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Fairfax Columns 2001

Since early 1999 GP I have written a weekly opinion column for the Tuesday IT section in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, published by John Fairfax. This supplement is now called 'Next'. I also write occasional feature and news pieces.


You can download any of these articles from this website. Note:

  • All files are MS Word documents
  • They are as I originally wrote them, not as subsequently edited by Fairfax
  • There are no headlines - these are added by Fairfax subeditors

Here are the two features I wrote in 2001. They are undated, unfortunately.

F01clevercountry

  • How Australia rates very well on many indices of international IT usage

download

F01govtit

  • The Australian government's confused IT policies

download

Here are the columns for 2001. There are brief synposes of each piece - no full text search available, sorry.

Date

File

Synopsis

Download

16 Jan 2001

F010116hal

  • Musings on the speed at which technology changes, with reference to Arthur C Clarke

download

23 Jan 2001

F010123mobiles

  • The ubiquity of mobile phones, and the move to 3G

download

30 Jan 2001

F010130pcsales

  • The decline in the PC market — we are at saturation point.

download

6 Feb 2001

F010206govtit

  • The Australian government’s pathetic record in IT policy

download

13 Feb 2001

F010213neweconomy

  • The death (or non-birth) of the “new economy”

download

20 Feb 2001

F010220integ

  • The story of Steve Killelea and Integrated Research

download

27 Feb 2001

F010227govtit2

  • Responses to 6 Feb’s column on the ineptitude of the government’s IT policies

download

6 Mar 2001

F010306bloatware

  • How a lot of software, particularly that from Microsoft, is inefficient and over-functioned

download

13 Mar 2001

F010313harmer

download

20 Mar 2001

F010320ideas

download

27 Mar 2001

F010327plowman

download

3 April 2001

F010403merced

  • The release (finally) of the Merced IA64 chip

download

10 April 2001

F010410china

  • How the Chinese IT industry is growing and why Aussie companies should go there

download

17 April 2001

F010417atoms

  • The growth of 3G and wireless, and why we should stop turning digits into atoms and back again

download

24 April 2001

F010424access

  • Why MS Access is the work of the devil

download

1 May 2001

F010501jedi

  • How the Internet “can help a lie go round the world while truth is still putting on its boots”, with reference to the campaign to put “Jedi Knight as one’s religion on census forms

download

8 May 2001

F010508informix

  • IBM’s purchase of DBMS company Informix

download

15 May 2001

F010515filemaker

  • Why Filemaker is so much better the MS Access

download

22 May 2001

F010522backup

  • The recent theft of GP’s laptop and the importance of backing up data

download

29 May 2001

F010529sropsys

  • Strategic Research’s analysis of relative strengths of various operating systems

download

5 Jun 2001

F010605backup2

  • Responses to 22 May column on backups

download

12 Jun 2001

F010612indbodies

  • How vendors set up supposedly independent IT industry forums

download

19 Jun 2001

F010619linuxbigots

  • How the Linux bigots came out in force to flame GP for reporting it’s not as strong as many think

download

26 Jun 2001

F010626univac

  • The 50th anniversary of UNIVAC and the birth of commercial computing

download

3 July 2001

F010703openpm

  • An open letter to Australian PM John Howard berating him for selectively quoting GP in parliament

download

10 July 2001

F010710alpha

  • The demise of the Alpha chip and a comment on the chip wars

download

17 July 2001

F010717westpac

  • GP’s attempts to set up Internet banking through Westpac

download

24 July 2001

F010724sitesuite

download

31 July 2001

F010731aiia

  • An examination of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA)

download

7 Aug 2001

F010807ibmpc

  • The 20th anniversary of the IBM PC

download

14 Aug 2001

F010814downturn2001

  • The downturn in the IT industry, and in IT publications

download

21 Aug 2001

F010821shannon

  • Analyst Terry Shannon’s views on the future of Compaq

download

28 Aug 2001

F010828bell

  • An interview with Internet pioneer and IT guru Gordon Bell

download

4 Sep 2001

F010904acs

  • Australian Computer Society president John Ridge on how the ACS has changed

download

11 Sep 2001

F010911webdesign

  • Tim O’Brien and the fundamentals of good web design

download

18 Sep 2001

F010918snailbrain

  • How researchers in Germany have connected living tissue with silicon chips, and what this means for the future of the human race

download

25 Sep 2001

F010925hpcompaq

  • Comments on the proposed HP takeover of Compaq

download

2 Oct 2001

F011002expenditure

  • The changing nature of IT expenditure, away from hardware and towards services

download

9 Oct 2001

F011009bifail

  • How a lack of good business intelligence causes many companies to fail

download

16 Oct 2001

F011016newlaws

  • Kevin Kelly’s Rules for the New Economy revisited

download

23 Oct 2001

F011023demant

  • A review of David Demant’s book “The First Computer Mouse”

download

30 Oct 2001

F011030msxp

  • Microsoft’s Windows XP and the history of its OS strategy

download

6 Nov 2001

F011106powerpoint

  • How GP gave a presentation without Powerpoint, and why that product is often misused

download

13 Nov 2001

F011113bookplug

  • GP shamelessly reviews and plugs the CCH book he edited (Australian Guide to eBusiness)

download

20 Nov 2001

F011120anal

  • Gartner, Forrester, Meta and IDC on how the IT world changed after 11 September, and their forecasts for the next year

download

27 Nov 2001

F011127oswar2

  • Windows vs Linux vs Unix — why operating systems don’t matter so much any more

download

4 Dec 2001

F011204winebase

download

11 Dec 2001

F011211yearend

  • A look at the year in IT, and ten predictions for 2002

download



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