RossP's comments

"In late April, the UserVoice security team learned that an unauthorized party illegally accessed one of UserVoice’s backend reporting systems and was able to view user data on a small subset of users. The user data includes name, email, and a hashed password and salt. Unfortunately, the passwords were hashed with the SHA1 hashing algorithm, which by today’s standards is considered weak. As such, we’re resetting the passwords for all users in our database."

Further information: https://status.uservoice.com/incidents/fb7ml8b3nphf

Every tree maintained by the City of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) has "an email address" (in the mainstream press it's been "one email per tree"; in reality it's a single mailbox the CoM staffers respond to).

Click a tree marker on the map near the top of the Melbourne Urban Forest website (http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/) and you can email your selected tree to find further information, etc. A bit more info is in this Broadsheet article: http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/entertainment/article...

Thank you for responding, I've sent through some details about my case.

I like the Fitbit hardware (I use a Surge and love running with it) and their software is decent, but their customer service is atrocious.

I found a bug triggered by hitting the "Pause" button during a run. Effectively the device paused on the display, but the underlying data they use to build maps, calculate pace, etc keeps calculating. So if you run for 10 minutes, pause for 10 when you unexpectedly meet a friend, then run for 10 minutes all of your stats are based on a 30-minute run which isn't what most runners are interested in.

I documented this in excruciating detail (including showing errors in their .TCX file exports) and sent it off to their helpdesk.

First response: "That is a carrier issue, but don't worry we are still counting your steps.". There was no acknowledgement of the content I'd sent or the attachments I'd included.

Second response: Insisted it was a carrier or GPS issue, and not a software bug.

Third response: They asked me to call their 800-number. After I declined due to being in Australia, they replied and insisted that the call would be free, because it's to an 800-number.

Fourth response: THey are "Blessed" I contacted them. No acknowledgement of understanding of my issue.

It seems clear that their customer service team are not familiar with day to day use cases of their products, particularly the high-end running watch. The free phone call stuff is amusing but hints at a team that aren't aware of who their customers are.

Again, I like my Surge watch and their software is pretty good. Integration to Strava is great. But there's a pretty good chance they'll be overtaken by a future Apple watch with GPS in it.

[Edited to be less snarky]

What's the source of your Australian data? The AusPost data is rather expensive, and most providers have somewhat awkward APIs and/or enterprise sales models that get tricky to navigate. Having somebody to abstract that out to would be fantastic.

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Surely a coffee-infused stout can provide the best of both worlds?

That said, unless it's a side project that isn't in real use I don't tend to work after drinking alcohol, but it's a rare day that I don't work "under the influence" of espresso.

Yep, it's got it's limits - I would only use this in production with carefully crafted queries to try too counter this problem.

My usual use is against MS CRM data, which puts a 10k line limit on by default. First instinct for many people is to disable the limit, but in reality it's a good fail safe!

Depends on the data source, I believe. I think some can be RW however I never use it - allowing users to update data from Excel isn't something I'm keen on, other than possibly as a sysadmin task.

Post author here - I'm about to go dark for the day but I'd love to hear how you're dealing with this both as site builders and as parents.

Excel does this with it's built-in data sources. Typically it can connect to any ODBC data source, which includes pretty much any SQL database and most proprietary databases (although in some cases you'll need to buy ODBC drivers. Yuck)

Then, bingo! You've got real, structured, data available in Excel so you can run Pivot Tables, build charts, and filter data to your hearts content. I use it frequently to build read-only data views for people who want to analyse their data in ways they don't know how to do using more native tools.

This microsoft post is for Office 2007, but applies equally in newer versions: http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/excel-help/connect-to-impo...

It shows dd/mm/yyyy for me - Chrome 23, Windows 7 set to en-AU locale.

It's a poorly designed "mobile" site - not needed since their site works perfectly in mobile browsers anyway.

Try the "FULL SITE" link in the footer - takes you to a zoomable version.

Thanks for the clarification - the SP platform is still perfectly usable in non-IE browsers, although as you say a few nice things aren't available.

SharePoint is cross-browser, at least as of SharePoint 2010. I don't believe any functions require IE.

Disclaimer: I work for an MS partner, while I don't admin SharePoint our company does plenty of SharePoint work and our clients are happy.

Namaste! I love this game. Unfortunately, I'm on my iPad right now so cannot access it... I'll take another look when I return to my desktop.

I've visited Nepal twice in the past 2 years; it's a country that I find fascinating both in its beauty and it's disfunction. On our first trip we bought a lovely version of this game made of timber and brass. There are many cheaply made items available in Nepal (many of them show their cheapness) but when you find items like this game that have been made with care, you get to see the true Nepali craftsmanship come through.

Is there much of a tech seen in Kathmandu? Most entrepreneurial folks I spoke to outside of the tourism sector wanted out of Nepal, to move to either India or the USA.

I signed up for DNSMadeEasy a few months ago so I could move away from my Registrar's slow & complicated DNS servers. I'm glad I did, the price is pretty good (I have 20 domains listed), their user interface is easy to use, and the template & zone transfer options are very useful for doing your migration.

Highly recommended.

There is a settings cog in the bottom left corner. Selecting "view desktop version" simply reloads the "optimised" mobile version which looks nice but is utterly unusable and breaks the web.

I wish OnSwipe had a per-device opt-out that worked.

This overlay looks like a fantastic product, with a few small issues (eg no landscape, still only using half the screen for content, etc).

Because nothing like it was available and I wanted a tactile keyboard to write & code with when travelling, I ended up buying an Apple wireless keyboard. 2nd hand on eBay set me back $50, and it uses bluetooth so battery life is sacrificed, but I've found it to be a fantastic option. You can type at full speed, it's got character keys so coding isn't impossible, and best of all you have your full screen available for your word processor / terminal session / whatever.

There are two big downsides, though: 1) Can't use it on an airplane, since it uses Bluetooth 2) It doubles the travel size of the iPad.

If you can live with these I think it is a great alternative to a laptop for many tasks (but not everything, obviously)

I use www.fastmail.fm (owned by Opera) and can't recommend them highly enough. For a family or small business it's great as you can have shared folders/address books, use your own domain(s), and more.

The web mail doesn't include tagging or inline conversations but otherwise it's pretty good with not too much wastage. Of course you also have IMAP/POP access if that's your flavour.