Editor's desk: Week of September 4, 2006

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Friday September 8


We have a winner. It was a marathon effort but our judges have managed to whittle down their lists of favourite photos and agree on a winner in the nzherald.co.nz Auckland Architecture Week photo competition. Congratulations to top prize winner Craig Plested and to our runner-up winners Parris Bambery, Won Ho Kim, and Andrew Dopheide.

We were overwhelmed by the quality of the entries received. (I'm really glad I was NOT one of the judges. Talk about a tough job!)

Thank you to everyone who participated. And enjoy the rest of Auckland Architecture Week. Events continue until next Tuesday with full details here.
- - - posted 5.06pm by Neil Sanderson


The stats are in and here are the most-read stories this week on nzherald.co.nz. No analysis required I suppose:

1. Steve Irwin's last adventure [+ video]
2. Crocodile hunter Irwin killed by stingray
3. 'Shocking' footage of Irwin's death given to police
4. Police say Irwin didn't provoke stingray
5. In pictures: The Crocodile Hunter
- - - posted 12.50pm by Neil Sanderson


Thanks to everyone who got their pictures to us by midnight last night for the nzherald Auckland Architecture Week photo competition. We had a real last-minute rush, so if your photo isn't posted yet, don't worry. Cliff and Camilla are posting the remaining entries this morning and once that's done our judges will decide the winner. [Looks like that's going to be a tough job too, with so many superb entries.] Check back here later for the results!
- - - posted 8.43am by Neil Sanderson


Next Monday marks the 5th anniversary of terrorist attacks on the United States which killed more than 3000 people. On this occasion, we're asking nzherald readers to reflect on how the world has changed in five years (or has it?). What have we learned from the attacks and the subsequent "war on terror"? How have the past five years changed you?
Please post your thoughts on our Readers' Views page.
- - - posted 8.30am by Neil Sanderson

Thursday September 7

Reader comment:

Really great having

newstalk audio

attached to stories. However *.wma files cannot be played by us Mac users (or iPods). You may want to look for a more generic format? Thanks.

- - - posted by Courtney

Response:

Thanks Courtney. Yes we're aware of the issue and working on it. A few of our audio files are posted as MP3s and we're moving in that direction so that everyone is able to access our multimedia content.

- - - posted 8.50am by Neil Sanderson

Wednesday September 6

Time's running out

so be sure to get your entries to us for the

Auckland Architecture Week Photo Competition

no later than midnight tomorrow evening. There's a $999 Panasonic digital camera to be won plus runner-up prizes. And you can submit up to five photos. Winners will be announced here on Friday.

If you'd prefer just to look at the entries so far,

click here

.

- - - posted 4.30pm by Neil Sanderson

Reader comment from yesterday:

Your travel article

Up the creek with the crocs

is perhaps not the best timing considering the main news story is the sad

death of the crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin

this day. You may wish to remove this at this time. Would you agree?

- - - posted 3.26am Sept 5 by Simon

Response:

Thanks for the message Simon. I don't agree with you. While the death of Steve Irwin is tragic (we've covered it extensively on nzherald), our travel story published the previous day has nothing to do with Mr Irwin or even with stingrays (it was a stingray that killed him).

Moreover, it is not our policy to remove items from nzherald except in extraordinary circumstances. Once a story is published it will be picked up by search engines and bloggers, as well as emailed and bookmarked by our readers. So we try to ensure that what gets published stays published.

- - - posted 2.50pm by Neil Sanderson

Resuming normal transmission:

Sorry for the absence of a few days. Sometimes blogging has to take a back seat to other things. Spent Monday and Tuesday of this week in a very interesting course at the University of Auckland Business School (yes, an old dog trying to learn new tricks).

- - - posted 2.00pm by Neil Sanderson