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RobPal

Listed below are comments made by RobPal between Thursday, 5th February 2009 and Friday, 27th February 2009.

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Facebook's emphasis on the social 09:53am on 27 Feb 2009 This is a good move and seems like the perfect compromise. It still means that we will need to keep an eye on and get involved in any future changes on the social networking site, but this is now OUR choice.

Although I feel positive about this outcome, i'm waiting with baited breath for those comments from people who just see the negative in everything ;-P
Tweet, tweet 3:27pm on 26 Feb 2009 Although I did create an account and tweeted once about 3 or 4 months ago, I quickly lost interest as I didn't see any benefit for me personally.

I've contributed to various threads about other 'fads' namely Facebook, MySpace and smartphones where people seem to intensely critisize and name-call those who use them or those that don't. And even though i'm an avid user of all three, Twitter has not grabbed me, however I don't see why I should disrespect those that are enjoying it and seem to find it useful for them.

Maybe one day I will reap the benefits of this new popular service but for now my tweeting count will remain at 1.
Speed Diary: Day Five 11:21am on 24 Feb 2009 @william0will

"Testing your connection via wireless is also ridiculous. Your internet speed is different on wireless, it fluctuates? ITS WIRELESS! your internal network affects this, the quality of your equipment and distance from the router will completely affect the test."

This point has already been established in the blog posts and some tests have been done using both wireless and wired connections to compare them. A large number of people use wireless these days and therefore it seems right that this is the standard environment for the testing. You point out yourself that the tests need to resemble real life usage and wireless fits that bill well.

"running a speed test from speedtest.net is also a good idea. it runs a test from servers located on backbones closest to you. giving you a realistic upload and download rate with a ping."

You may not have read Darren's comment about the online speed tests he used therefore I have quoted it below.

From the 'day 5' blog:-
"I took readings of the connection speed from a number of different measurement tools across the week and found there was a slight variance in the speed"

Maybe you should read all the information first and you may not feel the need to be so obnoxious (your word, not mine)

and from the introductory diary blog:-
"Of course the first thing I did was test the speed. Virgin says that only two one website - thinkbroadband.com and speedtest.net had tests that could successfully gauge the speeds available to its users.

I used both tests - on both a wired and wireless connection"
Can we block child abuse sites? 10:05am on 24 Feb 2009 This is clearly a far more complex issue both technically and ethically.

It would seem that charging ISP's £5000 for this list is quite exessive in my opinion. Especially if they have to also spend even more money on the technology to make us of it. This appears to be quite obstructive to the whole point of having the list in the first place. Obviously the IWF have good intentions and it's true that this list is likely to stop innocent people accidentally coming across these images rather than people who are actively seeking out this material. I think the execution is quite poor and more work needs to be done is order to make this more effective.

What the IWF should not be doing is putting 'sales' pressure and guilt on ISP's to use this list as there clearly are lots of issues that are ample reason for not signing up rather than they 'approve of child abuse'. I hope the money that is currently being made by the IWF is being spent on tackling the source of these images. As they are a charity then it would be interesting to see their annual accounts to see where the money is actually going.
Can we block child abuse sites? 11:05am on 23 Feb 2009 I have two questions relating to this issue.

Firstly,why is it so expensive for ISP's?

Secondly, is more being done to allow this 'blocklist' to work on a wider scale e.g. https sites and p2p?
Has MySpace lost its cool? 11:57am on 19 Feb 2009 Although both MySpace and FaceBook are bot included under the 'Social Networking' umbrella, they having essential differences aside from who is making money and who isn't.

MySpace has established itself as a place for music, both new and popular. This is where artists and bands come to promote themselves and network with like minded people. It is also where music fans come to listen to bands and find out what else is out there as well as finding gig dates and read blogs about their favourites.

Facebook is more about connecting friends, allowing them to share photos, videos, stories and messages in a much more user friendly way than MySpace has ever done. Although there is some music/fan offerings, it hasn't lived up to the way MySpace does it.

Both websites have a place and you can hardly turn your nose up at 83 million users, even if your competitor has 110 million.
Game-changers - Google or Apple? 4:31pm on 17 Feb 2009 Echoing the comments of a few others, none of these companies are necessarily 'game changers' as they all essentially copy and improve each others designs. As has already been stated, Apple's iPhone was hardly the first to use touchscreen technology (about 5 years earlier my brother had a sony ericsson with one).

There's little point in debating who was first with what feature as it's always the consumer who will benefit from these companies trying to do one better than each other and I for one am happy with this situation. Long live competition in technology industries, it's for the good of us all.
Are you still reading? 10:07am on 09 Feb 2009 I think the figures you quoted in your blog speak for themselves. I know that I am reading more books these days, it may be sign of age and maturity but growing up in a very technological world hasn't put me off the pleasure of wiling away a weekend with a good novel.

Despite this I have noticed that the digital readers are becoming more common too. Several have been spotted on the my daily tube commute and this is likely to increase as they become cheaper. But it's some years off until people start ditching real books for the digital ones in the same way that mp3's have taken off.
'I've never joined Facebook because...' 5:17pm on 05 Feb 2009 174 comments so far! This has certainly be a hot topic.

I use Facebook and did originally get a bit obsessed by it, however I only check it a few times a week these days adding up to 2 hours maximum a week, compared to at least 20 hours a week socialising with real live human beings.

I won't bother repeating the comments most other users have clearly explained but will simply ask this question to those people who have said that they don't wish to be contacted by people who they didn't get along with in the past. Why do you think they would want to contact you? That says quite a lot about you really.

FB can fit into some people's lives well and others not. It's personal pereference and we shouldn't critisize each others choice either way. What's next, 200 posts of people making assumptions about each others personalities based on whether they like Marmite or not?
Google 'puts spy in your pocket' 3:07pm on 05 Feb 2009 I've already installed this on my phone and will be recruiting friends and family when I get home.

And thanks for obligatory mention of Twitter, i'm not getting bored of hearing it in these blogs at all.

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