Geekzone Blog: latest posts

My technology kit - full disclosure

freitasm — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:41 +1200

I have been thinking about such a post for a while, so it's just about time. This is a (continuously changing) list of things and services I have here on loan from manufacturers and operators.

Of course this is not the limit of my technology at home, but only whatever I have here that is not "mine".

So here it goes:

- Nokia N97 - on loan from Nokia
- Acer F900 Windows Mobile - on long term loan from Acer as part of their beta test group
- AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro Windows Mobile - on long term loan from AT&T
- HTC Touch Dual - on long term loan from HTC
- Nokia E71 - on long term loan from Telecom New Zealand
- Cradlepoint PHS300 - on long term loan from Cradlepoint
- TomTom Go730 - on loan from TomTom
- HP Mini 1000 - on long term loan from HP U.S.
- HP tx2000c - on long term loan from HP U.S.
- Microsoft Cordless Mouse 5000 - on long term loan from Microsoft New Zealand
- Acer Ferrari 5000 - on long term loan from Microsoft Corp (currently down because of motherboard fault)
- Intel SSD - on long term loan for review from Intel
- TopGlobal MB6800 router - on long term loan for review
- Lexar Express Card SSD 16GB - on long term loan for review
- Jabra BT530 - on long term loan for review
- Telecom XT SIM card - on loan from Telecom
- Microsoft MSDN - Microsoft MVP Award, one year license until April 2010.

Some things I have here and it's worth saying "I pay for it myself":

- TelstraClear cable service
- Telecom XT SIM card for personal use
- WorldxChange VFX VoIP service for home use

So what's the difference between a "on loan" and "long term loan"? Basically "on loan" means it will be returned to the manufacturer or PR agency sometime in the very near future. "long term loan" means I will have it here for a longer term and because of use and tear I can decide myself to either return, give it away, or keep it.

If you follow me around on Geekzone and Twitter you know that I pretty much give almost everything away after a while.

Note that I have a Telecom XT SIM card on loan. This is not my personal account, which I pay for. This is used to test the other devices around here and Telecom expects it to be returned soon. This is the same handed to other bloggers and journalists who attended tehe Telecom XT Network announcement in July 2009.

I also have an AT&T SIM card, which I am pretty sure has now expired (I can't know for sure until I go to the U.S. next time).

I don't take cash or equivalent for writing. I am not posting links to these products because it's not a URL drop post. It's a disclosure post. Like it or not.

Is Your Business Data At Risk?

cyberhub — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:22 +1200

“How important is your data?” This is one of the key questions that I ask business owners when I meet with them to discuss their IT. If I get a wishy washy answer I then ask “If that computer’s hard drive failed or if you had a fire and lost all the data on that PC, how would it affect your business?”. Generally this gets the answers that I am after, as the look of horror starts to spread across the business owners or IT managers face. Answers start to come forward like “I would lose my job” or “I could go out of business” or “that would cost me thousands to get that data back”.

Studies have shown that 70% of business that suffer a critical data loss go out of business within 12 months. Contingency Planning, Strategic Research Corp and DTI/Price Waterhouse Coopers (2004)

These days business is becoming close to, if not 100% computerised, almost all parts of the business are done on a computer now! Accounts, contacts with customers, advertising, systems and processors, reports and the creation of computer documents. If your business data gets destroyed there is a high chance it could cost you thousands of dollars to get it back or it could potentially put you out of business.

With the advent of affordable, online automated backup there really is no reason why you can’t protect all your business data today.

Click here to go to more information about Online Automated Data Backup

Dan Ballard
www.CyberHub.co.nz
0800 891 321

Are you getting quality carbohydrates? - part 2

DataCraft — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:30 +1200

It is true for a large number of us working in the IT industry that we often neglect the most important machine that we control which is our own body.

Long hours, poor diet and lack of exercise doesn’t make for a very productive worker. So I have asked Kate from Lifespark Nutrition to write me 3 articles that you will hopefully find helpful. This is part 2 you can read part one here

Are you getting quality carbohydrates?

Do you eat white bread or wholegrain bread? Do you have chocolate muffin or bran muffin at morning tea? Do you snack on white crackers or wholegrain crackers? Do you just eat potato at dinner or include pumpkin/ kumara or brown rice?

Simple changes like this can help improve energy and concentration levels 10 fold. Carbohydrates are essential for proper functioning of the brain and the body. However, there are some carbohydrates that are like blood suckers, such as biscuits, donuts, muffins, slices etc.

One of their nasty attributes is to give you a sugar spike then make you crash a few hours later (which makes you go for the next sugar fix or energy drink). They have very limited nutrients in them which means your body wastes nutrients on digesting these things but doesn’t receive anything back- this can lead into downward spiral of nutrient deficiency causing tiredness , bowel problems (lack of fibre) and depression.

Quality or complex (meaning nutrient dense)carbohydrates on the other hand such as wholegrain bread and crackers, oats, bran, low sugar cereals, brown rice, bran muffins, kumara, pumpkin, baked beans, etc. are high in a range of nutrients especially B vitamins and fibre. B vitamins are essential for the central nervous system and help release energy from your food. Let me repeat…are needed in the body to help release energy from your food.

This means that even if you are eating regularly but you are eating foods low in B vitamins, you will not feel the energy from the food as there are no nutrients to help assist with this breakdown. Complex carbohydrates also contain high amounts of fibre. This is so important to flush your system out. Without good bowel movement toxins build up also causing fatigue.

Companies fail to deal with technology: telephone numbers and voicemail

freitasm — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:28 +1200

I just had a laugh now when I read Ari's tweet about his experience with Post Haste, a New Zealand courier company:

Yes, I just called their local offices on a Sunday evening to listen myself and their voicemail recorded greeting say "You called us outside our office hours. To book an emergency courier call 025 ...".

For those who don't keep pace with this moving world of telecommunications, 025 is the non-geographical prefix used by Telecom New Zealand for their old TDMA network. This means there used to be a mobile network in New Zealand that used the 025 prefix.

Telecom shutdown the 025 network 31 March 2007 6pm. This was more than two years ago.

Like Ari I wonder how many emergency courier jobs Post Haste missed in those two and a half years of voice mail redirecting their customers to a non-existant number. I also wonder if no one in the company ever thought of looking for a reason in dropped jobs at weekends and week nights...

But they are not alone. I see lots of vans driving around town with old 025 numbers still printer on the sides. Those people who need jobs now more than ever are losing for not updating something as simple as a number on the side panel of their van...

This is how low tech people can be.

Government plans to filter New Zealand Internet

freitasm — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:45 +1200

I am a member of the InternetNZ and I have just been reading its internal mailing list about the frightening possibility of Internet filtering coming to New Zealand, courtesy of our Department of Internal Affairs.

There's a good FAQ on Internet Filtering in New Zealand out there and I will quote a couple of items:

New Zealand’s censorship laws forbid viewing or owning certain types of material (e.g. depictions of bestiality or sex with children) and this applies to material accessed over the internet too.

At this moment it [New Zealand] does not [have Internet filtering]. However, the Department of Internal Affairs ran a trial internet filtering scheme in conjunction with Ihug, Watchdog, Maxnet and TelstraClear in 2007/2008 and is planning to fully implement it in 2009/2010.

[There is now ["Internet Filtering Law"]. [The filtering] it is being done under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. This gives the responsibility for enforcement to the Department of Internal Affairs.

The scheme is currently voluntary for the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as there is no law to force them to use it.

The filter is applied at the level of the IP address but it is common for a web server to host multiple websites on a single IP address. All requests to a website on one of the filtered IP addresses will be diverted to the DIA’s server.

ISPs can choose whether to subscribe to it or not. The only way [for a person] to opt-out of the filtering is by switching to an ISP that doesn’t implement it. ISPs that have implemented it so far have not provided a way to opt out of it.

The list of sites is manually compiled by DIA officers. They will update the list monthly and only after the review and agreement of a few officers.

Initially they plan to filter any website carrying child abuse related material.

Here is a series of questions sent to the DIA under the Official Information Act 2002 with respective answers.

I personally don't like the idea of a government body overseeing what I can read. It's my personal believes that prevent me visiting websites that carry this kind of material.

What really worries me is that it looks like there isn't an oversight of this process, there isn't a publicly available list of blacklisted websites, and no guarantees that a secret meeting between government agencies wouldn't in the future add other "categories" to this list.

Internet filtering gives the government - any government - the resources they need or want to prevent people connecting to each other by the means of the Internet, one of the most liberating tools available to its citizens.

If you are a grown up you don't need a nanny state to tell you what you can read or not. You know you shouldn't be reading or trading this kind of material. If you still decide to access, promote and distribute any objectionable material, then feel free to join these other offenders.

If you have kids at home there are software - such as the free Microsoft Windows Live Family Safety - that allows you to help them stay away from objectionable material, while you, responsible parent, educate them on how to use the Internet sensibly.

But I don't think a government should tell me what I can see or read because of some criminals who have no common sense.

Burning books was bad. Breaking the Internet may be worse.

Browser wars: Internet Explorer 6 is not going away

freitasm — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:41 +1200

A few months back I posted that Firefox was the #1 browser here on Geekzone for the first ever, with Microsoft Internet Explorer coming second.

Of course I expected a bigger number of Firefox (and other browsers) users because of the more tech savvy audience we have - I bet Internet Explorer is way ahead of Firefox in more mainstream New Zealand websites such as Trade Me, Stuff and the NZ Herald for example.

I've looked at the stats again this month and found out that of more than 2.1 million unique visitors in the last three month period, Internet Explorer is again ahead of Firefox. Could it be because of the number of people using Windows 7 RC for testing?

Interesting to see Google Chrome coming up so quickly on Safari.

What really surprised me though is that of those 900,000 unique visitors using Internet Explorer in that same three months, the number of Internet Explorer 6 users is practically the same, with Internet Explorer 8 gaining over Internet Explorer 7 mainly:

This is about 200,000 people visiting Geekzone every three months that still have Internet Explorer 6 as their main browser. I'd again guess this percentage is probably higher on those other mainstream sites.

Does people update their Windows PCs, at all?

Hypermobility

manhinli — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:02 +1200

Haven't blogged in some time - darn you Twitter!

Now for some memories: I have always pressed my thumbs onto desks... for no reason other than just playing around as a little child.

Other children would be surprised that I could press mine in such a fashion. I didn't know that it was "different". Until around about in Intermediate when a friend said that it was "double jointed" or more formally known as hypermobility (double jointed sounded so much cooler, but my thumbs definitely do not have 2 separate joints)

Anyway...

[left is my left hand, right is my right hand]

That's me holding a camera in one hand (my left hand co-ordination with cameras is really bad! So many fuzzy shots) and holding down my thumb with my index finger.

It seems that it was also heriditary. My mum has it too.

You can comment on this in this thread on Geekzone

(Imageshack had imageshacked - so I've reuploaded them in the mean time)

Linkification v43

RedJungle — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 23:01 +1200

News / Web Happenings:

Feedback: Geekzone Mobile
Putting together the pieces of Microsoft's "big announcement" next Monday - Looks like MS may be about to announce 'Office Web'
VLC Portable 1.0 Puts Multi-Format Playing on Thumb Drives
Google Releasing Chrome Operating System
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS
What's wrong with Telco pricing and how to fix it
Sources: Google OS lives (and it'scoming to a netbook near you)
Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, and Talk Leave Beta
VLC Hits 1.0 with Better Playback and File Support
Google adds real estate search to Google Maps in New Zealand
Windows 7 release to manufacturing reportedly on track for July 13th

FAIL of the week:

Dump Truck Fail

iPhone development

robscovell — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 22:19 +1200

Well, it's been a busy year since I last posted. I am still doing my voip work but am also CTO of Macfarlane Engel and Associates, an 'innovation management' company. http://www.macfarlaneengel.com .

At the moment the big thing for us is iPhone development. I'm now working on my second iPhone app -- it's a bloody cool platform to code for once you've got your head round the documentation. Obviously (NDA) I can't talk too much about the details but what we're doing is definitely cutting-edge and very challenging! And a HUGE amount of fun too!

My new iPhone G S should be arriving soon ...

My sons crash

tonyhughes — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:59 +1200

Just finished with the aftermath of my son crashing his 1970 Pontiac GTO. He just bought it yesterday, and it was fairly obvious with the way he had been driving it that there was going to be a crash sooner or later.

He managed to get it on a train track in Hastings, just as a locomotive was coming at low speed. The GTO is okay, as is the train. Just a few scrapes here and there.

Looks like one of the carraiges was carrying confectionery. My son walked away without injury, and pretty much just laughed it all off.

Young people these days. It wouldn't surprise me if the same sort of thing happens again before too long.

Silverlight 3 launches

paulspain — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 20:44 +1200

Today Microsoft made Silverlight 3 available for download - one day ahead of the expected launch. You can download it here.

Stay tuned for more info rolling in with the official launch, however don't expect much to different from the Silver... (more in the full post)

A new lease on life for a Squier California Strat

tonyhughes — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 10:49 +1200

A Fender Squier California Stratocaster I acquired was a little worse for wear, with a slightly scratchy sound, what looked like the original strings (5 or so years old!) and a tremolo bridge that seemed to flap around in the breeze and make open chords seem especially off-key.

Removed old strings.
Cleaned guitar top to bottom.
Removed input jack - the factory wiring was very shoddy and there was a cracked solder joint.
Re-soldered the input jack and replaced.
New strings - Fender bullet end .10 (e).
With back plate off, I tightened up the screws hold the bracket for the bridge tension springs, but in the end, I decided that since I don't use trem anyway, to use a 1/2" block of wood between the bridge and the body (inside that cavity) to permanently lock the bridge in place (hey if Slowhand can do it, so can I).

Now the guitar looks, sounds and plays much better.

An unintended (but welcome) consequence of blocking the bridge was a lowering of the action (as previous the bridge sat 1/8th to 1/4" off the body. Intonation doesn't seem too bad (possibly better than before), and with heavier strings, and no give in the bridge, it is now a joy to play compared to before (especially as I am usually an acoustic player).

Google Chrome OS announced

juha — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 05:48 +1200

The competition for Microsoft just heated up considerably, with the Google announcing that it intends to release an operating system aimed initially at Netbooks in the second half of next year. Google Chrome OS is the somewhat unimaginative name, and it's supposed to be fast, simple and secure.

"It should just work" might end up being Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Epson's famous last words but judging by the Chrome browser and Android mobile OS, the search engine giant should be able to produce something worthwhile.

While Chrome OS is supposed to have a minimalist user interface, it'll be curious to see what kind of windowing system Google intends to use with a Linux kernel.

Also, how will Google solve some of the thorny issues facing Linux device drivers that have to load binary non-open source driver BLOBs, for things like hardware accelerated 3D?

Looking at the larger picture, a Google OS could pique the interest of anti-monopoly regulators, especially if it will be closely tied in with Google webapps - making it Open Source should circumvent that though, but an Internet experience that's Google all the way from boot-up to the advertising and information that's presented to you in the Google browser does seem a little bit constricting.

The announcement seems to say the OS will be extremely web-centric, and potentially boot straight into a browser. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't know if I like the thought of that...

Update Mauricio made an interesting point earlier - Chrome OS might be ad supported. In fact, it's a reasonably safe bet it will be that, in some form or the other. That's a whole new kettle of fish, and one that could be controversial for regulatory reasons.

PFD, Reverse Leveraging or Sports arbitrage. Big money, no risk - Guaranteed

DataCraft — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 04:21 +1200

In these hard times its good to know that there are still investment opportunities where you can guarantee returns? Guaranteed like Blue Chip properties I guess!!!

How does sport arbitrage betting/ trading work? Well I could write a novel about how it works however this demo explains it really easily for you.

Here is my story about a company called TradeSmart Technologies Limited. (Go have a look at their website). It doesn’t work anymore so I feel somewhat relieved that I didn’t invest with them- however many people did. :-(

It all started back in early Feb 2008 when I got a call from an Australian using a blocked number. He told me they were based in Melbourne – and asked me if I could make guaranteed returns of 3% on every trade would I be interested? “Sure” was my reply – so they sent me the details via post.

A week or so later a slick document arrived via post telling me of all the benefits of PFD (profit from difference) Trading. I had a quick read and it really told me nothing – but I would find out over the course of the next month how the system works. A system that will make you part with a large amount of money!

And so it begins.

A nice Scottish girl rings me, asking me about the product and if I would like a demo – “Sure” I said ‘that sounds fine’, demo away. I installed a crappy dot net application. This application was poor – a first year programmer could have built a better looking application.

Great! I had a 30 second demo to prove it works, did it work? The demo looked like it worked but the demo was assisted over the phone, I didn’t really get to try it out and ‘sorry’ only one demo for me. Would you buy an 8,000 dollar car after a 30 second drive down the road?

So we move onto the hard sell.

“Ok Richard we only have a limited number of packages, 150 allocated to New Zealand” – Why is that I asked? “Because we don’t want to oversubscribe the product”. (Is that possible – this isn’t the stock market?)

Luckily I have a habit of always writing notes about my conversations. In my notes I noted down all facts and figures. She told me they only had 85 products left from the initial 150 that had been allocated and they were selling like hotcakes, with15 products sold that morning, so I better be quick! She said I could choose between 2 different packages the basic, or the more advanced package. The basic was around $8,000 AUD dollars, don’t ask how much the more advanced package was!

I asked her for a 30 day trial of the product so that I could see for myself if it worked.
She got angry and suggested to me that if she did this I could profit from the product and use that profit to pay for the product after 30 days! (To this day I can’t work out her logic in that argument, but that was it) I said to her that was a great idea, and I might just do that ;-).

So she changed tack telling me that after 30 days there would be no way of turning the product off once it was turned on. Yeah right! The product connects to their servers to get the live feeds. If this was true, that they couldn’t disable it; then this product really was written by a first year programming student.

In my conversation with her she informed me that this was an introductory product that would build up trust with their company so when the bigger opportunities came along I could invest in them. This was a plot straight out of Boiler Room!!!!

Our conversation ended shortly afterwards as I had managed to stump her on every argument and she basically hung up.

But it did not end there.

I was bumped up to a better high pressure sales person. Boy this guy was good. This guy could sell ice to an Eskimo! He rang me the following week and he apologized about the other sales rep- playing good cop I guess.

I began by asking how many products they had left in New Zealand? He informed me they had plenty of packages left. I asked him for an exact number and he said 452 products!

“So are you going to invest Richard?” – No I answered; please take me off your call list – Good bye.

Back then Tradesmart had no bad press that I could find about them on Google. The only sites I could find were sites that actually supported their product; however I was to find out later, those supportive sites were owned by them! I was part of the first wave of potential victims for this crew. Search them now and the first few searches are scamwatch results!

So why write this blog? Because I am now getting hammered by a new company selling the same stuff. The guy had the cheek to ask me if I had 10K of cash sitting in my bank account because he didn’t want to waste his time - dear god!

Hopefully they will stumble across my blog before they bother to ring me again ;-)

Is sports arbitrage a scam? No its not a scam, but the guys selling it usually are. It is in theory possible to bet on both side of a sports team, with different bookies (different odds) and make money – but the returns are small, the volumes have to be high and the trades have to be many before you can make any money. Also it’s highly likely that if one Bookie gets the odds wrong they will cancel the bet leaving you with one live bet and one cancelled bet!

With Tradesmart you have to spend real money with these guys to have the opportunity to make a little bit of money, and in most cases the profits are overstated and the risks understated. Also once you pay your money you are at the mercy of these guys. When they close up and leave, you are on your own.

My advice is if you have 10k sitting in the bank and want to invest it, then buy gold ;-)

On a side note:
I was at a party last year and got chatting to someone who was telling me he had invested in a product that guaranteed returns but wouldn’t tell me what it was (his little secret investment opportunity, I guess). I said “I hope it’s not Tradesmart!” ‘I managed to screw those bastards down to 6k before I told them I wasn’t interested.’
The blood drained from his face.

Sites compaining about TradeSmart

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/tradesmart-technologies-c66225.html

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/332/RipOff0332289.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/342/RipOff0342847.htm

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/tradesmart-technologies-c59553.html

XT Network SIM PIN's & PUKs

NealR — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 01:57 +1200

The XT Network SIM cards have two levels of access each with their own Personal Identification Number (PIN). When you get these PIN's wrong too many times you then require to use the PIN Unlock Key (PUK) to reset the SIM.

If you get your PIN1 wrong 3 times you then need PUK1 to unlock the SIM. If you get PUK1 wrong 10 times then your SIM becomes "PUKed" and needs to be replaced. These retries are the same for PIN2 and PUK2.

PIN2 is primarily used to access and control functions such as Fixed Dialling numbers.

PIN1 Default - 1234
PIN2 Default - 1234
PUK1 - printed on the SIM card that your SIM was attached to. Also available by calling Telecom.
PUK2 - Available by calling Telecom customer care.

Users are able to change both PIN1 & PIN2. PUK's are unique to a SIM card but cannot be changed.

Kicking Outlook and switching to Mail, iCal & Address Book

lotech — Tue, 7 Jul 2009 03:32 +1200

I used to be a big Outlook user, finding it the only PIM client that kept my life even slightly sorted. I was so tied to Outlook that when I first brought my Intel based Mac, I quickly installed the beta release of Boot Camp, XP and got Outlook going. For the first couple of months of owning a Mac, I ran Windows almost exclusively.
Outlooks IMAP support has always been my single biggest peev. That, and its continued use of a single PST file for all data storage. There a lot of good reasons to not use a single file db, mainly if it corrupts you could loose ALL your previous history from emails to contacts. I have seen more than one person just about cry when they loose all their digital lives thanks to a Windows reinstall and not seeing their well hidden PST file deep in the documents & settings folders.

Of course Outlook being a Microsoft program, export options are nonexistent, unless you wanted to move to, say, Outlook. If so then no worries.
There are commercial applications that can take care of this whole process but I like to do things the free, slightly harder way - so for you all here is a compilation of various steps to take a large PST file to a complete export to iCal, Address Book and Mail.app (or other standard supporting applications on other platforms).
These steps are for Windows XP and Outlook 2007, but should be the same or very similar on Vista.

Getting your email to Mail.app.
This is originally from Schwie’s Pad's blog post, refined by myself.

First you'll need a copy of Outlook Express installed on your XP machine. In our case we're going to use it as a conversion tool and not the just the shittiest email client ever. I would recommend a virgin setup of Outlook Express.
Open Outlook Express, it should detect your other Outlook profile and ask if you want to import the profile. If it doesn't detect Outlook, you can import your mail manually. Under the File menu, choose Import, Messages. Choose Microsoft Outlook.
Choose the default profile and then choose selected folders and choose any folders that have email in them. You can use CTRL to select multiple folders. You do not need to choose contacts or calendars, that is done via other workarounds below.
It should spend sometime slurping through your emails and bringing them into Outlook Express.
Once they are all imported, we now need to access the Outlook Express .dbx email files, these are stored in your Documents & Setting folder on your system drive (probably C:\). Best plan is to enable hidden files (via Tools menu, properties) and then go through the folders from C:\ - in my case it was - C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{D54D6AEB-503D-49E3-BD59-11545746A4D2}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
The two italicized names can be different but you should be able to get there.
Now you'll need a little command line app by Ulrich Krebs called DbxConv.exe. It's freeware and available here. Extract the zip into you Outlook Express folder you just found. This program will convert your email folders from MS's dbx format to the standard mbox format.
Open command line via the Start Menu and Run command - from here type CMD.
Now for the tricky bit, as command line was designed from the days of 8.3 file names theres no real easy way to get your way to a folder buried deep in windows file system - I have discovered though if you type "cd " and then drag the folder icon in the address bar of explorer to the line in command line, it will insert the full folder address in to the command. Press enter and you should be in the same folder as the files you need to convert.

Now in command prompt type this command - dbxconv -mbx *.dbx
Depending on the size of your original pst file it could take a while (up to 20mins). You will see few failed items that don't convert (such as Contacts, calendars, Folders and Offline), you will not need these.
Congratulations - your email is now in a format all reasonable email clients should use - mbox. From here you aren't just limited to Mail.app, other clients support mbox including (ironically) Microsofts own version of Outlook for the Mac, Entourage and the opensource Thunderbird.

Getting your mail into Mail.app

From here you'll want to get your newly created mbx files from windows to your OS-X install. I would recommend taking only the mbox files of previous email folders you want - Inbox.mbx and Sent.mbx being the obvious choices.
Now with them on your Mac, open Mail.app. If this is your first time opening Mail.app, setup your email accounts as you need. Once you're all done there open Import Mailboxes from the File menu.
Choose mbox files and navigate to the folder with your converted mbox emails in them. You can select miltiple mbox files which will be imported as separate folders into Mail.app.
A progress bar later and you should find an IMPORTED folder, and you can now move them as you need to.

Exporting your contacts from Outlook to Address Book
Originally from macosxhints.
As you may have figured out by now, Microsoft makes it as difficult as possible to escape their Office/Exchange ecosystem, either by not including export options or making it as much a convoluted process as they can. For this we will make the files we need by faking an email with all your contacts as attachments - smart.
You can export individual contacts to a vcf file by selecting the contact and choosing Save As under the file menu. This is great for a couple of contacts but not those of us with 1000 odd contacts -

Switch to contacts view in Outlook, Select All contacts (or just the contacts you want to take with you) and the under the Actions menu, Send Full Contacts and then In Internet Format (*.vcf).
Outlook should then make a new email with attachments of all you contacts as usable VCF files. You could email that to yourself but if you have quite a few contacts, it's best to copy the files out the unsent email and into a folder to move manually. Click on one of the vcf file icons in the attachment panes and select all. Drag its icon to an folder in an explorer window.
From here you need to get the folder of vcf files to you mac, open Address Book and drag all the vcf's on to the Address Book window.

Getting your calendar
This is actually the easiest part of the process.

Switch to calendar view in Outlook and select the calendar you want to export.
Under the File menu, choose Save As. ical format should be the default.
Choose more options and set the date range as Whole Calendar, detail on Full, leave the advanced options unticked.
Save.
Again, get the resulting files on to your mac, and then open iCal.
Choose File, Import and choose Import and iCal file
You'll be asked if you want to merge with a previous calendar or make a new one.
Rinse & repeat if you have more calendars.

Things that don't export/import.
Tasks! although these can be imported as an email folder via the Outlook Express method although tasks will be turned into emails as far as Mail.app is concerned.

Unlimited Data Broadband Plan for Consumers Finally!

cyberhub — Tue, 7 Jul 2009 02:44 +1200

It is great to see that Telecom is finally catching up to the rest of the world (for the second time) and is joining Horizon Pacific the other ISP who offers unlimited data on all their broadband connections in providing an unlimited data broadband plan. This change will finally give consumers the ability to choose an unlimited data broadband plan. It is also refreshing that they are being upfront about the fact that if you are on the plan your data is going to be shaped. Shaping is means that they can choose to slow you down your broadband speed if you are downloading a large amount or a particular type of data. This type of plan seems like it is long over- due and I am sure that Telecom will have a large consumer uptake.

For more information on Telecom’s unlimited data broadband plan for consumers click here
For more information about Horizon Pacific’s unlimited data broadband plans for businesses click here

Eat your mind into focus- part 1

DataCraft — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:48 +1200

It is true for a large number of us working in the IT industry that we often neglect the most important machine that we control which is our own body.

Long hours, poor diet and lack of exercise doesn’t make for a very productive worker. So I have asked Kate from Lifespark Nutrition to write me 3 articles over the next 3 weeks that you will hopefully find helpful.

Eat your mind into focus- part 1
Whether you are researching a project, developing websites/ software or just playing a game, we need our minds to be clear and focused. This is where good nutrition comes into play. Many people in the IT industry overlook this crucial factor. Many believe that food is food as long as it fills the hunger gap. Very wrong. Ever wonder why your energy levels are lacking? Feeling cranky or depressed? Feeling unmotivated? Tired? What you put in your mouth has a lot to do with all of these. Ask yourself a few questions simple, commonsense questions :

1.    Do you get your 5 plus per day? This means eating minimum 2 pieces of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables PER DAY, not per week. Fruit and vegetables contain huge amounts antioxidants which fight toxins that we breathe in (from car fumes, smoke etc) and ingest (high fat/sugar, low nutrient foods). Fruit and vegetables also contain fibre, phytonutrients and a range of vitamins and minerals which can’t always be reconstructed to the same effect in a multivitamin pill.

How to get 5 Plus per day?

·    Have a piece of fruit with your breakfast,
·    Have fruit as a morning or afternoon snack or after lunch
·    Swap you ham and cheese toastie at lunch for a sandwich, wrap, kebab, pita bread filled with lettuce, tomato, carrot, cucumber and a bit of protein (egg, tuna, chicken, ham, beans etc)
·    Have a Bowl of vegetable soup (potato doesn’t count as vegetable)
·    At dinner make sure you have two servings of vegetables. 1 serving is 1 cup of mixed vegetables or salad so you need to have two of these. Half your plate should be filled with salad, stirfry veges or steamed vegetables .

If I could recommend one change that you made in your life for the next 2 weeks is get your 5 Plus per day. Your energy levels will increase, you will help sooth any digestion problems, build your immune system and reduce levels of stress or depression. For more tips on how to get your mind ticking faster watch this space for part 2 of the 3 part series.

Responsibility

antoniosk — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 08:15 +1200

Such a powerful word, and yet, Wiktionary has no direct definition. It means to accept that your actions, words and non-actions have an impact somewhere in the world. Many times it's innocuous; my non-action around the rain is irrelevant; my non-action around the rain when the washing is out means the clothes won't be dry,

But everyday, I come across so much lack of responsibility, I wonder if it's endemic in NZ culture.

Working in the UK, I worked with many managers who spoke in platitudes and struggled to make decisions that could be traced back to them (I took them all the time, but eventually started getting into the habit of the locals, as you do). But even so, there was a drive towards succeeding and 'winning', and decisions were made and people did take responsibility.

In recent years while working in NZ, I have found to some people avoidance is an art form; or perhaps it reflects that in a true organisation individuals have very little direct control and rely on others to be responsible before they can to. Perhaps it's just endemic to the industry I work in.

Responsibility means being concious of choices (even when intoxicated, which is no excuse), and acceptance that you chose. Personal growth is accepting the choice, living with it (sucking it up as it were), and not let it hold you back or selfishly affect those around you.

What a delicious, delicate piece of nonsense. It's very easy to say 'take responsibility', and achingly difficult to do it. How many times can one clean up after others? How many times can one work on a project and knowingly ignore a weakness, or state "we'll deal with it in-life"?

I have worked and continue to work with some truly fantastic people who do take responsibility - and in equal measure do not step over the situation of others avoiding it. I have taken poor decisions from previous projects and made them better. I have made poor decisions and affected those around me I care about (but I still affected them). And at worst... I have been impotent when leadership was required, and others stepped in.

But always that word... responsibility. It is humbling. It is awesome if you let it be awesome.

I loved the scene in Men in Black, when Will Smith is telling Tommy Lee Jones 'tis better to have loved and lost etc', when TLJ is looking at a wife he hasn't seen for 20 years. "Try it" he responds, with a look that would freeze lava.

Responsibility. Try it.

Is Your Server Ripping You Off?

cyberhub — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 03:25 +1200

In the 80’s if an organisation with multiple branches wanted computers available to their staff the only option available was to have dumb terminals linking to a server which ran the programs, stored data and did all the processing. The main reason being is that to get any decent computing power out of computers at that time they had to be huge, sometimes taking up whole floors of buildings. However there were other advantages to this type of setup, some of which include; data was centralized and backed up, the dumb terminals were setup so the end users could not wreck anything and there was economies of scale.

Then in the late 90’s PC’s (personal computers) begun getting more and more powerful with the XT, AT/286, 386, 486 etc. Not only were they getting faster but PC’s begun getting more affordable and user friendly with the advent of Microsoft Windows. Point and click made computers easy for any computer novice to be able to use a computer.

Because computers got powerful and affordable enough so almost any program a business required could now be run on the PC. Spreadsheets for Accountants, Word processors for writers, drawing programs for drafters etc almost any program for any purpose has been made. It then made sense for medium to large sized organisations to have local servers, so they could manage, share and backup their data. So the 90’s and 00’s became the two decades of the PC and local server.

The world has now become hugely interconnected with high speed connections available in every country of the world, admittedly New Zealand compared to the other OECD countries is a bit behind on this one, see my article Broadband In New Zealand. However every day this is improving with faster connections available to businesses of the likes of ADSL2+, VDSL, high speed wireless and fiber connections. This has opened the door to the next generation of services available to businesses SaaS (Software as a Service) or hosted solutions.

Hosted solutions is when a provider hosts the service that you require for you on their servers generally in a data center. The next question you or any other business owner would ask themselves now is “Why on earth would I do that?” Well the short answer is that it is easier, secure,
cheaper and is more flexible for you. See article Local vs Hosed Servers to see the true cost of having a local server

Let me give you an example. Hosted Terminal Services is a service where all your programs and files are available to you and your staff from any computer in the world with an internet connection. It is a virtual desktop which you or your staff log into and it is hosted on servers in a secure data centre and it is a hassle free solution as you and your staff do not have to worry about backups, licensing, server maintenance, hardware failure or any of the problems or cost that come with having a local server.

One of my clients is an Accountant in New Zealand and one of his staff members went to China to visit family, while she was away she was able to log into the hosted server and continue working from China. Giving the staff member job satisfaction and giving the business owner added productivity.

The main point which always gets business owners attention is most of the time when all the costs are added up a hosted terminal services solution is cheaper and more flexible solution than having your own local server setup because of virtualization and economies of scale.

Dan Ballard is an IT Business Development Manager and specializes in providing technology services and solutions businesses and organisations.

Two Degrees Mobile starts TV advertising with Rhys Darby

freitasm — Sun, 5 Jul 2009 07:00 +1200

New Zealand's newest mobile network, Two Degrees Mobile, finally coming into the public view with a prime time ad with Rhys Darby of The Flight of the Conchords fame. As expected there's a discussion on Geekzone, and here is the ad:

Moving from Telecom CDMA to Telecom XT

freitasm — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 05:54 +1200

After using a Telecom XT SIM card that was sent to me for review I finally decided to move my personal account from their CDMA network to the new XT Network.

A couple of reasons why I did the move: first, moving to equivalent plans I'd be paying about 50% less than on my previous plan - and no term contract!

Second, there are no queues in store now. Moving plans took all of five minutes. I inserted the new SIM card in my handset just after I signed the paperwork - and it was working already. It means my change to XT Network happened even before I moved away from the desk.

Good job!

PS. Now I remember a third reason: I don't need to carry my personal handset and a test handset anymore.

Linkification v42

RedJungle — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 22:23 +1200

News / Web Happenings:

Mobile phone giants agree on universal charger
Firefox 3.5 Officially Available for Download
Firefox 3.5 Portable Available for Download
Gmail Attachment Size Upped to 25MB
Windows 7 gets"Apple style" guided tours
Skype 3.0 for Windows Phones
ComCom to investigate mobile roaming charges
'Asteroids' heading towards the big screen?
HTC Magic Back on Sale - What a bizarre incident
YouTube Uploads Doubled to 2GB, HD Embeds and Linking Added
Microsoft May Sell Windows 7 on Flash Drives
Windows 7 Beta Shutdowns Begin Today - If you're still running a BETA build, make sure you update to RC now.
Gmail Gives Labels the Folder Treatment
Pirate Bay Planned for Purchase, May Start "Compensation Model"
Skype 4.1 for Windows goes gold
Hotmail Rolls Out Incoming Pop3 to U.S. and Other Customers

General / Neat Stuff:

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts
Windows Longhorn's Aero Snap, circa 2005

Development:

45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires
Sign up for Tech Ed before 31 July and be in to win - Interesting that last year TechEd sold out in three weeks.. this year they're giving away prizes as incentives to buy tickets! State of the economy perhaps?
Google Analytics on your Mobile Phone

Apple:

Steve Jobs back to work at Apple
Skype 1.1 for iPhone and iPod touch out now - Still no push notifications?
Apple patching nasty iPhone SMS vulnerability
Vodafone New Zealand confirms 10 July launch date for iPhone 3GS
iPhone OS 3.1 beta now available for developer community

FAIL of the week:

Luggage Container Fail

Breast is not always best.

psycik — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 20:31 +1200

Recently my wife and I had a little boy. Due on the 7th of May he came two days early by emergency caesarean. Because of the emergency c-section my wife didn't go through many of the traditional labour experiences (labour pains etc) some would say that's fortunate. What relevance that may have I'm not sure.

Anyway. Being a c-section birth means you stay in hospital longer while they make sure the major surgery the mother has been through heals properly. For this we were thankful.

The nurses and midwives at Lower Hutt hospital were excellent, from taking our unsettled baby in the middle of the night so my wife could sleep, to the burping tips and positions, to the countless pieces of advice on breast feeding. Which brings me to my point....

New Zealand and it seems Wellington in particular have very low breast feeding rates. So much so that the New Zealand government has a advertising campaign running at the moment (targeting Maori and Pacific Islanders it seems) to encourage breast feeding. Also the world health organisation is very pro breast feeding as well.

I Don't have a problem with this. If you can why not, it's free, nothing to sterilise, they're always with the mother in their handy and rather attractive containers.

But the problem comes if for whatever milk production is slow in coming. Remember how I said we didn't go through a lot of the normal labour process? Well this may have been a factor as the body releases hormones during birth to tell the body its having a baby. Any way, short version after trying for the first three days to breast feed and struggling somewhat, the baby was weighed he had lost 10.6% of his birth weight. 10% is the magic number they want the baby to stay under, as pretty much all babies loose some weight at birth.

So after finding his weight had dropped a little too much the midwives wanted my wife to express to give the baby some extra after breast feeding. This all sounded logical. But what followed was 5 hours of 'stuff being done to my boobs'.

Expressing can take three forms, and from most effective to least effective is the baby suckling, a breast pump and hand expressing. Over the course of the next 5 hours my wife had all three of these methods applied. There had been earlier attempts to hand express from some of the other midwives but the one that did it this day was particularly rough. Leaving my wife very sore. And so at the end of 5 hours when she offered to hand express again my wife said NO!

'We want to top him up with formula'.

You would have thought that we said we wanted to boil and eat the boy. After trying to talk us out of it and persist with the had expressing/breast pump, we were told 'there is a form to fill out'. Ya what!?! You're kidding right??!?!? No. Well bring it then and lets get going.

40mls he drank, the poor little guy was starving! 40 mls is a lot when your stomach is the size of a 20 cent coin (about 15mm). So for the next 24 hours he was topped up after breast feeding, having 10 - 20mls at a time. And when he was weighed 24 hours later he had put on weight. Another 24 hours and another weight gain - time to leave the hospital. Now he is breast fed exclusively, so even though we skirted the dark side by using formula we continue to breast feed the baby (I'm using the collective 'we' here btw!!).

The trouble is this isn't an isolated incident, why is it so difficult use formula, even to the point where it is detrimental to the baby. I know of another story where twins has lost of 20% of their birth weight. Still the hospital would not feed formula. In this particular story, the parents checked out of hospital early and put the babies on formula, where they now thrive.

A third story I just heard where the baby was taken to special care with a rash, turns out the mother had no breast milk and the baby had not fed. When the nurses came back into the mothers room she sat her down and said "your baby has not fed to 2 days", in shock the mother didn't reply, the nurse repeated, "your baby has not fed in 2 days", and just stood there, what is she to say, FEED HER THEN!!. Thank you the nurse says, 'we cannot offer formula, but you can ask for it' - I mean WTF is up with that. Here is a baby that is obviously sick, dehydrated, mother is in distress, and yet still she has to ask for. This is what I don't agree with.

The ad campaign and posters that surround you are fine, antenatal classes also push breast feeding, so you hear it all through the pregnancy. But to make any other option so difficult I find to be a very bad practice. You are made to feel a failure (well not me, but the mother is), and this isn't good either, it's not always the mothers fault she cannot breast feed.

Anyway, rant over, our boy is a healthy breast fed baby, still growing, still putting on weight, and that's all that matters.

Open Letter to John Key re Anti-Smacking Referendum

dmw — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:51 +1200

Dear Mr Key

In April 2007, you wrote a letter to all parties in which you said:

"I simply believe it is bad law for Parliament to pass a piece of legislation outlawing an activity absolutely, and then expect the Police not to prosecute minor breaches."

After your unpopular u-turn to compromise with Labour and support a "bad law" (by your own definition), you, Sue Bradford and others are trying to diffuse the issue (by complaining about the question and claiming that the "law is working") and dismiss the result, even before we've voted.

A far more prudent stance would be for the government to announce that a majority "NO" vote would be regarded as a clear mandate to replace the "bad law" with the Chester Borrows' amendment that was proposed in 2007, but you lacked the numbers in Parliament to achieve. This would

avoid National inheriting the "Nanny State" mantle from Labour,
earn you kudos for listening to the public, and
remove from good parents the fear of State kidnapping of their children.

We're waiting to see if this is the first government that listens to the people (other than at election time).