ben.hamilton.id.au

Wow!. via Schneier on Security.

It is now two weeks in to my new digs at Evolution Marketing – and it sure is fun.

Primarily I’ve been learning how to drive ACT!, software to take care of your contact management. Yesterday and today I’ve been playing with custom tables in the ACT! MS-SQL database. While ACT! looks after contacts and tasks, meetings & calls to do with your contacts really well, some clients would like to be able to do even more, like handle job sheets etc. Which is the reason for the custom tables. These allow us to track all sorts of other information and connect them to contacts & companies.

I’ve also setup a Blackberry Bold simulator and a Windows Mobile 6 Emulator, this allows me to experience the same things as our clients, notably HandHeldContact, which allows you to sync multiple calenders, notes, histories etc to your phone – loads more than MS Exchange alone allows.

To paraphrase the paragraphs above, I’m having fun learning new stuff!

The other staff at Evolution are great to work with, the coffee is good and all the tech toys I’ve asked for have been delivered, with the exception of the telephone headset, but it is on the way so they’re forgiven ;-). Woot!

Update 20th Oct: Got the telephone headset on Friday afternoon. Cool.

This is the best explaination I’ve seen so far of the US credit crisis. It runs for approx 6min on youtube, you will want speakers. Clear and simple.

Bonus link: Economics explained (this one takes the mikey, the other link above is serious).

Well. Didn’t expect to see this, but here it is, the RFCs regarding SMTP have been updated. (hat tip)

Makes for an interesting read if your into this kind of thing.

All passengers aboard now! This train is leaving the station.

Yup, some who read this will immediately have a chuckle (there is an ‘in’ joke above).

The news is this, I’ve left my good friends at Dolphin Technology Group and moved to a smaller firm on the south-side of Brisbane.

Why the move? Well after spending nearly two and a half years supporting MYOB AE, HandiSoft and a bunch of other Accounting Industry products up and down the eastern coast, I got tired of the traveling and being away from home. The new job has no travel. So I guess the ‘train’ I’ve just caught isn’t leaving the station after all. Perhaps I’m really standing on the platform, waving goodbye to those still on the train?

Who is the new firm? Evolution Marketing – who specialise in ACT! and Sage CRM.

Yesterday was my first day – after the induction it was straight into ‘sponge’ mode. Training began. More today. And tomorrow. Yippie. This is fun ;-).

This sort of thing REALLY annoys me. Security through obscurity is a FEATURE of this product, the Wyse V10L thin client.

To quote:

And, with an unpublished API, Wyse Thin OS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market.

What rot. What that means translated is “not many people know how our stuff works, so therefore not many people can exploit it”.

And, yes, this may truly mean that it isn’t often exploited. But at some point it will be. Far better to be secure by design than by lack of being a target.

Here is a list of just a few tabs currently open in my browser:

• Re-Router™ Technology, Network Protection without Network Hardware
• I Am Knowledge Worker 2.0
• lightweight and jaunty – ready for a goggle clad steampunk engineer to take to the road
• Linux-based operating system for thin clients
• Windows Vista Firewall
• How to build your own electricity producing Solar Panel
• Find out of print books

;-) I don’t want to lose track of these…

PS: I’d forgotten how fun it can be to just spend an hour or so just ‘surfin the web…

WOW! I’ve just pointed to these pieces of art – http://www.tomgiesler.com/painting-anatomicals.htm.

Grotesque and amazing all at once.

When I was doing web development work, we oft liked to say “Content is king” it is vital for search engine optimization.

My point of view on this has changed today: Content is not and never has been king.

My new point of view is this: Comprehension is king.

This is because you can have all the content you want, if the reader of your content, your client, does not comprehend it, then what was the point?

Content must be comprehended by your intended readers.

Is content any less important. No, simply that comprehension is MORE important and the structure of that content aids or hinders comprehension.

It also made me realise that most of what I post here has been primarily for one of two reasons:

1. My comprehension – so I don’t forget what it is or where it is
2. For one of my clients comprehension – so they can have a reference point to an issue

At lunch talking with an associate it was one of those little ‘light bulb’ moments for me – that Comprehension is king and that this is why I post on my blog.

Yup, PuTTY has saved the day again!

No it hasn’t actually filled any gap, but tonight I needed to restart the named service on a server, not being at my own computer (yes, I actually have a life occasionally), a quick google for PuTTY pointed to it, downloaded and mere seconds later logged in and service named restart had web URLs resolving once again.