Alex Kidman

Today was a day when just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. And then some. To put it in perspective, I sat down to start working this morning at 7:20am.

I actually started getting productive work done at 4:22pm.

Yeah, it’s been one of those kinds of days. I need a long cool drink. While I hunt one down and terminate it with extreme prejudice, why not peruse my review of Asus’ attractive little EeeBox at CNET.com.au?

Asus EeeBox PC EB1501: “Asus refers to it as a “ballerina-inspired” design, and we almost get what it’s aiming for there. Although we’ve never seen a black or white plastic rectangular ballerina. Perhaps ballet’s changed radically recently, and we failed to notice.”

OK, now iTunes is getting very random. Think I’ll adopt a new post naming scheme in the new year. But what should it be?

In the meantime, the run towards Christmas sees a lot of articles being written at a frantic pace, which inevitably leads to them being published. My long running series of iPhone App articles continues at PC Authority:

Amazing Apps for your iPhone: Find Food Fast: “Whether it’s advisable to let drunk people imbibe lots of grease is left as an exercise to the App user, of course…”

Meanwhile, at CNET.com.au, I’ve been listening carefully. Mostly for wild animals who might otherwise eat me, that is:

Asus HP-100U Dolby Headphone Set: “Gamers with a penchant for very loud explosions will like the HP-100U, but those who want distinct audio levels will want to listen elsewhere.”

World of Zoo: “Animal-obsessed kids will be in seventh heaven with World Of Zoo — and they might even learn a little along the way.”

Astonishing what iTunes throws up on random some days to make up my subject lines. Hadn’t thought about that song in years. I’m willing to bet you haven’t either…

And that’s as good a random segue as any into today’s articles. Firstly, online. At CNET.com.au I dip into notebook territory:

Asus UL50Vt: “The UL50Vt’s black style almost makes it look like an evil, but considerably cheaper MacBook Pro model…”

(nb: Those who prefer a more business-style spin (and advertising) with their notebook reviews can read the same thing here at ZDNet)

At PC Authority I’ve been doing some cooking with iPhones. Not that they get quite that hot, but anyway:

Amazing Apps for your iPhone: 6 apps to turn your iPhone into a recipe book: “No recipes that use Alcohol, Anchovies and Baking Powder? Fail.”

Then in the print world, there’s the January 2010 issue of Australian PC User.

Please don’t ask me to explain magazine cover dates; we’ll be here all day and everyone will still be confused. Anyway, this issue chalks up an impressive twenty years of PC User, and means that in my own case, I’ve had articles published in the 20 year anniversary issues of both PC User and Australian Personal Computer. Although APC’s 20th was quite some time ago — I was still on staff there in that case.

I wonder how many of the gold boxes there are still around?

Anyway, my contributions to this month’s issue encompass reviews of Amazon’s Kindle, Virgin Mobile’s WiFi Modem, Uniden’s TRAX 5000 GPS, Toshiba’s 22DV615Y DVD/TV Combo, Flip’s MinoHD Camcorder, Jabra’s HALO Bluetooth headset and finally EA’s Beatles Rock Band. Phew. That should keep them busy for, say.. 20 years?

No?

Oh well. Back to the word mill then.

Thankfully, while the thin white duke is pretty famous, I’m not. Or at least not to the best of my knowledge. If there’s any paparazzi out there stalking me, they’re doing a very stealthy job of it.

There’s a lot of my work out there that I haven’t particularly plugged as yet. I’m blaming the 3,000km I drove over the weekend, including 1,500km in a single stint. Ow. My everything either hurts or feels like it’s dropped off. I’ll check which is which while you get on with reading it all.

Firstly, CNET.com.au has three reviews of mine:

Dell Latitude XT2 Tablet: “Dell’s tablet isn’t cheap, but it’ll appeal to the business crowd who desire a solidly built system.”

Asus O!Play HDP-R1 Media Player: “We can’t help it. We’ve tried long and hard, but every time we even think about mentioning the name of Asus’ HD Media streaming box, we have to suppress a childish giggle, simply because, by calling it the O!Play, we’re instantly reminded of a certain yoghurt brand…”

Jawbone Prime: “The Jawbone Prime’s ability to filter out nearby sounds is astonishingly good. We suspect black magic is at work here.”

And then at MacTheBlog, I’ve pondered Apple’s rather interesting attitude to how much memory should cost:

MacTheBlog: Memories: A Pricing Game: “There’s a certain small argument there, in that memory sticks put together by a guy in a shed in Dubbo probably aren’t quite as good as Apple’s, even if you do get a slab of beer with every order. But not all memory is sourced from Dubbo.”

“Make all women telepathic. Because if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads they’d kill us all on the spot.”

Mind you, there are some days when I’m not entirely convinced that isn’t already true. Also worth noting, of course, that the bloke who wrote that line will be in charge of Dr Who next year. Interesting times…

Meanwhile, in my continuing quest to be published as frequently as possible (which is, naturally enough, part of a possibly futile quest to be paid as frequently as possible), CNET.com.au has a couple more reviews of mine live today:

Asus RT-N13U Wireless N Router with All-In-One Printer Server: “Asus’ inexpensive 802.11n router is a bit of a bargain, although it does also bring with it some bargain basement sensibilities.”

Asus RT-N16 Wireless Router: “Asus’ high-end wireless router has plenty of throughput grunt, but we do wish the company would offer better support documentation.”

“I’d like to complain about that last joke”
“Are you a frog, or David Attenborough?”
“Wait a minute… I’ll go check…”

All this Vinyl is still playing havoc with my subject lines. Meanwhile, at PC Authority:

Move over Hef – Asus moves into the Bunny Girl market: “ASUS unveils a rather risque advertisement for the Eee PC on YouTube, featuring short skirts and sexy women. Cheeky viral marketing — but there’s no Bunny Boy on the way.”

It’s been unusually quiet around here. Almost as though nothing was happening…

But that of course hasn’t been the case. I’ve been flat out over the past couple of days, both covering for Di while she had her first exams in deleted years, giving presentations to PR types about what it’s like being a freelance journalist, somehow getting officially older, getting a sneak peek at the Apple store prior to its opening (although poor health and other commitments meant I couldn’t make it to the official opening), and, naturally enough, writing enough down to keep the family alive. At least, I think they’re alive. I certainly don’t feel very alive right now.

While I recover*, why not read this news story, live right now at PC Authority?

Atom Eee to hit by the end of the month: “And guess what? There’s ONE price for Linux or Windows XP, and price drops for existing models.”

* And by “recover”, I sadly mean “get right back to work” — one of the perils of taking a couple of days off to cover for Di is a huge backlog of deadlines to attend to….

If you’d asked me eighteen months ago if I was going to be spending a significant amount of my writing time pursuing either Apple or ultraportable budget laptops, I would have answered “probably not”. And yet here we are, and here’s another story, live today at APCMag.com:

Asus opens up Eee PC to developers: “The Eee PC has joined the iPhone and Google Android in having a newly minted SDK being made available.”

Is it self-indulgent of me to link stuff that I haven’t written, but where I’m quoted as an expert in a given field?

Heck, yes it is. But that won’t stop me; it’s still Alex in published form:

A Wee PC is hard to get excited about: “To check that I wasn’t being a complete curmudgeon, I asked Alex Kidman, journalist and Eee user if he’d want to swap over…”