But, to elaborate slightly.

It appears that Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, are looking for the opinions of the public as part of their mobile phone consultation process.  Specifically on areas that we feel may be over-regulated or under-regulated as well as areas that can be improved upon.

I’m not suggesting that Ofcom will put everything into place overnight.  Processes like this seem to be a massively drawn out affair and I’ve no doubt that the telecoms companies will find a way to lessen the blow to their bank balance.  I might even stick a bet on that those 18 month minimum term contracts will suddenly shoot up to 24 months. 

Ofcom themselves suggest that the number of mobile phones will exceed the number of fixed landlines in the next 12 to 18 months.  The reason for this, I’m guessing, is a pay-as-you-go mobile phone doesn’t need a credit check whereas having a landline does and, for some, credit is a bit of a sore point.  Given that part of the consultation will look at ways to improve the service for PAYG customers, we’re bound to see an increase in the number of phones.  Where will this leave contract customers, though?  Just what can the mobile industry do to ensure that contracts are more attractive to those that can get them?

Now, it appears, is as good a time as any to see what’s needed from the mobile phone industry.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/msa08/

There’s nothing bad about that, I hear you say.  When I say “there’s nothing worse” what I really mean is that
feeling when you get to the counter, hand over the product (say, a mobile phone) and hope that you’ll get at least £30 for it because you know it’s not a current all-singing all-dancing model but it’s not like it has a pull out aerial, there’s a glut of them on the market and that’s all you’re really after to pick up that game that you saw a moment ago. Except, you know it’s not going to be like that. The guy (or gal) behind the desk looks at your goods (f’nar, f’nar) and says “I’ll give
you ten pounds for it.” It’s an awful feeling! It’s even worse with DVDs, it may have cost you £60 for that boxset, but now you find you’ll be lucky to get a fiver!

This is where CEX is fantastic. You see, using the CEX website, you can get a rough idea of how much your stuff will sell/trade at. Okay, it doesn’t mean that you’ll get top dollar for it, but it helps to not have that empty feeling in your stomach (or feel that you’re being ripped off, or that the guy is, on the spot, making up a price.) The trade in and cash prices listed are across all stores, too, it seems.  For electrical goods, they list various conditions with different
prices - I seem to think it’s A, B and C, with Grade A being the best condition and most complete. You can, therefore, take an honest guess at how much you think you’re likely to get.

I recently traded my Samsung D900. First I took a look at the CEX site, decided that I’d be happy with the Grade C trade-in (and hoping I’d get more.) Dropped into the store, in sunny Kingston-upon-Hull, handed my phone over and had it tested (far easier during the week (20 minutes), than the weekend (over an hour.)) So, I drop back later and they offer me £76 instore credit for it, about £20 less if I want cash. I took the instore credit and left with a handful other stuff -
DVDs, my first Blu-Ray film (I am Legend), and a couple of games. All in all, not a bad experience.

So, what I’m really saying is, if you want rid of your stuff (or your son/daughter does), you can’t do worse than go prepared by taking a look at the CEX site first (who also do postal trade-in too.) Forewarned, I seem to recall, is forearmed.

This should have been an interesting conversation really, except it seem to be reduced to an ongoing series of bizarre challenging statements, thusly:

 ”I don’t know why you’d want that feature.  I wouldn’t use it…”

“Yes, but I got this phone because I wanted that feature.”

“I don’t see why.”

It’s not the first time this has happened.  I’ve been involved in conversations along the lines of “I don’t see why you have got that, the screen would be too small for me,” followed by blank expressions when I explain that I didn’t buy it for them.

I just strikes me as odd.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand that everyone has different requirements from any hardware, but that’s just it… I buy things based on my requirements.  Telling me I made a bad buying choice because it doesn’t fit someone elses requirement is, I’m going to guess, a non sequitur.

 On top of that, it’s people who seem to think that everything is a case of one-upmanship.  I was discussing the virtues of Quicksilver (the launch tool for Mac OS) and the conversation came to a halt when someone said “Oh, I don’t use that… I’ve got something better.”  I was intrigued… then less so when I discovered it was a very similar application, that worked in exactly the same way!  How is that better?  It didn’t start the applications any faster, still required keypresses to start an application.  I would have been impressed had it been voice controlled, or pre-emptive!

Why is it not possible for people to accept that people make their own decisions for their own reasons?  Is it not possible that I buy my own things for my own reasons?  It’s my money!  If I’d have wanted, for example, an iPhone, I’d have bought and iPhone… and if they dislike my decision so much, perhaps they should buy me one instead!

I’ve just read the same article that Sharon has mentioned and I found this to be the most bizarre moment in IT that I’ve ever come across.

“When it initiated legal action in March 2007 Viacom said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on the website, which had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm)

Hold on… Viacom want access to the viewing data on ANY video on Youtube!

What for?

If just 160,000 video clips have been viewed 1.5 billion times, how many times do they think ALL THE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE will have been watched? Why ANY video on Youtube? What data will be used? How about when someone starts watching a video and then changes their mind? What about approved copyright footage? Or is that excluded from the definition of any video on Youtube?  Isn’t “any” the same as “every” in this case?
What is the point of asking for all that data? Who is going to read it? I’m pretty sure that you’d need a big team to read through logs from the 1.5 billion viewers (more than likely not all unique)… could it be the lawyers wanting to drag this hour as long as possible? I’m guessing they’re not doing this pro bono.

Genuinely, the ruling doesn’t make sense. I can understand any requests to see the identities of the uploaders, specifically if it were those who habitually uploaded copyrighted content. But people viewing? Surely not!

I’ve moved from the Samsung D900 - a brilliant, superslim phone - to the Nokia N95, a Symbian S60 3rd Edition smartphone.  I’ve had it about a week now and what do I discover yesterday… Nokia have bought the outstanding shares in Symbian and absorbed the company.  Now, I’m not saying it has anything to do with me getting an S60 smartphone, but it does seem hugely coincidental, I’m sure you’ll agree!

You see, whilst I’d grown to love (figuratively speaking) the D900, there were functions of my previous Nokia smartphone N91 “shiny housebrick” that I missed.  I missed being able to edit Microsoft Office documents, instead of just being able to view them.  I missed wifi network access and had grown hugely accustomed (thanks to Opera Mini) to mobile web browsing on the D900.  I missed being able to store gigs worth of data just “because I could.”

Now, I’m back in the smartphone game, with the N95 (and an 8GB SDHC card, as mine is the shiny silver one, not the black one.)  I’ve got to say, I couldn’t be happier (though if someone wants to send me vast amounts of money, I’m sure I could be happier still.)  I’m having to contend with the oh-so-slightly different method of text entry (oh, for a standardised key press entry system), but I can live with that.  It’s the flexibility and, more than that, the expandability that I am happy with - the range of additional programs I can install; from browsers (Opera Mini, again) to games (maybe) to media players (Divx!) to anything else you care to name.  I can have them all… memory permitting.  The aforementioned ability to create, manipulate and view Microsoft Office documents via QuickOffice and view PDFs with a custom version of Adobe PDF reader.  I can even download and unzip zip files!  It’s gonna mean a lot more potential for web browsing - no longer will it be a passive activity whereby I just read pages; I can now download and use content!  There’s even a version of The Missing Sync for Symbian available for public preview (http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_symbian.php)

 You see, a smartphone is a wonderful beast, with so much potential that I almost feel I’ve just scratched the surface.  It’s like a computer and a phone and a PDA all in one.  Okay, that’s not going to win the slogan of the year award.  Perhaps Nokia put it best when they said “this is what computers have become.” 

They have an operating system and rafts of software that, arguably, dominates the desktop market.  They have been the focus of much attention over the past decade or so; some of it positive, some of it negative.

Yet, when it comes to Internet services, they nearly always seem to be an ‘also ran.’

It’s not for want of trying either!  Who can have missed their attempt to acquire Yahoo?

It’s not like they don’t have any Internet services - MSN homepage features searching and news articles, but it isn’t Google.  They’ve got MSN Messenger/Live Messenger, which seems hugely popular.  How about Hotmail?  Yet, they still seem to be playing second fiddle to the likes of Google, who they seem to want to emulate, rather than dominate.

This brings me to Mesh (www.mesh.com), Microsoft’s new Live service, providing file/folder synchronisation in a rather fancy spinning jenny type interface and, for the time being, for Windows XP/Vista only.  It’s a website and a desktop tool that allows you to synchronise files and folders in with the click of a mouse button (okay, maybe two clicks), and access them on any web enabled PC, or synchronise them using the Mesh desktop tool.  You can sync different folders on different machines and make them accessible to anyone in your group (though I haven’t tried this yet… get your dirty mitts off my files!)  Of course, it takes time to upload the files, but once the initial leg work is done, it’ll probably pay dividends for those, like myself, who work on a number of machines and want access to files other than Office-compatible files.  Having said that, I can already feel myself becoming torn between Mesh and Google Documents for those!

 Okay, the concept isn’t entirely original, but does that matter?  Microsoft don’t often chase originality, they seem to conquer a concept by their sheer dominance of the market.  With 5GB of storage and a relatively easy interface, it’s clear to see why this might be an attractive proposition.  I’ve not doubt that if Microsoft release a mobile version (and don’t limit it to their Windows Mobile Smartphone edition), a PDA version and the Mac version (coming in the next few months, apparently), we’ll see more functionality added.  The ‘Desktop’ aspect of Mesh really lends itself to the idea of virtual applications running from within the Mesh service, or would that just a be a fancier Google Docs?

 Is it useful?  Hell yeah!  It’s another way to get files to where I need to them to be and it lends itself to a degree of collaborative work.  It might even save me the trouble of emailing files to all and sundry if I can just keep them in one place, in a familiar (folder) structure.  It also acts semi-seemlessly with Windows Explorer - folders that are synchronised with Mesh turn blue and anything dropped into them get synchronised when Mesh is logged in.

Is it a killer app?  Only time will tell! 

Now, I’m all for the prevention of terrorist activities on our fair shores.  I’m all for crime prevention in any way possible.  Is this, however, really the solution?  Isn’t there a more sophisticated method of data interrogation than “save it all and ask questions later”?  Would it not actually be easier to insist that our lives are under interrogation by CCTV everywhere, including in our homes?   Okay, last point might be a bit extreme…  Is it, however, right that a government thinks it can hold all the transmitted information about everyone, regardless of whether they are/have/will commit a crime? And, just how will they achieve this mammoth task?

 I’m a bit concerned, however, about what could happen to this data.  Can we trust any Government body that sees nothing wrong in losing data, laptops and any other personal information as long as they can say “we don’t think it’s ended up in the wrong hands… but we’re not sure whose hands it is in in the first place…?”

Not only that, I’m also concerned for those people who may transmit information that is confidential to business.  It’s not like they should be exempted from this database, as that would be suggesting that businesses could never commit crimes… take the allegations against certain military aircraft manufacturer as an example.  Will the database be used to expose such infringements as well?

I guess it could be helpful if, however, I can retrieve that all important deleted email from a central government resource.

 Should this pipedream come off, how long do you think it’ll be before civil liberty minded hackers proceed to overload the database with lots and lots of spam, downloads, pointless and misleading texts and god knows what else?

At least we can rest assured that the content of this database can’t be burnt to a couple of CDs!

I guess the point I’m trying to make is how easily we become accustomed to specific features of the applications we use and can’t really envisage a time when they weren’t there… would Youtube be the same had without Flash (can you imagine a Youtube running using RealVideo, Quicktime or WMP as its player?)  Standardised menu options across applications?  The SDI that some Microsoft Office applications use that I thought I’d never get used to having grown accustomed to clicking  on, I think, “Window” then choosing the file that I wanted to work on of the ten I had open?  How about a concept as simple sounding as the universal driver model that Windows uses - can you remember the days of having to install a printer driver for each application?  Or taking a year and a day to figure out the right settings to get that DOS game to run?

Okay, maybe the last two examples are a bit too far back, but I’m thinking of things like tabbed browsing, VLC and its ability to play anything I throw at it, “Add or Remove Program” (instead of hunting for the uninstall), plug and play hardware (do you remember when it was plug and pray?)… even that Start button - oh how I remember people saying that that wouldn’t catch on.  Even Internet Explorer, offering an almost out-of-the-box Internet experience right there, for Windows users, whether they liked it or not.

You see, sometimes I do think that I take software for granted - knowing that if I click on “File” in any application there’s a chance that “Save” is going to be there somewhere, for example - and I know that I just accept these innovations.  I’ll probably feel the same about BBC iPlayer/4oD in a few years - just how did I used to catch up on TV without em?

What drew me to it initially was a comment from a representative of BT on a news programme who suggest that BT had sought legal advice and found that not informing a focus group of in excess of 30,000 customers that they were taking part in a trial of Phorm was not illegal.  It may not have been illegal, but it was certainly immoral to take a gander at users data without an actual reason to - it’s not like they were looking into potential illegal activity, or had been compelled to by the Government.  Would it have cost BT that much to have said to those 30,000+ customers “Hey guys, we’re going to test this system out.  This is what it does… do you mind?  We’ll knock a few quid off your internet bill for the duration of the test?”  Okay, maybe it would cost them money, but they wouldn’t be feeling such a backlash now.

However, my concern is the nature of ad-targetting.  I dislike adverts on the Internet, but I see the necessity for some websites to make money from click-through advertising.  In the same way that I’ve noticed some forums that I sometimes visit take part in affiliation schemes to help cover the cost of administering servers.  It’s a necessary not-so-evil.  I dislike it when you’re reading a website and certain keywords are underlined and you drift your mouse over the word to have a little window appear showing you stuff; but, I don’t have to click on anything that’s presented to me. I dislike it when a website gets the idea (through targetting) that because you searched for a term you might want to look at other links, though I don’t mind it when Amazon, for example, offers me alternate products I might be interested in.  I don’t mind banners and I’m glad to see that pop ups aren’t as prevalent as they once used to be.  I’m not even particularly bothered by those websites that intercept your click and insist on showing you an advert unless you click “Skip to article.”

What I am concerned about is the idea that Phorm seems to decide what I might be interested in by sending a package of data to a server and storing a random number to help identify you (no IP or other data, apparently) so it can sort through its collection of ads and let me see stuff I might be interested in!  Seriously?  What makes Phorm think that I’m likely to click on an advert instead of doing a web search to find what I’m looking for?  Hey, don’t people “Google” for stuff as it is?  I don’t hear people saying “I’m gonna banner click for that.”  What assumptions is Phorm making about me and the way I and other people use my computer (yes, I know I should have different accounts for different people but really… “Dave, can I use your PC to check cinema times?” “Yeah sure, just let me log out and log into a guest account.”  “Why?  What you hiding?”)  I guess what I’m getting at is that this seems to me to be a more invasive system than I’ve been used to previously.

Okay, okay, perhaps some people do click on advertising banners and pop ups - after all, someone must be the one millionth viewer to the site and be a guaranteed winner.  I know that, on occasion, I’ve clicked links for Microsoft, or a bank offer or an invitation to acquire a Thai bride (okay, the last one I didn’t do), but at least those things were ephemeral in nature.  Will Phorm realise that my search for a something is over and how long will it be before it stops serving me the ads?  Not only that, does it think I will notice if it’s serving me ads?  How will Phorm know if it’s doing a good job - ignoring an ad because you’re not interested in it is different to ignoring an ad, isn’t it?  Argh, now I’m confused.  Maybe I’ll have to opt out.

However, I recently had to type an essay for an Open University course and, in between deciding that I’d probably type it up on a variety of different machines and being aware that I’m liable to leave a USB flash pen at home or end up with ten different drafts emailed back and forth, I thought I’d give Google Docs a go.  I knew I’d have internet access wherever I went and liked the idea of being able to work on one centralised version of a document.

How did I fare?  Particularly well!  I prepped the original file on my trusty laptop at home, uploaded it, worked on it during lunch breaks and other free moments.  I even managed a moment of inspiration on the move and dashed into an Internet cafe.  It all went swimmingly (apart from a slight issue with headers.)  Finally, I dragged the file back down to my laptop for a final edit in Microsoft Word (correcting the header problem) and submitted it via the electronic assignment system that the OU employ.

This brings me on to the second part of my title… a paperless office.

I did all of this, including proof-reading, without printing the document off and (aside from missing the odd connective) my spelling and grammar were pretty darned good, even if I do say so myself.  The assignment that was returned to me, again via the aforementioned electronic system, was annotated using the comments feature in Microsoft Word and, obviously, I can print it out for prosperity, but I don’t necessarily have to.

Extending this somewhat, I do wonder how much paper could be saved if more communication is done exclusively by sharing information electronically - either via email or collaborative tools.  Web services like Google Docs could lead to a more collaborative workplace, allowing dispersed members of workgroups to access the same information no matter where they are, assuming they can get an internet or data connection (hey, I can access it on my mobile, too!), instead of relying on hard copies of evolving documents that quickly seem to become superceded, and hoping that everyone can read the scrawl that sometimes passes for cursive handwriting.

Perhaps it’s just a pipedream, but it’d be nice to think that, just like in the 80s/90s, a paperless office could become a reality… sort of.