Bleeding Edge: September 2005 Archives

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September 30, 2005

Bit Torrent to go commercial?

This is great news for time-shifters (and others). Bram Cohen, author of the much-loved Bit Torrent maxi-file sharer, has received $8.75 million in venture capital funding to build the program into a commercial distribution tool for media companies. Umm. Assuming, of course, that in commercial negotiations, he doesn't cave in to what will undoubtedly be huge pressure to apply digital rights management to the existing version.

Posted by cw at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

Homeland (wireless) defence

It took only a couple of hours in the company of Neal Wise to cause considerable alarm here in the Bleeding Edge Homeland Defence Department. We have tightened up the strap on our tin helmet, and are preparing to launch a barrage balloon.

We first met Neal, of assurance.com.au, when he delivered an address to the Face the IT Media conference in the Hunter Valley on computer security. His thesis is that the increasing availability of Wi-Fi networking and VoIP (internet-based telephony) represents a growing threat beyond the competence of the “Mum and Dad” user to handle.

Then we sat next to him in the Newcastle airport departure lounge, while he scanned for Bluetooth phones and PDAs. There were half a dozen of them within range, all still in “discoverable” mode, which makes them visible to other devices.

The most basic Bluetooth security mechanism is the user's ability to choose if a device is in discoverable or non-discoverable mode, but unfortunately, your phone or other Bluetooth is probably discoverable, because that's the default, and you didn’t know that you should change it.
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Once you’ve paired it with another device – and Neal’s advice is to make sure you do that at home, or in some other isolated situation – you should go into the Bluetooth settings and turn off the discoverable mode.

If not, it’s possible that someone could scan for it using a PC, and retrieve your address book and notes, etc, which could include some sensitive information.

Then there’s your Wi-Fi network. Neal has been “war driving” in Melbourne with a laptop, wireless antenna and scanning software since mid-2001. Some war drivers search for W-Fi access points because they have mischief on their mind. Neal was doing it to evaluate corporate security risks.

In four years, he’s found the number of Wi-Fi connections along St Kilda Road from Southbank to St Kilda Junction has jumped from about 70 to about 1400. In fact the number is probably much greater than that, because the device only picks up networks on the first couple of floors. The alarming thing, however, is that most of them aren’t secure.

We’ve written recently about measures you might take to improve that. He believes that one of the reasons people don’t take adequate precautions is that they believe things like encryption aren’t particularly effective. The fact is, although the earlier form of encryption, WEP, can be quickly broken by someone who knows what he’s doing, it’s better than nothing, particularly if you live in an apartment building.

But if your device supports the newer WPA encryption, you’ll find it’s much more robust, and you should use it. Many earlier wireless routers and access points can be upgraded to support WPA with new firmware. It’s a good idea to check out the manufacturer’s Website, and if possible, install the update.

Bleeding Edge received several reminders of the practical barriers to improved computer security at the conference. A spokesman for Clearswift, a UK-based company which provides email and Web filtering, had some statistics which were particularly depressing.

Despite all the stories about the dangers of spam, and universal distaste for the stuff, in 2004 US consumers alone spent $US11.7 billion on products marketed via spam. They almost certainly got more than they paid for, in the form of malware.

But there are other highly visible reminders. It’s always instructive to have a look at the top right corner of the screen of someone using the Firefox browser. If there’s a small red, upward-pointing arrow, it means that the user hasn’t updated the latest bug-fix and security updates.

Ironically, in addition to having the best user interface and performance of any browser – with the possible exception of Opera – Firefox is probably the most security conscious. It releases patches for any vulnerability much faster than Microsoft, for instance, and it’s set to look for updates automatically.

Unfortunately, its visible reminders are possibly too discreet for many users.

Once you click on that reed arrow – or a second reminder at the bottom of the screen – it downloads the new version. Unfortunately, at the moment, it downloads the entire program, which can be annoying on a slow connection.

If you’re an Opera user, you might think about checking for an update. There’s a flaw in versions of 8.02 and earlier which affects the e-mail client, causing attachments to be opened without any interaction by the user, which could have nasty results if the attachment includes malware.

The other interesting news from Opera is that they’ve abandoned their advertising-supported version, so that you can download and use it free of charge. That’s probably been forced on the company by the popularity of Firefox, but it’s a good move, and the browser is worth trying out.

Posted by cw at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2005

Consumers have a win with the iPod nano

Apple got a great deal from Samsung for the flash memory in its new iPod nanos, and they're not the only ones who got lucky. The fact that people can use nanos to store data - as well as play music - means the price of USB keys is likely to tumble.

Posted by cw at 09:05 PM | Comments (1)

On Getting Things Done

He's launched an efficiency drive on the Internet that's possibly created more obsessive individuals than Steven Covey, and a fleet of supporting sites and tools. Now David Allen, the world's foremost authority on Getting Things Done, talks to The Guardian about "mind sweeping" and other techniques.

Oh, and over on Razor, we've linked to the latest contender for the title of the ultimate notebook. Because, you know, if you're going to Get Things Done, you'll be making LOTS of lists!

Posted by cw at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2005

Office 2003 junks phishers

Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for Office 2003.

Among other things, it includes a phishing filter for Outlook. If you've installed the latest junk e-mail filter, this is what you'll find.

Posted by cw at 05:56 PM | Comments (1)

Sorry. Gotta go!

Just got off the phone with one of those telemarketers who wanted to sell us [can you believe this?] ... compost!

We've just bookmarked sorrygottago.com, which allows you to download some mini soundtracks - ringing phones, street noise, kids playing, a helicopter etc - and play them back when someone is determined to sell you [dammit!] compost, or something else, or just will not take a hint. It's a vital form of self-defence for the connected world.

[Link from Lifehacker.]

Posted by cw at 04:27 PM | Comments (3)

September 27, 2005

Some strategic thoughts for Sol Trujillo

While Sol Trujillo is working on that strategic review for Telstra, he might like to have a look at British Telecom's latest nightmare: a competitor that is providing broadband connections that ~~are~~ are up to 24 times faster than other providers, at less than double the price.

At 24Mbps, subscribers will be able to stream two high definition TV channels through their computers simultaneously, while they browse the Web or make voice calls. Upload speeds will be up to 1.3Mbps - five times quicker than any other service on the market.

While it seems giddying, compared to the truly pathetic speeds that Big Pond has decided are all we're going to get, it's only a fraction of what's available in places like Korea and Japan.

So keep this in mind, Sol: If you're going to upgrade the network - and you're going to have to do it whether the Howard Government nitwits support you or not - you might as well aim high. Because if you don't, sooner or later, somebody else will eat your lunch.

Posted by cw at 11:15 AM | Comments (5)

September 26, 2005

You can bet on Google

What odds that Google becomes an online betting agency?

Google has created a predictive market system, basically a way for its employees to bet on the likelihood of possible events, but according to Hal R. Varian, an economics professor who helped with its development: "Now one of the things we're thinking about is what to do with it."

Posted by cw at 06:36 PM | Comments (0)

Bradman's secrets: hit the bloody ball

Our Don Bradman: defective eyesight, slow reflexes, but arguably the most devastating batsman in history, because of a "disequilibrating perturbation". Lacking the benefits of coaching and video replays and biomechanical analysis - he developed the perfect technique, according to Sports Medicine Australia's Sport Health magazine, picked up by The Age, but explained in greater depth in an earlier article by the authors here. His grip and his stance - bat between his feet, face closed - and using his top hand as a lever for his backswing, seem to be a major key.

"Compact and balanced, [he] moved his bat back and forth through continuous arcs, minimising lags in the way that his perceptual-motor system dealt with rapid environmental changes, and ensuring that the ball could be played as late as possible". That would help a good deal if one were trying to counter reverse swing, wouldn't it? Could we recommend the helpful diagrams to Messrs Hayden, Ponting, Gilchrist, Martyn, Clarke and Katich?

Posted by cw at 03:35 PM | Comments (2)

Raving about Workrave

Many thanks to Peter Neish, who pointed me to a wonderful piece of software called Workrave, in commenting on an earlier post.

Workrave is a free piece of software that nags at regular intervals to stop playing with your computer and have a rest. It manages to do its nagging in a very low-key, unobtrusive fashion - but like all the best naggers eventually it makes you feel guilty enough that you actually start to listen. It also suggests appropriate stretching exercises during your break.

According to MIT, failing to take breaks, and not stretching, are two of the five ways to avoid RSI. I've found that using Workrave has helped me be more disciplined about this.

Posted by at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

The Apple Product Cycle

With iPod Nano owners reportedly traumatised by scratches on their screens, by my reckoning that puts us at about 80% of the way through The Apple Product Cycle.

Posted by at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2005

Palm to ally with Microsoft?

The New York Times' John Markoff reports that Palm is about to announce a new version of its popular Treo smartphone that will use Microsoft's operating system, turning the company into a Microsoft OEM, according to The Register.

In a move that will make Palm users - and the extensive Palm development community - extremely nervous about the future of PDA civilisation as they know it, Markoff reports that Palm's chief executive, Ed Colligan, "apparently decided that it was more expedient to join Microsoft than fight on as an alternative".

Despite palming off its operating system then licensing it back, and despite various shortcomings, the company was very much identified with it, and most users liked its low overheads and huge range of applications. But Silicon Valley software developers told the New York Times Palm may move its programming environment to the new Windows Mobile operating system.

Posted by cw at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

Making room at the inn

What with living the digital lifestyle that Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs have been so keen for us to adopt, we at Bleeding Edge are constantly on the lookout for appropriate receptacles in which to store the podcasts and pictures, MP3 files and video files that accumulate on our PCs and Macs.

We are speaking here of the external hard drive. We've been collecting the things for several years now, but what with encountering a growing number of No Vacancy signs at the local data hotels, we have been keen to review Seagate's 400GB Pushbutton Backup external one-touch drive.

We like Seagate hard drives, largely because while they may not be the fastest around, they tend to be quiet and reliable, and we were curious to see how they would perform in these one-touch environments - pioneered by Maxtor - that allow fast back-up of hard drives.

We decided that at about $600, it wasn't hard to resist. For one thing, we didn't like the plastic box - 180 mm deep by 64 mm wide by 178 mm high. We couldn't work out how to open it without breaking it, and while it certainly helped with air flow and heat dissipation, and allows you to stack drives securely, one day we will want to get at the contents.

The other disappointment was that although it comes with both FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connections - and two attractive blue LEDs at the front - we ran into problems when switching between FireWire and USB 2.0. We couldn't move from one to the other without having to power down the drive.

Seagate uses BounceBack Express software, which works on both Windows and Macs. It detects the presence of the external drive, and while the default is to make a complete, uncompressed copy, you can change this to copy specific folders and you can even schedule the task. The initial back-up has to be done manually, but after that you can simply push the button to back-up only altered files. If you want additional features, such as quick restore, you'll have to upgrade to BounceBack Pro ($US59, $A76)
Although we had heard that the USB 2.0 performance of the drive was poor, we weren't particularly troubled by the test results. We were more concerned about the price.

For as little as $70 you can buy an aluminium FireWire 400/USB 2.0 enclosure that looks better and performs just as well. For an extra $5, you can get a one-touch back-up button.

We priced a 400GB Seagate IDE drive with the same specifications as the packaged system at $358. That is a significant saving, although some people might find it daunting to assemble an external drive. In the past we've had some problems ourselves, but we tracked down a couple of New Motion Odyssey enclosures that cost a little more than some units but offer outstanding performance and are easy to assemble. The only tool we needed was a knife to open the sealed anti-static bag.

The drive is kept in place by two plastic strips. To open it, you slide the strips back. Inside the enclosure there are mounts for the drive to sit on. When the enclosure is reassembled the drive sits firmly in place without any screws. All you have to do is connect two cables. The power cable can only go in one way and if you connect the data cable wrongly, the case won't close. (In any case, the red wire on the data cable should be closest to the power plug.)

Apart from the simple, screwless installation, these enclosures have some other notable features, including an impressive LCD display at the front and built-in power supply. The display tells you the model of the drive in the enclosure and the interface that it's connected to. When data is being transferred, it tells you the transfer speed, which is oddly fascinating.

There are several models. The basic USB 2.0/FireWire unit costs about $130. A USB 2.0/FireWire 800 model is about $217. The FireWire 800 unit blows the Seagate away when it comes to transfer speeds. We found the Seagate Pushbutton unit was slightly faster than the New Motion USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 interfaces, but at just $515, the New Motion combination is a much better - and much better-looking - solution, in our opinion.

Bleeding Edge, however, couldn't resist the FireWire 800 model. We're sure Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would approve.

Posted by cw at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2005

Stop rogue anti-spyware

There are some useful anti-spyware products out there, but there's also a lot of junk, and one or two that are actually spyware. You've got to be careful. Here's a useful site that alerts users to software that isn't what it pretends to be.

"Rogue/Suspect" means that these products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection.
Some of the products listed on this page simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection or may be prone to ridiculous false positives. Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics to scare up sales from gullible, confused users. A very few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves.

Posted by cw at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

Margo Kingston and fair dinkum journalism

Having packed up Web Diary and taken it elsewhere, Margo Kingston has been writing about the history of her blog, and "the future of fair dinkum journalism".

Posted by cw at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)

Q&A for fun and profit

We wonder if you know how lucky you are to be able to register on our Forum and then ask questions for free? It seems that getting answers online is becoming a lucrative activity.

Of course, you could become a Patron.

Posted by cw at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

The hazards of blogging

Over at Razor, we posted a link to a handy guide to blog commentary. In places like Singapore and Malaysia, where blogging can be a distinct hazard, it pays to be even more circumspect with comments.

Now Reporters Without Borders has released a handbook that might help keep those who want to have a voice online out of jail.

Posted by cw at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2005

Off the rails?

Is fare evasion the new blood sport?

Posted by cw at 07:18 PM | Comments (2)

Steve Jobs' master plan

The Guardian interviews Steve Jobs on the secrets of Apple's success, and the reinvention of the company as a "lifestyle brand".

There's a very strong DNA within Apple, and that's about taking state-of-the-art technology and making it easy for people. Jobs's targets are busy, modern consumers; "people who don't want to read manuals, people who live very busy lives".

It's an interesting read, but we do have one quibble: Any journalist who declares that "remaining friendly in the eyes of consumers is at the heart of Apple's motivations" really hasn't a clue about Apple.

Posted by cw at 07:04 PM | Comments (5)

Easier URL copying with Firefox

We've just done it again - copied an URL and a piece of explanatory text to an email message to Apal. We do it all the time, and you probably do the same thing.

There's an easier way of doing this, with a Firefox extension called Copy URL+.

The Copy URL+ extension enables you to copy to the clipboard the current document's address along with additional information such as the document's title, the current selection or both. You might find this behavior useful when you want to send (IM, email) an interesting link to a friend and out of laziness convenience you don't want to copy the link and an explanation of what the link is in a single step. The explanation can be as short as the document's title or it can be a descriptive text from the document.

Posted by cw at 06:48 PM | Comments (1)

A cautionary tale

Bleeding Edge can tell you, indeed over the years we've told you many times, that it's generally not a good idea to buy and install new software.

If you were thinking of installing BitDefender Internet Security, which promises to provide home and small office users with firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-phishing and parental control, you might be interested in the e-mail we've just received from a reader:

We recently purchased two licences for the newly released BitDefender 9 Internet Security product.

We have discovered faults in the product which I will outline below.

Prior to purchase, we researched the internet on reviews of antivirus / spam / spyware (etc) software. The product that in aggregate rankings came out best was BitDefender. The Publisher, Softwin SRL is based in Romania with branches in US, UK and Europe. (According to their documentation the company was founded in/around 1990 and now has around 500 employees).

BitDefender 9 IS is a brand new release, and we were probably one of the first people in the world to acquire it, which we did on/about 14 September.

Our system:

Pentium 4/512 MB RAM/80 GB hard Disk/Lite-On CD-RW drive.

We reformatted the hard disk NTFS and loaded a new version of Windows XP SP-2.

We then loaded BitDefender 9 Internet Security. No other software loaded.

Prior to loading Bit Defender, the system worked perfectly. After we loaded Bit Defender:

a) The CD - RW drive was disabled.

b) When we opened Windows Explorer and clicked on "CD-RW D" drive, the system just froze(an hour-glass appeared). We were unable to break out of this freeze. The system would not respond to "cntrl-alt-del". The system would not respond to "shut down" command. The only way we could get out of this was to pull the power cord on the computer.

When we uninstalled BitDefender, the system again worked perfectly. When we re-installed it, the faults again appeared.

We contacted BitDefender support. They were very responsive. After some dialogue, they acknowledged that they too could reproduce the problem and their engineers were working on it. This was about three days ago. So far they have not come up with a fix.

I have now contacted the CEO of the Australian Distributor (Netfreighters) and indicated that in my view, they were selling "Faultware" and the product should be suspended from sales until it can be re-engineered to address the above issues. (No reply as yet).

Overall, because of its history and reputation, and the good tech support, I still have confidence in the BitDefender range. I just think they have gone to market a bit green on this release, and need to make the product more stable. I am hoping that this will happen soon.

Posted by cw at 09:18 AM | Comments (1)

Free Opera, and a Firefox fix

Over in the Forum section, we've been discussing the fact that the Opera browser is now available free, and without those annoying ads. Obviously the company has changed its business model because of the success of Firefox. Opera is a great browser which definitely challenges - and in the opinion of many users - surpasses the utility and features of Firefox. You might like to try it out.

The other news is that Firefox has released another update to version 1.0.7 overnight. It includes security and stability enhancements, and is highly recommended. The funny thing is that when we clicked on the little red arrow in the top right hand corner that signifies an update, it couldn't find it. And the second update method: click on the "Check Now" tab under "Tools", "Options," "Advanced", then scroll down to the "Software Update" section and click "Check now" also failed.

You might have manually download and install the update from here.

Posted by cw at 07:47 AM | Comments (2)

September 21, 2005

Memo music czars: greed is no longer good

Even Steve Jobs agrees. The music industry is greedy. Greedy. Very greedy.

Which is why, no doubt, a member of Switchfoot has not only apologised to fans for the copy protection placed on its new CD by Sony, but also explained how to get round the protection and rip the album, using CDEX.

Posted by cw at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

Internet banking: it gets worse

It looks to us like the banks may have surreptitiously introduced new requirements that will make it harder for customers to retrieve any losses from Internet banking.

Has your bank told you you need to install a firewall? Have they told you to introduce a spyware scanner? [And if so, which one do they recommend.]

Oh, and if that weren't enough, would you believe that these days eavesdroppers don't have to bother installing a keylogger to find out what you're typing on your PC. Researchers at the University of Berkeley can work out what you're typing, with 96 per cent accuracy, just by listening to the sound of the keystrokes.

"It's a form of acoustical spying that should raise red flags among computer security and privacy experts," said Doug Tygar, a Berkeley computer science professor and the study's principal investigator.

Posted by cw at 03:03 PM | Comments (1)

September 20, 2005

Delaying the future

We're just back from three days in the Hunter Valley at the Face the IT media event, in which various companies tell journalists what they're doing, what they're selling, and expose themselves to questions. It's a great opportunity for the IT media to catch up with various trends.

Among the things we picked up was the fact that companies like Intel and Dell are practically beside themselves with joy at the prospects offered by the so-called "digital home".

According to the analysts, we will all be sharing our new electronic abodes with fast broadband which will provide us with music and video entertainment, and VoIP telephone service, and a new generation of devices that connect automatically over wireless networks and are child's play to set up.

Various industries are fighting over the unimaginably huge spoils that will make the PC business look tiny. The analysts and speakers at this event suggest that PC companies like Dell are likely to triumph over the traditional consumer electronics companies.

We'll be shopping online using avatars and virtual reality rooms, dictating what camera angles we want when we watch TV, and establishing communities around things like multi-player games, neighbourhood play centres and cooking clubs.

Because we'll soon start fretting over losing all our digital images, music and video, or facing a blank TV screen, we'll be happy to pay people to back up our hard drives - and we'll have an awful lot of them - and keep everything running.

Now all this sounds like the sort of thing the industry wants to hear. Can you see it happening? It probably will, although possibly not with quite the speed that the industry is hoping for, particularly in Australia, where the Murdochs and Packers are used to getting what they want out of governments, and Telstra isn't going to be in any tearing hurry to introduce technologies that will erode its profits.

Posted by cw at 06:10 PM | Comments (1)

September 18, 2005

Microsoft: With you all the way

We're in the Sydney airport terminal on our way to an IT media conference in the Hunter Valley, and just to make us feel at home, the message on one of the display terminals in the baggage collection area says: "Windows Media Player has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience".

Posted by cw at 07:47 AM | Comments (1)

September 17, 2005

Software hijacks jet airliner ... again?

In today's Australian there's a chilling story about the pilots of a Malaysian Airlines 777 flying from Perth to Kuala Lumpur last month battling to regain control after an "unknown computer error" caused the aircraft to pitch violently, and brought it close to stalling.

An Australian Transport Safety Bureau report released yesterday reveals the pilot in command disconnected the autopilot and lowered the plane's nose to prevent a stall, after incorrect data from a supposedly fail-safe device caused the plane to pitch up and climb 3000ft, cutting its indicated air speed from 500kmh to 292kmh, activating a stall warning and a "stickshaker". [A stickshaker vibrates the aircraft's controls to warn the piot when he is approaching stall speed ... which, you know, means the plane is about to fall out of the air.]

The system refused to give up control, however. It increased the power on the automatic throttle, forcing the pilot to counter by pushing the thrust levers to the idle position. The aircraft immediately pitched up again, and climbed 2000ft.

The pilot turned back to Perth under manual control. When he kicked in the two autopilot systems, the plane banked to the right, and the nose pitched down. He resumed hands-on control.

But on its landing approach, at 3000ft, the flight display gave a low airspeed warning and the auto-throttle increased thrust. The warning system also indicated a dangerous windshear, but the crew landed the jet safely.

According to the report, "investigations are focusing on faulty acceleration figures suppied by a device called the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit". The ADIRU, which was developed by Honeywell, collates aircraft navigation and performance data from other systems and passes the information to the primary flight computer. The buggy software, unfortunately, allows data from faulty sensors to enter the "fault-tolerant" system.

What's potentially more disturbing, however - and this isn't in the newspaper report - is that a US FAA directive in June this year highlighted other problems with the Boeing 777's ADIRU. That was followed by another directive - possibly inspired by the Malaysian Airlines incident - which introduced interim measures to deal with what the FAA identified as an unsafe condition.

A local Boeing spokesman, Mr Ken Morton, says the company has told operators of the jet - which by the way has the best safety record of any aircraft - to load a previous software version, according to The Australian's report. But as the FAA's directive indicates, that previous version also has problems.

Mr Morton claimed the [Perth] incident "hadn't occurred before or since", which doesn't gell with the FAA directive. And it raises a lot of questions as to why a condition identified in January this year should have recurred even more dramatically in August.

So while we're trusting that the pilots and operators aren't taking quite the same "no problems" attitude indicated by Ken Morton in this report, we're going to avoid travelling in any Boeing 777 aircraft in the immediate future.

Posted by cw at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

Zone Labs update problems

We've got the Zone Alarm firewall's automatic update feature turned on, and this week it alerted us to a new version, which we installed without any problems. This morning we discovered that the update might have been more critical than we thought.

Brian Livingston reports in his latest Windows Secrets newsletter that a new build of Zone Alarm products fixes a glitch in the August 6.0.631 release that produced complaints of application conflicts, POP3 mail problems ... "and worse" [a Blue Screen of Death, for instance].

The newsletter offers some helpful tips on avoiding problems with Zone Alarm, and how to resolve those you might have experienced because of the faulty update. If you've got a paid version of the product, there's also a link to an entry in the Zone Alarm user forum that provides useful advice on purchasing and renewal strategies.

Posted by cw at 09:40 AM | Comments (3)

Multiple Linksys WRT54G Vulnerabilities

The toads' favourite piece of kit for accessing the internet from all around the Bleeding Edge pond is the Linksys WRT54G. The Chief Toad is even planning to use it to bring together neighbouring ponds.

If you've taken our advice and picked up one of these, run, don't walk, to the Linksys website and download the latest firmware. It's necessary to patch these nasty security bugs.

The Geeky Option is to replace your firmware altogether with Linux, using the OpenWRT project. I did this a few months ago and have been ever-so-happy with the result - but then again I am the kind of strange chap who prefers typing commands to clicking links on a web page... (OpenWRT does not provide any user interface for adjusting the configuration, other than a Linux shell prompt).

Posted by at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2005

Is your email really secure?

Is e-mail in Australia safe from prying eyes? Would one of our judges follow the lead of a British court and impose a substantial fine and suspended prison sentence on someone who intercepted electronic communications?

The answer is possibly "No!". According to the EFA, email in Australia doesn't enjoy the protection offered under British legislation, or for that matter, to mail stored in an Australia Post post box.

Far too few of us are aware that "Australia's TIA(SC) Act removed the previous protection in the TI Act which prohibited employees of telecommunications service providers from spying on their customers' and other individuals' electronic communications during their passage".

And clearly former Telstra chairman Bob Mansfield is probably a good deal more careful about what he puts in his email messages after Jonathon Sumption, QC, went on the attack as Seven Network pursued its billion-dollar collusion case against 22 media, telecommunications and sporting parties.

It represents a timely reminder that we should be very careful indeed about our electronic communications.

Posted by cw at 04:08 PM | Comments (1)

The Skype is falling ... on Telstra

The Economist says that eBay may have paid too much for Skype, but nevertheless, the acquisition signals "the slow death of traditional telephony" [PAY WALL]. No doubt if you're a Telstra shareholder - or a government itching to sell off its share - you'll be delighted to hear that.

While eBay says it plans to use Skype's technology to make it easier for buyers and sellers to communicate, and to offer new “click to call” advertisements, The Economist points out that there's a good deal of scepticism that it's the most logical pairing.

It has no doubt, however, that it demonstrates the enormous threat VoIP poses to incumbent telecoms operators.

"VOIP makes possible more than just lower prices. It also means that, provided you have a broadband connection, you can choose from a number of providers of VOIP telephony and related add-on services, such as voicemail, conference calling or video. Many providers allow a VOIP account to be associated with a traditional telephone number—or with multiple numbers. So you can associate a San Francisco number, a New York number and a London number with your computer or VOIP phone—and then be reached via a local call by anyone in any of those cities.

"Furthermore, your phone (or computer) will ring wherever you are in the world, as soon as it is plugged into the internet. So you can take your Madrid number with you to Mumbai, or your San Francisco number to Shanghai. Skype and other VOIP services, in other words, are leading to lower prices, more choice and greater flexibility. It is great news for consumers — but terrible for telecoms operators."

Those best placed to survive, it says, are "those fixed-line operators that are now building new networks based on internet technology, which will enable such firms to benefit from the greater efficiency and lower cost of VOIP compared with traditional telephony".

It says that while their voice revenues will slowly evaporate, they will then be well placed to offer fee-based add-on services over their new networks. Again, this is a common pattern with disruptive technologies: forward-looking incumbents can end up giving upstart innovators a run for their money.

No doubt this is why Sol Trujillo seems to be pushing ahead with his plans to upgrade the Telstra network with fibre to the home - whether or not he gets his way on pricing.

Posted by cw at 01:38 PM | Comments (3)

September 15, 2005

Top 10 Microsoft Word annoyances

Here's a useful list of things that can irritate Microsoft Word users, and some solutions - among them some helpful suggestions for speeding up the notoriously slow Word 2003.

You probably have your own Top 10. Care to nominate a couple?

Posted by cw at 11:17 AM | Comments (4)

No room at the data hotel

Although we had heard that the USB 2.0 performance of the drive was poor, we weren't particularly troubled by the test results. We were more concerned about the price.

For as little as $70 you can buy an aluminium FireWire 400/USB 2.0 enclosure that looks better and performs just as well. For an extra $5, you can get a one-touch back-up button.

Bleeding Edge, however, couldn't resist the FireWire 800 model. We're sure Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would approve.

Posted by cw at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)

September 14, 2005

Record industry bleats ... we beg to differ

Looks like the record industry is at it again, what with this story claiming that "Illegal downloads and copying are savaging sales in the music industry" and "recorded music sales figures for the first half of 2005, released yesterday, continue a worrying trend, with sales of CDs, records, cassettes and music DVDs falling 7.54 per cent on the previous year to 22.7 million units."

Over at Razor, however, we're suggesting that the music industry is sabotaging itself, frustrating consumers, and demonstrating that you cannot make money second-guessing the market.

Posted by cw at 05:57 PM | Comments (1)

At last ... a magnifier for the fine print

Bleeding Edge's standard procedure in relation to the End User Licence Agreement - the so-called EULA - that pops up when one installs most software is to ignore it.

We know we should read them. They sometimes contain hints about potentially nasty practices. We know that reading them could even make us some money. But we don't. Until now.

A piece of software caleld EULAlyzer, scans license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of "potentially interesting words and phrases". You know the sort of words and phrases we're talking about ... the ones that permit the vendor to hit you with pop-up ads, dispatch your personal information, ise unique identifiers to track your habits etc.

The software is free, but there is also a Pro version, if you'd like some additional features.

Posted by cw at 12:23 PM | Comments (2)

September 13, 2005

Podcasts celebrate The Ashes ... for poms

It's cricket, after all, so we're going to be very sporting and tell all those Poms whose miserable lives [sorry, sorry, it just popped out] ... whose lives have been immeasurably enriched by the fact that they've finally reclaimed the Ashes, that they can download celebratory podcasts - and even Ashes wallpaper - from BBC 5.

If you're Australian, it's almost certainly too painful to want to be reminded of it. We recommend instead that you catch up on some sleep. And pray that global warming stops that alarming tendency on British pitches, for the bloody ball to swing both ways. There has to be some benefit from destroying the planet.

Posted by cw at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

What am I bid for this fine little VOIP company?

What with eBay making Skype an offer too good to refuse, Bleeding Edge has been contemplating the possible consequences.

According to eBay, it will use Skype to "streamline and improve communications between buyers and sellers". What does that mean, exactly? Instead of sending each other emails, which seems to us to be the preferred method of communication between buyers and sellers - it creates something of an audit trail, for one thing - it seems eBay contemplates buyers and sellers having a chat. Don't be surprised if you get a call from someone in Russia at 2 in the morning, offering to sell you a nuclear warhead.

Or maybe they'll introduce an auctioneer, to call all the bids, and whip up interest. Either way, we're not terribly keen. And somehow we know that whatever they do will involve more gratuitous advertising and promotional muck.

There's no logical connection, it seems to us, between online auction houses and VOIP. We've taken Skype off our list of VOIP providers.

Posted by cw at 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

September 12, 2005

Back to the good old days

Peace activists being arrested and deported as security threats. A government that doesn't think its citizens have the right to know why. It takes me back to the good old days in Queensland, under Joh Bjelke-Petersen, when I couldn't wait to get out of the place.

This is the sort of thing my parents' generation used to think was a great way to run the country. I can't imagine why today's voters put up with this stuff.

Posted by cw at 06:50 PM | Comments (6)

Let's have a fight about vinyl vs MP3

In the mood for an argument? Let's compare vinyl to MP3. That's always good for a fight. HMV executives, for instance, no doubt feel like taking a swing at Roger Daltry, who, having been invited along to launch the company's digital music download service in the UK, informed all present that "nothing beats the rich sound of vinyl".

As it happens, Bleeding Edge has spent a very large sum of money over the years on various fluids and cleaning systems trying to get rid of the rich sound of pops and cracks on our vinyl collection, to say nothing of the cost of the TEAC turntable and cartridges. We are therefore not entirely convinced that Roger is completely correct.

While we can recall the most sublime experiences listening to LPs, we are prepared to admit the possibility that this wasn't completely unconnected with the coincident imbibing of certain alcoholic beverages. Or possibly with the fact that our hearing, in those days, was definitely superior to what it is today.

Whatever the reason, we have to say that we have absolutely no complaints about MP3 files recorded at 192kbps VBR using LAME and Exact Audio Copy. What about you?

Posted by cw at 04:23 PM | Comments (10)

September 09, 2005

Managing the shrinking iPod

Now look. We didn't intend, when we raised a tiny demurral about the practicality of the new iPod Nano, to start a holy war. We like the iPod. We think the Nano design - like practically everything that bears the Apple logo - is quintessentially cute and exceptionally user-friendly. [OK. We don't like the button-less multi-button mouse, but that's another story.]

So spare us please, the age-based discrimination etc. Honestly. You're preaching to the converted.

What we are looking for is some practical advice on how to manage audio content in a limited storage environment. We bought the 60GB iPod because we like having everything in a huge bucket that synchs automatically. We imagine a lot of people aren't updating their music all that much, but instead are furiously adding podcasts and audiobooks. It's easier to do that with a bigger iPod, but something that's about one quarter the weight, thinner than a pencil and about the size of a credit card has a certain appeal.

As Techcouch noted on The Age's version of Razor [our day job]: "I wish it had been designed to cope with Podcasts better. I am using my 3G 20GB Ipod mainly for listening to podcasts during my commute and then music through the hi-fi at night. I wish there was a way of being able to delete a podcast from the iPod and when syncing occurred it then deleted it from iTunes. I also wish there was better functionality for listening to podcasts - chapters - 5-minute skips etc. However, overall this is a very cool unit. 4GB is tiny though and will force many people to change the way they use their iPod."

For instance, there's this idea for iPod journalling that looks interesting. And, umm, this.

If you have any strategies/programs that help. Please. Share.

Posted by cw at 11:18 AM | Comments (2)

September 08, 2005

Evicting software tenants

It has been a particularly busy time of late at Bleeding Edge Software Eviction Services, what with a number of readers and friends seeking help to remove unwanted applications or falling victim to programs that resist being ejected.

This is often a tedious business, largely because the software industry seems to be focused on having customers install their software, rather than uninstalling the stuff, and therefore frequently fails to observe any standards for the removal of its products.

In our opinion, any installation should place a link in both the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs section and in the Start Menu's All Programs. Too often, however, the user is forced to plough through the list of programs under Add or Remove Programs, then through All Programs, and in some cases actually scour their entire hard drive looking in vain for some way of excising a program.

And too often the uninstaller leaves behind orphan files including desktop icons and directories. Sometimes this is because the developer has changed or broken the installer and uninstaller programs like InstallShield and Vise, so that they can't find all the files. Far more commonly, however, the problems are caused at installation time because the user ignores those little warnings that recommend closing other applications before installing the program.

While our experience suggests that most programs are well behaved and don't clash with installations, we wouldn't dream of installing anything without turning off anti-virus software at the very least.

We're pretty sure that was the reason one of our friends discovered, after installing some software for his Nokia mobile phone, that his computer ran slowly and refused to allow his children to play games.

Unfortunately, when he tried to uninstall the program there was no uninstall link under Add or Remove Programs and the link under All Programs didn't work.

We were able to show him how to fix the problem using a Windows XP restore point. Although Microsoft's instructions for using System Restore to correct these problems suggest that "it does not replace the process of uninstalling a program", we've found it provides a helpful fall-back position. We create a manual restore point before we do any installations.

One of the most difficult programs to exterminate, in our experience, is Norton Anti-Virus and related members of the Norton security family.

Although the manufacturer, Symantec, does add its programs to the list in the Add or Remove Programs section, occasionally this doesn't seem to proceed according to plan and the link doesn't appear.

But users who do find the link and follow the recommended procedure can still be left with significant program elements in place. The result can be total havoc, particularly if the user then installs another anti-virus program.

This "gotcha" is outlined in an article in the company's knowledge base, which points out that "in order to uninstall the program (via Add or Remove Programs) certain Symantec start-up files and services must be running".

The problem is that most users aren't aware that these programs may not have been started when they booted their computer. And the uninstall process doesn't alert them to the possibility.

We can't help but wonder why Symantec hasn't revised the uninstall procedure to check which elements are running and in the event that they're not, begin by turning them on and rebooting.

Even where the Norton uninstall seems to have worked efficiently, there are numerous examples of problems caused by Norton's procedure. If, for instance, you suddenly find you can't connect to the internet after you uninstall NAV, this article may be helpful. Symantec does provide a utility called SymNRT, which does ensure a clean uninstall.

There are other things that you might be interested in evicting. Take, for instance, the Windows XP Start menu. If, like Bleeding Edge, you're irritated by the fact that Windows XP adds your recently used programs - including those you're not likely to use very often - to its Start menu, you may like to take a little more control. First, to stop Windows from butting in, right-click Start, choose Properties, click Customize, set Number Of Programs On Start Menu to "0", and click OK.

To add programs that will appear permanently on the Start menu, click Start, then All Programs, navigate to the icon that starts the program in question, right-click it, and choose Pin To Start Menu.

Too bad there doesn't seem to be a way of charging these tenants rent.

Posted by cw at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)

September 07, 2005

Beating the credit card companies

Would any of the legal experts who visit this blog be able to say whether those late payments the credit card companies like to impose on us are just as illegal in this country as they are in the UK?

Posted by cw at 06:25 PM | Comments (7)

What the Government knew about Telstra

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the attacks on Telstra chief Sol Trujillo by the Prime Minister and his Minister for Selling Telstra are going to backfire in a big way.

What we know now is that the Government was told at a meeting last month that Telstra had borrowed $550 million from its reserves so it could pay healthy dividends to shareholders in 2005, and set aside a further $2.2 billion to cover next year's payout. The lion's share of that goes, of course, to the Government.

The Government was also told then that the corporation had failed to make necessary investments in its network and needs up to $3 billion to fix its problems, including flaws in more than 14 per cent of its lines. (And that isn't anywhere near the full extent of the disaster.)

This isn't merely a matter of withholding information from prospective shareholders - although that's what the Government seems to be trying (with conspicuous lack of success) to defend itself against. It's evidence that the Government has failed to meet its obligations to the citizens of this country to provide and maintain a vital utility.

But the fact is, the Government must have known all this, long ago. As we've been saying for years now, the Government has had no communications policy beyond selling Telstra for the highest possible price, and it's been siphoning off funds needed for capital investment, in the interests of getting itself re-elected.

The Government has looked the other way while Telstra frustrated every attempt to introduce genuine competition. It ignored the pleas of those who knew that business opportunities were being lost to the community, while Telstra protected its savagely high margins, and grew fat and unresponsive.

We said that Sol Trujillo might prove to be the best thing that ever happened to Telstra and it seems that we were right - although not, perhaps, for quite the reasons we expected. He's sweeping all the muck out from under the carpet, where Senator Richard Alston in particular, and apparently the board and senior management of Telstra have been hiding it away for years.

Having misled the electorate for so long, it seems the Government was perfectly happy to lie to prospective investors. The truth is that the Telstra 2 investors were similarly misled. I told my mother - and my children and anyone else who would listen - way back then that Telstra was a very bad investment indeed. Now it seems that the board has been doling out dividends that would have been far better invested in the future of the company.

Right now, thanks to the cynicism and bungling of this government, Telstra's future looks bleak. Its high-margin services are about to be decimated by technologies like VOIP and wireless broadband and broadband over powerlines, and clever marketing will not save it.

Howard says that the fact that the Government is both the majority shareholder and regulator represents a "ridiculous conflict of interests". The real conflict of interests is much more serious: the choice between governing in the interests of the citizens of this country, or governing in the interests of the Liberal Party and its cronies.

Posted by cw at 04:22 PM | Comments (5)

Foot-shooting season at Sony BMG?

Your intrepid reporter has been on the phone this morning to Sony BMG Australia, seeking a possible launch date for the local Apple iTunes Music Store, what with the news that the company's Japanese HQ has discovered that those music downloads that it turned its back on are worth an awful lot of money, and that it would like Mr Jobs to sell its music after all.

There's a certain loss of face involved in this change of heart, given that the company has been hanging tough, apparently demanding higher prices and that Apple open iTunes to other formats. But what with the company's own artists negotiating separately, and Sony's own music downloading
service, Mora, not doing terribly well, a spokesman announced "We are negotiating with Apple over the download business and hope to expand
our customer base to iPod users."

The reasons for this change of heart might be reflected in figures released by Sony BMG Australia yesterday, which trumpeted the fact that Australians had paid for and downloaded 2 million of the company's tracks. That might have been worth celebrating, had it not been for the fact that it could have been ever so much better than that, if - as all the reports suggest - Sony BMG hadn't stuffed up the iTunes Music Store negotiations by holding out for more money.

While those 2 million tracks represented 3 per cent of total music sales, over in the US, thanks largely to the iTMS, downloads were four times that.

According to a local spokesman, Gavin Parry, "We predict Australia will follow this upward trend." Not if they don't start hammering on Apple's door to be let in.

Posted by cw at 11:59 AM | Comments (1)

September 06, 2005

The future of the Internet? We can't cope already!

Look. Here's the Smart Internet 2010 Report, which "analyses the way the Internet might evolve from the perspective of its end-users". Now you read it and tell us whether Trevor Barr, Alex Burns, Darren Sharp and other contributors have produced anything more than the usual guff.

We're too busy using the Internet to think about how we might use it in the future.

Posted by cw at 12:42 PM | Comments (2)

September 05, 2005

A dead market

"It is not clear whether manufacturers are ignoring the over-45s because they believe they will not be around for much longer," says a BBC story on the fact that women and the over-45s aren't embracing technology with the same fervour as young males.

Pardon? So the reason mobile phones and PCs and other bits of technology tend to be overly complex is that the marketers have decreed that that after the age of 45, the consumer is not so much expendable as as good as dead?

Doesn't that make you want to write to manufacturers and suggest that if they don't review their policies towards the needs of women and over-45s, you'll be dealing exclusively with their competitors?

In fact, Bleeding Edge suggests we might compile a list of manufacturers whose products seem to discriminate against mature adults and females. Care to nominate those who do? Or those who don't?

This attitude is brainless, by the way. As the story points out: "Over-45s have lots of disposable income, they put a premium on their leisure time and these are exactly the kind of things that broadband and 3G are meant to address." And guess which age groups are big buyers of DVD players and digital cameras?

Posted by cw at 02:11 PM | Comments (3)

Four days to a new (beta) Firefox

If, like other Firefox users, you've noticed its inbuilt pop-up blocking hasn't been quite so effective recently, you'll welcome the fact that the Mozilla Foundation plans to release a beta version of Firefox 1.5 on September 8 [US time].

There's been no indication of what new features will be included, but alpha builds of the new browser, code-named "Deer Park", include better pop-up blocking, an improved software update system to serve browser upgrades, and the ability to reorder tabs through drag and drop functionality.

BetaNews says early alpha versions have also shown the "SnapBack" technology that allows for faster navigation through Web pages. And better support has been announced for Mac OS X, which might solve those random crashes.

And if you're interested in IE View - a Firefox extension which facilitates browing of pages optimised for Internet Explorer - you might check out IETab, which embeds IE View windows in Firefox tabs.

Posted by cw at 11:20 AM | Comments (3)

September 02, 2005

Intel's dirty little secret

A question posed on the forum this week "AMD or Pentium for photo and video editing" resulted in some useful advice about building the killer media-editing machine. Forum regular Gto_pontiac suggested that "P4s are better at video and image editing, as long as you get one with HT [hyper-threading] on it." Analysing this statement brings up some very interesting issues...

Firstly, why may Intel chips be better than AMD chips in this area, when AMD chips are widely acknowledged as providing more "bang for buck"? The reason actually turns out to depend on software, not hardware. You see, good programmers cultivate the virtues of laziness, impatience, and hubris - and being Lazy means using libraries of code written by others. Intel understands this, and provides two enormous libraries which particularly focus on multimedia performance. I see speedups in my code of around 200% when I use these with Intel chips. Of course, AMD's chips support almost exactly the same instructions as Intel's chips, so there's no reason (in theory) that the same benefit wouldn't be seen running on AMD.

But it's not. The Intel libraries have a little check when they first load to see what kind of chip it's running on. If it finds it's made by AMD, then it doesn't load the high-performance libraries, but instead loads a "generic" version which is far slower. This dirty little secret is why some media-editing applications run slower on AMD chips.

The second part of Gto_pontiac's reply mentions hyper-threading (HT). HT is a method where the chip lies to the operating system, and pretends there's actually two chips, not one. The operating system can will then ask the chip to do two things at once, which it turns out is often a pretty good idea, because of the way that modern chips are designed. However, if the program that is being run doesn't do more than one thing at a time, HT can actually cause it to run slower. Some other factors that can cause HT to work better are discussed in this article exploring hyper-threading performance.

Posted by at 03:16 PM | Comments (4)

New name so cool, it's frozen

Microsoft has a cool new name for one of the new features of the upcoming Vista operating system - Freeze Dry.

This week's TechEd conference heard that Freeze Dry is that bit of technology in Vista which is designed to maintain application states and unsaved documents even when patches are automatically applied and PCs are rebooted.

Posted by cw at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)

September 01, 2005

$2 domains

Yahoo is offering, until tomorrow, domains for just two bucks a year. You can only buy one domain, and you have to be a new customer to get the deal. The good news is that you can buy your domain for five years for a total of just $10.

If you do buy from Yahoo, I suggest you don't use their email forwarding or URL forwarding services - instead use a real domain management provider; I recommend ZoneEdit, who are free, and reliable.

Posted by at 11:59 PM | Comments (10)

It's lucky that Yahoo and Google didn't invent e-mail

It's something that we all take for granted. If we want to e-mail our friend, it doesn't matter which e-mail system we use or which e-mail system they use, we know that it will work just fine.

A system called "Jabber" provides the same benefits for instant text messaging. Two systems are available which do the same thing for voice communications, called "SIP" and "IAX". All of these systems are open, published, patent-unencumbered specifications, which anybody can use for free.

This week, Google and Yahoo both introduced their new voice and instant messaging programs. So, they naturally picked these systems which would allow all of their customers to talk to anybody they wanted to, right? Well, actually... no.

Yahoo's new "Yahoo Messenger With Voice" follows the same closed, proprietary approach that has been the hallmark of their instant messaging program since it was first released. Unless all of your friends are also Yahoo users, you will not be able to instant message or talk to them. You also can't receive calls from people using the plain old telephone system.

How about Google? Since their "Google talk" program is completely new, there's no reason they can't ensure that it plays nice with everybody else's system. In fact, they even paid lip-service to open communication. Things look really encouraging when you discover that they use Jabber to power their system. This is where things get bizarre. In their system, they have closed off the ability for Jabber servers to talk to each other, which means that even although they use the open Jabber system, Google users cannot talk to any other Jabber user, they can only talk to other Google users. The strangeness doesn't stop there. Rather than using one of the established, open voice protocols, they have invented their own, which sits on top of Jabber. So that means that Google users can only chat with other Google users--not with users of any other voice over Internet system, or folks using the plain old telephone system.

Posted by at 11:25 PM | Comments (1)

Disappearing bandwidth

You might recall Bleeding Edge raised the matter recently of a reader who believed his wireless network had been hacked. In one hour his entire month's traffic allowance under his BigPond ADSL account evaporated.

After establishing that his security left a good deal to be desired, we concluded that it was entirely possible that someone had sneaked on to his network, or a Trojan - malicious software that installs itself and runs surreptitiously - had been at work.

We received emails from other readers that indicated that this was not an isolated occurrence for BigPond broadband users and that the first half of August seemed to be a busy time for exceeding traffic limits.

The most recent report on the number of complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman on disputed usage charges for cable and ADSL internet for all providers nationally in the first three months of this year was 147.

The ombudsman doesn't indicate which providers were involved in these cases, but the reports to Bleeding Edge suggest that many users are not aware that they can take these complaints to there. It also suggests that network-wide, BigPond must be getting a lot of disputed bills, which BigPond denies.

A spokesman said: "A small percentage of our customers go over their monthly usage limits." He added that users "may find that occasional excess usage charges are better value for them than a higher-priced plan". While that may be true, it could also be an expensive strategy, given that BigPond's excess data charges are 15 cents a megabyte.

The reports from our readers revealed some remarkable coincidences. Like the subject of our article, two customers had also just updated their accounts when they started receiving automated emails from BigPond telling them that their free allowances were fast disappearing. Telstra says its technology staff have never heard of an instance where excess usage was triggered by a change of plan. "In fact, we have large numbers of customers who change between plans, so any such problem would clearly be apparent."

The users who wrote to us had much better security in place. They suspect that the data flows Telstra claimed to have recorded did not occur and that Telstra may be having problems with its traffic metering system. Telstra, however, says it is "confident that our usage collection and displays are correct".

One person, having had the same thing happen twice - and twice upgrading to a higher (and more expensive) limit - is particularly disturbed by the fact that Telstra has also stopped providing daily usage figures so users now can only see their traffic at the end of the month.

A Telstra spokesman said the company will introduce a new version of its software "in a month or so" to update usage "more regularly". He said customers can check account balances on the My BigPond site, where figures are updated within the hour.

What should be a major concern to BigPond customers is that at least two of the cases referred to us involved uploaded data. Most internet traffic is downloaded from websites or email inboxes, but your computer also uploads a much smaller amount, generally in the form of software requests for webpages, outgoing email and attachments. When a Trojan is at work, those uploads can reach staggering and expensive levels.

To our knowledge, BigPond is the only major internet service provider that charges for upload traffic. That means that BigPond users are the only ones exposed to unpleasant billing surprises from sources such as Trojans. In our opinion, that makes them the least attractive offering in the market.

According to the ombudsman, many users are unaware of the difference between uploads and downloads. They seem equally unaware of precisely what a megabyte or gigabyte constitutes. The SP2 patch for Windows XP, for instance, which most users would have downloaded, varied from about 80 to 265MB. Microsoft's average updates are much smaller, but they're now a regular event with an increasing number of software companies, and users on basic plans can quickly exhaust their limits.

The issue has become more critical with BigPond cutting its 500MB cable plan to 400MB last week. It now has a 400MB limit on its $39.95 monthly ADSL plan. The 500MB ADSL plan costs $69.95, but the upload and download speeds are dramatically increased, which means a month's allowance could disappear even quicker.

We recommend users check their internet traffic with DU Meter. It gives daily, weekly and monthly reports of downloads and uploads.

Posted by cw at 11:10 AM | Comments (9)