Posts filed under 'IT News'
I received an email this morning from the folks at McAfee anti-virus with the subject line “Your Dell PC Protection Expired 14/09/2008”. Looking back through my emails I can see that they did warn me about the impending expiry on the 7th of September last year, but this is their first “warning warning warning: your anti-virus subscription has expired” emails.
It’s good to see that those courier pigeons are as quick as ever.
I should point out that one of the first things I did after purchasing my laptop in June 2007 was remove McAfee from it. I am quite happily using Kaspersky anti-virus, which I believe to be a far superior product.
Samuel
May 19th, 2009 at 05:08pm
The weather bureau’s Canberra temperature page has gone on holidays. It’s currently stuck on the 5:45am temperatures, and it looks like it’s the entire Canberra weather data feed because Weatherzone have the same problem.
This makes me wonder what radio stations are doing for current temperatures.
I use the Gungahlin Weather Centre for Gungahlin temperatures as a matter of course, but I have had to fall back on ActewAGL for City temperatures (which may be slightly out considering that it’s on top of a concrete building) and Weather Underground’s Conder temperatures for the Tuggeranong weather.
It looks like the bureau’s entire automated system has gone bang, as Sydney is also stuck in a time warp. Oops!
A day when things don’t break is not a day at all.
Update 7:50am: And the Bureau are back at work. End Update
Samuel
May 12th, 2009 at 07:23am
I note that Yahoo are shutting down Geocities, their free and ad-ridden website hosting and creating service.
As well as a large amount of pure garbage, there is some useful stuff buried amongst the miriad of sites on Geocities, so I hope that Yahoo or somebody else is archiving it somewhere. Yahoo aren’t saying that they will retain any form of archive, and it would be a pity to see some of that data get deleted, but I can understand their decision…I’m sure that they don’t make much money on it, in fact I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if they make a loss on it.
The end of Geocities has reminded me that I have one page on there from a few years back (2005 to be precise) and another related handful of pages on another free hosting service. I’ve been meaning to archive them on this site for a while…I suppose there’s no time like the present.
Samuel
April 25th, 2009 at 07:46am
Surely this won’t pass the US Senate.
A bill making its way through Congress proposes to give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. Under the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009, the president would have the authority to shut down Internet traffic to protect national security.
The government also would have access to digital data from a vast array of industries including banking, telecommunications and energy. A second bill, meanwhile, would create a national cybersecurity adviser — commonly referred to as the cybersecurity czar — within the White House to coordinate strategy with a wide range of federal agencies involved.
Actually, I don’t know what’s more troubling here. The idea of giving any single man the power to turn off the Internet at will, or the government gaining access to data from the banks and telcos…and seeing as this includes the term “digital data” it could very well be a new form of “warantless wiretapping”.
Silicon Valley executives are calling the bill vague and overly intrusive, and they are rebelling at the thought of increased and costly government regulations amid the global economic crisis.
Others are concerned about the potential erosion of civil liberties. “I’m scared of it,” said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group.
“It’s really broad, and there are plenty of laws right now designed to prevent the government getting access to that kind of data. It’s the same stuff we’ve been fighting on the warrantless wiretapping.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va, who introduced the bill earlier this month with bipartisan support, is casting the legislation as critical to protecting everything from our water and electricity to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records.
“I know the threats we face.” Rockefeller said in a prepared statement when the legislation was introduced. “Our enemies are real. They are sophisticated, they are determined and they will not rest.”
The bill would allow the government to create a detailed set of standards for cybersecurity, as well as take over the process of certifying IT technicians. But many in the technology sector say the government is simply ill-equipped to get involved at the technical level, said Franck Journoud, a policy analyst with the Business Software Alliance.
“Simply put, who has the expertise?” he said. “It’s the industry, not the government. We have a responsibility to increase and improve security. That responsibility cannot be captured in a government standard.”
I’m afraid that I couldn’t help myself. After hearing about this I was compelled to nominate Sen. Jay Rockefeller for Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd’s “jerk of the week” on KXNT:
* Your “Jerk of the Week” submission
Sen. Jay Rockefeller
Why should this person be the “Jerk of the Week”?
For trying to give King Obama the power to turn off the Internet. The Internet is the only way those of us on the other side of the world can find out what’s happening in the US…this bill could be the start of a reclusive North Korea type regime.
Your Name (Optional)
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Oh, and turning off the Internet in the US would also take this website offline…but I’m slightly more concerned about the lack of access I would have to the US media.
Samuel
April 24th, 2009 at 04:53pm
It may, at this stage, only be an experimental feature, but after five years and a week or so of existence, Gmail supports inline images.
Posted by Kent Tamura, Software Engineer
Well, it’s about time. You no longer have to use workarounds to put images into your messages or attach images when you really want to inline them. Just turn on “Inserting images” from the Labs tab under Settings, and you’ll see a new toolbar icon[.]
Click the little image icon, and you can insert images in two ways: by uploading image files from your computer or providing image URLs.
I’ve never really had much use for inserting images inline, but on the one or two occasions where I have needed it, it has been very annoying to not be able to make it happen. One of life’s little annoyances has been fixed.
Samuel
April 10th, 2009 at 05:32pm
The Federal Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan will be the subject up for debate tonight on SBS’ Insight program at 7:30.
I am yet to hear a single argument for the mandatory filtering which holds up to logical scrutiny, so it will be interesting to see if getting a group of supporters together in a room will produce a coherent argument. I think they’ll be ripped to shreds by the opponents of the filtering.
What will be more interesting to me though will be working out how far in advance Insight is filmed. If it was filmed at any time today, then I expect Insight to use today’s statement from Federal Communications Minister and Senator Stephen Conroy, in which he said that the filtering will not stop child pornography.
I suppose that’s the final nail in the coffin for the supposed secret magical bits of technology that can determine whether a picture contains child pornography, as vaguely described to me by Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby in an interview on 1WAY FM on December 22 last year.
Samuel
March 31st, 2009 at 03:37pm
Looks like Gmail doesn’t handle email timestamps which appear to be in the future as well as it could
Anybody feel like emailing the lotto numbers back in time to me?
Samuel
March 9th, 2009 at 03:57am
Update: I should update this before another person decides to inform me that Facebook have reversed their decision to take control of everyone’s content. I’ve read their statement, and I’m not convinced, because what they say they are doing is reversing the change for now, while they rewrite the change to make it clearer. I may just be cynical, but this really sounds like a temporary reversal, not a complete backflip. End Update
As I’ve said many times, I don’t like Facebook, I have no use for it, and I’m very pleased to not be a part of it. Today I get to add another reason to my list…Facebook have new terms and conditions which effectively say that they own the rights to any content which you contribute to their site, and continue to own the content forever even if you delete the content or suspend or cancel your account.
So let’s get this straight with an example:
A person attends a party and uploads photos of themself in an extremely intoxicated state, along with descriptions of activities undertaken during the course of the event, some of which could be construed in a negative way in the future, potentially impacting on job prospects etc. The next day when said person is sober and decides that they want to remove this content from Facebook, they do so, but face the prospect that Facebook own the content, and are still free to do with it as they please…if (to move to the less likely) they then run for public office with a campaign platform that Facebook disagree with (such as only allowing people with specific tea sets to be members of Social Networking websites), Facebook are able to dig up this content and run a public smear campaign against said person with it.
I can understand the whole “I grant permission to distribute this stuff” type of licence for a service such as Facebook where they need to be able to distribute the content across their servers in order for the service to work…but removing the “but I can withdraw my consent” provision is just beyond the pale for a site which stores as much personal data as Facebook does.
In reality, it’s like diary manufacturers being able to confiscate your personal diary and publish its contents at any time. It’s just nuts.
On the bright side, it gives me some fresh ammunition for the next time a particular person tries to convince me to rejoin Facebook.
Samuel
February 17th, 2009 at 03:11pm
Every now and then I take a look at the websites of various schools that I attended and have a look at their newsletters, and I did this over the weekend. Whilst poking around the Campbell High School website I stumbled on an interesting document: The “Acceptable Use Of Technology Resources Policy At Campbell High School” form which students and parents have to sign in order for students to be able to use computers at the high school.
The policy runs to five pages, and I’ve got to say that I was enthralled by it…not because it’s a particularly interesting document, but because I feel a great deal of responsibility for the introduction of the document after nearly being expelled from Campbell in 2003 for my antics with their computer network. I read through the whole thing, and was particularly interested by the following statements:
Staff will be encouraged to make effective use of the Internet to maximise student learning. Whilst teachers will make every effort to ensure that students do not access material which may be deemed inappropriate or offensive, it is not possible to screen out all such content. However, the ACT Department of Education does employ some filters on its Internet access.
[..]
If a student accidentally accesses any material which is illegal, obscene, dangerous or offensive, he or she should immediately minimise the screen and quietly inform a staff member.
Right now, the Federal government is trialling an Internet filtering system which will supposedly block out illegal content. There are a number of technical problems with this but I won’t bore you with them right now…instead I will pose the question that struck me as I read through Campbell’s IT policy:
If the Federal Government’s Internet filters are so good, why haven’t they shared them with state and territory governments? If they had shared them with the states and territories, Campbell wouldn’t need sentences in their policies about accessing illegal or inappropriate content on the Internet.
Samuel
February 17th, 2009 at 02:19pm
Two of them are on my mind at the moment
Vodafone: They have conveniently broken the online “My Account” system, meaning that I am not able to alter my call diversion settings or view my credit balance online. At the moment I would like to divert all calls to Call Minder which will send me a text message with the phone number of anyone who tries to call me. I suppose that I could just turn off my phone, but I don’t really want to send everyone to voicemail.
Microsoft: I’m performing a clean installation of Windows Vista for a family member. The computer in question has a 3Com 3C905B network card. These cards were quite popular at one stage, and are still relatively common, however Microsoft have decided that they don’t need to include the driver for these network cards with Vista, and Vista also seems to be incapable of identifying the network card. Annoyingly, this meant that I had to boot to another Operating System in order to work out exactly what network card it is, then visit the 3Com website to download the drivers (first download on the linked page), copy them to a flash drive and then extract them on the computer in question.
After installing the drivers for this 3Com network card, I ran Windows Update, only to discover that a newer version of the driver is available from Windows Update. If Microsoft can go to the trouble of having a newer version of the driver on Windows Update than is available directly from 3Com, would it really have been so much trouble to use up a few of the bytes of the Vista DVD with the driver?
Oh, and the default volume setting of Creative sound drivers…yes, I want to be blasted out of the room by your maximum volume.
Samuel
December 8th, 2008 at 11:16pm
Last night when I went to open iTunes, I was greeted by a rather annoying error stating that iTunes could not be opened due to a “detected” problem with QuickTime. Apple recommend uninstalling QuickTime and then installing it again under these circumstances, but that sounds like a bit of a “we don’t know, but this might help” solution to me.
Considering that nothing had changed since I used iTunes about 24 hours before receiving the error, I figured that I would see if I could sort the problem out myself before resorting to a reinstallation. I remembered that a few hours before the error I started loading a large MP3 (Samuel’s Persiflage #8 to be precise) in Firefox, but cancelled it by closing the tab it was in when I realised that for one reason or another, Firefox was insisting on downloading the full file before letting the QuickTime plugin play it, which is a change from its previous behaviour of letting the QuickTime plugin play the file while it is downloading.
My thought was that, possibly, a QuickTime process was still active and was preventing iTunes from loading QuickTime properly. I couldn’t see any QuickTime processes in the Task Manager, so I tested the theory by launching QuickTime from the start menu…oddly this resulted in an installation wizard, which produced the following rather insightful message:
I somewhat nervously hit “OK” and watched the progress bar indicate that the setup routine was doing something, although I haven’t the faintest clue what it was doing as I wasn’t prompted with a Windows UAC “Are you sure that you want to grant this program permission to do stuff?” message, which indicates that no changes were made in the Windows or Program Files directories.
Once Setup finished, QuickTime loaded, and iTunes was able to work. It’s beyond me what that was all about, but at least I didn’t have to waste time going through Apple’s website to find the somewhat hidden standalone QuickTime installer.
Samuel
December 5th, 2008 at 09:56am
The more observant amongst you will have probably noticed that every time I post a poll, a stray “n” appears just above it. Annoyingly, it’s not possible for me to remove this without manually editing the database which runs this site.
As it turns out, it’s a bug (as I suspected) in the Democracy plugin which runs the polls. I just didn’t connect the dots between that and me upgrading this blog to WordPress version 2.5.x a while back.
In lieu of a patch from the developer, it looks like the fix is fairly straight-forward. I’ll try it out at some stage in the coming days and see how it goes.
Samuel
December 2nd, 2008 at 02:24pm
According to Firefox’s Australian dictionary, “unticking” is a misspelling which should be corrected to “anticking”, whilst “untciking” is “unthinking”.
It might have a valid point.
Samuel
November 24th, 2008 at 03:36pm
Because I just won’t get to them otherwise…
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees solves the problem of incompetent ministers. Just sack them all and have a one man show.
Gmail Chat was always an effort to save the Google Talk client, and now finally the two can be considered equal: Gmail Chat has audio and video capabilities.
Got a spare $USD130 billion to give away each year? Good, because Barack Obama’s health plans could cost that much. And to think that political parties in this country bother to cost their promises before the election.
Using an “unsupported web browser” (or even an ever-so-slightly customised version of a supported web browser)? If so, Microsoft have introduced random bugs in to Hotmail for your convenience. That said, if you use Hotmail, you kind of deserve what you get.
Got a problem and the media won’t ignore it, but don’t feel like launching another inquiry? Kevin Rudd has the answer…declare war on it!
Samuel
November 14th, 2008 at 02:50am
Today: The Great Firewall of China comes to Australia
Tomorrow: Australia follows China’s lead and declares Internet Addiction a disorder
The next day: Kevin Rudd translates those “The Internets can be of harmful to healths” stickers from Mandarin to English…unfortunately needing to use the Google Translator because he doesn’t actually speak Mandarin.
Sometime next week: Internet access is outlawed simultaneously in Australia and China due to the “potential harmful effects of greenhouse gases emitted by routers and data centres”.
The next day: Cigarettes and alcohol are banned as well, the double standard was just too big too ignore.
It’s not entirely inconceivable is it? And surely both bans would work just as well as each other. We know that prohibition is always a wonderful success. I wonder what happened to the Internet being a crucial part of our economy? Wasn’t that one of Kevin Rudd’s pre-election mantras?
Samuel
November 12th, 2008 at 08:03am
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