• editor's note
• news
• business
• support & services
• hardware review
• feature - more HTML
• competitions
• entertainment
• site scan

Home » Customers » Iinews » iiNews August

editor's note

It's nigh on impossible to avoid Olympic fever round the iiNet office. As we write, there are three screens pumping sport into our otherwise corporate ambiance, and plenty of water-cooler banter about last night's volleyball, basketball, handball.

I like that while most folk round here are backers of the green and gold, we've also got our fingers crossed for the underdog nations, neighbouring countries (well... most of them) and any fairytale hero of the day. Nobody seems to like me backing the poms though... go figure.

Speaking of poms and sport, we're back in business for the Barclays Premier League this month - a full season of Live and On-Demand matches, week-in week-out. Not to be outdone, our radio offering has blown up to over 60 stations, and the great new ABC iView service has been tucked neatly inside the iiNet Freezone.

There are heaps more to see and do in this month's edition, great comps and reviews - well worth a browse when you've got a moment spare.

Thanks again from us both for passing through this August. Feedback is always welcome at iinewsfeedback@iinet.net.au.

Niaal Holder & Swee Au-Yong
iiNews Editors

news

Barclays Premier League - it's back!
The Barclays Premier League is back in iiNet's Media Lounge for 2008/09, and with up to four Live matches per round we're raising the bar on last year's offering.

Once again, we've teamed up with FOX SPORTS to showcase the full league season. iiNet broadband customers will have access to up to four Live matches and five On-Demand matches, every round across the entire season - that's over 200 games and the same service that FOX SPORTS offers to its own subscribers!

Best of all, access to games are part of the Freezone and won't count towards your monthly quota. Otherwise, stay tuned... Season kicks off Saturday 16 August.

Tune into ABC TV for free
It was all over the news but in case you missed it, we've partnered with our pals at ABC to bring you iView quota free!

In another exclusive first, iiNet broadband customers are currently the only people in Australia who can access iView (ABC's innovative new On Demand viewing platform) with no effect on their monthly quota.

This means you can watch as much high resolution ABC content as you'd like via our Media Lounge, regardless of video download size or having to worry about shaping. To put this in perspective, watching a 1hr episode of Doctor Who would normally cost a viewer around 200MB of quota.

• ABC CatchUp - A showcase of the weekly programs that everyone's talking about
• ABC News - The latest news and current affairs from Australia and the world
• ABC Kazam! - A channel with sugar-free energy rushes, for kids and big kids
• ABC Docs - A selection of natural history programs, social docos and factual series
• ABC Arts - Specially crafted programs to bring arts and culture into your browser
• ABC Shop - A preview window for a range of DVDs available at ABC Shop

Start your ABC iView channel surf now!

Freezone beefed up with 50+ radio stations
We've just added more than 50 radio streams to Freezone which means iiNet customers can now tune in to some 65 stations, completely quota free!

There's heaps to choose from, including some of the best stations from Australia, New Zealand and the UK. So, tune in - there's plenty more coming to your Media Lounge over the coming months.

Robocup Junior sponsorship
This year, iiNet has jumped on board as a Robocup Junior event sponsor to help foster innovation and imagination in the young minds of our community.

Robocup Junior encourages primary and high schoolers across Australia to take their first tentative steps into the world of robotics. The educational initiative inspires students to build their own AI (Artificial Intelligence) and power their bots through complex challenges - Dance, Rescue or Soccer.

In 2008, Scitech is playing host to both the State and Nationals of the Robocup Junior championships. The WA finals will take place on 16 September 2008, while the Australian Open champions will battle it out over 20-21 September 2008.

If you're interested in registering a team, know a budding engineer itching to experiment in mechatronics, or want to find more info click here.

Boardroom Blitz - ready, set, rock!
In true iiNet form, we've chosen to be a major sponsor of a charity event that's both entertaining and lets us embarrass a few iiNet staffers along the way.

Boardroom Blitz is a rock charity that brings corporate bands into the spotlight as they battle it out for the title of Best Band. Staged at Challenge Stadium on Saturday 23 August 2008, the event raises vital funds to help seriously sick and injured kids at Princess Margaret hospital.

So join the screaming fans and show some support for the kids. General admission tickets will set you back $30. Plus, mention that you're an iiNet fan when you book for a chance to win a 1GB Apple iPod Shuffle.

Find out more about Boardroom Blitz and join us as we rock out for the kids. To pre-book your tickets call Bec at the PMH Foundation on 08 9489 1121 or buy your tickets at the door!

business news

Help Me Now - we're here for you
We've been busy building more functionality into your Toolbox. We're chuffed to finally announce that Help Me Now is plugged in, ready to help you and your business!

Think of it as an alternative to picking up the phone. Help Me Now is a live support option which connects customers with our Business Support Team. The integrated function lets business customers exchange chat messages with our Support Team to sort out simple queries - super handy, if you're hunting down an instant answer to something pretty straightforward.

If you're looking to update your business details, change the digits to your credit card info, upgrade your plan, or check your monthly usage, you can do this all from Toolbox. Need a little help finding your way around? Give Help Me Now a go. Log in to Toolbox and click on the Help Me Now button. The people from our Business Support Team are a friendly bunch of smarty-pants who'd love to chat you through.

support & services

Broadband for Beginners
Our September round of 'Broadband for Beginners' workshops isn't too far off. Held at our Adelaide Terrace office in Perth, these workshops have helped internet newbies find their way around the web.

Workshops come in two modules:

• Module 1 - If you're brand new to the internet this workshop is for you. Topics include general information about the internet, finding information, online shopping, local entertainment, online radio, and video sites such as YouTube
• Module 2 - Following on from Module 1, this workshop is for people wanting to dig deeper into internet offerings. Topics include online banking, travel and booking holidays, communities and networking, online music stores such as iTunes®, and internet security

If you're keen to sign up or think your nan, uncle, sister, dad or that nice lady down the road could do with some help, you'll need to jot down our next workshop dates:

• Wednesday 3 September (Module 1)
• Wednesday 10 September (Module 2)

Both sessions run from 6pm to 8pm and are delivered by iiNet staff.

To register, email sponsorships@iinet.net.au with your name, contact phone number, email address and workshop preference (Module 1 only, Module 2 only, or both Module 1 and Module 2).

Something smells phishy!
There've been reports of a dodgy email making its rounds to some of our customers. So, keep an eye out for any suspect emails with a subject line reading "Confirm your iiNet.net.au Webmail Account".

Like most phishing scams, the email baits victims with a threat to deactivate the customer's account. The phish then asks customers to reply to a phony email address, supplying their surname, user name and password, to prevent deactivation.

A copy of the fake email is shown below:

If you receive this email, delete it immediately. iiNet will never ask you to confirm your password via email. If you receive an email that asks you to do so, always check with iiNet support first by calling us on 13 22 58 or sending a copy of the email to support@iinet.net.au.

If you did reply to this hoax email, we recommend that you reset your password straight away by visiting Toolbox or by calling our Support Team on 13 22 58.

hardware review

Belkin 4-port wireless VoIP router
For the last couple of months, I've been experimenting with a range of Gen2 modems. After much plugging and playing, I've finally settled for one of iiNet's most popular pieces of hardware - the Belkin 4-port wireless VoIP router.

ADSL routers are like sound cards. They usually rank low on the priority scale when you're looking to get a new one. That said, once you've got a good router sorted, it's something you can afford to ignore until it either breaks or needs an upgrade.

In recent years, the hardware we've seen hitting shelves have become increasingly advanced. Vendors are integrating additional features, building more functionality into units and providing buyers with extra bang for their buck.

In the case of this month's review subject, the degree of innovation I've seen seems to make it stand out from the rest of what's on offer.

Belkin's 4-port wireless VoIP router incorporates the VoIP ATA (Analogue Telephone Adaptor) we've seen in previous models, as well as a base firmware that supports iiNet's Tomizone. There's even a USB port which means you can plug in an external hard drive or USB memory stick. A huge bonus for me, as I'm keen to say goodbye to my noisy fileserver in favour of something just as accessible.

The Belkin's extra features don't come at the expense of ADSL router staples such as speed or reliability. ADSL speeds seem to have increased marginally while my housemates (who use the wireless on this device) have reported stronger signal strength and fewer dropouts.

In short, this new model is a fully featured piece of equipment which appears to be well designed and supported. Its main strength, the innovative features, will hopefully form the baseline of inclusions for the next generation of routers to come.

Thanks to Dane Nattrass, who loves technology (but can't start his car)

feature - more HTML

So here we are... round four of our HTML showdown. If you fancy a bit of a catch-up on the story thus far, wander over to our previous lessons for a refresher:

• Lesson 1: Using webspace
• Lesson 2: HTML basics
• Lesson 3: HTML tables

Last month's table run-through was a bit of a step up from previous lessons, so we'll try to keep things bite-size this time around. To cover things off, what we're looking at today is a few odds and ends - images, lists and links.

Placing images
Throwing an image into a webpage is easy. The basic concept of an image tag, which looks like this:

...is to start an image tag, with <img>, then point it to the source image (written as 'src') you want it to display. It's like a TV - you need to turn it on and switch to a channel to start seeing pictures, the same as you need to 'start' an image tag and then tell it where to find the image.

Here's the fun part... there are different ways to point out where that image lives, through what we call absolute and relative paths.

An absolute path is putting a full web address inside the 'src' attribute, like this:

Whereas a relative path only lists where the image lives, relative to where the html document itself sits, like this:

...what that means, is if you saved 'index.html' to a location, and your 'big_fin.jpg' image lived in a folder called 'img' in the same location, you only need to tell the img src to step into that directory to find it - rather than telling it the whole full internet address for where that might live. Relative paths assume the same starting point as the html document you're typing it into, so there's no need to specify a full website in the src address.

Think of it this way - an absolute path is like telling someone the full street address of the ice cream parlour they're looking for, whereas a relative path would be like telling them it's 'just up the street, on your left'. Both of them work, it's up to you to choose which one works best; we'll stick with absolute paths here for now.

So have a crack at putting this into notepad, saving it as 'test.html' and opening that file in your browser:

You should see an image sitting on the page, a lovely button stolen from the iiNet website.

Building lists
Another straightforward one, building a bulleted or numbered list in html is a matter of specifying a list type (bulleted or numbered) and adding 'list items' for each item on your list. Enough talk, this is what a bulleted list looks like:

That's three list items, wrapped in <li> tags, surrounded by a parent <ul> tag, which stands for 'unordered list' (ie. Not numbered, just bullets). To create a numbered list, you just need to change the <ul> tags to <ol> tags, which stands for 'ordered list' (ie. Numbered list).

Nothing more to see here for now folks, lists are as easy as that. Try it with the code below, save this into your html document and check it out in your browser:

Anchor tags (AKA links)
Let's revisit the anchor tag for a little bit, as these guys let you turn text and images into links - a vital component to any self-respecting webpage. Here's one now:

To recap, the <a> tag by itself doesn't do a great deal, it's the 'href' bit that creates the 'link' effect. 'href' is short for Hypertext Reference, which means the content inside the <a> tags has become a referrer to another location (pointing to another webpage, for example).

In the same way as the image tags covered earlier, the 'href' component can be used relatively or absolutely, in exactly the same way as the 'src' component of an <img> tag.

Now that we're clear on the href bit, let's look at three quick tricks. Firstly, creating a link to email someone:

All you have to do is put 'mailto:' at the start of your href value, and then an email address. That turns your link into an email link, pointing at the email address you specify.

Secondly, opening a link in a new window:

...all we've done here is add an extra attribute to the <a> tag, called 'target'. We've specified _blank as the target, which is HTML-speak for 'new window'.

Lastly, try wrapping your <a> tag around an image, instead of some text. A bit like this:

That turns the image into a link, handy for making webpage buttons if you're feeling game.

Summing things up
This time around, we've covered off images, lists and a few nuances of the anchor tag. By now you should be fairly comfy with most of the basics involved in building a plain and simple webpage. Soon enough we'll start looking at a bit of beauty therapy for all this scruffy looking stuff, in the meantime feel free to email your questions or comments regarding this article to iinewsfeedback@iinet.net.au.

Thanks to Niaal Holder, who sees angled brackets everywhere.

competitions

It's time to spread some free love
Want to win a seriously large prize pack full of Apple goodies?

We're giving away two $2,500 Apple prize packs every month, for three months. The packs include the latest iMac, an iPod Nano (with some iTunes to go with it) and the awesome new Apple TV.

To have a chance at winning, you'll need to help us spread some free love about our ADSL broadband products. Simply tell your friends about iiNet Broadband and Naked DSL through our online referral form.

Get a friend to sign up and you'll both go into the draw to win an Apple prize pack. That's $5,000 worth of Apple goodies to share between you and a friend. So, go on - help us spread the love!

Competition terms and conditions - Privacy policy

entertainment

two minute games review - Soul Calibur 4 (xbox 360)
Forgive me this sweeping generalisation, but there's something very Japanese about Soul Calibur 4. It's a peculiar blending of reality and cartoon fantasy, trying desperately to keep a straight face. All the men have flowing, windswept emo hair or topknots. All the girls have ill-fitting clothing and pronounced wobbly bits. Yoda strides through this anime fairyland like he owns the place. In short: if it enhances the appeal, it doesn't require even the slightest justification or context.

What we're prancing around here is the latest one-on-one fighting buffet, a straightforward and yet challenging study in the ancient and spiritual art of beating people til they puke. SC4 takes the traditional fighting game model forward a few steps, and adds a few chunks of fancy en route - unlockable characters, quest modes, story arcs and tag-team battles. Topping the lot though, is the fully customisable character creation mode (which I'll get to, in all its sweet glory).

Frills aside, the fighting core of SC4 is as simple and solid as ever - one button to swing your weapon horizontally, one to swing it vertically. One button to kick, one to throw. A variety of combinations to explore and study, with a nicely realised training simulator thrown in to make it all very involved and academic. Lads like me though, bereft of a double-digit attention span, can still derive pleasure from a pudding-handed button-mash the first few fights. This wears off after time, as book-learning wins us over in the end and considered combat routines become mandatory.

Challenging the in-game AI is quite short of satisfying, however. Early fights are stupid easy; late fights impossibly hard. Opponents 'level up' over the course of the adventure modes, making them harder to throw, beat down or overcome via comfortable routines. Trying to find your happy place when you've fallen over quickly becomes an obsession as the AI seems especially gifted at kicking you while you're down, repeatedly and enthusiastically. Find yourself a mate if you've got one, though, and SC4 becomes a wonderful realm of jolly beatdowns and pant-wettingly good laughs...

...for no reason more than the unique character creation options. In SC4, you have the option to build a base fighter (sword, staff, lightsaber, umbrella) and pimp them out to varied comic effect. There's a wide range of clothing, face and hair options with which to style your tuned fighter - my first foray into character manipulation resulted in a knife-wielding parade float dancer, surprisingly effective despite his downright offensive moustache and magenta leather undies. Check online and you'll find some seriously clever uses of the costume system, far in excess of my simple needs as a schoolboy prankster and occasional toilet humourist.

There's plenty to enjoy about SC4 as a fighting romp, though I do smell a limit to its longevity in the not too distant future. It's not as timeless as Street Fighter 2, especially as a single player outing, though overall the attention to combat detail (and the dynamics of the female anatomy in flight) make this a worthy title for the 'box - one to get hold of if you have a second controller, and a second set of human hands to put it in.

Thanks to Niaal Holder, who absolutely doesn't own leather undies.

site scan

This month, we get into the Summer Games spirit with official Olympic event coverage. Click your way through behind-the-scenes stuff, cool desktop downloads and lastly, a little Chinese culture.

2008 Australian Olympic Team
Follow the Aussies through the big event, with up-to-date competition results as they roll in. There's heaps of photos and videos from the lead-up right through to the end. Plus, you can also get to know our team and learn about the sports they'll be competing in. If that's not enough, use the site's Interactive Explorer for a guided photographic tour of all the official venues - all from the comfort of your home computer.

The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Next in line, we've got Beijing 2008's own official website. You'll find event schedules, official photos, videos, downloads and a special taste of the country's unique Olympic flavor.

Ezychinese
Even if you don't make it to China in time for the games, you can still get stuck into a bit of Chinese culture. Ezychinese offers Mandarin lessons at five speaking levels, along with articles and photos of food, fashion, celebrities, pop culture and recent events.

Thanks to Sandy Lim, jet setting to Beijing in time for the Olympic after party.