+23 and counting

1. Well, yes, it has been 23 days since I got back from my 2nd Indonesia trip, and I’ve yet to post any stories, photos, or indeed, anything.

2. Uhm. Yes. About that, see, I was writing all this stuff — really fantastic stuff — but then my baby sister drew all over it and fed it to the dog. Seriously! I’m not joking!

3. Alright, maybe I wasn’t totally serious. But the dog really hated my writing, and threw it all back up.

4. I have no excuse, besides that I just haven’t been home that much in the last 23 days. And when I am home I’ve been ploughing through episode after episode after series after series of Entourage, which is brilliant stuff. And my computer has been very uncooperative with regards to my photos — apparently my Mac has taken a disliking to Lightroom, and decided that it will crash every time I try to go through them. When is the next beta coming out? Or hell, the final version? I’ll gladly buy it if it works better, and by better I mean a whole lot bloody faster and rock solid like Photoshop is.

5. (I prefer Lightroom’s editing controls over Aperture’s.)

6. Perhaps this weekend?

iPhone

1. Look, I’m not going to talk too much about it, and besides wanting one bad, what else is there to say that won’t be said by the rest of the internets? But, I have to say, I wrote this in 2004:

Imagine an all aluminium iPod, around the same dimensions of the current iPod. On the outside there is the black and white display, the scroll wheel and navigation buttons, with the hinge on one side, and the release catch on the other (which magnetically retracts, a la PowerBook). Press the release catch and the iPod unfolds like a clamshell, revealing the colour touch screen on one side and a thumb board on the other. Nestled in the hinge is the stylus.

Running the PDA side of things is a mobile version of OS X, ported to run on Embedded Linux. Included is cut down versions of basic OS X productivity programs — Mail, Safari, Address Book and iCal — all of which ties in perfectly with the full calorie versions.

Bluetooth is enabled automatically when it is opened, and at the click of a button it’ll hook up with your phone and connect to the internet. mac.com you can synchronise your contacts and iCal. With iSync all your personal info would be transferred across, including all the Safari bookmarks. With a special cable into the dock connector you could plug in your digital camera and import new photos using mobile iPhoto, sort them into a new album, plug in the TV cable and show the day’s shots at a friends house. Including that short video shot with your digital camera. And in the morning it’ll make you coffee just how you like it too.

2. How ace was that? While my imagination failed with the form factor, an awful lot of functionality that I was lusting in 2004 has materialised in 2007. I wrote that around the time the project started, so maybe I was cosmically channelling an Apple engineer, or maybe the other way around; either way I don’t care, I just can’t wait to get my hands on one. If, and a big if at that, it’s ever sold in Japan.

Back from Holiday

1. It’s tough to be back in chilly chilly Japan, after a two week jaunt through the tropics… *brrrr*, it be cold.

2. The trip back was long, and mostly pretty boring. Airports have ceased to be anything more than a place to go to hand over your life for safe keeping with a bunch of people you’ve never met, and never likely will meet. Maybe my next holiday will be cars, trains and boats only — not that it’s necessarily safer, but at least there would be something to see when you look out.

3. I’m now busy doing all those things I should’ve done before I left, but forgot, and to sort through the luggage and photos and all the post trip stuff. Interesting material to come!

The 2007 List of New Years Resolutions (filed: to be ignored)

1. 2006 was the year where I got the hell out of Everything. 2007 will be a year of focus. It will be so focused, that I have made a list of all the things I will focus on:

2. And the final, most important point…

3. I am usually very organised — I make plans, I work out all the things I have to do to achieve them… then forget do any of those things. This year will be the year where I actually get stuff done. This will be a year of focus, and getting stuff done. It will be a year of focus, of not forgetting, and getting stuff done.

4. Now I gotta go, meeting people for a beer tonight.

Happy New Year, and a quick “I’m alive” update

1. Happy New Year!

2. I’m currently in an internet cafe in Yogjakarta, checking emails for the first time since I left. Here’s a few things that we’ve done since we’ve been in Indonesia:

3. There’s obviously a whole lot more, but I’ll get to all that when I get back to Japan. In the meantime, there’s beer to drink and hawkers to bargain with. Back again in a week!

4. (Incidentally, I’ve discovered that I’m quite good at this bargaining business. It’s genetic, baby!)