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Two sides of the same coin

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 20:00:00 +1000

A little experimentation. Guess which one is NOT the covershot for my next acoustic album!?

Halfway up the stairs

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 17:00:00 +1000

Part two of the photoshoot with my housemates. I setup some lights and took a more subtle approach with the editing.

Photoshoot with my Housemates

Sat, 4 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1000

I was fortunate enough to borrow Jeremy M Butler's Canon 5D Mk II this week to take photos for the Queensland Father of the Year awards. I figured that while I had the camera it would be fun to play around and do a little shoot in the backyard. My housemate's came outside to see what was going on and got dragged in as models. I'm not the greatest photographer or editor, but it was fun!

Broadband Nation

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +1000

With the National Broadband Network being a major talking point during this election it’s got me thinking about the elements we need to make a future proofed Internet experience here in Australia. I think it really boils down to just four points:

Ample Bandwidth for Growth
Symmetrical Speed
Reduced Latency
Ubiquity

There’s some ugly terms there, so what the heck am I on about? Let’s take a look.

Ample Bandwidth for Growth

Whenever I head to the coast with the family, my mum loves to recollect the times when the Gold Coast highway was a single lane each way. Cars would be backed up for miles and it was a long/slow trip. Thank God someone saw a problem and decided to put in the eight lane highway we have now.

This is bandwidth. The single lane is equivalent to a low-bandwidth connection, where only so much information can travel down the “pipe” at any one time. If there is more traffic than the connection can take, things start backing up. Vice-versa, a high-bandwidth connection means that a lot more information can travel at any one time, meaning that most data can be transferred at top speed and even multiple sources (multiple lanes) can transfer information at any one time.

The problem we have right now, in Australia, is that the cables in the ground were laid before the Internet existed. ADSL was invented to utilise the existing telephone cables in a sneaky way so that we could get Internet without having to re-lay cables. It’s a very clever technology that suffices most people today.

But, the fact is that it’s not sustainable. We are already peaking the capability of the cables. In fact, while you’re probably paying for an ADSL2+ connection that claims to give you 24 megabits per second, if you head on over to speedtest.net, I’ll bet you don’t get anywhere near that speed.

The cables we have now weren’t designed for the Internet and they’re not designed to give us scalable speeds to meet our growing demand for bandwidth. We need to rethink the way we transfer information to homes.

We need A LOT more bandwidth - not just for the future, but even now!

Symmetrical Speeds

ADSL is an acronym that stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Notice the word “Asymmetric”. This means that while you theoretically get 24 megabits per second downloads, you will get a lot less in terms of upload speed. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get 1 megabit per second (again, check your speedtest.net score).

“But James, I just want my songs and YouTube videos to download as fast as possible, why do I care about upload speeds!?”

Well, let’s take Skype as an example. It’s a two way video conversation. You are both downloading the video and audio from the other person, while you are uploading audio and video to them. You are uploading and downloading equal amounts of information. And, the quality of the picture you download is dictated by how quick the other persons’ upload speed is.

Skype today works really well, because they’ve designed the software to optimise and adjust based on your connection. But, if you’ve ever been on a Skype video call, you’ll notice that you can barely make out any detail in the picture. It’s fairly choppy and pixelated - not well suited for showing off fine artwork to a buyer or checking out someone's new jacket.

At work we have an SHDSL connection - a true symmetrical Internet connection that gives us 20 Mbps uploads AND downloads. This single connection provides 120 people with faster Internet than they’d get at home, while also serving web-pages 16,000 times a month. Additionally, we use a commercial VoIP service that runs all our outgoing phone calls over that same Internet connection.

If you ponder that a moment - 120 people on one 20 Mbps connection, without missing a beat - you’ll get a feel for the benefits of a symmetrical connection. Upload speeds matter a lot, especially to businesses. Unfortunately, they currently cost anywhere between 10 and 20 times that of ADSL.

But, I think the most important thing to remember is that your upload speed effects other people’s download speeds.

Reduced Latency

If you’ve ever called a friend overseas or seen the news presenters answer questions live from another country, you’ll notice a little bit of lag between when a question is asked and when the other person responds. This is latency and it is something network engineers battle with a lot.

Here’s a screengrab of my own speedtest.net results. On the left is the connection at my house and the right is my iPhone’s Optus 3G connection:

Obviously, I’m a bit disappointed that my supposedly “ADSL2+” connection is so slow, but there’s one metric in there where the wired connection excels and that’s the “ping” time.

Imagine a Hyundai Getz and a Mac truck in a relay race on a 100 Metre track. Each vehicle needs to get from one end to the other as fast possible, turn around and repeat the trip 5 times back and forth. While both the Getz and the truck are capable of doing 100 Kilometres per hour, the Getz is going to win, because it takes less time to speed up and slow down and turn corners.

Essentially, the ping time gives us an idea of how long it takes for a download (or upload) to “get going”. Note that, in order for a phone call to “feel” like it’s real time, you need a ping to be about 100 ms or lower. On the Symmetrical connection at work, we get ping times to our ISP on the Gold Coast of around 30 ms - ten times less latency than the 3G network.

Skype works adequately on my Internet connection at home, because there’s reasonably low latency. But, it’s not a very enjoyable experience on the 3G network, because the latency is so high. This is the same reason why Apple’s new iPhone 4 will only do FaceTime calls over a Wireless connection at home.

Reduced latency means a much snappier experience and in a world that is quickly turning to VoIP and video calling (amongst other things), this is very important.

Ubiquity

I picked up a new iPhone 4 last week and of all the features I was keen to test, it’s taken me a week to finally try out FaceTime video calls. Why? Because FaceTime is currently only available on iPhone 4’s. I know one other person who got theirs on launch day, but this person has been so busy they haven’t had time to call. Another one of my friends got their phone just the other day and so we were both able to try out the new feature.

If all my friends had been able to buy an iPhone 4 on launch day or if FaceTime was already available on all other smart-phones I would have been able to see the benefit’s of this new feature straight away. The point is that in order for FaceTime to be a successful feature, more and more people need to have access to a FaceTime enabled device.

In a similar way, our super-fast Internet connection at work doesn’t give me any real advantage at home, because I only have a very slow ADSL connection here. I guess you could say that there’s a bit of a “lowest common denominator” problem with networks.

In order for Australian’s to see the real benefits of a National Broadband Network, we all need to be on High-Bandwidth, Symmetrical, and Low-Latency connections. It really is a case of “the more the merrier”.

Care to Compare

Both the Labor and Liberal party’s have National Broadband plans. Let’s do a quick look at what each propose to provide and see how they score against the four points I’ve touched on.

Australia Liberal Party

The Liberals recently announced that they will provide a $6B grant pool that Internet Service Providers can access to help fund an expansion of their networks. What they’ve highlighted and what I hope would come from a plan like this is that they will take care of the Ubiquity problem, by expanding networks to more of the population. They have estimated that 97% of Australian’s will have at least a 12 Mbps and up to a 100 Mbps download speed.

This is a good start. Ubiquity is a big issue and I can imagine that they will go far to improve Bandwidth and perhaps Latency. However, they have already made public statements that call into question whether they are aware of and have a plan to solve the Symmetry problem.

If you have a 100 Mbps download speed, but only a 2 Mbps upload speed we aren’t going to see as big a benefit as you might imagine - this remains to be seen and addressed by the Libs and you might notice that I’m a little skeptical having heard about some of the technologies they propose to deploy.

Labor Party

Labor are already 6 months into their NBN project, with deployments in Tasmania starting to come online as we speak. NBN Co is the company setup to design and build the network, headed by Mike Quigley who has a long history of large scale telecommunications deployments under his belt. The plan is big and budgeted at a whopping 28 to 43 Billion dollars.

They have already proven that they are aware of and concerned about Bandwidth, Symmetry and Latency by opting to deploy Optic Fibre to the majority of residence. However, 7% of Australian’s will end up with wireless and/or satellite coverage, which is known to be slow in terms of latency.

My personal concern is that at such a high cost, 7% of the population on a high latency and slower speed is a bit disappointing.

There’s no denying that even an optimistic $28B is a whoppa of a price tag and understandably a lot of people are going to baulk at the ballot box over Labor's NBN plan. But, as a tech-head I believe that it is a smart plan, headed up by people who know what they’re doing and based on their progress in Tasmania, I’m confident they can pull it off.

That said, I’m still undecided about who I’ll vote for. What are your thoughts about the NBN? Who’s plan do you think is the “smarter” one and why?

P.S. If the NBN debate interests you and you have an hour free, watch Stephen Conroy, Tony Smith and Scott Ludlam battle it out in a debate at the National Press Club recently.

P.P.S. IT News has a nice little table to compare different aspects of the two plans.

Why I believe in School Chaplaincy

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

I hadn’t actually heard of SU Qld before I started working there. Perhaps I’d heard of it, but didn’t take any notice. Certainly, I never knew that the government was putting money behind having Chaplains in Schools.

When you hear the term “School Chaplain”, what do you assume their role would be? What kinds of activities would such a person be involved in?

If you’re not familiar with Chappy’s (and particularly if you’re not a Christian) you are probably right now assuming the worst. I say that simply because most people I’ve talked to do assume that Chaplains are like “Sniper Priests”, silently and stealthily brainwashing kids and turning them to THE DARK SAAIIIIIDDEEEE.

What most don’t realise is that being partly funded by the Federal and State Governments, Chaplains are under the Education Queensland guidelines. That is, that they must abide by a code of conduct and their activities must be acquitted by a Government Department. Do you think EQ approves of brainwashing? Hardly.

Now, of course, The chaplains are Christians and therefore operate out of that world view, but they show this faith through their actions more than their words. So, what do they spend most of their time doing? Here’s how one School Chaplain put it recently:

... the chappy team I represent, provides food for the hungry, companionship for the lonely, a safe place for the scared, and a listening ear to those who need it.

In many ways, Chaplains are the big brothers and sisters we all wished we had in School. Check out Josephine’s story on YouTube for a deeper look at a Chaplain’s work in a School: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjUdJZL6dyk

Okay, so at this point, most people want to know - What is the difference between a Chappy and a run-of-the-mill Youth Worker. If they’re not preaching and converting willy-nilly, what’s the point? Well, I’m glad you asked!

We could go deep into philosophical differences between School Chaplains and Youth Workers. But, seeing as an election is in the air and what most Australian’s are concerned about is the budget, let’s do a quick look at what you get for your money!

More for Your Money

I did a quick Google search for the average wage of a Youth Worker and PayScale indicates that it’s between $36,000 and $51,000 (http://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=YouthWorker/HourlyRate). For all the Chaplains reading this right now, I’m sorry... I’m not on industry wages either, if that’s any consolation...

You see, Chappy’s don’t make that kind of money and the government only provides a portion of their wage. So, where does the rest of the money come from? Churches, Local Businesses, Family’s and Individuals. Yes, apparently a lot of that tithe money really does go back into helping the community, and Chaplaincy absolutely could not survive without it.

This begs the question - how would a run-of-the-mill Youth Worker raise the rest of the money for their wages, let alone feed hungry kids and buy materials for their work? Either the Government coughs up more money (which we know they don’t have) or the number of people on the ground gets cut. Which, would be a shame, because most of what I’ve heard is that parents and teachers want more Chappy’s in Schools, more of the time.

Resources on Tap

Each “Chaplaincy” is managed by what we call a Local Church Council or “LCC”. Yes, Churches have a lot to do with Chaplains and yes this is a good thing, let me explain this by sharing a story from a Chaplain:

After meeting with the mother I contacted a local church and asked them to drop around a food hamper for the family. That afternoon the church brought over a basket and the mother was so overwhelmed she was crying and hugging the lady. At the same time a Christian lady from another church who knew the family came over to visit and the Christian neighbour from across the street came over and offered to bring over some dinner that night.

The next morning the lady who brought over the food was teaching RE in the class of the oldest child in that family (without knowing the connection). The story was on Noah and God being faithful. After the lesson the kid came up to the RE teacher and said- God must have heard us pray. We had no food yesterday so we prayed and then we had lots of food and bread that same day!

You see, for the super-low wages that the Government contributes to, you as a member of the community not only get a single Chaplain, but a team of eager and loving people who want to help. Of course, I’m not saying you can’t get this from a Youth Worker, but the difference is that the sunroof, 5.1 surround-sound and electric-mirrors come as standard; not extra.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’re aware that bullying at school is an increasing problem. Who do kids turn to in that situation? Kids Helpline? I’d like to think so, but sometimes kids are too ashamed to approach someone about their issues. Likewise, how can we expect kids who feel it’s all just too much to jump out of their skin and ask for help. We need a trusted friend on the ground who can actively engage with students; notice the changes in their demeanour and offer help and referral to professionals as soon as possible. Thankfully, these people do exist and we call them Chappy’s.

These are just a couple of reasons why I believe in School Chaplaincy and why my vote in this election will be primarily based on which party believes in Australia’s youth like I do.

iPhone 4: To buy or not to buy

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

A few people like me to help them with their current Apple products and keep them up to date with new ones. If you are such a person, I have lovingly typed this post for you. If you’re not such a person, feel free to read, but don’t feel any compulsion.

The iPhone 4 will be released here in Australia on Friday, the 30th of July. Optus, Vodafone and Telstra all have dedicated web pages where you can register your interest in pre-ordering and purchasing a phone. Note, that at this stage this is just registering your interest - they will email these interested folk in the near future to open up actual pre-ordering and purchasing.

The blogosphere and even mainstream media have been going berserk this past few weeks over reports of “antenna problems” with the phone. It wasn’t until this morning that Apple actively addressed “the problem” with a dedicated press-event which you can now watch online: http://www.apple.com/apple-events/july-2010/

Subsequently to this, they have created a dedicated web page in order to explain Smartphone Antenna Performance in a way that the general public can understand: http://www.apple.com/antenna/

So, what did Apple say at the event. Well, first off they spent a lot of time looking at the hard data (what they believe are the actual facts about this issue):

All smartphones on the market suffer from the same “death grip” (Their antenna website has video’s of three handsets dropping bars the same way the iPhone does), but the iPhone’s software was making it seem much worse.
Of all the support calls they get only half a percent are anything remotely to do with Antenna issues and iPhone 4.
The return rate is a third of what it was with the iPhone 3GS.

Additionally, they also admitted that AT&T (their US carrier) has reported that the iPhone 4 appears to be dropping less than 1 additional call in every 100 over the iPhone 3GS. So, according to Apple, the data says that iPhone 4 is dropping more calls, but far fewer than people lay claim to.

But, at the end of the day, they are not happy if their customers are not happy. So, they are offering every customer of an iPhone 4 a free case. They can’t manufacture their own bumper case quick enough, so you will get a choice of a few that they select. On top of that, if people are not satisfied with the phone, it can be returned for a full refund.

Apple have always been well known for producing an exorbitant amount of hype over their products. One has to wonder whether this hype monster they’ve been feeding over the years has finally bitten them in the butt.

In any case, iPhone 4 is under a fortnight away from release in Australia. What are your thoughts? Do you think Apple’s answer is sufficient? Will you buy one? And if you plan to buy one, will you get a black or white one and why?

I Won't Have a Bar of it

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The iPhone 4 has been released in the US and it's selling like crazy. But, what everybody is talking about is this reception problem.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, take a look at this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB-VkEpoC4). Apple have released an official statement - which they rarely do - and claim that the problem is software (an update for which will be released soon).

Now, two things come to mind...

Firstly, I fail to see how software accounts for this particular problem (http://vimeo.com/12864890). The video shows that it's not the bars that change, but simply that the page stops loading completely when you bridge the phone and WiFi antennas with your finger. I've heard some people claim that this is because bridging the two antenna's attenuates the signal (in a sense, shorting them out). As a left handed person who uses WiFi a lot, this concerns me. Is it a show-stopper? I don't know - it remains to be seen. But, I'll be keeping a close eye on it until it's released here in Aus. As much as I want a new phone, I don't want a faulty new phone...

Secondly, Apple's statement claims that the problem is not with the hardware, but with the software that calculates how many bars of reception the phone reports. Now, if we step back in time for a moment, you'll remember that it was an Apple Software Engineer that left the phone at the bar. Specifically, an Engineer who wrote the "baseband" (antenna) software. If Apple's statement is true - that the problem is completely a software related one - which Engineer do you think they'll put responsibility on?

Unusually, his Steveness decided to show mercy on this individual and keep him around. But, with all the negative media attention and some individuals in the US even filing a class action law suit against Apple, you've got to wonder whether sticking with the company was the right choice for this Engineer. He really has not had a good year...

So, right now, we just wait and see how Apple's software update performs. If it fixes the problem, then we'll all buy iPhones, live long and be merry. But, if it doesn't? Perhaps Android will prosper from Apple's failings.

Four Weak's Inn

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:12:22 +1000

This time last month I held my breath, took the plunge, and pulled the plug on my Facebook profile. It was an inglorious protest against a behemoth that grows by a cool million people every day.

So, how have things gone? What does life look like outside of Facebook? Well, to be honest, I'm not sure that I've really carried out my objective - which was to spend less time online and more time offline - with people.

Certainly, a lot of my focus has gone to Twitter. But, Twitter is not overly personal. It just doesn't have the character capacity to say anything significant or carry on a decent conversation.

It's more like an RSS feed of people's lives that is tuned for bite-sized, high-volume consumption. It's a little bit like Facebook's news feed, but only a little bit.

So, my focus has gone to Twitter and hasn't reaped much reward where keeping in touch with people is concerned. I think the rest of my time has gone back into mindlessly surfing the internet.

I haven't really gone out of my way to email people. I don't really think I've made great steps to call. And I'm not sure that I've spent more time visiting friends than I would have otherwise.

Needless to say, things haven't really gone to plan...

I've now come to a crossroad. I can continue going down the path I'm on and hope it gets better. Perhaps these rumours about "Google Me" (Google's "Facebook Killer") are true and I will have somewhere to call home in the future. But seriously, how do you get 500 Million people to abandon a perfectly good service?!

The alternative is to chuck a U-ie and come crawling back, head slumped from the feeling of defeat.

Now, I know. In a world where people are dying of hunger, disease, earthquakes, oppression and moral injustice, you'd think I'd have something a little more important to think about. I don't mean to say that this choice is anywhere near the scale of those things. But, it is hard where a first world, well dressed, white boy - sitting next to the heater in a house with a roof and comfy queen sized bed, typing on an expensive laptop, listening to music from his iPhone - is concerned.

I still believe very strongly in the need to be wary of ones' privacy on the internet. And I still believe that Facebook has a long way to go in order to prove itself as a good steward of people's information. But, it does feel like my still small voice has gone unheard and the world has gone on without me.

What say ye dear friends? Do I continue my quest? Or do I return "home"?

iPhoney or iPhlop?

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:30:48 +1000

Word on the street is that the new iPhone is having reception problems. Apparently if you hold it in your left hand, the little reception bars start decreasing until it tries "Searching..." for a network.

They say it's the new antenna design. But, have a look at what happened when I tried this on my two year old iPhone 3G...

No hands:

Left hand on the device:

Notice the change in reception (top left hand corner of the phone).

I do vaguely remember something being said, in Steve's keynote, about the algorithm being changed so that what the little bars represent makes more sense to people. Perhaps what we're really seeing is not so much a problem with the phone, but just a tweak in the software?

Here's hoping - I really want a new phone!

P.S. To clarify - the iPhone's antenna is in the bottom of the phone. So, when you hold it in your hand, like I did, you're actually covering the antenna. The reason it's in the bottom of the phone, instead of the top is to point any radiation away from your brain.

All Cows Eat Grass

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:59:03 +1000

When I was seven years old, a mate of mine and I found some scrap wood in the back of his dad's garage. Somehow, I managed to draw an outline and cut out a Gibson flying-V (http://ejangi.com/ua4g3wq). Later, when I got back home, I finished it in red, added a whammy bar and a strap made out of some scrap fabric mum had in the cupboard.

I would often walk out onto our tennis court in our front yard and play my guitar to millions of adoring fans - as you do when you're seven. Needless to say, my parents got the strong hint that I had a thing for music. But, before they would let me take guitar lessons, my mum wanted me to get some basic music skills on the piano.

My piano teacher was a really old, smelly, wretch of a woman and I didn't enjoy the lessons at all. Rather than practice for next week's lesson, take a guess where I was? Yep... Tennis court!

Eventually, my mum caved and she started teaching me some basic chords on the guitar. But, it wasn't until a couple of years later that I started getting real guitar lessons.

It's funny, because I've now been playing guitar for 20 years and as much as I hated piano back in the day, I'm really starting to enjoy and have respect for the keys.

Years ago, I got into electronic music. Eric Jordan, a web designer I have a lot of respect for began releasing monthly mixes of the stuff he was listening to and I found they helped inspire my design work. Unfortunately, he got married and stopped releasing the mixes half way through 2009, but it's encouraged me to venture out of my rock bubble into realms of music I wouldn't otherwise have really considered.

For example, over the weekend iTunes recommended Ellie Goulding to me. I don't listen to the radio much, but my sister tells me she gets a bit of air-play on Triple-J. I am absolutely loving this album.

Ellie has a really interesting voice, along the lines of Kate Miller-Heidke perhaps, but with less vibrato and a much more pleasant tone. It's very poppy music - quite a contrast to Emery which is next in my iTunes library.

There's a mixture of acoustic guitars, drums and a LOT of synth. I'm still trying to figure out how they have so many synth tracks without the mix coming through really muddy, but the one thing I'm sure of is that I like it.

It's so not my normal flavour of music, but then looking through my iTunes library now I can see a lot of non-rock bands pop-up: Tycho, Armin Van Buuren, The Bird and the Bee, Eisley. More and more I seem to be drawn to bands that don't fit what has been my mold for so many years.

I still play my guitar and get lost in the sound of six strings, but I bought a synth recently and I've been slowly teasing interesting sounds out of it that make sense with some of my GarageBand sessions. I've just got to get my fingers to remember what these white and black things are...

Now, what was that piano teacher on about again? Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit???