tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14894525451312670492011-11-27T17:06:55.535-08:00The Technical Blog of Hayden Tennent. The pulse on the IT World!Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-69297611360144811802008-10-30T01:36:00.000-07:002009-04-30T18:15:00.168-07:00

The D-link DSL-2740B is an ADSL2+ gateway consisting of ADSL2+, wireless, switching and routing capabilities. The DSL-2740B gateway components are enclosed in a contemporary black and silver case. There is nothing physically striking about the unit, other then its build quality. Its design is bland and not nearly as slick as the Linksys' futuristic profile. See our Linksys WAG160N and WRT310N

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-66555506758038223952008-10-14T02:28:00.000-07:002008-10-15T22:23:16.701-07:00

The Linksys WRT310N Wireless-N Gigabit Router is a SOHO product that facilitates the sharing of a cable or DSL broadband Internet connection with both wired and wireless clients. The WRT310N includes a multitude of features and technology in a neat and stylish package.The WRT310N differentiates itself from its cheaper WRT160N cousin by providing an Ethernet switch with Gigabit capabilities, and

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-20848439209888504112008-10-09T21:17:00.000-07:002008-11-21T21:16:11.498-08:00

The Linksys WAG160N is an ADSL2+ gateway that combines the full functionality of an ADSL2+ Modem, Router, Switch, and Wireless Access Point. With this offering, Linksys joins vendors such as Belkin in bucking the trend of unattractive grey boxes. In doing so they've come up with something quite aesthetically pleasing.With its all-in-one design, the WAG160N can happily take the place of up to 4

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-8634134921236326982008-09-08T01:49:00.000-07:002008-10-13T23:32:04.436-07:00

IntroductionThe Homecast HT3000 is a set top box designed to be connected to your television, allowing owners to view New Zealand UHF Digital Terrestrial Freeview transmissions. The unit can receive and display high definition transmissions when connected to compatible equipment.Advertised Feature setThe following specifications are posted on the retail box. The feature set on the box is

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-9283863935998120102008-08-08T01:01:00.000-07:002008-08-08T01:36:01.905-07:00

The Snapper Card has been successfully rolled-out in Wellington for use on Go Wellington buses and a selection of retailers in the area. When you need to 'top up' your Snapper card or USB token you can do so at your local retailer, or alternatively via the snapper.co.nz website.We recently used the Snapper token in Wellington between two stops. I have included screenshots of the main pages

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-54110256288214119802008-07-09T02:07:00.000-07:002008-07-10T02:17:21.301-07:00

Today I received my Snapper USB token in the mail. The token, which enables contactless transactions between consumers and merchants, was sent to me as part of the ANZ National Bank's trial into this new form of payment technology. The devices themselves are set to be available for purchase by the general public on the 14th of July.The concept behind this technology is to provide customers

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-49953233485473722922008-05-06T02:09:00.000-07:002008-05-06T02:34:52.730-07:00

When TVNZ launched the TVNZ ondemand website it gave New Zealanders a new method of consuming television content through their computers. The site proudly advertises that you can "Download of view your favourite shows online"So it appears that you can stream a large amount of television content through your computer, and the option to "download" shows is fantastic. However, there is one small

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-82742856434471997162008-04-22T00:59:00.000-07:002008-04-29T01:05:18.745-07:00

This article is intended to provide computer-savvy enthusiasts with the information required to set up and configure a Mediaportal installation which is capable of receiving and displaying the freeview Digital Terrestrial or Satellite service in New Zealand.While this document will not go into depth on all portions of the setup, it will provide links to other resources on the web where excellent

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-65012732673928510772008-03-29T04:17:00.000-07:002008-12-23T19:51:57.281-08:00

Web hosting company IXwebhosting offer a number of one-click GPL applications that their hosting customers can implement on their websites.I recently attempted to install Gallery2 using this facility. I had previously installed Gallery2 on my Startlogic web hosting account through its standard installation script.Unfortunately my experience installing Gallery2 on IXwebhosting was not perfect. I

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-3792068124245547952008-03-10T22:16:00.000-07:002008-03-10T22:59:51.370-07:00

Windows Media Centre computers tend to ship with either an OEM manufacturer's remote control or a Microsoft-branded one. These OEM manufactured machines all come with the associated drivers to support the remote control.There are numerous Open Source home theatre PC projects in existence that have a similar media centre-style interface and playback capabilities to Windows Media Centre and

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-76241301119465882322008-02-27T00:58:00.000-08:002008-02-27T23:38:41.933-08:00

NZTechie.com has been down for some hours today, reporting a ghastly looking error message when attempting to load the main page.After some looking through the database I found that one of the tables was corrupt. I performed a repair within PHPMyAdmin which appears to have resolved the issue for now. The Startlogic repair facility within the Vdeck did not resolve the fault.I am still

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-49518791592285033882008-02-14T22:14:00.000-08:002008-02-14T23:34:55.115-08:00

I have been a Startlogic customer since 2004 and have generally found the overall service to be somewhat satisfactory, unless you have an issue that requires the attendance of the Startlogic support desk. On the Startlogic homepage they claim to be 'trusted by over 100,000 customers'.This report is intended to act as a record of the recent 32 hour outage that one of Startlogic's shared hosting

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-23594030414743280832008-02-09T19:02:00.000-08:002008-02-10T01:35:32.834-08:00

There are an enormous number of open source PHP applications on the web for installing on your own webserver, whether it be your own server or on a shared host server.In many cases these PHP applications come with their own easy to use installers, requiring the webmaster to simply upload the extracted code to their server and then run the included web-based installer. If well designed, the

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-6349943003080240352008-01-30T21:40:00.000-08:002008-02-03T23:17:20.273-08:00

INTRODUCTIONThe majority of Blogger blogs come with what is called the "Navbar" placed automatically at the top of their blogs. It has a number of useful features, however it is possible to disable the NavBar by editing a few short lines of HTML in your blog. Before I proceed, I thought you should be aware of the following:- Being the owner of a blog, you will unable to use the convenient "

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-21663857932487510992008-01-27T00:52:00.000-08:002008-02-10T01:43:02.586-08:00

INTRODUCTIONWith so many options available to provide cooling for desktop machines, you might wonder what cooling solutions are available for laptops. In this respect your options are limited, but by no means non-existent.The NOTEPAL by Cooler Master is essentially a plate on which you place your laptop, providing cooling via a number of methods. This plate is made out of alloy aluminum.The

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-66401785065859414132008-01-22T23:09:00.000-08:002008-08-01T03:23:59.521-07:00

The Samsung W531 Cellphone is currently being marketed and sold through phone provider Telecom New Zealand. Telecom currently runs on a CDMA network, while the only other competitor Vodafone NZ runs on a GSM Network.The Samsung W531 is marketed as a world phone. As the world leans towards abandoning CDMA for GSM (Telstra in Australia is a big roaming partner with Telecom NZ which is due to drop

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-77948170925834926972008-01-20T21:52:00.000-08:002008-08-08T00:06:27.684-07:00

Windows Vista ships with a strong security feature known as User Account Control. This is a powerful security feature, however, it may annoy both novices and experts alike with the constant dialog boxes it generates, requesting permission to perform system functions. This quick guide demonstrates how to switch it on or off.Open the Control PanelThe first step in enabling or disabling User Account

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-64091136663215562792008-01-16T23:46:00.000-08:002008-01-28T00:20:55.093-08:00

I recently came into contact with a brand new Lenovo laptop (3000 N100 model) loaded with Windows Vista Business on it. The laptop came preloaded with the Omnipass Fingerprint Security application. This application is written by Softex Incorporated.I ran into an issue with the application after I performed a normal Windows Update. After the installation of a number of updates, the machine

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-75094575523913464942008-01-11T15:38:00.000-08:002011-01-17T22:38:49.241-08:00

There are no dedicated drivers available for the Veo Advanced Webcam for use under Windows Vista, and if you attempt to use the standard installation CD you will be greeted with an error stating that the driver is only compatible with Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP. To make things worse, the Veo website appears to now be defunct.However, I have successfully installed the drivers supplied with the

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-58233628471535474182008-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:002008-01-10T19:12:53.766-08:00

In the spirit of recent emails which have been sent in error to me, I include the following email which I received from Sky City Cinemas. It appears they have an important announcement. Unfortunately, the email is devoid of any content other then a standard signature. See the screenshot taken below:In other news, I have been doing some investigation into the creative commons licensing system.

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-88830973041954474142008-01-09T02:51:00.000-08:002008-01-09T03:11:36.022-08:00

After some intensive testing on this Blog today, I have now added a Bookmark option at the bottom of all posts on each of my three blogs.The button is provided by addthis.com and allows people who use social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit to easily submit a post to the respective services.I have never been a user of Social Bookmarking services, however I can definitely

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-64961500061945747872008-01-07T23:25:00.000-08:002008-01-07T23:40:20.779-08:00

This evening I took the simple steps of adding Google Analytics tracking to my new online photo gallery. I found a simple and straight-forward tutorial on Bharat Mediratta's Gallery site at the following URL:Google Analytics for GalleryThe process is quite simple in that all that is required is to make a new directory within Gallery, copy an existing configuration file (theme.tpl) into it, and

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-2072444242301749742007-12-26T02:41:00.000-08:002007-12-26T02:48:57.672-08:00

I received 60 copies of my weekly TubeMogul report today, followed closely by the following apology email:-------- Original Message --------Subject: Tubemogul email bugDate: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:14:37 -0800From: John Hughes To: 'John Hughes' CC: REMOVEDYou probably noticed that we filled your email box this morning with copies of your weekly report. Please accept our most humble apologies

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-16911088627624047142007-12-26T00:17:00.000-08:002008-01-26T19:24:28.220-08:00

After the recent problems with my photo gallery due to Startlogic disabling allow_url_fopen functionality, I decided to bite the bullet and have installed Gallery version 2.2. This version does not suffer the same limitations as version 1.5 which I had installed.Installation was a breeze, with some fantastic instructions provided for full installation. After installation, I successfully

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-84704031479249474122007-12-17T23:31:00.000-08:002007-12-17T23:33:29.137-08:00

Important Security Notice about PHP ScriptsIf your site employs PHP scripts, please note that we have disabled the allow_url_fopen functionality in php.ini files at a platform level for security reasons. More information about the security issues associated with allow_url_fopen is available on the PHP Security Consortium Web site.If you experience PHP issues as a result, and your account is

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-17653550388591580962007-12-17T19:55:00.000-08:002007-12-17T20:18:49.066-08:00

Here is an email that is doing the rounds today. Apparently, Margaret McHugh has a bit of a temper!Best you read it from the bottom up.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------From: Gourmet Food Store [mailto:deli@ihug.co.nz]Sent: Monday, 17 December 2007 10:06 a.m.To: Hayley JohnstoneSubject: Re: Catering - Monday 17th DecGet into the real world young lady

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-68237557086164536822007-12-17T13:11:00.000-08:002007-12-17T20:06:26.985-08:00

Looks like someone has been using my email address in email support sessions with Linksys.As someone used my email address, I got an automatic transcript of two chats. Mindless humour.CHAT 1Hi, my name is Ernie C. (27271). How may I help you?Anonymous: YoErnie C. (27271): It's good to have you. What seems to be the problem?Anonymous: You gotta help me alrite? I'm in deep trouble nowErnie C. (

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-11627280729690352582007-12-15T13:15:00.000-08:002007-12-15T13:25:56.980-08:00

When I embed a video on YouTube, and then the same video on MSN, you will notice that MSN Soapbox produces a higher-quality video then that provided by YouTube.Embedded on YouTubeEmbedded on MSN Soapbox

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-71685685606506254672007-12-12T11:52:00.000-08:002007-12-12T11:57:25.530-08:00

Yesterday, I installed a script on my main at Nztechie.com to automatically display the last 14 posts from my Blog on my homepage.This complements the Google Video Bar which is currently showing my last four video posts to YouTube. What would be really good would be if I could generate thumbnails for recent additions to my photo gallery as well.You may also find that I have embedded the Google

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-11271448867750542892007-12-10T16:43:00.000-08:002007-12-10T17:01:30.118-08:00

A few months back, I found a wizard on Google which allowed you to embed a videoroll of YouTube videos onto your website or Blog. The key feature which grabbed my attention was the fact that you could just limit the shown videos to your own YouTube Channel. The embedding option that Blogger provides doesn't let you control this.After months of searching, I have found the wizard again at:http://

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-62111171009733885372007-12-08T15:45:00.000-08:002007-12-08T15:52:32.780-08:00

On a regular basis, I will Google myself to determine my own site rankings when my name is searched for. I believe that Google Analytics over-calculates the number of visitors to my site in Google search. I believe that a pre-fetching feature within Firefox in conjunction with Google is causing this.Firefox and Google have a feature whereby it will actively pre-fetch and cache your first few

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-67617279048657166672007-12-04T23:39:00.000-08:002007-12-05T01:28:55.898-08:00

Today, I implemented Google Custom Search on all pages at NZTechie.com. It appears to function well. I have also removed the links on each page pointing home.I also signed-up with an account on blip.tv as an alternative to using Youtube. It does have a number of features that Youtube does not.

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-65281847476102090042007-12-02T23:51:00.000-08:002008-08-08T00:06:57.295-07:00

Today, I downloaded the latest version of Zonealarm Pro when it was offered to me as an update. When reading through the release material, I was excited to learn that there was an option to control the priority of an Anti-spyware scan.I looked in the options for it, but it appears to be absent. I'm guessing that this option is only available to those using the complete Zonealarm Security Suite. I

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-65893333972698479462007-11-27T01:53:00.000-08:002007-11-27T01:59:29.415-08:00

Today I downloaded the Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 1 from the Mozilla. After installing it, I ran in to some difficulty in connecting to the Vdeck of Startlogic, and configuring my custom search engine within Google. Problems have been reported by other trialing the new browser.There is also some information in the release notes which clearly specifies some incompatibilities with some of the major

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489452545131267049.post-44142017388175627052007-11-27T00:11:00.000-08:002007-11-27T01:51:53.715-08:00

Being the author of the already successfully http://blog.nztechie.com blog, I have now determined a need for a second blog. While my main blog is a logical, time-based history of events as the unfold, Disjointed Thoughts is simply a collection of my thoughts and options. It will also contain items I will reference from my blog, but I don't want to clutter it with. Look forward to some new

Hayden Tennentnoreply@blogger.com0