Albeit a very different christmas from home, it was a great christmas here, We had a giant dinner on Christmas eve (10 of us) which was really really nice. We then spent the whole of Christmas Day on Bondi beach, It was the busiest beach I have ever been on in my life, The papers said the total ranged from 10,000 to 12,000 , which is a lot of people to be on a beach. I have a few pictures from Christmas eve and christmas day bit for now I've just uploaded a couple, one of me looking very pale and one of gillian not looking pale. I got what I wanted for christmas.. A victorinox swiss tool x (similar to a leatherman). It has everything you could possible need, I got books and aftershave and DVD, and money… so all in all I am a very happy camper.. not so happy as i have to go back to work on the 29th. It was great to hear from all my family over the christmas, I hope they enjoyed their presents and their christmas. Untill next time have a happy new year…..Phil

Well Well, It sure wan't a good week for me now was it,
I lost all my phone numbers from my phone.
I had to be rescued by life guards at Bondi beach on sunday.
I went down to the beach with some of the lads and after applying suncream I ran into the sea with my boogie board, I was playing around about 20 yards or so out , I looked around and I was suddenly about 100 metres out (more maybe, it was hard to tell). What had happened was that I got caught in a riptide (wikipedia link), and could not get out of it no matter what direction I swam in, I tried for what seemed like ages. I then shouted a nearby surfer for help who went off to get help, In the mean time I began waving, a lifeguard saw me and came out on his special surfboard which i lay on and he powered home. It was a scary time and it took alot of self control to remain calm, if I didn't have my boogie board, I probably wouldn't be writing this… so I have learned a valuable lesson this weekend… always back up your phone book …. No I'm joking, the lesson I learned was to treat the ocean with the utmost respect and also to wear flippers when on a boogie board. So from a shaken but fine me, have a good christmas and remember to wear your flippers. Sya

I have just managed to Delete all my phone numbers on my phone by using iSync incorrectly……………………Arghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!…. and just to rub it in, I've been walking around all morning with a giant hole in the crotch of my jeans……. If only I had a time machine… Please mail me all the phone numbers you think I might need :)… No scratch that email all your numbers… I need numbers folks, the only number left was my own number

Romeo is one of the handiest Programs (free of course), It lets you use your Sony Ericsson T68i to ontrol your laptop via bluetooth, there are several plugins, including mouse control, volume control, bluetooth disconnect, DVD player remote, PowerPoint Presentation controller and many more. It means that as I sit watching dvds, I never have to leave my seat, I just control the Player using my Phone…….. tres wicked.

Firebird was messing around today on my Mac so i needed a re-install, doing this I also installed Mozilla 1.5, As Aggreg8 works with both, I installed it on both, I did not want to have to copy the subscriptions file everytime I made a change so I created a symbolic link (mac calls them aliases) from my firebird subscriptions file to where the mozilla subscriptiosn file sould be… It works sweeter than ever now, I can change subscriptions and the changes will appear in both instances of Aggreg8 :).

I've put up a few more photos in the "Life in Sydney" album .. enjoy.

I've been crazy busy so sorry for the lack of posts.
I have been thinking about my trip to asia in may and I found a site detailing the Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur by train trip, which sounds really cool and i reckon i will do that instead of fly.

BBC have a new RSS explantion page with links to all their RSS feeds, And yes of course they all work with Aggreg8 🙂 . I have been given a finish date for the project I am working on now which is the 6th Feb, Hopefully I can get a couple more weeks after that as that would suit me perfectly……as March 1st my 12 week trip home starts.

You have got to check out WorkSpot.net, I tried the Demo and was mega impressed, It's a Virtual linux desktop running inside a java Applet. I was pretty slow but I was still impressed.US$9.95 is pretty steep though (not really but I'm a cheapskate). You can see a screen dump to the left (click to see the larger version [166Kb]).

On another note… No Dooley i am not drivng the campervan across the sea to New Zealand.

Well I finally made it to 24 🙂 .
We went on an absolute mad one on saturday and I was severly punished….. shots of god knows what were coming at me from all angles, I did well though lasting through to 6:30. On the right you can see the Bluetooth mouse that all the lads got me, (there is a tradition here that everybody contributes to a present for the brithday boy/girl…. it's really cool , especially so when I saw my present). As with all things apple, this mouse rules!!!!!. Just whip out the iBook and the mouse and away you go, no wires, no fiddling with setting up the device each time.. really impressed. I got a wicked cool Crocodile Dundee hat too from Gill. Thanks to all for the presents and for coming out last saturday folks, much appreciated.

Campervan: We finally booked our campervan for our epic journey. It will cost about $3500 for 8 weeks in a really nice campervan. We'll  be travelling from Sydney (march 1st) to Adelaide (march 23rd) to ChristChurch NZ (march 23rd) to Auckland NZ (30th may). We then fly to Malaysia to spend about a month in asia (providing we have enough money left). While we are travelling from Sydney to Adelaide we will be stopping off to watch the Melbourne Grand prix which should be wicked.

A while back I was bitching about Apollo and their appalling customer service, well we sent a letter of complaint  and yesterday we received a refund for $55 which covers nearly all outlays bar petrol… which is a nice result but doesn't take away from the fact that their customer service reeks. Anyway thank you Apollo, for all the grief that is.

If you are a developer and you have to develop for IE (and multiple versions at that), you might want to check out the following article on how to have multiple instances and different versions of IE running on the same machine (windows).

2^nd December 2003.

It was years since I last watched "My Left Foot", we watched it last night and it was as brilliant as ever. I have been busy in work so I haven't been able to update that much, I did manage a new favicon today 🙂 (A favicon is the icon that appears to the left of the url in the location bar.). I am still loving the IBook and have just installed Macromedia Flash MX and Adobe's Illustrator and Photoshop so If time permits I should be churning out some quality graphics soon. All the work crew went out for our christmas dinner in the "The best Thai restaurant in Sydney" on Tuesday….. It was a really really nice meal and I am starting to really like Thai, apart from the whole stick a peanut sauce on it philosophy. I found today another Macromedia Product (a free one this time), Macromedia Central, a really neat cross platform web application framework, You even get a few bundled with the install, including an RSS Aggregator which seem to work well (not as well as Aggreg8 of course). I got some MP3's from Endas IPOD so my Iriver is now Jam Packed with nearly 2000 songs… should be wnough to keep me occupied on my train journeys…. anyway that's it for now :).

At last I win some dollars in Tab (bookies)… only about $20 mind you. For all you England haters out there 🙂 :). Result aside it was a thrilling match, a fitting final. I watched on a Huge Screen in the Rocks in Sydney with Thousands of English and Australian fans …. really good atmosphere.

On another note.. Happy Birthday to my Dad today (http://www.gerryroche.com)