Tag: podcast

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 136: Geekery and hot thoughts

Urban sophistication, or so it is imagined: click for originalThe week of Monday 7 to Sunday 13 January 2013 was supposed to be filled with thoughts about my work in 2013. Instead, there was too much urgent geekery, too much intense thought about certain non-work matters, and too much hot weather for my liking.

Some might also argue that there was too much wine. I couldn’t possibly comment on that point directly, except to note that there was also beer, cider and gin.

Nevertheless, the week did see the delivery of two media objects, which are here listed for your information and enjoyment, and yesterday I went on a long, random exploratory excursion.

Podcasts

  • The 9pm Heat Wave, which should need little explanation. Or a lot, actually. I’ll tell you my thoughts regarding The 9pm Edict and other podcasts within the next three days.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None this week either. Australia is still closed for summer. I daresay this will change in the coming week.

The Week Ahead

I’ll return to work at full intensity. I’m sketching out the details later today, at least for this first week, as well as posting more about my slowly-evolving plans for 2013. Stay tuned for that.

I’m in Sydney all week, it seems, staying at Lilyfield. And my new, erm, “health regime” starts tomorrow. Should I post my plans for that too, or just leave you to make suggestions?

Apart from that, there’s nothing locked in to any particular schedule, so feel free to send through the invitations.

[Photo: Urban sophistication, or so it is imagined, a house photographed yesterday in Maroubra, Sydney.]

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 134: Christmas contrasts and introspection

The perfect user interface: click to embiggenThe week of Monday 24 to Sunday 30 December 2012 was an exercise in contrasts. There were plenty of reminders that, as has been the case for many years, my pattern of work and not-work periods is out of whack with the bulk of society.

Monday was Christmas Eve. Most people in regular jobs had an easy day, if they hadn’t already clocked off the previous Friday afternoon. I, however, was awake and working ridiculously early to complete the three media item you see listed below.

I finished by lunchtime, though, so I made my way from my Hurstville apartment-sitting to the Sydney CBD for lunch and drinks with a friend.

I didn’t work on Christmas Day. I’m not a complete idiot. But with family distant both physically and emotionally, there was no Christmas party. Instead, I spent some quality time with someone who has yet to be formally introduced to this narrative.

The rest of the week was a random montage of catch-up bookkeeping, long overdue errands, intermittent bursts of sleep and the occasional meal or two, some of which may have involved wine, all set against a background of quiet introspection. None of it involved any traditional Australian summer holiday activities, for which I am deeply grateful.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 169, “Uncovering the smartphone: a year 10 perspective”. A rather different podcast to end the year, namely a look at what happened when the Year 10 students at North Sydney Girls High School spent six weeks away from normal classes to work on projects of their choice that were somehow related to the smartphone.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. Australia is currently closed.

The Week Ahead

I expect that Monday and Tuesday, being New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day respectively, will be taken up with the traditional activities of those days. Or at least my variations thereupon. No. Mind your own business.

Wednesday through Friday I’ll continue my planning for 2013. You saw the first instalment of that earlier today, Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism, but it’s not just about my work. There’s also questions about what the magazines call “work-life balance” before flogging the book for $24.95, questions of diet and exercise and how I structure my day. Even the question of where I live.

I’ll post more about that as it happens. For now, I’ll just say that I’ve recognised so many things that could be changed that it’ll be daunting.

[Photo: The perfect user interface, photographed on near Town Hall station, Sydney, on 28 December 2012. It’s always important to focus on your core message.]

Posted on

Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism

As 2012 draws to a close, it’s become clear to me that many aspects of my life should be reassessed for next year. One of the more important is my work — that is, what I do for who, how often and for how much.

Last night I made a couple of pictures to help me understand the issues I’ll need to think about. This first one shows the relative importance of each masthead, at least in revenue terms, based on the gross income they generated in 2012. I’m surprised.

Stilgherrian's income from journalism in 2012 by masthead: see story for the numbers

I knew ZDNet was my biggest earner. What I didn’t realise was that my written stories for them, either ad hoc commissions or as conference coverage, when combined with the weekly Patch Monday podcast, represent roughly five times the revenue of the second-place holder, CSO Online.

Continue reading “Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism”

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 133: Instagram, infosec and random nativity

Suburban Nativity: click to embiggenMonday 17 to Sunday 23 December 2012 was a week filled with plenty of work, plenty of stress and a small amount of exhaustion.

The media outputs are listed below, as usual. Towards the end of the week the long series of 5am and earlier starts was beginning to catch up with me, and on Thursday I accidentally slept in until lunchtime — and that was truly wonderful.

I decided to continue that level of sloth on the weekend. Well, apart from today, obviously. As mentioned below, there’s still quite a bit left to do before I can finally break for Christmas.

Also this week I dropped and broke my Samsung Galaxy S III, necessitating an urgent replacement. While doing that I discovered some gotchas with migrating data to a new phone, and I’ll write about that after Christmas.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 168, “2012 infosec review: Focus on crime, not cyberwar”. The second of our two year-end conversations. The panelists are Paul Ducklin, Sophos’ head of technology for Asia Pacific; Chris Gatford, director of penetration testing firm HackLabs; Jon Callas, chief technology officer at Entrust, and now also of secure messaging provider Silent Circle; and Stephen Wilson, managing director of Lockstep Group, which provides advice and analysis on digital identity and privacy technologies.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I had a very pleasant lunch indeed at Bistrode at the Hotel CBD in Sydney with a couple of chaps from Trend Micro. Needless to say, it was on their tab.

The Week Ahead

There’s tonight and one working day left before Christmas. In that time I have to produce a Patch Monday podcast, my end-of-year story for Crikey, and a follow-up to Friday’s story for CSO Online. I’ll be busy for the next 24 hours, though for all those things I’ve already got a plan in mind so they should be straightforward.

But then Tuesday is Christmas Day, and from then through to the end of the week I have precisely nothing planned. Sure, there’s a few little work-related things that’ll need to be polished off, but there are no pressing commitments. This pleases me immensely.

[Photo: Suburban Nativity, photographed on Stony Creek Road in Beverly Hills, Sydney, on 15 December 2012. The householders must do this every year, because the same nativity scene is visible in Google Street View imagery from December 2009.]

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 132: Schoolgirls and technological failures

Occluded House: click to embiggenI’d expected things to start winding down before Christmas, which is the traditional thing, but the week of Monday 10 to Sunday 16 December 2012 was actually pretty busy.

I visited North Sydney Girls High School twice. On Monday, to help assess the projects the Year 10 students had done on the smartphone. And on Friday, to record some material for the Patch Monday podcast and to provide some feedback to the students who are making a documentary on the whole thing.

More about all that coming soon — particularly the podcast to be posted on 24 December. [Update 29 December: Here’s that podcast.]

In between, the writing and… oh fuck it, just look at the list.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 167, “2012 in review: IT vendors prepare for cloudy big-data future”. The first of our year-end conversations is with broadcaster, columnist, and author Paul Wallbank; Kate Carruthers; strategy consultant and founder of Social Innovation; and Jeff Waugh, open-source developer, strategist, and advocate.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

So, I mentioned that things are refusing to quieten down before Christmas? Yeah well this is what the week is going to look like unless I force the chloroform-soaked handkerchief into its face…

Monday includes finishing this week’s episode of Patch Monday and recording material for the next.

The remainder of the week is as yet unplanned, because certain things need to be confirmed. But it includes writing two articles for CSO Online and two or three for Crikey, plus more of the client website work that’s been taking up much more time than expected recently. Stay tuned.

[Photo: Occluded House, a view of the Sydney Opera House from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, made all the more special thanks to the advertising laid over the bus window.]