I got engaged!

I proposed to Katie on her birthday after a lovely tapas dinner at Bar Estilo with her parents. I got down on one knee, and just asked her straight. She was shocked, surprised, felt faint and needed to lie down.

We celebrated the following day with a champagne lunch at Selfridges in Birmingham, then relaxed for a long weekend off, as we told our friends and family.

Needless to say, we’re both very happy and have begun the long process to plan our wedding.  We think it will be next year in late August or early September but need to find a venue before we can set a definite date.

I wanna say thanks to all those who wished us well on Twitter and sent us engagement cards.  I will try and do some progress blog posts as things go on, maybe share some wisdom with those reading this.

And this is the final piece

So how about some stats for the project?

Started on 2 January 2009
Finished on 10 February 2010
365 photos (obviously)
61 in black and white
26 outside
5 in New York, New York
Took over 1600 photos
7 with Katie
4 with mirrors

I had a lot of fun. Hope others did too.

I’m hoping that after that, or perhaps even during, I might get the opportunity to study for the Apple exams, aiming to become a Certified Professional at some point.

Hopefully I can be less slack about studying this time around, since it took me over a year to do my A+ and about a year to do my Network+. Suggestions welcome!

At some point during the course of development, there was an upgrade to this freeware application, which I dutifully installed looking forward to some random bug fixes I would never encounter.

What I did encounter was that the developer had suddenly decided that he wanted to charge for this application, and so pushed out an update to all versions to make it shareware. So the next time I fired it up, I was prompted for a serial number and asked to purchase a copy of the software.

I’ve got nothing against buying software. I’ve bought a Tiger, Leopard and will buy Snow Leopard, I bought VMWare Fusion cos I had a need for it, and I bought SuperDuper cos it was a great bit of software. But I knew going into that that I’d eventually have to pay for the software. It wasn’t sprung on me.
I do have something against being forced to pay for something which I was previously getting for free, just cos the dev had a change of heart. Especially to do it in such a sneaky way as a software update. If you want to charge for your product, then release a new paid only version, stop development and updating the old version, and do a clean cut over. Offer new features and support for the product, but don’t sneak in through the backdoor and demand money.

Windows 7 running in Unity

Originally uploaded by domster83

Hey all. Just a quick post to show you all the latest preview of Windows 7 running in VMWare Fusion on my Macbook Pro. As you can see, Unity mode is working a treat, except for the desktop gadgets

And you can also see that they’ve finally updated Paint! Even if its just to give it the ribbon interface.

The CheesyTina is my first (well second really) foray into Crumpler bags but I’ve coveted them, just like Jesus told me to, for a while. This usually comes from spending an hour looking at whatsinmybag tagged photos on Flickr and lusting over each bag. But the time came for me to roll my tongue back up into my mouth and fork over the cold hard cash.

Thanks to the kind people at Devon Cameras, I picked up the Crumpler CheesyTina for a mere £29.95 (plus shipping) which is a utter bargin! I was all set for a trip to the Crumpler shop in London and to cough up £80+.

Why did I choose this bag? Well its all thanks to one man. Benjamin Stanley. After a rather sucessfuly MMUG session at the Solihull Apple Store, a few elite mac geeks went to Pizza Hut Pasta Hut. And it was in this establishment that I spotted Ben’s own CheesyTina and made my enquiries. After a quick guided tour of the pockets and pouches and the ample laptop area, I was sold.

That night I placed my order and waited. Today it arrived, much to my gross excitement, and I can now present the first unboxing shots.

Unboxing

As you may notice, the packaging left a lot to be desired. Compared to my other bag (a Pretty Boy camera bag) it was starkers! No Crumpler cellophane at all!

 Here it is, in all its free-from-a-box glory, waiting to be filled!. 

Exploded CheesyTina

Exhibit C: The removeable Laptop Case, to fit a mac up to 15″  (yes it first 15.4″ widescreens)

I intend on doing a full review, with an indepth tour, and accompanying Flickr set, but need to give it a solid test run with its contents to see how I get on, then I’ll be contributing my own whatsinmybag photo to the pool.

I will take 10 pounds sterling (£10 GBP) and purchase 10 of one type of scratchcard, from one vendor, from a single batch, so they are all sequentially generated. I will scratch the panels off and see what I win. From those winnings, I will purchase more scratchcards of the same variety. I will continue to do this until one of the following situations occur:

1) I win the jackpot
2) I win £100 total
3) I go broke
or 4) after doing this for 6 rounds, I seem to be getting nowhere.

Now what is the point? Well I can sell this as a real life maths experiment, to test the probability of winning against real life. Now theory says that in those first 10, I should win 2 times. Now I could only win £1 on each, meaning I then purchase 2 more cards, and with a probability of 1:4.29 and ony having 2 cards, my odds are low, so it is likely that I will reach outcome 3 soon. But then again, I could luck out and hit 3 or more cards, perhaps with higher winning prizes. Truth is, I could hit the big time (well average of £6k on most scratchcards) within that first batch. Its even possible I will reach outcome 2 fairly quickly.

Either way, it would satisfy my curiosity, and at a cost of £10, why not. And to defeat those who may say this is merely to feed some gambling habit, if I win the jackpot, I will donate between £500-1000 to a range of 5 charities chosen by me, and disclosed here, or if I win a smaller amount (outcome 2) I will donate 20% to a single charity, again disclosed here. Now bare in mind that outcome 2 might take me over £100. I mean if I have unscratched cards, I might as well carry on.

I will try and do this next week and report back with my findings. 

So I wanna spread the work about CreateSouth and urge you to attend if you’re nearby.

Dave’s done what I have recently though I would like to see in the UK as well. There are loads of these conferences in the US, SXSW, PodCamp, Bar Camp, Twitter Meetups, ConvergeSouth, and so many bloggers, podcasters, content creaters in the UK just don’t get to attend. This morning I thought it’d be good to see a WestByWestMidlands start up here, in the same suit as SXSW and CreateSouth that Dave has helped to get rolling. An event with something for everyone. Music, films, sociology, education, the whole works. Just somewhere you can come and listen to people speak about their industry, ask them how to get started them selves, get ideas and tips for improving your own business, blog, podcast or other. Somewhere to go and learn how to make a short video for Youtube or Viddler, to learn about digital photography from the beginning, to learn how to get blogging and podcasting, and generally share knowledge and have a good time.

I’m hoping one year I’ll have enough time and money to go to SXSW perhaps but for now, I’ll watch from afar and support Dave who’s bringing some of this to the South east.

So if you fancy it, go and get registered!

Here’s a photo I took the other night at the Cineworld in Birmingham. i walked past the ticket machine where you pick up your advance booked tickets.
Seeing this makes me less happy to book online.
Not only did the machine crash, but its running Windows 95? Holy christ.