Being Mark Cohen

Domain.com.au. the real estate portal owned and operated by Fairfax Media has released an iphone app today.  The app is really nicely put together and offers most of the same functionality as the website does.  It feels really quick to use and given their wealth of content it was fairly comprehensive in terms of listings in the areas I searched.

They’ve judiciously used iphone transitions and effects, they’ve used animations to make the app feel faster, all in all it’s a very handy app for those of us who are house-hunting.

Congrats to the guys at Domain, for yet again being the first to leverage a new technology amongst the major property portals.

Grab it here (itunes link).

I’m looking forward to subsequent releases when the app should gain maping and location functionality, and I’d love to see what they can do with APM’s data

I was in the market for a home theatre system, and since I’ve started working in the online retail space I’ve been way more willing to shop online.  I wasn’t looking for a spectacular setup given that my hearing is not exactly the best in the world and whatever I buy will be subjected to kids until it dies.  I discovered a reasonably priced LG setup that has wireless rear speakers, for sale on Big Brown Box – which is in a way a competitor to the business I work for.  I thought I’d post my experiences here in the hope of digesting them myself and maybe gaining some insight into the pros and cons of buying high commitment goods online.

My initial purchase was about two weeks ago.  Everything went through really smoothly, and I received a follow-up call from Big Brown Box the next day to verify the purchase and to advise that the goods would ship with a courier company who would be in touch shortly to arrange a delivery date.  When the courier company called, they couldn’t advise a time and so I had to make sure someone was home for a whole day to receive the delivery. 

The delivery arrived late last Friday and I immediately jumped in and set up the system.  I soon discovered that the unit was defective and the DVD and CD player did not work. I immediately jumped online to log a support ticket on their website and was very disappointed to find that the unit I had just received broken was now on sale for less than I paid.  Grrrr…

I was too late to get in touch with anyone that day and so was resigned to waiting for Tuesday morning to see if I was stuck with a dud.  Quite the contrary.  Early Tuesday morning I was contacted by someone from Customer Care at Big Brown Box, to advise me that they had arranged for a replacement unit to be sent out and for the couriers to collect the faulty unit.  I organised a pickup today, and this time was smart enough to organise with the couriers to pick up and deliver to my office location.  I got home, set up the unit and it’s all working perfectly.  Sounds great, and there are no wires running across my floors.

My afterthoughts are that the main negative points against buying online are

• The most intimidating part of buying online is not meeting the person or people I am dealing with.  
• There is a total absence of connection with the supplier, which means that I was left feeling fear when the unit was defective.  The only thing that an online business can do to counter that fear is convince me that they have excellent customer care, and then to follow through swiftly and completely should the need arise.  Kudos to Big Brown Box, and to their customer care in particular for doing just that.
• The couriers who do the deliveries for online retailers generally cannot advise a delivery time, making the logistics around deliveries and work commitments frustrating
• Not actually getting to touch and see the goods I was buying made me nervous.  I placed a heavy reliance on people’s reviews online and did a fair amount of googling looking into the product before committing to buy.  A known brand name really helped sway me even on a mid-range setup.  I was happier to pay slightly more for a name I trusted would have a valid warrantee. 

At the end of all this the question that needs answering: Would I buy from Big Brown Box again? Undoubtedly. Would I buy a product like this blindly, online again?  Logically I should say no.  But knowing myself, I’d say probably

I nicked this awesome little cartoon from xkcd.com – one of my favourite “entertainment” blogs.  I think I love it because it’s just so true.  More often than not we regret the things we didn’t do.  This holds true for ski trips (even if they hospitalise my team members ) as much as work or social interactions or one-off opportunities.  Especially one-off opportunities.

Tony Robbins, on of those “Life Coaches” who used to be all over TV a few years ago used to say that it’s all about taking a step.   Then it’s al about taking the next step.  and so on.  If you have a goal, and commit to taking one step a day to get closer to it, you’d be surprised how far you can get in a month.

Here’s his video from TED in 2006.  Check it out.  the guy he engages with in the front row is Al Gore

Fantasy Writer guy, one of those bloggers who’s humour and intelligence make for great reading, has a post up titled the Avitable Scramble. The Avitable Scrambe (as he’s named it) is described:

Okay – here’s the deal. You start with a blank mind – so to speak, and then try to belch out 13 separate thoughts in 13 minutes. It’s blogging by the seat of your pants. You pretty much have to spit out anything that comes to mind no matter how stupid because you won’t have time to wait for 13 gems!

I’m calling it the Avitable Scramble because I discovered it on the Avitable site. I have no idea who deserves proper attribution. I presume Mister Avitable will give me proper heck if he so wishes and if he even finds out about it!

So here goes… Forgive me in advance, it’s late…

1. I just listened to Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian in a “podcast” recording from a breakfast hosted by Innovation Bay.  I was astonished to hear how much money they’re making, but more astonished to hear how many people they have working tech support.  Wow.
2. I’m involved in a project at the moment that has more stake-holders than developers by a factor of at least four.  There’s a need to rediscuss Metcalfe’s law and the complexity of communications systems I mumbled about on my blog a while ago.
3. My puppy is sleeping happily next to me.  That’s probably more because i have the heater on than because she likes me.  Still, it’s some company.  She’s cool.  And she plays fetch
4. I put a pergola up outside.  I need to go check if it’s leaking because the rain has been bucketing down over the last few days
5. I really need to sit down and spend more time writing emails to my family in South Africa.  I used to send them regular updates on how things were going here in Australia, but I’ve slacked off and haven’t written in ages.  I think it’s part of a broader degradation in my writing because of things like Twitter
6. I just found a guy from work on Facebook, who used to be on my team.  I found him through another mutual friend from work.  Turns out he’s also into his photography and he takes some awesome shots.  He has a whole lot up on webshots.  Wish I took as many and as good photos as him
7. (This is getting difficult around now). I have an old PC sitting here, waiting for me to recondition it and turn it into a media server.  Anybody got any tips on how to stop a PC overheating (tried vacuuming the cooling bits) and also what to do to get a remote working on it?  It has Vista on it.
8. I read about the new MacBooks today on (I think) Mashable.  Apparently the new touchpads will be glass and will support multitouch and gestures.  Anyone want to buy a soon-to-be-outdated MacBook Pro?
9. Had a great workout at boxing tonight.  We do boxing twice a week in the gym at work.  It is so cool.  stress management in the extreme.  Only the Thursday one is at lunch and so by 5:00 pm I’ve joined the Walking Dead. “Mark can you help with this?”  ”Gaaaaa.. dribble snore…”
10. Why is it that the iphone comes with only one cable?  Surely Apple could halve the complaints about the hype-marketing and the product not stacking up and battery life just by bundling an extra cable that probably costs them 30 cents?  And on that, you should read MostlyLisa’s post on the topic.  Bang on the money
11. I just realised that the only two bloggers I mentioned in this post are both Canadian – FWG and MostlyLisa. Maybe there’s something to that… Are all Canadians smart and cool?  My step-brother lives in Canada.  He’s pretty smart, and cool.  well, for a dentist.
12. I have a list of chores sitting next to my laptop.  things to fix, things to get done, bills to pay.  That’s another night they’ll have to wait because I was too busy doing the avitable scramble.  Does this one even count as a thought?  It’s more white-noise
13. I really need to make a proper study somewhere.  I’ve been using a squashy old antique folding desk since I moved into this house four years ago.  No wonder I prefer working late to bringing work home.

Imaging trying to work with this going on and on and on and on and on and on and on….

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums out there, and good luck to all the dads who forgot

The ABS posted some interesting stats in a media release, reproduced and linked below highlighting added by me:

Mothers’ day facts and figures from the ABS (Media Release)
Mothers’ day facts and figures from the ABS

* The median age of mothers who gave birth in 2006 was 30.8, up from 29.2 in 1996.
* Women could expect to have 1.8 children in their lifetime in 2006, the most since 1995.
* Births are up – Australia registered 265,900 births during 2006 – more than in any year during the last three decades.
* More mothers with children aged under 15 years are employed than in the past. Almost two-thirds (63%) of mothers with children aged under 15 years were employed in March 2008, compared with 54% ten years earlier.
* 60% of employed mothers with children aged under 15 years worked part time.
* As employment among mothers has increased, the use of formal child care has also increased. The percentage of children under the age of 12 years attending formal care increased from 14% in 1996 to 23% in 2005.
* In 2006, mothers with children aged under 15 years spent, on average, between 16 hours per week (for those employed full time) to 28 hours per week (for those not employed) caring for children.
* In 2005, 83% of employed mothers with very young children (aged under 2 years) used some form of working arrangement to help balance work and child care responsibilities. The arrangements most commonly used were flexible working hours, used by 44% of employed mothers; permanent part-time work, used by 39%; and working from home, used by 27%.
* 67% of mothers in a couple family with children aged under 15 years, and 61% of lone mothers with children aged under 15 years, reported in 2006 that they ‘always or often felt rushed or pressed for time’

These stats scream out for more online facilities aimed at mothers who are caring for kids. One such site built by two mums is Part Time Online, a job portal aimed squarely at the part time / jobsharing market.

Aother observation: Most mothers feel time-poor and ironically more mothers who have a partner feel time-poor than single mums. That says something really bad about some of us dads….

I thought I would be smart and I’d have a crack at upgrading my macbook hard drive. I bought a 7200 rpm 200 GB HDD on ebay, and was at least smart enough to back everything up before I started. I followed the instructions in this article on ExtremeTech and the hardware change went pretty smoothly. Heads-up: Make sure you have the T-6 Torx screwdriver and some good jewellers’ phillips screwdrivers before you start. You need the narrow profile screwdriver to get to the screws inside the battery bay. I think there were 16 screws to remove. NB: If you try this, the T-6 torx screwdriver is a size smaller than the ones in normal PC toolkits and this job is not one you want to improvise on.

I bought an external eSata enclosure and mounted my new hard drive before I started. I copied whatever I could across to the external hard drive, including partitioning it and copying my windows partition across. I discovered after the drive change-over that the bootcamp beta has expired and I couldn’t get the new hard drive to boot into windows. Doh!!! I do have a full backup and I haven’t given up yet, but this project has turned into a miniseries

I mounted the old drive in the external casing, and as it’s bootable I booted with the old drive as my boot disk. I’ve wiped the new drive, left it with one partition and I’m restoring all the content from the external drive again. Once that’s done I’ll turn the clock back a year and rerun Bootcamp. Then I should finally be able to get Windows back on.

Seth threw the resuscitated meme my way, it’s come back to life (And who upped it from 5 to 8 things!). It took this meme to make me realise what a boring sod I’ve become. Anyway, here goes…

The meme is basically defined as follows:

The ground rules for the meme are simple. Here they are…

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Little known facts about Mark:

1. Nineteen years ago, I had a crush on a beautiful girl I had met at uni. When I tried to act on it she shot me down in flames. Eight years later we started dating. We’ve been married for ten years now
2. I once climbed a cliff with some mates to stand under a waterfall. I sat down on a rock ledge with my wet board-shorts and covered in sunblock. I started sliding uncontrollably down the sloping rocks and still believe the only reason I am here is because my mate’s wife Jo happened to be sitting close enough to catch me as I slid past her.
3. I once backpacked around South America for five months. I went to Salvador in Brazil for Carnaval. I slept in a hammock between the washing lines in the yard of one of the university’s student residence blocks, drank copious amounts of Cachasa and partied like there was no tomorrow. Each morning I woke up wishing there hadn’t been a tomorrow
4. I marched through Johannesburg’s streets behind Mac Maharaj, Walter Sisulu and other famous ANC leaders – and once tagged along with Ken Oosterbroek taking photos. Ken Oosterbroek was later tragically killed when he got caught in crossfire in Tokoza
5. I started off studying mechanical engineering because my father thought a BSc was a waste of time and there was no future in computers. Really, he did I got to third year and then changed over to a BSc majoring in Computer Science and Applied Maths. I was going to major in maths but my professor told me it was a waste of time. He then resigned and went off to become a commercial pilot. Really
6. I’m a closet chef. I like to watch cooking shows, even Jamie Oliver. My wife always curses that I watch them but never seem to make it from the couch to the kitchen to actually do anything.
7. I once started a software consultancy, in South Africa. Two friends and I invested the lofty sum of R1,000 (about $300 each, then) and started up a business. We had two computers, and three of us – so we used to take it in turns to code. When I left South Africa my partners bought me out and they have since sold the business. Of the three original partners, one is in Digital Media in Australia, one is VP, transormation services at Cap Gemini in London and one was IT Manager at a big courier firm in South Africa last I heard (we’re kind-of out of contact now).
8. I am a closet handyman and gardener. I’ve made great gardens in every house I have ever lived in with fishponds and meandering layouts except this one. Financial constraints, the tiny size, and lately the drought put an end to that. It’s not a done deal though – I’ll fix this one up one day too

And now for the tagging:
Anthony Milner
Vicky Lalwani
Josh Anstey
Anubhav Goyal
Dhruv Parashar
Sanson Lowe
Paul Wakeford
Saul Tombuk

So speaking of conferences…. I’m heading to Mix 08 in Vegas. I’ll be spending time in the company of great men and enjoying the sessions and interesting speakers. Like Steve Ballmer. I’m really keen to hear what magic is going to happen this year around Silverlight.

I’m totally stoked that I will be in a keynote address where Guy Kawasaki is speaking. I buy his books. I read his blog. In my opinion, he’s like a superhero for adults

Sessions are largely geared around Blend and Silverlight, and WPF this year again, but I’ll have a slightly different focus as my role has changed a lot in the last year. One session that really grabs my eye (excuse the pun J) is titled “The Human Brain Relationship: Advanced and Adaptive User Interfaces”. I’m hoping to catch a whole lot more of the UX sessions.

And of course our very own Frank Arrigo will feature on a panel discussion titled “Web 2.0 and Beyond: What is the Business Reality?” I’ll be there for sure!

And to think at the beginning of this year, I thought it was going to be short of excitement. I could not have been more wrong.

One thing fairly significant is missing from the Netcomm manual for the NB9W ADSL Modem / Router. It doesn’t tell you to check the “use outbound proxy” checkbox when configuring a VOIP service. I checked the manual for my isp that they provide on their site, their generic manual, and whatever else I could. So note to self: If you’re ever configuring a netcomm modem to use voip, check the outbound proxy setting and provide the same server as inbound, as below. This will make your life a whole lot easier