Saturday, July 26, 2008

life as a mother of teenager boys

went to be last night at a reasonable hour

220am woken by banging clashing and talking downstairs

went down to investigate

2 boys (mine unfortunately - gravelboy and gothboy) and 1 girl (not mine) along with heaters blazing

girl go home says me

can't says boy

then girl sleeps on couch and boys go to bed says me

i go back to bed

toss and turn

couldn't sleep

ended up reading till after 4

then slept

woke at 10

went down to make coffee

spacie up then too

spacie goes down to get jon up cos no milk for coffee

girl in bed with gravelboy

both fully dressed

sigh

Thursday, July 24, 2008

stormy weather

we've had some stormy weather lately - i went down the beach after school to see what damage the storm surge had done and took a few photos - no damage where i was but i also snagged some photos off stuff.co.nz

Sunday, July 13, 2008

i luff my touch ...



now the only thing (well - ok - not the only thing but rather the only thing RIGHT now) is how to read books that are NOT on eReader.com!

here are my current three home screens

one

IMG_0005.PNG

extras here are:

* link to google
* twitterrific app (free)
* eReader app (free)



Two

IMG_0004.PNG

extras here are:

* link to stuff.co.nz
* link to my geocaching site
* idetect (for detecting wifi)
* link to plurk
* link to google reader
* link to flickr
* todo app (free)
* french speaking app (free)
* evernote app (free)


three

IMG_0003.PNG

they're all games here and all apps (mostly free)

i love eReader - easy to read text but i want to be able to read books NOT from eReader.com (and without hacking/jailbreaking);

i also want a blogging client (already had a short conversation with marsedit about this) especially for blogger/LJ/wordpress

let's see - hmm - ok - that's all so far

oh - except screenshots from eReader

IMG_0001.PNG

standard shot

IMG_0002.PNG

rotated

note that all these screenshots are 160 x 240 whereas the actual iTouch screen is 189 x 284

Saturday, July 12, 2008

a time of frustration

i hate having to say something negative about apple but here goes:

i have an iPod touch (yeah i know - you all know that) and an iBook and a MacBook - i'm a fan of apple

BUT - in spite of NZ getting the iPhone first we didn't get the firmware 2.0 upgrade first - today has been a time of frustration trying to upgrade - first it said no upgrade needed 1.1.4 was latest; then a few hours later it said new upgrade available - but clicking the upgrade button got me (and others no where); now it's saying 1.1.4 is latest again - even though on the NZ app store page there's a link to buy the new upgrade ...

screenshots as proof:

grab1.jpg

clearly saying upgrade is available

grab2.jpg

the pop up that came next - clicking on 'learn more' resulted in one of two things - a return to the page as per first screenshot or ...

grab3.jpg

sigh ...

then i tried going another way and went to the NZ ipodtouch appstore page

grab4.jpg

which clearly shows that it's available ...

but clicking on that link took me back to the page shown in first screenshot but now it says:

iTunes1.jpg

and when i click on the update button i get:

iTunes.jpg

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

iPhone or not to iPhone

i made a decision a week or so ago that given the rumours of horrendously priced plans for the iPhone via the NZ Vodafone network that i wouldn't get an iPhone - rather i'd go for a 16GB iPod Touch that i managed to score for $510.00 - which was that price because there was a label stuck on the back of the iTouch with that price on it - it's an older version and doesn't have the new software ... but ... then i discovered that there were some funny white light areas (pixel problems) and took the iTouch back the shop technician who phoned RED (apple wholesalers) who said they would replace it (standard for pixel problems apparently)

so here i am - i paid $510 for last years model of iTouch and will end up with this years latest model (normally $599)

and then today the pricing plans for iPhone came out ... so let's look at them

8 GB phone on iPhone 250 (120 mins/600 txt/250 MB) = $80/month & $549 for phone
16 GB phone on iPhone 250 (same as above) = $80/month & $699 for phone

8 GB phone on iPHone 500 (250 mins/600 txt/500 MB) = $130/month & $449 for phone
16 GB phone on iPhone 500 (as above) = $130/month & $599/phone

8 GB phone on iPhone 1GB (600 mins/600 txt/1 GB) = $250/month & $199 for phone
16 GB phone on iPhone 1GB (same as above) = $250/month & $349 for phone

now let's work out the total prices given that all the above is on 24 month contract!

total costs over 24 months will be:

iPhone 250
8 GB = $2469
16 GB = $2619

iPhone 500
8 GB = $3569
16 GB = $3719

iPhone 1GB
8 GB = $6199
16 GB = $6349

iPod Touch
16 GB = $599 (ok $510 for me) (8GB is $449 and the 32 GB is $749)
Current prepay phone (motorola Razr V3X) ~$35/month (i usually top up when i get down to ~$5 probably every 5/6 weeks)
total cost over 24 months including the cost of the iTouch = ~$1250-1350

hmm ... let me see ... which one should i get????

should i mention that my motorola takes videos (unlike iPhone)?

the only thing i don't get out of my motorola and my iTouch is the GPS (and i own a GPSr anyway)

photo journey

two men ... i know who i'd vote for ...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/07/a_look_at_the_presidential_can.html

Monday, July 7, 2008

what i'm watching

The Dance of Life



thanks to Tony

what i get out of this video is that you gotta enjoy life ... do something that makes you dance or laugh or both because life is an intricate dance