That's what I get for trying to foster an active lifestyle. Figured we'd cap off a sedentary day of (in my case) iPhone fiddling with a nice stroll around the neighborhood to get some fresh air and exercise. Ended up getting sniped in the back of the head by a demonic magpie in the park for my trouble.
Thankfully we managed to execute a tactical retreat from the military hand book of "Hand flailing and feminine squealing". Got a little bit of blood from my combat wound but I shrugged it off with barely a whimper.
I'd always met Alison's ornithophobia with a hint of amusement but now I can empathise. On the bright side, I got a legitimate excuse to Tweet about something with my iPhone out in the wild. Yes, the irony of tweeting about a bird attack was not lost on me...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
iCaved
I've been joking a fair bit lately about heading out to pick up an iPhone but honestly never thought I'd actually do it. Rationally I figured I'd wait till the rumoured iPod refresh on the 9th of September to see what new toys would roll out of the lust factory in Cupertino... but impulse once again got the better of me.
We drove out to Carindale this morning to pick up a yummy white 16GB iPhone on the lowest Optus plan possible. It only gives me an anorexic 100MB per month but I'm hoping that I won't be using that much data to check email, a little surfing and using my iPhone apps. Alison forced me to pinky swear that I wouldn't be looking to upgrade my phone in the next 24 months for the duration of the contract...
So far it's been an absolutely gorgeous experience. Browsing with Safari is far better than anything I've tried with a PDA (and yes that's including using Opera Mini on Windows Mobile). The interface is responsive, good looking and most importantly makes sense for a hand held device (that means no freaking start menu Microsoft).
Apps that I've downloaded so far have been pretty impressive too. Twinkle has been an obvious stand out given my recent foray into the world of Twitter. Evernote of course is great which I've talked about before too. Then there's the mobile version of Net News Wire which even syncs with my News Gator account. NICE!
Downsides so far have been the usual smudging that seems to be prevalent with any Apple product these days (the white helps a little), though in truth the screen gets just as smudgy on my HTC Touch. The 16 gig may also feel somewhat claustrophobic as my culled 9 gig music collection takes up a fair bit of my space. Certainly glad that I didn't go for the 8 gig version.
Overall though it's pretty much what I expected. Chalk up one more happy Apple whore.
We drove out to Carindale this morning to pick up a yummy white 16GB iPhone on the lowest Optus plan possible. It only gives me an anorexic 100MB per month but I'm hoping that I won't be using that much data to check email, a little surfing and using my iPhone apps. Alison forced me to pinky swear that I wouldn't be looking to upgrade my phone in the next 24 months for the duration of the contract...
So far it's been an absolutely gorgeous experience. Browsing with Safari is far better than anything I've tried with a PDA (and yes that's including using Opera Mini on Windows Mobile). The interface is responsive, good looking and most importantly makes sense for a hand held device (that means no freaking start menu Microsoft).
Apps that I've downloaded so far have been pretty impressive too. Twinkle has been an obvious stand out given my recent foray into the world of Twitter. Evernote of course is great which I've talked about before too. Then there's the mobile version of Net News Wire which even syncs with my News Gator account. NICE!
Downsides so far have been the usual smudging that seems to be prevalent with any Apple product these days (the white helps a little), though in truth the screen gets just as smudgy on my HTC Touch. The 16 gig may also feel somewhat claustrophobic as my culled 9 gig music collection takes up a fair bit of my space. Certainly glad that I didn't go for the 8 gig version.
Overall though it's pretty much what I expected. Chalk up one more happy Apple whore.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Tweet Tweet
I thought I'd never jump on this Web 2.0 bandwagon but I guess I've been wrong about things like this before. Looking to try something new, I've signed up for a Twitter account and finished setting things up so that my diminutive musings propagate through all corners of my online presence. If you cast your eyes over to the right you'll notice that a new gadget has been added to The Rabbit, perhaps distastefully titled "Skin the Bunny" in light of the short nature of Tweets.
So what is this thing? Twitter's basically a form of micro-blogging crossed with some social networking. The idea is that there are things that happen in life which don't warrant a full blog post or an email but may provide a passing interest to other people in your life. Trying an interesting recipe, reading a good book, going shopping for an iPhone (I wish)... essentially anything that would normally come up in small talk. Rather than catching up and asking all the usual questions you can just check your mate's Twitter feed and do away with inconsequential chit chat. Don't you love it when technology brings people closer? :)
I jest of course. Here's an entertaining youtube video which does a reasonable job of explaining the attraction of Twitter. For me, it's really a handy way to do a little blogging on the move through my phone or when I don't feel like typing out a full blog post. I'm sure that a better man would just leave his private life off the internet rather than contributing to the build up of shite content in cyberspace... but I'm such a geeky exhibitionist that I just can't help myself.
I've been told that you get to find out a lot more about your friends and family through this disconnected voyeurism which could certainly be interesting... if any of my friends or family actually used the darn thing. Expect the usual torrent of inane blah-blah until the novelty wears off for me. I'll try my very best not to keep things out of the gutter...
So what is this thing? Twitter's basically a form of micro-blogging crossed with some social networking. The idea is that there are things that happen in life which don't warrant a full blog post or an email but may provide a passing interest to other people in your life. Trying an interesting recipe, reading a good book, going shopping for an iPhone (I wish)... essentially anything that would normally come up in small talk. Rather than catching up and asking all the usual questions you can just check your mate's Twitter feed and do away with inconsequential chit chat. Don't you love it when technology brings people closer? :)
I jest of course. Here's an entertaining youtube video which does a reasonable job of explaining the attraction of Twitter. For me, it's really a handy way to do a little blogging on the move through my phone or when I don't feel like typing out a full blog post. I'm sure that a better man would just leave his private life off the internet rather than contributing to the build up of shite content in cyberspace... but I'm such a geeky exhibitionist that I just can't help myself.
I've been told that you get to find out a lot more about your friends and family through this disconnected voyeurism which could certainly be interesting... if any of my friends or family actually used the darn thing. Expect the usual torrent of inane blah-blah until the novelty wears off for me. I'll try my very best not to keep things out of the gutter...
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