Hoodoo Guru

And the good news is ...

And the good news is?

Coalition NBN policy revealed

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“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. The Coalition’s plan for real action on Broadband and Telecommunications!”

OK, we all know by now that Labor promises to deliver 100Mbps to every single premise in 93 percent of the population by using FTTP technology.

So finally the Coalition release their broadband and telecommunications policy which states. “By ensuring the delivery of a uniform national broadband network, under which 97 percent of premises are able to be served by high speed networks capable of delivering from 100 Mbps down to a minimum of 12Mbps, peak speed, using a combination of technologies including HFC, DSL and fixed wireless, with the remainder having access to satellite, we will stimulate the growth of the broadband market and of applications which rely on the ubiquitous availability of such a speed.”

For a start “speed” should be “speeds”.

And then we have a minimum of 12Mbps peak speed. Well you normally climb up to a peak not down to peak. Peak is a complete un-practical measure. This means you may get up-to 12Mbps during non-peak periods which is typically 3-4am if you live very close to your telephone exchange. This is because it still relies in the existing copper lines from telephone exchanges to peoples home (known as the last mile). This is where we have the speed bottleneck today as these lines were built for telephony. The further from the exchange you are the less speed you will have. FTTP adresses the last-mile problem since it uses fibre optical cable. In practical terms this is what we have today.

On the 7.30 report Tony Abbot was questioned about the aspects of NBN policy but all he could really say was that he was not a tech head and laughed off any expectation that he was able to answer any questions. He had no idea what the word “peak” meant in the context of the policy but insisted that his NBN policy was much better.

Perhaps he could have consulted Helen Coonan who knows all about Dialup fibre technology when several years ago senator Coonan was explaining how Telstra Wireless is better than FTTN with its ‘very fast’ speeds and that FTTN doesn’t work more than 4km away from the exchange.

The Coalitions policy simply relies on Telstra opening up its backhaul to competitors and releasing it as a wholesale product. Let’s not forget how many complaints the ACCC had about Telstra monopoly business tactics. In the hands of Telstra it will never be an ‘open access’ network.

Sure the Labor Policy will cost approx 43 billion and probably more, but it is an investment. Atleast they can explain and justify what they are spending it on. The benefit to business is substantial as small operators, IT companies and ISP’s can finally compete with the Telstra monopoly by sourcing from NBN co.

The NBN is essential for Australia, only the Labor NBN policy will stimulate the growth of the broadband market. The coalitions policy is rubbish and uses technology that is already obsolete.

Trust Nobody – Especially Adobe and McAfee

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Last week, many users would have noticed a warning message to upgrade Firefox to the latest version. They would have also been informed that Flash Player was out of date and were directed to a link to apply an update.

According to Firefox stats, more than 10 million people have clicked the link, which is probably doing more than Adobe’s own efforts to keep people up to date.

Flash is a major security threat on most computers. Adobe only decide to check for updates every month by default, as they consider this is enough for threats such as zero-day Flash exploits. If you don’t believe me just see Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Flash.

When directed to the download page for the Flash update, you would think that you were to address the Flash security alone. But Adobe’s tactics and practices are cunning and deceiving. Adobe first tries to shaft you by thrusting the Adobe Download Manager upon you, and then McAfee security scan. For most people, they would not have noticed the automatically ticked boxes that gives you more than what you have asked for.

I never really had a problem Adobe or McAfee but several months ago McAfee acquired Secure Computing and then shortly after that decided to discontinue the Snapgear product range . The Snapgear products were fantastic until McAfee changed and re-branded the software. People complained about the performance of the new software and their response was to ditch the product.

It seems that both Adobe and McAfee as a team have developed a new strategy called, “lets install unwanted software on the users PC without them knowing”. After all, they know all about what users want judging by the noise on their user forums. I thought these guys were big enough not to have to resort to this sort of thing but I am wrong 10% of the time. The only justification I can see is that they are truly concerned about user’s security and feel they to just shove AV software down your throats. These are the same guys who ditch a perfectly good security appliance such as the Snapgear UTM.

Maybe they are getting ready to move their offices to Nigeria to better sell their products.

I pity the IT workers that are going to have to deal with uninstalling this but I guess Adobe and McAfee would not give a shit. As somebody who fixes PCs for other people from time to time, I have on a number of occasions had to talk people over the phone on installing Flash because they literally couldn’t do it. Mozilla have succeeded in little more than annoying a lot of people.

Here is my tip. Read the permission screen VERY carefully, as you may have to UN-check default boxes to not download any unwanted software.

Be very mindful of the sneak-in-the-back-door tactics that Adobe and Mcfee will use after this press release.

Freelance sites are all the rave

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Freelancing is a great way to work from home. Freelancers do anything from writing to graphic design to computer programming. They are often hired by businesses (small and large) for a particular project.

The small business owner gets his website up and running, or his press release written without having to create a new position in his company to get the job done.

The Freelancer gets to do whatthey love in an enviroment that suits thme best. The big question is how do the business owner and freelancer find each other? They do it through one of the freelance sites below.

On all five of these sites projects are posted and freelancers bid on how much they would charge for the work. It is up to the company / person posting the job to choose which freelancer they would like to work with.

The following are five great websites that I have found for freelance work. This is for mostly programming/development, which includes PHP and many other languages.

1) http://freelancer.com

Freelancer is good place to find small to mid-sized projects for earning extra money. It also offers a rating system which can hurt or help you depending on your work. It is free for the buyer to post a project on freelancer.com. The successful freelance bidder is charged $5 USD for being accepted for a project, and a further $1 for withdrawing funds to PayPal. Its an Australian company with over 1,00,000 verified users.

2) http://odesk.com/

Odesk is a little bit different than the rest of the sites listed here. Instead of bidding on projects, you bid on hours. Employers can list the amount of hours/week and # of weeks they need out of a potential freelancer.

3) http://www.guru.com

Guru is another biggest freelancing site, with more than 1,00,000+ freelancers, Guru boasts of patent pending rating system which provides proper rating. It also boasts of escrow integration which is obviously an added + for both providors and jobposters. This site also has both free and premium membership based on categories of work which you’re willing to do. This is also one of the place you must try.

4) http://www.rentacoder.com

Rentacoder is good place to find small to mid-sized projects for earning extra money. It also offers a rating system which can hurt or help you depending on your work.

5) http://www.craigslist.com

Craigslist is great because there is no barrier to entry for either the employer or the potential freelancer/employee (it is also among the top sites on the Internet). This can also be a detriment because anyone with a computer can post a job listing.

Expect more attacks from Anonymous

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Today the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has published community and industry submissions into improved transparency and accountability measures surrounding the Government’s internet filtering plans.

The 174 submissions will be used to feed into its legislative framework. Submissions were received for the usual suspects including Telstra, Optus, Microsoft, Electronic Frontiers Australia and Google.
Many submissions appeared to be from individuals with passionate pleas.

“A range of views have been expressed in the submissions and I would like to thank everyone who contributed their comments and valuable ideas to the public consultation process,” Conroy said in a statement.

One submission was from the vocal protest group “Anonymous”. Anonymous warned that that they will launch more cyber attacks in protest over the government’s plans to introduce mandatory filtering.

“We are Anonymous … EXPECT US!,” the group said in its comments in a part of the submission related to the banned content list and classification process.

Senator Conroys office will now work with other government agencies to consider the submissions and examine whether the ideas can be used to enhance the proposed accountability and transparency measures.”

The legislation would be introduced into parliament once these processes were complete, he said.

Protest group Anonymous said in a submission on the government’s proposed internet filter that it will launch more cyber attacks in protest over the government’s plans to introduce mandatory filtering to censor internet content.

Nielsen study: Australia’s internet use up

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Internet usage increased by 9% in Australia last year but did not affect the use of other media due to Aussies’ knack for multi-skilling. Nielsen’s 2010 Internet & Technology Report, released this week, stated that the average Australian internet user spent 17.6 hours per week online in 2009. In 2008 they were on for 16.1 hours, and 13.7 hours in 2007. 93% use the internet at home.

The growth was caused partly by quicker broadband, but also the popularity of social media. Facebook, for instance, accounted for 21% of internet use.

The heaviest users are those aged 16 to 29 years (average of 22 hours per week), compared to 30 to 49 year olds (18.2 hours) and the over-50s (15.5 hours). In fact the over 50s now spend almost as much time online as they do watching television (15.5 hours compared to 15.6 hours respectively).

More males spend time online (19.2 hours versus the 16.1 hours per week by females) and metropolitan users say they get as much news from the net as from television.

49% watch television and use the internet at the same time. 39% listen to radio simultaneously. Nielsen says TV viewing is up by 30 minutes to 13.4 hours — contrary to OzTam findings, through a different methodology, that TV viewing is down. The time spent listening to radio rose to 9.3 hours from 8.8 hours. They were also reading more books (5.6 hours a week last year, compared to 5.1 hours the year before), news (3.2 hours, up from 2.8 hours) and magazines (two hours a week, same as in 2008).

The growth of podcasts and internet radio did not add to the time people spent on the net. In fact, time spent on internet radio fell to 4.1 hours from 4.9 hours in 2008. Accessing the internet via mobile phones is also becoming less popular: it’s fallen to 4.1 hours from 4.9 hours.

Matt Bruce, managing director of Nielsen’s online, said: “Changes to the Australian media landscape in recent years such as the introduction of Freeview TV, digital radio and PVR/DVRs (personal video recorder/digital video recorder) mean consumers have more options and flexibility in their media choices than ever before. This is reflected in the growth of hours spent across a range of media and the popularity of media multi-tasking.”