Yesterday at work I was installing a network printer on two computers, and decided to use the same peice of paper for the test page from each computer, the effect was quite interesting.
(Click to enlarge)
Samuel
October 13th, 2006 at 07:12am
On the weekend I reported that Google were in talks to buy YouTube, and today I can happily say that Google have bought YouTube for USD$1.65 Billion (a bit over AUD$ 2 Billion).
Many industry experts said that Google would never buy YouTube because of the sheer volume of copyright infringing videos on there, but as I pointed out on the weekend (and again on the John Stanley afternoon show on 2CC and 2UE today) Google are very well placed to handle these copyright concerns as they already have their own competing video service and even a highly controversial book scanning program.
So, where to from here for Google Video and YouTube? I would expect a merger over the coming months, with Google hopefully implementing some of the good features of YouTube in the merged service, and not just moving all the videos over. There will be a no-signup period for a couple weeks when Google move YouTube over to Google Accounts, muchy like what happened when they bought Writely…and ultimately Google will ensure the success and profit of the merged video service by expanding their video sales syetem to all countries, not just the US.
I’m quite happy about this, because I no longer have to upload videos to both services on the fear that one will fold, and I can be almost 100% certain that these videos will be there forever more.
Update 10/October/2006 @ 6:46pm: Video message from YouTube’s former owners:
End update
Samuel
8 comments October 10th, 2006 at 02:22pm
From today’s collection of spam emails:
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I’ve stripped out the links, but you get the drift. It looks like “Ben” is taking the domain names of email addresses, and adding them to the body of the message, in an attempt to get website owners to pay him/her/it.
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of email addresses which are spammed (and the vast majority of email addresses for that matter) are not used by the person responsible for the maintenance and administration of the domain name in the email address, and the vast majority of people who do run websites know that search engine optimisers don’t work…they might get you listed on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc, but you need the links from real websites, not funny little search engines and directories, to increase your page ranking.
For example, do a search for pages which link to this website…I can guarantee you that this site is listed in a few hundred or more directories and little search engines, and none, or almost none of them will appear in the results.
That being said, somebody, somewhere, will follow the link and enter their credit card details, under the false impression that, this will somehow bring in more traffic (or who knows what else they might think it will do)…and then they can wait for all the nice unknown credit card charges to appear…endless fun can be had in spam!
Samuel
October 7th, 2006 at 10:59pm
I just noticed on AAP that Google are in talks to buy YouTube for about USD$1.6 Billion.
Previously analysts have said that only a fool would buy YouTube, because of the large amount of potential lawsuits over copyright infringements…however Google have worked out a way to sell some videos on Google Video (Leo Laporte’s “Call For Help” sells for 99 US cents per episode on Google Video) and have obviously dealt with the same legal issues as YouTube, so they are probably the right people to buy YouTube.
I just hope Google utilise the YouTube flash player as a replacement for their own, and learn a thing or two about ease of use from YouTube’s uploader interface.
Samuel
5 comments October 7th, 2006 at 01:53pm
linux.conf.au 2007 meets demand by extending the official conference period to a full week, and broadening the scope and number of community organised streams, called “miniconfs”.
“linux.conf.au is regarded as one of the world’s best events for Linux and Open Source developers - this year, we have received more responses to our Call for Participation than ever before”, says Jeff Waugh, lead organiser, “Our audience demands quality and diversity, so for 2007, we are extending the main conference period to six days, promoting our much-loved miniconfs and adding fresh ideas such as Open Day.”
Over two hundred and fifty submissions were received for talks, tutorials, and miniconfs. The linux.conf.au 2007 programme will run over six days, with four keynote speakers, four complete days of miniconfs and presentations, an Open Day to present FLOSS achievements to families, students and the general public and our traditional recipe of fantastic evening events for conference attendees to catch up and unwind.
“Miniconfs are community organised streams, focusing on particular projects or interest groups in the Open Source world. Next year, we will host more than ever before, with thirteen events over two days”, said James Purser, miniconf chair and Linux Australia committee member. “Our attendees will be treated to an eclectic mix of old favourites such as Debian and Education,
and brand new streams such as LinuxChix and Open Source in the computer game and film industries.”
linux.conf.au 2007 participants can look forward to the following topics:
* Debian: Ever present and always popular, the Debian miniconf focuses on
the world’s largest community developed operating system.
* Education: For educators and technologists interested in the use of Open
Source in education.
* Embedded: A showcase of amazing devices with Linux at their heart, and a
fine opportunity to share and learn about this fast-growing topic.
* Gaming: Bringing game developers together to promote Open Source games,
and Open Source in game development.
* GNOME.conf.au: A meeting of the minds for developers and users of GNOME,
a desktop environment and developer platform.
* Movies: Covering the increasing uptake of Open Source solutions in film
production, in imaging and infrastructure.
* MySQL: Presenting practical applications of MySQL and related software,
through tutorials and developer discussion.
* OpenOffice.org: Case studies, workshops, demonstrations and tutorials
about the FLOSS world’s answer to Microsoft Office.
* PostgreSQL: Introductory and advanced topics for database administrators
working with PostgreSQL and developers keen to learn about the code.
* Research: Presentation of papers, case studies and workshops relating to
Open Source in Australian research.
* LinuxChix: Celebrating achievements in the Free Software world by women,
and presenting some of their experiences.
* Kernel: Lots of kernel developers getting together to teach and perform
their black arts. Presentations will range from introductory to scary.
* Virtualisation: A huge topic in the Open Source world over the last year
or two, this will cover virtualisation projects, problems and solutions.
(My first ever direct copy of a press release!).
For the record, I was going to submit a proposal for a speech, but decided against it on the grounds that I’m not sure that I’m even going to be able to make it to Sydney for LCA.
Samuel
September 27th, 2006 at 05:29pm
It just keeps getting worse for the embattled Department of Immigration…this time they’ve managed to delete just over 4,900 records of Australian citizens currently travelling overseas, effectively locking them out of the country until the data can be manually re-entered from paper.
Sources inside the Department of Immigration have informed me (and subsequently verified) that the records were lost late last week during routine staff training. Staff were being trained in the use of a system for managing records of Australians who are currently overseas (and possibly others), and were using dummy records for training. Near the end of the day, on a day late last week, the Immigration official supervising the training went home, leaving a mostly trained trainer in charge. Sometime around 5:10pm one of the trainees entered some data incorrectly and asked the trainer for assistance, the trainer advised them to press the delete key, the trainee subsequently queried this advice by asking “are you sure?”, to which the trainer said “yes, press the delete key”.
According to sources, when the delete key is pressed on this system it does not ask for confirmation, and pops up a message when it has completed the task. On this occasion it is believed that the cursor was in the wrong location because the system whirred away for a little while before popping up a message stating that it had successfully deleted 4900 or so records…unfortunately very few of those were dummy records, and most of them were real records, and without them, people in those records are unable to re-enter the country.
“What about backups?” I hear you ask…this system doesn’t have them…apparently it is a deterrent to people playing around with the system…more like a very tempting chaos creator if you ask me.
Immigration are working on restoring the deleted data from other systems and from paper at the moment, no disciplinary action is likely as this was a genuine accident, but procedures are being reviewed.
It is unknown how many people have been affected as they attempted to re-enter the country.
Samuel
1 comment September 27th, 2006 at 07:16am
I just went to login to Gmail and noticed that they have now opened Gmail signup to the public…the address to signup for a gmail account is http://mail.google.com/mail/signup or you can just go to gmail.com and click the signup link.
Here are some screenshots (click to enlarge).
Update 11/08/2006 3:42pm: Based on the feedback I’m getting, it looks like Google are rolling out this signup page on a limited basis…Australia seems to be ahead of most of the rest of the world in that regard. It could be just to be a tease, but it is probably to stop an avalanche of automated signup robots trying to get Gmail accounts.
Also, I’m definetly on the slashdot “auto-reject” list for story submissions…every story I’ve submitted in the last couple months has been rejected within five minutes, and I know from previous experience that it takes many hours for the editors to get around to each submission, looks like they’ve got a scheduled job every 5-10 minutes to reject submissions from a certain list of people. I suppose I shouldn’t have written that submission criticising slashdot editors…but not allowing submissions from me is my loss, and just proves that they are lunatics.
End update
Samuel
2 comments August 10th, 2006 at 11:05pm
The last week has been a busy one for Technorati from my “outsider’s point of view”. Firstly, Technorati are now indexing this blog properly again (it only took about 100 days and two emails), but I forgive them because it all works now, and is even indexing scheduled posts after they appear, which sounds like they’ve either setup periodic RSS feed checking, or are taking notice of post timestamp (if that gets sent in the “ping” when I click “Publish”).
The other day (July 20 to be precise), I received the following email from Janice Myint from Technorati Support
Hello Samuel,
Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We’ve been experiencing a backlog in support and
are working hard to address everyone. I’ve taken a look at the issue regarding picking up your pings for
“samuelgordonstewart.com”. After making a small adjustment, I’ve sent our spiders to revisit your page and your blog has been
indexed with your most recent posts.http://technorati.com/blogs/samuelgordonstewart.com/
Everything now appears to be working as it should, but please let us know if you experience any problems in the future. Do
not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for using
Technorati!Best Regards,
Janice Myint
Customer Support Specialist
Technorati
I’m very pleased about this, and I even replied to Janice’s email to express that sentiment.
Dear Janice,
Thanks for fixing that, I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to do so. I hope you get through the backlog of support tickets soon.Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
The other thing that appears to have been keeping the staff at Technorati busy is a redesign of their website and an upgrade of their backend software, as a means of celebrating their third birthday (happy birthday by the way).
The new site is much easier on the eyes, faster, and much easier to use and navigate. Quite a bit of work appears to have gone in to it, and it looks like that effort has paid off.
All in all, a busy and redeeming week for a company I had almost given up hope on.
Well done Technorati!
Samuel
July 25th, 2006 at 03:07pm
I was having a little sticky beak in the Firefox help files for no particular reason when I encountered something which made stop and send an email off to the Security Now! podcast.
Hi Steve and Leo,
I was just poking around in Mozilla Firefox and noticed something in the “Help for Internet Exploer Users” section:“About Your IE Favorites and Settings
When you first install Firefox, it will import your existing Internet Explorer settings, including your Favorites, cookies, stored passwords, and a variety of other data. This saves you time customizing Firefox to fit your needs.”The important part of that is that Firefox imports IE’s stored passwords, which raises a question of security with those passwords being on my hard drive.
I’m not concerned about other people using my computer and using my stored passwords as I don’t store super-sensitive passwords, but if somebody were to store a password of some importance, how easy would it be for some malware to access those passwords? The innocuous Firefox can do it, what’s stopping malware from doing it?
By the way, if you read this on SN52, congratulations on one year of Security Now!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra, Australia
Admittedly I could, with a few minutes, find out the answer for myself, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to ever wonder about this, and somehow I think it would be a perfect question for the Security Now! podcast, and an answer on there would benefit many more people than an answer here (Security Now! has about 100,000 listeners (source)). None the less, I will get an answer on here soon. I’ll wait and see if Steve and Leo discuss this, and if so I’ll include the transcript. If not I’ll just go and do some reasearch for myself.
Samuel
July 24th, 2006 at 04:53pm
Well I certainly got a pleasant birthday surprise when I visited slashdot and found that Ubuntu Linux 6.06 has been released. I suppose that means that it’s time for me to order my free CDs via the Ubuntu Shipit service.
To quote from the press release (well, it looks like a press release, even if it doesn’t say it)
New Ubuntu Release Available for Desktops and Servers, with Long Term, Global Support
Ubuntu, which has become one of the world’s most popular Linux distributions in recent years, launched its latest version on June 1 following months of intense testing. The new release is titled Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support), and has a specific emphasis on the needs of large organisations with both desktop and server versions.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS introduces functionality that simplifies common Linux server deployment processes. For system administrators setting up large numbers of web, mail and related servers, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS offers the fastest and most consistent path to deployment, combined with the availability of global commercial support where needed. “Ubuntu has a reputation for working well out of the box on desktops, and we have worked to bring that same ease of deployment and configuration to the server marketplace” said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project. “Based on our analysis of the ways people were already deploying Ubuntu on servers, we have aimed to streamline their experience while expanding the range of software available to people deploying Ubuntu in the data centre.”
Ubuntu is freely available, including security updates for five years on servers, with no restrictions on usage and no requirement to purchase support contracts or subscriptions per deployment. Full telephone & online support on commercial terms is available globally from Canonical Ltd and other companies. “The economics of Ubuntu deployment are fundamentally different from those of other leading Linux distributions that offer commercial support” said Jane Silber, COO of Canonical Ltd. “Companies and individuals can deploy Ubuntu widely, and purchase support only for the machines where they need the assurance of a Support Level Agreement. This makes Ubuntu the preferred choice for large scale deployments where support contracts are not essential on every machine.”
Sun Microsystems and Canonical also announced this week that Ubuntu 6.06 LTS will support the UltraSPARC T1 processor on Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers. These SPARC-based systems join the list of architectures for which Canonical will offer technical support on a paid, commercial basis, starting at $700 USD per year for a single server. For more information, please see the ubuntu support pages.
The Server Edition of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS includes a unique mechanism to set up a standardized, certified, and supported LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) server with a single command. The feature greatly reduces the setup time for companies providing hosted LAMP services, as well as making it easier for organizations to set up and maintain their own LAMP-standardized servers. Canonical Ltd. Also provides technical support for the full suite of components in the LAMP stack.
“This new (LAMP) functionality is the first of several planned fully-certified free software stacks in Ubuntu,” said Fabio Massimo Di Nitto, product manager of Ubuntu Server Edition. The acronym LAMP refers to four ingredients of the world’s most widely used framework for dynamic website publishing. While many variations on the LAMP theme exist, these four components are most commonly deployed together. The process of integrating these components will often take several hours per server and leaves room for the introduction of security vulnerabilities or unnecessary variation in configuration between different systems. “LAMP servers were the most popular use of Ubuntu in the data center, so we focused on that stack first” added Adam Conrad, Ubuntu’s lead LAMP developer.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS also has a new mechanism to make commercial software available, enabling businesses and individuals to download select software from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). There are a variety of solutions available this way already, including data management software from Arkeia, cross-platform development tools from Raining Data, PC sharing from Userful and virtualisation from VMware. Additional software for Ubuntu from ISVs will be added in the coming months.
“Ubuntu and VMware have worked together to make industry-leading virtualization a freely available and easy to use capability for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS,” said Dan Chu, VMWare’s Senior Director of Technology Alliances & Developer and ISV Products. “Now any Ubuntu user can automatically install and run VMware Player from the Ubuntu package manager, and join the four million plus users of VMware worldwide for running virtualized servers, desktops, and virtual appliances. Hundreds of thousands of users have already adopted Ubuntu virtual appliances using VMware, and the increased integration between Ubuntu and VMware will further enable broad uptake of these virtual appliances.”
Ubuntu is part of the Debian family of distributions. As such it has an extremely wide selection of software that is instantly available to Ubuntu users, and includes some of the world’s best-regarded software for the management of software updates and changes. “Debian is integral to the success and popularity of Ubuntu” said Matt Zimmerman, CTO of Ubuntu. “The combined efforts of more than 1,000 developers create a unique platform in Debian, which allows Ubuntu to focus on the specific needs of our users.” Ubuntu is believed to be the leading version of the Debian system that includes skills certification from LPI, as well as certifications from hardware and software companies.
A special added bonus of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is the inclusion of several chapters from “The Official Ubuntu Book”, which Prentice Hall Professional will publish in July 2006, under an Open Content licence. The book represents the collaborative effort of more than a dozen Ubuntu community members from around the world, in addition to the primary authors: Benjamin Mako Hill, Jono Bacon, Corey Burger, Jonathan Jesse, and Ivan Krstic. “We’re thrilled to have been able to develop this book in such close partnership with the Ubuntu community,” said Paul Boger, VP/Publisher for the Pearson Technology Group. “This book is truly by and for the Ubuntu community.” The book can be pre-ordered at http://www.prenhallprofessional.com/ubuntu.
The word “Ubuntu” is a special word in many African languages. It translates loosely as “human-ness” and speaks to the importance of the role each individual plays in their community. In celebration of that, this release of Ubuntu also includes unique video footage of an interview with Nelson Mandela, who speaks on the relevance of this philosophy today.
Sounds good to me, I’ll get around to installing it sometime soon (I’ll probably be patient and wait for the CDs to arrive rather than downloading it).
Samuel
4 comments June 2nd, 2006 at 12:25pm
This was originally going to be a minor point in the article about Apple’s advertising campaign, but it has developed into an article in its own right.
I’ve already drawn two upgrade lines for Microsoft software, one being that I’m not upgrading MS Office beyond Office 2000, as Open Office is in my view a superior product (although I do still use MS Office 2000 for some tasks), and the other line being Internet Explorer, which is now relegated to use on IE-Centric sites only, as I much prefer Firefox and Opera (excluding Windows Update for which I use the faster and easier WindizUpdate).
I am now drawing another line: Windows XP will be the last version of Windows I ever use. Windows Vista will, in my opinion, be the proverbial straw which breaks the camel’s back. Windows has enjoyed a long reign at the top, but it is an outdated mess of security issues, Microsoft’s attempts to introduce proprietary standards (oxymoron), and various other problems which need fixing, much like Apple Mac OS 9 was before they released OS X with an entirely different base.
It is quite clear to me that both Mac and Linux have clear advantages over Windows, and I think the general public will also see this soon. The Ubuntu Linux people are doing a good job, and have made some interesting changes for the next version due in June, which does make it look like a good alternative to Windows.
The people at Apple have also done an excellent job on Mac OS X, and with their Boot Camp software providing Windows compatibility, I think it is now clear that Windows will become a secondary operating system with other operating systems taking the lead for a while.
Don’t get me wrong, Windows will still be there, it just won’t be the primary choice for most people, as they will use other operating systems for their day-to-day needs. Of course, there is every possibility that Windows will regain popularity in ten years or so when Mac and Linux start to stagnate and Windows shows ingenuity, after all Windows won favour over Mac and OS/2 by showing the lead a bit over ten years ago.
One thing I think is important here is that having multiple operating systems, multiple web browsers, multiple office suites etc, all gaining public favour is that it distributes the user base so drastically that it promotes ingenuity from all of the competing software writers, and makes life much harder for malicious users who would no longer have one bit of potentially vulnerable software giving them potential to wreak havoc on 90% or more of computer users. It also makes it necessary for software developers to use accepted standards (such as the Open Document Format, or the iCal calendar format) as their users will need to exchange data with other users. Open standards also allow everyone to work together on the future of IT according to their own needs, rather than working against each other, which effectively means that computers will do what people want, sooner rather than later.
Back to the security benefits of having multiple dominant operating systems and web broswers etc, the current situation looks somewhat similar to this (this is an example and probably isn’t entirely accurate, but is close enough):
Imagine if it looked something like this:
Suddenly you have a mass distribution of users amongst all sorts of software, in which the vulnerabilities could very easily only work on one operating system and not the others. Even if one application did have a cross-platform vulnerability, the most damage it could do would be 38% (Firefox), which is a far cry from the 90% (Windows/Internet Explorer) in the first example. This makes maliciousness much more difficult and less rewarding, and also means that consumers have a greater choice as to which software combination works best for them, safe in the knowledge that their chosen software will be able to exchange data with somebody using different software on a different operating system.
Under the second example, things such as the recent WMF exploit wouldn’t have been as likely to occur due to less people using any particular operating system, would have been less damaging for the same reason, and would have seen a quicker response from the software vendor due to increased competition.
I will admit that I am partially anti-Microsoft, but that it because I think they have become very complacent in their monopolistic position, and day-to-day consumers who just want their computer to do one task or another, suffer as a result. Competition is needed here, and I think the Vista/Mac/Linux combination is about to make it happen.
Samuel
11 comments May 3rd, 2006 at 02:33pm
The people at Apple Computer have launched a new advertising campaign which compares Mac and PC (presumably running Windows by the looks of the ads) in a lighthearted manner.
It appears to be a part of their “Get A Mac” campaign, and the ads are on their website (linked above). The ads don’t really say much, but they do provide a bit of light hearted entertainment. Whether or not they will be effective is another thing, but the timing appears to be right with Windows Vista not due until November, and probably facing yet another delay, this time until at least April 2007.
It is an interesting time ahead in the land of computers.
Samuel
10 comments May 3rd, 2006 at 11:51am
Before you get your hopes up, no this post does not contain download statistics, they will be delivered in the monthly blog view stats.
In the last few weeks I’ve received a bit of correspondence from the guests who have been on Samuel’s Persiflage, about the monthly statistics I send out. You see, not only do I post the download statistics each month in the blog view stats, I also send statistics letters to all of the guests, with details about the downloads of their episodes.
In general the response has been very good, the guests are pleased to know approximately how many people have been listening (these are download stats, they don’t prove exact listenership), and are looking forward to the monthly updates.
This is pleasing for me as I decided that it would be a good idea to do this from the start. Basically, when you do a radio or television interview, you can find out pretty easily the approximate number of people listening/watching. TV ratings are published daily, and radio ratings come out to a set schedule. Unfortunately the same is not true for podcasts, and as this is a relatively new form of media, some people are skeptical of there being any point in appearing on a podcast.
There is also a problem with the fact that traditional broadcasts are generally instant or mildly delayed, but are usually broadcast once, with no ability for the end viewer/listener to replay what happened if they didn’t record it. Basically, you speak, people hear you, the world carries on. With podcasts though, you speak, a bit later the podcast is published, and for the rest of eternity people may hear/see your message. This obviously isn’t any good for a message you need to deliver right now, but for non-urgent messages this can be quite effective.
This changes the way ratings need to be measured though as you can’t just say “250,000 were listening when you spoke”, you effectively have to say “250,000 heard you on Monday, 75,000 on Tuesday, etc etc”, and of course you can’t really measure the exact size of the audience due to the very nature of downloads, so you measure downloads and call it an approximate audience size, which it is with the law of averages (some will download part of a podcast, some will download a full podcast and share it with others).
As podcasting matures, I think we will see more and more podcasters providing download statistics, as it is something which interests most of the audience, is useful for future guests, and good information for previous guests.
I’m by no means the only podcaster doing this, but I am one of the leaders in providing statistics, and I get the feeling that one day I will be able to say “I helped to start that!”.
Samuel
1 comment April 26th, 2006 at 11:14am
I spotted a rather interesting article on Slashdot yesterday about The National Archives of Australia announcing that they are moving their digital archives program to Open Office 2.0, and therefore the Open Document Format.
I personally use both Microsoft Office 2000, and Open Office 2.0, and I have to say that an awful lot of work has been done to make Open Office an almost perfect converter between a multitude of formats, and I think ODF is superior to the MS Office formats for a couple reasons.
The National Archives are by no means the first government agency in the world to convert to Open Office, but they are arguably the first one with such a major role in maintaining historical documents to do so. They cannot risk damaging these documents, and they also cannot risk losing them through technological obsoletion, and I think they have made the right choice in choosing Open Office, and they will now probably lead the way for many more government and private organisations to do the same thing.
Samuel
7 comments April 5th, 2006 at 10:48am
If you happen to live in one of Australia’s Daylight Saving time zones, and your computer’s operating system automatically adjusts the time for Daylight Saving, then you will probably find that the clock is out by an hour, as Daylight Saving has been extended by one week this year for the Commonwealth Games.
I nearly thought my lounge room clock was an hour fast when my computer was telling me that it was 2:14AM when it was in fact 3:14AM.
It is worthwhile pointing out that some online services (Gmail being one of them) base the time they show on your computers GMT offset…so you can expect them to be out by an hour as well.
Who would have thought that the land of clocks would be so exciting?
Samuel
5 comments March 26th, 2006 at 03:06pm
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