You’ll be designing websites, web application interfaces, email newsletters and campaign collateral. AND you’ll be building front-end templates in standards-compliant HTML/CSS to work flawlessly across a wide variety of platforms and devices.

Most of all, you must love the web and be a team player.

This position requires:

• A proven track record producing high quality websites
• A strong working knowledge of typography
• A strong background in graphic design
• Extensive Adobe Creative Suite experience
• Excellent skills with HTML/CSS/JS
• Browser compatibility knowledge
• Great communication and writing skills
• Self-reliant but also a great team player
• Preferably 2+ years working in the industry

If you have any of the following, you will be of extra special interest to us:

• Experience with WordPress, Campaign Monitor, and JQuery
• Experience with HTML5 and CSS3
• Experience with version control software
• Working knowledge of mobile front-end development
• Experience with Flash (not a major)

The role is based in our office in Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay. We will consider full or part-time, and recent graduates.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, we would like to hear from you. Please check out our website for the full position description.

Ignoring the fact I had a really poor clothing choice that day and I no longer have a beard or big hair... From left to right:

Dan Browne - Indelible (president), Rebecca Thompson - Staples Rodway (Treasurer), Adam Harris - Zealand Advertising (Vice president), Alexis Simmonds - Webfox (committee member), Joshua Woodham - SocialKiwi (committee member).

So far we have just had one meeting since electing the new execs and already I can feel the progress happening.

As a quick recap for those of you that don't know about us. HBYP is a group for all the young people in the bay in a multitude of job sets ranging from lawyers and accountants to web developers and social media experts. On our mailing list at present we have around 260 people and each event usually caters for between 25-60 people. It's a great place for young business people in the bay to network, make friends, and up skill.

Now that we have the extra hands and committee members our goal is to really make HBYP buzz with heaps more events, speakers and networking occasions throughout the year.

Our next event, which internally we're calling our 'relaunch' event, will be this Friday the 1st at 5.30pm at the Thirsty Whale. We have invited various successful Hawke's Bay professionals to come along including Louise Parsons (Dale Carnegie New Zealand), Kirsten Wise (Black & White Accounting), Jo Dryden (Hawke's Bay Today), Russell Booth (Career Change), Robbert Adriaansen (Career Change), Grant McDonald (Property Brokers).

If you or any of your staff wish to come along to try out the HBYP vibe feel free to come along this Friday at the Thirsty. Full details on our website.

If you, any of your employees or people you know wish to be kept up to date with what's happening at HBYP you can subscribe to our news letter here http://eepurl.com/cWLlY.

It only costs $20 a year to join and you're welcome to come to a few events for free to get a feel for what it's like. If you or your company would like to host an event for this buzzing young bunch of business people please email dan@hbyp.co.nz to get more info!

We also have a Facebook page that we will be making much more active as time goes on.

So what are you waiting for? Hope to see you there!

The trial is based on the new network being built by Chorus as part of the Crown Fibre UFB initiative.

We need candidates that live within the blue areas on the maps below who may be interested in our kick ass ultra-fast fibre broadband services. Full details of plans and pricing here. 

Participants in the trial will get a FREE installation a FREE UFB router and will have bragging rights as being the very first Crown Fibre network customers in Hawke's Bay.

If you live in this area or know someone who does, please get them in touch with me at ben@nownz.co.nz

I've never believe that just fixing Fibre to the Home (FTTH) would work. In fact without fixing International FTTH is probably a waste of time.

Tonight I ran some speed tests to see how fast my FTTH connection was locally, compared to connecting to Auckland and connecting to Silicon Valley. Here's what I found ...

I think explains why, while things are no doubt a bit better and more reliable with fibre, it doesn't really change the experience when communicating to where 95% of our Internet content comes from and where business is. Skype still sucks often, GotoMeeting is patchy and slow and forget Google Hangouts.

If FTTH is no better than DSL (copper) and we haven't introduced new content like TV and movies for people to substitute their satellite TV spend I fear that the UFB initiate is poised to flop. Simply there is no reason to pay for it.

Sadly the generous 1.5B spend on FTTH while well intentioned is misplaced. Fixing international (which we are trying to do with Pacific Fibre) is what we as an island nation should be really focussed on.

That is why I was disappointed with the Commerce Commission report which said ...

41. As discussed in Issues Paper 1, the price of international connectivity has fallen significantly since 2008 as the wholesale market has become more competitive. The price of international connectivity may continue to fall further with continued upgrading of capacity, competitive pressure on the wholesale market, and two possible infrastructure new entrants (Pacific Fibre and the joint venture between Axin and Huawei Marine).
42. While the high price of linkages has historically led to restrictive data allowances, this situation is rapidly changing (see discussion of data caps below). The Commission does not anticipate that international transit will be a major issue restricting the uptake of high speed broadband services.

Argh!!

At dinner with ICT Minister Amy Adams a week ago she said that 'My officials tell me we don't have an international broadband issue'. I have to ask if Ministers actually understand how we are using the Internet and how business works these days.

So what am I doing?

1. We are trying to get Pacific Fibre done. We're making good progress
2. I've had a number of Ministers in to explain what we're doing at Xero as an example.  We're at 200 people now and hope to add another 100+ in the next year. We're proving what you can do with the Internet.  Ross Patterson (The Commissioner) is in next week and we should have Amy in over the next few weeks.
3. Pushing for things we can do under the current model. For example Crown Fibre Holdings could complete their wholesale rate card and put out a tender for International bandwidth so that all New Zealanders could get blazing fast international when they connect to Fibre. Southern Cross would win some, we'd win some and we'd be off to the races.  That would be great for Chorus and Telecom as well. (Isn't it nuts that Southern Cross is held under Telecom so that if a new retail telco wants to connect to customers over UFB they have to buy International off their competitor?)

It would help if others can make some noise as well. International fibre for me is the biggest game changer we could do as a country.  It benefits all.

We need it.

Have you heard about Scholars Restaurant and On The Terrace Café?

Our professional chef students and café and bar students work in these EIT venues to hone their skills before graduating and gaining employment.

Our second year students in the Professional Cookery Programme are offering dinner services on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

We are also bringing back our very popular French menu at the end of the year – details available soon.

Our new Professional Cookery students will run a three week block of Bistro style lunches and dinners in June – and due to overwhelming demand, these will again be Christmas themed.

“On The Terrace Café offers a counter service lunch with a fabulous selection of café style food, great espresso coffees and some tempting desserts.

Please call us for opening hours.

And congratulations to Deliciosa Tapas and Wine Room.  They won the EIT Outstanding Front of House Team at the Hospitality Awards this week!

That is world class broadband and cost effective at around $150 per month.

The main things I'm using all this speed for is:

1. Skype: I'm constantly talking to Xero staff all over the world. We use Video for quick one on ones, a lot of chat, and do most of our interal meetings as a Skype conference (normally just voice).  While skyping we're often often collaborating on Google docs or http://bullseyehd.com.  I'm finding I'm doing a lot more external calls on Skype.  A few times a week I'll have job candidate interviews and quick partner catch ups.  I've noticed a real benefit of Skype is that meetings are much shorter.  Often in physical meetings people feel obligated to stay for an hour but in Skype, when you're done you're done which leaves some whitespace for getting other things moving.
2. Our business lives on Yammer, which allows all Xeroes around the world to be part of conversations during the day and throw ideas around the team
3. GotoMeeting HD Faces for video conferencing and online presentations
4. Vadacom deskphone. My home office is on the Xero virtual PABX so I can dial anyone in the company and place calls nationally and internationally via the Xero account
5. Dropbox for file sharing
6. Home phone line and HSM alarm system
7. iTunes

Having this much speed makes AppleTV transformational. I've moved my library (iTunes and iPhoto) off my working MacBookAir onto a dedicated MacMini.  I've put an AppleTV next to each TV.

I can control the MacMini using VNC, so use that to download US TV shows and movies in the background which is fast and painless. I use VNC full screen so can just 'two finger swipe' across to the MacMini.  My iPhone and iPad also syncs to that, not my work machine.  Wifi Sync keeps most things up to date and every few days I plug in which does photos.

The combination of iTunes, Home Sharing, Apple Remote app, Wifi Sync and AirPlay means you can beam content all around the house, from anywhere to anywhere. And it's very straight forward to set up (though you do need to know about all of it to make it work).

In New Zealand I'm still conscious of bandwidth so I'm not using iCloud which pulls movies back over the web when ever you want them.  I want to pull movies from the MacMini locally which the above setup does.  I've also found iTunes Match frustrating as it doesn't seem to update when you upload new songs from a CD or free downloads so playlists get out of date.  This sync model still works a lot better.

Mad Men series 5 is out and over the weekend I subscribed to the HD series. That pulls down both HD and SD versions of each episode.  That chewed through my  my 60GB quota but I upgraded to Now's 100GB plan which should be enough. No ads and you can 'power watch' a series.  If you haven't got an Apple TV yet you should. $159.

To connect inside the house I run a Time Capsule which provides wifi and backup and AirPort Express for extended wifi cover. Like Apple Remote there is an iPhone app to manage your home network: Airport Utility.

To get the best possible voice and video quality to my computer I'm running an Apple ThunderBolt Monitor and MacBook Air with ThunderBolt so I have hardwired Internet. When the MacBook Air docks it gets Internet through the Monitor so it's as fast as possible. I also hardwired the AppleTVs to avoid any wifi jitters - but that may be overkill.

When working at home I spend hours a day on the phone (skype, mobile or desk phone). A cool work toy I got was a Plantronics Savi headset which connects all three devices and I can walk and talk.

The best thing is I'm traveling less.  Flights to Wellington or Auckland are $300 to $500 a pop and I'm sure I'll save a couple of flights a month. That also frees up many wasted hours of travel time. More time for living. So for me the Return on Investment is high.

Working a few days at home changes the way you work.  In my 'big city days' I try to pack all my in person meetings in. I can't write stuff in the office as there are too many distractions so I save board papers and things that needs thinking time to home days.  I also try to do calls on home days.  I find that in non scheduled time I can chase opportunities and try to make new things happen. I'll often look for a company we want to do things with and track people down in LinkedIn.

So thank you Now and Unison Fibre.  It's never been easier to live local and work global.

Also thanks to HSM Security and Code Blue for getting everything else working.

We're very lucky in the Bay to have a bunch of companies that work together well and can get you sorted.

Finally, there is one essential bit of office equipment that makes working for home much, much easier ...

It began with a karakia or prayer followed by a whakatau or welcome.

The $2.5m project is the first in a three-stage, five-year redevelopment of the faculty of Māori Studies. Future stages will provide classrooms and a large area for Māori crafts, including greenstone carving and a language laboratory and three more classrooms.

The building’s name, meaning the landing place for waka, was chosen to convey a sense of the educational journey undertaken by Te Manga Māori students and staff.

The inspiration for the Paris Magdalinos Architects’ design was the waka.

The opening of the building was itself steeped in tradition.

Te Manga Māori students performed an action song specifically written for this occasion by lecturer Materoa Haenga.

[caption id="attachment_7215" align="alignleft" width="214" caption="Academics, from left, Dr Roger Maaka, Puti Nuku and Associate Professor Derek Lardelli with an artwork that will grace the foyer in the new building."][/caption]

Brian said he was honoured to receive the award from his peers.

His long list of services to the industry include

• executive member and secretary/treasurer of the HB Fruitgrowers Association
• chairman of the kiwifruit sector
• director of New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation
• a trustee of New Zealand Fruitgrowers Charitable Trust
• a representative on Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated Hawke’s Bay
• grower representative on Kiwifruit New Zealand Board and
• a trustee on New Zealand Agrichemical Education Trust.

Much of his work has involved resource management issues.

Brian teaches horticulture, particularly environmental issues involving the use of agrichemicals. As a GROWSAFE trainer since 1992, works with growers and farmers, rural supply and chemical company staff.

Congratulations Brian on your well deserved award.

Finance Software Support Analyst / Programmer

Intersoft Systems Ltd is a Napier based Software Development company that has a successful 30 year history of producing a range of business software packages for the Australasian market. We are expanding our staff and the opportunity now exists for you to join our team as a full time Software Support Analyst / Programmer.

The successful applicant will act in a key support role for our finance applications. Our software is used by over 400 lenders and finance companies and is considered to be a market leader in the industry. With the release of our new finPOWER Connect system, a new team member is required to develop an in-depth knowledge of the system and assist with the technical support, data conversions and customisation of the system. Our clients rely on our software to run their business so a task focused individual willing to take up the challenge is needed.

 The new team member will meet the following criteria:

• Experience in finance industry and supporting software.
• Have strong data analysis skills.
• Ability to develop  VBA, VB.NET and ASP.NET applications.
• A working knowledge of SQL Server and associated applications.
• Ability to create supporting system documentation.

 Qualities the successful applicant will also possess are:

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to quickly establish a rapport with a diverse range of clients
• Experience in supporting business systems
• Ability to work in a closely knit, Napier based team

 Intersoft Systems offers a great work environment with offices overlooking the Napier foreshore, a team approach and a supportive management structure.

 To enquire further, please email your CV and cover letter addressing the above criteria and qualities to sh@intersoft.co.nz

For more information on finPOWER Connect, go here http://www.intersoft.co.nz/Products/Product.aspx?product=finpowerconnect