RobiNZ Personal Blog

Twitter shit show goes on...

My abandoned Twitter account may soon be deleted: Twitter Support ban announcement earlier today This goes beyond their previous action to ban posting social links in content. My account has been like this since I abandoned it. My Twitter Account with @Mastodon in username But then... Twitter deleted tweets and policy | twitter.com/JuddLegum What a shit show the liar billionaire is creating, by the minute! Whatever, I don't particularly care about the site the billionaire liar has destroyed anymore. Another for the lengthy list of Elon lies. Find me at @robincapper@mastodon.nz Read more →

The Fiat Bravo HGT is finally out of lockdown and HubNut'ed!

Way back in March, just before its HubNut YouTube debut (embedded below), I was able to source a decent used air conditioning condenser for my Bravo 155 HGT. Given there are so few in NZ it was an opportunity not to be missed as, uneconomic to repair, cracks in the old one had taken out the system. Dropped it off at the mechanics to get it fitted, quite a task, and get the dodgy throttle response, as experienced by Hubnut, sorted. Then COVID-19 Lockdown one happened... After that I was happy (because not my daily) for it to go into... Read more →

2016 Blogging Highlights

See 2016 Blogging Highlights on the CAD blog Read more →

My Happy Kiva Birthday

I remember making that first Kiva loan and didn’t think that seven years later would have made over 500 loans (many reinvested). What I find amazing, given the tough circumstances of many borrowers, is less than 1% default. Thanks to RobiNZ blog readers and advertisers. Seven years ago today, I joined Kiva to change lives around the world. Kiva gives you the chance to make small loans to borrowers working to start businesses and improve their lives. I'm already lending on Kiva and thought you'd like to join me! http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/robinz Read more →

Why I dislike Facebook, it hides important stuff

Recently I’ve had different Facebook Friends post about; Cyber bullying Their Parent dying Facebook’s algorithms decided these posts were not important to me and hid them in the Newsfeed ‘Top Stories’ mode (which I gather is the default). It seems more ‘popular’ (from the same people) or ‘liked’ sponsor posts from others take precedence. I only discovered them when I saw one briefly appear on my tablet Facebook app live tile then switched to “most recent” in the feed display. I understand the need to filter feed content (or it would be overwhelming) but find the way it does this... Read more →

Micro Loans Fly–Kiva visualised

Amazing visualisation of Kiva Loans Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo. Read more →

All my Tweets, Wordled

I requested my Twitter archive and created this summary with Wordle. A neat way to see what, and who, has got my attention on Twitter since joining in 2009 To make yours: Log in to twitter.com, settings and request your archive. Download the .csv file from the twitter email Copy the Text Column and use find/replace to change RT into a space (otherwise you get an enormous RT in the text) Go to http://www.wordle.net/create and paste the text in. I used the randomize button until got a layout I liked then fine tuned it with the font & colour selectors. Read more →

Google FeedBurner: unreliable rubbish or deliberately misreporting?

I don't chase blog stats but wondered what the demise of Google Reader would mean for RSS use. It appears that Feedburner (which I use for watching that) is either broken or blatantly lies. My Feedburner Subscribers (the green line below) plummeted from ~9500 to ~250 after Google Reader closed. I wondered if there were thousands of zombie Reader accounts boosting the FeedBurner stats? Now it appears FeedBurner is randomly fluctuating between reporting several hundred and tens of thousands of subscribers. My conclusion: Google FeedBurner is either totally unreliable rubbish or is deliberately misreporting stats. If that is the case... Read more →

2012 Blogging Highlights

Click through for my 2012 Blogging Highlights (as posted on CAD Blog) Read more →

RobiNZ Blog makeover, tweaking my TypePad design templates

A while ago I decided it was time for a blog redesign. After considering lots of options, including radical change based on entirely new templates and a fun diversion, I have settled on some simple tweaks: Simplified Font: “Lucida Grande” Verdana replaces Arial — and no italics except for quoted text (from linked content). Simplified Sidebar: A lighter background, border and header font colours and some content revision to reduce clutter. Simplified Banner: Squared up logo and banner image panels with no more gradient transitions on the image(s). Back to the future? This squaring up may be slightly influenced by... Read more →