The state of NZ internet

Following a couple of tweets earlier today stating that our Internet in NZ is somewhat better than we folk who complain think it is, I decided to do a bit of my own research.    I've found in the past that many 'facts' stated in newspapers are outrageously wrong as journalists have a tendency to misread or misrepresent data in order to create a good headline, this means I like to dig around and find out facts for myself as basically I don't trust journalists as far as I can throw them.

So, what was it that got my blood boiling this morning?  Someone stating that 80% of NZ internet users get speeds greater than 10Mbps.  What a load of tosh!   Yes, the capability may exist and the telecoms may tell us that they're providing these speeds, but we're certainly not getting these speeds.  

I decided to dig further and use an Internationally recognized set of stats to find out the truth... you too can find out stats for yourself right here:  http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/.  The actual official real and true factual stats on New Zealand's State of the Internet:

• 23% of internet users are achieving a connection speed greater than 5Mbps (NOT 80% > 10Mbps)
• 72.1% of internet users achieving connection speed greater than 2Mbps and less than 5Mbps
• 0.8% of internet users achieving connection speeds between 256kbps and 2Mbps
• 4.1% of internet users achieving connection speed less than 256kbps
• The average connection speed in NZ for Q3 2011 was 3.988 Mbps.   

I dream of 10 Mbps, my ADSL2+ modem yearns for speeds greater than 4 Mbps.... as for upload speed, I may as well just use snail mail.   

I am on the Vodafone Ideal Pack Red.   This means I'm on the Red Network which is Vodafone's unbundled ADSL2+ network and apparently I have max upload and max download speeds.  To quote a Tui ad - yeah right!   If you want to know more about the Red Network, there's a discussion over on Geekzone: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=40&topicid=22646

To further prove my point, if the Akamai data aren't enough proof, here's a speed test performed at 2.30pm on Sunday 26th Feb 2012 on my 'High Speed ADSL2+ 20GB max/max' connection. 

My parents are always amazed at how fast my Internet connection is, they too are on ADSL2+ but are even unluckier in their connection speeds than I am due to being out in the sticks of Whangarei; on top of painfully slow speeds their connection stops working completely between 6pm and 9pm every night.  I'm just thankful that doesn't seem to happen in Auckland; one small mercy at least.

If you're lucky enough to be one of the few people who achieve speeds greater than 10 Mbps (and it's certainly not 80% of the population), then please don't rub it in the faces of those of us paying an arm and a leg for extremely sucky connection speeds.

Going Google

Okay, time to bite the bullet.  I'm always going on about how great Google Apps are and promoting them to other people, but for some reason I'm not fully utilising Google to their full potential when it comes to my own business, so to see how easy it is to set up with Google Apps, I've decided to migrate my website from its current opensource FuzzyLime CMS to Google.

I was planning a complete overhaul of the site anyway to make it look more professional and to add some new pages & features, so it may as well be moved at the same time.

Before starting the move I need to sign up for the free 30 day trial and spend a bit of time taking a good look around to see what's what.   If you want to check it out for yourself, here's the link: http://ping.fm/wTk6n

Things I need to consider:
1.  Make sure mail delivery to *@beegle.co.nz is not interrupted
2.  Make sure visitors to www.beegle.co.nz don't get a 404 at any stage during the move
3.  And erm.... that's it really.  That's the good thing about moving it now before my business is a huge global conglomerate of massive proportions with thousands of staff on the books.  :)

Things I need to check I can do before moving:
1.  Option for clients to submit documents for review via different avenues - payment option for proof reading/QR customers that can be linked to EFTPOS NZ or similar for secure payments, and free option for project management documents.
2.  Easy integration with social media & blog
3.  Easy integration with Amazon (gotta keep those side revenues flowing)
4.  Everything stored in the cloud so I can access and run my business anywhere, anytime.
5.  Easy SEO
6.  Multiple email accounts & easy online management - i.e. all accounts in one view either with hot switching or forwarding, so that I can set up sales@, info@, geek@, amanda@ etc....
7.  Domain name management
8.  Set up the site with a view to the company being much, much bigger in the future (yes, I'm planning World domination from my lounge in Auckland).  With this in mind I need to ensure  it is a central location for staff to log on to email, timesheets, work folders etc..., current clients can submit work requests, contact staff, view project folders specific to them and make payments, and potential clients can view and request information.

Watch this space.....

Chromebook Review

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Google presentation in Auckland. It was a chance to catch up on the latest news from Google Apps and to also get a first look at an actual Chromebook.

Chromebooks aren’t yet available (officially) in NZ and Ed from Google said that they’re due for release here early next year. If you can’t wait that long then Amazon are doing some good deals and you can pick one up from around US$350.

If you haven’t already heard about the Chromebook, here’s the official info from Google.

Chromebook Overview

• Uses Chrome browser as its user interface. Instantly boots to a web browser which can’t be closed as it’s the o/s.
• No gradual slow down as nothing is stored locally – it’s all online
• You can set up multiple logins on your Chromebook so that whoever logs in has access to their own Google apps
• Constantly up to date as apps are online and new apps are always being created
• Chrome O/S has built in security
• Built in wi-fi and 3G means you can connect anywhere, anytime – however, the other side of this is that you need to be connected to the web to use a Chromebook
• As everything is stored in the cloud and not locally, if you lose your Chromebook for any reason, you can just log in to another one and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Review 
I only had a brief amount of time to play with the Chromebook, but my thoughts on it are: 

1. Very light and easy to carry; fits nicely in my handbag. 
2. Would be an excellent tool for businesses who use gmail, Google Docs etc... it means that even if a Chromebook dies, gets lost or stolen, an employee can just grab another one from the supply closet and carry on immediately. 
3. No risk of losing sensitive data if you accidentally leave your Chromebook in a coffee shop. 
4. Here in NZ we still have a few areas where 3G isn’t functional, however, the market this is aimed at will most likely be in areas with good wi-fi and 3G connectivity. 
5. A possible downside for businesses is that if our one cable to the outside World goes down for any reason, work will stop for the day. No cable = no internet access. This should hopefully be resolved in the near future when Pacific Fibre gives us another line to the outside World. This isn’t a flaw with the Chromebook, more a flaw with the infrastructure in NZ. 
6. It’s fairly cheap, but only just cheaper than other options, for example, you can pick up a Motorola Xoom 3G from around NZ$700 or a Telecom Tab V9 from around NZ$280. 
7. The other downside is that we tend to get shafted in NZ with prices charged being rather steeper than in other parts of the World, so whilst it’s being priced from US$350, we may end up with a higher initial US$ charge once it arrives in NZ. 
8. As a nation our smartphone usage seems to be increasing rather rapidly, so will we need another device that does much the same as our phones, albeit with a nice easy keyboard/laptop style interface, or will our phones evolve to make them even easier to use in the cloud? Perhaps the Chromebook could evolve so that it doubles up as a phone with the addition of a SIM card.

Perhaps I want too much out of my gadgets.  I want one gadget that gives me web access, GPS navigation and is a hands free phone, all whilst being light and easy to carry around, at the moment I don’t think the Chromebook would give me that functionality, however, I do see a potential for businesses to reduce their hardware costs and at the same time make life a bit more fun for their staff. You could give these to staff at this cost and allow them to use them both as work and personal tools.


Have you had a chance to play with a Chromebook?  What are your thoughts about it?  Let everyone know in the comments section.

Death of an icon

One of my all time heroes died this past week at the age of 70.  A man without whom modern coding would not exist, and yet news reports have missed this sad event.   I sent the following email to NZStuff in the hope that some coverage will belatedly occur.  The younger iOS generation should know about dmr and what he did for all of us.

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Hi,

There's been a lot of press coverage over the death of Steve Jobs, and yes, it's very sad and he was a great influence to the way we use technology and was one of my heroes purely because of his passion for IT, but an even greater influence on computing also passed away last week and there's been no mention of his passing.

Dennis Ritchie, aka dmr, the inventor of the C programming language, co-creator of Unix and all round nice guy passed away on the 8th October.  Without dmr there wouldn't have been anything for Steve Jobs or any other younger generation of developers and inventors to build new ideas on.

The C programming language is the foundation for many other languages and I think it's an horrendous oversight that there has been no coverage of dmr's death, no review of his life, his work or his contribution to modern computing.  The guy was a genius and is a hero to many of us who have been into computers for more than the last 10 years.

Please rectify this oversight, dmr deserves as much, if not more, coverage than Steve Jobs.

Regards,
Amanda Jackson.

Method Fusion

I'm a great fan of Agile, Six Sigma and any other tools that make development, project management and profitability easier to achieve. I also believe that you should use the tools and not allow the tools to use you. You don't have to worship at the church of Agile in order to reap benefits from its various tools, and you certainly don't have to pick one style over another, pick, choose and combine - it's fusion methodology time.

Let's use an analogy, cheese and crackers.   Some cheese is great on its own but is also great when put on a cracker, some cheese is useless on its own and is only really at its best when squished onto a cracker, in the same way we have various Agile and Six Sigma tools.  Some tools stand alone, like a really great cheese, and they can be used to add value whatever methodology you're into, examples that spring to mind are process maps and sliders.   To me, Six Sigma process mapping is the cracker that all companies wishing to do some process improvement should start with. Audit, map and analyse to improve.  Once you've figured out what's going on, only then can you start to use some of those funky Agile tools, perhaps by creating a back-log of requirements, in consultation with the client, based upon your analysis of the process map.

In order to practice what I preach, I've set up an super simple proposal template that can be used for any company, any size, with the intention of offering a service to help them audit their current processes and create a back-log of improvements, whilst minimizing, as much as possible, any interruptions to their current business.  And we're not just limited to IT companies.  This process will work with any business type. As this service isn't old fashioned consultancy, it means the customer won't be spending a fortune to find out how to improve their business and even without doing the second stage, they will still receive some valuable feedback.  It's an agile time-boxed proposal with each stage of the proposal being complete in itself.  After the initial stage 1 process, the customer can say thanks, that's all I need, or they can continue onto the next stage and pick and choose what they want to work on at a pace that suits them.  Old fashioned auditing and PM consultants watch out. Beegle is coming to a town near you!

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Toothpaste to the rescue

After getting my new phone last year, an HTC Desire, I’d been having great fun taking loads of photos with the camera, it rocks... I haven’t used my real camera since getting the phone, but then just before Christmas disaster struck.  Okay, maybe more of a minor inconvenience than a disaster, but I have a cure that others may not know about.

The basic hardware layout of phones means that the camera lens cover is very prone to scratching whilst it’s in your pocket, and the phone is in my pocket all the time whilst walking the doggy duo.   And yes, I do have a scratch cover on my phone but for some reason, none of the covers go over the bit that really needs scratch protection, anyhoo.. one day I took a photo and oh noes, the image was in soft focus and somewhat blurry due to a scratched lens cover.  No more of the super clear, super resolution photos which look awesome.  I was sad.  L

After a month or so of no more picture taking and quite a bit of searching on the interweb for a product that would fix the scratches, I mentioned to my Dad that my camera lens was scratched and that I was thinking of getting a new back cover for the phone; Dad told me how they used to fix camera lenses in the ‘old days’ using toothpaste.

Now toothpaste, for those of you who maybe didn’t realise this, is a mild abrasive.  It’s such a mild abrasive that it turns out it’s great for fixing scratched lenses.   As my lens couldn’t get any worse I figured I’d give it a go and report back.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to restoring your camera-phone to minty fresh, gleaming photo goody goodness:

1. Take the cover off the phone – water and electronics are not a good mix – put the bits that don’t like water somewhere dry.
2. Squirt some toothpaste on your finger.
3. Apply toothpaste to the outer cover of the phone where the scratches are – kind of pointless rubbing the other side.
4. Rub gently in a circular motion for a wee while.
5. Rinse under running water, make sure you get rid of all the toothpaste or you’ll still have soft focus on your photos.  You may need to use a fingernail to get it out from the edges.
6. Dry thoroughly and leave it on a windowsill in the sun for a short time to make sure it’s properly dry.
7. Stick cover back on phone.
8. Check out the new scratch free photos you can take.

Volvo YCC

Did you know, that in 2005 Volvo created a car for women, that was designed by women. What I want to know is, how they managed to find a group of women even more sexist against women drivers than most men are?

The car has:

• No bonnet or any access to the car's internal workings (women don't need to look at all that scary stuff)
• An engine that automatically sends a message to the garage when it needs help (because we stupid, stupid women ignore those pretty lights on the dash board)
• Run flat tyres so you can get to a man to help you fix it (because we wouldn't want to break a nail changing a tyre now would we?)
• No water filler cap (because women don't like filler caps - something to do with nails again I think) - mind you, I quite like this feature as they put the water filler hole next to the gas filler hole - which is just asking for trouble now isn't it.
• Gull wing doors (okay, this is cool)
• Keyless, motorised doors so that when you have your hands full of shopping (sigh!) the car will open for you
• The interior was maximised for storage space (plenty of room for your make up and hair straighteners)
• Head rests with pony tail indentations :-|
• The hand brake and gear stick were removed from the centre console to create more storage space
• And all the inside panels could be easily removed if you fancied a change of colour scheme on the inside

I'm assuming they only interviewed women dolled up in 3 inches of make up, wearing fake nails, and carrying lots of shopping whilst wearing heels and sporting immaculately straightened hair.

Though I do admit, it does look quite pretty.