Porter Davis will be coming out soon for the 12 month maintenance inspection, hard to believe we’ve been in the house for almost a year!

Anyhow, ill add some more photos and news when I fix this php issue with Wordpress.

The 5 Megapixel camera is OK, it doesn’t have a good zoom or flash, but it does the job of capturing random pics during the day.

CCIE

A bit of a joke around the office.. The theory is, you need to have Cisco branded number plates on your car to be able to sell Cisco Networking Equipment. Nothing to do with expertise or the certification itself.

TIO

A very sick sick joke in the office. I happened to visit the building where the TIO are run out of in Melbourne, and stumbled upon this revelation that explains a lot about the complaint handling and escalation process within the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

Modern Values

A highly appropriate image to be advertising on the back of a school bus, don’t you think?

Doodle

This is one of the many creative and amusing shapes that are made out of the many milk crates in the vacant lot next to my car park in the city. I imagine the shape is visible from the top stories of the rialto and Bourke place. Quite funny. I think the person responsible has either given up, or was a bored employee of the car park, and subsequently been fired.

At the display home, Porter Davis show the Kensington 24 in the Chalet Facade, however they also show a feature which is not an available option (like many other elements of a porter davis display home).

The item is a wooden frame attached from the brick pier, around the front of the bedroom, and instead of the house having an indented look, it squares it off quite nicely.

Regardless of the frame, the house looks good either way, but it’s something we wanted to do for a while.

Pictures will be posted when completed.

Other pending rennovations or work to be done, include:

• Spraying the concrete in the al-fresco
• Gas connection to the BBQ
• Extension of the Al Fresco / Outdoor Patio

Stay tuned for updates.

There are a lot of great applications (whois, process/app killers), a lot of quirky (Midori cocktail recipes), and some apps that are just plain stupid (Atheist quote generator, Scientology tests, etc).

I’ve decided I don’t want my phone filled up with rubbish applications that are beta versions, or simply don’t work on my phone/OS, and whilst the Android Market makes it very easy to install an application, there isn’t a blatantly obvious method of uninstalling.

I’ve found the simplest way to uninstall applications on the Google Android is as follows:

1. From your home screen, open your “Android” menu, or “All Programs” menu
2. Go into your settings applet
3. Select Applications
4. Click on Manage Applications
5. you’ll now be present a list of applications that you can press and then uninstall

Caution: Be careful not to uninstall any of the critical/core operating system applications, as this could cause problems with your phones functionality. If you’re unsure what an installed application does, just leave it installed!

I’ve got this new Google Android Phone and thought I’d connect to my wireless network at home for internet usage, rather than using the mobile 3G Access.

Unfortunately my Netcomm NB6plus4W Wireless modem/router kept rebooting everytime I tried to connect.

I thought my modem may have been fried after recent storm activity in Melbourne, but it turns out there is a firmware problem according to this whirlpool post which causes the modem to enter a reboot cycle when “non-computers” try to connect via Wep (ie: iphone, other smartphones, xbox, playstation, etc).

New Netcomm NB6plus4W Firmware to fix the problem is available here and here.

In the meantime I’m using the NetComm NB9MAXX and testing out VOIP functionality on it.

I think there has been some irreversible damage or stains caused by the time the mortar was stuck to the bricks, but it’s not overly noticeable and it’s on a side of the house mostly out of view, so I’m not going to stew on it too much.

I am writing this very post on the phone’s touch screen qwerty keyboard using the Wordpress for Android plugin. Quite nifty.

The phone doesn’t have the plethora of apps like the iPhone but the android market still features a respectable and growing list of applications.

I currently have my Hosted Google Apps Gmail and calendar synced to the phone, as well as Facebook, but haven’t bothered with Twitter or Flickr yet.

I’m beginning to grow quite fond of the android platform and HTC Tattoo, and looking forward to the Google nexus one.

ONE will be stocking The HTC Tattoo Phone from April 2010. Pick one up from myone.com.au next month.

Basically:

1. They advise it’s not needed (although I haven’t been advised of, or seen any engineer’s report)
2. They won’t be installing it, nor will the be any refund or rebate issued (contrary to previous discussions)

That was the reaction I expected.

On a more positive note, I spoke to the neighbour’s supervisor earlier (Porter Davis Lifestyle), he’ll be on site today and chase up the issue of mortar on the side of the house, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

In the display home, the Porter Davis Kensington 24 looks stunning with Decking, but it won’t suit our back yard, and given the BBQ is already at the perfect height for me (I am a tall guy!) I don’t want to raise the footing any higher.

Justine’s dad John is also creating a step for the rear-french doors so the step outside from the house isn’t as harsh, as we find people have trouble stepping out of the house down to an unexpected drop.

I’ve seen some good examples of sprayed or polished concrete, and I think this will give the area a well-finished look, and will almost complete our back-yard project, although I’m assessing an outdoor fireplace of some variety, and postponing the outdoor gas BBQ being connected to natural gas for the time being.

Connecting the BBQ is impractical at this time of year, and quite expensive.  The location of the outdoor gas point installed by Porter Davis is in a highly inconvenient spot, removing any cost-benefit of having it installed during construction.

The cost of the step and concrete spray is under $500, and will look stunning when finished.

That’s compared to a minimum of $2,000 for Decking, and a minimum of approximately $800 just for concrete or sand-stone pavers, before labour.

I will post photos of the area in a few weeks once it’s all completed.

Surprisingly my new neighbour (who is yet to have their house completed) dropped in last night after reading my website, and recent entry regarding site debris.

They were kind enough to supply me the now-current site supervisor for their Porter Davis Lifestyle home, so we can now pursue the right man to get the job done.

It’s disheartening to hear their Porter Davis experience, like mine and several others I know who have built with Porter Davis, has been less than smooth. Hopefully with some persistence they’ll have all their issues addresses before hand-over.