More news, opinion and links...

• 18 Jun 2007: Shoppers need full product detail According to a recent survey of USA online shoppers, over 90% of respondents stated that it was ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for retailers to provide *complete* product information.
• 18 Jun 2007: Clearer guidelines from Google for Search Engine Optimisation Google have recently updated the Webmaster Guidelines, in particular the Quality guidelines for web pages that better explains how duplicated content and javascript redirects are interpreted by Google.
• 08 Mar 2007: Daniel's Webpage Massive An archive of very personal travel yarns from around the world, 2001 to 2003.
• 16 Jan 2007: DRM in Windows Vista raises concern for Business PCs A new generation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection systems in Microsoft's new "Windows Vista" operating system will introduce a raft of protectionist features that are good news for Hollywood studios, but may spell trouble for Business PC users and adminstrators
• 23 Nov 2006: UK Police To Fingerprint at the roadside Mobile units will search latent print database for matches from unsolved crime scenes
• 16 Nov 2006: We are being watched Everyday conversation used to be ephemeral. Whether face-to-face or by phone, we could be reasonably sure that what we said disappeared as soon as we said it.
• 16 Nov 2006: People worry more about Anthrax than influenza
• 15 Nov 2006: Opium Baron in Afghanistan Unbelievable footage from Afghanistan by Channel 4 News
• 13 Jun 2006: Maximise Your Search Engine Rankings with Yellow Pages
• 13 Jun 2006: Te Ara The New Zealand Encyclopedia is magnificently presented and resourced
• 24 Apr 2006: Klixo is the MAc Daddy First there was Intel now there is Klixo...thats right Mac users can now use the raw power of Klixo's story editor to add content to their site. Unlike Intel though klixo won't leave you with that william gatesey aftertaste in your mouth....ahhh thats fresh.
• 05 Apr 2006: Jillian Houghton - In Sight In Sight is an exhibition of paintings and light sculptures by Jillian Houghton at The Bean. The exhibition opening was on Saturday the 18th of March, 2006.
• 24 Mar 2006: Choose Your Power Company Carefully Online wizards now allow you to compare power companies by financial cost and environmental cost
• 17 Mar 2006: Political bullying worse than school bullying Principal says Bay principal say politicians should sort out their own playground before targeting school text bullying
• 08 Mar 2006: Trade Me Sale Has Got Analysts Scratching The Trade Me sale is good news no matter which way you look at it
• 03 Mar 2006: How Moore's Law Benefits Your Bottom Line In 1965 Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, correctly predicted that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every two years. His law is used as a metaphor for the econmics of information technology today.
• 16 Feb 2006: Don't let the truth get in the way of a good war A catalogue of the potholes and pitfalls on the road to the second Iraq war
• 07 Feb 2006: Worldwide Wireless Hotspot Network Coming "Fon" will create a worldwide network of hotspots that share resources
• 30 Jan 2006: Woolworths tells suppliers: cut costs or else Woolworths tells suppliers to cust costs or face having their products removed from shelves. Will Woolworths pass the cost savings onto customers?
• 25 Jan 2006: Google Censors Google for China
• 05 Jan 2006: How 2 Stroke Engines Work From HowStuffWorks.com
• 01 Jan 2006: Lower drinking age = more car crashes An increase in teenage driver crashes has been directly linked to a New Zealand's lower drinking age, an American study says
• 20 Dec 2005: World Trade deal good news for New Zealand The writing is on the wall for European and U.S farmers
• 20 Dec 2005: Matata Residents likely to pay for flood protection It is looking inevitable that the Whakatane District Council will shift the burden for flood protection works on to the Matata community
• 20 Dec 2005: Bank workers to strike because banks are irresponsible Bank tellers are being increasingly pressured to sell debt to their clients in the face of all wisdom and even Government advice. So they are going on strike.
• 20 Dec 2005: Bush spys on own citizens In most countries in the world it is illegal and certainly not ethical to spy on your own citizens without approval from a court...
• 19 Dec 2005: Grand Theft Auto 4: Awatapu The line between virtual reality and reality is becoming increasingly blurred...
• 29 Nov 2005: New media and its impact on traditional journalism In the world of content (creative output, i.e: writing, music, art, drawings, photography) there are content producers and content consumers...
• 25 Nov 2005: Air New Zealand Pinged For Fuel Surcharge Air New Zealand has been found guilty of breaching the Fair Trading Act when it imposed a "Fuel Surcharge" to its fares. This would be exactly like a baker imposing a "Flour Surcharge" on its bread. Stand by for a "Legal Fees Surcharge" on all fares to Wellington.
• 23 Nov 2005: Morning Report - Brought To You By Tamiflu, "I have it in my bag" by Daniel Larsen, 23rd November, 2005.
• 17 Oct 2005: Power At Any Cost
• 20 Sep 2005: Daniel's Post Election Essay Now the votes have been counted (bar the specials) we have a clear result: 49% of the country "hate taxes and are sick of the Maoris"...
• 19 Sep 2005: Dilmah Tea Cards Personlised Greeting cards from the coolest company on Earth
• 07 Sep 2005: Nadija Watson More genius from Nadija Watson - design portfolio
• 30 Aug 2005: Hussy - Celebrating Queer Culture Kill Pussy & The Kill Kill Girls Invite You To...
• 10 Aug 2005: Disposable Plastic Kiwi Innovation at its most environmentally friendly
• 10 Aug 2005: Dave Loves a Duopoly Wouldn't be great if all competing businesses in New Zealand could negotiate backroom deals with each other to collude on pricing, and then not only get the support from a government minister, but also get him to sell the deal to regulators and the public on national radio?!
• 09 Aug 2005: Greens Push Trains The Greens have come out with a strong pro-train public transport policy for Auckland, no doubt hoping to ride the bonanza of liberal voters first mined by Auckland Mayor Ron Hubbard and further refined by current affairs presenter John Campbell
• 09 Aug 2005: Interpol at the St James Worth sixty bucks just to see the bass player wearing his holster
• 09 Aug 2005: Go The Bay! NPC is about to kick off and that means you can also become a legend in your own lunch room by playing Virtual NPC! 50 cents says Bay of Plenty will Otago
• 08 Aug 2005: Brash Peters Pretender The leader of the National Party sounds more like the leader of the New Zealand First Party every day
• 08 Aug 2005: iTunes NZ on the way? Apple buys itunes.co.nz and looks poised to enter the marketplace. iTunes is an online music shop run by Apple computers at which you can browse thousands of music titles and download them to your PC for around US$1 per track.
• 05 Aug 2005: Nah, Actually It's Not OK Four men sentenced for up to 8 1/2 years each for luring a woman to an address in Mt Maunganui for group-sex 16 years ago
• 04 Aug 2005: Winston Peters Back To Scaring Little Old Ladies New Zealand Jews and Christians forced to distance themselves from NZ First fundamentalist views
• 28 Jul 2005: Keep It Thish Way! The petition to change the New Zealand flag is dumped after a lack of support. The organisers of the campaign blame apathy, but does anyone really want a logo on our flag? I mean, you may as well rename it the Adidas New Zealand National Flag
• 26 Jul 2005: Kyoto Success Story Palmerston North City Council are getting on with the business of Kyoto and have sold carbon credits to Austria for 1.2 million dollars
• 22 Jul 2005: "Climate Change" Rolls Off The Tounge Nicely Peter Hodgson blames "Climate Change" for the devastation in Matata. Every one else blames deforestation, but "Carter Holt Harvey" is a bit trickier to say...
• 20 Jul 2005: The War In Numbers 9,270 civilians killed by allied forces in Iraq
• 12 Jul 2005: New Zealand's First Free Public Wireless Hotspot? Is the Klixo Hotspot in Whakatane New Zealand's first free public hotspot?
• 08 Jul 2005: London Bomb Blasts The public transport network in London and innocent people have been attacked in a series of blasts in the central city
• 07 Jul 2005: Lost The Plot 26 hours of my life lost to a tv show without an ending. When did it become OK to write stories without endings? Blatant TV commercialism taken to the extreme - don't get sucked in to "Season 2"!
• 07 Jul 2005: Dog The Bounty Hunter This guy totally rules - check out his show on Prime, Tuesday nights?
• 04 Jul 2005: The Oldest Trick in the Vote Bribing Book 75 percent of those polled "want tax cuts now". I'll take safer roads and a tv channel that dosen't suck thanks.
• 04 Jul 2005: I Surf The Wireless While The City Sleeps
• 27 Jun 2005: Rachel Bell Rachel Bell is a merit winner at the Dowse Gallery STUDENT CRAFT & DESIGN AWARDS 2005
• 16 Jun 2005: Matata Flood 360 degree Panoramic Photo Here is a link to the panoramic photograph of 3 Clem Elliot Drive, Matata, taken the day after the flood and landslide in May 2005.
• 12 Jun 2005: Good News From The G8 The G8 will immediately write off US 40 billion dollars of Africa's 300 billion dollar debt
• 24 May 2005: MATATA FLOOD STORY PART II Part two of my experiences during the Matata flood
• 20 May 2005: MATATA FLOOD & LANDSLIDE The idyllic seaside town of Matata has been devasted by a flood and landslide event that has demolished houses, uprooted trees and destroyed roads and railway lines
• 14 May 2005: Caller ID Spoofing Demonstrated in New Zealand The Caller ID system has proven to be flawed by a New Zealand hacker
• 29 Apr 2005: A Case For War? Tony Blair today published the infamous Attorney General's report on the legality of going to war with Iraq. The document shows how the British Parliament dramatically changed its position on who could determine if a country (Iraq) was in breach of a U.S resolution, just before war broke out
• 27 Apr 2005: Double Decker Jumbo Lifts Off in France The new Airbus A380 made its maiden voyage without a hitch today
• 27 Apr 2005: Syria Pull Out of Lebanon Syria pull troops out of Lebanon after a 29 year occupation
• 11 Apr 2005: Photographer Photography by Daniel Sonny Larsen
• 05 Apr 2005: Cousteau Jnr Makes Shark Sub Just like in Red Rackham's Treasure
• 29 Mar 2005: Whakatohea Make First Foreshore Claim The Opotiki based iwi will test its customary rights on the foreshore between Ohope and Opotiki in the Bay of Plenty
• 29 Mar 2005: Did You Know: Did you know that if you are a Telecom XTRA customer (most JetStream customers are XTRA customers), you can sit in Starbucks, Tutanekai St Rotorua, with your wireless enabled laptop, open a web browser, and you are surfing the net? How cool is that?
• 09 Mar 2005: Aesop Jacob Larsen Abe and Rhiannon celebrate the birth of a beautiful baby boy!
• 19 Feb 2005: Coachella Music Festival In California in April/May? Go to Coachella Festival!
• 14 Feb 2005: Shiite Muslims Win Iraqi Election But fail to win a majority of seats in the historic parliament
• 14 Feb 2005: NZ Unemployment At 20 Year Low Economists say low unemployement due to high job growth
• 08 Feb 2005: Israel and Palestine Leader Agree On Ceasefire A historical agreement was reached today to stop all military and violent attacks. While the agreement has its critics, there is no doubt that Israel and Palestine are back on track towards settling their differences after four years of horrific violence.
• 07 Feb 2005: G7 Close To Writing Off Debt For Poor Countries The worlds richest countries are expected to agree to write-off the debt of the world's smallest countries this year
• 28 Jan 2005: All The News That's New and Approved I've got Reuters News headlines on my webpage - how cool is that?
• 23 Jan 2005: Stephen Fleming Costs NZ Government $57,000 In Tsunami Charity Match Shane Warne says he's never seen batting like that before
• 17 Jan 2005: I Want The latest IPod is smaller than a pack of chewing gum and holds 240 songs
• 12 Jan 2005: U.S To Release British Guantanamo Detainees Prisoners will sue U.S government
• 10 Jan 2005: Brad and Jen Split If Brad and Jen can't stay together, who can?
• 07 Jan 2005: Icebergs in New Zealand Waters First seen in 57 years. Global warming or crazy whacky coincidence?
• 05 Jan 2005: Which Webhost?
• 31 Dec 2004: EBay Ditch MSN Passport, Microsoft Scale Back Service Microsoft has decided to stop offering the passport service to third-party websites after EBay decided to stop supporting the shared credentials service
• 18 Dec 2004: Fillet-O-Fish and a Medium Chocolate Shake, Eat Here Thanks The McDonalds recipie. Substitute the fish portions for Sealord Crumbed Hoki (the real deal).
• 17 Dec 2004: Moonwatcher 2005 Living your life by the light of the silvery moon? Download Moonwatcher 2005
• 15 Dec 2004: Millau Bridge New Viaduct is taller than the Eiffel Tower
• 13 Dec 2004: War of the Worlds Trailer Spielberg and Cruise do War of the Worlds - Awesome!
• 12 Dec 2004: Lies, Damn Lies and Web Statistics A few tips from sorting the wheat from the chaff with web stats
• 10 Dec 2004: Chestnuts roasting on an open FireWire You know, I always wondered about the health of my boys when working with my laptop on my lap, and one night after developing a scary tingling sensation in the nether-regions I thought it might be time to keep my laptop off the lap...
• 09 Dec 2004: Zaoui Released on Bail Akmed Zaoui is released on bail from a New Zealand prison after two years without charge.
• 05 Dec 2004: Microsoft's Blog Service Misses The Point Microsoft are trialling an MSN blog service called "Spaces", but it is not without its critics (myself included)
• 03 Dec 2004: The Seat of Knowledge on the Web Google Scholar search allows you to search the annals of knowledge from your web browser
• 03 Dec 2004: Tame Iti - Debut CD Release Tame Iti has paired up with Mike Weston (The Area) to produce his first CD. The CD was released the same day as the opening of an exhibition of 88 paintings by Tame, Mike Weston and Otis Frizzell
• 25 Nov 2004: Vote For Blair Or Fire From Above British Government Decide Scaring The Crap Out Of Their Citizens Is The Best Policy. Again.
• 23 Nov 2004: New Blog Created Every 5.8 Seconds Clickz reports that the "bologosphere" doubling in size every five months
• 17 Nov 2004: And One For My Homies - O.D.B Dies Age 35 Ol' Dirty Bastard collapses and dies in a Manhattan recording studio a couple of days before his thirty-sixth birthday
• 16 Nov 2004: Greetings Media Design School Class of '04 Here are some links and online resources for you
• 01 Nov 2004: Full Transcript of Bin Laden Speech Osama Bin Laden made a dramatic re-appearance just days before the U.S Presedential elections. Here is his speech in full (in English).
• 27 Oct 2004: MUSIC: John Peel R.I.P
• 19 Oct 2004: MUSIC: SilverWHK "Alternative HipHop" from my bro, Abraham Larsen A.K.A SilverWHK. Wicked new album and beats for sale
• 19 Oct 2004: HISTORY: Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible In 1985 David Lange successfully argued the proposition that "Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible" at the Oxford Union Debate in England. His argument on that day is a significant waypoint in the tumultuous path to the relative political and economic independence that we now enjoy as New Zealanders.
• 18 Oct 2004: DEV: CSS in Action Some pretty cool tricks from Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing with Web Standards"
• 18 Oct 2004: TOP 5 BLOGS: Schneier on Security Bruce Schneier, author of the essential security email monthly "Cryptogram" is now releasing his articles as they are written in Blog format
• 14 Oct 2004: YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT: Health Insurers Report Finds That Kiwis Should Have Health Insurance The "Health Funds Association of New Zealand", a lobby group for insurers has commissioned a report that recommends New Zealanders who earn more than the average wage should have compulsory health insurance
• 12 Oct 2004: LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS 2004: When Technology Goes Bad Machines tasked with reading and counting votes fail miserably
• 12 Oct 2004: ECONOMICS: Aussies Protect Consumers From The Scurge Of Pacific Rose Australian apple growers fear that just one taste of the delicious Pacific Rose apple may bring destitution upon them and their families
• 03 Oct 2004: INTERNET: Google Mail Today I joined the ranks of the Internet glitterati with my very own GMail account.
• 28 Sep 2004: WEBMASTER: Search Engine Optimisation in a Nutshell A wrap-up of the most useful Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tips
• 26 Sep 2004: PRIVACY: Plane Diverted, Pop Star Deported by Spelling Mistake In America (and increasingly more countries) you can be refused entry to a country for pretty much any reason at all. Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) lost his right to travel into the states because of a spelling mistake
• 26 Sep 2004: QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Tony Blair "...they can use and manipulate the modern media to gain enormous publicity for themselves..." - Tony Blair apparently realising that what is good for the goose is NOT good for the gander.
• 24 Sep 2004: Iraqi Poll Results Iraqis say they are better off since the war but it is no longer safe to walk the streets at night. Fascinating insight into Iraqi life that defies political and media standpoints
• 24 Sep 2004: Jesse McLeod: The Journey From 48HOURS, the annual contest to write shoot and edit a short film in 48 hours. A brilliant entry from the usual suspects at The Classic
• 24 Sep 2004: Shihad to be Shihad again The legendary NZ rock group have finally spit the dummy over their media-friendly handle and gone back to being Shihad again
• 23 Sep 2004: XML Spy Home Edition is now Free! Altova's excellent entry level XML and XSL development software is now free!
• 22 Sep 2004: Sri Lankan "Handball Team" Outwit German Customs
• 18 Sep 2004: Concealed Weapon Detection Guide An FBI Howto
• 18 Sep 2004: No up-to-date antivirus? No firewall? No patches? You're PC will last 20 minutes on the net New.com reports the the average infection time for an unpatched PC is 20 minutes.
• 31 Jan 2003: Surrogate Key vs. Natural Key