Costing £8.45 and £2.75 for postage, it was a bit of a risk, after all, that’s not very much for what it claims to be.

I can report, its of good quality, although strangely the box downplays the actual product. Firstly, the box clearly says “batteries not included”, yet inside there’s 3 provided (and in their own compartment in the packaging. Secondly it says 2x magnification – this is incorrect, it is definitely alot more than that.

The twist-able arms lock into any position you require and the crocodile clips hold the item firmly in place. The base is well fixed and certainly not prone to tipping.

The item is definitely aimed at the electronics project, but in my view is ideal for painting, repairing miniatures.

The built in light (an led which is activated via a button on the magnifying glass is very bright and whilst I cannot give you a battery life for using it yet, I’d guess a good couple of hours constant use.

I think it was a bargain. It all fits together very well and is very solid. You can find many sellers of this budget device on eBay and I’d say for the price, you can’t go wrong.

You will find this product on Ebay (and other sources) from a number of different sellers.

Tim.

EMAIL: bytes4free@googlemail.com

G+: https://plus.google.com/114824920343832764896/posts

Whilst Android is spoilt for choice when it comes to RPG’s, there are not many titles which offer the same type of experience as WoW where users happily part with cash on a regular basis to be part of the imaginary world and socialize (and argue) in a virtual world akin to a social networking site (albeit with a fantasy sprite)

Arcane Legends is free.  I use the word “free” here quite loosely, its free to play, free to enjoy although I have to add in a “BUT” here.  I’ll discuss that a little further down the post though since its the gameplay and social experience that’s the first area of focus.

Arcane Legends offers three character classes to chose from: Fighter, Rogue or Mage and character creation is rather simple. Having chosen your name and class you can make some minor changes to the appearance of your character.  You also choose a pet, this companion will follow you to quests and lend assistance.  The pets offer extra bonuses and features – later in the game you can purchase/find/win more.

Perhaps the first example of Arcane Legends being a smaller title than WoW is the character creation.  With only three classes and no choice of gender, you can’t have a female Warrior or a Male Rogue (Mage doesn’t really have a gender and is sort of a Yoda/Gremlin)  The aesthetic changes to your character (face/hair) are minor, however its the plethora of armour and weapons throughout the game that will give your character a unique look.

The game works very much like WoW in that you wander around, accept quests and talk to other NPC’s and users.  On my Samsung S3 some of the more popular area’s can look a little cluttered when there are many users congregating – this can be solved by zooming in the camera on the options menu.

Progression is quite quick too, giving you the motivation to continue on.

There’s plenty of weaponry and armour on offer.  You can form parties to tackle the more difficult dungeons/quests and you can create/join guilds.

The cost of being a hero

As I mentioned before Arcane Legends is free. It is entirely possible to complete the game without spending anything, however that would take a considerable amount of time and there’s special armour/weapons which can be purchased with ingame currency.  These purchases are not too expensive and will open up the game far quicker.

Conclusions

Arcane Legends is a great game, it’s the closest you will get to WoW on Android.  Whilst the game world is not a large as WoW (and there’s little chance of you getting lost) there’s many months of entertainment here.

The whole experience works surprisingly well on an Android phone and I’d expect even better on the larger form factor of a tablet.  You can also play Arcane Legends in the browser.

I’d like to have seen a little more variety on the base characters, maybe one or two more classes and the ability for each to be either male or female.  That being said, it has to be kept in mind that many will be playing this game on a smartphone and there needs to be a balance between complexity and the length of time users are envisioned to be playing.

I’d also liked to have had a hot-key for changing the camera zoom.  Presently you have to navigate the settings menu in order to zoom in and out (sometimes essential in the popular area’s where you are trying to interact with an NPC)

Arcane Legends is an excellent advert for games to come on the Android platform and whilst WoW has touted its own social universe for many years, Arcane Legends can do the same.

I’d give it a strong 4/5 for those RPG fans who have been looking for a portable multiplayer game – personally I would have liked a little more complexity, but then again, for me I’m playing it on the smaller smartphone form factor, so maybe the developers have the balance just right.

Tim.

EMAIL: bytes4free@googlemail.com

G+: https://plus.google.com/114824920343832764896/posts

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett was recently nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award and has now taken that award on a very competitive short-list.

You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, hunting woollybuck and harvesting tree candy. Beyond the forest lie the treeless mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among you recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross between worlds. One day, the Oldest say, they will come back for you. You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of two marooned explorers. You huddle, slowly starving, beneath the light and warmth of geothermal trees, confined to one barely habitable valley of a startlingly alien, sunless world. After 163 years and six generations of incestuous inbreeding, the Family is riddled with deformity and feeblemindedness. Your culture is a infantile stew of half-remembered fact and devolved ritual that stifles innovation and punishes independent thought. You are John Redlantern. You will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. You will be the first to abandon hope, the first to abandon the old ways, the first to kill another, the first to venture in to the Dark, and the first to discover the truth about Eden.

Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Eden-Chris-Beckett/dp/1848874642

Dark Eden pushes many uncomfortable buttons and pushes them very hard.  It’s an exploration of human society on its simplest level and I couldn’t help but be put in mind of “Lord of the Flies” which Dark Eden has some similarity to.  The slow and inevitable breakdown of society was written very well, with the utopian ideals being eroded not by the environment (although its quite hostile) but the human condition.

With a wink to Lord of the Rings, a similarity to Lord of the Flies, its of no surprise this title won the Arthur C Clarke award.

John Redlantern, one of the main characters is the central point of the book and Chris writes it in the first person, from the position of John and a few other members of “the family”.  I found myself fluctuating between liking and disliking him, which was I believe intentional by the author as John explores not only Eden but also the human condition.

There can be no doubt there are religious undertones here.  The almost “Adam & Eve” origins of the colony and with stories from Earth being passed down in a increasingly inaccurate format, one cannot help but wonder if Chris Beckett is making a statement about religion in the real world.

It is very easy to see why Chris Beckett won the Arthur C Clarke award.  Without the fantastic future technology, he has managed to create an intelligent, thought provoking piece of science fiction which whilst complete in terms of story, there’s certainly room for a sequel if desired.

There’s also a massive thumbs up to Lord of the Rings in this book, to which I’d love to know if this was intentional by Mr Beckett.

Dark Eden will appeal to fans of science fiction and those that are not, it’s one of the reasons why this book is so special and I think whatever your favourite genre, you’ll be missing out if you pass over this title.

A great read, thoroughly recommended.

Tim.

EMAIL: bytes4free@googlemail.com

G+: https://plus.google.com/114824920343832764896/posts

Feel like someone is watching you and your family in a darkened cinema? They probably are.

Pirates Ye Be Warned! – Also parents who don’t want their children watched in the dark by strangers can take the warning too.

Over in the UK, we have had many issues with the use of covert observation, that though is a discussion for another day because today I am looking at an issue which whilst being reported over a month ago has gained little attention.

Piracy, not the Black Pearl or Captain Jack type which Hollywood made popular, but name for the acquisition of duplicated data which tragically for anti-piracy groups has become “fashionable” too – something which despite years of trying to prevent, has just increased in size.  Views on the rights and wrongs of downloading data, is yet another discussion for a different article.

I’m not going to comment how the most popular downloads are the ones which also make the most money, nor some content creators who have the view that the important thing is you experience their work, again that is a topic for another day.

Putting the UK Piracy Scene to one side for a minute, I am going to talk to you as a parent and the night vision goggles which have been issued to cinema staff in the UK.  Is this rolling out in other countries? I can only assume yes.

Apparently in order to stop “caming” films, here in the UK there’s staff watching the cinema audiences for evidence of recording devices.  Better yet? They are doing it in the dark whilst you are distracted with the film you paid for.  To my knowledge, there’s not even security checks or any sort of suitability test for the staff who are watching you and your family in the dark.

I can only find a single reference to this peeping Tom exercise and with delight akin to a dung beatle finding a freshly laid pile already rolled into convenient balls is the anti-piracy group FACT.  The Federation Against Copyright Theft want to tell you about it success too.  One would hope FACT have the technical prowess to see incoming links to their site (although given that the only time you hear about FACT is maybe once or twice a year when they apprehend a street seller or are part of an article on another’s show) one has to put doubt on the ability of FACT to even scratch the surface of any online piracy that may be occurring.  So when they finally get a chance to see this article, I challenge any one of them to come on the TechBytes Show and answer questions put to them, as I find this latest tactic deplorable (and question their validity in general as well as their apparent championing of it)

From the FACT site http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/uk-cinema-staff-rewarded-for-keeping-films-safe/ :

13 cinema employees received awards for their actions.
6 of the 12 incidents involved attempts to record SKYFALL
All incidents were reported to the Police
2 incidents led to arrests
2 incidents led to cautions in police custody
3 led to exclusion orders and 1 prohibited access order

So lets look at these “successes”.  It’s worth noting that staff have been given “awards” for catching people with recording devices, so you can expect that whilst being watched, low paid staff are giving you that extra bit of attention in order to try and win a “prize”.  Do you now feel comfortable taking your family to the cinema? I don’t.  I personally wouldn’t want some un-vetted stranger looking at my family in the dark.

6 out of 12 attempts to record Skyfall? – I’m not sure what success they think this is because it came top in the most downloaded films on TorrentFreak charts.  So they stopped any UK versions getting into a BT swarm? So what? that hardly had any impact on the downloads did it? – Personally like most Hollywood rubbish, Skyfall was a film I wouldn’t want to see even if you paid me and certainly not if you wanted to watch me and the wife whilst doing it.

Now you have 2 incidents that led to an arrest and 2 cautioned? I assume then that was the same incident.  So instead of trying to list more “successes” that’s really only 2 “successes”, not 4 incidents? Maybe I can try and help FACT here in the future: “2 incidents led to arrest and caution in Police custody”? but then they are trying to justify this dubious practice so it’s better to make the list look longer?

3 exclusion orders and one prohibited access? – No explanation, so one can only guess that’s 4 ejections from the cinema and a ban….although completely useless if that person goes to another cinema, however for all that in the dark watching I’m sure that will make a big difference to the piracy release scene.  Does Hollywood really pay FACT for this type of “work”? The mind boggles.

So thats the entire success to date of the dubious tactics of watching in the dark.  That’s worth the massive intrusion into your privacy when you are watching a film.  To make matters worse, thats the justification for a stranger watching your children and your partner…..but don’t worry, there’s cash prizes for staff so you can be sure you will all be watched very closely.

Disgusting practice apparently championed by FACT.  but then again, when you look at previous anti-piracy campaigns that have backfired, it should come as no surprise that the UK would have this.

The lyrics on this advert (which became a classic – just not in the way intended) say “Downloads knockoff films, what a grubby little man” – Now tell me, whats more “grubby”, downloading a movie or watching people in a cinema with night vision goggles? – I’ll leave you to answer that one.

And just remember, if you do go to the cinema and you feel like you are being watched when the film starts – you probably are.

Goblin.

bytes4free@googlemail.com

So today I look at free speech, with consideration to those companies who seek to manage it.  Before I go any further I must mention the company I highlight here (Reputation.com) has not been specific in what (if any) tactics it would employ against those who’s comments conflict with their clients “vision”.  I digress.  Here’s the history:

Over the past few months there has been an advert on a local talk radio station advertising a company called “Reputation.com” – Offering services which would appear to monitor & safeguard your online reputation. – A bad thing? Well since its taken a considerable time to get a reply from a few points I put to them, I’d expect any further answers to be equally as slow.  Here’s what the website says and I urge you to follow the link in order for you to draw your own opinions on what exactly it is that they offer.

Protect Your Online Reputation From Negative Search Results…

http://uk.reputation.com/

Obviously there is more to the site/service than merely that statement, but it sets the tone for why I was interested in what they offered.  How do they protect you from negative search results? I put the following to them:

How exactly do you achieve your goals or campaigns…. What lengths do you go to in “online reputation” and more importantly when someone exercises free speech which doesn’t favour the contract you have been given, what do you do?

I would be very interested to hear more about “reputation management”….. to me it sounds very much like hiring a shill….maybe I’m wrong there…..maybe you could elaborate?

And approximately 4 weeks later I received a response.  Presumably monitoring their own online presence is not as much of a priority as that of their clients?

Hello and apologies for our late reply.

Online reputation management encompasses a variety of activities, all conducted within an ethical framework.  An example would be helping a company to monitor and manage its online reviews. Our cloud-based platform enables real-time alerts when new reviews are posted, analysis of trends in the reviews (is sentiment changing?), and the ability to respond directly to reviews. We counsel clients in how to respond professionally and productively to resolve issues and convey responsivenss. We also help them create a culture where they proactively ask all customers to leave accurate feedback on review sites (while never paying for reviews, incentivizing customers to leave them, or writing reviews themselves). Over time, we’ve seen that this causes the reviews to come into a balance where what’s online matches the reality of the business in real life. We also remind our clients that negative reviews can also highlight genuine issues that must be addressed by the company – and people take note of responsiveness. And, of course, we don’t (and can’t) remove negative reviews. Hope this helps you.

So there is the reply.  A very polite answer which really doesn’t answer anything at all.  ”Ethical framework”? – Who’s ethics are those based on? Can we see?

A “great” example is given of helping a company monitor its online reviews….what? today’s business can’t use Google? it’s really that difficult to find out the big name sites where your product will be discussed? People pay for that?

Our cloud-based platform enables real-time alerts when new reviews are posted

What sort of company/product needs realtime alerts to consumers opinions/reviews? And what would be done when a real time alert pops up that doesn’t favour the client?  Why is that sort of information needed in realtime unless the intent of their client is to somehow silence or “damage control” it?   That does though explain what I already suspected over the years of writing articles (and seeing some very strange incoming links) that this practice is certainly not unique to Reputation and its been going on for some time.

We also help them create a culture where they pro-actively ask all customers to leave accurate feedback on review sites….

What? Send them an email? Have a one time feature within the software/product for easy review?  And if the reviewer/consumer genuinely doesn’t like the product, how are you to:

Protect Your Online Reputation From Negative Search Results…

and thats the part that concerns me about services such as this.  The answers given to me in my view are vague to say the least and to me, either Reputation.com is offering services which could be done by even the most non-tech savvy person on the planet, or there are other concerning questions about services such as these.  How do you incentivize or encourage a review without an incentive? – If its a good product you don’t need to and wouldn’t need to hire a company like Reputation.com  Which then raises another question, how would they offer this:

 removing and suppressing negative content from your search results,

that’s another part of the service taken from the Reputation.com site.

So lets get this straight, they will get people to leave reviews without gifts or incentives of any kind.  They will give you realtime results and will remove and suppress negative content from search results? How? What if your product/service is not liked? Will they still suppress a clients negative remarks if the fault lies with the product?  Who knows, they haven’t elaborated on that.

I am sure Reputation.com is not unique in the service it offers, but it came to my attention as a result of local radio advert.  Does this sound like the sort of service the average listener on a local radio would want? – Very strange.

Reputation.com has over 1 million clients, in over 100 countries globally, all taking advantage of our market leading online reputation management services and patented technology.

Ensure you stay in control of how you or your business are perceived online today.

Again from the site and again raises the worrying question, how do they achieve these aims?  What are they prepared to do so that negatives are suppressed? I questioned the practice of incentivizing (and highlighted the free laptops to bloggers - http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/microsoftmas-come-early/

Maybe the ultimate test will be how they will (or will not) deal with this article.

Kindly Reputation.com provided another response which I quote here (paragraphing mine):

No, to clarify: you should never incentivize for reviews (even a coupon) nor should you write reviews of your business.

No, we would never employ negative tactics against posters who were critical of our clients – that’s why we counsel our clients in how to directly interact with posters in a positive, professional manner. The goal is always to resolve the issue productively. And we tell companies that reviews can showcase what you need to change – if there are consistent issues, to your point, then the reviews are accurate and highlighting problems that you need to fix. If companies show responsiveness and action, consumers tend to be more forgiving.

What we find with many of our clients is that they are small or medium businesses who are aware that they need to pay attention online but don’t have the resources, knowledge or time to do it. We can help get them started on the best approach. Frequently, these businesses have a satisfied customer base that never thinks to write reviews – so when the occasional bad review pops up, it’s not truly reflective of what the business is like in real life.

I hope my channel of communication continues with Reputation.com as there are still questions I have regarding some of the claims on their site, however it should be noted that Reputation.com is not the only company offering a service such as this and whilst this article concentrates on the rights and wrongs of monitoring and “suppressing” bad reviews/PR, there is no real indication yet as to how Reputation.com achieves this.  Maybe Reputation.com will be the company which sets an example to all others as to how these services should operate?

I’ll leave you with this quote from a previous article of mine where I reported about a blogger talking about gifts:

But if you write about Microsoft, they might even give you one for free. Is it ethical? Probably not. Is it worth something to hard-working sweat and tears bloggers? Hell yeah.

And I suggest that’s why positive reviews can often be viewed with suspicion and maybe getting any 3rd party involved in your online perception is a bad idea.  Good products and services will always shine and are not shouted down by a minority.  If many people are complaining about your product, then its you with the problem and doing anything but rectifying the product/service is not the direction you should be heading, lest you end up in the situation many Microsoft product posts are where good remarks are always labelled “shill”.

UPDATE: Thursday 4th April 2013

I received this following reply from Reputation.com which I’d like to share now (paragraphing mine):

Hi, Tim. We help clients manage and monitor their reviews and encourage their customers to post new, accurate reviews. We understand it can be surprising to some (like people web-sophisticated enough to know Usenet!) that companies might need help in this area – but did you know 60 percent of UK small businesses didn’t even have a website (according to this Guardian article? http://www.guardian.co.uk/small-business-network/2012/oct/19/businesses-need-websites). It’s an astonishing statistic and highlights the fact that many are still figuring out how best to wade in the water of the web (if you will). Perhaps then it’s not so surprising that even good businesses may be unsure how to address reviews appropriately.

Regarding the other product that you’ve asked about, we do not remove negative content ever (and thank you for highlighting this erroneous language on our website, which we’ve since removed). We help professionals and businesses establish their presence online through crafting factual content, setting them up on social media, etc. This establishes a foundation of accurate information so that when others encounter additional material, including out of date, misleading, or inaccurate information, during their research, they have a better basis to make an informed assessment. Thanks again for writing to us and all the best.

So there’s the response.  I’ve asked if a member of Reputation.com would be interested in a conversation for a piece on the TechBytes show, I hope they are as willing to engage there as they have been over the past few days.  It was also nice to see that on me highlighting potential “perception” issues of Reputation.com (most notably the wording “suppress”) they have removed the wording.  A company that does not engage in dubious tactics would not want to be associated with those that do, those I hasten to add which we will be looking at more closely in the weeks to come.  It’s seems that Reputation.com is what it says on the tin and whilst the whole issue of needing “reputation management” in the first place may seem a little wrong to people (in this age of free speech) at least Reputation.com has been quite upfront about what they will and won’t do – That’s to be applauded in itself.

Tim W

bytes4free@googlemail.com

https://plus.google.com/u/0/114824920343832764896/posts

Unlike many users, my use of Google Drive is a little more than merely family photographs/video and is also a place for me to conduct the draft versions of much of my on-line writing.

Today, some users are experiencing Google Drive issues, be it intermittent connection or nothing at all.  Funnily enough I first encountered the problem (without being aware of the issue) when trying to access the drive via my Samsung S3.  I put that down to being in a bad signal area and not a fault on Google’s part.

Since returning home, my desktop PC connects, albeit slowly and I find the matter has been reported by other news outlets.

The affected users are unable to access Google Drive. We will provide an update by 3/18/13 4:10 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/google-drive-down-for-some-google-investigating-50010686/

I also noticed another error today on the Google Drive (which does not seem to have been reported).  In one of my folders I have a collection of birthday pictures, it seemed that when I selected a picture from the preview thumbnail on my desktop PC, the picture shown was not the one selected.  Could this issue also be linked to the problems with Google Drive? We shall see.

In the meantime it does raise some important questions.  How does a cloud storage outage affect you? For most, it will be nothing more than an inconvenience but for a business, the results could be catastrophic.

It will be interesting to see what the cause of the issue is and one thing can be sure, with Microsoft’s competing Office 365, we can guarantee a slew of articles showing why you should choice Microsoft’s offering.

We can also expect this issue to be held up by the anti-cloud crowd as being the flagship reason why you shouldn’t trust your data to it and maybe cloud computing/storage’s greatest test of consumer confidence (depending on the severity of the issues Google Drive has)

Tim (Goblin)

Mail: bytes4free@googlemail.com

Defence Zone 2 is the work of Artem Kotov and interestingly the game promises a Linux release in the future. You can visit the official website here: http://defensezone.net/index.html

Seriously, it’s like playing a TD game using the aerial view of Google Maps…

Source: http://www.androidtapp.com/defense-zone-2-hd/

Well no its not and whilst the excited reviewer above gets a little too enthusiastic, the rest of us can take a step back and look at this with a level head.

Surprisingly Defence Zone 2 is the sequel to Defence Zone in which you place different turrets and weapons in a manner akin to your traditional tower defence game.

The game itself is probably somewhere between Tower Defence and Command & Conquer although its far more simplistic allowing for a “straight into the action” game.

Graphically its very nice, although I think the Googlemaps comment is rather exaggerated and I’d rather describe it as Command and Conquer on crack.  It frantic, its fun and great for a quick blast.  The problem is though that addictive, simple games are easy to come by on Android and with advances in the smartphone world with games like Bards Tale mean that comments like “its great for a phone” no longer hold as much water as people demand (and expect) more involved games from their smart-phones.

The barrier has been raised as to what passes as a great Android game and unfortunately whilst good, Defence Zone 2 offers nothing which makes it stand out in a very crowded market.  Defence Zone 2 is available as a both free version and paid app.  I’d suggest you go for the free version, I can’t see this being played long enough to justify the cost.

Tim W (Tech Goblin)

Tim (Goblin)

Mail: bytes4free@googlemail.com

Seemingly now very desperate to attract developer support for its ailing phone ecosystem, Microsoft is running a set of free lectures (or training weekend) where, I am sure you will hear the Microsoft buzzwords of “reaching out” quite a few times as they try to convince devs (and would-be’s) to come over to their platform.

Of course, free lecturers probably are not enough, so as is usual with Microsoft, a gift or two (or the promise of prizes), make this whole weekend seem more like a game-show rather than a training course.  Develop now! Amazing prizes to be won.

Developers go where the consumer are.  The consumers are buying Android and Apple products by the bucket-load.  The emerging form factor of the tablet and the smart-phone will hopefully not be subjected to the Microsoft domination we saw on the desktop for so many years.

Tim (Goblin)

Mail: bytes4free@googlemail.com

Whilst we can look past the latest generation equivalent of “rose tinted glasses” what many people seem to forget is the damage stores like HMV did to the independent retailer.  I remember my local record store.  Run by a family who’s lively-hood hinged upon a good business.  These were the 1980′s version of Google.  Ask them a question about a band, hum them a partial tune and ask for it to be named; they knew the answer.  They took a keen interest in the business and were genuinely grateful of your custom.

Now lets skip on a few years to the big names that invaded the high-street with their discounts, 2 for 1 deals and prices which were so cheap they were almost giving them away.  Staff on minimum wage, staff who really had no interest in your or the genre, the day didn’t consist of them trying to sell things to make a living, it consisted of them being rude and discourteous to customers. – Of course this doesn’t apply to all retail staff, but I think most people can relate to this picture.

Now at one time stores like HMV were the school yard bullies on the high-street, pushing their little guy away in a cachophony of discounts and deals but as bullies always find out in the end, someone bigger turns up.  The someone bigger is online shopping and maybe when we see these displays of faux sympathy for HMV these people can maybe consider that HMV “died by the sword it lived by”.

The High Street now will only get worse.  What with giving over our retail independence to the large chains, when they pack up shop, you are left with nothing.  Added to that is the ever increasing parking restrictions, enforcement camera’s, increased fuel prices and you would be forgiven for thinking that the council/government don’t really want us leaving the house at all.  Maybe thats another reason why online shopping is so popular – it really is no hassle (in most cases)

Over on the Independent:

No high street closure – bar the once-giant Allders in my Croydon hometown – has touched me in the way HMV’s demise has.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/i/editor/i-editors-letter-the-loss-of-hmv-will-be-a-big-shame-8452990.html

Does that type of melodrama need any further comment?

And please, if anyone thinks about suggesting that I should feel sorry for the workers that are now jobless – I’ll put the same point to you in regards to the thousands upon thousands of independent retailers who lost their shops/homes to companies like HMV on the high-street   Good riddance HMV, those who live by the sword, die by the sword and someone else was better at your game than you were.

Tim (Goblin)

Mail: bytes4free@googlemail.com

I’ve spoken to Jono Bacon (Canonical Community Manager) on a number of occasions, he’s open, friendly and above all makes time for people (he certainly made time for myself and Dr Schestowitz when he was a guest on the TechBytes show).  I supported the integration of Amazon into the Ubuntu search, I personally had no privacy concerns, citing that myself and my wife are regular customers of Amazon and saw it as a feature that would be useful to us.

Maybe showing that I don’t think Ubuntu is all chocolates and roses is the news that you can now advocate Ubuntu with the help of a kit from Canonical:

“A little while back I posted about an idea I was discussing with the rest of the community team about a downloadable advocacy kit that, similar to an SDK for software, provides everything you need to get started spreading the word about Ubuntu.”

Source: The Jono Bacon Blog

And for me this is not something I support or champion in any way, infact I would go as far to say that this type of advocacy is disingenuous and I think dangerous.  Let me explain.

I think with the plethora of choice in software and hardware solutions, the popularity of a product hinges very heavily on word of mouth advertising.    The software solutions I advocate are on the basis of choices I make for reasons of my own.  The way I go about highlighting what I consider to be the best choices is by bringing peoples attention to them in my own way of writing/advocacy.

It seems to me that Canonical are seeking to control/regulate advocacy on their terms.  For example I love Ubuntu but think this “kit” idea is a terrible one.  What does the “kit” have to say about criticism?  What if I loved Ubuntu but didn’t love the idea of Amazon integration? What would the “kit” have to say about that.  If you start dictating (or sorry, advising) people on how to advocate your product, then its not really advocacy any more is it?

This content would make it easier for advocates to get going, instead of navigating the wealth of unorganized content on the wiki and variety of promotional materials. The ADK provides a set of curated content that gets someone up and running quickly.

Source: The Jono Bacon Blog

To which I would say, honest held belief and true independent advocacy is not organized.  Its the good words of a happy user, promoting a product in their way.  It’s unique to them.  Its genuine.  Get someone up and running quickly? Sounds like organizing a PR campaign.  When I am looking for honesty in someone who claims to be independent, I am looking for disorganization – they are merely giving me the advise, they are not trying to sell me anything and at the end of the day I don’t suppose it matters to them if I take their recommendation at all.

Take a look at all the open source hits, were they advocated with “kits” or was it honest held belief through word of mouth?  I think you will find the latter.

Start making a community of advocates with your “kit” and I think you will find very quickly a competition environment exists.  Maybe Canonical secretly wants this and thats what worries me.  Up until now there has been no “bonus” or community “kudos” for advocating any particular distro.  Throw a bunch of keen (and probably relatively new) Linux users together in a Ubuntu Advocacy club and see what happens.  The kit provides everything you need (apparently), I’d suggest if someone wants to show the benefits of Ubuntu to others and cannot collect a set of materials which best represents how good Ubuntu is to them, then they should be advocating anything, let alone a Linux distro.  I certainly wouldn’t take tech advice from someone who had to have a “kit” to get going.

We have a stunning advocacy community, and together we can make the ADK something that is fun, informative, and useful to our global set of teams. As such we are looking for volunteers!

No, Canonical are beginning to sound very Microsoft’ish with this advocacy kit and I am not impressed.  Take a look at the article and see if you are not slightly uncomfortable with the thought of an organized group of Ubuntu advocates with “starter kit” in hand flooding the interwebs, being “useful” to their “global set of teams”

Tim (Goblin)

Mail: bytes4free@googlemail.com