Back home after a week offline. Looks like the only things I missed were Scoble kinda quiting blogging again. Tip Robert: take a holiday, a long one and take it somewhere you cant get online: like Victoria. Oh, and then there’s a spat between Winer and Calacanis. I like and respect both of them, so apologies in advance, but fuck me, do we really need to bring reality television style spats to the blogging world? C’mon guys, there is nothing that cant be resolved in private over a pint or 10 of Guinness?

But back to the post headline. My Acer (heap of shit) laptop was my last vestige of me being a PC user. It sucked when I was in the Valley, and the little time I had online in Melbourne it sucked as well. Solution: a 17″ Macbook Pro with 2 gig ram etc etc… The start up speed alone is enough to dazzle even the most diehard PC user. It’s a little big, but you get that with a 17″ LCD, but other than that it’s pure bliss, not that I’ve got to use it a lot yet. Western Australian Web Awards Friday so I’ll give it a run at the Duxton then a conference in September. There is still 1 working plugged in PC in the house, but my just turned 5 year old cant quite tell the difference yet. Maybe an iMac next year, and Flyakite OS (the Mac skin for Windows program) in the mean time 🙂

A short note that I’ll be offline for a week, heading to Melbourne and then the snow for a break (also the golden child’s 5th birthday). Limited or no internet access at this time.

Back on the 15th. I’d appreciate it if no one burgled the house in my absence 🙂

Warning: anyone religious will find this offensive.

(via Larvatusprofeo)

One of the last things I did in San Francisco before leaving Wednesday local time was go shopping. It’s not New York but they have a Macys so the golden child has some great polo tops for summer (how is it that I can buy 3 Polo Ralph Loren tops in the US for less than 1 in Australia…go figure).

I visited the Apple store twice.

First time I thought this is mad, I’ll come back later. Second time it was just as mad.

Was it bad though?

Well for starters they don’t stock a firewire webcam…I know they’ve discontinued the iSight but surely they could stock a third party firewire cam. No such luck, and yet half (maybe more) of USB cams don’t work with a Mac (ie: mine…well at least properly anyway).

Here’s my thing, strictly from a customer perspective. Fighting to see computers and iPhones and others things isn’t a pleasant shopping experience. Not being able to get help isn’t a pleasant shopping experience. Having to put my name on a list and wait to be called for further advice isn’t a pleasant shopping experience.

OK, so it wasn’t as retarded as the AT&T store I visited the day I got there. That was awful; rude staff and being yelled at that to get served you had to put your name on the waiting list. It made you’re average Telstra Shop feel like a Gucci Store.

Overall: after having visited an Apple store you come to understand why buying online has that much more appeal. They need to either make bigger stores + hire more staff, or get out of shop front retail. Cool products don’t stay cool forever if the retail purchasing experience is 3rd rate.

Who ever thought that Qantas might become a world-leading airline? OK, so I’m typing this from the Qantas Domestic Terminal at Perth Airport on free WiFi, but as Engadget reports, starting next year Qantas is going to offer Wifi + Power on A380’s and refitted 747s. Touchwood it’s the entire 747 fleet given about half of Qantas’ flights to the Eastern States out of Perth are on 747’s. Still got a book for today though, but I cant wait for next year 🙂

An important question though: I wonder how much Qantas will charge for data? This is Qantas after all, I just cant see it being cheap, but hey, if it’s $50 or $100 on a long flight it would be well worth it.

TUAW has the latest on the quest to unlock the iPhone; apparently it will now work with pre-paid AT&T/ Cingular phone cards.

I’ll be in the States this time next week, and I’m seriously considering buying an iPhone, but the difference between dreaming and buying is still the ability to use it when I get home again…well to be more clear the ability to insert my Optus simcard in it and be able to make calls (AT&T global roaming rates are even worse than Optus’ rates so AT&T isn’t really a good option for me). Of course I could just use it as a glorified iPod, but I already own one of those. Hopefully some one will crack it in the next week, here’s crossing my fingers anyway 🙂

A fair bit of feedback on some recent posts. It reminded me that going on a puritanical save the world by highlighting wrongs binge isn’t always a good thing, people in glass houses etc…

Matt Mullenweg

I found an email from Matt Mullenweg in my spam box re the post on WordPress and the crackdown on sponsored templates.

Matt is pissed, and probably rightly so. The post in retrospect was unnecessarily personal and it wasn’t called for; she who must be obeyed asked me a very good question: would I like to have that written about me? One should never mess with she who must be obeyed, she is all wise and always right. So sorry Matt, it went too far.

However without taking away from the personal apology, I still believe you’re wrong. Your email stated that people were abusing sponsored templates by stuffing them with spam, but here’s the beef: in Australia Aboriginal people commit crimes at a higher rate than non-indigenous Australian’s, for memory the crime rate amongst African American’s is probably similar as a percetage of the population as well: would the solution therefore be to lock all black people up? You see Matt, you’re punishing a pile of good people for the actions of a small number of bad people; blanket solutions are rarely ever the right answer.

The link thing is still silly as well: you can’t ask people to not include links on their templates then stuff your own links on every install of WordPress, no matter how justified you think you are in doing so; it’s an all or nothing thing, and not practicing what you preach to others does make you look like a hypocrite, but in a nice, non-personal attack way 🙂

Ars Technica

Got an email from Ars re my post on their linking policies. They point out that the case I highlighted was an oversight, and that they regularly link out (and provided examples). I still see a lot of Ars stuff without sources, indeed I’ve seen stories on stuff I’ve written at TechCrunch appear as a stand alone story on Ars two days later without links. However on the basis of the email I’m willing to accept that on the whole they are at least trying. Perhaps they could try harder, as indeed we all could, and there are times where you get a tip from a reader which doesn’t come sourced, meaning that you don’t know that it’s come from elsewhere; even I’ve been in that situation a couple of times.

So apologies to Ars. If it’s any help, I only noticed because it’s one of my regular reads, and a bloody good read most of the time at that.

Happy

OK, my lets right the wrongs of the world purge is over for now. Promises that I”ll be good again 🙂

News.com.au reports that Optus is joining Telstra in adding uploads to monthly cap limits, and that others may also start counting uploads.

As much as I despise the Australian ISP industry for having caps to start with, when in the US ISP’s are mostly all you can eat concerns, it does make sense that if we’re essentially paying for downloads, ISP’s should count uploads as well.

But here’s the problem: upload speeds from Australian ISP’s suck.

Take my provider for example. I get a 2mps download but only a 256kps upload speed, roughly 10 times the difference. Telstra Bigpong plans are similar, most only provide a 256kps upload speed, although for memory some may be as low as 128kps.

If I’m going to have to pay indirectly for uploading stuff to the web, the same money I’m proportionately paying for downloads, then simply I demand the same upload speed as I have for downloads. That would be the only fair and equitable solution, particularly when companies are quick to advertise their download speeds, but you’ve got to find the upload speeds in the fine print. Given that I’m a fairly regular uploader it would also make my life a whole lot easier as well.

This is hilarious (via FSJ)

Apparently it’s a NY based monster flick. What ever it is, the trailer is pretty damn cool.