A lot of things are happening at Vodafone on this very special day:
- Prepay customers will start being charged a dollar per call to customer services when a Customer Service Representative is required
- Prepay customers will no longer be able to switch to the classic prepay plans
- ihug Limited will soon no longer exist and will completely be part of Vodafone New Zealand Limited.
It's not surprising that ihug will soon be completely part of Vodafone (rather than the current rebranding) as this fully makes their fixed line products to become part of Vodafone, and reduce confusion.
Things to note:
- Phone numbers won't change
Here are the numbers, just for reference:
Residential: 0800 438 448
Business: 0800 438 458
Red network: 0800 800 215 <- they finally release this!
- Billing is still separate, but pay Vodafone New Zealand Limited directly
Currently, we get a statement which needs to be paid to ihug Ltd, even though it's completely branded Vodafone
The webpage with the information about this changed from welcome to our place to our place is your place:
The Internet Home Users Group
IHUG
ihug / The Internet Group
(1994-2008)
IHUG
ihug / The Internet Group
(1994-2008)
Read MoreEvery year robots get a little more capable. In Japan where there has been a short supply of security guards they've built security robots to patrols malls at night.Now Microsoft are showing off there latest foray in robotics with a new rec... (more in the full post)
Read MoreIt took some time, but it happened. We now have a discussion open in our Telecom New Zealand forum, waiting for your questions to CEO Dr Paul Reynolds.
The idea is simple: people can post their questions in the thread, and after a week I will be forwarding these to get his answers. I will then post the answers on Geekzone.
We have done this before with other major telcos in New Zealand - check the answers for Orcon, TelstraClear, and WorldxChange.
Thanks to the Telecom folks who helped us get there!
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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
I'm not for aesthetics - only for practicability, not that beautiful Apple products should come with good looking accessories.
Read MoreMultiple Mozilla products are vulnerable to a stack buffer overflow allowing remote code execution by enticing a user to click on a specially-crafted URL. Read More
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)
Read MoreSignificant competitive move from VMware to counter the threat of Microsoft Hyper-V . . . not that 3i was expensive before, but this price is certainly better :) This is part of a new strategy kicking in after co-founder Diane Greene's departure. ex-Microsoft exec Paul Maritz is running the show now.
Read more in this article at Redmond Channel mag.
Read MoreToday I received an invitation that I am able to extend to you. HP is running the HP Software BTO Tour 2008 in Wellington, 2nd September 2008.
This half day event is ahppening at the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa from 8:30am through 1:30pm.
There will be conference streams during the day, designed to give IT Professionals a more practical approach to IT Management.
I won't be attending the event though, because I will be in Auckland attending the Microsoft Tech Ed, and writing the Unofficial Tech Ed Blog while there...
Read MoreOK 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.
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