I'm one of those people who never seems to become devoted to one particular application for dealing with social media. I've used various applications over time, and while I still think Digsby is pretty much where it is at due to it being both a universal IM and social media client, I occasionally get bored and like a change of scenery. It's a bit like someone who is into their home and feels the need to change the room around every so often.

As a result, I downloaded the latest version of Tweetdeck with the mysterious User Stream preview.

I've never put much thought into how the Twitter API works. I know it limits the number of requests over a period of time, but it's never been an issue for me. I assumed Tweetdeck and similar applications polled the API on a regular basis to check for new Tweets. This batch process, albeit one on a very regular schedule, also hasn't been a problem. Still, Tweetdeck were keen to explain to me the miracle of the User Stream which would allow every Tweet to flow to me as and when it was sent. It was like Twitter...Live!

Have to admit, for my profile of Twitter use I'm not sure it makes any difference at all. I don't get enough Tweets on a regular basis to notice the difference between immediate and batch. It's also true that the overriding majority of Tweets are going to get 'delivered' to me when I'm not within Tweetdeck anyway, either because I'm at work or asleep. This makes the User Stream pretty pointless.

Always one to want to see the new technology, I decided to give it a test. I set-up #ubb as a column on Tweetdeck and I could see the difference. The User Stream did what it said on the tin with Tweets flowing in on a regular but manageable basis. It was obvious something different was happening because of the continuous nature of the updates. Then I went to experiment number two and watched the #ubb column while Big Brother was actually on. It was totally unusable, the column was a continual flow of Tweets, like some sort of film credits scrolling up the screen on steroids. It was so quick there was no way you could use the column as even trying to scroll to catch up didn't work as the Tweets came that fast. When it was polling under the old rules it was sort of manageable as you had a chance to scan the latest batch before the next one came in. The whole thing just moved less.

This brings me to the big issue with User Stream. How many people have the perfect flow of Tweets that makes the User Stream useful and obviously an improvement over batch but not so intense they just get a continual flow of Tweets they can't interact with? I can't help but think that window is pretty narrow? Still, I can probably imagine people with massive monitors, ideally tall ones, sitting in front of their screen watching five or six columns of rapidly scrolling Tweets like it's the raw matrix.

Pointless, but someone will do it.

I'm currently working to push the social network envelope in order to cast a wider net. The reason being I'm starting to gear up its importance in terms of job hunting. It's early days, and I've got a number of tasks on the agenda, such as changing my Linkedin profile, but I have to make the job hunt more personal and social networks are one way to break down barriers.

The main focus has been Linkedin, which has the advantage of being professional and career orientated. The disadvantage is it can be unfocused due to the global nature of the site. The initial goal is to increase the size of my network and follow that through via raising my profile across the board and with individuals.

In the first instance, I'm trying to connect with as many people on the Global MBA Programme as I can. This makes sense, one of the advantages of doing the MBA is the connections you form. It also has another advantage in that it increases the weight and respectability of your profile. When applying for certain jobs seeing that your connections on Linkedin are all relatively high profile people in roles across the globe is a good thing. It shows that you have a wide, well informed perspective. It's also good if that is actually true, which it is, as I've been enriched and enhanced by many of these people and I assume that same is true in reverse. In short, the connections on Linkedin are part of your personal brand and a tool to market your suitability for certain positions. I suspect it can also work in reverse, should you be applying for a 'between roles' sort of job, but you can't have everything.

I'm also joining groups. Groups have two advantages. The obvious advantage is the groups are orientated around topics so you'll find individuals interested in those topics as members of the groups. This gives you a chance to discuss ideas and get your name out there. Again, this is mixed. The global nature of the site means this can be bit unfocused and a scatter shot approach. Still, discussion is good just for your own sanity as it rounds out ideas and gives you a wider perspective on topics. It can also be enlightening and a confidence boost. Certain groups work for the brand as well, showing what you're interested in, that you think in a certain way (say strategic IS/IT groups) or have reached a certain level (such as CIO groups). The real advantage of joining groups is the people who you share groups with can be connected with, since 'in the same group as' is a connection option that means you don't need to request a referral or know their e-mail address (which sort of defeats the point). This means groups are good, join the ones related to your areas of expertise and the ones that represent how you want to be perceived. Use them to form new connections.

It's then about your Linkedin network, the people you connect to through others, specifically those in your second tier. At the moment, I have 103 connections and 11,700+ one step removed. In truth, that's probably not that large compared to career networkers, but it's a start. This has an exponential effect, as an example, the extended MBA cohort are involved in certain roles and connect with others in similar roles further magnifying the level of individuals you are connected with. This can also come down to key individuals, as some people on your first tier might have roles that are related to filling interim executive and C level roles, they in turn have those people as connections. It's undoubtedly useful in both an active and passive way.

Now, all your connections work for companies. This can be good for discovering companies that you weren't aware of which you may want to contact in some way and see if you can sell yourself to them. That's probably a lot harder than it used to be, but in this day and age, it's probably worth a shot as jobs don't get to the job market and in some SME cases they might not advertise for a role they decide exists when a 'candidate' presents it to them. That's my theory anyway. This takes some work, as it means mining your connections for those companies and then researching them a bit. I've not done that extensively yet, but the odd one has caught my eye. It's an information source and a pretty good one.

Even ignoring the whole role hunting effort, you can call on these connections, ask them questions and engage in discussion with them. It's a no lose situation.

I'm probably going to change my profile a bit. At the moment I think it has too many achievements on it which tends to say a lot. This can be a good and bad thing. I've come to the conclusion it probably says too much considering people do check it during the application process. This can give another perspective that may compromise your targeted CV. The Linkedin profile exists to be checked and it can only be targeted in one, fixed way. As a result, I'm going to take the achievements out and focus the profile on the brand I want to communicate as a default. I'm going to do this via focusing on branding and selling the roles accurately without specific achievements in order to paint a picture of me. I don't see many significant CV-lke achievements on Linkedin profiles, if any. I suppose I see it like this, the achievements feel like a sell on function, I want to market myself based on a brand of experience and position myself appropriately. It's going to be a selling document, but different to a CV. I just need to find the time to sit down and do it. It's a bit of an art form.

The idea being connections, personal brand and personal sell all paint the desired picture.

I'm also trying to use Twitter, but I've not found the best way to use it yet. The trouble with Twitter is it just isn't very targeted. It's essentially you sending your voice out into the void. You can follow people, but they don't necessarily have to follow you. Still, it can be a good a way to get known by and have conversations with people. The difficulty is bringing Twitter down to the local level. One improvement in this area is the 'creation' of the #'NEFollowers tag by a North East (UK) business. It's early days, but I'm hoping I can use this to communicate with people following the tag in the region and forge some more targeted, local connections. The problem might be these businesses are micro-companies, which is fine in itself, but I'm probably hoping to target a bit more towards the SME level. I may be wrong, I've done the micro-company thing, it does have some advantages.

Ultimately, I feel like I'm a skilled resource, a pretty significant social asset, who wants to live and work in the region and I need to try and pro-actively sell that. We shall see how it goes. If it all fails, I'll have still extended my network and talked to interesting people, which is a good thing. That in itself is worthwhile.

When we purchased the PS3 this put us in the market for Blu-Ray discs. Personally, I wasn't in that much of a rush, as any remotely modern DVD tends to look absolutely fantastic when played through an Xbox or PS3 anyway due to the upscaling. Not so long ago we also moved to a 42” TV, and we've been very happy with that, the image quality and the colours being particularly impressive. It was inevitable we would purchase a Blu-Ray disc eventually.

A few days ago Louise got Lost Boys on Blu-Ray and we watched it yesterday.

I was surprised by the experience as I didn't see Lost Boys as a prime candidate for sampling HD. I actually found it enthralling. It was the image quality, specifically the level of detail and the richness of the colours. The only way to describe it is sumptuous. It just pulled you in. It transforms things you've even seen before. The coastal town of Santa Carla looks totally different in all the montage shots, just richer, more real and as a result the vibe of the place and how that influences the film just comes across better. The same is true of other locations, such as the comic shop the Frog brothers work at, you can literally read all the detail on all the comics in the background, it adds a level of vibrancy that just isn't present on a DVD.

What was very interesting is I've always assumed the best candidates for HD are big scale films, historical epics, science fiction blockbusters and action films, and while I'm sure they are perfect candidates, I'm also thinking slower, more intimate films may actually be one of the bigger winners of the HD format assuming they ever get made. The slower, close-up scenes during which a lot depended on facial expression and actors maintaining eye contact with each other or the camera just get a major boost and, again, that's in a film that isn't overly intense in this regard. I'm thinking some sort of claustrophobic film that survives off the intense, close-up performances of the actors and the atmosphere of its location could really win out on HD.

We're not going to suddenly purchase a glut of Blu-Ray discs, but I can see them rising up the agenda a bit.

I've took the plunge. I've thrown caution to the wind and last weekend I purchased a 42” LCD TV and a PlayStation 3. As well as the luxurious items themselves, this also happens to sort out the wireless connectivity problem as the Xbox 360 is now in the 'office' wired to the router along with the 32” LCD TV that used to be in the living room. The new TV also solves the HD inputs problem of the old TV as it has far more than I'd ever use.

The main trial was the LCD TV. Was purchasing a TV back in the CRT days that complicated? It's horrendous now and, whichever way you look at it, it involves an incredible leap of faith. It's actually like buying a computer, which introduces the consumer to the nightmare of technical reviews. Actually, it's worse than purchasing a computer, because the branded product innovations association with each TV are a complete leap of faith at worst or personal perception at best? My TV has an Eco Panel, Resolution+, Active Vision II, a Game Mode and, most impressively, a Meta Brain! Apparently, this 'brain' does funky stuff with the signal processing, allegedly. At least processors and graphics cards have hard data to back them up. You have to read the a sample of reviews. You have to take in the 'facts'. The trouble is you also know some of the things that put you off a particular model, would have probably been a non-issue if you'd purchased it and never known about the issue. Anyway, after a bit of research, resulting in me having to rule out Sony and Panasonic due to obscene cost, as well as tossing out the lofty goal of having an LED TV, I went for a Toshiba TV. It got 'universally' good reviews I've had it for 4-5 days now and it's picture has been nothing but gorgeous even on standard definition signals (the usually dodgy signal culprits aside). It seems to do colours very well, they are very sumptuous. It passed the 'sample scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring' test with flying colours. It even seems to have pretty good sound, which is odd for an LCD.

What can I say about the PlayStation 3? In truth, it does a lot of things the Xbox 360 does. I realise I've purchased an expensive product that duplicates a lot of functionality. The trouble is, after 4-5 days with it, I have to say, it just exudes quality while the Xbox 360 doesn't. It's in the detail. The slim model certainly looks visually better. I can say whether the interface is better, but it certainly has a minimalist elegance that looks great in its HD glory. It also has a much bigger hard disk and doesn't have to connect to the internet just to play basic media formats. It's also deathly silent. I never had a problem with the Xbox 360 fan noise, but you can't knock something that sits under the TV with the profile of a stealth fighter. It's ridiculously silent. This makes it an excellent media player, one or two formats it doesn't support aside, which haven't been an issue for me.

It's all about the games though, and the PS3 has started to come into its own. Yes, it gets a lot of games that don't use it to the full because they've been developed on the Xbox 360 first. Yes, it doesn't get Mass Effect. What it does get though is gorgeous first party titles, those games designed exclusively for the PlayStation 3. I'm only in the early stages of Uncharted 2, God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII, but one thing is clear from the outset: they exude production qualities that are to die for. In fact, I'd go as far as to admit I've not fully felt the full awesome of the HD console generation, though I have enjoyed games like Mass Effect and Fable 2 a lot. Now I feel like I've arrived in it, the PlayStation 3 games in my current library feel like they are worthy of a new console generation. They look amazing and haven't used that as excuse not to attend to the detail in other areas like gameplay and story. The narrative structure used at the beginning of Uncharted 2 is pretty bold. The assault on Mount Olympus at the start of God of War III is almost impossible to describe in a way that does it justice. I'm not even going to try. As for Final Fantasy XIII, you now play in a game with graphics that are like a perpetual 'cut scene'. I'd say, for the first time, the experience feels HD and light years beyond the previous generation.

All this and I've now entered the world of Blu-Ray. This is another area I've only just made the transition to. Until very recently I just wasn't bothered. The problem was the up-scaled DVD experience, just as good on the PlayStation 3 and the 42” LCD, was so good I wasn't convinced about the value in HD. I'm still not fully, but just like games sell consoles, films sell HD. It was Star Trek that did it. I can't explain why, but for some strange reason that was the first film that I wanted to own in HD. As it happens, I do have the DVD now, and I'm not falling into the trap of repeat buying (I'm still not sold on HD that much), but I will selectively go HD on films in the future. As an example, Kick Ass will almost certainly be a HD purchase, it just feels right.

A very successful set of purchases.

Okay, after a few questions during the MBA residential regarding status updates and multiple social networks, I thought I'd wax lyrical about the architecture I use at the moment. There are two sides to this. One is the architecture I use to get my blogs to appear as status updates on 3 social networks, the other is the various tools I use to update my status to multiple social networks. While this isn't that complicated, it has required some diagrams, which also come in useful for me remembering how it works as well, especially in the case of the blogs.

The simplest way I update my status is to use tools that allow me to send to multiple networks at once. This is represented by the diagram above. I tend to use a mixture of Tweetdeck and Digsby, both allow me to send status updates to any combination of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Digsby is also my multi-network IM client. This allows me to target any status update to the correct networks. A core of them go both to Facebook and Twitter, less go to Linkedin. I tend to use Tweetdeck on the iPod Touch and I switch between the two on the PC. At the moment I seem to have moved back to Digsby on the PC and netbook as it's one less application to have open. It's just more convenient.

The other way I update my status is via e-mail, I use ping.fm for this. Ping.fm receives updates and then posts them on for you to various social networks (too many to count). The key thing about Ping.fm is not just the ridiculous amount of social networks it supports, but the ridiculous amounts of sources it accepts for the status updates. If you like MSN and want to update your social networks from there you can, you just get a special contact and anything sent to that contact is then sent on to your social networks. I currently have the usual problem of my employer blocking all the social networks (and IM). Obviously, they don't block e-mail. Using Ping.fm I can send my status update to a special address and the update goes to the social networks configured on that account. You can also use 'Groups' to provide more fine grained routing to different social networks with the one account (or have two accounts, etc). If I've posted to a social network during typical works hours it's probably come via e-mail through Ping.fm.

Now for the blogs. The way I get my blogs to my status updates is to use a combination of Twitterfeed for the most part and Ping.fm in the case of Linkedin (since Twitterfeed doesn't support it).Basically, Fandomlife.net updates two xml files that act as RSS feeds: a leisure and professional one. The leisure one includes all blogs and is used to send to Twitter and Facebook. The professional RSS feed contains items that are more profession, career and MBA related and they go to Linkedin. As shown in the diagram below, I've set up a 'leisure' account on Twitterfeed which reads the RSS file and sends the blog to Facebook and Twitter. The 'professional' feed works in the same way but it forwards the blog entry to Ping.fm, which in turn sends it to Linkedin.

That's about it. In truth it sounds and looks a bit more complicated than it actually is. The blog entry set-up works particularly well with any blog going to all three of my social networks within an hour of being posted. The key tools are Twitterfeed and Ping.fm, the rest is just a matter of choosing a good client. While I've said this before, the correct client selection can mean you never actually visit Twitter or Facebook, as you just use it through the selected client.

This is a good question, as if they are paying Neil Midgley for his latest missive on how the BBC making an iPhone application for its content is a waste of his license fee, then I suggest they hire someone else. I'm just not sure his argument makes any sense.

When the next election is won there is probably two certainties: cuts of one form or another and some sort of review of the BBC once the economics is in order. It's been caught up in the 'how our tax is wasted' fiasco and every one and his brother who would like the BBC to only ever produce safe and non-commercial TV is piling in. To be fair, something probably does need doing, as the BBC does compete in the UK broadcasting space but has a guaranteed revenue. The danger is we'll destroy it in the process. The axes seem to be out and I can't help but think some people will look over their shoulder at the once great forest and question their actions once it's too late.

Midgley's missive hits upon one area that people often complain about: the BBC's expansion beyond the TV set into web content and alternative delivery mechanisms. The irony about Midgley's piece is he's fine with iPlayer. That was a good thing. That wasn't a waste of his licence fee. I remember all the moaning about money being spent on iPlayer when it was new. My argument is it's not possible to back the creation of iPlayer and then go on to say 'that is okay' but creating content delivery mechanisms for mobile phones is a waste of the license fee to the extent the BBC shouldn't be doing it. The reason being they are part of the same strategy, ultimately more content will be watched, listened to or read on mobiles just as more content is being consumed over the Internet to the PC and console devices. After all, it's not just about the iPhone, they've also committed to Blackberry and Adroid versions, so it's also about the iPad and Android tablets, etc. If iPlayer is fine, does that mean developments to integrate iPlayer with Virgin Media or the PlayStation 3 are okay? If they are okay then what makes mobile content an exception?

It makes no sense. There is no borderline that tips things over to the nonsensical. Either the BBC has a remit to get its content onto other platforms, whatever that content maybe, as the priority of TV wanes or they don't? Amazingly, in the typical fashion associated with The Telegraph and The Independent, a number of people reply who seem to have mastered the ability to comment on articles from the past, as they are certainly posting from a different century. If the BBC sat on its laurels and only ever delivered content to TV and never looked at other options one of two things would have happened: erosion due to competitors doing it (though the issue of guaranteed revenue comes in) or we've not have Sky and ITV player because it took a 'tax' funded organisation to make the move? Take your pick.

The thing I find amazing about the issue of the BBC casting out its content to the Internet and edge of network devices? The fact, as a public organisation, it does it so bloody well.

One of the things I lost when I moved away from Ourinternet was my wiki. One of the great things about Ourinternet was it had a whole range of applications that could just be added to your hosting without any extra costs. One of those was a nifty wiki that worked in a way I really liked in terms of how things were structured and put together. I could have still used that Wiki but that would have meant finding a host and whatever else and it's not worth the effort.

I've spent a bit of time looking at free Wiki services and I was having trouble finding one I liked. I did look into the Wikispaces service that is used for the 4E game, which is pretty good. I even had an account from when I was experimenting with it for Thrilling Tales. It did have the advantage of using all the same formatting options for the wiki content. It just didn't have the X Factor, and it had adverts, so after experimenting with loading up a few pages from the Thrilling Tales wiki I decided to keep looking.

Twitter to the rescue. After posting about my search to Facebook and Twitter someone replied with a recommendation of TiddlyWiki.

TiddlyWiki is a different proposition from most Wiki applications and services because the whole of your Wiki exists within one HTML file. That's all there is to it. The main advantage of this is it's ridiculously portable. I can edit it on my PC, put it on a USB memory stick and edit via Firefox on PortableApps. When I want I just upload it onto my Fandomlife.net hosting just like any HTML file. This is another good thing as I want to host it under Fandomlife.net to keep things simple. I can't seem to edit it once I upload it, but this isn't a deal breaker as I don't want it to be 'freely open to edits' anyway, so that secures the Wiki even though there might be a different way to do it. I know 'open edits' is the key wiki advantage, but experience tells me these things are largely a GM tool even if the content is 'group created'.

At the moment, I'm re-constituting the Thrilling Tales wiki, it works to get my head around the TiddlyWiki configuration and formatting options (pretty simple). It's all looking good. What I may do is a front page outside of the Wiki with graphical links to each wiki and then I'm ready to go.

Work in progress Wikis can be found below:-

• Thrilling Tales
• Fading Suns
• Nova!

The contents of my inbox have been the same for some time. I don't have a problem with spam, as I've ceased to receive any spam since I put my two mail accounts through Google Mail, the issue is all I receive in my inbox is status updates of various kinds from social networks. E-mail is effectively dead for me. The only time I use e-mail is at work (and then radically less than most people) and when I need to interface with something 'work related' from a personal perspective. This in itself is significant: the corporate setting uses e-mail, but the personal setting increasingly doesn't and has, or is rapidly in the process of, consigning it to the scrap heap.

Personally, I've never been a big user of e-mail in my personal life. This is because something more focused has always been available, such as a discussion forum or IM. I've always been a big fan of IM from the very early days, and I can track the way crowds of people moved from one IM to the other. Now it's Facebook IM by a significantly large margin and it was obviously a very sensible idea for them to integrate IM into their site. I have less than a handful of contacts on Google Talk and MSN, everyone else is Facebook IM. I just can't remember using e-mail in a big way. I remember the odd role-playing game discussion over e-mail in the early days, but most of it has been IM, forums and private messages on forums.

The only time I use e-mail now is for interfacing with the job market, but this is driven by the fact e-mail is still a core application for business. I wonder how long this can continue, to be honest?

Now, I'm not a big fan of e-mail in the work place. I'm not some sort of weird Luddite, obviously, I just think e-mail gets misused a lot and often becomes problem rather than a solution. E-mail has it's place, and it's uses, I think my issue is there is often a better way to do something and e-mail just gets used by default.

First, e-mail is really bad for focused, sensible and productive discussion across a group of people. If you have a dispersed workforce IT is brilliant for bringing intelligent minds together to solve problems. E-mail just isn't the tool. The thread of conversation gets disjointed, all messages don't go to all people, etc. This is why I believe discussion forums, team rooms, web 2.0 tools (or Lotus Domino tools back in the mid-nineties) are all better. They focus the conversation in one place resulting in a richer and traceable thread of ideas and concepts. Link it all up with a contextual presence awareness and you have a much better way of doing things than e-mail, and it can be extensible by adding more tools into this virtual location. As is usually the case, all this has been possible for a while before the Web 2.0 stuff, as IT tends to recycle, improve and renew ideas. If you're running a project with a range of stakeholders I'd rather use a properly configured team room than shoot e-mails off in every direction. I'd restrict e-mail to notifications of new content in the team room.

Second, it seems all too easy for some organisations to fall into management by e-mail, and this rapidly engenders a range of systemic problems around bad communication, inefficient organisation and a strange psychology shift to 'I sent him an e-mail' somehow equating to a job having been done. It's very dysfunctional, impersonal and can reach almost surreal levels of ridiculousness. It gets so bad, medium sized change projects amount to an e-mail being sent to a significant proportion of individuals and an assumption that that's the end of it. What then happens next is so many e-mails are sent the lag from reception to reading an e-mail can be days or nearly weeks. It's my view something is seriously going wrong with someone's work patterns or the organisation itself if individuals don't even get around to reading e-mails for a handful of days. This process tends to foster the impersonality of the organisation, to the extent of fostering resentment, rather than utilising IT to bring teams together, it's almost the opposite of what's supposed to be going on.

The back of e-mail will eventually be broken in the business environment, and it'll be replaced with something more interactive, but not necessarily so, and something more personal and focused. I suppose Google Wave is one possible shot in this direction. The web is becoming less anonymous and more identity-based with surprising speed. It may well take a while. It may well take a generational change. As far as I'm concerned? I ain't going to lament the loss as I've been personally trying to break the back of e-mail for sometime.

The death of e-mail? Bring it on. Of course this means I'm a Gen-Y person in a Gen-X body, so the studies tell me, but then I've 'suffered' this for a while.

Fandomlife.net has been moved from Ourinternet to Flinthost. Regrettably, this was born out of a complete breakdown in buyer trust in the supplier. I've been with Ourinternet for sometime, since the site has been developed in Coldfusion, and I've been happy with the service. Recently, they seem to have been doing everything they could to instigate the breakdown by failing in the communications department. That's the sad thing about it from their perspective, it wasn't even the faults, which I'll go into next, but their response to them.

For some reason, I've been hampered by a series of faults on the site which seem to be a mixture of database faults and issues caused by administration errors. I'm guessing at the administration errors as what happens is things stop working even though I've changed nothing, then things are 'fixed', some of them needing subsequent changes on my side (which is annoying). The whole reason why the sequence of events is necessary is never explained. The database faults are usually some form of database corruption, again with very little explanation of why they happen. I'm sure it's not me as the site gets very low traffic and I post to it, on a web scale, at an infinitesimal rate. They usual follow this by asking for my backups despite the fact they have them and the mean time to repair (MTTR) is often measured in a day or so.

The final straw was another database fault (quite plainly one as even PHPMyAdmin ceased to work). Despite this, I spent over 24 hours persuading them it wasn't a syntax error on my part. Basically, four days later the fault had not been fixed. It's a personal site. I have no delusions of grandeur. It being down isn't overly a problem, but they would never communicate what was going on. A request for an update would be an update saying they are going to update and that would be it. Since they always refused to say (1) what was wrong, (2) what the plan was and (3) what the time scale to fix was I lost trust and moved hosts.

I'm glad I did. The site on Flinthost is just an order of magnitude faster. They are constantly highly rated and they are based in the UK, with a UK number that isn't on some fiddly dial code. They also seem to be focusing more on Coldfusion hosting, which is a good thing. The transfer was also very smooth. It took a bit of programming work on my side to scan all content for links to content within the site and remove a superfluous folder, but that is a good thing longer-term.

Hopefully all will go well.

I've had a week of podcasts and it's been brilliant. Podcasts are great if you have dead time that you can't really do much else in. I have circa 90-minutes of dead time per day in order to get to and from work. I also like to go for a walk for an hour during dinner as it's the only exercise I get during the day. All this week, I've spent that 150 minutes listening to podcasts.

What have been listening to? The gaming podcast Fear the Boot and the Marketing and Strategy podcast from Cambridge University's Judge Business School.

I like Fear the Boot. I used to listen to it before, along with Sons of Kryos, and then I sort of drifted away from them both (and I believe Sons of Kryos isn't made any more). Despite Sons of Kryos being more compatible with the gaming groups approach, I found that less interesting, probably because it was so compatible, it had an element of 'simple confirmation' about it. Fear the Boot is still interesting, largely because they use a language and seem to have a body of experience that ignores a certain strand of game development post-1996. Whenever they quote game examples they come from D&D, Battletech, Vampire, FASA Star Trek, Palladium and the token simpler and classless game of Savage Worlds. Despite sometimes breaking away from it, a lot of the language focuses on the 'GM story and setting' and the separation of the GM and the player, and too much use of the term 'RP'. Anyway, it's still good because it's about gamers in a different place with different experiences, though it does mean you sometimes mean I'm shaking my head in the car. Still, one of them was also very enlightening, and pulled together a number of thoughts I've been having about gaming generally, and the two on live action role-playing was interesting in terms of the thoughts and mindsets of those involved in the hobby (they had a panel).

The Cambridge University Business School podcasts were an experiment with iTunes U. The first minor issue is iTunes U podcasts don't download to the iPod. No idea why. If you go into the subscription and change all the file types to podcasts rather than iTunes U they will download. When something is so easily changed it always seems odd the restriction is in place? I've listened to a good number of them and a core of them are the usual academic of the day telling people what they should do with marketing budgets in the recession, or the latest academic theory. All when and good but they involve little application, so they are interesting, but are sort of repeats of things that can be picked up elsewhere. It's not that hard to know what you should be doing theoretically, after all. The interesting ones involved either case studies or new theories and their application to the real world. The most interesting one was on global strategies and how true the Global Market really is. As I've always suspected it's not that true. Capital and commodity markets are global, but it turns out even the top 500 global companies are remarkably slanted to their home market or markets just a hop away in the same region (Europe, Asia Pacific, etc). In short, we have a quasi-global market and the detail may be in regional markets along with the various regional structures and bodies and extending globally is hard. I've always had thoughts in this direction, it was interesting hearing it backed up with research, facts, theories and some wider thinking. Overall, based on the podcasts I've listened to, I'd recommend the odd iTunes U experiment if you've got dead time.

The trouble is, I've ran out of back catalogue, so now I'm waiting for new episodes to drop into my iTunes subscriptions. The strategy is now going to have to change to less back episodes and more subscriptions. As a result, a bit more trawling around iTunes shall feature in my future.

You don't have to go back very far and I'd have not been a big fan of tablet computers. This is understandable, as I do quite a bit of stuff on the computer that wouldn't be suitable. Typing this blog entry for one. Historically, they've also been still too much like laptop computers, just with a screen that could swivel. They also seemed to involve utilising a pen.

I've now had a revolution, and while I don't hanker after the tablet devices of old, I'm certainly thinking the tablet devices of 2010 and onward are going to be great. So what's changed?

The main thing is the Internet. I probably spend too much time browsing websites and I also update Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Traditionally I've done this on my PC and that's fine. I even have a more portable netbook. They both have one problem: they're not immediate. It's the nature of things on the web that as you engage with it more, the need to engage with it in a more immediate mode increases. As we put more of ourselves in The Cloud, it also makes more sense to be able to access that stuff easily and quickly.

Then we have the convergence of digital media. Everything is a digital file, even books are slowly being dragged into the act. It was inevitable that the digitalisation of everything would eventually make the PC the wrong device to access them all from. It's been happening for years with all sorts of other devices coming out that allow you to play your digital content that isn't the typical PC. The tablet is wonderful for this. You can read books on it, you can watch video and you can play music, though anything audio wastes the screen a bit. Basically, the tablet absorbs a lot of the portable media player market. Think of all those digital photos? Just make sure they're on the tablet for when the relatives come around? Or not, just browse them wirelessly from the storage under the staircase from The Cloud.

I'm even experiencing the potential of tablet nirvana already with my iPod Touch. It's essentially a table device just with a more mobile phone form factor (rather than the 7 to 10 inch screens proposed for tablets). It turns on instantly giving me access to the web and social networks. It plays music. It plays video. It plays to that need for immediacy. I can update social networks when I feel like it when I'm lying on the sofa downstairs without needing to boot up a PC of one type or another. I've been listening to podcasts on the way into work and as I go on my dinner time walk. It's not only immediacy, it allows a more aggressive use of time as the time I'm listening to podcasts would normally be dead time.

You know what? I even love the keyboard. I'd not write anything beyond a social network update on it, but for the purpose it's designed for the iPod Touch virtual keyboard is a work of genius. Even for my large western hands.

The best bit? These tablets aren't supposed a cost an arm and a leg, we're talking less than netbook prices. Sweet. I'll be happy with the iPod Touch for some time, but tablet will feature in my future at some point. It just makes sense. Bring on the tablets.

I've commented before on how navigating web development as a hobby can be a pain. The main reason for this is a lot of the tools that make life easier aren't free. As a result, to make the whole task easier for yourself you face using illegal software or making life a real pain on a project that you're supposed to be doing for fun. It's also been the case, for some time, that I've not had a web development environment on my PC. A product of a clean re-build and not wanting to put illegal software on the machine. Time for tweaking the site wasn't really available either. I've also wanted to standardised my options around Coldfusion 8, and the options I had on hand didn't allow me to do that.

I was determined to get a development platform for Fandomlife.net back on my machine over Christmas, and remain 100% legal. As a result, I've been downloading and installing the server applications I use, associated new development tools and connecting them all up.

The environment currently comprises the following free software and tools:-

• Eclipse IDE
• CFEclipse Plug-in
• Coldfusion 8 Extentions for Eclipse
• Aptana
• HeidiSQL
• GIMP
• MySQL 5
• Coldfusion 8 Developer Edition

Eclipse sits at the centre. It's a commercial scale IDE built on an open, extensible framework originally created by IBM. I was aware of the history of the product and the intent, but I'd never installed it in anger. I can't even pretend to be an expert on it at the moment, as I've only downloaded it today and got it into a working state. I'm not sure where Eclipse ends and the extensions I've installed begin, but it's suffice to say I can do most of the things I can do in 'my previous environment'. It code completes. I can access the database from within the IDE. It neatly switches between perspectives, which are pretty cool, allowing me to make CFEclipse and Aptana dominant. It's obvious one of its main draws is its ridiculous configurability, which makes it great for obsessive developers, but also makes it a bit of a big leap for everyone else. You can get up and running with it quickly, it's more the true depths of it are probably hard to master.

The various extensions add key functionality to the IDE. CFEclipse and the Coldfusion 8 extensions bring a similar level of functionality to Eclipse that exists in Dreamweaver. It's not all there, but a significant amount of it is. It's still not allowing me to browse my Coldfusion Components, and I'm pretty sure I should be able to debug interactively, but I'll get there. The browsing of Coldfusion database connections is working really well. Aptana is the extension for typical web development that isn't a server application language, so it covers HTML, CSS and Javascripts, etc. Amazingly, it also provides a range of Ajax libraries, the easy use of such things is often one of the first things to go once you try and remain legal. I've not used them yet, but you never know in the future. I like the fact it automatically uses the resources from the correct plug-in (CFEclipse or Aptana).

Last, but by no means least, is HeidiSQL which is fast, responsive and elegant to use, making interfacing to the MySQL database a breeze. I might not use HeidiSQL that much as I can do a lot of database work from within Eclipse and keep everything together. What it did do though was import the SQL scripts I exported from my service provider and re-created the database without giving me any trouble. This is a first, as the script usually takes some manual hacking.

That's it. Interactive debugging and the exploration of my Coldfusion Components aside, I've probably got around 80% of the functionality I had before while remaining entirely legal. I may actually have more, as I notice I can automatically create a Coldfusion Component to provide the CRUD functionality of a table by a wizard. I may never actually use it, but it's a nice to have. I also couldn't interactively debug before anyway, I know I can now, it's just figuring out the settings. The ability to use Ajax libraries also needs some investigation. I can now exploit the full functionality of Coldfusion 8, I was more limited to 6/7 before without resorting to notepad, which wasn't going to happen.

The only thing I'm really missing now is a CSS application that allows me to do some of the work via visual design rather than coding. I'm still at the stage with CSS were I need to get to a certain point before I go all hardcore on the code. I'm thinking that may remain something you end up having to pay for, but you never know.

Fascinating day. If you're into that sort of thing.

What's interesting about being plugged into three social media channels (Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin) is the different forms they are taking, primarily manifest through status updates directed at the individual channels. As I mentioned, when discussing personal branding, I've not been overly draconian in separating different aspects of my life. It's happening to a degree, just because the audience makes sense, but I've not set-up a massive Berlin Wall between the two.

Architecturally, I use Digsby, which allows me to see the updates from all three social networks (as well as IM). The biggest effect this has had is on Linkedin, which is now sharing equal status with the other two due to it being accessible via the same client. It was always a problem before, as you had to go to the site to see if anything had happened. Digsby also allows me to make a sensible decision, at the point of content creation, where any particular status update should be sent to. As a result, I update my status on all the social networks now, though Twitter and Facebook are updated an order of magnitude more.

Facebook, as one might expect, has become the one that you'd more associate with being a socially focused network. It has people I am socially connected to in some way, either because they are family, colleagues from the past or current jobs (more on that later), people I know from school and the MBA. I've got these in distinct groups and I know who they are. In terms of updates this means it can be quite diverse. The unique thing about the Facebook audience is I've met every single one of them face-to-face. I did have some people from school who I couldn't remember, but they've been removed over time.

Linkedin is at the opposite end of the Spectrum in that it only includes people who I've encountered through my career and education. This does mean it shares some contacts with Facebook, but it pretty much has its own audience. Linkedin is distinct in that I only send professional related posts to it. This is to say it's all work, career, personal development and expertise related. It's for this reason that a much smaller percentage of updates go to Linkedin. While I don't say anything un-professional or politically sensitive on any channel, it just makes sense to keep the content on Linkedin focused.

Twitter is strange as it sits somewhere in between the two and tends to get everything. By and large Twitter and Facebook get the same updates. Twitter often gets the same updates as Linkedin. Occasionally, things will just go to Twitter and nowhere else, but I can't think of an example. The 'audience' on Twitter is a bit random. This is the main issue with Twitter, it doesn't come with a purpose integrated into its being. Twitter is more what you make of it, and as such is more personal brand driven. I have gaming people, random people and more 'career' oriented people following me. I even have some strange ones that I just can't explain. It's a bit of a melting pot. I'm sure people could write essays, and actually have, on why this is a bad idea, but I sort of like it. This does mean Twitter is probably the channel that represents all my dimensions so to speak. Facebook is close, but all Linkedin updates don't go to Facebook.

There is one decision I have sort of fallen into: I'm very careful about adding current work colleagues to Facebook (Twitter hasn't been an issue). This isn't because I say anything on Facebook that I think is damaging (though I know a few who do and I've 'seen' the results), I just like to get the lay of the land before I open up the update stream. After all, in the actual work place, I don't stream of consciousness my interests, activities and thoughts in the way that come across in Facebook, even when the social and political landscape is understood. This changes over time, probably dependent on the person, and may prove to be a non-issue as time passes. This does mean my 'Locked Down' group does get used until I'm ready.

Overall, I think the process is working well. If I have any small doubts it's the potential need for career and non-career Twitter accounts, but I'm still not fully convinced. In a way it's less about what I post and more about the audience being diluted, while at the same time realising I'm not sure I'm going to turn Twitter into a 'job' in order to farm and build respective audiences so it's a moot point. In truth, Twitter can be a heck of a lot of work.

While it probably seems strange to many, one of my Top 5 role-playing campaigns was a Neverwinter Nights campaign. I got to enjoy this campaign as a player (the period for which it gets the entry in the article) and as one of 2-3 people running the game with the DM client. It was a great experience. I think a part of this was the unique combination of experiences and challenges delivering a campaign in NWN presented, but one of the key things was as a platform for delivering campaigns NWN turned role-playing into a written medium. You needed to think less like an 'actor' and more like a 'writer' who just happened to be writing everything, interactively, in the moment. Obviously this worked well for me.

I've never been a big fan of playing via a forums or by e-mail (or post back in the day), despite the fact the fact they are written mediums. I was momentarily intrigued in using something like IRC, again because it was a written medium experience. I was specifically thinking an IRC-like format would be perfect for a style of play similar to Primetime Adventures: very rules lite and very focused on scenes as a unit of storytelling with clear framing and stake setting. This structure seemed to provide a perfect framework for the game to take place over tan IRC-like medium, the hope was even to try it.

This brings me to Google Wave, which may well be a very good medium for role-playing games focused around a Primetime Adventures type of structure, instead of playing out a script in the moment you can interactively write it. I'm thinking of something like what this article proposes, in that you establish scenes and write them in the moment (as people update sporadically over time), using a structure similar to an actual TV script. The format of the Wave is essentially an extension of the other structural elements of play, such as the scene, the framing and stakes. It ensures play has a structure, rather than just meandering all over the place.

It's certainly interesting. I've been missing the NWN experience of late, and wondering how I could replace it. Wave might offer a different, but similar, experience due to its integrated documents and persistent instant messaging approach.. The good thing is, it wouldn't have to take too much time, just a bit here and there to update the current scene. As a player anyway, assessing the DM'ing time would take a bit more thought.

Interesting, whether it'll go anywhere is something else.

Since I joined Facebook back in April 2008, and experienced my first weird Friend requests from two strippers things have been progressing and growing. The first tipping point was when I went to my first MBA residential seminar and the favoured method of communication during a discussion about DUO was Facebook. This has proven true, with Facebook being the main way to stay in touch with the MBA network than methods within DUO. The MBA created the first network externality event that made it relevant, quickly followed by the ability to integrate Facebook IM into Pidgin. This was quickly followed by falling into the social network pattern of status updates, joining Twitter and experimenting with Seesmic and giving Digsby a go. Digsby has completed the circle, making IM, social network feeds and status updates all easy across everything. You also have the Farm Town contagion which brought in people who'd normally not join Facebook.

As I write this I have twelve people available to me on Digsby, my IM client. All of their profile pictures have the little Facebook logo in the bottom right-hand corner. There has been an inevitable conversion to IM from people who normally wouldn't bother, but inherit it through Facebook. There has also been a shift, in my small sample, away from traditional IM services to Facebook. In fact, I think there are a couple of people who use Google Talk, the rest are Facebook. While I remain service agnostic with my universal clients, the external context is making this a moot point as more and more connections are formed via Facebook. How close it to becoming a default? What is the tipping point before it becomes the de-facto personal directory of the web? I'm sure they're working on it.

The only problem with being hooked up to the social network sphere is it's all too easy to suddenly find that you've become some sort of virtual curtain twitcher. In some cases this is your own fault, as an example, it's all too easy to feel a bit miffed when you get tweets pushed to your desktop about the exotic like of Fearne Cotton as she travels to L.A and parties in Las Vegas. You can't complain though, as you can always choose not to follow her or similar people who have broken away from the 9 till 5. It's harder in Facebook though, as invariably you're not connected to celebrities via Facebook, but people in your orbit. People you want to stay connected to. The curtain twitcher effects kicks in again though, as their status updates give you a window into their lives. At times it can be frustrating. I usually keep myself to myself in such matters and don't concern myself with what other people are doing, social networks can put the burden of being a curtain twitcher on you. It's like unavoidable baggage.

As I've mentioned a few times before, I really like instant messaging and social networks. In the case of social networks I rarely actually visit the sites and instead have the status updates and the like pushed to a client on my PC and netbook. I've used Pidgin as my universal IM client for some time, and this even includes integration into Facebook IM. The social network side of things was catered for first by Twhirl to do Twitter and Facebook updates and then I dropped that for Seesmic Desktop which also allowed for status updates and having a Facebook feed as well as the Twitter feed pushed to me. All good.

Now I've changed to Digsby. Digsby is really clever because it removes the need for different clients for IM and social network updates. Digsby is both. The IM side of things is pretty standard. It displays all your contacts across your IM services, including your Facebook ones. Overall, it's better at doing this than Pidgin, especially for Facebook. The contact record is clever as it shows links for profile, wall and photos, etc, though it does take you to the Facebook page to see them. I also like how it puts a little badge in the corner of everyone's profile image for the service the contact comes from. Neat.

At the top of the screen is a panel for my social networks showing Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Notice Linkedin, this is particularly good as most desktop clients for social networks do not include Linkedin. Basically, I can hover over the social network I want and up pops a nice web-style window showing the status updates from the respective social network. It's well formatted and I can post comments to the statuses within the window.

You can send status updates to the various services, either one or all of them. This allows me to post things to Twitter and Facebook, and if required Linkedin separately or at the same time if the content is appropriate. It also does little things like slide itself into the side of the screen unless you want to interact with it. It displays pop-up windows that fade out when messages come in (though Seesmic did this). It also has a mini-chat window that pops up if the main chat window is minimised and flashing, this allowing quick replies without having to open up the flashing window.

At the moment I have Digsby on both the PC and the netbook and the intention at the moment is to use it rather than Pidgin and Seesmic. Didnt' think I'd ever drop Pidgin, but the ability to do both IM and Social networks (and e-mail if I want) in one neat applications made the change a breeze.

Interestingly, it seems to keep a lot of settings on the server as when I installed it on the netbook it seemed to inherit all the settings. Easy.

I've been reviewing my security on Facebook, which is already locked down to everything being at least 'Friends Only', but I've been working on making it all a bit more granular. A while back I started to make sure all my Friends got put into at least one group. The aim being to categorise them so I could choose what to do with them. I have a Family Group, for instance, as well as one for the Gaming Group, the MBA and group's for the different companies I originally met people at when it comes to ex-Colleagues. There are others. I did this originally to make people easier to find, but it has other benefits.

One thing I tend not to like about Facebook, even though I tend to have nothing to worry about in practice, is the uncontrolled proliferation of information. As an example, if a Friend tags you in a photo all your Friends become aware of that photo. I'm also not so keen on putting photos up on Facebook that all my Friends can see. Why should those I know through the MBA be privy to any holiday photos I put on Facebook? They tend to be for family. As a result, I started securing all photos I put on Facebook, and it's not a vast amount, via these Groups. This tends to mean most of them are tagged with the Family Group, and no one else can see them. I've also locked down the tagging features so they don't proliferate around my Friends.

I've also took things a bit further as I've created a Locked Down Group, and I've used this to strictly lock the whole of my Facebook Profile down, thus allowing me to open the door to someone but give them very restricted access once they are in. They basically see the Profile information and that's it, no content or interactive activity filters through to them including status updates. The other advantage with having these Groups, though I don't know when the feature went live, is you can go offline on Facebook IM for particular Groups. This can give you fine control of which people you appear online to on Facebook IM. The groups and the offline marking filter through to Pidgin, so I can continue to interface with Facebook while rarely going to the site.

You could question why you'd accept a Friend request from someone and then place them in Lock Down? I can't imagine many people would be put into this form of social network purgatory, but you do occasionally get a Friend request that you face either rejecting or sending into Lock Down as you don't necessarily want them plugged into your whole social stream of information. That reason for that may change, but the point is it exists at a certain point in time. It doesn't stop you being plugged into them, but then that's their choice. You might also get someone who you have recently met, but is quick to Friend request, and you want to get a feel before opening up the social network flood gates.

It came from nowhere and seemed to spread like the plague. The only other game I've witnessed spreading so fast amongst people I know was World of Warcraft. Farm Town on Facebook is spamming my feed as people grind day in and day out so they can be given new features to add to their farms. If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, it's drawing people to Facebook so they can play the game. Network externalities for the win. A quick check of the Application Page on Facebook tells me Farm town had 15 million monthly active users. Serious business.

While the games are very different in scale and execution, one being a small web-based game based on a 'world building model' and the other is a fantasy game of killing things and taking their stuff the core addictive nature of Farm Town and World of Warcraft are astonishing simple: level up and get new widgets. They even survive and grow based on network externalities. Farm Town even factors in the expansion of the game to new players into the experience and levelling mechanics. This is done by those you invite to Farm Town becoming part of your neighbourhood community.

I'm not sure whether I'm surprised or disappointed in the fact the human condition seems to have an almost universal attraction to grinding out experience and levels to be rewarded with relatively innocuous, virtual widgets that allow you to go on and grind out more relatively innocuous, virtual widgets. Rinse and repeat. A certain audience for it I could understand amongst gamer types, but significant success into the casual market? It's a bit of a face palm situation for me.

I suppose I didn't see the casual gamer holding out and playing for longer so they could reach level 22 and get a pond.

Also, there was a time I was odd for always wanting to be near a computer or carry around a laptop. It seems now those days are over, I walked into my mother's a few days ago and it was like some sort of minor, old-school Lan Party. We really do live in an era in which cheap, ubiquitous devices connected to a constant network is rapidly becoming an accepted and a wanted part of society. You know, even if it is to play for five more minutes so you can ding a level and put Lamas on your farm.

One of the features of Spotify that I like, beyond it being free, is the fact it scrobbles to Last.fm. The whole scrobbling thing is pretty neat, though it seems to be just a fancy name for Last.fm recording the music you play in a database Big Brother style. Still, at times we all like statistics, and in what is typical of Web 2.0 one persons Big Brother is another persons 'if you collect it you can share it' philosophy. This means I can see exactly what is being played as Spotify shuffles it's way through tracks in the background.

The following would seem to be the Top Tracks over the lifetime of the Scrobbling:-

The following is the Top Artists over the lifetime of the Scrobbling:-

It's the Top Artists list that surprised me a bit. The presence of Meat Loaf doesn't, that is just a product of a whole album on my playlist, which no other artist has, so this means the law of averages would put him as the top artists. Quite surprised about Britney Spears and Snow Patrol, they only have 3 tracks tracks each on the playlist, much less than Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. I suspect it is a 'length of time on list issue'. Oddly Girls Aloud wallow at seven despite also having 3 tracks on list. In a strange quirk of fate that borders on a Spotify conspiracy Linkin Park manage to get to the fifth position despite only having one track on the playlist. Since it's the most played track it's not surprising. Though it is surprising as to why it's the most played track.

It's mildly interesting anyway, if you're interested in the library that has been built up than check it out.

For a while now my Facebook and Twitter set-up has involved Twhirl and Ping.fm. I very rarely create status updates specific to Facebook, instead I post Twitter updates via Twhirl and Twhirl also sends them to Facebook via Ping.fm. I also integrated my universal IM client to Facebook some time ago. This meant I tended to only visited Facebook to see the feed details the status updates of my friends. I'd also need to visit the site for profile updates or uploading images, etc. I don't do that very often.

I've decided to give a different set-up a go. This involves using Seesmic Desktop.

The main advantage of Seesmic is it allows me to have my Twitter feed and my Facebook feed in the same place. Seesmic will also take care of the dual-posting of Twitter updates to my Facebook status. This tends to mean I have even less reason to visit the Facebook site now as I can read the Facebook feed from Seesmic and interact with it in terms of posting comments to statuses. There are certain times it'll need to take me to the Facebook site, such as when viewing images people have uploaded, etc.

Seesmic is more flexible in terms of what status updates go where. The default is it posts to both Twitter and Facebook, but it's a very quick selection to send something to one or the other. If I wanted things to just go to Twitter using Twhirl it was a bit more awkward and if I only wanted it to go to Facebook I had to open Facebook itself. Seesmic also has a clever function that automatically uses the correct account for a reply, so when I reply to a Tweet from my Fandomlife Twitter feed it automatically only sends that back to that feed. This would be even more useful if I had multiple Twitter accounts. It also means Ping.fm is defunct.

In my view, though I can't prove I'm representative, the option to have social networks work on a push basis is their major strength. I don't want to have to go to a web page to see my updates I want them pushed to me so I get them as required. This may be to my computer or some edge of network device like a smartphone. This has been one of the weaknesses of Facebook for me, so it's good that they are opening their technology to clients such as Seesmic via set interfaces. They should make as much of the interactive side of the site open in this way.

Early days. It's only on the PC at the moment. I'll see how it goes.

The smartphone selection process is across three dimensions, with software and hardware being the primary dimensions, with an outside interest in network for those that don't fall into the category of not really caring which network they belong to (or suffering it because of the device choice). Ignoring network for now, a number of choices exist (in no particular order):-

• OS X iPhone Operating System: iPhone
• Blackberry Operating System:
• Blackberry Devices
• WebOS: Palm Pre
• Symbian: Nokia, Erricsson and Motorola
• Android: T-Mobile, HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson
• Windows Mobile: HTC, Samsung, Palm, LG

The focus of the above list is on OS first and then hardware. The first three operating systems are exclusive to particular hardware, while the remaining three are distributed across manufacturers, though Symbian is partnership between Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Palm, while Windows Mobile and Android are solutions available to all smartphone hardware. I can't attest to the hardware list being 100% complete for Windows Mobile or Android. There was a time the choice of network drove sales, but this is rapidly fading, especially in the consumer space. Hardware is still a factor, as no one likes an ugly phone (or slight miss steps like SurePress on the Blackberry Storm), but with each passing month it's software and services that are the deal clincher.

The options gaining market share from the incumbent player (Symbian, largely through Nokia) are the Apple iPhone and Research in Motion through its Blackberry brand. The problem is I just can't bring myself around to the products of these two companies. I see them, I can appreciate them and I certainly understand them, but I just can't connect with them to want to own one. I think it's a trust and control issue. Apple and Blackberry both have an offering that involves the customer buying into the brand and the integrated service. While the iPhone is nice, its need to control the environment to ensure nothing competes with its internal App Store Market irritates me (such as not supporting Flash). The iPhone OS doesn't support multitasking either, so that's no listening to music on Spotify (assuming such an app isn't vetoed due to it being a competitor to iTunes) and checking your calendar or sending off a Tweet. As for the Blackberry, I'm just not convinced regarding the corporate origins of the operating system and the reliability, though I do love the keyboards. They also exert control, as with a Blackberry you get most of your services through a Blackberry Internet Services account. As for push e-mail? Well, they crow about that constantly, but it's ceased to be a unique selling point in the consumer space, they just don't seem to have realised that. The browser is also pretty shoddy, so go the reports.

Symbian is old reliable, the workhouse of Nokia, the leading market player for quite a while (even with the current erosion). The trouble is it's just not keeping pace since the release of the iPhone. The N97 sounds brilliant, but by and large it's a sell on the hardware, as in they've thrown in the kitchen sink, rather than the software. The N97 is also ludicrously expensive. I've gone off the idea of the N97 being my ultimate smartphone, even though it does pretty much do everything I laid out originally. I'm sure if I owned it I'd be happy with it, as it is an impressive device, but it also feels like an old one. I can't help but think how people might have reacted to the N97 utilising Google Android? If I could afford it, I'd probably be happy with the N97, but the issue is you have to be happy with it for eighteen months. I'm just not sure Nokia are up to the software challenge that defines the smartphone market.

WebOS and the Palm Pre? Well, that looks pretty clever, but it's pretty new and I start to get the feeling of buying into a religious movement again.

Google Android has shaken things up a bit. Most notably because it has the potential to offer everything the iPhone can offer but with the bonus of it not being tied to a specific piece of hardware or subject to slavish restrictions on applications. The fact you can develop for Android using Java, complete with a plugin for the open source Eclipse IDE, means it uses the language and tools of a vast development community. There is every chance applications will start to proliferate at a significant rate. Application proliferation, modern operating system and a potential multitude of hardware options? Sounds good to me. There is a chance, though I'm not going to put a figure on it, that Android may become the Microsoft of smartphones. The potential disadvantage is the three license options for the OS and a lack of development speed of the core OS may mean the experience fragments across hardware suppliers.

An interesting comparison can be made with Apple and Google in the smartphone space with respect to Apple and Microsoft in the personal computer space. I also suspect the result may well be the same for Apple. As new markets develop changes occur in the value chain within a sector. Integrated solutions across the value chain, particular in relation to hardware and software, tend to work best in new, innovative, developing markets. When markets grow and mature there is a natural propensity for standards to develop which decouples elements of the value chain, specifically the integration of hardware and software. This process works for Google more than it does Apple. Apple made this mistake in the past with their personal computers, and are likely to make it again with the iPhone. It hasn't harmed the iPod? True, but then I'd argue a typical MP3 player is an appliance and as such OS features aren't as critical as with smart devices designed to be productivity enablers.

All this means I'm keeping an eye on the Android smartphones, to see what is released and how the Android market matures as my Virgin contract slowly moves on. At the moment, though I recognised the landscape shifts constantly, I'm thinking the Android phones may turn out to be a good match. We shall see, my finger is constantly on the pulse and my eyes are constantly scanning the smartphone horizon. In the months that need to pass before I can even consider a smartphone, the Android space might be quite different in terms of both hardware and software.

It would seem my Medion MD8800 PC is now fixed. I've been using it heavily for nearly two days, including watching videos on the web and the odd DVD. Watching video certainly triggered a reboot sooner rather than later. The other indicator is the massive heat sink remains moderately hot and can easily be touched and held. One of the issues that got me thinking it might be a heat problem was the heat sink was becoming untouchable, which didn't seem good to me.

The fact it's fixed is a good thing. As I really didn't want to pay 200 GBP, possibly more, for a PC that isn't any better than the one I already have. If you ignore the desktop netbooks, the specification of the machines I was considering were Celeron or dual core Pentiums at most, and my current PC is a dual core Pentium. It was going to be a complete waste of money.

It's like I've got a new PC. It's not only that it now works, it's that everything is working better. It is working much faster, but then this is to be expected as it's been built from scratch which always speeds up your machine. Windows just gets bogged down over time as you install and remove software. The other miracle is the quality of the sound. I'm not sure why this has improved but it has, it's like I've suddenly got a new sound card or set of speakers. The main issue though, is the PC can be used 100% again, and it has become clear I was missing that. I've watched a lot of videos on Gamespot over the last day and a half, catching up on the E3 coverage that I couldn't easily digest due to PC problems and MBA pressures.

Good news always comes with some 'bad'. Since I don't need to buy a new PC I suddenly have 300 GBP spare. I am seriously thinking of trading in my Xbox 360 for a PS3. In fact, I'd have probably done it this weekend. The problem is my TV isn't capable of connecting to the PS3, which means it's not a 300 GBP or less spend (due to the trade in), but something much higher. That's a bit of a pain.

Thee and a half years ago I bought my Medion MD8800 PC from Aldi and it's served me well. It's biggest contribution upon purchase was saving me from getting rested XP every time I went into a city in World of Warcraft due to the game going so slow (getting in and out took a while). Regrettably, it's been shutting itself down for a while now at random intervals and then failing to get started again immediately afterwards (it doesn't even get to the stage of loading any software). Due to the pressure of the MBA I had to make do and didn't want to dedicate much time to it, so I ended up using my Samsung NC10 as my main machine connected to a monitor. It was fine with my wireless keyboard and even allowed me to work in a dual screen fashion. This was wise, since the last thing I wanted was a corrupted ECA at the wrong time.

At one point I was contemplating a replacement, since there is obviously a chance it won't be an easily fixed problem. Historically, I've always gone for the most powerful PC I could find for close to 1K GBP. You'd get a very good PC for that these days. In the dim distant past I may have also built it from components, but I can't be arsed with that any longer. The 1K marker was the rule when I used to use the PC for games. Now I just can't be bothered with PC gaming. Once you make this disconnect you can actually contemplate what PC you actually need, and for most purposes that answer will be not much of one. Power way outstripped 99% of need many years ago. Despite seeing it as a second machine, the NC10 was perfectly powerful enough for all my needs.

The other thing I noticed as I did some very light research into where I might purchase a PC from, is how they've targeted the processors. The Celeron is obviously for light use, and the Atom isn't even mentioned, despite me happily doing the epitome of light use and then some on my NC10. A few sites even label the dual core Pentium processors towards the light use end, using language that tries to suggest you need something better than that to do anything serious. This is, gaming aside, absolute bollocks, the dual core was the 'great and powerful' option at one point, and the secret is the power needs of the average user were over served then and the software ain't got any more demanding either for the most part. According to many a website, you need a quad core now to do anything other than what your Mam, girl friend or little sister does.

This meant I actually had to contemplate the fact I didn't actually need a powerful PC, I would be happy with one of those ridiculous entry level units that I always had labelled 'for other people' or 'your Mam'. I'd entered a different target market. I felt a bit sad. I felt old. It unnerved me that I'd become the perfect candidate for an entry level e-mail, web browsing and light use PC. In fact, did I only need a 199 GBP PC? Effectively a Netbook for the desk? It was an affront to my geek credentials. It's true though, as my usage profile for my PC now consists of: e-mail, internet, Open Office, relatively light GIMP use and watching media, all of which is perfectly doable on my puny, atom-powered Samsung NC10. True, for web development I need MySQL running in the background, but it's my bet the NC10 would be fine with that also for my scale of use.

I felt emasculated, it felt like buying a car with lots of funky colours and extras and a cheeky name.

As it happens I'm crossing my fingers my trusty Medion is going to see me through a couple of more years. It's powerful enough, I'm kind of attached to it, and I'm hoping I've found the problem. Problem one was a slightly slow fan fixed to the massive heat sink. Problem number two was a wall of dust, and a thick one at that, on the side of the heat sink the fan was fixed to. This would suggest to me the fan was being seriously inhibited. The fan is now operating at full speed and I've cleared the dust away as best as possible. I'm hoping I've removed a serious overheating problem. The odds are pretty good, as the problem did have the symptoms of overheating.

I'm not sure I got have faced purchasing an entry-level PC. It may be worth putting up with the trials of PC gaming just so I can satisfy the testosterone fuelled need to get a serious man's PC. Well, I'd probably not go that far.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Nintendo Wii. I understand the appeal of the key franchises like the Mario series. I also understand the niche the Wii fills in terms of being the modern day version of playing charades at a social get together. Despite this, I've never really felt the need to own one. I'm a bit of a traditionalist for the old control methods. I did enjoy playing the simpler games on the PS2 camera, which detected very basic movements. Not long term, but they proved an interesting distraction.

I am very intrigued by Project Natal, the new Xbox 360 control method, which is highly suspected to be released next year as part of a new Xbox 360 package. People have also been using it at E3 and key developers have the development kits.

The exciting thing about Natal is it's a complete package and that makes it interesting. It fully understands the 3D environment and your place in it, even down to voice recognition. This makes it a more fully featured interface and less likely, in time, to be just a gimmick. It could truly revolutionise the way games are played, unlike the Wii controller, which doesn't really revolutionise anything (other than the audience for games), as it just makes the games incredibly simple. The clever thing for me wasn't the recognition of your full body and the 3D space, but the fact it picks your voice out of thin air. This allows for the Natal interface to allow for significant levels of interaction, potentially increasing the intensity of games, especially co-op ones or games over Xbox Live. Imagine a tense survival horror game that used Natal as the interface complete with talking without microphones and seeing your team mates in little video screens in the game. Hell, I could see Rainbow Six nuts getting off on this as they could actually give hand signals to their computer team mates. You could do an Aliens-esque scene to perfection. It has lots of possibilities for not being a gimmick, but instead acting as a way to draw the gamer into an intense experience.

The key thing is Natal doesn't just change the nature of the gaming interface, it just changes the interface all together. Allowing you to walk into the room speak commands to the 360 and have it respond and in turn open up a video chat. It even distinguishes between voices in the same room. It turns the Xbox 360 interface into one of those scenes in a science fiction film when talking gets a reaction and the wave of a hand gets a response. It's very clever stuff.

As always, it'll come down to how clever software is in using the tools.

So, I've got 60 followers now on Twitter. The number isn't important, what is interesting is the randomness of them. They come in every so often, you get an e-mail telling you that such and such has started to follow you on Twitter. You check out who they are and it's usually something unexpected. The last bunch of them have been a series of entrepreneurs, a handful of them in a row. I can only suspect this is related to the MBA tweets, even though most of them speak about exams but not the MBA directly. I may be wrong, I just can't think of any other reason. Another batch that came in were focused on social media.

I suspect what people do is randomly search and click on people based on what comes up. This theory was confirmed today when I got a new follower focused on Beach Volleyball. Completely and totally random. That was until I remembered I've used the word Volleyball in my Twitter about my walk along the promenade today.

A small part of me wants to start tweeting about really surreal and random subjects to see who starts to follow me. Probably won't though.

When I moved to a contract phone instead of pay as you go I went to Virgin (after a brief flirtation with Orange). I went to Virgin because it offered the cheapest contract on offer at the time. While I wasn't that bothered about having a smartphone then, I couldn't have got one anyway as anything remotely smart was in the 30 GBP or higher category. The market is relatively competitive so prices are dropping all the time. Just as I put down 12 GBP a month for 18-months for my Virgin phone 3 came out about three months later with a 9GBP contract.

What's interesting now is smartphones with pretty good functions are dropping below the 20 GBP bracket.

If you can get an E63 for 15 GBP (or even the E71 for 20 GBP) with plenty of minutes and texts along with unlimited internet who knows what the prices are going to be when my contract runs out in a years time. They'll be giving some models away. Looking into it, if I was in the market for a new contract now, I'd probably get the E63 deal. While it's not the smartphone of doom largely due to the screen size, it does pretty much everything in its own way: e-mail, web browsing, quite a few cool multi-platform IM clients available, social network stuff, music and even video if you have the SD card. Certainly not a bad deal for 15 GBP.

Very interested in what will be on offer in 12 months time.

I discovered a new word last week: Twitterarty. As you may have guessed this is the name given to popular Tweeters. The people who have thousands, if not over a million, followers who hang on to their every 140 character tweet. It's a bit strange, but also weirdly interesting. How do you become one of the Twitterarty?

The easiest way is to be famous already. This helps a lot. If you are Fearne Cotton (103, 773), Jonathan Ross (235, 484), Stephen Fry (464, 886), Will Wheaton (516,611) or Ashton Kutcher (1,542, 629) you get followers through your name alone. This is a small list, the number of celebrities haunting the place is growing. Even Oprah Winfrey (747,016) has a feed. A sure sign that many a normal, middle class American will give it a go before wondering what the fuss is about. In short, being famous gets you the followers.

The other tactics are to be a news feed for a popular brand or be someone who can talk with authority about a subject and get your audience that way. Since I'm not famous and I'm not going the expert route, and I can't pretend to be a news feed I've gone for the simple tactic of just being myself. This means my feed can lack focus, one minute I'm talking about MBA studies, the next role-playing games and whatever. Still, I'm happy with this. The key thing to getting more followers is to get re-tweeted by someone who has built up their cult or by a minor celebrity who may list you as an interested feed on a day they've chosen to do such things. As an example, Felicia Day lists interesting feeds she follows on a certain day of the week and such people instantly get a follower spike. I believe there is an official way of doing this called Follow Friday.

Until this happens I'm going to Twitter away into the void and enjoy my rather random selection of followers (22), ranging from actual interesting people who are probably interested in only a subsection of my tweets and the surreal ones like @koshertweets and @Christie1983 who is desperate and dateless.

One of the strangest facets of Twitter is people will conduct conversations. This is a bit like running an extended exchange of SMS messages using your mobile phone. These conversations can get quite long and involved. If you are following both individuals you get to hear both sides of the conversation. This is a bit odd, it's like you've tapped their mobile phone and can listen in. Weird.

You find out about the strangest things via Twitter. It is a significant tool for having things spread like a virus on a million and one Tweets. My discovery today was the My Brute website. I dutifully created my own Brute. Not sure how it works. It decided what your Brute looked like based on the name. It would seem Fandomlife was appropriate for a female. They vary quite a bit, from actually looking like brutes to bald, zen-like old men.

You put your Brute in the arena with other Brutes and you get experience based on if you win or lose. It's not as exciting as it sounds, as you don't have any control over your Brute, the fight is played out like those old football management games where you got to watch the match but couldn't control it. What makes it even stranger is when you level up you don't seem to get to choose how your Brute improves. I was given a net as my ability for first level, and then when I levelled my agility stat got hiked to a ridiculous level due to me getting some sort of hyper-agility power. Sounded cool, but it didn't seem to make that much difference in the fights. I'd rather have had the 'pet power' that gives you a small cat that attacks your opponents. I've not beaten an opponent with one of those yet.

It's all a bit random, if suitably distracting. There is even guilds, though I find it strange people should be so dedicated to it, unless I'm missing something. Anyway, feel free to fight my oddly sexy Brute if you're so inclined.

A month or so ago I was thinking about the changing demand of ownership due to playing around with Spotify and thinking it was a stroke of genius. Now I find myself thinking about the changing demand for privacy as I become embroiled in the world of Twitter. While I'm not going to pretend I'm about to be very profound, some of this stuff I find very interesting personally.

While I've been on Facebook for a while and this hit a sort of critical mass with family and people from the MBA, it's Twitter that has really got me thinking. It's not just Twitter, these things tend to spring from numerous sources, all of them you can't identify, but Twitter tipped the balance. In a way it even goes back to my obsession with collaborative tools like Lotus Notes and Domino in the 90s and edge of network devices, which are now coming into their own with netbooks, smartphones and the nebulous middle ground occupied by the media internet device. Basically it's much easier now to be constantly connected, be contextually collaborative at a moments notice and just communicate.

Even I'm starting to find a smartphone attractive so I can actually use all this stuff more conveniently. On thinking about it though, it represents a shift in how I view things. I used to be someone who would always groan when photos got pulled off the shelf, so why do I now envision a future in which I can blog in all its shapes and forms (full, micro and photo) at any time? I want to snap that photo in Disney World, attach a micro-blog and have GPS locate me for the geographical dimension. While I've always been a collaborative person, my privacy barriers have lowered, and a strange desire to commune and share is taking hold to new levels When you really think about it it's a major shift? Not only that, it's the world in which the generation below me are entering without even thinking about. I find my position in the transitioning generation fascinating.

One of the changes is the validation of the experience? It's like Schroedinger's Cat applied to life experiences, do they exist until they are shared with other people? I suspect some people have reached this point already in that their life has become less about the experience in that moment and more about how it is recorded and uploaded and the resulting social fabric that surrounds it. The danger here is the 'in the moment' experience is diminished due to thinking of how best to capture it. The whole 'product surround' of the experience isn't present without the extended social element. In some ways this isn't totally new, how many people in genre fandom view the whole 'product surround' of the media they watch as including discussion on forums with like minded folks? In a way it's related to the lifestyle question. What's happening is this philosophy is extending into every facet of life and the option is available in every moment due to convenient edge of network devices.

Are the generation below me, by and large, less private? I think so. I realise I'm in danger of generalising but I do think they are more likely to expose facets of their life to the social fabric of the internet than my generation and certainly the generation above me. They are quite willing to move to The Cloud and I suspect have much less inhibitions about where the data is located. In fact, services like Google Earth and the street view functionality probably concern them a lot less along with the ability to be geographically located. A larger percentage of them, how much is open to debate, would probably find that cooler rather than scary. In a way I agree with them, it is kind of cool. The ability to connect with people based on a constantly fluid geographical dimension might be seen as a boon? It becomes another element of the contextual fabric that facilitates social connections. It is, after all, an extension of constant Twitter and Facebook updates and another step in exposing your life to The Cloud.

In terms of the business world I do find all this a bit ironic. Since the 90s the breaking down of corporate structures to foster and enable collaboration through electronic means has took numerous technological forms (and no doubt theoretical ones as well). In fact, while everyone hails the 'out of the blue nature' of social networking, this isn't actually true, the Web 2.0 widgets make it easier, bring it to the masses and enrich it but it's more an evolution of existing attempts. I see it very much as a continuum. The irony comes in the fact that now it's eminently possible, and the cat has got out of the bag, it almost can't be controlled once released, the clamp down begins. After years of facing cultural barriers, we now have people in my generation and the next eager to, or naturally predisposed to, use the technology and break down the barriers and now it's the business mindset that looks to close it down. It'll change, as each new Gen Y employee is taken on board the dullards in my generation and above will be forced to change.

As for life outside work? Well, it'll continue to change, but I think we'll go through a serious period of the demand for privacy being reduced, before we hit the bottom of the curve and people start reconsidering. That may well be a major issue for the generation below me.

On another note, the Durham MBA alumni organisation is now on Twitter, so it extends.

So, I've experienced four days in the world of Tweets. What has it been like? It's a bit strange to be honest, but I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it can be addictive. I'm not sure what that says. The observations, discoveries and streams of consciousness follow.

It's basically another form of text messaging. You send your Tweets (effectively an SMS like message) out into your channel which displays them on your Twitter web page and they become visible on the Tweet web page of anyone Following your Tweets. People may be seeing Tweets in a myriad of different ways, some of them are discussed later. So, it's a bit like having people SMS you interesting or not so interesting messages on a semi-regular basis because they feel like they have something to say. You can reply to Tweets and directly Tweet someone who is Following you (if you are also Following them). Odd to describe it, since I'm a bit behind the curve, but it's good to be complete.

The Followers thing is the key, engaging in Tweeting is like being a cult leader, but probably without the brainwashed babes. Basically, you need to cultivate followers, because without followers your Tweets are being sent out to the ether never to be read unless someone happens to come to your Tweet page. Just like a cult leader, you're on the pulpit, orating away and no one is listening. This is why celebrities have popular Tweets, as people are more likely to Follow the channels of Jonathan Ross, Neil Gaiman or people of Geek interest like Felicia Day (writes and stars in The Guild). The normal guy has to spend time cultivating his network of Followers, this can be started by Following others. I decided to follow the Tweet of Robin D Laws, since he wrote some of the role-playing games that influenced me the most, and he decided to Follow me as well. I'll see how long it takes him to get bored.

I have been Followed by a few random strangers. No idea if they linked through from Fandomlife.net or just haunt some new members list I'm not aware of and Follow people out of curiosity, habit or obsession. I suspect a new members list as a couple of them Followed me before I'd even posted my second Tweet.

Technically it's been great as it's taken me in interesting directions. I like playing with the new interconnectivity of the web so adding the feed neatly to the side of Fandomlife.net was interesting. The whole 'internet glue' side of things was also exposed as I investigated the issues around a fragmented social network fabric and how to resolve it. Twitterfeed allows me to automatically post my new blog entries as a Twitter, for example. Facebook application allows me to just update my Twitter and it automatically puts the latest Tweet as my Facebook status. All clever. Not perfect, but clever. The Fandomlife.net blog Tweets are a bit messy as Facebook statuses but I can't filter them out. I also understand people using other 'social fabric' options can find it a bit annoying to have Twitter and Facebook updates almost simultaneously. It is interesting though.

Since the Twitter site is a bit pants, and very basic, applications have sprung up to make it all easier. You get the usual ones like widgets for one portal or another, applications in other social network sites to try and stop you leaving, stuff for various mobile phones and different desktop applications. At the moment I have Twhirl installed and running, which is pretty cool as it works quite well and it's written using Adobe Air, which is the desktop version of Adobe Flex. Very interesting to see a Adobe Air application since I'd like to play around with Flex. In fact, some sort of comprehensive social network and Instant Messaging dashboard written in Adobe Air would be pretty cool.

At the moment, I'm still interested enough to keep going. I think the Twitter updates aren't too bad as micro-content to complement Fandomlife.net. I think the mutual update of Twitter and Facebook is fine. You do get the odd bit of interesting information while expending no effort as Twhirl delivers to me. I am finding the 'bit part actress' but web 'executive producer' and gamer life of Felicia day interesting.

It is a bit voyeuristic, but then that is the nature of the web. If it wasn't a core of the content wouldn't exist.