Alex Kidman

You know that whole idea of a work/life balance? Right at the moment, mine’s so tilted it’s essentially a work/work balance with the life hanging onto an edge somewhere by the very tips of its fingers. In fact, I think I just heard it scream as it inevitably let go.

Inbetween running a household and running after three kids and supporting an overworked prac student (who happens to be the woman I love), I’m also writing. A lot.

From what could be called my regular assignments, there’s a MacTheMag blog entry:

MacTheBlog: A support issue: “It was at this point that I remembered the only other person I know of that readily identifies himself as a Genius. That would be Wile. E. Coyote, and I’m well aware of the success rate of his plans.”

At Geekspeak, musings on the use of a 1TB broadband plan:

Geekspeak: What can you do with 1TB of data? “What 1TB does buy you is a fair amount of security…”

At CNET.com.au, even more iPhone 4 cases have been tested:

30 best and worst iPhone 4 cases: “It’s raining iPhone cases around here, so we’ve added more to our original story, bumping up the case count from 25 to 30. More choice is good, right?”

And that’s not getting on to the other big writing task for the week as I take up a guest editor role at Gizmodo Australia. In just two days, I’ve written the following stories:

Breakfast Wrap: Best Of The Weekend
Vodafone/Three Pump Up Contract Data Caps
Telstra Unveils Ultimate Wireless USB
Get Your Kicks (On Your Wave) On Route 66
The Best Free WiFi Is Fast Free WiFi
Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Monday Night
Internode Fetches IPTV For Early Adopters
Even Apple’s Making The iPod Refresh Obvious Now
Confirmed: Xbox Live Price Increase Isn’t Coming Nov 1
Is This The Ugliest iPad Stand Ever?
Nice Power Brick. But Will It Fly?

And it’s still only Tuesday. The week is still young, even if I’m not.

Don’t worry, the subject line will make sense shortly. Trust me. I’m a journalist.

Another round of articles hits the virtual presses. First up, at PC Authority, a bit of an early peek at the wireless broadband guide in the issue that’s still on sale now, looking at Vodafone’s offering:

Vodafone isn’t the fastest, but it’s the value wireless broadband to buy: “Vodafone wireless broadband is an excellent value prospect as long as ‘fast’ isn’t on your horizon. See why it fares so well against Telstra, Optus, Three and Virgin.”

Then at CNET.com.au, a pair of reviews across familiar territory: 802.11n WiFi routers and PVRs:

Topfield TRF7160: “A PVR that performs the essential PVR functions, but without much in the way of grace.”

Belkin Double N+ Wireless Router F6D6230au4: “Belkin’s latest router performs adequately, but not quite well enough to justify its asking price.”

Before finishing up at MacTheMag with an article whose title was inspired by perhaps the cheesiest of cheesy 80s pop hits. Embedded below for your aural… erm… pleasure. While Apple never says anything about anything it’s planning to do, I’m confident this won’t be the advertising theme song for the iPad.

MacTheBlog: Touch Me: “So the rumours go, all sorts of features of iPhone OS are going to leak over into Mac OS X 10.7…”

And now a little something to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Insert evil laughter here.

First up, today’s Vintage Tech column at PC Authority, which looks at the granddaddy of the modern graphical browser:

Vintage Tech: Looking back at Mosaic: “The DNA of Mosaic runs through pretty much any modern Internet browser. So what did it look like, and why was it so special?”

It might be obvious that I’ve been pretty flat out of late. But it’s nothing in comparison to a month ago, where I was running all over town (and across several states) testing wireless broadband solutions. Testing them at home. Testing them in Queensland hotel rooms in the middle of a monsoon. Testing them by a river in the middle of regional New South Wales. Testing them (to the amazement of the staff) in a coffee shop in the CBD of Sydney. There’s nothing quite like pulling out half a dozen netbooks and firing them all up at once to run tests to draw stares. Well, more stares than I draw normally, anyway.

The end result of all this bandwidth burning and city hopping? A comprehensive guide to mobile broadband performance and mobile broadband deals, in this month’s print edition of PC Authority which should be on sale now. Tell them I sent you, and you’ll get no discount whatsoever, but may get stared at funny, just like I tended to while testing!

Yep, it’s this week’s hot-button topic, again, this time at PC Authority:

iPhone Plan Picker: Best deals for Light, Medium and Heavy users: “To go with Telstra, or not to go with Telstra? Weigh up the decision with our full analysis of the best deals in three scenarios, as well as the best overall iPhone 3G plans from Optus, Vodafone, and Telstra.”

C’mon… you know the Onion will be doing it.

In the meantime — an iPhone story! What a shock! This time, at PC Authority:

Vodafone confirms iPhone prices, Telstra reveals which shops are stocking: “Low-cost monthly repayments are good, but 24-month plans seem mandatory. Plus, why we’re worried about Telstra’s iPhone plans.”

Apple’s NDA on the iPhone 3G expired this morning at 12:01am, local Sydney time, and predictably, there’s a flood of reviews online right now. Like, for example, mine, live now at GadgetGuy.com.au:

Apple iPhone 3G: “Apple’s 3G iPhone isn’t quite as revolutionary as the hype might have you believe. Indeed, an awful lot of what it does is replicated on any number of other phones. Where it absolutely leaves those phones in the dust is in ease of use, thanks to the slick interface, excellent embedded browser and ease of adding applications to the phone. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a phone that’s also genuinely fun to play with, either.”

(as a side note, can people please stop referring to it as the “Jesus Phone” now? By definition, when Jesus returns, he’s not going to need a phone. He comes, as it were, with inbuilt communications facilities…)