Contact Management

The latest ubermaclife post is available here - subject matter contact management, check it out and let me know if you also suffer from a scattered system.

Jack-knifed lorry on the way into work this morning, just as I got onto the A38. Was blocking both sides of the road at a pretty busy intersection, there are also road works in the area. I managed to get around (it can only just have happened as there were no emergency services), but I imagine that it'll be a complete nightmare as the traffic increases towards rush-hour.

Pre-school website

Finished the pre-school website tonight.

Been really busy today. Projects are really taking off as deadlines for design near completion. Going to the football again tomorrow night.

Milestone Week

Well yet another busy weekend. Seems like we are cramming more and more into every one - but they are very enjoyable. Went to see Derby vs Bristol in the FA Cup yesterday. I do find myself distracted by all the good kit about, cameras laptops etc 1 of the disadvantages of sitting new the press enclosure I guess!

My little car turned 80,000 miles this week too.

The next installment of ubermaclife is now available here.

Had a good game of squash last night with Stubbs. Good to catch up in the boozer too. Its amazing how unfit I have become, struggled after the first game, and as soon as I loose stamina - Stubbs tactical play takes over. Although I've been going to the gym nearly everyday, I've not been concentrating on CV, just weights. I should perhaps inject a little more of that into the routine to build up stamina.

My Weekend

Busy, busy weekend and quite cultural too! Florence & I both went to see Tasha in Guys & Dolls on Saturday (at different performances) - it was fantastic. Stopped for a chat with a few folks in the bar on Saturday night, Tasha went off to the aftershow party and got in around 4am.

We'd been quite worried about Nate, who'd been really "floppy" on Thursday and and a raging temperature on Friday morning. The doctor diagnosed an ear infection, so he's on some dreadful medicine that makes him retch. We were still up in the night with him when he got distressed, poor little man.

Fortunately, he seemed to have made a good enough recovery by Sunday that we were able to go ahead with our plans to go to the panto at the hippodrome in Birmingham. Big production (apparently the highest grossing panto ever) and it starred Brian Conley - a favourite of Tasha's. Everyone really enjoyed the show especially Florence and Nate.

The weekend was rounded off by the new series of 24 starting, unfortunately I was zapped by the time it started and was in bed for 8pm! I'll catch the re-run on Friday (hopefully)

Chancers wiki update here

Internet middle ages

The latest installment in my ubermaclife is posted.

Not sure whether its due to the bad weather we've been getting here, but out internet connection at work is down. Even at the best of times, surfing is heavily restricted (no mail-other than the work based Lotus notes, no banking, no blogging and quite a view of my feeds are no shows as well).

However, I suppose its one of those things that you don't really miss something, until its not there - I should be perhaps thankful for my regular small blessings. Browsing has been "...turned off until further notice..." while the problem is sorted out. A backup link (I can only assume ISDN or even dial up) has been activated for mail only - but this is proving VERY slow.

So the long and the short is I'm cut off from the world this morning and this is causing me some problem as a lot of my systems are online, Remember the milk, google calendar, google reader. I have no offline fall back - this is one of my sticking points with my current system.

Woo-Hoo

Pissed myself laughing at this

GTD on RTM

I've now just got a new blog going, check out the latest post here

Sick inducing

Was checking the regular feed this morning, and stopped at this - bile!

New Blog

I've been debating for a while (one of the 2007 resolutions I made with myself), that I wanted to do more writing as a creative outlet and hopefully interesting and even useful to other people. I read a few sites about book writing, not that I'm getting into that - but the information on content and ideas was good.

The blog name is registered but nothing posted yet - hopefully later. It loosely ties in with another resolution that I am going to make my system more rigid - I try a lot of little ideas in my hybrid system and its about time I stop fadding and sorted it out. So I will be documenting my journey of converting myself and system to a mac.

I NEED an iPhone

I'm about half way watching the iphone section of the apple keynote. The delivery by Steve Jobs is amazing - he is selling it to me big style (not that it needed much help). Up to that point I'd only seen pictures, and it looks sweet.

The features have a real wow factor though, and the whole interface, with scrolling, cover-art, accelerometer (which had me) but SMS and pinch - jesus!!

The fact that it all syncs so easily with the Mac (you'd guess) and that it has OSX. Glad I got my yahoo! Mail account before the mad rush

Also watching some of Leo's MacBreak videos,

Geek Out!

Still didn't manage to catch the keynote last night, just busy doing other stuff. Got the chance to chat to Mark though which was very cool. Jumped a few older podcasts this morning to listen to the latest MacBreak from 21st Amendment. Its a very good episode, with the usual fantastic banter from Leo and Merlin. It was recorded in Dolby Headphone, which I didn't pick up on all that well when listening on the iTrip, but when I caught the end at my desk - WOW. There was a guy in the crowd who calculated how many hours it was until release, and while they were talking he wrote a widget app and published it - GEEK OUT!

UPDATE: Looks like rumours of iPhone in the UK from October, with possibly O2 getting exclusive on the deal. You'll never guess when my O2 contract is due for renewal!!

So it IS the iPhone..

As it was kind of predicted the iPhone commeth. At this point, I've not seen the keynote, only pictures - so I might have things wrong, but it looks sweet, with wide screen etc. Another product released by a 3rd part is the EWOO, which if it looks as nice as their site is a good sign.

Been very busy busy at work and also at home helping Tasha polish her lines and songs for the show. Managed to catch a couple of cool other non-MacWorld things though. Yotel opens up in London airports, wonder how that would look on the expenses!! It looks a little less claustrophobic than the Japanese versions (i.e. a coffin) but still think it might be a bit freaky. The hourly charge thing is good though (especially as when I'm working nights, I invariably don't sleep for long anyway. I'm guessing this is just a US feature (at the moment) but the latest tool add-on for google maps is VERY interesting.

Oh how I wish the place I am currently working (a conservative engineering company), would even buy a small way into the concept of instant messaging being good for business. IM is completely forbidden during work hours here.

UPDATE - Freshyill posted a good size comparison chart of the new iPhone here
and there is some great pictures/features here

Big Week

The biggest thing this week is that Nate's Birthday party happened. He is going to be 4 on Monday, but Saturday saw all his chums come round for a birthday tea and a few games. Everyone semmed to have a great time.

Its been an up and down week for inspiration for Project:365. Early in the week I turned to pictures of random objects that I fiddled with in Photoshop. I decided to make the rule with myself that this was OK if I took the photo on that day, as I think the project is about taking more photos.

Work has also been a bit of a roller coaster. The non-stimulating stuff ended and I now have a new project. The first task involves dividing a large drawing up into separate parts, so I've spent much oif my week on the floor, with some crayons, colouring in conveyors on a large A0 drawing!!

Has some good chats with Mark this week about work and other things, the highlight being Griff's Cottage. We knew that this was a project that he was taking on from knowing the area real well and the people that live there. I'd not realised it had turned into a TV series of its own though. Looks like Mike may have got himself an interview sorted out. Not spoken to him since so hope it went OK.

Sunday has also been busy, with long rehearsal for Guys & Dolls at the Brewhouse by Mellows. We went down and took some pictures and listened to act 1. I've also been getting into The Money Tree. It is all straight forward stuff, but reading it in black & white has been really enlightening. Just what I wanted at this stage of shaking up my finances.

Back to work

Had the normal 15 minutes staring at this screen trying to remember what the hell my password is!

After that it was a gradual ease into the norm - although work seems to be a bit sparse, so I'm taking my time. Hope that the pipeline of promised stuff opens up now the new year is here. Was good to here from Trapper and Mark on the emailo this morning.

Went to the gym at lunchtime, as part of my new thoughts for 2007. I've been a memner of quite a few gyms now, and it always makes me chuckle in January. Not sure whether its a months memberships as Christmas presents or just people living out their resolutions, but its always packed out in the first month of the year!

Siemens have now made the fasted network in the world (not from the Coventry office though). It runs at 107 GB/s, now that would be good for streaming HDTV!

500 posts and counting

Project:365 couldn't have started on a more boring day in the house! We have been busy packing the Christmas tree away. We normally try to do it quickly as Nate's birthday is at the start of January and its good to separate it from Christmas. I tried to eat all the "bad" things that were left in the house - but didn't realise quite how much stuff we had (I feel bad now too!) Also need to get into the return to work mindset. Christmas holiday this year has been brilliant, but seems to have flown by.

Happy New Year!