Category: General

This YouTube clip has over 1million views, I’ll let it speak for itself 🙂

Picked up a copy of APC Magazine on the weekend. I very rarely buy computer magazines, after all why would anyone want to pay to read news that is 2 months old?… but I am rather impartial to the DVD’s.

I met a few of the folks from APC Magazine at a conference last year. Short form, lots of attitude and they basically turned there noses down at me as nothing more than a worthless blogger and basically wouldn’t even speak to me. Of course ironically I’m currently writing for an audience elsewhere that is a thousands of times bigger than their little magazine, but this isn’t the point of this post 🙂

So I’m playing with the DVD and they’ve included Yahoo To Go, Yahoo’s PVR software. Immediate thought: great, it’s finally available for Australians, when Yahoo had originally released it about 18 months ago it was US only, and painfully you only found this out by installing it then trying to run it (it geo-blocks based on IP). So I install Yahoo To Go and what do you know, it is still limited to the US only. Basically the folks a APC didn’t even try testing the software they are advertising on their DVD. And these folks turn their noses down at me? Tell you what, a blogger would be a far lot more thorough than these guys any day.

I’ve been looking into the potential of switch to a Mac over the last couple of days, what I don’t get is this:

The Apple Store (Australia) – Mac Pro

vs

The Apple Store (U.S.) – Mac Pro

WTF?!?!

Using xe.com (conversion rate of 83c), the same Mac sold in the US is $3,002 AUD. So why does Apple sell it for $3,999, 33% higher? even if we allow for 10% GST it still only brings it to $3,300, not $4k.

At $3k it’s reasonable buying, at $4k it’s not.

It’s the same across the board.

A Refurbished Mac Pro Quad 2.66GHz Intel Xeon:

US: $2199 USD/ $2640 AUD Australia: $3359 AUD/  $2796 USD

Does anyone know how to import them into Australia directly from the States or can recommend a company that does ship them here? Even with customs duty they’d still work out cheaper.

This is extremely good news:

TiVo, the time-shifting digital video recorder that became a household name in the US, will come to Australia in 2008.

For a small subscription fee plus the price of the hardware, Australians will be able to pause live high definition TV, fast-forward ads, record shows and series from any of the free-to-air digital TV channels, and access broadband content such as video-on-demand.

The company today announced a partnership with the Seven Network, which will build the digital platform behind the service.

Seven CEO David Leckie said the move would “vastly extend” the overall viewing experience of television viewing.

I unplugged my MCE box and substituted it for a Zensonic High Def Media player/ DVD player when I bought my Sony Bravia 40″ X Series but I miss the functionality of being able to record TV…and obviously having an proper, working Australian EPG will make TiVo a killer app.

The SMH reports on a Choice survey of Australian flyers that rated Qantas as the worst international airline flying out of Australia and 3rd out of 4 domestic airlines, the Qantas owned Jetstar coming 4th.

According to radio reports Australians fly Qantas out of habit, and the frequent flyer program and safety record also help.

The real shocking thing is that Qantas is acting all surprised and quoting other surveys to belittle these survey results. Memo to Qantas: you’ve been crap for years. You’ve never listened to your customers before so there’s no great surprise that you’d ignore them now.

I only fly Qantas domestically myself due to the full in-flight service and frequent flyers, yet if there was another Ansett in terms of choice I’d never fly Qantas again (and indeed, when there was Ansett I never flew Qantas then). I also try to avoid Qantas on overseas flights as well. Where do I start? Rude staff, never, ever on-time, crap in-flight seating and service…fly Cathay Pacific and you’ll see the difference and what a decent airline can deliver.

It’s also why I never got the whole populous outrage thing that went on when Qantas was subject to an overseas takeover offer. Good old fashioned xenophobia at work when we all know Qantas needs a serious kick up the arse, and certainly new owners couldn’t do any worse.

Via Chris Pirillo, Jericho has been cancelled by CBS in the US.

To quote Jake from the end of series 1: nuts!

I watch very little TV, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of Jericho, even if I’ve had to watch it away from my TV set as Channel Ten in Australia hasn’t shown the second half of the first series.

For those who support the show, there’s a petition here and a YouTube Channel as well.

It’s a long shot, but here’s hoping they bring back one of the only half-decent shows left on TV.

Tags: Jericho

SMH coverage. TheWest coverage.

Was it at school or Uni I sat through a lesson that taught that in the modern era full employment was really 5% because we could never again go lower? The SMH thinks it’s unlikely to cause interest rates to rise, I don’t agree. That last 4.4% would be 75% unemployable.The employee shortage is phenomenal here in WA, if the rest of the country starts to get that way wages will explode even more so (remember truck drivers start on 100k here already), and that sort of money in the economy, coupled with the rising costs of goods created by higher marginal costs means higher inflation and higher interest rates. Time to start increasing the mortgage payments before the crunch comes 🙂

New version of Blogdesk out. It’s a bug fix and where as I was having some issues posting to some blogs before, the new version works a treat.

I’ve been using it for over 18 months now, and I still love it, mind you in this time I’m sure someone somewhere must have implemented inline copy and paste image handling, resizing and saving into a blogging tool: if anyone can recommend anything I’m happy to take a look.

Sydney Daily Photo and Melbourne Today. Both photoblogs posting 1 photo from Sydney and Melbourne respectively every day. It’s a simple idea that just works, and in the case of Sydney Daily Photo it brings back a lot of memories for me, the author has had a strong focus on shots from The (Sutherland) Shire this week, the place I spent my childhood to 21 in growing up. If I had more time I’d consider doing something similar myself, the Panasonic FZ50 I bought a couple of months back makes for some amazing shots. Recommended.

Note: both are available as part of the Top 100 Australian Blogs feed OPML download.

P-LEASE!

A storm in a tea cup beaten up to be the leading news story. Lets see: Channel Ten new Kate had suffered from a still birth, but she’d CLEARLY told them it was in the past, and that she was over it. Big Brother re-runs a housemate task from the first series, caring for a (plastic) baby. Kate goes mental, BB withdraws the task (the right decision). Now it’s a sadistic ratings grab? We don’t have a News Corp tabloid in WA, but if we did I’d stop buying it, and I’m sick and tired of this rubbish at News.com.au as well. Thank god for the Sydney Morning Herald as the quality alternative.