DJ Paine

i could write pages and pages here on my experience with Telstra Bigpond over the last 2 weeks. it wouldn’t be pleasant reading. i will sum it up:

Telstra Bigpond is horrible. Every part of the experience was shoddy. The only upside was when i actually got normal customer service. In light of that i want to to point out the two people at telstra who have kept me going this long with them {2 weeks}. The original sales guy who was funny and promised me the moon {at least 30 MBS download!} , and Andy and his crew on the @bigpondteam twitter account who actually cared enough to try and help. *Note to Andy* i picture you in front of a PC with a twitter search open bring you the latest results for Telstra and Bigpond – what a depressing job! i cannot imagine seeing the endless complaining on twitter that comes up about bigpond and telstra! good luck man}. Everyone else i have dealt with at Telstra was pathetic.

anyway.

The proof is in the pudding as they say and in this case the pudding is SPEED. So as i have the both Telstra Cable and AAnet ADSL on here at the paine HQ at the moment, i’ve run some tests:

this is a speed test from University of Queensland:

TELSTRA BIGPOND EXTREME CABLE:

AAnet ADSL2

——————————————-

this is a speed test from OZspeedtest:

TELSTRA BIGPOND EXTREME CABLE:

AAnet ADSL2

——————————————-

this is a speed test from speedtest.net:

TELSTRA BIGPOND EXTREME CABLE:

{sunshine coast}

{sydney}

AAnet ADSL2

{sunshine coast}

{sydney}

——————————————-

this is a speed test from Speakeasy speedtest:

TELSTRA BIGPOND EXTREME CABLE:

{from Seattle}

{from Atlanta}

AAnet ADSL2

{from Seattle}

{from Atlanta}

——————————————-

so what would you do if you were me?

correct. cancel telstra.

long time no post… what can i say i’ve been crazy busy!

but let’s cut to the chase: BACK UP.
Backing Up Your Mac’s….

here is what i have:

PHYSICAL Back Up:
Righteo! Hard Drives. at the moment you can get one TeraByte drives for $99 Australian from the mighty nerd store Umart
i have about 9 drives- 3 of them are what i call “master” drives that are kept here in the office, 3 of them are copies of those masters that are kept here in the office, and finally 3 of them are copies as well but are kept in a pelican case offsite {at my parent’s place to be exact}.
my drives are all “naked” off the shelf “internal” sata drives {i prefer silent samsung drives} – i do not have enclosures on them. instead i use a hard drive dock. at the moment i have a DUAL dock from vantec {once again from umart}

i also back up some “important” jobs to DVD {weddings}, but i am trying to totally ween myself off this practise… they take up too much space and are a total hassle to catalogue… but i’ll probably keep doing it for now.

CLOUD Back Up:
i have decided to go with BACKBLAZE for my online no brainer back up. Don’t be put off {like i was} with the stupid “i’m so confident in my online back up i can set fire to this 20 year old laptap i found at the tip” video they have on the front page. here’s the deal: it works with Snow Leopard, it also backs up my external drives and it’s cheap. if you want to use them use the coupon code “online10″ for 10% off – so that works out to a total of $45 a year for unlimited online backup.

i also use DROPBOX for another type of online back up. it’s what i call online backup and synching, and it rocks the casbah like nobodies business! The great news is that you can use dropbox 100% for free for up to 2 gig, if you have friends who might use it, refer them and you get more space for free! SO PEASE SIGN UP USING THIS LINK: https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTI1Njk5
anyway, you download dropbox to all your machines, sign up for an account and then on each machine you have a Dropbox folder, and whatever is in this folder is synched over all of your machines over the internet.
The files are in the folder are downloaded onto each machine, so you have a local copy of everything, as well as a copy on dropbox online. This is perfect if you have any apps like 1Password or Things that you want to synch over multiple machines, just place the app’s library/background goodness onto your dropbox and booyeah you have the app synched over the machines. i LOVE ME SOME DROPBOX. been a big fan of these guys since they started, seriously check out their tour and then sign up using me as a referal so i can get more space to back up my Chick Tract collectable list.
anyway – check their awesome tour here getdropbox.com/tour

i also back up a LOT of personal photographs on my pro accounts at ZOOOMR & FLICKR – i set them as private so only i can see and download them.
i do the same with video on my pro/plus account at VIMEO

so there ya go. anything i’m missing? what are you doing? let me know!

for those of you {which is most “normal” folk} who are not wrapped up in the ghetto of christian media and entertainment: Derek Webb is an american dude who had a fairly successful christian band called Caedmon’s Call. i wouldn’t call myself a big fan, though i have a few of their albums. i appreciated the band and Derek Webb because there was an essence of authentic-ness to his lyrics and even his vocal delivery… i hadn’t thought about him or the band for a few years until i heard on the grapevine about some broo-ha-ha over his new album. i looked into it and apparently it’s because he says the word “shit” on one song.
sigh.
really?
are we -{and i am using the word we because i am a christian and part of the church in the truest sense of the word.} – still so immature that when one of our artists passionately expresses himself in ART he might use a “profane” word? are we that weak that we can’t take one little artists out pouring? could it be that he HAS to use whatever is in him to convey exactly what he believes Father has shown him?
Anyway…
so i finally heard some of the new album, and blow me down, it is excellent. Right up my alley. The production is fantastic, gone are the rootsy folksy christian nashville sound of Caedman’s Call, and instead there are loops, samples and chopped up electronics. I LOVE IT.
and as for me: i believe that on so many levels:
musically
creatively
artistically
spiritually
and just honouring Father because you are jumping out into that abyss of creating and loosing yourself in it all….
this is the best stuff that i’ve heard Derek Webb do.
but what do i know hey?

here are some videos.
check out Derek Webb online here.

in light of me writing to all these photo storing / sales websites and getting back some great / good customer support responses… i turn to a company that has probably the very worst in customer support and general helpfulness: Yahoo!.

For starters let me state the obvious: the user experience with Yahoo is HORRIFIC. the main yahoo home page is like someone ate every magazine and newspaper in the store and then threw up a website. it is totally confusing, services all over the place, news, weather, ads… but the worst thing is the stupid “region” thing. i get to experience the scintillating “YAHOO!7″: australia’s version of yahoo. i don’t want to experience the dumb aussie site just because i am in australia! anyway, i don’t want to talk about that today, i want to talk about my experience with Yahoo! 360°….

when Yahoo! 360° first started i joined up and played with it for a few months, got bored and then i deleted my account. {mistake} but recently, due to great usefull services like Ping.fm, Yahoo! 360° is looking like it might be fun to use. so i head over to sign up and basically i can’t {details later}, so after trying everything i can, i look for help and the closest thing to help i can find is “Yahoo! Answers”, where yahoo get’s everyday schmucks to answer their help calls for them. i could find people who had the same problem, but nothing i could find in the “answers” actually helped. so i asked my own question {after being forced to “join” answers} – and you can read it “after the jump”-

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i first heard about “Big Black Bag” from the one and only Scott Bourne {one of the strangest men on the internets} on one of the many podcasts he pops up on. now this might sound horrible to some {all you scott bourne fans}, but the fact that Mr Bourne was pushing it sorta put me off it. i mean his whole style of photography {not to mention dress sense} is very different to me, which is not bad thing, we’re just different. so mr bourne’s online photo needs might be as different to mine as our taste in Hawaiian shirts.

anyway, this response is from the 4th company in the 5 i emailed. it came after 13 hours and i appreciate the simple “to the point” reply.…

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ok, proving the “you have not because you ask not” principal – the next reply to my very long email was from the very popular SmugMug. the reply i got was around 6 hours after i sent the email, which is still very prompt and is enough time to see that someone has actually read it. so even though they are “second” – so far this response is the best.

the smugmug support person took the time to answer every question “inline” within my email! awesome. they win points for that. so to see the amazing response keep reading….

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despite the nay-sayers {cough -aaron spence- cough}, i am getting replies to my questions to the five contenders for my online photo needs… and all the replies i get will be shown to you here to keep you in the loop.

now keep in mind that my email was sent on 19 September 2008 4:04:41 PM. the first reply i got was from Zenfolio – less than 5 minutes later – hmmmm….. prompt reply is one thing but…. so zenfolio win the award for the first reply but let’s have a look at their reply:

{note i am finally using the “insert more” tag so my blog page doesn’t assault your good sense with great big long entries…. so as they say in the blogging world: read the email after the jump…}

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