http://www.stuff.co.nz/4695048a28.html
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be at this event in the Vector Arena, where TelstraClear took the opportunity to outline plans, recall success and show off some truly impressive technology.
Actually I was on one of the stands talking about IP Gateway and Next IP
I was also fortunate enough to see the preparations first-hand yesterday morning (I arrived early with the Events Managers, so got a back-stage tour), and spoke to some of the folks that put the show together. Really cool stuff, and a real chest-thumping show.
The hologram of Rove was beamed in live across the Trans-tasman link, and there was very little delay - Rove commented that the delay was doing wonders for comic timing. He showed a picture of that mornings Sydney Morning Herald, although the sport section had fallen out of it.... maybe into a large rugby cup....
So a first for TCL, but also a real-revving of the engines at the core of the company....
NB: I work at TelstraClear
- A
The ACTA submissions to the New Zealand MED
The Ministry of Economic Development has made public the submissions received in response to the ACTA.
You find the submissions in HTML here or PDF here.
Which groups submitted comments?
NZFACT: New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, Distilled Spirits Association of New Zealand (DSANZ), New Zealand Retailers Association, InternetNZ, Google Australia Pty Ltd, New Zealand Institute of Patent Attorneys Inc., Trade Me, Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association of New Zealand Inc. (CTFA), Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), and New Zealand Open Source Society.
Worth a read.
Oracle WebLogic Server Apache Connector Remote Code Execution
Oracle WebLogic Server (formerly known as BEA WebLogic Server) is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, which would cause a denial of service and potentially remote code execution.
Broadband In New Zealand – Why So Slow And Expensive?
There are several reasons for slow broadband in New Zealand these range from ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) over selling their connections to how old and how long your copper phone lines are all the way to your PC being infected with Spyware and Viruses.
The most popular form of broadband in New Zealand at the moment is DSL (digital subscriber line). DSL is a neat technology as it runs over the same copper cables as what your voice calling does, which is the same reason why it is the most popular form of broadband around, because there is no need to run additional cables.
To maximise profits, ISP’s purchase a fixed amount of traffic from the Southern Cross cable (the connections that allows you and me communicate with the rest of the world via the internet) and then unfortunately tend to over subscribe that line and generally neglect to increase that traffic as the lines fill up with customers. The end result of that is when 3:30pm hits and all the school children get home and begin updating their Bebo and playing their favourite Youtube videos the internet slows down. This is the major reason why ISP’s start out being so good but as their popularity increase their broadband speed decreases.
The problem is that even though only a fraction of the Southern Cross cable is being utilised the cost to ISP’s is still rather expensive therefore that cost has to be passed onto the consumer, moteliers and business owners like yourself. To cover this cost ISP’s generally tend to have a fixed amount of broadband that you purchase say 5, 10, 20 gigabytes or more and if you go over this amount you get stung with excess usage fees. All it takes is for someone to use your broadband to download some music or videos on a peer2peer sharing site and you will quickly get an expensive bill at the end of the month.
With all businesses you attempt to fix your costs as much as possible so being stung with excess usage fees or even the possibility of getting a large bill is certainly a risk that most businesses would want to avoid.
There are ISP’s which are currently rolling out the next generation of DSL which is ADSL2+ and VDSL (Very High Bitrate DSL) which promises faster speeds but they still have the same two issues being the further away you get from the exchange the slower it goes and that you get excess usage fees when you go over your allotted amount.
When choosing a broadband plan make sure you chose one which has reasonable excess usage fees and or notifies you when you get close to your limits or even better get an unlimited data plan.
Dan Ballard is a Technology consultant with Horizon Pacific which is an ISP as well as a Technology Solution provider that supplies unlimited broadband data plans.
Software Freedom Day: This weekend!
The Software Freedom Day is coming up this weekend, on Saturday the 20th of September. SFD is an annual and international event, with around 500 teams in 90 countries organising local events. The biggest one in New Zealand will be in Wellington, but ... (more in the full post)
Sunny weather + camera = new cellsite pics
A few photos taken today of new NZ Comms + Telecom sites in the Hutt Valley.
Upgraded Telecom Lower Hutt site in the foreground and Woosh + NZ Comms gear on the back building. This Telecom site was one of the first in Wellington to be upgraded for GSM 850 + UMTS 2100. The Woosh site has been in existance for several years now but the panels for NZ Comms have been in place for a couple of months now but are not live.
GSM is still live today on Telecom's site even though the GSM network has now been canned, obviously those sites that did have GSM gear fitted will still be live until it's removed and replaced with the UMTS 850 cards. I guess we'll be seeing some cheap 850MHz GSM equipment on Trademe soon! :-)
Main Vodafone site in Lower Hutt. 900 GSM + 2100 UMTS + 1800 GSM panels.
This site = M3gA Fa1L and should be used as a textbook example of how not to deploy a cellsite.
When the 2100 gear was added the sectorisation of this site was changed and neither of the 3 sectors now face the Westfield Queensgate mall right opposite. As a result inbuilding coverage in the mall is absolutely terrible with no coverage in large parts of the mall. Microwave links exist to several other sites including Petone, Ava and Mt Fitzherbert.
Waterloo Railway Stn site with both Telecom and Vodafone sites. Telecom panels are in the front left with the grey one on the left being a trial CDMA panel installed on several sites (Waterloo, Hutt CBD and Hutt VIC Corner) several years ago that can automatically pan & tilt to optimise the network depending on traffic load. Vodafone 900 & 2100 panels are in within the cream cylinderical enclosures at the other end.
This particular site has featured in the Hutt News this week as NZ Comms have applied for council permission to mount their gear there and some of the anti-cellsite people have jumped onto the bandwagon. Some of these anti-cellsite campaigners really should do their homework before they make idiots of themselves talking to the media when equipment for both Vodafone & Telecom as well as numerous council links for the smartlinx3 network already operate.
From the Hutt News 2/9/08
Some residents in the Knights Road area are concerned that they haven't been consulted over a proposal to erect a telecommunications microwave tower and related equipment on top of the Waterloo Interchange building.One resident believes the Hutt City Council has only sent information to a select few properties right opposite, including Omega Wigs at 214 Knights Road, Take Five and the dairy adjacent.
"This seems totally wrong and several homeowners/residents in the area who have learned of the application are concerned at the implications for them, their families and their property values if that application is approved and the towers and other equipment pods proceed."
Another concern is for the many pregnant women and children who regularly use the railway/bus station. They want to be assured this equipment is safe.
New NZ Comms site at Avalon
A closeup of the panels. NZ Comms don't appear to be painting any of their panels (special paint has to be used so it doesn't affect the RF properties) so this site stands out like a sore thumb. The mast has been painted green to fit in with the surroundings. Looking at the cables still coiled up below I'm guessing a microwave horn is still to be fitted for backhaul.
Vodafone site right next to the NZ Comms one. Bit hard to see detail due to the sun but it has 2100 UMTS panels on top and 900 GSM panels in the middle. Site and panels are all green but the microwave horn is still white (links to Avalon studios site).
Closeup of existing Vodafone 2100 UTMS panel (left) and new NZ Comms 900 GSM panel on the top of the Avalon TV studios tower block.
Upgraded Wingate Telecom site. One of only a handful of sites around Wellington still using omni aerials. This site was one of the last in the Hutt Valley to be upgraded before the Telecom rollout seems to have been temporarily halted. Also one of the only upgraded sites that never had a live 850 GSM signal - maybe this was only going to be a 2100Mhz site.
Closeup of the panels - this site is one of the original Telecom Mobile designs and dates back to ~1990. Note the south facing UMTS panel is a lot smaller since it's facing directly into a hillside that you can see in the picture above.
New Telecom CDMA + GSM 850 + UMTS 2100 site at Naenae. This site replaces the one below that used to be in Naenae Primary School.
Google's 'Chrome' is Tarnished
Google is jumping into the browser war. Chrome, the new web browser from Google, is set to take on Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and others. The current release is...
Three hundred & Sixty Funtime
I just read this article over at Venture Beat, and I must say it paints a pretty bleak picture of the XBOX 360 design process. To sum it up, Microsoft cut too many corners, rushed the thing to market and at launch had a failure rate of 68%!!! Yes more 360's were made that just didn't work than actually did - and they just kept on shippin' them.
Fast forward 2 years and after enjoying over a year of flawless play on my flatmates beige model, I finally brought a 360 Elite - I was willing to spend a little more on the Elite as I wanted HDMI, a black case and theoretically a newer design that would be quieter/more reliable. Fat Chance on that last one. My Elite last 2 weeks until its first crash and then only 2 weeks later it died completely. So for my $800 I got to enjoy 2 weeks of play, 2 weeks of on and off play and then 3 weeks of waiting. Add the cost of me shipping it to an AKL Airport based address, not a big cost but seriously - I had to pay for something that was not my doing. Interestingly I found it was shipped to Sydney for 'repair'. For that I got a free month of Live Gold - whoppee.
Since the repair I've had no issues thankfully but the more I think about it the more I've gone off Microsoft's console. I'm not rushing out to buy games and theres no way I'm spending $80 a year for Live Gold. Infact I was ever slightly pissed that I couldn't download the Force Unleashed demo when it came out and instead have to wait a week to get it - which is a Gold 'feature'.
Things that are good about my 360 -
It's Black (is this even a feature??)
The controllers are the best weight/layout.
Things that REALLY suck -
Noise from DVD drive
Reliability
Lack of support of true DLNA uPnP - which makes DIVX support more of a gimmick than a usable feature.
Noise from DVD Drive (seriously it's that noisy).
My Zero G flight experience: the short version
Thanks to Symantec I had the opportunity to experience a Zero G flight experience, departing from Las Vegas.
This was an event for bloggers and journalists attending a special briefing with Rowan Trollope, Sr VP of Consumer Products and Solutions.
Rowan talked to us about the Norton 2009 products, including the Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security - more on this later.
Below is the short, edited version of the video Symantec produced for us to use on-line. I will post pictures and another video later. For now enjoy:
The new Microsoft ads... enjoy!
Here we go, for your viewing pleasure:
I like those. Why? Because when Apple launched the "I am a Mac, I am PC" ads they decide to approach the whole game as a battle between stereotypes. They also had no moral problems in comparing the platforms directly. Which is ok, when done by a independent party - not by a company that will of course show some bias.
So the Microsoft "I am a PC" ads are not like that. They don't try to make the competition look bad. Instead they try to show you why you should care.
And yes, I do have Macs here at home too.
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