Heaps of Planes Background
Tags: design
I came across this neatly done photo composed of many other photos from the same position at a busy airport on Digg today and I liked it so much that I decided to touch it up a bit and to make a background from it. Direct links to backgrounds in both normal and widescreen aspect ratios below:
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Life Isn’t Always That Simple For Me
Tags: technology, website design, websites
Whilst things always seem to be getting a bit better for myself over time theres one thing that is really really annoying me and is a problem I have had since I was about 12. Not many of you would know, but I suffer from a pretty bad case of Dermatitis. It doesn’t sound like its that severe of a problem but I have it permanently and it affects a large part of my head including my scalp (pre-dominantly around my face hairline), eyebrows and nose. Thankfully with modern medicines I have been able to keep it at bay (except for the odd day) but I still have my bad days and the reason for posting on here is just because its a big daily annoyance for me and maybe someone out there has had some success with other types of medicine to remove the signs of it (other then Nizoral and Derm-Aid).
Onto things maybe a bit more interesting for some others out there, Brent sent me a link to the new upcoming i-mate mobile phone. On the link was to one phone that looks alot like a Blackberry but the other new phone took my interest, the PDAL. It has a very neat design hiding the numbers of the display and infact just after a quick google just then, i-mate already have the full specs on their website. It seems to have most the same specs of my SP5 but just with a more modern and cleaner look.
Whilst I think about it one thing very wrong about the official i-mate website (even though they have just had a new re-design) is that fact that on every specifications page for all of their phones there is no raw text, its all in an image… very user un-friendly!
Also I am still working on the new design, and hopefully not too far off now (lil preview on left). And lucky me have got permission from a favourite artist of mine to use excepts of his work on the new design!
Wow, what a weekend and a half!
Been a little while since an update and I apoligise for that but will make up for it in this message.
Last week is what I call Gemma’s birthday week because just about every day was something related to her birthday but the most interesting and fun time was on the weekend when we stayed at the Watermark Hotel on Saturday night for her birthday. We got the Tempatations For Two package which was great as it gave us a heap of extras such as a free in house movie (we watched Failure to Launch - not too bad movie), Connoisseur Ice-Cream and Champange on arrival (Gem drank most of the Champange!) and Body Chocolate (dont ask!). We actually got upgraded to the top level for free (level 20) in the ‘club’ rooms which gave us a great view. It was a really nice night as we spent the early hours in the spa downstairs and then went out for dinner in Surfers to finish up back at the hotel watching the movie. Took a couple of photos as well of our view of the coast and of Q1 which was right next to us.
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Well now the number of days are just getting shorter and shorter until the Wii gets released. Infact as of today its only 9 days left until its released. I really cant wait because as predicted it has been hugely in America and without a doubt it will be over here as well.
Last night for some odd reason I started to cleanup my cupboard to then think screw this Im going to get rid of all the stuff I don’t want anymore. Long story cut short I ‘forced’ Gemma to do the same as I am just sick of the cupboard being so cluttered and it took a lot of pain for both of us to throw out the stuff we wanna keep because of the memories from it and not because we would wear it again! All up almost 20 plastic bags of stuff (pictured) which has now been all passed onto the Endeavour Foundation because it’s best to go to them then to the tip!
Lastly a big hello to those who actually use the RSS from this website, last week I found out that an old friend Chris is keeping updated by the site via RSS so a big hello to him and anyone else doing the same!
The Bottle or the Can?
Tags: business, red bull, websites
This morning as I opened the office door I was approached with a slight problem, the bottle or the can of Red Bull to start off my day. On Wednesday mornings I have to get up at 6:30am for a morning Business Club meeting that I attend and I tell you what, Im still not a morning person!
* not actual cake
Well yesterday was Gem’s 21st Birthday and also the one year anniversary of her blog, so a big happy birthday out to her and her blog as well! I think Gem has really come down to realise that birthdays are now just not as significant as they used to be when you were younger, but damn she is still able to pull a day off work for it!
As most of you know I own/manage two Australian based car forums, the first being the Toowoomba Car Forum (TCF) and the second being the AU Starlet Club. As things in the business get busier and busier Im finding it much harder to find the time/effort to manage these forums, the Starlet club in particular. Theres a big to do list for me to get done for
there but just don’t have the time at the moment, but also there just seems to be too much fighting and bickering on there for my liking. Its a lot harder to control then most think because
- Im friends with both people that are often fighting
- Because its hard to pinpoint where to start any moderation and what comments are outstandingly out of line.
Im going to try my best on there to keep it clean with a thought of no personal matters at all to be on the forum (personal as in dislikes of others etc.) but its just not as easy as it sounds.
Anyways I better finish up as the Red Bull has now kicked in and in case your still wondering I took the bottle 
Its Getting Harder to Think of a Good Title
Well it’s official now (infact it probably was a couple of weeks ago)… me and Gem are addicted to watching Sex and the City. It all started a couple of months ago when I would watch the show every now and again on Thursday nights (usually after 11:30pm) and Gemma usually just fell asleep. But since I realised a few weeks ago that the show wasn’t coming back on channel Ten and had finished mid season I thought screw it Ill download the remaining season/s. Now Gemma has been really geting into it as well and we’re watching around two episodes a night. It really is a good show and good laugh, I remember seeing it every now and again when I was younger but a lot more of it makes sense now 
Well just about everything is freshly cut at our house now, I got my hair cut on Thursday (and went a bit shorter with another streaking and very happy with how it looks), we got our lawn mowed yesterday (after having to get a new mow man after being rejected by our previous mow man because we had left it a little long and it would wreck his machinery [that was his excuse]) and got Charlie shaved! 
Thats right, our little man has had the number 7 shaver all over and also his beard trimmed off. He looks very different and we did it for a laugh and just to see how he looks. But should keep him a bit cooler for summer as well.
Gemma’s birthday on Tuesday so have to buy her presents tommorrow and hopefully I go all well in getting something she likes, we’ll find out in a couple of days
Happy Birthday Blog
Tags: business, food, websites
Well as of the 14th of November this blog became one year old. As a little birthday present I am currently working on a new design for the blog (other then this half standard looking one) but it still may be a bit off at the rate things are going.
Last weekend we decided to have a nice Italian (hah) dinner which consisted of a Bacon and Egg Carbonara pasta from La Porchetta and also the new Cheesy Garlic Bread from Dominos. Great dinner but one interesting thing from the night was the fact that I went onto the Dominos website to check they still sell the garlic bread and then I noticed they offer online ordering. The funny thing was I found myself not able to trust the online ordering system! As much as I work with online applications and websites all day I still couldn’t find myself to trust in them to order food and ended up just calling Dominos 
Gemma’s birthday is on in less then a week and I still haven’t bought her a present. The reason why is cause I don’t know what the hell she wants and neither does she! Hopefully when we go to the shops tonight she might be able to find a few things that she does like.
Lastly, for the business we have been trying to sort out some kind of good Invoicing system that would allow for better invoice management for us by allowing us both to use it (Web 2.0 sites solve this) and for it to automatically email clients the Invoice.
We first tried Freshbooks which after a while of trying came to the realisation that it is more orienated towards people with customers who are continually buying from them which is not our style of business. Also it lacked any emailed invoice type feature as when it emailed the client it gave them a link to view the invoice, not an email with the invoice in it.
We have now tried Blinksale and it is perfect for what we are looking for. It does all the things we need it to and more such as Basecamp integration. Also its pricing structure is much better for us as each account type is priced by number of invoices and not number of clients as we have a heap of clients but don’t send out a lot of invoices as their usually large amounts of work. So a high recommendation to Blinksale for any other web developers out there!
Web Design Woes and My Hair?
Tags: business, fashion, website design
The past week we have been flat out as always in the business but the work I have been doing has been far more enjoyable doing more of the design work. Ive been still of late trying to work out exactly what field in website development (yes theres many different areas!) that I really enjoy and am good at and after this week it has really opened my eyes and re-affirmed what my real skill and passion towards to the converting of a completed design to (X)HTML and CSS.
Whilst this is the more difficult stage of the website development process, its something I find myself really excelling at. But some of the reasons why this is more difficult is because my biggest enemy is web browsers such as Internet Explorer. A lot of people don’t realise there are many different browsers out there with the main one being Internet Explorer (IE) which holds around 75%-80% of users followed by Firefox (my fave) at around 10%-15% and the ‘others’ such as Opera (becoming popular on non-pc applications such as Phones and Consoles) and Safari (for the Mac’ers out there).
The reason the browsers are my enemy is because I would spend approx. 40% of my time trying to make the design work in multiple browsers as they all seem to just have their own way of wanting to display the content. Whilst Firefox IMO is the one closest to displaying it correctly, IE is the most popular and has a good habit of being evil and not showing it not even close to correct.
Enough of the techno jargon and just a quick dilema I am having at the moment and please dont laugh.. my hair. Im not certain what I want to do with it next haircut, reason being is I have let it grow out just a bit longer then usual to see how it looks as I was sick of the look of my hair. Downside being i think I prefer it a bit shorter again and streaked as well. Oh well no harm in making it shorter again and doing that.. Just hopefully all will look well
Also I signed up yesterday to Medibank Private after much tossing up between different packages from different providers. Medibank Private seemed to have the best deal going for what I wanted and on the plus side I get a free bike even though I already have one (and actually just about to go for a ride now). Looks like someone might be a getting a nice christmas present! (and no need to worry Gemma, not for you )
Bubbles!
Tags: No Tags
We just got ourselves a new Neverfail Water Cooler (had to be grey to match the decor!) in the office and I am now officialy capable of putting a new bottle onto them! Its quite fun afterwards because bubbles keep on going up through it for a few minutes. Now to wait for the water to go cold…
I have been waiting now for almost 3 weeks for a new magazine I ordered from the UK. The magazine is called .Net and is practically about everything I love from the Internet and more. It covers heaps of sites that I love to use (read: Web 2.0) and covers a heap of info on designing etc. Damn thing is Im sick of this freakn wait and in the meantime theres been two new ones released. I just want to get this first one and then look at getting a subscription!
In other news my old Imate SP3i phone came back last week with the report of the previous repairer damaging it as i had suspected. I went into the old repairer yesterday to state I want some compensation for the phone and they were very reluctant. I stated that I would be willing to take things further if need be and hopefully it wont come to that, but Im not going to be the one out of pocket in this issue when it isn’t my own fault.
Wiipee, its not far away now!
Tags: No Tags
This morning I went down to pre-order my Nintendo Wii that I have been looking forward to buying for quite some time now. Im not a gamer as much these days (just the odd outlash on Gran Turismo 4) but the Wii has really taken my interest. The Wii is what I believe to be a big revolution of game consoles and Nintendo sums it up as the Wii “will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.” Some of the key thing for its appeal to me is the fact that the Wii is based more on gameplay and will certainly give for some good multiplayer games with me, Gem and anyone else that comes over Another interesting factor that appeals to both me and Gem is the Virtual Console which is allowing for the Wii to be able to be used to download/purchase older console games from a multitude of consoles such as the NES, SNES, N64 and more appealing to me…. Sega! (yes Im an old school Sega boy at heart).
I ended up ordering the Wii from Myer as I think they have the best deal going at the moment. A normal pre-order will give you around $600 worth of vouchers (an ok deal with some handy vouchers for things such as controllers etc.) but if you are a MyerOne member (which you can signup for like I did when I pre-ordered the Wii) you get a free game which actually has some interest to me - GT Pro Series. A lot of other people were looking forward to their early pre-order from Toys r Us under the thought that they got to choose their own free game but now Toys r Us have changed their mind and only giving Open Season as the free game.
The only other real drama Im trying to sort out at the moment is what Health Insurance policy to take up. Im pretty much tossing up between MBF and Medibank Private, but an appeal for Medibank is the free bike deal they have going, but I should be choosing on the packages suitability and not just the freebies
Just some more new things in life
Tags: No Tags
Me and Gem had a great time down in Brisbane with Ryan and my sister out at the clubs there. We didn’t go to that many places but the atmosphere was great and really look forward to going out there another time.
When we got back home on Sunday night we came to the suprise off a new bird cage that Gemma’s mum had bought us for christmas (she had the key because she had to let Charlie out in the morning). The cage is excellent and it gets rid of the two older cages which were just cluttering up space and didnt look that crash hot in the house. The new cage holds all of our Zebra finchs (all 6 of them) and looks a heap better in the house then the old ones we had.
Also last Wednesday morning I came to find someone had damaged by cars bonnet by scratching it, don’t know what with or how but I am not happy at all, I hate as much as a fingerprint on the car! I have made an official complaint to police which will allow them to review the footage from the carpark I was parked in where it occured, Clifford Gardens (hate it there but went there for Gemma’s glasses). Hopefully they will catch out someone as I don’t want to be the one forking out for it, however there was a few bug/stone marks on the bonnet so it would freshen it up a bit!
Theres something else Im forgetting about to mention but anyways last night me and Gem were in the office till 8:30pm finishing off all the furnishings. The office is so close to complete now, just need to put a mirror up and paint the feature walls and all will be ready. Heres some sneak pics anyways…
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Lastly here are the details on my all Home Theatre PC. In basic terms its a nice quick machine with heaps of spare space and what it allows me to do now is receive Digital TV along with recording tv onto hard disc, timeshift like tivo (pause live tv and come back and let it continue), play dvds, allow me and Gem to easily play all of the episodes/movies I download and heaps of other cool lil things like current weather, games etc.
