Internet: March 2008 Archives

I found myself amused the other day when I was considering writing this post for our blog, as I decided to do some research to see if there were any others out there who have a member of their family so wrapped up in online gaming that they feel like a "widow" and I came across this on Wikipedia. It reads as follows:

"A gamer widow is a term for those who have a relationship with a gamer (one who plays video games, be it on a console or on the computer) who pays more attention to the game than to their partner. It is similar in concept to the football widow."

I found this amusing because it didn't even cross my mind that there was an entire network of people out there feeling just like me!

Well, I am a gaming widow mother! My 17 year old son Luke is an online gamer (funny I feel like I am in a self-help group!) and I hardly ever see him. However, I hear him, oh yes, for all you parents out there who have children who play computer games you will know what I mean!

Sometimes I wish he was playing some loud obtrusive music at 100 decibels instead of shouting at the top of his voice into his headset "fire in the hole", "sniper to the left" and "behind you", sound familiar? Yes? Well then you probably know that is a game called counter-strike and if you have heard your child shouting these terms randomly and continuously every evening you may feel the same as me?

What ever happened to playing out on your bike? Or going to the local youth club? Or playing cards or monopoly with the family?

Oh god I'm getting old aren't I? Well anyway, old or not, my son knows what he wants and how he wants it when it comes to online gaming - his clan is dedicated to their clan matches and competitions. They are always trying to improve, ping times, latency, lagging, registration speeds etc and optimising everything to get the best possible game.

So as the sales director of EFH Broadband I decided to take my son's experience and design a product specifically aimed at gamers to give them a quality of service which prioritises their traffic above everything else and give them reduced hops etc, we hope to launch this product very shortly so gamers everywhere watch out for it, with your help we will make this the best product in the market for you!

If you wish to share your experience or thoughts about this or provide feedback on how you would like to see this service working please feel free to leave your comments about what services are most important to you.

All the very best until the next time!

Shelley

According to our friends at WebUser, the latest market research into Internet shopping has found that us Brits are much more likely to buy our stuff online than any of the other European countries. 

A report from Mintel found that the real market driver for this is our grocery shopping with many of us going online to do our weekly and monthly shops.

I have used both Tesco's and Asda's services and my wife swears by them now as although it can be a little time consuming to get started it's much easier and means we both don't have to trail around the local stores on a Saturday afternoon.

Richard Perks, director of retail research at Mintel comments: "The main reason for this is the sophisticated online offering of the UK's food retailers and the fact that so many of us now more than happy to turn to the Internet to do our weekly shop," he continued.

According to Mintel, UK online sales were worth £12.8 billion in 2007, and the online retail market grew by 75 per cent between 2005 and 2007. To be honest I still think this has room to grow further as more and more of us seem to be buying anything and everything online.

Other good quality online shopping sites I would recommend using include:

1. Price Runner - Probably the best site for gadgets, computers as it includes technical and customer reviews
2. Kelkoo - great for most things especially electrical, gadgets etc
3. ASOS - a good site for buying ladies clothing if you don't know where to turn
4. eBay - for anything and everything although always compare the prices to other online stores as they aren't always the cheapest and you can get sucked into the community
5. Amazon - great for books and music

Hot off the 'games press', Wii owners can now transport themselves back to 1982 and enjoy some of the games associated with the world's biggest selling computer of all time! This week sees the 200th title hit Virtual Console as it again expands its catalogue with the return of the Commodore 64.

The games added to the already available 197 experiences include:

1) Uridium - solar system invasions by the Super-Dreadnoughts - can you defend all fifteen planets and stop the dark side from pillaging the system's natural resources? (500 Wii points)

2) International Karate - originally released in 1986, this one on one fighting game allows players to compete around the globe, ultimately seeking a black belt and the international karate champion title. (500 Wii points)

3) The game to bring up the 200 mark is Cruis’n USA™, the classic American arcade game - made available for home use in 1998 when it was released for the Nintendo 64. Although this last one comes in a little pricier at 1000 Wii points, the 14-stage, solo or head-to-head game will no doubt bring  memories racing back for many a gamer.

Here's a video to get you back in the mood - not only do I love the old school and uncomplicated graphics, but the sounds too (almost like a piece by Kraftwerk)... I don't think it can get much more retro than this!

The safety of their children is one of the biggest concerns that hangs over the heads of many parents when their kids start to surf the net and venture into the virtual world that is the internet. Whilst we want our children to be able to access the bountiful opportunities that the World Wide Web holds, parents cannot help but worry about what and more importantly who, their children may stumble across online.

The education minister, Ed Balls, yesterday committed the government to fully implementing the recommendations of Dr Tanya Bryon's report on child internet safety. The government has promised to channel some funding (although the amount has not yet been established), into a comprehensive education campaign on online and gaming safety to "protect as well as empower children".

This move has come after negative reports were seen in the media, particularly in response to the increasing number of teenage suicides, blamed on by some, young people’s access to suicide sites. This has been addressed in the report by Bryon with recommendations that propose strengthening the law against assisting suicides amongst many other suggestions.

The news must come as comfort to many parents with concerns over internet safety. It is great to see that the government is taking steps to protect children so that they can be safe whilst still being able to learn, play and access the wonders of the internet.

Only 40 days to go! I'm a little late on picking this up, but after reading a post by Tom Magrino at GameSpot it seems that this excellent series is very nearly on our shelves. I'm not the biggest gamer, in fact until the recent purchase of my Wii, I admittedly hadn't so much as looked at the games section in HMV... probably since my mid teens. However Mario Kart is another story altogether. I'm sure I speak for many part time gamers when I say it holds a special place in my heart. Now with the Wii firmly positioned in its rightful place next to the TV, it seems to have added a whole new dimension to house parties. My only word of warning is USE THE SAFETY WRIST BANDS! I'm having to look at repainting a whole wall due to an over enthused friend bowling a strike (simultaneously chipping a glass of red wine 3m into the air!)

Anyway, the reason I wanted to flag this up is because of its promising online features:

"When you're online in the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection-powered multiplayer mode, you'll be able to race with 11 other players for a total of 12 online. A nice feature of the online mode is the option to have two people play online from the same Wii for some proper team-based action."

For those of you who are boarder-line obsessed with your Mario Kart credibility - you'll also be able to check out worldwide player rankings for each course.

So far reviews have been very positive, but here's a look for yourself...

Limewire the popular peer-to-peer music sharing platform, which is used by millions of people across the planet, has launched a new online music store.

The store will feature tracks available from just 50p each with a range of independent (random) artists. Limewire is well-known as the platform which allows its users to share free music, maybe this is its first move towards becoming a proper legal entity.

According to the guys from Tech Digest;  "Around half-a-million MP3 files, encoded at a reasonably decent 256Kbps, are available, and users of the LimeWire application will soon see links to buy tracks as well as download free music as they usually do."

You will be able to pay on a per-track basis or for the more devoted music lover (up to 75 tracks a month) there will be three levels of monthly subscription allowing a set number of tracks to be downloaded, at a reduced track cost.

The LimeWire store is being kept separate from the LimeWire sharing application for now anyway

I think quite a few people in the music industry will be watching this one closely to see if its dedicated users will actually start paying for tracks rather than getting them for free.

Of course the real question is how is it going to stop its tracks from its paying site becoming free on its non-paying platform?

It seems Paramount  has put its head above the parapet by being the first film company to offer clips from its movies on Facebook. This is all because Facebook has a new VooZoo application which helps makes it happen - we are all getting used to film clips being shared on the internet but this will be the first time a company of this nature has given the formal go-ahead. If you are scratching your head wondering what films they have made I have enclosed a list of Paramount films, which you can check out at your own leisure.

Unfortunately, no full length movies are in the pipeline just yet but you will be able to watch short clips up to around two minutes. Coolest Gadgets reports that the main intention is: "always to share the short clips on the world wide web, and more specifically the social network site."

If you want a couple of examples of Paramount's work - start reminiscing of Eddie Murphy in 48 hours or more recently Cloverfield - which I wrote a review on on my own blog recently.

Something else which has interested me this week was the news from Gizmodo, announcing that Olympus has launched a Limited-Edition Mju 1020. OK, granted that doesn't sound like most exciting news ever. However, these digital cameras are rather loud and I don't mean in volume. Olympus has used the ChassisRomanian artist and graphic designer Matei Apostolescu to design three different skins to go with the limited edition camera. Just take a look at the one on the right. It looks quite cool and it would certainly be useful as camouflage if you happen to work as a Zebra trainer.

All jokes aside I actually quite like them and let's face it you wouldn't lose this one quite as easily as a normal standard silver point and click. So it looks good and it has a fairly strong spec boasting 10-Megapixels and a whopping 7x optical zoom. If you are interested in digital cameras - I have listed the camera's spec below:

• 7x optical zoom
• 10.1 Megapixels
• 6.9cm/2.7" HyperCrystal II LCD with extra bright display
• 23 scene modes
• Slim, metallic body
• Underwater shooting up to 40m possible in combination with optional underwater case PT-042
• Dual Image Stabilisation
• Face Detection Technology
• Correct exposure of other image areas
• BrightCapture Technology
• New in-camera Panorama function
• Movie recording with sound (up to VGA resolution at 30fps)
• TruePic III image processor for faster image handling and higher image quality

Apparently, Olympus is only going to make 5,000 of these beauties but unfortunately there is no price available as yet but be on the lookout as I reckon these are going to sell like slightly warm cakes.

I am hoping to cover music quite regularly on this blog because I love it - so here is my very first music post. The day is finally here - err almost anyway. Apparently the Beatles back catalogue is going to be placed on iTunes for people to legally download very soon.

I think this is a great idea although I am actually pretty surprised that it's never happened before. My dad loved the Beatles, I love the Beatles and I think my little boy will probably love the Beatles, because they are a timeless band that made fantastic music.

The funny thing about this story is when the Beatles stuff does actually all go up onto iTunes - it could mean that the band end up securing all of the top ten spots in the official charts and maybe even more. This is because downloaded music is now included in the official figures and I am guessing quite a few people will want the band on their iPod's this summer.

Although the date is not set in stone just yet, Sir Paul is expected to sanction the release of the back catalogue which is expected to generate around £300 million for him, Ringo and the families of the other two late Beatles. I am sure Michael Jackson also has a share in their long back catalogue somewhere along the line - so Michael will probably celebrating this new deal too.

A post on Tech Digest states: "Availability has previously been held up by legal disputes with their record label EMI and Apple Corps and indeed Apple Computers. But with those now out of the way, it looks inevitable. Indeed, bookmakers have now tipped Yesterday to be the Beatles' next number single with Labrokes offering odds of 3/1 for it to top the charts."

Whilst searching the news wires today I noticed an article regarding Microsoft Vista - apparently they (Microsoft) have decided to reduce the cost of it.

Microsoft is hoping more computer users will switch to Vista due to the price cuts which are to be introduced across 70 countries soon.

The report states: "In the US, the cost of the most expensive version, Vista Ultimate, will be reduced to $319 (£161) from the current retail price of $399. Analysts said Microsoft was aiming to boost the number of customers upgrading to Vista, which was introduced in 2007."

Microsoft has done really well with Vista and managed to sell more than 100 million copies of the new system.

Now, I don't have anything against Microsoft as I have been using the Windows platform for years. In fact, although I love the aesthetics of an Apple Mac I haven't really got to grips with one fully as I have always happily used Windows. That said, I don't really like Vista, I have found it to be very pretty (like the shot I have included) with its clever new creations but also slightly irritating as I think its trying to be too clever sometimes.

I seem to spend much more time on my brand new laptop staring at the little blue circle than I ever did looking at the good old egg timer. I am now actually craving the egg timer back - rather than banging my desk in frustration. I think Vista still has some issues but I am sure Microsoft will sort them out. My tip would be, stick with XP for a little longer and enjoy watching the egg timer for another year at least.

Hi I'm Shelley Wilson the sales director at 186k Limited, and one of my key brands here is EFH broadband, which as you probably already know, focuses mainly on you - the home user. Over the past twelve months we have spent a huge amount of time focusing on improving and enhancing the experience of our customers. In fact recently, we decided to listen to our customers some more and move all of our customer service team from India back to the UK.

I have been working in the internet industry for around 10 years now and have worked as a director for the past seven years and although it is extremely hard work - I really enjoy it. The team here are all great to work with and I enjoy working in Leeds as I was born here and the city is very much up-and-coming.

Our company has been growing well and so have the account teams. We have recently strengthened them with the additions of Sophie Mitchell-Kirk, Julie Allen and Michael Keen. These new team members are all from the local area (Leeds) and hiring them is hopefully a genuine sign of our commitment to growing roles here in the UK.

To be honest, social media and blogs are quite new to me and I haven't really been active in any of them before, but having taken the advice of our digital marketing agency, and a number of other valued sources, we believe it is the perfect way to engage with you (our customers) and get some useful and constructive feedback.

I am personally very excited about this blog, as up until now the only feedback we received was from either forums or when a customer sent in feedback directly. This blog and social media newsroom (which is due to open shortly) are our new ways of communicating and sharing knowledge with you in an open and honest environment. However, it is new to us too so we ask for your patience and understanding as we work our way through this learning curve as I am sure we will make the odd mistake or two.

As you can imagine at EFH we have many skills and expertise that we would like to share with you and we hope you will view us as a trusted adviser who will always give you an honest opinion and not hide behind any jargon. Our team have a lot of knowledge about the industry, technology in general, online gaming, hosting and website design, 3G etc and pretty much everything you would expect around technology and the delivery of it.

We are not precious about the topics we write about in this blog as long as they are relevant to the internet, so if there is a specific topic that you would like us to write about please feel free to send us some details and we will do our best to cover it and offer you our opinion or advice.

Over the next three months you will see further improvements to our customer support, website, product range and speeds and quality of service. For instance, did you know that EFH are now one of the very few ISP's that offer a free customer support number in the UK? So when you call in for support you are not charged, it is a free phone call. We also offer free installation or migration with no contractual commitment. I hope this goes some way to showing that we are now confident we are moving in the right direction with our service.

Well I think that's it, I have managed to write my first ever blog post. I will no doubt be back soon with more news updates from inside EFH but until then I hope you continue to enjoy reading our team blog.

Since I was a child I have enjoyed snuggling up in my bed, opening my book to the latest chapter and wondering off into a world far far away from my own. Flicking through the pages, folding over the edges to remind me where I am is all part of the reading experience, but is broadband is set to change all this? Harper Collins have put Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel online for people to read for free.

Whilst this seems like a good idea in theory, and probable would be if it was downloadable, the online book only allows people to read it whilst at the computer. I can’t imagine many people wanting to stare at their computer screens at their desks when they could be snug under the covers. The publisher seems to be missing a trick here, as online books would be a great idea if the user could download the content and print it off.

For the moment I think I’ll stick to my world under the covers but I would be very interested to see how publishers develop this idea further.

Another day another social media tool. Hot off the press - today UnLtdWorld is launched...

"UnLtdWorld empowers people to generate greater social impact in the real world by enabling them to share, shape and build knowledge, markets and communities through social networks."

According to an interview by Jemima Kiss with Alberto Nardelli, UnltdWorld's social network manager:

"UnLtdWorld is based on the idea that many different individuals can come together, learn from each other, share inspiration and make a big impact in the world in which we live. Social entrepreneurship is the next big thing and will change the way that many people do business and think about business opportunities".

I'm just about to take the tour, but have to say after reading the interview, it sounds like this team have come up with something very interesting - let's see how they survive in this currently, very hectic market place.

Internet users everywhere will soon be able to benefit from watching their favourite videos 'live' on the video sharing site YouTube.YouTube has announced that it plans to introduce live video streaming later on this year.

Steve Chen, YouTube's co-founder,comments: "We'll do it this year. Live video is something we've always wanted to do but haven't had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google we hope to launch something this year."

To be honest this isn't a massive surprise as many of the other video sharing services already provide video good quality streaming services but as YouTube is the dominant force in this area of the internet this is good news for us all.

Other sites like Stickam and BlogTV could now be threatened by YouTube moving into this area. I think this is a good idea for us the viewers if it starts actually streaming good quality rare bands and DJ's live from their actual gigs.

YouTube was sold to Google in October, for $1.6 billion.

I wrote about a new Yahoo service called Buzz yesterday, well it has also launched a service similar to YouTube's. However, its definitive feature is its ability to let users see the other people who are watching the same video but only if they have webcams connected to the service. I can't really think why you would want to watch the other people watching the video, unless they were your friends online and you could choose to have your own bespoke gig with a select group of people.

Here is an interesting story about Yahoo I noticed this morning. Internet users can now vote for their favourite type of news content on Yahoo, similar to the social book marking tool Digg.

We use Digg and Delicious all the time as they are a great way to share content. In fact we have recently done that with some of EFH's news coverage recently.

Yahoo has added the new functionality to its site so that users can highlight the most popular news stories and blog posts from anywhere on the internet. The popularity is solely based on user votes and their search patterns. 

I have just had a look around myself and the top three searches were:

1. American Idol
2. Victoria Beckham
3. Craziest tax deductions

All of this makes me feel most of the traffic is actually from the US. However, I still think it could be interesting to see what people are currently reading and searching for at the moment wherever they are based. I would expect Google to launch a similar service soon.

The new Yahoo Buzz extension actually counts the 'BuzzScore' for news stories, videos, pictures and blog posts. The story/content with the most votes is then considered for placement on Yahoo.

Yahoo vice president Tapan Bhat comments:"Yahoo Buzz builds on the recent success of the home page of Yahoo, and improves consumers' favourite online starting point by combining popular stories with the wisdom of real people to determine what is most engaging and relevant."