Archive for March, 2005
News you’ll never see in the Singapore state-owned media
We all know how much our Gahmen likes to suck up to the great and almighty Gill Bates and his Micro$oft Empire. Which is why we’ll never see articles like these in our state-owned media.
Mr Robertson, based in Griffith, NSW, doesn’t understand why his peers elsewhere choose to be locked in to Microsoft’s strategy. “I’m staggered and close to offended that some businesses choose the risk of vendor lock-in, and I’m staggered by the timidity of some IT managers,” he says.
Mr Robertson mandated De Bortoli use free software productivity suite OpenOffice for tasks such as word processing after reading open standards studies from around the world.
He cites the OASIS OpenDocument technical committee recommendations for office document formats and the World Bank’s infoDev project’s Open Source Software - Perspectives for Development report as two examples of standards-oriented analysis that support strategic IT decisions. The OpenDocument initiative promulgates OpenOffice file formats for ordinary office documents rather than Microsoft Office formats because they are completely transparent.
On standards, Firefox has an advantage over Explorer. That gives organisations latitude to commit to standards rather than to products. That in turn reduces the leverage that vendors have over customers.
Microsoft has hampered standards support in Explorer for five years with its go-slow campaign against the web. Standards-oriented page layout is not possible on most versions of Explorer (CSS box model). Explorer has never met standards for web document identification (HTTP MIME content types), or if one is supported, then simultaneously the other is not. Microsoft has shown an antipathy to web standards, because in the view of many they provide an alternative to the Windows desktop - Microsoft’s core business. The success of web-based applications such as Amazon, Google, eBay, the open source Wikipedia encyclopedia and online banking point to the decreasing importance of Windows in a world where a web browser is sufficient.
The really strange thing about our Gahmen is, for a bunch of people so paranoid of losing control, they’re willing to subject their technological infrastructure to the dominion of M$. Sometimes they’re just so unfathomable.
The Age - Firefox explorers and Sydney Morning Herald - Firefox explorers via Slashdot
I’m too unsexy for my blog
This meme compels me!
Update: I decided to do one of Justice. She may be blind, but she’s still definitely sexy!
mr brown’s central repository of sexybloggers!
Mr Miyagi starts the evil meme…
And is now fanning the flames.
Why Code trumps Law: the irrelevance of broadcast censorship rules
mr brown provides a much-needed dose of Singlish for an overseas student like me in his latest browncast with Pipples[sic]. (previous browncasts here, here and here)
Love his shows. Compared to the boring and staid radio stations run by the state-owned media, the browncasts are a breath of fresh air… or at least, a taste of freedom.
The main reason why mr brown’s shows are so entertaining and funny, is because there aren’t any restrictions on what he can or cannot say. They talk about anything under the Singapore sun. mr brown talks about ‘pung sai’ and ‘pussy… cats’. Pipples doesn’t hold back on his ‘fucks’ and ‘butohs’. Hilarity ensues.
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