Sky TV Here in NZ used to split channels. As I recall, it was Discovery and Trackside (Racing). Come to think of it, I think it still splits channels on its UHF service... but with the advent of Sky Digital, it doesn't need to split channels.
(Sky Digital is a crappy satellite service which is very dependant on good weather - even a wussy storm will make the picture pixellate and then we'll get the "no signal message")
We pay about US$40/mo for roughly... oh... 40-45 channels, I guess. That includes about 8 free-to-air channels, too.
Plus, what taunts me even more, is that we get adverts for FoxTel/AuStar Australia when we can't even consider getting it, so Sky NZ is essentially a fat relay-station and some CSR's on the phone.
So, for you Americans/Canadians complaining - well - stop your bitching. At least you have a choice! If I wanted to get these channels otherwise, I would have to pirate them from either the encrypted satellite signal or somewhere on the internet.
Which leads me to how crappy NZ is for internet connectivity - we don't have cable (Except in Auckland or Wellington, and even then only in certain suburbs), and our typical DSL connection options are: 128kbps down/up. Totals around US$40/mo. Oh, and there is a data cap on there too (Up to around 12GB).
Otherwise we get 256/128 down/up with 2GB cap. Or up to 8 MBPS with a 400MB Cap.
Otherwise its 56k. Satellite is worse. Wireless is coming in - there are 256k and 1MBPS options available with "unlimited" options available - but the [international] bandwidth is pretty much a 10-50MBPS pipe (I haven't checked the stats recently) shared among all the users.
Anyway, back to TV options - to be honest, I only really watch Discovery/ National Geographic/ History and the News Channels for the most part, and Sky 1 on Saturdays when they have full-days of Simpsons, Futurama etc.
That kind of reminds me of entering a Windows product-key. It won't let you type in non-valid characters or numbers (as per the algorithm they've used to generate that key.)
Ever wondered why you don't see certain letters - pretty much, well, ever on a Windows/Office/Other MS product sticker?
Wouldn't it be ironic if these pictures were taken with a camera, storing the images on one of those drives that "dont work".
Its probably the similar technology that was used by certain MP3 players to format SmartMedia cards which couldn't be read by SmartMedia readers (PCMCIA adapters or digital cameras)...and then, come to think of it, I wasn't able to format the card afterward, either. Grr.
So does this mean I should consider not coverting any of my cars? Not even my business car (1995 Nissan), 91 Unleaded - $1.23.9/litre.
What about either of my personal cars (1993 Jaguar XJ6 or 1994 Mercedes Benz 300SEL) which both consume, by the way, the expensive NZ$1.28.9c/litre 96 fuel?
I'm sure I could justify even a several thousand dollar change to the fuel system if it meant I could keep the cars longer and they cost a whole lot less to run...
For those who care, I want to get one of those Toyota Prius Hybrids (http://www.toyota.co.nz/NewVehicles/Model/Prius/A 4GGZcjaEPWvdjYfRQRYNg/1 ) later this year anyway possibly to replace one of the cars above.
Just so I'm crystal clear on what propane actually is (yes, i live on a part of earth that is not america) - is that the equivalent of what we call LPG? (Liquid Petroleum Gas - the stuff we put in our gas heaters and bbqs)
At the company I used to work for, if I wanted to check my voicemail (or anyone elses in the company), all I needed to do was dial * after hitting the PABX.
Then it was "box number and password, please". Discovered quite by accident, and the boss didn't even know about it.
Seems that the PABX wasn't distinguishing internal/external calls to the system, and would allow people who knew the system in if they had the right box/pw combo...
I could then have forwarded the call on to any number I felt like (international, national, cell... basically anything except an 0900 number, I think) and voila, free minutes/calls for me!
Thats a good point - I couldn't even find the power plant... You would think it would be near(ish) to Burns Manor, but it didn't appear to be... well... anywhere. Can anyone point out where it is? (as it seems that I am blind)
Maybe all the government employees that have friends in the 'outside world' all have friends that are those extra weird cultist/alien-loving/crazy/freaky versions of regular people...
The kinds of people which everyone else just dismiss - you know...
1: "ARGH! THE ALIENS ARE COMING"
2: "Yeah, whatever, you crazy S.O.B."
1: "ARGH THEYRE REALLY HERE I TELLS YA!"
2: "Blah blah blah... Just shut the hell up, would you?"
**Punch**
Man, this would make some movies actually scary/fun/kind of interesting to watch...
I'm thinking like, 1984, Equilibrium, LOTR... anything with a horde of people/orc creatures/whatever...
This does not surprise me in the least. Where I work, we generally do computers at 17.5% margin, large parts (eg colour laser printers) at 20%, software at 25% and normal parts at 35%. Laptop accessories (specialized equipment) is typically done at 35%.
We get away with it, and have for just over 10 years. We are the only local manufacturer with English-speaking staff and good service, which probably helps.
All of our stuff is off-the-shelf componentry. Typically, a system will contain motherboards from Gigabyte, Seagate Hard Drives, AData RAM, Intel CPUS, Hyena or Enermax Power Supplies, Dynalink (Askey) or US Robotics Modems, Panasonic Floppy Drives, LG optical drives, LG, AOC or Viewsonic Monitors (depending on CRT/LCD), Genius or MS Keyboards/Mice, Genius, Altec Lansing or Creative Speakers... all pretty good stuff. Not necessarily top of the line or tweaked to perfection, but it works, and we have very few problems.
Stuff that we do have problems with is generally fixed within 2 days or so. The staff (well, mostly me, anyway) is knowledgable in most fields - be it Hardware or Software related. (Well, I do have some quips...)
(Those that live in NZ will roughly know the story of why NZ's LARGEST manufacturer went bust... check www.nzherald.co.nz and type PC Company in the search box... look for stories around September/October 2003...)
We keep a balance of good service by not supporting software to a great extent (like, we tell customers, nicely, to piss off if they ask us how to use Kazaa or Grokster or if they are having problems with that stuff on their systems... We can fix it, but we charge:)), and if something can't be solved in 10 minutes (over the phone), then we say that it's easier if you can bring your machine in...
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Sky TV Here in NZ used to split channels. As I recall, it was Discovery and Trackside (Racing). Come to think of it, I think it still splits channels on its UHF service... but with the advent of Sky Digital, it doesn't need to split channels.
(Sky Digital is a crappy satellite service which is very dependant on good weather - even a wussy storm will make the picture pixellate and then we'll get the "no signal message")
We pay about US$40/mo for roughly... oh... 40-45 channels, I guess. That includes about 8 free-to-air channels, too.
Plus, what taunts me even more, is that we get adverts for FoxTel/AuStar Australia when we can't even consider getting it, so Sky NZ is essentially a fat relay-station and some CSR's on the phone.
So, for you Americans/Canadians complaining - well - stop your bitching. At least you have a choice! If I wanted to get these channels otherwise, I would have to pirate them from either the encrypted satellite signal or somewhere on the internet.
Which leads me to how crappy NZ is for internet connectivity - we don't have cable (Except in Auckland or Wellington, and even then only in certain suburbs), and our typical DSL connection options are: 128kbps down/up. Totals around US$40/mo. Oh, and there is a data cap on there too (Up to around 12GB).
Otherwise we get 256/128 down/up with 2GB cap. Or up to 8 MBPS with a 400MB Cap.
Otherwise its 56k. Satellite is worse. Wireless is coming in - there are 256k and 1MBPS options available with "unlimited" options available - but the [international] bandwidth is pretty much a 10-50MBPS pipe (I haven't checked the stats recently) shared among all the users.
Anyway, back to TV options - to be honest, I only really watch Discovery/ National Geographic/ History and the News Channels for the most part, and Sky 1 on Saturdays when they have full-days of Simpsons, Futurama etc.
I wish we had the choices that you guys do.
That kind of reminds me of entering a Windows product-key. It won't let you type in non-valid characters or numbers (as per the algorithm they've used to generate that key.)
Ever wondered why you don't see certain letters - pretty much, well, ever on a Windows/Office/Other MS product sticker?
Wouldn't it be ironic if these pictures were taken with a camera, storing the images on one of those drives that "dont work".
...and then, come to think of it, I wasn't able to format the card afterward, either. Grr.
Its probably the similar technology that was used by certain MP3 players to format SmartMedia cards which couldn't be read by SmartMedia readers (PCMCIA adapters or digital cameras)
Finally! Some new cameras worth looking at upgrading to! (I think you'll all agree its about time I replaced my old 2MP Sony Cybershot)...
Any recommendations? I'm looking at Sony, Canon, or Nikon (pretty much... those are my 'preferred' brands...)
So does this mean I should consider not coverting any of my cars? Not even my business car (1995 Nissan), 91 Unleaded - $1.23.9/litre.
A 4GGZcjaEPWvdjYfRQRYNg/1 ) later this year anyway possibly to replace one of the cars above.
What about either of my personal cars (1993 Jaguar XJ6 or 1994 Mercedes Benz 300SEL) which both consume, by the way, the expensive NZ$1.28.9c/litre 96 fuel?
I'm sure I could justify even a several thousand dollar change to the fuel system if it meant I could keep the cars longer and they cost a whole lot less to run...
For those who care, I want to get one of those Toyota Prius Hybrids (http://www.toyota.co.nz/NewVehicles/Model/Prius/
Just so I'm crystal clear on what propane actually is (yes, i live on a part of earth that is not america) - is that the equivalent of what we call LPG? (Liquid Petroleum Gas - the stuff we put in our gas heaters and bbqs)
At the company I used to work for, if I wanted to check my voicemail (or anyone elses in the company), all I needed to do was dial * after hitting the PABX. Then it was "box number and password, please". Discovered quite by accident, and the boss didn't even know about it. Seems that the PABX wasn't distinguishing internal/external calls to the system, and would allow people who knew the system in if they had the right box/pw combo... I could then have forwarded the call on to any number I felt like (international, national, cell... basically anything except an 0900 number, I think) and voila, free minutes/calls for me!
Thats a good point - I couldn't even find the power plant... You would think it would be near(ish) to Burns Manor, but it didn't appear to be... well... anywhere. Can anyone point out where it is? (as it seems that I am blind)
Maybe all the government employees that have friends in the 'outside world' all have friends that are those extra weird cultist/alien-loving/crazy/freaky versions of regular people... The kinds of people which everyone else just dismiss - you know... 1: "ARGH! THE ALIENS ARE COMING" 2: "Yeah, whatever, you crazy S.O.B." 1: "ARGH THEYRE REALLY HERE I TELLS YA!" 2: "Blah blah blah... Just shut the hell up, would you?" **Punch**
Man, this would make some movies actually scary/fun/kind of interesting to watch... I'm thinking like, 1984, Equilibrium, LOTR... anything with a horde of people/orc creatures/whatever...
What you could do, being that its optical, is see if you can get it to produce holographic images of your internet traffic.
now THAT would be realistic game play/porn watching/movie screening/tv streaming goooooodnnesssss (you choose) *drool*
Its not just those parts that IBM makes huge money on.
...Instead, we went for:
Recently, I had to source parts for an IBM Netfinity 500 series server (I think it was, anyway) -
Rough prices from IBM -
256 MB ECC RAM - NZ$2900 (US $1300ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
18.2 GB SCSI HDD - NZ$2400 (US $1100ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
Kingston OEM Memory with a better warranty - NZ $400 (US $230ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
18.2GB SCSI HDD (Forget what brand) - NZ $660 (US $300ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST.
I wonder where those other hundreds of dollars are going?
This does not surprise me in the least. Where I work, we generally do computers at 17.5% margin, large parts (eg colour laser printers) at 20%, software at 25% and normal parts at 35%. Laptop accessories (specialized equipment) is typically done at 35%.
:)), and if something can't be solved in 10 minutes (over the phone), then we say that it's easier if you can bring your machine in...
We get away with it, and have for just over 10 years. We are the only local manufacturer with English-speaking staff and good service, which probably helps.
All of our stuff is off-the-shelf componentry. Typically, a system will contain motherboards from Gigabyte, Seagate Hard Drives, AData RAM, Intel CPUS, Hyena or Enermax Power Supplies, Dynalink (Askey) or US Robotics Modems, Panasonic Floppy Drives, LG optical drives, LG, AOC or Viewsonic Monitors (depending on CRT/LCD), Genius or MS Keyboards/Mice, Genius, Altec Lansing or Creative Speakers... all pretty good stuff. Not necessarily top of the line or tweaked to perfection, but it works, and we have very few problems.
Stuff that we do have problems with is generally fixed within 2 days or so. The staff (well, mostly me, anyway) is knowledgable in most fields - be it Hardware or Software related. (Well, I do have some quips...)
(Those that live in NZ will roughly know the story of why NZ's LARGEST manufacturer went bust... check www.nzherald.co.nz and type PC Company in the search box... look for stories around September/October 2003...)
We keep a balance of good service by not supporting software to a great extent (like, we tell customers, nicely, to piss off if they ask us how to use Kazaa or Grokster or if they are having problems with that stuff on their systems... We can fix it, but we charge
Just my donation of 2c.