Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not represented as fact
|
Employees That Need Their Bums Kicked
|
20 September 2001 Edition
Previous Edition
|
|
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
|
|
As reported yesterday, another evil worm is slithering its way across
the Net and, according to reports, it's hitting some big companies very
hard.
The NZ Herald reports that the local arm of market research company ACNielsen
was hit yesterday and there appears to be some indication that the National
Australia Bank may have gotten clobbered across the Tasman.
Now let's face it -- viruses and worms like this latest Nimda beast don't
get into your systems unless someone isn't doing their job properly.
Either the system administrator hasn't applied all the available security
patches and set up browser/email options correctly on the office PCs; some
dork has broken the company's email rules by opening an unsolicited attachment;
or management are so stupid that they haven't created and enforced such
a set of rules.
Whatever way you look at it -- someone's incompetence or negligence is going
to cost a lot of companies a lot of money.
Need Cutting-Edge Copy?
As NZ's longest-running online commentator, I'm looking for
extra syndication opportunities for this daily publication -- or I'm happy
to write casual or regular material specifically to order for print or
Net-based publications. If you're
interested, drop me a line
|
|
But how often do you hear of people being kicked up the backside or even
dismissed for such incompetence or negligence? I know I've never heard
of such a penalty being metered out.
It seems that most people prefer to blame the virus writer and deny any
personal responsibility.
Every time there's a new virus/worm which races through the Net, infecting
home-PCs, office PCs and company servers I say to myself -- surely people
will learn from this and smarten up their ideas. And every time, I'm
disappointed.
Time for some anonymous tip-offs please...
Does your employer have an email-handling policy designed to eliminate the
chance of email-borne viruses/worms from getting into your computer systems?
Does your system administrator have to swear on the life of his first-born
child that he has applied all the available patches and that he audits the
company's PCs to ensure that the security preferences are all set correctly?
I won't publish any names or information likely to identify those who want
to rat on their bosses -- but it would be interesting to know.
A Tale Of Greed And Incompetence
Boy, is Telecom ever trying to squeeze the last drop of blood out of its
client-base!
Not only (as reported yesterday by IDG) have they started charging a monthly
minimum for metered Internet accounts and put up the price of their flat-rate
option -- but they've also taken to some rather questionable tactics in
respect to their cellular data services.
One Aardvark reader reports that he just bought himself a WAP-capable cellphone
with text messaging capabilities.
He found that his phone was receiving not only his local weather forecast,
but also that for the other end of the country (which he never ordered) and
the information was being delivered twice (which he didn't request).
A little later, he suddenly started receiving messages containing his
horoscope -- something he also never ordered --
it wasn't even for the right star-sign!
After contacting Telecom and visiting the DJuice website
he discovered that he had been automatically signed up for a raft of services
that he neither ordered nor wanted -- all of them chargeable of course!
So it seems that if you use the DJuice service, you are assumed to want everything
on offer unless you say otherwise. Is that another version of proforma invoicing?
Another thing that is a little worrying seems to be the way that the DJuice
website is definitely anti-Netscape 4.x. If you visit with Netscape 4.x it
throws up a seemingly endless list of Javascript pop-up alerts telling you
that you're a dumb-arse and should use a better browser (albeit not quite using
those words).
What this message should really say is "I'm a lame, lazy, unskilled web designer
who can't be bothered or don't know how to build websites that are even remotely
compatible across browser versions."
Now you might think that's okay -- but the problem is that unless you're prepared
to keep clicking "OK" for the next three weeks -- you can't exit or do anything
except shut down all your Netscape windows.
What fool designed this site? What fool signed it off and let it go live?
This is possibly the very worst piece of idiocy I've seen on the local web
for many years.
Money-grubbing, incompetent *AND* arrogant!
Sigh!
Save The Aardvark Fund
Yes, I have had several donations to the Aardvark fund and I thank those
who put their money where their mouse is :-)
If guilt is gnawing away inside you then there's still time to donate.
Just drop by and
hand over your loot.
Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or
page?
Just add a
couple of lines of JavaScript
to your pages and you can get
a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated
each and every week-day.
Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using
the RSS format. More details can be found
here.
Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and
have any problems.
|
Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it
now!
|
|
There is/are 0 Vacancies Last added 2 July In The Job Centre
There are 14 Domain Names for sale
| 
= open in new window