And on August 7th I’ll turn 31 years old. Imagine that. I’m still thrilled to become one year older, and I always look forward to my birthday. I honestly don’t understand all the fuzz about the “30 year crisis” and all that. God knows I still feel like I’m in my early twenties, and age is just a number.

Yesterday I got my first (and probably only) birthday present this year! A little too early, but I still have to wait a few weeks until I can actually play with it. Øyvind had ordered the new iPhone for me, so yesterday I got a mysterious e-mail confirming the order of a black 32GB iPhone 4! Personally I’m a kind of person who like to make up my own mind about things – I never like products or items just because it’s something popular – so I haven’t really been awed by my iPhone 3GS even though I can’t imagine being without several of the available apps I have installed. With that said I’m absolutely and immensely pleased with his choice of birthday gift – and I hope I don’t have to wait too long for it to arrive!

Just a few days ago I discovered the app iBooks, and that app alone is reason enough to own an iPhone in my opinion. Now I’ve got a wooden bookshelf on my phone, and it’s all ready to be filled with wonderful books. I’ve already got “Winnie the Pooh” and “Dracula” in there, and I’ll be adding a few more classics shortly. Genius!

For a few years now I’ve been wanting my next mobile to be a BlackBerry. I don’t know why, I have just fallen in love with its look and the full miniature keyboard. Unfortunately it’s hellish expensive, and is considered to be a business phone. When I moved to Trondheim I bought myself one of those mini PC’s with the intention of having a smaller device to blog, surf the Internet and take notes when in school on and while away from home. I didn’t like it, and thought maybe a BlackBerry would fill my needs instead. The iPhone has a nice touch keyboard, but I really don’t like it when I’m typing larger portions of text – I always hit wrong keys, or even several ones. So yesterday I found the perfect little addition to my new iPhone 4 adventure: a tiny wireless bluetooth keyboard – and naturally I went straight ahead and ordered it. The price? $36 (about 220,- NOK with today’s exchange rate) plus $3 (19,- NOK) for shipping to Norway.

An update will naturally be added as soon as I get my shiny new gadgets, and I’ll add a tiny “review” of the wireless bluetooth keyboard as well. It might just be crap, but I think it’s worth a try!

Photos © Apple & usb.brando.com

The day when my Nokia 6500 Slide decided to die on me finally arrived. It didn’t die completely, it just started rebooting in the middle of a phone call. It had also suddenly decided to refrain from showing me who was calling or texting, something I found very annoying since I haven’t taken the time to memorize every contact I have stored on my phone. I’ve been lemming a Blackberry Curve for some time now, but since you’ll have to pay with your soul or at least something of a similar value, I managed to agree with myself on the new iPhone 3GS instead. I ought be used to a heavy phone, since I once had the brilliant idea of buying a Nokia made of stainless steel, but I still think that the iPhone is a little on the heavy side. I guess I’ll get used to it though.

So now I feel kinda important! The main reason why I chose an iPhone was that I wanted something a 100% compatible with my Mac Pro and MacBook, and I love the fact that I’m able to check my e-mail from wherever, using WiFi. Neat, and very free! I’ve also installed apps for using Facebook and Twitter, even though I don’t really see myself using my iPhone for Facebook.

Anyway, what would life be like without any gadgets?

Don’t you just hate it when Windows suddenly decides that you’ve done enough, and you get “an unexpected error” in the program you’ve been working with for an hour? The program closes, and of course it’s been a few minutes since your last save. I hate that. Intensely. One can do a lot of things in Photoshop during a few minutes, I tell you, and it’s a royal pain in the butt to have to save every second – just in case. Thank God, I’ll soon be the owner of another preeeecious Mac!

The Specs:
• 2,93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
• 8GB (4x2GB) 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm 32MB cache
• 18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
• Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
• Apple LED Cinema 24″ Display

More technical information can be found here.

5 days ago, on July 15th, I got an e-mail from Øyvind. He was sitting right across the table so I thought it was a little weird, but on the other hand I’m quite used to getting e-mails from him with jokes, pictures, or some geeky article to read. Then I read the heading, and it said “happy birthday!” – but my birthday is still three weeks away? When I opened the e-mail I discovered that he had ordered the best, and possibly most expensive birthday gift ever, a Mac Pro! No, I’m not talking about makeup for a change, I’m talking about the gorgeous computer from Apple Inc.! I’ve been lemming a “real” Mac ever since I bought my black MacBook, but as already said, they are not cheap. When I got accepted into school this summer I knew that I had to buy me a stationary Mac sooner or later, because it’s impossible to work with graphics on a computer like mine. My screen is kinda funky, displaying the colors differently depending on the angle you look at it from, and the whole computer is getting more and more outdated every day. Since Mac is also known to be the tool of the trade for us graphic designers, and as I’m planning on becoming a mighty good one too, I naturally need to have my tools ready. And now I do!

Thank you so much Øyvind, for what must be the best birthday present ever. I love you very much! It means a lot to me to have your support, and to know that you have faith in me.

Nå er jeg uendelig lei av dette med ulike mailadresser, og det å måtte logge inn på en drøss forskjellige steder for å sjekke dem alle. Derfor har jeg nå satt på videresending av alle de aktive mailadressene mine til gmail-kontoen, slik at det holder å sjekke bare den – og det kan jeg jo gjøre via nett, uansett hvor jeg er hen i verden. Kjekt? Håper det løser problemet. I tillegg kan jeg velge hvilken mail jeg ønsker å sende fra, sånn at jeg kan sende fra enten student-mailen, privat-mailen eller gmailen med et kjapt tastetrykk.

Nå har jeg eid det lille vidunderet mitt i ca. to døgn, og jeg må innrømme at jeg hadde mest lyst til å kaste den ut vindu igår tidlig. Hvorfor? Fordi det forbannede “rælet” av et operativsystem den kommer med er helt ubrukelig. Jeg nevnte jo at det var på norsk, sant? Og i tillegg så var på en måte menyen/knappene fastlagte, og det var klin umulig å finne noe av det man hadde bruk for. Dermed ble det til at jeg bestemte meg for å installere Live CD eeeXubuntu, på engelsk, og brått ble jeg så mye mer fornøyd enn jeg var til å begynne med! Riktignok har jeg ikke fått slått av den irriterende tapping-funksjonen på museplata, men jeg antar at en eller annen kommer med en tweak etterhvert.

Den har dessuten vært gjennom den store ildprøven, nemlig semesterets første forelesning! Og jeg kan meddele at “Lille” bestod med glans. Batteritiden er ikke så mye å skryte av, og det er et kjent problem med PC900, men i og med at hovedoppgaven til “Lille” er å passe på notatene mine – og det er stikkontakter bakerst i auditoriene hvor rullestolplassene er, er det ikke noe problem å putte den lille laderen i veska. Kommer nok til å slite litt en stund fremover, siden jeg veksler så mye som jeg gjør mellom stasjonær PC, MacBook og Eee hva tastatur angår, men jeg blir vel vant etterhvert.

Konklusjon: ASUS Eee PC900 er verdt 2590,- og jeg angrer ikke på kjøpet.