Hi all!

Just a really quick post here – After seeing a tweet from Jason Cartwright of TechAU fame, I had a squizz at a new commenting system for my blog called Disqus (Pronounced Discuss)

This now enables people to leave comments on my website without having to actually sign up.  I was having a number of problems with spammers trying to create logins, which was in turn creating a whole bunch of dead userIDs in the system.

Disqus allows people to leave comments by authenticating with their Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID accounts.

Far better for me to leave the authentication of users in someone elses hands!

So, give it a whirl, and test it out for me if you can – basically, try and break it

Late last night, there was a rare alignment of the planets and stars….and to a greater extent, the alignment of Ben Grubb and myself in the same room.

During this (before now) rare cosmic event, a new  Tech Wired Australia podcast was recorded.

There was much rejoicing and dancing in the streets when it was published to the interweb.

It was done, and it was good.

On a more serious note (me? serious? Geez, there really must have been a rare planetary alignment!) yes, we’ve recorded the first TechWiredAU podcast in nearly 6 months.

We’re hoping to get back on track and get it out more regularly – but we REALLY want to hear from you, the audience, as to what YOU would like from us.

Let us know what you do and don’t like from the show – would you prefer a video or audio version of the show? Would you like to watch it being recorded live?  Do you want audience participation?  Do you NOT want any of those things??

Ultimately, we’re doing the podcast for you  - we enjoy doing it, its fun, but we also get more of a buzz from knowing that you like it too!

So, to get in touch with us an let us know your thoughts, follow us on Twitter – Ben at http://twitter.com/bengrubb and Brent http://twitter.com/ragnarok1971

Or email us feedback at feedback{at]techwiredau[dot}com

If you listen to the show on iTunes, you can also leave a review or comment there

We’re looking forward to creating more shows for you – so get feed-backing to us!!

Ok – My apologies!

During a recent hardware upgrade in my server rack, the network cable fell out of the machine hosting the website.

Everything is back up and running now though.

Also – to those people trying to SPAM my website by creating user accounts left-right-and-centre, I have to manually activate your account, so if I see your email address is some bull-crap email site, you will not be approved, so just give up dudes – seriously.

OK – As always, my apologies for not updating this blog more regularly. Work has been INSANELY busy of late, and I have hardly had time to scratch myself, let alone write anything on the ‘ol blog here.

Anyways – Down to business…..

Those of you who are on Twitter (and those of you who aren’t, you can join, and follow me here) may have been aware of the big push in the past week by Ashton Kucher to get himself over one million followers, and to become the most followed person on Twitter.

I have a big issue with this.  First and foremost, Twitter is *NOT* a competition!!!!  There is no prize for being the most followed person, nor is there any benefit from it.

These people seem to have forgotten what Twitter is all about – the dissemination of information that is relevant and interesting to the individual.

If I follow someone who just spouts rubbish, or more recently, the trend has been towards advertising, I will un-follow them.  Purely and simply, if I dont find what someone speaks about interesting or useful, I’ll un-follow them to stop it appearing in my timeline.

Some of you may also be aware that Oprah has also recently joined Twitter.  This in itself I have absolutely no problem with – everyone is allowed (and indeed encouraged) to be part of the Twittersphere – but the problem arises when millions of new users who will not themselves ADD content (or Tweet) will follow Oprah for no other reason than to see what she’s up to.  Now, I can almost guarantee that if Oprah does continue to regularly use Twitter, it will most likely be an assistant of hers that does the Tweeting, and will more than likely be things like “Just finished taping the latest show about X” and “Latest Oprah magazine on the shelves” thus being advertising for her own brand.

You may not think that this is a bad thing – and for the most part, its not – However, it places an enormous load on the Twitter servers, which most of us are aware, have a hard time coping with the load on them as it is.

I would hate to see all of these ’sheep’ users joining Twitter by the boat-load, causing it to become an even more unstable service than it already is.

Hi everyone – I know its been AAAAAGES since my last post – and for that I do humbly apologise.

This past weekend has been a weekend full of a great deal of WIN! for me. I managed to tick a lot off things off of my to-do list that I’ve been sitting on for ages.

One of them, upgrading my website and Wordpress to the latest version, was something I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

The upgrade was relatively painless and even fixed up the odd problem I was having with the weather plugin (it used to come up with all sorts of odd error messages that it couldn’t find certain functions or something).

On other news, I am part of the Twitter365 project on Flickr – To participate in the project, you take a photo each day for 365 days. There are ceratinly some GREAT photos that have been taken already as part of the project – mine do seem to be quite ‘ordinary’ but I’m participating, and thats the important thing! Granted, I’m using the crappy forward-facing camera in my phone which is very low quality – In fact, I used my normal 5 megapixel camera to take one head-shot of myself, and resolved to going back to the low quality phone camera after it showed up far too much detail LOL

Anyways – I’m at work at the moment, and its almost 9:00am where things will start to kick-off for the day, so I’ll wrap this up here.

I won’t promise, but I’ll TRY to make more regular posts on here – I’ll do my best!

TTFN!

This post is the first from my new iProduct

Today marked two Twitter Milestones for me!

100 Followers – at last I have broken into the three-digit mark!

1200 Updates – I missed by 1000th, but 1200 seems as good as any.  I want to figure out how many posts per day that works out to since I joined Twitter…Some research is required methinx…

OK – I realise that my posts lately have seemed rather negative and angry – but come on people – lets bang the rocks together and get with the program here! Or indeed perhaps is is the required Darwinian removal of Homosapiens (”Saps”) in progress as per my previous post…?

The unit I’m currently living in is rather small, has no air conditioning, and no cross-ventilation.  The recent warmer (not yet hot) days Sydney has had has made the temperature rocket up inside.  The increase in the sound made by the various cooling fans in the PCs I have has been quite noticeable.

So, I decided it wastime to buy a new fan – just a cheap pedestal variety – nothing fancy.

My first port of call was Myer on Pitt Street Mall – it was also my first mistake.

Now, Myer DID have fans once, as I bought one there a few years ago.

Myer have decided to move EVERYTHING on floors 5 and 6 around.  I went to level 6 where electrical goods such as computers, TVs etc are.  around 50% of the floor has been reallocated to Christmas Decorations – a whole quarter of a year before Christmas – talk about getting in early.  After circling the floor twice, and finding nothing, I asked a sales assistant in the “portable air conditioning” section where I might find them.  He paused for a moment, and said if they did have them, they would be on the floor below and he indicated in which corner they should be.  How stupid of me to think the cooling fans would be anywhere near portable air conditioners.

Down to level 5 I go, to be presented only with acres of manchester, and about 25% of the floor dedicated to kitchenware – some of which consisted of electrical items (the corner I was directed to) but only finding microwave ovens, toasters, and some other kitchen gadgetry which when purchased will spend its entire time in the original box, packed away in someones kitchen cupboard.

No fans.

Now – note to Myer:  Put up some FRAKING signs that show where stuff is on each floor.

Cheaper retails outlets such as Target, hang signs from the ceiling showing you where different types of goods are on display – kitchenware, electrical, mens and womens clothing etc.

Myer have spent literally MILLIONS of dollars printing red and white signs saying nothing mre than”Mid Year Sale” and hung them from the ceiling at a coverage of about 5 signs per square meter.  It is NOT decoration, and it is NOT attractive – WAKE UP!

My second port of call was Bing Lee.  Now I know they’re in the Skygarden arcade, and are accessed by a 3-floor-long esculator from Pitt Street Mall.  When I get there, there is a large fenced off area blocking the entrance.  Therefore I have to go up 3 sets of esculators inside the Skygarden arcade.

Again, the Saps fail me, and decide that standing 2-abrest on the esculator is perfectly fine when people behind them are in a hurry.

Note to Saps: Falling down a set of esculators is a fine example of Darwinian selection – especially when I push you.

I get into Bing Lee after tripping over a wooden speed-hump they have at the door that houses what I expect to be the cabling for the RFID theft detectors.  No markings, no yellow paint, no ‘watch your step’ at eye level, brown wood on a dark blue linoleum floor – great.

Without too much fuss, I locate the fans.  A few to select from – this looks promising.

I’m crouching down at one of the more expensive models, just checking it out, when I am approached by a female sales assistant “Ya want some help there?” she asks, hardly pausing from chewing her gum to wrap her mouth around a few superfluous syllables.

I told her I was looking for just a cheap, ordinary pedestal fan.  Her response to that was “We have 10% off all fans”.  My dear, that is NOT what I asked.  If you are going to ask if I need help, be preparede to actually GIVE some help.

I could not be bothered with her at this point, so said thanks, and walked away from her to a second display of more fans.

Within no more than 2 minutes, she approached me again and asked me if I wanted any help, apparently not realising she had asked me a few moments before.

By this point however, I had made my selection and decided on the fan I was about to purchase.  I pointed to the one I wanted and told her “I’d like one of these please”.

She said that she thought that the one I wanted was the last one in stock.  I paused, as I dont consider this to be a problem, and she stared at me blankly.  I asked her if it was a problem for her – thinking maybe they aren’t allowed to sell floor stock or something.

She said that I would have to take the fan “as is” and it would be a bit difficult to carry.  I said that wasn’t a problem, and that they do dismantle quite easily.

She then said that they dont keep the boxes of display models.

I said “Well, do you have another box I could put it in?”

Her response was a simple “No”

I then asked if she had plastic bags – surely they have those?

She hesitantly replied that they did have large plastic bags that they could put it in, but she would have to get another sales person to help me, as she needed to go to the toilet.

WHAT THE FUCK??  Does my money smell or something??  Didn’t they want the sale??

I have honestly NEVER had such an atrotious customer service experience.

But it didnt end there.

She called over 2 other sales staff and a ’storeroom boy’, and it took them 5 minutes to take the base off the fan (done by removing a hand-tight wingnut) and taking off one half of the neck of the fan (fell out by itself when they lifted the fan off the display).

I go up to the counter and hand them my VISA debit card, and am asked “Savings or Credit” – I really want to say “neither” at this point, but I stay calm, and say “VISA please”.

She attempts to scan the card at least 10 times, each time, the machine beeps asking her to rescan it.

She then hands me back the card saying it wont work, and asking if I have another card.  I dont have another card.  Why would I have another card?

She takes it back and asks a guy behind the cunter with him what to do.

As she starts reaching for a plastic bag and some stickytape, I tell her to stop.  I inform her that its idiots that think wrapping the card in a plastic bag, or putting stickytape over the magnetic strip – are the reasons the magnetic strip gets worn out.

I then told them that if they actually knew how to operate the equipment they’re using (and being an electronics store they have even less excuse for not knowing) they would simply enter the data into the EFTPOS device manually.

I pick up the EFTPOS handset and proceed to how them how its done – card number <OK> expiry date <OK> and its all done.

Neither of the sales ssistants said thankyou – not for showing them how to do their own job, nor for my custom.

Oh, and Bing Lee – if you are going to offer 10% discounts on items, best you get the POS software to work out the discount, because your sales assistants most likely failed basic mathematics – an item that is $69.00 after a discount of 10% does not equate to $60.72

<sigh>

Ok – firstly a little housekeeping – Yes I know its been over a month since my last post, but I have been rather busy with work, podcasts and something resembling a social life.  I will attempt to make a few more regular updates, even if it is just to say “Isn’t the weather nice this time of year”

Now – on to the subject of this post – and I will warn you in advance that it is a venting of anger on my part – so if you’re easily offended, have a weak constitution or have some sort of medical complaint – then please continue reading as you’ll be the first to die in preparation for the final solution.

On the weekend just passed, I had a very good friend of mine travel 12 hours by train to come and spend some time with me.  We had a great weekend, lots of fun, and then he departed on Sunday for another 12 hour train ride back to Lismore where he is studying.

He was due to arrive at some rediculous hour of the morning on Monday, so I left it until Monday evening to call him to make sure he got home OK.

This is moment at which my belief that Homosapiens as a species should be extinguished, was born.

My friend tells me that whilst he is on the train ride home, he falls asleep for a couple of hours.  Nothing wrong with that I think, perfectly understandable – we did have a big weekend.  He wakes up at his destination, and goes to collect his bag, which he had placed directly above him in the overhead storage.

You should be able to work out where this is going by now…  Yes, it was gone.  No sign of it.  It would appear that someone had taken it and got off at a previous station, all while my friend dozed.

So, my friend has lost most of his life – Laptop, Personal data, uni work, wallet, money, licence – basically everything but the clothes on his back.

Of course, he reports it to station security and police – but is politely told he’ll never see his stuff again.

This is the point where I say to myself “Why can’t these people, who are paid to help in such instances, be bothered to do anything”.  *EVERY* platform at *EVERY* train station is monitored 24/7 with video cameras and this is recorded for use in exactly this sort of situation.  All they have to do is check 2 minutes of video from each of the stations after my friend fell asleep to see someone getting off the train with his bag.  Then they just have to check the ticketing database, as each ticket has a name and phone number attached to it.

But they just can’t be bothered.

You may think that this one isolated incident is hardly cause for the extermination of Homosapiens, but that was the icing on the cake, and its what got me thinking.

Globally, the planet is falling apart. Crime is on the increase. Wars are breaking out.

Homosapiens have had 10,000 years – With the population at current levels, the gene pool is capable of faster change – Its time for the next step.  Its time for change.  Its time to fix this mess.

Homosuperior – A Better World By Better People.