Category: personal

This week, I had occasion to play for a few minutes with the latest toy of technolusters – the Apple iTouch. Definitely one of the ‘must haves’ of the decade, obviously, if I lived in a location where the iPhone was available, then I’d probably graduate to lusting after that instead, but for now let’s just say I am smitten.

One of my colleagues at work has a Nokia N95 which has all sorts of fantastic whistles and bells – certainly more bang than the iTouch, and with GPS, the sort of thing I usually get all frothy at the mouth over, but it just doesn’t do it for me. The whole ugly slidy silver box thing is a bit off-putting.

Seems I am not alone. I laughed out loud at the b3ta newsletter this week (not unusual in itself), but this time I wasn’t laughing at the content – it was the subscription links that cracked me up.

iPod Touch: b3ta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Nokia n810: b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

In other words, Nokia users, nick off!

With the Australian election underway, we are being bombarded by all the usual political ads, but one particularly puzzles me… The government keep going on about how 70% of the opposition front bench have come from a union background and that this is somehow supposed to be a bad thing.

Well, thanks to wikipedia and a little research, I found that 60% of the government front bench are solicitors and barristers. Is that supposed to make us feel any better?

Certainly not if you have a look around the web for ‘trusted profession’ surveys, where lawyers, insurance brokers, real estate agents and journalists seem to rate in the same 40-50% ‘trust’ strata as unionists. If you add in that Mark Vaile was a real estate agent and Tony Abbot was a journalist, then you’d find that more than 70% of them have belonged to professions with an image problem.

Of course, they’ve all taken a massive downward step since their earlier careers, because politicians are almost always judged the least trusted profession in surveys, only beaten into last place by used car salesmen. Would you buy a used government from this man?

Web Directions South (wds07) is over for another year and I feel a bit like old Juan Antonio Samaranch when I say it was definitely the best one ever!
Everyone was left buzzing with excitement by the closing keynote, Mark Pesce, whose inspirational speech had an effect like a coaches address at half time in today’s AFL grand final. To focus on Mark’s piece though doesn’t do justice to the rest of the stellar line-up and the generous way they gave their knowledge and made themselves available during the breaks and social events. A the other end of the spectrum ,I chatted over breakfast with the charming and quietly spoken Bert Bos – acknowledged as the ‘inventor’ of css. I work with his baby every day and there I am being asked for any ideas that might be incorporated in future versions… pinch me! In between these two remarkable bookends there were at least a half a dozen other brilliant presentations that I hope will make a difference to the way I work: Andy Clarke, Brian Fling, Scott Berkun, Adrian Holovaty, George Oates… the list goes on!

If you missed it, well, that’s a shame, but it doesn’t mean you won’t feel the effects. Most of the presentations will be available on slideshare, presumably tagged with wds07, there will be podcasts available on the Web Directions site. I’m sure there will also be plenty of photos on flickr, blog posts via technorati and loads of other stuff.

the spoiler

Even if you don’t follow up on anything else, I feel have to give the plot away. Each of the three conferences I’ve attended has accurately predicted the web landscape. ’05 was all: ‘here are these wonderful standards and tools finally coming to maturity, get out there and do good stuff with them’. ’06 was: ‘standards is going mainstream, focus, refine and extend’. This year: ‘mobile’. That’s it! when I get back home, I’m going to check my notes and see if the mobile web was even mentioned at 06. This year, I think it occupied at least 30% of the airtime… amazing! I mean, I knew it was coming, but this isn’t a quiet little wedge creeping into the pie chart of our webstats… this is a whole new pie!

So, dear reader, the message is clear. Think standards, think small, move fast or miss out.

First workshop session at WDS07 Andy Clarke’s ‘Transcending CSS’. Not bad either.

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by how little CSS I learned. It tells me I’m at least across the stuff, even if I’m not using it fully in the University environment. And that is the nub of Andy’s message. It’s time we started using it. We can’t very well complain about the shortcomings of CSS if we’re not even using the capabilities we have available.

The biggest thing holding us back? IE6 again! I know I avoid css that doesn’t work in IE6, but it’s now and old browser as well as a buggy one. I for one will be trying to adjust my design-to-code process to take advantage of a few more CSS tricks, who cares if IE6 users miss out?

A trip to a Sydney shouldn’t be this hard! The signs were not good at Melbourne Airport when I arrived at 11:20 yesterday morning. The longest queue I have ever seen stretched from one end of the QANTAS domestic terminal to the other… broken baggage conveyer. Half an hour in the queue and my flight gets called out for special treatment, I check in, but they don’t take my bag, I have to queue again to place my bag on a pile in the terminal.

In the plane now, and waiting again – the captain says they’re putting in the last containers of luggage. Uneventful flight and then we’re waiting on the tarmac at Sydney Airport while they find us an airbridge. Delay after delay – people are starting to get tetchy.

Now waiting at the baggage carousel – waiting, waiting. 40 minutes later the crowd starts to thin as some people catch on that they need to see Baggage services. Mass exodus – now everyone’s waiting in a queue for paperwork for missing baggage. An hour after the plane lands there is finally an official announcement that passengers should see Baggage services.

They take our details – too many people to be dealt with by the counter staff, so we just fill out forms and leave on a promise. That was more than a day and a half ago – still no bag, still no word. Phone calls to QANTAS are fruitless – they tell you nothing, simply referring you to Sydney Baggage Services, who in turn fail to answer the phone. I tried ringing the airport general number, but as soon as I mentioned baggage, I was cut off. Incredulous, I decided it was an unfortunate coincidence, so I rang again… once again, as soon as baggage is mentioned, the nice man hangs up on me.

I find it frustrating, expensive and inconvenient, but there were people on that flight bound for international connections, I feel sorry for them.

I don’t know how widespread this problem is or if there’s something the Australian government isn’t telling us, but this morning when I visited Google Australia for a search, I got this, which appears to be the Indonesian localisation.

C’mon guys – jokes over!

Eliza has beautiful, long, wavy golden hair. When she announced tonight that she was going to have it all shaved off in the name of charity, her mother forbade it… not that she took any notice of that… she was always a headstrong girl!

Anyway, she seems committed, so next Friday it all comes off as part of the world’s greatest shave. I suppose we should be grateful, after all, it’s hard to think of a more worthy cause than the Leukaemia Foundation.

So, please help make it all worthwhile. Follow this link directly to Eliza’s secure sponsorship page and give generously.

I was delighted to read on the Google Earth blog about a fantastic initiative of the Victorian Rainforest Network to create accurate and educational overlays for Google Earth that clearly illustrate a range of threats to our precious forest environments.

Of particular interest is the maps of logging in catchment areas. Organisations like the VRN get a bit of a reputation in the ‘mainstream media’ as a rag tag bunch of dreadlocked hippies… associated with great TV news footage of chains, bulldozers etc. So, sadly, to a lot of ‘middle Melbourne’, they are not relevant or even visible.

Now that we’re facing increasing water restrictions, however, the forest message is getting stronger. These overlays highlight the issue graphically with Google Earth. You might think as you drive through some of the roads in these areas, that the forest looks great – thick and unspoiled, but just a little way off the road it’s a very different matter. It’s one of those ‘Awful Truth‘ moments, one that is starting to get relevance in the gardens of suburbia.

Download them, check them out, be appalled… then vote accordingly next saturday!

this is my bike – I’ve had it for about 6 years now and I reckon it’s worth about $20,000, would anyone like to buy it?

What? too much?!? don’t be so hasty, let me fill you in on the details:

Initial cost $250, maintenance and accessories $400. I’ve ridden it the 7 km. to work almost every working day for six years. Conservatively 210 days per year.

If I had paid for public transport that would be $5.50 per day (it’s now $6.10, but six years ago, it was about $4.50, so I’m making a bit of an average here) – that’s $1155 per year – for a total of $6930. True, if I had purchased period tickets, I might have cut the figure by $1000. So if you’re currently a zone 1 public transport user, I’ll let it go for just $5,000.

… but what’s it worth to you if you drive a car? Well, the figures can get pretty rubbery, but lets say you went with the RACV’s 2006 RACV vehicle operating costs, even the smallest car is going to set you back $111.20 per week. Do the six year average guesstimage and come up with around $100 per week to be kind. That’s $4,800 per year, or $28,800 over six years! and they haven’t even counted the cost of parking! The cheapest street parking around here (if you can get it) is $4 per day (another $5000 over the 6 years!).

I get to my desk at work in 25 minutes. By car it takes at least 40 – that’s 15 minutes at each end of the day that I get for free. If you’re on flexi-time, that’s more than a day off per month! So, not only are you saving money – you’re getting extra time to enjoy it – could it be any better?

So, you’re convinced now – the bike has many useful operating years ahead of it, so I reckon it’s worth at least $5,000. If you currently drive a car I’ll let you have it for a shade under $20,000 – come on!! it’s still a bargain! I guarantee, you’ll be SAVING MONEY!

Oh, wait – I forgot about the 20 minute’s exercise I get twice a day. I probably should add in the cost of a gym membership… 😉

Steve Irwin’s number finally came up. It wasn’t one of his beloved crocs, or a shark or any of the spectacular, glamorous and lethal animals he’s so often photographed with, but a Stingray. Apparently a spike through the heart dealt the fatal blow.

The Wikipedia page about stingrays even mentions the possibly fatal effects of a sting to the chest.

There were plenty who didn’t agree with him, there were plenty who couldn’t stand his style, but there are also plenty who saw him for what he really was – a man who loved and understood animals. So long Steve, we’ll miss you!

Low Isles, Google Maps

Hasn’t rained much in Melbourne lately, so when I parked my bike yesterday I made the classic mistake of leaving my helmet open to the elements like some big bucket. Of course, it poured!

However, when I got back to the bike I found that some wonderful passer-by had spotted the potential problem and used an officeworks plastic bag to waterproof my helmet.
Fantastic, eh?

Whoever you are, thank you and may karma be with you.