Policelink Flood Information Hotline
Relatives and friends seeking information about people in flood affected areas should call 1300 993 191

Bureau of Meteorology
The BOM website has up to date weather information, including up-coming forecasts
www.bom.gov.au/qld

Warnings and River Height Bulletins
www.bom.gov.au/qld/flood/

Traffic and Travel information
Call 13 19 40 or goto www.131940.qld.gov.au

RACQ road closure site
Call 1300 130 595 or go towww.racq.com.au/travel/Maps_and_Directions/road_conditions

Queensland Police Twitter page
www.twitter.com/qpsmedia

Qld State Disaster Coordinator – Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart’s Twitter page
www.twitter.com/QldSDC

Monitor local councils and local radio stations for local information and updates.

ABC News and information links

ABC Local Internet Radio Streaming Links
www.abc.net.au/local/

ABC Local Radio Frequency Information
www2b.abc.net.au/reception/frequencyfinder

ABC Qld Flood Crisis Map
http://queenslandfloods.crowdmap.com

ABC Affected Towns Map
www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/default.htm

If you need help

Please contact the SES Flood Storm Emergency line on 132 500. More information about flood preparation and emergency kits can be found at www.disaster.qld.gov.au

When you hear a flood warning

What to do if you need to evacuate

How to get assistance

Centrelink QLD Flooding Community Recovery page
www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/emergency/qld_flooding_dec10.htm

Community Recovery Hotline
People experiencing personal hardship due to the flooding can call 1800 173 349.

Department of Communities website
Visit the Department of Communities website www.communities.qld.gov.au for updates on the types and availability of support.

Queensland Rural Adjustment
Primary producers are urged to contact the Queensland Rural Adjustment Authority www.qraa.qld.gov.au for assistance.

Queensland Health
For practical health advice during and after floods visit the Queensland Health website www.health.qld.gov.au/healthieryou/disaster/ .

Insurance Council of Australia Hotline
If you have a question about your insurance policy, or need help identifying your insurer, call the Insurance Council of Australia’s 24-hour emergency hotline on 1300 728 228.

Business and Industry
Businesses impacted by flooding may be eligible for recovery grants and loans visit www.business.qld.gov.au/risk-management/flood-assistance.html .

How you can help

Premier’s Flood Relief appeal
The best way is to donate to the Premier’s Flood Relief appeal:
www.qld.gov.au/floods

St Vincent de Paul Society Flood Appeal
St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland has opened the Vinnies Christmas Flood Appeal to assist Queenslanders affected by flooding. St Vincent de Paul Society Volunteers in affected areas report that what they need now is funds.

Applications:

• WordPress – allows me to login to my website and write a blog entry, etc
• TwitterFon – allows you to post a twitter update, search tweets, see that latest trending topics
• Shazam – Can listen to a song for 5 – 10 seconds, and then identify it – then you can youtube the video, twitter it, etc
• Remote – An app from Apple that I had to download, allows you to control any iTunes with your iPhone
• VLCRemFree – An app that allows you to control VLC player on a pc (some manual configuration on your pc and with the application itself)
• Koredoko – Displays all the photos you’ve taken on your iPhone on a map! This is what geo-tagging photos is meant for!
• 9-Toolbox -Inclinometer, Tip Calculator, Load, Date Calculator, etc (A useful one to have ready)
• FAC Free – Fake a phone call on your iPhone (you can think of the reasons)
• Ping Lite – Allows you to ping another pc/ subnet, trace route, telnet interface (not for everyone, but I’ve found it useful)
• Road Trip LE – Monitors your fuel usage/costs and plots them (haven’t used this enough to get a feel for it, but seems good so far)

Games:

• Blowfish
• Paper Toss
• TapDefense
• BailoutBen
• GeoDefense Lite
• ZA! Free
• StickWars Lite
• Tap Tap Revenge 2
• Airport Mania

Other:

• Created a Google Calander Shortcut
• Created a Gmail Shortcut
• Had fun with “Insults”

Yet to form an opinion on:

• Snarl Traffic
• Nova
• MiniPiano
• Flashlight
• TonePad
• Here I Am
• Dictionary
• WikiTap
• Dictionary! (different to above)
• RDP
• Drum Meister Lite
• MyPaint Free
• TuneWiki

The time will be, 123456789!

How?

If you read the time by:

Hour – Minutes – Seconds – Day – Month – Year (as you normally would), it will read the following:

12:34:56 07/08/09

I’m surprised there hasn’t been massive conspiracy theories and religious events behind this date and time. No one has claimed the world is falling apart so I guess I’ll just have to go with Subway for lunch..

This is the first blog post on the site – www.jason-v.com. Unlike typically first posts which are filled with ‘test post’, ‘testing’, ‘first post’, ‘hello world’ (by the way, thanks wordpress for inserting that one yourself), I’ve decided to fill it with content.

So two basic questions, answered:

Why wordpress?

I have heard of www.wordpress.com in the past and with a quick search on www.alexa.com I found that wordpress is ranked 20th. That is a huge achievement, and you have to be doing something right to get that far up. To give you a bit of an idea, here are the top 10 sites currently:

1. www.google.com
2. www.yahoo.com
3. www.facebook.com
4. www.youtube.com
5. www.live.com
6. www.msn.com
7. www.blogger.com
8. www.wikipedia.com
9. www.baidu.com
10. www.yahoo.co.jp

I’ve heard of the first 8, and im sure most people have to. Perhaps you’ve heard of all 10 before? Granted the 10th site is still Yahoo, just for Japan so lets say I’ve heard of 9.

So blogger.com is 7! Why not go with them?

You can! The choice is yours, but having a look at blogger.com it didn’t seem as friendly. It also wasn’t something which I could download and install on my own domain. This was the major reason for quickly skipping over, but if I didn’t want host the my self. Blogger, owned by the search engine giant Google might very well of been my choice.

WordPress also was something new, something I haven’t used before and for me that sounded appealing. In the next few months I will dive in, install plugins, add widgets and hopefully appear on search engines. With the help of you.

Why a domain?

Having a domain not only means I get full control from what content appears, where the site is hosted (Sydney, Australia if you are wondering) but it has more ‘impact’. If you had a buisness card, and wanted people to know about your name, your site, your brand… would you hand out something that says  myblog.atsomeotherdomain.com ?

Or would you like to say, ‘check out www.jason-v.com’?

There are hurdles in having your own domain though such as, registering a domain, obtaining hosting, keeping it up and running but I’m sure I can get over that. You can help me get over that, and I can help you.

So I’ll end this with “Welcome”.