Tag: radio shows

Where next for the NBN – ABC Nightlife technology

With a change of government, Australia’s troubled National Broadband Network is facing big changes

The National Broadband Network has always been a hot political issue in Australian politics and with the election of the new Federal government the often delayed project is being reviewed.

What does this mean for communities and businesses struggling with inadequate internet connections? Join Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank from 10pm, October 17 on ABC Local Radio across Australia.

If you missed the program, you can listen to it as a podcast through the ABC Tony Delroy’s Nightlife page.

Some of the questions Tony and Paul be covering include;

  • Why did we need the NBN in the first place?
  • What’s happened to the NBN since the new government was elected?
  • Why are we are we having political arguments about an infrastructure upgrade?
  • What are the differences between fibre to the node versus fibre to premises?
  • Why is the NBN running so late?
  • How will the coalition’s change the slow rollout?
  • Australia’s come in around 40th on an international survey on Internet use. Is this because of the NBN?

We’ll also be looking at some other topics such a Google’s new advertising plan and how to drop out of it.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia. If you’re outside the broadcasting area, you can stream the program through the ABC website.

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Blocking the bad guys – listeners’ questions from ABC Nightlife

Answers to listeners questions on Tony Delroy’s ABC Nightlife tech spot.

Last night’s ABC Nightlife looked at how email is evolving but most of our callers were concerned with configuring their email, anti-virus programs and blocking adverts on the web.

The audio of the program is available through the ABC website.

As usual, it’s tough to answer all the questions on live radio so here’s the ones from listeners Tony and I said we’d get back to.

Ad blockers

Website owners are desperately trying to find ways to make money from their sites, unfortunately its proving difficult so we’re seeing increasingly intrusive ads trying to distract us while we surf the web.

A number of Tony’s callers asked about adblocking programs to get rid of these irritating ads and there’s a few paid and free solutions available for computer users.

The most popular solution is Adblock, a plug in available for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Android. The developers have a handy video guide to installing and configuring their product.

For Internet Explorer users, Simple Adblock is a plug in that should work with their browser.

Be aware with ad blocking programs that they may change the layout of the sites you visit so be prepared for some strange looking pages.

Also keep in mind that website owners are desperately trying to find ways to pay the bills, so you won’t stop the more cunning ads or sponsored content that pretends to be real news. You might also put a few online media sites out of business.

Anti-Virus programs

One common question from Nightlife listeners are what anti virus programs should they use.

Probably the simplest for Windows users is Microsoft Security Essentials or the free AVG Anti-Virus. For OSX Users, Clam AV and Sophos’ Free Anti Virus for Mac will do the job.

If you have Norton or McAfee anti virus programs on your Windows PC, then getting rid of the software is not straightforward. After uninstalling the software, you’ll have to run their removal tools which are available from the Symantec (Norton) or McAfee websites. Read the instructions carefully.

Switching to Hotmail

A curious thing about Microsoft is how they like to irritate loyal customers with interface changes that leave everyone confused. Hotmail users are among the latest victims after the company migrated them to the Outlook.com platform.

Deborah called in to ask how she could switch back to Hotmail from Outlook.com – sadly the official line from Microsoft is “you can’t”. It appears that all of the work arounds to get Hotmail back have also been closed down and the old service is no more.

For Deborah, the choice is to either get used to Outlook.com or investigate other online mail services like Gmail or Yahoo!.

The next ABC Nightlife will be on in around five weeks. Hope you can join us then.

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The madness of crowds – ABC Nightlife with Tony Delroy

On the May 2013 Nightlife radio show Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank discuss crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightife across Australia to discuss how technology affects your business and life. For May 2013 we’ll be looking at crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

The show will be available on all ABC Local stations and streamed online through the Nightlife website.

If you missed the show, you can download it from the Nightlife with Tony Delroy webpage.

Some of the topics we’ll discuss include the following;

  • what is crowdfunding?
  • how does it differ from crowdsourcing?
  • some people say crowdsourcing is a huge cost saver for business, is it?
  • crowdsourcing can be controversial as well, who get upset by it?
  • for creatives like musicians, writers and artists a lot are trying crowdsourcing, how is it going?
  • can crowdsourcing save journalism?
  • what are the ptifalls with crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

Some crowdsourcing and outsourcing resources we’ll mention include;

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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15 years of radio and technology

Some reflections on 15 years of talking technology on ABC Radio

I used to be a cranky radio listener.

One morning in early 1998 I was listening to my local ABC station, then 2BL, when stand in breakfast host Bob Hughes was interviewing a “Y2K expert” who had the standard spiel designed to scare people into buying expensive consulting services.

Irritated by the expert’s shoddy advice, I dashed off a quick “with respect” fax to the radio station – the ABC didn’t have publicly facing email addresses at that time – and expected it would be ignored.

A few weeks later Bob Hughes invited me on his regular Sunday spot to talk about Y2K and computers in general. He didn’t mention we’d spend most of the time taking listeners’ calls.

After a few minutes of ‘umming’ and ‘aaahing’ with lots of bluffing, Bob finished with “we’ll see you next month Paul.”

So it began.

Over time the segments moved from 702 Weekend on Sunday mornings to regional spots and the national Tony Delroy nightlife segment

Looking at the sadly neglected PC Rescue website, the programs have ranged from the mundane to the mad, bad and ugly.

At the ugly side, the Windows virus epidemic of the early 2000s looms large. At one stage almost every caller had a virus problem, the only ones that were didn’t were Mac users calling in to crow about their not having this problem.

We enjoyed the various platform wars as Microsoft consolidated its strength and then saw it ebb away as first Firefox started chipping away at its browser dominance, Google at its Internet strategy and then Apple came roaring back into relevance.

The radio shows track the rise of the web as we started talking about the various online services that were changing computing.

One of the critical things, which still hasn’t changed, was billing problems.

Through the early 2000s Australian telcos had shocking charges for data and mobile services. Calls from listeners distressed at big bills was common and the TIOs contact details would be among our most frequent answer.

It was Telstra’s decision to stop stunting Australian internet growth and offer reasonably priced plans, albeit with criminally tiny data allowances, that kick started consumer adoption of broadband plans.

Today the questions revolve around social media, online security and the merits of Android versus Apple smartphones and tablets, it’s quite notable at how Microsoft has moved from dominating the program to being almost irrelevant.

How the next 15 years will pan out are anyone’s  guess, although one suspects pervasive computing, the cloud and the internet of machines will be among the trends we’ll see.

Last week Tim Berners-Lee said that innovation is only just beginning, it’s going to be an interesting, wild ride.

I’m still a cranky radio listener, but these days I have a lot more sympathy for producers and announcers.

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2UE Weekend Computers, 22 December 2012

Paul Wallbank and Seamus Byrne stand in for Trevor Long to talk technology, computers and the internet on Radio 2UE Weekends.

Seamus and I said we’d get back to listeners from the show, those answers can be found at the Standing in for Trevor Long post.

This Saturday from 3.10 pm Seamus Byrne and myself will be standing in for regular guest Trevor Long to discuss tech with John Cadogan on Radio 2UE.

We’ll be taking calls on the Open Line, 13 13 32 or tweet to @paulwallbank while we’re on air.

Some of the things we’ll be covering include;

  • Instagram and the backlash from people concerned about their lack of control over how companies like Facebook use their images.
  • A 2011 survey of American parents by Common Sense Media has found that 39 per cent of two to four-year-olds have used digital media such as smartphones and iPads. Now Fisher-Price has a line of iPad and iPod baby protectors.
  • Children are using technology almost from birth, what are the safe levels for kids using iPads and other computers?
  • Sydney bus passengers can now access mobile phone apps that let them know how far away their next bus is. We look at some of the more popular ones.
  • What are some of the gadgets that make great Christmas gifts.

Your views, comments or questions are welcome so don’t be shy about calling in.

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ABC Nightlife December 2012

Paul joins Rod Quinn on ABC Radio Nightlife across Australia to discuss the tech issues of the day.

Paul Wallbank joins Rod Quinn to discuss how technology affects your business and life. For December 2012 we’ll be looking at business security, Windows 8 and the saga of Apple Maps.

If you missed the program, you can listen to the recording through the ABC website.

Answers to listeners’ questions and links to some of the programs we discussed, including removing Norton Anti-Virus and getting your Windows start button back, are on a later blog post.

Some of the topics we discussed included these below.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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ABC Nightlife: Apps down the farm

For the October ABC Nightlife spot we’ll be looking at how the agriculture sector is using smartphone and tablet computer apps

If you missed this program where we covered a wide range of subjects, you can listen to the ABC Nightlife podcast of the show.

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

This week we’re talking about how the agricultural industry are using smartphone apps and the web. A list of apps for farmers is available from the NSW Department of Primary Industry website.

We’ll also be looking at how machines are talking – in agriculture, the next generation of farm equipment will be sending data straight to the farmers’ tablet or laptop computer using the technologies we’re seeing in jet engines and other high tech equipment.

Connecting everything does come with risks. A US report found that networked medical equipment is rife with malware and the Defense Signals Directorate points out that out-of-date computer systems are one of the main causes of data breaches.

One of the things driving the apps world is cloud computing and Google have given a rare glimpse into the data centres that run their services.

Social media is one of the things that are driving cloud computing, but there’s traps for businesses in posting information about customers and staff. We’ll be looking at those as well.

We’d love to hear your views and comments so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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