Puffbox

More new web-influenced programming to come in a couple of weeks on Sky News: look out for Sky.com News (geddit?) at 7.30pm on Tuesdays to Fridays, with half an hour of ‘the most clicked stories on the Sky News website, and further analysis of one of the most popular stories, as well as opening up online discussions to studio debate. There will also be a rundown of the best popular online video and news from around the world as caught by Sky News viewers.’

Inevitably, the host will be the channel’s resident geek, Martin Stanford. He’s been into this territory before, of course: a relaunch at the same time last year introduced, and then rightly abandoned, various attempts at phone-in and webcam-in interaction. Then last month, they trialled a web-only video bulletin; with little follow-up, I assumed they’d gone cold on the Digg-TV idea. So I’m not yet sure it’s fair to call it ‘a radical step’ (as quoted on Media Guardian). But there are intriguing aspects: for one, the show will carry on through the TV advert breaks, if you’re watching on the web.

When I mentioned the launch of my recent NHS project, I noted there were a few other things in the pipeline. One of these is a hosted forum at netmums.com, which has already attracted near enough 100 postings in 24 hours (give or take). Just what Mayo & Steinberg had in mind.

I suppose it isn’t untrue to say Sky News has resurrected its Technofile strand – a programme which yours truly graced on regular occasions between 1998 and 1999. But at just four minutes long, it hardly qualifies as ‘web TV’: that’s equivalent to a couple of packages, or a single high-profile interviewee. I must admit, I expected more – although it’s great to see Martin Stanford back doing what he enjoys most.

Meanwhile, the channel’s website has restored its Technology channel, populated principally by content sourced from Pocket-Lint (the previous day, in most cases). I’m still not convinced that Sky can or should support multiple news channels like this: for me, it’s much more sensible to focus on what you do best – in Sky’s case, speed over depth. They can’t match the BBC’s resources, so they shouldn’t try to match the BBC’s method. I’ve seen them try countless syndicated content deals over the years, and few have had any real impact or longevity.

Having used OpenOffice happily for years now, I was naturally interested to try out IBM’s revived Symphony office suite, which uses the same code base. My advice if you’re similarly inclined: don’t. It’s prettier than OpenOffice, and seems to include a few innovations which the base product should really adopt (eg a single tabbed instance in the taskbar), but it’s noticeably slower than OOo. But these are just side issues compared to the two things IBM have done completely wrong.

First off, they make it incredibly difficult to actually install. The download server clearly isn’t coping with the demand; and they make you go through so many registration hoops before you even get to a download page. Why make me register beforehand? Why not just throw it open to the world, and allow P2P download for everyone’s mutual benefit? If registration is an issue, how about after installation… or even better, after the beta phase?

But that’s nothing compared to the fact that it automatically snatched all the relevant file associations away from my OpenOffice installation. For me, with a product that is so clearly in beta, and only of interest to the sort of early-adopters who will already be running OpenOffice, this is utterly unforgivable. How dare they do this?

I’m now spending time I don’t have, trying to restore my file associations. I’m genuinely angry. If this is IBM’s attempt to endear itself to people like me, providing an improved version of a trusted open-source tool, they just got it badly, badly wrong.

The new Reuters video search tool is one of the more impressive things I’ve seen in a while. Working with facial recognition specialists Viewdle, they’ve done a remarkably good job of indexing 600-odd hours of footage for beta-testing purposes. Type in a person’s name, and they’ll link you directly to recent Reuters footage featuring that individual. Not only that, but it’ll link you directly to that person’s first appearance in the relevant clip; and give you ‘bookmarks’ to jump to other appearances in the same video. Simple idea… but it actually works.

I really like the ‘search suggestions’ auto-completion function; type in a few letters of your search query, and not only will it show you any matching names it recognises, but it also shows you a thumbnail image of the person’s face. By far the most useful example of ‘autocomplete’ I’ve seen so far.

Might be worth watching, or at least Sky-plussing tonight’s Panorama. Formerly anonymous police blogger Pc David Copperfield reveals all about the life of a modern bobby, including his own name. Probably more about police than blogging, but you won’t see too many stories about public sector blogs, transparency and confidentiality in prime-time. It’s on BBC1 at 8.30pm.

I’m not usually one for passing on internet jokes, but this works on so many levels.

Found on xkcd – thanks to Ian at the Telegraph for the introduction. I’m not touching quantum computing, though. I was up until 3am this morning hacking WordPress; that was just about on my limit.

I’m delighted to see someone has found a way to make Microsoft’s excellent multi-platform blogging app, Windows Live Writer into a portable run-it-from-USB program. If I read the instructions correctly, it’s a shame you have to actually install it properly first, before you go portable – but maybe that’s something that can be ironed out?

As regular readers will have noted, there’s a growing trend in my work (and indeed, others’) for using blog tools to do basic (or indeed, medium) content management. And whilst the blog platforms’ web interfaces are usually OK, there are times I’m sure it would be easier to give people a desktop application which looks, feels and works like Word. Easier to post with, and no admin options to get in the way.

But all too often, these jobs are ‘stealth’ projects, because the IT department can’t/won’t play ball… so they’re hardly likely to approve the installation of blogging software on otherwise locked-down machines. This might be a way round such headaches.

(If any readers know of a different/better solution, a ‘portable’ desktop blogging client which doesn’t require proper installation on Windows, and works with Typepad and WordPress… leave us a comment, would you?)