I really should stop reading the Daily Mail as my blood pressure goes up a notch or two every time I read the sensationalist drivel that they publish.

Their latest story paints a third of those on Incapacity Benefit as nothing more than benefit fraudsters who are perfectly capable of working, and whilst the assessments carried out by Government may show that a third of claimants are “fit for work”, I’m not so sure.

A lot of people have good days and bad days.  For someone with disabilities or mental illness these can be much more pronounced.

I know people who on some days appear to be fit and well to work, yet on other days can barely find the energy to deal with dressing themselves.  What happens if you get someone on a good day for their assessment? …. They get judged fit to work.

However for every one or two good days, there may be three or four bad days, and you cannot control which days will be good and which bad.

I know of few employers that are that flexible when times are good, let alone in a period of near stagnant growth.

I’m not denying that some people are indeed fit to work, however I think the figures are misleading based on one assessment on one day.

In a word… No.

I have a fundamental problem with forcing someone to work for their benefits.  I have no objection to someone being encouraged to do voluntary work or training to improve their CV, but this should never be forced.  IE if the person is on benefits (that they need to survive), these benefits should not be withdrawn should the person decide that they don’t wish to do the voluntary work or training.  It may be they have decided this for a perfectly valid reason. Continue reading →

I’ve been quiet about Liberal Left, so now the dust has settled a bit, I’ll wade in.

I support their right to exist.

Lets make it clear.  As the smallest of the three main parties, the Lib Dems have to have relations with parties on all sides of the political spectrum, and the coalition with the tories has not helped relations with those parties traditionally of the left of British politics.  As a party of the centre, this isn’t a good thing and we need to rebuild those links.  Liberal Left are in an ideal place to do that.

Continue reading →

I ask this question because I think a serious mistake has been made.

The bill as it stands punishes those in serious need, and also those who try and help them.

Many people will see their mobility allowance cut (meaning they now cannot afford to travel to work), their benefits reduced and charities (part of the so called big society) are finding their funding reduced and are having to make back office (in many cases fundraising staff) cuts in order to continue service provision.  I feel they are making a mistake as it puts them on a declining cycle.

The preamble to the party’s constitution is “The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.” (my boldface)  Yet we are by this process enslaving some of the most vulnerable in our society to poverty.

I doubt that anyone disagrees that the benefit system needs reform.  However the reform should be about the system (IE the back office, the bureaucracy)  to make the benefits cheaper to process.  Instead, what we are seeing are the disabled, families on low incomes and those looking for work being penalised, whilst the extended means testing actually means that the bureaucracy has increased.

The Government are making a serious mistake.  

Image (C) Benetton and United Colors Corporation 1995

Diane Abbott has a habit of putting her foot in it in terms of race rows.

This was something tweeted yesterday.

Well I’m sorry, not all of us do.  I’m of the belief that like the ad at the top of the page shows, under the skin we are all the same, and her comments are offensive to the vast majority of people who feel the same way as me.  It’s not about divide and rule, it’s  about equality of opportunity.  Remember Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech?”.    That’s what most people want.

That’s not to say that prejudice based on race doesn’t exist.  It does.  The fact that the BNP exists and that it has taken 18 years for the Lawrence family to see people convicted of Stephen’s murder is proof of that.

Quite simply though, Diane should apologise. Her tweet was at best tasteless.

If you have a device that needs music in MP3 format but you’ve downloaded everything from the iTunes music store then you have a problem, in that the music is in AAC (.M4A) format and won’t be recognised.

The good news is that converting it is easy.

The following is how to do the conversion on a Mac using iTunes.  Using Windows is similar however the preferences menu under File rather than iTunes.

The first step is to set your import settings to MP3.

This is done by selecting preferences from the iTunes menu

Then click on import settings and set as shown on the screenshot below

click OK, then click OK again to save the settings you have made.

Then create a playlist (cmd N) and drag the music you want to convert into it.

Select all the songs in the playlist (cmd A), then right click (cmd click) and select Create MP3 version

All the songs in the playlist will be converted into MP3 which can then be copied to your device.

Those of you who know me know that I’m a big iPhone fan.  Since 2008 I have exclusively used an iPhone as my main phone and this isn’t going to change.  I currently have an iPhone 4S, and have owned the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 (and still have the boxes with spare chargers although I have long since traded in the old phones)

What is going to change however is the phone that I use as my secondary phone.  I carry a second phone that work and residents have the number for in order to keep my personal and professional life separate, and it is this phone that is changing.

I am currently with Orange on a short term contract and was using an old Nokia N95 handset that I had that was locked to that network.  However Orange decided that they were going to increase their prices, so I decided that I was finished with them.

I’m not going to get another iPhone, but am going to try something new.  I already have an Android device (I have a tablet I use as an e-reader), but wanted to try something different.  Step up Nokia (and Microsoft) with the Nokia Lumia 800 on Three.  IMO the second best looking phone on the market today (after the iPhone 4/4S), and the most original phone operating system since iOS (and IMO the only serious competitor to iOS in that it lacks the fragmentation seen in Android and Microsoft want to keep it that way!)

I should be getting it on Tuesday and plan to use it extensively alongside my iPhone and will blog a review of both phones.

It’s a bit of a diversion from my normal political blogging (that I haven’t really done for some time), and a bit of fun before I take a brief break from blogging again (this time for my wedding).

So non tech fans, forgive me while I indulge in a bit of fun for me and compare 2 of the most important smartphones of 2011.

It’s quite safe for me to say, without Steve Jobs, I couldn’t do the work I do.

Lets get one thing straight, I don’t use a Mac at work, however without Steve, the software I use wouldn’t exist.

For an explanation, lets go back in time to the seventies.

In 1972, an employee at Xerox PARC, Butler Lampson wrote a memo that led to the design of the Alto Computer.  This was notable in that it was the first use of the Graphical User Interface in a form similar to how we know it today.  However Xerox were not interested in marketing the idea.

In 1976, High school friends Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne founded Apple to sell kits of the Apple Computer (now known as the Apple 1) that was designed by Wozniak.  Two weeks later, Wayne sold his stake in the partnership back to the two Steves and in 1977 Mark Markula provided investment capital and Apple was incorporated as a company.

Apple went on to produce the Apple II which was for a time the worlds best selling computer.

Around the same time, two students Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded a company Microsoft who made a version of BASIC for the Altair computer. They subsequently ported this version of BASIC to the Apple II at Apple’s request as Apple needed a version of BASIC that could do floating point maths.

We’ll return to Microsoft later.

In 1978 Xerox and Apple reached an agreement that led to an exchange of shares between the 2 companies and a chance for a delegation from Apple to visit Xerox PARC.

There was a lot of stuff that you would recognise today there.  For example,

• Ethernet
• Laser Printers
• e-mail
• Object Oriented Programming languages.

But what really caught Steve Jobs’ eye was the Alto.  He was sold on the GUI and decided to bring it to his then current project (LISA).

In 1981 IBM announced the PC, and of interest was the fact that one of the operating systems available for it (in fact the cheapest and therefore the most popular) was called PC-DOS and was licensed from a company called Microsoft.  By licensing DOS to IBM Gates had pulled off a masterstroke.  He was able to license it to other companies as MS-DOS.  The PC and the clones running DOS quickly became the dominant players in the Personal Computer industry.

LISA was a failure, it was far too expensive.  However another project within Apple (Macintosh) was in progress with the aim to provide a computer that could compete with IBM on price.  Jobs took the project over from Jef Raskin and looked to put the GUI into the Mac.  Thus began Steve’s mission to make technology accessible to all.  Before Steve’s decision to do this, the GUI was of marginal interest.  Nowadays it is completely mainstream.

The Mac was introduced in 1984 marketed as “The computer for the rest of us” due to it being easy to use.  Initially there wasn’t much software for it, except that produced by Apple themselves and Microsoft. (we’ll come back to MS in the next paragraph)  and sales were slow.  This caused a boardroom war within Apple and Steve Jobs found himself sidelined.  He left shortly afterwards.  The Mac eventually found its niche in that the GUI and it’s simplicity and WYSIWYG interface (initially unique in the commercial market) were ideal for design and publishing.

Microsoft were approached by Apple prior to the release of the Macintosh to produce some new software for it and were loaned a Mac prototype.  They produced Excel, a spreadsheet, as Lotus were not interested in producing 1-2-3 for the Mac.

Bill Gates recognised the game was changing and decided to produce a graphical environment that sat on top of DOS to compete with the Mac.  This graphical environment was called Windows and continued to evolve in competition with the Mac.

After another project (OS/2) within Microsoft (where they were partners with IBM) was formally dropped, MS’ strategy became focussed on Windows.  They released a differing version that didn’t run on DOS known as Windows NT, which became Windows XP in 2001 when the versions that ran on DOS were finally superseded. This is the basis of the software the world works on.

Steve wasn’t idle after leaving Apple.  He founded 2 companies.  The first called NeXT was a computer company that evolved the GUI concept, initially on its own hardware, on top of the UNIX operating system using technology called Display Postscript and whilst the company was a failure, it was bought by Apple for it’s OS technology.

The other was formed from part of LucasFilm and was called PIXAR.  This company was the one that brought CGI animation into the mainstream for films with Toy Story.

In 1996 Apple was in trouble, it’s sales were tanking, and it was desperately looking for a new operating system.

They eventually purchased NeXT.  Jobs was back.  Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO in a boardroom coup and Jobs stepped in as interim CEO.  Under his leadership the design team were given greater freedoms and this showed in the introduction of the iMac.  Meanwhile, the NeXTStep operating system was developed into Mac OS X.  Apple soon refocussed and returned to prosperity and have re-invented themselves many times.

Steve Jobs has affected the way everyone in business works.  He really did achieve his goal of making technology accessible to all, and both Apple’s and their competitors’ products are a testament to that.

He leaves this world with an amazing legacy.

RIP Steve Jobs 1955-2011

I’m hearing a lot of whining about the iPhone 4S in that there isn’t a new design, the screen is still 3.5″ etc etc.  In all honesty so what?  I like the design, I don’t want a bigger screen, as in all fairness the iPhone 4 just fits in my pocket.

So lets look at it a different way.

If you want the very latest technology, you should never buy Apple.  The major exception with this was the iPad, which created the genre of a compact tablet, unlike the previous Windows tablets.

Apple is about the experience.  It always has been.  By that I mean the total integration.  It’s seamless.  That isn’t the case with a Nokia Phone, Android or a BlackBerry, the only one coming close is Windows Phone.  This is true with all of their (Apple’s) devices.  You don’t have to mess around with them.  They just work in a very intuitive way.  You pay a premium for it, but that is the experience you know you are going to get.

All have their advantages and disadvantages, however I’m used to and want the total seamless integration, and a serious upgrade over my current iPhone 4.  There’s only one device that will cut it.  That’s the iPhone 4S.  When google or anyone else can offer me their technology with the same seamless experience, then I’ll consider jumping ship.  Until then, when it’s upgrade time, I’ll stick with what I know.

Massive edit: It appears I misread the speech and that Ivan Lewis is NOT calling for state licensing of the media, however I still object because the “independent” licensing in the form he proposes goes way too far.

OK lets clear up one fact… TASS actually still exists but not in the form it used to be..

Ivan Lewis MP, speaking at the Labour conference laid forward his plans for dealing with media issues like hackgate, and they make chilling reading.

He has ideas for journalist licensing and the idea that they can be struck off from a register should they make a serious transgression.

It appears that he wants this to be done centrally (most likely by a QANGO).

To me this sees the return of the Soviet style of journalism (hence my reference to TASS – the official government sanctioned news propaganda agency in the former Soviet Union) in that everyone is accountable to the government. Whilst some greater regulation is needed, this could be achieved by a totally independent body. Independent of the editors and journalists and independent of the judiciary. This should allow responsible investigative journalism to continue.

One also wonders with this new licensing agency that could be set up should Labour ever return to power whether in future governments, the administration in control may force non professional writers such as bloggers to be licensed. With the fact that blogging brings the power of publishing to anyone with an internet connection, this could be a very real threat to not only the freedom of the press, but freedom of speech.

Government has repeatedly proved itself to be largely ignorant of the power of the web and the internet until something goes wrong then they blame it, and their efforts to control the internet are proof of that. Don’t expect this to change anytime soon.

This is yet another example of Labour wanting to control everything centrally, removing individuality. We should resist any attempt of official journalism licensing and allow the press its freedom to do what it does best.