Sponsor's Message

You'll have upgraded all your OS and applications software to the very latest revisions, applied all the security patches and be running a reliable, robust firewall.

No doubt there'll be a reputable anti-virus program constantly monitoring the email you receive and it will be working from a completely up-to-date set of data files.

This isn't an absolute guarantee of safety against crackers and other malevolent sods, but it's pretty close.

So you're probably feeling quite smug eh?

You can do your online banking and shopping, safe in the knowledge that sensitive information such as your IDs, passwords and credit-card data are not being unintentionally divulged to any third party.

But what happens if you're away from home or the office?

I wonder just how many people use Cybercaf´s, public libraries, kiosks or other publicly accessible Internet services to read their email, make the occasional purchase or check the balance of their bank accounts?

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Nothing Yet Have Your Say

If you've ever done this -- did you even bother checking to see that the browser you were using had the latest security patches applied?

This is something that only takes a second or two to do: simply choose the About option from the Help menu.

The problem is that any computer that is not yours -- be it one in a cybercafé, a library or even a your best mate's PC might be unknowingly infected with an evil trojan or some other kind of back-door.

You can't be sure that the guy who used the computer before you hadn't just visited an innocent-looking web-page containing a script designed to exploit one of the many vulnerabilities in an unpatched version of Internet Explorer.

The trojan it might have delivered could now be sitting silently, waiting for your credit-card number, online banking ID/password or other sensitive information to enter via the keyboard.

Now I'm sure that most cybercafé operators take great care to ensure that their machines are safe and free from rogue infections -- but next time you find yourself away from your own PC or Mac, please stop and think carefully about the possibility that everything you type is being forwarded to some nefarious little sod on the other side of the world.

I'm Looking For Work
It's been a somewhat depressing weekend here. In a bold attempt to capitalise on the opportunity of a lifetime and further the reputation of NZ's ability to foot it in a knowledge economy, I've sunk over $150K into my XJet engine during the past year or two. Unfortunately, once I do my sums, I find out that I didn't actually have that much money in the first place.

As a result, the bank manager has threatened all manner of plague and pestilence upon me if I don't rake in some cash in double-quick time, with similar knife-sharpening noises coming from my good friends over at the IRD.

Of course I'm incredibly pee'd off that once again (as was the case with 7am.com back in 1999) I've stuffed things up to the extent that I have an extremely valuable product at exactly the time a huge market has opened up for it -- but I'm penniless and in precisely the wrong place -- lacking even the cash to file for international patent protection.

I do have a couple of book deals in the pipeline but they'll take at least 18-24 months to start generating any significant cashflow and even plans to sell my house don't seem to be bearing any immediate fruit.

So, on the somewhat heavy-handed recommendations of all those parties with vested interests, I'm forced to acknowledge that it's time to stop making enterprising, innovative, exciting and break-through technology advances -- and instead, focus on the rather mundane task of earning some immediate cash.

Hence, I'm looking for work.

As regular readers will be aware, I've never had trouble coming up with innovative ways of promoting websites and generating large amounts of traffic, nor do I have much problem catching the eye of the media when required. If you'd like me to apply my attentions to your website or online business then maybe you should drop me an email.

I can also cut some interesting and topical copy for your website, newsletter, or ther publication on a casual or regular basis and, if you've got some kind of tech-related problem, let me take a look and see if I can come up with a clever solution.

If you're interested, let me know and we'll talk turkey.

Note that I'm not looking for "full-time, waste two hours a day commuting to our offices in the city, salaried employment" -- I'm looking for work, not a job ;-)

Or I guess, if I didn't have a conscience, I could just take up one of the several very (fiscally) attractive offers to relocate myself and my jet-engine development activities to a decidedly non-Western country . Naaah...

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