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I read an article yesterday slamming media for not being more critical in their coverage of Apple. And it’s true, very rarely do you see, in Sweden anyway, some news that are criticizing Apple for anything. Sure we had that small little debate about Apple and Google geotagging everything (but as opposed to Google, Apple cached everything in a local file meaning if you managed to hack in to someones computer you could backtrace where their i-Device had been).
I can’t say much about Mr. Jobs, not because he’s recently passed but because I just don’t know enough to say anything about it. Most of my knowledge about him comes from “Pirates of Silicon Valley”. And I can’t say much about Apple as a company since I’m no business analyst.
But what I can say a lot about is their mobile products, iPhone and iPad. What positive I can say, and I said this a week after owning my iPhone I had for over 2 years, is that Apple has a very, very keen sense for interfaces. They make so much stuff easy for the average joe. But in my opinion it ends there with them. To my knowledge everything they’ve ever put into their iPhones have already been done by someone else. They just make it easier to use and overprice it. For example, I recently switched to Samsung Galaxy SII. It cost me about $600. How much would an equal Apple product cost? .. according to Webhallen it’d be around $1200. That’s double the cost. For what? I still can’t play my MKVs “out of the box” and all that other stuff. And I still can’t update my firmware without iTunes (or has that finally been unlocked now?). The Samsung phone already has everything that Apple introduced as “new!” with the iPhone, they even have the “S” in the model name. And did anyone, anywhere write that? Cause on a tech level it’s true but noone (except tech bloggers) seems to put that in print! No, instead Aftonbladets and Expressens webservers went down one night when I was working and for a second I thought we had internet connection issues. But nope, they just got overloaded thanks to their “Apple releasing a new product!!” coverage.
By the way – what happened to all those “win an iphone 5”-competitions I saw banners and links to? 🙂
No, I think it’s down to the fact that people just love an underdog that wins! It’s like the Brawn team in Formula 1 a few years ago. Very close to bankrupt, the boss keeps believing and somehow manages to pull the team together and they kick ass and win the championship against the evil competitor that has for a long time owned the throne, Ferrari. And people wrote alot of good stuff about Brawn as a person and the team as a “wonders can happen!”-thing. Not many dared to say “they exploited a loophole in the rules that allowed them to go between 2-3 seconds faster per lap and after everyone had caught up they didn’t win a single race”. And it’s the same here, Apple was very very close to bankruptcy when Jobs came back and started the whole i-Device thing and they’ve now won over the evil competitor, Microsoft. And little does anyone ever mention “the first thing Jobs did was kill the Newton and now, some 15 years later their iPad is one of their strongest products!”.
So my grief isn’t with Apple or the entire “iOS v. Android” thing, my grief is with the media not being the least bit critical when reporting on Apple, that annoys me…. Damn no I need cookies to make me feel positive again!
Let’s talk toys. Specifically media players, or media streamers or whatever you wanna call it. Small boxed that you connect to your TV or projector to play your digitalized movies. I started that project about 3 years trying to find a good solution to it. And I’m still not happy! The closes to “satisfied” that I’ve come is actually Popcorns A110 which is so low tech and “just the facts”-scaled down you can get. But the fewer “cool features” you have the less things can go wrong!
I’ve tried having a PC but in the end with their fans and harddrives it just makes too much noise to have it at the TV. So I’ved tried it with the PS3 and that kinda worked but doesn’t play all the stuff I have and some stuff bugs out. Lately I’ve tried two “Xtreamer” products. First I tried their “Pro” which was suppose to be media player and network storage all in one, so I could have 2 2tb harddrives in the same machine where I store the movies, awesome to combine them. But their idea of “network storage” didn’t exactly jive with my idea of it so after playing with it over the weekend I exchanged it for their “media player only” product “Sidewinder 2”. So far it looks awesome and it plays everything I’ve thrown at it…. BUT!!! they have a major error in their software. Either that or they have a weird since of “interface”! Because their “Back” button is really an “Up” button. For example, I have shortcuts that points directly to my Movies directory on my server. And I have a shortcut pointing to my TV directory. When I go into the shortcuts menu and click “TV” I come to the TV directory fine. Now when I click “Back” I, and I believe the rest of the world, would expect to get back to the shortcuts menu. But instead I’m take to the parents directory of “TV” which is just wrong and I have to go back to the home screen to go into the shortcut menu to go to the movies catalog again. It’s messed up and you’d think a very small thing but it’s actually a big deal when browsing around!
This all just means I’m left wondering … “how hard can it be!? Why don’t I get together with Ricki and Jimmi and design one ourselves and just make three copies of it for ourselves and leave everyone else wanting one”…
This is what you’d in sweden call an “i-lands problem”, a small insignificant problem that someone in Africa would say “I wish I didn’t have bigger problems than that”. But it still annoys me!
Saw a really good story yesterday on the TV4 News about abusing online identities, in this case for political purposes. It’s basically about two young “everyday” women who found out that someone have set up Facebook pages in their names, using their personal details and photos and joining political groups. And the person doing the story, Lena Sundström, got some first hand experience about this when someone set up a fake Twitter account in her name pretending to be her. Ofcourse there’s nothing new about fake Twitter/Facebook accounts, that’s a rather old story but using it for political purposes was a new angle for me! Especially with Lena Sundström (who’s from South Korea but raised in sweden since she was like 6 months) who have done numerous stories about Sverige Demokraterna, a political party in Sweden who wants to send all immigrants back home and it’s been interesting to see her meeting people and they having no idea she’s an immigrant until they meet her for the interview.
I’m pretty grateful that even though I’ve had an online presence since -98 when I set up my first website and started a blog nothing like this have happened to me. Maybe that’s because I’m too boring, I dunno…
You may remember a few weeks ago I made a post that we were now “leasing” a car instead of owning it so we wouldn’t have to worry about stuff. Well what I forgot to mention was that we did have another car, a Volvo that has server us well. I bought it 2 1/2 years ago for 30k SEK (it really was 40k but I got 10k for handing in my old Mitsubishi) and it was the car on all our photos of when the house was built. It was the car we raced to the hospital in when H was going into labor. But it was also the car that last year cost us 10k SEK in spare parts alone (thanks to H’s brother the work was more or less free). And now was the time for it to go through the annual inspection. And the verdict was surprisingly good – green across the board! That’s only happened to me ONCE that my car went through on the first try and that was so many years ago I can’t even remember it!
And right after we got the all clear I called the car dealership where I bought it and asked if they wanted to buy it. They said “sure, bring it by and we’ll have a looksy”. We were expecting to get like 10k for it but asked for 15k.. and we actually got 15k! Well needed 15k! First thing we did was buy a sulky for Sam since our old stroller was a bit too cumbersome for the new car. But that too served us very well for these 17 months!
And then we went to Stinsen to blow some money on clothes and stuff and the rest I guess goes to our house account that’s bound to take a beating soon.
Been busy the past week. “Deus Ex : Human Revolution” was released last friday and I gave it shot and got stuck right away. And man is it deep!! The gameplay was really good and the story is really good but when I finally got to the end there are four different endings to it and they are all unique views and opinions on the old question of ethics and technology. The story centeres around “augmentation” which is basically either enhancements to a human or replacing an entire limb. The technology can ofcourse be used for good and for evil and in the game you run across them both. And then the speeches in the four different endings, it’s like they are arguing against themselves. One ending is very “pro-tech/pro-capitalism”, one very “pro-tech but controlled”, one very anti-tech and let anarchy rule and the last one “let the people decide for themselves”. I loved it! And the replayability of the game is also great, gone through it 3 times now and still discovered different things!
Just a small quick little “rest in peace”-note about Stefan Liv (1980-2011). Never knew the guy, but I saw him play a lot of hockey since it DIF played against HV71 alot back when he played in Sweden. And I never missed a game when Sweden was playing so saw him alot there. And even though they guy stopped DIF from winning the trophy at least once he did it in style and he did it with raw talent and skill. There was not much luck with that guy, he was simply the best goalie. And in 2006 he helped the Swedish team not only win the world championship but also the Olympics. And he always seemed like a nice guy in all the interviews.
And then he goes and board the wrong jet and dies.. such a damn tragedy. And after watching alooooot of “Air Crash Investigation” episodes on national Geographic I’m pretty sure that once the cause has been determined it will seem even more pointless.
Just sad when stuff like this happens and it reminds you of what really matters. So what if the train is 10 minutes late, atleast it didn’t crash…
So this weekend we’re going out fishing for crabs! Yeah, I know, I don’t even eat crabs, but what tha hell, I’ve never done it so here goes! Then on saturday we’re gonna have a gettogether with alot of our neighbours and eat those poor crabs (or in my case shrimps). And then on sunday we have a relaxing day with Formula 1.
And Sam is spending the rest of today with my parents and tomorrow morning my sister AC takes over until we’re picking him up in the afternoon. We’ll see how long it takes us to really, really miss him and want him back. But we’ll probably have our hands full with crabs by then 🙂
Have a good one!
I’m not content changing jobs, I have to change car too!!
No seriously, what happened was that me and H (neither of which are very handy with cars) are just fed up with worrying about the car, if something’s gonna break, and most importantly what it’s going to cost us. And the annual road worthiness test is always something you worry about what they are gonna find and what that’s going to cost.
So we looked for options.. buying a new car? Sure that was a possibility but after 3 or so years we were back to worrying about something breaking and all those stuff. Sure we could buy a new car and sell it after 3 years and buy a new car again, but our limited experience selling cars isn’t anything positive at all.
So thankfully for us Volkswagen had a drive this august for consumer leasing a pretty spacious brand new Polo for only $300 per month for 36 months. “Are you mad, paying $300 per month for three years and you won’t even own the car or anything!?” – yeah sure, that may seem like an idiotic thing to do. But the way we see it is we don’t pay for the car itself or anything that can be measured physically. We’re paying for not having to worry about having car problems for 3 years. For 3 years we have the knowledge that no matter what happens with the car we’re not gonna pay for it. Either the insurance, warranty or service-deal will take care of any and all costs… that’s the theory anyway. I’m kinda skeptical so we’ll wait ’till after the first breakdown to say if it works in the real world.
You may remember I mentioned a few weeks ago that I there was something big going on. Well now it’s done. I have officially quit my job. Not before securing a new one ofcourse!
After I had been on parental leave for 8 months and came to work I started getting more and more frustrated over some issues at work and after coming home day after day being pissed off and bitter about things my wife told me to take the bull by the horn and if it wasn’t gonna get better I should try to find another job. And after landing an interview with a bank I informed my boss about my intentions and he kinda felt it coming and wished me luck. I didn’t get that first job but I got another interview and they liked me and I liked them and then it took some time for the paperwork because of all vacations but now the paperwork has gone through so from november 1st I’ll be working at Carema in Sundbyberg, which is alot close to home too. And it is a promotion of sorts since I’ll no longer be on first- or even second-line helpdesk so all is good.
And as I went to bed last night I realised that this is the first time I’ve ever quit a job! 🙂
This week I’ve been with Sam to his new kindergarten for 3 days, spending time with him from 9-15. And I gotta say I should’ve spent this much time with him before! When I was home with him for 8 months I never really REALLY spent time with him compared to now. And the big thing is that when I’ve been at the kindergarten I haven’t had the option of doing anything else than being with him. Not watching TV, not checking my mail, not playing computer games, not cleaning the house, making dinner, mowing the lawn etc, there’s always been something else to do. But for these 3 days there’s been nothing but him. Which has been great cause it feels like I love the little guy much much more now than I did 3 days ago!
But tomorrow I’m leaving him at 9 and going home. If he’s ok being there all day I’ll pick him up at 4 and same thing on friday. Which means I’ll have 2 days of me-time. But considering how many days of vacation I’ve taken this year that’s not alot. But I’ll take it!! 🙂
I don’t get what the deal is with “Game of Thrones”? Everyone is totally raving about it, and I’m at episode 8 and totally bored. The only thing I’m liking is the scenary, but that’s it. Ok maybe Sean Bean. But storywise it’s so completely un-original as you can get. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it really feels like we’ve seen most of the things on this show so many times before. Maybe not on TV because I have to admit it’s beautifully made for a TV show’s budget, but still…
I got another small vacation coming now! After working for 2 weeks I got 2 weeks off. The first one will be spent trying to keep Sam entertained and stimulated which is getting harder and harder all the time it seems. Can’t wait for him to become a slacking teenager lying in the couch watching bad TV… just like his old man!
And after that he’s gonna be starting kindergarten. And this time a real kindergarten! Not one made up of some barracks and people picked from here and there, no this is a real established kindergarten that’s a few hunder meters from the house. Which will make dropping him off and picking up a bit easier. I’ll be with him the first few days at the new kindergarten so he eases into it a bit and by thursday I’m counting on dropping him off at 9 and go home to just slack and slack all day for once! I am after all on vacation!
Unfortunately we’re in a bit of a Formula 1 drought because the crews needed a vacation too after two back-to-back races and just when it got interesting as Ferrari are getting their act together 🙂
Last weekend we went to Eskilstuna Zoo along with Helenas brother and his family. Last time I was there was over 20 years ago. And I hardly remember anything about the Zoo itself except the “Fantomen”-cave. But the memory I had of the theme park was that it was big. But I knew my memory had to be wrong since it’s too small of a town to have a big theme park like “Gröna Lund” in Stockholm or “Liseberg” in Göteborg.
And after a 1 1/2 hour drive in the heat (our AC in the car isn’t fixed yet) and with a screaming Sam we finally arrived. And as expected the theme park was really really small. Big enough for Sam for a few years I guess but not much for me. And the Zoo part? Well we didn’t see much interesting stuff, mostly stuff we’d already seen before. And Sam wasn’t at all interested in the animals. He has a weird fascinating in pushing things – the pram, chairs, cleaning carts or anything else with wheels. And as usual in places like this the prices are doubled for even a small cola!
But I still think it was totally worth the trip! Firstly it’s always good to get away for a day. And we got to meet Helenas brother and family again. And she had fun. So even though I missed the F1 qualifying (thank good for our digital recorder) it wasl totally worth it.
I know I haven’r written anything here for almost 20 days but I’ve hade my hands full!
This week has been a good one for us I think. Except my throat being a bit soar we have all been healthy and well, especially Sam. And you can really tell the difference!!
But now he’s done with the temporary kindergarten! Now we have about 6 week vacation and then he’s off the the real kindergarten that’s just around the corner from where we live!
Today we went to my parents. We were supposed to be there last weekend but as I wasn’t feeling well we never made it. Anyway, good times, good food, good company and Sam had fun! Tomorrow off to see Transformers 3 at the movies with my sci-fi friends. Here’s hoping it’s better than the second one!
Last Friday was midsummer here in Sweden. And we hade planned to go out to old Sorunda for the good old celebrations there They home to my parents for family dinner and maybe stay the night.
Here’s a little recap of what went down last weekend.
We started the weekend off on friday evening with a nice dinner in front of the TV with wine and beer, some cookies and cheese but went to bed early since we knew what a big day we had ahead of us.
On saturday morning my sister AC arrived to take care of Sam for us. We love the little guy but to really relax we needed someone to “off-tank” him (all you Warcrafters now what I mean). We suited up, took some photos and headed into Stockholm. Since we didn’t know exactly where we were supposed to be (Stockholm’s city hall is a big building!) we went a bit early. After doing some recon we sat down for some coffee and a muffin and a nice lady at a table next to us wanted to take some photos of us with our camera since she thought we looked like the cutest couple ever. And then my dad called my to ask if they could stop by so we had to tell them that “nope, because we’re in Stockholm getting married” which they had no clue about. At first he wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not but soon realized I was.
After that I took some nice photos of Helena by the water with the wind all over her dress! Then we went in as instructed 15 minutes before the service and it was totally packed! We thought this is where people went that didn’t want to have a big wedding but we were wrong – almost everyone had their families with them, all dressed up and wedding dresses and tuxes, made us feel a bit under dressed. And when it was finally our turn it was over in 5 minutes. Just a quick “do you” and “do you” and some text that I don’t remember that much about. And fortunately one of the assistants helped us by taking some photos of us, even though she wasn’t that camera savvy so half the photos are out of focus.
After the ceremony we got into the car, texted all the people that should know we got married and then drove off into the sunset… or to Norrköping where we had booked a suite with their “Love”-packaged. Got champagne on ice and fruit and chocolate, that was really nice. After winding down and walking around the city for a bit it was time for dinner which was at their local pub. Not really the fanciest place to have a post-wedding dinner but it worked for us. Then enjoyed a drink in the bar and then bed time. Yeah, I know, we actually go to bed early nowadays. But we slept really late on Sunday 🙂
After we finally got up on Sunday Helena tried out their Jacuzzi while I was just l laming around just enjoying not being stressed or worried or entertaining Sam or anything, it was just us! After we checked out we went to Söderköping for our annual visit to the ice cream restaurant. Then we drove to Huddinge hospital to check up on a friend of Helenas that had a daughter a few weeks ago. She was tiny as hell but she was born way WAY premature so not surprising.
Then home again and take care of Sam so AC could get back to her real work.
So that was our weekend. Except for the mediocre dinner it was awesome!!!
Pictures are here by the way.
Yeah, we finally got married!!!
After we’d built the house and we knew we were pregnant and agreed we’d go with it I knew this was the woman I was gonna spend the rest of my life with! Not only did we have a house together and a mortgage to go with it, not only because we were gonna bring a child into this world. Nope, it was really just love! I knew I was gonna love her no matter what because she’s just such an amazing person! So for me getting married was a given. We just needed to get some cash flow so we could have a party. But after being home for a while and doing the budget we realized that wasn’t gonna happen so we just agreed to do a normal ceremony at city hall in Stockholm because neither one of us is particular religious. For us the most important thing was to just be married with all the benefits and security that brings if something would happen to one of us. And Helena also wanted to have the same last name as her son. They had a 6 month waiting list and pushed it another month to wait for our tax return. We got my sister to take care of our son and made reservation at a hotel in Norrköping so we could swing by Söderköping for our annual visit to the ice cream restaurant.
So here we are after that amazing weekend! If you followed me on facebook you know how much fun we had and how glad and cute we looked all weekend 🙂
But I do feel bad about not throwing the party but we simply couldn’t afford it. I feel particularly bad for Henke and Markus who invited me to their wedding and I couldn’t return the favor. But after over a year of one of us staying home with Sam our economy is just recovering.
I’ll post something tomorrow about that awesome weekend but for now… I can’t believe she said yes!! 🙂
The kindergarten called H today at work. They said she must come pickup Sam because apparently he has an infection in his eye.
The weekend wasn’t as kickass as I would’ve liked. Mostly because of that lame Formula 1 race! They blew the biggest excitement even before it started by starting the race behind the safety car! Having that lineup, with red bulls bad KERS, it would’ve been awesome! But nope! Then red flag for 2 hours waiting for better weather?? I thought these guys earned millions because it was dangerous not so they could only drive in sunshine! Nah that race was lame! Go go Valencia!! 🙂
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