I've been training for a while now, not with any 'super' dedication but training enough to make sure that something like this is doable. A week and a half ago I did 18.5km with Brendon (A mate from work that I've been training with - who's also registered...) and I felt pretty reasonable afterwards - as a matter of fact - I reckon I still had more left in the tank - but to be honest I'm glad we stopped when we did - because it did take a good 3 days to recover...

So I'll just continue to train how I have been and try and incorporate some interval training as well for a bit more speed and see how we go...

I'm not even sure why I feel I need to write this - perhaps because I feel that this is my little 2 cents worth and that this site is a reasonable medium to deliver it to the rest of the world even tho my stats kind of state that's all of about 3 people...

I've been extremely busy lately with buying and moving into my new house trying to stay on top of things - it's been tricky - but I'm managing. I know balance is the key and right now the following 3 things take up my time:

1. Family,
2. Fitness; and
3. Rolling

I had a sony-ericsson K750 (that had been flashed to a W700 - for the better music player) and this was nice while it worked, but as with just about all SE phones with a joystick - the joystick stopped working. The same thing happened on my old T610 as well and as I just found out, the joystick is starting to die on my friend's reasonably new K800.

Now, little did I know was the fact that a Samsung D600 is probably about the most un-mac-friendly phone ever made. If you were thinking about getting one and also thinking that syncing up programs like iCal, Address Book, etc. think again! I mean, I'm not saying it can't be done - but it's certainly not as easy as pairing the phone, adding it to iSync and Bob's your uncle...

The fact the I put so much effort in to ensuring just about every gadget or gizmo I have can be somehow hooked up and synced up to my mac and indeed my life is how I've always been, so to go out and buy some new gadget not aware of massive incompatibility issues was quite new for me.

When I got the D600 I kinda figured that may be a little trouble to sync up and was prepared to sacrifice a little sync-ability just to have a really nice slider phone with fantastic display and sound.

I looked everywhere for OS X applications that could sync my address book contacts to the D600. I did find a nice looking app called onSync but it didn't seem to work - well for the D600 anyway...

How to sync(add) address book contacts to a samsung D600

1. Open Address Book and select all (or whatever group of contacts you would like to add to your D600)
2. Go to File -> Export Group vCard...
3. When saving the file, create a new folder (this will help us later...)
4. Get vCard Splitter 2.6 (applescript from versiontracker)
5. Find the group vCard and then drag it on to the vCard Splitter script.
6. You should now see all of you contacts as separate vCards.
7. Then all you have to do is transfer all the vCards to your phone via Bluetooth. (NOTE: I only had 200 contacts which I was able to transfer together, at once)

I hope that helps anybody out there trying to transfer contacts from Address Book to a D600.

If anybody else uses something else that works well I'd love to know about it.

It's one thing to get fit with a heart rate monitor and GPS but it's another when you can show everyone else how/where you're going. Perhaps it's just because I'm a total gadget freak and love the latest and greatest in personal, portable technology (not that my Garmin Forerunner 301 is...) but a run becomes infinitely more interesting when you get the statistical lowdown on the run/ride/outdoor activity you just had.

On a side note: Garmin are actually releasing their Training Center software for Mac the end of this month.

I had to come up with a logo/icon for Sammy and was massively inspired by veerle's blog. So using a similar style I worked up Sammy as a cartoon - and I'm pretty happy with the results.

The original photo was taken down the coast (Burranwang Coast Trip) when Sam was getting drunk with the other girls (Madjie & Viv). I then had a couple of attempts trying to sketch Sam by hand after getting a bit of a feel for it - I jumped straight into Adobe Illustrator used the pen tool to draw (well bezier line) Sammy's face.

I think the trick to making a cartoon character is drawing what you see - or at least what you think you see, as you see it. I made the mistake of trying to trace my photo in Illustrator once to get the same effect and failed miserably.

Oh yeah - here's a link to Sam's blog - spencergirl.com

So much so have my job titles changed between jobs that for now, settled into a full-time position with the Library - I guess I don't really care...

It would seem that other designer/developers also struggle with this issue as I came across an excellent post over at web worker daily.

I'd have to agree with a Jason's comment...

"I've been using the term "Interactive Producer."One thing to keep in mind is that if you ever want to get a job at an agency, it helps to have had a title that they can associate with(it's also often higher paying than a designer). "Devigner"and "Technologist"aren't industry standard titles, so you may be hurting yourself if you use them. With Interactive Producer, it implies that I produce websites. Sometimes, I do design, sometimes I hire a designer, sometimes I hand code the front end, sometimes I pay someone else to. If anyone ever asks me to do backend programming, which again, I don't know nor want to know, I just say that I don't do that, however, if you'd like, you can hire me and I'll resource it to the programmers I often work for. Then I 'manage' the project and put a margin on my programmer's rates..."

Check out the full article...

Yes I love the NLA or at least the amount of training they provide - I've only been here for 3 months so it's still probably a little to early to say 'this is it...' 

I've decided it time to make an effort and finally finish this site so stay tuned for some visual changes very soon. - As you can see the site is a port of rollingcollective.net which just needs to be style for bencapod. I'm actually porting the RC site for a number of friends and when I finally finish styling those sites - then I'll link to them.

Expect more updates real soon. 

I've been working as a web designer for government, private and freelance ventures since about 99.

It's quite crazy that a lot of the companies that I originally started working for back in the day (circa 99) have now either closed down, were bought out or have just totally disappeared of the face of the earth... hmmm? No - I don't think I was the downfall of any of the companies I worked for. It was just that I got into the game around the time of the demise of 'dot-com' ...

I guess I was lucky to get in when I did. I've learnt heaps since. I consider myself to still be learning and well, I'm still doing it. That's right - I'm still standing!

Education

I have an Advanced certificate 4 in Graphic Design and was educated at AGDCS (Australian Graphic Design & Computer School) Narwee, Sydney (which, I'm pretty sure is now closed). I graduated 2nd in my class, thanks to a 5 week blitz to scrape together a nice portfolio.

Being a print based Graphic Design course eg. Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, the only exposure I had to web at that point was when a visiting japanese teacher come in an give us a demo of Flash (Flash 3). Straight away I got hooked and because the course didn't actually teach us any web development, I started teaching myself Flash and Dreamweaver. I dabbled in a little bit of Lightwave 3D as well and pretty soon knew that the main focus of my career was going to be web based.

The early days

After I finished the course it took absolutely forever to get my foot in the door (well it seemed like it did anyway). When I finally did it was doing pre-press at Pakka Graphics (Arncliffe, Sydney) I never really got into it, working up layouts for receipts, telephone 'Missed phone call message' pads, etc. Shitty work gets you down even in the best of times, so that combined with the loss of my best friend, I moved on after about a month.

I continued to get into flash all the while and developed a self promotional animation (by this time I was using Flash 4) which ended up landing me a job as a Web Designer for a company called New Media (Surry Hills, Sydney) The boss at that time; Andrew, knew that I was in over my head but was prepared to give me a shot anyway and I was thrown in (yep, way over my head) to update all of their websites. At that point in time although I'd played with Dreamweaver, I hadn't had enough commercial experience to use it efficiently and after a fortnight, it was over. I was shaken but keener than ever to get into web design.

My next job was once again aided by my self promo flash site. I guess you couldn't even call it a site due to the fact that even though it was hosted, all it actually was, was a flash-y introduction to nothing. But it was pretty much all I needed to get a position as a designer/flash animator at Viper Communications Group (a 'dot-com boom' company). The job at Viper was beneficial for a number of different reasons: 1. Education - I met a huge number of people that knew a whole lot more than me about the web. I learnt as much as I could and as quickly I could. 2. Networking - In addition to what you know, yes, it's all about who you know and I met a lot of people that knew other people working for other companies. I was able to source my next job thanks to a cool recruitment chick called Van. After I left, VCGL was bought out by Pink Roccade for I think around 17m. I'm not so sure PR got any real value for money though...

In the thick of it

With a more substantial portfolio now reflecting a number of solid commercial clients, I accepted a position at GMD Interactive (which was then acquired by Sausage and so became Sausage Interactive, North Sydney) as a flash developer/web designer. while I was there I made a screen saver for 2001 'Big Day Out'.

Since Viper I had been heavily involved with freelance work and increased my portfolio considerably. A significant amount of time was spent on various flash based projects for no-name companies (contracting to larger companies) as well as some free work for a local church youth group.

After about six months, with both Sausage and freelance work, I grew tired of the daily five hours of travel and started looking for some positions that were closer to home. I ended up applying for a job with Sony Music as a web designer but narrowly missed out. When you get juiced up for a new job - and don't get it, it hurts - What's that? only five hours of travel a day again - Get back to work!

Canberra

One weekend, late in the year (perhaps November 00) we came down to Canberra to visit the family. Becca was sifting through the employment section of the local paper and found a senior web design job at a studio called 'wwwicked Internet'. Now Zoo, wwwicked Internet was part of the Communication Co. which also included City Graphics, Brown & Co Typesetters and Oxygen Advertising. I applied for the job 2 weeks after the position had closed, came down for a weekend interview, moved back and started a month later...

wwwicked, like Viper was once again a learning experience however now as a senior designer, I had a lot more input into projects both in design and direction. Under the management of Steven DeCosta I learnt a great deal in working with various types of people ranging from Directors, Advertising Executives and developers, through to a wide variety of clients including IPD Education Australia, Townsend & Associates Architects (Space) and Department of Immigration & Multicultural Affairs.

After wwwicked, I got into full-time freelance. I founded Solid Interactive with Casey Eayrs - a programmer that I'd met through my wife's sister. The whole concept of solid was this: VTFS - Visually Tastier. Functionally Superior. We subcontracted to a number of companies including MIM consulting, SG3D and completed a number of substantial sites including a Media site for the National Museum of Australia, in2fireworks.com.au - an e-commerce online store that generated over 20K in the first six months and NDH Property Services website.

After around 8 months, I applied for a job at Conceive; a design studio under Green Advertising (which would later become Adcorp Green and is now Adcorp Canberra) This would prove to be one of most beneficial experiences in my career to date as all the way up until this point, all of my work in flash was purely keyframe based animation and I guess up until that point, that's all I cared to know...

I joined a tightly knit group lead by Creative Director Mike Honey (who's now the Internet Director at Zoo). One thing was for sure:

Conceive was definitely the most fun place to work - I mean, I learnt true life skills like hacky-sack and that partying with fellow is a real good thing.

Mike Honey pushed me beyond what I understood flash to be (flash 5) and introduced me to actionscripting. Using dynamic functions I could now script movement instead of key-frame it and produce so much more than pointless animations. I was now able to create interactive CD ROMS, full flash websites and completely dynamic animations. Mike challenged my way of thinking in developing applications that were more user centric. I saw a number of different applications developed by Mike and I swear they were a good twelve months ahead of their time. Seriously folks, I can't blow enough smoke... Mike Honey is one of the best guys I have ever worked with and I honestly hope I get a chance to work with him some time in the near future.

While at Conceive, I continued to freelance and got heavily involved with the Australian aggressive inline skating industry. Under Solid Interactive I completed a number of different skate based sites including Inline Anarchy Skate Comp Series website (gone), Any Given Sunday Monthly Newsletter (gone) and 2roll.com (I'm still proud of that site)

The studio that was known as Conceive lost it's name to the powers that be, Mike and Karina left and it all pretty much went downhill from there. I got laid off as there supposedly wasn't enough work although Casey and I continued to do contract work for to Adcorp (actually for more than I was getting on a wage). While at Conceive, Adcorp Green, etc. we worked on a number different projects for clients including OPH (Old Parliament House), Better Building Services, Canberra Toyota, Canberra International Airport and Canberra Grammar School.

Other projects completed around this time were: Christian City Church North website, Black Dahlia Imports (gone) and flash animations for IDP Education Australia...

As it was, Casey and I were working on the OPH account when I left, OPH pretty much up and left with us and are considered to be one of Solid Interactive's most valued clients. We have worked on a number of projects with Martin Miles (OPH's Multimedia Manager) and now under bencapod continue to work together still...

Today

Well That was about two years ago now and a lots' happened since then. I left Adcorp, did some freelance for a couple of months and finally got a job at the National Capital Authority as their 'Webmaster', though considering the stigma attached to that title, I still refer to myself as 'Web Designer'. (I say finally because the whole process to start working at the NCA before I actually got the job started six months earlier - Yes, that's right, when I was still at Adcorp)

I was able to get Casey in doing some contract work for the NCA. Well now he's our Web Applications Developer' employed on a full-time basis. Sure, he sucks because he doesn't do freelance anymore but he is without a doubt the best programmer I have ever worked with - I mean I used to think my actionscripting was tech but Case just kills it. I'm close to giving up flash completely because Case is so damn good at it.

Actually I've just got to give huge props to Case - He's been there since way back and been delivering all the goods for just as long - Functionally Superior - o fo sho! - Case you rock!

Anyhow, The NCA. Since I've been at the NCA we have completed a huge set of projects ranging from simple CMS based micro-sites like Summer in the Capital and Australia Day Live 06 to the NCA website (not CMS yet but oh it will be...) and intranet sites (The Hive). I've even done few more CD ROMS and interactive flash games, plus a couple of substantial annual report conversions.

Lately I've been doing a little more video based work putting together an Induction Kit Video for new starters to the NCA as well as a redesign on Virtual Canberra (coming soon) VC is a content managed, fully dynamic flash site / or you might call it an absolute monster. Oh and did I say flash video (yes, we're up to Flash 8 now!) Still working on compression so you'll need a fat connection to the internet to view it!

Freelance has continued and is now busier than ever, as I said earlier OPH is an established client and I'm currently working on a couple of projects with Marty which should be available in the not too distant future.

Other recent work includes full CMS based website for VAST Group (a security training company in Sydney) as well as micro-sites for their subsidiaries Praetorian Security, Diplomatic Security Services and branding and website for GEAR. (Global Electronic Asset Register)

Maxwell Digital Solutions, Friction Event Management, Peter Glen Constructions, The Sacred Ride and Trinity Protection Services are other clients currently utilizing my services.

Check out the linked sites, yes some of them are older and laughable, some of them use flash based menus and even have pointless flash animation. A lot of them aren't what you'd called standards compliant sites and very few actually even validate. Have a look and understand where I've come from, try and see the progression and development that got me to where I am today.