http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/index.htmlLiving in T&Tennospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comCopyright 2007 Mark Lyndersay2008-08-12T23:01:32-04:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:18:41 -0400nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comHardware2008-08-12T23:01:32-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ratchfan.html#unique-entry-id-199http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ratchfan.html#unique-entry-id-199Notes on a cooling system I built to reduce heat on my laptop are posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comPhotography2008-08-12T22:59:19-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/tether.html#unique-entry-id-198http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/tether.html#unique-entry-id-198Notes about the philosophy of shooting tethered are posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comSoftware2008-08-12T22:58:02-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macbackup.html#unique-entry-id-197http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macbackup.html#unique-entry-id-197These are software tools that I use to keep my data backed up.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-08-12T21:08:19-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth640posted.html#unique-entry-id-196http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth640posted.html#unique-entry-id-196BitDepth#640, notes about the need to backup in the face of potential drive failures is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comReader Response2008-08-04T23:38:31-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/tattresponse.html#unique-entry-id-195http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/tattresponse.html#unique-entry-id-195Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago
BEN Court, 76 Boundary Road, San Juan, Republic of Trinidad & Tobago

30th July 2008
Mr. Anthony Wilson
Editor in Chief (Ag.)
The Trinidad Guardian
22-24 St. Vincent Street,
PORT OF SPAIN.

Dear Mr. Wilson

Re: BitDepth Column Article

The Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) has noted the interest recently taken by 'BitDepth'
columnist Mark Lyndersay on certain initiatives undertaken by TATT, particularly TATT's publication of the survey report 'The Digital Divide in Trinidad and Tobago 2007' and a consultative document on the 'Proposed Universality Implementation Plan for Telecommunications Services in Trinidad and Tobago '.
Mr. Lindersay's most recent article 'New toll for local telecoms development' published in the Trinidad Guardian on Tuesday 29th July 2008 seeks to inform members of the public of certain key aspects of the draft implementation plan, and provides some 'food for thought' for TATT during this very initial stage of the consultation process. TATT welcomes and encourages any useful discussion on this very important issue as it seeks to develop regulatory provisions that would ensure that affordable basic telecommunications services are made available to all of Trinidad and Tobago.

However, the Authority is concerned that some of the conclusions drawn by Mr. Lindersay in his article are based on inaccurate interpretation by Mr. Lindersay of some of the terms used in the document. Further, in some cases the rewording by Mr. Lindersay of parts of the document results in the article containing very misleading information. TATT now takes this opportunity to clarify and correct some of these issues. Universality Service Areas. The article misquotes the definition of Universality Service Areas as 'parts of T&T which fall below the country average for accessibility and utilisation'. This is not entirely accurate.

Areas that fall below the country average (based on the results of the Digital Divide Survey conducted in 2007) are defined in the proposed implementation plan as 'underserved areas'. Pages 21 to 22 of the document explains that in some cases, it may be economically feasible to increase the level of basic telecommunications services in some areas currently classified as 'underserved'. Inadequate infrastructure in those areas may be as a result of the lack of competition in the particular area or due to service providers not fulfilling certain roll-out obligations as per their concession for a number of reasons.

The plan goes on to state that TATT has already begun dialogue with existing service providers to ascertain the reasons for inadequate service provision in under-served communities and the extent to which there are already plans in place to facilitate service provision in those areas. The draft Plan defines Universality Service Areas as only those underserved areas proven to be economically unfeasible to provide affordable basic telecornrnunications services. Therefore, a Universality Service Area is an area which is not only underserved and falls below the country average for accessibility and utilisation, but additionally one to which it is economically unfeasible to provide affordable basic telecommunications services.

National vs. Minimum Community Targets
Paragraph 5 of Mr. Lindersay's article could also mislead readers to believe that TATT has set the following national targets:
Proportion of Households with fixed lines = 73%
Percentage of mobile subscribers = 93%
Internet users per 100 inhabitants = 5 1
These targets are minimum community targets and not national targets.

The draft Plan proposes to achieve an increase in the national Digital Access Index (DAI) from 0.67 to 0.79 and an increase in the national Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) from 0.63 to 0.75 at minimum by facilitating an increase in the DAI, and DO1 of all communities below the current country average by one standard deviation (8%) per year such that the minimum community DAI and DO1 reaches 0.67 and 0.63 respectively. In order to achieve this, the minimum community service targets listed above have been proposed.

"Why woo wires?"
Mr. Lindersay concludes that 'Boosting Internet use makes sense, but there is a preoccupation with wired connections throughout the plan'. It would appear that the term 'fixed' has been interpreted by Mr. Lindersay as only meaning 'wired'. In fact, the term 'fixed' refers to a service, not the technology with which the service is provided.
Fixed telecommunications services are telecommunications services provided at any fixed location, whether using wired or wireless technology. This is clearly articulated on pages 48 to 49 of the draft plan in respect of the obligation to provide affordable fixed telephony services."
..A fundamental requirement of this obligation would be for the concessionaire to satisfy all reasonable requests for connection at a fixed location to the public telephone network, and for access to publicly available telephone services at a fixed location at an aflordable price in the respective Universality Service Areas (USAS).

In recent times, many jurisdictions have turned to the alternative of using wireless technologies to provide basic telecommunications services including both wireless fixed telephony and Internet services. Reasons for the preferred use of wireless technologies include:
> It is more feasible where geographical terrain prevents or limits the build-out of wired infrastructure; and
> It is less costly than building out wired infrastructure, thereby making it cheaper for the service provider to provide services to customers.
Therefore, for those communities where it may be uneconomically feasible to provide the required wired infrastructure, concessionaires may use wireless infrastructure for the provision of basic services."

Mr. Lindersay goes on further to suggest that the Plan's exclusion of mobile telephony services from funding means that all services (including Internet) provided over a mobile network would also be excluded. This is not the case at all. The exclusion of mobile telephony services from funding does not preclude providers of other mobile services, such as mobile Internet services from having access to the proposed fund. Generally, the term 'telephony' is used to refer to 'voice communication', and for this reason the terms 'telephony' services and 'Internet' services are treated as separate and distinct throughout the consultative document.

As with the obligation to provide affordable fixed telephony services, the draft Plan also provides clarity (pages 50 to 51) on the manner in which affordable Internet services could be provided:
"This obligation will be placed on Internet service providers (ISP) and will require the provision of at minimum, a 512 Kbps connection/access to Internet services upon a reasonable request at a standard price in the respective USAs (Universality Service Areas) no matter the geographic location. For those communities where it may be uneconomically feasible to install wired infrastructure, ISPs may also consider using wireless broadband technologies such as WiFi, Wi-Max, EV-DO and Edge. "

TATT's authorisation policy has always been technology neutral with no limitations placed on service providers in respect of the technology to be used to provide service (except for where there may be spectrum limitations). Therefore any cost effective solution (regardless of technology employed) for providing Internet services to Universality Service Areas will be eligible for funding where appropriate under the Universality program. However, TATT considers that there is no need to provide funding to service providers for mobile telephony (voice), which has proven to be commercially viable.

"Need for transparency in execution"
Mr. Lindersay's article also highlights a very important aspect of the proposed implementation plan, which involves reporting on specific activities of the proposed fund, projects related to it, and an account of the disbursement of monies from the proposed fund. The article states that, 'There is no specific note on how these reports will be made available to the public'.

This is not accurate, as the consultative document states:
"The Authority considers that in order for there to be confidence by concessionaires and key stakeholders in the administration of the UF, the process for the periodic review of UF activities must be a transparent one. In order to facilitate this, the Authority proposes the biennial publication of a Universality Strategic Implementation Report and the annual publication of a Universality Fund Accounting Report. "

At a minimum, publication is normally done by publication on TATT's website with newspaper notices to that effect. However, TATT will seek to make this much clearer when revising the draft document, since it shares Mr. Lindersay's view that transparency is very important to the success of an initiative such as this.
We hope that the above is of assistance in clarifying some of the issues addressed in the article. TATT wishes to extend an invitation to Mr. Lindersay to meet with us to discuss the issues, so that we can provide any further clarification for his future use in writing commentary on the document or any other initiatives undertaken by TATT. In addition,
we refer you to TATT's Authorisation Framework (available at http://www.tatt.org.tt/ddocs/AuthorisationFramework.pdf) which provides a useful background on the terminology used by TATT in describing the networks, systems and services that it is responsible for regulating.

Sincerely,
Cris Seecheran
Executive Director (Ag.)
Cc. Mr. Mark Lyndersay]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMusing2008-08-04T23:35:10-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/respondingtoTATT.html#unique-entry-id-194http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/respondingtoTATT.html#unique-entry-id-194In Tatt's response to my column of July 29, Executive Director Cris Seecheran seeks to clarify what he views as areas of miscommunication in my reading of the draft Universality Implementation Plan for Telecommunications Services.
In a note on my description of Universality Service areas, he describes as a misquote, my description of "parts of Trinidad and Tobago which fall below the country average for accessibility and utilisation."
This was not a quote, nor was it positioned as one. The sentence was meant to summarise the gist of the categorisation in the context of a larger opinion. While it is understandable that as a regulatory body, Tatt must seek to have its wording contractually precise, as a journalist, my responsibility is to summarise for reader understanding. I accept that I may not have made it completely clear that these are, in Mr Seecharan's description (and this is a quote from his letter of response) "one to which it is economically unfeasible to provide affordable basic telecommunications services," I believe that the description was satisfactory for general reader understanding.

Mr Seecharan seems to believe that my concerns about the specific exclusion of that Tatt's consultative document terms mobile telephony are irrelevant because the regulatory body believes that "The exclusion of mobile telephony services from funding does not preclude providers of other mobile services, such as mobile Internet services from having access to the proposed fund."
This logic falters in the face of market realities, however. Only one telecoms provider has delivered a mobile Internet service solution and its deployment has been sluggish. Service providers are most likely to bundle data plans with other profitable services such as, yes, mobile telephony, and this has tended to be the case with most commercial applications of technologies such as 3G and HSPA in developed countries.

The likelihood of a business case emerging for separate transmission of technologies which have been most profitable when bundled with voice plans will depend on the extent of the Universality fund's subsidy, which will then, essentially, have to pay providers not to offer voice plans on those networks.
Tatt's argument that services and technologies are separate is valid and accepted, but market realities suggest that certain technologies are adopted more widely when bundled in customer friendly ways.
Mr Seecharan takes further issue with my note that there is no clear statement on how the two proposed reports on the fund will be offered to the public. I stand by this statement.

In his note of response, the Tatt Executive Director states that "At a minimum, publication is normally done by publication on TATT's website with newspaper notices to that effect." All well and good, but that isn't stated in the consultation document.
It is a pleasure to see Tatt responding so promptly to the initiation of a discussion about proposals that can only redound to the benefit of Trinidad and Tobago's citizens.

Mark Lyndersay
July 30, 2008]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-08-04T23:32:51-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth639posted.html#unique-entry-id-193http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth639posted.html#unique-entry-id-193BitDepth #639, the story of footballer Adrian Foncette’s recovery from a potentially crippling injury, is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-07-28T22:07:04-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth638posted.html#unique-entry-id-192http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth638posted.html#unique-entry-id-192BitDepth 638, a look at TATT’s proposal to introduce a Universality Fund to finance enhancements to Trinidad and Tobago’s telecommunications infrastructure is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comPhotography2008-07-28T22:09:42-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mortebeat.html#unique-entry-id-191http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mortebeat.html#unique-entry-id-191One of my personal projects, La Fleur Morte, is featured in the July/August issue of Caribbean Beat.
The story by journalist James Fuller offers some kind words about my work and manages to date me quite nicely.

I'm not so ancient, however, that I'm likely to be doddering about humming Neil Diamond songs for inspiration, so please note that James misheard me and the quote that he cites is by Neil Gaiman, not the composer of the film Jonathan Livingston Seagull that some folks consider to be quite inspirational.

The image enlargements on this page are quite large and will require at least a 17 inch monitor to view properly, but anything less just didn't do the reproduction of the pages and the sample image of the flower of the Chalice Vine (Solandra Guttata) just didn't seem right any smaller.

You can view the story online here...

You can also access many stories from the current issue of Caribbean Beat as well as archives of the magazine by signing up for a free subscription here...

There's a blog posting on my website and links to other material about the project here...

Interview with Magella Moreau and Dennis McComie of Gayelle TV's Cock a Doodle Doo.

Slideshow movie that I prepared for that appearance.

Download the interview here and the slideshow here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comPhotography2008-07-28T20:47:40-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/1990.html#unique-entry-id-190http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/1990.html#unique-entry-id-190I wasn't writing a lot in 1990, still in the grip of a four-year writer's block. My memories of the event are framed by the pursuit that filled my forebrain in those days, images of what happened.
Despite all the words that have been recorded about the 1990 coup attempt, I still believe that the lasting impact of the insurrection that shut down Trinidad and Tobago for six days at the end of is the imagery that survives of the event.

There are images that are only in my mind now. Two rolls worth of Tri-X shot from the window of the newsroom of the Guardian that show uniformed police officers scampering out of the burning headquarters building were souped in fixer first by photographer Lester Forde leaving me with perfectly blank film. I would return to shooting later that night from the roof of the building, capturing the blaze of Police Headquarters glowing against the darkness of downtown Port of Spain, a photo that would run in the next published issue of the paper.
Other images were not lost.

Click: The Jamaat al Muslimeen exit the shattered facade of Trinidad and Tobago, weapons held over their heads, the visual, framed by the wet street and blurred background is that of overwhelmed rebels who would eventually have their amnesty upheld.
Click: The heroic defiance of former Prime Minister Arthur NR Robinson leaves him in a wheelchair and temporarily blinded by his ordeal. A humbled NAR leader is wheeled out of the Red House in a wheelchair.

Most people don't read carefully and the people most likely to be swayed by visual shorthand read the least of all.
The story of the civil response has never been fully told and in that vacuum, the spotlight has been left on the killers who instigated a murderous assault on Trinidad and Tobago's democracy. In the minds of many a local bad boy, the Jamaat al Muslimeen lost their battle, but won their war.

For disaffected young boys in 1990, these images offered a powerful lesson. Pick up a gun, shoot people who get in your way and demand what you want. Even if you don’t get it, you will get away scot free.
At the core of the public lack of confidence in the police response to crime, there is a lingering sentiment that what those boys learned from Abu Bakr and his cohorts has proved to be appallingly true.

I've posted a review of Raoul Pantin's Days of Wrath, originally published in the May 2008 issue of the Caribbean Review of Books in the Other Writing section.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comEditorial2008-07-28T20:40:18-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/coup_edit.html#unique-entry-id-189http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/coup_edit.html#unique-entry-id-189Editorial leader for the Trinidad Guardian, July 29, 2008

Almost 20 years after the attempted coup in July, 1990, the group gathered at the Red House Cenotaph at the anniversary observations continues to shrink.
Calling for those present to ensure that "it never happens again" broadcast journalist Dennis McComie, who was the lone independent voice on the air during the assault of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, insisted that "we cannot and must not relapse into the wilful ignorance that predated July 27, 1990."

McComie may well have been preaching to the choir on Saturday, but there is a generation that has grown to maturity with only a vague understanding of what happened 18 years ago. What lingers in the public consciousness may not be the message that those who experienced the coup attempt directly might hope for.

In 1990, a group of men, many of them young, several almost children, took up arms against the elected government of Trinidad and Tobago, detonated explosives at Police Headquarters in Port of Spain and took control of the Red House, then in Parliamentary session and the lone television station, TTT.

Over the next six days, the country ground to a halt as the overthrow of the Government turned first into anarchic looting on the streets of the capital city, then a protracted series of negotiations that led to the surrender of the Jamaat al Muslimeen on August 01.
There is has been no formal public review of the events of those six days in 1990 and at this year's memorial ceremony the call for an inquiry into the coup attempt was renewed.

In many similar instances of social upheaval and disruption, commissions have been appointed to hear testimony and gather the stories that form our understanding of such events as the assassination of President John F Kennedy, recorded in 15 volumes by the Warren Commission, the era of apartheid in South Africa, heard by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the report of the 9/11 Commission.
The 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 was refused a public inquiry, and legal action is still in progress by survivors and relatives of the slain to initiate one.

Even 18 years after the tumultuous events of 1990, there remains a lingering sense of a story untold. Little has ever been said for the public record about how the civil response to the coup attempt was handled, and in that void, we are only left with a narrative of a murderous rebellion derailed by public disinterest.
There have been books written about the events of 1990, most recently journalist Raoul Pantin's self-published account of his experiences at TTT during its occupation by Yasin Abu Bakr's armed insurrectionists, but none have pierced the screen of silence lowered by the military over their actions during that time.

It's clear that those aspects of the story will only ever be told to a formal commission created to hear them.
There is clearly need for more scholarly investigation into the causes and repercussions of the attempted coup and that can only truly begin when there is a resource of eyewitness accounts and procedural details read authoritatively into the public record.

With each passing year, the people who are available to share this knowledge diminishes, though with the passage of time, some may prove more willing to talk about their experiences and perspectives.
The nation is owed a more balanced and thorough accounting of the events that began on July 27, 1990, and in particular, the civil response to it.
Until then, the public will continue to be denied an opportunity to properly understand this aspect of our past and ultimately, to learn from it.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMovies2008-07-22T09:23:45-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/happening.html#unique-entry-id-188http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/happening.html#unique-entry-id-188It was one of those curious coincidences. After seeing M Night Shymalan's new film, The Happening, I happened to catch the last half of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
It's a stunning thing to realise, but The Happening IS The Birds.
It would probably be more polite to describe it as being inspired by the earlier film, but that's just trying to avoid the blindingly obvious.

When two films are about a mysterious, unexpected and never adequately explained attack by nature on apprently innocent people, when the key protagonists are a guy in a white shirt, a woman and a young girl, when they end up in a crazy old lady's house during the final attack, well inspiration doesn't really quite cover it, does it?
The curious and lingering similarities also seems to cast a deeper meaning on Shymalan's appearances in his films, another characteristic of Hitchcock's career.

On its own merits, the film is mildly scary, going a bit over the top as a warning about our laissez-faire attitude toward the environment, but offering its own uniquely intriguing moments. Normally, when a camera pans over ominously waving bushes, there’s something waiting in there, and The Happening milks the slow building revelation that the bushes themselves are the threat.
Now if Night could get a bit more consistency going in his movies, we could set aside the embarrassment of comparing them.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-07-22T09:17:01-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth637posted.html#unique-entry-id-187http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth637posted.html#unique-entry-id-187posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-07-15T16:08:07-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macupdate.html#unique-entry-id-186http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macupdate.html#unique-entry-id-186A note on my process for updating the Mac OS is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMusing2008-07-15T11:23:27-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/rbc.html#unique-entry-id-185http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/rbc.html#unique-entry-id-185Sometimes career opportunites intersect with personal experience. I’ve been doing some photography for the Royal Bank again. The bank was a great opportunity for me 25 years ago when I was trying to get my career as a freelance photographer off the ground.
Back then, I shot a metric buttload of events and handovers under the guidance of Sandra Bernard, who was the Public Relations Manager of the day.

I had the opportunity to do portraits for their most recent annual report and got the call to photograph the formal announcement photo of the proposed merger with the Royal Bank of Canada.
The photo linked on this page is the cementing of the deal, a pivotal moment in Trinidad and Tobago’s history as a foreign bank returned to buy back their old asset and resume control.

I fear that I’m not financially savvy enough to pontificate about the ultimate meaning of the deal, but my nodding understanding of world finance and the initiatives driving globalisation make me inclined to accept it as one of those inevitable consolidations that are rippling through the world today.

I should note, though, that on my mother’s insistence, I bought shares in the bank long before I ever submitted an invoice to them. A few years shy of attaining legal adulthood, the idea of spending money on a share certificate was as remote a notion as buying a ticket for a flight to the moon.

Over the years, though, the performance of those shares has been an ongoing instruction to me in the value of investing and the final return, relative to the sums I handed over to my mother more than 30 years ago, was a potent financial endorsement of even conservative investment.

I like to think that the bank invested in me as much as I invested them. I hope that the photos I did of the signing were as grand a return for them as their shares were for me.
The photo curious can see a breakdown of the shot here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-07-15T11:20:28-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth636posted.html#unique-entry-id-184http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth636posted.html#unique-entry-id-184BitDepth 636, a look a superhero deconstructions as offered by the new Will Smith movie Hancock is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-07-08T13:37:14-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth635posted.html#unique-entry-id-183http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth635posted.html#unique-entry-id-183BitDepth 635 on the wisdom of careful upgrading is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-30T21:17:07-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth634posted.html#unique-entry-id-182http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth634posted.html#unique-entry-id-182BitDepth 634, a look at the newest version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-24T12:18:44-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macftp.html#unique-entry-id-181http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macftp.html#unique-entry-id-181A new Mac Blog posting on software for handling FTP chores on the Mac is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-24T12:15:50-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/pixels.html#unique-entry-id-180http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/pixels.html#unique-entry-id-180A new Photo Blog posting is available on the real cost of digital images...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-23T22:46:37-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth633posted.html#unique-entry-id-179http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth633posted.html#unique-entry-id-179BitDepth#633, a hands-on look at Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-16T23:11:23-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/stock.html#unique-entry-id-178http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/stock.html#unique-entry-id-178The stock photography galleries have been revamped significantly. The collection is far from complete, but images will be updated over the next few weeks. View the samples that are available right now here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-16T23:10:19-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mcblog.html#unique-entry-id-177http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mcblog.html#unique-entry-id-177Macintosh blog moved to here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-16T23:08:28-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/phlog.html#unique-entry-id-176http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/phlog.html#unique-entry-id-176Decided to move my ruminations about photography to a new blog. The first few entries consolidate information about my photojournalism projects and contemplate an egg. Read more here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-16T23:11:18-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/emeagwali.html#unique-entry-id-175http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/emeagwali.html#unique-entry-id-175Phillip Emeagwali is an African scientist who has done pioneering work with parallel computing. Read more here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-14T14:01:35-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/520ff9a1a8529e6bc250c5576fb69f5a-174.html#unique-entry-id-174http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/520ff9a1a8529e6bc250c5576fb69f5a-174.html#unique-entry-id-174BitDepth 631, a look at the magic of the double feature is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-06-02T18:38:14-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth630posted.html#unique-entry-id-173http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth630posted.html#unique-entry-id-173Flash has been a boon to designers who wanted predictable glitz on their websites, but it may also have become something of a bit in the teeth of web development. Read more here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comBitDepth+2008-05-26T21:06:51-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/vistaplus.html#unique-entry-id-171http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/vistaplus.html#unique-entry-id-171At least one reason why users may balk at installing Windows Vista is the footprint on disk that the software requires. Having migrated directly from Windows 2000 to Vista; I wasn't prepared to have the barebones OS to balloon from less than 2GB to more than 11GB.
For a user who is juggling space on a laptop, this can be a challenge on an older system or one with a smaller hard disk. I run Windows in virtualisation using Parallels, so I essentially have an 11GB folder on my drive that I access only occasionally. 
Regular users will just have to plan their systems to allow for the extra space that Vista needs, and it may not be out of line to “nuke and pave” your system, copying off crucial data and reformatting the disk before reinstalling the system.
IDG News reported on April 17 that Steve Ballmer said of Vista at a Microsoft event “Vista is bigger than XP and it’s gonna stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn’t get bigger still.”

There’s another interesting aspect to the continuing presence of Windows XP on Wintel computers. Quite unlike the sluggish reception of Vista, upgrades to Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s market commanding web browser have been rapidly adopted.
The weblogs for this site suggest that the largest percentage of visitors, 34.5 percent, are using Internet Explorer 6, the default browser for XP, but those numbers are closely followed by those for IE7 at 27.2 percent. IE5 is way down at the bottom of the chart with just .4 percent of users.
Updating a web browser is much cheaper and far less labour intensive than updating an operating system, but this points to an interesting trend in computer use, one that suggests that for many users, maintaining a compatible Internet experience is more important than upgrading the desktop experience.

Microsoft has kept its advertising for Windows Vista low profile since the launch, suggesting the company has clearly chosen to pursue a path of attrition and replacement in the migration to Vista. 
But for that strategy to be successful, every new computer that ships must arrive with Vista preinstalled on it and that hasn’t been the clear-cut case that greeted the arrival of Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
With those launches, the improvements from the previous OS to the new one were so glaring and self-evident that system builders were falling all over themselves to licence the newest Windows.

In contrast, some system builders have successfully fought to hold on to the right to include XP on their systems.
In one remarkable example, Lenovo has instituted an “XP Downgrade” for its computers which allows users to buy an XP installer disc for a system that shipped with Vista until January 2009. 

Dell Computer, Hewlett Packard, and Sony have all announced plans, as of April 2008, to take advantage of this “roll back” proviso in Microsoft’s licensing agreement, essentially allowing these volume licensors of Windows to sell customers two options of Windows (only one can be installed at a time on each system) when they buy a computer.
Dell plans to offer XP Professional preinstalled for qualifying customers for free on certain systems under the downgrade licensing arrangements. Sony and HP plan to allow the process to proceed through their channel partners or to allow customers to handle the downgrade themselves with the XP installer disc.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-05-26T21:06:48-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/vistapickup.html#unique-entry-id-170http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/vistapickup.html#unique-entry-id-170BitDepth 629, a look at Vista's adoption is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comCable Guys2008-05-19T20:53:50-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/awt.html#unique-entry-id-169http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/awt.html#unique-entry-id-169A Winter Tale
Written by Michele Lonsdale-Smith and Frances Solomon
Directed by Frances Solomon

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't seen any of Frances Anne Solomon's films before this. From the assured, unsentimental vision that's on show in her newest film, A Winter Tale, I've certainly been missing out.

It is one of the cruel realities of Trinidad and Tobago's history with motion pictures that there is no archive of the works of local films and the availability of such productions hinges almost entirely on who has a copy and is willing to share it.

Last year's Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival offered a beat up old VHS copy of Bim, arguably one of the most valuable films in our short history of movies produced locally.
If we ever get around to the kind of viewing library that would have locally related films of value on call, then A Winter Tale should be on the roster.

The film isn't really local, though the links back to the Caribbean are strong generally and are more specifically delineated through Solomon and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall.
This is a tale of the diaspora, of black people from warm countries drawn to the small huddles striving to reproduce the warmth of home that some travellers cultivate.
In A Winter Tale, the nexus is the Caribbean restaurant of Miss G (a riveting Leonie Forbes) a nook that has the patina of spicy meat pies and bubbling callalloo.

One evening, gunshots bring a tragic halt to an evening of liming and tragedy begins to pull casual friendships apart.
As Gene (Peter Williams) tries to pull the group back together to talk through the experience, ugly truths about the reality of the social dynamic that allows these men to hang out, play cards and have some drinks begin to surface.
It's a taut human drama, well seen and evenly paced. Solomon and her co-writer Michele Lonsdale-Smith decline numerous opportunities to place the blame on an uncaring Canadian society and keeps the focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the third world hustle in a metropolis.

The brisk cutaways to city streets and passers-by as they glide past the principal characters place their personal drama on a much larger stage, a fast moving, vaguely menacing blur of a city, too large and all embracing to fit into the frame of a camera so relentlessly focused on the intimate details of this story.
Solomon does something quite remarkable with this film, keeping the human drama intriguing and mysterious all the way through to the final few minutes.

There are a few missed tones along the way, a confrontation between Miss G and her estranged son Ian (Peter Bailey) collapses into some melodramatic weeping that seems miles away from the unresolved conflict both characters had been nursing for two years.
And the final fate of the ruthless bad guy, his cruel nature unmasked in the last quarter of the film is really just Hollywood justice. In the real world that Solomon has crafted a riveting simulacrum of, he would just move on, his search for profit continuing in some other section of the city.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-05-19T19:43:44-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth628posted.html#unique-entry-id-168http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth628posted.html#unique-entry-id-168You could just scan a photo or you could digitize your analog images with the utmost fidelity. Read more here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-05-14T22:25:47-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macwp.html#unique-entry-id-167http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macwp.html#unique-entry-id-167On my Mac blog, the inside story on two software tools I've used for years in preparing my writing for publication.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comCable Guys2008-05-26T20:42:10-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/hepburn.html#unique-entry-id-166http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/hepburn.html#unique-entry-id-166Roman Holiday, a hilarious lark of a film that couldn't possibly be made today.

It's the princess and the pauper in high gear, a frothy, impossibly romantic confection that depends on an unlikely confluence of compacts that don't exist anymore in today's world, the most remote of which is a journalist with a conscience who keeps a secret that could bring him fame and fortune. Hepburn would win the Oscar for the role, her first major part in a Hollywood film.

The very next year, she married an uncute fellow actor, Mel Ferrer, a serious thespian with whom she won her first Tony award in the Broadway production of Ondine.
Today, Audrey Hepburn is best known for the glamorous yet down to earth profile she cut as a UNICEF cultural ambassador, travelling to downtrodden countries and bringing media attention to the poor and suffering.
But remembering Hepburn that way doesn't really capture the astonishing presence she had on film in her prime. What started as a tolerant husband's duty to his wife, viewing a collection of Hepburn films I bought as a Christmas gift in 2006 became a shared pleasure.

Donna is constantly charmed by the simpler pleasures and more sophisticated plots of films on the cusp of moving from the carefully staged propriety of black and white to the tentative whimsy of colour, but Hepburn's films transcend such casual distinctions.

The actress' precise oval shaped face, so easily transformed by attention to her eyebrows and hairstyle (was there ever such a difference between a ponytail and a close cut?) drew out the best in her cinematographers, who lavished their best efforts on lighting her.

In the denouement of Roman Holiday, as she stands revealed as Princess Ann, royalty of an unnamed domain, there is a delightful moment when Hepburn turns in telephoto closeup to listen to a question from the reporter Joe (Gregory Peck). There are no less than five distinct lights on Hepburn's head and shoulders, each designed to pick up and highlight an aspect of her beauty. I paused the DVD and pointed each of them out to Donna, slowing down for her appreciation something I saw and recognised instantly.

There are similar moments in Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Funny Face, pivotal moments of the plot when the honesty and truth of the film turn on a word and a look from Hepburn. She doesn't disappoint and her cinematographers pay her the ultimate accolade by framing her face with a care and attention that speaks of the essential romance carried on from behind the lens and spotlight.

Regardless of what you think you remember, you haven't seen Audrey Hepburn until you see her in the best of her early films and see the blossoming of a talent, unhindered by a remarkable beauty, that spoke of a toughness of spirit far greater than her tiny frame might seem capable of containing.

Postscript:
Just saw My Fair Lady, one of Hepburn's more memorable roles in a film and the one that really cemented in my mind that her lasting charm as an actress is the "transformation," the change from a dowdy duckling to a elegantly attired swan.
Despite the famous score by Lerner and Loewe, the truly remarkable thing about My Fair Lady is just how horrible the story (based on the play Pygmalion) underlying the film actually is. Even allowing for the very different social mores of 1964, the character of Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is unremittingly misogynistic. Higgins is a svengali inspired by Machiavelli.

Harrison's commitment to the character is professionally thorough (and won him an Oscar), but the final plot twist, which delivers a transformed but (despite well performed scenes of fierce independence by Hepburn) conspicuously unliberated Eliza Doolittle into the home and untender care of the male lead is a bitter twist after the inspiring theatrics which preceded it.

Recommended:
Roman Holiday (1953)
Sabrina (1954)
Funny Face (1957)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-05-12T23:46:36-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth627posted.html#unique-entry-id-165http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth627posted.html#unique-entry-id-165Flow's broadband is fast and affordable. The tech support needs some improving though.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-05-05T20:22:11-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth626posted.html#unique-entry-id-164http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth626posted.html#unique-entry-id-164Derren Joseph believes that he has the right mix of hands-on and virtual for Trinidad and Tobago's credit card shy society. The story behind his cellphone driven ticketing system is here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comPhotography2008-04-28T19:30:46-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/polaroid.html#unique-entry-id-163http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/polaroid.html#unique-entry-id-163
Polaroid's J66 Instant Camera

That Edwin Land was brilliant is beyond question. His two contributions to modern technology, the concept of polarizing light passing through a lens so that reflections were eliminated and the idea of a camera that processed its own images was so far out of the field of normal thinking that it would be decades before they settled into casual use.
Sunglasses that aren’t polarised are now commonly thought to be useless tinted glass and the idea of a camera that develops its own images, well that changed fundamentally between the time that Land through up his light sensitive paper and caustic processing gels.

I don’t often talk about my first experience with a camera because it was so clandestine. My father left boxes of his belongings behind when he separated from my mother, and they were supposed to be stored out of bounds at our home on Mucurapo Road.
This didn’t stop me from exploring during the July-August vacations, and I found what I remember as a Polaroid J66 model instant camera. The manual was written for a savvy adult, but there were a few packs of black and white Polaroid in the case, so I set about making a happy mess of both camera and packs. I may have shot one or two blurry, developed images during that first, furtive exploration of photography, but what I remember most clearly was how pungent and searing the chemicals in those early packs were.

Much later on, when I entered the field of professional photography for the first time, I shot with a Mamiya medium format camera which had a Polaroid back that was invaluable for proofing complicated lighting setups.
Digital photography essentially ended the allure of 60 second development with split-second gratification on an LCD. Land’s idea was sound, as the overwhelming acceptance of modern digital photography attests, but the execution went swiftly from ahead of its time to hopelessly behind the times.

It wasn’t the first time that Polaroid’s chemical technology was superseded by electronics. An early movie format, Polavision, which made use of a version of the sandwiched processing of Polaroid instant packs was killed almost as soon as it was introduced by VHS recorders and cameras.
In February, the Polaroid Corporation, a shell of the company in its heyday, announced that it would stop manufacturing the packs of film and chemicals used by the cameras, shutting down its factories and laying off the workers. Fujifilm continues to manufacture a small subset of the Polaroid range.

Sixty years after producing their first instant camera, the instant camera revolution was all but over, replaced by cameras that develop in a split second and display the results on an LCD.
Or is it? A number of specialist applications kept Polaroid cameras in the game, including quick forensic snapshots, machine specific applications in dentistry and dermatology and travel photographers who used the cameras to give their subjects an immediate keepsake.
The SX-70, possibly the most famous of the cameras that the company produced, created a particularly interesting image, one that could be pushed around with a firm stylus to create painterly, one of a kind images.

You can see some of this work done by my friends Sonya and Fernando here. They even did one of me working on an early hand coded version of my website when we were supposed to be relaxing down the islands.
SX-70 users are among the many petitioners hoping to convince a better off photography company to acquire the manufacturing assets and licencing rights that Polaroid is about to shutter.

Save Polaroid website]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-28T19:28:36-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth625posted.html#unique-entry-id-162http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth625posted.html#unique-entry-id-162BitDepth 625, a memoriam for software that's gone the way of old code is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMovies2008-04-21T23:48:15-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ck.html#unique-entry-id-161http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ck.html#unique-entry-id-161Gerard goes bad to get good

Michael Walker, Tricia Lee Kelshall, Gerard Joseph and Cauri Jaye in a promotional photo for Men of Gray - Flight of the Ibis. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.

As I walked down the reddish carpet to the reception at the Trinidad and Tobago premiere of Contract Killers, I had an idle thought, the realisation that I was there not because I was a valued member of the media, a local film buff or even because I'd been in a Gerard Joseph film once in the past. I was there because Gerard is a fiercely loyal friend, the kind of guy who won't give up on a pardner until he's been beaten bloody and taken limping from the scene.

Ria, the woman who often reaches in to pull Gerard from his most humanitarian impulses was there too, a tall, rangy presence, as always right next to her husband, shaking hands, smiling and supporting Gerard, just like I remembered her the first time we met almost two decades ago.
Gerard Joseph was back in Trinidad after making his school film, Men of Gray, to produce its sequel, Men of Gray II - Flight of the Ibis. He remembered me from a story I had commissioned for the Guardian's Sunday Magazine, SG, and more specifically from the photos I had done of him with his co-star, Charles Applewhaite for the story.

Gerard insisted, in that way that he does, that I had to do the photos for the film. So I tagged along on some of the shoots, learning once and for all the glamour of film making is on the screen. Shooting stills for a movie is dull, the kind of thing that makes you long for the excitement of watching paint dry. Then you get a narrow window to shoot in before the crew shoves you out of the way to get their work done.
Gerard did his own learning on that shoot, discovering just how hard it is to move production wheels for moviemaking in Trinidad and Tobago. He went back to the US for a good long while after that, returning to film local scenes for Backlash, an action film that used Carnival as a backdrop.

Give the boy that. He's been more determined to use Trinidad and Tobago in his movies than anybody who talks about doing it officially.
What Gerard Joseph has been missing all this time, despite his indefatigable enthusiasm for the movie business, his bull-headed loyalty to his friends and the country of his birth, is a vehicle that puts his hard work up on the screen for the world to see.

There's no delicate way to put this, but most of Gerard's films haven't been great. They have been enthusiastic and passionate, they have featured his love and skills in the martial arts, but the unsung hero of Contract Killers, easily the best film he has produced that I've seen, is Justin Rhodes, a 28 year old Texan who polished the screenplay, directed and edited a slick action film that's heavily influenced by the style of the Bourne trilogy.

In Contract Killers, there are no good guys, just varying shades of bad, and for an adamantly nice fellow like Gerard, it marks a moment of maturity, I think, a realisation that the world is mostly shades of gray, many of them unpleasant, not the starkly black and white hatted protagonists of his earlier efforts.

In the film, Gerard takes a low profile role as Monoven, a terse, efficient killer and allows his three stars, Frida Farrell, Christian Willis and Rhett Giles to carry the film from Florida to Port of Spain to a miscellany of scenic sites around Trinidad and Tobago, including the "Chaguaramas Jungle," which earned the film a laugh.

It was great to see Gerard score with a slick, well put together film that rewarded his hard work over the years.
It's going to be interesting to see whether the Film Company, the location promotion arm of the local tourism agency, learns from his experience; the lesson that success with a film comes after two years of shooting and production and twenty-five years of being disappointed, picking yourself up and refusing to give up.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-21T23:45:53-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macpix.html#unique-entry-id-160http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/macpix.html#unique-entry-id-160A look at current options for managing images at a reasonable price is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-21T23:44:30-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth624posted.html#unique-entry-id-159http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth624posted.html#unique-entry-id-159BitDepth 624, a look at the success of the fan continuation of the Star Trek TOS story is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-14T23:23:40-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth623.html#unique-entry-id-158http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth623.html#unique-entry-id-158BitDepth 623, an overview of current versions of image browsing and editing software is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-07T23:39:36-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/air.html#unique-entry-id-157http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/air.html#unique-entry-id-157A new note on my experiences with the MacBook Air has been posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-07T23:36:54-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/nugtv.html#unique-entry-id-156http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/nugtv.html#unique-entry-id-156New images of actors and presenters for Gayelle TV have been posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-04-07T23:35:15-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/dfc7763bf18f8cfbf1dc12383cb3d007-155.html#unique-entry-id-155http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/dfc7763bf18f8cfbf1dc12383cb3d007-155.html#unique-entry-id-155BitDepth 622, a look at two online image editing applications is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-31T21:40:24-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ll.html#unique-entry-id-154http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ll.html#unique-entry-id-154After a hiatus of almost a year, my photoessay project Local Lives returned this Sunday to the Guardian with a profile of a the Ramrick Sadhoo Chowtal Group.

To mark the occasion, I've revamped the web presence for Local Lives, with extended galleries of the first four installments and "The Return of Ramrick Sadhoo."

The other three installments will be posted over the next week.
View the new web presence for Local Lives here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-31T21:35:47-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mac.html#unique-entry-id-153http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/mac.html#unique-entry-id-153A new section on the Macintosh begins here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-31T21:14:55-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth621posted.html#unique-entry-id-152http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth621posted.html#unique-entry-id-152BitDepth 621, a look at how musicians are taking more direct paths to their customers, is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-24T21:29:08-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/61165e8e68f6dce522bf08ff7a4f9c88-151.html#unique-entry-id-151http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/61165e8e68f6dce522bf08ff7a4f9c88-151.html#unique-entry-id-151BitDepth 620, a look at online options for wordprocessing software is posted here...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comEditorial2008-03-21T09:00:14-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/response.html#unique-entry-id-150http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/response.html#unique-entry-id-150I did not cut off the microphone

Your editorial of March 17 contains a factual inaccuracy which I am quite certain you cannot substantiate, and an allegation about my conduct of the post-Cabinet press conference of March 13, which is equally without foundation.

In its fifth paragraph, the editorial asserts that “Information Minister Neil Parsanlal simply cut off the reporter’s microphone.” There is absolutely no truth to this statement.

As the moderator of the post-Cabinet press conference, I have no control over the microphone system, and therefore I am in no position to cut off any reporter’s microphone.

This matter was first raised publicly in a report carried by the Newsday reporter the day after the press conference, in which he alleged that “I was cut off by moderator, Minister of Information Neil Parsanlal.” He went on to add that “mysteriously, the microphone set up for this reporter went dead.”

It is indeed a pity that the Guardian, before compounding this inaccuracy, did not afford the minister the traditional courtesy of the right of reply, but rather accepted without question and repeated the Newsday reporter’s unfounded allegation.

What is indeed even more troubling, is that the Guardian’s editor-in-chief (ag) was present at that press conference and could easily have prevented his paper from committing this journalistic travesty.

The post-Cabinet press conference has a structure which follows closely the pattern of similar international briefings. Reporters are asked to identify their names and media houses before posing their question. Having done so, I usually allow sometimes two or three follow-up questions, before moving to another reporter.

With ten-15 reporters in the room, it would be improper to allow any one reporter to dominate the press conference, particularly when the question has been posed and answered by the minister.

If a reporter does not get the answer s/he is looking for, that does not give him/her the right to stall the press conference and prevent his/her colleagues from being able to pose their questions. As moderator, I have an obligation to all reporters in the room.

The second point of contention is the editorial allegation that my purported action underlined “the Government’s apparent position on questioning intended to result in answers that might reflect an addressing of public concerns.”

Working with syllogisms, one would be forced to conclude that the wrong premise would always result in the wrong conclusion, which is the precise error in this case.

Since assuming office I have deliberately set an agenda of openness and public disclosure. I have engaged all sections of the media, including both employers and employees, as well as their umbrella organisations.

I have been available and accessible to the media, sometimes at great inconvenience to my family and myself but, I hasten to add, I accepted this job and recognise that as par for the course. To impute therefore that I am part of a plot to prevent reporters from asking questions is ridiculous at best and libellous at worst.

I continue to be available to the Guardian, as I am to all other media houses, and pray that in the interest of journalistic integrity and fair play, that your error will be publicly corrected.

Neil Parsanlal
Minister of Information ]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comEditorial2008-03-17T19:51:27-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/browne.html#unique-entry-id-149http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/browne.html#unique-entry-id-149A media in service of people, not politics

The palpable arrogance of Junior Finance Minister Mariano Browne’s responses at Thursday’s post-Cabinet press conference sends a dangerous message to media practitioners about the attitude of the Government regarding our essential business.
The silence of the government on his startling statements suggests official endorsement of troubling trends in policy regarding information availability and transparency in public governance.

Questioned about the possibility of a removal of the two billion dollar gas subsidy which directly affects the cost of transportation, Browne launched into a lengthy economic discourse.
After the reporter pressed on with his questions, Browne rebuffed the line of questioning, suggesting that the reporter “read economics.”

Underlining the Government’s apparent position on questioning intended to result in answers that might reflect an addressing of public concerns rather than a tertiary level financial discourse, Information Minister Neil Parsanal simply cut off the reporter’s microphone.

During this “discussion” period with the press, the Junior Finance Minister also made clear his position on financial transparency, telling a room full of reporters that he would not recommend that the Government share information about feasibility studies or cost-benefit analyses related to the purchase of a TT$400 million jet because he did not believe that the business of government should be articulated in the media.

If one wished to be charitable, it could be noted that Minister Browne was appointed late to the Cabinet and missed the one week beachside coaching opportunity for new Ministers of Government. Coming from the upper echelons of the private sector finance, his sense of reserve at sharing financial information is understandable, but absurdly out of place.
Efforts at muzzling the scope and freedom of the media to report on issues of importance to the public have been a consistent part of the relationship between governance and reporting.

Much of the time it finds expression in courtship and charm, the pleasant selling of a governmental perspective accompanied by updated versions of “rum and roti” offerings designed to divert focused attention from areas of concern.
At other times, however, the effort becomes more focused and draconian, finding expression in odious attempts to apply artificial barriers to the reporter’s scope of inquiry. The late 1990’s attempt to float the notorious Green Paper on Media Reform by the UNC finally collapsed in the face of media outcry, and a libel lawsuit brought against Basdeo Panday by Ken Gordon.

The media practitioners of Trinidad and Tobago are among the most admired in the Caribbean region, but such regard must continue to be earned, and efforts to circumvent our effective articulation of the concerns of the public to those in power and to report on the realities and ramifications of their decisions cannot ever be curtailed.
Perhaps it is necessary to respond to Minister Browne and say it directly so that members of Cabinet understand; the business of the government is the business of the people and the actions of the stewards of the national economy must be reported to them in all the detail our published pages and broadcast time will allow.

It is to be expected that the agendas of the Government and the media will sometimes be at odds. Our respective ideas about what constitutes national development, for instance, will probably always diverge at their roots.
But no clear thinking, rational representative of Government could ever reasonably expect the media of Trinidad and Tobago to calmly accept having the essential role of their business dismissed, their capacity to report insulted and then silenced by a dead microphone.

Such actions stand in direct defiance of the Government’s lip service on transparency and the fundamental right of nationals of Trinidad and Tobago to know what is being done with their money, in their name.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMusic2008-03-17T19:49:02-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/jazz.html#unique-entry-id-148http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/jazz.html#unique-entry-id-148here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-17T19:25:50-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/9b2cada58fdf92fc4773fd70bed97a07-147.html#unique-entry-id-147http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/9b2cada58fdf92fc4773fd70bed97a07-147.html#unique-entry-id-147why that might be important for you to think about...]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-10T17:54:29-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth618posted.html#unique-entry-id-146http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth618posted.html#unique-entry-id-146BitDepth#618 a report on the launch of Windows Server 2008 is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-03-03T20:26:34-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth617posted.html#unique-entry-id-145http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth617posted.html#unique-entry-id-145Taping television has gone digital. You can buy a box from your provider or create your own solution. Read more here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comCable Guys2008-02-26T11:09:55-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/inawell.html#unique-entry-id-144http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/inawell.html#unique-entry-id-144There is a great movie to be made about personal teleportation.
The idea of instantly moving from one physical space to another has entranced science fiction fans ever since Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock and the guy with the red t-shirt who was going to die stepped into a transporter.

One of the finest science fiction novels ever written, The Stars my Destination, by Alfred Bester deals with personal teleportation, which Bester describes as "jaunting" in the 1956 novel. This book is so good that I've bought it three times, first as half a graphic novel adaptation by Howard Chaykin (the second half was notoriously hard to find) then twice as novels after lending and losing the book the first time out.

You will normally find Bester's book published as Tiger, Tiger and even though it's basically a rewrite of The Count of Monte Cristo, it holds up fifty-two years later as one of the best bits of sci-fi conceptualising ever written.
There's a great film to be made from Bester's work, hell, there's a great film to be made from stealing two ideas from Bester's novel, but Jumper isn't it.
Not that Jumper cribs from The Stars my Destination. No, it's source material is much humbler, a sci-fi story for "young adults" written by Steven Gould, so I suspect that the book is long on post-teen angst and painfully short on high concept.
But there's no way that the book can possibly be as bad as the film it inspired.

I'm frankly confused by this.
Doug Liman, whose staccato direction of the last first instalment of the Bourne Identity trilogy and fluent handling of almost continuous violence in Mr and Mrs Smith is the director here and David S. Goyer, who wrote the last two Blade movies and kind of directed the last one is on hand to contribute to the script of Jumper.
The thing is Jumper isn't a bad film, it's a great setup with a black hole at its centre and it reminds me of nothing less than On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which boasted experienced direction by Peter Hunt, excellent writing by Bond vet Richard Maibaum and George Lazenby.

OHMSS was enthusiastic, well produced and full of action but Lazenby was a giant sucking presence in the middle of the film, draining every scene he appeared in of enthusiasm, excitement and, well, Bondishness.
There's an amazing scene in the film as Bond talks with Gabriele Ferzetti, playing Draco and you can see this accomplished actor lowering his game to try to slow down enough for Lazenby's laconic pace as the scene goes on.
Bu the end of OHMSS, you can't help but feel that if the part of Bond had been played by a man-shaped hole burned in the celluloid, it couldn't possibly have been any worse.

Hayden Christensen is kind of like that in Jumper. He starts the film off with a sulking pout, clearly dissatisfied with his ability to go anywhere he likes, take anything he wants and take beautiful women to bed all over the world. Once the Paladin knight Roland (Samuel L Jackson) gets on his case, he has even less to be happy about, but he's got nowhere to go emotionally from where he starts out except through the special effect that's lifted directly from Nightcrawler's moves in X2.

There are other people in the film, including an almost invisible Thomas Hulce and a cleverly almost absent Diane lane, but the only presence in the film beyond Jackson's remarkable silver haircut is Jamie Bell, who seems to be the only person who is having fun. At least Jackson gets to beat Christensen up... repeatedly. It might be vengeance for their last appearance together, but it's hard to begrudge Jackson his dark side when faced with such monotone acting.

It's troubling to see Christensen in a leading role being even less of an actor than he managed to be in the last two Star Wars prequels, but it's even more troubling to realise that the film was made with one eye on a sequel.
That's not science fiction, that's horror. ]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-02-26T10:24:44-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/Bitdepth616posted.html#unique-entry-id-143http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/Bitdepth616posted.html#unique-entry-id-143BitDepth#616, an overview of Microsoft's new Office Communicator product and Unified Communications concept is posted here.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWeb2008-02-26T11:16:56-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ttweb.html#unique-entry-id-142http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/ttweb.html#unique-entry-id-142michele@ritualsmus.com.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comMusing2008-02-18T22:19:48-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/boissiere.html#unique-entry-id-141http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/boissiere.html#unique-entry-id-141The house, one of the remarkable old homes around the Savannah, though not one counted as part of the row described as the Magnificent Seven, is on the market for TT$63 million and the prevailing fear is that anyone who buys the property will promptly bulldoze 12 Queen's Park West to make "better" use of what is now prime real estate overlooking the city.

Blogger and published writer Nicholas Laughlin has triggered a wave of concern about the eventual fate of the building, wisely stepping in before it has actually been sold and the discussion changes from preservation to salvation.
The first entry on a blog that I can find is on The Bookman's site here, but Laughlin's blog entry raised the ante to activism.
Since then, Georgia Popplewell, Sean Leonard and Laughlin have done admirable work in bringing the issue to national attention, and there is now a website dedicated to the issue, though it would be churlish to point out that the TV6 report on the issue used extensive footage of Mlle Fleur, one of the Magnificent Seven in particular disrepair. One collapsing national treasure might seem to be as good as another for cutaways.

Almost 20 years ago, I assisted a similar movement initiated by the Citizens for Conservation which stepped in at a critical juncture in the history of the George Brown house, which was in danger of being bulldozed to make way for a modern structure. In the end, the house was clumsily grafted into the development, but remained standing. Citizens for Conservation moved on to Stollmeyer Castle, successfully pushing the Government to take control of the building and stem an alarming degree of rot.
The CfC was, I believe, a presence that made the refurbishment of the adjacent White House, once the seat of Governmental planning, one that conformed more closely to international standards of conservation, rather than the sort of haphazard, "whatever de hardware have" replacement of rotting wood and fixtures and the careless painting of delicately gessoed detailing.

CfC eventually ran out of steam, which wasn't surprising to me after attending one of their meetings, after which I always joked with member Christine Millar that they were really citizens for conversation.
It's alarming to me that today the issues remain disturbingly the same. Any current attempt by the Government to respect the notion of national heritage remains a token effort, as gutted by bureaucracy and toothlessness as the Environmental Management Agency, whose directives are routinely ignored by developers.

The dialogue surrounding the preservation effort is still riddled with the kind of expressions of upper-middle class disdain that turns off possible supporters and raises the hackles of government representatives who want their efforts to be respected by that nebulous group they think of as "the masses."
Comments like "If we destroy this building, we are savages with no hope," "Let us cherish our heritage" and "save us from ourselves" left on the petition page for the website position the dialogue in a space that leaves the most powerful voices in Trinidad and Tobago politics out of the discussion.

Compounding this sense of exclusivity is the history of most of the architectural treasures around the Savannah, the former homes of wealthy, landed gentry, the sort of folk who were at some remove from the man in the street then and now.
I believe that the effort being put into directing the sale of the Boissiere house would be more sustainable if it embraced all of the heritage of Trinidad and Tobago. If we are going to help the Boissiere family to sell their home in a way that their contribution to the history of Trinidad and Tobago is preserved, then we should also be working to save Juggassar House in Chaguanas built in 1919 by the son of Ocha, an indentured worker from India.

The pressure has to be more effectively placed on the Government to develop, support and deploy resources to preserve all aspects of the nation's heritage. At this juncture, that is more clearly necessary than ever, as President's House and other buildings which are part of the national patrimony and are unquestionably Government property, fall steadily into ruin. Blogger Sharon Millar takes note of that issue here.
But lasting change won't happen until everyone feels involved and invested in the preservation effort, until the issue is brought home in that kind of personal way, the issue will continue to be largely ignored by the larger public, whose concerns are the first items on the agenda of the politicians who can change the nature of this discourse.

Doing that is going to mean identifying many different and geographically dispersed examples of our national heritage and creating discussion and interest around them where they exist, encouraging knowledge tours by schoolchildren and bringing history back to communities in a way that excites and intrigues. When a politician's child comes home and asks if they are going to knock down a house, building or historical site that they have drawn and studied at school; the discussion about saving our heritage will have a fundamentally different tone.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-02-18T22:14:07-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/d573368d26e1f1b3ed627b03465c05d9-140.html#unique-entry-id-140http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/d573368d26e1f1b3ed627b03465c05d9-140.html#unique-entry-id-140nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comBitDepth+2008-02-18T22:06:00-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/deane.html#unique-entry-id-139http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/deane.html#unique-entry-id-139
We've had to seamlessly integrate some legacy  equipment with new IPDSLAM  systems at our exchanges and make all of this work on a new Multi-protocol Layer Switching core inclusive of  SMTP and DNS services. At the same time we increased our outbound bandwidth.

Unfortunately, being the national communications service provider,  we did not have the luxury of shutting down our entire network for a few weeks to put everything together so we had to do the next best thing. Incrementally roll out, test, refine, expand, test, refine and then start the process again. Regrettably, the service issues experienced by the customers that wrote to you were examples of  our early learning experiences.

The good news is  the technology transfer that has been happening between TSTT and our partners means that new issues which we anticipate will still arise, will become fewer, of shorter duration and much farther between. Within the next 3 months we expect that we would have returned our service to '5/9' reliability that is  99.999% uptime- as one of your customers alluded.  

We must concede however that more could have been done to keep customers in the loop. Although most of the service outages were unintended,  we could have shared with customers that our improvements works were being done on live systems and that there would have been a chance service interruptions at random times.  

I am nonetheless pleased that in spite of the difficult circumstances the project team remained steadfastly committed to correcting issues as expeditiously as possible.
I can understand how some customers, in the absence of knowing the situation, might have concluded that TSTT's emphasis was on sales and not service but that couldn't be further from the truth.

In addition to local training, we hired additional staff and at the same time employed the services of a technology support centre overseas. Frankly, the initial wave of customer interest was far greater than we anticipated, given the existence of competition, so we had to beef up our resources. Unfortunately in this highly technical, high-stakes environment, we have had to make a greater effort to get the best. It would do us no good to compound a bad situation by hastily ramping up out tech-support with underskilled personnel.

So we've had to bite the bullet and accept the early criticism of what seemed to be a slow response to customers but what was in fact a necessary quality assurance process.
In light of these issues which did put our customers at a disadvantage, we took the decision in December, that until we got Blink to existing residential TSTT High-speed Internet (ADSL) customers, we would  cut their existing monthly rates in half. This 50% discount will continue until their service is ungraded to Blink Broadband.  

We are also making improvements with our Help Desk facilities, both in terms of manpower, troubleshooting ability, and diagnostic systems.  The goal is to equip them with tools to remotely repair internet issues, inclusive of re-setting modems, changing configurations, etc.

We are making the patient investment in resources to support Blink Broadband now so that in the very near future we can offer customers other innovative products and services that will capitalise on the reliable high bandwidth Broadband services from Blink.  These will produce a truly unique on-line experience for all, and put TSTT on course to make good on our promise of delivering the highest quality Broadband product in the nation.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comReader Response2008-02-18T21:46:31-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/broadbad.html#unique-entry-id-138http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/broadbad.html#unique-entry-id-138
First TSTT. I have had a fast TSTT dsl line for some time but in recent months [quite a few] it has become extremely unreliable. When you use e-mail for business applications as our firm does then reliability, more than speed, is paramount.

In recent months the e- mail environment has become exceedingly unreliable with possibly as many as 25% of e-mails not getting through. This is quite dangerous because when you think your communications have gone through you may not even get to know if they have arrived or not. Chances are, these days, is that they haven’t.

This really makes the use of e-mail as a business tool for communications questionable. Another problem in recent times is that the system just goes down – maybe ten times a day! Look that sort of service is totally unacceptable in the first world. Remember that is what we are striving to become. Reliability in the first world is measured in ‘nines’ – like 99.99% reliability.

In Trinidad is probably somewhere around 75% these days. So, when it comes to e-mail, while speed is important – reliability is paramount. Someone needs to explain this to TSTT. It really comes down to an attitude about ‘service’ as opposed to ‘sales’. So as TSTT pursues the holy grail of kilobytes we should remind them of these basic needs we, the customers, have.

So hungry is TSTT to ensure market share in the quest for speed they will pay for huge newspaper advertisements whipping up a frenzy appetite for speed at the blink of an eye that they will ignore their own customers who have paid for dsl lines for years without even offering them preferential terms to convert from dsl to blink. And when they actually get around to providing you the blink service your mail will probably shut down completely. Why? 

Because TSTT is not really interested in service – just your sale – you, as a customer, must now spend hours on the phone trying to get the service, which is all you really want. You will be shunted around from India to a whole bunch of people who are trained to be polite but who actually do not help you at all – though they all promise to help because that is what they know you want to hear.

Eventually, if you are really persistent and enterprising you will get a number of a local guy in the field who is the guy you really need to speak to – he is the guy that can actually help you. But then he has to run a whole series of test – some of these tests are done by different departments. First they have to test the line. Then they change the router.

Then they have to check the exchange ports. Then they have to help you reset the router. You ask yourself – did anyone bother to think this through?  FLOW is not much different. They advertise sales. Try and call them. No there is nothing wrong with your phone.

(Response from Rhea Yawching... Yes we still continue to face this problem especially over the last 2 months when thousands were trying to subscribe to the new movies and sports packages. Right now we are waiting on our telephony service to get up and running and then we will be launching a new number with our own new lines.)

I learnt a little trick – dial all but the last number and hold it for about 30 seconds before completing the number (RY...never heard of this) with luck you might get through– then you have to get through the dial this number, then that extension – eventually they give you an appointment to inspect the premises – “December 04 in the afternoon”. But do they come? No. Try calling them again? Get the drift yet? It’s the same story.  

LISA is different. You do get service here. They do turn up when they say they will. You do get a dedicated broadband speed that is ideal for an office situation. They do install a demo to let you try their service. Then you have to reset all your settings. Only to discover the cost of get a reasonably fast speed that is needed for a modern office situation where you need to upload/ download large files to extranets. The price is exorbitant. What a pity.

This could have been a solution but can you afford it?  Well this is my story. I take the time and trouble on this Christmas morning because I would really like to see this attention to sales rather than service end it reminds me too much of the cell phone service. No joy for many this Christmas!  


From V...

At the office -in Woodbrook- we've had for a couple years now, TSTT's fastest available business connection- 1.5 mb. It worked as advertised most of the time, topping out at 1.3mb. We switched to TSTT from Carib- Link's wireless service which was giving too much trouble for too long. As with everyone we were excited about the new broadband services that rolled out, and signed up online immediately to "switch" to blink's service.  

We were going to go with a business package that was faster but cheaper than our existing one. We spoke to our corporate rep but she said that our area wasn't as yet Blink enabled so we sould have to wait a couple weeks. A week or so after we spoke to the rep our connection went dead for 4 days straight after a period of unusually spotty service.

Calling support only put me through the same script that they follow each time, and ended with the (local) support tech saying that they would have to talk with their technical people to solve the problem.

I kept calling and was finally told that they were in the process of switching networks and that we wouldn't have service for 4 days (including Sat and Sun). Could you believe that? No warning, nothing. Typical TSTT right? They knew all along what the problem was.  

A couple weeks after that I noticed our speeds increased dramatically. 3.5- 4MB downloads was now the norm. I contacted Blink again and they still maintained that our area wasn’t yet Blink enabled. It has been about 2 months now that we’ve we have had our 3.5mb to 4mb connection while still signed on to our original 1.5mb high speed package. 

Normally that would be a good thing but the problem is that we’re still paying the higher price that we originally signed on to. So we have Blink Broadband (it seems) but paying the old higher price.  The service itself? Pretty good I think. We would get the occasional blackouts but it doesn’t last for long, a few minutes max. With Azureus I’ll get 400-500k downloads. Upload is about 65/75k.

The best results on a speed test I’ve had is 4.2mb down 660k up  Flow is always an option but we’re a bit wary about their being new, and would probably wait a few months until they’ve stabilized their systems and tech staff to really consider it. (RH...we have extremely good levels of stability in our systems right now, and constantly improving. Where we need improvement is the quantity and quality of our help desk people who are bombarded by “newness” questions not even related to the connection, but the internet / computer stuff in general.)   
So that’s my broadband experience.  

(addendum) By a strange coincidence, on the very day i emailed you, I finally received a response from our service rep as to whether we had unknowingly been switched to Blink. She said that indeed we had been switched to Blink, and that we would be given a rebate on the excess paid from the time it was implemented. So that chapter ends.  


From F...

Here's my TSTT Blink story. I hope it helps you in getting a wider picture on the state of TSTT's non-service. 

I would be very interested in learning what the truth behind these problems is.  TSTT has done it again! After a couple years of relatively minor problems with their service (which as most people can attest is not very common) I have been experiencing problems since mid-November with my ADSL and land line (suspiciously this time period coincides with when I was told that “Blink” was being implemented in my area).

Continuously, on average 4 or 5 times a day – while I am on the Internet – my DSL connection drops, stays off for a few minutes and then connects again. I tend to listen to Internet radio so I am aware of every “drop” that occurs. 

After numerous calls to 824-TSTT and many conversations with some very foreign sounding help desk support agents with very English sounding names providing me with many different stories as to what was the problem and what was the solution, a “trouble ticket” was opened for me.

I was told that this would be dealt with in 6 to 7 working days. 6 days later I called to inquire what progress had been made. The help desk agent supposedly asked someone in repairs to call me, but no one did. I called back the following day and was put onto a very rude repair support agent who basically told me that the trouble ticket is normally takes 6 to 7 working days of it being opened for it to be assigned to an agent.

When I inquired how long after that it would be before someone actually looked into the problem, he said he could not tell me. I asked to speak with someone who could tell me when, to which he replied that no one would be able to tell me, but he offered to let me speak with his supervisor. Interestingly enough, when transferring my call to his supervisor, my call was dropped (just like my DSL connection – except this time it didn’t automatically re-connect).

I cannot recall how many times I have spoken with the help desk, but it has probably been over twenty times since the start of these problems. I also cannot recall how many different “stories” I have been told as to what the problems are. Eventually, I managed to speak with someone (in “Residential Services” I believe) who then forwarded me to what was supposed to be the Blink help desk. 

The person I was put on to explained that they cannot help with “technical” problems, but she promised to have her supervisor call me. Lo and behold, the supervisor did call me, at 7 pm that evening. 

She very politely apologised for the problems that I was encountering and admitted that they had some major technical problems that they were unable to solve and they were trying to get the vendor of their system to come and rectify the service.  Well, more than a week passed, the service got steadily worse, and eventually died altogether on or before Christmas Eve. 

Magically, it resurrected itself at 8 am on the 29th of December, but as of that evening it had slowed to a crawl, so much so that it was almost unusable.  On the 2nd of January the speeds seemed acceptable and so far my Internet radio is playing smoothly. Hopefully this means they have sorted out their problems.

An interesting side-bar to this episode is that at the same time these DSL problems started, my land line (the one with the ADSL on it) also began giving trouble. Calls from and to Digicel mobile phones resulted in neither party hearing the other and when a voice mail is left on the phone, the dial tone does not change to the one that indicates a message has been left.

I know that these symptoms also occur on another line belonging to a friend of mine in Barataria.

As an addendum to the letter I sent, from the 3rd of January, the dropped connections started back.  Today was the first day, since my problems started, that I have not had a single drop out that I noticed (but I was away from my desk for a major part of the day), so maybe they are getting better, but I still have problems with Digicel calls and presumably international calls on my land line.]]>nospamplease@lyndersaydigital.comWebsite Updates2008-02-11T21:11:39-04:00http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth614posted.html#unique-entry-id-137http://www.lyndersaydigital.com/brain/dump_files/BitDepth614poste