The news yesterday was that the Aussie dollar closed at 0.90 AUD to the US Dollar. That's the highest it's been in over twenty years. So, with the exchange rate rapidly becoming on-par with the US dollar, why aren't we seeing imported consumer goods; especially electronics; levelling out to the prices we see in the States?

Apple allegedly assumes a fixed exchange rate of 0.60 AUD to the US Dollar. It would seem other manufacturers are similarly ripping off Australian consumers.

The fact of the matter is that security companies such as McAfee and Symantec depend on the existence of viruses. It wouldn't surprise me if these companies themselves were writing viruses, so they can claim their software detects more viruses than their competitors, or that they have the only antidote to a particular virus.

A few years ago, I invented the term designtard to describe graphic designers who try to create websites. They usually end up being completely unusable, littered with Flash and Javascript flying everywhere. There's numerous examples of this, ranging from "stupid" to "offensive":

A decision to trek out to murrumbateman's Shaw Winery for a birthday lunch promised a lot and delivered a lot.

The dining experience at Witchery's Kitchen (the restaurant within Shaw Winery) boasts fantasic views of the surrounding country side and a delightful ambience.

The nuts and bolts of the experience were very good. The service was fast, attentive and friendly. The quality of the food was excellent. The lamb was tender, the prawn ravioli tasty and the home made beef pie to mouthwatering.

Tossilini's is one of these italianesque style restaurants that serves modern australian food. The problem with these types of restaurants is that they blend formal and casual dining into a completely forgettable experience.

Apart from the company, my most recent experience at Tossilini's was definitely forgettable.

It's been 6 years since my last visit to the pancake parlour. This morning's venture into the world of pancakes was outstanding. The mid-morning service and food was of a quality exceeded that of what you get at some of canberra's top restaurants.

The coffee arrived within minutes of being ordered, was hot, fresh and full flavoured. The pancakes arrived soon after. The ice-cream was a little melted but beyond that the butter-milk pancakes were light, fresh and fluffy.

So what's with Gus' ridiculously slow service. We all know that Gus' cafe is an institution in Canberra. It's been around forever and whenever you want to meet someone in civic it's common to just meet at Gus'. But, the more times I go to Gus' the more I am disappointed at the quality of service I receive.

Just this morning I decided a late breakfast, 10:30ish, was how I wanted to start my Sunday. After ordering my coffee and eggs I was reasonably happy with the speed at which the first coffee arrived - despite them having delivered a flat white instead of a cappuccino.

As a system administrator who runs their own mailserver, you tend to receive more spam than your average Joe. When you run an RFC compliant mailserver, you are required to have a couple of addresses that will always be valid; such as 'postmaster@domain.com' and 'abuse@domain.com'. Having these widely-publicised addresses makes you a prime candidate for spam, because spammers don't even need to figure out whether the address actually exists.

What do Facebook, Bebo and Hi5 all have in common? They want your personal details. I'll never understand the appeal of "social networking". Posting all of your personal details on a website with a loose privacy statement.

How many of you have actually read their privacy policies? One clause appears on some form or another across all of them:

Large IT projects are notoriously doomed to failure. So what are some of the warning signs?

7. Your CTO makes technology decisions by reading Gartner reports or what his CTO buddies think is cool this month.

6. You pay an outsource company by-the-hour to do your development work, but they're not bound to a deadline. Or a budget.

5. The budget for your project is measured in "millions", and timescale in "years".

4. You have so many business analysts, you just refer to them as "BA's"