At the end of every year, I’ve listed my highlights of the previous year. See the post from 2012 with links to previous years. Here are some of the highlights from 2013:
Favourite New Gadget
An unflattering photo wearing Google Glass
There are several contenders from 2013. After 4 years with my previous work laptop, I took the plunge and went for a new convertible tablet/ laptop, the Dell XPS 12. It’s good, in fact the speed is still as fast as the latest laptops in the office, but my original intention was to stop using my paper notepad, and the XPS with the touch screen just can’t replace it. If you are looking for a decent laptop and have the budget available, I recommend the XPS – but keep a paper pad close by.
Continuing the Google theme, in December we bought Google Glass at work, and I’ve used them as much as possible. Google Glass is the future without a doubt, however I think it’s a generation (of users) too early. After watching colleagues and some customers struggle to use them in the office, it’s fascinating to watch my kids use them so naturally.
The prize for my favourite between these three? Sorry to wimp out, but it’s a tie between the laptop and Glass.
Favourite Book
I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s still my favourite read of 2013
I’ve been fortunate to read several good books this year. Removing the fictional titles (I rarely read fiction but my ex-manager at Endava guaranteed I’d like a particular author so much that he’d pay for the books if I didn’t like them), here is my 2013 reading list:
The Tao of Twitter provided inspiration, and results, of higher levels of engagement on Twitter.
I’ve recommended the SEO book to everyone I’ve met this year who has shown interest in natural SEO – it’s written in a simple, friendly manner with practical suggestions on almost every page.
The Arnie book caught my eye at Heathrow airport on one of my business trips this year. If you’re unsure about the book, just read the back cover – you’ll be surprised how much he’s achieved in his life.
However the award for my favourite book goes to Doc Searls. I didn’t like (or perhaps a more appropriate word is ‘appreciate’) some of his earlier work such as The Cluetrain Manifesto, and even in The Intention Economy I didn’t agree with all parts of the book (my major criticism is his firm view on open source – why isn’t his book open source if he believes in it so much?) If you need some inspiration for corporate digital transformation, this book will offer it. At Endava we are working with large consultancies who list The Intention Economy as mandatory reading for their senior directors.
Favourite iPhone/ Smartphone App
I’ve had to rename this since defecting to Android!
Strava is still my favourite. It’s the best cycling app available, mainly due to it’s implicit gamification. I sent them some suggestions for improvements which they implemented within a few weeks, so a big “Thank You” there.
A very close second is OneNote. I like how I can create a note in OneNote and it appears on my computer in OneNote. It’s quick to use, and comes with the Microsoft Office stack, so there’s no additional app to install such as EverNote.
Favourite Award
The Top 100 Digital Agencies Report 2013 – Endava came 17th
A huge well done and thank you to the team at Endava for ranking us as the 17th largest agency in the eConsultancy Top 100 Digital Agencies. The award was presented for our 2011/12 accounts due to Endava’s financial year finishing after the Econsultancy entry deadline, and so next year is likely to look even healthier.
This is likely to be my last post of 2013, so I wish you and your family a wonderful festive season, a Merry Christmas, a Happy & Prosperous New Year, or just some good old-fashioned time off.
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For the last couple of years (2011 and 2010) I’ve listed my highlights of the previous year. Continuing the tradition, here are the highlights of 2012.
Favourite new gadget
iPlayer on the Xbox is simply superb. You don’t need the handset at all – just switch on the Xbox, use Kinect to fire up the iPlayer app and choose a programme, and then it’s voice activated from then on. It’s also the only way to watch programmes in HD on iPlayer.
Battlefield 3 has been my favourite game of the year so far, although I haven’t played the latest Call of Duty Black Ops 2 yet.
I installed Windows 8 at the start of the year on a Virtual PC and liked it a lot. Some of the staff at Endava are using it as their primary operating system. I haven’t done that yet because I haven’t had the time to spend a couple of days transferring everything from Windows 7 to 8 – backing up, restoring and all that.
However I have moved over to Office 2013. It’s super stable (I’m still using the Preview release)and there’s a few new features (such as opening and working in PDF documents) and it’s just ‘nicer’ to use.
Favourite book
I started reading Bear Grylls’ autobiography Mud, Sweat & Tears, and couldn’t put the thing down. I don’t read particularly quickly, but three days after picking it up I’d finished it. It’s one of those books where you wish it was longer. Bear has had a remarkable journey so far, and I share some of his values – the outdoors and Scouts being prime examples. Definitely worth a read.
Chris Hoy’s autobiography was also enjoyable. I received some feedback about last year’s favourites all relating to cycling, so I won’t go into any more detail about the book here!
Favourite iPhone app
Continuing the don’t-mention-cycling theme, Strava is my favourite app of the year. It’s brilliant. Strava records all your cycle journeys, split’s them into ‘segments’ such as a stretch of a single road, or even a mile long set of roads, and then compares all the cyclists (or runners) who have travelled that segment. It turns your commute and weekend rides into an addictive competition.
After Apple completely messed up maps, there was a void left with free, decent, mapping apps and after my summer holiday to Israel where I found M8, it’s my favourite app for car journeys.
Favourite award
I’m truly honoured to have won Sitecore Site of the Year for the second year running. This year’s award went to The Open, and I know how hard the team at Endava work on the site both year-round, and during the event. A huge well done to all the team.
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Now that the extended holiday season has finally finished, I thought I’d update everyone on what’s been going on recently, or more accurately, what I’ve been up to.
For one thing, I haven’t been cycling a lot recently. After our family summer holiday and really poor weather when we returned, I ended up not cycling for 4 weeks. I then got back on the bike and was shocked how much fitness I’d lost. Fortunately the fitness returned relatively, although my Strava times are still low.
On the subject of cycling, last summer I read Lance Armstrong’s autobiography and loved every page. It was a truly inspirational book especially for anyone with cancer. I am torn between trying to understand that he allegedly cheated, and respecting him for the inspirational he has given so many cancer patients.
I’ve now installed Office 2013 on my work laptop and both home PCs. I’ve only encountered one major problem which was caused during an upgrade process where I clicked on a ‘Next’ button to begin installation. I clicked a couple more times and ended up installing Office three times on the same PC! Not only would none of the Office apps run any longer, I couldn’t uninstall the thing either. After some perseverance I managed to uninstall and reinstall Office again as I described in the Office 2013 forums.
This week I’ve been asked to review a social media report, which I’ll try to do on the weekend and post here. If there’s anything else you need me to review or want my opinion, please contact me, preferably by Twitter.
I had to be home quite early a couple of weeks ago, so I rode to work on my motorbike. I left home extra early and after filling up with petrol the battery had gone and I couldn’t restart the bike. The Green Flag motorcycle breakdown truck arrived in less than an hour and kept me regularly updated by text message – I thoroughly recommend them as a breakdown service.
A couple of days later they sent me a questionnaire to complete and return to them. I can’t remember the last time I completed a paper feedback form, and I don’t understand why they didn’t use an online tool to save costs – and I’d probably have filled it in by now rather than put it on the desk in the ‘to do’ piling tray.
And finally, last but by no means least, the Howard family have finally moved to Sky. It started when I contacted BT Vision, which I’ve defended and promoted to everyone who would listen over the last few years. The tipping point though was calling them to ask for the Sky Sports channels. The increased cost put the service on a par with Sky, which I didn’t mind, but I had to pay to upgrade my BT Vision box to the latest version to accept the Sky Sports channels. I didn’t even mind this, but I was annoyed that even the latest version of BT Vision doesn’t support HD channels. So I compared Sky, Virgin and BT packages. Virgin was about £30 a month more expensive than Sky for what we all wanted. Sky was £10 more than BT Vision if I included the HD channels, which we have gone for.
The most impressive thing about moving from BT Vision to Sky has been the speed and communication. It took three days from ordering online to an engineer coming to the house and installing Sky. The phone line and broadband are due to be switched over on Monday, ten working days after I’d ordered Sky. I keep receiving text messages of the latest status, and it’s all very impressive. Sky even contacted BT to let them know I was leaving.
I’ll let you know how the phone and broadband transition goes – I already have the router waiting to be plugged in on Monday.
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When Windows 8 is launched later this year, Office 2013, the very latest version, will be launched around the same time. I’ve been using the preview version of Office 2013 for the last few weeks and it’s a good upgrade.
Most of the changes appear superficial. Windows 8, ironically, doesn’t seem to have Windows – applications are back to full screens, and Office 2013 has been designed in this way. All the Windows borders are white (no more transparent borders), giving a minimalist feel to the applications. The first time PowerPoint loaded I thought it had crashed – it was a plain white window until I started clicking around.
The biggest, and in fact the only, change with Word is the ability to open PDF files for editing. I don’t know how whether the technology is licensed from Adobe, but I can’t see any reason to buy Acrobat any more, if Office opens, edits and saves PDF files. And more to the point, I now can’t see the point of a PDF file at all.
The key difference with PowerPoint is that the default slides are 16:9. This is great for my large home monitor which is 16:9, but most of the projectors I use at client offices are still 4:3. And 16:9 was available in Office 2010, although it wasn’t obvious how to find it.
On both Word and PowerPoint there are some very subtle updates to provide nice shadows to SmartArt (I never understood why shadows for pictures differed from SmartArt in 2010). Most of the upgrades are very subtle – such as a non-blinking cursor in Word which seems to glide across the page (if you can type fast enough) rather than blink erratically.
The focussed cell in Excel is similar – it seems to transition from one cell to the next.
I’ve been using Office 2013 in parallel with 2010. There are some quirks when running them on the same PC, but I can live with those. I’m far too afraid to open Outlook 2013 though, for fear of losing emails, or upgrading my various offline archives, so I haven’t reviewed Outlook yet.
All the applications have SkyDrive as a file location higher than My Computer – Microsoft definitely making that move to the Cloud. SkyDrive is good, but it’s just not as good as Dropbox. Dropbox cleanly extrapolates Cloud storage for the end user. SkyDrive still shows temporary directories when you save files there – it just isn’t as clean.
However if you open SkyDrive from a browser, you can edit the documents inside the browser – just like Google Docs. Like so many Microsoft products, it’s 90% of the way there, it just needs some finessing.
Is Office 2013 worth upgrading to? Sure, it looks much, much nicer. If you think this sounds too vain, you’re right. I can’t find any new features of the type which Office 2010 gave us over its predecessor such as SmartArt, and the auto correction.
Do you need to upgrade to 2013? No. When you get Windows 8 though, you may well want a cleaner interface though.
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