Some of my answers:

I feel like I’m in a sci-fi movie every time I use it.

I feel like I’m using technology that is five or ten years away, and shouldn’t be available yet

I get the same feeling when using the iPad, that I got when I used a mouse on a computer for the first time.

Revolutionary or evolutionary? both. This is the next thing in the computing space. We’ve been using computers, with keyboards, mice, etc, for ages now. This is the big ticket. Multi-touch, portable, fast, aesthetic, smart, convenient.

My main computer is a Macbook Pro laptop. In the last month I reckon I’ve used the laptop a handful of times. The iPad caters for 80-90% of my computing now. Most of the things I do are in a web browser, email client, calendar. The only thing the iPad cannot do is edit HD video, which I still do on the laptop, and develop web pages/sites.

Don’t hate it until you try it. I’ve been carrying it everywhere, on the bus, on the train, at work, in meetings, on the couch, in bed, it’s just so convenient and makes anything ‘internet’y’ so accessible.

Truly a “magical device”.

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Its stressful, demanding, and hard work. I am acting in the role for now, until it is made permanent, it pays more too.

Busy time ahead!

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Yesterday was the global release of the Apple iPad. I thought it might be an idea to go line up at the local store before it opens to ensure I get myself the latest hot tech gadget. So I did.

On my way to work, I stopped past Nextbyte in Nedlands (an Apple reseller). I arrived at 7:15. The store was expected to open at 8AM. There were three guys already standing at the front door waiting. One guy arrived at 5AM! The others sometime after. I was standing in line hoping the store would have enough iPad stock to hand out the model I wanted.

The owner came out, yeah we have heaps of iPads (over 100).

Soon after, The West Australian (local newspaper) arrived, took photo’s, asked questions, interviewed, etc.

Soon after that (7:45), Channel 9 news arrived with camera in tow and took loads of footage. They filmed us waiting outside, walking in the store, buying our gear, leaving, etc, etc.

The news made the front of The West’s web site, and also www.watoday.com.au

And that was my day of fame. Later in the evening they had footage of us in the shop buying iPads on the news. Yay!

Here’s some snippits of the web sites I saved:

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A few years ago I set up a couple of web sites to try out the Amazon Associates program.

http://www.buyeyefi.com/

http://www.fireflyhelicopter.com/

I used a mashup script that I’d found on the internet which ‘mashed together’ content from youtube, amazon and ebay. Pretty neat stuff, except everyone decided to change their API’s so my sites stopped working.

Recently I re-vamped the sites, not only making them look nicer, but also updating the products, and ditching the scripts that no longer work. I’ve thrown together static sites in basic HTML, with nested amazon product links and youtube videos.

Search engine placing is pretty good, so that’s not a problem, traffic is the secret.

In the entire time I’ve had the sites running, I’ve made $92. Of course I haven’t seen a cent, I’ve not hit the min figure for pay out.

I’m quite interested to see how the sites go now with the new layouts and content. I’ve also added Google Analytics to the sites so I can monitor traffic, keywords, etc.

Some people have great success with the Amazon Associates program, generating tens of thousands of dollars a year, or more! It all comes down to traffic, and a niche product or topic.

EG. You might have a blog or web site about digital cameras. If you signed up with Amazon and embedded product links in your site, you might sell some camera’s or accessories through your web site and make some money. Little extra effort really.

It’s not difficult to make money online. It just requires research and patience. If one of your sites is making $50/day, then how about making ten sites? Make $500/day. Quit your day job!

Lots of up front work for an eventual passive income.

Some tips from me (and I’m certainly no pro at this):

• Register easy to remember and relevant domain names
• Use a free web template or script to generate your site
• Find a niche subject or product to sell
• Make the site interesting (add video’s, people love them)
• Don’t cover the site in adverts if you are trying to sell a product, you might end up loosing visitors to competitors when the click on the banner ad
• Load up your HTML with relevant keywords and description so search engines can crawl and index your site
• Be patient, you won’t make money over night. If you do, let me know, I want your secrets!

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-snip-

Pricing & Availability
iPad is available in Australia for a recommended retail price of AUS$629 inc GST for 16GB, AUS$759 inc GST for 32GB, AUS$879 inc GST for 64GB for Wi-Fi models and AUS$799 inc GST for 16GB, AUS$928 inc GST for 32GB and AUS$1049 inc GST for 64GB for Wi-Fi + 3G models. iPad will be sold through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorised Resellers. The iBooks™ app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store on 28 May.

Apple plans to release iPad in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore in July. Apple will announce availability, local pricing and pre-order plans for these nine additional countries at a later date.

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wtf is LAN?

Local Area Network.

We (the family) headed to Tammin to stay at a friends place. (is about 250km east of Perth) The girls (read, wives) took off to the scrapbook shop in Cunderdin while the guys (Clinton, Jai and I) stayed home and looked after seven kids. YES, SEVEN.

Finally we had the kids fed, clean, dressed for sleep, and in bed. It was grown-up time. So what did we do? Cranked out three laptops, a network switch, some beers and some network games!

Our ‘country’ rig consisted of an 8-port netgear gigabit switch (GS608), 13″ Macbook Pro, and two Toshiba Vista laptops.

After we finally had all machines chatting with static IP addresses, we fired up some Unreal Tournament and some Trackmania Nations. Super duper fun!

We attempted to fire up Command & Conquer – Red Alert, however on my machine (dual booting XP) could install IPX/SPX, the Vista boxes, unlucky. Red Alert needs IPX/SPX, doesn’t work on TCP/IP. Fail.

The night finished up with a few sips of port, the ladies returning from their happy-fun-time, and everyone hitting the sack.

Pity the kids were up and running amok at 5AM. Geez I’m tired right now. Glad tomorrow is a public holiday!

Great fun

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If you haven’t checked out bit.ly you should.

bit.ly is a URL shortening service. It’s free. Big deal right? If you sign up, you can use some of their cool tools to analyse traffic and get stats on your short URL’s. Very handy.

For example, I’ve just posted a video link (shortened by bit.ly) to Twitter using TweetDeck

I can log in to bit.ly and check out the stats on that link, the clicks, traffic, geographic info, etc.

If you need a solid URL shortener service, try bit.ly!

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Yesterday I managed to score a domain name that I was watching.

thebeaningoflife.com

It was already registered, for some time, it expired in January this year, and only yesterday became available to re-register after passing through the redemptionPERIOD and pendingDELETE period. What does this mean?

If you have a domain name, and you do not renew it, it expires. However, before someone else can snap it up and take it for themselves, it goes through several “phases”. It takes around 75-days after expiry before it’s available for someone else to register. During the redemptionPERIOD the original registrant has the ability to recover the domain (I think for a fee). This phase is no doubt the longest, and goes on for months. After this it becomes pendingDELETE and during this period (about 5 days), nothing can be done to recover the domain.

If you really want a domain name, and it’s going through these phases, it’s probably a good idea to ‘back order’ the domain name through your favourite registrar. This means you have a higher chance of acquiring the domain name should it become available again.

I decided not to back order (the domain isn’t THAT important to me), but just watch it like a hawk for it to become available again for registration. Boy was I surprised when I attempted to register it (again) yesterday, and the registration process worked.

Anyway, enough techno babble. What are my plans for this domain name?

To be honest, I’m not sure. I have a few ideas! One could be a new blog, coffee related. It could be the future site of my future espresso bar? (hah), somewhere to aggregate popular coffee news from around the world. Start an online coffee shop by re-selling roasted beans from a local roaster? Who knows. I’ll think of something.

For the time being, the domain is parked. It’s set up with some ads. This means if you go to the site, all you get is a pile of ads that you can click on (feel free, it helps pay for coffee, heh).

Google offer a service as part of their ‘adsense’ package to do domain advertising. So any dormant domains you have that aren’t doing much can be put to use and possibly generate some income. Especially useful if the domain already has some incoming traffic or link in’s.

thebeaningoflife.com has three sites linking to it, looks like they are all forums.

Want to know who/what is hitting your site? Try:

alexa.com
analytics.google.com

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Today I attended Barcamp Perth 2010

It was good. Lots of people, great talks, good topics!

Some of the topics included web security, fixing forms, cloud computing, foursquare chat, geotagging, and more.

I figured it would be a great idea to stream the talks to uStream with my trusty HDV camera and Macbook Pro. Epic Fail. Here’s what went wrong, for those that are wondering:

• My mac hates FLASH. Safari, Firefox, and Chrome all crashed out because of FLASH.
• The dedicated uStream Producer app (for mac or PC) hated the proxy server provided and wouldn’t stream vid
• I booted in to windows *vomit* and streamed it via the uStream web UI. Windows doesn’t know that my HDV camera hosts an audio interface, so the two recordings I did basically recorded audio with my Mac’s built in mic, URGH.
• The provided wi-fi became saturated
• The proxy server failed several times (overload, or just junk?)

It’s funny, I attended AMTC (Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Centre) which is now Central Tafe back in 1995, fresh out of school. It was the year it commenced operation, and was freshly built. Nothing really worked properly, including the proxy server. And that was fifteen years ago. hah.

You can read up on the event by checking out #bcperth4 and #barcampperth in twitter, maybe also check youtube and vimeo. I’m encoding a couple of HD sessions now for upload and will notify all when the uploads are done.

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It’s been a week since I picked up my coffee grinder, a Mazzer Mini manual. I thought it would be good to post about my time with this bad boy.

Firstly, my coffee has improved. It tastes better. You are probably thinking “what, how can just changing your grinder improve your coffee”. Let me answer by saying It’s ALL IN THE GRINDER.

Look at my grinder, it’s a $750 Mazzer Mini. Look at my coffee machine, it’s a $600 Sunbeam.

Through research and help from others, I decided to upgrade my grinder before upgrading my espresso machine. Because it’s all in the grind!

The Mazzer is awesome, it’s quieter, built solidly and performs amazingly. I’ve put together a list of pro’s and cons:

Pro’s – build quality, quieter, better grind, better control over grind
Con’s – messy, throws grinds sideways when ‘clacking’ (now fixed with schecter mod), big

The pro’s speak for themselves, I’ll discuss the con’s. It was really messy, until I did the ‘schecter’ mod. This modification is basically a small paper funnel in the doser chamber outlet that allows the grinds to drop straight down when ‘clacking’ the lever. Out of the box, this thing threw the grinds somewhat sideways, making for poor distribution and a fair bit of mess. The size of the machine doesn’t bother me much (it’s the smallest grinder they make), but could annoy those with small kitchens and tight spaces.

For low volume use, you can easily use it without the bean hopper, which I’ve experimented with. An old tamper can fit in the throat of the machine above the burrs, so you can dose the beans in to the throat, then cover with a tamper, and grind for a single shot.

Yesterday I entertained and made coffee for five guests. I dosed the bean hopper with enough beans for the five shots, and began to grind in to the doser. I’d never done it this way before, previously I’d grind only enough beans for one shot, in to the doser, then dose. Almost like grinding on demand, almost making the doser nothing more than a coffee grinds agitator. I struggled with a half-full doser. Don’t get me wrong, it provided stunning doses of grinds in to the PF, but, I really needed to have that doser dialed in to drop the right amount of grinds each time. I ended up with a lot of over-dosed PF’s, and I even threw out two wasted baskets which choked my machine because it was too over-dosed. Not ideal when your coffee is $40/kg.

Second batch of coffee’s for my guests and I was able to have the doser adjusted a little better for this kind of dosing. I dialed the doser in to probably about 7gms a dose. Three clack’s gave me maybe 21gm’s (at a guess), it was a good basket level after tamping.

I’m able to dose and tamp, without distribution, most of the time, and I’m getting even extractions (from what I can tell in the cup and by breaking up the puck (waste).

My coffee is just that much more enjoyable, a great improvement over the Sunbeam EM0480 grinder, which for the money, is a great conical burr grinder.

Next step in my coffee utopia (or quest?) is a new espresso machine. I’ve talked previously about issues with my current machine, so I won’t go in to it. I will say, it’s hard to justify the expense when you have a wife that doesn’t drink coffee!

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