How do you pretend you are surfing abroad?

Some years ago, you could set your browser to use a proxy server and surf the web as though you were in another country. This was a handy tool for us, as we often need to check that the ads being shown on our sites were suitable—you never know what ad networks might try to […]

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My holiday as a car anorak

Since New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are about the only two days I actually take off, I spent some time adding entries on Autocade, a site that doesn’t seem like “work” to me. It’s my hobby.    The randomizer, which my friend Peter Jobes installed for me on the site’s home page, came […]

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There’s got to be a morning after Quora

This blog post was originally published at Social Media NZ. Michael Moore-Jones has written a post in response here. I read with interest Michael Moore-Jones’s review of Quora. He is very enthusiastic about the new website, and with some good reasons.    I’m still in the “wait and see” camp. I joined, part of that […]

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Rupert Murdoch has it in for Google more than I ever could

Monika Flückiger/Creative Commons And people thought I was de-Googling my life or being mean to Google. What about Mr Murdoch and his entire firm?    We all know his comments about how he wanted to block Google News’s bot and had spoken out against that. While little happened on that front with the exception of […]

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My second cousin’s in Outlaw Territory

I’ve made a brief mention, in the past, about my second cousin Vivian Lee, who is quite the illustrator. Her work will be published in the second volume of Outlaw Territory, out February 1. You can order it now from Amazon and it will be dispatched after release. You may also like You never know […]

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Ziln shifts to promoting Kiwi content

Initially I was disappointed to lose the foreign channels on Ziln, the New Zealand service that was broadcasting DW-TV, TV5 Monde, al-Jazeera English, etc. When I wrote to them, one of its bosses replied—on Christmas Day!    He explained to me that Ziln’s focus had changed to promoting New Zealand content, so if I knew […]

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Slowly but surely, Autocade gets to 1,250 models

Autocade hit 1,250 models today, with a car that’s slightly unusual to non-antipodean eyes: Ford LTD (FE). 1984–8 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan. F/R, 4089 cm³ (6 cyl. OHV). First LTD series with no V8s, with EFI six as standard, delivering 120 kW. Alloy head as with Falcon; electronic engine management, called EEC IV, delivering more […]

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We like links, but does Google?

For the majority of the years that we’ve been on the web (coming up to 20 years), we’ve maintained a links’ directory. It was disappointing, sometimes, to note that those whom we exchanged links with at the dawn of the web no longer link back. We’ve kept our outward links largely the way they were, […]

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Bingo! Merry Christmas!

Here’s a Christmas treat, an hour in to Christmas Day in New Zealand. Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas, filmed in 1977 33 days before the crooner’s passing, featured a duet between Bingo and David Bowie.    Taped on September 11, 1977, the special aired after Crosby’s death, on November 30. The set is supposedly the […]

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Giving a toss about web hosting: Americans 2, Brits 0

© Generally, I turn a blind eye to people who use thumbnails of our work or take an excerpt from an article and link the rest to us. Pity, then, that so many of these sites are splogs, but at least they stop short of outright piracy.    It’s when someone takes an entire article, […]

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