Big news, she who must be obeyed has accepted a job offer and we’ll be moving to Melbourne in the new year, roughly mid January.

I moved to Western Australia in November 1998 after 2 years in Queensland (I’m originally from Sydney) so it was coming up on 10 years, and possibly time for a change

There are things I’ll miss: the lifestyle, the beautiful clean environment, by far and away the best wine in the world and when I get up to Perth the best most inclusive tech community in Australia. There are plenty of things I wont miss, like not being able to shop or buy alcohol on a Sunday or shop after 6pm on a week night, no gambling, poor roads, poor public school system, too many self important local Governments run by self-important wankers, the local Liberal party which is often to the left of the ALP, stupid debates against daylight saving, The Eagles, the WACA (both the ground + association), Ted Bull on ABC Radio…I’m sure there will be other things as well that will come to mind later.

There’s a couple of big selling points in the move for us; great private schools with choices, a richer and more mentally stimulating environment to bring the boy up in, with a variety of day trips, cheap airfares to the East Coast, great shopping…and of course for she who must be obeyed her mother and that side of her family. We’re hoping to live in the Inner Eastern suburbs, probably around Richmond/ Hawthorn, Prahran/ South Yarra areas, although renting is insanely expensive in Melbourne; buying not so bad but we’ve got to sell our house first then buy a house there, something not always done quickly. Me: I’m just looking forward to 24mbps ADSL2+, I’m mentally typing the OMG OMG OMG’s from the first time I use it now

Just for the record I’ve decided not to run for the DLP at this election. I think when it comes down to it that I’ve enjoyed my time out of politics too much, and certainly becoming political again risks damaging the great relationships I’ve built up in the last 2 years, and @simone comes to mind

I’m also not time poor at the moment, and running a campaign properly is a full time gig. On one hand I’ve always passionately believed in the civic good, and the individuals ability to make a difference, on the other hand at 32 I’m building my own business, writing for the bible of Web 2.0 and enjoying my working life more than I ever have before…which oddly enough before coincides with my time involved in politics.

I’ve got a podcast lined up this week with an old friend of mine Wade McInerney on the election, and depending on how that goes I’ll look at  forum discussion and/ or podcast the week prior to the election, but aside from the odd observation that’s it for me this year.

My thanks to the many people who encouraged me in considering running, and for your different opinions for and against.

BTW: you should vote for the LDP in the Senate in particular: Australia needs a good libertarian voice to counter the mad socialism of the Greens and the Religious socialism of Family First on the cross benches. If you’re in Queensland vote Democrat in the senate only because Andrew Bartlett gets new media and blogging: I don’t agree with most of the Democrats platform but Bartlett is definitely one of the good guys.

A totally left of centre offer today: I was aksed to consider running for the Liberty and Democracy Party as their candidate in Forrest.

The initial rush of blood to the head was like blood to a vampire for me: it’s hard to ever get away from politics once you’ve been involved at some stage, and particularly so as I was for 12 years of my life in the Liberal Party.

I’m giving it some serious thought, and I’ll probably sleep on it tonight. On one hand when I quit the Liberal Party that was suppose to be it for me in politics, and given what little it gave back over 12 long years of blood, sweat and tears it should have been it. And yet the LDP has a policy platform that is totally in sync with my fundamental political beliefs, beliefs which I’d note where once Liberal beliefs that were forgotten in the orgy of socialism that is the Howard Government.

Obviously I couldn’t win, but I might get enough votes to make a difference, and maybe even help get the LDP senate candidate up.

More soon.

A little message to My Mac, an official Apple reseller located on Flinders Street, Melbourne.

That’s My Mac, My Mac of Melbourne, My Mac Apple Reseller, My Mac Apple Melbourne

I’ve just received a call on my mobile that I thought I’d share with everyone rather than complain to the TIO and ACCC.

The phone rings, I answer it.

There is silence, then a foreign ring tone….a sure sign I’m about to talk to an Indian Call Centre.

Me: Duncan Riley Speaking
Call Centre: I’m calling from Primus Telecom and am calling to say that we will be sending you a free phone
Me: OK……., so it’s totally free
CC: Yes
Me: free calls?
CC: You get $29 worth of calls a month
Me: so I get $29 worth of completely free calls
CC: We are sending you a completely free Nokia 53XX
Me: ok, so what is the catch
CC: We are sending you the phone today
Me: I still don’t understand, will the calls be free
CC: you will have $29 worth of calls a month
Me: but will I pay for those calls
CC: $29 a month
Me: so it’s not free
CC: we are sending you a free Nokia 53xx
Me: But I already have a phone
CC: We are sending you a new phone sir.
Me: But I didn’t ask for a new phone
CC: We are sending you a new phone sir.
Me: but I’ll have to pay $29 a month to use it
CC: That includes $29 worth of calls
Me: but I don’t won’t a new phone
CC: you don’t wont a free phone sir?
Me: no, I don’t.
CC: Good bye Sir. (Hangs up).

The worst thing: if I hadn’t asked questions and just listened to “we are sending you a free phone” and thought “you ripper, a free phone” I would probably have agreed to accept the phone, which would have then locked me in to some sort of Primus Plan without knowing it; after all, they would have a voice recording of me saying that I am accepting the phone.

To say this is an appalling scam would be an understatement. I wonder how many unsuspecting Australian’s have received “free” phones from Primus to only discover a month later that they are stuck on a $29/ month plan. Lets hope someone important (ie: in the relevant Commonwealth Statutory Body) reads this and takes action. 

In an age of crap customer service and people who don’t care, every now and then you encounter a company that bucks the trend.

At 10am PST this morning (1am AWST) I got an email from my wife indicating that the hose behind the fridge had broken and that a good portion of the house was ankle deep in water. I Googled Bunbury Flood Help from the other side of the world and found Bunbury Fire and Flood. She who must be obeyed rang them and they were there within 45 minutes with industrial water vacuums etc… and they were nice about it as well. The service includes a dehumidifier and floor board repairs as well.

So a quick thanks to Bunbury Fire and Flood. I hope we’ll never ever need to use again, but I’m more than happy to recommend you to others in need.

But I should add to the post title that it took 30 minutes including me arguing with a Big-W Bunbury floor manager to get this price.

1 big box of lego, advertised (so I found out at the checkout) for $28.88 on special (I’m guessing its usually $40-$50), the floor price as the photo shows:  $8.88. The checkout chick and door person were great, they had to check which is their jobs, but they were good about it. The bitch who met me on the floor on the other hand wasn’t on the same planet: get this, her line was that the lego I was trying to buy was “accidentally” placed on the shelf by a customer and therefore not valid at the price. I asked her repeatedly whether she actually understood what she was saying, given there were 10 other boxes of the EXACT same lego on the shelf how it could be an accident?…indeed the entire display consisted only of the same lego products. It’s only when I started taking pictures and threatening the Trade Practices Act that something was done, by the time I was back at the checkout it was all sorted. Still 30 bloody minutes though. God, I wish we had Wal-Mart in Australia, nothing could be as retarded as anything owned by Coles or Woolworths in comparison…and this is just today’s story, if I blogged every issue I have at one of these stores there would be at least 4 posts a week…like the mole at Coles who bit my head off when I asked where a product was, telling me there was a perfectly good store guide at the end of the isle, or the moldy bread products that were 2 weeks past their use buy date at Woolworths….

Some good news and something I never imagined happening when I attended the last TechCrunch party in New York last November; at this stage I will be attending the next TechCrunch party at August Capital at Menlo Park, California July 27. I’ve never been to the West Coast before (no slings and arrows please) so I’m looking forward to it, obviously from the opportunity of networking as well as actually seeing what the hype is about. Will be great to meet a lot of the people I’ve corresponded with , people like Brian Solis and others. I should be on the ground for around a week, given I’m likely staying at Michael Arringtons house my only request is that people don’t try to pitch their startups at first light, but aside from that I will be some-what available

While working today a window popped up and reminded me that I have less than 2 weeks to validate my legally bought legitimate copy of Microsoft Vista. It’s not the first time this has occurred. I still haven’t gotten around to reinstalling Vista twice as recommended by Microsoft to get rid of this, but it is the tipping point that has finally driven me to lose faith in a company I’ve used for 20 years. From my first XT running Dos through many years of new computers, including building many of them myself, through Win 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME, XP and now Vista I’ve remained a PC guy. I’ve literally spent tens of thousands of dollars, and yet Microsoft finds it necessary to punish me today, despite doing the right thing and running a legal copy of Windows on a system that came pre-installed with XP: the bloody product key is still stuck to the side of the box, not that it matters to them.

Today I ordered my first ever Mac.

I’d had advice to buy a Macbook Pro or similar, but I already have a laptop, one that will pretty soon probably be running Linux. Given my expenditure already on a wireless keyboard/ mouse, webcam and twin 22″ monitors the only logical choice is a Mac Pro. They’re not particularly cheap, but I shopped around and I didn’t buy directly from Apple. Went for the basic twin 2.66ghz dual core Intel Xeons, only ordered it with 1GB of Ram though, $480 for an extra 1GB is insane and I’ll pickup some generic Ram that will work in the system in the next couple of days. 500gb hard drive and bluetooth support just for good measure, you can never future proof a system enough.

I’m not sure whether to be sad, angry or just plain excited. Obviously a super fast new system is exciting, but it’s sad that it’s gotten to this point. The anger is directed at Microsoft. Here’s hoping that the new system meets expectations. I’ve got no idea when it might get here, it’s coming from Melbourne so I’d guess a week, and I’ll write some more when it finally arrives. I’ve got a lot of homework to do in the mean time, like tossing up buying Office for Mac or just ditching Office all together, replacement software, running Parallels etc… all things that need to be considered for a new system.

Update: it just occurred to me that read alone this sounds like I’m making the switch just because of one thing. I’m not, it’s the many things in Vista that don’t work, the error messages I get every morning about a MCE db error, the programs that wont run, the programs Vista wont allow to run, and the never ending “are you sure boxes”…whoever thought up that idea at Microsoft should be shot. Simply I probably wouldn’t be making the switch if I’d stuck with XP. Win XP was a great OS, I never had any issue at all across 3-4 boxes and XP editions including MCE (which I’ve still got on a dedicated box). XP was the pinnacle of Microsoft programming, Vista is like the last days of the Roman Empire.

After finally getting Vista working on my desktop at about 11:30pm last night (it took 11 hours) the nightmare continued today. I would appear that although I purchased the upgrade version and still have XP on the hard drive (although I’m unable to access it) Vista now thinks that I should have a stand lone product key for validation, so essentially I’m unable to validate my totally 100% legal copy of Vista!

I did some digging and finally rang Microsoft this morning. After nearly 1 hour on the phone talking to 3 different people, I received this advice (copied directly from the email):

1. Restart Computer and Boot from Windows Vista DVD
2. Run Setup again, without entering the Product Key
3. Complete installation and boot into Windows Vista
4. While in Windows Vista, boot the Windows Vista DVD
5. Run Setup again and this time enter the product key
6. Complete the installation and you should be able to activate Windows Vista from here.

Yep, they’re telling me to reinstall Vista TWICE! Are they f*cking joking? I asked them to give me a key that works, they told me I’d have to buy it despite the fact that I’ve already purchased Vista and could provide them the Vista key and the original XP key. So I’ve got 29 days before Vista shuts down, I’ve had to reinstall all my software and drivers and now I have to do it all again twice! If I’m feeling brave I might try on the weekend but I tell you what at this point I’ve had enough of Microsoft, I’ve used Microsoft products since DOS god knows what and can still remember running Word for DOS, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on PCs and software and as far as Microsoft is concerned that don’t mean jack! Vista might be pretty, and admittedly it is fairly fast, but the whole Macs just work line is really driving me to the point that my next computer will be a Mac. The lost productivity and work time in dollar figures alone yesterday would have made for a nice deposit.