left to watch is YouTube. Shudder.

On the other side are the customers, who'd like to be able to find the content they want, get it as quickly as possible and just play it. Mostly, they don't mind paying a reasonable amount for it.

In between is me, and the various processes I have to go through to secure digital content to meet producer requirements. It's quite involved, let me assure you. One content provider made me answer a twelve-page questionnaire about my production processes the tone of which suggested it had been drafted by Joe McCarthy.

Meanwhile the more I do to protect the content, the harder I have to work to keep the acquisition process painless for customers. Obviously my earlier correspondent doesn't think I'm there yet and he'd be right. Closer than he'd like to admit (for a start, just use a proper browser like the other 90-odd percent of us) and closer than most of my competitors, but not close enough.

In the meantime, my correspondent took the time to taunt me with the relative ease with which he could have acquired the content from some torrent site or other. Of course, that degree of user-friendliness is easy to achieve when you can ignore the interests of producers and you're not accountable to the people who view your content (quite aside from the appalling compression quality, where's the metadata telling you what each episode is even called?).

But in the end the customer is always right (regardless of how gratuitously they use the F-word) and producers have to make a living. So as usual, it will be technology (some of it not at its best lately, Microsoft) that has to bridge the gap. I'm looking forward to a major upgrade of my download application in the next few weeks which, while not appearing to do much more than the current one, represents quite a leap in terms of the technology under the hood and finally addresses most of the unavoidable (albeit minor) snarls in the acquisition process. At least until the next time some hacker forces a hasty patch or a new OS or browser version is released to break it again.

So what's my point then, other than a bit of a rant? Well, when I do my job well, no-one should even know I've done anything because everything should happen exactly the way they expected. I won't get any emails telling me how great my work is, but then I won't get emails with so many F-words in them either.

So you now see the greatness to which I aspire... blissful obscurity.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

2009-11-24T22:29:00.009+11:00

Things are working out better with the Apple TV now that I've taken a hint and buy episodes on my computer through iTunes first. Also, the catalogue is bigger than I first thought - possibly because its grown over the last week or so, but more likely because the interface on the Apple TV is ridiculously crude and makes for laborious browsing.

Doing nothing but scrolling up and down lists or flicking through cover art might be cute on an iPhone, but it gets old pretty fast with a TV remote. iTunes is easier to browse through - a shame it's absolute resource hog on a PC.

So far my choice of viewing has been a fairly predictable run of satirical animated cartoons full of pop-culture references. But iTunes has embraced the classics as well and so I'm off for a little Mary time...

Authorise This

2009-11-17T22:18:00.004+11:00

The experiment has gotten off to a rocky start. I upgraded the Apple TV's firmware to the recently released version (3.0) and prepared to browse through their growing catalogue of TV and movie content - only to be emailed and told to upgrade to the next version (3.0.1) right away otherwise my content could disappear.

Needless to say, the upgrade to 3.0.1 thoughtfully wiped all of my network settings including the WiFi password, which is a complete nuisance to enter with a five-button remote (imagine trying to send an SMS with half the buttons on your phone missing).

But finally I was browsing! The catalogue is currently small but respectable (by way of disclaimer, my office supplies TV content to iTunes). To ensure impartiality, I settled on an episode of American Dad that I hadn't seen before. I was immediately prompted for my iTunes Store password (which the upgrade had also wiped - more painful picking out of letters) but the download kicked off and within seconds I was told the episode was ready to play.

Clicking play only got me an error message: this Apple TV is not authorised to play this content. How rude.

It turns out that despite the "ready to play" message, you need to sync the Apple TV with iTunes (on your computer) before the download will play back on the Apple TV, which is a terrible tease. I used to be able to purchase and play back on the Apple TV without this problem (I still have episodes of our own content on the device that I'd purchased weeks earlier) so I suspect this issue is the result of the recent upgrade - either a bug, or a "security enhancement".

In Apple's defence, they got back to my message of complaint within a day but didn't tell me anything I hadn't already figured out. However, they certainly get the Oscar for most obsequious complaint response:

"I'm sorry to hear that the video "The One That Got Away" did not play successfully on the Apple TV it was purchased on. I sincerely apologize that this video has not met the standards you have come to expect from the iTunes Store. I can certianly [sic] appreciate how eager you must be to have the issue resolved. My name is Stephanie, and I will do everything I can to help solve the issue for you."

If nothing else, I found Stephanie's sincerity and her obvious sharing of my pain comforting.

Crazy like Foxtel

2009-11-16T17:03:00.017+11:00

I've just moved house and finally sorted out most of the nuisance stuff that comes with a move: address changes, relocating utilities, that sort of thing.

I've moved a couple of suburbs closer to the CBD (in fact I'm now just a stroll away - wave if you see Trixie and I walk past) so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that despite living in the centre of Australia's largest city, I can't get subscription TV. Some nonsense about strata titles, multi-dwelling complexes, Jupiter being in Mercury's quarter - that sort of thing.

What exactly made Foxtel think I'd be happy to jump through hoops for the privilege of giving them princely sums of money every month is quite beyond me.

So I saved myself the jumping of hoops by cancelling my subscription. Instead, I'm going to see if I can get my televisual requirements purely from FTA TV and from the Internet using such devices as come to hand (such as PVRs, extenders, gaming consoles, etc).

And I'm going to blog about it.

The experiment (I call it that to give it a more scientific air than it possibly deserves) will be strictly confined to full-episode content watched on my TV from a device that sits comfortably and quietly in the TV cabinet and can be used with my universal remote.

Here goes nothing...

What Apple Giveth So Shall Apple Taketh Away Again

2009-09-09T16:06:00.004+10:00

This just in: Apple has pulled the C64 emulator from the App store just hours after it went up. Apparently their original objection was to the emulator's inclusion of a BASIC prompt. This was disabled to get approval for the App store, but some ingenious geek found a way to re-enable BASIC access... prompting Apple to pull the app (and thereby ruining it for everyone else).

I'm not quite sure what possible damage the BASIC prompt could possibly do, but there's no arguing with Apple. Previously only the Pope claimed to be infallible... it seems Steve Jobs has joined him.

Flashback

2009-09-08T13:22:00.006+10:00

A Commodore 64 emulator has just been released for iPhone (apparently after a number of rejections from Apple). Which takes me back to my very first computer... a C64 with tape drive that appeared under the Christmas tree more years ago than I care to admit.

Sadly, William Shatner never did a TV ad for the C64 like he did for the Vic 20 (although the C64 ad is pretty bitchy) but many fond hours were spent on it learning the skills I would one day need to take over the world. Actually, most of those hours were spent waiting for the tape drive to load a program. But it was still better than going outside and playing football.

When I was in university I finally bought a second-hand floppy disk drive (something I had coveted for years as a kid) but mostly the poor old C64 sat in a trunk, until we moved to Australia and my partner decided it wasn't worth the cost of freight and dumped it(!). Mark my words, that's going to be a sorely-missed exhibit when they set up my museum.

So I'm going to have to settle for the emulator (available now on the iTunes App store). It comes with 5 games, but I'll be keeping an eye out for my favourites in future releases.

I guess its a sign of getting old, all this retro hankering. Kids these days don't know how good they got it - why, in my day....

Unwired for Sound

2009-06-18T13:42:00.004+10:00

OS 3.0 for the iPhone is out and is attracting more attention and blog-time than is seemly, so I thought I'd join the frenzy. I've been looking forward to it mainly because it promised to introduce stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), so that my long disused wireless headphones might finally get some use.

But predictably, Apple has not quite implemented A2DP fully. For some reason, they've skipped the AVRCP protocol which is normaly used with A2DP, because it allows Bluetooth devices to remotely control the iPhone. This means that the track-skip function on my headphones won't work. Not the end of the world, I'll grant you, but annoying.

Why does Apple delight in witholding functionality like this?

Maybe we'll see it in a future update. Or maybe we'll see some kind of proprietary protocol for this kind of thing, possibly in a pair of Apple-licensed wireless headphones.

Now I'm just interested to see how long the battery in my iPhone lasts when I'm listening to music using Bluetooth. I'm open to bets on this - will I make it through a whole session at the gym? Although if you turn off 3G, you get much better battery life. Because I'm with Telstra, I get to use their Edge network when 3G is off, which isn't that much slower than 3G for browsing, email or Facebook.

But however long it lasts, you can rest assured that there is NO Cliff Richard on my iPhone. Yet.

Do You Want WiFi With That?

2009-04-01T17:42:00.006+11:00

It seems that WiFi hotspots have finally begun to apear in Australia - at least I only began to notice after I succumbed to the Cult and bought an iPhone. As you can imagine, my status in the Cult has been jeopardised by signing up with Telstra, which I did less out of a love for Australia's favourite corporate bully and more for the love of things like network coverage and reliability - all of which I failed to get from Vodafone in the preceding months.

One of the other advantages Telstra offers is free access to their network of WiFi hotspots throughout the city. Which sounds good on paper... until you try to use one on an iPhone.

Firstly, you can't help but notice when you've moved into range of a hotspot because your iPhone will constantly pop up invitations to join it. Hotspots like this are usually unsecured in the conventional sense so your iPhone goes ahead and joins the hotspot by default. The trouble is, joining the hotspot isn't enough - you're expected to log in first - something you'd only realise if you were in a browser, which is where the login page shows up. If you're in email or an app, all you get is a whole lot of little circly processing icon and nothing else. As a result, if you don't go to your browser and log in, you have to turn off your phone's WiFi to carry on with 3G - something a friend and fellow Cultist has to do all the time, as he works in the CBD .

A couple of times I've gone ahead and logged in (while my friend spluttered in frustration) because it's free for me. Let's overlook the fact that the login page is clearly not optimised for mobile - the process itself is simple lunacy. First, I have to enter my mobile number into the webpage after which I get an SMS back with a token, which I have to enter into the login page. Only then, do I get to browse.

Clearly the whole thing is intended for laptops and no doubt Telstra is working on a system optimised for mobile, although if they're after a little free consultancy, why can't they tell I'm a Telstra customer from my phone and just authenticate me?

Telstra normally charge for their hotspots, which helps explain the need for authentication (if not its poor execution). But why do places that offer "free" hotspots require you to login and cause the same problems if you don't? I'm talking about cafe chains or multi-national fastfood joints whose normal MO is to make you enter a token from your receipt or (worse) ask at the counter for one. The idea is obviously to make sure you bought something first, but wouldn't it be easier to shoo out people who are taking up a table (and wifi) without eating anything than to make your paying customers jump through hoops to use a supposedly free service?

I suppose that the hotspot might spill out onto the street, but it's just plain petty for the likes of Gloria McStarJacks to obsess over a few kilobytes of internet traffic snatched by passers-by or homeless people.

When is a door not a door?

2008-11-24T14:00:00.006+11:00

I've been on a bit of a blogging break due to sheer workload. But here I am back again, and after a crazy month of work (and in anticipation of the summer to come) I decided to order another case of that wine I picked up on the way home from my safari.

Ordering the wine was relatively easy through the winery's website, and soon enough my wine was on the way. Except that all I received at my door was a little piece of cardboard, inviting me to go and collect my wine from the nearest post office.

To be fair, the card explained that someone had tried to deliver the wine, but that no-one was home. While I find it difficult to believe that a genuine attempt was made - at the time in question there were two people in the house along with a terrier keenly attuned to knocks on the door - I think there's a bigger issue here.

If you buy something online, chances are its going to need to be delivered to you. Almost without exception it seems, courier companies will try and deliver these items to you during office hours, when you're presumably in your own office. Which means that you'll be left with a piece of cardboard requiring you to make alternative arrangements to go and get your stuff. Even though you paid to have it delivered to your door, not the back door of the neighbourhood post office.

The convenience of shopping online is illusory if you end up having to get in your car and schlep down the road to pick up your purchases anyway. Granted, convenience is not the only advantage of online shopping - a far greater range or otherwise hard to get stuff is also generally available. However, if couriers are a significant beneficiary of the growth of online shopping, then they need to adjust the way they do to suit business-to-consumer transactions. Like delivering stuff when people are going to be home.

Otherwise they risk killing (or at least seriously maiming) the goose that's in the process of laying them a golden egg.

On Safari

2008-08-29T18:08:00.002+10:00

If you'd noticed the tone of my last couple of posts was a little testy, you'd probably agree that it was about time I had a holiday. So I have!

In keeping with our ongoing efforts to see as much of our adopted country as possible, we took a roadtrip to Wentworth - which is a town built where the Murray and Darling Rivers meet. If nothing else, the trip was a great geography lesson. Based on what I'd seen about the river system on the news, I hadn't expected to find any water! Of course, I discovered the impressive weir system that had been built early last century, which keeps the water in reserve at the upper reaches of the river - enough to accommodate a lunch cruise, anyway!

The trip wasn't exactly a daring trek to the Red Centre or anything, although there are little patches of desert nearby that give you a taste of such an experience, without needing a Landcruiser (or even all-wheel drive, which I'd gladly have swapped at one point for a slightly softer ride).

The Wentworth Services Club is on quite an ambitious scale... it must take up about a quarter of the entire town's area. This is something to do with gambling laws traditionally being more liberal in NSW than just over the border in Victoria. Unfortunately, not long after the club was expanded to take advantage of Victoria's frustrated gamblers, the law was changed and Victorians got their own pokies. The result is an improbably large (but friendly) RSL and motel complex with odd Casino-inspired flourishes. We stayed in one of the 'Presidential Suites' - not a single piece of faux gilt furniture was to be found anywhere, however.

As safaris go, the kill wasn't particularly impressive - amounting a couple of cases of wine, in fact. We didn't even manage a coating of red dirt along the sides of the car.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

2008-08-12T14:00:00.010+10:00

Today, I'd like to postulate a set of common assumptions underlying many tech news articles:

1. Anything Microsoft does is evil and monopolistic and anyone who says otherwise is a corporate sellout;
2. Anything any other large software company does is mostly fine, even when it is exactly the same as was done in (1);
3. Anything Apple does is pretty and groundbreaking (even if the same as was done in (1)), although Apple people can be a bit much sometimes; and
4. Open Source is either a 'growing force' or 'about to take over the world' but we wouldn't let our daughters anywhere near Linux people.

By way of illustration, this article in the New York Times about NBC's use of Silverlight to provide online Olympics coverage. The observant reader will note that Silverlight is described as 'proprietary' technology while Flash is not. I bet Adobe are going to be surprised to hear they don't own Flash anymore.

Note to the author: if you feel you have to use pejorative adjectives like that (a need I'd question) at least use them consistently - otherwise you're just being being needlessly subjective.

Next, the article outlines Microsoft's monopolistic tendencies and then goes on to describe the advantages of the 99% penetration enjoyed by Flash, without obvious irony.

Those of you who have a copy of Flash might like to compare the ActionScript it uses with the AJAX used by Silverlight. If you don't have the Flash software, you won't be able to make such a comparison because you can't do anything with Flash content without purchasing it. Yet Silverlight is singled out in the article by a tame professor as "...a way to lock up the content, and it’s not enabling as much innovation as we would like to see." Perhaps the Professor also has a better grasp of irony than I give him credit for.

Geekier readers, meanwhile, will know that ActionScript is proprietary to Adobe while AJAX is a W3C standard - exactly the kind of standard described glowingly in the article as 'a growing economic force'.

By now you've probably decided I'm either a Microsoft stooge (see point 1 above) or something of a pedant - after all, most web users aren't geeks and don't care how the content they access is coded. On the latter I fully agree. I prefer to follow my Father's advice and choose the right tool for the right job and get on with things (though it has to be said he's had less luck with some of his other advice).

Which is why I'm frequently surprised by some of my correspondents when they present their views on such geek esoterica with the kind of blood-shot, spittle-flecked vehemence traditionally reserved for Spanish Inquisitors and Salem Witch-Hunters.

Neither of whom were known for their grasp of irony either.

Scrabble, anyone?

2008-08-09T23:10:00.002+10:00

At some point, someone (no doubt with a beard) decided that because digital content could easily be copied, it should therefore be free.

The trouble is that content - good content, at least - costs money to produce. That's because producing content is hard work and people expect to be paid for their work... performers, technicians, musicians, writers... yes, even producers. But if no-one pays for the content, then those people can't get paid. And so they go and get other jobs. Which leaves the rest of us nothing to do on a Sunday night but drink or play scrabble.

And if anyone tries to cite YouTube one more time as an example of a free-content utopia, I will strap them to a chair and make them watch clips from it until their eyes bleed - which should take around 6 minutes. Tops.

The sort of people who push the free content agenda make a great deal of noise about how information should flow unrestricted and say that sharing clips of content in reviews or using content in "mashups" is a fundamental human right. Some can even keep a straight face as they say it (although it's hard to tell behind that beard). What they really mean is that they want to be able to download the content for free off BitTorrent.

I mean who seriously believes that people who won't pay for their operating systems will actually pay for content?

So, my cheapass friends, your manifesto will look a lot less implausible when you can explain why you should ever get paid for anything you ever do ever again when performers, technicians, writers and musicians can't.

In the meantime, stop pontificating about an industry you don't understand.

Although for me, pontificating gets 29 points with a triple letter score on the F...

Aunty's New Frock

2008-07-08T22:55:00.011+10:00

I guess its a bit outrageous to kick off a blog and then not post for ages, but here's the reason why:

It's the ABC Commercial Media Player and it looks gorgeous, but of course this kind of media project should never be just a beauty contest. The real challenge was to integrate various media delivery technologies, in particular streaming, download, DRM and e-commerce. And still make it easy to use.

And it doesn't get much easier than buying downloads or DVDs (or both) inside the video player while you're watching the preview. Very smooth.

What's that, you say? iTunes? Well, its kinda clunky compared to this. But ohhh, aren't their devices gorgeous?

OK, yes... Aunty makes her content available there as well, but TV is a whole different ballgame to music - old media's transition online has created a complex, multi-faceted environment. On top of that, the Australian market adds its own challenges. Apple doesn't have all the answers.

SUCH a geek

2008-07-02T15:54:00.006+10:00

I am now the hopelessly proud owner of a sonic screwdriver.

Curiously, it probably has even more functionality than the prop we see on TV... it telescopically extends, makes the noise and shines a blue light like the TV one... but it can also be used as a pen. By swapping amongst the supplied nibs, you can use it as an ultraviolet pen - the blue light it emits includes UV frequencies so you can reveal what you've written. I'm not sure why I think that's so cool, but it just is.

Of course, on TV the sonic screwdriver can do all sorts of stuff. Back here on Earth, though, we all know that a geek's real sonic screwdriver is one of these:

One sits on my desk to delight visitors. The other sits in a drawer until needed (they no longer let managers wear bladed objects on their belts around the office). One reminds me of the value of thinking beyond the immediate and the currently possible. The other can disassemble pretty much everything in my office with frightening speed.

In this job, you need both.

So close...

2008-07-01T12:25:00.002+10:00

I know there's a lot of talk about Vista at the moment, but I needed at least one computer with it installed for testing - so what the hell, I upgraded my home PC.

Neatly side-stepping the many and varied blog entries that I could make about that process, the reason I took that decision was because of Media Centre.

Getting content from the interweb onto your TV is pretty much the Holy Grail for many content providers (at least those not obsessed by mobile phones) and lets face it, the sofa is way more comfortable for both me and Trixie. So I got myself a media extender, initially to see how downloaded files looked in the lounge.

But then, after many years of faithful service, the PVR broke down.

Her Indoors is sufficiently passionate about television that there may be several shows that are required viewing on at the same time. A PVR is essential, but our timing couldn't have been worse - Topfield is between models. Would Media Centre come to the rescue?

On paper, it should have been ideal. I'd been talked into buying a dual-tuner HDTV card with the media extender, so with a few settings tweaks we should have been good to go.

Initially, it all seemed to go well. The Media Centre interface is very well thought out, and the functionality was well ahead of the old PVR. But then I was summoned to account for a missing recording. It turns out that the driver for one of the tuners wouldn't start, despite being identical to the other (working) tuner. This meant that when two programs were selected to record at once, one would fail - at random, as there's no way of telling which tuner is to be used by which program.

The moral? A general-purpose desktop PC, particularly one that is still being used for general purposes, will never be as reliable as a purpose built appliance. Never. At least while there are as many hardware vendors for PC hardware as there are. Much as I'd like to meet whoever wrote the drivers for that tuner card for a "product evaluation session" (you know exactly the sort I mean), it's not reasonable for them to anticipate all of the possible hardware combinations that their card will be slotted into.

Which is one of the reasons Apple has such a reputation for reliability - they have complete control over the basic hardware in their machines, which means greater predictability for software developers and add-on hardware vendors. Fewer surprises for them means fewer surprises for the punter that buys their gear. But then the more open and chaotic nature of PC hardware means that you get a vast range of gadgetry at much better prices.

I've since fixed the issue, of course. I just have to hope it all holds together until the new PVR arrives. Otherwise my attempt at convergence may see me spending way more time on the sofa than I'd counted on.

Oh, the shame...

2008-06-30T21:45:00.003+10:00

For someone who's worked in the online industry for so long, I've obviously taken my sweet time about setting up a blog. I guess I've always been inclined to make sure the bandwagon is well and truly rolling before leaping on it.

Here I am at last, waiting to to join the 60-zillion other people who also share their thoughts and wisdom through their blogs. A collective consciousness, I've heard more than one 'futurist' put it. I must admit I remain to be convinced, but I have picked up some useful stuff from blogs - perhaps this whole phenomenon is along the lines of the million monkeys with their million typewriters... eventually producing Shakespeare.

Or something.

But the real reason I've started blogging has more pragmatic origins - I've been shamed into it. I spoke at ReMIX earlier in the year, and my participation was noted in the host's blog, along with the other speakers. I was the only one whose name wasn't hyperlinked to a blog.

When that bandwagon is bearing down on you, I guess you either leap on it or get run down.