Monday, September 17, 2012

Telstra’s Transparent Proxying

I am finding Telstras Transparent proxying a nightmare at the moment. I am trying to configure a Windows Azure SQL DB instance I have set up on a trial account I got from TechEd. Azure SQL database security is tied to your IP address. You can click “Manage” from the portal window to add your current IP address to the firewall rules, but then thanks to Telstra’s transparent proxying, when you connect with SQL Server Management Studio, you get a different IP address, and consequently can’t access SQL Server.

Anyone know of a solution to this, short of getting a fixed IP address and opening up the firewall to the world?

Friday, September 07, 2012

Thoughts on Gina’s $2 a day comment

I think there is a point where the ruling class become so arrogant and full of their own self importance that the “plebs” see their only logical course of action is full scale revolution. I don’t think we’re there yet, and as history has taught us, revolutions rarely succeed in doing more than replacing the head on the coin, but with Gina Rinehart’s latest comments, I feel we have inched one step closer to it. Indeed there are people in West Africa who will work for $2 a day. Many West African nations are struggling economically, and desperate people will do desperate things. Perhaps the global economy does need some re-adjustment, and maybe just, the “invisible hand” of the market can do something to address the great injustices of the world, but for Gina Rinehart to make the inference that Australians need to take severe pay-cuts just because her precious mining business is in danger of slowing down, makes it clear just how detached from reality she has become. You can almost hear “let them eat cake”. It is not the responsibility of the working class to fund the ruling classes lifestyle. If you can’t make your business profitable while being ethical to your workers and paying them a liveable wage that takes into account cultural and social standards, then you don’t deserve to be running a business. Perhaps if Gina was to spend time in West Africa working for $2 a day, she may have a little more sympathy. Even if she was forced for a few months to exist on an Australian un-skilled labourers wage, she may get the picture.