i reckon you can tell alot about a guy from the way he kisses.

how loose are his lips and mouth?  how much does he use his tongue and what does he do with it?  is it a two-way-street?  does he close his eyes, or – creepy – leave them open too much? what’s he doing with his hands?  does he moan or make any sound while kissing or being kissed?  does he kiss only on the lips, or venture to other places?  does the rest of his body speak the same language as his kissing, & what does he touch while kissing ?  in short,  does a guy kiss mostly because it’s a formal prelude to the ‘main event’, or as a thoroughly absorbing and enjoyable activitly purely by itself?

last week as i said goodbye to J, i stole a second goodbye kiss.  he has beautiful soft lips, and i was immediately hooked and aching for a LOT more!

so we caught up last weekend; a repeat of the friday-night-out & saturday-night-in double-deal of the weekend before :).  had a great time both nights, despite only 4hours sleep the night before both. (Restavit has since come to the rescue there thank god).

so as Saturday night moved along, assisted by some “organic” imagery in a weird computer game we were playing, followed by what i considered to be rather suggestive imagery in one of iTunes 9s latest visualisations, i leaned in for our first kiss…

what followed was probably a couple of hours of blissful, entwined kissing on the couch :)  not only is J an awesome kisser, he said he thought the same of me.  double awesome :D

i learned quite a few more things about J last weekend, some of them purely from the way he kisses – and it’s all good.  happy boy…

so what floats your boat when it comes to kissing?

this blog’s been a vent.  a pretty pointless vent i’ll admit, at least from an outsider’s perspective.  but it has helped me formulate ideas/arguments/opinions about stuff over the last 2.5 years, so no regrets.  i’ve never done, nor had any desire to do what’s needed to attract a readership.  (having said that i just checked my stats and am surprised to see hundreds of hits on the Optus contract-cancellation post! maybe that’s not so surprising…)

but i reckon its time to add a new dimension – the personal.  so to all you peeps who haven’t been reading my blog, sorry, but things are about to change.  i’ll probably still rant from time to time, but…

things seem to be changing.  and i feel the urge to output.

i’ve alluded in older posts to the depression that’s gripped my life these past few years.  it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster – and that was without meds!  in fact i read a blog a week ago by a guy who gave Prozac a try, & hated it, cuz “everything was ‘nice’, which kinda sux”, which i’ve heard many times before.  then when its effects tapered off he was faced with the decision to try a different AD which needed a more serious commitment (long-ish ramp-up & ramp-down – no sudden dose changes, potentially more serious side-effects) & decided against it.  confirmed my gut instinct.

anyway, back to me.  the depression reached an all-time low this year, insidiously infecting more and more of my life, including work.  it’d never seriously impacted work all that much before, except for a bit last year.  but the situation almost reached breaking point before *somehow* i managed to pull it back from the brink of disaster not much more than a month ago.

i knew then it was time to ditch the self-medication.  FUUUUUUUCK!  what’m i sposed to do now?  LIVE?!?

that’s the fraked up thing about depression & “self-medication”.  it’s isolated me from the world, which has been “nice” in its usual fraked up way, and yet somehow i still have the power to put it aside and “open the window to life” again, simply because right now i *need* to to avoid serious shit from hitting the fan.

i’ve been at this stage twice before – giving up smoking, and having to go through the withdrawal & detox, and have my mind come back to life, start looking outward, and rediscovering the world.  and the impact that has on sleep (one of my favourite topics!).  so that’s why i’m writing this shit at 3:44am on a monday morning.  great…  it’s been like this for a month.  and somehow i let the Doc talk me out of “proper” sleeping pills (Stillnox) last week in preference to herbal shit, which has done SFA.

since i buggered my shoulder in Byron last Feb from what seemed like a minor fall off my skateboard, the Doc said no more gym or skating till its healed, which i think’s also been a big contributor to my low mood this year.  it’s taken 6+ months to heal.  i’ve only felt ready to put pressure on it this past 2 or so months.  but it’s been a challenge just to get out of bed in the morning, forget the treadmill.  & now even though my security blanket is gone, the fraked up sleep means exercise is the last thing i feel like doing when i wake up.  catch fuckin 22 again… :(

but the most unexpected impact of this slow turning of the oil-tanker that is my life, has been the realisation that i have “significant feelings” for someone i’ll call J.  a situation (whose details are now unimportant) evoked a physical stomach-turning dose of jealousy.  yes, jealousy!  i’d never considered myself the jealous type before.  where the hell did this come from!??  we’ve been friends for 6+ months, online chatting nearly 12!

but there it is.  the more time i spend with J the more we seem to have in common, the more i like his outlook on life, the more i feel a kindred spirit.  and, well, i’ve always had a hard spot for cute asian guys ;)  i tortured him with some cryptic facebook posts last week (not really expecting him to even see them), which he saw & replied to.  i was so stupidly cryptic he got the completely wrong idea, thought i’d “found someone else”.  no babe, it’s you.  i couldn’t even bring myself to confess my fledgeling feelings for him when we went out on friday night – no, i had to do it via SMS when i got home (isn’t that what GenY do?!?).  such is the impact this ‘black dog’ has had on what used to be my very healthy dose of self-confidence.  that, and also not wanting to fuck up what’s turning out to be a great friendship.

anyway, the SMS conversation was, well, kinda nice!  at least, not the usual “dear john, you’re a great friend.”  so we caught up again the next night.  2 nights in a row, ooher, people will talk!  another great night, watched star trek 11.  and this time we got to cuddle a bit on the couch – that was nice :)  i can’t remember how long since that happened…  went for a walk up to the nearby lookout that overlooks the city.  nice.  talked lots.

not sure where he’s at.  possibly still in shock? :)  and also has a slightly complicated domestic situation with his ex, and his little brother coming to live with both of them early next year.  but he didn’t seem too averse to the idea of taking things slow & seeing where it goes.  so, there it is.

this is all pretty surreal for me.  that side of life has been off limits for years now, thanks to dysthymia.  it’s forcing me to deal with my low self-esteem & body image, and get back into exercise & back on my board.

4:30am.  think i’m ready for sleep now.  stay tuned…

Dear Mr Tanner,

I’ll spare you the form-letter bullet points of why the Government’s proposed internet filtering scheme is illconsidered, ineffective and unwanted.  You’ve heard them all before.

However primary among them is the reality that it just won’t work.  Every time someone creates a ‘wall’ to block internet traffic, it is virtually guaranteed that someone else will find a way around it.  I currently have no “need” to use various technologies to avoid/bypass the kind of filtering proposed by the Government, but I assure you I already have the technology to do so literally at the click of my mouse.

If the Government’s filter comes anywhere close to causing the slow-down OR false-positives that various lobby groups are suggesting it will, I guarantee you that the technology/know-how to bypass this filter will spread into the mainstrream faster than you can say “but 99.99% of Australia’s population aren’t trying to access illegal material”.

And in so doing you will have completely undermined the good intentions of the proposed filter scheme.

As an IT consultant to small business in Melbourne, I perceive the “digital divide” to be growing, not shrinking.  The divide I’m talk about isn’t the haves and have-nots, it’s those who know how to protect themselves and their children from undesirable material, and those who don’t (they are the vast majority).  These are the same people who don’t know how to recognise a malicious spam/phishing email and thus get their computer infected with a spam-bot (or worse), which makes the internet a more dangerous or unpleasant place for all of us.

These are two good reasons why spending money on educating ordinary PC users on how to keep _themselves_ as well as their computers safe is more important than ever.  Frankly, the technology to _effectively_ implement the kind of filter you desire simply doesn’t exist (and for the foreseeable future never will) – it is just too easy to bypass, and the “only” ones negatively impacted are those 99.99% of Australians NOT trying to access illegal material.

I voted for Labor in the last election primarily based on issues relating to environmental and financial management.  I never for one moment considered the ALP’s internet filtering scheme as acceptable collateral damage, but rather as a vote-grabber to be fought *now*.

I call upon you to take whatever steps are necessary to not proceed with this bone-headed scheme, but rather to direct the funds at genuinely _educating_ Australian computer users on how to keep themselves safe on the internet.

Like, how about a perpetual, Government-funded multi-media education campaign, on TV, radio, newspapers, website, Youtube, Twitter, all that and beyond, educating Australian computer users on how to keep themselves, their children and computers safe – to whatever level is appropriate for the individual/family.  Make it ubiquitous, brand it well & consistently, make it comprehensive yet easy, and you will achieve the goal, and more.

And pursue the 0.01% of illicit users far more intelligently than a dumb bypassable filter across the entire population.

Thank you for your time,
Yours sincerely,
Anthony

are you fed up with Optus (Mobile) & want out, but locked into a 24month contract with massive early cancellation penalty? well here’s your free chance out!

Optus have added clause 5.2A(personal)/5.3(business) to their SFOA – Standard Form Of Agreement – covering most pre- & post-paid mobile customers.  if, like many, you object to it, they have the obligation to allow you to end the contract without “early termination fees”.

you only pay for outstanding calls, and however many months worth of handset repayments you have left (if any – some people choose to pay up-front, or higher monthly without handset fees). for me that’s 12 or 13 months x ~$7 = $84, which is 10% of the early termination fee that would ALSO apply if YOU (or I) were in breach of contract. but in this case, it’s Optus who are.

the change they made (effective 12 August 09) is to block you from calling certain Optus mobile numbers – numbers that happen to be used by cheap international calling services, which is just plain anticompetitive. but the SFOA change is so vaguely worded it could be applied to ANY ph# they choose in future. even if you’ve never used such a service before, they are negatively materially impacting the terms of their contract with you for the remainder period of your contract, and you are at liberty to cancel it without early-cancellation-penalty.

their obligations under the SFOA give you until Friday 4th September to object and cancel (without penalty) before they consider you to have agreed with the new terms.

if you cancel in this way, you’ll probably have the choice to revert to a month-to-month arrangement (as would happen automatically when a contract runs out) and consider your options, or cancel immediately & go elsewhere (probably needs a 1 month notice anyway?).

if you call and eventually convince them to cancel your contract without penalty, i urge you to call again a few days later, or at least a few days before your next billing period begins, and confirm that your account has in fact been marked for contract cancellation without penalty.  Optus use one of the oldest tricks – they say “yes, sir” on the phone, but do nothing at their keyboard.  when your next bill arrives you realise nothing’s been done, you’re still in contract, but now the deadline for objecting to the new terms has passed.  when i called a 2nd time, the CS rep knew nothing of what i was talking about, i was still in-contract with no indication i was cancelling – i had to explain again, be put on hold, then received a confirmation/reference number.

i was told each time that the early-cancellation penalty will still appear on my bill, but i have to call up to have it credited before paying it.  naturally i expect that CS rep to say “sorry sir, you’ve asked to cancel your contract, the early termination penalty applies” and have to explain it all again.  but hopefully that’ll be the final moment of victory.

after swearing i’d never go back to Telstra for anything (other than this barely-used land-line for ADSL), and i may yet go elsewhere, i never thought a Telstra competitor – Optus – could become so unpalateable that they made Telstra look appealing.  things must be getting tight on the Optus books…

i “inherited” a Netgear Rangemax WPN824v3 wireless router recently, and found a use for it. as it’s a pre-802.11n uber-802.11g 104Mbps thingy, so i figured it’d be a good idea to put the latest (2 year old, so presumably stable) firmware into it. and that’s where the fun stopped…

i was trying to upgrade the firmware in this thing on a Mac with Firefox, but got a ‘invalid filename’ error when trying to upload the new firmware.

what a ridiculous fiasco ensued:

- the product support pages have a FAQ note advising to use Firefox2 or IE, and that updated firmware will be posted soon. but, how am I to get this promised-but-as-yet-undelivered firmware into the router with this bug?!?

- so I try the following setups:
Safari4 on Mac = same problem
IE8 on Windows7 = same problem
IE8 on WindowsXP = same problem
IE7 on WinXP = same problem (how is that possible!??)

in disbelief & desperation, I went to the Netgear forums.

- a 1 year old forum post on this topic (now closed – why is it closed? the issue is clearly unresolved) advises to “turn off Java”. without logging in to this forum, the 2 pictures attached to the post didn’t display. so I dutifully disabled Java. same problem.

- i noted the original poster says only IE is supported, all else “at own risk”. nice to see that in the user manual – NOT.

- so i dig up some old forum login credentials – they seem to be half recognised but i’m none the less referred back to a full registration page. so i register – again.

- then i see the 2 pictures, clearly showing both Java AND JavaScript unticked. for the uninitiated, Java & JavaScript are totally separate & unrelated things. i untick them (as unintuitive as this seems, given that the Rangemax config pages appear to require JavaScript). but finally that works.

TWO HOURS LATER a 10 minute job is done.

not wanting to sound like an Apple fanboy, but this kind of chosen mediocrity by a (once respected?) major networking company just drives me nuts.

then read on…

first: be aware there’s a difference between “Push” (which is for some email account types & some MobileMe features) and “Push Notifications” (which is for apps).  they are controlled in separate Settings screens.

short story:
if you’ve upgraded to v3.0, usually have Wifi ON, and experiencing short battery life, and if you can live without Push Notifications (at least until Apple finds a better solution), TRY TURNING “Push Notifications” OFF.

alternatively, if you need Push Notifications but can live without Wifi, try turning Wifi off & let the data travel via 3G.

long story:
first I ran alternate days with Wifi ON, then Wifi OFF, and noticed with Wifi OFF my battery life was nowhere near as short (I could get through a day), but with Wifi ON, I can barely get through half a day.  this is very different to v2.21, and in my setup the only significant difference was Push Notifications being ON.

so today i’ve been running continuous pings from my Mac to my iPhone, with various combinations of Push on/off, Push Notifications on/off, email accounts on push / fetch / manual, and discovered there’s a huge difference in how often Wifi gets turned on when Push Notifications is enabled.

with Push Notifications ON, while your iPhone 3G (and probably 3GS) is asleep, Wifi will be turned on for 15-20seconds every 1 to 2 minutes!

this is in stark contrast to Push Notifications OFF, but Push (for email, MobileMe, etc) ON, where Wifi is on only as often as your email account settings dictate.

this explains a lot, I think.  with Wifi OFF, data goes through the 2G/3G radio, which is inherently ON all the time (for phone functionality), so the incremental ‘cost’ (to battery life) of Push Notifications is comparatively small.

but with Wifi enabled, data is instead sent via Wifi.  the incremental cost (to battery life) is dramatically higher having to turn on the Wifi radio, find the WLAN, get an IP from DHCP, then exchange data with various Internet servers, when it happens every couple of minutes!

though I’m not really sure what Apple can do about this situation.  they appear to be turning Wifi on frequently to give the illusion of true (ie timely) push notifications.  i think this situation runs parallel to those who found, with v2.x, that enabling Push on email accounts & Wifi enabled had similar major negative impact on battery life.  except now heaps more people want the Push Notification feature.  interesting conundrum…

a few weeks ago, SBS broadcast the first episodes of two documentary series, ‘Office Tigers’, and ‘Dead Tired’.  Office Tigers is a 4 part series about the inner workings of an Indian business taking outsourced business from major USA corporations.  Dead Tired is a two part series about the consequences of westernised culture that habitually compromises sleep in favour of living ever faster and more complicated lives.

after watching the first episode of Office Tigers with very mixed feelings, i couldn’t help but laugh and cry at SBS’s sense of irony by following it immediately with Dead Tired.  having wrestled with my own “sleep hygiene” issues over the last several years, it’s obvious to me that the importation of western business (and social) culture into India – including less sleep – is likely to result in the same dramatic impact to health – but on an Indian population scale.

several years ago i read a book called ‘The Promise Of Sleep” (2000, William Demment & Christopher Vaughan).  Demment is a pioneering sleep researcher, investigating not only sleep, but the usually hidden consequences of not getting enough of it, over a period of almost 50 years, especially back when almost no one else was giving it a second thought.  Dead Tired is an insightful TV documentary covering similar ground, based on a broader body of more modern research, and which echos Demment’s concerning findings and warnings about our sleep-deprived culture.

in the offices of Office Tigers in Channai, the American co-CEO inculcates his Indian employees with what I view as the WORST aspects of modern western business culture.  he roams the office chastising employees for not wearing their ties; has his supervisors warn their employees that if they take a day off, it’d better be only for something serious like septisemia rather than the flu; and encourages working absurdly long hours (the office is open 24/7 running shifts – there’s no locks on the doors, just a few security guards).  this is all justified by claiming to be a meritocracy rewarding hard work.  yeah, right…

India’s burgeoning middle classes (which it never really had much of until relatively recent times) are understandably clamouring for the salary and lifestyle that comes from working in these new western companies.  but what are the consequences?  not only are a billion Indians (and more than a billion Chinese) rapidly developing societies with the same energy demands of the west, with all the global warming & finite resource consumption concerns that have been mulled over by east & west alike for many years now, but they’re following our footsteps into sleep-deprived western lifestyles!

what will it be like for such a huge populace to suffer (and fail to tackle) the hidden health problems that come from typical western sleep-deprived lifestyles?  just look around you:  lower productivity, horrible car accidents, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and more.  yay…

and once again, SBS rocks with two fascinating documentary series, whose combination is deliciously ironic.

at last, some good news!

IceTV has won its three year battle against Channel Nine’s specious copyright suit against IceTV.

http://www.icetv.com.au/news/?p=614

Nine’s competition reviewed IceTVs processes from a copyright perspective years ago & decided there was nothing for them to answer for.

so i’m not sure what, at this late stage, Channel Nine’s end-game was supposed to be in persevering with the case, but now that i’ve switched entirely to using Elgato eyeTV + IceTV (in other words, the tv tuner in my TV is rarely used now), not-infrequently seeing “not available” in the program guide for Channel Nine (due to IceTV’s observance of the original judgement’s ruling) made them (Nine) look – once again – like frakking idiots.

if it’s not in IceTV, I CAN’T (read: won’t) WATCH IT !  admittedly there’s rarely anything on Channel Nine worth watching… more Two & A Half Men, anyone??? <yawn>

lets hope Channel Nine give up on this bullshit for good, and, um, perhaps focus on being a TV station in dire need of pulling thier finger out, programming-wise.

i hope the people at IceTV are drinking the champaigne tonight, they sure deserve it after being dragged through 3 years go specious copyright claim bullshit in Nine’s futile attempt to dodge the future.

Look at this sorry history for Agile (aka Internode’s infrastructure parent company), who’ve clearly been trying to get their ADSL2+ infrastructure into my Northcote exchange for more than 18 months:

http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/viewexchange.php?Exchange=NCOE

Internode, like all ISPs, must first decide if they have a ‘business case’ for installing their own ADSL infrastructure into an exchange.  Only then can they begin what is clearly an arduous process.  Internode decided on 5 September 2007 that they DID have a business case, and from that point on, have every incentive to do so promptly.

TWO DAYS LATER they changed status to ‘Removed’, and based on what I’ve read for years on this issue, were presumably denied ’space’ in the exchange by Telstra.

15th April 2008, more than 7 MONTH later, they had another crack at it – based on what change in circumstances I don’t know, but I’m guessing at some stage Telstra said “OK, try again, sucker”.

Then, not until 12th January 2009, ANOTHER NINE MONTHS LATER, did it move from In Build-Waiting (for other competitors to gain glacial sequential access to the exchange), to In Build.  Hoo-fucking-ray.

If you’re wondering why, have a read of Simon Hacket’s (Internode’s MD) answers to many common questions about this shambolic state of affairs caused largely by Telstra (but only for competitors, Bigpond seem to get clear fast access to exchanges when they need):

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=631758

Who knows how much longer I’ll have to wait for it to become active, before having to run the gauntlet of the DSLAM running out of ports due to the sudden exodus of Internode customers from the Telstra DSLAM to the Internode DSLAM.  Or perhaps it’ll transpire like it did when I lived in Windsor/Prahran until late 2005, only to see the Agile DSLAM there come online within a few month after I’d moved elsewhere.

I’m simply astonished that this crap has been allowed to happen for so many years.  Where’s the ACCC in all this?  Still asleep?  They’re clearly not looking after my interests on this issue.

Telstra obtained the vast majority of its copper network, and the exchange buildings they all connect to, on MY DIME, and those of my parents & grand-parents (and you & yours) BEFORE they were progressively privatised.  It is PUBLIC property (that should have access granted by an independent body) – or at least should have been deemed so, and that is where this whole farce had its genesis.  ‘Cuz a privatised Telstra with its network owned intact was supposed to be good for competition, right?  Wrong again…  Fucked over by powerful vested interests, again…

Dear Mr Johnson,
(his email quoted below)
Thanks for the notice about an iPhone-friendly adaptation of GaydarMobile.  However, that wasn’t the main thrust of my last communication to Gaydar on the matter.  But it *is* nice to know you’re keeping track of ‘interest’.

Aside from the lack of an actual iPhone *application* for Gaydar, where this latest adaptation to the GaydarMobile website may be an acceptable compromise (I have no intention of finding out), my point is that I still think you’re NUTS for wanting to charge me US$48 for Gaydar + GaydarMobile, vs $28 for just Gaydar (3 months).

So, lemme get this right.  Regardless of which mobile device I use, you want to charge me a 70% subscription premium to access the same service, simply for the ‘privilege’ of doing so from a mobile device?

I can’t comment on what others may or may not be doing specifically in the online gay dating site genre as regards mobile device access, but I *can* comment on the broader explosion of mobile accessibility options, and the business models behind them, and yours is heading, in my humble opinion, in 180 degrees the exact wrong direction, by charging *any* premium, let alone such a steep one, and is thus doomed to failure.

It’s my contention that free – or very low premium – access to said same service via mobile would attract a larger subscription (from the many guys who baulk at sitting down in front of a computer for any length of time – you see this sentiment expressed in profiles all the time), and thus pay your development costs, and *then* reap the reward.  If you need any evidence of this rapidly growing phenomenon, I would draw your attention to iPhone apps such as WhosHere (for a ‘general’ audience but clearly embraced by gay men) & Grindr (specifically for gay men) to name just two.

Yours sincerely,

On 18/03/2009, at 3:02 AM, Simon Johnson wrote:

Hello iPhone Fan,

You recently got in touch with us as you’d like to use GaydarMobile on your Apple iPhone. Great news! We’ve updated GaydarMobile to now work on iPhone.  You’ll find GaydarMobile is easier to use on your iPhone than logging into the online version of Gaydar that uses frames and might be difficult for your phone to understand.

GaydarMobile lets you plan your perfect night in, even when you’re out. Using your mobile phone you can send and receive messages, view profiles and chat to your friends and favourites. Here’s how…

§  Text GAYDAR to 69080 (UK only) or tap in www.gaydarmobile.co.uk through your mobile phone internet browser.
§  Log in with your existing Gaydar username and password. If you don’t have a Gaydar account, you can join free through GaydarMobile or online at Gaydar.net
§  Once you’re logged into GaydarMobile follow the on screen instructions to validate your number.

Once you’ve followed the above steps you’re ready to use GaydarMobile. Congratulations! GaydarMobile is very easy to use, and you’ll find that you have the same features available on your mobile as you do online. So it shouldn’t take too long for you to find your way around.

GaydarMobile isn’t a text service, however it does use data and you should check with your service provider if you have a data package. Most call packages now include data as standard.

Start cruising from the comfort and privacy of your mobile phone handset, no matter where you are. On the train, at your desk, on the beach, in your favourite bar or queuing in the supermarket. Who knows, a hot guy might be behind you!

I hope you find this information useful, if there are any other features of Gaydar you’re unsure about or need help with, hit reply and ask questions. We’re here 7 days a week, from 8am to 11pm (GMT).

At Gaydar we are committed to providing our customers with the best possible service. If you haven’t received the support you’d expect, please let me or any of the Gaydar Support Team know.

Play your way, enjoy Gaydar.

Simon Johnson
Marketing & PR Manager
QSoft Consulting Ltd

‘Bout a year ago there was a hullabaloo when Apple decided to force their Safari web-browser onto anyone who had other Apple software (for Windows) installed – like Quicktime & iTunes (which bazillions of Windows users have because they own iPods), by automatically pre-selecting it for installation amongst updates to the already-installed software.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise what they were aiming for – ordinary computer users (especially Windows users) don’t usually pay much attention to the details of such prompts, they’ve been dumbed down (by necessity) to just click yes to software update offers.  Next thing you know, you’re using Safari instead of whatever browser was the default before.  Nice one Apple.  As a sysadmin for several client’s networks, this is a friggen PITA at best – very few ordinary Windows users *ACTUALLY* invited you in.

In response to the justified outcry, they added a facility to exclude any offered item from current & future update offers.  Seems fair, right?  But to use said feature, you first have to UNtick the ones you DO want, TICK the ones you DON’T want, then drill into a menu to say “don’t offer me these updates again”, then then REtick the updates you need.  Are you fucken kidding me, Apple?!?

But wait, it gets worse – there’s yet another major disingenuous aspect to this new ‘feature’:

Apple Software Updater remembers your selections only on a per-user basis, not – as it should be – a system-wide basis.  So if a different user is in control when the scheduled check for updates next runs, all the unwanted software is offered again, ticked on for installation, by default.  Great… :(

I also suspect that when any product moves up a full 1.0 version increment, it’s again offered, despite previous instruction not to.  We’ll see very soon when Safari 4 comes out of beta…

You don’t fool me, Apple.  FUCK OFF with your insidious worming your way into my client’s systems.  It’s hard enough to administer flocks of “dumb users” without their default browser being switched out from under them (which can have major consequences for some sites – particularly intranet sites in business that require specific browser brands/versions), or MobileMe Control Panel or Bonjour being needlessly installed.

The deliberate cunning behind how Apple Software Updater for Windows works in its fine detail is a clear display of Apple’s uglier side.  Shame on you Apple, it’s just plain deceptive & dishonest, and very Microsoftish.  Mozilla worked their butt off to get Firefox to where it is in market share, and they earned every % of it honestly.

some feedback i just sent to Steve Gibson, the creator of Spinrite (v6) at www.grc.com :

Hi Steve,

I’m a long time Security Now! listener & Spinrite user, and today was one of those blue moon days where Spinrite saved our bacon.  No dramatic ‘Special Ops’ story here :), but satisfaction & gratitude abound none the less, and perhaps a new point of view on why Spinrite is so awesome.

Our Foxpro developer’s old Dell laptop which had been trucking along fine for years, suddenly wouldn’t boot this morning, BSODing during every boot attempt, and as usual Safe Mode was no help.  He’s usually a stickler for doing frequent backups, but when I asked how long since the last backup, I got back only an embarrassed sheepish smile.  Oh boy…

Recognising immediately that this was probably Spinrite’s cue to enter from stage left, I put it to work, and in about an hour it had completed.  Although there was no record of any bad sectors found or corrected, I did notice it churn away for several minutes on a few spots and suspected I was on the right track (no puns intended!)

Sure enough it booted right up, and so far all looks to be intact.  A backup has now been performed, and the impetus to replace the laptop very soon has been renewed!  Just another day at the office for Spinrite, but a significant potential loss averted for us.

Thankyou so much for such a legendary product.  I promise to buy another couple of licenses to reach  my ‘consultants license’ status ASAP.

BTW, while doing a bit of research into SMART a while back, I stumbled across a hard-drive data recovery expert’s site, which had a page recommending data recovery & utility software.  At first I was surprised not to see Spinrite at all (let alone at the top of the list where it should be!), until I saw a note where he explains that he (paraphrasing) “disqualifies Spinrite because it doesn’t take a copy of all the readily-accessible data before attempting restorative measures, and thus puts more data at further risk”.

I understand the logic behind this argument, and I agree that in rare circumstances a drive may degrade to such an extent (or have physical damage to the heads, for example) and not be diagnosed until it’s hanging by the proverbial thread, and thence Spinrite’s thrashing may snap that last thread.

But you know what?  Having used Spinrite myself since the early 90s, and hearing all your testimonials on Security Now! every week for 3 years & hear you explain how it & hard-drives work, I’ve come to realise that most hard-drive’s magnetic media failures don’t fall into that severe category, and that Spinrite’s approach offers FAR more ‘bang for my buck’ than data recovery specialist services.

Whilst he’s probably just taking a very conservative approach (understandable in that industry), someone more cynical than myself might suggest this guy’s wowser attitude is not in his customer’s best financial interests!  Even more cynical people might wonder if some of these data recovery specialists secretly use Spinrite to recover data from customer’s drives and charge traditional (read: exorbitant) data recovery prices for it…

I’m reminded of the race to decode the human genome in the 90s, with the ‘purists’ using a stubborn narrow-minded linear sequencing technique that was threatening to take forever, and Craig Venter’s maverick scatter-gun recombination approach – which won the race.  I see your unique and novel approach to tackling magnetic media failure in exactly the same light.  Simply brilliant!

Manhunt.net, a gay ‘dating’ site, recently chose Australians to beta-test their new site upgrade.  oh boy…

if they put up a localised blog with comments, they must want some feedback!  here’s mine… ;)

“

1) my login-failure solution:
after an unhelpful reply from tech-support (”be patient”) my patience wore out after 3 days unable to login, having tried clearing browser caches, restarting browser, rebooting, trying other PCs, all with no luck. UNTIL i clicked on the ‘English’ language link at the top, then bingo, able to login fine ever since. maybe it was just a coincidence of timing, but one minute no joy, the next i’m in.

2) ‘Private pics unlocked’ notifications incorrect:
i got one today, which said “xxxxxx has unlocked his Private Pix for you.”
but *I* am xxxxxx, it should (of course) say the name of the profile that sent/unlocked :). looks like a simple coding oops.

3) no search by postcode/distance:
the temporary removal of this feature before the site went live was a major tactical blunder – unless you had a REALLY good (undisclosed) reason to NEED to migrate to new servers before it was ready on the new version.

Manhunt is of limited _efficient_ use without this critical feature (i don’t care how many hapless users don’t use search, wasting time online is their choice!), and now with one amorphous mess of hundreds of towns (and several of my local inner city suburbs missing, inc Collingwood, Clifton Hill, North Fitzroy!!!), it’s even worse than the original Manhunt and postcode/distance search is still weeks away :(.

who wants to wade through endless “who’s online” lists containing everyone in the state? or wade through that amorphous mess to list who’s online one suburb/town at a time? i really think you need to somehow get sensible area groups in the list too (not just as a stop-gap until postcode/distance works). yeah i noticed you can now add a bunch of suburbs to a saved-search, which is great, but that only applies to search, not simple ‘who’s online’ lists.

4) the tedious logout/log-back-in shuffle to remain reasonably visible:
basing the ordering of lists according to how recently someone logged in would have to be one of the most brain-dead designs i’ve ever come across in this genre of site. i understand you wanna ‘reward’ those who remain active (rather than those who just login & walk away for a day/week like some on Gaydar!), but this logout/log-back-in BS is not (and never was) the answer – not for us, and not for your systems that have the additional burden of processing several/dozens(?) of logouts/logins per actual user session.

it is in fact a fundamental admission that you haven’t nailed that problem at all if i have to do the work for you on top of actually being an engaged user. that there is still no way for a user to select how a list should be ordered, other than your hard-coded ‘time since last login’ is probably the fundamental problem.

5) search flexibility
even if(when) postcode/distance search is reinstated, i still find the limitations of search feature to be quite frustrating – i can tick various attributes to be “yes, i want them to be into this”, or leave it un-ticked for “i don’t care what they answer here”, but there’s _still_ no way to filter on “i want them to NOT be into XYZ”, which is sometimes where the best filtering happens for some users/purposes (eg. guys4men.com)

i understand a single tick-box is nice n compact, and a 3 way choice (probably a drop-down list) on each attribute will take up alot of space, but for your ‘get on, get off (quick)’ mantra to be realised, there needs to be better ways to filter guys out to minimise results lists.

6) web programmers love making stuff in fancy AJAXy/fly-over/hover/translucent/auto-pop-menu/blahblah, and sometimes it works well, but not on the main menu, especially now that your auto-drop-down menus are across the top instead of down the left side – i’m finding they pop-down almost every time i move the mouse to/from the browser tab bar &/or other stuff on the desktop, which is incredibly frustrating, and utterly unnecessary. so what if i have to click the menu to drop it down?!? i’d rather that than have them getting in the way all the time when i had no intention of ‘clicking on’ the menus anyway! it’s web-designer wankery that doesn’t serve the user.

7) “he’s online now” lights
speaking of web-designer wankery, those new indicators to show if someone’s online are far less ‘readable’ with all that orange simulated LED bezel BS surrounding them. someone in the design department’s been drinkin way too much of the coolaid…

Manhunt, overall i like the new layout, and i dont mind ’silly bugs’ cuz they can be fixed, and i really appreciate that there’s this this localised blog to keep us in the loop & make feedback easy (and bypass the scripted robots in tech-support), but as you can probably tell, and as a paying customer, i’m pretty PO’d not only because a major upgrade to the site has left a critical feature missing for unspecified weeks, but much moreso that a major redesign has failed to address glaring limitations in functionality & usability.

i was questioning whether to remain on Manhunt after my current subscription, and unfortunately this ‘upgrade’ hasn’t done much to increase the site’s utility for me.

not only does the upgrade seem to have been rushed, with Australian’s used as beta testers like it or not, but too few improvements beyond a new coat of paint.

sorry to stick the knife in, but this seems like a classic case of an IT upgrade project mis-managed (too influenced by web-designers & not addressing core issues or features) and poorly executed from the user’s perspective.

“

* UPDATE:

Tim at Manhunt emailed to thank me for my comprehensive feedback, which may help nail a bug or two (as well as assure me that my thoughts were heard loud & clear ;), and a brief email exchange ensued.  I neglected to mention in my comment on their blog that much of what they’re doing is behind the curtain stuff aimed at achieving better scalability, and to that end, “more power to them”, it’s a complicated and major undertaking for websites of this size & 24/7 operation.  He assured us in further blog comments, and in his emails, that they’re flat out dealing with the cut-over, but that the postcode/distance search is the next cab off the rank, with several other popular issues including some i’ve raised as also high on their agenda &/or being (re)considered.  Perhaps there is hope yet.  One has to give credit for any organisation willing to put thier cock on the block in a public blog/comment forum and engage their customers ‘face to face’ rather than only through the arms-length of tech-support.  Thanks for listening & hearing, Manhunt, I’ll wait patiently for what’s around the corner, and perhaps beyond.

i’m really liking Daniel Eran Dilger’s clarity of thought & style:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/13/the-iphone-multitouch-patent-myth/

he simultaneously rattles the cages of the ‘journalists’ & echo-chamber bloggers with rather plain (and usually well deserved) vitriol, states his case clearly & rationally, educates his reader, and manages to come across as rationally pro-Apple without resorting to any of the usual MacFanBoi crap/tedium.

i read his post above immediately after reading Paul Thurrott’s post whining yet again about how stupid Microsoft is for allowing Google to be the 500th&something licensee of Exchange Activesync, seemingly still clinging to the notion that Windows Mobile has any significant future in its current fundamental form (as a shrunken Windows desktop, complete with Start menu, which smartphone makers with even half an ounce of style replace with their own shell).

viewed together, it’s pretty clear that what’s driving alot of anti-Apple/iPhone media coverage (past, present & future) is a failure to realise that what Apple is doing, the hard lessons they’ve learned from their behemoth competitors, and the impact it’s starting to have on Microsoft and others, is what Microsoft have done to countless others over the last 20 years.  maybe there is such a thing as karma afterall…

chalk & cheese, night & day.  good stuff.

this time the “do-gooders” are the Queensland police with their heads up their arses, with the way they’re *choosing* to enforce the law:

A Queensland man has been charged for re-publishing on a video-sharing site a viral video of a man swinging a baby around like a rag doll.  The video he uploaded to the site was reported to police by a Britton.

The controversial three-minute video had already been published widely across the internet and shown on American TV news shows. The clip can still be found online today.

Chris Illingworth, 60, a father of four from Maroochydore, thought he would share it with fellow users of Liveleak, a site similar to YouTube but focused on news and current events. In two years, he has uploaded hundreds of videos to Liveleak.

(source: theage.com.au)

the implications for ordinary internet users who propagate certain material is enormous.  in the minds of Do-Gooder Extremists, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re the subject in the video, the videographer, performing citizen journalism, or simply passing/soliciting comment on the subject – all seem to be fair game for those who charge themselves with the task of “protecting the children”.

as the article goes on to suggest, this year we have indeed reached hysterical levels of ridiculousness in efforts to combat child abuse and child porn (and yes, there’ve been some excellent wins, too).

just for the record, i abhor child abuse & child porn.

but for the love of god, is it too much to ask for you do-gooder maniacs put your efforts where they might actually MATTER and COUNT for what you supposedly stand for?

cuz from where i’m standing, these mindless shenanigans are just wasting my tax-payer money.

i can only hope(?) there’s A LOT more to this Queensland man that hasn’t yet come to light – other than being an ordinary netizen – to justify this crap.

“Clean Feed”?  WTF?  NFW!

i’ve sat on my hands long enough before weighing in on this topic, waiting to see if it was all just a bad dream and i’d wake up and the world would be a sensible place again.

yeah, ok, i’m awake now.

seems Senator Conroy has either lost his mind, or thinks we never had one.

i’m fed up with do-gooder Catholics who think they can save the world/us by hiding it from us, and parade it as “protecting the children” so they can hurl their intelligence-insulting “what?  are you against children being protected from bad stuff?” bullshit.

i vehemently reject his proposal for compulsory ‘net censorship in Australia.

you can read all about the bone-headedness of his plan here at nocleanfeed.com.

PLEASE contact your local MP, and Sen. Conroy himself.

i’ll try to be as polite as i can be in the face of such a stupid stupid man…

All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, on a PC that’s had no new software installed on it, no recent reconfiguration, or any observable signs of malware infection, mum & dad’s Dodo dial-up account stopped working last week – authentication issues _after_ a successful initial PPP connection.  And this isn’t the first time this’s happened…

Mum spent 4 hours on the phone to Dodo tech-support, except this time they weren’t able to resolve the problem.  Exhausted and beaten, she caved and said “OK, give me ADSL”. :-(    She’ll soon be on 256/64kbps, 500MB(peak)+500MB(off-peak) for $25/month.

I nearly flipped (as you can imagine from my earlier posts re Dodo!), but a quick run through BroadbandChoice.com.au confirms that Dodo’s $25/month ADSL (without bundled voice services) is about as cheap as entry-level ADSL gets, and that’s about as much as she wanted to pay.

Given Dodo’s ferocious telemarketing campaign to get their dial-up cusomters onto more modern services, people more cynical/paranoid than me might wonder if there really was a technical problem at all…

Touche Dodo, you won this one.

* Update:  i setup a new dial-up connection with somewhere else as a stop-gap until the Dodo ADSL kicks in.  it worked first time, further proving that there was no technical issue at the client end.  i feel myself becoming cynical/paranoid…

* Update2:  when i called up to cancel the dial-up account (i never used it, just mum & dad), the chook could see that i’d had technical problems, and offered to escalate the issue to *level 3* tech-support.  i wonder how many more hours they’d expect mum to spend on the phone trying to sort out their borked system?  (all the while she’d be running up & down stairs dozens of times because there’s no mobile (GSM) reception in their basement where the PC is).  thanks for the offer Dodo, but you’d already won, this particular chook just didn’t know it so had to run the pleading script past me…

http://www.theage.com.au/national/teen-shot-dead-by-police-20081211-6wtt.html?page=-1

” ‘This is a dreadful tragedy,’ Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said.

He defended the actions of the officers and said they had been trained to fire at the central body mass rather than shoot to wound.

‘The movies would portray that you can shoot to disarm people. That’s not our experience. These are events that are life-threatening, people are extremely nervous, agitated, scared,’ he said. “

WTF???  Well of course it’s “not your experience” if you train them to shoot-to-kill.  The kid was “up to 14m away” from the officers, but all three fired simultaneously, aiming – as trained – for the central body mass.  No wonder he’s dead.  And no more opportunity for a 15yo to learn why he frakked up…

Are police incapable of being trained to shoot the frakker in the legs instead of the central body mass?

Am I living in America now?  Someone pinch me please…

Target Earth (1998)
Seven HD, 12:30am to 2:20am
Sun, 7 Dec 2008, 110 minutes, M, Sci-Fi, Repeat

Oh, you know, the usual; alien invasions and all that.  They always have to drop the odd hint that they’re on the periphery of our planet and lurking with intent.  And why is it always a little girl who has the means of foiling them?  I’ll bet Meloni and Cross were happy to escape to TV land.  Christopher Meloni, Marcia Cross, Chad Lowe, John C. McGinley.

…told me everything i needed to know not to bother watching ;)

Dear Mr McFeely,

While reviewing the stack of election brochures from my letterbox before deciding who to vote for today, I came across yours.

Let me first say that I admire any citizen who decides to stick their neck out and run for local council.  Good on you.

But then I read your brochure.

At first things were going well, but then I read your proposals for cyclists and “The Tunnel” and couldn’t believe my eyes.

In my view, any would-be elected official who still doesn’t embrace long-term sustainable solutions, especially to issues that impact more than just “traffic”, but go much further to the fundamental impact of vehicular transport – safety/accidents, financial, energy consumption, environmental – is NOT one I will ever vote for.

Undertaking such a massive infrastructure project to add capacity as ‘The Tunnel’ proposal does, is ultimately only postponing the problem of growing vehicular transport, and all the “externalities” that brings.  Our collective efforts MUST be to reducing car usage, NOT encouraging it, and PROMOTING better alternatives. Spending a billion dollars on a new tunnel/road system is really just saying “not in our back yard” and sweeping the problem under the carpetsuburb.  As a local citizen who thinks about more than just my own back yard, I reject this “build more capacity” mentality.

Which brings me to your proposed policy to implement a license system for ALL bicycle riders who ride within Yarra City, WHETHER THEY LIVE HERE OR NOT.  WTF?  So, if other councils were to eventually follow suit, I’d need a separate licenses – that I presumably would have to pay for too – for EVERY council area I ride my bicycle in?  I think you can glean from my tone where I suggest you put that proposal.

Then you have the hypocrisy to call for a change to the “deep-rooted ‘town hall’ culture that has been allowed to fester over the years which has helped stem the flow of common sense”?  By wanting to implement an utterly unenforcable and irrational bicycle rider license system for all would-be bike riders whether they live here or not, “BECAUSE THEY DON’T DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE to any infrastructure…”?  Seriously?

My NOT putting another car on the road when I ride, and my NOT contributing to energy consumption and environmental burdens when I ride, and my contribution to the overall health of the citizenry FAR OUTWEIGH the few bucks you’d make from me for a ridiculous bicycle-riding license.

So on one hand there’s your pro-car/tunnel hammer, and in the other an anti-bicycle hammer.  I think you are certifiably NUTS, and my choice is clear.

Why am I not surprised that a man who’s almost singularly been unable or unwilling over so many years to lift The Peel from its musically indecisive, try-to-be-all-things-to-all-people-but-just-fester-as-an-ugly-dive-bar morass should propose such short-sighted, anti-sustainable, and utterly ridiculous policies?

Yours sincerely,