Mark Thomson

This job we're doing is such a bear. For the last three days, it's been highly repetitive, and I'm probably well on the way to developing a repetitive strain injury. I'm currently uploading data files into our new system, and it's so highly manual, and repetitive, and boring. I thought computers and automation was supposed to make our lives easier? The person that developed this system should be shot. When I'm finished with this I'm going to sit down and write a tool to do this. I had to upload the same two files to 16 different places today, and reenter all the information for those files 16 times. I ended up cutting and pasting a lot of the data, but I can't understand why we can't just put the files on the server, enter it once, and duplicate the entries in the database 16 times. It shouldn't be that difficult! What some companies have the cheek to pass off as finished software!? grrrr.....

On the plus side, the new system is vastly better than the old system, so once it's all setup and in place life should be a lot easier. Hopefully we'll have some time to sit down and improve it then. The software developers for the product are coming to see us next month. I'll have to make sure I have a list of wishes and complaints ready for them.

The school gala was on Sunday. Rob went along to help setup the Coffee kiosk, and the kids were performing in their class groups. Micky's class did some dancing, and Beeb's class sang a song. Afterwards the kids went on some rides. Beeb was too small for some of them, so he just went on the giant bouncy castle. Micky had the snot beaten out of her by her friend Danielle in some bouncy arena thing, where they'd belt each other with oversized wiffle bats. Really hot again, and despite the sunburn everyone still got a little sunburnt.

Well I'm finally back online. I'm going to have a brief rant, so strap yourselves in. We've just migrated to Australia, and after years of hearing wonderful stories back home about how much better Australia's internet services are, how we've been given a third-world communications network by Telecom for too long, I'm surprised to report that Telstra is absolute rubbish! The plans are overpriced, too small a data cap, charged both ways for data, and that's assuming you can even get connected. A workmate of mine has been trying to get online with different providers but found he couldn't because the Telstra exchanges don't support enough lines for DSL, so now they've forced him on wireless with them, and he's already blown out his meagre cap doing nothing but web surfing for a few days. I signed up with a provider, was prepared to pay a bit extra for a business account so I could get my personal server back online, get my mail and blog back up, all was ticking along nicely until we moved our home phone from Telstra to AAPT. Suddenly our request for ADSL is declined by Telstra because there are only 40 connections at the local exchange that services at least 4 different suburbs. How freakin ridiculous!! 40 connections! What is this the third world! I then get a phone call from Telstra asking if I would like to move my phone back to them, and implying that if I did they'd probably be able to get me on ADSL!?! WTF! So if I sign up with you I can get everything, but if I sign up with someone else who is forced to provide a service over Telstra infrastructure, then I can't. In what way is this not a monopoly?? Then to add further insult to injury, they won't guarantee how long it will take to get connected with them anyway, plus there plans don't offer anything I want, I can't connect my server, and I can't get a static IP address unless I'm prepared to pay hundreds of dollars a month. Oh they did offer me 6 months discounted rate, but it'll mean signing up for a set term! Gee thanks Telstra!! So for now, I'm going without a connection. I'm sticking to my principles, and hoping that the Queensland Government will step in soon and regulate this mess. But it's still really surprising to find that they're actually behind New Zealand now. Best thing the NZ Govt did, stepping in and regulating Telecom. You can't have a level playing field when one of the companies is controlling all the infrastructure. It's outrageous!

So I'm back, and I'm going to try to move my blog over to blogger now, so I don't have to rely on getting my server back online.