Just Blogging

Mark A Webster asked:




Legislation has been released on Comlaw on the 15th of December to affect both onshore and offshore applicants for General Skilled Migration. These changes have not yet been published on the DIAC website or discussed with the Migration Institute of Australia.

Onshore Applicants

From 1 January 2010, changes have been made to the skills assessment requirement for onshore applicants for the following subclasses:
885: Skilled Independent (Permanent) 886: Skilled Sponsored (Permanent) 487: Skilled Regional Sponsored (3-year provisional) These are the main visa subclasses accessed by international students applying for further stay in Australia after completion of their studies.

All applicants for the above visas must provide a suitable skills assessment at the date of lodgement to make a valid application from 1 January 2010. Currently, it is sufficient to lodge the visa application with evidence that the skills assessment has been applied for, provided the skills assessment is positive by the time the visa application is assessed by the Department of Immigration.

In addition, provision has been made in the new legislation to require applicants to provide a skills assessment which has been completed on or after 1 January 2010 for certain gazetted occupations. As yet, the list of occupations is not yet available but we will provide details as soon as possible. However, it seems likely that the changes are likely to affect trade occupations and possibly those assessed by VETASSESS.

Note that the above changes do not affect subclass 485 Graduate Skilled visas as this is the 18-month temporary residence visa available to students studying in Australia for at least 2 years. It will still be possible to apply for this the graduate skilled visa prior to completion of the skills assessment, and there is no provision for the Department of Immigration requesting a recent skills assessment either.

As a result, most international students will most likely need to apply for a Graduate Skilled visa to allow them to remain in Australia whilst their skills assessment is being finalized so that they can then apply for a longer stay skilled visa.

International students with skills assessments completed prior to 1 January 2010 may need to get their skills re-assessed ahead of applying for their long stay skilled visa.

Offshore Applicants

Work experience requirements have been changed for the following offshore applications:
175: Skilled Independent (Migrant) 176: Skilled Sponsored (Migrant) 475: Skilled Regional Sponsored (3-year provisional) For gazetted occupations, all applicants must show recent work experience in the occupation. Currently, it is possible to qualify by showing at least 12 of the last 24 months of work experience in any skilled occupation, and a waiver of the work experience requirement is available for international students completing studies of 2 years or more in Australia. Again, the list of affected occupations has not yet been gazetted by the Department of Immigration.

Rae Edwards asked:




Successfully copying and improving upon the iPhone is what allowed CECT and other Chinese cell phone manufacturers to grab initial attention, but it is the performance of the innovative products that means they are here to stay.

Something very interesting is happening with the CECT line of clones right now. The newest models don’t even look that much like the iPhone. Suddenly consumers are starting to see silver models with full keyboards and texting capabilities. It seems that although consumers like the technology of the iPhone, not all consumers want their phones to look like exactly like the original. The CECT X2850 (or CECT U90 as it is sometimes called) is a perfect example of this.

Smaller and sleeker in design than many of the clones, the X2850 has a full keyboard on the bottom of the phone and enhanced handwriting recognition to appeal to texters.

This phone also has all of the bells and whistles that you would expect from CECT: a 2.2″ finger touch screen, and full support of SMS, MMS, WAP, MP3, MP4, and T-flash formats with full video, music and photo capabilities.

Although the advanced texting capabilities on this phone are wonderful, I believe where this phone really stands out is in it’s camera phone, which has several advanced features like continuous and delayed shooting, white balance and night mode. You are also able to adjust picture quality and size with only your fingers.

The CECT X2850 is fully completely compatible with U.S. GSM cell phone providers that use sim cards like T-mobile and Cingular, to name only a few. You don’t need any software with this phone. Just insert your sim card and it should work and recognize all of your information.

The X2850 is very attractively priced at about $100. It typically appeals to texters or consumers who value camera phone performance.

Wendy Pan asked:




Those oldies but goodies are sounding so good. When you turn on your favorite oldies music station, you are reaping the benefits of decades of work. Not just work in making the music, but the work in carefully crafted formats and dedication of the oldies music station staff.

The music, mostly from the 1950’s and 1960’s comprise the backbone of the traditional “classic gold” radio stations. Others may consider anything older than today as “oldies”, but true oldies format refers to the golden age of rock and roll, 50’s and 60’s. The classic golden oldies probably extend until about 1964, when the Beatles “invaded” the US, along with other members of the “British Invasion” such as The Kinks, and they changed music in this country forever.

Radio station formats are frequently based on a tried and true oldies format. The program managers work out in advance everything they will play, the traffic director schedules the day’s hours into segments of music, commercials and news. Radio jingles correspond with the station format, so you will hear oldies type jingles on an oldies radio station. No rap, just classic rock and roll.

Many businesses choose to play an oldies music station as background music in their store. Even some casinos play oldies, usually on “senior’s day”, as today’s seniors were in their high school heyday when the original music was popular on the radio and at dances. Advertisers who want to target an older audience, 50 and up, choose oldies stations for part of their advertising mix. But seniors are not the only persons listening to the oldies. If so, the format would go out of style.

Some oldies stations will do dances, have their disc jockeys go live to a dance hall. Oldies can be chosen as a theme for certain parties, or special events. The songs were shorter then, three minutes or so on average, and the radio stations created formats featuring high repetition of a few songs. All favorites, all the time could be their slogan back then; today’s it is the “blast from the past”.

Songs you will hear on an oldies music station include the era’s great singers, Elvis Presley, Danny and the Juniors, The Platters, Kingston Trio, Aretha Franklin, the Four Tops, Frankie Avalon, Fats Domino, Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and more. All the hits, all the time!

Oldies radio can be found across the country, and on new broadcast outlets like Sirius Radio, which even features an “All Elvis” radio channel. Niche audiences have loyal followers and those who want to target those “oldies audiences” can do so easily by placing their commercials on those stations who play oldies music.

Some younger people say they enjoy listening to oldies, but in reality they are referring to music from the 1970’s, and 1980’s, like Marshall Tucker Band, ACDC, and Aerosmith. But if they visit Grandma’s house, they may be exposed to the real “oldies but goodies”.

Matthew Keegan asked:




The Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is unique amongst coffee makers. This coffee maker has no carafe, instead the coffee is self contained within the unit and is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser. A great idea it is, but Hamilton Beach needs to engineer this product as it failed ten days after we purchased one. Please continue reading for all the details.

Our Braun coffee maker served us well for over six years. Thousands of coffee potfuls later, it failed to work one morning and we knew it was time to shop for a new one. As we strolled the aisles of our local BJ’s we realized that Braun was not a brand that they carried. Nevertheless our attention was drawn to a unique looking product, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker, and we soon carried it off and brought it home.

What is so special about this particular product? No carafe! Yes, coffee brews within the main unit and then is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser, much like the type you find at some coffee stores. The advantage is obvious: you can get coffee with one hand while not worrying that you will break the carafe. An excellent idea!

This particular model holds standard sized coffee filters and has an internal warming tray to keep the coffee warm. Indeed, we felt that the unit kept coffee hotter longer than most units we had owned in the past. For several days we enjoyed hot, fresh brewed coffee and we believed that we made a wise decision in purchasing the product.

Our interest in the product was short-lived, however. One of the oddest features about the unit was the double push of the on/brew button to get the unit started. Much like the double click of your computer’s mouse to open a file, users must do the same thing to the round push button located on the front of the machine. No toggling on/off switch to deal with here! Unfortunately, one recent morning the switch did not work. Sure, the light came on, but coffee was not dispensed. My wife and I redid the process at least a dozen times before we realized that the machine was not going to work. The water was in the unit, the coffee was seated properly in the filter, and the light switch came on. Still, no coffee was brewing.

In summation, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is an excellent idea, but the button is a bad idea. It would be better to replace the switch with something that works the first time and everytime thereafter. Fortunately for us we were able to return the item to BJ’s where we received a full cash refund. Hamilton Beach has a great idea, but their engineering leaves something to be desired.

John Dulaney asked:




To this day, there are more than more than 690 GSM mobile networks across 213 countries and consists of 82.4% of all global mobile connections. According to statistics available there are more than 2 billion GSM mobile users in the world, with China having the largest users with more than 370 million, and Russia following with 145 million users. While US have 78 million, India has 83 million using the GSM service.

A mobile phone can be a bewildering affair for a traveler. It is mostly incompatibility with the network of your visiting country, since every country in the world has different frequency band of operation.

Almost all parts of the world operate on GSM technology, except USA and Canada. Originally GSM operated at a frequency of 900 MHz, which is being continuously upgraded and now works on 1,800 MHz service. With a GSM phone, you can access service in 212 different countries. Some of the mobile phones available in the United States and Canada operate on GSM, but most of them are of a different frequency band. The GSM service available in North America is of a totally different frequency of 1,900 MHz and sometimes 850 MHz, which is different from the standard of 1,800 MHz. Not all countries in the world use the standard 900/1,800 MHz GSM. The exceptions being, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and some Central/South American countries, with some limited coverage of the standard GSM networks.

Today, mobile phones have become a part of daily living. We often wonder how we ever lived without them. Whether you are traveling on business or on a holiday, mobile phones offer incredible services during your journey. However, they also present some challenges, when you wonder if that mobile phone you have will work while you travel from one place to the other.

There are three bands on which the mobile transmission is based on, with different countries operating on a different frequency falling under different bands. Today, quad band mobile phones take away the fear in you, relieving you from that worry, if your mobile phone will work in UK.

The obvious convenience of having a mobile phone makes you feel safe where-ever you are, with the facility that it has to quick-access for help when you need it and talk to the people important to you. It is one of the most economical and essential life-long product in anyone’s life today. Think about those olden days when you had to make a call from your hotel room. Think about the bill that you paid, just for your telephone calls. Now you have a mobile phone, a partner to your daily life. You can already feel the difference. Today, many of these phones are being offered with exceptional plans that may include, free airtime, cheaper long distance charges and in some cases cheaper international roaming charges. In India, for example, service providers have started to offer life time incoming calls on pre-paid sim cards of your mobile. Realising such a benefit, you feel comfortable that atleast you are available on your mobile phone. Prices are dropping every month, which started with a huge investment when mobile phones were first introduced.

Let us look at why all mobile phones are not compatible.

There are two explanations to this reason. The first one being that all service providers in this world do not operate on the same radio frequency band and encoding services. Therefore, when you travel to UK, your phone might not be compatible with the kind of frequencies that the service providers offer.

The second point is a bit complicated. To enable a mobile phone from the United States to work in UK, the service providers in UK, or vice-versa, must have a cross-billing arrangement with one or more service providers in the other country. This cross-billing arrangement is a commercial deal between the service providers of the two countries, which results in allowing roaming in your mobile phone. In some cases the roaming facility in your phone, needs to be activated by your service provider in US. If this is the case, then, you have to have roaming enabled before you go out of the country. This arrangement falls under International Roaming. The same is the case with National Roaming. Therefore, you need to have such a phone, which would accept all the three bands the service providers operates on in this word, and such a phone is the one with quad band features. Dual band phones on the other hand would work anywhere in the world except the Unites states.

Let us look at some of the problems with mobile phones in the United States. If you are in US and you have a mobile phone which you would like to have the international roaming facility, your best bet would be to sign up with service provider who provides GSM. The two major GSM service providers in US are T-Mobile and Cingular, with the consideration that AT&T has now been merged with Cingular.

This sounds like a perfect solution. You now have one phone which works all over the world. If you have decided on such an arrangement, it must be what you want. But, you need to consider that GSM service is quite limited in US. That takes you back a bit. No, there is no solution for that. To have your way, you will have to maintain two mobile phones, one with a major established network in US and a second; having the GSM service with roaming features.

GSM is a state-of-art technology, offering fax capability and Short Messaging Service (SMS). Most of the service providers offer e-mail to SMS feature, making it possible to receive important announcements and information over your mobile phone, viz., receiving flight updates and breaking news alerts. Many offer quick connectivity to ISDN services, there by allowing fast data transmission. The latest generation offers Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS), which enables you to connect to a high-speed data communication channel, faster than 9,600 bps.

We have discussed the limitation of GSM services available in US vis-à-vis roaming. We have also said that in order to over-come this limitation and avail international roaming as well, you would have to maintain two mobile phones, one with a major established network in US and the second; having the GSM service with the roaming features. Instead of maintaining a second phone, mobile phone rental service is also available. There are many outlets who would rent you these phones with perhaps certain terms, viz., you would need to get your relevant sim card from them. To look into the prospects of mobile phone rentals you may like to visit this website http://www.planetomni.com/RENT_INFO.shtml which provides you with the details that you would need to have.

The GSM has made roaming between operators a very common affair, facilitating the users to carry their mobile in almost every part of the world. GSM is considered to be a second generation (2G) mobile phone system.