Saturday, August 16, 2008

Round Up: The Equipment Obsession

Go on and admit it: if you spend time reading camera review websites, you're almost certainly guilty of obsessing over equipment. Read More

Jobo S4 mobile photo display

JOBO have announced the addition of a new ultra stylish and very portable digital picture frame. The frame features a 3.5-inch screen and is the most compact and lightweight JOBO model to date. Read More

State insurance being dodgy? Or just clever?

Should State insurance offer 'market value' payouts on a set amount policy?

My parents car was recently involved in an accident where their car received significant damage after a truck hit the car. No one was hurt but we got the details, went to the police and got the stuff rolling.
The car is sitting in my driveway, not safe for road use.

Anyway, the insurance policy was insured for a set value rather than market value. The assessor for state insurance (IAG?) has basically offered approximately $5600 for repairs or replacement. This is below the set amount that was insuranced and the assessor only viewing the exterior of the car and not assessing potential damage to the car.  The understanding is that anything above ~$5600 would be out of pocket.

When we contacted the assessor for further comment, he advised that this was because the car was only worth a certain amount, a market value and that we are lucky that we got offered that amount. That would be ok if it wasn't insured for a set value.

Clearly state insurance can't have their cake and eat it too? To me it sounds like a scam.

Whats your thoughts?

Read More

More information about the Nikon D90

Rumours are doing the rounds again about the release of the Nikon D90. Read More

Huge News! VMware ESX 3i is free from 28 July!

Huge News! VMware ESX 3i is free from 28 July!
Significant competitive move from VMware to counter the threat of Microsoft Hyper-V . . . not that 3i was expensive before, but this price is certainly better :) This is part of a new strategy kicking in after co-founder Diane Greene's departure. ex-Microsoft exec Paul Maritz is running the show now.

Read more in this article at Redmond Channel mag.


Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 - Change How Links from Other Programs Are Opened

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 - Change How Links from Other Programs Are Opened
Configure in Internet Explorer if links from other applications are opened in tabs or new windows. ...

Staples: Staples Mission Computer Cart or Pop-Up Table $60 shipped

Staples: Staples Mission Computer Cart or Pop-Up Table $60 shipped

Jobo S4 mobile photo display

Jobo S4 mobile photo display
JOBO have announced the addition of a new ultra stylish and very portable digital picture frame. The frame features a 3.5-inch screen and is the most compact and lightweight JOBO model to date.

The Truth in Advertising

Some bits sound like meetings I attended... Other bits sound like exactly what I expect "Big Telco" would be talking when creating a campaign for their new JesusPhone offering...

Warning: some heavy NSFW language. But worth watching the whole thing.


Read More

Mobile Me - Or is it?

Mobile Me - Or is it?
Mobile Me - good in practice, not so sure about the execution.

My wife has been without email for 3 days now, missing out on business-critical communications. No useful explanation has been provided by Apple, Support is virtually impossible to contact and to claim that only 1% of users are affected seems disingenuous given the vast numbers of irate posts on Apple Support!

The theory is great but a better tagline might be "Exchange For (Some Of) The Rest of Us"!

Apple may well become a victim of their own success, I think.Undecided


Sunday, August 10, 2008

TASCAM GT-R1 portable guitar recorder

So you've nailed that killer riff but the studio is miles away. The latest solution aimed at songwriters in this predicament is TASCAM's GT-R1. The follow-up to the company's DR-1 model, this portable recorder for guitar and bass players features direct plug-in recording along with built-in condenser microphones for capturing rehearsals and live shows and amp simulation and effects...

Tags: Music

Related Articles:

Read More

Checking your mobile data usage online is not easy: a Telecom New Zealand tale

Yesterday I posted about Telecom New Zealand's lack of a "meter" for their mobile data. Here is something that I thought would illustrate the issue well...

Let's say you rent a car on a monthly basis, for work. You agree to pay $49.95 a month if you drive up to 1,000 km per billing cycle, and $1 per km after this.

You decided on 1,000 km because you thought this could cover your average daily usage multiplied by the number of days in the month.

You get the car and notice there is no meter in it, but the rental agency tells you it's ok, they are monitoring it within their system, remotely.

You drive away. During 30 days you have no exact idea of how many kms you've done. You have to keep calling the company to find out how many kms you have driven so far, and calculate to see if you are still within the expected average.

Then you receive the monthly bill. You look through five pages for something that says "kms driven this month", but instead you find "times you started the car this month". And a charge for the rental.

Does it make sense?

No. Neither does Telecom New Zealand's "data sessions" line in the bill. They don't tell us how many megabytes or gigabytes we used during the month, only how many times we used it during the period.

Telecom, are you going to fix your systems?

Read More