Hey everyone, it’s Thea here again wondering, do you stream films on your computer, tablet or smartphone? Or maybe you hook your computer up to your TV and stream things that way? Well, I do, sometimes (as I wrote about my Slingbox experience exactly a year ago)…

So I was somewhat-excited to see the arrival of Netflix to the UK today. We’ve had a Netflix account for many years in the US, (dad watches something on Netflix every day). Though it’s my account, I can only view it when I am in the US!

So for years I’ve had a LOVE FILM account. I use both the DVD-by-mail and stream services almost equally, I guess.

As of today though, there’s a dilemma, do I keep LoveFilm? Do I use both? Do I use Netflix only?

Netflix offers a Free Trial for a month – so I’ve just signed up and I’ll run them both side-by-side to see how they go. As I don’t have much time, there really is only a need to keep one of them.

LoveFilm is a name you’ll likely all be aware of, as the UK-based company got their start (in one incarnation) a nearly decade ago now. Since then it gone through many different guises and mergers – right up until Amazon bought them a year ago. Their core business was DVDs by post, but as times are changing, since around 2007, they’ve begun offering streaming to a variety of platforms.

Netflix, the newcomer to the UK market, was launched in my hometown of Los Gatos California way back in 1997. They, too, got their start by doing DVDs by mail, but since 2007 have shifted their core to streaming, and do so across more platforms (seemingly) than LoveFilm does. Netflix streams to – PS3, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, Smart Phones, Tablets, …

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix was on the Breakfast show in BBC1 this morning, not really viewing Lovefilm as a threat, but more B-SkyB  (Sky Movies, Sky Atlantic) is the company to beat as it’s, “the big dog”.

To be honest, over the past year or two my own habits are radically changing. I seem to be doing less and less in terms of CDs, DVDs and physical books – opting to move everything over to digital (which clutters up my flat less).

I’ve even opted to not bother getting a Blue Ray player (so far). I’d only want one to stream stuff anyway so it seems pointless to me at present when I could use one of the services discussed here today!

So on that note, I’ll try to compare the two services side by side here in the UK and decide at the end of the month.

As I say I am already a user of both services (here and in the US) so it will be interesting to see if the content I am interested in is there for the UK version of Netflix.

It is, without a doubt, in the US, but on first glance the TV shows I’d want to stream here in the UK aren’t on the UK version of Netflix (much to my chagrin,…)

So it’s a case of “we’ll see”. It will be interesting to watch these two firms go head-to-head over the coming year.

What do you do? Do you use LoveFilm? Will you take Netflix up on their free one month offer like I just did? Let us know.

Happy viewing!

Microsoft is publicly celebrating the imminent demise of its Internet Explorer 6 browser.

Roger Capriotti, director of Internet Explorer marketing at Microsoft, has written in a post on the Windows Team blog that the browser now has less than a one per cent market share in the United States (according to recent data from Net Applications).

The United States is not the first country to get down to this figure, but it had more internet users to convert to other browsers than the likes of Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. These countries have already effectively killed off the browser.

Microsoft say that other countries to have reached the below one per cent figure recently, alongside the US, include the Czech Republic, Mexico, Ukraine, Portugal and the Philippines.

Many web developers will also be celebrating the end of Internet Explorer 6. It presented many obstacles to developers and designers because of its limited feature support and other anomalies.

Microsoft was so keen to get rid of the browser that it created  the IE6 Countdown website, which tracks the progress of countries across the world as they move across to more modern browsers.

According to the latest figures from NetMarketshare, many people are moving across to Google Chrome rather than to the new version of Internet Explorer.

Well it’s Christmas Eve and we’ve come to the end of another Twelve Days of  Twitmas. It’s been amazing response all the way through to our Christmas Crescendo times two.

FINAL FRIDAY:

So we had an Amazing final day of Twitmas yesterday where we had not just one but two over night stays in two of Glasgow’s finest hotels to give away.

One of our featured hotels was ABode Hotel in the other The Grand Central Hotel. Both offered one lucky Twitmas winner the chance of a free double or twin room on a “Bed and Breakfast” basis for an agreed date in 2012.

So congrats go to @Daviegardner for picking up the over night stay in the Grand Hotel and to  @seasider007. We really hope you have a wonderful, memorable (for all the right reasons) time in two of Glasgow’s best hotels!

CHRISTMAS EVE FINALE

So here we are on Christmas Eve 2011, and we’re delighted to be giving away a two-night break on the island of Arran at the Douglas Hotel.

This is just an amazing prize, because not only is it two nights at the hotel, but they’ve kindly thrown in breakfast and some free Bubbly on arrival too!

So for lucky winner @AlexBoyd you can take your partner, a friend or a family member and enjoy this amazing break.

Congratulations Alex, you’re the last winner on Twitmas12 for 2011!

Once again we’d like to thank all the people who supplied us with festive goodies to give away over the past twelve days. We’d also like to thank all of you who tweeted and re-tweeted for the past two weeks.

Please follow @Alan_Tennant  the Regional Director of hotels.tv!

Plus our lovely hotels for the final giveaways @douglashotel @abodehotelsgrp @bairdstravel – thank you so very much!

So that’s a WRAP kids! Look out for #Twitmas12 in 2012!

Happy Holidays one and all from all of us at NSDesign!

We at NSDesign are so excited that we’re down to the final day(s) of our “Twelve Days of Twitmas” for another year.

Tuesday – “New Year – New You”

On Tuesday, we gave away two tickets at one of Scotland’s top personal development coaches – Jack Black. The 2 tickets were for his upcoming “The Best of MindStore” in Glasgow on 3rd March. It will no doubt be a life-changing experience to all who attend.

Then Garrett Ramsay (@garramsay) offered up a three-hour, business coaching session focusing on sales. No matter what business we’re in, we can all improve our ability in sales, no doubt…

At the end of the day @HarperMacleod, took away the MindStore prize and @LomondBeauty gets the three hours with sales genius Garrett.

We would like thank Garrett and Jack for the Twitmas giveaways and congratulate the winners. Let us know how it goes you two!

Wednesday – Was all about the body

Body Butter that is, courtesy of the lovely Miss Polly. I had been admiring her work at a recent craft fair, and so when we were arranging Twitmas prizes, I immediately thought of these darling tins of Body Butter.

Given the sore feet I’ve been having lately – I’d been wishing I could win the Peppermint Tootsie Treatment. Sadly I couldn’t win but the people who do win these little pamper pots were – @anniegburns, @flofoxes and @BruceDevlin. Congrats to all three of you. I sure hope that you or your special someone enjoy these silky-smooth body butter treatments.

Thursday – Our penultimate prize

For this year’s penultimate Twitmas giveaway there was not just one but two bottles of wine – red and white courtesy of wine guru @pieterrosenthal from  corkandbottle.co.uk and www.lovethatwine.co.uk. Pieter was kind enough to hand pick a bottle of Lomond Sauvignon Blanc and a red Gran Sasso, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo too.

Congrats go to the winner of the Gran Sasso @Thomassimpkins and @Mickles20. Please check out his new video How to Decant Your Christmas Port.

Two-Day Finale

So here we are on the final days of Twitmas and to give more of you an opportunity to win, we have several fabulous prizes to give away. We are just so excited about it as Gary explained in his last blog and so grateful, and I’d like to reiterate the special thanks to Alan Tennant – Regional Director of Hotels.TV Glasgow.

Good luck today to all who follow @nsdesign – and thank for your participation!

Happy Twitmas one and all!

Hey all, it’s Thea here again and so begins week two of #Twitmas12 – our Twelve Days of Christmas giveaways via Twitter.

To recap:-

Day 5, on Friday, we had our first ever #FollowFotographers on Twitter – with prizes from not 1, not 2, but 3 photographers!! Our wonderful photographers in question were: @AFraserPhoto, @MarcdeRidder &@RonYoungPhoto.

• alasdairfraser.co.uk – gave away 3 x photo sessions inc 7×5″ print
• circleinlight.co.uk – is donating 2 free VR panos for your website
• ronyoungphotography.co.uk – free family portrait photo-shoot & CD of the images

Winning the voucher from @AFraserPhoto for a free photoshoot & 7×5 print were @LCbeauty @SandraCub and @garyckerr! Well done all 3! Then, @globalaudit won an amazing Virtual Reality Panoramic images for a website from @MarcdeRidder. Finally our congrats to @tracyknixon – for winning the free family portrait photo-shoot & CD of the images from @ronyoungphoto.

Day 6 – It was a variety of hosting, domain packages and Master Class places courtesy of,  well, NSDesign…so congrats go out to @LornaK_uk, @auld_guy @Glasgowbud1965 and @headphonaught too. Well done to you guys!

Day 7 – Our colleagues from the Luggage and Bag Shop donated some electronic luggage tags so your bags will never be lost again. What a brilliant concept!  The two lucky travelers who will benefit from the tags are – @almac1965 and @UtopiaScotland

Now don’t forget we still have a whole week to go on our Twelve Days of Twitmas! There are some real Christmas Crackers still to come. You’ll definitely want to keep following us right the way through the week until the grand prize on Christmas Eve!

Hey there it’s Thea here, we’d like to thank everyone for taking part in DAY ONE of this year’s #Twitmas12 campaign…

With very special thanks to a donation from our friend and client, Alan Mitchell from straightfromthecask.co.uk, Day One of this year’s Twitmas12 launched with a rare, 12 year old, award-winning bottle of Black Bull Whisky from the Duncan Taylor Whisky Shop.

We thought, what better way to kick off the Christmas spirit than, well with some special spirits:

“This Black Bull 12 year old, the deluxe blended Scotch from whisky specialists Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky Ltd has been awarded a gold medal for Best Blended Scotch Whisky at the 2011 Scottish Field Whisky Challenge.”

Congratulations go to our first winner - Michael Loftus! We hope that you enjoy the lovely Whisky for yourself, or give it to the very special Whisky-lover in your life.

Thanks again to all who took part in day one. It all kicks off again in the morning with a new prize from our clients and friends! Something for him AND something for her! I’m Thea saying See ya!

One of Facebook’s data centre managers has spoken out against rival companies’ decision to keep their data centre designs a secret.

According to a report by tech magazine Wired, Ken Patchett, who manages a Facebook data centre in Prineville, Oregon, USA, has openly criticised the likes of Google for trying to gain a competitive advantage by keeping the designs of their data centres under wraps.

Patchett left Google to join Facebook last year; whilst at Google, he supervised the company’s data centre campus at The Dalles, Oregon.
He told Wired that on joining Google he was made to sign an agreement that would prevent him from sharing any details about Google’s data centre design for at least a year after leaving the organisation.

Patchett said that although this kind of secrecy is commonplace in the industry, it “doesn’t make sense at all” because he thinks that there is in fact no competitive advantage to a company who keeps their data centre design secret.

He told Wired: “How servers work has nothing to do with the way your software works and the competitive advantage comes from manipulating your software.”

Facebook, on the other hand, is very open about its data centre designs. In April it launched the Open Compute Project in order to share the custom-engineered design of its Prineville data centre.

The centre features rows of energy efficient machines which cool the facility with air from the outside instead of electricity-powered water chillers.

It has also published the specs and CAD files for the data centre’s servers, power suppliers and building design on its blog.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States, together with the Estonian police, have disabled a botnet of more than four million infected computers as part of Operation Ghost Click.

In total six Estonians and one Russian have been charged with cyber crimes relating to fake adverts and misdirected web links.

Their crimes resulted in people being redirected to fake sites instead of to the US tax service and Apple’s iTunes store – the sites that they were originally looking for. In addition to this, normal web pages would be served adverts via the botnet instead of the actual advertisers who had paid for the service.

The criminals set up a fake internet advertising agency, through which they contacted online advertisers who they then took commission from for every click on their ads or visit to their website.

The crimes earned their perpetrators around US$14m (£8.7m) since they started in 2007. Computers in more than 100 countries were infected with malware called DNSChanger. This would change the settings on the machine so that requests to visit the sites mentioned above would be redirected to others which were serving ads from the criminals’ partners.

Unusually, the virus affected both Macs and PCs. Around 130 of the estimated 500,000 affected machines belonged to NASA, who were the first to notice and report the problem.

This cautionary tale shows that web designers updating websites need to be on the alert for irregularities.

Hey y’all it’s Thea here again talking money today! Over the last five or six weeks, both here in Scotland and in Cannes, I must have been to around four or five talks about Crowdfunding or Crowdsourcing.

Each time I go, I get slightly more inspired to give a go to a campaign of my own to complete the film I started making in 2006, but continue to have one or two reservations about it…more for the effort required to do a good campaign than the lack of belief that it will work!

Yesterday morning was a Comms Breakfast talk hosted by Michelle Rodger the co-founder of a new Scotland-based, Crowdfunding platform Bloom.

Before we go on talking about that, let us start with the definition of each term because though they are often used interchangably they are  slightly different in definition and aim.

Wikipedia describes Crowdfunding as “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations”.

Whereas Crowdsourcing is “the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to an group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.”

Crowdsourcing, (a term first coined just a few years back (in 2006) by Jeff Howe in a Wired Magazine piece called “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”) is more geared toward user generated solutions or content. Funding as it sounds deals more with the monetary aspect.

GO GO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

In Cannes @ MIPCOM, I had the chance to attend a small talk by CEO of what is arguably the second most well known Crowd Funding site – Indiegogo. Slava Rubin presented a lightning fast talk – starting with a great video of an example of what could be funded on Indiegogo (see video here Satarii) – which is practically anything (even IVF treatment or funerals!)

Ruben defined Crowd Funding as “a lot of people getting together who have a passion to make one idea happen”. (He ads that often you’re getting something in return, a “perk” or reward or something).

Slava says there are “four reasons anyone funds anything in life”:

1) …they care about the person, the cause or the campaign

2) …they want the perks – the products,  the service, the experience, the limited edition item, the ‘behind the scenes’,…

3)…they want to be part of a group, or something bigger than themselves

4) profit

The last one was not considered in this occasion, because it’s so hard to fund through the crowd anything for profit (“practically illegal” he says).

Slava Cites Factors in a Successful GoGo Campaign:

1) An Honest Pitch – be sure that yours is personal and engaging

2) A Video – Campaigns perform 122% better if they have a video on it. Note: not a trailer but a personal message (stating what’s in # 1)

3) The Right Deadline – Choose the time from 1-120 days. Choose a goal that’s fit for purpose, optimise for as short as possible while still being relevant and working. The average is 30-70 days.

4) Have Unique Perks – Make the perks unique, creative, low, high and medium. Make sure they’re not something someone can pick up too easily (if at all) elsewhere!

5) (like #1) Honest and Engaging copy in the campaign that is inline with your video and pitch. “This is who I am”…state your aim because, first and foremost, people want to know WHO they’re funding more than the film/project/product etc.

Slava’s Other Suggestions:

- be proactive – if you have four more people on your team, you’ll raise 70% more money then if you try to go it alone.

- do many updates, more than thirteen constitutes 65% more money raised than if you do five or less updates

- your number one tool for promotion is email, then Facbeook, then Twitter. Effectively “email destroys FaceBook and Facebook destroys Twitter” in terms of engagement and calls to action.

- be consistent – you need to keep asking, at least seven times or you won’t get it (the support). Be super direct. State clearly in the subject line “31 Days to 100,000 Euros for this Movie”.

He closes talking about “Social Proof” in the first 30% or 40% of monies donated is likely to be your family and friends (and presumably their spheres of influence) but as you get passed that you start getting what he calls “stranger dollars”. People who don’t know you who will start to contribute to your campaign.

The whole idea of Crowdfunding as I said at the start of this is intriguing. I’ve seen incredibly successful campaigns, and some much less so. I don’t know about you but seems every week I am contributing to someone’s film, or album or project of some description.

Though there are a few hundred of these types of sites, it’s exciting to see one launching right here soon, in Scotland, called BLOOM – Venture Catalyst (I love that last bit!)

If you have some money to spare, why not find some projects to be a part of?

Incidentally here are my Three favourites:

PledgeMusic – I’ve contributed to at least six albums on here this past year.
KickStarter – I have contributed to around four films this year on KickStarter.
Indiegogo – I’ve contributed to one (or possibly two) film on this platform this past year.

Special Mention has to go to:
Bloom – the one I’ll keep an eye out this coming year!

Maybe early in the New Year I’ll create a campaign of my own to complete my film and we’ll put the theory to the test…Watch this space!

So a while back I wrote a wee blog about QR Codes. Well, I thought I’d follow that one up a bit, as last week I attended the October New Media Breakfast about them.

The speaker of the day was Jim Divine from Cyberlogo.

Citing the rise of handsets, Jim urged the use of QR Codes, specifically ones containing logos, to connect with clients.

Some great examples were shown -  such as Jim’s own Twitter-inspired cyberlogo (Pic right), one for T3 Magazine, and one for Cake Decor (Pic left: a chocolate chip looking logo) and a make-up company too.

Possibilities are endless.

BEST IN SCAN

If you’re looking for a good scanner (of the many out there) – Jim recommends i-nigma. (I immediately downloaded it and began scanning on my Blackberry. Worked a treat).

Or if you’re an iPhone person Optiscan might be the one for you. (From iTunes: “Optiscan lets you create, scan and share QR codes straight from your device”.)

Like the sound of that.

One of the great advantages of these QR codes is their versatility. You don’t have to link to just a site, you can link to your V-card details, a calendar event, an SMS or a direct dialer to a phone number.

Another advantage is you can, through many QR code creators, update the link as time goes to keep it fresh. There will often be a charge of this, so get your initial code from a place that will allow changes if it’s one you’re going to be updating.

Personally speaking, I find QR Codes challenging. They don’t always work for me and that can be frustrating. In fact on this page on Jim’s site I couldn’t even get them to load! That said, with Gary’s iPhone they often worked better. (So more fool me for having a Blackberry I guess).

Finally if you are considering using QR Codes yourself, take a look at this piece in the Drum recently to make sure you’re not ‘doing it wrong’.