Entries from June 2007 ↓
June 30th, 2007 — Technology
It’s hard not to get caught up in the iPhone hype, especially if you’re in a hotel only a few blocks from the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco. The line was already a block and a half long at midday, and it’s only going to get worse from here.
The initial reviews are already in, most notably from David Pogue of the New York Times (link), and there’s a couple of interesting tidbits I’ve picked up that may stand in the way of widespread adoption when this device finally makes it too Australia.
- Lack of 3G support - The iPhone only supports the EDGE, which is an enhanced version GPRS, for data transmission over the phone network. This is probably the biggest criticism of the device in general, even for US consumers. Relying on WiFi connectivity to ensure decent data transmission isn’t going to cut it in Australia. We simply don’t have widespread deployment of WiFi hotspots.
- No MMS - The iPhone does not support MMS, or picture messaging. They really dropped the ball on this one. MMS is widely used in Australia, and if …every phone on the market suppports it and the iPhone doesn’t… well I’m not going to spend over US$500!
- Cheap data plans - AT&T has really stepped up to the plate and is offering plans with unlimited data transmission, whether any Australia Telco will do the same remains to be seen. Steve Jobs will really have to work his magic for this one to happen.
Regardless of the above, I’m looking forward to seeing what this device can do. My Google Reader should be quaking in anticipation of the blog storm that this thing is going to whip up come 6 PM!
June 19th, 2007 — Links
These are my links for June 12th through June 18th:
June 14th, 2007 — Travel
In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.
Original Date: 15 November 2006
Hey all,
Contrary to what the NY weather people said, today has been an amazing day. Clear blue skies, slight breeze, and about 20 degrees C.
Perfect!
So perfect, I decided to hire a bike and go for a ride around San Francisco. I rode from Fisherman’s Wharf, around and across the Golden Gate bridge, then all the way back again. The Golden Gate is really, really, impressive. Pictures really don’t do it justice, as half the impact comes from it’s setting (rocky coastline) and the way you gradually see more and more of it as you approach, but trust me when I say the exertion of riding was worth it.
As for the rest of San Francisco, it’s actually has more hills than I expected - and I expected lots of hills. Some of the hills are so steep the footpath is a flight of stairs! I rode the cable cars down to the “main” area, and had a look around, but I was a little tired after my biking adventures so I didn’t stay for long.
The homeless people here are a little overwhelming, especially in the downtown areas. Think at least one per street corner, and another
in-between corners, all with their cups out asking for money. Then there’s the others that just shuffle around looking all homeless-like. I keep feeling like I should be all sympathetic and helpful, but I just found myself annoyed instead.
Anyway, I’m off to relax for a while and let my poor legs recover a little. 
Take care,
Craig
For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!
June 14th, 2007 — Travel
In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.
Original Date: 15 November 2006
Hey all,
Turns out I forgot to mention a couple of NY things in my message last night. I was super-duper tired, so it’s to be expected. I also got
to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka “The Met”) and the Guggenheim. I actually got into The Met for free, thanks to IBM’s
corporate membership, and it was amazing. My favourite part was an exhibition called “From Cezanne to Picasso“, and consisted of a bunch of works that passed through the hands of an art dealer called Vollard over the years. This guy was super influential, often breaking these artists to the world, and the art on display was simply fantastic.
Unfortunately, half of the Guggenheim was closed due to them setting up for an exhibition. The closed half also included the world-famous
spiral ramp, which was a real shame. It also had some good art, but the main drawcard for me was the architecture of the building itself. Still, we got in half-price and it was totally worth it.
Our final port of call before a mad subway hopping dash to Grand Central was Strawberry Fields, the part of Central Park dedicated to
John Lennon. It was smaller than I expected, just a circular area just near the edge of the park with the famous “Imagine” tiles in the
ground. Still pretty nice though.
Stay tuned for the follow-up email with today’s activities!
For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!
June 12th, 2007 — Links
These are my links for June 9th through June 11th:
June 9th, 2007 — Online
This photo has been short listed for inclusion in the latest Shmap New York travel guide.
“Delmonico’s Restaurant, in a cool triangle shaped building on the corner of Beaver St and William St, in Lower Manhattan. It’s been open since 1827, apparently!”
It’s a photo I’ve had up on Flickr for a while, I hope it makes it into the final guide!
Update 2007/07/06: The photo has been included in the online guide on the page for Delmonico’s. I actually got the email a couple of weeks ago, but forgot to update this post.
June 7th, 2007 — Links
These are my links for June 3rd through June 6th:
June 5th, 2007 — Australia, Interesting
For many young Australian’s, tertiary study is financed by a government-run loan program known as “HECS-HELP“. Basically, the government loans you the money to cover tuition fees; and the loan is only “indexed” at rate equal to CPI. This loan is repaid through automatic deductions taken out using the same system as tax (PAYG) once you’re earning over the minimum repayment threshold, which is currently just over $38,000 per year. After this threshold, a percentage of your entire paycheck is automatically deducted; not the amount above the threshold as happens for income tax.
Unfortunately, many young Australians have no idea exactly how the repayment of this debt affects them day-to-day. Is this a loan that is easily paid off? How long will it take? I decided to do a little bit of number crunching and work out exactly what it means.
Continue reading →
June 4th, 2007 — Technology
One of the biggest annoyances I’ve found when starting to use Apache Axis2 for web services is the new XML object model called AXIOM.
The annoyance comes from the fact that the W3C Document Object Model (or “DOM”) is so commonly used that converting between DOM and AXIOM happens often enough to be annoying. Adding to the frustration was the fact that I couldn’t find any way to convert between the two without writing the conversion code myself.
As it happens, theres a utility class provided that can do these conversions for me. This class is org.apache.axis2.util.XMLUtils, and it provides methods for the following common operations:
- Converting to and from W3C DOM objects.
- Creating an AXIOM tree from an InputStream or Reader.
- Get namespace prefixes and QName objects from DOM nodes.
- Base64 encode a byte array.
Hopefully this post will get picked up by Google and save other developers the frustration that converting between DOM and AXIOM caused me.
June 2nd, 2007 — Consumer
The new toys for the Transformers movie were released today, and being the true fan / nerd that I am I picked up the Optimus Prime “Movie Leader” toy. You can check it out at the US Hasbro site.
It’s a big toy, the biggest I have by far. It’s interesting to see the G1 Optimus Prime, release in 1984, next to the new one. Twenty-three years of toy technology certainly makes a difference!
I’ve also included a picture with the Rollbar toy I purchased last time I was in the US, as mentioned previously.
