Sevens 2010 weather looking superb!

The 7-day rainfall maps at metservice.com are looking pretty good for the 7’s this year:

7pm Fri 5th Feb:

7pm Sat 6th Feb:

Bring it on!

Google Search Tricks

Google Search is just for finding websites right? Wrong!

Google has been quietly adding features that have turned that search box into so much more than a simple search tool. Here’s a selection of tricks that highlight why Google’s search is fast becoming the go to place for all kinds of info – and in many cases you don’t have to leave the results page to get an answer.

Use Google as/for:

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A calculator

Google can easily do some number crunching for you – just type in your equation for the result on it’s own page. Eg seconds in a day: “60*60*24″, or something a little more complicated: “sin(45)*sqrt(10^3)/2*pi”

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Currency/unit conversion

To do a currency conversion based on current rates, try something like: “24.99 USD in NZD” to convert from US$ to NZ$. Obviously there are loads of other currencies you can use including GBP for British pounds and AUD for Australian dollars. For unit conversion, here’s a couple of examples to get you started: “25 ft in m”, “97F in C”, “36in in cm”, “60kt in km”.

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An international clock

Simply type in “time in Sydney” (or some other city) to get current time there at the top of the search results page. This also works for “GMT” or “UTC”.

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A dictionary

Entering a single word produces a search results page which should have a link near the top right to jump to a full dictionary entry containing pronunciation, synonyms, and definitions. To quickly get a list of definitions on the web, simply enter “define: ” and then your word, eg “define: cipher”. Or try an abbreviation: “define: ftw”. And worth noting is that if you spell your word incorrectly, Google normally suggests a more common spelling right at the top.

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A phone/address book

This works great for many businesses including restaurants – enter the business/restaurant name and the first entry on the results page often has a listing including map, address and contact info. Note however, for some more generic names you might strike some unexpected results or you’ll need to narrow your search. Eg “Martin Bosley” works a treat, but “The White House” needs “restaurant” added on the end if you want to visit Oriental Parade and not Washington!

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Movie times

To get the screening times of a movie, eg Avatar, try entering “movie avatar”. The first time you do this you might be asked for a city and whether you want to remember that location. Alternatively, you could enter “movie avatar wellington” to get straight as some local results.

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Flight tracking

If you know the flight number of an aircraft, type it in to see the scheduled departure/arrival time. Eg “NZ 413″. Note that while this is cool, I’m not 100% sure how up to date flightstats.com is when it comes to delays. You might be better to check the airport/airline website (eg Wellington or Air New Zealand).

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A weather forecast

While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this one(!), Google does present simple forecasts for cities around the world. Eg “weather melbourne”. Of course if you want a NZ forecast you should visit metservice.com

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Document search by filetype

If you want to track down a specific type on document on a subject, use the filetype: search option – for example “google filetype:pdf” will only show PDF documents in the search results for “google”.

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And as a bonus, a couple more that are Google search driven, but require you to leave the results page…

A map portal

If you’d like to get to a map of a particular city or even a suburb, simply add the word map after your location of interest, eg “wellington map”. The first result should be a direct link to that place on Google Maps.

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Visual search

Google’s image search is a fantastic way of finding pictures of something or someone. Usually a search with “images” on the end will return a results page with a sample of images at the top linking to the image results only. (If not, click the “images” text link near the top left of the page.) Once you’re in the images results, be sure to click the “show options” link for some powerful filtering tools – eg you can search for particular sized images, types of images such as drawings or photos, and you can even search for images by colour!

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And finally, let Google complete your query! The auto-suggest feature that drops down some suggested results as you start typing can be a fast way of getting at your search term and lets you see the number of results for similar queries. For example:

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Have fun Googling!

Southerly winds for Wellington Anniversary Weekend

Here’s the latest Press Release from MetService:

The MetService weather forecast for Wellington’s long weekend is for more of the same, with periods of southerly wind and passing showers.

“The last dry weekend in Wellington was in mid-November last year”, commented MetService Weather Ambassador, Bob McDavitt. “So it is no great surprise that showery southerlies are likely again during the coming Anniversary weekend”.

Mr. McDavitt added that the showers and southerly winds are not expected to be as intense as last weekend, and should not require any weather warnings. “There is a complex trough affecting the North Island for the next few days, and it seems set to deliver one period of southerlies to the region on Friday lasting through Saturday, and another late on Sunday or early on Monday”.

“Wellington’s anniversary holiday is celebrated on Monday by people living in a large part of the south half of the North Island. If you are in this area and looking for some sunny mild weather with light winds this weekend to plan an anniversary BBQ or have some outdoor fun then your best bet is Sunday during the day”.

Issued 01:58pm 21-Jan-2010

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And my take on it:

Tech stories of the year and decade

One of my favourite tech podcasts, This Week in Tech (aka TWiT), took a look at the top tech stories of the year and decade gone in the recent episode #228. Host Leo Laporte with Kevin Rose (Digg.com and Revision3.com) and Robert Scoble (building43.com and scobelizer.com) discuss some of the defining events and trends in technology from what has certainly been an incredible decade. The episode is well worth a watch, and as a bonus is embedded here thanks to Leo now having a TWiT channel on YouTube,

Included in the discussion are lots of video submissions from a range of people in the tech sector as follows,

• @alexlindsay on Video on the Web
• @bobbyllew on YouTube
• @danegolden on Googlization of everything
• @danpatterson on shorter distance between people, other people, and information
• @catherine_hall on Freedom to work from anywhere
• @chrismarquardt on Cinema quality video in Digital SLRs
• @DonMcAllister on RSS
• @drkiki on Large Hadron Collider
• @heathr on Democratization of media
• @iEchuu on HD-DVD story on Digg
• @klandwehr on iPhone and App store
• @macsfuture on Apple goes from has-been to kingmaker
• @malventano on Solid state
• @marcpelletier on Life-extending medicine
• @martinsargent on Webvan and Peapod
• @merlyn on Moore’s Law still works
• @notpatrick on Net Neutrality
• @patricknorton on Moore’s Law applies to everything
• @ScottBourne on Digital Photography
• @shwood on Y2K
• @sirjimbo on Leo-Arrington controversy
• @techAU on HD

(Props to TWiT.tv for the list which I shamelessly copied here!)

So what about my views? Glad you asked!

Personally, I think the explosion of the internet in the last 10 years should be at or near the top of the list. I remember moving from a dialup internet connection to “broadband” in May 2004 and thinking at the time “why is this thing always connected? surely I won’t need that.” Oh how times have changed! We now read the news (RIP newspapers), shop, get a weather forecast, talk to family via Skype, look up phone numbers (RIP phonebooks), watch TV shows and so much more at anytime online without a second thought. But perhaps bigger than all that is how the internet has brought friends (and indeed the world) so much closer together by making it easy to set up your own website or blog and to share photos, videos and news on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. And talking about internet trends wouldn’t be a complete discussion without mentioning Facebook which saw phenomenal growth in 2009 and now has us chatting and sharing with friends and family on a regular basis.

So for me, the internet was the big story of the decade and I believe the mobile internet (via cell phones, netbooks and laptops) will dominate the next 10…

Holiday greetings!

Merry Christmas (belated), happy holidays and hello 2010!

Sadly, our family holiday to “the bach” in the Sounds is over and I’m back at work in Wellington. We had a great time with the Noble and Chinn families this Christmas – staying with John and Jenny and my sis Nicola, husband Andrew and kids Oliver and Katie.

Following our time away, I’ve now uploaded a few snaps to my Picasa Albums, and here’s a sample,

The family on Christmas Day,

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Matt with his first fish!

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Amy the little rockstar!

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For more photos, including a sneak peek at our Christmas fare, click through to the photo albums.

And wherever you are (or were), I hope your Christmas/holiday time is equally enjoyable.

See you in 2010!

Christmas Day Weather

Here’s a snapshot of what the weather map will hopefully look like on Christmas Day – courtesy of ECMWF,

That’s a 10 day forecast for 1pm on Christmas Day, with isobars along with colour shading representing wind speed at about 5,000ft (850hPa for the met folks). If the computer models stick to this story, then (barring small scale effects) much of New Zealand should have generally fine weather – unless you’re in Fiordland which might be wet based on that map.

This of course is just one possible outcome that could well change as we approach the 25th, and you should get the official story from MetService.com – which already has town/city forecasts for Christmas Day.

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Update:
And now we have a 9-day forecast for 1pm on Christmas Day,

So, pretty much the same story for NZ – but the high is a little closer and weaker while the front is further west in a deeper trough.

Update 2:
Another day closer. Here’s the 8-day forecast, again for 1pm on Dec 25,

Similar story, but not liking the trend – a weaker high further east, meaning lower pressures over the South Island with more wind (especially for Cook Strait and Wellington!) ahead of a front over Fiordland.

Stay tuned…