Ive been using FF3 since Beta 1, and the improvements were obvious even then. The notorious memory leak seemed to follow me around wherever I went – desktop, laptop, work, etc. Firefox needed to be restarted at least once an hour, or else it’d become unusable. Its possible that it may have been partly down to the amount of flash videos I watch online, but that shouldn’t matter – after all, it didn’t happen when I use IE. But FF3 from beta 1 seemed to fix this problem, and suddenly I could fall asleep with a browser window open and not need to restart the PC in the morning.

And the location bar is a god-send. It sounds a little extreme, but its all but eradicated my use of bookmarks. The key is the new auto-complete feature, which is a step up from the method used by other browsers. Put simply, it searches the entire URL instead of just the beginning. Example – when I want to check my adsense earnings, my conventional method would have been to type “adsense” into the search bar, then click the Adsense link at the top of the results (ok, I could use bookmarks, but there are a lot of other sites that I use more often than adsense so where do I draw the line?). With FF3, all I have to do is type “ads” into the address bar and already its offering me the full URL. So as long as you know all or part of the domain, url or even page title, FF will know what you want. Plus it keeps track of the sites you visit the most to make the results as relevant as possible. Simple, but genius.

And it looks good. IE7 and Opera have that sleek, shiny look whereas FireFox always looked a bit … cheap. But some major effort has been put into the UI and as far as I’m concerned its paid off.

So yeah, back to the title of this post. Its brilliant, and the RC release is that one step closer to ironing out the last few bugs. Its exciting to know that for the first time, I can comfortably recommend a browser to people without thinking twice.

The concept seems to be – if you have a nokia phone (with video capture capabilities), you sign up, download the software, then stream your video to the web. Get in early and you may even end up with as catchy a url as me – http://qik.com/mou.

I had a quick test last night, filming myself while a friend of mine check out the website. At one point the delay was as short as 3 seconds, but at one point it seemed more like 10. Still, not a bad turnaround from phone->internet->website. There were a couple of video freezes, where he had to refresh to get the video playing again, but its debatable whether that was down to Qik, or his 10 year old laptop! Either way, if it was them they have an excuse – they’re still in Alpha, so you have to expect a few teething problems

The only problem with the whole “streaming” thing is the obvious need for an unlimited data plan. At the moment I only get 2mb a free a month, and the cost gets a bit scandalous after that. Thankfully, my Nokia N95 has WI-FI built in, so the usage Ive got out of Qik (ie, at home) has been free – so far!

I’m still trying to decide how I can use this, but I see a lot of potential. The first thing that spring to mind is the Glastonbury festival over the summer (assuming I get tickets) – depending on whether I can access the back-stage wireless network (the fact there are so many people backstage, I think, makes the fact it’ll be secured a lot less likely), the potential is there to stream some live video back. I’ll look into this closer to the time.

So yeah, if you have a video-capable Nokia phone, check it out. Its free and its pretty fun. I may throw some Guitar Hero vids up over the weekend, once I’ve nailed that damn Slayer song on hard…

More details can be found by clicking here.

I’ve so far held out from reinstalling either service since my initial discovery that 4OD were using the kservice.exe service to use my bandwidth without permission, and avoided the BBC iPlayer when it became clear it was using a similar underhanded tactic. Its been a while so I may take this as an opportunity to reinstall them again and see if any changes have been made. I’ll also test drive Murads application and see if it does what it says on the tin.

Hat tip to Geoff for pointing me in its direction.

Note – I’m not sure if this works with the Sky By Broadband flavour of the kservice.exe service and don’t have the facility to check. If anyone can confirm this, let me know!

Thanks GOD I (or anyone else in my house) decided against investing in a HDDVD player for the Xbox 360, otherwise I’d I think I’d be spitting teeth about now. That said, if you’re going to buy a player in the middle of a format war then you’re asking for trouble!

Microsoft have remained upbeat about the whole thing, pointing out that this would not affect their customers ability to play already-owned HD DVD’s and HD movies downloaded over Xbox LIVE. I can’t imagine thats much consolation to the early adopters that are now £100-£150 out of pocket.

So keep an eye out for a blu-ray attachment for the Xbox 360 being released in the not too distant future. I imagine Microsoft will want to get themselves knee-deep in this emerging market as soon as possible.

The one good thing about this announcement? I can now go and buy a HD movie player without worrying about it being obsolete in a few months!!

I held out installing the iPlayer for a couple of weeks, even though I’d initially been pretty excited about it. I’d heard that the BBC were using the notorious kontiki p2p software, but assumed (or maybe hoped) that it might have been a little more flexible this time round – even if it just allowed me to change the port, or stop the uploading without having to add rules to my firewall. «sigh» I was wrong.

4OD were lucky, comparatively, not to get as much attention drawn to them as the iPlayer has. The key difference between 4OD and the iPlayer situations is the media coverage around the launch of the BBC app, both positive and negative. All the buzz around the fact the iPlayer would only work on Windows XP, the debates surrounding the DRM choices they made and the fact that its the BBC – if you live in the UK you’ve probably already paid your license fee, so essentially you’ve already paid to use it – all meant the critics were out in force looking for something to jump on. So the fact users are deceived into allowing their PCs to be used as an unofficial download server was always going to be portrayed as being a massive issue, and quite rightly so. Various groups have launched websites to protest the BBCs choice of Microsoft as a DRM software partner, and BT have even had to deny reports that they, along with other ISPs, are piling on the pressure to charge more for iPlayer content to deal with the upsurge in downloading from home PCs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not specifically a BBC/4OD hater or lover – I’m more of a Kontiki hater But I’m not willing to become one of the bandwagon crowd, shouting about how they’ll refuse to use the software because of it, blah blah blah – the words “cutting”, “nose”, “spite” and “face” instantly spring to mind. I didn’t stop using the web because pop-ups were getting on my nerves, and likewise I won’t miss out on watching something I want to see, just because the BBC use software provided by an unscrupulous company. There are ways around having the constant uploading or the 100% CPU usage, so its not a worry to me (although it is getting a bit tiring having to mess with firewall settings every time I want to use it). The problem is the hundreds of thousands of people that won’t know what to do, or won’t even realise. Remember how bad the spyware “epidemic” got before people started taking notice?

If you’re noticing any random firewall activity or high CPU usage (PC freezing, lagging, etc) since installing the iPlayer or 4OD, you can follow these instructions to configure a ZoneAlarm firewall to block the traffic when you’re not using the software. The instructions were written for 4OD, but adapting them for the iPlayer is straightforward enough. Let me know if you need any help.

In my opinion, CNET sum it up best when they say “We want to love iPlayer, we really do”… But they’re doing their best to make it as difficult as possible! Fingers crossed this is a BETA issue, but judging by the fact its now apparent in at least 3 TV on demand services (Sky By Broadband, 4OD and the iPlayer), I’m not holding out too much hope.

– Update 1 – 30/8/2007 –
For anyone technically minded that wants more information on the workings of the iPlayer/Kontiki P2P software, check out strix.org.uk/posts/The-BBC-iPlayer. It may be a bit daunting to anyone with no interest how software works, but I’d recommend it to anyone that does!

– Update 2 – 19/2/2008 –
Murad has come up with an application to stop kservice running completely, which could prove to be useful if you want to keep using iPlayer/4OD. Click here for more details.

http://www.google.com/search?q=mou.me.uk&esrch=BetaShortcuts

I’m a pretty fast typist, but inevitably reaching for the mouse is always going to limit how much I can accomplish in the time available. So Ive always been open to learning any keyboard shortcuts I think I could benefit from – from obvious generic windows shortcuts like Ctrl+C for copy, to Ctrl+R to run queries from within Visual Studio SQL Query Analyser (took me ages to find that one!). So finding a way of skipping through Google results without using the mouse instantly made sense. As an added bonus, users of Google Reader should instantly recognise the shortcuts as those used to navigate their RSS feeds.

You’d be suprised how many times you’ll click your mouse during a single session on your PC. Don’t believe me? Try downloading Clickr and start counting your mouse clicks. I think you’ll be suprised!

http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone

The question is – will it blend?

A bit more investigation and it becomes obvious its part of the ‘package’ that came with Channel 4 (UK)’s new 4OD service that allows you to download their shows online. kservice.exe, from Kontiki, installs itself as a windows service and works as a p2p client in the background, downloading the programs from a distribution of other 4OD users. However, when you quit 4OD, kservice.exe continues to run!

As well as this, it doesnt appear to offer:

• Any sort of option to limit or control the amount of bandwith its using
• Any automatic way of uninstalling
• Any way of changing the port from 8080

I have to admit at this point I was starting to wonder if something had gone wrong with the install. Surely a reputable company wouldnt knowingly install malware on their viewers PCs?? But after a quick Google search I realised I wasn’t the only one (here and here) – it seems Sky By Broadbands customers are having the same problems.

Channel 4 do have a disclaimer on their site:

4oD uses peer to peer (“P2P”) technology. This allows content to be transferred directly from the computers of users of the Service (rather than through a website or directory). If you download Content to your computer, during the Licence Period, we may upload this from your computer (using part of your upstream bandwidth) for the purpose of transferring Content to other users of the Service. Please contact your Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) if you have any queries on this.

But I dont see anything here about it continuing to run after the application has been shut down.

The annoying thing is that Ive actually have a fair bit of use out of 4OD so far. Watching Peep Show and Derren Brown on a weekend when I’ve got some spare time is definitely a bonus, but the fact that I discovered all this out by accident leads me to agree with Geoff – its a little worrying that thousands of people are now running a P2P server on their PC without even knowing it. And how many of these people use ISPs that limit their monthly bandwith?

My solution? My firewall is now blocking internet access to kservice.exe. A little ropey I know, but it’ll allow me to reactivate it again in a few days when theres something on I want to watch! Its not that I have a problem with the whole P2P sharing culture, I just like to be given a choice.

– Update –
It seems to have done the trick. Zonealarm is keeping 4OD off the internet, and when I re-allow internet access, it works fine.

If you’re using Zonealarm and you’re having the same problem, try this:

• Double click the ZoneAlarm logo in the taskbar at the bottom-right of the screen
• In the window that opens, click “Program Control” (left hand side)
• Ensure the “Programs” tab is highlighted (between main and components)
• Scroll down till you see kservice.exe
• To stop the bandwith thievery, scroll right and click whatever’s showing in the “Access – Trusted” column and set it to “Block”. This should put a red cross next to all 4
• To reactivate, click in the “Server – Internet” column and set to “Allow”. This should put change the red crosses to green ticks

Good luck

– Update 2 – 19/2/2008 –
Murad has come up with an application to stop kservice running completely, which could prove to be useful if you want to keep using iPlayer/4OD. Click here for more details.