IT Tok Tok

Crazy Little Fingers

2009-03-15T17:45:00.003+10:00

Crazy Little Fingers is a great piece of software to keep those unwanted little fingers from messing up a document or presentation etc that you may be working on. What it is basically is a piece of software that locks your computer and runs like a kind of screen saver. If you happen to have young children around that are always trying to get at your computer. What will happen is that instead of them typing unwanted characters on your piece of work, while you are away from the computer. It will show a goat from example if they press the letter "G", and still leave the keyboard locked. Until you unlock it by pressing ctrl + alt + delete.

If you are downloading the software it offers two versions. One which is 64MB in size and comes with a complete library for all the keys on the key board, or the second version which is almost 400Kb in size (hell of a lot smaller), but the catch is that you have to put in all of the pictures for the different keys on the keyboard.

Overall Wantoks it is good little piece of software which will protect your work from the kids and keep them entertained at the same time.

BSP Capital blog

2009-02-17T21:05:00.003+10:00

For the Wantoks out there that are interested in Shares etc. Have a look at the BSP Captial Blog for local Papua New Guinea stock market information. I think it is a great to see a big organisation like BSP Captial entering the blog world and posting updates on markets and other types of stock market information. Well done to Juda and the boys at BSP Captial for taking the extra step to get stock market information out to the Wantoks on the street.

Friday 13/02/2009 Important Day for IT in PNG

2009-02-15T15:17:00.003+10:00

Last Friday (13/02/09) marked an important day for IT in Papua New Guinea. The reason been is that three important IT related matters were launched on this day.

The first item was the launch of Digicel's web browsing on the Digicel mobile network. It is a great step for Internet access for Papua New Guinean's. The reason why I say this is because it now makes accessing the web something that any Digicel customer with a web capable mobile phone can do. Which before access to the Internet in Papua New Guinea was mainly done via computers. The Digital world has now had it doors flung wide open to Papua New Guinean's. Thank you Digicel.

The next item was that Telikom released its ADSL charges which were approved be the ICCC on Thursday morning (12/02/09). That was advertised to the general public on Friday. What does this mean for my Wantoks. Well now there is a new major ISP player in town, I am hoping that it will bring down the charges for access to the Internet. (I will try and find time this week to do a ISP comparison).

The last but not least event that took place last Friday was the official launching of the UNDP and BPNG - Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP). Which is planning to give funding to projects technology projects to help reach low income households with financial services. By the sounds of things from what I can gather this project will help fund mobile banking projects, etc.

Pirate Bay releases map of Pirates

2009-02-09T21:47:00.005+10:00

Pirate Bay the King of BitTorrent piracy websites has recently released a Google powered map that charts the locations of Pirates around the world. Which is based on the origin of the tracker that a person uses when downloading items from Pirate Bay states Torrent Freak.

At the time of writing this post I wanted to see how many Papua New Guinean users were downloading items from Pirate Bay. I was amazed to find out that their was 14 users per minute at 9:50pm tonight (9th Feb 2009) downloading items from Pirate Bay, or 0.001% of Pirate Bay users at this time were from Papua New Guinea. I pebble in the ocean. When you compare the figures of people who live in Papua New Guinea with other countries.

The interesting thing to notes was that the country where the most users came from was China which you would expect it to be. With 33% of Pirate Bay users coming from China, around 7 million users. The interesting part about it is that Pirate Bay is banned in China. So I guess where there is a will there is a way.

The statistics is now based on unique users connected per minute! Keep in mind that a torrent client usually only connects to the tracker once every 15-20 minutes. Total unique users per minute : 1343613 (at the time of writing this post)

The lines between virtual and reality are begining to cross

2009-02-08T15:20:00.001+10:00

According to Wired, Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns surfaces into interactive display screens. The person who wears this device can control virtual gadgets and internet data at will. According to Pattie Maes of MIT Media Lab's the research is aimed at creating a new digital sixth sens for humans.

The prototype of this device was constructed from a ordinary web cam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror. That are all connected to a mobile phone that is connected to the Internet. The original cost of this set up was around $US350. This allows the user of the device to project data from the phone on to a surface.

Thus making the boundaries between virtual reality and reality beginning to cross. Simple gestures done by a persons fingers and thumbs can be used to create a picture frame that tells a camera camera to snap a photo, which is saved to a mobile phone. That the person can
project on to a wall as just one of the functions that this new device.

Hummer drivers get booked more often

2009-02-01T13:25:00.001+10:00

I was over at Wired this morning and saw an article about how Hammer drivers get five times as many traffic tickets in the United States then the average driver. It got me thinking about Emmanuel's story over at Masalai "Seriously Get Noticed" which is Boroko Motors slogan in adverts to sell the Hammer H3's in Papua New Guinea. I guess the Boroko Motors slogan must really be true if the Hammer drivers in the U.S are getting booked five times more then the average driver. Which means that they are really getting noticed more. Or is it that because they are driving a car that is designed to be bank vault on wheels which is making their driving more erratic then the average Tom, Dick, and Harry.

According to the study that reported these findings the reason why the Hammer driver may get booked more is "The sense of power that Hummer drivers derive from their vehicle may be directly correlated with the number of violations they incur, or perhaps Hummer drivers, by virtue of their driving position, are less likely to notice road hazards, signs, pedestrians and other drivers," Raj Bhat, president of Quality Planning, said in a statement.

Google launches Measurement Lab

2009-01-31T08:36:00.004+10:00

This week Google announced the launching of Measurement Lab. The whole concept behind Measurement Lab is for users to be able to use online tools to discover a number of different things about their computer networks, ISP (Internet Service Provider) e.g. is your ISP blocking BitTorrent traffic, is your ISP piping certain traffic down slow pipes, etc. These tools will be a great way for Wantoks in Papua New Guinea to check what their ISP's are up to. Please note that the data collected from your bandwidth tests and traffic tests is saved for reasearch. I have tried doing some of the tests e.g. the ISP blocking BitTorrent test but at the time of writing this article the servers were to busy due to the high demand of people wanting to test.

The Measurement Lab website states that

"Measurement Lab was founded by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, Google Inc. and academic researchers. M-Lab was developed in 2008 after Vint Cerf and others at Google initiated conversations with network researchers to learn more about challenges to the effective study of broadband networks.

About Measurement Lab

Measurement Lab (M-Lab) is an open, distributed server platform for researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools. The goal of M-Lab is to advance network research and empower the public with useful information about their broadband connections. By enhancing Internet transparency, M-Lab helps sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.

When an Internet application doesn't work as expected, how can you tell whether the problem is caused by your broadband connection, the application or something else? It can be very difficult for professional network administrators, let alone average Internet users, to answer this sort of question today.

Transparency has always been an essential component of the Internet's success, and Internet users deserve to be well-informed about the performance of their broadband connections. For that to happen, researchers need resources to develop new analytical tools.

That's where M-Lab comes in.

Tools for Users

Many researchers are already developing tools that allow users to test their broadband connections by briefly communicating with a server elsewhere on the Internet. The M-Lab platform supports the development of these measurement tools.

An Open Platform for Researchers

M-Lab assists scientific research by providing widely-distributed servers and ample connectivity for researchers' use. Each tool will be allocated dedicated resources on the M-Lab platform to facilitate accurate measurements. Server-side tools will be openly licensed and operated to allow third-parties to develop their own client-side measurement software.

Better, Open Data for Everyone

All data collected via M-Lab will be made available to the research community to allow researchers to build on a common pool of network measurement data.

M-Lab today and in the future

M-Lab is only at the beginning of its development. Today, three tools will be available, running on three servers at one location, and they will only be able to support a limited number of simultaneous users. A total of 36 servers will be deployed across 12 locations early in 2009.

In order to achieve its goals, M-Lab depends on the active support of additional companies, institutions and researchers, and we welcome input from anyone interested in helping the platform flourish. As more researchers, institutions and companies participate, M-Lab will able to support a wider variety of tools.

If you are an Internet user and want to run the tools, check out our Tools page.

If you are a company, institution or researcher interested in learning more about using and upporting M-Lab, learn more here.

M-Lab Partners

M-Lab was founded by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, Google Inc. and academic researchers."

Offline Gmail

2009-01-28T23:59:00.002+10:00

Google has recently announced that Gmail is going offline. What does this mean Wantoks is that Google Labs is currently experimenting to close the gap between desktop and web-based applications. With Offline Gmail you are now able to access your Gmail from your browser any time even if you do not have an Internet connection turned on.

How Offline Gmail works is that it downloads all of your emails to your desktop. Then using Gmail offline mode is exactly like using it normally, with the exception that offline mode will make your browsing experience a hell of a lot faster. Due to the emails being stored locally.

The main downside I can see with Offline Gmail is having to download all the emails to your desktop. Depending on how many emails you send and receive it could be a couple of Gigabytes. For the majority of Wantoks that use dial up connections in Papua New Guinea it could be almost as painful as watching paint dry.

Behind the Scenes at Obama's Swearing In

2009-01-27T22:21:00.013+10:00

According to the FBI's website as Barack Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States, the men and women in the FBI Command and Tactical Operations Center paused briefly to witness the historic event on flat screens around the room for only a few seconds. Before it was back to the business of communicating with agents in the field and the FBI's partners at other command posts around the Washington to continue to monitor the event and to assess any possible threats. The behind the scenes was very high tech by the looks of things with control centers spread out around Washington to control the army of law enforcement officers, including FBI agents.

According to the FBI they started planning for the security 6 months before the actual day took place. The FBI website states that the Secret Service takes the lead for the inaugural security, but issues dealing with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, etc are the FBI's responsibility.

Photos are from a FBI press release.

Click to view full story on the FBI website

Power problems at Datec in Port Moresby

2009-01-26T22:27:00.003+10:00

It seems that Datec in Port Moresby is having serious power problems. Today (26th Jan 2009) the Datec complex was shut down again, due to a power blackout. From my understanding from talking to people from different companies that use Datec as a disaster recovery site, they are seriously thinking of taking their business else where. Due to Datec's on going power problems, this is also not the first time this month that Datec has had to shut their doors to both the show room and DR room due to on going power problems. This raises the question for the Wantoks that are running large companies that can afford to use Datec as a disaster recovery site, if Datec can't even manage their own power problems how safe is your data or machines that are stored in the Datec bunker?

I also found out from a Daltron sales executive that Daltron is going to be moving into the Disaster Recovery business in the second half of 2009, when they open their doors to customers for their own bunker. If Datec can not fix their on going power problems they may just lose some more of their business to Daltron. It is my understanding that a number of large supermarkets, banks, mines, government organizations, etc currently use Datec as their Disaster recovery site. But with on going power problems how long are they really willing to risk their Data at Datec? You would think that the simple solution for Datec would be to fix their gen set and their UPS's. Instead of locking customers out and losing business at the same time, while your competitors are hanging around like a bunch of vultures.

To Datec's defense there is not to much that they can do about the poor power supply from PNG Power. The sad thing about it is that we have all got so use to doing buiness or living our lives with this below par services. That when there is a black out what every time of the day it may be no one really makes a big fuss about it any more.

Where to get free IT Tech books online

2009-01-25T22:39:00.000+10:00

For the Wantoks out there that want some free IT Tech books here are three sites that are worth having a look at:

Please note that some of the books can only be read online, while others can be downloaded in PDF format.

Not Always Right website

2009-01-25T22:32:00.001+10:00

If you have a bit of time to kill and would like to read about some silly stuff that people do, have a read of
Not Always Right. I found it interesting to read about peoples experiences in working in retail, service, etc, jobs, and the silly customers things that they have to deal with. You hear stories all the time when working at an IT Help Desk like people ring up from another office and saying I can't start my computer, there is something wrong with it. Then you spend the next couple of minutes trying to trouble shoot a problem. Only to be told that half an hour before the computer shut down by itself there was beeping sounds and then a long beep and it shut down. There is a power black out and the UPS has run out. I guess you would have to really be in a service industry type of job to appreciate some of the things people ring up for, which basic common sense would let you know what the problem is. Like if you have no power and your UPS is not working your PC is not going to work.

Anyway according to the about section in Not Always Right the website was created because

"We believe that while customers deserve to be treated right, so do the employees and the other folks that serve them."

Wantoks if you have a few minutes to kill have a quick look, its not every ones cup of tea but some of you may like it.

Quotas of the week from the Sunday Chronicle

2009-01-25T10:58:00.002+10:00

Published in the Sunday Chronicle on 25th January 2009

Opposition leader Sir Mekere Morauta commenting on a possible vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister:

"With its 21 members, the Opposition does not have the numbers to mount a successful vote of no confidence on the prime minister and his government. We need the support of other parties currently in government."

Morobe's provincial disaster man Roy Kamen commenting on the disappearance and rescue of nine people found adrift in the waters of Milne Bay:

"No one reported them missing. We did not know about it until authorities in Milne Bay called and told us about it"

American president Barack Obama on Innauguration Day watched by millions across the globe:

"... to all other peoples and governments watching today from the grandest capital to the smallest village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity and that we are ready to lead once more."

Photos of how much a Mac has changed over the last 25 years

2009-01-23T19:06:00.007+10:00

I was over at cnet today and saw these interesting photos of how much Apple Mac's have changed over the years

Computers Then

Computers Now

Laptops Then
Laptops Now

White House blog

2009-01-21T21:14:00.003+10:00

President Obama is said to be the technology President, with his love for his Blackberry been public knowledge. He has and uses an iPod and he is also said to be hip and cool as well, due to him knowing the names of the bands and singers on the top of the music charts. But what will make him stand out from his predessors is the White House blog. Obama is said to be planning to use this blog to dismate information, in order to keep the general public updated. The blogs url is http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

Pictures of Obama being sworn in as President

2009-01-21T06:30:00.011+10:00

(pictures from BBC)

POMSoX Update 19th Jan 2009

2009-01-20T20:31:00.003+10:00

Information published by BSP Capital via email:

Monday 19th JANUARY 2009

LOCAL STOCKS

Monday saw the local bourse finished relatively quiet with reasonable volumes crossing for BSP at an average price of K0.95 while CCP closed at K2.48; In London last night had NBPO finish at STG2.04 as LGL on the ASX jumped 18 cents to end at $2.86.

Today in the pre-open phase of the market has buyers for LGL and OSH at K4.10 and K7.97 respectively. While the offers for NBO are at a low of K12.00 on the local bourse.

PNG NEWS

KAM: Kina Asset Management reported on Monday that its Net Tangible Asset (NTA) per share as of 31st December 2008 is at K0.91.

MOVERS
Monday’s movers on the bourse 19/01/09:

BSP: -4.04%

CCP: -0.40%

LGL: 2.24%

Click on image to enlarge

Pope Benedict is going to be the next YouTube star!

2009-01-19T21:09:00.004+10:00

CNET News has reported that the Vatican which has recently endorsed an iPhone prayer application and has announced that Pope Benedict XVI will now get his own YouTube channel. According to Associated Press, Vatican Radio and Vatican TV Center are working with Google on this latest project. To publish both texts and videos of the Pope's speeches as well as other news about the Pope, that will be published directly to the channel.

Great to see that the Catholic Church is now implementing technology to spread its word to the thousands of faithful followers around the world. It will also be a great tool for the local Catholic Wantoks to keep in touch with the Pope. I guess YouTube was going to be the next step for a tech savy Pope who owns a 2GB white iPod Nano, who famously signed a mobile text message at the 2008 Catholic youth day rally in Sydney with "BXVI".

95% of music downloaded online is illegal

2009-01-18T17:30:00.001+10:00

The BBC says that the International Federation of the Phonograhic Industry (IFPI) states that 95% of all music downloaded online is illegal. According to the IFPI it is the biggest challenge because many artists and record companies miss out on payments because of the illegal downloading of music. Steady growth of online music sales has lead to a 25% increase since last year, which accounts for a fifth of all recorded music sales. But the falling CD sales has not being made up by the increase in online music sales.

IFPI stated that there were 1.4 billion single tracks legally downloaded in 2008. The online music industry is now estimated to be worht $US 3.7billion per year.

I did the calculations on it worked out that the music industry is missing out on an estimated $US 70.3 billion per year due to illegal downloads or about K207 billion per year worldwide.

POMSox update 15th Jan 2009

2009-01-18T15:09:00.002+10:00

Email from BSP Capital:

LOCAL STOCKS

Thursday had the local shares finished unchanged, as CGA ended at K1.00 whilst the offers closed at K0.99. NBO finished at K9.42 while in London it saw trades at STG2.02 with a reasonable volume. IOC fell nearly 5 percent to US$19.80, but is expected to soar with more positive news from its Antelope-1 well.

On the exchange today has sellers lined up for OSH at K8.50 and CPL as low as K2.50.

PNG NEWS

CPL: City Pharmacy Limited announced yesterday of the appointment of Mr. Ravi Kant Singh as the new CEO.

IOL: InterOil yesterday reported that they have appointed MR. Wayne Andrews as the Vice President of Capital markets.

IOL: InterOil announced its initial logging results from the Anteleope-1 well that it has successfully logged 2,005 feet of the reservoir in the Antelope reef structure. This is to date, the largest vertical section of continuous reservoir of gas and gas liquids in PNG.

Quotas of the week from the Sunday Chronicle

2009-01-18T15:04:00.001+10:00

Published in the Sunday Chronicle on 18th January 2009

Quotas of the week

NCD Metropolitan Superintendent Fred Yakasa speaking at the first quarterly parade for his command at the Boroko police station:

"Policing must not be just a job to make ends meet but a profession that requires personal motivation, a high level of enthusiasm, dedication and commitment...."

Superintendent Yakasa, inviting his charges to a reception at Bluff Inn outside the Port Moresby city, after the parade:

"Papua New Guinea will not collapse. We will just have two to three hours to get together and enjoy ourselves."

Housing Minister Andrew Kumbakor hitting back at criticism from National Housing Commission board chairman and former chief executives:

"Mr. Maru, Mr. Dambali, and Mr. Asukusa have done nothing for PNG."

Ron Seddon of Rotary Against Malaria when accepting a donation from tobacco company BAT this week:

"Our long term aim is for malaria without mortality"

How much is Yahoo's new CEO getting Paid?

2009-01-18T10:30:00.000+10:00

According to Australian IT Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartz will be paid an estimated $US19 million per year in addition to bonus and stock options. It works out that Ms Bartz is going to be paid over K55,000,000 per year or over K1million per week this year based on an exchange rate of 0.3454 US$ to the Kina.

Why is Telikom's ADSL Broadband taking so long to roll out?

2009-01-15T20:14:00.004+10:00

Rumor has it that part of the reason why Telikom's ADSL Broadband is taking so long to roll out is because funding for the project has ceased and Telikom is desperately trying to seek extra funding from IPBC. On the other hand could it just be another case of what happened with B Mobile and Telikom has under estimated the demand of this service?

After talking to a few different people in key positions at Telikom in the last couple of days I came to the conclusion that it is a bit of both. One the ADSL Broadband Project has limited funds and two Telikom has under estimated the demand for ADSL. When Telikom does get its act together it is going to be great for Wantoks in Papua New Guinea to have high speed internet access that does not cost you an arm or a leg.

For the readers in out laying centers that may have being experiancing slow internet connections over the last couple of days e.g. Lae, Highlands, Wewak, etc. Part of the reason was do to the radio link to Mt Yule going down. So most of the data traffic had to be re routed making the packets travel a few more hops then they usual do, hence causing it to be a bit slower. I found out from Telikom that techs are currently at Mt Yule and are trying to fix the problem. Fingers crossed hopfully the problem will be resolved by tomorrow.

Virgin Pacific Blue forces Papua New Guineans to risk their lives

2009-01-15T19:46:00.002+10:00

Total outrage and disgust is all I have to say about Virgin Pacific Blue. The Brisbane based Airline Carrier which is in partnership with Airlines PNG, running the Port Moresby to Brisbane route, today (14th Jan 2009) forced Papua New Guinean travelers and foreign nationals to to risk their lives, by going on a mercy flight to Fiji that is currently facing flooding and cyclones. People who purchased tickets from Virgin Pacific Blue or Airlines PNG were not advised of the change in flight plan and those who purchased non refundable fares were not given the option not to travel. The only option that Virgin Pacific Blue passengers who had brought non refundable tickets were given by Airlines PNG staff at Jackson's International Airport was to travel or lose your money. Many passengers faced with this dilemma took the risky option and decided to fly to Fiji.

It seems that Virgin Pacific Blue seems to think that the traveling public in Papua New Guinea is expendable. In order to save costs and get a good publicity stunt Virgin Pacific Blue has gone out and risked PNG lives. The idea behind the mercy flight was good, but the way that Virgin Pacific Blue has executed it was totally pig headed and disgusting. Virgin Pacific Blue did not take into consideration what the travelling public in PNG wants. For example if they were really trying to do a good deed why not leave the PNG passengers in Port Moresby and fly to Fiji, and then pick up the PNG passengers on the way back. Instead they were willing to risk the lives of Papua New Guineans to go on a mercy flight that is going to give them them good publicity which is subsidised by the PNG passengers. Shame on you big Australian business, for thinking that the travelling public in Papua New Guinea is expendable. I wounder what would have happened if the same thing took place in Australia. For one thing it would have being a public outcry and on the evening news of every major TV network in Australia. They also would have current affairs stories about it etc. But here in Papua New Guinea nothing is done about it. So big Australian companies continue to get away with things that they would not be caught for dead doing in their own country. Simply because we are a poor developing nation that can not afford to have the big government statutory bodies that other countries like Australia have.

The Civil Aviation in Papua New Guinea should also be questioned why it lets PNG lives put at risk for a publicity stunt by Sir Richard Branson's company. After all Richard Branson is already infamous for his long list of publicity stunts. This is just another reckless attempt at getting attention by the Virgin group of companies. But now they have gone to far by risking Papua New Guinean lives is not acceptable.

To the defense of Virgin Pacific Blue it turns out that after a lot of arguing with Airlines PNG's poorly trained enquirers counter staff at Jackson's airport. Passengers were able to get a refund, but the catch is they were not telling people. So is this just poor service by Airlines PNG International Terminal staff or a ploy to help their partner airline to avoid refunding customers? For the travelling public in PNG I am hoping that it is just poor service, because I would hate to think that Papua New Guinean and Australian lives are being risked to save a few kina. This just goes back to the question, what is the Civil Aviation industry in PNG doing?

This Wantok for one has decided not to purchase any more online tickets from Virgin Pacific Blue simply because they think that PNG lives are expandable.

The green impact of Google searches

2009-01-13T23:50:00.001+10:00

Harvard University Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches on a desktop PC uses up the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle for a cup of coffee states the Timesonline. With this bit of research in mind it is scary to think how much greenhouse damage I am doing as a regular Google search engine user. Here I am thinking that by staying at home and avoiding driving my car, etc, I am becoming more carbon neutral. Which in actual fact if this research is true I may be causing a hell of a lot of damage to the environment from being a geek sitting at home surfing the web.

According to the Timesonline a standard search on Google creates about 7 grams of CO2 and boiling a kettle generates about 15 grams of CO2. Which to sum it up means that the more you search on the Google the more you impact the environment. It would be interesting to know how many Google searches are done by Wantoks in Papua New Guinea? So that we could measure the environmental impact that technology is having on Papua New Guinea. By using technology like search engines.

I guess the environmental impact that technology is having on Papua New Guinea and will have on Papua New Guinea at this stage can not be projected. But with a Government that is not doing anything to take into consideration what the environmental impact is going to be from putting used computers, mobile phones, etc with their highly toxic batteries and other materials into rubbish dumps around PNG. With the potential for this toxic materials to leak into water tables etc. It is hard to project what the environmental impact is.

To the governments defence PNG does not have the money to start such projects to prevent computers etc becoming landfill. So the Fat Cats at Waigani need to start thinking of a business model that can be used to make it economically viable to recycle electronic wastes etc. I know that in Port Moresby now scrap metal is a booming business and people are cleaning up metal eye sores to make a few Kina. So if a similar business model could be used may be recycling electronic waste could become a viable business model in Papua New Guinea. Thus reducing the environmental impact that technology is having on Papua New Guinea.