It is my sad duty to report — since no one else is saying so — that one of Australia’s long-running tech news mastheads is no more. ZDNet Australia is being shut down.
Continue reading “ZDNet Australia is no more”ZDNet Australia is no more
The 9pm Edict #14
Homosexuals are special. They can vote people out of their club. Heterosexuals whine that their institutionalised racist breeder-money has been cut by, gosh, seven perfect. (Hi, Sherlock!) And the three stages of Top Gun and more from the CBS Interactive Christmas Party.
In this disturbing and long-overdue return of The 9pm Edict podcast, you’ll hear about the legal problems with the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, face the facts about cuts to Australia’s stupidly-named Baby Bonus, and hear a bunch of people at the CBS Interactive party talk about their childhood heroes.
If you were at that party and just want to listen to yourself, fast forward to the 10 minute 40 second mark.
Yes, there are bad words. And bonus hypocrisy.
You can listen below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:01 — 27.8MB)
If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.
[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission. Extracts from The Breeders song Cannonball and the movie Forbidden Planet.]
Talking business information security on BTalk podcast
Yesterday I was the guest on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast at BNet Australia, a CBS Interactive masthead. The topic? Information security for small business.
I covered quite a bit of stuff fairly quickly. The state of anti-banking malware. Virus protection for smartphones. Password management. Encrypting you hard drives. Mandatory data breach notification laws. And more.
You can see the podcast in its written context as a BNet blog post, A Security Breach is Only a Matter of Time. Or you can just listen below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.0MB)
This podcast is ©2011 CBS Interactive.
Weekly Wrap 25
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and so on and so forth — and this week it seems like I’ve been consuming more food and drink than producing media.
Articles
- NBN Co business case — truly a curiously inadequate document, for Crikey. The “curiously inadequate” line is a quote from opposition spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull’s blog post about the rather odd NBN Co Business Case Summary [3MB PDF], which contains neither business nor case. This article will sit behind the Crikey paywall for two weeks, but you can register for a free trial. Or you can comment over here.
- “Gadgets: a geek’s Christmas”, part of the Crikey Weekender Christmas Guide 2010 [2.9MB PDF]. This was actually published on 19 November but I forgot to mention it last week. So sue me.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 66, “Inside the internet’s China syndrome”. A conversation with infosec specialist Crispin Harris about that story of China supposedly hijacking 15% of the world’s internet traffic for 18 minutes back in April. Needless to say, the story is somewhat of an exaggeration. I’m pleased with the opening montage on the program.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
With six bullet points in this section — four of them from the one day! — and it still being November, there’s clear evidence that my liver may not survive until the actual day of Christmas. Wish me luck.
- The Australian Communication Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) fed me lunch while I gave them a briefing on the National Broadband Network on Tuesday. My largess to them is probably worth more than theirs to me.
- I had cakes and other sweet items while attending the eCrime Symposium on Thursday. The organisers also gave me a bottle of Yering Station pinot noir.
- AARNet paid for lunch at Est Restaurant while their CEO Chris Hancock gave us a briefing on their plans on Thursday.
- Nate Cochrane, editor in chief for some of Haymarket Media’s mastheads in Australia including iTnews.com.au, bought me a couple of beers while we discussed the media industry in Australia and the future of journalism.
- I popped into a drinks session being staged by Securis Global, and they bought me a couple of beers.
- Continuing the busy Thursday, I went to the CBS Interactive Christmas Party at The Italian Village in The Rocks. ZDNet.com.au is one of their mastheads and I file stories for them, so I’m not sure if this actually counts. But someone from one of Microsoft’s PR firms bought me a double scotch, so that definitely counts.
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: A platform sign at Erskineville station, Sydney. I have no idea why I took this photograph, so obviously you need to see it too.]