Will turned 23 last week, so we had a bit of a packed out Saturday celebrating. Starting with clay pigeons in the afternoon followed by a trip into Broad Street (my first proper excursion there for a number of years). I think my sharp-shooting skills have improved on last time and I finished a more than acceptable third out of the ten or so of us. So there’s a bit of boasting for you.

The night was also good fun - I have to admit I’m sceptical when it comes to nights out on Broad Street - I can’t help but think it’s a bit like having a night out put together by the people who manage package holidays, but I have to admit it exceeded expectations, was a fantastic night and I was impressed with the Gatecrasher refit of what once was ‘The Works’.

It did take an age, but enough pestering from fellow Multipackers amongst others, I ended up on Twitter this week. I’ve had an account for ages, but it wasn’t until now that it’s seen any use. I have to admit, I can see how an addiction can develop. I think the two biggest drawbacks of it are, firstly you have to fit whatever you wanted to say into a fraction of size of how you wanted to say (the same pariah as you encounter with text messaging) and secondly, you can’t make individual twitters semi-private (or if you can, I haven’t found out how).

You see, I have an uncontrollable urge to swear sometimes. I want to say things like ”****ing NoChex. What a bunch of ****s”, where any four letter word noun or adjective befitting of NoChex could be entertained.

Unfortunately, sensible me knows that is a bad idea, because one day I may have to communicate with the ****ing ****s at NoChex again. They then may have read what I have written about them and their ****ing policies - something they might like to ****ing outline to me, or at least allow me to talk to one of their ****s about. ****s.

And so on Twitter, saying that sort of thing in public would not only be in bad taste, but incredibly difficult to convey in just 160 characters.

If somebody at Nochex does read this and wants to know why the asterix key on my keyboard needs replacing, please contact me, as the email you sent me this morning was particularly condescending and I’d love an opportunity to explain my sentiments.

FWIW, I spent two hours in a seminar this morning learning lots of interesting things about the state of world finances.

Also, for anyone who wants an update on my miserable state of health right now, I’m single-handedly sponsoring the livelihoods of half the workforce at two very well know throat-sweet companies, and am viewing the world though a sticky cloud of paracetamol dust and the atomised contents of my nose. The only upside is that I have had a legitimate reason to consume half a jar of honey in any hot drink in the past two days, and will continue to do so until I elicit enough sympathy and regain a good mood.

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I’ve not seen one in the flesh; that wouldn’t been possible, but the brand new Macbook and Macbook pro lines are mouth-watering. The hardware upgrades, the change in look, the improved graphics; that’s all nice, but really peripheral to the one ‘feature’ I find intriguing. This ‘unibody’ idea is beautiful.

Anyone who has worked milled aluminium knows how gorgeous the stuff feels, both before and after it becomes a product. Working it down from a solid chunk into a final form is infinitely more satisfying than working with any other material in my opinion. Milling can be frustratingly slow, and if you get it wrong, it’s impossible to make a seamless fix. With CNC you cut that out, but you swap that for a level of precision that is hard to rival even in the most highly-skilled handmade version - the result is a million miles away from a sheet or cast metal construction. It genuinely feels more organic, sharp, natural and real - a single body is infinitely more sophisticated than something that feels like it has been bolted together, no matter how well that has been done.

And that’s why I’m dying to pick one up and hold it. I’m not actually that fussed about forking out to own it - my current model still does more than well enough for my needs (though it’s not like I would turn one down if anyone is offering) I just don’t need an upgrade. But the fact is that you can plainly see from the photos, the videos (especially the manufacturing one) that this a beautifully engineered and solid piece of construction. This technique is to be rolled into their two new notebook products, and that means that even by Apple’s previously high standards, this casing is going to bring the feel of this laptop into a league of it’s own, because as far as I am aware no other company has done this in mainstream laptopware before.

Admittedly, the Macbook Air has used a similar technique for a while (again a stunning product to hold), but I think this technique will lend itself even better to the thicker design of these new products. It’s a bit unusual to be more excited by the manufacturing method than the complete product, but I am.

There is one caveat though. I can think of a number of reasons why other manufacturers might not have gone down this route in the past, and although I can banish most of my qualms about it, there are couple I still don’t have an answer for.

This process is more complicated and initially more expensive to setup due to the hardware involved, but over time it’ll pay for itself and any machinery can be re-tasked for future models. The complexity of the assembly is going to be considerably reduced at the pre-digital component stage.  The thing that gets me is the waste and energy required to produce it this way.

My gut feeling would be that in waste terms, the system is actually going to be pretty efficient - Apple wouldn’t want to be squandering all that expensive material it’s paid for. Although you might be essentially removing a large percentage of the mass as milled-out swarf, that can be melted down and reused, and I would imagine that is what Apple will be doing. The gold and silver trade became incredibly efficient at this a very long time ago. But even if that is the case, the big drawback of this is that you constantly have to keep re-melting down the material, as opposed to the current method of applying a smaller amount of heat for a shorter period of time just enough to form a shape. And that’s expensive. The closest thing to an analogy I can think of is boiling a kettle of six cups for every time you want to make one just for yourself.

For all their talk of green, I do wonder whether this will erode at their other credentials? I mean keeping metal molten for long periods (whether its in their own factories or further up the food chain) is not that efficient. I just imagine it can’t be particularly energy efficient even if their other production processes are. I’d love to know, but I don’t believe tours of the Apple factories are that easy to come by.

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I’d definitely say the highlight of the weekend was slamming my middle right index finger (mostly the nail part) in the front door this evening. I have never been so thankful for frozen peas and arnica in all my life.

Apart from that spectacular and ultimately regretful piece of malcoordination, Saturday and Sunday have been generally all-round less painful. Multipack turned three this month, and so to celebrate Trev  bought a large bag of lovely, crunchy badges with the logo on. I had to leave the meeting early, so missed out on the planned meal, but as usual there was plenty of discussion although once again I proved my ineptitude by forgetting to take any photos, so I can’t prove any of it took place.

The reason for the early departure was another spur-of-the-moment roadtrip; this time Bristol to see James and the new flat. Coincidentally it turned out both Andrew and Paul we’re coming down at the same time, so it ended up as a bit of an unplanned Australian adventure reunion. A few beers in Clifton and some late night Mariocart was definitely a good way to relax, and being probably the last bright weekend we’re going to get this year, I was pleased to get a sunny drive there and back. I managed to completely miss the Grand Prix as Helen and the others indulged in watching an entire three hour X-Factor marathon this morning - a programme which I have discovered is capable of bringing out in me, a Cowell-like vindictiveness and ability to criticise a singer’s choice of song and dress, that until now I wasn’t aware of.

My finger still hurts and I will continue to moan like a hypochondriac child until what I will over-embellish as ‘the horrific bruising’ decides to subside.

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If there is one thing in my digital work and life that continually frustrates me is the lack of synchronicity between devices - namely my iMac and my Macbook.

Files have been catered for a while, and I thoroughly recommend SugarSync for that (continuous cloud backup, with recent revisions), but the killer flaw has been the lack of Address Book and iCal balance.

Finally, lifehacker has handed me an olive branch. I’ve tried some of their other recommended services before, but I’ve not been overly impressed until now (Calgoo was shockingly bad). Fruux is incredibly lightweight preference panel application which keeps contacts and events synced. I’ll stop short of a full recommendation as I’ve only just tried it out, but it’s been astoundingly simple to setup and get working. The best thing about it is that it just gets on with it, in the background, no hassle.

If it delivers what is says it can, and (as it is right now) for free, I will be a very happy bunny.

UPDATED: The link was wrong. Cheers Stuup!

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It’s been a while since I last was in Cheltenham, but (not much) earlier this week Flash asked me to do a presentation on logo design to some of the fifth form at his school, and as that sort of thing is good fun and pretty interesting, I agreed and spent yesterday evening helping out in a bit of a workshop session.

Thankfully the good weather once again this week made it an enjoyable drive, and the school itself is really nice (well it would be, it’s Cheltenham don’t you know).

One thing I had forgotten about for two years was the smell of DT workshops, and it call came flooding back (that mixture of sawdust and carcinogenics). I was also treated to a specially put on meal for this week’s winning team of Flash’s ‘Apprentice’ competition (wine and all).

All in all, yet another slightly out-of-the-ordinary event for this week. Good stuff.

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I’ve made it a habit in recent times to steer clear of mentioning actual clients in actual blog posts, but as so much time and effort has gone into the complete re-skin and slew of new features, it’s only fair to give this one a bit of a nudge.

RateMyPlacement is one of my big ongoing and often more intensive projects, and today/just now, we proudly launch version two. Hence why I’m still sitting on the edge of a cup of very black Spanish coffee, six hours after I drank it, and it’s just gone midnight.

For those familiar with the concept, this paragraph is needless, but for everyone else, RateMyPlacement is a place for students looking for, and who have returned from, internships and placements. It allows users to rank and share their experiences with future ‘placementeers’ and is a resource peddled across universities and placement offices around the country.

There are a few bolts to be tightened and edges to be deburred, but on the whole it’s there.

One interesting day follows another - tomorrow I’m in Cheltenham teaching GCSE kids how to design a good logo.

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On Saturday afternoon I was trying desperately to avoid getting on with things - the weekend isn’t for working and you can only wash the car so many times.

I quickly came to the conclusion that the cure for my boredom should be cheap, simple and quick to get into. It was at that point I drove to Southampton.

Maybe my plan didn’t meet all the aforementioned criteria, but it worked out just fine. The beautiful weather made for great driving and three hours and a bit later I was in a pub with Dan and Steve, who I’ve not seen for a good few months, and it’s been over a year since we met on their home turf.

On Sunday Dan and I played a sneaky nine-hole at the local golf club, had some lunch, bought him a Mac, watched Massa ruin his race at the GP then head on home in time for tea.

I was a little surprised how much I managed to eek out of the weekend. Usually, if I plan to do something big or chunky timewise, I am bound to think it must be tackled on Saturday morning otherwise it simply won’t fit, but I was wrong. A late Saturday departure and six hours driving in glorious sunshine there and back made the whole weekend last much longer.

I might try that again sometime soon.

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