• Ben Woodhead, Centrelink upgrade blows out to $125m, Australian Financial Review, 2006 April 4, p.43 ("The data network upgrade was originally expected to cost $100 million, according to a Centrelink statement issued in 2003 when the agency first released tenders for the project."
  • The scientific method: Computing the future, The Economist, 2006 Mar 23 (the practice of science may be undergoing yet another revolution)
  • Learning From Software Failure, IEEE Spectrum, 2005 September (an introduction to the special issue; letters: November, 2006 January)
  • Robert N Charette, Why Software Fails, IEEE Spectrum, 2005 September (we waste billions of dollars each year on entirely preventable mistakes)
  • Philip E Ross, The Exterminators, IEEE Spectrum, 2005 September (a small British firm shows that software bugs aren't inevitable)
  • Harry Goldstein, Who Killed the Virtual Case File?, IEEE Spectrum, 2005 September (how the FBI blew more than $100 million on case-management software it will never use)
  • Graeme Philipson, Hello, does anyone know how to use this IP thing? (this is a tale of technology gone wrong)
  • A prescription for success (Simon Caulkin: forget off-the-shelf remedies and think for yourself)
  • Michael Cross, Public Domain, The Guardian, 2005 March 3 (disturbing evidence is emerging that big IT contracters have a harmful influence)

    Julian Borger, FBI chief admits $170m computer failure, The Guardian, 2005 March 10 (more than three years after the September 11 attacks the FBI has abandoned an attempt to upgrade its computer database)

  • Michael Cross, Double fault, The Guardian, 2004 July 29 (the government has been condemned for excessive secrets over its failed IT projects)
  • Jack Schofield, Pure economics, The Guardian, 2004 July 29 (ITV is looking to Linux to streamline operations)
  • Michael Cross, Public sector IT failures, Prospect, 2005 October (despite Britain's poor track record with big public sector IT schemes, much of Labour's program depends on them - from NHS reform to ID cards; what accounts for the high rate of failure?; has the government learnt from past mistakes?)
  • George Lawton, LAMP Lights Enterprise Development Efforts, Computer, 2005 September (the LAMP stack is Linux, Apache Web server, MySQL, and interpreters Perl, PHP, Python)
  • Linda LeBlanc, End Users are Clueless -- and it's IT's Fault, eSecurity, 2005 November 14 (if we don't teach the peole we're responsible for to take care of themselves we are going to continue spending the majority of our time cleaning up perfectly preventable computing tragedies)
  • Rob Thomsett, Managing Large Projects: a special case (PDF: mentions, among others, the MANDATA project)
  • John Stapleton, Ports fill as IT crisis worsens, Australian IT, 2005 October 24 (Sydney's major port will hit 100 per cent capacity tomorrow as chaos continues after the botched introduction of a new $250million Customs computer system)
  • Customs computer system to stay at ports, Sydney Morning Herald, 2005 October 27 (a computer system blames for major delays at key Australian ports will not be replaced, the Federal Government says)
  • Emma Connors and Kean Wong, Crippled ports revert to their old customs, Australian Financial Review, 2005 November 2 (Customs has admitted it could keep its old cargo-processing systems ticking over for months to make up for lingering flaws in its new $200million software)