I love apple, but sometimes they do stupid things that really annoy me. Like with the apple mouse; it’s a good looking mouse with great functionality but give it a couple of months and it will start to give you the sh#ts. Stupid scroll wheel fails after a couple of months.

After burning through 4 apple mice I figured it’s time to start looking for an alternative. Yes, it took me 4 mice to realise I shouldn’t buy them anymore. Bit slow, I know.

I was a bit skeptical when I first read about the Griffin AirCurve. I didn’t think this tiny piece of plastic – with no electronics or batteries – could be that great at amplifying sound from the iPhone. Look at it, it’s just a slab of plastic with a slot in the middle. I’ll be honest, the main reason I got it was because I wanted a cool iPhone stand (and it matched my laptop stand), I didn’t care so much about the amplifying factor. That all changed when I had a listen.

This might sound like an ad but I can assure you I’m not getting paid to say this, I’m just really impressed. Like really surprisingly impressed. This stand actually makes you want to listen to music from your iPhone and it’s environmentally friendly too – no power or batteries needed.

When you look closer you’ll see that there’s some mathematical genius behind the construction. I’m not a sound engineer so don’t ask me to explain it, to me it just looks like an ear.

Pretty cool huh?

I grew up loosing games to my older brother all the time and was convinced that he always somehow cheated. It didn’t matter what the game was, be it Monopoly, Connect-4, Guess who, marbles, cards, anything. He always won. And I usually ended up crying like a sore loser. Boo hoo, let’s have a pity party.

When computers, Nintendos and hand-held consoles came along the story was still the same. If my brother didn’t beat me (by sheer luck I tell you), the computer sure did and again I was convinced that either he or the computer were somehow cheating. Okay, so I didn’t lose to the computer all the time, but when I did I was convinced it was because the computer cheated. And I know it’s totally pointless screaming and shaking your fist at a Nintendo but it just feels so good.

You’d think that by now, 10 years later (older and wiser), I’d be over my delusional paranoia that the computer cheats. I’m afraid not, if anything I’m more convinced that they cheat. I recently started playing Monopoly on my iPhone and I swear it’s rigged! How come the computer always lands nice and safe on free parking or Go (right next to my Boardwalk Hotel), when I consistently land on their Hotels or Income Tax. Gr… It’s rigged I tell you.

Am I just paranoid?

I love playing Basketball, but I’m also a lazy bum. And since my laziness is stronger than my desire to play ball, I haven’t been to the courts in a long while. However, I may have found a solution.

I was a bit skeptical when I first saw that basketball had been added to the list of games on the wii Sports Resort game. I didn’t think wii could do it justice. But I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. Besides the usual frustration with computer games where you scream at the TV and call it a “big fat cheater”, the game runs really well and most of the movements seem true to life.

With the additional motion sensor that snaps on, the wii-mote is able to pick up an even larger range of motion. From tilt, to angles and even that ever-so-important flick of the wrist when making a 3-pointer.

It will certainly keep you entertained for a few couple of weeks and it’s a great party game, but like most wii games, the novelty is short lived.

Over the weekend Maree’s little brother jailbroke my iphone. I did think about jailbreaking it myself but I don’t think I’m a big enough geek to know exactly what I’m doing. Thankfully Errol is a geek. You gotta love geeks.

All I really wanted to do was put a different background behind the tiles instead of the boring black background. And as you can see I’ve successfully done that, thanks to Errol, Google and another geek.

I found this kid on youtube who uploaded a video on “How to change the background image on the iPhone” and I must say I was quite impressed. I reckon the kid’s barely even 18 years old – his voice hasn’t even cracked yet and he’s already teaching the world wonders. Kid genius!

See geeks are cool!

Most of my friends know I’m a bit of a geek. I love my mac, I love the internet, I love playing computer games (especially my wii and DS) and I love technology. So you could imagine just how excited I was to hear that I was going to visit the Google Office in Sydney and attend an event on ‘Searchology’. I was absolutely over the moon. It felt like a kid the night before Christmas.

Now I’m sure at one stage you’ve received an email forward with pictures from a google office and thought “Wow, that’s crazy”. I know I have. I remember the first time I saw a photo of the Google Office in Zurich. I was absolutely gob-smacked. Surely it wasn’t a real functioning office. Well it is.

I seriously don’t know how they do any work with all the distractions. If I worked there I know where I’d be most of the time, the cafeteria.

Fully stocked with hot food, snacks, fruit, cereal, coffee, tea, juice, soft drink and of course a nice place to enjoy it all. And it’s all free!

If that wasn’t enough, there are also several smaller kitchens if you wanted a quick snack or sugar fix.

If you need a place to kick-back and relax or feel like reading a book, there are several places for that too.

But if computer games are more your thing, then this has to be heaven. They’ve got every console under the sun.

Random tent in the middle of the office. I guess if you’re really tired you can take a nap in private.

This is one of the many funky meeting rooms. Would be really confusing for people attending the meeting via web cam.

The talk on “Searchology” was really interesting too, but I’ll save that for another post. At the end of the meeting we all got goodie-bags filled with google-goodness. The coolest thing in the bag, this awesome USB stick man with notes from the talk.

With the introduction of web apps it’s even easier to breakdown the walls of the office and work from anywhere. A lot of people use them so they can work remotely or share/access files – all important office needs. But there are some people who use them for other purposes.

There is this great web app called LogMeIn (Log Me In). It allows you to access, view and control your computer, whether that be your home or office computer depending on what you set up, from any computer (via a web browser). The computer that you are accessing must be on and it must have an active internet connection.

Now my cousin mainly uses it for business purposes so if she’s saved a document on her home computer, she can use LogMeIn to access the computer and email the file to herself. Very handy. But I think she uses this more frequently as a Kitty-Cam rather than an office tool.

All you need to do is Log in; launch a web cam application, like Photo Booth, and there you go – Kitty Kam. You can see your home computer screen with the live web cam feed from the office or anywhere. And with the incorporation of Skype you can talk to them, so if they’re not in view you can yell out to them (or sing to them, whatever tickles your fancy)… It’s just like you’re there.

I bet the good people at LogMeIn are jumping with joy to be supporting this vital cause. Good work guys – Kitty Kam accomplished.

After a bit of frustration and banging it finally printed something… sort of… When the print first came out I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. I thought the ink was burnt so I had a closer look, I mean a really close look. So close that when I think about how close my nose came to a squashed cockroach, I feel like gagging. Gross.

It certainly gives the term “technical bugs” a new meaning.

Then there are those days where you sit there staring at google trying to think of something interesting to look up. You just want to see something fresh but you can’t exactly google the word “fresh”, well you can but you might end up buying food from Woolworths, The Fresh Food People.

To overcome my lunch break slums I’ve recently started to stumble, on StumbleUpon. This may be old news to some but to those who don’t know what StumbleUpon is, it’s this great online community where people rate web pages and tag them in categories. All you do is hit the “Stumble” button and it will display some of the top rated web pages in whatever category you choose.

Here are two of my recent finds.
Typorganism – http://www.typorganism.com/asciiomatic/
Great online app where you can convert a picture of yourself into a series of letters.

Crazy Rabbit – http://www.changar.com/archives/go.html
Something fun to play with on your lunch break. I actually spent quite a while playing with this rabbit. Simple things, simple minds.

Okay starting to lose the plot.

As much as I love my iphone, it’s seriously starting to give me the s%#ts! The first time it stopped working I took it to the “Genius” at the apple store Genius Bar – I’m not just calling him a genius because he fixed my iphone, that’s his actual job title. It was pretty cool at the apple store, the Genius said if he couldn’t fix it he’d give me a brand new one – right there and then. He even had the box ready to hand over. But he did fixed it so I just kept my 2-week old iphone.

For the past couple of days it keeps saying “No service”. It did it for a few hours the other night while I was waiting for someone to call, I was at a friends place and I know her place has perfectly fine reception. Unbeknown to me no one could call because I had “No service”. My phone was just sitting on the couch all night without reception, then hours later it decided to work. Now it’s fair enough when you’re go through a tunnel or you’re in the elevator, but we were on the top floor of a 3-story apartment. Very annoying.

As much as I’d like to, I don’t think I can blame apple or vodafone for this problem. A few days prior I was playing around with the setting on my phone and accidentally switched the carrier from “vodafone” to “automatic” – big mistake! I think what I did was tell the phone to look for any available network and connect to that instead of only looking for vodafone. There were a few times I looked at my phone and it said Telstra. Eek.

Looks like I have a date with my iphone manual tonight. Otherwise hopefully a “restore to factory settings” will fix it.