stuart test blog

I’ve just created a new site called Blogtown (blogtown.co.nz) – the aim is to create a free blogging service for people in New Zealand. The site is fully funtional but is still being tested, so I’m only making the service available by invitation only.

I’m using WordPress MU, which is a multi-user version of the popular blogging software, WordPress (which also runs this site.) The themes that I have made available to end-users are customised to include discrete, Google Adsense ads at the top of each page which should cover the costs or running the site. Future plans are to include premium features that will be available for a monthly fee, such as photo albums or other plugins.

If you live in NZ and would like to test out the site with your own free account – please send an email to webmaster@blogtown.co.nz. When you get set up, you’ll get a username.blogtown.co.nz web address for your blog.

It’s been a while since I last posted – the last two months have been pretty hectic but things are starting to settle down now. The first cause of this busy period was the fact that I accepted a job offer and thus handed in my resignation at DTSL. So I completed my notice period at DTSL and managed to squeeze in three months of projects into four weeks – along with trying to catch up on documentation and admin stuff. I also managed to fit in a trip up to Auckland to do a file/print/Exchange migration project.

The new job is at Datacom Systems Ltd as a Technical Consultant. I started on the 15th August and will be focusing mainly on the Citrix side of things initially. I have just completed my fourth week now and have been working on a nation-wide Citrix migration at the Ministry of Education. It’s been a good experience for me as I’m getting exposure to much larger and complex environments.

So although I’ve settled in nicely now and fitted into a good routine, the next couple of months look like they will be pretty busy as I try to get all of my certifications up to date. First goal is to finish off the two last exams required for MCSE, after which I’ll be looking to move up to the CCIA certification. There aren’t too many people in New Zealand with the CCIA qualification so it will definitely be good for me to get this before the end of the year. The good thing about all the studying I’ll be doing is that I’ll have a chance to save up some money for the Christmas season!!

I’ve taken down the photo album from this site after my bandwidth was hammered by googlebots. The photo album was a mirror of the one on our www.debandstu.co.nz site so the googlebots were downloading the same information twice. Actually the entire album got indexed four times as it was also possible to get to it using the /gallery2 virtual directory…

So if you’d like to have a look at some of our photos, head over to www.debandstu.co.nz, especially the photos of our new kittens!

Side note – I’ve also now added a robots.txt to the site to exclude the /gallery2 sub-directory, I recommend everyone reads up on the robots.txt file and how it can help your site too.

I’ve just been reading an interesting article on the Ars Technica website about how the copy protection that is being used on new CD’s is making it harder for honest people to enjoy their music while doing nothing to prevent piracy.

This is something I’ve agreed with for some time now – pirates will always find a way to hack around the various DRM’s in use, but honest music fans find out that the CD they just bought won’t play on their Ipod or laptop. I recently bought the new Coldplay album, X&Y, only to find out that when I inserted it into my laptop it tried to autorun an application of some kind. Now this has to be the ridiculous (and ineffective) kind of protection – all I did was press cancel on the autorun application, then opened Windows Media Player (famous for its strict copy protection) and was able to rip the tracks in unprotected mp3 format. According to some sites the ripped mp3’s are supposed to have clicks and jumps in the tracks but I haven’t noticed anything yet.

Apparently, (according to the Ars Technica article) the new Foo Fighters album uses Windows Media DRM. Ipod users who have legitimately bought the album are now discovering that they can’t sync the tracks with iTunes because it will only play in Windows Media Player. So their only options to get the tracks on their iPod is to break the law and try to work around the DRM. Coincidentally, the most illegally downloaded song at the moment is the new Foo Fighters song, Best of Me – perhaps its the iPod owners wanting a way to get it onto their iPod.

I think the only way to counter these forms of protection is to boycott any CD’s that use ridiculous copy protection. These CD’s should indicate on the cover that they are using some form of copy protection so always have a look before you purchase your next CD. Also, you’ll notice that discs that do use copy protection won’t carry the official CD logo,
so when you buy an album with copy protection, you’re not actually buying a Compact Disc:

I’ve just posted some details and pictures of our cute new kittens on the DebandStu site. Link here: http://www.debandstu.co.nz/2005/08/08/new-kittens-cooper-and-minnie/

My new notebook arrived on Monday and I couldn’t be happier with it. I spent a lot of time leading up to this purchase researching prices and features of various notebooks and brands and I’m fairly sure that I got it right. This notebook is my first, proper, new computer – all of the others I’ve owned were either second-hand, or built-up using a mixture of new and second-hand parts.

The important specs of the notebook are:

• Processor: Intel? Pentium? M Processor 740 (#) supports Enhanced Intel? SpeedStep Technology (1.73GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB)
• Cache: 2MB Level-2 Cache
• Memory: 512MB (1 x 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM (400MHz)
• Smart hard drives: 60GB (5400 rpm)
• Display: 15.4″ colour TFT WXGA (1280 x 800 resolution)
• Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI-Express (64MB video memory)
• Audio: Integrated 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible stereo audio, AC97 audio, integrated stereo speakers, volume control and mute buttons
• Communications: High speed 56K modem with digital line guard, integrated 10/100/1000 NIC, Intel? Pro/Wireless 2915ABG 802.11a/b/g integrated wireless LAN, integrated Bluetooth
• Battery: 4.8Ahr 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery, up to 4 hours of battery life
• Keyboard: 101/102-key compatible keyboard with isolated inverted-T cursor control keys, editing keys, left and right control & alt keys, and 12 function keys; One-touch access to HP Info Center, Wireless on/off, Presentation mode, and volume control
• Optical drive: DVD?RW/?R
• Dimensions: 2.8cm(H) x 35.5(W) x 25.9cm(D)
• Weight (min.): Up to 2.71kg – may vary, depending on configuration and components

My reasons for choosing this notebook were based around: (a) the features I wanted, and (b) the features I could afford. My first decision to make was the type of screen I wanted, as this usually slims down the number of models to choose between. I decided to go for a wide screen model as opposed to the traditional screen, and although I wanted to get as high-resolution as possible, the cost factor kicked in and I decided to settle for the 1280×800 screen. This is actually a very comfortable size to use – text isn’t too big or too small (it’s just right…) Once I had decided on the screen, it was just a case of getting as much CPU/RAM/HDD as possible on my budget. I also wanted to get a dedicated graphics card in the notebook as I’m tired of having to miss out on playing the latest games due to having to share precious memory with the rest of the system. This notebook has an ATI X600 PCI-Express graphics card with 64MB dedicated RAM. 64MB may not seem much compared with some of the newer graphics cards out now, but it is ample for all but the most strenuous of games.

The CPU is also not the most powerful on the market currently but it is also more than OK for day-to-day tasks and it’s been able to easily handle everything I’ve thrown at it so far. The notebook also came with 512MB RAM in a single slot and is upgradeable to 2GB, I may look at installing an extra 1GB RAM later this year. The 60GB hard drive is a little smaller than the 80GB drive I wanted but this came down to the cost issue again. The size and weight of the notebook is perfect too – the widescreen is crisp and clear, and the rest of the body is slim and light.

As I had recently set up my new Linksys wireless router, I was eager to test out the wireless capability of the laptop. I had configured the router with WPA2 security so I needed to download an update for Windows XP SP2 to allow me to authenticate. As soon as I had the update in place, the wireless card picked up the AP, asked me for the pre-shared key, and then connected effortlessly at ‘G’ speeds of 54Mbps. It’s quite cool to be able to move around the house with my notebook without having to drag a 10 metre ethernet cable behind me!

I’ve added some more new features to this site! There is now a contact form which you can get to from the links on the left or at the top of the page.

I’ve also added a random photo block in the left column – clicking on the photo will take you to the page in the gallery.

I’ve changed the photo gallery from Simple Photo Gallery to Gallery2 from gallery.menalto.com using a plugin that is currently being developed at wpg2.ozgreg.com .

You can get to the gallery using the link in the top header menu, the link in the left hand column, or here: stuart.amanzi.co.nz/photo-gallery.

So far I’m really happy with the layout but please let me know if you see any problems or have any suggestions or improvements – leave comments below.

My laptop has been slowly dying over the last few months – first the edge of the screen frame cracked and worsened to the point of having to prop the screen up against something solid when in use; then it got knocked off the dining room table and cracked the corner of the case – could have been a lot worse; now the hard drive has died and I’m reluctant to spend any more money on it getting it fixed.

The lack of hard drive hasn’t prevented me from using it thought. I’ve tried out bootable Linux live CD’s from Knoppix and Ubuntu to be able to browse the web from the lounge. Both are good but the Knoppix CD is by far the more powerful of the two. But then again, Knoppix are specialists in bootable CD’s whereas Ubuntu provide a live CD just to test out their distribution. One problem I had with both of them is that I couldn’t eject the CD after booting to be able to play a DVD. I was hoping that they would load the software into RAM instead of just constantly accessing the CD – with 64oMB of RAM in my laptop, I thought it would be able to run completely from memory. Maybe there’s a setting or another live CD that can do this but I haven’t found it yet. If I was going to run Linux on a desktop at home, I would probably go with Ubuntu for its ease of use and the huge amount of software available through the Debian repositry.

But the point of this post was just to mention that the reason why I haven’t posted much lately is that my laptop is busted and I don’t have anything else to work on home that doesn’t frustrate me by being too slow.

I’ve created my first WordPress theme which is the one you’re looking at now. It’s still not 100% perfect as I’m still finding bits of code that I haven’t styled correctly, but I think it’s pretty good so far. Let me know what you think by commenting here…

I’ve also started to make use of the categories to sort out my posts a bit better – I imagine this will be an ongoing tweaking effort (much like the theme.)