Posts Tagged Australia
Australian Standard Business Reporting
Here’s my experience with the Standard Business Reporting software for Australia, I hope it helps some of you decide whether or not those guys should get paid a salary.
Little bit of background first. I’m looking at writing some software with a payroll system hanging off the side, and came across the Australian Standard Business Reporting software online while looking at payroll info and thought to myself “Why not sign up, get the technical details and work out if it will add value to my software?” The Standard Business Reporting software essentially lets you create tables that interface with government databases.
I signed up, put in my company information and personal details, sent it off and waited for the license application papers to turn up. Instead, they call my phone to tell me they’re going on leave and could I contact someone else the next week. I think to myself “WHY?” Just send me the license papers. Oh, apparently they “just want some information about the software you’re developing”. Yeah, and I ask again “WHY?”.
I just don’t get it – all I want is the technical information on implementation to work out whether the costs of implementing it will provide enough benefit long term to outweight the cost of me just manually keeping it up to date myself. I don’t really need to describe the operations of my software to a third party. It’s not a secret, I’ve already got a website about it, but I dislike when their instructions state “Send us all your personal info to apply, make sure you fill in all the required fields” then they don’t send out what they promised, and “ring to confirm details”.
Long and short of it is, I didn’t bother getting back to them as I think they answered my question with their absolutely terrible first contact. “Yeah, I’m on leave next week so contact X”.
I’m an accountant, I keep up with crap like payroll/gst/etc just because that stuff is overall part of my job and I deal with it every day. Customers keep me up to date with changes, and constant support requests on accounting issues force me to stay up to date or look like a fool.
Seriously? I mean, seriously? They couldn’t even forward me the license APPLICATION forms? DERR DERR DERR BRAIN SHUTTING DOWN NOW
Whatever.
Come to think of it, this post wasn’t very funny was it. I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10 it probably rates fairly low, heading towards dead boring. I mean, really, it wouldn’t make a dead man laugh would it? Probably wouldn’t even get a smile off a carcass.
With no further ado, I hereby present the funny version of the above:
“So I was on my holidays in Bundaberg and it was late, but I was still up looking at pictures writing software for the program I’m developing when I came across a website advertising a great opportunity for software integration with government databases. Whatever that means. My first thought was “Let’s see what this does” and it seemed legit so I went ahead and filled out my details (it was midnight) and sent it in. The next morning I came out of the shower to a missed call where the lady left a message, “Without a secured deposit on your soul and two friends we can’t forward you an application form sorry, call me back when you’ve got a line of credit from You Know Who.” I thought that was a bit creepy, so instead I ignored them.”
Oh, and the accent…
I was reading a forum post today and it went along the lines of “People should be nice to Aussies, their accents are entertaining”. I thought to myself, “What accent, american drawler?” and decided that if my accent was entertaining then every other accent in the world must be awfully grating – russian accents excepted, there’s just no way a russian accent can be bad in any way.
I’ve heard before the ‘myth’ about our accent – I work with Australians, talk with Australians every day, grew up in Australia, have given and heard speeches in Australia, and I can verify we do not have an accent – unless you come from Darwin in which case I guess it’s a fair cop.
Anyway, it’s the rest of the world that have accents, all us Aussies have no accent at all.
iPad 2 release date
Well it looks as if we shall be seeing the iPad in Australia as of the 25th March. On recommendation from one of this site’s administrators I held off on the purchase of v.1 as it was a “gimmick” but I think the time has come to own me one of those little tablets of awesome. I’m still talking about iPad’s in case you’re wondering.
Absolutely none of the features are better except I think the hardware has been improved somewhat. Anyway, I don’t care about features, the point is to own one, because Read the rest of this entry »
Dam!
I thought this might be amusing – I wrote it on the Tuesday when it was raining and the flood was just starting. -
We got totally owned here in Southeast Queensland. I’ve been reading the sensationalist media all day becoming more and more convinced that we’re all going to die. Most satisfying is the knowledge that at least I can leave behind a legacy. Yes, my waterproof watch. IT WILL SURVIVE*
*That is, unless I go further than 200 metres under, then the seal breaks and my legacy is permanently lost
Mortein – Back by popular demand…
As unlikely as it sounds, the mortein post I made ages ago gets frequent comments by spammers asking for more info on the subject. Well it just so happens I do have more info on that topic! I can confirm that Mortein is fast-acting, but does definitely not have Puritan roots. I.E. It’s not as revolutionary as it sounds. I don’t even know what that means, so I’m just going to talk about Mortein. Mortein comes in cans, sort of like cat food, and does a similar job, i.e. kills small creatures.
However, unlike catfood, Mortein has three active ingredients – Allethrin, Resmethrin and Whatthehellethrin. These are all Pyrethoid neurotoxins…ok, who really cares. It’s poison, so Read the rest of this entry »
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