Still As Life

I’ve had my new Sony Ericsson K850i which I bought on the $49 Maxi Cap account with Vodafone for a bit over a month, so I think now is the time to write up how I have found the phone, and how I have found the transition to Vodafone from Optus pre-paid. I’ll break this up into a couple of posts, this one being focussed on the phone.

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Popularity: 87% [?]

As with many other products that Coles do their own brand of, Coles have brought out their own energy drink, “Coles Zu Energy”. It is available in two flavours, today I will be reviewing the Ballistic flavour. If you are interested in the Sublime flavour, have a look at the “Coles Zu Sublime Energy Drink” page.

Coles have really been pushing these drinks, at market day back in week 1 of uni, Coles had a stall setup where they were giving out heaps of cans of both flavours for free. There was no other energy drink company present at market day at all, so Coles pretty much had a free reign.

According to the Coles guys giving out the free drinks at the market day stall, the Ballistic flavour is meant to have a berry taste and be similar to the flavour of Red Bull. While I don’t think it is as good as Red Bull, flavour wise, it is still a very appealling taste. It does leave a funny feeling in your mouth though, like a sugary coating, but that goes away soon enough.

Each can is the average size of 250ml and as you can see from the photo, the colour is much the same as the Sublime flavour, though it is a tad lighter.

They are currently $1.49 a can at Coles and Coles Express (Shell) service stations. As far as I know they are not available anywhere else.

Coles Zu Ballistic Nutritional Information

The label indicates the following per 100ml:

It is recommended on the can not to drink more than 2 per day which is a pretty standard warning.

As with the Sublime flavour, Ballistic has similar levels of caffeine, taurine and other additives as the more expensive energy drinks, but at a much lower price, compared to Red Bull, it is a quarter of the price (Red Bull I have seen go for anywhere between $3.80 and $4.80 for a 250ml can).

As you can see from the above, compared to the Sublime flavour, the nutrition information is much the same, however, Ballistic has 10mg more inositol per 100ml than Sublime. This may be why Ballistic seems to leave more of a sugary residue/coating in your mouth than Sublime.

While it definitely tastes great, it could be called a cheap version of Red Bull, which would be true. However, aside from the sugary coating it seems to leave, it is a great drink, and in my opinion, the price difference between Ballistic and Red Bull makes it very appealling.

Coles Zu Ballistic Ingredients

The ingredients according to the can are as follows:

Carbonated water, sugar, food acids (330, 331), taurine, guarana extract, caffeine, preservative (211), glucuronolactone, inositol, colour (150), maltodextrin, vitamins (niacin (B3), pantothenic acid, B6, B2, B12), flavours.

Coles Zu Ballistic Ratings

Quantity - 250ml
2.5/5

Price - $1.49
4.5/5

Flavour
4/5

Overall
3.5/5

Popularity: 68% [?]

A good friend of mine, Pr Dave Edgren, sent me the link to his channel on Youtube earlier today, there’s some really great stuff on there! I was just watching one of his sermons on the armour of God, it’s definitely worth a watch if you get a chance.

Popularity: 49% [?]

In continuing on from my blog the other day where I was wondering what would happen if I were to run a second router on our phone line.

Well, I picked up a Netcomm NB5 yesterday for $45 at Umart Online, brought it home and hooked it up.

After a fair amount of fiddling around, I found the following things to happen consistently:

1. For reasons I can only guess at, the NB5 will not attempt to connect when the old D-Link is connected.
2. When the D-Link is unplugged from the phone line, the NB5 will sync near instantly.
3. As soon as the D-Link is plugged back into the phone line it will boot the NB5.
4. The NB5 will not attempt to sync again until the D-Link is unplugged.

Now, I figure that only one will connect at a time due to the static IP provided by TPG, what I don’t understand though is why the old router will consistently kick the new one off every time it is plugged in but the new one will not affect the old one at all. The only thing I can think of is that the old ADSL router firmware is much more aggressive than the firmware on the new adsl2+ router. So I’m guessing the NB5 checks the line, determines there is a connection, and leaves it be until the connection is gone, whereas the old router doesn’t.

Popularity: 47% [?]

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (Benjamin Franklin, from Wikiquote)

Or, a more commonly known re-worded version, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” (Wikiquote)

I’ve been reading in the news lately that with the push by Mr Rudd and his Labor ministers to censor the internet of Australians, that there have been pushes from other groups to censor more than the originally proposed pornography sites, including pro-anorexia websites and so on. Now that’s all well and good, I understand their reasoning for wanting to do so. However, once you start censoring content, the question myself and others have asked many times before, is where does it stop?

The above quote rings very true, give up a little liberty for a little security, and there is a good chance that you will lose both.

Popularity: 33% [?]