Have You Registered
While most of the country is worrying about who may or may not have helped some bloke who sells cars, I got this letter in the mail yesterday which restored just a tiny piece of faith back in the Australian Government, that they can actually use some initiative.
Medicare Australia has now established a presence online where anyone can register and log in and do the following;
- Request a replacement or duplicate Medicare card
- Update your bank account details
- Update your personal details
- View your Medicare claims history (previous 12 months)
- View your Medicare Safety Net balance (current calendar year)
- View your Medicare benefit tax statement (current and previous financial year)
- View your organ donor registration details
- View your child’s immunisation history statement (for children under 7 years)
In the past, when you went to the doctors or whatever, and had to then go to the medicare office to collect your refund, the government will now credit this into your savings/cheque account! How good is that. I know personally that I have had receipts from checkups etc, and cant be stuffed doing the 45min trip and stand in line, fill out forms etc for $30, but if it’s put straight into my bank account – well who says no to free money?
Well done to Medicare for launching a useful system!
If you have not recieved the letter in the mail – click here to register.
Posted in Politics, The Life of Ben | No Comments
Brisbane PayPal Developer Day
I have been fortunate enough to be invited down to the Brisbane PayPal developer day in Brisbane. As a website developer and designer, I am really looking forward to this.
PayPal continues to impress me with their innovation, making online payments and transactions easier for smaller businesses to deploy.
I’m looking forward to learning more tricks and tips within PayPal and how to utilise it to my clients advantage.
What is the Developer Day about?
PayPal is looking to build a certified developer community to help meet the growing demand for online payments in both the retail and non-retail sectors.
The new developer programme gives developers access to tools, services and sales leads to help them build their businesses with the PayPal payments platform and tap into new revenue opportunities.
The new developer programme is a win-win opportunity. Developers can grow their revenue streams while helping customers benefit from online payments.
Posted in Internet News, The Life of Ben | No Comments
Summing it up
This whole saga has been really annoying, and just reaffirming the fact that American’s, and to an extension, Australian’s, are turning into a nation of people who seem to have to complain about everything, rally about things, protest when someone makes a joke, and to blow things out of proportion.
There have been a number (thousands) of news stories / segments about the Letterman / Palin saga, I think Olbermann has done the best that I’ve seen.
Posted in Personal Opinion, Politics, Videos | 3 Comments
The Tonight and Late Shows
I have always tried to catch as many episodes of Leno on the Tonight show, Conan on Late night, and Jon Stewart on the Daily show. Unlike any show produced in Australia, they manage to encompas jokes on the News, Politics and Society.. Jokes that are actually funny sometimes.. Something I’m definately not going to find on Good News Week.
I’m not really into the media and “fanboy” status, if you will, I was expecting to read a post like this on someone elses’ blog but they seem to be lost in Cyberspace.
Recently NBC who owns the Tonight Show and the Latenight Show have made switches to the hosts of the shows. The Latenight show was the first to loose Conan O’Brien, to be replaced by Jimmy Fallon.. I haven’t really watched any of the new Latenight shows with Fallon, but I haven’t heard many good things about him.
Last week was Leno’s last show on the Tonight show, he has been replaced by Conan O’Brien, who did his first episode early this week. I really liked the new image, intro elements and set.. all very polished and pretty.
Some time in September Leno starts a new show on primetime.. will be interesting to see that come out.
Posted in TV News | No Comments
Pocket God on the iPhone – The Simplest Idea
Part of having an iPhone, is being able to install all kinds of fun, cool applications.
Every now and then I logon to the App Store, and see what’s around. One day I found an app called “Pocket God” – at a special price of only $1.19 AU ($99c US).
I bought it, installed it, and loaded it up. The Game was very odd.. no levels, nothing to achieve.. The Game featured 10 little natives on some little island, and you could pick them up, drop them, make them get zapped by lightening, and drop in the water… fun for about a minutre and that’s it.
What I love about the iPhone Apps concept, is that even this little game that is done very nicely, can be sold 100,000 times or more for $1, and the developer has made a very nice bonus!
The Came Pocket God, has had a tonne of revisions / new versions and every time, adding new features to the game. It’s actually quite exciting.
The Game is really just a very brain dead game, there is nothing to it, just a bit of fun. But as everyone knows, when someone has fun, it’s bound to Offend someone else.
A popular iPhone game that depicts the torture and murder of “primitive islanders” has been labelled disgusting and degrading by Pacific people.
Pocket God is one of the most heavily downloaded games in Apple’s online store but indigenous groups have started to take offence at the use of grass-skirted islanders who are set on fire and tossed to the sharks
The question on everyone’s mind is always, “Should I buy it?” The answer lies mainly on whether you believe the developers will continue to provide updates as promised. Some updates (ability to fry islanders with lightening) have already been added, so it does look promising. In the end, this app will be something of a gamble depending on how long the updates continue and how good they are. Personally, I think it is worth a buck to see just how far this app can go.
Below are some screen shots of the game being played;
Posted in Personal Opinion, Tech News, The Life of Ben, iPhone | No Comments
