I’m trying out ‘Covert Browser’ on the iPad. It’s not a cheap app at £1.99 but I can’t find anything else Tor enabled in the official app store.

If the integration of the open source version of Tor is working correctly then this app should offer not only unmonitored Internet browsing but also access to content that is blocked because of your ip’s geographical position.

I have just tested the app on my iPad by watching a video from ColbertNation.com. Normally blocked in the UK, the site loaded fine and the videos i tried played without delay or issue.

Although the app has a few things it needs to iron in the design department, I can see this becoming a handy tool for anyone with an iPad that doesn’t want to mess around with VPN’s and proxy’s and would much rather just click on an app.

If you do live in a country where content is regularly blocked it may be worth you opting for something less browser based by adding some VPN settings into your phone from RaptorVPN.com

For more information on Tor visit TorProject.org

If like me you rely on a 3G MiFi to get a decent internet connection both at home and while mobile, I highly recommend you get one of these little suckers.

If I hang my MiFi in a window, at home or on a train, it can make the difference between a an Edge/3G signal or ‘full bars’ on HSDPA.

You can find a packet of ‘suction hooks’ in varying sizes in most pound shops. I got 5 for.. You guessed it, a pound.

(Be warned, some air stewards can get a little nervous when you hang a solar charger in your window mid flight.)

Recently I got to see Richard Stallman talk in London. He was the guest of the Open Rights Group and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I have his talk and the Q&A that followed embedded and linked below. First though are my initial impressions recorded at the end of the night.

(Skip to the three embeds & ogg links below if you want to hear Richard Stallman’s talk.)

__________________________

I had recorded this audio as a second thought and would like to thank Mark Cotton for cleaning, editing, dissecting and converting the files to OGG. He really knows his audio. I’d recommend him to anyone who needs audio services.

Thanks to the Open Rights Group for hosting the night and if you care considering joining to assist them with their good work please OpenRightsGroup.org/join.

Any/all of the content on this page is free to use under the CC license attribution noncommercial share alike.

I starting writing a book called the ‘Blaggers Guid To The World’. I never finished it. At the time I felt I could easily justify some of my money making and free travel methods I was exploring but now.. written down.. they don’t look entirely ethical, so the book sits half finished in a tatty notebook.

My social network at the time lived in the same leather bound notebook. The pages were split into countries and under each country heading were listed names, addresses and phone numbers. Most of the travellers I met on the road would exchange details with me. No emails or mobile numbers.  Just an address & home number that if you rang and someone answered, you could be sure of a bed for the night as you travelled through.

There was an unwritten code of mutual assistance for anyone wanting to follow a nomadic way of life. We were the voluntary homeless, the student tramps on a never ending year out, Backpackers without an itinerary.

The noticeboards at youth hostels would give you the latest local information. Even where you could eat, shower and sleep for free. I soon learn’t that marinas offered a comfortable night under an upturned boat and occasionally had unlocked warm showers for shivering windsurfers.. or me.

Markets and Hari Krishna temples always had free food and in Italy I could be sure to feast on salami, bread and cheese should I wander into a church looking hungry. Yes I’d have to listen to a religious sales pitch but that was a small price to pay for such luxurious tastes.

At one point on my travels I met a guy on the run form the French Foreign Legion. On a short overnight boat trip, I listened to his acquired wisdom and he gave me half the contents of my unfinished book. He scrawled out some symbols into my notebook and told me to keep an eye out for chalked of stone scratched graffiti.

Years later I found out this was an almost identical code to American Hobo signs.

I took to carrying a chalky stone in my pocket and adding the relevant marks where I could. I liked the idea that if spotted, the owner could remove it but also that with time it would fade. A fresh mark meant a recent update and fresh news.

Today, many people still don’t get location based social networking but we have very similar features to those above in apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.

If I had the time, energy and know-how I’d build an app based on the above system used in Hobo Graffiti. I’d also also include some of the more known Wardriving symbols that also used to be spotted on our streets in order to highlight open Wifi. I am not sure the newly digitally equipped Hobo would be ready for the WorkSnug kind of interface but something smart and simple.. Why not?

Of course there are more than a few location apps showing available hotspots, power points etc. But as more people travel with technology or shun our normal static lifestyles, how about an app aimed at the travellers, the voluntarily homeless?  One that does not necessarily conform to societies norms.

I can’t imagine how my 10 years exploring the world would have looked should I have had a smart phone in my pocket. As it stands I’m quite glad I trod the analogue path.

But should I ever do it again, these kinds of apps would certainly travel with me. Along with my digitised and leather bound social networks.

An eavesdropping dog in Brazil

For me a community is not tied to a geographical area. It’s more an area of common life. I live across a number of communities.  Family, friends, work, and a number of geeky tech loving groups who exist both on the web and in physical space.

Some hold a fellowship of solidarity and trust. Others merely contain a group of peope who share a common interest. Either way these communities are really important to me.

Anthony P. Cohen argues that communities are best approached as ‘communities of meaning’. In other words, ‘”community” plays a crucial symbolic role in generating people’s sense of belonging’.

I feel it’s this sense of belonging that’s missing from areas in society. And without this we are unable to build a feeling of self, of individuality.

Whether we like it or not capitalism permeates everything we do. Creativity is often styfled as production is privately owned and operated for profit. We are too far down that road to do anything about it. Still, there is no reason why we can’t create communities freely sharing our own thoughts, dreams and aspirations. A shield or filter as an antidote to the bombardment we are subjected to as the advertisers tell us how they think we should live.

The problem is, that most community spaces now cropping up have little to do with freedom of expression. They are controlled environments where the participants are leeched of all shared knowledge, where their interactions and connections are studied at a minute level.

CCTV near Orwell's grave

If I arranged to meet with friends on my village green only to find that our every move was monitored and recorded, conversations archived and our home addresses logged.. I’d most certainly go and find somewhere a little more relaxed to chat. If in addition to this we were bombarded with suggestions of what someone thought we should spend our hard earned cash on… I’d probably leave never to return.

That is if there was somewhere to leave to.

We forget that Facebook and Google are advertising companies providing a communication infrastructure. Google plus is not a social network. We are the ones being sociable in the networks. It’s easy to forget this and our amnesia suits them just fine.

I’m aware of this. But only sometimes. It’s far too easy to get sucked in because that’s where my ‘friends’ are.

My networks exists cross platform. But for how much longer?

I won’t go into my gripes with Google+ following in the footsteps of Facebook and dictating how we should be conversing and what we should call ourselves. Making out they are doing us a favour by giving us four days grace to ‘fix’ our accounts should we rather use our nicknames in our posts. There are more than enough people making a noise around this to show it’s Google who are in fact broken.

I am now formulating a backup plan. An escape route. A quiet place where I can chat with friends in as close as I can find to privacy. Whatever that is.

This will probably sound terribly extreme to someone just floating along quite happily. I’d just like more options. I’m bored of the taste of ready meals and fancy something wholesome. Besides, I back up my data, why not back up my communication channels.

Masonic Lodge in Rugby

I’m not looking to create a secret society. I’m looking for an open system. Not owned or exclusive but shared worldwide. Perhaps a version of Status.net that in an emergency could work even if the internet is turned off. Yes you heard me. Perhaps a mesh-networked bluetooth affair or something using the D-star transmitters dotted around the world. There are options. It just has to be imagined.

And with this I’d like improved email to match.

I feel if i really want to regain control over the way I communicate online I need to ditch GMail. I’ll go for something with encryption. Something that gives me a red page when I am writing to someone not using encryption. It’s not because I have secrets. It’s because not everything I say in a personal email is for sale.

Decentralised, secure, mobile, social… What would you want?

I’m guessing what I want doesn’t exist yet. If not we should make it.

Who’s in?

I first saw this strange device back in March 2010 when I got my Brompton S3L-X.

I was searching for accessories and on a Spanish website I spotted this strange looking add-on cross-bar.

I contacted them but they were halting production and it was impossible to get this nifty looking child seat anywhere. Until now that is. It looks like it has gone back into production and they have listed a UK supplier as http://BikeFix.co.uk

The strangely named ‘IT Chair’ is steel in construction with one clamp and two folding rubberised footrests. The clamp fastens to the seat post and the other end slots in just behind the crossbar hinge. Once fastened it feels pretty solid and the addition of a small passenger makes it even more so. The seat clamp wasn’t rubberized so as a temporary fix I added a strip of rubber cut from an inner tube.

With the ‘IT Chair’ attached and no passenger I have to ride with knees slightly apart as I have a large comfy seat attached to it. It’s not uncomfortable to do so and I feel a larger seat is safer. With a little passenger your knees are a little wider but I got used to it quickly and as my lad is probably a little young to be doing any major miles on this, it felt safer having him cradled between my legs and arms.

Folding the bike up with the ‘IT Chair’ attached takes a few more seconds than normal but it’s easy enough and works well. Folded size is a little larger but only a tiny amount and not enough to affect practicality.

Costing £210, (without the seat) the ‘IT Chair is not cheap but at the moment it’s unique.

I really enjoy using it and the lad totally loves it. Even though it’s certainly more precarious than the larger bolt -on bike seats that cocoon a child and strap them in. Bear this in mind should you want to buy one. It goes without saying that any child riding on one of these needs to wear a helmet, be capable at holding on to the handlebars and have a good sense of balance.

That said, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for short trips with the lad, especially as it means we have the freedom of stashing the Brompton in the car to get to new and interesting places to explore.

Thanks to http://BikeFix.co.uk for the loan of the IT Chair

Heather Knight on stage at Thinking Digital 2011

There is software somewhere tracking all the IMEI’s on the phones that were momentarily clustered in the intimate auditorium of the Sage, Gateshead. A three day hotspot of creatives, thinkers, do’ers and disrupters.

The transmitted signatures have now spidered their way back across the country, across the water, across the world. And the digital echo of an amazing meeting of minds still hangs in the air.

It will be a little time till my synapses form the links I need to fully understand the connections made and the concepts and ideas discussed.

@RobotInTheWild

Since getting back a much needed sleep has ensured a full shutdown and re-boot with my new firmware now in place.

This was my second Thinking Digital Conference, another mental, social and physical growth spurt, not only survived, but that has invigorated me to exhaustion. I have more than a few plans forming from realisations I feel could only have happened at that geographical location. At that time.

There were times to focus, as we sat silently absorbing as the babble of speakers took turns to share. There were times to talk as huddled round in the breaks, paper was passed across conversations as personal details were exchanged.

You’ll certainly find more in-depth breakdowns discussing the highlights of Thinking Digital floating round the web. To avoid sounding sycophantic I’ll merely offer a window to some of the things I heard and explored.

For a conference that had a lot to live up to after the success of 2010, that had to do it on less cash, I’m more than a little impressed by Herb Kim’s ability to, in my opinion, ‘go one better’.

My role this year happened within the Thinking Digital University at Gateshead College

The panel entitled ‘The State of Social Media’ had to cater for a mixed audience from net novices to super users.

With everyone taking “social” a lot more seriously we were to ask What is this brave new world of the “third wave” going to look like? What problems will it solve? What problems will it create? Will the world really go “social” to the same level it has adopted PC’s & the Internet?

You really had to be there. No really, you did. As there was little to no wifi or 3G in what seemed to be a ‘Faraday cage’, there is little record of the conversation that was had. The side effect of this was an intense focus in the room. So much so that I overshot the finishing time by 20 mins.

The list of participants initially had me worried as they all seemed to be wearing some kind of marketing hat. I soon realized these people we much more than just selling. They had been chosen for a variety of reasons and I soon got to be enthralled and educated by the likes of the amazing Dr. Mariann Hardey, (@Mazrred), she lectures on social media and communications at the University of Durham Business School. She said she fell into the marketing side of things and following a conversation we had in a dark corridor she promises to write a paper citing our chat around ‘Sith Marketing’.. The only way I feel I can explain how ‘the dark side’ uses social media.

Paul Fabretti (@PaulFabretti), Was also present. Digital Director for Origin Creative in Manchester with a string of successes too long to mention here.. Paul is no stranger to Thinking Digital and opened his mind letting ideas spill out into our musings.

Finally there was Rob Lawrence (@itwasmyidea), he was open about not being a massive fan of Twitter and it seemed that as a result he was involved in an inhuman number of projects with some world famous endeavours already under his belt.

It was these guys I spoke with for the next few hours as we tried to make sense of it all. There was no Netutopianism in the room. Just the good the bad and the ugly tales of our online adventures used as a datum in order to have a guess at the future.

People take their seats for the beginning of Thinking Digital 2011

The thinkers helped with navigation and direction but the do-ers would get there anyway. They are not afraid to try and fail repeatedly till they find their path. I tried to summarize in a tweet with “Keep an eye on the exits, Listen harder than everyone else and break it to make it better.”

This is why you had to be there. This is why the physical conference is not dead.

..And at the moment, this is something Thinking Digital does better than anyone else.

The TV in the living room is a 30 something inch, black, shiny, HD affair that is used more as a monitor than a portal to timetabled programming.

If it’s my finger turning it on, it’s to temporarily pacify the 2 year old with some psychedelic kids show. Occasionally it plays a DVD that somehow found it’s way into the weekly shop. Very rarely, on special occasions, it displays what the Xbox plays.

I’d rather it not be there. It’s  often turned on by others for background noise and that’s just what they get. Noise.

Sometimes, like last night, I’ll walk into the noise with a plate of food and witness a science programme showing me something amazing I have never seen, I have never known. Quite often this is delivered to me by the BBC and I think, “I paid for that… Money well spent.” This happens about twice a year.

All my news, entertainment, current affairs and education comes to me through the other screens. The iDevices and laptops strewn around the house.

There are eleven other screens in my home. Each one individually more valuable than the biggest one sat in the corner. Five of them are multi-touch. Two of those belong to my little boy. He thinks the big one in the corner is broken. The greasy marks he makes as he swipes the screen are always followed by a “Daddy fix it.”

“I’m afraid Daddy can’t fix it” I tell him. And he goes back to my old iPad, his new toy. His window to another world. Today I heard him mutter.. “TV is broken.”