Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Software Freedom Day Notes: ACTA

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Mark Harris lead this session. Was at SSC, MORST, now Independent. When Wikileaks in May released ACTA doc, saw NZ mentioned, began digging. ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Proposed by Japan and USA, but not limited to them at all. About eight countries, mainly G8 and a few ...

Software Freedom Day

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

I'll be in Wellington on Saturday, September 20th, for Software Freedom Day. It's open source's open day, a chance for the general public who might have been curious about open source to come along and learn more. There'll be copies of Linux given out and a WellyLUG installfest ...

The Tyranny of Distance

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Jenny Morel is raising a $100M NZ VC fund. That's good news, in that NZ needs smart angels and VCs. I've had a number of NZ friends making the rounds of US venture capital firms and angels looking for investors, and the message has always been "not while ...

National’s Broadband Plans

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

I see in Rod Drury's blog that National have released their first real economic policy and it's to do with funding fibre-to-the-home in NZ. It's good! Anyone who travels knows how dire the bandwidth situation is here, and it's worse on the ground. For me, bandwidth = productivity. ...

Telecom hosting not worth the premium

Monday, March 17th, 2008

A client made the decision to use Telecom as their web site host. I argued against it because the price differential was so great between Telecom and, well, anyone else. The client's management decided to go with solid blue chip Telecom. The service we've had from them ...

Travelocity are incompetent fuckwits suckled at Satan’s poisonous nipples

Monday, March 17th, 2008

I took a trip to ETech earlier this month. I initially attempted to book the trip using Travelocity but it turned into a massive clusterfuck of their making. I've documented it below in case you, my lovely reader, need any reason to avoid this dribbling shit trickle of ...

Crafty Kiwis

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Congrats to Sue Tyler and the Ponoko team, and all the others who were interviewed by Peter Griffin for the Idealog issue focusing on craft. The article (which will be online in a few weeks) has photos of various Ponoko-made goods, including a necklace of sheep which looked awfully ...

Microsoft sues its customers

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

There's a lot of talk about this Fortune article around Microsoft, Linux, and the 235 patents that Microsoft claim Linux infringes upon. Here's my redux: Microsoft is extorting patent payments from users of open source software, beginning with the customers who also use Microsoft software. Microsoft has ...

From US to NZ

Wednesday, August 30th, 2006

I just got back from a week in the US for Foo Camp, where I had a great time shopping two ideas around: New Zealand can be a hub of innovation, and Kids aren't being turned onto science and technology as careers Re: the ...

NZ Expanding Immigration

Friday, June 30th, 2006

NZ Herald reports the government wants at least 47,000 skilled immigrants and will recognize skills in applicants from India and China for the first time. I love that the desired professions include "IT professionals, plumbers, and engineers."