iTunes and The Magic Roundabout

It’s fantastic that we now have iTunes here in New Zealand.  Album art is now easy, and my iPod is looking beautiful.

What’s even better is that I never knew that Dougal from the Magic Roundabout recorded the Soundtrack from Evita!  Dougal, you rock!

Next Generation iPod

New and fantastically visually styled, this next generation iPod comes with a massive 100KB storage and a rugged durable case than can stand up to the strongest of toddler and baby abuse.

The Mobile Web

I must look like a right tosser on the bus home from work, continually fiddling with my HTC Apache surfing the mobile web and reading my offline websites.  Hey, I can even check-in with my works mobile “operational dashboard” (lifesaver!). I don’t care though. I’m doing work, keeping vigilant, and keeping up to speed with the million and one things you need to nowadays. And I’d look like an even bigger tosser if I had a laptop (not to mention a burnt lap).

Here’s what I use to help give me info the go:

AvantGo: Read your favourite AvantGo channels either on the go or synchronise them for offline reading. Limited range of channels, and better to sync before you leave for the bus. I currently sync 8MB of guff.

Google Mobile: I get my personalised home on my cellphone, which includes Google Reader and GMail. What’s even better is that if you link to an external site, Google automatically reformats it in a mobile friendly version – it’s better than Opera mini. You need to be “connected” though so watch those data charges.

VadeMecum: Brilliant and obscure little app that lets you read Plucker documents that you can easily create with SunriseXP. Awesome! I synch up all my favourites before I leave! Creating Passionate Users to go! Read/Write Web to go! Burnley FC to go!

And then for tunes on the go, forget about using Windows Media Mobile – the sound quality is utter sh*te. Try using GSPlayer instead.

Big tip: don’t miss your stop!

Any good bank robbers out there?

I was watching the Italian Job (the new version) last night.  By the way, it’s not a patch on the old one.  But there is a scene in there where they are planning the big heist with ultimate precision and timing.

Every member of the team knew their job, every member of the team in the right job, every conceivable outcome had been pre-thought, every detail of timing covered.  Repeated.  Then repeated.  And repeated again.  Practice until perfection is achieved.

To me, this underpins the success of a good operational team.  Everybody knows their role.  Everybody is good in their field.  Operational procedures are drilled home (no 1000 page ops manuals here).  Eventualities are played out.  They are ready.  They are prepared.  They are one step ahead of the game.  They work together.

Yes, there’s always one clever dick who thinks that he can do it better, but a good team will always do better than the individual.

Does anyone have Charlie’s email address? Or know any good bank robbers?

Wellington needs a subway

I used to hate commuting. It used to drive me mad. But in Milan, Italy, there’s a new form of subway entertainment.  Nice to see it putting a cheer on the boys and girls’ faces.

Right then, who’s for a Wellington subway?

Link via London Underground Tube Diary

We Like Documentation

I’ve never been big on documentation, like most of us.  But things are a changing.

We’re now using DokuWiki as our single source of documentation.  No Word documents, just plain old HTML.

It’s good for a number of reasons:

• it’s free, and up and running in 5 minutes
• it’s all fully searchable, and fast
• it encourages collaboration
• it encourages you to write more concisely, no “surrounding guff” that normally encompasses Word docs
• it automatically tracks changes and versions
• there’s little barrier to change (no convoluted sign-off processes)
• it provides an easy way to see everything that’s changed (which means you can step in if someone writes something that’s just plain wrong)
• it’s fun to use

It’s going so well, I’m even going to recommend it for our wider company – to store things like policies and procedures, induction information, etc. etc. etc.

Talking to others, it seems that corporate wikis are still a rare beast.  I’d recommend you give it a shot, there’ll be no turning back.

Download YouTube Videos

Via Lifehacker, I’ve discovered that you can now download YouTube Videos.

How about this great cricket clip for starters?  Yes, take it everywhere with you.  And when those Aussies are giving us all a good earbashing on the current Ashes series we can just cocoon ourselves in our own little world and step back two years in time.

Talk to the hand, cos the face ain’t listening.

Why we love Australians

It used to be that news reporting, including sport, was good solid impartial journalism.

Watching the Aussie Ashes coverage tonight made me sick.  Yes, England capitulated once again, but the incessant Aussie commentators just going “You Beaut”, “Warney’s a Legend”, “Go You Good Thing”, every five minutes was just too much.  To be honest it just pissed me off.   They even called this one of the greatest tests of all time!

Nobody likes losing, but there’s nothing worse than some gleefully grinning smug-ass Aussie cricket pundit someone grabbing you by the hair and rigorously rubbing your face in the dirt.

Whatever happened to a little bit of respect?

It’s no wonder the Aussies are so popular.

Mobile Fraudband

I downloaded Google Maps for my Palm the other day. Great! Maps on the go.

I fired up my trusty Palm and fired up the mobile broadband, and began interactively using Google Maps on my Palm with ease. It will be really interesting to see Project X‘s mobile implementation of ZoomIn.

Anyway, after about (literally) 2 minutes I noticed that I’d gobbled up almost 500k of bandwidth. And here’s my issue.

I currently pay Telecom $22.22 per month, for 20MB of mobile broadband traffic. Yes, TWENTY MB. So that basically means if I am out and about I can spend no more than 40 minutes using Google Maps. Pardon me if my maths is wrong but it is any wonder why mobile broadband has not yet taken off yet?

Normal Broadband = Approx $49pm for 10GB

Mobile Broadband = Approx $22 for 20MB

Sigh. I long so much for the days when I can stream audio and video podcasts to my phone. Or even just hold a Skype call to get around the extorsionate international mobile calling fees.

Vodafone are no better.

New Zealand Telco’s are monopolistic and backwards thinking. Rod Drury tells the same story on a post with regard to the need for ubiquitous broadband.

Shame on the Telcos.