Our stats show this today (9/15/2007):
OS Statistics
Windows Vista 7.5%
Windows 2003 1.16%
Windows XP 71.6%
Windows 2000 3.2
Windows NT4 0.03%
Windows 98/ME 0.88%
Windows 95 0.26%
Linux/UNIX/BSD 6.34%
Mac OSX 7.41%
Mac Classic 0.02%
Misc 1.5%

Seventy one percent are using XP — seven percent are on Vista, most because they had to buy a computer with it on it I suspect. After six months the move isn’t happening. I would be tempted to buy XP if I had to buy a computer with Vista on it. I did buy one with Vista and I hate it. Slow and cannot run things. Cannot find drivers. My son just bought a new laptop and he went out of his way to find one with XP on it. The only person I know who loves Vista is … well actually I don’t know any come to think of it.

Is there something you really like about Vista that I should know about?

I have a real problem with cheap CD / DVD cases! You know the kind? The ones manufactured and distributed by Bastards Inc.

There are two models in the Bastards Inc. range: Too Loose, and Too Tight.

The Too Loose model seems to apply more to DVD cases than CDs. This is the one where the plastic case is a little soft and flexible, with a little movement allowing the “core” (that holds the disc in place) to release. Then the disc is free to move around the case as it pleases during shipping, rubbing and scratching itself against the core and other molded parts of the box. A DVD shipped half way across the world from Amazon to my mailbox tends to move around a bit. Bonus points for Bastards Inc. if there are two discs and both manage to move around freely. The grand finale occurs when the recipient doesn’t expect the discs to be loose, opens the case on their birthday, and the discs hit the floor.
Read the rest of this entry »

Those of us that have used Firefox for a long time have known it was going to be big. It has taken the rest of the world some time, but according to ITwire, (who have it from Janco), show that IE usage has dropped 10% down to 63.9 and Firefox has risen to 17.4%.

Fantastic news for those of us who want an open standards compliant Internet. Plus Firefox is just cool. 🙂
There are some other tidbits in the ITWire article, so have a read.

Unfortunately in our internet age, many peoples’ private lives are publicly exposed. In the present high profile case involving the star or Disney’s High School Musical and High School Musical 2, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, she took the photo shown here along with some in her underwear … and they were released. She has apologized for her actions calling them a lapse in judgment according to People.

Several things strike me:
1. I will have a difficult time explaining to an eight year old Read the rest of this entry »

I found a great article from a guy whose work I have liked and used on several occaisions over the life of WordPress. Once again Meall Dubh explains clearly how to use the built in power of WordPress to pull RSS feeds in.

His code has one typo in the following line:
echo "<li><a xhref=$href>$title</a><br />$description</li>";

Should actually be minus the x or you won’t have good links:
echo "<li><a href=$href>$title</a><br />$description</li>";

Further his code included the description from the feed. In my case I found it helpful to delete that part of the code:
$description = $item['description']; and just use the title and url link.

I was working this up to a widget when I visit a newer install and find that there is an rss feed built into the sidebar widgets. It would appear the lifting is already done, although again I may wish to go modify it.

See it in action at MichFamLaw.com (about Michigan Divorce, Custody, Collaborative Divorce and Divorce Mediation) where the site pulls in the last five posts from DomesticDiversions.com (about the lighter side of marriage, divorce, human relationships and children) and displays them in the right sidebar.

In a tough fought battle, the Microsoft OpenXML file format failed to become an ISO standard. This is only a temporary issue because they get another chance at the plate early next year and they are likely to succeed when that happens.

Why is that bad you ask? Well in short, Microsoft Office is really very expensive and the full kit really only runs on Microsoft software. (Mac users tell me the Mac version of MS Office is decidedly inferior) So if Microsoft’s file format is a standard, (that doesn’t mean it is patent or royalty free) Microsoft will stick with that format as the default while dismissing the ODF format that already is a standard and which is royalty free and totally open.

They don’t want to support ODF as their default format, and the reason is that to do so would put them on a level pegging with other Office suites and they would lose $$$ as a result because it wouldn’t matter what office suite you used, your documents would be the same. Because Microsoft are far and away the office suite market share leaders, and because they know people are concerned about being compatible and able to open others office files, they will stick with the market leader as a result. Meaning Microsoft continues to make big dollars on MS Office.

We don’t know if free and open source office suites will have unencumbered royalty free access to Microsofts format either, that remains to be seen. But either way, if OpenXML becomes an ISO standard, it will mean that Microsoft will get to carry on charging crazy amounts of money for MS Office and people will go on paying it to ensure compatibility with those they share documents with.

To do your part to stop this, regardless of where you are, right to your pollies and let them know that a vote for OpenXML may have consequences for their own vote count at the next election. Also it might pay to stay up to date by visiting www.noooxml.org and/or Groklaw.

The Australian government has recently blown though 84 million dollars creating a new website and arranging the use of the Netalert Porn filter. This software was then broken in mere minutes by a 16 year old school boy. This is what happens when politicians assume they actually understand IT issues and think they can solve problems that more knowledgeable people have been trying to solve for years. The government is now going to put the responsibility of blocking sites onto the Internet Services Providers instead of with the parents where it belongs. Making the ISP’s block access requires significant financial outlay and a good deal of reconfiguration, something that it is unlikely the Government is going be much help with. It will also most likely result in our already low broadband speeds becoming even more dismal compared to the rest of the world since all traffic will have to be parsed by filtering rules before allowing/disallowing.

The Australian Government needs to understand a few things.

1. Every kid over 12 knows more about the family computer than their parents do. Parents (unless they are IT parents) learn just enough about the PC to get the work they need to do done, and that’s it. Kids on the other hand, really dig this stuff and will learn and evolve their habits much more quickly, swap tips with mates, read PC magazines and search the net for information. No solution that requires parental implementation will be all that successful, since kids can find out about msconfig, control panel/services and so on from a myriad of sources.

2. Putting the onus on ISP’s to block undesirable traffic won’t work either. There are many problems with this sort of thing.
a. Do sites like Myspace, Facebook, Bebo etc get blocked nationwide? These are the sites under the international spotlight now for pedophile presence.
b. Do all sites with chat programs get blocked by default? (since traditionally this is where child predators find their marks)
c. Does IRC get blocked altogether, along with MSN/ICQ/YAHOO etc chat access?
d. Do we want to be an Internet 3rd world country with access speeds far below the rest of the western world? (what good are 20mbit ADSL2 connections if the traffic gets slowed right up due to filtering?)
e. Do we risk losing sites containing medical information or tribal information because some prude in the government decides a picture of a boob or something similar is classed as porn? Where does that end? Do we then start blocking access to chemistry pages because the info could be used to make a weapon? Is this a road down which we want to go?

3. Educating parents on the dangers and solutions is the only way that will work. Make it obligatory that every Australian adult attend a workshop on child safety online and make them aware that the only way to stop a kid finding unsavory content or finding themselves talking to unsavory people is to WATCH THEM WHEN THEY ARE ONLINE!
a. Have your Internet PC or PCs in a central room where you can watch them. Let them have a computer in their room sure, but do not put a PC with Internet access in their room.
b. Use an Internet filter, but never rely on one alone.
c. Give the kids a certain period of time every day when they can browse the web, and make sure you are never far away when they are doing so.

It isn’t difficult and the only requirement is parental attention. If that is too much to ask, why are they having kids?

As far as the government goes, we must not let either side use this issue as an election gimmick. I usually vote Liberal simply because they have done very unpopular things, (like the GST) simply because they knew it was good for the country (and in the case of the GST, even Labor doesn’t disagree that they (Liberals) were right, though they strongly did at the time). Labor on the other hand never seems to intentionally do anything unpopular. They appear much more focused on staying in power, than the good of the country. The IR laws are another example, hugely misunderstood and likely to cost them the election, and yet unemployment is at all time lows and the economy is booming. They knew it would hurt them, but they did it anyway, because we needed it.

Any government solution to the Internet problem that involves palming the responsibility of onto others should result in their exit stage left, because there is to much to lose by messing it up.