Samuel's Blog

Samuel’s Footy Tips: Results

Now that we have the results from the AFL, I can bring you the results from my footy tips, and I must say that despitemy agreement with the AFL’s decision on the St. Kilda V Fremantle match, I sure could have used the half a point from the draw which they ruled against. I had an absolute shocker in the AFL, but I picked up slightly in the NRL.

AFL Round 5: 2/8 (25%)
NRL Round 8: 4/7 (57.14%)
Week Total: 6/15 (40%)

Totals:
AFL: 20/40 (50%)
NRL: 24/56 (42.86%)
Total: 44/96 (45.83%)

Samuel

May 3rd, 2006 at 11:01pm

Fremantle awarded controversial match

According to radio 2UE and some audio from the AFL commission, Fremantle have been awarded the win from their match against St. Kilda on the weekend.

Therefore, I will have my footy tips results online later tonight.

Update: The following from an article on afl.com.au

Dockers win
6:15:13 PM Wed 3 May, 2006
Matt Burgan
Sportal for afl.com.au

The AFL has awarded Fremantle the win over St Kilda, with the league’s commission deciding after a special meeting on Wednesday that fairness must prevail.

The AFL Commission met for more than four hours on Wednesday afternoon, hearing submissions from both the Saints and the Dockers, before AFL chairman Ron Evans announced the decision.

“The AFL commission has determined that the correct interpretation of the relevant rules and regulation is that the match concluded immediately after the siren sounded to end the match in the final quarter,” Evans said.

“Effective of this interpretation is that the Fremantle Football Club won the match.

“The commission understands and accepts that there will be significant debate over the outcome of this afternoon’s hearing and the final decision, however, it is the responsibility of the AFL commission to administer the game in the best interests of the competition – I believe that is what we have done today.”

The meeting came about as a result of Sunday’s match at Launceston’s Aurora Stadium, which finished in a draw but only after the Saints kicked a point to level the scores several seconds after the final siren rang. A timekeeping error meant that the siren was rung off before the field umpire could acknowledge the end of the match.

In handing down the decision, AFL Commission chairman Ron Evans said that all timekeepers would be reminded again of their requirement to ring the siren until acknowledged by the field umpire and also committed the AFL to immediately improving the technology available to umpires so that they know immediately when it is the end of the match.

Evans said the AFL took full responsibility for incident.

“As the organisation charged with the management of the national competition, the AFL accepts full responsibility for what took place and unreservedly apologises for the clubs involved, the players and football fans,” Evans said.

“Since Sunday’s incident, the AFL has acted decisively and moving quickly to investigate the incident – seeking submissions from the competing clubs and compiling that evidence for the commission to consider this afternoon.

“It was vital that the process be thorough, fair and just and it was also important the clubs be given time to prepare their submissions. Both clubs acknowledge that it was the right and proper that the commission determined this matter.”

Evans said several action points will now be enforced from next weekend’s matches to ensure that this situation will not occur again.

These processes include:
1. That all AFL timekeepers be instructed about their obligations and reminded of the process in correctly signaling the end of each quarter and their requirements under the rules.

2. An immediate review of the siren and audio system at each AFL venue to check the decibel level of each siren.

3. The investigation of new technology to ensure that the field umpires are alerted to immediately after the siren sounds.

Samuel

May 3rd, 2006 at 07:02pm

More IT Predictions from Samuel

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):

• Windows/Internet Explorer: 90%
• Windows/Other browser: 6%
• Other OS/Browser of any sort: 4%

Imagine if it looked something like this:

• Mac/Safari: 20%
• Mac/Firefox: 15%
• Mac/Opera: 5%
• Linux/Firefox: 20%
• Linux/Konqueror: 10%
• Linux/Opera: 10%
• Windows/Internet Explorer: 15%
• Windows/Firefox: 3%
• Windows/Opera: 2%

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

Apple Launch Amusing Mac Vs PC Advertising Campaign

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

Updated Aircheck

Some of you may recall that in September last year, I put my aircheck online, which was a news bulletin from August 27, 2005.

I was quite surprised to find that it was the third most downloaded file in April, and upon having a listen to it again (and having a bit of a chuckle at the same time) I have decided that it is time to update it.

I have now placed one of my news bulletins online from Saturday April 22, 2006, which can be heard by clicking here.

While you’re at it, have another listen to the one from August last year, compare them, and see just how far I’ve come since then. I’m sure you will agree that there has been quite a bit of improvement.

While I’m talking about this, I would like to thank Artie Stevens, owner, operator and news director of Australian Independent Radio News, who has not only given me the opportunity to improve, but given me plenty of help along the way. I couldn’t have done it without you Artie.

(I think it’s blatantly obvious to anybody who listens to either of those audio files…but once again…Disclosure Notice: Samuel has a commercial agreement with Australian Independent Radio News).

Samuel

45 comments May 3rd, 2006 at 08:56am

Blog View Stats for April

May has “only just begun”, to quote a famous song, which means it is time for the Blog View Stats for April.

The Webstat counter stopped counting due to the site receiving more than 20,000 page views for the month, but the Webstat reports for April can be found here, I just haven’t used them as the basis for this post. I have used AwStats (one of the many statistics services provided by my hosting provider) as the basis of most of the stats.

AwStats says that there were 55,916 page views for the month, a figure which I find highly dubious as this is far more than three times what Webstat reported for March. Even taking into account the fact that Awstats counts page views in the administration section of the site, I still find this number dubious, so I will settle on the 20,002+ figure provided by Webstat. The rest of the numbers provided by AwStats seem OK.

Therefore there were 20,002+ page views in March, up from 15,478 in March, and 5,476 visitors, up from 4,710 in March.

There were 9,670 views of the front page on all of its URLs.

The most popular articles were:

• Caz Stops Blogging
• No, I Am Not Going On Big Brother
• The Proof Is In The Pudding
• John B1_B5 Leads The 2CC Drive Show Spelling Competition and
• Samuel’s Blog Year In Review: November 2005

Google once again remained the most popular search engine with 91.8% of all search engine referrals coming from Google. Yahoo was next with 3%, and MSN was next on 1.6%.

The search keywords were mostly various combinations and misspellings of my name, and variations of “schnappi video”, “2UE Studio” and “Windiz Update”. Among the odd keywords were

• peep holes
• bango cricket
• 234 802 554 9993
• singing hallelujah even for a new site for you my
• samuel office live
• south australian peep holes
• traudle junge
• 100m race footage
• hole under canberra?
• sam goat boy
• blog fire alarm control panel
• show me the child at seven
• salad au lard
• password codes for volume 2ue
• convoluted answer to 2 2
• loopy music programme

Internet Explorer recorded a larger than usual drop, but remained the most popular browser with 57.4% of the readership, Firefox also had a loss (albeit a small one) and was next with 29.2%, Safari gained again to have 5.1%, Opera also recorded a rise reaching 1.4%, as did the Mozilla Suite which hit 1%. Konqueror & Netscape were both under 1% with the others all being under 0.1%.

Windows was the most popular Operating System, despite a minor drop, with 84.2% of the readership, followed by Mac, which also recorded a drop, with 9%, and Linux which climbed to 1%. The BSDs, Solaris and even OS/2 picked up most of the slack.

The countries report is unavailable this month.

The most popular files for the month were:

• The happy birthday music, downloaded 118 times.
• My conversation with John Kerr prior to the christmas cruise, downloaded 115 times.
• My somewhat outdated aircheck, downloaded 112 times.
• Mike Frame’s first moments on-air at Bunnings Belconnen in Real Player video format, downloaded 107 times.
• Theoriginal intro to Samuel’s Persiflage, downloaded 94 times.

The top referring sites for the month were:

• The Spin Starts Here: 2208 referrals
• Behind Big Brother Forums: 284 referrals
• GrodsCorp: 153 referrals.
• The RiotACT: 145 referrals.
• In My Shoes: 46 Referrals.

Bandwidth
April 2006: 32,130MB
March 2006: 12,350MB
February 2006 9,280MB
January 2006: 14,240MB
December 2005: 14,010MB
November 2005: 2,870MB
October 2005: 657.85MB
September 2005: 519.89MB
August 2005: 82.93MB

Samuel’s Persiflage Statistics

Samuel

5 comments May 3rd, 2006 at 06:56am