Noodles' Blog

Google Knol

noodles — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:58:13 +0000

I’m doing an experiment with Google Knol, so I’ve written a Knol about back pain

I will post the results of this test later on.

iPhone 3G and Linksys WAG54G v3 incompatibility

noodles — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:00:46 +0000

For some reason the iPhone 3G will not connect to this wireless router. There has been talk that this is fixed in the latest firmware but as of writing this it is not fixed in the latest AU/NZ firmware (1.00.23).

I found a temporary solution for the problem though. If you limit your router to 802.11B only then the iPhone will connect without a problem. As soon as it’s changed to mixed network or 802.11G only then it will fail to connect.

Update: I’ve found that the AU firmware from the AU linksys site works fine on the NZ WAG54Gv3. I’m using 1.00.46 and the iPhone 3G now connects under 802.11G without a problem.

New postcodes compulsory for bulk mailers

noodles — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:34:17 +0000

Tv3 reported on this the other night, but I can’t find a link to the video clip. Apparently from July 1st, 2008 postcodes must be used when sending bulk mail to receive discounts. This is to force bulk mailers to move over to the new system which can be read easier by NZ Post.

According to the news clip residentual mail may also be affected by this change over. Mail can be lost in the mail system for months if the wrong/old postcode is used. Examples were given where there are ~18 Beach Rd’s in Auckland. Using the correct postcode allows mail sorters to send your letter to the right one.

More information here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10519552

New Blog

noodles — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:35:45 +0000

I’ve just started a new blog about antioxidants and good health.

You can find it here: Antioxidant Smart

DNS Stuff/DNS Report Alternative

noodles — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:33:41 +0000

Recently dnsstuff.com started charging for all their services and have doubled their prices. I know they’re a business, but this move will force people away from their site onto other services.

So I’ve been looking for an alternative to dnsstuff.com for a while and came across this: http://dnssy.com/
It seems to have similar reports and is good for debugging your DNS setup.

Postcode Database V2 updated

noodles — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:50:14 +0000

As a few people have pointed out in the comments there was an error in the initial release of the V2 postcode database, the suburb data had been lost along the way.

I’ve fixed the problem and updated the bzip2 and gzip files. I’ve also removed the mssql version as it never worked anyway. I’m not sure if the problem affects the csv version and I don’t have time to look at it now.

Enjoy.

Verizon Wireless

noodles — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:42:40 +0000

I’ve just set up a lens on Squidoo.com about Verizon Wireless

It’s still a work in progress, but there’s some interesting information there.

Optimized vBulletin (Part 2)

noodles — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:13:41 +0000

I’m just trying out a new method to optimize vBulletin’s front end scripts and CSS. It’s still a work in progress but these are the results I have seen on my test site (www.wirelessforums.org)

Without GZIP

Base VB (v3.6.8)

vbulletin_global.js - 43.8KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 17.8KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 6.7KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 9.6KB

JS total - 77.9KB

css - 5.7KB

Using minify

vbulletin_global.js - 23KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 10.4KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 3.3KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 6KB

JS total - 42.7 (45.1% savings)

css - 4.1K (28% savings)

With GZIP

Base VB (v3.6.8)

vbulletin_global.js - 12.5KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 4.7KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 2KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 3.3KB

JS total - 22.5KB

css - 1.3KB

Using minify and GZIP

vbulletin_global.js - 6.9KB
vbulletin_menu.js - 2.7KB
vbulletin_read_marker.js - 1KB
vbulletin_md5.js - 2.1KB

JS total - 12.7KB

This is an extra 43.5% savings on top of GZIP. A total of 65.2KB (83.7%) savings from the original.

css - 1.1KB

An extra 15.3% savings on top of GZIP. A total of 4.6KB (80.7%) savings from the original.

This is a huge improvement over the original file sizes and speeds up rendering of the page quite a bit. The new method doesn’t require you to download JS replacements for each version of vB, instead it works off the existing files. Hopefully this will silence the people who complained about copyright/piracy issues with me distributing the JS files (even though they’re distributed to every browser that downloads the page).

I’m also looking at some other ways to speed up rendering as much as possible. Stay tuned for downloads and a full write up.

New Zealand Postcode Database (V2)

noodles — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:48:11 +0000

I’ve done a bit of work on the database, added a bit of information and corrected mistakes.

Thanks to Owen and others for help with the data.

If you find this data useful, please donate.

What’s new in V2

More accurate
Added GPS co-ordinates
Added PO Boxes and Private Bags
Added Rural postcodes
Removed regions (as some datasources labeled a city/town as one region and others differed.)

I’ve also taken the opportunity to include CSV and MSSQL formats, as well as MySQL.

History

I originally created the database as I needed street and suburb data for a project I was doing. No one else was stupid enough to spend that much time on it, so I took it on. NZ Post still has their PAF data, but are unlikely to release a free database of the postcodes.

Original Post
More info on NZ Addresses

Downloads

MySQL
nzpostcodes_v2.sql.gz (655KB)
nzpostcodes_v2.sql.bz2 (445KB)

CSV
nzpostcodes_v2.csv.zip (1.07MB)

All efforts have been made to ensure that there are no errors, but there are no guarantees, if you need 100% accurate data please buy NZ Post’s PAF data.

[UPDATE 20/04/08]
As a few people have pointed out, there was no suburb data in the MySQL database version of the postcode database. This has now been fixed. Sorry about the problems and how long it’s taken me to get around to fixing it.

vBulletin JS Min

noodles — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 06:13:57 +0000

I realized today that vBulletin’s Javascript was just too bulky and didn’t really need to be, especially when you have no plans to customize it yourself. So I grabbed all the packages of 3.6.x and minimized all the Javascript. In most cases the Javascript files are 50% of the original, which saves bandwidth and speeds up the loading of your forum.

Install:

Backup all the .js files from the clientscript directory under your forum root.
Copy the files from zip file that matches your version of vBulletin into the clientscript directory.
Done!

Download:

vBulletin 3.6.0
vBulletin 3.6.1
vBulletin 3.6.2
vBulletin 3.6.3
vBulletin 3.6.4
vBulletin 3.6.5
vBulletin 3.6.6
vBulletin 3.6.7PL1
vBulletin 3.6.8