Mountain/\Ash

TIM SMS Italy to English translations

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 07 May 2014 10:04:00 +0000

I'm currently working from Italy for a few months and decided to get a local 3G GSM SIM card with local mobile provider TIM. Upon inserting the SIM, I was bombarded with a roll of automated SMS's ... all in Italian (which I am yet to read). So as a "public service" I'm putting all the messages online with a Google Translate English translation of each.

As you'll see some of the formatting and words don't translate very well - even most Italian's struggle with it.

UPDATE (20 May 2014): added account registration responses

Italian	English
La tua nuova linea è attiva dal 29/04/14 19:23 ; ora hai 2 linee a te intestate. Per il credito residuo e le opzioni attive chiama il 40916 . Per assistenza vai sul sito www.tim.it o chiama il 119	Your new line is activated by the 29.04.14 19:23 ; Now you have 2 lines you made out. For the remaining credit and options active call 40916 . For help go to the website www.tim.it or call 119
E' stata attivataTIMinViaggio Full: in EU e USA chiami/ricevi da 16cent/min e sr da 16cent, invii SMS a 16cent e navighi da tel a 3E/g(fino 25MB).Info su tim.it	It 'been activated TIM Full Journey: in EU and USA call / receive from 16cent/min and Sr from 16cent, 16cent and browse to send SMS from phone to 3E / g (up to 25MB). About tim.it
E' attivo il servizio gratuito INFO SMS per sapere alla fine di ogni chiamata costo e credito residuo via sms. Per disattivare invia un sms:INFOSMS OFF al 40916	It 'a free shuttle service SMS info to know at the end of each call cost and remaining balance via SMS. To turn sends a sms: InfoSMS OFF to 40916
Ricarica effettuata. Nuovo credito: 20,00 Euro. Per conoscere le nuove offerte TIM chiama gratis il 40916 o vai sul sito 119.it .	Reload performed. New credit: 20,00 Euro. To learn about new offerings TIM calls for free 40916 or go to the website 119.it .
Salva in automatico contatti, foto e contenuti. Hai a disposizione 10GB.Vai su www.cloud.tim.it per salvare velocemente i tuoi contenuti.	Save automatically contacts, photos and content. You have 10GB. Or is www.cloud.tim.it quickly to save your content.
TIM SPECIAL Start attiva: hai 600 minuti senza scatto, 600 SMS verso tutti e 1GB per navigare in internet da telefonino a 19 euro ogni 30gg.Info 40916	SPECIAL TIM Start Active: 600 minutes you have no connection, 600 SMS to all and 1GB to surf the internet from a mobile phone to 19 euro each 30gg.Info 40916
TIM: ti e' stata attivata gratuitamente la modalita' prevista dalla Delibera AGCOM 326/10 per proteggerti da un'eccessiva spesa di traffico dati. Info su tim.it	TIM: I 'was activated free mode' provided for by AGCOM Decision 326/10 to protect you from spending excessive data traffic. about tim.it
Ciao, scarica l'App TIM Cloud per salvare la tua rubrica e i tuoi contenuti, farli conoscere ai tuoi amici TIM Cloud e averli sempre a portata di mano. Clicca su https://cloud.tim.it/app/ , èratuita.	Hello, download the App TIM Cloud to save your contacts and your content, make them known to your friends TIM Cloud and have them always at hand. Click on https://cloud.tim.it/app/ , (typo) is free.
La protezione dati estero e' disattivata x tua richiesta o x l'attivazione di una opzione internet. X riattivarla invia PROTEZIONESTERO OFF al 40916 . Info tim.it	The foreign data protection and 'off ox x your request the activation of an internet option. X sends reactivate PROTEZIONESTERO OFF to 40916 . Info tim.it (see http://www.tim.it/estero/dall-estero-servizi-disponibili-all-estero/protezione-dati-allestero for details - it's about a max limit of 61 euro a month on data roaming)
Ti ricordiamo che nell'Area Clienti del sito 119.it trovi tutte le info sul tuo nuovo numero TIM. Accedi subito con Username XXXXXXXX e Password XXXXXXXX .	We remind you that in the Customer Site 119.it you can find all the details about your new number TIM. Log In Now with XXXXXXXX and Password XXXXXXXX .
TIM:prox volta se fai una Ricarica+da17E vinci sempre CHIAMATEoSMS+in palio 1 Iphone5 o Tablet al giorno(hai10ECREDITO+100 MMS)Negozi TIM,Tabaccai. Reg tim.it	TIM: Next time if you make a Reload + + CHIAMATEoSMS da17E always win prize iPhone5 or 1 tablet per day (+100 hai10ECREDITO MMS) TIM shops, tobacconists. Reg tim.it
TIM arricchisce gratuitamente la tua offerta TIM Special. Dal prossimo rinnovo navighi alla velocità della luce con il 4G LTE di TIM. Info su tim.it	TIM enriches your offer for FREE TIM Special. The next election surf at the speed of light with the 4G LTE TIM. about tim.it
TIM ti informa - a tutela della tua privacy - che e' stato effettuato un accesso all'Area Clienti 119 Self Service con la username relativa al tuo telefonino.	TIM informs you - to protect your privacy - and that 'was made an access to the Customer Self Service 119 with the username on your mobile phone.
TIM ti informa - a tutela della tua privacy - che sono state visualizzate informazioni sul tuo traffico telefonico nell'Area Clienti 119 Self Service.	TIM informs you - to protect your privacy - they viewed information on your telephone traffic in the Customer Self Service 119.
TIM TI AVVISA "SPESA" attivato il 15/05/14 ; Soglia di spesa: 40 euro, Tipo Traffico: TUTTO. Riceverai un sms se raggiungi la soglia.	TIM YOU AWARE "SPENDING" activated the 15/05/14 ; Spending threshold: 40 €, Traffic Type: EVERYTHING. You will receive a text message if you reach the threshold.

Sydney Roads F3-M2 Tunnel Project

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 13:32:00 +0000

Intro

The NSW Government together with Transurban have issued a map to the community showing the "indicative" path for a tunnel to link the existing M2 with the F3 (now "re-branded" as the M1). The path loosely follows the existing daily bottle-neck route of the Cumberland Hwy/Pennant Hills Road, which parallels the current North-West (Epping to Hornsby) railway line. See www.rms.nsw.gov.au/f3tom2/ for details

Open Letter

2 ideas - 1 email (all for better value):

1) don't "provision for future widening" do it right the first time - history shows that every single major route in and out of Sydney needs to be 3 lanes (min). Save time, [overall] money and headaches and do it right the first time.

2) IDEA: move the Hornsby to Beecroft (or take it back to the already underground tunnel at Epping) railway line underground (while the machines are down there) and then sell off the very valuable above-ground real-estate corridor to help fund the project. Long term all the existing property's land value increases as noisy transport corridors are channeled below.

Google Maps April Fools (or is it?)

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:57:00 +0000

Like a lot of people I look forward to April 1st when the big companies try to pull the wool over our eyes with some lame, but interesting hoax. Google has been doing it for a few years now, with different business units coming up with something unique to the products they build. This year however, the company teamed up on a single concept: Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) - which is basically just an bot with Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a cutesy looking panda for a logo. This was a bit of a cop-out as all the Maps team really created was a Google My Map with a about 20 placemarks (all in America) represented with the panda icon (wow).
While scratching my head thinking "there must be more to it than this" as it's pretty average - I stumbled on this at this location when in Streetview:

Now I'm not sure if this was an unpublicised April Fools or just a Streetview glitch. It looks like your trapped in the rib cage of some weird purple walrus (or panda). And what's also strange is that a continuous section of road, just stops when you get "caught" inside the view. And even more funny is that this is near "area 51".
I'm hoping this was part of the April Fools day pranks as it is actually half-decent compared to the rest of the CADIE cop-outs.

The demise of Twitter: from push to passive

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:11:00 +0000

When Twitter first came in to "my net life" it I was annoyed yet attracted to it's in-your-face constant alerting of social updates. The instant info burst of where funkycoda was going for lunch or DmitryBaranovsk's request for a timely response for a solution to a JavaScript problem or lachlanhardy alerting followers to the release of another new social network where all great uses of the interruption technology which came to me via an instant message (when on my desktop) or an SMS (when on out-and-about or the road).

For now, I am resigned to reading "tweet" history on the Twitter website. Reading over such social comments after-the-fact makes me feel like I missed out. Commenting later is not much good to anyone seeking an instant response. The "he's doing it now" nature of the service often made me also want to contribute then and there using the same technology of receival to comment back.

For a while, things have changed: IM stability for Twitter was a hit and miss affair earlier this year and it seems to have been taken down (permanently) for months now. So for a long time now I have not been making regular updates as I have not had an easy way to make them. Now also with the death of SMS alerts in Australia I am again disconnected from the JIT nature of the service and for me, apart from friend connections on the service I have lost use of the here and now aspect of it. There are many other services that allow me to "micro blog" that do it much better and are usable (brightkite being my current favourite).

NOTE: I know there is twitteriffic out there but I have not used it as I am against the fact that I need to provide my login credentials to a third party and run a dedicated app in place of something that fitted seamlessly with my existing day-to-day applications. Twitter should offer a service like this themselves or provide a google/flicker open auth ID type solution so a 3rd party does not see my personal login.

Google out of Touch with current Mac Line-up

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:16:00 +0000

One thing I noticed last week while I was considering how to spend some business profits to lower my tax payments (always fun) on the Apple Store was that Apple now scrooge on the Apple Remote across the entire MacBook range - it was even debatable if the new MacBook Air even worked with the remote.

The Apple Remote, which is primarily used to control Front Row, is now a $29AUD add-on (you could purchase it at a later date - but would then have to pay shipping if your total order was not over $100).

Since the remote first appeared it has shipped with Apple all the MacBooks and consumer desktops "in the box". It is still a standard includ with the iMac and Mac mini. I wonder why Apple have decided to drop it as an incision in latest round of MacBook product updates? It seems even Google (Official Google Mac Blog: Most Mac models today ship with a six-button remote control…) were not aware of the change to the status-quo. I doubt it would be a cost saving measure - the device is so simple at mass-production it would cost less than $5. It's also feather light, so it would add next-to-nothing in additional shipping costs. One issue I see is that the current MacBooks may not be updated for a while and Apple do not want issues/complaints about flat batteries, or acid leaks. But I really hope they are about to launch a redesigned remote that looks like the 2nd generation iPod Nano. I think the anodised aluminium would look like it belonged next to the new slim line keyboards, on the base of the latest iMacs and and the higher-end MacBooks. Now that would be nice.

Random background image in Mac Terminal

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 01:38:00 +0000

As submitted to Mac OSX Hints:

Found this one out by accident. In Apple's Terminal.app, under the 'Terminal' menu, choose 'Window Settings...' then the 'Color' plane.

Under 'Background Settings' you can set the background to be an image BUT you can also choose a folder.

Setting the option to a folder full of images will cause each new Terminal window to have a different image from the chosen folder.

It's these "just works" feature that makes Mac so cool.

Commercial Free Maps

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:02:00 +0000

Google just released their Flyover 2007 imagery to the Australian version of Google Maps (not Google Earth). I've spent maybe a bit less than an hour surfing and have not found any obvious signage created specifically to be snapped up by the Google Plane or Microsofts flying-machine which was also doing the rounds, even after so much national publicity.

While the images are great - if only the whole country (or better, world) was captured to this detail - I was really looking forward to seeing how creative people were in getting their message noticed by the seach engine snappers.

Apart from Circular Quay I'm finding it hard to believe that these images were even taken on Australia Day. These images could be of any other weekend in Sydney. Was the Google Arial Australia promotion all one big con?

Out-done again?

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:29:00 +0000

The biggest Australian flag in the southern hemisphere

This is a phrase that was used many times in the special wrap feature of last weeks last weeks Australia Day edition of the Blacktown Sun.

Does this mean that some other country (in the northern hemisphere) has an even bigger print of our own flag?

Apple Wannabes

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 06:47:00 +0000

I've noticed this scenario a few times in the past, but now I've decide to [web] log it. Companies that use Apple products in their advertising when they make products that aren't aimed at the Mac.

A "customer research" (read: tell us your interest and well push targeted ads at you) site pureprofile recently had a survey question with the following illustration of a screen, keyboard and mouse. The base of the screen is straight from the current iMacs but the bevel width would make it represent an Apple Cinema Display. The mouse could not be confused with anything other than a Might Mouse, while the keyboard must be an after-market job as I've never seen a Mac keyboard look so ugly.

Now I'm not against businesses using Apple's products (and if you needed to illustrate a computer why would you use anything else, 'cept maybe a Sony Vaio) but what errks me is when they don't follow-through and make their products work equally on a Mac as they do for a PC.

Back to pureprofile; admittedly their new site is under development and more and more things work under Safari each time I go back, but there are still many times I have to dock-bounce Firefox to get a JavaScript/CSS heavy page to a work correctly (such as next time manager). Now they could gain some kudos points by running there systems on Mac, but by the the dirty .aspx file-extensioned URLs I can see that they are not. And a blog post by their tech guy proves it.

pureprofile is not alone in using Apple's image but locking Apple's users out; for a long time there we many Aussie banks that restricted access to their online banking sections to IE (PC version) while using PowerBooks in their TV commercials. Still, today, Westpac's Visual Demos fail to load in Safari (and I know that there are still sections within the password protected pages that still annoy me with errors offering me to download "IE 5.5 or higher")

Away from the online example are just plain funny images I've seen a couple of times where PC manufacturers have a staged shot of a non-Apple computer with an Apple OS on-screen.

When I decided to start this log I had a quick look through my one remaining APC mag looking for an ad for a Panasonic Toughbook I clearly remember. It was taken behind a "female explorer" sitting on a rock looking out across a plain of orange dust, looking over her shoulder you could see the Toughbook in it's element while running the unmistakable candy interface of Mac IE. What the?!? Unfortunately I couldn't find that particular ad, but I did find this:

This ad was scanned from page 43 of December 05's APC Mag for an ASUS W6 which comes pre-installed with "Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional" however, look closely, and you will see what looks like some word processor (MS Word or maybe Apple Works) running on OS9. The giveaway is the right aligned desktop icons and global menu bar across the top of the screen.

Either this is intentionally done as a joke or a lazy designer, on a Mac, has just done a screen grab of their own desktop and "photoshopped" it in. Either way, surely someone else in these big businesses would have had to approve these design/ads before they get made public???

P.S. If anyone has any other "Apple wannabe" examples, please let me know.

"Stand clear doors closing"

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:36:00 +0000

Over the past few months I've noticed that CityRail has installed orange flashing lights above each of the external doors on the older silver double-decker passenger carriages. These lights flash as the doors are closing. I'm a bit miffed on the purpose of these lights as they a fair way above the centre of the doors, so it's not like you would look up at a small flashing light when there are two big bright yellow doors siding shut at eye level. I could understand it if the lights started flashing before the doors started closing, sort of like an amber traffic light, it would act as a warning to hurry up a decide if you on or off the train. But they don't they start flashing as soon as the doors start closing.

The other possible use is that they are there for the guards to use, but I don't know how. Maybe they stay flashing if the door doesn't close properly?

Does anyone know what these new lights are for and why have they only been added now (when we are been told that there's going to be a heap of new trains to replace these trains over the next few years)?

Update: 29 May 2008

I was waiting for a train the other day in Strathfield and noticed that the lights tell the guard when the doors are stuck open.

Developer patterns - a different type of pattern

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 01:03:00 +0000

A copy of an message sent to John Allsop in relation to his study on Web Patterns.

John,

Probably a bit late for this years conference but I had another idea for your "source code web crawler". It would be interesting to see stats on another type of common pattern that we web designers seem to follow.

I would like to see what directory names we use for site structure. I.e. What's the consensus on using a folder named 'css', 'styles', 'c' (News Ltd use this) or something else (ie. regex on the directory parent of files ending in '.css')? A similar study could be done on the images ('img', 'images', 'media', 'i') and scripts ('js', 'scripts', 'j') folders.

You could take this even further to see what the most common files names are. I estimate that there are a heap of 'style.css' and 'logo.gif' but I haven't picked-up a trend on the "default" JavaScript filename.

Let me know what you think,

I'll let you know the outcome.

Comments on "Comments on community"

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:48:00 +0000

A while ago Jeremy Keith made the comment:

Comments should be disabled 90% of the time.

Although I agree with this statement I do not agree with the solution he is trialing to solve it. Especially in his case where he guesses the majority of the readers are geeks (I would agree being a "geek"). He is lucky to have a tech-savvy audience like this as geeks have blogs (and if they don't, they should if they want to keep their geek status).

To cut down on the whimsical comments that follow nearly all online personal opinion and to not burden the author with having to moderate each "I was here" virtual tag. I would use the power of TrackBacks. By forcing users to comment on their own blog they [should] be "forced" to put more of an effort into their reply as there is a greater onus on there own online reputation. Which is what Jeremy originally suggested. Also by using your own blog for response makes it much easier to collate and backup your own time and wisdom and, if your inclined, restrict it's use (password protect or copyright licence), it is almost impossible to do this when commenting on a system out of your control.

Unlike common comment replys being viewable to read at the base of an article, track backs are often liked off to another site which is an extra effort that the reader may not go to. Pulling in a "sample" of a reply using some AJAX, like Adactio is currently doing is a great way to keep the users reading flow. You could then take this idea a bit further to increase usability by using some logic to display the TrackBacks in a user selectable order (other than chronological). Such sorting could be done on a Google like weighting (ie. check, using using some Technorati APIs, to see which pinged posts have the most subsequent pinged posts. Or use other API's (like Del.icio.us or Digg) to rank the responses based on popularity. You could also use the Author's own blogroll to highlight peer replies as the author already regards their ideas and feedback above others.

Using such logic I think trackbacks could make a "comeback" and raise the collective commenting intelligence.

Adobe staff dump on Flash

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 05:36:00 +0000

We felt that going with HTML and CSS we'd have much more streamlined production process.

"The Edge" team redesigned their newsletter and then go on to tell everyone why a Flash only site is so bad - good way to get yourself a demotion. The new site is based on open web standards using basic HTML and CSS. The old site displayed the content in Flash. Now there are many well know reasons for not putting your entire site in Flash (especially large stabs of textual content), some are:

it's a plug-in - OK so nearly every browser has it installed, but can be slow on old machines, confusing to install and upgrade, blocked by corporate networks and limits the extensibility (ie. mobile phones).
larger file size - your initial load can take a long time.
reduced accessibility - while Flash "can" be made accessible to assistive devices (like screen-readers) is it harder and more time consuming and most sites don't bother.
reduced usability - Flash limits may browser tools that people are familiar with, making the site harder to use, such as:
- restricting back, forward and stop buttons - this also makes is hard to bookmark specific "pages" within a site. Flash can be made to add state changes to the browsers history, but many sites don't - including Macromedia's own.
- disabling 'find' - the in-page find/seach function of all browsers can not expose content inside a Flash file (.swf).
- not crawled - most of the search engines don't get textural content from within Flash sites meaning all the good content can not be found by surfers.
- text resizing - a big disadvantage of Flash is that user are unable to increase/decrease the font size of content using the browser controls they are similar with, meaning, to some, that the most important parts of the articles can not be read.

I was able to focus on creating semantically marked-up HTML which is really easy for screen-readers (used by the visually-impaired) so that the site really accessible.

In The Edge's case some specific cases are touched upon that also effect teams working with Flash for entire sites.

Jen Hobbs said she's able to check in and out files so I always know I working on the most current version. Highlighting how bad binary files are to version control. Now that the site is just plain text they can use one of the many free version control tools and have the power to have multiple users work on the same file at the same time and do diffs against previous versions to see what changed. Try doing that with Flash.
Jean Lieske said we don't have to go to Jen for every copy tweak. This is another issue, not that basic changes in Flash require a lot of skill but you need an expensive (and slow) IDE installed which Producers don't normally have and learn how do navigate to the areas you want to change. While HTML you can use any basic text editor and every OS has least one for free.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy using Flash, and know that with extra effort you can get Flash do a lot of small things that the team benefited from with HTML and CSS, like:

content separation - design in flash, content in external text files. This is true for both text and images.
control look with one file - it is possible in later version of Flash to use a CSS file to have limited control of the look and feel of a Flash movie, but this is quite restricted to the text and not so much layout.

But all these things can take a fair bit of time to set-up and add complexity when maintaining and testing. And if Adobe/Macromedia's own staff have issues with using their products why would others use it when there are such easier and better alternatives?

Calling all Mac & Firefox users

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:14:00 +0000

I have finally "defined" an annoyance I have put up with for a long time.

If you use Firefox on OS X with your 'Dock' positioned to the side or with "hiding" turned on you will have encountered this issue. When opening a new browser window from a fully maximised Firefox window you would see that the new window is staggered down (by the height if the title bar) causing the 'status bar' to drop off the bottom of the screen. Very annoying if, like me, you use the 'status bar' a lot.

After searching the 'net for a fix I found that this is a known issue and was reported way back in 2003. I think now is high time for a fix. I don't think this issue has been getting the attention it needs for someone to invest time in fixing it. So I'm putting out a call for users to simply vote on this bug in an attempt to get it noticed and hopefully get a fix.

Free calls for you and me

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 04:46:00 +0000

As most [some] of you know I've been using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (where your telephone calls go though your Internet connection) for over a year. Honestly there are some minor issues (some times you need to reboot the SIP box) but you can expect that for the savings you can make.

Engin is the provider I use and they have just offered me a deal where if I pass-on business they will sell the VoIP SIP box for only $1 (normally $139) which is a bargain and removes the biggest barrier for starting to use VoIP.

You'll still need to have a full time broadband connection. So those of you on ADSL will still need to pay for the normal phone line rental (but I think you can get a cheaper version if you only want ADSL on it, no calls - see your telco). So it may only be on financial benefit if you make a lot of calls.

I use it is so that I don't have to pay the ridiculous $29 (or whatever it is now) monthly phone line rental fee. I pay $9.95 a month and all calls to any landline in Australia are only 10 cents and un-timed. So everywhere (STD and national) is less than what you'd normally pay for a local call. Also you can call other Engin users (like me) for free. You also get cool things like CID and voicemail for free (my missed calls get sent to my email as a sound file - techie or what?)

PS. I'm just telling you this because I know some of you are intereted in it not because I'm getting paid by them. Although I do get a referral fee, but I'm doing this for you. Let me know if your keen.

Alert: Validation wanker

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:14:00 +0000

I was to chicken to post this on the WSG mailing list, so I thought I'd point you:

www.maxco.com.au

This is such an abuse of the "Validator" link, IMO. Although the site's code validates it is so "bad" on so many levels. For example:

inaccessible text in the image
a description in the 'keywords' meta element
HTML comments before HTML is declared
horizontal scroll at 800x600
presentation in html (#ffffff on body - which could be shorted to #FFF)
extraneous divs (<div id="form">)
inline JavaScript
no form validation (even on the server side)
a form that alerts the user it worked even before it did
<br> tag for spacing

I'm sure there is more.

The RSS validation link even fails.

Please do not flame me for this post. I know that my sites are not perfect (always trying) but this brings "validation wanking" to a new level.

Now with Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 07:27:00 +0000

You may have noticed that this site now includes Google AdWords. I decided to give Adwords a try after much persuasion from Brendon Sinclair ("Podcast", "Newsletter"). So there they are. Enjoy - or don't. Let me know what you think in the comments.

When signing up for the ads I came across this condition in the Google AdSense Online Standard Terms and Conditions to which I am instantly forced to violate [as I signed up though Blogger].

4. Parties' Responsibilities. You are solely responsible for the Site(s), including all content and materials, maintenance and operation thereof, the proper implementation of Google's specifications, and adherence to the terms of this Agreement, including compliance with the Program Policies.

How can I be solely responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Blogger service?

Also another term (this time from the Google AdSense Programme Policies) which I have no control over.

Your site must not contain broken links and must be launched, functioning, and easily navigable.

I guess anyone that I like to will have to help me out on this one by forever ensureing that your current URLs never change and that you site never goes off-line.

I have reported both of these issues to Google and will update your if I get a reply (but like most large internationals I'm not expecting to get one).

Also do not know if the Ad links are even working and am unable to test them as it is against the terms for me to click on the links. I'll have to get my dog Patch to test them. Good boy.

Sit where your told

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 04:16:00 +0000

On Monday night I went and saw the Johnny Cash life story "Walk the Line" which I thought was a very good movie - but this is not a movie review. I want to complain about the cinema (naming names: Greater Union Castle Hill) and their decision to bring back reserved seating. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons.

It slows the tick buying process. You are now asked where in the cinema you want to sit.
It makes it harder to come to the movies with friends (as we were) as you now have to buy your tickets together if you want to sit together.
You now have to "hunt" for your seat
You maybe "forced" to site next to someone you don't like (like a crying baby)
It causes conflict when you sit in someone else's seat (like I did).

But worst of all, and what pissed me off the most (and it takes a fair-bit to piss me off) was the fact that the little asile number lights are turned up to full brightness for the entire movie. It was like having one of those little pocket torches pointed at the side of my head the whole time. Not fun.

We have now boycotted this cinema and have since been to the new Hoyts at Blacktown twice. Being a new cinima everything is much better there anyway (except for the queues)

News is Limited

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 09:10:00 +0000

As sent to Media Watch:

Today on page three of my local Cumberland Newspaper the Blacktown Advocate is a half page "advertorial" about the newspaper having it's own website. Been interested in the web I read the article and was stunned and outraged (hence this email) that their new online business search tool, truelocal.com.au is been quoted as Australia's first local search website. When you search local, you get local.

Now I have used the new tool previously (I even added my business) and I know that this is defiantly not the first local business search. For years there has been both Sensis's Yellow and White pages which allow for searching of a businesses based on their locality. But what really erks me about this statment is that the technology behind truelocal is made by ASL (as proven in the truelocal's terms and conditions). Australian Local Search is the same technology used by Get Local and Yahoo!7 Local Search which was launched well over a year ago, making the claim of "first" very misleading.

ACA False Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:21:00 +0000

As reported to Channel Seven's Today Tonight: Channel Nine's ACA is falsely telling reviewers that there is more to come after the last commercial break; implying that there is an other "great" story, when really, after the ads, they just preview what is on the following night. Blatant lies to the viewing audience. Please force them stop this dishonest act!

A time to sing

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 22:05:00 +0000

Two days ago we Aussies were finally able to use a version of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) customised for us. But this was not without some hiccups. Apart from the [well reported] absence of Sony BMG there were some other minor problems with the launch; like this conundrum I reported to Apple. 'She Will Have Her Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn' which was been advertised on the iTMS home-page in the "feature fader" (the promotional graphics at the top of the page) had 2 songs on it's track listing that were not available for single purchase - they said 'Album Only'. Yet you could not buy the album as a whole as it said 'By Song Only'. Now, not that I wanted to buy the album (or any songs on it), I thought I would ask Apple how you were meant to get the 2 'Album Only' songs. So I filled out their feedback forms (none of the predefined form options allowed for such a problem). 2 days later I received a rather generic reply (obviously Support is been done in the US - not only was this email received at 2 am our-time but 'apologize' is spelt with a 'z'):

Thank you for contacting the iTunes Music Store.

The iTunes Music Store is currently updating certain files. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you enjoy our available selections. Thank you.

This morning I went and checked if the dilemma had been fixed - it was. You can now buy the album as a whole with the 'BUY ALBUM' button. It's good to see when you can make a difference.

Dreamweaver 8 - not a good start

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 05:45:00 +0000

I decided to see if their was any substance befind the hype about the updated Apps in Macromedia's Studio suite.

I used to be a devoltant user of HomeSite and migrated across to Dreamweaver MX when Macromedia tookover Allaire. I really only used Dreamweaver for it's code editor and would have switched to another product if it had tag colouring and auto-completion. When I switched to Mac I tried most editors (AlphaX, CreaText, BBEdit, GoodPage, Taco HTML Edit) for a while, often till their trial period wore out. But none had the features that appealed to me like Dreamweaver did (things like 'search and replace on all the files in a folder' and built in FTP). Then I found skEdit.

skEdit did everything I needed it to. It was quick, small, rarely crashed and cheap ($26.13 AUD for a lifetime!) - quite the opposite to the Mac vesrion of Dreamweaver at the time. I have been using skEdit for most of the year now and do not see me changing in the near future (I hear the next version is going to be even better).

I've also used Flash for a long-time and have always been peeved at the slugginess of the Mac version, and recently the worse interface, with comparison the the equivilant Windows versions. So after hearing all the hype - particularly about the improvements on the Mac side of the fence - I thought I'd give it a go. So off I went to the Macromedia website, downloaded the evaluation version and installed.

I have skEdit set by default to open most text based files (including HTML), obviously the Dreamweaver installer was expecting a browser and rudely opened a 'Readme.htm' file without prompting first. Because of this I was shown that Dreamweaver's claims of "standards-based sites" and "support for both CSS and accessibility" may just be hype. The source code of this first file was full of code that goes against both web standards and accessibility best practises. Apart from using tables for the layout of a pretty average looking page there was:

empty paragraphs with non-breaking-spaces
inline styling
no 'title' attributes on any of the twenty links
redundent code (like, left align on an empty paragraph - which would be aligned that way by default anyway)
a mix of upper and lower case tags and attributes
a mix of unquoted and quoted attribute values
and much more (if I wanted to get really picky)

All this before I even get to see the notorious 'MM_' JavaScript soup menus. Not a good start...

The NEW...

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 06:52:00 +0000

On my way to the Hospital yesterday I was listening to the radio (don't do that much any more now I'm not in the car much) and heard a ad for "the new Holden Crewman". "New"? "New"??? What? This is a car/ute that has been around over two years (source). When does it stop becoming new?

I remember (for as long as I've listened) that radio station 2MMM (Triple M - Sydney) is always promoting itself as "The new Triple M". It has been the same station on the same frequency since 1980 (source), what make it so new?

I think the ACCC really needs to guide advertisers in the use of the term "new". I reckon that something that is over 6 months old (been liberal) is no longer new.

Check-up

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 06:20:00 +0000

I had a check-up at Nepean Hospital yesterday (the first one since I left the ward over a month ago). After about seven x-rays I had an appointment with the doctor who said everything was looking good and said I should keep things "low impact" for another 6 months. I also asked him a few questions about the operation and saw for the first time some of the x-rays and the MRI of what happened inside me - good to know.

I fell down

noreply@blogger.com (Mountain/\Ash) — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:52:00 +0000

Just after 4pm on Saturday 30 July 2005 I ploughed head first into the ground after not landing a jump on my dirtbike (Yamaha WR 400). I mono-ed on the front wheel for just under a metre before going over the handle bars when the wheel went in a hole. I laid face down on the ground with a tingling sensation from my shoulders down. My brother-in-law and two friends where there to help. They started by touching my hands, which I could feel. They then touched my feet, which I could also feel. I then wiggled the same areas - I knew then that I this was not too serious.

After about 40 minutes an Ambulance officers arrived and put me on a hard-board stretcher and into the heated back of the Ambulance. A few hours later, after it was dark, the CareFlight helicopter circled. As we were in a hollow and there was next to no moon light, the helicopter spent the night in the local town. I spent the night on my back with a very friendly and professional team of Ambulance officers and the CareFlight doctor who was driven in by the police. With more funding the 'chopper may be fitted with night vision which would have meant that I could have been in hospital sooner.

The next morning, around 10 am the helicopter picked me up and took me to Nepean Hospital (Kingswood) via Orange (to re-fuel). I was not winched as stated in the CareFlight press release - the helicopter came to a full stop before I was carried onboard.

Once in Emergence I was subject to all sorts of poking and jabbing. I had about 10 x-rays, a cat scan, MRI, ultra sound and many physical tests. At around 11pm my movement of my lower body was getting worse and I was rushed to surgery where I had a hose shoved down my nose to keep me breathing while they put me out.

The next day I woke in intensive care after a seven hour operation which involved replacing my C7 vertebra in the top of my spine/neck with a chunk of my hip and using a titanium plate and screws to hold it in place with C6 and C8. Both C6 and C3 were also fractured but are deemed stable.

I stayed in the ward for two days doing many activities on my lung which collapsed in theatre. Each day I would be x-rayed and constantly monitored by various machines. For the fist time I could sit up (with the assistance of the bed) which was a great relief for my hips.

On my second day in the Ward (Wed) I was up and walking in a frame, but I was short of breath and low on energy as I did not sleep much. The next day I was climbing steps and walking around the hospital without a frame (I even went to the car-park when visited by my dogs).

On Friday I waited for a more restrictive neck brace as my C3 had moved slightly, but it didn't come until Monday. On Tuesday, after some x-rays, it was fitted and I was allowed to go home. I have to return in 4 weeks to get a check-up.

I'm now home where things are getting back to normal [except for the sleeping and sitting for long periods].

I would like to thank all my friends and family for your support and care during this time - it has been overwhelming to know how much you care. I would really like to thank all the medical staff who have helped - the skill of these great people is amazing. Thank you to Blaney and Orange Ambulance services (esp. Ken, Andrew and Steve). Thank you to the CareFlight crew (esp. Shane). Thank you to all the extraordinary people at Nepean Hospital (the best Hospital I've ever been to) (esp. Urma, Kathleen, Aaron, David, Garry, Gavin, Margret, Lyndal, Chris, Dr. Nare and all the other great staff). I wish my patient buddies Missy and Gavin a big "get well soon". But most of all I want to thank my fantastic wife who has been with me everyday and has done so much to make my recovery so much easier - to the best wife in the world - hip hip hooray!