The Life of Me

I finally found an extra few minutes today to check out the Apple Care protection plan for the iPod that has just become available to UK users. My findings, shocked me into finally believing that we in the UK (and probably other places) really do get ripped off by large companies and corporations outside of the UK.

The iPod AppleCare example, in my opinion, is shocking:
From the Apple UK Store, I have to pay £50.21 (Exc. VAT) for the AppleCare, then shipping of £4.50 (a tad expensive considering this isn’t a package), and then have to pay another £9.57 VAT bringing the total AppleCare package to £64.28.

The currency conversion of £64.28 for those outside the UK:

116.85 USD

92.45 EUR

150.656 CAD

However, our American friends seem to get the same AppleCare plan cheaper. The US Apple Store sells the same iPod AppleCare plan for $59.00 (£32.47)… Thats almost 50% cheaper (exc. shipping).

This is nothing new… EVERYTHING that is available to the UK is almost 25%-50% dearer than the same product sold to those in the US.

Update: It seems Apple is listening in some form. Now they need to apply this price review to everything on the Apple store.

My nephew, Aryn Andrew Owens was born 5th January 2004 at 7:40pm

Congratulations to David & Michelle!

Well, after a week or so of eating, drinking, visiting friends and family and catching up on some Xbox gaming I’m feeling quite refreshed and ready to tackle the new year.

After a rather hectic end to the year because I failed to plan my time and money properly, I plan to quit smoking this year and also put more effort into my studies so that it doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, I hope you all got what you wanted for Christmas and that you have all enjoyed yourselves. I managed (somehow) to end up with.

iPod & Accessories

20GB iPod

Sony MDREX71SLB Inner-ear earphones.

Misc Bit & Bobs

200 Cigarettes

“Drunk Punk” Baggy Pants

“KI55 MY 4R5E” T-Shirt

New Dressing Gown

Massive bottle of Hugo Boss eau de toilette

Tub of Quality Street

Royle Family Board Game

Xbox Games

Amped 2 (Xbox)

Project Gotham Racing 2 (Xbox)

Rainbox Six 3 (Xbox)

All-in-all I was quite impressed by my haul this Christmas, and I still have money left to get myself some JBL Creature Speakers (or similar) for my iPod.

I’m currently working on a large project, trying to finish assignments for Uni and also trying to get the redesign of this blog completed… where does time go?

I’ve promised myself, family and girlfriend that I’d pull myself away from the computer for a few days, drink & eat lots and have a jolly good time.

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone and their families a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah or whatever else you celebrate at this time.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy tomorrow and the days to come.

Have a fantastic festive time with all your family & friends!

Here are three blog entries that held my entire attention tonight.

• Best of 2003
• The Case of Jackson vs. Gawker
• CSS: Copyrightable?

Note to self: I really do need to build a link-log into the next redesign!

A few bits that I found interesting:

• Web Design - The Ultimate Balancing Act?
• Stricter comments in MT
• Web Design Patterns
• XFN
• FeedDemon is available this week!
• Best Practices in Web Development?
• Zizu is voted “World Footballer of the Year”, but Ryan doesn’t like it.

I’m going to redesign the site over the holidays, and got very bored with the old layout and design… I’ve decided to go back to one of Movable Type default templates until I’ve completed the design.

Expect more info soon… and apologies if you don’t like it.

Congratulations to Eric & Kat on the arrival of their beautiful baby girl, Carolyn Maxwell Meyer!

I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t disappeared; its just that we’re currently redecorating and my computer, for the first time in a long, long while is in pieces in the other room.

We have a few more days while the plaster dries and the walls get painted, then we’ll be moving all the furniture and the computer back in.

Once all that is out of the way, I’ll start replying to emails and updating the site.

Oh well, no rest for the wicked… back to work for me.

Remembering all those who fought for our freedom…

On Nov 5^th Karen’s Gran passed away quietly in her sleep. She was a wonderful lady who touched the lifes of many, many people and we miss her already.

You may notice a minimal amount of downtime while I move hosts.

I apologise for any discomfort you may feel not being able to read my ramblings. ;-)

Update

Server move is complete. Yay!

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last week, the reason being that I’ve recently started University again (after a summer break) and am going straight to work as soon as I finish.

I feel I should mention that when I have homework/coursework and assignments to complete, I won’t be posting to the site until I have completed each piece, so if I go quiet for a few days at a time (during term-time) then you can bet that I’m busily working away.

Will post later today anyway, and will be working “behind the scenes” to complete the few rough edges around the site.

As you can tell I’ve redesigned the site in the hope it will look better than a default MT template with a modified stylesheet… and I think I managed it.

It’s still a little rough in areas, but those will have to be “patched” up when I have a few spare minutes, as Uni starts this week so I expect to be pretty busy. The front page validates, as do a few others, and those that don’t are probably due to content which will be edited and corrected over time.

I’ve tried to write semanticly correct code, but I can guarantee I have missed a few bits and bobs, so please forgive me.

I hope to implement alternative styles soon, so if you don’t like green then please wait and bare with me.

Right, I’m off for a much deserved bath… I thank you & good night!

Paul finally got his Apple Mac G5!

Congratulations mate!