SuperHappyDevHouse

I had a very interesting phone call today - not because of the call itself, but because it unearthed a very strange fault in the Windows Mobile Phone application.

I have a friend in Wellington, New Zealand, let's call her L.E. with phone number +64 4 555-1234. I have a commercial contact in Auckland, let's call her R.M. with phone number +64 9 555-1234. Yes, same country code and phone number, just different area codes.

An interesting coincidence.

Today R.M. called me. I answer saying "Hello L.E."... But of course it wasn't L.E calling me, but that's what the Phone application tells me.

It seems the Windows Mobile Phone application searches only the phone number (not including the area code). It also seems the index use is probably something like (Phone + Name), therefore a search with Phone = 555-1234 brings L.E.'s record first - and stops there without checking area code to make sure it's really who the caller is.

Freaky how this happened. How big a coincidence to have two people you know with the same phone number just different area codes? I would say it is harder to happen in the USA, but in a small country like New Zealand...

I just got a Samsung Omnia for review here, and before I post the full article I want to let you see what cool user interface Samsung created for this device.

Thy have replaced the standard Windows Mobile Today screen with a "desktop". You have a scrollable sidebar on the left side and you can move it up and down with your finger. You can also move widgets from this bar to the desktop - and back.

Watch the video capture to see how it works (and when you see the widgets moving imagine it's my finger):

I am very excited about a new service we have just rolled out here on Geekzone... In short, if you are a Geekzone user and have a Twitter account we now provide the means for you to update your Twitter status from Geekzone - and vice-versa.

This is how it looks on one's Geekzone account:



You can read all about this feature in my forum post about it. Big thanks to Phil at RedJungle (@redjungle on Twitter) for implementing the service for us.

There's a good discussion going on my previous post about changes Air New Zealand is introducing to its check in and boarding process. On that blog post you can find some pictures of the new check-in kiosks, boarding stations and the new mPass mobile application.

Below is a video that shows how the new terminals will look like. Note the self-service kiosks and the bag drop belt in the back of the area.

I was invited by Air New Zealand to attend a press event in Auckland where they showed their vision of an update airport check-in area, with self-service kiosks, bag drops, electronic boading passes and more. This also involve some changes to their Airpoints program.

In the check-in front they are introducing some cool stuff such as mPass, a J2ME application that runs on most modern mobile phones. You will be able to downlod all boarding passes related to your Airpoints account, or individual boarding passes based on booking reference and name. The application show this information on a 2D barcode that you can use to scan directy from your phone and board the aircraft.

Also new is the RFID tag, a sticker that will be sent to Airpoints Gold Elite, Gold and Silver members. You can attach that to the back of your mobile phone, or wallet and use it to board directly - unless you have to get a bag tag.

At last a full self-service boarding experience, including new special bag tags printed directly at the kiosk, incuding a Priority label if you are entitled to it.

And speaking of kiosks and airports, the main centres will have a new area for check-in - look the artist's idea and the picture I took at the Auckland airport this morning.

If you are a Airpoints member you will be happy to know ALL flights now count towards your points. Even the cheap ones. And the company is introducing www.myairnz.com, a website full of widget goodness for the frequent traveller.

Check the pictures I took during the event in their training area:

This is an interesting bit of information I found on a Microsoft Knowledge Base article "Error message when you try to start a Hyper-V virtual machine on a Windows Server 2008-based or Windows Vista-based computer that uses the NUMA architecture: "An error occurred while attempting to change the state of virtual machine VMNAME""


To apply this hotfix, the computer must run one of the following operating systems: •Windows Vista SP1•Windows Server 2008

Wait there. I thought Hyper-V was only available for Windows Server 2008? You can say "Yes, but you can run Hyper-V remote administration on Windows Vista" - but why a remote administration tool would require a kernel update and none of the remote admin tool file being updated?

Is Microsoft going to replace Virtual PC 2007 with Hyper-V on consumer PCs?

I have asked around but haven't heard from some Microsoft people about this yet... Do you know anything else?

Last week I received an invitation to the Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 beta program. This came as a surprise since I had heard nothing about it.

The confirmation came later in the week, when the Windows Vista Blog posted the official announcement of Windows Vista SP2.

This is a list of things coming out in this new release:

• Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.
• Windows Vista SP2 contains the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.
• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
• Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones. 

The Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack is interesting because it is actually part of a bigger update, the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless, which is only released to OEM so far.

Another important piece of information is that this service pack will also be available to Windows Server 2008.

Testing doesn't start until next week, so I don't expect to see this officialy released until the end of the year or earlier next year. Of course all depends on how the testing go.

This is not exactly the day after - more like three days after. And since you are reading this it's obvious our Geekzone server update went well.

Geekzone was running on an Intel Xeon "Nocona" dual-core 3GHz box with 3GB RAM and two 70GB SCSI discs. The software platform was based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. We use NOD32 for antivirus protection.

A new HP DL360 server was installed. This new box is based on an Intel 5400 quad-core 3GHz with 10GB RAM, four 146GB HDD and ILO2 for remote management.

This is the host box running Micosoft Hyper-V. I installed a virtual machine for Geekzone, keeping the same software platform but in 64 bit. Geekzone is running on a quad core, 4GB RAM virtual machine.

Also on the same box we have an Exchange server running on a dual core 2GB RAM virtual machine, an ad server running on a dual core 2GB RAM, and a single core 512MB RAM virtual machine running Windows XP SP3 and hosting an IRC script that monitors our chatroom.

The old server is still in place, with a mirror of our SQL 2008 database, and Adventnet Applicatins Manager. This server will also be used for development.

Thanks to HP New Zealand and Microsoft New Zealand for their support - we couldn't do this upgrade without their help. also thanks to ICONZ for arranging the installation and network configuration so that everything could have been done within the time we had available.

By the way, how many SQL 2008 servers in New Zealand are running in a virtual environment?

The first Android-based smartphone, the T-Mobile G1 is out now, and more handsets will be coming out no doubt.

There are lots of developers porting the operating system to other hardware platforms - even more now that it was released as an open source project.

Lots of applications for this device are being released, and we already have quite a few Android applications listed in our Geekzone Software Store. We also have a special Android applications RSS feed listing all new applications for this platform. You can even access the store directly from your mobile.

You can actually find RSS feeds for other mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry) in our RSS feeds page.

I got a message today from a friend at Microsoft pointing out an initiative to collect feedback from the vast developer community we have here in New Zealand.

The idea is to have about 60 developers across the country spread through six focus group meetings. These meetings will be happening in Christchurch (11th November), Wellington (13th November) and Auckland (19th November).

Scott Wylie, the Director of the Developer and Platform Strategy Team for Microsoft NZ, will be facilitating these sessions. Scott’s role is to listen and understand your feedback which will enable his team to provide better support and resources for NZ developers.

You can find a lot more details on Scott's blog. And if you would like to participate, please email your interest to nzeditor@microsoft.com with your contact details and preferred focus group (by session number as listed in his blog) you would like to attend.

New Zealand fans of all things fantasy and sci-fi are well aware of Armageddon Expo. It's a long weekend expo with an exhibition floor, parallel events and more. Movie and TV starts, authors, gamers - everyone will be there.

But I also found out that if you are not there you can have the next best thing by following the CleanNet live streaming of this awesome weekend. And if you are on TelstraClear the traffic is unmetered - so even better.

To check the Armageddon Expo 08 live hit the ClearNet Armageddon 08 website and look for the schedule.

This is an interesting video explaining phishing in plain English. Show it to your parents, relatives and anyone else who is not a geek:

I was in Auckland for our server upgrade, and had the chance to attend the launch event for a new on-line business networking-support-directory service, Made From New Zealand.

The service launched with a big splash, including a three minute TV ad in all three free to air national channels.

According to the official word "Made from New Zealand is New Zealand's global online business community, designed to connect and promote businesses and entrepreneurs with the 'Kiwi DNA'."

The Made from New Zealand concept was launched last year on Waitangi Day by entrepreneur Steve Adams, who organised more than 1,000 Kiwis to build a 100 meter long silver fern sand sculpture on Santa Monica beach, Los Angeles. You can see a video clip with this project on the Made From New Zealand channel on You Tube.

Part research project, part television commercial shoot, the fern attracted the interest of New Zealanders in businesses all over the world who were keen to connect with each other as Kiwis to help grow their businesses.

With the concept tested and the Made from New Zealand brand name launched, Tim Norton, John Clegg  and Pat Macfie partnered with Adams to build an online community to connect Kiwi businesses in New Zealand and around the world

The main partner is Telecom New Zealand - I met Alan Gourdie, CEO Telecom Retail, during the launch and he seemed pretty excited about the project.

When I moved to New Zealand in 1997 my first ISP was Xtra. I bought a PC, collected a CD with the dial-up configuration and I was up and running in no time. I still have that @xtra.co.nz e-mail address, but only to login to the Xtra services offered to users, such as a Flickr Pro account.

Then Telecom decided to ditch the Xtra branding and go totally "Telecom" in its ISP offering. As part of all this a partnership with Yahoo!7 was put in place and the Xtra homepage was replaced with something provided by Yahoo!7, an Australian company.

Telecom handed a lot of power to Yahoo!7. If you read our Geekzone forums there are lots of reports of e-mail problems (domain blacklisting for example) and how hard it is to get someone at Yahoo!7 to actually look on these.

Now come a redesigned Yahoo!Xtra front page - and look at this beauty:


Telecom, why you decided to devalue your Xtra brand even more is beyond understanding...

If you are involved in building communities - social networks, events, intranets, blogs, microblogging, etc... You might be interested in this event being promoted by Intergen:


Key Strategies for Successful Online Communities
How to create, develop and evolve a social media presence to increase collaboration, drive awareness and improve customer loyalty

Social networking and online communities have received significant attention in the past 12 months, as services such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn attract and connect communities of people. For organisations wanting to truly bring their marketing and customer service strategies into the 21st century, creating and fostering an online community can be the most powerful –not to mention the most cost effective – marketing tool available.

For marketers and communicators social media is proving effective at reinforcing an organisation’s brand, understanding and capturing customer feedback, and creating and sharing information across communities of interest. Organisations can take advantage of similar technologies to create their own custom community experiences.

Recognising the importance of this trend, Intergen has invited Andreas Stjernström from Swedish enterprise software company EPiServer to New Zealand. He will highlight the reasons why developing a community is important, and give real world examples of organisations that have successfully created and maximised the benefits of online communities.

Intended as an introduction to online community development, these free events are targeted at:
- Organisations that are currently creating or are looking to create or sponsor an online community.
- Agencies who want to offer your customers options for taking advantage of social media.
- Marketers and communicators who are looking for new mediums to communicate your organisation’s value proposition.

Events are scheduled on the following dates:
Wellington Wednesday 5 November, Level 7, 126 Lambton Quay – 4.30pm-6pm
Christchurch Thursday 6 November, Level 2, 158 Hereford Street, 8am – 9.30am
Auckland Friday 7 November, Level 2, 15 Huron Street, Takapuna – 12.30pm – 2pm

To register for these free events, email events@intergen.co.nz .

I think this is evidence that at some time there was at least one iPhone connected to Telecom New Zealand - before their GSM network even entered the world.



Let's see how long before we can get our WCDMA/HSDPA from Telecom...

I have posted this to the frontpage on Geekzone, but seeing some people read my blog only, here is an update.

On 21st October we will be moving Geekzone to a new server and expect small periods of downtime throughout the morning, while we move the database across to the new machine and swap IP addresses.

Geekzone currently runs on an Intel Xeon "Nocona" dual-core 3GHz box with 3GB RAM and two 70GB SCSI discs. The application runs on native Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

The new server is a HP DL360 Intel 5400 quad-core 3GHz box with 10GB RAM, four 146GB HDD and ILO2 for remote lights out management. We are migrating Geekzone to a virtual machine based on Microsoft Hyper-V. We will continue to run Geekzone with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 but as a virtual environment.

The current server will be used for database mirroring and for development of new features for the site.

Thanks to HP New Zealand and Microsoft New Zealand for their support - we couldn't do this upgrade without their help.

Some time ago I posted about RPO on my Twitter. This is one of those software that seem to be aimed only at geeks at heart, but any company with a public-facing website should look at. In short RPO is a webpage optmizer.

You see, one of the factors that drive people away from your website is speed. How fast the information is presented to readers is important to determine how long visitors stay on a page or browse through a site.

RPO helps reduce this time by optmizing the content, reducing size and number of requests, combining files, and other tricks - all automatic and behind the the scenes. You can read more about these actions on Steve Souders' High Performance Websites blog.

I was just on the phone with CEO Ed Robinson, and he was telling me New Zealand website ownews can now speed test their sites with Page Test, a locally hosted instance of AOL Pagetest.

Here are some examples of local sites and their current performance: Stuff, NZ Herald, Geekzone. And you can see here a rolling list of latest tests.

The word is out. Microsoft decided to call the next version of Windows simply Windows 7. No more dates (Windows 95, Windows 98). No more "aspirational" names (Windows Me, Windows XP, windows Vista). Just this: Windows 7.

It makes a lot more sense. And I hope is a good change.

There's a lot more about thi in the Windows Vista Blog.

One the biggest technology issues we are facing in New Zealand is the topic of copyright, specifically the new Section 92A of the New Zealand Copyright Law:


...[Section 92A] says that ISPs have to cut people off the Internet if a music company accuses them of copyright infringement. There’s no trial, no proof, and no accountability on the record companies to get it right. This provision was inserted into the Bill by the government after the Select Committee had told it to do the opposite and then passed by a large majority in the House.


This wrong in so many ways... No proof, no trial, no accountability. Any company representing a "copyright holder" can unload thousands of those letters and ISPs would have to cut the service to their customers.

Then, just this week, as reported by Colin Jackson, Hon David Cunliffe (Minister Technology and Communications) and Hon Judith Tizard (Associate Minister of Commerce) met with IT people here in Wellington:


When it opened, Judith Tizard spent 30 minutes telling us why the change had to be made. She began by strongly expressing her anger that we had complained to her at this stage in the proceedings. None of us, she said, had been to see her before this on this topic. When we protested that we had worked with the Select Committee, which had removed this provision - and balanced it with one which made licence holders liable for false accusations - she said that this was completely inappropriate of the Select Committee, because Cabinet had already decided this was going ahead. We should not have been surprised, we were told, that this provision was reinserted by the government at the last minute before the bill was passed.


Back in September 2008 InternetNZ, the organisation that manager the Internet space in the country issued a press release saying:


“A deeply flawed law that undermines fundamental rights and simply will not work.” That is what the telecommunications industry, internet service providers, user groups, internet advocates and IT professionals think of parts of the recently passed Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act.

Section 92A, when it is brought into force, will require ISPs to “reasonably implement” a policy to disconnect ”in appropriate circumstances” the internet services of users who have repeatedly downloaded or uploaded infringing music, movies, games and other copyright material.

“The Act gives no guidance on what ‘reasonably implement’ or ‘in appropriate circumstances’ mean,” Mr Chivers said.  “This leaves the door wide open to those who seek disconnection of an alleged repeat infringer based on flimsy evidence, or worse, allegations alone.”



Why, would you ask, is it so important to consider one's Internet connection? We had a very good discussion on Geekzone about this topic. Basically more people are using the Internet today for their remote work, home business, even telephony using VoIP services such as 2Talk, iTalk, VFX.

What happens to these people if a notice is sent and their ISP simply cut their Internet service?

Businesses stop. Communications stop. People won't be able to do basic things such as calling Emergency Services.

Fair enoug though, if there's evidence. But who will investigate the notices? Who will determine if an accused is guilt or innocent?

As Brenda writes in her blog about this topic:


You don't get a trial, you're just cut off and no more internet for you.

No more email, no booking airlines, no more buying books on the internet - you're cut off based only on an accusation. If they decided to accuse me, I would not be able to continue my occupation as an Open Source programmer / gadget wrangler. I'd have to give up and probably retrain as a barrista.



A few months back we started getting reports in the Geekzone forums from people being cut by their ISPs based on requests from alleged copyright holders or people representing those copyright holders.

Here is an example. The letter was sent by WorldXchange to a customer, after a notification from Lion Gate.

In another instance Paul Clarkin, WorldxChange Director Operation and Carrier, has confirmed accounts were closed due to  this kind of notice.

We ran a round of Q&A with some CEOs of the major telcos around and this what a couple of them have to say about this:


6.What is your opinion on the obligations set out in the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendement Bill for ISPs over Copyright Infringement by your customers? What is TelstraClear's Policy on this?

This is an issue our legal and regulatory teams have been taking a keen interest in and it has been a hot topic in Australia too. The Bill you refer to has been passed by Parliament, but the changes have not come into force yet. These changes include imposing obligations on ISPs to terminate the accounts of customers who infringe copyright and also to remove infringing material from websites. We see significant practical challenges with this as we have no real ability to determine whether or not any given material infringes copyright. However we will put in place appropriate processes to ensure that we comply with the law, in a manner which also protects the interests of our customers.

(Dr Allan Freeth, Chief Executive Officer of TelstraClear.)




9.There has been some comments recently around the account suspension correspondence from some XNet customers. How does WorldxChange validate the party sending the cease and desist email is valid and not someone sending the email as a joke or prank? And how does WorldxChange manage customers who may dispute the email, or who have had their internet connection hijacked due to unsecure wireless, or have unsupervised minors up to no good?
Oh yes; the question that I’ve been looking forward to most. The legislature on the subject still requires clarification. Of that there is no doubt but my understanding is that if we were operating to the letter of the law, we would be required to suspend a customer on their first offence.

In reality; I fail to understand why the ISPs have been made responsible for the adjudicating the issue full stop. When a boy racer exceeds the speed limit and runs over someone, do we make it the responsibility of the Minister of Transportation or company that laid the road? No, it is between the boy racer and the courts.

In my opinion, it should be between the aggrieved party that feels that someone has stolen their property and the person accused.

That said, life is never that simple and we have an obligation to all of our customers; not just those that do not agree that media/content is as much another person or company’s property as is the TV on which you might watch it, is your property.

Xnet is not prepared to take any risks on the matter and with the low margins Internet services provide, I am certainly not willing to cop any fines because of the choices made by a few people. Our views on the matter have been outlined in several Geekzone threads and have not changed.

To the question of validating the cease and desist order. It would take a pretty elaborate prankster to be able to send the order and identify the content that the subscriber downloaded, the size of the file and exactly when they downloaded the media. The agencies that we accept reports from always identify themselves, the media/content downloaded and a time stamp with associated IP address.

I am unaware of any instances Xnet have processed invalid orders and we always give the report we receive to the subscriber affording them the opportunity to dispute it. We receive many more orders than we actually action because spam style stuff does hit us now and then.

On the issue of customers having their Internet connection “hijacked” due to un-secure wireless or unsupervised minors up to no good; ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The security of one’s wireless connection is their responsibility. We are not responsible if you leave your house unlocked or if you forget to turn on your alarm; are we? The onus for managing access and supervision of my PC and wireless connection is mine alone. Not my ISP’s. Xnet Technical Support are always glad to offer advice to secure your PC or wireless device.

Now then, all activity in relation to cease and desist email is conducted by the Technical Response managers. They are in communication with all affected subscribers and regularly give them the benefit of the doubt. We have breached the legislation on many occasions by allowing customers to carry on with the service after discussing the issues with them.

The folks who have complained on the Geekzone threads have had every opportunity to dispute and discuss their suspensions with Xnet Management prior to being suspended. They generally leave that part out of their threads.

(Cecil Alexander, WorldXchange CEO)


You can read other reactions here, here, here, here, here.

The image here (c) opensourcecinema.org.