Category: Administrative

So this is post #1,000. It’s taken me a little bit under five years to get here, although the pace has picked up in recent years. I’ve also become slightly more tech focused and less parenting focused, but that’s mostly a factor of my kids getting older, and my own desires to maintain their privacy as much as is feasible. Intermittent trips into Hippos notwithstanding, the primary function of this blog still remains my technology journalism work

So, what to put into post #1,000? How about a little bit of everything?

On the parenting front, as noted, I’m not saying much. Except that I still love my kids to bits, and I’m very proud of how Miss 8 and Master 6 have been doing in their scholastic pursuits recently. This being Australia they’re being overshadowed somewhat by the kids who are keen on sports, but I don’t care. The sports kids will be on the front pages of tabloids and broken down at 30, while brains can last for decades…

On the writing front, an embarrassment of riches. Like many other journalists, I covered the announcements of plan pricing for the iPhone 4 yesterday; in my case at PC Authority:

Australian iPhone 4 plans and pricing compared: [UPDATED] Telstra vs Optus vs Vodafone vs 3: “Telstra, Optus and now Vodafone have announced Australian plan pricing for iPhone 4. Which is the better deal for the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4?”

iPhone 4 plan pricing also led into this week’s Hydrapinion column, talking about the realities of phone plan values:

Hydrapinion:What’s the value of a plan? “Amidst the never-ending hype prior to the Australian launch of the iPhone 4, there’s a critical detail that just about every single article I’ve seen to date has missed out. It’s a detail that’s crucial not only to iPhone users, but to anyone who uses a smartphone.”

And finally at CNET.com.au, a whole host of content. First of all, a genuine rarity for me — a product re-review. In the five plus years since CNET.com.au launched, I’ve only gone back once before, and that was for a product where testing equipment wasn’t available at the time of the original review. This one’s more an issue of a vendor stating that a firmware update fixed pretty much every problem I hit with the original unit, and insisting that the updated model was significantly better. But was it?

Astone Media Gear AP-360T: “Based on Astone’s claims, we were expecting much less fuss. But to put it bluntly, that’s not what we got.”

In the more regular review world, CNET.com.au also had these brand spanking new reviews:

Acer Aspire 5738PZG: “The 5738PZG is a solid enough workhorse of a machine at the asking price. Just don’t buy it for the touchscreen ability or the battery life.”

Acer Aspire 1820PT: “Acer’s 1820PT brings portability and excellent battery life firmly into the convertible tablet space.”

Sanyo DCDB10 DAB+ micro system: “Sanyo’s DAB+ micro system is high on price and low on real value.”

That’s a lot of content for one day, even for me. I’m beginning to think I might work a tad too hard.

Finally, not forgetting the Hippo-loving crowd — how about a picture of the Egyptian Hippo Goddess Taweret? A photo I took in Adelaide recently. I had no idea Adelaide housed statues of obscure Egyptian Hippo Idols, but there you go.

Now, on to the next thousand posts!