A long weekend....
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 12:41PM Some exciting news this week, well, exciting for me at least!
I could string it out, but I learnt a while ago, that it's best just to come out with it when it's the type of news that only really impacts you.
I always remember back in the early days of podcasting, there was one weekly tech podcast I used to listen to each week, not a Mac podcast by the way. The host started to bang on about some earth shattering news that he had, but wasn't able to share with us until a certain date. Each week, he would mention this news, building it up and building it up into some really amazing exclusive that would change the face of podcasting forever. By about the third week, I was gagging for this news and he announced that he would reveal all during a special edition of the show the following week. I was beside myself with anticipation.
The next edition of the show rolled around and finally the new was announced.....
He had a book deal.
D'oh!
Now I'm sure it was exciting for him, and quite a significant event in his life but really, it was of little or no interest to his audience. I was pleased for him but after such a prolonged build up and mounting anticipation, it was a real let down and such a disappointment. In fact, I was so disappointed and felt so strongly that I unsubscribed from his podcast and have never listened again to this day.
So I'm very wary of building up buzz and anticipation on things I announce via the show and the blog, if really they only are exciting to me and yes this is one of those instances!
So basically, the news is I've been invited to attend a special screening of the new Star Trek movie over in Los Angeles in 10 days time. It's a special screening put on by Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry (the son of gene Roddenberry, the creator of the original Star Trek) which will also feature a documentary and will have some of the original Star Trek cast in attendance.
It transpires that Rod is a big Mac fan and extended an invitation to a number of Mac podcasters through a mutual friend.
Whilst I originally dismissed the idea of traveling half way round the world for a long weekend to watch a movie, my friends and family thought I'd be mad to miss the opportunity. So further investigations and the realisation that my current airmiles would cover most of the airfare, and the generosity of a certain Mac podcaster who is also going to the event and will be putting me up for a night, it looks as though it's going to happen.
So yes, I'm excited and I had to let you know so I could tweet away on the trip.
I'll also be taking the opportunity to drop in on one of my old friends now know lives out in LA so it should be a pretty memorable trip. The plan is to fly out on the Thursday, spend Friday and Sunday at the resort where the screening is to take place, visit with my friend on the Sunday and fly back Sunday evening arriving back in the UK on the Monday. I'm not sure what state I'll be in or wether jet lag will even have had a chance to kick in, so the show for the following week might be a bit shorter or not as in depth as usual!
So I hope you share with me in my excitement and I plan to tweet as much as I can whilst I'm away.
Just don't unsubscribe!
Please!
I started a mini twitter storm yesterday by expressing my frustrations with trying to find a simple yet effective Money management application for the Mac.
Up until a few months ago, I was still using MS Money 95 (yes 95!), the last application from my pre-mac days and the only one I needed a windows virtual machine on my mac for.
Well I decided to bite the bullet and transfer over to a Mac application to remove my dependancy on the windows environment.
Well, there are tons of really smart Mac applications out there for every niche under the sun so shouldn't be any problems?
After a very brief mooch around, I ended up with iBank.
After using it for a few months, I want my MS Money'95 back.
You know, if I enter 02/01/09 I really don't expect my consumer level package to interpret that as 2nd Jan 0009 - I mean, come on FFS!!
Anyhow, I'm not happy and want a Mac app that makes life easier and makes keeping on top of my finances fun, you know, like all my other apps behave.
As a side note, I've found a great online package for my business accounts called Kashflow (
My good Mac buddy, Adam Christianson, was kind enough to invite me to take part in a special edition of the Maccast just before Christmas with another two of my favourite Mac podcasters - Victor Cajiao (