Cheap Therapy

In case there’s anyone not a member of the UCC who’d like to be a cyber-spook with Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate.

We are looking for passionate technical people who are interested in:
* Programming in high and low level languages
* Responding to incidents on critical networks
* Computer forensics to help find the really bad guys
* System administration to support our specialist networks
* Penetration testing, including tool and exploit development
* Software reverse engineering for malware analysis
* Computer and network vulnerability analysis and discovery
* Secure system and network architecture design and risk management

The campaign will run from July to September, with electronic
applications closing on 17 August 2008. During September, DSD will host
a fully-paid 2 day assessment centre in Canberra for those applicants
found suitable during the first phase. This will also give applicants an
opportunity to meet our staff and see the exciting range of work
available at DSD.

More information and details of how to apply can be found at
http://www.dsd.gov.au/cyberoperations

If you have any queries, please email cyber-ops@dsd.gov.au

Kind Regards,
David Lane
CNO Branch
DSD

I’m guessing you’d probably wind up working in sunny Canberra

If you deal with the public and are looking for something to brighten your day (or just others to commiserate with), check out notalwaysright.com. Or maybe contribute your own.

Or for the more visually inclined, PhotoshopDisasters. Beware it may contain photos of scantily clad models (frequently with extra hands or distorted heads) which may not be considered appropriate for your workplace.

I was somewhat amused by the press release about the Bentley Technology Precinct (”It will be Australia’s Silicon Valley - but with soul” - Minister Fran Logan, which wouldn’t be hard, most people in Silicon Valley probably leave the deserted landscaped wasteland or their corporate campus enclaves go to San Francisco for soul :). Given that I’ve previously worked in Bentley Technology Park, I thought I had some observations to make.

“Cafes, bars and restaurants will become boardrooms and central, shared facilities will provide mentoring and support for companies at all stages of commercialisation. Sustainable transport options will be explored and pathways expanded for a pedestrian friendly location.”

Well, when I was there there was one cafe, which served any sort of quiche (or egg-and-bacon pie), and pretty poor coffee (although unsurprisingly faster than UniClub). Pretty much everyone took their internal combustion engine vehicles to Karawara shops or Vic Park for lunch. Sustainable transport options (ie buses) didn’t run when you had to still go to work but Curtin University was on student break. Anyway , we don’t really need to ‘explore’ sustainable transport options, we already know which ones aren’t sustainable (cars with one person in them!).

As far as shared facilities go, when I was working in Tech Park the State Government stopped providing internet access to everyone, so most people wound up getting their own fibre laid (thankyou Amcom).

Mr Logan said numerous ICT companies from around the world were looking to move into the precinct.

The US-based company Interzone, which develops online entertainment products, has already established its game development studio within the precinct.

Cos games companies are cool at the moment and other states have them too so we’d better mention ours

A blog site has been created to promote discussion and participation.  

Comments can be made at http://www.communityofminds.com.au 

Edit - I realised the other thing I forgot to mention was the power! For a tech park you’d think they’d have a decent power supply, but it seemed like there were constant interruptions to the mains. Whilst it’s bad for a computer company it’s not insurmountable, but the biotech companies and the pathology labs can’t afford to lose power at all. It wasn’t long before they started installing their own diesel generators.

I’m seeing a lot of jobs ads via Google for mining jobs, obviously the shortage of workers is so desperate they’ll accept internet users at places like getajobinthemines ($30 for the inside info in a PDF, or you could probably bribe any mine worker with a carton of beer and minejobsaustralia. Then again at the salaries they’re advertising it sounds like not a bad idea!I hear what a lot of people are doing is to get a job with Transperth as a bus driver (if you’ve seen their ads on every bus they’re obviously desperate, and if you’ll know the drivers are inexperienced) then after they’ve trained you up and you’ve got your heavy rigid licence try to get a job on the mines.

Congratulations to Slashdot on surviving its 10 year worldwide war against productivity in the IT sector.

Swingline are contemplating adding RFID tags on every staple so you can locate those lost documents easy.

Via the Swingline site, check out the America’s Ugliest Office competition.

There’s something cool about getting snail mail from Google, even if it’s not a job offer

Jobs.joelonsoftware.com have a C++ programming job with Seeing Machines Ltd. in Canberra. Joel Score of 9/12 (Doesn’t anybody use a schedule these days?)

Just in case there’s anyone out there looking for a programming job and not subscribed to Joel On Software’s Jobs RSS feed, there’s a programming job with Optimal Decisions Group going in Melbourne. They score a respectable 9/12 on the Joel test.

According to today’s West “We are looking for applicants to fill this senior management role and lead a technical team in the deployment of fixed network equipment in suburban telephone exchanges in Western Australia”. So perhaps they’re finally going to be rolling out DSLAMs?