Do Not Fold

Pretty cool. I just decided to go back to NY in March next year ;)

It’s back! I’ve bought myself *another* iPhone. Yes, I know, it’s my third one already. It’s not a secret that I’m an Apple lover, but honestly, I’m not that guy who buys every new Apple product that’s on the market right away. Let me explain my iPhone story…

I bought my first iPhone in December 2007 in London. It was the first generation iPhone and it was great! I had to hack it and jailbreak it to get it working, but that was no problem except for the fact that I wanted to create my own iPhone apps. Back then it was not possible to deploy self-made iPhone apps to your iPhone if it was jailbroken. So I bought an official (not hacked/jailbroken) 3G iPhone in September 2008. I did that mainly because the iPhone back then was still worth quite a price. I bought it for €380 in London and sold it 10 months later for €360 euros!

Everything went well until, on some evening I went to the pub, got a bit drunk and forgot to take out my precious iPhone out of the pocket of my jeans. The next morning that jeans and my iPhone ended up in the washing machine. Terrible looking pictures, no response, … I thought it was dead. I opened it, used a hairdryer and left it dry. After a week things started working again. The water from the screen started to disappear and it looked like everything —except for the camera— was working again.

Until recently, during a sync, it just crashed. I tried loads and loads of times to restore but it didn’t work anymore. In the beginning I got the pink screen of dead, but after a while it totally stopped working on me. Meanwhile, Apple announced it’s 3th generation iPhone, the 3GS. In Belgium, €575 euros for the cheapest one (16GB). Way to expensive! But when I found out that I would get €180 for the 3G iPhone if I’d buy a new one I *had* to do it :) The iPhone 3GS arrived yesterday and I’m really happy with it… it looks the same, but it’s blazing fast, it can take movies, much much nicer pictures and has a digital compas in it. But I didn’t buy it because of these new features, I bought it because my life was a mess with that Nokia. You don’t use the calender on those devices, the camera sucks, syncing with the computer is a pain in the ass, etc.

I now have an insurance with my iPhone. Something I can recommend everyone with a mobile phone above €400. On top of my monthly €30 subscription with Mobistar, I pay €6 euro for the insurance. When I drop it, wash it, … I get a new one right away. As long as it doesn’t get stolen by a pickpocket! So that’s my iPhone story, I really hope it ends here ;)

A recent study by Cushman & Wakefield reveals that the new towers at Ground Zero in New York won’t be finished until 2037. The new WTC complex includes 5 new towers (Freedom tower, tower 2, 3, 4 and 5) and a memorial park in the middle. Can’t wait to see it for real, but I guess I have to wait a couple of decades :)

I don’t blog often about my work at These Days, but the new Pioneer site deserves to be noticed. Last week, Pioneer launched their new European website: www.pioneer.eu. I really love the design and the structure of the site, the javascript effects just add to the cool form-factor of the brand and the website. I did some css but mainly did the javascripts. I used Prototype and Scriptaculous because I can count on it and the behaviours in different browsers but mainly because I’m not as familiar with jQuery as I am with Prototype. Anyway, you’ve got to check it out: www.pioneer.eu!

Er is blijkbaar een nieuw model van mijn geweldige auto, de Citroën Berlingo. Bij de promotie van deze nieuwe auto is de doelgroep redelijk duidelijk: bouwvakkers en mensen in de logistiek. Seems obvious, maar er bestaat ook een familie-vriendelijke-versie (zoals de mijne), met zetels en bekleding ed.

Als marketingcampagne kozen ze bij Citroën voor deze geweldige rappers, echt hilarisch:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUiQtHlxgx8]

Bekijk ook de mini-site: www.berlingotrio.nl

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Door de samenvoeging van Macromedia en Adobe is Adobe ontzettend goed bezig. Hun Creative Suite pakket is gewoon af… meer heb je niet nodig. Maar dat wist iedereen al. Wat je misschien nog niet wist, is dat ze onlangs hun site hebben vernieuwd. Ik ben heel kritisch als het om site redesigns gaat, dus dat ga ik nu ook zijn. In mijn vorige post zie je dat Apple de site redesign award heeft gewonnen bij de .net awards 2007, Adobe had zelfs niet moeten proberen om in deze contest mee te dingen want eigenlijk is er niet veel veranderd. Hun site is enkel grafisch aangepast, de navigatie is bijna ‘t zelfde. Ze is wel veel leuker qua design, maar geeft niet echt een ‘wow’ gevoel. Spijtig.

Ook nieuw is Flash on. Ze outten het als ‘The fusion of TV and the Internet’, maar eigenlijk lijkt het me gewoon de mogelijkheid van HD video in een nieuwe Flashplayer. Plus een Flash Media Player als standalone app, benieuwd wat dat zal geven. Voorlopig nog niet downloadbaar, maar mijn kleine teen zegt dat dat eigenlijk gewoon een combinatie zal zijn van hun huidige Flash Player en Quicktime.

Nog niet zo heel lang geleden zijn er ook van AIR en Flex nieuwe Beta versies gereleased. Maw…. goed bezig Adobe!