Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Cardboard ideas: Part I (a.k.a. This is as close to an Apple iPod dock I could ever be...)

Cardboard ideas: Part I (a.k.a. This is as close to an Apple iPod dock I could ever be...)


I don't want to spend $75 on an iPod dock out there... and I only need USB connectivity to sync and charge. So who cares about spending money on a dock, when you only need cardboard?

Materials:
  • Cardboard from a cardboard box
  • Some tape
  • Your iPod dock connector adapter (usually supplied with many iPods out there)
  • Your iPod USB 30-pin dock connector
Unfortunately, because of the lightweight cardboard, you will also need a weight, or Blu-Tac (you can see some of it up there) to hold it firm onto the table (otherwise, you'll find your iPod smashing it's head out hard!)

I'm not for aesthetics - only for practicability, not that beautiful Apple products should come with good looking accessories.



Video-sharing start-up moves to the cloud
eBUS migrating to mixed storage solution, using both existing servers and cloud-based storage

Mixing Personal and Business Email
Should you send personal emails on your corporate or business email account? What about handling business using your personal email account? Well, there isn't really a cut-and-dry, yes-or-no answer to...

Bailout won't keep Wall Street from sending jobs offshore
Collapse may prompt more job cuts in the US and increased offshore outsourcing

Photographic Evidence of the Conspiracy...
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!



Apple and Adobe Vulnerabilities
I know that many people tend to think of Microsoft as being monopolistic. There is one area where, contrary to what opponents might have you believe, Microsoft does not have...

Thanks Duncan from Orcon
I have a phone again, amazing! My internet has only failed 3 times today (it is of course only mid morning, but that's cool.

And in reply to the comment about how retro I am still having a phone line, think of it this way, it comes with the net and it means that relatives who are still more analogue don't have to pay me, but there's a thought, maybe the ones I don't care to hear from won't lol.Laughing



Wellington City Council: where the process dies...
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.



Digital 'racehorses' need good stabling to run well
Densely packed equipment creates creeping problem that could lead to sudden collapse

What to Call this Post...
How about Blogging isn't for cowards? Or maybe Linda's other big day off? A funny thing happened on the way home? Playing good samaritan has it's spinoffs?

This is really hard for me to publish, but what the ...  Close your eyes, Linda, hold your breath and jump!
Ok, here goes...  Oh, yeas, and I have sat on it for nearly a week...

Well, thanks to Our English Lass, who is still in one piece, I have a few Tuesday's off until she becomes Mother and Child. Having just had a week off the Monday-itis was massive yesterday, so I gratefully took her suggestion and had the day off.

Popped off to best friend's house, put in my Avon order. Stunning stuff really, and not worth blogging about, I know.

Came home with a piece of chockie on my tummy, feeling good about the lippies she gave me. Did a u-turn before getting home and went off to see Junior's mate who is about to turn sixteen. Thought I might buy him a pair of shoes for his birthday so he thinks he's got his pressy and gets a bit of a surprise with the rest of it.

Knock on door. Door opens. In walks Linda. Hello D, would you like me to buy you some shoes for your birthday? Oh, you already have new shoes? Excellent. What, that pair down there, next to the pair of shoes that belongs to Junior?

Uh, didn't I drop Junior off at school this morning and wasn't he wearing those shoes?

Junior!!!
I call several times... Where is he, D? In your bedroom hiding behind your chest of drawers? Come here you gutless wonder.

D seems to think that last bit is funny. Right about that time I am starting to feel sick. He emerges. Finally. The Emergent Kid.

Put those shoes on. (They could not have been any more obvious if they were painted yellow with flashing signs anouncing Truanter This Way...) Get in the car.

Where are we going, asks Junior. I stop outside hubbie's place of work. In here. We are going to see your father.

Now comes the begging...

Please don't tell Dad. Please don't tell Dad. Please don't tell Dad... etc etc etc. All in incredible monotone.

Get inside, anounce to Junior - You tell him. I sit down and wait for it...

And of course, the upshot of it is that, yet again, I have to go to the school and enquire as to WHY he is not at school and we have not been informed...

Now, Don't know if I told you this, but the dean in charge of dear darling Junior was going to put him on a principals report. Yesterday, I assumed. Get him some counselling. Plus careers help, so that we can pull him out in Sptember, on his 16th birthday if things don't go well...

Dean not available, see his form overlord. Thingy, whatever he is called. Adviser? Deputy or assistant principal?

Oh, he knew Junior was going onto a principal's report at sometime... No, the normal thing is to wait until a child is away three days in a row before contacting the parents/carers. Oh, really, away seven schooldays in a row last thing last term? And not here yesterday or until now today? Doesn't that make it NINE days? Isn't the advice that he is not there overdue by three times?

Find the head counsellor. That in itself was a miracle in a school this size. We see the counsellor together.

Guess what? We don't look like a happy family... Being sanguine, of course, it is the ultimate insult. Happy? I hate being asked that question. I was happy until you asked me... Strange, I know. And not very condusive to a good chat with the school counsellor. Hmm, my Mum never even got to see my counsellor, so I suppose I am doing well. (Well, what else do you do when your student's Mother turns up with the truant in hand. Apart from sack the paid truancy officer? Wait till I find him...)

So, why should junior stay at school, or even be there in the first place? For the first time in a long while it Is All About Him. He's not going to get a job just on his good looks. Unless.... Nah....

See, I have to push through here. I have been sick to my stomach this morning, I am still reeling and ready to crawl into a hole called mental illness, resign from the noble sisterhood of motherhood, whatever... But in the end, it's all about Junior.

I sit there in front of him and tell his counsellor (who probably hasn't seen all Junior's notes) that he has Asperger's syndrome, ADHD and a few more things to boot. That he didn't learn to read until he was ten years and nine months old, and then he taught himself on footrot flats books... That we have had an uphill battle right from the start. He didn't even talk until he was four, and then there were his muscular problems....

If I don't fight for my child, who will? Like a Paul Coleman song, not good enough for ... not bad enough for... Not good enough to just walk out there and take the world by storm, even if he does stand there and shake his fist at it with his opposition defiance disorder... Not bad enough to get the help he has always needed.

If I don't fight for my child, what will become of him? My heroes are the parents of the young lady with Down's Syndrome who stuck out the fight and saw her achieve her NZqa's or whatever, in a normal school and normal classes. But they were teachers, and knew how to fight.

I have given this school ample opportunity to teach my son, and was determined to make them do it, too, but they had time on their side. All they had to do was sit back and do nothing. And I am the baddy who has failed, who has allowed their son to become a truant, who could make him go to school (haha) but couldn't make him learn. Couldn't make him excited, or at least stop him from getting bored....

Well, the fight isn't over yet, and I am just going to get off my butt and run again. Go to aquarobics in the freezing cold, push my body to the limits, sore back and all. Keep my mental wits about me.

And as a Christian, I can say, to myself if not to you -  'having done all, to stand'.  (Ephesians 6:13)  Or my favourite - 'Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down:  For the LORD upholds him with His hand.' (Psalm 37 verse 24, and it's a ripper of a psalm in all it's total.  Must go and read it up now.  TTFN)



Labour Dept seeks financials
Currently, it uses QSP financials

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