It’s been a while since my last update, I don’t really have an excuse, but my current job is keeping very busy and I’m also studying for the CISSP exam. I just thought I would post a lame blog entry with some site stats for the past two years…So here goes:
- 62,000 Unique Visitors
- 800,000 Hits
- 145 GB Bandwidth
- 100,000 Unique Visitors
- 1,125,000 Hits
- 220 GB Bandwidth
Thank you to all those who donated via PayPal. As you can see the site is quite bandwidth hungry, so even the small donations are greatly appreciated.
All the best for 2008!
Movember is an annual, month-long November charity event involving the growing of moustaches. It is held primarily in Australia, New Zealand and is being launched this year in the United Kingdom, United States, Spain and Canada.
I am taking part…
It’s been all over the news, but I guess it can’t hurt posting the article here too. INTERPOL is seeking the help of the public to try to identify the man in the photos below. He has appeared in photographs sexually abusing children in a series of images posted on the Internet.
According to INTERPOL, the photos shown below are from a series of around 200 pictures involving 12 different young boys, believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003.
These pictures have been produced by specialists from Germany’s federal police force, the Bundeskriminalamt, working from originals found on the Internet, which had been digitally altered to disguise the man’s face.
The images were recovered from pictures taken off the Internet in which the man’s face had been blurred using something like Photoshop’s Filter > Distort > Twirl tool.
If you know this piece of shit, you should contact your local police or INTERPOL’s Trafficking in Human Beings Unit via email.
We all know how much time and effort is invested into keeping an organisation’s network secure. Then someone brings a USB device into the organisation with a virus or some illegal software and it is the organisation that pays (and sometimes the end user ; ) ).
GFI EndPointSecurity allows administrators to actively manage user access and log the activity of these portable USB devices. It’s well worth a look.
At Macworld this year, Apple has released the iPhone. There has been a lot of hype around this release, but it seems that reality has out done the hype for a change.
A couple of the highlights are:
- The device runs on OS X.
- No stylus is used. The iPhone is designed for the user to use their finger as a pointer.
- One button (The Home button) all the rest of the functions are controlled via the touch screen.
- iPod built in.
- Internet capable (with Safari Browser).
- Last but not least, there is a phone in there somewhere too!
Check out the full write up on ZDNet.
As I thought, Apple has joined Google and Microsoft in the race for world domination…
I have had my MacBook Pro back in my possesion for a couple of weeks now, but we still have an old problem and two new problems…
Here is the current list:
- Creaking sound when placing left palm on the MacBook Pro to type. The new bottom case doesn’t fit properly.
- There is now a grinding sound coming from the right hand rear side of the unit.
- There is still a dark bar accross the left hand side of the LCD when the screen dims.
Remember people this units cost me over $4000 when I originally pruchased it. That is over 8 months of saving for me.
The saga continues…
I’ve had a problem where I was unable to see my iPod Shuffle in iTunes. This started after a recent software update from Apple, as a result I was unable to update my iPod with new songs. After reading multiple articles and forum posts that had some whacky solutions that included, banging the iPod on a desk while holding down the power button, I found the solution myself. If you have the same problem, try running the “iPod Updater” found in Applications/Utilities and restoring your iPod. It will wipe all the songs from your iPod, but that is better than not being able to update it at all.
I should have known, when I bought my MacBook Pro back in April and they had to swap it over twice in the first week for DOA faults that life with my new Mac wasn’t going to be easy. I was already on my thrid MacBook Pro and these babies cost AUS $4000 each. For that sort of price you don’t expect any problems, at least not in the first twelve months.
By the second month I’m starting to get sick of all the faults. Here is a list:
- Lower case has warped, especially around the latch area. (I believe due to overheating…)
- Two black bars on the LCD, the bar on the left is especially noticable when the screen dims. The width of these bars are the same width as the speaker grills. (Could this be due to overheating too?)
Whining Hard Drive (although resonably quiet, is still very noticable in a quiet room)- HardDrive has now died and has multiple sectors that are unreadable, including my encrypted profile. The MacBook Pro is completely unusable now. Bye Bye photos… : (
I took the unit to NextByte where I purchased it and asked them if they could swap it over for a newer model as the one I had was a “lemon”. NextByte was unable to do this and told me I should contact Apple Customer Relations directly. So I did this and spoke to a guy by the name of Kevin Smith who told me to email him with some photos of the problem with the case. I complied with his request and emailed him the pics. I heard nothing from Apple for almost two weeks, at which time I was starting to get a little bit anxious as to what was going on, so I started chasing Kevin for information. I would have thought it was in a “Customer Relations” person’s job description to be following up with the client. Hrmmm. I tried to escalate the issue to a manager and was put through to Simon’s voicemail. I left a message asking Simon to call me back as I felt as though I was being treated poorly by his agents. He must have passed tha buck because I never heard from him and Kevin eventually got back to me stating that Apple was not going to replace the unit, and the warped case was not due to a heat issue as I had claimed.
I was not happy with this response and called back trying to get hold of a Manager so I could escalate the problem. I was put through to another agent (can’t remember her name) and she wouldn’t escalate the problem either and told me to return my faulty unit to the place of purchase and they could look at it for me. So after four weeks of chasing Apple Customer Relations about my faulty Mac I was back to where I started. I was little upset to say the least. I asked to be put through to Simon (Customer Relations Manager) and was told to put it in writing and send it to her and she would pass it on. Fuck that!
Try getting hold of the “Customer Relations” manager at Apple Australia and see how you go. It seems as though all the lower level gimp staff are like his Pitt Bulls and won’t give out his details. It took some social engineering but I managed to get his details.
To save you some time they are: Simon Fenton and his email address is sfenton@asia.apple.com
So I sent Simon an email outlining all of the faults with my Mac in addition to the objections I had to the way I had been treated by his incompetent staff. I also asked him to reply directly to me and not pass my details onto one of his staff to do his dirty work. As a result of this Apple asked that I ship my Mac to them and they would have a look at it. Kevin was then tasked to organise a courier to pick up my unit…Guess what? They courier never arrived and I had to chase up Apple again. By this stage I am fed up with the whole situation and just want to throw the $4000 paper weight into the Yarra River.
I take it BACK to NextByte and ask them to just fix the problems under warranty as I didn’t need to stress of dealing with the Customer Relations fruit loops any more. Before they could do that it had to be sent to Apple in Sydney so they could look at it and close the case…OK…This has been going on now for three months and I have now been without my Mac for the last two weeks and someone has finally started working on it today. I might be able to pick it up next week…Yay!
I won’t hold my breath though.
A man believed to be a Manchester Fireman has sparked a probe into the dangerous prank where he climbed into a tumble dryer and went for a ride. The Fire bosses aren’t happy because it wasn’t his truck he was riding in.
Here is the link:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/
Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/
If Guus Hiddink can manage a pack of politicians half as good as he is able to manage a football team, then I believe he would make a great Prime Minister.
Guus’ successes include:
- Dutch National Team
- South Korean National Team
- PSV Eindhoven
- Australia National Team
He has been in and out (more in recently) of Australian Media over the last 12 months, and now it will be sad to see him go to Russia. Maybe if we offer him the top job he will stay in Australia!!!
Thanks Guus…Come back any time! : )
