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Campers in front of Apple store

I heard a lot of buzz about new Apple store opening in Sydney. I am not a fan of Apple. Some of my colleagues are. Well most of them since Atlassian started equipping its staff with Mac Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air computers.

So this morning I thought I would go and have a look at the folks camping in front of this store that was due to be opened tonight

And yes, there they were. Sitting on the foldable chairs, covered with doonas and in sleeping bags.

I really felt sorry for them. Trading their (life)time for something they can already buy from a nearby store - there are already stores here that sell Macs.

Losers!

But then it dawned at me. What a great opportunity, once in a lifetime, to spend a night with your friends doing something unusual - to (legally) camp in the middle of the city. Priceless!

Firefox 3

I, like many others, downloaded Firefox 3 yesterday. It was an attempt for a Guinness World Record titled Spread Firefox. The result was more than 8 million downloads in a single day. Quite impressive!

I did not have time to install it yesterday as I was on a holiday, busy attending Google Developer Day 2008. See my photos on Flickr. I met there with few fellow developers, like Dmitry Baranovskiy, who you can see speaking at Web Directions South soon and Carlos Mari, Director of Carlos Labs.

So I installed Firefox 3 today. I must say that I am quite impressed with the browser itself and with the ease of upgrading. I expected few hiccups on the way but it was all smooth.

Out of my 31 add-ons installed on Firefox 2 only six do not work. The six that no longer work are:

• AutoCopy
• ColorZilla
• EROnline (Exit Reality)
• Firebug
• Google Browser Sync
• Link Alert

I am going to miss AutoCopy and ColorZilla dearly. I am sure that Exit Reality will release a new plug-in real soon.

And for Google Browser Sync - it's a real shame that this is discontinued. But I knew this in advance, therefore I backed up my bookmarks and returned back to my favorite Foxmarks

In case you wondered what add-ons I use and currently have installed, here is a list:

• Download Statusbar
• Dummy Lipsum
• Dictionary English (AU)
• Dictionary English (US)
• FlashGot
• Forecastfox
• Google Earth
• Google Gears
• Google Notebook
• Greasemonkey
• Html Validator
• IE Tab
• Live HTTP Headers
• MeasureIt
• meebo
• Mouse Gestures
• Operator
• PDF Download
• Personas for Firefox
• Quick Locale Switcher
• Redirect Remover
• Total Validator
• User Agent Switcher
• Web Developer
• YSlow

Happy browsing, everyone!

PS: I also installed Skype 4.0 and it is very sleek!

ExitReality goes to Beta

ExitReality finally flicked the switch this week and went to Beta.

ExitReality is an exciting new social media platform that aims to improve your online experience with an enhanced 3D, multi-user, immersive messaging environment.

Duncan Riley reported on TechCrunch in ExitReality Turns Social Network Profiles Into 3D Spaces that ExitReality promises to transform the social networking experience by offering virtual versions of every social network site profile.

ExitReality works with leading global social media sites Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut and Bebo and is launching soon.

As published in JDJ: Carl's Jr. and Hardee's Web Sites Among First to Go 3D

For the initial launch, each MySpace member gets a 3D apartment that automatically includes their music, friends, comments and videos, and can be decorated in limitless ways. Using 3D avatars, a user can don a logoed jacket, meet friends at the Carl's Jr. or Hardee's virtual restaurant or invite friends over to the burger-themed social-network living room. There, they can ride a mechanical bull, like the one in the famous Western Bacon Cheeseburger ad, play the entertaining Burger Slayer game, as well as pick up 3D widgets such as TVs, arcade game machines, furniture, and even 3D living room or restaurant layouts to decorate their own pages.

This was also noted in Duncan Rileys' ExitReality Launches With Carl’s Jr Deal

Another interesting aspect is the way the platform works; unlike Second Life that relies on centralized servers, the ExitReality plugin renders the page based on the details of the page, so it doesn’t need to rely on centralized servers (the only aspect that would be lost in the case of downtime would be chat). Further as users interact on and around each page, those visitors are counted in local logs, so a website owner doesn’t lose traffic; in effect this is a visual layer the browser sees but with the original content at the original page.

Have a look at Carl's Jr. or Hardee's.

I have already signed up. Have you?

A Blooming Great Idea

As Guy Kawasaki said about this blooming great idea:

This is a cool idea. I would buy one in a second. No picture. You have to trust me and click here...

Open Letter To CityRail

I. No Choice

I live in Ashfield, an inner West suburb of Sydney. My daily job is in city CBD, to which I commute by train. And I don't have a choice.

With winter approaching, weather prevents me from doing my daily 10km bike ride. Mornings are too chilly and evenings dark already to be fun.

Riding buses in Sydney was never enjoyable. At least for me. Trains are a much better option. If you can pick your train. I take a new so-called Millennium train, which were introduced during 2000 Sydney Olympics. These are joy! I make an extra effort to catch my train every morning, just so I don't have to take the old one that comes after. I cannot believe that lots of these rusty cans still operate. Small windows, malfunctioning doors, no air-conditioning.

II. The Problem

Recently CityRail introduced a trial of 14 Day RailPass tickets. As they claim, these should reduce the ticket queues on Monday mornings.

I can tell you that 14-day tickets are to fail. And I will tell you why.

A return ticket to city costs me $6.80 or $3.40 each way. Price of a weekly ticket is $28; a slight saving versus $34 ($6.80 x 5 - majority of people don't commute everyday, mostly Monday to Friday). So this brings the cost of my daily commute down to $5.60. 14-day ticket costs the same as two weekly tickets. So, you don't save money. Only thing you save is standing in the queue every other Monday morning. Actually it is costing a bit more. The interest that those 28 bucks could earn you in the bank now goes to CityRail. In other words, you are paying extra for the privilege to skip the queue half of the time.

Weeklies have another perk attached. If you purchase your ticket after 3PM you get to use it that day and seven consecutive days. I buy weekly tickets and I use this feature to my advantage. I buy a single way ticket in the morning for $3.40. In the afternoon I purchase a weekly ticket for $28 that will take me home that day and seven more days. A total of $31.40 ($3.40 + $28) for six days $5.23 each (it is eight days, but as I said I don't use it on weekends, e.g. Mon-Fri, plus Monday). Another benefit that you may not realise straight away is that doing it this way you get to work in 8-day cycles, which means you buy ticket on a different day every week. You start with the long queue on Monday. The following week it gets better, because you are buying your ticket on Tuesday. Next week on Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday.

Then when you buy your ticket on Friday you realise that this will cover this Friday and whole next week till next Friday. And that's all you need. You don't need to travel on Saturday, nor Sunday. You don't need to waste your money on a ticket you will never use.

Don't put an expiration date on people's money!

The inflexibility of weekly tickets is costing us a lot of money. You fall sick and you have a weekly ticket? Or a public holiday falls on Friday? Bad luck! You paid for a ride you are not going to take. Another example is that on some nights I get to go home with my wife by car. Her business requires her to drive between the shops and if the timing is right I get to go home with her. By car. With a valid train ticket in the pocket of my jeans. Again, I paid for a ride I am not going to take. I cannot tell you how much money CityRail owes me this way.

III. The Solution

I honestly believe that we need to shift from obsolete weekly tickets to something more flexible. The time is right, the technology is here. There is nothing stopping us from doing so. Well, unless this is what CityRail wants and this is the way they want to make extra cash.

To me, a 10-ride ticket would be well suited. It would be really great! I would not have to worry about long queues on Monday mornings as I would be able to buy this ticket at any time, anywhere. I would not have to worry about losing my hard-earned cash, as the ticket would be still valid, even if I don't use it because I fell sick or used other means of transport.

10-ride tickets are already used by bus services around Sydney. I don't ride buses but I can image that these tickets are widely used.

Just for the comparison, take a look at how our Melbourne brothers are doing it. Public transport in Melbourne are operated by Connex.

Metcards connect all train, tram and bus services for easy travel throughout Melbourne. Prices depend on the zones you travel in, the type of ticket you choose and whether you hold any concessions.

Melbourne is divided into two zones (used to be three when I lived there five years ago). You can buy a 2-hour ticket for a single zone ($3.50 zone 1 or $2.70 zone 2) or both of them. You can also buy a City Saver - 10 x 2-hour ticket for $20.80, which is cheaper than if you buy ten separate 2-hour tickets. (To compare with my ticket from Ashfield: $3.40 single, $28 weekly. If I purchased a zoned ticket, it would be a Red TravelPass for $35) The ticket, after being validated, is valid for the minutes to the whole hour and then two hours. This works out to be up to 2 hours and 59 minutes, if you validate it one minute after the hour. If you are lucky and live in one of the inner suburbs, 2-hour ticket gives you plenty of time to get to the city, do some shopping or whatever and come back home on a single ticket. Another great feature of these tickets is that after 7PM they remain valid until the last train service that day. Can you imagine that you could go out with your friends, move around the town, go to a restaurant in the city, then go for a walk on the beach and all of this on a single train ticket. I don't want to imagine how much I would have to fork out for this in Sydney.

And as I mentioned before this could be done without putting an expiration date on people's money! My five-year-old train ticket from Melbourne was still valid when I used it this year.

IV. The Future

I encourage clever people at CityRail to think about the people that use their services, only charge for what people use and make it more flexible for all of us.

More and more people work from home. Telecommuting is becoming very popular as it has many benefits for the companies, for the city and environment (less pollution) as well as the employees. These people will still use your services. If nothing else, let them save money by pre-purchasing their rides.

There are people who work part-time, they do not need weekly tickets. But trust me, they are your regular customers. They use your trains same way as all of us who commute daily. They just do it less ofter. Do they really deserve to pay more for the same ride?

I hope to see you all soon taking a train ride with me to a brighter future!

PS: This is what this post looks like at Wordle