Things that haven't gone as planned lately:

Managing a beta book in PDF/InDesign format.

D'oh on that one. It's taking a lot longer to update the book than I expected, because of the layout issues.

And by "issue" I mean "my boneheaded decision to do the book in InDesign, even from the first beta."

I'm sorry. I goofed.

So, informal poll:

• would you guys rather get frequent small updates (e.g. a PDF of only the newest chapter), or
• a couple big updates (with the whole book)?

Let me know.

Answering ALL questions submitted for my QoTD

But I WILL get to them. It will just take longer than I expected. Partially due...

New Zealand's Internet access

We recently took a 6-week "workcation" to New Zealand. We thought we'd have no problem working from New Zealand, as long as we booked motels in advance, and picked only ones with wifi, and then called them to confirm it worked, and took our own super booster antennae to compensate for crummy signal.

Turns out that most places will tell you it works, then you get there and it doesn't, and despite the fact that they advertised it, they will claim they have zero control over it because "that's another company, yeah."

And at many internet cafés, you may be lucky if you can download at 800 bytes a second. Not kilobytes. Not even kilobits. Bytes.

Groan.

Free time. Workcation's all I ever wanted...

In addition to net access, we had planned some free time to recharge. It didn't work out.

That's because, on top of everything else, we were working on the mother of all Twitter visualizations, for PepsiCo's sponsorship of SXSW.

Yeahhhhh. It was a surprise to me too, as a fairly last-minute project.

I'm incredibly glad for the opportunity & outcome, of course, but I would have liked a day or two off in New Zealand that didn't involve being laid out with a sinus infection.

That took the "cation" out of "workcation."

Soon back on the saddle, nose to the wheel, ear to the grindstone

Just wanted to let you know what was up.

Oh, and, if it's not too obnoxious, if you dig the PepsiCo Zeitgeist, would you mind actually digging it?

At SXSW? Come say hi

I'll be floating around but you might catch me at the PepsiCo corner, with the highest concentration of huge plasmas showing the zeitgeist.