Firefox Watch

Back in December nearly 13% of the visitors to this site were using Firefox.

On checking my visitor statistics earlier today I see that the share has now increased to over 17%. I suppose that goes hand in hand with the fact that earlier this month Firefox downloads exceeded 26 million.

A report released today would seem to suggest that the open source browser's lightning growth is starting to slip. WebSideStory has found that in the five weeks leading up to 18 February, Firefox's market share grew by 15 per cent, compared with the six weeks before, when the market share increased by 22 per cent.

It occurs to me that there is always going to be a slight slowdown between the early adopters siezing a long awaited alternative to Internet Explorer and the rest of the world picking up on it.

Sadly there are still too many websites which just plain don't work with Firefox as a result of their slavish use of Internet Explorer specific capabilities. Whenever I find one of these sites I do make a point of writing to the webmaster to bring the incompatability to their attention. I am not sure if it will win me many friends, but at least it will give them the evidence they need to go back to their bosses and show a genuine complaint from a potential customer which might just help them get the approval to spend effort revising their site.

Firefox's market share currently stands at 5.7 per cent of all browser usage, according to WebSideStory, up from around three per cent in November 2004. So, if this site is getting more like 17% visitor share, what does that say about the type of people who read blogs? I guess it says they are more likely to be the type of enlightened individual who will be using Firefox. If you are reading these words using Internet Explorer - it really is time for you to get Firefox. After all 26million other people can't be all wrong!

Newspeak or Gobbledygook?

I have just received an invitation to attend a conference. Well, at least I think it is a conference I am invited to attend. The invitation actually calls the event a "NetCentric Technology FutureCast". Whatever the heck that is.

My initial thoughts are that if they need to call it a "NetCentric Technology FutureCast" in order to make it sound interesting, then it probably isn't something I want to attend.

My second thought is that if their use of language is so contrived and contorted that they need to call a conference a "NetCentric Technology FutureCast" then god help the poor benighted audience who will, no doubt, be subjected to two days of such Mumbo-jumbo..

Your Rights Undermined

Oh now this is nice!

It seems that the Labour Government has every intention of introducing a new power to tax workers and businesses retrospectively.

If your thought you were being good, and complying with the tax laws then Gordon has a nasty surprise for you. He can change the law tomorrow, or in a future budget, but back set the effective date of new legislation to be in the past!

I wonder just how far these powers will stretch? If it can be made law in terms of taxation, can it be similarly applied to immigration, benefits and property ownership?

"Your Rights Undermined"

I bet you wont find that on the Labour Pledge Card!

Little Marvel

I have just finished writing the Comment article for an industry publication in which I was asked to consider the spread and impact of mobile phones on society. It certainly made me think a good deal about how much we take for granted.

Once I had finished it occurred to me that it is worth my repeating the opening paragraphs here for wider consumption.

I have on the desk in front of me a device about the same size as a small bar of chocolate. Its primary purpose is to provide me with the freedom to be anywhere I choose and yet allow me to speak (at the touch of a few buttons) to anyone else in the world similarly equipped with such a device and without my needing to know where they are. That in itself is a phenomenal capability. But the device in my pocket is more than a one trick pony. It can also store the name, address and phone number of everyone I know, remind me of their anniversaries and any appointments I may choose make with them, tell me the time, show me a list of things I should be doing, and even calculate the number of shopping days before my birthday (114).

And there is more. This little gadget also has the ability to track its location (and therefore mine) anywhere on the planet to within 10 meters, and optionally share that information with third parties. If I choose I can also use the device?s camera to take and transmit still photos and video clips of where I am and what I am doing direct to the devices of my friends, or to their internet email addresses. It also has the capability for me to access information on any of the countless millions of web-sites which exist globally, and even to write and publish content to my own web-sites. This little technological marvel also has sufficient on-board power to run for a couple of days between charges, even if I spend some of my dead travel time using it to download and play music and games.

The cost to me of my personal pocket entertainment centre and gateway to the world? Absolutely nothing! Nothing, that is, other than a one year commitment from me to pay for a voice and data services contract (which cost me less than I am paying for my single function, fixed line, plain old telephone at home). In addition it provides me with more minutes than I can comfortably use in any month. What is more, I have the flexibility of the consumer choice to decide which add-on services and accessories I wish to buy using my disposable income.

With all this utility at a predictable and manageable price point, it is little wonder, therefore, that devices such as the one I have described have reached supersaturation (exceeded 100% market saturation) in many countries including the UK. Mobile phones are ubiquitous, and arguably the most inclusive technology globally today; they are certainly more personal and interactive than television; more immediate than the internet. A highly convenient means of private communication and consumption, the majority of consumers already know what they want and how to get it using their phone......

The full article will be appearing in a couple of days time. If you would like to receive the whole thing, drop me a note in my comments box.

Election, What Election?

Despite fierce assertions that there is no date set for a General Election in the UK, Tony has been doing some very active agenda setting.

For the next few weeks, and at least until the General Election is over, I will be blogging some of the more absurd, and less reported political agenda items. Just doing my bit to ensure balanced reporting.

Charles Splashes Out On Camilla

Believe it or not that was a headline in The Telegraph a few days before the engagement announcement was made.

Those of you with prurient minds will be disappointed to learn that the "splashing out" referred to in the title is purely financial....so far as we know.

Apparently the Prince "provides Mrs Parker Bowles with a chauffeur, a gardener, two office assistants and bodyguards." He also paid for "her wardrobe of Valentino, Versace and Oscar de la Renta" as well as the decoration of "her two-room suite at Clarence House" to her taste.

Now that is a woman with expensive tastes!

Rumor Central

I hate to pass on gossip, but what else can one do with it? So said Shirley MacLaine and she should know. Her autobiographies are laced with hints and allusions which have kept folks wondering just to whom she was referring as she carefully avoided giving specific information which would unmask the true identity of her past indiscretions.

I have been told a particularly juicy bit of gossip this week, but in order to avoid a possible libel litigation suit from one of the most powerful business leaders in America I am going to have to be equally vague as Ms MacLaine on a few details.

Word has reached me this week from a very reliable source that the son of a very well known and respected dot.com CEO has recently been expelled from his Silicon Valley private school for the persistent use of extremely racist language against a fellow student.

According to my sources, the young man in question was asked by senior academics at the school why he, a white man, thought that liberal use of the 'N' word was appropriate when addressing the school's African American students? His staggering response was that his father uses the word all the time and so he was not aware that it was offensive. It seems his father is from the southern states of the USA where, sadly, such language is not uncommon.

Now this little story may, or may not, be widely known. If we assume for a moment that it is, then the possibility of institutional racism in the boardroom of one of the world's most successful eCommerce corporations may go some way to explain why the stock of the company in question has lost one-third of its value in the last month.

VoIP Update

It appears there was a small SNAFU with the configuration of my new VoIP account which was preventing me from accepting calls.

The problem has now been sorted out and so if you did try to be the first to call me, and would like to try again, then please dial 9311772@sip.nildram.net.

Lines are open and operators are wating to take your call.......

Colour Me Impressed

It is still only in beta test at the moment, and the area of coverage is still only the United States of America, but Google Maps looks like it could very quickly become the web's best geographical search facility.

Imagine the power of the Google search engine combined with maps of this quality and, lets be honest, beauty. Combine that with the fact that the map navigation is smoooooooth and that Google does not infest its interfaces with annoying 3rd party advertising (like some others I could mention). Now add into that mix Google's AdSense service which will be able to provide geographical context sensitive advertising and I am convinced this is a glimpse at the future of GIS Enabled Directories.

I really hope they are working hard to make Google Maps part of Google Mobile. Mind you, they would have to do some work to elevate Mobile from the tacky SMS interface of today and use some decent WAP or even Java technology to make it look as good as the web.

VoIP Now Live

Always one to try out new stuff I have just signed up for a new Voice Over IP account.

It is a free trial right now, so I am not sure of the quality of the service.

If you are a VoIP user and would like to help me test the service by giving me a call, then please feel free to dial: 9311772@sip.nildram.net

The first, and most interesting, call I get will probably get blogged about so start dialing now!

I look forward to talking to you.

Relax Girls, He's Taken (Again)

I awoke this morning thinking I had slept into a parallel universe. As my clock alarm clicked on and the hectoring tones of John Humphrys invaded my consciousness I was suddenly awake to the announcement "Prince Charles is to marry Camilla Parker Bowles".

This is an announcement that I believed I would never hear.

Now, I have no particular feeling toward or against either individual, (can you hear the "but" coming?) and I am a firm believer that life is short so we should all pursue whatever course we believe will result in achieving the most happiness for ourselves, without being harmful or destructive to others. (here it comes...) BUT said putative monarch will one day be head of the Church of England and this announcement goes against many teachings and practice of the church.

Prince Charles and Mrs Parker Bowles are both divorcees. Now unless there has been a significant shift in thinking and policy, the view of the church is that marriage should always be undertaken as a "solemn, public and life-long covenant between a man and a woman". An endeavor which both individuals have proven themselves incapable of sustaining.

I suppose we are to have our objections and concerns assuaged by the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury has welcomed the announcement and expressed his approval of the arrangement, to the point that he will preside over a service of blessing which will follow the civil ceremony on 8th April.

Among the many public statements of congratulations is also one from Prime Minister Blair - ostensibly a devout Catholic - who by making such an announcement appears to be going against the views of the Catholic Church of England and Wales which publicly reinforces on its website that

"Divorce is immoral because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society."

and

"If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself."

It is not my place to comment on the sense or morality of these views. I merely highlight the inconsistencies (hypocrisies?) which have appeared as a result of the desire for so many public figures to align themselves with the future monarch.

I am sure that satirists and some of the trashier comics will take this opportunity to make a few cheap shots for some uneasy laughs at the expense of the happy couple.

My view is that they both should have done this back in the 1970s and that a public civil marriage is far prefarable to the vague and unspecific relationship on which the press and public have been speculating since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

I shall give this more thought, and no doubt comment again, meanwhile what do you think?

Blogging, whats that then?

Today we were provided with more proof, if it were needed, that the people exploiting and driving forward the full capabilities of the internet are not necessarily those who consider it their profession.

I am amazed by the myopic ignorance of these so called "IT professionals" 10.6 per cent of which said they weren't even familiar with the blogging concept. A further 36 per cent clearly have yet to grasp the power of blogging, and the significant democratisation effect it has had on the internet, technology, publishing, politics etc..

In fact Blogging has the potential to effect so many aspects of modern life you must be living in a cave (or the cube installation from hell) not to have seen coverage of blogging online, in the press and other media.

Gone are the days when I was the head of a large company, but if I still were and my senior IT staff confessed to me that "the whole blogging trend [is] lost on them" I would be viewing them very suspiciously indeed. At very least I would expect my employees to be conversant with the latest technology and IT trends, even if they have rationalised that it is not appropriate for use in my business.

It leaves me with the thought that if these "experts" have missed out on the most widespread use of the internet in the past couple of years, what else are they missing which could potentially be of use to a business?

Happy New Year....

....to all my Chinese readers.




Looks like they will all be having a great time in London's Chinatown this weekend.

Eye Watering Loyalty

It would be harsh indeed to pass comment on the entire Welsh nation through the actions of one individual, but Geoff Huish has probably given us one of the best pieces of evidence as to why strong drink, indeed any drink at all, is frowned upon by many in the vallies of Cymru.

By Name and By Nature

I know there is nothing big or clever about making fun of people's names. But it is just too good to be true that this man's name is so well suited to his job.

It must have taken immense fortitude on the part of the writer to have completed the entire article without the slightest hint of irony.

'64 - '95

Monday saw the release of the long awaited, and much delayed, new album by LemonJelly.

I went along to my local Borders and since the DVD was priced at less than the CD, I decided to buy the former and boy am I glad I did. As a result this review is based on the full multi-media visual experience.

The sticker on the cellophane cover says "This is our new album. It's not like our old album." and to a certain extent that is true.

LemonJelly have always ploughed their own furrow in the dance/electronica genre and one thing that did occur to me as I listened (and watched) the tracks roll by is that a sad result of their development is that they have moved towards the mainstream of dance acts. The tracks on this album are harder and heavier than the two previous albums - a shift from easy-listening to almost uneasy-listening - and yet there are echos from earlier tracks. So evolution as opposed to revolution.

The videos on the DVD are beautiful, each track having its own theme but running seamlessly . They start with the explosive Come Down On Me which has dancing girls which give it overtones of the old intro to Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected.

Only Time is one of two tracks which feels very much like old LemonJelly material and the mechanical rhythm under a melodic topline is picked out in the video by boxes smoothly gliding through a produciton line of cogs and gears. A riff towars the end of this track sounds like it was lifted directly from "Return to Pategonia" on Lost Horizons.

The video to Dont Stop Now has a Japanese techno vibe and could have developed into something really interesting but sadly the music just never goes anyware and so neither do the visuals. As as result I think this is one of the weakest tracks on the whole album.

We drift through a neon wonderland with a singing butterfly in Make Things Right, a hippy drippy track perfect for slow dancing on a summer afternoon.


The Shouty Track is the heaviest track on the whole collection - and the video is the least interesting to look at being a wobbly doodle much in the style of Roobarb & Custard. I dislike this track So much so that I haven't even captured an image for inclusion here.

On Stay With You LemonJelly start to blur the line between samplers and remixers. As with all their work, it is beautifully done but the original track is very much to the fore.

I am sure Flanders and Swann never imagined that their pleasant little song about the demise of the local rail companies (the result of the Beeching axe in the 60's) would one day become a dance anthem. The Slow Train, is a clever reworking of this song performed by the Kings Singers with wonderful percussive effects over the top. Once again though, more straightforward remix than sample collation. Clever though.

Perhaps the most confusing video in this collection is Man Like Me, it starts off looking like a child's game, heads off into a chase, is heavily burdened with ecological messages and is more than a little anally fixated. The music however is downright funky and I suspect we will hear it as a backing track on TV in the coming weeks and months.

And so to the final impulsive track called simply Go - with vocal by none other than William Shatner. This is a serious heavy metal acid trip with which to finish off the set.

It is good to see Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin moving on and developing their music, and in doing so I am sure they will lose some of the people who have been fans of the earlier music. If you were thinking of laying out cash for this collection, take my advice and buy the DVD. The visuals, which were produced by Nick's company Airside, are an integral part of the experience and I cannot wait to see them projected onto a really big screen. Plus if you buy the DVD you get some nice freebies in the box too.

Happy Imbolc

Today is Imbolc, one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Paganism.

Originally it was a pagan Irish festival celebrated on 1 February (and the evening before). Today modern pagans either celebrate in on the 1st or 2nd Feburary. In the modern Irish Calendar, Imbolc is variously known as the Feast of St. Brigid (Secondary Patron of Ireland) and Lá Feabhra - the first day of Spring.

To explain: The Sun marks the year at four clear points called the Quarter Days - the Winter Solstice (longest night), Spring Equinox (equal night and day), Summer Solstice (longest day), and Autumnal Equinox (once again, equal day and night). The Celts and ancient Britons divided the year in to eight by inserting the four Cross Quarter Days at roughly November 1st (Samhain), February 1st (Imbolc), May 1st (Beltane) and August 1st (Lughnasad). These points are roughly half the number of days between the Solstices and the Equinoxes. Perhaps the best visual interpretation of this can be seen on this diagram.

In most parts of the British Isles, February is a harsh and bitter month. In old Scotland, the month fell in the middle of the period known as Faoilleach, the Wolf-month. Despite this season being so cold and drear, small but sturdy signs of new life begin to appear: Lambs are born and soft rain brings new grass. Ravens begin to build their nests and larks are said to sing with a clearer voice.

The celebration signals the middle of the season of long nights and anticipates the upcoming season of light. So the holiday is a festival of light, reflecting the lengthening of the day and the hope of spring. It is traditional to light all the lamps of the house for a few minutes on Imbolc, and pagan rituals often involve a great deal of candles.

Celebrants make Corn Maidens from corn and wheat. The Maidens are dressed up and placed in a cradle known as a "Bride's Bed". A wand, usually tipped with an acorn or other large seed, is placed in the bed with the Maiden. The Maidens are generally kept year round as a symbol of fertility.

Another traditional symbol of Imbolc is the plough. In some areas, this is the first day of ploughing in preparation of the first planting of crops. A decorated plough is dragged from door to door, with costumed children following asking for food, drinks, or money. Should they be refused, the household is paid back by having its front garden ploughed up. In other areas, the plough is decorated and then Whiskey, the "water of life" is poured over it. Pieces of cheese and bread are left by the plough and in the newly turned furrows as offerings to the nature spirits. It is considered taboo to cut or pick plants during this time.

The name, Imbolc, in the Irish language, means "in the belly" (i mbolg), referring to the pregnancy of ewes, and is also a Celtic term for spring. Another name is Oimelc, meaning "ewe's milk"; also Brigid, referring to the Celtic goddess of smithcraft, to whom the day is sacred.

Other interrelated interpretations of the festival revolve around the recovery of the Earth Goddess after giving birth to the Sun God.

In keeping with the policy of the Catholic Church to subsume pagan festivals into Christian feast-days, the Imbolc, or the Day of Bride, became equated with Candlemas on February 2nd, the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, the roots of the ancient festival probably predate the arrival of Christianity in Eire and Great Britain. (The celebration of Candlemas began in the Mediterranean region.)

In Britain, Candlemas was celebrated with a festival of lights. In the dark and gloomy days of February, the shadowy recesses of medieval churches twinkled brightly as each member of the congregation carried a lighted candle in procession around the church, to be blessed by the priest. Afterwards, the candles were brought home to be used to keep away storms, demons and other evils. This custom lasted in England until it was banned in the Reformation for promoting the veneration of magical objects. Even so, the symbol of the lighted candles had too strong a hold on the popular imagination to be entirely cast aside. Traces of the festival lingered until quite recently in other areas of the British Isles like little lights that refused to be blown out. In Wales, Candlemas was known as Gwyl Fair y Canhwyllau, Mary’s Festival of the Candles, and was celebrated as late as the 19th century by setting a lighted candle in the windows or at the table on this night.

This is traditionally a time of purification when homes and barns were cleared of winter items to make way for the new farming year. It is thus believed to have given rise to the modern expression "Spring Cleaning".

Finally, traces of the festival of the growing light can even be traced to modern America in the Groundhog Day custom on February 2. If the groundhog sees his shadow on this morning, it means there will be six more weeks of winter. The custom comes directly from Europe, and Scotland in particular, where an old couplet goes: