Monthly Archives: February 2011

WordPress 3.1

WordPress 3.1 was released during the week, which is the next major release of the worlds most popular personal publishing and blogging platform. There were over 820 enhancements or support tickets closed during this release, spread over more than 2000 commits to their source code by over 180 developers spread around the world!

Like I’ve become accustomed to and so many others around the world, the upgrade from WordPress 3.0.x was seamless, fast and error free. I was impressed that all of the plugins that I’ve got installed, which while not all were tested with enough volume against the pre-releases of WordPres 3.1 – all seem to be working without a hitch.

Now I just need to learn to grapple with all of the new functionality, to see how I can leverage it moving forward!

Mo Money

Ducati Motorbike, Mercedes SL63 AMG & Seadoo Jet SkiThe Surfers Paradise car park located under Circle on Cavill houses a lot cars, which range in quality from complete crappers all the way up to the unobtainable.

One bloke in particular, I’m quite sure takes great pleasure in parking his car, his motorbike and his jet ski – spread across two car parks.

For those that don’t recognise what is in the picture, the motorbike is a new Ducati which start at about $25,000. Next we’ve got the Mercedes SL63 AMG, which packs a 6.2L V8 producing 385Kw and 630Nm of rubber melting goodness and will lighten your wallet by about $440,000. To cool off, of course you need a Seadoo jet ski and they are about $25,000.

Amazingly, the guy that owns these three happiness creation devices is under 40 years old and if I ever get a chance to have a word – I think I’ll feel compelled to ask him what the hell he does!

Super High Frame Rate Video From A Las Vegas Hotel Room

Tom Guilmette was in Las Vegas for work & had access to a Phantom Flex, which is a super high frame rate video camera.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, it’s the same sort of technology that provides the super slow motion footage of a tennis player striking a ball from the Australian Open tennis championship or similar.

However, the Phantom Flex isn’t just any run of the mill high frame rate camera, with enough light it can shoot at over 2,500 frames per second in 1080p! If you can ‘tolerate’ a less than full high definition picture – you can capture a speeding bullet at 10,000 frames per second – wow.

That sort of video camera isn’t the sort of thing that videographers ‘just have access to’ like a normal high megapixel digital camera. So while Tom had access to the beast, he thought he should make the most of it and shot a whole raft of cool footage from within his hotel room in Las Vegas Nevada.

Suncorp Bank Anti-Fraud Department Saved Me $686.73

For the first time in ten years, I’ve been a victim of credit card fraud to the tune of $686.73!

I first became aware of it this morning when I received a phone call at work from Suncorp informing me that they suspected that there was fraudulent credit card transactions on my account. That was after they called home & left a message because Claire couldn’t answer the phone and then followed that up with a call to my mobile but I was driving to work. You’ve got to appreciate their persistence to call three different numbers trying to get a hold of me.

I don’t keep an eagle eye on my bank account, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed that transaction sitting on my credit card for a week or more but the Suncorp credit card protection system picked it up the day after it happened, which I think is great.

The Suncorp representative that called me at work gave me the run down on what had happened, also said they’d tried several other transactions as well but they were declined for some reason. They immediately set about cancelling my credit card and lodged a dispute about the charge for me.

Claire checked back through out past transactions to make sure nothing else was on there and it doesn’t appear as though there were. I called Suncorp back to check about what will happen next and was given case numbers for the cancellation & the transaction dispute to follow up on if required.

I’ve been really impressed with Suncorp customer service of late, like for instance sending me warning emails about large money transfers automatically. Now I’ve had them tell me about a fraudulent charge on my credit card and it’ll be resolved within the next few days and my replacement credit card will arrive mid next week.

Great to see them going out of their way to keep a customer informed about their money.