Archive for the ‘New Zealand’ Category

All I want for Xmas….

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Here’s my wishlist for Xmas:

  • $NZ500 smart phone with 2MP camera and GPS – iPhone has redefined what a phone should be all about. (And at a sensible price $US399) I want to update my aging Treo to GPS phone and N95 is too expensive.
  • Instant messaging style status on Phone: When I look up a number in my address book it tells their status .eg In a meeting.
  • Long life batteries: Must have more power ! Maybe sooner than we think
  • Global TV / Movie release times: We live in a global economy, so why is media still lagging behind. We should have global release times for all content. Why torrent, when download a legit copy from iTunes.
  • Decent broadband speeds: Other countries have 24+MB broadband, why can’t NZ.
  • Lower cellphone charges: We’ve been paying too much for too long!

SoC Seminar 5

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

I’m really looking forward to this week’s seminar. Henry Maddocks is going to talk about “How to be a professional developer”. Henry has developed a wealth of experience over the years and is going to offer some insights about software development and the industry. The seminar is free, RSVP on the forum.

Title: How to be a professional developer by Henry Maddocks

Summary:

Software development has a bad reputation when it comes to delivering value to users and it is a reputation that is well deserved. Considering we call ourselves engineers and scientists the systems we inflict on our users are generally appalling. That is if we manage to ship anything at all.

Henry Maddocks has spent ten years studying the software development process and knows it doesn’t have to be that way. This presentation will give you insight into what is broken in the software development field and how to avoid becoming part of the problem.

When: 11th December 2007
Time: 12:00pm
Place: Rutherford House LT2
Map: ZoomIn

RSVP on Forum

We've moved !

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

We moved office over the weekend. We’re now located on Willis St above Roti restaurant. (Across the road from Catalyst and Ascent. Hi Guys !)

ProjectX move from Johnston St to Willis St



Our new contact details are as follows:

ProjectX Technology Ltd.

Address:
149A Willis Street
Wellington
Phone / FAX:
+64 4 910 3100

Postal Address:
PO BOX 155
Wellington

The National Broadband Map

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

Today’s Digital Future Summit 2.0 saw the launch of The National Broadband Map, built with ProjectX technology. Its purpose is to help improve access to broadband, especially in the regions, through “demand aggregation”: pooling the demand for telecommunications services in a specific geographic location.

The National Broadband Map - screenshot


Individual users might find it hard to convince a telco to roll out services in their area, but when those users combine, they can often reach the critical mass required to attract investment in the provision of new services. For instance, if you’re a graphic design business in a small provincial town, you might struggle to convince a provider to extend their infrastructure to reach you; but if there is also a school, medical centre and library down your street, plus several other businesses and private residents who are also interested, then the telcos might sit up and take notice.

To this end, the map shows existing state sector locations, as well as allowing businesses and private residences to enter their own locations and describe their level of demand. It also shows existing network infrastructure, and includes all the address search, autocomplete, zooming and panning functionality that is familiar to ZoomIn users.

The National Broadband Map - Digital Strategy website

The system was developed by ProjectX together with the State Services Commission, and involved the collation, geocoding and checking of thousands of state sector locations, and the conversion of network data from all sorts of formats and projections, as well as building on existing ZoomIn Mapping System API functionality. For instance, the ZMS has always had the ability to display vector layers (polylines and polygons) as overlays on the maps, but the size and complexity of the network infrastructures required some hard work from our developers to optimise the performance of these layers, as well as dealing with the inevitable curly cross-browser compatibility issues.

In keeping with the Web 2.0 theme, the Map is labelled “Beta”, and it will evolve over time. Partly that will be due to the growing information base, from user-added places and as we receive more state sector locations and existing network data. There will also be functionality and usability improvements over time, and we encourage user feedback so that we can make this as comprehensive and easy-to-use as possible.

Summer of Code Seminar 2: Design for the future with Nathan Torkington

Friday, November 16th, 2007




(I once worked for a company _this_ big – Nat Torkington)

Nathan Torkington, the reknown foo master, open source advocate, internet strategist, fisherman and banjo player will be delivering a seminar called “Design for the future” for the Summer of Code seminar series. Nathan will be talking about future software trends and what does it mean for open source software writers.

The talk is open to public. Please RSVP on the Summer of Code forum.

Title: Design for the future by Nathan Torkington
When: 20th November 2007
Time: 12:00pm
Place: MY632 Kelburn Campus -Murphy Building
Map: ZoomIn

We have more students looking for summer work

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Due to tightening of government funding, we have a couple of talented students who are looking for work over the Summer.

If you have any full-time / part-time work for programmers over the summer send me an email and I’ll send through their contact details.

If you’re interested email me!

So what are you actually doing about the skills shortage problem – Gen-i ?

Monday, November 12th, 2007

There’s an article in today’s info-tech that the current skills shortage is going to effect the economy.

Gen-i general manager Chris Quin has warned that the shortage of ICT staff in New Zealand has reached the point where it may prevent companies from taking advantage of new technologies and could dent economic growth.

“You can’t solve it just by recruiting harder. This is an industry problem, and it is not a problem that can be solved in New Zealand alone or by one player.”
….
Part of the solution may be making careers in the industry more attractive to “Generation Y” and recruiting from overseas, he says.

<SOAPBOX>

Well, hello! Sorry if I seem a little cyncial to the article. We’ve had a skills shortage for the past 2-3 years. We live in a global market. If you have the right skills there are massive opportunities internationally. Kiwi’s have a fantastic reputation overseas, so its only a matter of time before more raiding occurs. As more people work overseas, they’ll draw a lot of their friends oversea. Its only going to get worse! Unfortunately one of main draw cards is the pay!

We created the Summer of Code as a way to attract the latest students into tech careers. We’re accelerating the learning of the students to help create a more experienced graduate workforce in years to come. There is plenty of amazing tech happening within NZ. Our problem is we’re not so good at letting everyone know! We’ve want to open the eyes to all of our students that there are other opportunites to working in a cubile farm or heading off overseas to find more intersting work.

Like a lot of other companies that I have heard talk about the recruitment shortages, they’re not actually doing a lot about it. Everything they do is is short term. Summer of Code is a long term commitment to accelerate talent and showcase where the real innovation and creativity of the country lies – our start-up and emerging companies. We want to showcase our heroes like Sam Morgan and Rod Drury as example of where NZ is heading.

So my big question to Gen-i is what are they doing about the skills shortage? Recruiting from Britain or investing or our future ? What are you doing for our tomorrow ?

</SOAPBOX>

Lessons from India part i – Super Cheap Mobile prices

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

p1000744.jpg


I’ve been ranting about how expensive mobile calls and data rates have been for years…. Going back to India, highlighted just how crazy the price gap is. I was in Mizoram, which has only had mobile phones for about 18 months and they have super cheap rates!

How cheap?? How about a pre-paid phone with local calls from 0.6c per minute !?!? and free night-time calling ! (Ok, this is a promotion with super-low prices but still !)

Having a look at one of the top providers rates (Airtel and Vodafone)

Feature Pre-paid Post-Paid Standard NZ rate
Base Rental nil $6.90 – (200 Rs) $20
Local calls 6c (Rs 2.25) per minute 1.5c (.50 Rs) per minute from 15c per minute
STD calls 6.5c (Rs 2.65) per minute 6.2c (Rs 2.5) from 15c per minute
International call to NZ 20c (6.4 Rs) per minute 20c (6.4 Rs) per minute more than 49c per minute (49c to Australia)
local SMS 1.7c (0.5 Rs) 1.7c (0.5 Rs) from 0.20c
national SMS 6.8c (2 Rs) 6.8c (2 Rs) from 0.20c
international SMS 17c (5 Rs) 17c (5 Rs) from 0.20c

I’ve taken data from Airtel’s website and tried to extract info from vodafone. Broadband pricing is slowly coming into line. Its time to get Mobile prices inline with the rest of the world. The impact of lower mobile prices was a wider effect to the economy. More New Zealanders would benefit to lower mobile prices than wold benefit by broadband. It will help development and innovation in the mobile space, thus creating jobs and growth opportunities for NZ companies. The future of computing is mobile, its time we grew up and get with the rest of the world!

Special thanks for the Open source awards

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Open Source Awards for ProjectX and Summer of Code




I just want to say thank you to New Zealand Open Source Awards for the two awards for Summer of Code in the education awards and ZoomIn / ProjectX for open source in business. I heard the news walking off the plane in Calcutta after my ‘amazing race’ adventure. I was pleasantly surprised and proud of all the people that have been involved with ProjectX and Summer of Code.

Here are some belated special thanks to a few people…

Summer of Code

I just want explain a little bit about the Summer of Code before I say thank to some special people who have helped make it happen.

Last year, I was talking to a friend who’s an IT manager at a big company in Wellington about Summer of Code. After explaining what the Summer of Code was about and all the events we had planned etc, he said to me. “What are you nuts?!?! How can you have time for this ??? You’re running a start up , you’ve got enough on your plate? “

I told him that we had to create Summer of Code. Like every company, our company needed to find good people and in the current job market its really hard to find good people. I had a brain wave to fast track the knowledge of the next generation of talent. Provide students with real experience in emerging and startup companies. This is what the Summer of Code is really all about. We’re providing accelerated learning environments for students. We differ from the Google Summer of Code in that the participanting companies directly mentor students and help accelerate their learning. We see this as an investment in the medium term to help create a smarter graduate job market in 2-3 years time by provide our students with a head start!

The Summer of Code has been a team effort, and I could have done anything without the help from a large number of people. I want to give special thanks to two people and their support team.

First, I want to say a big thank you to Peter Torr Smith. We has been the right hand man for Summer of Code and I’m glad that he was able to accept the award on my behalf. Peter has always been there to help do the hard yards in organising the Summer of Code. Recently he stepped up again when I was off in India during a major crunch time of the Summer of Code 2.0 organisation. Thanks Peter, you’ve been an inspiration and you re-inforce one of the reasons why I love Summer of Code in that I get to work with good people!

The second person I would like to thank is Joseph Stuart and his support team from Foundation of Research, Science and Technology (FRST). Without the support of Joseph and FRST, Summer of Code would have been another idea that never saw the light of day. Joseph has been a tireless supporter of the programme since its inception in late 2006. He and his team have managed to haul ass and process our applications in a timely fashion and thus make SoC a reality. A big thank you to all the effort thats going in now for Summer of Code 2.0

I would like to add that I would like to personally thank FRST on behalf of Summer of Code, our participating and all of our students for actively supporting Summer of Code. The Govt gets a lot of flack for a lot of its funding initiatives and I would like to commend FRST for funding. You’ve been integral to the success of Summer of Code and everyone at FRST should take a bow for helping make this happen!

Finally I want to thank to the Summer of Code team that have been making Summer of Code 2.0 a reality – Peter, Paul Gold, Thong Kuah, Daniel Wang and Kat Price. They have been real stars in helping make Summer of Code 2.0 happen.

ZoomIn and ProjectX

(It seems we’re making a habit of accepting awards from Rod, this is the 2nd award from Rod in the last few months. Thanks to Paul for accepting the award)

We’re big users and supporters of the open source in GIS and especially rails. I would like to dedicate this award to the person who has done a lot for helping build an open source technology community here in Wellington. This person formed Wellrailed – the Wellington Rails Community group, he has been active in organising monthly meetings and answering people questions on the newsgroup. He is of course my friend, Tomek Piatek.

Thanks Tomek, you’re an inspiration for us in making sure that technology isn’t just about writing code, its about getting people together to exchange ideas and help each other.

Also I would like to send a big thank you to Koz – another open source award winner. Koz is active contributor to the Wellrailed group and has helped so many people. Koz and the rest of the core contributors in Wellrailed are the reason why we have a strong rails community in Wellington. Thanks everyone!

Awarding

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

This came as a very pleasant surprise: In last night’s NZ Open Source Awards, ProjectX won the “Open Source Use in Business” category, and NZ Summer of Code took out the “Open Source Use in Education” award.

Open Source Awards for ProjectX and Summer of Code

We’ll write some more soon about the advantages we’ve found to using open source, and some specific software that we can’t do without; but for the moment we’re all just rather stunned!


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