Here’s a photo post of some of the things we’ve been up to since our last update.

No longer being a Poor Student, I decided to splash out in January and become a consumer electronics junkie. Here’s my first new cellphone since 2001 and my brand-new laptop.

My new cellphone has GPS (as well as bluetooth, 2GB storage, MP3 player, 2MP camera, etc) so I’ve started geocaching, something I’ve known about for ages but never done until now.

Our first cache located, just 20 minutes walk from Pacific Empire headquarters:

As this was our first cache, I didn’t yet know how to convert between decimal GPS coodinates (which my phone uses) and DecMin coordinates (which decoding the puzzle gave us).  We were able to locate the cache from the clues using our superior local nous and Phil’s knowledge of scientific names!

There are a few cool things about geocaching: technology, the great outdoors, the puzzle of actually locating the damn things once you get close, and the cool things that you invariably see on the way out to them.

Like this view over Thorndon and Wellington Harbour:

Another major thing we’ve been up to is camping in the Orongorongo Valley over the hill past Wainuiomata:

I’ve got another photo post all about this in the pipeline.

And last but not least, a picture of my new laptop (EEE1000H) next to a standard-sized laptop:

I must say this netbook revolution really has a lot going for it.  It’s just as powerful and usable as a standard laptop, while being cheaper, lighter, easier to transport and use (you can lie in a hammock and hold it with one hand) and way cooler. 

I’ve got it set up with dual-boot Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 with Array.org’s excellent EEE-specific kernel packages.  (Don’t worry, the XP is only used for testing websites on IE at work!)

Posted by Luke H on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 11:15 pm.