Rob the Geek

Technology, Open Thinking, Community & Education…

Browsing Posts in Opinion

You may have noticed that I took the main page of this site offline yesterday and replaced it with this one as part of the Anti-SOPA protest… this post is not related to that action. Following a conversation yesterday, the social networks, communities and “non-standard” contact channels that I am active in will now see [...]

The Summary Version: The impending Android Malware Apocalypse is overrated, over-hyped and overused to sell more apps and extend control onto mobile devices. That said, it is a perception widely pushed by the media who copy and paste vendor news releases thus the public are beginning to accept the threat as being real. My opinion [...]

21st Century Parenting – Challenges and Solutions Lee Chisholm, Operations manager, NetSafe This was an obvious choice as a session for me to attend, and it opened with an attention grabbing quote… “Three times as many smart phones every minute are activated than there are babies being born” – Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson This [...]

Privacy Issues for business in the new digital age Marie Shroff (Privacy Commissioner) This session started with a fizz and a whimper, I think based more on the usual audience for the Privacy Commission than the subject matter itself. I did enjoy the comics though Customers are starting to take an ACTUAL interest in their [...]

Session Lead by: Brian Calhoun, Independent Consultant and co-chair of NZRise Inc  “I see a gradual slide toward corporate and government control…by control I mean content” The session started with a discussion of TOR / BitCoin / BitTorrent – all created specifically to circumvent control systems that were already in existence. The question then posed [...]

Digital Citizenship – Cybersafety Stream led by: Martin Cocker (NetSafe) – NetHui Digital Citizenship Forum Martin started off the session by outlining there things are in New Zealand, as well as providing a context for the terminology which would follow. In this regard, Digital Citizens were defined as those using technologies to have: Greater productivity (via use [...]

You could tell that you’d arrived at the NetHui because every seat anywhere remotely near a power source was occupied by someone hunched over an electronic device, either furiously tapping away at a keyboard or swiping at a screen. Skip to: Opening Address: Vikram Kumar / Rod Drury Presentation of InternetNZ Lifetime Achievement Award World [...]

When my wife and I first learned we were having our first son, we asked around our friends in the childcare industry for recommendations for pre-school care. The answers unanimously came back “Tots Corner” they all gave glowing accounts of the staff and the atmosphere there and, when we had our first look around we couldn’t help [...]

This video by Harvard Professor Youngme Moon has been sitting in my open tabs for a couple of weeks now as a irreverent reminder of the safe-play bingo phrases which find their way into so many meetings… My Anti-Creativity Checklist from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.   I’ve got *my* personal favorites (being one of the [...]

With a recent move to a new working environment, I’ve needed to re-address how I’m working to compensate for the loss of an ability to leave my workspace setup ready for action each day. Part of this change has been to start using (then consolidate) ‘To Do’ lists. As as assistant for this – I’m [...]