The Login Screen

I really don’t like how the text is aligned to the right, however the input is aligned to the left. So when you click on the box your focus is in the wrong spot (text should disappear when you click the box)

Home Page

There is a lot more going on, social network links, images of bands and groups, etc. This isn’t to be loved or hated but I see this as an improvement from what I remember.

Artist

This artist page has some cool idea’s going on. It is no Ping and it isn’t trying to be. Technically Guvera existed way before Apple announced their Ping service. It has 4 main sections which I’ll talk about quickly.

Overall though it is a decent idea for a page, and has many decent ideas within the page. This seems to be the biggest problem for me. There isn’t a way I can click on the subheading/section to see specific information or expanded information for that section. Pretty much all of the sections need to be removed from this page. Instead I would have the ‘Artist’ section down the bottom take up the whole page, removing the scrolling within the section and that way I get what I expect.

Touring

This lists the artists which I can only but assume are touring at the moment. Of course I’m not sure where this information is gathered from and there is no information on the site regarding dates, locations, info, etc. I did a few random checks on artists who have been listed as touring or having gigs this year and all cases they actually were (3 tests). Basically great idea, but provide information about the tour! There is also only space for 7 artists to be on tour, which is displayed in total random fashion. ie: If there are more than 7 artist on tour, it will only show 7 and there isn’t a way to list anymore

Greatest Hits

Well similar to above, artist who pretty much have ‘greatest hits’. Not much to go on here, it does what it says. Also in the similar 7 artist order, at least when you click on the link it takes you to their album/songs as that is the expected behaviour.

New Releases and Charting

Same thing, I guess this is an area to list new songs and if nothing new is happening, songs that are charting. Not much to say here really. Good concept.

Artists

Well this is stupid, it lists artist starting with A, however it can’t lis them all see it goes over pages. Fair enough. But then why do I have to scroll horizontally in this small window? I’m not a fan at all. Besides there seems to be a lot of artist with duplicates in the list. This needs a major revamp, great idea just not done well at all.

Albums

The Albums page follows the same formula of Artist. However I can’t help but feel it is better suited for Albums. There are 3 main section with images in the following categories, Live Albums, 80′s Classics and Our Picks. I’m not going to bother talking about each section. Basically I like the idea, however I want to click on sections, what happens if I want to look in other categories? Do they exist? Improvements could made for sure, however it needs to be talked about as there are pro’s and con’s.. I’m not getting paid for this (although maybe Guvera should swing me a few hundred bucks for my time).

Channels

Well I can say it doesn’t follow the same formula as the previous to pages.. but it kinda of does (not from a lack of trying). It basically lists My Channels, Our Picks and Classic Albums. Straight up, why is Classic Albums here. This has to be some sort of bug. I don’t see any relation to this. Remove it.

So basically a Channel is where stuff happens. I should probably expand on this, but I’m really only reviewing how things have changed and to me. It doesn’t looks like it has changed that much. I will say one thing quickly. “In the Guvera Channel, you can watch a video on ‘How to download’, where is the audio at? A little voice over to tell the users what is happening wouldn’t be bad, or some music. I can only assume there is nothing, or for some reason it wasn’t working on my PC (or should I say Mac now).

Update: There also appears to be no correlation to ‘My Channels’ vs what I’ve actually picked to ‘My Channel’ as seen under ‘My Guvera’. Of course it is called favourites, so maybe they are different things?

Genres

Well this follows the some formula. I can’t help but feel this formula needs improvement! I expect to see a list of genres of music I can select from, but I can only see 3 from which Guvera has picked. The thing down the bottom where I can search for a genre / refine the list. Like I said before this needs to be bigger, no scrolling, etc. This section however I’m pretty sure (100%) they aren’t even Genre’s you search for.

Update: There is a sub menu underneath the Genre menu when you click it. This lists other genres, however this needs work as well. Things just aren’t categorised well enough. (this was hard to find, mainly because of the said formula on the other 3 pages didn’t have this sub menu – also this technically looks to be the 4th menu from the top).

New Releases – Top Downloads

These two pages I’ve decided to put under the same heading. Basically it is the same formula, I’m that bored already I can’t explain it further. I will however say this is where I would expect a Grid slash (yes I typed it rather than using a symbol) Chart to display information, songs, trends, etc. Go look at the Aria charts for inspiration on this one.

Other Random Pages/ Things

• Favourites under ‘My Guvera’ displayed ‘created’, this is now when the channel was created from what I can tell but when you actually added to be a favourite. This is miss leading.
• My Account Details -> This has still be an issue/bug since I reported it last time (either reported it or wrote about it in a blog post, if not both). I still can’t edit my date of birth to my correct one. It is still of by a day (can you at least just change this for me now, make it a 13).
• It still doesn’t excite me, engage me or give me a reason to return. The amount of downloads is still limited to the amount of channels and how much an advertiser wants to allow. Fair enough, but I imagine you might max out at 10 downloads a year?
• There are now credits it seems now, it is purely ‘downloads available’ this is an improvement, I believe I commented on this ages ago.
• No way to interact with other users on the site? How big a community is this?
• What are the goals of Guvera, to give you legal downloads to music – well you can only do so much.. I think you need to expand your goals and become much more to keep interest (how about ‘Become the number 1 site for fans to get information on music’?, well.. I must admit I haven’t tried hard but I do imagine seeing stuff like artist page which albums, lyrics, tour dates, forums, chat rooms?, etc…

Summary

Guvera has progressed, however I would say it has only moved forward by about one or two ‘Sprints’ (translated Agile development talk into a time –> 2 to 8 weeks). This is really slow for an up start and to be honest it is one of the reasons why I haven’t visited it until now. In fact the only reason I did as I was prompted to give some feedback again. I can’t help but feel sorry for the guys at Guvera, as I can get right behind what they are trying to do and it isn’t with out great effort on their part (or is it). It just doesn’t seem to be working out for them. I feel they need more than ‘Beta’ testers to point our obvious flaws and bugs with the code, layout suggestions but they need to giving more direction as a company where they want to go. How they can open up and get people interested like me.

I wish them well, but I wont be visiting the site again until I hear people around me talking about it as I honestly feel if they don’t step their game up, their idea wont be so new and interesting in a few years once they change the lay out a bit more and fix a few bugs.

One point of note though. I haven’t commented on the range of music available which would have to be the biggest things. It would clearly appear they have gotten a lot more artists on board and there is more music on offer. I feel that this might of been their biggest challenge and has consumed most of their time. On this side, I think they are getting there for sure!

Dolphin Nursery at SeaWorld, Orlando, USA.

One of the first things we did at SeaWorld was come across this dolphin nursery. At the time we were trying to find a map and work out a game plan for the day while walking. We saw this quiet little area that looked fairly open so we thought we would check it out. To our surprise we started seeing dolphins pop there head out of the water near us, as they all started taking a keen interest in what we were doing (and vice versa).

Orca (Killer) Whale Show at SeaWorld, Orlando, USA.

As everyone entered into the arena to watch the show, they let the Orca whales out to just swim around. This wasn’t part of the show but it was pretty cool watching them be whales.

Dexter Walkway Advertising, Las Vegas, USA.

In the MGM Grand in Las Vegas there are a few advertisements which light up the ground. The best one, would have to be this one for Dexter. As you walk over it, blood covers the area and reveals the show time.

I’ve talked to the guys at Harvey Norman and there is nothing they can do. As it is still covered by the manufacturers warranty all that they will do is send it back to them. I wasn’t really interested in that idea so I’ve called back Sony. Interestingly once my Playstation 3 fails 3 times in the extended warranty period with Harvey Norman they will replace it (I wonder if I’m allowed to include all the times it has failed already).

Talking over the phone to Sony (on a Saturday) the only thing they can do is go through the normal procedure which involves the following:

Normal Warranty Procedure for a Sony Playstation 3

1. You Google Sony Australia Playstation 3 support and you go through a few of their pages, sometimes you loop through to the same pages until you end up clicking on a pretty image called the ‘Retailer Returns Guide‘. (If your really good you will be able to find this page, ironically titled ‘Find Us‘).
2. You read through the document searching for a phone number and end up calling them up (make sure you get the ‘Consumer’ number).
3. You talk about what the problem is, exchange contact details and they e-mail you a barcode (prepaid postage with Australia Post).
4. You print up the barcode, take it to Australia Post. You receive a box and some bubble wrap and you send your Playstation 3 away. It is IMPORTANT you keep your receipt (see below).
5. A week later you get a Refurbished Playstation 3 back, this is of the same make and model.

Consumer Support for Playstation 3 Australia: 1300 365 911

It is important to note, that if ‘Sony’ doesn’t send you it back in a week you will have to call them and chase them up. The procedure for ‘Sony doesn’t have your Playstation 3′ goes something like this:

Your Sony Playstation 3 hasn’t be received by Sony (they have lost it). Procedure to find it again

1. You follow the above procedure however you don’t get it back in a week or hear from Sony.
2. You decide to call them up and see what is going on. Your friendly, they are friendly and you agree it will turn up tomorrow.
3. You wait a day or two.
4. You call them back up and let them know you still haven’t heard anything. They now request the Australia Post receipt.
5. You attempt to apply and procedure to tell them the details on the receipt, however they want a copy of it. You attempt to do the following.
   1. Tell them the details over the phone.
   2. Suggest that you will photocopy the receipt and e-mail them. You then get told that there e-mail strips all attachments and they wont receive it.
   3. Suggest that you will photocopy the receipt and post it online and e-mail them a link they can click on to get the attachment. They tell you there internet is filtered and it might not work.
   4. Suggest that you will do the above and post in on the sony forums, your personal website, anywhere to get around there filter. They response and say no it has to be faxed.
   5. You give up thinking of using modern technology and you fax them a copy of the receipt.
6. You hear back from them a day later saying that they have the fax and are going to chase up Australia Post.
7. A day or so later, you find out they had received it however they just lost it themselves and will return in it.
8. A few days later you receive a broken Playstation 3 and wonder how going through the above procedure will work for the third time (and 4 Playstation later).
9. You decided it isn’t going to work and you end where I am now. Today…

Procedure for getting your Playstation 3 fixed after it has failed 3 times

• You go through the normal procedure and advise them you are not happy. Then let them know you don’t want to go through the normal procedure.
• You get told that it is a Saturday and all they can do is the normal procedure, not unless you wait for a supervisor to call you back (On Monday).
• You wait until Monday arrives..

Update:

8/11/2010 – Receive a call from the supervisor and he agree’s that 3 times is a bit crazy. We have organised that I will send my PS3 back and I shall get a *New* PS3 in return. In this case it should be an upgraded model (Bigger HDD) as my model is currently available. As I will be in the USA by the time I receive the package it will be at least a month or so before I know what gets sent back. Hopefully this is the last time I have to think about it.

13/12/2010 – It has been a while since the an update (I have been on a holiday for almost a month). I’ve received a new PS3 (250GB Model) and so far it is working with out any problems. Of course I’ve only tested it for a few days but so far it is looking good.

Well I was about 1 minute into the movies Blade Runner and it suddenly died. Pressing the power button does nothing. After checking all the cables, the only thing that seems to work is removing the power cord and plugging it back in. After which the Playstation 3 will die again.

The good news – I was able to eject the movie, that bad news a virtually untouched refurbished Playstation 3 is going into to repair again.

I’ve taken a quick video to share. I really can’t be bothered though to be honest but I do feel better about getting a 4 year extended warranty through Harvey Norman now. Suddenly that extended warranty (or even a normal warranty) that I seem to never use is going to come in handy!

I’ve taken a video which I might try and upload later. Update: I’ve now uploaded the videos if your interested (a few MB each).

Click to download video!

• PS3_Power_Die_01
• PS3_Power_Die_02

Update:

16/10/2010 – Date problem occurred as per above

25/10/2010 – Called Sony support, asking on a status of the return. They claim they haven’t received it and to call back with Australia Post receipt

26/10/2010 – Called Sony support, asking for a status (haven’t received). Given them Australian Post information however this wasn’t good enough. Required to fax it through. No other means will be accepted (E-Mail – Photo – Scan – Link to website – etc). Fax number isn’t that one advertised on the support sheet. Correct number was 02 8580 5262. Faxed through details. Received a voice mail message stating they were able to find the package and they will send out a replacement as soon as they can (no e-mail confirming they have received it yet).

28/10/2010 – Auto generated e-mail letting me know they have now ‘received my console’.

2/11/2010 – Received Playstation 3 – Tested and it looks like it is working (although it has totally freezed up during a game of Uncharted 2 – more testing needed)

Summary:

To be honest I’m not too happy with the turn around on this and the lack of feedback I received from Sony in regards to this problem. I would of expected this to have been flagged as a higher priority issue as it was the second warranty job. If not for that reason the 10 day wait and follow up calls to see where my Playstation was.

Total days until resolution 18 days (including the day the problem occurred and the day it was received)

• FIFA 2010 menu slow to load/freezes
• Pre-match / warm-up before the game loads (where you can just move the player around and kick goals) was freezing every few seconds

This translated in FIFA 2010 being unplayable. We did all the usual checks:

• Checked CD was scratch free and clean
• Checked power cables, controllers fully charged
• Checked that the Playstation Firmware was up to date (it wasn’t so decided to update)
• Checked FIFA 2010 was up to date (it was)

Nothing made a difference, if anything it seemed to get worse in my opinion. I started to notice the Playstation 3 XMB menu acting slow to load as well. I was able to navigate through the menus and have to wait to see all the icons load, then once they loaded up I had to wait even further for the picture to load in the placeholders. Perhaps 20 – 30 seconds across all the menu’s. This made me think it was starting to be a Playstation problem and not a FIFA problem.

Easy enough to rule out, we put on some other games to see what would happen:

• Tekken 6: Not freezing in game, but an excessive amount of time to load up a 1 vs 1 match
• Need For Speed Shift: Not freezing in the race, however an excessive amount of time to load a race
• Final Fantasy XII: Took some time to load the save games (similar problem to the XMB menu), and would occasion see the scene disappear/not fully load (a delay as such)

Dr.Google wasn’t much help either. In fact I found a surprising amount of people report similar problems with FIFA 2010.

• My PS3 keeps freezing when i play Fifa, both the world cup and FIFA 10
• MY PS3 IS ALL MESSED UP AFTER 3.42 UPDATE ( IM TICKED OFF )
• I was playing Fifa 10 regularly on my PS3….
• When playing Fifa 10 in my PS3 by myself I…
• FIFA Soccer 10 › Game freezing?

Playstation 3 Recovery Module

Through out all this I came across an interesting article, letting me know how to access the Playstation 3 Recovery Module.

1. Turn off Playstation®3.
2. Hold The power button down; The system will turn on and turn off once again.
3. Once the System has been shutdown, re-press you finger until you hear 2 consecutive beeps
4. When you hear the 2 beeps take finger off power button.
5. You will be promted to plug in your controller via usb and then hit the PS button
6. The Recovery menu will pop up.

I tried restoring the file system, and some other things in the menu which didn’t involve a format which appeared to have fixed some bugs but, in the end there was no difference. At this point I decided to call Sony. The first call to Sony, led me down the track of doing a format of the Playstation 3 (which meant that I had to back up everything first, and having only an 8GB flash stick meant deleting all of my demos and some other saved data). This did nothing so I called back a few hours later.

This time, it was decided that I would need to send my Playstation 3 to get repaired. This was a pretty harmless process. Giving contact details, serial number etc. I received an e-mail that I needed to print and present to Australia Post. A box and bubble wrap was organised and it was taken care off. It took about 3 or 4 days to get to Sony. Sony actually sent an e-mail when it arrived. The next day Sony sent me another e-mail telling me they are sending me a new one. Today I’ve received it (Monday).

So in total, I was at Australia Post on Monday after noon, and received it back on Monday a week later. One point of frustration was the lack of ‘what was wrong with it’. I had to call up their support line to try and find out, and basically after telling the guy on the phone it was a Playstation 120GB Slim he said, it would be been exchanged for a factory refurbished one. That they don’t actually do the repairs locally so it would have just been exchanged on the spot. So I potentially have a really old Playstation 3 that has been through a lot of use, compared to my Playstation 3 (if you recall an earlier post about my new PS3 and FIFA 2010) which was only a few months old and had a few weeks of total use.

The main thing though, I’m not having any problems I earlier reported and the restore utility has worked. I did have to reconfigure the wireless settings, and set up the playstation 3 network profile again. The only other thing I did was update the firmware (yes – I had to update the firmware which I would of expected to have been done…).

So yeah, in summary.

No further freezing/ slowness/ FIFA 2010 pausing every few seconds. Quick turn around to get the Playstation 3 repaired. Friendly staff on phone support.

Hope this helps someone (you), if you have similar problems as I surprisingly never came across posts the posted solution to the problem, and hardly any suggested to send it in for repair!

Anyway, check out the questions and my answers below. If you do notice something is wrong let me know and I’ll try to fix it up. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, my answers are highlighted in the question already.

Lecture 1

1. The automatic connection between various Bluetooth devices creates a(n) piconet, also called a wireless personal area network (WPAN).
2. A WLAN is an extension of a wired LAN, connecting to it through a device called a(n) wireless access point.
3. Wireless Application Protocol version 2.0 (WAP2) provides a standard way to transmit, format, and display Internet data for small wireless devices such as cell phones.
4. Digital Convergence refers to the power of digital devices to combine voice, video, and text processing capabilities, as well as to be connected to business and home networks and the Internet.
5. A(n) Universal Handset is a 1.5-pound device that allows military personnel in the field to communicate through a variety of methods using wireless technologies.
6. Industrial control motes are remote sensors that can connect to a WLAN, then collect data and transmit it to a central location.
7. True or False: Bluetooth and WLAN 802.11b/g devices both operate in the same radio frequency, potentially resulting in interference between such devices.
8. True or False: Wireless devices emit high levels of RF while being used.

Lecture 2

1. The number of times a cycle occurs within one second equals the frequency of a wave.
2. A signal unit that represents two bits is known as a dibit.
3. The height of a carrier wave is known as the amplitude and can be measured in volts (electrical pressure).
4. Phase modulation (PM) changes the starting point of the cycle, while the amplitude and frequency of the carrier remain constant.
5. Phase shift keying (PSK) is a binary modulation technique, similar to phase modulation, in which the transmitter varies the starting point of the wave.
6. Spread spectrum is a technique that takes a narrow band signal and spreads it over a broader portion of the radio frequency band.
7. In FHSS, the sequence of changing frequencies is called the hopping code.
8. A(n) Barker code (or chipping code) is a particular sequence of 1s and 0s that has properties that make it ideal for modulating radio waves, as well as for being detected correctly by the receiver.

Lecture 3

1. A(n) amplifier essentially increases the amplitude of an RF sign.
2. Half-duplex transmission sends data in both directions, but only one way at a time.
3. True or False: Telephone systems use a type of switching known as packet switching.
4. Packet switching requires that the data transmission be broken into small units called packets.
5. A(n) directional antenna radiates the electromagnetic waves in one direction only, and can help reduce or eliminate the effect of multipath distortion if there is a clear line of sight between the two antennas.
6. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) serves as the primary regulatory agency for telecommunications.
7. The radio frequency spectrum is the entire range of all radio frequencies that exist.
8. Adaptive array processing replaces a traditional antenna with an array of antenna elements.

Lecture 4

1. A(n) isotropic radiator is a theoretical perfect sphere that radiates power equally in all directions.
2. Directional antennas are used when you need to transmit a signal in one direction only.
3. In free space loss, RF waves tend to spread away from the source of the signal (the antenna).
4. The length of a single RF sine wave, or the wavelength, is what determines the size of an antenna.
5. Smart antennas “know” where the mobile receiver is, and can track it and focus the RF energy in that particular direction to avoid wasting energy and to prevent interference with other antennas.
6. In most wireless communications applications, one transmitter communicates with several mobile clients. This is called a(n) point-to-multipoint wireless link.
7. The space between two antennas would be more accurately represented by something similar to an ellipse. This elliptical region is called the Fresnel zone.
8. A(n) Spectrum analyzer displays the signal amplitude and frequency, and can also detect interference in a particular frequency or channel.

Lecture 5

1. FIR uses a modulation scheme called  4-pulse position modulation (4-PPM), in which information is conveyed by the position of a pulse within a time slot.
2. At the heart of the Bluetooth RF layer is a single radio transmitter/receiver (transceiver). This single tiny chip is called a Bluetooth radio module.
3. A group of piconets in which connections exist between different piconets is called a(n) scatternet.
4. In sniff mode, a slave device listens to the piconet master at a reduced rate so that it uses less power.
5. The upper ZigBee layers include mechanisms used by the devices to join a network, which is called association.
6. The superframe is a mechanism for managing transmission time in a piconet.
7. Encryption is the process of encoding communications, and ensures that the transmissions cannot be easily intercepted and decoded.
8. Sequential freshness is a security service used by the receiving device that ensures that the same frames will not be transmitted more than once.

Lecture 6

1. The WiMedia Alliance was formed to support the development of any necessary higher-layer protocols and software specifications for 802.15.3 and to perform various other administrative functions.
2. Quality-of-service (QOS) capabilities allow devices to request more channel access time in order to prioritize high-volume, time-sensitive traffic, such as voice stream.
3. The piconet coordinator (PNC) is the device that provides all of the basic communications timing in a piconet.
4. The frame check sequence (FCS) is a 32-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field, a common technique for detecting data transmission errors.
5. Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks flood a Bluetooth device with so many frames that it is unable to communicate.
6. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a symmetric key encryption mechanism introduced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States.
7. Hand-off is the ability of a device to move from one master or PNC to another without getting disconnected from the network in a network that extends beyond the communications range of each device that controls the communications.
8. Spectrum conflict is the potential for technologies using the same frequency bands to interfere with each other to the extent that they sometimes perform poorly when used within close range of each other.

Lecture 7

1. A(n) Mini PCI is a small card that is functionally equivalent to a standard PCI expansion card.
2. The AP will automatically select the highest possible data rate for transmission, depending on the strength and quality of the signal. This process is called dynamic rate selection.
3. The 802.11 standard defines a local area network that provides cable-free data access for clients that are either mobile or in a fixed location at a rate of either 1 or 2 Mbps, using either diffused infrared or RF transmission.
4. Even though it contains data, a 802.11 frame’s size is not measured in bits but in time slots.
5. One type of channel access method is polling. With this method, each computer is sequentially polled, or asked if it wants to transmit.
6. 802.11b standard power management allows the mobile client’s NIC to be off as much as possible to conserve battery life but still not miss out on data transmissions.
7. In the 802.11b standard, management frames are used to set up the initial communications between a client and the AP.
8. The Distributed coordination function interframe space (DIFS) is a standard time interval during which all clients must wait between transmissions of data frames.

Lecture 8

1. IEEE 802.11a uses the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) band.
2. With an 802.11a WLAN, each AP can use one of 8 available channels.
3. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) primary function is to split a high-speed digital signal into several slower signals running in parallel.
4. True or False: The IEEE 802.11g standard specifies that it operates in the same frequency band as 802.11b
5. Wireless bridges are designed to connect two wired networks or to extend the range of a WLAN.
6. Authentication is a process that verifies that the client device has permission to access the network.
7. WPA2 is the version of WPA that has been certified by the IEEE to be compatible with IEEE 802.11i.
8. Virtual private networks (VPNs) use an encrypted connection to create a virtual tunnel between two points across a public or corporate network.

Lecture 9

1. A(n) broadband transmission sends multiple signals at different frequencies.
2. Scintillation is defined as the temporal and spatial variations in light intensity caused by atmospheric turbulence.
3. Local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) is a fixed broadband technology that can provide a wide variety of wireless services.
4. True or False: Multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS) is a fixed broadband wireless technology that has many similarities to LMDS.
5. A data transmission to or from a single device is called a(n) burst in the 802.16 standard.
6. Latency is the amount of time delay that it takes a packet to travel from source to destination device.
7. Jitter is the maximum delay variation between two consecutive packets over a period of time.
8. RSA is an algorithm developed in 1977 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman.

Lecture 10

1. Short Message Services (SMS) allows for the delivery of short, text-based messages between wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and pagers.
2. The mobile telecommunications switching office (MTSO) is the link between the cellular network and the wired telephone world, and controls all transmitters and base stations in the cellular network.
3. 1G technology is based on the Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS).
4. True or False: W-CDMA adds a packet-switched data channel to a circuit-switched voice channel.
5. A WML document is called a deck that contains one or more blocks, known as cards.
6. The Java programming language was developed by Sun Microsystems as an object-oriented language used for general-purpose business programming, as well as interactive Web sites.
7. The single largest factor limiting the development of 3G is spectrum.
8. Low earth orbit (LEO) satellites circle the Earth at an altitude of 200 to 900 miles (321 to 1,448 kilometers).

Lecture 11

1. One class of active tags is called beacons because they transmit on a periodic basis, without receiving an interrogation from a reader.
2. The mobile telecommunications switching office (MTSO) is the link between the cellular network and the wired telephone world and controls all transmitters and base stations in the cellular network.
3. Sensory tags, as their name indicates, can be equipped with thermal, gas, smoke, pressure, and a variety of other kinds of sensors to monitor and record environmental conditions, liquid volume levels, or attempts to tamper with a product.
4. With EPCs, companies will be able to acquire the manufacturer’s name over the Internet using a service from EPCglobal Inc. called Object Name Service (ONS).
5. HF RFID transmission uses a protocol called slotted terminating adaptive protocol (STAC), in which the tags reply within randomly selected positions or time intervals, referred to as slots.
6. After the destroy password is transmitted by the reader, the tag is permanently disabled and can never be read or written to again.
7. True or False: In hospitals, RFID tags in a patient’s identification bracelet can provide vital information that cannot be easily misplaced.
8. A(n) blocker tag is a device that can be used to simulate the presence of a virtually infinite number of tags.

Lecture 12

1. True or False: Industry experts agree that access to corporate data from almost anywhere is the greatest advantage of wireless technology.
2. Wireless VoIP phones, the telephone handsets that connect to a WLAN’s access point (AP), enable you to use the WLAN for regular telephone calls.
3. Wireless VoIP SOHO routers can be connected to a DSL or cable modem and provide both a WLAN and telephone services through the user’s Internet connection.
4. True or False: The human factor in implementing wireless technology is sometimes a significant obstacle.
5. Upfront costs are costs that are necessary to start a project.
6. A(n) Upfront is a detailed planning document that is sent to potential vendors with precise specifications for the products and services that the organization intends to buy.
7. A(n) wireless application service provider (WASP) can design and create a wireless application to run on a specific range of devices.
8. A(n) help desk is a central point of contact for users who need assistance using technology.

Perpetual – perpetually – In a perpetual manner; Seeming to never end; endlessly; constantly
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perpetually

Beta – A software release is the distribution (whether public or private) of an initial or upgraded version of a computer software product. The software engineers and company doing the work decide on how to distribute the program or system, or changes to that pre downloads and compact discs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_(software_development)

Perpetual Beta – Perpetual beta is a term used to describe software or a system which remains at the beta development stage for an extended or even indefinite period of time. It is often used by developers in order to allow them to constantly release new features that might not be fully tested.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_beta

Perpetual Beta in Web 2.0 is used to describe an online service which remains under constant development. At great example of this was Gmail.

Google’s Gmail service launched on the 1st of April, 2004 as an invite only service. I remained as an invite only service for nearly 3 years before becoming open to the public (7th of February, 2007). It was still labeled a Beta for another 2 years until the lifted the Beta labelled along with the rest of the Google Apps Suite on the 7th of July, 2009.

During its time in Beta Google constantly introduced new features and changed its services. Introducing new languages, enabled IMAP support, increasing the mailbox size, integration with Google Docs, custom themes, Google labs and many more. Click here for a history of Gmail.

So why label something a Beta? Generally if something is in Beta you can expect some things not to work, and problems arise. This is all part of harnessing the collective intelligence to develop the product, find bugs and provided feedback to make a better product. Without having a web 2.0 application or service you will be stuck in the traditional software life cycle which can cost more, take longer and not be as effective.

So why take the Beta label off after so many years? From an Infrastructure perspective you don’t deploy products that are in Beta. You deploy products that a ready that have no expected bugs or problems. Google understood this concept so after around 5 years the finally took the Beta label of. This changes how a business can look at a product and it will allow business to evaluate Gmail and related apps as a potential solution. Previously this would have been ruled out straight away because it wasn’t ready, it was in ‘beta’ and a business can’t afford to have systems that are un-reliable.

So while the main service of Gmail isn’t in Beta anymore there are still more features on going. Google introduced Google Labs which is an opt-in only service that lest to add features and functionality that are in a ‘Beta’ phase. I actually use some of these myself such as multiple inboxes, offline synchronisation, youtube preview in e-mails just to name a few. Once these have been tested enough they might make it to the core functionality of Gmail. So this is an example of a Web 2.0 service that is on a constant Perpetual Beta.

You can download a copy of at Scribd. If the link doesn’t work or you can’t download it let me know and I’ll see if I can e-mail it to you or post it up on here. It places all the information on a nice landscape page!

I’ve copied some of the text below to give you an idea of how it is set out.

Roles

Scrum Team

• Team is cross-functional and consists of 5-9 people
• There are no set project roles within the team
• Team defines tasks and assignments
• Team is self-organizing and self-managing
• Maintains the Sprint Backlog
• Conducts the Sprint Review

Product Owner (PO)

• Accountable for product success
• Defines all product features
• Responsible for prioritizing product features
• Maintains the Product Backlog
• Insures team working on highest valued features

Scrum Master (SM)

• Holds daily 15 minute team meeting (Daily Scrum)
• Removes obstacles
• Shields the team from external interference
• Maintains the Sprint Burndown Chart
• Conducts Sprint Retrospective at the end of a Sprint
• Is a facilitator not a manager

Artifacts

Product Backlog – (PB)

• List of all desired product features
• List can contain bugs, and non-functional items
• Product Owner responsible for prioritizing
• Items can be added by anyone at anytime
• Each item should have a business value assigned
• Maintained by the Product Owner

Sprint Backlog – (SB)

• To-do list (also known as Backlog item) for the Sprint
• Created by the Scrum Team
• Product Owner has defined as highest priority

Burndown Chart – (BC)

• Chart showing how much work remaining in a Sprint
• Calculated in hours remaining
• Maintained by the Scrum Master daily

Release Backlog – (RB)

• Same as the Product Backlog. May involve one or more sprints dependent on determined Release date

Update: For some reason or another people are have problem getting to the Scrum Cheat Sheet. I would recommend you try and get it from the above link but for those who can’t I’ve decided to upload it here –> Scrum Cheat Sheet <–

The first was using a video camera, and just recording the presentation.

The second also used a video camera to record the room, however this presenter used a PowerPoint for the basis of the training session. I’ve been thinking of the best way to keep this together. Unlike the first sessions the ‘video’ from the second session wasn’t that valuable but the audio and PowerPoint presentation is.

I wanted a way to combine all of this together and thus I came to a feature I’ve never used before in PowerPoint. The idea is fairly simple but you can save the slides as pictures (File > Save as Pictures).

I’ve also seen the ‘Save as Movie’ option and ‘Save as Web Page’, but in this case .jpg’s of the slides worked out.

I’ve taken the Video of the entire training session as the baseline line. I’ve then dropped the .jpg image over the video feed as required. Some slides go for longer or shorter which I can easily change with Adobe Premiere Pro (or similar software).

This also allows me to take down the .jpg in between slides where there was discussion. Overall I was fairly pleased with the outcome.

I’ve seen other methods of doing this, such as having the PowerPoint slides on half the screen and then the video feed on the other half, but on this occasion this seems like a nice fit.

The next training session is next week, which I’m planning on recording a screen capture (recording the users PC) of the entire session as the sessions will be demonstrations on ‘live’ sites where the content is dynamic and wont be in a PowerPoint slide (flicking through windows, watching the screen change, etc).

I wont be able to show you any of the work I’ve done though due to the training sessions being an internal thing at work, but if you have ideas how the best way to record ‘training sessions’ is or you know of any other useful tips and tricks, even software to make the job easier I would be interested to know.

Upon getting the beta invite in an e-mail because I joined up with the pre-registration (by the way, not everyone who pre-registered has received an invite), I logged in and got presented with the Welcome screen. It very sleek and gets right to the point.

Login Screen for Guvera Beta

From this point you have 3 main options presented to you:

Random: If you don’t know what your looking for, click on Random. It will ‘randomly’ take you to a channel where you can see what songs are being offered.

Browse: If you want to look by artist, or by channel. (Browsing by artist isn’t enabled at this stage).

Search: If you know what you want, just type it in – (I think everyone knows how a search box works). One nice thing about the search is that it brings up a small photo of the album, song title, artist and gives you the ability to preview the song.

Channels is where it all happens!

Yep, That is right it is all about finding a channel where you can see a list of songs. So far on all the channels I’ve seen you can preview a song for 30 seconds, stream the whole song or what most people I think want – download the full song for free.

So how does it work? Well each channel is sponsored. For example a company or business can set up their own channel that has there branding on it. Additional links and information that is targeted towards the user. Each channel has had a different look, but have the sleek look which Guvera has going from the welcome page.

Your File: A module that shows you the album cover, artist, song, duration, size of the song. (At the moment this doesn’t dynamically update to the song you have previewed or clicked on to stream and not all of the fields are populated like duration and size).

Your Credits: Shows you how many credits you have and how to get more. (At the start you might not have that much but once you re-fill in all the details you did when you pre-registered this increases)

Playlist: A standard set of media controls to play music.

Music: The list of music being offered in a nice grid view (Love grid views). Title, Artist, Duration with button to Preview, Stream and Download. This is essential the main window where you do all you need to do.

Links: Sponsored links such as information, promotion or competitions you can entered provided by the channel sponsor.

Do you really get songs for Free?

Yes, you do. You get credit allocated to you and you can use this up. For example I had 1.60 worth of credit after I updated my profile on each one of the channels I visited. Once I downloaded a song at one channel I had .6 credit remaining. However on the other channels I still have 1.6 credits.

I downloaded a song and got the full length .mp3. Here are some more of the interesting details for those of you who are interested:

Size: 5.5 MB
Bit Rate: 256 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
Format: MPEG-1, Layer 3
Encoded with: LAME3.98

Negatives / Bugs / Feedback

As it is a ‘BETA’ you are to expect bugs, and problems to occur. The idea is to give a small group a test at the system and to address issues found before it goes main stream. Often a users first impression lasts and it could taint them from using it in future. If you are a BETA tester you should keep this in mind, that what you are seeing isn’t the full product. So here is my feedback:

No ability to give feedback: Ironically, I couldn’t find a submit bug/forums/e-mail button anywhere to submit any problems I was having. This is the main reason I’m doing a blog post. I’m hoping this gets back to them and so they can make some improvements.

No ID3 Tags on MP3′s: This would have to be the number 1 problem I have. The mp3 I downloaded (at around 220 Kb/s) had a massive file name that doesn’t describe the song or the artist. I also made the assumption there would have to be ID3 Tags that would handle this instead. This is not the case. There is pretty much no way to identify the song you have downloaded (not unless you manually edit the file name or insert ID3 tags yourself).

Updating Profile / Favourites: There is a fair amount of questions and I had to refill in all this after I had done this to pre-register. It seems like double handling and I don’t like it. Also when it comes to your date of birthday details it actually doesn’t save this correctly. For example my date of birthday is 1 day out, as after I save it and return to the details screen it has entered in the previous day I was born.

Your Song Box: This doesn’t dynamically update to the song you are playing or have selected on the channel.

Multiple Windows: You really can’t go opening multiple windows. You can’t for example up 3 different channels and save those channels to your favourites. It will only do it for the last one you opened and you will soon see that the 3 pages you have loaded up are all the same instead of 3 different channels. You basically have a ‘single click, one window only mentality’.

Address Verification: Not sure how this is meant to happen and there is no information on this. This needs to be expanded and explained further. There also needs to be a ‘why do we need to do this’, ‘why do you need this information’ thing going through my head.

Forums / Chat Room: I would like to see a forum \ chat room made available. I might not use these features myself but I was looking for a way to communicate with other users. Imagine if a channel had its own chatroom available or a forum? It may be a way to engage the audience and create a community where people will come back (not just to download songs). This would provide greater exposure for the sponsors and Guvera and a reason for the user to stay connected. With the targeted information (such as location), it could be easy for a Brisbane radio station to get people in the Brisbane area talking to each other…. – I’m sure this idea can be expanded more and thought out more if it hasn’t already.

Credits: Credits look strangle similar to dollars. I feel like I want to call the dollars or money. I also don’t know how much a song will cost me (money term there). Perhaps this could get looked at. EG: I have 1.5 credits meaning I have 1.5 songs. I have no idea how I get half a song, or how my credits will increase now that I’ve updated my profile. I bit more explanation here guys would be great. That grid view of songs would be good to see how much credits a song costs. I’m assuming all songs cost the same, but maybe they dont?  If this gets a bit more of a look, that would be great.

Conclusion:

Guvera, does what it set out to achieve. I was able to download a song legally as an mp3. It was easy to navigate around and find the song I wanted, however once I got the song on my computer I expected more (ID3 Tags). This has actually led me to deleting the song I download so it won’t ruin my music collection rather than re-naming it myself. There are a few bugs with the site and things that need to get looked at, but see potential.

The music being offered isn’t ancient, but it also isn’t the latest stuff out there. Guvera is working on extending this further, and I look forward to it. I’m keen to see how things pan out and I would like to encourage people to pre-register but at this stage I wouldn’t recommend it to other people in this BETA stage.

Oh and ‘hi’ to the guys working there at Guvera, I believe your office is just down the road in Robina, QLD. I would like to see this work out for you guys, as support local talent is always nice.

Update 14/1/2010:

I’ve received some nice Feedback from Guvera via twitter which I would like to say thanks for taking my thoughts on board. I’ve noticed a ‘report a bug’ button. Once there are more changes, I’ll be willing to go through it all again.