I’ve been tracking OpenOffice (using it exclusively on-and-off) and they are really progressing quickly through their RC (Release Candidates)

The wonderful thing about their recent announcement?

The first office suite to use the new OASIS OpenDocument format, the future-proof international standard for office software

So now all those Paranoid types can get the ‘standards’ compliant Office Productivity tool for which IBM and Sun have been pushing to save your soul from Microsoft.

Read: There’s been a lot of hoopla huffing and puffing over a ‘standard’ that only now exists?

Not even in Tonga.

From: OpenOffice 3.0 RC4 

OpenOffice.org is an open-source, multiplatform and multilingual office suite comparable with MS Office.
It is compatible with all other major office suites and is free to download, use, and distribute. It was previously known as StarOffice before it became an open-source project. OpenOffice comes with OpenWriter - a word processor, OpenCalc - a spreadsheet and OpenImpress - a presentational package.
* The first office suite to use the new OASIS OpenDocument format, the future-proof international standard for office software
* Easy to install, with a whole new look and feel, matched to the type of computer in use
* More intuitive, more easy to use than ever, with a host of new usability features
* Complete with Base: an easy-to-use database manager with a fully integrated database
* Compatible with other software packages - now understands even obscure and rarely used features in major competitors.
You may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any licence fees, use it for any purpose - private, educational, government and public administration, commercial - and pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students, employees, etc.
News source: OpenOffice.org
Download: OpenOffice 3.0 RC3
View: Release notes
Read full story...

OpenOffice 3.0 RC4
Marcel Klum
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:53:33 GMT

Game Over Man, Game Over ….

It looks like annoying flash has become a serious security threat.

But where does it leave the security bod out there trying to let people in their organisation use the Internet ?

Looks like a great opportunity for a security appliance border device between users and their web experience.

Net game turns PC into undercover surveillance zombie
Daniel Fleshbourne
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:17:02 GMT

Underscoring the severity of a new class of vulnerability known as clickjacking, a blogger has created a proof-of-concept game that uses a PC's video cam and microphone to secretly spy on the player. The demo, which is available here, appears to be a simple game that tests how quickly a user can click on a series of moving targets. Behind the scenes, it combines a generic clickjacking attack with weaknesses in Adobe's Flash technology to record the player using the PC's video camera and microphone.
The proof of concept is a powerful demonstration of the spooky implications behind clickjacking. The vulnerability allows malicious webmasters to control the links visitors click on. Once lured to a booby-trapped page, a user may think he's clicking on a link that leads to Google - when in fact it takes him to a money transfer page, a banner ad that's part of a click-fraud scheme, or any other destination the attacker chooses.
View: The full story @ The Reg
Read full story...

We all knew nz’s?

THE Federal Opposition's new immigration spokeswoman has raised strong concerns about the Government's new seasonal worker program.

Sharman Stone, from regional Victoria, where many of the new visa-holders would work, said the program was confusing and lacked detail.

Regulations to allow 2500 Pacific Islanders into Australia as guest workers were introduced into Parliament on Tuesday.

Unease over seasonal jobs - National News - National - General - Central Western Daily

My editor of choice is Scite and there's been an enhancement with one of the 'packages' I use that just drives me crazy. Autocompletion of quotes and brackets. This feature autocompletes your quotes, such that everytime your enter a single or double quote " the editor will automatically put in the second ". Feature drives me crazy.

Got on the 7:49 to City Circle (Wynyard) this morning and was surprised that the carriage I got on had just had the partial face lift operation. It had that glossy look of a fresh coat of paint, and it also had the nice lingering smell.

Only 40 minutes left then I can get off.

Sure would hate to be on this train this afternoon. With Sydney starting off with hot weather this spring (currently 17 deg. C and expecting a high of 23 deg. C)  the paint mixed with afternoon mass transportation body fumes is not something I wish to contemplate.

I get a phone call this morning from the ‘Eua clan pointing me to a new project their involved in.

http://peanutsfunnyfarm.blogspot.com

Peanut’s Funny Farm is an activity farm for underprivileged children aged up to 18 years. We have designed Peanut’s Funny Farm specifically to be a safe and happy environment for children and Animals. The children are welcome to come and stay at the farm where they can play with and care for animals, ride horses and take part in a number of different outdoor activities. Our goal is to help children spend some quality time with animals that do not judge them or cause harm to them, but will love them for who they are. We also give refuge and shelter to as many unwanted animals as possible.

Trust the ‘Eua mob to come all the way in from the Islands, to find happiness on a farm.

They’re out there with their palangi-loi mum helping out with setting up the facilities etc. If you think you can be part of the fun, or someone you may know may find it useful, head on over and take at look.

And a beautiful day in Sydney it is for being out doors.

What is Clonezilla

You're probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package

Norton Ghost®, and its OpenSource counterpart, Partition Image. The problem with these software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You've probably also heard of Symantec's solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!

Clonezilla, based on DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, and udpcast, allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla server edition. Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla server edition is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. This increases the clone efficiency. At the NCHC's Classroom C, Clonezilla server edition was used to clone 41 computers simultaneously. It took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to all 41 computers via multicasting!

Some people still don’t think they need a disk image backup solution, and they may not.

But if you have to maintain a network of computers (whether for a school, work, or social club) today’s increased capacity in disk drives (and their relatively lower prices) demands you consider this as a solution for making your maintenance life easier.

Weird,

The train ride this morning paused a little at Birrong Station.

The weird factor?

The train normally drops/picks passengers at Birrong Station and then pauses between stations. This seems to be a common practise on the rail line (at least on City Rail) where the driver would get a radio/computer update on our schedule and bring the train to a halt where passengers can neither get off/on.

This morning, the driver must have received his message early, or started late on his/her shift.

What difference is there being stuck at a station and in between?

 

Weird,

The train ride this morning paused a little at Birrong Station.

The weird factor?

The train normally drops/picks passengers at Birrong Station and then pauses between stations. This seems to be a common practise on the rail line (at least on City Rail) where the driver would get a radio/computer update on our schedule and bring the train to a halt where passengers can neither get off/on.

This morning, the driver must have received his message early, or started late on his/her shift.

What difference is there being stuck at a station and in between?

 

The context for the 2008 Talanoa is ready to rumble and although a little heady for techno nerds, the ‘stuff’ is beginning to get some tasty flavouring.

Make the time and come on over. If you know any pakehas, palangi who must deal with the rabbles from Pasifika, forward them an invite it cannot but enlighten them to the context from which their pacific partners hailed.

If you’re from the Pacific and you’ve been in Australia for too long but still need to think about that Bigpond question:

What’s important about January 26th for Australians?

A day off to watch the cricket (eyebrow raised)

Then you’re just punching to turn up. You’re part of the ‘problem’

2008 Conference
Mana, Vanua, Talanoa
Abstracts received for some of the presentations

Welcome & opening event

The opening event will follow the expected structure of a traditional lotu ceremony, with negotiations to embody the complexities of PI migration. Participants are encouraged to flow the event (or go with the flow if you prefer!) and be respectful of the tapu of the land where we will gather, and the talanoa of the Barramatugal clan and Darug people who cared for it over many generations.

Roots and Routes: Who are we?!

This panel will explore the challenges that Pacific Islanders face when we move overseas, torn between commitments to the homes from where we came and the necessities of settling into new homes. This panel consists of first generation PI migrants, and will explore issues related to church, education, law, justice system, culture and so forth. Members of panel: Liva Tukutama, Filimone Olivetti, Vetinia Waqabaca, Alisa Peacock, Seini Afeaki, and others

Computers can be configured to ‘wake-up’ to certain peripheral device activities, something (as I recall) pioneered in the PC Space by Apple’s Nubus back in the ‘dark ages?’ The idea is that we can conserve electricity by putting our computers to ‘sleep’ and have some event (such as someone wanting to talk with the computer) wake up the computer.

Today, ‘wake-up’ is a common feature offered on computers.

Apart from the security implications of a computer activating (or being owned) when you plug in a Firewire / IEE1394 device (such as some external drives and Digitial Video Cameras) there’s a nice feature in Windows Vista that would ‘wake-up’ my laptop when I move my external/usb mouse.

Wake-up on USB is a nice feature, that you love half the time, and hate the other half.

Put the laptop into sleep, or just let the screen saver do it and go away from your desk for a cup of coffee or something. It is seriously convenient to just get to back, bump the mouse and be back online browsing the web (oops, working!!!.)

On the other hand, it is hugely inconvenient to put the laptop to sleep, shutdown the screen and then have someone else bump the mouse for the laptop to be active while the screen is down (i.e. no clear indicator for me that my battery is draining away.) It doesn’t help that it seems that since I have my laptop authenticate after waking up, it doesn’t go back to sleep so my battery can be totally drained with the lid down.

Don’t even go into the problem that many people have, where something wakes Windows/Laptop up while it’s in your bag giving the laptop a good chance to drain the battery and heat it self up silly.

As a given, if you put your Windows box into sleep mode, and you don’t want it to wake-up because you’re putting the laptop into your bag, pull all the USB devices out before Windows gets into ‘sleep’ nirvana.

The lessons.

Decide on the level of inconvenience your prefer. Until Windows is intelligent enough to figure out that Monday ~ Friday between 5:00 and 6:00pm when I put the thing to sleep, I don’t want it to wake up until I open the lid, live with it. Actually, if Windows and this laptop can just figure out I don’t ever want the laptop to wake-up while the lid is down, that would be a huge success.

Like, how often do you hear of people on battery power turning on their laptops while the screen is shut. they must be in a different world over at Redmond?

For battery life, get another power-brick for your laptop (unfortunately I’m over-geeked and carry two laptops with one power-brick between them.) Come to me sayeth Windows, for I will make your yoke heavy.

Of all the naysayers, fanboys out there for Google’s new engine.

Has anyone noticed the contribution Google is doing by BSD licensing the product?

Just as OpenBSD ‘saved’ the world by contributing OpenSSH as a BSD licensed product (so everyone and their dog can use the best SSH server/client without reprisals or arguments) is Google trying to push Chrome’s Javascript Engine V8 to become a new standard that everyone can use ?

If V8 is faster, more compliant then any other pseudo javascript engine out there, then why would you not incorporate it into your browser? Especially if it gives your end-users (browsers and developers) a better experience.

Go Google, Go IE9

Naahhh,

There are people out there who still believe security is an overrated issue not worthy of their time. “There are more important issues” (disclaimer: I work for an IT security firm?)

Zero in a bit’s article: MBTA Hack shows security hasn’t improved in 10 years reminds us that IT security in the broader context of society, can be a life or death situation. I may not care about your losing money, but I sure as hell care if your security failings can cause me loss of life, limb, and/or liberty.

Zero in a bit references hacks that can literally ‘stop your heart.’ Which draws us to other examples of security failings that can be disastrous. I sure don’t want the Rail System I’m running on hacked, they’ve got computers all over the network (i.e. in every suburb they have a train station) and you can just imagine the day when someone plugs in a wireless modem onto one of those desktops and gives some hacker direct access into the Rail Information System.

I’ve got enough problems with the current timetabling then to have some hacker running the system as if it’s their private train-set and trying to crash the trains together.

Continuing the medical security scenario, we are reminded that software security isn’t just about protecting the “system” from outside interference, in its holistic sense, software security is about protecting the software from itself. We don’t want to be sitting under an X-Ray, Laser cutter when the machine has a buffer overflow and decides to give you 10x or 1000x dosage. Wait, that already happened.

Took off my jacket @ Newtown station because the night air, though chilly, was warm enough for only a single ‘jumper/cardigan.’

Train gets in, I get on, and immediately have to put the jacket back on. Geez the train is freezing.

But let’s just blame the State Government Owned, and Operated Railroad operators for the continuing incompetence. Or, better yet, let’s blame the lackey worker who has to put in double-shifts and isn’t allowed to question the efficiency of the network. After all, the current government (State) has only had 10+ years running the show, they haven’t yet completely put their buddies into all posts in the organisation.

The previous government really screwed things up when they sacked all those incompetent managers and replaced everyone. 10 years is about minimum to get our buddies back into the system and totally screw the populace.

Democracy, the NSW freedom to ‘game’ the system so you can legally screw people!

With the right amount of money, what is the ‘real’ difference between democracy and dictatorship?

My sister-in-law suffered sadly for beauty on Saturday, then spent Sunday coiled up in front of the television keeping warm (supposedly) or was that not going to church so she could watch movies.

It seems a sad maxim of the ‘civilised society’ that so many link their self-worth to their exterior outlook, or just as sadly the number of brand things dangling.

Too sady, too true.

As I continue my mundane, but necessary, rituals of getting up in the morning slogging the way to the train station to get to work and back it’s good to be reminded of the mortality that is life. Lu’isa Tae Kami passed away over the week-end and having lived her life to the max, in such a short time, she’s given those around her a great opportunity to reflect on their own mortality, and purpose in life.

16 August 11:40pm... Gone Home...

Tae passed on in her sleep at 11:40pm this evening. She mentioned this morning she might be gone by midnight and kept her word. Heaven must be buzzing as she flies through its gates new body, new heart and spirit intact.

She has asked that the theme for her service be taken from the Bible -  Romans chapter 8 - "the whole chapter". Tonight I can only think of the verse: All things work for good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose...

You can follow the celebration of life, funeral proceedings on the above page. You can also find out a heck of a lot about her journey from the site, and on her Bebo page.  Included in the links on her Bebo page should be heaps of videos from all over the place (including Tonga and NZ Television) documenting her life and her influence on the Tonga and Pasifika communities.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Taholo and Sina, siblings and the rest of the clan and very very extended family from Tae’s ‘family.’

Tae’s journey with cancer has been draining and fullfilling for her immediate family and a new extended extended family that have grown out of her needs but especially because of the composure and faith she has shown “forged in fire.”

Walk on Walk Strong Tae, and may we meet with you again.

Rail travellers are used to private papers hawking themselves for FREE espousing some agenda (I don’t know because I don’t read it often enough) providing quick, short term entertainment and presumably paid by advertisers.

This morning we were greeted at the gate to Bankstown Rail by a hawker giving away free Daily Telegraph rags, wow. Everyone at the station seemed to have a copy, whilst other stations didn’t have travellers getting on loaded down with the paper.

Kudos to the Telegraph for trying to get their message out. There used to be a reason when the regular print press would give away free copies, but this time around I’m mystified.

Of course, my dad religiously buys the paper so they’ve wrung their litre of blood from our family.

Dad’s rugby fanaticism hasn’t spilled over to buying the “the official” paper for the NSW Rugby Team – Waratahs (one of the sponsors being the Sydney Morning Herald www.smh.com.au)