With the ever increasing traffic volumes generated by users with a thirst for video and other content increasing exponentially, Google has for some time now been investigating and implementing many technologies and solutions to ensure that it’s own content is delivered in the most efficient manner possible.

You may already be aware of Google’s significant investment in the Unity cable, which will join the US to Japan in order to meet increasing bandwidth demands. Google is now looking at going beyond just expanding and enlarging the Internet pipes, to bringing content closer to end users. This is what is known as Edge Caching.

Under this implementation, Google intends to house servers within the infrastructure of Internet Service Providers, therefore bringing content closer to end users. With the content closer to end users Google can improve the service it provides on sites such as Youtube. Why serve content to users in New Zealanders from the United States when you can push content to them through a local New Zealand server.

Opponents would complain that this ‘Edge Caching’ technique is going against net neutrality. I would disagree on this as in using this technique Google is not having traffic prioritized over competing traffic, but simply moving the content closer to it’s users. Of course with Google having closer relationships with Internet Service Providers it is not hard to guess what could arise from such an arrangement.

The Snapper Card has been successfully rolled-out in Wellington for use on Go Wellington buses and a selection of retailers in the area. When you need to ‘top up’ your Snapper card or USB token you can do so at your local retailer, or alternatively via the snapper.co.nz website.

We recently used the Snapper token in Wellington between two stops. I have included screenshots of the main pages available on the Snapper website which show the transactions performed. You will need to have a Snapper card or USB token yourself to otherwise see these parts of the website.

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Today I received my Snapper USB token in the mail. The token, which enables contactless transactions between consumers and merchants, was sent to me as part of the ANZ National Bank’s trial into this new form of payment technology. The devices themselves are set to be available for purchase by the general public on the 14th of July.

The concept behind this technology is to provide customers with a facility to make small purchases (less then $35) without the need to fumble for cash, or enter a pin number as you do with an EFTPOS card.

Your transaction is completed by swiping the Snapper USB token across a merchant’s purpose-built Snapper reader. Alternatively you can make a purchase via a more conventional Snapper card (not shown), similar in design to an everyday EFTPOS or credit card. The readers have the ability to communicate with the Snapper card through a wallet/purse when it is in close proximity, so you don’t necessarily need to take it out to use it.

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I have been a Startlogic customer since 2004 and have generally found the overall service to be somewhat satisfactory, unless you have an issue that requires the attendance of the Startlogic support desk. On the Startlogic homepage they claim to be ‘trusted by over 100,000 customers’.

This report is intended to act as a record of the recent 32 hour outage that one of Startlogic’s shared hosting servers (named st03) suffered, and the subsequent outages which took place after it was initially restored to service.

MY EXPERIENCE

Prior to 3:00pm (New Zealand Standard Time) the Startlogic shared web server st03.startlogic.com suffered a complete outage. All websites hosted on st03.startlogic.com were inaccessible during the this period.

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