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Entries tagged with rants:

Why notebooks are so cheap

Dec 14th

Now I know why brand new laptop computers have become so cheap over the last couple of years.More >>

Paying for "quality" journalism?

Aug 10th, 2009

Apparently, the major media moguls in this country are preparing to start charging for online access to their websites.More >>

Grammar and spelling are still important

Jul 27th, 2009

I recently spotted this little gem in the jobs section at Gumtree, posted by some bloke who wanted (presumably paid) work as a website content editor:More >>

Cheapskate job offers

Mar 2nd, 2009

A local outfit who apparently specialise in transforming ideas into results, were recently seen advertising for fresh staff. What do you suppose this particular senior web development role would be paying?More >>

Dodgy listings on realestate.com.au

Jan 19th, 2009

There's plenty of evidence that real estate agents continue to engage in dodgy practices. Shonky agents like David McFarlane, for instance.More >>

Linkedin groups spam

Jan 12th, 2009

Linkedin groups was designed to be a place for members to form communities around professional interests.More >>

Shame on you, Toshiba

Feb 25th, 2008

A big thumbs down to Toshiba for their negligent decision to not offer any refunds to people who trusted them enough in the last couple of years to buy one of their HD DVD players.More >>

We sell America for the ruble!

Nov 13th, 2007

I've been copping a spate of Cyrillic spam in the last few weeks, which my mailfilter has been happily dumping into the garbage, where it belongs. Here's a recent example:More >>

Stupid browser, V7

Sep 26th, 2007

I'd like you to hover your mouse pointer over the mugshot on the left. What does the tooltip text say?More >>

Advice is now chargeable

Aug 4th, 2007

Even though I specialise in software development, people regularly ask me for advice on a whole range of computer-related issues. Hardware upgrades, home networks, virus removal. Anything to do with computers, really.More >>

The strawberry meth hoax

Jun 28th, 2007

A few days ago I got one of those this is not a joke, warn the kids chainmails from someone who should have known better than to just blindly and carelessly forward this type of rubbish:More >>

Kooky, quirky Safari

Jun 22nd, 2007

I tried the brand new Safari browser for Windows last week. While I'm still a little puzzled why Apple would even bother entering the Windows market, I've noticed a couple of things which I don't particularly care for:More >>

Stupid defaults in web forms

May 21st, 2007

One of the more important decisions in software application design is that user choices in forms should have default values, where possible, and those default values should be the most likely ones that most users would want chosen.More >>

Email pet peeves

May 9th, 2007

Peggy Duncan over at Fastpitch writes about email pet peeves that cause stress in the workplace. If you found our post on email etiquette a little disdainful, have a read of Peggy's article.More >>

Email subject lines are important

Apr 16th, 2007

It's not that I'm the only person in the world who is busy. We're all busy. But far too often, I get an email which struggles to get my attention due to the subject line being either a single short word, too ambiguous, irrelevant or simply missing.More >>

Don't waste my bandwidth

Mar 25th, 2007

I got spammed recently by some knuckleheads who curiously must have thought I'd somehow be interested in their cheesy and unsolicited newsletter. The email consisted of a whopping 415Kb embedded JPEG image and a short text intro:More >>

Adobe kuler ain't so flash

Jan 19th, 2007

Adobe have been promoting Kuler as their first web-hosted application whose reason for existing is to create, and share color themes online. But try actually getting Kuler to work on their website, if you use Firefox.More >>

Replacing stupid laws with moronic ones

Nov 25th, 2006

Has anyone read the Australian Government's proposed new copyright laws? The new reforms on Philip Ruddock's website defy logic and common sense. From their Q&A section:More >>

How to lose a customer, Amazon style

Aug 22nd, 2006

Having been assigned the job of transferring some 20-odd kilograms of VHS-C and Video8 tapes to DVD, I set upon the task of researching video capturing, editing and authoring software.More >>

Satisfied with wannabe broadband

Aug 10th, 2006

Apparently, according to our very own Senator Coonan, most Australians are perfectly satisfied with what I referred to as wannabe broadband, some twelve months ago.More >>

The 1 percent rule of spam?

Aug 1st, 2006

A recent New York Times article proves just why spam is still so effective: the world contains enough computer-using knuckeheads to make it profitable.More >>

Westpac ranked the worst for website presentation

Jul 28th, 2006

One of our most popular articles is my rant on the Westpac crippled feedback page which attempted to explain that the banking giant not only had a poor grasp of web standards and design, but was also very difficult to communicate with.More >>

Chain letter response

May 8th, 2006

A couple of day ago, I got another one of those chain letters which promises much money, just for forwarding the stupid email to as many people as you know. Even though this particular email has been circulating around the internet for at least a couple of years, it seems that there's plenty of greedy suckers out there who seemingly continue to take the bait.More >>

Are Bitacle blog thieves too?

Mar 14th, 2006

I have previously talked about websites which offer stolen content in the guise of some sort of service and now we're been forced to ban Bitacle from accessing our server.More >>

Coke Zero (Out of Ten)

Jan 25th, 2006

Apparently, Coke are pumping in some $18 million on the new Coke Zero campaign in the hope of getting lots of yuppies switching across to the new no real sugar, just artificial sweeteners (but we guarantee that it's good for you) fizzy drink.More >>

Westpac security improvements

Jan 17th, 2006

A couple of months ago, Charles Wright, the IT blogger for The Age, questioned why virtually none of the Australian banks used dual authentication, to improve security for their customers.More >>

Blog thieves

Jan 12th, 2006

Q: When is a blog not a blog? A: When the content is simply stolen, verbatim.More >>

Sony software: dumb, dodgy and dishonest?

Dec 20th, 2005

For as long as the their executives continue to attend stupidity classes, Sony will continue to cop a battering from the consumers. Their Star Wars Galaxies online game has earned comments like:More >>

Sony software: dumb, defective and dangerous

Nov 23rd, 2005

Sony have embarrassed themselves recently with their dumb, defective and dangerous attempt at copy protecting some CD releases under their Sony BMG label.More >>

Email etiquette

Nov 19th, 2005

Dealing with junk mail from spammers is one thing. But junk mail I personally get from people I know is another. Chain letters, stupid attachments, pointless replies and virus hoaxes are not only a waste of bandwidth but they're a waste of time as well.More >>

Zombie hunting

Nov 12th, 2005

Our federal government has finally decided to do something about the scourge that is spam by launching an initiative which has been designed to identify all virus-infected computers in this country.More >>

Westpac crippled feedback page

Oct 21st, 2005

Recently, while attempting to use the Westpac website for online banking, I experienced some problems. Not wanting to phone their hotline, I attempted to contact them via email. Like so many other larger organisations, Westpac don't publish their support email addresses, insisting you use their online feedback form instead.More >>

Search engine meta tags - deux

Sep 16th, 2005

In my previous post about the relevance of search engine meta tags I claimed that the keywords meta tag was almost useless these days. As a follow up, I thought I'd show you a real-world example.More >>

Search engine meta tags

Sep 6th, 2005

This is old news but perhaps it's worth mentioning again. Quite some time ago, Danny Sullivan from Search engine watch had written an excellent article, which ought to re-read by every so-called webmaster and anyone else claiming to understand search engine optimisation.More >>

Beware of Microsoft AntiSpyware

Sep 2nd, 2005

Microsoft had a big hit on their hands earlier this year when they released a free version of the anti-spyware software they purchased from GIANT Company Software, Inc.More >>

Readnotify. Spyware?

Aug 24th, 2005

When I first heard of this from a colleague of mine, and based on her enthusiastic explanation, I thought it was just another shonky internet venture. But I was only partially right, it's a little more sinister than that.More >>

Weasel words

Aug 22nd, 2005

One of the less insidious repercussions of America's global business culture has caused such a degradation of our language that nobody is really sure what corporate sentences mean any more. But to make things even worse, slick corporate marketing language, littered with weasel words is infesting other aspects of our communication too.More >>

Spam gangs

Aug 15th, 2005

According to Spamhaus, their ROKSO database is: The Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database collates information and evidence on known professional spam operations that have been terminated by a minimum of 3 Internet Service Providers for spam offenses.More >>

Wannabe broadband

Aug 8th, 2005

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), broadband is defined as a transmission capacity that is faster than 1.5 Mbps.More >>

Why spam works

Aug 5th, 2005

Spammers are criminals, it's as simple as that. If no one responded to junk email, and didn't buy products and services sold in this manner, then spam would be as extinct as the dodo bird.More >>

Software patents

Jul 7th, 2005

According to the free online dictionary of computing a software patent is a patent intended to prevent others from using some programming technique.More >>

Click here. No, click there!

Jul 2nd, 2005

If all interface designers bothered to read W3C's HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines we wouldn't have the current state of link idiocy that seems to abound the web.More >>

WWW should be abolished

Jun 20th, 2005

Provided the web server software for a domain is configured correctly, a web site can be accessed without entering the www. Try our own site, for instance.More >>

Hungarian notation

Jun 6th, 2005

Hungarian notation is a naming convention in computer programming, in which the name of an object indicates its type and intended use. According to Charles Simonyi, the inventor of Hungarian notation and senior programmer (at the time) at Microsoft, it was invented so:More >>