Fibre

Fibre optic broadband is sorely needed in the UK; the problem with what is currently being done is BT is rolling it out to all the big cities and to the houses at already get +4Mb/sec, what they see as the profitable market. Where if you take my dad’s home connection for example we are lucky if we get 1Mb/sec.The house in question is in a small village of 250 homes with 550+ people. This is the kind of place where FTTC is needed, this is where the investment is needed; communities that lie out side the 2 miles range recommended for optimum performance.

The Sorry state of the UK’s broadband and BT’s monopoly is summed up by this heroic project, B4RN. The fact that a project like this is being so successful shows that there is demand and it is economically viable to supply broadband to these areas. This project is an amazing example of what can be done and I would love to see more of this in 2012. I like the government I just feel they need to be putting more into building an infrastructure if they want to reach their goal of having the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

4G

With the US and many other countries readying for 4G, where are we? We are stuck behind waiting for the auction of the spectrum to take place. Ofcom recently postponed the auction, but even then the spectrum used still isn’t free till 2013. This disappoints me because it provides such a convenient solution to extending broadband in rural areas. The speeds it offers rival that of FTTC and for rural areas where there are many dwellings isolated from the main road it offers an ideal solution that doesn’t suffer so badly from the last mile syndrome we see in copper. I would love to see a company that uses the 4G spectrum to provide solely internet. In all this doom and gloom however O2 and EverythingEverywhere are doing trials of 4G in London and Cornwall respectively.

Links

I am quite passionate about broadband and connectivity and if you are here are some links that you might find interesting.

SamKnows – Best way to check what is currently available in your area and any changes. Also tells you the distance from the exchange as the crow flies.

Gigaom – They have a lovely little section on broadband that covers anything to do with connecting to the internet

thinkbroadband – Great for news on developments and current coverage.

BT Infinity checker - Check to see when BT’s Infinity service will be available in your area or not as the case maybe.

Speedtest.net – Great way to check your performance

We were all sat on a couple of benches around a tree in the school grounds and two of the girls were holding hands after having met for a just a few minutes. In the truest sense of the phrase it really was a “hand of friendship”. The whole environment felt so natural and hopefully that comes through in the photo.

It is a simple B&W conversion in Aperture, I played around with a couple combination so I could keep the detail in the white hands yet bring the darker hand out from the black background. I actually found that B&W conversions were by far the most effective way to evoke the most emotion out of some of my shots. Having said that I also found the vintage filter in Aperture a great starting point to accentuate the richness of Uganda and its people.

One thing I have found on trips with groups of people is it offers the most spectacular opportunities to take portraits of people and your often able to catch them unawares as their attention is else where.

I have so many photos I would love to share, but here are just some of my favourites and a video that I made for the project to sum up the trip in a few minutes.

I have done this for the past few years and it has always proved to be very popular, I think mostly due to the insufferable pain anyone buying for a geek goes through. In end having to submit a list in advance so people can choose what to get me as it makes life simpler. Here are some ideas that people might enjoy this year.

Harry Potter or any other triple play BluRays – This is a great option for a geek that wants their content anywhere. Not only do you get a movie but with the triple play you get it in BluRay, DVD and download format.

The Magic Charger – A neat solution using inductive charging. Inductive charging isn’t really widely available yet, but its implementation here would save every having to think about batteries.

The Magic Bar – Another inductive charging solution for those wire free geeks, this time for your keyboard.

The Magic Wand – This one is an idea for those who have a computer in the kitchen or attached to the TV. It joins your Keyboard and magic trackpad together. It is perfect if your the kind of person that finds yourself not sat at your desk using a computer.

PlugBug – We have seen those wall plugs with USB ports in for charging but most of us aren’t going to go around and change the plugs in our house just to have a USB port. This adapter from Twelve South fits onto your MacBook /Air/Pro charger and allows you to charge any usb device as well. The rest of their products are well worth a look.

Lowkey Stand – These guys offer some great desk solutions for laptop and desktops that are worth a look.

I ? Math – What nerd would be complete without a nerdy T-Shirt? This one really is nerdy, but just search the internet and you will find thousand with witty remarks.

Canvas Print – Hello Canvas offer a great quality product and they are super cheap. Speaking from experience I have 4 of their prints and love the quality of every one.

aJays Four – Another favourite product of mine, you have no idea how hard it is to find reasonably price good quality headphones with inline controls that work with your iPhone. These work seamlessly with my iPhone and look great. They don’t offer the same comfort as full in ears, but they also sell a more expensive in ear version.

Holga iPhone Case – A little geeky camera case for your iPhone great for anyone who uses Instagram or similar apps.

Past suggestions:

2009

2008

Yet another shot taken during the summer, this time from my trip to Vietnam and Ha Long Bay. I almost didn’t make it to Vietnam due to visa issues. Trusting as I am, I left the organising to my step mum. Unbeknown to me and her we needed visas to fly Vietnam and we missed our flight, however we where able to get a flight a day later with visa’s in toe. This lateness in turn meant we were meant to miss our two day boat trip to Ha Long Bay. Thankfully the company that run the boat trips were kind enough to move us onto a boat a day later.

Ha Long Bay is not an ordinary bay, It is full of steeply sided island and spotted with floating fishing villages. Our first stop on the boat trip was to one of these fishing villages. After arriving at the village we were offered to take a ride around on some of the local propulsion and so this photo came about

On the walls of the boat we were staying on were sepia prints of old photographs of Ha Long Bay. I couldn’t decided if I really like the look of the scenery in sepia, but what I did like was the shades of brown the water went; giving it a viscous consistency. I noted this for when I came home hoping to have a go at replicating some of the styles I saw in the prints. This is my attempt, it is a basic sepia filter and some playing around with highlights, shadows and contrast too get a good balance.

The blog has had a redesign which hopefully improves it usability and cleans it up a bit. The plan is to incorporate my photography more into the blog. By posting photos and explaining them in more detail and telling their story, as well as some brief posts about other interests of mine.

I had been planning this trip to Uganda for roughly 2 years but I have been planning this shot for even longer. Ever since seeing a shot by Michael Mistretta from his visit to Africa I have been keen to get a similar shot. In the original shot I had just been feeding a couple of the kids some banana, the girl had mess all around her mouth and a hair. I opened the shot in Photoshop and used a combination of content aware fill and spot heal to clear it up and remove some of the mess. I then imported it into Aperture where I sharpened it up and ran the skin smoothing tool over her face.

When I do black and white conversions in Aperture I like to start with one of the presets as it is an easy way to compare the differences and then I tweak it to suit the image. I struggled to keep the detail in her hair but not make her face to similar to the background. What I really love about this image are the way the eyes are so black and have bright white reflections in them.

My intentions for this blog have changed significantly since its conception in August 2007. The lack of posts is not due to a lack of things to write about; in fact those have been plentiful after some of my recent purchases: iPhone 4, Nikon D7000, Nikor 18-200mm Lens and many others. I simply no longer have the time or the drive to write in depth posts. So I am planning a redesign, where the content will be more concise. The site should become less of a blog and more of a home for all my content.

The idea is to make the current theme available to download as well as creating a new one, clear out some of the older content and shift the focus more towards photography. However this is not likely to happen until I have finished my A-levels and am on my gap year in June, but even then It may be some time before anything happens as I am away travelling for nearly 7 weeks.

Thanks Rupert

I also get this feeling with 24, they just want to continue the success and so have dragged out the story line just a bit too long. One thing I do admire from these US dramas is the quality, I think they have really raised the bar on production quality for TV. Shows like Lost, 24, Heroes, Fringe and Flashforward all have a really high standard of production. This really makes the stories so much more believable and immersive. In the UK the best channel for Drama’s like these has to be Sky1 and they show most of the good US dramas like Lost, 24, Bones, Fringe and Lie to Me.

And I have to say I am quite a fan the new logo, it is rather clever in my opinion. The D and W form the shape of the police box that Doctor Who is well known for. Not only that but the typography is rather nice too, it has a more mechanical appearance to it which I think suits Doctor Who.

The old site was quite image heavy and as you can image was therefore covered in compression artifacts. The new site takes advantage of all the new web standards by having transparencies and some really well though out use of typography. The new site has a very grid like layout and the whole site seems to have a better quality to it.

While mentioning the new site on Twitter Jonathan Davies @ed me saying:

@rmaspero Don’t you find the font size a little large and the lack of continuity between pages odd (on the DW site)?

But I find the larger font size helps focus on the content and tends to offer a better hierarchy system for titles and sub titles. I also feel there is continuity between the pages as similar design elements are used all over the place. The site seems to have been made up of a set of basic bricks which to me makes it feel consistent, but to others I can see how they ever changing arrangement and size of the bricks could make if feel incoherent.

Choosing gifts for a “Geek” can be hard work, so we tend to actually tell our family what to buy and where from. But that doesn’t mean we still don’t have problems choosing what we really want for christmas ourselves. I am going to try and help by scouring the internet for gifts to delight all geeks around the world. My list contains some obscure but cool gifts and some more obvious ones.

1. The Book Arc – this is a laptop stand similar to the mStand and Griffin Elevator, but this holds your laptop sideways leaving you more desk space.
2. Films – Either blu-ray or DVD’s are great ideas, my personal favourite for this year would be Transformers.
3. A Seagate 1TB USB hard drive – In general any hard drive is great for christmas as the size of our personal data is forever growing.
4. Opteka .35x Fisheye – although not a great fisheye it is said to be great for the price point and ideal for new photographers wanting try a fisheye out with splashing all the cash.
5. Airzooka – this marvellous childish toy shoots air at who ever you aim it at, totally ideal for family gatherings.
6. Incase Laptop sleeve – sleeves are much smaller than laptop bags, and these incases ones look great with a plain design.
7. XMI X-mini II Mini Speaker – These mini speakers put out some serious sound for their size and after getting one for my birthday would recommend them to anyone.
8. TV Box sets – any TV series you love tends to be a great present.

Hope this helps.