Weekly Wrap – Page 111

29 October 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 21

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and places — and what a productive week it has been!

Articles

You know super-fast ain’t so super: Optus, and…
ACCC says Optus pitch is misleading, for ZDNet.com.au, both covering the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s case in the Federal Court in Sydney against Singtel Optus for allegedly misleading or deceptive advertising. I particularly like Optus’ lawyer saying that broadband is not a bottle of shampoo, and the argument that even if an advertisement is technically misleading in and of itself this can still be “cured” with more information later in the sales process. The judge’s decision is expected early in the coming week.
Turnbull v Conroy: how Coalition broadband plan stacks up, for Crikey, comparing the Coalition’s new broadband policy with the Labor government’s National Broadband Network.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 62, “Why can’t Labor sell the NBN’s benefits?”. I reckon that Labor has been crap at selling the concept of the NBN. After running through the week’s NBN-related political news, I cover some ideas for broadband applications that might help sell the thing.
A Series of Tubes episode 118. Karl Horne from Ciena talks about that company’s views on traffic growth and network architecture, and I rabbit on about the spate of anti-NBN scare stories in The Australian, the new USO (Universal Service Obligation) inquiry, and the ACCC’s proposed inquiry into ADSL wholesale service prices.

Media Appearances

On Monday I was interviewed by community radio’s current affairs program The Wire about the NBN. An audio file is available.
On Wednesday I did a quick spot on ABC Radio Statewide NSW with Paul Turton, covering the ACCC v Singtel Optus hearing and also the death of Limewire’s file sharing service. It wasn’t recorded, sorry.
On Friday I was interview by Melbourne’s SYN Radio about — you guessed it! — the NBN. I’ll see if I can get hold of an audio file.

Geekery

We finished a batch of updates for the website at Nolans Road, including adding the new home page and some pages for Dee Nolan’s lush new book, A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela. Nothing earth-shattering, just some routine updates to an existing site.

Corporate Largesse

HTC threw a more-than-adequate BBQ with plenty of drinks for the Australian launch of the HTC Desire HD smartphone. The venue was the Astral Bar and Restaurant at Star City Casino.

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: Sydney CBD at dusk, taken from the Astral Bar and Restaurant on level 17 of the Star City Casino in Pyrmont.]

23 October 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 20

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, for those suffering from early-onset dementia.

Articles

Is Brisbane’s sewer broadband a crock of â€¦?, for Crikey. Believing that the National Broadband Network will take too long to solve Brisbane’s internet problems, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has signed a deal with the i3 Group to run fibre through the city’s sewers. As you do.
Cloud security? Better get a lawyer, Son!, a 2000-word feature for ZDNet.com.au. As the intro says, “Moving your data into the cloud creates a raft of security challenges, but according to information security specialists, those challenges are less about hackers and more about data availability and signing the right contracts.”

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 61, “Microsoft exposes the botnet threat”. My guest is Microsoft Australia’s chief security advisor, Stuart Strathdee.
A Series of Tubes episode 117. Richard Chirgwin’s podcast returns after a bit of a break. Apart from my usual natter about stuff, we hear from i3 Group’s CEO Elfed Thomas about that Brisbane sewer-based fibre project.

Media Appearances

Again it’s not strictly “media”, but on Tuesday I took part in a lunchtime discussion about the future of book publishing, hosted by Blurb. I haven’t had time to write it up yet, but here’s Ross Dawson’s summary.

Geekery

Wait for it…

Corporate Largesse

Blurb paid for Tuesday’s lunch at History House on Macquarie Street. And very pleasant it was.
I was invited to a few other things this week, but I was a tad crook and didn’t go. Ethics are restored, or something.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Staff of The Duke, Enmore, dress up for The Village People concert at the Enmore Theatre. I won’t link to a higher-resolution version. We have suffered enough.]

17 October 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 18 and 19

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, for those who haven’t been paying attention properly. Once more I’ve skipped a week, but I haven’t been all that prolific so I’ll think you’ll cope.

Articles

Coalition objection to NBN opt-out is just scaremongering, for Crikey. Debunking some of the not-quite-totally-accurate statements that Opposition communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull is making about the National Broadband Network.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 60, “Credit cards risked by standards failure”. My guest is Mark Goudie, head of the forensics practice for Verizon Business in Melbourne. I also chat with journalist and telco analyst Richard Chirgwin about the NBN opt-out issue.

Media Appearances

While it’s not strictly “media”, the panel No Man’s Land at the National Young Writers Festival the other weekend went remarkably well. I did make a crappy phone-quality recording of the session, and if that can be turned into a podcast I will do so. Eventually.

Geekery

I finally completed the migration of all my Prussia.Net internet hosting clients to a new server. For those who care about such things, it’s a leased dedicated server at ServePath running CentOS and the cPanel/WHM hosting control panel. I had its security improved by the good folks at ConfigServer, and Bobcares continue to provide user support. I’ve also used Linode to supply a bunch of secondary DNS servers.

Corporate Largesse

I’ve decided to introduce this new section, where I declare who’s bought me food and drink or given me gifts, so you can properly judge whether I have been influenced by them in my media coverage. In the last two weeks that’s:

NetSuite paid for lunch and wine at the Ocean Room, Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, along with a dozen or more journalists and analysts. Their message was about how they’re seeing increased demand from middle-sized businesses for their cloud-based products.
Microsoft Australia provided breakfast at the Australian launch of Windows Phone 7.
I had coffee and biscuits — quite good biscuits, in fact — at the Sydney Opera House for the launch of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011. They really should provide healthier breakfast options.
I had lunch at the Carlisle Castle Hotel, Newtown, with a couple of people from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).

Elsewhere

[Photo: Realising her full potential, a billboard which caught my eye at Town Hall station in Sydney. For having “realised her full potential”, this young woman seems remarkably unexcited. Plus I’d have thought that “full potential” is only realised once you get into your career, not just when you get your Bachelor of Commerce or Economics degree.]

01 October 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 17

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, for those who haven’t been paying attention properly.

It’s a bit thin this week. After doing 30+ hours and a couple of all-nighters last weekend for that server migration I mentioned last time, I’ve been taking it slowly during this week. And I’m getting this post done on Friday night because I’m heading to Newcastle first thing tomorrow.

Articles

How America could censor the internetâ€¦ or not, for Crikey. The US is currently considering the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which my Crikey colleague Harley Dennett also wrote about today in The internet filter coming to the US — with barely any dissent. It’s about cutting off internet domains that are alleged to be involved with copyright infringement.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 59, “Opening up the cloud”. My guest is open-source software developer and advocate Jeff Waugh. In a wide-ranging conversation they cover Linode and OpenStack; as well as DevOps, a new software development paradigm that involves operational staff in the entire development process; a DevOps tool called Cucumber, and its plug-in cucumber-nagios, written by Australian developer Lindsay Holmwood; and the social source code management system Github. And Richard Chirgwin debunks the myth that optical fibre only lasts 15 or 20 years.

Geekery

I’ll tell you more about what I’ve been doing next week.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Making TV at Aria: Lisa Creffield of Sky News Business interviews Peter Baxter from AVG at Aria Restaurant, Circular Quay, Sydney, following a lunchtime media briefing.]

25 September 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 16

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Well, the bits I’m going to talk about publicly.

Articles

Wireless on the rise, but fixed broadband still does the work, for Crikey. An attempt to head off misuse of the latest internet activity report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The “wireless will solve everything” meme is strong.
NBN: too bold for timid Australia? for ABC Unleashed. I’d noticed that amongst the much-needed legitimate criticism of the National Broadband Network there’s also a sense of “We’ll make do” and “No-one else is doing this so why should Australia?” Has Australia lost its nerve? Needless to say, most commenters miss the point I’m making about the bigger picture and just re-bleat their views about the NBN. The party-hack trolls are remarkably obvious.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 58, “For efficiency, send your workers home!”. My guest is Jacob Murray-White, general manager of Salmat At Home. They run a virtual call centre with staff scattered across Australia. He gets quite excited. I’d never realised that call centres could be so interesting, although cartoonist First Dog on the Moon used to manage a call centre. That means something.

Geekery

I still spend roughly a third of my time doing random “geek for hire” stuff with a few long-standing clients. I reckon I might as well list any significant moments.

I still provide internet hosting for approximately 110 domains for around 40 clients, including my own activities such as this website. I’m right in the middle of migrating all that to a new server. Indeed, this site is now running on that server. It’s another dedicated Linux box at ServePath in San Francisco, although they seem to be emphasising their GoGrid branding these days. I’m thrilled to discover that just packaging and migrating the data will take 14 hours, and my planned process won’t work. A busy weekend ahead. Sigh.

Elsewhere

[Photo: The view from Beverly Hills Hotel, Sydney, which is a substantially less glamorous view than last week’s photo.]

18 September 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 15

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets.

Articles

Turnbull’s NBN challenge: real analysis, real policies, not rhetoric, for Crikey. A rebuttal of Malcolm Turnbull’s denigration of the National Broadband Network project, which he blogged before the election but which was posted at ABC Unleashed this week.
Myths of the NBN myths, for ABC Unleashed. A rebuttal of an anti-NBN piece by economist Peter J Cox, Top Ten Myths behind Fibre Policy which, ironically, he also wrote about in Crikey. And thus the circle is complete. I find it telling that he describes people favouring optical fibre for data delivery as “zealots”. Name-calling is of course a technique of propaganda rather than analysis.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 57, “CCTV surveillance: reality versus myth”. My guest is Professor Brian Lovell from NICTA’s Queensland Research Lab.

[Photo: Circular Quay station at dusk, showing how us Sydney residents tend to take the magnificent views for granted.]