Category Archives: Personal

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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Back on deck, TouchPad and tablet musings, and photography

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Wowsers, I haven’t posted since April! It’s been a pretty wild ride since then, let me tell you! Taking care of the baby while continuing to freelance from home has been challenging to say the least, but I feel extremely blessed nevertheless.

Work doesn’t seem to have slowed down at all since I’ve had the baby. I’ve been busily writing for APC, PC & Tech Authority, Tech Living and Ninemsn as per usual, and I’ve also picked up regular work writing tutorials for Smarter Business Ideas and reviews for Delimiter. But you know, I miss blogging! I like having this little corner of the Internet where I can talk about all of the latest gadgets and technologies that excite me.

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New baby boy!

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Apologies for the lack of posts! I actually gave birth to a baby boy last Sunday, 17 April, and have spent the rest of the week recuperating. I will be back to work “soon”. In the meantime, here are some photos I took of my son, Jacob Peter McCosh, on my iPhone.

Break in your regular programming

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I’m a bit behind with my daily blog posts! I was going to catch up over the weekend, but I’ve unexpectedly had to go to the hospital due to some complications with the pregnancy. Nothing alarming, but they’re keeping me here for a couple of nights for observation. Will try and make up for lost time as soon as I’m out of here. Thankfully, I have lots of companions to keep me company: a loaner 15in MacBook Pro (latest model with Sandybridge), a 1TB portable hard drive filled with movies, my iPad 2 for playing Words with Friends, my Kindle for reading books (now 83% of the way into The Wise Man’s Fear: The Kingkiller), a stack of magazines, a Nintendo 3DS with a few games (that’s just a blog post begging to be written right there!), and my Samsung Galaxy Tab because, well, just because, and my iPhone 4 for the same reason. Actually, I’m using the latter two devices because they both have generous data plans attached to them!

The life and times of a pseudo geek celebrity

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Gratuitous shot of me with Mr Big! (me on the left)

How funny is this: twice in the past week, I’ve been “recognised” as a tech writer/blogger in my wheeling and dealings on Gumtree and eBay. The first time was for when I was selling my Nintendo DS Lite on Gumtree – the buyer said he recognised my name from articles I had written for APC magazine. Ha – goes to show that at least one person in the country reads that stuff :P

But the second time was even more random: I bought some Dell Streak accessories on eBay (the official car kit and an extended Mugen battery), and since the seller happened to live in Coogee, which is seriously just a hop, skip and a jump from where I live, I offered to pick the goods up in person. When I got there, the seller surprised me by saying “By the way, I have you to blame for me buying a HTC Advantage years ago!” What?! Turns out he recognised my name from when I used to blog for Gear Diary! So, so random, my world shrank to the size of a peanut at that exact moment!

Reminds me of another time – at least five years ago now, although my concept of time is pretty bad. I went to a Pocket PC Evangelist event in Los Angeles hosted by Dale Coffing (old-time Pocket PC geeks will recognise that name!), and he was nice enough to specifically say hello to me from the podium, hehe. At which point the (cute!) guy next to me wearing surgical scrubs introduced himself and said that he was a regular reader of my blog! Haha, it was probably the most famous I’ve ever felt – and will ever feel – in my life :P

The perils of procrastination

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It’s amazing all of the little activities and tasks that your mind can come up with in the name of procrastination. It’s 1.30PM here in Sydney and I still haven’t done any substantive work – urgh! In addition to the usual time-wasters like reading Facebook and Twitter (I use Tweetdeck, and with so many contacts, it takes a long time to read every single update!), playing Words with Friends HD, and reading the book of the moment (Fortune Cookie, by Bryce Courtenay, which I’ve finished now!), I was suddenly inspired to do lots of other things that I’ve been putting off, like paying bills, adding important appointments to my calendar, scheduling my car to be repaired, and buying a third bar stool to match the two that I bought on Gumtree a couple of days ago. These were all things that had to be done regardless, but they took on a special urgency in preference to getting some actual work done.

Oh yes, and I’m blogging right now about virtually nothing when I should be working! :P Okay okay, I’m going to clear out all the clutter from my desk and office, and then wash the dishes, and maybe put a load of laundry on, and then I’ll get down to some real work!

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