abc – Page 46 – Stilgherrian

24 January 201107 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 33

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. It’s already Monday, which makes this post late. You’ll cope. There isn’t a photo this week either. You’ll cope with that too.

Articles

Reading Steve Jobs’ entrails, is it time for Apple to come clean?, for Crikey, written following the announcement that Apple’s CEO was on indefinite medical leave.
Forget Steve Jobs, Appleâ€™s rolling in cash, for Crikey, written the next day, when Apple announced record revenue and profits. Again.
Google kids have grown up, but where will they take the firm?, for Crikey, being an overview of Google’s place in the world following the announcement that co-founder Larry Page will be replacing hired-help “designated adult” Eric Schmidt as CEO in April.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 72, “Flood-proofing your business IT”. My guests are Tom Worthington, who works at both ANU and the CSIRO and has a particular interested in emergency IT and disaster planning, and Lewis Benge, founder of Qld IT Relief.

Media Appearances

On Thursday I spoke with Liz Ellis, the former Australian netball captain and now radio presenter on ABC Radio 702 Sydney about the great work the Queensland Police did using their official Twitter and Facebook accounts during the recent floods.

Corporate Largesse

On Tuesday, Acronis paid for lunch at the Italian Village restaurant in The Rocks as they announced the Acronis Global Disaster Recovery Index.
Also on Tuesday, Intel Australia provided quite adequate catering for the Australian launch of their 2nd Generation Intel Core processors in the laughably-named Crystal Ballroom at Luna Park. They also shouted a water taxi to take us across Sydney Harbour to the Opera Bar at Sydney Opera House.

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.

31 December 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 30

In the week between Christmas and New Year I didn’t write anything for anyone, I didn’t do any podcasts, I didn’t appear in the media anywhere, and I didn’t receive any corporate largesse. I’m just posting this post so the numerical sequence of “Weekly Wrap” posts is consistent.

24 December 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 29

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which was another slow week again this week, since it’s the lead-up to Christmas.

Articles

It’s the NBN Corporate Plan, not a crystal ball, for ABC Unleashed. Ah, the National Broadband Network, political issue of the year! No sooner had the NBN Co Limited Corporate Plan 2010-2013 been released than the critics started whinging that it didn’t answer every single question.
It’s network neutrality, but it’s neutered, for Crikey, covering initial reaction to the US Federal Communication Commission’s new rules.
2010 on the internet: the empire strikes back, for Crikey. Yes, an end-of-year wrap-up.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 70, “2010: IT’s year of domination”. An extended panel discussion reviewing 2010 and making a few predictions for 2011. My guests are: Mick Liubinskas, co-founder of Australian start-up incubator Pollenizer and, back in the day, head of marketing and business development for infamous music sharing site Kazaa; columnist and author Paul Wallbank; and Jeff Waugh, open-source developer, strategist and advocate, and political tragic.

Media Appearances

On Wednesday I did another brief spot with Paul Turton on ABC Radio Statewide NSW. We spoke about Avatar being the most-pirated movie of 2010 and the UK allowing Twitter in the courtroom, more than a year after Australia did.

Corporate Largesse

None. It all seemed to wrap up last week. It’s going to be a bleak holiday season. Please send packages of food and drink.

Elsewhere

[Photo: My Christmas card from 2007, recycled because I didn’t get around to doing anything new this year. I made the tinsel antlers for my good friend the Snarky Platypus, who continues to use them to this day. Photograph by Trinn (’Pong) Suwannapha.]

19 December 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 28

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which this week wasn’t very much at all because I lost a couple of days returning from San Francisco.

Articles

None this week.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 69, “Service goes social, but how?”. Based on material recorded at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event in San Francisco, this episode includes a chat with Fergus Griffin, vice president of product marketing for Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud product.

Media Appearances

On Wednesday I did another brief spot with Paul Turton on ABC Radio Statewide NSW.

Corporate Largesse

On Friday I had lunch aboard the South Steyne at Darling Harbour, courtesy of Watterson Marketing Communication.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Since I didn’t take any photographs this week, here’s one of the rather serious seagulls they have in San Francisco.]

13 November 201007 July 2011

Weekly Wrap 23

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and so on and so forth.

Articles

Fairfax’s hypocritical web ‘spying devices’ beat-up, for Crikey. The “spying devices” in question are tracking cookies. Nothing new there. But the story was on the front page of the dead-tree slices. Why? Apparently politicians’ websites use tracking cookies. Shock! Horror! And Fairfax uses even more of them. Hypocrites.
Senate to re-open bloggers versus journalists, for Crikey. A lightly-edited version of my blog post on the same topic.
Indonesian e-commerce held back by uncertain laws, for Crikey. Based on material presented by leading Indonesian legal academic Dr Sinta Dewi.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 64, “The info commissioner’s fight: Govt 2.0”. My interview with the new Australian Information Commissioner, Professor John McMillan. The new Office of the Australian Information Commissioner came into being on 1 November and represents a significant change to the way the Australian Government will be handing its information — especially given the Declaration of Open Government earlier this year.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke with Fiona Wyllie on ABC Radio’s Statewide Afternoons and the Fairfax tracking cookie beat-up and a father who installed a radio jammer to kill the internet so his kids wouldn’t spend so much time online. Alas, there is no recording. That’s a shame. It’s not often you’ll hear me giving parenting advice on the radio.

Geekery

I learned how to use Google Site Search by plugging it into the Fender Australia website. It’s fairly straightforward, but it quickly shows you the problems with how your site is constructed. As an aside, if you’re a web developer visiting that site for the first time you’ll be horrified to see that in many places it uses tables for layout. That’s because the site was originally built in 2001 and has just been re-skinned a couple of times since. It’s also maintained manually, all 950 pages of it. There’s little business case for a major overhaul — the numbers are not compelling — but we’re planning to build a proper modern database-driven site early in 2011.

Corporate Largesse

None.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Old bar sign at the Town Hall Hotel, Newtown. Gender roles were a little different back then.]

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

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