Tech and interesting things

This is not IT related, but it a great analysis of the crazy procedures at airports. Travelling in the US requires not just a visa, passport and ticket, but more than your quota of patience and tolerance. To get through it all without stress affecting your health, you need a good dose of suspension of disbelief.

Its annoying enough that you are a suspect when you are really just a traveller, but they check for absurdities. The effort put into discarding water bottles could be more effective if spent on getting good quality intelligence.

I read Bruce Schneier's security blog. He talks a lot about IT security, but also has a balanced perspective on all matters security related and is a credible critic of US security related policies.

This article by an airline pilot is a great example of security gone crazy.

This blog has been a little quite over the past few weeks. We are hurtling toward launch of two great new sites. In the meantime we've launched the Blogs for The Spastic Centre.

 This was a great project. They wanted a set of blogs for some of their people with Cerebral palsy (CP), and a father of a child with CP and news from the Spastic Centre for the CP community.

We used Joomla! as a base and MyBlog and My Comment. The results look terrific and allow The Spastic Centre to manage the content collectively when necessary and for the bloggers to upload their posts from the front end of the site.

The project was delayed over Christmas because the Spastic Centre administration building was destroyed by fire. It's the most dramatic reason for a project schedule blowout that I've experienced.

One of the great parts of the project was thinking about how people with a physical disability can use administration features of websites. For the most part accessibility relates to viewing sites. Authoring tools are quite complex applications and changing the accessibility of these is difficult. We

We did a press release for the blogs and they got some coverage on IT and PR sites, thanks to my great PR person Catriona www.cpcommunications.com.au. (No payment was recieved for this product endorsement - she gets it for free for being so good!!)

We'll watch closely how quickly the blogs get a following. The posts already there are insightful, intelligent and a great read. If you are interested see them here:

www.cpblogs.org.au

www.freefall.org.au

www.web2go.org.au

www.heydad.org.au

www.thescene.org.au

I like Amazon.com. It's big, it's commercial, it's everything to everyone. When I browse around I like to watch how it responds to me. "Last time you were here you looked at this..." People who bought this also bought this..." "We think you might like this..."  I sometimes find myself thinking "Thanks that does look interesting, " and hoping that I didn't say it out loud.

The purpose is purely profit - get the customer to buy as much as they can. It isn't so powerful when you know what it is doing, but it is clever.

One curious thing about buying Amazon products from Australia is the time shift. I purchase books or DVD's in a slick, easy to use online environment where everything is immediate. I get notification within moments that my purchase is processed, packed, shipped.

 Then I have to wait 4-6 weeks for it to arrive in the post.

 By the time I get it I forgot what I had ordered - it's like a surpise.

Amazon.com is everything that our 24/7 online connected global world promises - except for actual delivery. The electronic in the traffic jam of the physical. There is no way to speed up a box crossing an ocean. (sure I can pay more, but it still takes time).

I'm used to it now and I look forward with anticipation of the parcel notice in the post box. It is a reminder that in all the speed and immediacy that our electronic world gives us, sometimes waiting for something is of value in itself. Like growing vegetables, or knitting.

auDA have changed the policy on .au domain names. If you have a great idea and you need a domain name you should get it now as it is now possible for anyone to buy and resell a .au domain name.

Until now it has not been legal in australia. .com domain names can go for thousands of dollars if they are good, or if someone else wants them.

Cybersquatting is a mean by-product of capitalism and the internet. I've a friend who had a misspelling of her business name registered by a competitor and directed to his site. For an on-line shop this is very bad.

Once an NGO asked me for advice about the purchase of  domain that matched a new program they were running. The owner (it was a .com domain) wanted an absurd amount for it. My advice - if they wanted it then offer what they believed it was worth to them, and if it wasn't worth the price, then work around it. In the end the program won't fail because it has the wrong domain name.

It may also happen that by creating the brand anyway, even if the domian name doesn't quite fit, the market for the domain dwindles to one.

auDA guidelines say that the policy is that people: 

"will not be allowable to register a domain name for the sole purpose of resale or transfer to a third party"

How they police this I can't guess.

https://www.getup.org.au/campaign/FuelWatch&id=357

No stopping them.

The UK ICT Hub has lost its funding and will not be continuing. I've been following this for several years and it was a great program of events, support, and services for not-for-profit organisations in the UK. The hub supported organisations and programs that built capacity in the not-for-profit sector in the UK.

Many of the programs and services will continue to be offered by thier supporting organisations, however it is the big picture that is being lost. The idea of a'hub' for non-profit IT gives a sense of strategy to what is otherwise a disconnected and diverse set of programs. It creates some order in the randomness of organisations trying to get on with IT on their own.

A Hub, even when focused on programs and individual ideas, by its nature, coordinates, streamlines and creates efficiencies.

The final report notes that the program was a success and was well recieved in the sector, and actually made a difference to the use of ICT by voluntary organisations in the UK.

For me one notable phrase sprung from the page

"The ICT Hub demonstrated a commendable willingness to take risks."

An organisation that takes risks can achieve great things, but they won't always get it right. One of the great tools of a social innovator is taking risks, being prepared do fail. Funders generally don't take kindly to failure.

The loss of the ICT hub in the UK may mean anything like it here is less likely. There is currently nothing, inspite of the best efforts of many who have lobbied hard for it. And there is a glaring need.

I've worked in ICT in the non-profit sector since 1989. There is nothing coordinated around capacity building for IT in the sector. The result is generally a poor understanding, underuse, inefficiencies, bad technoloyg and low skills. These things improve, but the improvement barely keeps pace with technology.

Thanks to Doug Jacquier  for the heads-up on this.

ITwire reports that the use of Facebook has been declining recently. They claim:

"The decline at Facebook is substantial: he cites figures showing that between January and April 2008, the number of posts fell by 51 percent, signups by 29 percent, and highly active users - surely the lifeblood of any social network - by 47 percent

I use facebook to play scrabble with my friend in Melbourne (who has been beating me a lot lately) and just as a curiosity. I change my status most days and I look out for what other people are doing.  

I stopped installing Apps becuse they were for the most part "crap apps". I'd either have to sign up for who knows how much in automated SMS messages, or invite everyone I know to participate or buy something from somewhere to get to the good part of the App.

If you have a community treat them with respect. The IT wire article calls them "quality free" applications. If you continually allow a mess in your community people will eventually leave - in spite of the good stuff.

 I like the way that facebook is a platform for all kinds of communities to spring up spontaneously. The community is user driven. The platform always has to be built and maintained by someone else.

If Facebook tightened the rules around how applications are built and work, there will be fewer applications, but more people would stay.

I-phones are beautiful. I don't have one but I wish I did. Apple have a way with simplicity and design. I-pods; Mac air; I-Mac all have something about tlnem that makes you want to hold them in your hands. They make techology seem that little bit more like magic.

The reviews are that they do some new cool stuff with 3g and there are some surprising omissions. But you will forgive the weaknesses because they are so beautiful.

They will be released in Australia later this month. The rumour is that the launch will coincide with the opening of the Sydney Apple store. That is guaranteed to be beautiful too.

Here are some pictures from the Apple Shop in New York - glass checkerplate stairs (first pic) - circular glass lift (second pic - the round bit at the back of the glass cube - the stairs go around it)- every apple gadget just there to play with, free lessons about all things apple. Beautiful:

Trying to find ways to get readers to my blog (thank you to the one or two who read it now), I signed up to Technorati. Regular readers (yes - that  is you), might have noticed the technorati post last week. I removed it as it was intended for Technorati Spiders only.

I checked today an it seems I have an authority of 2. This means that two people have linked to my blog.  Now 2 is a very bad number. Top blog has 26,277 links. I've a way to go.

Ok - so the two are my sister www.lanacoora-chillies.com.au any my super PR person www.smallbusinesspr.wordpress.com .

Even a couple of fans gives me hope.

I've been looking over the government's new Stay Smart Online Alert service.

There was a tender for this a few months back. The idea was a subscription e-mail service with security alerts as they happen. Simple enough.

You get there from www.staysmartonline.gov.au, but is an external site, that looks just like the SSO site. There is no eay way to get back to the main site which is quite confusing - its a menu item - I was expecting the logo to link.

The subscribe process is not as easy as just adding your email address. They want registration too.

I've not seen the memorable phrase used in this way before. The idea is that they repeat the phrase in e-mail messages so I know it is from them.  This will work when I see it I'll say to myself "I know that phrase this message must be genuine." If its the wrong phrase I'll probably notice. The problem is will I notice when there is no phrase? - chances are I won't look for it deliberately and may not notice it is missing. I can't really see the idea catching on.

I can subscribe by RSS to get just the alerts I want. This is my preferred method as I ignore too many email newsletters already.

The alerts are written by Auscert so I would trust them.

I expect they got the contract (all domain names lead to UQ). Also indicated by the obvious geek-design of the site. The language sounds like geeks trying to avoid technical language (OK that's probably what it is, but it doesnt have to sound like it).

Its a simple idea with a simple implementation. Not terrible, but not great either.

For Auscert the content is compelling enough in itself. Success of a site like this is making security alerts compelling to the rest of us. I don't think the site does this.