Thursday, January 22, 2009

Microsoft told to unbundle IE

According to a story in today's NZ Herald, the European Union has told Microsoft to unbundle the web browser Internet Explorer from the Windows operating system. Among other things, there are claims that the software is badly bloated, and web pages written primarily with IE in mind display badly in other browsers, such as Firefox and Opera. That is certainly true, but the complaints don't touch on what to me is an even more significant problem. If you want to download any software - particularly system updates - from the Microsoft website, the site will not allow you to do so with any browser but IE. That to me is real abuse of your position of power.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Fighting email spam

I want to extoll the virtues of another free program, this time Mailwasher, which is a great tool in the fight against email spam. I have used it for years, and it's brilliant - also very simple. Mailwasher allows you to view every email before you download it to your computer, read the text if you want, and decide whether it's safe. If you are in doubt, delete the email and it never gets to your hard drive. You can set up lists of friends whose mail you trust, and even bounce spam-like mail to its source (the theory being that the sender will think that mail address is not valid). The fact that it was invented in Christchurch might bias me a little, but it really is good.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The digital revolution and the church

"There is a revolution sweeping across the globe, driven by the massive growth of the internet and internet related technologies. Known as the Digital Revolution it is on a par with other great global shifts such as the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. And it is completely changing the landscape of how we communicate, how we influence, how we relate. This isn’t simply about coming to grips with a new technology to assist us in our work; it requires of us a fundamental shift in our processes, structures and approaches. If we don’t respond then, as Eric Hoffer states, we will find ourselves, ‘beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.’
Thought-provoking words from the CEO of the Bible Society of NZ, Mark Brown. Mark is one of the foremost thinkers on how things digital are changing the world. He also leads a group in the internet world called Second Life (in that world he goes by the alter ego Arkin Ariantho) which has established a massive traditional cathedral, with a congregation now of more than 500, running multiple services a week.
You can read Mark's full paper here.