IT « William Goodall's Blog

August 27, 2010

BBC iPlayer Usage, iOS vs. Android 2.2 Devices

Filed under: Apple,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 16:35

From a Freedom of Information request in the UK:

In July 2010 6,400 programmes were streamed from the BBC iPlayer to Android devices. […]

In July 2010 there were 5,272,464 programmes requested via the BBC iPlayer from Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices.

Why so striking a difference? Because Android users can only access iPlayer using Flash, Flash is only available on Android 2.2, and the overwhelming majority of Android handsets — even brand-new ones — are still running older versions of the OS.

But, of course, there are no iOS users with Flash installed. That’s what I see as the main problem with Android’s official support for Flash: it gives providers like the BBC an easy way out. Would there exist a dedicated iPlayer app for the iPhone if iOS had supported Flash all along? Does Android’s support for Flash make it less likely that the BBC will develop a native iPlayer app for Android?

(And wouldn’t you like to see a battery life comparison between iPlayer on an iPhone 4 and a few Android phones running the Flash version?)

★

[From BBC iPlayer Usage, iOS vs. Android 2.2 Devices]

So much for Flash 🙂

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August 22, 2010

The app market, by the numbers

Filed under: Apple,IT — William_T_Goodall @ 10:34

The very insightful Stuart Dredge over at Mobile Entertainment has compiled an amazing primer on all of the numbers behind the app market (which you can also see by clicking the “Read More” link, although it’s not viewable on an iPad or iPhone). If you want to know anything about how many apps are rolling out of the store, how many apps are installed on the average device, or what kinds of apps those are, Dredge’s presentation will tell you. It’s a really excellent compilation of everything we know about the App Store and the app market at large thus far.

I don’t think anything here is new or really that surprising. We already know that Apple is, by far, leading the race on number of apps (both created and sold), and we’ve heard before that games tend to do very well on the marketplace in a number of demographics. The end of the report has some great numbers, too, on standout applications like Angry Birds and the eBay app.

Otherwise, it’s basically a big round-up of a lot of the stats that we’ve heard so far. But having them all in one place gives a nice overview of just how big this little software ecosystem has become.TUAWThe app market, by the numbers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments [From The app market, by the numbers]

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August 6, 2010

Ballmer’s ‘lost generation’ note finds resonance

Filed under: Apple,IT,Microsoft — William_T_Goodall @ 02:19

Bad, getting worse – for Windows At least one seasoned analyst agrees with Steve Ballmer’s admission Microsoft has “lost a generation” of users — but from this number-cruncher’s point of view, the situation is worse than Microsoft’s CEO concedes.… [From Ballmer’s ‘lost generation’ note finds resonance]

I have doubts about some of the numbers in this story but I did predict a couple of decades ago that UNIX would eventually win the platform wars and Mac OS X and Linux are both *NIX OSs. And modern Windows is a sort-of descendant of VMS 🙂

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August 2, 2010

Uptime

Filed under: IT — William_T_Goodall @ 01:13

Once I got the D-Link 323 NAS set up I didn’t need to reboot it anymore to change configurations so it’s just been sitting there under the TV serving away.

System Up Time:

26 days 11 hours 2 minutes

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July 21, 2010

Apple Is the New Microsoft, Part 2

Filed under: Apple,IT,Microsoft — William_T_Goodall @ 12:36

Apple surpassed Microsoft two months ago as the world’s most highly valued tech company, and is now challenging the Redmond giant on another key metric: In a blowout third quarter, AAPL posted record revenue of $15.7 billion, which should be close to or exceed what Microsoft reports Thursday. [From Apple Is the New Microsoft, Part 2]

That would be two out of three. How long until Apple overtakes Microsoft on profit too?

Later

Next quarter then 🙂

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July 16, 2010

I write like David Foster Wallace

Filed under: Books,IT,Trivia — William_T_Goodall @ 13:47

Flattering if it were true 🙂

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

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July 3, 2010

D-Link DNS-323

Filed under: DIY,Insides,IT,Unboxing — William_T_Goodall @ 13:57

The box containing the DNS-323 and the cheapest compatible drive I could find (which was a 500GB) arrives and is unpacked.

NAS and HD in boxes.

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB.

Eco-friendly cardboard packaging on the DNS-323.

It is even smaller than I expected.

Cables, power brick.

It seems quite nicely made.

Side by side with HD before installation.

Another view.

Rear view.

Front cover just slides off to slide in drive(s)

Assembled and hacked in short order. Got lighthttpd mySQL and PHP running. Just a bit of tweaking and hardening and then I’ll find a place to tuck it away out of sight and save some desk space 🙂

Later

Tucked away in the home theatre cabinet with other fan-bearing gadgets.

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June 29, 2010

Dead Server part ii

Filed under: DIY,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 22:10

I ordered a D-Link DNS-323 NAS on Amazon for under a £100 with the cheapest supported HD I could find without looking for too long which was a Western Digital Caviar 500GB for £36. Should arrive Thursday and once I’ve hacked it will have a web server, PHP, MySQL and such on it and will serve.

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June 26, 2010

Dead Server

Filed under: Apple,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 14:55

The ancient G3/350 “Kihei” iMac from 2000 I was using as a server on my home network expired sometime in the last week. I don’t know when because my network monitoring software, which emails me when there are faults, was running on it 🙂 It also ran a cron job to send some automated email reminders to places, and hosted some bits and bobs of DAMP web pagery I had experimented with over the years. And a chatroom that seldom saw much use that I hosted for a moribund mailing list I’ve been on for many years.

I’d upgraded the HD and RAM on the iMac but I’m not going to try fixing a power supply or whatever it was let out the magic smoke.

I’m thinking about what to replace it with. A Sheevaplug or hacked NAS type solution for less than £100 would be good.

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