Wycliffe Palu and the Wallaby mob are getting quite a bit of highlighting by Fox TV. Fox are doing a “men of gold” as part of their rugby promotional work. ‘Ofa and Dad would have bought Fox TV anyway, but its interesting to see how much Fox is actually investing in Rugby (where would Super 14 be without them.)

Last night’s segment asked some of the players what was their superstition, or thing they do before every game. The initial response was a continuation of their interview with winger … who was man of the match in last week’s Australia versus France game.

Aaahh, basically if they won the previous week, he’d repeat the same he did the day they won. Which must not have been that often in this year’s Queensland season (ba boom)

Brett Sheehan said he wears the same under-wear each game, which must have been a lark, because his years in the game would have worn those poor things out ten times. Or, if we were family he’s getting paid well enough that we burn his underdaks every week.

Luke Burgess says he takes 3 showers that morning, which doesn’t sound so bad, not for hygiene reasons, but because other elite players have said the same thing. But in their case they expanded that this time was spent visualising their motions and actions through the full game. Woo hoo, is that what he’s doing ? And what is the Sydney Water Board doing about that ?? Don’t we have some sort of water shortage here?

Wycliffe ? He said he offers up a prayer before each game. (ba boom)

Sometimes the young can just be airheaded.

Yesterday morning was one of those days ya just gotta wonder about our youth. Not the “youth” in general, but our Pacific Islander youth in particular.

Being the bulky lot we Islanders are, we tend to ignore the opinions of others when we feel like it.

For some unknown reason, we had a pack of Islander boys on our train, and they spent a good five minutes walking up and down the carriages, walking between the carriages and annoying everyone by leaving the doors open (there’s a draft between the carriages for some reason.)

It was just one of those moments where you wanted to ask.

Bro, didn’t you get something to eat this morning?

Man your young Pacific Islanders are bulky. Tall, and bulky. Unfortunately, like everyone else we can just be as airheaded as well.

There’s a heap of us Islanders in the Bankstown area, obvious when walking past the bus-stops and obvious when on the trains. Unfortunately, we’re not very politically savvy so we have next to zero representation in local or national government.

Our youth are just as misunderstood as other youth, and their high tolerance for pain (imbued through years of correctional facilities otherwise known as mum, dad, aunties, and uncles) makes them a fearful segment to other youth and other members of society. Strangely enough, as consequently(?) our youth are quite passive within their own society. I guess they don’t really have to prove themselves in the same way, or are a little more understood, or misunderstood in a different way ?

Every once in a while, being in the computer industry (and now more specifically in the “Security” business) you finally come across something that your family and friends can relate to.

I mean, how many people outside of IT really care much about IT, so long as their TV and toaster works (because the Internet might work, but for some reason there’s always problems with the home connection.) And, from here we know that even fewer people have any clue what IT Security people are about, or even care?

You really want to read the full story by Jennifer Jabbusch, a teaser is below but you want to read it from the beginning. Security is a real-life issue.

Grande Theft Auto …

He now has no car and no phone. So, ironically enough, he then had to approach a stranger and politely ask for the use of their cell to phone home and let the group know he was bamboozled. A few tears were shed, but his wife assured him it would be fine and he shouldn’t be scared. (No, I’m not making that up).

If you read the full article,

The moral of the story…  There are two. 1) Involve someone with a ‘security mindset’ and 2) Your security is only as strong as your people. A sweet damsel in distress… social engineering at it’s finest…

A wonderful (though said) example of real life ‘scams’ that can impact any of us (and how often do your parents, or kids open the door without a worry these days?)

But more importantly, be careful out there that something like this story doesn’t happen to you or your friends (not the hairdresser part of the story, the parking part, hoiiiii)

When you ride the trains for a living(?) people seem to begin a pattern of selecting a set range of carriages they prefer to get on. For me, I choose the carriages depending on which ones are not going to be too crowded, which usually means I get to have a nice walk to the “other-end” of the train station because people seem to congregate around the entrance/exit to the station, as well as congregating underneath the “covered” space of the station platform.

Now, one of the problems with being “at the end” of the station is that it is also a magnet for the smokers. I think there’s  a local law that prevents smokers from puffing under the covered area.

Even with the wonderful open space “at the end” of the platform, there’s more smog with the puff-mamas and puff-daddys around.

Of course, when it’s raining you’ll find me under covers and I can just run when the train arrives. Unfortunately, the dedicated puffers are still out there “at the end” of the platform.

Of course, when catching a train from one of the under-ground stations here in Sydney (for me that’s at Town Hall Station and Wynyard Station) we’re all under-cover so the smokers get a real hard time until they can get home.

O4 calls Yesterday afternoon (Monday) to tell me to call home on the landline because she things she’s lost her mobile. Somewhere in all the running around doing the Mum thing she can’t recall where she’s put the phone, or whether the phone fell out of her pocket or … A little stressed she offers that I can go ahead and get a new phone and I give her my old phone.

Woo hooo, YES!!

Just in time for the new iPhone (July 11) not!

Hmm, thinking to myself that I’m spending some time tonight on eBay looking for that great deal of a phone.

You know how it is living with little munchkins (kids.) Things just go disappearing for days, weeks and even months (years?) O4 picks me up from work and we’re still stressed about losing the phone (the implied waste of money.) Wohoo, new phone here i come.

We get home, and I take my back to the home-office and put it down. Smiling up from the desk is my new phone, not! O4’s phone had between the time she came to pick-me up and we got home, had walked into the office and sat on the desk.

Of course the kids are oblivious to the stress in looking for the phone.

We can but hope.

My train ride was on schedule this morning, but the ‘features’ offered by City Rail is beginning to scare me (since I may just not get to work at all one of these days.)

The ride I usually take when working in the city was delayed by 20 ~ 30 minutes, which basically means that the next ride would mean a big adrenaline rush through the system to get from the downtown train station to the workplace in time. Let alone having to go through the “tunnels” and the crush to get on the escalator (note single escalator service.)

Poor work warriors from further North of the city seem to be struggling with this scheduling ‘feature’ for quite some time. At least, they’re always on the news for not making it to work or being stuck somewhere in the Public Transport System for up to 4 hours.

Wow!!! I get to see my first MacBook Pro on the train today (or maybe it’s my 2nd but didn’t really notice the other one?)

Seems to be the latest thing to equip your staff with a notebook, and stick them with a “dongle” USB modem for keeping connected with work.

This we know, this MacBook gal doesn’t do too much of this stuff on this train ride. She’s sitting with the sun glaring at her and has to put her hand up to shade her eyes while she’s trying to do something on her laptop. True warriors already have the seating on the train that doesn’t have glaring sunlight.

Oh, and you have to move around. There’s no perfect spot as this ride winds around and thus the sun comes in differently depending on the part of the track your on.

POSH – Port Out Stubborn Home.

Reminds me of having learned sometime in the past the beginnings of the phrase / word POSH. Posh is often (at least where I was) used to refer to someone or a group of people with some real money.

When I get online, I’ll look it up again. (I’m not crazy enough to pay the rates to get 24/7 access from my laptop, but I know the Bro’ does.)

Another day, another Monday, another work-week.

Hope your’s is a good one.

You don’t here it as often these days, but one of the oft cited errors with Microsoft’s Operating Systems was what became generally known as “DLL HELL”

The problem summary: When a user installs an application on their machine, most of these applications do their “thang” through libraries they either create or source from someone else.

As MS Window’s popularity grew with software developers, so too the need for libraries to do their “thang” and subsequent fixes/tweaks to these libraries to do their “thang” correctly, add that extra feature, fix that extra feature ad-nauseum.

The problem, in the MS Windows ecosystem, as has come to *Nix, are the incompatibilities between different versions of these libraries and their proliferation on users machines.

In the beginning, there were weak guidelines where certain types of libraries went here, and others went in the “application” space. Disk use outgrew disk space for a time, and consolidation of space was required. Today, it seems disk space is well beyond general user requirements.

The solution we begin to see in the MS Windows ecosystem, is for applications to install all their libraries within their own space (there’s enough disk space, just use it) to minimise picking up the ‘wrong’ library.

I wonder how long it will take for this new ‘developer feature’ to be incorporated into *Nix applications (if not doing so already.)

it would sure solve a lot of problems with a lot of Open Source packages if all the dependencies were supplied with the package in installed under /Applications/Uber App.

We’re going to get kicked out of church one of these days.

Apparently, the children were not understanding one iota of what was going on, and they decided to pull out their pens and papers out and were off into their own world of adventure.

Some colourful art work although I don’t think there’s a conference somewhere that can decide whether what we’re doing is within the bounds of church doctrine ? Whatever that may be.

The world outside today is on the scale of FREEZING so when Sisitoutai had enough of being inside we moved out and went “INSIDE” the car to keep warm while he had his cheese-snacks.

Soana Sesilia is definitely growing up faster than anyone notices and her current enjoyment is to grab the textures from the older kids and colour herself. Fortunately the textures are water based(?) and come out in the washing, but this means that the few “permanent” markers we have in the house are “locked-away” and secured like gold (or mud, depending on the effect you’re guarding.)

Wow, I guess it was worth it after all paying for the anti-virus software running on my machines (AVG http://free.grisoft.com/)

So we didn’t get my new uber mobile phone, but we did get the compact digital camera (Olympus FE-340, made in Vietnam.) Unfortunately, the camera also came with an unexpected gift.

[AutoRun]
open=fun.xls.exe
shellexecute=fun.xls.exe
shellAutocommand=fun.xls.exe
shell=Auto
[VVflagRun]
aabb=kdkfjdkfk1

The camera’s internal storage memory can take about 30 photos (at least that’s the experience we got filling it up so we can tell how many it can handle.) We charged up the lithium re-chargeable battery and started taking photos.

Plug the camera into the computer to download the pictures and we get this nice little invitation.

What!!

Went into town Wednesday morning to do some work (i.e. into Sydney proper instead of continuing skirting the fringes)

This old lady got on the train somewhere along the line and pushed her chair through to where I was sitting. I began to get up and she stopped.

No, no, i got my chair.

She places her push chair up against the door between carriages, and sets her self down.

I usually try to get an earlier train, but today I’ve been a little lazy.

I ask her:

Where are you going?

MacQuarie Street.

Just another day, another outing. She’s frail and getting on in years, but the years aren’t controlling her and she’s doing her best with what she’s got. Good for her.

Her kids are all grown up, but she’s not tied to her house. Grandma Rocks!

We cause a minor disturbance to the force as we block half the exit door as we slowly creep off at Town Hall Station. As soon as we get off, she waves me off with a thank you and then trods off slowly with her push chair.

Man, wish I still have the get-up and go when I get to that age. Unless Ma’ata or Sesilia lock me up for being annoying 8-)

Live long and prosper.

We had a little impromptu cake for Ma’ata on her actual birthdate, because her mother arranged for the trappings to be delivered to her classroom so she can share the day with her class mates.

We didn’t have the little prayer, blow-out your candle until dad got home but everyone still seemed to be excited about the little birthday party.

We ended up having another little birthday party (just had some Chinese take-away with Kentucky) so we could have an excuse to have some of the kids from the neighbours over and the keep the kids indoors during the wet weather.

Ma’ata Ngalo’afe told her mum this morning (Monday.)

Mum, …, you know I’m a big girl now.

I want to go to the big school, you know, the one I went to as a little girl.

I want to go to Queen Salote College.

If she’s big now (at six?) I wonder what she’s gonna want to do when she gets to ten? Got to University ?

Many hours lost trying to decide which phone to get, replace the current phone I’ve got.

When we returned in February we obviously needed to get new phones to replace the mobile phones we left behind in Tonga. Not being sure of what I really needed in a telephone since and not yet having a job to know know which phone would be more productive in the event I got a job.

Now that I have a job (@nullcube.com the poor fellas) I’m ready to get a new phone (or so I thought.) Taking note of what I needed in a phone, and Apple kindly pre-announcing their iPhone version 2.0 it was time to research what would be an appropriate replacement phone.

Need: Key aspects i am looking for, a single device to aggregate my needs for an Media Player, a Digital Camera, and a Phone. The iPhone is a good MP3 player, but so far as I can understand from all the reviews the other two bits are pretty shitty.

Media Player.

Essentially, I’m spending 3 hours of my life each day in transit, so improving the effectiveness of utilising this time should improve my life? I currently use my MP3 capable mobile phone for listening to different podcasts, both professional, hobbyist, and religious, oh and music here and there when I’m too tired to learn.

A number of the podcasts that I want to ‘listen’ to seem to be video only. Yeah, there’s no redeeming value in watching the CrankyGeeks when their more geeks in their own delusion, but there are quite a number of things with computing that are easier to present visually than just in audio or text.

If you don’t know that, then skip on.

Digital Camera

I’ve got a camera phone with a 2 Megapixel camera, and I just hate the pictures that come from this and my previous camera phones.

For the past couple of months I’ve been considering getting a compact digital camera as a complementary device to our Canon 40D. Love the camera but there’s just so many moments with kids to capture that just doesn’t happen because it’s such a hassle to pull out the camera bag to pull out the camera and flash.

Video camera replacement, it would be nice to take more videos of the kids for sending to their grandparents in Tonga, and because I know you’re all just waaay to interested in seeing more about the kids as they do silly things that kids get up to. Again, we have a seriously nice Sony VX2000 miniDV digital video camera that takes hugely beautiful film. But that one is more adventurous to take out of its casing to use. Getting a smaller HD Video camera isn’t the answer, the quality is good already it’s the convenience factor of getting the equipment prepped that would make a single device hugely nice.

Nice feature but Not Needed. If I needed a good Internet browsing environment, I can freekin’ open this laptop up (which seems to be working fine on the train this past month, with a full screen and keyboard as a bonus.) Woohooo, I even got the version with WAN built in (came with a SIM card as well.) If you need the Internet browsing on your phone for brownie points, then go for it. I don’t need to be wasting anymore time browsing the Internet than I already am.

Nice feature but Not Needed. GPS. If I really need one for driving around, I think it’ll be a safe investment to get a dedicated device.

If I get lost walking with the phone in my pocket, I’ve got bigger problems than a phone can help with.

Nokia N95

List version 1.

On the raw list of want, need, wish to have features things narrowed down to the Nokia N95 which retails for approximately AUD$995 for the 8GB version 2.0 release (That was the cheapest retail price I could find walking the stores and found it at Dick Smith http://www.dse.com.au).

Whoa, … Time to look at that need, want, wish list to whittle the list down a bit ‘cause there is no way I can justify that much money on a phone (well, can’t justify it anymore that is.)

I’m a risk averse kinda guy, I need to get the phone and have it working so I can’t afford to be doing phone tagging with some eBay supplier on the chance the phone doesn’t work. I’ve done the rounds with phone servicing by Nokia and it’s not a pleasant surprise, although when the phone gets fixed it will be good for a long time.

The N95 gets great marks from everyone for the main three items I need, Camera, Media Player, and Phone (in need/requirements reverse order.)

As a replacement aggregator device it just might be good, but it seriously isn’t anywhere near comparable to current players or cameras. My $200 phone, I can add a $300 Media Player and a $300 compact camera and have higher quality for those devices and still have change left over.

Spec’ing out devices at the above $300 mark gets me some seriously great alternative products.

Find out that the N95 had a nice video editor that got dumped with the current N95 8GB rendition, but I think you can still get the N95 ex-8GB. I don’t know how interested I’d be in video editing on a small device, but I would love to be able to slice videos on the device without having to upload to the PC first.

Nokia N82

List version 2.

Hmmm, how close can I get to that original list and still get a full featured fone.

Wow,

Still a little high in price though.

Nokia N73

List version 3.

Camera quality drops significantly

Nokia 6300

Back to the current phone.

Note to self: Wait until the release of the iPhone and see if it can drive some of the Nokia prices down, or whether the release of the N96 will lower the price of the N95 and N82.

What alternatives exist?

Next …

Talanoa Oceania is getting closer and here’s an early reminder from organisers, to get ready and book the days away so you can be there to listen and contribute.

If you haven’t been there before, click on the map below and see if you can’t get seriously lost trying to get there.

More information over at: Talanoa Online Home where you can also get your pretty print registration form.

Key Dates: Monday September 29th ~ Wednesday October 1st

There should be some interesting characters, so maybe you should do a theme thing where you come in as eskimoes or something interesting.

For a number of years now I’ve been using dual-monitor setups for my work and I find it extremely difficult to use the same work-flow when I’m forced to use a single monitor. For example, when I’m using this laptop on the train or under the kids beds I specifically block out a number of things I commonly perform on the machines when I have multiple monitors (well, when I have two monitors.)

But with even two monitors there are still a number of things that are tricky, or forces mental jumps because you are generally required to ‘move’ things around on the desktop (i.e. your mind has to do more work to get back into the ‘function’ it was performing before you moved away from that task.) For example, on a single monitor it is usually more efficient to have only one application or task in progress, although you can probably tile 2 windows up so you can look at your spreadsheet figures while you are editing your word document, there is some mental contextual flip that you have to do if you have to edit the spreadsheet because:

1. you have to select/switch to the spreadsheet
2. you have to resize the spreadsheet because you do not immediately have the more effective view for editing or contextualising the data.

Some people find the solution through “tiling” window managers. Tiling window managers force the windowed application to be tiled, instead of being scattered around your screen. I guess this is similar to someone standing over your physical desktop and forcing you to keep your pens in the same place, and keep your notebooks in the same place.

The above solution seems to work for some people, but I don’t yet see how it can work with applications that have multi-document interfaces, floating toolbars such as graphics tools.

One possible solution ? Get more monitors !

I remember, back in the day, when I first started working professionally (?) we used to have this serial terminal for doing email. We had our networked PCs that we would do most of our work on, and if you knew how to use a communications program you could do email from your PC, otherwise you were also given a 2nd PC/terminal that was a serial connection that would let you do email. The 2nd PC usually had enough grunt to give you your telnet connection and nothing else.

I always thought that in the right context, more machines was the better solution. More screens + more machines = nirvana.

I lug my laptop to work, because I’d already paid for it and work gives me a nice monitor to use with it. Work gives me a nice (not so light) laptop to use, and a 2nd monitor for that.

I’m gradually getting my workflow together using git to share files between the machines (no Samba/CIFS here.) In the meantime, the git solution is also providing a backed up solution on my server space repository, woo hoo.

The only limitation I have at the moment is the restrictions on the type of data I can store on the laptop (being that it is not an officially sanctioned desktop OS.) But hey, the restriction is my freedom since I don’t lose sleep that someone might steel my laptop and cause the company (and me) grief.

Back on topic ?

4 monitors work for me, when you’ve got 2 separate machines running them. Mind you, if someone will give me a huge freaker that can run 4 screens with all the apps I like then I’ll happily convert to that workspace. But I’d have to be able to throw it in the backpack.

Ma’ata Ngalo’afe wasn’t the first to get up this morning, I think she was the last, but she made sure everyone knew when she was up, and made sure to remind everyone

Dad, do you know what day it is?

I’m six years old today

We didn’t have anything too flash for her today, but O4 did get her a little cake so she can blow it out at home. We got her something just a little bit bigger and she blew it out at school (the teacher’s got the cake while the kids got little cup-cakes that was easier to manage for everyone.)

Happy Birthday dear, and may you continue to be your wonderful, effervescent, fakahela, self.

Thank goodness, whoever it was decided they weren't going to share their wonderful scent with us for the whole trip.

Hmmm, this jacket needs a bit of a cleaning 'eself.

Dang forgot to take the camera along for the beautifuly scenery along the ride, but got a chance to visit the Central Coast, Woy Woy (Monday) and the country is downright beautiful to look at, even in the rain, even in the bus.

Supposedly cityrail.info is supposed to tell us what the Rail Service is providing, so I was packed and ready for a train ride that unfortunately turned into a serious bus-ride. Track works on the route from Strathfield Station to Woy Woy station meant that buses were running the route on Monday. The bus ride was nice and smooth, but when those drivers take those bends it’s like riding a roller coaster and I think I got a little nauseated along the way.

of course, it didn’t help that I packed breakfast in a nice warm container, expecting to be sitting on the train station for a little while waiting for the train. And there’s plenty of space on the train to be eating my nice warm chicken pieces with taro. Unfortunately, the bus ride just put the breaks on that meal.

Woy Woy or the Central Coast area seem to get a relatively decent public transport service (if you’re amenable to being pushed onto one of the hub stations and picking your next address from there.)

Spoke with ‘Ofa and if you’re working in Sydney, and already spending an hour+ on public transport, it doesn’t seem like such a bad offer to live in a quiet, pleasant environment and just do the commute back into town. or, just to invest in property that’s cheaper than downtown but essentially almost as accessible.

To get to Woy Woy was an express (one stop) bus ride from Strathfield Station to Hornsby Station but the screamer was the spinning rides on the coach from Hornsby through Gosford to Woy Woy. Seems that trying to run a road system between mountains tends to send you around curves at 70+ which has some torque effect.

May have been possibly more dangerous to have eaten that food.

When I was at South Strathfield High School, there was one school I hated playing in the Rugby League pool we were in for one of those high school tournaments, Enmore High School.

Back in the day, the boys that they bred at Enmore (I think they were predominantly of Greek or Italian heritage) were just seriously rough. It wasn’t so much a fear of what they were doing to me, but my little bro’s on the team (including me) were just getting a hammering. 

If I recall correctly, we played against Enmore in one League game and another Union game. The boys were rough, and they could do the ‘dirty’ without flinching.

Saturday night and O4 made some salad for an eat that ended up being at the Enmore Catholic Parish(?) off Princess Highway. You don’t mess with the Tongans at Enmore Parish either.

Eating at Tonga events generally works in at least 3 sets. With Sunday’s context, the meal was a buffet so the 1st set was for the invited guests to get up and get some stuffing, the 2nd set is when those who were involved with preparing the food (including the boys outside) come to the table and get their feed. The 3rd set is supposed to be at the very end of the program when everyone has had their fill and the cleaning up process involves people taking food for their own consumption, on their own time, at their own homes.

Well, with Enmore there’s not the standard pause between Set 2 and Set 3, so if you’re new to the gathering, watch out or you might get trampled by the horde as they scramble for the table.

A great feast was had by all, who knows how many dishes were on the table but you can be assured there wasn’t anything left on the table after the 3rd Set was in motion.

Remember, beware the Enmore mob (and I thought Petersham was bad to the bone 8-)