Tablet PCs - dunno...

OK. That may be a little misleading.


It isn't that I dunno if the Tablet PC form factor (format, way of life, whatever) is valid. It is - everything (well almost everything) has a place - and I can imagine quite a number of situations where it would be (a big part of) an ideal solution.


It is just that I dunno if the Tablet PC form factor will work for me or for the rest of us here at the Quark Group.

We're getting to the point where we need to deploy a CRM application and some project management software, amongst other things. We also need to keep better records of the work that we do - now, I'm not saying that we're bad at keeping records - we've got loads of info on our client sites and jobs here, it is just that we need a more structured way to keep all of this information and have it readily accessible to us all when and where we need it.

In particular, *I* need to find a way to keep *my* records better - I often use a piece of paper at a client site when we're discussing something to scratch notes, diagrams, serials, phone numbers of cute girls, requests and general information on and then have every intention of transferring all of this information into the relevant documentation here at the office. The problem is that often between this client site and entering this information into the computer, "stuff" happens (another client, the weekend, the paper migrates south on my desk and finds a warm place to hibernate for a week or two) which results in my not entering this information into the computer as quickly as I originally intended.

So, we've started using Outlook and in particular the Notes section of an Appointment to enter this information into - and this is where our Windows Mobile 5 PDAs have found yet another use. However, I still can't get everything in there as easily as I'd like - small keyboard, too small a page for many diagrams, and other excuses I care to make up as I go. WHat information is in there, however, syncs automatically to Exchange and is also relatively easy to pull into other documentation, reports and jobsheets.

I have been thinking for a while now about getting a new laptop and replacing my desktop with it. I have a trusty old Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 Pentium III/900 laptop that goes most places with me and has done so for quite a few years now. It is easily enough to use onsite and when away from the office for a few days to check emails, run diagnostics on client sites and things like that, but there's no way I could use it as my main PC (screen res is too low and it just isn't fast enough) and no way we can use it to demo much to clients (too slow).

So, looking at a new laptop. Do I get a large, heavy, powerful laptop (17", Core 2 Duo, 4 GB, loads of HDD space, preferably 2 drives) and run my life from this unit? Do I get a smaller, 15" Core 2 Duo, 2 GB with heaps of HDD space to run most things on except serious Virtualization demonstration environments (that the 17" beast could do) and remote into the office to access the demos there? Do I look for a smaller, 12.1" Core 2 Duo laptop with 2 GB and enough HDD space and replace my older laptop with that, still keeping my desktop?

First, the mega gruntmeister. 1920*1200 LCD or nothing. 4 GB RAM. Whatever fast HDD that comes with it used as a secondary and the main HDD will be a Hitachi E7K200 or a Seagate equivalent when they make one. No *need* for a second monitor, but another display sure won't hurt. What *WILL* hurt, however, is my back from lugging this thing around everywhere with me. It will be easily able to handle a full SBS+TS+XP+XP demo to a client (or replace XP with Vista Business, whatever takes my fancy). It won't be fun to pull out at a coffee shop for a quick demo - it will take up most of the table. Not so much fun.

OK, so let's look at replacing my ageing Tosh SatPro with a newer unit. 1600*1050 is probably what I could live with as a minimum widescreen resolution for daily use (out of the office) with another display as a secondary in the office. It still isn't going to be particularly light and with a screen that small it won't be easy to demo much to a client - it'd be better with a small projector or plugged into an LCD of theirs. My back would not need as much physio/chiro which is a bonus. It wouldn't be able to handle a full SBS+TS+VB+VB demo unless I threw more RAM at it. In a coffee shop, it still isn't that great - takes up a more reasonable amount of table space, but the screen is getting a little pokey for 2 or 3 people around a coffee table.

Now we're down to the 12.1" or so notebook that's easy to lug around, running at 1400*1050 or so, which is kinda nearly almost 1600*1050, will definitely require a second desktop display if this were to replace my desktop and can't really be used to demo outside a coffee shop unless there's a projector in my car boot. It takes up less space than a dinner plate at a coffee shop, though! Most likely of all three units to make it to EVERY job I do and still bearable to use on a daily basis when out of the office. Actualy, as to demos, if it had 4 GB, it would likely have as much grunt as the 15" unit above, or extremely close to it.

(OK, I have to admit that I *can* live with a 1024*768 15.4" LCD display as the Satellite Pro 4600 has shown me, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it.)

And this is when I started to look at my options and decided that of all these, the 17" although it would be nice, really isn't something I'd like to lug around all day. The 15.4" is the worst of both worlds (still heavy and with a screen res I could scrape by with, but not really like), leaving the 12.1" being too small to *really* demo on (display-wise) but light enough to lug around all day and grunty enough as well as absolutely requiring a second screen if I were use this as a desktop replacement.

So, now, having decided that in reality, smaller actually IS better, I had a rethink of what I was looking at getting a notebook upgrade for. I wanted one to help me organise my record keeping a little better. And what do I do? I write stuff on paper all the time. How will replacing the SatPro help? It likely won't (although, I could use it to demo things to clients). So really? Waste of money for what I really need.

But, 12.1" brings Tablet PCs into play. Now, there's something that could be well useful as they are basically a big, thick, heavy (compared to a paper pad) digital piece of paper. We have Wi-Fi access at most client sites, so this big, thick piece of digital paper would be able to sync back to the office, and when we don't, we have GPRS/3G/HSDPA access which will also work fine.

Of course, as notebooks get smaller their proces go up, and add Tablet PC capabilities into the unit and it goes up quite a bit again. This makes a Tablet PC approximately the same cost as the big gruntmeister box. Hhmmm... OK. That means we're looking at shelling out somewhere in the vicinity of AU$3500 - AU$4500 on this setup, so we had better know it will deliver what it promises.

For a laugh, I decided to look on eBay for an M200 - the older sibling of the M400 Tablet PC I'd been eyeing off recently - to see what they were going for. They had a Pentium-M CPU and a max of 2 GB RAM as well as a dismal 32MB nVidia onboard video card (poor Aero performance), but they'd also give us an idea of what this form factor could actually achieve. My eBay exercise turned out to not be as silly as I had initially thought - there were a number of M200 units available for prices varying up to AU$1750. Included in this list of items was one that I eventually bought for AU$651.27 (including freight) which was a Pentium-M 1.5 GHz, 512MB RAM, 40 GB HDD unit - all up, well worth the price to see if this would work out for us.

So, including adding some extra RAM to it and swapping the 80 GB PATA from the SatPro into this, it cost a smidge over AU$1000. Well worth it, methinks, to see if this will let us know one way or the other as to the usability of Tablet PCs for both myself and the rest of us.

And then I bought a docking station - making the grant total a smidge under AU$1200. Again, well worth it as we'll also see how useful the docking stations are when it is at home back on the desk in the office.

We've also had a few clients asking us about the usefulness of a Tablet PC in general and in their business more specifically. Well, now we'll have some real world experience to back up our recommendations which is always a better place to come from. Other people's experiences are valuable, but often not as valuable as your own. :)

So, I'll keep posting as I see how this works out for me.

And on that note, sitting here with an empty glass of bourbon and listening to sigur rós, I think I'll "refill and chill" a little more.

Regards,
The Outspoken Wookie

Reporting bugs in Microsoft code

Some of you may be surprised to know that I recently found a bug in some Microsoft code. I know, I know - they keep saying it is the most secure, most loved, most perfect code in the world, but we all know that not to be the case. Alright, they don't actually say that, but they do imply it. Well, kind of imply it. Whatever...

Anyway, I found a bug with Office 2007 Enterprise running on Vista Ultimate x64. More specifically, it was with Outlook 2007 running on Vista Ultimate x64 when trying to export a Public Folder from Exchange 2003 SP2 to a .pst file. So what would any self respecting person do with this knowledge? That's right - I tried to report it to Microsoft.

Go to www.microsoft.com and look for the "report bug" link or something to that effect. What "report bug" link? Look through the partner site for the same thing. No joy. It isn't worth looking on Connect for this as once the product moves through the Beta and RC stages to Final, all reporting functionality is removed from the Connect site (smart move, eh). Look through the MSDN site. Nothing. Nowhere. Not a schmick!

So, then I did what any self respecting person would do - I used the best search engine on the planet to look for a way to report a bug to Microsoft - I Googled it. Nothing. A lot of people were also doing the same thing, apparently, and having the same luck I was. But nothing.

So, I reduced my expectations and searched on www.live.com and got the same results. Nothing.

By "nothing" I mean to say that I did know about the http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?WS=Wish site, which is quite useless - it is a "send us suggestions" site. There's a web form and nothing much else. You can't send screen captures of error messages, and this isn't really a bug reporting site, it is - as it is names - a wishlist site. I'm not making a feature request, I'm trying to report a bug.

Nothing.

Nada.

OK. I had even spent a bit of time narrowing down the bug to a Vista Ultimate x64/Office 2007 issue - the same issue doesn't occur when running Outlook 2007 (in Office Enterprise) on Windows XP Pro, nor does it occur in Office Outlook 2003 on XP Pro. I could have spent hours installing Vista Ultimate x86 and Office Enterprise 2007 on that to see if the bug also existed in Vista x86, but imagine my additional frustration if I'd spent the time doing that to find out that Microsoft refuses to provide a method for people to submit bug reports to them!

So, it seems that Microsoft DOES believe their code is beyond reproach - they don't allow people to report issues with it, therefore they must believe that it is perfect. OK, that's probably a bit of a leap, but you must understand my frustration with a company of this size, especially when almost every other software company on the planet has a method for you to report bugs in their code to them.

Does Microsoft care that we find bugs in their software? Apparently not. They at least don't care enough to allow us to report bugs back to them. And why, after all, would we want to report these bugs back to Microsoft?

To help them make better software.

They just don't care about that, apparently.


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Demythtifying WiFi

Hi All,

As a part of the story around 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi technology, what's real and what's fallacy, I hope that this article is of benefit to some people.

I intend to write more when I get the time, but this is a start.

Also, for those who haven't been to the Quark IT site before, I have written a number of articles that are available on the site, as is a Newsletter (which is currently having a holiday, purely until I get time to start publishing it again).

Newsletter... Yes. I REALLY should get this back on track. I keep meaning to...

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

World Class Farce

I cannot believe what a complete and utter cock up the umpires and the ICC have made of the World Cup Cricket final between Australia and Sri Lanka.

During the Sri Lankan innings it started raining, this rain then got progressively heavier, yet the umpires didn't make a decision to leave as they could see a clearer patch of sky beyond the clouds. This was a sensible decision - Sri Lanka needed to keep playing to ensure they had a chance to win, had they gone off then, there would have been too many overs lost, along with any chance of Sri Lanka being able to win.

So, as the rain started to ease, the umpires decided to send the teams off the field. Why, I guess, no sane person will ever be able to understand. Aleem Dar and Steve Bucknor had just made the most stupid decision (probably) ever in cricketing history.

Then, when they decided to bring the teams back on, they failed to calculate the new target. Sure, they could work out that 2 overs were lost and correctly subtracted 2 from 38 to get 36, but they couldn't work out how to use the Duckworth Lewis system to calculate the new target and a few balls later, both teams stopped the match to enquire about the new target. Failing to have this corrected, the teams started playing again whilst waiting for the farce to end, which it eventually did.

Or so we thought.

Now, as the light was fading due to the ridiculous waste of time that the umpires caused by the stoppages, the umpires offered the light to the Sri Lankan batsmen on a number of occasions, which they finally took 3 overs before the end of the match. With absolutely no chance of Sri Lanka being able to win and with absolutely no chance of the light improving (as the WCC final ground dows not have lights), everyone had figured - the ground officials included - that Australia had just won the World Cup. Of course, Aleem Dar then chose to point out to Ricky Ponting that this was not the end of the match and that they would need to come back tomorrow to bowl the three remaining overs. The ground staff at this point had already congratulated Australia on the scoreboard and were preparing to set up for the presentations, yet the umpires shooed them off the field, explaining that the match wasn't over.

Mahela Jayawardene then came onto the ground and discussed the options with Ricky Ponting and, instead of making the most obvious decision there was - conceding defeat - he chose to send his batsmen back out to face the final three overs.

At this point, the commentators couldn't distinguish between players on the field. The batsmen had to face spin bowlers for safety - pace bowlers would have been deadly. The cameras couldn't easily focus on the players for the lack of light. Basically, the game should have been over when the players took the offer of bad light.

Despite the "look" on the broadcast, the light was appalling. The cameras and CCU operators were able to enhance the light way beyond was actually available. The true state of affairs, and the true view of what a farce the umpires made of this match, was seen when Stump Cam was shown - there's no way to artificially enhance the image from Stump Cam in the same way as the regular broadcast cameras. It was close to total darkness. Even the enhanced camera images were significantly grainy due to the enhancement artifacts. This was something that never should have been allowed to go on.

The umpires made appalling decisions. The ICC allowed them to do it. Jayawardene had a clear opportunity to stop the stupidity and chose not to do so. The whole thing showed the world how far away from being able to make Cricket a world game the governing body is. It is a shame, but hopefully the ICC will learn from this and take steps to ensure some form of sanity creeps into the rules and the interpretation of the rules.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Microsoft Patch Releases

Generally, an intelligent entity is able to learn from not only its own mistakes but also from those it sees others make. An entity that keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over is deemed to be moderately unintelligent.

Well in that case, Microsoft must be the dumbest company on the face of this planet (and probably quite a few others). Not only have they once again released a Service Pack for a Windows NT-based operating system that breaks networking on many machines (Windows Server 2003 SP2 this time, Windows NT 4 Service Pack 2 last time), but they have released a second patch for their Animated Cursor component in Windows (obviously, critical in any Server is an animated cursor) and this time they have followed in their long established path of releasing a broken patch that almost immediately needs a patch for the patch.

MS07-017 resulted in a great many machines worldwide failing to run properly and having error messages stating something similar to:

application_executable_name - Illegal System DLL Relocation
The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\Windows\System32\Hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL.

This is because Microsoft broke their patch and then tried blaming Realtek for the issue. As proof that it was a Microsoft issue, more applications have the same issue with this new MS07-017 patch. As further proof of the origin of the issue, Microsoft have released a new Windows XP Update to address the issues they created by not testing MS07-017 properly before releasing it.

I have a few issues with this patch (in particular) and Microsoft patching practice in general.

1. Why does a Windows Server have an animated cursor component? Is this a critical OS component? No. Is this something that should ever, for any reason be installed on any server? No. Then why does Microsoft ship it as a part of their Windows Server family? Secure By Design - I think not!

2. If this were a highly critical patch (as it is) that was only recently discovered and reported to Microsoft and it was in a critical component of the OS (see my previous point), then one *may* be able to give a little leniency to Microsoft. In this case, that is not what happened. On 22 October 2004 (yes, that's 2.5 years ago) this vulnerability was reported to Microsoft. They willingly did nothing about it. That is called "responsible disclosure" on the part of Cesar Cerrudo, the person who found the vulnerability.

Then on 7 November 2006 - over 2 years after Cesar originally reported this vulnerability to Microsoft - Cesar got sick of waiting for Microsoft to perform their corporate responsibilities and made the details of the vulnerability public. That is STILL called "responsible disclosure" on the part of Cesar - over 2 years for Microsoft to address a highly critical vulnerability in a default Windows component is simply "corporate apathy".

So, what did Microsoft then do? If you guessed "they jumped into action" then you'd be sadly mistaken. If you guessed "they did their absolute best impersonation of a statue" then you win the prize. That's right - Microsoft continued to not make history and remain apathetic towards this vulnerability. That's security the Microsoft way.

On 29 January 2007 (that's 27 months - well over 2 years since the vulnerability was originally reported to Microsoft) an exploit for this vulnerability was released by Joel Eriksson. It then took Microsoft over 9 weeks to release the MS07-017 patch to this 2 and a half year old vulnerability.

Which part of "Secure by design, secure by default" does this lax behavior fit into? Does it even fit into "Secure by deployment"? No, there is no security consideration in any of this. Microsoft totally (again) dropped the ball.

3. When Microsoft belatedly released a patch for this vulnerability, they broke it and then blamed a number of 3rd parties for the issues they created. That's appalling. Again, the corporate apathy present in Microsoft - thanks to Steve Ballmer who is at its helm right now - is what's letting them down. They need to realize that security is important to us, even if it isn't really that important to them. And as we are their customers (they sure don't treat us like clients), then we DO matter to them, as without us, they have no income.


So, all up, I have to express my disgust, once again, in Microsoft's mishandling of another patch release. Don't get me started on Windows Server 2003 SP2...

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sensible Political Decisions

I know, this is something that you rarely hear about - a politician making a decision that actually makes sense (other than the "sense" of them being re-elected, that is).

Australia is to implement a plan to phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2010. This will reduce our CO2 output by around 800,000 tonnes per year - a significant reduction. Of course, although we claim this to be a world first, a quick Google search comes up with these previous announcements:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/south_africa_to_1.php - South Africa To Phase Out Incandescent Bulbs (2006-06-06)

http://carbonsink.blogspot.com/2006/08/uk-to-ban-standby-devices-and.html - UK to ban standby devices and incandescent light bulbs (2006-08-20)

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/180048 - U.S. states want to phase out light bulbs (2007-02-09), admittedly this is talk, not action at this point, but promising all the same.

And then there's http://www.iea.org/Textbase/work/2007/cfl/agenda.pdf which is the agenda for the IEA/European Commission/CEN-Star-Trend-Analysis workshop on "Compact Fluorescent Lamp Quality and Strategies to Phase-out Incandescent Lamps" to be held on 26 February 2007 at the IEA, Paris, France.

So, whilst we're far from being the first country or state to announce plans to eliminate indandescent lighting and replace it with energy efficient lighting, at least we're on the right path!

We use only fluorescent lighting here at my house and office. I recently saw some nice compact fluorescent downlights that can be used to replace the older halogen downlights that used to be used, reducing the 50W lamps to 9W (or 11W) will reduce power consumption by around 75% - a significant saving.

The issue with fluorescent lamps is their general inability to be dimmed, however that is being overcome by companies such as GE, Tu-Wire, Lutron, Westinghouse and Philips by developing special dimmable ballasts that are used in compact and regular fluorescent lamps. See here for a list of some of the available dimmable compact fluorescent lamps available. This link has some more information on dimmable CF lamps.

Clipsal C-Bus can then dim fluorescent lamps just as it can dim regular incandescent and halogen lamps if these specialized products are used. Quark Automation (blatant plug time, here) designs, deploys and programs automated lighting, HVAC and audiovisual systems for residential and commercial properties and recommends energy efficient lighting.

As an added bonus, Lutron (and possibly other companies) also produce a dimmable compact fluorescent downlight using a special 32W lamp. An added bonus here is that (in Australia, at least) using CF downlights means that instead of the 150mm clearance between a halogen downlight and any insulation (a 300mm diameter clearance), these CF downlights require a mere 25mm (50mm diameter) of room before insulation can be used, meaning a greater cover of insulation in your ceiling space.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Little Johnny Whoward

I had a colleague (who happened to be English) make a comment to me a little while back when we were discussing politics. He said that "you guys have the world's most irrelevant political leader" and I think he hit the nail right on the heavily eyebrowed head.

John Whoward - I've changed his name, not to protect the innocent, but because it now has 2 different and equally valid implications - has to be the world's most irrelevant leader. It seems that most people in the country he rules with an ironic fist find him a displeasing little man (even distasteful) and will hopefully oust he and his cronies at the next Federal election. Not only that, I'm sure that Dubya doesn't even know his name and the only time he notices him is when Johnny sneezes - considering Little Johnny has his head firmly planted up Dubya's date, this sneezing causes a wry smile on Dubya's face.

Yes, Little Johnny Whoward, who's head is now permanently shaped exactly like Dubya's rectum, is a political no-one. He's got his political no-ones alongside him, such as Alexander (Quilt) Downer who seems like he's going to cry every time he has to speak in public.

Little Johnny Whoward, you can pronounce that "Who-ward" or "Dubya-Howard - either is equally appropriate, who is trying to bring the Australian worker down to the poverty level of the peasant in the middle ages, seems to have signed a non-compete contract with fairness and reasonable treatment of people - and he's not even trying to soar to the dizzying heights of mediocrity in case he comes close to breaching that contract. It seems he'd rather wallow in the filth and bring the rest of the country down to his level.

I just hope that if the Federal Labor Party actually has policies and a plan this time (they had Beazley last time, and he was neither) that they let people know what they are. I'm not a fan of a religious nutter leading a country - the political system is not a church (read that again, Dubya) and should not be treated like one. But I hope that those behind the Labor Party's nutter leader can actually offer something of benefit to Australians and the world.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

England find the right end of the bat

Well, bugger me!

England beat Australia by 93 runs in the One Day match in Sydney today. That's something for the books!

We played poorly - we fielded like the English team and batted pretty much the same. Sure, Roy retired hurt, but regardless of that, we'd not have come that much closer.

England played well - they batted quite well, fielded much more like Australia than we did, bowled well and basically kicked our butts.

I trust this will give the Poms a good shove in the right direction - ie, playing cricket! They haven't done much of that all summer to this point. They did well today and deserved to beat us. I just hope this continues for them. They may keep their houses after all!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

The Death of English Cricket

It may have been back in 1882 that, satirically, it was claimed that English cricket had died, the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia, but it looks like it took until 2006/2007 for English cricket to truly die.

I was there in Brisbane for the first Ashes Test Match. England played like a team who didn't understand the game and didn't really care if they won. I watched with interest the remaining Ashes Test games and England really didn't have a better attitude or prospect for the remaining four games. Sure, in Adelaide they had a chance to win and a great chance to draw, but on Day 5 they utterly decimated their chances by abysmal gameplay.

Then we played them in a Twenty 20 match that we'd probably have had a better competition playing a preschool teachers' team.

And now with the One Day Series, England is simply disgraceful. In the game currently underway, England were all out for 110 runs after less than 34 overs (in a 50 over match) and Brett Lee has bowling figures of 8 overs, 2 maidens, 2 wickets for 8 runs. I'm sure if he bowled against a team of comatose (or completely maggot drunk) players he'd have worse figures.

The English Captain, selectors and players have put in the worst ever effort in English cricketing history. They almost deserve to forfeit their remaining games, refund the Barmy Army's tickets, flights and accomodation and go home with their tails between their legs. The problem is that they may very well not have a home to return to - I'm sure that the English authorities are seriously considering revoking their Visas and resuming the land their houses are on and turning them into memorial parks.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Are the Chinese WANTING Trouble With The USA?

It seems that the Chinese government isn't happy getting Hong Kong back from the Brits - they also want to take on the US over it's Star Wars defence system.

China owns a number of satellites, a number of which are getting towards the end of their useful life. They decided to test their anti-satellite missiles by destroying one of their own ageing weather satellites, which - considering the issue that there is with space junk already - is just stupid unless the missile can vaporise the entire satellite. On top of this, Dubya is now making doo doo in his pants as this shows that China is capable of destroying US military satellites - something that has not been done since 1985 when the US tried a similar test, thanks to the then wobbly finger of Ronald's (Got A) Ray-Gun.

Sure, China may have the right to destroy their own property, but it would be common courtesy to inform people that this is going to happen and see if there is valid concern about the means in which they intend to do this BEFORE they actually turn a satellite into a million pieces of space debris.

Speaking of space debris, why is the Shuttle replacement going to be dumping MORE junk in space than the current Shuttles do? This is ridiculous and will only make space travel in near Earth orbit even more dangerous than it already is. I suppose it is only going to make it more important that they release a new Space Plough to clean up all the crap we left up there, and at whatever price they see fit to release this at!

Sometimes (well, more often than not) I wonder about the value of instant gratification over long term benefits.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Not being one for doing things in halves

Well, as I was coming inside this morning I didn't quite beat the closing screen door and got to know it a little better than I wanted to. As my left foot was coming up the last step, the corner of the screen door caught me just above the heel and on the inside of the ankle, next to my achilles. Well, it kinda hurt.

After a quick look at it - it looked rather deep - I went straight to the bathroom and ran cold water over it for about 20 min to help reduce the swelling, clean it out and seal the wound. It still looked deep, and was a little on the sore side. Well, maybe more than a little!

So, off I trundled to the local Accident and Emergency at the local public hospital. Now, for those not in Australia (or in Queensland), you may need to be introduced to our wonderful Public Health system here - basically, plan to spend a few hours waiting in A+E (Casualty, ER, whatever you want to call it) and a few weeks waiting for surgery. And that's a good run. Some people wait quite a number of months for non-elective surgery.

Anyway, I got to the hospital around 11 AM and finally got to see a doctor at about 3PM. At least there was some decent tennis on the telly in the waiting room. I should have taken a bbq, a few loaves of bread, some onions and a few kilos of sausages and made some money with a sausage sizzle while I was waiting - something to consider for next time.

The doc looked at my wound and decided that he needed to make it hurt a little more just for the fun of it - I'm sure doctors are sadists (just like physiotherapists, but that's another story). He debrided and cleaned it after anaesthetizing it and then decided that as it was quite deep, he'd jab me again and make it a little deeper.

Then, after all of this, he told me that he'd put 2 stitches in it as he'd need to leave the bottom open for it to drain, and that there was a better than remote chance that it will get infected, in which case they'll admit me to hospital and clean it out thoroughly in surgery.

At least the xrays showed that I didn't damage any bone! However, I need to keep it at right angles, no bending until it starts to heal, and then try to get it used to bending and moving normally whilst the missing meat grows back. That should be fun. :-S

Anyway, I get home and look at the offending screen door. Its standing there, gloating at me. So I give it a little jiggle and notice that the bottom hinge doesn't seem to be functioning - it seems that the 3 rivets that held it to the door yesterday are missing. To top it off, the door seems to have twisted or bent about a centimetre and a half so that the top now juts out and the bottom sits in closer than it used to.

That is when I knew I had gotten the better of the deal - the door may have put a hole in me, but in the process I extracted three of its teeth and bent it somewhat out of shape. Oh, the sweet taste of victory!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Copyright Amendment Bill 2006

OK. I've had a chance to read through the Bill as proposed (here) and it seems that some of what was being said about this proposed Bill earlier (including in my last post) isn't 100% correct.

From my reading of the proposed Bill, not the final Amendment Bill (as I cannot find it anywhere), it seems that the following is basically what was proposed:

1. A lot of the amendments were due to the recently signed AUSFTA (the
Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement ) and were meant to bring the Australian Law somewhat into alignment with US Law than they currently were. This is applicable only in areas where the AUSFTA holds significance. Generally, the changes made offer less freedom in Australia than the US.

2. Format shifting of music CDs, tapes, records or digital downloads (except podcasts), as well as books, newspapers or periodicals, and also a video from tape to digital format (but not, please note NOT a DVD video) will be allowable as long as the original source is a legitimate copy owned by the person who owns the copy and it is for private, domestic use only. Copies of this "main copy" cannot be made. This "main copy" can only be lent (not hired, sold or otherwise distributed) to family or household members for their own private and domestic use.

3. Time shifting of broadcast programs (television and radio) will be enable an individual, for their private and domestic use, to watch and/or listen to a program at a time that is more suitable to them. They may *lend* (but not hire nor sell nor otherwise distribute) this copy to family or household members for private and domestic use. There seems to be no mention of the "watch once and then delete" provision that was spoken about earlier.

4. Library usage, parody/satire usage and disabled persons ability to access copyright materials have all been increased.

5. There are three types of offence under the Copyright Act - indictable, summary and strictly liable. An indictable offence is a serious offence, whereas a summary offence is a lesser offence - both need to have proof of recklessness (indictable) or negligence (summary), whereas a strictly liable offence needs no proof of a fault element (ie, the fact that an item was copied and sold is enough for a prosecution).

(1) A person commits an indictable offence if:
(a) the person makes an article, with the intention of:
(i) selling it; or
(ii) letting it for hire; or
(iii) obtaining a commercial advantage or profit; and
(b) the article is an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter; and
(c) copyright subsists in the work or other subject-matter when the article is made.
(2) An offence against subsection (1) is punishable on conviction by a fine of not more
than 550 penalty units (currently AU$60,500) or imprisonment for not more than
5 years, or both.

Under the same conditions above, a summary offence is punishable on conviction by a fine of not more than 120 penalty units (currently AU$13,200) or imprisonment for not more than 2 years, or both.

(5) A person commits astrictly liable offence if:
(a) the person makes an article in preparation for, or in the course of:
(i) selling it; or
(ii) letting it for hire; or
(iii) obtaining a commercial advantage or profit; and
(b) the article is an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter; and
(c) copyright subsists in the work or other subject-matter when the article is made

The penalty on conviction is 60 penalty units ($6600)

6. Decoding an encoded broadcast is illegal (maximum penalty is 550 penalty units ($60,500)). As is dishonestly accessing a subscription broadcast without authorisation and payment of the subscription fee (maximum penalty is 60 penalty units ($6600)).


So, basically, the Government has introduced this Amendment to the Copyright Act to ensure that "everyday consumers shouldn’t be treated like copyright pirates". The criminal offences seem to require that the copied material is creates some sort of commercial gain for the person or organization pirating the material. Until I see the actual Bill and read it, it seems, for now, that this isn't *too* bad an Amendment. It definitely is better than making me out to be a criminal because I was working and didn't get to see the last episode of The Glasshouse, so I recorded it to watch at a more convenient time. :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

It's legal to use an iPod in Australia now!

It appears that the Federal Government has now passed an amendment to the Copyright Act so that Australians can copy CDs to their portable music devices. I've not yet read the complete Copyright Amendment Bill 2006, but when I will, I'll post a more in depth commentary on it.

Basically, format shifting of a CD that you have purchased onto your Creative Xen or iPod or computer is now no longer illegal. Of course, copying the CD for backup purposes is still illegal.

The same holds for a DVD - you can convert it to play on your MP4 player without going to jail. As for television programs, we now are allowed to record and watch a program later, though it appears to be a single screening only and then must be deleted.

It is a start. Finally the Government is catching up with things that have been happening for the past 30-odd years. Good to see they are right up there with leading edge technology!

Again, when I have a chance to read through the Amendment in full, I'll try digesting the legalspeak and then post again about both the good points and the weaknesses in this Amendment.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

What kind of sickos are we letting have kids these days?

Sometimes I really wonder if we should issue licenses for having kids.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Microsoft has had a busy few days

Well, Microsoft seems to have had a busy few days this week.

On Monday the 6th November, 2006, Microsoft released the next version of Office to manufacture - Office 2007. Office 2007 is a rather revolutionary rework of the old office suite. In all but Outlook, gone is the old Toolbar that was, well, confusing at best and in comes their "Ribbon" which is a context sensitive replacement. The Ribbon takes a little getting used to, but once you have, I can probably bet a critical body part that you won't want to go back to the old toolbar.

There's still a few issues - they have kept the same silly interface in Excel that doesn't exist in Word - in other words, whereas in Word you can open multiple documents in separate windows, all Excel spreadsheets still exist in the one containing window. I have no idea why they didn't fix this inconsistence whilst they were rewriting the Office suite. Outlook has retained the old Toolbar look, because - according to Microsoft - the new Ribbon is inappropriate for Outlook users. (When creating an email, the Ribbon appears, but the main Outlook interface contains no Ribbon. One thing Microsoft is consistent about is inconsistency.) Well, I disagree and you may well disagree, but that's the way it has been released.

Then, Microsoft released Vista to manufacture yesterday (8th Nov, 2006). Whilst Vista is an improvement over Windows XP SP2 in a number of areas - and so it should be, there's been 2 totally missed releases by the Windows Desktop Operating System teams since Windows XP was released back in 2001 - it still has a long way to go. There are still a number of issues that are seen in the RC2 release (I've not seen the final release yet) that I reported during the Beta process. Yes, unfixed issues. Silly, frustrating issues. Like trying to browse to a mapped network drive in some File Open boxes resulting in an error stating that "Internet addresses are not allowed". Since when was "P:\" an Internet address?

So, I'm currently still - unfortunately - not impressed with Vista. I can see what Microsoft is trying to do, and this is good. The problem is the way they have implemented a lot of the things they are trying to achieve is less than good. I have NO IDEA why Microsoft didn't look at Linux until recently, but the way limited user access is implemented in Linux is at least an order of magnitude more appropriate than Microsoft has managed to fumble into Vista.

Is Vista going to be a good thing? Yes, I think it is. Will it take until Vista SP1 for this to happen? Yes, I think it may. Will I be using and recommending Vista to our clients? Depends. We'll be using it internally (like we have been for quite a while now) and recommending it to clients who we think will benefit from its deployment.

Speaking of deployment, the OS deployment functionality in Vista is one of its major advantages for medium to large businesses - the need for multiple SOE images is drastically reduced. If you have a good grasp of GPO or use something like SMS to deploy applications, then Vista will be a dream come true for you - at least as far as deployment and application installation goes.

The new Application Compatibility Toolkit will help here quite a bit, too. And Microsoft's recent acquisition of Desktop Standard, Softricity and Sysinternals/Winternals will bring added benefits to those who have Software Assurance on their Windows XP Pro/Vista deployments.

All up, Office 2007 is really, really nice and Vista has the potential to be, if Microsoft keeps developing it and getting it ready for use (even though they have already released it).

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie