daveydave

So much has be said and written about the BNP leader's appearance on BBC Question Time that it scarcely seems worth adding more to the discussion. But on the drive in to work this morning I thought I'd jot down a couple of brief points. Many people were furious that Griffin had be invited to join the QT panel, some to the extent of turning up at BBC HQ and causing a ruckus. To those people I say that, in my opinion, it is far better to get this debate out in the open so everyone can see exactly who this person is and what he represents. Trying to suppress the BNP, ignoring or denying their existence is essentially appeasement-by-default and thoroughly counter-productive. Griffin and his party have, for various reasons, gained a percentage of the national vote. Ignoring this fact is dangerous. Winning the open debate is, to my mind, the only way to ensure they make no further headway. The BNP's recent electoral successes are a wakeup call to the mainstream parties who must l...

I used to be able to write with reasonable coherence, I was never a master craftsman, but what wrote was normally readable to a fashion. Having just re-read yesterday's post on the HTC Hero, it looks like I'm out of practice. Well, it has been months since I wrote anything longer than a tweet, so perhaps I shouldn't rely on Twitter so much, and actually write some posts for this blog. We'll see how that works out...

Anyone got any idea how to get rid of that annoying gap to the left of the post text? Come on Mal, you must know! :)

Technically, the T-Mobile G2 Touch , but it's an HTC Hero really. First, I'll tell you where I'm approaching this from. I have been using a Nokia N95 for almost 2 years and I use pretty much all the features on my phone: GPS, web browser, email integration, etc... The N95 does the job very nicely, so much so that when I was due to upgrade last year, I didn't. Yes, it has its problems (I'm not a great fan of Symbian ), but it is a very effective package. So, I was interested to see how much better Google's Android system and the new hardware were. The company I work for has just kitted out its staff with Heros. We use Google Apps to service our email, contacts, calendar requirements and as Android is a Google product, you'd expect these things to work together pretty seamlessly. And yes, they do. Setting up the phone to talk to my Google account was simple and in no time all my contacts, emails, etc. were synchronised. Whatever tools, gadgets and applicat...

This is exactly how legal downloads should work. I was looking around to see if Yasmin Levy had a new album out and Amazon, as it does, suggested a few alternatives it thought I may like. I previewed The Beauty and the Sea by Mor Karbasi and liked the sound of it, so I coughed up my seven quid and downloaded it using the little Amazon download gadget. Now for the best bit. Having bought and downloaded the album at work, I copied the MP3s on to my USB key and transferred them over to my system at home. Within a few minutes I was listening to the album on the telly (via the wireless media streamer) - no hassle, no error messages telling me I wasn't allowed even though I'd paid good money for it or any of that caper. Absolutely spot on and exactly the sort of thing I couldn't do, thanks to the damn DRM infection, the first (and last) time I downloaded music. Music and video producers/sellers take note: make legal downloading as nice and easy as this and people will buy. Conti...

I've now done 3 weeks of the level one umpire course. I must say I'm enjoying it, although there is a lot of stuff to learn. The course and supplied materials are free, so now I know where at least some of the money from Sky is going! More later. (if you're interested)

Had to be done eventually I suppose. I'm on Twitter . To be fair, posts to this blog can be few and far between, so perhaps I can do better when I'm confined to just 140 characters. I have added the little widget thing to this blog so you don't even have to navigate to the Twitter site. But if you feel the need to follow me or whatever, you can find me here . Oh yeah.... and I'm also available on FriendFeed .