No Critical Security Bulletins for July

For July, Microsoft released only 4 new Security Bulletins and none of them were Critical. Actually, all 4 were rated as Important, which typically means they are serious, but that... Read More

As 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!

Read More

On a rainy day I parked on Tory St, Wellington and used the convenience of paying my parking via SMS. That would be $4 for two hours, plus $.50 for the privilege of not having to carry coins. But instead of getting the little piece of paper with the ticket to put in my windshield, I got an error message:

"Transaction rejected"

Interesting. But I immediately got a SMS back from Telecom saying "thanks, we debited your account for $4.50".

Bummer. So instead I decided to use a credit card. Again I got an error message:

"Transaction rejected"

Hmmm. It looks like the machine may be out of paper, but the developer for this company decided to stupidly save some bytes instead of providing a meaningful message - and a transaction rollback.

So I walk to the next machine, pay and display the ticket in the windshield.

But I wouldn't be short of $9 today, right? I called the Wellington City Council, explained what happened, and was assured someone would call me back to arrange the refund.

You guessed right. No one ever called me back.

Like so many other New Zealand businesses, getting you off the phone is what they want to do. The Wellington City Council is quick to slap a fine on your car if you are over five minutes in the parking lot, but they don't want to move a finger to refund you money that they took without providing the service.

By the way I am looking at my credit card statement. This was on 17 June. More than enough time for the Wellington City Council to come back to me.

End of rant of the day.

Read More

Last Friday, Microsoft finalised the code for the RC 1 (Release Candidate 1) prerelease versions of both Windows Small Business Server 2008, and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. See below for download links.

Rumour has it that organis... (more in the full post)

Read More

This week we got the news Microsoft has released an update for Windows Live Mobile. No, don't go updating your Windows Mobile Pocket PC yet. Read on.

First the good news: this update enhances Windows Live on your Windows Mobile. Great. But if you have Windows Live Messenger on your device (installed by an OEM), don't install this update yet. Read more.

Windows Live Mobile is really cool - it enables push e-mail for your Windows Live accounts (this includes Hotmail and even the Geekzonemail accounts).

Here is the bad news: Microsoft stopped providing Windows Live Messenger with Windows Live Mobile - a departure from earlier versions. And if you have an old Windows Live Mobile version with Windows Live Messenger, installing this new version will disable the Messenger component.



The Windows Live Messenger files are still in the system, but the program won't start at all. Uninstalling the "update" will automatically revert to the previous version and enable Windows Live Messenger again.



What is really annoying is that Microsoft makes Windows Live Messenger available for RIM BlackBerry users, but leave Windows Mobile users in the cold, waiting for operators to release their software (which we all know ain't gonna happen any time soon).

If you don't have Windows Live Mobile on your device (some OEMs don't include it), then you can download it now - and use a third party software for communicating with friends on Windows Live Messenger. Try one of the following:

- Fring (free, multiple IM systems, Skype, SIP, Twitter)
- Pocket MSN
- MSN Messenger Force

Read More

Back in April I wrote about Microsoft's music store closing, thus rendering any music purchased from that store worthless. Why? The music is DRM infested, and thus will stop playing after they switch off their servers that are needed for license veri... (more in the full post)

Read More

Cool, it's that time of the year again when the IBM Forum is on. I've attended previous events and it's always an interesting day.

Here's a bit about this event:

IBM Forum 2008 focuses on Sustainable Innovation, starting with the keynote, Ray Avery, a kiwi scientist and entrepreneur; founder CEO of Medicine Mondiale. Ray is developing sustainable products and technologies for world markets, such as his latest invention “Proteinforte”. Ray will be talking about global opportunities for high tech innovation in healthcare, education and infrastructure.

Also on the agenda, Edward Orange, Director of Lotus Software of IBM Asia Pacific, will be talking about Web 2.0 and how it can be leveraged by enterprises of all sizes to help revolutionise the way they conduct business, help employees collaborate more effectively and enhance their client outreach.

The agenda also features a session on 'Co-Web: re-mixing audio and video collaboration in the next generation of the Internet’ and ‘Demystifying SOA - driving business agility with service orientated business applications’, as well as insights into the latest advances in strategy and technology; customer stories and interactive demonstrations.

The full day event is happening in Wellington (11th August, Michael Fowler Centre), Auckland (14th August, Hyatt Hotel) and Christchurch (19th August, Convention Centre).

Registrations are open now.

Read More

A few months ago I created a Jobs forum on Geekzone to allow for some of our readers to exchange job information, post requests for specific skills, etc.

Of course it's no competition for the big job sites around, but it seems to be working ok for our community. We do have some of the job agencies posting some ads there - and why wouldn't they, it's free!

Anyway, after talking to the guys at JobX, New Zealand's newest site for job search, we decided to add a Job Search to Geekzone.

One of the first joint initiatives was their sponsorship at the Geekzone Pizza evening in Christchurch - by chance we selected a pizza place just next to their offices, so that helped too.

The Jobs forum is still active and I expect it to get busier every day, but I think the Job Search will bring an even bigger selection for you.

Good luck!

Read More

You 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 More

OK so I have already talked here about why I prefer mythtv to MediaPortal, it’s not an exhaustive list but I think it makes a pretty compelling argument for Mythtv. However what makes an even stronger compelling argument for MP is its support for NZ's DVB-T broadcasts, and hence I use it. The latest from the mythtvnz mailing list is that Freeview HD is now working well in myth with the patches from pkendall, so hopefully it is just a case of getting the updates to ffmpeg etc into the main mythtv 'trunk' (is that what it called?) and we will be away!

Anyway I should get to the point of this post. I want to list a couple tips I picked up for improving mythtv here, as I alluded to earlier, myth does require more work than MP or GBPVR but it’s worth it:

1) Adding FM radio. I have no idea why this isn't included by default, it can't be hard and all other major HTPC programs have it. To get it in myth requires a bit of a hack, the setup instructions are here. As they note on the wiki page, it is a hack but looks like a plug-in in the end. It doesn't perform like a plug-in (in terms of sharing the card with recording etc) but it is good enough. Also this page gives an idea to the sort of changes to the menu structure that could be made if so desired.

2) By default myth only allows one job (such as commflagging, or a user job such as a special transcode) at a time. Assuming you are running a somewhat modern processor you can get away with a lot more, especially if you have a dual core. Under the 'general' settings in mythbackend setup, change the max number jobs to say 3 or 4. Also set mythcommflag to begin at the start of the show rather than wait until it has finished.

3) Make sure you enable plugins such as mythmusic, mythvideo and mythweb. If you are using Mythbuntu the Mythbuntu Control Center is the easiest way to change these settings. Mythweb in particular is great, and if you can successfully enable access through your router you can check out your computers status, and create recordings even when you are way from home.

That’s all can think of for now, but there are plenty of other settings worth investigating by hunting through the menus. There are some other good features that I never managed to fully implement, such as http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Mythwelcome and automatic sleep/wakeup.

Next I will spill my thoughts on Media Portal, and the improvements made now we are at RC2.

Read More