This post has been put together more with my international audience in mind that those here in Australia, who are very much aware of the ongoing situation here.

Queensland, Australia is currently struggling to recover from a natural disaster of epic proportions that saw up to 80% of the state underwater at some stage over the past two weeks. To put that into perspective, 80% of Queensland equates to an area twice the size of Texas (largest state in the US), an area larger than France & Germany combined, or an area 6 times the size of the UK!

Through the crisis, 16 people are confirmed to have lost their lives, with over 20 people still missing. On top of this, tens of thousands of people have had their homes & businesses completely destroyed.

The flooding has affected regional Queensland as well as major urban centers such as my home city, Brisbane, with a population of over 2 million people. However, now that the water has started to recede, the mammoth task of cleaning up the state has begun. This has been an amazing experience that has brought out the best in everyone. The affected streets are literally packed full of people helping out those that were affected, cleaning, scrubbing and trying to repair. On top of that, other crazy cool initiatives have kicked off, such as #bakedrelief on Twitter, which has seen people get together to cook & bake for volunteers assisting with the cleanup efforts. It’s truly amazing and inspiring to see so much good happening around the place.

Every little bit that can be done to assist the recovery effort is most appreciated. If you are able to dig deep and donate to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Fund if would be very much appreciated by so many.

Finally, thankfully, I managed to escape any flood damage which puts me in a category of very lucky people (a relatively small group!). Yes, we may have gone without power for a few days and business around the city may be shut down and disrupted for several weeks, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s minor.

Below, I have included some further photos which I have taken over the past few days. There is a larger collection in this flickr set

As someone who flies quiet a bit for both business and pleasure and is likely going to see that increase over the coming months, having to disconnect from my laptop / phone for the hour or two that I am in the air is a major hassle. Sure, I could read offline content or watch a tv show / movie, but that’s not really what I want to be doing. If I had the ability to continue to work, or communicate via Twitter / chat or stay updated with the news, it would make a massive difference.

Ask anyone who has flown across the US recently about the benefits of inflight WiFi and you will find almost everyone a fan. It’s also a service that people are more than happy to pay for and I too would be one of those. Given the current state of the airline industry globally, you would think that any revenue stream would be most welcome.

However, it would appear that neither of the big two Australian airlines Qantas or Virgin Blue have any concrete plans in place to provide inflight WiFi at any stage soon. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a Qantas engineer about this very topic last night and he confirmed that Qantas have looked at it using pico-cell technology and have even run a tial, but currently it is not on the priority list to deliver. His thoughts are that even when they do come to look into it, it’s likely to be on international flights before it hits the domestic market. This doesn’t make sense to me, surely the high volume domestic business traffic would be the best return on investment for the airlines?

Whilst the fact that they are looking into it is welcoming, the fact that they are investigating using pico-cell technology is disheartening. This is likely to lead to a slow and expensive sattelite based solution that is going to make media rich, content heavy use impossible. There are much better alternatives available, utilising existing mobile phone technology which is far more cost friendly and faster and in fact, it is this type of technology that is powering most of the US based inflight WiFi services.

There is a more indepth review of the airlines plans dating back to March this year in this article from The Australian.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has experience of the airlines plans, their thoughts and when we might expect to hear something.

Wow, this is pretty awesome news!! Google Australia have just announced that they are after launcing Street Views for lots of locations around Australia. I’ve just had a quick peek on Google Maps and I can see that they have covered the area around our apartment in Brisbane quite well, and I can’t wait to get home tonight and try this out in Google Earth on the mac. This is really, really exciting news though, especially as I should now be able to put together some mashups to show family and friends back home various places that I am day to day around Brisbane.

I’m starting to run out of patience. I’ve tried about 6 times to buy an iPhone in the Optus store in Brisbane. I’ve tried other stores outside of the city in what I thought would be quieter places, but, still no joy. I even tried the Apple store in Sydney last night to no avail (apparently you have to start queuing at 7am and you might have one by lunchtime there!).

Yes, I could sign myself up for a contract with Optus that would guarantee me a phone when stock came in, but, I’ve decided that until I can just walk into a store and pick one up, I’m going to hold out, in hope that perhaps 3 will announce a deal that they are carrying the iPhone with a data plan that rocks (yes, iPhone data plans in Oz suck!).

The longer it goes by, the harder it is not having one. In theory, given I’ve lived in London since the original iPhone went on sale, I’ve been living in a readily accessable market for a long time without having one, and it sucks! I might just have to bite the bullet this weekend and put my name down for one and wait on that call!!

This is a pretty insane story, but, great for those of you contemplating a complete change in your life. Ian Usher is selling his life on Ebay. This is the real deal, car, house, bike, job, friends, lifestyle, you name it, he’s selling it. Apparently, he recently split up with his wife, and decided that he wants to completely change his life and re-invent himself. He’s managed to convince his friends and employers etc to be part of this, and it’s well underway. I saw him interviewed on TV this morning, and he was saying that originally he hoped to cover the cost of his house, at about $400,000. The latest bid shows this coming in at $2.2 million!! That is one really, really neat at re-inventing your life and starting fresh! It’s going to be interesting to see how this turns out, and if he does actually end up getting the money! Just over 6 days to go until we find out!

If you’re in Australia, and you receive a lot of telemaraketing cold-calls to your home or mobile number, then help is at hand. The Austrlian Communications and Media Authority have set up a Do Not Call Register where you have the option to register your number on a database which prevents telemarketers from calling you. If they do call (any time from 30 days after you register) the company in question is in breach of the law and may be prosecuted. I think

I’m working in Sydney this week, and Kassie and I are staying down for the weekend, which is really very cool. But, I’ve noticed that Sydney is just like Dublin, it’s bloody freezing! Compared to back home in Brisbane, where the temp still climes to 24 or so during the day, it’s only getting to about 17 here at the moment, and added to the wind that blows off the river, it’s baltic compared to what I’ve been used to over the past few months. It’s amazing just how quickly your body adjusts to the heat. 12 months ago, 17 degrees would have been a nice warm day, and 24 was a stinker! But now, even 24 feels relatively cool!! Yep, I know, I’ve softened up, don’t ask me how I’m ever gonna survive a trip back to Ireland in the winter!!

On another note though, despite having worked here a few times now, I’ve still yet to explore any of Sydney. Last night was the first time I’ve ever stayed down, and the city looks absolutely beautiful. I’m really looking forward to getting out and about for the weekend exploring and taking photos. Let’s just hope that it warms up a little for me!

Woo, almost quitting time! This is the first of three short weeks for me! Tomorrow is Anzac Day here in Oz, so, in order to commemorate the Anzac efforts in World War I, we get a day off. For me, that means that I have a nice long weekend to play with my new camera and lens, which I am exceptionally excited. As usual, we have an action packed weekend ahead, with lots of dinner, drinks, a trip down to the Gold Coast and other bits and pieces on. Expect lots of pics to appear on flickr over the weekend!

Ever wondered how to build a submarine fibre optic cable? PIPE Networks are a large carrier / IXP here in Oz, and are in the process of building a much needed submarine cable between Sydney and Guam. I’ve met with Bob, their Network Architect and he told me about some pretty crazy and cool stuff that they are doing, and it looks like the project is going to be a huge success for them.

They have decided, rather unusually for such a project, to be very open and transparent about how they are going about it, and you can find lots of details over on their website which includes a blog that you can subscribe to in order to stay up to date with the project!

For a very long time, I have longed for a decent to-do list. Better again, one that was online, allowing me to access it from anywhere. I’ve tried out a few different solutions over the years, but none have really worked for me.

Today, I discovered Remember The Milk, a very cool, Australian developed website, that is rapidly growing in popularity and features. There are currently over 500,000 users of RTM, so I’m guessing with those kind of numbers, there must be something exciting going on!

So far, I’m very impressed, I can hook it into my Google Calendar, allowing me to view as well as create tasks there, as well as create tasks via email and the web etc. Only thing that I would like to see is a Google Desktop plugin, but, I think I’m going to be hooked regardless!