May iiNews

letter from the editor

Welcome to the May edition of iiNews.

May sees the famous Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) kick off in Los Angeles with gaming and digital entertainment taking centre stage as developers from around the world show off their wares. On show is everything from Halo 3 to the new Nintendo console Wii . Check out the E3 insider site at http://www.e3insider.com/ for video, audio and text coverage of the event.

Speaking of coverage (nice segue I know) I'm in the market for a new mobile phone at the moment. I've selected my new fandangled talking stick no problems, but I'm wondering just what exactly I should do with my old black and white brick afterwards, or rather: which kitchen draw should be its final resting place.

An independent survey in 2005 revealed that 41% of Australians keep their old mobile phones (working or not), with an estimated 12 million mobile phones laying dormant in cupboards or collecting dust beneath beds.

Enter the Mobile Muster. The Mobile Muster program collects together old mobile phones and recycles them to produce raw materials for new products such as batteries, fence posts and even jewellery.

While the thought of presenting my loved one with a Nokia necklace doesn't exactly put me through the roof, fence posts with sms capability do. There are more than 1000 mobile phone stores across the country participating in the program. Why not find your local one at http://www.mobilemuster.com.au.

In this month's edition: the first Xbox 360 winners are announced, Niaal reviews EA's Fight Night Round 3 and we take a look at what online resources are available for small businesses.

Hope you enjoy.

Mark Welker
iiNews Editor

 

general news

welcome ozemail customers
I'd just like to say a big welcome to all our OzEmail customers who from here on in will receive iiNews instead of their usual OzEmail News. It's no big change - as I'm the editor of both newsletters you'll still be putting up with the same ramblings and the occasional witty insight.

Rolling the two newsletters into one is just part of the final steps in bringing all our customers together. So welcome, and I hope you all get along.

xbox360 competition winners!
You're probably already heard about how much we love the new Xbox360 - well we've just shared the love around this month as we drew our first 2 rounds of winners in the "win an xbox360 for you and a friend" competition.

The lucky winners for weeks 1 and 2 were:

Week 1: Neil Hawkins who referred his friend, David Buckley
Week 2: Tracey Shaw who referred her friend, Vibeke Johansen

There's still plenty of time to go, with another 8 weeks of Xbox360 packs to give away. So visit xbox360.iinet.net.au and start referring your friends and family to iiNet broadband. Entries stay in for each draw until the end of the competition, so the sooner you refer, the more chances you have to win.

support & services

internet safety update
As part of our commitment to being a family friendly ISP, iiNet provides it's customers with tools and information on how to control their own Internet experience. These tools exist to assist the management of issues such as network security, unsolicited email & the restriction of adult content.

The Internet as a medium is not moderated, and while this has obvious advantages, there are also disadvantages. Most countries have formulated their own rules for the media used and distributed within them, based on majority moral standards and political interest. This means censorship levels vary from culture to culture.

The global nature of the Internet, both culturally and physically, makes centralised regulation impossible. This issue is often particularly worrying for parents, for while the Internet is an excellent resource for children and an exciting new means of communication, they cannot be sure their children access only content that is appropriate for them.

For more information on content filtering options available to parents, go to http://www.iinet.net.au/about/compliance/filtering.html.

To find out more about other Internet issues such as copyright, Internet law enforcement and regulatory bodies that govern an ISPs conduct, visit our compliance section of the iiNet website at http://www.iinet.net.au/about/compliance/

customer feedback
Todd in WA sent us his feedback after having his speedy broadband activation:

"I received a text msg this morning saying that my ADSL has been activated. So it seems things are moving well on iiNet's part, nice to see a company who you feel takes care of you. Please pass that on to your group, what helped this feeling is also, is the fact they sent information on how to track my net hardware I will receive."

Thanks Todd. For troubleshooting tips on setting up your hardware or wireless connection, check out our support pages at http://www.iinet.net.au/support/

And this feedback from James in NSW:

"What I am writing to you about is how happy I am to know that if I do have an issue, your representatives are always helpful, they listen to what I have to say and given these minor service set backs you still blow Bigpond out of the water in customer service.

I wanted to extend my greatest thanks to all those people I have mentioned here and to those who worked in the background to resolve my issue. I will still definitely recommend to people to make the switch to iiNet, as I believe you offer the best product in market.

Okay you still have some small customer service issues to work through, but what burgeoning and expanding organisation doesn't?

What has made all the difference to me staying with you or leaving is your frontline people, and they are to be rewarded for their efforts. Thank you again for your perseverance and patience is dealing with my issue, I am very grateful for your hard work."

Thanks James, there's no better motivation to keep improving than positive feedback like this from our customers.

virus alert

top 5 viruses reported to sophos in april

1. W32/Netsky-P
2. W32/Zafi-B
3. W32/Nyxem-D
4. W32/MyDoom-AJ
5. W32/Netsky-D

List provided by Sophos.

tech knowledge

DSLAM expansion news
Four new DSLAM sites were brought online in the last month:

• Brighton (SA)
• Ascot Vale (VIC)
• Blackwood (SA)
• Concord (NSW)

And the following exchanges were expanded to allow more customers to come on-board (ie tell your friends):

• Brunswick (VIC)
• Collingwood (VIC)
• Midland (WA)
• Manly (NSW)

Check the status of your exchange at http://www.iinet.net.au/dslams/updates/

tech tips

Planning on a move soon and not sure how to relocate your broadband service? iiNet can do this for you. It costs $99 (a $69 early termination fee also applies if you have had broadband at your current location less than 6 months) and takes about 7-10 working days, depending on your line.

You can arrange it so that your broadband at your current location is not disconnected until we've connected your broadband at your new house. You can also use your back-up dial-up service at your new house if you've already moved and want to get back on the Internet straight away.

If you'd like to know more, check out our relocations page at http://www.iinet.net.au/support/general/faq/relocation.html

ii people

staff profile

Name: Paul Foss
Title: Development Manager

How long have you been with iiNet and what does your current role involve?
I've been with iiNet for just over 9 months - my current role is managing the team who look after all our customer-facing web applications. This includes the main iiNet website, our online account management tools (toolbox) and our online signup applications. In addition to this, my team also looks after the staff intranet and knowledgebase.

I report to iiNet's Chief Information Officer, and my team comprises a number of web developers, a web designer, and several programmers. As development manager, it's my job to coordinate the flow of work requests to the team, schedule future work, provide technical direction and support to my staff, and coordinate all deployment onto our systems.

How did you arrive at iiNet?
By bus! ( Paul's a real comedian - Ed )

What is your number one tip for would-be website designers in the process of building a site?
Useability is everything - research has shown that a user will only spend up to 11 seconds trying to find something on a web page, and will go somewhere else if they can't find what they need. So always put things where people expect them, make your website behave the way people will expect it to behave, and provide the best possible search function that you can.

What is the most challenging thing about managing the iiNet website?
It's very high visibility means it gets a lot of hits, and any change is immediately noticed by our users. Also, everyone has their own opinion of what should go where and how it should all look. It's very difficult to allocate space on the front page so that everyone is happy - someone just has to miss out!

What's been your most memorable or satisfying experience at iiNet?
Wow, picking just one is a bit difficult - we've done a lot of stuff in the past 9 months. But launching our new-look website in March would have to come pretty high on the list - we've had a lot of positive feedback about it, particularly from users, and that's always nice.

customer of the month

Name: Doug Booth
Location: Winthrop
Account type: Broadband
Customer Since: 1997

What do you use the Internet for most?
On a personal level, our family accesses the internet for a variety of purposes. I use it for share transactions, access to online banking, gaining quotes on travel and accommodation, lots of education sites but especially for accessing information about my part time work as a celebrant.

My wife, Claire, accesses online banking and general information about topics of interest (eg treating silverfish!) and our son, Chris, is studying Jazz at Edith Cowan and access lots of information related to his studies.

On a professional level, our school web page ( www.kinrossp.edwa.net.au ) is hosted by iiNet and we are very proud of what it offers the school community. We receive regular feedback about the site and its benefits to our students. The site is used regularly by students during their classroom lessons and at home to access the large number of interactive links on the site. The school has promoted the website as its primary form of communication with parents.

What are the best aspects of your broadband connection?
For our family, broadband has guaranteed permanent and fast Internet access, regardless of the number of users. We run several computers in the home and we are often online at the same time. I also think that broadband is affordable considering its efficiency and speed plus the need for only one telephone line. It also allows me to manage my second website for the WA Government Schools Music Society (WAGSMS).

The WAGSMS website is designed to give music teachers in Government schools access to information about our annual festival concert at Burswood Theatre. Teachers can go online for current information and updates to assist them in preparing their students for the concert.

What were your impressions of iiNet before joining and how do they compare now?
We have always had efficient and quality service from iiNet. Way back when we had our first 56k modem installed, the staff have been friendly and supportive. Recently we had encountered some obscure wireless router problems and the help centre was fantastic with assisting us to work through the issues.

Interested in being one of our customer profiles? Email your details to iinewsfeedback@iinet.net.au.

small business edition

I'm always amazed at the depth of the Internet. The fact that you can use it everyday and still keep finding new sites and even old ones, laying deep on the digital seabed waiting to be discovered. I heard a story a while back of an iiNet customer using webcams and an online accounting package to manage his restaurant from another country, and it got me thinking. Plenty of other people are probably looking for ways to use the Internet to start or further their own small businesses. So with this in mind, I started searching...

smallbusiness.yahoo.com/
My god the Internet is useful. Just look at this site. Yahoo Small Business not only gives you a how-to for setting up your own online business, it gives you the tools as well. Here you can build a web site, create an online store, get a domain name and find out how to market your business online.

Sure it ain't free, but for those without the resources to go it on their own, Yahoo Small Business goes a long way to reduce those ugly start-up costs that can stall any good idea.

ebay.com.au
Think of it as an online trading post and you won't realise the true potential of ebay. With some ungodly number of people already using the site everyday, ebay will surely either take over the world or at least sell it all off to the highest bidder. You can sell pretty much anything you like and because of its massive worldwide userbase, you can gain access to niche markets previously impossible to crack into.

It's easy to setup your own profile and though fraud is always a risk, the handy feedback tools allow reputable sellers to stand out from the rest. Best of all, you only pay for what you sell.

ecommerce-guide.com/
If you're thinking e-commerce (not everyone is) then check out the ecommerce guide. Featuring an extensive list of "how-tos", news, reviews, forums and other feature articles, the guide is a great place to get an overview of what goes into a successful ecommerce venture.

asx.com.au
Ok so you may be a little young yet for the Australian Stock Exchange, but maybe you want to find out how the big players do it, hang out in the online trading room and watch the share price ticker tape for a few hours...or maybe its time you started to diversify your share portfolio to reduce your risk.
See also: E Trade Australia, etradeaustralia.com.au

infochoice.com.au/
With the difficulty of juggling the day to day operations with financial concerns, it's no wonder that one-third of all small businesses fail within the first year. To help you find the best deals on a range of loans and financial tools, check out infochoice where you'll find market alerts, credit card selectors and information on where to start.
See also: Small Business Ninemsn, smallbusiness.ninemsn.com.au/ ; Money magazine, money.ninemsn.com.au/

business.gov.au/
The last one on my list is business.gov.au. Here you'll get step by step instructions on how to correctly setup your business. The government, believe it or not, has your best interests at heart most of the time, as they want as many successful business enterprises in Australia as possible. There's also a range of information on frequently asked business questions such as intellectual property rights, taxation, insurance and fair trading.
See also: Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), asic.gov.au/fido

Did you enjoy this article? Have I forgotten your small business pick? Send your comments through to iinewsfeedback@iinet.net.au

 

competitions

poseidon tickets giveaway
If you're into boats turning over, explosions and general mayhem, then perhaps Wolfgang Peterson's new film " Poseidon " is for you. To celebrate the release of the blockbuster remake, Roadshow Films have kindly provided us with 30 in-season double passes to the film to give away to our readers.

To be in the running for this prize, please email competitions with "Poseidon Competition" in the subject line, and provide your username, full name, and address by 5pm WST, June 1, 2006, along with the answer to this question: What is one thing you'd like to see your old mobile phone recycled into?

Winners with the correct answer will be drawn at random and prizes sent by mail.

ii games

2 minute review - EA Fight Night Round 3 (Xbox 360)
With Niaal Holder

One of the shining hallmarks of my life to date is the limited amount of times I've been punched in the head. I can proudly say the only time I've truly been smacked about was by my old martial arts sensei, whose wise tutelage unfortunately came in an upsized combo with intimate physical demonstration. For intimate, read "face, meet fist".

So it's with a brief, yet terminally-remembered lesson in head pain that EA Fight Night Round 3 drags me in and pushes my panic buttons, as I nervously rub a well-earned scar on my left brow.

The premise is simple: you play a boxer, versed in the gentle science of beating somebody until they fall over (and doing it again if they get back up). Boxing titles have come and gone in the past, leaving their tired, dull smell about the place and finishing all the good milk. So how does EAFNR3 step out from the crowd, all fresh-like, offering to pop down the deli to buy me a fresh carton?

Two simple features: firstly, the punch mechanism is nine-tenths freeform, as the sheer bulk of your thrown strikes come from the right analogue stick. If you imagine up is forward, then any direction thrown on the left is a left arm strike, and right for right. Simple eh? Non.

The stick will trace the direction you're throwing it around, and emulate it in the strike - so a quick thrust of the stick up and left, jabs. Dragging the stick down, to the left and throwing it all the way round and up delivers a tasty uppercut. Likewise, dancing back and forth from right to left swings combination punches with such giddy alacrity, you'll be whooping in a manly fashion forthwith.

Cap this off with the 360's grunt behind sprite texturing and things get frighteningly real. A full contact, slow motion replay of a knockout punch shows the sweat glistening off the beaten man's chin, blood flying from his mouth as his cheeks ripple in the sheer force of the left hook you've introduced about his person.

EA have chosen to hide all status bars and health meters by default in this incarnation, so the game you play is based solely on reading the realistic motion, gestures and details of your opponent. If he's cut on the left eye, you wallop it. If he drops his hands, his breathing deepens or his stance grows sluggish, you wallop him.

In an increasingly popular move, EA have again allowed detailed rendering of a 'build your own' pugilist, which always manages to puts my happy face on. This time around, it's downright scary how realistic my combative alter-ego looks after just five minutes of face mapping. My initial delight at stepping into the ring with Holyfield, Ali and de la Hoya was skuttled as my aforementioned winning streak of not being punched was ruined 178 times.

If you're a fan of boxing, if you're looking for something different to the samey Tekken-esque brawlers, even if you just know what it's like to be knocked upside the head, check this title out - it's got fun pain all over it and you're guaranteed to laugh the jolly laugh.

ii flicks & tunes

album of the month
St Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley

You probably heard Gnarls Barkley explode into popularity as their first single "Crazy" leapt up the digital music charts hitting number one in the UK on download sales alone. Not so surprising really considering the talent behind the name: Cee-Lo Green and hip-hop producer Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton from Gorillaz fame.

The duo serve up a genre-bending feast that shifts between pop, hip-hop, soul, and rock to create a soundtrack that makes you want to dance and cry at the same time. The soft sorrowful tones of Cee-Lo may seem out of place at first with the electro hip-hop bends of Danger Mouse, but just as the Gorillaz forged themselves a new genre, so will Gnarls Barkley .

St Elsewhere is refreshingly original, yet instantly accessible.

movie of the month
Poseidon - Rated M

It's New Year's Eve and festivities have begun aboard the luxury cruise ship Poseidon, at sea in the North Atlantic. One of the finest vessels of its kind, Poseidon stands more than 20 stories tall, boasts 800 staterooms and 13 passenger decks. However, everyone knows that if you build a bigger ship, mother nature will build a bigger wave to turn it over, and funnily enough, in Poseidon she does just that.

Wolfgang Peterson, maker of the genre defining sub-movie (that's submarine, not a sub-category) "Das Boot" and "The Perfect Storm", should know a lot about waves and water by now. So it's no surprise when he turned up at the bridge to take on the remake of the 1972 classic " The Poseidon Adventure ".

When a massive rogue wave strikes Posedon, the whole thing turns over, rolling it completely upside down. Passengers and crew are thrown into free fall, and with no bungie ropes to make it fun, most take a quick trip down death mountain. Like all blockbusters, there's a group who survive, and Poseidon is the story of how a small group of unlikely partners work together (and sometimes not) to defy the odds and try to escape.

Poseidon hits Australian cinemas June 1.

DVD review
The Family Stone - Rated M

When all round nice guy and family favourite, Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), arrives home for the festive season, he brings with him new girlfriend (and possible wife) Meridith (Sarah Jessica Parker). Everett's family, headed by controlling matriarch Sybil (Diane Keating), take an immediate dislike to her - a fact not helped by Meredith's uptight and anally retentive personality.

Luckily, Meredith is diagnosed by Everett's misfit brother Ben (Luke WIlson) as merely misunderstood - her frigid demeanour and awkward ways are just a by-product of her inability to relax (an insight only able to be revealed by an all night booze-fest at the local bar).

Meridith calls in her sister (Clare Danes) for support, who, unlike Meredith, is accepted warmly by both the family and the suddenly bumbling Everett. It quickly becomes obvious that a few rounds of Christmas match-making is about to get underway.

Normally the mere sight of a "home for the holidays" movie sends me into a well practiced U-Turn. But I'd heard some good reviews so I gave this one a chance.

The "home for the holidays" plot-line comes out every Christmas and while there's always room for a new interpretation, sadly, The Family Stone does little to distinguish itself. Done right, these kinds of family unit films can be incredibly insightful. A good believable family dynamic can carry a film as we enjoy and relate to the way peculiarities of personality are overcome and embraced by the family unit.

But here, the characters seem to be clawing to find this dynamism - the personalities are strong and "wacky" but smack at the same time of an over-fed script and storyline staples that I found hard to swallow.

However, there are some really solid performances here - performances that almost turned me around. Diane Keaton is strong and yet vulnerable as the overbearing mother and Sarah Jessica Parker is totally reinvented from her Sex and City cut-out as the frigid Meredith. In fact most of the family (and various hangers-on) are enjoyable in their own ways.

Unfortunately, in it's attempt to satisfy the serious family drama fans and festive season money pots, The Family Stone loses itself in the toe jam between.

Still enjoyable, but the warm holiday glow quickly dissipates.