Froosh. Stuff.

This is not so much a comment about the safety of the drivers, but taxi drivers in general.  Inspired by a post over on Melbourne Metblogs.

Taxi drivers, I believe, are professional drivers.  Professionals in that they get paid to drive you from one location to another location of your choosing.  Lets break that down shall we?

Driving: there is a large body of laws and regulations regarding the operation of a motor vehicle on the roads and highways.  It includes many simple things like speed limits, indicating when a change of lane or direction is desired, and how to follow the lines on a road when turning a corner through an intersection.  It also covers more arcane things like when the use of high-beams is permitted and what to do when another motorist is in distress.  Of the many taxi drivers of many many nationalities that I have encountered, there have been less than 5 that I think would pass a driving exam.  Take some pride in your work people!  Make an effort, know the rules - even the sillier ones, and use them!  I’m sure it doesn’t help that their employers just don’t care; there is no incentive to improve.  Have you ever called a taxi company to make a comment on a drivers performance, or the DoI?  I have never heard people more uninterested in my life.

Location: Police, Fire, and Ambulance services don’t generally have GPS navigation devices - the reason stated is usually that the money could be better spent on life saving equipment, etc.  Their professional drivers are instead expected to know how to get just about anywhere in Melbourne, and to be able to read a map in a moments notice when necessary.  Is it so much to expect this from Taxi drivers?  So they are new to the city perhaps?  A modest up-front (credit-paid, tax-claimable, interest-free for 12-months) fee for the purchase of a GPS navigation device would pay for itself within days or weeks in efficiencies gained through better navigation.

Of course, I write all this in the presumption of innocence, that they do this from incompetence or lack of effort.  I believe this is largely the case, but have definitely had some very shonky drivers.  One for example doubled the fare at the last moment and then tried to deny it.  Sure, it always costs $90 to get to Mill Park from the city at 11pm.  Nice try buddy, but I’m sure it works often enough to make it worthwhile for him to try.

Feeling ranty?  Have a go!

As many of my Twitter followers will know, I interviewed for a job on Monday afternoon and was very excited about the opportunity.  I was not chosen to progress to the next round of interviewing and I’m somewhat crushed by that.  The painful part is the reason I was given for the rejection.  But 1st, some background.

The target organisation is a popular Australian company, established by 3 friends around 10 years ago, and does at least 90% of it’s business Internet facing.  It’s grown quite large since then, but they claim to have kept the DotCom feel to the organisation and placed a large emphasis on their “Values” during the interview.  The values are: Honesty, Ownership, Teamwork, and Passion.  I was specifically instructed to address all of these values in my answers during the interview, and I thought I did rather well.  Keep in mind here, that to even be considered for interviewing I was required to have had 8+ years of serious Systems Engineering experience on Internet facing and corporate systems and had to pass the qualifying interview from the recruiter.

The point of contention arose from one of those “Do you have any questions for us?” moments.  I asked what the policy or position was regarding discussing my prospective new employer and broad details of day-to-day activities on “new media” such as blogs, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.  As this is evidently where it all went wrong…

Their 1st response was to presume that I wanted to spend my day blogging or tweeting, followed very quickly by repeated concerns regarding client confidentiality, trade secrets, product launch schedules and similar.  I was staggered and tried in vain to steer the conversation back to the Honesty, Ownership and Passion values they had just been espousing.

• Honesty: blogging, etc giving a genuine and human face to the organisation
• Ownership: admitting mistakes, taking credit, and being proud of my work
• Passion: exhibiting pride in my employer, our work, enticing more clients to the sites, etc

After some further discussion This is where I left it and felt the gaff had been resolved, but no.  The recruiter’s feedback to me was that they thought I was a security risk, wouldn’t fit well with the team (of 3), and would be “troublesome to manage”.  I don’t know of anyone who could have worked in the corporate, government, or financial spaces without learning a few things about non-disclosure agreements and keeping secrets.  I have to seriously wonder what has happened in the past to have them respond this way…

And this is where I don’t get it: for a dotcom-survivor they just don’t understand Web2.0.  There are a multitude of examples where staff can provide the human element without revealing too much information, and generating real interest in the organisation and it’s people.  Hey, even Robert Scoble abrasive as he can be, did wonders for Microsoft’s public image in the years he was there.  And *many* finer examples are still coming out of the Microsoft wood-work!  Surely the potential positives that come from the efforts of honest, hard-working, passionate staff connecting with clients in a meaningful way are obvious…?

Perhaps I’m missing something obvious?  Please, can someone clue me up as it’s driving me insane.  This is precisely the response I would expect from my current employer which is still largely stuck in the 70s and doesn’t understand much beyond web-sites as extended newspaper ads.  But they are actually trying I guess…

Anyway, the process of writing this has been therapeutic for me.  I would dearly love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment here or check How to contact me if you would like to make more private comments.

Thanks for listening, and Have Fun!

[Update: Oh, and none of the interviewers I dealt with seem to exist on LinkedIn, they have completely locked off their FaceBook profiles, no blogs, and Google is not their friend. Then again, that goes for all the staff we have interviewed for positions at my current employer... Am I wrong for expecting guru-level IT staff to have an Internet presence?]

Oh noes!  I haven’t blogged about Conquest soon enough and now I have guilt!

Yes it’s Easter (insert other full-moon at spring/autumn festival of your choice) , which means that Conquest is here.  It’s too late to register on-line, so don’t bother.

What you can do is read the game blurbs and turn up early on Friday to register for any games you want, or even just as a visitor (hey, it’s free!).

I’m likely to be around, so be sure to introduce yourself if you see me!  (hint, check nametags)

Enjoy!

It’s hard to accept the reality of the year ending. It seems to have passed so quickly; every year it seems a little quicker than the last. Remember when you were a kid? It seemed eternity between Christmas/New Year (”Holidays” now) celebrations. Ahh nostalgia, I remember you well

So, what’s news around the Froosh-iverse? I guess an update is in order…

!st, to news everybody (well, a few and you know who you are!) is waiting for: Yes, we have settled on the land part of the house-and-land package! As of 3:30pm on 21st December 2006 we became the title holders of a block in Doreen, Melbourne (In the Whittlesea area). Of course, we have a mortgage so don’t really own it - but who does these days? Construction of the house is expected to start in about 3 weeks and finished in 16 weeks after that. I say ‘expected’ in the expectation that things will not go according to plan … just look at the delay between when we signed to start the deal and the land settlement - about 50% longer than expected.

And now, a summary of other various happenings this year (not sorted for significance or temporal accuracy):

• We bought a new car and kept the old. ‘Zuki is joined by Stormy.
• We sold our dog off 2nd-hand. Kelson the chocolate lab is now living the farm life.
• Kim’s favoured grand-uncle passed away. Rest peacefully Keith.
• We got a new kitten. Compatibly named Cinnamon to match our other cat Cardamon.
• My brother and his wife had a daughter! Welcome Alexandra, to the Froosh-iverse.
• I bought an Xbox 360 and praise be to Microsoft for making the Tripod song “Make You Happy” come true - … the best present I ever bought for you … Both Seb and Kim get (almost) as much out of it as I do.
• My uncle and his wife had a daughter! Welcome Monique, to the Froosh-ivers.
• Sebastian finished his 1st year at a public school on an absolute high. $12,000/year public schools are not necessarily worth any of it, and public schools can so far surpass your expectations that it’s unfathomable. I’ll keep harping on about it I’m sure, but that’s the power of bad consumer experiences.
• More new ‘pets’ arriving in the form of a spiny leaf insect (Spikey) and some gold fish.
• Our remaining bunny passed away, seemingly of old age. He died in our arms and signals the end our bunny-ownership for a while.
• Currently residing in the disused bunny cage are 3 chookies of vague sexuality (pullets or cockerels - unknown at present). They’re on ’semi-permanent loan’ from our neigbour until her country-based friends have facilities to house them - I’ll be spending New Year’s Day re-constructing our damaged chook pen to accomodate them until they leave.
• Kim has started working on a more regular basis with a casual job in retail sales.
• Seb began:
• • Roller-skating lessons
  • Piano lessons
  • Swimming lessons
  • Joey Scouts
  • Jazz and Tap … although they didn’t last the year out. Still doing ballet though.
• Some friends were getting to know quite a bit better packed all their stuff into our garage and moved to England for a year.
• Kim and I joined the management committee of a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting gaming and operating games conventions. I’m way behind in my duties in the web-site maintenance portfolio!

There’s probably more I’ve forgotten about and may update this later or add photos. Or, you know, whatever.

My regular commute requires catching bus (571), having that meet a train (Epping station), in to the CBD, and back in the evening.

Now, the bus service is titled “TrainLink”. Train. Link. Far too many times (3 times this week) the bus has arrived too late to meet the train. Similarly in the evening, if the train is running late the bus does not wait for 5 mins. I (and others) then have to wait 30 (!!!!) mins instead for the next bus.

Train. Link. Not working.

And finally: I get substantially better service from the 571 route on weekends (and even Christmas day!) than I do during the week. It runs down Centenary drive every 20 mins on Christmas Day, why can’t it do that during the week??

Oh well, I guess I can only enjoy two out of three.

I guess there’s nothing else to do except admit to being 33 years old. Last birthday was a fun one - I got to say I was 5 (2^5 = 32). This one, not so interesting. Just 33. Although, I’m thinking a 33.333* party in December could be fun.

I did enjoy the day though; work was not too busy, the extended family dinner was pleasant, and in general everyone was suitably considerate and salutary. And I got to eat too much pizza and cake.

The weekend was much more interesting though: At the ripe age of 33 and 1 day, I witnessed “snow” for the first time. Now I’m using the term snow in a rather loose sense - it was old, having fallen several days before then slightly melted and re-frozen into ice by the non-wintry weather. There was none of this gently falling from the sky stuff, or soft puffy drifts of it, just slightly less dense ice. Again, it was fun though. the experience immeasurably improved by co-operation with my six year old son.

Sunday brought a 5 hour trip to the Melbourne Museum and their Bugs Alive! exhibition, again enhanced by the presence of a 6-yo. I found it fascinating how they are using technology to market the science and history contained within the Museum. Kids seem to find it much more accessible and interesting, and learn far more than they realise.

Of course, I’m back to work today. Meh.

Oh! To top the birthday off, I had my name mentioned for the first time on the Whole Lot Of Nonsense Podcast. Coincidentally, I listened to WLON show 32 and 33 on my transition from age 32 to 33!

Final geek-iness: Post written and published with Windows Live Writer (beta). Not too bad, but I might as well use the web-interface to Wordpress - it’s just as good.

I take exception to the mis-use of the term Podcast in the recent [redacted] issues.

If only you would actually follow up the link to Google you provide and use it to define Podcast, you would find this: “Podcasting, …, is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, …”

And from Wikipedia: “Podcasting is an automatic mechanism by which multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files.”

What you have is not a podcast, it is a manual download of an audio file. I would gladly add an RSS feed to my podcatcher and listen regularly as new shows are automatically downloaded – like a real podcast. I will not regularly be registering all my details on a page before manually downloading the audio and manually causing it to be synchronised to my MP3 player. I’ve done it once and will not be doing it again, no matter how compelling the content.

“Backwards compatible just means that people who are backwards can use them!”

Thank you BOFH!

My 33rd birthday is soon (well, 17 days) and family are starting to ask what I want as a gift. Last year I had suggested the unrealisticly priced Death Star.

This year, I’m really liking the new LEGO Mindstorms NXT - you should watch the (slightly) hidden “Easter Egg” on the Mindstorms site (hint: Steven from BimP shows the way).

However. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. The LEGO Shop at Home for US lists the NXT Kit for US$249.99. Google tells me USD$249.99 in AUD$ is AU$327.68. The LS@H for Australia lists it for $429.99. Yes. Thats right. AU$102.31 more than the equivalent US price. And if I want to do them a favour and pre-order it, I can pay either $45 or $100 extra for delivery.

Nope. Can’t do it. Sorry LEGO, you had me then you lost me. There is no way I’ll pay $150-$200 more than US Retail.

Now I just need to find something I want that I can justify.

We had a 6.5 birthday party for Seb last Saturday evening, and it was without a doubt the best kids birthday party we’ve ever been to or hosted. Utterly awesome.

So whats with the 6.5 bit? Well, when Seb actually turned 6 we had just moved him between schools, it was during school holidays, and all his non-school friends were unavailable. We did have a birthday party - there was 1 other kid attending. Not exactly the most fun for Seb. Even though we try to play, it’s just not the same as playing with peers.

Seb has been enjoying rollerskating for the past few months, slowly getting better with practice and lessons. We’ve been to other birthday parties held at the skating rink and had quite a good time, but haven’t been totally happy with mixing the birthday party in with all the other general skaters in the regular public sessions. The solution: hire the whole rink for the party and invite as many of Seb’s friends as possible to get the best cost per person.

We had somewhere in the order of 50 people on the rink and another 5-10 sitting on the sides. The invitees (Seb’s complete combined 1/2 class at school plus his ballet class friends) brought along siblings, cousins, parents, etc and all were welcome to skate and enjoy. And enjoy they did! Everyone felt safe and secure knowing that their kids (one as young as 18 months) were safe on the rink and that everyone would be careful and respectful of their friends and family.

There was only one injury for the night … and he wasn’t even skating! The poor guy’s foot was run over by his wife…

We provided dinner, cake, and lollies for everyone (including rink staff) and for the first time in our party hosting history, we didn’t ourageously over-cater. Dinner was pizza provided by Margheritas Pizza in Lower Plenty - superb, tasty, and not at all greasy.

Everyone had an unbelievably good time (well, except for Richie and his foot), including those kids and adults who couldn’t skate - there was no pressure to skate, but also no judgement upon those who couldn’t. And just as well, because I don’t skate so good!

Free plugs to the Roller City Eltham folks who provided top-notch service to us, and to Margheritas Pizza for some of the best pizza I’ve ever had (and believe me, I eat a lot of pizza! :mrgreen:)

I will not be recommending the SMS alerts service to anyone, and will likely unsubcribe from it due to it’s extremely poor performance.

I get nuisance notices early in the morning about how a service was cancelled and then not cancelled. I get notices about how the 6:25am from Epping will not run, but don’t receive them until 7:30am (for example).

And finally today, when there is a major disruption to all services, I get … bugger all. Nothing, not a single message. The Connex website does not even have a notice regarding the disruption. Thankfully the Metlink site had some useful information.

How on earth can we expect people to use public transport more often when we get such apalling service?

Granted I’m not a high-profile site and I certainly don’t get a lot of traffic, but I get no spam. And I don’t resort to what John Dvorak used to tell us to do: Drop everything that isn’t from a known good address.

I had three problems with that concept:

1. What about e-mails from old friends who changed address (or current friends who like changing e-mail addresses every few months. Hi Andrew! :wink:)?
2. It was never a good idea to depend on a completely spoofable “from” address.
3. There is plenty of great software out there to stop spam in a much friendlier manner, and it’s been around for quite some time!

So what do I use an what are my results?

E-mail: SpamAssassin - And you thought the Apache group only did a rawking web server! Results? Maybe one spam a week gets to my inbox, and no false positives for the 3 months I was monitoring it. I’ve stopped monitoring it though - what’s the point of reading all that spam when I’m trying to block it?!

Blog: Akismet - This is by far the easiest and quickest anti-blog-spam tool I have ever used! Included free in Wordpress 2.0 (or was it 2.0.1?) and as easy to configure as registering on wordpress.com (I occasionally post scripting/programming stuff to Scripting. Stuff. anyway). Results? I think I had one spam make it to the moderation queue once. Not to the live site, just to the moderation queue. I could be wrong - I might be thinking of a legitimate comment that got moderated because of my Wordpress settings (moderate authors without a previously approved comment).

Easy as 1, 2 … err 2.

Conclusion: Free and Open Source software rawks!

Disclaimer: Your results may vary, not a guarantee, not my problem, etc.

Update: Just adding FSF and OSI links

I had left comments set to require you to be registered and logged in to comment - not that good for encouraging feedback!
I turned it on when I installed the OpenID plugin for authenticating comments and forgot to turn it off.  Why did I install the OpenID plugin?  So I could comment on Mur’s LiveJournal of course!

Bloody hell! Why do so many things needlessly require administrator privileges???

The latest culprit: Apple iTunes on Windows

Ok, so I bought Kim an iPod Nano for her birthday - she’s only been begging for one for about 3 years…

• I installed iTunes on our PC using a dedicated Administrator account then logged back in with a Limited User account (Actually we are all Guests and depend on the default Windows XP inclusion of AUTHENTICATED and INTERACTIVE in the Users group).
• As a Limited User we could rip music off CDs we own (Apparently illegal in Australia).
• We could sync those songs onto the iPod with no problems
• We could play the songs with no problems
• We bought some tracks from the iTunes Music Store and downloaded them
• The played perfectly on the PC
• We synced them to the iPod
• They would not play!

The symptom: Whenever we tried to play the purchased songs on the iPod, it would simply skip them all very quickly

Apple’s iPod Support pages were of no assistance - I went through “the five Rs” and had absolutely no change in function, and authorised/deauthorised the PC many times.

It was only after 6+ hours of incredibly frustrating, tedious, tiresome diagnosis that it occurred to me that it could be permissions related - it was a last ditch effort and I thought it was a long shot given that we had not received a single access exception.

Yep. Bloody hell! You need to be a local Administrator for purchased music to work when synced to an iPod. Unprotected AAC’s work perfectly without Administrator access. Protected AAC’s work perfectly on the PC without Administrator access. Only if you want to play your purchased tunes on your iPod do you need to be a local Administrator. Pfff, who would want to do that?!

And now with the line that I seem to use far too many times: I can’t be the only person who has experienced this!*

Why is it not in the Apple Support pages? Why do I have to buy AppleCare to log a fault with them? For crying out loud, I’ve diagnosed the bloody problem for them already - I just want to make sure a ticket gets logged in their fault tracking system and will get resolved in the next point(less) release!

[breath] [breath] [breath]

Ok, so I’m calming down now. Everything’s fine, the iPod works - even if we have to add Administrator access to our accounts when syncing the iPod - and Kim is very happy with the new music she purchased.

* Google was NOT my friend

Update: Fixed links and typos.

Update 2: How odd - TinyMCE in Wordpress had popped a strange piece of HTML in that messed up some of the links displaying (<a  xhref=”http://www.apple.com.au/itunes/” />)

It’s an odd choice … but my first post after a long hiatus is this:

Try this out - it’s fun in a disturbing way.

More posts to follow, probably with better content - but I’m not promising anything…

Oh, and thanks to Anthony for the link!

I’ve been holding off watching any of Kevin Rose’s Systm - mainly because he’s a dork

However … I was pleasantly surprised! I watched their MythTV episode, and while their hands were hyperactive, it was totally watchable.

The coolest thing about their show, that will probably bring me back every time, has to be their main logo - a stylised Commodore PET.

My 1st computer was a Commodore PET 4032. I learned to program in BASIC and 6502 assembly on that. I learned by digital electronics with it, hacked extra devices into it’s memory space, and created my own custom OS (and OS extensions). It’s interesting how certain memories can trigger strong emotional responses. I loved that machine.

As impracticle as it would be, I wish for it back at times. There was not a single component of it that I did not fully comprehend; hardware or software. If only that were possible today … actually, I wouldn’t have a job in IT Systems Support

I still get a kick out of programming (”I’m an amateur programmer”), and hacking around with hardware, electronics, and creating extension devices and applications for my computers.

To this day, I am still the only person I know or have known who had a PET. Does that make me weird?

I used to go to geek dinners. Back in the day. When BBS’s were the blogs of the time.

I’ve never thought of them (BBS’s) like that before… It probably doesn’t fit too well now, but when blogs were kicking off, there were some similarities to BBS’s - built by geeks, used primarily for geek-to-geek communication, and Real Life meet-ups were curious events that meant you got to put faces to FidoNet nodes.

Yes, I ran my own BBS for a while. It was known my me, and by about the same number of people subscribed to my blog now (3) as “Destinations Unknown” (FidoNet Node 3:54/459). I was inordinatly proud of it; primarily because I wrote my own DOS serial driver (crap, I can’t recall what they were called … F-something?) in assembly to correctly provide the “ring-back” functionality I needed because I only had one phone line that had to be shared between BBS and voice. “Ring-Back” was where you rang the BBS number, let it ring once or twice, hung up and dialled again. The BBS would then answer, and you could keep the line until your time limit expired or you voluntarily left.

My details for the system have been archived in the nodelists/nodediffs at FOTI (hosted by TextFiles.com). I’m in the 1994.364 nodelist at least, but it’s not worth the bandwidth to completely delineate my BBS hosting days. It’s just occurred to me that I still have my archives on DDS2 tape somewhere. But I have no DDS2 drive anymore.

But I dissemble.

There’s a geek meet-up happening in Melbourne this Friday, courtesy of Tejas Patel. If you’re interested in podcasting, Cameron Reilly may be there - bring brick-bats or bouquets as is your wont.

“That’s the second biggest one of those I’ve ever seen.”

I got a little bored of the default Kubrick theme from Wordpress, and so went hunting a new favourite via the Wordpress Theme Browser and settled on Russell Tanton’s “Yaaarr, tis me blog!”. It’s camp and piratey, and I like it! It probably wont last a long time, but enjoy it while it lasts… (Agregator-only readers will need to visit the site to see the theme in action)

Additionally, feeds are now being provided via the FeedBurner republishing and tracking service. After listening to Chris Pirillo interview Rick from FeedBurner, I was sold. And it really was that easy. The hardest part was inserting the 4 lines into my .htaccess file to redirect y’all to the FeedBurner feed seamlessly:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} FeedBurner
RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ /index.php?feed=$1 [QSA]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner
RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/insert.your.feed.name.here [R,L]

Once I’ve looked at the stats for a bit, I’ll start showing them - yes, even if they’re pitifully low

Skype. It’s closed. It’s proprietary. Yet it still manages to be cool…

I only use Skype occasionally and haven’t yet paid for any additional Skype services - I’m just not sure I’d make much use for it. Not to worry though, Skype have recently revealed that they will be releasing packets of free SkypeOut time to users. The only catch is that you have to check your Skype account page regularly to find the parcel of free time when it appears (on selected days, yet to be announced). From the details, it appears you may collect 10 minutes of free time on each “Free Skype Day”.

I’ll give it a go, and try out the Skype-to-landline service - if nothing else, to talk to my Brother in London. If it’s satisfactory I will consider getting a London based SkypeIn number to make it easier and cheaper for him to call me.

I’d be interested to hear (literally if you like :wink:) about other people’s experiences with SkypeOut, or SkypeIn.

Update: Today is the first Free SkypeOut Day - Go to your Accounts page to get 10 minutes of free SkypeOut time

Like the rest of the world, I was shocked by the bombings in London. I felt this a lot more personally this time as it’s the first time I have had friends or family in close proximity to the attacks.

My brother and his wife are now living in the central London area, but thanks to Google Mail I was able to re-assure my parents (and myself) that they were OK.

I’ve been listening to a variety of ‘casts, many of which have excellent commentary on the bombings and implications for the world at large. I’m not going to discuss them. The one that seemed really hit me with completely appropriate timing was in IT Conversations/Tech Nation: Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with William Vollmann, philosopher and author of no less than seven works, all on the subject of violence.

10:50-11:19
“Violence is justified and good when it limits or prevents greater violence. Violence is justifiable I think when it is proportionate and discriminatory. … You are choosing to direct your violence toward people who are causing the violent problem as opposed to non-combatants.”

11:39-11:45
“Violence which is simply random or passionate can’t be justified …”

I could probably go ahead and quote the rest of the interview as well - it’s just so relevant to the world today. First chance I get, I will be reading William’s book (probably the abridged to start with :wink:).

Tie this up with the London Mayor’s reaction to the bombings: “This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.”

One of my favourite authors, Sherri Tepper, uses as a device in one of her books (The Fresco) a ban against using terms like “claimed responsibily for”. Instead, the perpetrators should be forced to use truthful statements: “was responsible for the cowardly acts”, etc

We can only hope.