The guys over at Makezine.comhave found a winner, this spectrum analyzer called “Yukikaze” or “Snow Wind” in Japanese.
I think I could sit and watch this thing do its magic for a long, long time…
Here’s another cool project by Taichi Inoue- a Physical Output Device for Spectrum Analyzer. It came out way back in 2007, however the effect is beautiful, and this is the first time I’ve seen it. I’ve been trying to think of creative projects to do with an oscilloscope that I picked up a couple of months ago, and it seems like building an interesting visualizer such as this would be a great place to start.
Currently as some people may already know I’ve been travelling in New Zealand, lots of fun here in NZ but as a techie travelling from Australia its posed a few interesting problems.
First of all is that in the land of OZ I have an iPhone as my normal mobile. But when I went to turn on ‘International Roaming’ through my carrier (Optus) I found that it would cost me $20 AUD per megabyte, not even considering the costs of calls internationally!
Mobile Phone:
I figured that even though I was attached to my iPhone I really only needed a phone to get me by if there were problems while travelling.
So I turned to my trusty Samsung SGH-E250 – basic phone, basic features, no 3G no EDGE, just phone calls.
This was an old handset so it was already unlocked, I was pleasantly surprised when as I walked out of the Christchurch airport I got a Vodafone NZ sim and 20 bucks credit for $50 NZD.
After a while though I found that the new mobile network 2 Degrees are just as good, and the sim card only costs $5 NZD (Vodafone cost me $30 NZD!)
Wireless Internet:
Lack of internet was my next problem, when my girlfriend and I had booked the hotels during our travel WiFi wasn’t a priority, so we had some pretty crappy internet during our travels.
Here’s a breakdown on the places we went in relation to WiFi.
Christchurch:Hotel SO – This place is awesome, its a tech device filled place that clearly has a digital soul. Free WiFi was provided by the hotel which was cool, but it was extremely weak in our room, I was only on the second floor but needed to go to the lobby to get a decent connection.
Speed: 512kbps
Connection: Poor
Restrictions: Unable to download mp3, zip/rar or exe
Queenstown:eCafe – yeah I know, Internet Cafe, how early 90′s, but when your hotel has WiFi that costs $20 NZD for 1 hour, what can you do! eCafe had a great deal going at $3 bucks for an hour and you could bring your own laptop so you didn’t need to use their terminals.
Speed: 3mbps
Connection: Excellent
Restrictions: None Found
Franz Josef: Not much WiFi going around here, there were a couple of backpacker lodges that have WiFi included in the price of staying. The motel I was staying with luckily had a wired connection that they allowed me to use in their reception office. But even this was pricey at $2 NZD per twenty mins.
Speed: 3mbps
Connection: Wired (Excellent)
Restrictions: None Found
Hanmer Springs:Green Acres Chalet – SurfSpot WiFi paid hotspot available, currently thats what I’m using at the moment to type this post. Its a decent price too, $12 NZD for 24 hours, the downside is the 500mb data allowance, but with a decent freeware bandwidth monitor (I’d recommend Networx) it is easy to track the use of the cap.
Speed: 5mbps
Signal Strength: Excellent
Restrictions: 500MB Data Cap
Christchurch Airport: Airport Lodge Hotel – WiFi isn’t free at this location either, they also use SurfSpot WiFi hotspots, thankfully the $12.00 NZD 24 Hour 500mb card I bought in Hanmer Springs also worked at this location so I didn’t need to buy any more before leaving!
Speed: 5 mbps
Signal Strength: Excellent
Restrictions: None Found
All in all its been not too difficult to find some sort of internet connection while travelling, although in hindsight I’d probably spend $99 for a 3G wireless device and a $50 credit to have a more solid connection, especially if blogging and uploading photos to social network / photography sites.
GPS:
I’ve only one thing to say about GPS units… BUY ONE NOW.
I bought a GPS a few months with the intention to use it in NZ (I have a TomTom XL340 – Awesome Unit), got the latest New Zealand maps loaded onto it and off we went.
It has been a godsend in the rental car, best couple of hundred bucks I’ve spent on a device this year.
It’s saved our ass more times than I can count with quicker routes, shaved off about 5 hours of drive time while we’ve been here, and saved my girlfriend and I the hours of map consulting and consequent yelling at each other as to which way / direction we need to go.
Once again… BUY ONE NOW.
So the trip to the land of the long white cloud has been a lot of fun, and travelling around has been easy with the GPS.
Camera:
If anyone has read my older blog posts you’ll know that I have recently purchased a Canon IXUS 80 IS.
I brought it over, its taken over 7GB of photos and video so far, which might seem excessive, but when you sort through the crappy shots you come out with some stunning photos.
On the video front it has been more than adequate, even when I was filming a street performer and ended up a part of the show! (I’ll upload the video once back in OZ)
So if you are travelling, take a look at the capabilities of your digital camera before you decide to lug around your whiz-bang HD recording video cam, that is unless you have one of those sexy little personal HD cams.
Overall:
So with only one and a half days to go here in New Zealand I’ll be winging my way back to Australia soon, keep watch on the blog as I’ll upload all my photos and video from the trip!
Moving house can be a pain, especially for the technologically empowered.
I should know, I just moved house, its been six days and 15 hours since I’ve had hardline connected internet, in fact I’m surviving on my 3G wireless key.
Thats right, I’m currently burning my way through a 1gb of data I have left on my latest recharge.
Worst of all, its the Easter weekend, and here in Australia that means two days out of a standard work week are taken by public holidays, the wait for always on internet is even longer.
I’ve moved house in the last 8 years more times than I like to think, and each time I’ve picked up more than a few good tips as a geek moving house.
Moving House Tip #1: It’s all about the Media…
No matter how busy you think you will be packing, moving and unpacking your possessions, it is an infinitely smoother process if you have something to listen to while you do so.
That said trying to watch something while doing the same will only slow you down, so before you pack your PC plug in your media player of choice and fill it with some upbeat music, great podcasts or anything else that takes your fancy.
Moving House Tip#2: Finish your downloads!
Nothing is more irritating than having unfinished downloads, you’ve just watched the second last episode of your favorite show, the final one is 10mb off finishing its download and you have no internet to download it with!
Actually, I’d suggest to grab a few episodes of everything you can, you can’t be unpacking all the time so some downtime watching something enjoyable can remove some of the stress of moving.
Moving House Tip#3: Take care of your devices…
Now this sounds like a no brainer for most of you, the Geekocracy, but trust me I’ve seen many a device take a turn for the worst because of careless packing.
If nothing else make sure you:
Check your CD/DVD drives for media
Pack your devices in original packaging if you can
Moving House Tip#4: Label your cables…
Simple, easy to do and something that will save you from having a dead device.
Imagine this scenario, you’ve just unpacked a box, it has several external hard drives in it along with their respective power cables / supplies but you can’t match the cables to the drives.
You look at the drives, scratch your head, try to check the voltage requirements on the drive against the cable, plug one in cross your fingers and… Hooray its alive!
Again you play power cable roulette and plug in a drive, you notice the power isn’t coming on, the mad panic to try to correct the mistake but its too late, you can kiss 1 TB of storage goodbye along with your music and movie collection.
Luckily I’ve only ever lost a set of speakers in this manner, but it was still frustrating, I can only imagine what a simple mistake blowing a hard drive would make you feel like.
Moving House Tip#5: Know where your flash drives are…
Keep your friends closer and your enemies closer, we have all heard this time and time again, but keep your flash drives the closest you can, tape them to your body, put them in your socks do what ever it takes to keep track of these pesky but useful of devices.
Moving House Tip#6: Get your connections started early...
Power, gas, water, telephone and Internet, the five cornerstones of a geeks existence. Without at least power, telephone and internet, we cannot truly function.
Just remember to order the move of your internet connection the same day as you organize your new telephone service.
Moving House Tip#7: Many geeks save the day…
Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, whatever your social networking poison, get them working for you. Even the most shut in, digitally connected person should these days be able to rustle up some help to move, and the more geeks you have the safer and faster your gear will be transported and setup in your new digs.
Just make sure that you throw a lan party or <insert sci fi series here> fest at the end of the move to appease the helpful geeks.
Moving House Tip#8: Remember to rest!
This might sound silly, but the contrast between overdoing it and having adequate rest can make all the difference.
We geeks love to stay up late watching sci fi, using the net, tweeting, but trust me when it hits midnight GO TO BED! you’ll thank me for it!
In Conclusion…
Well, hopefully this should help make your move a smoother transition when transporting all your devices and getting them all connected!
If any of you have some good or bad stories about moving your gear around please leave them in the comments!
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Currently as some people may already know I’ve been travelling in New Zealand, lots of fun here in NZ but as a techie travelling from Australia its posed a few interesting problems.
