Planet NZTech

My Son, The Published Poet

2010-03-16T14:21:22+00:00

Well, it's in the March 12th Worser Bay School newsletter (pdf) which is available on the World Wide Web so that makes him as accessible as J K Rowling in my eyes.

From the City
All sorts of things come from the city.
Smoke like fog floating around.
Cars roaring like Tigers.
Squeaky wheels like mice scuttling.
Babies crying like birds cheeping sweetly.
Trucks like bears grumbling hungrily.
Trees whooshing like raindrops splashing quickly.

by Jack R

No8.co.nz - WTF You Numbskulls

2010-03-16T14:21:22+00:00

So, I see an ad on TV with a bunch of rugby-types advertising http://no8.co.nz and I think, "Hmm, that's right it's World Cup year next year". Having been a small player last year in a similar site aimed squarely at cashing in on "all things World Cup" I was intrigued as to who these jokers were.

So I went looking ...

... never found it.

But, I did find this bee-a-uty within their Terms & Conditions:

So that means I broke their Terms & Conditions by linking to them in this post.

Google, Bing and anything else crawling their site and then linking back to it are breaking their Terms & Conditions.
Every poor sod that ever wants to send someone to their site is ... well, you get the idea.

I'm sure they will not come after any of us with a lawsuit.

What it does say to me loud and proud is that they do not understand the web.

It also says to me that it is a closed and "give me your details so I can market to you" approach.

I do not like, trust or appreciate that point of view on MY web.

I will not be signing up to No8.co.nz.

For the same reason I no longer use Facebook.

My First Hybrid?

2010-03-16T10:36:27+00:00

I have no desire to own a Prius, but this is one hybrid I could happily tolerate…

Ferrari: il funzionamento del propulsore ibrido spiegato in video

The animation is pretty impressive too.

Four short links: 16 March 2010

2010-03-16T10:00:00+00:00

Government is an Elephant (Public Strategist) -- if Government is to be a platform, it will end up competing with the members of its ecosystems (the same way Apple's Dashboard competed with Konfabulator, and Google's MyMaps competed with Platial). If you think people squawk when a company competes, just wait until the competition is taxpayer-funded ....
Recordings from NoSQL Live Boston -- also available in podcasts.
Modeling Scale Usage Heterogeneity the Bayesian Way -- people use 1-5 scales in different ways (some cluster around the middle, some choose extremes, etc.). This shows how to identify the types of users, compensate for their interpretation of the scale, and how it leads to more accurate results.
Building a Better Teacher -- fascinating discussion about classroom management that applies to parenting, training, leading a meeting, and many other activities that take place outside of the school classroom. (via Mind Hacks)

Open Data Pointers

2010-03-16T10:00:00+00:00

When I blogged about truly open data, readers sent me a lot of interesting links. I've collected them all below. Enjoy!

The Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA) -- hosts a range of activities associated with evironmental data archives. (Director is on Twitter, @bnlawrence)
CONNECT -- open source healthcare data exchange being developed with Brian Behlendorf, one of the original developers of the Apache web server.
Phil Agre's Living Data -- prescient article in Wired from 1994.
Factual -- web database that permits multiple values in tables, and you can apply different functions to choose which values you'll use when you work with the data (e.g., "most recent", "most popular", ...).
HDF -- BSD-licensed toolkit and format for storing and organising large numeric datasets.
NetCDF -- software libraries and self-describing, machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data.
Madagascar -- an open-source software package for multidimensional data analysis and reproducible computational experiments with digital image and data processing in geophysics and related fields.
Data Documentation Initiative -- standard for metadata of social science datasets.

The Memento Project

Data Sharing: A Look at the Issues -- presentation from Science Commons data manager Kaitlin Thaney.
SIFN Datasprint -- these folks are planning a sprint around data, the same way coders often have sprints around code.
Get Your Database Under Version Control -- 2008 piece by Jeff Atwood on the need to version control your database.
CKAN -- Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network. The database of open datasets is itself an open dataset, managed by a versioned database.
Componentization and Open Data, Collaborative Development of Data: OKFN are figuring out packaging and structure of distributed data development. They seem closest to building what I was talking about.
Open Data Maturity Model (Slideshare) - I like the idea of progressing from amateur to professional and identifying milestones along the continuum, but I'm not convinced that the last two stages are based on existing projects. I'm a big fan on building frameworks from successful projects, rather than building the framework in isolation.
Data RSS -- proposal for an API for data feeds.
Fedora Commons -- open source for managing, indexing, and delivering datasets. Islandora integrates that into Drupal.
gEDA -- GPL'd suite of Electronic Design Automation tools, some of which are applicable to non-electronics data projects.
You Cannot Run an Open Data Project Like an Open Source Project, Unless… -- not always coherent disagreement with my post. His most lucid moment comes pointing out that government datasets have a single owner. This is the difference between intrinsic data (crimes reported to police) where the data is about the operations of an agency, and extrinsic data (wild horse populations in Arizona, tree ring climate records) where an agency sends people into the field or otherwise collects and possibly processes data from others' labour. But even intrinsic data can be more collaboratively maintained: take bug reports and corrections from users (there is no 800 block of Main, did you mean the 80 block of Main?). It's true: I can't imagine a lot of collaboration around the preparation and distribution of pure sensor data (e.g., traffic data), but my post talked about more than collaborative generation: revision management, documentation, etc.

Links for 2010-03-15 [del.icio.us]

2010-03-16T07:00:00+00:00

WIP survey shows importance of Internet

2010-03-16T03:23:20+00:00

The NZ World Internet Project Survey of over 1200 New Zealanders has revealed that 83% are now using the Internet, up from 79% in 2007.

Significantly, the proportion of Internet users using broadband has risen to 82%, up from 67% in 2007, with dial-up use declining.

Two thirds of survey respondents said the Internet was so important to their everyday lives that losing access to it would be a problem, and nearly half of users report using social networking sites, notably Facebook.

The survey is conducted bi-annually by Auckland University of Technology’s Institute of Culture, Discourse & Communication and is strongly supported by InternetNZ, a contributor to its funding.

InternetNZ Policy Director Jordan Carter says the survey provides a valuable snapshot of how New Zealanders are using the Internet.

“Many aspects of online behaviour are addressed, as well as attitudes to the Internet and how Internet use affects people’s lives. This latest set of results shows that Internet presence is now an established part of most people’s lives, and highlights the importance
of free and unfettered access to the Internet.

“The survey is an extremely useful resource for InternetNZ, our strategic partners and the wider community in terms of developing future policy initiatives aimed at increased and better use of technology, and we look forward to continuing our support for the project,” says Carter.

“InternetNZ’s support was crucial in getting the project off the ground and they continue to be a significant on-going sponsor,” says WIP New Zealand’s Project Director Professor Allan Bell.

More information on the WIP project is available at the following link:
www.wipnz.aut.ac.nz

Why Does Gmail Do This?

2010-03-16T02:18:04+00:00

Out of the blue it reloads years old archived email. Total nightmare. Renders GMail entirely useless. Presents it as new email, albeit with an old date.

Silverlight IE8 Web Slice + Desktop Application + Windows Phone 7 Series

2010-03-16T02:09:55+00:00

In our hotel room after Day 1 of MIX Gus from NV Interactive and I had an hour to kill for dinner. 20 minutes later we’d managed to port the existing NZ Cricket Match Centre into a Windows Phone 7 Series application.

After a touch of refactoring to handle orientation change events and a few tweaks around the hyperlink button targets we had things working on the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator!

Installing MongoDB on Mac OS X using Homebrew

2010-03-16T01:17:53+00:00

I’ve moved from MacPorts to Homebrew which includes a recipe for installing MongoDB. After installing Homebrew, just run this as your normal user:

brew install mongodb

If you prefer to store your MongoDB data all under your home directory, you might find Mislav’s gist suits your needs instead:

http://gist.github.com/265272

If you prefer installing from source, check out this post:

http://shiftcommathree.com/articles/how-to-install-mongodb-on-os-x

Enjoy.

Toyota’s recent “30-degree” scandal in China

2010-03-16T00:23:59+00:00

Sam Flemming in Advertising Age mentioned the scandal that Toyota has been embroiled in inside China, before a lot of the bad press it received in the occident over “unintended acceleration”.
This involved a netizen, an owner of a Toyota Highlander Sport, ﬁlming that his SUV was unable to get up a 30-degree incline, something which “lesser” models such as the Korean-built Renault Koleos, and even the subcompact Chery QQ—one of the cheapest cars around in China—could manage.
The following news item reveals more. It’s in Mandarin and dates from December 22, 2009.

The news investigators show that even a Daewoo Lacetti (Buick Excelle in China) and a Chery van could manage the same slope, and conﬁrm that the Highlander could not do it.
They are not alone. Jitendra Patel ﬁlmed this with his 2009 Highlander earlier last year:

As Sam says, this issue has brewed thanks to the Chinese internet which, while not as free as it is in most countries, still seems to create active consumers’ groups. People will rally as individuals if the cause is right—and consumers seem to be rediscovering their power, online.

Sam Flemming in Advertising Age mentioned the scandal that Toyota has been embroiled in inside China, before a lot of the bad press it received in the occident over “unintended acceleration”.    This involved a netizen, an owner of a Toyota Highlander Sport, ﬁlming that his SUV was unable to get up a 30-degree incline, something [...]

Bloggers beware: typos in cyberspace

2010-03-16T00:12:43+00:00

An eagle-eyed reader, Justine, spotted a bunch of typos in my archive of articles about writing web content — oldies but goodies on this web site:
Quality Web Content

Justine says she can be “fussy and pedantic”, and got A+ in Professional and Technical Writing. Lucky for me. She spotted, among other things:

A repeat that looked like a stutter: “a a logo…”
Missing spaces after a full stop: “the font.Suddenly,…”
Redundant word: “the tutorials thinking planning to…”

That’s the risk when you write, edit, proofread and publish your own work.

As all bloggers do, pretty much.

So thanks, Justine! The beauty of blogs is that fixing typos is done in seconds. It’s as easy as fixing spelling mistakes in chalk graffiti, thank heavens.

I rember (sorry, remember) the bad old days when to “cut and paste” over errors literally involved a pair of scissors and a glue stick.

And now for all the other things Justine noticed, especially broken links…

Any conservatives here?

2010-03-15T23:58:41+00:00

Lawrence Lessig's TED talk from 6th March - what liberals can learn from conservatives:

more at http://lessig.blip.tv/

mmm Design

2010-03-15T22:56:28+00:00

I like design, becuase it’s shiny.

Yes good design is functional and serves a purpose and does all sorts of useful and wonderful things, but if at the end of the day it makes me go mmm shiny that’s the sue mark of approval on design. This probaly illustrates how little i know about design except to say i know what i like. I also do know that so much goes into good design it would make your head explode a tiny bit.

So if you feel like some head exploding I suspect checking out the Design Institute of NZ’s Designers speak series (this month in 4 cities) could be a good plan, especially when people use such great words as immersionariation in their talk description. I don’t know what it means but that word is mmm shiny

Also shiny is the image DINZ uses for the Design Speak series and it’s fun and packed full of lots of things that I think make it good design. These are the things that speak to me.

It’s totally topical. After Owls and Russian Dolls and possibly terrariums (ok terrariums are a pet fave of mine but i kind of hope if i talk about them enough they will break the glass ceiling of craft) Birds with Cages are a hot item in the craft world right now, especially in the jewellery part of the craft world. I’ve been spending the last 4 months trying to prototyping my own version of a bird and a cage so i know.

This is a NZ bird, The Tui – ahh iconic

but the bird is breaking out of the cage – oooo freedom

there is a shadow. One of the big design trends on the web (which i didn’t even know about until webstock when the amazing amazing, wonderful wonderful Scott Thomas pointed it out) is reflections which made me realise i do see reflections everywhere in websites at the moment, but i didn’t even think about it they were just there. And reflections have entered my subconscious so much that when trying to work on new photos for my designs i was determined to have some groovy reflected shot. Which either makes me think i spend too much time online or i visit really well designed sites that are trendy Either way the image is all ooo web2010 awesomeness

but the shadow is not the tui, but i don;t knwo what it is – ooo the mystery of the unknown

So I’m expecting some hot, topical, iconical, breaking down the barriers words that’s will be fresh and new.

Now i got that from just one image, which if you ask me makes that image good design. Also why i would be attending tomorrow night if i didn’t have tickets to go see the Walworth Farce which am so extremely excited about that it will justify a separate post as to why.

Two types of greenies

2010-03-15T21:53:36+00:00

There are two types of greenies

1) Those that spend a little more money, in order to save the planet
2) Those that spend less money, in order to save the planet.

I've been in category one for a long time. Buying the eco laundry powder, the sustainable bamboo clothing, organic vegetables and sorting the recycling.

My little sister, Julie, is amazing. She's firmly in category two. Her son used cloth nappies, well fitted modern ones, that she made herself. She makes her own laundry powder from salt and plant products. She grows a garden full of what she needs, and preserves the excess for the winter. She makes quilts from old fabric. She recycles, at home! She doesn't leave it out to be taken away if she can think of a way to re-use it.

I reckon my sister has it right. She is spending less money, and instead spending her own time. The result is BETTER products, and a sense of satisfaction at the things she made herself.

okay, now i need a sewing machine. I wonder if i can make one......

and now a baby photo:

Brand Awareness

2010-03-15T21:30:31+00:00

Here's a book i've been reading: "buy buy baby" by Susan Gregory Thomas. I'll write up a review when i finish it, but it starts by describing how the advertising industry went from advertising to parents (1970s and before) to advertising to children in the 1980s, and how the age at which advertising is targeted got younger and younger. Children as young as 6 months old can show Brand Awareness, and it's very common by age 2. They don't want a toy, they want an elmo. They recognise brand names over generic. Additionally, the children who had television as a babysitter recognise brands within shows, and those toys come with predefined attributes from the show, limiting play possibilities.

Those who grew up through this education that advertisers give us have become brand loyal. Adults raised on this stuff don't buy music players, they buy ipods, without even checking out other brands. They buy macbooks, not laptops, SonyEricssons, not phones. I know someone who won't buy a TV, he'll buy a Sony TV, everytime. This extends to all electronics goods. If there's a sony version he'll get that one. Sometimes he doesn't want the product at all until one day there's a sony version.

Instead of trying out the no-frills / cheap label peanut butter, we'll buy the sanitarium without a second thought. Parents don't buy nappies, they buy huggies.

The book goes into the history of the "Baby einstein" brand, pre and post Disney buy out. They moved from actually educational, to "What parents perceive as educational and therefore it sells"... turns out, surprise surprise, they're not the same thing.

The book has me questioning all the brand loyalty I have. Is brand loyalty ever a good things? One thing is clear to me - 2 year olds should be playing with Trains, not Thomas. Dolls not Barbie. Blocks not lego. They should want toys to play with, and this "I want ELMO!" is a sign of something wrong.

I'll mix in my own "no child labour please" attitude, unless it's recycled. Lets see how we go without brand names -- is this even possible?

and now a baby photo:

Pedestrian survival techniques

2010-03-15T21:21:51+00:00

Crossing at intersections is more dangerous, and time consuming, than crossing between intersections -- mostly because there are far more directions of traffic to check at an intersection, and because you can't predict which driver is going to drive right through the red light.

Here's a blog post on the way the law favours vehicle driver's convenience over pedestrian safety.

http://discoveringurbanism.blogspot.com/2010/03/pedestrian-survival-tech...

and now a baby photo:

EU tells USA where to stick their secret treaty.

2010-03-15T21:20:12+00:00

EU Parliament tells USA's USTR it will not participate in secret treaty negotiations and calls for public release of ACTA documents.

The EU voted 663:13 in favour of the following:

1. Reminds that the Commission has since the 1 December 2009 the legal obligation to immediately and fully inform the European Parliament at all stages of international negotiations;

2. Expresses its concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations which contradicts the letter and the spirit of the TFEU; is deeply concerned that no legal base has been established before the start of the ACTA negotiations and that no parliamentary approval has been asked for the mandate;

3. Calls on the Commission and Council to grant public and parliamentary access to ACTA negotiation texts and summaries in accordance with the Treaty and the Regulation 1049/2001 on Public Access to Documents;

4. Calls on the Commission and Council to pro-actively engage with ACTA partners to rule out any further negotiations of an a piori confidential nature and to timely and entirely inform Parliament about its initiatives in this regard; expects the Commission to make proposals already prior to the next negotiation round in New Zealand in April 2010 and to demand that the issue of transparency is put on the agenda of that meeting, and to refer to Parliament the outcome of this round immediately after its conclusion;

5. Stresses that, unless the Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, Parliament reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives;

6. Calls on the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of ACTA's implementation on fundamental rights and data protection, on the ongoing EU efforts to harmonise IPR enforcement measures, and on E-Commerce, prior to any EU agreement to a consolidated ACTA treaty text, and to timely consult with Parliament about the results of this assessment;

7. Welcomes affirmations by the Commission that any ACTA agreement will be limited to the enforcement of existing IPRs, with no prejudice for the development of substantive IP law in the European Union;

8. Calls on the Commission to continue the negotiations on ACTA in order to improve the effectiveness of the IPR enforcement system against counterfeiting;

9. Urges the Commission to ensure that the enforcement of ACTA provisions - especially its provisions on copyright enforcement procedures in the digital environment - are fully in line with the acquis communitaire; demands that no personal search is undertaken at the EU borders and requests full clarification of any clauses that would allow for warrantless searches and confiscation of information storage devices, such as laptops, cell phones and MP3 players, by border and customs authorities;

10. Considers that in order to respect fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy, with full respect for subsidiarity, the proposed Agreement must refrain from imposing any so called "three strikes" procedures, in full respect of the decision of Parliament on article 1.1b in the (amending) Directive 2009/140/EC that calls to insert a new para 3 a to article 1 Directive 2002/21/EC on the matter of "three strikes"

11. Emphasizes that privacy and data protection are core values of the European Union, recognised in Article 8 ECHR and Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which must be respected in all the policies and rules adopted by the EU pursuant to Article 16 of the TFEU;

12. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the Governments and Parliaments of ACTA negotiation participants.

Read more at Michael Geist's blog:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4848/125/

Geist has the most comprehensive coverage of ACTA, and many other copyright and "intellectual property" issues in the world. He writes mostly from a Canadian perspective, but is also an expert in the applicable international politics and law. He has written and published a very good Guide to ACTA

and now a baby photo:

TextExpander 3 saves even more time

2010-03-15T20:48:37+00:00

If I’m writing, then I’m using TextExpander:

A TextExpander snippet.

Save time and effort with TextExpander! Whether it’s a simple email signature or several paragraphs of a standard response, you’ll love how easy it is to use TextExpander to avoid typing the same thing over and over.

I use this so much that I almost can’t type without it. If I find myself using someone else’s computer I keep stumbling over things ‘not happening’: my most frequent typos remain unchanged; my 3-letter abbreviation for my email address doesn’t expand to its 21 character full version; and I can’t write any HTML at all.

The other day version 3 of TextExpander appeared, and a few things have changed.

Where TextExpander used to be a System Preference Pane, it’s now an application in its own right. It also has new fill-in-the-blank snippets that ask for text. This allows you to enter text that changes, while leaving the cursor after the snippet.

A TextExpander fill-in-the-blank snippet.

For example, in writing the previous paragraph I typed the trigger text ,em after the word cursor. That expanded to the HTML code: <em> </em>, with the cursor placed between the tags. Then I typed the word after at the cursor. Next I had to move the insertion point after the tags to continue typing.

With the new fill-in-the-blank approach I can set the cursor to appear after the tags. Before the trigger is fully expanded though, a dialog box invites me to enter the text that will appear between the tags.

This will be a big time saver.

I do a lot, if not most, of my writing in HTML. I have dozens of snippets set up for the most common tags I use, along with common phrases and typos. If you do any kind of writing on a Mac, I suggest you give TextExpander a try. I can’t do without it.

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Schlangengerangel für Kinder

2010-03-15T20:19:00+00:00

Kudos have to go to Joe Ehrensberger for translating “Snake Wrangling for Kids” into German.

The completed edition of Schlangengerangel für Kinder was just released today. PDFs for Windows, Linux and Mac versions can be downloaded from the Google Code site (this link will take you directly to the downloads).

Au ja!

Wikipedia study on First Monday - inclusionists versus deletionists - Vasilis Kostakis.

2010-03-15T19:15:30+00:00

Abstract

"Wikipedia has been hailed as one of the most prominent peer projects that led to the rise of the concept of peer governance. However, criticism has been levelled against Wikipedia’s mode of governance. This paper, using the Wikipedia case as a point of departure and building upon the conflict between inclusionists and deletionists, tries to identify and draw some conclusions on the problematic issue of peer governance."
Contents
Introduction
Main characteristics of peer governance
Leadership and benevolent dictatorships
A summary of criticism on Wikipedia’s governance
Case study: Inclusionists versus deletionists
The governance process, inclusionists and deletionists
Reflections
Lessons for peer governance
Conclusions
Proposal

First Monday
Full article First Monday , here
###
Citation
Identifying and understanding the problems of Wikipedia’s peer governance: The case of inclusionists versus deletionists
by Vasilis Kostakis.
First Monday, Volume 15, Number 3 - 1 March 2010
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2613/2479

Tea Revives You

2010-03-15T19:15:30+00:00

source

MIX10 Keynote – Windows Phone 7 Series Development

2010-03-15T18:52:00+00:00

As New Zealand wakes up on Tuesday 16th March the MIX 2010 keynote is wrapping up in Las Vegas.

Watch the full keynote below:

As I walk out of the keynote room I can’t help but feel pride for where Scott Guthrie has taken Windows Phone in one short year.

This really was a reset of the platform and the unveiling of a very exciting new beginning!

Today we announced that all the tools you need to get started building applications for Windows Phone 7 series are available for you to download free (as in beer) http://developer.windowsphone.com/windows-phone-7-series/

The Blend tools for Windows Phone are still a separate installer. In order to use the Blend 4 beta for developing Windows Phone applications, you therefore will need to install:

The best part is that the phone supports hardware accelerated Silverlight, not Silverlight light, not Silverlight different, instead the same Silverlight that you get on the desktop and in the browser.

Tim Heuer, has a detailed post explaining that Silverlight IS the platform for Windows Phone 7 Series development and telling you how to get started.

Also I recommend that you check out the new Windows Phone 7 developer training kit on channel 9.

Silverlight on the phone = reuse and rapid development.

The emulator is a virtual machine of the actual phone operating system. It is hardware accelerated, it supports multi-touch via Windows 7, and until you get a phone in your hands it gives you a great opportunity to get ahead of the queue building your applications for the new marketplace.

Windows Phone Marketplace: Also at MIX, Microsoft is for the first time detailing how developers and designers from 30 countries will bring content to market with Windows Phone Marketplace, the evolution of Microsoft’s mobile application market. With Windows Phone Marketplace and the new Marketplace hub, developers can easily promote applications and games to Windows Phone customers right on the phone, while earning a 70% revenue share.

The Marketplace hub will provide consumers a single destination for all the content (applications, games, premium Xbox LIVE games and music as well as operator and OEM exclusives) to personalize their Windows Phone.

We’ve streamlined the self service portal for developers.

Windows Phone Marketplace registration will be free to members of the DreamSpark program for students

Also another thing that was announced in the keynote was that Silverlight 4 has moved from beta to release candidate.

And of particular interest to me was the realization of our “three screens and a cloud” vision that Ray Ozzie first discussed @ PDC. To see the same application running on XBOX, Windows and Phone backed by the cloud today made this vision a reality.

The other thing that made me very excited was to see pivot from Microsoft research turn into a Silverlight 4 control.

I have been very impressed with Pivot but like photosynth in its early days felt it was limited by the fact that it required a separate plug-in install now with today's announcement there is one left barrier to sharing your pivots with the world.

Today is a good day :)

Tim Bray Takes Job in Google’s “No Evil Zone”

2010-03-15T17:15:04+00:00

Tim Bray is best known as the co-inventor of XML and for his blogging on his website at TBray.org. Google has hired him as a “Developer Advocate” to promote and maintain the developers who interact with Google on the Android platform. Blogging about it on his site, Bray rants against Apple and the iPhone platform:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded ...

Why Google Apps Marketplace Could Become A True and Vibrant Marketplace?

2010-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

When Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace, I was pretty excited about the prospects of this marketplace. While Ben wrote about how it will positively impact the SMB segment, I was getting ecstatic about its potential on the enterprise side.

I think few years from now, when we look back in this space, we may even conclude that this is a pivotal moment that catapulted Google into a strong player in the enterprise market. This has a potential to not only lift the prospects of Google on the enterprise side, this move will also strengthen the future of SaaS in a big way.

In my opinion, Google not only enabled somewhat bigger players to sell in their marketplace, they also provided a way for developers and other smaller service providers to play in the marketplace. For example, individuals can offer services like setting up Google Apps for $30. All they have to do is to guide the customer to signup for Google Apps, setup the DNS records and activate different services in Google Apps. Any marketplace that opens up many opportunities for small and big players alike is a true marketplace and it has the potential to develop into a vibrant ecosystem.

Somewhere in the hype about the marketplace, another interesting news got lost in the noise. Google has opened up the Google Apps script gallery to developers and users so that they can publish their scripts in the gallery for others to consume.

Today, we are excited to make Google Apps Script available to everyone. Some of you may already be familiar with Google Apps Script within Google Apps, but in case you are new to it, Google Apps Script provides a powerful and flexible scripting environment that lets you automate actions across your spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and many other services.

This is pretty neat. This not only allows experienced developers to add value to Google services, it also opens up opportunity for relatively novice developers to showcase their talent by adding features on top of Google services with their own scripts. All these make Google very attractive for developers and has a potential to ensure a vibrant ecosystem around their services. What do you think?

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Appistry Introduces CloudIQ Storage for Data-Centric Applications

2010-03-15T15:04:15+00:00

It’s Cloud Connect week – which means that every Cloud vendor under the sun is launching new products or services. Not wanting to be left out, Appistry today announced the availability for beta testing of Appistry CloudIQ Storage. CloudIQ Storage is a play for data intensive applications in the cloud - beta clients are running highly sensitive, big data applications for government security and intelligence, using a combination of private and hybrid cloud setups.

CloudIQ Storage may be used as a stand-alone cloud storage system or in conjunction with Appistry CloudIQ Engine to enable what Appistry is calling Computational Storage. Computational storage unifies applications and data by storing data across commodity servers and intelligently locating application processing on the machines containing the relevant data. As a result, computational storage allows for the delivery of data-intensive applications more cheaply than otherwise.

Some relevant details:

Special CloudIQ Storage “editions” will address the unique storage requirements of particular communities.
The first of these, Hadoop Edition, offers plug-and-play compatibility with the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), part of the popular Apache Hadoop open source framework.
The HDFS architecture is built around a single metadata repository, called the NameNode. Because the NameNode is not easily clustered, it represents a single point of failure and a bottleneck for the entire system. CloudIQ Storage has no single point of failure and no centralized bottleneck, making it more suitable for mission-critical deployment.
Appistry CloudIQ Storage Hadoop Edition ships with HDFS drivers, enabling it to be easily deployed in place of HDFS for applications where reliability and throughput are key considerations.

It’s an interesting play that brings file-based storage down a few notches in the cost rankings while overcoming data access issues by co-locating processing and data storage. Finally it brings a smart approach to application workloads, moving them closer to the data on which they work. CEO of Appistry, Kevin Haar talks it up saying:

Storage is an integral component of today's data-centric applications. It’s no surprise then that traditional approaches to storage are often to blame for the high cost and inferior performance of many a mission-critical application… With Appistry CloudIQ Storage, we are able to unify application processing and storage requirements to the cloud to dramatically reduce total costs and improve overall performance.

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Great Quote…

2010-03-15T13:05:57+00:00

"Concentrate every minute on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can-- if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you."

Marcus Aurelius on internet addiction (A.D. 121-180)

The Fate Of Small Web Hosts

2010-03-15T13:00:00+00:00

Image via Wikipedia

Recently, there was a discussion on Twitter about the fate of small webhosts. I thought I will expand my thoughts here in this post. Traditional web hosting ecosystems is huge with big hosts offering enterprise level managed hosting to a college kid having a reseller account to sell hosting space to friends and family. As we move ahead with cloud based hosting, the natural question is about the fate of such small hosts. In this post, we will take a look at what is in store for them.

The cloud world will definitely be harsh on most of the smaller webhosts. There is no doubt about it. However, it doesn’t mean that we will see a world where there will be a consolidation of handful of monopoly cloud infrastructure players, which is a shortsighted idea. There are many constraints to such thinking along with other mundane reasons for a more federated ecosystem.

Two weeks back, I wrote a post about an European cloud infrastructure provider, ScaleUp Technologies, and I wrote about how one of the traditional webhost, Internet4you, has morphed part of their datacenter resources to offer cloud based services using 3Tera’s Applogic platform. Recently, I spoke with VMOps, a company developing software stack that helps service providers set up Infrastructure as a service easily. Their software stack comes with three components.

A retooled multi-tenant hypervisor that supports dynamic resource provisioning and complete isolation of CPU, memory, storage and network resources for virtual servers.
A management tool that helps service providers to package their offerings, setup and manage users and, also, an integrated billing solution.
An easy to use self-service interface for end-users with necessary API to allow them to control the launching of applications in the cloud.

Companies like Reliacloud and Cloud Central have already tapped into the VMOps stack to offer IaaS offerings. I will dig deep into VMOps in the future but software like the ones offered by VMOps and 3Tera shows tremendous potential for smaller webhosts to jump straight into the cloud bandwagon. These software will help webhosts who have their own datacenters to reposition themselves as a cloud provider.

What about the shared webhosting providers who either rent a dedicated server or use a reseller accounts? A big chunk of them will eventually vanish to the pressures of market forces. However, there are still opportunities for these smaller hosts in the cloud world. They could add value on top of these cloud offerings and then resell it to low end users like some of the small businesses. For example, they could add some management layer and a customer support layer on top of raw EC2 instances and sell them to individual and small businesses who neither want to manage these EC2 instances or don’t know how to manage them. As I pointed out in my post about Blackmesh and the future of small webhosts, customers want support. They want to talk to a human beings and get personalized support. Then, there is the idea of regional clouds where some of the customers (somewhere in the long tail) want to do business with a cloud provider who has operations nearby. Now add the regulatory requirements and other factors based on diverse needs of the users, I see huge opportunities for smaller level players.

Yes, cloud era is going to drastically reduce the number of cloud infrastructure players. Yes, most of these smaller webhosts are going to shut down their business and go away. However, we will still see a vibrant federated cloud ecosystem and we will see software tools that will enable some of these small players to reposition themselves to play the cloud game. The future is in an open, federated cloud ecosystem.

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Tablecloth trick

2010-03-15T10:34:51+00:00

A great video from the folks at BMW. The takeover of once boring but always reliable BMW Motorad by horsepower crazy lunatics continues. These days BMW bikes (depending on the model) have almost too much power but still retain the core BMW values of sturdiness, practicality and safety. All of the BMW’s that I have ridden have [...]

Four short links: 15 March 2010

2010-03-15T10:00:00+00:00

A German Library for the 21st Century (Der Spiegel) -- But browsing in Europeana is just not very pleasurable. The results are displayed in thumbnail images the size of postage stamps. And if you click through for a closer look, you're taken to the corresponding institute. Soon you're wandering helplessly around a dozen different museum and library Web sites -- and you end up lost somewhere between the "Vlaamse Kunstcollectie" and the "Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa." Would it not be preferable to incorporate all the exhibits within the familiar scope of Europeana? "We would have preferred that," says Gradmann. "But then the museums would not have participated." They insist on presenting their own treasures. This is a problem encountered everywhere around the world: users hate silos but institutions hate the thought of letting go of their content. We're going to have to let go to win. (via Penny Carnaby)
StoryGarden -- a web-based tool for gathering and analyzing a large number of stories contributed by the public. The content of the stories, along with some associated survey questions, are processed in an automated semantic computing process for an immediate, interactive display for the lay public, and in a more thorough manual process for expert analysis.
Google Apps Script -- VBA for the 2010s. Currently mainly for spreadsheets, but some hooks into Gmail and Google Calendar.
There's a Rootkit in the Closet -- lovely explanation of finding and isolating a rootkit, reconstructing how it got there and deconstructing the rootkit to figure out what it did. It's a detective story, no less exciting than when Cliff Stohl wrote The Cuckoo's Egg.

Spammed - bacula-dir.conf

2010-03-15T09:39:56+00:00

I’ve been getting spammed from a bacula server in Romania, finally got hold of the SysAdmin that had copied a conf file from my Wiki that had my own e-mail address in it…… Nice to know my conf files work…. not nice getting spammed from a backup server i Romania. YES, I’ve removed my email address from my bacula-dir.conf fil on my Wiki.

/Roger Sinel

Up and Down a Mountain

2010-03-15T08:44:53+00:00

This weekend I climbed a mountain. Up until this point I have avoided such adventures, usually because I am afraid of really holding people back with my un-fitness. But with my extra running and cycling I decided it was time to stop being scaredy cat. So I went along with Patrick, Maaike and Kylie to climb Avalanche Peak. I was still the weakest link but I kept up ok… I think.

We climbed about 1087 metres in about 2 hours (don’t really know the time) I took my little handbag camera up. One day I will be so strong I will be able to carry my big heavy camera.

Up and up.

At the top we ridge line walked Avalanche peak then dropped down to another less high ridge line to walk to the correct scree slope to descend to the Crow Hut. That took maybe another hour and a bit. The ridge line was amazing. Never done anything like it! So devoid of any plant life with sharp crumbly grey rock I imagined I would turn the corner and see dragons. We had to scramble, climb and walk our way there.

This is Kylie trying to smile for the camera after coming down the scree behind him. Scree is crumbly mountain side, usually lots of small loose rock you can slip down a bit like a sand dune, but with sharpish fist and pebble sized rocks instead of sand. That was the freakest and hardest part of the day. All the muscles in my legs were screaming by half way down and I was so aware that loosening bigger rocks could land on the people below me (I was at the back until half way down) so I would frequently stop, when I started really slipping and loosing lots of rocks, until everything stopped moving around me.

There was also another group descending the scree at the same time as us and one poor girl lost her footing and panicked a little bit. So she sat for a while just getting her head together again. In the end she recovered but went very slowly down after that. So it really was scary and not just me.

When I got to the bottom and met up with the rest of my party who were sitting around waiting (I thought for me) I drank more water and ate a bit of food, but I was eager to keep going because the hut was only ten or so minutes away. But before we left Patrick and Maaike started chanting “we know a secret, we know a secret” which I am afraid was lost on the tired me who smiled and didn’t try to guess – brain was focusing on staying upright. So I made my darling Kylie get up to show me the rest of the way to the hut which meant dry clothes and a mattress! Ahhh mattress… So the last person showing up on the slope above us was noticed by me, I just wanted to get the walk done and so I carried on… Not caring! About two thirds of the way to the hut the others caught up with an extra person. My tired brain didn’t even look twice, I just assumed someone from the other group had joined them. But low and behold up walks Mike. Who had to leave Chch later than us, but still wanted to come, so drove himself up into the mountains and caught up to us, despite being an hour behind in starting! Apparently I looked sufficiently surprised. To tired to speak for ten seconds I just stared at him.

Lucky for us Mike was late because he had to gone out to choose a wedding cake for his upcoming nuptials. As a result of the cake choosing activity he decided to attempt hiking in a cake for the evening. Which he did! A yummy yummy banana cake… It arrived intact and extremely edible. For dinner and breakfast.

The cake yummy and intact and Mike eating his lunch the next day.

We followed a river out…

This is me with my pack… strong like. Sorry if this post is a little muddled sounding, my brain is still focusing on focusing….

How Much damage Can One Lobby Group Do?

2010-03-15T08:17:15+00:00

Federated Farmers is an interesting group. Their own literature would see them as a progressive organisation that seeks to unite farmers in an attempt to become more competitive on the world stage through the application of smart science. Their actions would indicate something else.

Earlier today Lance Wiggs pointed out a piece Fed Farmers had written that looks set to get the backs up of the uber-powerful US lobby groups. Lance has done a great job of dissecting the piece which, in essence, harkens back to a punch up in a rural primary school which, I suspect is a good analogy to use.

You see Federated Farmers is primarily about extending the status quo – lobbying for the protections of (in their eyes) the god-given right of New Zealand farmers to use the land as they see fit. And it seems, just like on the rugby paddock, when things go bad they resort to a good old-fashioned punch up.

My only contact with Fed Farmers was a few months ago during the initial discussions around the proposal to introduce factory farming in the Mackenzie Country. At the time I was interested in a number of Twitter and blog comments to a post I wrote lamenting the short sightedness of Fed Farmers’ approach.

After a little bit of digging I found out that the posts, written in a neutral tone but a little defensive of Fed Farmers approach, were in fact written by a Fed Farmers media person, under a false name and identity. I pointed out to the person at the time that:

noms de plume and dodgy cover stories are a bad look in social media land.. especially when your name comes up as the fedfarm media advisor….

Said commenter got a little defensive before shutting off any contact.

While this situation is different from that of a opinion piece that is little more than a pissing contest (and really they chose the wrong school yard bully to have a pissing contest with), it does indicate just how backwards an approach Federated Farmers have.

I said it then and I’ll reiterate it now – stunts like this are incredibly bad for the image of NZ Inc and we all have a duty to articulate that in no uncertain terms to federated Farmers.

Gala!

2010-03-15T07:11:19+00:00

Gala!, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Notice of Revit User Group Auckland March Meeting

2010-03-15T05:48:22+00:00

At Jasmax, 2 Marston Street, Parnell, on Wednesday 17th March 2010:

5.30pm : Join us from 5.30pm for Drinks and Nibbles ($5 donation - receipts available)
6:00pm : Welcome and Introduction to the Presentations by Steve Davis - Assemble Architecture
6:05pm : Presentation 1 - The AU 2009 Experience Version 1: Robin Capper, CAD Manager, The Warehouse.
6:30pm : Presentation 2 - The AU 2009 Experience Version 2: Andrew Dickinson from Assemble.
7.00pm : Wrap up - Steve Davis Tips, Tricks & Open Forum

Please RSVP attendance by 5pm on Tuesday 16th March for catering purposes via the link at Revit User Group Auckland.

A Meeting Register is taken for NZIA CPD Points.

Homeopathy fans to testify.

2010-03-15T04:11:35+00:00

Homeopathy (that's just water in a bottle, not to be confused with herbal medicine) gets a second chance in the UK -- more interviews with fans of homeopathy are coming, to be collated alongside science and medical conclusions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/mar/12/mps-and-evidence-for-...

Personally, I just want people to know that it's water, just water, and NOTHING ELSE in homeopathy. It's sold in pharmacies in New Zealand alongside the herbals, and people dont' realise that they're buying incredibly expensive water that has been shaken to magically give it some kinda memory.

People are welcome to make an informed choice to treat their ailments with magic water. The problem is the homeopathy industry not displaying prominently that their products are only water.

On Elephants

2010-03-15T03:33:13+00:00

I adore elephants, just adore them, possibly not as much as bears, but it’s pretty close.

And right now all i want to do is hop on a plane to Sydney and go visit Mr Shuffles at Taronga Park Zoo, which also happens to be my second favourite zoo I’ve ever been to. Number 1 is San Diego Zoo becuase of the polar and panda bears – but lets not have me start on polar bears or i may never stop.

I love elephants enough that the first thing I attempted to create making jewellery with ponoko was an elephant pendant. I can confirm it was a grand failure, mostly it was too realistic but the proportions were also a little off. Despite about 3 more attempts i never got my elephant to a place I was happy with, so she never saw the light of day.

Attempts at an Elephant

Which brings me to the other point of today, (elephants being awesome was the first point in case you missed it) how my jewellery making/designing process happens, or doesn’t happen.

Maybe half of the things i design make it to the light of day on etsy or felt or at a fair. Sometimes they don’t get beyond my head, becuase I don’t have the technical skills. Other times they make it as far as the first prototype – printing them out on a sheet of paper at home. If I’m lucky things get them to a point when I’m ready to get them laser cut, but often it still takes 3-4 tweaking sessions before I’ll even consider showing or selling them to anyone. So when you see a final product from me it’s probaly gone through about 10 different big stages to get where it is.

Those that don’t make it to the light of day get sent to the ever growing cardboard box of failed prototypes. None of which I have the heart to throw away, just in case maybe one day I might go back to them, but the box is starting to get very full so it might be time for a clean out of failed designs.

Sometimes it’s easy to throw your prototypes away like when the Amazing Jeff had a go at elephants. I happily discarded all my prototypes and marked elephants off my list of things i’d like to make one day. Because as far I’m concerned, I could never improve on Elē the baby elephant. Who is extremely adorable and in her Jeff managed to capture the joy and fun of elephants in the perfect pendant.

Elē is a baby elephant

Welly Walks for iPhone guides you round Wellington

2010-03-15T02:23:33+00:00

I’m looking forward to seeing this free app on the iPad — Welly Walks for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad:

Welly Walks screenshots.

Wellington is a cosmopolitan capital loved for its culture, coffee and cuisine. Explore museums, art galleries, nature, historical buildings, boutique shopping, award-winning restaurants and cafes and much more, all within a compact downtown area that takes only 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

I haven’t tested it on an actual walk, but it seems to have nicely comprehensive information, maps and photos of the main walks in Wellington, New Zealand.

For example, each screen on the Mt Victoria part of the walk imparts interesting tidbits, such as the Māori history of Mt Victoria (Tangi-te-keo).

It tells us that the hill was named after the soul of Whataitai, a taniwha (water monster) that could not escape the harbour (then a lake). Its soul flew to the top of the hill in the shape of a bird and proceeded to tangi (weep and mourn).

Hence the name Tangi-te-keo — tears of the bird called Te Keo.

I love discovering these snippets of information about Wellington, and am looking forward to using this app to help me learn more about the city.

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links and spams

2010-03-15T02:22:25+00:00

EU tells the USTR where to stick their ACTA treaty (that's where we can all see it)
http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blog/2010/03/the-european-parliament-is-pr...

Tech liberty goes over why New Zealand's web filter is a bad idea
http://techliberty.org.nz/why-we-oppose-internet-filtering/

The Wellington city council wants to put a tacky "Wellywood" sign over miramar -- incidentally this costs about the same to maintain as the WCN server they are shutting down.
http://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz/2010/03/wellywood-sign-meh-time-to-get-...

Vodafone's mobile network breaks in Napier - doesn't get the kinda press telecom's XT network got for their outage.
http://www.tuanz.org.nz/blog/e379f711-b2b6-4423-9e32-4a8bf9f301db/c6d20a...

Women on the contraceptive pill may live longer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8563606.stm

a mass grave of beheaded vikings found at the London Olympic site
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/03/12/viking.olympics/index.html

over in the US, elected officials join campaign to allow gay men to donate blood - we need the same change here in New Zealand.
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/03/16-senators-ask-fda-to-li...

The USA's FCC is working on keeping ISPs honest, by building online apps that measure you're connection speed - are you really getting the speed your ISP claims? How about New Zealand's commerce commission does the same thing?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/12/fcc-comes-through-with-a-consumer-bro...
http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/U3_ypTy5uKw/americans-...

Every cell in a chicken has its own male or female identity
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/03/every_cell_in_a_chicken...

The Android phone platform is growing growing growing.
http://phandroid.com/2010/03/10/android-growing-ridiculously-faster-than...

Pedestrian survival techniques -- crossing at intersections is more dangerous, and time consuming, than crossing between intersections -- mostly because there are far more directions of traffic to check at an intersection, and because you can't predict which driver is going to drive right through the red light -- here's a blog post on the way the law now favours vehicle driver's convenience over pedestrian safety.
http://discoveringurbanism.blogspot.com/2010/03/pedestrian-survival-tech...

Photos of an abandoned mental asylum
http://weburbanist.com/2010/03/10/abandoned-mental-asylum-hellingly-rip-...

Been waiting to buy a jetpack? They're on sale now.
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20100308/jetpack/

Generic Movie Based on the Movie They've BeenReleasing Every Single Week Since the 1980s

p.s. Try eating cheese rings with chopsticks -- you don't get yellow dust on your hands.

The increasingly lost art of long-form writing?

2010-03-15T01:51:49+00:00

For the first time in years, I’m reading one of those lightweight throwaway novels – “And God created the Au Pair” – but am enjoying the humor and style immensely.

The book centers around two sisters in different countries who email each other, set in 2000. I wonder if the novel would still make sense to be written in this style in 2010?

When was the last time you wrote a decent length personal email to a friend or family member? (vs Facebook/Twitter/txting/chat) For a while now, I’ve been using systems like private messaging on Facebook to connect with friends and family online but I realise how difficult it is to keep an archive of these, unlike email.

I miss those long-form emails catching up with friends. Yes, I can see all their photo updates on Facebook and the little ins-an-outs of life and what they’re up to, but it’s generally very superficial and not really talking about things at length.

It’s like sitting down with an old friend over coffee. No rush to head off to an appointment, just time to reflect on life and really catch up.

Giant box of olpcs arrived

2010-03-15T01:48:26+00:00

Giant box of olpcs arrived, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

The OLPC XO 2.somethings have arrived from America-land. These are for the Saturday morning "Friends in Testing" group.

Blogging pause…

2010-03-15T00:38:03+00:00

Moving house + high workload + lack of broadband connection at home (multiple failures by TelstraClear, my soon-to-be ex-ISP) = low blogging frequency.

I plan to be on top of things shortly.

Some things just take time

2010-03-15T00:31:48+00:00

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce’s recent policy announcements have received a generally positive welcome. Tying an element of institutional funding to students’ course and qualification completion, requiring a reasonable pass rate for continued access to student loans, and rationalising the many redundant or overlapping qualifications; all seem to have gone down well. Even the usual naysayers have been muted in their response.

I find all this both gratifying and somewhat ironic. In 2001/2, the reports of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission effectively recommended doing the same things. In July 2002, the people named to be the board of the Tertiary Education Commission (including me) reiterated their support for such initiatives. However, some were ruled out of bounds for TEC, eg. student support was deemed to a welfare issue not an education issue. Some we didn’t have the funding mechanism to implement (and for nearly 3 years we weren’t allowed to address that either, even though we rated it the number 1 problem to fix). Some the institutions weren’t ready to concede there were problems - eg. qualification rationalisation and completion rates. Some, like polytechnic governance, were, frankly, just too politically difficult for the then Labour-led government. However, we’ve been jawboning away on this stuff for all of the last decade and, like water on stone, we’ve worn down the obstacles.

Given the name of this weblog - Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s personal motto En Avant or “Get Going” - you’d be right to assume that I have been very frustrated by the time taken for all this. Smart policy development and implementation seemed often to have been trumped by the need to not upset anyone. To be fair, all the ministers I’ve dealt with have had their merits, and we’ve made increasingly faster progress. However, there’s a palpable difference when dealing with confident and capable ministers who understand the big picture and can drive through policy change, despite the naysayers inside and outside government and the bureaucracy. Governments can implement sweeping change quickly if they so chose and have the right people on the job.

There are still some big issues to address, not least being pricing - how much, how it’s presented, and who pays what to whom. Any good marketer knows the importance of price presentation. The new minister has already stated he’s interested in price as an issue, although he acknowledges this might take a little more time to work out. Given the current pace, that shouldn’t be another decade.

Declaration: I am a non-executive board member of the Tertiary Education Commission, and was recently reappointed for a third term.

Things i have learned about baby clothes

2010-03-15T00:25:32+00:00

if you wear these, people conclude baby is a girl:
* flowers
* butterflies
* fairies
* anything pink
* most bows and lace.

if you wear these, people conclude baby is a boy:
* cars
* dinosaurs
* sailboats
* robots
* construction machinery
* airplanes
* monsters

some neutral things
* smiley faces
* bunny rabbits
* giraffes
* anything white, yellow or green

special note for pink: wear pink *anywhere*, it's a girl.. wear no pink at all, it's a boy.

but why? Girls don't drive cars? Girls don't dig up dinosaurs? (dinosaurs are awesome btw). Boys don't catch butterflies? Boys don't like flowers?

Exhibit A:
the girls' sock department:
http://www.jk.co.nz/category/girls1to6.accessories.1

Exhibit B:
the boys' sock department:
http://www.jk.co.nz/category/boys7to12.accessories.1

What have i missed? What else is gendered other than colours?

Why, why, why? WCAG 2.0 for content writers

2010-03-15T00:16:59+00:00

Lesson 1. WCAG 2.0 for content writers

Hey, content writer! No, don’t go away — I mean you!

OK: that’s not your job title (you’re a teacher or scientist or HR manager or whatever) but you also produce stuff that goes on the web or intranet. And that gives you another hat: Content Writer.

“Don’t call me that silly name!” you mutter. “Isn’t content just information? I’m just writing stuff. It’s no different from what I’ve always done.”

Actually, writing for a web site is very different from writing for paper. You have extra responsibilities. You are now part of a publishing team.

Picture your article as published in a paper magazine. Your paper article cannot:

read itself aloud
translate itself from English into Chinese
attract the attention of a passing search engine, making it instantly available to anyone in the world
make its own font bigger or smaller.

But on a web site, the reader can easily make all these things happen… provided the web developer and the writer have followed certain guidelines. This series of articles takes you through the most popular guidelines, called WCAG 2.0.

Now your government steps into the picture (assuming you live in a reasonably democratic state).

Information on a web site can be made available (accessible) to far more people than if it were just on paper or just on the radio or TV or a CD. For example, web content can be “read” by people with sight or hearing problems, people with arthritis or broken wrists, people using mobile phones or funny old-fashioned computers.
Public information is produced with the aid of public money: your money.
Because information on a government web site can be made accessible, government decrees that it must be accessible.
So all web sites of agencies that receive public money are required to make their content accessible. It’s the law.
Responsible commercial organisations follow suit, wanting their information to reach the largest possible number of people.

“No no no, that’s not my problem.” I hear you say. “I just write stuff. That sounds technical. Let the web team do it.”

They do, mainly. Most of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines are implemented by your web team.

But writing — and producing other content like audio and video and graphs and charts — is now terminally entangled with publishing, promoting, storing, searching, publicising and distributing information. That’s why you need to understand and follow some of these guidelines. It’s your job now.

Once upon a time, many experts stood between writers and readers. Editors, typesetters, truck-drivers, storemen, archivists, librarians, shopkeepers, postal workers…

But today, most probably you, the writer, are also responsible for publishing and distributing your own web content.

Would you expect the printer to write:

a headline for your news story?
a title for your book?
a caption for your graph?

Thought not. You care because it’s your content. If you don’t do these few things, nobody will, or they’ll be done badly. And you’ll have fewer readers.

Do them right and your content becomes available to a much wider audience, and complies with legislation.

Lesson 2 will be: Content that isn’t words…
Please be patient: I have to write it first!

Seriously cute hat Jan made.

2010-03-14T22:40:30+00:00

Seriously cute hat Jan made., originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Walking directions

2010-03-14T20:45:51+00:00

If I had the time when biking to Canterbury university I’d make a detour on the way. This wasn’t to stop off at friends to argue about politics or to grab a fresh coffee.

My detour was for aesthetic reasons. I took the long way so I could bike through a glade of trees and duck across a wooded park. This was far more pleasant than sticking to the tarmac even if I could get to my destination quicker.

I was reminded of this the other day when looking up a route to walk to a meeting when I was in Auckland.

The mighty Google maps now suggests walking routes, as well as giving directions for cars. I printed out the map but ignored the route suggested.

Why would I want to walk along busy, congested roads even if it was the most direct route?

Instead I ducked and dived through the inner city. Along tree-lined Greys Avenue, through the underpass beneath Mayoral Drive to Aotea Square, passed the art gallery, then an amble along Lorne Street gazing at fashion and books. Under the towering Metropolis, then through a wedge of Albert Park.

This wasn’t efficient nor direct, but it was enjoyable.

Sure, search parameters can calculate distances with astonishing accuracy. This isn’t really enough. Relying on what some programmers think is most important reduces how the world is portrayed to a narrow and incomplete picture.

I’m all for finding room for art, nature, spontaneity and taking the long route. Suggesting this could be avoided by using a “I feel lucky button” is a cute idea - but actually, I think it’s best to follow your nose.

Java desktop links of the week, March 15

2010-03-14T20:21:13+00:00

I thought I’d start todays post with a quote that Kirill proviously linked to. The quote is from “Engineer Thinking” by Matt Legend Gemmell:

If you’ve exposed underling complexity or unnecessary choice in your software because you see those things as inevitable, it’s because your job isn’t finished. If you’re going to write GUI software for other people to use, do it properly, and treat those people like human beings instead of software engineers. If you want to expose complexity to the user and wash your hands of it, write command-line tools – or utilities that are used exclusively by other machine processes.

You can’t have it both ways. Writing GUI software is for people who strive for excellence not only in the “software” part but in the “GUI” part too.

And with that reminder, let’s get into the news.

Swing

Eugene Ryzhikov continues his series on ‘Swing Task Dialogs’ with parts two and three.
Kirill Grouchnikov has posted about what is new in Trident 1.2.
Damien Ielsch blogged this week about multiline buttons in the Substance L&F.
Jyloo Software, the people behind the Synthetica L&F have written an article discussing window decoration options available to users of Synthetica.

JavaFX

The Silicon Valley JavaFX Users Group have announced the next talk to be on April 14 by Stuart Marks, a member of the JavaFX UI Controls team (and therefore a teammate of mine). This will be a very good talk as Stuart is very articulate and precise when answering questions and delving into details.
JavaFX.com have updated two documents this week: Their article on ‘Shape Intersection, Subtraction, and Union‘ and their tech-tip on ‘Localizing your JavaFX application‘.
Rakesh Menon has posted about how to layout user interfaces in JavaFX.
Jeff Frieson has posted about creating his painter’s canvas for mobile devices.
Max Katz has written about JavaFX and Seam with Flamingo. This article shows how Flamingo letts you easily connect JavaFX with Seam or Spring back-ends.
Antoine Mischler has posted about how to ‘spice up your JavaFX application with Maven‘.

So, all in all some interesting links this week. I hope they were interesting and helpful, and if not, well, let me know

Catch you all in a weeks time!

Printing body parts

2010-03-14T15:19:41+00:00

A couple of years ago, I wrote about 3D printers transforming manufacturing and distribution. I can add healthcare to that list. In one of its always-excellent science and technology articles, The Economist tells us that researchers are using 3D printers to produce replacement body parts:

Organovo’s 3D bio-printer works in a similar way to some rapid-prototyping machines used in industry to make parts and mechanically functioning models. These work like inkjet printers, but with a third dimension. Such printers deposit droplets of polymer which fuse together to form a structure. With each pass of the printing heads, the base on which the object is being made moves down a notch. In this way, little by little, the object takes shape. Voids in the structure and complex shapes are supported by printing a “scaffold” of water-soluble material. Once the object is complete, the scaffold is washed away. Researchers have found that something similar can be done with biological materials. When small clusters of cells are placed next to each other they flow together, fuse and organise themselves. Various techniques are being explored to condition the cells to mature into functioning body parts…

The raw material is grown in cultures from patient tissue samples, avoiding transplant rejection.

To start with, only simple tissues, such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels, will be made… Within five years, once clinical trials are complete, the printers will produce blood vessels for use as grafts in bypass surgery. With more research it should be possible to produce bigger, more complex body parts. Because the machines have the ability to make branched tubes, the technology could, for example, be used to create the networks of blood vessels needed to sustain larger printed organs, like kidneys, livers and hearts.

In case you think this is fantasy, the scaffold technique is already used to grow replacement bladders. Marrying the medical technique with 3D printing was a logical next step.Although the implications for healthcare are immense, I suspect that “appearance surgery” will eagerly adopt this technology. Replacement scalps complete with hair follicles will sell well, as will wrinkle-free, age-spotless skin. The mind boggles at what could be possible in the long term. Maybe those spam ads for enlarged male appendages might finally have something to offer that works! And who knows how competitive sportspeople will use this?

Can’t maximise AutoCAD in Windows 7 (or Vista) 64?

2010-03-14T09:42:18+00:00

Have you ever minimised AutoCAD (Windows 7 64) and not been able to maximise it from the taskbar? The button is live (glows when you hover), the preview shows the application and the full application window shows when you hover on the preview. Any attempt to maximise via the taskbar, or Alt+Tab, results in a “bong” sound and nothing.

Task Manager: The only way to get back

If you get stuck like this Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open the Task Manager then double click or Right Click > Restore will bring the application back.

AutoCAD, Windows or something beginning with VBA?

This behaviour only appeared when running a 3rd party app. It used a tiny, tiny, bit of VBA (which was installed) for a launch dialog but none once in operation. After that requirement was removed and the VBA component disabled the refusal to Maximise vanished.

I do like to Craft beside the TV

2010-03-14T09:36:48+00:00

I don’t have a workshop or space where i craft, most of my crafting is done on the sofa in the lounge.

It’s also done in front of the idiot box aka the TV. Now I’m a grand consumer of really bad tv and i admit to being addicted to far too many shows that probably rot my brain, In fact perhaps i can blame TV now for my horrendously atrocious spelling. Yes let’s do that….

The reason i don’t spell well is not becuase i don’t care/am lazy but becuase of survivor.

Tonight I’ve had an extremely un-productive evening of making, and I’m sure it’s due to rather excellent TV, courtesy of Stephen Fry and Prime. I’ve been glued to the screen watching Last Chance to See and QI a You Tube favourite of mine.As such I’ve achieved nothing tonight, however i belive I’ve restored some of the brain cells lost.

It also tells me perhaps the reason i watch all this bad TV is so i can get things done?

all I know is next Sunday I won’t be planning to get anything done as i finally get to see Sirocco the kakapo in action, here’s a sneak peak.

More travel plans

2010-03-14T04:24:08+00:00

I just bought my tickets. They would have been about $100 cheaper if I had bought them a few days earlier. Oops. I suppose I should back up a bit. To start with, I went in to STA travel and asked what fares they had one-way to London. The lady there was going to email me [...]

CUBA Festival

2010-03-14T03:38:59+00:00

CUBA Festival, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

<3 Wellington

Why You Should Back Your Own Analysis - The Private Equity Example

2010-03-14T02:48:00+00:00

In November 2006 - Telecom New Zealand ($TEL.NZ) announced plans to sell their directory business in a competitive process. Analysts placed a range of values between NZ$1.5 billion to NZ$2.2 billion. I ran some numbers and came up with a NZ$850 million valuation - using Yell Group ($YELL) in the UK as a comparator. In my analysis I wrote the following paragraph:

I believe these numbers (NZ$1.5-2.2 billion) are fantasy. The top of our valuation – based on sensitivities – is NZ$1.1 billion. Using the current 13.8x Yell multiple gives a valuation of NZ$1.21 billion.

As a result of some discussions I revised the analysis 24 hours later with some more aggressive assumptions. My updated valuation was NZ$1.10 billion with a range of NZ$867 million to NZ$1.36 billion.

But hey - there was a fully-fledged private equity boom going on. What did I know.

In early 2007 to get to the short-list of potential acquirers for the Telecom New Zealand directory business required a NZ$2.1 billion bid. I wrote yet another piece - with the following excerpts:

But it appears our valuation was wrong. The rumours in the market were that it took NZ$2.1 billion to make the short-list and the four finalists are all private equity players. Our valuation was NZ$1.1 billion – that is a long way short of NZ$2.1 billion.

Here at Valuecruncher we back our analysis – and when we are that far out we want to know why.

and

This has been bugging me – I don’t like being this far out on valuations. I like to think it isn’t typical.

Then I proceeded to explain the bid valuation as best I could (summary - really cheap debt).

In March 2007 with the closing of the sale to CCMP I noted:

Valuecruncher believes the result is an excellent one for Telecom.

Since 2007 it hasn’t been an easy time for owners of highly leveraged directory assets. Debt isn’t as cheap as it was (check out this Bloomberg piece from February 2007 - the world has changed). Another strange thing - people are also using this internet thing where they previously relied on services like directories. That means there is pressure on key directory revenue streams (like advertising).

There is a long piece in the New Zealand media today (Sunday Star Times written by Tim Hunter) about the challenges facing the directory business - now called Yellow Pages Group. It quotes a number of unnamed sources using Yell Group ($YELL) in the UK as a valuation comparator (”Yell in the UK has just restructured and trades at seven times earnings“). With Yellow Pages Group having EBITDA of around NZ$130 million - that places an enterprise value on Yellow Pages Group of “NZ$750-$800 million“. Note the article has senior debt holders being owed NZ$1.2 billion - ouch. The article is a good piece of analysis by Tim Hunter.

Our Valuecruncher interactive analyst report for Yell Group backs up this analysis (have a play with the DCF tab as well). A 6.3x EV/EBITDA multiple for Yell Group and a NZ$130 million EBITDA gives an enterprise value for Yellow Pages Group of NZ$819 million. Enterprise value is the value of the whole business (equity and debt).

Hold on - isn’t that just about where I started?

Lesson: Do robust analysis and run the numbers - and back that (even in the middle of a private equity boom).

Tiny ball-chain gears

2010-03-14T00:06:00+00:00

I have finally managed to print tiny little ball-chain gears that work with 3.3mm and 3.5mm diameter ball-chain and still fit on the NEMA17's 5mm output shaft. The trick is to print the gears in two pieces.

As you can see in the photograph, I print two 4mm thick sections of gear and put them on the shaft with an M5 washer sandwiched in between. Make sure the teeth are lined up on both gears. This gives a channel to guide the ball-chain down the centre of the gear, and grips the sides of the balls adequately. As the gears age, it will also stop the balls grinding their way too far through the PLA, though I must admit that my experience with ball-chain Z axis gears suggests this will not be a major issue.

The gears themselves are designed to be "spiky", but the vaguearities of the printing and rendering process lop the spikes off and leave enough by accident to produce a functioning gear! SCAD and STL files are here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2009

As the gears are stuck on the shaft of the NEMA17, and the original Mendel Y Motor Bracket is thicker than the length of the NEMA17 drive shaft, a new motor bracket is needed. Also, the ball chain cannot take tight corners well, so a 608 bearing is mounted on the frame cross-member to act as a pulley. The same arrangement is fitted to the other side of the frame making the Y Idler Bracket obsolete. There are knock-on effects on the bed design and X Carriage which I'm still working around.

Vik :v)

Opening Lyrics Quiz II – The Quickening

2010-03-14T00:00:32+00:00

Below are the lyric fragments of 16 opening (or closing) themes to “classic” TV shows for you to guess. Feel free to post your answers in the comments, using Google is cheating…

Baby, if you’ve ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I’m living on the air in Cincinnati…
Friendly faces everywhere
Humble folks without temptation.
I won’t go
I won’t sleep
I can’t breathe
Until you’re resting here with me
Yes, no, maybe
I don’t know
Can you repeat the question?
The Earth began to cool,
the autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall – WE BUILT THE PYRAMIDS!
Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.
Love, exciting and new
Come aboard, we’re expecting you.
Love, life’s sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.
Here we come
Walking down the street
We get the funniest looks from
Everyone we meet.
Every stop I make, I make a new friend,
Can’t stay for long, just turn around and I’m gone again
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
In West Philadelphia I was born and raised
On the playground is where I spent most of my days.
Chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin all cool,
And all shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school.
Hey baby, I hear the blues a’calling,
Tossed salad and scrambled eggs
And maybe I seem a bit confused,
Yeah maybe, but I got you pegged!
No matter what the odds are this time,
Nothing’s going to stand in my way.
This flame in my heart and a long lost friend
Gives every dark street a light at the end.
Standing tall on the wings of my dream.
Rise and fall on the wings of my dream.
Hold me in your arms
Don’t let me go
I want to stay forever
Closer each day
If you want to, I’ll change the situation
Right people, right time, just the wrong location
I’ve got a good idea, just you keep me near
I’d be so good for you
Out here in the fields,
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living.
I don’t need to fight
To prove I’m right
I don’t need to be forgiven.

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Giday the UK - Auckland calling - Te Ara and the new black of linked data

2010-03-13T23:46:09+00:00

This post was written as a guest blogger to the UK Museum Group - and a big thanks for the invite - original here. Re-posting it here because I want the Te Ara thoughts to circulate in NZ as well. Curiously, Helen Clark, see post, popped up as Friday's guest lecturer at the LSE in London , here.

Te Ara - The economy and the city
Thursday night the rain drummed its way down Queen Street in Auckland, making a small in-road into the humidity of this last week. But that's Auckland for you - as soon as it has any visitors, especially from Wellington, the rain pours down, the better to confirm their prejudices that it never stops raining here.

The Wellington visitors were a distinguished lot - including Steven Joyce, Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Transport, and Tertiary Education , Louis Holden, the CEO of MCH, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, and, would you credit, Sir Don McKinnon, the former Secretary to the Commonwealth, 2000-2008,

They were here to help celebrate the next theme of Te Ara , The Economy and the City, from the New Zealand Online Encyclopedia.

Actually, I'm cheating on the last one. although he is/was a long term statesman, both nationally and internationally, last night Sir Don was there as whanau/family - being literally big brother to Malcolm McKinnon, historian, and Te Ara editor of the Places theme.

He is also co-editor of this theme - the Econmoy and the City, the 6th main theme to this extraordinary piece of cultural practice. The other published topic themes are :

Māori New Zealanders
New Zealand Peoples – the arrival and settlement of the people.
Earth, Sea and Sky – marine life, people and the sea, natural resources, and shaping forces such as geology and climate.
The Bush – New Zealand’s landforms, fauna and flora.
The Settled Landscape – farming, rural life, and people’s impact on the land..

Still to come are : Social Connections – social groups, families and communities : Nation– systems of government and symbols of national identity. : Daily Life – the customs, leisure activities and beliefs that make New Zealand unique – and lastly, Arts, culture, invention and innovation.

Each issue, and the combined product represents months of work from the writers, illustrators and designers, as well as a mountain of collaboration with NZ and other museums, galleries and heritage library collections.

Issues and objects of conjecture
I've been an admirer of Te Ara since it's inception, as would anyone who is remotely interested in the life and times of this first class online cultural practice.

This doesnt mean I am either an uncritical friend, or unconscious of how the direction it took has influenced where it might end up. And how, it might even be time for some radical changes in direction.

Thus way back when it was first mooted as an idea, it would have been lunacy on a stick for Jock Phillips, its Editor and mid-wife - to say to any politician, far less a Prime Minister of Helen Clark's quality - now head of the UNDP - that if you buy into this idea Minister, you might want to also know we have very little idea of what the online landscape will look like in the next few years, far less the 10 year life of the project, and its entirely probably that we might have to rebuilt the whole thing to keep up with new and emerging online practice.

Are we nearly there yet?
And of course - when we actually get online it will change everything, and there will be little point in asking are we nearly there yet - there is no there - the journey is the destination, and it will be for some time yet.

And even if he had said as much to her, its definitely unlikely he would have foreseen how quickly some passengers have started asking if they can drive the bus, or at least have a go at the map reading.

The critique
So what needs attention? Well for example, in the current site, apart from a good use of RSS feeds, Te Ara has no collaboration tools whatsoever. You can't make a personalisation folder, and by internal policy fiat there are very few hyper-links links to outside sources. Moreover, you will search in vain for a co-lab rights framework like Creative Commons, or any substantive links to the outside world of social networks.

This lack of an external linking policy has come in for debate in the past. However, I predict there will be a fresh airing of this lack in the weeks to come.

I say this because I believe that creative linking, and enhanced metadata behind the scenes, is now a mandatory part of the linked universe of cultural data.

Linked data - the expectation
Moreover, in the forthcoming semantic web, it will be a commonplace to expect that primary and secondary sources cited in objects like Te Ara - and see any page for brilliant unlinked examples of these - to be machine readable to the digitised primary and secondary sources which it cites. And some of these - see for example the graphs on economic activity, will be live.

As to what kinds of sources are on offer right now, have a look at the excellent work being done by the NZ Electronic Text Centre in digitsing NZ primary sources - or the McLean Papers on the NZ National Library of NZ , or indeed over in Australian , see the TROVE gateway to the Australian National Library as an outstanding example of a federated discovery layer, which in turn will take you to digitised copies of the James Cook and Joseph Banks journals, And out in the offing is the prospect of much more to come, including deep linkages to museum collections.

The GLAM thing down under
And just in case you think that the above examples, are a tad library and non museum focussed, its well to remember that down here in the Antipodes there is a much tighter connection between museums, galleries and museums - e.g. TROVE sources from , inter alia, Picture Australia which in turn has a mine of sources from Australian museums.

Similarly museum collection metadata is not only expected, but a common place pillar to the likes of Digital New Zealand, and its older sister Matapihi. Moreover, the likes of The Powerhouse Museum isn't so much leading the way in discovery and presentation, in the likes of its experiments with Open Calais, its way over the horizon out of sight and sound of the rest of us.

All of which brings us back to my central point that Te Ara not only needs to offer more tools and toys for its visitors to play with - simply told - like so many other online cultural entities - it needs to get out more!

Wikipedia
That said, Te Ara does have a bit of relationship with Wikipedia. Not only will you see Te Ara links in there, its fair to say this is one area in which they could and would do a lot more provided the Wikipedia community started to talk out loud as to how they wanted to frame new kinds of relationships. It would also be great if some of the Wikipedia guys relearned that a conversation works best with at least two sides.

MW2010
Like others, I'm aware of progress in that direction - for example, the Wikipedia guys are heading up and over to the MW2010, Museums and the Web 2010 conference for a session on extending the conversation they started in Canberra last year at the GLAM wiki session.

And on that note, I'd also love to commend the British Museum news that in June this year, they are to host Liam Wyatt as their first volunteer Wikipedian in residence. I think this is a great development.
[Update: Liam has a great blog post on this announcement and what he/they are hoping to achieve, here ]

Creative Commons
Talk about Wikipedia, and you start talking IP rights. Back on Te Ara, there is another huge conversation to be had on their current rights framework.

Basically, like a lot of museums, galleries, etc, they dont have one. Sure they might think they do - i.e. a re-written analog policy posted on the web site. But as yet - as do almost all the museum sector worldwide - they have still to work out their relationship with the read write generation.

That the Creative Commons framework is a key tool-set in this new realtionship is I believe, a given. On that note, here in NZ life for the CC community just got a little interesting.

Royal Society NZ
In an unusual move to say the least, Creative Commons International has endorsed the moving of the NZ CC head licence away from the now defunct NZ Humanitites Network into the slightly startled arms of the NZ Royal Society with whom the NZ Humanities Council has now merged.

Local misgivings on the move, mostly from the creative open source community of NZ , have been largely put at rest, not least by the Royal Society's willingness to set up a new external advisory board which they hope will help them work out how to manage this interesting development.

As someone who was involved in setting up the original framework I was a little dubious as to how sensible it was to send something as fragile as the CC into the stern arms of scientific rigour without at least a basket and a note to be gentile with the baby. But it looks like we should be fine.

The Pacific thing - Pasifika!
Finally, as I tap, its Friday night. I'm heading out tomorrow for Pasfika the annual cultural- arts - and community festival for the Pacific community here in Auckland and beyond. You have no idea how blessed I feel by access to the Pacific way. And as for Pasifika, believe me Notting Hill aint got nothing on this.

It runs all weekend. Every island nation has a piece of a local park. Trust me, this is totally the real thing - something that the person who thinks a Samoan tattoo is a good idea will find out tomorrow. And on the kava thing - just how difficult is the concept of a mild narcotic!

Virtual Museum of the Pacific
As for the virtual Pacific - there is a lot more to tell - and maybe next time - if I'm asked back. For the moment - have a look at this You Tube video frrom The Virtual Museum of the Pacific, here. The site itself is here.

It is one of the most interesting things to cross my desk in a 12 month. Linked data - the new black!

NZ Herald Landlords taking money we need

2010-03-13T21:28:12+00:00

It’s soapbox time folks. Over the last week, there have been several stories in the NZ media about businesses complaining that people are investing in rental properties instead of buying shares and options in companies on the share market. The latest was in yesterday’s NZ Herald. I take exception to their bleating and here’s why. Many [...]

Blacklist this ‘marketing specialist’

2010-03-13T19:27:08+00:00

It looks almost like a real comment, doesn’t it? Especially since it was on a Post about my dead Time Capsule:

Less obvious spam.

The back up feature saves costs for having to buy a back up system hardware but two years is not long enough…hardware should at least last for 5 years…

It doesn’t really contribute anything to the Post it’s attached to though, and it just doesn’t feel quite right. I unapproved it, but didn’t mark it as Spam.

Until the next day when a suspiciously similar comment appeared. The comment text was different, but the email address and URL were modelled on the same pattern. I unapproved that one too, then noticed that both comments came from the same IP address.

WordPress Comment Blacklist.

I popped on over to the WordPress Discussion Settings and added the IP address to the banned list.

Now, 10 days later, there’s another similarly patterned comment from a different IP address. Spammers!

This time I finally visited the linked sites. I found all of them use dummy WordPress blogs with the Thesis theme and affiliate links to Thesis, and also to an ‘internet marketing specialist’ called GetSalesLeads.

These people appear to be the spammers.

All 3 domain names they used in the comment spam on my blog were owned by folks called AdCard — who also appear to be the ones behind the Sales Leads crowd.

I’ve now added christchurch.co.nz to my Comment Blacklist settings. I suggest you do the same. These guys just make me sick.

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European Parliament throws spanner in secret ACTA works

2010-03-13T09:07:00+00:00

This will make the Wellington ACTA negotiations more exciting - the European Parliament has asked to have full access to ACTA documents, and wants this to be granted to the public too.

Furthermore, the ACTA talks should be limited to counterfeiting, include developing and emerging countries (and not just the rich ones), plus, and this is important, they must not be used to limit access to cheap and safe medicines. That last part is often forgotten in the furore around ACTA, and it's hugely important for people everywhere, including New Zealand.

On the Internet side of things, no "three-strikes" rules to be imposed; only the courts can order that people's Internet access is cut off, as anything else would violate their fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and privacy.

No border searches and confiscations without warrants of laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players by customs to be introduced either.

Interestingly enough, the whole ACTA circus seems to be conducted without any mandate from the European Parliament, which threatens to go to the Court of Justice unless its demands are met before the meeting in Wellington.

We'll see if the different countries involved in the ACTA talks, including New Zealand, can ignore the European Parliament, but its resolution is the strongest message so far to them that they must engage with the public and not ride rough-shod over their rights.

Link to the full text of the European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2010 on the transparency and state of play of the ACTA negotiations.

Here are the main points of the resolution, minus the preamble and background to the current text:

1. Points out that since 1 December 2009 the Commission has had a legal obligation to inform Parliament immediately and fully at all stages of international negotiations;

2. Expresses its concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations, a state of affairs at odds with the letter and spirit of the TFEU; is deeply concerned that no legal base was established before the start of the ACTA negotiations and that parliamentary approval for the negotiating mandate was not sought;

3. Calls on the Commission and the Council to grant public and parliamentary access to ACTA negotiation texts and summaries, in accordance with the Treaty and with Regulation 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents;

4. Calls on the Commission and the Council to engage proactively with ACTA negotiation partners to rule out any further negotiations which are confidential as a matter of course and to inform Parliament fully and in a timely manner about its initiatives in this regard; expects the Commission to make proposals prior to the next negotiation round in New Zealand in April 2010, to demand that the issue of transparency is put on the agenda of that meeting and to refer the outcome of the negotiation round to Parliament immediately following its conclusion;

5. Stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives;

6. Deplores the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks for public information and consultation;

7. Calls on the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of the implementation of ACTA with regard to fundamental rights and data protection, ongoing EU efforts to harmonise IPR enforcement measures, and e-commerce, prior to any EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA treaty text, and to consult with Parliament in a timely manner about the results of the assessment;

8. Welcomes affirmations by the Commission that any ACTA agreement will be limited to the enforcement of existing IPRs, with no prejudice for the development of substantive IP law in the European Union;

9. Calls on the Commission to continue the negotiations on ACTA and limit them to the existing European IPR enforcement system against counterfeiting; considers that further ACTA negotiations should include a larger number of developing and emerging countries, with a view to reaching a possible multilateral level of negotiation;

10. Urges the Commission to ensure that the enforcement of ACTA provisions - especially those on copyright enforcement procedures in the digital environment - are fully in line with the acquis communautaire ; demands that no personal searches will be conducted at EU borders and requests full clarification of any clauses that would allow for warrantless searches and confiscation of information storage devices such as laptops, cell phones and MP3 players by border and customs authorities;

11. Considers that in order to respect fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, while fully observing the principle of subsidiarity, the proposed agreement should not make it possible for any so-called "three-strikes" procedures to be imposed, in full accordance with Parliament's decision on Article 1.1b in the (amending) Directive 2009/140/EC calling for the insertion of a new paragraph 3(a) in Article 1 of Directive 2002/21/EC on the matter of the "three strikes" policy; considers that any agreement must include the stipulation that the closing-off of an individual's Internet access shall be subject to prior examination by a court;

12. Emphasises that privacy and data protection are core values of the European Union, recognised in Article 8 ECHR and Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which must be respected in all the policies and rules adopted by the EU pursuant to Article 16 of the TFEU;

13. Points out that ACTA provisions, notably measures aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizure of goods, should not affect global access to legitimate, affordable and safe medicinal products - including innovative and generic products - on the pretext of combating counterfeiting;

14. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the states party to the ACTA negotiations.

Technorati Tags: ACTA,European Parliament,New Zealand,copyright

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Brand Awareness

Pedestrian survival techniques

EU tells USA where to stick their secret treaty.

TextExpander 3 saves even more time

Schlangengerangel für Kinder

Wikipedia study on First Monday - inclusionists versus deletionists - Vasilis Kostakis.

Contents

Tea Revives You

MIX10 Keynote – Windows Phone 7 Series Development

Tim Bray Takes Job in Google’s “No Evil Zone”

Why Google Apps Marketplace Could Become A True and Vibrant Marketplace?

Appistry Introduces CloudIQ Storage for Data-Centric Applications

Great Quote&hellip;

The Fate Of Small Web Hosts

Tablecloth trick

Four short links: 15 March 2010

Spammed - bacula-dir.conf

Up and Down a Mountain

How Much damage Can One Lobby Group Do?

Gala!

Notice of Revit User Group Auckland March Meeting

Homeopathy fans to testify.

On Elephants

Welly Walks for iPhone guides you round Wellington

links and spams

The increasingly lost art of long-form writing?

Giant box of olpcs arrived

Blogging pause…

Some things just take time

Things i have learned about baby clothes

Why, why, why? WCAG 2.0 for content writers

Seriously cute hat Jan made.

Walking directions

Java desktop links of the week, March 15

Swing

JavaFX

Printing body parts

Can&rsquo;t maximise AutoCAD in Windows 7 (or Vista) 64?

Task Manager: The only way to get back

AutoCAD, Windows or something beginning with VBA?

I do like to Craft beside the TV

More travel plans

CUBA Festival

Why You Should Back Your Own Analysis - The Private Equity Example

Tiny ball-chain gears

Opening Lyrics Quiz II – The Quickening

Giday the UK - Auckland calling - Te Ara and the new black of linked data

NZ Herald Landlords taking money we need

Blacklist this ‘marketing specialist’

European Parliament throws spanner in secret ACTA works

Great Quote…

Can’t maximise AutoCAD in Windows 7 (or Vista) 64?