Stories by Andrew Hendry

Coming to a watering hole near you: OLPC's mesh networking

Even in today's high-tech world of unified communications and wireless mobility, the idea of two kids with laptops sitting under a tree somewhere in Saharan Africa being able to exchange information without any kind of infrastructure or configuration, seems as wild an idea as the land they live in.

Facebook application to make social networking safer

A "Care For Your PC" Facebook application that allows users of the social network to monitor how up-to-date the security software on their computer is has been developed by Finnish security company F-Secure.

Six botnets pump out 85 per cent of spam

Six botnets were responsible for 85 per cent of all spam in February, the first time so few botnets have been responsible for so much spam, according to security provider Marshal's Threat Research and Content Engineering team (TRACE).

The OOXML BRM and Australia: What happens next

After its initial submission for fast tracking through the ISO/IEC process for standardisation failed, the technical comments relating to Microsoft's Office Open XML document format are under review this week at the JTC1 Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva.

Microsoft confident leading up to OOXML BRM

By the end of this month, national standards bodies from around the world will be returning home from the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva to consider the revised specification for the standardisation of Microsoft's Office Open XML document format.

Oxer on hardware hacking and the meaning of (Second) Life

Jonathan Oxer is technical director of a Web application development company called Internet Vision Technologies and for the past couple of years has been president of the Linux Australia community group. At January's Linux.conf.au in Melbourne he presented a tutorial entitled Hardware / Software Hacking: Joining Second Life to the Real World. Computerworld recently spoke to Oxer about how he is knocking down the boundaries between the real and virtual world. Oxer also sheds light on his how his lifetime obsession with electronics has transformed his home-life into a software controlled environment.

gotalk goes naked DSL, bundles VoIP too

gotalk has jumped on the naked DSL bandwagon with the announcement of what it calls an aggressive challenge to iiNet, Telstra and Optus naked DSL services.

IT pro's consider themselves 'hot' stuff

A survey of 156 Australian IT professionals by technology recruitment company Diversiti has found that 72 per cent consider their skills to be "hot" or "in demand", and want recruitment companies to fulfill a role more akin to talent agents.

Microsoft responds to Save XP petition

Microsoft's decision to discontinue OEM and packaged sales of Windows XP at the end of June - leaving businesses and consumers with the less-than-celebrated Vista as their only choice of Windows operating system - has drawn considerable criticism and led to an outpouring of support for the continuation of XP sales.

Who's behind Wikipedia?

In January 2001 the English language version of Wikipedia opened for business, and was quickly followed by versions in French, German, Catalan and Swedish. Over the past seven years it has grown to include over 250 language editions with more than eight million articles, almost a quarter of which are in English. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia is the world's largest ever encyclopedia. Thanks to the GNU Free Documentation License that covers all Wikipedia content, it is also the most open and free. But just who is behind Wikipedia, and how does it work? Computerworld recently spoke to Brianna Laugher, a Wikipedia editor and presenter at last year's international Wikipedia conference.

[]