Kelly's World

I loooooove upgrading software. I don’t care what program it is, I just love to see new things, new buttons, new menus etc. It’s an addiction, and it’s pretty sad. It also means that I’m one of the first ones to find problems.

At work, this can be an issue. We’re a software company, which means I love to have the latest and greatest. Our support tracking software is always upgraded as soon as they release a new version (we’ve found quite a few showstoppers as a result, rather than wait a few weeks for an update after everyone else has reported the critical issues). I’m always nagging my boss when Microsoft release a new version of Windows, begging to be the one that tests our software for compatibility. You’d think they’d be happy that someone is so keen right?

So as soon as ios 5 came out this morning, I knew I’d have to install it straight away.

The problem is that my iPhone used to be synced with my home computer which died a few months ago. Since then I’ve been running without backing it up. I managed to save my hard drive from my old computer, and installed it on the work computer so I still had access to my old iTunes though. I’m waiting a few months until I buy a brand new computer at home, which explains why I brought the hard drive into work rather than just leaving it at home. Just this week I finally synced my iPhone with my work machine, and transferred purchased apps across as well as re-adding the ones from my old iTunes from my old hard drive. I didn’t, however, sync it so that it was adding the apps from my machine. That was probably my big mistake.

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…are you going to miss me?!

As much as I try to deny that I’m a geek/nerd/tech head, I have to admit that I live for the internet. I blog, I tweet, and I facebook a LOT. Despite only having been on twitter for 2 years, my tweet count is already over 24,000 tweets. That’s 12,000 pointless updates a year! I don’t even want to know how many facebook updates I’ve made in the time I’ve been on there.

Thus, it’s time to give it all up. At least for the weekend anyway.

As one of my 52 in 52 challenges I decided to try living without the internet for the weekend. I’ve gone without it for substantial times before, for example when I’ve gone camping for a few days (sometimes up to a week) and there’s no reception whatsoever, not even for phones. I cope just fine, I love camping and can easily give up the technology when I’m away. But trying to give up the internet while I’m at home within full reach of a computer or a phone with next G internet speeds?!

It’s going to be tough.

At 6pm tonight I will disconnect the wifi from my home computer and turn the cellular data off from my phone. It’s going to be a complete internet blackout. I’m going to a friend’s place tonight, and Sunday I’ll be in Brisbane all day so it won’t be as though I’m sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. Except I plan on being home for most of Saturday, which will be the toughest day of the lot. I’ve just realised this means I’ll most likely miss out on finding out if Harry Kewell signs for Melbourne Victory though, which is news I’ve been waiting months on (he should still go to the best team of the lot – Brisbane Roar). I might just have to spam text my sister and tell her that as soon as she finds something out she’s to let me know immediately. To be cruel, she’d probably send me a message on twitter then claim innocence when I get upset over not knowing

I’m expecting to see a few benefits from the internet blackout though. It will be interesting to see how much study I get done on Saturday without facebook to procrastinate on, or to complain on twitter that I’m sick of studying. I might actually be able to focus for once! Likewise, I won’t be able to check in on my phone to tell people where I’m at, or what tv shows I might happen to be watching at the time.

So without a social media presence for 48 hours, I’ve gotta ask….are you gonna miss me?

Last night was the most epic State of Origin game ever. Queensland won, taking out 6 straight series in a row while simultaneously sending off one of the greats of the game, Darren Lockyer. I was there my friends, and it was incredible. My lack of a voice today is proof.

Unfortunately I managed to lose my phone in the taxi on the way home. Goddammit!

The good:

• Thanks to Apple and their AMAZING Mobile Me service, after we did the initial “ring the phone” (it went to voicemail) we loaded up “Find my iPhone” on C’s iPhone to see if we could locate it. We couldn’t, thus reinforcing that someone had already taken ownership of it and switched it off. Knowing there was stuff on there I didn’t want people to see, I immediately sent through a request to wipe the phone, so the next time someone switches that baby on it’s going to wipe it clean. Awesome.
• Again, thanks to the Mobile Me service I have a list of all my contacts (totally up to date) online, so I haven’t lost anyone’s numbers.
• Thanks to gmail sync, I still have a fully up-to-date calendar available online, so I haven’t lost any of my upcoming appointments either.

The bad:

• I don’t have a phone, that’s annoying.
• I have lost 1.5 months of my “photo of the day” photos that I hadn’t gotten around to uploading yet. Goddammit.
• I use that phone for EVERYTHING, so I’m back to going through the process of not having a phone instantly available for my every whim. Now I have to look out the window to check on the weather – urgh!

The ugly:

• It doesn’t look like I had insurance on the phone; at least from memory Telstra didn’t have it available when getting the plan. I’ll be visiting the Telstra shop tomorrow morning to see what they can do for me.
• I don’t have rental insurance, which means I can’t even claim my phone on that.
• I’m possibly going to be up for the cost of a brand new phone, and there’s just on 12 months left on my contract. Fingers crossed they can work out some sort of a deal where I get a new phone for the remaining 12 months and have monthly repayments on my bill. I’m not getting my hopes up though, I doubt they have this available. Worst case scenario I’ll buy my sister’s friend’s iPhone 3GS for $300, and deal with that until I save up the money for a new iPhone (which is most likely never). The thought of going back to a 3GS makes me shudder.

The only blemish on an otherwise incredible evening. Bugger.

Unfortunately before we got on the boat yesterday, Jo accidentally dropped her iPhone. It was wearing a rubber case, which caused it to bounce several times before dropping off the jetty into the water – disaster! As we all know very well, swimming is the one thing that iPhone’s CAN’T do. We fished it out and took out the bits we could in an effort to dry it. Jo is currently keeping it in a box of rice to try and draw the moisture out, but given up and ordered a new one via Apple.

Yeah, another photo just like the echidna one yesterday but I just love the app too much.  (Hipstamatic app on the iPhone). This is Mat’s chain that was laying on the desk next to me, it reminded me of a snake.