How I slashed 10 years off my mortgage

Mortgages – something most “grown-ups” have these days. Big heavy things that rest around your neck for 20, 30 or 40 odd years. I’ve even heard of some UK based mortgage companies allowing people to take on mortgages to be passed onto their kids.

Mortgages – the evil (?) that allow us to buy homes, businesses and other large scale items that in theory help us live our lives.

My mortgage has 26 years to run on it, it’s burning through my income like nothing else, and right now in the housing market the way it is, I’m not seeing the returns on the property that I might have 10 years ago. Still I’m not that far into the whole house ownership thing to worry about that. Sadly as mortgages as structured in the first few years you pay mainly interest, and a little principal.

My mortgage is up for renewal and an opportunity presented itself for me to make some significant in-roads into my mortgage.

How I slashed 10 years off my mortgage

Last time I renewed I was caught by the raising interest rates, the falling economy and a few other factors. My wife and I decided that we’d lock in at an “okay” interest rate for 18 months. That rate was just under 9% pa.

This meant we scrimped and fought for every cent & dollar to live – but at least we managed to pay the mortgage.

Now, 18 months on, we survived that time of tightness & sure we don’t have the new lounge suite, nor Sony Alpha DSL or 50″ Plasma TV and our kitchen isn’t finished.  But we made it.

Of course we are about to renew the mortgage at the current interest rate of just over 6% pa. That’s just shy of a 3% drop.

It dawned on us that we’ve already be paying $WXYZ a fortnight & haven’t really missed it (okay so we have missed it but…we survived) – so lets leave the repayments as they currently are. Sure it’ll continue to be a bit tight for another year or so – but we’ll slash 10 years off our mortgage & save ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest!

Learnings

If you have a mortgage, pay as MUCH as you can. You will be amazed how much difference $10 a fortnight can make. If you can go to $50, $100 or more … then do it. Sacrifice a little now – to gain a LOT down the track! Do you really need THAT 50″ Plasma or will your current TV do? Do you really need an iPhone or will your Nokia be fine for another year?

* note: of course I realise that in 12 months time when I renew again, interest rates will have changed and 10 years might end up being 8 years … but any year OFF the mortgage is a great year!

Challenges in life

Life’s one of those funny things, when you are in the middle of it there is always lots going on. When you look back, you wonder – what did I really do? What have I achieved? Of course the start of a new year is often prime time for thinking about these sorts of things.

How many times have you pondered: “how many hours did I waste in the office last year?” – don’t get me wrong (esp if my work mates or boss is reading this), I enjoy my job, even more so now that I’ve some new areas of responsibility. But life is too short to spend it all wrapped up in an office. I spend on average 8 – 10 hours a day sitting at a desk working. I’m blessed that my job is one that I am passionate about. Hey, I work in the web & mobile spaces – two topics I can easily talk & dream about all day long.

In 2010 however I want to explore ‘life‘ itself more. Of course 2 and a bit years ago my wife and I welcomed our darling little girl into our lives – she has taught me more about life than I think I’ve taught her about the world (alphabets etc). Coming home at the end of a day to see her at the back door with a big grin “Dadddddy” – yeah that’s life! To sit here trying to blog, with her banging away on the fireplace with a broken wooden spoon – it’s annoying, but it’s life.

So, what is 2010 going to hold for you? For me it’s going to be a challenge, a huge challenge. I’ve new areas of responsibility at work which excite (and scare) me. My wife and I are considering a new place to live, which leads us to the “do we sell this house or do we rent it out” type questions. And then I go and decide I want to race in the Transsyberia Rallye!

I’ve set up a whole project, website & twitter account for the Rally Challenge 2010 – and I encourage you to go check it out. Needless to say, I think once in a while we need to tackle and try the impossible. I might make it, I might not, but at least I’ll get to the end of 2010 & sit back with a beer and be able to say “Dang, I gave that a darn good crack & had a heap of fun on the way!”

So what are you doing for 2010?

Start-ups making a change for good

We hear many stories these days about start up businesses doing some amazingly cool things. It seems we are in the age of the entrepreneur, any one can start a new business, build it up and … well the number of people who’ve made millions (billions) from their start-ups is far greater in the past 10 years than it has ever been before.

We’ve start-up businesses that help us socially connect (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook), businesses that bring digital media to the TV (Boxee), businesses to help with our contacts (CloudContacts, Soocial), countless mobile phone solutions and many many more.

The internet has played a massive part in this generation of start-ups. Now anyone who can code HTML and CSS can build an online business – infact we’ve now got start-ups who specialise in helping you build your start up with less code (280Atlas). We are in the day and age where if you can dream it – you can build it (or find a person or tool set that can build it for you).

What’s beyond this?

Sure we know that the chances of your business making you as rich as Mark Z, or Sergey Brin are one in a hundred billion, in fact the chances of your start-up lasting longer than 18 months are slim to none. BUT, if you can pitch it right, get it in front of the right people and you have the right idea – with good investment and business advice you’ll have a FAR better chance of making it work!

No doubt you’ll be looking for investment in the tens of or hundreds of thousands. From time to time if you get “that” idea you might be looking for multiple rounds of investment with numbers in the millions. And that’s great, you’ll get rich, your staff will get rich and your investors will get rich.

Is there more than that?

What if YOU could invest in a business? What if you could help someone who is also pulling long hours, who’s future rides on this business? Could you help someone make a difference in their business to take it to that next level?

There are hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of small business owners in this world, itching for investment to help them take their business to the next level – and you & I can help!

While our technology start-ups need large sums of money, many life changing (hmm that should be life enabling) businesses, need just a few hundred dollars.

Kiva.org

You can think of Kiva.Org as an investment house – you sign up and for a minimum of US$25 you can invest in a business that can make a difference. The way Kiva works is pretty simple. Business owners (working with local Micro-finance companies) make an online profile, they tell you about themselves, their business (or idea) and how much they need to borrow. They also tell you about their repayment plan.

You simply look through the massive number of profiles, looking per country, or per industry type, or … like any sound investment advice you are encouraged to find businesses you are interested in. I love fresh bread so often look for those in the baking industry. I found someone yesterday looking to expand their organic coffee farm & anyone who knows me, knows I’m passionate about coffee.

Here’s a mind blowing fact for you, Kiva.org is on track to have distributed over US$100 Million in 2009 and aim to distribute over US$110 Million in 2010. That’s US$100 Million from people like you and me – going to start-up businesses that are life enabling for people, families and communities.

• Learn more (sign up & start loaning!) at Kiva.org

Freeset

Freeset is a Jute Bag & Organic Tee-Shirt start-up based in Thailand, a start up with a massive difference. Freeset specialise in creating jobs for those looking to escape prostitution in the streets & slums of Thailand.

Like Kiva.org, Freeset encourages you to get to know their story, to learn about the women who’s lives are changed through new jobs, jobs they can take pride in. You can get involved by supporting their business. Their Jute bags are awesome, and YES they can do custom orders for your business, event, show, group etc.

Is your start-up looking for swag? Why not create your own line of Jute Bags and/or Organic T-Shirts that are really well made, quite cheap and help this start-up business continue to make a massive difference

• Buy Jute Bags online
• Learn more about Freeset
• Learn more about custom Jute Bags for your conference, start-up or group
• Learn more about Organic Cotton Tee Shirts from Freeset

Summary

In a world of modern web & technology focused start-ups, it’s easy to get wrapped up with the dream of making ourselves wealthy. These pools of wealth affect usually only a small cross section of society – generally those in already “wealthy” nations.

It’s great to see other start up’s leveraging modern technology to fuel the growth of life enabling businesses – helping us to create revenue streams for businesses that will enhance far greater slices of communities in far less wealthy states.

So … remember it’s a big world out there. Lets see businesses thrive, lets see businesses (start ups in particular) helping each other, all around the world, to create jobs, opportunities and life changing moments for people, through people like you and me!

Notepods – iPhone design essential

So, you know .. the iPhone, it’s that fancy thing all them new kids have in their pockets. (he he he .. okay I have one too).  Well anyway .. it’s great, awesome in fact.

But there’s something new on the block, that’s like the iPhone but never runs out of battery, the screen never dies and well you’ll never have wi-fi problems.

Introducing NOTEPOD’s …

Notepod – a funky new note pad that has been designed to look like … well, yeah it doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure that out now does it.

Full size of your lovely iPhone these are a great tool for helping sketch out your iPhone app. With the familiar screen & black surround on the front, and on the back a nice grid – with heavier grid corners showing the corners of the screen.

With 100pages in each notepod, there are plenty of pages here for you to fill up with your apps.  I have to say too, the team at Notepod are great – their customer service is fantastic!

Hurry, get them now, they are proving hugely popular – more so than the team were expecting! Always good.

You can get a 3 pack (that’s 300 pages) for US$17.95 .. not the cheapest pads, I’ll admit that .. but hey, they are FUNKY as all heck!

The ramblings

I know I know it’s been a little while since I actually blogged here – yeah I write things from time to time but what am I writing? What am I doing here?

Goals, Targets and Celebrations

If you want something in life, most people will tell you “set a goal” have a target, reach it, celebrate it and move onto the next one. I’ve had little goals and things for this blog and recently I hit one, 100,000 unique visitors in one month.

Right, so, did that … now what? Well I guess doing it again would be cool, and again and again – but to do it the first time I used a trick, Link Baiting. What’s the purpose? Well the purpose of Link Baiting is quite literally bait people to bring them to your site. But if the site has nothing of value for them, then they split.

I’ve been evaluating somethings not just in the blog but in life.

Build me a website – I’ll pay you

Why is the world so focused on money? Why do people keep coming to me saying “build me a website, I’ll pay you”

Let me say one thing up front: just because I can build you a website doesn’t mean I want to, just because you can pay, doesn’t mean you can afford me.

See my focus has changed lately – sure I have bills to pay, mortgage to cover and really could do with extra cash for a new car, new toys etc. But I’ve had a change of heart lately – it’s called becoming a Dad. If I’m going to spend time in front of the computer away from my girl, it’ll be on my terms.

You still want me to build you a web site – well it’s going to cost you, like REALLY cost you!
If I’m going to spend time in front of the computer away from my girl, I’d rather it be for personal projects that MAY turn into something … I don’t want your extra stress or moaning about this pixel or that pixel.

So let me say this: take your offer of a website that you can pay for and give it to someone who cares – I don’t.

Life, church, God and all that ….

For many years I’ve separated who I am from what I believe. Why – because people say “oh you are a christian … one of those church people – you are ……” and the proceed to judge you, put you in a box and assume you are like every other christian they’ve met – or read about in the media.

Well excuse me but screw that – so for that reason I’ve put my faith over here, and lived life over there … but you know what, I’m slowly bringing the two together, because you know what, you can’t separate your true faith from yourself, not if you want to life as Jesus truly did.

As for the judging – fine judge me, I’m not perfect, I still swear too much, lie some times and do things that … well I shouldn’t. Unlike some “christians” some of my best friends are lesbian, gay, alcoholics, car guys, druggies ….. and who cares. I don’t go around to them saying “Oh we christians hate you” … no I simply am a friend to them, just as they are to me & I love them.

Sure, I might loose some twitter followers, this blog might drop in traffic … who cares.

I feel a lot more free now to explore things, to see where life takes me. Because my nights are not taken up with silly web projects to earn an extra $$ (and pay more taxes) I’m free to explore music, try things I’ve been to scared to do before.

For example, I’m playing bass at church on Sunday – 200 to 300 people will be there and I’m playing Bass. Not because I’m a great bassist, I mucked around on my brothers bass as a kid, I know the basics, but I’ve NEVER played in public, heck I’ve not picked up a bass in over 10 years – yet I’m giving it a shot. At practice on Thursday I was asking myself “what the hell are you doing?” – the answer, I’m living life!

I also am helping to lead some of the worship – that means signing in front of up to 300 people, and when you are someone who struggles with pitch, that can be really hard to do. Again why do this? Because I’m living life

Besides, if you can blog about sex, or racing your car or …. as part of your tech blog – then I can talk about God, or faith or .. yeah maybe I can even mention the J name without worry ….

Launching web projects

I’m a web nut, have been since early 1994 when I built my first web page … and I’m finally putting my online skills to use for the kingdom of God.

My little web project The Bible In A Year is right now in alpha testing and I’m working through the issues around copyright for distributing the bible, integrating with Twitter, Facebook and other services. It’s fun, it’s challenging and if I’m the only person that uses it .. fine. It’s nice for a change to work on a web project where the end goal is not to sell it to Google for $$$ (which seems to be why most web projects start these days).

Summary

If you are still reading – great, congrats. You reached the end.

What now? Well what are you doing in your life? Do you have balance? Are you happy – really happy with life? Are you laying a foundation for a future that you can build on? Maybe you are laying the foundation for a business, or like me, maybe you are just laying foundation for experience.

What ever it is, we make choices in our lives, and we have to live with these. Make your choices, life your life – Be ALL you can be, don’t live a life of “what if’s” ….

I wanted to build a blog that had 100,000 visitors in a month, done that.
I want to lead people in worship of the creator of the universe – okay need to learn to sing, right lets work on that ….

What’s your dream? What are you doing to bring it closer?

2 invaluable OSX time saving tips

I have a few friends who are swapping from long time Windows usage to Mac usage. There are a couple of things they do on the Mac that … well they could do better. First up they load up the dock with EVERY single application & secondly they rely on the mouse to much for opening everything.

Here are two handy tips that will save you HEAPS of time on the Mac.

Quick Open Applications

I get hassled by Linux users that OSX is for pointing and clicking … and to a degree it is. Why type when you can click n drag & skip heaps of steps? Still, there are times that typing is heaps faster. Many people go to lengths to install Quick Launch apps like Quicksilver – well if you don’t want the hassle of learning a fully fledged launcher then just use what is built into the OS – Spotlight.

Hit Command (apple key) + the space bar and Spotlight will launch.
Start typing the app name, eg: Phot

You’ll see that Spotlight very quickly finds your app as you type, then hit Enter to launch it.

Steps:

• CMND + SPACE
• Start typing app name
• Hit ENTER / RETURN to launch

Quick Launch Apps from Finder

The next handy tip is about customising your finder windows to suit your needs. All Mac users know to open a file in an application you simply drag that icon onto the application & it’ll launch and load the file. Very handy if you have the application in the dock – but we don’t want a crowded dock – so what do you do?

The finder windows are customisable and you can add a few of your most used applications quickly and easily so you have access to them from anywhere at anytime.
First: grab the application from the applications menu and drag up to the top bar of the finder window

Second: hold on the gray finder window for 30 seconds – until very faint gray boxes appear

Third: drop the application in place

To use: now simply drag any compatible file that you want to open up to the application icon in the finder window

That’s it, done! You can have as many apps as you want up here, but remember again, don’t get too carried away.

Note: you can also drag FOLDERS up here so you can have quick links to often used folders.

13 more great Twitters to follow

Well the original 13 Twitter accounts you NEED to follow was so popular (and contraversial – “why wasn’t I on your list when XYZ was?”) I figured – You know what? I actually do follow a heap of really cool folks, so without further ado, lets get into it.

Shel Israel

Silicon Valley insider who writes for fancy magazines (think Fast Company) and interviews people from around the world. Great tweets to follow, usually very well written & informative
» Follow shelisrael

Chris Saad

Chris is a web2.0 junkie, passionate about data portability & calls himself a futurist. I find Chris’s tweets to be generally light and funny with gems of wealth hidden amoungst them.
» Follow chrissaad

Christine Lu

LA based, Chinese tweeter Christine is not afraid to speak her mind, I really enjoy the fresh honesty behind Christine’s tweets. Sometimes light, sometimes deep but always worth reading
» Follow christinelu

David Feng

Probably my favourite Tweeter right now, David is another Chinese tweeter. David works creating a wiki of subways and his tweets are full of subway tidbits. David is also a web junkie & his tweets often contain links to really great content.
» Follow davidfeng

Allen Stern

Unhappy to be left off my last list, Allen is a real hardcase. His twitter account is under the name of his popular CenterNetworks – but it’s more of an outlet for him to build relationships. Great tweets, nice guy & CenterNetworks isn’t half bad either (he he)
» Follow centernetworks

Matt Cutts

Matt (Mr Google) Cutts is THE person to follow if you are into SEO, SEM, Google etc. He works for Google…actually no, he’s the FACE of Google – especially when it comes to talking about search systems. Tweets are good with lots of links.
» Follow mattcutts

Kris Colvin

Kris is a user interface & brand designer and she shares through twitter some great insights, links and funny stories. She calls herself a mischief maker & that does flow through her tweets at times – good fun though
» Follow kriscolvin

Bryan Thatcher

Bryan’s tweets have slowed down a bit, but that makes him all the more worth while to follow. As founder & CEO of two web2.0 companies Bryan has his finger on the cutting edge & his tweets range from web tech to photography (his other passion)
» Follow bryanthatcher

The Domestic Diva

Mums & Dads need to follow The Domestic Diva – how she finds time running her home & tweeting I’ll never know. Her tweets are full of life, fun, adventures & she answers tweets – it’s that personal touch!
» Follow thedomesticdiva

Evan (CEO of mimoco)

With a twitter name “mimobot” you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a bot doing branding. But no, this is Evan the CEO & yes he tweets. What’s more is he often gives stuff away. How many CEO’s you know do that?
» Follow mimobot

Loic Le Meur

Loic is the fella behind seesmic.com among other things. He tweets his journey and shares along the way some great tips & interacts with users of websites. He’s into Kite Surfing too, so that’s pretty much reason alone to follow him right?
» Follow loic

Plan Garden

Plangarden is the Twitter account for the fella behind plangarden.com. With tweets about gardening, planting and plants the advice is always very solid. Of course for me the season are round the wrong way – but still a potato is a potato right?
» Follow plangarden

(MediaTemple)

This probably only applies if you host with (MT) however I love the fact that at the end of twitter is someone from (MT) – their twitter response time is fantastic & they always seem so friendly. This is how a brand should use Twitter – interact with your customers!
» Follow mediatemple

Okay one more for good measure ey? Hands up if you like COFFEE – I know I sure do, I love the smell, the flavour and I love how getting the milk right can make all the difference in the world.

Jason Coffee

Jason is a coffee nut in the nuttiest sense of the word nut. He runs a blog dedicated to the art of coffee, tasting, brewing etc & his tweets are full of great fun and flavour. He runs frequent giveaways – including coffee machines! Totally worth following for any coffee fan
» Follow coffeecupnews

Did I miss someone?

Did I miss you off the list, do you think someone else deserves to be on the list? Feel free to add a link to your twitter profile in the comments (you have 21 days from the date of this post – then comments close) and tell people why they should follow you.

13 Twitter accounts you NEED to follow

Twitter, it’s just the “bees knees” of the web social community. Sure it might be a 10th the size of Facebook (did you know Facebook apparently grows the size of twitter EVERY DAY?), still Twitter is the place everyone wants to be today.

I’ve been on Twitter for a little while now (not a huge amount of time mind you) and have racked up over 3,000 tweets – others have way way more than that! There is a LOT of stuff on Twitter, but there are a few key people who I think you should follow!

• Guy Kawasaki – okay, Guy is a given really, he’s one of the top Technology focused tweeters
• Brian Clark - the guru behind www.copyblogger.com always has great tweets
• Amy Lupold Bair – otherwise known as @ResourcefulMom has great giveaways, tip for parents and links to fantastic blog posts
• Chris Pirillio – the epitome of geek culture, Chris’ 24/7 online life is both funny and informative
• Stephen Fry – this crazy UK fella travels the world and tweets while doing it. Always fresh & honest
• Adii Rockstar – the original “rockstar” adii is a must follow for any wordpress designer
• Ryan Carson – a living legend when it comes to online design, Ryan’s tweets are full of gems beit links or tips, or random comments
• MollyDotCom – the GodMother of HTML (well not quite & no doubt she’ll kill me for saying that) – Molly is a web evangelist who tweets about life, the web and tea (the drink)
• Brain Houston – pastor of Hillsong in Australia Brian chimes in from time to time on Twitter with inspirational & uplifting tweets
• Darren Rowse – the ProBlogger, if you blog & want get better, make money or … then follow @problogger
• nourayehia – with tweets that read like a gold mine for designers, web nuts and CSS craftsmen – must follow for web junkies (also: visit noupe.com & bookmark it)
• Scott Bradley - tweets of worth for any budding entrepreneur
• Jeremiah Owyang – works for Forrester Research – shares some great insights into the web
  

Of course I have to add to this list my own accounts – hey it’s my blog I’m allowed to :)

• oo00_Mr_K_00oo – a rambling collection of tweets from the mundane to the inspirational (with a few links thrown in for good measure)
• daily_verse – a bible verse everyday, with a comment in less than 140 characters

What about you, do you have your favourites that you think others should follow? Tell us in the comments (include their Twitter link http://twitter.com/….)

Why Facebook sucks

You might think that I’m not qualified to write a post about why I think Facebook sucks – and rewind two weeks and you’d be right. Sure I’d created some account many moons ago for me to dabble with, but after rumors of CIA involvement and other “conspiracies” I decided that was enough for me.

Recently however I have once again joined up, as more and more of my friends were online I began to be missing out on happenings in their lives. Facebook had become their means of primary communication. Photos were no longer added to Flickr or Picasa accounts – they were simply added to Facebook. Without a Facebook account I was left out.

So after much thinking and discussing with  my wife we decided to plunge into the world of Facebook and our lives haven’t been the same since – and NOT in all the ways you think.

Facebook: we aim to annoy

I’m coming into Facebook with over 14 years experience in online user interfaces (read: web design & development). I’m utterly amazed at how Facebook has met and overcome many hurdles facing technology – getting those that are non-techy to use their site … esp considering the Facebook interface is a great big pile of steaming crap.

How on earth do the Grandmas & Grandpas that are now flocking to Facebook ever keep up, let alone understand what their grandkids are up too?  My wife and I are pretty computer and web savvy – and we struggle to get our heads around the mess that is Facebook.

Why do I see my friends, friends comments?

This question was put to me by my wife after day one with Facebook. She’d added her sister to her friends list and suddenly her “home page” was full of comments to her sister that were completely unrelated to her. All my wife saw was a page full of utter crap. I see since we joined Facebook have now added 3 little buttons allowing you to fine tune this a little – but it’s still a mess.

Why do I get email notifications (again you can turn this off but when you login your notification box tells you) telling me that someone who is friends of my friend, has commented on my friends photo. I could understand if that friend was a mutual friend of mine too … but 9 times out of 10 they are not.

Okay … wooo up for a second.

I really do like Facebook

Facebook has been very good for me, as I’ve reconnected with some very good friends of mine who I’ve not talked too (in depth) for a good number of years. I’ve caught up with the amazing growth of their kids, seen a mates photos of a recent trip to Ireland and much more … but I swear I’ve become so frustrated with the idosy…crap that Facebook puts you through.

Reasons I hate Facebook

• URL has serious flaws
  Not sure if you noticed but Facebook often puts a # in the url, and simply appends page structures to this. For example I recently was on a fan page, then navigated to my profile, Facebook simply added # to the end of the fan page and then took me to my profile. As I navigated around I notice Facebook simply adds more # and pages to the URL.
  This has bad consequences when you try to add a new app, as the app assumes a certain URL structure & I frequently have apps failing to install.
• Uploading Video PI
  Today at work I looked into adding some video to a fan page created for one of the sites we manage. Sounds simple enough. I head to the video page – btw: we host all our videos with Vimeo. I was expecting to be able to select either UPLOAD or EMBED. Nope, Facebook forces you to upload any video to their servers. Why? Why can’t we simply pass a Vimeo or YouTube URL and have Facebook put this into the video page – it’s not that hard!
• Uploading Video PII
  During the upload process we ran into countless issues. The video upload progress bar actually only worked once out of the 8 videos we uploaded. When it did work it meant the Save Info button would kill the upload and drop you out to the video page. Clicking back to video took you to a page saying “You’ve uploaded no videos” – when we already had 3 videos uploaded.
  After each video we had to go back to the fan page and start the process again – otherwise the video wouldn’t upload.
• Flickr, Twitter, Wordpress … Integration
  Why should I have to rely one some 3rd party application to integrate Facebook with my existing online media? I should be able to go to my Photos tab and select UPLOAD or EMBED (or LINK) and be able to simply copy and paste a Flickr URL & have Facebook show the image as if it had been uploaded to Facebook.
  Likewise Twitter should be a heck of a lot easier to integrate than it is. Again there should be a native integration allowing Twitter & Facebook to be closer tied together. Afterall “status” on Facebook is really just like your twitter “What are you doing”
• Twitter & Pages
  I have a number of Twitter accounts – one is a personal account that I have linked to Facebook so my tweets can update my status. I have another account that is .. well another account. I’ve set up a Facebook page for this & I’d love to have that Twitter account (which has 1 post a day) to update the status of this page. Nope, sorry can’t do it – already have a Twitter account associated to my profile and Facebook/Twitter app can not handle more than one account at once – how stupid?
• Link integration
  There are a number of online bookmarking (or link saving) solutions. The most popular of course is Delicious. Great news, there is a Delicious Facebook app (which doesn’t really seem to work). This app will publish your links to your BOXES tab. Well this is just dumb. Why can’t Facebook itself allow me to tell it to fetch my LINKS from my Delicious account (or other) and populate them into my LINKS tab.

Summary

I could go on and on I’m sure. Facebook as we all know is huge & my little rant is unlikely to change anything. However I do feel that Facebook could build into their system far greater native support for many of the existing tools that are already used. You can only expect developers to do so much with your API – many of these apps are so full of crappy adverts they are useless.

Facebook expect us as developers to build solutions, share our bandwidth so that Facebook users can leverage their existing content OR force users to upload into multiple locations so that those with Facebook accounts and those without can share the media.

I think Facebook should take a leaf out of Wordpress’s books – make things simpler – not more complex. Wordpress makes adding media so simple – Facebook makes adding media .. too difficult.

Facebook – it is what it is, you love it or hate it – but I’ll keep using it.

Top 5 Geekiest Tattoos

Tattoos, used to be the sign of a pirate, prisioner, slave or more – actually in some places they still are, which is sad. However in the west they’ve be come more and more a feature of life, so I thought I’d throw together the top 5 geekiest tattoos list

1) Android Chick

At least she’s better looking than number two on the list

2) Geek Squad Guy

And you thought it was going to be Zune Guy!

3) On/Off Switch

Not sure I like it, I can admire the work that went into it but ….

4) Feed Me – RSS tattoo

Might be more interesting if this tatto automatically updated every minute or so with the latest RSS feed, but .. well e-ink can’t be printed on skin yet!

5) Port Guy

Okay, so what, scan the barcode and plug in? Yeah I’m not so sure myself really.

Can you imagine these people explaining these tattoos to their Grand kids?

Oh All Right

You know I just had to include it:

ZUNE GUY!!

Do you have a tattoo? Do you look at online galleries of Tattoos? I know I’ve contemplated it from time to time – but never have taken that step!

New Zealand, the internet & coffee

I’ve been mulling this post for a while, actually since Christmas while I was in Malaysia chilling out with family.

New Zealand’s internet sucks

There I said it and I fully stand behind that statement. So why am I posting about this now, why didn’t I write it when I first stared mulling over the woes of the NZ Internet status?

There has been a bit of a stiring in the New Zealand internet space of late and I guess that has kinda triggered me into thinking a little more seriously about the current status of the net here. (Read my post about the s92a law that currently is under review)

Then this morning there was an article in the NZHerald (top New Zealand newspaper) talking about how the government is about to invest $1.5 Billion into the broadband infrastructure here in NZ to … well, I’d like to say bring it up to play with the international market and keep NZ at the cutting edge of technology, but I can’t. I don’t see how this will help – but I guess I’ll wait on the full announcement as to what they are going to do.

What’s the issue?

It’s all good and well to point the finger at the government and expect them to do something. Sadly here in NZ (and this is a trend in western countries) we run to Mummy & Daddy Government and expect them to legislate and throw money at our concerns – to force change.

Why? The power is in our hands is it not? Okay let me rephrase that. The power is in the hands of the companies, who should be working to please their customers.

Lets move away from broadband for a second, I mean yes we can get speeds of 512kbs and maybe 1mb downloads at home through our ISP’s but what about being out and about?

See New Zealand is really (and I mean really, seriously) lacking in support when it comes to Wi-Fi. Take a stroll around any city center in this country, how many free Wi-Fi spots can you find? (Legit free, not Wi-Fi that’s left open). Zip, nadda, nothing … bupkis

Go to ANY Starbucks in the USA, UK or heck even backward, 3rd world Kota Kinablu in Malaysia and you’ll have FREE, full speed, broadband Wi-Fi. Free. Not free with coffee, but FREE.

Here in NZ, no! You have to be a Telecom customer or Tomizone (Tomy Zone?) member to get “free” internet and then it’s not free it’s paid for as part of your home connection.

Free in KFC & McDonalds

While walking around one of the malls in Kota Kinablau we decided to grab some KFC. I was sitting there with my iPhone, and suddenly realised “Oh, there is Wi-Fi here” … thinking it was maybe from a Starbucks or Coffee Bean near by. But no, it was KFC’s own Wi-Fi.

Free Wi-Fi is prolific in the malls across the world, from McDonalds to KFC, from Libraries to Starbucks – and it should be. It should be so cheap that companies don’t have to think about it – they just do it.

Companies shouldn’t be so worried about the bottom line on EVERYTHING, that they should offer it. Don’t WORRY, not everyone is going to jack in and download porn, or warez or illegal software. Most people simply want to check their mail, find a location on Google Maps or in the case of Starbucks, buy the music you are playing from iTunes. (Besides there are tools to limit that sort of behaviour anyway)

Where is NZ’s free Wi-Fi

Why the hell is the government investing so much money into the broadband infrustructure of New Zealand? Becuase they “think” that businesses need access to great broadband for the company/country to grow.

You know what I think? The New Zealand government need to “encourage” companies here to pull their heads out of their (BAD WORD HERE) and start to look after the customers. We NEED proliferation of the interent, everywhere we go & I don’t want to pay HUGE prices for it. It’s bad enough that you pay $15 for 5 mins in any hotel in this country, let alone having to pay while enjoying a coffee.

I was talking recently (and may get shot for this) to one of New Zealand’s leading internet providers (commercial) who is working with a large city council to set up “free wi-fi” within the city CBD. It sounded great & I was all very excited to meet with them and chat. But it’s NOT free wi-fi, it’s a flammin walled garden – what are we ?? stuck in 2005? For (BAD WORD HERE)’s sake!! Get it right. People want Free Wi-Fi, but not to visit your council website – they want Gmail, flickr and Facebook.

When will these companies get it?

Business in the coffee shop

One of my favourite software companies is a crazy group called Delicious Monster, they make the excellent Mac software called Delicious Library. The are based in Seattle, but they don’t have an office, they simply rock up to their local coffee shop  - Zoka which has by all accounts some GREAT coffee – who provide free Wi-Fi. They work out of othe coffee shop.

Where is this fostering of the small business from the NZ goverment? Setting up and running a small business in this country is hard, very hard. So NZ Government – if you are listening. Stop catering to the big business in this country that make up less than 1% of all businesses here. Start caring about the small company. Don’t throw your $1.5 Billion into Telecom’s pot, instead use it to encourage community, to encourage the proliferation of FREE Wi-Fi in this country. There are plenty of community projects you can support to get free Wi-Fi here in NZ.

If the companies/businesses in NZ won’t offer their customers (paying customers or not) access to Free Wi-Fi then, why not put your $1.5 Billion into building a DECENT free Wi-Fi network across New Zealand?

Until New Zealand has a decent network of free wi-fi that general public can use for what they want, the mobile internet in NZ will choke and suffer at the hands of the ever greedy Telecom & Vodafone

Links

I know there MUST be places around NZ that offer true free wi-fi, so why not drop me a comment below and I’ll build up a list here of great places that offer true Free Wi-Fi for kiwis.

The Results

Okay, well I’m back from the swim and sipping a lovely coffee before going and having a shower to clean up. It’s been a morning of lessons for me, and I have to say first up “I’m happy with my achievement – gutted, but happy”.

I arrived at the start and realised the vast majority of people where in wetsuits. Standing in my swimming shorts & rash top I had an inkling I was under dressed for the event. However I did see others in swim suits and even a brave couple in bikini’s. 

While I knew it was a deep water start, I didn’t realise the start line would be a wee way (maybe 50 to 100mtrs) off shore. We were instructed if unsure swimmers, we should hold back – which I did. Not realising that I was only halfway to the start when the start hooter went off. Panicking a bit I picked up the pace (mistake number 1 or is it 2). 

The water was far colder than I anticipated, which meant I was cold and struggled to relax to breath. I also made the mistake of swimming with the goggles they gave us rather than my usual ones. I actually felt claustrophobic swimming in these ones – maybe they have smaller lenses than my usuals.

So, about 300mtrs in, struggling to relax into a rhythm, unable to bring up my body temp and just completely overwhelmed, I raised my hand and took a lovely cruise on the harbor – along with a blanket & a hot drink. I had plenty of company – I wasn’t the only one on the boat.

Summary

While I am completely gutted I didn’t even make the first 400mtrs, I am stoked that I gave it a shot. Here are some lessons I learned for me to apply in 2009

• Swim in the right gear: If the water is warm a rash suit may do, but if it’s cold you need a full length wetsuit.
• Practice in your gear: It was my first time in my goggles & suit. Wasn’t expecting the tightness the suit gave nor the subtleties of vision with these particular goggles 
• Learn to relax: (practice in the sea) They say to get up to distance in a pool. This is all good and well but pool water is clear, the bottom is just there & it’s usually smooth. Swimming in the sea is disconcerting because the water is not (usually) clear, their is a swell to deal with and if you get a mouthful it’s salty.

The Challenge

It’s 6am on a Sunday and I’m up … couldn’t sleep too much last night. You know how it is when you have something coming up that you are looking forward too, your brain keeps actively thinking about it all night long. I ran through my check list probably 100 times, I dreamt about rescue boats, bouys and goggles

Ocean Swim

Today is the day I do my first official ocean swim. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve swum in the ocean before. As a child I spent some time living in tropical countries & almost lived in the sea. But this swim today is one of those official swims, where they time you and all that.

I started out training for this, but (and this is a BIG but) over the past two weeks circumstances have transpired that have prevented me from doing all the training I wanted.

They say you really should at least ONCE have swum the full distance of 2.8 kilometers (that’s 1.74miles for our US readers) – I’ve swum maybe half that, in a pool, with some stops.

They say you really should have swum a few times in your wetsuit in the sea. I’ve practiced in a pool in my swim suit. Only bought a rash suit (not a wetsuit) during the week & I’ve not swum in it.

Your saying – You are crazy. All of this and you are still going?

Why am I doing this?

There comes a point in everyones life where they just have to challenge themselves to do something out of the ordinary. This swim might be something others can do easily & they do the whole series. For me, this is my Mt Everest (well maybe Mt Cook) – if I can make it to the other side of the Auckland harbor in less than 1 hour and 45 minutes, I’ll be so proud of myself. And if I can’t … well I can’t – but I’ll tell you something here. They will have to drag me out of the water, because I’m the sort of person whose body can be screaming to stop, and I’ll push on.

I guess it’s the whole “You can’t do that” thing. People tell me that and I set out to prove them wrong.

So, in 3 hours time I’ll be standing in a crowd listening to final instructions. In 3.30 (or 9:30am NZ time) I’ll be in the last group of swimmers to get away, and I’ll start making my way to the 400mtr bouy. If I can make that in less than 14 mins (my practices saw me do this in around 8 mins) I head out into the harbour proper and onto Auckland.

Full swim details & a map can be found here.

Thanks to all my Twitter followers for the WONDERFUL kind words of encouragement – I really do appreciate that.

Wish me luck, I’ll report back when I make it home

I need Friends – help please

A while back now I issued a challenge to my mate at WebHelp.co.nz – who I consider to be New Zealand’s top Search Engine Optimisation expert – to race to 250 contacts between LinkedIn an StumbleUpon.

I figured it was about time for an update

Me:

• LinkedIn: 142
• StumbleUpon: 42

WebHelp:

• LinkedIn: 68
• StumbleUpon: 175

So you can see I need help – I don’t want to shut WebHelp lunch, I want to eat lunch.

Sadly WebHelp needs 7 more people to beat me to 250, me, I need 66. So, all of you – please help. Follow me on LinkedIn – simply drop me a note via linkedin (you’ll can email to webmasterATstudiowhizDOTcom) and I’ll add you.

Or you can follow me on StumbleUpon!

Help me thrash WebHelp!!

All the ways you can follow Studiowhiz.com:
» LinkedIn
» Twitter
» BrightKite
» Flickr
» StumbleUpon
» FriendFeed

Back on Deck

Right, time to get back on deck and write again. You will see a change or two here in the next couple of days as I get myself back on board & writing again.

Juggling time is always an issue – but i need to push through and keep going.