Big news, she who must be obeyed has accepted a job offer and we’ll be moving to Melbourne in the new year, roughly mid January.
I moved to Western Australia in November 1998 after 2 years in Queensland (I’m originally from Sydney) so it was coming up on 10 years, and possibly time for a change 🙂
There are things I’ll miss: the lifestyle, the beautiful clean environment, by far and away the best wine in the world and when I get up to Perth the best most inclusive tech community in Australia. There are plenty of things I wont miss, like not being able to shop or buy alcohol on a Sunday or shop after 6pm on a week night, no gambling, poor roads, poor public school system, too many self important local Governments run by self-important wankers, the local Liberal party which is often to the left of the ALP, stupid debates against daylight saving, The Eagles, the WACA (both the ground + association), Ted Bull on ABC Radio…I’m sure there will be other things as well that will come to mind later.
There’s a couple of big selling points in the move for us; great private schools with choices, a richer and more mentally stimulating environment to bring the boy up in, with a variety of day trips, cheap airfares to the East Coast, great shopping…and of course for she who must be obeyed her mother and that side of her family. We’re hoping to live in the Inner Eastern suburbs, probably around Richmond/ Hawthorn, Prahran/ South Yarra areas, although renting is insanely expensive in Melbourne; buying not so bad but we’ve got to sell our house first then buy a house there, something not always done quickly. Me: I’m just looking forward to 24mbps ADSL2+, I’m mentally typing the OMG OMG OMG’s from the first time I use it now 🙂
Good luck with the move, Duncan.
Incidentally, there are only two types of Prime Minister : unsuccessful, and those that got out in time. Howard couldn’t have timed his departure better. Rudd will get the whole credit crunch, low dollar backlash over the next two years and more.
Aussies will be on their knees begging Howard to come back by the next election 🙂
You’re going to have to change your blog header 🙂
Hi Duncan,
Best of luck with your move.
I totally know what you mean when you say “looking forward to ADSL2+”. It’s been one of those can’t live without necessities for me while house hunting. One thing I thought I should point out is the distance from the local exchange. I’m at most 1.5km away from the local exchange and get at best around 14mbps. Typically, the modem negotiates around 12mbps. I’ve tried various modems, line filters etc. Haven’t made a significant difference. I’ve also spoken to a couple of people who are around the same distance from their local exchange and their experiences are quite similar (okay, I know, it does sound a bit obsessive – but it’s all in the name of knowledge – or at least that’s my excuse anyway). So I wonder how close one needs be to the local exchange to achieve anything close to the theoretical 24mbps.
Having said that, 12mbps is quite decent. You’ll notice that a fair number of TCP connections capping out under 200KB/s (especially to Europe). But in general there are sites where you can get around 1.5MB/s transfer rates. I generally find no issues with online video etc. Then again, you might experience far better performance depending on the backbone connectivity and routing scenario of your future ISP.
Once again best of luck with your move and looking forward to having a beer with you sometime in Melbourne.
Cheers
Nishad
Congrat’s Duncan! As someone who made the move to Melbourne almost 3 years ago from Sydney I can highly recommend it.
As for ADSL2+ limited exchanges at this stage have it, you could alway do the Telstra cable thingy and get 30mb :-).
The move should at least make dealing with MyMacAustralia a lot easier. And what happened on that front? Got your iSight mount yet?