Funny the things you hear when you are hanging out with the lads on a Friday night.
 
This week we somehow got talking about data protection post-pub (I say ‘we’ but actually I was playing Table Tennis on the X-Box.)
 
While I worked out the best way to spin the ball off the edge of the table one of my friends told a story about what happened when a certain fast food chain – which shall not be named – starting recording images of its customers on CCTV.

Well, it seems that privacy campaigners took some objection to this. One day a young man came into the world of greasy faces and deep fat fryers, ordered a burger, paid for it and left. A few minutes later he was back, asking for a copy of the surveillance video, which under data protection law he had every right to do.
The chief hot-plate jockey said that this would be fine, and offered to send the camera-shy visitor the tape as soon as was possible. Smiles all round. But then, someone else came in saying that they’d heard this person was having a copy of the tape and requested that any identifying images of him be removed from the video.

The request, again allowed by law, would undoubtedly be a big pain to comply with. So pity the poor burger maker when approximately another twenty privacy campaigners strolled in and starting making the same request. 

My mate estimated that compliance with these requests was do-able, but would have cost the firm thousands. We can’t be sure. What we can be sure of though, is that the restaurant has probably doesn’t bother filming its customers anymore. 

Another post about iPods. I’m not fishing for one though, I have one already. Least I think I do, it might actually just be a box that contains an experiment into how long a battery takes to run out, as opposed to a music playing device.

Anyway, I don’t buy much kit for it, which is incredible, since you can buy a hell of a lot of things for the shiny, music playing gadgety things these days. Take this. Which smacks of class. Who wouldn’t want to have a whopping great big piano thing that includes an iPod dock and some speakers?

Well, probably the sort of people that would prefer this, the FUNKit DJ cradle and speaker system. It's $99, which does not seem much to pay for something that might make you laugh once, and then spend many months just being annoying.

So far only US prices are available, which is a shame. Maybe.

Keen runners might enjoy the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, available through the Apple Store in about three months. The Kit is expected to retail for $29 and will link up your iPod Nano with the Nike Air Zoom Moire trainer. 

Thankfully, this is done wirelessly, and will not involve a lot of cables swinging between your neck and your ankles - always dangerous. What it does do is pass on words of encouragement – tell you what your average pace is, and how far you have left to run. 

At the end of the run the user plugs their iPod back into the computer and gets a neat overview of how much they have done. The trainers are $100. Allowing for the attractive exchange rate we in the UK should probably expect to pay about £120. 

I’m not about to spend 120 odd quid on a pair of trainers that tell me how slow I run. I know how slow I run. I prefer technology for those who are more keen on coach action than they are road action. 

Goodies like this chair, that uses, “patented, award-winning motion simulation technology” to provide “dramatic, realistic motion that is perfectly synchronised with onscreen action and sound”. A chair that moves in time to the films you are watching? Where has it been all my life?

Loads of films are compatible the chair, including Nascar 3D: The Imax Experience, which thinking about it, actually sounds like something of a nightmare.

My colleague, Sneak, recently wrote something about Land Rovers. I'm not sure what he wrote since as a rule I tend not to go near the fellow, but from what I gather it was rather popular amongst Land Rover drivers. 

I wonder if this item, found on the BBC America web site might also be popular among that breed? Having not seen the show for a while I guessed Campo must have been a recent character – I say recent, but I don't think I have watched Last of the Summer Wine since I volunteered to partake in a sociological experiment into extreme and monotonous tedium at university.

But no, it's just a mis-spelling. Which in the old days of Web 1.0 would have been funny.

I like the information about it... "Compo comes alive... complete with the infamous armchair. Precision diecast plastic. Limited quantities available. LandRover 4"l x 1"h. Compo 1 1/2" square" as though these details might be important. What might be more relevant would be a short video clip of a person in a baseball cap handing over a large wad of dollar bills and going, "gawsh, ain't it purty..." or simply, those dollars on fire, their embers floating out of a window. 

But look around the site and you'll see just what the BBC is selling in the US and it's startling stuff. Need a present for a great grandparent who you've not seen for years? You want this. It's a plate with Prince William on it. 

But don't take my word for it, enjoy the blurb: "Capture in time the young man with this Limited Edition commemorative plate of fine bone china. It will always help you remember the prince whose parents wanted to give him as normal a life as possible." It's a no-brainer as a gift for an elderly relative, but what is it doing on a BBC web site's store? Who knows? And really, who cares?

Not the Beeb. Look at this...A typewriter teapot: "this delightful teapot, hand-cast and hand-painted in the beautiful village of Debenham, deep in the Suffolk countryside. Individually numbered and dated, this highly collectible ceramic teapot holds four cups of tea. With its realistic keyboard, twin ribbon spools and lift-off carriage lid, you'll spout off in style! Hand wash."

Admittedly, the stern, "Hand wash" rather strips the item of some of it's glamour, but I can't help but think that the BBC's web store has a lot to do with the crappy 'tally ho' 'oh, is it raining, I hadn't noticed?' Hugh Grant, Mr Darcy impression that the Americans have of us. 

Oh unless the BBC is actually just being rather smart and taking the Americans for every penny it can. Surely not. That would be criminal.

I’ve just been wasting some time in Google’s labs, trying out its Trends service which lets you see how popular search terms are.
 

Google Trends is interesting, if a little difficult to work out – but it is only a beta, so fair’s fair. To use the site you input a couple of words to see how often, and from where they are searched for.
 

As a test subject I searched for God, Celine Dion and Monkeys. Interestingly God is the most searched for of all these terms, whilst all three are more popular in  Montreal, Canada than anywhere else. God is top, the equine warbler second, monkeys come in a lowly third.
 

Swap God for Swinging and you are in Milton Keynes, which – having been there – I can’t help but think is apt.
 

You can drill down even further if you use just one term. Monkeys is most popular amongst Google searchers in Sheffield. Actually, all of the ‘monkey’ locations in the top ten are in the UK. Which tells you what precisely? We like monkeys over here.

I’m sure marketers will get better use out of Trends than I am, but so what? Who cares what they think? Ah, just checked and apparently people in Nigeria care a lot about marketers, and something called 419, but I guess that’s another story.

Is anyone interested in a business proposal? Seriously, I got your details from someone I know at some British High Commission who said you might be able to help me move some $3402,000,000 from one account to another… No one? What about some magic beans then? 

Oh come on… someone must want some… The general perception amongst us online business men is that the British are gullible idiots.
 
Not too long ago I got an email from one of the high street banks directing me to its web site and urging me to input all of my personal details. Following the link took me through to a very official looking site that included a blank form plus a phone number in case I had any problems. 

Well, I have problems so I phoned the number, and explained to the woman that answered what had happened. She listened patiently until I informed her that, “the thing is, I don’t actually have an account with you”. 

She was obviously used to calls about these sorts of emails and was very polite in her suggestions. She explained to me that they were known as phishing attacks, while – I assume – drawing a diagram representing egg sucking which she intended to pass on to her grandmother. 

So, I’m an idiot with a phone. But it seems that the rest of the UK is a lot more sophisticated than I am, if a recent show on Channel Four is anything to go by.   

Fonejacker, which was shown as part of the channel’s Comedy Lab season used the old faithful comedy trick - the prank phone call, with some mixed results. The best calls involved the Fonejacker calling up Members of the General Public (MOTGP) and pretending to be from their bank or to be awarding them a cash prize, and asking for various details. 

What Fonejacker showed was that MOTGP have a really rather good understanding of what constitutes a phishing attack, and what sort of phone call – and let’s hope email - should make them put on that stiff upper lip, “now look here young man” voice that we Brits are really rather good at.

In one sketch the Fonejacker, pretending to be called George and adopting a thick African accent, called up a woman and told her that he was working for her bank, and that due to a cleaning operation her money was to be moved from one safe to another. In order to do this the cleaning firm that he worked for needed her account number before it would physically move the money. 

The woman, who wasn’t born yesterday, and apparently worked in a bank, soon put ‘George’ in his place and hung up. A wise woman, I shan’t be offering her any of my magic beans. 

Anyone else want to buy some? Will swap for cow.

This is day three of my time as a blogger for IT Week, and its pretty exciting stuff. Through the power of the interweb I can give readers access to all of my thoughts, whims and petty grievances. Poor readers.

 Yesterday we wrote on the IT Week web site about a new twisty-turny phone that Nokia has released – well we wrote about it in so much as it is based on the Symbian operating system, or if you are really picky, because it is the 100th phone to be based on said OS. 

 Well, why else would we write about it? You only have to take a look at the little fella to see that it’s not the sort of thing that would appeal to IT managers. Unless they were particularly interested in taking photos round corners, or MP3 players. 

So, it’s just me then. Being the user of a Nokia phone that for some reason acts as a skin hoover, sucking all of the cells that leave me into the space between its technical gubbins and the screen, I am currently suffering from massive phone envy. 

Yeah, mine can make and take calls, and I can read the time and text messages on it -  so long as I either take the front off and give it a good blow or, tilt it at a certain angle and squint. But so what? One of my mates has a phone that plays a sound from TV gameshow Catchphrase whenever he gets a text message, and another has one that makes girls go “oooh”. I want a new phone, is that so much to ask?

 What I can’t understand is how so many people seem to have the latest phones.

 Are they not shackled into some “term of life” contract like I am? Do they have money that runs into the hundreds of pounds with which to go and buy new handsets as and when they are released? Should I just stop and ask one of them? Maybe I should just drop the whole thing?

 Actually, that’s not a bad idea. If I drop it and break it, I’ll get another one on the insurance. Mind you, if the biggest advance in mobile telephony that I face is a turny angle thing and an increased ability to inhale my cells I might as well carry 30p around with me, and a leech. Oh, and I’ve never bothered with the insurance either. Do I look stupid?

Don't answer that.

I expect that you've all been waiting in your tens to see what I've been up to. Well, I've been busy.

For example, today I spent a great portion of my time working on the IT Week Podcast with news editor Madeline Bennett. Recording the podcast with Madeline and other members of the team is fun, but it is also challenging.

Madeline and the 'guests' always do their job well. Unfortunately, I am sometimes called upon to speak on a subject, or am asked to interview Mad, and I just about manage, although on occasion I use the dulcet tones of a terrified hostage.

In general, however, I'm impressed by how professional and relaxed those that take part are, it's the people that do the technical bits that I feel sorry for. Oh, that's me and Madeline again.

We've just about worked out how to set up the kit – we have mikes, mike stands, a mixer thingy, a recorder, and so many miles of cable that it looks like we are trying to recreate a booby trap scene from Indiana Jones. And somewhere along the line we got rid of the interesting audio effect that made it sound as though the podcast was “coming at you live from a beehive in Somerset”. So technically, we are doing everything right.

Then we turn to editing. Incidentally, for some obscure reason we record using the power of battery, though for uploading – surely the least 'power critical' time - we are permitted to use electrickery to power the device. Anyway...

Sometimes, okay always, the files are corrupted and have to be recovered – not manually, although often we would like to take a mallet to the recorder,  before we can actually begin the process of editing it into a cast worth advertising to our readers. This can take anything from a few minutes to a time when “geese shalle fall fromme the skye and fishe flye fromme the seas...”.

Occasionally there are whole questions and answers that need to be removed. Without exception there are random sounds - giggles, tears, coughs, people eating crisps, snores, finger drums, stationery cupboard doors being opened, whooping sounds, and honking geese that need editing out. But these, using the open source Audacity are simply dealt with.

Copying and pasting sections of the recording is easy,  and although the files are large and a bit weighty to shift between our computers it rarely takes more than a few hours for us to go from sitting in a room moaning about doing the podcast to sitting back happy with the completed item.

So, all in all recording, editing, and sending on the podcast for uploading takes a good few hours worth of normal work out of a busy day.  Is it worth it? We think it is.

Anyway, back to my blog. Ooh. I think Dr Who is on. Hold on, a blog that mentions blogs, Podcasts, and Dr Who? I think my work is done here already.

So, hello, my name is David Neal. I'm Internet editor at IT Week and this is my first blog for our web site.
 
To be honest, I'm writing this at home on a Thursday night at about one am and I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be writing about, or even smaller details such as whether there will be a picture that illustrates it. If there is I hope that it is not the one where I've adopted the expression of a chubby cheeked Victorian lad who has just escaped a scolding from his maiden aunt for eating all of the clotted cream.
 
Oh, I've just checked it out. It's not.

As for the content, I have a vague recollection of being given free reign. Should that be rein? Well, either free of leash, or free to rule, works out for me. I like the idea of reign. Kingdom of my own domain and all that - so it's quite likely that I'll write about monkeys, Celine Dion, the Internet, gadgets, my woeful attempts at online gaming, the rare trips that I get sent on, and er, monkeys.

For example, tonight I read on the Discovery Channel's web site that monkeys drink much like humans do. However, i suspect that they avoid the kebabs, and or, caffeine heavy energy drinks.
 
The study involved macaques (apparently the cleverest of simians) and seems to have been chiefly interested in seeing what they get up to when they are pissed.

"It was not unusual to see some of the monkeys stumble and fall, sway, and vomit," explains Scott Chen, one of the study's authors and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health Animal Center in  Maryland. "In a few of our heavy drinkers, they would drink until they fell asleep."

Ah, you shouldn't laugh really.