Back in Blighty!

Back from my travels! All I need to do is catch up with unpacking, sorting out all my photos and videos, catch up on emails, catch up with the ScreenCastsOnline forum, read all my RSS feeds, get well, revisit some projects I suspended until after MacMania8, prepare for this weeks show, take my son for a University visit on Wednesday, record and edition episode of MacRoundtable tonight (if my voice holds out) and lots of other stuff! Yes, pretty much back to normal!

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A Quick Update from MacMania 8

Just signing in for a quick update..... Been laid low for the last week with a really bad sore throat and now a hacking cough! Luckily I managed to complete my quota of sessions without falling over but the macmania crowd have been very supportive even if they think I'm permanently sick! I'm just glad that I recorded the last two weeks worth of shows in advance - don't think I've ever missed a weekly show due to illness. Should be back in the UK tomorrow and hopefully will be fighting fit for next weeks show. Had some great feedback from the sessions I've delivered although not sure if they would translate well into screencasts as they are predominantly Keynote based sessions - We'll see. Looking forward to getting back to my full broadband connection - really struggled with the limited wifi so haven't been able to upload blog posts or photos - hopefully I'll catch up next week. So apologies for the lack of blog posts - surprisingly Twitter has been the service I've been able to use most frequently. Just a nod to the iPhone as well. The limited wifi (due mainly to the number of Mac geeks on this cruise all hitting the Internet at the same time) has rendered Mail.app on my MBA virtually unusable. The IMAP sync function just doesn't seem to be be able to cope with a slow connection. Consequently, I've been having to get up at 6am most mornings to get some decent bandwidth and try and keep up with mail. It's been so bad in some cases that I've even resorted to switching on Data Roaming on the iPhone to catch up with email when in port. You really notice the difference when 3G is available. I'll just have to pay the extortionate price for data (£6 per MB or £3 per MB in the EU) but it really has been a lifesaver. Ah well, best sign off before my battery conks out!

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MacMania 8 Sets Sail Tomorrow

As you may already know if you follow my blog or have heard on MacBreak weekly, I'm fortunate to have been invited to present on MacMania 8 - a geek cruise sailing around the Eastern Mediterranean. I'm currently in Genoa, Italy preparing to depart at 5pm tomorrow. The cruise is organised by Insight cruises who combine all the benefits of a traditional cruise with themed events for enthusiasts. The MacMania cruises are obviously put together for Mac enthusiasts but they also put on other themed cruises such as Shakespeare cruises and Scientific based cruises. I'll be giving 4 sessions around Mac and Personal Productivity, but the cruise also has others sessions by such notables as David Pogue, Lesa King, Randall Schwartz, Dan Frakes, Sal Soghoian, Bebo White and Josimar King. The sessions are delivered whilst we are at sea, allowing us to take part in the shore excursions, which is great as we visit 6 countries and 7 ports in 10 days!

There should be wifi and internet access available at various times throughout the cruise so I'll still catching up with emails, twitter and RSS feeds and might even post a couple of photos if time permits. The next two weeks ScreenCastsOnline episodes are already recorded so hopefully, I'll be able to publish them remotely from the ship with just a couple of clicks! I'll also try and update the blog, so keep checking back for any updates.

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