mathieutozer.com

It hit me as I stood to disembark the train onto Huntingdale Station Platform 2 that hey I'm going to be walking around uni for the first time as a 'Final Year Student'. Every year I watch the newbies arrive, and it's fun to see how they walk confidently around on their first day, with a little bit of doubt, but still honorably confident. It makes me feel old hack at this uni thing. Some 1st year also called out 'Heather's Gay!' and naturally I thought 'oh how high school!'

Anyway thanks to the Commonwealth Games, I have quiet, air conditioned trains to relax in on my commute. My Mon 9am class “Perl Programming” was good, I'm going to stick with this subject.

Might add to this post later...

So apart for some pretty bad heart burn, it was a good day. Carlo is working just across the road for the next week (then he's in the city) so I got to go and visit him there and had lunch too.

Eri, Andy, Pippi, Carlo and I made a chicken salad for dinner. It's been a good first day.

I noticed how snappy Andy's iCal was, and thought about how sluggish my own was. I always just thought iCal was just this behemoth app that had a hard time remembering all my times (which it does nicely) but then I thought, hey, it's holding about 20 different calendars, with all my dates in it for the last 4 odd years! THAT'S what's making my iMac G5 whir so loudly!

Most of those calendars had fallen into disuse, so I just got rid of them. I still want to keep my other cal information, just to look back on some rainy day. I reduced the viewable number of hours per day, which made things less cluttered, and I changed the start of the week to Monday, leaving those two precious holidays on the right. I deleted my 'sleep' appointments, I think I've got that down pat.

The iMac still whirs a bit, but its a whole lot snappier and easy to use, which should stand me in good stead to attack final year armed with GTD and my 'sacred' iCal.

I like what this guy has to say here about media, formats, and digitisation.
This is the second time (first time) I've linked to Ftrain.

Addition
Have a read of this: Very true and funny commentary about the internet and how media trends have changed over the last 100 years, looking at how we have finally gotten interactivity back with the internet. Also funny about how we're told not to 'trust' anything we read on the internet as though we're meant to 'trust' anything we read.

Just got back from a free ticketed, 'why not?' 50 cent concert at Rod Laver!

Its been a fun weekend - Wonderland Friday, plasq BBQ, then roast dinner and onto Love Machine Saturday, then a cruisy day in the city Sunday, with a surprise concert.

An updated Comic Life has gone live with my and my proofer's translations too which is exciting.

Some stuff to browse.
Have a look at the Valentines Yo-Yo cookies.
Take a look at the Diele photo shoot from the Country (flickr friends / family).
I love this one of Nigel with his work.

Now you too can improve your knowledge and awareness! Using a technique known as "RSS", you too can attain the life improvements enjoyed by THOUSANDS!

By continuing on, here's what you'll learn to do:

• Save valuable time!
• Learn more about what interests you!
• Read on the web in a new way!
  

After your first month, you will have increased your awareness and knowledge with actual visible improvement by at least 10 to 15 percent, and have attained a stronger steel-like mind that possess incredible control over pre-mature senility, and the pride, excitement and satisfaction to know that this is only your first month! You CAN enlarge your brain!

What others have said:

"I just wanted to tell all of you that this program really does work. I was pretty skeptical when I first signed up for it, but all skepticism is GONE! I've been at it for about 4 months now. I really do feel like I'm more informed about what's going on in the world. That is, the world that interests me.

Once again I thank you for your advice!"

"Dear Sir. It was a blessing for me to get access to your site. Now the net reads like a magazine. When I first started, I reckoned I should always read all the feeds, and gobble them up as soon as they were there, but now I feel fine just to let stuff sit there waiting for me to browse, like a stack of 'zines. From a very satisfied customer."

and

"Hello. I want to start by saying thank-you for your website and advice. Every time someone comments on my flickr photos I get an update showing me the image and the comment, and who it was from.

Its like, RSS has eliminated so much wasted time checking though ALL my photos for ALL my comments. To say that I intend to stick with RSS is a complete UNDERSTATEMENT! I just can't believe the gains, but am VERY pleased."

If those testimonials weren't enough read on and
Join The Program Now or Continue To The Next Page

Alright Alright I might end with the tacky Penis Enlargement Website inspired rhetoric and just present some facts.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) lets me sit back and watch as my reader sucks information to me from all the sites I've subscribed to.

So simple. Beautiful. You wonder why no one had invented it before.

Basically, you could just read the same stuff by checking through a list of websites, but RSS let's YOU know when there's new content to read, so there's no need to check a site, it checks YOU. It's called PULL content rather than PUSH content. And it puts all the sites you're subscribed to in a neat list in a program that isn't your web browser, and makes this absorbing information all very comfy.

Despite one convincing testimonial, there are advantages over magazines. You can choose the type of content you want. You subscribe to exactly what interests you, from a large range of sources. Almost all blogs offer RSS by default, and many other sites which regularly offer essays and articles on virtually anything.

With RSS, formatting is stripped from the content, so it's up to your reader to display it whichever way YOU choose, no matter what the source is. Most readers offer something to suit your own taste. Big fonts, little fonts, serif, sans serif, black, white, floral.

"Some websites designs were so fugly that I just couldn't bear to read them! RSS solved all those problems for me. Now everything looks nice and the same. Maybe I could think of getting into a relationship............"

So go get it.
On the Mac, you really should start by using NetNewsWire. NOT Safari. Then, if you're a poor student like me, when your 30 day trial runs out, download the free but a little (only a little!) inferior Vienna.
On the PC, well guru Joel Spolsky uses bloglines, but I'd want a desktop one. So here's a list of the top 10.

One warning, although this ad says that you're going to save time, chances are you're going to spend more time reading. So just be careful that you don't over-subscribed to stuff. It's one of the shortercomings of RSS. Most people find it addictive. Now go find some feeds.

Bon appétit!

A little gift from Sydney - "This pouch is made from the Scrotum of the male Kangaroo, and it's said to be very lucky; all those in possession of one is assured of a long life, happiness and healthy children."


Yay!


It smells a bit though :-D

Comic Life Japanese Localization Completed.

It's been a great experience. Thank you to Yoshiro and Atsuko for helping out, you were invaluable.

Yes, after 3 whole months, we have a 76k file. Neat.