Monthly Archives: December 2011

Facebook Ads: Does Anyone Check Them?

Like most people, I’ve always felt that many of the adverts alongside profiles in Facebook are undoubtedly dodgy. Take these couple of “iPhone” ads I’ve noticed this week: The first one boldly proclaims an “iPhone 4S” for only $8.45? Even if the price was correct – (lets be honest, it sounds like crap to me) […]

Browser Update 2011

With just a few days left in 2011, I’ve taken a moment to have a look at the web statistics for this site, with a view to having a look at how the ongoing browser wars are travelling. In March, I had a look at how things had been over the previous six months, and […]

Experimental Aircraft at Tullamarine?

Either Malaysia Airlines have introduced a new experimental wingless passenger aircraft, or Nearmap have one of those really humourous photo stitching hiccups going on at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport. Torpedo Airlines anyone?

Why Legislated Internet Filtering is Utterly Pointless

The powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, believe that the way to stop people from viewing and distributing the so-called “worst of the worst” or copyright protected material online is to legislate various forms of filtering mechanisms. In Australia, we have Stephen Conroy’s mandatory internet filtering scheme. In the US, there is the proposed […]

Screw You, Greedy Music Industry

We’ve heard a lot lately about how piracy and music downloads are supposedly killing the music industry. How all those nasty people downloading music for free are “taking the caviar off the 50-foot marble dining tables” of the recording artists, and leaving them to cope with “only 17 bathrooms in their palatial mansions”. Poor snookums. […]

Jason Richards: Always A Winner

The passing of Jason Richards on Thursday evening leaves a huge hole in the hearts of Australian racing fans. Everybody loved Jason. Always happy, always smiling. He might only have won a single race in his V8 Supercar career – (at Winton in 2006) – but we loved him because he was always having a […]

F-Bombgate: Media Cares, Most People Do Not

The media circus arising from the Stephen Conroy F-Bomb continues today. The media seem to care a hell of a lot about it. Problem is, according to a Fairfax online poll, it seems most people do not. Next Meerkat Manor, But first Communications Minister Drops F-bomb As of 2pm AEDST, December 14, 2011 – the […]

That Political F-Bomb

Stephen Conroy dropped the “f-bomb” at the National Press Club (NPC) today. So what? As much as I detest some of the policies Conroy holds dear to his heart – most notably his mandatory internet filtering plan – it is actually interesting that much of the media has gone on the attack because he showed […]

It’s Not It’s!

Another one from my recent work at a major Melbourne hospital network – it’s the engineering department badge I had to wear every day – (with the hospital name removed to protect the guilty): It’s funny how people just don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its”. You might need to click on the photo […]

Should File Sharing Be Legalised?

The ongoing battle between AFACT and the Australian ISP iiNet through the so-called iiTrial has become a very public face of the file-sharing debate, particularly in Australia. Is file-sharing “good”, or is it “bad”? A very black and white question the answer to which, is generally quite grey. I read with interest an article brought […]