My father and I have been trying for some time now (around 20 minutes) to direct my grandmother to the power button on her new HD ready LCD flat screen television.

The power button is hidden on the leftmost edge of the television, behind is a component input.  We have been unable to point this out to her.

But this made me think.  How could the television have been designed better?  Of course it could have had better placed and more tactile buttons but the television could have been networked.

Consider this, a range of electronic devices, such as PVR’s, DVD players, televisions – even microwaves for example all networked together and connected to the internet.  I would be able to establish a connection with my grandmother’s house.  I could invoke the device and command it remotely, i.e. turn the thing on.

Now, that’s all right if you have a family member who is computer literate enough to manage that.  Let’s consider that you do not.  The answer is to have a home monitoring system, just like you get for alarm systems.  When you have a problem, you telephone up and the representative assists you.

It would take a lot of work but the networked home optimised for the aged could, one day, be a reality!

©2008 The Blog of Ross C Brown. All Rights Reserved.

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I must have fallen asleep a few years ago as my favorite British company is now going into Software.  Tesco, your local grocers is going to be launching a line of competitively priced software applications such as firewall and CD burning as well as photo editing software.  I am sure that they obviously read one of my blog posts from a few months ago when I suggested that software companies stop worrying on the value of sales but the volume of sales to make their money.

The software titles have been developed in association with Formjet Plc - presumably that means Formjet made them and Tesco placed their bold logo on the splash screen.

I doubt that they will be able to bring out an image editor that poses any threat to Adobe, but seeing the titles are priced so competitively I may as well buy them and try them out.

Lets forget about software and think more about Tesco for a moment.  I headed over to their website today to research this post and I was surprised at what I discovered.  Tesco are now offering insurance, telephone, cellular, broadband, and legal services.  Not only are the offering that, but they have a movie rental business as well as an offshore trading division to beat the prices of Play.com on DVDs and CDs by a few pence.  Its Super Marketing if you ask me.

And despite everyone one hating them, the still managed to make £1 Billion (£1 000 000 000 (about £65 a second)) profit in six months.  I sure wish I had shares in Tesco!

Oh, and people, please stop getting angry at Tesco.  There seems to be a terrible British attitude to the successful.  If you ask me, well done Tesco!  If you are an independent retailer, ask yourself how Tesco started and raise your game to compete with them, don’t come crying to me!

If you are intrested in learning more about the Tesco Software there is a nice website for you:

• Tesco Software

©2008 The Blog of Ross C Brown. All Rights Reserved.

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My childhood has been something of a disappointment.  It was happy and all that, but I never experienced any of those ‘growing up’ conversations where ones parents would try to explain some strange fact of life, such as sexual reproduction.  The subjects were never mentioned, and my sexual education came from a very detailed and educational book entitled ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’.  It was assumed that I would know all I needed to know, or at least, I would lean sometime.

 

Now, you are probably be wondering where this is going.  As my loving father frequently reads this weblog it is not going overly exciting.
While I have been left to learn the ways of the world myself, dad was not going to leave anything to chance as far as newspapers were concerned.

 

After making sure that I was aware that papers like ‘The Sun’, ‘News of the World’ and ‘The Times’ would not be welcomed into his home, he put down his yoghurt and muesli to teach me my first (unexpected) lesson.

 

How to read The Guardian Newspaper. 

• Buy a Guardian, while it will cost considerably more that 15 pence the in vestment is well worth it.  Stealing is a thuggish act which is likely to get you on the front cover of a paper like ‘The Sun’ and we wouldn’t want that now.
• Once you have purchased your paper (available at any reputable newsagent) open the paper and remove the G2 magazine section.  Look and enjoy the Steve Bell comic strip.
• After laughter subsides, open the main paper to the centre page.  Look at the full two page spread picture.
• Now turn back to the beginning of the paper.  Remember to read the contents page before you skip through the news sections reading anything that attracts ones eye.
• After that, read a selection of articles from the Comment and Analysis Section.
• And finally, when throwing out the paper, forget to recycle it.

 

While I have slightly exaggerated the points of this lesson to make it into something worth of being blogged my father more or less has the art of reading The Guardian figured out.

 

As far as ‘coming of age’ rituals go, I’m guessing ‘newspaper reading 101’ is far from the worst!

 

However, he is not without fault.  When searching through my paper, he insisted on licking his fingers to aid the turning of pages.  Any publication which as been so thoughtfully designed – such as The Guardian - should be respected.  While white gloves are not required, have a little respect for the print on the page.  Don’t lick the pages!

©2008 The Blog of Ross C Brown. All Rights Reserved.

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Today, it is my aim to slip the word ‘Hyperforeignism‘ into a conversation.  Here are the rules:

It must be in context.

I can not initiate the conversation.

A definition:

“When pronunciation and spelling of foreign loan words are erroneously based on rules that apply to other foreign words but not to those in question, the phenomenon is hyperforeignism.”

With a bit of luck, someone will start a conversation with me about Mardi Gras! Hint! Hint!

Does anyone know the title of the music used on the Total Oil ‘Our Energy is Your Energy’ television ad?  If you do, please leave a comment as I would really like to know.

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