Monthly Archives: January 2008

Observations at Auckland Airport

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Hello. I am at the airport. I am actually on the last flight out of Auckland tonight, to Singapore. What have I observed? Well, British people tend to look at other travellers’ passports and then strike up conversations with fellow countrymen. They don’t just talk to random New Zealanders. You kind of expect that sort of fellowship amongst New Zealanders travelling, because there are so few of us.

What else have I observed? Airlines are now pretty strict when it comes to luggage allowances, including the weight of cabin baggage. Which is a pity when you’ve put all the high density stuff in your cabin bag which fits the dimensions. That’s one thing that’s good about easyJet – there’s no weight limit for cabin baggage.

I tried to call Vodafone because I got a bill for next month but I had already cancelled the account. But they said call back tomorrow at 8. Tomorrow at 8 I will be on a plane somewhere between Auckland and Singapore. So that is a pain.

What else? Internet is very expensive here. But I am just using up the data allowance on my phone connection (that hasn’t been cancelled).

I haven’t yet found a power point to recharge my computer with. I haven’t actually been looking very hard though.

Everything is closing now. The bars, the BK, the Whitcoulls. And I will too. I will go and watch TV or something. Bye.

The Gmail “Trash” is now called the “Bin” – at least in some locales

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I host my some of email using Gmail with a custom domain. I have two domains with Gmail. I just noticed that for the domain that ends in .co.nz, the Trash is called the Bin, but for the .com one, it’s still Trash.

It looks like Google is internationalising Gmail. I’m not sure how long it’s been like this. I just checked the date format and that too has changed to the proper (dd/mm/yyyy) format instead of the silly mm/dd format. Once I switched the .com account’s settings to use UK English, it changed as well.

That is all from me.

Looking for work on the Internet

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It’s obviously a slow news day again, because the Herald has written an article about being careful when posting things on social networking sites if you’re searching for work. I’ve seen articles like this before. It’s common sense, really. Don’t put anything online that you don’t want others to see. Even if it’s in an ostensibly private area of one of those sites, it’s still on someone else’s computer, and there’s still a risk that it could get out.

It’s documented on the Facebook article in Wikipedia (so it must be true) that people in American universities (is there a difference between a university and a college over there?) have been disciplined because of antics that were posted on their Facebook pages.

I’m only writing this entry as a bit a shout out to any prospective employers who have done a search for me on Google. I’m assuming that this is one of the regular steps when vetting new recruits these days, especially in the IT industry. But, strangely, I haven’t been receiving any hits recently through searches for “arun stephens”. So, either I’m wrong, and Googling potential employees isn’t an essential step these days, or nobody is looking at my CV!

That’s all for now.

My far-too-liberal Facebook friend policy

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I have 197 friends on Facebook. I don’t think I have 197 friends in real life.

When I first signed up to Facebook in the northern autumn of 2006, I had less than 10 friends. That was when I was in France, and most of the people I knew there were either still students (the poms) or had just finished university (the yanks). And Facebook was very big at universities in those two countries. (Back in New Zealand, however, it seemed that Bebo was the winner.)

Then Facebook began to become popular in New Zealand. People that I actually knew signed up and I added them. So far so good. Then one day I browsed the New Zealand network page, and saw someone that I went to primary school with. So I sent a friend request. And she accepted it. I felt special. I have this fear that I remember lots of people that I meet, but they don’t remember me. So I was pretty happy. That encouraged me to add other people I went to school with. And then people that I hadn’t found added me. That’s a good feeling – it’s fine when someone acknowledges your friendship, but when it’s the other person initiating the contact, it’s that much better! Continue reading →

My first blog spam!

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Wow. I must be semi-important. Someone wrote a spam comment about credit cards on a seemingly unrelated post. How exciting. I’ve deleted it though.

In other news, Flickr and WordPress seemed to have trouble communicating with each other. I noticed the same problem with Windows Live Writer. The client always reports an unknown error, and suggests I retry. So I usually do, and then the same article is posted twice. I suspect it’s not WordPress’s fault at all, but GoDaddy’s slow servers timing out. A shame, because I paid for a year up front.

My trip to Ronchamp

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Cathedral in Ronchamp, originally uploaded by Arun Stephens.

I have decided, every now and then, to choose a photo I have taken and write a little bit about it.

Back in February, I went to visit one of my friends who lived in Belfort, France. We went on a day trip with one of her friends to this small town (about half an hour away by train) called Ronchamp. It is the smallest French town I have even been in. And it’s famous for its Cathedral.

We weren’t sure how to get there. But there was a sign pointing up a road. We had no idea what it looked like. We had no idea how far up the road it was. It was up a hill, too. But we came to see the Cathedral, so we went up the road. We did come to a small abandoned church-like structure, and thought “is this it?” but a the odd car or tractor continued driving past us so we figured there must be more further on.

Anyway, we eventually got to the cathedral. It was very strange looking. Not church looking. It looked like somewhere that the Smurfs would live. But it was a church.

We stayed at the church, visited the gift shop, and took photos. And then went back down the road into town.

I bought the nicest pain au chocolat I had ever had. It was nice. I recommend it. Maybe I will go back there one day.

There was also a museum. I was interested in what it was, but I can’t remember. So perhaps it wasn’t that interesting after all. The others didn’t want to go.

We walked around the town, and then went back to the train station. Directly opposite the station was an Ed supermarket. I went there and bought some Kit Kats, I think. And maybe some of those “Monster Munch” chips. Maybe. I can’t quite remember. It doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t add to the story.

Then we came home.

The end.