Foot meets Xtra gun

Further strategic synergies found from the shifting of large chunks of Xtra to Australia! Telecom and Xtra use the SORBS blacklist, located in Australia, to bounce email that’s deemed to have come from dubious sources. One such dubious source, according to SORBS is... Xtra, which is now dutifully bouncing its customers email.

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Meanr and Leanr 2.5

- Foot meets Xtra gun
- The devs are bolting


Cavorting Kimchi

There are Flash games, and there are Korean Flash games for kids. Click on the game console looking large icon with yellow borders to play. Sound. You need to hear the sounds.

- Korean Flash Game

Foot meets Xtra gun

Further strategic synergies found from the shifting of large chunks of Xtra to Australia! Telecom and Xtra use the SORBS blacklist, located in Australia, to bounce email that’s deemed to have come from dubious sources. One such dubious source, according to SORBS is... Xtra, which is now dutifully bouncing its customers email.

Database of servers sending to spamtrap addresses
Address: 210.54.141.244
Record Created: Thu Nov 23 08:16:43 2006 GMT
Record Updated: Sat Mar 3 08:30:17 2007 GMT
Additional Information: [Updated via: Spam 'o Matic ] Received: from fep02.xtra.co.nz (fep02.xtra.co.nz [210.54.141.244]) by desperado.sorbs.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id C4F241143C for <[email]>; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:11:58 +1000 (EST)
Currently active and flagged to be published in DNS
If you wish to request a delisting please do so through the Support System.

- SORBS


The devs are bolting

There are lots of great ideas coming out of New Zealand, but how good are we at providing a fertile environment to keep them in the country to let them grown and mature? That’s what I’m wondering after reading about Navman closing down its Christchurch development centre as Brunswick sells the lot.

A takeover by an overseas entity seems to be the kiss of death for New Zealand software companies. Dialogic lasted a mere four years under Intel; I am currently being stone-walled by US company Quest that bought the Rod Drury founded Aftermail in January 2006 and which is now shifting that operation to Madison, Wisconsin. Quest is not talking about the reasons for the move, unfortunately, and how it will affect New Zealanders now working for Aftermail.

It’s probably too soon to say there’s a pattern emerging here, but we don’t seem to get the opposite happening in New Zealand. That is, software companies moving here rather than elsewhere. At times, I hear the old verse about New Zealand being a very attractive destination being trotted out, but it doesn’t appear to be true.

The reason for that is hard to pin down, but it’s most likely a combination of factors. I would imagine that being located in a small internal market that isn’t well-integrated with any of the big trading blocs handicaps Kiwis a great deal and the remote location doesn’t help either. The latter wouldn’t be so bad if there was more competition and choice in airfares (US executives especially love flying to meetings) and business broadband wasn’t such a basket case that organisations have to keep their Internet systems overseas.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Peace Software, acquired last year by First Data in the US, and Jade Software Corp in Christchurch, majority owned by British and American interests. I hope they’ll remain in the country as we can ill afford further hollowing out of the software sector.


- Navman development centre to close: source

- Intel closes NZ development unit

- Jade's year shines