Please forgive the lack of posts for the next couple of weeks. I’m deeply involved in the circle of life at the moment.

Dad passed away on Wednesday, and we’re expecting baby 2.0 this Wednesday. Both a blessing and a curse all in the space of a week.

My engineer brain can’t help but observe the feelings I’m having with deep interest. I often marvel at the cognitive dissonance when you imagine diving into the sea on an acid-cold Winter day. Yet that same grey, icy sea is so welcoming in February.

Perhaps the only way to truly appreciate life is to witness death first hand? Or the best way to understand the warmth and love of family is to have a member torn away from you too soon?

Hard and Soft. Yin and Yang.

Death and Life.

 

Popularity: 2% [?]

The morning after my father died, the NZ Herald had this article on their front page. The first signs of Spring – cherry blossoms, daffodils – have always brought a smile to my face. I smiled at the image, and then … well … didn’t smile.

Spring is a wonderful metaphor for what we’ve been going through these last couple of weeks. Our gorgeous new baby girl arrived one week, almost to the hour, after Dad died. The timing, while far too early for Wallace, was logistically perfect. Dad always had lists and calendars. Bookings and management – everything organised to a tee. He was the same in his death: the drinks trolley rolled past his hospice room at 5pm. We had time to charge our glasses, and then he slipped away gently at 6:15pm. Yes, the drinks trolley. St Joseph’s Mercy Hospice is a wondrous place. Part hotel, part hospital, and completely caring.

So with the arrival of Amelie, it will truly be springtime in the Fleming-Gracewood household. The end of an unusually cold winter. The closing of one chapter and the opening of another. Spring also marks the transition from one extreme to another. Have you ever walked on a beach in winter, looking at the icy grey sea, and imagined diving in? Isn’t it weird that that same sea is so incredibly inviting on a hot summer day?

Those summer days are made all the more wonderful because we remember the frosty winter mornings.

Without cold, we wouldn’t know what warmth is.

Without death, we wouldn’t know what life is. Read more…

Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s been a bit ungadgety around here lately, but never fear! I’ve got some cool stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks:

• Reviewing the new Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit.
• Reviewing the Arduino starter kit from Mindkits.co.nz
• Giving away an LG HFB-500 Bluetooth hands-free kit
• Noisy and fast gadgets for Fathers’ day.
• A new daughter.
• …and more.

On the personal front, I’m speaking at the PRiNZ Northern networking event tonight, and attending Vodafone’s mid-winter christmas dinner on Friday. It’s a hard life!

Also, a quick plug for my wonderful employers, who are trucking along having yet another incredible year.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’m known to drift a little off-topic on occasion, but if you would bear with me for a few moments… Earlier this week, the NBR, one of New Zealand’s eminent printed business publications, decided to hide 20% of its content behind a paywall. The announcement carried a derisive tone towards “amateur” media, which has quite naturally raised the ire of many. Personally, I enjoyed the to-and-fro with The NBR over the WeetBix promotion. I’m sure it was to the benefit of both sites.

It’s difficult not to add to Barry Coleman’s “hysteria” characterisation, but Bernard Hickey holds back admirably in this post. He also lays out – with exquisite clarity – 10 points that any online media outlet should read. These points define how we work together in an ecosystem, and the values required to make the most from the network effect of online media.

Among my favourites are one point regarding comment moderation:

Having a journalist approve or moderate every comment before publication is too expensive and blocks the flow of debate. It is the reason the NZHerald blogs have so few comments despite being very heavily read. Commenters want instant gratification from instant publication and the joy of being part of an active debate.

And another regarding the individual focus of your site:

If we don’t have it first, we simply link to the website that has it. If we can’t find a fresh angle or a way to explain it better to our audience, then we simply don’t cover it or we link to someone else. We know we’re not the only website people look at. Being best for us means being first, fast, accurate, useful and incisive. If we aren’t at least one or two of those things, we don’t waste our time (and our readers’ time) doing the story.

On the first point: I don’t moderate comments. I do have an automated spam system. If you ever have any issues with comments not appearing instantly, please let me know, because it usually means something is broken.

On the second point, I could not agree more. When I started blogging for real back in the old days, I felt like I needed to keep up with every possible development in the world of tech. Now I’m much more sanguine. I know that sites like CrunchGear and Engadget have more resources than I could possible marshall. But what they don’t have is me. If you want a constant stream of all the latest tech and gadget news, make sure you subscribe to those sites.

If you like my style, and want a local, personal touch, make sure you subscribe to mine.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If I’ve learnt one thing today it is this: PR is a quirky business.

Today, for reasons yet unknown, Vodafone NZ has completely removed the HTC Magic from sale in New Zealand. They’ve removed all mention of it from their website, and removed existing stock from store shelves.

Perhaps this is related: yesterday I took a few images down from this blog at the request of Vodafone PR. This image was one of them:

Let me be clear: I have absolutely no idea if the request to remove images of the HTC Magic launch party, and the removal of the HTC Magic from sale are related. You can make your own conclusions about that.

Why did I take them down? Here’s where I put my balls on the line and apologise to my readers. I took them down because Vodafone PR offered a quid-pro-quo, that I quite incorrectly accepted. I apologise wholeheartedly to my readers. It’s not good enough. It won’t happen again. If there is a next time, I will thoroughly question PR motives before complying.

There was no restriction on photography at the event. I wasn’t the only one taking photos. So to the best of my knowledge I have every right to publish the photos.

Added: At the time and soon after the party, a couple of people commented on the usage of Google trademark and that it seemed a bit dodgey.

Couple more images after the jump:

Read more…

Popularity: 72% [?]