Chris Pinnock's Weblog

My Blog has moved

2011-01-13T19:35:00.001Z

My blog has now moved!
http://chrispinnock.com/

One Minute 2/8 - Happy New Year

2011-01-02T23:58:00.001Z

One Minute 2/8 - Happy New Year from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

2/365 - Bauble

2011-01-02T19:11:00.001Z

1/365 - London New Year's Parade

2011-01-01T19:08:00.000Z

One Picture a Day in 2011

One Minute 2/7 - Munich

2010-12-28T20:03:00.001Z

One Minute 2/7 - Munich from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

My Pummelvision

2010-12-19T13:22:00.002Z

Galvin Nolte's "Crossroads (What to do)"

2010-12-04T10:11:00.001Z

crossroads (what to do) from Garvin Nolte on Vimeo.

Road Trip 16 - Wales to Heathrow

2010-11-19T19:57:00.001Z

Road Trip 16 - Wales to Heathrow from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

New Apple TV

2010-10-09T15:17:00.000+01:00

Apple has released a new version of the Apple TV and it retails at $99 in America and £99 in the UK. Mine arrived today.

Within about 8 minutes of unpacking it, it was plugged into my television and operational. The first thing you need to configure is your wireless network settings (if you are on WiFi) and then your iTunes Store account.

The device uses iOS whereas the first generation was based on Mac OS X Tiger. Also the chip inside is an Apple A4, so the device is more like a modern iPhone or iPad than a Mac. This box is HDMI only and the audio out is Optical. It's network capability is wired Ethernet or Wi-fi.

The first main difference one notices from the first generation is the change of menus. Now there is only main menus for Movies, Internet, Computers and Settings. The Settings menu is very much like the old Settings menu except three notable differences so far - one being the possibility to sleep the Apple TV after a specific time period, another to name the Apple TV with common labels such as "Living Room" and the last being the lack of any way to change the output from 720p. 720p it is then - not even 1080i is available.

This generation of Apple TV does not appear as a device in iTunes in the same way that the first generation does. The Computers menu allows you to stream content from your iTunes libraries which have Home Sharing setup. Due to the rethink of the Apple TV, there is no syncing of libraries and no content stored on the Apple TV other than cached content. The Movies menu is iTunes Store specific and frustratingly (for me at least) the My Movies option has gone. The Shared Movies option has also gone. If you want to watch a movie from your iTunes library, you need to browse your computer.

Also annoyingly the nice video organisation in Movies by "Programme" has gone.

In the future it will be possible to use an extension of Airtunes called Airplay to send videos to the device from another one (e.g. iPad, iPhone, iTunes, etc), but this isn't available yet.

The Flickr, MobileMe and YouTube facilities are there but are unchanged. It's still not possible to log in to Flickr and MobileMe - so you can only get your public content on the AppleTV. You can log into YouTube as you could before but one still cannot get a list of ones own videos - another missing feature which the iPhone and iPad has had for some time.

On the good side, the device is more performant than the original. So far no video stuttering. The annoying first video playback stutter has gone on this model and so has the stuttering problem caused by firing up an iTunes which is shared with the Apple TV during playback of a movie. It is a better device overall in terms of build and is cooler than the original.

The overall package has the feeling of being rushed out. The hardware is good, but features are missing on the software. What they need to do:

Finish the AirPlay capability
Better organisation of movies and files on the Computers section
Rapidly tell content providers how to get their content onto the box
Application support like the rivals have and are planning

If you consider that the concept behind this is the rental model then it is a good device. If you have bundles of movies on your computer, then its probably a good idea to wait and see what the Google TV or the Boxee box is like.

First impression: Apple TV

2010-10-09T11:04:00.001+01:00

A new Apple TV has arrived at my door. It is tiny. Took me about 8 minutes to unwrap and set it up. Completely new approach. It does not sync with iTunes anymore. You can still play your media from your computer, but it is more Internet centric. They really have to get to the point to tell media creators how to get their content on to these things and fast! Pictures to follow...

Roaming charges for data are outrageous

2010-09-27T20:42:00.001+01:00

All I will say is, don't even think about turning on data roaming in USA. The charges are outrageous:
26 Aug 10 22:24:20 idata.o2.co.uk USA 113 Â£0.663

27 Aug 10 00:28:22 idata.o2.co.uk USA 4408 Â£25.831 (8 minutes of using Google maps)

29 Aug 10 14:50:02 idata.o2.co.uk USA 76 Â£0.446

31 Aug 10 23:45:15 idata.o2.co.uk USA 1823 Â£7.105 (5 minutes of using the BA app to check in)

No idea what the other two are.

One Minute 2/6 - New York

2010-09-27T18:24:00.001+01:00

One Minute 2/6 - New York from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Five Statue of Liberty and Staten Island Ferry vignettes

2010-09-06T19:43:00.001+01:00

Five Statue of Liberty and Staten Island Ferry vignettes from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 2/5 - Twin Towns

2010-09-05T15:50:00.001+01:00

One Minute 2/5 - Twin Towns from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip - Driving to the Airport (again)

2010-08-22T21:36:00.003+01:00

Driving to the airport.... again from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 15 - Driving to the Airport

2010-08-22T21:36:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 15 - Driving to the Airport from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 2/4 - Innsbruck

2010-08-13T07:31:00.002+01:00

One Minute 2/4 - Innsbruck from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

South Bank Drummer

2010-08-09T20:11:00.001+01:00

Southbank Drummer from Mike Hellers on Vimeo.

Apple Store in Covent Garden opens

2010-08-08T10:41:00.004+01:00

Mike filmed this walkthrough of the new Apple store at Covent Garden using an improvised iPhone steady-cam.

One Minute 2/3 - Zürisee

2010-07-31T09:07:00.002+01:00

One Minute 2/3 - Zürisee from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Four Generations of the iPhone

2010-07-25T09:49:00.007+01:00

Four Generations of the iPhone from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

In this video, Mike and I test several applications on four iPhones connected to the internet using WiFi. From left to right, the phones are a 2G, a 3G, a 3GS and a 4. We test:

1. Plants versus Zombies
2. Google Earth
3. Seadragon
4. Sky News
5. Loading yahoo.com
6. Startup and Shutdown

There's a blooper at the end... Please share and enjoy.

One Minute 2/2 - Liechtenstein

2010-07-17T13:34:00.001+01:00

One Minute 2/2 - Liechtenstein from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 2/1 - Luxembourg

2010-07-03T18:46:00.001+01:00

One Minute 2/1 - Luxembourg from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 14 - Neuwied to Bromley

2010-06-12T10:54:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 14 - Neuwied to Bromley from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 13 - Prague to Neuwied

2010-06-07T08:49:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 13 - Prague to Neuwied from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip Google Map

2010-06-05T19:20:00.002+01:00

The new Road Trip Google Map.

Road Trip 12 - Innsbruck to Prague

2010-06-05T19:19:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 12 - Innsbruck to Prague from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 11 - Vaduz to Malbun

2010-05-30T19:13:00.003+01:00

Road Trip 11 - Vaduz to Malbun from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 10 - Liechtenstein to Innsbruck

2010-05-30T19:13:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 10 - Liechtenstein to Innsbruck from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 9 - Zurich to Liechtenstein

2010-05-29T14:59:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 9 - Zurich to Liechtenstein from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 8 - Luxembourg to Zurich

2010-05-24T20:20:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 8 - Luxembourg to Zurich from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 7 - London to Luxembourg

2010-05-17T05:00:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 7 - London to Luxembourg from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Connecting many mobile devices to 3G

2010-05-16T20:35:00.001+01:00

According to The Inquirer, Asus are developing a netbook with a slot-in mobile phone. One of the reasons for doing this is an easy way to share the same data and mobile connection as the phone. This should not be necessary.

Annoyingly no mobile telecommunications operator (in the UK) has bitten the bullet and provided an all-in-one package where a client can get broadband, a mobile phone SIM and a number of SIMs for data.

This is something I would like to see in future. The lack of such a package is why I'm buying a Wi-Fi only iPad and finding a decent tariff on a pay-as-you-go 3G service on a Mi-Fi modem.

One Minute 36 - The End?

2010-05-07T19:47:00.001+01:00

One Minute 36 - The End? from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

General Election Drinking Game

2010-05-06T22:34:00.001+01:00

One Minute 35 - Drumming in the Park

2010-05-02T20:20:00.001+01:00

One Minute 35 - Drumming in the Park from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 6 - London to Brighton

2010-05-02T12:53:00.001+01:00

Road Trip 6 - London to Brighton from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 34 - A view from a café

2010-04-23T19:40:00.002+01:00

One Minute 34 - A view from a café from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 33 - Budapest

2010-04-13T21:00:00.001+01:00

One Minute 33 - Budapest from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 32 - Around Firenze

2010-04-10T07:51:00.001+01:00

One Minute 32 - Around Firenze from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

That was a tough couple of weeks travelling...

2010-04-04T19:24:00.001+01:00

From: Vodafone
Sent: 15 Mar 2010 09:17
Subject: Welcome to SWITZERLAND.

Welcome to SWITZERLAND. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max picture msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call 4636 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

From: Vodafone
Sent: 19 Mar 2010 11:08
Subject: Welcome to ITALY.

Welcome to ITALY. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max picture msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call 4636 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

From: Vodafone
Sent: 24 Mar 2010 08:13
Subject: Welcome to CZECH REP.

Welcome to CZECH REP. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max picture msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call 4636 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

From: Vodafone
Sent: 26 Mar 2010 17:43
Subject: Welcome to SLOVAKIA.

Welcome to SLOVAKIA. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max pic msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call +441635691700 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

From: Vodafone
Sent: 26 Mar 2010 18:24
Subject: Welcome to AUSTRIA.

Welcome to AUSTRIA. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max pic msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call 4636 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

From: Vodafone
Sent: 26 Mar 2010 19:29
Subject: Welcome to HUNGARY.

Welcome to HUNGARY. Calls cost 33ppm to make & 19ppm to receive. SMS 9.7p & max pic msg 161p. Data is 0.5p per KB up to 1MB (£4.99 inc vat). The next 24MB is free then £4.99/25MB. Sessions reset at 00:00GMT. Call 4636 for free pricing info & 112 for emergency svcs

One Minute - over 2000 views

2010-04-02T21:39:00.001+01:00

I cobbled together the statistics from each of the video distribution sites for my One Minute videocast today. Here is the summary of the statistics as of today:

There has been 2091 views of the series.
The most popular access medium is Mevio with 488 requests for M4Vs, 133 requests for iPhone/iPod compatible M4Vs and 117 requests for MP4s.
The second most popular access medium is Blip.TV with 444 requests. Vimeo is the third with 376 requests, YouTube the fourth with 272 requests and Flickr the last with 261 requests.
The most popular episode is 8 - Eurotunnel. The first episode is the second most popular and 2 - Getting up and out is the third. The least favourite episodes are 14 - Square Henri Frick, 18 - Merry Christmas and 31 - Piazza dei Miracoli - however the last of these was released today and will be syndicated via RSS tomorrow morning.

The above excludes libsyn and Podomatic numbers.

I intend to do 36 episodes in all and then take a break. All but one of these has been filmed.

One Minute – over 2000 views

2010-04-02T21:37:00.002+01:00

I cobbled together the statistics from each of the video distribution sites for my One Minute videocast today. Here is the summary of the statistics as of today:

There have been 2091 views of the series.
The most popular access medium is Mevio with 488 requests for M4Vs, 133 requests for iPhone/iPod compatible M4Vs and 117 requests for MP4s.
The second most popular access medium is Blip.TV with 444 requests. Vimeo is the third with 376 requests, YouTube the fourth with 272 requests and Flickr the last with 261 requests.
The most popular episode is 8 - Eurotunnel. The first episode is the second most popular and 2 - Getting up and out is the third. The least favourite episodes are 14 - Square Henri Frick, 18 - Merry Christmas and 31 - Piazza dei Miracoli - however the last of these was released today and will be syndicated via RSS tomorrow morning.

The above excludes libsyn and Podomatic numbers.

I intend to do 36 episodes in all and then take a break. All but one of these has been filmed.

One Minute 31 - Piazza dei Miracoli

2010-04-02T12:56:00.001+01:00

One Minute 31 - Piazza dei Miracoli from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 30 - Lake Geneva

2010-03-28T21:09:00.001+01:00

One Minute 30 - Lake Geneva from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 29 - Around Bratislava

2010-03-24T17:55:00.001Z

One Minute 29 - Around Bratislava from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 28 - Another Lake

2010-03-11T23:05:00.001Z

One Minute 28 - Another Lake from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 27 - The Road Bridge

2010-03-06T00:39:00.002Z

One Minute 27 - The Road Bridge from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 26 - The Blue Danube

2010-02-27T11:48:00.001Z

One Minute 26 - The River Danube from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Music: Ships by Josh Woodward.

Video Diary - Vienna, Bratislava

2010-02-25T07:09:00.001Z

Video diary at Video diary 1 - Feb 2009 - Vienna-Bratislava from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Book: Crush It! - Gary Vaynerchuk

2010-02-15T21:49:00.001Z

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) is famous for his approach to personal branding on the web. He spent years building his family business from small origins into a multi-million dollar industry leader. Using his video cast to promote himself and his business, he has become an Internet personality.

Gary's book Crush it! is about grabbing the bull by the horns and cashing in on what you love doing. His basic principles are 1. Love your family, 2. Work superhard, 3. Live your passion. And basically this is his mantra. So he recommends that you go and work out what you want to do with your favourite thing or your dream, and just live your passion.

The book covers a bit of personal background starting with his family's move from Belarus to America early in his life. His family had a business selling discount liquor. Gary decided that wine was a good thing to get into because there is a whole world around choosing, tasting and picking wines. This became his passion.

The book covers how Gary used Facebook and Twitter to build up awareness of himself and his business. Another principle in the book is that you should build your personal brand. It does not matter if you work for a large corporate and don't want to set up a business on your own - you should still build your personal brand anyway because it will help you with your career. Gary covers how one can do this easily and for free.

He talks about his web cast Wine Library TV (a.k.a. The Thunder Show). He admits that his approach is "in your face" and suspects he loses 10-12% of his viewers because of it. However his passion is evident and this is what keeps the 90%. This was an interesting point in the book because I nearly stopped watching his web cast the first time I watched after that first few minutes, but I carried on because the wine he was tasting was interesting. It grew on me. Gary clearly knows his own faults.

The book is easy to read and only one nitpick from me - he mentions that Internet hasn't been around long and Gary really means the web here.

For success though, you need to temper the work superhard advice with the methods from the 4-hour workweek.

One Minute 25 - Lake

2010-02-13T23:13:00.001Z

One Minute 25 - Lake from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 24 - Tea

2010-02-06T17:21:00.002Z

One Minute 24 - Tea from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Web Video on the iPhone and iPad

2010-02-06T11:45:00.002Z

Ever since the iPhone (and iPod touch) has been available, it has been criticised for not having a Flash player. It's not entirely clear what Apple's reason is for not including Adobe Flash player in the iPhone software. However if you are a Mac user (particularly a white Macbook user) you will have noticed that the cooling fan comes on when a there is a lot of Flash usage. So my suspicion is that it is down to performance - the iPhone probably cannot do it.

And this is probably the reason Flash will not be on the iPad. But does it matter for web video? Probably not in the long term, because HTML5 (a new version of the markup language that web sites are written in) has facilities for video. Vimeo has just started delivering video on the iPhone and I suspect it is no coincidence that they have started experimenting publicly with HTML5.

HTML5 has tag for specifying video content. It is already supported by Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari but not Internet Explorer until a future release. Using this tag, a web page can include video in it and the browser handles the video. The only disadvantage I can see is that the web site owner is responsible for making sure their video can play on all the browsers out there. But guess what - they are responsible for making sure all browsers out there can view their site, so this is not really a big deal.

By using this facility, it is possible to make videos available for many devices. For example, an MPEG4 video format for Safari and Apple devices, an OGG format for Firefox, Google Chrome and so on. And I believe this will be the solution to video on the iPhone/iPad.

There is a nice writeup at diveintohtml5.org about using HTML5 and falling back to Flash for browsers that do not support the video tag.

iPad - initial thoughts

2010-01-30T11:33:00.002Z

Several of us watched the iPad Apple Event in a hotel in Prague this week and unfortunately we could not get onto a live video feed. A textual feed had to do (there were pictures but it's annoying not to have video in the 21st century...). When you read this, consider that I haven't seen the full video feed yet - it's queued on my Apple TV ready…

The first impression of the home screen of the iPad is that it is mostly empty. There are a few applications "missing" that are on the iPod. It looks bare. However the New York Times images are good and illustrates what the device is capable of.

The essential problem I have with the device is how to use it. I'm a little sceptical it will be of use to me. I've had two netbooks - the first I quickly sold due to lack of use, not knowing I would be spending the next year travelling every week. The second was bought so that I could work on an airplane. I still don't use it nearly enough to justify having it because it is underpowered (at least with Windows - it might get a NetBSD makeover soon). I cannot think of a reason to buy an iPad yet other than maybe for an e-book reader.

Also the Pad is running the iPhone OS. There is nothing wrong with this at all, but the current software base for it is the iPhone applications. There are a lot of cool applications out there, but there is also a lot of dross. Mac OS X would have opened the platform up to more commercial applications (e.g. Office).

The reason I haven't bought an e-book reader so far is that I have been waiting for this device. And to be fair the iPad will make a good e-book reader, provided they haven't used a glossy screen. If they have, it will be hard to read outside - viewing a video on the iPhone can be difficult if one is in a brightly lit location. One significant disadvantage of the iPad against an e-book reader is the battery life. Apple list 10 hours of battery life for the iPad (when using video) but an e-book reader lasts considerably longer.

And then there is the content. Apple have chosen to do their own bookstore. In my view, they should have partnered with Amazon. And here's the thing - Amazon already have an application on the iPhone which will run on the iPad. I can share my books with a PC and a Mac using the Kindle software. Apple need to do this with iBooks too, even if it comes later on.

Then there is the productivity applications. There is nothing wrong with using iWorks - it is a good application suite. Apple should have considered bundling it with the iPad to add further incentives to buy the iPad. The question is will these applications be enough to make the iPad work for the business user?

There is no doubt about it - the iPad will fill a gap for some users but at the moment I don't know whether I will be buying one. The pricing is exceptionally attractive at the low end for a first cut at an Apple product and also considering what one gets for it. I'll probably be waiting until the 2nd generation comes out.

Apple have a tendency of changing the way the market thinks about products (e.g. Mac and computing, iPod and Music) so maybe I've just missed what the next idea is.

One Minute 23 - Last night a DJ

2010-01-30T09:00:00.001Z

One Minute 23 - Last night a DJ from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

What Apple need to do to the Apple TV

2010-01-24T19:25:00.001Z

The Apple TV is a set top box which integrates with the Apple iTunes Store and the iTunes application running on a Mac or PC on your local network. It can play movies, music, view photographs and has limited Internet connectivity with YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe. Here is what I think Apple should do with the Apple TV concept:

1. They absolutely have to do more on the Internet. Plex and XBMC are media centres that run on the Mac and PC. They provide access to BBC's iPlayer, Vimeo's videos and Netflix amongst many other available plugins. By producing a similar system with the ability for 3rd parties to supply plugins to their sites, the Apple TV could become a serious contender for an all-in-one Internet TV box.
2. Be able to manipulate the settings on the AppleTV from the master iTunes instance, much in the same way that is possible for iPhones. It is frustrating to have to put in all your settings for Flickr accounts and MobileMe using an Apple Remote. Make it easy and allow them to be set from iTunes.
3. Sync settings to all your AppleTVs. Not many people have more than one AppleTV (I do…) but this would not be hard to do and would make the experience better.
4. They need to support 1080p soon - I believe the current hardware is not capable but I could be wrong.

Apple could, however, absorb the Apple TV into the Macintosh range very easily by:
1. Abandoning the current hardware and replace it with a MacMini form factor. The current hardware has the occasional performance problem (usually when syncing with iTunes) and could probably do with a boost.
2. Abandoning FrontRow on the Macintosh and consolidate it with the Apple TV software - having one code base has to be better.
3. Allow other Macs to use remote iTunes libraries in the same way that Apple TV's do today - so play counts get updated properly and one iTunes library is considered the "master".

By doing this, the MacMini would become a media centre product (of course it is, sort of, already) with a DVD drive. I know several people doing this already but they are using Plex or other software to view their videos and media.

Apple are resisting the urge to put Blu-ray drives in their products and I suspect this is because they believe Blu-ray will be killed by downloads very soon. I think they are probably right.

Anyway anything like above is unlikely to happen soon - everyone is waiting for the new product announcement next week and it is, speculatively, going to be a tablet personal computer. We'll see.

Where to find One Minute

2010-01-23T14:21:00.002Z

One Minute is an experimental video cast to force me to do something other than work on my computers! I've recently trimmed the number of places I publish the video cast - you will no longer find it on blip.tv or podomatic or libsyn. Mevio is meeting my needs for syndication with Vimeo exceeding my needs for a flash streaming home. And I'll continue using YouTube too.

See chrispinnock.com/oneminute for details.

One Minute 22 - Snow

2010-01-23T09:00:00.001Z

One Minute 22 - Snow from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

UK National Debt

2010-01-16T18:50:00.001Z

One Minute 21 - Pantheon

2010-01-16T08:00:00.002Z

One Minute 21 - Pantheon from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 20 - Bruges

2010-01-09T21:43:00.003Z

One Minute 20 - Bruges from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 5 - M25

2010-01-04T18:55:00.001Z

Road Trip 5 - M25 from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 19 - Happy New Year

2010-01-02T19:10:00.001Z

One Minute 19 - Happy New Year from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Ping FM bookmark button

2010-01-02T11:56:00.004Z

I'm obviously being dense because I cannot find the ping.fm bookmark button today. Maybe there isn't one. Anyway, here is one I knocked up. Drag the link to your bookmark bar.

Ping it!

That was a long year

2009-12-31T13:10:00.003Z

This year has been a year of travelling. In brief:

Been to Prague 39 times and built a software development team there.

Been to Germany 3 times including a stop in Aachen and a trip to Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest trip was particularly good as I met 4 of my friends from across Europe who I'd never seen in the same room together until the trip.

Drove to Prague through France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany (video).

Went to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel and Tivoli to see a large villa.

Popped up to Glasgow for a wedding and spent a couple of seconds unconscious (cf. September's post).

Went to France 6 times including the road trip above. Also popped across to Dunkirk, popped across to Calais twice and popped into Paris for a work day trip.

Went to Bruges bringing the total number of times of being in Belgium in 2009 to 3. Had a quick look in Brussels but didn't do it justice.

Retreated to Brighton for some downtime on two occasions.

Taken over 40 flights with Easyjet and BA. I prefer BA.

It has not all been good however. My good friend and former colleague Kevin Beurle died in a ballooning accident.

Ebay is a lot less attractive for me

2009-12-29T14:11:00.002Z

I read comics and as a result I have tonnes of them. I usually sell them on Ebay. Due to my heavy travelling schedule this year, I haven't got around to selling any for 6 months.

This is old news apparently, but it seems that it is no longer possible to charge postage on many items. The last time I sold comics on Ebay it was possible to put postage on for large collections, but even this has disappeared. I'm not sure what the best strategy is - do I raise the starting bids or go for the "Freight" option?

Last year, my Ebay experience was very good particularly with the Paypal Royal Mail integration. Then they removed the ability to give buyers negative feedback. And now the ability to fix the postage properly. It definitely has become a buyer's tool - however here is the news: without sellers there are no buyers.

One Minute 18 - Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T21:51:00.002Z

One Minute 18 - Merry Christmas from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Rocketman

2009-12-20T14:07:00.001Z

Rocket Man Lip Dub from Underground Planet on Vimeo.

One Minute 17 - Villa d'Este

2009-12-19T13:51:00.002Z

One Minute 17 - Villa d'Este from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Window Farms

2009-12-19T11:26:00.001Z

Podcast hosting

2009-12-12T11:54:00.003Z

There are various sites where you can publish your podcast. Here is a list of some I use:

Apple's MobileMe - using iWeb to publish the podcast
Liberated Syndication - a paid for service
Podomatic - a free service with a pro paid for version
Mevio - free with adverts, a pro service is available

One Minute 16 - Roma

2009-12-12T10:28:00.002Z

One Minute 16 - Roma from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 15 - Busker

2009-12-05T17:13:00.003Z

One Minute 15 - Busker from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 14 - Square Henri Frick

2009-12-01T12:52:00.002Z

One Minute 14 - Square Henri Frick from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 13 - Take a tram

2009-12-01T12:48:00.002Z

One Minute 13 - Take a tram from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 12 - On a recent trip

2009-11-28T11:10:00.003Z

One Minute 12 - On a recent trip from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 11 - Florenc

2009-11-25T16:03:00.006Z

One Minute 11 - Florenc from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Google Chrome OS

2009-11-21T13:06:00.007Z

Today I tried Google Chrome OS using VirtualBox and Gdgt's prepared Chrome OS image. The OS is currently browser based. You login with your Google account and get access to your Google Mail and Calendar with the browser as default.

Essentially this is a platform that allows your computer to use Google's applications and browse the web. Very little data is stored on your machine and you are able to recreate your environment on another Google Chrome OS system by logging into it.

It is very difficult to say whether this is what the world will want from a computing environment. About 10 years ago, I purchased a Compaq T1000 thin client. It is essentially a Linux based system able to run a browser (notice any similarity). There were companies who used them, but I haven't seen anything like it for a while because the fashion has changed back to having a PC with grunt on your desk.

It seems that there is a shift from thick client (machine with loads of power on your desk) to thin client (machine will little power on your desk which relies on the cloud) and back again. In my opinion, Google Chrome OS sits between this because the browser will have power in it to make the web applications work. Furthermore there will be an offline mode (I didn't try this in the build I looked at today).

Maybe I've missed the point, but unless you are tied to Google's applications and all your other applications are web based, Google Chrome OS is not for you yet. However, it will be interesting to see if the predicted shift towards solely web based applications happens. At the moment, there is still a case for a "client" application - one obvious example being Google Earth where the rendering power is on the client rather than relying on the server.

Anyway, we are watching.

One Minute 10 - Clouds

2009-11-21T08:37:00.002Z

One Minute 10 - Clouds from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 9 - Sometimes I just

2009-11-17T18:28:00.002Z

One Minute 9 - Sometimes I just from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Uptime

2009-11-14T17:08:00.003Z

One of the team just sent me this:

F1$ uptime
6:34pm up 1964 day(s), 8:24, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.03

The server has been up for 5 years and 139 days! It has just been retired. I remember commissioning this server in 2002. It was running Solaris 8, processing many TCP/IP connections a day.

Desktop images

2009-11-13T22:49:00.002Z

Just back from Rome. Fantastic light. Here are some images that make good desktop images.

One Minute 8 - Eurotunnel

2009-11-12T08:38:00.002Z

One minute 8 - Eurotunnel from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 7 - South Quay

2009-11-09T08:29:00.002Z

One Minute 7 - South Quay from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 6 - Taking a train in Prague

2009-11-06T15:09:00.002Z

One Minute 6 - Taking a train in Prague from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip 3 - Prague to London

2009-11-03T23:13:00.001Z

Road Trip 3 - Prague to London from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One Minute 5 - Pigeon

2009-11-03T14:37:00.003Z

One Minute - 5 - Pigeon from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Persuading iMovie that a hard disc is a camera

2009-11-01T16:29:00.007Z

On a recent road trip, I generated many gigabytes of video footage (see here). Even with my camera's 60GB hard drive, I still had to copy off the raw samples from the camera onto a spare hard disc half way through the trip. On the Mac, iMovie doesn't like importing MPEG-2 files if they do not appear to come from a camera.

You can trick iMovie into thinking your external hard drive is a camera by creating a directory called MP_ROOT and within that a directory called 101PNV01. Copy your MPEG-2 clips into this directory. See below.

Then eject your drive and unplug it. Fire up iMovie and plug your drive in. You will now be able to import the files into iMovie.

Road Trip 2 - Driving to Kunice from Prague

2009-11-01T16:29:00.001Z

Road Trip 2 - Driving to Kunice from Prague from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One minute 4 - Aachen, Germany

2009-11-01T14:33:00.003Z

One Minute 4 - Aachen, Germany from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Road Trip - London to Prague

2009-10-30T22:15:00.002Z

One minute 3 - Today I went for a very long drive

2009-10-30T09:20:00.002Z

One Minute 3 - Today I went for a very long drive from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

One minute 2 - Getting up and out

2009-10-30T09:00:00.002Z

One Minute 2 - Getting up and out from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

I wish I could tell what bloody time it was

2009-10-25T05:48:00.003Z

Minor confusion as I awoke in Aachen on Sunday morning. The clocks change across Europe for daylight saving purposes. My watch says it is 630am. My iPhone says it is 530am. And the hotel's television says it is 730am. I believe it to be 630am CET and I'm going with that.

It was a little confusing at, er, 630am in the morning.

One minute - a new videocast

2009-10-21T20:47:00.006+01:00

One minute is a new videocast by me. It will consist of small clips of video usually of one minute in length and I hope to publish it weekly.

Subscribe here:

One minute (iTunes m4v)

One minute (Mevio mp4)

or view in your browser on Vimeo or Mevio.

Thanks to Gary Rosenzweig for allowing me to use a clip of Macmost now in the second episode.

One Minute

2009-10-21T01:02:00.004+01:00

One minute from Chris Pinnock on Vimeo.

Ellie Harrison: Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector

2009-10-11T17:02:00.009+01:00

I came across Ellie Harrison's work by accident - her project to catalogue her thoughts during every tea break from January 2006 to December 2008 was the first piece of her work I saw. From that blog I stumbled onto Ellie's website and found this book.

Many of her projects are about cataloguing her life - two examples being the food she eats and her travel. This book, Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector, documents several of these projects in the form of Ellie putting this life documentation process behind her. The book has some essays about how the proliferation of Web 2.0-style sites has encouraged more people to document their lives - e.g. blogging, Facebook for micro-blogging, Dopplr for travelling. It touches on the fact that self-promotion like this can be narcissistic and many use these sites to say something for the sake of saying something - Quantity vs Quality.

Whether or not the book is a true analysis of Ellie's personality or her change in behaviour (she seems to have rebooted her art career with an MA in Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art), it is a good read and worth buying - particularly if you are looking for something a bit different.

Confessions of an RDC website. Book available here from Ellie's shop.

Duncan Bannatyne: Anyone can do it

2009-10-11T16:26:00.005+01:00

This book surprised me. I didn't expect it to be as interesting as I found it. I had difficulty getting into Peter Jones' book Tycoon and had assumed this book would be similar. However I read this one very quickly.

It tells the story of how Duncan Bannatyne built his business empire from scratch. Duncan comes from a poor background

After a short career in the Navy where he was dishonourably discharged for attempting to throw his commanding officer overboard, he went to Jersey and worked casually. Whilst in Jersey, he begun to think about business ideas. Also reading an article about Alan Sugar made him realise he had a chance of getting somewhere.

He started with a chain of ice cream vans and also with renting properties to DSS tenants. The government were providing the rent for the DSS tenants which made the revenue stream guaranteed.

Duncan was able to build a chain of care homes for the elderly by analysing what was wrong with existing homes and improving on them. His homes were more comfortable and had en-suite bathrooms whereas the other homes at the time were cramped. The businesses succeeded because he could guarantee a revenue stream from government funding in the same way he'd done with the tenancies.

He has built his business using common sense and readily available materials - for example, in the early days he would work from government information leaflets rather than hire in expensive advice. He has a disregard for consultants spending vast sums of money on expenses - this is a common topic throughout the book where several times expensive consultancies have added expenses as "standard practice". In one case Duncan refused to pay an additional 22% in expenses to the firm floating one of his companies.

The book also covers his involvement with Unicef and his charity work in Romania. His television and acting career are covered, including his involvement in Dragon's Den.

Amazon: Duncan Bannatyne: Anyone can do it.

Competition on the UK railways

2009-10-10T08:33:00.004+01:00

It is very hard for railways to compete in the way normal businesses do. For a rail company to compete with another rail company, they need to be able to provide comparable routes. This is very difficult without running on the same tracks or running on different tracks. There are some cases of this but certainly in the south east of England there is nothing that could be described as healthy competition.

We need an affordable train system that runs with the passenger's interests at heart. Therefore it is time to think about how we do railways again in the UK. This Bring Back BR petition is worth signing in my view.