The internet has been hailed as a wonderful tool for everyone to be able to express themselves, whether that be for good or for bad.

There are plenty of bloggers out there who can write, just as there are plenty who can’t, but technologies ability to enable everyone with an internet connection to have their say has flooded the internet with voice and opinion.

Twitter and other social networks were lauded for enabling protesters to distribute footage and news of the Iranian elections and protests. Historically, these images would have been less likely to make it into the public eye.

While not as serious as protesters being killed during political demonstrations, the XT network has failings of it’s own.

Paul Reynolds hair has been widely acknowledged as the real winner amid the storm of publicity around the repeated failures of the XT network.

Who would have thought Trademe would have been the hub of one of the most intriguing protests of recent times.

Check out this auction of a Lemon (Sold as the XT Network)

Through the questions and answers section at the bottom of the auction, New Zealanders have been able to vent some frustrations at Telecom and their flagship mobile product.

Congratulations must go to the seller, for his efforts in replying to every question (well over 500) to encourage further conversation and comment about the networks failings.

If you have time, read them all (It will take a while), as it is a really funny read.

The auction closes later on today, but for a week (and who knows what will happen once the auction closes), XT was vilified, parodied and generally made fun of by ordinary New Zealanders having their chance to make their point.

Well this can be taken two ways:

1. It is a bold move into the digital age, or
2. It is trampling all over tradition

I am leaning towards a bold move, but man, it is ugly.

As part of the Compaq Cup contested between New Zealand’s Black Caps and India and Sri Lanka, Hewlett Packard have had a great idea:

Rather than inscribing a name on a silver trophy, let give the gift that keeps on giving ie. a digital LCD screen that displays highlights, fan messages and statistics from the winning team.

While this seems like a great innovation, I have a word of warning.

Imagine the trophy cabinet after a few years of these being given out for a successful team (Say India, not NZ unfortunately)

It would look like a Noel Leemings TV display area.

Imagine the amount of energy it would need to power all of those screens. Not like a simple tin cup!

Well I am not a fan of the Browser, but these ads are pretty good. I have found 4 so far, here is one

S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. – Internet Explorer 8

And another…

F O M S Internet Explorer 8

Can’t remember the last time Microsoft had to advertise IE, must be a Firefox getting near!

Will it rival Year 2000? Will it make the world grind to a halt?

Of course not it’s only Twitter, but for some it is the end of the world as we know it if Twitter goes off-line.

Just like those people who need therapy every time their Blackberry stops working, Twitter is an addiction for some and the news that Twitter may have a capacity problem shortly, has people all a twitter (and adding to the potential problem by twittering about the subject, duh)

I haven’t gotten o the point where Twitter is a big deal to me personally or that I am ultra reliant on it for business, however, there are businesses that are reporting more and more successes from using Twitter to market themselves, these are the people that need to be the most concerned.

To me, it will be, well…. meh

Now if my internet access failed, now that would be the end of the world!

As a football fan, it’s great to see the footballers making fun of themselves.

For those of you who follow football, this was a recent sketch from Comic Relief.

Interestingly, Peter Crouch (one in the front row) did the “rope” as part of his celebration after scoring a goal in tonight’s 2-1 win over Ukraine.

Well done that man.

Comic Relief Sketch is here

Bugger I missed it, yesterday was Talk Like William Shatner Day

Here is a great video of an impersonator giving lessons.

Very Funny.

So….I’ll have to….remember………it next…..year.

I’m Declaring 3/22 “International Talk Like William Shatner Day”!

I am a football fan, and these are some serious skills (I wonder how many takes though?)

Cheers

When a 17 year old designs a version of GTA for NZ, he gets a bit of stick for putting New Zealand Police insignia on the police officers in the game. From a position of skill and expertise, this guy needs some congratulations.

He has taken it on himself to provide a more local feel for the game he plays. Being able to produce new textures for the game is no simple feat, and to have the desire to do it and make the effort to go through with it deserves a pat of the back.

I can see where the Police are coming from too, especially with some of the more violent aspects of the game.

However, it is a rare glimpse of a teenager putting learned skills to use. He even says he wants to become a police computer forensics expert. Maybe he should out these exploits on his CV:

Recent Work Experience
2008 – NZ Police textures for Grand Theft Auto.

Go on NZ Police, give the man an apprenticeship!

A great article on PC World about the “The 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time”

Some great nostalgia runs here, Ooh I was tempted by Active Desktop, found better apps for drive compression, got annoyed by the popups, lost data when I shouldnt have, just like millions of others.

Can you think of any others?

Cheers

Steven

Ha Ha, what a load of financed rubbish!

To think that while I slave away making a living, people are being paid to “interpret” Google Trends.

And to make it known that New Zealand and New Plymouth specifically is the World Hotspot when it comes to searching for “make bombs” makes me think these people need a bomb under them (Oops will I get in trouble now?)

There are so many holes in this, for example:

• With NZ being one of the higher per capita internet users they make up a disproportionate amount of the sample
• The fact that the censorship in certain countries  will not allow for these things to be searched, further skews the results.
• It is only one search request, in English

To the point where it is pretty much worthless. No wonder the local news media ran it as one of their top stories.

Watch out everyone…

Steven