http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/simon-sharwood/ Simon Sharwood is a freelance technology writer, editor and podcaster, who spent 15 years in the technology industry as a journalist, marketer and public relations consultant. Simon is proprietor of JargonMaster Corporate Communications, a fancy name for the writing and photography business he runs with his wife, Elissa Baxter. He is editor of TechTarget Australia/New Zealand, a series of five websites for technology professionals covering storage, security, networking, management and Voice over IP, serves as Technology Editor for My Business magazine and publishes a podcast for the contact centre and customer service industries called Smart Call. Simon can be found on Twitter at @ssharwood and won the Best Business IT Journalist award at the 2009 edition of the Sun Microsystems IT Journalism awards. When he is not writing about technology he is probably riding his bicycle, very slowly, for the Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club. en Copyright 2013 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:00:10 +0000 Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:00:10 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Common-sense-from-Conroy-as-net-filter-plan-is-canned/ Senator Stephen Conroy’s decision to can a comprehensive internet filter for Australia is a win for common sense, for three reasons. The first is that with or without a filter, the depraved goons who like to view horrid material can get their hands on it. The same technology that has forced broadcasters into fast-tracking television shows before impatient viewers download them illegally can be used among small groups of people. Files shared in this way won’t have obvious and easily-filterable names and are extremely hard to detect. That means a national filter as a mechanism to stop distribution of child pornography was never going to stop hard cases. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Simon Sharwood) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Common-sense-from-Conroy-as-net-filter-plan-is-canned/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Common-sense-from-Conroy-as-net-filter-plan-is-canned/#item9945 Fri, 09 Nov 2012 02:10:46 +0000 Simon Sharwood | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-steve-jobs-made-the-world-a-happier-place/ Steve Jobs has quit as Apple CEO. This is sad news for everybody who fell in love with gadgets that were simple to use, and enormously fun to play with. The secret of Steve Jobs’ success is making customers deeply happy. Steve Jobs changed the world with a manic insistence that his customers must be so happy with his products that they want to buy them again and again. You’d think every entrepreneur on the globe would do likewise, but no-one cares about customers like Jobs. And that’s why he has changed the world. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Simon Sharwood) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-steve-jobs-made-the-world-a-happier-place/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-steve-jobs-made-the-world-a-happier-place/#item6570 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:35:36 +0000 Simon Sharwood | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-take-your-bad-day-out-on-a-call-centre-worker/ Everyone loves to hate call centres, but it’s time to give them a break because they generally provide a convenient and effective service. If you’re foaming at the mouth right now thinking that the ten minutes you’ve just spent on hold being told “your call is important” was neither convenient nor effective, consider the alternative. In many cases it’s a drive down to your local shops, a few minutes spent hunting for a parking spot and then a few more walking past shops before you get to the retail outlet where you want to conduct a transaction. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Simon Sharwood) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-take-your-bad-day-out-on-a-call-centre-worker/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dont-take-your-bad-day-out-on-a-call-centre-worker/#item2696 Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:35:22 +0000 Simon Sharwood | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/hey-geeks-stop-the-whining-and-build-a-better-filter-clean-feed/ Computer nerds hate Senator Stephen Conroy’s plan to filter the Internet so that material which is refused classification (RC) becomes harder to access. But instead of moaning about how it might slow the Net or limit freedom of speech, they should just build a better filter that actually works. Don’t doubt that geeks can do it. Napster, the late-90s phenomenon that shocked the music industry by enabling music piracy on a vast scale was written by a lone teenager. BitTorrent, the protocol currently used by millions of people around the world to share illegal copies of films and TV shows, was also created by a lone geek. Twitter was whipped up in few days of frenzied programming. Sadly, some of the tools that geeks have created are now favourites of the perverts, criminals and hatemongers who want to access the vile material that Senator Conroy wants Internet Service Providers to block. Perverts uses these tools because they are far harder to detect than other methods of finding Internet nasties, leading to entirely justified criticism that the filter is a largely futile exercise that will drive creeps underground. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Simon Sharwood) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/hey-geeks-stop-the-whining-and-build-a-better-filter-clean-feed/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/hey-geeks-stop-the-whining-and-build-a-better-filter-clean-feed/#item2009 Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:57:14 +0000 Simon Sharwood | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Windows-7-Its-Vista-without-the-dodgy-bits/ Next Thursday, Microsoft releases Windows 7, the latest update to its flagship product. So far, the world is finding it pretty easy to ignore, other than its widely-parodied suggestion that you welcome the new product with a party. You suspect Microsoft almost wants it this way, given the colossal flop that was Windows Vista. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Simon Sharwood) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Windows-7-Its-Vista-without-the-dodgy-bits/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Windows-7-Its-Vista-without-the-dodgy-bits/#item1475 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:30:24 +0000 Simon Sharwood | Author bios | The Punch