surface – Stilgherrian

21 October 201226 October 2012

Talking Microsoft Surface on Balls Radio

My regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week was a conversation about the new Microsoft Surface tablet and related matters.

I’d previously spoken about Microsoft’s new gadget in an episode of the Patch Monday podcast the day it was announced, with the deliberately provocative title “Microsoft? Is that still a thing?” I was thoroughly amused by the lack of critical thinking from the zealots who infested the comment stream, but they’re zealots after all.

Or perhaps it’s more that they’re so deeply embedded in the Microsoft worldview, so busy operating the ship, that they can’t see that the ship might not be headed in the right direction.

This week’s news included some Australian pricing, interesting in the light of the parliamentary inquiry into why IT seems to cost more in Australia. The industry body thinks that’s a distraction, but then they would say that.

We also spoke about the new Windows 8 interface, which I’ve previously discussed in an article and a podcast. I still reserve my judgement on that. As I say in this podcast, I understand Microsoft’s argument but I’ll wait and see how things unfold.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, have a listen to the full episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:10 — 7.0MB)

The program is no longer broadcast on FM99.3 Northside Radio, it’s purely a podcast. You can subscribe over at the website.

24 June 201201 July 2012

Weekly Wrap 107: Tribalism and the Gold Coast

So here’s my week from Monday 18 to Sunday 24 June 2012, which turned out to be much as planned. Thank you, Fate.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 143, “Microsoft? Is that still a thing?” I took a sickie on Monday, so this was another Patch Monday (on Tuesday) edition. And that meant we could talk about Microsoft’s new Surface device that was announced early Tuesday morning Australian time. But Kate Carruthers, Paul Wallbank and Benno Rice all suggested this probably wasn’t going to fix Microsoft’s flatline share price and that chief executive officer Steve Ballmer should go. That didn’t go down to well with, um, certain communities of interest.

Articles

Innovate or die!, Technology Spectator, 18 June 2012. A report on the speech given last week by Greg Ellis, chief executive officer of REA Group.
Perimeter security: IT’s Maginot Line, ZDNet Australia, 22 June 2012.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday night I spoke about Microsoft Surface and the Fairfax job cuts and stuff on ABC Local Radio around NSW.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday I visited IBM’s Australia Development Laboratory on the Gold Coast for a briefing about the security stuff that happens there. The Maginot Line story mentioned above was the first resulting media object from this. IBM covered a night at the Sheraton on the Park Hotel in Sydney en route, flights to and from Gold Coast, and a rather lovely seafood lunch.

The Week Ahead

At this stage I plan to return to Wentworth Falls on Monday afternoon and stay at Bunjaree Cottages for the week. Where I live from Friday onwards depends on how we arrange things to deal with the fact that the school holidays start on the weekend.

I don’t have any specific work locked in yet. That said, I do have a lingering feature story to start writing, and other stuff always turns up. And given that that it’s the end of the financial year, I’ll be reflecting on the work I’m currently doing and decide which parts of the mix get expanded and which cut back.

I’ve had a few thoughts already about certain media projects…

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) and via Instagram. 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: Shadow of my former self, a rather pointless self-portrait I took Friday afternoon because I saw my own shadow on the wall.]

24 June 201224 June 2012

Talking Microsoft Surface and Fairfax on ABC Local Radio

I spoke about two things on ABC Local Radio earlier this week: Microsoft’s Surface tablet-cum-laptop and the staff cutbacks at the Fairfax media group.

I’d covered Surface in this week’s Patch Monday podcast, so my comments on air with Dom Knight reflected the feedback I’d received.

And the comments I made about the Fairfax cuts was based heavily on what I wrote four years ago, “Trouble at t’paper”.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.8MB)