melbournesnapshots

Introducing Mt Cottrell - Victoria

There is a suburb (locale) in Melbourne's west called Mt Cottrell. It is not terribly well known by many people other than the locals as it is not very heavily populated at all - the average property size in Mt Cottrell is in the hundreds of acres. It's horse and pony country. Two very good riding schools and horse agistment properties are located in Mt Cottrell - Taleeho Lodge and Kimgara Park - both on the corner of Doherty's Rd and Dukelows Road.
Mt Cottrell lies between Werribee (at the South) and Rockbank/Melton (to its North) and it is part of the City of Wyndham. One of the main roads leading to Mt Cottrell is Doherty's Road. The time that it takes to drive from the West entrance to the Westgate bridge to the corner of Doherty's Rd and Dukelows Rd (basically downtown Mt Cottrell) is 25 minutes. At that corner, all the properties are in the hundreds of acres.

Closer to town, the property sizes go down to 10 acres and there is one such property coming up for sale on 9th April in Doherty's Road. Below is a picture of the board. This property is probably 20 minutes drive from the west entrance to the Westgate and there is one set of traffic lights between this property and the Westgate.

Aussie Blogs - New Australian Blog Roll

To quote Darryl Cook... (via Tony Goodson)

"I added my blog(s) to australianblogs.com.au–”a free community resource to bookmark your favourite Australian blogs” the other day, which appears to have been a good move. I’ve received quite a few referrring links already. You don’t need to register or login, so if you’re an Aussie blogger, I’d recommend you give it a go. C’mon Aussie."

Well, I have registered as well and so far, it's all been good - even had an acknowledgement from Jon, (the Aussie Blogs site convenor), thanking me for joing up!

Great work Jon!!

Hello World

Headhunter - Future blogging

I am, and have, been considering the value (to me) of my weblog. Make no mistake, I have enjoyed the writing and the avenue to publish selected photographs - like the one of my first Nikon camera. However, if I look back over the couple of years of what I have produced, it is a varied collection  consisting of...

• A GREAT DEAL of campaigning for "justice" for Schapelle Corby
• Some other minor "social justice" type commentary
• Some personal stuff - me, friends, dog, family
• Some reviews of businesses, restaurants, bands, properties and Melbourne
• Some reviews of products
• Some nostalgic memories and recollections
• Other???

So, there is really no theme to speak of, and, I guess, no reason to create a regular following of readers (except for those wanting to read about Schapelle Corby). I do have a loyal following of family members who read my blog, but I talk to them regularly anyhow... so, it's time for a major blog review... and I am going to start by asking myself a few questions...

• What exactly do I want to create by blogging?
• What do I need to do differently with my blog to create these results?

Well, that's it for now.. off to contemplate these questions.. Oh yes, if there are any regualr readers out there, this is the time to give me your feedback and input on the headhunter weblog to-date. Thank you in advance.

iSignage - Real Estate Window Display System

Leading real estate agents in Melbourne are installing iSignage property display systems to replace the static window displays that typically consist of perspex frames suspended by wire with property brochures inserted into the clear perspex frames. Hocking Stuart and Buxtons; both strong multi-branch franchise market leaders in the Melbourne real estate market have installed these systems in a number of their key branch locations.

Here is a picture of the Hocking Stuart office in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Mentone.

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Below is a picture of the screens in the widow of Buxton's in the Melbourne suburb of Chelsea.

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The key features of the iSignage system are;

• No purchase or insatllation cost - Zero Capital Outlay
• All property information appears automatically - no manual input required
• The screen displays are information rich, high resolution displays
• Multiple photos and floor plan are displayed for every property
• All property detail changes are reflected automatically on window displays
• Displays Open For Inspection times and agent-in-charge details

As a conscientous blogger, I feel obliged to declare that I have an "interest" in the proliferation of these screens as I am directing the sales and marketing for iSignage.
I am looking for organisations who have a large installed base of real-estate agent clients who would be interested in exploring the adding of the iSignage system to their portfolio of product and service offerings.

Please contact me at [email protected] for further information.

Optus EMAIL Outage

OPTUS Email

Message posted at: 2006-03-01 21:17

What: Email outage
When: Current
Duration: Ongoing
Impact: Customers cannot send or receive emails due to an outage affecting our mail servers. Optus Engineers are aware of the problem and are looking to resolve this as soon as possible. Optus apologises for any inconvenience this may cause, your patience with this matter is greatly appreciated. Additional Info:

After an hour of trying to "fix"my outlook, computer, wireless router, I decided to ping" the Optusnet mail server and guess what?? No response. So, I went to the OPTUS home page and the above message was found posted under network status or similar.

I would rather never suffer an EMAIL outage but I must say, it was very helpful to find that there IS a problem with the OPTUS Mail (not my configuration),and that there was a message about it on the OPTUS web site. OK - good job OPTUS for having the message up - good luck with getting us back on-line.

Unique Apartment - Elsternwick Melbourne

Saw a very impressive apartment on the week-end in  Elsternwick, Melbourne. Elsternwick is one of Melbourne's south eastern bayside suburbs bordered by Caulfield, Brighton, Elwood and Carnegie and has seen some of the greatest property price increases in the last few years. Here is an artist's impression of the finished apartments. The apartments are due to be completed in March and they are in the final stages of "fit-out". The apartments are being actively marketed by the appointed real estate agents and it is possible to view the apartments during the week-end "open for inspection times". Elsternwick in Melbourne is effectively a very highly desirable lifestyle location - I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in Sydney but I'm guessing it would be Randwick or similar. There are 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments available. There are 5 levels of aprtments altogether and all the apartments on the top floor have already been sold. Why this is interesting is that there is a very high demand for property in Elsternwick, particularly property that is SO close to train and tram transport, the major strip shopping centre of Glenhuntly Road, the Classic Cinema and of course, Gunter's cafe on the corner of Glenhuntly Road and Elsternwick. The pick of the apartments in this development is Apartment 33 - it is quite simply UNIQUE. Here is a copy of the floor plan. Yes, that is right, what we are looking at is an 11 square 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a 26 square rooftop garden! YES - that is correct, a 26 square rooftop "garden" that is accessible from just about every room in the apartment. The views include 360 degrees of surrounding suburbs as well as views to the West of Port Phillip bay - simply stunning. And how much is this apartment? Well, you will need to put a comment on my blog with your email for me to tell you that! G2 Apartments Wilson Pride Adrian Hassett G2 Apartments G2 Apartments Melbourne real estate bargain apartments Century 21 Wilson Pride

Tina the Tenterfield Terrier

Had a lot of requests recently for a picture of Tina. Here she is!

End of an Era - Nikon quits film

Well, today marks the end of an era... Nikon has announced today that it will stop making MOST of its film cameras to concentrate on digital models. The announcement also says that the production of manual lenses will also come to an end.

In honour of the great tradition of Nikon film cameras, I offer a (digital) picture of my first Nikon film camera - Nikkormat FTN purchased in Brisbane from Georges camera store in Adelaide St, in 1972. I think it cost me $250, for the camera plus a 50mm f2.0 Nikon lens. (A lot of money back then considering I was working as a computer operator at Thiess Holdings in Archerfield earning $57.57 per week (an easy figure to remember!). My first camera has some very sentimental memories for me - I was able to get myself a part-time job as a photographer with Colorama Studios in Brisbane who had the contract to do all the photography for Queensland University - all graduations and functions. My job was to go to the function, photograph couples and groups and capture pictures that would result in sales of prints for Colorama. I was paid the princely sum of $4.00 per roll of photographs taken and $1.00 per print sold. On a good night, I would take 3 or 4 rolls, get $12 or $16 and then take my brothers out for a big night out - to get a pizza from the Pizza Hut in Annerly or Romeos in the Valley. I remember Bob Smith of Colorama very well - he taught me so much about photography - he was a good boss, always fair, supportive and encouraging and I remember him fondly - and his wife Sherrie and what seemed to be their tribe of 12 young children under 5!. Bob Smith also had the concession to do the photography at the "Ekka", a gig which I passed on to my brother Peter when I left Brisbane to go to Melbourne. Brisbane was like that in the early '70's - it was very common for older siblings to pass on their part-time or holiday jobs to younger siblings after two or three years. Bob Smith from Colorama, I salute you and thank you for your inspiration for my love of photography and making pictures.

PS. AMAZING - I just "googled" Colorama in AUstralia and found this link - Bob and Sherrie are STILL in business ... after 40 years! Congratulations guys - hope we can speak or catch up soon...

Summer 2006 - The Sandown St "Dog Beach"

One of the  things about Melbourne that I really like is the Sandown street Brighton "dog beach". A beach where dogs can be brought at any time without restriction and allowed to play and run to their heart's content. This picture was made today (Saturday, 7th January, 2006). This guy was throwing a toy for his dog and all the other dogs just joined in to play "fetch".