it.gen.nz

Like many others on the ‘Net, I’ve often repeated the old saw that His Billness decided in the Dark Ages of computing (the early 80s) that 640k should be enough for anyone. It appears that, in the words of the Mythbusters crew, that one’s well and truly busted. There’s no evidence he said that, and he did realise at the time that the whole 640k thing would place a limit on growth. He did admit later to being surprised at how quickly that limit was reached, though.

So, Bill: I’m sorry for telling people you made that call.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I responded to the extraordinary comments of TelstraClear’s Chief Executive, Alan Freeth, that there is no point of providing fast broadband in New Zealand because we’d only waste it. And he doesn’t like Hokitika. His views can’t be anything to do with trying to protect his existing network in the main cities, can they?

Read on for my speaking notes, or listen to the audio download in mp3 or ogg.
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I use instant messaging (IM) from time to time, but I really can’t be fished with the half a dozen or so different IM clients you are supposed to install to cover the different IM services. That’s why I love Adium.

Adium is a very nice open source Mac IM client. It does far more different IM services than iChat, which Apple provides. Adium does nearly every services out there, presenting all your contacts and chats through the same interface, with the exception of (and this is a biggie) Skype IM. Helpful New Zealander Eion Robb fixed that for everyone some time ago with his Skype plugin for Adium, and that made Adium cover every IM service I was interested in. Bravo.

Recently, Adium has moved to version 1.3, and a fine version upgrade it seems as well, giving you access to Facebook chat among other things. The problem is that the upgrade breaks the Skype plugin, so someone upgrading Adium in the normal course of things loses connectivity to their Skype-only contacts.

Happily, this is easy to fix. You need to:

1. download the latest plugin
2. double-click the zip file it arrives in (you get a plugin file)
3. right-click the plugin file and select “Show Package Contents”
4. a Finder instance opens showing what’s inside, open the “Contents” folder
5. open the

   info.plist

   file by double-clicking, then open the section marked “root” by clicking the triangle

6. You can now see a list of “properties” and their values. We’re going to edit a couple. You need the value of

   CFBundleVersion

   to read 1.3. Double-click the number and retype as necessary.

7. You also need to add a new value. Click the CFBundleversion property then press the button “New Sibling”. Then change its proerty to read

   AIMinimumAdiumVersionRequirement

   and set the value to 1.3

8. Now just quit out of the Property Editor (red jellybean, you know the drill), close the Finder, then double-click on the SkypePlugin to install. (NB – stop Adium and Skype before you do this.) Works for me!

Thanks to the good folks at adiumxtras for this.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I try to answer the question of whether our politicians really ‘get’ the Internet.

There is a huge amount of change being driven into our society by technology – what we do for a living, how we do it, how we are entertained, and even how we interact with our politicians. And we definitely deserve leaders who comprehend and embrace that change, rather than people who cling to the verities of the industrial age.

Today’s piece was a bit of a light-hearted romp through party web sites and policies. Read on for my speaking notes or listen to the podcast.

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To those seeking to overturn Judge David Harvey’s Internet-only suppression order I can only say: be careful what you wish for.

I have no knowledge of this case beyond what’s in the media, but I do know that Judge Harvey is an expert at the Internet and its relevance to law. If he has some reason for suppressing these names on the Internet but not elsewhere then I am certain that reason makes sense legally. If people persist in taking the name from other media and putting on the Internet then Judge Harvey’s attempt will fail. If that happens, you can be certain that the next time a case like this rolls around the suppression will be blanket, not just the Internet.

I’m amazed that the off-line media are challenging this decision (reportedly).

From now on, I’m going to be on Nine to Noon straight after the 11am news on Thursdays. A slightly earlier time – don’t miss it!

Luckily, we don’t have to figure that one out. Because Judith Tizard, the Minister for Copyright, told us that Internet is a human right last night at a book launch.

She was launching Connecting the Clouds, about which I will blog more shortly, at the National Library here in Wellington. And she made this bold assertion in front of a crowd of perhaps 100 people including the Government CIO and the National Librarian.

Now, the thing about human rights is that you can’t, morally, deprive someone of them. So, we can rest assured the Government won’t be passing any legislation which cuts off people’s Internet access for doing something that, say, copyright holders object to.

That’s good news.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about how you save sound and vision on a computer, and about how broadcasters like Radio New Zealand can make their programmes available over the Internet. And I talked about the importance of free formats, and announced that RNZ is now progressively making its content available in the free Ogg format. Great decision, guys.

Read on for my speaking notes or listen to the podcast. In Ogg.

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I’ve ranted before about the futility and stupidity of email disclaimers that so many people and companies use. Here’s one that someone puts on his email which makes that same point through humour:

This email is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the
intended recipient you must burn your computer, while standing on one
foot and chanting the entire jabberwocky.
The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of the
person who expressed them.

Yep. All email disclaimers are as silly as this one, it’s just that the author of this one understands that.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about the technology involved in secretly taping someone. It’s not that hard, although most of us would consider it very rude.
Read on for my speaking notes or listen to the podcast.

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