Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Apple Inc doing a number on Australian consumers

That number being 200, as in two hundred dollars more per iMac (2011) that Australian's pay compared to U.S customers.

I've spoken about how Australian video gamers get slapped with expensive games in the past, this is just another problem Australian shoppers face.

At Apple's Official Website http://www.apple.com/imac/ the iMacs start at $1199

Apple's Australian web portal has the exact same product for $1399 http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?afid=p219|GOAU&cid=AOS-AP-AU-Google

I really don't like this, especially considering the proximity of Australia from the Countries that Apple exploits to make their products.

One other thing that irritates me is the fact that at the time of writing this the Australian Dollar is worth $US1.084, meaning Apple America get $US1516.516 because of our strong dollar for something the same that costs $1199 in the United States - A $317.50 price difference because I'm not American, I'm Australian.



Up yours Apple.

iMac Thunderbolt Ports

I was made aware that Apples new iMac's have a port called "Thunderbolt" which performs X20 faster than a USB2.0...now I know why iPad's never supported USB - Apple appear to be steering consumers away from it. I've never heard of these before.

According to wikipedia it is Intel who designed these.

So the iMacs have an Intel CPU, an AMD Graphics Card and these new ports.

Are these ports and accessories catered towards them going to take off? I have tons of USB equipment, will they become totally obsolete...or will USB3.0 and future releases maintain their hold?

Personally I don't know enough to speculate, but one thing I know for sure is that Universal Serial Bus is a better name.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Australian Labor Party - Chronic Money Wasters

/Part One of Unknown

Warren Truss (Leader of The Nationals Party) has information about Labor's broken promises on his website. I have gone through the list and come up with the broken promises that have cost taxpayers money.

Source: http://www.warrentruss.com/record.php?topic=2007%20%202011%20LABOR%20PARTY%20BROKEN%20PROMISES


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PROMISE
– “I am an economic conservative, I am committed to balancing the budget” - Kevin Rudd 2007 election

BROKEN – Labor’s first budget produced a $27.1 billion deficit (double the previous highest ever deficit). The 2009-10 budget predicts a record $58 billion deficit. Net public debt will blow out to $315 billion. 2010-11 Budget predicts a $40.8 billion deficit



MY COMMENTS - The Labor faithful will always suggest that they "inherited" the Liberals outstanding debt, which I don't agree with. If the $27.1 billion deficit WAS Liberals fault than in one year Labor raked up $30.9 billion in 12 months (more than 2.5 billion per month on average). The public debt blew out whilst the Government seemed to hold onto 'their' money.




Caption: A tearful Kevin Rudd after backstabbing JuLIAR Gillard kicked him from his perch 
(after saying she was not interested in becoming Prime Minister of Australia)

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PROMISE - Parliament will resume before Christmas and Ministers will not be allowed a Christmas holiday break

BROKEN - Ministers all have Christmas holidays and Parliament does not sit until February, the latest start in memory

MY COMMENTS - There are 19 days in January that weren't public holidays or weekends. Did staff have to take leave of their own to make up this time or were they paid?

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PROMISE - Labor will deliver fibre to the node broadband with speeds of 100 megabits per second to 98% of Australians beginning by Christmas 2008 at a cost of $4.7 billion

BROKEN - Labor axed the $900 million Opel contract to deliver wireless broadband to regional Australia and has not delivered fast speeds to any household by Christmas 2009. Now only 90% of Australians will ever get fibre to the home and 2 million Australians in regional areas have been excluded from Labor's promise. The cost of Labor's scheme is now put at $43 billion

MY COMMENTS - Where do I start? Work was supposed to have started in 2008 and hadn't started a full 12 months on. The scope of the project has dropped 8% of the population - It doesn't sound like much but that represents 1,760,000 people (where the Australian Population were 22 million people), and there was always going to be 2% on top of this. 1 in 10 people won't get this, but the price has increased almost ten-fold. Fast internet in Australia is more a luxury, something for city people or people working in the industry than anything currently - And yet Stephen Conroy (of "The Great Firewall of Australia" fame) is the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital ECONOMY.


Caption: In addition to promises of fast, affordable internet for Australians there is poor policy on censorship  
Flyer for "Operation Titstorm"
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PROMISE - Labor will give a computer to every secondary school student in years 9-12

BROKEN - Now the promise is only to have a computer available for every second child and only if the State Government or parents pay for electricity, programs, cables, repairs, upgrades etc

MY COMMENTS - This is a total waste of money. I have been told that only students that declare that they will stay in school until the completion of year 12 are eligible. In some areas this means young people are even more disadvantaged (where drop out numbers are higher). These 'computers' are netbook PC's and as it says you get it as equipped and then it is your problem from than on in. They're probably good for porn, looking up bombs and bullying people on Facebook though right?

--- --- --- 

PROMISE - Labor will establish Grocery Watch to put downward pressure on grocery prices

BROKEN - After spending $13 million on failed grocery price reporting schemes, Labor abandons Grocery Watch

MY COMMENTS - Of all of the promises/policies that Labor have or have proposed (and not delivered) this is one of the few that I would have maybe used, and now it's scrapped after blowing $13 million on not doing it.


Caption: There are now "wars" over grocery prices at major retailers in Australia, including the price of milk

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PROMISE - Labor will establish Fuel Watch to help motorists buy the cheapest petrol

BROKEN - Labor abandons its failed Fuel Watch scheme after spending $21 million

MY COMMENTS - Real-time price prices retrievable from an in-car navigating GPS would have been...where is the nearest an cheapest fuel? However Labor dropped this plan after spending $21 million on something the public never saw. 


Caption: Prices in Australia are as high as ever, even despite the AUD being worth 10c extra per USD

--- --- --- 

PROMISE - Labor will provide an extra $15 million for Rural Research and Development Corporations affected by drought

BROKEN - $10 million provided for climate change activities instead

MY COMMENTS - Where did the other $5 million go? Lucky they used that money, considering the drought broke naturally and in epic proportions causing flooding in many areas.

--- --- ---

PROMISE - Labor will reduce expenditure on consultancies by $395 million

BROKEN - Labor paid $952 million in consultancy contracts in its first two years in office, more than any other government in history

MY COMMENTS - The promise (as given here) is a bit loose as it doesn't say in what sort of time frame. $952 million over two years is $476 million per year. If $395 million was to be cut annually that would leave them with an allowance of $81 million per year.

$952 million divided by 731 days (2 years with one being a leap year) equals 1.3 MILLION DOLLARS SPENT ON CONSULTANTS EVERY DAY

--- --- ---

PROMISE - Labor's modern award will not make workers or employers worse off

BROKEN - Labor's new awards leave most employers worse off and also many employees. ACTU Secretary admitted Labor's changes to industry based awards had left child care workers, aged care nurses, bar staff, funeral workers and some transport workers worse off (Hobart Mercury 2-3-2011)

MY COMMENTS - Remember the whole 'workchoices' campaign in 2007?


Caption: What were voters in the above industries voting for if they put their faith into this?

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PROMISE - Labor will deliver 750 new homes, rebuild 230 houses and refurbish 2500 dwellings in the Northern Territory at a cost of $672 million

BROKEN - $170 million spent and only seven new houses completed

MY COMMENTS - I have never heard of this one before. This is truly appalling where this is accurate information. It means that $502 million is left available for 743 new houses - these houses each have a budget of $675,639 based on these details.

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PROMISE - Labor will spend $100 million to re-engineer Menindee Lakes to save 200 billion litres of water a year for the Murray Darling

BROKEN - Nothing has been done

MY COMMENTS - Money that hasn't been spent couldn't have been wasted, right? Except this money was supposed to be spent on a natural, scarce (for that particular area) resource - Where was the allocated $100 million put instead?

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Expectations of Nintendo 2011

When I was 4 my brother and I got a NES for Christmas, I went on to get a Gameboy, SNES, N64, DS and Wii.

Sometime around the year 2000 and 2001 (when I was14/15) Nintendo lost my interest and I got a PS2 in 2002 (or maybe it was 2003).

I found the games to be built around being child friendly in most cases and made with experimental "new" graphics, Mortal Kombat 4 illustrates my point, it is an early '3D' game and it has dated badly, whilst original arcade versions look great and can be a lot of fun and challenging as well as being some of my favorite games.

I do have newer Nintendo products as they do have some gems, but the handful don't really warrant a need to own the systems.

Seeing as Nintendo are planning a new machine for 2012 I thought I might list some things I think Nintendo should do to get back in the game.

I really believe a machine that is a Nintendo tablet console could work. A smallish screen 10" say, that had RCA/HDMI out so it could sit next to a display and be interfaced with a wireless, 'traditional' controller which should be a hybrid of the SNES/N64/3DS controllers, which could implement Motion Plus if desired.

If the controller could attach to the tablet like keyboards for other tablets/slates/pads it would become a portable device.

Seeing as these would be plugged into televisions a built-in (or sold separate) PVR should be implemented, to increase the functionality of the device.

Of course it should have network capabilities and ability to navigate the internet with ease, and well all the functions good netbooks/tablets are capable of today.

Last but not least they need content to play, good content...content like they used to have in 90's but accelerated to meet the demands of today, without compromising quality to churn titles out.

You got a crane kick?!? You got a victory!

UFC 129 
Lyoto Machida knocks out the retiring Randy Couture with a crane kick.