Some bits sound like meetings I attended... Other bits sound like exactly what I expect "Big Telco" would be talking when creating a campaign for their new JesusPhone offering...
Warning: some heavy NSFW language. But worth watching the whole thing.
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Thought I'd start of a list of places you can rent Blu-ray High Def discs. If anyone knows of any others then let me know & I'll add them to the list.
Making this list brings back memories of just over 10 years ago when they started renting out DVD's in N.Z. Myself & a mate started a web site (nzht.co.nz - NZ Home Theater, which is long gone) listing the stores renting discs. The web site grew pretty quickly to include DVD news, links and a very busy for sale page (before trademe was around). We also ended up selling new DVDs, doing region mod's (multizone) on DVD players (including players for most major chain stores) & organising DVD Swap Meets.
Those were the days......importing DVDs from the States at half the price we were importing Laser Discs for & the picture quality was better.
Props have to go out to the guys who started Viewmaster in Grey Lynn. They were importing hundreds of Region 1 (USA) DVDs for rental when hardly any one else had any & there was nothing on Region 4 (NZ/Aust).
Anyway, back to the present & the poor state of Blu-Ray rentals in NZ.......well I suppose there is at least a few of these guys doing a good job of things
Link to Civic Video Stores
Link to United Video Stores
Link to Video Ezy Stores
Auckland
Blockbuster Highland Park - 20 titles (as of 6/2/08)
Blockbuster Birkenhead - 'a couple' (as of 6/2/08)
Civic Video Mt Eden - 50-60 titles
(as of 25/4/08)Civic Video Grey Lynn - 50-60 titles (as of 29/6/08)
Civic Video Ponsonby - 18 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Civic Video Mt Albert - 2 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Civic Video Browns Bay - 'got their first few BD's' (as of 30/04/08)
United Video Westgate - 'small selection' (as of 4/2/08)
United Video Mt Roskill - 35 titles (as of 26/7/08)
Video Ezy Royal Oak - 33 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Video Ezy Ponsonby - 20 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Video Ezy Mt Roskill - 4 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Video Ezy Mt Eden - 2 titles (as of 25/4/08)
Video Ezy Lynfield - ~50 titles (as of 15/5/08)
It seems that Video Ezy only have Sony titles at the moment. Sounds like they get them cheap with some kind of profit sharing deal.
Wellington
Civic Video in Kelburn (as of 25-4-08)
Video Ezy Ghuznee Street - 'have a reasonable range' (as of 25-4-08)
Dunedin
Video Ezy South Dunedin - 30 (as of 26-4-08)
Christchurch
Alive in videoland - ~50 (as of 28-4-08)
Online
http://www.movieshack.co.nz - ~200 (as of 24/4/08)
www.dvdunlimited.co.nz - 107 titles (as of 24/4/08)
http://fatso.co.nz/ - ~50 titles (as of 24/4/08)
Read MoreI noticed that there was an issue currently occuring with the Bandwith meter for the 24th and the 25th:
Bandwidth issue 2008-07-25 11:32:57
Some customers may notice that their bandwidth for the 24th and 25th of July is higher than usual.
We are currently investigating this issue with our Engineers and we hope to resolve this as soon as possible
Thank you for your patience
While the meter in the picture below only accounts for my PC only (out of two), I am the biggest user of this household, so you could multiply the figures in my meter report by around 1.5.
Do note that my meter report may have slightly higher usage than the actual one as some packets may not be going to the Internet.
It sometimes fluctuates below my own PC's usage... and the 24th has a sudden peak spike (but the days before it were pretty unaccounted for)
Also, the 22nd of July is missing! Where did that go?
Some dates also seem to have huge delay in processing the usage (so sometimes the usage on one day goes on the next day).
I've seen problems with ihug's/Vodafone's usage checker a few times before. I haven't seen many occurrences of other ISPs having similar problems...
This also reduces the trust laid upon Vodafone's systems. I definitely know that I'll need to use my meter to check for usage rather than My Vodafone. Could this mean that we could be paying more for our data? (as if there is substantially more data usage than the actual one, then Vodafone have actually been taking away the value of the plan)
Vodafone's engineers better rectify this problem soon!
Read MoreAfter going unbundled with Orcon's Gold+ Account I was having issues getting online and was recommended an Orcon HomeHub over D-Link DST-502T. The 502T was theoretically more than capable of doing ADSL2+ (as I was running it at home on the same plan already). But at $5 a month, and to solve a problem I thought, stuff it, and got one sent out.
The HomeHub is really just a Siemens SX-763 WLAN DSL Router. Its running a slightly modified firmware that has the Orcon settings preset. You can't flash newer vesions of Firmware, although Orcon can from their side of things. This could lead to an interesting future for this little hub - more on that later.
The Homehub features (according to Orcon) -
"This sleek wireless router lets you access your Broadband from anywhere in your house without plugs or cables.On the Siemens site it lists it features as -
What's more, because our network can talk to it, our helpdesk can easily support the device remotely to get you back online faster if there is ever a problem.
In the future, we'll be teaching the Homehub some cool new tricks to give you an even better Orcon experience through new and interesting services, so stay tuned..."
- High-speed wireless data transfer at up to 108 Mbps (compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g)
- Integrated ADSL 2+ modem
- 4 Port 10/100 Hub
- External broadband access modem support (e. g. VDSL, cable)
- Support for up to 6 VoIP public telephone accounts (SIP Protocol)
- USB Support (SMB/FTP/Web/Printer).
The Unit is one of the nicer Routers or modems I've seen, although it does feel a but light and plasticy. All the ports are nicely placed on the back. It can be mounted on a wall or look fine on a desk.
The web inerface is pleasent to look at, and functionally seems to include all the settings. There's wizards both for the absolutely basics and also for the security features. Add to that the normal Advanced Settings, It's feature packed but simple to get around. There's support for all the necessary wireless standards - WEP, WPA2-PSK, WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK/WPA-PSK.
I'd love to go into the VOIP settings but as I have never been too interested in it before, I wouldn't know much. The fact they're there, and are quite feature complete shows a feature I imagine Orcon will use in the future.
Connection wise, the wireless seems solid, although I personally use an Apple Airport Extreme to run a parallel 5ghz Only 11N based network and a 2.4Ghz for older clients. Excessive. Maybe. A bonus of using the $5 a month homehub though.
Internet wise, in the Auckland CBD, just off K Rd I've got a 12286 kbps (upstream) ADSL Connection. Its strange as when the connection was first setup I was getting up to 22500kbps on the connection - close to ADSL2's limit - and now its back down to the top of ADSL1's top....... Orcon?
UPDATE See first comment.
Heres some results from speedtest.net -
Auckland -> Auckland (WorldxChange Communications) - 9907 Down / 354 Up
Auckland -> Christchurch (Snap Internet) - 6587 Down / 266 Up
Auckland -> Sydney (Mammoth Media) - 3327 Down / 333 Up
Auckland -> London (Namesco) - 1723 Down / 180 Up
Auckland -> San Francisco (Unwired) - 2739 Down / 194 Up
Things that aren't cool -
USB only does FTP no SFTP so not great for putting online.
The DHCP server won't list connected devices - Wireless status lists the Host name, Mac and IP's of any wireless clients but for the overall IP's - nothing. The settings are there - just broken, a bug that I hope Orcon will get on to fixing.
UPDATE Orcon do indeed have a forthcoming update. Orcon were nice enough to flash mine and it does indeed fix the issue.
Things that are cool -
USB Features.
Looks good.
A full featured router for only $5 a month (on Orcon).
Assumably VOIP support from Orcon in the future.
Read More| < Previous Cardboard idea | |
After my previous cardboard idea (which you can view in the link above), here is another:
My laptop needs to be slightly elevated to cool it down, so here is a laptop cooler (unfortunately, not strong enough to be made into a stand)
It even runs on USB power! All I need to plug it into a spare USB port. I stripped this USB plug form the masses of USB extenders that Dick Smith ship with their flash drives (that's that black USB plug)
The fan came from some old PCs, some of which come with the 8cm fans, though it runs at a lesser power as USB right now supplies 5v, the fans run at a nominal voltage of 12v. But they work... to an extent.
Now to make it fire proof...
Read MoreFor those who still haven't heard about this: Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, creator of the GPL and all around activist in all matters related to freedom is coming to New Zealand soon. There will be a series of talks in a ... (more in the full post)
Read MoreI took the opportunity to see "The Dark Knight" on saturday night, (in Reading Cinemas Gold Lounge)
and I have to admit, the hype is not totally misplaced, it is a stunning movie,
Heath Ledger truly played the part to a legendary level, the gadgets again are fantastic,
the sheer grittyness that was brough about made it all the more real, rather than having a fantastical approach, it gave it a realisticness lacking in many hero movies.
I'd love to write more but I'd hate to spoil it,
I think this movie will go down as a definite movie to watch.
Read MoreYou can read the rest of my story on my WordPress blog, but the service these guys have given me is unbelievable, BAD that is.
This is my status for today for the rest follow my link below.
So if you read my previous blog you will know that our phone line died yesterday. So This afternoon I rang Orcon to find ut what is happening. I rang the 0800 number and selected landlines and waited for a response which came pretty quickly and I got a very polite response from Jamie who advised me that she had to pass me on to a different department because the other department was responsible for the port change. She also explained that the port change affected the landline and the broadband connection.
So off to another department and another woman who advised me that they were still waiting for a technician to advise the date when someone would do a port change!
I said “Are you telling me that I have no phone and that you can’t even tell me when someone will advise when they will look at it?” Correct, it might be this afternoon, they do work on Saturdays so someone might turn up then or, well they just don’t know because it is another department.
I asked if they would forward incoming phones to a mobile and they have agreed to do that, but why couldn’t they suggest that in the first place? Basically this now means that people can contact us without having to know our mobile numbers and without having to pay for the toll call, but it does also mean that we have to pay mobile call rates for the outgoing local calls, but at least we have communications.
But we have no idea when our home phone line wll be reconnected.
Since last night I have had 2 people come to me saying that they had been planning to move to Orcon and now won’t. Would you like to be in on a sweepstake as to when I will have a home phone line? Or perhaps hw many times my internet will disconnect today? Yes, funny isn’t it, I still have a Broadband connection at home even if I don’t have the phone. I just checked, so far my broadband has disconnected 18 times today.
Read MoreIt has taken a flippin long time, but it is good to see these issues sorted/being sorted:
- Adobe PDF ratified by ISO as standard - finally let go of proprietary format last year and put it up for ratification
- Microsoft OOXML ratified by ISO as standard - although the ISO version won't be incorporated until Office 14 comes out next year, and the approval is being challenged by 4 governments . .. .
- ODF being supported by Microsoft - in an Office 2007 Service Pack to be released in 2009
Good article here on Computerworld.
Read MoreAs I promised my faithful reader, I have obtained at great risk to my life and well - being, photographic evidence of the conspiracy!
behold!
See the difference in the packaging? subtle very subtle...
Again! further subtley, notice the difference in sizes between the matches! they are reducing the capacity of fire!
you cannot claim you weren't warned! its going to happen!
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