Blag

A blog from an expat Australian couple who have recently emigrated to New Zealand – http://www.fushnchups.co.nz/. They’ve far exceeded the usual sheep jokes, tearing the shit out of the Kiwi’s with their caustic comments. Examples include:

When you arrive in New Zealand, chances are you might hire a car. Chances are also that you may die due to the batshit crazy haphazard way many Kiwis drive.

and (describing Rotorua, a popular tourist destination):

I was always under the impression that the locals just ate too many baked beans, but no, apparently it’s the bubbling mud pools which create the stench. The smell is pretty striking when you’re just visiting the place, but I suppose the locals get used to it. Scientists tell us that the smell is actually an aphrodisiac, but I highly doubt it. It just smells like the whole town let rip at once. It still got me to thinking, does good old-fashioned flatulence still provide the giggles to Rotoru-ians that it does to others? Can blokes get away with letting out a silent-but-deadly in bed next to the missus? How do people tell when their eggs have gone off?

and

Number of times overtaken by a a fellow motorist who couldn’t handle me only doing the speed limit: about 30.

Number of times this happened when approaching a blind corner or crest: at least 10.

Number of times this happened when the overtaker was heading in my direction and I momentarily feared for my life: twice.

Yeh… it doesn’t sound that impressive reading quoted text. It’s a lot funnier reading the full articles. The blog even made headlines, havign pissed off a lot of New Zealanders. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5426019/aussie-bloggers-upset-kiwis/

Well.

Finally got around to actually constructing my website and banished all the lorem ipsum and stock placeholder images. 95% of pages have actual content on them too

It looks quite similar to the old ‘under construction’ site, but with a few artifacts as a result of its conversion to PHP and the use of a CMS.

There’s a few rough corners left – 3 pages missing content, and bugs in the LHS pane and horizontal navigation bar but otherwise all is good. The blog and wiki will also slowly start to be tied into the main website, instead of being separate entities, but due to the major design differences I doubt they will eve be completely unified.

Still can’t think of something appropriate to put on the home page though -.-

Anyone who suggests porn will be shot…

Now that that’s over, the blog updates should resume as normal. Well not one every 3 weeks anyway.

Welcome to blag’s new home at www.theparanoidtroll.com/blog

Accessing blag via the old Oz Techeducate adress will redirect to this new location. Pleas update all bookmarks or RSS feeds – they should redirect automatically, but one or two links may be broken.

Now to wait for Google to re-index the site

Woo! Replacement for my crappy Netcomm NB5Plus4 (see this post) finally arrived – the Billion 7401VGP R3

As it turns out, I bought a 7401VGP-M but actually got a free upgrade to a 2009 model (7401VGP R3), which isn’t even in the stores yet, let alone listed on the manufacturers website. Doing a Google or Whirlpool search brings up nothing – that’s how new it is. Perhaps Internode got a very advanced shipment of them.

According to the helpdesk dude, its got exactly the same features, but with a faster CPU, more ram, and newer OS which should make it more stable and increase its routing capabilities.

As side bonus, it has WiFi built in – 802.11g 54mbps admittedly, but now I have 2 wireless networks in my house. How useful…

But boy, is it an improvement.

4 wired PCs + 1 wireless laptop, all streaming data continuously, and one of the PCs running 14 active torrents and it still hasn’t crashed after 4 days now. Web interface is as responsive as ever, and includes everything AND the kitchen sink too Ambient temperature has no effect whatsoever on it, and wireless range is damn good. Not a single dropout so far either, and it syncs relatively high, considering the crappy phone line I have. The included extras were good too – 2m Cat5 cable (what, is E more expensive now?), RJ11-RJ11 6P4C telephone cable, 12v 1A power adaptor (switchmode, so no clunky hot transformer), obligatory quick start guide, warranty card, utility CD-ROM, and a very nice (and expensive) C10 Communications ADSL2+ filter/splitter  Those things cost a LOT when purchased retail…

The only downside really is that it takes a while to boot up before its usable (~1-2 minutes). However, it does sync and authenticate in <8 seconds which is a HUGE improvement on the NB5Plu4′s 2-3 minutes (important if your internet drops out frequently).

So myes, I am a happy chappy.

If only Billion would list the model on their website, so I could download a newer firmware.

Edit: Seems like more people are getting their hand on the 7401VGP R3 now. Posts are slowly starting to crop up on whirlpool about them – mainly Internode customers though.

Edit2: Seeing as I’ve been getting a lot of hits from Whirlpool users, for all you those who have ended up here looking for the firmware updates, or help with Bit Torrent and/or NAT, try sending a Whim to Quentin (Rep for Billion/Minitar). His profile is at: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-user.cfm?id=87096

Related: Internode/Billion 7401VGP R3 (http://theparanoidtroll.com/blog/?p=242), Netcomm NB5Plus4 (http://theparanoidtroll.com/blog/?p=79)