General

Lot's of things happening this week - Macworld and CES generated lots of activity in podcasts. Macbreak has interesting series of interviews done (mostly) by Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann with various people from Macworld. If you are interested how the author of Cocoalicious looks like in flesh, go and grab the few Macbreak episodes. There is also interesting interview with creators of the Modbook (Macbook based tablet), the Omni group, makers of the great OmniOutliner who recently release OmniPlan. It should be the first project management tool that does not suck. It is hard to believe that there can be a piece of software that contains Gantt diagram and is logical and usable <grin/> - it certainly does not apply to MS Project. I am really curious how the OmniFocus - the new GTD tool in preparation - will look like when it is done.

I had a discussion few days ago with a friend of mine on blogging. The topic was that as soon as something happens on the Net, thousands and sometimes even more people are writing, posting, discussing and blogging about the very same topic. A sort of information tidal wave that spreads across the cyberspace. Which was according to my friend huge waste of time and energy. Generally, he meant, from a whole community perspective, it makes no sense to write about something unless there is reasonable chance you will be saying something very unique that nobody else will likely say - otherwise it adds no value, just clutters the content by repeating and rephrasing the already said. At first it sounded reasonably sound ;-), but the longer I was thinking about it, the more I was convinced it may be quite the opposite.

Just out of morbid curiosity I did the test, here is the result :-) Your Vocabulary Score: B- You have a zealous love for the English language, and many find your vocabulary edifying. Don't fret that you didn't get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated! How's Your Vocabulary?

From today's Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld 2007: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. " Wayne Gretzky I guess everybody is going to write about iPhone - which is OK because it is indeed very interesting gadget and it stole the show. To bad it will be 6 more months until it will be available in the US and (my best hopes) 8-9 months to have it here in Canada.

I have got my eReader on 30th December, so after few days of playing with it, here are first impressions. I managed to read one book and played with it quite a bit, but I am still learning. The quality of the display and "electronic paper" look and feel is great. It actually looks like paper, not like screen. The non-glossy texture surface has same visibility from every angle and it really reads like paper. I have no problem with the speed or lack of it - the page turn takes about 1-2 seconds, switching to full black and then redrawing is kind of cool when the page text "emerges" from the page. The picture is perfect, steady, does not strain the eyes, perfectly readable in sunlight. It is the best feature of the reader.

The 2006 was truly amazing year. We have accomplished so much - we have created the West end development centre, brought in and started several projects, completed phase 1 of employee conversion, started benefits program, ESOP program, redefined the company visual presence, grew the business and the company size considerably and created foundation for future growth. Most important achievemnt is the fun factor - I am again looking forward to go to work - and again since the Montage days the synergy is coming back. Thanks so much to all of you who helped it happen.

During over 8 years living on this continent I've developed reasonably thick skin in dealing with business calls, unsolicited mailings and other annoyances of aggressive selling. I was pretty sure nothing can make me really upset. Up until yesterday. Thanks to amazing capability of the Direct Energy sales force who does not take No for an answer. But let's start from the beginning. About 3 weeks ago I started to get frequent calls from Direct Energy about their flat rate plan. After avoiding them few times, I realized that they will not give up and answered the call. I have got myself into a discussion with guy who wanted me to lock up my price per kWh for next 5 years. Sort of protection plan. The idea is that you pay same amount - starting with higher than market price - and as the price goes up, you may end up to be better off over time.

Despite Sony's attempt to ignore non-US markets and leave Canadians in the cold (pun intended, even if it is still above zero), I have become a proud owner of the wonderful gadget for all eBooks fans. I still do not have it physically, so I cannot put it under the tree. It is coming next week, when my friend who now enjoys the vacation down in the south returns. He was not only very kind to buy one for me too, but he also wrote a wonderfull review which he is going to post on the Net. I will add a link as soon at it happens. Until that time, here is the summary, in his very own words:

I have discovered recently the nice feature of Wordpress - Dashboard which shows number of visits, but also shows incoming links and search phrases the people used to land on my blog. Sometimes, they provide really interesting and surprising insights. Of course, I do not see who they are or where the visitors are coming from - so no privacy concerns. Because of my first name (which is btw abreviated form of Miroslav), I am getting some visits from the people interested in the works of Joan Miró - spanish/catalan artist. Must be quite a disappointment for them, sorry. Nothing to do with visual arts here - unless you count art of coding ;-).

Unfortunately, as of previous Sunday I have run out of the backlog in Security Now! episodes, which means that with all three of my favorite podcasts (Twit, Windows Weekly and Security Now!), I am pretty much dependent on their weekly releases. This is a problem, because the sum of 5-7 weekly commutes to work and back (about 15 minutes one way) plus about 40 minutes in a gym every day equals to about 6 hours of required podcast quality content, and the new episodes of three podcasts above cover barely half of it.