Rob the Geek

Category: Opinion

  • Notes from Barcamp Auckland 2010

    Barcamp Auckland is an annual gathering of developers, designers, start-ups and social-media types. It’s a full day event held in an ‘unconference’ like style, where the attendee (see my attendee & interested folks list on Twitter) set the schedule – and people turn up to discuss topics which interest them. The following are the session […]

  • These *are* the Droids you’re looking for…

    Hat tip to @VodaphoneNZ for re-igniting my interest in having another crack at the following post which I originally wrote for an internal publication for my employer. I’ve changed some of the phraseology,but the basic content – apart from the opening paragraph – remains pretty similar. Once again, these are my personal opinions and are […]

  • Tabnabbing – An Even More Evil Phishing Attack

    Wow – I’ve just finished reading a recent blog post by Aza Raskin (creative lead for Firefox) and he presents an interesting new phishing attack vector for us to be(a)ware of, that of ‘Tabnabbing’. For many of us, phishing attempts, (that is – attempts by ‘evil’ sites or emails to pretend they are from legitimate […]

  • What is this “Android” thing that people are talking about?

    The first week of April 2010 saw the announcement of Telecoms first Android handset, with the exclusive launch for the XT network of the LG GW620. Telecom is not alone in the New Zealand market with Android handsets. Vodafone have been selling the HTC Magic since the end of June 2009 and independent device importers […]

  • “If something seems too good to be true…

    …it probably is.” It’s an old, well-worn saying for sure, but it holds as true today as it did way back whenever the anonymous, cynical, amateur philosopher came up with it. Recently in New Zealand, there have been an increase in phishing attempts trying to get people to open email attachments which then deploy malware […]

  • Commentary on Corporate Approaches to Social Media

    Honestly, this is brilliant – while the clip itself has been mashed up to cover everything from Hitlers replacement motorbike to his choice in gaming consoles, this subtitling by Laurel Papworth (original article) has a bunch of agencies across the ditch resorting to ad-hominems – a classic sign of “oh-bollocks-what-do-we-do-now”. Disclosure: I have met and […]

  • TEDx Auckland – Session Two: Wendy McGuinness

    Second to the stage was a ‘Reluctant Futurist’ namely Wendy McGuinness from Sustainable Future, an “independent think tank specialising in research and policy analysis.” Wendy spoke on “The Danger of Now” which, in summary, was about ensuring you take into account whereabouts you (or your project/strategy) fits in the grander scheme of things. Some takeouts […]

  • TEDx Auckland – Session One: Michael Henderson

    As I alluded in my initial TEDx Redux, the inaugural Auckland event was awesome. In the next three posts I will briefly cover my perspectives on the presentations delivered at this, the first TEDx event in Auckland, New Zealand. The first speaker was a fascinating guy called Michael Henderson [UPDATE: Looks like something ‘weird’ is […]

  • Ideas Worth Spreading – My Journey to TEDx

    TED. Three letters, a veritable treasure trove of new ideas, challenging thinking and incredible people with finely honed presentation skills. I first stumbled across the TED initiative in 2006 when I was shown a presentation by Hans Rosling using Gapminder to do some incredible data visualisations. From that day onward, they have been a regular […]

  • Larry Ellison talks Cloud

    I was reading a CIO Magazine article this morning on ‘The Cloud’, and found this wee video embedded in the article of Larry Ellison (CEO Oracle) talking about ‘The Cloud’, he certainly calls a spade a spade…