Tech Talk Column

In September 1797, Lieutenant John Shortland went in the direction of Port Stephens searching for runaway convicts. He stumbled across what he later described as “a very fine coal river” and, in one of those ultimate moments of praising y…

In raising our four children, my wife and I hope we have managed to achieve many things but, at the very least, we hope we have taught them to have a sprinkling of scepticism about the world around them. When something seems just way too good to be t…

Look! Up in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…sorry, it’s not Superman. As much as many people like the idea of a guy flying around with his underpants over his pants protecting us, it is much more likely that if…

I was looking through some photos recently and stumbled across an old photo of me from 1995. It was a newspaper clipping that had me with my head down on my keyboard sound asleep. No, it wasn’t a photo at the end of a night of hard-core gaming….

I started selling computers in 1989. Desktop computers. It took me three years to sell my first notebook. Despite the fact that desktops only hold a market share position of 22.6 per cent now, thirty years ago it was rare to see someone use a noteboo…

I attended a local Chamber of Commerce function in April 2004 and the guest speaker was Tom Potter. No, not some distant relative of Harry. Tom founded the Eagle Boys Pizza chain in 1987. During his presentation, Tom mentioned that they had expanded …

Now normally I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but…Toot Toot! This week saw the thirtieth anniversary of the mobile phone network being switched on in my home city. My business had the privilege of enabling the very first connection in…

A decade ago I was privileged to have a tour through a new $18 million tiered theatre that was nearing completion. What most impressed me was the acoustic performance of the theatre. Sitting in the audience in any seat a person on stage could be hear…

Way back in those crazed eighties when most kids were watching a Steven Spielberg movie on their Betamax or learning to moonwalk like Michael Jackson, I was doing my best impression of emulating the stars of BMX Bandits – although I never could…

“According to most studies, people’s number-one fear is public speaking. Number two is death…Now this means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” …

I was a car thief once. OK, so not actually a car thief, but I remember the day when I certainly looked like a car thief. I didn’t have a dark hoodie and gloves that seem important for car thieves in the movies but I did have the one piece of e…

Way back in 2009 I was writing columns for a computer magazine and I was discussing some concepts to reduce our carbon emissions. One of my speculative ideas was to produce all of Australia’s power via solar panels. My rudimentary calculations …

As I walked through my local supermarket this week, I performed one simple action that reminded me of the incredibly opulent society we live in. I checked the time on my watch and noticed that it was a little chilly outside. I removed my phone from m…

16 April 2006. Chittagong. The first day of the last Test in the Australia versus Bangladesh series. Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie shared the new ball with Brett Lee. After Gillespie had finished his first five overs, he had the figures of thre…

It may seem like quite an easy feat in our current environment but way back in 2006 I had an interesting request from a friend. His elderly father had passed away and their family was spread far and wide around the globe. Unfortunately, it simply was…

When I was young, I would sometimes sit with my hip and groovy (much) older teenage sisters and listen to their music – usually on records but sometimes just listening to the radio. I remember one night when I heard Kiki Dee’s unique soul…