macrobug

Details here.

I couldn’t possibly comment on whether I worked on it when I was at Symbian, when it’s due to ship etc.

Still - I quite fancy one.

Here. Thanks to Christian from Motorola for pointing it out!

I want one!

I am going to be fascinated to see whether it’s open to new software, and above all, what networks it becomes available on. Are Apple really going to sacrifice any of their iPod profits to the phone companies?

When I left Symbian, the Japan office very kindly indeed sent me this Jinbei.

Obviously it’s not even remotely the summer right now. But it’s surprisingly comfortable!

Thanks very much Symbian KK :-)

I’ve…

• Burst my spleen in a snowboarding accident, nearly fatally…
• Got married
• Quit my long-term job and started my own company

What a memorable year! :-)

Thanks to everybody who’s reading! May you have a terrific 2007.

I trust all readers had a good Christmas.

Here are some of the presents I got for Christmas.

I’m not quite sure, but I think there’s a theme…

I seem to get a lot of post addressed to MacRobug Ltd. There’s obviously some automatic capitalisation software in use somewhere in the world which thinks I’m Scottish. Hoots man!

Merry Christmas to all you readers.

What do I do in my spare time? (Except for DIY, grumble grumble). I think most of the readers of this blog know me, so they’ll know I am into mountain biking and snowboarding. My particular favourite is snowboarding; my wife’s is mountain biking (though we’re averaging out gradually).

We have some friends - Dave and Ruth - who are really into snowboarding. Last winter they somehow managed to spend around six weeks snowboarding (yes, they have proper jobs too). These guys are moving to Vancouver, at the foot of the mountains in the city’s north shore.

They’re obviously moving there primarily to increase their snowboarding opportunities.

But - this is the weird bit - they are not interested in mountain biking. Anyone who knows anything about mountain biking will know that “northshore” is now, effectively, a globally known noun. That noun represents raised wooden cycleways, made famous by those over marshy bits in the tracks down the mountains of the north shore of Vancouver. They will be five minutes’ cycle away from some of the very best downhill mountain biking territory in the whole world. Whistler, just up the road, is a world-renowed mountain bike resort in the summer too. Why would they ignore the mountain biking? Mad.

I think it’s almost inevitable that Dave, at least, will succumb and get a mountain bike, but right now he is vehement in his belief that mountain biking is “rubbish” and doesn’t give you the “floaty feeling” that powder snowboarding does. Well, perhaps not, but there’s something really satisfying about nailing the correct line down some tricky singletrack on a bike, which I think is probably as good.

Right now Dave and Ruth are in the middle of their journey from London to Vancouver… via New Zealand. Their exploits are here.

Things are going OK in the world of Macrobug. Not great, but not really bad. Right now I am struggling on two fronts: one of them commercial, which I can’t really talk about, and the other is technical.

On the technical side I have apparently encountered a performance problem. I knew this was coming - I need to capture a lot of information and I fully expected that it would place unreasonable demands on the system being tested. I’m at that stage now, and need to work around it.

Anyway, I’m now considering going full-time on Macrobug. I still don’t necessarily believe I can make a business out of it, but I’m increasingly sure I’ll never know whilst I’m working part-time. So, for a couple of weeks (illogically?) I’m going to be contracting full-time in order to bring in some cash that I’ll be able to live off, whilst I try to get Macrobug going.

To be clear: this does not mean that I think I’ve overcome all the potential obstacles to Macrobug. Far from it! But there we go: I think I should still give it a try.

This plan might all radically change any time, of course :-)