GLENN’S NOTEBOOK

Fair Work upholds sack for worker’s Facebook diatribe

computer technician Damian O’Keefe was dismissed after posting on Facebook last year that he “wonders how the f . . k work can be so f . . king useless and mess up my pay again. C . . ts are going down tomorrow.”
Mr O’Keefe’s employer, a Townsville franchise of the retail electrical goods business, The Good Guys, believed the post constituted a threat to Kelly Taylor, an operations manager responsible for processing the pay of employees.
Mr O’Keefe admitted the target of his comments was Ms Taylor.
The day after the comments were posted, employer Troy Williams told Mr O’Keefe that “I am taking it you resigned. You can’t work here — you made threats against us.”
What was published “was about a co-worker and was published so that some of his co-workers could see what he had written”.
his comments were not intended to be seen by Ms Taylor.
He said his Facebook privacy settings meant only his select group of 70 friends could see his comments, but admitted 11 were co-workers.
The tribunal’s deputy president, Deidre Swan, said “common sense would dictate” that a worker could not publish insulting and threatening comments about another employee.
“The fact that the comments were made on the applicant’s home computer, out of work hours, does not make any difference,” she said.
She found Mr O’Keefe had engaged in serious misconduct and dismissed his unfair dismissal application.

Email tracked to bomb suspect Paul Peters: court documents

MADELEINE Pulver was at her Sydney home when a man in a multi-coloured balaclava, carrying an aluminium baseball bat entered her bedroom and said, “Sit down and no one needs to get hurt”, a court has heard.

‘’It can ONLY be opened safely, if you follow the instructions and comply with its terms and conditions,’’ the note said.
Those instructions included emailing a gmail account in the name of Dirk Struan, the fictional character from James Clavell’s 1966 novel, Tai-Pan, which would then provide details about transferring a ‘’defined sum once you acknowledge and confirm receipt of this message’’, the court documents say.
Police allege the email account was created at Chicago Airport on May 30 this year and travel documents show that Mr Peters was at that location on that day.
The account was used a further three times on August 3, the day of the bomb hoax: once at the Kincumber Library, on the NSW central coast and twice from the nearby Avoca Beach video shop.

Google maps out its master plan

Google’s biggest deal in its 13-year history (huge $US12.5 billion ($12bn) takeover of mobile phone business Motorola Mobility ) will transform it from a pure software company that operates the world’s most widely used search engine into one that also makes smartphones and tablets.
The company will also control vital wireless patents that will enable it to take on anybody – not just Apple, but Microsoft and others – in the mobile domain.
will give the company access to Motorola’s portfolio of 17,000 actual and 7500 pending wireless patents. It comes weeks after Google lost out to a consortium of tech heavyweights, including Apple and Microsoft, in buying patents held by the bankrupt company Nortel.Google feared that being shut out of the Nortel deal would threaten its Android operating system by leaving it vulnerable to patent suits.
the deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2012
Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $US40 per share in cash, a premium of 63 per cent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday
Google did not confirm that it has agreed to pay a break fee of $US2.5bn if it walked away from the deal

Harvey Norman warns of retail closures

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/harvey-norman-warns-of-retail-closures/story-e6frgakx-1226115500710
Mr Harvey said everything in retail at the moment was extremely difficult and the experience was the worst for years.
“There’s no doubt in the world in the next six months many (electronic retailers) will have to close. It’s just a matter of how many.”

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Online, mobile apps key to Country Road’s future

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/online-store-ensures-sales-never-get-away/story-e6frgakx-1226115505639
trialling free delivery of online purchases and launching new smartphone applications.
Country Road will rely on its online store to ensure customers who visit their stores will never be turned away if an item is out of stock.
In coming months, Country Road will introduce a “product availability locator” that will allow internet users to make a purchase or see if the item is available — in real time — at their nearest store.

Westfield, Facebook team up for discounts

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/westfield-facebook-team-up-for-discounts/story-e6frgakx-1226115047611
Shoppers will be alerted to discounts when they use Facebook Places to “check-in” at Westfield-operated shopping centres nationwide.

Westfield said it was testing the new technology with selected speciality retailers such as Angus & Coote and Cotton On.
Meanwhile Commonwealth Bank have teamed with Facebook to offer discounts, including free movie tickets, using the technology for selected customers.
KFC and 7-11 have also jumped on the Check In Deals bandwagon. (Foursquare??)

Coles online sales equal to five supermarkets

ONLINE sales at supermarket giant Coles is the equivalent of around five stores, a senior executive said.

Coles booked $32 billion in sales for the 2011 financial year and operates 742 supermarkets nationwide. On average each store contributed $43 million.

Man jailed for Facebook incitement to riot to appeal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14557772

Jordan Blackshaw, from Marston, was jailed for four years at Chester Crown Court on Tuesday, along with Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, from Warrington.
Blackshaw’s barrister said his 21-year-old client and his family were “somewhat shocked by the sentence”.

Large ISPs face $2m penalty over service guarantees

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/266308,large-isps-face-2m-penalty-over-service-guarantees.aspx

Large internet service providers could face fines of up to $2 million if they do not meet performance benchmarks for customer connections, fault repair and appointments.
From October 1, providers with more than 100,000 services regulated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s customer service guarantee (CSG) would be required to meet the set performance benchmarks 90 percent of the time.
The CSG timeframes stated that providers establish a customer connection in between two and 15 days, and repair a fault up to four days after it was reported, depending on location and complexity.
Affected customers could claim up to $48.40 a day depending on the length of waiting period and type of complaint.
Those performance targets were deemed by the ACMA not to have been met by many service providers.