Noticed the server lost international connectivity for a brief period late this afternoon.
An enquiry with the colo provider I use has resulted in advice that they're having router troubles at the moment, and the guilty party is to be swapped-out at sometime between Midnight and 1am tomorrow.

So there'll be a little more pain before it's sorted. Sorry bout that folks.. :) Impact should be minimal as you should be doing something else after Midnight on a Friday! :)

As the sign says....

Credit to one of the guys at work who pointed out how appropriate the sign is when we wear our IT security hats. :-)

Oh, come ON...

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Er.. yeah.. thanks for that kitty! Still havn't gotten the feathers out of every blimming corner of the rumpus room...

Server was subjected to some updates over the weekend and a reboot to place these fully into effect today. Sorry for any impact, and let me know if any troubles persist...

I have to give a lot of credit to David Millar (and others) for giving those of us in the NZFIRE group a steady stream of updates from Christchurch in the aftermath of one of NZ's most significant natural disasters. The affects of the magnitude 7.1 quake which hit last weekend will be felt for years.

One interesting point of note is the value the new Hazmat-Command Units NZFS has recently fielded have brought into play, with their integrated communications systems, etc. Here's some photos taken by David and posted to NZFIRE today:

Larger versions can be found in my South Island Album.

A couple of years ago wifey and I formed a home business as the New Zealand distributors for CardMemories. The business we formed was Jazzed Solutions Ltd and we just relaunched it's website after running a very flat, very basic HTML page for a while.

Due to our changes in personal circumstance the business has been wound right back until recently, but now it's time to get out there again with our Greeting Card Albums. They really are a neat product and are an awesome gift (Christmas is coming y'know!).

So check us out. What can I say, it's our lil thing and it deserves the odd plug. :)

http://www.jazzed.co.nz

Whilst reading the Herald today I was surprised to see an article on NZ's thriving underbelly which mentioned Jason Boon - a school acquaintance who was brutally murdered and it opened my eyes to a few more of the details which were not spelt out well at the time.

It's enough to provoke a lot of thought, most of which isn't suitable for open discussion, but fundamentally it makes me grateful for the values that my parents taught me and for the person i've become.

It also disturbs me exactly how significant the criminal world out there really is, and how oblivious to it many folks are.

As previously blogged our company (the one Liz and I operate privately) has received unsolicited advertising from 'Pieroth Wines NZ' at least once before. They gain our details via the Companies Office Register.

This has been further validated; Last week Liz updated our details with the Companies Office now we've relocated to Auckland.
It didn't take long to receive more junk from Pieroth, addressed to 'Dear Lover of Fine Wines' at our registered address.

DO NOT EVER TRADE WITH PIEROTH WINES! This sort of harrassment-style direct marketing is rude and obnoxious. I'm not a wine lover, no matter how many times you try to suck me in with your faux-manners!

Most of my previous rant on this subject remains entirely valid. It's postal direct marketing, so it doesn't fall under the UEM Act... It could potentially be argued that using the Companies Register for purposes other than for which it is provided, is in breach of its terms of use. Yeah, that'll stand up to scruitiny... ??

Are people stupid enough to actually respond to these mailouts with enough frequency to make the cost of doing them worth the grief?

Why do I have to live with the fact there's absolutely no way to protect myself from this sorta crap?