GLENN’S SHOWNOTES
DrupalCon coming to Australia in 2013
the Drupal Association has announced that next year Australia will host an official DrupalCon in February.
DrupalCon Sydney will be held in Coogee, 6-9 February, and will be headlined by Drupal creator Dries Buytaert. The theme will be “Growing Drual Downunder”.
Who should attend:
- Anyone who wants to learn about the open source Drupal CMS and how it can work for their websites
- Web developers, themers, site architects, project managers, content authors, designers, front and back end developers and more who want to engage with the community behind Drupal
- Web professionals and firms who offer or are seeking to provide Drupal related services
- Anyone working for an organisation that’s adopted Drupal as their CMS
- Technology decision makers
Apple uses reservation system for iPad sales in China to avoid skirmishes
to buy the product from an Apple store, customers have to make a reservation between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. local time, starting on Thursday. The stores can only accept a limited amount of reservations each day, and customers who fail to receive one will have to try again another day.
in January, the launch of the new iPhone 4S in China turned ugly, when hundreds of customers had waited outside Beijing’s Apple Store in the Sanlitun district, only to later be told the store would not open for the day. Apple gave no explanation.
In response, an outraged customer began throwing eggs at the store, which later led to a scuffle with security guards. Apple then said it would temporarily suspend iPhone 4S sales at its five retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai.
Apple’s Beijing store in the Sanlitun district was previously the site of another skirmish relating to the sale of the white iPhone 4. Customers broke the store’s glass door, following a dispute with company security workers.
Qantas ditches BlackBerry for iPhone – will more businesses follow suit?
In another blow to Research in Motion, Qantas will reportedly ditch its fleet of 1300 BlackBerrry smartphones for iPhones.
“There has been strong demand from Qantas employees for the iPhone, with a large majority of respondents to a recent survey indicating that this is their preferred smartphone option,” the airlines CIO Paul Jones told The Australian.
“BlackBerry 10 is coming out next year so it needs to be front and centre of businesses with a flagship device — that’s what’s a bit lacking at the moment. When BlackBerry 10 comes out we’ll see — it could be a game changer. What concerns a few people is it’s not going to be released until next calendar year, so by then a new iPhone will be out and a new version of Android will be out in January.”
Australia gets low broadband ranking
The Paris-based institution calculates that 24.6 per cent of Australians are connected to fixed (wire) broadband as of December 2011, which is below the OECD average of 25.6 per cent.
Australia ranks higher for mobile wireless broadband subscriptions, eighth out of 34 nations with 74.4 connections per 100 people, the OECD says.
Switzerland had the highest number of fixed broadband subscribers per 100 people, 39.9, while Korea topped the mobile wireless broadband connections with 100.6 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, the OECD said.
Microsoft sets Windows 8 launch as Oct. 26
Microsoft has announced that it will start selling Windows 8 on Friday, Oct. 26, a little more than three months from now.
Oct. 26 date is also significant to users now running Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, as it marks the debut of the $39.99 upgrade to Windows 8. The price is a dramatic discount from other Windows upgrade. All users who upgrade will receive Windows 8 Pro, the more advanced of the two retail editions.
Windows XP and Vista: No Office 2013 for you
The new Office will work with Windows 7 and Windows 8,” a Microsoft spokesperson said Monday in an email reply to questions about Office 2013 and Office 365. “Vista or XP will not support the new Office.”
The omission of the two operating systems means that more than half of all Windows computers — 54.6%, to be exact — now in place will be locked out of the upgrade, according to statistics compiled by Web metrics company Net Applications.
Vista peaked at a 19.1% share in October 2009 by Net Applications’ tracking — it still represents about 7% of all currently in-use copies of Windows and will account for around 5% come February 2013.
Vista, meanwhile, will not run the upcoming IE10 that Microsoft plans to ship with Windows 8 and also release for Windows 7, later this year.
Australia to assign ‘05’ mobile numbers to prevent run out
The ACMA expects ‘04’ numbers to run out as soon as 2017 based on current demand. At that point, the agency will start to assign ‘05’ numbers
In addition, ACMA will remove geographic sectors in five capital cities. The agency also plans to add geographic numbers in several regional areas to ensure adequate supply for the next 20 years, it said.
an example, prior to the change, the ACMA may have allocated numbers with the prefix (02) 99 in Sydney’s North Sector. These numbers could then be issued to customers in this area. Following the change, these same numbers can now be allocated across a broader geographic area (anywhere in the Sydney standard zone unit (SZU)) and numbers could be issued to customers in same geographic area (Sydney SZU).”
CommBank fights rivals with Android payment station
Commonwealth Bank is betting that an EFTPOS terminal that looks like a tablet will give it the edge over competitors.
The bank plans to release a wireless, Android-powered console called Albert to replace traditional EFTPOS devices in Q2 next year, it said.
CommBank said it wasn’t ready to announce pricing. However, Harte said that Albert’s “unit cost is around $700.” That’s “not official, but it’s no more expensive than existing terminals, and the software is effectively free at the moment.”
Skype glitch sends messages to the wrong contacts
The company said it will deliver an update to fix the problem in “the next few days.” No Fix for Mac
According to Skype, the problem only arises in “rare circumstances
The flaw affected updated Skype versions 5.10 for Windows, 5.8 for Mac, 4.0 for Linux, and 1.2 for Windows Phone
18 July 1968, Intel Corporation was founded in Santa Clara, Calif. Today, the company is the largest semiconductor chip maker in the world, with over 80,000 employees across the globe and a 2011 net revenue of $54 billion.
Apple ordered to publish Samsung apology
Under the order from UK High Court Judge Colin Birrs, Apple will be forced to publish details of its key loss in a patent battle against the South Korean manufacturer on its website
Apple must also take out and pay for notices published in the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, as well as The Guardian’s mobile magazine and T3.
Samsung said that “should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited”.
Apple hides from public IT price inquiry
Apple has been granted a secret “closed-door” hearing with politicians in Canberra today in lieu of a public submission to the parliamentary inquiry investigating IT product pricing.
The Australian Financial Review reported the secret meeting. Apple refused to comment on why it had declined to make a public submission.
Microsoft blames Australia’s ‘comparatively expensive market’, citing the inclusion of the GST as a point of differentiation, as well as higher labour, rent, marketing, training, supply chain and transport costs.
It also passed the buck onto its reseller partners, stating it does not set the final retail price.
“ICT products are often sold as a package of offerings, with additional support and extended warranties included in the price,” Microsoft wrote in its submission.
“The channel and value-added partners who deliver those products to consumers ultimately determine retail pricing.”
Australian software developer Applied PC Systems owner Phil Best blamed the GST for higher local prices.
He said a customer’s Australian address automatically made his company’s software 10 percent more expensive.
“Australian customers do not pay GST when they download and purchase software from overseas. However when they purchase our software, either they or we have to pay GST,” Best wrote.
He said on occasions Applied PC Systems had been forced to absorb the GST to make the sale.
Best suggested the Australian Government adopt the Gerry Harvey approach and either eliminate the GST for products priced under $1000, or enforce the GST on Australian customers buying overseas software.
“For us this is limiting the extent where we develop our software. The alternative is for us to set up an overseas website and bank account in, say, Bali and run the business remotely,” Best wrote.
The battery-powered pre-paid wi-fi 4G can connect up to five wi-fi enabled gadgets to Telstra’s 4G network simultaneously.
The hotspot is available from tomorrow for $169 with 5GB of data over 30 days.
Additional recharge cards and e-vouchers come in a variety of denominations ranging from $20 to $100.
Pedo-bear ruins Nestle’s Facebook party
Nestle has been forced to take down an image from its Kit Kat Facebook fan page, after it emerged that it was similar to an icon used to ward off paedophiles.
The picture of the nut brown-coloured bear was used briefly to promote Kit Kat Bars on the Facebook page of the Nestle-owned chocolate bar. The company said it had no idea that the image matched that of “Pedobear” – considered visual shorthand on the internet for sites posting material with inappropriate overtones towards minors
Nestle Australia & New Zealand confirmed that it had produced the image but denied any knowledge of the paedophile-linked Pedobear.
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“We produced this photo – of a real guy in a bear suit – to launch Instagram through our Facebook community,” a spokeswoman for the company said. “The picture is not Pedobear.”
“We had never heard of Pedobear,” she said. “But when the possibility of its similarity to the so-called ‘Pedobear’ was raised with us, we immediately removed it.”
YouTube launches face-blurring tool to hide identities
It said the function would be of use to activists wishing to share footage of protests involving participants who wanted to remain anonymous.
It hinted other features would follow, describing the move as “the first step towards providing visual anonymity”.
But it added that its code could not be guaranteed to work in all instances and that other safeguards might be needed.
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