Still As Life

I have noticed over the past month or so that there have begun to be some more obvious changes in transport in response to the increasing fuel costs.

Over the past year there has been an increase in Camry’s/Aurion’s as taxi’s and police vehicles in place of some of Falcon’s and Commodore’s, and over the past month or so, I have noticed smaller 4 door vehicles such as Toyota Corolla’s and a few of the more expensive Toyota Prius hybrid car’s.

I have also noticed that freight and logistics companies like the Toll Group have been using small vehicles for smaller runs, such as the Hyundai Getz. In addition, during my travels up and down the east Australia over the past couple of months, I have noticed that there are becoming less single trailer trucks around, and the length of both trailers on dual trailer’s has been extending to the point where they are both getting to around the same length.

This is understandable given the prices of fuel, so this brings me to my title, some thoughts and observations about electric cars.

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Popularity: 47% [?]

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for this blog, the past couple of weeks have been absolutely hectic.

So what have I been up to?

• Fixed a problematic client website that had a lot more problems than expected.
• 20 hours worth of maintenance on another client website.
• Created the art for my business cards and setup the files for printing.
• Got the business cards printed (they are pretty hot, even if I do say so myself).
• Designed a series of website prototypes for a prospective client.
• Organised a client meeting in Lismore.
• Wrote a draft essay for KKB101: Creative Industries - People and Practices.
• Did my major Python assignment for ITB001: Problem Solving and Programming.
• Learned, the basics of UML, class diagrams, interaction diagrams and class descriptions.
• Worked on my ITB008: Modelling Analysis and Design team assignment.
• Seen post 3am more times in a week than I have all semester.
• Found a Pizza Hut Restaurant (ie non-take-away) near my place.

What do I have to do over the next few days?

• Finish my part of the ITB008 team assignment by Sunday night.
• Organise the deferral of my ITB001 exam.
• Update the TerraMedia Web Design General Terms and Conditions by Monday.
• Organise the appropriate documentation and presentation material for the client meeting on Tuesday.
• Hopefully get a new client.
• Do 10 hours worth of maintenance on a client website.
• Get my hair cut.

What do I have to do over the next week or two?

• Finish the final version of my KKB101 essay.
• Design three different computational artworks for KKB210: Computational Arts 1 using anyof the design tools outlined on my other blog.
• Display the three artworks on my computational arts blog.
• Study for ITB001 and ITB008 exams.
• Sort out a new computer back up system.
• Do some more client website maintenance.
• Finish the new TerraMedia website.
• Other work?
• Get the car fixed.
• Finish the fractal gallery section of Still As Life.
• Blog some more.
• Anything else that comes up.

If you follow me on Twitter, you would probably be aware of many of these things, but hey.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. I have 500 or so unread items in Google Reader, so hopefully I’ll catch up on everything by the end of next week, and hopefully you’ll be hearing more from me soon.

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I got a chip in my windscreen driving down to Lismore on Friday, and unfortunately, it started to crack so I needed to get it fixed before it got too bad and the whole windscreen needed replacing.

So Monday, I gave Windscreen’s O’Brien (O’Brien Glass) a call before I headed back up to Brisbane.

I called the number listed on their website for the Underwood premises, since that is the closest to me but it went to a call centre. The guy that I spoke to was very helpful and even called me back so that I wouldn’t have to pay the call charges. He determined over the phone that it could indeed be fixed without needing to replace the whole windscreen.

He went on to give me the prices, $129 for them to send a van out and do it wherever suited me best, or $109 for me to go in and get it done there. He told me it would take approximatly half an hour to fix.

I decided I would go in to get it done, afterall, $20 is $20 and the Underwood store is only a 10 minute drive from my place if the traffic is good.

So he setup a three-way call with the Underwood store and we organised an appointment for 1:30pm. And that was that, all in the space of about 15 minutes.

I got there at 1:33pm and I was served immediately. They checked that the crack was repairable, warned me that the repair process could make it appear to have cracked more, but that it will be safe and pass registration. My car was then taken straight in to have work begun on it. I was told that it would be half an hour to 40 minutes and that there is a customer waiting room if I wanted to wait there.

I decided I would go for a walk and get some lunch. That only took me 20 minutes though and they were still working when I got back, so I went and had a look at the waiting room.

It was setup quite nice, you could see the bays where they were working on cars so you could watch them work on your car. There were all the usual magazines, drink machine and big screen TV, but what surprised me was the free internet for customers!

There were two computers setup in the waiting room with signs above them reading “Free internet for O’Brien’s customers. Please, help yourself”.

The computers were setup minimally, all the user could access was Internet Explorer, but still, it’s a pretty good idea.

So I spent 10 minute’s or so on the net in the waiting room. Lot’s of things were blocked, such as Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and my uni email, however, there were lot’s of things that weren’t. My own email server’s were all accessible, I could make notes on my blog and log in to Google Analytics, so overall, functionality wasn’t severely limited, just enough to be a little bit annoying.

Pretty much right on 2:00, I noticed that my car was being taken back outside so I went to the front counter, and they were just entering it into the system. They didn’t need my phone number, name or address because this had been organised on the phone earlier. I just had to pay, it was $109 as I had been quoted on the phone.

The receipt came in it’s own little book style thing to help look after it since it comes with a warranty on the repair that lasts for the life of the windscreen. In other words, if the crack re-appears, then they will deduct the cost of the repair from the cost to replace the windscreen.

So, it was finished in pretty much right on half an hour and I am very impressed with the level of customer service that I received, and the crack in my windscreen is now barely visible! So much so that my camera can’t even focus on it properly.

I highly recommend them, they may seem a bit expensive, but their service is excellent!

Just my luck, I managed to get a stone fly up and hit the other side yesterday, but it hasn’t cracked thank goodness.

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I went and saw Iron Man at the Victoria Point Cineplex on Sunday night, let me just say now, it is an excellent movie, it did not disappoint at all. Robert Downey Jr. plays the part of Tony Stark/Iron Man superbly. Marvel did a great job on the rest of the cast and they all work together like magic to create one of the best superhero films I have seen.

The start of the movie seemed a little slow, however it made for the perfect build up of Tony Stark’s character and the consistent build up set up the rest of the movie extremely well.

From the trailer and movie posters, I was expecting it to be quite flashy and heavy on the CGI, but it isn’t. It is very believable and none of the graphics are over the top or excessively flashy.

Being one of the no doubt many that have not read the Iron Man comics, I was not sure what to expect as far as the story goes, but I was not disappointed at all!

To my understanding it was changed slightly to the original story to be set in Afghanistan rather than the Vietnam war where it was originally set, so as to make it seem more current and relevent. I think this was a great idea as everyone today can easily identify with it today and it thus allows us to better relate to the movie, especially for those of us that are not in the USA.

The current average user rating on IMDB is 8.4/10 at the time of writing this where 36.2% of the votes gave it a 10 and less than 10% of the votes were below 7. I think these ratings are pretty accurate.

It runs for 126 mins so it is a two hour movie, and it is definitely worth the two hours to see it in my opinion.

I’m not going to ruin the story on you, but lets just say, I want to go see it again and I can’t wait for the obvious sequel! Here’s hoping they don’t mess it up.

Have a look at the trailers if you haven’t already had a chance to do so:

Popularity: 53% [?]

Today while downloading the latest version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for a computer at work that didn’t have it for some reason, I noticed that Adobe have started to bundle their new Adobe Media Player with it.

From the Adobe website:

“With a broad catalog of videos and shows from the leading media companies and networks, you have endless choices. Pick the episodes you love to watch, and Adobe® Media Player software will track new episodes and download them so you can watch whenever you want.”

It’s the first time I’ve come across it and it sounds like it is intended to be a similar idea to Apple TV/iTunes Store, except that it is taking a slightly different approach by providing it as a software package installable on any computer, rather than using the specific Apple TV hardware component.

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