Author: admin

From Vista magazine, May 2007

This digital life (version 2.0)

Nick, a recent addition to Microsoft, is a long time blogger, presenter and geek. Read Nick’s exploits and stories at http://www.nickhodge.com. A part of Nick’s “job” at Microsoft is to collect and record Australia’s Geek Stories. Turn your web browser to http://thegeekstories.com. To hear what Nick is doing almost on a minute by minute basis, catch Nick on http://twitter.com/. Note: Twitter is the latest online success story, and no one who uses twitter exactly knows exactly why. Creating an account is easy, and adding Friends to watch and talk to is easy. Ignoring the tweets (singular noun of a posting) is tough. The web industry calls twitter “micro-blogging”

Thanks to the previous owner of this real estate, Frank Arrigo. Frank is the personification of “geek”, and the owner of the title as Microsoft’s local Professional Geek.

My personal geek story starts when I saw my first personal computer: an Apple II in 1981. Prior to this experience, I had only drawn on used computer punch cards. Seeing that computer changed my life, a whole new world opened up and career started. A small Seattle company had licensed a programming language to Apple, called AppleSoft Basic. That small company was Microsoft.

Continuing the language trend, the first programming language in which my parents purchased and in which I become fluent was Microsoft Basic 1.0 for the Mac. Friends still pester me for the project I started way back in May 1984: MacFarm. It never shipped, or at least is in perpetual development.

Leap ahead through time and various companies over employers such as Apple and Adobe – here I find myself at Microsoft. With the heritage in languages now extending into operating systems, applications, servers, Xboxes, online Live services – there is no shortage of fun things to install, experience and tell the world about.

Now my parents are now semi-retired in the Barossa Valley, still have that original museum piece Mac somewhere in their shed. Their primary PC is running Windows XP – and it and an internet connection changed how grandparents interact with their grandchildren. The use of webcams with Live Messenger, emails via Outlook and pictures back-and-forth keep my parents in contact with their Sydney-based grandson.

As memories move from physical to digital: photographs, music, snippets of video, blog entries and twitter tweets; the world connects and the tyranny of distance experienced by our ancestors disappears. A photograph can be uploaded into the “cloud” of the internet for all to see and comment on almost immediately.

Having read books such as Gibson’s Neuromancer and Stephenson’s Snow Crash, wonder where this always on, instant information world is could take us. It’s great to be here at Microsoft, being a part of helping Australians embrace technology – to get us closer together. My optimistic inner geek thinks the world will be ok.

Yes I admit it, I am a Professional Geek at Microsoft just like Frank.

(From Vista Magazine, June 2007)

This digital life (version 2.0)

Nick, a recent addition to Microsoft, is a long time blogger, presenter and geek. Read Nick’s exploits and stories at http://www.nickhodge.com. A part of Nick’s “job” at Microsoft is to collect and record Australia’s Geek Stories. Turn your web browser to http://thegeekstories.com. To hear what Nick is doing almost on a minute by minute basis, catch Nick on http://twitter.com/nickhodge

Being a master of your own digital identity is a new life skill. Similar to riding a bike, driving a car or learning how to read – ensuring that your digital information is protected is paramount.

Recently I attended a corporate event where the senior manager of IT of a large bank was presenting. As he was talking about the bank’s use of technology, I coincidentally received what the industry terms a phishing email. Phishing is where nefarious criminals attempt to use electronic means to steal your login ids, passwords for financial institutions and other valuable online identifiers.

If you have email, you are likely to have received one of these in your Outlook, too. The email would have contained strange statements about “changing your account settings” or similar.

For younger people, social networks that once existed via the phone, are now online using instant messaging (IM) applications like MSN Live Messenger. Parents and teachers express surprise at how kids connect both to their school friends; and like-minded friends all over the world. Long gone are the days of pen-friends in different countries.

Banking, superannuation, communication, health, photos, messaging, telephone, government information – services that we all use to live in our society – are online, or fast moving to primarily online.

Where do you learn to be safe online? And more importantly, how do we ensure the younger ones in society are safe, and learn the “rules of the road”?

As much as software and networking technology adapts and adds barriers to cyber-criminals, sadly the state of human nature results in a continual process of development to block the nasties. Learning to carefully question what you read and see on the internet is as important as watching other drivers on the road.

NetAlert (http://www.netalert.net.au/ ) has a good starting resource for the younger audience. Netty for the 2-7 year olds and CyberQuoll for the 8-12 year olds — online characters and cartoons for the young.

We cannot ignore the internet and global connectivity, and learning how to behave in the online community is a life skill. Be safe out there, and enjoy the views from the cyber-highway.