September 2011 – Stilgherrian

26 September 201130 September 2011

Weekly Wrap 68: Bad shoulder, with inquisitive rosellas

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Last week was relatively unproductive thanks to continuing pain from my shoulder and continuing gut irritation from nasty anibiotics, about which I may write something later.

Once more I’m posting this on Monday rather than Sunday. Oops. I don’t suppose the world will end. Well, not because of this anyway.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 106, “Fighting malware at SophosLabs”. A conversation with Mark Harris, the head of SophosLabs globally, and Sean McDonald, who manages the lab in North Sydney.

Articles

Trends on Twitter brief but telling, just like in the real world, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 2011, my first article for Fairfax.
NBN retail pricing neither a bargain nor an extravagance, Crikey, 20 September 2011.
Hey Facebook, we want to share, but this is ridiculous, Crikey, 23 September 2011.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke with ABC 666 Canberra about Twitter, covering material from the Sydney Morning Herald piece. I’m not sure whether I recorded, but this time the ABC posted the audio themselves.
On Friday I spoke with ABC 774 Melbourne and ABC 666 Canberra about the Facebook changes.

Corporate Largesse

None.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Rosellas at Rosella Cottage, one of the Bunjaree Cottages at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains where I’ve been staying off and on this year.]

26 September 2011

Talking Facebook on ABC 666 Canberra

Today on I’m a Goddam Expert it’s Facebook, the recent round of changes, and what it means for users and the world of social networking generally. It began with Friday’s piece for Crikey, Hey Facebook, we want to share, but this is ridiculous, and so far I’ve been booked to do four radio spots. And counting.

I did two spots on Friday afternoon, one with Lindy Burns ABC 774 Melbourne the other with Melanie Tait on ABC 666 Canberra. Here’s the audio for the Canberra conversation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.9MB)

The Melbourne conversation (2.1MB MP3) covered similar territory, but the recording dropped out near the end so I haven’t bothered posting it as a proper podcast.

I’m doing two more this morning, also for ABC local radio stations. The Gold Coast at 0940 AEST and North Coast NSW at 1010.

22 September 201122 September 2011

Adobe Flash and the very definition of irony

So, I’m reading Liam Tung’s article at CSO Online about the zero-day exploit in Adobe Flash just now, when…

Could you possibly imagine better timing?

19 September 2011

A Twitter-related Sydney Morning Herald debut

Today I returned to the print media with an opinion piece, Trends on Twitter brief but telling, just like in the real world, in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It’s an overview of Twitter’s “Trending Topics”, including the observation that marketers who try to game the trends are probably wasting their time. Research by Hewlett-Packard’s social computing lab [PDF] shows that there’s probably no point in focusing on the “influencers”.

Topics will trend or not based on whether people found it interesting to retweet at that moment. Just like Yahoo! Research’s Duncan Watts said a few years back.

Somehow I managed to refer to the fisting incident without using the word “fisting” itself.

I wouldn’t have thought about writing this piece myself, being too immersed in Twitter to realise that it needed explanations. Blame Joel Gibson, the SMH Opinion Editor. He commissioned it and did a decent job of improving my Sunday-written words.

I think it’s quite sweet that Fairfax decided to explain my name.

18 September 2011

Weekly Wrap 67: Spring comes to Sydney

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. A relatively quiet week, because I took a bit of time off in Kuala Lumpur and then in Sydney when I returned.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 105, “Crims come to the net: expert and patient”. A conversation with Evgeny (“Eugene”) Aseev and Nathan Wang from Kaspersky Lab, recorded in Kuala Lumpur.

Articles

18 infosec fails that let crims win, ZDNet Australia, 12 September 2011. A checklist based on Evgeny Aseev’s presentation.
Infosec’s mega marketing misalignment mishap, CSO, 13 September 2011. An overly-alliterative rant about Symantec’s dodgy 2011 Norton Cybercrime Report.
“Insidious” cyber chaos too fast for ASIO (contributor only, as Liam Tung actually wrote the story and I just inserted a few facts), CSO, 15 September 2011.
Yet another free pass for Aussie spooks, CSO, 16 September 2011.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Sydney cityscape, photographed from Potts Point, photographed with my new Nikon Coolpix S8100 camera. I really did need a decent digital still camera for editorial work, and this will do the trick.]

18 September 2011

Visiting Las Vegas for McAfee Focus 11 security conference

Four weeks from now I’m flying to Las Vegas for McAfee’s Focus 11 security conference, 18 to 20 October 2011. On their tab, obviously.

Vendor conferences must have a keynote speaker that has nothing to do with the industry. Focus 11 is no exception. We have… Richard Branson. WTF?

At this stage the plan is that I’m heading to San Francisco first, since McAfee want me to visit their corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley before heading to Vegas. Then once the conference is over I intend to spend a couple more days in Vegas and do the day trip to the Hoover Dam and perhaps the Grand Canyon, and then spend Saturday night in Los Angeles since the only part of that city I’ve seen is the airport.

Mind you, I’m told that Los Angeles is shit.

Any other suggestions for things to see and do near Las Vegas?