First Contact

So here we go.

 I did initially plan on setting this up yesterday, the day that I started working on the Project while the school term had started, but, well, it didn’t happen. Admittedly, I did waste a lot of time watching footage of the Macworld conference 2007.

 So what is the purpose of this blog? I never really got into blogging before, but I just love WordPress, so I wanted to make one. Soon I’ll get this up on my very own site. So the purpose: my plan is to use this online blog to document the significant portions of my work-related life. Without a doubt, this will be the hardest year of my life, simply because I am preparing for the Project whilst at the same time continuing with my school work.

 I don’t intend anyone else to be reading this. It is purely for my own records. If someone does find it, I hope you are intrigued at the least and (although this is a bit egotistical) hooked at the most I always wanted to be able to write compelling stuff.

 I managed to get 4-5 hours of work done yesterday. Less than I’d hoped, but not bad nonetheless. I’ve been working on the Project since around the 1st of January 2007. But only in bits and pieces. Yesterday was probably quite close to how I expect most Project days to go in terms of work done, style of working, answering questions, etc.

 Why am I so elusive about this Project? Well, it’s because I don’t want to go broadcasting it to anyone who happens to stumble on this page. More will be revealed in due course, and perhaps once the Poject is complete I will reveal all, but total completion will take a good few years. I will say more once the First Phase is complete.

A little about the Project As I said above, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  In fact, it is definitely going to be THE hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I don’t think there will be anything harder that I could do. And the First Phase is the hardest of this. To be accurate, I should say: First Phase will be the hradest thing that I could ever do.

A little about me I’m attending a school currently. No more details than that. My interests include writing, reading, technology, being a general anti-Apple/pro-Microsoft (generally though, not crazily), and commenting on current affairs. I’m not saying any more, except that as I make posts, I will no doubt mention things that will give away little tidbits of information about me and my life. Watch out for them, if you’re really that interested.

 I saw the footage of Macworld 2007. I must admit that I was quite taken-in by Steve Jobs’ excellent showmanship, and got hooked on the iPhone. But then I turned off my PC to get some work done on the Project, and found myself thinking about it a bit more. Then I realised, that in fact, it isn’t all that great. Sure it looks nice and has a nice screen and a cool interface, but my Sony Ericsson k800i does everything a smartphone and the new iPhone does, without any problem. So the screen is smaller on my phone than on Apple’s, but it’s bright and clear. And the camera is almost as good as my stand-alone digital camera (also Sony btw). I just remembered, he didn’t actually show much about the camera, maybe that was because it wasn’t ready yet or wasn’t very good. Disappointing that it was only 2 megapixels (mine camera phone is 3.2Mp). And anyway, are you really going to be sitting there looking at your phone? I think not. I use mine to make calls every so often, check texts, and listen to music when I’m on the Tube. I don’t want to be holding my phone out for all to see it gleaming and luring thieves and yobs with its One Ring type powers while I watch a video or film on it.

 And that’s the other point. To be able to fully enjoy the product, you have to be continually buying films, tv shows, etc from iTunes. I don’t have the money for that. I would have been interested if I could put my store-bought DVDs and home recorded TV (if I had any worth watching) on to the iPhone, but no doubt the machine uses DRM to prevent anything but iTunes-bought content from going on.

 And it sure is nice to have email and cool looking web browsers on your phone, but how much is that going to cost per KB or MB from the service provider? A lot. And why would you want to put your personal pictures on the phone? Are you really going to sit somewhere showing people all your photos? It’s only going to make it much worse when you lose your phone with all your home albums on it! He makes  a big deal about scrolling through lists of contacts and songs with your finger, but he always seemed to use his fingernail to scroll. I wonder what would happen if you scroll with the pad of your finger. I bet the iPhone recognises that as a [selection]. And anyway, if you have a big list, you just use the keypad to select the letter of the alphabet you want. On my phone you can even type in a name buy pressing the required sequence of keys in rapid succession (as if you were writing an old style (pre T9) text message):

 “1″ twice (for B), then
“2″ twice (for E), etc till you get “Ben” or whatever.

We’ll see how it goes, but I don’t think it is as much a must-have as Jobs made it seem. Enough for now I think, I’m very hungry. I’ll post again tonight once I get some more Project done. Keep reading (if you actually are reading).