Posts by Ian Fish

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  • Hard News: The Short and Long of It,

    I use RSS readers (initially Bloglines, now Google Reader) for the past 6 years and generally check every day. With mobile internet now I catch up with feeds whenever I have a bit of time, often as my evening reading before going to sleep. I must admit that feeds that have to open on the original site are a pain on the iPhone - when you go back to Google Reader it reloads the page and all the posts you have just read dissappear (or are marked as read - you can still find them but not user friendly).

    PA has never been on my RSS reader - it is too important for that! I'm on the mail list and receive your email (just about) every day with a list of the new stories, open the ones that interest me then leave the PA/S page open all day to follow the comments (hope it doesn't skew your stats too much!)

    I discovered Hard News when living in London in about 1995. I remembered Russell from his journalism days before I left NZ in 1986 and found HN a great way to keep up with what interested me in NZ - seems like another age now. I think the website started about the time I moved back to NZ in 2000. Addition of comments has doubled the value.

    Musings on various subjects bought up today:

    In regards to Lance Wiigs' post - It's ok to be different. I guess he just has a short attention span.

    Surely people have the page bookmarked! and publicaddress.net is a great domain name. These days Mr Wiig if you are unsure of a domain name just type it into google rather than the url bar...

    I have used wordpress (along with other blogging platforms) and one of the big irritants is the targetting by hackers, you are forever updating the source code with 'vunerability fixes', not much fun if you host your own sites and aren't comfortable using command line.


    Please don't go to threaded comments, just confuses everything.

    When I signed up to Twitter I wondered what I would use it for, but like a lot of you it is now the first thing I check in the morning. I don't post much, but follow a group of people whose opinions I value; and it is great for real-time searches and following current events.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Ups and Downs,

    I liked Chris Trotter's musings (as reported in the Central Leader last wednesday):

    But he is impressed with Act’s campaign, considering the party registers relatively poorly in national opinion polls

    This was days after a poll was released putting John Boscawen on 3%!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Commercial Crunch,

    Large Australians
    Stand round imitating statues
    Watching the Jones boy

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Because They Could,

    Has anyone else noticed the political compass for the US election (linked to by Matthew Poole on page 1) - the 2nd graph shows a good representation of a map of New Zealand.
    Scary part is that the bulk of NZ is in the "Authoritarian - Right" sector, with Ron Paul out in the Chathams. The Libertarian bunch all seem to be in Antartica.

    North Island is red (in NZ read Labour) while the South Island is Blue (that would be right!).

    Note John McCain is in Wellington!! And Barack Obama is in Queenstown.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Everybody's vogueing on the…,

    The MP4 podcasts have been dodgy for a while now, can't download directly or using iTunes.
    I emailed TVNZ support a while ago, never got a reply.
    Only way we can watch on tv is via podcasts, otherwise the family has to crowd around the computer screen :(
    Maybe you could have a word with them Russell.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Dial O for Obama,

    Be interesting to get stats from Vodafone on the iPhone sales for NZ. Is everyone switching to the iPhone packages? Is the iPhone the number 1 selling 3G handset in NZ? Wonder why not?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Shooting for the Moon,

    Paul B - The problem with speed is if you have more you use it for different things.
    Enough to stream full-screen video would be ideal, but for what I am doing now (web development and heavy web use from home) my download speeds of (sometimes) 3Mbit (on a full-speed connection) is almost acceptable. However the upload speeds are a real problem.

    Regarding the laying of fibre, over the past year I have been watching as the inner city suburbs of Auckland have been dug up for new footpaths and marvelling at the wasted opportunity. Why not lay fibre (or at leats put in some conduit...) I guess they will just have to dig them up again!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Wellington, you win,

    Ahh, Wellington, not too bad. However Phoenix Foundation AND James Milne (as Lawrence Arabia) are playing in Auckland on sunday... at the zoo!! Fair enough, it's not free, but the zoo is a great venue (and it is just around the corner from you, Russell) - the music series over last few weeks has been awesome.
    I caught Hollie Smith last weekend and Evermore a couple of weeks ago. There have been others... Liam Finn was one.
    I haven't seen James Milne play before, but after your comments earlier in the week I'm looking forward to it!
    It starts 6pm, tickets still available...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

  • Hard News: Aggregate me, baby!,

    Regarding xtra - my connection dropped out (a common occurance) on monday evening. Normally I just re-boot the router and all is ok, but this time nothing.
    I rang the help line and got through in less than 3 minutes(!!) but unfortunately they couldn't help me - evidently my router was causing the problem (that seems to be their standard reply whenever I have problems - you see they don't support dynalink routers).
    When this has happened in the past I just unplug the router and take it over to a mates place to confirm it is still working ok - it always is.
    However when I went to unplug it 1/2 hour later everything was going again... and still going (touch wood)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 19 posts Report

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