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December 24, 2006

And a Merry Christmas to All

Courtesy of gto_pontiac

Posted by Anandasim at 04:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 18, 2006

Time magazines 'Person of the Year' is YOU!

Time Magazine have named YOU as 'The Person of the Year 2006'. Lev Grossman from Time said, "It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes"... Lev goes on to talk about Wikipedia, Youtube, Myspace and how citizen journalism can do things such as capturing racist comments at a stand-up comedy routine and posting this to Youtube.

Posted by Stephen at 04:51 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 16, 2006

Bill Gates on DRM - Buy a CD and rip it!

A bit of late night reading with a bit of a surprise to say the least!

Gates said that no one is satisfied with the current state of DRM, which “causes too much pain for legitmate buyers” while trying to distinguish between legal and illegal uses. He says no one has done it right, yet. There are “huge problems” with DRM, he says, and “we need more flexible models, such as the ability to “buy an artist out for life” (not sure what he means). He also criticized DRM schemes that try to install intelligence in each copy so that it is device specific.

His short term advice: “People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then."

Via: Techcrunch

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December 15, 2006

links for 2006-12-15

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links for 2006-12-14

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December 14, 2006

Microsoft Windows Vista & Security!

No doubt many of us would refrain from using the words Microsoft and Security in the same sentence and with that said I see no real need to go down memory lane.

Microsoft's new operating system Windows Vista that launches to the general public January 30th 2007 is by far the most secure operating system to come out of Redmond thus far.

Roger Grimes together with Jensen Johansson are putting together a new book entitled have Windows Vista Security. Roger has posted a run down of the most significant features over at Infoworld with the final list going past 180.

Will Vista be hacked? Sure, anything super-popular gets hacked. IE 7 is the most likely target, of course, followed by Windows Mail (the Outlook Express replacement), because these applications have the highest visibility and hacker interest.
...

I will go out on a limb and say that I believe Windows Vista, and the forthcoming Longhorn server, will be tough to hack. Outside of client-side attacks and Internet Explorer, the fully-patched Windows XP Pro SP2 is already pretty hard to hack externally. Vista will never be as secure as OpenBSD, but I believe it will be secure enough to ensure that Microsoft becomes known as a vendor of choice for a secure operating system. And that’s a far cry from where it was five years ago.

Posted by Stephen at 11:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Giving the gift of Flickr

Flickr have upgraded for Christmas the uploads you are allowed to have for both types of accounts with the freebie going from 20MB per month now increased to 100MB per month and the Pro account from 2GB per month to Unlimited uploads.

With a Flickr Pro account you also get unlimited sets, bandwidth, storage and permanent archiving of your original high-resolution images and there are no ad's displayed when you browse Flickr or when users browse your Flickr page. This has to be one of the first internet prezzies I have ever put to Santa, The Gift of Flickr.

Posted by Stephen at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2006

Would you like chips with that Office pack?

There's a lot been happening to Microsoft Office since the venerable rag tag 4.3 version. You know, when someone at Microsoft invented the idea that Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access would actually benefit us more if we simply bought the pack. Office 2007 is now primed to launch. But there's a problem. The moving average person-in-the-street however, appears none the wiser. We routinely see people, completely baffled as to which does what.

But Microsoft itself, isn't making things any easier to figure out. They now have so many brilliant MicroSerfs toiling and so many Product Managers clamouring, that there is this plethora of applications waiting for you to use. Which one though?

Office isn't just Word, Excel, Powerpoint and sometimes Access anymore. The Suite or System has the possibility of drawing on so many team modules, that Microsoft has the dickens of a time inventing packs for you to take away.

Let's see whether we can do better.

  1. The Basic "pleb" edition. Actually, how about a Microsoft Works? Does a lotta things and comes free as a name brand computer purchase. Don't like that? Think it's wimpy because it doesn't have a Ribbon? Or is it wimpy because it doesn't know what it really is? Ok, let's continue. The Basic is currently Word, Excel, Outlook. Enough? Not really. If you want to reduce the number of groans from the web people, I would have thrown in Expression Web. Because today is all about the web. Heck, even kids in primary school are writing web pages.
  2. The Student Teacher Edition has Word, Excel, OneNote. Clever about the OneNote - it will give them a rich featured but disorganised organiser. I would add Groove. Why Groove? Well, they know how to Torrent and IM. Groove fits into that lifestyle and offers a raft of facilities that does not require IT tech support and administration. And Groove would unleash a whole universe of third party Groove plugins that could do distributed computing, sharing, collaboration.
  3. The Standard Edition has Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint. Ok. Fine. Don't people take notes though? Why not OneNote, with it's shared simultaneous note taking?
  4. The Small Business Edition has Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, enhanced Outlook, Accounting Express and Publisher. Why not Groove and shared OneNote? You mean Microsoft doesn't know that nowadays, even workgroups of less than 5 people often don't sit in the same place and often work from home to flex work and family? You mean Small Business should be intentionally handicapped and keep pages and pages card index? Shh, don't even mention Business Intelligence to them. Where's Microsoft Access so that these people can get some edge in managing and comparing lists? Again, where's Expression Web?
  5. The Professional Edition has Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, enhanced Outlook, Accounting Express, Publisher, Access. Publisher? If you look at a professional corporate officer, the person who excels at Access isn't of the nature to enjoy Publisher (left brain / right brain inclinations). And a departmentalised admin office isn't gonna do any accounting, anyway, bless MYOB. My pick would be Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Access and gift vouchers for advanced training or how-to books from Microsoft Press. Office 2007 is trying to solve the problem that people can't discover or don't understand features more advanced than Cut & Paste. Well, giving them an updated visual tool overcomes the UI hurdle but if they don't understand the underlying concepts behind the feature in the first place, then what? My choice: Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Visio, Expression Web.
  6. The Ultimate Edition, Professional Plus and Enterprise editions are sorta like "we'll throw in the kitchen sink". Except that they don't need three separate versions to play musical chairs with Outlook, Accounting Express, OneNote, something called Communicator and Integrated Content Management (hmm - is that Office Sharepoint Portal Server?). Ugh! Why not simply take the whole shopping basket to the corporate IT Manager and let them choose for themselves?

What do you think?

Posted by Anandasim at 05:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 08, 2006

Yahoo! - You Witness News

Yahoo! News launched a new "beta" site called You Witness News.  It's a "citizen journalism" site which allows people to submit photos and video directly to the editorial desk of the biggest news site on the web.

Source: FlickrBlog

Posted by Stephen at 04:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 06, 2006

Microsoft Office System 2007 Trial Versions coming soon

For those of you who are early adopters, you would have been playing with Beta 2 Technical Refresh of Microsoft Office System 2007. Patrick Schmid says that in US, Office 2007 trial versions now available for download at http://trymicrosoftoffice.com

Please keep in mind that these trials are good for 60 days only! That means if you don’t want to be buying Office 2007 basically the day it is released for retail & OEM (end of January), then you should wait on downloading the trial versions or stick with B2TR. Remember that B2TR is good till March 31, 2007.

I've been to the general url above and it wants US address details. Apparently http://australia.trymicrosoftoffice.com is still under wraps - it asks you for a password.

Oh, and don't forget, when you say Microsoft Office, you should say Microsoft Office System - that's ultra important. Because Office isn't about word processing anymore. In fact, Sharepoint Server 2007 is promised to do more than store a document here and there. Maybe the market will "take" this time. And not just compare Word 2007 with Open Office Writer.

Posted by Anandasim at 09:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Increasing Password Security

Here's a clever idea: a simple Javascript called SuperGenPass which increases the security of your passwords.

"Using the same password for every website you visit is a security risk; a better approach uses a master password to generate site-specific passwords. This password generator bookmarklet utilizes the MD5 one-way hash algorithm and Base64 encoding to generate site-specific passwords..."

Posted by Jeremy at 08:53 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

(Partial) backdown on draconian laws

The Sydney Morning Herald today has a story about the goverment's backdown on draconian laws (Copyright Amendment Bill 2006). Whilst it's an improvement on the horrible previous version, the Greens are spot on in their criticism:

"The Free Trade Agreement with the United States means the worst aspects of the American Copyright system has been imported into Australian law but with none of the consumer safeguards such as open ended fair use rights that exist in the United States"

Posted by Jeremy at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The new Windows Vista Aero Task Switcher

Saw this 1588 Agostino Ramelli invention at the Kircher Society website. Wonder how long before Microsoft re-invents the thing in Windows Presentation Foundation framework and stamps a licence on it a la The Office 2007 User Interface? And the FSF to react.

Posted by Anandasim at 05:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 01, 2006

Project Management for team members

Once in a while, people front up to me and whisper "Microsoft Project". I pause for effect and try to tell them that it isn't want they think it is. (However, if they're interested I know a pretty good Microsoft Project guru).

I tell them that Microsoft Project is a specialised calculator. It isn't a pretty drawing program that draws timelines and gantt charts. You could use it like that, but that's like using a Year 12 scientific calculator like the TI-86 to add 2+2.

The last time I saw Microsoft Project it was for:

In the midst all this, Project recalculates the effect if this or that is delayed.

After absorbing the enormity of this, the person who is delegated to carry out this typing (some people who should be using Project don't and some people who shouldn't be delegated to use Project do) looks around and thinks about colouring blocks in Excel (aah, try Visio, the charts are prettier). And ultimately boardroom management gets a pretty chart that bears no resemblance to coalface operations.

So, I was piqued when I followed a link to TeamDirection Project.

Microsoft Project is a great product. You can plan canals, nuclear reactors and hospitals with it. You have an array of tools at your disposal: resource pools, 10 or more working shifts per day, PERT and WBS structures, critical path analysis and a gazillion more features a skilled project manager wants, and might even need.


We think that's great. But the ability to level resources, find critical paths and adjust level of effort is lost on the person who is just making an image for the website. They only need to report when they're done, attach the image for people to see and comment how it synthesizes Bauhaus post-modernism and consumer durable goods.

TeamDirection bridges these two worlds. It lets the project manager have all the power, and it lets the team members execute their tasks, see and connect with their team members online to resolve issues and report progress.

Quote from TeamDirection Blog

It works with Groove (haven't heard of that? It's highly useful for people separated by distance with little or no IT support who need to collaborate and don't have a shared network drive) or Sharepoint and of course, Microsoft Project. Might be worth checking out.

Posted by Anandasim at 08:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack