Upon getting my hands on my iPad I could start to see an annoying problem arising. With so many devices capable of playing audio and video, my iPhone headphones in their spaghetti fineness were taking the marvel away from my gadgets. I found myself digging around in my Crumpler bag and ripping out tangled string tied around my lanyard and keys along with anything else they could clutch to in their protest of being dislodged from their resting place. Swapping between as many devices as I have (by choice) to listen or watch media, I was grudgingly upset with my headphones making my geekyness world less geeky by consuming time trying to unravel the mess. Where’s there efficiency and the coolness in that? Everything my gadgets lived for had their glory quashed. My solution? Wireless bluetooth headphones.

Now in my perfect world where I have wads of cash my dollars would be spent on Sennheiser, the God of headphone products (my opinion) but in the real world, I had a meager budget of $140. After streaming through countless reviews of products available in Australia it came down to two candidates, the first a BlueAnt product http://www.blueant.com.au/ and the second Logitech http://www.logitech.com/. The BlueAnt headphones blew my socks off that much that I can’t even remember the model number of the pair I was contemplating! It may have been the X5′s however they are now discontinued. So the obvious winner were the Logitech pair, the FreePluse wireless headphones.

Being familiar with Logitech products, I couldn’t fathom the idea that the FreePulse set would be terrible quality. Now you think I’m lining you up to show you my shock when I discovered the quality was bad, right? Wrong! I was actually quite impressed with the sound quality, the bass is fantastic, the only criticism I have is that sometimes you can hear slight distortion. I might not have enough empirical data however….these are the first Bluetooth headphones I’ve ever used and purchased. The reviews I read were pretty much correct, after an hour or so of use they start to hurt your ears and there are very minor drop outs which shouldn’t deter you from purchasing these in my opinion. I wear them to the gym as well while on the treadmill walking (fast pace) and on the cross trainer, they do not slip or get in the way. It’s a bonus not to have an annoying cord attached to your body while working out. I find that when you turn the device on, sometimes connectivity is a pain on my iPhone especially, which I’ve started to leave Bluetooth permanently turned on so I have no issues when turning the headphones on – connectivity is then fine. If your device doesn’t detect the headphones, you end up having to pair them again. With the iPhone now supporting A2DP profiles as well you don’t need the stereo jack Bluetooth adapter which comes with the headphones; this can be used on any device with a 3.5mm headphone socket to provide your device with Bluetooth connectivity to the headphones.

Overall I am extremely happy with this purchase, you get what you pay for which was around AUD$89.

After working a year and a half with my employer I was forced to take a week of annual leave (despite having to work Christmas and New Years day!), with my fiance working there were no exciting holiday plans which is probably a good thing as our bank account would cry poor. The week turned out ok in the end, while I didn’t go on any grand adventures or see any of the 7 wonders of the world I did increase my knowledge of photography, I enjoyed learning this subject so much that my plans to get to level 80 in World of Warcraft did not come into fruition (in fact, I haven’t even logged in!).

My week started off with a trip to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia). I travelled with my Nikon D60 given to me by my fiance (best ‘hand-me-down’ ever wouldn’t you say?) as he had acquired the devilishly exquisite Nikon D90. I took a number of snaps, being an amateur photographer not many of my hopeful ‘best shots ever’ turned out that great.

My Nikon D60 (pictured above) is very well suited to those entering the intriguing world of DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras. It has a number of camera modes to automatically adjust settings to get the right shot (or as close as you can without going manual) and easy to reach buttons to alter flash settings, exposure level, D-Active Lighting, etc. There’s also a function button you can program. I haven’t been exposed to any other brand in the DSLR community so my opinion is quite limited, in saying that I can assure that for the beginner this is an excellent choice and it’s a quality brand. Certainly the two outstanding candidates are Nikon and Canon.

For anyone not familiar with Sovereign Hill, it was one of Ballarat’s major gold digging sites where the world’s second largest gold nugget was found. To preserve it’s historic significance the digging site was recreated with 60 odd buildings and volunteer workers in character to depict how it was in the 1850’s. I set out to capture my 1850’s experience and freeze time.

Alto is one of the main characters from a popular Japanese Anime series, Macross Frontier.

For a full view of this image (the below is a reduced sized) go here http://fav.me/d2f1ocj

I’ve been a huge FF fan since the release of FFVIII, I had played a couple of the previous games however it wasn’t until VIII that I was really hooked. Hence why I am ecstatic to hear the Australian release date of FFXIII!

This is a long awaited release and one main decision that prompted me to buy a PS3. Lucky for Japan, they will get their hands on it December this year so from that we’ll get more in-depth reviews of the game and it’s highly anticipated battle system. There are also a number of awesome trailers out there so I recommend you check them out to get a better insight of the game.

The graphics are spectacular, it’s one of few games that will take full advantage of the PS3 hardware and game play is said to be very smooth.

Here are a number of links to get you up to speed on FFXIII if you’re not already:

Discussion of what was seen at E3
Story and game play
E3 2009 trailer
TGS 2009 trailer

You’ll find a list of my recently added music from the link on the top right hand corner which includes Michael Buble and Flyleaf.

The company I work for gave us the opportunity to participate in Optus run training covering leading people through change. Our presenter, Kerrie Cottrill has a solid background in coaching and working with teams, I was in awe of her background and the brief significant events she went through to get where she is now. Fantastic at delivering the session also, Kerrie kept us engaged throughout the day and one of the most interesting techniques in her delivery was playing up beat and positive music when we were doing group sessions. No death by PowerPoint here!

One concept introduced to us was the decision making functions which are based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The two functions here are thinking and feeling. Based on Myers-Briggs, the function we exhibit shapes the way we make our decisions.

Thinkers are those that analyse the situation, they calculate, assess, look for flaws, tell it how it is, state the facts, use logic and use their head. They can come across as detached and can slap you from side to side – “That was a fantastic job Bob. Now let’s improve more”. They can be a facts and figures type person and stereotypically you can find quite a few of these individuals in senior management roles.

Feelers on the other hand use their heart. They consider others, are people focused, praise and encourage, use understanding, they are high on values, empathetic and subjective. They generally don’t want to upset people and seek harmony and balance. Feelers will approach people with more emotion than their thinking counterparts, if they see an under performer they will consider outside influences that might be affecting this individual and are they under stress? Is it a motivation issue we can address or a problem with team dynamics?

We were split into groups and asked what issues and concerns we foresee with thinkers and feelers working together, our group was made up of feelers. Some of the points we came up with where a higher risk of conflict due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Both thinkers and feelers approach a situation with a different mindset so because there is a difference in perception there’s a chance of communication issues. And how would we help the situation? We would ensure we had clear goals so there’s a common understanding, we would build team communication and awareness of how to interact, hold regular discussions and encourage team participation and open feedback. All our answers were written down on a large bit of paper and on reflection, we laughed realising the issues we foreseen and our approach was that of a feelers personality so the way we process a situation due to being feelers certainly came out on paper and Kerrie’s session on this topic helped us recognise this.

Having an awareness of these two functions allows us to manage people through change and make our approach more effective. It’s also possible that if you’re a feeler, that you can still use aspects of a thinker to deal with a situation however that does not indicate you have a thinkers approach – it makes you more effective as you are utilising more of the behaviours you find on each of the two functions and by being aware of them. This applies vice versa if you’re a thinker. You may have someone under performing and as a feeler you may want to analyse and collect data to confirm this is the case (thinker), you then follow up with a one on one discussion with this individual and find out why this is occurring. Are there outside influences? Is there a training issue we need to address? Maybe it’s heavy workload or an issue of conflict within the team? Kerrie gave us a story of a woman who found herself working in a senior management team and was the first woman to be promoted into this group in the lifetime of this organisation. Most of these individuals of course were thinkers – facts, figures, straight to the point, no fluff. The woman on the other hand was a feeler. She quickly discovered that in order to succeed in this group she had to learn about the behaviours of the thinkers and when required use them to communicate and work with her group. This made her more effective and able to gain more from the interactions and tasks. So again, it’s not about becoming the other type but having an awareness of it and using certain behaviours from the function when required in order to be more effective in your approach and more successful.

We covered many other topics during the day however this was a highlight as it helped to build awareness and understanding of how people think and in turn, how they react to a given situation. This is important to know so we can effectively manage people when change occurs and take an individual approach to helping them through the change.

Kudos to Kerrie for the delivery of an excellent training session!

After selling my Asus EEE PC I was then on the hunt to use the cash to find a decent e-book reader. I have so many e-books and it’s such a hassle to read them on my Mac and the iPhone screen is just a tad too small, especially for images in the text.

I wasn’t too impressed with the Kindle which is now selling in Australia through Amazon. It’s too restrictive and I don’t like the idea of wireless downloads and the costs involved, particularly when I don’t need the reader to buy more books, I have plenty to read as it is. There are quite a number of other brands out there, all of which were either too pricey or the features were too basic. I started to go down the path of the re-branded Hanlin, the ECO Reader. The reviews looked decent however it was still pricey compared to it’s features. What really drew me to it was the number of file formats it supported.

It’s also rumoured that Asus are bringing out a new reader in December, not sure if it will be available in Australia, the digital reader market isn’t exactly booming here. I’m not a patient person so I don’t want to wait in hope that it might be released here and have better features. LG is also releasing a solar powered reader but out of my price range.

So in the end my final decision was with the Sony Reader Touch Edition (model PRS-600).

The PRS-600 sports a touch screen, after reviewing quite a few videos it appears to be quite responsive. It’s a 6 inch screen using E Ink technology which is quite common in majority of the popular readers. The device comes with a stylus to use however the screen buttons and menus are large enough to use your fingers. The only time you would require the stylus is to select words or make notes.

The freehand highlighting and annotation will be quite handy, this isn’t a feature found in all readers. I believe the Kindle or Kindle 2 has this however. The Sony reader allows you to highlight words in the text so you can revisit later and you can write comments onto the page which you can also refer back to from a menu – it will take you straight back to the page with your notes on it. There is also a search feature to look for key words and a built in dictionary based on the American Oxford dictionary. In the videos I’ve watched, I did notice that writing/drawing with the stylus is a bit laggy however it appears like it wouldn’t be much of an issue so long as you’re not scribbling at 100 mile an hour.

Other features include:

Adjustable font sizes, there are 5 to choose from

You can get around two weeks per charge of reading or 7,500 page turns. The unit will charge via the USB cable or power adapter

You can expand on the built in memory (512MB) with either a standard SD card or you can use the Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards, I have a number of each given I have a camera and a PSP

The screen resolution is 800×600 and has 8 grey scales

Compatible with both the PC and Mac. There have been reports that the Sony software doesn’t work well on the Mac, not sure if this is correct but I plan on using Calibre anyway

You can read books in either a landscape or portrait orientation

Here are some videos of the PRS-600:

ireadreview.com

user review on Youtube.com

Cons: A lot of people are reporting the screen glare is worse than most readers because of the touch screen. However by moving the screen slightly you can reduce the glare so it’s not an issue. The unit is also quite small, many believed it would be larger until they opened the box. For me, I’m not worried about that, I just need something that’s a bit bigger than the iPhone and isn’t as big as a netbook screen.

Once I receive the device, I’ll post further comments.

I’m surprised to see all this fit into just one bag! Or maybe I’m just shocked to what is being carried around. Everything from a laptop, a Kindle to cables lol. Hmm, makes women’s handbags not so bad right? Ryan G. Biv, where is the kitchen sink?! I’m sure there’s room for it.

EDIT: Ok, it posted without a problem. Posted to the specified category and tags worked as well. I also have Twitme installed to post an automated tweet when I publish a new post, it worked also.