DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

According to ComingSoon.net, a sequel to 28 Days Later is in the pipeline…

Fox Searchlight is developing a sequel to 28 Days Later, the Danny Boyle-directed horror film that became a fall hit in 2002, reports Variety. The trade says that the tentative title is 28 Weeks Later and that the studio is in talks with Rowan Joffe (BBC’s Last Resort) to write the script.

Boyle is not expected to direct the sequel, though he and screenwriter Alex Garland likely will take producing roles alongside the first film’s producer, Andrew Macdonald.

In the original, a powerful virus is unleashed on the British public following a raid on a primate research facility by animal rights activists. Transmitted in a drop of blood and devastating within seconds, the virus locks those infected into a permanent state of murderous rage. Within 28 days the country is overwhelmed and a handful of survivors begin their attempts to salvage a future, little realizing that the deadly virus is not the only thing that threatens them.

The low-budget film, starring Cillian Murphy, grossed $45 million in the U.S. and north of $25 million overseas.

It’s the longest day of the year, thought that was worth mentioning in a post here!

Pity the weather doesn’t match the day that it is….midsummers day!

Current Weather Conditions:
Dublin Airport, Ireland
(EIDW) 53-26N 006-15W 85M
Conditions at 2004.06.21 1200 UTC
Wind from the WNW (300 degrees) at 6 MPH (5 KT) (direction variable)
Visibility greater than 7 mile(s)
Sky conditions partly cloudy
Weather Showers in the vicinity
Cumulonimbus clouds observed
Temperature 57 F (14 C)
Dew Point 46 F (8 C)
Relative Humidity 67%
Pressure (altimeter) 29.80 in. Hg (1009 hPa)

SCOTTISH AND IRISH FLOOD WARNING

This is thought to have been caused by all of Scotland and Ireland
pissing themselves laughing at the England match.

I have just received an email from a sales agent in a rather well known Irish IT company, which I’ll quote a snippet from that has be puzzled. It would appear that this mail was sent as part of a mailshot to customers / prospective customers, and contains a lot of in-accuracies about ADSL and firewalls which I shall ignore for now. I’ve labelled [] the relevant bits for comment below

Dear ____,

Bank Of Ireland
Does your company have an Internet Policy ISSUED to ALL staff? This week we were swamped by clients asking where do they get or how do they create an Internet policy. We have a sample of policies that might suit your business and uses - so you can copy or amend them for your own purposes. Just email me a reply and I will forward you these.

We have also been asked how does management get reports on what sites are being visited by staff. There are products on the market that will monitor what sites are being visited and what computer visited these sites. However, may I ask, do you REALLY want to know who visited various sites, and what are you going to do with this information? [1]

While everyone has an opinion on Mr. Soden [2] - I felt sorry for the IT manager who got the report of sites visited and then had to go to his boss to say “Mr. Soden you broke internet policy and should resign”. [3] Would your company be able to make this decision?

[1] This has me completely baffled. Every company should be monitoring what their employees are doing, and have an Internet Usage Policy in place to cover themselves in the event of an employee doing something illegal online. Employees should also know that such logging exists on the network.

Management don’t necessarily require visibility on an ongoing basis of what employees are doing, and I’d be suprised if there was a manager out there who had the time to be keeping abreast of every site his employees are visiting. I’m sure however, that management would request, and want to view periodic audits of this data. I believe it may have been such an audit that lead to the recent case reported in the media, as opposed to active monitoring.

[2] I am amazed that a company such as the one that this email originated from would take to naming the persons involved in a particular case, albeit high-profile and widely reported in the media, in a sales pitch. This just seems wrong to me.

[3] Again, as I understand it, based on what has been reported in this case, Mr. Soden was not approached by IT staff, rather, the issue was raised with the governer of the Bank, who then approached Mr. Soden. Given these circumstances, I do not know if Mr. Soden was then asked to consider his position, before the bank authorities were forced to do it for him.

In another situation however, where lets say there was no board or anyone in a more senior position than the person in question, it is the duty of the IT manager to bring it to the attention of the person in question that they have been found breaching company IT policy, and see how things go from there. If a law has been broken, it is the responsibility of the IT manager to take this to the relevant law enforcement agency.

As for what will be done with such information, I’ll leave the argument that analyzing trends with a view to filtering certian sites in order to increase productivity for another time; but, this information can be used to prevent a company becoming mitigated in any legal proceedings that may

Last night, I stumbled upon the GoogleBlog, which seems like a pretty neat concept, it’s a blog that’s contributed too by people within Google, giving an insight into what life in the company is really like….and I like!

This weekend is the June Bank Holiday….and so far, the weather forecast for the weekend looks somewhat promising.

It’s going to be a busy weekend, Rosy and Claire both have their birthdays this weekend, and we’re all off to Rosy’s for a BBQ on Saturday evening which should be great as always. Aside from that there’s a few other things in the pipeline that could keep me very busy. Most of my pals are now finishing college, and starting to get jobs, and therefore a few quid in their pockets, which is a promising prospect, finally I’ll have people who can afford to do stuff with me!