I, the Domain Name Tasting victim.....

I have recently been a "victim" of the domain name tasting "scam". A domain name (.COM) which is somewhat related to me (which was owned by someone else) expired and as I knew from whois (which is another debate on its own) that the expiry date was coming up, I kept a watch on when it would become available so I could register it. To cut a long story short, it took me nearly 6 weeks to get the domain.

Each type the domain dropped off the 5 day grace period as it is not something that would generate ad revenue, it would be picked up by a different registrant, dropped again, picked up by another and so on. Of course they all had links on the domain's default page inviting me to purchase it for a fee (or I had the option of using a domain registrar's pre-buy service, at a premium over the normal domain registration price). I refused to take up either of these and persisted with my course of action of checking regularly.

After much research and analysis I came to the conclusion that, to get the domain name, I had to try and register at a time when the robots/scripts used by these dodgy registrants had not triggered. I found this time to be around 2 - 3 am West Coast USA time, and thus 6 weeks into my adventure I succeeded in registering the domain at 2:38am.

Getting it not so right

I needed to install a new server, and having thus far run Mandriva on my servers, I stick with it, Mandriva 2007 in this instance. During the install process I get all excited when I see a big splash saying easy to use great system and network backup software free in this edition for upto 50GB of data. I install the server OS, wrestle with upgrades and dependencies for my other applications, finally get everything how i want and need, and then decide, OK time to see how good this new backup thingy is that the Mandriva Install screen was raving about. So I install it, doesnt complain, all looks good, check with the CLI, going well and executable exists, daemon loads and then install the GUI (which is the big rave since its the bees knees, not the usual CLI stuff). I install the GUI package, all is well, and then execute. Bang! Mandriva tells me sorry mate, the Java package you have installed is not compatible with the application you are running. OK, no problem, I install other Java packages, try again, nope, same old same old. Trawl the web and find out that the Mandriva Java package is different from the Sun one and not 100% compatible. Find a sun-compat package, but only for 2006, none for 2007. Do test install and structure is different so no go. So I sit back stare at the command prompt for a while and ask the question, if you know you don't have the necessary and right dependencies/packages to make this work, why rave about it during the install process, and advertise it so loud and clear? Sometimes its things like this that make one lament at good old Windows (shudder?! but I liked NT4) and about Ubuntu and other Linux Distros (which no doubt will have their own set of drama, but that is another story). (sigh!)

Obviously the command prompt said nothing back......it just sat and blinked at me. I am pretty certain I saw a smirk in the blink too......

Reflections on Bali

Unfortunately I did not have much time to look around Bali. Took a walk to the markets just outside the resort complex (Nusa Dua) and did a bit of a lightning trip to Kuta before catching my plane back. People are generally very friendly and courteous.

The shopping is great, and in the markets a bit of determined bargaining will work wonders to the price. Balinese craftsmanship is exlempary and I only wish I could have taken some of the artefacts and furniture home. Maybe a purchasing trip to Bali to outfit a house/apartment could be really worth it. I like linen clothing and there was some nice stuff I picked up - shirts and the like. A visit to the shopping centres is recommended as well, more expensive than the markets but gives you and idea of pricing. Matahari around Kuta Square is good as is the quite large Centro Discovery Mall facing the beach. There is DVD's galore at ridiculous prices (try around USD 1.50) but they are not exactly the most legit version, much the same goes for software.

Taxis are cheap, but only catch one which uses a meter if you don't want to get ripped off. Ask as soon as you get in to the taxi, and get off if the driver does not agree. There are no shortage of taxis. Stick to ones which are part of large fleets. These are easily identifiable with newer vehicles in good condition, well dressed drivers and lettering on the side doors with phone numbers and company name. I stuck with the Blue Bird Taxis group which worked fine for me.

As you move around Bali, you will likely get approached by many locals giving you a scratch-it ticket. Scratch this and you win a prize they will tell you. Well not exactly, its a bit of a scam to sell you stuff, so avoid them. They can be insistent and say they are not selling you anything and its all free, etc. I took one from one gentleman and gave it to another down the road and said Here, you win this time. You may also come across some asking you to fill in a survey form about your visit to Bali. It's pretty much a different spin on the same scam.

All in all, Bali was not too bad. I did not care much for the beaches, coming from the Pacific Islands that's a given. I do intend to go back one day perhaps and spend a bit more time looking around.

And most importantly, my primary benchmark for a country I visit: Bintang is the local beer, and it ain't too bad either. Best served extra chilled with a skewer of satay or two!

I've been to Bali too

Well not quite like the Red Gum song, but somewhat close.

I had to organise somewhat of a last minute dash to Bali. After much discussion (over a considerable length of time), there was light at the end of the tunnel with the establishment of APRALO Asia Pacific Regional At Large Organisation, part of ICANN's At Large Advisory Committee. We hoped to sign off on the MOU and Operating Principles and finally get moving with the real work.

There was an impressive turnout with 12 out of 13 ALS' present. After day-long deliberations, we did reach consensus on the MOU and Operating Principles with some 10 of the present ALS' provisionally signing off on the documents, with the others needing to refer back to their Organisations. Progress at last!

We also decided on a timeframe for election of APRALO officers and ALAC Reps, and should finalise this by mid-March or so.

I also managed to (in the limited time I had) attend some of the APRICOT 2007 proceedings. David Meyer's Telecommunications Perfect Storm is worth a look. Vijay Gill's (Google) talk during the APOPS Plenary on How an ISP might attain Tier-1 status was interesting as well, I don't have a link to his presentation though.

We also managed to pull together an ISOC Chapters meeting, which was fruitful. In attendance were Australia, Hong Kong, Japan (who I learned were the first ISOC Chapter to be formed), Pacific Islands and Taiwan. It was good to meet up with old friends and make some new ones.

And Hello! Two Double Oh! Seven

The new year is well and truly here. It was back to work today and straight into the deep end.

So what does 2007 hold? Well, when the Chinese New Year rolls around in a couple of weeks or so, it will be the year of the Pig (and I understand the Fire Pig). As I understand it, based on this, it should be a"fireworks year" with prosperity highlighted, amongst other things.

In the technology world, and in particular the Internet, we will have the second IGF later in the year in Rio. This should be interesting as it will indicate what lies ahead for IGF as an institution. Some say it will most likely be a very political IGF, given its location and so on. Time will tell, let's just hope it does not deteriorate and its real objectives are maintained.

On the ICANN front, this year will see the terms of two people on the Board of Directors (both of whom I know very well and respect) finish their terms. These are Vint Cerf and Alejandro Pisanty. They also happen to serve as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the ICANN Board respectively. With Vint's departure (this is his second term, and a person normally is only allowed to serve twice) some ask where to now for ICANN?

On the ISOC front, we have an assortment of new staff coming aboard (or have come aboard in the months preceding the new year). Now let's see if these new staff actually deliver on all the promises. I also hope the ISOC presence and visibility at IGF Rio is better than what we had at IGF Athens.

On the IPv6 front, we intend to run the first IPv6 Summit later this year. The Advisory Panel for the IPv6 Forum Pacific Islands is just about done and we expect to announce later this month. IPv6 uptake remains slow though, and I don't see this changing this year.

I am also working on a host of other projects and initiatives and you will hear about them right here on this fine channel as they progress.

On the home front, Fiji has a new Prime Minister (interim though) and let's hope the country can just get on with it, instead of dwelling on the past and could-haves and would-haves.

On the sports front, the Poms have been hammered in the Ashes, and I expect the ODI will go much the same! The Rugby World Cup is scheduled for later in the year in France and that should be all fun (and I am told it is already next to impossible to get hotel bookings for that period).

And should not a James Bond movie have been released this year? After all its Two 007! Well OK, maybe 2 should have been released this year....

Best wishes for a safe, prosperous and fun 2007!!

Farewell to Two-Oh-Oh-Six

2006 is over and done with and it has been an interesting year in all respects. I was going to do a recap.............but here is a picture instead.

This is what sunset looked like at the Coral Coast in Fiji just before it started dipping over the horizon.

Best wishes for the new year!

The cloud (aka "the 'net") is the machine

This past week, with my usual round of messages enticing me to visit the cheapest pharmacies online, seeking my assistance to transfer squillions of dollars (in unmarked USD 1.00 bills I hope), the hottest stockmarket tips, offers to give me a PhD because of my outstanding work experience, guaranteed results in increasing the size of certain parts of my anatomy and the usual slate of tech news and updates I got one announcing the beta release of Ajaxpresents. This lets one open, edit and save "Presentations" in Microsoft's .ppt format, and follows a bunch of other products which do similar for Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Visio/Illustrator/Freehand drawings and another thats plays music.

I guess this is the continued evolution of the Internet, where applications are now readily available to run from the 'net, and the cloud is the machine now (or at least getting there - and at a great rate of knots). Perhaps the future is low power handheld devices with a reasonable sized display which will be an embedded browser with WiFi (or its successor) connectivity, which will be all that is needed to do most computing tasks. With a web-based VoIP application (which are already here), this device is also your phone, heck lets call it a MCD - Multimedia Communications Device. Goes without saying that readily available bandwidth will be the key to success. With interest by cities around the world to install metropolitan wireless access (sometimes free) the infrastructure is getting there. Interesting times lie ahead.

IGF 2006: Reflections on IGF Athens 2006

Well IGF 2006 is over and done with. It has been an interesting week. My impressions? Well for the most part (a consensus agreed to by just about everyone I talked to) IGF has been the same people saying the same thing all over again, except in a different city. A lot of the same old agenda's were being pushed by the same bunch of people. Perhaps what is needed is some fresh blood and some new faces to bring about some fresh ideas (and hopefully real and practical progress).

The concluding session was basically a round of thank you's to all and sundry. Speaker 1 thanked everyone and said what a great week it was, Speaker 2 thanked Speaker 1 and everyone else and agreed what a great week it was. Speaker 3 thanked Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 and everyone else and agreed what a great week it was......you get the idea.

Did IGF achieve anything? Yes and No. I'll do the "No" bits first. The workshops were pretty much a disaster. There was a complete lack of focus and speakers were drifting all over the place with what they had to say, except of course the workshop theme. There was just way too much drift from what the published workshop theme was, and what was actually discussed. Also alarming were some statements being made in workshops, one of which was that content should be censored not at the edge but within the network and a further supporting statement saying that NGN was the way to achieve this. There seems to be a concerted attempt to add credibility to NGN from this context of content regulation (which I consider to be plain marketing gimmick - it does not really offer anything what the Internet does not already have - see my earlier post on NGN). There was also the China bashing and an attempt by a workshop moderator in the main session (I can't remember his name but I think he was from The Economist) to draw Vint Cerf into the old ICANN debate. The biggest issue I guess is that IGF has "no teeth" so I am uncertain as to how things are to progress. It will require a helluva lot of co-operation, consensus, goodwill and flexibility by all stakeholders to make real and meaningful progress.

Now to the "Yes" bits. From an ISOC perspective, the various side meetings during IGF did much to forge new relationships between Chapters and to reinforce old relationships. What was lacking from ISOC was focus on what Chapters should be doing at meetings such as this, and there needs to be a strategy in place so optimum use of Chapter resources are made. Indication from other (non-ISOC world) delegates suggest side meetings with other participants probably achieved (for a good number of them at least) more than what the IGF itself did. These include commercial and non-commercial collaboration, which is great IMO. One thing IGF did achieve was a lessening of the demarcation normally seen at UN-type meetings – there were no specific tables with country names in the spotlight, however there were designated “government” seats in the prime location during the opening, but at least overall this is a positive move towards the red herring called “open multi-stakeholder process”. There is also the issue of IGF having “no teeth”, which has a good and bad side. Bad because there is no “outcome as such” to follow, but good that if there were an outcome, it could have potentially been hijacked by one group. The key now is to nurture the development of IGF as an entity to become a real and recognised forum which stimulates dialogue, collaboration and consensus, and promotes and works toward practical and not philosophical thoughts and actions.

IGF 2006: Chair's round-up session

This morning was the Chair's round-up session for workshops. Some of the Chair's pretty much lost the plot and went into long drawn out rhetoric reading reports. I kept mine short and simple, highlighting the need to keep things practical, and consideration been given to the needs of remote communities at future IGFs, which includes communities in mountainous regions and other similar disparate areas. I was pleased that Nitin Desai, the IGF Chairman, picked up on this issue for remote communities in his overall summary later. My work (at least in the IGF 2006 context is done).

I also highlighted another favourite topic of mine - global warming - if our islands don't exist with a rise in sea levels, then what the IGF is all about, and what it is trying to achieve would be of no consequence to us. I saw a lot of nodding heads in the audience as I was speaking, so hopefully what I was saying was hitting home (unless of course these were attempts to shake off the effects of last night's drinking.....)

The full text of what I said follows:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Rajnesh Singh from the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. I am here to speak very briefly on what we discussed on ICT to Achieve MDGs and in particular, on issues facing small island states and developing economies. Our workshop was intended to highlight real issues facing small island states and developing economies, and what we hoped we would do is promote a bit of awareness and understanding of real world issues that we face. We hope through that that we fuel some discussion amongst stakeholders and that these stakeholders will then interact with us to work out what we need to do. Dr. Cerf was one of our panelists at the workshop and he said to really understand the issues facing small island states one has to physically visit the islands. Having a philosophical approach is fine, but unless and until you see what actually goes on in the islands, then only will you be able to appreciate what challenges we face. Just to add to that, I would also like to highlight the effects of global warming. If our islands do not exist, then all that we are doing here is of no consequence to us. I would also like to suggest that apart from island states, there are also some communities, perhaps in mountainous regions, that face similar issues to us, and we would like the IGF to consider for future meetings whether they could consider a specific focus on what needs to be done for these remote communities, be it in the islands, up in the mountains or wheresoever. Thank you very much, sir.

IGF 2006: Should it be Internet Facilitation Forum instead of Internet Governance Forum?

I am sitting in the Wednesday Summing Up session which reviews yesterday's workshops and discussions. Vint Cerf intervened and suggested that the event has been titled wrong - it should perhaps be the Internet Facilitation Forum, not the Internet Governance Forum. This is an interesting suggestion. Indeed much of what is being discussed here is indeed more "facilitation" then "governance", keeping in mind that this forum has no actual "teeth" and is more for dialogue.

IGF 2006: PICISOC Workshop - ICT to Achieve MDGs

The PICISOC organised workshop was on Wednesday afternoon. Having done the workshop round over the past 2 days I was a bit worried that we may have limited numbers in attendance. However I was pleasantly surprised to get the headcount. A peak of around 80 attendees which makes it one of the better attended ones (some I went to organised by some "big names" had less than 10 in attendance).

We had a good and diverse line-up of speakers, something which I worked hard at in the limited time I had in pulling speakers together. Of course, we had our superstar, Vint Cerf, who kindly agreed to participate, and I guess some came just to hear and interact with him ;)

Other speakers included Bria McElroy from the Centre for Women and IT from the University of Maryland who very kindly agreed to come at very short notice, Keith Davidson from Internet NZ, Alex Ntoko from ITU, Mike Johnstone from Samoatel, Luke Phipps from VIA Technologies and Tai Purcell. Jovan Kurbalija from Diplo moderated the session whilst I chaired it. I started off with an introduction of the theme and what we hoped to achieve followed by Vint sharing his thoughts on the theme. We then launched into each speaker sharing their thoughts and a round-up by each. With the limited amount of time available for the workshop, there was only so much we could do with the workshop. At the very least, I hope we stimulated a bit of discussion on the topic and stakeholders continue this in the future. My emphasis was that we need practical outcomes and solutions, not philosophical ones (there is a tendency to have too much philosophical crap when it comes to the needs of small island and developing states). Where we go from here remains to be seen.

My slides from the workshop are available here and an audio recording of the workshop is available here (with thanks to Franck). The quality in the first half is a bit suspect, but improves in the second half, once some issues were ironed out.

IGF 2006: ISOC/GIPI Local Access Workshop

Tuesday was the start of the workshops at IGF with the ISOC/GIPI one first off the block. There was a fairly large and diverse line-up of speakers, and all pretty much spoke on different issues. I spoke on "Access Challenges in the Pacific". Slides from my presentation are available here.

The Workshop was well attended. The unfortunate bit is that there are upto 4 concurrent sessions running, which does not help those wanting to attend sessions which clash.

IGF 2006: A worrying thought

Sitting in on a Workshop titled "Content Regulation and Access" it was worrying to note that some were suggesting that "NGN" is the solution, as it can be "controlled" as and if necessary. In an earlier post I said that for all real intents and purposes, the Internet is the NGN. And "content control" is already available - be it denying freedom of expression (which is already being used by many) or blocking things like pornographic content. The notion of "content control/(child) pornogaphy control" should not be used as a tool to legitimise what is essentially a marketing gimmick.

IGF 2006: Defeated by Blogspot

My regular updates from IGF have been dealt a severe blow. Submissions using Blogspot's email engine has had the sh--s, so I have to resort to manual submissions, and with the generally unstable network at IGF this is getting hard. I will have to bulk upload later I guess.....apologies in advance to those looking for regular updates.

IGF 2006: The Great IGF Conspiracy?

Here's a thought doing the rounds amongst some bloggers: make the wireless so bad that bloggers can't post till well after the event.........

I (along with I suspect hundreds of others) am absolutely frustrated by the network access, so much so that I decided to not even bother connecting for much of today...

IGF 2006: How not to organise a Conference

Having organised some conferences in the past, what I see at IGF Athens is total disorganisation. At least the simple things like getting an information pack should be easy enough to organise. So what we had were scores of people walking around aimlessly like headless chooks. The excuse that its a large conference to organise just does not hold water. There are some basic things that need to happen (one would be some semblance of an agenda). It is also obvious that there are some people who are more equal than others. Some know a lot about the conference and its arrangements, some know two-tenths of nothing. Very disappointing - I would have thought the people organising would have some experience in these sort of events, or at least plain common sense.

IGF 2006: The Opening

Well its some 1 hour past the scheduled opening and we are still waiting.

I also understand there are some 600 people who will not be able to enter the room for the opening because it can seat only 800 and you need a magic pass to enter.....and some participants are more equal than others from my limited understanding.......as I type this, I glance at some of the themes: Access, Openness....hmmmmmm.......but then again I a just a card-carrying cynic.

IGF 2006: Arriving in Athens and Registering

Well made it to Athens in one piece, and so did my luggage, which I checked-in from Fiji to Athens. Managed to find the cleverly hidden IGF desk at the Airport and after waiting for another hour or so, got bundled into a bus to the Hotel. Check-in was relatively painless and the sleep much needed. Next morning (29th) off to Divani Appollon, the conference venue. Got an ID card and that's about it. "More information to be provided later" was the message.

The Journey Begins

Left home at 5am Friday, expecting to reach Athens some 50 hours later on Sunday via Seoul, Korea and Frankfurt, Germany. The things we do for the Internet ;)

The Enemy Within

This past week I read, with utter disbelief, that the Government of Iran has decided to limit Internet access speed to 128kbps (apparently higher speeds are available only if filtered). In an era when everyone (well I guess not exactly everyone now) is moving towards greater Internet availability, there are some who are quite happy to stifle this. Its also quite interesting that this has come just some 2 weeks before the Big Fat Greek Meeting (aka Internet Governance Forum or IGF) is set to convene in Athens. And as one trawls the IGF site, the schedule themes include: Access and Openness. From the news report, this action by the Iranian Government is to counter local political dissent and western influence. In a podcast from The World a commentator also suggests its a method to prevent Iranians boys from seeking girlfriends online (and vice versa). I guess the day when restricting Internet access will lead to a reduction in global warming (hmmmmm....), prevent AIDS and increase the socio-economic status of all citizens must not be far off..........