Month: December 2011

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MOAR PANELZ: Board with Security?

I’m on yet another discussion panel this coming Thursday lunchtime: a Technology Spectator webinar [ugh!] called Board with Security?

We’ve had a whole bunch of security stories this year, but…

Research shows only 11 per cent of boards are presenting information security topics at each board meeting, and 40 per cent quarterly.

On the panel is Ernst & Young information security leader Mike Trovato; Black Swan Consulting Group director Keith Price, me, and I assume the moderator is Technology Spectator editor Charis Palmer.

It’s at midday Sydney time on Thursday 8 December, and you can register at GoToMeeting.

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Weekly Wrap 78: Screw Klout, give me the food!

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I’m feeling lazy this weekend, after a fairly intense and sleep-lacking time, so I’ll post this early.

Podcasts

Articles

Not a lot in the written-words department this week, but I’m very, very happy with the one piece I did write.

  • Influence without Klout, Technology Spectator, 28 November 2011. All this “social influence measurement” stuff is bullshit as far as I can see, and this article explains why.

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I spoke with ABC Gold Coast about exploding iPhones and some information security tips for the holidays. Alas, I didn’t record it.
  • On Wednesday I spoke with ABC 105.7 Darwin about the Downfall parody internet meme and the like. There isn’t a recording of this one either.
  • On Thursday I was on the ZDNet Live panel discussion Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth.

Corporate Largesse

The Christmas party season has started. Expect this section to expand considerably over the next few weeks.

  • On Wednesday, the guys from Bleeply bought me a cider, and I didn’t have time to return the favour.
  • On Thursday afternoon, the Internet Industry Association hosted a two-hour cruise on Sydney Harbour with food and drink, sponsored by Enex TestLab.
  • On Thursday night, CBS Interactive held their Christmas Party with food and lots of drink. But does that count? I do work for ZDNet Australia, and that’s a CBS masthead.
  • On Friday, Watterson Public Relations held their Christmas Lunch at the South Steyne Floating Restaurant, Darling Harbour.

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: Horizon Apartments, Darlinghurst, photographed from Kings Cross. I quite like this building, designed by Harry Seidler. Many disagree.]

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ZDNet Live: Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth

Thursday’s ZDNet Live panel discussion went rather well — even if it was another goddam thing about the cloud — and the video is posted below.

The topic was “Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth”, and the panellists were (left to right after me) Greg Stone, chief technology officer at Microsoft Australia; Zack Levy, chief commercial officer of Bluefire; Vito Forte, chief information officer at great big evil mining company Fortescue Metals Group; and moderator Brian Haverty, editorial director, ZDNet Australia.

If the embedded video isn’t working properly, or if you’d like a slightly bigger version, click through to ZDNet Australia.

More comments will doubtless appear over there too. With luck some of them will be a little bit more insightful than the childish “Microsoft bad, Linux good” platform zealotry of the first one, from jonalinux.

Cloud computing using Microsoft… you’re joking right. I guess it might be reliable if they double the amount of machines compared to Linux.

I recall when Microsoft bought Hotmail and switched over. It crashed immediately and in order to cope with the load, Microsoft had to double the amount of machines.

“When Microsoft bought Hotmail”? That was 1997. I reckon that if you’re going to have a go at someone’s technology in a grown-up conversation then your example should be just that little more recent than 14 years ago.

And was that even true?

Sure, as Microsoft initially replaced FreeBSD and Solaris (not Linux, note, so we have further evidence of jonalinux being an arsehat), Windows servers proved unable to handle the same level of traffic so the plan was delayed. But “switched over” and “crashed immediately” strikes me as complete bullshit — if for no other reason than that’s not how you manage a large-scale transition.

Yes, reliability problems plagued Hotmail a decade ago. When it had 30 or 50 million users and ran on Windows 2000. Today it has ten times the user base and technology ten years down the track. Decade-old misinformation from a zealot is such a waste of space. I’m sorry I even copy-and-pasted it in now.

[Update 0945: Added text of jonalinux’s comment and my response.]

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The 9pm Edict #14

The 9pm EdictHomosexuals are special. They can vote people out of their club. Heterosexuals whine that their institutionalised racist breeder-money has been cut by, gosh, seven perfect. (Hi, Sherlock!) And the three stages of Top Gun and more from the CBS Interactive Christmas Party.

In this disturbing and long-overdue return of The 9pm Edict podcast, you’ll hear about the legal problems with the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, face the facts about cuts to Australia’s stupidly-named Baby Bonus, and hear a bunch of people at the CBS Interactive party talk about their childhood heroes.

If you were at that party and just want to listen to yourself, fast forward to the 10 minute 40 second mark.

Yes, there are bad words. And bonus hypocrisy.

You can listen below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:01 — 27.8MB)

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission. Extracts from The Breeders song Cannonball and the movie Forbidden Planet.]