This article popped up on the ABC today, rehashing a Choice press release (I'm a paying Choice subscriber, I like them), saying that Qantas are charging too high of a credit card surcharge. I've always said airlines ask for way too much money for the privilege of using a credit card. This flat out lie in the article stood out for me:

"Qantas does not collect more in surcharges that it costs us to offer credit cards as a payment option," a Qantas spokesperson said.

Bullshit. Credit card fees are not very high. For example, using an online processor like eWay costs $2,000/yr and is 22c per transaction. And that's just off the shelf pricing! Larger volume accounts even get to as low as 4c/transaction. I imagine someone like Qantas could score an awesome deal with electronic payments due to the huge amount of transactions they do.

The credit card surcharge for a return flight between Sydney and Melbourne is $7.70 - the flight itself is $230. So 3.4% is the fee, which isn't too unreasonable, but higher than it should be. Jetstar (a Qantas airline), for a $171 fare, want $17! That's 9.9%. And if you read it carefully, it's actually $17 per person!

That's just blatant arse-fucking. There's no way Jetstar (part of Qantas remember) is paying a 10% card processing fee, that's just insane. Tiger do this as well:

As do Virgin:

It seems one of them started doing it and just kept on doing it because it's a great way to combat low fares. Pick up the slack on something unavoidable like perceived credit card transaction expense. In this day and age, there shouldn't be an extra credit card fee, it should just be built in to the price. If you're paying for airline tickets any other way (BPay, Poli or direct deposit), you're giving the airline more work, having to reconcile those payments and having to *wait* for payment, vs. a credit card that transfers money instantly. Don't give me any bullshit about not having a credit card - all the banks offer Visa & Mastercard Debit Cards now, for free, that work the same way as a credit card online, everyone in Australia with a bank account (if you can afford airline tickets, you have a bank account). Plus travel agents still exist and take cash if you are totally against electronic payments and the Russian mafia stealing your money...

I hope the Reserve Bank does set a limit on what are fair credit card surcharges - 10% (what Jetstar ask for) is stupid and not grounded in reality. 3% is more realistic as a broad charge, as then even if you're a small business doing a low volume of transactions, if you're being charged more than 3% to take Visa/MC, you're paying too much.

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This article about the budget on news.com.au is the usual bullshit from news.com.au (can't believe it took two "journalists" to construct it, but whatever) - Aussie battler family doing it tough. Ignore the totally pathetic woman who is single and earns 6 figures but finding it "extremely difficult to plan for the future" - she just fails at the simple rule of spend less than you earn.

The family however, earns at least $112,000/year, as they're complaining about missing out on the extra Family Tax Benefit. To be clear, they already to get the FTB, but want the increase that's supposed to be for those earning less. Fair enough I said. Families are expensive I assume, but fuck, $112,000 is a lot of money. Then I read on and saw this gem:

Mr Campbell and his wife want to buy their own home but are finding it practically impossible. "We can make the repayments, but we cannot get the $25,000 deposit required to get into a modest family home," he said.

I smelled bullshit. I know houses are costly and saving is difficult, but it's not impossible. Let's see what these people are spending their money on...

The article states they're earning more than $112,000/year combined, so let's assume, pre-tax income is $57,000 each. According to the ATO website calculator, a very basic estimate of their tax payable is $11,000 each. This doesn't include any deductions that a good accountant will give you. After tax, they have $90,000 to spend.

They rent, so let's say they pay $2,000/month for a decent nice 3 bedroom brick home in the suburbs of Sydney - $66,000 a year left in their pockets after rent.

Bills are the next big one. I've given very generous estimate here to account for the two kids. Gas = $1000/year. Electricity = $2100/year. Water = $1750/year. Telecommunications (2x iPhones, broadband Internet & landline) = $2400/yr. All up, it's $7250/year. Now there's $58,750 left in the yearly budget.

Cars suck up a lot of money too. I'll assume they have two automobiles. It costs me $700/m to run two cars, so let's say they spend $850/month on theirs (more driving around due to kids, whatever). $11,000/year on cars leaves $47,750/yr after tax, rent and utilities.

They both work full time (I assume) and the kids are quite young - school aged, but not old enough to be home on their own once school is finished, so child care is another cost. Apparently it costs around $20/day for after school care. So say there's 280 days a year of school, so for two kids, it would cost $11,200. The government provides a Child Care Rebate (not means tested) & Child Care Benefit (means tested, but this family is under it). The Benefit provides a maximum of $39,785 per family, and the Rebate covers 50% of what you spend on child care expenses up to $7500 per child after that $39,785. Basically, they're paying nothing for child care. No drain on the family income stream for that (which surprised me).

This family has to eat. $200/week on groceries is obscene to me, but I guess if you have kids, this is baseline. So $250/week for a trolley full of stuff, all year is $13,000, which is way too much, so let's say this also include going out meals. Family has $34,750/year to spend.

If I had kids, I wouldn't not have private health insurance, so for top of the line health insurance for this family with HCF (dental and hospital cover and all that stuff) is $3900/year. $30,850/year now.

Kids go to school and school isn't free. If they go to a government school, there's no fees, but there are voluntary expenses and things like books, clothes etc. The government provides 50% off the cost of this stuff, up to $397 for primary school kids. So let's approximate they're spending $1,500 for both kids out of their own pocket, there's $29,350 left over.

Every family should go on a trip once a year, plus there's birthdays and Christmases to spend on. Let's say this costs $2,000 to go interstate, $2,500 celebrating stuff and $1,500 just on various excursions through the year. $23,350 a year still in the bank account.

So I've grossly over estimated tax, rent, bills, 2x cars, child care, food, full private health insurance, school expenses and fun stuff like holidays and presents and still have $23,350 left over.

$23,000 of spare income a year is glorious. Some people don't even earn that after tax. There are cases like emergencies and often there's stuff you *just* gotta buy (new iPads!), so let's put aside 50% of the spare income into a savings account. That leaves over $10,000/year as "float" which is very nice to have. You still put it all into your savings, but you can dip into it if shit hits the fan (car accidents, ill family member, new Apple products, your footy team makes the grand final, whatever).

Based on that, if this family just put $300/week into a savings account - a low 18% out of their $1700/week post-tax income, in 18 months they would have enough to get that "impossible" home deposit of $25,000. If they actually put some effort into it, I don't see why $600/week can't go into the savings account, giving them at least $48,000 within 18 months and reducing the loan they'd need to get from a bank.

What did this prove? Well, that white people that are healthy and can read, living in the richest country in the world should shut up and live in total fear that one day all this could go away - then whinging about the government not giving you $200 a week will seem like a drop in the ocean compared to 40% unemployment, acid rain, civil war, famine or rampant disease.

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Since about March 2011, I've been keeping a list in SimpleNote called Post-MacTalk Ideas. Whenever I had an idea for something that might not suck, I'd write it down in that document. I've been hoarding these ideas for over a year and nothing has come of it. I've run the numbers and made more elaborate notes on a few of them (anyone who knows me well has probably seen one of my manifestos) and will hopefully follow through on one or two of them over the next few years.

It was kinda sad seeing all these ideas sitting there, so here they are, for you to do if you like. Or to laugh at how stupid you think I am for coming up with some of these. Ideas are worth shit until they turn in to something, so I'm not really losing anything by sharing them. That said, if you do decide to tackle one, it'd be cool to be kept in the loop :)

If you want to discuss any of them further, or want to snarf any notes I may already have, email me: aagius@me.com

Curated online store of Apple-related accessories
an online store selling accessories for Apple things, at reasonable prices and with a selection of only things I'd use myself - no junk and with in-depth reviews, videos, photos - always scout out new items

Australian Tech Podcast Network
produce podcasts for OCAU, Whilrpool, Ausgamers, MacTalk, Delimiter and create a podcast network from these community podcasts

iOS app review blog
mainly focussed on Australian relevant & developed apps

General AU tech blog
alternative to Gizmodo - not enterprise IT like Delimiter or iTNews

Apple-related bulk buys
actually have good stuff to buy in bulk, not cheap crappy items

The Drum/Conversation style site for tech opinion pieces
experts riff on current tech topics of the day

Mobile/telco blog, focussed on AU
like commsday, but for the layperson and like whirlpool, but with original content & no forum

Tech hardware review blog
like all the PC hardware review sites (TweakTown, XbitLabs, HotHardware, etc.) but more focussed on Apple things

Melbourne tech event venue for user group meetups
like a mini-conference venue, with A/V and recording gear, so that all the melbourne tech usergroups have a permanent home to use on a regular basis

Interview blog with interesting people
email interviews with people I think are cool

Daily AU tech podcast
like buzz out loud, but Australian - daily, every morning

iOS app tutorial screencasts
videos on how to use iOS apps - like Mac screencasts, but iOS

Personal tech blog
just me writing about things that interest me - like Gruber, but shittier and with less smug

iOS development fund
kinda like these start-up incubators around (Pollenizer, AngelCube, etc.) - provide money & mentoring for a selection of iOS apps we think can make a return on the investment

iOS app awards night
like the Australian Mobile Awards, but without the crazy entry fees and voted for by judges only

Podcast studio/theatre
a studio & theatre for live podcast and radio events (as well as non-live podcasts) with about 60-70 theatre style seats and a stage

Apple classifieds
a site like Gumtree, specifically for Apple stuff, making it easy to list and is moderated by a human

AU Tech MediaWatch
a blog outlining all the bullshit in the AU tech media and calling them out on it

iOS App Kickstarter
just like Kickstarter, but for iOS apps - rewards would be tricky though

End to End Solution for HTTP Streaming of Live Events
streaming a live event to the web that's compatible with iOS/mobile devices is *hard* - LiveStream and UStream are good, but if all you want is HD video embeddable with a HTML tag, they're not ideal

iOS/Android app for paid podcast distribution
create a framework (like Baker does for iPad books) for those making podcasts to charge for their work via in-app purchases

0-config VOIP app with HD audio quality, designed for podcasting
get rid of Skype & double enders - just use this app with a high quality USB mic to record broadcast quality audio with 1 or more people over the Internet

technology related Q&A
once a week, like Q&A, recorded & broadcast live and centred around a specific topic, with a panel of experts

cheap chinese tech shit reviews (deal extreme, ebay, etc.)
I kinda already started this, dunno why I stopped. I should do it again.

AM/PM - This American Life (audio) or 4 Corners, Hungry Beast (video), weekly, in-depth review of tech news
take 2-3 topics a week and do interviews, research and investigate

Comprehensive product reviews ala Choice magazine, but for tech
get very available item in a category (e.g: iPhone batteries or 3G wi-fi routers) and review them all head to head - purchase with own money, not supplied by manufacturer

in car "black box" that doesn't suck
like these DealExtreme items, but not shitty. GPS logging, 1080p HD camera, night vision - maybe use iPhone 3GS/cheap android phones

The Drum-esque style site for iOS dev/apps/UI
get a bunch of iOS developers and designers to write essays on a regular basis about their craft

Techcrunch of lifestyle businesses
idea from Matt Haughey's Webstock talk where the idea of making a business that isn't fuelled by VC money and is done for the love of the idea, not a business

weekly/daily lectures
cool people explaining stuff they're passionate about in front of a small audience (or no audience) in under 20 minutes with slides

iOS app making documentary
follow a team developing an app from idea stage to a few weeks/months after the app store release

iOS app developer directory
a list of Australian iOS app developers & designers those wanting to develop or design software can contact

Conference coverage
travel around covering conferences (Macworld, CES, Webstock, NAB, WWDC, SXSW, etc) do interviews with people around the place, videos from show floor, blogs about what's going on

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Mr. @stirlo on Twitter highlighted this atrocity on news.com.au regarding the new Apple TV to me. It really is junk and should never have been published. How can MAUREEN SHELLEY - NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY WRITER, as a "As a born-again geek" and "a writer and sub-editor with some 30 years of experience" (longer than I've been alive!) let her name be attached to this shit?

"THE latest upgrade to Apple TV lets users stream full HD films and TV shows straight from iTunes but there's a catch."

Ooh, a catch? I better read on to see what's up with the Apple TV upgrade.

"Existing Apple TV owners can download the latest software today, which turns the box from a simple streaming device, into a gigantic iPad that amazes at every turn,"

This update turns the Apple TV into a gigantic iPad? How so? There's no apps, there's no touch screen, there's no web browser - the only thing *remotely* iPad-like on the Apple TV now is a bunch of squares on the Apple TV home screen that, if you're a 6 year old, might be confused with the various app icons on the home screen of an iPad.

"but new customers will have to wait until Friday 16 for the upgraded device."

Is having to wait a week the catch? Surely not?

"The TV will be available for $109"

The Apple TV isn't a TV. It's a set top box, that you plug into a TV.

"$20 less than the model it replaces - and it introduces high definition at 1080p for movies and TV shows downloaded from iTunes."

Correct.

"If consumers have iCloud enabled on their iTunes account, they can download HD movies and watch them on the HD TVs and it’s almost instantaneous."

You don't need iCloud to download HD content. That has nothing to do with iCloud at all. iCloud is for syncronising content between devices - not "enabling HD content"

"The software upgrade is available now and loads in minutes. Once downloaded to the Apple TV, it changes the interface so the screen looks like an enormous iPad."

Again, it's an iPad if you're a 6 year old, or if you've never used an iPad and had someone describe an iPad to do you as if you were living in North Korea and had no concept of what an iPad is.

"The labels are changed into icons, and music cover art streaming, that users are familiar with through iTunes, now displays on the TV set like it does for films, TV shows, music and computer games."

Computer games? There's no games on the Apple TV!

"Apple TV was easy to operate before but this new interface is even more intuitive. Users can access all their purchased movies, TV episodes, and music provided they have iTunes Match and iCloud."

Err, again, you don't need iCloud to access your content. iCloud might make it easier, but the default method is to simply sync stream content off the Mac or PC running iTunes already in your house.

"AirPlay lets users with the iPad and iPhone 4S stream or mirror content to the Apple TV and the free app Remote (available in the App store) lets users operate the Apple TV with their iPad or iPhone."

AirPlay also works with the iPod touch, and the iPhone 4 & 3GS - not just the iPhone 4S.

Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Philip Schiller said: “People are going to love streaming movies and TV shows in 1080p with the new Apple TV, and photos look beautiful displayed at the maximum resolution of your TV.”

Yes, he did.

"Its upgrade will make purchasing movies on iTunes even more compelling and will remove one of the most significant reasons to trek to the DVD store - to get HD movies. Blu-ray and 3D content are now the only reasons to venture out into the rain to rent movies and TV shows, as streamed or downloaded HD content from the iTunes store is likely to satisfy most Australian TV viewers."

Indeed.

"Or at least it should prompt the 70 per cent of Australians who own smart TVs to hook them up to the internet."

70% of Australians own smart TVs? Australia's population is about 25 million. That means 17.5 million people own a smart TV. No they don't. They may own a TV that allows them to plug in an Apple TV (or any other set top box) via HDMI. But they don't own TVs that have wi-fi or an ethernet port in order to access the Internet (what I assume the definition of a smart TV is) - if that is true, why is there no link or reference to where the info came from? How hard is it to put a footnote or link in?

"For music lovers, the latest version of Apple TV allows iTunes Match subscribers to play their entire music library (including tracks purchased outside of the iTunes store) on their Apple TV complete with cover art."

Yep.

"To update your Apple TV software, go to “settings”, “general” and then “update software”."

That's true.

"This is the same procedure to update to iOS 5.1 on your iPhone or iPad. Go to the “settings” icon, then to “general” and then to “update software”. Apple suggests plugging your iPad and iPhone into power while the software is downloaded to save battery life. Then go make a cup of tea, walk the dog and start writing that novel - the Apple TV update takes about five minutes but the iPad and iPhone updates could take you quite a while."

Why is the iOS update on the iPad & iPhone mentioned here? It's got nothing to do with the Apple TV.

There's so many qualified, talented and eager people out there who would love to write about technology for news.com.au, probably for free. Instead, they paid this hack to write a half arsed turd instead...

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Around St. Albans there's numerous satellite dishes perched on people's homes, or peeking over the fence from their backyard. They tend to look like this:

I wondered why there's so many around and what they're used for, as I knew they're not for Foxtel as most of this area has HFC cable in the street, so no need for a dish. It turns out, people are getting these dishes installed in order to watch free to air TV from overseas. Due to the high amount of non-English speakers around here, it's no surprise there's heaps of dishes too. People wanna watch their stories! They could also be pirating Foxtel, but I'll assume everyone is legit and watching unencrypted satellite feeds.

Naturally, I want to get in on this action. There's TV channels floating around in the air that I'm not getting access to! I want in. So I did a bit of research as to how satellite TV works, what's actually on it and how much it costs. It's fascinating, but also kind of an extravagant exercise in nerdery, unless you speak an Asian language. But, because it's kinda cool and I spent like, 2 days reading up on it, I'll explain it here, best as I can.

Understanding how satellites work helps in understanding how satellite TV works. I assume you know what a satellite is, they look like this and spin around the Earth in space (that's Optus D10 by the way, which will be launched in 2013):

I thought that the satellite position changes as it spins around the earth and wondered how you continue to watch something as the satellite goes to the other side. Some sort of satellite swapping maybe - I had no idea. Well, I forgot that the Earth spins too, as do the satellites. If the satellites orbit the Earth at pretty much the same speed the Earth spins, then you have what's called a geostationary satellite, which ends up just hanging over the same spot of Earth constantly. Duh. This animation from the Wikipedia page about geostationary orbit makes it clear:

So because the satellite is spewing microwaves on to a certain portion of the Earth as the satellite's location is fixed, that means only certain satellites are accessible from your position. This also means that all the cool shit from the US & UK are unfortunately, out of range. Those satellites can't physically broadcast to us here in Australia, so we miss out on their English speaking goodness. That's okay though, as there's still dozens of satellites spinning around our corner of the globe.

Satellites transmit TV over either Ku-Band or C-Band, the main difference being that Ku-Brand broadcasts are more localised and C-Band are wide. There's a couple of Ku-band satellites broadcasting into Australia (mainly for Foxtel), but most of the international stuff is on C-band. Ku dishes are most of the time, the solid, smaller ones, with the C-band dishes, bigger and made out of a mesh. You can apparently get combo Ku & C band dishes, but they suck.

Each satellite has on it dozens of radio transmitters that broadcasts a signal - you simply use your dish to tap in to the signal. Exact same way you do it with a TV and your antenna, just that the antenna now is a big-arse dish and the frequencies you search for are much more varied. Each satellite carries different broadcasts and different shows. The broadcast protocol is similar to regular TV too, DVB-S and DVB-S2 (regular TV is DVB-T), and uses MPEG2 and MPEG4 like regular TV also. Simply get a set top box that supports those protocols and away you go.

Keeping in mind not all satellites broadcast to Australia, I had to find out which ones do, so I can find out what they broadcast and get a feel for what I can actually watch. To do this, I visited Satbeams. Satbeams lists all the satellites rotating the earth and gives a beam map (aka, a satellite footprint), which shows each satellite's range. You place a pin over where you are and it will show if the satellite you've selected broadcasts there. Pretty awesome:

Only satellites between 66°E and 118°E can broadcast to Australia (the Earth is round remember), so I checked all those out. There's about 35 that project themselves onto Melbourne - a few reach say, Perth, or Brisbane, but not down far south as Melb. Using that list of satellites, I can then go to a site like Tracksat or Lyngsat and view which birds carry what channels. Tracksat is good, as it lets you filter by free to air (aka unencrypted stuff). One of the biggest satellites is Intelsat 8, which has over 250 "channels". Let's take a look at what we would be able to see if we pointed a dish at it.

The colours of each row denotes if it's SD, HD, encrypted or free to air. There's also a weird one called "feeds" - these are the raw feeds news, or live events will use when they do a satellite broadcast. So let's say there's a news reporter for the ABC out in the bush and they're doing a live cross for the 7pm news - the crew will send a feed up to the satellite, then it will be sent down again to the ABC's broadcast HQ where it's compiled into a terrestrial broadcast for us to watch. A nice thing about having a satellite dish is that you can tap in to these feeds and watch them before they're mixed into the main program (so reporters milling around, presenters during the ad breaks, etc.). Feeds also have on them special events some times, but mostly it's for news.

As you can see, there's also many encrypted channels, which are usually for pay TV networks. There's radio stations as well, if you're into that (dunno why, every radio station broadcasts to the Internet these days don't they?). The main thing I'm after though, are the free to air channels. They're all digital these days too, which helps, but there's not many HD that are unencrypted.

On Intelsat 8 for example, there's only 3 unencrypted HD channels - two test cards (a still pic for testing) and NHK World (Japan's equivalent of SBS), which is apparently awesome quality and quite high bitrate. The rest of the channels are in SD.

So you know how a satellite works and which satellites broadcast into Australia. But to actually watch something, you need a dish to intercept the signal and a set top box to decode that signal.

Now, for me personally, I want access to as many satellites and TV stations as possible. Most people just want say the Vietnamese channels, or the Chinese ones, so they only really need to point their dish at one or two satellites to get what they want and they don't need an as big satellite as the ones with the stuff they want have a strong signal here. But if you want everything physically possible to receive, then you need to point the dish at various satellites many times during the day and you need a big dish to "catch" more of the air. That means a big arse motorised dish.

According to Satbeams, a 4M dish will get almost all the satellites that beam into Melbourne. So I need a 4M-ish dish, cool. Seeing as I want to view what's on many satellites, I need a motorised one, so the dish points at the satellite I want to watch (otherwise, if it's fixed, I can only view one at a time). I'm not 100% sure how motorised dishes work, but there's a motor (duh) on the dish that activates when you tell a device called a positioner (looks like this) to point at a certain satellite. Then the STB can tap in to the specific frequency for the channel you want off that satellite. Check out this video to see how the dish moves:

Obviously, there's a lot of other stuff involved in setting up the dish. You've got it point it at true north and you want it with no obstacles (buildings, trees) in the way. Personally, I'd just pay someone to do it. Let someone who has done it before figure it out - all this stuff with actuators, LNBs, positioners, etc - I don't really care, I just want a setup that gets me access to the most satellites.

The other part of the equation is a set top box. It's pretty much like buying a digital TV STB - as long as it supports MPEG2, MPEG4, and DVB-S and DVB-S2, you're ok. Most have PVR features too, so you can record what's on. There's no EPG however, so you don't really know what's on unless you visit the website of the channel you're watching.

So that's the super-basics of getting satellite TV. I'm tempted to get a big dish and place it in the backyard on a pole so it can get line of sight across the Clarke Belt (the imaginary line all the satellites orbit) and have 300+ channels I can surf around when I'm bored. Most of them are not in English and there's so many Christian channels - but I dunno, it seems kinda cool to watch the raw broadcast feeds and to track these satellites around and peek in on these transmissions floating around us. A professionally installed dish will set me back around $2,000 for the 4m one and an STB. It would be even cooler to try get in to the encrypted channels, but the info surrounding those is so hard to make sense of, I don't know if it's worth it.

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I really do know how to procrastinate. Instead of writing up the important documents required for One More Thing 2012 (which I'll have more news about soon), I planned a round the world trip that I'll probably never go on. To at least get *something* out of the half-day I spent futzing around airline and hotel websites, I may as well put it here for someone to read. It's not as expensive as you'd think, for a 90 day trip, you're spending less than $20,000. I could totally get my credit card out, buy everything and go..

The city list for this round the world trip: Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Reykjavik, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Dubai.

Dates: 13th August 2012 until November 4th 2012.

Cost: airfares, $4,300. Accommodation @ $165/night for 82 days = $13,500

Itinerary:

• 13/08 - SQ228 (MEL-SIN)
• 18/08 - SQ856 (SIN-HKG)
• 22/08 - MU702 (HKG-PVG)
• 26/08 - MU271 (PVG-NRT)
• 31/08 - SQ12 (NRT-LAX)
• 06/09 - AA6781 (LAX-SEA)
• 13/09 - AA152 (SEA-ORD)
• 19/09 - AA1210 (ORD-BOS)
• 23/09 - FI630 (BOS-KEF)
• 28/09 - FI454 (KEF-LHR)
• 07/09 - Eurostar (London-Paris)
• 12/09 - Thalys (Paris-Brussels)
• 15/09 - Thalys (Brussels-Amsterdam)
• 19/10 - HV6875 (AMS-BER)
• 24/10 - LH3488 (BER-FCO)
• 29/10 - EK98 (FCO-DXB)
• 03/11 - EK406 (DXB-MEL)

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I wrote this a few years ago. Found it on an old USB flash drive I found in a pile of boxes.

I'm not that much of a movie buff compared to some people. Sure, I like movies more than the average guy and did I spend most of my teenage years avoiding social activity by having Kubrick marathons, pretending to be smart by quoting Tarantino at my school teachers and re-enacting sections of Caddyshack with my pathetic friends, but I've never made a movie, gone to film school or even known anyone who works in the industry. These facts became painfully obvious when I entered “Setting the Scene” an exhibition currently on at The Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI, God's gift to Melbourne).

If you've ever been to an expo at ACMI, it's downstairs. That sign on the stairs saying “be careful, it's dark, your eyes need time to adjust” isn't there for shits and giggles. Listen to it. I almost dropped my iPhone due to being inserted into darkness all of a sudden. Anyways, Setting the Scene. For those of you who don't know, it's an expo about movie set design. I had no idea set design was so elaborate. It didn't occur to me that they often build these places they film movies in. There's some big fuck off places built too. One part of the expo has in it dedicated to The Terminal. They built the set for that whole thing from scratch. The entire airport terminal. I guess if you're Spielberg you can do that, but still, that's a big fucking set. The exhibit has photos, clips of movies and for some movies, interviews with the set designers about the set of that particular movie. There's also a large, large space dedicated to that movie Australia by our pal Baz. The exhibit is split into areas, I will list them here and give you my opinions on what I saw there:

Spaces of Power (Metropolis, Das Experiment and Minority Report). Metropolis is old and I don't care. Das Experiment I have not seen but now want to as it is about the Stanford Prison Experiment and I like prison (from the outside). Minority Report was cool and so was it's set. There's photos of it here.

Private Spaces (Mon Ocle, The Sacrifice, The Miracle of Bern). Never seen or heard of any of these. Philistine!

Labyrinth Spaces (Alien, The Shining, The Name of the Rose). Alien is fucking awesome and one of my favourite sci-fi movies. The sliver of exhibit dedicated to Alien was underwhelming. A couple of photos up on the wall of the set with no people on it. Boring. I saw the set in the movie? Why do I give a shit? There's not even any interesting back-story to it, or the set designer giving a monologue about how he designed it. Nuthin', just a couple of photos and a projector playing a couple of clips from the movie. Ditto The Shining – I love the movie, but the exhibit didn't add anything new to my knowledge of the movie except that bits of it were filmed in a real hotel. Wikipedia could have told me that. From the 90-second excerpt of “The Name of Rose” all I could gather was that it is about Sean Connery running around in a hessian sack for a few hours. What the hell?

Transit Spaces (Play Time, The Terminal, The Bourne Supremacy). Never saw Play Time and this exhibit failed to inspire me to. The Terminal, like I said earlier, is a Spielberg movie with a Spielberg set. I want to watch it now. Not just because I have a man-crush on Tom Hanks, but if they went to the effort to build a goddamn airport terminal for a movie, then it probably deserves I put some effort in too and watch it. There's even a scale model of what they built in a glass case. Nifty. The Bourne Supremacy part had a whole bunch of bits they took from some hotel and other places as “research” for the set. That was cool. If you're a huge fan, you might get a kick out of it.

Stage Spaces (A Clockwork Orange, Cabaret, Dogville). I saw the Cabaret section as it's got a bloody Oscar in a glass case and I gawked at the shiny gold man, but the rest is so miniscule, that I didn't notice that Dogville and A Clockwork Orange were there. That's how insignificant it was. I even like those movies and I still didn't notice.

Virtual Spaces (Dark City, The Matrix Trilogy, Chronicles of Narnia). Dark City is a great movie that I haven't seen. The Matrix Trilogy has awesome CG and we all know it. There's very impressive scale models of the robots and aliens from the movies that set my geek hard-on into rock mode. So cool, that it makes you want to buy them from the ACMI gift shop, even if they're $500, but then you see the plaque next to them and they're on loan from the actual set designer and not figurines you buy to keep on your nerd shelf (unfortunately). My girlfriend loved the Chronicles of Narnia movie and I think I heard her say “this is lame” while I was looking at a scale model of the car from Speed Racer. I wasn't really paying attention.

Location Spaces (Night Cries: A Rurual Tragedy, Ned Kelly, The Proposition). Bunch of Australian outback themed movies I don't give a damn about. The paintings from the Ned Kelly set planning were kinda cool though. I looked at those for about 20 seconds.

Australia (err, Australia). A whole bit about Australia. Boring as all fuck. I presume it appeals to middle aged women who wish they were on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere being bonked senseless by Hugh Jackman? Damned if I know. Either way, the majority of the exhibit space is dedicated to Australia when it really should just be for Kubrick films. The whole thing should just be “THE SET DESIGN OF STANLEY KUBRICK” actually, that would have been way better than what I paid to see.

So do I suggest you go? Probably not. Unless you're a massive Australia fan (haha, as if), have a fetish for scale models (there's fucking loads) or work in the movie industry and have a thing for set design. If you are an actual set designer or a student of set design, drop that bag of chips, wipe your hands, put your Mac to sleep and get on a train to the city already. But if you're just a movie nerd who enjoys some of the movies listed in the exhibition synopsis, you will be, like me, bitterly disappointed and lamenting the fact that the $15 entry fee could have been spent on two or three Steven Seagal DVDs. Seagal always delivers bang for buck.

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One of things on my agenda for 2012 is to have a brand new house. I own the home I live in now, but, it's old and I live next door to my parents. It was okay at first, but now it's just annoying - doubly so for Natalie. Imagine having to live next to the parents of your girlfriend or boyfriend. Ugh.

Using that sweet, sweet, legal tender from the sale of MacTalk (which was all completed last week by the way, yeehaw), we purchased a 700sqm block of land in Bacchus Marsh (about 45min from the CBD) where Natalie and I are going to build a nice big, comfortable and new, house. See, this is the block with my Dad gazing away at it:

There is a *lot* of bullshit involved with building a house - it isn't like you can just rock up to an Apple store, pick a house and know it's good because someone like Steve Jobs and Jony Ive made it. You gotta know your shit. So there's going to be a fair bit of house related stuff, because like I said, I'm going to be building a house and that tends to take up a significant chunk of a person's brain, and I use this blog to sound out ideas and thoughts, to see if I understand them properly. Anyways, this is a long-winded setup for the real point of this post, attempting to explain installing solar panels on the roof of your house.

Electricity isn't cheap and it's only going to get more expensive. I'm currently playing 20.2c/kWh (flat-rate) for power and I used 920kWh on the last quarterly bill. 22c/kWh doesn't seem too far off with the carbon tax coming in to play this year and no doubt, over time, power will just cost more, for reasons I don't really comprehend. But those smarter than me seem to think increasing power bills is as sure as a Pope shitting in the woods with a bear looking on, or something.

Enter solar power - magical crystals that turn invisible sun rays into beautiful electron flows, ready to power my massive fucking TV and ginormous air conditioner. And in Australia, we have lots of sun, lots of big TVs and heaps of air conditioners. Our government throws out all sorts of subsidies at it (I heard someone call it middle-class welfare, heh) and well, have you seen pvoutput.org? That shit just looks cool.

As I'm building a new house, I wanted to see if chucking solar panels on at build time makes a difference in the cost. It doesn't make a difference to installation, but if the panels are on the roof and operating before you move in (e.g: during those few weeks where the roof is on the house, but things like the floors, painting, bathrooms, kitchens, etc. are being installed), electricity is being generated, but not really used (just a couple of tradies), so you can sell that back to the power company and earn credits, making your first and maybe second power bills pretty much free. I'll explain how that works in a minute. It does however, make sense to do at build time, as if I can get the builder to set it up, I can include it as part of the construction of the house (ie: on the builder's contract) and the bank will pay for it as part of the loan, rather than me having to find $10,000-$15,000 to pay for the setup after the house is finished or whilst it's being built.

To calculate if solar power is worth it, you need to understand how a solar power setup works. Most of my info is gleaned from three Australian forums - Whirlpool (computer nerds), Home One (suburban mums with hubbies and bubs and whatnot) and Energy Matters (hippies). It's really dense and there's a lot of jargon, but I think I've managed to distill the info down to what's actually useful and recent (lots of it is out of date) stuff. The biggest issue I found was that the people who really understand how this stuff works have such a poor grasp of English, combined with assuming way too much about what people understand about solar power, that their posts on forums make absolutely no sense and confuse the shit out of everyone.

Step one, obviously, are panels on the roof:

There are many brands, but the consensus is that you want panels that are made in China, otherwise you're paying a xenophobe tax. No need to pay the exorbitantly high costs for fancy German made (or Australian made) panels. The Chinese ones are just as good unless you're a racist fuck who yells at Indian call centre operators. You do have to take into consideration that you have limited roof space that faces the sun, so you may have to get the fancier ones in order to meet your power requirements, or it could be cheaper to get say, 20x of the fancy panels than 30x of the cheaper ones to get the same power output. A decent warranty (10-years on parts, 25-years on 80% power efficiency) is a good idea too.

Step two, is an inverter:

Solar panels generate DC power and your house runs on AC power. The inverter takes the DC power the panels generate and turns it into AC power that your appliances (and the power grid you can feed in to) use. This is where you spend the extra money to get something reliable and with a good warranty. Apparently, they do fail, much more than the panels. The brand SMA kept popping up and they have a pretty awesome monitoring/stats system that can hook up to your computer over Bluetooth on almost all their inverters. If I was to buy an inverter, SMA seems the one I'd get.

Step three, installation:

You also need someone to install it. Make sure you get someone off this list from the government. They *should* know what they're doing. It's just like any other trade, like a plumber or electrician - some suck, some are great. They'll also work out how many panels you need, what angle they should point at and where on the roof they should go, along with what size inverter you require. There's also a lot of cabling, rigging, frames and stuff to support the panels, that they'll charge for. Simply, if the installer is on the recommended list, uses non-shitty panels and SMA inverters, and you pick the best quote out of 3 or 4, it's all good.

That's pretty much what you need to know when you've decided, "yes, I want solar panels" - ah, but you still need to decide if it's worth getting solar panels in the first place. Basically, the aim of solar panels is to negate power you suck off the grid (i.e: cheap power from big stinky, baby dolphin killing, coal fired plants in VIC) in order to save money. Disregard any environmental ideals or nerdy power generation stats, I'm just going to focus on money and how it applies in Victoria (different states have different schemes). If you don't understand a thing I write in this post or don't read it all, just keep this in mind: the way you save money with solar panels is via two methods - buying less power from the power company and selling power you don't use to the power company (called a feed-in-tariff), so your electricity bill is lower or even $0.

The government wants to (or at least, wanted to - the Liberal govt in VIC slashed the FiT by over 50%) give incentives for people to install solar panels. Solar power generation reduces power load on the grid, so building expensive power stations can be delayed, they create jobs for people installing them and you get some greenwashing PR/karma. There's things called RECs and solar credits and all this crap, that make buying the gear cheaper, but you don't need to worry about that. The installer will claim all that for you and take it off the price of installation. So all you need to consider is the FiT. It makes a big difference as to how long it takes you to pay back the cost of installing the panels and getting to the stage where you're generating free electricity.

The FiT is credit the power company puts on your bill for power you generate, but don't use and is fed back to the grid. So for example, it's 1PM and really sunny, but nobody is home, so there's minimal power usage in your house. The solar panels on your roof are making fat stacks of electricity that the house isn't using! Precious electrons going down the drain! Thanks to the fact your house is hooked up to the power grid, that un-used power goes to the power company and they give you credit on your power bill for it. With solar, whenever the sun is shining, power is generated. You probably aren't going to use all that power when it's generated, so you can store it to use it later (a battery), or feed it back in to the grid and get credit on your bill.

The current tariff people like me are concerned about, in VIC, is called the "Transitional Feed-in Tariff" - it's for solar systems up to 5kw in size (get to that later) and the government promises it will be around until 2016. The minimum you can earn is 25c/kWh, but some power companies give you more than that (e.g: Origin give you 31c and some give 1:1 credit based on what you pay for power, so you really need to work out a good balance between what you pay and what you earn). The FiT used to be 60c/kWh up until the 1st of Jan 2012 and in other states, is still around that amount :(

Solar power also reduces the amount you suck from the grid, hence, you aren't paying anyone for it. Again, for example, it's a sunny day, and your system is generating 3kw of power. Your house is busy, there's a TV on, a few computers, fridge, freezer, washing machine, dish washer, etc. and the total power usage of your home at that point in time is around 4.5kw. Normally, without solar power, you'd be paying for the full 4.5kw, but with solar, it's only 1.5kw. Less power use = less money (and carbon emissions, but whatever, pfft, dolphins, fuck em). If you have a bigger solar setup (5kw is the biggest under the Transitional FiT), during the day, you may not even touch the grid and you end up feeding power to it and you end up in the FiT scenario where the power company pays you instead of you paying them.

At night, you generate fuck all, so all your power use comes off the grid. That's where your credits come in to play. So lets say you're at work during the day, the house is generating much more power than it's using, earning you credit. Let's make up that it's made $5 in credit for that period. Then at night, you use $4 of power, but make none. At the end of the billing period, for that day, you end up getting credit of $1. Extrapolate that out to a billing quarter and you can break even if on average, you generate the same amount of excess power as power you use from the grid, you can get a bill which is noting but credit if you don't use the grid at all and generate more solar than you use, or (the most likely scenario) if you end up using just a low amount from the grid and use all the solar power you generate, your bill will go from $300/q to only $50 or $100/q.

That's pretty much how solar power saves you money.

So sure, solar power will definitely reduce your power bill, but is it worth spending thousands of dollars up front, in order to save a few hundred a year? That's the real meat of this post, everything before was just laying the groundwork. You need to work out how long it will take to pay back the cost of the system and to work out much the system will cost, depends on how much power you use, how much you pay for it and how much power you feed to the grid and what you get for that. And even then, in Victoria, the FiT is a net tariff, (explanation from Energy Matters) "A net feed in tariff, also known as export metering, pays the PV system owner only for surplus energy they produce; whereas a gross feed in tariff pays for each kilowatt hour produced by a grid connected system." This makes it hard to predict how much money you'll earn from the FiT as solar production and home energy use isn't static. It's done in 30 min chunks via your smart meter. So in 1 hour, if you generated more than you used, you get 25c per kW. But for the sake of trying to estimate if something is even remotely worth it, we can calculate a quarter's solar generation and a quarter's power consumption and assume the difference generated earns a FiT. But keep in mind that you're metered every 30 minutes, not per day for power in/out of your home.

PVOutput is sweet website where people get their inverters set up to send daily data about how much power their solar systems generate. In Bacchus Marsh, there's 7 solar systems of various sizes. This dude's 5kw system generated 1857kWh from Sep 01 to Nov 30. For the same period, I used 920kWh in my small house here in St. Albans (gleaned from my latest power bill). So if I increase that by 50% to factor a larger house, I can guestimate I'll use 1380kWh. Taking that estimate, if I installed a 5kw solar system on the roof, I would have fed into the grid around 400kWh, which at the current 2012 minimum FiT would have given me a credit of $100. Add in the service charge (65c/day x 91 days = $59.15), I would have a bill (ex GST) of $40 credit. So for that quarter, I paid no money to the power company. If I didn't go solar, I would have used say, 1400kWh. At current rates, I'd need to pay the power company $325 (ex GST).

Let's generously over-estimate that I end up paying the power company $250/year for power if I get solar. And let's estimate that I pay the power company $1400/year without solar. With solar, I'm saving $1150/year, with a 5kw system. However, a good 5kw system costs around $13,500 all up. At the rate of $1150/year, it would take almost 12 years to break even. That's not acceptable, because the inverter probably won't last that long, meaning I'd have to pay about $700-$1000 to get a new one installed if it fails, as the warranty is only 5 years. 12 years is a long time and there's no promise the FiT will still be around. To me, with that calculation, the panels are not worth it. I'm better off just paying extra and getting 100% green power on my bill and installing a power usage meter with ZigBee/Bluetooth/wi-fi on my switchboard to satisfy my lust for power stats.

However, electricity prices will increase, that's pretty much a given. Prices will increase by 10%-20% mid-2012 due to the carbon tax and just because energy costs more each year. For example: 14.23c/kWh (govt owned, in 2002) vs. 21.30c/kWh (Powercor, in 2012), which is a 49.68% increase over 10 years, 4.9% a year. Solar panels also output less (seems to be about 0.8-1%/yr) power over time, so if you do the math on that (4.9% increase for electricity, a 12% one-off increase for the carbon tax and a 1% yearly degradation on the solar panels), using a solar production average of 18kwh/day (average from the yearly production of this 5kw system in Sunshine on pvoutput) and average usage of 15kwh/day (my current average usage + 50%), I would break even in late 2020 (about 9 years). Still not a very good use of $13,500 I reckon.

So in this scenario, a 5kw system (the largest you can get and still be eligible for the TFiT), an install price of $13,500 (SMA inverter, decent panels & reputable installer), in Bacchus Marsh, VIC, with a household power usage of 15kWh/day and average solar generation for the year at 18kWh/day, you're looking at a 9-10 year payback time. 10 years is a long time to wait and hope for some pay off. Ideally, I'd like to have the system generating free electricity after 5 years. To achieve that, the price of install needs to come down. If I could get a good 5kw system for $10,000, that would help significantly. Reducing power usage to only 12kWh a day would help too. It'd be nice if the FiT was increased by the government as well. If the cost of the panels came down and I used less power, I could probably have the system paid off within 5 years from the savings I make and then enjoy a solid 5-10 years of free electricity.

Will I put the panels on my new home? Still not sure. I'm on the fence as to wether to bother or not. It would be nice to do so, as there are other benefits besides money. It's good to reduce carbon emissions. Who knows what the next 5 years hold in terms of energy production? The price of power could go up by more than 5% each year and as the price of grid electricity goes up, generating your own is more and more attractive. If I lived in Queensland/northern NSW/northern SA, solar panels would be so dumb not to do - way more sun than Victoria and much better government incentives. Alas, Victoria's abundance of otherwise useless brown coal and relative lack of sunlight kinda impedes solar power for us

If I've made any gross miscalculations in my estimates, particularly on how I calculated the bills I'd pay post-solar install, please let me know - my email address is aagius@gmail.com

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This post is me ranting in order to think out loud and brainstorm, it probably makes no sense, but if you got something out of it, congratulations.

I was in Albert Park last week, with a weak LTE signal, downloading files at 30mbit and uploading at 4mbit. That's goddamn amazing. And not only are the speeds good, the latency is low too. Under 100ms pings to common AU servers, Under 30ms to Telstra servers. Like many things lately, it blows my mind this exists and I'm alive to see it. I still have clear memories of running a 20m extension cord along the hall to the phone socket, praying to the technological Gods to grant me the magic of a stable 14kbit/sec connection to my ISP (oh Alphalink and your 100mbit satellite). People *still* commonly use ADSL1 and speeds of 8mbit are looked upon favourably. Well fuck that ancient shit, thanks to the magic of modern radio frequency engineering I can sit *outdoors*, no fuck it, sit in the back seat of a moving car, and suck down data at 40-50mbit without a care in the world. It brings tears to my eyes, how far we've come. But anyways, the reason I'm writing this is to kinda outline a vague solution for superfast Internet anywhere, any time (in a 4G area).

I want to webcast some events in HD using HTTP Live Streaming (thanks to Flash now supporting it) and do this, you need a solid Internet connection with fast upload speeds, about 3mbit, at least. Most places that have events/conferences on would have some sort of Internet, but it sucks in some way or another, except for LTE.

• ADSL, the most common form of Internet found doesn't have the upstream capacity.
• Telstra/Optus cable is pretty rare in these sort of venues, but even if it did exist, still not enough upstream bandwidth.
• Fibre isn't unheard of, but is still pretty rare. Only one venue I know of has it, and it costs a bomb to use it.
• 3G is the easiest net connection to get going, but even with HSPA+, in real world use, it doesn't have the upstream bandwidth.
• Vivid Wireless has a metro WiMax network, which I am still yet to try out. Coverage is spotty, but going by some speed tests on Whirlpool, may have enough bandwidth in the right conditions. With a decent antenna, it could be a good fallback option for LTE.
• BigAir, is the "enterprise" version of Vivid Wireless and actually does have the bandwidth and coverage necessary, but it is not portable. They only sell fixed wireless solutions.

So that leaves us with LTE. Has enough bandwidth and coverage is pretty solid. The key thing is that the signal is strong. There should be enough bandwidth on the tower, on the day, but you need to ensure a strong, solid connection to that tower.

The plan would be, outdoors (preferably on a roof), stick an antenna of some type on a stand (weighted down) connected to the USB modem, which is plugged into a Dovado Tiny running off a battery (perhaps with a solar panel to charge whilst in use), or mains power if a cord can be run to the roof. Then run an ethernet cable back down from the roof inside and plug it into the stream broadcasting PC.

Alternatively, Telstra (or someone) will release a battery powered LTE router, or maybe even Netcomm will let me buy one of these outdoor LTE wi-fi/ethernet routers. It has the LTE modem embedded, so all it needs is a PoE connection and you're set.

My theory is that if there's a strong signal, I should be able to maintain a steady 3-4mbit upload speed in order to send a H264 stream out to the cloud to be transcoded & segmented on a Flash Media Server, then sent to a CDN so it can be watched by people anywhere in the world.

This means that if I want to live stream some conference *cough* One More Thing 2012 *cough*, I don't need to worry about what sort of net connection the venue has. The only issue is that if I promise a live stream and then on the day I find that the tower has shat itself and uploads are only hitting 1mbit or 2mbit, then I'm fucked and would need to post-pone, or make a much lower quality stream available via Vivid Wireless or 3G on Optus/VHA. Either way, beats the shit out of paying $20-30-40,000 to use a satellite truck!

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A few years ago, some friends and I set up a 30TB file server (20x 1.5TB drives), dubbed the Big Arse File Server (BAFS), to be a communal off-site backup of all our illegally downloaded material.

It lived in my office, which was a great spot as most of the time there's nobody in it, it's air conditioned and in a central location for us all to visit regularly to dump data to. The major negative was that the server was super noisy and I didn't want to work with this 4RU server covered in Delta fans blasting all day. There's a reason datacenters exist. I spent $200 on quieter fans, hoping to alleviate the noise. Unfortunately the fans didn't push enough air, and over time, a couple of HDDs failed and I decided to strip the server and get rid of it. The BAFS started off with good intentions, but it was impractical and nothing but an adventure in extravagant nerdery.

Since then, I've given up trying to hoard TV shows and movies as it's a futile and useless task. I even find software (great software by the way) like Plex & XBMC to be a waste of time. My HTPC setup is simple:

• A Windows 7 PC plugged in via HDMI to a TV.
• Keyboard and mouse on the coffee table.
• sabnzbd running in the background.
• When I want to watch something I visit nzbmatrix, search for it, download.
• Wait a few minutes, then open the file in Media Player Classic and watch.
• Delete files once I've watched it.

I do keep a small (about 200GB) collection of rainy-day material, but they're just files dumped in a folder. I could easily set up XBMC, have a 10TB collection of 1080p movies and TV shows, ready to watch whenever I like, but it's an expensive time-sink.

• I rarely, if ever, re-watch what I download. Watch once, then delete.
• If I do want to watch something again, I can just re-download it. Unless it's some Australian content, it's pretty easy to find it again.
• I am blessed with 100mbit internet at home. A 720p TV show downloads in about 5 minutes.
• I've never found myself in the oft-used situation where people are over at my house and it's like "let's browse the HTPC and find a movie to watch!"
• There's also no technology illiterates in my house. Natalie is perfectly capable of using Windows-goddamn-Explorer.
• If something is really-really-really good (e.g: The Wire, anything by Tarantino, motherfucking Star Wars), I buy it on Blu-Ray. Awesome quality (better than a 1080p rip) and special features out the wazoo. Plus, you know, it's not illegal.

Next time you're spending cold hard cash, upgrading your HTPC with more storage for shit you'll never watch again, or spending another weekend sorting out or tweaking some auto-magic-ten-foot-UI-software package, ask yourself if it's really worth it.

In an ideal world, Apple would open up the AppleTV and each of the US TV networks would have an app (HBO, Comedy Central AMC, FX, Showtime, NBC etc.), as well as the Australian networks (which we already have on the Xbox - awesome) and pay a few bucks a month for their apps to watch the shows legitimately right after release, as well as a back catalog of older stuff. The movie studios would get their shit together and release more stuff to the iTunes store, faster, in 1080p, with special features and let me pay a flat monthly subscription (say, $50/m for unlimited access). If all these digital stars aligned, and it doesn't seem too far off from happening, I wouldn't need a HTPC at all and wouldn't need to fuck around downloading stuff off Usenet.

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You probably noticed that my attempt to crowdfund a follow up Q&A online TV series for One More Thing has bombed. I asked for $25,000 and I was offered $9,500. Seeing as the project wasn't fully funded, no-one's credit cards are charged and I don't get a cent. So even though it failed, it's not as if I ripped anyone off, or I have to make do with a pittance and try pull off what I promised. All I wasted was some time and a little bit of pride.

A logical assumption would be to try do what I wanted to do anyway, without the money, but I'm not sure if this extension of 2011's One More Thing will go any further on my own steam. I never intended to do anything post-One More Thing. Just do the conference and leave it at that. But I thought it would be a cool idea to get the pile of questions from the conference answered, plus it's a great opportunity to try my hand at some video production. A follow-up to 2011's One More Thing may still happen in some way, but I'm not going to promise anything. It's coming to the point where I need to seriously start thinking and planning One More Thing for 2012 - which if it happens (not 100%) it looks like it will have nothing to do with iOS - so time to do a 2011 follow up is slipping away.

Besides, I feel like I've worn out my welcome. Shit or get off the pot. Talk is cheap and ideas are free. Etc, etc. I'm a little embarrassed I put myself out there, talked myself up, then failed to deliver, but I'll get over that. It's probably just me being overly optimistic, ignoring my faults and creating excuses for what happened, but it's not the end of the world. A few years ago I watched James Savage talk about failure and at Webstock this year, I saw Merlin Mann talking about being scared shitless. They both explained to me that it's okay to fuck up.

It's okay to fuck up, but it's one thing to not learn from those fuck ups...

BEING AN INTERNET CHUGGER SUCKS BALLS
The hardest part of the whole crowdfunding thing asking people for money. Pozible even mention in their FAQ that you need to get over that in order to succeed. For me, that feeling didn't go away throughout the process. By the end of it, when I knew I wasn't going to get enough money, I was relieved I didn't have to do another round of pimping to get it over the line. Particularly within the cynical and snarky tech-space in Australia, it's hard to not be a wanker. I was really uncomfortable with it and for this reason, probably won't try crowdfunding again.

JUST SHUT UP AND DO IT
The other part of crowdfunding is having to do everything in public. You gotta let everyone know what you want to do and not only tell them, convince them it's a good idea. People analyse your plans, second guess you, think they know better and shit on your parade. Sometimes they're right and you're grateful, but 90% of feedback is utter shit. And you can't just dismiss these people or fob them off - due to the public nature of crowdfunding, if you retort to that feedback in a way someone doesn't like, they then spread it around to their mates that you're a dickhead and nobody gives money to dickheads.

There's a lot to be said for just shutting the fuck up and getting something done. Apple does it. Not a word about their future products is spoken about outside the company, then *boom* one day you have a finished product. That's how I like to operate. Crowdfunding isn't conducive to this. You need to share your idea and your execution, making it easy for others to interfere.

If that project fails, it fails in public. If I simply tried to get this off the ground by pitching to a few advertisers and tried to get their money, and didn't - the only people that would know would be me and a couple of advertisers. Whilst I said earlier it's okay to fail, you don't really want people to know you failed, if you can help it.

WHAT THE FUCK IS IT YOU WANT?
Easily, the biggest mistake I made was not properly communicating what I actually wanted to do. People thought it was actually going to be on TV. People didn't understand why it needed $25,000. Some thought it was going to be an indefinite thing (going on for weeks and weeks). I clearly failed to make people grasp what it was that I wanted to do. Huge mistake. I didn't give my pitch enough effort to be concise and clear enough so that a passer by gets the idea, it was far too convoluted.

This also resulted in a lack of coverage in the media, as if a journalist can't be fucked summarising it themselves (95% of the time that's the case) and it's not explained to them in such language that an illiterate person can comprehend, then you get ignored. Even with my connections within the Australian IT media, nobody covered it except for one or two of the smaller sites.

I tried to clarify the pitch towards the end, by doing two pilot episodes of the show, but that didn't go too well. I was fumbling around getting things set up, and the end product didn't accurately reflect what the show was going to be like. I also did the pilot at the end. I should have done the pilot first, then gone to crowdfunding. I think if I did a proper first episode and put a lot of effort into it, that would have been the perfect pitch and the project would have found more supporters.

I'M NOT PAYING FOR THAT
With crowdfunding projects I've supported, there's been a physical thing you know you're going to get. Something you can see and put a price on - "Oh yeah, that widget should cost $50, I'll give them $50". What I wanted to, a video show, nobody fucking pays for these days. Movies, documentaries, albums, etc. yeah, people pay for those, but not podcasts, or TV shows. That stuff is free. I was pushing shit uphill to try get people to pay for something they would normally get for free.

The rewards I was giving were not that enticing either, particularly in the low end. I don't know how I could have better done that, but I'm sure there was some way to improve the rewards which would have seen an increase in supporters.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND?
It was a bit disappointing to see that a lot of people I thought would have my back, didn't even bother throwing in a a few dollars. Sure, they may have thought the idea was balls, but if it was the reverse, I'd have given at least some pity money. I don't know why they didn't support me. Maybe they don't really like me? Or they thought the idea was so stupidly shit, they couldn't bring themselves to put their hard earned towards it and didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me it sucked. Honestly don't know the reasons, but I know it really upset me at first. I'm talking about people I talk to almost daily, people I've loaned substantial amounts of money to, people I've gone out of my way for. I guess it becomes clear who really thinks what of you when money is involved.

IT'S NOT KICKSTARTER
I wrote about this already. I don't think it was a major factor, but it certainly hampered US Apple related blogs giving a damn.

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I'm noticing a significant amount of indignant and upset people complaining about something they have every little knowledge about. It's time to put the iPhone 4S into perspective.

Making a Mobile Phone is Fucking Hard - There seems to be this impression, that every year, without fail, there's a massive leap in mobile technology. That was true initially, but 4 years on and that progression has slowed down. Hardware (and software) improvements and new designs just don't come out of thin air. That shit is difficult. Think about the steps required to improve the things you want improved in your device. Not easy is it? Change in this industry comes incrementally. Even with Apple's massive cash pile and the brightest engineers in the world, there's limits to the possibilities of physics and engineering, as well as the difficulties in bringing that to market on a mass scale at a realistic price.

With that preamble, let's go through the common complaints about the iPhone 4S and explore why most of them are nothing but whinging from people that don't know any better - like a kid who wants to go higher on the swing, but doesn't realise that the higher you go, the higher the chances of breaking your neck. It's not a personality flaw, or even stupidity, it's simply a case of not knowing the logical reasons behind the decisions Apple takes (hint: they aren't out to deliberately mislead, deceive or deprive you - they want to give you what you want in order to increase the chances of you giving them money!)

NO NEW DESIGN, NOT BUYING
Easily the most pathetic complaint regarding the iPhone 4S is that it's the same design - why the shitfuck should Apple change the iPhone design for no good reason? If you analyse Apple's designs (they have many products, so they do some backflips, aka iPod Shuffle), they generally move on when there's a real case for improvement. The Mac Pro has been the same since 2003. Why change it? It works damn well, looks beautiful and the manufacturing process is already in place. Apple is very proud of the iPhone 4 design, Steve Jobs even compared it to a Leica camera. Honestly, go out to the rest of the market and find phone with better build quality. Some designs may be more practical than others and taste in what is aesthetically pleasing varies, but the iPhone 4 is an industrial engineering masterpiece, produced in enormous scales. Nobody makes a single model phone in the quantities Apple does. That's not to say nobody makes a quality phone, but there's very few (or none, I'm yet to see one) that rival the construction quality of the iPhone 4. When you've got a product such as that, selling like absolute hotcakes, which probably cost tens of millions to design, why throw it away for some whiney "but mummmmmm it looks the same, I don't want it" droning? Besides, it means your iPhone 4 accessories still work!

I WANTED A BIGGER SCREEN, IPHONE 4S DOES NOT COMPETE
A larger screen sounds great in theory, and even looks quite nice on other phones - but there are trade offs with that decision to go for a larger display. The most obvious trade off with a larger screen is a larger phone over all. Some of you might not mind this (I don't mind a larger device, I have relatively manly hands), but then the whole balance between, size, weight, proportions and how the device fits in your hand is changed. There's also the fact that the larger screens are mainly AMOLED, which in my opinion, are not as good as the IPS panel Apple employs. There's a head to head comparison here on Engadget. The display on the current Galaxy model is improved over the one in that review, but the criticisms of AMOLED vs. IPS are still true. Then there's the fact nobody (LG, Samsung, Sharp, etc.) is making AMOLED displays at the 640×960 resolution Apple is locked in to. Change the screen res to anything other than 640×960 or 1280x1920 and you have a clusterfuck of epic proportions (aka, Android apps).

IT'S NOT DIFFERENT ENOUGH TO THE IPHONE 4 TO WARRANT MY HARD EARNED MONIES
I totally dig that. It's one of the more legitimate concerns. I too like lording it up with my new shiny iThing when people I dislike are left in a technological stone age with the digital equivalent of a flint stone axe. But actually complaining about the new thing not being that much better than your old thing is rationally a good thin. It's testament to how good Apple's product is, that the one from last year still works just as well as you want it to. Would you rather they release a new device every 6 months that totally makes what you have obsolete? (I would love that, but most people wouldn't). I love bells and whistles as much as the next guy, but what did you expect from Apple to include? Some of the more commonly bleated omissions are are NFC and LTE (the only ones I could find besides a larger screen and older design, which I covered above). NFC, which I do want and reckon would be cool, isn't quite ready for prime time. For whatever reason, Apple didn't see it worth adding. I think if Apple added it, then it would drive adoption and then make it useful, but whatever, they didn't and NFC is minor in the scheme of things. LTE (aka 4G) is the other and well, have you see the power consumption of LTE devices? And all that LTE coverage around the world? Yeah.. So taking all that into consideration, there's not a lot Apple could have feasibly improved upon from the iPhone 4 without hitting the limits of technology and mass market suitability. And that's a good thing (for you, not me, I want a new iPhone every 3 months, no matter how minor or the cost) as the obsolescence curve can be toned down a little - one of the major complaints people have with these technogadgetythings.

ANDROID PHONE HAD IT ALREADY! WHY WOULD I BOTHER?
Android device makers (Samsung, HTC, etc.) flood the market with new devices and their upgrade cycle coincides with whatever new parts are available for them to cobble together a new phone. There's nothing wrong with that and I like that approach. Just don't begrudge Apple for not being first and insulting them for it (and vice versa for when a competitor implements a feature the iPhone had first, like a high PPI display). When HTC release a flagship phone with the same CPU that Samsung put in theirs, does that mean HTC shouldn't bother? The parts in all these mobile phones are pretty much made by Qualcomm, nVidia, Samsung or Texas Instruments, using the same ARM based architecture. It's pretty much the same as desktop computers and the manufacturers waiting for Intel to spit out a new CPU for them to include in a machine. Apple custom design their own SoC package to suit their needs (that's why they purchased PA Semi), but the fact is, semiconductor technology progresses at a certain pace and nobody really has that massive edge. Apple had a head start with the A4, but other manufacturers caught up when the SoC makers figured out how to eek more power out of the silicon and vice versa.

Hopefully that explains why the iPhone 4S is the way it is. Judge the device based on your needs and if your current gear does it for you, consider yourself lucky. If you think there's a better Android device out there, stick it to Apple and purchase that thing. Just don't whine that the iPhone 4S doesn't do things that are technologically unfeasible, impractical or impede on the overall iPhone experience.

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An Apple event has just concluded and the most frustrating aspect of this usually fascinating occurrence in the IT industry is the Australian media's reporting of it. Why do I care? Well the stuff below is what most Australians use to form an opinion on the iPhone, so what they write is important in terms of the general population's technology education and expectations. Plus as someone who knows a fair bit about the topic at hand, it's frustrating to see bullshit spread far and wide. It's no different to how a doctor might react to some story about the latest medical breakthrough. Irrational infuriation. I should just ignore it, but I can't let this slide without giving an opinion.

I purposely didn't include dedicated IT websites (Gizmodo, IT News, ZD Net, Delimiter, etc.) as they have their own brand of stupid, which is particularly jarring as they should know better. Read on to enjoy the antics of our revered tech news journalists. Whatever you do, *do not* read the comments on these sites if you value your sanity. The level of stupidity there is off the charts.

Fairfax/SMH/The Age

News Corp/News.com.au/Herald Sun

Jen Dudley weighs in with "REBOOT: Apple's new iPhone fails expectations" - another loaded headline, giving a summary of the event and flippantly comparing the iPhone to the competition: Samsung Galaxy S II - a clone of the iPhone, but running Android and the HTC EVO 3D, which the must-have 3D camera. Oh, and of course, the obligatory mention of Apple shares dropping after the announcement. Which happens every announcement, then rallies within a week to an all-time high. Waste of space.

Unrelated to the launch, but written just in time to stir the pot and generate page views for News Corp is Rosemarie Lentini's piece about "Apple's iTunes 'gouging' Australians", spun upon an opportunistic NSW State Fair Trading Minister giving his utterly vote grabbing opinion. Absolutely no mention of the fact that iTunes content pricing is dictated by the content owner, not by Apple. Yawn. Gutter trash.

Ninemsn

Regurgitating stuff from the AFP - New iPhone: Fans after complete revamp disappointed - nothing blatantly offensive within. Just the headline (which NineMSN would have come up with) pre-emptively sets the tone, without any actual mention in the article from Apple fans. Shit stirring.

The Australian

The Australian didn't bother with a journalist either, cobbling something together from AP, NewsCore and WSJ. The headline is sensible - Apple unveils the iPhone 4S at event at Cupertino - which is what happened and is accurate. The article itself is just a recount of what happened and the stats Apple gave out. The best piece about the event I reckon. No judgements, no hyperbole, no attempt to stir the pot simply to get pageviews or comments - just facts.

They also link to some opinion from an analyst in a piece from Chris Griffin, with some common sense, stating that the iPhone 4S won't be a big massive smash, but will still make Apple fuckloads of money and let them continue to lead their market. Chris also has another piece stating that the iPhone 4S doesn't work on 4G networks (duh). I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, as the level of understanding regarding wireless networks is stupendously low considering how heavily we rely on them. Not a bad job from The Australian. The least shit coverage for sure.

ABC

The ABC take the AFP route too. All that's been added is a paragraph at the start, stating that the iPhone 4S isn't the model we expected and the share price dropped. Aww. The really crappy thing is that on the ABC's front page, it has a headline of "iFlop?" giving the notion that the iPhone 4S has already failed, despite not being released yet. But when you visit the article, the headline changes again, to: "Apple unveils faster iPhone, share price falls" The first part is right, the 2nd part, whilst correct, is misleading. Like I said before, every time there's an announcement, the market reacts like this, only to have Apple shares worth more in a few days. A slight drop in share price is hardly worth mentioning. The reaction of some financial dorks should not be taken into consideration when judging the quality or user reaction to a product. If there was say, a 10% or 15% decrease, that's maybe worth something, but 4% is a blip as far as this stuff goes.

Australian Financial Review

Been Woodhead focusses on the financial impact of the launch, as that's the AFR's prerogative. What perplexed me was the decision to dedicate a large chunk of the story to tweets from random, unimportant people on Twitter, voicing their equally unimportant opinions on a device they don't own or have even held. Bizarre. There's also an article about how the retail sector may be shitty because the iPhone 4S apparently won't sell as well as an iPhone 5, but I can't read it due to the paywall.

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Seeing as you read this blog, no doubt you've noticed me pimping this project around the Internet for a few weeks. Whilst pimping, I've been asked similar questions often and it is tiring to repeat them over and over to each person individually. So, here's a blog post explaining some of the common questions, in detail for everyone to read. Enjoy.

Why didn't you use Kickstarter? What the shit is Pozible?

Not to denigrate Pozible, but you're right, I should have used Kickstarter (I like Kickstarter). Kickstarter has that immediate cachet and makes people think "ooh, Kickstarter, cool shit in here". Pozible, despite being practically the same thing, doesn't enthuse people like Kickstarter does. So why did I use it over Kickstarter? Kickstarter needs you to use Amazon Payments and agree to these terms:

To be eligible to start a Kickstarter project, you need to satisfy the requirements of Amazon Payments. Check each requirement to confirm:

• I am 18 years of age or older.
• I am a permanent US resident with a Social Security Number (or EIN).
• I have a US address, US bank account, and US state-issued ID (driver’s license).
• I have a major US credit or debit card.

I'm over 18, but the rest, I do not have. The dudes making the Opena (nice guys btw, can't wait for mine to ship) who are Australian, got around the last 3 requirements by having a relative in the US set up the project for them. I unfortunately, do not have anyone in the US I know well enough to handle that significant amount of money for me. Poizlbe is Australian and all they ask for is an AU bank account, which I have.

That is why I didn't use Kickstarter.

$25,000!? Are you out of your fucking mind? How many hookers are included in that estimate?

There's two threads within that sort of comment (which has been by far, the most prevalent opinion regarding the project): 1. "It shouldn't be that big and elaborate. Scale down your ambition and you'll be able to get it done without having to beg for money on the Internet like a hobo" and 2. "$25,000 is pretty expensive for what you want to do, it shouldn't cost that much."

In reply to thread 1 - I want to aim large. I want the quality of the production to justify the quality of the content. Throughout my time running MacTalk and doing things like this, the broken window theory has always rung true for me. It's like how you have apps such as Garageband, or iPhoto, which are so beautiful and so enticing, that you want to create stuff in order to use them. Sure, it's no excuse for crappy content, but if your content is presented poorly, it's going to have less chance at success.

I totally understand the just get it out there on a tiny budget line of thinking. The whole thing about not trying to be perfect, but just putting it out there. I've done that. I'm lucky enough now that I can at least try to do a project with the people and resources I want, rather than with what's lying around. Some people are not as lucky as me and need to do it with no resources. I know how that feels, I've done that, and it sucks. Nobody does that by choice, but by necessity. I'm going to give doing it as best as I can a shot, rather than just getting by.

For the second point - that $25,000 is too much money for a production like this, then you may be right. If you crunch numbers and scrimp a bit, you can lower the price, but when you budget for something, you over estimate. I've been left short so many times when I try to accurately budget. It's always better to have more than you expect, than less. Anyone who has had experience in broadcast quality television will explain to you that $25,000 for a 5-episode show is bottom of the barrel. When split across the series, it's only $5,000 per episode. When you consider hiring 5 cameras per shoot ($250 each), almost 15 lights, 6 microphones, paying guests for their travel expenses (Hobart, Brisbane, Sydney x3, Perth x2), hiring somewhere to shoot the thing and building a set - plus extra things like websites, promotional material, music, motion graphics and hosting, $5,000 per episode doesn't leave much fat in the budget.

I know I sold MacTalk and apparently have a large chunk of cash lying around (which I don't, but I'll let you believe I do), why would I spend $25,000 of it on a project that won't make any money? The idea of crowdfunding is that people are supporting a project they want to see happen. Lots of people, chipping in a little bit in order to enjoy the fruits of someone's labour. It's not some scam for you to give me money which I keep and sit on. I gotta spend that money to make the show!

Why are you focussing on iOS development? You don't even code. What gives? What's in it for you?

Damn straight I don't code. I don't even design apps. I also can't play an instrument, but I still love music. I can't kick a football more than 20 meters, but I like footy. I admire the talents and skill required to develop software and the people I've met who do it well and do it for a living are inspirational. Their work is also incredibly fun and useful.

Initially, I simply wanted to meet the people behind the apps I use every day. Then I wanted to know more about them and their journey and share that with others. Now I want to encourage the wider developer community to create awesome software that I might use.

There's also the chance to have a nice closing chapter to One More Thing - this whole thing came out of a conference about iOS development. Next year, I don't think we'll be doing another conference about iOS, so this gives me a chance to wrap up all the loose ends regarding iOS and focus on another area that One More Thing can explore.

A big factor is that I also enjoy the process. Planning and creating a conference was kinda enjoyable. It was stressful at times, but the work itself was great and the outcome was wonderful. Same with this video project - I'm an A/V nerd, so getting to use cameras, lighting, mics and recording interesting content, then editing it and presenting it as best as I can is fun. It's like making a cake or a special dish. The process of cooking is just as fun as eating the meal at the end.

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This review originally featured on MacTalk back in the day. I thought it was rather good, so I'm keeping it here as a reminder of my ability to string words together. It also had photos, with witty captions, but they've been lost in the process of 3 server upgrades.

I'M SITTIN' THE HELL OUTTA THIS CHAIR.

Some of you nerdier types may have already heard of Sumo Lounge. They're pimped around nerd circles often (ala Penny Arcade, Something Awful etc.) as geeks have no respect for traditional furniture and relish the opportunity to be extremely comfortable whilst doing geek activities, such as reading, playing video games or munching on some Cheetos Cheese and Bacon Balls while watching an even-numbered Star Trek movie. If you haven't heard of Sumo Lounge, I welcome your fine Australian buttocks to a new world of comfort. Sumo have finally decided to sell their wares here in Australia via their website. Currently, only a single model of the Sumo Lounge range is available to us Australians - the Omni.

The Sumo Lounge Omni is pretty much a fancy bean bag. A big, fancy bean bag. With features that make it a modern, big, fancy bean bag. Everyone loves a good bean bag and as an expert fat-arse, lazy, geek, I have sat on many bean-bags in my time. The Omni is one of the best I have plunged my vast body mass into. This ain't your grandma's bean-bag. This piece of awesome literary exhibitionism will detail why I, lord of the bean bags, liked the Omni.

All Sumo Lounges come pre-filled with beans, which is cool, as I hated putting the foam beans into bean bags. I make a huge mess and there are little white dots everywhere. They're A-grade beans too, so don't worry about them becoming worn out too quickly and having to re-fill it. It had a hard time getting in the house (the courier and I had to lean hard to shove it through front door), but once it's in, you do not need to worry.

My favourite feature is that the material on the Omni is easy to clean. Ever eaten a nice big plate of nachos, covered in sour cream, raised that large corn chip to your mouth with that giant dollop of cream and had it drop, straight on your couch? Yeah, I've been there too and it sucks (you can still see the stains). The Omni however is made out of BALLISTIC NYLON, which I naively thought means it's bulletproof. Alas, it is simply PVC coated nylon which is super durable but smooth. Don't go shooting it.

The Omni is huge. It's 137cm x 167cm, Which means it supports a beached whale like me and possibly like you. Us fatties can launch themselves into the Omni and it will just sit there and take it. It's also really durable (again, useful for lardos), with NO RIP stitching and fabric.

My only complaint with the Omni is that it's so comfortable, I don't want to get up, which leads to a sore bladder or angry girlfriend. Both if you ain't careful.

Some specs:

• $199 inc. delivery to QLD, ACT, VIC, NSW - you other states can't even order as you're too far away from the rest of Australia. Sumo are looking into how to get bean bags to you.
• Five colours, so it will fit into your cave's decor.
• Satisfaction Guarantee. If for some reason this bean bag rubs you the wrong way in your first week of owning it, Sumo will give you back your money.
• The Omni is filled with virgin polystyrene foam (little white foam balls). That means you get to pop their cherry. I knew you'd like that. Pervert.

Check out the Sumo website, where there are hot chicks lounging around on sacks full of beans. Unfortunately, they aren't lounging on either of our sacks. Damn. Still, we can dream. Maybe if you buy a Sumo Lounge Omni, hot women will lounge on it. Maybe. While you're at the Sumo website, watch this video, it will change your life.

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This review originally featured on MacTalk back in the day. I thought it was rather good, so I'm keeping it here as a reminder of my ability to string words together. It also had photos, with witty captions, but they've been lost in the process of 3 server upgrades.

So this is what my life has come to.

24 years old and I'm reviewing sex toys on the Internet. Not just on the internet, that's bad enough, but on a forum full of people who belong in the portion of society most likely to be virgins. My mother is proud me. Yes she is.

Okay, now, this item is called the Naughtinano and it is from the spiffy guys and girls at OhMiBod. It's a vibrator. A fake penis that rumbles. A "marital aid". If you're male, this thing is probably useless for you. Unless your into prostate stimulation. Even then, I'm not sure how this device would help, but if you want to buy it to try it out, fuck, who am I to judge? It keeps the economy going. Use that $1,000 bonus from the government to buy it with for all I care. It is a government "stimulus" after-all.

If you're one of the scarce females that reads MacTalk then GODDAMN today is your day. This review is for you ladies. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a woman-friend who would test the Naughtinano. Even when I told them it's purely for science, that I don't need to be in the same room (just close enough so I can hear) and that I won't be recording the process onto video, they still didn't warm to the idea. So dear reader, this is the first review on MacTalk I have written that does not include a rigorous testing regime. Hence, it may not be up to the usual standards. For this, I apologise. I will try my best.

I will assume you know how a vibrator works and what you're supposed to do with it. If you don't, well, you have the internet. Research. This vibrator in particular is only being reviewed here because of it's special feature - the ability to plug in an iPod and have it vibrate in time to the music. The vibrator itself simply has a 3.5mm jack on the end that can accept any sort of audio input, not just iPods. TV's, DVD players, your Nintendo DS, your computer, whatever floats your boat (or the little man in it).

Now, I have very little experience with vibrators, dildo's or any other sort of sex toy. Interpret this as you wish, but I have no qualms with it and I am at peace with myself. From my lack of experience, I would assume this is quite a regular sized device. I'm sure most women would find it perfectly adequate. If not, then my manhood has been shattered into a million tiny pieces. The Naughtinano is more rubbery/silicone than it is smooth and shiny. I do not know how this would go, err, internally, but I'm sure the brains at OhMiBod took this into consideration during product testing.

In the box it comes with the vibrator itself, the appropriate cable to go from iPod to vibrator and split the sound to your headphones, a cap for the vibrator so it can be used sans-music, a "velvet privacy pouch" and two sets of batteries.

You simply use the cable to plug one end into your iPod, then the other into the vibrator. Then insert your headphones into the free socket (heh, sockets and plugs and inserting) and away you go. You control the intensity of the vibrations via the volume. The louder the noise, the more vibrating. Easy! You don't want to think too hard whilst using this, do you now?

I have two niggling complaints with the Naughtinano. For starters, the privacy pouch. It ain't that frickin' private! I have no doubt that if anyone saw this fluffy pink pouch with OhMiBod written on it, one would be inclined to investigate and therefore discover the device. Maybe something more discrete would work well here. Secondly, the batteries. N-type cells?! I don't know where you buy them from, but the supermarket sure doesn't sell them. Assuming the Naughtinano hits the right spot, I can imagine the batteries dying fast and the last thing you want is a flat battery in the middle of that event. No-one has N-type cells in their home. AA's, AAA's, yes. But N-type cells, no. Dumb idea OhMiBod.

So, to the question on your mind. Will it give me earth-shattering orgasms to my favourite music? The answer is yes. If you're into a an anatomically incorrect rubber fake penis that rumbles like a possessed robot lingering around your genitalia. I'm no expert, but from the girls I hang out with (to the three of you reading this, you don't think less of me at all do you? No, no you don't.), this sort of thing just doesn't appeal to them. I'm sure there's a couple of chicks that *really* like music and wish it was Damon Albarn, John Lennon, Josh Homme or something instead of the fake cock. That's cool, I wouldn't expect less, but really, it's not the guy that sang those beautiful words, so um, no-wonder us geeks can't get a date. However, th aim here is to get you off and if having music helps, then damn it, I won't deny you that.

What the Naughtinano does bring to the table however, is being able to show off my skill at making playlists that would make good vibrator companions. I present to you, Decryption's Orgasmolicious Playlist:

1. The Beatles - Come Together
2. Blur - I'm Just a Killer For Your Love
3. Queens of the Stone Age - Make It With Chu
4. Muse - Stockholm Syndrome
5. Mogwai - Glasgow Mega Snake
6. Cut Copy - Going Nowhere
7. Air - Dirty Trip
8. PNAU - Embrace
9. The Presets - Down, Down, Down

Alternatively, get any Presets song - I'm pretty sure they're a plant by OhMiBod in order to sell vibrators. Feel free to suggest your own playlist. Actually, OhMiBod even has a community where people share their playlists. They call it Club Vibe, heh. I have not ventured into this community, but I am sure it's full of great suggestions.

And before you ask, what is next for the Naughtinano review unit I received, it will be sent (un-used) to a friend. Merry Christmas Nicola!

You can buy your own from OhMiBod Australia for $99 inc shipping. Thank Christ for discrete shipping methods. There's a whole bunch of accessories too. Oh, and a video of it in action. It's not as good as you think it is though.

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This review originally featured on MacTalk back in the day. I thought it was rather good, so I'm keeping it here as a reminder of my ability to string words together. It also had photos, with witty captions, but they've been lost in the process of 3 server upgrades.

Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles is a condiment. A condiment that isn't well loved.

It has been relegated to obscurity behind trendier condiments such as avocado spreads, or simply ignored for old favourites like tomato sauce or it's fancier, American mustard variety. In an attempt to learn more about the subject I am reviewing, I wanted to know the history behind it, however, the lineage of Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles isn't exactly clear. I Googled for minutes and I failed find anything relating to the history of Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles, let alone Leggo's variety. It is such a neglected condiment, that no-one cared about it enough to create a Wikipedia article. Not even a mention in the main Mustard article. This review might enlighten you to it and spread awareness of this red-headed step child of the condiment world.

What exactly is in Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles I hear you ask? Well, it's a bunch of yellow shit (mustard I presume), mixed with pickle and cauliflower. There's a heap of other crap listed on the ingredients, but most of it is irrelevant. Unless you're allergic to colours 100 and 102 that is. If so, don't eat this. If you need the full spec sheet, hit up the Leggo's website.

How's it taste? Pretty damn good. Usually around 11pm - 1am you can find me in the kitchen (in my underwear of course) slathering this all over four pieces of bread and then sliding some quality bacon between those slices of bread and totally gorging myself. If you've ever digested mustard before, this is pretty close in taste, but it's a bit sweeter than your usual Dijon or American mustard (hence the "Sweet" in "Sweet Mustard Pickles"). It has a runny consistency and is less grainy than regular mustard, if you care about such things. For me hoever, the real kicker is the addition of pickles *with* the mustard. Getting those chunky bits of pickled cucumber is like winning a mini-lottery. I am a pickle fan, as well as a mustard fan, so it's a match made in heaven. The cauliflower, I can do without, but seeing as it's drowned in the mustard, I'll forget it's there and just stomach it.

I strongly recommend the sandwich variety, as the "regular" sweet mustard pickles are quite a challenge to spread. There are more chunks and it's thicker, which means you will probably end up tearing the bread, then when you eat the sandwich, it leaks out and you get stains on your t-shirt. Not cool. Not cool at all. People will unfairly think you're a slob. The chunkier version is great on hot dogs or as a side to something else, so it has it's place. Good thinking Leggo's - that's what I call innovation.

Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles sells for around $2.49 (I forget the exact price) for a smaller jar down at the local supermarket and has a really long use-by date. So buy a jar, stick it in your pantry and leave it there. You never know when the need will arise. You'll have friends over, about to tuck into a boring, plain and pathetic sandwich consisting solely of bread and bacon (or any other sort of processed meat) and then it will hit you - "I saw that fucking stupid review of Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles on MacTalk, which has nothing to do about Macs, or talking, but I bought a jar anyways and never used it. Until now. My sorry excuse for a sandwich is now full of win thanks to Leggo's Sweet Mustard Sandwich Pickles.

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This review originally featured on MacTalk back in the day. I thought it was rather good, so I'm keeping it here as a reminder of my ability to string words together. It also had photos, with witty captions, but they've been lost in the process of 3 server upgrades.

You that when, your one Macs. You unlike Macs, somebody the Macs.

That is the first word of each chapter in this book I am about to review. For some people that will be enough to judge this book on. For everyone else, take a seat, put your iPhone into airplane mode (if you don't know how to do that, then don't bother reading this review, buy the freakin' book already - you need it) and read on to see if these books are worth your hard earned pesos.

Wiley, a well respected book publisher lowered themselves to my level and took the risk to send me copies of their latest publication series, titled PORTABLE GENIUS. I assume this is a reference to the fact that Apple stores have GENIUSES and that books are PORTABLE, hence, PORTABLE GENIUS. Quite intelligent there Wiley. There's currently nine books in the series: Aperture 2, MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Final Cut pro, Macs, iMac, Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone 3G. Why each laptop needs it's own book is beyond me, but Wiley aren't dummies. They'll fly off shelves I'm sure of it. I was given the books about Macs and iPhone 3G. I did not ask for these, they were given to me. They assumed these were appropriate titles for me or the readership of MacTalk. Again, Wiley are very observant as I thought them to be quite appropriate for MacTalk too.

I will be honest and say I did not read these books cover to cover. For starters, I already know everything there is to know about Macs and iPhones. Reading these books would be like Bill Gates reading a book on how to make money. Futile. He is already rich. I did flick through it, just to see what Wiley and the authors McFederies & Pabian are telling people about the iPhone and the Mac. From what I did gleam off my brief reading, I can safely say they are A+ books.

Both titles and indeed, the whole series, are in full colour, with many screenshots to explain processes, pictures and diagrams. Chapters are set out as questions so you know exactly what you are getting. The content is useful. If you're the type of person who either has no clue at all what this eye-phone does or their MAC is foreign to them, then you will be enamoured with these titles. If you're the person who knows the basics and wants a bit more, you'll get good value from them. If you're an old hand at this technology stuff, there probably isn't a lot in these books that you'd give a crap about. Christmas is approaching, so buy it as a gift for that newb who keeps bothering you with their stupid questions.

Some stats:

• 345 pages (Macs Portable Genius), 267 (iPhone 3G Portable Genius)
• Paperback, nice feel to the paper.
• ISBN: 978-0-470-42348-6 (iPhone) | 978-0-470-29052-1 (Macs)
• They were written for Karen and Gypsy. Lucky ducks. A whole two books dedicated to them.
• Width: 160mm, Height: 230mm, Thickness: 20mm (iPhone Portable Genius is the same, but only 15mm in thickness)
• Available wherever good books are sold. Or the Wiley website.
• $28 Canadian dollars, $25 United States dollars or 3,295 Australian cents.
• If you are a book retailer or librarian, place these book in the Computers / Hardware / Macintosh / Peripherals area.

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This review originally featured on MacTalk back in the day. I thought it was rather good, so I'm keeping it here as a reminder of my ability to string words together. It also had photos, with witty captions, but they've been lost in the process of 3 server upgrades.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

-Benjamin Franklin

That quote is emblazoned on the side of the packaging of the 3G JUICE. It's placed there to make you think about how fantastic the product is, or to contemplate on the amazing piece of technology inside. Maybe the intention is simply to be a handy tip for life. A reminder that if you put enough energy (lol energy, it's a battery, get it?) and stick at something for long enough, that you will accomplish anything. If you don't know who Benjamin Franklin is, you're a douchebag. If you liked that quote after reading it on the side of a box and don't know who Benjamin Franklin is, you're a velocodouche.

The 3G JUICE (in caps as that's how it's written on the blurb on the back of the box), is a rechargeable lithium polymer battery with a dock connector on it. Simple. Anything with a dock connector, the 3G JUICE can power. iPhones, iPods, iPod Touch, your mum. Wait, not the last one, she doesn't have a dock connector. Besides, she brings her own batteries.

Why does one need an extra battery for their iPod or iPhone? For the iPod, you probably want it because you're going on a long trip or plan to be somewhere where you can't charge your iPod for a while. The iPhone however, you will need if you plan on being outside for more than 3 hours. An exaggeration, but iPhone 3G owners know what I'm getting at. This is not Apple's fault or the iPhone's fault. Many things outside of Apple's control lead to poor battery life on the iPhone and hence, the need for a product like the 3G JUICE:

• 802.11g and 3G radio chipsets. 3.5" high res, bright, full colour touch screen.
• Battery in iPhone is thin as we like thin devices.
• iPhones are so damn good that we use them 24/7, where as other "smartphones" are so shit, we avoid using them.

Add all those up and at the end of the day, you have a alerts on your iPhone saying the device will explode unless you find a power socket. Luckily, 3G JUICE has you covered.

Unless you lack opposable thumbs, the 3G JUICE is idiot proof. Charge it up via a USB port (this is where a 7-port, powered, USB hub is awesome) and simply hang onto it until you need to use it. When you do, take off the cap, jam it in the arse of your iPod or iPhone and BOOM, you are no longer hyperventilating due to the impending doom of living without your iThing. The iPhone (I'm just going to write iPhone now, if you have an iPod, pretend I'm saying iPod okay), just assumes it's plugged into a wall charger and happily goes about it's business, being a parasite to the 3G JUICE, sucking away at it's electronic teat of electrons and whatever.

The 3G JUICE is effectively the same size as the internal iPhone battery, so on an iPhone 3G, it will be able to charge your depleted battery and then some. With the 3G JUICE in tow, you can double whatever use you get now on your iPhone. Handy hey? Not many other iPhone batteries have such high capcity, so this is something to consider when looking for a spare.

3G JUICE tell me that you can leave the battery charged and without use, for up to a year and it will still retain it's full charge, ready to power your iPhone when you want it. So don't worry about leaving it in your backpack/man-purse/bum-bag/whatever you carry your stuff in and discovering in a few weeks, that when you really need it, it's flat. That won't happen. I promise.

That isn't to say the 3G JUICE is infallible. During day-to-day use, I discovered two quite silly design flaws. The first issue being the implementation of a cap to cover the dock connector. Sure the cap is useful, protecting the dock connector for such evils like talcum powder, acid rain, dog saliva and Dr. Pepper, but I hate having to put the cap somewhere while it's in use. Some sort of sliding or retractable cap/cover would be kickin' rad and way cooler than a simple cap. I hate loose caps. I will misplace them and hence, my life will be ruined. I'll fall into a hole of drugs and booze and turn into one of those jaded, bitter product reviewers. Nah-uh, not the life for me.

Annoyance #2 is that the USB port is obscured when plugged in. The DLO Jumpstart (another iPhone battery) has the USB port on the opposite side as the dock connector, allowing a pass-through. The 3G JUICE does not do this. It is obfuscated by the iPhone. Poor. Very poor. Would it have killed them to place that mini-USB port down the bottom of the battery?

Some bad news if you're a 1st-Gen iPod Touch or iPod Nano user, you can't use a (not just the 3G JUICE, but any) spare battery pack whilst listening to your music, as it will cover the headphone socket. Sorry guys. You will be required to stop rockin' out to Mastodon or cutting yourself to Panic at the Disco and let your iPod charge whilst it makes sweet electronic love with the 3G JUICE.

I took the 3G JUICE (and the DLO Jump Start) on a road-test at the iPhone Tech Talk in Melbourne last week. I figured someone's gonna need this bad-boy, considering there will be approximately 15 million iPhones in the one room and that all of us such die-hard nerds that we can't keep our hands off our iPhones for more than 10 minutes. By around 4pm, I was everyone's best friend with my spare iPhone batteries. Three MacTalk users who can tolerate my obnoxious smell used the 3G JUICE to see them out until they got to the next power outlet. This is what they said to me whilst using it:

Quamen: "3G JUICE stole my girlfriend, murdered my sister and scored with my mum. I HATE 3G JUICE"
Xenex: "This is the bestest Christmas ever!"
fulltimecasual: "Get your hand off my knee Anthony. No seriously, get your creepy hands off my knee you creepy fucking creep."

I get a distinct feeling they didn't understand what I was asking them. Morons.

Make no doubt about it, a spare battery for your iPhone is something any good geek should have, along with a 16GB USB storage device and a 3G modem for your laptop. The 3G JUICE works as advertised. Which isn't surprising as it's pretty hard to fuck up a simple battery. Unless it's a cheap battery that explodes in your hands, requiring finger amputation. Then you're totally up shit creek without a paddle, as how do you use your iPhone then? With no fingers. Your tongue? An iPhone wand you hold in your mouth? Jesus H. Christ. Luckily for us, the 3G JUICE uses a pretty good battery. It won't explode. I hope.

Specs:

• Battery Capacity: 1800mAh
• Time to full charge: 3-6hrs
• Weight: 45g
• Battery Manufacturer: C-BAK
• Battery Type: Lithium Polymer
• Dimension: 62mm × 60mm x 12.9mm
• Price: $84.90
• Website & Purchasing Info: http://www.3gjuice.com.au

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