Orient Expression

Back in June of last year I posted an idea on what I termed " meeting room in a box " which for me evolved into Conference 2.0. Trawling around the web last weekend I stumbled across an entry on Lifehack.org on Attend Conferences Without Being There . Some of the basic ideas and concepts are very similar, in particular the idea of follow up for networking using LinkedIn . Many of the IT centric conferences are starting to catch on to the idea and this is also being driven from some of the attendees who blog about it during and immediately after the event. I think that there will soon be a large adoption of these concepts possibly even with access link WebEx after to get paraphrased versions of the keynote speeches, another use for podcasts and video casts.

In another blog I have been playing with the new features available in Blogger Beta . I was very happy with the results so I have moved my blog back to blogspot to enable the use of these features. Web 2.0 features - widgets, UI improvements More of a mashup feel Labels - GoogleBlogger application of categories - easily extended to label (tag) clouds All in all I have had enough fun with it to make the move back. Update your bookmarks: http://orient-expression.blogspot.com assuming that you're getting this from RSS. Also feel free to sign up for email subscriptions

TiVo has been the leader in the digiital video recorder space long before Sky gave you Sky+ It's of varying success in the UK but in an effort to keep current in the times of SlingBox and Orb and place shifting partnerships with 3 UK they have announced the ability to share and invite users to shared content from your TiVo. For those of you that use Flikr or Picasa Web you will be used to sending invitations to your photo archive. TiVo what this to be true of TV content, one of their ideas is a YouTube type video share with the Grandparents. This form of Family Private Network may be successful in some of the transitory nations (Sweden and Finland spring to mind) and given the slow uptake of DVD cam corders and the increasing difficulties to source VHS media for the family video this might be a good use. The sharing is performed by uploading your video to One True Media in a classic publishe/subscriber model. At least one side needs to be a TiVo series 2 or series 3 owner, th...

The recent announcement from 3 UK to partner with Google, MSN and Skype caused some noise. Many pundits are musing over the partnership with Skype and it's disruptive "the whole world can talkk for free" which is targetted directly at 3 and it's usual suspect of associates. You've got to figure that the expansion of municpal networks (Norwich and Milton Keynes stlye) combined with more dual mode handsets appearing on the market that Skype is going to make some real in-roads into the mobile space. 3 are probably thinking that the timing is right to be a partner and not a target if the domain is going to change anyway. What was of lesser visibility was the time and place shifting that is also planned to be part of the X-series phone kit. The platform also includes Orb and Sling for viewing your TV choices over the 3G wireless network. Given the Skypers next disruptive project is the Venice project and their idea for TV 2.0 I'm not sure how the TV part of t...

After a recent article about Virgin deploying WiFi on their trains in the UK I was very surprised to find that ye olde GNER network already had it installed. Blogging from Coach B of the Edinburgh to Peterbrough service. All in all not too bad, apart from the price of GBP 2.95 for 30 minutes (plus 5 minutes free). They add the free minutes to allow for the predicted degradation of speed. Having flown Easy Jet from Luton to Edinburgh I thought I would take the train back. For close travel dates the train was actually have price, plus I can take liquid on board and as my luggage as I want (Easy Jet let you have one piece and then every bag after that is GBP 10). Total travel time, if you include the drive to the airport and the mandatory wait at the terminal, means the journey is about the same. Anyway don't want to sound like a "spotter" so on to the point. At my seat I have power to compensate the poor battery on my company laptop :( and the ability to walk around...

Just got my invite to Yahoo! Mail Beta. It's got some nice new usability features that I welcome in my email client. Preview Pane for advance reading Drag and Drop support for organizing your mail into your folders (a big thumbs up for someone like me that likes to compartmentalize my mail) Multi non-contiguous select using CTRL+Click Multi coniguous select using SHIFT+Click 3 and 4 are what we are used to in spreadsheet tools so no steep learning curve there. I like to general feel of the new interface, it's more akin to a traditional email client on your PC (Outlook Express et al) than the online mail readers. I am a very big user of Gmail, I would welcome some development in this direction from the Google Dome.

Last night as events unfolded here in Bangkok the military coup targeted mobile phone, international gateway and TV operations in effort to keep some control. I was talking to a friend in the UK when the phone went dead. I thought nothing of it then around one hour later I got the sniff of tanks rolling down the streets of the city. Thai TV was on a loop of pictures of HM the King and the occasional message from the coup leaders. The military took control of at least one TV station that was repeatedly playing a message from the fallen leader and the telecoms gazilliionare's building (HQ of his mobile phone giant and TV station) were put under guard. I thought that the mobile networks had been locked down but then realised it was just another repeat performance of the years of under-investment in interconnection routes between the now overly busy operators. Next to go was the satellite feed, also owned by the now ex-Prime Minister. This lost me access to CNN and BBC World, howeve...