Kiwitube: My adhoc Analysis

I visited the Kiwitube website on it's official launch date. I was not impressed. It appears the site still has some teething issues to deal with. I found the sign-up process was acceptable, and the ability to upload a decent-sized profile image gives it a small advantage over the world dominating YouTube in that respect. But the important thing about a video-sharing site is the video sharing, and on my first use of this site I was not impressed.

Kiwitube is completely picky about what you upload to it. The site claims that you can upload almost any file format. That's fine, unless your upload breaks any of their 10 comprehensively listed limitations on file names!

When last on the site, the following are not permitted within the file name of uploads:

1) commas,
2) more than ONE space between words, (check this)
3) apostrophes ' (e. g. she's becomes she is)
4) speech marks or quotes " "
5) the $ sign (so $4000 becomes 4000 dollars)
6) the @ symbol (use the word AT or at instead for e-mail in your description)
7) backslash / or forward slash
8) a dash -
9) an exclamation mark !
10) the & symbol. Use 'and' instead.

This doesn't do much for convenience in uploading. YouTube doesn't care about your file name, as long as its legal.

The site design looks reminiscent of a 1990's Warez BBS. A mixture of colours you would expect to see when connecting at 2400 baud to your local BBS to get your weekly allocation of Amiga MOD files and other ancillary shareware.

Uploading is tedious needless to say. Uploading a video to YouTube is significantly faster than Kiwitube. Im based in New Zealand, and this statement is true both before and after YouTube launched their New Zealand branded YouTube site.

My other complaint is the main entry into the website. The site has a video automatically playing on entry to the website. This is a very poor choice I say.

I do have some positive comments about Kiwitube. I like the way how comprehensive information is provided about an upload in progress. The site displays how many Kbytes you have uploaded so far, and even provides an estimate on time remaining for your upload. Kiwitube could teach YouTube a thing or two in this respect.

I have no complaints regarding the resulting video quality of videos uploaded to the site. In fact, a sample video uploaded to the site looked as good as the same clip uploaded to YouTube.

By default, when you embed a video clip outside of Kiwitube, the default window is smaller than then the normal size you would see on YouTube or Revver. The video also appears to automatically play in it's embedded form (when it functions).

Overall, the website looks like it has been quickly thrown together with some fence posts, number 8 wire, and some nails.

Want to start your own video-sharing site? head over to www.clip-share.com like Kiwitube did and join in all the fun!

Useless Information: Actress Michelle Pfeiffer was the first choice to play Clarice Starling in the movie "Silence of the Lambs." She turned down the role because she found it too scary.

The Diwali Festival at Britomart

Today, Anisha and I went to the Annual Diwali festival. The festival is held at Britomart in Auckland City.

I would describe the festival as a combination of stalls selling Indian merchandise, others which were selling authentic Indian food, and some fantastic onscreen displays of dancing.

For lunch I immersed myself in culture by indulging on a Dosa, followed by Cashew Nut Pakoras. The Pakoras were not what I thought they would be, and Anisha told me that they are normally a snack food rather then a meal. Nevertheless, they were fantastic.

The weather was fair, with a bit of rain here and there throughout the day. We took the rain as an opportunity to go inside the pavilion building in order to see a presentation by Tourism India.

You will see in the attached YouTube video, and the photo to the far right, images of the Tourism India presentation. The person in the dress is actually a guy, FYI.

Anisha and I each took a NZ$1.00 lucky dip from one of the stands. I won a candle, and a certificate for being a tightass with money. Anisha won a small basket.

We saw other dances, including one from the Academy of Bhartanatym (refer my YouTube channel for Video), and we saw part of a Bollywood Dance Competition.

Later at night, we could see the fireworks display from Anishas apartment.


Video: Diwali at Britomart 2007 - Incredible India Presentation


Watch on MSN Soapbox

Useless Information: Gloucestershire airport in England used to blast Tina Turner songs on its runways to scare birds away.

The Family Photo Shoot

Today we went for a family photo shoot sitting. Mum, Dad, Charlene, Nick, Carlos, both Granddads, and Nanna on my mums side were present for the photo session. Granddad Tennents girlfriend Anne was there, but not in any of the photos.

The sitting was performed by Russell Hamlet Photography at 27 Robinson Road Albany. The weather was perfect and we got a good selection of photos taken. Mum will be selecting the photos at the showing at a later date in the companies Newton office.

After the photo shoot sitting, we all went down to a close cafe called Fernielea. It is located at 302 Coatesville River Highway, in Coatesville. Both Dad and my two grandads briefly engadged in a game of Petanque (The French game of Boules).

I spoke with Grandad Tennent about the tramps/walks that I had been on recently. Being the avid tramper he is, he had been on both of the tramps that I had been on. That is the Karangahake Gorge and the Hunua Falls walks. He spoke of the Strawberry plants at the Karangahake Gorge, and how the Tui birds got drunk on the strawberry's, cackling away and falling off branches.

Another story from Grandad Tennent was about the previous owner of the company now known as Fulton Hogen. He spoke highly of the former owner. He spoke of how the owner received complaints regarding workers leaning on their spades. A meeting was held, and the owner told his workers that there were complaints that workers were reading comic books while on the job. The response from the workers was "Can't be us sir, we cant read!".


Map: Russell Hamlet Photography

Useless Information: Every photograph of the first American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.

In Loving Memory

Today was the funeral of Rudy Jancys. It was held at the All Saints Chapel located at the Purewa Crematorium in Meadowbank. The Officiant was Alexa Bartlett. The service began with a welcome, which was followed by the eulogy.

After this, tributes from family and friends were made, including one from the man in the Wendy's TV Advertisements (David Fouston?).

A musical tribute of the song "Ave Maria" was performed by Avril Dell. After that, the Lords Payer was sung by all. Next was the committal.

Runy died on October 15th 2007. Rudy will be surely missed by all those touched by him.

Additional Information: In Russia, when flowers are given for a romantic occasions, flowers are given in odds numbers as even number of flowers is given at funerals only.

Armageddon Pulp Expo

Anisha had a random idea or feeling that she wanted to attend that Armageddon expo. I thought for a few minutes and then told Anisha "lets go". So we jumped out of bed and got ready. My Anisha made an amazing breakfast. I don't know what I would do with out her amazing meals she is so special to me and my tummy. lol

The Armageddon expo is held over three day from Friday to Monday. I really enjoyed the day and I think Anisha did as well.

Entry was NZ$16 per adult and Darren that used to work at Datacom was acting as a ticket collector at the door. Alan Mason was found at the Eve stand.

I got my photo taken with Darth Vader, and Princess Leia. I also got a photo with a random storm trooper. A number of actors including Christoper Judge from Stargate was also at the event. A couple of these actors were in public view smoking cigarettes prior to signing autographs. This surely brings a bad image to their fans, particularly the younger ones amongst them.

Overall, this was a highly commercialised event with virtually all of the stands selling Sci Fi culture merchandise.

Useless Information: Director George Lucas had trouble originally getting funding for Star Wars because most studios thought most people wouldn't bother seeing it.

The Karangahake Gorge

As part of our regular ZeeClub events, we went the The Karangahake Gorge for a tramp. I invited Nigel and Kim as well. We met the rest of the gang at the BP on the Southern Motorway in Bombay.

We then made the trip to the Karangahake Gorge. We began by doing the Windows Walk (15 Minutes), followed by the Crown Tramway Track (30 Minutes). This connected to the Crown Track (1 Hour 30 Minutes). After completing the tramp, we reversed and came all the way back. We traversed through two tunnels, one of which was 180 metres in length. A torch is strongly recommended.

After returning from the tramp, the group had a shared lunch. We had brought the rolls which I had painstakingly made the night before. They did appear to be popular with the children.

After lunch, we stopped in Paeroa and had our photo taken in front of the famous L&P Drink bottle. We then got some Ice Creams from the local dairy. I got a double-scoop. The scoops were amazingly big!

I have uploaded 7 videos for the event to my YouTube Channel.


Video: Anisha to the Rescue!

Useless Information: In the late 1960's, Mountain Dew bottles featured a hillbilly on them. These are now collector items worth five to ten dollars.

In Preparation for the long walk

I picked up Anisha from the Botany Downs Town Centre today. We went to New World to pick up some groceries for the weekend, and for the shared lunch at the walk tommorow.

Anisha wanted to get a DVD rental out, so we went to Blockbuster to do so. I saw the Reno 911 Movie which I wanted to watch. However, Anisha saw "Stomp The Yard" and we go that instead. I relented after I remembered subjecting her and Jolene to the movie "The Kingdom" previously.

I bought an ex-rental DVD of the movie "The Sentinel" which was part of their 50% off sale. All ex-rental DVD's are on special for Labour Weekend.

After watching the movie, I prepared what we will bring for the trip tomorrow. I made 7 rolls containing various things, including some for the vegans in the group.

Anisha cooked Chicken and Rice and that was lovely.

Useless Information: A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs.

Let the Celebrations begin!

After work today I went down to the Cardrona Speight's Ale House on Normanby Road, Mt Eden. Alan Mason was holding drinks there due to the fact that it was his birthday on Thursday. There were quite a lot of old faces there, Including Joseph and Amit from Datacom. Penny Cotton was also there. Nigel, Kim and Amy also met us at the bar.

Penny Cotton is currently working for Telecom in Network Operations. She had left working at TelstraClear onto the more flourishing pastures of Telecom.

Alan will be off to Armageddon on Saturday. Being the addicted Eve player he is, he is going to be on the Eve stand at Armageddon.

We discussed our plans with Nigel and Co for the Karangahake Gorge Walk tomorrow. We will be meeting up with other members of the ZeeClub in the morning on Sunday. If all goes to plan, it should be a nice and easy walk.

My RSA SecureID Token for Internet Banking arrived today. It is termed the "Internet Security Device" by my bank.

Useless Information: A single chocolate chip gives enough energy to a human being to walk 150 feet.

Blogger Outage, Video Identification and things Anisha Wants

So, I am part way through writing today's fantastically exciting blog. I click the 'Publish Post' button, expecting Blogger to be rock-solid, fault-tolerant and without error.

I was immediately taken back when the Blogger server responded with an error 502 server error. This error, of which the message itself explains is normally reserved for situations whereby the server has insufficient bandwidth or capacity to serve requests. Heart palpitations aside, the server responded again in about 5 minutes. It is back up and going at the moment, but is as slow as molasses. See the below screenshot of the error when I attempted to connect.


Server Error 502 served by Blogger

The error really bothered me until it was resolved. I was in the middle of compiling the below list of potential Christmas presents for Anisha.

- A Strawberry Shortcake Tshirt (Jay Jays)
- iPods and portable DVD Players
- Silver Bullet
- Iron Chef DVD's
- Samsara
- Breville Mini Wizz
- Charmed TV Series DVD's

Ealier today, I applied to be a participant in the YouTube Video Identification Beta. An extract from the YouTube site on the Beta states:

"YouTube Video Identification will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube. We have worked with Google to develop one-of-a-kind technology that can recognize videos based on a variety of factors. As its Beta status indicates, our Video Identification is brand-new, cutting-edge stuff, so we will be constantly refining and improving it. Early tests with content companies have shown very promising results. As we scale and refine our system, YouTube Video Identification will be available to all kinds of copyright holders all over the world, whether they want their content to appear on YouTube or not."

In changes to my Blog, I removed the useless Kontera advertisements. They slowed down page load, didn't work properly, were not always contextually correct, confused my blog visitors, and earned me minimal advertising money. I would not recommend Kontera and you shouldnt hear me complain about them again. Tonight, I am investigating Snap Shot Page previews.

I Have Now implemented Snap Shots on my blog. This allows a pop-up preview of all of the external links including my YouTube videos.

I have learned that I can prevent my YouTube videos from staying on top of my other pop-up content with the following code in the embed tag:

Add the following parameter to the EMBED tag:
wmode="transparent"

Useless Information: In England during Queen Victoria's time, oranges were given as Christmas presents.

Blah Blah WOF WOF

I did the registration for my car today. I did it online through the Land Transport website. This is far more convenient then lining up at my local New Zealand Post to pay there. An additional advantage of doing it online is that you can pay by Credit Card online. New Zealand Post out-rightly refuses to take credit cards as payment to government departments and agencies.

I dropped into OnRoad to get my WOF done (Unfortunately, I can't do my Warrant of Fitness online!). Dean Davies was also there getting a Warrant of Fitness sorted. We had a bit of a chin-wag while waiting for our respective WOF's to be completed. Generally, I find waiting for a WOF to be completed to be worse then waiting in a Doctors waiting room.

I took Anisha to DSE in Sylvia Park as she wanted to print out some of her photos she had on her USB Drive. The machines there picked up more then just the photos she wanted to print, and it was not feasible to sort through the 1500 photos that she had on the drive! She has decided to do this some other time now.

Later that night, Anisha and I had dinner at Charlene and Nicks place. There was quite a lot of leftovers from Carlo's party!

Useless Information: If all the cars from the U.S. were taken and lined up from bumper to bumper, there would be enough cars to go to the moon from earth and back.

Carlos Sinclair has his first Birthday Party

Today we had Carlo's first birthday party. Most of the family attended. Notable exceptions were Grandad (Charlie) Tennent and some members from Nicks family.

I was tasked with picking up some Pizza from Pizza Hut (it seems that Pizza factors into this blog quite a bit!) from the Chapel Road store.

We all had an utterly enjoyable time. The weather was excellent for the majority of the day.

I took about 60 photos on my camera which are available on my photo gallery on my website. I also have taken 5 or so videos with my camera and put them on my Youtube Channel. One of the videos I took is shown below.

Nick took some additional footage with his proper video camera, and I would ideally like to get a hold of that footage too. Mum has some additional photos she took with her camera and I need to get hold of those too.


Video: Carlos Opens his Birthday Presents

Useless Information: Instead of a birthday cake, many children in Russia are given a birthday pie

A Friday of Junk Food

Today the support team decided to get some Pizzas for lunch. We considered Pizza Hut and Hells Pizza. We went for Hell Pizza in the end. We put in the order, and Alan and I went in my car and picked up the Pizza from the Symonds street store.

After work, Anisha and I went to Sylvia Park. We went and had dinner at Burger Fuel. I had the 'Bastard' Burger, which was a really large burger! I had Burger Fuel hold the beetroot and avocado. A nice burger. I only needed one to fill me up tonight.

After that, We went to Borders at Silvia Park. I picked up a book entitled "Perfect Phrases for Negotiating Salary & Job Offers" by Matthew J. DeLuca and Nanette F. DeLuca. It was only $NZ17.99 so I bought it. Whether it contains useful information is subject to option, and how successful the ending results are when used in practise.

We met up with Jolene at the Hoyts movie theatre to see a movie. We ended up watching the movie "The Kingdom". I really liked it, but it was perhaps not a great movie for the girls!

Useless Information: On average, Americans eat one hundred acres of pizza a day. This amounts to about three hundred fifty slices per second.

An Agent for MyBook

The people at Harvey Norman had no success recovering any of the photos off Anisha's faulty Seagate FreeAgent Desktop Hard Drive. Fortunately, Anisha was able to get more photos back through JR who pulled them from the Datacom network.

We went into Harvey Norman to get a replacement drive. Last weekend the the guy at Harvey Norman said we could have a Western Digital replacement, in comparison to the dodgy Seagate drive. The gentleman manning the customer service desk went and got the same Seagate drive until I protested and then we got a Western Digital MyBook instead. This is a slightly more expensive unit and the guy wanted to charge the difference. I had to protest again and they accepted this.

Harvey Norman were unwilling or unable to assist with data recovery on the old drive. They would not send it back to the manufacturer to attempt to recover the data. As a last ditch effort, I asked if I could have the drive so I could take it to a professional for data recovery. Excuse my slang, but this did not fly with them.

I now understand that Anisha has got most of her photos back, one way or another.

Useless Information: In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia.

A little bit of Social Networking

This week has been it's usual busy self. Having recently being given the responsibility for administrating the Zeacom Support NZ sharepoint site I worked hard today on improving its usefulness and the types of information available to the support team.

One of my old school friends Ben Relf came into Zeacom on business today. He currently works for Connect NZ and is currently reselling our product on the Avaya platform. We plan to do drinks some time soon.

Jarrod Clayworth contacted me again today. I had worked with Jarrod when I contracted with Peace Software in Port Macquarie in Australia. He is applying for a job at one of Zeacom's customers, GE Money (Formally Pacific Retail Finance). I gave Jarrod some information about Zeacom software, as he was applying for a telephonist position there. I also added Jarrod as a Facebook friend.

I spoke with Wayne Anderson from CallPlus/Slingshot today, and he assures me that my iTalk phone number will be listed in the Online White Pages and in the Telecom phone book at its next printing.

And whats the deal with Microsoft's Live! Search? It's now looking like a complete mirror image of Google search! I recall people mentioning how the Live! search results mirrored the way that Google displayed image and video search results, but the main search page is virtually identical. Also, when will Windows Live! Search learn that I'm from New Zealand and not the United Kingdom! Must be a browser thing.

For now, enjoy this small clip of Carlos walking by himself which I took earlier this week.


Video: Carlos taking his first steps

Useless Information: Adolf Hitler was one of the people that was responsible in the creation of the Volkswagen Beetle. He came up with the idea of producing a car that was cheap enough for the average German working man to afford.

An Agent and a Lone Star

Anisha's brand new Seagate FreeAgent hard drive had gone kaput. She had a lot of photos on it, and they were in jeopardy. From various methods and sources, we managed to restore about 80% of them, but the drive was dead.

We took the drive into Harvey Norman Botany Downs and explained the situation to their customer service. The guy we dealt with plugged the unit into three separate computers and it detected the drives without a problem. This was the initial behaviour we experienced on our PC's at home. I asked the gentleman to attempt to copy some files off the drive for five minutes. The drive failed and was no longer recognised after performing this test.

The Harvey Norman representative recommended having the drive with a Western Digital unit. He stated that he already had another dead Seagte drive in for repair, and that he uses Western Digital himself. Harvey Norman have the WD Mybook at the moment, which is a good unit as a replacement. Harvey Norman are going to attempt to recover the data, but their team on site hardly has the capability of a full data recovery.

Anyhow, Harvey Norman will try and recover the data and give us a call to see how it goes. It has not been successful. We may or may not have them approach Seagate to perform a data recovery on the drive. I'm personally feeling that the units firmware or connectivity has died somewhere and that the data could be recovered if the drive was removed from its casing. I'd be pretty sure that the unit would contain a standard hard drive.

I went to Just Cuts to get a style cut. Just Cuts are running a promotion where if you refer someone to Just Cuts, you can get free movie tickets.

We went to The Warehouse and Anisha had the idea that we could buy Carlos a little gift. After much discussion, we decided on getting some little bath toys which squirted water. We were ambushed by Eric Hart who was on duty, and I spoke with him for about 15 minutes. After talking with mum, she let us know that Carlos already has these bath toys. We returned the bath toys to The Warehouse and went to Kmart and picked up a toy box (Anisha's idea) instead. We then dropped it off to Carlos.

Later that night Anisha and I went to the Lone Star Bar & Cafe in Manukau. We had been to the one in Newmarket and were quite happy with the food. For my main I had Cajun Chicken, while Anisha had Dixie Chicken. We borrowed the family Entertainment Guide, which included a discount for a free main when another main is purchased. After a few drinks, and a Lone Star bread, this bought the total down to NZ$46. A very reasonable sum for a night out. We also saw Joe who used to work at CTRL-ALT-DELETE (Datacom Cafe) while dining. He is still working in Botany Downs.

Useless Information: In 1991, during an attempted political coup on Russian President Boris Yelstin, food supplies had dwindled down at the parliament buildings so they ordered Pizza Hut to deliver pizzas.

Marcelas last day at Zeacom

Today was Marcela Sierra's last day at Zeacom. We had a morning tea organised where the support team, and a significant proportion of the other departments attended. There was a significant turnout.

Morning tea was shouted by Zeacom and consisted of a number of different foods, ranging from pakoras to ginger slices. There was a large pile of donuts which did take a while to be consumed fully.

Unfortunately, Marcela requested that I did not publish her speech.

Useless Information: Consuming chocolate was once considered a sin during the 16th and 17th century. During that time it was provided in the form of a drink and since drinking wine during lent was a sin, so was drinking chocolate.

Mercy Hospice Auckland

Yesterday, I applied a patch to the notification server service of one of our customers to mitigate an ongoing issue whereby the Message Wait Indicator (MWI) was not functioning correctly.

I added Tony Namulo, and Jason and Virginia O'Connor as friends on my Facebook account.

After work today, I went to visit a family friend Rudi at the Mercy Hospice Auckland. Rudi is a wonderful man and one of my first part-time jobs while studying at school was in his factory which does contract manufacturing and packaging services. Unfortunately, Rudi has cancer and has undergone a lot of treatment. I wish him well.

Tomorrow is a shared lunch at work (Marcela is leaving us at the end of this week). I went down to Countdown and purchased the necessary ingredients to make my famous club sandwiches.

Useless Information: Deliberately infecting people with malaria has been used to cure different viral infections. The high fever will strengthen the immune system and fight the virus. In recent times this has been considered as a treatment to HIV.