Have you seen this man ?

The Pictured  Padre was a snap I took whilst conferencing in Prague some time ago. He’s still there – I checked Prague Castle in the Czech Republic at Christmas. You should go sometime. Czech it out. He’s a good looking man, though somewhat troubled…I wonder if he was somehow contemplating the trouble he would be causing, life as a door knob, as it were….you see, Facebook keeps asking me “who is this person ?”

It sits quietly after being ignored for awhile, patient it is, yes, and then pops up again, innocuous like, again asking “who is this person ?” Facebook announced sometime late 2010 that they were adopting facial recognition technology, not giving you the option of opting in, you’re just there. It’s done-you’re tagged, as are all of your mates, family and pets….well, I made up the bit about pets.

Google street view has driven all over the planet-every street, every laneway, capturing every face-as you do-on the way. Google earth has you from above, everywhere, every face. Satellites can photograph your belt buckle, you know. Oh yes, we know that Google minions are blurring every face so you feel better, but don’t!

The truth is that privacy is now a thing of the past. It’s the Bad Guys, you see, that have screwed the pooch, and there are just too damn many of us Really Good People around to count-so we let the computers do it. It’s for our own safety, we know that, but can we do anything?

Faggadaboud it, it’s too late. You can twiddle any setting you want, but once your photo is out there, something somewhere has it captured. Each tweet, text, call, location, and key stroke, it’s all recorded…somewhere. Your only true defence is to be completely, utterly, and sonorously dull and boring…or be good. Be very, very good.

Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

Motorola was the coolest phone on the planet back a decade or so ago. The “brick” phone was a marvel of modern technology and marked you as a superstar. I saw my first one back in the ‘80’s, complete with a monstrous battery pack. I owned the fat brick and then the slimmer brick and was considered cool and groovy, as indeed I was. Upwardly mobile, I had power breakfasts where I prayed for the phone to ring so I could pose.

When Motorola came out with the “flip” phone, and I could be cool, groovy, and Captain Kirk I couldn’t be happier. When the flip phone diminished in size I was the first to have one in West Perth, despite the obvious problem of posing with such a small phone.

Nokia then came on with their myriad of models, speaking to the younger set with style, elegance, and price performance.

Suddenly, appearing from stage left was Steve Jobs, with the phone that changed the world forever. You see, what we want, but didn’t know we wanted it until we became tired of the endless fiddle to tailor our phones by ring, picture, and music, was the ability to personalise our phone easily. As yet, not one of the companies has come out with the simple idea of plugging your phone in to a PC, and with a click of a mouse button, back up, share, add ring tones, text, MMS, wallpaper-all the things we CAN do with most phones, but only after a really big fiddle. Then drop it and try to back up the lot successfully to your replacement phone. Oh yes, it CAN be done, but have you managed it with a few clicks? Not me.

Google Press Release –

“MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & LIBERTYVILLE, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

“Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

The rest of it is the usual blah blah from the Gods, saying nothing at all.

Motorola in its day had the most powerful team of software developers, deployed all over the world, with some fantastic ideas that they could never quite get to market. Ditto Nokia but they weren’t as fat and bloated in the executive area as Motorola was-and it killed them. Nokia, on the other hand achieved world dominance, and made the perfect phone in the 6310i, which marked their nadir.

We all love to hate market leaders. The small spark of independence grows impatient with being told things like how much I should pay for apps, how we can’t share this or do that or use Adobe. Android intends to beak the model of I phone dominance and good luck to them too. Google don’t know what they are going to do with Motorola, but then they rarely do know what they are planning to do, and wouldn’t tell you if they did because it would undermine their Importance.

Android still, to a large part, nestles on the sweaty bosoms of the geek and tech community, who love to get their sticky fingers in and jail break it (bless ‘em, to a large extent its open source anyway, but don’t tell them). It’s less expensive than the Iphone, and a little more “home boy”, with a sprig of Anarchy.

So, Google, show us your wuzzer. I want my Google phone to work with the galaxy of Google stuff. I want BIG BUTTONS because, like der, most of us baby boomers need glasses. . Give me the option. Give my nephew the option to have a zillion tiny icons on his screen, and the ability to kill Demons with Mohammed in Malaga. I want to know how much charge, money I have spent, and where my wife is so I can um greet her, and where the hell I left my car in that stupid car park?

I want to be cool and groovy again when I do find my car. Oh, by the way, make a phone that doesn’t need a protective cover, and spray on self cleaning nanites. Sorted?

Located in the northern suburbs of Perth, not all that far from the CBD is a successful small manufacturing company with history of success in a field traditionally dominated by the multinational corporations. The staff enjoys a collaborative, friendly environment based on mutual respect and a well-tested system of efficiencies in manufacturing, distribution, sales and support of some well-received products.

The technical environment is stable, and has a rock solid legacy system using the Pick operating system, which is a flavour of UNIX (for those who have never heard of Dick Pick!). The rest of the environment consists of much of what you would anticipate, Windows, TCP/IP, UNIX and Linux (where Microsoft cannot be avoided!) and some modern tech used for communication.

Outside of the technical are the human aspects we seek-the ability to collaborate, a genuine willingness to assist, patience, humour and wisdom gained from some strong commercial experience in helping people come to grips with the day to day trials of high technology.

For this you will need more than technical skills. Were looking for excellent communication skills, both written and oral. You will need to be able to pick up other programming languages (if you pardon the pun), and know your way around networking in general, flavours of UNIX, and innovations as they arrive.

Your technical input therefore will be more than a standard Systems Administrator, for in effect you will be the Manager of IT, without the stress and politics of a multinational corporation. There are vendors to shop and placate, real people who need you, and a business to run.

Interested? Please do apply to David Christie FIMC, MRCSA, Principal Human Resources Consultant, for a personalised response.

Here, there, everywhere

Engine Ears

Peter Ustinov once stated that “Assets” are small female donkeys. Therefore Asset management software designed by MINCOM in Brisbane, Australia may well be a different type of creature, and thus a takeover target for ABB, which happened in May 2011 for many millions of dollars.  Well done to the founders of Mincom, who sold in 2007 to Francisco Partners for $315 Million dollars.  Its all about the large pulsing vein that is the mining industry in Australia-the ROW (rest-of-world, an American term I’ll adopt here) wants a part of our assets, you see, because we have very nice rocks here.  How the Swiss integrate MINCOM with Ventyx will be aswers with, thank heavens, many thousands of lines of code by some busy programmers.

Locally Peter Christie (no relation) is no donkey as MINCOM’s Business Development manager and loves Swiss Chocolate.

How big ?

If you’re a Greenie then have a herbal tea and think of how much heat would be generated by the cooling stacks of a well known computer company…..in a place that must-not-be-named …by all those billions of emails..over 200 billion per day it seems, and how much cooler it would be…

We have more details at hand-please do contact David Christie for some more detail-we will post more details it comes to hand.

all your base belong to us

“The launch of First Point Supplybase later this year will give Western Australian businesses the opportunity to secure a bigger slice of lucrative contracts in the global oil and gas sector. This global online platform for oil and gas suppliers to pre-register, or stake their credentials for work in this booming industry, is the result of UK-based procurement services group Achilles’ acquisition of Perth-based operation Supplybase. ” No, I have no idea what they are refereing to either. The good news is that Steve discarded this jumper after 2004.

Comply.

Mic is ex Lan Systems, and Nortel, and can be found here.