Recently in NewsFlash Category

Alright, in the journey towards a life living with both OSX and XP operating systems on a MacBook Pro, I will post my findings here.

The first one is that the keyboard layout of the Mac doesnt have all the PC functions, and is set towards a OSX use, and one of Mac's coolest features is the backlight of the keyboard, and the backlight of the apple logo on the back.

The input remapper ive found does both of the above for your XP install.
This tool lets you configure input bindings to add some PC functions to your Mac layout, plus it ads the backlight to come up when its getting darker around you :)

(could only find pic of black macbook showing backlight)

Yay, lets start the new year with death, the one from the "good riddance" kind! Sony BMG plans to drop DRM, to be the last major company that was still holding on to the technology to protect.. yeah.. to protect what!?..lol prolly to protect the high profit margin, thats all it was doing.. pff killing every other opportunity for the artist I still believe. Finally they understand, "The customer is always right!"

Good move from the Bosley's! YAY

http://www.iseekgolf.com/news/11221

Well done guys!

I probably wont be able to reach you this week on the phone, having your cell # exposed to millions of golf fanatics :)
Good luck mate!

Its high summer in Australia, and today it was around 39 - 41 degrees, a very hot day.
These days trigger bush fires, and normally you see it on the news and sometimes you can see the glow in the far distance, or you have the smoke and smell from far.

|- taken from our backyard

Today we have a bush fire just opposite of our valley, and thats a little bit to close for me if I may say so.

|- fire chopper flying over backyard

The last daylight hours of today was a noisy one with fire trucks coming past and choppers flying over. Dunne if the famous Elvis was involved but our local park was host for all choppers and trucks, and when I passed I could see the big fire chopper that was flying over our house during daylight parked.

|- elvis?? - nearby park - FYI on the far left is a full size truck, just to show how big that chopper is

So far there was no need to worry, according to the news.. and I dont see to many people panic, so thats ok.. i think.

Ally went with Justin (Nephew) out to have a little look closer today, and took this picture:

|- taken as close as Ally could come to the fire

Still from the backyard you can see the glow on the other side, and they hope its under control by the morning as then they expect the wind to change.

|- taken from our backyard

Any way again, the way its in the news and the way people around are taking it, it should be ok! :)

****UDATE**** (23-01-07)
They had to close the freeway one more time due to too much smoke and too close to the fire, and after that they got it complete under control.
It has been a constant chopper flying over and you can smell the burning almost everywhere.
The wind was the biggest problem, but the good thing was they expected rain on Wednesday and like al weather predictions go wrong, it came luckily early.
So finally it’s cooling down and some extra aid for all the fire fighters.

Amazingly how everything took place so calmly.. very good stuff!
A cheer for the fire fighters! HOOYAH !!

Now this is a gr8 joke..

Danger Mouse (Producer of Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley ao).
replaced 500 copies of Paris Hiltons "Horrible" CD with his remixes and on her cover created offensive artwork and text
:P

I'm on a new project at the moment, and it is a very interesting one. I work for a company called Silicon Control, who develop and sell software and hardware to monitor the levels of gas and water tanks etc. In example they sell the products to gas companies whom hold 1 to 100+ and even 1000+ gas stations to measure and maintain the levels of the main tanks, so they can see when to send the truck out for refilling etc.

They’ve got a couple of ways to retrieve the data, by radio transmitter that is hooked up to another device on the phone line, and today I've attended a meeting that showed a great new and flexible technologie to send the data across.
They've developed everything themselves and the products are used all over the world.

My dear friend Wayne (Vision golf balls) told one of our basketball team members what I've done for logoballs.com.au (tnx buddy), and so "Tony" who i've been playing basketball with now for the second season, invited me to his company to see if I can do some work for them.
They have made a program (gaslog) that harvests all the data, and pushes all the info and options forward onto the screen.
And now they are developing a web based version of some services they have for the costumers.
The last couple of days I’ve worked hard to give theirs in asp.net written web application some fresh new looks.

Today I did my presentation on my work, and its an all a "go forward deal".
They are going to use my User Interface (UI) idea for the application. YEAH!
I'm am first off all, most proud to work with these people as they are very knowledgeable and interesting people (all engineers), and also that my work is going to be published onto a great program that will be distributed all over the world.

(sneak preview of my design) To my knowledge also the Dutch based "Primagas" works with their software and hardware. I work closely and very pleasant with Tony as Director of the company and Brian the developer of the program. PS. The top logo image I quickly recreated from the existing gaslog logo as background for my presentation, and now the other director wants to use it to.. lol

Steve Irwin - Link ninemsn.com.au

After saving my ass more then 10 times (all-in), and out playing around 450 people, in 5.5 hours of playing poker... I had to give in.. havent picked up a good hand after first table, playing only on the blinds to survive (pokertalk for hangin in there).. I met my end result, top 40.. no price no nothing..
Gr8 tournament tho, to bad couldnt play a decent hand when i needed to and also going down to a 60 to 40 % hand fav..
Thats poker...next season another chance!

Everyone who reads this.. have a beer/drink on me!
Its my 34th Bday today.. July 10th !

I'm not doing much today with it, as I said in the post before I'll go to my poker night this evening.. we got a family picknic this sunday to celebrate my and justin's and Lisa's bday.. and I know Ally has booked a trip to a secret destination in a few weekends! So thats enough fuzz..

Cheers everyone!

Guess what after almost 2 months I finally have my w800i replaced, and now I can use my MMR-60! Just to give u a little side story how Fonebiz (shit) repair centre in Brookvale handled this case.. ahum.
My problem was that the w800i worked fine, but just didn’t connect with the MMR-60 radio transmitter.

First everything was possible at fonebiz and the phone would be fixed within a day.
They forgot to look at it, when I came back that day and “Aaron”, the guy that served me said “I put my best engineer on it and he will work on it straight away!”. Those lines always give me the creeps.. anyway, the engineer couldn’t fix the problem by switching some components in the phone and at the very end of the next day fonebiz told me they had to order a new phone for me.. meanwhile they have given me a temporary phone type Brick from year 1963 .. grr.. This was just before Easter, and I thought “ no way” .. Im not going to run around with this piece or crap as temp phone, I want atleast some of my functionality back of my w800i.

The hour before driving off to the mountains for Easter, I went over and decided to pull my phone out of the repair scheme so I could use it for the long weekend, as fonebiz first said they needed my phone in order to get the new one, thought that was silly but hey.. whoami. I asked again if they could launch the request without my phone present, and willing enough fonebiz said “ yea..” sure lets try.
2 Weeks have passed, and I called in again, they said no problems, we are still waiting for your phone, call in later.. 1 week later, I called in again.. same story.
Then a week after that I got a call from “Aaron”, if I could tell them what my provider was so they could order the correct phone!.

”WHUT” !, euhh.. take deep breath, count till 10.. breath out…

“Aaron” I said… in my best forgiving way, you suppost to order the phone way before that, and besides that you know I am provider in depended as I’ve pulled my card out now 4 times before your nose.. also to put it in that “BRICK™” of a lone phone!
“ Yea yea.. sorry sorry.. mix-up here.. we will order the correct phone.. thank you!
At least 2 weeks later,.. I called up again, and asked the status of my phone. Euh… yea.. sorry we need your phone in order to get the new one ! “ *Sigh* “ !
I had almost a book full of lines that I wanted to yell out to him.. but kept my kewl, and did some grumpy huffing and puffin.. told him that he could have figured that one out almost 2 months ago.
Any way.. luckily my buddy Wayne had bought the same phone but hadn’t used it yet.. so he said you can have my phone in the mean time until you new phone arrives, As I was afraid that now I would be out of a decent phone for a while.. and wouldn’t like to walk around with that “BRICK™” from the stone age.
I switched my card to Wayne’s phone, brought the phone in and went home.
Guess what… next day early morning I get a text message saying your phone is ready to be picked up! Grrrrrr….within half a day.. Amazing.. I mean after all that before, I felt like “ could you please give my efforts for replacement etc.. a bit more credit.. and wait a couple of days.. lol.
Any ways I can now listen to my 2gb of MP3’s from my phone on the radio! And got a brand new phone.. (I did gave the brand brand new one to Wayne tho).

The MMR-60 is a very kewl device, the reception to the radio is alright.. I’ve got my antenna in the back of the car and have to put the phone in the middle console to have a clear pick-up.
The sound quality is a bit less but acceptable! The coolest future is that the MMR-60 glows on and off during play.. very nice.

Sorry for being quiet for a little while, being unemployed really is a very busy and time consuming occupation.
And I’v got some more stories like this that I’m gonna write of my chest here.. so beware !