About 200 – 300 people attended the rally in front of the State Library in Melbourne this afternoon.

Speakers included:

Sarah Jenkins, Australian Sex Party;
Trent Hawkins, Socialist Alliance;
Colin Jacobs, Electronic Frontiers Australia;
Muriel Ardnt, Exit International; and
David Crafti, Pirate Party.

Here are a few pics.

Got some good vox pops too, which I’ll mix-up for a future Tech Talk segment.

Click here for more information about the Open Internet movement in Australia.

Electronic Frontiers Australia is one group which opposes Senator Conroy’s proposed Net Filter legislation, the wording of which will be released later this month.

#nocleanfeed · melbourne · no clean feed · Open Internet · openinternet · rally · state library

Dr Ron has a telephone line provided by Telstra.

Telstra is the largest telecommunications service provider in Australia. Telstra operates and maintains the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, sells its own services, and allows other service providers to re-sell parts of its network.

Unfortunately, Dr Ron’s telephone line has no dial tone, and no battery (FAIL).  This is probably caused by an open circuit, or faulty equipment or a power failure at the telephone exchange.

Dr Ron rings Telstra on his mobile phone, asking for help.

The IVR answers promptly (WIN) and asks Dr Ron to enter the phone number he is having difficulty with, which he does. He then presses the “#” key as instructed. The IVR says that it’s putting him through to an operator. The ensuing conversation goes something like this:

Telstra Operator: “Hello, welcome to Telstra, my name is Sonny. How can I help you?”

Dr Ron: “Hi Sonny, my name’s Ron. I’m ringing to get help with my telephone service. It’s not working, there’s no dial tone.”

TO: “Okay can I get the phone number you are having problems with please?” (FAIL)

DR: “Sure, it’s the one I just entered into your computer 10 seconds ago.”

TO: “Ohh, ahhhh, it hasn’t come through for some reason, (FAIL) what number are you having problems with?”

DR: “Why hasn’t the number come through? I did what I was told, and even pressed the ‘#’ key.”

TO: “I’m sure you did but the number didn’t come through. What number are you having problems with?”

DR: “03 98xx xxxx.”

TO: “I just need to check your name, address and date of birth please?”

DR Ron provides this information.

TO: “Thankyou Ron, let me put you on hold, just one moment.”

Dum dum dum, da dum da da dum… the girl from Ipanema goes walking and… when she passes, each time she passes….

TO: “Hello Ron?”

DR: “I’m here.”

TO: “Yes there’s a fault with that line.” (FAIL)

DR: “Yes. I know. I’m pretty sure I told you that. That’s why I’m ringing.”

TO: “How many telephone handsets do you have on your line please?’

DR: “Just one,” lies Dr Ron convincingly, for the purposes of keeping this already untenable situation as simple as possible.

TO: “Have you unplugged your fax machines?” (FAIL)

DR: “Almost certainly.”

TO: “And computer modems?” (FAIL)

DR: “Yep.”

TO: “Do you have ADSL internet on that line?” (How can Telstra not know this? FAIL.)

DR: “No, it’s dead.”

TO: “But ordinarily?”

DR: “Yes.”

TO: “Okay a telephone technician will need to come out to have a look. I just have to let you know, that if the fault is found in the customer equipment, a charge of $105 may be applied to your account – but you will be advised accordingly if we’re going to do that.”

DR: “Okay, great,” says Dr Ron, confident that his $105 will remain safely in his wallet.

TO: “Okay just one moment please.”

…and when she walks … she’s like a samba that… swings so cool, and sways so gentle, and…

TO: “Hello Ron?”

DR: “I’m still here.”

TO: “Can I just get an alternative contact number for you, like a mobile?”

DR: “Sure, use the one I’m calling from now.”

TO: “What’s that one?” (FAIL)

DR: “I’m sending it with this call. It will come up on your telephone, and your computer. I always send my number with outgoing calls.”

TO: “Ahhhhh, oooh, it hasn’t come up.” (FAIL FAIL FAIL)

DR: “Why not? Maybe you have a faulty telephone there too?”

TO: “Ahhhh … maybe…?”

DR: “Okay, it’s 0419 xxx xxx.”

TO: “Thankyou Ron, the fault will be fixed by 7PM tomorrow at the latest (POTENTIAL WIN). We will send you a text message to let you know when the service has been restored (POTENTIAL WIN). Is there anything else I can help you with?”

DR: “Absolutely not. Thankyou for your time Sonny.”

TO: “Thankyou Ron, and thankyou for calling Telstra. HAVE A NICE DAY.”

Call #2

Needless to say, 7PM the next day came and went. No telephone service for about 20 hours now. (FAIL)

The IVR prompts Dr Ron to enter the phone number he is having difficulty with, which he does, and even presses the “#” key as instructed. The IVR puts him through to an operator. The ensuing conversation is this:

Telstra Operator: “Hello, welcome to Telstra, my name is Gilbert. Can I get the phone number you are having difficulties with please?”

Dr Ron: “Sure, it’s the one I just entered into your computer.”

TO: “Ohh. Well it hasn’t come through for some reason, what is the number please?” (ARGHGHGGHHH FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL)

DR: “Why hasn’t the number come through? I think you’ve got a faulty call centre. It didn’t come through last time I rang either.”

TO: “Okay, I’m sorry sir, but you will need to tell me the number you are having problems with.”

DR: deep sigh of despair, followed by “03 98xx xxxx”.

TO: “Thankyou sir, one moment please.”

…through early morning fog I see… visions of the things to be…

TO: “Are you there sir?”

DR: “You betcha.”

TO: “Yes there is a fault with that line, sir.” (FAIL)

DR: “I know. That’s why I reported it faulty. Yesterday. Your colleague Sonny said it would be fixed by 7PM today. It’s now 10PM. Why isn’t it fixed?”

TO: “Ahhh, let me have a look sir … just one moment.”

… suicide is painless… it brings on many changes…

TO: “Yes sir, I can see that it was supposed to be fixed by 7PM. I am very sorry, I don’t know why it hasn’t been fixed (FAIL). But there will be a technician come out tomorrow to fix it.”

DR: “What time?”

TO: “Between 8AM and 4PM.”

DR: “Do I need to be home to let them in?”

TO: “No, there is no need to be home, they will call you if they need access to the premises (POTENTIAL WIN). In case they do, can I just grab a contact number?”

DR: “Sure, use the one I’m calling from now.”

TO: “Oh. Ahhhh…” (FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL)

Déjà vu: the experience of feeling as though an event has already happened, or has happened in the recent past – the experience is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of “eeriness”, “strangeness”, or “weirdness”. The “previous” experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience “genuinely happened” in the past. Read more.

DR: “0419 xxx xxx.”

TO: “Thankyou sir, we will call you if we need to access the premises, so someone can be home (POTENTIAL WIN). Also we will send you a text message to let you know when your service has been restored (POTENTIAL WIN). Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

DR: “Almost certainly not. Good bye.”

TO: “Thankyou for calling Telstra sir, HAVE A N…” <click>

Day #3

Telstra technician arrives on the front doorstep at 8AM, with no advance phone call or warning (FAIL). Grunts, and says he’s here to fix the telephone. After a quick inspection of the “customer equipment”, technician decides that the problem lies elsewhere, and leaves.

Service magically restored at about 2PM (WIN), almost 48 hours after being reported faulty.

Customer service fail?

The Telstra customer service IVR is bloody woeful. It answers promptly, but why do customers have to repeat numbers back to an operator, who should have the numbers on a computer screen? This isn’t rocket science, the technology to do this has been around for 20 years. Same goes for capturing a caller’s CLI.

No text messages ever arrived from Telstra.

No explanation was ever given as to what went wrong with my service.

No-one rang to pre-arrange an appointment time.

The estimated fault resolution time was over-run by 19 hours.

Do the WINS outweigh the FAILS?

Well, let’s not quibble about such things as “customer service” or “fault resolution”. Surely the ends justify the means in such circumstances.

In any case, your call is important to us.

Have a nice day.

customer service · customer service fail · failure · fault · service fault · telstra

I recently blogged about Western Digital’s new WD TV Live Media Streamer.

It’s going great guns, but I had some difficulty setting up Samba shares on my Linux server, and seeing these shares from the WD TV Live.

“Samba” is an implementation of the Server Message Block (SMB) networking protocol. Samba shares look like Windows shares to a Windows workstation, and behave the same way. Samba can also be setup to do clever things like emulate a Windows Primary Domain Controller, so the Windows workstations on the network think they’re talking to a Windows PDC, when in actual fact they’re talking to a Linux system emulating a PDC, providing enormous flexibility and saving thousands of dollars in Microsoft licensing.  Pretty cool, huh?

But I digress.  At home, I have a Windows workgroup. I also have a Linux server running Fedora 9 which I use for my internet gateway, firewall, DHCP, Network Address Translation (NAT) and other stuff. For most people, all this stuff is done by their ADSL router or similar device. But I’m not like normal people. And I’m running a business from home and I need the flexibility which a Linux server affords.

I wanted to have all my media on an external (portable) drive, connected to the Linux server, which is always on. Then I wanted to “share” this drive on the network, so I could access it from the new WD TV Live.

This is not a tutorial in connecting USB devices and mounting external drives in Linux. Also, this isn’t a tutorial in setting Linux file and directory permissions. For help doing that, you’ll need to hit Google.

Anyway, my new drive was mounted in my Linux file system at “/home/ron/elements”. (Co-incidentally it’s a Western Digital ‘Elements’ external hard disk.) I didn’t have Samba installed, so I installed it like this:

yum install samba

“Yum” is the Yellow-Dog Updater which is an easy and safe way to install commonly-used Fedora packages via the internet. I added my username “ron” to the SMB users’ file, like this:

/usr/bin/smbpasswd -a ron

…and added a new, browsable share in the Samba config file, like this:

[elements]

comment = WD Elements Share

path = /home/ron/elements

public = yes

writable = yes

createmask = 0777

directorymask = 0777

browseable = yes

printable = no

Then I started Samba, and added it to the correct startup runlevels like this:

service smb start

service nmb start

chkconfig smb on

chkconfig nmb on

All good! I could see the share by browsing on a Windows machine to the IP address, like this:

\\192.168.2.2\elements

…BUT a hit a brick wall at this point.  There were two problems which I couldn’t resolve. The second, I suspected, was directly related to the first:

1. I couldn’t browse the machine by its NetBIOS name, “derek”, which I’d specified in the smb.conf file, and
2. The WD TV Live couldn’t see the Samba share.

Graeme Callaghan helped me over this hurdle; with another 5 minutes fiddling, I had the problem solved.

Graeme’s Fix for Samba – NetBIOS problems – don’t forget your DHCP daemon!

There were two settings in the Samba config file which I had left as the default, being “remmed out”.  These were:

wins support = yes

dns proxy = yes

I un-remarked these.

Then, I un-remarked a critical setting in my DHCP server’s configuration file, which was also on the same machine:

option netbios-name-servers  192.168.2.2;

This setting controls NetBIOS name visibility on your network. If your Samba server is on a different physical machine, point the IP address in your DHCP config file to the Samba machine’s IP address.

Then I restarted dhcpd, smb & nmb. Low-and-behold, my Fedora server was suddenly browsable by its NetBIOS name; e.g.

\\derek\elements

Even better, The WD TV Live picked up the changes straight away.  The server “DEREK” was now available in my list of “Shared Folders” on the WD TV Live menu.

I needed to *turn off* a setting in the WD TV Live called Settings / Network Setting / Auto login to network share. Then I browsed to DEREK in the Video / Shared Folders list, entered my network credentials (which I had created earlier with the “smbpasswd” command) and verified I could see all the folders correctly and access the media OK. I then reset the Auto login to network share to ON so I wasn’t prompted for a username and password every time I tried to access this network resource.

There seems to be a lot of consternation on message boards about WD TV Live connecting to Samba shares. It’s easy when you know how (thanks again Graeme). Hopefully this is useful to someone.

For info, package versions are:

• samba-3.2.11-0.28.fc9.i386
• dhcp-4.0.0-22.fc9.i386

media streamer · NetBIOS · network · Samba · share · WD TV Live · Western Digital

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cable a network socket to the lounge room, and a network socket to the bedroom.

This would enable me, in theory, to stream audio and video from my network to the television and sound system in my living room; and to stream audio and video from my network to the television in the master bedroom.

Why not just use wireless?

I’ve been using WiFi to the lounge room Media Centre for some time (well, years) now. It works adequately. But wireless technology is designed for portable devices, and in the case where I’ve got a Media Centre PC which never moves, the better option from a technical standpoint is to connect to the network using a wired network port. A fixed network connection is faster than wireless, more reliable, and my Media Centre won’t be competing with other wireless devices for bandwidth, using the same hotspot ‘legitimately’ (e.g. net books, smart phones etc.).

Conspiracy theorists that obsess about security will also agree that a wired network connection is a better option than wireless. I, however, do not obsess about such things. Honestly.

Yesterday I got out the fashionable white overalls, retrieved my toolbox from a bygone era and proceeded to cable new network points to the lounge room and the master bedroom. This involved much swearing, grunting, bashing-of-head-against-low-floorboards and grazed elbows, but I got there eventually.

In Australia, make sure any infrastructure cabling, at work or at home, is undertaken by a licensed cabler.  Like me.

Lounge Room – wired for internets!

I plugged the Media Centre into its new network port, and was pleased to see a noticeable improvement in network speed. I’ll keep using the PC as a Media Centre in the lounge room. It makes a lot of sense to me to have a networked PC connected to your television and sound system.

The Bedroom Solution

- or -

“How to browse internets and network file shares in your bedroom without a computer”

A PC in the bedroom, however, is a bit excessive (IMHO). So what’s the best way to access content on the network and stream it to the television?

I had my eye on a fashionable media streamer from Western Digital which Andrew spoke about on Tech Talk Radio in November. After seeing a demonstration, viewing a Blu-Ray rip over Andrew’s network in his lounge room, I was sold. The quality was great.

There are three versions of these little boxes, and I bought the most expensive one, the WD TV Live, which supports networking. This set me back $198 from JB Hi Fi.

The WD TV Live is a small unassuming box which provides an interface between your television and your computer network, with a nifty little remote control (yes, batteries are included!). All the WD TV Live needs is power and a nearby network connection, which I now have, thanks to yesterday’s wrangling.

The WD TV Live outputs to composite or component video (cables supplied) or HDMI (cable not supplied), in full HD 1080P video. When it powers-up, the WD TV Live finds shares on your computer network and lets you watch video and listen to music. It also has 2 x USB ports so you can connect external drives, memory sticks and the like.

To get it going, all I needed to do was connect HDMI to my television, connect the blue network cable and plug-in the power. The WD TV Live did everything else, and the default settings are very usable. It found my network’s DHCP server, assigned itself an IP address, found my network shares and just started working.

Format Support

According to the documentation, supported video formats include AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (H.264, X.264, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), TS / TP / M2T (MPEG 1, 2 & 4, AVC & VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4 & H.264), M2TS & WMV9.

Supported image formats include JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP & PNG.

Supported audio formats include MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital & DTS.

The WD TV Live also supports common playlist and subtitle formats, and it’s got the DLNA stamp of approval.

Andrew says he’s had huge success with MKV video formats, in terms of quality.

User Interface

Nice.  Fast and smooth.

There’s also a nice interface which streams content directly from Google’s video-sharing website YouTube, popular photo-sharing site Flickr and Live 365 internet radio. You can login to YouTube if you have an existing account.

My only gripe is the on-screen keyboard, which is clunky and frustrating. You’re driving it with the up/down/left/right arrows on the remote control, so I’m not really sure how Western Digital could improve on this. You only need to use the on-screen keyboard if you’re entering custom network settings, or user names and passwords for network shares and such things. Fortunately the WD TV Live remembers these settings, so you rarely need to use the on-screen keyboard.

Problems with HomeGroup Networking

Tech Talk’s Graeme Callaghan also purchased one of these little boxes some weeks ago. He told me that the only difficulties he has experienced have been with Windows 7 “HomeGroup” networking, which apparently does strange things, e.g. causing network shares to disappear, reappear then disappear again. Graeme said that after he disabled HomeGroup networking, in favour of traditional Windows workgroups, everything worked consistently and well. I’m sharing content off a Windows 7 Professional machine in traditional ‘workgroups’ mode and everything with the WD TV Live has been smooth-sailing.

The Verdict

Good.

Easy to set up; reliable; intuitive user interface; excellent playback quality. High WAF*. This is a media streamer which fills a fundamental hole in the digital lounge room.

Or, in this case, Dr Ron’s Digital Bedroom.

* Wife Acceptability Factor

Digital Living Network Alliance · digital lounge room · DLNA · HomeGroup · media streamer · Tech Talk Radio · video streamer · video streaming · WD TV Live · Western Digital

Contrary to popular belief, the Tech Talk Radio panelists are not sponsored by Kaspersky.

About 10 months ago I purchased a “3 PC” licence pack for a couple of computers at home.  This provided me with an activation code that could be used on 3 PCs, for home use.  I installed Kaspersky Anti-Virus on two PCs and put the remaining  licence away for a rainy day.

Well, it started raining a few days ago and I thought I’d use the remaining licence on a new PC.

When I typed in the activation code, Kaspersky (the software, not the man himself) congratulated me on installing the software, and smugly informed me that I had a good 62 days left, at least, on this licence for this computer.

Huh?!?!?  I paid for a licence for a year for this PC!

It seems that Kaspersky starts the clock ticking for its activation codes from the time the first one is used – or possibly from the time the activation code is purchased, I don’t know.  I can’t find it in their fine print.

Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive, but I feel decidedly jibbed by Kaspersky on this occasion.

Who or what is a Kaspersky? Kaspersky Lab is an organisation which produces robust, easy-to-use anti-virus, anti-spyware and internet security software for the PC and Mac.  It seems to detect viruses, threats and malware where other products fall short.  The name “Kaspersky” is highly regarded in the IT industry.

We always rave about it on-air because it works well.  It costs a few bucks, but when it comes to internet security software, you get what you pay for.  (AVG users take note!!)

The founder of the organisation, Eugene Kaspersky, spoke to Andrew in 2007 about the life and times of his internet security organisation.

But it’s software, with a licensing regime like any other commercial software.  Caveat Emptor.  Read the fine print.

anti-virus · Kaspersky · licensing · malware · software · spyware · Tech Talk Radio

Woooaah … truckloads.

There are 1001 blog-worthy things to blog in my blog about.

Sadly, time (lusty and blithe) is at his apogee.

In brief, I have:

• Had a shave, since the last blog post;
• Upgraded The Surgery WordPress blog from 2.8.3 to 2.9;
• Moved WordPress blog from Fedora 9 machine with crappy dynamic IP address (it was killing me) to shiny Fedora 11 machine with static IP address;
• Marveled at my ability to upgrade WordPress, SQL databases and move them across Linux machines, AND make grown-up changes to DNS zone files – am surely a guru of such things now and legend in my own lunchbox;
• Undertaken 2 of 8 Tech Talk Radio Summer Series productions, time-consuming but rewarding;
• Upgraded the HTC Dream / Google phone to the next Android operating system, very successful;
• Teetered on the brink of e-mail bankruptcy;
• Ordered a new PC for Christmas;
• Ventured inside an Apple Store for the very first time, and escaped by making only a minor purchase (a new iPod Touch); and
• Just today, assisted Mrs Dr Ron in restoring her iTunes library, after she deleted all the music files from her PC’s hard disk  - successfully achieved restoration by using a third-party app called iRip which we’ve spoken about on Tech Talk in the past (thanks JD, saviour of Dr Ron’s marriage).

I have also Tweeted mercilessly about our well-intentioned (yet incompetent, foolish and mis-informed) Senator for Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy.  In case you hadn’t caught up with the news (which the good Senator saved until after the last live episode of Tech Talk for 2009), Australia will be ranked highly with the United Arab Emirates, Iran and China in its foolish deployment of an ISP-based Net Filter.

Adam Turner has had a lot to say about this, and made a clever analogy with a different type of infrastructure.  His blog posts here and here in The Age last week should be mandatory reading.

I’ll blog in more detail about these and other things soon.

I hope you have a great Chrissy and a safe and prosperous New Year.

#nocleanfeed · adam turner · andorid · apple · apple store · blog · fedora · Google Phone · HTC Dream · ipod touch · irip · linux · net filter · news · stephen conroy · tech talk · Tech Talk Radio · the age · the age tech · updates · what's happening · wordpress

Fairfax Digital in its “Digital Life” column last week reported that, on the 9th of November this year, recommendations made in the Australian Road Rule 8th Amendment Package will be introduced into legislation in Victoria.

This package is an updated set of road and traffic laws which were approved by all state and territory Road Ministers in February.

The Amendment Package says that “the proposed amendments are required to make the Australian Road Rules more succinct and contemporary”, thereby contributing to the safety of road users and the efficient movement of traffic.

Unfortunately, Mr Stephen Hutcheon wrote an article for Digital Life which was published in the SMH, the Brisbane Times,  WA Today et cetera, with an alarming headline:

“Sat nav apps could be heading for a dead end“;

with a page title which read:

“New Road Rules Threaten Phone GPS”.

A report by the ABC was more objective and less sensational.

I’m pleased to report that the Fairfax headlines are misleading and incorrect.

Existing Legislation

The current Road Rule 300(1) prohibits drivers from using a hand-held mobile phone while driving.  It’s as simple as that.  If you are driving, and using, a mobile phone which is held in your hand, you are committing an offence.

This section says:

The driver of a vehicle (except an emergency vehicle or police vehicle) must not use a hand-held mobile phone while the vehicle is moving, or is stationary but not parked, unless the driver is exempt from this rule under subrule (3).

Subrule (3) makes provision for drivers to be issued formal exemptions by VicRoads.

This road rule means, for example:

• if you’re holding a phone to your ear, while driving a car, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone on “loudspeaker” while driving, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone and texting while driving, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone and checking your GPS location in Google Latitude while driving, you’re committing an offence; and/or
• if you’re holding a phone and taking a photograph out the front windscreen while driving, you’re committing an offence.

Also:

• you can legally use a phone while driving, if the phone’s in a hands-free car-kit, and not being held in your hand;
• you can legally use a phone while driving, if the phone’s on the seat beside you, connected via Bluetooth to a hands-free headset (this will change soon, requiring drivers to have phones secured in a commercially manufactured phone holder or kit); and
• you can legally use a phone, holding it to your ear, if you’re legally stopped on the side of the road and the engine is switched off – i.e. you are no longer a driver and have no intention of driving until such time that your phone call is finished.

What the new Amendment Package seeks to do is clarify the existing rules with respect to modern technology contained within mobile devices, including but not limited to GPS functions.

The new Amendment Package also addresses concerns that GPS devices (not telephones) could be held in a driver’s hand while the driver is driving, while the rules relating to mobile phones did not allow a driver to have a mobile phone in his or her hand.

Road Rule 299 (1) says:

A driver must not drive a motor vehicle that has a television receiver or visual display unit in or on the vehicle operating while the vehicle is moving, or is stationary but not parked, if any part of the image on the screen—

(a) is visible to the driver from the normal driving position; or

(b) is likely to distract another driver;

…while section (2) stipulates that the rule does not apply if the visual display unit is a driver’s aid, specifically including navigational equipment.

The new rules will provide consistency in that a GPS must be an integrated part of the vehicle, or secured in a mounting affixed to the vehicle.

Proposed Amendments

Television receivers and visual display units in motor vehicles: Rule 299 will be modified to ensure that any GPS device can only be used if it is in a fixed mounting.

This amendment will provide consistency with rule 300.

Use of mobile phones: Rule 300 will be modified to ensure the original intent of the rule is clarified; a driver is not permitted to use a mobile phone held in any way by the driver, but is permitted to use a phone in a fixed cradle.

Impact on Mobile Phone, GPS & Smart Phone Users

In the interests of everyone’s road safety, I don’t think these changes are a big ask.

Importantly, and contrary to reports in the mainstream media, the new road rules will not threaten phone GPS functions, standalone GPS functions or the ability to use mobile telephones while driving.

The new rules won’t “kill the burgeoning market in apps and services that enable smartphones to be used as satellite navigation systems”.

The new rules will simply clarify what is and isn’t permissible with new technology that’s emerged since the last time the regulations were reviewed.

If you’ve got an iPhone, and use it for GPS navigation while driving, drop it in a cradle.  Simple.  There are hundreds out there and they cost next-to-nothing.

That is, they certainly cost a lot less than a $238 fine.

Sources:

• The Victorian Government Gazette P2 – Road Rules Victoria
• Sydney Morning Herald: Sat Nav Apps Heading for a Dead End
• ABC News: New road rules on mobiles, GPS
• National Transport Commission: Australian Road Rules 8th Amendment Package

gps · mobile phone · mobile phones · mobiles · road rules · road rules victoria · sat nav · satnav

Can someone give me a big blunt stick, so I can bash an Optus CEO over the head?

I experienced a roller-coaster ride of emotions when I read this article in Australian IT: emotions like dismay, anger, frustration, a feeling of hopelessness for the future of Australian telecommunciations, as well as rage and then downright apathy.

But not so much apathy that I couldn’t write this blog post.

Optus have admitted that they are intentionally blocking numbers because they don’t have “commercial interconnect agreements” with some carriers.

This harks back to the bad, bad, bad old days.  Consider the following scenario.  I decide to ring a friend on his new mobile. I dial the number on my mobile, press send, get a strange ringtone, and that’s when the fun starts:

“Hello,” says an operator on behalf of my network, “thankyou for calling XYZ Telecomms, how can I help you?”

“Huh? I’m trying to reach 0418 xxx yyy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry sir.  To continue, I’ll have to get a credit card number, or a telecard number, as we don’t have a commercial arrangement with that company.”

“But you have a commercial arrangement with me.  I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.  Just put the call on my account and connect me.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that sir.  Calls are charged at 45c/minute to the number you are trying to reach and are not covered by your contract.  Do you have an alternate payment method?”

Grrrrrr. “Okay, my VISA card number is 4564 1234 xxxx xxxx.”

“Thankyou sir, and the card holder’s name? And the expiry date? And the CCV number?”

Arrgghhhhhhh. “Blah blah blah blah BLAH.”

“Thankyou for using XYZ Telecomms sir, connecting you now.”

(Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.)

(Music on hold – Greensleeves –  Dum dum, dum dum, da-dum dum, dum dum…)

“Thankyou for calling TJF Telekom, this is Cindy, how can I help you?

“Cindy, I just want to talk to my friend on his mobile, the number’s 0418 xxx yyy.”

“Thankyou sir, you’ve reached your friend’s network, but we don’t have an arrangement to receive calls from your network.  If you agree to continue then the call will be billed at 48c/minute plus a 30c flagfall, please hold and I’ll transfer you to our intelligent voice response system which can…”

ARRRGGHGHGHGHHHHH.  I smash my phone into a million pieces, then curl-up in the corner of my study, rocking backwards and forwards, trying to find that elusive “safe place”.

Is this for real?  Surely not, Dr Ron.

This is what used to happen in parts of the United States, calling across carriers (especially mobile-to-mobile or payphone-to-mobile) and probably still does happen in some parts of the world, where telecommunications regulators completely fail to … well … regulate properly.

Here I was, thinking that Australia had moved into the 21st century, where I can pick up any phone and dial any number and speak to anyone I want.  And have my call connected automatically and get billed accordingly.

An Optus spokeswoman said, “Optus does not have a commercial agreement for the interconnect arrangements necessary for [certain classes of] calls, so we cannot continue to support them.”

Huh?!?!

I’m an Optus customer … I’m paying the bill aren’t I ?!?!?

Connect the bloody call!!!

Optus appear to have got the sulks because another company (Mediatel)  was routing local Optus calls internationally using VoIP, and Optus were missing out on the international tariffs.  Well … that’s a very brief synopsis … the details are being nutted-out in the Federal Court at the moment.

At least one customer, according to Australian IT, said he recently cancelled his contract with Optus over the decision, and said, “I’m not going to give my money to a company that arbitrarily thinks it can decide who I can and can’t do business with.”

Hear, hear.  I applaud you, sir.  The only way Optus can be discouraged from treating its customers with this level of contempt is to “vote with our feet”, as they say.

Let’s hope the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman gives Optus’s chain a very firm yank.  We don’t need this type of commercial stupidity in Australia at the expense of a basic, functional telephone network.

corporate stupidity · Federal Court · Mediatel · Optus · PSTN

For many months I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Google’s next version of the Android operating system – code-named Cupcake.

I was excited this morning when I turned on the handset, to be greeted with a simple upgrade message:

“Android OS 1.5 (Cupcake release).  This is an update for your HTC Dream.  Enjoy several new features such as on-screen soft keyboard, video recording, faster browser and more.”

Okay okay, you don’t need to prompt me twice.  Of course I did what every other self-respecting Google-phone owner would do: I tapped ’Upgrade’ with gay abandon.

In just a few moments I was sucking-down 44 megs of the best, all via the ‘3′ data network.

The installer prompted me to restart the phone twice, and within a few minutes I was running Android OS 1.5 on my HTC Dream.

What’s new?

There are lots of User Interface (UI) improvements.  In the ‘locked’ screen, the network type (3G or Roaming) is displayed, along with the carrier you’re connected to, and the date and time.  Also the phone’s wallpaper is displayed under the lock message which looks nice, instead of just a black screen.

Importantly, all my applications were still installed and all of my user data and settings were left intact. Good work Google.

On-screen keyboard. This is great, and long overdue.  Just tap wherever data-entry is required, and an on-screen soft keyboard appears, much like the Apple iPhone interface.  Press the hard back / return key to hide the on-screen keyboard.  It looks small, but seems to be quite accurate.  There’s also a predictive spelling option which works well.

Video recorder. At last!  A new application called ‘Camcorder’ lets you record audio and video.  There’s a setting for high-quality (to write to the SD card) and low-quality (for quick snippets intended for MMS’ing).

Accelerometer. The in-built acceleromter was never used in first incarnations of Google’s Android.  Now there’s a setting which automatically switches between landscape and portrait modes depending on the angle of the dangle.

Other tweaks and improvements.

Contacts. The Call Log, Contacts and Favourites menus are more polished.  Contacts’ image thumbnails appear in your favourites, which is nice.

There are also new menu options to edit sync groups, and import contacts from your SIM card.

Calendar. More UI changes: nice, more polished.

Browser. Again, more UI changes.  Looks good and loads everything a bit faster.

Battery Life. The much-bemoaned appalling battery life of the HTC Dream is said to be addressed in this release of Android.  All I can say, after one day of experimenting, is watch this space!!  The thing hasn’t died on me yet, but I’ve only made half-a-dozen calls today and haven’t given the Bluetooth or wireless features a good hammering.

Conclusion?

In my “HTC Dream – first impressions” post in March this year, I listed several things which irked me:

Battery Life – see above.  Stay tuned.

FM Radio – well that’s not going to happen in a software patch, is it?  Actually I’ve been using a 3rd-party app called StreamFurious to listen to on-line radio stations.  It works really well, and even has a bandwidth counter which runs in the foreground, so you’re always aware of the application’s ‘bandwidth footprint’.

Camera – video now supported, see above.  The lag’s still there.

Microsoft Integration, File Browsing and Notepad - No, no and no.

Google Latitude – fixed in a ‘point release’ about two months back: see this post for details.

All in all, I’d say that Cupcake is a good effort, and worth the upgrade.  The ability to record video, and tap an on-screen keyboard will be warmly welcomed.  Support for the in-built accelerometer is also a nice improvement.

Google, keep the updates coming.  Apple, pay attention to your competitors, I don’t think they’re that far behind.

android · android os 1.5 · Google Phone · HTC Dream · t-mobile g1

What’s Tethering?

If you have a laptop or netbook, chances are you might want to access the internet.

If you’ve got a blue network cable handy, then that might be useful.  If not, and you’ve got WiFi built-in to your laptop, or a WiFi adapter, AND you’re in a wireless hotspot, then you might be able to connect to the internet via wireless.

If you’ve purchased a data plan from one of Australia’s several mobile telecommunications service providers, and you’ve also purchased a data modem which plugs into a USB port, or a PCMCIA broadband card, then that’s a good option too.

But if you’ve got a data plan and your mobile telephone already operates on one of Australia’s 3G mobile networks, then surely you can use your telephone as a modem and connect to the internet through your mobile telephone?

Yep, you can.  That’s tethering.

Is it easy?  Technically, yes.  Practically, no.

Why not?

Because Australian telecommunications carriers want you to spend more money and buy their network adapters.  Like these.  IT Wire journalist and Tech Talk Radio’s Adam Turner explains it well in this article written for The Age Digital Life.

The Australian Android Market has no tethering applications and isn’t likely to in the near future, for reasons explained by Adam.  But is it mandatory to have applications listed in the Android Market, in order to install 3rd-party software on an Android-powered device?

No, not at all.

Introducing… Android Tethering!

Here’s what you need;

• An Android-powered phone, like the HTC Dream (aka T-Mobile G1, or “Google phone”); or an HTC Magic for example;
• A laptop / netbook / desktop computer;
• A USB cable to connect your phone to your laptop / netbook / desktop; and
• A data plan attached to your mobile telephone service.

Follow the steps at cp.blog, which are, in brief:

• Install the Tetherbot tethering application on your Google phone.  You need to tell your phone to allow installation of non-Android Market applications;
• Ensure the latest Android driver is installed on your laptop;
• Install the Android SDK or “adb” utility on your laptop;
• Open a command prompt and type “adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080″ to start the proxy server on your laptop (use  Task Manager to kill the process when you’re done – maybe setup a desktop shortcut to streamline this process);
• Use a web browser like Mozilla Firefox, and install a proxy manager like FoxyProxy.  Follow the configuration instructions in Mike’s post;
• Connect your Google phone, start Tetherbot and press “Start Socks”;

• Click on the web browser FoxyProxy button to force all traffic through the proxy server (“adb”) you have installed and started.  It would have looked something like this:

Bingo! All your web traffic is now routed through your Google phone.  You now have web access to the internet via your mobile telephone network.

I tested my new tethering by first checking my local IP address, through the WiFi connection:

…and then through the new tethered connection, via my mobile phone network:

Yep … definitely using a different network route now!

Warning! Watch your data usage.

Another Warning! Pay close attention to your data usage.

I would be interested to hear from people who have had similar success with this process, or modified the process slightly in order to use other handsets, proxy servers, browsers or browser plug-ins.

Many thanks to Mike Thompson and the Android Developer Community for assistance with this blog post.

android · android sdk · Google Android · Google Phone · HTC Dream · t-mobile g1 · tethering