My week of Monday 10 to Sunday 16 August 2026 was a good week. Productive. Filled with decent food, some of which I cooked myself. And there was wine. Let’s leave it there.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 846: Transformations, but few details”Weekly Wrap 209: Nostalgia as winter falls, with Apple
My week of Monday 2 to Sunday 8 June 2014, at least beyond immediate work commitments, was somewhat limited by certain cashflow issues, but that seems to always happen when there’s a long weekend early in the month.
Still, the ebook project progressed nicely — and that will be announced properly in approximately a week. It’s not that exciting, though, trust me.
Articles
Oddly enough, both of these were triggered by the announcements at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). I found it quite funny that some people, even some alleged technology journalists, said there was nothing interesting to report because there wasn’t any new hardware.
- How Apple is revolutionising your digital future — and you’ll never notice, Crikey, 3 June 2014.
- Apple’s new iOS 8 openness brings new security threats, ZDNet Australia, 3 June 2014. If I had my life over again, I’d change the headline. “Apple’s new iOS 8 openness brings new security risks”, not “threats”. The threats are the same old same old.
There’s also the blog posts I wrote for Blogjune, which you may find interesting. Or not.
Media Appearances
- On Wednesday I spoke about Google and the right to be forgotten on ABC 666 Canberra.
- Also on Wednesday, I spoke about “swatting” on Sydney radio commercial 2UE.
- On Thursday I spoke about “swatting” again on 2UE.
5at5
Not quite a full week this week, though Friday’s was a bumper edition to make up for the gap. Why don’t you subscribe to 5at5?
- 5at5 number 59, 2 June 2013.
- 5at5 number 60, 3 June 2013.
- 5at5 number 61, 4 June 2013.
- 12at12 number 62, 6 June 2013.
Geekery
- I set up my own Twitter archive, as already explained.
Corporate Largesse
- On Friday I caught up with Michael McKinnon from AVG Technologies AU. We spoke about many interesting things, and he bought a couple of beers and dinner.
The Week Ahead
Monday is a public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday, but since she has neglected to invite me to her party — an administrative oversight I can accept, because she is a busy woman — I will be catching up with a friend instead. And then I shall return to Wentworth Falls.
Tuesday is a day of research and planning, unless a writing commission comes up. Wednesday is a day trip to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by Brocade. Thursday is a day of writing. Wednesday and Thursday are days of writing. Friday onwards has yet to be allocated.
[Photo: St Stephens Anglican Church, Newtown, photographed from Camperdown Memorial Rest Park on 21 June 2003. I’ve decided that if I haven’t taken any decent photographs in the week covered by the Wrap, I’ll pick something from the same month in the past.]
[Update 10 June 2014, 1515 AEST: The Week Ahead edited to reflect a change of plans for Wednesday.]
Latest video: Aromatherpy (sic)
The following important and highly-educational video was shot on Saturday 26 November 2011 on King Street, Newtown, in Sydney.
If the video isn’t working here for you, click through to YouTube.
May I also recommend Excellence in European Linguistics, Kingsgrove and Multiply Function Pot?
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
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: Old bar sign at the Town Hall Hotel, Newtown. Gender roles were a little different back then.]
Weekly Wrap 4
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, posted a day early because I’m about to go off-grid for the weekend.
Articles
- Inside Microsoft’s Security War Room, my debut for iTnews, along with a photo gallery. During my Microsoft-funded trip to Redmond, Washington, I visited the War Room where they work on critical security patches for all Microsoft products.
- The political naivety of the digital elites for ABC Unleashed, in which I bemoan the way some people seem to see all politics through the narrow, narrow prism of the Australian government’s mandatory internet censorship policies. The comments are fascinating, especially those who seem to think I’m in favour of Senator Conroy and the government’s internet censorship plans.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 46 covered the news from Canberra: the calls for the sacking of Senator Stephen Conroy as Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and replacing him with Senator Kate Lundy; and the parliamentary report Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime.
[Photo: A sign spotted outside the ZanziBar, Newtown, last night, offering free Snuggies for hire. “Snuggie”? If you haven’t heard of this device before, check their website or watch the infomercial.]
Town Hall Hotel Furry Alert!
Look, I know it was Halloween yesterday, but it’s no excuse.
The Snarky Platypus and I were intending to enjoy a quiet drink at one of our local hostelries when we were confronted with the sight of a young man sporting a long — nay, very long — fake fur tail. In public.
In daylight!
This, Young Man, is the Town Hall Hotel! A reputable establishment. We do not need your bizarre sexual proclivities to be displayed so prominently. We do not need your bizarre sexual proclivities to be displayed at all.
Look, I’m pretty broad-minded, and generally I’m OK if you stay within the order Mammalia. But fake fur? Really?
Just where do you draw the line?


