Richard Giles Blog

I’m please to announce that my new blog is open for business. Gadget Lounge is a blog that is all about gadgets available in Australia. There are plenty of resources on the net that update us with geek toys, but none that focus on the Australian market. Gadget Lounge is all about those toys from an Aussie point of view. Australian pricing, availability, providers, services, and anything related. From mobile phones, digital cameras, personal video recorders, broadband, digital TV, through to new services and solutions for digital convergence.

It’s hoped that we might generate a little revenue as well, something that might pay for a little bit of the time we put into the site. If your interested in sponsoring or adverting, then send me an email. Who knows, some kind gadget vendor may even bestow a few test devices on us for previews and reviews.

For now though, it’s all about the visitors. So, if you’re a gadget fiend, or in search of a new toy to impress the office, swing on over and have a read. The plan is for regular updates and information you won’t find anywhere else. If there is anything you’d like to see, or you spot some news, feel free to let us know.

We are close to finalising the main details for a Perth Blog Nite, a symposium dedicated to discussions about the phenomenon. October 27 is the planned date, depending if the venue we hope to secure is available. All going well we’ll have a press release out in the next couple of weeks, with details for a few of the main concepts.

A few people seem to be confused as to the aim for the conference. It won’t be a tech fest, nor a “how to” event. The main focus will be the business, social and communication repercussions of the medium. The plan is to invite everyone, and it is expected that we’ll have commercial, education, government and the media interested in the event.

If anyone is keen to help, please let me know.

Some computer science graduate students at the University of California have a blog survey and the results will be published publicly at an academic conference. Spread the word, the more people that take it, the more meaningful the results.

Check their blog, Prospecting the Blogosphere for details and the questionnaire.

This news just in. Gartner has reassessed its recommendation to ban iPods from enterprises, and is now suggesting that companies ban employees all together.

The new report says, “Employees are the greatest security threat to an organisation. We suggest planning and procedures to ensure none have access to the company, thus ensuring no malicious code, loss of proprietary information or intellectual property, and consequent lawsuits and loss of reputation”.

Gartner is soon to form a division known as Skynet, that will protect an organisation from employees, for a small yearly subscription fee.

A friend of mine wrote today to ask a favour, a good friend of his won’t be going to Athens to compete for a medal like she hoped. I’d like to extend the request to all Australian Bloggers and anyone that is listening. Apparently, around the rest of the world, bloggers can make a huge difference, even when the media doesn’t. So, Aussie Bloggers, lets give it a whirl.

Australia is an incredibly patriotic nation, and we all love our sport whether playing or watching. We all want to give our athletes a go. So had you asked me yesterday if it would seem logical that we would send an athlete who holds the current National Record in an event to the Olympics rather than send no one at all, I’d say it was a no brainer. Of course we would, if they were fit and ready to go, we’d certainly send them. We’d want to be represented and we sure as hell would want to give them a shot at a medal.

Well I’d be wrong. Nicole Mladenis is Australia’s best. She currently holds the Australian National Record of 14.04 for the triple jump. To qualify for the Olympics, Athletics Australia set the qualifier to 14.20. This type of result would put her in the finals at the Sydney Olympics, which by the way we also didn’t send a women for triple jump to. We all know that events like the Olympics bring out the best in athletes, so we should absolutely send her to give it a go. However, because she didn’t make the magic number the other day, she won’t be going to Athens with the rest of our great athletes.

The call to action is to send a polite email to Simon Allatson (sallatson@athletics.org.au), Athletics Australia’s Chief Executive Officer. It doesn’t have to be anything detailed, just a request that they reconsider Nicole. If you’ve got a blog maybe you could post an entry asking for a little help as well. After all, isn’t it the Australian way to give people a fair go?