Mumblings of a Madman

Project Planning

2011-09-08T18:45:00.000-07:00

Project Planning Online allows project integration management to be a lot less challanging, through collaboration with other application software.

Project planning online software can be both free, or open source project management software, and both have their benefits and drawbacks. Find out more at Project Planning Online.

Building a Website - Keyword Selection.

2011-08-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Did you know that some of your SEO ranking will occur naturally, if you plan, and set up you website correctly? Once you have everything planned out, executing your SEO strategy, is going to be very easy.
If you pick niche, specialised keywords, you will pick up free traffic very (more...)

How to start a website in the right way with the correct Search Terms - Keyword Research

2011-08-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

SEO Keyword Research

It is a good idea to put together a business case for your site, to focus your effort on the goals of the site. As you read through this article you may have cause to realign your goals to make it easier to achieve success. This is good news actually, as it means that you have used completely understood your websites' purpose, and have eliminated that which is inefficient, given your new found understanding of your customers, your competition and what you are wanting to offer.

Search Term Selection

Hey! Are you listening? Concentrate, don't miss this information. To make it worth your time putting together a website, you need to make sure that it is making use of keywords that search users search for. You could be position number one in Google for keywords that nobody searches for, in which case the whole effort was totally pointless.

Advertising your products is going to cost money, are there easier ways to drive traffic that has a lower cost? Are there other opportunities, other keywords out there that are more easily attainable for you?

Research your websites' focus

Have you a niche? You need a focus for your site; otherwise it will not make any sense. When your visitors think about your niche, you want them to first think of your website.Is there some aspect of your niche that customers are particularly interested in and how would you know? Keep an eye on internet resources such as forums, chat rooms and blog comments associated with your niche subject, listen to people, ask your friends, look in niche publications. Is there something that people are looking for? Is you niche something that people talk about? Is there a core phrase that you could use that would describe your niche?

Understanding your Competition - How do they rank, and why?

A good way to start to understand your competition is to open up your favourite search engine, let's use Google, most people do, and type in a search that you would expect would find your site when you build it. When the results are displayed in the search engine, a number at the top of the results indicates the total number of matches found.

Open up some of the search results - who are the competition, do they offer the same product or service that you are intending to offer? Is their location a factor in their domination? Could you offer a localised version of what they do? If your customers have been around for a long time, offer the same products and services, in the same location as you, you're going to have your work cut out for you, to beat them.

If you really wanted to get into the nitty gritty, you need to know for each of those sites, their age, the number of inbound and outbound links, page rank, body content - all these things are big factors in the ranking of that site.

Search Phrase Discovery Programs

There are a few tools that allow you to understand the number of monthly searches that are performed for your core phrase, and how competitive it is. The good thing with these tools is that they are also able to suggest other keywords that may be applicable to your core phrase.

Tools can be found from the following:

Adwords External Tools: Keyword Tool from Google, which is free

Keyword Research - keyworddiscovery.com

Wordtracker

Correct Keyword choice drives Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

If nobody searches for the search term that you are focussing on, it makes it much more difficult to generate money. Without planning the search phrases that you target carefully, using scientific methods that quantify what is required to achieve your goals, your SEO efforts are likely to be wasted. You will get traffic, but will not achieve the true potential of the site. It isn't too late - we can change that starting now, but redefining what the keyword focus should be, and concentrating our efforts there.

Your website structure should be clear given that you know your target keywords, the right page titles, webpage addresses, headings, link anchor text, body content, image tags, metadata will easily be found by the search engines, and will allow you to rank better naturally than you would without planning. As you can probably see from the list of items that feature in making the site rank well, changing from the wrong keywords to the right ones is likely to require a lot of rework.

Can I choose keywords myself, or should I pay someone to help me?

Build the site last - understand fully that you are trying to achieve before you start, including your competitors, niches, and alternatives.

This is something that you can do. The only downside is that it can be time consuming if you have never done it before. The effect of getting the whole process of SEO will generate traffic and sales way in excess of the initial outlay, so it is more a matter of priority.

Article source: How to start a website in the right way with the correct Search Terms - Keyword Research

How to build a business web site - Keyword Selection - Keyword Research

2011-08-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimisation and the Search Terms that you choose

It is a good idea to put together a business case for your site, to focus your effort on the goals of the site.You may change your mind, from what you originally intended the site to be after reading this article. Don't become too attached to those initial ideas just yet, you need to validate them, and change them if your research shows that you site will be better off if you refocus, due to your new found knowledge of your customers, competition and offering.

Search Term Selection

Hey! Are you listening?Concentrate, don't miss this information.To make it worth your time putting together a website, you need to make sure that it is making use of keywords that search users search for.When nobody is interested in the keywords you are using to drive traffic to your offer, you whole effort is a waste of time.

Advertising can drive traffic to your site, but at what effort and cost?Are there other opportunities, other keywords out there that are more easily attainable for you?

Research your websites' focus

First of all, you have a niche, right?You need a focus for your site; otherwise it will not make any sense.What you're trying to achieve is to send people to your site as THE place to go for information on your niche.Is there some aspect of your niche that customers are particularly interested in and how would you know?There are a number of ways that you can find what people really want - listen to people when they talk, look in the paper, look in internet forums and chat rooms that are associated with your niche.Is there something that people are looking for?Do people discuss your niche?Is there a subject that regularly crops up that would describe your niche?

Understanding your Competition - How do they rank, and why?

A good way to start to understand your competition is to open up your favourite search engine, let's use Google, most people do, and type in a search that you would expect would find your site when you build it.The number underneath the search box once you have performed the search shows the number of pages that were found.

Open up some of the search results - who are the competition, do they offer the same product or service that you are intending to offer? Is their location a factor in their domination? Could you offer a localised version of what they do? If your customers have been around for a long time, offer the same products and services, in the same location as you, you're going to have your work cut out for you, to beat them.

If you really wanted to get into the nitty gritty, you need to know for each of those sites, their age, the number of inbound and outbound links, page rank, body content - all these things are big factors in the ranking of that site.

Search Phrase Analysis Sites

Some utilities on the net will help you to discover the search volume per month, and levels on competitiveness for your search phrase.Varying levels of related search term suggestions can be generated that will help you find the term with the best combination of search volume and low competition.

Tools can be found from the following:

Google Adwords Keyword Tool - free

keyworddiscovery.com

Wordtracker

Siphon the free traffic - Pick the correct keywords

If nobody searches for the search term that you are focussing on, it makes it much more difficult to generate money.Without a clear set of keywords, your SEO results are very likely to be random. You may get traffic, but it will not be targeted, or the results will be less than could be expected from an alternative keyword.Don't worry, something can be done about it, but it entails refocussing the site toward the correct terms.

If your keywords are chosen correctly, your site is more likely to be structure in such a way that it makes sense in that context, through the choice of headings, categories, tags, page content, backlinks, anchor text, image names, and the search engine is more likely to be able to find your content and rank you well for it, as you deserve.As you can probably see from the list of items that feature in making the site rank well, changing from the wrong keywords to the right ones is likely to require a lot of rework.

Can you choose keywords yourself, or should you pay someone to do it?

Due to the importance of getting the right keywords for you site, it is a good idea to spend a great deal of time researching the best terms, researching your competitors, niches and so on, before jumping in to creating a web site.
There is nothing wrong with doing this yourself, although paying someone to do this is highly likely to yield sales way in excess of the initial outlay, and continue to do so for some time to come.

Article source: How to build a business web site - Keyword Selection - Keyword Research

Want to build a new website? Wondering how to get traffic?

2011-08-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in how to build a new website and need help with web design, and what needs to be done to get free traffic or wondered what SEO is, then go to this site. There are lots of very useful articles for people starting out with a new website, and these guys do a great job, and really want to help you succeed.

Visit The Brisbane SEO Company for more information.

What is the government doing?

2009-09-30T01:42:00.000-07:00

Honestly, when the new government came to power, I thought that it was going to be a change for the better. That fresh blood would mean new ideas, ideas that would make a difference to the country. It seems not.
Close to where we live, we have had a bridge extension built - it was clearly done to keep people in jobs, instead of being done because it was needed. The problem here is congestion, the only solution is to provide people with an alternative means to get to work that would keep them out of the CBD. Not exactly rocket science, but to keep people in jobs, we built another bridge. That by itself seems to have been a bit of a nightmare as well, part of the bridge build was automatic tolls - you can't pay with money, and instead have to pay within three days - how the hell is that ever going to work, for those that are visiting the area? Even if the automated system worked flawlessly this is a silly idea, but it didn't so instead people who could not get hold of the tags to allow the automation to work got through the tolls for free. Well planned and executed. Kind of a bit of a waste of money was that, wasn't it?

So, here's the thing, why instead of building a bridge and a tunnel, to get yet more traffic into the city, don't we build an underground rail network, and get people to park outside of the CBD, and commute in? If the tickets are reasonable prices, and the service has decent coverage, and runs on time, then that is going to both raise revenues, and solve the problem. And there's the thing, the problem appears to be with a complete lack of lateral thinking.

What the hell is going on??

2009-09-14T23:20:00.001-07:00

Well, I keep seeing advertisements on the TV telling me that the state's economy is in great condition because of all these projects that we have created to keep people in work. Whilst I think that that is commendable, if we have traffic congestion, is a tunnel or a bridge going to fix the problem? No. Have we spent a lot of money keeping people in work, instead of spending a lot of money getting the right solution? Yes!

It would have been much better to bite the bullet and spend all that money on a decent public transport system, such as an underground train system. Personally Id much prefer to not have to drive first thing in the morning, when I'm tired, if I can slump on a train, and get to where I want to go to, in decent time.

We might have kept people in jobs, but come on, that is not justification for wasting money.

And another thing, what happened to improving broadband in the country. There's something else that would have a profound long term effect on the income of the country. Amazes me, it really does!

Car Indicators

2009-02-03T23:47:00.000-08:00

Hey!

My pet hate - car indicators, and signalling when drivers are driving.

Surely if indicators are supposed to be used in the way that they are, then they should be called 'confirmers' instead?
Seriously, what is the point in driving up to a junction, braking, so the car behind is wondering why you're braking, then finally figures it out, you're turning, then you put the indicator on? Is that supposed to cut the incidence of accidents?

Also, and this only illustrates the lack of consideration, is a driver indicating when nobody is near and nothing can affect them. This just shows that it is a reaction to a thought impulse and not a conscious decision to actually indicate intention.

I find it annoying when you're forced to drive someone else's car for them, because they can't be bothered to think about other road users.

Look around while driving, all around, so you're sure that someone needs indicating to, or if there is not room, indicate and wait for the space. If people did that, generally there would be so much less road rage, since people wouldn't cut in because they're not looking properly, and people would not cause others into any extreme manoeuvre to avoid an unsignalled intention.

Life would be so much easier - so who is with me?

ANZAC Day

2008-04-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

Really enjoyed watching some of the documentaries on television on ANZAC day. It really makes you think about what people went through in their lives, so that we can have nice easy ones.
This particular documentary was about Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop, who did some amazing things during the second world war, but also thereafter. You imagine people such as him to be people from 'ordinary' backgrounds doing extraordinary things. This man won many awards whilst studying medicine, was a champion boxer, played for the national rubgy team, The Wallabies.
Before joining the army, and doing the amazing things he did, this man had already done more than most people would achieve in their lives.

The man chose to stay in Java, Indonesia, and became a prisoner of war, because he didn't want to leave his patients. He used his position as a doctor as well as being an officer to get the Japanese keeping them prisoner to agree to things, or prevent them from killing the prisoners, as was the case with Bill Griffiths.
Sir Edward kept alive a lot of his colleagues who were literally overworked and underfed, and often beaten by the Japanese keeping them prisoner, for relatively minor things. The man himself appeared to have suffered a few beatings during his time in the prisoner of war camp, for standing up for his friends.

This man put himself in danger so many times to take part in smuggling in medical supplies to keep his friends well.

Absolutely amazing to watch what the man went through, and the conditions that he and his friends went through, so that they could serve out their time during the war as prisoners.

Makes you realise how lucky you are as a free individual, and how things like work worries are really nothing much at all, and pale in comparison.

That Drives me mad!

2008-03-12T01:05:00.000-07:00

I see clipping from the government of plans to increase learner driver training hours, force the display of learner and probationary plates and so on, in an attempt to cut down on young driver accidents on the roads. I think these ideas are great, but what happens once the driver is out of the probationary period, who will their role models then be?

What I'm getting at here, in the complete lack of courtesy most drivers exhibit when driving. It's a case of squeeze through on an undertaking manouvre, and overtaking manouvre or whatever is required to get the overtaking car's nose in front of the other car. What happened to merging traffic giving way?

When I learnt to drive, part of the rules were that you had to give way, that when you pull out into traffic, you are not to slow the progress of traffic, and also when someone is nice enough to let you in, generally it is good form to wave thanks to them. Perhaps if drivers are taught to be courteous that will slow down the onset of road rage?

I still haven't found the section in a driver handbook that states that the driver of a V8 automatically has right of way, no matter how late that driver leaves the overtaking, over any driver of a 4 cylinder car.

Indicators, now there's a misunderstood tool. My driving instructor, and my driving handbook told me that when I intended to make a manouvre, I should put my indicator on, in enough time to show the drivers nearby that I was intending to do just that. My next task was to check if the way was clear, and finally if it was, to complete the manouvre and cancel the indicator. What I see is the indicator used as a right of way signal, or worse still put on for such a small time that it is almost a rebuke. Personally I blame that on guidance in driver handbooks that say that you should always signal, as that gets the driver into a habit of signalling without considering any further. If the driver had instead to figure out if the way was clear by looking over their shoulder first, then deciding if the signal was required, they would be much less likely to be driving inconsiderately. This is more the way of advanced drivers, and I think that it is good to involve the thought process instead of stating that something should always happen without regard for it's usefulness.

Tailgating - now that's just plain stupid. People should be stopped for doing that, if you don't leave a two second gap at least, and you're caught by police, you should be fined. That's an accident waiting to happen, and therefore is premeditated.

Whilst driving at speed is dangerous, I think the extreme manouvres, tailgating, not indicating and the like are much more dangerous. Perhaps if people improved in these areas, then the speeding would not be as necessary, and road rage would be so much less, as people simply wouldn't get stressed.

Before anyone asks, no, I'm not some old person at all. In my past I did sucessfully complete and advanced driving course, the same as the police drivers have to do. It really does teach you some good things, including how to control the car properly, and avoid accidents before they even get a chance to occur. Of late, I have found that I am forced to use those skills more and more to get myself out of the way of some bad driver who thinks that they're good doing stupid things on the road.

You can't force idiots to do advanced courses, as they'd do it, then only take what they wanted to from it, and thus probably be more dangerous than before. However, I do think that it would be good to be able to punish these people for making everyone else drive in a much more stresses state because of the stupid few.

I also think that it's about time the road layouts were changed instead of these extra lanes appearing then disappearing in such a way that they give these idiots the idea that they can hammer through the small space easily. Those lanes should be for left or right turnsonly, and anyone doing overtaking in them should be penalized.

Broadband infrastructure - yeah right.

2008-02-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

We have a 7-8 year old house, we wanted a broadband connection. We can't get a broadband connection, effectively because our telephone provider, a well know Australian telecommunications company from Australia starting with 'T' wants to make more money.

We are on a pair-gain system, which makes us unable to connect using ADSL services. The reason for this is that the one copper line is shared with two houses. Do we pay half the line rental for our line? Not at all. We pay full price, for our line that can connect for dial-up networking at a maximum of 28kbps. I've been told that the line isn't half a line, but that really seems like it to me.

What annoys me is that the said telephone provider is allowed to charge the same money in either instance. There is only one incentive in this situation, and that is to put more people on to a pair-gain system. Okay, so we could go to a different telephone provider couldn't we? If you know which telecommunications provider I am talking about, you will know that we can't. There is no alternative.

Okay, so hands up, who thinks that that sounds like a monopoly?

And is this situation good for anyone, including the telephone provider? Absolutely not. There is no competition to keep them sharp, to drive them to find better solutions to problems, to find yet better ways to make money. Is it good for the consumer? Well, you wouldn't be reading this if it was. I extensively use the internet for my job, well, I did in a past life anyway. Is this good for the country? Well, one thing is, the tax man can't get his hands on the money that I don't make from the broadband internet connection that I don't have can he?

So where can we go now? Well, ADSL is out, clearly, as why would the telecommunications company put in full copper lines, so that we can pick whatever ISP we wanted to use and they miss out on the money. They won't, plus they'd have to give the pair-gain line to someone else, and they might not accept it, whereas we're stuck. It's too late for us really.

Our other option is wireless. That's very expensive for what it is, we live in amongst some trees, so signal strength isn't the best, and the plans for these are not very generous.
So our alternatives are: live with 28 kbps dial up, and pay loads more on phone calls so that telecommunication company can make more money, and we can never get ADSL.
Get wireless and pay more money, as well as having half-line for telephone at same money, and in so doing, end up paying a lot more than we normally would.

I tell you one thing, if we do go wireless, I'm not going near said telecommunications company again due to their complete lack of interest in customer service.

By the way, just in case there are some of your searching for Telstra, there's some information here about them!

Train service sucks!

2007-11-12T17:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah,

I've had enough. Time to tell it like it is. How ridiculous is the rail service? If a train is a little late, which it often it, then it gets cancelled. Yeah, we can all wait until the next one which we often do, and whilst that isn't going to affect our lives so badly, a packed uncomfortable stuffy train does.

And anyway, we pay for a service, so there should be a penalty for the rail companies if they're late, so dissuade them from continually cancelling trains. If that doesn't happen, then what motivate have they for an efficient service? You already paid for the ticket, so why not cancel? If commuters got a small amount of money for the x number of times that the train was cancelled of late, then that would eat into their profits, so efficiency would them once more be a priority.

Enough is enough, sort your stuff out!

All things Software has moved!

2007-11-06T16:10:00.001-08:00

All things software has now moved to a different blog location.

Find it here

I hope you continue to enjoy the information that it provides.

Martin.

Politics - What the??

2007-11-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am talking politics, kind of. I can't believe I'm going to do it, so please go easy on me!

I see the political figures when coming up to an election appear to want to uncover skeletons in the closets of their rivals. I don't understand how or why this happens, or how they can get away with it. These people will be elected, and asked to run a country, and all they demonstrate before is how they can tell tales. Come on people, this isn't school, you know.

Is it really newsworthy, or make any sort of a difference if a politician tried drugs, or got drunk in the past, or had any sort of a life like the rest of us? Actually, I think it does. Those politicians would be more likely to be able to identify with normal people, wouldn't they?

Obviously, whilst in power the politician should not be drinking or taking drugs so that it has an effect on the decisions that they make. If the politicians have done it in the past, does it matter if they no longer do? Again, I actually think it does. A politician is more able to understand issues if they have some experience around what other people have seen or done, don't you think?

There seems to be a bit of a problem, raking up people's past leading up to an election seems a waste of energy. On the other hand, question a politicians' political past would be very useful. "Why did you do do that?", and "What did you learn" would surely be more important than whether that politician promises to do this that and the other. I mean, promises can often be empty, whereas if we know about the mistakes and therefore learnings of a politician we may better be able to judge where they're coming form, and what is really important to them, instead of being a case of just making the right noises.

Perhaps we should start to look at politicians in the same way as we do stocks in the stock market? There's the fundamentals, the financials returns of the past, whether the management has been truthful, and held the people they represent in high regard. does the returns on investment outweight the risk involved?
Can we do technical analysis on the politician, look at the trends and patterns of past performance? Be able to predict what they're likely to do in the future? It's worth a thought isn't it?
Perhaps then, when the politicians start to rake up all this so called important information, that would detract from their bottom line due to the wasted energy, and we'd eliminate the snitches!

It's novel, but do you think that we could set up a political stock market, and only then pick stocks based on performance rather than connections, empty promises and what they manage to uncover about the opposition? Kind of seems like a cool idea to me?

Blogging the return, this time it's personal.

2007-11-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Well, I thought that I'd give a little bit of feedback on how blogging is going.

I have to admit, I quite enjoy doing it. It's something creative that I didn't expect would be my sort of thing. It's like writing in a diary, and sharing it with only your closest friends, the internet.

I recently changed my blogs around a little, since I originally started with one blog, and that's grown now to four blogs. I arranged them, so that they're stored in a more logical manner, that will hopefully make for easier to locate content for the future.

I can't say that all this effort has made me lots of money, in fact so far I think it's made me the tidy sum of $0.00. Perhaps now that I've got my house in order, and have the blogs logically sorted, people will start to visit, and I will see an improvement from those heady heights. Let's face it, I can only improve from here on in.

It looks like an easy thing to do, does blogging, but even if you do have strong opinions, and can write reasonably, it's still quite tough. Well, when I say that, I mean it's quite tough to blog, and get people to visit, and stay with you. Many people just look on their way through, or use things like StumbleUpon to get to the site. Those people then obviously are not taken by the content and spend only a couple of second there before leaving. Hi!!

You really have to know the sorts of words to leave as a headline to grab people's attention, then the content has to be absorbing. Then you need to come up with that sort of quality and content on a regular basis. Your reader base will grow, and you will become rich, good looking, have a fancy sports car, large yacht, bit house, you know the deal. Actually, I made that up.

Then there's a myriad of different way to generate readers, to get people to view site. Thought communities like BlogCatalog, which incidentally is great, and has some very helpful members, or StumbleUpon or various widget offerings. Widgets are little windows that offer up pictures of who visited your site, links to other sites, things for sale, that sort of thing. The jury is out as to whether they're useful or not.

One thing they do, is make the page load time of the blog seem quick, because of how slow it them becomes after having 2 or 3 widgets on the page. There is a good reason for this, they're using JavaScript mostly, and are querying some other site for their data. I don't know if people close the blog if it takes too long to load, as there aren't any counters for that, that I've seen so far!

MLM companies and making money.

2007-11-05T18:38:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Yesterday I attended a presentation about a well known MLM company.

Really, it's amazing how well they sell that stuff. I knew that it wasn't the sort of thing that I'd want to do, due to having to be a pushy salesman to make any money from it, if indeed you did make any money from it.

They're so good at convincing you that the choice is simple, a no brainer really, and that you have nothing to lose to join up.

It's only when you think about it, and this about how they make their money that you realise how wrong it all really is. They have some products that they sell to you, and they also have some education systems that they also sell to you. This is where the real money is made for those that started the business. They get the money from the educational materials, whilst making you believe that you will get your friends to do the work, and you will get the rewards, for doing very little really.

They mention the very things that are such hot topics for so many people. How to make money whilst still keeping your job, and with it costing you only something around the price of a pair of shoes (whose shoes?!!) Then there's that whole idea of introducing other people, and them earning you some benefit or other.

It sounds to good to be true doesn't it? Then it probably is.

I asked questions about where the money is made, which was met with answer avoidance tactics. I asked about how much money you save by buying products, and was met with the same tactic. A product has to be good to sell, if these products are so good, why does nobody want to share those great features with you, and instead sell it on a promise and hot air?!

The things that I don't like is that this sort of a process prays on the gullible, or those who most want to get out of debt.

As with anything you need to look at the total cost of doing this thing. It costs to join, and set up a business, it costs for the educational materials, it costs to attend the various gatherings. But how much does it cost, and can you reasonably expect to make more money than you spend? Will this revolutionary idea that seems to have been around forever be any different from just starting a business, if you start the right business?

I'm personally all for the idea of having many people involved in a successful business. Many different views added together can make for a great dynamic. Ideas can bounce around, and the business is much more likely to be rounded, and multi-skilled. However, if those multiple heads involved in your business as their only to make money out of you, and ultimately take the money you earn from you, that seems to completely negate any benefit that might have originally been seen.

The top and bottom of it is, you never get a free lunch, if it seems to be too good to be true, then it probably is. I decided not to go any further with the process once I figured out how it all works.

Using iPods to view text / read pdf eBooks

2007-11-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Well, the title says it all really.

I'm very impressed with the ability of my iPod to read text notes, by converting a PDF into text. Then, you upload it to Convert books into iPod notes.

Finally, you extract the data that you download from the above site. I extracted it to the name of the book.

Then to make locating the books easier, I copy the folder and it's contents to the Notes folder on the iPod.

It's really cool, and very useful to read something whilst commuting, without having to carry a heavy book around. I love it, do you?

Martin.

Broadband woes

2007-11-05T16:58:00.001-08:00

Hello there readers,

Well, I thought that I'd start with a whinge. Typical, I hear you say, always whinging. Sorry, but this is an important one to me. I don't want to get in trouble for telling you all, but tell you I will, since there seems to be nothing else that I can do.

We have been in our house since May 2006, and still can't get broadband access speeds to the house. Last I looked, the house wasn't a cave. And yet, here I am with a pair gain telephone system. What is next Telstra, are we to get morse code sets, so that you can cut your costs further?

I wasn't made aware that I was getting a pair gain line into the house (I didn't even know that such a thing existed), nor was I asked if I would like a connection speed that goes faster than 28Kbps, but here I am, in this very situation.
We live in a house 12Km from the city, for all you snobs out there, we'd probably not be considered inner city. All the same, it's a long way from rural, or out in the sticks as we like to call it. We live in a reasonably nice area, our house is only about 7 years old, and yet we have a pedal powered telecommunications system from hell.

The house is in a lovely location, with a nature reserve behind us, and a park in front. That idyllic (!) setting isn't a good setting to be in if you want to get wireless connectivity. Wireless carriers don't seem to want to transmit through trees, which makes out situation that little bit more hopeless.

Finally, we think that we'd like to try for cable access, no such luck. 5-10 minutes walk through the park and people I know have it, but we can't get it.
How is this customer service, helpful, or anything but a monopoly? We have nowhere to go, to get better access. There is no hope in my opinion of that changing either, as competitors are at our local exchange, so Telstra, one would imagine would have no motivation to allow their competitors to compete.

One final note, to try to get the line transpositioned, you have to apply for Telstra braodband through bigpond. That really does seem to me like a great offer dressed up a little like a monopoly?

I have tried other phone companies, some take the time to tell me that there is nothing that they can do, and Telstra would charge them a lot of money to upgrade the line if they did it at all. And some act almost as if I have the plague or something, and can't wait to hang up on me.

I've tried the wireless option, which due to the trees means that I had to force the modem to work at its top speed, which resulted in frequent and long disconnections, often resulting in my having to restart the modem. The only option I can think of is to install an aerial, but I won't do that unless I can guarantee a decent reception, and good service. So many wireless providers are soooo expensive, and I need some decent amounts of download and upload limits, since I actually work in software. Okay, I don't work in software, I design, and write software, and being able to upload, download, get the latest beta releases of software and so on would be great.

Here's a thought, if there's anyone from Microsoft reading this post, please complain very strongly about this issue, since I can't help you test software, or write applications for it because it would take from now to eternity to download the software on a flaky 28Kbps connection. Please?

So what's happening then? Well, it seems quite obvious to me that the problems are down to a lack of competition, nay, no competition at all. There is no alternative infrastructure available, so competitors can't ever be that. This infrastructure was originally government owned, so really should belong to the people. One solution to this woeful tale is to split the company, to make an infrastructure company, and one that uses those services to sell other products. If that happened, then all competitors would compete on a level playing field, and force the technology to be improved.

I hear murmurings of future developments into WiMax and those sorts of areas. I hope that this technology isn't tree-adverse too, otherwise maybe we will still have the line when it becomes and antique. I wonder if we could then claim squatters' rights on the line?!

I've been in contact with Telstra, senators, ombudsman, the monopolies commission, and guess what, nobody wants to know, or cares. Perhaps somebody will read this, and contact me with some ideas. There must be companies out there that can do something, make some money, and solve my problems all in one kind act?

The thing you were looking for has moved.

2007-11-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

Hi!

Yeah, you're not kidding. All that loverly information has moved.

I'm sorry, but I thought that it was better to move it now, and make the blogs more logical before it all gets too difficult.

So the new location is All things software

I hope that this doesn't cause too much hurt, but if it does, by all means leave a comment, and tell me what a thoughtless pain I really am!!!

Thank you for your patience,

Martin.