chinese curse...?

The one I'm thinking on is 'may you live in interesting times' .

We've just spent a bomb on upgrading servers, new gear in the form of workstations and screens, tablets etc. So what happens?

We've just had a couple of weeks of technology problems. Super duper (hideously) expensive printer decides to throw a wobbly, our new servers didn't want to talk to each other and lastly, our broadband went down with the outage last weekend that hit 500 or so companies all over the UK. So we reconfigured our router, then discovered that the local area workgroups (3 of them) had also lost their settings. Ahh the joys..

All fixed now however, and no clients affected.... but we are looking at a dedicated leased line...

easy eizo...

I was persuaded to try out the new Eizo screens, so I got a 24" one. Very nice... it even senses if you are there and switches off if you aren't....

iPhone -uPhone...

I've talked to 3 people recently that are all getting rid of their iPhones... why?... they're brilliant at doing everything (there's an App for that) except being a phone. Poor reception, tinny voice reproduction etc are starting to piss people off.

Interestingly enough, business people are looking seriously at windows mobile and android phones.

Pourquoi... because 'there's an App for that' has been around a LOT longer for windows than the Mac ones. I've used HTC's and iPaqs for almost 10 years and been using many of these interesting functions - such as restaurant finders, travel planners etc, email etc.

I think Apple will have to look to their laurels when people realise there are many other better options out there - especially with the new samsung phones.

rounded or square...

I'm amazed at how many of the people coming into the industry have narrow minds. The lack of roundness in their education astonishes me. I recently had a placement tell me that they had applied for a high-end job (50k level) and hadn't received a reply. This from someone with NO industry experience. They really thought they were worth that, yet this person couldn't use illustrator or half of the other industry standard programmes.

further gadget thoughts...

I'm a bit unusual, in that, I don't see the use of iPhones. There's an App for that , to me, is quite funny, as most of these 'Apps' have been available for Windows Mobile phone for many years, and in addition, Apple products are notoriously a pain at integrating with PC's and PC software (Outlook?).

However, as per usual, Apple make some pretty slick interfaces for their products, and it is good to see Apple doing something better than some of the Windows interfaces around, with one exception - the HTC 'cube' on my last HTC phone... very nice... Maybe the other windows and android phone manufacturers can get a handle on better UI's...

gadgets, gadgets everywhere...

I decided I needed a new mp3 player, so looked at the new iPods, but discovered that they've dropped the sleep timer, which is a shame as I really need this due to falling asleep listening to music.

So I decided on the new Samsung YP R1 16 gb player,a lovely bit of kit and reckoned to be as good as the iPod , but with a better interface .. well maybe.

Then I realised I have a state-of-the-art phone with mp3 player (good sound as well) with an 8gb hard disk.So I treated myself to a top-end pair of in-ear headphones, and hey presto...

how the other half live...

My partner and myself were at her sister's wedding last week at Gosfield Hall . Very beautiful place and amazingly well run by Jen and her staff.

Like most blokes, I don't particularly like weddings, however, this was different. Everything stunningly well organised, with no pressure to move from location to location (as with some other weddings I've been at), and every one was laid back and happy.

Well done Jen and staff...

plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose..

For those who don't speak french, basically it means - always change, but always things remain the same... I understood how wise the French were to come up with that saying when I realised, during a week off last week, that myself and the whole team are working flat out, and have been for several years now.

So to cheer them up, I'm a) looking for some new people and b) taking them karting in a few weeks (this is before their sky-dive for charity)...

Should be fun...

addendum...

We've been keeping an eye on the AIFF website to ensure that it's behaving properly (in SEO terms), and it's now number 2 in 'international football festivals' on Google after 2 weeks.

Needless to say, the whole team's chuffed...

mad few weeks...

Well, we did the international football festival branding, and were bowled over by how well it was received. Working right up to 15 minutes before the launch party, we actually managed to get a 40 page website up and running (though there will be a lot of content amends coming due to a lack of time to produce this by the content providers) . It was a buzz seeing our work going out, yet again, to the international market.

And to cap it all, we got this incredibly nice email from the chairman, singing our praises and complimenting the team.

football... mad?

We have had quite a few interesting briefs recently, not least being the Aberdeen International Football Festival. We've been asked to come up with fresh branding, printed products and a website.

What makes this quite ironic is that, this is the 2nd football branding in a month, and I have never followed the game, yet, a junior I had a number of years ago was football-crazy and would have given his right nut for a job like this.

Weird how it works...

other things...

I received a pair of Nikon binoculars for my Christmas (no, no, not for anything like that) because I want to go twitching again (bird-watching) . However, with the amazingly mild winter (sic) and flat out working, they are still sitting in the drawer.

As the Scots Bard said 'the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley'

I'll get round to it...