G'day :)

You may be the first person ever to visit the Ice Box.

A new blog, a bit more personal and entertaining in nature than this one which is more business-oriented.

It's at http://auzzie.net/icebox/

Cheers, Mike.

OK here's a bit of a rant for you.

EDIT: Amusing - I'm not the only disenchanted person: See http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2010/07/symbian-guru-com-is-over.html

A customer recently gave me a Nokia N95 because the screen had broken and he had replaced it.

So, a week later the new screen arrives and is fitted. I figure I'll test this phone out to see if it's a worthy replacement for my now ancient LG U8380.

Most things about it are OK, but as the reviews on the 'net say, this phone has some shortcomings.

Battery life is the biggest shortcoming. In a few hours of playing with it, it was flat. 30 mins on GPS, the rest on more mundane stuff. Running Nokia's power management viewer software I could see it idles at about double the power usage of the E51 for much of the time.

The next thing I was interested in was whether the LED flash could be used as a torch as it can on most other phones on the market. No was the resounding answer. Due to their design choice, the LED can only operate for 4 seconds at a time roughly speaking, and Nokia has gone to great lengths to ensure this can't be fiddled with. How hard would it have been to add a 1c resistor and enable use as a torch at 3/4 power??

OK, while doing this I'm considering 'is this phone worthy of being my primary incoming phone' - a role currently assigned to the ever-reliable but reboot once every few days E51. Some time during this fiddling, I get a hard freeze - just like the review sites warned about. Only way to fix that is to take the back off and pull the battery out. So, the answer is no. I can't trust this phone to always receive calls.

OK so on to the GPS. Nokia released free maps and navigation for most of their recent phones. The N95 is too old to qualify, despite it having a built in GPS and version 3 of the maps *actually working* on early versions of their new Maps software. So, I can only assume they decided to say "F*ck you" to anyone who paid over $1,000 a few years ago for their fancy phone and demand more money for a lesser program. So, it's identical to the E51 then, bar the bigger screen and built in GPS.

Next stop: Ergonomics. Is this phone worthy to be a daily texter? Nope. It is a slider phone, you slide the screen up to access the keypad. But, the ridges against the side are about 3mm high, so you can't come at it from an angle comfortably if you have average sized fingers.

On to the software. I already had PC Suite loaded so figured I'd just sync up and see what happens. Worked OK, so I figured I'd make sure it was up to date. I finally let it do the upgrade it's been whinging every other day for the last six months or more. Annddd.... there goes the music management icon. Replaced with Ovi Music. Nokia's attempt to get into the DRM crap music market, and to remind you wherever possible that they think they're as worthy as iTunes. (Not that iTunes is worthy.) But, it wouldn't work with my E51. "Sorry, your phone's in the wrong mode." Well, hell, it never mattered before - I could on the old program just say random transfer and a few minutes later have a phone 90% full of music. .. and I can't easily change modes on the phone because 'another application is using the card.' Which application? So, a huge step backward there - back to using Windows Media Player and a card reader it looks like... (I'll research this later.)

So, I figure OK we'll try system restore back to the day before I entered this mess. No such luck. Restore completes "sorry can't find the language file." So OK I'll go find an old version. Huh? TOUGH LUCK. There are none. Google shows how worthless it can be - full of hundreds of CRAP FAKE responses about "download nokia pc suite" here but when you go the sites they're just link farms. Piratebay has some ancient versions, and the current version, but nothing in between. Nokia has no mirrors accessible. So, I'm stuck with this OVI crap until I find the E51 CD somewhere in the office.

And to top if off, it goes and adds an add-in to my Firefox, f*cking up every extension on the system. Once I tracked down this new sync addon and disabled it - well whaddayaknow, I get my extensions back and working. So F*ck you Nokia for adding that piece of crap.

So, in short, it's not a worthy replacement for the old LG despite being all-singing all-dancing. The old E51 still does that perfectly well, in a smaller form factor. (Well, except for the camera which is one thing that is exceptional on the N95) I'll eventually replace one of them with a decent Andriod-based phone. (I carry two phones since Telstra has the best coverage but the worst rates known to man, but TPG has the best rates known to man but coverage one step down from Telstra.)

On the other hand, my old man swears by his Maemo phone, but I just don't trust Nokia any more. I'm probably relatively unique in my expectations, but I don't apologise for that.

Hi :)

Just a quick note that "The Dude" network monitoring cannot be trusted to keep it's database intact. After a planned reboot, it wiped out its entire database and there is no backup maintained by the application.

Cheers, Mike.

Having just returned from a two week holiday in the USA, it's likely many people will want to know what it's like over there. So, here's the story in all it's comedic glory :)

Assorted photos of the trip can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CCCMikey/USATrip2010

Getting There...

The four flights...

Armidale to Sydney.

We traveled from Armidale to Louisville, with an overnight stay in Sydney. The first flight was with QantasLink, and was as good as they always are.

You step onto a baby plane that seats 48, get in the air, eat a snack and the next thing you know you're in Sydney. You marvel at how a 7 hour drive or train ride is so slow in comparison.

Sydney airport was it's usual friendly self, and it wasn't long before we were lost trying to find the Formule 1 Hotel. The GPS knew where it was, but it was raining making the short walk an annoying prospect, so instead we jumped into a cab. He was surprised at this very short journey, but appreciated the significant overpayment of his bill in compensation for our apparent silliness.

The Formule 1 Hotel is about 5 - 10 minutes walk from the airport. Next to it are a Maccas, and a Krispy Kreme. Pricing is good, the rooms are slightly dated now and a bit boxy, but comfortable and mostly quiet. Krispy Kreme does some good healthy food surprisingly. Maccas has free WiFi as usual. (Krispys claims to have it, but it refused to work.) The Krispy Kreme carpark can flood to the height of your shoes in places turning a power-walk into a power-squelch!

Sydney to Los Angeles

L.A. International Airport.
Where those big Jet engines roar.
L.A. International Airport. 
I won't see you anymore...

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/l/lainternationalairport.shtml>Susan Raye - 1971

This was a 13-14ish hour non-stop flight. That's a long time to sit still. You'll see a day and a night come and go through the windows. You'll be fed copious food every few hours. You'll probably have free movies and free headphones. (In my case, Simpsons Movie, Top Gear, Cars.)

When you board, you'll be given a form to complete stating where you plan to be staying in the US, who you are, what you are, when you fell out of (or were cut and pasted out of) your creator and what town you were in when that happened.

The food and environment seem designed to fill your bladder to capacity every two to three hours. Fortunately the lady in the aisle seat suffered the same fate so we soon sync'd up.

The Airport from Hell?

LA International Airport seems to be a somewhat chaotic mess designed to confuse any would-be terrorist. Unfortunately this design applies also to the unsuspecting weary traveling public.

When the aircraft taxid to the gate, we were unable to get off. According to the crew, the customs people hadn't arrived yet and might have slept in; and they were not allowed to open the doors until they arrived. After about 10-15 minutes, they showed up and we started the long walk to nowhere...

The walk to customs was a fairly long one, through corridors whose only signs were those on intermittent doors stating "No Entry" or similar. There were some changes in levels. In places, there were flat metal plates on the wall with "TELEPHONES" printed above in large metal writing - the phones themselves having at some previous time decided there were greener pastures elsewhere.

When you reach the end of this trek, you encounter a large room with queues of people. The wall closest to you is populated with people struggling to complete the last of the fore-mentioned paperwork. A serious looking lady directs people to join any queue. Older signs above the queues suggest what type of passenger should in theory be in that queue. New flat screen TVs hang in front of some of these signs, obscuring some of them. Passengers anxious to make connecting flights shuffle nervously. A small kid can be seen sleeping on his jacket on the floor as the queue progresses slowly.

When you reach the admin dude, you give him your paperwork and your passport. You place your hand on a glass screen that takes images of four of your fingerprints. You also stare at a camera that snaps your weary image - or your eyeballs, not sure which. 0wn3d.

The dude asks you where you're going, who is this you're traveling with? How do you know them, etc. All the while they do it in a specially trained 'look into my eyes' fashion.

You now proceed to collect your luggage - even though you're getting on another plane shortly - and carry it with you a short distance until you reach a crowded atrium where there are rows of luggage stacked three columns deep to your right and a new column haphazardly growing to your left. A man asks where you're going next and takes your bag dumping it with all the others. and then you walk forward out the glass doors ...

You're now standing on what looks like a relatively abandoned public street. In front of you what appears to be a large car park. Above you, a motor way or ramp. There are no signs here.

To your left you see a reasonably well dressed man with a folder, who asks you where you're going next. "Atlanta, with Delta". "OK, take this lift to level 3". "Thanks". "Would you like to make a $20 donation to such and such childrens charity?" (WTF? Is this guy an employee or some well dressed stray street thug?) Right now I don't care about orphans. I want to find out Where TF I am going next. [Hands the guy $5AU, declines receipt.]

After reaching the third floor, you step out; and before you you can see a crowd of people in a queue, proceeding to a multi-bay security screening / xray setup.

At this point, we have 5 or 6 hours to kill, so we look around this area for clues as to what there is to do / see; but shortly into this quest a severe bossy woman repeately says "join a queue. Join a queue. Join a queue." She won't take any questions, just "Join a Queue." [Gesticulating madly.]

Resigned to our fate, we join said queue and it's just the usual laptop-out-of-bag, shoes off, metals in tray, jacket off happy dance that soon becomes routine. Not a big deal for me at all, although I am surprised to find I get through unscathed as my aluminium belt buckle fails to trigger the alarm. (I forgot it was even on.)

Then it's the mad rush to collect all the bits at the other and and restore them to their original locations. Wallet? Check. Laptop? Check. Jacket? Check. Shoes? Step in them, we can tie them later...

Then it's off to watch as Val does the Knee Replacement dance for the guy or gal with the stick. They even seemed fascinated with bras having a metal lining! She then collects her gear and it's off to find a snack and the next gate. I settle for a mango smoothie but find myself unable to drink much of it. She finds a coffee or some such, and some sweet snack.

I'm tired now. We both are. It's too early to see what gate the flight's going from. It's not on the board yet. So, I suggest we find a dark corner and attempt to sleep.

In preparation, I fiddle with the Nokias to set alarms on both, after first figuring out what time zone we're in. I then plug my ears with the earplugs normally reserved for those occasions when the Belgrave Cinema plays the movies too loud.

(Side note: In a pinch, AAA batteries make OK earplugs but if you fell over with them in, I'd hate to think of the consequences! They look weird too, but if you're front row at an IXL@Sound event, you need them.)

I recall my childhood days of sleeping on the bus and train on my two hour each way daily commute. My laptop bag, although not as high as my old vertical school bag, suffices as a head rest as I lean forward with it vertical on my lap, arms folded above it; and I sort of drift off into a strange sleep where you can hear in perfect but now muffled surround sound the sounds of the world around you. Distant construction work as they rebuild some of the tiled roof. The occasional thunderous roar of the coffee machine to your left. Further left, the guy near a powerpoint playing with his laptop's multimedia capabilities. To your right, the sounds of people discussing where their flight is going from. Kids running around. Dot matrix printers in multiple gates springing to life almost simultaneously.

3 hours pass, and I am surprised to find that I have actually slept. The crowd has gathered in this area, and their flight begins boarding. I check to find what gate we're actually meant to be in, and arrange to move to it. Nearby, there are some large ornamental marble piers that hold up the roof, and two asian girls have sprawled out asleep thereunder like a modern sacrifice. Ironically their sacrificial position on the stone floor is probably the most comfortable sleeping position to be had in this area.

Los Angeles to Atlanta

Five Hours Sandwiched
Between the Rapper and the Army Guy
Something I will not forget
From now until the day I die.*

* dementia permitting!

Val and I were a bit late to realise that long before your flight, you can log on to the airline's website and select your seat positions. However, we were relatively lucky; and this was the only flight in which we were not together.

Instead, to my right is an army guy. He seems friendly enough, but years of military training seemed to have left him a bit jumpy. His left leg initially bouncing repeatedly up and down like some nervous disorder; but eventually it seemed to subside.

Shortly after he becomes very excited, as to my left approaches someone who is apparently a famous Rap artist. He's dressed appropriately for his profession, has the signs of wealth including a MacBook Pro, Blackberry, copious Bling, black outfit, etc.

I would have been much happier had I been next to either of these two, but being between them meant I had to be privy to the entire conversations about how the army guy loves to blast his beats, how he's his biggest fan, etc. They'd yack about different guns, different wars they'd been in, what the girls were like, all that sort of stuff. The rapper briefly quizzed me on what I knew of Australia and what opportunities existed there for obtaining the kinds of products I'm not knowledgeable about. He soon worked out I was benign and useless for his cause.

Despite this unusual (for me) company I reverted to sleeping on the tray table as they fiddled with the entertainment systems and the rapper penned more lyrics on his blackberry.

As landing time approached, a boarding pass was autographed; and while we stood waiting to get out of the plane, I'm sure I heard one of the crowd behind say he'd just done four years in prison. Fortunately it seemed the only item I'd lost in this flight was my packet of chewing gum.

Atlanta to Louisville

This final short flight on a smaller, more comfortable plane was pleasant and uneventful. We arrived at some time in the late afternoon and met our hosts.

Our hosts were long-time friends of Val, whom I'd never met. They are a happy oldish pair in their '70s.

After a brief look at some paintings in the airport, we continued on to what was to be the first of many chain eateries - a place called Frischs. Then it was off to a nearby Motel for a well-earned rest.

Rather than continue in a chronological diary fashion, I'll now switch to a different style of documentation...

The Differences

America and Australia have some similarities, and some differences.

Getting Around

Wrong side of the car.

This is probably the most immediate difference. In America, they drive on the right side of the road, as opposed to the left side in Australia. As a result, the steering wheel / driving position is opposite to what we're used to.

The reason for this is apparently because we are more fond of stabbing passing people than they are!

"In the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people."

"In the late 1700s, however, teamsters in France and the United States began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver's seat; instead the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Since he was sitting on the left, he naturally wanted everybody to pass on the left so he could look down and make sure he kept clear of the oncoming wagon’s wheels. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road."

http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm

Fast Roads

America generally has better roads than Australia. They have many "interstates" that are a bit like our freeways - three or four lanes each way. I had prepared for the trip and loaded most of the US maps into the Nokia E51. The average speed on these seemed to be around 115kph, with a peak of 135kph.

Whackable Mailboxes.

We spend much of our journey in the country areas of Kentucky and Ohio. So we could see the countryside, our hosts took us mostly on older routes rather than on the interstates.

The smaller country roads are much like what you'd see here in Australia, with the slightly alarming difference in that the mailboxes were almost flush with the side of the road.

Most of these were of fairly basic plastic construction, bearing the telltale 'flag' that the owner can raise if they want the postie to collect mail from them. It would be so easy to stray slightly out of your lane and take out an entire gathering in rapid succession.

Indicators...

Many American cars do not have the amber flashing indicators that are mandatory here in Australia. Instead, the brake light on that side of the car flashes. This makes for a more simplified rear light design on cars, but lessens the visibility of turning. Since many don't bother to use them anyway, it's a moot point.

Cheap Fuel

"Gas" over there is about half the price we pay here in Australia. Hence the lack of desire to conserve it. It seems at least one in three vehicles is a SUV or Large Ute.

The toilets. (Commodes)

There is a thriving ecosystem of different breeds of toilets in this country, each with their own unique personality.

Many of the older models are based on a design of 'get it all spinning real good so it whirls magically and quietly away'.

Smaller, more recent models took a slightly different tack. In addition to the merry spinning method above, they had a 'I mean business' outlet at the bottom front of the bowl that would force water backwards at the same time.

The most modern ones were somewhat more dramatic, relying more on a brute force noisy sudden rush of water that would cause even the air around you to be drawn to it's doom.

Many of these newest models are automatic flush ones, so as soon as you move away from them a bit, *WHOOSH* and it's gone. Never mind that "it" could also happen to be your mobile phone, your wallet, or anything else you accidentally might have dropped in. (I didn't.)

The aim for the most modern American bathroom appears to be to touch as little as possible.

One big downside for us males that like to stand before the throne is that almost the entire surface area of bowl is covered with water, so those of us who don't wish to sound like a draught horse have very little space to aim for. In the end, sitting was easier.

The Maccas

Why am I mentioning MacDonalds so soon after the toilets? Well, because they played a critical role during this holiday. We did a lot of traveling, and when you're traveling with older people, the need to "tinkle" as it's called over there becomes a two-hourly or even more frequent event. 50 cent seniors coffee was almost as popular, but I suspect it might be a symbiotic relationship. I preferred the Hot Fudge Sundae instead, for it's apparently magical powers to be a cheap snack yet not cause kidney failure or dairy-related travel sickness.

Food

Food at Home

For the first half of our stay, we were in Kentucky. In addition to our two forementioned hosts; also resident was her mother, a spritely 93 year old lady who was alternately armed with knitting needles, a newspaper, or an elongated orange and white cat.

When you are around someone that old, it's natural to look for possible indications as to what has kept them alive for so long...

What they refer to as Sausage and Biscuit,
We'd call Rissoles and Bread Rolls.

This lady's breakfast of choice was somewhat surprising. It consists of something similar to two rissoles, and two strange bread rolls, all covered in a white sauce of sorts.

The 'sausage' taste a bit more like sausage meat than rissoles. The 'biscuit' is a strange bread roll, in that it peels apart in multiple layers.

It's a rather filling breakfast.

Her other meal of choice was a 'bean salad' consisting of multiple types of beans, pretty much by themselves.

They all grew up on farms, so they probably had a healthy upbringing food-wise as a result.

Of course, this is relativly atypical of what we perceive as the common American diet. We ate out almost every day I was there so I didn't really get to form an opinion on what home meals were like. The couple I did have, and remember, were mostly terrible pre-processed over-spicy products such as 'buffalo wings'.

I didn't really pay attention to the supermarkets, but Val assures me that there was very little fresh food available. Salad stuffs (lettuces, etc) were pre-packaged in plastic bags, with raw vegies hard to find. I did become a chain-eater of baby carrots however :) Apples however were plentiful.

I was surprised to find just how prevalent High Fructose Corn Syrup had become. After seeing this movie - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM - Sugar - The Bitter Truth - it seems to be a valid explanation for why so many Americans are overweight. (In short, corn is subsidised over there, so it's cheaper than sugar. So they make a sugar alternative from it. It functions the same as alcohol in the body except that it doesn't affect the brain and muscles so the effects are less obvious.) It was hard to find products without it.

Food in America is generally quite cheap. Cheaper than we're used to in Australia. Eating out is also surprisingly cheap. If a meal gets over $15 you must be eating something posh.

Food On The Run

In Australia we have MacDonalds, Red Rooster, Subway, Hungry Jacks and KFC. That pretty much rounds out the remaining viable food chains.

In the US they have somewhat more stores. These include names such as Cracker Barrel, Frischs, TGI Fridays, Burger King of course, MacDonalds, KFC, Subway, Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and more...

One of the strange things about America is how spread out it is. One of the first places we ate was at a Pizza Hut. Where it was positioned, it was almost like a store on a hill in the middle of nowhere. Cars are a necessity here.

The 'all you can eat' self serve salad bar is still alive and well in the US. (It's demise in Australia is something I grieve - even the Servies dumped theirs a year ago.) This is good as it allows you to create your own meal in many cases.

The best of these eateries, IMO, were The Olive Garden and Cracker Barrel. The Olive Garden is a relatively posh restaurant with a Greek bent to it. Cracker Barrel on the other hand, is a combination restaurant and nick nack shop, with country-style meals.

Lemonade (aka Sprite / Schweppes / 7up) doesn't exist as 'lemonade' there. I asked once for it, and ended up with something akin to lemon cordial. I never found a correct moniker for this product, and don't know if it exists at all.

Tipping...

This is something that takes some getting used to. To me it sees a bit immature as it's like playing the Easter Bunny every time you eat somewhere. The idea being that you leave about 15% of the value of your meal, in excess of the meal price, available for the waiter/ess to collect. (This doesn't apply to MacDonalds however.)

It tends to mean that the waiter/ess will show a greater desire to make sure you're happy with your meal, but in many cases you can tell that this is feigned interest.

Shopping

Shoppers are well catered for in most cases.

Wal*Mart

Wal*Mart is a funny store. The far left is a typical supermarket, with aisles of products just like you'd expect anywhere; but the remaining 3/4s of the store consists of something more like what we'd find at K Mart. Clothes, Electronics, Car supplies, etc. The front of the store also has an optometrist / frames supplier, and a chemist.

Wal*Marts are generally identical in almost every way; which can seem strange when you drive for six hours, then enter another Wal*Mart and feel like you're back where you started.

Others

Other stores were JC Penny, Meijr, Radio Shack, etc.

JC Penny is a weird 'girly' store where the staff are out to chat to you as much as possible and help you get the stuff you want. That is, where stuff = clothing, perfumes, etc. I was wholly out of place here.

Meijr is the same as out Myer - if you can still find one that is.

Radio Shack is a crappy version of our Dick Smith.

The prices...

Prices again are generally fairly cheap. However, they are deceiving. The price on the product is not the price at the till. Only when you get to the till do they add whatever tax they are meant to add on that day.

The Sights

Most of our trip was aimed to be drives along country roads, so there were few traditional sights to document. It was interesting to see the difference in house and farm designs there, as well as the different types of terrain.

Niagara Falls

Well, it took two days driving to get there from where we were; and it was not what I expected. I had imagined something a bit like our Ebor Falls - you know, drive a few ks into the scrub and arrive at a waterfall. Instead it's more like someone had cut a wide channel through the middle of Sydney and planted a waterfall there. Both sides were flanked with high-rise buildings and snaking motorways!

Niagara Falls forms part of the border between USA and Canada; so getting from one side to the other involves passport checks. Our hosts didn't realise this was the case and received a mild roasing at the Canada border and a somewhat more severe roasing at the USA border. This shocked them somewhat, but they commented that being 70 years old, they weren't expecting to ever come back. (There's something strange about holidaying with old people - that thought is probably always there in their mind...)

The Canadian side was the better side view-wise. The US Side was a confusing place to get to. I also learned that people waving to usher you in a certain direction on the road were often not doing so for your benefit but for theirs. (Trying to encourage you to take certain paid parking places, etc.) On both sides you end up paying $10 to $15 to park the car.

I was a bit slack at taking photos this trip. There are a few photos at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CCCMikey/NiagaraFalls

Ohio

Ohio was an interesting place to stay. Where we were was fairly rural. The house we stayed in had four levels - two on each side overlapping, and with a basement. The basement seemed to be a wise choice given that occasionally bad weather can make it a handy place to go. It was funny to be able to sit out on the verandah and watch the clouds circle casually overhead rather than simply going in a straight line.

The Trip Home

20 hours in the sky
Body Temps are running high
When it seems your partner's about to die...
A stressful trip was had by I

(And it was worse for her! but I'm writing ;-) )

There's somthing magical about the last two hours of an eight hour sleep. During that time, your immune system kicks in to high gear and your brain finishes defragmenting. The rushed nature of our holiday meant I often had 6 hours or less, and was unable to avoid succumbing to a cold or flu that had been hanging around since the flight to LA. One week in and I had to take two days of rest before resuming holiday travels; and at the peak of this I woke up one night suddenly with perhaps the strongest fit of the shivers I've ever had - full body suddenly shaking madly in an attept to raise it's temperature.

Unfortunately for Val, she entered this stage during transit home.

The flight from Dayton to Atlanta was relatively uneventful. No complications at all really. I was avoiding food however, having had a bad reaction to the two hour drive preceeding immdiately after eating cereal.

The flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was also relatively pleasant. We had exit row seats so there was more space than normal to stretch out. However, Val was starting to get more unsettled. Coming up was another 4 hour wait at LA Airport, and by the time we landed she had a huge headache, sore ears, and was running a temperature. She looked terrible.

On landing, we went off on a quest to see if there were any kind of medical facilities. The answer was no. However one store stocked headache tablets, etc, so since Val was now no longer able to talk, I purchased what looked promising, and then we proceeded to find our air port.

By now I had noticed that her skin was turning yellow in some places.

The Tunnel Of Love?

Now we're back in the 'confuse the terrorist' airport. We were in terminal four, and needed to get to terminal five. By now we were somewhat behind the travelling crowd having spent time sussing out the [absense of] drug stores. (What we call Chemists, they call Drug Stores.)

We followed the signs that said "Tunnel to Terminal 5"

Soon we were in a remarkably long tunnel, probably 400 to 500 metres in length, straight through.

As we approach the half way mark, a concertina-style door starts closing briefly 50 metres in front of us, while a distorted female voice says something that we can't work out. Then it starts opening again, so we continue. A few steps more and the door starts closing again and the voice now louder starts shouting again. After six recitals of the message I work out it says something along the lines of 'Please step out of the yellow security zone.' (Then repeats it in some other language.)

The voice seems adament this time. The door stays shut. By now four more people are just starting at the beginning of the tunnel, frozen to the spot while they too try to work out what's going on.

We're not standing in the painted yellow security zone, but we turn around anyway and start walking back. The other people have already chickened out. The voice stops, the door opens. We turn again and start towards it. This time it doesn't attempt to close on us; so I summise that they had either managed to get someone to check on the cameras in the tunnel, or the camera above the security zone had belateldly recognised our faces; decided we were relatively benign, and allowed us through.

It is strange to be in a tunnel when the doors seem intent on closing you in...

So, here we are back in the same terminal that we were in two weeks earlier. The same one with the sacrificial asians - this time removed. I leave Val to sit and smoulder away under the departure monitors in order to wander off to the nearby Maccas and the free WiFi that this usually proffers. This one didn't and I had to shell out $8 to get online and confirm our final Sydney to Armidale leg online.

Getting online wasn't entirely easy either as they needed a post code in addition to the credit card details - and this had to be a US ZIP code. I copied the one from my GPS for the town we were first in, and it accepted it.

Booking confirmed, boarding passes saved as a PDF, I returned to Val. By now we knew what gate the next flight was at, so we proceeded to that area and again attempted to sleep. Didn't work this time.

13 hours is a long time.

After two and a bit more hours, we were finally on board the final flight home. Here we were given customs forms to complete. Since we had jelly beans in a bag somewhere we declared food.

On this flight, Val had the window, I had the middle, and a fancy-looking Italian woman had the aisle seat. (Val assures me she was German, I don't know for sure.)

I Am The Walrus!

By now we're both tired, and surprisingly for the first four hours we get some sleep. I adopt a new position - laptop bag on top of the tray table, jacket rolled up on top of the laptop bag, my arms over the jacket, head on my arms, and the airline-supplied travel blanket over the top of me, like a sleeping Middle Eastern with a head covering.

I had a sense that my olfactory system was still a bit on the blink. This was confirmed a few hours later when I awoke and looked at Val. Both nostrils now each grown a two inch long bright yellow/green stalactite.

Fortunately my travel blanket tent saved the rest of the aircraft occupants from this unfortunate sight. The thousands of years of stalactite growth was hastily destroyed.

By now Val was back into the hot/cold cycles that such illnesses throw at you, along with a sick feeling and a repeated need to use the toilet.

This was a bit of a problem for our Italian friend who was fortunately very obliging. On one such occasion she proved to be hard to rouse from sleep. I found that I was acrobatic enough to be able to clamber and stand on the arm rests to get over her without waking her up. (Dunno how she would have reacted if she had woken up to find me hovering above her!) I left the rousing to Val this time after having alarmed her somewhat the first time by stroking her arm in order to wake her up. (This stroking I later realised was rather 'affectionate' in nature since I was absent-mindedly sick and sleepy.)

In the end, Val ended up spending an hour or so standing up / resting against the galley near the dunny bays, repeatedly making use of their refuge. The flight seemed to go on for ever. I did manage to watch GhostBusters 1 and the second half of some other movie about a homeless guy who became a rugby player. Val casually plugged away intermittently at assorted 'life' documentaries.

Almost the entire flight is in darkness as we are flying into the night.

Sydney at last...

At last in Sydney, it was an easy trip through customs, then to find the bags, and finally to follow the signs to "QantasLink Domestic Transfer" which was a great feature. There they check in your bags, perform yet another security scan of your luggage, your boobs and your knees if you're Val; and your laptop and other electronics if you're me. Then they take you on a bus to the terminal next to the one you need to go to. (A short walk gets you to the correct terminal.) From there, they then repeat again the knee replacement happy dance scan, and at last it's a matter of waiting for the final flight home.

Armidale at last...

While in LA I used my SoftPhone with Exetel VoIP to call some friends in Armidale, to see if they could check Val in with her doctor. They were surprisingly able to do so, so after collecting the car; it was off to the doctors. Then, a quick spot of shopping. Then collecting the Molly the Collie, then home at last!

So overall, the journey was interesting, and it was good to see another way of life. Also, they say that the adventure's in the journey, not the destination!

It was interesting to see how the other side of the world lives. As I was only with one family and didn't socialise with other people there I never really got to form an opinion of how the people lived.

I was in regional / rural areas for almost all of this trip, so I never really experienced a full-on city experience. Niagara was probably the closest I got to a city experience.

Most of the areas were open-planned, and houses were surrounded by generous amounts of greenery. It seemed like a huge rural urban sprawl really - everything is a long way apart. However continuing growth seems to be rapidly threatening this way of life, as I am reminded by this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=youtube_gdata

But there's nothing quite like going away to make you appreciate what you have at home! Simple food, stable climate, stable and familiar home, currency that doesn't look like it was printed on an inkjet, your own job, and your own time :)

In this edition:

Good News Week 2
The mobile plan to end all mobile plans? $1 a month, 10c/min...

Assorted News:
More Exetel Strangeness. (Ups some rates, kills PAYG on ADSL.)
Busy again...

General Ramblings:
Three people drop their landlines for Wireless VoIP...
Internet TV in the future?
Your New TV is a computer screen too :)

Entertainment:
The Varnishing Act.
The Kingswood Lives...
Amusing Exam Cheating Stories
Gruesome Shark Game.

The Mobile Plan to end all mobile plans?

A company called TPG has released a new mobile plan. It is just $1 per month and 10 cents per minute to landlines and mobiles, with a 10 cent flagfall. No contract. No caps.

They use the Optus towers, so of course this may be an issue for some of you. I do have outdoor aerials that will fix this for some handsets and locations.

This is enough to make you wonder why you still have a landline. You'd have to spend at least four hours on the mobile phone a month before you'd even reach what you're paying just for basic line rental to Telstra.

Oh, and as I've said before - if you need Telstra's superior mobile coverage, why not have a Telstra mobile on a $15 or $20 a month plan, use them for incoming calls, and carry a second mobile for making calls on. The savings would surely be worth the extra hassle of carrying two phones :)

I am too small to be an agent for TPG unfortunately, so if you need help with signing up or setting up your phone, this would be at standard consulting rates.

More details are at http://tpg.com.au/mobile/plans.html - scroll down to find the $1 plan.

Busy again...

Work is back to being pretty busy. This has meant some delays in getting back to some people. My apologies for those affected.

More Exetel Strangeness...

As most of you know, I'm an agent for Exetel. This is because they're normally the best value ISP.

Unfortunately this appears to be changing a little...

They put a number of people's plans up by $5 a month this week, explaining that this was necessary because on average, people are downloading more now than they were a few years ago. This mainly affected long-time customers on older plans, and this was probably a legitimate need.

They also went and changed their plan offerings two days after this announcement, along with introducing a $10 plan change fee - without warning.

Charging $10 to change a plan is a simple money grab. Exetel brags about having an automated system so changing a plan should have no cost to them if it doesn't involve changing line speeds, etc. They don't see it this way. They did a similar thing a couple of years ago when they introduced an 'administrative fee' of $3 so they seem to be starting to want to make money just because they can rather than by providing a service to match that expense.

The plans they have introduced are aimed at moderate to heavy downloaders; so the 'pay for what you use' type plans are now history. This is a shame because it wipes out the most popular plan I was selling, making the nearest equivalent $10 a month higher, making them equivalent to pretty much every other reasonably-priced reasonably-reliable ISP out there for light to moderate users.

Fortunately, Wireless Broadband plans remain unchanged and are still good value within their own limits of usage.

Since most plans these days have no contract requirement, the good news is that if something really unexpected and catastrophic happened at Exetel, the time to recover would be quite short :) I am confused by what's going on there at the moment. I think it's related to growing pains as they have grown bigger than they had planned to in a relatively short time; but there's a sort of schizophrenic feel to it all.

Three customers ditch their landlines...

I have three customers in Guyra who have ditched their landlines since moving to an Exetel wireless broadband with VoIP setup, saving themselves about $40 to $60 a month plus an estimated $50 in calls per month in the process. (You could do similar without using Exetel.)

This isn't for everyone, but it works well for some.

The good bits:
- no landline rental any more - bye bye Telstra
- still use a standard landline phone
- call costs 10c untimed to landlines, 15c/min to mobiles
- still have a landline number of sorts*
- Internet costs between $20 and $37.50 per month roughly.

The bad bits
- requires strong coverage.
- requires $175 router plus $90 modem
- might require outdoor antenna $45 to $250
- will cost about $75 to have installed - quoted first.
- not guaranteed to always work
- *the landline number is not a Guyra / Armidale number,
- calling 000 won't tell them where you are, so not great for emergencies.
- doesn't work without power unless you hook it to a car battery or UPS :)
- fax machines don't particularly like it, but will usually work.
- sometimes has echoes when calling mobiles, partially fixable.
- Limited to 5GB per month.

The single biggest problem with doing this is that the wireless broadband system is not designed to do phone calls over the Internet. It will work, mostly, but if the tower is busy or the reception wavers, it will give you some rather weird results. However, if you're saving $60 or more a month then maybe you wouldn't care about the occasional problem.

Of course, combine it with the $1 per month TPG mobile and it hardly matters anyway since the mobile phone calls always have priority over internet users, and it's even cheaper than VoIP for calling other mobiles.

I can't really recommend it for Armidale as the Armidale towers are overloaded. Generally speaking, if Skype works well on your connection, then VoIP will probably work too.

Internet TV in the future?

Despite being way behind the US in what we have in the way of Internet TV services; I have a suspicion that they will become somewhat more important to people over time. For example, if there's "nothing on" on TV, it's quite convenient to go to http://abc.net.au/iview/ and watch something. All the shows are categorised so documentary-fans for example can find something to watch quickly.

Why am I bringing this up again? Well, because it's the one thing that makes me feel a little uncertain about recommending wireless broadband to people. Each show is about 250 megabytes on average, so they can chew through even the biggest 5000MB plan appreciably over a month. (Of course, many people don't want to do this, ..yet...)

This means it's largely out of reach of people who can only get Satellite. It's doable on wireless but risky if you don't know your limits; and it's of no consequence at all to people who can get ADSL. It should soon get to the point where it is better to spend your money on a decent Internet connection rather than paying for Austar, etc.

In the US, it is apparently becoming common for people to not even have a TV, as they watch http://www.hulu.com/ instead. To watch Hulu in Australia requires some creative cheating that I have not yet felt the need to work out - there are other ways to get what you want :)

Your New TV is a Computer Screen Too :)

Many people still don't know this.

Pretty much all flat screen TVs these days have one or two different connectors on the back that let you use them as a huge computer screen.

Just yesterday I helped a customer to hook her laptop to her TV after she had been decidedly hard on her laptop by dropping it, breaking off a corner, smashing the screen by mistake and melting some of the keys somehow. (Fortunately the TV has not yet been melted, smashed, or dropped, but I fear for the remote!)

If your computer and TV both have a socket labeled HDMI, then all you need is one cable to connect the two.

If instead your TV has something labeled VGA or D-SUB, then you'll need two cables if you want both picture and sound.

Someone has written a more comprehensive guide at http://www.reevoo.com/decidewhattobuy/2009/08/how-to-connect-a-computer-to-a-tv/

For both options, I usually have the required cables.

This will of course let you watch anything from the Internet or on a hard drive on your TV set. That's things like iView, YouTube, etc; and those hard drives full of movies that kids have these days - much to the chagrin of traditional media companies! Oh, and of course if you have Skype and a webcam, you can have a live wall into someone elses house! (With a decent broadband connection, you could actually do this 24/7 so you'd never be separated from your loved ones - SciFi becoming reality...)

The Varnishing Act.

OK, you all know I'm a bit mad. This won't help you with that assessment!

The '86 Bluebird had developed a problem. It was starting to go grey - like an old man's beard. Worse, the paint on the bonnet was turning white and spotty, and has been disappearing little by little, tiny flake by tiny flake. No amount of waxing would satiate its thirst.

An '86 Bluebird is not a particularly valuable car; so paying $2,000 or so to respray it would be hard to justify.

.. I bet you can see where this is going can't you ;-)

Some years ago I stumbled on a can of Marine Varnish hiding in the laundry. A year ago a small amount of this went on the roof to fix a small spot of clearcoat cancer. Now, a good deal more of it covers the entire bonnet and one of the mirrors too.

It will be interesting to see how this product ages. Certainly the bit that's been on the roof for a year hasn't deteriorated at all... It was particularly surprising how it turned the whitish plastic mirrors back to black.

Pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CCCMikey/VarnishingTheNissan#

One customer said I should have seen an Armidale business who can match colours etc, and sells a clearcoat product. Perhaps later I will. For now, at least the deterioration has been halted.

The Kingswood Lives...

It's back from its brake, engine mount and gearbox seal repair. So far I am sticking with the Nissan because of the cheaper running costs, steering that doesn't wander around with tiny camber changes, likely increased safety and the ability to speed through a roundabout if something doesn't go to plan. (Not that it's perfect - it has its own cold weather quirks.) The Kingswood is now 39 years old, so perhaps it's time to give it lighter duties, and hope its value appreciates. (No I won't be varnishing it ;-) )

Amusing Exam Cheating Stories...

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/b7a5u/whats_the_most_clever_way_youve_ever_heard_of/

Another page that will take a few hours of life :) Find out all the ingenious ways people cheated in exams. A couple of favourites...

It is funny that this should come up, only last week, on the radio, a guy was on saying how when he was at college doing a marine engineering course (or something in that field) part of the course was Morse Code.

When they had external examiners in for exams on non morse parts of the course, he and his class mates would of course tap out not just the answers but have whole conversations.

A few times the whole exam room would erupt in laughter and leave the examiner clueless.

---

I went to a Catholic high school, and one of the nuns that taught there was pretty far toward senility. She'd always walk up and down the aisles during tests to make sure people weren't cheating, so a couple of kids started putting post-it notes on her as she walked by. Kid in the front corner would ask "What did you get for number 7?" Kid in the back corner would snag the note, write an answer, and put it back when she came by next. It went on like that all semester.

Gruesome but Simple Shark Game.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/513760

A ridiculous game that you play in your browser. (Nothing to install.)

---

Well that's it for another newsletter. I guess I better get back to work! I have some more time consuming projects on the boil, which explains why the December and January invoices were only sent last week!

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

I have had two of these over-sized laptops develop what looks like a screen inverter fault. What happens is that as you increase the brightness setting, once you get past half way it gets darker instead of lighter, and may even shut off completely.

I thought it was a hardware problem, but a BIOS update from the Toshiba website seems to have fixed the problem. A Windows 7 update might have caused the problem. The affected machine was a pspg8a

In this edition:

Good News Week
Surprise wireless internet price reductions at Telstra.
Nokia gives many people free phone GPS maps

Assorted News:
ExeSMS broken - how to fix.
Back on deck: Most happy, some not.
Pricing Revisited.
IE (Internet Explorer) in the news...

General Ramblings:
Affectionately Mauled
Embroidery - a new skill for CCC?
Portable Landline & cheap diversions.
Turning Right.

Entertainment:
FMyLife and Uh Oh moments.

Surprise Wireless Price Drops at Telstra / BigPond:

As many of you know, I sell wireless broadband with Exetel; and where there's good coverage it's a well priced product. However, there are several cases where Telstra has a good signal and Optus (which Exetel uses) does not; meaning I have not been able to help those people get better-priced Internet Access.

Telstra / BigPond is often an option in these places due to their superior coverage; but up until now the prices have been so ridiculously high that they were simply not competitive. In addition, their horrendous excess usage charges could scare even the most savvy user. (One last week got a bill for over $2,000; but was subsequently able to get it reduced significantly.)

Last week, Telstra announced the complete removal of excess usage fees on their wireless broadband for home users, and some significant reductions in mobile internet usage costs for business users.

Of course, like any telephony and internet product these days you have to read the fine print; but as an example of what you could do if you're out in the sticks with a mobile that gets at least one bar of coverage in the window and have an ABN:
You could get 1GB of Internet for $19 a month using your mobile as the modem.
You could get 3GB of Internet for $29 a month using your mobile as the modem.

Similar pricing is available for residential users as well, with the advantage of no excess usage fees but the possible need to buy a modem.

That's cheaper and usually faster than satellite. For those of you with suitable NextG phones, you can sit the phone in the window (if necessary for coverage) and your computer will talk wirelessly via bluetooth to it to get you online. Alternatively, for those of you with 'country phones' you have the advantage that while connected to your computer, the phone also recharges, but last I looked they won't do internet via Bluetooth.

So there you go. It's nice to see that for home users, Telstra has dropped the unconscionable excess usage fees; and for business users it's great to see some realistic pricing; albeit tied to contracts.

For BigPond Residential's pricing: http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media/wireless-broadband-plans.cfm

For NextG Business pricing: http://www.telstrabusiness.com/business/portal/online/site/productsservices/internetonyourmobile.10917

Note: I'm not affiliated with Telstra or BigPond in any way, so while I can help you get these services up and running; it will be at the normal consulting rate :) (I can't be a rep for them as they require exclusivity.)

Unfortunately all my efforts to get Exetel to offer alternatives to their admittedly small excess usage fees on their wireless broadband product have so far failed - apparently on technical grounds, but at least they're still cheaper and have no contract: See http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-hspa-pricing.php - use code N040 if you want me as your agent for support / installation.

Nokia gives many people Free GPS!

Now here was a pleasant surprise that came in yesterday... Nokia offering free Maps for most of their current and recent phones - even going back as far as the old Nokia E51 that many of you still have. For more information go to http://maps.nokia.com/explore-services/ovi-maps

If you don't see your phone listed, click here - http://europe.nokia.com/support/product-support/maps-support/compatibility-and-download#/default/ - for the full list.

This will allow you to do one or two things. Firstly, it means you have a relatively up to date street directory always in your phone. (And not just for Australia either... although you might need a new larger memory card if you want to store the US maps!) Secondly, it means that you can use your phone as a GPS provided it has a GPS receiver built in. For phones that don't, you can buy a bluetooth GPS receiver that will work with your phone, such as http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4895&keywords=bluetooth&form=KEYWORD - which is available from AMAC Digital Products in Armidale.

Note that I believe, by law, if you're going to use this in your car you need to have a means of securing your phone to the dashboard / windscreen.

Why is Nokia doing this? Probably to compete with Google after they announced the same thing for their latest phones recently. No more buying those ridiculously expensive map upgrades for your Garmin / NavMan / TomTom. (Side note - I used to recommend TomTom for cheap updates, but that has since passed.)

ExeSMS Broken: How to fix.

If you use the PC based SMS program "ExeSMS" with Exetel, you might have found in the last couple of days that it stopped working. The problem is that whoever wrote the program has disappeared - or at least part of his website has - and the update checker crashes the program. If you want it to work again straight away, try the steps at http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=303&t=34981#p266737

Back on Deck :)

Well there have been winners and losers this last two weeks since I returned to work. Due to the higher than normal number of calls, I've had to prioritise who gets attended to based on the type of problems they were experiencing, and location. The order of priority has been:

No Internet / Phones --> Business computers down --> No Phones --> Virus --> Storm Damage --> New Internet Connections --> New Computer setups --> TV Tuning / Set Top Box tuning --> Websites --> Dialup Internet support --> Fax Machines --> Problem Customers.

This unfortunately has meant that people in the last five categories have sometimes gone with unanswered calls as there hasn't been enough hours in the day to cover them all. The sheer number of calls has also meant that a few accidentally fell through the cracks - typically where two people had the same type of problem and I lost track of them while on the road; or simply because I've stuffed up while shuffling calendar events in Outlook / Symbian. I think I caught up with most of those on Friday :)

Calls come in via email, the landline, the mobile and SMS so co-ordinating them all can be tricky as I'm yet to find a way to unify them. This past week I've been trialling spending an hour each morning working out what needed doing that day and the next, and answering email queries; so most callouts have been from 11am onwards, with the latest one being 8:45pm last week. (A TV tuning job that had been waiting a few days.) I can see why some people have secretaries, but it'd be hard to do that in my case since only I can really guess how long each job's going to take.

Pricing Revisited

Well it happened again. One customer this week was adamant that I don't charge enough, and then a couple of days later another cringed at the already slightly discounted $90 bill for a new laptop setup. Admittedly one customer lives in a house in town, while the other had a rambling farming property :)

I am toying with the idea of redesigning my invoices to have five totals ranging from $45 per hour (my low income / not for profit rate) up to $85 (which is what some Tamworth IT consultant quoted me) and giving the payee the choice to pick what they felt comfortable with. Not sure how that would go really... Interested in your thoughts on that one...

I guess it's the fun of being in a relatively small town - I have developed the skills of a system engineer / programmer and yet I still look after those who have simple needs too as we're all human :) .. and I like the variety!

IE (Internet Explorer) in the news...

I've converted most of you over to using Firefox since it's faster and safer than Internet Explorer; and can be set to block all ads as well as display your Internet Usage meter. (A handy side effect of this is that it tends to block fake ads that trick people in to thinking they have a virus and need to buy whatever fake cleaning program they're selling.)

However, many people still prefer Internet Explorer out of habit or for other reasons I haven't quite worked out. I guess that's good for me in a way as it keeps me employed killing bugs, but it's not good for your online banking, etc. The most recent case in the news was http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8460819.stm where the holes in Internet Explorer were used to attack Google. A side effect of all this was that Google is considering shutting down operations in China; and also the German government recommend people stop using it... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1244138/Internet-Explorer-Germany-warns-using-IE-Microsoft-admits-browser-weak-link-China-Google-hacks.html - although now that Microsoft has fixed the problem that may no longer apply.

Google's Chrome and Safari are other alternative web browsers you can try as well, if for some reason you don't like Firefox :)

Affectionately Mauled.

Here's an amusing tail, err tale, for you. One of my customers has a number of animals on their property; and a number of computers too. One of their animals is a very tall dog - a bit like the one pictured at http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GQ6M9d5gRHw/Shq4Qdl3O4I/AAAAAAAABRI/8pENk1ifcgo/s320/big-dog-small-dog.jpg but with a lighter coloured face

While I was sitting down working on their computers, it decided to come and have a chat, meaning I was now head-hight with it. I knew it was a friendly dog because whenever I visit it always bounces around excitedly - and slightly alarmingly as it just wants to play, but it's a bit like a short-necked giraffe bouncing around the yard with long straight but slightly splayed legs.

Anyway, it turned out that it's favourite position was to sit there with gently holding the side of my chin in the side of it's mouth while I worked away transferring files between computers - a relatively surreal experience! Eventually the owners realised it was inside and sent it back out again, leaving two of their tiny dogs to run around and occasionally jump on me instead. I get on well with most animals, so it doesn't worry me; provided they stay off the keyboard. (I did leave the customer to clear off the 1cm wide ball of slobber the big dog flicked onto their monitor however!)

Embroidery - a new skill for CCC?

When my other half asked for car seat covers with frogs on for Christmas, I thought it was going to be easy enough - just go to SuperCheap Auto and buy a set. Problem is, no one makes them in Australia. There are now websites selling them. Nothing on eBay. So I asked the various Armidale embroidery companies if they could put one on for me, and the answer was a unanimous no from all of them - too hard; our machines can't use the material because it's too thick, etc.

One agreed to putting a pattern onto some material for me to sew on later, but the quote for that came back at - if I read it right - $170 to convert my drawing to a mostly two colour computerised pattern, and $75 each copy.

I decided to ask around locally as I have two customers I know of with domestic-grade computerised embroiding sewing machines as I've repaired and installed the software for them before now. One thought she could do it, but didn't know how to get the drawing into the machine. So, for a couple of days there you might have seen me parked in the Bluebird under a tree in Guyra while I taught myself how to 'digitise' images.

Final product in hand on a quaint floppy disk - as these sewing machines are now getting on a bit! - and 12,000 stitches / 45 minutes later each, the car seat covers were done :) They weren't perfect, possibly due to an error on my part in telling the software how to handle stitches leading to different image segments; and probably due to the 'stretchy' nature of the material; but they were sure good enough; and a damn site cheaper than what the others wanted to charge. They also had to be slightly smaller than planned since the material was not flat - these were pre-made covers. You can see the images here:

Original image: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SzdYDY1CtrI/AAAAAAAADrY/6aZpi_ybzos/s144/Frog.jpg
Final product: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SzdYHvdNWmI/AAAAAAAADrk/aS-fyiYfJ2Q/s800/MVC-126F.JPG

(The flash made the reflective purple look white.)

Portable Landline / Cheap Diversions.

The Billion 7404VGPX is an expensive little bugger at $175, but combined with a wireless broadband service with strong coverage, it affords a portable VoIP landline. I'm still testing it with some customers to see if it's reliable enough to be considered a landline replacement service, with reasonable results so far. Unfortunately local Guyra / Armidale numbers are not available for use with this device as a phone number for people to call you on, but the 10 cent per call untimed rates make up for that a bit. (The phone numbers are all Sydney / Canberra / Adelaide numbers.) Optus has a similar product but charges traditional line rental and call rates.

Another box I am experimenting with - the $80 Cormain GW211 - allows you to connect it to your existing (Telstra) landline, and forward your calls via VoIP to any other number you choose. For example, if you have a mobile phone for your business; when you divert calls from your landline to it with Telstra you pay hefty call costs. With this unit, the diverted call costs whatever a VoIP call to that destination would be - so typically 15 cents a minute for mobiles or 10 cents untimed for landlines.

You could use this:
- to transfer business / home calls to your mobile cheaply
- to transfer your business / home line to another phone line cheaply (like when on holiday, etc.)
- to transfer your phone calls overseas for 3c a minute depending on destination.

The three downsides:
- there is an added delay of about .1 to .2 seconds.
- Incoming CallerID is not passed to the phone.
- There might be an issue with volume being a bit quiet.

I might trial this some more - the loss of CallerID is a slight problem for me.

Turning Right.

Some of you have spotted the ghost of the Kingswood doing the rounds in Guyra. Most of the problems are fixed, but the mechanics are struggling with its tendency to turn right when you put the brakes on. It's often done this when first taken out in the morning, but gets over it by the time it gets to the railway line. Perhaps it's some latent damage from when it had no membrane on the master cylinder reservoir 15 years ago and was thus sucking dust into the fluid, making it muddy orange instead of green. I fixed that long ago. The Nissan is going well, with it's only party trick at the moment being occasional idling at a very low 500rpm and the odd stall at the lights, etc. I really need to get the dash apart one day and resolder all those bad connections so the rev computer behaves :)

Entertaining Sites

Think your life's bad? You could try http://www.fmylife.com/

It's a listing of things that have gone wrong for people - so if you get depressed easily it might not suit you; but if you find the perverse comedy in the situations instead you might enjoy it. Some of them might be a bit rude / off-colour. For example:

"Today, I texted my college boyfriend to tell him how terrible I felt about cheating. He replied saying he was so relieved because he had been cheating on me with a girl in his dorm. I was talking about my math exam. FML"

Uh Oh Moments

A great post on Whirlpool about all the things that people have done wrong at work. This could keep you reading for hours...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1269886

Some are a bit techy, but others - such as setting KFC cookers on fire, plugging in the wrong cable, crashing forklifts, cutting open softdrink cases by mistake, changing in an elevator, spilling hundreds of litres of ice cream, etc we can all understand :)

Well, that's it for another Newsletter! I better get back to work now. I hope 2010's going well for you all. So far, so good :)

As a PS, the electric bike is still going well, no breakdowns at all yet and still getting over 17km to a charge on the Black Mountain roads. The electric mower likewise is still doing a great job. A customer gave me an old FlyMo they didn't want - and it lasted 5 minutes before it ceased to work. They are worlds apart in performance.

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

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Just a quick note that SongBird does not support the E51 very well via Bluetooth - it opts to fill the phone memory rather than filling the add-on card.

Also Gator ABT-300 review, Gator Bluetooth FM adapter review. (Manual lists product as a BS300B or BS300A)

The ABT300 is a small box that receives bluetooth audio, transmits FM audio in stereo, has a hands free microphone built in, along with line output and line inputs. A great little gadget; but it has two serious flaws if you want to use it a lot...

I bought one of these for my other half for Christmas from WES Components. It is a mostly good design but has two serious design flaws that may make it unsuitable for it's intended purpose.

1 - You cannot use the FM transmitter while it's connected to a charger. (It does still function as a bluetooth hands free but only to a wired output.)

2 - The charging socket and external line input share the same socket. Thus you can't charge the device and use it as a transmitter for a non-bluetooth audio source at the same time.

This basically renders the device an annoying addition because to use it fully you'll have to remember to recharge it at least once a week, and you can't use it for the two hours that it's recharging.

You can partly work around it's limitations by connecting it to an always on 12V source and hard wiring its output to your audio system; but what a disappointment to have such a nifty device rendered with such a flaw :(

Cheers, Mike.

Edit: Here's another problem.

Walk away from your car for a little while, the bastard turns itself off. You have to hold the power button for 3+ seconds to turn it back on. Three seconds is a long time if you're going to be doing it every time you get in the car. Sometimes the power button gets stuck down too. Hold it a little too long and you're in pairing mode.

FM Output is really weak - if you place it in the middle of your dashboard, you'll get audible FM Hiss if your antenna is an above-the-drivers-door type.

In this edition:

Holiday Special

Podcasts for your Travels.
Websites for a laugh.
Smoker? No warranty for you.
Lick It!
Statement Fun.
Google Desktop
TL;DR
Watching TV Online
Gmail Saves The Day
Inkjet becomes one pin dot matrix
Vitamin D
Rant on Greed V2
Any web designers out there?
Computer Table wants a home...
E-Bike review.
A week off...

Podcasts for your Travels

Chances are some of you will be embarking on some long trips this holiday season. Taking some podcasts with you will help make the journey more enjoyable.

Podcasts are basically radio shows that you can download and listen to; with the exception that you can tell your computer to get them automatically if you have iTunes or other podcasting software.

Here's a few of my faves:

CarTalk.

Two funny American guys who spend at least half of the show laughing constantly. Whether or not you're mechanically inclined; you'll probably enjoy this weekly one hour show . They'll try all sorts of tricks to get you out of trouble with your car, or to pass the blame onto someone else; or simply tell you that your car is going to blow up any minute...

http://www.cartalk.com/

AnswerMeThis.

Warning: Not entirely safe for kids - uses bad language now and then.

Three crazy British people (two guys one gal) answer some of the craziest questions that people submit to them online and by phone. http://answermethispodcast.com/

The Moth.

Warning: May use bad language or discuss themes that may offend.

OK so that's a weird name for a podcast. It is "Real Life Stories told Live, Without Notes, in under 20 mins." There is an amazing variety of stories here, from accountants, to strippers, to prisoners with dying rellies on the other side; and more. Some excellent listening here. Experience the full variety of people that exist on this earth.

http://www.themoth.org/podcast

TED Talks.

No, it's not "Big Ted" from Sesame Street :) TED Talks are described as "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." Most of them are pretty good; although since they cover a huge spectrum of ideas, some are bound to be of more interest to you than others.

http://www.ted.com/

Note: Most podcasts tend to be between 20 and 50MB to download, so for those of you on limited download plans; you might need to keep an eye on your usage while downloading these gems.

Websites for a laugh.

Here's a couple of gems I've run across in the last month that you might enjoy:

"What's the Funniest thing you've done / seen someone do in a classroom?"
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9x4op/whats_the_funniest_thing_youve_done_seen_someone/
Warning: Some of these posts are likely to offend. (Bad language, politically incorrect.)
Another Warning: You might get nothing done for 5 hours reading all these!

Find out about the Cow Button, the 8.5 by 11 foot sheet of notes, the fake suicide out the window - with the chair, the "Thank you for last night" comment, Spontaneous Spiderman, the teacher with the Bull Whip, DENdoodahBAHdoo and more :)

"What is Love"

This chicken thinks he knows :) http://vimeo.com/8121722

"One Man Band"

Well, if your low on income, and have musical skill, you could copy this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuv3QOeDDI

Hmm - I'm sure there are more, but I'm short of time. The phone keeps ringing. And I want to get this out by 1:45pm.

Smoker? No warranty for you...

.. or your Apple computer.

First, let me congratulate those few of you who actually did quit smoking this year. I'm proud of you! (It also makes working with you more of a pleasure, as second hand smoke is one thing that I'm not fond of.)

Anyway, earlier this year Apple made the decision that it would not do warranty repairs on laptops belonging to smokers. This was because they were classed as hazardous materials; and also because the residue gums up the cooling systems. It's actually been quite a while since I've repaired a heavy smoker's computer - the worst I remember was a Gateway 2000 machine that was yellow inside from the front-mounted fan dragging the smoke into the computer's innards.

Lick It!

OK a slightly less hygienic computer tip for you. Many computers now have finger print readers. For most people these work OK but sometimes you may find it just refuses to acknowledge you giving it the finger. If this happens to you, try this simple step. 1 - lick your finger. 2 - wipe your finger on a nearby fabric. 3 - swipe your finger on the reader.

If your skin is dry, it makes it harder for the computer to see it.

Statement Fun.

You know the old saying about the plumber's house having leaking taps. Well, my accounting is a bit like that sometimes. I'm pretty good at entering the information in as it comes in, but chasing up old accounts is not something I give much priority to. I knew for the last few months that something was up with my system not sending accounts under certain circumstances; and it turned out that through a logic error I introduced to it, anyone who had an unpaid account less than one month old would never get a statement.

As a result, a few got away from me. The worst ones being an ex Internet customer who racked up $700 before shooting through, and another guy who has $600 worth of wireless internet gear. (Another guy appears to have stolen a $145 modem from me too.) Fortunately such occurrences are quite rare as most people are pretty good about keeping up to date with things. The challenging counter to this is that each 6 months I receive about $1,000 in electronic payments to my bank account that have no payee reference - so I have no idea where that money came from or who it's for. Since quite often people pay multiple invoices in one transaction, it's very difficult to reconcile those amounts to a customer.

Google Desktop.

I think I've covered Google Desktop before. It allows you to search all your files for key words in a matter of seconds. This can be quite handy when trying to find information in documents that you no longer remember the name or location of; or emails.

One other useful feature is the ability to view your 'timeline' which will show you all the things you did on your computer on any given day. This has proven to be quite useful recently where a customer had many different web pages on the boil, but wanted to bill each to a separate entity and I had not recorded accurately which web site was worked on when. (Accounts are entered into a calendar daily, but transcribed into the accounting system monthly.) The history button gives me a minute by minute rundown of what page was worked on when :)

Google Desktop is not for everybody as it can slow down the computer a bit with it's constant indexing; but for some of you in office environments it might be quite handy. (Microsoft has similar features built in which I've not fully tested as they do not work with my email program, Thunderbird.)

TL;DR.

You might see this written - typically at the end of a long article. It stands for "Too Long; Didn't Read" and is usually followed by a one or two sentence summary of the article it accompanies.

Watching TV Onlne

Some of the TV channels are starting to get with the times and allow you to watch shows you've missed via the Internet. ABC is probably the most well known of these with their iView service. http://abc.net.au/iview

Channel 10 has a similar feature at http://ten.com.au/

NBN does not have it on their main site, but you might be lucky with some of the individual show websites.

Prime doesn't seem to have it at all yet.

SBS has done a good job with theirs at http://www.sbs.com.au/television

With all of these sites, they use quite a lot of downloads - around 400MB an hour as an estimate - so be careful if you're on an expensive low usage plan. (If you're on slow ADSL, you might not be able to see them in real time - you can always call me for a better deal ;-) )

Of course, for the 'naughty' ones among you there's always channel BT. Oh, and YouTube is legal and handy too once you work out how playlists work.

Gmail Saves The Day.

A few days ago, a customer called because some of his email had disappeared. A number of possibly zero day viruses had conspired to somehow nuke the outlook data file and it wasn't readily retrievable. (A rare occurrence, possible question as to whether Avast contributed to it.) Fortunately some time earlier I had set up gmail to poll his address and capture a copy of his email to their server; so a copy of all received email was still there available to be re-downloaded.

So, if your email is important to you and you want a free backup - register an address at http://gmail.com and then under Settings, click Accounts and Import and give it the details for your current email address. (If you don't know your password, I have a program that can usually retrieve them.) You may need to set your PC to leave a copy on the server for one day too.

Inkjet becomes one pin Dot Matrix?

A customer called last week with a problem. A single drawing pin had fallen into their fancy Canon printer / copier unit and was not retrievable since it had been swallowed along with some paper.

Usually retrieving foreign objects from a printer is relatively simple - with other recent occurrences being a crayon in a laser printer, and dried flowers in an inkjet. However, this one was quite a challenge, taking over an hour to get out. The pin was slightly wider than the gap it had fallen into so it wasn't as simple as 'turn over and shake'. It had also cleverly wedged itself near the flap that is used to determine whether the paper comes from the upper tray or below; and also serves as a duplexing chute.

In the end, we got it back together, and then it refused to print saying error 5010. Turned out that the scanner ribbon was the wrong way around. (It came out of it's socket before I had a chance to see its orientation.) Customer was happy.

Vitamin D?

This item missed last newsletter. The host of one of my regular podcasts - Security Now! - decided that he was so convinced of the benefits of Vitamin D after doing some research that he devoted an entire show to it. (This was out of character since all previous 203 shows were about computers.) It seemed to have some reasonable evidence behind it so I've listed it here. (Mainly as an anti-cancer product.) Listen or read at http://www.grc.com/health/Vitamin-D.htm

Rant on Greed V2

Another item that missed the last newsletter.

One of our two cats disappeared for a few days and came home covered in fleas. This of course meant it was time to buy more Frontline. However, while Frontline is quite effective it's also hideously expensive; so I did a little research to find out if there were any ways around it.

The primary discovery was that the formula for dogs and cats are pretty close matches. (a 25% difference in one of the active ingredients.) Thus with some careful mathematics it was apparent that you'd get almost as good a result by using 0.5ml of Frontline Plus for extra large dog to treat a cat - meaning roughly 24 doses for the price of three. So, one in the eye for Merial then; trying to charge almost the same for a tiny packet as for a large one.

Any web designers out there?

My web design skills are fair, but not excellent. In particular I'm a little lacking in graphic design aesthetics. So, if any of you are into web design work and are looking for work; let me know. You'd need to be familiar with Joomla, Drupal, CSS and HTML.

Computer Table Wants a Home.

A new Guyra resident has found she has one too many computer desks. If you're after one, let me know and I'll put you in touch. Pretty sure it's going cheap. http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SyrhCvd6_rI/AAAAAAAADog/LqbBXWpsfLs/s800/P12-17-09_18.00.jpg

E-Bike Review.

Just a quick note that the bike will get me from home to the roadhouse and back without going flat. If I get it to do most of the work, it takes 17 minutes to get there, covering 8.5km at average 25kph and peak 50kph down the hills. I'm quite happy with it :) I haven't tried a return trip to Guyra yet.

$429 reasonably well spent; although of course it would be more useful if I lived in town. If I worked at the tomato farm for example it'd be a huge saving compared to buying a car and paying rego.

By the way the Kingswood's still in at the doctor's. It's leaking oil out of the shifters for the gearbox, etc; and turns right when you put on the brakes. And speaking of rego, I don't think we'll see people adopting electric cars in Australia until they change rego laws. Why should I pay full price to rego two cars when I can only physically drive one at a time. (Most electric vehicles don't have enough range for holiday commutes, etc.)

A Week Off.

I'm having a week off from on-the-road repairs in the first week of 2010. This will give me some time to fix some issues around the house and car, such as fixing the gauges on the car, upgrading the service desk computers, etc. I'll still be available for remote assistance calls during this time :)

Have a great Christmas / Holiday season all :)

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net