Yesterday I finally got my long-awaited iPhone. And it’s a contract phone, goodbye pre-paid! After providing a pile of ID’s and bankaccount statements they let me sign up for a 2-year contract. I didn’t need to pay any upfront cost and only pay around 40 Euro per month, which gives me 1 GB of data and more than $500 of phone/text credit per month. It means every month I can send about 2000 text messages without additional costs ;-). 1 GB data should be enough too, I can use the wireless network in my office 5 days a week, so it will be hard to exceed it. I haven’t discovered all the features yet, but I really like it, well done Apple.
Unfortunately I’m still waiting for the new iMac in my office. First there was some delay, then they wanted to buy one at their office in Canada to save money, then they bought one for me in Sydney, and now they don’t manage to send it to Hobart for some reason… it’s a strange company sometimes. On some days I really miss the professional and superefficient attitude most companies in Germany have. In the end, easy-going is what I was looking for by moving to Australia, but sometimes it results in pretty unreliable acting I think. Maybe I’m expecting too much, maybe I just have to get used to it. I’m not sure if they know there’s a Mac store in Hobart, just one block down the street…
Anyway, I still like my job, even though I still have to use that ugly Dell PC on my desk. My job position changed a little bit. First we planned to create our new websites in Joomla, but I realized that it wouldn’t really reduce the effort that is needed for administration, if you have 15 websites. Joomla’s biggest flaw is the missing multisite ability. You can only setup one website with one Joomla installation. For 15 websites you need 15 Joomla installations, that’s definitly not an option. After doing some research about alternatives I came up with the idea of using TYPO3 instead and now that’s the direction we’re heading.
I also decided to concentrate on web development and TYPO3 administration. Initially my job included creating the new web designs, but I realized it would take me too much time to do it, so in the end we all agreed it would be best to hire a dedicated designer to support our team in Hobart. Interestingly I met a friend on the street a couple of days ago. First I met her weeks ago in Launceston, she’s very talented with photography and design. Looks like she’s going to join us. So in the end my job will be to setup and develop our new websites in TYPO3. I’m pretty happy with that because I will get a lot of experience in enterprise environments. We have a lot of different systems like CMS, CRM and eCommerce solutions, and somehow everything needs to be connected. Looks very interesting.
What else is new… two weeks ago I started looking for apartments in Hobart. First I was looking for cheap shared accomodation (in German: “WG-Zimmer” ;-) ) because I thought it would be the easiest option until I have a new visa. But then I’ve seen so many student apartments with dirty bathrooms, houses without heaters, houses with ugly kitchens, it was a bit disappointing. Then someday I decided to look for an apartment on my own, money is not a problem so why not look for a clean, modern apartment instead of old student share houses? It’s pretty difficult finding an apartment in Hobart that is not a rotten old victorian building without modern bathrooms etc. but on Saturday I found a very nice one, and it’s only two minutes from my office. It’s not the cheapest one, but I think it’s worth having a place where you really feel well. It would be a real designer apartment, I applied today. Fingers crossed.
