I read Scobles post when it appeared on TechMeme yesterday about Microsoft Research and their Worldwide Telescope project and the praise for the concept is again reflected on TED (love TED).

Anyway,  enthused by what I’ve seen thus far (the project still not being open), I told my son Max about it and, watching his eyes light up with the possibility of viewing other planets, stars and galaxies through the shared resources of spaces agencies around the world was simply magic. We were going to get the telescope he got for Christmas out last night to compare what the web will bring to his fingertips against what we could see IRL through his (admittedly low powered) telescope. Our children will have access to so much of the worlds information as they grow up, I envy the opportunities that this will bring them.

Bah – it’s happened again, a new install of Vista results in me no longer being able to connect to my WebDAV folders. So, for my future reference… here’s the link to a posting relating to this error, and here’s the file location itself (Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306))

Over on the Free Auckland Wireless Blog, I pose the question that, if this community WiFi project takes off, can we then expect some corporate assistance by some of the ISPs and Telecommunication companies?

Will the community be given the chance to grow, or will it be shut down by service providers leaning on their customers who choose to take part? – Thoughts??

Well today I created a Facebook Group called Free Auckland Wireless – the idea being to try and drive a community of like minded people who might like to share a little of their bandwidth for the greater good.

Of course, the group has it’s own blog which you can find here and was inspired in part by the discussions at this years FooCamp held in Warkworth, NZ

I transitioned my content from the World of Warcraft blog I originally set up back in 2006, back into this site today. I’ve been having issues maintaining the discipline to post regularly in this blog, let alone attempt to maintain another blog devoted to the wonderful World of Warcraft thus, in an effort to simplify my online hosting, I’ve killed off the blog and moved the content. Sorry WoW Blog, we didn’t really seem to hit it off… /mourn

Just got sent a link by a friend (who doesn’t quite understand my addiction, but that’s another post) to an article on how Halifax Bank in the UK has blocked payments to the World or Warcraft subscription servers, quoting “a significant number of fraudulent transactions through Blizzard’s gaming sites” as the motivation behind this move.

Personally I find this an interesting move as, to the best of my understanding, UK banks are not beholden to sort out fraudulent transactions, the onus being on the card owner to prove their innocence – this is the complete opposite of US/NZ banks (including other countries) who will deal to the fraud themselves, leaving the subscriber only liable for the first $50 of the fraud.
The limit of risk for non-UK cardholders certainly may drive less responsible behavior than that of their UK compatriots who are in the stink for the whole amount.
Factor in also the lack of security many World of Warcraft players apply to their account details, and the source of the add-ons they install and it doesn’t take a security expert to see who so many Warcraft accounts get hacked by dirty, stinking, toon raping, gold farming, sell off everything you’ve ever quested for… scumbags.

I kind of think it’s a responsible move as it forces the user to make a conscious and active choice around their payments – and you know how I feel about trusting the end user…

Woohoo! I’ve just received my invite to Skribit a ‘social suggestions‘ tool which allows you, the reader, to suggest things you’d like a blog author to post about.
So now, I’m doing a shout out for suggestions for future postings, and you should find a skribit wiget in the sidebar of my pages.