Back Home
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 8:49AM Arrived back in the UK safely yesterday and now in catch up mode. This was the first trip where I really couldn't keep on top of emails and membership enquiries although I enlisted the services of my son to help out with setting up new members!
As a consequence, I'm working my way through the backlog of emails and responding to the oldest ones first, so it may take me a day or two to get up to date.
I can't tell you how nice it is to get back to quick and "always on" broadband.
The trip itself was amazing and I tried as best I could to keep the updates coming via iWeb, Tumblr and AudioBoo. As promised, I'll do a show this week all about iWeb and the tools I used when away.
I'll also be posting more photos and videos now that I'm back home and have no bandwidth constraints. I blew through the 50MB before the end of the first week and it now looks like the iPhone usage meter may not match with the actual usage figures if Leos experiences are anything to go by. At £6 per megabyte, I may have a nasty bill waiting for me :-(
Be sure to checkout the content generated by Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko and Derrick Story to see how the pros do it! You can also checkout the MacMania09 Flickr group to be inundated with photos. This will be updated over the next few weeks.
I've posted a couple of short movies over on my MobileMe Gallery page and YouTube,
The Great Wall of China
Rafting in Guilin
both created with the iPhone. The difference in aspect ratios is due to the different project settings I used in iMovie. Hope you like them!
One thing that was a complete eye opener to me when traveling was just how good a content generator the iPhone has become now that it has a decent camera, the video is just outstanding. The fact that you always have your iPhone with you makes it a complete game changer.
More blog posts to follow once I've caught up with email and the show!
Reader Comments (6)
You're spot on with the iPhone video quality. I thought you were taking the Great Wall and Guilin shots with a video cam. Was surprised to see you were using your iPhone.
Between your AudioBoos, photos and MacMania blogs, and now your MobileMe Gallery videos, we got a great multimedia sense of your experiences.
Thank you for sharing your experiences in China with all of us.
Ditto everything Steve has said above. I am thinking you could do a show about "How To Share A Trip With Family And Friends." Another show could be about "Gathering Trip Information>" This one could be about, for example, gathering web info about places you are going say in Evernote. Publishing your information say in Notebook. Great stuff for people who are yet to vacation this year.
I'd be very interested to hear your recommendations for iPhone data useage overseas. I travel a lot and always switch data roaming off. Having said that, I almost always have my laptop with me and can get WiFi somewhere.
My girlfriend is off to Vietnam and Thailand in August and has bought 20mb from O2 for £20 because she's leaving her laptop at home. My guess is that won't be enough, even for emails and the occasional blog updates. Any suggestions?
Glad you're back -- I missed your show. My Saturdays were boring with nothing Mac-related to enjoy. Looks as if you have great material for up-coming shows.
Don, Any update on the overseas data useage issue? Did O2 admit their billing was wrong or did you have to pay extra?
Phone O2 and they were very nice about it! The lady said the bill needed to be re-checked but a couple of days later they rang me back to say they would refund the overpayment.
Result!