My week of Monday 24 to Sunday 30 November 2014 was, quite frankly, irritating — for reasons that I won’t detail here. The end result was that I didn’t get to take part in some of the social and semi-social events that I’d planned to. I am grumpy.
Articles
- Australia’s data-retention plans look increasingly out of touch, ZDNet Australia, 26 November 2014.
- Infosec checklists becoming common, but they’re not magic, ZDNet Australia, 28 November 2014.
5at5
The only edition of the 5at5 email newsletter that I got out the door was Monday. There will be more this week, so why not subscribe so you receive them all?
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday, I spoke about the Regin spyware on ABC Radio’s The World Today.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday, I went to AVG Technologies’ Christmas media lunch and briefing at est restaurant. They paid for the excellent food and wine, of course. I had the scallops and smoked eel (pictured above), the beef and the chocolate. They also gave us an AVG-branded umbrella and a branded USB hub.
The Week Ahead
This is the week where freelancers switch from the always-busy November to the stressful process of solving a specific, annual problem: How can I ensure that there’s enough cashflow to survive Christmas, New Year and through to the end of January, when all the usual sources of income are dry? Wish me luck.
(It’s actually quite depressing to see people starting to add Christmas motifs to their Twitter avatars and otherwise talking about “the festive season” when one’s own time is anything but festive. Sigh.)
With that in mind, Monday is a day of administrivia and planning, and Tuesday will be dedicated to production for The 9pm Edict podcast. I think a pre-Christmas subscriber drive will come out of that. That work will continue on the days after that, along with online briefings at 0830 and 1400 on Wednesday, and at 0600 on Thursday. Somewhere in there I’ll also write a column for ZDNet Australia.
On Friday I’ll be heading in to Sydney for a briefing by BAE Systems, and then the (in)famous Watterson PR Christmas lunch Cisco’s end-of-year lunch at Gastro Park. The weekend thereafter is unplanned.
[Update 2 December: Edited to reflect change to Friday’s commitments.]
[Photo: Scallops and smoked eel — or, more completely, grilled scallops, smoked eel, baby leeks, wakame, shiso, yuzu — all being an entrée at est restaurant, Sydney, photographed on 25 November 2014.]