Great App Idea

Wouldn't it be a good idea to make an app which writes music for you. You press a button and hum a tune then it works out what musical notes you are making and how long you are holding them for and then it writes music for you and it can play the music back for you on piano or guitar or whatever musical instrument you want. Then if you want to add chords you can select the musical note you want to add a chord to and hum the chord. The app name 'Hum Music?' 'Humusic?'

Passwords!?!?

If there is 3 computers and 2 network ports locked behind a locked door and one of the computers doesn't need a network conection becuase it is only used for video. What is the point of connecting it to the network leaving a computer which does need the internet, networkless! This means I can't now do I job that needs doing urgently because the video editing PC is connected to the network which means someone has password locked it!

Jimmy and the Giant Supermarket

Last night I was watching Jimmy and the Giant Supermarket on Channel 4 and his quest to replace some of Tesco's most popular meat products with free range and high quality meat products. On the first episode last night he was trying to replace Tesco's cheap meatballs made from low quality meat with meatballs made from high quality meat. He failed because in order to use high quality meat, the supermarket would need to increase the price of the meatballs which might turn some people away. When people go shopping only a small majority of people focus on buying free range and high quality meat, they get whatever is cheapest.
I've done some research and I think it must be impossibly to produce cheap free range and high quality meat and eggs. I looked on the ASDA website and I found out that the a single barn egg cost around 13p compared to a single free range egg which cost around 27p.
It's understandable because in order to produce free range meat it means the farmer needs to meet legal requirements of how much space to give the animal which can cost a lot of money and some farmers can't see the point when not many people can tell the difference between free-range and barn eggs or the difference between a pig that has spent it's life in a cramped barn with other pigs and a pig which has lead a happy life in the outdoors rolling around in mud.
Apart from price there might have been something else putting people off Jimmy's meatballs. They contained Veal (baby cow). People don't understand that there have been big changes in the way that baby cows are treated since the 1980's. They need a certain amount of space and they live in and they need to have a good quality of life. Veal is sold because it is a tender meat and inn my opinion I think it must be better them dying at 7 months old after living a little instead of just after they are born so I think people should buy veal.
In conclusion Jimmy is going to have a serious struggle to produce cheap free range meat for numerous reasons however if he pulled it off it would be truly brilliant.

Facebook Phone

It was announced earlier this week that Facebook might be releasing their own mobile phone by next year.
Facebook has been hiring some ex-apple employees to work on the new phone and if the phone is released it might even be a half decent. Hundreds of apps and websites currently give you the option to 'Log in with Facebook' so the Facebook app store will give you a good verity of games and useful apps.
The closest thing Facebook has to it's own mobile phone the HTC ChaCha. It has it's own Facebook button at the bottom of the keyboard which lets you share photo's and video's instantly.
The HTC ChaCha and Windows Phones have Facebook chat integrated so if a Facebook phone was released what new features would it bring to the smartphone market? Most mobile operating systems have been designed around social networks such as Facebook and rumours say that the next iPhone OS will be Facebook integrated.
So although the Facebook Phone might attract some dedicated Facebook-ers I doubt it will be a success because everything you can do on Facebook you can do on other phones plus more. And although the Facebook app store might be big it won't be able to match the application markets of Apple and Android. We still don't know the details of this phone or the price however I think unless it announces something revolutionary we will end up with just another company which has tried and failed in the smartphone market.

Shine Awards

Since we entered the Shine Awards earlier this year we haven't really heard much back from the competition organisers until recently when they announced that we have been nominated for 3 awards.
The three awards are for best commercial strategy, the best over-all content and the most inspirational person (me). We were in the top 43 out of 300 schools.
However on the 22nd May the judges decided which Schools they wanted in the final for the media competition. I'm unsure what category we are still nominated for however we will be going to the final in London on the 25th of June 2012!
Since then we have been featured in 3 newspapers. (The Evening Gazette - Page 12, The Northern Echo - Page 4 and The Advertiser - Front page!

Despite other entered schools being private and grammar schools I'm confident that we will be able to walk away with at least 1 award next month.

Commonwealth

The Commonwealth is a group of countries who have Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. Her diamond Jubilee is early in June and she is celebrating 60 years in the throne, all the countries in the Commonwealth will be celebrating. The British Royal Mint will be releasing a £5 coin and people in the Commonwealth will be having parties and days off school and work.
The Song Gary Barlow has released a song after traveling to some of the commonwealth countries. It features people from those countries and the military wives. The money made from the sales will be donated to the queens charites.
Publicity Before her diamond Jubilee there was a Blue Peter competition launched to make an emblem for the day. This will be featured on sides of coaches and one of the official logos for the day.
The Throne After Queen Elizabeth II leaves the throne it will be passed down to her son Charles who is currently the price of Wales. In the last year the queen has passed a restriction stopping the prices to get the thrown before the princesses even if the princesses are older.
The Games Every 4 years there is the Commonwealth games where countries in the Commonwealth get the opportunity to compete at sports. A few years ago it was in Manchester and it started new possibilities for the city. It introduced a new Velodrome for cycling and 50 metre swimming pool. (Hopefully the Olympic Games in London will have the same, if not bigger effect on the city and the country.)

Francois Hollande can talk the talk but can he walk the walk?

Francois Hollande is the new president of France, he is from the French socialist party and his party actually has some good ideas. I was reading through his policies today and below are some of the policies I think are the best.


Francois Hollande Policies
• Foreign policy: supports the withdrawal of French troops present in Afghanistan by the end of 2012.
• Energy: endorses reducing the share of nuclear power in electricity generation from 75 to 50% in favor of renewable energy sources.
• Education: supports the recruitment of 60,000 new teachers, the creation of a study allowance and means-tested training, setting up a mutually beneficial contract that would allow a generation of experienced employees and craftsmen to be the guardians and teachers of younger newly-hired employees, thereby creating a total of 150,000 subsidized jobs.
• Aid to small and medium enterprise, with the creation of a public bank investment-oriented SME's and reducing the corporate tax rate to 30% for medium corporations and 15% for small.
• Recruitment of 5,000 judges, police officers and gendarmes.
• Construction of 500,000 homes per year, including 150,000 small houses for poor people, funded by a doubling of the ceiling of the A passbook, the State making available its local government land within five years.
• Restoration of retirement at age 60 for those who have contributed more than 41 years.
• The provision of development funds for deprived suburbs.


They are good policies however if they can implemented is a completely other story. Earlier this week Germany was telling  Francois Hollande that some of his other policies regarding the Euro and money won't be able to be implemented. So for now I think it is a matter of time before we see if he is a perfect president or a ludicrous leader.