Tag: avg

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Weekly Wrap 234: Scallops and disruption

Scallops and eel, est restaurant: click to embiggenMy 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

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

Corporate Largesse

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.]

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Weekly Wrap 205: Productivity reigns again, bringing joy

Touchdown San Francisco: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 5 to Sunday 11 May 2014 was another productive one again, which is a pleasant happenstance.

Articles

Podcasts

The resurrection of The 9pm Edict has continued to be delayed by the continuing self-satire of the Australian government and my own busy schedule. Once it had overflowed its original allocated slot in my work plan, it’s had to wait until everything more time-critical is out of the way. We’ve nearly reached that point.

Media Appearances

5at5

Only two this week. But why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

As I write this, it’s already Monday in Australia, but it’s still Sunday morning here in San Francisco. This afternoon NetSuite is taking us on a tour of the Sonoma Valley, visiting the Cline and Gloria Ferrer wineries, then returning to San Francisco for pre-dinner drinks and “a special surprise guest” at Cafe Tosca in North Beach and dinner at the Americano Restaurant.

On Monday we make the journey to San Jose, with a meet-and-and-greet cocktail party in the evening. SuiteWorld proper then runs Tuesday to Thursday, with the evening events including dinner at the Thomas Fogarty Winery on Tuesday and the conference party on Wednesday.

On Friday I plan to catch the Caltrain back to San Francisco, recording part of the next episode of The 9pm Edict en route. My schedule is then open through to Sunday night, when I catch a late evening flight back to Sydney.

[Photo: Touchdown San Francisco, the view from United Airlines flight UA870 as it was about to touch down at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on Saturday 10 May 2014.]

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Weekly Wrap 100: Delay, disease and cold, clear nights

My week from Monday 30 April to Sunday 6 May 2012 also covered the entire continent, because a cancelled flight kept me in Perth through until Monday evening.

I won’t go into the cancelled flight in detail just now. Either you saw it unfold via my Twitter feed or you didn’t. Not everything has to be recorded everywhere forever.

I got back to Wentworth Falls late on Tuesday and went to bed — and didn’t emerge until Friday, thanks to a nasty cold I seem to have picked up along the way.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 136, “Blackhole crimeware as a service here to stay”. A discussion of the evolution of the Blackhole malware toolkit and other trends highlighted in the latest AVG Community Powered Threat Report (PDF) with Michael McKinnon, security advisor for AVG Australia and New Zealand, and Rob Collins, senior sales engineer for Asia-Pacific with WatchGuard.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

The current plan is that I’ll be in Wentworth Falls until Thursday morning, writing a whole bunch of stuff and, with luck, getting rid of this cold. I’ll head to Sydney some time on Thursday, and then present a keynote on security at Friday’s Saasu Cloud Conference.

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 (or they used to before my phone camera got a bit too scratched up). The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags. Yes, I should probably update this stock paragraph to match the current reality.

[Photo: Waratah Cottage via Instagram. Waratah Cottage is one of the Bunjaree Cottages, where I’ve spent maybe three-fifths of my time over the past year. It’s not the building I usually stay in, but it’s likely that I’ll be here until Thursday.]

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Weekly Wrap 65: Better late than never, perhaps

A supposedly-weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers Monday 29 August to Sunday 4 September 2011, a week during which I was so mentally exhausted I needed to take a bit of a break — hence the relatively low level of media output.

I also did about a day’s worth of geek-for-hire stuff for some long-standing clients. That was primarily web development, not the sort of thing I detail here unless there’s something interesting to show you.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 103, “Google’s real names a real disaster”. A conversation with Kirrily “Skud” Robert, about which I have already written stuff.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None.

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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Weekly Wrap 57

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Last week I said something’s gotta give. This week it gave.

Stress and exhaustion and a much lower productivity level than the previous two weeks has led to this post being two days late.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 95, “Malware? It’s just business!” Malware, these days, is so good that it simply has to be produced by professional development teams. As Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of AVG, explains, malware is distributed automatically, and runs on millions of target computers without causing any visible signs that something bad is happening.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Monday 4 July I had an extremely long lunch with people who are continuing their interest in having me work with them on a forthcoming media project. I still can’t say much, except I will drop in one word: Television.

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: The Wilds of Lilyfield, the view eastwards towards the Sydney CBD from the corner of Lilyfield and Balmain Roads.]

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Weekly Wrap 55

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. If last week was a bit thin, this week more than made up for it — and as I noted yesterday, I’m knackered.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 93, “Are we missing the bus on Gov 2.0 data?” A popular Sydney Buses app died when Sydney Transit cut off the data feed after just a few weeks, citing lack of server capacity. Developer Ben Hosken is disappointed, but he’s more concerned that developers aren’t making enough use of the government data on offer. I also speak with developers Benno Rice and Adrian Chadd.

Articles

In addition to these, I wrote a fifth piece for ABC’s The Drum, but that hasn’t been published yet. And there’s a couple of pieces I’ve been working on that I must finish and file tomorrow.

Media Appearances

I did five radio spots this week, which is a record I think. Well, except for when I worked full time in radio, obviously.

  • On Tuesday I spoke with Louise Maher on ABC 666 Canberra about the photographic project Everyday Photographs, Extraordinary Journeys, which I inspired. Well, partly inspired.
  • On Thursday morning I spoke with Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa about the National Broadband Network. I’ve already posted the audio.
  • A little later on Thursday morning I spoke on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters about the current state of play in information security. I’ve already posted about that.
  • While I was talking live on Radio National, ABC North Coast NSW broadcast an interview with be about Facebook and Social Media that has been pre-recorded. Alas, I don’t have a copy.
  • On Thursday afternoon I spoke with ABC 774 Melbourne about Bitcoin a digital currency. And I’ve posted that audio too.

Corporate Largesse

None. We’ll have to fix that. Dear PR Operatives, my junket calendar for July is empty. You know what to do. I prefer an aisle seat.

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: The afternoon sunlight can be fierce at The Grand View, an image taken in The Grand View Hotel, Wentworth Falls, yesterday.]