Quality - without compromise!
October 20th, 2008Yeah ok, it’s about the Mac Book and Mac Book Pro. It’s nice to read through the news and look at a company like Apple and see that - even though the companies shares are dropping - quality is still on the agenda for the company.
Yep, the Mac book.
I’m not going to write a review. Nor a “thing” about the Mac Book and how awesome it is.
You can read about that here.
In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for a way to get my hands on one…
Apple, thank you.
Warm regards,
Scott Malpass
Aquafruit Media
Mobility at it’s best.
September 22nd, 2008Okay, everyone knows that Australia sucks when it comes to broadband availibility and mobilty - even in capital citites. Given the geographical distance issues involved, it’s a wonder some times that Australia manages to keep up with technology at all.
Enough complaints. At the moment, I’m sitting in the middle of Federation (Fed) Square in Melbourne listening to the Police Big Band, waiting for a client to arrive for a meeting. Using the free Optus wireless that is available, entering the information into this Blog that sits on the server in the Aquafruit Office.
It would be difficult to do this in the middle of the Nullabore, but then again - with the satelite coverage that is available - maybe not!.
I have the prevelidge of having a brother who is not only technical in nature, he is also a satelite technician and like to keep me abreast of what is happening in the industry.
Enough said. As with any technological device or platform that is avaliable, there are pit falls, issues, problems and benefits.
From the benefits, it’s clear that Optus has it’s wireless technology down. At least in Fed Square. Good to see.
For those of you in the high rise corporate buildings around Fed Square, you may want to get out and about and enjoy the outdoors, great restaurants and the surrounds of Melbourne while still writing the emails that you need to.
Optus. Nice one.
Warm regards,
Scott Malpass
Aquafruit Media.
Downtime
August 17th, 2008It’s been a while. A while since I took a day off and a while since I looked after my mental health as well as my work health. Life balance - like Yeah! .. what ever ..
Well, it all catches up with you after a while. Since November, I have been working 18 hour days 6 to 7 days per week consistently up until two weeks ago. Why? - To keep up with demand.
Is it worth it? Well, ask any new business owner and see what they say!
Back to the downtime. After literally falling over about a week ago, I decided that there must be a better way to do things. AND - I have actually found a few.
These actually divide up into several categories.
* Technology
* Mental State
* Health
* Food
Let’s actually start with the technology.
Technology Number 1
First off - bad web sites, proxy-ing and http viruses. This also includes porn, specific web sites and other stuff. The solution: www.opendns.org.
These guys absolutely rock. Not only do they provide high speed world class DNS servers to use, they also blog sites, phy-ishing, spam, porn, warez (illegal sites) and so much more.
Sign up is totally free, painless and allows you to set up your external DNS references and let them do the work for you. From a network admin perspective, it’s totally awesome and recommended.
Technology Number 2
One of the best open source firewall/spam & virus filters/proxy solutions/hardware/software firewalls on the market. Endian.
Running a linux back end and web based front end, the Endian solution caters for 90% + of what’s needed for the average SMB/SME from a firewall/spam filtering/edge security appliance.
In some situations, I use it as a dedicated firewall OR, a spam/virus filter, or a combination of that and much much more.
Technology Number 3
Mac OS X, the iPhone and Mobile ME.
Mac OS X - I have written about this before. (This article is worth a read)
iPhone - I bought myself one about two weeks ago. Very, very cool and worth a look.
A few comments from Black Berry (BB) users - looks like the BB is better! - But, I like the iPhone. It’s sexy, functional and proves it’s worth in any business situation. OR in a personal situation for that matter.
Mobile ME. Flaky to start with, but starting to get there. It’s IMAP mail, OPEN CALDAV calendaring and more with limitations. Having said that, it also takes a normal exchange environment into a different direction.
More of a creative one I believe ..
Mental State
Okay, this is a difficult one. Really. The mental state as a director of a company is challenging at best and often difficult to maintain from a consistency perspective. BUT, having said that, there are some basic fundamentals that will always be the same.
Putting yourself into the correct state of mind for work can be pretty straight forwards once the routine has been established in the morning and evenings. Making sure you are on time, dedicated and focused so that “non-work” things do not interfere are obviously important, as well as listening to the people around you at all times.
But, what about the “Non-Director” side of things?
Downtime as well as work time is important for everyone. Often, this is overlooked as there is always “things to be done”.
But, as a good friend of mine has said, if you don’t “un-plug” then you can’t give 300% when you are focused and at work! Pretty well straight on the mark.
So, what does downtime actually involve for me?
Well, at the moment, I am currently sitting on the floor of my lounge, with the series of Star Trek Enterprise edition on (in the back ground), a cat behind me on the couch and my girlfriend in the background asking if I am blogging about her! (Yes honey! - Of course I am!)
Downtime for me is actually not working. Definition of not working: “Thinking about work”. It’s often hard not too (although, I have gotten past the 2 am wake up point) but doing so is an absolute necessity.
Enter the hobby.
My hobbies actually include a past profession as a musician. Having spent the better part of 15 years as a musio, it’s a lot of fun to “hop on the old bike” so to speak and learn how to play again. Having a passion as a musician for a wide variety of music, playing everything from Jazz (My training) through to what ever takes my interest (currently Spanish music) is inviting, exhilarating and lends to looking through the culture, food, people and history of Spain as a country. Very cool.
Health.
This one is a big challenge. The association within my head is one of time. Being healthy requires a lot of time. I’m still working on how best to change this perception within my head by placing the health (ie walking, running etc) side of my life into a “downtime” perspective and then by moving it to a routine of either morning or evening (or both).
Food.
Now. This is a very yummy subject worthy of mention. Quite simply, I Love Food! (Like most people). But, it needs to be good quality, tasty food that stimulates the taste buds and is a lot of fun to cook at the same time. Mixed with a really good wine, food is more than a hobby, it’s a passion. On this topic, look for a new vernture that is due to start called “Anyone can Cook.”
That’s it for now.
Warm Regards,
Scott Malpass
Aquafruit Media.
Tags: anyone can cook, downtime, food, health, Technology, time out
Evolution - Mobile Me and the rest of the world ..
July 27th, 2008{tab=Overview}
Ok, it’s been launched and a lot of the hype has died down. Or has it?
It’s not often that Apple follows instead of leading, and many may argue that mobile me is a “‘follow Microsoft” step, but from our opinion here at Aquafruit, that’s not the case.
What is mobile me? Apple totes it as “Exchange for the rest of us”. In a nutshell, it’s email, contact and calendar collaboration with the need to pay exorbitant amounts of $$ for licensing hardware infrastructure.
That is, you don’t need to buy a whole server and Microsoft Exchange environment to receive the same benefits.
But, Apple has gone a little further by combining online storage and picture galleries as well as the exchange collaboration environment.
It’s interesting to note, that as a potential “personal” exchange server option, there are still a few bugs and issues that need to be looked into (see the techy section).
Browse through the web and you can read all about it - the “issues” and “problems” with Mobile me. Fair enough. Microsoft didn’t get it right the first time either!
{tab=Perspective}
Mobile Me (MM)- in Perspective.
Let’s look at MM and see how it works. First off, syncing iCal / Entourage / Outlook with MM is pretty straight forward. Configure MM on either you Mac or PC and follow the wizard.
For those of you using Mac, it will be in your system preferences (see screen shot below) and for the PC, in the control panel.
The complete configuration details from Apple are here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/setup/
For Entourage people, there is a work around as MM will not sync with Entourage (yet!). You will need to sync entourage to iCal to MM and then MM to your other devices. ** Note, Entourage and iCal sync both ways - so iCal can just act as the conduit.
{tab=Techy Stuff}
** Things you need to know **
Syncing with windows - you don’t need to do anything - other than update iTunes, open control panel and configure Mobile Me.
** Problems. For those of us using Exchange accounts, people are encountering issues with syncing their exchange mail box with MM.
After a little investigation, it looks like this issue is mainly with Vista. For more information, see http://www.apple.com/support/
Mac and iSync
For the Mac people, you may encounter issues with syncing - and need to reset syncing on a regular basis. I have come across this issue quite a lot and find it annoying.
As iSync is used as the primary sync conduit, it may have something to do with multiple mobile phones being active at the same time.
Stability
It’s a known fact that there are stability issues with Mobile me at the moment. As expected will all services, there will be teething issues. More information on the current status of MM and current issues is available here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/
{tab=Other Alternatives}
Google apps?
I’ve been playing around with this one a little. Spanning sync and busy sync for the mac side of things almost work. Google has an iPhone app and a windows plugin that look pretty good at this stage, but I haven’t finished testing them as of yet.
More information is available here: http://m.google.com/
What about Exchange?
Connecting to and syncing with Exchange Server 2003 and above is pretty straight forward - from your iPhone to Exchange that is .. not to MM. Whilst the calendar side of either Mac or PC to MM is straight forward - I believe that more testing in volatile environments is required.
{/tabs}
In Conclusion.
Mobile Me looks pretty good. Let’s see what happens next!.
Warm regards,
Scott Malpass
Aquafruit Media.
