Just realised I hadn’t made the pre-exam post I had intended on doing. So, I’ll do it now. Since exams have started (2 down, 6 to go), post rate will drop to around nothing around here for the next 2-3 weeks. Final year, final exams.

It’s been a mixed bag so far. Information Retrieval was surprisingly alright, but Algorithmics was a fairly painful mix of wordy answers and unseen material. May the Gods smile on us tomorrow for the undoubted hell that will be Grid Computing: a subject so full of holes, half ideas and hand-waving that you can turn it into a drinking game so insane as to be able to take down Oliver Reed. Well, if he did Grid… And was not dead.

Anyway, toodles for now. If you’re at all interested in how the exams are going, Derek is blogging the pain. He does the same modules as me, so I’ll try to comment on each of his posts on the matter. See you in a few weeks if I survive.

A while ago, I talked about the problems with open source software sites and how to improve matters. Today, a quick case study: BlogTorrent, a system designed to make Bittorent downloads less painful for those not in the know.

Let’s start by saying it downlods almost right: clear, single click downloads. Links for both supported platforms are above the fold on the front page, clearly labelled and right where the eye is drawn. Two issues though: the “Get BlogTorrent” text above the download area is not a useful piece of information. It’s already pretty clear from the box headlines what is going on. This text not only detracts from the design, it damages it. How? It immediately makes the user think of similar banner ads that have “Advertising” similarly positioned above it. There is already a problem with boxes being ignored as banners, don’t aggrevate matters.

It may also help matters to add a second download link to nearer the bottom of the page. Assuming a user has bypassed immediate download (at the top) to read more (the middle), it makes sense to put further download links afterwards (the bottom).

Next up: we want a plain English, jargon free explanation somewhere. To the sites credit, the how it works page is a good start. It talks through the process reasonably well, but skips over a few points. First, Bittorent. What is it? What is the smallest amount of information you can tell the user so that they’ll understand it? That is what you’re aiming for. No-one cares about the details; the point is to make the Bittorent experience seamless, right?

Then there is the copious jargon. It’s not overly technical, but the majority of people would give words “distribution” (try “download”), “client” (probably the worst offender as no-one outside of computing things of programs as clients), “server”, and “tracker” a wide berth.

The last main point is nailing a simple abstract at the top of the main page. Currently it reads:

“Blog Torrent is free, open-source software from Downhill Battle, designed to empower creators. It’s the best way to offer large files on your website without storage or bandwidth costs: posting torrents to your site is as easy as blogging.”

A good basis, but a bit waffly. Remove the clutter. “Empower creators”? Put the marketing gibberish away.

“Blog Torrent is free, open-source software that provides an easy way to share large files on your website without large storage or bandwidth costs. [Read More]”

Main differences: says what the product does in an abstract way, no bullshit, no jargon. The user does NOT need to know the technology involved at this stage, they don’t care who you are, they don’t need to feel empowered, they DO need to know that it will save them time or money. That’s your killer feature.

Also, provide the link to the newly simplified explanation page. If they want to know more about what is going on, then this is the place to say, “hey, you’re interested in how this works? Great, we’ll take you through it.”

Offt, some of that sounded distinctly like Hugh Macleod, all we need is better conversations.

Update: Kudos to the team at Downhill Battle. They’ve implemented some of my suggestions already.

Someone somewhere in Hollywood deserves to be thrown down a dark well for the abomination that is Be Cool. While its prequel, Get Shorty, was an amusing, well-written, gangster comedy this is just trash. Imagine a painful fusion of cameos, actors who don’t seem to care about their characters and thus change them drastically between scenes, music videos, cringing sequel jokes, and pathetic comedy and you’ll be getting their. Be Cool lacks where the original stood so tall: plot and characterisation. Only The Rock comes across as anything less than annoying, with a knowing self parody of his usual tough man act. A more atrocious, by the numbers sequel I cannot imagine.

The Ring 2, sequel to a Hollywood adaptation of a Japanese movie based on a book, which is not based on the commercial Japanese sequel (Ring 2) or the original sequel (the now largely forgotten Rasen, itself based on the original book’s sequel). Quite a history. Something was just wrong with this sequel though; it felt like there was too much time reimagining certain aspects of what happened in the original. The videotape was barely used, the takeover aspects were more than a bit obvious, and the water effects were fairly cheap and came from nowhere. This is made all the more strange by the fact that the Japanese director who made the series what it is, Hideo Nakata, directed this. Why he changed what he did is bizarre, and lets down the film.

The final contender this month is an odd film called The Assassination Of Richard Nixon. Surprisingly, there is next to no material on said assassination attempt. Instead the film is more of a character study into increasing desperation and dementia, propelled by Sean Penn as Samuel Bicke. The lead character becoming increasingly frustrated with how he and other underdogs can’t seem to get a break, he eventually decides to do something about it. Penn shows his talent once more, making us sympathise with his characters plight while being confounded by his continual discord with his surroundings. Powerful stuff.

Being the only good film of the month, The Assassination Of Richard Nixon is the winner.

The best song of the year so far goes to “Blamethrower” by Reuben. An astute mix of shouty rock and lucid vocals, a catchy chorus and riff just this side of immense mark this track as one to get. From their forthcoming second album, “Very Fast, Very Dangerous”, it is available as a download only single from various outlets (I recommend PlayLouder).

As well as joining Reuben on their UK tour this month, Caretaker released new EP “The Sign Of Four”. Featuring some of the tightest time transitions and vocal hooks in recent times, this is a band to be watching.

However, this month was mostly about yourcodenameis:milo. Already marked as one of the UKs best upcoming bands (having won the last Kerrang! Best British Newcomer award), they released a new single, the melodic “17”, and then their debut full length album, “Ignoto”, a week later. On the strength of the three singles (the latest joining previous stunners “Schteeve” and “Rapt. Dept.”), this was always going to be something special. The blistering live pace of songs like “I Am Connecting Flight” and “2-Stone” have made a faithful transition to CD, even if the dampening vocal filters mean that the songs lacks the impact that it could. Why Flood (the album’s producer) chose to apply such an effect is beyond me, since certain songs sound like poor imitations of the earlier demos. Still a great album.

After 10 years or so, The Delgados have split. It’s all amicable and Chemikal Underground will continue as a label run by the band. The reason for the split being that the bass player was leaving and the band felt they’d rather not continue without all of the original members.

EasyTree, the bittorrent tracker site for unreleased bootlegs, was shut down at the start of the month due to record industry pressure on their ISP. Shame though it is, Dime A Dozen“>has already appeared to fill the void.

In a shock move, the excellent Kerbdog have reformed. Unsure as to any official announcement on this, or what is going on with Cormac Battle’s other band, Wilt, but this news is certain. They are playing some dates in Ireland this month and next with the outstanding Fighting With Wire. Excellent news.

Other notable releases in April were Degrassi‘s “Tell Charles I’m On My Way” (looping guitar rock never sounded so good) and Dead Fly Buchowski‘s “Russian Doll”, to which I’m somewhat indifferent but the band continue to show some promise.

From various events that I won’t try to explain, I started pondering the age old question of how to figure out if someone is a robot or not. I present my findings (with discussion from outside parties).

• Use a magnet: Cheap and easy, but won’t work unless large machine parts are involved.
• Go upstairs: Again, cheap and easy but only effective on Daleks. And they tend to be easy to spot anyway.
• See if they like microchips: A dead cert to work, but really just a bad joke.
• Have a Voight-Kampff Machine handy: Turing tests at the extreme, but pretty handy. Problems: they don’t exist and if they did you might find out that you are an android.
• Hand them a knife: If they start slamming between their fingers at an alarming speed, then they’re Lance Henriksen and should be killed immediately.
• Cut them in half: Only works if there are large numbers of machine components. So, cut in quarters. Or, just keep cutting until you see wires. If you’re wrong, then they’re not going to complain. Downside: potentially murderous and fairly time consuming.

Those are my methods. If anyone has any better, I’d like to hear it.