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How to find your lost mobile phone
2008-06-04 13:07:00
I was stupid and left my mobile phone behind at a cafe yesterday. It actually fell out of my jacket pocket while I was sitting on a couch, but I should have checked before I left, so that still makes me stupid. I didn't realise until after I arrived home. It's actually my work mobile so I stressed a bit as it has a lot of numbers in it that I probably wouldn't want anyone else to get hold of. It also has my calender in it as well as heaps of contacts that I don't have written down anywhere else, so loosing it would have been a real pain. Luckily I signed up for Whereis Everyone a few weeks ago so I was able to locate it on the web. This service is absolutely great and everyone with a Telstra phone (NextG or GSM) should sign up for it straight away. You simply go to http://everyone.whereis.com/ and register your phone (before you loose it!). You enter your mobile number and a password, the system sends you a text and then you reply to that text to prove it's yo...
More About: Lost , Mobile , Phone , Mobile Phone , Find

Mister X
2008-05-31 03:22:00
I've been in my new place for a few months now, but I rekon the previous tennants must have done a runner. They don't seem to have changed their address anywhere as I still receive heaps of mail for them almost every day. Most have those scary little windows in them so they look a lot like bills. Over time the number has dropped a bit. Usually it takes two or three "return to sender's" before that company stops sending me their mail, but there is one mob that just don't get it. Mr Xiuyuan Zhang must have been an accountant because the Certified Practicing Accountant's mob C.P.A. keep sending him stuff. I am not exaggerating when I say that they must send at least one letter every week. I return every one with a big "Return to sender" on the envelope, but they keep on sending it straight back. Now wouldn't you think that an accountant would know how to change his own mailing address, and wouldn't you think his association (CPA) would re...

Remove small metal pieces
2008-05-26 15:08:00
I have been given a new phone at work and it came with a really weird warning note in the box. What do you make of this?  Polycom - Warning for all Soundpoint IP Phones  With respect to section 5.4.3.10 of the Australian Communications Authority as Telecommunications Technical Standard AS/ACIF S004 2004 under s376 of the Telecommunications Act 1997: You should be aware that, under certain operating conditions, the handset earpiece may retain small metallic objects. If this occurs, these objects should be removed before using the handset. 
More About: Metal , Small , Pieces

Save the Tassie Devils
2008-05-13 13:44:00
The Network Ten TV show Totally Wild came down to Tasmania a while ago to film a story about the Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease. They dedicated most of the show to the Devils plight, but one section is of special interest to us because Mel's daughter Tamsyn appears in one shot and there are a few other mates of ours in there as well. This part of the story was filmed at St Aloysius Primary School and features Nature Nic. I don't think I'm meant to post this on YouTube, however I reckon anything that might raise public awareness of this evil disease has to be a good thing. If you think that your school might like to hold a black and white day to raise money to support the research then click through to Nature Nic's website or go to the Tasmanian Government's Tassie Devil site. {youtube}eGWZyjIslzk{/youtube} 
More About: Save

The bad side of tennis
2008-05-12 05:11:00
I haven't provided any updates on my tennis progress because I haven't been doing very well. I start off OK and usually win my doubles games, but my serve has been terrible and by the time I've played my two doubles games I'm stuffed and that's when I have to front up for my singles game. Most of my opponents are heaps younger than me so they usually run me into the ground. This week I won both doubles matches and I was hitting some really good serves. I only made two double faults all night and I was getting a fair bit of power into some of them as well. I wasn't meant to be playing at all but I was asked if I could fill in for someone who couldn't make it. The guy I had to play in the singles had thrashed me 6 games to 1 last time we played, but I have improved a bit and was determined to do well. I started well and was up 3 games to 1 when he snapped. He became really angry and started yelling and belting the ball into the fence and stuff. It real...
More About: Tennis , Side

Where are the lockers
2008-05-07 09:49:00
Sue Napier wanted to know where the lockers were. Apparently there aren't any, the students will have their own bins in their pods. Sounds funky, but it's just the new Kingston High School. It doesn't matter that there aren't any lockers because the grade sevens have them now but most don't use them. What does Sue Napier have to do with it? I was sworn in at Parliament House yesterday to give evidence in support of our new school to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. I say Parliament House because that's where I entered (yes the machine beeped again because of the steel toes in my shoes), but typical of the rabbit warren that it is we actually ended up in 10 Murray Street I think. I was shown to a seat at a massive table with three big microphones hanging from the roof so that the Hansard girl could hear everything we said. I had to swear (strange term) to tell the truth, the whole truth etc etc and then the politicians were wheeled in. W...

Share update April 2008
2008-05-05 14:41:00
It's about time I did another share update. Not only has it been a couple of months since my last update, but it's also been exactly twelve months since I started this caper. This is a key date for me because I decided to give myself one full year before deciding if share trading was for me. It is! This whole share thing has gone better than I could have ever imagined. I'm certainly not rich (yet) as I didn't invest that much money in the first place (I'm not telling you how much, that's none of your business!), however I have seen a very nice profit over the year. If I had left the money in the bank I would have made around 7% interest for the year. By putting that money into the stock market I have made 39% (and that's after all costs, but before tax). What makes me even more happy is that at the same time the Australian stock market (all ordinaries) has gone backwards to the tune of 9%. I should have lost money, but instead I've turned in a huge pr...
More About: April , Update , Share , 2008

Horse riding has been cancelled
2008-05-05 13:55:00
Last week was Agfest week. Agfest rocks. It's a rural field day event at Carrick near Launceston with many hundreds of exhibitors and an attendance over it's three days approaching one hundred thousand. We went up on the Saturday. There were thirty thousand people there, and about ten thousand cars and yet not once did we have to stop and queue in the car and the place never felt crowded. There were some queue's in the Tasmanian gourmet food hall, however none were too long. Emma and Brad seemed to like the BWM stand and some of the boating stands the most. Not very rural stuff, however farm machinery all starts to look the same when you come from the city. We decided to spend the night in Launceston so I booked us into the Launceston Country Club Casino for the night. It wasn't too expensive and it certainly impressed E&B. I was a bit impressed myself with the free valet parking, although it's a bit weird not knowing where your car is. They have a golf cou...
More About: Riding , Horse

Im going to win Ozlotto
2008-04-29 08:29:00
Tonights the night. There is a $40000000 (yup, thats forty million dollars) jackpot tonight and the planets have all aligned. One of my work mates (AndrewG) had a dream about me (scary isn't it!) a few weeks ago. In the dream we both both bought a lotto ticket together, it was a winner, and although the details were a bit sketchy, an amount of $10000000 (ten million dollars) was mentioned. Coincidently there was a $10M jackpot that week. That must have meant we were going to win so we bought a ticket. We didn't win. Then it jackpotted  to $20M. That still worked as we were now meant to win $10M each. We bought a ticket. We didn't win. It has now jackpotted to $40M. That still works as we will probably share the winnings with one other person meaning we end up with a $20M winning ticket giving us a $10M split each. I;ll let you know how we get on, but it may take me a little while to write the story as I'll probably have other priorities when I'm rich.

Momo Racing fix
2008-04-13 04:23:00
I have a Logitech Momo Racing force feedback steering wheel that I use with my computer as well as my Playstation3. I know, it's a bit daggy for a grown man to be playing with pretend steering wheels, but I'm not scared to admit that I find simulation type racing games a whole heap of fun! My mate Randal got me into it in the first place. A few of us lug our computers round to his place once every few months and we all race each other on a very realistic simulation game called GTR2 over a few beers and a bite to eat. I suck at it. I used to come last all the time (see, I'm not a true nerd!) , but I've improved and now usually manage to finish mid bunch with a few podium finishes to my credit. I'd probably be better if it wasn't for the stupid fault with my steering wheel. Ever since I first bought this wheel it has had problems shifting gears with the flappy paddles. I know Jeremy on Top Gear is always saying flappy paddles are crap, but in these games they...

Free stuff - Free FHM magazinze
2008-04-08 22:41:00
Here is a good freebie, especially if you are an Aussie male. Head on over to http://thenewfhm.com.au/, fill in your details and they will send you a free copy of this months magazine. How cool is that. If they run out of full magazines then they will send you a 28 page sampler, but they will email you when next months offer comes out or with any other future freebie give aways. You just can't beat something for nothing. Thanks FHM!
More About: Free Stuff , Free , Stuff

The weird stuff just keeps on keeping on
2008-04-07 14:18:00
I can't believe the twists and turns that my life keeps on taking.  Last weekend I had a lounge room full of pretty girls, but they were all way too young for me. Emma had a sleep over pool party at our new place! The trouble was the pool maintenance guy had been told to turn the pool heater off at the end of daylight savings and he forgot that it ended a week later this year so the pool was freezing. Swimming was canceled and replaced with a "Bring It On" movie marathon. I have finally finished with the crappy landlords from my last rental place. I picked up my lease refund cheque today. In the end they dropped all of their stupid arbitrary and incorrect claims in return for me paying them $40 to remove the dead man ferns that they killed themselves. I know that you are aware of this web site Sharman and Stephanie so if you do end up reading this then you need to stop and have a think about the way that you treated me. I was the perfect tenant and you know that...
More About: Weird , Stuff , The Weird

The wind Gods were angry
2008-04-03 13:37:00
Last night was one of the craziest nights of my life. Someone upset the wind God's and so they unleashed all of their fury on Hobart like I have never seen before. I've had some sleepless nights laying at anchor in our yacht off a rocky unfamiliar shore with a howling gale blowing outside whilst listening to the anchor chain dragging over the rocks, but last night was much worse and I spent most of it tucked up in bed at home. It was windy (we have already established that) and Emma and Brad were with me for the night. They were tucked up asleep upstairs whilst I lay awake in bed downstairs listening to the wind building up outside. By about midnight I was sick of listening to the flappy grill on my en suite exhaust fan rattle in the wind so I grabbed some duct tape, threw on a pair of jeans and went outside into the teeth of the gale to stick it down. To get to that part of the outside wall I have to walk along a ledge that is only about a foot wide with a bit of a drop ...
More About: Wind , Angry , Gods

The past few weeks part 2
2008-03-25 12:51:00
Where was I.....Oh yeah, the old place. They weren't happy because I didn't return my keys. My fault. I completely forgot to leave them behind when I shut the door, but there are only three separate locks and yet they claim they gave me five keys. I know there weren't any copies because I had to cut my own when I moved in. Five! Next is the awning pole. The place had those old pull down external awnings on some of the windows. I wanted to use them, but the awning pole needed to reach up and pull them down wasn't there. There was a wooden broom pole with a threaded end and I just thought that was it until I went to use it. I pointed that out two years ago, but now they reckon I've taken it and want me to replace it. What on earth would I want with an awning pole???? Fly screens. This one is a beauty. Every single fly screen was hanging off as if someone had removed them and then couldn't get them to fit back in. Every single one! They useed to flap noisily in ...
More About: Past , Part , Weeks

The past few weeks
2008-03-24 01:15:00
OK, it's been a very crazy past few weeks. I guess the biggest thing for all of us is that we have moved into Legoland. It still feels a bit like a holiday to me and I can't help but think that I have to duck down to reception to pay the bill before I leave! It's kinda weird to think that I can just go and have a swim whenever I want or practice my tennis serve before I start tea. It's also weird to drive North(ish) out of Kingston with my shopping, I keep heading in the wrong direction. As for some of the comments I made in my last post? "Tennis": I'm still playing in the club competition and taking lessons as well. I'm improving all the time. Nick has me concentrating on getting the racket back early and pointing the butt of the racket in the direction I want the ball to go. Those two things have been a huge help. Unfortunately last week my opponent didn't turn up and as I play him in all three games it meant I just had to go home. I get the t...
More About: Past , Weeks

zzzzzzzzzzz
2008-03-19 13:38:00
You could be excused for thinking that I've been asleep for a few weeks. I know it's been a while since I last posted here, but my life has a blur of tennis, injury, crappy landlords, P&F, blown up vacuum cleaner, broken plates, house move, swimming, no Internet (aaarrrggghhh), cracked tiles, lost keys, dead man ferns, heating oil, missing curtain hooks, lost pole, school trip, sunburn, filthy range hood, missing instructions, boxes, boxes, boxes and pizza (oh no, another box!). I'll explain some of these things some time real soon.

Free Hugs
2008-03-01 01:01:00
Now if this doesn't leave you with a smile on your face then nothing ever will. I stumbled upon aYouTube video made by a guy called Juan Mann. He was feeling a bit lonely after arriving back in his home town of Sydney from overseas and just wanted someone to greet him at the airport with a big hug like all of the other happy families. He then embarked on a "free hug" campaign.  Check out his website here, but be sure to turn up the speakers and watch the video first (over 24 million others have!). {youtube}vr3x_RRJdd4{/youtube} 
More About: Free , Hugs

February 2008 Share Update
2008-02-29 13:36:00
Time for another update. Things have started to look up. Two of the companies that I'm holding have really taken off. Minemakers (MAK) is going gangbusters at the moment. I've sold half my holding in the company to lock in the profit which means that the remaining half is completely paid for so there is no risk at all as I'm now playing with someone else's money! Accent Resources (ACS) has been doing very badly. I was meant to sell that one off for a loss months ago, but I missed the sell and decided to ride it out. I'm glad I did, because it has turned around and is now in the black. The other winner at the moment is Australian Education Unit (AEU). This is is a complete gamble as I've gone out on my own and decided to buy without any recommendations. For that reason, I only bought 1000 units. AEU is the company that owns the buildings that ABC childcare centres rent. As you probably know ABC has taken a huge dive and trading has been stopped on the ASX. Tha...
More About: Update , Share , February 2008 , February , 2008

Lego Town
2008-02-26 04:13:00
As some of you may know, the old guy who used to own the house that I rent passed away a while ago. That's obvioulsy a sad event, however it also meant that I may have had to look for somewhere else to live. His two daughters inherited the house and were happy for me to stay on as a tennant, however they now need some cash and want to sell. That's a bad thing for me. I have tried to come to an agreement on price so that I can buy it myself, however we have very different expections. That lead me to look for another rental property. The rental price of a three bedroom house has gone through the roof latley. I just couldn't find anything that was half decent and affordable so I started looking at villa unit's. I actually signed the forms on one before I realised that there wasn't anywhere to store all of the stuff that I currently have in my garage. Last weekend I looked at the private rentals in the paper and found the one.  It's in the fai...
More About: Lego , Town

Free stuff that really works
2008-02-17 01:50:00
Many of you are already reaping the benefits of the free stuff that can be had from Australian websites. Some of you may have already seen the story I wrote on some of the great survey, competition and free give away sites there are in Australia. If you haven't seen my previous story, then click here. I wanted to let you know of my personal experience with two of the biggest Australian sites. I've been a member of Emailcash for about a year. In that time I really haven't participated in much of their extra activities that can give you bonus points. All that I have really done is click on the email's that they send me to earn 5 points every time. The email's are all for really big well known Australian brands such as Telstra, news.com.au, Quickflix, P&O Cruises etc. Most of them are actually invitations to enter some great competitions. I haven't won any competitions (yet), but the email's and the sites that they take you to are always interesting, s...
More About: Free Stuff , Free , Stuff , Works

spam that looks like ham
2008-02-16 02:53:00
This one was interesting. For some strange reason I decided to check my spam email folder. I found an email that looked legit asking for a price to advertise on Tasweb. This is the email;         Good day, My name is Edward Johnson and I am looking to buy links from good websites as yours (tasweb.org). I will be glad if I can have a text link or a text box 120x60 or 125x125 on your site. Please advise what what will be the price for each of these ads, if it is placed: 1. On your homepage only 2. On all site pages I will be very thankful to you if you take into consideration my requrest. Kind Regards Edward Johnson  I question everything that I receive in email, but at first I thought it was real. The fact that there was a real link to my real website gave it credence and the request seemed reasonable. People really do this sort of stuff. Then I noticed the slightly dodgy grammar/spelling and decided to look a bit further. Whilst the email wa...
More About: Spam

Tennis update
2008-02-15 22:48:00
Remember when I said this about my tennis "I'm going to enjoy the winning feeling whilst it lasts as I'm pretty sure I will come crashing back to earth soon." ??? Well the winning feeling continued right through until I received my first serve last night. That was when I realised I was back in reality. I lost my singles match last night 0 - 6 !! I am supposed to be ranked with similar players. My "ITN" ranking is 8.5 (out of 10, where 10 is really bad and 1 is perfect), however when I asked someone how they come up with that she made a reference to her bottom, so I don't think it's very realistic. The fact that the guy I played last night has been playing tennis off and on for all of his life and yet he is also ranked 8.5 proves that the system isn't perfect. It was still a lot of fun and I can only improve from there! Our team (Evermore) were way out on top off the ladder, but I'm guessing that will have changed after last night. I lost a...
More About: Tennis , Update

Comments system upgraded
2008-02-10 11:46:00
I've upgraded the comments software used on Tasweb. I was never very happy with it, but it is much improved now. The main differences you will notice is that you now don't need to enter the Catchpa anti spam image stuff if you have created a Tasweb account and logged in. You can also elect to receive an email if someone else adds their own comment after yours. Please let me know by leaving a comment on this story if you come across any issues.
More About: System , Comments

The games are back bigger and better than ever
2008-02-07 12:57:00
O.K. It's taken me a little while, but I have finally found a bug in the arcade game code and have hacked it to work on my server. I've also found a more recent backup and have restored the game scores back to the beginning of January. Any scores recorded since then by logged in users have been lost - sorry! J.D. and R.D., your new account has been lost, so you will need to recreate it if you want to log in again. The upgraded games software has some funky stuff like a tag cloud, ratings, favorites and a proper leader board. You will have to have created an account and logged in to use any of those features, although guests can still play games.The leader board is much better than the old "top players" list as that only gave 1 point for every high score you achieved. The new leader board gives 50 points for a first place, 40 for second, 32 for third, right down to 2 points for a 20th place. This means that most players will be on the board and everyone has a chance...
More About: Games , Back

Tennis
2008-02-04 06:53:00
Weird stuff just keeps on happening to me. Last year I enrolled in an Adult Education tennis course for beginners. It was a lot of fun and the rest of the guys in the group were great to be around. At the end of it we decided to keep it going and Nick (our coach) was happy to accept our money. That all ended before Christmas last year, but then out of the blue I had a call from Nick last week asking me if I wanted to play in a tennis pennant run by the club. I stupidly said yes, and now I'm playing competition tennis! I think I suck at it, but I won all three matches on Friday so that's a good thing. I won my singles match 6-2 (we only play one set), and then my two doubles matches 6-3 and 6-2. I did have some help in the doubles as I was paired with some "pro's". Actually one of my team members is amazing. She won the doubles in the recent Tasmanian Open, but the biggest surprise was that she is only 11 years old (it was the junior open!). I'm going to enj...
More About: Tennis

Aracde games are still snapped
2008-02-03 05:58:00
I've mentioned this before, but I'm getting a heap of new visitors to Tasweb today because of the story I did about cracking open VB Warnie, so I thought I should bring it up again. I've snapped the arcade games. Sorry, but I'm old and stupid! I'm still trying to fix em and hope to resume normal programming rooly soon.
More About: Games

Games are back the way they were
2008-01-30 14:49:00
Earlier today I updated the games software on Tasweb and posted a story here about it. Unfortunately there were a few problems that I didn't discover until much later today. I have rolled the site back to a backup that I took just before I did the upgrade (backups rule OK!). I do have a development site and I tested the upgrade there first and it worked fine, so there must be another difference that broke things. I'll have another go at this the next time I'm feeling a bit bored. [UPDATE]...No they aren't!  I've broken it again and I've decided to leave it broken for a bit until I can work out what has gone wrong. Only the 5 standard games are there and all scores have gone. Don't stress though, because I have a backup and should be able to retain the old scores as long as I can identify and fix the cause of my problems.
More About: Games , Back

I need a house
2008-01-29 01:25:00
For the past few years I've been living in a rented house. The day before we left for a one week camping trip ( we are back now, I'll write a story on that soon) I was told that the owners want to sell and need me out, so now I'm looking for somewhere to live. I have no idea how long I've got, so if you have a property to rent not too far South of Hobart please let me know! Oh yeah, talking about my house, the young lady next door (they moved in a few months ago) told me the other day that her Staffordshire Bull Terrier was about to be moved to their house and that I shouldn't go anywhere near it as it is very aggressive and she was going to go to all of her adjoining neighbors to warn them. I did ask about the gaping holes in the fence and she said she would fix them, but that she might not bother with a side gate as it would "stay in it's house all day". I didn't want to jump to conclusions, so I didn't cause any grief but it wasn't th...
More About: House , A House

Field service mode LG TU500
2008-01-10 07:57:00
I used to know this and then I forgot it, and a guy asked me for it today, so I had to look it up again, so now I'm writing a story here so that I can easily find it the next time I'm asked for it. Gosh, that was a crappy sentence! I have an LG TU500 3G phone on Telstra's NextG network. This and it's equivalent, the TU550 and the Canadian CU500 are all really good phones with great reception and there is a hidden service code that unlocks a feature that allows you to view the receive signal strength. Type the following code from the idle screen just as if you were going to dial it as a number; *748#96 . Don't dial the . thats just there to end the sentence (not that there is a dot on the phone anyway). A yellow box will pop up with a bunch of useless information, but next to "RSSI:" you will see the receive level. I can't tell you what is good or bad, but whilst I'm sitting in my office in the centre of Hobart I see about -60. Every time the num...
More About: Service , Mode , Field

Whats inside VB Warnie
2008-01-09 08:16:00
VB Warnie has been sitting on my coffee table completely silent for a few days now, so I decided to pull him apart (as you do). The instructions clearly state (they even give you a picture) that he must be sitting approximately 2 metres in front of your telly and that he would only talk during the Commonwealth Bank one day series. That's what made me think he must listen for tones during the telecast, but by pulling him apart I could tell for sure. Read on to see my thoughts and pictures on Warnies gizzards.       If your on the home page then click the "Read more...." link to see the pictures...
More About: Inside