.farshid sedghi’s personal blog.

So today, the new design of the official website of the Baha’i Faith was unveiled and I must say I like it very much. If you haven’t seen it have a go on www.bahai.org

Digital images have taken over a lot of peoples’ lives and I am included in that gang. So the next step is how do you share and view all these images since they add up over the years to be quite a large number.

The first awesome tool that came along in my humble opinion was really Picasa and since Google bought them up, I guess they agree with me on that point. But the problem still remained and there was something missing that I wanted. To make it easy for my family to browse through my pictures just as I do when I use Picasa.

Well, today my wish came true when I read about Orb on GeekDojo. So I installed it to see how good it is and you can imagine my surprise when this thing worked through tripple firewalls (including our Corp. one). Basically, now provided that I share a user name and password, anyone can access my image library that I have shared on my laptop and browse through it at a fairly good speed. Wow is the word really…

[Update: 10 minutes after my orb was running, it could no longer connect to the server, so I guess our network admin didn’t like the traffic. I guess I will have to wait until I am no longer behind a corp. firewall.]

Today I saw something that I don’t think many, including the most experienced broadcasters and commentators of golf even have. It was a shot by Tiger Woods from US Masters that he won this year. If you don’t know much about him, suffice it to say that he is by far the greatest golf player and this according to the people of knowledge, of golf at least. The shot I am talking about you can download here and watch it for yourself. At first, when I saw him hit the ball and considering where it landed, I thought ok, this is to show us mortals and Tiger wanna be folks that he too can make flagrant mistakes on the course and was about to shut down the media player as I see the ball rolling towards the hole. Ok, so you can’t see the third dimension on TV I thought, but this can’t be. And it kept rolling. I won’t tell you the ending of this movie but I am sure you can guess it.

Which brings me to the whole idea of watching golf on TV. I remember there was a time I could not stand golf and I thought it was something to maybe try when I am bored at the age of 80, if I live that long. Never mind watching it on TV. During a summer vacation in California, I went with a couple of friends to a golf range and tried it out since they were telling me it is not that easy and sure enough, I had not hit more than 10 shots before I knew I was hooked even though I had not hit more than max two out of the 10 shots decently. You want to know what it was? Simply put, it’s that shot when you hit the very sweet spot of the club and you feel it throughout your body. THAT is the shot that gets you hooked and you can’t resist it. And the funny part is that I didn’t even try to hit the ball hard, yet it flies the furthest. In other words, this is not a sport to get rid of your frustrations since it will just add to them. Serenity and calm is the key to success.

It is funny looking back at it now, having had such a change of heart as I am so passionate about the sport now and literarily spent every waking hour for three summers on the golf course when I started learning during university years. It’s unlike anything else I have learned in life as it takes so much patience and time. Nothing I have experienced, including new languages has taken such a long time and required so much patience to master and improve in. But you get small rewards as you go along, just big enough to keep you hooked on. I also enjoy watching it on the TV now as I truly can appreciate the skills that the pros have.

There is so much I can say about it, but really it comes down to the fact that you can only explain so much before it has to be tried…just remember this, the harder you try, the less chance you are going to have for success. Breath deeply, relax, step up to the ball and firmly, yet gently fire away…

I have been out of touch with gadgets for over two years now. I considered myeslf a bit of a maven according to Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point in the department of buying cell phones as friends would usually consult me before buying one. Well none of that for over 2 years since we use TDMA phones here (though we are about to enter the GSM world, even though a little late for me).

But as I am prepering to depart from Haifa, having a cell phone once again is going to be important, mostly because I find them very useful for different puposes and it is probably my most appreciated and used gadget. Having said that I find myself to be in a bit of unknown terrirtory with cellphones these days as things have moved forward and I have no idea who and what the best brands, players and features are in the market so its back to basics to learn what has happened since I got disconnected and what my choices are. Reading gadget blogs helps a lot actually. For instance this entry by Endgadget is very helpful. For now, this is my list of features I want to see in my (dream) future phone:

• Networking: GSM (triple band), GPRS, WAP
• Good battery time
• Bluetooth and infrared
• Sync with PC (I guess having windows CE or Mobile makes this easier)
• Small and light (< 100 grams and < palm size)
• GPS
• MP3 and Radio
• Storage capabilities like SD card
• Megapixel camera (> 1)
• Email and surfing (surfing for only really important situations)
• Running skype on it (I am pushing it now, huh?)

I know, its a long list but you know what? I already have found such a phone! Almost anyways and it has made me seriuosly want to commit to it and that months ahead of me even leaving. The phone in question is the Neonode N1m. Basically it has everything but what makes it only almost my dream cell phone is lack of bluetooth, GPS and Skype. I remember when I was planing to come to Haifa the Neonode N1 was being planned for release and it took them another 1.5 years before it actually happened, but the result is pretty nice. So unless I find a better option than this I will buy this one. Do you have a better option to suggest?