Monthly Archives: February 2011

Is dial-up still on your radar?

Posted on by

Just a quick poll intended for both web content creators and users:

I’m interested to see what others think on this.  In my day-job I come across people all over the world who still have dial-up or equivalent-speed Internet connectivity, and as we provide several hour’s worth of audio content online every week, we make sure that a “dial-up speeds” MP3 download is available alongside the better-quality “broadband speeds” option that most people use.

I’m wondering how many others out there think this important enough to influence design or provision decisions, or think it should be?

When I pray earnestly, why does God *still* say “No”, or “Wait”?

Posted on by

I’ve not posted much here that reveals anything of the faith I profess on my //about page, so after a busy week of things happening and very much not happening, I’m feeling challenged to do some study.  This is intended as a “thinking out loud” piece, based on what I’ve found today and reconciling that with what I’ve experienced over the last few years.  This is not an attempt at an authoritative answer to the headline question – more my working out of what I can understand now.  If anyone has constructive critique or more biblically-sound points to guide me,  the comments panel is open!

“I’ve prayed, but God isn’t doing anything”.  It’s a situation that has plagued me through my whole Christian life.  I’m sure all but the most blessed Christians have faced many situations causing them to ask similar questions throughout their struggle to reconcile simple faith with the realities we all deal with in our day-to-day lives.  It seems that Jesus himself struggled with reconciling God’s will with the emotions he was feeling at the time near his crucifixion:

“Abba,[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:36 (New International Version, ©2010)

The kind of prayers I see most struggles with, whether in myself or in others, are things like:

  • “God, why won’t you take this condition away from me?”
  • “God, can I have some money to pay off my debts?”
  • “God, can I have a spouse?”
  • “God, can you heal xxx?”
  • “God, can you convert yyy?”
  • “God, can you take away the pain?”
  • “God, can you take me away from this right now?”

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6 (New International Version, ©2010)

If we are to take this advice as a guide, we are indeed doing the right thing by asking for things to change, for things to be given to us or our friends/family/church/the world at large.  But the truth is, when we make these kind of requests of God, what we really need is a new perspective, or a new attitude. This sounds very much like something any business coach or life-coach worth their fee might suggest – and indeed they are onto something. What most of them miss in giving such advice is that the perspective check needs to come from God – our viewpoint needs to be realigned with His.

So if I’m bringing a problem, a request or a need to God, then I must also be open to the fact that I myself might be what needs to change, or perhaps, more helpfully, to be changed by God. In doing so, I might be called to repent of something, or simply to change a perspective or priority.  These are painful processes, full of opportunities for failure, self-doubt and cynicism to creep in and seemingly undo any achievements we might make.

The God of the bible is, among other things, often referenced as “Abba” or “Father”.  He created us (Mankind), and throughout the bible He continually promises to nurture and care for us; US! His creation, living in His world, sustained in His universe for His purposes.  He wants us not only to grow in knowledge of Him but, even more importantly, to be in a relationship with Him. He wants us to follow Him, to submit to His will, to allow Him to guide us, and He really wants us to allow Him to delight in us.

Let’s look in more detail at that last point here, for fear of my being exposed as a follower of some Prosperity-Gospel – which I most definitely do not identify with, much as I love receiving stuff and things!

Delighting in us really is not just about giving us gifts and seeing how happy that makes us. To use an example from my own life:  when I think about the best times I’ve had with my own (human) father, it’s not been when he’s given me something material, though of course I enjoyed those things too. [The hifi is still wonderful, Dad, if you're reading this!] No, the things I’ve really enjoyed and appreciated most have been the ongoing conversations either in person or online, where we both have learned new things of each other, and where we’ve just simply spent time enjoying each others’ company, perhaps while exploring the world and situations around us.  So if I were to come to him instead with merely a long shopping list of wants, that would frankly be a bit of an insult, unless of course that’s what he’s asked me for!  In the same way, God does not ask for us to use him as a vending machine for our own wants and desires – He really does not want for us to work for Him in exchange for some favour of healing or material.

When we do pray, I think there are some acid-tests as to whether we are praying for the right thing, that might help us understand whether we are the source of the problem we’re praying to change.  One such test comes from this:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:13-14 (New International Version, ©2010)

I don’t think it’s wrong to pray for things or for change if that’s what we think we need – we’ve already seen that we are to take all our requests to God.  However, if we are going to be able to ‘see’ our prayers being answered – which God promises they either will be or already are – there are a couple key elements that need to be in place. First, our prayers need to be submitted in the name of Jesus – He is our Mediator, it is only through His name that our requests can be acceptable to God, because it is only through and in Him that we are acceptable to God the Father. Secondly, the ultimate goal of the ‘thing’ prayed for needs to be for God’s glory.  Now here’s my usual problem:  Quite often I simply want to bring more glory to myself, or simply to make things easier or more pleasurable for myself; but I will never see such prayers as being answered, since my glory simply is not the point of this world, nor of me.  So with those repeated failings identified in my prayers and motivations, it’s comforting also to know that:

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26 (New International Version, ©2010)

In effect, what I think this is saying is that even if we ask for the wrong thing or ask in the wrong way, the Holy Spirit acts as a spiritual “babelfish” if you like, translating our needs and wants, perhaps even our heart-condition, into a language and form that God can usefully work with.  Maybe this translation service is more than just a one-way process.  Maybe the Spirit also changes our hearts too – and from that we are changed in answer to our initial prayers.  In fact I think Jesus himself provides a rather strong clue to this:

…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:26-27 (New International Version, ©2010)

So if I pray for the freedom of being freed of my headache, being relieved of my depression, the gift of a car or the gift of a cool £1,000,000 tax-free, and God does not want me to have those things, there is a promise that He will (and does) send the Spirit to help open my eyes to how I can or must live without them.  And that’s rather comforting, even if it is painful for me to swallow at the time.

Thoughts on BBC Radio 3 Internet Radio now with HD Sound option

Posted on by

Screenshot of Radio 3 HD Sound playing in Chrome

I wrote a while ago about some special events that the BBC were planning to use as opportunities to run trials on broadcasting “HD Sound” streams over the Internet, as a higher-quality alternative to the standard version most people access on from the iPlayer.

Here’s where I get to make a confession:  I never did get around to doing any critical listening of the improved sound streams!  So, a few months have passed and two key things have happened.  Firstly, the “standard” stream has been upgraded to 192Kbps AAC from the previous standard of 128Kbps – good news for everyone listening to the standard stream, and technically this is arguably already a big improvement over the concurrent FM, DAB, Freeview and Satellite/Cable streams.  The second big development is that the “HD Sound” stream is now available full-time on the Radio 3 home page by clicking on this link on the top right-hand-side of the Radio 3 banner:

On the BBC Radio 3 site, the bottom half is what you see until you roll over it with the mouse, when it turns into the bottom half

It’s worth pointing out that common wisdom indicates the difference between the standard 192Kbps stream and the “HD Sound” 320Kbps stream will tend to only be audible on top-notch equipment in ideal conditions.  I’ve done some quick listening tests between the  two streams on a MacBook Pro 13″ laptop using it’s built-in speakers – hardly the worlds best audio playback system.

I was surprised to hear a real difference between the two streams through the laptop speakers.  I was even more surprised when my wife was able to hear a difference between the two in a blind A-B test, and correctly attributed the poorer-sounding source as the lower-quality stream.

Both are great quality, revealing lots of dynamics in music and both sounding tonally very natural, so far as the laptop speakers allow us to hear.  But the difference between the two streams is subtle, yet significant.  Spoken word sounds a little clearer on the 320Kbps version, with sibilants (C’s, S’s, F’s, Ph’s) and the breathiness of the human voice sounding more natural, yet being less distracting at the same time.  With music, the 320Kbps version gives better tonality, in particular revealing more harmonic overtones of the recorded instrument or ensemble.

This bodes well for further listening tests on better audio equipment – an experiment we might find time to carry out tomorrow.

In the meantime, I must publicly say a big “well done, chaps” to the BBC staff involved – this is clearly a very audible step in the right direction and backs up a rumoured drive to increase the technical quality of all BBC output, in spite of the cynicism that has surrounded the transition from analogue to digital TV, and is presently surrounding the pained transition from FM to DAB, which may or may not yet be successful.

Forget new equipment: buy a good brush!

Posted on by

Everyone posting online gets so worked up over cartridges, decks, belts, cables, even styli… and yet so many of us (myself included) seem to overlook the basics – keeping our precious black discs clean.

I thought I had it licked… a gentle wash in warm water with a little dishwashing detergent, followed by a wipe over with a soft, lint-free cloth.  This worked very well in the short term, but on the second or third playing I found some discs were starting to pick up dust again.  So I looked around my local music stores for a record cleaning brush, and nobody seems to sell them any more, even if they do sell everything else a vinyl junkie might need!

So I did some online research and found a RODEC cleaning brush from West End DJ, for the princely sum of £10. Not a bad buy, and it’s remarkably effective.  I have no idea what some of these discs have been through, but the amount of fine white or grey dust that this thing lifts out of even clean-looking LP’s is quite astonishing.

Otherwise it’s hard to review a brush really, but the convenience of having a brush in its own stand that prevents further dust pickup is nice to have.  A model that uses carbon fibres might well be better, but what I have is good enough and the sonic results of playing cleaner discs are clear enough for me!

No loan service for choosing mobile phones?

Posted on by

I’m inspired to write this as I watch a colleague growling and gnashing his teeth at a recently purchased mobile phone.

Something that’s often perplexed me is that whenever I’ve been in the market to choose a mobile phone, the handset/network choices were explained in detail on paper, and even by enthusiastic fans or salesman.  Yet no mobile phone reseller has ever offered me a loan phone that I can take home and try to live with for a week to assess the hardware, software and network performance.  When I’ve asked about this, the salesmen have basically just shrugged their shoulders and said it’s not a service they can provide.

I for one would be more than happy to pay for a week’s worth of contract for the plan/phone I’m testing, and it could help prevent me buying the wrong thing and ending up blaming and flaming the network, the store or the manufacturer for my trying to use a phone that clearly wasn’t designed or intended for that particular purpose I’m griping about.

Surely I can’t be the only one who would like to think carefully about tying myself to a contract I can’t escape from for two years – so I wonder why this kind of service isn’t available?  Are the shops or network providers scared that they or their products will have their flaws exposed for all to see?  Or do they simply get more money out of unhappy people who end up buying one or more handsets after realising their phone doesn’t actually meet their needs?

Bethere and O2 connections still sticky

Posted on by

So it’s been a day or two now since Be did some works on their infrastructure and changed the status of their “Pages loading half way” forum thread to “fixed”.

Well, it doesn’t seem to be from where I’m sitting.  I’m still seeing anything between 4 and 10% packet loss to any web server, and pages requiring reloads more often than usual.  Others are noticing the same thing, and some on their user forums have even accused Be of simply brushing the issue under the carpet.

It’s clear there have been some significant peering issues affecting Be (and other ISP’s in the UK) over the last few months, and there seems to be a rather large group of customers who feel they’re not getting the service they’re paying for, because they’re not seeing the improvement they’re asking for – and to rub salt into their wounds they’re not seeing the ISP’s raise the issue successfully outside of their own organisations.

Whatever others feel, for me it would be nice to have some acknowledgement other than “we’re looking at this, please send us any info you can”.  It might just be a longer-term passing glitch.  Here’s hoping.

UK Internet Packet Loss issues

Posted on by

Pic courtesy http://www.guy-sports.com

For the last couple of days I’ve been noticing that  web pages on mine or my wife’s Macs sometimes do not load completely.  I’m using Chrome and my wife uses Safari, which I think rules any browser-related issue.  I’ve noticed the same issue at work, so I ran some Ping tests and I’m finding something like 2-4% packet loss between our London office location and the BBC News website.  Usually I’d expect this to be 0%.  No wonder some things aren’t loading properly.

The issue occurs regardless of whether we’re using WiFi or cable to connect to the router.  Given that O2 and Be share some backhaul for ADSL2 services I’m not surprised that I’m seeing the same issue at home (O2 24Mb) and at work (Be “Pro” 24Mb).  What did surprise me was trying our BT Business Broadband 8Mb ADSL connection and finding the same issue, with similar frequency.

A thread appeared on the Be customer forums yesterday, but I cannot link to it here as it needs login credentials.  What I can link to is a related post on the Be unofficial usergroup, explaining that “Strange Things” are ongoing – affecting traffic to random websites at random intervals.

I’m wondering if this is a common experience, and whether anyone out there knows what the problem is?

WordPress for iPhone improvements?

Posted on by

So here I am wondering whether the latest WordPress app is any quicker to use on the iPhone than previous versions.

It is a little quicker for sure, but even as I type this it feels like it’s getting slower to respond to each key – and slows down even more when the autocorrect shows up, or when having to backspace to correct something manually.

That said, the text scrolling issue seems to be solved, and I can now tilt the phone sideways and have it switch smoothly to the horizontal mode and back again.

It’s slowly getting better, folks. Bring on CoreData!