TTCS Podcast #11 (March 24th, 2007) 

 

Members participating in this podcast DevT, MikeT, RichardJ,  AnilR, RichardB, PaulW.

 

Local Tech News :

 

  • VAT to be added to computer monitors and printers because of  "an amendment to the harmonised system, which governs the classification of goods on a worldwide scale". This is expected to have a negative on end-users and not companies who can "claim back"  their VAT payments. Newsday article

     

  • The goverment portal has been designed according to accepted web standards. However, one minor problem: the hyperlinks are not underlined and therefore difficult to use. The portal is located at http://gov.tt/
  • Trinihits.com offering local songs for 99cents US. The nusic is encoded in MP3 and does not have DRM. Only one complaint the songs could be encoded at a higher bit rate. Hopefully they can provide more classic/vintage (e.g. 1930s, 1950s) material in the near future. It appears that the site is aimed at overseas visitors/customers because the site is not heavily promoted locally.
  • Republic Bank offers online banking. At this time it only works with Internet Explorer but they have promised that the site will be compatible with Firefox by May 2007. It is interesting that the Firefox announcement is prominently displayed on the front page. Users who are savvy enough to use Internet banking are savvy enough to avoid using IEwith its known security flaws.
  • TATT invites operators/owners of all Internet cafés within Trinidad and Tobago to register relevant contact information with the Authority (http://www.tatt.org.tt/forms/Internet_Cafe_Survey.pdf   Privacy concerns over the data being collected by the form.
  • TATT has a one page PDF with very little information about its "Approved Budget". Link to the PDF: http://www.tatt.org.tt/ddocs/Budget_2006.pdf

     

  • ICANN - domain tasting, etc
  • ICANN ending Registerfly - more stringent oversight of domain registrars in future (mention as part of ICANN
  • Rave (Lisa Networks) discontinuing dial-up service
  • TTCS OSSWIN CD crossing 20,000 downloads  (chip.de 7483,  filefront 236, freenet.de 10972, wonboard 1953  as of saturdy  24th March 2007)
  • No feedback yet on the Gov open source policy 
  • FLOW Internet service now available in select areas in EW Corridor upon switchover to digital programming

 

"Furren" Tech News ("Farrign?")

A lot to cover...

 

 

 

Stuff that we won't cover but should

 

  • OneCare sucking worse than other solutions
  • Symantec claiming that Windows most secure OS, survey not looking at severity level of patches needed.  I want what they smoke... then again, Symantec sells little to Mac users, and even less to Linux users
  • Novell the latest Microsoft proxy in its war against Free Software and the GPL.  MS in trouble in Europe again.
  • Organized criminals still stealing new computers from community centres and other places (Blackpool in Tnunapuna hit) - possibly for illegal DVD reproduction.  Argument for thin-clients using legacy machines.
  • TSTT dialup sucking the big one worse than normal - TSTT "apparently" blocking non-dialup access to its mailserver
  • Vista apparently less secure than XP

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