amag July issue 10

Editorial

Welcome to a new financial year, we hope this year's tax time finds you well. I'm sure you're eagerly awaiting your PAYG statement, so that you can see how big (or small) your refund will be!

For those with children studying you may be interested to know that the federal government offers a rebate on broadband. That's right, a rebate of up to $375 per child is available for 'education expenses' and broadband is considered one of those expenses. For more information visit the Treasurer's Website. Perhaps now would be a good time for that plan upgrade!

Getting back to this months amag. We’ve revamped our Refer A Friend program which now rewards both you and your friend with a $50 credit each.

After last month's amag we received some feedback from customers about our article on YouTube peering. They mentioned the difficulties finding out which YouTube clips were peered. To further help everyone take advantage of this facility we thought we would include in further detail how it works.

Last, but not least, in this months Hot Tips section we're featuring sites and sources of legal movies, music, games and other downloads to keep you entertained this winter, because we know you’re going to be in doors – a lot!

We always like to hear from our customers, so if you have any feedback or suggestions please email us at amag@amnet.com.au.

Chris Liebetrau
Author and Editor

Amnet Revamps Refer A Friend

Over the last 12 months we've given away 12 iPods to 12 loyal Amnet customers, but we wanted a way to reward all of our loyal customers.

Introducing the revamped Refer A Friend program - rewarding you every time you refer a friend and they connect to Amnet. We'll give you a $50 credit to your account for every person that you refer when they connect with us. That's not a bad reward for clicking a few buttons.

Did we mention that it's a win-win situation? Not only are you rewarded, but your friend receives a $50 credit too.

How do I refer a friend?
It's really simple. Log on to Amnet's Member Tools, enter your username and password. When you're logged in, follow the links to the Refer A Friend page under My Account or click the big Refer A Friend button on the left of the log in screen.

Then enter your first name, your friend's first name and their email address and hit the Invitebutton.

NB: If your friend has not received the email, try sending it again and getting them to check their SPAM filter or SPAM box as they could falsely catch the email.

How does my friend sign up?
Once your friend receives the email explaining the offer, they simply need to hit the Sign Up now link. This will take them to Amnet's online sign up form which they can use to get connected. It also records who referred them, so make sure they use this link (hint, hint).

When do I receive my $50 credit?
Your friend will receive their $50 credit on their first invoice after their new Amnet service is connected. Receiving your credit could take up to four weeks after your friends service has been connected, but we’ll do our best to apply the credit sooner.

What do I do after receiving my $50 credit; is there a limit?
You can just keep referring; because who knows how many friends you could get to sign up and you'll receive a $50 credit for each one of them!

Important Notice: Amnet can only award the $50 credit if you, the referrer, use the Member Tools portal as it is our only way of tracking your referral. A $50 credit will not be awarded for any referral not made using the portal and will only be made once the referee has connected to Amnet. The referee must ensure they sign up using the link in the email they received from you.

For more details visit amnet.com.au/Products/AmnetInitiatives/Referafriend.

YouTube Peering Explained

Last month we shared some exciting news about YouTube and Google counting towards your peering allowance. As we explained this only applied to newer and popular content. We received feedback from a few customers mentioning that some of their 'YouTubing' was counted on their Basic Allowance not their Peering Allowance.

So we thought we would take this opportunity to explain it in a little more details to remove any potential for confusion.

In general the peering of YouTube only applies to newer content, like the most popular and most recently accessed videos. Not all videos will be peered or cached, and also the routes on which traffic returns to you can change, once again making it hard to determine which allowance it counts towards.

Please note that the location & routing of YouTube is outside of Amnet's control. To be certain of whether the video is peered you can run a trace route on the full video URL to determine where the video is coming from.

Refer A Friend winner - July

And the winner is...

Congratulations to this month’s winner of our Refer A Friend competition – Daniel Jones.

Daniel Jones accepts his shiny new iPod from Chris.

Daniel is the lucky last iPod winner in our Refer A Friend competition, with the revamped program now rewarding all referrals with a $50 credit. For more information see our article on the revamped program above.

Alternatively for more information visit our Refer A Friend page.

Legal Downloads

This month we thought we would lend a helping hand by making you aware of some great sites offering free, cheap and useful access to movies, music, games and more. Which should keep you entertained during these winter squalls.

Free Software
CNET Downloads – a great resource to find all kinds of software from games to digital photo software, and a perfect place to find that software you've wanted but never knew existed. The site offers freeware, shareware and software trials.

Apple software downloads – one of the best things about being a Mac user is the sheer volume of free software and applications available, and this is the source. Apple Downloads offers Mac users access to free software, widgets, game demo's and everything in between.

Free Game Downloads
Liberated Games – this one is for the gaming enthusiasts requiring an expert understanding of games. Liberated Games is 'dedicated to cataloguing all full commercial games that have been liberated and made free in playable form to the public'. If the word 'binary' doesn’t make your eyes glaze over then this one is definitely worth a look see.

CNET Downloads – as we've touched on before CNET Downloads is a great source of free games and demo's.

Legal Game Downloads
Steam – a great resource for the download of … pretty much every kind of game going around; and from the who's who of gaming publishers like Ubisoft, EA, Epic, THQ and Valve.

EA Games – whilst this site, of course, only markets EA games it does feature some of their popular sports titles which Steam doesn't offer and provides some great discounts for customers too.

Free Online Games
Candystand.com and Shockwave.com – if you've got time to burn then these two sites will more than provide a spark to ignite your entertainment. Featuring arcade, sports, card and puzzle, online flash, games you can play in your browser. Be warned – they're very addictive.

Legal Torrents – while the words 'torrent' and 'peer-to-peer' have become euphemisms for Internet pirating, Legal Torrents is a site dedicated to distributing high quality open-licensed content.

Legal Movie & TV Shows Downloads/Rentals
iTunes Store – the Internet's largest source of downloadable titles, you can't go past the iTunes Store for downloading Movies and TV Shows. Giving users the ability to search or browse for any movie in their database, there's heaps of new releases every week and even some old favourites. To access the iTunes Store you'll need to have iTunes software installed because this it provides the store front to access the database.

Legal Torrents – as we've touched before Legal Torrents is a site dedicated to distributing high quality open-licensed content. It offers a database of legal movies for download as well as music and more.

Legal Music Downloads
iTunes Store – as we've already touched on the iTunes Store is the leading the way for online downloads. The iTunes Store offers single song downloads, typically, for AU$1.69 and AU$16.99 per album.

Epitonic – if independent music is more up your alley then Epitonic is for you. The website has music legally available for download from an assortment of independent record labels. You won't be able to download the whole album, but at least a sample track helps you make an informed decision. The website has links to bands websites for purchasing albums.

Once again we hope this months Hot Tips have been helpful. Happy downloading!

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