I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
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I’ve installed the Alpine iPod car stereo. Works great.
http://www.alpine.com.au/ipodMicroSite/index.html
iPod plugs in to the glove box and is continuously charging. iPod navigation is available through the head unit.
This is in an older car where the stereo is totally separate from anything else. My other cars have the stereo integrated into secondary displays in the dash so this solution wouldn’t work for them.
Very elegant solution. As the iPod is hidden this is a great use for an older non video iPod. Price was comparable to a normal head unit. So relatively inexpensive. Recommended.
We’re playing Woz in Segway Polo!!
Press Release:
New Zealand Segway HT Polo team are announcing the 1st Segway HT Polo Games of 2006. The tournament will take place 18 - 19 February 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand.
The winner team will retain the rights to host the next year’s tournament, and receive the “Woz Challenge Cup,†which will reside with the winning country until the next tournament.
The games are sponsored by Fivo, a New Zealand provider of wireless broadband access.
The local team, being called NZ Pole Blacks Segway Polo Team is Phillip Bendall, Steve Simms, Rod Drury and Brett Jones.
The USA team is led by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Segway HT Polo is a spin off sport which fuses the high-tech, self balancing transportation the Segway HT, with a 2000 year old game usually reserved for players on horseback. The game is played much like horse polo but on the Segway HT instead.
What makes this event unique is that it’s the first time in the world this has been played between international teams.
Teams from China, France and UAE have shown interest in the competition and have yet to confirm their presence.
Games are being played in Auckland City and the NZ Polo Open in Karaka.
3 weeks is a long time away from your family.
Columbus Ohio, Cologne Germany, Brighton England, Anaheim California. Four back to back sales conferences. Knackered. Made some great new friends though and it was exciting to light up a global sales force.
Finally got upgraded on one of the new AirNZ planes LAX to AKL. The lie flat seats are awesome. Completely painless coming home.
Only gripe is they are hard. AirNZ is going to change them apparently as they’ve been getting complaints. But being able to stretch out fully was truly fantastic. Comfy seat, big screen, true video on demand, privacy and good food.
Best flying experience to date.
After 3 weeks on the road it was cool to fly into a perfect Wellington summer day.
Above is the view from the home office just as the sun is going down.
Version 2.0 of the award winning ArtRage Software has recently been released.
Andy writes …”It’s still developed entirely in New Zealand by the guys out in the Waitakere Ranges. And it’s still taking the world by storm. ;)”
Nice one guys.
I’m going Blackberry. Need to get it sorted next week. Can anyone answer this question?
Is the Blackberry ID tied to a SIM? I.e. can I flip SIM’s in a Blackberry to have reasonable data charges in each country. This model would only work if I have a separate cell phone. So BB would be data only.
Where can I buy a 7730 (the big screen one) in NZ? Haven’t found an obvious site and the 7730 doesn’t seem to be a standard Vodafone NZ model.
Update: MichaelS reports BB’s are tied to SIM’s but it appears charging is flat rate.
You can buy online at http://www.computerezy.com.au/BlackBerry
Talking to Mandy last night about a discussion earlier in the day she said something like … “I filtered that conversation” which essentially meant: I’m too busy to think about that so I choose not to engage.
Now that we’re part of a bigger company I have to Filter out a bunch of things. It’s been interesting passing responsibilities for big chunks of work I used to sweat over to people much better at it than I am. There is so much stuff going on I have to actively Filter things.
I did the same thing with red wine many years ago. I decided I did not want to invest in thinking about wine. As a consequence I don’t get wound up on it and enjoy almost any red wine.
Filtering is a coping technique for our modern land complex lives. Hadn’t thought about that before but we do it all the time.
Photo’s from Brighton and a day trip to London yesterday with Dave, Mandy and Ryan.
Highlight was hearing the Portico Quartet busking. Best sounds ever.
Flew back to LAX today. Staying at Disney for the West Coast sessions this week.
An American tech-couple blogging their current kiwi trip.
http://www.theworldisnotflat.com
As 3G roles out the biggest use will be for Messaging.
Brighton is on the South Coast of England.
We’re staying in the Grand Hotel, which was bombed back in Thatcher days I think. It’s very nice and I’m pretty sure you could fit a tennis court in my room.
When you come from NZ I think you really appreciate the sense of History. Brighton is special with a funky shopping area and great night life. I’d recommend a few days here if you get the chance.
I blew it with laundry again. We’re about 9 days into the trip so it was definitely laundry time. So I gave a bag to reception as ‘they were expecting us’. I get back my shirts wrapped with cardboard collar formers and individually wrapped socks. Each sock cost about £3 to clean. I’m too scared to look at the total bill. I should have burnt my old clothes and brought new ones.
We have a great night last night with a silver service dinner in a German Castle. This thing was built in 1104. Imagine flying back though time and seeing all the things that had gone on in that room.
Coming from a country that feels about 20mins old it was pretty special.
I love it when the analog and digital worlds collide.
What can more analog that advertising painted on rooftops. You know when you fly into an airport and there is a sign on the roof. Only flyers would see that.
But Google maps changes all that.
So what else could develop
- Scavenger hunts
- Cross over games
- Showing off to your friends with roof art!
As well as roof art, if you knew when the satellite was passing overhead, you could spell words with deck chair formations in your back yard.
Skateboarders must be scoping all of the candidate pools in their neighbourhoods, for a late night pool draining exercises.
How soon until people buy screens to fool Google maps? Camouflage nets or even screens that make it look like you live in a million dollar mansion and not that trailer park.
Interesting.
Comment: Peter Cooper noticed the same
Road tripping with a bunch of Amercian’s I’ve decided that this Windows Mobile thing just doesn’t work. To big, too buggy. Push messaging is just too late.
So when I get back I’m changing from a Windows Mobile K-Jam to a BlackBerry/Mobile combo.
I’ve tried. I’ve have every PocketPC generation from the Philips Nino. I’ve resisted the BlackBerry.
Push on BlackBerry is so good, the American’s use it rather than SMS. I’m always 30 minutes out of the loop. That was the tipping point.
Anyone want a slightly used K-Jam?
Comment: Mauricio thinks that push is not far away and I should wait
Flew from Ohio, through Chicago and Heathrow to Dusseldorf. The Heathrow arrival is at midnight Ohio so there is no natural time to sleep. So 36 hours post pillow we’re still up.
We’re staying/training at a castle.
Germany is always interesting as they protect their language. There are 30 channels of German TV. Set perfect German Judge Judy and a heap of German translated shows like German Miami Vice.
Tender moments viewed on English TV don’t translate to German well as the spoken word seems to require an exclamation mark after each sentence.
Day three of sales training in Columbus. Loving Quest. This is a cool company. Coming from small tech company seeing how a global leader gives their sales teams the tools to go out and win business is really interesting. Learning lots and really happy we made Quest our home.
Snow promised but hasn’t arrived.
G-Unit/50 cent is apparently staying in the hotel. The entourage is of course wearing rapper gear. You see it on music video’s but its wild to see these guys dressed up in the flesh. I didn’t think it would cool to say to “hi, I’m from New Zealand and you’re the first rapper I’ve met”.
I must have been looking too much ’cause I got a “mind your own business white boy”. I jumped in the lift - before he ‘busted a cap in my ass’.
Russell Beattie has a detailed article on the ‘why doesn’t all this stuff work together’ theme.
So apple have released their Intel based machines including their new laptop.
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
As expected it has a camera built in. It looks to be a screamer.
Web commentary is that it runs Windows. I assume natively, like a dual boot arrangement. My questions are
- Is this now the best Windows laptop? Can Windows access the camera etc. Can it operate as a proper Windows laptop?
- If you use it in dual mode (Tiger and XP) can you share resources like photo’s and music?
I bumped into a mate from CityLink yesterday who has moved onto the Terrace and has his home connected to Gigabyte Citylink ethernet. He now streams TV onto computers and into his TV’s anywhere in the house.
With the US pushing HDTV the gap between NZ and the US will be significant. New TV hardware will be HDTV (HiDef) but we won’t have content available through our regular broadcast channels in NZ for some time yet.
As Tivo and media center products break the synchronous broadcast model, so the gap between US TV and NZ TV will accelerate the adoption of Internet TV here.
Under this model you’ll pull down the shows you want to watch over the Internet, in HD format, to watch on your HD compatible kit.
With NZ TV unlikely to quickly invest in HDTV broadcast, the central control model will break down here quickly.
This is an industry that must be about to change significantly.
Michael from Shared Spaces picked up my earlier post on the Changing Nature of Work.
Another big change is nature of my work has moved so that Virtual Collaboration is becoming a larger part of my day. I (verb) email, Skype, IM, Web demo, Conference call etc. (noun) Partners, Staff, Customers, Analysts, etc.
Virtual Collaboration is bigger than just communication as information gained through interaction needs to be stored and be accessible. So each communication interaction adds value to the shared information.
My main tools are email, a bit of SharePoint and LiveMeeting. All largely unconnected.
At a meta level, what I do is exactly the same as thousands of other IT professionals. Yet we have almost no tool support or consistent framework for managing these relationships and shared inter/intra-company information.
I’m going to follow what Michael says closely this year as I think we’ll start to see the emergence of a consistent way of managing this new way of working. With Ray Ozzie at Microsoft we’ll see leadership from them. They may not provide the ultimate answer but will accelerate the industry.
Collaboration can’t assume that all parties have access to the latest technology. It needs to be more inclusive and acknowledge the long tail of technology that your partners/customers may have. So rather than an all encompassing piece of software, like some new bits in Office 12, I think the opportunity is a methodology and some glue over the standard components we use now.
Work is really changing. I’m now spending probably 3-4 hours a day on calls all over the world. The week starts Monday morning in NZ and finishes early Saturday afternoon when the US knocks off. Usually around 7 most mornings I check my first batch of emails, and after dinner the UK kicks in.
So for two years it’s been all consuming. There has always been more to do. Now I have a more support I think I’m going to try to carve out a couple of hours late afternoon for fitness and family.
Web demonstration technology is providing an incredible opportunity for product companies. It really makes it irrelevant where you are.
While we work long hours, a plus is that I’ve been able to have almost two weeks with the family at the beach. It’s last day of beach holiday today, and I’ve been able to work fairly effectively over my 2MB link. The bach is not really set up for it though. My most stressful call was a web demo to 20 people around the world, my headset wasn’t working 2 mins before the call and while in deep sales mode I had kids running in and people making toast. For next year I’ll have a separate office space.
So while the new technology pulls you into working crazy hours, it is possible to balance out lifestyle. I need to get better at that.
Over the past few months we’ve developed great relationships with our new virtual team that is managed out of the US and has teams in Russia and Canada. Many of these people we’re never met face to face yet, but already their personalities, senses of humour and work style are becoming clear. Over the next few weeks we’ll get to meet these people in the flesh, and its neat that we’re already built a strong relationship.
So the nature of work is really changing. I’m staggered by the number of senior people I talk to who are taking the call at home. Especially in the US and the UK. This teleworking model has drawbacks but also provides a great opportunity. You have to steer your career to exploit this however. For example I try to do things that don’t tie me into being into a particular location.
The ultimate would be a surf in the morning, then close a sale while overlooking the beach. Not there yet but hopefully soon.
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