A Consuming Experience (full feed)

Google online calculator and converter

2008-05-10T23:18:00.001+01:00

Did you know Google's search page includes an online calculator & converter? One of my very IT literate friends didn't know this trick, so I thought I'd post this tip.

In the standard Google search box, if you type in a calculation then hit enter or Search, it'll actually do the calculation online for you, and provide the answer where you'd normally get search results displayed.

Use * for multiply, / for divide, and +, - and brackets in the usual way, then Search to see the results (more operators and full instructions here - I do wish they'd allow x for multiply though). There's a limit though, if you type in a very very very long calculation it won't do it, I'm not sure how long but I've definitely hit it.

Online conversions

Google also converts from and to units like Roman numerals (very useful in this here 21st century), as well as the more common conversions. And you can enter your query in normal language - e.g. "3.5 lbs in kg" works, just try clicking that. Or even Google's example of 0x7d3 in roman numerals! Tip: you may need to experiment, it seems to work OK with no space, but sometimes it works better if you add a space (e.g. before the lbs in the previous sentence).

Note also that the converter is case sensitive - so converting MB to GB will work but not MB to gb.

But although Googlers showed their sense of humour in allowing you to change your Google search interface language to Klingon or even Pig Latin, they don't yet let you convert into polar bears or Golden Gate Bridges. For that, you have to use the Weird Converter, though even that doesn't have baby elephants. However, if you want to, you could convert into Jenifer Anistons or human tongues, or even right whale testicles or flaccid penises, if you really can't resist the urge to try those! (Heh heh, I bet no one ever thought I'd be able to legitimately work testicles or flaccid penises into a blog post, did they?).

I can use the trick for speeding up searches on Google and other sites with a keyword, to do even fast calculations too: Ctrl-l to call up the Open URL box, then type g then space then my calculation or conversion.

Tags: online calculator, online converter, productivity, tricks, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Faster searching in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera

2008-05-10T23:10:00.005+01:00

Speed tip: if you're a faster PC go go keyboard person like me and use Internet Explorer, try installing this speedup searching hack for Internet Explorer, for quicker access to Google. I use Ctrl-l to call up the address bar then type g then space then my search, for very quick results (or you can just click in the address bar then type the keyword for the site you want to search, space, then the search term, if you prefer). So I use w for searching Wikipedia without having to go to that site first, and so on.

This "one letter search" or "shortcut search" trick works for searching your favourite sites other than Google too e.g.Wikipedia or Amazon, and you can use more than one letter to trigger your search if you wish, as long as it's not already in use. For example I use "rt" for searching Rottentomatoes.com for movie reviews, and "f" for Google Product Search, formerly Froogle, for price comparisons of stuff I want to buy.

In Firefox and Opera the same feature comes built in - just go to the Wikipedia or your other fave search page, rightclick in the search box, choose "Add a keyword for this search" (or "Create search" in Opera) and type your info including the chosen keyword like w, if it's not already taken (you can use more than one letter for a keyword like "wi").

Creating search in Firefox

Creating search in Opera

Carrying out the search

Then to do the search, go to the browser address bar (or use Ctrl l hotkey which I find quicker), type in the keyword, space and your search terms, and hit Enter or Go.

You can later edit your shortcut searches too (Firefox: the search is a bookmark, find it, rightclick it, choose Properties; in Opera: menu Tools, Preferences, Search tab), so it's well worth setting up search shortcuts for the main sites you regularly search.

Lessig recording: Corruption 2.0 - the next problem technology must solve

2008-05-07T08:28:00.005+01:00

Recording of talk by Prof Lawrence Lessig at the Institution of Engineering & Technology, London for the Society for Computers & Law (free download under a Creative Commons licence, of course!) - just click the arrow to play it online:
Prof. Lessig on Corruption 2.0 (see the main page with links to the intro speech etc):

"In this lecture, Professor Lessig builds upon the work of Oxford Professor Jonathan Zittrain to identify a critical dynamic in policy making affecting the Internet, and how technologists have become central to that dynamic. The threats to privacy, security, and the proper protection for copyright are not technical, but political. The remedies to those threats will not just be political, but in an important sense, also technological. Professor Lessig describes this dynamic, and describes the emerging movement in the United States to address it."

"The essence of what he concludes is that the Internet is under threat from those with special interests to protect or those, especially in government, who seek increased control... One of the elements that underpins the argument is the considerable evidence that supports the view that government decision makers are either stupid or corrupt. Not blatantly corrupt in a Third World bribe way but ready to do what one US politician was advised to do - ‘lean to the green’, ie towards the source of campaign funds. Subtle corruption arises too from the acknowledged effectiveness of lobbying – Mickey Mouse has better funded lobbyists than open source and it shows. With the odd exception, one tends to concede that politicians are not stupid so how does one explain the worldwide trend towards retrospective extension of copyright terms when there can be no conceivable advantage to the wider public interest – it won’t, as Professor Lessig observed, persuade George Gershwin to write more music nor will it turn Cliff into Elvis. Or how to explain the US’s Federal Nutrition Board embrace of 25% sugar as being consistent with a balanced diet?.." (from Eastham writeup)

See also Laurence Eastham's report of the lecture. I'm still listening through it myself, but it sounds excellent.

You can buy or download Prof. Zittrain's book "The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It" book which sets out the ideas referred to in the quote above and in the talk.

Dr Sophie Kain: On Being a Geek,The Apprentice & Sir Alan Sugar (London Geek & Girl Geek Dinner 26 April 2008)

2008-05-04T23:51:00.001+01:00

I've posted the full video of this talk, given at the joint London Geek Dinner & London Girl Geek Dinner of 26 April 2008, on the Girlygeekdom blog (main video on Blip) - but here's a short excerpt, just for fans of reality TV show The Apprentice, of the provocative bit where Sophie Kain, as she puts it, "slags off" Sir Alan Sugar!

More seriously, the extract is on whether it's easier for geeks to learn business than for business people to learn geek. No prizes for guessing what her view is on that. Her opinion on Sir Alan and The Apprentice:

"He's looking for better sales people to sell out of date products, when actually what he should be looking for is better geeks to develop much better products that would actually change the environment in which we live."

Zittrain "The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It" book & download

2008-05-04T19:16:00.003+01:00

Jonathan Zittrain virtually needs no introduction: world-renowned expert and visionary on the internet and the law / society, professor at Oxford's Oxford Internet Institute and co-founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, his book "The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It" just came out on 1 May.

I was lucky enough to be at the book launch in London, chaired by ORG head Becky Hogge, last week at the RSA. His lively, witty and informative talk at the launch was superb - and you can now play or download the MP3 audio podcast of Zittrain's talk at the launch of "The future of the internet". The webcast will be out in a week or two, I gather (unless the RSA people were meaning just the podcast). Watch it if you can, if only for the fun slides of happy Bill Gates mugshots and a hamster-powered shredder, and of course what Prof Zittrain said in relation to those slides - but you can hear all that on the podcast. I'd not come across Cats That Look Like Hitler, though I'd heard of couch surfing before! More seriously, see the BBC report on the talk, which sums it up well.

(Digression: another reason to catch the webcast - for anyone who has to do public speaking or lecturing, viewing it should be de rigeur. This is the way to use slides in a talk, instead of inflicting death by PowerPoint on the audience.)

You can:

download the book (alternative download site where you can even get the book emailed to you; HTML version) - NB 351 pages, nearly 3 MB PDF. It's free for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 license, or

buy the book:

A full review will follow once I've finished reading it, but he makes very good points, clearly and entertainingly. I'll just quote from the synopsis for now:

"...IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away...As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.

The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain rgues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”"

And, while I shouldn't gloat, I managed to get a signed copy of the book, with a little personalised message, yay! Ultra-intelligent, sharp, funny, a fab speaker as well as writer, and a lovely man too - don't you just want to hate him? (/fan mode).

Go read the book and join the group annotation of the book!

Tags: generativity, generative, sterile, sterility, tethered appliances, Zittrain, The Future of the Internet, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Funny silly ad

2008-05-04T19:08:00.000+01:00

Just saw this ad in a MicroAnvika pullout in T3 magazine, the gadget mag I read in spite of their ridiculous attitude to women.

The last sentence made me laugh. The claim it so makes breathlessly is certainly correct, strictly speaking. But it scares me that they think it would actually impress people who read it. Maybe they're targeting the Dumb Britain crowd. I hope...

Now what would really impress me is a scanner that's over 100% accurate: automatically paste the text into the right spot of the right document and make me a cup of Earl Grey tea (white, no sugar), perhaps?

(Is there a word or definition for silly phrases like "totally unique", "up to 100% accurate" etc? If there is, I can't think of it. It's not a tautology, exactly.)

Blogger scheduled posts: postpone or delay blog post to future date

2008-05-02T17:44:00.002+01:00

Blogger have, as they earlier heralded, finally rolled out the ability for Blogger users to post-date their posts, i.e. write a post and then schedule it for publishing at a future date and time of your choosing.

The ability to postpone or delay blog posts written in advance has been in demand for years. This facility is great for holidays, spacing out your blog posts more evenly over the week, etc. (I admit I don't use it much myself, I'm too paranoid about my post having content that may be out of date when it's published, so I check things first and publish live.)

Previously the best workaround I knew to produce future-dated posts on Blogger was to post via email using Emailschedule.

The new Blogger scheduling facility, which also uses email via Blogsend, has been available via Blogger in Draft (the new features' test playground for Blogger users) since February, with subsequent bug fixes for permalinks and the ability to use scheduling with FTP blogs, before it finally went live for non-Draft users yesterday.

Now, when you draft a post even on the non-Draft version of Blogger, once you've finished it (and saved it, of course) all you have to do is change the date and time after the end of your post to the future date / time when you want it published, then hit Publish (you may need to click the Post Options link to make the Post date and time visible first; it used to be, I wish Blogger hadn't hid it, it doesn't take up much space and is useful). See below, outlined red on the right.

(If you use the Keep Current Time script to ensure your draft posts aren't dated when you first created them but when you publish them, you'll of course have to untick the box first, outlined red on the left above, before you try to change the date and time to your desired future date of posting.)

Full howto (including how to unschedule a previously-scheduled post) is in the Blogger Buzz post on the release of the scheduling posts feature, so I won't go into detail here. I'd just mention that you can view and edit your Scheduled Posts via the usual Edit Posts tab - there's a new "Scheduled" link now, so you can view just your Scheduled Posts:

One trap to watch for - if you're using the Keep Current Time script, you may be forgiven for thinking that "Blogger time" is the same as your time, because the script always makes the Blogger post editor show, at the end of your post, your local time. But that's not necessarily the case. When you untick the Keep current time box, and manually change the time and date (to say 10 am 10 May 2008) and hit Publish, Blogger will publish your post at the date and time you've set - but only at the moment which is that exact time in the timezone shown in your Settings, Formatting tab. If that timezone is set to a different one from your own (it defaults to US Pacific time), then it will only publish the post when it gets to 10 am on 10 May 2008 in California - not 10 am 10 May in London!

So here's a tip: if you're using Keep Current Time and want to use scheduled posting, hie ye over forthwith to Settings, Formatting and ensure your Formatting timezone is set to your own timezone (saving the change of course), to avoid possible future confusion.

I don't normally blog about straightforward stuff on Blogger these days, but I really thought this new feature was worth highlighting. Now if only Blogger will fix it pretty please so that draft posts are published bearing the date/time you click Publish, and not the original date/time when you created or last saved the post, I won't need Keep Current Time!

Get & review a free Penguin Classic book

2008-05-02T15:45:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd blog this fast in case all the books go... you can register on the Blog a Penguin Classic site and if you're fast enough you will get sent a free Penguin Classic book to review. Titles are sent out at random.

In return you have to post a review of the book on the Blog a Penguin Classic site within 6 weeks after you receive it. Fair enough!

It's a simple and brilliant idea. Kudos to whoever thought it up at Penguin or their marketing company. What a superb way to combine old and new media, and garner lots of free publicity to boot. This is how it ought to be done.

Thanks to Rachel Clarke for the tweet!

Why the Asus Eee is flying off the shelves

2008-04-29T21:20:00.001+01:00

In the market for a portable computer?

On the left - a Sony Vaio laptop computer. Yours for only £1599.

On the right - an Asus Eee notebook computer. A penny under £200 (!) - for the 2GB version; the 4GB is a shade under £250.

No wonder Asus can barely make enough Eees to meet the demand...

3 mobile broadband: Huawei E169G HDSPA, E220 USB modems review - first impressions

2008-04-23T10:28:00.005+01:00

Thanks to 3mobilebuzz I have been testing 3's new Huawei E169G high speed mobile broadband USB dongle for portable computers on a short term free trial of 3's mobile broadband service.

Here's a pic of what you get in the box:

You remove the USIM card (like a SIM card for mobile phones) from the plastic card and bung it into a removable USIM holder in the stick. Remove the end cap and insert the dongle into a spare USB port (there's a short USB cable too if your port's in an awkward place). It installs itself, at least with Windows (XP, Vista, 2000) and it's also meant to be compatible with Mac OS X. With Windows you get some software installed; I'm under some time pressure to get this first post up so I'll try to add screenshots another time.

The specs on the back of the user guide match the Huawei E169 specifications on the Huawei site (except I couldn't see any microSD slot) so it's:

HSDPA / UMTS（900/2100MHz）- for non-techies, that's 3G or fast(er) speeds i.e. mobile broadband
GSM / GPRS / EDGE（850/900/1800/1900MHz） - that's standard slooowww (or rather, normal) mobile phone speeds.

Pricing, tariffs

This particular model seems already to be available on the Three website (in black or white) for free on a £10 a month 18-month contract. For full details of deals see the 3 mobile broadband dongles page - Lite £10, Plus £15 and Max £25 a month with data allowances of 1, 3 and 7 GB respectively; for a 12-month contract on Lite you'd have to pay £49.99 for the dongle. (I have to say I don't see why anyone would sign up for a 24 month contract when the monthly payment's no less than for the 18-month but you're tied in for longer).

It looks like you can even get the modem on Pay As You Go, in white at least, though then you can't get it free). I don't know if the E169 is available via the shops yet.

Existing 3 mobile phone customers can add mobile broadband on 18 or 24 month contract for half the standard line rental rate, i.e. £5 a month in the above example, and keep paying the half price rate for as long as they have another 3 contract - with the dongle being free if they order before 31 May 2008 (unless Three extend that date of course).

This promotion to existing customers makes a refreshing change from the more usual practice of offering new customers discounts to lure them in, but zip to existing loyal customers (helloooo T-Mobile, the Non-Listening Network? New web n walk Plus or Max customers will get free wifi at T-Mobile hotspots, they announced in Jan 2008, but existing customers won't get that free wifi even if they upgrade to Plus or Max. Or so their customer "services" people, the ones who'd even heard about that offer for new customers anyway, told me after over an hour of waiting on the phone. /rant)

3 do seem to offer that special promotion discount to new customers as well as old (why not make both types of customers happy, eh?) but you'd have to sign up for a 3 mobile phone contract too.

I had in fact signed up for mobile broadband with 3 just a few weeks ago, the full £10 a month deal with free Huawei modem, but then they just had the older Huawei E220 model. Timing 'r' us, not! At least this means I can compare the two Huawei modems for your benefit. (3 also offer another brand of modem, the ZTE - but I'd avoid that if you're ever thinking of using a Linux notebook like the Asus Eee, as I gather you can coax the Huawei into Linux compatibility, which is why I chose it, but I've not heard that you can do that with ZTE. Does anyone else know differently? By the way: the sales people in the 3 Shop didn't even know what Linux was.)

First impressions

By mobile broadband, people mean getting high speed internet access on the move via your laptop or notebook computer or UMPC, rather than your mobile phone. Some people are even opting for "go everywhere" mobile broadband instead of fixed line Net access.

I'd recommend you look at 3's mobile broadband FAQs before you dive in -they're pretty informative. In particular, they say the speed available is "2.8 Mbps in our Turbo coverage areas, and at 384 Kbps in our Video coverage areas." (They split the country into areas; obviously you get higher speeds in a "Turbo" area than in a "Video" area.) You can even check their coverage in your postcode - and you should. Even if you're supposed to be in a Turbo area.

But - it's slower than top ADSL/cable broadband speeds, and you're very dependent on how good the signal is in the EXACT area where you want to use it.

If it's getting fast(er) HSDPA, the modem LED glows blue. Blue is nice. I like blue:

If it can only get an old slow GSM signal, it goes green. Green is not nice:

Even more strongly, I'd recommend that, if you can, you should get the dongle from the 3 website and not from a 3 shop. Why? Because of the much better returns period.

At the time of writing anyway, if you get it from a shop you have only 3 days (including the date of purchase) to try it out in all the places where you might want to use it, especially if you travel a lot. If you order it online, you have 14 days from the date of delivery -but you can't return it if you've used it on more than 3 separate days during those 14 days, so you'll need to plan your trial - use it in place A, drive or train it to place B on the same day and try it there phew, the next day go to place C, try it there, go to place D etc. 3 days only, restrain yourself! Obviously if it works fine everywhere you need it, you don't need to return it and you can use it on as many days as you like.

You can tell I don't think much of that returns policy. The whole point is that 3 should be targeting and marketing mobile broadband to people who are often on the move and need broadband access on their laptop in a number of different locations. Imagine how annoyed and frustrated people will be if they tie themselves into a 12 or 18 month contract, then find they can't get the speed they thought they were paying for.

Isn't it better to give everyone a 14 day returns period, let them try it out as often as they like during that period (as long as they pay for the data used if they end up returning the dongle), and let them return it if it doesn't work where they need it? Then, they'll think "What good customer service and what a customer orientated network, I'll tell my friends, & next time I'll try them again" - rather than "Pah, I now have to pay over the next year for a service I can't use properly, I hate 3". They should be making it easier for people to test it in different places, not hard.

The reason I'm going on at length about trying it out everywhere, or at least the 2 or 3 places where you're most likely to need it, is this: you can't necessarily assume their postcode checker is definitive - coverage isn't as good as I'd hoped, and you need to check it out before you get stuck with a contract for a service that you can't in practice use.

I live in London, pretty centrally. That's Turbo if anywhere is, and so their postcode checker said. But with both the E169G and the E220 modems I'm lucky if I can get 56k (yes, that's dial-up speeds) in my living room, even though T-Mobile's web n walk on my mobile isn't web n crawl (for a change) in the same room. I couldn't go anywhere at 56k on my notebook via the 3 connection, even in the lightning fast Opera browser. Through experimentation, there's only one room where I can get broadband-like speeds, and then only if I'm right by the window. The E169 does maintain broadband speeds if I then move to the next room - but the E220 doesn't.

In my office in the City it's even worse, but then my building seems to be in a mobile black spot anyway (see my BarCamp moan!). Yes their postcode checker had said I'd be OK there, but I wasn't.

Both modems are fine at the South Bank complex however, at least if you're not in a lower ground area - not that I've tried every single lower ground area there, but you get my drift.

I'll be testing it at various other locations as soon as I can, including outside London.

There's meant to be a 3 Web Accelerator to speed up usage for Windows computers Again, I've not had time to download or try it out yet.

So, that's my first impression - how well it works is very, very dependent on the exact few feet (or metres) where you want to use it. So you need to try it out before you buy, in the places where you'll be needing it. Initial niggle - when you remove the end cap which protects the USB connector on the E169G, you have to find somewhere safe to keep the cap, as it won't fit over the other end of the dongle; not very good design, that, it would have been so easy to make it fit.

When (or rather where) it works, it's good, much better than GSM, though not as fast as wifi. More on the nuts & bolts of 3 mobile broadband in use in my next post.

Full disclosure

3's PR people at 3mobilebuzz have set conditions on lending me this dongle:

I can use it free for about 3 months
I have to blog about my experiences with the modem - good or bad (which I would do anyway)
In my first post I have to drill down into some specifics around the pricing structure and link to their pricing page.

They specifically wanted to know "if, as a blogger, you think their pricing/tariff will make a difference to how, and how much, you blog. Their plan means that, if you use 3 for your phone contract (either as a new or existing customer), you get any of the 18 or 24 month mobile broadband packages half price before the end of April [Imp note: now, end May]. Do you think this would encourage you to blog in a more mobile way? And how important are text plans to you as a blogger - for example, is 3's new unlimited text deal a big hook, so you can feel free to update Twitter or Jaiku as much as you want? Or is the fact you can IM for free on 3 mobiles using MSN and Yahoo! Messenger more important? what you think of the USB stick and whether you think it could make a difference to yourself and your readers. Do you think it could help you as a blogger? Does it make blogging easier while on the move?"

Follow up post - to follow!

Regular readers of ACE and those familiar with my LG posts will be expecting a more detailed, practical post than this.

Well, you'll be getting one. I really don't feel I can review any gear properly without fully testing it, and a week or two just isn't long enough. As I can use the E169 modem for 3 months, or rather less than that at this point, I'll be trying it out at different locations and will report further when I've done so, and I'll also give my views on choosing mobile broadband in the UK generally, and compare the two Huawei modems more fully, plus relate my experiences with trying the 3 Web Accelerator.

If you're impatient and can't wait - go for the E169G, not the E220. Personally I chose 3 for mobile broadband rather than Vodafone or T-Mobile, and I made that decision and signed up for an 18 month contract with 3 before I'd even heard of 3mobilebuzz - I'll explain why in my follow up review, as well as why I chose the particular plan I did.

Also, I am in the queue for an Asus Eee PC 900, the 8 GB version, which I hope to get in May. I'll be testing the E169G with the Eee then, and obviously checking its Linux compatibility and reporting back on that.

In my next post I'll also answer 3mobilebuzz's questions about my views on their pricing, text plans etc and their implications for bloggers - and, I think more relevantly for readers of ACE, people generally, not just bloggers. If you have thoughts on those issues too, do please let me know.

If any Mac users would like to offer their laptops temporarily for a quick trial of the dongles on a Mac (maybe at a London Geek Dinner or coffee?), again please let me know.

Finally, dear readers, where in London would you like me to try it out and report back? Free location tester here, take advantage of me while you can. Within reason... I'm not going to the top of the Millennium Wheel or hanging out of the Tower of London with laptop & the USB stick! Well, not unless someone's willing to pay for m'ticket...

Get free online music, references at home by joining library

2008-04-22T20:16:00.001+01:00

Maybe I'm behind, but I've just found out that members of certain London libraries, like City of London or City of Westminster, can have free access, for non-commercial use, from any computer - including their home computer (not just library computers) - to a wide range of useful online material or resources which have been subscribed to and paid for by the library / local authority, including:

music, which you can select to stream to your browser over the Internet, with player controls (I could only get "near CD" or "FM" quality), from CDs in the Naxos Music Library - not much pop or rock, but fans of classical, opera, music theatre, jazz, blues, folk, world music and older "nostalgia" music (Piaf, Armstrong etc), instrumental and even Chinese music can rejoice! There's lots of recordings from the Naxos label, as you'd expect, but there's also music from other labels too like Chandos and Opera Rara.
The Economist, one of my fave reads, all issues from 1843 to 2003, fully searchable
The Times digital archive, searchable, though only from 1785-1985, as well as a searchable archive of national and regional UK newspapers and magazines from NewsUK
CANS advice notes, billed as practical summaries of UK laws updated daily by qualified lawyers, including on some digital rights issues and consumer rights / consumer protection (both subjects I'm very interested in as regular readers of ACE will know)
Grove Art and Grove Music dictionaries
many other standard references like Encyclopaedia Britannica, Who's Who, the Oxford English Dictionary and lots of other Oxford University Press references
and lots of other searchable reference works, which I won't list here - see the Westminster e-resources and the City of London online resources pages for full details of what's available in each (I think Westminster offers slightly more than the City).

Those are the only libraries I know about or have looked into, but given the similarities in the resources offered I bet lots of other libraries in the UK will also have similar schemes (though perhaps more limited, I suspect, as Westminster and the City of London are wealthier councils and can probably afford to subscribe to more services). Just try your local library's website and see.

The good news is, at least if you live in London, it's free to join Westminster Library or join the City of London Library if you have proof of your address - you don't even have to live or work in those areas; I'm a member of both libraries, myself, as their range of material and opening hours are much better than my local library's.

I'm assuming, though I haven't researched the point, that the sources (like Naxos) either get paid a flat subscription rate or get paid a percentage whenever they are downloaded or their music is streamed, just as with authors get paid under the Public Lending Right when their books are borrowed from UK lending libraries.

Now this is what I call bringing libraries (and record labels) into the 21st century!

BarCamp London dim sum challenge

2008-04-21T08:46:00.005+01:00

Are you going to be poised at your computer at 11 am on Thursday 24 April?

If so, please do me a favour - sign me up for BarCampLondon4, and I'll not only be eternally grateful but I'll also buy you a dim sum or other lunch, tea & cakes, or drinks, as you prefer. (My name you know, my email you'll know from my sidebar.) The downside - it'll have to be with me. But I think you already knew that...

Is this against the rules? I don't know, but what I do know is that for popular BarCamps like this one, it's virtually impossible to get a place unless you're ready at the right nanosecond at a computer with a decent speed connection (or can write a script to do the sign up for you, of course). If you work and are in a meeting at that time, tough luck.

It's even worse if the sign up slots are scheduled, as GCap Media (who are organising this BarCamp) have done, for exactly the same time on exactly the same day of the week. I was in a conference call for the first wave. For the second wave I tried using my Nokia N95 but with T-Mobile's web n crawl, I only got in just short of 11.02 am and it said that the tickets were all gone. In less than 2 minutes.

At least for BarCampLondon3 the sign ups waves were scheduled for different times of the day, on different days of the week (including weekends as I recall). So I think I managed to sign up for that during a midnight wave.

The way things are going, I haven't much hope that I'll be able to sign up this Thursday, especially as I'll only be able to try signing up via a slow mobile phone connection again.

BarCamp sign up systems - is there another way?

As you can tell, I don't think the sign up system used for London BarCamps is very fair. What would be fairer is - something else.

What do I suggest? A longer sign up period rather than a few waves. Say, an opening and closing time and date - precise time/date for both - ranging over a period of about a month.

Announce those times well in advance, all over the place.

People indicate their interest during the sign up month (or week, or fortnight, if the organisers prefer - as long as there's plenty of advance notice so people know when the period will be).

After the sign up period closes, do a random selection or ballot out of those who've given their details during the sign up period (I'm sure an electronic random "pick the names out of a hat" can be done; someone can whip up software to do that surely, if it's not already been produced).

That would be the fairest way to choose attendees, I think. Or at least vary the times and days for the sign up waves.

And for the next BarCamp with the same theme in the same place, get the system to weight the draw a little in favour of those who missed out in the last draw - so that the more times you were unlucky and missed out in a row, the higher the weighting in your favour.

That's my thoughts anyway. Otherwise, the only people who'll attend are those who can be poised at their computers at exactly the right time - maybe the organisers want to only let in people who are that keen, but real life just isn't like that, I'm keen but my work has to take priority.

So, what do you think would be the fairest way to allocate places for popular BarCamps? Or a fairer way than now, at least?

And would you be willing to take up the Improbulus dim sum challenge?