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Choosing new glasses is all about instinct

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: March 11, 2010Posted in: General, LifestyleTags: , , , , , , ,
Choosing new glasses is all about instinct

From a very young age I’ve been getting a new pair of glasses about once every two years – I’ve tried contact lenses a couple of times but was never happy with them.

I know exactly where I am with glasses, I know where I stand with glasses and to be honest I just feel really weird when I’m not wearing them – they are part of my identity.

The girl at Vision Express flashing bright lights in my eyes, blowing air in my eyes and generally putting me through the normal string of computer based eye torture that makes up the average eye test didn’t understand my love of wearing glasses.

She was a contact lense wearer – as are many other people I work with or generally come in contact with.

Like I said before, I’ve tried the whole contact lense thing – I gave it a whole weak last time I tried it – no glasses for a week – just putting bits of flimsy plastic on to my eyeball in a torture like proceedure for something that is no better than, and possibly worse than wearing glasses.

Yet she still felt the need to tell me I could try them again any time I like. At this point I felt like saying ‘No I like glasses, test my eyes and then show me the specs’.

But I’m British and instead nodded gratefully as she told me to keep still while she blew air into my eyeball.

Anyway, after the random collection of tests it turns out that for some slightly insane reason I’ve not yet worked out – my eyesight has improved slightly.

Even if my eyesight had remained the same I was still getting a new pair of specs – it had been five years since my last pair and the Oakley’s I’ve been sporting on my face since 2005 are a little worse for wear.

So the process started – looking through the dozens of pairs in the mens section, telling myself It will be different this time, that I will actually try on lots of different pairs and not just accept the first pair I see.

But I ended up spotting a Boss frame out of the corner of my eye while talking to the sales guy – I tried them on, tried on the grey version in Titanium and by that point had already made up my mind.

I did try on several pairs after that but I’d already made up my mind – this is an important decision for a glasses wearer – this is something that would be sat on my face for up to five years – it would be the central focus point of my identity.

But I still settled on the first pair I saw – because buying glasses is all about instinct.

In fact I didn’t even notice the cost – until I came back with my wife the next day to pay for them and even then it was her that noticed the cost and not me.

Lenses (heavy duty thinning down, scratch and glare resistance) £195
Frame (Boss, titanium, grey) £180
Glasses that look great and I’ll be comfortable in for a few years – worth every penny (you thought I was going to say Priceless didn’t you?).

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BBC 6music: the station John Peel would have made

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: March 1, 2010Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
BBC 6music: the station John Peel would have made

I’m not just an insufurably grumpy geek, I’m not just the guy complaining about everything in the corner of the office – I’m also the annoying one passing on CDs of new music all the time and raving about new bands I’ve heard.

I get my music in many different ways – promoters and bands send it to me (en mass some days), I get mp3s, I use the BBC Introducing uploader, I use MySpace BUT mostly I make use of 6music.

Not just to discover music that’s just been released but to discover music I might not have heard the first time around for some reason.

BBC 6music is the only station in the country brave enough to let its presenters have a say over what they play.

OK I’m not disputing the fact that BBC 6music have a playlist, they do – in fact they have three, an A, B and C list – but they also give their presenters a free choice over some of the songs they play.

In fact they even have a link to their message boards from the BBC 6music Playlist page giving listeners the chance to discussion, dispute and debate the playlist.

That gives it one of the most diverse music profiles in the world and a selection of brilliant presenters that are interesting to listen to and engage with.

The live sessions on station from some a massively diverse range of musicians and the live music at gigs and festivals and the archive sessions with people like John Peel all make for more than just a DJ led station with the odd tested song.

If you cut BBC 6music you should cut BBC Radio 3 as they’re both as important as each other when it comes to core BBC broadcasting just with different music tastes.

If the BBC gave John Peel a budget, a blank piece of paper and an empty radio station to fill – 6music is what he would have come up with.

Save 6music – please  - for the sake of British music and the next generation of music fan.

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SeeSaw TV on demand now in CI and Isle of Man

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 12, 2010Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , ,
SeeSaw TV on demand now in CI and Isle of Man

I wrote a blog post two weeks ago about SeeSaw, the new television on demand service – mainly for archive content.

This service, currently in a limited invite only beta, is born out of the ashes of the rejected Project Kangaroo – planned by BBC, ITV & C4 but rejected by the BBC Trust.

When I first got my invite I was very excited by it, but I was instantly confronted by a message telling me it wasn’t available in the Channel Islands (well I think it said my location).

This was down to rights reasons, they didn’t have permission from the various rights holders (even though all the same shows were available through 4OD and Demand five for the islands) to make it available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – independent territories that have to be negotiated separately.

Then I got a message this morning to tell me that they’ve now managed to negotiate rights to make their shows available to the islands – which was a nice thing to read after a day flying to and from London.

It said: “We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently acquired the rights to show programmes in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

“You should now be able to join in the fun and watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”

Which more than made my day and – I’ve tried it and it works brilliantly. This puts SeeSaw, even though it is still in invite only beta – well ahead of all the rest as it is the ONLY multi-network service available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.

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Chocolate, the internet and the BBC engage

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 12, 2010Posted in: General, New MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
Chocolate, the internet and the BBC engage

I get sent a lot of press releases and I ignore almost all of them. Especially the ones that send me a top ten list and talk of a new groundbreaking methodology behind their results.

But I couldn’t pass by on one that gave a list of brands in an order that isn’t what you’d normally expect to see.

This particular list by Hall & Partners puts Cadbury and Google at the top and measures brands British people most engage with.

In the top five of this lis are a confectionary company, three new edia companies and the BBC.

Google takes the number one slot as the brand British people most engage with and personally I can see that – it’s a lot of people’s homepage, it is almost everybody’s search engine and it’s apps are becoming more prevelant in the mass user base.

Then there’s Cadbury – most people love chocolate.

Amazon takes the third slot in this research and the BBC is in fourth with Facebook taking up the fifth – I thought Facebook may be higher than Amazon as Facebook sucks you in but I guess not.

The rest of the list includes more common consumer brands like Marks & Spencer, Sony and Dove.

But one surprise is Microsoft – I thought they would be a LOT higher, especially as they’re the most used OS by a long way but I guess the ‘average’ user doesn’t notice the OS.

Is it that MS Windows has become so much part of the furniture that people don’t realise who it’s by? Or is the fact that Microsoft is in the top ten and NOT Apple a sign that Windows does hit the mark in terms of user recognition but the iPod doesn’t?

Or is this just yet another silly survey?

Photo credit: by ell brown on Flickr (Creative Commons)

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Thinking about the Apple iPad with ‘man maths’

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 9, 2010Posted in: GeneralTags: , , , , , , , ,
Thinking about the Apple iPad with ‘man maths’

I’m not going to write a review of the Apple iPad, that would be completely pointless as the most I’ve seen of it is a couple of hands on videos and a few photos.

However, based on that and the spec that’s been released I’ve decided I REALLY want one.

But first let me explain how I came to that conclusion, how I made use of the logic behind ‘Man Maths’ as James May would call it to work out it was good value for money.

First lets take a look at where I think this device sits in the gadget spectrum.

Spectrum: phone

On one side of this spectrum you have the mobile phone – the standard candy bar style of mobile phone – the Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc…

Next to that we have the smartphone – at the moment a whole range of companies have operating systems in this space: Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry, Google (Android)…

But the dominant three (excluding Windows because Windows Mobile is just crap to use) are Apple for the iPhone, Google for Android and Blackberry for … well the Blackberry.

The first is a device that allows you to make phone calls with the internet and simple applications as a sideline – the second group reverses that.

But they are both shades of the same part of our spectrum and so one of these two devices is needed for the ultimate geek kit bag – my device of choice is an Android phone.

The iPod also fits within this area.

I’m going to jump around a bit here by telling you I don’t intend to explain the third part as everyone knows what it is – that’s the full laptop. Instead lets skip back to the middling zone.

Spectrum: Ultra-portable

So lets move on to the second part of the spectrum – again there are two sides to the this part as well – the netbook and the tablet.

The Netbook, described by Steve Jobs as, and I understand I’m paraphrasing a little “not very good at anything”, is the mainstay of the ultra-portal laptop.

I have one and I use it all the time – it’s really light so I can take it away with me without having an extra load on trips to deal with and I’ve got the Samsung NC10 which is powerful enough for everything I need.

However, it’s still a pain in the rear having to pull it out of the bag, open up the screen, turn it on, wait for Windows to load, wait for it to connect and then get started.

Then you’ve got the problems faced with having a smaller screen, the resolution on this isn’t bad but it is still a pain – especially for real estate hungry apps like Wordpress and Wave.

So we move on to the tablet – this isn’t really a new idea, Steve Jobs didn’t just pull the concept of a tablet out of thin air – the tablet concept has been around for a while now and in theory it’s a better approach to mobile computing than a small laptop.

However, every time I’ve looked into this in the past the implementation has been universally shit – a laptop without a keyboard attached – not great for quick, on the move web browsing, reading, writing and viewing.

Before I get on to the iPad – there’s a side market to this, a more recent development in the eBook reader – basically a tablet computer designed for reading large amounts of text relatively easily and in comfort.

The current gold standard, albeit pig ugly, is the Kindle from Amazon – using eInk to make reading more comfortable – it has an always on internet connection so you can buy books on the move without having to be in a WiFi zone.

Man Maths

Now we have the iPad. Some say a giant iPod Touch, some say a heavily locked down and crippled device that is useless for anyone but the most basic users.

Personally, I say it does what I need, it is better than the other options and at $499 for the most basic options – pretty good value for money.

And here is how I justify that claim using the technique pioneered by James May from Top Gear but perfected over many a generation of manhood – Man Maths.

An Amazon Kindle (I can live without eInk as I happily read books on my LCD screen anyway) costs around £311
A new Samsung NC140 costs  around £300
An iPod Nano costs around £120

The iPad can do the same things all of the above can do and is just one device that will turn on quickly and be easy to use.

So, at over £700 for the three separately - even if Apple sell the iPad $ to £ with the basic 3G model costing £630 it’s still cheaper than the three items.

See – man maths in action.

Although I REALLY WANT ONE there are two reasons why I’ll wait until version two or three with two probably out for Christmas and three out by next Easter.

No multi-tasking

Having the ability to listen to music from Spotify (there WILL be an app) in the background while working ona document or even writing a blog post is essential – the iPad currently doesn’t allow that.

However, this is something I expect they’ll introduce eventually under a hail of Apple fanfare as some miraculous and revolutionary new feature.

No camera

My first thought when Steve Jobs started talking about this device was ‘fantastic tool for video conferencing’ but a lack of multi-tasking (writing notes while talking with someone in another office) and a lack of camera makes that impossible.

Also – what’s the microphone like on the device? In fact does it have a microphone?

The camera is obviously held back so they can release version two or even three with an ‘added extra’ and given the track record of doing something OTT – it will probably have at least two camera on front and back.

So in summary – will I get an iPad? More than likely but will I get it as soon as it is released? No. I’ll wait until they’ve had a couple of versions out.

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Am I confusing people by linking in line text?

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 8, 2010Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Am I confusing people by linking in line text?

I know inline linking is important, I do it all the time and I understand how it helps keep the information flow going and aids the user journey from one site to another or between two sites.

And I understand how linking large chunks of text, describing the thing your linking to helps with Google Juice and page rank – that’s all obvious.

But what I’m really wondering is, and I’m thinking here about the person reading the article and not the money I might make from ads or the Juice I’ll get from Google – does linking long bits of text cause problems for novice users and skim readers?

According to an article on the Read Write Web, research by Jakob Nielson shows people only spend 4.4 seconds for every additional 100 words written on an article with more information and words.

The research also found that people read around 20% of the text on an average page and that they will spend some of the limited time on the page working out navigation and looking for images.

I’m not convinced this is people only reading the first 20% of the article, although they are more likely to be reading the first 20% properly – I think it is people reading the first few paragraphs and then skimming through the rest.

I don’t mind people skimming my articles, when I’m writing for the BBC I’ll write with all the main information in the first four paragraphs and then expand underneath that.

The idea there is that people can get everything they need to know about the article by just reading the first 70 words or so – but I prefer to be able to write more conversationally on my blog.

Should link titles be kept very short in the body text?

Having to tell a story within four paragraphs and then being able to continue it after that makes it a lot harder to write in a conversational way – it’s no impossible, just more difficult.

So, if you do decide to do what I’ve done on my blog and attempt to hold people for longer, to converse with them throughout the post and try to keep their attention – you need to be careful about post clutter.

For example

When I add an image to this blog I always make sure it is aligned to the right, that keeps the left hand side clear for text.

I’ll try to put sub-headings into very long posts to break it down and make it easier to skip through bits you’r not bothered about, or even to get a ‘rough idea’ of what’s going on.

I try to write very short paragraphs, ideally no more than one point per paragraph to make skim reading even easier.

And I’ll make sure any body links are clearly identified – brighter blue, bold and or underlined.

But that is what made me come up with the idea for this blog post.

I was reading a post the other day, can’t remember exactly what I where it was but I know it had a very long body link.

This link was spot on for Google Juice etc, it linked the explanation of the site it was linking to – it explained why it existed.

Unfortunately I nearly missed half the paragraph of text because my brain has been trained, over years of internet use to skip the link.

I just didn’t notice it and my brain just automatically stopped read at the last word before the link and picked it up with the first word after the linked text.

Here is an example of an SEO friendly link taking you to a Facebook group asking if a sausage roll can get more fans than Cheryl Cole that has nothing to do with this post but should help explain my point.

If your brain works anything like mine it would have read ‘link taking you to a …. that has nothing to do’ filling in the bit in between with the word group.

So the question I’ve been asking myself is – does long body linking cause problems for skim readers?

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Google change results page for Chrome users

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 2, 2010Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Google change results page for Chrome users

Google started introducing an expanded right hand side bar (under a plus button) to let you filter the results a while ago – it let you show results from within a time frame or from a certain type of site.

Now, for users of the Chrome browser that side bar is more blocky – a sort of 1990s style channel bar – that lets you filter by the different types of Google results including Images, Maps, Videos, News, Blogs, Updates, Books, Shopping and Forums.

You can also filter by time (although that is in a traditional Google style text link) and further results including Social, images, shopping sites, previews and change view to related, standard and timeline.

That’s not the only difference though – the Google logo is much larger, the search button is blue and the ad block at the top of the search area is more prominent.

What with the addition of extension and native support for Greasemonkey – the speed of the browser and the fact that it just looks better than everything else – Chrome is getting better with every release.

Even now, having to go into Firefox to take the screengrab on the left above felt clunky and old.

See the results page.

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See how SeeSaw could soon be seen in CI

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: January 29, 2010Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , ,
See how SeeSaw could soon be seen in CI

SeeSaw is the name of the online video service that was born out of the ashes of the fallen Project Kangaroo – purchased from the consortium of broadcast partners by the telecommunications infrastructure company Arqiva.

Arqiva was born out of a history in broadcast infrastructure running transmission faciltities as Crown Castle. Now they’ve moved into online transmission with the launch of SeeSaw, a service that will allow you to watch a raft of old and new television shows online.

The shows are displayed through a flash player, streamed and at the moment support by either advertising or pay per play.

SeeSaw wasn’t the first of its kind to launch in this space, beaten by offerings from both Google (YouTube) and Microsoft (MSN Video Player).

The YouTube offering has content deals with a number of content providers, most notable are Five and Channel 4 and for MSN their content deals are with BBC Worldwide and Channel 4.

SeeSaw has content deals in place with the BBC, Channel 4 and Demand Five as well as hints at a much wider range of content in the future.

Not to mention my favourite of all the online video services, BlinkBox, which has a huge range of content from the BBC, Channel 4 and American networks to view for free, pay per view or to keep forever for a fee.

And then there’s iTunes – a download you can put on your iPod, iPad (more on this in my next post) or iPhone and watch when you like.

This all sounds amazing, something I could easily spend hours using, catching up on shows I already own on DVD but can never be bothered to open – or shows I would like to watch but don’t want to spend money on the DVD.

Six different video players

But it isn’t that simple for me – because I live in the Channel Islands.

I’m not complaining about the fact that I live in the Channel Islands – I love it, I chose to live here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else – but the perculiar political situation means some things work …. differently.

One of those things is content rights.

Yes we have the BBC in the Channel Islands, we have Channel 4, Sky and pretty much everything people in the mainland UK have – our television and radio is more or less the same.

However, when it comes to the internet things get a little bit more complicated.

For the iPlayer, 4OD (on the Channel 4 website) and Demand Five things are fine – we can access and watch shows on all of those services as if we were in the mainland.

But when those shows move across to YouTube, MSN or SeeSaw – things are a little different.

I recently got a beta invite to SeeSaw – very exciting, couldn’t wait and first impression were good – it’s usable, easy to navigate and seems to have a reasonable selection of content for a beta service.

But when I went to click play I got the same message I’ve become used to from Hulu, MSN and YouTube shows – they allow follow the ’sorry this content isn’t available in your location’ structure.

My intitial reaction to this message, something I’ve not had confirmed despite several e-mails, is that it’s down to the fact that they’re using a GeoIP list that doesn’t include Channel Island IP addresses.

However, a little bit of research and an actual response from one of the companies involved (SeeSaw) suggests that in fact it is a rights issue.

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across ‘rights’ being used as a reason why a service isn’t available in the Channel Islands.

iTunes isn’t officially available here and an Apple spokesperson told me late last year that it was because they haven’t got rights agreements in place for the streaming of samples for the Channel Islands.

The e-mail from SeeSaw explained that: “Unfortunately, SeeSaw is not currently available in the Channel Islands (or the Isle of Man) as we don’t yet have the rights to show programmes there.”

However all is not lost as the next paragraph in that e-mail explained that they were in negotations with rights holders.

“The good news is that we are currently in negotiations to make our service available to you, so hopefully you’ll soon be able to watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”

What I don’t understand is how I can easily watch the full range of 4OD shows on the Channel 4 website – with 4OD actively going out of their way to fix an issue that blocked access to CI users last year – but I can’t watch it on YouTube, MSN or SeeSaw.

Fortunately I work for a large UK corporation so my computer at work is behind a proxy that IS in the UK – so I got to try SeeSaw out, even if I didn’t have enough time to watch a full show.

My second impressions are that, although it is completely lacking in ANY social or sharing functionality it does have some nice features.

It is EXCEPTIONALLY easy to use and has a couple of nice touches like a fade to back on the background on the player page when focus moves away.

It has a lot of information on the programme you’re watching, the advertising isn’t OTT and it is very easy to find previous and future episodes of the same series.

So for a beta service with a limited user base and no external access (where sharing and social stuff wouldn’t be that useful anyway) I’d say it is pretty impressive.

As long as they work towards introducing social and sharing for launch in March I’d say this is a real contender for the television site of choice crown – especially as they’ve launched so far ahead of a UK release of Hulu.

But if they want to compete with Hulu when it launches - the social, sharing and ratings content will become increasingly important.

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Random ideas for the evolution and survival of Top Gear

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: January 14, 2010Posted in: GeneralTags: , , , , , , , ,
Random ideas for the evolution and survival of Top Gear

After an article in the Daily Mail this morning (since removed) randomly suggesting a Top Gear movie involving the lads going around the world in 80 cars.

It looks like this was taken from a suggestion originally posted in an ‘ideas for Top Gear’ thread on Digital Spy a while ago – but the idea is interesting.

I’m not saying a Top Gear movie would be the best of ideas of all time but there is more that could be done with the format.

Especially as it might be useful/interesting for Top Gear to do a Doctor Who/Torchwood and cut things back for a year.

The DW team took a year off from a normal series of the show and instead had a number of bigger budget specials.

Top Gear could do a similar thing – take 2011 off (I’m sure a lot of planning/work/money is already invested in 15/16 for this year) and instead of two series which is about 14 episodes – have four specials.

One could go out around Easter, one in the summer, one around October and another at Christmas – I’m sure a Christmas Day Top Gear special would do well.

Then, with car news, information and ideas brimming from a year of having to come up with fewer ideas – the lads could start again properly with series 17 in 2012.

In fact I think they’d do well taking the same approach as other BBC shows and maybe having one 8 episode series a year (maybe running from May) and then a special around Christmas.

I love Top Gear and there has been some great stuff over the years but spreading the money and ideas over fewer episodes I think would help keep it going for longer.

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