Where's Wil?

I've been writing, previously, about blogging, journalism, ethics, etc.

This is incredible. It's Walt Mossberg's disclosure policy on the AllThingsD website. It's worth a read, because it's, well, pretty comprehensive. I mentioned in the essay that I wrote that we expect different standards of ethics from different types of outlets, and Mossberg appears to be standing by the Dow Jones code of conduct, and then some. Good stuff.

So this weekend, I had a rather unpleasant revelation.

There are tonnes of calories in muesli.

See, I'd always thought that muesli was healthy. I mean, it's muesli, right? It's got fruit, and nuts, and grain. Those are all good things. But damn, I was wrong.

After complaining last week that might weight loss had slowed down a bit (which it had) I decided to employ a day strictly weighing everything that I ate and then double-checking its calories, to check I wasn't missing anything. I was. I discovered that my morning bowl of muesli was a massive 700 calories. Which is like, just under half the calories I was trying to hit a day.

I thought that I was having about 300 at most for breakfast, so this was rather a surprise, and not a nice one, since I love muesli. Weighing myself out a 300 calorie serving, according to the box, left a pitiful little smattering in the bottom of my breakfast bowl. Misery.

So, I've reluctantly decided that muesli is to become an occasional treat, and to switch to a lower-calorie breakfast. this morning it was scrambled eggs (2 eggs, a drop of semi-skimmed milk, a dash of butter) and mushrooms (grilled in nothing). that's rather lower calorie, and might help the cause a little.

Pity about the three unopened boxes of muesli sat in the cupboard.

So I was hoping that by the end of April, I could reach 16 stone. Today's the last day of April, and I have. Awesome!

I started at a little over 17 and a half stone (246) at the beginning of February, and I've lost an average of half a stone a month. I'm incredibly pleased with that effort over three months. All I have to do now is keep going another while longer. My original fatblogging goal was to get to 210. I'm hoping to have reached that by the end of June. At that point, I'll be thinner than when I was at uni, and that will be incredible.

Not buying clothes is hard. There are loads of nice things out for the summer, but I'm not buying any of them. My incentive is that buying them, then losing weight, will just mean I can't wear them - so I need to lose the weight, then buy them. By the time I'm finished losing weight, I'm going to splurge on new clothes!

Unfortunately, since I plan on getting below 210 this year, it may be that I end up not buying any new summer clothes and just skip straight to winter! That would be a shame - I like summer - but if it keeps me on the fatblogging straight and narrow, this is a good thing.

I'm wondering if I could get under 200 this year. That would be completely mental. But losing weight is kind of addictive, once you start making progress you never want to stop. Ho hum.

So further to my last post, I discovered that you can watch up-to-date BBC content on the Mac using - wait for it - RealPlayer.

1999 called, they want their streaming video software back!

I mean seriously. RealPlayer? It's long been known on the PC as the bloatware to end all bloatware, but I just - with trepidation - downloaded the OSX version and it's actually not that bad. The web plug-in works fine, although the quality is pretty atrocious compard to decent Flash implementations, and it doesn't infect the rest of your system or try to take over your media library.

So for now, I'm using Mac RealPlayer to watch the BBC. And feeling dirty.

There's lots that's been written about the BBC and how it manages its online video content, and how it will do going forward. Suffice to say it's signed a broad licensing agreement with Microsoft that means WMV, with DRM on some things, is going to be the preferred video distribution platform for the foreseeable future. Whilst the BBC has indicated that this isn't ideal, it's the way the situation is for now.

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off. I'm an avid BBC fan - I will defend the license fee to anyone - and I feel like the Beeb is just writing me off as someone that can't use their video services. I'm on a Mac, and WMV streaming support on the Mac is non-existant since Microsoft discontinued Media Player for OSX last year.

What the BBC doesn't get is that the very people likely to defend its role in a commercial TV/Radio world - people who understand the value of independent reporting, paid-for journalism, world wide coverage, free access for all - are also the kind of people who enjoy operating systems that embody some of the same values (Linux, Mac for example - yes, it's a cliche, but it's also true).

So why aren't the people evangelising the Corporation to the world better supported by the people inside? I can extoll the virtues of BBC reporting until the cows come home, I just can't watch it on my machine. That is indescribably lame.

Seriously, how much work would it be to switch the daily news updates to Flash? I understand that legal reasons mean that the archive may have to use Windows Media with DRM, and I could give a monkeys about watching 10 year old TV on my PC. But today's bulletins, made under today's licenses - give us Flash you idiots!

I'm increasingly tempted by a 17" MacBook Pro. I'm currently using a MacBook right now - 13", white - and it's a great little machine. It's portable, powered, and plays World of Warcraft. That's my base line.

But I'm increasingly doing more audio and video editing, and the screen is too small. The processor isn't quite fast enough to handle Final Cut Pro, either, and I find myself wanting a bit more power. A 17" Pro would solve the screen issue and the power issue. The downside is portability - not being quite loaded enough to fly everywhere first class yet, cracking open one of those bad boys in coach is a bit difficult. Battery life isn't quite as good, either.

So I guess I'll have a think. I might just get an external monitor to sit on my desk here if I can't deal with the screen size. But that adds cables, mandates a keyboard, clutter etc. I guess the answer is to get a proper office in town with some serious desk space, but I'm not sure about that. I enjoy rolling out of bed to work in my pajamas too much!

Meh. Struggling to shift the weight I put on at the weekend, despite a monster mofo run on Monday and another decent run last night. It's definitely getting harder to lose weight as it comes off. That said, there's still plenty of it left to shift.

Feeling absolutely shattered. Alex is ill at the moment, meaning I'm not getting a lot of sleep as she tosses and turns. Dagnabbit. That said, had a rejig of my work space here at home, meaning my desk is clear, even if my brain isn't.

So here's the thing. We've been operating the upcoming video project under, essentially, a codename - XYZ Media. I picked XYZ because it's at the opposite end of the spectrum from ABC or BBC, which it's designed to be. But now we need a name that really works as a website.

We have two shows already named - PlayDigital and YumYum. What I'm looking for is a name that works as a website destination, company name, and reflects some kind of brand value, whilst also being cool.

Here's a good few examples: YouTube accurately sums up that it's TV (tube) made by You. Digg reflects the story promotion mechanism. JumpCut is a video editing term for a video site. Here's some I've come up with:

VODHog.com
Unwire.TV
Vodd.com (available to buy, but Vod.com is taken by something similar)

Etc etc etc etc. I even came up with a list of words - Vlog, wire, un, internet, screen, air, new, media, vision, stream, play, plug, receiver, remote, bug, topia, -overse, buzz, edge, tag, lounge - and have so far not managed to put them together to make anything decent.

The name must be available as a .com or .tv (or as a funky domain hack, eg plug.in), and not be too similar to anything else out there (eg my vodd.com / vod.com problem). If anyone comes up with anything that I end up using, I'll make sure they're sorted out with some goodies! Suggestions in the comments please...

So after hitting an insane 225 on Saturday morning, I managed to eat too much over the weekend and put it back on again.

I ended up eating scones, fish and chips and chocolate on Saturday in a bit of a blow-out, and then had a pasta dish for dinner on Sunday. And to top it off, I didn't run either day. D'oh!

Oh well, back on the wagon today with a vengeance. Except Alex baked Blueberry muffins for breakfast. Ack!

Going to run like a mofo tonight.

So last night's TWiT was a blast. We had a great panel, including Dvorak, Alex Lindsay and Doc Searls. It was a riot to record.

Here's why I enjoyed it. Leo did it 'live' by broadcasting it on UStream.Tv, a great little service that just broadcasts webcam feeds. That meant that a couple of hundred people in Leo's IRC chatroom could listen. I also managed to get a stream up and running whilst talking on the show, and consistently had more viewers than Leo! I attribute this to the soft stuffed monkey I had on camera with me (Alex's favourite cuddly toy). I logged into the chatroom on IRC and was able to to talk with the listeners, which was awesome fun. I was even complimented by the gorgeous Cali Lewis on my funky monkey!

So all in all, great fun. I was impressed with the functionality of UStream, even if setting it up is an unintuitive nightmare. Here's to more live TWiTs!

Thanks to all the people that suggested the Logitech Harmony remote as the answer to all my home entertainment problems. It seems there are a number of different models which are totally programmable in a macro-esque manner. My man James Cridland suggests that "I bought mine a few weeks ago, and we've already relegated the Sky+ remote to a drawer. And the wife's happy with it - turning on the telly and the Sky box is as simple as pressing the button marked "Watch Sky". " That sounds good to me, and I'll be checking it out - thanks chaps!

Meanwhile, I tipped in at 225 this morning, which is a little outrageous. I have a feeling this may be phantom weight loss, but then again, one can hope. I have been for five runs this week, all of which were longer than my average run the week before (when I only went three times).

Something has definitely happened in the last week - I've started to enjoy the running. Part of it is the routine, part of it is the time to listen to music/podcasts, part of it is the weather. But I'm actually quite liking spending 30-40 minutes pounding the pavements. Once you get over the mental hurdle of going for 7-8 minutes and getting far enough away from the house, it's quite nice to just run and find new places.

Here's my problem - I need to build a home entertainment system that is both Wil-capable and Rebecca-proof.

Let me explain. I am a relatively demanding media consumer. I like my TV - I download all the latest episodes of Lost, South Park, 24 and House on BitTorrent (since the UK TV releases of these are months later). I like my music - I buy all my new stuff on the iTunes store, since I have no desire for any more physical media to clutter up my room. I watch a lot of DVDs, although mostly rented, since I find that I don't often re-watch movies. I also have my Xbox 360 which I love to play, and I'm an avid fan of a number of video podcasts including Cranky Geeks, Diggnation and the 1up show.

My housemate, Rebecca, is rather the opposite. It's not that she's a luddite - she, like most of the world, is addicted to FaceBook and Gmail, and she buys all her romance novels from Amazon - but she's just not a techie. She wants TV (UK channels 1-5) and DVD, and that's about it. And she wants it simple - asking her to choose RF input for TV or component input for DVD or even SCART input for a video player is going a bit beyond her capabilities.

So to this end, I've been searching for the perfect media solution - one that satisfies everyone. I tried Vista Media Center, building a nice looking rig to sit under my TV and connect to the TV. With a DVD drive, it also serves as a handy one-remote-does-all system. Here's the problem - all my music is in iTunes, which doesn't really play nicely with MCE. Whilst I can play my Divx downloaded TV, i do all my Torrenting on my main rig (my MacBook) which requires that I ferry a USB stick across to my MCE PC every time I want to watch something. MCE is also horribly inefficient - starting up the PC each time you want to watch TV takes a few minutes, and leaving it on standby isn't exactly good for the environment. It's also rather prone to crashes. It also means turning the TV on and selecting the DVI input every time you just want to watch TV.

So I'm resolved that TV watching is just going to have to go through the TV. Signal comes from aerial, into RF cable, into socket, and that's the end of that (I've had to abandon Freeview, the UK's digital TV service, since it doesn't get half the channels we want - Oxford reception is rubbish).

So then we come to DVD. It's easy enough to just connect up a DVD player over Scart and select that input when required. But that does require Rebecca to remember which input the DVD is on, which isn't ideal. If only there was a simple way of switching between inputs.

That got me thinking about AV receivers. Wouldn't it be great to just have a big knob that you could twist to switch between sources, with the little screen telling you what you were selecting? That would be easy and awesome. Here's the downside - any receiver would have to be capable of supporting an HD signal, so that I could connect up the X360 (and possibly support SkyHD in the future). Those things aren't cheap. And anyway, you'd still have to switch to the receiver, away from the TV's RF input, when you wanted to watch the DVD, so that doesn't change much.

Unless I could get the TV signal to route through the AV receiver somehow, with an external tuner. Since Oxford has next to zero Freeview reception, that probably means Sky. So I could get Sky just to have the free channels (there's nothing we'd watch on the premium ones) and that would mean that TV and DVD were both going through the receiver.

Then we come back to my podcasts and BitTorrent TV episodes. With MCE out the window, I've been thinking about Apple TV. That would handle all my podcasts and music fine, which would be good. But it doesn't support Divx, at least not without a lot of messing around with FTP programmes and command line, so that's not idea. However, there are Automator workflows that will convert video into AppleTV format, so that's possible. You can then transfer it over wireless. But although ATV supports 802.11n, my 1st-gen MacBook only supports 802.11g, which is going to make for some sloooooow file transfers. Not the end of the world, but not ideal.

So with the AppleTV, Sky receiver, DVD player and Xbox 360 all hooked up to the receiver, that would minimise messing around with the actual TV itself and would mean that it would be simple to select each one. But that in itself creates problems - volume is generally controlled by the main AV receiver which means that the volume buttons on the Sky remote or AppleTV are going to be made fairly redundant, which is just going to confuse things more. When Rebecca wants to turn the volume up, she's going to need to use the A/V remote, but then use the DVD remote for the DVD and when she wants the TV, she'll have to use the Sky remote for changing channels and the A/V remote for the volume.

How hard is it to make one remote do everything and create a simple to understand and easy to use system? Why can't Apple just make a Mac mini with the AppleTV software installed, a DVD player and a TV tuner? They seem to come the closest to a simple user experience.

Alternatively, why do TV companies insist on making inputs an arcane experience? Why not put easy to use buttons in prominent positions on the screen that are labelled - DVD, TV, Games Console, or whatever, rather than the obscure way it's handled now? It seems that too many companies focus on the technology rather than the ease of use.

And don't get me started on hooking up a Blu-ray player.

Hoorah. And the scales only just rocked over from 226. Who knows what tomorrow could bring?

Managed to eat well all day, resist some post-dinner chocolate and go for another chunky run out to the Oxford ring road and back, which is going to be my new route, I think. Many thanks to Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrot for keeping my brain occupied with their nice 25-minute Windows Weekly podcast. Burning through the pain barrier is easier with Leo's stupid voices.

I keep a little post on this site with links to some of the writing I've done that I'm most happy with. I updated it with some different links, so take a look if you're interested. It's down there on the right, my writing / clips.

FFS. Getting a little bit fed up of seeing 16s 4lb looking up at me from the scales. I need to hit 227 before I go mental.

Washed my running shoes yesterday. After splashing through one too many puddles, they needed something of a revamp. I read lots of conflicting info on the net about whether or not you can just stick them in the washing machine - some people said it would ruin them and to just hand wash, other people said it would be fine.

My perspective on commercialism is that a big brand like Asics would be unlikely to make shoes so shoddy as to get screwed by a quick tumble round a washing machine, since that's what most people without a clue would be likely to do - and sure enough, I was proved right as my shoes emerged clean and intact. Yay for fresh feet.

Had a day off running yesterday, back on it today, on my new 4x a week schedule. I might up it to 5x a week if I haven't hit 227 by the weekend.

Following up from the PlayDigital.TV showreel I posted on the site a few days ago, enjoy the highlights of our new cooking show, Yum Yum TV. I think it looks pretty good. Thanks to Ross Burden for taking part.

The intersection of 'new media' - blogging, online webzines etc - and 'old media' is something that really interests me. I have watched countless fights on the internet over the differences and distinctions, as well as the rules and ethics that apply to the different media.

I have written a short essay which aims to address some of these points. Specifically, it is designed to illuminate some of the distinctions, and also to provide a few thoughts on how to address 'journalistic ethics' in the new world of online media.

I think it's a pretty interesting piece that makes some good points, and I hope you agree. Rather than post it here - it's long, and it will occupy the majority of the page - I've posted it over at Scribd, which is a pretty interesting storage place for documents. The link to the essay is right here. I hope you enjoy it, and I welcome feedback in the comments section.

On ethics, journalism, blogging and a brave new world of media, by Wil Harris.

In a bid to rival Apple's dominance of the awesome-looking PC space, Intel has put on a competition that challenges both average joes and industrial design specialists to come up with great-looking PCs for the home. You can check out the page here.

The guys at Intel were kind enough to ask me to do a guest blog post for them. Obviously, at bit-tech, I saw an awful lot of wicked mods and PC designs, and I'd like to think that I still have some insight into this area. You can see my blog post here. Hope you enjoy it.

So I managed to counteract a massive helping of Alex's homemade pavlova yesterday with a mammoth run in the evening. This has taught me two things. 1) Alex makes spectacular pavlova and 2) Calorie excess can be staved off with some last ditch running. This, I assume, burns a few hundred calories and gives my body a bit more space to absorb and process the rest without turning it to too much fat.

I actually ran further than previously last night, notching up a little over three miles which, without a break, is good going for me. Although with the amount of sugar in my system, I felt like I could possibly do a lap of the Oxford ring road without stopping.

Today it's back on the wagon - muesli and juice for breakfast, salad for lunch, fruit for snack, low-fat dinner sans the carbs. I want to lose 4 pounds before the month is out to hit 16 stone dead. I'm upping my exercise to try and achieve that, so here's hoping.

w00t! Doing ok here so far.

Managed to get out for a personal best run yesterday - my usual route, up the road and back for about 2.5 miles, I nailed in 19 minutes ish. Pretty pleased about that.

4 more pounds to get off before the end of April - that's 2 a week. Then I will be down below 16 stone. That will rock.

Can't afford to go to TED? Ditto for most of the world. I've been enjoying the TED Talks video podcasts, which are downloadable talks from the conference. I watched David Pogue (2006) and Ze Frank (2004) this morning. Incredibly informative and entertaining, check them out.

But I was almost 228 before the scales tipped over.

Went out for my morning run today, breakfast of muesli and apple juice. Lunch is some left-over low-fat chilli from last night. Good stuff. I'm going back to Hereford for a couple of days tomorrow, so the challenge will be to keep up the excercise whilst away from home.

So despite the Easter festivities (read: fancy food), I managed to stick at around 229 for the period, which is a gut-bustingly good success, in my view. Of course, it may all pile on today and I'll find myself at 232 tomorrow, but I hope not.

Today begins the re-invigoration of my fatblogging, having taken the last couple of weeks a little easy (see posts below). I'm going to up the running to four times a week, and now I'm working at home I'm going to go first thing in the morning - up at 7.15, out the door by 7.30, back by 8.00 and at my desk for 8.30. Seems like a pretty good schedule for me. I'm also back on the fatblogging diet of muesli, light lunch, healthy dinner, and I'm trying to cut out my morning snack where possible to reduce the calories just a little further. Not sure if that will stick though. I really want to break the 16 stone mark (224lb) by the end of April, so fingers crossed.

So as I mentioned below, I'm starting a company to make video podcasts. I'm working with a few friends of mine to get some pilots written, shot and edited, and we've done a couple so far. We've shot the gaming title - PlayDigital.TV - and the cooking show - YumYumTV.com.

They're both being professionally edited by our team, but as part of my self-development, I decided I'd have a go at putting together a quick showreel. I picked up Final Cut Pro (expensive, but cheap at the same time) and a copy of Final Cut Pro HD for Dummies (seriously). I've spent this afternoon learning the programme, and I used some of the footage from the shoot to work up a little promo. I hope you guys like it. Please be kind - I've been using FCP for about 8 hours now, and my skills ain't exactly leet. But I hope this serves as a fun little teaser.



(EDIT: Ditched Veoh, thanks to Revver...)

With apologies to Overseer for the rip-off of the music.

So it's been a mental week. Last Friday was my last day in the bit-tech office, and I officially left my post as Editor in Chief. I still have a financial interest in the company, and obviously I hope it continues to do well. My friends there are going to do a great job, I'm sure.

Finishing that was a bit of a mental and physical drop. Do you know how you go to college for a term, then as soon as you come home for the break you get ill? I kind of felt whacked when I finished, so I mostly just spent the next few days playing Xbox 360, going to the cinema and watching TV. Alex was fabulous and organised a surprise lunch for me with al my family from back home, so that was a stunningly nice day out at the best restaurant in Wales. Top stuff.

As of Wednesday, managed to start getting myself back on track and on with the rest of life. I'm doing some freelance work (both writing and consulting) to pay the bills at the moment, whilst working on the top secret new project. Which isn't really top secret, since apparently I disclosed it to a TalkShoe room of people on the last Twit, whilst thinking I was off-air. D'oh!

I'm putting together a new venture - a video podcasting company. It's going to have a number of different 'channels', aimed at niche markets, with high quality content. It's TV quality, designed for the net - think Weblogs Inc, but with video instead of blogs (I tout Weblogs as newspaper quality, designed for the net).

We've got some early pilots filmed, and they're looking good - although, as with all these things, the first few are a learning curve. I'm currently enjoying learning Final Cut Pro, although, thankfully, we have production specialists to do the mission critical stuff. I'm just messing around putting together ideas.

As for the FatBlogging, that hasn't really happened this week. Due to my taking a small break, I didn't actually do any excercise this week and, whilst I've been watching what I've been eating, it means I've lost no weight. I haven't put on weight, which is good, but it does mean I've had a week of dead time. Start again on Monday, when my proper regime will kick in.

It's great working from home, not having to get up super-early and do a 1.5 hour commute. I wrote a bunch of stuff in my pjamas this morning, and it felt like being at university again. Seeing as I had a tonne of energy at university, I'm hoping I can pick up some of that, too.

After a week sat at 230/231, I've finally managed to break 23x, through getting back to my strict diet eating plan, rather than rather more treatsome foods, which got me through my last week at work.

Sorry for the lack of updates - apart from being snowed under, I decided to take a holiday post- the end of bit-tech. I'll get back on things today, stay tuned for some cool shizzle.