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Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum 2011 videos

I should have posted this a few days back, but the videos from the Microsoft Politics and Technology Forum 2011 in Canberra have been posted at GovTech, the Microsoft Australia Government Affairs Blog.

For some reason the audio quality on these recordings is rubbish. I’ll let you know if better versions are ever posted.

The keynote was given by leading UK political blogger Iain Dale. The other panellists were Senator Kate Lundy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister; Joe Hockey MP, Shadow Treasurer; Dr Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Microsoft’s Gianpaolo Carraro; and yours truly. The moderator was Mark Pesce.

You can also listen to my interview with Iain Dale, should you be so inclined.

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Weekly Wrap 52

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week featured a trip to Canberra for the Microsoft Politics and Technology Forum.

Podcasts

Articles

Media Appearances

  • The Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum probably counts as one of these, but I’ll post links when there are links to link to.

Corporate Largesse

  • This doesn’t really count as largesse, because I was actually working on the discussion panel as the Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum, but Microsoft paid for my transport to Canberra, accommodation at the Hyatt Canberra Hotel, and a lovely dinner at Mezzalira Ristorante.

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: Bombardier Q400 aircraft at Sydney airport, the one I took to Canberra on Tuesday.]

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Early flight to Canberra

A brief reminder: I’m about to head to Canberra for a couple of days. This morning I’ll be at the University of Canberra for the seminar Privacy and security in a connected world: anonymity, data loss, tracking and the social web, being organised by their new Centre for Internet Safety. And then tomorrow morning I’ll be at Parliament House for the Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum. I do have some free time in the afternoons if you want to catch up.

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Weekly Wrap 51

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week returned to something a little more normal after the crazy fortnight of travel and conference coverage.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 89, “Stuxnet, routing hacks and a seized iPad”, based on material connected with the AusCERT Conference on information security. Security analyst Eric Byers warns of imminent Son of Stuxnet copycat malware. APNIC chief scientist Geoff Huston warns of the security problem in the internet’s routing protocols. And a whole bunch of people talk about the demonstration of a Facebook hack that led, eventually, to the arrest of a journalist.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • I was part of the first ZDNet Tough Talk panel discussion, recorded on video at the AusCERT information security conference, along with Longhaus and Business Aspect board member Sam Higgins, IBRS analyst James Turner, NetWitness chief security officer Eddie Schwartz and Kaspersky CEO Eugene Kaspersky. The moderator was ZDNet Australia’s editorial director Brian Haverty. The topic was: Is cloud secure enough for business? I still haven’t watched it yet. What do you think?
  • On Wednesday I was interviewed by ABC Radio 891 Adelaide about changes to the internet’s top-level domain names. I can post the audio here should you care.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I attended a briefing on various information security issues hosted by Sourcefire. They served a light breakfast and handed out a notebook and a toy pig.

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.

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Removing the “www” sub-domain in Apache

The consensus is clear. You don’t like websites that force you to use the “www” sub-domain, making everyone type www.example.com rather than just example.com. So how do you fix it? With Apache, the world’s most popular web server software, it’s easy.

There’s three things to do.

  1. Make sure you have DNS entries to provide an IP address for both the domain example.com itself and the www sub-domain.
  2. Make sure you have Apache configured to serve out your website to both of those domains.
  3. (Optional) Add a URL re-writing rule so that whichever way users type the website address, their browser will always display your preferred default, with or without the www.

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Requiring the “www” sub-domain in 2011? Really?

I’m currently researching some websites for a story I’m writing, and I’m amazed that one of the sites requires you to specify the “www” sub-domain or it just won’t work. “WTF? It’s 2011,” I thought. But am I wrong?

I decided to ask on Twitter. “How would you describe a business whose website demands that you use the ‘www’ sub-domain or it won’t work?” Here’s the first responses I got.

Ignorant. Fucking idiots. Sub Standard? Lame. Misconfigured. My work place *sigh* Partying like it was 1999. In need of some DNS sysadmining? Antiquated. One that doesn’t know how to configure their services properly. Pedantic. Woefully Witless Website? DNS-illiterate? Paying for poor advice, choosing inadequate consultants. One that needs help addressing user behaviour.

Well that seems fairly clear…

I had to stop looking after that, my question generated far more responses that I’d expected and the consensus was obvious pretty damn fast.

One person described it as a cPanel-based business, but I disagree. I use the cPanel web hosting control panel at Prussia.Net, and by default it sets up websites to work both with and without the “www”.

Another said he was about to go on a rant about bom.gov.au but they’ve finally fixed it. As has Australia Post at austpost.com.au.

Are there any particularly annoying examples of this phenomenon?