[CCC News] Assorted News 33 - Welcome to 2K11 :)
Michael Kean
michael at auzzie.net
Sun Jan 2 22:35:45 AEDT 2011
*In this edition:
*
/First Newsletter for 2011 - a mixed bag./
*Assorted News:
* Happy New Year :) *
* Exetel adding $10 to most ADSL plans :(
Cheapest way to get Telstra Mobile Broadband without a contract.
Google Maps for Mobile
Mobile Radio
Media Players: bye bye VCR and DVD?
*General Ramblings:
* How a Modern Car could be reprogrammed to kill you. (The Attack iPod)
Scaring off the tech-unsavvy?
*Entertainment:
* Bluebirdy Blues II and the Banana Split
Reinstalling Windows. (With a circular saw.)
HOME MOVIE: Electric Mower Still A Goer.
Videos: Spitting Goat, Angry Professor, Ladder Goat.
*
*
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*
Happy New Year :)**
*Welcome to 2011. You made it!
2010 worked out pretty well for CCC. Work was pretty consistent
throughout the year, with an income to match. The only memorable drama
really was the 60% Exetel pay cut, but then when you're an agent for a
reseller of another person's product, you can't always expect to be on
an winning ticket. For about three years it was a significant part of my
daily work, amassing about 300 or so connections in that time. This has
slowed to one or two a month now as the big players have at last started
offering realistic prices.
Happily, while the Exetel line of work has faded, I have seen a
significant increase in programming jobs for a few assorted businesses;
and since programming is often quite a lengthy, consistent job, it
really helps the cash flow along and provides some interesting
challenges. I don't think I'd want to be a programmer full time since it
results in long hours of isolation and excessive junk food consumption,
but mixed in with computer repairs it works out well.
The biggest challenge in 2011 is likely to be time management - both for
work and home life. There's only one of me after all :) During peak busy
times I have to accept that sometimes I can't return everyone's call in
time so occasionally customers resort to other support people out of
necessity or impatience. Where possible, I SMS people to advise what's
happening when, since it's quite easy to quickly send out an SMS while
waiting for a computer to do something - but SMS messages to landlines
are still a bit hit and miss.
I still refuse to talk on the phone while I'm working on another
person's job - if you're paying me to do something for you, then you
deserve my attention :)
*Exetel adding $10 to most ADSL plans. (Not Mobile Broadband plans.)
*Not the nicest start to 2011, but then price rises are never a welcome
thing if you're the one paying the bill.
Exetel's adding $10 a month to most older plans from February. Their
reasoning being that when they sign you up, they receive a discount from
their provider. Those discounts, which they passed on in their plan
pricing, have all run out now, so most residential plans are now costing
them money. There is some truth to that too based on what I've learned
of their costings over the years.
This increase will make them about the same price as most competing
providers now, so you might want to shop around or consider changing to
a different system altogether if these increases take you beyond a
comfortable price point. The cheapest alternative would probably be TPG
if you want to keep ADSL, although there are rumours that their network
might be overloaded and thus a bit slow at times. I've not experienced
this yet, but then I'm not a TPG customer; and the few I have seem to be
OK still. For Armidale customers: TPG do ADSL2 at rates much cheaper
than Exetel. For some, BigPond is a reasonable choice now as well,
slightly hampered by their 'light user' and 'heavy user' plans with
nothing in between.
You might want to check out http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ which lists all
the different ISPs in Australia. Also, if you're a VoIP user, PennyTel
has some decent rates for VoIP. (9c untimed landlines, 10.5c per min to
mobiles.)
*Cheapest Way to get Telstra Mobile Broadband without a contract?
*At present there exists a strange anomaly in Telstra pricing. It is
currently, potentially cheaper to use your phone as a modem instead of
one of those 2 year contract USB sticks.
Compare http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/browsing_packs.html with
http://go.bigpond.com/wireless/ and note that the prices on the latter
include a $20 discount already.
For example, at the cheaper end of the scale $10 vs $40 for a 1GB
service with no bundled other services.
There is one *massive *caveat however: The former has an excess rate of*
$250 *per gigabyte on the cheaper plans whereas the latter has no excess
- it slows down instead.
What that means is that you really, _really _have to keep an eye on your
usage if you're on that plan. At least they generally SMS you when you
get to your limit.
So, if you want mobile broadband without a contract, you can add one of
those to your Telstra mobile.
If you don't have a Telstra mobile, you can sign up for a $10 a month
casual mobile phone plan and add one of the browsing packs to it. Then,
either stick the SIM card in a suitable mobile phone, or you can obtain
one of hundreds of orphaned BigPond USB modems that BigPond so
idiotically and wastefully declared to be unusable if you ever left
them. I've tested it and it works, but again if you're using a USB modem
make sure you know how the SMS messages will appear on it. You can also
use some of the free usage meters at
http://alternativeto.net/software/networx/
*Google Maps for Mobile
*Just a quick note that Google Maps for Mobile V4 is available. It will
work on most modern Nokia, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile phones.
The reasons it is useful?
1 - It (Sort of) works without needing GPS built into the phone.
Those StreetView vans that took all those photos last year also noted
who had wireless routers in their houses, and since each router is
uniquely numbered, they can use this to tell you roughly where you are.
2 - Detailed, up to date navigation.
You might already own a GPS, but the maps might be out of date. For
example, can it find "Range View Road" in Armidale? It's way too
expensive to upgrade the maps in those old GPSes. Fire up Google Maps on
your phone and odds are it will know the new road. (Not always, but more
likely than your old GPS.)
What it won't do...
It doesn't hold all the maps in the phone, you need Internet on the
phone to use it; and if you don't have a Google phone, it won't talk to
you to tell you where to turn. You have to read the instructions on the
screen instead.
You can get it from http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/
Side note: Most Nokias will let you download maps for other countries
for free so you don't need the Internet to use them when overseas.
*Mobile Radio?
*Now that internet on the phone is suddenly cheap, it's practical to
play around with the Internet Radio on your phone. For example, on my
old Nokia there are over 10,000 radio stations listed. (Yeah I know, too
many really!) It's fun being able to pick any country in the world, more
or less, and tune in. And since it's Internet radio rather than normal
radio; you don't need an antenna (headphones) to use it.* *Yet another
thing for you to fiddle with while sitting on the dunny during the
holiday break. *
*Note that on some older handsets you may need to go through the
time-consuming process of upgrading the firmware before you can find
Internet Radio listed. In some cases you can also just go to your
favourite radio station's home page and listen from there. Note also
that listening might drain your battery in under two hours in some
cases, so keep you car charger handy :)
*Media Players: bye bye VCR and DVD?
*Many of you* *who have purchased a new TV or set top box recently might
have noticed a USB port on it. On some sets it is useless, but on others
it is quite useful.
For example, many TVs and Set Top Boxes now allow you to plug a USB
thumb drive or hard drive (both available for under $50 these days) and
use it to record and / or play back TV shows and other video files. Some
will even allow you to select shows on the EPG (the TV guide button on
your remote control) and select which shows you want to record so you
can watch them later. Note however that some recordings are not
interchangeable between sets and / or your computer; so research before
buying if this is important to you.
This used to be a feature of really expensive hard disk recorders / PVRs
only a year or two ago, but now it's becoming quite common.
Home Media Players are improving too. DSE has a new one available:
http://dicksmith.com.au/product/XH1208/wdtv-hd-live-media-player - which
will also handle Internet Radio, YouTube, and perhaps most useful of
all, it will also play ISO files. (ISO files are copies of an entire
DVD - earlier models required you to painstakingly convert your DVDs to
another format - but not any more!) This means no more scratched DVDs
for the kiddies :)
I now provide these instead of DVDs when converting customer home movies
to DVD because hard drives are generally far more reliable than
home-burnt DVDs, and it allows the customer to rename the videos to
something recognisable when I fail to read the last century handwriting.
By the way they're also handy if you're one of those people that brought
a HDD camcorder but then realised how difficult it can be to make a DVD
out of the resulting files.
Of course as mentioned in an earlier newsletter, almost all modern flat
screen TVs will double as a big screen for your laptop using one or two
cables. Heck, even many mobile phones will connect straight to the TV
now and let you watch DVD quality movies from them. Technology keeps
creeping along...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*How a Modern Car could be reprogrammed to kill you. (The Attack iPod)*
.. or why you might not be able to trust you new car.
As you know, computers can get viruses and worms if you're not careful.
Modern cars are similar, but have the advantage that they're usually
kept closed so the hacker can't get in.
However, times are changing. Many modern cars are now fully
computerised, meaning that most parts are communicating with each other,
or at least listening for instructions from the car's computers. You
make suggestions only.
If you're not into mildly scary stories you might want to skip this post.
While modern cars do have some security measures to protect their
computers, according to this paper -
http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf - they are not
particularly strong and can be broken in a week or less if a person can
access the car physically, perhaps wirelessly, or with an attack device
hidden in the car.
Or, it could be a maliciously programmed add-on, such as your nice shiny
new 'attack iPod' that cracks the car's security codes while playing
your tunes.
Once the security has been broken, the car can be programmed to do all
sorts of whacky things, from relatively benign stuff like honking
incessantly or displaying rude message on the dashboard, to the worst
case figure of turning off all the lights and the brakes and leaving the
motor going in gear while you're driving along, or perhaps just locking
one wheel's brake to send you off into a ditch.
You don't normally hear of such incidents occurring but it is apparently
possible to program the car in such a way that it can do one of these
evil things and then immediately reboot so that all traces of the hack
are gone, making it look like some dolt just drove into that buttress on
purpose! Aah well, all good fun for those of you who love a good
conspiracy theory :)
Another example of this is at
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/08/cars-hacked-through-wireless-tyre-sensors.ars
The good news is that the equipment to do the hacking is currently
rather expensive, so unless you've really cheesed someone powerful off,
you're unlikely to be attacked any time soon. (And if you drive
something ancient like me, they'll have to resort to more traditional
means!)
*Scaring off the Tech-Unsavvy?*
Last month I had an irate phone message from a lady because I hadn't
called her back to help hook up a dvd player or set top box. And in a
way she was right - I hadn't called back after probably three messages
spanning two weeks. Remember earlier I mentioned programming? That week
I had a 9 hour programming day that threw the rest of the week into a
bit of a slow-down. When I get bogged down like that, most customers are
advised by SMS or email; but with no mobile or email address on record
for her I put off calling her just a bit too long. (Occasionally I use
the Telstra Talking Text service to SMS landlines as well, with mixed
results - that service is complete disgrace when it encounters an
answering machine, leaving just the last few words of the text if you're
lucky. It's a rather half-a**ed service.)
I find it generally easier to negotiate times electronically with
customers rather than over the phone because it allows me time to think
and thereby schedule jobs in a realistic time frame and physical
location; trying to avoid those Armidale --> Guyra --> Armidale -->
Guyra --> Home days. (Or in other words it's hard do say no I can't be
there right away.) On the plus side, she did learn how to do it herself
(red, white and yellow wires into red white and yellow holes).
Many pensioners get sizable discounts from me, but as a result I tend to
de-prioritise them over business and standard residential customers.
Also since I don't own a $5,000 antenna tuning / pointing device, or
have facilities and the desire to fiddle with elevated TV antennas, some
TV jobs are never a certainty and are thus avoided compared to more
certain repairs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
**Bluebirdy Blues II and the Banana Split*
(Yes, you've read down to the silly section!)
Well, after 25 years, the carbie on the Bluebird decided to play up, so
in December that part of it went down to the Carbie Holiday Spa in Taree
for a rebuild. I was all set to share the Commodore with my other half,
but then one of our friends unexpectedly decided to lend us her '90s
"Chicken Car" -- aka Toyota Camry. She had a nice shiny new vehicle and
this one, which I have dubbed Banana Split for its colour scheme, was
surplus to her needs at that time. Being the first time I've driven a 5
speed manual in 10 years, it was just like doing my driving test all
over again :) (I couldn't do the driving test in the three speed manual
Kingswood back then because the seat belts didn't meet safety
requirements for the examiner.)
This briefly put me into stealth mode again -- which always happens when
I change vehicles... People never expect to see me in something different.
It was amusing for example a few weeks ago when a customer decided that
rather than ringing me, she'd sit behind my car and wait for me to
return. An hour passed, she walked away briefly, and when she came back
I was gone. Amusingly for me -- less so for her -- I wasn't even driving
that car that day! Aah well, I fixed her computer later that week once I
knew she actually wanted to see me!
Now, the newly-polished Banana Split is back to its stress free life
under a tree in Armidale.
I generally budget on around $1,000 to $2,000 a year to keep the car
going, although I may soon have to consider changing vehicles when the
'bird gets too tired. (If the tranny or motor die, it's probably time to
give up.) In the mean time I'll wait and see if the Leaf or the MiEV get
cheaper, as I'd rather be driving an EV.
Speaking of the Nissan Leaf -- an electric car with 150+km range per
charge -- I asked a worker at the local Nissan dealer when they'd be
getting one and I think he said not in 100,000 years. I'm not sure if
that means he thinks they won't be suitable for our area, they won't be
making enough to meet demand, or simply that they don't like the idea of
an EV. (I didn't quiz further.)
Meanwhile, on Friday the Bluebird decided it was the end of the year
when it conked out 2km from Guyra after the last job of the year. (It'd
run for two seconds then die.) NRMA soon got it going again by shoving a
rag down its neck and revving it - my first ever NRMA callout. (I
thought it was the fuel pump gone or a vapor lock since it was the
hottest day in ages.) Hopefully not a sign of things to come in the new
year! Slowly the Bluebird may become Grandad's Axe as parts are replaced.
*Reinstalling Windows. (With a circular saw.)
*IT consultants might be hard to find at times, but they're nothing
compared to builders. Builders by the nature of their work can spend
days on one job, so often they're in short supply.
I had queued one up about mid last year to put a new window into a wall
at home, but as Christmas drew nearer it was clear that he wasn't able
to get here any time soon - probably due to all the rain this year. So
after a bit of Googling and asking around, I decided to do it myself.
After a few days of dramatic hammering and sawing - particularly when
trying to cut 7cm deep posts with a 6cm deep circular saw - the final
result was satisfying. http://picasaweb.google.com/CCCMikey/ReinstallWindows
I'm not sure that I'd want to be a builder for a living. Or a mechanic.
But in small doses it's fun when time permits it. Trading time for money
is often more efficient when possible.
*HOME MOVIE: Electric Mower Still a Goer.
*It's hot today. What better time to sit back, relax, enjoy the holiday
and spend an hour making an infomercial for YouTube? You can watch it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzCykeDET2o
Now that the $134 electric mower is over a year old, it's time to review
how it's gone. And one word comes to mind. Reliable.
Unlike the $500+ Rover in the shed, the electric mower started
immediately when plugged in after a 6-8 month break.
And now after all that rain and not mowing for a month, the grass was
knee high.
No problem. Just takes a bit longer and blocks up now and then, but it's
much easier and safer to unblock an electric mower compared to a petrol
one - no spinning blade waiting to remove an overly adventurous hand.
http://www.bunnings.com.au/products_product_ozito-ecomow-electric-mower_2060.aspx
- has a two year warranty.
*Spitting Goat, Angry Professor, Ladder Goat.
*
Some funny videos for your amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp0Bt2cbcc8* *-* *a man arguing with a
goat, in Spanish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbzJTTDO9f4 - 1/3rd of class discovered
cheating on exam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggB33d0BLcY - caution: swearing, animated
violence. Game player with maniacal laugh.
--
Well that's it for another newsletter :) Hope your 2011 is a happy one!
Cheers, Mike.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Cool Country Consulting & Auzzie Internet
http://www.auzzie.net/ccc
MSN: michael at auzzie.net
Tel: 02 6775 0239
Fax: 02 8212 9582
Mob: 0427 644 825
Skype: cccons
Yahoo: lispbourke
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