Despite initial plans for a quick sandwich, as a group we ended up walking through the streets of Perth. Getting the team to decide on a suitable lunch venue proved difficult.  We actually ended up in a typical English-style pub – the Moon and Sixpence. I enjoyed a traditional Oz beer: Redback, on draught.

After a day at work, a day that included a brief walkabout during lunch, most of us ended up in the Fairlanes bowling alley. Oscar unfortunately did not join us…he got stuck in the hotel lift, for over 90 minutes.

Art and I “programming” the bowling computer

Despite a slightly bruised left knee, I managed four strikes, three of which were consecutive (a turkey) giving me a score of 159. The next highest score was 161, from Art. Speaking of Art, he brought along his family: wife Goshi and daughter Sabrina.

Dinner was held in south Perth, over the Swan river. The weather was not conducive to “walking it”. I enjoyed a medium to well-done sirloin steak, others enjoyed a variety of fish dishes. Beer: James Boag Premium (lager)

Penny, Richard and I stayed out for a beer. Only one – the bar was loud, it was raining and we had a river cruise planned for the next day. Noted that fuel is A$1.42 per liter, or £0.58…over here in the UK, we’re paying pennies off £1.00. Rip-off Britain again.  I learnt that Aussies “went spare” when the price went through a$1.00. Different cultures, different problems perhaps? No. I don’t think so, we should be striving for unification. We should borrow some more of the ideas from StarTrek and get our act together, removal of financial greed and geographical economies would benefit mankind so much.

Today, I woke up at 0615 and by 0630 I was out doing walkabout in Perth city centre. It was an eerie experience, very few people shared the streets with me. Apart from two homeless people, some travelers at the railway station and a surprising number of policemen and policewomen at the said railway station, the streets were empty. Nonetheless, I walked for some two hours finding the Technip and IBM buildings during my travels. Without exception, no shops or eateries were open. Even towards the end of my walk, the only places that were beginning to open their doors were McDonalds and Hungry Jacks (which looks remarkably like Burger King, and I’m guessing that they are one and the same)…so I went hungry and thirsty. On the subject of BK and McDonalds…I note that the prices over in Oz are exactly the same numerical representation as the prices here in the UK, i.e. a A$5.75 meal is £5.75…rip off Britain.

I returned to the hotel and took breakfast with my Spanish amigo Oscar. This was a good thing as the next activity, which promised to provide breakfast, turned out to provide the smallest breakfast possible, consisting of cheese, biscuits and dried fruit. Oscar and I were grateful that we had some real fruit, coffee and pastries in the hotel. After breakfast (the next activity), Richard, Penny, Oscar and I walked down to the Barrack Street piers and picked up a boat that cruised up the Swan River headed towards Guildford and the wineries (vineyards) beyond that. We, Richard, Penny, Oscar, Art, Goshi, Nap, Mat, Peter, Katya, Sabrina, and I blagged the seats at the bow (front) of the boat. The skipper noted via the ship’s microphone system that we might find it cold…cha, not a chance! The sun shone for most of the up river trip, a tan was in the making. The cruise up river was super, the sun was shining, the wine was starting to flow (it was only 1030, lucky I had the hotel breakfast!)

Whilst heading up river, the skipper noted that one of the Swan river’s wooden bridges was so low, that he had to take in ballast to lower the boat in the water. Indeed, we even came to a complete stop as the skipper’s mate checked the boat’s height against the bridge. Part of me though that this was marketing trick designed to impress us!

The Houghton vineyard. Crisp and clear Chardonnay’s, the Classic was nicely chilled and hit the spot. Previously known as the “burgundy”, the Classic had to be renamed because of a dispute with the French (quelle surprise?) So, five bottles of white, 5 bottles of red, that was our choice. Our group, which included many other tourists, did not finish all the wine – it was interesting noting which wines still had over half a bottle of wine remaining.   The Sandalford vineyard. Sadly, I had already written the Sandalford wines off before I arrived – for me, Australian wine is very much an acquired taste, the few bottles of Sandalford offerings that I had drunk in the UK taught me that it was never going to be a taste that I would or could acquire. That said, Penny bought Richard’s parents a bottle of their A$95 offering (A$5 for a tasting glass)…and that did taste rather good. Three whites, a couple of reds and a liquor port were on offer. Despite my personal disappointment, the rest of the group soon finished off the bottles, leaving little or nothing.

You know, I couldn’t help how much this picture at the Sandalford winery should be the water hole on a lovely golf course:

I noted that in both vineyards, the bottles that we started with were all we were going to get…once a bottle was finished, another did not appear in its place. Given that there is a wine glut in Australia right now, i.e. there’s too much of the stuff, producers are destroying grape harvests, I found this “one bottle” rule rather surprising. I’m told it takes some five years from vine planting to decent wine production, many newcomers look into the idea but are put off by the lead time, and rightly so. I guess this is something the French get right, they pop out another bottle when the first taster is empty.

Returning home, the trip down river magically seemed to take a lot less time. The aforementioned low bridge was now passable at speed, with no checks necessary. Adam, the Skipper’s mate, entertained us with some Bobby Darin numbers (a tune that stayed in Oscar’s head and mine for some time).

Mat grabbed this shot of me…nicely done

Some of the wine that we sampled…

Dinner tonight was in Vivace, an Italian restaurant on Bennett Street. I enjoyed a Caesar salad con pollo followed by espresso. It seems that Caesar salad is the same in Spanish, English and Italian.

I became a tiramisu salesman – I noted that the owner had placed his tiramisu at the back of the display cabinet. My careful marketing skills came in to play: “move them to the front and you’ll sell more”…within seconds of him moving them forwards, he sold five portions. I’m in the wrong job, marketers beware, I’m coming to get ya.

I sat myself at the head of the table, through luck more than anything else.  Oscar, from Chile, was sat next to me. Oscar and I spent much of the dinner exchanging language tips: he gave me a lot of Spanish tips and I gave him English tips (amazing I know, but hey, people change). Katya sat next to Oscar – she is from Las Republica Dominica and as such also “habla español”. This is the way to learn the language – Oscar actually spent the bulk of the weekend sorting out each our various language concerns.

Bizarre, there we were sitting in an Italian restaurant, practicing Spanish…and English – it worked both ways.

0100 – 0930 was spent in the Dubai International airport flight connections hall. An impressive setup, very well appointed in many respects, except one. There aren’t enough seats. It’s a holding area for a lot of airlines who are ferrying their passengers further east or back home to Europe. Anyway, the Duty Free is reasonably well done, plenty of choice, and if my brief foray into the mobile ‘phone prices was anything to go by, some bargains could be had. I didn’t find the noise reducing/canceling headphones that I have been looking for, nor did I find the Seiko Divers 200m kinetic timepiece (plenty of other flavours, but not that one).

Not surprisingly, this brief stopover (it didn’t feel brief at the time!) in an Arab speaking environment took me back to my five years in Libya. Sadly all I could remember of the language were a handful of the numbers (both spoken and written). It seems however, that the UAE is like most of Europe, English is commonplace. Memories that I did not realise I had came flooding back: the sound of a gentleman “clearing” his throat in the washrooms, wow! And the ladies, some with their ill-fitting shoes, often one or two sizes too small. The black outfits, some covering themselves head to toe, others being a lot more brazen. One thing that is very different about the women here: most of them are carrying mobile ‘phones. Perhaps the women in Libya are too?

The airport itself seems to be huge. It took us about 10 minutes on a coach to get from the aircraft to the terminal building. The Emirates fleet is huge, hence the size of the airport perhaps? Because of the size of the fleet, there’s no room for inefficiency – everything seems to run rather smoothly, very efficient. Internal transport for the elderly, the infirm, woman with children and the downright lazy takes the form of 4-seater electric golf buggy-like devices. Thankfully the airport has aircon – it was 36c outside last night at 0100 when we arrived.

I must be wearing my invisible clothes again. People just seem to “not see” me and end up walking through me. My lack of visible presence also means that it is me who ends up weaving in and out of crowds. I don’t see anybody else doing this. Similarly, I could be looking at the Seiko watch display or the Citizen display and somebody will walk in front of my view – something that happens when I’m shopping in Tesco too. I usually stand back from displays and shelves of food…so that I can see what’s on offer. It’s usually very obvious what I’m doing, yet folks still walk in front of my view, interrupting what I’m doing for their own gain. It’s very selfish, but I don’t think folks realise that they are doing it.

Glasgow to Dubai – Boeing 777-300 Extended Range (ER) with Emirates own Information Communication Entertainment (ICE) system including a 9″ screen in each headrest installed. Sweet. A seemingly endless supply of visual delights including films, comedy, sport, cartoons, etc. followed by some classic [Atari] games like Missile Attack/Command, Tetris, Chess and some 30 or so others. E-mail and SMS services were available at a cost, hence I did not partake in the activity (partly because I haven’t bothered to setup an e-mail address for WordPress posts as yet). It was a powerful aircraft, albeit the power came from just two engines – two rather large engines though.  

I traveled on the Wednesday after Thursday the UK security services discovered the plot to use liquid explosives on flights to the USA.  Luckily I was allowed to take my laptop into the cabin (even though it is a Dell, a Dell with a good [Sony] battery I might add!)  I also took my generic MP3 player, loaded with material from DNR and various other podcasting sources.

The flight duration was nearly 8 hours. I had my usual aisle seat, the middle seat was vacant and the window seat was filled by Graham of AXIS. Graham has worked in Dubai for the last 15 years, and like me, he struggles to understand the customer service ethos in the UK. Anyway, the flight, it quite literally flew by.

Upon arrival in Dubai I was stunned at the size of the Emirates fleet, more so when I realised just how many 777s are in their fleet: virtually every jetway we passed on the way to the transit lounge had a 777 of some description parked up. Awesome.

Anyway, the transit lounge was to be my home for the next few hours, from 0100 until 1000.

Dubai Duty Free had some interesting tourist stuff…

And some nostalgic soft drinks…so cheap too

Update, 09/06/2011
As luck would have it, there is now a startup called prodcast! If you arrived here looking for http://prodca.st/, please feel to mosey on over there and have a look around!

Prodcast is a website where you can comment on the products you love and share them with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Read more: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/prodca-st-review-the-products-you-buy

I’m a little confused. I like the sound of the word Prodcast as used by The IW Center here. But over at the QSNews/BCIS here, it seems it’s something differently completely.

To me, I believe that a Prodcast (if we must have another word for it) is something akin to a product demonstration delivered using the same technologies as a blogcast (i.e. a mix of audio and video).

Comments or thoughts?

Yesterday, the Royal Mail delivered one of those “Only available to the first 150,000 respondents” pamphlets, “urgent attention required”, “time-sensitive documentation inside”. Normally, straight in the bin. Yesterday, I needed something to read for five minutes and that was it.

It seems that in exchange for £5 (GBP), The London Mint Office will send me the new Queen Elizabeth II 80th Birthday £5 coin.

Except, and you do have to read the “small print” which states “the new Queen Elizabeth II 80th Birthday £5 coin is legal tender in Tristan da Cunha. It is redeemable at any time on the Island. Alternatively, it can be redeemed if accompanied by proof of purchase, through The London Mint Office”.

So, in exchange for £5 GBP which is legal tender here in the UK, you can have a shiny coin that is not legal tender in the UK…nice.

Just where is Tristan da Cunha? Well, it’s a remote island in the south Atlantic ocean. From what I can gather, it is only accessible by ship. You are very unlikely to go there on a holiday. Further, the economy of Tristan da Cunha is largely fishing oriented, you are unlikely to find a store selling generic MP3 players or the like! To quote the local policeman (singular): “300 people live here, earning their living from farming, fishing, handicrafts and the sale of colourful postage stamps”. Not really the place you might find Pete Tong on a Friday night.

I have no reason to believe that this is a fraudulent scam, after all, the Royal Mail delivered it and you wouldn’t expect them to be party to anything dodgy. However, do be aware that you’re not exchanging £5 GBP for anything that is legal tender in the UK…all you can do with it is admire it or hopefully receive a refund (postage at your expense!)

A similar story is reported here.

[13/09/2006 update]
After reading some of the incoming comments, it does seem that this is a heavy marketing scam, probably to be avoided. If you feel really strongly about it, perhaps taking it up with the Royal Mail might be the answer. I should add that I didn’t actually part with my cash for this coin, I was merely reading the literature whilst having a seat in my bathroom, then the literature went straight in the bin.

Tony Hetherington invites readers to repeat their tales of woe over here.

[07/10/2008 update]
Thanks to an eagle-eyed comment from a reader (below), the new scam appears to be the “Golden Britannia Penny”. Watch out for that one! More information can be found here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1143741

Technorati Tags: tristandecunha, coins, birthday, London Mint, sly, London Mint Office, Tristan De Cunha, Golden Britannia Penny

Oliver Sturm (Developer Express, sponsor of NRW06) and I were walking down a reasonably busy main street in Reading last Saturday, 3rd June 2006, at around about 2100. It was after a super meal at PizzaExpress (after a super event.)

The streets were busy with the hustle and bustle of what looked like wannabee clubbers going about their business (staggering from one pub to the next and from one side of the street to the other!)

The boys in blue (police) were also out and about, handing out these:

It’s great advice, but since I’m from Scotland and Oliver’s from Germany, surely ironic?

I’m lovin’ the new Microsoft Office 2007 user interface, and the application is packed full of new and really cool features. Whilst the new user interface is a new way of working, it seems to be very usable, which is a good thing.

1. The Windows Vista Calibri font rocks. On my laptop and TFT Calibri looks crisp’n’clear, Word is very responsive and feels very fluid. Visit the Vista Developer Center.

2. Integrated and active status bar. Notice the word count and zoom facilities built right in to the status bar at the bottom of the screenshot above? Yes, these features were available via other means in Word 2003, however now they are click-able and herald a new design pattern for the user interface.

3. Live selected text. I’m not 100% sure that this is a good feature, but it certainly looks handy nonetheless. Select some text and you’ll see a format bar hint at fading in…move the mouse over the faded format bar and it fades up completely (there’s a screenshot below). It’s great for formatting “one-off” documents that don’t use Word’s built-in Styles, which might be a problem from a corporate perspective.

4. Built-in Document Inspector and cleaning facility. Office 2003 relied on a after-market plug-in that cleaned up personal information from documents, now it’s part of the product:

5. File Types. Office 2007 actively and visually differentiates between various versions of its documents.

What’s that .zip file? Hold that thought, that’s next!

Notice the size of the .docx and the 2003 .doc, we’ll learn why there’s a difference in a moment:

6. What’s more cool, if you take a look at the earlier screenshot, is the fact that the .docx extension is actually nothing more than a Compressed Folder, or .zip file. And you can rename .docx files as .zip and look inside! Here’s what’s inside the .docx:

And inside the word directory, well, there’s our document…and it’s an XML Document!

7. This rocks, think of the potential for dynamic creation of Office 2007 documents on machines that don’t have Office 2007 installed. Dynamic inspection of the XML document too. And of course, XML documents are text-based, so they’ll compress very well indeed…unlike the binary format (26Kb versus 14Kb as you can see from the earlier screenshot). Here’s a cropped screenshot of the XML:

Microsoft have submitted the Office XML formats to ECMA for standardisation. More about the file formats can be found over at OpenXML Developer. This is truly an excellent move, essentially making the file format open source and non-proprietary.

8. Blog this. Blogs have invaded our lives from all angles, and now the ability to “blog” a document is built in to the product. Out of the box support for MSN Spaces, Blogger, Sharepoint and Community Server is provided, as is support for MetaWebLog and Atom. An “other” option opens “Blog This” up to other blogging engines. I’ll test this using WordPress and report back later.

9. Lastly, live’n’dynamic tables. Inserting a table is visual in two ways. Firstly, when you decide how many rows and columns you need, secondly, a live table is drawn in your document:

I’ll post back here if I find other useful Office 2007isms in my travels.

Edinburgh is host to CowParade Edinburgh 2006, which means that there are some 94 cows dotted in and around the city.

Here’s a sample:

And an enlargement:

I wouldn’t expect to see the other 93 photographed here…unless somebody offers me a pile of cash. I only grabbed this one because I was passing it on my commute home after today’s Microsoft TechNet event held at Dynamic Earth.