Sonys NZ website today decided that Opera 8.0 is not a 'Version 4.0 browser or better', and refused to show me some content!

Get with the program Sony... (read the entire post)...

Sony Ericsson has announced the upcoming launch of its first phone to be branded with the Cyber-shot moniker.

3.2MP and autofocus. Yes - autofocus, now we are starting to get serious about camera phones. To all those people who say "I dont want a cameras phone, if I want a photo i'll use a real proper digital camera", well folks - this is a real proper digital camera. It will have the same image quality for your holiday snaps at 6"x4", with the same sharpness and correct brightness as your Cybershot you bought last year at duty-free for $485 (by the way, most cameras are cheaper in stores in New Zealand on special than in duty free).



I do know a large number of people who after have a camera as their primary concern when buying cellphones for a couple of years, have since 'upgraded' to models without cameras, citing the fact that they dont use them much, and I must admit that the 0.3MP unit on my ageing badly Nokia 6255 gets very little use, and (read the entire post)...

I have an XF Falcon ute with lots of modifications under the bonnet (and just some classy stainless Cragars, Wine red metallic paint & a 2 1/2" drop on the outside). I want to get some more information about the power my Ford is putting to the road. A quick trip to FordForums.com.au tells me I probably need a "Dyno run".

I dont know much about Dynos (my limited knowledge tells me that can give you a torque/power readout, and tell you the rear wheel kilowatts (rwkw) of your ride).

So off I went to Google (Google is my friend), and found this site:
http://www.dyno.com.au/faq.htm
Which, I quickly discovered, has a FAQ section, which in itself is not overly unusual, but what I did find strange was that you cannot download any of the faqs. You must contact them and request email or fax delivery of a certain faq, and tell them why, and you are specifically disallowed from requesting all their faqs.

Very odd...

a RAFAQ (Rarely An (read the entire post)...

Well, at 9.46pm tonight I went to http://www.stats.census2006.govt.nz and filled out our census forms online. It was very quick and easy, and the server was lightning fast and very responsive on every page load.

Well done Statistics NZ - its nice to see a web based system implemented so well. It was even very idiot proof, with auto capitalisation of certain codes, and auto-tabbing to successive input boxes once they were full. It was very intuitive & simple, and even the most interwebby-thing phobic people should have coped well with it. (read the entire post)...

A couple of Geekzone users have noticed that Whoosh's phone service is passing on the calling partys caller id number, despite the caller blocking their number at source from another network (Telecoms 027 network in at least one case).

This could have quite severe repurcussions, as there are many people who legitimately require total privacy of their phone numbers. Two that I have directly dealt with are Detectives in the New Zealand Police, and the Diplomatic Protection Squad (who among other things look after the Prime Minister, visiting dignitaries, and the New Zealand witness protection program).

According to this thread, the telco has been notified, but perhaps thought the user was talking out a hole in their modem? (read the entire post)...

My gmail account just clicked over to 2700 megabytes total storage today. My usage is at 359Mb and climbing (I normally only delete forum notifications, and I keep everything else unless its hideously big - but I dont get many large attachments these days).

I have found Gmail to be so useful - I re-route my ISP mail to it, and I have a seperate gmail account for the household which is also re-routed to mine (leaving the original in the inbox) - this allows me to have ALL my mail in one account, but my G/F can still check the household email account without having to trawl through all my Geek stuff. I also have my Geekzone alias directed to Gmail.

Gmail is also going to be capable of hosting a domain name, although this is still in limited beta (as opposed to the Gmail beta which just about the whole planet has access to now).

I have given up on using Outlook, or any other POP3 client for that matter. Now that broadband speeds are up, the Gmail web inte (read the entire post)...

New Zealands most popular website (in lots of categories) Trademe has been sold to the Fairfax group for $700 million cash, with on target extra payments of $50 million should Trademe fair well in the next couple of years.

Im sure some of the diehard Trademe fans will shed a tear that this uber successful privately held business is going corporate, but hey - thats progress.

Well done to Sam Morgan (founder / owner).

250,000 of their 1.1 million members log on every day to buy, sell and scam trade their way to a tidier home, fatter wallet, or just to feed the addiction of buying and selling online.

Rumour has it that Telecom New Zealand had the opportunity to buy Trademe about 2 or 3 years ago for $5 million...

There is a discussion about the sale in the Geekzone Forums

[edit: everyone notices mistakes in my hyperlinks, but no one noticed this headline that read "$700 cash" would have been quite the bargain I (read the entire post)...

This story from Australian IT quotes Senator Stehpehn Conroy as saying "While the joint venture partners would be permitted to be retail players, the joint venture company itself would be precluded from being a retail player," and that phone companies could band together to provide investment in fibre services that otherwise might not occur.

Interesting stuff... (read the entire post)...

Peter Faris QC blogs about this farce of a situation in Australia where a non-citizen escapes jail (and deportation) for multiple drink driving causing injury to Children.

This would have me marching in the streets, but the scary thing is that we are not too far behind the type of nonsense that will tear at the very seams of our fragile society here in New Zealand, taking important focus away from the really important staples of a better country (health & education to name the two obvious ones) (read the entire post)...

Mauricio let us know about Google Pages and I managed to sign up before they stopped accepting new signups.

My Google Pages site is here. Its really easy to use, and to create pages, so much so that my grandmother could use it I think. It would be better than the likes of freewebs.com etc for people who just want a basic informational web page (about me, about my cat, about my car etc).

I am simply using mine as a place to store images online at the moment. I see Google Pages doing a lot of smalltime web hosts out of business for clients who just want really basic 'page hosting'.

The admin side of it is regularly out of order, so they are clearly doing a bit of work on it. It might become the new standard for basic free webhosting, and it will be interesting to see who follows suit - although Microsoft already have MSN spaces which is kinda cool if you want a basic blog/about me type thing. (read the entire post)...

Im talking about a real one, not the handheld version...

I had a 2m high palm tree (not sure what specific species) at the new house right where I needed to build a new pool fence. Today I dug it out and potted it, which was no small feat! Now we simply need to keep it alive. I hope I didnt damage too many roots in the process. I also failed to consult a plantologist, so we will see how long it lives for!!

Pic is here for those who want to see it while it still lives and breathes. (read the entire post)...

Today I had a new user on Geekzone send me an email. He was from Africa, and it seems that before dipping his toes in the water here, he wanted to know what I thought of African people, because he has encountered people who tell him that Africans are "worse than dogs".

He especially wanted a New Zealanders opinion - he said he had never conversed with a Kiwi before.

As a New Zealander, its all to easy to take for granted what we have here. I never have to check in advance that its okay to show my face as a Kiwi somewhere (unless its a pub in Australia...).

I do believe the world is in a sorry state of affairs... (read the entire post)...

Just got the call from the big fella (Mauricio), to tidy up the test posts and get ready to go live. He's been hard at work coding the blog feature of Geekzone for sometime now, and has made leaps and bounds. It looks great, its easy to use, and is totally integrated with user accounts here on Geekzone. Thanks Mauricio!!. (read the entire post)...