Anmol Rattan

This guy is a gem! John Doe [name changed] of the Fiji Meteorological Center is a guy with talent. Last week I was driving home, when all of a sudden there is this heavy rain. So much so, that I couldn't see a meter in front of my bonnet! Thats when I remembered how I just read this article coming out of office:

Weather will add to water woes: Prasad

Monday, April 07, 2008

Bas Mati, of Valelevu, refills a basin with water from the drum

Update: 2:11PM THE dry spell affecting the Central Division should not be taken lightly because it will add to the water crisis affecting most parts of Suva, says Rajendra Prasad.

Mr Prasad, the director of the Fiji Meteorological Department, made the comment when asked for his views on the lower than average rainfall recorded in most parts of the country.

He said the past three months have been drier than usual and people needed to take pre-cautions.

Mr Prasad said the prediction showed the dry season would affect reservoirs, especially the storage of water, and could add to the agony faced by people in most parts of Suva.

He said the month of March was drier than expected because of the dominant effect of the high pressure system over the group.

Mr Prasad said this was caused by the predominant northeasterly winds over Fiji for most of the month resulting in below average rainfall in the southeastern Viti Levu.[1]

Why is this guy a gem? Well lets look at this from an engineering point of view. People usually dislike errors, more so engineers. But error as a term is often mis-judged. Working on some research projects I came to use these errors and modify them to feed into my system (robotic vehicle). Now the things is, if your error is constant (meaning u keep making the same amount of mistake all the time), you are much better off! You can aptly correct the system by predicting how much you would be off by (we used a PID controller to do this).

Now again why is this guy a gem? Well, he constantly makes the opposite conclusions regarding weather! Remember the two cyclones that hit us some months back? For the first one he said:

JD: It will create havoc! Buckle down!
Reality: It went over us!
Explanation: This cyclone followed a strange path!

Second one:
JD: Its expected to pass over the group
Reality: It smashed us! Lol!
Explanation: Lack of equipment!

And now the weather! Man this guy is good! Now you know when to take your umbrella to work!

References: [1] Fiji Times [link]

Internet Police

A very good blog post I came across on the "Tech Republic Website".

One of the duties that long ago fell upon me as the IT Manager in a small company is the responsibility to monitor and report on the Web surfing activities of my co-workers. Yes, I am the Web surfing police in my company. It is not a job that I relish. It sometimes causes friction between me and the other employees, even if in jest, because they know that I know all about their web surfing habits, at least at work.

My first experience with surf monitoring

When I first was asked by management to report on Web sites that employees were visiting, I evaluated a few choices like SurfControl and WebSense. Of course, WebSense has now acquired SurfControl. Websense was still new so I chose SurfControl in the earlier company, put it on a server and on a hub so I could see all the traffic in the enterprise and began the monitoring process. I loved the awesome reporting features of SurfControl.

My boss, the CFO, did not tell his boss, the CEO that he had asked me to start monitoring and reporting on Web surfing activities of everyone in the company. I was a little shocked one day when summarizing my weekly report to discover visits by the CEO to Web sites that were against the company policy. I discreetly advised my boss. He asked me to print the reports, seal them up, give them to him but continue the monitoring process.

I should not have been, but a few months later, I was surprised when the CEO was removed from his position by the board of directors. I knew the real reason for what had happened. I also knew how it had happened that someone in such a position of power like that could be toppled by a lowly IT Manager and CFO. I did not intend to be the cause his demise and of course, I wasn’t. He shot himself in the foot by his indiscriminate Web surfing.

Some Web monitoring software is spyware

When I came to my present company and was again asked to implement employee Web activity monitoring software, I recommended WebSense. The CEO balked at the price so we came up with an alternative from a little company that you have probably never heard of. It is called Track4Win from Sepama Software. It is a great product and has worked well for us. Symantec calls it Spyware, so I had to exclude it from my AV system.

I suppose it can be considered Spyware. In the professional version, the client is installed on each workstation, disguises itself with some innocuous sounding name, and promptly hides itself from the task manager upon startup. It not only tracks every web site visited, but also reports on which programs the employee uses and which files are opened locally or on a server. It has some bugs but for the most part it is a great little product.

Since the request had come directly from the CEO, I did not tell anyone that I had installed the client software, not even my immediate supervisor. He was sharp enough to figure it out and promptly removed it. Nobody else in the company is tech savvy enough to know how to monitor programs in the startup section of the registry let alone know how to remove them. However, everyone in the company knows that it is there.

I have had very few occasions where I have had to advise a supervisor of inappropriate Web surfing by members of their department. I think it has happened once or twice in the past year. The offense is usually committed by a new employee who did not read the employee handbook or believe that anybody could possibly know what web sites they were visiting, especially late at night when nobody else is around.

Monitoring of Web surfing is volatile topic

I know this is a volatile topic which incites strong reactions. Nobody likes to be spied upon and there have been several lawsuits about employer monitoring of Web site visits by employees. The monitoring and enforcement protect the employer from sexual harassment lawsuits. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to work on a user’s computer and found porn stashed away or even openly displayed in a minimized browser or history.

This is not a comment about porn. Alright, maybe it is. As an IT Manager I hate porn Web sites because so many of them are filled with malicious Trojans and other nasties. It is such a waste of time for me to have to clean up after my road warriors bring in their laptops and sheepishly say that something has infected it.

I used to tell employees that if they wanted to surf porn to do it on their home computers. I don’t say that anymore because so many of them now connect to our network via a VPN and Remote Desktop. I am responsible for the security of my network and I don’t want any crap getting in from their home computers. [1]

Net monitoring is much more serious then we give it credit for. You never know that someone is tracking your web history! You would not want to lose your job for some lousy sites would you?

[1] Source: Tech Republic [link]

Weekend in Brief

I had a satisfying (if not wonderful) weekend. Fully entertained by rugby, I did all my chores in the morning. The power shutdown came as a surprise. Thanks to FEA's previous "surprise" black-outs, I was prepared this time. I had modified the cable of my UPS so as to fit 3 pin power plugs. So yea, I didn't miss any of the games. Anyways, heres some stuff which I found "blog-worthy":

1. Damn sharp dude
Some guys have it. They are able to pick a needle from the hay-stack whereas some stuff will pass under our noses undetected. Check out this impressive observation from a guy on the FMF Wheat Bics ad:

A LOCAL company has just started producing wheat bics recently. With it came a huge marketing campaign. In the TV commercial, a women explains how she has been eating that product since childhood. How can that be?

Imraz Ali Sahib
Lautoka

[1] Fiji times [link]

True very true. Serves FMF right for totally ripping off Sanitariums Wheat Bix.

[2] Critique
FMF as a company make awesome products. Just recently I was munching on their 'kidz-cookies' which was itself dirt-cheap compared to some imported ones. However good this company is, it totally lacks creativity. Their product design team is LAME... if such a team does exist. Why are they ripping off other brands? And not just that, their ads are pathetically similar! Check out oreo's ad and FMF's clone biscuit ad. TYMO is TimTam. Wheat Bics is Wheat Bix. They might say, hey as long as we are making money.
But where do principals and morals come into the picture? Shouldn't a company by default take these corporate responsibilities? One name comes to mind, and yes it is CHINA. These guys are kings of piracy! Heck, clones of iphone were out even before the original from apple! And we do see progress in China. Why? Because a reason might be is that companies are not investing in design engineers. They just want drones to carry out repetitive tasks (although not all). So back to FMF, do you think they are following a pro-china policy (being smart) or are they too dumb to come up with original ideas?

Rugby in Fiji

This is just sad! Found this on the Fiji Sun:

Home stoned, family abused

Last updated 4/2/2008 8:46:19 AM

The family of national sevens rugby coach Josateki Savou has been verbally abused and their home stoned following Fiji's dismal performance at the Hong Kong tournament. Police spokesman Corporal Josaia Weicavu said although no formal complaint had been lodged with them by the family, they were aware of the incident. A police officer from the Valelevu Police Station had visited the family home yesterday. Mr Savou's home at Naveiwakau in Nasinu was stoned after the 34-0 semi-final loss to New Zealand on Sunday night. A close relative who asked not to be identified also confirmed that Mr Savou's wife and children were sworn at while driving in the neighbourhood. Police have been told that a man from the neighbouring Delaitokatoka settlement had stoned the house. The relative said the roof of the home was stoned twice during the game. She said the family was at home and people were drinking grog. It was lucky no one was hurt. “One of the neighbours saw the boy and told him off,'' she said. “I was worried about the (family) car because it could have got damaged.” She said when the family returned from a drive around the neighbourhood on Monday, she was told that they had been sworn at. She said the family was otherwise carrying on their lives as normal and would not allow the incidents to affect them. She said a police officer from the Valelevu Police Station visited them after midday yesterday. The Police Command Centre confirmed that no official complaint had been lodged by the family as yet. Fiji Rugby Union chief executive officer Ratu Timoci Tavanavanua condemned the attack as “totally unacceptable and mostly unfortunate”. “Josateki Savou's family should not be put through such abuse,'' he said. “I guess it's a reflection of the individual and something we don't condone. Their frustrations should not be taken out on the family who are innocent people.” Mr Savou has been at the centre of strong public criticism following Fiji's dismal performance over the weekend. There was calls for his resignation. He could not be contacted in Australuia last night where he was preparing the team to defend the Adelaide Sevens this weekend. The national sevens rugby team arrived in Adelaide yesterday with the other teams from Hong Kong.

LOL at Fiji Sun's mis-spelling of Australia! lol!

[1] Extracted from the Fiji Sun [link]