With much sweat and tears (no, really!), I've put up our photos from skiing… here. There are also a couple of movies, and Peto is working on putting it all into iMovie, so I'll put those up some other time.
Monthly Archive for July, 2004
Hmmm… I don't know what to say about the whole Apple-Real debacle that is going on right now. Since I'm such an Apple zealot, I'd probably inclined to say "Real shouldn't be able to get away with reverse-engineering Apple's FairPlay DRM… Apple should sue!" However, realistically, if it was someone reverse-engineering Microsoft's WMA DRM (too many TLAs :)), most people (including me) would probably applaud them…
Continue reading 'The Whole Apple-Real Thing'
Just thought I'd make it official… I'm now an employee of Mat Peterson's company, The Little App Factory. I actually started yesterday, but didn't get a chance to write anything on this blog…
I'll be maintaining the blog, learning Cocoa and working on my own apps for now. What app am I working on right now? Well that's a secret, but it's something I'll certainly find useful. Hopefully others do too!
As most people are already aware, new iPods were released last week (while I was skiing)… Since I'm such a gadget junkie, what did I do? Go out and order one on Monday!
Continue reading 'Got My New iPod!'
Peto bought some tickets the other day to the Muse concert in August or September (I have no idea… it was a spur of the moment thing) [UPDATE: It's September 10th. Thanks Peto] at the Hordern Pavillion. I have a feeling they sold out pretty quickly, so lucky us! [UPDATE: 27 minutes, to be exact. Thanks Peto (again).]
It shall be good to see them in concert…
It struck me today that no matter where I look, there always seems to be someone with an iPod.
I was waiting for the 370 bus to catch to Newtown this afternoon (on the wrong side of the road, mind you) and there were three people (including me) out of about six at the bus stop listening to iPods.
Later on, at North Sydney train station, there were three people again (including me) listening to iPods while waiting for the train. There were a lot more people in the immediate vicinity this time, but it was still a fair percentage of the people there.
Quite a few of my friends own iPods and I know of only one that has an MP3/music player that isn't an iPod (it's a 256mb flash player). I've never, ever seen or met anyone with a Dell DJ or a Creative Jukebox/Nomad/etc. Maybe it's just the fact that the iPod is the gadget of the moment, so everyone buys one, but this is a very good thing for Apple (to state the obvious).
Well… I'm back from skiing. No broken bones, bruised limbs or anything like that. Had a great time skiing at Perisher Blue, and I think I improved, this time round.
Last year was basically my first time, so I basically stuck to the beginner and intermediate runs. This time round, I was a wee bit more adventurous, and went with Lucy and Sez (and sometimes Jane) on a whole lot of black runs at Perisher and Blue Cow. The only runs I didn't do were Kamikaze (double black diamond == death) and the Olympic run (too icy).
We were lucky enough to have a MASSIVE snow dump on Saturday night, so when we left to drive down on Sunday morning, we thought we would need chains to get into Jindabyne! We also heard that there were road closures from Berrima onwards, so we rented some chains in Cooma (before Jindabyne), which we ended up not needing. When we rolled into Jindabyne that night, there was snow everywhere, which was really, really cool.
We stayed at a great place called "The Sassy Moose", which is a 3 bedroom house in the suburban area of Jindabyne. It's a nice and cosy place, with one bathroom, one bathroom/shower and another shower/bath. Each of the bedrooms had a queen and a single bed, with plenty of floor space. There ended up being only 6 of us, so there was plenty of room to spare. There was also a kitchen, dining room and lounge room with a TV, video player and DVD, as well as a drying room, so we were very spoilt. The place came with three electric and one gas heater, and was extremely comfortable and a great place to come home to every night! I highly recommend it. It was also quite cheap too, costing about $1700 for the week.
Mat Carr provided all of the food, and we ate likes kings (and queens) for the week. Our delectable menu included a rack of lamb (seasoned with mint and rosemary), lamb sausages, lamb tenderloins and great vegetables from his market…
So… it was a great trip, and apart from a bit of tension towards the end (to be expected with a group of very different people spending a week together), I thoroughly enjoyed it. We're hoping to go to Mt. Hotham or Falls Creek (in Victoria) next year, or maybe even somewhere in New Zealand, if the prices are OK. I took a ton of photos on the camera and have loaded them onto Mat's computer, so as soon as he sends me them, I'll generate the photo album and chuck it on the web, for all to enjoy.
Well… I'm about to head off to the airport to pick up Lucy. Then we're going up to Cherrybrook and meet the others. We'll pack the car, and at 8:30 tomorrow morning, we'll be leaving for Jindabyne to go skiing in Perisher! I've been looking forward to this for quite a while…
Mum and Dad told me I'll most likely need chains to get into Perisher, because there's snow on the road from Cooma onwards (which is before Jindabyne, where we're staying). I checked the snow reports, and it was snowing today in Perisher, which is great! Hopefully it all holds up, and we'll have a great week of snow!
I'll be taking my trusty camera with me, and Mat will be taking his PowerBook, so I'll still have net access. If I haven't collapsed into bed in the evenings, I might try and post some pictures up.
I finished a book the other day called "The Rule of Four", by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason. It was described in the Angus & Robertson store I bought it from as "the next da Vinci Code". I saw that and grabbed it immediately. It turns out I was wrong about the book, though…
Continue reading 'The Rule of Four'
I finished reading another of Dan Brown's books today, called "Digital Fortress". In this book, it deals with crytography and the NSA, which has an extremely powerful computer called 'TRANSLTR', used to snoop into the email and data of people across the globe…
Continue reading 'Digital Fortress'
