Attempting to install Google earth (Free) today into a custom OS resulted in severe pain as the old primary download had gone and been replaced with a "Download manager" which installed itself and then installed Google Earth on top, It would not install on my Custom OS but I still wanted Google earth.

I have never liked those "webstallers" so here is the actual link to get the proper stand alone installer obtained through sniffing and virtualization. (I love Virtualization)

http://74.125.10.20/edgedl/earth/client/GE5/release_5_1_0/GoogleEarth-Win-5.1.3509.4636.exe


Avast and Chrome were also doing the same thing, I'll post about these later.

I have been offline for quite some time due to be extremely busy in other areas, I have been composing tech-thoughts, tips, tweaks, application reviews and other goodies like the return of the mini-reviews which will be drip fed over the coming weeks.

The blog will be PC and mobile focussed.

What won't return: "bad pizza", "horrible company X" and other junk unless they are just too good to be true,  they were mostly audience and google-juice tests and whilst they got surprisingly good hits they won't return, not here at least.


Enjoy.

Source - Telecom Media

One-Rate (anywhere, anyone, anytime)
No peak or off-peak distinction any longer. No same-network or other-network pricing.
All calls will be charged at one rate, anytime of the day or night.
Prepaid calling calculated as 89c per minute from example given under "per-second rounding"

Share-Calling
Allows you to have a group of mobiles under one plan.
Calls are charged at one price set and calling between the group mobiles are free.

Per-second rounding for all
All calls will be charged per-second after the first minute, for example a 1:05 call on prepay will cost 97c instead of $1.78

No-Shock
If you buy 100 minutes for $30 (pricing example only) giving you an effective per-minute rate of 30c then any minutes used over the included 100 minutes are still just 30c, not a higher "penalty" rate.

T-World
The new wap portal, hopefully offers something more exciting than "ringtones" and "wallpapers" and actually offers something decent like TV show-on-demand or LIVE TV!
DRM-free music store would also be greatly recieved.


Also hinted

A data usage plan of $1 for up to 10MB per day similar to Vodafone's plan.

Access and certain exclusivities to popular sites like Facebook, bebo, youtube, myspace etc.
I created my own butt-ugly "portal" many moons ago just in case I ever had the need or needed to test with most of the mentioned sites (and coded-out orcons stupid ad-banners too)

There have been no annoucements in regards to SMS yet. I assume that $10 TXT will continue for now.





Note:
All current CDMA prices including rounding methods will remain the same, I highly doubt they will allow CDMA customers to transfer their call plans to the new network though i'd love to take my Flexi mytime plan across.

ANZ's internet banking has been getting out of date for some time now and I have been looking forward to some updates to it so when I spotted that there were to be some changes I was excited.

What a dissappointment I was greeted with instead:

What's changing?

The first change you'll notice will be the addition of promotional banners that will appear on the main balances and transaction screen as well as transaction receipt pages (when you've finished a Pay Anyone or Bill Payment). These banners will keep you updated on ANZ products, services and other information that may be useful to you:

No, I'm sorry, These banners are quite unwanted and make it look like free webmail. The fact I'm paying $5 a month too when I could get it free at another bank really rubs it in.

I have 3 other accounts with other banks which are free (ASB,Westpac,Kiwibank) and they have refrained from insertion of advertising.

I have uploaded the XT videos onto YouTube as the performance of the primary www.testdrive.co.nz site video playback challenges even the most recent machines flash performance.


Telecom XT Network Teaser Video


Telecom XT Network Full branding Video


Telecom Paul Reynolds Thanking Customers for the big year Video

* upadate, looks like we have a reprieve, well at least a delay. blog will survive but i'll still be removing the glut of rants from it (apart from the pizzahut and kfc ones as they were put up mostly for amusement and "as a community anocement to entice dieting and healthy lifestyles") ;-D

The tech articles will stay and the colours will change.

enjoy and may I still be able to stream an mp3 and watch a youtube video


Due to this draconian pig of a law that is will make us the most policed nation in the world I'm going to do something very drastic, disconnect my internet which also involves pulling down this blog and other connected stuff. My main PC has just failed and I won't be investing in replacing it, it's just no longer worth it.

I don't download illegal content but I cannot risk having my internet pulled from under me if relied upon just because some greedy horrible corporate "suspected" I downloaded something they paid the artist $0.03c for.

Will be gone by Feb 28th if the Section 92a passes into law, if you want to save anything, do it now.
have a nice day :-(

The call for change and wind of change has proved successful for National taking approx 46% leaving labour at about 34% and wel enough for National to take Parliment alone. Labour and also the Leader Helen clark finally conceded at about 11:30PM tonight. Helen Clark has now officially stood down as leader of Labour.

New Zealand first lost it's Tauranga seat leaving them out of parliment however Progressive and United future both held their local seats allowing them to remain.

National 46%
Labour 34%
Greens 6%
Act 4%
NZfirst 4%
Maori 2%
Progrssive 1%
United Future 1%
Bill + Bens 0.5%

I had pedicted the Obama election in the US had a lot of people pushing for the change hence the clear majority, Before the Obama election, I pitted Red and Blue to be pretty close but after the Obama election and the "wind of change" in the air, most had metioned they wanted to see something different even if they did not agree with all the opposition's views. What I did notice quite vividly was there weren't any bold policies, this is possibly a result from the global credit crunch.

I think change will be a good thing but lets's not see any more repeat state-asset sale repeats or privatisation attempts, Look at current scary power prices, huge profits and the rotting network as a good example, another are the trains, driven into the ground and closed up.

Let's not push more essential services and profits into private hands, usually siphoned off overseas.



References:

tvnz.co.nz (Superb coverage), nzherald.co.nz and some other local sources.


OFFICIAL results...
http://www.electionresults.org.nz/

An employee outside Dominoes Pizza in Johnsonville Wellington tonight spotted spitting on the pavement beside the front door.... I wonder how much makes it into the food?

I (being my typical loud, obnoxious self) yelled out to them, "ewwwwww, YUCK! glad I aint eating there!

I was heading into Burgerfuel next door and getting another superb product as always, Bugerfuel have earned Hall-of Fame status.

*Mobile network Virtual operator - A virtual operator with their own plans, phones but running on another network, in this case: Vodafone.


Finally Black and White have released into the market with some not so cutting edge plans at the low end (costs are actually more expensive than most prepaid offers in the market (89c vs 60c but no monthly fee) but better plans at the higher end but thay also have a few cool devices at sensible prices.

They do offer a bunch of similar "addons" similar to Vodafone's "You Choose" and "Supa Prepay" offers.

Also Black+White have a "no strings" policy with no forced fixed term contracts which is to be applauded in this current realm of the "forced contract" even when byo your own hardware.
"
I find them to offer a very similar approach to Revolution Telecom, a prepaid "cut price""no strings" provider in Australia.

Freedom. 1998-1998?
Remember the first revolutionary "No Hooks" no credit expiry date plan and chunky "Refurbished" 025 Motorola that was sold via The Warehouse.

Lasted about a year and suddenly went belly up.

GOLD. 1999-2004
After the failure of Freedon, The Warehouse introduced GOLD which was a similar system of one everyday rate and no credit expiry.

GOLD mobiles had the billing changed from GOLD to Telecom and then were integrated into Telecom mobiles in about 2004 and the brand was withdrawn.


X-Cell. 1999-2005
Launched via Trustpower it later lived on being sold under Sky. Unicall, Reach
Became Reach mobile in is dying days and met the same demise as Reach wireless

Phones suddenly stopped working in 2005 just like their wireless network and still remained half-connected but with no billing platform.


Pulsate. 2001-2002
Devised by Telecom to make 025 "cool" and has sponsorships, DJ events and a really neat web portal for it's day. It also introduced the hack to SMS to 021 mobiles and a 1c texing promo after 9PM

Pulsate was a standard Telecom Prepaid device anyway and simply became "Boost"


Boost. 2002-2007
An international "youth brand" introduced by Telecom to replace the in-house Pulsate brand it offered a range of text plans but lacked the awesome website offered by it's predesessor, It became famous for sponsoring Hip-Hip and was an on-net plan (027-027) priced.

Was withdrawn for the market late 2007 but the SMS-on-net plan still exists and is avialable to all Telecom customers as "boostTXT"

Telstra. 1998-2007
Vodafone resold plans under 029 numbers and not a true MNVO.

It all fell apart in 2007 and they defected to Telecom late 2007, this "new network" is nothing new by the way.

Telstra 2007
The only current MNVO that actually holds service. Runs upon the existing CDMA network.
Nice plans too that offer great rates and no "free minute scams with overage penalties"





So far all MNVO's ahve been through Telecom.

Hopefully this new wave of the Virtual Operators can make a success.

Ok.. where do I start.

0197 is doing weird things.

0197 then a normal number, Connects, but ID is passed through to both terminating cell and landline, wtf?
0197 then an 0800 number, call connects then terminates instantly.
#31# DOES work.
Response from Vodafone "0197 is not supported" ugh...

Calling 777 from the mobile , works about 25% of the time, network connects the session but the call hits the switch and just ends instantly similar to the 0197 bugs. happening since friday.

Cannot top up two of the module prepay simcards where the credit had simply expired on the 60 days (old supaprepay exp) via recharge voucher, dialling 777 from the simcard (when I FINALLY got a successful connection) said "you are barred from topping up by recharge card" and then the call is dumped on to the credit card top up menu, but guess what.....
(vodafone's response.... they don't have a clue on how to "unbar" the connections to let me top them up)

Credit card top ups are not working!!! ARGH.

Checked Manage your account online so see if I could fix it there. Logged in successfully,
Click on "accout details,... Blank screen: Firefox, opera and Microsoft Internet explorer.

So much for "use our automated self-service options" FIX THEM!!!!!!!!

Now you are trying to charge us to call the helpdesk, you really should be making sure these self-service things WORK.

Vodafone do the occasional great moves like Bestmate and the $1 for 10MB cap and there is a "network status update" in the 777 menu that ought to be applauded but they really need to look at this system and the network components of theirs which is obviously a pile of $%^$%.

The sooner somebody releases a CDMA2000 or 850MHz module to replace the Siemens MC series, the better.

I'd say the government should look into them but the resulting info might be passed on to Jamie Lockett and co.


But finally: I just called 0800 800 021 and spoke to a local staff member whom provided excellent service, I will ensure this is made known to her superior.

INFO
If you want an older prepay plan or want to change back, switch now!

QUOTE:
From 1 August 2008 you will no longer be able to switch on to our classic plans - Motormouth, Nights & Weekends or Anytime.

Of course in the beginning it could have all been kept simple, kept the same 3 plans and allowed the new addons but as the famous quote goes... "It' used confusion as it's chief marketing tool"

What is the catch with supa prepay?
The minutes are rounded UP to the nearest minute, a call running for 1:03 will cost  2 minutes.

Telecom prepay also follow this minute by minute practice.
Telecom monthly billing phones onebill and flexi charge per second after the first minute.
Telecom allow all customers to have the $10 TXT cap and the 450 free SMS are for all NZ networks.

Also as announced more widely - from the 1st August, there will be a $1 charge to call customer services from Prepay, We hope their billing issues are sorted by then and that they activate the call summary in tthe web based MYA so people can monitor their balance and transactions without charge.

Three Two methods

Method 1 -- Offline Sim swap.
Requires a non-VodafoneNZ Simcard.
Original attempt 13:20.07-11-2008, unsuccessful, 13:36.07-11-2008 Bingo!!!!!!

1. Insert a non-specified* Sim into the iphone, I used an old 02 simcard
2. Wait about 20 seconds for SIM initialisation, phone will indicate.
3. Head to :  Menu > Settings > General > Network > and stay on this screen.
4. Remove this SIM.
5. Insert a SIM from VodafoneNZ (53001) and again wait for about 20 seconds for service.
6. Click on [Cellular data connection] now.
7. Under APN name, change the "iphone.vodafone.net.nz" to "www.vodafone.net.nz" or "internet" if you do not wish to see compressed images.
8. Hit Save.

You can now access data using your standard data plan including the PrePay $1 for 10MB pricing or the other open-term pricing plans.

Method 2 Really easy web config.
Requires an internet connection.

LennonNZ has made a fantastic page on Unlockit.co.nz

Method 3 The one which didn't work!!!!
Config the phone HERE.
Original attempt, 9:01.07-11-2008 AM Friday 11th July - Failed, 10:12.07-11-2008 aborted.




* Specified Carriers.

Claro_cl
Claro_sv
Comcel_co
EMT_ee
Hutchison_hk
Hutchison_mo
Mobistar_be
Optimus_pt
Optus_au
Orange_ch
Orange_li
Orange_pl
Orange_ro
Orange_sk
SingTel_sg
Softbank_jp
Sonera_fi
TIM_Italy
TMobile_nl
Telcel_mx
Telia_se
Telstra_au
Vodafone_cz
Vodafone_it
Vodafone_nz
Vodafone_pt
movistar_cl
movistar_co
movistar_ec
Telefonica_es
movistar_gt
movistar_pe
movistar_sv
movistar_uy



Please Tell me if you have no joy..

Here we go again!!!!!

I have borrowed a simcard from a friend in case iGrab an iPhone tonight (iAborted) and suddenly it all came flowing back why I'm no longer a Vodafone customer.

Got a SMS from (Vodafone) when I powered it up "Fm 1Aug it will be $1 per call to talk to Cust Service on Prepay. You can still manage yr mob free online. For other ways 2manage yr mob &more info freecall 440"

Called 440, Iwas charged regular airtime rates!!!!! (this sim is on the old 89c anytime plan)

I did get my money back but this is pretty bad, a very high percentge of what Vodafone does ends up overcharging users.

I'm very worried about the iPhone launch tomorrow.




*update, it seems Vodafone figured out the mistake and credited the affected customer back the following day and sent an sms to advise them of the fault, it's commended they fixed it quickly.

The railways are once again back in government ownership, in very nostalgic livery i might add, I'm very pleased with the colours chosen.








Rail is efficient, a LOT more efficient.

Low friction - it's a smooth wheel rolling over a smooth level surface.
VS Tyres rolling along a rough road producing heat etc.

Common speed  - Once the train is chugging away, it's just got to maintain a constant speed.
VS, lights, towns, hazards, morons in suv's and the like.

Few hills, gradual turns - Once up to speed it's almost a flat surface to chug along.
VS lots of steep hills, lots of narrow windy roads in good ol NZ.

Low maitainance - once the track is laid, it requires very little upkeep and can last for centuries.
VS road that ripup, flood out, melt in the sun etc after only a few years.

Easy and safe to operate in any weather - In ths day and age it could be made almost autonomonous.
VS driving a truck with stress, rain slips, ice, night and annoying drivers all over the roads.

Safe - Apart from cows, volcanoes and morons trying to skip the level crossings rail is very event free.
VS blown tyres, crashes, slips, ice, oil and the other roading dangers.

Electric - Electric trains are amazingly efficient compared to any fossil fuel powered machine, you could put up a pile of windmills and power the trains off those.
VS fossil fuels, governed by a pile of offshore fatcats whom are doing very well for themselves right now.

Easy to load/unload - These aint the old wagon days, you cn now just shove a container quickly on to a train, just drop, move drop move drop move drop with some automaed gantry thing, I made it in lego in the 80's so it can be easily made in real life..

Trucks are also easy to unload/load and are more movable, trucks will complement the trains for this, trains-longhaul, trucks-shorthaul and will still have a very valid place in the infrastructure for years to come.

They need to embrace their new tool, make a system of getting containers on to wagons at fast pace though a grantry system which can just line up and drop,  then a loco hauls away the string to the final spot.



Why all this noise, are we not just going back to the dark ages? well in a way we are....
Wind back a few (20) years when gas prices last went through the roof, rail was the golden goose. Much of the main truck was electrified, rail was pushed (I have seen a poster from the day promoting the efficiency of rail) Gas prices then plummeted in the late 80's and the trains were hocked off early 90's and road transport became economically viable again. Back then trains needed sidings to load the induvidual containers with crates and boxes and time consuming offloading too and now containerisation is here it makes much more sense to bring back rail.


Anyhow...

As much as I's a rail buff and love watching these things thunder along, Trucks are cool, mean, big and a lot of pride is taken by their owners to induvidualise thei truck, (trains are petty bland really when you compare them) Trucks certainly have their purpose , i give them the right of way on roads, they serve a purpose and are usually very considerate on the roads unlike those SUV's

I do not agree with the governments position, gouging them for road user charges, a sour move, good one with the rail then they bring this in. Let the Truckies get their final years on the longhaul and give them a chance to ADAPT to the new ways, times are going to get pretty tough for them anyway with gas prices without being stung on top of it with about 20% in 2 years (sounds like the rates and electricity companies doesn't it) They can do some other delivering, electric last-mile possibly? Build some decent roads if you put up the prices, asphalt is economic short-sighted crap, slightly cheaper to deploy with a proven shockingly short service life, does anyone notice the the old concrete roads built in the 40's are still perfectly usable?

I won't post any links as I'm tight for time but there are a lot of reductions around, a lot probably selling off beloe cost to make End of year sales look rosier, some pretty amazing deals at certain places.

I was trying to make some Greasemonkey code for the horrid "javascript:nopopup" links that infest Telecom.co.nz. that prevent me from using multiple tabbed browsing on their website (PLEASE fix this horrible glitch) and then something caught my eye when I got sidetracked and looked at roaming prices........ "My Favourites"  lurking underneath roaming in the sidebar... aka a flat-fee calling plan similar to Vodafone's Bestmate offer that you can you can add to your Telecom post paid mobile. (I'm assuming this offer is actually valid and supposed to be released, I took a screenshot just in case!)

It's similar to Vodafone's BestMate flat-fee offer but the main difference is the Telecom offer allows you to nominate Telecom landlines as well as Telecom mobiles, but it is for Voice only (sms/mms etc is NOT included)

The Favourite numbers are $6 each, maximum of 3 numbers per line, available on certain monthly plans and not available on prepaid (yet?). It includes standard voice calls only originating from your mobile to the specified chosen numbers which will then be free for up to 60 minutes per call. The specified numbers can be any "Telecom landline" or "Telecom mobile" which obviously includes numbers than have been ported in to Telecom's network.


I made a quick table outlining the differences.....


Vodafone Bestmate(tm)                                       Telecom My Favourites(tm?)

Vodafone mobile numbers only                             Telecom Mobile or landline numbers
$6,$6,$6 (prepay) $6, $10,$12 (on-account)          $6,$6,$6 (on-account) N/A Prepay
Unlimited* calling, Unlimited Duration                    Unlimited* calling max 60Min per call
Calling, VidCalling, SMS, MMS-on account only         Voice Calling only
Provisioning, PrePpay-Auto OnAccount-Man             Manual provisioned

*Fair use policy applies to both offers, it's not a baby monitor.

In short, Telecoms offer is definately great and it also includes landlines.
The Vodafone offer is a bit more comprehensive though with included SMS/MMS(mms bestmate on-account only) allowances and unlimited duration calls.

You can not have Telecom's "My Favourites" on a prepaid mobile but you can nominate one to call from yours.


If it were me? (alert - this is just my opinion)
I would have made "Freedom" a "two-way" SMS, MMS, calling.  offer available on mobiles or landines and called this offer just "Favourite" a one-way only option with the same terms.

I got ADSL provisioned due to the cable price rises and horribly slow bandwidth and endless youtube buffering made it economic to look for alternatives.

While I have both provisioned, I did some testing just after the peak time (at 7pm tonight, Cable was unusably slow)


Services.....
ADSL: 6Mbps down - 800Mbps up ADSL1 service as I am a long distance from the exchange.
I'm using a standard PTC approved Nokia ADSL master line filter I got with the M10 back in the dark days. (remember those?)
Due to ADSL restraints, the upload speed is slower than the cable.

Plan, Telecom Broadband pro advanced 30GB (8Mbps/800Mbps)

Cable: 4Mbps down, 2Mbps. our line is capable of only 5Mbps if we subscribe to the 10Mbps plan..

Plan, Telstraclear highspeed 10G (4Mbps/2Mbps)

Hardware.....
Cable, Standard Motorola modem directly coupled to PC Rj45.
ADSL 3com Officeconnect 3crwdr101a-75 with PC on RJ45 Lan.




Results were rather surprising:

Local test initially so you can see what the networks are capable of in their home country. Thanks WXC for providing this stable reliable test server in Auckland. Both networks perform as they are described.. a good result from both. My cable is capable of 6Mbps.

NZ - Auckland Worldxchange test server

Cable - 3713Kbps

ADSL - 5596Kbps



This test is about what is expected, The cable is a 4Mbps 10G plan.
The connection performs locally well.






Australia - Sydney

Cable - 2781Kbps


ADSL - 5804Kbps



This test shows up in stark contrast whst is wrong with the cable networ here. There seems to be some issue with international throughput. I had to do this test 3 times to get a plausable result from the cable as it was peaking at 900Kbps earlier.


Australia - Melbourne

Cable - 2080Kbps


ADSL - 5582Kbps



This result is the best result I got thus far.
I did this test a number of times on the cable and this was the best result... others were.... 919, 539, 684, 725.
This was also the slowest result I got for the ADSL.


New York

Cable - 769Kbps


ADSL - 2690Kbps


Aigh. No wonder Youtube sits in buffer mode half the time.


UK - London

Cable - 631Kbps


ADSL - 1392Kbps



This was the BEST contrasting result I could come up to make cable look even slightly good for the UK.

I did another test and Cable:548 and ADSL:2967
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286623176.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286623121.png

I was browsing a UK online supermarket (I was checking the price of NZ butter in the UK versus what we are charged locally, $4.99NZ abnd $5.50 UK converted) and it was like using dial-up. This result proves why.





RESULT...

Telstra, fix your network, you are charging among the highest prices for possibly the slowest service in the country and have just raised the pricing with no service gain and currently trumpeting your service as "better" "compared to Telecom" on letters and bus-stop ads and these results currently show the total opposite.
NOTE: I was on the 10Mbps-20G plan but the speed was no better than 5Mbps so I downgraded and noticed it actually speed up, a little.

Cable does have advantages. You do not need a phoneline to have the service (more on this later) Upload speed is twice as fast, the actual connection is generally reliable due to the fact of less performance variables with 15 year old Coax than with 30-60 year old copper wires in many cases, a static IP is standard, local latency is good but often not as good as a solid non-interleaving ADSL connection.. but, something is wrong with the network and this is showing starkly.

Cable is good for local traffic it appears, a solid 4Mbps in and 2Mbps out but international throughput is stuffed.













*Today - Sunday 22nd June I did more testing, Conditions are no more favourable than yesterday, the modem has now been on for 22 hours continuous also. Same test configurations, EEEpc 900 on the cable, main PC on the DSL.


1935H Sunday 22nd June 08

Australia - Melbourne

Cable-Telstraclear 2280Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 2984Kbps

Australia - Sydney

Cable-Telstraclear 3477Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 3301Kbps

US - New York

Cable-Telstraclear 1086Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 868Kbps

US - Los Angeles

Cable-Telstraclear 1896Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 1421Kbps

UK - London

Cable-Telstraclear 859Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 1175Kbps

Download test averages for an mp3 file from an http sute.
Cable: 40.7K
ADSL: 63.3

Suddenly the international speed on cable has increased to something amazing for no explainable reason, more testing needed.



Again Tests, Monday 23rd June 2008.... 2242 Hours (10:40 at night)\


New Zealand - Auckland

Cable-Telstraclear 4010Kbps (capped at 4Mb due to current plan so Cable is not "losing")

ADSL-Telecom 4871Kbps (capable of about 6Mb theoretical )

Australia - Melbourne

Cable-Telstraclear 1083Kbps bad ping too 605mS

ADSL-Telecom 3141Kbps ping 94mS

Australia - Sydney

Cable-Telstraclear 2236Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 3385Kbps

US - New York

Cable-Telstraclear 1350Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 1100Kbps

US - Los Angeles

Cable-Telstraclear 1376Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 1467Kbps

UK - London

Cable-Telstraclear 1033Kbps

ADSL-Telecom 1185Kbps


Tonight at 11Pm, they are on par with each other.

Thanks to all the people whom left comments on my last posting about tweaking settings.
Here is a guide to getting the maps working successfully and using it as a cut-price mapping GPS (without auto-navigation)

Obtain a Nokia 6275.
Get a large SD card (they are cheap-as now so get a fast 1GB or 2GB) do not buy a larger or an SDHC, it will not work.

Collect the maps from:
(I may upload these locally)

Smaller maps, Main cities only  190MB Password is "geekzone"
ftp://geekzone@gwachigaan.com@gwachigaan.com/MGMapsCacheV1.2.zip

Larger 500Mb maps All of NZ 500MB Password is "geekzone"
ftp://geekzone@gwachigaan.com@gwachigaan.com/MGMapsCacheNZ.zip

Put the memory card into a PC,
make a folder like "a gps" to put the application and maps in.

Copy the map contents to the memory card into E:\a gps\MGMapsCache\ (E:\ is your memory card root directory) ensure you are not copying them to E:\a gps\MGMapsCache\MGMapsCache\

Select the entire folder and "hide all" files and folders using windows which will ask you "apply to all subfolders and files" tick YES.

put SD card back into the phone.

You need to download the offical "N95 signed version" of the MGMAPS application from the website.

http://wap.mgmaps.com/mgmaps_n95.jad
Doing this will cost you about $2.50 - $3.00 in Wap datacharges.

Save the Java file to some logical folder on the memorycard along that is not nested in another folder.
Open MGmaps on the device by heading into gallery, memorycard, a gps and run the mgmaps java app you just downloaded.

Allow to load, disallow network access.

Press left softkey, Press [7] for settings (pressing navigator select may not work)

Go into "Map browsing" (use usual select key)

Set options as following.

Map browsing settings:
[X] Remember pos
[X] Enhanced Panning
[ ] Low Memory
[X] Zip KML results
[X] Stored Maps
[X] Offline mode
Storage path:
E/a gps/MGMapsCache
Memory Cache (kB)
256

Save all settings, Head back one level,

Open "GPS SETUP"

go into "select device"

Select Internal (should already be active)

go back one level
Select "Mobile tracking"

Set as following.
Show your position on the phone:
[X] Show marker
[X] Move map
[X] Move at startup
[ ] 5Hz refresh
Refresh (sec):
1
Auto enable (sec):
30

The last option will take you and move the map back to the GPS location if you don't press any keys for 30 seconds after moving around, you can change this (I have it set to 320s)


Take the phone outside with clear wide view of the sky and await 10 minutes. press the "9" key and it should zoom in on your GPS location if not done automatically. Each lock thereafter will take between 2-5 minutes.
You can add extras to the main screen like Lat/Lon, speed and the like under "display"

Keys,

[5] changes between "joystick mode" and "normal mode

when joystick mode is active pressing the keys around like a game pad moves the map around
[1][2][3]
[4][5][6]
[7][8][9]


When joystick mode is not active the keys to the following
[1] Nothing
[2] Nothing
[3] Nothing
[4] Save favourite at current location
[5] Joystick mode toggle
[6] Compass
[7] rotaes map around
[8] Fullscreen/menubar toggle.
[9] Moves map to GPS location

Telstraclear is to increase their prices for the Cable broadband service.

Hispeed (4Mbps) plans are to rise $5 per month
Lightspeed (10Mbps) plans are to rise $10 per month

It's starting to look quite expensive at $116 for broadband 20G and phoneline.
Vodafone are offering 20GB Broadband+homephone for $90
Worldxchange offer 20GB Broadband+VoIP homephone also for $91.
and of course don't scorn the Vodafone home phone boxes at $25 and $40.

This is a rather foolish move, Customers will be certainly be considering moving across with all the great deals, Just as a large number migrated when Telecom had the "bubble" fiasco last year..
$90 or $116? not a hard choice.

I'll put up some info about plans tomorrow or check out www.nzconnection.net which has some awesome info on all the options available. I think I'll be switching to cheaper options now.