Microsoft's Outlook, Hotmail and SkyDrive services were offline for more than 12 hours this past week due, it seems, to an overheating data centre. Is this a sign that faith in the cloud is misplaced?

Clouds

The problems struck at an inopportune time for Microsoft as it's been loudly touting the virtues of its shiny new Outlook.com hosted email service. Users without access to their email tend to become annoyed rather quickly.

But while the outage was clearly both embarrassing and annoying, it needs to be put in perspective.

How often do office-based IT systems become unavailable? Whether it's an unscheduled problem or planned downtime, I'll venture to suggest it's a much more regular issue than any cloud data centre striking problems.

Importantly, no Microsoft users lost any of their data during the outage. Once the servers had been cooled, the service was up and running as though nothing had happened.

Compare this to incidents that occur all too regularly within corporate IT infrastructures. Failed disks and poorly planned backups can mean important data can disappear in a puff of electrons.

Incidents like the Microsoft outage should not be a reason for businesses to shy away from cloud services adoption.

When it's all boiled down, your data will always be safer in the cloud. End of story.

A simple hack might let you watch US video services on your Australian Blu-ray player without the need for a VPN.

I've spent so much time bypassing geo-blocking services lately and jumping around the world that I think I've got jet lag. In my travels I stumbled across a particularly interesting trick with Blu-ray players that I thought worth sharing. I'm going to be a little vague here, because if you shout about these things too much they can stop working.

Many current Blu-ray models sold in Australia are designed to support Netflix if you're in the US, but Netflix won't show up in the menus when you're in Australia. You might think it's necessary to hook up your player to a US-based Virtual Private Network such as WiTopia to access the US services, but that might not be the case.

With some Australian Blu-ray players, simply changing the DNS settings to those of a geo-dodging service is enough to trick them into seeing Netflix. You might need to restart the player and/or update the available apps for it to kick in. If it does and you can see Netflix, you can happily login into your account and start watching movies (how to get a Netflix account is a post for another day). Change the DNS back, refresh and Netflix disappears while your Australian services return. No permanent damage seemed to be done, but proceed at your own risk. I'm offering no guarantees on this one.

The first time I got this trick to work was with the Blu-ray player hooked up to WiTopia running on a notebook PC with Internet Connection Sharing. But when I disabled the VPN, the trick kept working and I could easily switch from Australian to US video services by simply changing the DNS. It's possible the trick only works because I used a VPN the first time, I'm not sure but it's something you might try.

The other catch is that the trick doesn't seem to work with all DNS-based geo-dodging services. I had luck using Unotelly, so see how you go. This hack might also work with internet-enabled television as well, along with other boxes which would have Netflix access in the US. I can't say for sure, but I've seen it work at least once.

Your mileage may vary, as always, but it's an interesting hack for Aussies keen to tap into foreign video services.

I've long been of the belief that an important difference between younger and older (say over 50) computer users is that the former expect to be able to achieve the result they seek while the latter tend to expect they won't.

As Henry Ford is supposed to have said, "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right!" I don't plan to enter into any debate about whether Ford really did say this or what the exact wording was, but you get the idea.

If you think you can do something with a computer, you'll probably dig around until you get the desired outcome. It's questionable whether this is time efficient, but it does provide a degree of self-reliance.

Before I'm accused of ageism, realise that I'm in the latter age group and that I know I'm making a sweeping generalisation. But from my observation, a significant proportion of people who started using computers after their mid to late 20s tend to be too afraid of 'breaking the computer' to experiment.

So if you know someone who frequently turns to others (eg, you!) for help, suggest they read Joe Kissell's 'How to think like a Mac geek' over at Macworld.

It might just give them the inspiration and confidence to be a bit more adventurous and self-reliant.

I'm going to suggest something slightly radical to you. The wearing of pants is optional, depending on your comfort level, but this is a step that may transgress conventional comfort levels in any case.

Take your smartphone (or tablet, or similar app-enabled device). Back up your personal data -- contacts, emails, photos (bearing in mind that if you take photos with your tablet, I will be around shortly to punch you in the back of the head*) and the like. That stuff is important.

What about everything else -- by which I mean the apps, widgets and wotsits that take up the precious space on your mobile device?

Kill it all. Wipe it clean and start again.

This happened to me a couple of weeks back with my iPad, a process I wrote up elsewhere, wherein my restored iPad lost all of its data and all of its apps.

At the time, I was a little bit ticked off, because I'd set up that iPad just so, with plenty of complex folders for various types of apps, based on frequency of use and need. What I expected I'd do was recreate that as closely as possible.

That didn't happen.

Not because I couldn't; Apple makes it relatively simple to download apps afresh to new iOS devices (and Google's the same on the Android side of the fence, although Microsoft's ridiculous 5-device Windows Phone limit still annoys me), but simply because forcing myself to recreate the device meant I had to assess whether every app I had on there actually needed to be there.

Now, I'm undoubtedly an outlier example when it comes to apps, because I review so many, and some get installed simply for the purpose of a quick explanatory screenshot or two, but I reckon the principle is sound. I've since applied it to my other portable gadgets, and not only is it a space saving in terms of content, it's also a blessed simplification. A mobile gadget with only the key apps you really, truly need on it is a happy gadget.

So go forth. Slay all the apps. Remember to smile while you're doing so.

*This is a lie. I am actually a relatively peaceful soul. For the sake of expediency, I'm simply going to ask you to punch yourself in the back of the head instead.

Image: ExpertInfantry

I was reminded over the last two days how important music is to a movie or even just a home made piece of video footage.

On Saturday, I watched an SBS program that was interviews with members of The Who and associated producers, soundies and other involved personnel, on the making of the double album “Quadrophenia”. I am a great fan of the album and it was fascinating to hear what the background of Pete Townshend’s thinking was – basically the melding of each member of the band’s personality into the main character, Jimmy.

I have seen the movie of the album a couple of times, but seeing it again today gave a totally different perspective to the story.

I won’t spoil it by explaining the story line – many think it is simply a re-enactment of the Mods versus Rockers thing in the late 60s – but it is far, far more than that. The clue is in the title (and no, it was never released in the quadrophonic format although it was investigated).

The individual music tracks that wind their way through the movie are very powerful when you know the real story. If you have an interest in this – not just the musical era, but the integration and intertwining of a musical soundtrack into the storyline – I urge you to see it.

One word of warning; it is NOT a movie for the kiddies, and it also is a savage expose of what the use of illicit drugs can do to you in terms of personality change. On the plus side, you’ll see the beginnings of some major stars in the UK TV scene – oh and Sting!

And that has to be good in my opinion.