tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81837123829113597302009-03-27T16:04:18.721ZInsider views from the technology front line - often scathing of attempts by technologists to perpetuate the magic of technology.Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-40742675392522007142008-05-09T20:08:00.000+01:002008-05-16T20:28:35.373+01:00

Over here at Technology Treason we lurve ASUS' EEEPC. We liked the idea when they first came out and specifically trawled around Hong Kong computer markets to find one not long after they were launched. It's not the Apple Air or iPhone kind of aesthetic lust, we're talking about true "in sickness and in health" type love when it comes to the EEEPC.Indeed for someone to now take this device off me

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/05/eeepcs-power-is-in-network-not-machine.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-48828969606696449042008-05-02T10:51:00.002+01:002008-05-11T11:34:43.258+01:00

I'm quite an Ubuntu fan, having followed the project since more or less it's original inception. Given the general lack of problems with it thus far you'll notice very few entries on this blog about it.Indeed various clients of mine are running Ubuntu servers that are easily maintained, easily managed and just generally easy and have been for several years. It's not necessarily an industrial

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/05/ubuntu-804-truly-desktop-linux.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-39874095189404669382008-04-27T19:02:00.000+01:002008-04-27T22:00:01.597+01:00

So you've got a lovely little ratings system going on your site. All of a sudden though you get slashdotted, dugg or just your marketing starts working and you have thousands of users all rating your products / services / systems / posts / videos etc and your pages start to creak."It's the shared web space you're on," say your techies, "it can't handle the users" and duly bounce you to a better

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/03/easy-product-or-class-rating-system.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-2169703593201114572008-04-22T08:43:00.002+01:002008-04-22T09:16:38.849+01:00

Phorm is, and will continue to be for some time I think a hugely divisive issue online. BBC have another story today about it, this time having spoken to the various security companies like F-Secure, McAffee etc about whether they will flag a message to the user about whether Phorm has been enabled or not.Phorm management have come out saying "it's only a cookie", the same as many other sites use

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/04/phorm-over-function.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-62570038750142187002008-04-21T11:43:00.004+01:002008-04-27T19:09:53.171+01:00

Update - The guys at Yahoo came to our rescue after tracing through the "network" somewhat to find someone that knows someone at Yahoo to help us out. Unfortunately their techies couldn't explain why we'd been bloack listed either but we are now officially on their whitelist so big thanks to the guys for helping us out.Yahoo are one of the original dotcoms. They've been around for a long time so

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/04/can-yahoo-really-get-things-so-wrong.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-23397035750632266172008-03-15T17:21:00.002Z2008-03-25T19:00:41.833Z

Are you listening Barclays?I like security - particularly data security and in very particular data security that protects my personal information (unlike a certain Uk government department a few months back).However, I've been around this game long enough, worked for a bank long enough and built more web applications capturing user data for long enough that I know there is one fundamental truth

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/03/security-101-user-should-be-able-to.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-17957480305752054892008-02-20T01:38:00.002Z2008-02-20T02:43:33.590Z

At Technology Treason we love DVD Jon or Jon Lech Johansen as he is more commonly known. This great Norwegian famously broke the DVD encryption put in place by the big firms with the release of some software primarily aimed at allowing DVDs to be played on computers and unlocking the regionality of DVDs and DVD players.When he released DeCSS he ran afoul of the US DMCA and was almost charged, he

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/02/dvd-jon-strikes-again.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-37393005869716556832008-02-12T04:56:00.000Z2008-02-12T05:50:41.951Z

I'm a bit of a cynic really. Anyone that's trawled through the depths of this blog will know that I have a fairly acid tongue when it comes to technology. I am a walking example of the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt".One of the projects I've been involved in rececntly has started generating press just by virtue of it being better than anything that has preceded it in this particular industry

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-industries-can-still-be.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-39068220925620206802008-01-31T05:53:00.000Z2008-02-12T06:22:00.528Z

Well rarely does an entire country entice me to start ranting (and at this point I'll point out I am in fact Australian) but by crikey Australian technology hasn't really moved in the last 5 years.Now I appreciate this is a sweeping statement and I'll point out that the technology I'm talking about primarily is media based - mobile / web / internet. I have also had the benefit of living in London

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/01/state-of-oz-technology.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-77701280471626653472008-01-08T22:08:00.000Z2008-02-08T22:27:14.364Z

I've been in this game a long time but there is still nothing sweeter than launching a site after spending a months building it with your team and the client. As a TD, site launch brings a mix of emotion - fatigue from the lack of sleep for the 10 days prior to launch, relief that the site is launching on time and on budget and the client seems happy with it all and finally worry about whether

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2008/01/warm-glow-of-site-launch.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-78868735597966365992007-12-21T13:56:00.000Z2007-12-21T14:38:11.627Z

I should probably know better than to open my mouth but the obvious has to be stated on this one. For anyone that is netSavvy enough to know what BitTorrent is, the news that TorrentSpy has just lost its court case against the MPAA isn't exactly surprising.Hearking back all the way to Naptser we seem to have an annual tag teaming of court cases brought about by the RIAA and the MPAA in order to

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/12/potent-messages-of-impotent-industries.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-27155988568463832422007-12-20T15:41:00.000Z2007-12-20T16:06:35.531Z

I've waxed lyrical about jQuery before, I've been using it a lot to do worker code which I just can't be bothered to hand write any more. Not least because jQuery handles all the little browser inconsistencies for me so the code I actually call into a page is infinitely more maintainable, especially if someone follows behind who maybe isn't so up to speed with JavaScript as I am.However, use a

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com5http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-top-5-jquery-seasonal-wishes.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-30756461152603149932007-12-19T10:33:00.000Z2007-12-19T10:43:51.683Z

I'm doing some work for a client at the moment who's industry is particularly technophobic. The absolute cutting edge is a bit of YouTube video thrown willy nilly into a page. I'd also point out that design is something that rarely makes an appearance in this particular industry.So it was pretty refreshing when we went to them with a series of ideas from the more commercial sectors of New Media

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/12/sms-bamboozlement.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-44616980976960450162007-12-10T17:45:00.000Z2007-12-10T18:02:59.583Z

I work with XML and XSLT every day of the week. Indeed working for a company called XML Infinity you can imagine how much we use it. I had one of those incredibly frustrating moments this afternoon that one typically when dealing with badly documented parts of .NET or XSLT.The annoyance in question was to do with loading a document in to an XSL template on the fly. 99.9% of the time you don't

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/12/net-xslt-and-how-to-import-external-xml.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-28393298557610898182007-11-30T13:15:00.000Z2007-11-30T14:06:17.118Z

One of my clients was asking me about PCI DSS certification today. Coincidentally I also received our letter about compulsory compliance to the PCI DSS standard.Both of us are what are termed "Level 4 Merchants" - that is we process less than 20,000 card transactions through the company in a year. Arguably Level 4 Merchants will probably account for the largest number of business globally as they

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com2http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/pci-dss-will-wreak-havoc-on-smes.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-9521727437802944722007-11-26T13:53:00.000Z2007-11-26T14:34:59.924Z

If you haven't come across them yet QNAP make these amazing little NAS boxes that are perfect for home or SME use. I've got mine running as a home server but might get one for the office as our old server is on it's last legs and a fully tricked out 1U dell server is a bit of overkill for a glorified file server.The best thing about these devices though it that they run Linux OS utilising Debian

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com8http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/adding-cron-jobs-to-qnap-server.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-84913745315203281042007-11-21T09:14:00.000Z2007-11-22T10:09:58.988Z

Readers in the UK will be aware of a Data Protection train crash that we have been watching unfold in front of us over the last few days. It turns out that 25 million records of a database managed by HMRC have been lost in the post because they were sent on a couple of disks using unrecorded mail.There has been much speculation about which minister to blame and who in the cabinet (including the

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-was-data-being-passed-on-disc-and.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-76257157753950298132007-11-19T10:43:00.000Z2007-11-19T11:29:44.110Z

I've talked about fuzzy logic for use by the retail sector in the past and the project I'm involved in there is maturing nicely. This week I've really realised how as software engineers we need to grasp the nettle and move a lot of service based software toward fuzzy systems for usability reasons.Nearly everyone these days has booked a flight online and when it came time to booking a holiday to

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com2http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/fuzzy-logic-could-book-more-flights.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-3158132523426221222007-11-08T10:51:00.000Z2007-11-08T11:09:12.987Z

Don't you hate it when you can't get something you'd really like?I've been following the OLPC project more or less since its inception. When I first heard about it I was mostly interested in how they were going to pull off building a laptop for only $100 per unit.After realising they were going to do it I was interested in how useful the machine would actually be (it has no hard drive so it can't

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-cant-i-have-100-laptop.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-82653843897140580612007-11-05T10:26:00.000Z2007-11-08T10:43:57.908Z

Google announced today that they would be partnering up with a load of other companies including Samsung, Motorola and LG to produce a new phone "software stack". For those of us in teh technology game this basically means Google plans to release mobile phone operating system to rival that of Microsoft, Symbian and the various Linux flavours out there already.What I find most annoying about this

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/bye-bye-openmoko.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-77684313742343349882007-11-02T17:29:00.001Z2007-11-02T17:49:14.565Z

James posted a message on my blog some weeks ago and it's only now that a penny has dropped in my mind about what we need to deal with the issue of structure in CSS - the problem is we have none. As James points out you end up with a flat mess that with all the best will in the world definitions are hard to find.I've ranted before about the annoyances of CSS - particularly to do with the lack of

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com2http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/css-structure-what-mess.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-17966341113240920502007-11-02T11:44:00.000Z2007-11-02T13:20:19.958Z

Folding at home (FAH) has taken the Guiness World Record for being the most powerful distributed computing network with a top speed of over 1 petaflop - (a thousand trillion calculations per second).This is a remarkable achievement and shows the immense power that can be brought to bear by spare computing power used in a distributed network. The key here though is massive parallelism which means

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/11/fah-goes-number-1-but-we-could-do.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-49508164433024491832007-10-15T10:37:00.000+01:002007-11-02T11:40:54.254Z

I'm in my thirties now and I've been playing computer games from the age of about four when my dad first brought home the venerable Vic 20 - partly because he was doing a computer science degree at University but mostly because he wanted to tinker.Through my life I've borne witness to the rise of computer gaming as a media format to rival and now surpass film and I've seen countless witch hunts

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/let-new-gaming-witch-hunt-begin.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-33603017288450054492007-10-14T08:26:00.000+01:002007-11-02T17:24:49.672Z

It seems JQuery is definitely gaining some traction as a useful library - not least because of the development of the ThickBox Gallery library by Cody Lindley which is seeing huge amounts of use around the web at the moment as a means for displaying galleries for product or photos without being constrained by the page template you are building for and by maintaining the semantic integrity of the

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com5http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/jquery-slideshow.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-87074357404466555102007-08-25T12:28:00.000+01:002007-10-26T13:14:58.179+01:00

If you haven't come across it yet there is a javascript library called JQuery which is being developed as an open source project, designed to give us better control over our web pages and the things we can do with them.Thankfully John Resig, Karl Sedburg and the others have steered slightly away from the profligacy of AJAX libraries doing the rounds at the moment and produced a library that

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0http://technologytreason.blogspot.com/2007/08/jquery-saves-day.html