Geekzone Blog: latest posts

Time for a true NZ flag

dmw — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:13 +1200

John Ansell has created a poll with 6 suggestions for a new NZ flag, based on a fern design.

I argue that

We need ONE flag that represents New Zealand. Not a sports flag (A), or a Green party flag (B) or a semi-colonial flag (C), or a wide-screen sports flag (D) or a Maori flag (E).

But a NZ flag. Thus I vote for (F): the Land and Sea flag.

(Note: it is not necessary to represent all the different people in a flag. Eg Canada’s maple leaf does not pander to French and English and native people groups. The Swiss white cross on red does not pander to German, French, Italian and Romansch factions — it is just Swiss. Both are excellent flags. Similarly, we need a NEW ZEALAND flag.)

Twitter.com DNS hijacked?

juha — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:50 +1200

Twitter.com seems to be hijacked at the moment:
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;twitter.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
twitter.com. 1901 IN A 74.217.128.160
;;; QUESTION SECTION:
;160.128.217.74.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR
;; ANSWER SECTION:
160.128.217.74.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR w-160.netfirms.com.
Was wondering why this popped up instead of the Twitter site before:

My good friend Dylan Reeve tells me that the "Iranian Cyber Army" may be behind the DNS hijack but I don't get that page at the moment, only a PNAP hosted one when I try to load twitter.com.
Update I Fat-fingered a PTR DNS query, and wrongly ended up at www.perfectworld.com - fixed.
Update II Biz Stone at Twitter confirms that it was a DNS hijack. He doesn't believe any accounts were compromised.

Vodafone delivers final undertaking

jointhedebate — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:06 +1200

Media Release
18 December 2009

Vodafone delivers final undertaking
SMS termination at zero, voice cut by two thirds

Vodafone has submitted what it hopes will be the final Undertaking as part of the Commerce Commission’s review of mobile termination rates.

On December 3 the Commission asked operators to work together to align their undertakings into one offer that would serve as an alternative to regulation in the Commission’s final report. Vodafone has worked to meet the Commission’s requirements and has aligned its undertaking rates with Telecom, at the levels the Commission indicated were likely to be accepted.

Vodafone had offered to reduce SMS termination rates to zero if traffic is in balance starting October 1, 2010. Previously Vodafone had offered to reduce SMS rates to 1.2 cents/TXT and has now agreed to move entirely to so-called ‘bill and keep’, making it cheaper for third party networks to terminate TXT messages on Vodafone’s network.

In terms of voice calls, Vodafone has agreed to reduce termination rates by 46% in the first year alone and will move rates down to 6 cents per minute by the start of 2014.

Vodafone’s GM of corporate affairs Tom Chignell says these rates will be based on a ‘second plus second’ rounding rather than ‘minute plus second’ basis.

“The impact to Vodafone’s business would be an immediate $50m reduction in revenues increasing over the period of the Undertaking. In a flat or declining market this is a non-trivial move.

“Vodafone has expressed concerns throughout this process that the Commission’s work is lacking in several areas and this continues to be a concern. However the Commission is both prosecution and judge in this area and, in the interests of concluding what has been a lengthy process, Vodafone has offered this Undertaking in line with the Commission’s recommendations.”

- ends -

Vodafone previously offered rates based on minute plus second (that is the first minute of a call is paid in full regardless of the duration). The Commission asked that we re-configure to use second plus second billing.

Please fill the Victoria University of Wellington mobile survey

freitasm — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:34 +1200

I am told many of you filled the mobile data in business survey but the team at the Victoria University of Wellington still need some more answers to get to the 300 answers (or more) needed to make it statistically correct.

This is a survey on smartphones and mobile data usage and respondents will be in to win $200. It is part of a Victoria University of Wellington research project on the use of mobile information systems in the workplace.

If you are currently using a mobile device enabled with data capability (e.g. mobile email, mobile Internet, mobile business applications etc) for work purposes, then we invite you to complete a survey questionnaire. It should take you approximately 12 minutes to complete the survey, which is anonymous and will be available until the 25th of December 2009.

By completing the questionnaire you will be entered in draw to win a prize of $200. Please use the following link to access the survey:

http://vuw.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_cBko9uZySNCz9Zi&SVID=Prod

Your participation is important and will help to improve the understanding of the adoption and use of mobile technology. Should you require any further information about this project, please contact Eusebio Scornavacca at (04) 463 6697 or email eusebio.scornavacca@vuw.ac.nz or Professor Sid Huff at (04) 463-5819 or email sid.huff@vuw.ac.nz.

Free Webinars About Hosted IT Services For Businesses

cyberhub — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:10 +1200

CyberHub is running a series of free webinars about how Hosted IT Services or Cloud Computing can assist your organisation in reducing IT costs and infrastructure while increasing functionality, utilisation and collaboration.

Topics Being Covered Include:

Hosted Small Business Server

Google Apps™ for Business

Hosted Exchange

Hosted Office Communication Server

The webinars will be aiming to be around 20-30 minutes long with question and answer time afterwards.

To Sign Up
- Choose which webinar you would like to attend
- Click on link in the list above
- This will take you to the CyberHub website with more information about that service
- Scroll to the bottom of the page to the webinar sign up form that has times and dates
- Simply enter your details and you will be enrolled in the webinar
- Once you have signed up you can invite others to the webinar by clicking on share widget link

CyberHub - IT Made Simple

Xmas discounts at Noel Leeming Riccarton - save and donate this Xmas!

3g — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:31 +1200

Noel Leeming Riccarton/Christchurch (in Westfield Mall, Christchurch) have a special deal where you can get Cost*+10%+GST^ on a wide range of items (see Terms & Conditions below) from tomorrow (Thursday Dec 17) until Sunday Dec 20.
TO GET THIS DEAL, please download and print a copy of the flyer at the link below. click here to download flyer
They will also donate 4% of ALL sales to Oaklands School (www.oaklands.school.nz). This is a great win-win situation where you get a great discount and Oaklands school receive a very generous donation from Noel Leeming Riccarton.
TIP: In the past I've found this deal to be especially good when purchasing accessories for games systems eg. Nintendo DS accessory packs.
This offer begins Thursday 17 December 2009 and end Sunday 20 December 2009 and only at Noel Leeming Riccarton.

*Cost + 10 + GST Terms and Conditions: Cost reflects the average invoiced price of a product but does not include any volume related adjustments which may apply.
^ Offer does not apply to Noel Leeming gift card purchases, apple branded product, gaming consoles and bundles, phone cards, home deliveries fees or extended warranties. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer including interest free credit deals. You simply need to produce THIS flyer to be eligible for the promotion.

Disclosure: I am a parent from Oaklands School and am also on the Parent Teacher Association for Oaklands school.

New Zealand is in good company TUANZ

freitasm — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:48 +1200

Earlier this week Telecom XT network had extended outage, apparently the result of some software update gone rogue. People from all over commented on it (including myself) but one of the most strongly worded comments came from Ernie Newman who commented to NBR's Chris Keall:

Telecommunications Users Association (Tuanz) chief executive Ernie Newman said, "From here, it looks bizarre. Even third world countries don't experience outages of that magnitude and length.

I have news: New Zealand is not a third world country. Or perhaps the U.S. is one too:

- 3rd March 2009: Vodafone 3G returns after three hour Auckland outage;
- 12th December 2009: AT&T 3G service disruption in San Francisco, lasting for two hours and fifteen minutes;
- 13th December 2009: Verizon Network down in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and California, with a six hour ETA for full services restoration;
- 14th December 2009: Telecom XT outage affects half of New Zealand;
- 17th December 2009: AT&T outage leaves Alaska without 2G service for most of the day.

Review: USB Microscope

MrWestie — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:49 +1200

Full review here
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=54053

Explore your world, it's bigger than you think :)

Is TelstraClear sitting on its YouTube problem?

freitasm — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:42 +1200

If you are a TelstraClear customer and try to watch to watch a YouTube video clip these days you will likely see the following routine: buffer five seconds, play three seconds, ad nauseam.
Using some "techniques" that work with other ISPs which cache YouTube content locally won't help - refreshing the page on your browser for example won't get a "local" version from your ISP, since TelstraClear doesn't seem to offer this kind of service.
This has been happening for about a month now, and it seems to affect both cable modem and DSL customers. I have seen reports of this on Geekzone (1, 2) and from people following me on Twitter who confirmed the same affecting them.
I've heard a rumour that TelstraClear is investigating this, but no official confirmation was received. I've tried contacting TelstraClear's spokesperson via email, but received no reply.
It seems only YouTube is being affected, and overall I am quite happy with how other services perform on TelstraClear's network (in my case the cable modem service).
Don't worry visiting their status page. This issue is not recognised by the company. And calling their help desk will get through someone that will imply the problem is on your side (and just forcing the customer to move away).

UPDATE: the official TelstraClear response to this issue is "We intend to speak with Google to try and improve the experience of our customers since their move to more HD content."

That's it. No problem acknowledgement, no explanation.

Prepaid Mobile Broadband options

manhinli — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:15 +1200

Since Telecom recently gave their T-Sticks with the Prepaid Mobile Broadband 500MB free to existing fixed broadband customers, a lot of people seem way too confused about how charges go.

It was also a good opportunity to compare other Prepaid Mobile Broadband options.

So here are 4 (large) graphs for you to look at.

I've included 2degrees even though they don't have 3G yet, just to show how it would stack up cost-wise. I've also removed the lower-usage plans from higher usage graphs as it's obvious that those plans aren't good for high usage.

I've also assumed that people using Vodafone's Broadband Lite and Surfer plans will continue to get the equivalent "top up" data bundle.

- Click to enlarge -

(The last graph got updated - see below in comments)

MiFi Oops?

sbiddle — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:37 +1200

Vodafone today released their portable 3G WiFi router in New Zealand.

Media Release
14 December 2009

Vodafone launches wi-fi hotspot in your hand

Vodafone takes mobile broadband to the next level with the launch of its MiFi mobile broadband hotspot.

The MiFi allows up to five wi-fi users to connect simultaneously to the internet using Vodafone's world class 3G broadband service.

Customers will be able to take that brainstorming meeting to the caf? and share one connection on multiple laptops. Mobile gamers will be able to set up a LAN and play wirelessly. The MiFi even allows you to share documents stored on its MicroSD card (up to 16GB) and set access levels as you see fit.

Weighing in at only 100g it's smaller than most cellphones and not much larger than a credit card. Battery powered, the MiFi will last up to four hours of continuous use before needing to be recharged making it a truly portable solution.

Vodafone's GM of Products Pricing and Internet Kursten Shalfoon says Vodafone's MiFi opens up the floodgates to a new world of mobility.

"Whether you want to work collaboratively on a project or just need to have multiple devices connecting together while you're out and about, the MiFi gives you the best of Vodafone's 3G broadband connection and combines it with all the benefits of wi-fi to deliver a great product."

The MiFi is on sale from today through the Vodafone online store at an RRP of $499. Customers who buy the MiFi with a 1GB data plan get it at the discounted rate of $299.

- ends -

These devices are fantastic. I know several people who have already played with these units and have great things to say about them.

And now for the "oops" moment. Vodafone don't appear to own the MiFi trademark in New Zealand

Trade Mark Details

Trade Mark Number (210)
719848 Current Status Registered

TM Search Text
MiFi

Trade Mark Type
Trade Mark Non-Convention, WORD

Trade Mark Nature

Use Statement
(ii) proposed to be used by the proprietor(s), (being the applicant)

Filed (220)
13-OCT-2004

Renewed Until
13-OCT-2014

Marks , Device and Device Descriptors (532)

MiFi

Classification System | Class (511)
Specification of Goods and Services

8|38
telecommunications services; radio telecommunication, satellite telecommunication, mobile, portable and fixed telecommunication and telephone; broadcasting services and provision of telecommunications networks including broadcasting networks, and including internet service provider services including internet access services, and including access to fixed line, portable and mobile communications networks, telephone, facsimile, telex, data transfer, message collection and transmission, message sending, receiving and forwarding, electronic mail services, electronic transmission of data, text, images, sounds and/or video, provision of digital content by telecommunications; voice over IP (Internet Protocol) services, and broadband internet services; transmission and receiving by radio; communication of data by radio, telecommunications and by satellite; automatic telephone answering services; personal numbering services; provision of telephone and other telecommunications directory services, video conferencing services, video telephone services, value added network services, and communication by computer terminals; provision of access to computer systems and networks including the Internet or other electronic networks; provision of remote access to a central archive of data, information and software applications, including the warehousing of data, information and software applications and real time downloads of data, information and software applications; rental and leasing of telecommunications apparatus and equipment including parts and fittings for the same

Documents

Pseudo Mark
Mi Fi

Proprietor: (730)
National Communications Corporation Limited . C/-Bowden Williams & Associates, Level 2, 3 Margot Street, Newmarket, AUCKLAND, New Zealand

Contact : (740)
National Communications Corporation Limited . C/-Bowden Williams & Associates, Level 2, 3 Margot Street, Newmarket, AUCKLAND, New Zealand

Service Address:
PO Box 25-1050, Pakuranga, AUCKLAND, New Zealand

Action
Completed
Due
Journal
Published

Registered
11-AUG-2005
1514
26-AUG-2005

Published Date
29-APR-2005
29-APR-2005
1510
29-APR-2005

Application Accepted
29-MAR-2005
29-MAR-2005
1510
29-APR-2005

Filed
13-OCT-2004
13-OCT-2004

Related Trade Marks

No Related Trade Marks found

Objections / Hearings

There are no current objections or hearings present

Last Renewed By

No renewal interest on record or public access is restricted

Proprietor & Licensee History

No proprietors nor licensees on record or public access is restricted

Vodafone have either done a deal to use the word MiFi in New Zealand or somebody has committed a rather big "oops" moment and launched a product into the marketplace without actually checking if the product name was either in use or already trademarked!

I guess we'll have to wait and see if anything becomes of this!

The Telecom XT network outage (14 Dec 2009 updated)

freitasm — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:45 +1200

I won't go into the gory details of today's XT network outage. There's enough "experts" around - and a lot of them seem to gather on this Geekzone discussion.

But here is just some background information you ought to know regarding the Telecom XT network.

There are two RNCs in the XT network. One in Auckland and one in Christchurch. These are Tier 0 sites - Tier 0 sites have the highest levels of availability (power, connectivity etc) and the strictest change control procedures.

A network of similar size to Telecom XT could quite easily have been built with one RNC but two RNC provide added resiliency into the network. A single event would not affect all customers.

And that's what happened.

A RNC is a platform made of multiple redundant components. You can imagine that a total RNC failure means quite a serious issue. It appears the issue cascaded to affect the way cell sites restart which is what happened during the day. It was the establishment of communications to each cell site turn took its time and delayed recovery for the part of New Zealand affected - those living south of Taupo it seems.

I am told this issue is being "analysed" at the highest levels of both Telecom New Zealand and Alcatel-Lucent, the technology provider.

There's only one thing I want to tell you:

(For those of you who don't get it.)

Apple, What is UK English?

robscovell — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:26 +1200

In the iPhone app submission process, you have to provide information in the languages of the stores your app will appear in. Here are the versions of English that Apple need your descriptions to be in:

English

Canadian English

Australian English

UK English

WHAT! UK English? But 'English' is the language of England, and anything else should have a qualifier. And what is UK English anyway? There is English, the language of England, but also Scottish English and Ulster English and Welsh English, and they each have their nuances.

In Apple's world, 'English' obviously means 'US English'.

If Apple were Quebecois, would they call Canadian French, 'French', and the French of France, 'France French'? Or 'French French'?

Of course, my surprise is feigned, as I have long experience with L10n/I18n, and I am used to this. But it is always mildly irritating that 'UK English' is considered a qualifiable variation on 'English', the language spoken in the USA ...

I suppose I just have to remind myself that I do in fact have 'a life' and should get back to it and stop worrying about things like this ...

iPhone apps approved!

robscovell — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:22 +1200

The iPhone apps I have been developing have been approved!

http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/karaoke-legend/id333195142?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/karaoke-christmas-gold/id342351969?mt=8
It took a while but they're on sale at last!

Linkification v63

RedJungle — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:33 +1200

News / Web Happenings:

SharePoint 2010 Ignite Training announced for NZ
Google Chrome for Mac and Linux Finally Hits Beta; Very Fast, Pretty Stable
Chrome Extensions Gallery Officially Opens
Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look
Google Googles: Take Photos of Things Around You to Search for Them
NAVTEQ, Microsoft team up for better 3D maps
Google Launches Real-Time Search
Offline Gmail graduates from Labs
Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows - includes Skype Access, call transfer and more

General / Neat Stuff:

Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug with Zip Ties
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Apple:

Apple Acquires Streaming Music Service Lala Media
New! Pingdom iPhone app 2.0 - Get push notifications when your site goes down
Apple Rolls Out New App Store Look
Google Mobile App for iPhone Updates for Speedier Results
Ustream Streams Live Video from Your iPhone 3GS

Development:

Birds Eye View - Google Maps API - New
Google Translator Toolkit Data API
Styling HTML Lists with CSS: Techniques and Resources
Mono 2.4.3 is out

FAIL of the week:

Golfing Fail

What's all this hoopla around Google Wave's instant chat feature?

simon14 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:24 +1200

Everyone seems to be amazed that Google’s new Wave service has made instant messaging even more instant with correspondent’s messages appearing on your screen character by character as they type, in real time.

I don’t see what all the hype is over though!

Back in 1996, ICQ was the chat software of the day and all the way back then, it had a chat feature that let users read each others messages as they were typing them as opposed to writing a message and sending it. I loved it and I always wondered why newer chat programs didn’t have the same feature!

Now 14 years later, Google has implanted this same feature and everyone thinks it’s an amazing new feature that the world has never seen before....

I don't get it!

2010 South Island Road Trip

manhinli — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:10 +1200

In a little more than 3 weeks time we're going down to the South Island!

It's quite short (only a week) - but it'll be about exploring new things - I haven't been on the West Coast and any further south than Dunedin.

Here's a link to the Google Maps route (no embedded map since I can't put IFRAMEs in): http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=115425228434306418314.0004798ca03b01491c8f5&z=7

We've got a few things planned (main things like accomodation were booked ages ago) - but what are your suggestions for things to do while on this route (we can go a little off course)

GeekPost Weekly Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 9

JamesHip — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:25 +1200

Geek Post

Volume 1 Issue 9

Friday 1 December 2009

Hippolite Musings

Tena Koutou Katoa,

I had a good week:

Delivered a large project to PROD, just before Brown-Out was applied;
Did two more practice tests. Four down, only two more to go;
Mastered Killer Sudoku;
Mastered activating a Web Service from Agent Job (see below);
Mastered activating a SFTP upload from Stored Proc (see next week);

Blessings,
James

Developer News

I had to implement an agent job which would activate a web service in PROD

This was not as simple as you might hope:

The Agent Job consists of a single step of:
- Type: SQL Server Integration Services Package
- Run as: SQL Server Agent Service Account
- Package source: File system
- Package: (fully qualified local path on PROD DB server) e.g. D:\pathname\Package.dtsx
The SSIS package:
- Can only be edited via the DEV or TEST servers because they've got SQL Server 2005 installed + BIDS. PROD doesn't have BIDS. My local doesn't have 2005, only SQL Server 2008, which tries to auto-convert it, and would thus render it useless on PROD.
- Is password protected
- Contains one Connection Manager and two Control Flow items, one of which is the Web Service Task
The Web Service Task
- You must double-click the Web Service Task to get to the Web Service Task Editor
- On the General tab, you specify:
  - HttpConnection: HTTP Connection Manager
  - WsdlFile: (FQDN to the Web Service Definition file on the PROD IIS server) e.g. \\servername\d$\path\service.wsdl
- On the Input tab, you specify:
  - Service: The Service Name
  - Method: The Method Name
The WsdlFile can be generated automatically (via the Download WSDL button) or manually (via the WebService.asmx?WSDL command) but must be moved to the appropriate position (on the PROD IIS server).

That's all there is to it!

Telecom News

GeekZone FreeView Pizza Update

Hello JamesHip

I writing with an update in our plans for the GeekZone FreeView Pizza evening events. We have thing pretty much in good shape now, with two main sponsors - FreeView and Telecom New Zealand.

Freeview is sponsoring the pizza in all three events, while Telecom New Zealand is sponsoring drinks in all three events. Telecom New Zealand is also providing six XT mobile handsets as prizes, two per event.

We have closed on dates and venues - except we are still waiting to confirm the venue for AKL but it should be done this week.

We also have confirmed other sponsors - please visit the discussion http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=4&topicid=51624 to check updated information regarding spot prizes - some good ones to be won!

Good news for people wanting to attend events in other cities: Air New Zealand will give us tickets to fly three winners, one to each destination (AKL/CHC/WLG). So if you want to attend more than one event, or if you don't live in one of the three cities, enter to win those! Enter to win the tickets here http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=8599.

Mauricio Freitas
www.geekzone.co.nz

Product News

Try Out the Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 Best Practices Analyzer

Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 Best Practices Analyzer is part of the Team Foundation Server PowerTools 2010 Beta 2 for validating a Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 deployment.

Updated Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework

The Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 that are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework. Download the Windows Azure Software Development Kit

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand computation and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centres. Download SDL for Agile

Included as part of the SDL 4.1a Process Guidance, SDL-Agile is a streamlined process that melds Agile methods and security. SDL-Agile will allow development teams to innovate and react quickly to changing customer needs while developing more secure software.

Partner News

Until 25th June 2010 you can purchase Microsoft Dynamics Business Management software at 50% off the recommended retail price.

A few of the business benefits these solutions can assist in driving include: improved financial performance, more efficient business processes, better compliance and accuracy in reporting giving you the ability and agility to make the right decisions. What's more they work with and like other Microsoft software you're already familiar with - speeding up adoption and increasing usage amongst your team.

To get an overview of the benefits and to see a demo take a look here. Full Details:

Offer	Discount of 50% on Microsoft Dynamics NAV or GP licenses for the first 15 concurrent users
Promotion Period	December 1, 2009 - June 25, 2010
Conditions Snapshot	Applicable exclusively for Gold Certified Partners purchasing a new platform
How to get it	Engage a SPA partner for licence purchase and implementation service to get this offer Contact Guy or Stewart (details below) with the partner name and MSPP ID. They will validate it and provide you with a promo code which should be submitted to APOC with the order Discount is for new license orders only

For any questions or for more information please contact either Stewart Gibbs stewartg@microsoft.com or Guy Orridge guyor@microsoft.com, respectively to discuss.

Situations Vacant

Data Architect - ARC0204L Data Direction

The times are changing and so too is the way we manage our data across Telecom's business units. Be integral in moving away from a vertically focused model as you help set the direction for an end-to-end plan across all our products, services, resources and other data domains. Bring fresh ideas that will enable a next generation Telecom to flourish. Be the authority on data architecture as you set policies, develop architectural principles, define data logic and build the frameworks needed.

Support Data Architecture planning that will achieve business and transformation objectives and ensure the transition to future-state is robust. Provide and maintain a framework that is aligned to international standards. Develop a data roadmap that has a mid to long term view and provides guidance on how to evolve and optimise data dimensions that achieve effective enterprise change. With ownership of specific data domains, you'll keep everyone informed and keep delivery expectations realistic and achievable.

With an extensive background in data design and modelling for a large complex environment you're an expert in data architecture and industry standards such as TMF NGOSS, eTOM & SID. You're able to navigate comfortably between business and technical audiences, have influential relationships where your recommendations are sought to resolve issues and provide guidance on how to apply technology principles to the benefit of the business.

This position can be based in either Auckland or Wellington. Join the Group Technology & Transformation Office (GTTO) team that develops and executes complete transformation strategy and plans. They provide Transformation, Technology Strategy and Architecture leadership for Telecom. They are a team of passionate professionals that appreciate the strengths of each other.

Steer the direction of your Career forward. Apply Today

Training News

Webcast: Lighting Up the New Visual Studio 2010 Editor with Rich Extensions (Level 200)

December 9, 2009, 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time
In this webcast, we demonstrate the new editor by examining a series of common scenarios that showcase what you can do with editor extensions. Channel 9 Video: Explore the New Features in Silverlight 4

See what's new and walk through some of the highly anticipated new features, including printing, webcam and microphone support, custom right-click, rich text, and access to local files with trusted applications. SharePoint 2010 Ignite for Developers

SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform to rapidly build solutions and respond to business needs. The training will show partners how to build custom applications with SharePoint 2010. (See details below in Events section)

Trainer News

Practice Exam 70-561 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 - ADO.NET Application Framework Objective 3: Modifying Data

Score: 30/44 = 68%

For Further Study:

Objective 4: Synchronizing Data

Score: 21/30 = 70%

For Further Study:

PASS News

Re-Launch of SQL Server Standard Magazine

By Andy Warren

Today we're pleased to feature the first issue of the newly re-launched SQL Server Standard magazine. Those of you who have been PASS members for a while will remember that the Standard served as our flagship magazine for many years until we had to halt production due to rising print costs. It's taken a while to get going again, but we're now offering it again in a much streamlined PDF format - for free to our members!

I wrote in greater detail about the history and vision for the Standard in my blog, but the short story is that it should be a place for our members to showcase their skills and provide value to our members.

New from the SQL Server Standard: The Trouble with Triggers

By Thomas LaRock

Imagine you are developing an application. You spend a few hours putting together some pages into a Web application, and now you want to verify that the data is getting inserted and updated correctly. You enter some data, click the Submit button, and go to the database to confirm that the data is there. Only it isn't there, at least not your data.

You then spend the next few hours debugging your code. You step through every line imaginable. You call home so your kids can hear the sound of your voice because you know they will be in bed if and when you should ever get home. And then, out of nowhere, you get an idea. Could a trigger be changing the data? Sure enough, you find that a trigger has indeed been at work all along, and your code is working as expected. You're just not seeing the expected results.

...Why no love for these seemingly benign and inanimate pieces of a database design? Because they're typically built in so that you don't even know they're there. And that results in a waste of time when trying to troubleshoot application code, for example, and I hate wasting time.

Events Schedule

In this section, I highlight dates, times and venues of events either I am presenting at, or of interest to METTLE. I'm available for bookings.

Date	Event	Venue	Speaker
17-Dec-09	Celebrate C2M Success	GPK, Auckland	None
17-Dec-09	MCT Readiness Exploring Delivery Methods and Media	Third Thursday Live Meeting Session, Your Desk	Debbie Collins
18-Dec-09	Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed	Paramount Theatre, Wellington	Ben Stein
25-Dec-09	Christmas Day	All Over The World	None
25-29 Dec 2010	SharePoint 2010 Ignite for Developers	Microsoft, Wellington	Wayne Ewington
22-Mar-10	Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Launch	All Over The World	Various
21-23 April 2010	PASS European Conference	Neuss, Germany	Various
18-May-10	NZ SharePoint Conference	Bay of Plenty	Lots

Humour

Two fonts walk into a bar

The bartender says, "We don't serve your type here."

So they called the serif.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Technical,Training,Azure,Dot Net,Events,Telecom,Humour

A call to arms: Civil Disobedience

ockel — Wed, 9 Dec 2009 19:07 +1200

This email I received from a another motorcyclist highlights a lot of good ideas. I may consider adopting some or all of the thoughts - and I will surely be sending a copy to the Chairman.

Mr John Judge
Chairman
Accident Compensation Corporation
PO Box 242
Wellington 6140

Dear Sir

As a result of your levy proposals unfairly targeting motorcycles I will not be registering my vehicle for the road in 2010 and beyond.

I am a law-abiding rider with many years and kilometres of recreational riding experience. For each of those years I have faithfully registered and fully insured my vehicle to cover myself and my fellow road users. I have even paid a parking fine on time and in full without question.

Now, as a result of your proposals, I will choose to deliberately flout the law and accept the consequences of driving illegally on New Zealand roads. This is not a decision I take lightly given the implications it has for both myself and my fellow road users.

Traffic violations
Should I be caught driving an unregistered vehicle or incur any other traffic infringement I will choose to contest this in court in an effort to deliberately slow the process AND increase the cost to the State to enforce any penalty. Regardless of whether my fellow motorcyclists choose to adopt my actions with respect to registration I call upon them to contest any traffic violation in court to deliberately increase the cost to the State. I’m certain that gratitude to you from the Ministry of Justice will be forthcoming.

This also increases the likelihood that I will choose not to stop for any violation of the law. And I’m sure that you’ll recognise the increased risk of damage to both property and person of myself and third parties from a police pursuit. Luckily I have the ACC to fall back upon should I become injured or killed as a result of such an action. And I recognise the increased burden to the State from investigation both a serious crash and a police pursuit. I’m sure that the New Zealand Police will similarly extend their gratitude to you for the changes in behaviour that you will have caused.

Insurance
As I will not be able to insure an unregistered vehicle this will result in increased risks for my fellow motorists should I be involved in an accident.
* Any accident where I am not at fault will require me to deal directly with other parties to recover any reparation or, where no other vehicle is involved, will require my own financial contribution to repair my vehicle.
* Any accident where I am at fault will require the third party to undertake court action to recover any reparation. As I will not be in a financial position to “make whole” the third party I imagine that a small weekly payment for an extended period of time will have to suffice.

The increased burden to the private insurance industry will undoubtedly result in higher premiums for all motorists. To the wider New Zealand public that choose to take motor vehicle insurance I extend my apologies.

Ironically I understand that my personal accident coverage will be unchanged regardless of whether I chose to register my vehicle or ride it illegally. This suggests that I will join the other freeloading activities where personal health and rehabilitation are covered by the ACC without any additional payment by myself (beyond the ACC workers levy deducted at source to cover all other recreational accidents and injuries).

I acknowledge that electing to take this course of action increases the “burden” on my fellow (and law abiding) motorcyclists as the “burden” that you chose to apportion directly on the motorcycle community will be spread across one fewer ACC levy payer. Unfortunately as more and more motorcyclists choose to adopt a similar behaviour to my own it will result in a smaller and smaller pool across which to share the “burden”. And will result in you increasing the ACC levy for motorcyclists at an increasing rate each year – further perpetuating the behaviour you have spawned.

While I find your proposal to unfairly target motorcyclists (while allowing many other recreational activities to be completely subsidised by workers) abhorrent I must thank you for substantially increasing my disposable income. From next year I will save more than $1,000 (more from when the ACC adopts its exorbitant and farcically derived new levies) in registration fees, ACC levies and insurance premiums. This amount will not go unnoticed by my family who needs it more than does your organisation.

Signed

A frustrated motorcyclist

Which mobile OS to develop your killer app for?

ald — Wed, 9 Dec 2009 04:04 +1200

Behind "How much will this cost" the most common question clients ask us is "What platform(s) should we develop for?". Both eminently sensible questions with the later not having a simple answer.

Determining which platform(s) to develop for is a client specific enquiry depending on a number of factors:

What is their target demographic and which devices is that demographic using?
What is their target geographic and which devices are prevalent in the geographic?
What are the technical requirements for the app (GPS, touch screen, background operation).
What is the business model (free, paid for app, advertising funded, in app purchases).
Do they have any inhouse development/graphic design capability? If so then perhaps there is an argument that they can undertaken the prototyping on whatever platform that is to iterate through small screen usability and comms issues that can be expensive to tackle externally.
Are there any strategic reasons to prefer or include a certain platform (you have a pre-existing relationship, it'll ship on device, no of units shipped, device coolness factor etc).

Our clients typically do not thank us for this information as they wanted a simple answer not an assignment! Working through each of these will deliver you a reasoned answer.

For all that the answer must be client specific, with the usual caveats, years of experience can be boiled down to a few high level guides:

If it is a consumer oriented app targeted at developed countries then probably start with an iPhone build. The iPhone platform has tremendous momentum, a great toolset, delightful useability and a solid installed base with users familiar with the idea of using (and paying for) mobile applications;
If it is an enterprise application for North America or Asia Pac then probably start with a Blackberry Build;
If it is an enterprise application targeted at European market then probably start with either a Symbian or Blackberry build;
Do not build a Windows Mobile or WebOS application without an extremely good reason. Windows Mobile has lost a lot of marketshare over the last few years and has a lot of ground to make up before it becomes a strong contender for mobile application development. WebOS looks very interesting and with few applications available provides a good opportunity to stand out but marketshare is so low at present that it will be difficult to make a return on investment; and
If you don't actually need to leverage any of the underlying native capabilities of a device consider developing a webkit based application (allowing you to go cross platform).

The answer that falls out of this process won't necessarily be that there is one best OS for you. In fact I was really interested to read recently that research on "well funded" US startups showed that more than 75% were pursuing a multi-platform strategy while over 50% were developing their applications for all six of the major mobile platforms (Android, iPhone, Palm, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows). So the answer seems to be that if you have enough money build for everything. Naively I'm assuming that these well-funded startups are choosing to develop for six mobile platforms simultaneously because they have done their homework rather than because they couldn't decide. As an aside, SimWorks welcomes enquiries from all well funded US startups!

Mobile is an incredibly dynamic market so these are today's rules of thumb only. 5 years ago my answer would have been much simpler: Symbian!

Our first MSDN winner

MSDN — Tue, 8 Dec 2009 02:53 +1200

We have our first winner: Andrew Murphy, from Palmerston North, is taking home an awesome package of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Premium subscription (download edition) worth NZ$ 5,000.

The Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Premium subscription package is perfect for software developers, software testers, and software architects. Those IT professionals will benefit most of the package features:

The next release of Visual Studio 2010 when it ships, at no additional cost
Previous versions of Visual Studio
Expression Web and Expression Blend
Software and driver development kits (SDKs/DDKs)
Productivity applications
Operating systems
Early Beta previews
Server software and more

With this MSDN Premium subscription, Andrew can use the software to design, develop, test and demo your applications on as many machines and devices as needed.

The MSDN Premium subscription will give Andrew access to managed newsgroups, and four professional Technical Support Incidents, which can be used for assistance with technical break-fix issues though Microsoft Technical Support.

We will continue posting some information in this blog, and stay tuned because another giveaway will be coming in early 2010.

First Impressions of the IBM x3650 M2

exportgoldman — Tue, 8 Dec 2009 01:46 +1200

We brought one of these for Hyper-V virtualization around 3 months ago, and I really wanted to love this server. I’ve worked with IBM kit for 15 years, ever since I landed my first ever job in Advertising at Ogilvy & Mather which were IBM’s worldwide advertising agency. I’ve always found IBM’s kit is well designed, reliable, dependable and not rushed to market.

I was excited to put this new server to the test, and consolidate various aging servers onto it. I wanted to have a great first blog post about it, but sadly I cannot rave about this server. It has brought me pain.

Processors / Memory
The new Nehalem processors are fast, very very fast. But reports of serious bugs with the timers/interrupts Microsoft went to publish a kb article about recommending not using these for Hyper-V before Intel stepped in and stopped them. The workaround was to disable the power saving features (turning off cores) but now there is a hotfix out which works around the processor bugs.

Slashdot | Microsoft Advice Against Nehalem Xeons Snuffed Out

The server is stacked with 16 RAM slots (8 per processor, i.e. if you don’t have a second processor then only 8 slots are usable.)

If you have ever installed RAM in one of these and are puzzled by the odd RAM installation numbering it’s to do with cooling.

RAID
IBM has had some serious data loss bugs with the ServeRAID 7k/8k RAID cards, and so IBM changed course and dumped Adaptec which made the old ServeRAID controllers and brought out their new RAID controllers which use LSI chips.

There’s three downfalls, the first is the famous, lovely, easy to use ServeRAID software has been replaced with a uglier, slow, buggy cousin "MegaRAID", and the price of the RAID card has increased by 50% (%100 if you count the cache battery.)

The other gotcha which caught me out is that the old RAID cards came with cache batteries (without which RAID runs at speeds 10x less than desktop hard drives in some operations, and the cache batteries are half the cost of the RAID card again. HP got this right, they make their own RAID chipsets (from what I can work out), and their RAID controllers on even their cheap servers come with RAID5 built in. With IBM you throw away the bundled RAID controller which only does RAID 1 and buy a new controller, and the cache battery. I hear the newer higher end RAID controllers will now ship with the batteries again. This was a silly mistake on IBM's part. The reasoning IBM give is that the batteries are now classified as consumables.

UEFI - The Replacement for the 20 year old BIOS
The X3650 M2 is one of the first servers from IBM with the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) which is the replacement for the aging BIOS. I love the concept, and it needed to be done, you can configure ALL your adapter’s in the main ‘BIOS’ screen, including RAID cards, network adapter firmware settings etc instead of waiting for the correct time in the boot sequence and choosing the specific adapter firmware to configure.

The problem is IBM's implementation is painfully slow. It takes around 4 minutes between plugging power into the server and being able to turn it on (the power light flashes rapidly during this period), it then takes approximately another 4 minutes to go through the firmware initialisation before you can then boot the OS. The ‘BIOS’ Raid Configuration screens are also so painfully slow that I was stunned how it was possible to take such a fast server and make it display graphics so slowly! The shipping version of the "WebBIOS" for the RAID also had bugs where if you didn't click on a button the whole BIOS locked up hard. Time for another 4 minute power cycle. It was like playing Minesweeper!

I have a feeling there will be many firmware updates to improve the performance of the UEFI of this server over its lifecycle.

There is also a discussion going on about the finer points and other problems found such as the IMM Windows interface (which is USB) dropping domain controllers firewalls to Public mode causing all kinds of grief.

First real world experiences with IBM’s x3650 M2

Integrated Management Module (IMM)
The IMM is much improved, and now has a web interface standard, instead of having to upgrade to the RSA II Adapter, it has some cool features like taking a ‘picture’ of the server as it blue screens which it keeps a few of in the IMM so you can diagnose those hard to find problems, and a ploretha of data such as temp and fan speeds etc.

To note you still have to purchase the key to unlock remote screen control using the IMM when deploying servers remotely. This is still the same price as the RSA II adapters.

To note, we did have a problem with the cooling in our server room a few weeks ago, and the x3650 M2 is the only server which locked up hard. Older IBM boxes and Apple xserve's kept ticking over fine. The x3650 M2 likes it cool and freaks out when things get a little bit warm.

Microsoft Hyper-V VHD Bugs
Another issue we have stuck is a bug in Microsoft's vhdmp.sys which handles VHD files which blue screens on backup using Volume Shadow Copy.

We have one big data drive on our Hyper-V box with all the VHD's, we ALSO have a VHD which boots the physical Hyper-V machine so any software updates, windows upgrades are easier. This is something Microsoft supports but has a critical bug. There are discussions over here

vhdmp.sys BSOD 0x000000ca - StorageCraft Support Center

at the ShadowProtect forums and Microsoft said it was on the top 5 list for that product group which usually means a hotfix is out within 7 days but we are 3 weeks and counting.

Summary
While I wouldn't claim this is IBM's finest hour, the x3650 M2 is still a solid box, I think they x3650 M2 will get better over time with firmware updates but right now there are a lot of rough edges with this box.

When this server is deployed with the correct RAID cards and cache batteries and enough RAM it makes a great Hyper-V virtualisation platform. We have had ours in production which has half a dozen in production servers and about that again test machines and screams along.

My next post will cover some of the Hyper-V and Virtualization goodness.

Smartphone and mobile data survey: Victoria University needs your help

freitasm — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:06 +1200

I was contacted by a professor who is looking for help with getting 300 answers (or more) for a Victoria University of Wellington survey on smartphones and mobile data usage - respondents will be in to win $200.

This is a Victoria University of Wellington research project on the use of mobile information systems in the workplace.

By completing the questionnaire you will be entered in draw to win a prize of $200. Please use the following link to access the survey:

http://vuw.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_cBko9uZySNCz9Zi&SVID=Prod

Jetstar Fail

sbiddle — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 19:32 +1200

I decided to look at a few airfares this morning. With 3 domestic airlines in NZ now it's always good to look at all the options available. I decided to have a look at Jetstar

That's great - $29 fares between Wellington and Auckland advertised on the front page of the website with a "Stocktake Sale" promo. I clicked on the link.

What a shame these specials finished on the 13th November. I'm also intrigued that these prices are also advertising in $A rather than $NZ - I wonder whether this was a simple mistake or whether flights were actually A$29 which would have meant ~20% more in $NZ?

Is there anything Jetstar can get right?

Stupid song lyrics

DataCraft — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 00:40 +1200

Most of today’s modern music either fits into 2 categories original or not very original now I don’t have a problem with a band taking some failed 80s hit and turning it into a catchy rap mix.

But I do have a problem with stupid crappy lyrics that basically ride an awful melody to nothingness. Let’s take today’s number 2 hit ‘Fireflies’ from Owl City.

If you read through some of the lyrics you will start to see what I mean.

(my comments are in bold)

You would not believe your eyes - If 10 million fireflies - Lit up the world as I fell asleep
Brilliant

Cause they'd fill the open air and leave teardrops everywhere.you'd think me rude
but I would just stand and stare.
Are you at a nudist beach?

I like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly.
It does Einstein - 1 revolution every 24 hours

it's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep cause everything is never as it seems.
That’s some nice ryming

Cause I'd get a thousand hugs from ten-thousand lightening bugs as they tried to teach me how to dance.
I want what he's having.

But I'll know where several are if my dreams get real bizarre. Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar.
That line is worse than the lyric from Des’ree ‘It’s a sight that I fear most. I’d rather have a piece of toast’

Please no more Fireflies on the radio - please!