From New Zealand Connections

Contents 1 About me 2 Why start New Zealand connections? 3 What do I do for New Zealand connections? 4 Featured articles/Recommended links

About me

Many have asked me - "Why cokemaster"? And to be honest, I do not really know. It was a name that I used a while ago, and it kinda stuck ever since. There isn't anything about me that is excessively interesting, I grew up in the Hawkes Bay... was fairly adept at computers and software, went to Massey University for a few years, finally ending up here in Auckland.

I work for a telecommunications company which allows me to expand on a lot of the skills and have fun at the same time. Having experience in webhosting, I run a few other websites, and also assist with hosting a couple of sites for friends (and a worthy cause) - free of charge.

I participate heavily on Geekzone, where I am a Moderator. [Geekzone] has been one of these forums, where discussions are usually quite good and the community is excellent. I don't particate heavily in communities outside of geekzone, as time does not permit me to. In regards to communities, my one gripe would be a minority who, in my opinion have unrealistic understandings of New Zealand broadband.

Why start New Zealand connections?

I actually registered the domain name that we are using quite a while ago, however it was a troll post that really highlighted the lack of understanding with broadband. Thus, the idea of creating a community driven site which people could contribute their experience was put into action. I stressed from the beginning that this was not a site to try and replace existing forays into the broadband subject by forums, however it was intended as a device to expand on that knowledge.

Cut a few months to today: New Zealand connections is a site that gets a large number of visitors, has a lot of articles on internet service providers and even has a comparison page. All written in such a way that people who are not as technical can understand. For me - the success is knowing that in some shape or form that this site is helping people gain a better understanding of the technology.

What do I do for New Zealand connections?

Well, apart from hosting it and making sure that the site is up and running - I also contribute where I can in the form of articles and also in expanding the wiki site. For recent article/content contributions, you can check out my contributions.

Recent changes that I've made to the site include:

• Adding an antispam filter
• Sitemaps
• Oversight - used to remove edits which contain illegal/confidential information
• Checkuser - used to check IP addresses of users suspected of evading bans.
• Automated nightly back ups of both the file system and database
• Creation of two beta sites which are used for testing purposes.
• Addition of Share this! extension
• Addition of parser extension.
• Addition of Breadcrumbs

Upcoming changes:

• A better editor which means that you don't need to know wikicode to use advanced wikicode functions.

If you have any feedback, i'd like to hear about it - please visit our forum at geekzone.

Featured articles/Recommended links

We've been building a page of Informative Websites which you can view. If you wish to add any, please let us know via our Forum.

Here you'll find articles on New Zealand Connections or geekzone that I recommend:

• 13/01/2008 - Naked DSL - Since the introduction of Naked DSL to New Zealand, there has been a lot of confusion on what it actually is. This article goes some way in explaining what naked DSL is, and has an interesting explanation under the New Zealand section why the naked DSL plans are more expensive than normal DSL plans due to the cost of maintaining the copper.
• 14/01/2008 - Dead heat between Troubleshooting Telephone Issues and Troubleshooting Internet Issues. I've added a few new articles to this section and also 'cleaned up' the contact sections + profiles. If you have any changes or new articles, throw them in :)
• 15/01/2008 - Slow DSL speeds and I lose DSL when I use my phone. These two were prompted due to discussion on geekzone about it.
• 28/01/2008 - VoIP vs POTS - This article was more intended as thing to make people thing twice before jumping feet first into the VoIP or POTS camp. VoIP is coming so is it better to go directly to VoIP? On the otherhand, you may have legacy devices which don't work over VoIP or perhaps require landline uptime (particularly during power outages)... perhaps even are unsure about VoIP and not prepared to 'get technical'.