30 Nov 2004
Assuming they do something about a PR department in this take-over/merger/whatever it’s being called, I think CCA has every chance of success. Well, whatever. I have no idea, to be perfectly honest. But blatant typos in press releases really get to me; I’ve just read three SPC Ardmona media releases, all of which featured errors a simple proofing by any literate person would have resolved.
Up with professionalism and copy-checking…
29 Nov 2004
Looks as though various post-school people have returned from their little jaunt today, so I thought I’d say hi again! So far as I can tell, Dale is the only one to actually post about it yet, and has also gone and stuck up a few too many photos with an uberly stuffed up version of PhotoStack. Love it!
Welcome back, guys.
29 Nov 2004
For those who are interested in such things, or have lots of spare time, or feel like a decent-sized webpage to read, take a look at Ross Anderson’s Trusted Computing FAQ page. Then get upset.
This is as much a note-to-self as anything else. I plan on taking advantage of print credits at school to do something with that page before the end of term ;)
28 Nov 2004
This is just so amazingly fast! I just grabbed a 330-odd MB CD image in around ten minutes. I know you can get all kinds of theoretical numbers, but that works out to a through-put of about 4000kbps. Yeouch.
I’ve just looked at their website for cable plans… their Unlimited* 10GB shaped plan looks excellent for my usage! Not only would there be sufficiently insane speed, but it also seems as though the capping/shaping is rather soft — not that this really impacts me, seeing I normally managed perhaps 6GB a month with iiNet! Having said that, uploads would be counted with BigPond, which is a little sucky, but bearable (especially seeing people report being able to download 30GB+ sans capping).
The only other thing that’d be lame about Telstra, AFAIK, is the blocking of port 25 (not a huuuge problem, but I’ve got used to running a local sendmail daemon to deal with outbound stuff) and possibly support, if contact with them is ever required. The service quality here since Thursday has been perfect, but Tori (also a BigPond Cable user) has constant dropouts — uncertain if that’s her wireless or the actual ‘net link, though.
I looked around for details about port 80 being blocked, but it seems that’s something which I just imagined… fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the case! Which, so I think, is a good thing. Well, certainly a useful collaborative thing, as it’s easier to seek feedback whilst editing a site live locally, rather than waiting the hundredth of a second for it to upload elsewhere (yes, I’m being perfectly serious; I would choose an ISP based on that).
Anyone have any horror stories with BigPond that they wish to share? Preferably someone who has actually USED BigPond before in their life, as everyone seems to be very opinionated, simply because it’s Telstra. Oh, and telling me they don’t peer with PIPE Networks doesn’t count, because I’d already stopped using PIPE content in an attempt to make some kind of dent in my iiNet download quota. Needless to say, I failed.
28 Nov 2004
I just fired off my last assessment to the HP LaserJet 2100 downstairs. It’s the first assessment I’ve written… for a long, long time, that’s under 1000 words. Yes, it’s for ITF, the least academically taxing of all my subjects, Business Studies included. Sigh.
That’s what happens when something is marked as “Competent/Not Competent”. The notification informed me I was supposed to get the whole stupid thing bound at Kinko’s,
… so that it actually looks like an installation manual.
Oh, it’s supposed to actually look like an installation manual, hey? I’ll pass the document through Babelfish a few dozen times, and then the language will closer resemble a “real” installation manual. Grrrr.
Needless to say, I grabbed my favorite stapler and jumped on it for a while. It’s not “professionally bound”, sorry. That’s what you get when there aren’t actually explicit assessment criteria outlined — students who don’t really care what they hand in, because showing they “know stuff” is enough to get graded as “competent”. That was worth 20% of my internal assessment for the year, just for the record.