Posts from — March 2008

I was queueing in my local supermarket over the weekend as we all do when I couldn’t help overhear the conversation between two employees.

The first was on the checkout and whilst scanning goods was chastising her friend who stood beside her. Both seemed completely unaware as to the existence of the five or six shoppers in the queue.

Checkout Girl: U meanz yous got noone at hum whos no ur pin!!! 

Friend: na 

Checkout Girl: Nutter! 

Friend: you int spose 2 let any1 no is ya!! 

Checkout Girl: but spose ya lose it like now. 

Friend: I na i na but i’ze never forgotten it before. If I try it again it’ll have me card.
 

Checkout Girl: wot uz ganna do then? wot about tonite? 

Friend: got £10 till payday!! 

Checkout Girl: thatz 2 weeks!!!!! 

Checkout Girl: shud do what i does girl. ma mum and ma sister no my pin, coz i use my birthday, 1808, can’t forget that cannae 

Quite aside from the terrible English on display I was immediately struck by how happy these two were to discuss in front of stangers how they chose their pin numbers, even going to the point of one girl letting us know when her birthday, therefore her pin is.

I don’t know why I was surprised though, at work you can walk pass any number of salespeople desks and find the obligatory post-it not stuck to the side with various passwords written on it.

It also reminded me of an article (see below) that talked about a survey carried out asking members of the public for their passwords. It concluded that 71% would, for the bribe of a chocolate bar, give a stranger their computer account details. This along with the amount of information people are will to put up about themselves on social networking sites such as mySpace and Facebook only demonstrates the lack of understanding that most people seem to have about personal security.

Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar | OUT-LAW.COM: “Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar

OUT-LAW News, 20/04/2004

A survey of office workers at London’s Liverpool Street Station found that 71% were willing to part with their password for a chocolate bar. It’s the third annual survey of its kind and seems to confirm that office workers are still not information security savvy…………..

(Via .)

Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar | OUT-LAW.COM

 

This doesn’t bode well for the introduction of the National Identity Card as proposed by HM Government. The massive series of inter-linked databases with multiple access points (councils, police, probation, immigration, courts, business?) containing an ever increasing array of data on each and every individual and their activities in the UK will potentially be breached for the price of a Kit-Kat.

Makes you wonder what a key worker would be willing to share for the price of a holiday, or a car, or……

The eagerly anticipated SDK for the Apple iPhone was released last night in typical Apple fashion. The entire presentation can be watched via the Apple website and shows how Apple intend to open the iPhone up to both third party developers and individual enterprises.

Using the new development tools, developers will be able to create full applications that can be sold via the new App Store. Developers are being invited to write applications that can access the full power and capability of the iPhone

The first part of the presentation went into the addition of enterprise features that will be enabled in the free iPhone 2.0 software update which will enable corporate clients to manage and secure the iPhone Apple has licensed the ActiveSync technology from Microsoft so that the iPhone can connect straight out of the box with companies Exchange servers. This will enable users to directly access their corporate email, calendars and contacts. Backing this up will be support for Cisco IPSec VPN to enable secure connection to corporate networks and the ability to authenticate using digital certificates.

IT Administrators will also be able to configure the iPhone, tying it to corporate networks and if need be remotely wipe lost or stolen devices.

Companies will also be able to develop their own private software, which though hosted on the Apple hosted App Store will only be available to their customers.

The second part dealt with the actual SDK and what can be done. This included a couple of demonstrations. Games developer Electronic Arts who were present at the launch demonstrated a version of the much anticipated game, Spore.. Apple also demonstrated a version of Super Monkey Ball by Sega, which makes full use of the iPhones built in accelerometer.

Developers will be able to access all the existing Apple functions, enabling them to use the touch interface, address book and connectivity functionality.

In a Q&A after the presentation, more details emerged. When asked if VOIP would be allowed, it was confirmed that as long as this was only over WI-FI then it would not be a problem. Likewise, iPhone owners who subscribe to Exchange calendars and contacts will still be able to keep separate personal mail, contacts and calendars separate.

Parental controls will also be enabled in the iPhone 2.0 software release which will be free to all iPhone users and available as a charged item to iTouch users. The only thing that was unclear was the question of building applications that use the dock-connector.

The announcements greatly enhance the iPhone and iTouch and raise some interesting possibilities. Allowing VOIP over WI-FI could potentially turn the iTouch in particular into a great little second phone. Coupled with games and the ability to stream video from the AppleTV or the currently in beta BBC iPlayer, this would make a great mobile platform for kids around the house.

Likewise companies such as Tom-Tom would have a great incentive to port their satellite navigation software to the iPhone, connecting a GPS receiver via Bluetooth.

The SDK is available as beta now, and will be officially released in June along with the software update. The next few months could see some very interesting tools coming to the iPhone

June is also the one-year anniversary of the iPhone launch, maybe at the software update we will also see a hardware update. 3G, improved camera/video, GPS?????……

Like many parents here in the UK, this week has been the week where we learn what secondary school our eldest boy has been allocated. We were disappointed when we were allocated our third choice school, something that we will be appealing against.

Looking into the appeals system and taking an active interest in the now annual debate about what choice really means when choosing a school, it is alarming to discover that not all Local Education Authorities (LEA’s) have the same criteria when it comes to admissions.

When choosing a secondary school (when did we all stop calling them High schools by the way?) in my LEA we are given the opportunity to list our three preferred schools. However, the advice give by LEA admissions staff is that at least one of those schools should be a school in your catchment area. This is because the LEA is obliged to offer at least one school in a students catchment area, if this is listed. The LEA’s only duty would be to find a place at any other school under the LEA jurisdiction.

This raises the possibility, however remote, of your child be sent to a school at the furthest side of the city

Effectively means that if, like us, we did not want out son to go any of the schools in our immediate area, we have only had the choice of choosing two schools.

Listening and reading comments from around the country, I am hearing tales from parents that have now received any of there preferred five or six schools. This obviously starts to border on the ridiculous and really highlights the problems faced with “choice”

A call to the admissions team in my LEA, who I can’t fault for there service, confirmed that each LEA has the ability to set the amount of schools that parents can choose. Indeed as I questioned, there is no limit set in current legislation. It would be entirely possible, though not probable, for an LEA to say to parents applying that they could only select one school.

This would appear to fly in the face of the spirit of providing parental choice.

Brilliant!!!

Saw this the other day and thought it was brilliant. For those who aren’t familiar with his work, Saul Bass was an American graphic artist who created, amongst other things, some of the more memorable opening titles for several of Alfred Hitchcocks movings, in particular North By Northwest and Vertigo.

Kick starting his movie work however was the title sequence for Otto Premingers, The Man With The Golden Arm (watch via YouTube) the story of a convicted heroin addict trying to go straight on his release from jail, starring Frank Sinatra.

This is just one of many parodies formed from his work which just goes on and on influencing and inspiring artists and filmakers alike.

link to You Tube

More reading:

DesignMuseum

Saul Bass on the Web

AIGA: American Institute of Graphic Artists