If you’ve never been to the National Cherry Blossom Festival, I’d strongly recommend it. Absolutely beautiful. It’s definitely crowded, so Metro is the way to go. This is my first time, and I will be going back to capture more images next weekend.

I’ve been ridiculously busy at work, and am debating the future of the blog. But, I haven’t firmly relegated it to the virtual dust bin of the Internet. We’ll see how it goes. Since my last post, we were named Agency of the Year by two industry magazines, and Fast Company named us as one of their 50 Most Innovative Companies. We’re growing, and lots of work is coming, and keeping me on my toes. Hopefully I’ll have time to catch up here, soon.

Until next time.

The agency I work for, AKQA, has been named OMMA Magazine’s Agency of the Year for Best Web Design and Development. Several projects highlighted include Smirnoff.com, the USPS Star Wars promotion, Life Takes Visa and Trident UK.

This is the fourth consecutive year that AKQA has been recognized by OMMA in its Agency of the Year Awards, starting in 2004 with Best Creative; 2005 Agency of the Year - Silver; and 2006 Agency of the Year - Gold. The award ceremony will take place in New York City on 17 January.

I can’t begin to say how thrilled (and privileged) I am to be working with such an innovative force in the realm of interactive marketing. AKQA continues to pioneer and rack up awards including Agency of the Decade from Revolution Magazine. It’s an honor to be part of such a talented, amazing team. I think I’ve finally found my niche again.

The full article text can be found here.

To all of my family and friends, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (Happy Hanukkah, too!)

Between moving my office and home, and settling in to a new job, this holiday season has been really busy and hectic which has limited (once again) how often I post. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get back into the swing of things.

See you all in 2008!

For the sake of preserving my sanity I’ve not posted numbers 1 through 83 of my Leopard Laments, but this one pressed my “irk” button quite a few times this evening, so I figured I would share it.

It looks like fan-style Stacks in Leopard get clipped when they spill over the boundary of your primary display and onto the second, as depicted above. I don’t know if this affects all resolutions, but it is completely reproducible on my Mac Pro with both displays running at their native resolution of 2560×1600. My primary display is on the left-hand side, with the secondary on the right-hand side. They’re aligned in the Displays preference pane.

With Apple pushing multi-display setups on desktops and portables (as well as over-hyping Stacks in general), I’m somewhat surprised this managed to pass muster and exit QA without being detected. Odd.

Naturally, I reported this a short while ago through RadarWeb and hopefully it’ll be addressed in 10.5.2. With this recent bug, I’ve filed a total of 84 bug reports against 10.5 and 10.5.1. <rant>Unlike those that pirate somehow obtain pre-release builds and plaster screenshots all over for the purpose of looking “cool” to their friends, I actually do report things from time to time.</rant>

For a larger image, head to my Flickr page.

Now You See It. Now You Don’t! Metis TransPacific’s “747-400″ is seen landing in Vancouver. Roll your mouse over the image to view the pre-Photoshop original 747-300 owned by Air Atlanta Icelandic. They even removed a taxiway and an airport vehicle to complete the look! [Javascript Required]

Well, not really. More like crashing to new lows with this one. The vapor represented here isn’t what forms contrails at altitude.

Do you live in Vancouver, Canada? Are you looking for a ridiculously inexpensive trip to the lovely destination that is Macau? Yes? Then look no further than Metis TransPacific Charter Airlines. For the low, low price of HKD$1,500 (about USD$180) you can park your posterior in one of their comfy “next generation” aircraft economy seats and enjoy all the amenities that even some blue chip airlines can’t offer.

Sound too good to be true? Unfortunately, it is.

It looks like the founders of Metis TransPacific are cooking up an elaborate hoax to try and extort money out of the flying public. First, the airport authorities in Macau and Vancouver have no record of the airline ever operating a single flight. Their announced “wet lease” agreement with Canada-based ZOOM Airlines doesn’t exist either. As for their fleet, well, let’s just say things don’t add up there, either. ZOOM exclusively operates Boeing 767 aircraft yet Metis’ web site makes no mention of that equipment type. And, there’s not even a single phone number to be found there, either. All correspondence is through e-mail and web contact forms. Hmm.

Looking back to their fleet, they mention it consists of “next generation” Boeing aircraft including a 757-200, a 747-300, and a 747-400. While I understand the marketing ploy here, none of these aircraft are “next generation” by any stretch, and I’ve never heard them referenced (recently, at least) as such by any operator that presently flies these types. The majority were designed and built in the 80’s. Moving beyond the “ooh ahh” marketing hype, it gets even better when certain statistics come into play. Here’s one: The stated fuel capacity for the 757-200 is over 40,000 US gallons — almost as much as a 747! (Did I miss the launch of the 757-200XLR at some point?) The real capacity is in the range of some 11,000 gallons. Oh, and as for those snazzy cabin pictures? Those were photographs taken of a retired South African 747-400. Interesting.

Of course, the devil is in the details. See the image above? That’s supposedly Metis’ single 747-400 aircraft. In reality, it’s a 747-300. (No winglets!) And, it’s also registered to air cargo company Air Atlanta Icelandic. A quick spray in Photoshop and boom! Metis TransPacific has its wings.

And, it gets even worse. Make a reservation, and you’re politely spammed by an automated daemon “confirming” your reservation for 24 hours and asking that you initiate a wire transfer for the fare to a bank in Macau. What, no frequent flier credit card love?

But, let’s not stop there. The e-mail also asks for potential ID theft material, including passenger names, passport numbers, country of issue, and more.

Thanks to the keen eye of Peter Miller at SKYTRAX, and the great guys on the Airliners.net forums, it looks like this scam has had its wings clipped. They’ve even tagged the bogus company’s Wikipedia entry to keep this from perpetuating any longer.

As the old adage goes… if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

[Original 747-300 Image Copyright © John Yu]

Seriously, I don’t need central heat with this thing around. Though, I did also say that back when I had the Quad G5. However, that made the house a little too warm and probably consumed more power than your average space heater would anyway.

This, though, is just right. So nice.

As most will know I’ve been working in software for the past few years. It was fun and challenging, but one thing was noticeably missing. The type of creative “spark” and innovation I enjoy leading weren’t possible from where I was situated. Sure, things did happen, but not as quickly or as cleanly as I would have liked.

After looking at things in retrospect I decided that it was time to shift focus. I didn’t want to leave IT, but I did want to position myself within an organisation that fosters creativity and innovation. Recounting my experiences from working at Apple and within the advertising/public relations space, I knew that’s where I wanted to be.

That said, I’m incredibly pleased to announce that I have accepted a position with AKQA.

What is AKQA, you ask? Simple. A large, multinational interactive advertising agency. But, it doesn’t stop there. They’ve been consistently ranked as one of the best agencies around year after year. They were even named “Agency of the Decade” by a highly respected industry publication.

AKQA specializes in internet and digital advertising and works with a number of well known clients, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, Visa, Microsoft, and Smirnoff. Use an Xbox 360? AKQA designed the user interface.

I start as the IT Manager for the DC office on December 10. Besides traditional IT work, I’ll also be getting my feet wet on the creative side of the house. Of course, updates will be forthcoming as soon as I can manage them.

Until then it’s back to trying to get the blog back on track. Hopefully.

Not a good evening for the kind folks at Airbus. A brand new Airbus A340-600, serial number 856, due to be delivered to Etihad Airways in a few days’ time had an accident during an engine run-up test.

Initial reports suggested that the aircraft may have jumped its wheel chocks before careening into the noise abatement wall at Airbus’ facilities in Toulouse. A later update from Airbus said the incident occurred while the aircraft was exiting the test area. In either scenario, the engines would need to have been running at a high RPM rate (known as %N1) to produce the type of thrust necessary to scale the wall.

Nine people were on board the aircraft including two members of Airbus staff and seven from Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies. Five people were treated for injuries. Remarkably, there were no fatalities. Subsequent images showing the flight deck area (”section 12″) on the aircraft show a considerable amount of damage.

No official decision has been made on that will happen to the airframe. Based on my limited knowledge, the aircraft will more than likely be written off with salvageable parts being removed for spares or for inclusion in another aircraft after recertification.

After the landing incident at Quito earlier this week involving a similar A340-600 from Spanish carrier Iberia, this hasn’t been a good week for the model. Despite a number of accident-related hull losses for the A340 family, there have been no fatalities to date.

[Image Copyright © Zubova Marina]

It honestly seems like I never leave this place. Of course, all the cool tech conferences and expos take place here, so I guess that’s why.

This time, I’m in town for VMware’s VMworld 2007 Conference. I’m really looking forward to this. We use VMware tools on a daily basis in our testing and application development within Group Logic’s R&D division. For us, it is an invaluable tool that consolidates hardware and resources, enabling us to remain agile, eliminate delays, and consistently guarantee quality for our customers.

However, there’s more to VMware than just SDLC tools. Amazing things are happening in the virtualization marketplace and that’s why I’m here. Always looking to push the envelope, I’m hoping the knowledge I gain from the sessions I attend will directly translate into beneficial changes at Group Logic. We’re just starting to scratch the surface with this technology, and there’s a huge amount of potential that we’ve yet to tap.

Since this is my first time attending this event, I’ll more than likely sum up my experiences in a later blog post. I’ve heard mixed reviews online, including this being very sales-focused, but with the amount of hands-on labs, sessions, and industry leaders present, I’m sure there is something for everybody.

I haven’t had a chance to take proper pictures of my new Mac Pro since I unboxed her a short while ago. Granted, things at work have been very busy. Tonight, though, an excuse came up for me to take some new pictures: I just received the new Apple Keyboard. Two of them, in fact.

So, armed with that, I pulled out the trusty digicam and fired away. Some changes have been made since my last series of pictures. Of course, the computer is new. I also replaced my old Philips LCD TV with a snazzy new 26″ Sony Bravia LCD. And, a bunch of accessories have managed to find their way to the machine, including a new Wacom tablet.

In addition to those changes, I recently had to send both of my displays in to AppleCare for repair. They both came back with new panels of the revision “B” variety. That means they’re not only brighter but they have improved contrast ratios. While the enclosures haven’t changed, the fact the panels are new has increased their lifespan by a large margin — meaning I won’t have to replace them all that soon.

And, for the über-geek in you, the specs: dual quad-core 3.0GHz Xeons, 16GB of RAM, 4×500GB hard drives, Radeon X1900 XT graphics card and dual SuperDrives.

This is just the teaser picture, or “hero shot” as I like to call it. My Flickr gallery has a full photo set, including pictures of the new keyboard.