NZCity NewsLinks -

All Links

2 Jul 2025

Search

Ngati Toa launch new agency to distribute Whanau Ora funds
Ngati Toa have launched one of four new commissioning agencies to decide how Whanau Ora resources are distributed to Maori and Pacific communities across the country.

If you’re working with complex projects, this $15 app makes them much simpler
TL;DR: Turn complex projects into simple tasks with a lifetime license to Microsoft Project Pro, now only $14.97. Keeping complex projects on track gets a lot easier when your tools are working as hard as you are. Microsoft Project Professional 2021 gives access to a robust toolbox to help you manage timelines, allocate resources, and track your budget, and it’s only $14.97 (reg. $249.99) for a lifetime license during this limited-time sale. This version of Project is built for professionals who want powerful project management tools without unnecessary complexity. You can get started quickly using built-in templates, then adjust schedules with drag-and-drop controls and automated start and end dates based on task dependencies. Run what-if scenarios, create multiple timelines to visualize progress, and keep an eye on every moving piece of your project. If you’re coordinating across teams or submitting detailed reports, Project makes it easy to track time, manage resources, and sync with Project Online or Project Server for broader collaboration. The interface is familiar for Office users, and it’s flexible enough to handle long-term, high-stakes projects with precision. June 29 at 11:59 p.m. PT is the cutoff to get a Microsoft Project Pro lifetime license for $14.97. No coupon needed. Microsoft Project 2021 Professional: Lifetime License for WindowsSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change.

Spectrum appoints Marty Bennett to lead new era of growth
Spectrum appoints Marty Bennett as Country Manager, signalling renewed focus on governance, staff growth and key IT services in New Zealand.

Crucial X10 review: A killer portable SSD that’s tiny, fast, and weatherproof
At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Very fast over USB 3.2×2 Tiny, light, and IP65-rated Good looking Relatively affordable Cons Opts for 20Gbps USB 3.2×2 instead of USB4 Slows dramatically off secondary cache Our Verdict We applaud the tiny form-factor, light weight, and performance of the Crucial X10, and we love that it offers up to 8TB of capacity. It’s also reasonably priced given the speed and capacity. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Crucial X10 USB SSD Retailer Price $99.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Crucial’s X10 Pro was one of the most impressively small and fast USB SSDs I’ve tested. The new X10 that I review here is cheaper, almost as fast, and is available at up to twice the Pro’s 4TB maximum capacity. Yup, 8TB in same tiny form-factor. Color me doubly impressed. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparison. What are the Crucial X10’s features? The Crucial X10 is a bluish gray USB 3.2×2, 20Gbps SSD that easily fits into the palm of your hand. Indeed, it measures a mere 2.5-inches long, 2-inches wide and a half-an-inch thick. There’s a lanyard hole on one end, and a Type-C connector on the other. The 2TB version of the X10 that Crucial sent me weighs only 1.4 ounces and I wouldn’t expect the higher capacities to weigh much more. NAND isn’t that heavy. That feather-light feel belies the drive’s IP65 rating. That rating means the X10 is dust-proof and can stand up to a little bit of rain or sprinkler spray. If you are not familiar with the ingress protection rating system, you can read up on it here. Crucial wasn’t forthcoming about the controller inside. However, from the performance when the drive runs out of secondary cache, it’s obvious that the NAND is QLC. Given that it’s available in capacities up to 8TB, it’s also obvious that it’s layered/stacked/3-D NAND. I have two minor gripes about the X10. First off, it’s USB 3.2×2 instead of the far more compatible USB4. In other words, it generally will function at half-speed 10Gbps on USB4 and Thunderbolt ports, and 20Gbps only on the rarer USB3.2×2 port. Then there’s something I don’t often complain about… But, geez Louise, the drive comes sitting in a plastic tray, enclosed in a plastic bag, followed with an adhesive plastic protective sheet? I know this is tech — an ecological nightmare to begin with — but do we really need to squander resources and litter the planet with useless plastic simply to mollify overly picky customers? How much does the Crucial X10 cost? Crucial sells the X10 in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB capacities for $140, $250, $396, $559, and $780 respectively. At least that’s what we saw for retail pricing on Amazon at the time of this writing. Those prices are roughly on par, if not a little lower than those of competing 20Gbps external SSDs. These were the prices at the time this review was written. However, as you can see above, the 1TB drive was on sale for $100, and the 8TB model for a paltry $440. That makes the 8TB model a steal, and the 6TB model a very bad deal. How fast is the Crucial X10? If not for a comparatively weak performance in our 450GB write, the new X10 would likely have ranked almost as high as the older X10 Pro. As it stands, it’s still the 8th fastest out of 18 20Gbps SSDs I’ve tested and the 24th fastest out of 58 external SSDs of all types. Sequential performance under CrystalDiskMark 8 was neck and neck between the new X10 and the older X10 Pro. The newer drive took two wins and the older one the other two. Performance-wise the X10 is about as good as it gets with normal amounts of data. Sequential performance under CrystalDiskMark 8 was neck and neck between the new X10 and the older X10 Pro. The newer drive took two wins and the older one the other two. Random performance from the new X10 was a bit weaker than that of the older X10 Pro, but still very good for an external SSD. Random performance from the new X10 was a bit weaker than from the old X10 Pro. The X10 was aces in our 48GB copies. Shaving 24 seconds off of its predecessor’s very good performance. The X10 was aces in our 48GB copies. The main reason the new X10 ranked lower than the X10 Pro is shown below — a relatively slow 450GB write time. However… A relatively slow 450GB write time ranked the X10 far below its predecessor in this test. …there’s a caveat to that. Look below and you’ll see that the X10 was doing quite well until the 85 percent mark when it dropped to its native write rate of around 200MBps (occasionally fluctuating up to nearly 500MBps). Proof positive that this is a QLC NAND SSD. The 4TB, 6TB, or 8TB versions of the X10 would’ve aced this test due to more plentiful secondary cache. Bear in mind that this is a stress test, and that most users will never write this amount of contiguous data. The X10 is speedy until it runs out of secondary cache. Performance-wise the X10 is about as good as it gets with normal amounts of data. Just be aware that the slow native write rate will kick in if you exceed the relatively generous amount of secondary cache. Don’t do that. Should you buy the Crucial X10? To this question I say yea. (Yea, as in not nay.) If you are looking for an SSD that is tiny, fast, rugged, weatherproof, capacious, and fairly affordable, it simply doesn’t get any better than the X10. Unless of course you regularly write huge amounts of data. Then opt for the X10 Pro.

Watch out! These 3 Internet travel scams can ruin your summer
Warmer weather often means travel—a fact that scammers know very well. You just want to plan your vacation, so they flood the internet with fake booking sites, phony emails, and bogus deal links to take advantage of the unsuspecting. To avoid losing your money to fraud, it pays to stay sharp when making reservations or buying gear for your trip. Fortunately, you can do so pretty easily if you ask yourself the questions below. Is the booking site you’re on legitimate? Whether booking direct on a carrier website or through a third-party online travel agency, make sure the website you’re on is legit.PCWorld You can save a lot of headache by double-checking the reservation website you’re on before committing to plans. For direct bookings, make sure the URL matches the known address. Scammers can buy a search engine sponsored link to promote false websites that look like the real ones. Or they can display copies of real websites when you enter the wrong address into your browser. For third-party travel sites, run a search to see if the online travel agency (OTA) is well-known, as well as what the reviews say about the booking process and customer support. Travel forums and Reddit are good sources for opinions, good and bad. Is that email deal real? The first Travelzoo email I ever got was a forward from a friend—and I spent some time checking out the source before clicking on any links.Travelzoo / PCWorld You should only be getting travel deal emails from sites you signed up for—and those messages should be easily traced back to legit senders. A first clue that an email is fishy: The sender email address doesn’t match the official URL. (e.g., deals@expedia.com) To be more sure, you can dig into the message headers to see if the email was sent from a server owned by an official travel agency. In Gmail, you can click on the three-dot icon in the far right of a message, then choose Show original. Is the deal reasonable? ravel sites gush about this $275 suitcase—and it sells quickly whenever it goes on sale.Even before I looked up historical data, that tells me I’d still pay at least $200+ after the best discounts. (Research on Slickdeals bears that out.)Away / PCWorld Maybe you saw a deal shared on social media, or a friend forwards you a link. Whether shopping for a flight or hotel, or a new suitcase or power bank, go into your purchase knowing what a reasonable discount price is. For flights, hotels, car rentals, and cruises, you can compare costs against the big online travel agencies (Expedia, etc.) or find recent reports from people who’ve visited your destination. If a price seems absurdly low, you can gauge from online discussions if it’s reasonable. (e.g., I saw nonstop flights between San Francisco and Tokyo for under $600 on ZipAir, but didn’t recognize the airline. A little searching showed it was a new budget airline, and people had already tried it out.) For gear like power banks, suitcases, and the like, you can look up past deal prices for that model (or at least general style of the item) with a quick online search. You can also look up reviews—maybe a discount is unusually high due to a new version having released, or there’s a flaw that caused the product to be unpopular. Travel booking resources I like to use Current fares for SFO-JFK on Google Travel—September looks like a good time to visit.Google / PCWorld Deal hunting is one of my side hobbies, and for travel, I have a few sites that help me find good discounts with very little fuss. Google Travel’s flight search engine helps me see which dates have the cheapest prices for a particular route (e.g., SFO to JFK). I like this data because it’s the prices on the airlines’ direct sites, which I can then compare against online travel agency offers. Usually I book direct for better customer support, should something go wrong with my flight. Google Travel also offers a hotel search feature that lets you scout hotels and their prices near a given location (e.g., 6th and Canal in Manhattan). It gives a list of various third-party booking sites (some I think of as less established than others). I use that info to get an idea of what’s reasonable, and then I look directly on a hotel’s website for equal or better deals. (Booking direct sometimes works out more in my favor.) Costco comes through strong for its members, especially on car rentals. A second driver is included, and you can cancel your reservation any time before pickup without penalty. Depending on how good a deal you get on a vacation package or car rental, the savings can end up covering the cost of a yearly Costco membership for access. Finally, searching on Slickdeals.net helps me see historical data for previous deals on a given product. Sometimes none exists though, so then I turn to the Keepa.com extension to see if price history exists for the item on Amazon.