Telstra has just announced that it will soon take action against high bandwidth users who apparently use up about 80% of Telstra’s data (article: http://lyte.in/ifLqJp). Which is interesting, as all Telstra customers have to purchase monthly internet quotas. Yet conversely, take a look at the new cloud computing services that are being released, that will lead to ‘high bandwidth’ usage.

Google Music beta has just been released by Google. In this current iteration of Google Music, you upload your music library to the cloud, and then stream it back down. So, people have been spending a few days uploading their ten’s of Gb’s of music to the cloud. And then they stream it back to their mobile, tablet, laptop or computer. And with many ISP’s counting uploads, simply uploading your (small) 20Gb music collection, and then streaming it back could see you starting to use an exponentially larger amount of data than you were before. Sure, Google Music only just launched and is only available in the USA at the moment, but it won’t be long before Australians get access to it, or similar products. And this is just one product for one person.

What if everyone in your family had their music in the cloud?

Online data storage is becoming increasingly popular. Whether it is Mozy or Dropbox, you have to upload tens, if not hundred’s of GB’s of your data into the cloud. And then redownload it when and where you need the data. In the last month, I’ve used at least 50Gb worth of upload and download to Dropbox.

And that’s not counting Youtube Movies or Netflix or Steam  or any other cloud intensive product you and your household may be using. All legally.

So how is Telstra going to differentiate between a user who uses 100Gb/month and stores and uses the cloud a lot vs the 100G/month illegal pirate who is downloading the internet? Are they going to be pointing fingers (and disconnections) at people who use P2P a lot and ignore the pirate who direct downloads?

And what repercussions will there be if they make mistakes and people start being afraid of using their internet quotas?

Google is the master of online searching. Which begs the question: Why is gmail searching so limited and terrible?

Why can I only see 20 results per gmail search result page? Why is the date search so vague? If I mis-spell the word, why doesn’t the search ask me if I meant “search” instead of “saerch”? Why can’t you search by attachments or images? Why is the search itself feel so inaccurate?

Why aren’t all the awesome features of Google Search included in Gmail?

Posted from my Galaxy Tab with WordPress for Android

Yet all the rage is for integrated devices. Your mobile had a camera, your tablet etc. But you are trading quality for convenience.

My Galaxy Tab has a camera on it. It’s average. It’s terrible at night time photos. But, the Tab also had the great ability to edit photos, add comments (see the TV sushi post) and then post them up into the internet, as I’m doing on this blog.

But how do I edit and upload photos taken by my standalone digital camera? You need a computer/laptop. But wait. I’m using my Tab as a laptop replacement. I mean it does everything I need it to.

Digital cameras should get the ability to bluetooth photos. Built in or as an addon. Then it is easy to use them in conjunction with new devices like ipads or the Galaxy Tab.

Posted from my Galaxy Tab with WordPress for Android

But given some of the experiences I’ve had lately, I really wonder what training, if any, staff are getting in customer service. As a customer, I have expectations of a level of service and civility to receive.

When I receive bad service, it sticks in my mind, and I usually get a little annoyed, which spoils my mood and my experience. AND, most importantly, we say that we won’t go back to that place. And we don’t. They’ve lost a customer.

There are a wide range of examples of poor customer service.

The Rydges Hotel on Exhibition St in Melbourne has lost our custom due to a very poor experience and an expectation of service that wasn’t met. There are dozens of hotels in the Melbourne CBD, so as a customer I can, and will, vote with my feet and money. But it would only have taken a little bit more effort on their behalf to have changed my opinion and keep me as a client.

And restaurants. The number of bad experiences. We have our favourite Chinese restaurant in the city, Hutong Dumpling, but the last time we were there for our anniversary, we had a surly waiter which soured our night.

We ordered some wine from a waiter, who went away to get it, but then an older waiter laughed at the request and told the waiter to go back to us and tell us that it isn’t suitable for us. Wtf? We’ve had the wine before, at that restaurant and quite enjoyed it. I insist it is fine. So they bring it out. In a tea pot. Wtf? Last time they brought it out in the bottle and kept it in a wine bucket (as you normally do). When was the last time YOU had wine from a tea pot? The wine also normally comes with shot-like glasses and a little sweet fruit. But as it is in a teapot…and in tea cups…we’re a little lost. We ask the waiter for them and the waiter says “No. You can’t have those.” Wtf? We had them before here… “No you can’t get them”. Righttt. So we end up drinking a tea pot of wine. There’s always a first for that…

And there are heaps of other examples at plenty of other places. Getting the attention of the waiter and them shouting across the whole restaurant “What?”   “err…we’d like some water?” Awkward much.

Oooh and don’t get me started on call centres. No offence to the workers, as I have a few friends that do work there, but they really lack the proper training to meet customer service expectations.

Making a comparison of Australia against Japan is a little unfair, as Japan is the centre of customer service excellence. It’s unbelievable in Japan. You almost feel like a King (or queen) when you go out shopping.

Here’s a little advice on which cards to bring if you want to use them in Japan.

Mastercard is useless.

And Maestro (your normal ATM card) is just as bad.

Visa is the way to go. Accepted in more places overseas. Their ads are actually true. In China it was also easier to use Visa than Mastercard (but that was before the Olympics, not sure what the situation is since).

Many hotels and large department stores will accept both Mastercard and Visa, however, if you want to withdraw money from an ATM (which is a better idea as the bank charges you a fee each time you use your card overseas, as well as a % of the amount as a fee for currency exchange) it is virtually impossible to withdraw using Mastercard or Maestro.

If you want to withdraw money from the local 7-11 (which are everywhere), they only accept Visa. If you go to the ATM inside a shopping centre, they only accept Visa (if they accept foreign cards at all). The Mastercard ATM locator said that there were bank ATMs (located in/near banks) that did Mastercard but they were out of the way and inconvienent to get to. Whereas 7-11′s are everywhere.

So that’s my rant.

And if someone from the Commonwealth Bank reads this, please consider offering debit Visa cards instead of just debit Mastercard. I’ll have to keep my St George account with its debit Visa card open until Commbank changes its mind.

I really do hope we get a white christmas.

Snow = win!

So step into an Asian country, like China, where the majority of toilets are squat toilets. It may look super disgusting, or it could be super clean. But the fact remains that that it is a squat toilet. You have to squat. And I cannot do the asian squat (where your heels are down when squatting), so it is quite oft uncomfortable for me to squat (at any time).

I spent over a year in China, and it was only in the LAST month that I had to succumb and use a squat toilet at the nearest store, courtesy of a dicey stomach after a dodgy dinner.

Yet, come to Japan, the land of toilets which clean your bum and all technologically wonderful things.

I’ve only used the one at home, which has direct, diffused, female and a dryer options. You can choose the angle and the strength. Fun eh? There likely are more souped up versions with more options. But I mean. The toilet cleans your bum!!

So in a land of all that bliss, WHY is it that I had to use a squat toilet. They really are uncomfortable. Most shopping centres, schools, etc had TWO toilets, one normal one and one squat one. Which is good. The really posh places have toilets that clean, but normally they’re just, well, normal sit-down toilets.

Yet, on that woe-begotten day, the toilet, my normal toilet, my sit-down and relax toilet, was out of order. With not another toilet in sight, or ‘need-to-go-to-the-toilet’ walkable distance, I had to succumb and use the squat toilet. I shall endeavour to use squat toilets as little as possible for the rest of my trip.

Well, that was a little random, but a necessary rant about toilets. We’ll go back to our normal broadcast tomorrow.

The world has rolled forward, propelled by greed and the internet. Two key forces that have morphed the world beyond recognition. Fueled by the snaking pathways of the ever expanding internet super-highway, a new culture has arisen. Dubbed Generation Y, we stand at the fore of a decadent culture that threatens to overrun, and relegate to mere dusty wiki-pedia entries, the finesse and refinement of centuries of development. From the deep belief of our forefathers in the Enlightenment, we have advanced to become mere shadows, shallow creatures, only concerned with our immediate wants and desires.

Yet we are victims of our own success. It has devoured what little decency we have left. It has scared the old white men, the men of ‘power’. But resistance is futile. Embrace of be swept away.

Communication has become instant, spanning the globe in seconds and for a few mere cents. Purchasing items has shifted online, and ever increasingly, we are buying what we are told we want, rather than what we need. The consumeristic wave has been engulfed by the internet and propelled to starry heights. Knowledge has been reduced to wikipedia and google searches. Discourse has changed from indepth precis to 160 character messages, thirty second forum replies and ever increasing self-centered blogs. The English language has been forgotten and dissected to abbreviations and lol’s.

The world, all at once, has become so much smaller, yet is so much bigger.

Yet my train ride home takes longer now than it did a century ago.

Irony is…ironic.

INFORMATION technology is often viewed as a “polluter” in the current climate change debate, but it has a critical role to play in addressing the problem, a report finds.

The University of Wollongong Working Group on the Carbon-Centric Computing Initiative has released a study that suggests IT could fundamentally alter the climate change debate.

IT-enabled smart logistics, smart energy use, smart utilities and ubiquitous optimisation could support a global online collaboration infrastructure that ensures minimisation of the global carbon footprint, said the report’s co-author Professor Aditya Ghose, director of the Decision Systems Laboratory in the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering at UOW.

The report describes how existing web infrastructure could be leveraged to devise the optimising web to deliver a large-scale, global network of optimisers helping support decisions that would reduce the carbon footprint and improve business efficiency.

Computer-based simulation technology could enable sustainable manufacturing and environmental management at the enterprise level, it said.

The other two authors of the report are: UOW academics Associate Professor Helen Hasan (Activity Theory Usability Laboratory director in the School of Economics) and Professor Trevor Spedding (School of Management and Marketing head).

Business should receive “credits” for putting in place IT-based optimisation solutions, which would reduce the carbon footprint, the authors said.

The CCCI seeks to seed research that addresses the climate change problem with a range of computing technologies including optimisation technologies, supply chain management technologies, business process management/process improvement technologies and grid computing.
- The Australian – Jennifer Foreshew | September 23, 2008

Is the idea of tackling climate change with a range of computing technologies really that new? Or does this report merely showcase how ineffectual our decision making process is? Must there be dozens of reports and studies into the same issue to prompt change?

Indeed, it does make sense that there should be consensus on a given issue, and the issue of climate change STILL today receives much criticism from all levels of society. Regardless of whether or not global warming is caused by humans, I am of the opinion that we should nevertheless change our ways and become more environmentally friendly, and work towards reducing the impact that we, as humans, have on the world and its environments.

But seriously, a report saying that “Computer-based simulation technology could enable sustainable manufacturing and environmental management at the enterprise level”, who are they kidding? This idea is so old, and used so often nowadays, it’s not funny. But no doubt it is a reminder that something NEEDS to start. Something needs to happen. As a society, around the world, we are moving too slowly. We are being pressured by companies who don’t want to foot the costs, who don’t want to have to take accountability for externalities. Which in turn usually means that weak, uesless legislation is passed, that is a nod, but not a firm blow, to the issue at hand.

It appears that being connected is no longer just the domain of Generation Y (and whatever they call the generation after us). Generation Y consists of late teens to 26 year olds, so I’ve been told. GenY is the iPod/ mp3, laptop, instant messaging, social networking, always connected generation. We think we’re cool, hip and suave.

So why do I find it so concerning when I see that my friends parents have joined Facebook? They’re the baby boomers. They’re our parents, they’re the ones that never seemed to get it, never understood how important it was to always be on MSN and how we could do our homework while listening to mp3′s, chatting, and watching the TV. Now they’re having conversations with their kids on their FB walls, checking out what their kids and friends did on the weekend, and probably doing background checks on everyone, all courtesy of them having found out how to be ‘switched on’.

What’s even MORE disconcerting is when my 86 year old grandma gets a computer and internet connection. Did they even have switches back then?

But order restores itself in the world when they come asking me how to send an e-mail. For the 52nd time.

So here I take up the mantle of blogging once again. To establish that yes, I am a GenY’er, and that I am more connected and ‘hip’ than my parents.

What has the world come to?