Another year, another resolution to blog more

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Ouch, looks like I haven’t blogged in four months! I’m going to go ahead and blame motherhood, although it’s not like I’m looking for excuses – taking care of a baby while attempting to work full-time from home is very time-consuming! And the only reason I’m even blogging right now is because I have to write up the latest version of WordPress for Android. Yup, currently writing this from my Asus Eee Pad Transformer, which will hopefully be blessed with the Ice Cream Sandwich update sometime in the next few days.

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Since I’m here already, I may as well update you on what I’ve been up to these past few months! The photography hobby has kinda gone by the wayside now that I’m so busy, but the good news is that I’ve got lots of work on! I’ve been doing a lot writing for Delimiter, Smarter Business Ideas, APC, PC & Tech Authority, Ninemsn and Tech Living, and I also had my first TV appearance on Sky News for Christmas gadgets segment. I still haven’t watched myself on it, even though my parents and my partner both taped it, but maybe in a few years time I’ll get up the courage to watch it. I can barely bring myself to re-read stuff that I’ve written, let alone watch myself on TV! But I’m told that I did very well, so there’s that.

Fitness is my new big thing now. I’ve been seeing a personal trainer for the past nine weeks and have also been on a fairly strict diet, so I’ve lost all my baby weight and am on track for achieving the body I’ve always wanted. Go me! My current favourite gadgets are the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nokia Lumia 800 and Nikon V1. I’m still an Android fan through and through, although Windows Phone 7.5 has definitely grown on me. It just doesn’t have all the apps I need, especially something like Tweetdeck, which aggregates my Facebook and Twitter feeds and saves my last read position. I’m so dependent on Twitter, and a little on Facebook, for news updates and the latest things in tech, that a good solid app for monitoring it all is absolutely essential.

Anyways, I’ve ranted enough. The cursor keeps on skipping to the top of the screen while I’m typing and it’s REALLY annoying.

Not happy, Zuji

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Zuji, you suck

I used Zuji for the first time to book our flight to Fiji this Sunday. Never again! When choosing our inbound and outbound flights, I specifically chose the ones that had check-in baggage was included. After I booked and paid for everything, I found out that our outbound flight from Sydney with Virgin Australia didn’t actually include check-in baggage, and that I had to pay an extra $20 per person to add it! Our Qantas flight back to Sydney did include a check-in baggage allowance, but it wasn’t much use to us given we weren’t going to be able to bring any check-in baggage to start with!

Of course, the fact that the Virgin Australia flight was one of the ‘saver’ fares meant that I couldn’t make any amendments once I’d made the booking. So I called Zuji the day after to tell them about my situation. The person I spoke to said that he could speak to their tech department and confirm exactly what I had seen when I had made the booking. He said that he would call me within two days ‘at the latest’ to let me know what his findings were. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing.

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Smartphone-free for a day – how did I go?

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Today was an interesting day. For the first time in, well, ever, I didn’t use my smartphone for the entire day. No phone calls or text messages (although these were allowed in the brief), no email, no checking my Facebook and Twitter through Tweetdeck, no web browsing to look up random things, no access to Evernote to write down notes and look up existing notes – I couldn’t even check the time.

Well, that was the idea. I ended up having to use my smartphone twice for work purposes: once to write a tutorial for APC magazine on using Tasker on Android (awesome app, by the way!) and the second time to finalise a feature I was writing for PC & Tech Authority on mobile apps. But that was it! The rest of the time I was cold turkey. The surprising thing was that I didn’t miss my smartphone as much as I thought I would!

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Smartphone-free day today!

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I’m currently participating in a ‘Connected Citizens Design Lab‘ project. Yes, I’m one of the 20 ‘connected citizens’. :) Today is the final day of activities, and for this I’m meant to go without using a smartphone for the entire day and keep a diary about my experiences. I can still use it for calls and texts, but anything else is verboten. Ouch, this is going to be tough! Although, the brief didn’t say anything about using tablets…

I’m going to Fiji!

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I’m so excited – heading to Fiji this Sunday! It’s my partner’s brother’s wedding, and there’s a big herd of us heading over for a week or so. This will be my first time in Fiji, and I’m envisioning lots of lying on the beach, cocktail in hand, reading a book, and taking the little one swimming for the first time!

It’s going to be interesting taking the baby on his first flight! It’s only four hours long, but I hear many babies have trouble with the lift-off and descent as they don’t know how to un-pop their ears. We’ll see – hopefully it’s all cruisy!

This week has been absolutely flat out as I’ve been trying to fit in two week’s worth of work so I don’t have to do anything while I’m in Fiji. So far so good – as long as I keep working into the night all week, I should be able to get through everything. Then it’s a full week of pure vacation – bliss!

Of course, I’ll still be taking along a bucketload of technology with me. Some people like to go technology-free when they’re on vacation, but not me. I get way too much enjoyment from all my gadgets to leave them behind, and the only dilemma I have right now is what comes with me and what stays? I’d love to bring everything, but unless I can hire a sherpa or donkey to carry it all behind me, I’ll have to be smart about what I carry.

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The necessity of printing photos

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As the proud mother of a four-month-old baby, the importance of actually printing photos out (as opposed to just shooting them and posting them online) has hit home. My mum has over a dozen photo albums of the family – the good old-fashioned kind, not the digital variety – and I have exactly zero!

Sure, digital photos are handy with regards to sharing, storage and reprinting, but am I still going to have all of these digital photos in 20 years time, the same way my mum has the same photo albums from 20 years ago? I’ve already lost hundreds of photos in my transition from PC to PC, hard to hard drive, and all I’ve got to show for them are the handful (seriously, less than ten) of them that I got around to printing.

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HTC Sensation vs Samsung Galaxy S II

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I come from a pretty geeky family. My mum has a 64GB iPad Wi-Fi 1 and white 32GB iPhone 3GS. My dad has a fully tricked out 13in MacBook Air and an iPhone 4, and my brother has a Samsung Galaxy S II. We don’t go into all the gadgets I own, hehe.

It’s become a bit of a family ritual to talk ‘gadgets’ at our family get togethers. My brother’s amused by the fact that I always seem to be using the latest smartphones whenever he sees me, and it was upon seeing my Galaxy S II the last time that prompted him to upgrade from his HTC Desire HD to the Samsung. At Father’s Day today, I was toting the HTC Sensation, which prompted him to ask: which one do you like better, the Samsung Galaxy S II or the HTC Sensation?

I’ve used both devices extensively, and if I had to choose between one or the other, I’d pick the HTC Sensation. Now before you jump all over me extolling the many virtues of the Galaxy S II, I should point out that this is purely a subjective opinion. What does it for me may not interest you in the slightest.

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HP TouchPad still going gangbusters

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I’ll come clean now: I’m just a teeny weeny little bit obsessed with the HP TouchPad. I mean, I really liked it when I originally reviewed it, even if I did find a number of flaws in the TouchPad’s hardware. But ever since Harvey Norman liquidated the TouchPads it had in stock for ridiculous prices – all of which sold out in an hour in Australia – it’s now become this ultra-desirable device that everyone is trying to get their hands on. There’s a discussion thread on Whirlpool where people (admittedly, most of them geeks) are talking about shipping TouchPads in from alternative sources post-fire sale, with most happily paying up to $300 in the hopes of getting their hands on one. There are also lots of people bidding up to $300 for TouchPads on eBay.

Ironically, killing the TouchPad has created more interest in it than it would have ever have gotten otherwise.Tech Crunch wrote a great article on this phenomenon called ‘HP Discovers the Wonderful Power of Scarcity‘. It’s a technique that Apple is pretty familiar with when selling its iPhone and iPads, and it’s what gets massive queues forming around the block whenever a new i-device is released. The TouchPad is the only other mobile device in history that’s resulted in queues, admittedly only when it was being liquidated, but still! HP has mentioned that it’s doing one last run of TouchPads for sale in the United States, but I reckon if HP sold them here at $250 for the 32GB model and $199 for the 16GB model, it would still sell like hotcakes. There’s nothing more desirable than a hard-to-get gadget!

I for one am hoping that the TouchPad isn’t the last we see of webOS. I wrote an article for PC & Tech Authority pointing at five signs that the TouchPad and the webOS platform aren’t dead, so fingers crossed, ey?

Samsung, me love you long time!

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Samsung has really hit it out of the ballpark with its latest round of product announcements, and my wallet trigger finger is now feeling extremely itchy!

Image from CNET UK

I can’t decide which of Samsung’s new Android tablets I like better. I love the Super AMOLED Plus display on my Samsung Galaxy S II, and having that same display on a tablet would just be the duck’s nuts! While I love my 9.7- and 10-inch tablets, they do get heavy in my handbag I think 7 or 7.7-inches is the perfect size for everyday usage.

This makes the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 seem like my ultimate tablet. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m pretty pleased now with the apps selection on Honeycomb, and I could easily see this one becoming my ‘main’ tablet* if I was able to get my hands on it. Dual-core, WXGA res, 5100mAh battery, up to 64GB storage + microSD expansion and available with Wi-Fi, 3G and mobile telephony support – what’s not to like?

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My top 10 apps for Honeycomb

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In the past month, the apps situation has really improved for Honeycomb. I’m not surprised – there’s now like a gajillion Honeycomb tablets on the market now, and after the iPad, it’s got the largest user base in the tablet category. I’m actually pretty pleased with the Honeycomb-optimised apps that I’ve now got on my Motorola Xoom.

There are still a few things that I’d like to see, such as Honeycomb-optimised versions of Tweetdeck and Facebook, but on the whole there are enough quality apps out there that I actually feel comfortable recommending a Honeycomb tablet. It’s certainly not for everyone – there’s no way I’d advise my mum to get one, for example. She’s perfectly happy with her iPad and how simple it is to use. I’ve never tried to get her to use my Xoom, but I can just imagine her going cross-eyed and handing it back to me after a couple of seconds. Even I was a bit flummoxed the first time I used the Xoom, and actually had to refer to the user manual to figure out how it all worked!

Here are my current favourite top 10 apps that I use regularly on Honeycomb.

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