Geekzone Technology Community

Imation ships Wireless USB external hard drive

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:17 +1200

Pro WX hard drive offers secure, continuous backup and data protection with 1.5TB of capacity and up to 15MB/second data transfer speed.

DriveSafe.ly app stops potential texting while driving and distracted driving incidents

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:00 +1200

DriveSafe.ly, a free mobile application aiming to stop distracted driving, has now been used by over one million people. The application is reading millions of text messages (SMS) aloud to drivers around the world - keeping their eyes on the road.

Change to Telecom New Zealand operation separation undertakings

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:59 +1200

New Zealand's Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce has approved a variation to Telecom's operational separation undertakings, which came into force in March 2008.

Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Team has set off for the South Pole

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:45 +1200

For the next 40 days, the team will ski six to 10 hours a day unguided and unsupported pulling 80kg sledges loaded with food, fuel and equipment. The team will face blinding blizzards, winds reaching speeds in excess of 80mph, hidden crevasses and temperatures that plummet to -40C.

Flickr from Yahoo! selects Snapfish by HP for global photo printing

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:30 +1200

For Flickr's New Zealand members, this announcement means that they can now use Snapfish to print their photos and have those sent to them or collect from pharmacies or KMart stores nationwide.

Opera Mobile 10 now available for Windows Phones

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:23 +1200

The Opera Mobile 10 beta for Windows Mobile looks and feels similar to the Opera 10 desktop browser and Opera Mini 5 beta. Opera is creating more cohesion between its products by introducing a unified look across many of its platforms. Opera maintains its arsenal of features in this beta, including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and its super, server-side compressor, Opera Turbo.

Diskeeper 2010 prevents disk fragmentation before it happens

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:00 +1200

Utilizing a new technology called IntelliWrite, Diskeeper 2010 intelligently writes files to the disk to prevent up to 85 percent of fragmentation from occurring.

Sybase 365 and Telecom New Zealand International launch joint IPX voice service

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:31 +1200

An IPX enables mobile operators to offer high-value 3G (and 4G) services such as voice, video streaming, and video sharing.

Microsoft announces details for Windows Azure Platform launch

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:24 +1200

Company details strategy and roadmap for developers to move, enhance, and transform applications for the cloud.

A&T unveils network-based on demand computing service

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:11 +1200

"AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service" enables businesses to address their dynamic needs.

World Wide Web Foundation launches global operations

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:06 +1200

Speaking at the 2009 Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a Web Foundation board member, unveiled the organization's new partnerships with VU University Amsterdam (VU) in the Netherlands and CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion) based in Brazil.

Most powerful supercomputer in the world powered by six-core AMD Opteron processor

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:15 +1200

This mission-critical Cray XT5 system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was recently upgraded from quad- to six-Core AMD Opteron processors and delivers 2.3 petaflop/s theoretical peak performance and 1.75 petaflop/s performance on the Linpack benchmark.

InternetNZ announces formation of New Zealand IPv6 Task Force

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:12 +1200

New Zealand is poised to accelerate implementation of the next generation Internet protocol, IPv6, with the formation of the New Zealand IPv6 Task Force, aligned with the global IPv6 Forum. The work of the Task Force will be driven by impending exhaustion of existing IPv4 addressing and the associated risk and additional cost that this is expected to impose.

Social networking and movies come alive on Xbox 360

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:51 +1200

Facebook, Twitter and Xbox Movies on Demand on Xbox LIVE set to launch on 17th November. The new Movies on Demandon Xbox LIVE offers a continually evolving catalogue of movies that can be purchased with Microsoft Points.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 available worldwide now

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:08 +1200

At the Microsoft TechEd Europe 2009 conference in Germany it was announced that the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide. The Exchange Server 2010 is part of a generation of solutions designed for increased business productivity and cost savings in a challenging economic environment.

Linkification v61

RedJungle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:58 Y

News / Web Happenings:

The new 2010 Office.com online portal enters beta
First Glimpse at Google Chrome OS
Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 available November 24th includes enhancements for Windows 7-based computers
Silverlight 4 Beta Announced
Fring Puts Free VoIP Calling on Android
Camino 2.0 Adds New Features to Speedy Mac-Centric Browser
Opera Mobile 10 Beta Available, Now with Tabbed Browsing and Speed Dial
Office 2010 Professional Beta Available for Download
Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 Available with 90+ Bugs Squashed
Seesmic for Windows preview launching today!
The Pirate Bay Tracker Officially Shutting Down for Good
Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta Brings Hardware Acceleration to Web Videos
SyncToy 2.1 Update Speeds Up Windows File Syncing
Chromium on Linux Gets Bookmark Sync
An Early Look at Chrome's Extensions System

General / Neat Stuff:

Apostrophe.me Explains When You Really Need Apostrophes

Humour:

Academia vs. Business
Tech-support slash Designer

Apple:

An update to Google Earth for the iPhone

Development:

Announcing the Official jQuery Podcast
Designing CSS Buttons: Techniques and Resources
Introducing Mapsicle - a Street View library
ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta Released

FAIL of the week:

And the Darwin Award Goes To

The Magic that keeps giving...

MyFreeviewHDReview — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:50 Y

It's been a couple of weeks now and really I am loving the Magic TV unit. I find it simple to use and fantastic to just be able to record what I want and watch TV when it's convenient for me, not TVNZ or whoever. I have always found Friday night fantastic TV night and previously this has dictated me staying in a bit more than I would like, but having the DTR has allowed me to watch those shows whenever I want.

I have had few issues with this unit on the whole really. Although I think something funky happened last night as the picture kept cutting in and out – but I am blaming this on my television as after turning it off and on all was good in the world of Freeview again.

I have been trying to fill my hard-drive as quickly as possible to see how well it will handle it. Every time you go into the recordings it gives you the hours left to record in both standard and high definition, which is really handy. When full this unit will automatically start deleting old shows. First from your deleted items, which is really a recycling bin folder for your set top box. Once these are all deleted it will start deleting the oldest shows first. There are multiple options to save those shows you really love, so you can always protect that movie you just can’t get enough of, or a really funny episode of 7 days.

What else is there to say? I will keep testing this unit even if it means spending time watching even those terribly trashy shows, like Rock of Love, over and over again – all for Geekzone and not my own guilty pleasure of course. What I would love to know though is if there is anything that you fellow geeks are particularly interested in knowing? Let me do the testing before you decide whether this unit is for you.

About the author: Suzi Heath is a 20 year old university student studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration majoring in Information Systems and E-Commerce. As a retail electronics sales consultant, she has spent many an hour explaining the finer points of Freeview to customers, but up until now has not dabbled much in it herself. Suzi is looking forward to feeding her currently dormant trashy television habit and also showing everyone that you don’t need an abundance of testosterone and long career in IT to take charge of some technology!

Silverlight 4 beta released, puts some heat on Adobe

paulspain — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:31 Y

Microsoft have today made available the first public beta of Silverlight 4. Targeted specifically at developers this release brings with it dozens of new features and improvements that are likely to accelerate the uptake of Silverlight by the softwa... (more in the full post)

Big week for Microsoft: Office 2010 beta, Forefront TMG 2010 release, Xbox update

paulspain — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:51 Y

This week Microsoft are making available new products in a range of areas this week. Of interest to many will be the beta release of Office 2010. This is available for download now for both Technet and MSDN subscribers. I have been running the 'Techn... (more in the full post)

Introducing Nick Parfene reviewing the JCMatthew DRV-320T

MyFreeviewHDReview — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:54 Y

Despite the fact that I don't watch too much TV I was very happy when I was offered the chance to review a MyFreeview|HD product.

I have owned a Freeview receiver for quite some time now and moving to a MyFreeview|HD product was going to be the next step for me anyway for reasons that I will make more clear over a few blog posts.

For those who are not very familiar with the terminology around Freeview Satellite, MyFreeview Satellite, Freeview|HD and MyFreeview|HD here's a very quick reference:

- Freeview stands for free-to-air digital television. Free-to-air basically means there is no ongoing license/fee that you need to pay in order to keep watching.

- Free-to-air broadcasts (Freeview) can be received in two ways: via satellite (wherever you might be in NZ) or via UHF (terrestrial). The terrestrial broadcast is in High Definition (HD). You can check your coverage here to see what is available in your part of the country.

Regardless of which Freeview option you go for (Satellite or HD) you have the option of getting a "smarter" receiver, that can also record (even 2 programmes at a time) TV so that you can view it later. MyFreeview is the term used to specify such a device. In conclusion there are two more terms for you: MyFreeview Satellite and MyFreeview|HD.

Choosing HD (terrestrial) over standard definition (Satellite) should be an obvious choice, but it isn't. On Freeview|HD you (currently) don't have Cue, Stratos and Te Reo TV channels and George FM radio station. While on Satellite you don't get TV Central and Chinese TV. Refer to this list for up to date information. Having a satellite dish already or a working UHF aerial might also weigh the balance towards one choice or another.

Freeview (and me for that matter) recommend that you choose HD whenever possible. The investments seem to be going towards HD and the quality is much better (at least for TV One, TV2 and TV3). I have had Freeview satellite but once I installed my first Freeview|HD receiver I just knew there was no going back.

Truth be told, if you don't have a HD TV you are less likely to notice the difference, but one day you will be upgrading that TV and having a HD receiver will make your view experience a whole lot better.

But why MyFreeview|HD? The promise is that:

- you'll be able to watch your content whenever you want, rather than when it is broadcast
- you'll never miss an episode from your favourite TV series
- you'll be able to pause TV to open that cold beer that's been sitting in the fridge without missing a single beat
- you'll never have to choose between two programmes: you'll be able to record them both, or watch one while recording the other (actually, there are even more options)

Does it deliver? We'll soon find out. Stay tuned...

About the author: Nick Parfene was born in Romania and emigrated to NZ in 2005. He is a consultant for a Wellington based IT company 4 days a week and spends most of his spare time building mobile solutions for a small start-up called Tmro. He adores his partner and his Goddaughter, loves playing adventure games on his PS3, sports, sci-fi, animals (has a dog called Haiduc) and travelling. He is slowly being drawn into the field of photography but has no regrets. If can follow Nick via his Twitter account @nicktmro or his blog http://www.tmro.net/blog.

What copyright really means in New Zealand

freitasm — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:49 Y

The "� kiwiright" documentary explains the meaning of copyright laws in New Zealand (and the world) and is a great introduction to the current copyright debate going on in New Zealand. Juha Saarinen talks to us about the current state of copyright in New Zealand. For more information visit the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Microsoft being a Onecare

juha — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:25 Y

All right, I know it's good to that Microsoft provides a free malware scanning utility and that I'm being a bit of a duck to have a go at them, but nevertheless, the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner is a bad idea that should be taken down fast.

For starters, it uses an ActiveX control - Internet Explorer required in other words - that's annoyingly hard to install. You get warnings galore from Windows 7's UAC and IE about popups and do you really really really want to install something that has the potential to roger your system well and truly?

That's not what a non-technical user wants to see, especially if s/he thinks the computer in question has been compromised via the Internet.

Does it work then? No idea yet, because this is far as I got:

Ah yes, good old error number 0x0C600C03. Of course. Tells you exactly what went wrong, doesn't it?

And why is this done over HTTP and not secured HTTPS anyway?

See that little "Love it? Tell your friends" exhortation to email your friends about the scanner? Yep, very bad idea that too, as from now on, malware writers will start spamming about OneCare safety scanner, with the payload likely to be something you really don't want on your computer.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,OneCare,security,viruses,Internet Explorer,Koobface,Windows Live

Linkification v60

RedJungle — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:10 Y

News / Web Happenings:

Paint.NET 3.5 Released!
We've settled with Joltid - Skype Blogs
Telecom New Zealand announces plans to wholesale XT network
Flash 10.1 coming to webOS in first half 2010, says kinder, gentler Adobe page
Windows Marketplace for Mobile updates tackle piracy, adds online store for non-mobile browsers
Apple Releases Safari 4.0.4
Google Latitude, now with Location History & Alerts
Amazon free Kindle for PC application now available
Google Acquires Gizmo5 VoIP Service; VoIP Coming to Google Voice?
Google to Acquire Mobile Advertising Firm AdMob

General / Neat Stuff:

Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony

Apple:

Facebook app developer rejects App Store, irony ensues
TomTom to bring free lane guidance, text-to-speech, iPod control to iPhone GPS app
Worm Hits Jailbroken iPhones; Apple Plans Jailbreak Crackdown

Development:

Facebook Toolkit for Microsoft Developers

FAIL of the week:

Kung Fu Fail

The Internet: bad and good according to Jeff Jarvis

freitasm — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:17 Y

Companies are still afraid of jumping on the Internet. People are terrorised their products and services will have bad reviews, or their position won't be heard.

Fear nothing... Watch this video on how to win arguments about the Internet, by Jeff Jarvis:

First test on Vodafone NZ HSPA+

juha — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:30 Y

At Vodafone HQ with Scott Bartley from PC World and Chris Keall from NBR, trying out HSPA+. On my Dell Studio 17 laptop and a Huawei K4505 USB stick, the results are...

Pingtest:

And the hoary old Speedtest:

More tests to come with ftp downloads and uploads.

Update A few ftp tests later shows that the around 7Mbit/s sustained throughput per connection is possible, at least on a lightly loaded network. With three ftp downloads going, I hit 14-15Mbit/s sustained. Didn't have time to do upload tests, unfortunately.

The low latency is great, but Vodafone's HSPA+ network will need more tuning before it opens up for general availability. We experienced several instances of the connection staying up but with no data being passed over the link. Once the stability issues are sorted out, HSPA+ could be all the broadband many users need - provided of course that Vodafone follows through with the hints about upgrading the data plans.

On top of meaty data plans, Vodafone would need to source HSPA+ capable phones that can be used as modems as well as for voice, for the fast 3G connection to be attractive to general users looking to dump their landlines in favour of just mobile. Or, Vodafone could organise a 3G softphone to go with the USB data sticks.

Unfortunately, we weren't given any pricing for the uprated 3G service by Vodafone.

Here's Chris's take at NBR on this morning's HSPA+ session.

Testing the Magic TV DTR: grandparents

MyFreeviewHDReview — Mon, 9 Nov 2009 03:40 Y

A couple of days in and so far the Magic TV is really awesome. Recording have a buffer/delay options so you can choose to start recordings a couple of minutes early and finish them a bit late too, which is perfect seems nothing runs on time. It's easy to access and play the recorded movies and I can also be watching a previously recorded show while recording two new ones!

I decided to bring in my mother for the “Grandma” test. I reset the machine, unplugged her and let her loose. She found the plug in instructions very easy and only got stuck on the part of the setup involving the video formats and admitted at this stage she would have asked for help. She then went on to have a play with timeshift and easy record which again she breezed through (Once I taught her what a pause button looked like)

Next we had a try at recording from the guide and here we had a bit of a hitch – the buttons they suggest you use on screen, and the actual buttons are different shapes – as you can see from the pictures below (see arrows) the record, next day and next week are in square boxes, but they correspond to the coloured circular buttons at the bottom of the remote.

Most of us here would work this one out for ourselves but this did have my mother stumped. Once we sorted out the button matchings though she was zooming through the guide and setting up recordings like a pro. This unit gets two thumbs up for me on the beginner users test, as my mum is very beginner and even she felt confident using it.

I must admit though there have been teething issues.

- The first autoscan did not pick up prime tv, the second scan try didn’t make it to the autoscanning screen but the third scan did it. Not sure why this happened but it did.
- A couple of my recording moved folders on me, they have been put in a user1 folder but I thought I had placed them in comedy. I can not be 100% sure on my folder accessing skills, but as they are series I will be interested to see where the next recordings end up.

About the author: Suzi Heath is a 20 year old university student studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration majoring in Information Systems and E-Commerce. As a retail electronics sales consultant, she has spent many an hour explaining the finer points of Freeview to customers, but up until now has not dabbled much in it herself. Suzi is looking forward to feeding her currently dormant trashy television habit and also showing everyone that you don’t need an abundance of testosterone and long career in IT to take charge of some technology!

Linkification v59

RedJungle — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 22:53 Y

News / Web Happenings:

Firefox 3.5.5 Update Fixes Critical Security Bug
Android 2.0 Review: Almost Human
Flickr Opens an App Garden Full of Photo Tools
Google Chrome Beta Adds Bookmark Sync, Speed Boost
Google Adds Thumbnailed Results with Page Previews
Google Analytics Blog: New Feature Spotlight: Google Analytics for Mobile Apps
More, more, more real estate in Google Maps
The Illustrated Guide to the New Firefox 3.6 Windows 7 Integration
Xero Personal

General / Neat Stuff:

Google Dashboard Provides a Top-Down Look at Your Google Use

Apple:

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Released
Apple Announces Over 100,000 Apps Available on the App Store

Development:

Google Code Blog: Introducing Closure Tools

FAIL of the week:

News anchor fail

Migrated to Microsoft Online Services at the end

freitasm — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 02:48 Y

It was like a dream: I've decided that running an email server was not part of my business, and it was time to move this function out of my infrastructure into a hosted solution.

I won't get into the fine calculations behind this decision (involving my time managing servers, cost of backups, server hardware, hard disk space, etc, etc.) since you can probably find a lot of experts (real ones and self-proclaimed ones) around to explain why it makes sense.

The contenders on the first round were Google Apps Premiere (because I wanted Google Apps Sync for Outlook to keep using Microsoft Outlook) and Microsoft Online Services.

I thought of Google Apps Premiere because it comes from a company that shows innovation in the way it thinks about software - plus a lot of people recommended it. And I thought of Microsoft because it provides a natural path if you are coming from Exchange servers and want to keep the functionality.

Money talks, and because of costs I decided back then to go with Google Apps Premiere, which is licensed at US$50/seat per year (note there's a free version as well). Microsoft was a bit more expensive but since then they have announced a price drop for all online services, including those delivered in New Zealand.

Moving my mail service worked ok. But I found a series of problems with Google Apps Premiere synchronization to mobile devices.

After that blog post I was contacted by a Google Sync product manager who asked if it was ok to monitor my mailbox to try and find the root causes of these problems.

After a couple of weeks where nothing was solved I just decided it was time to move on.

You see, when I posted about those problems with Google Apps Premiere synchronization to mobile devices I immediately received emails from some companies offering to host my email services.

Big thanks to the following companies/services and I hope you check them out: Telecom New Zealand with their Telecom BusinessHub, Rackspace with their Rackspace Email Hosting, Microsoft with their Microsoft Online Services. There is also a fourth local company that is working on a hosted email solution but not yet released so I will have to hold it for a while (I will update this post when they go live).

After the failed attempt of using the Google Apps I have moved my email Microsoft Online Services. There are a couple of features that I found interesting. First, when you sign up for the service you can nominate a Partner. This will be your services contact if you ever need anything - the advantage is that you can select someone local to you (or very close). For a service demo/description watch this video.

Another interesting feature is the way accounts are structured. On Google Apps you need an admin account for each domain but you don't have a single account for all services if you have more than one domain (not as in Internet domain but as in business structure).

On Microsoft Online Services you use a Live ID account to "own" the service (and pay for it) through the Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal, but delegate domain management to any other account within the domain(s) through the Administration Portal. One Live ID can manage multiple subscriptions, and each domain will have its own manager.

For full disclosure, those companies offered one or another service if I migrated to their offering - migration, support, etc. Microsoft offered to extend my old trial subscription so I could continue using the service and migrate my domains to their service.

What are you doing? Is you company still hosting its own email servers? Are there a plan in place to migrate this kind of function to outside the company? What services have you decided to use? Put in the comments (just no astroturfing spam - if you work for the company be clear about it).

Geek garden update

juha — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:46 Y

Wet and warm keeps the green stuff happy. The garden is growing like anything, something that most New Zealanders are undoubtedly accustomed to, but for me is a Being There experience that still amazes. Have had lovely, sweet strawberries for the last month or so, and green vegetables all throughout winter.
The Italian flat-leaf parsley is huge, ditto the mint, holy basil, lemon grass, oregano, rocket, spring onions, sage and thyme - all the stuff that costs a small fortune in the supermarket. Having it fresh is just that much better as well.
One of the best things to eat from the garden has been the artichokes. The plant itself grew to a ridiculous size, obviously loving the clay soil and the buds are fantastic.
Tomatoes have been planted and they're going berserk. One plant took three weeks to reach enormous proportions, so will have to put some sort of lattice thing behind it to keep it from breaking. Has fruit already though, so don't think it'll be a leaves-only job.
Almost forgot - need to sort out a watering system. What do people use? Those hoses with little holes in them?

Technorati Tags: Life,Gardening,food.

New Zealand government should be ashamed

freitasm — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:31 Y

The New Zealand government should be ashamed of being involved in secret dodgy ACTA negotiations giving away our rights to private interests.

Summary from Acta round five.