History League t-shirts

 Posted by at 9:05 am  No Responses »
Mar 122013
 

humansvsplagueThis is the t-shirt my son is wearing to his history class today. It comes from Amorphia Apparel who although they are US-based seem to be able to deliver a custom-printed t-shirt to Sydney in less than a week.

They have a range of geeky shirts, but the History League ones remain my current favourites. They either come as individual ’teams’ or match-ups like the humans versus the plague. Other match-ups include the Roman legions versus Hannibal’s war elephants regional finals in 201 BC, and Telsa Lightning versus the Menlo Park Wizards.

For the full range see their website.

Games hell: Shopping overseas because Australian retailers are rubbish

 Posted by at 7:04 am  2 Responses »
Mar 052013
 

serviceThere have been numerous articles recently bemoaning the death of local retailers as people move to using overseas suppliers online. Usually people choose to purchase from overseas simply on the basis that to do so is cheaper. Couldn’t agree more – there many, many goods that I can get more cheaply from the US.

But there are still reasons to buy locally. The first is that delivery should be faster. The second is that customer service is local, in my time zone and ought to be better. It was with these thoughts in mind that I bought a game a few weeks ago from Games Paradise. Zombicide had come highly recommended and I was keen to give it a go. I went with Games Paradise, even though it was not the cheapest option, because they showed it in stock and promised 1-3 days delivery.

You can see where this story is going can’t you? Days rolled by and I heard nothing and no game was delivered. I emailed Games Paradise and got no response. I phoned them and was told they would mail it the next day, and they hadn’t before because they had been out of stock (in spite of showing it in stock). Then my earlier email got a response but with a different story – this time that the delay had been caused by ‘the sale’. Sale? What sale? I hadn’t bought under a sale. But anyway I just wanted the game. I get an email saying it has been dispatched and a tracking number would follow.

More days rolled by and still no game and no tracking number. I phone again – see how handy dealing with someone local is! No they haven’t posted it because of that pesky sale. Can I talk to the manager I say, now somewhat unhappy. “No, he’s too busy to talk to you.” came the reply! So I send off an email of complaint – and, gosh, I could have done that if I was dealing with a company in the USA, couldn’t I? Back they come saying they absolutely, definitely will post it and as a gesture of something they will give me a 10 per cent discount. I now, somewhat tersely, point out that if I ordered the game that day I would be getting a 20 percent discount under ‘the sale’, so 10 percent was not exactly making my little heart beat faster. Back again they come and offer the 20 per cent discount and they’ll definitely get the game posted.

Another email comes on Friday saying the game has finally been dispatched, just for clarity over three weeks after it was ordered, and they are awaiting a tracking number from the courier. Two more days roll by and no tracking number appears. And I’m frustrated enough to share this story with you, gentle reader.

Look I know stuff goes wrong. But not only could I have bought this game more quickly and cheaply through the USA I would have gotten decent customer service (a recent t-shirt purchasing debacle had the US supplier send me 24 t-shirts until they got the order right, no questions asked). And that’s where my sympathy for the local whingeing disappears. If you want us to shop locally, give us a reason to do so. And that reason is not pushing up the cost of overseas goods by adding on taxes or tariffs  That reason ought to be because I get high quality local service.  If it costs more, takes longer to arrive and is backed by atrocious service well surprise, surprise – Amazon, here I come.

Subscribing to Microsoft Office 365

 Posted by at 8:31 am  No Responses »
Feb 212013
 

It’s been yearsoffice365 since I used Microsoft Office. I’ve been happily making do with Google Docs and not really feeling the lack of the complexity that is Office. But the kids need Office for School and so I finally bit the bullet.

But instead of buying Office I’ve subscribed to it via Office 365. For just over $100 pa I get all of Office installed on 5 computers plus a nifty little facility which allows me to use a mildy handicapped version on another computer if I need to. Installation was a breeze, apart from one bit of confusion requiring a call to some very rude customer service people. And Office is, well it’s Office and I’m not here to review Microsoft Word.

So is the subscription model worth it? The actual cost of the first year’s subscription depends, strangely enough, on where you buy it. The rough average is $100. That gives me installation on 5 computers plus a grab-bag of add-ons such as some Skype credit and access to Skydrive. That’s the entire Office suite too, including Access and Publisher.

If I were to buy the same Office suite outright it would cost me around $500 per computer. That’s a bit of a false comparison because I personally wouldn’t buy all of the suite. But even the most basic version of Office bought outright would cost me $130 per computer. So on its face as long as subscription prices hold roughly steady I should be better off – it would take around five years of capitalising the outright purchase cost to equate to my spend on the subscription. In addition, my subscription comes with all upgrades built-in. Over a five-year period there will be at least one Office upgrade which would require paying for; so again the financial side of this looks better. Again, though, the comparison is not entirely valid because in the past I simply haven’t bothered upgrading to more recent versions. But there a basic underlying validity that makes sense.

So if the makes financial sense where’s the downside. Well the starting point is that I don’t own the software; I can’t just stop paying a happily work along on an older version. If I decide to stop paying Microsoft I no longer have Office. I’m not terribly worried about that, I have to say. I’m used to subscription services – I use them for quite a few things these days, including acccess to a car. In fact I was at the same risk with Google Docs. The biggest risk in this context is that Microsoft gets silly with the pricing in subsequent years and tries to gouge out a higher rate of return. It being Microsoft we’re dealing with that isn’t an entirely unlikely scenario, albeit one likely to shoot them squarely in the foot with consumers. But Microsoft has a lot of experience with foot-damaging decisions.

The main reason I’m not unduly worried is that I’ve been down this road before. I’m a little surprised that no one I’ve read has mentioned Microsoft’s last foray into subscription pricing for Office. It must have been about 15 years ago, maybe even slightly longer, and I have the feeling it was something they trialled only here in Australia. I subscribed, and after a year they shut the entire program down and in apology gave me the Office suite for free – in fact I used that same one for many years after that.

Real-time data to come to rail

 Posted by at 8:52 am  No Responses »
Feb 032013
 

Train imageWe’ll soon be able to see whether our train is on time.

I absolutely love being able to see whether a bus I’m trying to catch is on time. So the news that Transport for NSW is releasing real-time data for trains is welcome. Given the information displayed at train stations this is perhaps less useful than the bus information, but it’s still something we should have.

Developers will be given their first look at the data in mid-February and, everything else being equal, we can only assume that it would be added to the existing apps soon after that.

TripView in particular has done a nice job of displaying real-time bus information. However I never cease to be amazed that Transport for NSW’s own 131500 service does not display this information.

I still use the 131500 website and app as my first point of call when I’m not looking at a specific bus number and real-time information would make all the difference. The problem is that TripView shows specific routes, rather than all the ways I can get from where I am to my home right now. Also TripView does not show school buses, which I need for my children. So what I end up doing, often, is looking up the next bus information on 131500 and then swapping to TripView to see if the bus I want is on time. Ultimately, I know its early days, but there’s room for improvement.

Anyway, real-time train information is another positive step.

Homage to the uber-politics-geek

 Posted by at 9:58 am  No Responses »
Jan 312013
 

antony greenI’m channeling my not-so inner politics geek today. And that can mean only one thing - paying homage to the uber-politics-geek that is Antony Green.

Now Antony is all about the numbers and the process which I love. You can paint whatever colour politics you want on the canvas of objective detail he provides. Sadly the length of the campaign probably makes little difference to what he can usefully contribute in that context. The coming months will all be about maneuvering and positioning so Antony will really come into his own much closer to the event. But even now his blog is absolutely worth watching.

Did you know the only Federal parliament to run a full term was the 1906-10 parliament? Right now, the Prime Minister has made a statement of intent: The election is not official until the writs are issued. That could legally be as early as mid-July, but it wont be because Cabinet convention is that when the writs are issued Government enters caretaker mode. Thank you Antony, it’s all great stuff. Really he has a lot of excellent information as well as a peerless depth of background and insight.

Is there any doubt he’s the ultimate politics geek? Well Antony describes himself as a psephologist. Enough said.

Looking through the Google Transparency Report

 Posted by at 8:03 am  No Responses »
Jan 252013
 

gtreportShock! Horror! We’re living 1984. Or maybe not so much.

The latest Google Transparency Report shows what the media has been calling an “alarming” and “troubling” increase in government requests for user information which are now “at an all time high” and have “skyrocketed to new levels”. Wow, scary stuff.

So what was this alarming increase?

The Report details government requests for Google users’ data. Globally there were 20,938 requests in the first half of 2012 and 21,389 in the second half (that’s a 2 per cent increase). In Australia there were 523 requests in the first half of 2012 and 584 in the second half (an, even more significant, 12% increase). And don’t percentage changes always look so impressive when you are dealing with a low base?

But more significantly is that these numbers are absolutely tiny when compared with the number of Google users. Google has between 200 and 400 million accounts. The percentage of accounts where information has been requested is simply tiny. And while we’re comparing things it’s crucial to remember that Google is actually publishing these numbers – we have no comparison with other service providers, let alone with the telecoms companies.

Now don’t get me wrong, Google holds a lot of information and that information deserves to be protected from casual view. Governments should not have the right to just rock up and take a look. But then that’s the point – they don’t. Google complies with properly authorised requests; and it counts them and tells the world what’s going on. There’s equally no question that the number of requests is going up, but then so is the number of users and the range of circumstances when user information could be useful to an agency – a few years ago Google would not have held location data for example. So while the Transparency Report numbers are interesting and absolutely worthy of monitoring, they are a long way short of apocalyptic.

Keeping a vigilant eye on what’s happening to your own personal data and to all of our data is a crucial part of participation in a modern society. Privacy is yet another area where society’s rules and norms have yet to settle down into some sort of balance with what technology allows, if they ever will. But at the same time it’s important to retain some sense of perspective on these things.

Of course in a better world it would not be Google publishing a report on requests for information by the Government; it would be the Government publishing a report on all requests for information it had made to everyone. Now maybe that would be really scary.

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