Rohan Pearce - Author

Stories by Rohan Pearce

What's your idea worth? Building a social knowledge market with Barter

Social media and social networking for internal collaboration and knowledge sharing can raise the productivity of some employees by up to 25 per cent according to a McKinsey report released last month.

Sophos launches free anti-virus app for Android

Security vendor Sophos has launched a free anti-virus app for Android devices.

ICANN backflips on batching for new TLDs

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has ditched its proposal for evaluating applications for new ‘dot word’ style top-level domains (TLDs) such as ‘.bank’ in batches of 500. A statement issued yesterday said that ICANN instead would work “based on a tentative project plan that foresees the processing of applications in a single batch, and simultaneous release of results”.

Start-up tips: Airtasker’s Tim Fung

Airtasker is an Australian start-up that connects people who want simple tasks like housecleaning or buying the groceries completed with ‘Runners’ in their local area who will carry out the job in exchange for a fee set by the ‘Sender’.

‘Physical’ outsourcing start-up Airtasker mulls overseas expansion

In its first six months since opening its doors to the public, Australian start-up Airtasker has managed to build a solid user base and expanded from Sydney to offering its locally based form of outsourcing for mundane tasks in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.

Politicians flock to Twitter

A new study released by PR agency Burson-Marsteller has revealed that Australian PM Julia Gillard is the second best connect world leader on Twitter after European Union President Herman van Rompuy when it comes to mutual follows with her peers.

Tas government taps MyNetFone for VoIP

Voice over IP provider MyNetFone has won a contract worth up to $20 million dollars to provide VoIP services to the Tasmanian government. The contract has an initial term of three years but may have extensions of up to 10 years, and may be worth up to $20 million. MyNetFone has a ready for service date of 1 January 2013 for the agreement.

FreeNAS hits 8.2, adds plug-in system

FreeNAS, the PC BSD-based operating system built for network-attached storage, has hit version 8.2. FreeNAS 8.2 adds a new plug-in system

Solving the headache of cross-platform mobile development

The rise of bring-your-own device (BYOD) schemes means that many businesses are grappling with how to manage a range of mobile devices with different capabilities, form factors and operating systems.

BYOD 101: Avoiding BYOD pitfalls

Earlier this year Cisco released its IBSG Horizons Study, which surveyed 600 US IT and business leaders. The results of the survey provided a clear wakeup call for anyone in doubt about the reality of the bring-your-own device (BYOD) onslaught.

DrupalCon coming to Australia in 2013

In the wake of the locally organised 2011 and 2012 Drupal Downunder conferences, the Drupal Association has announced that next year Australia will host an official DrupalCon in February.

Qantas ditches BlackBerry for iPhone - will more businesses follow suit?

In another blow to Research in Motion, Qantas will reportedly ditch its fleet of 1300 BlackBerrry smartphones for iPhones.

Aptira pushes Piston for OpenStack

Managed hosting and Cloud provider Aptira has partnered with US company Piston Cloud Computing to deliver private clouds for Australian enterprises based on the open source OpenStack cloud computing project.

Infographic: Study highlights iOS app privacy pitfalls

Analysis by researchers with security vendor BitDefender has highlighted the large number of iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad that make seemingly unnecessary access to users’ personal information.

How Australia's resources companies can mine NBN's potential

The proposed Resource Super Profit Tax may have strained the relationship between Labor and the resources sector, but mining companies may stand to benefit from the bandwidth delivered by the roll out of the government's National Broadband Network (NBN).