Joe Blogs

Harry Potter Theme Park Preview

2010-09-22T11:31:00.001-07:00

The Sequence on JUS News

2010-02-22T10:13:00.001-08:00

This was a programme put together and presented by myself and the MA Broadcast Journalism students at Sheffield University.

Thoughts on Journalism

2010-02-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

I'm halfway through my masters course in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Sheffield, and I've come to some conclusions about journalism as a field of practise.

My first observation which I've come to is that a journalist has to be pro-active. We have been given a new assignment this semester which involves going back to our patches (Barnsley for me), and finding a new story to produce a multimedia web piece on.
This piece will no doubt appear on the blog!
Last semester we had to retrieve four stories from our patches, a nightmarish task towards the end of the term. However as the old saying goes,

"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."

In that new line of thought I am preparing to succeed! I'm hoping to get a story sorted as soon as possible so I can relax towards the deadline.

Self-Confidence

I consider myself quite a confident person, but in my opinion a journalist, in order to succeed, needs to be unnaturally confident. Asking people to talk to you and getting responses, chasing leads for stories that people may not want you to report and proving things wrong against popular opinion.
There is no doubt confidence is an essential tool for a budding journalist.

Its been a brilliant semester just gone, but I have a feeling this one will be much more hectic. And it's my goal to prepare as much as I can, saving myself the stress towards the end.

2009-11-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

On Saturday the 21st of Novemeber Forge Radio had to move studios due to the Sheffield Students Union building works.
We moved from our flash studios in the media hub, downstairs to a "back to basics" look studio near Interval café. The video below, outlines the challenge, and the fun we had!

The Forge Radio Alarm Clock

2009-11-11T15:36:00.001-08:00

This useful piece of software, admittedly written by myself, was originally designed to boost listenership of the breakfast show on Forge Radio.

The software does a few cool things:

1). It plays the radio stream without needing a web browser open
2). It can wake your computer from sleep or hibernate to play the radio
3). You can tell it to play a song of your choice before playing the radio
4). You can minimise it to the tray to get it out the way
5). Its got a webcam viewer built in to see our studios, and also a direct contact form to get in touch with the studio really easily.

The software is completely free to use, and updates are automatic so you wont ever need to download 'a newer version'.

If your radio station is interested in its own copy of the Alarm Clock, please click here to get in touch.
If you would like a copy of the alarm clock, simply click here to download it!

Latest Radio Show

2009-11-11T13:46:00.001-08:00

Listen again to my latest show by clicking on the player below:

My First News Wrap

2009-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

"Ninety percent of families do not follow basic rules of food safety." - This is the result of a report issued by the Institute of Food Policy today.
It recommends urgent public education about food hygiene, after nearly sixteen hundred deaths from food poisoning last year alone.
Joe Allen has more...

Monckton Rubber Factory

2009-10-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Our coverage of a local story in Sheffield. Monckton Rubber Factory, owned by Hargreaves services burned down on Tuesday evening last week. Filmed by myself and Tom Pickup.

Sheffield Silversmiths

2009-10-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

After a further masterclass on video editing today, this video has been revised with adjusted audio levels, shot sequence and also a slightly amusing ending.
Comments are, as always, welcome.

Also - the music at the end was more for the fun of editing, and the experience, rather than a professional opinion that it should be used!

Sheffield Silversmiths

2009-10-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Today was the first editing lesson on the postgraduate course and we were given some "rushes", which is unedited recorded material, to edit into a final piece. The story was of the silversmith industry in Sheffield and the footage contained an interview of one the few remaining silversmiths in the City. The voice over was Marie Kinsey, and the piece was also edited by my coursemates Charlotte and Tom.

Vox Pops around Sheffield

2009-10-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here is my first piece of work for my course. We are asked to think of a question and ask members of the public, to eventually be mixed down into a 40s package. I then added some backing music to my piece, but both pieces, just voices and backing music also, are available below:

This is voice only

This includes the backing track

Interview with Paul Tobin (Sheffield Union President)

2009-09-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I interviewed Paul Tobin about various issues in the student's union, including the student loan delays and his plans for the union this year.

This interview was on behalf of a website called UniPlanet, the best place to go for information about university life and well worth a look! Check it out here!

Blog ReDesign

2009-09-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

This blog has until recently been mainly focused on technological content and has been used for my general view on various bits of technology, good or bad!
However, I am now enrolled in Broadcast Journalism MA at The University of Sheffield and so will be using this blog to post my views on current news stories as and when I see fit! I am certain the majority of these stories will have a technological aspect to them, but the blog is no longer explicitly restricted to this field.

Feel free to browse my previous blogs, the content still makes interesting reading!

A Quick Apology

2009-05-22T17:24:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to say I will not be posting any blogs until at least 02/05/2009. I am revising and taking my finals for university.
Many Thanks
More blogs then!

Joe
x

Twitter

2009-05-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wow, talk about dropping the ball. I signed up to Twitter about two weeks ago, after being persuaded by the promotional video (see below), as I had originally hated the idea. But I now see what all the fuss is about, first of all it fills the gaps between blogs and emails, secondly it brings you closer to celebrities and finally its a good way to get messages and stay in touch with mates!

Twitter was definitely the next big thing a few months ago, and now it seems to have seamlessly slipped into place between emails, blogs, facebook and other social network sites.
Part of the beauty of twitter is its simplicity, perhaps not behind the scenes but certainly the front end, there are few options and its a simple interface of entering text and pressing send. It took me a while to understand about following and being followed, but once you play around with it, its a brilliant way of keeping up to date with people who you may not usually talk to.

One particularly attractive feature of twitter is that you can follow people without them having to follow you (or accept you as a follower), this is unlike both facebook and myspace, with users having to confirm you as a "friend". The obvious result of which is the attraction of celebrity culture, it means that we, as mere mortals, are able to follow Jon Snow, Edith Bowman, Greg James and my personal interest Forge Media.

Two very interesting things have happened on twitter recently, one, involving Johnathan Ross. Yesterday "Wossy", as he is known on the site, was in touch with Eminem and was offered the chance to go to Detroit and attend a CD launch, he couldnt make it, and so gave it away on Twitter! It was actually pretty tense when he was twittering the question, and you knew that his 253919 followers would be keen to reply.

Twitter has been widely accepted into the social private domain, but in my opinion it potential is much larger than is realised, or rather, than is being implemented. Twitter has enormous potential for the public domain, large corporations can issues updates quickly and easily, announce new products, recall faulty ones, run competitions etc. In its simplest form, Twitter is as exciting as email was when it arrived, except Twitter is a lot less forceful and intrusive, you cannot get Spam on twitter, as you choose who you follow!

Audio Boo

2009-04-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Following my recent attendance of the Student Radio Conference 2009, I was made aware of an online service named Audio Boo by the BBC's Head of Future Technology - James Cridland, (view his blog here. Audio Boo is an online blogging application with a difference, that difference being that we are talking about audio blogging.

To use audio boo you need to have a second generation iPod or iPhone with a microphone which you can plug in (if you are using the iPod). I use the microphone on Apple's new in-ear headphones. With this set up you download the application for free from the app store and open it up! Its so easy to use, at the bottom there are three buttons, one for listening to other peoples boos, one for recording your own boo, and one to link it with your Audio Boo account online.

Its brilliant to get your thoughts onto the internet quickly. You can follow people on audio boo as well similar to twitter, and of course you can be followed. My only grievance with it is that you cannot search for people and add them from your iPod, you need to go to the Audio Boo website.

If you want to check out some audio boos visit my website here, and you can see my current boos! To do this you can login to the website using your account details, and click on the RSS feed option. You can either feed all boos to your site, or just your own.

Update:

Claireatwaves has commented that a similar applications to Audio Boo is called ipadio, available from Ipadio.com, but this has a clear advantage over Audio Boo, in that you can broadcast from any phone! Having tried it, it does work very well but there are a few issues that lead me to stick with Audio Boo. One, that the quality is obviously that of a normal phone call, yet with the iPod application the quality is far superior. Secondly, the RSS feed I use to embed my Boos into my website cannot be replicated with ipadio, while they do offer an RSS feed for your phlogs (phone logs), it does not contain links to the audio files themselves, view an example at www.jsjallen.co.uk

Spotify!

2009-04-24T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hello again! It's been a while since my last post, but I have been exploring the virtual world for technological gems to bring back to you and I am pleased to say I have found plenty on my travels! Articles soon to appear here consist of....

AudioBoo
Twitter
Tr.Im
Phorm - revisted
Google Street View
The LHC
OLEDs
The Sun Getting Dimmer
Visual Basic

and any more interesting bits I come across!

For today though, I will be looking at the musical revolution that is Spotify. Spotify is almost an entirely new tool for use online, in its simplest form, it is a standalone program which allows you to listen to a very large quantity of songs, for free, from your PC.
At this point I should enter a few qualifications to the previous paragraph, firstly, the "revolution" is not entirely unknown, many of us will be aware of Last.FM which provides a similar service, but within your web browser and by no means with the variety (or style) that Spotify provides. Secondly, while the service is free, as is the program to download, there are the occasional adverts which get played between entire songs. Note the word entire, if you are searching for songs and listening to little bits of many at a time, you will experience no advertisements.

I would just like to mention here a very interesting discussion I have come across concerning internet advertising, and more specifically, is it theft of the service if you turn the adverts off? Click here to view James Cridland's Blog

Spotify runs as a program from your desktop and is able to minimise to the system tray so as to stay out of the way, it has a very useful playlist function which allows you to save all your favourite songs in the appropriate playlist and listen to it at you leisure. (Incidentally, you can listen to my playlist of favourite songs by downloading and installing Spotify, then clicking here).

Spotify solves the major problem of wanting a song but not knowing what it is, you can simply search the lyrics on google, and then get the song on Spotify, it has undoubtedly quenched a vast musical thirst of my own!

However, as with all new toys, there are of course limitations and improvements that could be made. For one, I would love to see and option saying "Buy this song"*, or even better once you have made a playlist "Buy this playlist". By clicking this you would purchase the song (via paypal for example), and be permitted to download a DRM free file (like iTunes now does) to listen to and more importantly, put onto mobile devices such as an iPod.
Speaking of iPod brings me to my next improvement, a Spotify app in the app store, this truley would be an astounding app (assuming similar functionality), the ability to have all the music you could desire literally at the touch of your finger.

In summary, Spotify has truly given me a (so far) brief musical education and I have no doubt I am going to learn a great deal from it. I highly recommend the program and am certain you will not regret giving it a go. Download Spotify from Spotify dot com here.

***Update***
As per the comments on this blog, you can actually right click on a song and buy it from 7digital.com! Great news, but it doesn't work on every song, or playlists. Still good for the odd song though! Thanks for letting me know Afront.

The iPod Touch

2008-11-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

Last week I bought a new iPod touch, to replace my old iPod 4G, and I have to admit, I have only good things to say about it.
Admittedly I did have a shaky start to my new iPod experience when after borrowing a friend's iPod I managed to put it in reset mode, and left it unrecoverable, as iTunes would display "error code (6)" whenever the iPod was connected. But after taking it to the apple store (when I bought my own), to apple's credit they replaced it for free - but then I was buying a new iPod and shuffle myself.

To the new iPod then, no doubt a fantastic piece of design an incredibly intuitive idea. The App Store is an excellent invention, allowing users to create their own utilities and even sell them to other members, in a user friendly and huge database of software.
The touch feature itself is very useful also, whether it is sliding through photos, your album art or playing maze finger, it is a fresh way of using the device, and certainly an improvement on the click wheel. So, the utility of a device as a standalone piece of equipment has undoubtedly improved.

But let’s not forget that this device can now also connect to a local area network via Wi-Fi. This allows access to the App Store itself as well as internet browsing, and a separate application to pick up your emails also.

The new iPod is a must have for all technology lovers, but unfortunately, this article does not end here.

A friend of mine said recently, "The way technology is going it is all about getting stuff to work with other stuff". And although a basic description, he is completely correct. Fortunately Apple have cottoned onto this and started to get the iPod to do "more things with more things", take for example the BBC iPlayer, granted this was BBC's initiative to make the iPlayer function with mobile devices, but the utility of the function is no less. Google also have now optimised some applications for a mobile device, Google mail, and now also Google calendar as well (see my earlier blog post).
The problem is that there is still a long way to go. Many websites use flash player which the iPod does not support. And as apple recently found out, their slogan of "the entire internet on your iPod", is not entirely accurate, when the ASA picked them up on this fact, view the adjudication here.

The iPod is great, don't get me wrong, but before purchasing one, just remember not to expect too much. As is always the way, new gadgets never completely deliver on expectations. If I find one that does, I'll let you know!

Geopursuit - the worldwide con

2008-10-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

As I was walking down to one of my lectures, I saw an advert - "The most adventours game on earth", a grand prize of £10,000? A prize for the top ten fastest players every week? Why would I not have a go, being techincally able, quick with a PC I thought I stood a good chance!

How wrong I was, the moment approachs when the competition was about to begin and I was sitting ready at my computer, within moments of starting the challenge the location markers on google earth, where we are supposed to find the secret codes to put in the website and win....disappear.... amateur? Yes.

Shell very much frustrated me at this point as I battled with the fact that the geopursuit server had gone down. About an hour and a half later I recieve a text saying that the server is down, "Great!", I thought, at least they are admitting their mistakes and working on the problem. I was told that I would be notified of when the server is back online, yet being an avid competitor I thought it was sensible to continue trying, of course, with no avail.

Well, the time is now 21:28, almost exactly 3 hours after the competition opened, still no notification that the server is back online. But guess what, the leaderboard has filled up! Clearly SOME people have been able to access the game, and others not. A fair chance? No. A reliable company? No. An indication as to the competence of the firm, I sincerley hope not. Since this game is aimed at studnets particularly, and the first clue (of which I was able to see!), was more or less a propaganda video for Shell, I am assuming that they are looking to inspire future young proffesionals to work for Shell. Well, Shell, here is one that will not.

This competition was unfair, and with questionable legality considering the limited access to the acutual competition.

Bad form Shell, bad form.

Google Calendar

2008-10-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Okay so this is not anything particularly new I know. But if you have never heard of Google calendar, prepare to be amazed.
I don't claim to be an expert by any means in online applications and facilities, but this is by far the best I have seen.

Gcal is a simple and effective device for managing your time. It basic terms, you input the dates and times of your events, and it displays them on a calendar so you know what is going on an when. The really impressive stuff starts when you looks deeper, Gcal can text you to remind you of any event, simply register your phone, (which is free and instant), then whenever you set a reminder, select SMS as the option and you will receive a text with the date, time, location and any description of the event - what more could you need for an organised life!?

Believe it or not, there is more. Gcal supports multiple calendars as well, so you can have (as I do), a calendar for personal events, University timetable, exercise schedule, or even a bills calendar so you know what is coming out when! Events can also be set to reccuring so there is no need to set the same lecture every week, just the once.

Whats more, Gcal offers an option to embed your calendar into your website, or just send a link to someone else to view your calendar. And my most recent discovery is that the description section of Gcal will accept HTML code, so you can hyperlink, or even embed things into the description!

Gcal is extremley easy to use as well, to extend the time of an event, just click and drag the end time. If you type (for example), Dinner at Uni in the event title box, it will set the event title as dinner, and the location as Uni.

See below for my calendar, if you want you own you need to go to www.google.com/calendar. While your there, why not sign up for a Gmail account as well? In my opinion, google are offering excellent services at no cost to us as a consumer, these will get better with the number of people that sign up, more advertising exposure, more revenue for google! So sign up now!

One in the pouch is worth three on the web?

2008-04-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Guardian wrote an article this week on the new media phenomenon "Kangaroo", the commercial iPlayer which will group all the content from the BBC iPlayer, the channel 4 40D service and content from itv.com. This service will offer all content at reasonable prices to the consumer, and as far as is made clear, will hold thousands of hours of content for a longer period of time than the current mediums.

The clear issue with this new idea is that of the BBC licence payers perspective, which is simply this, why would the British television watching public choose to pay again for that which they are paying for already? The arguement then immediatley arises that they are simply being offered another service seperate to that which is paid for. While this essentialy is true it must surley be within the preogative of the BBC to supply the fee payer with a better service, and would the BBC iPlayer not be classed as this?

Furthermore the content which will be hosted by Kangaroo will clearly contain programmes which advertise external products, directly conflicting with the nature of the BBC. Allbeit that the advertisement may not appear on the BBC content, or even the front page of the sit perhaps, however surley the fact that such advertisment funded content is on the same site as BBC content would cause arguement enough to undermine the foundtations of the idea.

From what I can tell Kangaroo is an underesearched and certainly under publicisied system which will have inherent problems from the outset. I eagerly await the arrival of the system to view its progress and asses its impacts on the current methods of delivering online content.

BSP (Best Solution Possible?)

2008-04-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Big Shot Productions is a small time company specialising in radio automation software and other applications. Its main product, BSP Studio, is installed in a number of stations around the UK and is mainly focused at community and student radio audiences, the company has progressed well and the software is still in development, it was the main selling point of BSP - until now.

According to the website (see below), BSP can create and install a customisable microphone pulley system for £100 per unit. A snip compared to other competitors (which are hard, if not impossible to find!).

This ingenious idea gives the presenter the ability to move their mic anywhere within a certain area and it will sit it place, suspended in mid-air. The XLR cables from the microphones then run up into sockets which are installed in the ceiling, ran through the ceiling, then down again at a convienient point and finally up into the mixer. The use of 30lb fishing wire ensures that the weights holding the microphones are very safe, hanging silently to the side of the room. Furthermore, the advantage of silence is a great asset to the presenter, gone are the days of the creaky 'lamp arm' mic stands which would easily ruin the flow of a link if moved. The cables running into the ceiling also means any sound travelling through the desk will not run up into the mic, e.g. a mug placed on the surface or even the presenter moving a mouse. In my opinion the best advantage is the look of the design, when not in use the microphones still well out of the way up on the ceiling, and to pull them down to speaking level (standing or seated) is effortless, and more importantly, silent.
The design is not unique by any means, Radio 1 are probably the most well known purveyors of this technology, but other commercial stations follow suit also. However with the introduction of the system on such a budget, it will not be long before these new additions to a studio become industry standard.

To view BSP's summary of the devices click here

Below is a video of a BSP employee explaining the process, with questionable commentary skills.

On Phorm?

2008-04-16T03:46:00.001-07:00

The BBC published an article today about the new internet advertising company "Phorm". The artcile mainly concerns itself with the privacy issue of the company, inherent in the way that it functions.
Phorm plans to collect a users specific interests by remembering websites they visit and offering more adverts to the individual who vists websites related to those adverts. For example, a person who looks at a lot of sites about wine, would recieve advertisements for wines when they visit a website using Phorm.
The concept is very impressive and could help to sell more products which users want, however, it is not unique. Google have been employing such a technique for a while now on their "Gmail" service. The adverts which appear are relative to the content of your email, an email about radio will result in adverts for radio stations or radio products being displayed around the page.
The issue of privacy being comprimised is something to consider, it will not be possible for a user to opt out of such a service and so Phorm will know most of the websites they have visited, but is that such a bad thing?
Some would argue that those with nothing to hide should not worry about it, but it seems the public generally dislike others knowing their surfing habits, no matter how innocuous they may be.
The technical details behind the function of such a firm are complicated and detailed, I have found another blog which explains these better than I ever could, this is available here. Also on this blog there is a link to a much more detailed document explained the exact process of Phorm.

The article from the BBC reports further on the issues of privacy - To view the article click here

Welcome to my blog

2008-04-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, thanks for taking the time to read up on my blog.
The idea is to update this as often as possible with media related technology news, although I can't promise to be that specific all the time!

If you have any questions about posts or would like a particular post about something, email me at jsjallen@gmail.com

Many Thanks
Joe Allen