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HiFranc

Listed below are comments made by HiFranc between Monday, 8th December 2008 and Tuesday, 14th July 2009.

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Michael Jackson coverage 7:13pm on 14 Jul 2009 Ps.
I went to the BBC News web site during the MJ story so that I could find some real news NOT to follow up on MJ.
Michael Jackson coverage 3:33pm on 14 Jul 2009 Sorry that should be:

"I have given up on watching the news on the BBC TV ..."
Michael Jackson coverage 1:20pm on 14 Jul 2009 The problem with the coverage is that there was too much of it. The purpose of the news in a democracy is to give the selection committee for the next Government (i.e. the voters) the information they need to carry out their duties (which is greater than just voting).

Entertainment stories, whilst they interest the public, are not, in general, very important. Even the death of a major star is not important when compared to the other things that cross a news desk. The BBC should be setting the agenda not just following the agenda of the tabloids!

I have given up on watching the news on the BBC because it has, too many times, let minor stories lead.[1] The MJ story should have just been a short item at the end of the news. The fact that the BBC thought that the MJ story was worthy of the the amount of coverage that it got shows that the BBC has aspirations to be a tabloid and not a broadsheet! The BBC should be the Rolls Royce of news and it saddens me that it is not.

[1] E.g. The amount of coverage given to Princess Diana, Gazza being the lead (on the same day that there was an Earthquake, worries about nuclear weapons in India and/or Pakistan, etc).
Can we block child abuse sites? 10:57pm on 23 Feb 2009 Now that I've had some time to think about it I realise that I fell into the same logical trap I accused SheffTim of. In my case: Just because an organisation has Government support, especially tacit Government support (extraordinary rendition anybody?), it doesn't mean that it's lying or has a nefarious agenda.

I still think the list needs to be checked but, instead of making the whole thing public, have copies given to every British news organisation and have their journalists confirm that the sites on it should be.

That should stop Governments and others using the firewalls of ISPs for their own agenda.
Can we block child abuse sites? 9:49pm on 23 Feb 2009 SheffTim,

I agree with you about page hits, which is why I support your point about that.

However, I must disagree with you where you say just wanting to know what sites are on the block list makes you a paedophile. There needs to be an independent check to make sure that the sites being blocked are being blocked for the right reasons. China markets its firewall as block on pornographers and other similar people, which means that, just by visiting the BBC (if you go by Chinese Government standards), you must be depraved....

There needs to be a way of getting independent verification that the sites that are being blocked genuinely should be on that list. As others have pointed out here, the fact that the list is secret leads to the suspicion that the list may contain URLs of articles critical of the IWF.

Given what happened to Walter Wolfgang, Damian Green and Stella Rimmington's warning about the Government using "Fear of Terror" (together with lots of new laws and statements), there is also the (admittedly AT THIS POINT, slight) possibility that that list may contain sites the Government don't want you to read.
Palm and HTC hope to do magic 8:54pm on 20 Feb 2009 The fact that Palm didn't let you try their phone, when other manufacturers presumably did, raises warning bells in my mind. If it really was the size of your fingers, would it only work with thinner fingered people?
Going mobile in Barcelona 3:03pm on 16 Feb 2009 Did any of the manufacturers market any of their new phones on their stability and reliability? I guess not. Whilst we shouldn't live in a world where that needs to be taken into account (i.e. that almost all models were reliable) the sad truth is that it's now the exception rather than the rule.
Going mobile in Barcelona 3:01pm on 16 Feb 2009 Whilst I'm not a luddite when it comes to mobiles, I hope that mobile manufacturers (and software providers) don't forget the key thing -- it's useless if it doesn't work or keeps crashing!

As most phones in the market have everything I want, I base my choice on which mobile model to get on the number of complaints of problems that users report on various sites.
'I've never joined Facebook because...' 5:43pm on 04 Feb 2009 I've never joined it because, in the early days, there were questions about the privacy you have. Yes, you can change the settings but, before you change them, Google's already cached the personal details you wanted kept secret and the whole world could find you.

Furthermore, there are articles like: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7376738.stm
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7428833.stm

It's made me cautious with the sites I am already a member of but I'm not going to sign up with one that has known insecurities!
Mac malware - were we wrong? 10:30am on 08 Dec 2008 I have a mac and the first applications I got for it were an antivirus, firewall and spyware scanner. It doesn't matter what the platform is: you can never be complacent!

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