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Talking the Apple Maps disaster on Balls Radio

27 September 2012 in Conversations, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

The disaster that is Apple Maps was the topic for my spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.

If you haven’t caught up with Apple Maps yet, check the Tumblr of map disasters and listen to this week’s Patch Monday podcast. Short version: Apple decided to dump Google Maps from iOS 6 and introduce their own Apple Maps — but it’s a mess.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:58 — 6.6MB)

The program is no longer broadcast on FM99.3 Northside Radio, it’s purely a podcast. You can subscribe over at the website.

Talking Apple iPhone 5 on Balls Radio

20 September 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Media, Religion by Stilgherrian | No comments

Yes, OK, we fell for it. Shut up. We have to make a living, you know. Apple’s new iPhone 5 was the topic for my spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.

Oh wait. We don’t get paid for this. Well that’s just wrong.

While the conversation bounced off the piece I wrote for Crikey, somehow I also managed to compare Windows Phone 7 to Judaism. You should probably listen before you complain.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:06 — 6.8MB)

This week’s episode wasn’t on Sydney’s FM 99.3 Northside Radio. There’s things happening the background. But if you want to keep listening then keep track of it all at ballsradio.com.

Talking Apple versus Samsung on 2SER’s “The Wire”

04 September 2012 in Business, Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

I ended up talking about Apple versus Samsung on Radio 2SER’s current affairs program The Wire as well, syndicated via community radio stations around Australia.

The journalist was Tawar Razaghi, and their website introduces the story like this:

Apple wants Samsung to take eight mobile models off the market after it won a landmark patent case against Samsung over the design of its mobile phones. Apple was awarded $1.5 billion in damages and now has the exclusive rights to pinch-and-zoom gestures on their touch-screen technologies.

Patent law is intended to reward innovation but with companies engaged in patent turf wars this case highlights how patents may inhibit innovation instead.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:08 — 3.1MB)

Talking Apple versus Samsung on Balls Radio, FM 99.3

04 September 2012 in Business, Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

The billion-dollar legal penalty that a US court imposed on Samsung for allegedly copying Apple was the topic for my spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio on 28 August 2012.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:38 — 6.6MB)

You can of course hear us talk live every Tuesday night from 7pm AEST on Sydney’s FM 99.3 Northside Radio.

I’m fairly sure that copyright remains with Mr Dobbie rather than being transferred to Northside Radio, but I’ll figure that out later.

Expensive beer kills computer, honesty kills my budget

16 July 2012 in Business, Internet, Personal by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

Things have been delayed around here, and elsewhere, because last Wednesday I spilt a beer onto my MacBook Pro, sending it comatose. That’s one damn expensive beer. And it’ll take me a while to catch up.

Now a splash of beer or, presumably, any other liquid should you be mad enough to drink them, won’t necessarily kill a computer or smartphone. The emergency procedure is straightforward.

Turn it off. Pull the battery, if you can. Get rid of as much liquid as fast as you can by mopping it up. Then get rid of any lingering moisture: dismantle the device as much as it can be, and put it in a sealed container packed with silica gel or uncooked rice for three days or more.

If the liquid is potentially damaging to the device — a certain popular cola drink, say, which is acidic and will damage some components — you can rinse it with distilled water or isopropyl alcohol too. Choose the one that’ll dissolve the threat.

With a laptop computer, if you’re quick the worst case scenario is that you might lose the keyboard. I’ve managed to resurrect completely saturated smartphones.

My procedure failed. MacBook Pro computers now make the keyboard extremely difficult to get to. I simply couldn’t get in there promptly. I had to transport the computer to the rice, and in doing so it was carried on its side, potentially allowing liquid to flow into other parts of the computer. And then, in my impatience, I powered it up after just one night on the rice to see how things we going.

How things were going was not at all.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekly Wrap 106: Excess rain, trains and depression

21 June 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

My week from Monday 11 to Sunday 17 June 2012 was short (because it contained the long weekend) and annoying (because I ended up staying in four different locations) and cold (because of weather).

Eventually I decided that it was probably better if I just spent the weekend in bed. So I did.

And that’s why this post is so late.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 142, “Apple iOS 6, start-up killer”. I took advantage of the post-long-weekend timing to record an immediate reaction to Apple’s launch of iOS version 6 operating system, chatting with mobile developer Chris Stevenson who was at the launch, and application architect Benno Rice.

Articles

Aussie broadband to make a trillion in 2050, ZDNet Australia, 15 June 2012. A quick news-cycle story based on IBM’s A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050.

I did write a second article, for Technology Spectator, but it was held over to the following week.

Media Appearances

On Sunday I spoke about new internet domains on ABC Radio National’s Sunday Extra.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday I attended the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AMCHAM) lunch at the Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney, as the guest of the REA Group, who run realestate.com.au and other things.
On Thursday I attended the launch of IBM’s A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, where food and drink was provided.

The Week Ahead

Erm, well, it’s already Thursday, so I don’t see a lot of point in writing a future-past version of this. Or is it past-future?

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 (or they used to before my phone camera got a bit too scratched up) and via Instagram. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags. Yes, I should probably update this stock paragraph to match the current reality.

[Photo: Waratah Cottage, where I spent the latter part of the week. This photo was taken with the Samsung Galaxy S III, whereas this previous one was taken with my beaten-up HTC Desire.]

Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone first impressions

11 June 2012 in Internet, Marketing by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

Three days ago I finally got around to setting up the Samsung Galaxy S III review unit that I’d been given. Here are my initial impressions after a few hours of playing around on the long weekend.

These comments should be read in light of what I wrote for Technology Spectator in terms of this new smartphone being a shot across the bows for Apple. But bear in mind that I’ve never used an Apple iPhone, so I can’t make direct comparisons.

I’m also upgrading from a very bashed-around two-year-old HTC Desire, as seen in the photo above. That means a jump from Android version 2.3 to 4.0, and I’m not making clear distinctions between Android improvements and Samsung-specific features — but then I don’t think average users do either.

In other words, this is definitely not a proper review. “First impressions”, I said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekly Wrap 103: Cold, cockatoos and codeine

27 May 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

My week from Monday 21 to Sunday 27 May 2012 saw me return to my usual writing levels — despite continuing pain from my shoulder and a lingering cold which, as I write this, threatens to turn into bronchitis. It’s been rather cold and windy here at Wentworth Falls.

Sadly that meant I didn’t make it to the planned paintball session with Eugene Kaspersky on Wednesday night. It seems that I’m fated not to spend any quality time with Mr K on this Australian trip. I daresay I’ll catch up with him another time. Is that a hint? Der. Of course.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 139, “War talk dominates AusCERT 2012″, the first of two episodes based on material recorded at the information security conference. The overall theme is that infosec is becoming militarised. We no longer talk about “information assurance” but “defensive cyber operations”. Click through for the full list of speakers.

Articles

AusCERT 2012: NSA, FBI split on comms intercepts, ZDNet Australia, 21 May 2012.
Twitter mapping and how we choose our own adventure, Crikey, 23 May 2012. I thoroughly recommend that you watch and listen to the full 38-minute presentation by Prof Axel Bruns.
Kaspersky’s right: Apple, lift your security game, CSO Online, 24 May 2012. I seems that Mr Kaspersky appreciates my description of him as “glorious global megatroll”. Yes, I do think it’s a compliment. I genuinely admire his ability to grab the headlines.
Optus’ innovation directive, Technology Spectator, 25 May 2012. These are my first written observations from Optus’ Future of Business Report, another thing I suggest you might read.

There’s one more long story emerging from ideas presented at AusCERT 2012 that was filed late Friday. It will appear tomorrow morning at ZDNet Australia.

Media Appearances

None. Which makes up for last week’s heavy media load.

Corporate Largesse

On Thursday I went to a media briefing by Optus Business at Australian Technology Park. They provided lunch, and afterwards a couple of coffees. They also gave me an autographed copy of Peter Hinssen’s book The New Normal: Explore the limits of the digital world. No, me neither.

The Week Ahead

It looks like the coming week will be significantly less intense for me, with a more gentle workload and, with luck, better health.

The only fixed-schedule items will take place during an overnight trip to Sydney on Wednesday. That evening there’s a Sydney Talks seminar entitled It Won’t Happen to Me: Cybercrime Myths and Concepts at the University of New South Wales. (Does anyone want to join me?) Then on Thursday morning Samsung is launching… well, they won’t tell me what, but I suspect it’s their new Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone.

I may well be in Sydney on the weekend too, because Bunjaree Cottages is full up both for that weekend and the following Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Stand by.

Elsewhere

[Photo: A young Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus) swoops low overhead at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls.]

Talking AusCERT 2012 and cyberwar on ABC Local Radio

19 May 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

My full output from the AusCERT 2012 information security conference has yet to appear. Stand by. But last night I did a half-hour conference wrap with Dom Knight on ABC Local Radio.

We spoke about the conference atmosphere itself, cybercrime, cyberwar, the risk of Cybergeddon (yes, I know), and the claim by Eugene Kaspersky that Apple is ten years behind Microsoft when it comes to security.

Not that Mr Kaspersky would ever, like, troll the entire planet.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:41 — 15.5MB)

What we didn’t talk about, really, was the two stories that have been published so far:

Russian crims evade transaction profiling, which details a trans-national organised crime operation profiled by Mikko Hypponen.
DNS poisoning the thin end of a wedge’, in which domain name system pioneer Dr Paul Vixie supports my argument that fiddling with the internet’s fundamental navigation systems probably isn’t such a great idea.

Talking the #iiTrial decision on ABC 702 Sydney

20 April 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

The big internet-related story in Australia today was the High Court’s decision in the so-called #iiTrial. I wrote the lead story in Crikey — read that now for the facts and my analysis — and just spoke about it on ABC 702 Sydney.

The High Court decided, as outlined in its summary [PDF], that internet service provider iiNet was not responsible for the copyright-infringing acts of its customers. But as explained in their full decision, that decision was based on “all the facts of the case”. That is, things might have turned out differently had the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) or iiNet handled things differently. We’ll never know.

Since I wrote for Crikey, my ZDNet Australia colleague Josh Taylor has been tracking the reactions. I daresay there’ll be more to come across the weekend.

Now when I spoke to the ABC’s Richard Glover just after the 4pm news this afternoon — that’s the audio you’ll hear here — the scene was set first by Glover’s slightly-misleading introduction involving pubs and then AFACT’s managing director Neil Gane. So I was working within that framing. I’m not sure how well I did.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:34 — 13.1MB)

Obviously time was limited. Had I had more time to speak, I would have said:

We do keep talking about the experience of the music industry, but that’s because they’re further down the path of replacing traditional distribution mechanisms with the internet. It might be worth the film and TV industries having a look at that and seeing what they can learn, rather than just being in denial.
Yes, the economics of making a big blockbuster movie are very different from making a music album. But the film industry decided to take the blockbuster path with all the expensive hangers-on that that business model entails. No-one is forcing them to do it that way.
With distribution costs tending to zero, those who run the traditional distribution models need one heck of a lot better argument to justify the amount of money they charge than “Oh no, it’s all different now”.
They talk about the industry being in decline, but that’s because they only count themselves. As a totality, people probably spend more on entertainment than they ever have done. It’s like the Myer and David Jones and Harvey Norman stores whinging about the decline of retail. No, retail overall is doing just fine. The bit that’s failing is them — the people doing things the same old way and not adapting to the change.
No business model has a right to exist. Maybe the age of big movies and big TV productions is over. It wouldn’t be the first time a form of entertainment had died because it was no longer viable, and it wouldn’t be the last.

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