Sometimes you just need to be at the right place at the right time. It was warm and sunny on that day and I took Alfie for a walk in the evening before the sun set. The iPhone 4 sensor doesn’t really does the scene justice, and post editing it probably overdoes the effect, but I kind of like it this way. Snapseed for iOS has plenty of effects for that quick on the go edit.

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This is just a random post on the state of the tech world. We used to have things go obsolete in a couple of years, but now things seem to be moving at a very quick pace and much faster than I’m used to. HP acquired Palm in April 2010 to get a foothold in the mobile arena where Apple just seems to be dominating with their iOS products now. Fast forward today, and HP has decided to stop all work on WebOS products after the TouchPad failed miserably to gain any significant market share after only being released for a couple of months. Ouch to anyone who has supported Palm products for as long as they’ve been around. The internet really speeds things up, as any information like reviews and issues are available instantaneously to the masses and people can forego the trial and error by relying on what everyone else is saying to come to their own conclusions on a product.

I was also looking at a replacement laptop for travelling in future, and the Lenovo X120e that I was eyeing at the beginning of this year has already been superceded by the X121e (or rather, one is available in Australia and one is not), just 7 to 8 months after it was announced. It fulfills most of the criteria I require of it, being small (11.6″ screen, just an inch or two wider than my Eee PC), pretty powerful (Sandybridge based Core i3 at 1.3GHz but faster than a 2GHz Core 2 Duo) and pretty darn affordable as well (the base model is under AUD$600, which used to be in the domain of Atom based netbook prices). The only downside is the 1.55kg weight, which is 400gm heavier than my Eee PC and that’s pretty much a GF1 kit in weight. Heh, I guess 400gm trumps the extra $600 or so I’d have to fork out for a 11.6″ Macbook Air that I can’t really upgrade on my own. It’s probably something I’m eyeing and it will probably replace the Dell XPS that Vyanne is using when it dies (it’s already 4 years old and has had surgery twice, costing me almost $2.4k to date).

I guess obsolescence only affects you if the piece of tech you have acquired stops being sufficient to do what you want it to do. Heh, as much as I’d like to upgrade my PC now, it still does fine, it just takes a while longer for me to get through editing my photos, which is about the only thing that it is currently slow at. Sifting through my photo folder, it has become a whopping 409GB folder of RAW and JPG files since 2004 (another way to look at it is that I haven’t been very selective with how I cull my images). I’m personally not keen to upgrade from 12MP image files, but that will eventually occur when my D300 fails and everything is falling in the realm of 16-18MP cameras for the crop sensor format now.

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As much as I mistreat my equipment, they are still going strong, so sometimes looking at the latest trends just satisfies my curiousity and will only add value if I decide to go shopping. Heh, at the current state of things, that’s not happening anytime soon.

Introducing Soba Woba, my friend’s Japanese Spitz. She’s just a few months old and after Alfie, I’m quite familiar how quickly puppies grow up, and you only have a few weeks before you realize that they have grown so much.

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Was tracking my iPad delivery over the last couple of weeks, and even went as far as trying to source one before my delivery was due. Finally, it arrived on my birthday and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Currently typing this post on the iPad. I also got a wireless Apple keyboard for my birthday (good that your friends ask you exactly what you want). I could probably type via touch on the screen, but nothing beats a proper, physical keyboard for speed and efficiency.

It’s an interesting interface, selecting UI elements via touch and doing most of the text entry via keyboard. I guess for things like this, a laptop is still ideal, but I was already using the iPad, so I decided to get this post out of the way on it.

Plenty has been written about the drawbacks of the iPad not doing Flash, so you miss out on some videos on websites, but for the most part, I like that the iPad is very portable, and the quick access and almost desktop like experience with regards to the web means it beats a laptop for when I’m just wanting to quickly check up something.

It’s also a better screen compared to the iPhone for reading books, which I have tried loading onto the iPad. Saw my friend’s Kindle 3 and I have to say that as a reading device, it’s nearly ideal with it’s size and weight. Lying in bed, you don’t have to really support the full 600gm weight of the iPad, so it also makes a decent reading device. Laptops weigh more and flicking the screen to turn the page is just so much more intuitive than fumbling for arrow keys.

I have only had it for a few days now, so haven’t fully explored what it can do, but I have to say it’s not a giant iPhone as the experience is very different. At the moment, I’d still consider the iPad a luxury item, as you can do most of the same things on a laptop. However, there are some fun elements to it, like Garage Band. I have tried that as a means of producing music and it is fun. I’m also looking forward to trying one of the painting apps and see how I fare with that.

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iPad aside, have less than a month to finish the syllabus for the upcoming CPA exam. With my birthday out of the way, I’m a little more committed to doing that, so will be spending the next few weeks busy hitting the books.