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Software

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Parent Category: Information Technology
Category: Software
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With the extraordinary revelations coming out of England’s regarding ‘The News of the World’, personal privacy had suddenly hit the headlines; at least in the non-Murdock papers.  

But of more concern than having one’s telephone tapped, is the risk of having one’s computer tapped.  Private papers, photographs and other files as well as your bank accounts and other ecommerce connections are particularly vulnerable to anyone with direct or remote access to our computers and/or personal devices.           

How might we prevent a ‘private investigator’, ‘investigative journalist’, ‘hacker’ or other criminal getting access to our files and invading our privacy?    

And how secure is the Internet that most of us use everyday?

 

 

Read more: Personal privacy

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Parent Category: Information Technology
Category: Software
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Over the years I have written many small applications and utilities.

 

In order of sophistication these include:

  • Simple HTML web pages
  • Command line scripted utilities and batch (BAT) files
  • Embedded Java code in web pages
  • Word and Excel macros typically written in Visual Basic for Applications VBA
  • Simple databases with VBA or Visual Basic (VB) VB frontends
  • Database related SQL queries batch data manipulators, templates and structures
  • Simple stand-alone utilities in in VB
  • Windows utilities written in plain C++ or using the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC)
  • Fully featured relational databases using SQL Server and VB
  • Complex applications written in C++

 

Some examples include:

  • Automatic footers and metadata updater code for Word and Excel; optionally to bring up a dialog to ensure file naming conforms to a standard.
  • A utility to process business financial data to reveal a variety of comparable ratios indicative of business health.
  • An applications to change registry settings and to install and run files on desktops and servers across a network.
  • A library (DLL) of simple encryption routines that add no overhead (don't change the file size) that can be used on any file; or encrypt in URL friendly characters to secure URL strings sent to web pages.
  • Several applications based around this library that can easily be called by applications written in languages other than C (VB, VBA, Java, C# etc).
  • File manipulation software for archiving, file moving and general file management; providing scripted batch processing archiving and reporting.

 

I'm happy to provide more information on any of these on applications or tools.  Use the contact facility on this website.

Travel

Canada and the United States - Part1

 

 

In July and August 2023 Wendy and I travelled to the United States again after a six-year gap. Back in 2007 we visited the east coast and west coast and in 2017 we visited 'the middle bits', travelling down from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans then west across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California on our way home.

So, this time we went north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then into Canada. From Vancouver we travelled by car, over the Rockies, then flew east to Toronto where we hired a car to travel to Ottawa and Montreal. Our next flight was all the way down to Miami, Florida, then to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise.  At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

Seems crazy but that was the most economical option.  From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York. After New York we flew to Salt Lake City then on to Los Angeles, before returning to OZ.

As usual, save for a couple of hotels and the cars, Wendy did all the booking.

Breakfast in the Qantas lounge on our way to Seattle
Wendy likes to use two devices at once

Read more: Canada and the United States - Part1

Fiction, Recollections & News

Love in the time of Coronavirus

 

 

 

 

Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera lies abandoned on my bookshelf.  I lost patience with his mysticism - or maybe it was One Hundred Years of Solitude that drove me bananas?  Yet like Albert Camus' The Plague it's a title that seems fit for the times.  In some ways writing anything just now feels like a similar undertaking.

My next travel diary on this website was to have been about the wonders of Cruising - expanding on my photo diary of our recent trip to Papua New Guinea.

 


Cruising to PNG - click on the image to see more

 

Somehow that project now seems a little like advocating passing time with that entertaining game: Russian Roulette. A trip on Corona Cruise Lines perhaps?

In the meantime I've been drawn into several Facebook discussions about the 1918-20 Spanish Influenza pandemic.

After a little consideration I've concluded that it's a bad time to be a National or State leader as they will soon be forced to make the unenviable choice between the Scylla and Charybdis that I end this essay with.

On a brighter note, I've discovered that the economy can be expected to bounce back invigorated. We have all heard of the Roaring Twenties. 

So the cruise industry, can take heart, because the most remarkable thing about Spanish Influenza pandemic was just how quickly people got over it after it passed.

Read more: Love in the time of Coronavirus

Opinions and Philosophy

Copyright - Greg Ham

 

 

I've just been reading the news (click here or on the picture below) that Greg Ham of Men at Work has died; possibly by suicide.

Read more: Copyright - Greg Ham

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