A few weeks ago, I got an Android-based HTC Desire mobile phone for some of the work we’re doing on thinkbroadband looking at broadband speeds. It has taken a while to get used to using a next generation smartphone, as someone who has been a Nokia s60 user for quite some time.

This is a list of some of my favourite apps..

TweetCaster Pro
Also known as TweetCaster Premium, this is the first app I purchased. It is far nicer than the built in HTC Sense twitter client, supports multiple twitter accounts, and generally runs well. It has crashed a few times, and doesn’t have the same search functionality I’m used to on a desktop, but overall seems good.

Tweetcaster Pro

ShapeWriter keyboard
An alternative way to type, a keyboard that allows you to simply ‘swipe’ the shape of where your finger would go between the letters, so to type ‘hello’ you would simply drag your finger from ‘h’ to ‘e’ to ‘l’ and finally ‘o’. Obviously requires some prediction/correction to make it work.

ShapeWriter alternative keyboard

Note: Having played with Swype a bit more, I think it might just be a bit better (edit – a lot better!!)

NetMeter
If you’re abroad, then data roaming can get very expensive. It’s therefore quite useful to be able to keep an eye on it. Although there are probably better applications, the one I’m using is NetMeter which splits usage across Wi-Fi and and your mobile data provider.

Android NetMeter

ShopSavvy
Good application for use when shopping. Just scan the barcode of the product you’re looking for and you can instantly get pricing from both e-commerce websites as well as nearby stores to compare.

thinkbroadband speed tester for Android (beta)
Part of the reason I bought the HTC Desire is our development of a mobile version of our popular speed test tool which measures the speed on a Wi-Fi or 3G/HSDPA connection. This mobile speed test for mobiles running the Android operating systems is now in public beta so anyone who wants to test it is welcome to download a copy (link above). We hope to add a lot of features so it’s just a very basic speed tester at the moment.

This is primary for those using Wi-Fi at the moment as it does consume quite a bit of data. Please make sure you never use it abroad when roaming. It runs in the same way as our Java speed test and is therefore not a ‘web’ download, so you will see any traffic shaping taking effect.

London Tube Status
A very useful app which warns you of maintenance work on the Tube as well as providing you wish platform signs showing how long until the next train arrives. It also shows where the train is currently in the tunnel system; unfortunately it needs Internet connectivity to work so will be of limited use actually on the tube, but excellent for finding out when to leave if you’re near a tube station.

London Tube Status 1

London Tube Status 2

London Tube Status 3

Sudoku
This game is useful for spending time on a train when you want to use your brain a bit. There is a free Sudoku application which did have some nicer features including more appropriate ‘hints’ but the Mighty Might Good Games Sudoku app looks good and is also available for the iPhone.

Sudoku

Task Manager
Very useful for terminating those applications which you don’t need running, especially where you want to ensure they aren’t doing anything unexpected. There are others but I like the simplicity of this one (and it’s free).

IP Address Widget & BatteryLife
These widgets show you instantly which Wi-Fi network or data service you’re connected to, what your IP address is (on the phone as well as the ‘real IP’ you are accessing the Internet from, with reverse hostname if applicable) and battery capacity/temperature respectively.

Layar Reality Browser
An augmented reality browser with all sorts of layers from tube stations to property prices. Absolute must on any smartphone.

Wifi Analyzer
The perfect program for working out what channel you should use for your Wi-Fi connection. It will show you among other things how other networks are spread around in your vicinity, and help you track the signal strength to find the best location for an access point.

Wi-Fi Analyzer for Android

wardrive
Allows you to map Wi-Fi (open and/or secured) access points as you roam around the city/country.

Wardrive for Android

Other apps
I haven’t actually used the Ocado app yet, although apparently it’s very useful. I don’t tend to listen to music much on the move but the Spotify app is a must if you do

Also I have a ZXing Barcode Scanner and IM+ for Jabber. The IP Address Calculator may be useful for network admins although unfortunately you will be disappointed to hear it does not support IPv6.

I haven’t found yet a good SIP client which works with our phone system (and I’ve not had time to debug it extensively), but in preparation I have the Nominet ENUM application called ENUMDROID. Last but not least, the must-to-have RingDroid which makes creating ringtones from WAV files easy.

I also wish Taste London developed an android app but alas they only have an iPhone version at the moment.

Android Apps

I have just been reading the responses to Nominet’s consultation on the release of two-letter, one character and other reserved short domain names. It is nice to see everyone taking time to provide feedback on proposals, some of which appear a bit more controversial than others.

How to distribute domains fairly?

This is the underlying problem in introducing any new top-level domain (TLD), second-level domain (SLD) or in fact any new domain space. There are mechanisms which are commonly used, including a sunrise period for trademark holders (and sometimes others who can prove their rights to a name) followed by a landrush phase which controls the volume of registrations at launch.

There are quite a few comments which suggest that there should be no sunrise period for trademark holders and that any distribution that takes place should be through a lottery, rather than an auction so that smaller companies stand a chance of getting these desirable domain names instead of them all ending up in the hands of major corporations.

“Rather than a sealed bid which seem to imply the highest bidder will get the name, how about just the winner being choose by a lottery.”

“Fixed price auction. In doing this, domain names are open to all to use. Poorer non-commercial entities can enter the auction as well as multi billion pound companies.”

“Any bidding process will always result in the person or company with most financial clout to win. If more than one application is valid then a simple lottery would be fairer.”

I have every sympathy with the aim of these respondents (and I might even agree it would seem to be a fair way to distribute them). It is in my view inevitable that almost all of the domains will eventually end up in the hands of large corporations or those who seek to profit from the domain itself rather than the product or service they sell which simply is referred to by that name. Whether or not this is ‘right’, it is the harsh reality.

Why should it be so? Well, let’s assume a gentleman called Bart Adams runs a business called “Bart’s Automobiles” and his logo is made up of the letters “BA”. It would require natural for him to want www.ba.co.uk as his website, after all short domains are generally easier to remember and type, especially on mobile devices which are growing in popularity these days. If Bart won the lottery, how long do you think the domain would remain with Bart’s company? I am sure there would be exceptions to the rule, but I would suggest that most of these domains will end up being sold off to large companies like British Airways. If Bart runs a small company, the amount that a company like BA would offer to him for the domain could well represent a year’s income. If they are doing well this year, then they may well resist on principle, but one day they may well want to sell this heirloom to raise funds.

This is why I believe that in the end most of these names will end up in the hands of large corporations, no matter what initial system is used to distribute them. The question then becomes who should profit from the release of the names; lottery winners (under the above suggestion), speculators, or say the Nominet Trust charity.

As a director of many small businesses, I have every sympathy with those looking to promote the interests of SMEs, but I am not convinced that these domains will remain in their hands for very long.

Prohibiting resale or restricting use

Another respondent made the suggestion of prohibiting resale of domains:

“These domain names should be checked and taken back into the public registration process if they registered for selling only, as soon as such domain names are offered for sale, the registration should be suspended and the domain name released.”

and another has suggested disallowing their use for selling sub-domains if domains like “uk.co.uk” are to be released:

“Great possibility for confusion. If they were to be released, I’d like some extra rules attached forbidding resale of subdomains (to avoid .uk.com situation)”

Again, these respondents are clearly trying to address issues which they see as ‘abuse’ of the domain name system; using the system in a way that it was probably not designed for by those who invented DNS. These try to impose additional rules on the use of a domain to ensure the reason for acquiring them is in line with the authors’ own morals and expectations of reasonable behaviour.

For almost ten years, we have seen some country-code top level domains (ccTLDs) promoting their TLD in a way which is more associated with the accident of the ISO-3166 abbreviation they were assigned by an international organisation in 1974. This has resulted in the countries of Tuvalu (.tv) and Turmenistan (.tm) promoting their ccTLDs as being suitable for television channels and trademark owners respectively.

So why don’t we prohibit sale of these domains or sub-domains for profit as these people suggest? This is the typical first reaction many of us who have been thinking about these problems for the best part of a decade have had. What it comes down to, is that people will work around those rules in such a way that Nominet would risk becoming the policeman of the Internet if it needed to enforce the rules.

Let’s say you can’t sell the domain; Instead you incorporate a new subsidiary company and transfer the domain to that subsidiary (which would quite legitimately have to be allowed as companies routinely restructure their businesses). You then sell that subsidiary company with all its assets (of which the domain would be the main/only one) to a third party.

Sound complex? There are already people registering company names so they can register generic “.ltd.uk” domain names, where the name of the company matches the domain within a very specific formula, and I am sure the trademark database could be used in the same way. It is unlikely such restrictions, no matter how well intentioned, would actually prevent the abuse. I say this as one of the effective co-authors (by virtue of my participation on the PAB) of some of the restrictions in .me.uk to encourage its use for individuals rather than corporations, which has had limited success.

Other restrictions

In similar vein, there is the suggestion that we should limit how many domains each registrant can register:

“First come first served – no more than one per person!!”

If I wanted to register two dozen names, what would I do? I could register lots of different companies. You might then suggest it should be possible to stop this by restricting it so if they are controlled by one party, they can only put in one application? Not only is this unworkable because there may well be multiple companies with quite legitimate claims to short names (e.g. if British Airways and American Airlines merged, they might want both ba.co.uk and aa.co.uk), but also because it would be impossible to stop abuse. I could register companies in the name of off-shore companies, friends, etc. You would struggle to link these together individually and have no chance of doing it on any scale.

The purpose of registering a domain

“Online auction – eBay style, so non-sealed bids, but in an eBay done properly way so that there’s not a rush of bids before it closes. If someone bids, extend the auction by X minutes. I appreciate the sealed bids idea has its own merits, but really, how can someone even begin to calculate the value of a domain such as those being proposed for release? There’s not really any historical information to go by. Maybe a Dutch auction as detailed below?”

This comment was rather interesting as it raises questions the reason for registering domains. It suggests transparency of auction amounts so that someone can “calculate the value of a domain”. Whilst I have no knowledge of as to the aims of the respondent, it made me think about why would someone need to judge a market value for a domain they want for their business (as opposed to domain arbitrage or investment)? It could be so they know what would be a reasonable offer to ensure a good chance of securing the name. An non-live auction system should certainly consider the benefits of an eBay style auto-bidding system which would price the auction just slightly above the second highest bid.

Conclusion

I am delighted to see people willing to take time responding to consultations to inform decisions–I wonder how aware some of them are of the lengths to which others will go to do work around rules designed to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of domain names.

I’m not sure that Nominet’s role is is to merely devise a system that generates maximum revenue, but one which is fair and promotes the public interest. These goals are of course anything but simple to achieve.

The decision on how to release these desirable domains to the market is very difficult and it is inevitable that there will be many who will be unhappy with whatever system Nominet go forward with. Hopefully we won’t end up with overly complex rules, and ensure these domains do not end up in the hands of a few domain industry insiders.

As many people in the UK will be aware, today is 5th April – the end of the UK tax year. This means that people will be striving to top up their ISAs with this year’s allowances and complete any transactions they want counted for their 2009/10 tax year.

HMRC, the government department responsible for collection of taxes has decided that this is the perfect weekend to roll out an update to their systems. Logical I guess, given new tax rates will be coming in soon. In fact, they are carrying out maintenance which will mean the entire PAYE for employers online service will be down from Saturday to Monday morning. This includes tax code notices which tell us how much tax to deduct from employees under the pay-as-you-earn scheme. Of course, we can’t just wait until tomorrow, given it’s the end of the tax year.

The government wants us to access government services online, even mandating that most returns must be completed via the Internet, yet they appear to be unable to provide a service that is fit for purpose. If they are going to require us to do things online, it must be able to support those online services.

For example, we would have received these tax code notices in the post previously, so why can’t they send them to us by e-mail? Why do we have to login to a government website to access information which they could just as easily enclose in e-mail? The answer of course is that e-mail is insecure. I trust my server; does HMRC not trust theirs? We’ve had public-private infrastructure (PKI) encryption solutions for over a decade and it is perfectly possible to send content by e-mail securely.

I wonder what the political parties would say if we just turned the Internet off for ‘maintenance’ for the three days before the general election?

The Digital Economy Bill is expected by some to be passed by the House of Commons in the ‘wash-up’ phase just before a general election is called. This proposed legislation has been somewhat controversial because it includes provisions that enable the Internet access of a household to be restricted or cut off.

The nature of the Internet

It has been interesting to watch this legislation develop, trying to understand how non-experts (politicians) debate legislation. I am still somewhat baffled by how much ignorance there is as to how the Internet works; many people don’t seem to grasp the concept that by putting in place systems to block illegal activity, this simply results in those engaged in such activity to work around any restrictions, possibly making identifying the infringements even more difficult.

The way the Internet allows individuals to circumvent centralised restrictions can be used for both good and bad. It can enable increased transparency and accountability but also can intrude on individual rights such as privacy and copyright. However, most important of all is the way it can multiply any effect, because communication is fast, global and targeted. In other words, when something is posted online by one person, within minutes it could be around the world, be it exposing corruption, or something that should really have remained private.

Debate over figures

I read an interesting blog item on the figures used to justify action on the grounds of protecting jobs in the creative industries. It raises some fundamental questions about the claims made by the rights lobbies relating to the losses they incur as a result of unlawful file sharing. I am in no doubt that unlawful file sharers gather collections of content which they would never have purchased (and possibly never even consume), but there needs to be additional quantitative research in this area.

Anyone who has worked with statistics is aware of the ability of those designing a study or interpreting its results, to influence the result in a particular direction. This is why so much weight is put on ‘independent’ studies, but how do they get their figures? The blog also refers to an article in Ars Technica which queries the origin of the figure that there are just under 7 million illegal file sharers in the UK:

“The number was quoted in a recent government report, but it’s not a government number; it turns out that the government commissioned a report from the CIBER research group at University College London, which contained the number. CIBER’s report cited the number four times, noting that it came from yet another report from consultancy Forrester.

Still with me? Get ready to go down the rabbit hole, because it’s here that things get weirder. The Forrester report in question does not in fact contain the “seven million” number, despite the CIBER citation. The number actually comes from a separate piece of research called the Jupiter Industry Losses Project, which attempted to quantify losses for the recording industry due to things like P2P usage. And who paid for the Industry Losses Project? The British recording industry, of course.”

The government is known for its poor performance when it comes to IT implementations, which is no surprise given the bureaucracies that exist within its various departments. IT systems help when they decrease the work which humans need to do, thus increasing efficiency. Often the problems associated with IT are in fact social problems, something which is often missed. The current legislation is very much focussed on technical measures, rather than dealing with the underlying social problem, or tackling the root cause of unlawful file sharing.

I hope that parliamentarians don’t make the same mistakes and vote blindly in support of some of the quite draconian parts of the Digital Economy Bill, as I very much doubt many of them have their focus on scrutinising legislation at this point in time. Lobbyists from the ISP sector will talk about all the problems associated with implementing these restrictions and how ISPs shouldn’t bear the costs, and the creative industries focus on how all this activity is resulting in lost revenues and jobs. MPs need to look beyond these and address the key issue of why this is a problem in the first place.

The Liberal Democrat policy set out on the blog of Bridget Fox, a prospective parliamentary candidate on the Digital Economy Bill has been rather promising. Whilst there remain questions, it firmly sets out their current objections against some of these controversial elements without a full debate. There are campaigners from other parties who are also campaigning for a full debate.

I was one of the first users of Microsoft’s MSN network which it believed was going to revolutionise communications. It joined the likes of Compuserve and AOL as closed communities (well sort of..) who thought they would be the global network everyone communicated through.

Of course, we’ve all seen what happened to closed services; they became portals of various kinds on the open Internet, but exactly how open is the Internet?

Apple is launching the iPad very soon after its very successful iPhone (which I ought to add I still don’t have because Vodafone have absolutely no interest in talking to its customers; I have been promised call backs three times and I’ve left a voicemail for our account manager who has never called me back. I guess spending tens of thousands of pounds with them means nothing), but not only have they sold it network locked from the beginning (only recently allowing any competition), they have also locked down the applications which can be run, enforcing their own morals on what kind of applications their users should be using. They are now continuing this with the iPad, and techies and everyone else alike is flocking to the iPhone. And yes, even I wanted one, even though one of my colleagues in particular has been trying to talk me into going with Android instead. It’s no different to the requirement to use iTunes for the iPod. I believe Microsoft is planning a similar strategy with its Windows Phone 7 OS.

This movement towards closed devices is precisely the wrong direction for the Internet to be taking and it encourages exclusive deals which prevent consumers from exercising their right to choose the best application. It’s a bit like Microsoft writing Windows in such a way that prevented you from installing any other browsers at all. It seems only Microsoft is in the spotlight of the regulators. I have been a great defender of Microsoft’s right to bundle IE with Windows because frankly, if your browser is better, it will be found. I don’t see it as Microsoft’s job to promote Chrome, Firefox, Opera or any other browser. I should of course add that I am a Chrome/Firefox user mainly but I made that choice willingly, and not because some regulator forced me to.

We need open platforms where the user gets to choose what software they run, and who they buy their services from, not large companies building their mini empires. By doing this, we force companies to innovate. People should be buying applications from the Apple App Store because it’s the best, not because it’s the only choice (without jail-breaking your iPhone). Apple are absolutely brilliant in designing hardware and operating systems. Why do they feel so threatened and weak they can’t compete with others on exactly the same basis?

The clocks went back a few hours ago as winter sets in. Over the last few years, more and more of my electronic devices have changed back on their own. I thought it might be interesting to see which devices had updated without manual intervention this time around.

Devices that wound back automatically?

A few years ago, Windows XP didn’t seem to update daylight saving time automatically for me, but Vista seems to be doing it perfectly. Interestingly, a few days ago, it reminded me the clocks would be going back on the dialog that is shown if you click the clock on the task bar.

As usual, my Nokia mobile phones had no problem, and both the Cisco and Snom VoIP phones also updated without any manual intervention, although I don’t know if that’s because they both synchronise with time from the server or because they know to change.

Devices that showed mixed results

The Sky box automatically updated however the Sony TV which it is plugged into did not. The Sony TVs do allow you to set up the time zone which was set to GMT and select automatic updating of daylight saving time, but the time was still out for some reason. I had problems setting this to BST before.

It would have been interesting to check what the electronic programme guide on the Sky box said prior to the change, i.e. whether it correctly showed the 01:00 to 02:00 a second time. It would appear that at least on the My Sky website, they are still running in BST, so probably the system needs manual re-setting at Sky.

A BT (pstn) phone it would appear doesn’t update automatically, but it will re-sync the time each time a phone call comes in (assuming Caller ID is enabled) and this effectively resets the time as soon as the first call is received after the clocks change.

Devices that needed manual resetting

I was a bit surprised to see the latest generation of Canon EOS Digital Cameras not update the time automatically. As expected, my old and trusted pager as well as an old fax machine (with Internet connectivity I should however add) didn’t wind the clock back automatically. Again another Sony digital TV exhibited the same problem.

I do wonder how long it will be until we don’t even notice when the clocks change.

Over the last few days, the power of the masses on the Internet has manifested itself, when users felt their rights to know what their elected representatives in parliament were saying, were being infringed.

On 12 October 2009, The Guardian published an article reporting a matter they could not report in language that resembles a poem:

“Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.”

(my emphasis)

Within hours, everyone in the country knew that this related to law firm Carter Ruck obtaining a ‘super-injunction’ on behalf of Trafigura following the leaking of a document known as the ‘Minton Report’.

I have absolutely no basis for judging what actually happened, and I hope that there will be an investigation into the matter to bring out the full facts. However, what I am particularly interested in, is the way in which the Internet was so critical in frustrating an injunction.

One of the key reasons that the news spread so quickly, was the re-tweeting that took place on Twitter. Very soon the twitter hashtags ‘#carterruck’ and ‘#trafigura’ became so popular they appeared as a ‘trending’ topic. Trendmap produce this in a graphical form based on geography:

Trendmap of Twitter traffic showing #trafigura and #carterruck

The Guardian were very clever in publishing a cryptic article of this kind, as it was bound to lead its readers to find the information, and since it was not possible to serve an injunction on the whole population, the genie was out of the bag. The fact they agreed (according to Carter Ruck’s statement) to make a ‘substantial contribution’ to Trafigura’s legal costs’ does however suggest the story may not quite be as simple. I can sort of understand why Trafigura might decide the costs of defending an action (potentially against the inability to recover costs even if they win) might mean a settlement is desirable, regardless of actual liability. There is then the question of whether parliamentary privilege was used as a way to circumvent an injunction.

What is clear is most people will now believe that Trafigura are bad guys and The Guardian are defenders of truth. Time will tell if this will be the case.

The morals…

Trafigura’s position is that this document is legally privileged and as an interim document, incomplete. I have to have some sympathy with that position, but in today’s society, this raises interesting questions, of how can we balance with the democratic ‘right to know’ in a free society whilst maintaining fairness at trial. We’ve seen actions in the past for infringement of privacy, something I certainly believe strongly in.

A parliamentary committee a couple of months or so ago, was looking into the effects of privacy laws that were effectively being formed in a court as a result of case law, rather than a full debate in parliament. As part of that process, Alan Rusbridger and Ian Hislop, editors of The Guardian and Private Eye respectively, gave testimony on the effects of such laws on their decision to run controversial stories relating to large companies or rich individuals. Their argument focusses on the large legal costs involved in defending such publication.

Should newspapers, magazines or websites be able to publish a story without being sure they are in the right? I would hope that laws exist to protect victimised parties and to dissuade the press (or anyone else for that matter) from publishing a story if they aren’t confident about their facts. This of course does not mean that the cost of legal action should be a factor, but more so damages.

Finding a balance between the concept of privacy and fairness against freedom of speech is a difficult one.

The Internet, through websites such as Wikileaks and the power of crowds through services like twitter, has changed the landscape and the law needs to recognise this. Getting an injunction to stop publication in the UK won’t prevent it circulating on the Internet, so we need to revise our thinking.

Leaks will take place in all organisations, and is a breach of trust between the organisation and its employees or other partners. The question should be asked, is there a public interest that is so important that it should override the interest of the organisation? This is not merely something that should be left up to the individual who wants to leak information, but should be a test which can be judged as objectively as possible, ignoring political or moral views that an individual may hold. In this case, it will come down to the final decision, who was right? If Trafigura can prove that actually the waste dumped in the Ivory Coast was not the cause of some of the major suggested illness, then it would suggest the leak was improper, but could the person who leaked it even know?

These are all difficult questions, and I have a suspicion we will never find the answers. What I can say with absolute certainty, is that once something is on the open Internet, it is too late to try and remove it. At this point, damage limitation is the only strategy.

If we are going to look at establishing a privacy law, we need to consider not only the rights for privacy, but also the effectiveness of enforcing such rights. The Internet and the power of the masses has stirred up society, but it does not mean we can forget the responsibility that goes with that freedom.

I’ve been neglecting my blog a bit due to lack of time. I’ve also given up reading other blogs as regularly on my RSS feed since I found that many people felt the need to blog regularly, even when they had nothing of value to say. Reading my RSS updates every morning was becoming just as time consuming as trying to clear my inbox of those nagios, cron and other messages I really should not be getting anyway.

Everyone seems to be at it.. Whether it’s a wordpress blog, a twitter feed or your facebook status–There is an expectation that you should be annotating your life online. Of course it is human nature to interact with others, and the Internet is now just making that easier.

So, what’s the problem? With more and more information being directed to us, we have to find better ways of processing that information in an efficient manner to be able to make any use of it. Even managing twitter effectively is difficult without some kind of app.

Presentations are another area where this phenomenon is quite clear. Over the last year, I have seen many presentations and most seem to have one trend in common: They could be condensed by 70% and still contain all the necessary information I needed out of them. Is this because I am already aware of the topics? Maybe in some cases, but generally presenters are not encouraged to keep to the point. (I am sure that as a presenter, I am no better than those I seek to criticise.)

I have been somewhat impressed by the quality of some of the presentations at the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in London (2008) and Dublin (2009), although still I find that they could cover material more efficiently. Perhaps the best examples are in some of the TED talks which are often only a few minutes long.

I remember the days of Microsoft Visual Basic 3.00 Professional Edition which came in a mammoth box full of manuals and media (I think it was CD already back then rather than the 3.5″ disks like Windows 3.11). Over the years software boxes have got smaller, with the ‘standard’ size now being about the size of a three DVD cases stacked up. This seems to the the size Adobe, Microsoft, etc. adopt.

I’ve recently purchased some new software/upgrades and I was amazed that inside a big box, we still only had so little contents; just a DVD box in fact..

However, this dwarfed the waste which Norton Internet Security 2009 demonstrated:

Of course, this is so that they can produce product shots like this:

All this for one CD and a leaflet–I guess it’s at least not wasting trees printing manuals no one will read (unlike Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 which includes a one inch thick manual which includes several languages!)

In the last few months, I have been increasingly suffering from a problem which seems to have crept up. I’ve read about people declaring ‘e-mail bankruptcy’ and ‘e-mail free Fridays’ in some companies but being involved with quite a few businesses, neither of these is honestly something I could contemplate seriously.

My inbox always seems to be at around 500 e-mails no matter how much I clear it. If I remove half of them today, by close of business tomorrow it will be back at this level. Most of these e-mails are also ‘action items’ of some kind requiring me to respond (usually with something that would take me 5-15 minutes to deal with per e-mail; so if we assume an average of 10 minutes and 400 e-mails, this would be around 67 hours of “replying to e-mails”).. that’s over 8 working days at normal hours, or 4.2 working days in ‘theo‘ hours..

So, if you haven’t had a reply from me, it may be because your e-mail didn’t require attention this very minute (most fall into this category), it would take too long to reply to now (second most popular), I trust you from having known you so long that I know you won’t take my lack of reply personally (even a few long term customers belong in here), or because I think your e-mail is so pointless it shouldn’t have been sent in the first place.

So, how does everyone else manage this?