Daylight saving changes cause chaos 

This year the New South Wales government decided to move the finishing time of daylight saving back one week. With many devices used by people and businesses being manufactured many years ago their software didn't know about this change.

On Sunday morning many people woke to video machines, mobile phones and computers that had changed back to Eastern Standard Time. Telstra, QANTAS and radio 2GB were among some of the businesses affected due to their systems not knowing about the change in daylight savings ending.

Telstra did say they worked hard on making sure their customers were not affected by the change however some mobile phones automatically change the time they display instead of getting the time form the mobile phone network.

Microsoft said they sent out patches for their mobile devices as well as Windows based computers to help solve the problems. 

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

It's an ongoing problem, having devices change the time for themselves. While it does make our lives a little bit easier, any changes to the previously organised time changes can lead to problems, just like in 2000 with the Olympics.

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Australia's main internet connection gets an upgrade

This week the first stage of an upgrade of the Southern Cross Cable was completed.

The fibre optic cable that runs from Australia to New Zealand and then to the west coast of America was given 10 times the speed capacity this week as well as allowing for better performance and less drop outs.

The upgrade is part of an ongoing upgrade that will continue for the rest of the cable's planned 23 year life span and will see the speed get 3 times faster again by the end of this year.

The upgrade has also been said to reduce bandwidth costs in the future.

The Southern Cross Cable is a joint venture owned by Telecom NZ (50%), Singtel Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%).

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

With the extra bandwidth this upgrade, and future upgrade offer, hopefully Australian internet service providers will decrease their prices and we might see less bottle necks and down time than whet we had before. 

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Free software not used by major government bodies

This week 3 of the largest government bodies, the tax office, Centrelink and the defence force have said they don't widely use free open source programmess due to a lack of user support. This comes on the same week as a study by Waugh Partners and commisioned by National ICT Australia, IBM and Fujitsu found that open source software usage is on the rise.

Open source software are programmes that are usually free to consumers and have their code that makes them work posted for every one to see, on the internet. This allows a lot of people to assist with the development of the programmes and find and fix security flaws.

While Centrelink does use Linux, an open source alternative to Windows, in some parts of it's business, Centrelink along with the ATO have said they might find further use in the future for open source programmes. 

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

In a lot of cases you can find a lot of open source programmes that have better support than what commercial software offers. Not only can you speak to the people that wrote the programme, but you can also learn about software writing yourself.

Personally I do support and like open source programmes, in fact many of the programmes in the Free Programmes list are open source

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Federal government kills one billion dollar rural broadband contract

This week the contract that was made between the Howard government and the Optus Elders partnership was canceled.

The original deal was to use WiMax wireless networking technology to give households in rural Australian community broadband access.

The contract was cancelled due to not being able to reach the requirements of population coverage as well as conflicted withy the Rudd governments election promise of a fibre optic network to bring broadband connections to rural Australia.

OPEL stands by their claim that the planned network would have reached the required population targets. 

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment 

This is both a blessing and a curse. I did want to see WiMax technology being used by more than just the major metropolitan companies, Unwired, Chilli and the like, and you get the benefit of portability, however it can be expensive to get.

While the government does have plans of it's own, maybe OPEL can set up their connection is some rural areas in competition with already entrenched services.

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Leaks and data loss not due to one person

Debi Ashenden, a senior research fellow at the Defence College of Management and Technology at Cranfield University, said at the Cyber Welfare 2008 debate in London this week that data leaks and loss are not the fault of the person that is found responsible, instead the fault lays with the company the person works for.

Debi Ashenden found that in organisations that suffered loss and leaks the training of staff in data handleing proceedures was inadiqute and proper training of staff would solve many leaks. "Lots of organisations claim to have a culture of information security but in most cases I would say that this is not true and unfounded,"

A recent study released by Price Waterhouse Coopers supports Debi's claims that businesses should be teaching their staff about data security measures.

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

Training of staff new and old is always important. Things change and all staff need to know how changes affect them. When the staff is in control of people's personal information, more than ever they should know how to look after that information.

Plus there really should be know way or reason why data from one business's computer should ever have to leave the business's premises.

If the get rid of their computers, all information should be wiped properly and securely.

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Ubuntu Linux the safest way to use a computer

A competition, that ended on Friday last wee, found that the most secure operating system was Ubuntu Linux

3 computers, a MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2, a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1, and a Sony VAIO running Ubuntu 7.10 each had a file stored on them with the simple goal of having somebody gain access to the file over the internet. The Apple MacBook Air was accessed in just over 30 minutes, the Fujitsu Windows computer lasted for 3 days, seeing the Sony Ubuntu computer claim victory.

While linux was found to be the winner in this test, businesses are still not looking at replacing Windows and OSX as the main operating systems, and Jeff Waugh from Waugh Parttners is sceptical saying that the reason behind the slow hacking might have more to do with the fact that the winning laptop was given away, and OSX and Windows are higher profile systems.

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

While I do like Ubuntu and I am now installing it on all the Clicksonline.info Free PC's I was quiet surprised that OSX was taken out so quickly and the only reason the Windows machine was hacked was due to an update to the Flash media player from Adobe.

Ubuntu is quick, clean, small and now proved to be secure. Can it gain market share though?

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Australia to get our own Silicon Valley, in Perth

Western Australian Industry and Enterprise Minister Francis Logan announced this week that the state governemnt will set up the countries biggest technology park. The $8.55 million announcement will see the Bentley Techology park increase in size from 42 hectares to 312 hectares, as well as provide btter infrastructure.

Already some companies are lining up to buy land in the new development, but the governement has said, unlike Silicon Alley in America, Bentley Technology park will have hosuing for 10 to 15 thousand people so there will be actciites all night.

Curtin University is donating some land to the project and will use the development and future businesses to help with studnet studies.

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

Perth, come on Perth, you have to be kidding. Right now Brisbane and the surrounding areas are growing quickly with their technology based companies, Sydney new technology parks opening up all over the place, and I know that Melbourne is down south doing something.

Is it really the right idea to have major technology companies putting their headquarters in a capital city that is closer to India than Sydney and is so isolated.

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Windows XP is allowed a few more breathes.

With more computer manufactures making low end, low cost computers for the market, Microsoft has announced they will continue to sell and support Windows XP to allow the manufactures to use the aging operating system.

For computers with slow processors, small screens and limited storage, the use of Windows Vista is impossible, so Microsoft has decided to continue the sale and support of XP due to the the possibility of Linux being used on the cheaper computers.

Bu June this year all other sales of Windows XP on systems will be stopped. Main support for Windows XP will be ceased in April 2009 and limited support offered until April 2014.

The "Ultra Low End"  sale of Windows XP will continue until June 2010 or until the launch of Windows 7, the next version of Windows due out 3 years after the launch of Vista.

Source ZDNet.com.au

Comment

This is a mixed bag. While it is good that Microsoft is seeing the potential of these cheap computers, they seem to be forgetting that Windows XP itself is not perfect for low end computers.

All the Free PC's I give away are old. Most of them could not run Windows XP properly, and the Free PC's are usually just slightly lower in performance than these cheap computers.

Linux is the smarter option, and hopefully Microsoft will keep Windows XP sales and support going for longer than their current plans.

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