I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Rob Hamill sent me this during the week …
A kiwi bloke made this in his flat
…but he had to break it all up because he shifted flat this week…
so what are doing with your spare time?
Was shown these two movies from ‘Britain’s got Talent’ over the weekend. Very cool.
and
The most anticipated blog of the year is ready to go.
There is no doubt that Andrea Stewart is New Zealand’s shopping champion.
I’ve known Andrea and her husband Tony for a long time. Andrea accompanied us a year or two ago on a trip to Minneapolis for a Microsoft Partner conference. Minneapolis is known for having one of the worlds biggest shopping malls - the Mall of America.
Andrea had prepared and trained for the event. She had maps and had determined an optimized shopping route to ensure she hit all stores with minimum time in her shopping heels.
On the train out to the Mall of America we talked to the locals who were clearly concerned with her state of excitement as we got closer to the Mall. We explained that she was our National Shopping Champion and was in town for training.
I warned them not to stand between her and the doors.
Andrea’s commitment to the sport of shopping is undoubted. Visit the Stewart household the month before Christmas and you will be greeted by two half size deer Christmas decorations.
Watching her work the room at a Kirk’s sale is legendary.
They say that money can’t buy style but Andrea is living proof that it’s at least worth a shot.
For those of us with young children, a big part of the daily ritual is story time. My 3 year old insists on two stories before the light goes off.
I have to be honest, some stories I dread reading for the 30th time, but there are a number of favorites that are just laugh out loud funny. I’m not sure the little fella thinks they are as funny as I do but these are my suggestions for must have child books that you’ll look forward to reading.
1. Russell the Sheep
Great artwork, the story of a sheep trying to get to sleep …
2. When Pigs Fly
Priceless. Look for the last picture …
3. Diary of a Wombat
Text is as good as the pictures …
4. The story of the little Mole who knew it was none of his business
Seems to have a different title on Amazon …
What are your must have, laugh out loud, bedtime stories?
Many people and small businesses still have email addresses provided by their ISP. e.g. yourbusiness@yourISP.com. Even small businesses and individuals can have branded email addresses (like you@yourdomain.com) and a simple web page at almost no cost.
But, as we tend to do in the technology industry, it is not easy for non tech people to set this up. Over the last few weeks I’ve set up a couple of friends and you can do it all online and relatively inexpensively. You will need to talk to someone with a few tech skills but here is a bit of a guide to get you going.
Step one is to chose and register your domain.
I use iServe, because they have free domain management services. That means that you can control where your email and website is hosted. The cost of a domain for one year is $38.
Once you have registered your domain you can use the iServe console application to manage all of your domain settings (also known as your zone file for the geeks). This lets the world know where your email server and web site.
The next step is select an email provider. I use Google GMail and with Google hosted domains you can have your own personalized email address.
To sign up for a free email account (that can be your branded email address) go to http://www.google.com/a/
Select Get Started and sign up for a Standard Edition account (which is free). If you are setting up for a friend you can use your existing Gmail credentials. Else you enter in your old email address and create a new account.
Set yourself up as the administrator (e.g. you@yourdomain.com), that will make it easy later if you want to set up other accounts for your family or team. (someoneelse@yourdomain.com)
The first step is to validate ownership of your domain. You do this by setting a CNAME record. This is where you need access to your domain records to configure your domain so that email gets sent to GMail. The instructions in GMail are clear if you are familiar with DNS. This is where it would be useful to use your geek.
The iServe console makes that straight forward to change settings if you are familiar with such things.
The next step is to set up the MX records for your domain. The GMail ‘Activate Email’ screen gives you a set of MX records to enter.
You can also create a nice url for access your mail. E.g. mail.yourdomain.com.
It may take a day or so for your domain information to cycle through.
Once complete you can also use Google Pages to create a simple website. You can create a simple website on the Pages site. Even better you can create a WordPress account and start blogging!
Let me know how you get on and share your tips. Personalised email addresses for all.
With kids, windsurfing has taken a back seat for the past couple of years. This shot of Troy (aged 40) at Plimmy shows the reason that many of us have lived in Wellington for the past many years and gets me excited about October. Just a great shot.
Troy Purcell, Plimmerton, Wellington, New Zealand
Had the weekend in the Hawkes Bay with no Internet or TV. Just National Radio.
There were some great stories. On Kim Hill yesterday the interview with Spiro Zavos on rugby history was excellent. There was an excellent quote that went something like …
Dancing … is a contact sport, Rugby is a collision one
And this morning Dougal Stevenson on news broadcasters’ pronounciation was brilliant. Worth a listen.
Hill and Knowlton have just released a study on consumer technology.
Interesting reading.
From Troy …
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/faketree.htm
New “species” of trees are suddenly appearing in San Diego County. Their entire growth cycle is completed within a few days in one of the most unusual examples of urbanization.
Great story (thanks SimonR) …
Google to Aaron: we can hear you :)
Sitting on NZ0450 to Foo Camp with all the usual Wellington Software suspects I read a good article in the latest ‘The Channel’ magazine. It was an explanation of Blade Servers by Gary Elmes of IBM.
As a software guy I don’t understand hardware at all, but yesterday I had a look at the new Intergen hosting facility in Wellington. I actually sighted a little server I had there.
Gary’s article explained that Blades were more than just thin servers.
In any server there are two types of components. Those that provide the essence of the server’s functionality - CPU, RAM, IO Bus, etc. The others provide supporting functions - power supplies, fans, KVM connections and so on. Some of these later components are bulky, hot and take up a lot of space. And in a traditional server environment they are duplicated in each device; taking up real-estate, often running at low levels of utilisation and provising more to go wrong.
In the Blade infrastructure the Blades themselves provide the essential components while the supporting components are relegated to the chassis.
Well, that’s the first time Blades have been explained to me. Makes a lot of sense.
Exxon Mobile Posts Record Annual Profit
Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $39.5 billion — even as earnings for the last quarter of 2006 declined 4 percent.
I feel violated - almost as much as parking in the Events Center carpark. Paid for $14 early bird and then had to go out. Parked again for 3 hours @ $32. So $46 in a day.
Repost from SpareRoom because this is so good. Looks like the BlueBridge.
DomPost ran a great photo today of Astronauts passing over NZ. (Also on SpareRoom)
Full res shot is here …
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/165304main_image_feature_719_ys_full.jpg
Stunning.
Sad to hear that the Yellow Wiggle, Greg, is hanging up his yellow turtleneck.
For the past three years I have become somewhat of a Wiggle observer. It is difficult to ask for ‘Fruit Salad’ without appending the words ‘Yummy, Yummy’.
You know you’re a father when you catch yourself walking down Lambton Quay humming that Pirate Dancing track.
I’m fascinated by Wiggle Dynamics and after a lot of consideration this is my list of Wiggle seniorty.
- Greg (Yellow). Clearly the leader. Could be Greg Brady. Drives the Big Red Car and gets the duets with the female guest stars.
- Anthony (Blue). The funny one. Rides shotgun in the Big Red Car. Has changed a lot over the seasons - Now has his hair styled, tanned, buff and has disturbing glow in the dark teeth.
- Jeff (Purple). Hard to separate Jeff and Murray but as Jeff has the long standing wake up gag he gets the nod.
- Murray (Red). Not actually sure what he does.
Captain Feathersword is the dark horse. Often thought of as the 5th wiggle he may actually be ranked as high as (3). Having the most talent and energy it will be interesting to see if he uses Greg’s exit to jump to the top.
Just posting this because I mentioned it to someone …
Oh, another thing I saw on TV while on holiday was a World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) event on ESPN.
The premier event seems to consist of:
3-6-3
6-6
10
Here’s a demo …
You can get your gear at http://www.speedstacks.com
The world record is for the cycle stack appears to be 7.43 seconds by Emily Fox (USA).
Found Emily’s world record stack on google video.
I was cleaning up my photo library and found these shots of the King Kong boat (coming back from Skull Island I assume). This is taken from the front of my house in Wellywood.
It didn’t seem cool to post them before the film was out. It’s still sitting at the dock.
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