Stories by Sim Ahmed

Vodafone NZ appoints CIO

At a CIO magazine roundtable event last week David Moss told this reporter that the CIO role at Vodafone was being finalised last week. Today Vodafone confirmed his appointment.
Moss has been the acting CIO of Vodafone for the last five months, taking over from previous CIO Claire Govier who left in June after working at the company for two years.

Review: Samsung locked and loaded with new Ultrabook

Samsung, which has steadily become the leader of the pack in the Android mobility space, is looking to get the same dominance in the PC space, and with its latest Series 9 laptop it has got one hell of a weapon on its hands.

Longer hours leading to employee burnout

An increasing number of projects and slowly improving consumer confidence are driving employers to either maintain their current staff levels or increase them, but more employers are reporting "employee burnout", according to a survey by recruitment firm Hudson.

App Review: Textastic

The iPad is a fantastic device for media work like video and photography, and has become the go to tool for many to browse the web, but most would agree the iPad wouldn't be a programmer's first choice when they want to do some coding. Textastic might change that view.

TeamTalk hires CTO

Wellington-based telco TeamTalk has established a new group CTO role, and brought onboard Jamie Baddeley from FX Networks to take it on.
The CTO role will oversee technology projects and strategy across TeamTalk’s wireless business and its fibre business (CityLink). Previously this was conducted by senior IT managers across the group.

Co-working business model for start ups

At the top end of the Auckland CBD, the Biz Dojo co-working space opened three years ago in the Iron Bank building on Karangahape Road and it now occupies around 600 square feet inside the complex. Entrepreneurs, startups and services professionals sit alongside each other in an open-plan space, bouncing ideas around in a scene that could resemble miniature versions of Google's or Facebook’s headquarters.

WINZ kiosk warnings may have been ignored: MSD

The Ministry of Social Development's CEO Brendan Boyle says the ministry may not have taken the necessary steps to fix security flaws with its kiosk system, even though it was made aware of them early last year.

Govt CIO to review publicly accessible systems

The State Services Commission has ordered Government CIO Colin MacDonald to undertake an urgent review of all pubicly accessible systems operated by the government.
A statement sent yesterday evening from Iain Rennie, commissioner and head of State Services says MacDonald will seek assurances from all government agencies that their current security systems are up to scratch .

Technology careers to fuel Auckland's growth

In 30 years time there will be one million more Aucklanders. That’s according to the Auckland Council’s Economic Development Strategy document, which says that 30,000 new jobs will be required to support the forecast growth in population.

Strong response to Dunedin start-up competition

The Dunedin start-up scene is looking healthy, if the response to the annual Audacious competition is any judge – 250 entries were received and coordinator David Wilson said it was tough to pick a winner.

App review: Skitch

Last week I needed to take a screen shot on my phone to show someone a security flaw on a recently launched website (ahem, Wheedle). Apple's iOS has the ability to take screenshots by pressing the home and lock button at the same time, but there is no pre-bundled app to edit and annotate screenshots.

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