Yep, that is indeed a Neotel logo. Here in George, of all places. There may be hope, yet. There isn't even decent 3G coverage in this place, but signs of Neotel's infrastructure abound.

I'm still enjoying my holidays tremendously. So much, in fact, that I'm a bit behind with work on the CMS. That means I have a month to get the whole thing ready for launch. Fun.

Since I last had Linux running on my box, while I was wasting my time with OSX86 (don't get me started), up to now, where I'm running my favourite distro, Arch, again...things got really pretty.

Yep, that's my current desktop (gotta love dual screens). I didn't realize just how much I enjoy working in Linux. Gnome and Compiz-Fusion make a great team. Audio sounds so much better (no fidgeting to get native 5.1 sound). MPD, oh MPD. My development setup is as close to my production server as possible. I can tweak to my heart's content, setting things up just the way I like it.

I resent being forced to reboot into Windows to use Photoshop.

We didn't really know what there is to see in Saldanha, except for the stinky steel plant. So we drove down to the harbour, and lo and behold! Something interesting...

They were taking apart this ship right there on the water, which is pretty cool. The sheets cut from it are probably carted off to the aforementioned steel plant and recycled. Pretty convenient.

Credit for the photos go to Marion. I wasn't in the mood to take any pictures that day.

I usually do a lot of research before I buy anything. Ask my girlfriend. I can become obsessive. A solid two weeks of constantly reading reviews, forums and anything else I could find about the iPod Touch is maybe a bit much, but it convinced me that the only glitches left are relatively minor. Any normal person would be scared off by all the "problems" floating around, but that's like only seeing a city's hospital and deciding not to live there because everyone seems to be sick.

Anyway, what I found strange is that there aren't really any South African bloggers that have written about their experiences with the thing. I searched both Afrigator and Amatomu, but only found two or three "I GOT MY ITOUCH TODAY!!!!11!!1" posts. This could mean a few things. Either I'm one of the first people to get this thing (which is highly unlikely), or most of the people that got them are so busy playing with the things that couldn't be bothered, or they're too busy sorting out warranty issues...

So I'll do the honourable thing. I'll dutifully take unboxing pictures. I'll write a short first impressions review, and then after a few weeks, I'll write what this thing is like to live with every day. I haven't really been able to find any blog posts like that online. It's all Jailbreaking guides and "FIRST POST FROM MY TOUCH!!!11! YESIGOTITTODAY.!#!" posts. Maybe I can fill that gap.

I bought from iGear.co.za, their prices are probably the best out there at the moment. In fact, a day after I bought mine, it went down from R3850 to R3799. I also recommend them because they've got a no nonsense 7 day return policy, as well as a local ten month warranty. Which means that they repair it here, and if they can't repair it (and they have stock), they'll swap it out. That, on top of the 1 year Apple warranty you get anyway, seems like a good thing to me. Their customer service may be a little confused at times (after two days of no order updates, I sent them an email...and got a reply that they told me on the phone that they'd only be getting stock Friday or Monday...unless I have early onset Parkinson's, I didn't touch a phone that day), but I don't think that'll be such a big problem at the end of the day (touch wood).

Here's to hoping I have no negative black issues, no hissing, a touch screen that doesn't lose responsiveness, a decent battery, no or only one stuck pixel and no dead pixels at all (touch wood yet again). Early adoption ftw!

"Where are the unboxing photos?", you might be asking. To that, I answer, sod your unboxing photos. I waited in line for nearly three hours this morning to register for my Honors course, seeing as postgrads don't get preference, so we had to wait with the undergrads. After that, first thing I did was open up the iPod and activated, going straight to appleservedup.com to check for screen faults.

I am happy to report that I have a flawless screen. I thought I saw a stuck pixel, but after close scrutiny, it turned out to be just my imagination. The few songs that I've listened to sound awesome on the Senheisser CX300's that I ordered along with it, and the Marware case adds very little bulk. Unfortunately it came with 1.1.2 installed, so no new apps for me. Oh, and it's a week 46 if you were wondering. I am so tempted to just go ahead and jailbreak the thing, but I'll wait it out until my 7 days for return are past. Then I'll probably wait a little bit more the see what Apple has in store with the SDK. After that I may or may not start hacking it.

I'm satisfied. Buyer's remorse? None whatsoever.

If you happen to come upon some stuck pixels, I've heard that this works wonders.