Idlemind - nickcoster.com

Well nearly a year ago Bill Gates announced that he was going to stop spam in it’s track within just a few year. Big words I though at the time. I was also nervous about what the solution may entail, ie Microsoft making changes to it’s software ensure that only email from Microsoft system to Microsoft system would be authenticated and therefore anything else would be treated as suspect.

I looks like Bill has discovered bigger phish to phry. In an interview in Germany regarding security Bill Gates has lost some of his optimism about defeating spam although still believes that there will be a spam free future. His attentions have turned to the promotion of the newer security threats like phishing. This time he is talking a lot about collaboration, which I agree, had to be the case.

In Australia I have seen different industries (ie ISP and financial) all scrambling collaborating amongst themselves but not engaging each other. This should be a great way of getting messages about security out to customers (again both ISP and Financial services). The banks could identify the messages that they need their customers to hear and then work with ISP’s to help distribute these messages. After email and general browsing, the use of online banking is the biggest driver of online take up so there should be a shared interest in getting customers online and feeling safe about using online banking services.

For myself, I have also had to back track from my earlier bravado. My old email account nick@bigpond.com is dead and gone, swallowed by the deluge of spam that it received. Even though I had a multi-layered defence to wipe out the worst of it, too much time was wasted in the fight.

Phone rings. That is my morning alarm. I have set my mobile phone to play a not too annoying ring tone at 6am every weekday. It starts as a distant grove and the phone jumps about with it’s internal vibrate. On good mornings I have it close at hand and it can be reached and snoozed without major trauma. On bad mornings it is in another room and demands that I get out of bed altogether immediately spoiling my mood.

Today started as a good morning. I had had a solid six hours of sleep, so I was fully awake with just one snooze cycle. Because we are travelling to the gold coast today there are a few extra things to be done. Mainly packing.

After a bit of coffee and water the day is started. I find myself ready for work a bit earlier than expected. Just as I make to leave the heavens open up and the air is thick with water. This sets me back to my normal ‘just in time pace’ as the rain eases after only 10minutes of serious dumping. The threat of another downpour results in the additional baggage of an umbrella, which naturally became unnecessary once I had left the house.

A quick bus trip and a walk up ‘The Plaza’ to work. This brings me to a little pet hate of mine. ‘The Plaza’. In the US, NBC’s Today show broadcasts from the Rockefeller Centre in New York. Most mornings the show personalities step outside and meet with the crowd in Rockefeller Plaza. Since this is actually the name of the place calling it the Plaza makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately the same logic does not apply to the Channel 7 Sunrise show, now located at the top of Martin Place in Sydney. The Sunrise team, however, insist on calling their bit of Martin Place ‘The Plaza’ as they do their best to rip off the format of the US show. This probably wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t have to walk past and through it every morning.

Once at work I settled into a surprisingly productive morning finishing a customer activity model and then getting into writing p some project opinions and conclusions. At some point, I have decided, I have to stick my neck out and write these down. I need to release my opinions to paper and share them. There is no point just talking about them.

As I was thinking about what to write I had a chat with one of the other staff who (I think) is more supportive of my ideas than I had first thought. This spurred me on to get some good stuff out of my head.

Day over. Rush home to finish getting ready to go to the Gold Coast. Everything packed. Go. I have decided to drive in and use the long term parking, so sorting out the transport for that part of the trip is easy. I thought that the Long Term Car park (the LTC as it is known to the locals) was near the normal car park. Not a chance. You can’t even see the airport from where I finally parked.

This was beginning to make me worried about time. I was stuck a good 20 to 30 minutes walk (actually even that might be optimistic) away from the airport with only 35 minutes till the flight was due to board. I found a bus stop labelled ‘Stop B’ and waited, hoping that these shuttle busses would be more frequent under pressure than might normally be the case. A few anxious minutes later two Japanese chaps turned up, dumped their stereotypical golf clubs and luggage at the buss stop then commenced (even more stereotypically) taking photos of the sprawl of the LTC.

They were startled out of their photographic bliss by the final arrival of the shuttle bus. I was feeling a little more comfortable now that I was on the move again, but knew that I was running very low on time. After a bit of misdirected wandering from one terminal to the next I found the check in for my flight. This was on of the new digital self-service kiosks with the groovy touch screens. There was a problem though. The time on the screens did not match the time on my itinerary, stating instead that the plane would be leaving exactly an hour later than originally stated. With my newly minted boarding pass in hand I checked with the human check in who confirmed the yes the flight was delayed due to some busted widget somewhere so they had to source another plane.

The hour ended up stretching in to nearly two before we finally boarded. This is the reason that I have had the opportunity to get all of this on paper tonight.

…..

The plane in now descending. Apparently Hewitt defeated Roddick in the tennis while we waited in the Sydney terminal. I am now just hoping that the hire car guys hasn’t gone home’..

Every day I use Google News to provide me with updates on whatever particular subject I am working or thinking about at the time. Over the past few months I have been looking at the effects of “phishing” and online fraud that have been plaguing online financial institutions over the last 18 months or so.

Every now and then I will see an article that is expressing a new idea or opinion I think is worthy of some feedback. It was with some surprise that today Google news roundup on “Phishing” returned my very own comments.
I am not sure what to read into this:

a) my comments matter
b) Google can find anything anywhere
c) Google’s news sources are more limited than first guessed

I think that the answer is a combination of b & c. Some day I may be able to claim with more authority that a) applies but I think that will require more people either strongly agreeing with me or strongly disagreeing. Just responding in some way will do.

It is now nearly Christmas, and a longtime since I “shared” with the world. The most noticeable trend here is that while I am happy there is no (or at least less) need to tell my tales of woe to the world. I was reminded of my lack of worldly communication at a recent Xmas party. This is why I have dedicated this post to Bretto. (note if you don’t understand the relevance of the tittle link don’t worry, it’s an “in” joke.)

Since leaving my old job in June I have felt a weight lift from my shoulders. The work I am doing now has been exciting and full of new experiences. The best thing though is the sense that the business respects what I bring to the organization and wants to keep me around. I never had that sense at my old job.

Fast forward?.
I started this post on the 20th of December but I have only just made the time to try and get back into the swing of things here. It is now New Year 2005. The holiday break was good to have but as always I almost feel that I need to really get away now.

To any one who is still checking this ole thing from time to time – thanks. I?ll be working harder to keep up with it this year.