User: Vombatus

Re:WhiteHat Voting

On: California Testers Find Flaws In Voting Machines

The voter than signs this ballot and inserts it into the secure optical scanner

Well, there goes the concept of a "Secret" ballot!

In Australia, an electoral official initials each and every ballot paper before handing it to the voter. This reduces the possibility of someone stuffing the ballot box with fraudulent ballots.

Re:911 the only reason for land lines

On: Number of Cellphones Now Equal To Half the Human Species

Triple zero (000) in Australia, not 111 or 911

Re:MPAA Chasing the Money?

On: MPAA College Toolkit Raises Privacy, Security Concerns

I'm pretty sure that no big, tourist-frequented department store (where I shop) would risk selling pirated/stolen goods.

You may wish to reconsider...

When I was in Bali, Indonesia a couple of years ago, there were a few shops at the airport which sold DVDs for around $1. Granted, not a department store, but a place frequented by thousands of tourists every day.

Re:Count Two

On: Do OpenOffice Users Save In Microsoft Format?

You would be surprised how many people and even small businesses don't use the advanced features.

Some people around here refer to 'Microsoft Excel' as 'Microsoft ListMaker'.

In most cases, they are correct

Re:For those who are too lazy to do some digging..

On: Law Firm Claims Copyright on View of HTML Source

Interesting, their site has been cached by Google:

Look out Google - be prepared for the storm troopers to come a knocking. Their user agreement specifically says We do not permit our website to be "spidered"

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Re:Check a C multiply on that machine...

On: Excel 2007 Multiplication Bug

There's always an offbeat chance that the multiply bug is in the CPU, not Excel....

But it works as expected in other versions of Excel - that would rule out a CPU problem

Re:People Tracking & RFID

On: China To Deploy World's Largest People Tracking Network

Do people just mod posts up because they sound good?

You must be new here.

Re:Shark

On: How To Turn a Mini Maglite Into a Laser

and where is the manual on how to mount it on the shark ?

Mounting the laser could be a slight problem if the shark is conscious

Re:Virtually None

On: Does ODF Have a Future?

The formatting has no value whatsoever. I call BULLSHIT!

Please see my comments in red for a list of reasons why formatting may have value

Re:You don't need MS Office to create .doc files

On: Does ODF Have a Future?

Use the tool that created the file to read it.

Now, can someone remind me where I left my install disks for Microsoft Word 4.0 for Macintosh.

Must run... I have to find information on how to run system 6 on my Intel Mac and find a floppy drive.

Re:Prehaps instead..

On: UK Proposal To Restrict Internet Pornography Sparks Row

I would like to remind you that not too long ago having sex for pleasure was considered "unbalanced".

And some religious orders still consider it so.

Re:OOXML isn't a solution to the existing problem

On: National Archive File Format Time Bomb

For a solution which converts documents to openly specified file formats (not OOXML), see XENA at https://sourceforge.net/projects/xena

Re:Steam isn't an energy source

On: The British Steam Car Challenge

What about the children of the stars?

Copyright extension laws will look after them, of course.

Re:RTFA?

On: CA Bill Limits Skin Implantation of RFID Chips

Sorry, my tin foil hat must have been on too tight

RTFA?

On: CA Bill Limits Skin Implantation of RFID Chips

How can I be guilty of not reading the fine article, when there is no fine article to be read?

Re:Official Secrets Act vs HMAS Sydney

On: Wreck of Australian Warship HMAS Sydney Found?

There is no such thing as the "official Secrets Act" in Australia

You may be thinking of the Crimes Act 1914 http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCom pilation1.nsf/0/33F7611CCEC92FD6CA2572BB008331DC?O penDocument

I am not sure what you mean by

The Australian gov is still really 'closed' about this". The National Archives of Australia has a lot (most?) of the documents online http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/research_guides /guides/sydney/introduction.htm and http://www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/defence/hmas_ sydney_resources.html and http://www.naa.gov.au/fsheets/fs111.html for starters.

Of course, conspiracy theorists would argue that this was all made up and the real story is being withheld.

Re:Anti-Virus

On: Flawed Survey Suggests XP More Secure Than Vista

Because it's an unfair advantage to make an insecure OS and then charge "protection" money!

No. No! No!!

It is a Genuine advantage

Re:Stupid Westpac ATMs

On: What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?

NAB ATMs are annoying too. They beep at every keypress when you enter your PIN but when you try to do anything else after you have done this - no beep.

One minute you are getting useful feedback that you have pressed a button correctly. Then you are left in the dark - did I press that button properly, or did i do something wrong?

Drives me insane(r)

Re:Actually its watching the traffic wardens...

On: British Traffic Wardens Issued CCTV Head Cameras

First thing the guy's gonna do is strap his camera hat to a dog's head.

Like this? http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/9 52.html

Re:"A Chip on DVDs Could Prevent Theft"

On: A Chip on DVDs Could Prevent Theft

Theft aside, how could this possibly inconvenience paying customers when it is done a single time while paying for it? I don't get the logic? Maybe the customer is inconvenienced for the few seconds it takes to activate it, but how does this really matter?

Having to go back to the store, because someone forgot to activate it, or made a slight error in the activation process is an inconvenience.

Assuming that only a small proportion of total DVD inventory (initially) will have this 'functionality', it will not be a routine procedure to activate them.

Re:Replacing paper documents with digital document

On: Linux and OSS to Aid the Library of Congress

Ahh, but if they had saved the digitised images using openly specified formats, rather than some obscure format, they would not have had to much problem reading the images.

Re:Security of what?

On: File Sharing — Harmful to Children and a Threat to National Security

Well, the poster wanted people to go to jail without any questions being asked, so what do you expect?

Re:Let's get the ball rolling!

On: Texas Bill For Open Documents

here in Australia they have just moved to using PDFs for all Government documents and are working on going to completely open documents.

Can you cite a source for these claims please?

There are still lots and lots of proprietary format documents available for download on lots of websites in the gov.au domain. I know that the National Archives of Australia is busy working out how to convert proprietary formatted documents into open document formats (for those documents warranting long term retention). For them (or anyone else in government) to mandate the exclusive use of open document formats would be an amazing thing.

Re:What are your parameters?

On: File Systems Best Suited for Archival Storage?

My hunch: For most applications involving less than 50 year data retention, making 2 copies of the raw data, to a currently supported stable media such as tape or archival DVD, stored in separate locations, is key. Make sure the data is both in the original format and in a published-standard format which is widely supported. Keep multiple machines that can read the data around for as long as you need the original format. Every few years or as needed, verify the data is intact, re-convert the data from the original format or, if that format is unreadable, the highest-fidelity published-standard format, to a currently-supported published standard, and save it to a currently-supported archival format. Interestingly enough, this is very similar to the process developed by the National Archives of Australia http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/preservation/d igital/summary.html/. They are saving the 'original' document and a version converted to an open format (eg Open Document Format for word processing documents). If the format changes, they will use the converted version to generate something in the new format. They will be doing it for stuff that needs to be kept a lot longer than your arbitrary 50 years.

Ideally, in 50 years time, you will have the original media plus several updated copies. You may or may not be able to read the original media but your most recent copies will be close enough to the original to be useful. If you are very lucky, the most recent copies will be identical to the originals AND you will still have the software and hardware to read them. But if you convert to an open document format, you will not need the original software or hardware to read them. If your business depends on it, you would also want to be pretty sure that the copy is an authentic replica of the original. You do not want to rewrite history inadvertently.

Oh, for anything REALLY important, print it out on archival paper, or carve it into stone. Thats a lot of paper or stone.

Re:What is document management anyway?

On: Big Blue's Software Spending Spree

Shared Drives - Don't talk to me about shared drives.

See http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/rkpubs/advices /advice70.html for information on why shared drives are a problem (besides the excellent list you have already given). Sometimes information is more readily accepted when it comes from a supposedly 'reliable' source.