On The Net - Computing News

with Chris Goh

Only human

One of the great favours that my mum did for me when I was young was to ban one word. The removal of this one word in my vocabulary was to evolve my perception on how I should deal and react to events in my life. More importantly it was to dictate how I act, rather than react, in life. That magic word was "unfair".

The banning was innocent enough. A kid forced to sleep early whilst Mum could sit and watch TV; it was an easy enough word to roll out of a seven year-olds mouth, and with constant use, I could see how it could be annoying to any parent. The removal of the word had a positive effect in my life. It meant that any bad event that befell me, I wasn't hung up on criticising it, I sought a way to make it better or accepted it as character building exercise (and as a youth, you need a lot of that to appreciate the world).

My awareness was further evolved from a work supervisor that was also a great mentor to me. He taught me that when managing a business, there was not so much good and bad decisions or events - each event was more outcomes that you had to manage. Recently an event in my life left me demoralised, it made me question my values, my morals and as a human, the actions carried out by persons in essence hurt me.

It took a cold walk home one evening and the memory of my mum's and my mentor's words before I finally realised for myself; life is not so much about good or bad events that befall us, they are outcomes based on so many actions, perceptions and decisions. The journey is about how we best manage these outcomes to be happy and to find peace in our lives. We are all human - we can feel sadness like anyone else - but how we manage it marks the strength of our character.

Hotnews

Several weeks ago we mentioned that SpaceShipOne was attempting to be the first private attempt to fly a vehicle into space. SpaceShipOne has now successfully reached the 100km distance in what is truly a major accomplishment.

Internet 2 continues to break astounding records for transmitting data. Sprint, a US telecommunications provider has doubled the existing record, to transfer data at 4.23 Gigabytes per second between a computer in Sweden and California. That is like being able to transfer a complete DVD in a second.

The South Korean Government is having a real tough time at the moment and it hasn't helped that their Agency of Defence Development contracted a Trojan virus that allows computers to be accessed from the outside.

GPS's may not be the same top down approach in future, if Sony's new GPS becomes popular. This GPS shows you a drivers view of the street with rendered 3D buildings, traffic lights etc, just as if you were playing a car racing game on your computer.

Coles is trialing a new wireless tag system for their products, which will allow them to track a product from manufacturing to when it walks out the store. A number of US retail chains now use it and make it mandatory for their suppliers to use the system. This allows them to get a real-time picture of how their stock is moving.

Hotsites

www.orchidsonline.com.au/photo.html

If you're an orchid fan, this will probably be in your bookmarks already, but for others, you'll be able to see an extensive list of Orchid breeds here, with an extensive list of Orchid societies around the world.

plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au

This site is dedicated to NSW flora and has an extensive database and catalogue of flora in our region. It is also an excellent portal of other searchable databases around the world.

www.homeandfamilynetwork.com

This Family Network is a must see portal dedicated to all things family and home. Find free sites and tips on a whole range of things from crafts and gardening to landscaping. A good up-to-date portal - hard to find nowadays.