Archives for July 2007

TelstraClear helpwait

So, my Internet died this morning. After restarting both the cable modem and my computer a couple of times a Helpdesk call seemed in order. All the lights on the modem indicate things should be working, but ping and traceroute both go nowhere. I conjure up the support number, answer the voice-activated questions and am […]

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Photo Booth quick scroll

I’ve amassed a whole 72 photos in Photo Booth so scrolling around is a pain. But I just discovered that holding down the Command key and pressing the right or left arrow key zooms off to the last or first picture in the series. Nice. Holding down the Option key instead scrolls half a dozen […]

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Broadband in New Zealand

There’s a lot of talk in New Zealand at the moment about our hopeless broadband. For example, The Herald has had a few posts about it lately: How fast is your internet connection?: Not a day goes by when the nzherald.co.nz inbox hasn’t got mail from angry internet subscribers who are paying for one thing […]

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NZ iPhone demo

Phil Roy of the most excellent NZMac.com website managed to lay his hands on a loaner iPhone recently. He then created a short video (a few minutes) in which he demoed the iPhone’s features. Even though we can’t officially buy the iPhone in New Zealand yet, and even if we did we can’t actually sign […]

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Plot devices that bore me

I’ve been a sci-fi fan since I was young — mainly TV and books, but also to some extent movies. However, I’m also a female with a strong sense of female competence and a huge resistance to stereotyped roles and expectations. I think I was in my mid-twenties when I saw the movie Logan’s Run, […]

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Tips, tutorials and commentary

One of the things I love about podcasts is that I can now listen to Radio New Zealand items at a time of my choosing. This morning I caught up on Colin Jackson speaking yesterday on New Technology. Colin was kind enough to mention my site as a source of help for Mac users. So, […]

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Kiwi kids like their cellphones

Geekzone carries an interesting report about Kiwi kids and their use of cellphones, TV, computers, video games and similar digital technologies — Media study sponsored by MTV and Nickelodeon shows New Zealand uptake of new media: New Zealand youth are the highest users of mobile phones in comparison to their global counterparts … the average […]

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PIN numbers!

I bought my first cellphone about 13 years ago, when I resigned from paid employment and started living off the income from my business. My phone needs a PIN number after being turned on. That’s my choice — it adds a nice level of protection. The trouble is, I was assigned some totally other PIN […]

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No nice girls

Darn it, but I’m tired of the ‘nice girls’: Hello! I am tired this evening. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at [address removed] only, because I am writing not from my personal email. Mind me sending some of my pictures to you?

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Keeping the skies dark

The other day I was looking at where the skies are dark on Planet Earth and where the light pollution shows up even in space. You can now see these things in a Google Earth overlay: Google has just pushed out a new layers update. The biggest new addition I’ve found is a new NASA […]

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Writer. Exporter. Both.

Like other Kiwis I’ve been watching how our dollar performs against the US dollar. For the last while we’ve been watching it rise to a value we haven’t seen in a decade or two. In theory this means items we import, such as say Apple Computers, should become cheaper. But the unhappy flipside of course […]

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Can’t pay ACC bill online?!

How ridiculous — I can pay my taxes online, why the heck can’t I pay my Accident Compensation Corporation levy online too? It has to be paid by the 29th so I’m on my banking page all organised, and looking at the invoice for bank details. Sigh. No luck, so I refer to the booklet […]

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