Category Archives: Regional

Region-specific concerns, politics, issues

McCain vs Obama.com

johnmccain.com and barackobama.com are both registered with GoDaddy, but McCain appears to have registered through GoDaddy India via Domains By Proxy… (Why does his campaign need to use Domains By Proxy, which is designed for anonymous domain registration? Maybe they just love outsourcing?)

JohnMcCain.com has been around since 1998; BarackObama.com since 2000.

McCain uses IIS running on Linux (?). Obama uses PWS running on Linux.

And the running mates? joebiden.com has been around since 1998; sarahpalin.com is not owned by the campaign, but is registered through the same proxy company as McCain.

Sarah runs Linux with Frontpage extensions (yeuch!); Biden’s running Apache.

AU online music bargain

With Bigpond Music now selling DRM-free MP3s, and their range increasing every week, they’re fast becoming my etailer of choice for music downloads.

Right now (and I don’t know how long it’ll last) they’ve got a 25% discount offer on music vouchers brought from Safeway/Woolworths, and possibly other retailers.

So tracks that normally cost $1.69 (the same as Apple’s iTunes in Australia) now effectively cost about $1.27, and an album about $12.37. Vouchers appear to be valid for about a year and a half.

You can browse the web site before paying to see if they have what you want. Admittedly, they don’t have as wide a range (even in their older format WMA) as iTunes.

Bigpond selling MP3s

This should be welcome to Aussies who can’t buy DRM-free music from Amazon, who want to be free of Apple’s iTunes DRM and don’t want to delve into the shadowy world of AllOfMP3(*): Telstra’s Bigpond Music has started selling DRM-free MP3-format music. It only covers certain artists at the moment, but here’s hoping it expands rapidly, as they appear to have lined-up deals with most of the major labels:

The agreements will see BigPond offer music from record labels Sony BMG, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI, as well as leading Australian independent record labels and distributors including MGM, Inertia, Liberation, IODA, and AmpHead.

Tracks are A$1.69 (the same as iTunes); albums are A$16.50 (slightly cheaper) — or A$15 for Bigpond broadband subscribers.

(*) I don’t know for sure if AllOfMP3 is legit or not, but I do know this — for the amount of money they’re charging, no way is any money getting back to the artist.

XBox 360 prices drop

Microsoft has dropped the price of XBox 360 in Australia, to $349 for the base-level Arcade (note, it doesn't run old XBox games because it has no hard drive, and won't provide HD video), $499 for the Pro (what should be called the standard model), and $649 for the XBox 360 Elite.

how do you use kindle on ipadoxworld.com.au/news/new-australian-pricing-revealed-for-xbox-360.htm”>XBoxWorld reports the Arcade can be got from BigW for just $278 at the moment.

Hmmm. $278 to play Pacman Championship Edition. Am I enough of a sucker to buy it?

Comparative RRPs: Nintendo Wii $399.95; PS3 $699.95. (Why does Nintendo's web site include no price information?!)

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ADSL2+ at more AU exchanges

Telstra has upgraded a bunch more exchanges around Australia to ADSL2+, including my humble local in Bentleigh, Victoria. When I looked, Whirlpool’s Broadband Choice hadn’t been updated with the new information yet, but you can check via Telstra Bigpond’s page.

Whether I upgrade or not is another matter. I’ve noticed that while downloading Linux torrents, the bottleneck is actually at my PC, not the modem/net connection. The torrent speed is pretty good, but the connection on the PC doing the torrenting is swamped, while the other PC sharing the modem isn’t. This is a very puzzling thing to me, and something I need to explore further, as obviously something (LAN card maybe?) is operating sub-par. Obviously that needs tackling first… until then, 1500/256 will do me.

Netspace shaping

Memo to self: when my ISP (Netspace) shapes after hitting the monthly download limit, they do not automatically unshape at the end of the billing period. You just have to disconnect and re-connect to get the proper speed back. Annoyingly, this information is nowhere to be found in their online help.

(It’s never happened to me before, which is why I didn’t know.)