The release of code, begun last year, continues with the delivery of the fundamental basis of SEP sesam and is now available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Users now have the added security that they will always have access to their valuable information.

Government IT disaster recovery specialists and military backup software developers in particular will be attracted to the SEP sesam open source model as they will have full access to the underlying code.

SEP is delivering the engine of its Backup and Recovery software, SEP sesam. Thus providing the most powerful backup solution available today without cost, including the valued multi-streaming, multiplexing technology (SMS) to the GPL libraries. SMS along with the SEP Transfer Protocol for Data (STPD) controls the entire flow of data from the SEP client (already available under GPL) assuring rapid, accurate and reliable transfer to the backup medium (disk or tape, SAN, etc.). This important release allows the open source community direct access to critical algorithms and methodology used to store data. Data thus recorded can be converted to source code and be backed up to media for eventual archiving.

“The law in Europe stipulates that all businesses and institutions have the ability, without a third-party, to recover and read their data,” stated Georg Moosreiner, Chairman of SEP AG. “That is why we are providing the open source community with the source code for our Server/Master Server modules. Basically, the STPD is the brain of the software. Our users now have the added security that their backed up data will always be usable.” Moosreiner continued.

In addition to this, SEP is releasing the API and command line interface to the community. These tools enable the direct access to the STPD server and permit users to develop their own management tools and create their own unique backup environment.

“By opening the source code SEP fulfills the decisive requirement for the integration into the Open Source Solution Stack from the Linux Solutions Group e.V. (LiSoG),” reported Thomas Uhl, Director for LiSoG. “For the first time users have a guaranteed method to develop a robust and complete Enterprise Backup/Recovery solution. This software source code now escrowed for everyone to use, is a huge step toward insuring data availability and integrity for the entire community”.

Contact Save9 for info on obtaining the SPE sesam source code libraries.

There is something for everyone, and events cover a wide-range of topics such as web development, networking, tourism, music, animation and design. Speakers include representatives from the University of Hull, Yorkshire Coast College, people from the Scarborough business community and perhaps most excitingly of all Vaughn Oliver.

Save9 will be lending their full support and our very own Steve Bromham will be giving a talk on Cloud Computing and I will be helping to arrange BarCamp Scarborough. We look forward to seeing you there!

Visit the Digital Scarborough website for more information

Before I get into the few points I would like to make I have a confession to make. Despite being a web-developer who likes playing with new technologies, I haven’t exactly taken to Social Networking, Facebook in particular. Even with this in mind I cannot see why anyone would stop using Facebook, Twitter or even services like StumbleUpon to use it.

It shows status updates but so do Twitter and Facebook. You can share links, but loads of other sites do that, it ties into Gmail but I don’t want it to (I haven’t got an account) and perhaps most annoying of all, the sharing of sites seems to revolve around images and video. Now I’m going to let you into a little secret, and I will whisper it, some people actually like to read and learn on the Internet.

With all this in mind I just think, above all else, they are just too late. They have tried and failed before with Orkut so why will this work? If anyone wants to leave a comment feel-free but why not just send me a Wave about it?

Acceleration in the adoption of technologies such as cloud computing and virtualisation within the enterprise will result in a fifth of businesses owning no IT assets whatsoever by 2012, according to the research findings.

The market analyst argues that while the requirement for enterprise hardware, from desktop computers to staffed data centres, will remain consistent at its current level, responsibility for this equipment will increasingly shift to third parties. These will include both external data centre and service providers, and enterprise employees themselves, of whom more and more will take advantage of their own laptops or smartphones for work purposes.

Because of this, Gartner forecasts, enterprise IT budgets will be scaled back or allocated elsewhere for more strategic projects. Subsequently, vendors will also be forced to reconsider their own strategies in order to meet these changes in the business IT landscape.

Sites such as Twitter have always had question marks hanging over them from the web community. Until they get taken under the wing of a bigger company who could use the technology or user information, how are they going to be able to keep running without generating large sums of income?

Due to the nature of the content on the site, YouTube needs to be able to make money more than most due to its storage and bandwidth needs alone. YouTube have claimed that 20 hours of video is uploaded a minute and it is believed that over 10 billion videos are streamed on the site (Just to quantify that number – it would take around 500 hundred years for a person to count to 10 billion!).

With this in mind YouTube need to start making some serious revenue and they have just announced that they are to offer a rental service for some videos. Initially there will be five videos available to rent but only to users in the USA. The films are going to be from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance festivals and most will be charged at £2.50 for a 48hr rental.

Content creators wanting to charge for the rental of their videos/films on YouTube will be able decide how much to charge, with YouTube taking a cut. It is an interesting development and we will know more when the service is initially launched on the 22nd January.

• The first step is to sign-up for your API key – once done you will receive an email and you are ready to go.
• When you receive your API key you will need to call the API, I did this by placing the following code inside the header:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmapapi/openspace.js?key=paste_your_API_key_here">

• Once you have done this you are ready to start constructing your javascript.. You can customise this code but I have created a Javascript function as below:
  <script type="text/javascript">
  //<![CDATA[
  var osMap;
  function init() {
  
  //Create a new instance of osMap
  //The 'os-map' indicates the name of our div and where it will show
  osMap = new OpenSpace.Map('os-map');
  
  //I find it easier to work with Lat/Long so create a lonlat var
  var lonlat = new OpenLayers.LonLat(-0.4020 , 54.2798);
  
  //In this case we will put a grid on the map
  var gridProjection = new OpenSpace.GridProjection();
  
  //As I want to work around a centralised point I will create a variable for it
  //I have passed in the longitude and latitude variable from above
  var pos = gridProjection.getMapPointFromLonLat(lonlat);
  
  //Now set the center of the map - using the previous variable
  osMap.setCenter(pos, 7);
  
  //Finally add a marker - again using longitude and latitude
  var markers = new OpenLayers.Layer.Markers("Markers");
  osMap.addLayer(markers);
  var marker = new OpenLayers.Marker(pos);
  markers.addMarker(marker);

  }
//]]>
</script>


• In order to get the map to display you must do two things. Create a div with the name specified in the above code (os-map):
  
<div id="os-map" style="height:400px;width:400px;">

• Secondly call your javascript function:
  
<body onload="init()">

• You should now be left with a finished map:

This implementation will be very familiar to users of Google Maps. The demo above is a quick implementation to give you an idea of the basic principles. You may need to implement it in a different way but follow these basic steps and you should get there. We have shown:

• How to center a grid
• Position a marker
• Add Grid lines

For more information or advice please visit OpenSpace directly where they have a developer community and tutorials.

As with all APIs the only real barrier is the developers imagination. I think many people will find these maps useful, especially those who find that the maps provided by Google don’t have enough information. I can see many public sector sites making use of the service, but to get you thinking below are a few sites that have already used the service:

• Wheresthepath – A very simple idea that shows the OS maps at the side of a Google Map
• Lake District Tour – An application that allows the user to explore the Lake District
• Sky Cam – A good example of an idea that would have usually used the Google Maps API

I will be taking a look at the service in the near future so I will let you know how we get on.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords was launched in 2000 and allowed any person or business to access a new advertising space. By creating a self-service advertisement platform companies could target their customers very precisely and tweak and update adverts as and when they see fit along with an easy way to manage their advertising expenditure to boot.

Files sharing copy written materials

This issue seems to be as old as the Internet itself but Napster was sued in December 1999 by the RIAA for technically allowing the transfer of copy written material between its users and it shut down in July 2001.

In the years following many file sharing sites have gone a similar way, one of the most controversial being The Pirate Bay. The servers that run the site have been raided and in recent months, former owners have appeared in court and told to remove links, even though they no longer own the site after selling it in 2006. Prior to this the owners were found guilty of breaking copyright law and given a prison sentence along with a hefty fine. The site however has gathered much support and now a political party named after the site is the third-largest in Sweden.

Blogger Fired

Heather Armstrong was working as a Web designer in Los Angeles when she started writing about her company and co-workers in her blog, Dooce.com. When discovered by her bosses she was fired in 2002, possibly the first person to be fired for blogging.

You would think that people would learn from the mistake made by one person, but apparently not.

The Great Firewall of China

Many countries have been accused of censoring Internet content, the latest being Australia. However, it is China who have perhaps been the most notorious with Barack Obama openly criticising the so called “Great Firewall of China”.

Much of the censorship was uncovered around the time of the 2008 Summer Olympics and banned content includes news sources that include articles about police brutality and freedom of speech. The political and cultural debates are, as you would expect, for too vast to go into here but there is plenty of information on the subject and I would urge you to find out more:

• BBC Article
• greatfirewallofchina.org
• Wiki Article

Google Street View

Google Street View allows users to see a 360 degree photo of streets and they can navigate along them within the Google Maps functionality – but this caused worries over privacy.

In order to collect the images various cars with mounted cameras were driven around taking pictures, I even saw one in Scarborough! Within just two days it was alleged that many shady goings on were captured (not in Scarborough I must add) including “pedestrians picking their noses, police attending a fatality, a man climbing into an apartment block and a possible drug deal”.

Google tried to subdue concerns by explaining they have made it easy to flag inappropriate content and stated that they approached organisation such as drug treatment facilities and shelters before taking the images.

It must be noted that Google can remove or edit images though – as detailed in this article. Can’t think why though

Net Neutrality debate

Again another issue that we haven’t got the opportunity to go fully into here but Net Neutrality basically “prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination”.

It will affect everyday users as ISPs could effectively give preferential treatment to one website or service over another. For instance, people who regularly use bandwidth hungry websites such as YouTube could suffer as their bandwidth is reduced to service other customers. This ability to restrict traffic could also arguably hit competition as ISPs limit sites and services offered by competitors in order to promote their own.

For more information please visit – savetheinternet.com

Rage Against The Machine score Christmas number one

Social media prevails! Fed-up with X Factor’s dominance in the Christmas charts Rage Factor was set-up in order to get Rage Against The Machine’s track “Killing in the name of” to the top-spot at Christmas. On one level it was refreshing to see a genuine race for the top spot and see some original and controversial music prevail but I think it does much more than that. Various Social Media campaigns were set-up, firstly Facebook and then Twitter where people campaigned tirelessly and ultimately made it happen. It shows that the Web is truly staring to take on traditional media. Also don’t forget it was the first download-only number one…..hopefully the CD isn’t dead.

Google Books indexes copy written material

Sure as eggs is eggs every time a new medium starts to take off copyright rears its head as Google found out when it tied to index books and publications that were still under copyright. In 2005 a group of publishers and authors , including giants such as Penguin, tried to sue Google. Finally an agreement was reached that allows out of print books to be accessed digitally through Google or selected universities and libraries.

Facebook change Privacy Policy

For those of us who view such sites with suspicion and understand the damage they can do it was interesting to learn that early in 2009 Facebook updated their “Terms of Service”. The Terms of Service effectively allowed them to retain any content posted by users and ultimately claim ownership of it once it was posted – even if the account and content was deleted. After an outcry from their users, Facebook elected to revert back to their original Terms of Service but they have started to face fresh criticism. They are facing allegations of tricking users into sharing information with the wider web and search engines.

Iran and Twitter

There are more and more examples of social media sites such as Twitter enabling people to promote or change issues they feel strongly about. The internet users of Iran turned to the likes of Twitter to organise themselves and gather support for their views after the 2009 election.

The campaign reached beyond their supporters and moved into mainstream media all over the world – promoting the US Government to ask Twitter to put off a system upgrade to keep the service running.

In summary then it has been an interesting decade with plenty of talking points. As the Internet comes more and more into our everyday lives privacy and freedom of speech will continue to play a major role.

Oh and you can bank on Google to be at the centre of more storms in the next decade.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at Save9!

Emerging super powers and developing nations drive innovation

Due to the rise of mobile technology people in areas that have not been able to get connected now can. For example the growth on Internet usage in Africa over the last decade has grown by over 1, 300%. All the new users have new needs and most exciting of all new ideas. Speaking at a recent conference, Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales said that the new cultures, languages and ideas would “mix and match in amazing ways.”

Location based social networks

We have seen many location based applications emerge on the iPhone and established ‘Web 2.0′ sites include location based services – for example GeoTagging on Flickr. The beauty of the Internet is that anyone can contribute to any topic but that inevitably means a lot of information that isn’t relevant to a user at a moment in time. Give information a contextual quality, such as a location, means that relevant information should be easier to find and crucially more useful to the user.

As the decade progresses it is thought that this will emerge into a big industry, APIs such as those provided by Google for Google Maps and sites that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with open APIs, such as Trip Advisor enable useful applications and websites to be created.

Real-time search

It could be argued that this has started to progress and take off quite nicely, but it hasn’t quite entered everyday public use. As touched on in a previous blog post, real time search will help provide more relevant search result for users.

Magazine and Newspaper Apps

This topic has also been covered in a previous blog post but I believe we will see a lot more of these in the coming year. They have the ability to provide people with what they want, when they want it and most importantly it gives newspapers and magazines an opportunity to make money.

Someone…somewhere…will find an effective use for Google Wave

Google Wave has many detractors but as it rolls out to more and more users I think people will find it a useful tool, and that’s the point, it is a tool, it will not replace email (at least I hope not)!

Talking of finding a use we have a few ideas so watch this space.

So there you have it, we will check back in twelve months to see what happens!

I will leave you with a few other predictions from my colleagues:

• Simon predicts that the move to ban Google Analytics in Germany will fail
• Steve predicts that cloud computing will take off in a big way

The problems with charging for online content have been debated numerous times and it boils down to this:

News stories are just that :- news. They aren’t owned by anyone and the fact that the BBC report news on their website (that, as license fee payers, we already pay for) means that people can always get news without paying extra.

What about specialist news I hear you shout! Again same problem, news is out there and there will always be someone who will offer it for free or write their own version and post it. How about a group of friends clubbing together and accessing the content with a shared username and passwords?

But it could work

The Internet is successful because it gives people a voice. Anyone can post content and that is never going to change. The sooner online newspapers and magazines can accept that and think of ways they can truly differentiate themselves is the time they can start to make money.

Charge to search and access archives

It’s the data and libraries of information that holds the key for these companies. Don’t charge for accessing up to the minute news information on your website, there is no point. Charge to access old articles and information and maybe even charge on per a search basis. Only major news websites will have the capacity to do this, and the fact that the information cannot be cross-checked and supplemented by what users hear on TV and Radio means they have a greater need to go to a respected source.

Micropayments

The article linked above states that Johnson Press are charging £5 for a three-month subscription. That price is enough for users to think twice when parting with the fee and each user is charged the same regardless of how often the service is used.

A new pricing model may be that of Micropayments. If a user is charged, for the sake of argument, 1p every time they read a news article they will not think twice about parting with that sum of money. The issue of micropayments have been around for a while so if you fancy a little bed-time reading then these links may be of use:

The Case For Micropayments
The Case Against Micropayments

Life beyond the browser
As many sites offer current news stories, as discussed previously, there is little point for charging for the data – on the browser. What about other devices?

Mobile has grown in a big way this year and the massive success of the iPhone means that users can be permanently connected. Online newspapers and magazines could charge for current content as they provide it to the user when they are not at their PC or laptop, by charging for apps. Again the key here is to offer something different, for example a searchable archive.

Many companies online struggle to create revenue, with Twitter being the high-profile case, but it should be possible with a shift in thinking.