The blog of Steve Root

  • BBC iPlayer – it might reach your iPhone but not my PDA (…yet)

    I’ve just come across an interesting article on boingboing (a web site with blog like posts related to computer things), it appears the BBC are trialling the iPlayer service to work to iPhones. BoingBoing noticed (or at least someone noticed and boingboing re-reported it) that they identify an iPhone by accepting the browsers name. They then send an MP4 video stream for your viewing pleasure.

    There’s a couple of interesting things there:
    1) There’s no “DRM” – the software technology that prevents you copying and sharing the file with others. I guess the thoughts are you’ll not be copying it because you’ll be ‘streaming’ the file and wont get to save it. You can download the file though, the article on boingboing explains how. I also imagine they’ve changed the screen size to suit an iPhone which is quite low quality for TV so it may not be too pleasant to watch on other screens anyway.
    2) MP4’s can be played by my windows mobile 6 PDA/Phone. I’m not sure I can persuade my windows mobile browser to tell the BBC it’s an iPhone but the effort the BBC have gone to in trying this on an iPhone means that they may extend that to other platforms later.

  • Coining phrases: "Messenger Lag"

    I wonder if there is a term in use called “Messenger Lag” or similar, meaning; the effect of having two or more differing conversations with the same person when typing over instant messaging services.

    I’ve just been talking to my Mum on Messenger, she’s staying with my sister in Australia at the moment. Whenever we talk on messenger we have at least two simultaneous conversations. While I type the reply to one question she’ll start asking the next, or reply to a question from a couple of lines before. Sometimes that gets a little confusing… like this;

    sharon says:Hi Steve,
    Just about to go to bed – just checking you are okay?mum x
    Steve Root says:i’m ok
    Steve Root says:busy busy week
    sharon says:thats good. lots of orders? or just work
    Steve Root says:KBB in birmingham yesterday, kinetico tomorrow
    Steve Root says:just busy with work, though dave did some orders yesterday
    sharon says:sounds good
    Steve Root says:i’ve had one survey this morning, one new measure this afternoon, margaret is jus tfinalising a bedroom for survey next week
    sharon says:was kbb worth going to?
    Steve Root says:may have found a good custom size door supplier, but I need to do more on bedrooms first
    sharon says:any sliding wardrobes?
    Steve Root says:long way to go though
    Steve Root says:not worth having, current sliding doors are better
    sharon says:where
    Steve Root says:where what?
    sharon says:you said a long way to go though
    sharon says:so i said where
    Steve Root says:Birmingham is a long way
    sharon says:oh
    sharon says:i thought you meant the supplier

  • When learning PHP I spent hours fixing errors simply because I forgot to put a semicolon ‘;’ at the end of a line

    Creating my first Ruby on Rails application today I’ve just spent hours on one small part just because I forgot the equal ‘=’ sign in the view file where I wanted to see things

    <% can anybody hear me? %>
    nope.
    <%= We hear you now Steve! %>
    hooray!

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