Robby Pedrica's Tech Blog

Category: General

  • Equality and security

    Equality and security

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Trending on Twitter right now: There are no US ambassadors because Donald Trump just fired them all True or False? I recently wrote a piece on “fake news and false information” in the context of online security. The feedback was interesting because most commenters did not ( immediately ) equate fake news/false information with their own…

  • Invoiceplane takes another step

    Invoiceplane takes another step

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I took quite some time to find an accounts/invoicing package that suits my work style but I finally came upon Invoiceplane last year. The basic requirements were: product/service database client database create quotes create invoices send invoices via email classification of invoices and quotes ( workflow eg. created, sent, overdue, etc. ) list invoices by…

  • A fascination with special characters

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    Robby Pedrica
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    In the computer world, special characters can have a certain usefulness or can be a hindrance. The very first special character I learnt 25 years ago, was the colon. It was ( still is ) used as the delimiter to change drive letters in DOS. eg. if you were in drive C and wanted to go…

  • New electrical sockets for SA

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It may come as a bit of shock to some but we are getting a new electrical socket in the form of the SANS 164-2 specification. This specification socket was adopted by the SABS in 2013 and takes over from the old 3-round-pin socket ( adopted from the British ) that has been in use…

  • IT Support effectiveness

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It’s long been a bugbear of mine that many IT Support folk have difficulty in troubleshooting IT issues. This is an area where one would expect ( and require ) personnel to have a high degree of logic ( crucial to faultfinding procedures ) but it seems that many IT engineers are almost devoid of…

  • Aaron Swartz and freedom of information

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I had a passing knowledge of Aaron but did not know too much about him beyond his involvement in Reddit. It’s very sad nonetheless to hear of his passing this weekend past. At his own hand shows perhaps a despair he may have had as a result of his legal issues. Aaron’s story will ring…

  • Medical Security and Open Source

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Earlier this year, I read and listened ( through the linux.conf.au podcast ) to what can only be described as a seminal and thought provoking paper on medical software security by Karen Sandler, opening my eyes to an entire area of software security that one doesn’t normally think about. Karen’s talk at the 2012 Linux…

  • Digital rights and your personal freedom

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    Robby Pedrica
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    “We live in a democracy. Or so they told us.” If you take a look at democracies around the world today, you’ll find governments that behave in a completely undemocratic way. One just has to look at the lengths the US has gone to, in undermining the Bill of Rights in the pursuit of terrorism…

  • Traffic, accidents and death in SA

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Accident statistics in South Africa are, I think, mostly regarded as fiction – it’s rare to find traffic death rates as high as in this country, so most drivers ( in this country ) appear to ignore the stats/reality and simply go about their daily business, driving without care or regard for law or other…

  • On-line electricity purchases in Cape Town

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    Robby Pedrica
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    I’ve never been a fan of the PayCity on-line site. It’s amateurish and looks like it’s been put together by a group of 5 year olds. In addition, there’s no mobile option ( not SMS ) – an unforgivable missing feature in this age of always on and connected-ness. Powertime is the complete opposite –…

  • UK Violence

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Any kind of violence is a sad thing to see. We’ve seen our own share here in the south of Africa however, things have been tailing off for a number of years now while people get on with the business of living. Yes we have our issues, but for the most part things just go…

  • When Harry met Sally … 2

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    Robby Pedrica
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    This is not the type of thing I normally post but Funny or Die have a great skit of Billy Crystal and Hellen Mirren going on … take a look. billy_crystal

  • Senate Passes Landmark Patent Reform Bill. Or does it?

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Apparently the US Senate passed a new bill regarding patent reform yesterday, leading to legislation that will overhaul the US Patent & Trademark Office. Included is a change from first-to-invent to first-to-file, an end to fee diversion which will help the USPTO fund its current systems properly and assist with the backlog of 70000+ applications.…

  • The BSA – FUD, FUD, FUD

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    Robby Pedrica
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    It’s well known that the BSA has been an industry mouthpiece and lapdog for commercial software vendors since its inception in the 90’s. However, the level of FUD ( fear uncertainty and doubt ) that now pervades it’s press releases and comments threatens to dispatch any remaining sense of respect for the BSA, to the…

  • Google to remove h.264 support from Chrome

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    Robby Pedrica
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    … and the world cried! Well maybe just the h.264 camp … So I thought I’d weigh in on  this delicate situation too and give my 2 cents. Some facts: h.264 is a standard, not an open standard due it being patent encumbered h.264 requires royalties to be paid under certain circumstances unlike VP8 which…