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It took me a second to realize what had happened but the Power Supply in my desktop exploded and had tripped the circuit breaker.  2 days after me getting a new computer. Sadly I hadn’t finished transferring my documents off my old Windows machine so now I have to figure out what I’m going to do to attempt to recover them to transfer them to my MacBook Pro.

I just can’t believe my luck, however I am grateful the PSU decided to wait until AFTER I received the MacBook Pro to cause issues or else right now, I’d have absolutely nothing to use.

So it all goes back to earlier this year, when I started seeing a trend with lots of the new programs being released for Mac OS X before Windows.

Under construction…

The main changes is the 8MP Camera instead of the 5MP and the new feature Siri. Along with the addition of the A5 chip. Besides that there’s the increase of space and another hour of talk time added onto the battery however I’m not quite sure if just these changes could justify spending $999.

I’m really tempted to just bite the bullet and order the new handset because everyone knows how I love to be up to date on the latest technology. So what do you think? Should I do the jump and purchase the iPhone 4S? Siri looks like it could be very cool in day to day life…

Each store I visited was packed to the door. At least 100 people in there, lots just browsing however the main part I think we need an Apple store for was busy as hell; The Genius Bar.

For Apple products to be repaired in Adelaide you need to post it to Sydney where they inspect it and usually just send you a refurbished product back where turn around time is usually 2 weeks. 2 weeks is a long time to go without an iPhone or any other device such as a MacBook you might use for work.

I sometimes wondered perhaps their isn’t enough people in Adelaide however if there is a store in Perth surely there is enough of a demand for one in Adelaide, even if it was purely for a repairs.

In the USA each time I went into an Apple store I spent over $100, perhaps its just the white shiny lights that draw you in… but I’m sure they could make their money in Adelaide from sales.

So far I haven’t really done a lot. I’ve been to visit my friends mother who is 99 and after that went to my friends wife’s barn to see her 3 horses. One of which is a new baby horse who was born a few months ago.

On Saturday we went to the cinema to see Captain America in 3D. It was a great movie overall but especially a great movie to see while on holiday in the USA. I got some popcorn as well and all I can say is Americans love their butter on their popcorn. It was so greasy but it tasted so good!

For food I’ve tried Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Olive Garden so far. Pizza Hut and McDonald’s are basically the same just in bigger sizes and Olive Garden is just fantastic. It’s a great italian restaurant here in America which I had for lunch today. I of course had my usual Spaghetti Bolognese which on the menu was “Spaghetti and meat sauce” and the bread sticks are very tasty. I’ve noticed so far the waitresses are so much nicer here because they work for tips instead of just a salary. My drink glass was always full and as soon it got low she brought another glass over.

I’ve uploaded 7 photos to my Flickr account so far, I’m hoping to get some fantastic photographs of the landscape here this week and much more as I start to explore the state more.

Until next time!

I have a 2 hour layover in Melbourne, Australia before getting aboard QF093 which happens to be a A380 (I really can’t explain how happy I am that I get to fly on one of these…). I arrive in Los Angeles, California around 11:25pm Adelaide time and then have a 6 hour wait before my final flight of the day to PDX. I’ll probably be posting once again during my 6 hour stop in Los Angeles just to let you guys know I made it and let everyone know my thoughts about Qantas International Services and the A380 :)

Wish me luck flying!

I will be making frequent blog posts here with journal entries along with one or 2 pictures every few days, However I will be uploading ALL my pictures to my Flickr Profile as I go along. Along with pictures and a journal entry every few days here on the blog, I will be tweeting through out some of the days via my iPhone and my shiny new iPad 2**. So you can check out my twitter tag @ShaunLorrain however I will also be setting my twitter account to post the status updates to my Facebook account. So really there’s many ways to get in touch with me!

I hope you enjoy some of the photos and things I have to share while I’m away as I’m sure I’ll have a fantastic time.

*I leave July 20th and am returning September 16th.
**If insurance has replaced it due to me breaking the thing… 

So on Tuesday morning I ordered some new hosting (Much cheaper mind you so doing my wallet a huge favor), from a company here in Sydney, Australia. Much closer to me and 80% of the visitors to me and my clients websites. I migrated all my domains over to the new hosting and changed the name servers on the domains to point to the new server. First thing I couldn’t believe is the load time, The ping between me and the new server is <20ms whereas the ping from me to the old VPS in Columbus was >300ms. When I click send and receive in Outlook now, I barely even see the dialogue flash because it just loads so much faster. Page load time on my domains is MUCH faster. I’ve noticed a near instant load time of 98% of my websites. I just couldn’t be happier. I did however have a problem with the memory allocation on some of my domains but that was taken care of within 5 seconds of me notifying someone and finding out how to allocate more memory.

As for the old VPS hosting? I requested a cancellation and a partial refund for the remaining time left of the month I paid for, only to be contacted asking me to talk to their VPS team about sorting my issues out. I simply just replied asking them to do as I had asked as it was beyond trying to talk to someone as I had tried that for 3+ months now. To which I woke up this morning to an email from PayPal and the company notifying me that a FULL refund of this month had been arranged and should appear back in my bank account. So I was very pleased in the resolution with cancelling and refunding the money for my VPS.

The thing you should take away from this? Just remember hosting is MUCH better in the country of which majority of your visitors originate from. They will experience a pleasanter visit just simply because of page load times. Australia’s web hosting has gotten better in the past few years, it used to be simply TOO EXPENSIVE however that has improved tremendously but still has a way to come to be perfect. I’m also glad I’m supporting a great and local company now.

On Friday night a few of us met up at Brunelli’s Café in Rundle Street for dinner, We stayed there drinking and socializing until around 10PM and then everyone left to go home. It was a fun but early night as everyone had to go home and those that were going to go out with me after, unfortunately couldn’t make it.

As that was the get together with friends, I thought it was only appropriate to also have a family dinner so we went to Café Primo Saturday night to have a meal. The food is always good there and you get a free pancake afterwards so its a win win!

So once again, thanks to everyone for the Birthday Wishes/Presents :)

I recently came across this video on YouTube about Facebook’s new green data centre, It really impresses me that “big” companies such as Facebook and Microsoft and even Apple (Although Apple is usually pretty secretive) make such a commitment to help save the environment.

Hint if you look back to the change made to the User Agreement in June 2010, you agreed to this anyhow.

First off, what have you got to hide? I mean.. OK you’re at a strip club.. So what?! Who really cares. The only people that have things to hide are the ones that are often breaking the laws.

Also this isn’t NEWS cellular companies have been doing this for years, Ever since mobile phones became mainstream. Each time you make or receive a call, text message or any “service” on your mobile phone your cellular company logs this information anyhow. Take my recent Telstra bill for example, it lists right there what suburb I was in when I made this text message and if the police really wanted to know the exact location all they have to do is get a warrant from the courts and subpena my provider.

There’s always something that the public has to be “angry” about, Antennagate, Glassgate and now what; Locationgate? Seriously, give it up.