Tag: zdnet

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Weekly Wrap 243: Wattle, delays and fatigue

Random wattle: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 26 January to Sunday 1 February 2015 didn’t quite go to plan. Everything was still slower and more liquid than I’d wished. But such is life.

I won’t go into too many details. Some of it is on my Twitter stream, and if you really want to investigate then you can drill down into my tweets for January.

Podcasts

  • “The 9pm I can’t believe it’s not January”, being The 9pm Edict episode 34. The first seven minutes or so were an interesting psychological journey to produce. I have deleted the original audio file of that music loop so that I never have to listen to it again.

Articles

None. But that feature for ZDNet Australia was filed on Thursday as planned, and should appear on Monday or Tuesday.

5at5

There was only one edition of 5at5 again this week, on Friday once more. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all in the future. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

None, although I did get a few requests, which I turned down.

Corporate Largesse

None, because I cancelled my planned trip into Sydney.

The Week Ahead

Let’s have another go at returning productivity to some semblance of normality, shall we?

Monday is mostly about catching up on blogging, administrivia and the endless communications backlog — although I’m getting better at just deleting things.

On Tuesday, I will be updating a certain ebook and, if the cashflows work, getting it online so people can buy it. On Wednesday, I’ll be writing a column for ZDNet Australia, I think.

Tuesday will be a day of more administrivia and planning. On Wednesday, I’ll be heading to Sydney for a mid-morning media briefing by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, as well as a haircut. I’ll report on same for ZDNet Australia. The briefing, not the haircut.

On Thursday, I’ll be heading to Sydney again for a lunchtime briefing by VMWare, as well as several errands. Somewhen in there I’ll knock out a column for ZDNet Australia.

Friday through Sunday is unplanned, but since there’s quite a bit to catch up on, I suspect it’ll end up being quite busy.

[Update 3 February 2015: Edited to add a second trip to Sydney, and other minor schedule changes.]

[Photo: Random wattle, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages on Australia Day, 26 January 2015.]

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Weekly Wrap 242: Insomnia revelations, and more

Section of data collected during a sleep studyMy week of Monday 19 to Sunday 25 January 2015 continued the unproductive period, as my intestinal troubles went through their final stages, and then after that I really couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort.

Given that the early part of January was so exhausting, Monday through Wednesday ended up being mental health days. This lack of productivity will now haunt me for the next two months. Such is life.

On Thursday I discovered something interesting: that the cause of my endless insomnia is actually severe sleep apnoea. It’s probably also responsible for a large chunk of my depression. A sleep study showed that I was experiencing a disturbance to my respiratory functions every 90 seconds through the night, roughly, and doing rather a lot of loud snoring. So that’s something to take on board. There’ll be more to come on this soon, because I’ll be starting a treatment program next week soon.

Articles

None. But I did start work on a feature for ZDNet Australia that’ll appear next week.

5at5

There was only one edition of 5at5 this week, on Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all in the future. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. But the PR industry will be returning to its usual levels of largesse in the coming week, I suspect.

The Week Ahead

The main theme will be returning my productivity levels to some semblance of normality, and wrapping up all the things that need to be completed this month. This week also sees me based back at Bunjaree Cottages in Wentworth Falls, after my sojourn in Lilyfield since late December.

It’s Australia Day on Monday, but despite the public holiday I’ll be working on the ZDNet feature. That work continues into Tuesday. On Wednesday I’ll file that feature, and then head into Sydney for a lunchtime media briefing by Check Point Software, Dimension Data and L.E.K Consulting, followed by an appointment with a sleep physician to start the treatment program.

On Thursday, I’ll be writing my usual column for ZDNet Australia, and on Friday and/or Saturday I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, finally.

The weekend is unplanned, mostly, but I’m hoping it’ll be a quiet one.

Update 27 January 2015: Updated to reflect the cancellation of Wednesday’s trip to Sydney.

[Photo: A section of the data produced during the sleep study, showing disruptions to airflow and snoring. Yes, I was the patient.]

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Weekly Wrap 241: Extended gut symptomatics, apparently

My week of Monday 12 to Sunday 18 January 2015 was another unproductive one, thanks to the intestinal problems continuing. Or maybe it was a new one arriving. Either way, it was terrible.

I don’t think I’ll even bother putting a photograph on this post. It’s late enough as it is.

That said, this seems to have been the week that the Australian media returned to work, because I did four spots in total.

Articles

5at5

There were only two editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday and Tuesday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all in the future. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

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Weekly Wrap 239: The new year starts with some chaos

Sydney skyline, 30 December 2014: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 29 December 2014 to Sunday 3 January 2015 was a strange mix of relaxation and stress. Relaxation during the New Year break, and stress because the server migration I was doing started to become a complete pain.

Since this is being posted a week late, I won’t bother expanding on all that for now. I may or may not issue a series of whinges in relation to the server migration.

But I will mention that on 30 December I migrated from Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls to Lilyfield in Sydney’s inner west, there to spend most of January. If you need to catch up with me in Sydney for some reason, this is the month for you.

Articles

5at5

There were three editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

[Photo: Sydney skyline, photographed on 30 December 2014. I seem to recall that it was a very hot day that day.]

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Fine posts for 2014, such that they are

As in previous years, the list of most popular posts for 2014 was disappointing, so I’ve compiled this list for you to consider instead.

As it happens, only three posts stood out for me, and all of them were on the previous list.

In the past I haven’t included the material I wrote elsewhere, for ZDNet Australia, Technology Spectator, CSO Online, Crikey, ABC The Drum and the rest. That’s all listed on my Media Output page. But this year I will highlight some of my personal favourites.

Continue reading “Fine posts for 2014, such that they are”

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Weekly Wrap 238: Cyberwar hype for Christmas

Banksia in shadow: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 22 to Sunday 28 December 2014 was a strange beast, what with the Christmas break and certain excesses dumped smack down into the middle of it. And we’re about to do it all over again.

The stress related to having to wrap up everything in the three days before Christmas was compounded by a certain amount of uncertainty as to whether a certain large media company was certain about being able to pay my November invoice before the holidays began. One thing was certain, though: that would have certainly caused a certain amount of pain.

Fortunately that was all sorted out, and I did have enough money to both to celebrate Christmas, in my own small way, and to pay the bills. But the entire process was mentally exhausting.

Articles

5at5

An edition of 5at5 was emailed every working day, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • Kaspersky Lab sent a Christmas present in the form of a bottle of Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz. They’re such terrible people.

The Week Ahead

It will be another busy week punctuated by a public holiday.

Monday’s key tasks are to pitch some column ideas to ZDNet Australia, deal with some administrivia that can’t be done on the weekend, write a couple of standard blog posts, and start work on the chosen ZDNet column.

On Tuesday, I’ll finish that column, and then catch the train to Sydney — not just for the regular spot on ABC 720 Perth, but also to bump in to the Chirgwin residence in Lilyfield, where I’ll be taking up residence through until about 25 January. If you’ve been trying to arrange a meeting in Sydney with me, January represented your chance.

On Wednesday, I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, which simply must be finished and published that day, because it’s New Year’s Eve. That will in turn be followed by New Year’s Day, an event which is bound to be marked by a gap in the official record.

Friday will be a relaxed-pace day of work, pottering around the various tasks that accompany a new year, and reflecting upon the nature of Sin. Then the weekend should provide further opportunities for same. The reflection, I mean, not the sin.

Now overlaid on top of all this may be the much-delayed server migration. That will depend on some details that I won’t be able to confirm until Monday. Stand by. Or sit down with a gin and tonic, whichever you think is more appropriate for summer.

[Photo: Banksia in shadow, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, 100km west of Sydney, on 22 December 2014. Everywhere around this banksia flower was cast in shadow by a nearby tree — except for the one shaft of sunlight striking the flower itself. Tom Gwynne-Jones and Martin Miles have identified it as a Banksia serrata. If they’re wrong, I daresay some kind person will help us with the correct species soon enough.]