Happy ensconsed at Fisherman Wharf tavern. FIRST beer going nicely.

(From my mobile phone)

As a boatload of people arrive to witness the event!

Google holds back on hiring the best talent - Techworld.com

Google holds back on hiring the best talent - Techworld.com

"It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google"

A great example of why Google will succeed in the long term where Microsoft is a failure.

Google, Oracle and many other companies have always looked at their position as being co-operative where possible, whereas Gates and his bastard son Ballmer never understood that. They wanted to crush everything around them, seeing them as competition to be eliminated. Like only children, they never learnt to play with others unless it meant they could incorporate a Machievellian scheme in the plot somewhere to wipe out the others one by one. They never wanted to play the game, but to own and control it, and be the star and only player on the field. To their credit Google and Oracle have always had a more civilised view of the world around them, and their more respectful place within it.

GCLUG meeting topics

Add your topic to present at a Gold Coast Linux Users Group meeting.

Business phones, personal tools, employee choice and empowerment.

To me, this article "Is the Apple iPhone a business phone? - Mobile OS - ComputerworldUK" raises a more interesting issue. It implies that many corporates never did understand and take on the cornerstone concept of "Universal Responsibility" within the world of Quality. They still try to dictate and control their employees, instead of guide and learn from the smarter and more progressive of them. They try to dictate which mobile device is "approved". The same "Network Nazis" block access to many internet sites and facilities on the basis that any visit to them could not be for any corporate benefit. This is an arrogant and/or outdated military attitude that assumes that quality and excellence flows from the top of organisations to the serfs at the bottom. In many institutions this is a great indicator of the abundance of mediocrity that is deeply embedded into the institution, and a good sign to not have anything to do with them, beyond perhaps a quick "hit and run" sale.

Sending blog posts with photos from the mobile phone

This photo was sent from my mobile phone directly to this blog. It is promising technology, but something (perhaps either my LG phone, or the Virgin email setup, or both) is still a bit buggy. I have so far had success sending:

1. simple text emails;
2. this photo with a text signature (sent via
   • selecting a photo, then selecting to send it, rather than
   • select to compose an email, then attach the photo file).

The objective is to take a photo when out and about, and add a minimal amount of text at that time, since I find it too inefficient to do this via phone keypads, then send it as a blog post. More text can be added later, as I have done here.

15 Rules for Business Bloggers | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing

The article "15 Rules for Business Bloggers | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing", which I found at The WebMarketCentral Blog, has some good ideas about blogging: why one might do it and how to be effective. It skirts the issue of ROI, an issue I find most interesting.

I think that many people simply blog because they feel the need to do so, with little regard for any reader. Is this the tormented artist in many of us, struggling to express themselves? How many artists, say they produce their art for themselves, and as a therapy with little regard for any consumer. ROI is therefore not expressed as a $sales return / hour expended, yet in the long-term there is either a perceived sense of satisfaction, or a real $'s return somewhere. Anyway, I do not intend to start blogging about blogging. It a tool to use presumably for a greater end than itself.

The future of collaboration - here now.

Two great reasons to clear your desktop and move to a world of better communication and integration with your associates, customers and audience.

Google Docs in Plain English: collaborative creation of content, made easy.

Add in Google Wave for a full and rich collaborative environment.

Flogging Molly - The Worst Day Since Yesterday

Larf til ya cry, cry til ya larf!

Meetups: where cyberspace REALLY supports the real world

Now here is a shining example of a really useful Web2 facility: The Meetup website. I am using it quite a lot lately, to get about and interact with like-minded people here on the Gold Coast. Meetups is an especially useful facility, as the Gold Coast is a place where many newcomers are always arriving and many are 'net savvy and therefore look to this sort of facility to find their way around.

'Green Drinks Gold Coast' is the first Meetup group that I am involved in.

I have just found how to get Meetup notifications via an RSS feed, ie into my Google Reader account, which is where I get all my news etc. This results in all the local meetings that might be of interest to me being aggregated into my favourite feed reader (Google Reader), where I can keep track of them... Nice.

Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child

Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child: March 30, 2009: Worldfocus.org has produced a good video report that describes OLPC Rwanda’s plans to provide computer access to the country’s 2.3 million schoolchildren. Note the discipline and pleasant respect shown by the children. How does this compare to those in the Australian educational system? Which group even speaks English better, and is better spoken? Which group shows more courtesy, respect and self discipline?

Linking to an OLPC XO via vnc

This screenshot is taken from my desktop, running the Vinagre vnc client on Ubuntu Intrepid. I can move the XO's mouse cursor from the desktop PC, and hovering over menu items pops the menus open. However that is as much control as I can currently achieve. I cannot send keystrokes nor mouseclicks from the desktop PC to the XO, so I cannot control the XO from the desktop PC. It wold have been especially nice to be able to use teh desktop PCs keyboard. Perhaps I should forget the vnc approach, and just plug a USB keyboard directly into the XO.

OLPC XO testdrive

This post is created on an OLPC XO. The keyboard is far too small for an adult touch typist though, so the rest of this post will be done from a standard PC.

Now editing from the 'safety' of my normal PC.
I have borrowed this XO from the OLPC Club Gold Coast to check it out, and see what if anything I might do with them, especialy to support development of software for them, or support their adoption in general. Findings so far ...

0. The XO found our local wifi router, and accepted the WPA passphrase. On reboot it's automatically reconnecting - nice.
1. My PC here has a normal keyboard, so I can touch-type. One downside of the XO is that it might give rise to a generation of kids that type via "hunt 'n peck".
2. The XO has just been tested in sunlight, where ...
2.1 ... I downloaded the vnc server "Activity" (ie software package) from the OLPC support wiki. This should allow me to control the XO from a vnc client on my desktop PC.
3. It's not fast, and its not hard to have it appear to freeze while its beavering away in the background trying to play catchup. This must be a plan by the OLPC folk to teach kids patience.
4. There is no point 4, mate. :-)
5. The camera tool (Activity) is nice. I took the pic shown onscreen, and shared it. I guess the other 3 or 4 nodes that I see in the 'mesh' view might be able to see it.

Gary Hamel on Managing Generation Y - the Facebook Generation - Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ

Gary Hamel on The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500: an interesting article on where progressive ideals embodied in the Web 2 world contrast with traditional concepts embodied in the traditional commercial world. The big unknown of the current age is what does one do that could be called 'productive' or 'valued' work, and if value is not recognised, why would you get paid anything? So then what do all the people do who are not needed in the workforce - ie there is no work of value for them to do. Is the next age to be one of a new type of communism: from a select few rather than from each according to their ability, yet still to each according to their need?

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog seems to be a nicely written piece on why many people could find Linux better than Windows on their PC. What i like especially is the sentiment "joining the 'wah, Linux isn't 100% ready for me yet, and dangit someone needs to do something about it' chorus isn't the best way to get there". In this day and age too many people are mindless passive consumers. Consumerism is at the root of today's economic mess, and needs to be countered. People need to educate themselves to not be mindless consumers. The Open Source approach implies an anti-consumer approach which is not implied in commercial systems. The Open Source and anti-consumer approach is what we need in order to slow the cycle of mining, manufacture, consume, destroy that is now failing badly on this planet from both a commercial and an environmental perspective.

Exetel ADSL - Whats the best way to get naked

We are now running naked ADSL here :-), and I have also helped a friend via the Exetel User Help Forum - Whats the best way to get Naked ADSL from nothing.

So phone calls here are all working nicely via VOIP. The VOIP service providers I am using are Exetel, & Gizmos5, and the for client VOIP apps I use Ekiga, and Gizmo5.

Inside A Google Data Center

Your data and much of your software need not reside on any specific PC anymore. Just leave as much as you can up in "the cloud", eg up here somewhere, where its free, secure, and accessible from wherever you might be.

Twouble with Twitters

Just what I have been since about 10 days after I started using it. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w)

Wheels in danger of falling off the hub!

(As 'borrowed' :-) from the article with a very similar name at a soon to be shelved website. (Cut 'n paste is your friend :-) ))

In a shock announcement that reverberated around the planet today, David Tangye, CEO of the imminently defunct Systemeta Pty Ltd, parent company of the Systemeta Business Hub, announced; "Bloody hell, business is slow today. We might as well shut up shop and head off down to the beach ... again." Which was an odd thing to suggest, because he then wandered off over to the nearby Gold Coast showgrounds racetrack to join the 2009 Interdominion Carnival 'Breakfast with the Stars' and get into a few photo-opportunities with Auckland Reactor.

Industry pundits are kept guessing, but it appears that the Systemeta Business Hub is headed very quickly down a track that leads to an enormous brick wall. "The fallout for this could be catastrophic. It could get very ugly indeed." one expert analyst was reported as suggesting. It is thought that the subscription for the Hub's domain name is due in early April, and for the hosting service in early May, and some analysts doubt that Tangye will be interested in pursuing this business direction at this time. Tangye was quoted as declaring "I am not really interested in pursuing this business direction at this time. Since the main sponsors have taken it upon themselves to up-sticks and swan off to Europe, its a question of needing to secure a replacement smartly or call it a day for now at least as far as the Hub is concerned." It is unsure whether this is a tactical marketing move to foil competition, or a genuine change in strategic direction. Opinion seems mixed. Certainly the entire environment is thought to be captured offsite, and is likely to be recoverable in a similar guise with minimal effort in the future, should it be worthwhile to do so when global market conditions change.

Whatever the outcome, most agree that anything could happen where Tangye gets involved. At the time of compiling this report he was unavailable for further comment. "I am not available for further comment." he reportedly said. He then commented that the Hub had served a useful purpose for the past 12 months, and when he found out what it was, he would make the information available to the public for a seven digit fee.

Update: 9/4/9. As forshadowed above, an order to "nuke the hub" was released recently. Japan insisted that strategic warfare planning was involved, but the statements deny this and apparently insist that this was part of a program to refine and improve communications although paradoxically no clear and unambiguous statement was actually released.

Now podcasting: Audio blogging

For the record, I am now set up to broadcast in any of three formats:

1. Text and pictures: right here. Some of these are also indexed on my base website.
2. Moving pictures: eg captured via webcam, or computer desktop capture: posted to Youtube and indexed on my base website.
3. Audio only: posted and indexed on another page of my base website.

Police Look To Hack Citizens Home PC's

This probably affects only PCs running Microsoft Windows. This is yet another good reason to run Linux (or Mac?), so YOU are master of your PC, rather than Microsoft, virus writers or the police.

Christmas New Year stuff #2

More stuff that has kept me busy over Christmas. In this case a client site that I had performed some consulting at and continue to support systems for had trouble with a new hotspot. In summary, I arranged to take over provision of this facility. The new hotspot was installed after three or four days investigation of the technology, assembly of hardware, software and support services, and configuration of the hotspot for this location.
This service is now added as an offering under the umbrella of the Systemeta Business Hub, and will be especially targetted at the tourism industry in Queensland.

Christmas New Year stuff #1

I try to make Christmas a fairly interesting time for me. I remember feasting and saying hullo to plonk back in Christmas 1970-something, then spending the night returning it to the environment. Since then, I have usually eaten little heavy and drunk nothing, especially during the heat of December, and felt a LOT better for it. Besides, for several years, there was an offshore race to prepare for on Boxing Day, or relocation and travel some years. Some years I have been alone, though lately this involved being very much in touch with people via the internet. Many years I had some sort of project on the go. This year I have two. Here is the start of one: repainting the first of three cars that are on my todo list. This pic was taken on the second day of work. Today, after a couple more days of filling sanding and spraying, she is ready for the final coat. Tomorrow I hope to receive a filter (Ebay: $26) to add to my compressor (Ebay $25), so I can apply a good final coat on Tuesday.