Randomrants

http://www.google.com/mobile/gmm/index.html

I’ll try this out over the weekend as well. But unless it can cache the maps, it is not going to be a lot of use in Australia due to the horrific data charges that we have in the mobile space.

• Just Launched! Google Maps on Nokia/Symbian (S60 3rd edition)
  Get a faster Google Maps experience specifically designed for your Nokia/Symbian device, including GPS support for the N95 and other GPS enabled phones. Find out more about Nokia/Symbian phones, or get the app by downloading the SIS or visiting www.google.com/gmm on your mobile web browser.
• Get GPS-Enabled Google Maps
  GPS functionality helps you find yourself (the little blue dot) right on the map.

Tags: gps by Me
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Nokia are really about to push the mapping world and gps judging by this site.

http://www.themapsters.com/preview/

They are doing the whole cute animation instruction manual for building and using maps….  This is going to tie in the with OVI think I put on the blog the other day I am sure.

Whilst it is a bit cutsie for me as a power user I don’t think I am the intended audience for this anyway. But the Flash Animations are worth looking at anyway.

Thanks to allaboutsymbian

Tags: flash, gps, nokia by Me
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from the nokia press release… – (once again my comments over the weekend :-))

first comment….  (the bugs I had in the last beta have gone away… the product is usable once more!

and here is the download link as well

http://europe.nokia.com/A4984199

Tags: gps, nokia by Me
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So we have been in the new house approaching a month now with yesterday being the first day to pay the rent. Needless to say I was not really organised and so had to pay the rent via the “DEFT” system and a credit card.

And this is the kicker. You enter your magical number into the DEFT system (Owned by Maquarie Bank) and hey presto was is the first page you get, the default option as it were…. the pay by credit card. Quick skim of the page can’t see any bad things and because the rent is due and I haven’t set up direct debit to use this system I enter the details and hit go. So off to the confirmation page the computer travels collecting a small surprise. A 19.00 dollar surcharge. Yep… 19 f’ing dollars to pay the rent via credit card.

I had no real choice at this point in time… but did fire of a quick letter to them to ask about the fee which of course is know where on the site until you hit the I am ready to pay button (yes it is before the confirm, but only just!) and here is there response…

“The Surcharge Levied by DEFT on credit card transactions is to cover the various costs of processing and settling the transaction to your Biller’s account. If you are making a payment from your registered bank account a convenience fee of $0.85 may apply. Please confirm with your biller as to whether a fee will apply.

Credit card payments may be subject to a credit card surcharge of 1.30% (inc. GST) for Visa/MasterCard, 3.773% (inc. GST) for Diners Club or 3.30% (inc. GST) for American Express. Any fees charged will apply to both phone and internet payments.

DEFT provides other convenient payment options that don’t incur a surcharge.

Please contact your Biller who will be able to advise you of alternate payment methods.

If you have any further enquires please contact DEFT support on 1800 672 162.”

Firstly it says “May”  May my arse… show me a case when it doesn’t sunshine!

Now if Aldi charge me 1$ on a credit card transaction when I do my shopping of say $100 it adds all of 1 dollar and this manages to cover their costs. Yet for some reason a transaction that is closer to $1500 costs $19… some one is making a SHIT LOAD OF MONEY (Allan Moss did… $50M!) out of it.

I find it impossible to believe that a transaction worth $100 costs less to process than a transaction of $1500, yet this is what the banks will have you believe.

So yes the banks are making a big profit and it sucks!

So I will now rant and rave to people that agree with me until they get sick of me and tell me also to shut up and stop complaining.

Tags: Annoyances by Me
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The only difference now is I am married of course, so I am not allowed to ask for kisses from other people.

Tags: Funny by Me
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Originally uploaded by wolfcat_aus

Well not much to post about today on the blog… I am sure that stuff has happened in the world of nokia for example, but I have been head down bum up in the world of Actionscript, xml, postcodes and Weather Stations.

So it was a late night at the office for me. At least a: I got a seat on the train one advantage I guess I catching the 8:15 home and b: I got some nice photos on the way.

Oh yeah and to top today off, our landline and most of the neighbours from what we can tell will be out for the next 2 days.

For those that wonder, the photos are taken on the night mode setting on the phone and standing very still.  Also aiming to get the motion of the train, means getting the shot in focus and waiting for the train to move.  Still the images worked out very well, esp as these are another case of what you see is what you get, they have not been altered in anyway shape or form.

Tags: Photos by Me
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Manhood proven again.

In this photo you get to see the spare tire from my Subaru. Not much to look at I know… I did have a photo of the flat tire, but it really didn’t look flat so I didn’t use that.

But what does this all mean. To me it means one simple thing, my manhood is intact. I could tell the car has a flat, pulled over, got the jack out of the back found the jack point, used good old fashion brute strength (kicking the crap out of the wheel nuts) removed old tire put new one on, dropped the car back down and put the jack away. All of this on a cold morning in Melbourne.

It is strange but in this post modern feministic world, changing a tire makes me feel like a man. Fine so it is not killing a wooly mammoth with a sharpened stick nor battling the Mongolian herds with an arrow, but to me it means something. There were no manuals, no freeting, just a simple realisation that a mans job needed doing and I was the man for the job.

I sit at a desk most of the day doing very esoteric stuff writing lines of code for software that will not fix world hunger, do anything about the struggle for media freedom in china or even find wmd’s where ever they may be. But this morning for 20 minutes I was a man, I slayed the beast, brought food to the cave and got to work only a little late.

I think today may be a good day after all.

P.s

My annoyance however is not with the situation this morning, it is with car manufactures that insist that you have a “Space saver spare”, cause if you ever get a flat everything will be ok. No it won’t!  The last three flat tires I have had were all within 50k’s of Melbourne.  One on a gravel road, one right next to the cbd and this one 15k’s from the CBD.  Now the Subaru would not drive on a gravel road with a space saver!. The CDB incident was at 4pm on a Sunday and we still had to drive friends out to the airport, not possible with a space saver. And this mornings incident meant we can deal with the tire later today or tomorrow and still made it to work on time, not possible with a space saver.

I will never buy a car with a space saver tire for this reason alone.  Sure they take up some room, but like house insurance, if your house burnt down would you want a policy that took up less room, or the full deal for when things go wrong.

Tags: Annoyances, General, Photos by Me
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I don’t think this will give an accurate
temp

I finally managed to have a little spare time over the weekend so go to indulge myself in one of my strange little habits… Weather Chasing 🙂

Yes I drove for 300k’s just to see some snow, take some photos and drive back again. Yep, I am that strange. However it the spirit of nerdom I have the following… geotagged photos (link to flickr set), a kml trace (showing the route home only, I have a proper track file from the R2H but haven’t converted the raw nema data yet and given that apart from a bit of the city the rest of the trip is the same anyway what does it matter) and I will in the next day or so try and compress some of the video that I made of the actual drive (Video is up on youtube… keep reading below). The video being a complete capture of the trip at 10fps at 320×240. The only reason they are this small is that the portable hd I use is only 60gig and so I can fit four hours of video like this comfortably. One day I will get around to increasing it to a 320gig version of the WD Passport then I can get higher res capture.

I also managed to send a geotagged twitter (via twibble) on the way home as well (only because Vodafone don’t have coverage at the top of the mountain). So I think the all round trip to the snow was a technological experience.

Oh yeah and I used the R2H with an FM transmitter for all the music along the way as well. So that was my weekend…. 2 gps’s a car and some snow…. all round lots of fun.

I like this photo just about the most of all the ones I got today

This was taken coming through a bit of the road called the Black Spur.

Both of the following videos are just the bit between Healesville, through the Black Spur, Marysville and upto the top of Lake Mountain. There are a couple of stops to take photos as well. The drive through Melbourne is all a bit boring really!)

Video 1 – Up to the Top of the Mountain.

Video 2 Down the Mountain

Tags: Funny, General, gps, Photos, twitter, video by Me
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have just spent the last 20 minutes playing with a new bit of software.  And this on is fun :-).

http://www.nimbuzz.com/

it is another all in one voip chat comm system gadget.  But this one works.  I can make google voice calls nice and easy (although the feedback when you are sitting in front of the computer is bad :-)) send photos that you have taken as files straight through as well.

I can see this bit of software becoming a fav pretty quickly.

They say it works with Google, jabber, ICQ, AOL, e.t.c but I only use Google so I can not comment on that.  However comparied to Parlingo which I currently use this software is leap years ahead.

Go give it a try.

And some more info here at All About Symbian

Tags: n95, nokia by Me
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basically it is surface turned on its side….  but for me surface is like an old arcade machine.  A big wall you can stand back from works better than a table only one or two people can sit at.  Sure a Surface may work in a small environment or a cafe but in a class room, lecture hall or even a train station it needs to be a wall.

more here…  engadget

Tags: General by Me
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