I’ve delivered simple, clear and easy-to-use services for 20 years, for startups, scaleups and government. I write about the nerdy bits here.
— @joahua
It’s been a month since I added Google ads to this site tomorrow, and I’ve raised just enough money to pay for a domain name for a year. As viewers of this website, do you think it’s worth keeping around? I’ll be watching this post’s comments closely.
Oh, and on a related note, RSS feed-only users need not apply/comment! ;)
I haven’t posted much lately, so I thought I’d mention something on here. I was going to post a rant about how John Brogden is apparently a miserable coward because he wasn’t so blatantly a drunkard and womaniser as Hawke was, according to the media, and how they’re all a backwards-thinking bunch of twits. But I haven’t got time for outlining exactly how flawed that thinking is in any great detail: suffice to say, I think Brogden has done the right thing in that he’s at least capable of demonstrating some remorse. Hawke, on the other hand, was supported by the media, even before his own collapse in 1979, and his own indiscretions were only occasionally mentioned and without any of the venom to which Brogden has been exposed. Further, Hawke apparently showed little remorse when compared to Brogden: not to advocate his suicide attempt, but at least that demonstrates the sincerity of his recognition of circumstance.
All that aside, I’m still a Liberal supporter even on an NSW level. And I unashamedly support the marginally-more-right-wing agenda of the new Liberal leadership (though obviously there isn’t a whole heap known about the character of Peter Debnam at the present time: hopefully a more complete picture will emerge in the coming weeks and months).
But enough about that. I’d love to write more about it, but I need to get to bed.
Via Soolie’s MSN name today, I’ve found a website/blog run out of New Orleans that’s apparently been hot news on the Internet over the past several days that I managed to completely miss. The Interdictor weblog, run by an employee of DirectNIC.com, a New-Orleans based company that runs a datacentre that has been up throughout this whole disaster.
Photo credit: DirectNIC.com
I can’t express enough how impressed I am with their dedication to their customers and their work. Not only are they maintaining their services under pretty amazing conditions, they’re also providing a service to the world via their Internet presence.
Alec said to me before on MSN that this really shows the difference between the Internet and mainstream media: it does. The Internet is inherently collaborative, a communal space for communication, rather than simple dissemination. Hyperlinks subvert heirarchy, to quote The Cluetrain Manifesto. These people are providing an on-the-ground account of the aftermath, not only in text form, but also in other dynamic media forms: they’re taking photos (one of which is featured above), streaming video out, and even participating in IRC rooms.
I’m astounded. And praying that they’re going to be alright (though the situation appears to be improving, but prayer won’t hurt!). The Internet is an amazing place…
I’m fairly indifferent to the whole Intel-bashing thing, but couldn’t help taking this photo today.
Actually, I didn’t go looking in the bin: there may well have been a stray processor in there.
On another note, that’s probably the biggest Intel Inside sticker I’ve seen (that wasn’t part of a greater display, etc.).
As part of Opera’s 10th birthday celebrations, they’re giving away (for today only) free registration codes to remove the advertising from their browser. I imagine this will only work for the present version, and when a new version comes out people will be hooked, and either put up with the advertising or buy the real product: either way, they make their money.
It’s a brilliant move, and a great way to celebrate 10 years!
Well, they still haven’t cottoned onto the sematic web thing (perhaps because they’re not trying to get indexed by anyone else!), but Australian engines keep popping up. Of late, we’ve seen an aggressive marketing campaign from Telstra-owned Sensis Group, both for their own general purpose search engine, Sensis.com.au, and for their subsidiary Yellow Pages directory.
In fact, so prolific is this campaign that the two often collide in spectacular style, as I discovered on my (prolonged, courtesy of the Cross City Tunnel stupidity that gripped Sydney today) bus trip into the city this morning.
It wouldn’t have been so tragic if their campaigns weren’t so similar… but they are. The only difference, apparently, is the strength of execution: note the SMS components of each campaign vary slightly, with Sensis using a regular number (presumably to add unsuspecting commuters email addresses and phone numbers to a database for on-selling) whilst the Yellow Pages have at least gone to the trouble of acquiring a dedicated promotional number.
As a side note, their index is heavily commercially geared, and seems to leverage “Australian” results purely on the basis of domain namespace (that is, .au). As a developer, I’m not terribly impressed with it, but, unlike Ansearch, this is a force that may have to be taken seriously into consideration in the months and years to come.