Top Gear - VJ style

NO, I DID NOT MAKE THIS

EMAIL
Hi David - I've got a new Lamborghini coming in a couple of weeks - do you want to film it?

Kevin

---
Kevin

hahahahahaha sure. Do I get to spin it on a race track this time?

david


p.s I'm buying a new lens attachment to give me filmic shallow depths of field and will use a suction mounted lens for extra effect.

p.ss For David and Kevins previous exploits with a Ferrari 599 GTB - go here

How to create an interview - the Videojournalism way

Untitled from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

David interviews Mary Hockaday is deputy head of BBC Newsroom

David's shoot uploaded tomorrow

Montenegro - Innovative media, Media Development Loan Fund

Loads to blog and talk about from this media gathering in Podgorica in Montenegro. On the map I've highlighted it with a red arrow, nestling between Albania, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Some amazing software development for a news CMS system within the local television station, Televizija Vijesti.

Dave Brewer, a consultant whose pedigree is just whoah.

He was one of the set up editors for BBC News Online way back when, then went on to redevelop CNNI's online news presence, then Al Jazeera. Dave talks about setting up a newsroom.

Lots of confidential candid stuff being discussed about figures, bottomlines, which Chatham House rules I won't be repeating, but it was thoroughly illuminating.

My new Russian friends, who have taken to referring to me as "David- four hands" - sounds like something out of the Sopranos have asked if I'll come out to Russia.

Tomorrow I'll bring you the cut on how you knock off a quick interview as a solo video journalist and Vin Crosbie.

My thanks to Vin and Mary, deputy head of Multimedia News at the BBC, who stood in as the interviewees.

See you tomorrow.

UK Regional Press must up Video Journalism Game

The BBC will not be able to launch its hyperlocal TV.

That was the view arrived by its Board of Trustees, the public's overseers of one of the world's leading broadcasters.

They cited commercial reasons, the damage it will have on the commercial sector and regional newspapers as a principle reason.

The decision greeted by the UK's regional press with a degree of relief and delight should also be tempered with some caution.

When I posted recently on this, many including me, were certain the BBC would get the nod.

The press had indeed geared up to take a BBC endorsement to the high court.

Reported by the Press Gazette, two months ago, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said:

"There's nobody who can be satisfied with the quality of local news in most parts of the United Kingdom," Lyons told a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in London this afternoon.

"The local press has nothing like the strength that it once had. It's not the same proposition that it was 15 years ago. Will the BBC make it better or worse? That's exactly the issue to be explored."

Is this the End
The BBC's supposed £68m investment over four years for 65 local video broadband hubs will now have to be shelved.

Sir Michael is reported to have said he 'personally hopes' that the decision they've come to gives the regional press room to sustain its business and improve its own video initiatives.

It appears the Trusts' own research from license fee payers seeking greater improvement to existing TV and Radio services and a cap on expansion plans in these constrained economic ties was the crux to the decision.

However inside the Trust, some do acknowledge that the BBC's video scheme could have been a powerful service.

But I believe unless regional press up their game, the next approach may not be so easy to fend off and indeed may not come from the BBC.

Invest in Video
At a meeting in Podgorica, briefing newspapers seeking to enter or expand into video online, there is a strong consensus from a body of media experts.

Vin Crosbie and Craig Neable from Zattoo Europe spoke about the growing interest from telecommunications companies to acquire content for their expanding networks.

In the US Verizon has already moved into this area with VJ Pioneer Michael Rosenblum at the helm of a number of initiatives.

Professor Vin, from the SI NewHouse School of Public Communications has urged newspaper groups to grasp video, claiming US newspapers failed to invest in video and new social web technologies to stave of their current worries.

I'll bring you video and more comments on this tomorrow.

David Dunkley Gyimah has been consulting for the Press Association working with the UK's regional press since 2005

Video pioneers in Montenegro

David tries out the Televizija Vijesti's newsroom - a great illustration of broadcasting ingenuity on a tight budget

A small station, which punches above its weight in a region that rarely gets talked about for its innovation.

Televizija Vijesti in the town/small city of Podgorica has been attracting some attention amongst Montengrans and for reasons we found out today.

I've just flown out to Montenegro for the weekend to present and deconstruct ideas on video journalism and how and what to do setting up a unit.

I'll post more details soon, with quite some wonderful presentations from the likes of

• Vin Crosbie Adjunct Prof of Visual & Narrative Communications, SI Newhouse School of Public Communications.
• Howard Elston, Digital Productions Manager from the Telegraph- a wonderful candid presentation on the market, The Telegraph's work and the future
• Mary Hockaday, Deputy Head, BBC Newsroom.
• Per Fjeld, TV Editor Aftenbladet Multimedia AS Norway
• And Craig Neable, Dir of Product Management, Zattoo Europa AG.

During the TechCrunch MeetUp in Zurich: Zattoo' interview from Thierry on Vimeo.
Video NOT from podgorica confrence

It's really a gathering of newspapers and publisher from SA, Russia and the region looking for solutions to expand into these new digital mash-up areas and well worth dissecting.

Points of Interest

Recent spectrum assignment interests in the US and coming up I have been talking to Brightcove and Roo about their offerings. And could Adobe Flash be on the verge of releasing its next generation players that offer turn key solutions matching populist video players?

And coming up over the weekend, I'll be reporting from Montenegro on media developments with video.

Meanwhile good read on this article from Bryan Murley, assistant professor of new and emerging media at Eastern Illinois University, looking at how far college media has come.

Wonder if anyone's planning a UK equivalent.. Andy Dickinson??

The Death of the Story - Redux. Responding to Prof Ken Kobre

Prof Ken Kobre posted this on his site, which got me replying below.

Here's two paras of his post.

The Death of the Story?

"We've often said that videojournalists have much to learn from Hollywood when it comes to storytelling and creating dramatic narrative arcs.

But now it seems that even Hollywood is beginning to lose its way, according to this New York Times report about a new MIT Media Lab project called The Center for Future Storytelling".

----------------------------------------------------------

Hello Professor Kobre,

Very topical post and link.

I wholeheartedly agree that video journalism has a huge amount to learn from cinema-making and not necessarily in structure per se, but in production drawing audiences to their films.

We’re seeing some of the best VJs grasp that, but video journalism is still new territory for many and therefore a sizeable number of practitioners appear more susceptible to exclusively use TV’s lingua franca.

I just happened to have posted about this yesterday on Journalism.co.uk - Video Journalism is not a one-size-fits-all medium.

Hollywood’s dominance in story telling has consistently been under threat from one wing or another. Take for instance film movements such as French New Wave and dogme.

It was only the grand plan, the emergence of the pop corn Blockbuster, mega movie merchandising and TV/DVD rights sales that saved Hollywood from disappearing.

And then there was digital which has yielded youtubing, torrenting and outfits such as Onedotzero, Filminute, and a new wave of independent digital film makers [remember 405] making their mark.

DigiMania
Microcinemas, outdoor screens, urinal video faces, XTPs and a whole glut of platforms have been the interesting developments in disrupting Hollywood’s film going process.

Here, a new brand of marketers have emerged believing anywhere people gather or pause for a minute [holograms on cereal boxes one day –Minority Report] is an opportunity to show your wares.

In 2001 we (colleagues and I) contributed towards the thinking and short films/ adverts that would go on London Undergrounds Cross Track Projection ( XTP). That’s short ads on the subways, which have only recently come on stream.

Then we played around with non narrative forms such as this The Family, which I have been redeveloping into a form that is video hyperlinking, which subverts the narrative - reported by The Economist.

At the UK’s film representative body, The Film Council, whilst hosting their event in digital opportunities one company talked about its video jump system called Avalon.

Narrative mania
My opinion, I think the narrative will always matter.

That’s what we do, tell stories, whether here in the UK or indeed Ghana and South Africa TV whereo I has the pleasure of working alongside on a unique video journalism co-production.

It’s how fast we can arc the story, play around with its form and get into the exposition in our contracted time span that’s exciting [see film minute] and it’s here where spatial films spoken at length by Lev Manovich leads to the sort of work we’re doing here at the Smart Lab.

That MIT is doing this should come as no surprise given their pioneering work, Negroponte et al did in paperback movies and spatial data systems brilliantly captured in Stewart Brand’s The Media Lab Inventing the Future at MIT

Thanks for triggering this.

David
site: www.viewmagazine.tv & MrDot.co.uk

The Now and When Journalists - creative journalism

Everyone talks about the "Now and "When" journalists as if there's a magic elixir connecting the two.

Young savvy versus old fogey
Tech heads versus the paper toolers
The Yes-I cans versus the No you should not.

There is no science to this other than old fashion grease monkey hard work. All the aforementioned are fallacies in their own right.

However, met with a blistering array of new tech tools, it's easy to put off the learning process and say "when I have time"..

Multimedia for instance is more than re-arranging the furniture to disseminate more of the same via other platforms - a practice enviable in itself.

We flock to the now journalists because they offer both substance, innovation and food for thought.

And in conversation we soon come to realise they plough a different approach in thinking, often borrowing ideas from different disciplines. Roger Martin's How Successful Leaders Think plays to this idea.


Creative Journalism

One of the exercises I run in Video Journalism training is the primacy dump.

Get hold of an assignment and through sheer gut instinct figure out how you might execute the job. Then discard the idea, and again, and again.

There's nothing wrong with it, but it came too easy. The more we're forced to think beyond our own comforts, the greater variation we might introduce into production of the story.

When you're back from that course on "creative thinking" imbibed new methodologies, been ridiculed and thought why bother, see whether you're better informed at tackling the story another way.

I came to realise the value of working multiples on a story working alongside an advertising mentor, John Staton, at re-active.net

It is easy to turn from a now journalists to a when, particularly when cynicism sets in.

Video is the richer media and there's just so much you can do with other than talking heads, but you'll still have to know why you're using it. If not even the most enthusiastic of now journos can turn sour.

Exchanging ideas with some senior journalists last week, one of them exclaimed his company hadn't had that conversation yet: the what are we doing and why?

And sometimes unless you've brought someone to shake things up [a consultant/ expert etc.] it's difficult to know where to start.

But try we must, experiment we should, and fail every so often we must not be afraid of.

If you're not a high consumer of news, [read Blog - Hugh Hewitt], can still find time to blog after a knackering day, and not afraid to experiment, then small wonder you're in touch with the Now, and age has little to do with it.

Videojournalism is not a one-size-fits-all medium'

Videojournalism is not a one-size-fits-all medium'

Posted: 17/11/08 By: David Dunkley Gyimah
email this story | post a comment

Tom Donaldson of Pencil Technologies has seen tomorrow: a Bluetooth device which sends a message by proxy, flea-hopping to contacts in your network.

As a group of us observe this technology at a London research gathering of The Smart Lab I can see other apps: a Star Trek moment of literally calling up video to your desktop; and video hyperlinking [linking videos together in the same way as a hyperlink] to extend the timeline of the story - an area I have been researching.

But that's for tomorrow.

Here and now it is video that continues its mushroom cloud expansion online and videojournalism rising upon the crest. It's a far cry from writing in this column almost two years ago when video on broadband was found a tad wanting.

Some interesting observations are unfolding: videojournalism's pervasiveness yields passionate debate with online you'll find stern voices defining its genius and standards of production and delivery.

Continues on Journalism.co.uk

What is videojournalism -design aesthetic

Video Journalism = motion graphics + photography+ multimedia + cinema + television+ radio + online users' behaviour * dx

I comped this in photoshop - a sort of x-ray vision within a multiplicity of cameras inspired by the Futurists and pal, Rob Chiu.

In the hands of a toddler a paint brush becomes an amazing source for expressionism. Then as we grow technique is introduced. And often from that technique, self expressionism is subdued.

The Brazilians, we all acknowledge play expressive football ( soccer). We Brits play technical football, sometimes blindingly, sometimes not so well which is why we have an Italian manager Fabio Capello to brings some flare.

We provide structure and boundaries to those we train/ teach to give form. This is the beginning, the middle and the end. It provides comfort; closure. It staves of anarchy.

But it does and must not exclude tapping into our dexterity for seeking the original, new ways and manners at accomplishing fresh challenges.

Thank goodness and Tim Berners Lee that the Net was let loose as a free-for-all. Now if only the Brazillians could have invented Video Journalism?

Videojournalism - USA

Front page of Viewmagazine.tv

Way before videojournalism became de rigeur in the West, two African broadcasters mashed up to create their first ever co-production using videojournalism as their production base.

The deal was brokered then by one of CNN International's shinning lights, Edward Boateng.

He called me up with what could only be one of the most ambitious plans i have ever encoutered to date.

On Monday 17th November I'll bring you the story with video from that amazing shoot in including archive given to us at the time showing Stevie Wonder performing for Nelson Mandela and hopefully my interview with Quincy Jones.

The name of the show: The United States of Africa. One of the follow ups of that was an interview with Dirk Coetzee, which also became the subject of a double page newspaper spread article. See you then

Video journalism matures into multiple genres

books I'm reading

It's been an interesting few weeks.

Video Journalism matures, grows up, could be one of my headlines. I had the pleasure of meeting some regional senior UK journalists whose views I'll post soon.

Through various exchanges and findings, we discussed the merits of video journalism. I have my own views about the genre, but am always keen to find out other journalists' stance.

Next weekend I have been invited to talk to a couple of national newspapers from Russia, Czechoslovakia and South Africa. It's likely going to be Chatham House rules, but what I can share, I will.

The simple question I posit is, how do you convince consumers to watch your product?

• What and how can you make your video product stand out from others?
• Is there a fundamental difference between television and video journalism?
• What about style and end format?
• What's the novella equivalent for video journalism?
  
  

New Story telling research
I have been loading my own research and hope to have a couple of films ready by the time I present at SXSW in Austin - a hugely popular creative affair.

In fact, in conjunction with my research, next year looks to be an interesting year. I'd like to thank the many friends and those I don't know who have said kind things about me on Game Changers.

Often, it's just plain strange to think what we do has any value beyond the digits of our own fingers. Therefore the dialogues and exchanges I have are extremely gratifying, rewarding and mesmerizing

This morning I received an email from the UK's most respected film/TV body, the UK equivalent of the Emmy's inviting me to be one of their judges.

So once again I'm deeply humbled.

Then there's the international video journalism awards which I'm one of the jury members and am so looking forward to.


It's about doing it
Ultimately, it isn't about the stripes one picks up. It simple can't be.

The whole notion about posting into virtual space, not knowing who's reading is because we feel we might have something to say and share.

That's why millions of bloggers exist.

But I guess like a small stone wedged against toe and the inside of our shoe we're trying to figure out why, what and how we might make this thing work.

It's alchemy in public view. As an Applied Chemistry grad [moons ago] I can only imagine the response to being told to reveal details of all my experiments.

By design we hide those flaws. What matters is the final one amongst thousands proving our hypothesis.

You know what it's like - that long walk out of the office pondering the story and code, and then the eureka moment of running full pelt to your mac to capture that "kwaa" moment before it dissipates.

Part of the answer, a strong element of it truly lies in diversity, our differences, new theories and philosophies and how they might apply to new systems.

If there was ever a firmer reason for a broadcaster or publisher to embrace employees with a broad church of opinion, culture, background, race, it's is now.

I don't think anyone could have predicted the use of Flash when it first launched in the late 90s. Or even the less talked about Director [ now considered redundant].

The answer sometimes lies in the reapplication of historical antecedents. There we find the DNA to our New Media existence.

Remarkably for instance, pre Renaissance literary form involved multiple narratives.

British Pioneers, Addison and Steele transformed such prose, which would later lead to the singular narrative voice and easily discernible texts.

Then post modernism and more acutely now, we see the delineation of multiple voices again this time being accessed through interactivity.

Arrgg History
History also tells us that disruptions and paradigm shifts are regular occurrences and that each time there is the mother of hue and cry.

The web and video journalism and newspapers fait a complit with it is just planet earth tilting on its axis again. And it'll do it again, and again, and again.

The interesting bit is hearing those squarely rejecting any such changes.

And what about now?

For instance, the very prose we use now in writing is actually up for grabs.

I've no idea like the rest of us what it will be , but if we seek to get our message across more effectively we have to pass google's [ a new high priests] scrutiny.

A while back I carried out my own experiment. I posted an article into an index which google returned almost 3 million listings.

Within 4 weeks the article climbed to number 5 and as it now ebbs between 1 and 3.

Did I necessarily have had to be a 'good' writer to get there?

My point, to make headway are we writing for robots first and humans second?

This is an important question because it impacts on the human quality of our writing.

To appeal to a burgeoning net-televisual audience does the existing exposition for TV news story telling work?

Will websites at some point come to play multiple roles, even a televisual one going beyond online incarnations to habiting other platforms, thus crystallising thebrand? Have you noticed how many news sites have come to ape the 'rich film sites'.

How soon before we'll be video hyperlinking each other?

How soon before protectionism from ISPs appears on the web wall-gardening our browsing habits?

And just when will we accept that video journalism exists in multiple genres?

The answers aren't so far off.

Adam Westbrook on a TV Manifesto

Every year you come across a student, who has lived many years past their own.

One whose maturity seizing up the industry, as well as future casting offers food for thought.

They blog, twit, video - a veritable broadcast outfit in themselves.

Begs the question why they need education, say a Masters certificate in Journalism in the first place.

But for a number of reasons, not least cultural and socio-politically they do - and things turn alright for them.

From within the institution I know too well there are many, but I have been fortunate to come across others outside - the next generation of meta-journalists.

• Dave Lee, from the University of Lincolnshire now at BBC Futures.
• and Adam Westbrook, formerly at City University.

Adam has this post on his site, which I advised you go have a look. Just got an ee from him. So I really should digest it in detail myself :)

It's a manifesto for TV.

Conflict Video Journalism - a gritty personal perspective

Corrine L. McDermid, a former Masters in Journalism student writes to me having been enveloped by tear gas at a Republican National Convention:

"I never figured Loyal Mariner [military] training would come in handy at home"

Please let me explain. At the University of Westminster we run a unique programme. Journalism students are airlifted into a war zone in Sweden, where Nato carries out its war games.

There students come into close contact with armed forces in evacuations, snipers at work, soldiers quelling riots and real Special Forces, who do get very aggressive. [sorry no controls on this video yet].

Nato welcomes us the first day, then tells us the gloves are off. It's a game within a game. They're not there to help you, rather treat you as real journalists after a story.

At the launch of the programme, I was the editor in the field, having reported for broadcasters in a few conflicts myself. We had about 20 different personnel; our students, others from elsewhere and some BBC reporters.

My colleague then Geoffrey Davies was running a news team back at the university putting together a half hour programme that was being beamed to the UK's highest military brass in Northholt.

The programme gives the military a chance to see what journalists, the new breed armed with tech stuff are like and it gives journalists the rare opportunity to go into a combat zone without actually getting killed.

After each day of the two week exercise we evaluate back at base where students went wrong and what they could do if they found themselves in a "hot zone".


The Pay-off for Conflict Reportage


Most students who've made the programme have gone onto the types of jobs, newly qualified and seasoned journalists dream off.

• David Heathfield now works for Nato as a VJ in Afghanistan
• Tamer is a correspondent for Al Jazeera in Gaza
• Victoria is a VJ with a South West of England company [ will find link]
  

So back to Corrine, now a senior journo with The Uptake.org. This is the video where she makes a reference to Loyal Mariner.

Still with my editor's hat on, I'd ask you to evaluate and recognise what you would have done differently?

• Is it all in the preparation?
• What might help the filming?
• What might aid the reportage

Corrine concludes:

"We've been living the dream-- uploading strait to the internet via a 3G connection with an iPhone or a Nokia N95!"

Video Journalism Winner, Idar Eduin Krogstad

Idar Eduin Krogstad was last year crowned Concentra's Outstanding video Journalism winner 2008.

His film "The Nightwatch" a touching story of two nurses dealing with life and death as they work the night shift at a home for the elderly".

Idar's pedigree precedes him - a doc maker since 1997 now working for NRK in Norway who've been at the forefront of video journalism for a good while.

Igar deploys a range of techniques, but also plays with conventions.
This was my review of his film.

What I like about this film is perhaps not the obvious at first, the isolationism.

Idar's lingering shots and play on space, sound and time brings to the fore the hopelessness of a situation and those struggling to make a difference.

And whilst shooting a whole feature with two main characters in one main location could have tested the arc of film making, it's precisely this that makes the film work.

It's claustrophobic, uses muted colours and the metronome of editing is in pace with the substance of the film.

Good access into sensitive areas, for example a hospital, can often be a recipe for a strong story, but it takes a film maker empathetic with the subject and interviewees to do the rest.

Legal (release forms) aside we don't see the stricken patients and the use of wide shots apart from yielding obvious sequences illustrates a respect for their privacy.

Nice!

The New face of journalism

The greatness of the web.

An old Channel One colleague, a lost friend and talented soul pinged me.

Sacha Van Straten adds to the fray as a genuine voice, having lived and breathed the Video Journalism paradigm circa 1994.

Before that he worked at BBC Breakfast. His latest post is ahead of the curve. I chuckled and so might you.

Not because of the loss. No, that's bad plenty, but a vision that does not distinguish between so called print and electronic media journalists.

Please read on

James and Simon - clueless about the war

BBC 9 O'clock News is undertaking  a VJ type report around two boys ignorant of the war.

VJ type, is there such a thing?

Well, it's a feature driven personalised narrative, the outcome of which you could almost predict.

Two Nintendo teenagers without a clue about WWI or armistice  are dragged to a memorial to learn about their great great grandfather, Thatcher who died in the war.

Already you can see a change in their demeanor as they hover around the plaque.

Their great grandmother is herself enraged the boys are not being taught this important footnote in history.

Tomorrow the BBC takes them to France to witness some of the war zones. Worth a watch

I want to become a journalist? What do I need?

I was reminded today of a phrase I hear time and time again to define how journalism is changing aligned with technology and the web: technological determinism.

This from Wikipeedia below

Technological determinism has been defined as an approach that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central causal element in processes of social change (Croteau and Hoynes). As a technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently diminishing human agency. It ignores the social and cultural circumstances in which the technology was developed. More

At a fairly general level, the dash for all things web 2.0, and the ease at becoming one of the new journalist is creating a different standard.

It's something established traditional journalists are saying and I have been ear-wagged: "I told you so".

In the grand ol' days they might argue, it was about being on the hustings, using your guile to unearth a story and exercising a basic tenant of journalism, prioritising.

I remember joining ITN as a lunch time producer from Channel 4 for a period, and I was lucky to work under one its greats, Phil Moger.

As I recall Phil ladened me with multiple tasks on my first day. Bring in a feed, produce this, take that, get these name checked.

I panicked.

But then someone pulled me aside and told me I needed to prioritise. Do what you need to do at the right time.

Multitasking
Sounds quite anodyne, what does it mean?

I'm writing this at the moment at home, yet it would be ill conceived to have written it at Uni when I had other tasks.

Learning to prioritise is just one of many characteristics, which t-determinism muddies the water.

We're becoming so desk bound, processors of information, passers of facts ,often unattributed sources and gossip, that could we one day lose the art of news gathering for news processing?

In a survey I recently read, and I'll have to look for the link, many news managers spoke about what they required in new journalists and it may seem odd, but being technological savvy was low on their list.

• Passion
• High consumer of information
• Maturity at decision making
• Ability to work in a team or on your own - but no going rogue
• An enquiring mind
• Ability to see all sides
• Determination to keep learning.

These are qualities that often come parcelled with your candidate wishing to become a journalist.

With passion many things can be accomplished.

And its in the selection process where you're able to filter those with the kwa and those who don't have it.

Because for all that new 21st century journalists will acquire from CSS, Action scripting to data base crunching, to make good on these new skills the recidivist characteristic of journalism is still a prerequisite.

Obama effect - journalism

In the UK, the media would like to point out to the political establishment that if Obama were a Brit he wouldn't stand a rat's whisker getting into power.

It's the way our political structure is set up you see. Meritocracy exist in the English dictionary next to Machiavelli.

But I have a broader question, because invariably the press rarely does its own navel gazing.

So could the Obama effect have a knock on effect for a different form of media - one driven by the people, who rally behind someone extoling a different type of journalism?

One that's bottom up rather than trickle down. Good piece in Time Magazine this week, that hits on Obama's electoral success.

It's not that skin colour was exclusively the stealer.

We're doomed. You only have to audit the press here to hear how Obama's introed.

Vote Joseph Harker
Personally I'd vote Joseph Harker over at the Guardian managing Comment is Free.

Journalism is as corporate as Politics, big establishments dictating the show - that is until recently with the surge of blogs and independent voices.

But is that shift in journalism as seismic as Obama's politics. Could there really be a time when a new crop of super sites emerge usurping the interests in the established media?

I know we're comparing apples and pears, but it's a thought none the less.

There is something to be said about diversity and pluralism and that's for conservatives as much for liberals.

Yep the Obama effect eh... We the poeple, we the media - Dan Gillmor!

Belkin router woes

I join millions of brothers and sisters in router's arms; caught out by the sudden rash of Belkin router gone mad.

Simply put. One day it was working fine and then the next, it need three daily reboots. I'll be lucky to get away with this post.

Then I spoke to my ISP, who then reliably informed me, it was not an isolated occurrence.

But despite his good help, I couldn't make heads or tails of his advice.

"Oh you need to download a firmware"
K*&^%^$@£@))_??

So then I went online and save becoming a human chain in the growing unrest at Belkin, I empathised with a few entries, clearly saw myself and then set about Belkin's website.

No joy...

But lurking somewhere was a number and details to call, which I did.

It was duly answered and I have to say the operator at the end was very helpful taking me step by step through their protocols, until that is we hit a snag, she couldn't resolve.

"Ok sir I'm going to have to get one of my colleagues to ring you back?"
" Er would you, cuz I really need to be online.. when will that be ?"
It pays in these instances to be extra nice.
"Today!", she answered.


Scar bleu - they rang back
Twenty minutes later someone else rang who was a bit alarmed when I answered the phone immediately saying.. "are you from Belkin? "

"Noo, don't worry I spluttered, I'm not from intel or something [Chuckle].. [chuckle]".

He was also very patient and after half an hour he decided this was an interminable problem that would require a new Belkin.

So he's sent me the code for a replacement, which I'll send off tomorrow.

Only thing I'm worried about is whether the new one when it arrives, how long till it goes bonkers.

But anyway Belkin were very helpful.