Status update: where am I?

G'day Everybody,

I've been very quiet lately and there is a reason of course.
In June I had to relocate from NZ to Australia temporarily. I knew this for quite long time, but at the end everything happened very quick: they came, they packed everything and put it into a container then the next thing I remember we are already in Sydney. :) Our stuff arrived just 3 weeks after.

And now we are here, settled in slowly.
I am very busy in my work therefore I have not much time for blogging or checking the Forum, but I will keep going back sometimes.
I miss this community here. :)

Cheers,
Pete

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Despite not actually being a mod anymore, here we are in Wellington having our mod meeting... homemade cookies and orange juice, just getting our WiFi sorted... and then into the session.

Mauricio is worried about his tablet being connected ... (more in the full post)

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Pretty sure some of you out there have been using some sort of "broadband" for longer than I have (how much did you pay!?!), but for me, I've been using broadband for 5 years.

[Let's wind back into the past shall we?]

Got connected to Xtra Jetstream during September 2003, during their new Jetsons/Flintstones (whatever it was called) marketing period. Back then, we signed up to the Home 500 Full Speed plan.

500MB and a blisteringly fast 2mbps connection at the low price of just $59 a month!

In those days we barely reached 500MB a month. That seemed virtually impossible, especially from surfing on free service dial up from ISPs like Zfree and i4free.

Overage was at a whopping $0.20/MB! Thankfully, we only got over that only once.

Back then things were really expensive, and not just for Internet. Seriously, we had to go out and get a $200 JetStream Single PC Pack. A SpeedTouch 330 USB Modem and 2 filters (one dual, one single). I do think that we got signed up on a free connection offer, can't really remember or search for it though.

Back then we had trouble even understanding the meaning behind all of this "allowance". We didn't know that the Internet used "megabytes"... we just cared about how long we got online. We consistently managed to get under the limit which was actually amazing. Don't know how... probably because the web was pretty simplistic back then still.

So over the years we changed plans...

• 2005: JetStream Everyday
  1GB @ 1mbps/128k
  $44.49
   
  We had to sacrifice half our speed for double the allowance - tough for me especially, when we were used to great speed at 2mbps!
   
• 2006: Discover
  1GB @ 1mbps/128k
  $44.49
   
  Nothing different from Everyday, just a name change.
   
• 2006: Go
  1GB @ 2mbps/128k
  1GB @ Full Speed/128k
  $39.95
   
  The "unleashing" of the Internet - need I say more? A price cut and a speed increase helped make my Dad finally realise the potential of the Internet now.
   
• 2006: Go Large
  Managed @ Full Speed/128k
  $49.95
   
  No need to say anything here other than we were on it for 2 months!
   
   
  Then Telecom lost another customer. The freshly bought over ihug was the next to welcome us.
   
   
• 2007: broadband 2
  5GB @ Full Speed/128k
  $40.00
   
  We only truly survived on it for around 3 months. We always went over 5GB easily. I'm wondering what I did 4 years back.
   
• 2007: broadband 3
  Managed @ Full Speed/128k
  $50.00
   
  Finally had a crack at the managed plan. We kept our promise to go under 500MB per day over a 3 day average - but we had some splurges sometimes, until ihug got around to change everything
   
• 2008: Ultimate pack
  20GB @ Full Speed/Full Speed
  =$50.00 (equivalent broadband price)
   
  Vodafone eventually took over the ihug brand, and we were welcomed to the world of max upload!

Fast forward to today - 20GB from Vodafone for $50 (the eqivalent price of the broadband), and now you can get modems from as low as $50 from them and they've got contract offers with free connection and modem.

Broadband speed used to be able to consistently reach the rated speed. It was great. About 3 friends I knew back in 2003 actually knew what broadband was. Who knew that the Internet was possible without tying the phone line? Who knew that the Internet was to evolve into what it is now?

But now with increasing saturation of customers in an area with broadband, everything feels different. Everyone's got broadband now, and most have at least chosen the 3GB Go plan from Telecom. My neighbours probably have broadband.

Things have changed alright.

But I'm not really celebrating now - broadband is now a part of daily life really. I've come to enjoy having it by my bedside.


That was the broadband journey that still continues to this very day... just shows how fast people develop the habit of surfing the Internet everyday just in a matter of months. No wonder New Zealand's broadband is so useless.


When did you discover the world of speedier Internet?
Where was broadband first introduced to you? (At work? Some random cafe? At home stealing someone else's Wi-Fi?)
How much did you first pay for broadband?

Leave your comments below.

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When	Where	What
03-09-2008 7:00	Hotel	Good morning Lord (at least it's better than "good lord, it's morning!") 5.5 hours sleep not enough
03-09-2008 9:00	WEB309	Jonas on Silverlight
03-09-2008 9:45	WEB309	in Silverlight, all networking is asynchronous
03-09-2008 10:00	WEB309	if (HtmlPage.IsEnabled) useDB else useStub;
03-09-2008 10:15	WEB309	having just seen it quickly demoed, I finally understand MembersipProvider
03-09-2008 10:45	SEC201	largest room is packed for Steve Riley
03-09-2008 11:15	SEC201	steve showed Bush-Blair-Love-Duet. laf!
03-09-2008 11:30	SEC201	steve is an Evolutionist. I am not.
03-09-2008 11:45	SEC201	risk = threat (severity) x vulnerability (1 or 0) x exposure (dollars)
03-09-2008 12:00	SEC201	great stuff, good entertainer, raving liberal
03-09-2008 12:10	Lab	bin05 lab authoring ms sql reports
03-09-2008 13:00	Lab	i feel it's time (when the refresh laptop arrives next week) to install sql08 and vs sp1
03-09-2008 13:25	Lunch	@freitasm informed me my 2 posts from the field were too big!
03-09-2008 14:30	DAT355	fixed posts but missed first half of Greg Lows talk
03-09-2008 14:45	DAT355	anybody sticking around for dinner tonight?
03-09-2008 15:00	DAT355	Greg is usually better than this but: death by PowerPoint
03-09-2008 15:15	DAT355	presenters: PP is for agendas, not white-papers
03-09-2008 15:30	DAT355	funniest presenter comment (which is also true for me) "I have no inner dialogue"
03-09-2008 15:35	Tea	see you Owen. Wellington represent!
03-09-2008 16:00	DEV486	MindScape on da stage. Wellington represent!
03-09-2008 16:30	DEV486	hey! c# has #if debug. VB had that how long?
03-09-2008 17:00	DEV486	extension methods will be useful
03-09-2008 18:00	Drinkies	Monsoon Poon 7pm (go dutch)

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I got a huge surprise! It's quicker to sync and eject and scrolling through things has less lag.
But it IS bloated. The grid view wants to thumbnail all your art everytime you start unless you tell it "never" and the "genuis" feature is still sorting my library after 4 hours.
I made the mistake of closing itunes while this was still running, and while this didn't restart the whole process, it did make me go through the terms and conditions again.
Overall, I'm pretty happy so far... but time will tell (if genius bizzo ever finishes).

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We will be launching an exciting competition within a few weeks for the development of LBS applications. We will be running the competition along with some great partners including Geekzone.

We will have official announcements in a couple of weeks but if you are in Auckland, I will be making a prelaunch announcement at the Wireless and Broadband Forum's Wireless Wednesday this evening at the Floating Pavilon in Auckland.

Otherwise watch this space.

If you are in Auckland this evening, the guest speaker is Ghanum Taylor of The Hyperfactory, one of the pioneers of mobile applications and winner of the original Wireless Data Forum Mobile Application Competition of which I was a judge, back in the day.

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[Article appeared in local newspaper "Western News", retyped for your edification, wouldn't usually reproduce an article in it's entirity but this is from a community paper so I doubt they will mind too much.]

Full facts on airfield not heard, Wigram candidate claims.

By Cullen Smith

National Party candidate for Wigram Marc Alexander claims a gagging clause in Ngai Tahu tenancy agreements has prevented the city council hearin gthe full story on possible aviation initiatives for Wigram airfield.

The council this week accepted a petition of more than 4000 signatures from people opposed to the airfield's planned closure in February to make way for 2000 new houses.

But councillors then voted unaminously to approve a plan change that allows an 84ha portion of the 250ha airfield owne by Ngai Tahu Property Ltd to be subdivided for housing development.

Ngai Tahu Property served notice to all commerical tenants last month that the airfield would close on February 28.  It will be closed to all air traffic from next month.

Mr Alexander, a former United Future MP who is standing against the incumbent Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton in the upcoming general election, presented the petition that was formally accepted by councillors on Thursday.

Mr Alexnder said petitioners urged councillors to defer approval for any plan to subdivide Wigram Airfield for housing until all interested parties had been fully consulted and briefed.

He told Western News he believed the council "got it wrong" by approving the plan change without hearing all the facts.

Under a clause in the Ngai Tahu tenancy agreement, Wigram tenants were forbidden to oppose any town planning or resource management submission made by thier landlord.

Mr Alexander said Mayor Bob Parker had reiterated to councillors that it was completely acceptable for landlords to impose such conditions.

"While that's true legally, the point has to be made that by doing so it denies the council getting more information before making an important decision," he said.

The council had been told in submissions that aviation had no future at Wigram and there were no commercial possibilities for the airfield.

"That was clearly misrepresenting the truth because the pilot school wanted to expand byt were unable to do so because Ngai Tahu basically curtailed their activities," he said.

He said he'd been told a gliding company had wanted to "set up shop" at the airfield but had been specifically prohibited.

"Ngai Tahu have every right to do those things, but to withhold that information and to give a false declaration as to the aviation possibilities at Wigram, I think was wrong."

Mr Alexander said he believbed there were some areas of Wigram that could be developed for housing without encroaching onm the possibility of retaining an airfield.

He said councillors should be "extremely sensitive" about the issue of retaining strategic assets for the city in light of the current controversy raging around the council's $17 million purchase of five inner city properties from beleaguered developer David Henderson.

"Retaining Wigram as an airfield is much more in the strategic long term interests of Christchurch than those buildings would be," he said.

[Article Ends]

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Here we go again:

iPhone / Apple:

Orange says Polish iPhone 3G customers weren't paid actors
Apple acknowledges iPhone passcode flaw, promises fix next month
Top 5 iPhone buzzkills
Apple's Next iPhone Killer App: Interactive Albums With Lyrics, Photos

Mobile / Gadgets:

Google talks Android Market app store
3 Mobile Web Apps that keep old Pocket PCs relevant
Presenting the winners of the Android developer challenge
How to Set Up a Laptop Security System
24 Killer Portable Apps For Your USB Flash Drive
Live Mesh Windows Mobile client teased

General:

Mythbusters RFID hacking episode canned by credit card company lawyers - watch the video.
Adam Savage's RFID implant activates, orders him to change his story - saw that coming.
Ginormous robot spider invades Liverpool, England
Japanese firms to partially propel cargo ship via solar panels
Microsoft to launch “Skymarket” applications marketplace for Windows Mobile 7 - anyone else see a pattern emerging here?
Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: September 2008
88% of IT Admins Would Steal Passwords If Laid Off
Google Analytics Advanced Tips and Tricks
5 Apps For Painless Windows Reformats
Getting Wireless To Work On A Laptop Running Windows Server 2008 As Its Operating System
Fix for Windows Vista forgetting folder view settings - Freakin' yes!
Keep Vista from Changing Folder View
NASA Preparing to Service Hubble for the Last Time, In Glorious Pictures
Stunning Desert Canyon Flight Scares the Underpants Off Me
More mobile - Xero adds support for Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
Stephen Fry wishes GNU a happy birthday - he also has a great podcast (or Pod-gram as he calls them).
The Deadly Aftermath of a Rocket Explosion Seconds After Launch - incredible video of what happens when launching a satelite goes wrong.

Coding / Development:

Hug a developer today - great video.
20 Websites To Help You Learn and Master CSS
Protecting Your Cookies: HttpOnly
Free New Zealand web cartography tools for educational and non-commercial purposes
Roll your own 404s with Error Page Generator

NZ Teched 2008:

Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand 2008 keynote now available in video streaming
TechEd 2008 Summary
Darryl Burling's TechEd 2008 Summary
The unofficial TechEd blog

FAIL:

This weeks FAIL comes via a Twitter from @freitasm this morning. Parking Lot FAIL.

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Security Researchers have annouced the first flaw found in the much hyped Chrome browser from Google:
*** Update *** Flaw Demo included.

The issue exists  in the way that Chrome behaves with undefined-handlers in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27.

This crash can occur without any user interaction.

When a Malicious link is visited, that has a 'special' character after an undefined handler, The browser crashes, with a message "Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart Now?"

(source: http://evilfingers.com/advisory/google_chrome_poc.php , credit: Rishi Narang)

There is a demo of the working flaw at the source site.


Due to the Open source nature of the Chrome Browser, and the fact that its from such a prominent company I expect this flaw will be the first of many as coders and researchers alike tear it apart looking for flaws.



Mouse over the following link to crash Chrome CRASH CHROME

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The Microsoft Dynamics GP is vulnerable to four heap and stack-based buffer overflows. A remote attacker could overflow the buffer and execute arbitrary code or gain control of the affected system by sending malicious queries to the Distributed Process Server or Distributed Process Manager. Read More