Mike Nash's Blog

Expensive Tastes...

2011-11-30T03:41:00.001-08:00

I just received a spam email from our pals at Club Med, asking me would I like to rent a resort (or cruise ship) or Island.

I'm tempted to reply with "You fucking bet I would!"

Some people just don't get it.....

2011-08-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

Goodness me. I've had scammers trying to cheat me, and now I have idiots selling me anti-spam technology, by spamming me.

Emails below.

Enjoy.

Mike

From: Surbhit [mailto:surbhit@springcomputing.in]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 9:44 PM
To: Mike Nash
Subject: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Dear Mike,

Do you see a need to develop Anti-virus / Anti-spam / Anti-theft/ back up applications for mobile phones or enhance your existing security products on mobile phones? If yes, Spring CT will be able to support you.

----

From: Mike Nash
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 5:10 PM
To: surbhit@springcomputing.in
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Hi Surbhit,

I’m looking for an antispam solution mostly... can you help ?

Mike

From: Surbhit [mailto:surbhit@springcomputing.in]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 10:48 PM
To: Mike Nash
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your interest.

Yes we can certainly work with you in development of Anti-Spam Solution. We have already worked on them. Here is a list of some of the features:

1. Call Filtering – Enables you to block unwanted calls. It is accentuated by a silent blocking action. It also helps you in configuring a Black List or White list of numbers.

2. SMS Blocking – With this feature you can silently block unwanted SMS’s. You can also scan links in messages and filter infected links.

3. SMS Spam Protection – You can filter unwanted SMS, block spam SMS text messages from unknown senders and configure Black and White lists.

Let me know if you need details on anything.

Mike, which platforms are you looking at?

Best Regards-

Surbhit Bansal

From: Mike Nash
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:19 PM
To: surbhit@springcomputing.in
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Do you do anything about email spam ?

From: Surbhit [mailto:surbhit@springcomputing.in]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 11:23 PM
To: Mike Nash
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

For which email client do you need anti spam email protection?

Because email protection application will be specific to email client being used.

From: Mike Nash
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:53 PM
To: surbhit@springcomputing.in
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Ah, I see.. Well, I am using Outlook and the moment.

From: Surbhit [mailto:surbhit@springcomputing.in]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 11:51 PM
To: Mike Nash
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Do you need this for any particular mobile platform?

From: Mike Nash [mailto:mike@tallemu.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 7:19 PM
To: surbhit@springcomputing.in
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

I sometimes get my email on iphone too.

From: Surbhit [mailto:surbhit@springcomputing.in]
Sent: Thursday, 4 August 2011 12:05 AM
To: Mike Nash
Subject: RE: Your Anti Virus Engine on Mobile Phones

Mike, I want to involve my technical leader in this discussion. Is it OK if we call you tomorrow (Thursday) as per your convenience.

Please let us know suitable time and the number to reach you. Your second half will work with us.

_______________________________________

If you think it’s necessary. I have a meeting around midday, but free either side of it.

400+ Dealers added to Australian Boat Guide

2011-07-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

Looking for a boat dealer in Australia?

When I was looking for a boat - and over the last 20 years - that's been on and off for quite some time, it was always quite an adhoc affair. Drive along Pittwater, perform an illegal u-turn and run and look at the boats!

Usually, this was on a Sunday - and they were closed - so I'd end up peering through the fence like a monkey at the Zoo.

This was a somewhat uncordinated way to find a suitable vessel (I ended up buying one from Enterprise Marine, whose fence I peered through many times).

Over the past weeks I've reskinned my Australian Boat Guide site, added loads of boat ramps in South Australia, a couple of Boat Ramps in Darwin and a few more in NSW. Finally, I've managed to get the Location of every boat dealer I could find imported into the site - and with the help of the JimmyWeb boys, got it all plotted on a map of boat dealers by state.

Now if you're looking for boaty goodness, simply search the map near you, make yourself a list and have a nice productive day out.

I'm going to the boat show!
That's right - it's the Sydney International Boat show, it's the end of the month and someone has a Media Pass to get in. There's only one way to describe so many boats and boating things in one place: Boat Porn. I can't believe I've never gotten around to going before, but now , finally, I am - and will be taking a look at the best boats and boaty things, and writing about them on the boat guide site.

This is the sort of thing we can expect to see - expect photos from 2011's show to be up on the boatguide soon.

Add caption

5 New boat ramps this weekend...

2011-06-13T03:58:00.000-07:00

A cold wet weekend in Sydney, and I didn't fancy taking the boat out - so a drive around boat ramps instead. This weekend I've added 5 new boat ramps to my Australian Boat Guide site, and about 10 more boat dealers.

Only 4-500 more dealers to go and another 40 or so boat ramps, and NSW is done :)

Everybody is talking about Emu, Tall

2010-12-17T02:03:00.000-08:00

One of the pleasures of owning a business is being rude to dodgy salespeople[*]. There are loads of them around, and over the last year we've had a number of them call us. Pushy buggers they can be, and usually they'll lie, cheat, steal and kill to get what they want - a corporate account. This year, there have been a couple of happy customers to the Mike Nash school of charm. This is a selection of them.

The phone scammers

Congratulations! I'm calling about your Telstra account, and you're going to start to save 40% on your calls next month. What they want you to do is say "Yes" so they can switch you over to their competing phone service, but they get in through the door by implying they're from Telstra. I'm not going to name the company, because that might embarass People Telecom - so - you'll have to work out who they are on your own.

It usually goes like this... I ask what line they are calling about, and they recite the number that they just called... That account isn't with Telstra, you're not going to save me anything.

No, no, we will save you money on whoever it is with...      At this point, I get annoyed - Why are you lying to me ? Why did you pretend to be from Telstra? Will you lie to me about the call rates too?

Depending on the salesperson at this point they get pushy and insist that they can help me. At this point it is my pleasure to shyly admit to them, that perhaps one thing that they could do to help me... sensing a sale, they ask "What can I do?" to which I gleefully tell them "Well, it would be really helpful if you could go and fuck yourself".

Call me juvenile, but there's something I find terribly amusing about an Indian call center worker saying "Fuck you too Sir, Fuck you too".

CIO Conference Scammers
As regular readers will know, Tall Emu has recently released a pretty good CRM Software. There's a group of clowns going around arranging CIO conferences, and the pitch goes something like this...

"Hi, I was just talking to , the CIO of BLUE CHIP CORPORATE NAME HERE and (s)he's asked me to give you a call".

"Oh, really?" says I..

The pitch is then given to attend a conference where these unable-to-make-a-call-themselves-high-flyers specifically asked to meet you. This costs a mere $20,000 or so.

"No, he hasn't". You're lying.

"What do you mean? He has! I was talking to him the other day, and he mentioned you. Everybody is talking about Emu,Tall."

Really? Everyone is talking about Emu, Tall?   Our company name is Tall Emu...   You're lying to me - you're reading my name off a list of crm vendors. These people don't know I exist. They haven't asked you to call me. You're trying to scam me into attending a conference, aren't you?

"Oh, wow, Tall Emu, that's a really memorable name!"

She makes a valiant effort to try and sell me, saying that lots of people have been talking about me, and I can meet them at the conference, but she can't tell me who they are (despite name dropping Qantas and AGL) because it's confidential, and she's forgotten.

I explain to her that I had a meeting with Santa earlier in the week, and that I can't tell her what she's getting for Christmas...    Finally I relent and tell her that because she's been a naughty girl lying to nice companies all she'll be getting is a lump of coal.

I also tell her that I admire her persistence, and if she ever wants to earn an honest living rather than scamming people she should give me a call.

[*] If you're a genuine salesperson, you'll find me perfectly reasonable and polite.

I'm the luckiest bastard alive.. and chances are, if you're my age - so are you

2010-09-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

I'm 36 years old, and, technololgically speaking, I've seen a lot...

Back in 1987, Star Trek (the next generation launched), and boy, what a future to behold. Sure, there's no cure for baldness yet - and Frenchmen can successfully command on military vessels - but look at that computer he has.

Fast forward to 2010, and this smug looking bugger has one too. Granted, it doesn't control phaser banks or warp drives, but it can access the internet and store quite a few GB of data on it.

Technology is advancing at a frantic pace - and it's fucking awesome.

My first computer was a 48kb ZX Spectrum. It had a monster 48kb of memory. Programs were loaded from a tape recorder. To put that in perspective - if you open a new word document, type in the letter "a" - and then press save - you will get a 10kb document.

The iPhone 3GS has 16GB of storage, and 256mb of memory, and I carry it in my pocket.

The Spectrum had a 3mhz processor. Today, my phone has an 800Mhz processor (though it's underclocked to around 600mhz).

Let's not even talk about the internet. In 2000 or thereabouts, while my business and the rest of the .Com companies were crashing, we could achieve a massive 9600bps connection, or GPRS if we were lucky.

Again - my iPhone supports Wifi - ridiculously fast; and 3G... acceptably fast. My old Spectrum supported cassettes, and I had to walk to the petrol station to get games for $2.

Where's it going?

Well, who the hell knows? Notwithstanding any advances in medical technology, which is also racing along I'd say I'm about half way through my useful life. If we've seen this much during the last 20 years or so - what will I still get to see during the next 40 years ? And, if medical advances continue apace - what will I see during the next 400 ?

Matousec: 8.0 earthquake for Windows desktop security researcher's credibility

2010-09-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

Regular readers will know that end of June 2010 we sold Online Armor to Emsisoft, an Austrian security company. With the sale of Online Armor, Emsisoft aquired a cool new product to fill out their product line - and already managed to achieve a new release supporting Windows 7 64-bit.

The sale was good news for everyone - Emsisoft got a firewall product without having to write one, and Tall Emu got to focus it's CRM Product.

Not everyone is happy.

Download.com no longer receives $9.95 per month from us for the Online Armor listing, I won't be renewing our vbulletin subscription any time soon either, and this morning I read on David Matousec's website that Online Armor has been removed from testing due to his dispute with Tall Emu, who he correctly classifies as "the original vendor of Online Armor".

First thing - there's a statement on his site that says "Many of their products implement the technology that was designed, developed or tested in our labs."

This might be meant to suggest that Tall Emu uses Matousec-developed technology in our products. Certainly not the case for us, but I can't speak about the others.

I'm not going to go into the dispute with Matousec - the short version is he's trying it on, and we're not going to have a bar of it.

He claims a dispute with Tall Emu, a company not associated with Emsisoft in any way. So, why has Matousec removed an Emsisoft product from his website, if he has a dispute (however spurious) with Tall Emu ?

Strange. Strange indeed.

What it comes down to, I later discover is that David has taken this imaginary debt and contacted Emsisoft about it. Apparently, if Emsisoft gives them a large amount of money, OA can resume it's usual place at the top of the charts.   If not - well, I guess we'll see.

So, it's not so strange after all :(   There's a conversation going on about this at Wilders http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=281529

I've surpassed my nemesis

2010-07-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

I just checked my Adsense account and in under a month on this blog, I have made a princely $5. 3 more months and it will be possible to obtain a passable[*] bottle of red, or a packet of cigarettes in a pub (which would have to be smoked outside), or a round of beers (for three) in the pub below our office. Any of these things would be very good, although the cigarettes would get me into an immense amount of trouble with my wife.

While $5 is hardly a massive amount of money, my nemesis took a year to achieve a $6, so I'm claiming victory. This isn't about the dollars, it's the principle. At this rate, I will have 4 bottles of red before inflation cruelly snatches a bottle from his adsense-sponsored reach.

I've been on TV ?

I had a call yesterday from a chap that saw me on TV. This was interesting for two reasons. The first is that I have no recollection of ever being on TV, and being on TV is surely something I think I would remember. The second is that he quoted something I'd actually said.

We eventually figured out that I had been quoted at Biz Think Tank in relation to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). I'm still not sure how I appeared on TV without ever setting foot in front of a camera, but maybe someone just said nice things about me on the air. I hope that is the case, because I'd have to be really drunk (or somewhat mad) to forget visiting a TV studio, having makeup applied, and being interviewed.

If you can find the footage[**], I'd be very interested to see it. If you're a high powered TV executive, I am capable of delivering colorful quotes on demand on pretty much any subject and although the camera is unlikely to love me, I will certainly love it.

[*] A passable bottle of red, something like the Rosemount Estate Shiraz Cabernet that I'm drinking now, for the low, low price of $15. Your version of passable may vary. Personally I'd rather have a Peppertree, or something from Briar Ridge - arguably some of the best red wine I've ever had.

[**]As an update to this story - the TV Ad was for Biz think tank; We were on the home page - so it appears I was only on TV by proxy

New tallemu.com.au site launched

2010-07-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet - we launched the new site today for Tallemu.com.au. We've been meaning to do this for a while, but never quite had the time.

The new look is a lot smarter than we had before, with a lot more information about what we have done in the past.

There's (perhaps unsuprisingly) a strong focus on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) there, since that is the sort of project we've always ended up doing. Still a lot of content to write and past projects to post, but it's looking good.

Leaked Windows 8 Slides

2010-07-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

There are a number of slides kicking around on various news sites that claim to be a top secret Microsoft Windows 8 presentation. Much of this can be summed up as "we wish we were as cool as apple" and "we like money" - but there are a couple of very, very interesting slides in there that I think are worth talking about.

Let's be more like Apple

The weasel-speak here can be summed up as"people will pay good money for high quality things that just work." Holy state the obvious Batman!

Part of the document goes on to describe having a Microsoft Software Store, like Apple's App store.

An app store is a great idea

Apple's app store is a great idea because it allows you to treat your phone like the appliance that most people think it is.

There are no fake antiviruses there, nor malware to accidentally install. This has important security implications, because it is easy and safe to install and pay for applications from a known trustworthy source. Consumers deal with one entity (Apple in this case) so they're not providing their credit card number over the internet.

The downside of the App store is of course that Apple exercises a lot of control. If Apple doesn't like titties, you can't see them. If Apple suddenly decides that your application is inappropriate or undesirable, you're out of luck.

I'd expect that the MS store may be more developer friendly, but MS are hardly known for their friendliness. While I've never actually seen a Microsoft executive eat a kitten for breakfast, I wouldn't rule it out.

On the surface this is a good idea for the end user - but I'd be extremely nervous about a world where Microsoft decided what is allowed to run on my computer.

The idea of central control of what could run on your computer is nothing new. Trusted Computing Group (of which MS participated) proposed locked down hardware and operating systems that would only run signed code some time around 2003. If the signature processes are secure, this would also be great for end-user security (at the expense of ISV, Hobbyists, internally developed corporate applications and the open source movement) and would be a great way for the vendors to really lock you in to their platform...

A reset button

Part of your security should be the ability to recover from an "OhNo" moment. The "reset button" is an idea that I really like, and I hope they don't screw it up. It appears to be a seriously good extension of system restore capability, except it allows you to completely reset windows without performing a reformat and install. If they manage to make this work including all of the required device drivers it would be fantastic.

At the end of the reset process, you're then able to go to the app store and get your apps back. How simple would that be for supporting parents on the other side of the world ?

Image "Mr Johnson" from rathergood.com

More Windows 8 details here

I kid you not...

2010-07-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

...Someone bought me an iPad

Ever since Steve Jobs announce the iPad, I've wanted one. When I say wanted one, I mean WANTED ONE. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea why I wanted one other than it looked like it was cool, which might be enough for some people, but since I consider myself at least partly rational this was somewhat confusing.

I wasn't sure it could be used for my business. I wasn't sure it could be used to generate business for my consulting activities, and , in case my wife is reading this, I'm 100% certain that nubile young ladies on the train have no interest at all in anything that a balding 36 year old bloke is holding.

I already have an iPhone, which is like an iPad, except that it can also make calls, fits conveniently into your pocket and is somewhat cheaper. So why do I want this device so desparately ?

I had no idea, until I got one

A friend of mine who I've know for a couple of years pre-ordered them. He was most excited - imagine a small puppy bouncing up and down and yapping. "I've pre-ordered an iPad. It's going to be great. Oh, and I've ordered one for you too..."

It's not often that I receive $1000 gifts. In fact, the last time I did receive a $1000 gift was probably when I bought myself a new car because it was "on sale". I was intrigued. Why did he do this ?

By comparison, to celebrate the enormous milestone of my 30th birthday, my wife allowed me to cook Spaghetti Bolognese. There is some sort of gift-disparity here, and one that I hope will be addressed at Christmas. The bar has been set pretty high, although I expect my wife stopped reading at bolognese, which means now is a great time to point out chicks dig the ipad. To be fair - everyone that's looked at it likes it. It really is the device of the moment.

Anyhow, back on topic, the answer he gave was simple - "because you will do Awesome stuff with it, and as a sales partner for your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) I know you will make me money."
To be fair to John, so far I have conducted the following awesome iPad activities:

Checked my email

surfed some websites

installed a game which is rubbish because the iPad has a touchscreen

I must admit, my initial reactions were disappointing, but since then I've had the pleasure to take the iPad onto a couple of sites.

How useful is it?

One company I took it to didn't believe that I'd received it as a gift, and were under the misaprehension that I'd brought it in for them. The others pounced on it and started to look at how it could be used.

The lawyer was the first responder. We're currently building him a legal management system, based on Total Enterprise CRM. It will manage all of his caseload, and he can imagine himself in court with complete remote access to all his documents through the iPad.

In fact, it is a GREAT device for data viewing, through a web browser you get a full 1024x768 screen display so you can see a lot of data very easily. The onscreen keyboard is cumbersome as you might expect - I wouldn't want to use it as a primary data entry device, but again, I don't really think that's what it's for. If you need to have your customer data with you on the go, it rocks.

The financial services guy wants to have access to all his performance dashboards on a super-portable device, and is even considering using it as a primary device. In a Terminal Services based environment, he can have his desktop on the screen on the low-end computer in front of him, and then when he goes into a meeting, take whatever is on his screen using a terminal services app for the iPad.   This implicitly will give him word, excel and all of the office docs , plus email for the meeting he gets bored. His business applications and dashboards are web-based mainly, so with Wifi in the office he's in business.

What's missing?

The ability to link the iPad to an external device, such as a projector would be very nice. It would be a good and very portable way to do presentations.   I popped out to a client this morning to do a bit of training - for once I didn't bother with the laptop and just took the pad, so I could respond to mails and check up on what people were saying about our sale of Online Armor to Emsisoft.   It was enough, and it got the expected oohhs and ahhhs when I fished it out of my bag.

A built in camera would be nice, not quite sure why wasn't put on there. Other than that, I think it's pretty neat and fills a useful niche.

How will I use it ?

I'll likely lug it around as a separate device, and mainly for quickly demonstrating things and managing email on the go. I'm somewhat obsessive about checking my email, which hopefully will ease a little now Online Armor is sold.

If I figure out a good way to store files on it, it could also replace my USB key and on many sites where I go to install, I could carry around a lot of "stuff" on it. Maybe I just need to rename my files "CRM Install.mp3".

This screenshot shows our Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) running on the iPad. The photo is a bit dodgy (taken with a phone) but Safari renders it beautifully, even will all the javascripty-ajaxy stuff it is still fast - which means that I can have a fully-fledged CRM with me at all times. If I see you on the train and ask me what I do, I'm quite likely to give you an impromtu demo - but only when we've done more iPad specific optimisations.

New Beginnings

2010-07-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog

So, I just got an email from an Online-Armor user saying that they thought I was quite good at this writing stuff - or at least, better than the average geek.

He also believes, that after managing the project which created arguably the best firewall in the world, Online-Armor, that I have a reasonably good grasp of technical stuff too, which is really funny because I can never get my blog posts to look right.

A really eloquent and quite funny friend of mine has a blog already. He writes about stuff like the funny guys in the office, and how the Japanese think certain light breezes are, in fact hurricanes.

I think he has 6 regular readers. This is an impressive feat. I'd like to beat him. There's just one problem... I'm not sure what to write about.

I'm going to take some medicinal Red Wine, and have a think about it. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Mike