A ship of fools

To accompany the launch of their new protect yourself website eBay Australia have released a survey claiming an amazing 93% of Australian Internet users don’t understand what phishing is and 72% engage in behaviour that increases their risk of falling victim to an online scam.

This is truly mind boggling given the amount of publicity that is given to these scams.

More depressingly, the press release claims that one in three Internet users believes that only dumb people fall for phishing attempt.

You can see why the smart scammers do so well with attitudes like this. We look at one of the good scams at our PC Rescue and Cranky Tech sites.

We’ll probably make this the main story for the next ABC Nightlife spot. It looks like we have a long way to go in educating people on Internet security.

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Why you should be careful of IT articles.

Trevor Cook raises an interesting point about IT journalism in his Corporate Engagement blog.

While he’s been a bit provocative with his description of the IT media being “low end” he does flag an important issue that Australian IT users should be aware of; that many reviews and articles are barely warmed over press releases.

In fact some technology journalists and publications are notorious for going the next step and just slightly rewriting overseas articles.

When you are reading an article on the latest and greatest IT products keep this in mind. If it appears the writer hasn’t used the product and is merely parroting some media release then you should be careful. Many of the articles have been ripped straight off the wire.

It should be emphasised that this isn’t usually the journalists fault, it’s usually because the publication is under resourced and simply can’t generate original content. Reprinting press releases is an easy and cheap way to pad out content.

Personally, I like publications like Australian Personal Computer that does take the time to properly review products and cast a skeptical eye over the often inflated claims of IT vendors.

When making decisions on buying technology, don’t just rely on what you read in the paper.

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Fourth Estate Domain, 2 October 2007

This month’s Sydney FED featured Richard Webb, CEO of Blue Freeway. As usual it was well attended night and we should thank Sally Mills for organising these valuable events.

Blue Freeway’s an interesting beast. They have pulled together a number of disparate companies with the aim of offering a “one stop shop” for interactive and digital marketing.

It’s certainly an attractive model and a number of others are looking doing likewise.

The problem I see with this model is that it becomes a jack of all trades and struggles to do any of them well. The alternative is you end up with the dreaded “siloing” where each business unit doesn’t communicate with the others.

Richard addressed this in his discussion. His solution is strong branding, my suspicion is that it will need some very strong management as well.

There were many other issues raised but I’ll have to wait for the podcast as I didn’t take notes and things started getting hazy later (thanks to Sally and Hazel for the drinks).

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Choosing a broadband connection

You need to be careful when choosing a broadband connection

The ongoing spat between Telstra and the Federal government is a symptom of the problems Australians face when going online.

To protect their revenues and investment, Telstra had to slow the adoption of the Internet in Australia. To do this they introduced a unique pricing policy with their broadband Internet packages which still affect us today.

Rationing data through punitative excess use charges meant that customers were exposed to big bills. It also meant smaller ISPs using Telstra’s wholesale Internet plans couldn’t offer unlimited plans like their overseas counterparts. Those excess use fees have proved pretty profitable for Telstra.

A few years back Bigpond CEO Justine Milne said that around half his broadband customers upgrade to more expensive plans. This is barely surprising, as the cheaper plans leave all but the lightest user with a big excess use bill. So it’s important to choose the right plan.

The right plan for you depends upon what you are going to use your broadband connection for. If you have teenage kids, you can expect to have massive music and video downloads, if you have have friends and relatives overseas you might find yourself using Voice over IP. The most important deciding factor is how much data you will send and receive, this determines your plan and it’s cost.

Data Allowances

Every time you go on the net, you transfer data. Every connection, every email and every web page involves data moving between your computer and the net. A light Internet user can expect to use around 400Mb a month, a typical user a Gb per month and a heavy user (those teenage kids again) over 5Gb a month.Most broadband Internet plans include a data allowance. If you go over that allowance you will either be capped, which means your connection is slowed or start paying excess fees. Those fees vary dramatically between 0.5 and 20c per Mb.

The cheapest plans generally offer a 200Mb allowance. The Telstra $29.95 plan charges 15c for each additional Mb. The light 400Mb a month user that does little more than check email and read a few web pages would end up with a monthly bill of around sixty dollars. For sixty dollars a month, you can get a much better plan with Telstra and an even better plan with one of their competitors.

Remember these assumptions are based upon a light user. If you have teenagers, or you like listening or watching streaming media your usage will be much higher. To help you figure out how much data you will use, Telstra have a usage calculator, use this to figure how much data you can expect to use then double the amount to be safe.

Capping

One way to avoid huge bills to choose a plan that caps your usage when you go over the monthly limit. Most broadband providers offer these plans. One thing to watch is the speed when you exceed these plans.

While speed caps protect against massive bills, they are frustrating. It’s best to choose a plan with a generous allowance that means you won’t get frustrated. Remember you will use double what you expect.

Speeds

With broadband plans you can choose what upload and download speeds you want. Naturally the faster you choose, the more you pay.This is another area where the unsuspecting consumer needs to be careful. Many of the cheap plans are the slowest available.

The slowest speed is 256/64, which means the download speed is around six times faster than a dial up modem, while the upload speed is only a little faster.When comparing plans, it’s important to make sure plans are of a similar speed. Faster is definitely better.

Pre Selection and Bundling

A lot of the cheap plans are linked to you agreeing to use that company for telephone calls. While they can be good deals the plans are insanely complex. Customers don’t like them and I agree.

Contract Lengths

Many plans try to lock you into a contract, just like a mobile phone. The longer you committ to, the cheaper the price so many cheaper plans have long contracts. With broadband prices are dropping all the time, getting locked into a two year contract may not be a good deal.

Installation

A number of providers are offering free installation. Read the fine print as this offer may only apply if you sign up to a longer contract or more expensive plan. For the average user, we’d recommend getting the ISP to send a tech out to install it for you, even if you have to pay an extra $200.

Free Months

Some providers are offering a number of ‘free” months. Like the “free” installation offers you’ll pay for these over the extended contract length or won’t get the cheaper or more flexible plans. Read the fine print.

Free equipment

Another “freebie” to get you in. All broadband connections require a special modem. For cable connections this is included as part of your plan. ADSL customers can supply their own modems.

Most ADSL providers will sell you a modem as an extra. While they tend to be more expensive than buying your own, we recommend buying their modem as it becomes more difficult for the ISP to play the traditional blame shifting game if anything goes wrong. This usually adds around $200 to the setup cost.

Like the other “free offers” a free modem may cost you more over the length of the contract. Keep reading that fine print.

Comparing providers

Telstra Bigpond is not the only provider. ADSL is a very competitive market and there are a lot of providers offering good deals. Broadband Choice is the site to visit when you want to find who can offer the best broadband deals.

Broadband is the best way to connect to the Internet but the plans are complex and are often designed to catch the unwary. Make sure you understand what you are getting into before you sign a contract. Shop around to find the best deal for you and remember that if it is too good to be true, it may well be.

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The first post

This is the first post on the Australian technology blog.

The aim of this blog is look at the technologies that are affecting Australian homes and businesses and how they are using that technology.

The blog’s going to compliment our IT Queries, Cranky Tech and PC Rescue websites. While those will continue, this blog will fill the gaps between them.

In the next few weeks I’ll be looking at some of the wireless Internet offerings and the Federal government’s new free web filters.

Join us for the ride, we hope we can help you make sense of where technology is taking us and how to get the most from it.

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