OK, so I've been meaning to setup my blog to work with my Smartphone for a wee while....

The catalyst though was finding out that I was being outdone by a bloody politician (Rodney Hide)......

I have been asked to explain how I manage to blog from Parliaments debating chamber. Its easy. I have a sony P900. I use Opera 6.3 as the browser. I log in over the GPRS network while sitting in the chamber and report the news from within Parliament in real time. You arent allowed to use a phone in the debating chamber but I am not. Well, not really.

...can't have that!

At present I'm MoBlogging via email and so can send photos from the phone camera. I thought about building a thin client app to blog from in .NET this morning... but instead spent most of the morning tearing my hair out trying to get Exchange to work properly. Rodney is using a browser and I don't know if he is using the P900 camera yet.... maybe we can get him to switch to a Windows Mobile device...... Rodney notes that the PM also blogs... Her blog reads more like a Monday morning Show and Tell at the local primary school....boring!

He's doing a meet the people in Dunedin on the 17th..... I might have to go and lure him to the darkside....

If, like me, you find that the Dynamic Help 'feature' in VS.NET is a right royal pain in the ass then this article from Fabrice tell you how to turn it off.

Anyway, today I found a nice way to disable dynamic help completely, for doing so go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Visual Studio\7.0\Dynamic Help

And modify the value of the Never Show DH on F1 to YES.

The mere existence of that registry key says to me some kind person @ MS thinks Dynamic Help blows goats too.....

Disclaimer:
This involves $^%$^ing with your registry.... if you %^&% it up don't come crying to me.

via the email bollocks loop.....

David Farrar has a good wee post laying the blame for the current b/s around the abolition of the Privy Council....

I've said in a number of posts that the reason that we're up the creek now is because the Govt. grossly over reacted to what was, in the end, a mere jurisdictional hearing...

I spent most of this week travelling the country with Paul Andrew and a few others presenting at the MS Security Summit series.

I mentioned a few things in my presso.. one was a book title worth grabbing.

As Nick notes, we had fantastic turn outs.

Nick notes a few experiences along the way as well... I guess I should add mine.

• The AirNZ check in system does indeed ROCK THIS WORLD. I have bagged AirNZ quite a bit in the past, but the Kiosk check system really is fantastic. The best ID to use is your Airpoints or Koru Club card. That way, if you are happy with a random seat assignment, yu can have your boarding pass in under 5 button presses. I'm a stickler for choosing my own seat though. Based something around the following heuristic (for 737s).
• Outside seat one row behind exit row only if no one is in the middle seat. The outside seat has no seat in front of it, but you really need the seat next door to be empty so you can put ya lappie on the tray table.
• Second preference are the aisle seats in row 1. Can stick your big legs into the corridor... and get off the damned plane first.
• Middle seat of an otherwise empty row of seats in the back 5 rows. By taking the middle seat you can often luck in and not have anyone seated next to you. This tip is even more important on Air NZs ever half empty trans pacific services.... always take the second seat in from the aisle towards the back. This gives you the best chance of keeping a group of others out of your row and thus allowing you to sleep, reclined, the whole way back.
• I could get CafeNet @ the Intercontinental..... but they were nice and upgraded me to their top floor rooms which have free net anyway. The intercontinental gets two thumbs up from me for net access.

Xbox 2 News
If you're interested in reading about the latest gossip on Xbox 2, then you'll want to visit xbreporter.com. One of the latest rumors on xbreporter discusses support for the .NET Framework:

• MSIL all the way
  The CPU for the Xbox 2 is rumoured to be designed to be a processor that can decode and execute instructions in Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) while at the same time being able to run x86 code, to remain compatible with Xbox  

from [http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/04/29/123041.aspx]

I'm out of town in Auckland at the moment... so I'm just leaving myself some reminders

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Lenn runs the evangelicals in the longhorn group (I think)....

As some one who is pretty evangelical day to day.... and who would love to make it a profession some day... this makes interesting reading.

http://www.glitteringgenerality.com/default.aspx?date=2004-04-21

Further to the on going NZPundit vs Russel Brown spat... the Pundit is calling for a Google Bomb

Who am I to deny the man his pleasures.... let's see if my Google Rank (currently 4) can do any good.

Herewith the Terzain Link

”Being recognized has never been easier for VIP patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain.

Like a scene out of a science-fiction movie, all it takes is a syringe-injected microchip implant for the beautiful men and women of the nightclub scene to breeze past a "reader" that recognizes their identity, credit balance and even automatically opens doors to exclusive areas of the club for them. “

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38038

Just made the steps to get my Jetstart ADSL changed to JetStream Surf....

Easy enough you'd think... all I'm doing is changing plans.....

NOPE!.... I have to wait until the 'anniversary date' of getting my ADSL connection before Telecom will do the change over. Which means, in turn, I have to go back to my ISP and ask them to keep my Jetstream account active for another 1/2 a month... which in turn costs me money....

Would someone please sort out the shitfight that must be Telecom's Billing System..... talk about Mickey Mouse... even the CSR said so.