tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81837123829113597302009-11-17T02:33:41.858+11:00Insider views from the technology front line - sometimes informative, sometimes scathing.Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-54884146094567601162009-11-13T12:12:00.002+11:002009-11-13T12:34:06.572+11:00

Google have announced some early findings about their research into a faster protocol to reduce latency times due to good old fashioned HTTP. HTTP was designed as a really simple protocol to delivery (primarily) text content over the Internet and thus was born the Web.One of the problems with HTTP is that it only really allows a single request to be serviced at any one time. The reason this

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-85367686087422808752009-11-10T10:14:00.005+11:002009-11-10T11:25:11.877+11:00

It's just been announced that Google is set to buy AdMob for $750M in an all-stock deal. This is the third biggest purchase Google has ever made (the only two bigger are YouTube and DoubleClick).AdMob started in 2006 so they have capitalised very well for a 3 year old business. Indeed they've been cash positive for a while now so this is a great acquisition by Google. The full gory details of the

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-80149705872547970632009-11-05T07:09:00.005+11:002009-11-05T10:09:38.110+11:00

Last night I was writing code to play around with an idea I had rather than studying the Form Guide. See today I am off to the races (Crown Oaks day at Flemington) with some clients - hence why I should have been studying the form guide and not playing around with Erlang.So I've decided to try an experiment:Can the wisdom of the Twitter crowd outperform both blind luck and the bookies favourites

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-36937937875117255342009-10-11T12:58:00.004+11:002009-10-11T13:47:20.383+11:00

Okay, so this title's probably a bit misleading as there are probably a few reasons but as far as I'm concerned there's only one thing stopping my final transition to desktop Linux for complete every day usage.PresentingIn my job I do a lot of presenting. I give major milestone presentations on projects, I present to the business on things that are going on, I present in pitches where we are

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-37219045049447702802009-10-09T13:26:00.008+11:002009-11-10T12:52:34.043+11:00

I recently gave a presentation at Web Directions South which was fantastic (the conference I'm referring to here!). The session was on cloud computing and I hope everyone got something out of it. I've put the presentation itself over at slideshareCloud Sourcing the BusinessView more presentations from Andrew Fisher.My speaking notes are below as the presentation won't make much sense without it

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-47273322843375169802009-07-29T12:08:00.006+10:002009-07-29T12:12:34.913+10:00

As TechCrunch reported: Pigs Fly as Facebook and Google work together on an Android App - there's been a few indicators that this might be happening, particularly with some random mentions here and there on Twitter but no one was really expecting anything to occur given the competitiveness between the two businesses.What's most interesting about this (particularly from my standpoint as an

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-59122529723774264272009-07-26T21:46:00.007+10:002009-07-29T10:37:43.171+10:00

I've decided to write this one up because there isn't much on large scale and high speed Django development as yet and this is all still fresh in my head so it's worth getting down on paper (or screen as it were).The agency I work for, Citrus, works with Sportsgirl, an iconic Australian Fashion Retailer and we were commissioned to help them build a community component to their site to help create

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-1145582412429839202009-07-22T09:24:00.001+10:002009-07-26T22:57:57.089+10:00

Some would say that it's already been in the heady days of GSM Data and WAP, some would say it stalled when European clients pulled all funding from mobile internet apps in the post-dot-com-crash GPRS days, some would say that with the advent of the iPhone we're there in all it's shiny-coverflow-enabled-finger-waggling-goodness.It seems like every second person is now weilding some kind of

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-68967130993725935332009-07-01T09:20:00.000+10:002009-07-22T09:24:11.987+10:00

So what with a relocation from London to Melbourne to take on the Technical Directorship of one of Australia's leading digital agencies and all that entails, keeping this blog up to date has been kind of problematic, especially with the lazy-man's alternative being Twitter and a corporate blog that I contribute to as well.I've reassessed this blog though and it's going to be taking a slight

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-40742675392522007142008-05-10T05:08:00.000+10:002008-05-17T05:28:35.373+10:00

Over here at Technology Treason we lurve ASUS' EEEPC. We liked the idea when they first came out and specifically trawled around Hong Kong computer markets to find one not long after they were launched. It's not the Apple Air or iPhone kind of aesthetic lust, we're talking about true "in sickness and in health" type love when it comes to the EEEPC.Indeed for someone to now take this device off me

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-48828969606696449042008-05-02T19:51:00.002+10:002008-05-11T20:34:43.258+10:00

I'm quite an Ubuntu fan, having followed the project since more or less it's original inception. Given the general lack of problems with it thus far you'll notice very few entries on this blog about it.Indeed various clients of mine are running Ubuntu servers that are easily maintained, easily managed and just generally easy and have been for several years. It's not necessarily an industrial

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-39874095189404669382008-04-28T04:02:00.000+10:002008-04-28T07:00:01.597+10:00

So you've got a lovely little ratings system going on your site. All of a sudden though you get slashdotted, dugg or just your marketing starts working and you have thousands of users all rating your products / services / systems / posts / videos etc and your pages start to creak."It's the shared web space you're on," say your techies, "it can't handle the users" and duly bounce you to a better

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-2169703593201114572008-04-22T17:43:00.002+10:002008-04-22T18:16:38.849+10:00

Phorm is, and will continue to be for some time I think a hugely divisive issue online. BBC have another story today about it, this time having spoken to the various security companies like F-Secure, McAffee etc about whether they will flag a message to the user about whether Phorm has been enabled or not.Phorm management have come out saying "it's only a cookie", the same as many other sites use

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-62570038750142187002008-04-21T20:43:00.004+10:002008-04-28T04:09:53.171+10:00

Update - The guys at Yahoo came to our rescue after tracing through the "network" somewhat to find someone that knows someone at Yahoo to help us out. Unfortunately their techies couldn't explain why we'd been bloack listed either but we are now officially on their whitelist so big thanks to the guys for helping us out.Yahoo are one of the original dotcoms. They've been around for a long time so

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-23397035750632266172008-03-16T04:21:00.002+11:002008-03-26T06:00:41.833+11:00

Are you listening Barclays?I like security - particularly data security and in very particular data security that protects my personal information (unlike a certain Uk government department a few months back).However, I've been around this game long enough, worked for a bank long enough and built more web applications capturing user data for long enough that I know there is one fundamental truth

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-17957480305752054892008-02-20T12:38:00.002+11:002008-02-20T13:43:33.590+11:00

At Technology Treason we love DVD Jon or Jon Lech Johansen as he is more commonly known. This great Norwegian famously broke the DVD encryption put in place by the big firms with the release of some software primarily aimed at allowing DVDs to be played on computers and unlocking the regionality of DVDs and DVD players.When he released DeCSS he ran afoul of the US DMCA and was almost charged, he

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-37393005869716556832008-02-12T15:56:00.000+11:002008-02-12T16:50:41.951+11:00

I'm a bit of a cynic really. Anyone that's trawled through the depths of this blog will know that I have a fairly acid tongue when it comes to technology. I am a walking example of the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt".One of the projects I've been involved in rececntly has started generating press just by virtue of it being better than anything that has preceded it in this particular industry

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-39068220925620206802008-01-31T16:53:00.000+11:002008-02-12T17:22:00.528+11:00

Well rarely does an entire country entice me to start ranting (and at this point I'll point out I am in fact Australian) but by crikey Australian technology hasn't really moved in the last 5 years.Now I appreciate this is a sweeping statement and I'll point out that the technology I'm talking about primarily is media based - mobile / web / internet. I have also had the benefit of living in London

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-77701280471626653472008-01-09T09:08:00.000+11:002008-02-09T09:27:14.364+11:00

I've been in this game a long time but there is still nothing sweeter than launching a site after spending a months building it with your team and the client. As a TD, site launch brings a mix of emotion - fatigue from the lack of sleep for the 10 days prior to launch, relief that the site is launching on time and on budget and the client seems happy with it all and finally worry about whether

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-78868735597966365992007-12-22T00:56:00.000+11:002007-12-22T01:38:11.627+11:00

I should probably know better than to open my mouth but the obvious has to be stated on this one. For anyone that is netSavvy enough to know what BitTorrent is, the news that TorrentSpy has just lost its court case against the MPAA isn't exactly surprising.Hearking back all the way to Naptser we seem to have an annual tag teaming of court cases brought about by the RIAA and the MPAA in order to

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-27155988568463832422007-12-21T02:41:00.000+11:002007-12-21T03:06:35.531+11:00

I've waxed lyrical about jQuery before, I've been using it a lot to do worker code which I just can't be bothered to hand write any more. Not least because jQuery handles all the little browser inconsistencies for me so the code I actually call into a page is infinitely more maintainable, especially if someone follows behind who maybe isn't so up to speed with JavaScript as I am.However, use a

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-30756461152603149932007-12-19T21:33:00.000+11:002007-12-19T21:43:51.683+11:00

I'm doing some work for a client at the moment who's industry is particularly technophobic. The absolute cutting edge is a bit of YouTube video thrown willy nilly into a page. I'd also point out that design is something that rarely makes an appearance in this particular industry.So it was pretty refreshing when we went to them with a series of ideas from the more commercial sectors of New Media

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-44616980976960450162007-12-11T04:45:00.000+11:002007-12-11T05:02:59.583+11:00

I work with XML and XSLT every day of the week. Indeed working for a company called XML Infinity you can imagine how much we use it. I had one of those incredibly frustrating moments this afternoon that one typically when dealing with badly documented parts of .NET or XSLT.The annoyance in question was to do with loading a document in to an XSL template on the fly. 99.9% of the time you don't

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-28393298557610898182007-12-01T00:15:00.000+11:002007-12-01T01:06:17.118+11:00

One of my clients was asking me about PCI DSS certification today. Coincidentally I also received our letter about compulsory compliance to the PCI DSS standard.Both of us are what are termed "Level 4 Merchants" - that is we process less than 20,000 card transactions through the company in a year. Arguably Level 4 Merchants will probably account for the largest number of business globally as they

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8183712382911359730.post-9521727437802944722007-11-27T00:53:00.000+11:002007-11-27T01:34:59.924+11:00

If you haven't come across them yet QNAP make these amazing little NAS boxes that are perfect for home or SME use. I've got mine running as a home server but might get one for the office as our old server is on it's last legs and a fully tricked out 1U dell server is a bit of overkill for a glorified file server.The best thing about these devices though it that they run Linux OS utilising Debian

Andrew Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11675391784362014213noreply@blogger.com9