The earth moved for South Islanders in the early hours of this morning.
An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale shook Southland. While there were no reports of injury or damage, the quake was felt strongly across the South Island. GNS Science duty seismologist Mark Chadwick said the quake, which struck at 1.29am, was centred 60km from Milford Sound at a depth of 24km. A 4.6 magnitude aftershock followed at 2.50am and a second aftershock was felt at 6:34am. There was no risk of a tsunami, although further aftershocks are likely over the next couple of days.

As Carl’s earlier post mentioned, Geonet provides up-to-date information on New Zealand quakes - here they keep us clued up on the most recent earthquakes, including today’s shake-up and aftershocks. They operate a nationwide network of seismic stations that transmit their data to the GeoNet Data Management Centre (DMC) where it’s analysed by automated processes. The information is released to the public if the Duty Officer confirms that the earthquake is real and significant.

They’re clever with their seismic reporting after the event, but will they be able to predict a big quake?
As Wikipedia, the great equalizer, tells us: “the reliability and reproducibility of prediction techniques have not been established.” So it’s unlikely that we’ll be warned before a big one strikes, although seismologists can calculate the probability that a quake will occur in a particular location. And when the earth experiences a flurry of seismic activity, there’s no need to panic; a ’swarm’ of earthquakes doesn’t necessarily indicate a high-magnitude quake is on the way. You may be comforted or frightened by this fact, but GeoNet records around 15,000 earthquakes in and around New Zealand each year, only 250 of which are big enough to be felt.

Read more about NZ earthquakes, but don’t get too shook up about it!

Finally we see some success in New Zealand sport and it comes in an area of sport close to my heart - Motorsport.

Jonny Reid claims two back-to-back wins in the second round of the A1 GP series to take the lead in the hotly contested formula.

Jonny roared away from South Africa on pole for a commanding six-second win on the 5.4km circuit and then burst from seventh on the grid to win the 70min, 38-lap feature race.

He has now propelled the New Zealand team from ninth to first on the championship table with 37 points, one ahead of South Africa, with Great Britain and the Netherlands third equal on 31 points.

As well as being a great motorsport success for New Zealand, it is great to see Jonny doing well after competing against him myself in my earlier years in Karting. Finishing a close third, I might add, in the New Zealand champs one year in which Jonny took out the title.

Now some of you might be saying, “What is A1 GP?”
Well, A1 GP is an entirely new concept in motor racing which pits nation against nation in the “World Cup of Motorsport.”

An A1GP event is a fast, exciting, adrenaline-fuelled weekend set in a glamorous and exclusive environment, yet affordable and accessible to all. With three days of on-track action, an A1GP event offers a rare opportunity for fans to interact with teams and drivers. Exclusively inclusive, A1GP brings the thrill of international motorsport to billions of fans across the globe.

Taking in a mix of established world-famous venues, exciting new state-of-the-art facilities and tight twisty street circuits, A1GP promises to deliver high-speed action at every turn. So check out the New Zealand A1 GP team site, A1 GP NZL to find out more about the team and series.

Getting a property valuation used to indicate the amount you could expect to receive when selling your home. But what can you expect the value of your home to do in today’s property market?

According to some commentators, the New Zealand property market has entered a period of consolidation (that’s flattening off to the rest of us) after a time of unprecedented and sustained rises in property prices. Most real estate experts don’t expect the market to crash; current real estate trends indicate a more stable property market.

In real terms, this means the real estate industry is not quite as booming as it once was - there are fewer houses being sold and prices are not continuing to rise at the same heady rates as they have for the last few years - but there is still a healthy demand for properties nationwide.

If you’re looking to buy or sell real estate, this can all be a little unsettling. Luckily, there are plenty of real estate resources to keep you informed:

• Terralink offers public access to detailed house and property value information, including current property value, what the house last sold for, legal title information and building consents in the area.
• Quotable Value provides property statistics, information on full market valuations and tips for buying and selling your property.
• Real Estate Institute of New Zealand is the definitive source for property news, trends, tips on buying and selling, statistics and other real estate matters.
• Sorted.org.nz will help you negotiate the financial in’s and out’s of property ownership and investment property.
• AllRealEstate.co.nz lists properties for sale, as well as giving you access to resources and information.
• New Zealand Property Index is an independent and unbiased source of information for buyers, sellers and property investors.
• Nailed.co.nz helps you nail the uncertainties of buying, selling and renovating a property.

Whether you’re buying or selling, be sure to do your research on New Zealand property trends so you can make an informed decision.

The New Zealand Domain Name Commission (DNC) has begun consultation through a working group established by the InternetNZ committee responsible for the .nz domain space.

As written by the DNC;

Some countries are beginning to implement Internationalised Doman Names (IDNs). IDNs allow the use of virtually any internationally recognised characters. This enables the registration of domain names in languages that use non-English characters, such as Te Reo Maori.

The working group is looking for consultation on a range of topics;

• What issues do you think are associated with implementing IDNs?
• What is their impact, and how do you think they should be prioritised?
• What other matters do you think the WG should consider?

You can have your say through submissions to the DNC website.

I’m the newest recruit to the NZS.com team, adding five years Web development and design experience. With an excellent eye for design and top programming skills, I have played a pivotal role in the design of NZS.com’s fresh, new look.

So if you like it, love it, or just plain hate it please let us know your thoughts through our Suggestion Box.

A brand new look for NZS.com was launched this morning. We hope you like it!

The team here have been working hard in the background for a few months to bring the new look and feel to fruition. Along with the cosmetic update, the structure of the site has also had a good re-work, so you’ll find the site faster to load and easier to use across the board.

A special thanks goes to Zane, Greta and Steve who have worked so hard to bring you the next step in NZS.com’s evolution.

We’re all excited by the outlook for NZS.com as we start a new phase of development towards mapping out the entire New Zealand Web. The goal we’re driven by is the aim of providing you with the simplest and quickest way to find the website or content you’re looking for on the New Zealand Web.

If you have any feedback or suggestions about the site, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know what you think through our Suggestion Box.

Black is the colour of both mourning and of the All Blacks‘ shirts, so we can show our support and our grief by dressing in black for a month. At least.

A moment’s silence is definitely in order after our graceless exit from the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. Here we all were (even those of us lacking in rugby nous) assuming we would at least make it to the glory of semi-finals (we were even favourites for the big win!) but instead we wowed the world with our worst ever World Cup performance.

There they were in a line at the press conference - coaches Wayne Smith, Graham Henry and Steve Hansen - served up to the waiting media, grief-stricken and downtrodden, with a sprinkling of shame for good measure. The New Zealand Rugby Union has announced a review of the team’s performance, putting the jobs of coaches and senior management on the line. Wayne Smith said their pain was made worse by the fact that the New Zealand public were hurting too:

“We are grieving. We are all pretty shattered. We came here with expectations that we had the team to do it and we have fallen short. So it is pretty hard to take. And we know the country will be feeling the same so that intensifies the feeling.”

You can imagine the burden of public expectation would weigh heavily on their shoulders, but spare a thought for the players. Captain Richie McCaw sat with his face in his hands, a universal gesture of defeat and despair.

After a strong first quarter, the All Blacks were in control of the game; even when France edged in front in the final ten minutes, an All Blacks win was still within reach. At the end of the day, it was a question of which team could best apply pressure and withstand it. The answer? France. As commentator John Drake said:

“Pressure, and the inability to handle it, once again cost the All Blacks dearly at a World Cup…”

Oh well, there’s always next time.

Continuing with the theme of history and heritage…

Every year on Anzac Day, Kiwis remember those who gave their lives for our country on April 25th, 1915, when Allied soldiers landed on the shores of Gallipoli. This day has come to stand as a memorial for all those killed in World War One and in subsequent wars.

But while Gallipoli and the symbol of the red poppy for Anzac Day ring a bell for all of us, how many of us remember the battle of Passchendaele in World War One?

The Passchendaele campaign began on October 4th, 1917 - in the second assault, on October 12th, New Zealand experienced its bloodiest day ever on the battlefield. On that day, 845 soldiers were killed, many went missing in action and hundreds more died later from their injuries. More than 2,000 soldiers were wounded in the two battles.

Kiwis, including Prime Minister Helen Clark, gathered at Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium to commemorate the 90th anniversary of this bleak and violent day in our history. At the cemetery, nearly 12,000 white headstones (520 marking the graves of New Zealand soldiers) stretch out across the land. A memorial wall lists the names of 34,857 men (including 1,100 Kiwis) who were killed, but who are not buried in marked graves.

Our own Prime Minister pondered why the battle at Passchendaele was not more widely remembered, considering it resulted in the greatest number of New Zealand deaths in a single day. Of the day, she said: “It is true that it has not had the visibility in the New Zealand consciousness in more recent decades that Gallipoli’s had… but Passchendaele should never be forgotten.”

She’s right; remembering this dark day in New Zealand history will not only commemorate lives lost, but also help us prevent a repeat of this terrible event.

How much do you know about your family?

When I trained to be an ESOL teacher, one of the topics we covered was having a sense of home (a tricky thing for migrants to regain in a new country). Family plays an important role in our sense of home and identity - who we are and where we’ve come from - but when we were asked to name just one of our great-grandparents, not one person could do it.

This got me thinking about where my family had come from… I knew some of the names, but did I know anything about who those people really were, what mattered to them, what their achievements had been and why they’d come to New Zealand from far-off lands? Not a chance. Yet these people are the reason I’m here today, calling myself a New Zealander and living in this peaceful, prosperous country.

Try talking to your family about your heritage and ancestry, so that this knowledge won’t be lost. Plus, it’s fascinating stuff when you get into the stories of people’s lives. And if you want to get serious, you can even research your family history through one of the many New Zealand genealogy resources in libraries and online.

Last night I gave a talk about my space and Internet activities to a group of twenty-somethings at ConnectioNZ. I touched on the usefulness of having a life plan and was extremely surprised when I asked who had one - not one of them had a life plan!

I believe creating a life plan every two years is the single most powerful thing you can do to achieve your goals; it will help you get clarity on your career, health and relationships. There are heaps of ways to approach a life plan, and if you do some searches on ‘creating a life plan’ you’ll get numerous sites, but for starters, two great exercises are:

1. If you had just three years left on the planet, what would you really want to achieve?
2. Visualise yourself at 80 years old, reflecting on your life. If you follow your current life path, think about the things that are likely to happen to you and then contemplate; Is that the life you would have wanted to live? Do you have any regrets? How could you improve things?

The act of writing something down, and committing to it, will draw you towards that goal. Once you know what you want, then break your goal down into little steps and move towards it.

People often overestimate what they can achieve in a week, but they underestimate what they can achieve in a year. Within 10 years you can achieve just about anything!