Summary:

If you believe all the hype that spins around about network/internet security, especially coming out of politicians kept in office through exposing their “hands on technology” or espoused by news/forums that get their money by the ‘eye balls count’ then I have some beach front property in Tofoa to sell you.

If you believe, then you need a course in Media Studies 101, how to sell junk while making people believe you’ve served them well.

More Details:

There’s a little storm in a teacup brewing around the blogosphere, news outlets pushing for IE to be replaced because it’s been used (and identified) by Google as a vector for stealing intellectual property from corporates such as themselves.

Apart from the obvious self-serving nature of the “information release.”

Two immediate questions come to mind.

Are Google desktops running Windows 98 or Windows 2000 ? It’s pretty hard to ignore (not get updated) IE7 on Windows XP, and if you’re workstation is kept up to date, then it’s most likely got IE8.

The attack targeted IE6 and Adobe Acrobat(?) so how are these vanguards of technology to be trusted if they’re critical infrastructures are run on 10 year-old software.

I can’t really see how IE6 could be used against Google unless they really hate their own browser (what’s it’s name?) that they would have IE6 still running on their corporate network equipment.

Or, maybe Google have all their accounting systems running on Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers, and no-one secured them properly (why is the administrator on that box doing e-mail and browsing the internet on the server?)

Don’t trust Windows for what you show the world, but run all your internal critical stuff on it?

Google used to be the see no evil, do no evil, company, but they sure like to play tight with announcements and the repercussions of those statements.

If you want to educate yourself instead of trash talking, I suggest the following reads:

Google, China, Chicken Little and Cyber Armageddon. at TrendMicro by Rik Ferguson

China vs. Google (et al) via MSIE... – Stop the Bus at Preach Security by Rafal Los

An interesting announcement in Tonga letting organisations register themselves online. Great new service feature although of what little I know of the business’ in Tonga the number of organisations who are capable of taking advantage of this new service has to be significantly and there are a number of alternative IT services that could have been instigated (at a lower cost) with higher value for both the Government and Private Sector.

Tonga’s Electronic Company Registry, 1st in the Pacific Goes Live Today

Tuesday, 01 December 2009 14:36 administrator GOVERNMENT - Ministries & Departments

1 December 2009

Today, the Ministry for Labour, Commerce & Industries announced …the launching of the new electronic company registry. The Registry, the first of its kind for a sovereign nation in the Pacific, simplifies business registration procedures and reduces the time it takes to start a business.

…

"The system makes it easier for business to register and, once they do, will house their records securely and safely online," …

Tonga is the first nation in the Pacific to have such an electronic registry, and this system is based on the same software used in the New Zealand Companies Office. Firms bringing in their registration documents will have the paperwork entered into the electronic system by Ministry staff …

To ensure all records are transferred online, the Tongan government requires all companies to re-register within six months. …

ENDS

Issued by the: Ministry of Labour, Commerce and Industries, Nuku'alofa.

Just to be pedantic.

IFC, financed by the World Bank and New Zealand, modifies software the New Zealand Government has already paid for. Implements this in Tonga as part of New Zealand’s and WB general Pacific Aid program. I hope this was a ‘grant.’

It’s good to see they’ve gone for implementing something that already ‘works’ and hopefully there were enough skills on both sides (from their side and our side, [however that’s defined]) to make sure the idiosyncrasies of the local populace are adapted into the ‘system.’ (And I don’t mean liliu faka-tonga ee ngaahi fo’i lea fakapapalangii.)

Security ? Did anyone mention Security ?

It seems the above package is such a great deal, they the Government of Tonga has to relinquish all control of the system and let it be operated in “New Zealand.” The press releases aren’t too clear on the details, but for some absurd reason recent hacks on Australian Government websites do not preclude me from thinking that just because the stupid thing is in New Zealand isn’t going to make it any more secure than the Tongans in New Zealand?

Did we not just get a security alert this month regarding Man in the Middle Hijack’s of HTTPS (SSL) connections ? Warnings only came out last month (November) has the ‘system’ been updated and tested.

OpenSSL TLS Session Renegotiation Plaintext Injection Vulnerability

A vulnerability has been reported in OpenSSL, which can be exploited by malicious people to manipulate certain data.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the TLS protocol while handling session re-negotiations. This can be exploited to insert arbitrary plaintext before data sent by a legitimate client in an existing TLS session via Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks.

Successful exploitation may allow e.g. sending an arbitrary HTTP request under an authenticated context if certificate-based authentication is used by the server.

English Translation: Secured web access is a fat dream until this is fixed.

When the next big vulnerability occurs, is there a reputable process for reviewing the risks and implementing a change process, or do we just cross our fingers and hope the whackers go somewhere else?

It would be sad to hear that Tonga also becomes the 1st country in the Pacific with it’s electronic Company Registry republished out of Russia.

Not that we’re too used with Government sharing information about the risks they' are taking with our private data, but this project is rather extensive in the private information they store and make available on the Internet. It may have been a good time to be ahead of the game in having some processes and audit systems in place ?

Australia and New Zealand have their ISO standard 27001:2006 that provides a framework to maximise security of the service and your private data. Do Tonga corporations deserve the same level of protection, or is it OK to let it slide in the Pacific?

Don’t worry, they won’t notice.

Very near and recent security breaches include:

Hacked: Ministry of Information, Tonga (Today Dec 1st) – Joomla website (nice and beautiful Web Content Management System, but seems to be high on the list of hackable systems with plenty of security alerts every week.)

Joomla seems to be the flavour of the month with the Government of Tonga at the moment (“it’s easy”) so hopefully the crude, rude statement above doesn’t start showing up on the rest of the unpatched systems for Tonga.

And don’t even go to one of those links to the site, just don’t do it until the site is fixed.

Hacked: Australian Prime Minister’s Website (September, 2009)

The prime minister's website has been hacked into in protest over proposed reforms of internet censorship.

The website, www.pm.gov.au, was brought down at about 7.20pm (AEST) on Wednesday night along with that of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, but both were back online about an hour later.

Hacked: JB Hifi (Today Dec 1st, 2009)

JB Hi-Fi's websites in Australia and New Zealand were redirecting customers to malicious web pages over the weekend in a cyber attack in the lead-up to Christmas.

The exact details of the attack are not yet clear as the retailer has refused to comment but users first started reporting problems on Friday night.

Visitors to jbhifi.com.au reported being automatically redirected to Chinese websites carrying malware. Similar issues affected JB Hi-Fi's New Zealand website, which is hosted on the same server.

Those with anti-virus software and fully patched internet browsers would have been alerted to the security issue upon visiting the page but people without up-to-date protection could be infected without even knowing.

Liability, Culpability

And what happens when after repeated concerns from company clients, data loss continues to leak and damage occurs to the a company through this data loss?

News this week points at Restaurants in the USA suing the vendor of a credit payment point of sale device that allowed identities of clients to be stolen costing these restaurants millions in penalties, operational reviews,

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online

Restaurants Sue Vendor for Unsecured Card Processor

Seven restaurants have sued the maker of a bank card-processing system for failing to secure the product from a Romanian hacker who breached their systems.

The restaurants, located in Louisiana and Mississippi, have filed a class-action suit against Georgia-based Radiant Systems for producing a point-of-sale (POS) system that they say was not compliant with payment card industry security standards and resulted in an undetermined number of customers having their debit and credit card numbers stolen.

Oh boy, is Sydney going through a heat wave or what.

Today it’s raining which hopefully means a little reprieve from the heart. Fortunately in this 21st century many can ignore the heat, because we’re contributing to it with all the electricity being burned to keep us cool in our offices.

But, let’s blame the Indians without air-conditioning for causing global warming!!!

Definitely the type of weather that can be fatal for the elderly, not well, without air-conditioning.

Sydney heat is very different than Tonga heat. The heat in Tonga is consistently higher than Sydney, but it is also mixed with a high humidity. In Sydney the heat waves are very dry, suffocating.

The old back-up solution for dry weather is the trusty wet blanket hanging in the wind. Speaking with my Burmese village friend. The practise in his village was to hang up wet blankets to help put back moisture into the air.

We had an old fan, back in the day, that looked like an air-conditioning window unit, except all it was was a boxed fan with a large tray of water underneath.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Vaporizing Sione Halasika

There’s apparently a different explanation when nurses, or mum’s, use the term vaporizing.

‘Ofa said yesterday that she keeps forgetting to vaporize Sione Halasika, and I was a little concerned and asked her why she wanted to vaporize Sione Halasika (as in the SciFi et. al. term for terminating, removing all existence, taking all the vapors out of a person leaving only the dust from which we were formed.)

So, apparently vaporizing is some term the ‘medical’ field uses for wafting vapors through someone’s nasal system? Otherwise known as:

• getting a bowl of steaming water with a drop of some ointment (like Vicks)
• getting under blanket
• letting that vaporized ointment up through the nasal system.

Seems to be some old school medication system that still works in today’s Instant Noodle medicine world.

Wii Wii – we need a better name

The kids are on their two week vacation, so there’s four mouths in the house 24/7 for the next two weeks. The weather is quite unhelpful being windy, cold, and on the touch side of drizzling wet.

We can’t get the kids out, they’re locked in all day for two weeks, what’s to keep a mother sane (or dad for the 2 days he’s at home?) Get the Wii.

We went ahead and got the Nintendo Wii as something to help keep the kids sane and active while in doors for the next two weeks.

After a days trial and tribulation, Ma’ata Ngalo’afe asks a poignant question.

Dad, W-I-I, wii. Why is it called the wii, when we go to the toilet it’s called wii wii and the games called the wii. That’s not a good name, we have to think of another name.

so, there you go. After getting exhausted with boxing, bowling, tennis, and kart racing. Today we’ll think of a ‘better’ name for the Wii.

Just finished reading CJ Cherry’s fantasy/science fiction novel “Hammerfall” and found the book very enjoyable with great imagery as the author weaves a story mixing future generation space travel, genetics overarching a tribal/medieval desert terrain society seeking right and wrong, extremism and survival.

Just trialling our Documents page and have uploaded / tagged a few to show how it easy it is for the content developers, as well as for the end-users.

HarperCollins Review: One of the most renowned figures in science fiction, C.J. Cherryh has been enthralling audiences for nearly thirty years with rich and complex novels. Now at the peak of her career, this three-time Hugo Award winner launches her most ambitious work in decades, Hammerfall, part of a far-ranging series, The Gene Wars, set in an entirely new universe scarred by the most vicious of future weaponry, nanotechnology. In this brilliant novel -- possibly Cherryh's masterwork -- the fate of billions has come down to a confrontation between two profoundly alien cultures on a single desert planet.

"The mad shall be searched out and given to the Ila's messengers. No man shall conceal madness in his wife, or his son, or his daughter, or his father. Every one must be delivered up." -- The Book of the Ila's Au'it

Marak has suffered the madness his entire life. He is a prince and warrior, strong and shrewd and expert in the ways of the desert covering his planet. In the service of his father, he has dedicated his life to overthrowing the Ila, the mysterious eternal dictator of his world. For years he has successfully hidden the visions that plague him -- voices pulling him eastward, calling Marak, Marak, Marak, amid mind-twisting visions of a silver tower. But when his secret is discovered, Marak is betrayed by his own father and forced to march in an endless caravan with the rest of his world's madmen to the Ila's city of Oburan.

Instead of death, Marak finds in Oburan his destiny, and the promise of life -- if he can survive what is surely a suicidal mission. The Ila wants him to discover the source of the voices and visions that afflict the mad. Despite the danger sof the hostile desert, tensions within the caravan, and his own excruciating doubts, Marak miraculously reaches his goal -- only to be given another, even more impossible mission by the strange people in the towers.

According to these beings who look like him yet act differently than anyone he has ever known, Marak has a slim chance to save his world's people from the wrath of Ila's enemies. But to do so, he must convince them all -- warring tribes, villagers, priests, young and old, as well as the Ila herself -- to follow him on an epic trek across the burning desert before the hammer of the Ila's foes falls from the heavens above.

Written with deceptive simplicity and lyricism, this riveting, fast-paced epic of war, love, and survival in a brave new world marks a major achievement from the masterful C.J. Cherryh.

Ko e ki’i post fakaangaanga atu pe ‘eni, ngaue’aki ‘a e “Windows Live Writer” ke create ‘a e post (hange pe hano fa’u pe open he Word ‘o toki send ki he website.) I guess it works ? Pictures and all.

Leave it to Dare Obasanjo to finally make a decent summary of what is the Windows Haze.

Disclaimer: What follows are my personal impressions from using the beta version of Windows Azure. It is not meant to be an official description of the project from Microsoft, you can find that here.

…

What is it?

Before talking about a cloud computing platform, it is useful to agree on definitions of the term cloud computing. Tim O'Reilly has an excellent post entitled Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing where he breaks the technologies typically described as cloud computing into three broad categories

…

To try out Azure you need to be running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista with a bunch of prerequisites you can get from running the Microsoft Web Platform installer.

…

…, I find the Live Services piece (access to user data in a uniform way) and the SQL Services (hosted storage) most interesting. I will likely revisit them in more depth at a later date.

…

It would be interesting to read [or write] further thoughts on the pros and cons of Platform as a Service offerings when compared to Utility Computing offerings. … it would be informative to look at the topic from more angles…

Windows Azure from a Developer's Perspective
Dare Obasanjo
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:04:04 GMT

Sometimes Microsoft can be at fault for not even understanding their own message, and then there are the times when even the fanboys and detractors just don’t have a clue.

Shell Programming and Scripting

There’s always Google and Live Search, but the Shell Programming and Scripting forums look just like the place to wander around to learn more about that scripting environment called unix shell.

Looking back at a present past

Stuart was there at the onset of the consumer focussed Internet and brings us an interesting perspective of how the toolsets we now use evolved.

It was 10 years ago today that I first got involved with the Mozilla project.

As I once said: “I did, like, some random, like, little basic things.“

In the beginning…

It all started sometime in 1995 when I started running Linux.  Sometime over the next couple of years I decided to write a GUI email client.  Ironically, the only real option at the time was Netscape Communicator.  GTK+ and GNOME were both new and I decided to go with them as my toolkit of choice.  Eventually I ended up with the Balsa email client.  Through my journey with the Linux desktop I had gotten to know a number of people, including one Mike Shaver who at the time was at Netscape.

Stuart Parmenter: Ten Years
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:26:15 GMT

People easily forget that ‘today’ started off quite a long time ago and with quite a bit of sweat for some people.

It’s amazing the simple things in life that can get people’s nickers in a knot.

After the web learned earlier this week that the final name of Vista's successor was Windows 7, all hell broke loose. The general consensus was that Windows 7 wasn't a bad name, but the reasoning behind it wasn't very clear. Many couldn't figure out how Microsoft had reached the number 7 (I'll give you a hint: they were looking at the kernel version number, instead of counting every single minor and major Windows release). But then others wanted to know why the current builds of Windows 7 were at kernel version 6.1, not 7.0.
Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, chimed in again on the Windows Vista Team Blog with the official explanation:
"So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties. There's been some fodder about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. Windows 7 is a significant and evolutionary advancement of the client operating system. It is in every way a major effort in design, engineering, and innovation. The only thing to read into the code versioning is that we are absolutely committed to making sure application compatibility is optimized for our customers."
Read full story...

Final release of Windows 7 to have kernel version 6.1
Sicarius
Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:31:37 GMT

The more amazing news is that there is still so much code out there in the world with seriously broken code like.

if ( major_version != X ) then
   exit

When was it were were told to write code that allowed you to write

if ( os.major_version < X ) then
   exit
if ( os.major_version > X ) then
  potential_compatability_warning

Maybe MS should ship with their SDK’s a switch to increment the os version during the debug sessions?

I'm running Microsoft Windows Vista - Business Edition on this Tablet PC because it's the OS of choice for this thing, and because I paid the extra cash so I can get a high class Tablet. (Let's hope I don't learn to regret that one)

Now that I'm working in a security paranoid company (well it wouldn't do good to be electronically compromised if your business is providing security for other people.)

One of the key things we do at Nullcube is make sure all laptops have full encryption installed. This means that:

1. When the machine starts, even Windows cannot start without you knowing the humoungously long password I've used.
2. Even if you take the hard drive out of my cold dead hands, you can't get to the data (it's all gibberish without my passphrase)

Since I don't have Microsoft's sanctified OS SKU (Stock Keeping Units) that comes with Microsoft's HDD Encryption tool (bitlocker) I have to look around for some other solution. In my case it came down to looking at two Open Source projects, primarily because they were FREE and been around for a while have hopefully had someone qualified looking at their code.

I've installed both FREE OTFE (On the Fly Encryption) but chose to use TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org) Both tools are great, but TrueCrypt 5.01 supports full disk encryption of the System (boot) Disk. As per above, this feature means that you can't get into my computer unless you put pliers to my fingers and ask not so nicely.

There are however some serious gaping holes with TrueCrypt that is one of the banes of security. Security is not a product. Windows has this great feature called Sleep mode, where the laptop will go into a rest mode where you can shut the screen throw the thing into your backpack run off to your meeting and open the laptop up to see it staring at you with all those applications still running. Great feature, saves you time of waiting for the inevitable 10 minute boot cycle for Windows.

If you have sleep mode on when someone steels your laptop (and presumably the backpack may have a battery charger with it) then you've just given the thief full access to all that 'secured' data.

Presumably, in a corporate setting your Network Administrator will intrusively get into your Group Profile and set it up so the laptop cannot go into sleep and must power down (whoaa, so much for that feature.) Another intrusive but not so intrusive solution would be for laptop policies to allow sleep mode, but with requiring authentication on un-sleeping. Obviously there still is the problem that your Windows password may not be all that good, but with the newer laptops including biometric authentication mechanisms, this might be more secure?) Of course, if you steal my laptop and cut off all my fingers you can probably get in as well.

LIghtning/Sunbird 0.8 has been released and I wanted to try it out, since it has great potential but didn't really work for me last time (probably because I don't really have a life to calendarise?

I kept getting error messages for calendars that were installed in previous versions of lightning that I couldn't access, so I couldn't remove it.

Short answer:

Storage.sdb

The calendar information seems to be stored in a file called storage.sdb and since I was starting from scratch, it was just a matter of deleting the file to get a working Thunderbird/Lightning again (well, actually it was working previously but with too many annoying error messages.)

Now I have to get the kids calendar back online et. al.

We can sometimes get ahead of ourselves, as techno-geebs. The solutions people generally want rarely needs new flashing lights with special coolant, our priorities should be solving problems, not installing new technologies.

Re: [OT] Pursuing Management to adopt OpenBSD

Chris wrote:

> I been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to convince various clients and
> employers to adopt OpenBSD. Most people, I find, are resistant to
> change and would not use anything they are not familiar with. Others
> would say that if I leave the job, it would be hard to find people who
> can use (or even heard of) OpenBSD and in some places Management never
> heard of OpenBSD and have very little clue as to how good or bad it is
> compared to Linux/ Solaris and Windows thus they will just knock off
> the proposal in 2 seconds.
>
> Is there any way I could convince these people to make the move to
> OpenBSD? Suggestions, tips and tricks along with real life examples
> would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Got a message from Google (you know, those guys that do the search thing on the INTERNET) and they're letting people set up their websites using Google's services (well, we've known this for a while but they've added a few more services.)

Services that Nomoa.com are making use through Google include:

Start Page  http://partnerpage.google.com/nomoa.com

The Start Page lets you create a unique, dynamic place to preview your @nomoa.com Gmail inbox, your Google Docs files and your Google Calendar, collect relevant information from your organization, and search the web. You can customize the layout and content, choosing from thousands of handy Google gadgets.

Chat / GTalk

Google Talk provides a free and simple way to connect instantly with your contacts with instant messaging and free PC-to-PC voice calls anywhere in the world. You can even exchange files with your contacts using Google Talk, with no file size restrictions.

Chat with colleagues from within your start page Now you can chat with colleagues and friends from right within your Google Apps start page. The new Google Talk gadget also allows for multi-person chat, so you can schedule a meeting or get input from multiple people without switching back and forth between chat tabs. If your administrator has activated the start page, add the gadget by clicking on the "Add stuff" link on the top left corner of your homepage, open the 'Google Apps' category of gadgets, and click 'add it now.'

Web Pages http://web.nomoa.com

Sites http://sites.nomoa.com

Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.

Email http://mail.nomoa.com

Email with up to 6 GB of storage per email address, mail search tools and integrated chat, powerful search to find messages as fast as you can search the web, and instant messaging built right in. The Gmail web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in from your mobile phone. Or if you prefer, you can access email from your favorite mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird using POP or IMAP at no additional cost.

Straight Google GMail, but using @nomoa.com as your base address

Calendar http://calendar.nomoa.com

Google Calendar helps individuals and whole organizations manage their time. Not only can you organize your personal calendar, invite others to meetings and events, and keep track of RSVPs, but you can also create shared calendars that multiple people can view or edit. You always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publicize events to the world. The Google Calendar web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in from your mobile phone.

Google Calendar gallery Many organizations and individuals choose to share their calendars publicly through Google Calendar. Now Google Calendar users can access these calendars through an easy-to-browse gallery. You can find all sorts of interesting public calendars that you can overlay on top of your school or business calendar, so you can keep track of your favorite basketball team's schedule, know when your favorite TV show is a repeat, or follow your favorite band's concert tour. To see the gallery, click the 'Add' button at the top of your list of calendars and choose 'Add a public calendar'

Docs http://docs.nomoa.com

Google Docs makes creating and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations simple. Not only can you create and edit your own docs, but you can also have multiple people view or edit together. With Google Docs, you don't have to manage multiple versions of the same attachment from different people. You always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish docs to the world. The Google Docs web application is accessible from anywhere, and you can even sign in and view docs from your mobile phone.

Localisation?

And, what does this all have to do with Talanoa Oceania 2008? Well, you can now go to a new Talanoa site @ Google specifically for the event http://sites.google.com/a/nomoa.com/talanoa/Home . The simplest URL is the generic Nomoa.com sites hosted by Google at http://sites.nomoa.com

Talanoa Oceania 2008 - http://sites.google.com/a/nomoa.com/talanoa/Home

Talanoa Calendar of Events - http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/nomoa.com/render

Of course, you're not going to see anything on the Calendar until you page through to September ~ October.

I'll try to keep the Talanoa Calendar and Talanoa Details/Site up to date. When the event goes, we'll hopefully have some interesting information (videos?) we can put up on the 'NET for the rest of the world to see.

Weird tangents in time ? This laptop hard-drive just couldn't be resurrected anymore (three trips to the refrigerator worked fine, but sooner than later it wasn't going to work anymore.)

I took the machine in to the shop for the guys to replace the hard-drive, they couldn't ghost the hard-drive, so they reinstalled all the base software which included Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft Office 2003.

As some one who has dutifully been 'beta-testing' Open Office since version pre-1.0 and have recently downloaded the current 2.30 release I was just arriving at the stage to reinstall my Office Productivity Software.

I subscribe to Planet OpenOffice's News Feed and this morning caught up with some sad indicators of where Open Office is not heading.

Michael Meeks- 2007-10-02- Tuesday 

Very disappointed to read Kohei's blog. Sun re-writing a contributor's code because they refuse to accept the licensing terms they give to other people: the LGPL; saddening. Sun chooses the licensing for OO.o; why choose a license they won't accept themselves ?

...

What we don't like is the insistence that all and any contributed code, shipped at OpenOffice.org must end up being owned by Sun. In this case, the solver is a nicely separated, individual shared library UNO component and completely de-coupled from OO.o. I'm personally a fan of the LGPL, and OO.o (and StarOffice) contains lots of non-Sun owned modules including several LGPL modules, in it's core: eg. Daniel Velliard's nice libxml2 library. Due to static linking, there is even pure LGPL code floating outside the 'external' project. So - why is Kohei's nicely separated, working, specified, UNO component not acceptable purely under the project's license: the LGPL ?

and then

Kohei Yoshida- History of Calc Solver

I’ve been trying to avoid writing a piece like this simply because if I wrote one, there would be a lot of bitterness involved, and I don’t like to put a blame on anybody. But when I saw a lot of confusion over the state of my Calc Solver in Barcelona (not the least of which is Louis’ announcement on Calc Solver for 3.0 during his keynote speech, which was truly a bad surprise for me), as well as this statement by Stefan Taxhet (st) in the issue page outlining Sun’s intention to duplicate the entire work I did (for free), I felt like it was time for me to explain what actually happened surrounding my effort to write an Optimization Solver for Calc.

...

But I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love to be proven that Sun still are willing to work with us, to make OO.o truly a wonderful product as well as a project attractive to prospective code contributors. But there is nothing I, as a single insignificant mere mortal can do to influence the behemoth that is Sun. It’s impossible to make an even slightest change in how the project is run, even after countless hours of coding and more than 10,000 lines of code generation (which I received no compensation for and involved quite a lot of personal sacrifice). In the end, I made no difference at all. Sad, truly sad.

To make a long story short, OpenOffice as a project is starting to find holes in the facade of its openness.

IBM Support for OpenOffice

IBM currently ships what is almost effectively FREE Office Productivity Suite called IBM Lotus SmartSuite (being that sometimes you can get it in OEM bundles for very little.) This suite in 1999 handled tables in wordprocessing documents a lot better than OpenOffice in 2007 (that's not comforting.)

When IBM recently announced that they were going to contribute code to OpenOffice it made me smile, just like they contributed code to Lotus Notes and took the premier Messaging, Groupware product to being unknown overnight, or their contribution to Lotus 123 a fully functional spreadsheet numerical analysis tool that historians recall having somewhere hidden in the IBM hallways. There was once a competitive word-processing program at IBM DisplayWrite which as I recall was second only to WordPerfect at one time. Sadly, it now only sells for their MVS/CICS platforms?

Lotus bought the 1st Windows WordProcessor Ami Pro --> Word Pro at its time, this was a superior word processor to Microsoft's Windows Word 1.x 2.x.

IBM in PC Software is just weird, and with a very poor track record. I would not use their involvement as a great measure of success, but potential danger of causing a software system to fail. If you remember OS/2 and Tangent/PINK, they are very huge PC Software developments that lauded success and IBM can share significant blame for their failures.

Microsoft Office

The weird thing about the reinstallation of this laptop, and the disaster that is unfolding with the mechanics of servicing OpenOffice non-Sun developers, is that I was already being pushed to use Microsoft Office anyway.

OOXML and ODF is a waste of time for me, for the foreseeable future all my friends are on Microsoft Office and conversion tools are coming along to convert documents to the 'next(tm)' format.

Microsoft Word works for me, Office Write is a struggle to do what I want to do on a daily basis (inserting tables from the spreadsheet is a major dysfunctional event with Open Office.) I deplore users of Powerpoint, but have no real preference between it and OO Impress.

Firefox, Thunderbird, GTalk, WL Messenger, WL Writer are my communications packages, and they are not dependent on OO nor MSO, although 3 of 2 are dependent on MS Windows.

Conclusion

I'll most likely try out OO again when 3.0 release candidates come out, but by then I'll probably be embedded in Microsoft Office 2010 to much care.

I walked there, and remembered I needed to look at that list again, then went searching for it and found it again.

Jeff Atwood in his Coding Horror Blog has nicely collected some sage advise for wanna-be programmers, and wanna-be sleeping at night type programmers. Now, I have to link to it so it's bookmarke'd and in my list of lists.

Top 6 List of Programming Top 10 Lists

Jerry Weinberg: The 10 Commandments of Egoless Programming

Dare Obasanjo: Top 10 Signs Your Software Project is Doomed

Omar Shahine: Top 10 Tips for Working at Microsoft (or Anywhere Else)

Michael McDonough: The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School

Andres Taylor: Top 10 Things Ten Years of Professional Software Development Has Taught Me

Steve Yegge: 10 Great Books

On my wanderings through the web I'd come across Dare's Top 10 Signs Your Software Project is Doomed and Omar's Top 10 Tips for Working at Microsoft (or Anywhere Else) and believed in the relevancy of these criterias for the average programmer, but now with the list of lists, advise needs to be noted and remembered, worked upon.

Reminder to Self: Checklists are guides, in and of itself it doesn't create a solution, it's the human brain behind the driving that is the danger and solution.

There's a lot of Voice over IP (voip) companies that are offering US telephone numbers to international users. (You know, where you pick a US Phone number and when someone calls it, the phone in your hut in Tonga rings instead.)

Well, something that is more interesting (?) would be having a US Shipping address so us internationalised people can get in on the huge number of sales that start and end in the US (of course, depending on the product the sale might begin and end in Europe, or Japan, or even Fiji?)

There have been a huge number of products that we've wanted to get our hands on that are not available in the local Australian market (let alone available in Tonga.) In particular, the products that are a necessity in our household are the LeapFrog.com products for the kids. Of course, dad would have loved to get in on the action of the Zune.

This month I've been shopping around for a replacement for an old computer backpack and its not looking good. So, I walk back to the online store where I bought the back http://www.ebags.com and they don't ship internationally but they pointed out a site for a freight-forwarding company that organises a "US Shipping Address."

Access USA offers our members an exclusive U.S. mailing address. With their address, our members are able to receive any number of catalogs and magazines in addition to merchandise shipments. Access USA repackages and forward these items to our members.

Access USA provides our members with a street address, not a P.O. Box. You will receive a complete street address with a unique suite number. Here is an example:

John Smith
1903 60th Place E.
Suite M9999
Bradenton, Florida 34203

All U.S. shipping companies will be able to deliver to your Access USA address.

Now, that has potential. Amazon here I come.

We were in the Strathfield Library with Ma'ata Ngalo'afe and while we were browsing her book section two kids were on the Library computers having a go for it. Ma'ata eventually got around to wanting to get on the computers to do "work" so we wandered over there (and she told me to go get my own computer 8-).

Well, those two kids were browsing the Internet and more interestingly they were playing a game on http://www.runescape.net which is a Role Playing game. I got on there later in the evening to see whether it would be useful for the kids.

I haven't been much into Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, although I have played a fair bit of offline RTS with Dune 2000, World of Warcraft, but I found this game responsive and fun.

When you sign in, create your free account, you get a little training in the new world which initially starts with how you can feed yourself with the rudimentary woodsmen stuff (e.g. chop wood, light fire, net prawns) and then you graduate up to meeting a baker and learning how to bake bread.

If you've got plenty of time, but no dough, get on down to your local library and login to http://www.runescape.net and have a go.

I also believe that it is RUNE (space) SCAPE, not RUN (space) ESCAPE, but it is an interesting play on words for a website (don't you think?)

If you like this site, sign up! RuneScape hosts thousands of players every day. Thats alot of quests, trades, battles, pk-ing, mining, smithing, arrow shooting, magic casting, fishing, and just about everything else in between! We hope that some of those players will enjoy this forum and seek help from our admins and haven in our chat areas. SO have fun, enjoy the site.

The documentation on the website seems quite thorough, although just diving in and clicking through seems to be just as easy.

Walking around the Search Engine http://surch.com  when I came across the sponsored results:

The Friendly Islander Hotel (Tonga)
http://friendlyislander.com/ - Affordable accomodation, friendly service, memorable experie...

The creative thing about the Friendly Islander Hotel website http://friendlyislander.com is that it isn't a 'regular' website, nor a myspace.com website.

It is essentially just a Blogger.com blog site, that doesn't actually blog but just has the advertisement laid out pretty well.

I know it isn't that new, and quite a few entrepreuners have already done this thing before, but I'd never seen it for a Pacific Island business.

Wow, they get heaps of FREE bandwidth, FREE redundancies, FREE advertising.

I certainly hope more Pacific Island companies get a hold of this new 'website' system and get themselves up with high upfront cost, but seemingly no-maintenance regular costs. Once its up, you've paid your consultant, you can just leave it.

Other blog engines that you can work with include:

http://www.bloggar.com

http://www.wordpress.com

http://spaces.live.com

http://myspace.com

And we're all wondering what value we can get out of that Zune that we're not buying ?

It would seem that if you wanted to be the latest hip music store in town, or even latest "it" place for dorks with money to hang. Get a vending machine from Microsoft that will beam legitimate songs for people to listen to, and give them some way of to put the actual tracks to digital media (like a USB stick or similar) Charge $0.50 more for the service.

Have the vending machines spew out the latest promotional pictures, so we can commune with it.

There's been news on the 'net recently about the closure of Tower Records, what I recall of the franchise, they used to have large outlets all over the areas of America I visited. No more racks of vinyl, cds to wade through. Although I'm sure those racks are still kicking at half-price books.

Instead of listening to the 'clips' of music at the store, why don't you just go ahead and book yourself the whole album (or even more depending on your 100GB -vs- 30GB Zune.) Listen to the sound 3 plays or 3 days, and if you really like it drop in the memory key to the 'man' and get the thing for a buck-fifty.

Think of all the 'independent music' that people can listen to, instead of just getting whatever elevator music is running the loop at the store. I for one can never find the clips I want to listen to on rackmounted listening posts. Now with the latest Zune enabled store, every zunester can listen to the whole catalogue while they're looking in the meat section.

You can even find the songs you want faster, because it's all cataloged and menu intuitive to find.

Video clips ? Instead of waiting 30 minutes for a short video clip, maybe next firmware upgrade will let you get those at the local shop as well.

Interesting thought. Could target and walmart really drive the sale of this product, or take a huge share in the after-market value of the Zune by selling songs for a buck ? I mean, the costs for those juke-boxes are going to be high to start with, but how many would you need to serve out all the albums in the store ? 1 ? (doctored to get a 150GB HDD, or 32GB Flash Drives)

Of course, Zuny would have to sell a truck load of Zunesters before this whole idea is 'economical' but isn't it interesting how a whole new landscape of music buying is now technologically possible and feasible?