Category: NZTekonverse -> Uncategorised

This is my first tryout of ScribeFire, a blogging plugin available for the Firefox open source web browser. Some time ago I mentioned Windows Live Writer, another option for those of us who prefer a proper blogging client as opposed to the limitations of a browser based composition system. ScribeFire is a Firefox plugin but…

The last of a long line, this is the comparatively rare Champion WD front loading washer/dryer. Basically this is about all the Champions you can find in public. I know very little about the company operations except that they were called “Radiation Ltd” and were in Dunedin. Champion did a range of everyday ordinary machines,…

In the days before video players, the great multimedia educational resource around the world was, of course, 16 mm sound film. Just about every school in New Zealand had a projector of their own, often installed in a specially fitted out classroom with blackout curtains and a screen. These pictures are of an Eiki projector,…

These machines were a licensed UK design. The back panel of most has a plate affixed saying it is an AEI-Gala design. In later years, similar machines were sold in Britain under the Hotpoint brand (possible model numbers are 9600, 9604, 9605). In NZ, the last series of these machines were the 370, 380 and…

Prior to 1984 NZ had import restrictions which meant that washing machines were built in factories around the country. These were often overseas brands assembled locally for domestic demand. There seem to have been three main brands produced: Norge – locally assembled production of the US brand range. A range of models including twin tubs…

This is another interesting HDD (20 GB), early 2000s. It’s branded a “Fireball” and thus, possibly, is a relabelled Quantum design. What is interesting about this one is that it has only one head. This is very rare in HDDs because normally you can use both sides of the platter to increase your capacity. The…

The Bigfoot was a rare example of a modern IDE drive produced in the 5 1/4″ form factor. These were a budget drive often found in low end PCs of the time. The capacity started at 1.2 GB and went all the way up to 19.2 GB. This example is 4.3 GB and was installed…

As things have been a bit slow lately and as I can’t be bothered setting up yet another blog, from time to time this blog will divert onto technical but non-computer topics of interest. You may also see technical articles on design aspects of certain types of computer hardware. Both of these areas are different…

This is one subject I never did quite get the hang of when I studied GPOs in MOC 2274/2279. The MS documentation for loopback policy is a little confusing. The normal way that GPOs are applied is that the computer configuration part of the GPO is applied to computer accounts, and the user configuration part…

The Ministry of Education recently set up a number of egroups for the different SMSs (Student Management Systems) that they accredited for use in NZ. In addition there is another egroup for the data sharing approval framework. MOE has also announced there are not going to be any more accreditation rounds for SMSs. Instead there…