What all the fuss is about!

So this Google Plus is the new black right? I may not be a devoted follower of fashion, but as a full on Neophile I cannae resist a new technology-ey thing! And seeing as all the cool kids are on Google Plus (all right none of the cool kids, but all the geeks, nerds and internet weirdos are!) I was desperate to give it a go.

Thanks to an internet pal Mr603 of Unmemorable Title, an SEO guru (Yay!) and a big Leeds United fan (boo!) who is ahead of the curve on such things I was able to finagle an early invite.

I really like the idea of Social Networking. I use Facebook a lot (despite the fact I despise it to the very photons it displays) and I really love Twitter. Both are massively successful and pervasive. So whilst I was massively keen to try Plus I had some healthy scepticism about whether or not there was some space for a brand new social network to thrive in.

I have to say I was on sign up instantly impressed. Before I even got to know about how to use Plus I just liked the look and feel of the place. It was quick and clean. In fact it looked a lot like Facebook minus all the tons and tons of irritating rubbish that FB has been piling on over the years.

As I started to use it, it became increasingly clear to me that Plus has some real advantages over both Twitter and Facebook and that whether or not there is space for it, this effort from Google has a real chance of muscling into the market.

Google Plus has a feature called “circles” this is where you organise your contacts into various different groups. You can have circles for Friends, Family, Work, Hobbies etc. This becomes really useful in terms of sharing because it allows you to be much more selective about who you share stuff with compared to the all or nothing approach on Facebook/Twitter.

There are lots of stories about people getting into trouble with work because of stuff posted on Facebook/Twitter etc, but because in the main everyone who are friends with/following you see’s everything you post it can be quite limiting. Most people’s have grandparents on Facebook now and let’s be honest most of us have stuff we wouldn’t want to share there. I know a lot of people who have two or more FB/Twitter accounts to separate work, pleasure and family. The Google Plus circles mean that actually you can do all of that within one social network and one account. This is a darned good thing if you ask me.

Also the circles mean you are able to follow people who are not contacts of yours but from whom you want information. Twitter style following in a Facebook style social network is another nifty feature. Clearly the Plus engineers and writers spent a lot of time looking at what was good about FB and Twitter and tried to amalgamate the two.

The “Sparks” feature is a way of finding content that might interest you. This is a pretty vanilla feature at the moment. It gives you a pretty anodyne, unisex, list of topics you might be interested in. You can customise this to your tastes (though annoyingly it thinks “Football” is called “Soccer”, and “American Football” is called “Football”. What sort of godless heathens programmed this thing? ). I suspect that as Plus grows, and Google get information about the things you “plus one” that the recommendations will become more forensic. If it turns out to be a Last.FM of internet content that this might one day end up being the killer app of Plus.

Some pretty cool technology stuff. Had a quick go on the “hang out” facility for the group video chat and I have to say it is very, *very* impressive. I shall look forward to seeing if it becomes a useful tool. Also the Android phone app is very impressive. Given that this is still in beta testing and the app is in its first iteration I am blown away. It is already much better than the official apps of both Facebook and Twitter if you ask me.

So then will Plus be a success. An interesting take on that here, obviously Facebook and Twitter are established in the sphere. I think Plus will be a success but I am not sure to what degree. I suspect that it will have really deep, really easy to use, integration into Chrome Browser, Android 4.0 (Ice cream sandwich) and all other Google products. If this is the case then I expect by a process of sort of internet use osmosis it will do pretty well because it will be easy to use in lots of different ways/places.

We shall see. For me, right now, it is a network I like and I am enjoying using.

Still I needed a cheap webhost for my new blog, and they seemed very reasonable, so I signed up and started my blog.

Now the thing I really kick myself about was that a week or so after signing up and uploading my blog there was a major outage of my site and it was impossible to get hold of Weycrest, numerous phone calls and emails went unanswered. This irritated me. Not the outage, as I reasoned you get what you pay for, and in electing for cheap I realised there might be some issues. No I was annoyed they didn’t respond to any of my queries.

Now at this stage I should have moved, or at the very least started carefully

How I felt about my actions.

backing up my files. Alas like an internet greenhorn prized eejit I did neither and carried on.

Well the “inevitable” happened and at the end of may Weycrest went bust. It seems that the geezer running the company wiped all the servers, and suspended everyones accounts, before if the forums are to be believed fleeing the country.

Given my earlier stupidity in not backing up my data locally I despairingly realised that I had lost everything. Months and months of work on my blog. To say I was disconsolate is an understatement.

When searching the web for information or advice about what had gone on I stumbled upon the  forums of a company called Vidahost

Who actually had some real news on the fate of Weycrest. They were also making an offer to former Weycrest customers who wanted to come to them.

I decided Vidahost sounded good and spoke to a nice chap called Dominic from their Customer Service department on the blower who invited me to join them. Before I had even signed up or given them any money Dominic spent some time in a valiant (if fruitless) attempt to try and recover some of my data.

Anyhow I have now signed up and I cannot recommend these guys highly enough, very reasonable and excellent Customer Service. Assuming you are reading this then the site is up and running good as new!

I also am incredibly indebted to Google Cache, without which I would have been unable to resurrect as much of my content as I have. I know I have permanently lost a few of the blogs I had uploaded but I am mostly back.

So the moral of this story? Do a little bit of research before signing up to a budget host I now realise that even some cursory googling would have let me realise Weycrest were ones to avoid.

But most of all make backups, the last thing you want to happen is to lose all the hours, days and weeks you put into your site. A local backup shouldn’t take much time but it will save you a lot of agony and heart ache.  The truth is that “the cloud” may well be the future of online computing but for the time being you cannot beat double redundancy and local backups.

As well as having a huge amount of respect for Millar the film has been insanely hyped by Empire, my film magazine of choice, with a steady stream of teaser stories and features for most of the last year. As an individual occasionally susceptible to a bit of hype I fell hook line and sinker.

So, paradoxically, I approached watching the film with a real degree of trepidation. Usually whenever I am really, really excited about something it fails to live up to my expectations. So right from the top I am pleased to say that Kick Ass lived up to my expectations, put simply it does exactly what it says on the tin.

The idea is quite good, why has no one tried to be a super hero before (though I kinda think the Minute Men in “Watchmen” explored this idea 20 years ago!). Then an “ordinary” kid, Dave our protagonist, buys a wet suit and decides to confront some criminals. With entirely predictable consequences, he gets badly beaten and ends up in hospital.

As a result of this he has extensive surgery, metal plates on his bones and his nerves get bashed up so he can’t feel pain properly, in his own words his only real super power is “an elevated ability to take a beating”. He then resurrects his superhero career and gets involved with some other costumed vigilantes who are taking on the mob.

What is interesting is the way Kick Ass subverts the genre, and the normal expectations of the comic book heroes. Firstly, whatever he might tell himself Dave is really motivated by fame, constantly referring to his “MySpace” page, and how many pals he has compared to his Kick-Ass alter ego. In fact Dave seems to be principally motivated by boredom, and it is interesting how his character develops during the course of the film. Dave is much more interesting that Kick Ass ultimately.

The next subversion really is the degree to which the film is a comedy, it is really, really funny. I guess the closest comparison in conventional comic films would be “Spiderman” (Dave/Kick Ass is a reflection on Parker/Spidey I think), and the humorous aspects are more to the fore than in pretty much any Superhero flick I have ever seen. The main thing is that this makes the film hugely enjoyable to watch.

There are a really good cast of supporting characters, most of the press has focussed onChloë Moretz’s portrayal of the Foul Mouth 11 year old assassin “Hit Girl”. Hit girl is great but for my money both Christopher “McLovin” Mintz-Plasse and Nicolas Cagesteal almost every scene they are in.

Further Mark Strong is excellent as the villain, and he is rapidly becoming my favourite movie bad guy following his excellent turns in “Stardust” and “Sherlock Holmes”.

So in closing a couple of observations. Firstly Matthew Vaughan is on a great run of form in terms of films he has directed. Layer Cake, Stardust and now Kick-Ass have all been tremendously enjoyable films and I cannae wait for whatever he does next.

Secondly Jane Goldman is damnably good at adapting source material into films. With both Kick Ass and Stardust the narrative changes really make sense in the context of a film. Though I am a massive fanboy about lots of stuff I do recognise that Film is a very different medium to prose or comics. Goldman seems to really nail this in terms of remaining faithful to the spirit of the original text, whilst makes sometimes big narrative changes that work in the context of the film.

So that’s it I loved Kick Ass and I highly recommend watching it. May not be Bergman-esque “Cinema as Art”, but if I spend a more enjoyable 2 hours in the cinema this year I will be very surprised.

That the Bill is being rushed through is hugely controversial, given some of the fundamental changes it introduces. On the one hand you have the BPI (Recording Industry Association) and the Trade Union led Creative Coalition Campaign calling for a speedy introduction. On the other hand there is a broad coalition of activists campaigning against the bill such as The Open Rights group and 38 Degrees calling for it to be delayed to allow proper consultation and debate.

I think it is clear that the Digital Economy is going to become an increasingly important part of how “UK PLC” operates. The creative industries, particularly in respect of Film, Music, Software are vital to the economy and to our ways of life.

Further our working lives and our home lives and influenced massively by the internet, online communications and distribution. And I also think it is fair comment to say that our legislative framework does not properly reflect the changes that the internet has bought.

The problem is, in my opinion, that the current legislation appears to be rushed, unbalanced and written principally to further the specific needs of the “industry” without taking proper consideration of the needs of society (it is a Peter Madelson project after all…).

Copyright is a settlement designed to balance the needs of society to use and enjoy creative work, against the legitimate need of those who create to make a living from doing so. As such getting this balance right is really important.

That settlement, getting the balancing act right, is really important if we want to tackle issues around copyright and piracy. In order for there to be public confidence in the system people have to feel it is fair. Provisions for who people use copyrighted stuff, how they can share it, what constitutes “fair use” are really fundamental to a fair settlement and one that will be broadly respected.

Therefore it is outrageous, in my humble opinion, that this legislation is being rushed through. It needs careful consideration and to be properly debated by *elected* legislators, and not to be just nodded through on the “never, never”.

Some of the provisions in the bill around cutting of peoples are just fundamentally unfair and unworkable. And it really raises questions about justice if these things can happen without people being taken  through any kind of fair, or independent, judicial process. Put bluntly I do not trust elected politicians or the corporate interests of the recording industry to do this right or fairly.

There needs to be a new copyright settlement in the UK that takes proper consideration of the way digital technologies are disrupting traditional business models. This has to put allowing creative people to make a living from their profession at its heart, as we all benefit from proper creative industries.

But it has to do this in a way that is fair to society, and any provisions to deal with copyright fraud simply have to follow fair due process. The digital economy bill is flawed, rushed, and predicated on “special interest”, it should not pass in this way.

Twit Chat.

Earlier in the week I took part in a “twitchat” organised by The Howard League who campaign for penal reform. This twitchat is where they are conducted an interview with someone in real time on in twitter. Their campaign for “less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison. ” is certainly a good campaign on one I would urge readers to sign up to.

The first of these twitchats was with Kerry McCarthy MP (with whom I was distinctly unimpressed with her lack of support for the Bristol and District CWU during the keep the post public campaign). However she certainly had some interesting things to say about the campaign.

The twitchat was interesting, and the idea of a public, real time, discussion with which members of the public can join in is great and I look forward to more of the series. Whilst it is clearly limited by the medium (140 characters makes it hard to have nuanced points!)

But this is definitely the kind of use of “nu media” that will enhance political discourse and give different types of people the opportunity to take part. Certainly gets a “thumbs up” form me!

Streaming Spotify.

I am a BIG fan of Spotify, I think it is a tremendous service that allows the internet technology to be used in a way to promote music. (the industry is really short sighted if it goes after such things) but there is for me a major limitation, namely that it was on my PC rather than through my lovely stereo.

However I recently bought a pretty nifty media streaming set top box and via the medium of a wonderful free program called Tversity I have been able to follow this simple guide and now can stream the Spotify to my stereo… this is so awesome I am probably going to get the old premium Spotify now as I this is just the bomb for me!

My Podcast.

Given that I am blogging about Web 2.0 it would be remiss of me not to plug my podcast. We have now done a fair few editions with 12 published so far. Upcoming ones with NO2ID, The Howard League, our General Secretary and the Fair Trade foundation mean there are some good ones coming up.

Must say I am not really sure how to integrate them with my blog…. I am kinda thinking the best bet will be to just do a blog post about any I think will interest people outside of the CWU.

Incidently if anyone reading this has any ideas of good people to do podcasts with please do leave me some feedback and I will see what I can do.

So not a proper holiday, but as I has Friday off as annual leave I thought I would go to Bristol to stay with my brother. I had a few priorities, these centred around wanting to eat nice food, and bake a cake….. I know what a hellman I am eh?

So anyway first order of business was to bake a cake, after much deliberation between coffee or chocolate I decided to go for a bit of both and cooked this great idea and the cake looked pretty nice when we had done it.

Alas it transpires that we had used a cake tin that was slightly too large and although the cake was pretty nice it was a little dry which was a slight disappointment. All the same it was fun making the cake and I am starting to worry that I am frankly getting a bit old if my idea of a fun thing to do when on holiday is to bake a cake!

Anyhow I do recommend trying this, but make sure you use the right sized tin so the sponge is nice and moist. Also I think there is a typo in the recipe as it definitely does not need 4 tablespoons of coffee for the filling.

So the cake was fun and we sat down to a fun filled evening of Crocodile Dundee, football and some nice booze! A foodstuff I most certainly was not disappointment was the Tesco own brand “Thai Sweet Chilli Cassava Crackers”. Cassava seems to be some sort of root vegetable that I had never heard of, but these crackers are really nice. Brilliantly they are gluten free, and my brothers other half cannot do gluten so looks like they are a great discovery.

So anyhow the rest of the weekend was spent trying to optimising the blog, learn how to use wordpress, and watching the Carling Cup final. Much as though it pains me to admit it United were the better side, and deserved to win the game as it was….. But how on earth was Vidic not sent off? Last man, goalscoring chance, ref gives a penalty so he accepts it is a foul… I dunno.

Still a good weekend and nice to come to Bristol actually to see and hang out with my Brother rather than just kipping at his gaffe because I have work in Bristol.