So we’re going on a big trip to New Zealand around christmas this winter. We’ll be there for about 4 weeks; camping, hanging around on long sandy beaches, drinking wine and eating. I need to get into shape to survive all that. That’s why I’m starting the ‘300 km challenge’. Aim is to run a total of 300 km before 15th December. That’s not that much, only an average of about 2.6 km a day. But if I miss a day, the next day I’ll have to run 5.2 km to keep up. Simple.
Two incentives for me to complete this challenge:
- 1. For every kilometer that I’m short of 300 km, I’ll donate £1 to a charity chosen by readers. Vote below in the comments.
- 2. I’d like to invite you to run with me. It’s easier to commit to things when you have someone to do it with. No pressure, thought, it’s not a competition. We’ll just try and reach 300 km
I’ll be posting here every ten days on my progress, so stay tuned!
Thanks,
–kristian
[Update] I’ve started yesterday by running 3.1 km. Days to go: 115.
Are you sick of looking at Earth on your iPhone wallpaper? Would you rather see Africa than the US side of Earth? Or do you just want more options? To scratch your itch I’ve created iPhone Planets 1.2.
New features in 1.2
- Legacy planet, Pluto, added
- the Moon
- Asteroid Itakawa
- Death Star
- iPod Touch now supported
Other features:
- Mercury
- Venus
- Earth (alternative view)
- Mars
- Jupiter
- Saturn
- Uranus
- Neptune
Installing is easy:
- Download above .zip file
- Use iPhoto/Aperture and iTunes to transfer images to your iPhone
- Navigate to the planets on your iPhone
- Enjoy and share with others!
Compatible with iPhone and iPhone 3G. All images courtesy of NASA. Thank you.
So I managed to download the 2.0 update sometime before coming available on as an official update (as of writing this, it’s still not available)
Here’s few initial thoughts, for your pleasure:
- App Store is very nice to use, as easy as it was to use the Wi-Fi iTMS, it’s soo-u easy to download apps. Almost too easy, you can quite quickly end up downloading all sorts of little apps. I haven’t tried un-installing any yet, but I’m sure I’ll get to do that very soon.
Few Apps I downloaded
- Remote. iTunes library remote control. Uses Wi-Fi to connect and surprisingly works on my PowerMac G4 which doesn’t have an Airport card itself but is connected to the Time Capsule. One less reason to get off the sofa. I hope Eye TV will develop something similar.
- Super Monkey Ball. It’s harder than it looks in the SDK demos. And I can’t seem to be able to continue from same level after leaving the game. This might not be true, I haven’t played it that much yet.
- NetNewsWire. Fantastic. Reason why I won’t even look at any other aggregator is that this syncs with the desktop and web interface of NetNewsWire. This is probably what I’ve been mostly missing with the iPhone. I get most of my news and blogs through RSS (I can’t understand why so many people still don’t use it) and have become quite reliant on it. It’s a simple, free and a must have app.
Other notes:
- You can now search for contacts. I’m not sure if I like the way this is implemented- you have to scroll to top of contact list to search, rather than there being a dedicated button.
- International keyboards! My favorite new feature after Apps. Maybe 15% of texts I send are in Finnish and this just got a lot easier. I hated the way it used to try and correct my words to English. (i.e. when spelling the word ja [Finnish for and] it would always correct it to the English word is. Super annoying but it’s fixed now, thank you.)
- MobileMe supports contact/iCal etc. syncing. I think it’s disappointing that you need to pay £59 per year for something that should really be free. Seeing how easily the Remote app works with iTunes, the only reason Apple wants us to pay for that sync is that MobileMe still lacks useful functionality for most consumers. Which really comes down to greed. Perhaps someone else will develop a sync app, I’d be happy to pay money for it.
OK, that’s it. More to come when I have more time to spend with this. BTW, I’m not sure when I’m getting the 3G, could be bothered rushing to O2 store. They kept texting me saying how scarce they are and how if you want one this summer, you have to get it now. No thanks, I’m sure I can get one this weekend.
–kristian
There are three games that are the corner stones of my gaming history: Total Annihilation, Civilization series and Diablo II. These are games that I seem to return to from time to time. In fact, I’ve just bought a new copy of Diablo II to play it with my 11-year-old brother, fantastic way for us to spend time together, which - living 2037 km apart - isn’t something we get to do in person as often as I’d like to. With Skype delivering audio between us, it’s as if we were in the same room.
Diablo II is now eight years old, and for a game to remain fresh all this time is somewhat of an achievement (installing it on Leopard was a struggle but doable in the end). For years there’s been rumors of Diablo III and those rumors are finally answered: Blizzard announced this weekend that it is in the making and will be released when it’s ready! I’m very excited, especially after watching the gameplay demo on their website. Well worth watching, it shows how they’ve remained loyal to the feel of Diablo yet made they gameplay feel more natural and faster. Destroyable environments, anyone?
Christmas 2008? Probably not, but at least, like always with Blizzard, it’ll be PC and Mac from day one.
–kristian
About a year ago, I started reading books. Or not really reading as I listen to them, which is why I started. I can’t concentrate on reading a book. If I have the luxury to sit still for more than a minute there are more important things to do than read.
I mostly choose factual books over fictional. Is there anything better than driving/cleaning/cooking/sleeping and learning something at the same time? Don’t try, there isn’t. To share what I’m ‘reading’ I decided to open up a new page: The Reading List. Books are not in any particular order and I’m not putting up every book I go through, just the ones I really like. Links are to Amazon UK, mostly for the reason that you can find more info and reviews there.
–kristian
