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Showing posts from December, 2018

2018 Assistance and Access Bill

This is a cross post from my less technical blog at https://abeath.blog Passed the Senate last night, rushed through in a day by a bunch of politicians that probably haven't read any of the submissions or listened to anyone in IT about the impact on privacy these encryption changes will make. Man it makes my blood boil. There was an article on Business Insider about it quoting a software consultant in Melbourne Tom Sulston and he summed it up really well: 1. The bill is bad for security because encryption keeps us safe from criminals. This bill will make it easier for them to hack us. 2: The bill is bad for jobs because software companies will choose not to work in Australia, as this bill is fundamentally incompatible with GDPR. 3: The bill is bad for workers, as it opens up all sorts of penalties if we conscientiously object to being drafted into the security services. 4: The bill is bad for democracy as it will make it easier for a sitting government to access the priva

A month with the 2017 MacBook Pro

I reviewed the new MacBooks awhile ago and I wasn't all that impressed by them, in particular I was critical of the keyboard and the trackpad. Over the last month, however, I've been using one full time and I've come to accept the keyboard and even enjoy using the big, super sensitive and useful trackpad. So here's what we're talking about: Latest version of macOS, and a pretty solid machine spec to boot. I have to say the Retina display is really nice. I can happily look at it all day without any eye strain issues or headaches as a result. The machine itself is a silver 13" MacBook, no touch bar or any of that silliness and was around $2000, plus accessories. I managed to get a USB-C adaptor with HDMI, USB3 and USB-C charging and access ports for this laptop. It's pretty cool actually but I do have to plug it into the computer and then reboot it to get the HDMI to work. This gives me essentially a dock to use, with my Time Machine backup drive, USB to