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Editorial

Engadine Web Services wish our customers and readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy, safe and prosperous New Year.

The next Engadine Web Services Newsletter will be produced in February 2008...

Bruce Beresford, Manager & Editor

In this Issue:

• Featured Site - Future Antique Furniture
• Australians 'encourage' online fraud
• Labor officially dismantles Howard's broadband experts
• Vista stumbles through first birthday
• Windows Vista: Sold but not deployed
• Quotes of the day

Featured Site  

Future Antique Furniture

Future Antique Furniture is a proud importer of premium grade solid mahogany handcrafted furniture of enduring value. We provide quality of excellence at affordable prices.

We carry a diverse range that continually changes, although we have many standard items that are consistent favourites. Our range features dining tables, chairs, desks, bookcases, chiffoniers, showcases, bedroom, occasional furniture and much more.

Whether you are after and single piece or have a major project to complete, Future Antiques has over 20 years experience and will gladly help you fulfil your vision.

We can help you design a one-off original piece to suit your specific requirements, although sometimes it can be as easy as changing the size or details on one of our standard designs. The quality of our furniture is like nothing else, premium grade timbers, sprung seat upholstery on chairs, your choice of fabrics, desks with gold tooled leather inserts. Visit the Future Antique Furniture website...

Australians 'encourage' online fraud  

DESPITE the dangers of online identity theft, research has found two-thirds of Australians were more likely to share personal information with other people on the internet than they would in person.

More than 50 per cent of Australians have provided three or more types of personal details online to sites such as blogs, social networking sites, shopping or auction sites, the survey by Symantec said.

The study also showed Australians typically had more than 10 online profiles or virtual identities. These might include email, instant messenger, a membership to a forum or a blog, through to a virtual persona for an online game or Second Life.

The Symantec Identity Survey, released today to coincide with World Computer Security Day, revealed 20 per cent of Australians believed their online profile was closer to their “true self’’ than their real-world identity.

It found the relative anonymity of the internet, which encouraged users to be more open, also exposed them to more risk.

While 43 per cent of Australians believe online risks would never stop or limit the way they interact online, the survey said.

"One of the key things is the social networking sites where people have a select group of friends that can access their photos or profiles," David Freer, Symantec consumer business Asia-Pacific and Japan vice-president said. "What you have got to ask is ‘who am I giving access to?' and 'do I want to share all of the information I am putting up there?'"

He said people should consider how relevant it was to put information such as their home address or date of birth online.

AustraliaIT Nov 2007. more >>>

Labor officially dismantles Howard's broadband experts  

Labor's new Broadband Minister has officially dismantled the expert taskforce installed by the Howard government to set up its planned fibre-to-the-node network.

In an announcement sent to interested parties on Friday, the expert taskforce said that the development of guidelines around the network has now been stopped.

"The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, has decided that the Expert Taskforce will not be continued. On this basis, and in accordance with section 10.1(i) of the Guidelines for High Speed Broadband Network Infrastructure Proposals, the process has been terminated," the announcement said.

The taskforce, set up in June, attracted almost 50 submissions from local government bodies, industry groups, telcos and other interested parties.

During his time in opposition, Labor's Conroy was critical of the taskforce and promised earlier this year to dismiss the Howard government's panel and replace it with a Labor-picked group "that knows something about telecoms".

Labor is now planning its own open access fibre-to-the-node network, covering 98 percent of the Australian population.

Telstra has already criticised the Labor plan, with CEO Sol Trujillo signalling the telco's reluctance to get involved in a public-private partnership with the government -- reluctance the Minister for Broadband dismissed as "jockeying".

"We will hold an open and transparent process to determine who will build the network with our ambition being to complete the process by the end of June next year," Conroy said. "We expect that there will be much public commentary, jockeying and lobbying from parties as they work to convince the government that they are best placed to build the new network and seek the terms that are most favourable to them." ZDNetAustralia Dec 2007.

Vista stumbles through first birthday  

One year after Microsoft officially launched its Vista operating system for business, it's fair to say that it hasn't been a smooth ride for the software giant.

Announced with the usual marketing razzmatazz that accompanies a new addition to the Windows family, there were high hopes that Microsoft could prove its detractors wrong with a product release which showed that innovation and risk taking were back on the agenda for a company that appeared to be stuck in a rut.

That didn't happen. While Vista can be seen as an evolution from Windows XP, not even Microsoft can claim it's a giant step forward. Some critics argue that Vista was hamstrung before it even hit the streets, after Microsoft decided to pull some of its most innovative features, such as the beefed-up filing system known as "WinFS", to get the product out the door.

For all the latest news, analysis and opinion on Windows, click here The improvements over XP that were included appeared to some users to be mostly cosmetic — like the Aero user interface, with its 3D approach to sorting through windows. It's flashy but not really a killer reason to upgrade — and something that Mac fans have argued was standard in OS X for years.

Performance has also been a factor, with Vista branded by some industry researchers as the most processor-hungry operating system to ever come out of Redmond — something that jars with the current industry drive towards energy efficiency and green IT. ZDNet Australia Dec 2007.

Windows Vista: Sold but not deployed  

Microsoft says it remains happy with enterprise sales of Vista -- however, the software behemoth acknowledges that many businesses which have bought Vista licences are yet to deploy the software.

"We have had a 27 percent increase in [Vista volume licence sales]. One of the benefits [for customers] is access to the next version of Windows and the other is access to the Enterprise edition [of Vista], which has its own unique features," Microsoft Australia’s director of Windows Business Group, Jeff Putt, told ZDNet Australia.

"We have seen record sales in enterprise agreements. We measure ... how many seats are assigned to licensing and how many Windows users we are getting," said Putt.

However, when asked how many organisations with an enterprise agreement had actually deployed Windows Vista, Putt admitted that just because the companies had paid for licences, it did not mean they had rolled out the operating system yet.

"Deployment is a different issue. We have seen record [enterprise agreements] and that is an intention to deploy. The first step in a business using [Vista] is agreeing to use it," he said.

According to Putt, most computers sold in the past two years are able to run Vista but enterprises are still holding back deployment to ensure their current hardware is Vista-compatible and there are no conflicts with legacy applications.

ZDNet Australia Dec 2007. more >>>

Quotes of the Day  

olitics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)

What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. Dave Barry (1947 - )

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore? Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887)

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

Brought to you by The Quotations Page

Have any questions relating to the internet or your computer? Let me know and I will research an answer and use this for future entries in our newsletter. Pass on your questions via the Enquiry Form on our Web-Site or send me an email.

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