manhinli: It's blogtastic!

Whoo – my very own domain!

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:32:00 PST

Hi guys - haven't blogged in a VERY long time...

Being here in Australia and all, I've decided that I really needed my very own playground for my projects (for example, the stalled NZ Connections Plan Finder which has been a mess recently.)

So I'm now at manhinli.net! The hosting and domain only costs me ~AUD30/year, which is a nice price, and is located in Brisbane as far as I know, so it should be relatively fast for both Kiwis and Aussies :)

Talking about speed, I've also put up a Speedtest.net Mini on the server - so if you're willing to help me find out how fast it really is, go here and post a comment! A test on my 10mbps/2mbps fibre connection ended up maxing it out, so at least I know that it can handle that!

This also means that I now no longer will be using my blog on Geekzone - I'll keep it intact, but there won't be any new posts (apart from a copy of this post)

There won't be stuff on the new site for a little while longer as I start to get this running smoothly and uni work out of the way.

This signs off my first post on my own blog, on my own domain!

Yet another random text...

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:00:00 PST

Well I haven't used this blog in quite a while... been busy over the last couple months studying, taking exams, and applying to universities! Good luck to all those who are too! (most of those who have probably have their offers anyway, so good luck on living the uni life then!)

Recently I lost (and found!) my Vodafone SIM and took the chance to port it to 2degrees just for the sake of it (did the same thing to my Dad's SIM when he lost his phone) - it always pays to keep your SIM packaging.

Right after it was ported (which was sometime near midnight on the same day) I got this random text. The number is on Vodafone NZ, so I'm guessing it's a case of mistaken number (as I've also got two other texts from the same number with legitimate content):

This January is very special, there are 5 saturdays & 5 sundays in 1 single month. This happens every 823 years! They r called The Money Sacs. Send this message to 9 good people and money will appear according to chinese Fengshui. Those who stop wont get anything. Good luck! Now you're on the clock. In 9 mins something will make u happy. Pls share this to 9 women u love. TAKE NOTE! 9 women.

In an attempt to make something out of this, I've made a few random points about this random text I got.

So:

The text is false (5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays in a month happens quite often)
You've lost money by forwarding this multipart text... not sure when Chinese Feng Shui's supposed "Money Sacs" will repay that back...
I would have liked something to have happen to me in the 9 minutes that ensued, but unfortunately, I was asleep. Whoever forwarded it must have been either a night owl or something.
I am not female! So I'm guessing whoever sent this thought the intended recipient was. But this raises another question...
Why send this "to 9 women u love" if recipients of this SMS forwarding spam are meant to be female? Do all women have at least 9 other women that they have loving relationships with?

Did I go way too deep into this or what?

But of course the simple message to put out there is:

Got TXT spam? Delete it, man!

2degrees - I like your products but...

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 10:24:00 PST

I quite like 2degrees' products and services - bringing fresh competition into our mobile market. However, from day one (or actually, more like day -60 or so) I felt the page style structure had some peculiarities. One being the odd displacement of the page when the browser window is less than ~1040px. So since I have nothing to do for the next 3 weeks, I decided to look into 2degrees' website today. Who ever did 2degrees' website should really have a good look at themselves and think about what they've done. One large example: Using position: absolute and left: 50% coupled with margin-left: -500px is not a good way to center pages, thank you very much. This is because the page content wrapper is set at 1000px wide, so shifting it by -500px from left: 50% shifts the page over to appear centered. This is also the reason why some people with mobile browsers can't use the site properly (or at least the Your 2degrees account management portal, why only that site I still need to find out) So anyway, I quickly found an antidote CSS nibble and shoved it through via. jQuery (which is already present on the website). I haven't made a lot of testing since I only have a netbook with me (I am technically on holiday...) so can't make sure if this has really affected the centering of pages, but use of the bookmarklet seems to work well on our IDEOS (Android 2.2). Here's the bit you need to bookmark: javascript:jQuery('#wrapper{position:relative !important;margin:0 auto !important;margin-left:0 !important;left:auto !important;}').appendTo('head') To use it, create a bookmark first (anything will do, you'll edit the address later). Then go back to edit it, and paste the above into the address. Make sure the address is EXACTLY how it appears above - spaces might be introduced into it which might not make it work properly. Go to Your 2degrees, let the page load, and hit the bookmarklet. The page should appear to reflow and the left hand menu should come into view. This has to be done on every page load as it's not actually done through the website - rather, a piece of Javascript executed on demand. To 2degrees' web designer and/or maintainer: Please, please for the sake of your mobile customers with smart phones - change the bad CSS you have on there.

How to enable Voice Calling, USSD (*100#) and Connection History for your 2degrees Mobile Broadband USB Modem (aka Huawei E1552)

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:57:00 PDT

Before I got my 2degrees Mobile Broadband USB Modem today, I had done some research into what I could do with it... features that the Huawei dashboard software does have include voice and video calling, MMS, USSD, and even wild ones like GPS, though it's hard to say whether they are ready for use with this model of modem (the modem apparently has a chipset which actually supports A-GPS... so that's an interesting one...)

My attempts to get video calling failed and MMS is a bit buggy (more on that later) but here are the steps to get the sorely needed USSD and data connection history, and voice calling, only by adding a few lines to some XML files.

Go into \Program Files\2degrees Mobile Broadband\config\ and open up PluginsConfig.xml

Change the following lines:




to

<item name="NetInfoRecordUIPlugin" clsid="27A315A2-D587-498a-9FC5-7CF2738679DF"/>
<item name="USSDUIPlugin" clsid="6ADFE6DA-E212-4087-8466-043AB06DF4EB"/>

and immediately after that, insert the following:

<item name="CallPlugin" clsid="8FC7A17B-EA76-4e6e-872D-9AAC222C8B03"/>
<item name="CallUIPlugin" clsid="58A0343A-93DB-4ea2-92B4-C51589629381"/>
<item name="CallLogUIPlugin" clsid="1FCAC0FF-9E87-450f-8258-1155D7696571"/>

This enables Data Connection History, USSD and voice calling respectively.

Then go to \Program Files\2degrees Mobile Broadband\plugins\XFramePlugin\ and open up Config.xml

Change the line:



to

<item type="NORMAL" module="XFramePlugin" icon="ussd" icon2="UssdDisable"id="IDS_USSD_COMMON">43057</item>

This just makes the icon for USSD appear in the toolbar.

Enjoy!

Back to video calling and MMS, I had to "hack" some files off another dashboard set up to get it up and running.

I was able to enable the buttons and overall functions for video calling, but it never seemed to be able to go through, and the software would crash or somehow think I'm in a video call when I'm not.

For MMS, I could only use the special unbranded "Mobile Partner" dashboard to get it running. Trying to integrate it with the newer dashboard with the 2degrees Mobile Broadband USB Modem just made the software crash, so I've just left it out. But it does definitely work (with the right software)!

2degrees Mobile Broadband - my views, zoning, pricing, comparison, and tips

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:57:00 PDT

You probably all know that I've been leaking quite a bit of detail of 2degrees' 3G plans and pricing of devices, but it was only until this morning did the mobile broadband pricing come up.

I've been quite excited for their 3G launch and I'm actually quite impressed with 2degrees' effort in the mobile broadband department - with seriously competitive pricing and extended validity periods.

Zoning

2degrees' "nationwide network" comprises of their own network of cell towers in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown, and a roaming agreement with Vodafone for coverage outside of these areas.

Probably in an attempt to keep prices low and to monitor reaction and activity, Mobile Broadband Zones were introduced where their new mobile broadband data packs are valid.

While understandable as they probably will have to bear higher costs if they were to deliver this over Vodafone national roaming, their lack of their own cell towers in quite large cities such as Tauranga, Hamilton, Napier/Hastings, and Dunedin mean that a lot of people will miss out. Most of them will probably be covered in the next roll out of towers which will happen next year.

Coverage areas for Mobile Broadband Zones can be found here.

I'll also cover more on the things you need to look out for about the zones later in this post.

Pricing

Pretty simple really:

$20 for 512MB, valid for 30 days;
$50 for 2GB, valid for 60 days;
$150 for 10GB, valid for 90 days.

Again, they are only valid in Mobile Broadband Zones only. They also come with a reduced overage rate of $0.10/MB if you go over the data cap during their validity period, otherwise you'll be stung at the casual rate of $0.50/MB. However, you can buy as many of the packs as you need them - so if you're a heavy user, just load the packs up in bulk!

Those out of Mobile Broadband Zones only get offered the same old data pack, now renamed the "50MB National Data Pack" - which pretty much sums it up: 50MB for $6, valid for 30 days. You can't get their cheaper overage rate though - $0.50/MB casual rate, but you can buy as many as you can, when you want it.

Comparison

On the face of it, 2degrees' mobile broadband plans pretty much beat the pants off any other provider's mobile broadband plans (even postpaid ones!)

Let's have a look - I've also included MVNOs which have medium-large data plans too (it's quite a list!):

2degrees Mobile Broadband Data Packs

$20.00/512MB ($40.00/GB)
$50.00/2GB ($25.00/GB)
$150.00/10GB ($15.00/GB)

Black+White (Postpaid)

$49.95/1GB ($49.95/GB)
$69.95/3GB ($23.32/GB)

Orcon (Postpaid, no term)

$29.95/500MB ($61.34/GB)
$49.95/2GB ($24.98/GB)
$69.95/4GB ($17.49/GB)

Vodafone (Postpaid, No term)

$39.95/512MB ($79.90/GB)
$59.95/2GB ($29.98/GB)
$79.95/4GB ($19.99/GB)

Telecom (Postpaid, No term)

$29.95/500MB ($61.34/GB)
$59.95/2GB ($29.98/GB)
$79.95/4GB ($19.99/GB)

Vodafone (Postpaid, With 12 or 24 month term)

$29.95/512MB ($59.90/GB)
$49.95/2GB ($24.98/GB)
$69.95/4GB ($17.49/GB)

Telecom (Postpaid, With home broadband discount + term?)

$49.95/2GB ($24.98/GB)
$69.95/4GB ($17.49/GB)

Vodafone (Prepaid)

$10.00/100MB ($102.40/GB)
$30.00/512MB ($60.00/GB)

Telecom (Prepaid)

$29.95/500MB ($61.34/GB)
$59.95/2GB ($29.98/GB)
$79.95/4GB ($19.99/GB)

2degrees pretty much wins in each category, except for the following:

Comparing the 2GB Data Pack; Orcon wins (ever so slightly) when comparing to no term plans
Telecom XT's Prepaid Mobile Broadband has an advantage - that it's charged at $0.10/MB up to the price cap. This is great in terms of flexibility - use whenever you want and pay for what you use.

This means that people using less than 200MB should get the 500MB Prepaid plan since you'll only be charged less than $20, and only when you use it.

There are also some small regions where this also has an advantage over other plans, but I'm not going into that detail today. Maybe a later time if I'm making a graph

This charging method doesn't apply to their Postpaid plans though.
Also, Telecom XT One Rate Prepaid top ups come with bonus credit, effectively allowing a discount of up to 25%.

We could then say that prices can effectively go as low as:
- $22.46/500MB ($46.00/GB)
- $44.96/2GB ($22.48/GB)
- $59.96/4GB ($14.99/GB)
This also means that it beats 2degrees in the 2GB category as well, as long as you top up every month.

There's a big but with my comments above though, because of 2degrees' extended validity periods.

Splitting the 2GB and 10GB into monthly increments respectively:

$25.00/1GB each month for 2 months ($25.00/GB)
$50.00/3.33GB each month for 3 months ($15.00/GB)
$75.00/5GB each month for 2 months ($15.00/GB)

Which means that's it's highly competitive to compare to 3GB+ plans too!

Tips and notes

Well maximising value is pretty much what everyone wants, so here's a great deal when combined together:

Warehouse Stationery's currently selling 2degrees SIMs with $20 credit at $10 each (until August 28th).
Add to that a $20 512MB Data Pack, which currently gives 1GB (offer available till October 31st)...

... that's $10 for 1GB! That's way better value than any of the aforementioned plans! The 2GB -> 3GB offer won't work out as better value since you'll also need top up with an additional $30, so the per-gigabyte rate then would be $13.33/GB.

Load up on those SIMs and just add the packs on each as you go before October 31st. And even after that, if you've still got those half price SIMs, it'll be $20/GB - that's still better value than the standard 2GB pack!

If you travel outside of the Mobile Broadband Zone while having a Mobile Broadband Data Pack, any National Data Pack will be used first and then you'll be charged at casual rates of $0.50/MB.

However, from the first time you purchase/activate a Mobile Broadband Data Pack, you're locked into the zone which means that data will stop to prevent credit from being taken outside of your Mobile Broadband Data Pack (unless you've got a National Data Pack in which case it'll chew into that first before stopping).

Once "unlocked" from the zone, you'll be charged at casual rates while using data outside of the zones.

The lock and unlock process can be done by texting Lock or Unlock to 233. However, it shouldn't really be necessary because you can load up with National Data Packs if data is really necessary.

If you are within the Mobile Broadband Zone but still have a National Data Pack left over, it might be best to use that up first before getting a Mobile Broadband Data Pack as they are used first before National Data Packs.

Conclusion

2degrees has definitely made mobile broadband more affordable, but only for those in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

If you're out of the zones, then nothing has really changed.

Pretty simple really.

There are a few things that do need looking into though:

Monthly Auto Top Up + Value Packs: MATU only happens on the nth day of every month, but Value Packs/Data Packs only last 30 days. This means that there must always be some buffer credit remaining for a truly worry free month-by-month experience.
Auto Renewal: Because 2degrees' Mobile Broadband plans can now market itself as an Internet solution, the lack of auto renewal does worry some. While yes, there are notifications delivered by TXT, the fact is that people might be in the middle of say a simple transfer or webcam conversation and with it cutting off in the middle of it when there's no credit left (as it burns credit at $0.50/MB then!) is not such a great idea - or maybe they completely missed it as the notification might not have reached them (SMS validity period of a week I believe?). Plus it will help with the worry free month-by-month experience.

-- Additional comments added after inital post --

It also seems slightly ironic that 2degrees is offering such huge data allowances in places where most people might not necessarily need the freedom of mobile broadband - mainly because they're at home or holidaying where the zones don't cover them.

Maybe those:

flatting/student living on mobile
on frequent on-the-go business
heading to baches or places like Piha
etc,

... would be using them the most, but still, I think the people who really desperately need the use of mobile broadband are those who are less economically viable to reach. While giving them data might not necessarily do much on the surface (rural life is not boring! ) - some parts might benefit from it e.g. communication of data from farms...
--

But I must congratulate 2degrees on their 3G launch a year after their initial launch. They've made huge inroads in the mobile industry in New Zealand.

... and my job of covering the 2degrees 3G lineup/launch is done - but I'm still eager to see what's coming next...

Part of 2degrees' 3G launch lineup - UPDATED

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:46:00 PDT

As I posted earlier on Geekzone, Warehouse Stationery leaked the pricing for 2degrees' mobile broadband modem packs.

However, I've also delved a little deeper into Warehouse Stationery's to find a bit of their 3G handset lineup too!

Here they are:

Acer Smartphone BE130 - $450
Correction: it is the Acer beTouch E130. Warehouse Stationery didn't correctly identify it.
LG GU285 + SIM + 50MB - $202.38 - I find the price a bit odd
Nokia 5230 + Hands Free Kit - $399

And to repeat the mobile broadband modem pack info:

512MB data + modem for $99
10GB data + modem for $199 (yes that's less than $200 for 10GB of mobile broadband with a modem!)

Here are screenshots of the pages before Warehouse Stationery took them down:

UPDATE: Looks like Dick Smith have some of the other 3G handsets too:

LG GU285 - $199
Nokia 5230 - $379
Nokia X6 - $599

DSE say that stock is due 29 July - which possibly means a Thursday or Friday launch for 2degrees 3G.

UPDATE 2: 2degrees appears to also stepping into the (usually lower end) provider-branded phone range with a Huawei U1251, naming it 2degrees 1251.

The phone is 3G, with a 2MP camera, Bluetooth, supports a microSD card and has a 3.5mm audio jack.

This screenshot from PB Technologies, from Google Cache:

Quick follow up to the Cat 5 cable blog post

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:26:00 PDT

This morning I was able to grab a few replacement Cat5e cables - and this time I tested them out before I bought them!

So I went ahead and cut my crappy network cable open to see what it was really made of.

Their way of having 20% copper is to add 1 strand of copper with 4 strands of aluminium!

I'm also pretty certain that it's not 24AWG, even when I twist them together.

Ugh. Piece of garbage.

Category 5 cable that's not so Category 5.

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:16:00 PDT

Recently I purchased a bunch of cheap Ethernet cables. They were listed as (and I quote) "Category 5 Network Patch Cable (5M 4-Pair 24AWG)" and I bought a 2m length of that one as well.

They arrived, and I opened one of them up. Plugged it into my computer to test it out, and my Internet ran as smoothly as it has always been, compared to my usual connection over my Ethernet cable.

They looked the same (apart from the colour), felt the same, tasted the same... ahem. Pretty much they were indistinguishable from what you would call "normal" Ethernet cables.

Hey look - it even says Category 5e! Or maybe not...

So to why I bought them - I was hoping to use them in the transfer of power and some serial data across a string of units I'm making for my Electronics project which will be situated in a semi-outdoor situation. I did a small bit of research which said that Ethernet cables would do the job well. Low resistivity, low per-metre price, great durability, standard plugs, high availability. Why not?

Power over Ethernet for devices already exists, which provides 15W-25W (depending on the standard) - that's enough for what I need! I'm running 24VDC at around 0.6A (~15W) so I thought that the cables should handle it (and if it didn't then I would just use two pairs instead of one - but I need to reserve others for data transmission)

From what I can see, Cat5 cables are 24AWG.

What's AWG then? It stands for American Wire Gauge, a system that compares wires. Numbering goes from 0 (thickest, though there is 0000 for the widest one) to around 40 (thinnest).

24AWG wire is about 0.5mm wide in diameter, and if made of pure copper would have a resistance of roughly 85Ω/km. A few sites state that Cat5 should have a max resistance of around 9.4Ω to 9.8Ω/100m. This varies a little between the sites, so I estimated that to 10Ω/100m = 100Ω/km. That seems to be close to the 85Ω/km pure copper rating for 24AWG wire, and that should be fine since I expected that even if alloys are used in cheap cabling that it should be kept relatively low because data transmission would be affected if impedance is too high.

What I did not expect was that when I plugged it into my project, through one length of the 5m cable, the power dropped considerably on the other side which did not match expected figures.

Here's what I found: (I couldn't put a table here, so used an image instead)

So okay, just reading from that - all of my cables failed? Well, I used a multimeter, held the sharp probes firmly down onto the contacts and waited for a second for the reading to stabilise. I don't have cable testing equipment, so this is as close as I can get.

From the looks of things, my 15m cable comes close to being pure copper in comparison to the others. I threw in a TP-Link supplied cable to see how the cable would compare and by the looks of things it's not too bad since they probably used a lower grade alloy to supply them to the masses cheaply and the short distance means that there isn't a significant difference.

However, the 2m and 5m lengths of cable I bought have a HUGE resistance in comparison to my own cables. Even with uncertainties factored in, it's still huge!

The cables had 10x the resistance per kilometre in comparison to my own 15m cable! That's heaps!

Even though they worked fine in a network, it definitely didn't meet the standards they said that they were tested against, which I highly doubt happened since there are spelling mistakes now that I look at it:

"CERTIFIED" is spelt "UERTIFIED" and "AWG" is spelt "AWC"

So either they used a thinner wire (unlikely - though there have been reports of manufacturers using thinner 26AWG wire rather than 24AWG) or used a really cheap alloy/another metal (extremely likely).

On even closer inspection, you can see the differences in colour of the metals in the wires of the two cables.

Left: 5m cable I bought online. Right: 15m cable I use to connect my PC to my network

I looked at the rest of the 5m cables I bought... and deep inside I had to say that I could curse myself for buying them. Ugh.

If anyone wants 5m Ethernet cable suitable for normal everyday use (the rest haven't been opened yet), you can get them for $3.50ea (+ $3.20 urban courier, rural delivery surcharge applies). Comment below and I'll email you.

Telecom & Commerce Commission settlement - where other consumers come into the picture, and my response to community support

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:00:00 PDT

As you may know, Telecom and the Commerce Commission today announced that they have reached a settlement regarding misleading advertising in Telecom's "Broadband at Dial-up prices" campaign in 2008.

If you're one of the 1,300 Telecom customers who signed up to the Basic plan (which they no longer sell) during this promotion, you should get a whole bunch of credits (even adjusted for inflation) if you haven't been credited for this yet.

For more details, check out the media releases from both Telecom and the Commerce Commission:

TELECOM AND COMMERCE COMMISSION SETTLEMENT (Telecom)
1300 broadband customers to get refunds following Commerce Commission investigation (Commerce Commission)

One thing caught the eye of Mauricio though:

Telecom has also agreed to pay $75,000 to Consumer New Zealand Inc to assist in the funding of a telecommunications Price Comparison Project which is intended to provide an internet-based tool for consumers to compare the prices of different telecommunications products.

This was interesting - and also ground breaking too. Right now there isn't a large or heavily promoted website which allows consumers to compare plans between all providers (or at least the big players + the well-known smaller ones.) This has led to many uneducated consumers to pretty much "go with the flow" - usually Telecom as most people still have their phone lines with them, so it's an easy, natural "step up" to broadband.

Setting up a site dedicated to show and compare information about Internet plans from telecommunications providers for consumers is definitely a step in the right direction. It works both ways too - some might like flexibility, others cost certainty - providers like Telecom will still continue to pick up new customers (may be even more... who knows!) and having one place to compare also means that it's easy to see which plans are better or not, which potentially increases competition too. Consumers not only want to know about price - speed, allowance, and other factors like overages are definitely important for people to know and understand - and the Commerce Commission recognises this too:

“In particular, in the area of new telecommunications offerings, it is easy for consumers to be confused or misled if advertising is not clear as there are many other important details in addition to price, which may influence a consumer’s decision,” said Mr Wallace [Commerce Commission Enforcement Manager, Christchurch]

The New Zealand Connections wiki has been running for over two and a half years now. While it originally was made to provide information about telecommunications in New Zealand (and it still is) - most people who do use it use the Plan Finder, which helps compare plans in different categories across a wide range of providers (more than those other commerical comparison websites I might add.)

It's open, collaborative, independent, and best of all it definitely didn't need $75,000. Information can easily be improved on by people - immediately. Even if they can't help directly, providing suggestions and talking on our forum is another way that a community works well with sites like ours. Wikipedia works on this model - and I don't see why it can't with this.

It's power to the people - for the people.

While work on it is still in progress (and will always be,) it has come a long way since the early days when all we had were a small bunch of tables all crammed on one page... We recently got a New Zealand based host which offered to host our site for free (in return for a small tag at the bottom of our pages) - this meant that we could present our site ad-free.

Anyway, the point raised by many is that something is out there, doing what this new telco plan comparison website project is meant to do, that's open, free and does that job pretty darn well, and all it needs is a little work to get it up to scratch.

I was very suprised when Mauricio suggested that at least a part of the $75,000 should be given to me to work on the New Zealand Connections wiki. There's even Geekzone community support for the motion. For that, I really am grateful for the support and confidence people have in me - so thank you all

However, as I approach university (which isn't that far away), I'm becoming increasingly busy from school and preparatory work, and have less time to work on these kind of projects which I work on in my free time - and so even if I do even get a bit of the funds, everything would have to be a collaborative effort of the community.

While I have plans to finish off the 2010 changes to the site (such as the new "Help and Support" system and provider page layouts,) I am no longer able to contribute to the New Zealand Connections wiki in the significant way that I did. I used to be able to have time to completely revamp portions of the site, but progress has been slow over the last year.

I would also like to point out that I don't own nor control the New Zealand Connections website; I am merely a significant contributor - cokemaster is the one behind the scenes, and I would also like to give credit to him for setting this site up and making it work for this long.

I have always worked on stuff like this on a volunteer/free basis - like helping people with their computers (I get that a lot) to making my Telecom T-Stick ZTE MF626/636 software skin - all of them are free and I have a great sense of accomplishment with that. The only need for money is for university studies (overseas... sorry guys) and expenses from next year.

I would actually like that the huge sum of money to be spent in a wiser manner than just throwing it into the new project - surely they must have had some insight/research into the real value of it (though I suspect that the asking cost was partly due to the Commerce Commission.) It would make more sense for a majority of that to go towards charity rather than the project, simply because it just doesn't make sense to spend that much when something similar didn't need to.

At the end of this,

I will still appreciate it that, if the money does come through, it's forwarded to the New Zealand Connections wiki project and its community.
I would love to see a community-based wiki project prosper, providing free, open information for all - that's updated quicker, moderated by all, and enabled everyone to contribute.
I will continue to help, but no longer in any significant capacity.

If anyone would still like to approach me - feel free to do so anytime. I would love to be able to help with making decisions for consumers an easier and more straightforward one, as well as encouraging competition in our broadband market. Just remember that I am still a 17 year old high school student.

It's not about the money. It's about the consumer, and I really do have the interests of them at heart.

I hope I haven't completely wasted the effort of, or disappointed, my supporters. I hope you understand my situation and where I am coming from.

Tangents of a circle passing through a point: Part II

Fri, 21 May 2010 11:31:00 PDT

Remember that math question I posted earlier this year?

Nothing that we found at the time had anything similar to the answer to it that we had derived.

Here's the solution to finding the gradients of the two lines which are tangents of a circle passing through a point:

While we did take 3 days to derive this, the below derivation is different to the one we originally had, but is more refined. Click the below picture for a hand-drawn diagram and derivation.

In other unrelated news: you might have noticed that I changed the theme of my blog a little - from grey to blue to lighten things up. Also moved a few elements around, but most things haven't changed.

Hope you like it!

---

EDIT: Ooops... realised that there was a mistake where I didn't swap the algebra right. Fixed it now.

Graphs for Prepay TXTing

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 05:08:00 PDT

Continuing on from my previous blog post, here are graphs for prepay TXTing.

Please note that the numbers at the bottom represent the total number of TXTs sent in one month, not the number of texts sent to each network. Also, for the first 100 TXTs or so, the figure for 2degrees is $20 as that's the minimum top up cost (Top Up Rewards is being used as a TXT bundle)

You can also get the spreadsheet which generates these figures here.

Prepay mobile TXTing - is 2degrees cheaper? Revisited

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:49:00 PDT

Going back on the previous post to this, there were a few things I should have stated clearer:

Yes, standard add-ons (TXT150/600/1500 on XT, TXT2000 on Vodafone) were included in the figures
Limited time offers like TXT4000 and specific on-net stuff (like BestMates) were not included since you can't "calculate" them in a spreadsheet
It's not intended to mean that people will run up bills of thousands of dollars (though if they did, they're doing something wrong)

Now that that's out of the way...

I've now fixed the spreadsheet, and to the extent of my knowledge and testing, it should be accurate.

Running through the spreadsheet again, my figures for the examples from my last blog post are exactly the same now, apart from a new range of figures that the 2degrees plan costs.

3000 on-net TXTs costs:
- $50 on 2degrees
- $210 on Vodafone Supa Prepay
- $318 on Telecom XT One Rate Prepaid

1800 TXTs split equally to all three networks costs:
- $78 on Telecom XT One Rate Prepaid
- $66-$90 on 2degrees
- $250 on Vodafone Supa Prepay

I've added $10TXT on Telecom CDMA (for existing customers) and a "recommended top up" combination grid for 2degrees customers (since you can only top up a maximum of $100/day, and getting the number of texts right is not easy...)

Due to some hard-out fixing I've done, some results will be different compared to the previous spreadsheet.

.xlsx spreadsheet
.xls spreadsheet

Again, no Google Docs as it would be far too messy to fix their converted file up.

Finally getting something done with Plan Finder

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:43:00 PDT

I help around with the New Zealand Connections wiki a bit - and recently put out Plan Finder as part of changes coming in 2010. It's a Javascript based plan presenter which uses AJAX to grab the info from around the site.

I was about to get a ADSL page running with an editor (to make life a bit more easier than filling in a long form) by February, but... I lost my JS work because I needed to format my hard drive, but forgot to backup... (doh!)

So here I am recreating it during my school holidays...

I've opted to keep the old tables running, and will be putting a separate page for the ADSL table as it is completely rewritten.

An example of that is the new plan information dialog that appears. Here's a shot of it (work in progress):

Tables will have pagination and live search filter. The ADSL table has over 100 entries (I believe) so those should be great features :)

So anyway, I wanted to know:

what you think would be good to know at a glance in a table and/or plan information page (such as Plan Finder), and
who would be interested in helping transfer/update the information from the old table

Because Plan Finder uses data stored in a table, I hope this time round will be the last time the table will need converting for a long time.

So I'm open to comments and suggestions, and anyone who's keen to help carry over the table (in around a weeks time)

Prepay mobile TXTing - is 2degrees cheaper?

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:13:00 PDT

You probably heard this morning that 2degrees will be offering 2c on-net TXTs from 31 March with every top up.

This is kind of ironic since 2degrees have marketed their Prepay "Pay Now" service as being simple and without all the on-/off-net fuss.

But anyway...

I whipped up a spreadsheet for you to analyse your usage and to see whether 2degrees cuts it, along with the upcoming 2c on-net TXT rate.

* I must note that this spreadsheet and the below examples do not include BestMates or any other limited time offers. *

Here are some examples:

3000 on-net TXTs costs:
- $50 on 2degrees (from 31 March)
- $210 on Vodafone Supa Prepay
- $318 on Telecom XT One Rate Prepaid

1800 TXTs split equally to all three networks costs:
- $78 on Telecom XT One Rate Prepaid
- $87 on 2degrees (from 31 March)
- $250 on Vodafone Supa Prepay

Kind of why Vodafone really need some good cross-network TXT add-ons when the upcoming changes to their Prepay plans next month occur.

Here are the links to the .xls and .xlsx files. Google Docs completely screwed the spreadsheet over, so no Google Docs unless someone really needs it - I don't want to pick up the messy pieces after the conversion.

Spreadsheet (Excel 97-2003)
Spreadsheet (Excel 2007-)

Enjoy!

UPDATE: I have found further flaws to the spreadsheet and the model as well. I'm working on making a new spreadsheet to see if I can fix it. But for the majority of cases the current spreadsheet should give a good indication of the costs involved.

Tangents of a circle passing through a point

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:54:00 PST

Our maths teacher recently gave us a question to solve. It was to generate the equation of two lines which are tangents to a circle but also passing through one external point.

An example of this:

(you can ignore the dotted circle)

My friend and I had difficulty trying to solve it at first. Generating a line equation is easy, but finding the gradient isn't.

We spent 3 hours over 3 days at school (we have daily 1 hour long "Study" classes, which most people don't "study" in anyway), and this is pretty much how it ended up:

1st day: I solved the question by using a multitude of trigonometric functions, ending up with the two gradients. But they were not in any particular form, just numbers, so weren't that great as an answer as they would not be exact answers. And it looked ugly (yes, maths can be beautiful at times...)
2nd day: So my friend attempted to get a surd form for this number by working through my method, and he successfully does.
3rd day: He wanders off and discovers a relationship between the answer and original parameters and generates a general form for the gradient for the lines!

So today I copied off all our rough work onto paper and our teacher was most pleasantly surprised!

The equation doesn't involve having to substitute one equation into another, which has significantly made calculating the gradient for any line of this sort a whole lot easier.

But I won't be posting it up. Not yet.

That's because I'm trying to find if this has been generalised before. So if anyone knows of anything which can directly generate the gradients of such lines, please let me know in the Comments section below.

Otherwise... well, you can probably guess what we will do next.

#StationeryRant - Something that affects families with children going to school

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:49:00 PST

The title might be unassuming and kind of strange - but I'm literally tearing my head off at how stationery has turned into an evil nightmare of an industry (if I can call it that...)

Not sure about what people did before I went to primary, but back then - stationery existed only in stores, in loose items, you got a list of what to get and buy before or just after you started school. People did what they needed to do - everyone was pretty happy with that.

Sure that might have been yet another hassle, but it gave us one thing that now showed up recently - freedom! Freedom to choose where we bought it from, for whatever price we wanted. Schools would have been perfectly fine with a 1B5 with Pams written all over it, or some colouring pencil set of another brand which coloured what needed to be coloured in.

Starting from a few years back, things started to change. While I still had a list of what was required, my school also gave us an option to tick off a box and have a pack arrive at our class all ready to go by the next week. Sure, it's convenient, but we calculated that the package cost a fair bit more than going out and buying the contents ourselves.

It also happens to be that we live right opposite a shopping complex with a bookstore, so we didn't need to worry about whether fuel miles goes into the cost of the package, but either way, it was more expensive.

Things were simple during primary and intermediate - all you needed were few exercise books, pad, stuff you need in a pencil case (pens, pencils, erasers, etc) and a few "tools" like calculators and compasses.

Obviously, things get a little more complex when you get to high school.

In my first year, we still got a list - which was good. But this time round - there were some weird workbooks on there which didn't exist at bookstores... prices for these "workbooks" ranged from $8 to $20.

Turns out they were just photocopied pages from other workbooks stapled together for subjects as a workbook.

WHAT?!?

I'm fine with the school photocopying pages for us to work on, but in extremely expensive workbooks?

What's worse - most people never finished the entire contents of it - since no class would ever use an entire workbook (which people would know also happens with practically any other workbook)

So the school's already cleaning up with these so called "workbooks" which are expensive, an un-necessary waste of paper, made through another company, and ridiculously riddled with frequently-misaligned photocopied pages. Remember that there are also those pesky, and ever-increasing things called "school donations" on the side which by the way needs paying so you could make use of school resources...

The next year, we get told that the school's not supplying a list. We just got told to go to a website.

It was a new "initative" by OfficeMax - under their wholesale wing, School Supplies (who also do their own exercise books etc)

Basically, you selected checkboxes for subjects you are about to take, these pull a bunch of stuff down from a list which the school pre-sets. Back then, "packages" didn't exist on the site (I'll go over that soon) - so you can see what you needed to buy (plus those nasty proprietary books) and you are still able to have that information on hand to go to another store to buy stationery from.

There is also one more thing - the site only gives a small 70px by 70px picture, a short description, stock code (obviously for their own database) and price. That's it - you can't see the cover of the item, nor can you possibly work out what a "Big Book" is if the picture just has a really big blue covered book with tiny words in it.

A good thing about this service is that you got what you definitely needed (and then some) and it's all ready to go before you start school (so schools don't have the 1 week lingering time) - but it just made things for frugal and smart shoppers that more complicated.

The site pretty much has looked and functioned the same way now as it did then - apart from a few little things like multi-student orders (for big families), a clearer generated list of stationery for each subject (previously you needed to manually figure out what would go where as it just came in a big pile)...

Now it even takes in fees on behalf of schools and has new "packages" available too.

Here's a "compulsory" fee that the school wants us to pay:
(The site says that matters regarding fees is not their responsibility as they only transfer the money to the school's bank account)

Our payment of $27 is for a "Success Planner Chart and Pen"?!?! Our school's gone mad!! They're hiding fees everywhere!

Making matters even worse - the site/school now hide stuff in the aforementioned "Compulsory Pack A" for Year 9's (this is an order for my sister, not for me by the way).

We don't even get a peek into this compulsory pack - until we hit the Buy button and got a huge invoice with everything listed! Stuff like rulers, pencils, erasers, compasses, protractors - are all included. Stuff we don't need since we have them!

School Supplies says the site allows you to "add or remove items they [students] may already have" - obviously the introduction of these "packages" goes against this!

I've seen other schools go down a similar path, but in a different way. You can now buy bags of stationery in "packs" - basically, walk into a participating local book store, grab a pack, and go. I have nothing against them since they clearly list the entire contents of the pack, so you can still get other stuff separately (unless it comes with one of those "special" books I talked about).

However, it's only till recently that I found out that these packs came from China. Exercise books are Warwick branded, made by Croxley in New Zealand, with some other NZ stationery and obviously some that aren't, but they're packed in China!

What a great thing to do... ship NZ stuff to China to be packed, probably by some poor labourer paid squillions times less than the minimum wage, only to be shipped back to NZ.

I know outsourcing is the hot thing to do if you're a business - moving stuff offshore to a country which can accomplish the task (which simply is grabbing a bunch of stationery and stuffing it in a plastic bag) for a significantly lesser cost. But seriously - this isn't really helping anyone, apart from the middleman.

(So if you're one of those people against carbon miles or cheap labour - watch out!)

Sidetracking a bit - I don't get why 14B8 exists anymore. It's a 50 Leaf version of the 200 Leaf Maxi Pad (just 7mm lined A4 refill pad) - it's far better value to get the Maxi Pad @ $1.36 compared to 14B8 @ ~$0.70 - I use around 600 leaves of refill in a year!

All in all - one thing is evident. Stationery by itself hasn't changed, but the delivery system has. While evolving to encourage consumers to purchase in a one-stop-shop environment, manipulated by companies and schools.

Schools are probably encouraged by these services probably from loyalty programmes or something - the site has points which are accumlated by our school for every $25 you buy.

Consumers are just standing there, and following the lure of a simple click-/grab-and-buy world.

That was my rant. If you wanted to see the tweets which lead to this blog post, check out the #StationeryRant hash tag.

Telecom XT MF626 and MF636 users - check out my skin set!

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:30:00 PST

It's been over 2 weeks since I released it, but I'm blogging this just to push it one last time

Most people would know that the default look that comes with the "Telecom Connection Manager" software looks quite ugly.

So I did something about it last month and made a new skin set to complement the new "Shine" brand theme Telecom's got right now.

Check out the before and after shots:

Telecom have yet to respond whether they approve of this - but it's been a while, so hopefully the status quo remains and everyone's happy.

To get it, go to the ZTE Telecom Skin page on my Google Sites... site. Simply download and follow the instructions.

It works with MF626 and MF636 connection software on Windows, and doesn't alter functionality in any way.

If anyone has figured out anything for the Mac software - let us know - some people on here want a new skin for the Mac software too. Don't ask me to do it since I don't have a Mac.

You might also want to have the icon for the executable file replaced with the new Telecom icon too.

There is an included icon file (TNZ.ico) which you can drop into the .exe if you like. I used IcoFX to do it.

This doesn't fix the old Telecom logo appearing in the Notification Tray - that is set in the program itself.

I hope you like it!

Mobile Broadband options: Part II - High usage Postpaid

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:50:00 PST

So I was getting bored, and had Excel open... so thought to myself that I should finish what I started with the whole Mobile Broadband plan comparison.

Part I was a comparison of Prepaid plans.

So here is Part II - with High usage Postpaid plans. High usage in my books is over 1GB.

My comparison and spreadsheet goes up to 15000MB. 15GB is quite a lot to be using over Mobile Broadband, and if you do use more - you shouldn't really be using Mobile Data to do so. It's freakin' expensive!

I've now stored content on my Google Sites page. This way it's easier for me to manage and more redundant.

As you might notice - Vodafone Prepay Broadband Surfer is in there even though this was meant to be a Postpaid plan comparison.

The graphs below pretty much shows why - it's quite comparable to Postpaid plans especially those in the higher usage bracket.

Pricing is done with 0 month terms only. Special deals/pricing are not accounted for in this comparison. Besides, Vodafone and Telecom only give $10 discounts on longer terms anyway (though there are hardware subsidies)

Graphs:

You can get the accompanying spreadsheet on the Google Sites page.

Prepaid Mobile Broadband options

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:15:00 PST

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)

2010 South Island Road Trip

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:10:00 PST

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)

Big Time survey results: Graphs

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:29:00 PST

Here they are!

Looking at the graph right above - it looks like October people are the least satisfied or are the most pessimistic about Big Time.

If you think I should add something to the spreadsheet and/or create other graphs to compare things, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Big Time Survey results are now online

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:02:00 PST

You can grab a copy of the spreadsheets:

xlsx (2007 - 2010 - made with 2010 beta, so any issues in 2007, please do tell me)

.xls (97 - 2003, some things made be screwed up or missing compared to xlsx)

Google Docs (missing graphs and one sheet)

Graphs are now available.

Big Time survey results (not) tomorrow + what we're at with Big Time

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:30:00 PST

As the title says, my survey results are coming out tomorrow afternoon (around 3pm) for everyone to see.

That means you only have today and tomorrow until noon to fill it out if you haven't.

See below for correction.

Right now I have 68 responses, so keep them coming!

EDIT: I've just realised that tomorrow is the 30th. Must be the school holidays screwing my calendar up. :P You've got until the end of tomorrow to place your response - results will be published December 1 as promised in the survey.

If you've been wondering how our decision to go onboard with Telecom's Big Time been going - it hasn't gone down well (and you would have found this out earlier this week on my Twitter profile with #complexbroadbandissue)

So it was about 2 or 3 weeks ago that my mum said yes to it (and really she did firmly say that) - and we seemed pretty much destined to have it within the next two months (because our family runs business at home, so any problems to broadband or phone line would have serious effects on business - doing it over Christmas/New Year would have less impact)

Recently, because Vodafone lowered their pricing for Prepaid Mobile Broadband and I was just talking about it - mum thought it would be a better idea to use Telecom's Prepaid Mobile Broadband while we were capped after we blow 20GB that Vodafone's Ultimate pack gives us.

You might have wondered - just like I did: What?!?!

Well here's the story in bullet-pointed timeline-like fashion:

Before December 2008 we were happily using the 20GB internet we had per month, just slowed down maybe a week or so before the end of the month. No one complained as we used around 30GB on average and that was to be expected. I was using quite a lot of data actually streaming content online from TVNZ which I had to stop nearer to this date as it did consume a lot.
December 2008, our cousin comes along from Hong Kong. Not much of a surprise when our data usage goes up. So we lived with it for the next few months, as it was inevitable.
By mid 2009, my mum is more worried that he's gaming too much. Obviously now we can't handle the slowness of 64kbps for over 2 weeks each month and the $30 we would have to pay for an additional 20GB would seem pointless since we would still blow that, so we decided not to get the additional pack of data and continue to live with dial up speeds.
Fast forward to today, and we're still living with dial up speeds for at least 2 weeks of every month.

Obviously Big Time has an advantage here is that there is no set data cap. Which is good, but my mum doesn't want my cousin to continuously play games online and so thinks that unlimited data usage would enable him to do that whenever he wants.

But the fact is - he's still gaming even when we're on 64kbps! Not sure how much bandwidth gaming would take, but overall, we pretty much can't surf anymore because even simple national sites (like the New Zealand Herald) take forever to load.

The main thing that does consume a lot of the data is his downloading too. Ranging from anime (whatever that stuff is) to more games.

So why not just make him pay for his usage? Because he's on my mum's side, she thinks it would be "wrong" to make him/his family pay for it. I'm not going to comment on this - family stuff is for families to work out, and I'm not going to mess with that.

I just wish we had better equipment to manage traffic from his PC.
That way he still is able to get the internet for more useful
activities (catching up with news, general IMing, studies!) but have
some sort of curfew/restricted speeds for the other stuff. I've actually wanted to be able to track everyone's usage (sister doesn't like me installing a meter on her laptop, and cousin runs a Mac and so I haven't really found a good metering software for him) - unfortunately for us, we have got a WRT54G v7, which is the only model out of all the ones that DON'T run open firmware as it has a different chip! ARGH.

Literally, everyone is being punished simply because my mum wants to stop my cousin from gaming (and still failing at that)

So where will Telecom Prepaid Mobile Broadband come in? She will buy a Prepaid Mobile Broadband pack from Telecom, and when we do go over 20GB the T-Stick will be used by myself and my mum only when necessary (e.g. important documents, transactions etc.) - since that'll probably mean less than 100MB usage a month, we'll be saving a little since I'm already paying $10 for 100MB prepaid data with Vodafone, but we have some flexibility when we do need to use more.

What will happen to our fixed line broadband plan then? If we are able to get a larger allowance for the same price from Vodafone, we'll get it. But that's slightly hypocritical anyway.

Who knows what will happen next...

Telecom and Big Time survey

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:40:00 PST

Some of you might know that we've decided to go Big Time in the next two months or so.

Some might say "noooo, it's the worst decision you'll ever make", others may say "why they hell aren't ya on Big Time already?"

Well - for the purposes of collecting that detail, I've decided to make a survey.

I'm using Google Docs with Forms to do it, with their simple interface and good selection of features. It even has simple summaries so I can view results in a glance.

Not only will it be just for myself (I'm not that selfish...) - it'll also gauge what you feel and have experienced, and results will be posted here at the start of December.

So if:

you're currently on Big Time, or
previously on Big Time

... please take a moment to fill out my survey at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEVWSFlFRENfeW5iVTFQUVFHV294ZXc6MA

Tell your friends too!

Why white + white = fail

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:24:00 PST