Hamarana

It seems that the NSW government is going to employ “specialist nurses” to work in emergency depts in Newcastle and Sydney because of the escalating nature of binge drinking. The words “stable door” and “horse” spring to mind.

The advertising campaigns have failed. The school education programs have failed. Here’s the solution…

SHUT THE DAMN PUBS AT A DECENT HOUR AND DONT LET THEM OPEN SO EARLY! (oh wait… thats no good… state revenue will fall through the floor)

Also… how about preventing the manufacture of alcoholic beverages which are designed to get young girls and boys on the booze… if it tastes like softdrink its a short bloody run to a binge drinker. (Oh gosh… if the kids arent on the booze, and bingeing, who’s going to pay…)

Jeez… Aussie goverments… get real… just for once. And for gods sake the money you make out of the booze is NOT worth the bodies, minds and lives of these kids.

Do something constructive, and meaningful, and stop with the bullshit solutions that will do SFA to solve the problem. I, for one, am sick to death of one government after another making itself look good by offering up a solution that those of us on the ground know is going to fail.

Now here is a very interesting thing:

I have a paypal account which I have been using in absolute safety (I thought) for a number of years. I don’t click on random links in emails and I always access Paypal by typing the address into the address bar of my browser. I have never bought anything off eBay (aka feebay) and never intend to.

And yet, a sum of $508USD was removed from my bank account without my permission or knowledge, yesterday. I have submitted a dispute to PayPal and I suppose I might get the money back. Sometime. In the meantime I have lost just over half this fortnight’s pay.

Did I want a 2G iPhone from Indonesia? erm… no…. I have an iPhone already. Do I think for one minute that this iPhone would actually arrive here? No. Am I pissed off? You betcha. Am I dumping my paypal account as soon as I can? Yep, I am.

[Addendum] Well, I must confess that I am very impressed with PayPal and not at all now inclined to follow yesterday’s kneejerk reaction. Paypal have followed up, and made a decision in my favour, and the full amount should be refunded to my bank account in this coming week. One decision I have made is that I will be unlinking my current account and linking a different account, instead. One which has no funds in it, and into which I will place funds as and when required. This situation has given me a nasty scare and I would suggest that others using Paypal do a similar thing… or only use a credit card, not a debit card, because credit cards at least have the chargeback option.

Anyway, all sorted, and within 48 hours of the original unauthorised transaction. Well done, PayPal.

For those of you who publish your own blogs:

A comment is posted by a real person who asks how to contact the site administrator, If, like me, you have your spam handler set up for certain conditions, you’ll get a notification. If, like me, you think that this is just an innocent question… don’t be foolish. There are only two outcomes:
1) You allow the comment through and answer it on site… and once the comment is through, the comment spam starts (so you go back and recategorise the original as spam, and you don’t let any more through). Observe the number of comments which have been filtered by typepad antispam since I switched from Akismet… its only been a few months to get to over 2000 and most has been in the last month. Maybe it will slow down now but I am not hopeful.
2) You email the individual concerned. If you do, make sure you do it with a disposable email address because I promise you, you will open your real email to more spam than ever, if you respond.

So.. a message to those Russian spammers who are currently trying this technique with me… Don’t bother. You are wasting your time now, I’ve figured it out.

After the StupidUser thing a couple of weeks ago, I had determined that I would seek out suitable desktop storage as well as online stuff. (I might add that I am very pleased with both Mozy and iDrive, both of which just do the backup at the interval you have specified, with no further interference from yourself. This is essential if its to be a true backup system.)

Anyway, had brekkie with a friend this morning and could feel a fit of “the buys” coming over me. I was going to go take some pix across the river, there was supposed to be some people flying kites, but the wind was almost dead and I couldn’t see anyone there, from the city side of the river so I headed down the highway to Hardly Normals, where I had seen a WD “MyBook” Essential Edition 1TB for $199 a couple of weeks back. Intended to buy it… except now the price read $299. Oops. Noticed a few other 1TB drives in the same range and decided to think smaller. I noticed the WD MYBook 500G Home Edition drive… and also noticed that it, unlike everything else on the shelf at HNs, could be daisychained to an existing drive, and more drives could be added. So, for $179, I now have a 500G WD MyBook daisychained to my existing Maxtor 200G OneTouch II. Both are using firewire to connect to each other and the computer, I may switch to USB soon as I believe USB2 is faster than Firewire400.

Anyway… I ramble, as usual. The short version is: Time Machine now has heaps of room to do its backup thing and I am happy with 700G of external storage, added to my existing 320G internal.

FYI For those who don’t have the joys of OSX to help them out. This is what the Time Machine looks like.

I arbitrarily chose to go back to 10th September and can access any file I want from that day, just as if I was accessing the Finder normally. Maybe Microsoft will produce something similar for Windows users in its next incarnation.

UGH! I swore I wasn’t going to. I upgraded my 1st generation iPhone to v2 firmware and found it sluggish and a royal pain in mnay ways, so last weekend I spent the time and effort and 4 hours later had successfully downgraded to the last of the v1 firmware, 1.1.4. Problem was, I missed some of the apps I had bought or acquired from the Apple appstore, so I decided to upgrade again and just tolerate the slower more painful backups and general accessing… easy, right? Just Option-click-Restore and reinstall your PWNed .ipsw? errr… nope. I got error after error and it did not matter whether I tried to use the pwned software, the regular Apple software, update or restore… I just got errors. So it looks like I am stuck with v 1.1.4 on this phone until/unless I work it out OR I buy a new 3G iPhone (and I am drooling at the thought… I know I shouldn’t but I am)

[Edit: 17/09/2008] Well, maybe not yet. I’ve been able to update to the newest firmware, 2.1, and the sluggishness has disappeared entirely. Phone is back to normal, fast, and functional in the latest firmware. I dont know why I am fussing, I have never updated mobile phone firmware in my life. But.. I guess this is more like a computer than a phone.

The problem with being me, is that although I do have little spendup times, generally I am painfully and tediously sensible, as many who know me well can attest to.

I really really wanted to get a new camera. And I will, it just is not going to be any of those I wanted. I was really excited about getting a decent tax refund, and had every intention of going out today and buying a superduper DSLR (yes I had changed my mind again, and had the money to be able to do that) but, instead, I have just logged out of my bank website after having just paid around $1200 in bills. Some were outstanding, most were not. Its just that time of year… theres just once in every year when it seems everything comes at once, and thats usually August/September, for me.

So… I am MAYBE going to get a new camera later today. There is an acceptable under $500 compromise, if there are any left now. Otherwise, its all going to have to wait until next year.

And I seem to have left my newish Olympus somewhere… or dropped it out of my bag… no idea… but now I have to go in to the office on my days off and search there, because there is noplace else it could possibly be. What a bloody pest.

[Edit] Camera found and new one bought. Obsolete (2007 model, now superceded by an 8100… not a lot of difference except MP) Fujifilm S8000fd, 18x zoom, 8MP, does macro and everything else I wanted it to. My 3 year old Olympus C760 will now go to live in a new home, depending on who wants it.