March 31st, 2010
The Internet Filter has me on the soapbox. For those of you of that listen to techblah the podcast, you will know that I am an ardent opponent of the Rudd Government’s proposed Internet Filtering policy. Those who haven’t, welcome to my latest rant!
The Government policy claims that the filter will obstruct those trading in child pornography. They have also indicated that one of their goals is to “protect” the general public from access to “refused classification” sites.
This policy is flawed on so many levels – technically, monetarily, morally and democratically. Let’s look at each these levels more closely. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 22nd, 2010
My day starts at 3.30am courtesy of being awoken by a the sound of an SMS eRail update: ” Service disruption expect delays of 30 mins on Caboolture line”.
Is it just me or does anyone else find the eRail update service only works when it feels like it?
I arrive at the train station for the supposed morning ride – The 6.56 am Nambour express
On arrival I walk over the to the platform with a bunch of other commuters. No signs. No QR staff and no train. What the?
Suddenly a QR representative yells out from another platform: “No trains, bus over here.” So we trudge over the bridge again, just in time to be bundled into a bus with three hundred other people.
What a great trip. The driver has the radio so loud my ears are still ringing. Finally, after being squashed back and forward with all the other sweaty bodies, we arrive at the Petrie train station. To QR’s credit the train is waiting and we all cram on. Somehow my two companions and I get a seat, that’s where QR’s credit runs out.
This will be a stopping all stations train to Roma street
… a collective groan rings out from all the passengers.
From that moment on every station we stop at results in the same scenario; no room for passengers to get in, passengers trying to get in yelling “please move back!”, passengers that are in, screaming “there is no room”, passengers who really want to get out fighting for their life.
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March 16th, 2010
This is my daily post documenting my Queensland Rail/Translink train trip from Caboolture in Queensland Australia to Brisbane city and back.
Morning Ride – The 6.56 am Nambour express
The train is packed as usual, however I did get a seat. Not much to report. A perfect trip and on time. Why can’t they make it run like this every day? Not much to ask!
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March 16th, 2010
This will be a daily post documenting my Queensland Rail/Translink train trip from Caboolture in Queensland Australia to Brisbane city and back.
Morning Ride – The 6.56 am Nambour express
The train is packed, as was the carpark, our local member deserves kudos for that one. In her wisdom the spruiking of extra car parks now available at the station has brought many more patrons. No extra trains, service or carriages on the existing trains to deal with the influx though. This results in standing room only and today is no different, I could get a seat if I felt the urge to push, shove and deny the females and older patrons a seat.
Today’s trip however has a wonderful twist: no air conditioning. It’s like a bloody sauna and very energy sapping (the trip is a 55 minute job). Just to make life fun we stopped at Virginia for no reason for 5 minutes. Of course the old inane announcement by the conductor comes over the speaker:
“Passengers: we will be stopped for a while. I will aaar update you when I know more.”
He’s good communicator that one. Finally we are on our way, sweating all the way to the city with no further incident. The service is 7 minutes late. Not bad by QR standard time.
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February 22nd, 2010
“Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been 12 days since my last post.”
“Take two verbs and describe a noun.”
Let’s talk device convergence. Recently, while acting as members of a panel at the Smart Services Conference (2009), we were asked where we thought the evolution of mobile devices was headed. Many points of opinion were raised, here are my thoughts and predictions that I shared that day.
I believe that the mobile phone capability will move towards miniaturisation of the handset yet expansion of capability and gesture interactivity.
This demonstration at the TED conference only serves to validate this position. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look now. It only makes sense that we would seek to remove the reliance on carrying devices and seek the freedom of movement this technology offers.
This, however, leaves us with a conundrum: How do we cater for the need for a device which allows portability, yet also supports the expanded capabilities we require (such as web browsing, eBooks, and multimedia)?
I believe that the year of 2010 will be the year of the Netpad/Slate. Early prototypes I have seen are very promising, such as the Microsoft courier and the crunch pad. However, as they tend to do, Apple promise much with their unnamed version, which will surely be based on the iPhone interface.
Google, of course, has a finger in the pie and I believe this will be the vehicle they seek for their Chrome operating system.
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February 10th, 2010
A wonderful new application goes live. It has been tested and it does what it’s supposed to do. But within hours the issues start to roll in. Fingers are pointed…
“The development team didn’t build it right!”
“The business requirements are wrong!”
We’ve all been there, right?
In my experience, there have been many times where I have discovered that the root cause is not the requirements nor the application’s implementation. The issue is that the both the requirements and the application itself have been styled over the top of a flawed business process.
So here are my thoughts:
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February 1st, 2010
I am sitting here thinking why it is always so complicated. When it comes to technology – whether it be a web application, the code behind it or the technology itself – why is it that we allow ourselves to let it become so complicated?
I say this off the back of a terrible experience I had on a Federal Government website. Now I like to believe I am a fairly savvy user of the ‘Net. Little did I know how wrong I could be! This site confounded me and drove me to confusion of the highest order. Read the rest of this entry »
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