Video Calling Here… What it Means to Me

Video for phone calls may be here but not the way the we might have expected it would be. Certainly not the way I thought it would when I was a kid.

So I thought when I was younger that one day we would have phones that had video in them of the person you were calling. As in home phone that is. I know this feature is available on some mobile phones but it costs a bomb and I would not say that it is widely available and it is price restrictive.

Skype on the other-hand is available, functional and free. The power of Skype was made very clear to me a wile ago when I got a web-cam and a close friend of mine got one as well. We could talk and see each other and it was second best to being there. It is that feeling that, if I can’t be there then this is great and I am feeling like we are hanging out; that is the difference.

With Skype now supporting Mac on the video front I have had a few more of these “being there” experiences. My brother recently converted to Mac only, yup every machine that he owns is a Mac. He was bummed that video was not supported in the Mac, but a week or so ago it happened. Skype for Mac now does video and James and I were able to chat and talk and see each other for the first time. The cool thing in this instance was the fact that we had our kids with us and we were able to interact and have fun, the kids loved it. I think they found it a little strange as well though. This is something that I cherish, my brother’s family is the other end of Australia near Sydney. So Skype gives us something that we would not otherwise have.

Yet another experience that I had recently was that of the Trans-Continental variety. And we took a screen shot to boot. Good mate and podcaster Knightwise from The Knightcast Podcast (from Belgium) and I were chatting on Skype and we fired up the video. He has a Mac as well so this is new to Kinghtwise as well. But the thing that made it absolutely hilarious was the fact that I was talking to Knightwise, using the video and he was cooking potatoes. Don’t know what is was it was just funny. It gave that being there experience and the fact that it has all the ambient sounds of him making his dinner. It seemed a normal thing to do. Talk to The Rooster and make dinner. Not something I thought I would ever do when I was a kid.

The most amazing thing is that all this is free. I can chat for hours to anyone that has Skype for free. Admitedly; a broadband connection is required, but taking something that I would have anyway and using it in this way has blown my mind. That is to say nothing of the fact that this is a free service! Sure phoning me from a land line to Skype costs money, but it is very, very competitive at the cost of a local call in Australia or to call out from Skype is cheaper still at 0.027 cents per minute (no the zero is not a mistake). I am slowly dumping my home phone. I have been saying and will continue to say that the telecommunications companies have a lot to worry about. This is further demonstration of the fact that in the end they will either have to evolve or die.

My home phone just can not give me the experience that the Internet and Skype can. I ask what they are doing about it?

So the ride to where we are now is not what I expected it to be nor have we arrived to where I thought we would end up (since when is that the case anyway). But I am excited about being a part of it and will continue to integrate technology into my life. It is finally becoming something that is impacting my life. Although I still hate computers.

If you want to call me on Skype just call 07 3102 3535, try it out. Or better yet download Skype and call me for free!

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Lone Fruit Bat Moved In

I started to notice bat poo on the path. I thought they were visiting at night but yesterday I looked up and I spotted a lone fruit bat.

I do not know why it has moved in but it would seem that our date palm out the back is just perfect for a day roost. It stays all day sleeping and crapping on my path. While I would not normally mind crap of any description from native animals, but as anyone round here knows bat crap is second only to concrete. It also has the consistency of chewing gum. So I am constantly hosing the path before it sets. Starting to think it is more like super glue, seems to set really fast!

Stranger still it has not invited any buddies to our tree, for which I am very grateful. I would have to start getting nasty with the hose. No-one wants a bat rookery in their back yard I can tell you. It seems like a small juvenile bat and is not bothered by us gawking at it. I just wish it decided to roost about 30 centimeters along the branch so it is not over the path!

The kids are enjoying looking at it and watching it. Angus runs out all the time to “check if it is still there”. Anyway weird but our house is like that.

Here is a picture, I could not take one that was good enough. Please enjoy this one from Flickr. Credit for photo to Shek Graham, who also lives in Cairns, some great photos on Flickr please check it out.

Day with the Family, Waterfalls & Butterflies

Well something totally different, last Sunday the family and myself went out for the day! It was great; the kids walked all over the place and slept well that night.

We drove up to a place called Kuranda and took a look at a local river waterfall, which is still raging after the huge amount of rain that we have had up here over the last couple of weeks. We had never seen it in flood before. This is mainly due to the fact that access is a problem after a lot of rain, we get a lot of landslides and after cyclones we get whole trees across the road! So that was cool and the rainforest is always beautiful.

Next we went into town and had some lunch, we all had a very Australian lunch with pies and sausage rolls on the menu.
Then we took the boys to the butterfly house, which was amazing. It is the largest aluminium external framed building in the southern hemisphere and is the biggest butterfly enclosure in the world. And that’s to say nothing of the butterflies. They have all native butterflies including the great picture I have here of the Cairns Birdwing Butterfly, truly beautiful. The other one that I wanted a picture of was the Ulysses Butterfly, but they were too high.

So after all that we headed off and we had a wonderful time as a family and the boys loved it. The biggest bonus was that they went to bed early and slept peacefully with great memories, us too for that matter.

The one thing that struck me about the whole outing is that when were are busy people and we are so caught up in our everyday lives, we have to make time for each other. Families don’t just happen and they don’t just stay together without working at it. We are closer to each other for the bit of effort that we put in this last Sunday, maybe we need to do it more often.

So What Makes You Different?

Today Technorati posted the State of the Blogosphere for April 2006. It blows me away to think about these statistics. In summary:

• Technorati now tracks over 35.3 million blogs.
• The number of blogs doubles every six months.
• The blogoshphere is over sixty times bigger than it was three years ago.
• A new blog is created every second of every day.
• 19.4 million (55%) bloggers are still active three months after their blog was created.
• Every day Technorati tracks 1.2 million posts.

Reference: Technorati Weblog; State of the Blogosphere, Part 1

These statistics are truly amazing to say the least. I think that it will be interesting to see if the growth is sustainable as I think that there is an element of novelty in blogging. The other glaring thing to me is with these types of numbers what makes my blog something that anyone else would want to read? How do I set myself apart from all the other blogs on the planet? Is setting myself apart something that I want to do? Clearly some bloggers just want to blog for themselves or to let their family know what they are up to. Then there is the commercial aspect with big companies jumping on the blog idea.

So I am going to keep asking myself what it is that might make this post something someone else would want to read and keep blogging anyway, even if nobody reads it.

I am also pleased that I am part of the 55% that are still blogging after three months, so thats one feather in my cap. When all is said and done I am blogging for the fun of it and while I am having fun I will keep at it.

On another note there are some interesting things happening with in my community. Sebastian and myself have started another blog. It is called Podcast Periodical. This online magazine is not so much one that we want to write as we want others to contribute to it. We hope that the blog fosters community in blogging and podcasting by sharing resources and networking with other like minded people. Personally I am hoping that it will assist people with questions and queries about podcasting and blogging or just understanding what the whole thing is all about.

This is something that I am quite passionate about, just ask the average person on the street what a blog is and you will get various dumb looks. Now ask them what a podcast is and you will get a “what planet are you on look”. So I am hoping that through this blog we can “get the word out” on what and how of podcasting and blogging. Make sure you check out the site and subscribe I am sure it will be something to watch.

Strange Frog Happenings

Our house has been invaded by frogs! The last two nights we have been inundated by baby green tree frogs, they are everywhere. Every hour or so I have to walk around the house, collect the frog and put them outside again. They mainly end up in the kitchen, as this is where the light is on.

This year we have had a fair amount of rain and I think the frogs are loving it and each other. They have bred like rabbits and now the babies have hatched the place is lousy with them. The reason that they are getting in the house is that we have an open house with no fly-screens so they just hop in through the windows and doors. I pick up about four to five each time. I don’t want them locked inside as they will certainly “croak” (eww bad pun). We are happy that they are back as the last couple of years they have not been around in great numbers in the last two years that have been quite dry in comparison.

It had to happen, but I was going to insert a picture into this post but right as I was going to take the picture the camera battery went flat. I will have to put it in later.

Well later has happened and I have charged the camera and I have taken a picture of one of the many frogs. To give you an idea of scale the frog is sitting on my middle finger. We think that they are white – lipped green tree frogs. I am stoked with the photo – click on it to look at the full sized image.