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Home » Customers » Iinews » iiNews December

editor's note

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house;
Not a creature was stirring, not even a wireless mouse.
All presents were wrapped, neatly under the tree;
For iiNet customers, one marked "quota-free"

'Tis the season to be giving, which is why we're switching off our iiNet quota counters on Christmas Day. This means that when the clock strikes 12:00am on Christmas Day, iiNet customers across the board can download to their heart's content for 24 hours - all without having to worry about their quota. Find out more about our iiNet quota-free Chrissie present.

It's been a big year for giving and receiving. Throughout 2009, we've shared more than a few rounds of quota upgrades - scroll on down to read about our latest upsize. On the iiNet awards front, we're chuffed by all the recognition we've received. Without tooting our own horn too much, it's nice to know you're with a winner.

Our Freezone has also continued growing month by month, and in March we increased everyone's iiNet inboxes up to 1 gig. Not too sure how big a gig is? No problem - run through this month's Geek Speak which breaks down file sizes into byte (pun intended) sized chunks.

Before we wish you a very safe and special silly season, we'd like to give a warm thank you to everyone for reading iiNews. Congratulations also to David Lyons from WA - our winner from 2009's annual iiNews Readers' Survey. We'll be working through everyone's suggestions and making iiNews even better into the new year.

Merry 'quota-free' Christmas - one and all!

Swee Au-Yong
iiNews Editor
iinewsfeedback@iinet.net.au

Your account

It's been a very busy year behind the scenes at iiNet. Our engineers have continued to expand the Freezone into new and entertaining territory; we've plugged iiHelp into iinet.mobi for on-the-go support; made a range of tweaks and changes to plans; and loads more.

Keep a keen eye on your inbox - we'll be rolling out more improvements and internet goodness into 2010. For now, here's a handful of new adjustments we're introducing to round off the year.

Broadband quota changes - bigger, beefier
Just in time for Christmas! We're bringing a round of cheery download quota increases to most of our Broadband2+ and Naked plans. The best part - you won't need to pay an extra cent for these upgrades. Your monthly quota injection comes completely free.

If you're on one of our Residential or Business Broadband plans eligible for the upgrade, you'll have already received an email with all the upsize details and instructions. The quota increases will roll in automatically from 19 January 2010. If you're excited about the idea of on an early Christmas present, you can opt-in for an advanced increase right away.

Take a look at our Broadband or Naked DSL plans to see what's changed. You can also view your quota allowance online at anytime by logging into toolbox, your DIY account management tool.

For customers on a Broadband1 plan, stay tuned! We'll be sharing more cheery quota news with you before New Year's Eve.

Peak/off peak time changes
In November's Geek Speak we walked readers through peak and off-peak basics. Since then, we've made some slight adjustments to current peak and off-peak times.

If you're a Broadband2+ or Naked customer with a revised peak/off-peak period, you'll have already received an email outlining new times. Check your iiNet mail account.

Otherwise here's a snapshot of how things have changed:

Plan	New peak time	New off-peak time
Broadband2+ Home 1-4	8am - 2am	2am - 8am
Naked 1-4	8am - 2am	2am - 8am
Broadband2+ Home 5-7	9am - 1am	1am - 9am
Naked 5 and 6	9am - 1am	1am - 9am

If you're not sure which peak and off-peak times match up to your plan, you can also try logging into toolbox and checking the volume usage tool. Learn more about off-peak times and quotas.

Downgrade fee
From 12 February 2010, the current $19 downgrade fee will rise to $29 for all iiNet plans.

To help you make sure you're on the right plan for your web habits, keep an eye on your usage patterns with the volume usage tool in toolbox.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact our friendly 24 hour Support Team on 13 22 58, or via email on support@iinet.net.au.

iiNet news

Money magazine's 2010 Best of the Best says we're cheap!
The latest edition of Money magazine has hit newsstands! If you haven't flicked through a copy just yet, you'll be pleased to hear that our super-competitive broadband plans have taken out three of the magazine's Best of the Best 2010 awards.

iiNet performed extremely well, scoring the hat trick of Gold Winner for Cheapest Broadband Plan - Light User, Cheapest Broadband Plan - Medium User and Cheapest Broadband Plan - Heavy User.

In deciding the winners, Money magazine judges compared monthly costs, allocated download quota and initial set up fees for all nominated broadband plans. Of course we normally wouldn't take too kindly to being labelled "cheap", but in this instance we're happy to make an exception.

Grab yourself a copy of the Dec 2009/Jan 2010 edition of Money magazine for the full write-up. Otherwise, check out our healthy iiNet awards tally.

BoB™ Seminar - get close and personal
If you haven't met him yet, here's your chance to get cosy and personal with our favourite friend, BoB™.

On Wednesday 20 January 2010, we'll be setting up shop in Perth's Central Park Theatrette and holding an exclusive BoB™ Seminar. If you're in Perth at this time and fancy the idea of getting to know BoB™ better, register now.

Whether you're just thinking about purchasing a BoB™ or already have him setup at home, this seminar will clear up any technical questions you may have. By coming along, you'll be in for an hour long session where you'll learn the ins and outs of our little black box. You'll find out how BoB™ looks after all your phone and internet needs, how to set him up and all the other nifty things he can do.

Plus, just by attending our seminar, you'll be in the running to walk away with your very own BoB™ unit on the night.

Register to attend our exclusive BoB™ Seminar.

For all our customers outside the Sandgroper state, there's no need to feel left out. We'll make our BoB™ Seminar material available next month, so you can catch the session from the comfort of your own home. Keep an eye on iiNews January - we'll let you know when our BoB™ Seminar material is ready.

feature

Gaming for non-gamers
The world of computer and console gaming is a pretty big show. Over the past decade gaming has grown into a heavyweight industry, muscling in alongside movies and music as a significant presence in the entertainment world.

It's easy to feel a little lost around the subject. The industry is still relatively new and constantly innovating, and like all things there's more than one way to get involved (it's never easy, is it?). Acronyms, buzzwords, sweaty fat gamer stereotypes... Fear not! Gaming is entirely accessible to normal people too, and it's a great deal of fun.

Let's crash through it all and see if we can't learn a thing or two together.

Console & PC gaming
If you're looking for a serious spot of gaming, in these modern times you'll want to have one of the big four: a decent PC, an Xbox 360, a Wii or a Playstation 3 (PS3).

Watering it right down, a gaming console is a bit of hardware (like a VCR or DVD player) that you hook up to the TV to play games through. Depending on which console you buy, you'll get a slightly different overall gaming experience but for the most part the deal remains the same - pick up a game controller ('gamepad', 'joystick' or what have you), then whack a game in the console and go for it.

In general, the Nintendo Wii aims at a more casual audience, due in no small part to the wand or 'wiimote' that requires the gamer to stand up and move about the living room to interact with the game. It's a winning formula for those with a casual interest in gaming, or who want to play with friends around.

The Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 are slightly closer cousins, however. They're more powerful than the Wii in terms of overall 'grunt', with a tendency to more mature and realistic games where the Wii tends towards the comical. By a nose, the PS3 comes out on top as the most powerful of the three, doubling as a great home entertainment unit with its built-in Blu-Ray player. The 360 is no slouch however, packing a similar punch along with a solid, diverse online offering. If you're a home entertainment buff, the PS3 will probably win your vote; if you're keen to play online with others, the 360 should take honours.

Gaming on PC is often regarded by gamers as the 'purer' way to play, as a decent PC can handle some seriously high-end gaming. On top of this, certain types of games benefit from being able to use a keyboard and mouse, something that isn't so readily accessible on the consoles.

What's your game then?
Like movies and music, games have well-defined genres to suit a variety of tastes. Each genre offers a different set of challenges, from involved puzzles and micromanagement to single-minded action. There's something to like from each basket, but generally you want to ask yourself a couple of questions first: How long do you want to game for, and how excited do you want to get?

If you like things with a bit more pace, a Real Time Strategy (RTS) or First Person Shooter (FPS) might be more up your alley. RTS games put you in control of whole armies over large terrain areas, pressing the need to manage action across a number of areas simultaneously. With an FPS, you play through the eyes of one protagonist in a series of pitched firefights. Both FPS and RTS can be fast-paced and full of action, with fierce competition online.

If you've got some hours up your sleeve and fancy something at a relaxed pace, you'll get a lot out of Role Playing Games (RPGs) and Simulation games (sims). RPGs focus on a long-term gaming adventure, often spanning over 20-30 hours of actual play - so you'd naturally invest this time over a number of sessions. Sims require a similar investment of time, offering you the opportunity to 'play god' at length with cities, nations or entire worlds.

Each genre has a learning curve, as well as its fair share of skilled gamers online. If you fancy getting into gaming, like other hobbies and sports it just takes a little time to find your niche. If in doubt, search around online - the net is a goldmine of informed, passionate gamers (such as the good folk at IGN) more than happy to help you get your game on.

support & services

We'll be closing our Contact Centres on Christmas Day this year and operating on reduced hours throughout the holiday period.

Here's a look at our opening hours for customer support during the festive season:

• Thursday, December 24th - Midnight - 9pm (WST)
• Friday, December 25th - CLOSED
• Saturday, December 26th - 8am to 6pm (WST)
• Sunday, December 27th - 8am to 6pm (WST)
• Monday, December 28th - 24/7 support resumes from 1am (WST)
• Tuesday, December 29th - 24/7 support
• Wednesday, December 30th - 24/7 support
• Thursday, December 31st - support closes at 9pm (WST)
• Friday, January 1st - 8am to 6pm (WST)
• Saturday, January 2nd - 8am to 6pm (WST)
• Sunday, January 3rd - 8am to 6pm (WST)
• Monday, January 4th - 24/7 support resumes from 1am (WST)

While we know you're used to support around the clock, we hope you'll understand that our iiNet staff love Christmas, beachside bbqs and backyard cricket as much as you.

From what we've seen from the past, the festive period is generally pretty quiet. If you do run into any rough patches with your internet service, you can try accessing our mobile-friendly support at http://iinet.mobi using your web-enabled smart phone. Thanks to iiNet.mobi you'll have access to our iiHelp knowledgebase and a comprehensive set of tools in Toolbox for some basic DIY fixers.

Geek Speak

Geek Speak is here to help turn technical internet jargon into plain and simple English. We understand not everyone is a net nerd, so each month iiNews publishes a Geek Speak topic to give you a hand.

This month, we're taking another close look at file sizes. We've talked a lot about increased download quotas and off-peak times of late. For folks who missed out on our how big is a gig Geek Speak from last year, here's a quick refresher on file sizes and how they tie in to your web usage habits.

Bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes - what's the difference?

Bit
Short for binary digit, a bit is the smallest unit used in computing. Nowadays, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a file size in just bits.

Byte
Made up of 8 bits, a byte usually represents one character of data. For example, the sentence “how now brown cow” would be 17 bytes in size (spaces also count).

Kilobyte, KB, kB, K or Kbyte
Kilobytes are roughly 1000 bytes or 1024 to be exact. You'll see kilobytes used to describe file sizes for things like low resolution photos and small text-heavy Word documents (like a resume).

Megabyte, MB or meg
Megabytes are about a thousand times bigger than kilobytes. If we do the math, 1 MB works out to be around 1 million bytes (or 1,024,000 to be precise). In every day terms, a typical MP3 file is usually around 3MB in size. A high resolution photo will be about 2MB, while attaching a ten slide PowerPoint presentation (with words and pictures) to an email will be about 1MB.

Gigabyte, GB or gig
In the ballpark of 1 billion bytes (1024 MB), a gig is... well, pretty big. One gigabyte is about 16hours of your favourite MP3 music files. It's about one iTunes movie download or three hours of watching TV over the Internet. When it comes to web browsing, a gig lets you surf about 500 regular websites (and yep, just looking at a page means you're downloading).

Terabyte or TB
A terabyte works out to be one trillion bytes or 1,000 gigs. Most computer memory and hard drives on the market are measured in gigabytes but we're steadily seeing more and more super-sized terabyte options on the scene.

How do I know how big a file is?
If you're running a Windows operating system, it's easy to check the size of a given file. You'll need to right-click your selected file (in My Computer or Explorer), select 'Properties' and bingo - you'll see a window showing file size info. Alternatively, try holding the 'Alt' button while double clicking the file with your mouse.

If you're working on a Mac OS, hit the 'Control' key while clicking on the file in Finder. Next, select 'Get Info' from the menu that pops up - easy.

How do I manage my monthly quota allowance?
You can make the most of your monthly download quota (and avoid being shaped) by making sure you're on the right plan to suit your usage habits. Try heading to the Freezone, make sure to use your off-peak quota, keep tabs on your volume usage and a close eye on your monthly quota reset date. Read more on how to manage your quota.

That's if for another installment of Geek Speak. If you have any feedback or would like to suggest a new topic just email us at geekspeak@iinet.net.au.

10 tips for safe online shopping
With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we'd point last minute shoppers over to our discoveryzone article about safe online shopping.

Nowadays, you can shop for just about anything from the comfort of your home. If you're feeling really lucky and get in quick, you'll even be able to sort overnight delivery, just in time for Christmas day. Before gearing up for a spending spree with your friend Mr. Plastic, check out our 10 tips for safe online shopping.

hardware review

The ATi 5000 series graphics card with Michael Bertrand
In the graphics card realm, ATI seems to have been playing second fiddle to GPU giant NVIDIA, over the last couple of generations. With each ATI product release, NVIDIA would answer with something more powerful - but not this time, or at least not yet. ATI's new Evergreen lineup is quite a step ahead of NVIDIA, not only in terms of sheer power, but shiny new features to boot.

Before we go on any further, let's take a timeout to run over some graphics card basics for the uninitiated. A graphics card is a computer component that interprets bits and bytes from the CPU, translating them into pixels and images appearing on your monitor. The card is powered by a GPU (graphics processing unit), much like a CPU (central processing unit), dedicated primarily to computing graphics. With more graphics processing power you'll be able to run higher screen resolution which is great for serious PC gamers and video buffs. Learn more about GPUs.

Back on topic, on September 23rd this year ATI announced the start of their next series - Evergreen. Since the launch, they've claimed the market's midrange and high end completely with their Evergreen products.

ATI's new Evergreen lineup looks a little bit like this; 5750, 5770 (Juniper) in the midrange; 5850 and 5870 (Cypress) in the high end; and 5970 (Hemlock) as the world's fastest graphics card. All of these new cards are made on the fresh 40nm fabrication node and boast leading performance-per-watt. What one must take into account however is that like in previous generations, the 5970 with its Dual-GPU design (two Cypress cores on one card), which while cool, means you are at the mercy of ATi's driver releases to take advantage of half of the cards power. Keep in mind that like previous generations, you can link any two, and sometimes up to four, of these cards together to multiply your graphics powerhouse.

All cards in the Evergreen lineup have a very interesting feature that ATI calls Eyefinity. What Eyefinity allows you to do, is connect three monitors to a single Evergreen graphics product to increase your productivity. Not only that, you can use them all to play games in triple widescreen, in many interesting, and awesome looking combinations. Before you rush out to buy any one of these cards trying to do this, it is also worth noting that one monitor must be connected by a Display Port connector or an active Display Port adapter, as all Evergreen products so far sport at least one of these kind of connectors which must be used for Eyefinity.

With availability increasing over the next month or two, you might be lucky enough to snag one (or two) of these cards in your Christmas shopping. NVIDIA looks very late to the table this time, with their answer to Evergreen, Fermi, slated for early 2010. So, if you want the best performance, the latest features or simply to get your hands on some new toys, an Evergreen card might just be for you.

games reviews

It's been a big year with big game releases. Throughout 2009, we've given our opposable thumbs a decent workout, testing some of the top titles from Games Warehouse.

To round off another month, we're giving away our final $100 Games Warehouse voucher for 2009. To put yourself in the running to win said voucher, email competitions with 'December Games Warehouse Competition' in the subject line. You'll need to include your username, full name and address, along with the answer to this question: How many bits make up a byte? Get your entries in before 5pm (WST) Friday 8 January, 2010. Good luck!

site scan

Flash Games with Sandy Lim

With the silly season in full swing, we wanted to share some of our favourite Flash games to fill your spare time - puzzles, platformers and clever adventure games that you can enjoy for free right in your web browser. Heads up - you'll need Flash Player installed to play.

Orisinal: Morning Sunshine
http://www.orisinal.com
A little-known treasure since back in 2000, Orisinal.com features cute flash games with simple rules and beautiful artwork. Standout games are Bubble Bees (catch runaway bees in soap bubbles), Cats (a feline follow-the-leader challenge) and The Pond (push acorns in a pond to feed the ducks).

Kongregate
http://www.kongregate.com
This online community is bursting with member-submitted content. It boasts a stunning variety across the gaming genres, achievement trophies and a reward scheme for games developers. Kongregate respects your right to enjoy the site, with plain-speaking guidelines for acceptable behaviour.

Pictogame
http://www.pictogame.com
So, you want to be a computer game star? Pictogame might not be what you had in mind, but it's as close as you'll get in three easy steps. Pick a template, customise it with your picture then hit Save. The site plugs right into Facebook, Twitter and MySpace for easy sharing with your mates.