"Wireless devices poised for home invasion" predicts today's Sydney Morning Herald.
Having spent the morning in an unsuccessful battle with a dodgy Linksys router. I really don't think so.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Windows becomes spyware
Microsoft don't get it. Their Genuine Advantage notification rings home and spies on users. Brian Livingston at Windows Secrets and David Berlind at ZD Net do a much better job than me demonstrating how bad this is.
What amazes me is David Lazar, the director of the Genuine Advantage program, admits the function is there partly to turn off if the thing doesn't work.
So Microsoft launched a program which put potentially buggy software on millions of computers?
Trustworthy computing indeed.
What amazes me is David Lazar, the director of the Genuine Advantage program, admits the function is there partly to turn off if the thing doesn't work.
So Microsoft launched a program which put potentially buggy software on millions of computers?
Trustworthy computing indeed.
Monday, June 12, 2006
More Aussie domain shenanigans
auDA, the Australian domain administrator, is in a blue with one of the the biggest registrars, Netregistry.
What has upset the auDA is what they consider to be Netregistry's failure to comply with the .com.au policies.
The demand by the auDA that the ws.com.au domain be deregistered is deeply unfair. A look at the company's website shows it is a legit business. Imagine having your domain pulled after spending ten of thousands on design, marketing and stationery?
Netregistry deserves a pat on the back in standing up for the customers. We can be sure their biggest competitor would have pulled the domain without any thought for their customer's business.
What has upset the auDA is what they consider to be Netregistry's failure to comply with the .com.au policies.
The demand by the auDA that the ws.com.au domain be deregistered is deeply unfair. A look at the company's website shows it is a legit business. Imagine having your domain pulled after spending ten of thousands on design, marketing and stationery?
Netregistry deserves a pat on the back in standing up for the customers. We can be sure their biggest competitor would have pulled the domain without any thought for their customer's business.
Microsoft licensing
Rotten effort is a good look by Computer World at how MS conducts it's licensing compliance and how many software vendors use compliance to drive sales.
In my view it is unethical, but a wholly predictable result of the push to put license breaches on a par with terrorist acts. In fact, a cynic like my selfishly might even suggest it's one of the reasons for big corp to push changes to IP laws.
The real fear for most companies though is that these threats are real. The complexity of many software licenses means many business would be caught out. If I'd been Dale Frantz of Autowarehousing, I wouldn't have been so confident an audit wouldn't have found something.
All companies need to take licensing issues extremely seriously. But companies like Microsoft and AutoDesk need to understand that restrictive, or marketing driven licenses only encourage their customers to look elsewhere.
In my view it is unethical, but a wholly predictable result of the push to put license breaches on a par with terrorist acts. In fact, a cynic like my selfishly might even suggest it's one of the reasons for big corp to push changes to IP laws.
The real fear for most companies though is that these threats are real. The complexity of many software licenses means many business would be caught out. If I'd been Dale Frantz of Autowarehousing, I wouldn't have been so confident an audit wouldn't have found something.
All companies need to take licensing issues extremely seriously. But companies like Microsoft and AutoDesk need to understand that restrictive, or marketing driven licenses only encourage their customers to look elsewhere.
Windows Vista patch
Microsoft announce the first patch to Windows Vista. It involves compatibility issues with Symantec Anti Virus. What a surprise.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Google Spreadsheet
Some differing views on Google's new spreadsheet application.
Phil Sim thinks it's a great idea and possibly a killer app, particularly for collaboration.
On the other hand, Jeremy Wright thinks it's all a load of nonsense.
I haven't seen it yet, but where I think it will make a difference is for small offices and homes that don't want to buy MS Office or where they are running older systems that won't play nicely with the latest Office versions.
Where I see Google and others threatening MS Office is by putting out simple and fast software.
Complex software is killing us at the moment: Office, Norton Anti-Virus, Adobe Acrobat and all these other applications are slowing machines and way too complex for the average user.
If Google can put together a basic web-based spreadsheet and word processor package then the reason for 80% of Office purchases vanishes. Particularly in education and workplaces.
It won't kill Office, because Microsoft will still make money selling Office to people that need a word processor that offer mail merge tools and a spreadsheet that can calculate the mean from a range of sub-totals.
What I see a Google Office doing is taking the cream off Microsoft's profits, but not killing it.
Phil Sim thinks it's a great idea and possibly a killer app, particularly for collaboration.
On the other hand, Jeremy Wright thinks it's all a load of nonsense.
I haven't seen it yet, but where I think it will make a difference is for small offices and homes that don't want to buy MS Office or where they are running older systems that won't play nicely with the latest Office versions.
Where I see Google and others threatening MS Office is by putting out simple and fast software.
Complex software is killing us at the moment: Office, Norton Anti-Virus, Adobe Acrobat and all these other applications are slowing machines and way too complex for the average user.
If Google can put together a basic web-based spreadsheet and word processor package then the reason for 80% of Office purchases vanishes. Particularly in education and workplaces.
It won't kill Office, because Microsoft will still make money selling Office to people that need a word processor that offer mail merge tools and a spreadsheet that can calculate the mean from a range of sub-totals.
What I see a Google Office doing is taking the cream off Microsoft's profits, but not killing it.
Managed services
One of those ideas that's really good but never seems to work out is the concept of managed services or hosted applications. In theory, they should put us out of business. So why aren't we worried?
Webcentral certainly has some good marketing people getting one of their case studies into today's Australian IT.
Having someone else host your system is good idea on a number of levels. It means your data is more likely to be backed up, you don't have to employ pesky IT people to make sure backups run and data is saved and it doesn't require spending tens of thousands of dollars on servers and stuff.
So why hasn't it taken off?
There's a lot of reasons. One is that all your data is now in someone else's hands, if you don't pay the bill or they go bust you've lost your data.
The second is that you are now wholly reliant on Internet access. No more getting away with a domestic 256/64 plan. The moment the Internet connection goes down, your business does too.
With your entire office using the Internet connection, it means it's going to be slow. So you're going to have to get a fast connection.
All of a sudden, you're looking at over a $1,000 a month for a business grade 1500 ADSL connection or more.
Now of course this means your connection and network are more important than ever. So you are going to need someone reliable to keep your network running. That's why you'll have to call us and why we're not worried.
Webcentral certainly has some good marketing people getting one of their case studies into today's Australian IT.
Having someone else host your system is good idea on a number of levels. It means your data is more likely to be backed up, you don't have to employ pesky IT people to make sure backups run and data is saved and it doesn't require spending tens of thousands of dollars on servers and stuff.
So why hasn't it taken off?
There's a lot of reasons. One is that all your data is now in someone else's hands, if you don't pay the bill or they go bust you've lost your data.
The second is that you are now wholly reliant on Internet access. No more getting away with a domestic 256/64 plan. The moment the Internet connection goes down, your business does too.
With your entire office using the Internet connection, it means it's going to be slow. So you're going to have to get a fast connection.
All of a sudden, you're looking at over a $1,000 a month for a business grade 1500 ADSL connection or more.
Now of course this means your connection and network are more important than ever. So you are going to need someone reliable to keep your network running. That's why you'll have to call us and why we're not worried.
Is Microsoft panicking?
Claims that Microsoft are dropping features from Vista are not a good sign.
Information Week claims MS are dropping various features from Vista.
Given Vista is running extremely late and many of us don't think they are going to make their early 2007 release date it's understandable they would drop features. Dropping accessories allows them to focus on the core product. But a bare system reduces the reasons for users to upgrade.
It's a shame they are dropping the synchronisation feature. This is a feature that many users need and MS seemed to be getting it right with their Synchtoy utility. We can only hope they don't try to bring back the briefcase feature.
We'll have to watch what other features they drop in the race to get Vista to market.
Information Week claims MS are dropping various features from Vista.
Given Vista is running extremely late and many of us don't think they are going to make their early 2007 release date it's understandable they would drop features. Dropping accessories allows them to focus on the core product. But a bare system reduces the reasons for users to upgrade.
It's a shame they are dropping the synchronisation feature. This is a feature that many users need and MS seemed to be getting it right with their Synchtoy utility. We can only hope they don't try to bring back the briefcase feature.
We'll have to watch what other features they drop in the race to get Vista to market.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The decline of maths
ABC Radio reports that there's been a massive decline in the number of HSC students doing advanced maths.
This can't be a surprise given the message to our kids is quite clear, why bother studying maths when we have an economy based on selling real estate to each other. I can't help but feel this is going to bite us all on the bum in a few years time.
This can't be a surprise given the message to our kids is quite clear, why bother studying maths when we have an economy based on selling real estate to each other. I can't help but feel this is going to bite us all on the bum in a few years time.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Online advertising the way of the future
Newspaper Association of America reported online ads growing at 35% compared to only 0.3% for print ads. While the print ads are still eighteen times the size of online ads, the future is clear. Ads are going online, an article in a US real estate newsletter shows this trend in that industry, and job ads are probably even more online than real estate.
I've been wondering for sometime much of the distribution price is paid for by newspaper sales. No-one should be predicting the death of print newspapers, but the one's who aren't adapting to this new age are going to go the way of the dodo, which makes the AFR's new venture much more interesting.
I've been wondering for sometime much of the distribution price is paid for by newspaper sales. No-one should be predicting the death of print newspapers, but the one's who aren't adapting to this new age are going to go the way of the dodo, which makes the AFR's new venture much more interesting.
Design pricing
Some very good comments about the price of good design at the Pearsonified blog.
The comments are quite right: Good design costs. The problem is that most users don't understand this. But it's not just a design issue.
The problem is right across the technology based industries. Pretty graphic interfaces make everything from web and database design to computer networking look easy. The fact doing properly is a skill just like a plumber's or a carpenter is lost on many users.
Unfortunately I don't see this attitude changing in the near future. All I can suggest to Chris Pearson and other designers is to just hang on in there and find those customers that value service and good content. Let the other guys fight it out for the cheap charlie customers.
The comments are quite right: Good design costs. The problem is that most users don't understand this. But it's not just a design issue.
The problem is right across the technology based industries. Pretty graphic interfaces make everything from web and database design to computer networking look easy. The fact doing properly is a skill just like a plumber's or a carpenter is lost on many users.
Unfortunately I don't see this attitude changing in the near future. All I can suggest to Chris Pearson and other designers is to just hang on in there and find those customers that value service and good content. Let the other guys fight it out for the cheap charlie customers.
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