A shiny night in the world's most beautiful city

With apologies to my shivering north American friends, the attached pictures were taken last Thursday night as we sat waiting for the outdoor cinema on Sydney's Mrs Macquarie's Chair to begin. With a view to the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and a reasonably priced take-away restaurant and bar nearby, we waiting with 1,800 other people to experience one of Sydney's great treats.

The movie was 'The Visitor' - the story of how a widower deals with finding two illegals living in his seldom visited New York apartment. It was a fabulous warm summers night and the combination of a great location, good movie and very edible food was a winner. J gave me the tickets for Christmas, so I had to take her of course - but it was a real treat. There's something about sitting outside with a great view of a great city while watching a movie at the same time that's compelling and relaxing at the same time - if that's possible.

The $100 Laptop

The One Laptop per Child organisation is doing an amazing job around the world. I heard Professor Nicholas Negroponte from MIT on ABC National Radio's Science Show yesterday talking about the concept of giving every child in every village in Cambodia a laptop. An amazing project and as someone who has filmed various aid projects in that country, I was well impressed.
Their web site: http://www.laptop.org/en/ is a good place to start. I love this use of technology and the way these guys worked with the laptop manufacturers around the world to get screens that would work in direct sun, for example, is inspiring. (I'd love one of those)
You can donate to this project on www.amazon.com/xo

An athiest confronted with practical Christianity

Matthew Parris is a London Times journalist, born in what is now Malawi. He recently went back and his piece about his observation about the practical impact of Christianity is well worth the read: Here's a bit to whet your appetite, then click on the link to read it all.

"Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good."

Read the rest by clicking here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

Slowly, slowly - my iPhone and I are becoming friends ..

After 5 days or so now with my iPhone, its only fair to report that I am finally getting used to it and have found some nifty apps to help me. I am closer to solving the To Do list problem with the ToDo app and its associated appigo.com desktop software. You need to plug the phone in, but it does work and pulled all my Tasks from Entourage and all of my iCal calendar tasks.
Looks very neat with lots of options.
Downloaded EmailContact app which enables you to e-mail contact info to anyone from your own contact lists. Works a treat.
Also I have now forwarded my Bigpond mail account to my MobileMe account, set up folders in MobileMe to sort it all out and the whole thing is replicated on the iPhone. Pretty neat.
So ... its getting easier to use and its finally allowing me to work the way I want to.

iPhones - nice, but the basics are missing ...

With my new business venture comes a new mobile and I punted on an iPhone. Not sure if I made the right decision. A few niggles ... Notes. The notes option on iPhone is not syncable with anything. How dumb is that? Tasks. There is no native tasks function and even the task apps are not syncable with Entourage or Outlook. Very dumb.
I'm sure I'll get used to the keyboard - but coming from a Blackberry 8700 - this is also annoying.
If anyone has a solution to the Notes and Tasks problems ... let me know.

January 20th - Obama and MJC are both in business

Today will be an historic day in the US as President Obama is inaugurated. Certainly there will be significant change for the whole world - let's pray that it will be positive. On the home front, our youngest son married the lovely Madeline and they're happily holidaying in Fiji.
January 20th also marks the first day of Martin Johnson Communications - my first step into running my own business. After day one I can say that I survived - plus tonight my marketing e-mail goes out to 250 or so contacts from my address book. Let's hope they don't think its spam.
So - check out my web site and see if you'd give me work. www.martinjohnson.com.au