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In this Issue:

• Telstra call centres in crisis
• ISP filtering a pipe dream: Telstra
• Copyscape - Defending your rights online
• Some handy sites
• Quotes of the day

Telstra call centres in crisis  

THE customer and billing software at the heart of Telstra's billion-dollar transformation is a recycled version of a system at Italy's largest telco, built several years ago by systems integrator Accenture.

Telstra is losing call-centre staff fed up with what they describe as a culture of bullying brought on by the new system.

The budget for the telco's much-touted transformation program, which focuses on a new platform based on Oracle's Siebel customer relationship management (CRM) software, has blown out to more than $2 billion and suffered months of delays.

However, The Australian understands that Accenture has not actually custom-built a Siebel platform for Telstra, and instead ported a heavily modified software package it built for Telecom Italia several years ago, dubbed Accenture Communications Solutions.

Telstra would not comment on whether Accenture was installing ACS.

"Telstra has engaged with world-class partners throughout our transformation and is implementing a range of proven off-the-shelf solutions," a spokesman said.

Meanwhile, pressures generated by Telstra's transformation stumbles have turned its call centres into a high-stress environment, which has caused some employees to break down. AustralianIT December 2008. more >>>

Interesting article; as a Telstra Customer I seem to suffer considerable "high-stress" whenever I have to phone their call centre... ed.

ISP filtering a pipe dream: Telstra  

TELSTRA chief operating officer Greg Winn says the federal Government's attempt to censor the internet is akin to trying to "boil the ocean".

"My view on that is that's like trying to boil the ocean ... to think that you're going to be able to centrally filter everything, I think that's a pipe dream," Mr Winn told reporters and analysts yesterday.

Child protection agencies have welcomed the Government's move to filter the internet but civil libetarians, ISPs and the technical community have rallied against it for various reasons.

The Government plans to have two streams of filtered content.

The mandatory portion will adhere to a blacklist of thousands of illegal web pages managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and an optional clean feed of URLs that would automatically censor content, mostly adult material.

Mr Winn agreed with broad comments from the ISP community that internet filtering would make surfing the web a slower process.

"The one thing I do know is that once you start filtering, then you're going to add latency no matter what," he said.

The Government has invited ISPs and mobile phone providers to participate in a live internet filtering trial, releasing details of its long-awaited call for expressions of interest (EOI) on November 10.

ACMA has completed closed lab trials of ISP content filtering conducted by Enex TestLab. The live pilot, however, is the first step towards evaluating whether content filtering at a network provider level is feasible in Australia.

The trial will test against ACMA's blacklist that currently contains 1300 URLs and may expand to approximately 10,000 links.

The list mainly contains web pages of child sexual abuse web sites.

The deadline for the EOI is next Monday and the Government would like the trial to kick-off by December 24.

The nation's largest telecommunications provider, Telstra, still hasn't decided if it plans to play ball.

Meanwhile, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy came under fire this week for failing to reveal details of the trial.

During question time on Wednesday Senator Conroy was asked how many participants would ISPs have to enlist for the live trials to be credible.

South Australian Liberal MP Cory Bernardi also asked if the results of the trials would be independently verified.

Senator Conroy couldn't provide answers to both questions within the two-minute timeframe provided.

AustralianIT December 2008.

Copyscape - Defending your rights online  

Copyscape is the leading provider of services that protect your content against online plagiarism and theft. The free Copyscape service makes it easy to find copies of your content on the Web. Simply type in the address of your web page, and Copyscape does the rest. Copyscape finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you.

Copyscape link: http://www.copyscape.com/

Some handy sites  

20 Great Online Image Editors - The online image editing space has grown rapidly in the past year, providing great free and subscription-based options for users of all levels. These well-rounded services let you import images from your social networks, touch up photos, promote your work, and more. Here are 20 online image editors that are worth a try.

PDF Split and Merge tool is implemented using the PdfSharp library and is either GUI or command driven.It is useful for automated document creation.It allows bookmarks from the input pdfs to be imported and flexibly embedded in the destination document. PDF Split and Merge tool.

Quotes of the Day  

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. E. W. Dijkstra

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957)

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

Brought to you by The Quotations Page

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