Butch's Blog

Eden Hazard...

2012-01-17T10:02:00.002+07:00

Not sure why I am even commenting on this; well, actually, I do. I really, really want Chelsea to sign Eden Hazard, despite not quite wanting to believe there is any chance whatsoever it will actually happen.

Some of you may not know who Eden is; he is a 20-year old Belgian international currently plying his trade in the French League One with reigning champions Lille. He is an attacking midfield player that can play wide, but also likes to cut into the middle. He is very skillful with the ball at his feet, and is a scorer of some amazing goals. You can imagine that his exciting play has already caught the eyes of the big clubs, with Real Madrid supposedly his preferred destination, as well as an interested party. Of course, Madrid don't have the same pressing need Chelsea do, in terms of a creative, attacking player. Our play has been devoid of creative impetus for a while now, and while Mata was signed to address this, and has done to a certain extent, he alone cannot do it all.

The persistent rumors over the past week have excited me. I can't for the life of me imagine where they are coming from. Yes, it has been a relatively quiet window so far, but I do expect activity to rise to a crescendo over the next couple of weeks. Are the idle press just getting bored? But why Hazard? And why to Chelsea? Is City not the more natural target for these sorts of rumors? Or is it because the press feel Chelsea are more in need of a creative player? But then since when has reason, or believability, figured prominently in wild rumors?

Usually, these types of rumors just come and go. Maybe it is just cycling through the tabloids and will die down eventually. I guess my hope that this is true is making me feel it is a little more prolonged than normal (and thus possibly having some credibility to it, LOL).

With some strength in depth in the CB department restored with the signing of Cahill, and with the resurgence of Torres and the impressive Mata and Sturridge, the addition of Eden Hazard would be the cherry on the icing for Chelsea. It would be quite the platform to build upon for the rest of the season (even if he is not eligible to feature in any of our remaining Champions League matches this season). We still have our work cut out for us to pull away from Arsenal, catch up with Spurs, and mount some sort of challenge on the two Manchester clubs in the league, not to mention an FA Cup campaign that is still open.

I guess hope springs eternal.

U-turn...

2012-01-17T09:38:00.002+07:00

What a difference a couple of weeks makes.

I really did try to like the Galaxy Note, and for reasons already mentioned, it was a nice device. Ultimately, however, that size-affected lack of real portability and the battery issue were deal breakers. The biggest issue for me, though, was Android. I had heard a lot of good things about the operating system, so much so I wanted to see for myself. Though admittedly an Apple fanboy, I am also first and foremost a fan of technology in general. I've used them all: Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, iOS and now Android. iOS wins hands down in terms of fluidity and ease of use. It simply fades away into the background, allowing you to concentrate on what you want to do. Android is not yet there. I know Android fans love the platform, but I sincerely doubt it is for fluidity. There was too much lag for me, not only in terms of screen transitions but also in the user interface.

As such, I decided to sell it and get the iPhone 4S instead. I simply cannot be happier. Siri is fun to use, while also actually useful. The phone is also even snappier than the iPhone 4, due to the better CPU. The camera also takes gorgeous photos.

I can say, this time based on actual user experience, that the iPhone 4S is far and away the best phone on the market. For my use case, anyway.

2012-01-04T17:22:00.001+07:00

Apple fanboy or not, I can't deny that competition is good and drives innovation and continual improvement. Being as impartial as I possibly can, I think Apple is still quite a ways ahead of other tablet and phone manufacturers for the product categories they are involved in, namely 3.5-inch smart phones and 9.7-inch tablets. The quality "assured" by the brand just about helps them in other similar-sized categories, e.g. 4-inch smartphones and 7-10-inch tablets. Still, the sheer plethora of products from competing companies, many cornered into specific niches that Apple really interested in, means that users will always have a choice to make (not a bad thing).

Despite being the proud owner of an iPhone 4 and iPad 2, I can't deny often times wishing my iPhone were bigger or my iPad a touch smaller. As such, I have often played around with demo units of Samsung Galaxy Phones and tablets. The screens on these things really pop, even if the build quality, esp. flimsy plastic housing, is a bit of a put off. I could often picture myself with slightly less eye strain looking at the screen of a Galaxy S2 or slightly less back strain carrying around a Galaxy Tab 7 Plus.

So, it is not that surprising that I was finally reeled in by Sammy with their release of the Samsung Galaxy Note, a 5.3-inch screened Phablet, or Tone; don't know which it is, LOL. After a few days of use, I must say I am more inclined to call it a smallish tablet than a large-ish phone, although it works perfectly well as one. At the moment, it is keeping my iPhone and iPad at bay, while I learn my way around the device that is able to carry out the functions of both.

The device itself is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy line of phones, e.g. the aforementioned Galaxy S2, just bigger; much bigger. The screen is a joy to behold; think iPhone Retina Display sharpness but 70-80% larger! People have been clamoring for the iPad3 with Retina Display, but this could be viewed as a Retina Display-ed tablet in its own right. Photos and album art are absolutely gorgeous on the thing. At the same time, the device is absolutely phone-thin. The power and volume buttons on the edges are a tad difficult to hit properly but in general the hardware design works well.

Android is a difficult kettle of fish, especially for a Mac user like yours truly. I suppose Apple's willingness to keep non-Mac users in the cold should not leave me expecting any different from Android (the shoe on the other foot and all that). Getting your contacts, calendar information, and iTunes media on the device (and to display/play properly) was an exercise in frustration of the highest order. Take for example the contacts; I spent 3 hours manually uploading my information to, and organizing my information in, Google contacts. I haven't yet found the best way to sync my calendar entries from iCal over to Google calendars and then over to the device. iTunes music was synced over multiple times using doubleTWIST (Android iTunes clone). Things seem to be working at the moment, but I don't dare sneeze too loud, LOL.

The Android Market has been an interesting experience; certainly not a bad one. I was easily able to download and install most of my favorite iPhone-like apps (Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, etc…). Some frustration is reserved for certain favorite applications not being available on the Android platform (e.g. Twitterrific), but I can understand this. As a result, the functionality of the device is almost on par with my iPhone/iPad but with one less device to carry around. I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy the Kindle and Zinio apps on this device for reading books and magazines. Browsing and playing my iTunes music on the device (now that I've been able to transfer things over) is also a joy, simply because the cover art just pops on this amazing screen.

So, apart from feeling guilty about not paying much attention to my iPhone and iPad, what have been the main downsides?

Well, first, the relatively large screen, while being awesome to use, makes the device not so portable (compared to the iPhone but not compared to the iPad). Since I am trying to use this as my daily phone, this is unavoidably an issue, but one I brought upon myself.

Second, I have to say the battery life is not great. I haven't run the battery down yet, but from a full charge just a few hours of use brings it down to about 80%, or less, capacity. I estimate that I would have trouble getting a full day's worth of use out of the device.

Those are the two complaints I have. What about looking forward? I have read that Ice Cream Sandwich (newest iteration of Android OS) will be made available for the device in early 2012. This will supposedly bring some improvements to the use of the stylus.

Which brings me to the final thing I wanted to say about the Galaxy Note: the stylus. This was one of the selling points for me. In the Samsung applications designed specifically for it, the stylus works amazingly well. The precision is quite impressive, and you also get pressure sensitivity (Wacom-like). I've really enjoyed this. iPad styli really do not work this well, which is one of my gripes with that device.

So, overall, I have to say I am enjoying the Galaxy Note quite a lot. It is not for everyone, clearly. People will be put off by the size (and lack of real portability). However, you only have to take one look at the gorgeous screen to seriously contemplate taking the jump despite yourself!

Stuttering to the Top

2011-08-28T11:02:00.002+07:00

So, AVB's Chelsea have played 3 matches: drawing away at Stoke 0-0, and beating W.B.A. and Norwich City at the Bridge 2-1 and 3-1, respectively. At the end of the match against Norwich, the Mighty Blues were at the summit of the EPL, only for Liverpool to climb back having beaten Bolton 3-1 at Anfield. Also, United and City have yet to play their 3rd matches, so we could yet be pushed back down to 4th, but really who cares at this point?

What may be more of a concern is that we have pretty much struggled to dominate teams that, while physical and well-organized, really are not in our class. Stoke away was understandable, but WBA and Norwich at the Bridge I have to say I was expecting more. I did not see the well-organized Chelsea that dominated teams, nay bullied them, under the tutorship of Jose Mourinho. I know, I've fallen into the same trap as most who compare AVB to the Special One, but I am of the opinion that their footballing philosophies are similar. One thing I have to admit is that while Hilario has filled in admirably and made some good stops, he is no Petr Cech, and maybe the 2 goals we have conceded have come down to this a little bit; certainly the latest one against Norwich was his fault. But while defense has not been as solid as I would have liked, it is up front where we are really missing fluidity that we had under Carlo.

I guess AVB is going to need some time to get his ideas across, and for key men like Drogba, Torres, Malouda and Lampard to find their feet at a high competitive level. What I will say though is that in Juan Manuel Mata, Chelsea has found the proper "#10" that we have been missing since Franco Zola. I won't weigh him down with superfluous expectations just yet, but you know how you can just tell if you've seen something a bit special? Well, in the short amount of time he was on the pitch for Chelsea against Norwich City he exhibited all the qualities you want to see: liveliness, give-and-go, making himself available, speedy up the wing, nice cross from the wing for Nando, long and accurate through ball over the top to put Nic through, speed of thought to sniff out Norwich misplaced defensive pass, and cool head and immaculate control to roll ball inside far post for Chelsea's 3rd to calm the nerves. I don't think he could have done much better, in all honesty. Consider me sold. Now, AVB needs to think who sits for this man because he certainly cannot sit.

I cannot close without saying anything about the Drogba incident. My heart was in my mouth when I saw the incident first time and then the multitude of times in slow motion. I don't want to say anymore about the gruesome details, suffice it to say I did not know what to think in terms of the seriousness of the situation. I am just glad he has passed his first test and been released from hospital. Now we just have to hope and pray for the best that his "mild concussion" does not have any lasting implications. Our thoughts are with you Didier.

The Air that I Breathe

2011-08-28T10:21:00.004+07:00

I can't deny that I am an Apple fanboy. However, what that does disguise is the fact that I truly believe that Apple makes the best hardware. I am not a casual user but one who uses their products all day everyday so push these products quite hard. If they were not well and truly of a high quality, I would surely find this out through my everyday "testing". So, while you should read this with a pinch of salt, as you would do any other article from any other source, including Apple's harshest critics, I would say I am going to say the following with as much impartiality as I possibly can.

The first time I laid eyes on Apple's MacBook Air line, you know the first iteration that started the "I can put this in a vanilla envelope and mail it away" fad, I have to say I had mixed emotions. On the one hand, you could not deny that was one of the most beautiful notebook computer designs ever. On the other, considering the price point it was awfully difficult to think of it in anyway other than a "millionaire's toy": devoid of an optical drive, with severely limited hard disk space (because it was of the expensive SSD variety) and sporting some less than stellar processors, partly due to the cramped space inside the chassis that made heat ventilation an issue. For me, these issues were important and won out in the end.

When it came time to upgrade my trusty 12-inch PowerPC PowerBook, I went with the first generation unibody all-aluminum MacBook, and then quickly to the 13-inch MacBook Pro when that was released about a year later. The beefier processors and optical drive, as well as graphics processor gave me a bit more confidence that it would last a while (whatever for I don't know, LOL). However, EVERYTIME I saw someone working on a MacBook Air, I just couldn't but help to stop and stare for a few fleeting seconds. It really, really is a beautifully designed machine. Oh, one other thing I neglected to mention, the backlit keyboards on the MacBook Pro's was also a big thing for me.

So, when Apple released the latest iteration of their Airs (13 and 11.6-inch models) with faster i5 and i7 processors, thunderbolt port and backlit keyboards, I was sold. So I sold my 13-inch MacBook Pro (was surprised at how quickly I was able to do that, and ironically the person who bought it just sold their MacBook Air, ouch!), and custom ordered through Apple's website the fully spec'd out 11.6-inch MacBook Air (core i7 with 256 GB SSD HDD). Now, how has it performed over the past 2 weeks?

Look, everyone has their own needs and I have to say that many people's use scenarios are not going to match my own. However, for me personally, I could not be happier. I simply love the portability of this machine, and with the external USB Superdrive safely tucked away until needed, I am not missing anything from my 13-inch MacBook Pro. Surprisingly, I am not even feeling that there is a significant reduction in screen real estate. The machine does not run hot, and neither have the fans come on blaring loud. The machine absolutely breezes through common tasks. I have to say I am sold on the SSD HDD. I can't say anything about longevity, we'll have to see about that, but in terms of performance opening applications and OS start-up is just so fast I cannot believe it. I'm just loving that aspect of it. So, in terms of machine speed for everyday tasks, this one gets a full 10/10.

I have not used applications that I would think would tax the processors too hard, so real power users would need to look at "benchmarks" elsewhere. I have heard the fan once, when I was encoding some video using HandBreak but that was the only time and it wasn't that loud either.

Mac OS X Lion has been a mixed bag in most of the mainstream reviews. For me, it has been awesome. The combination of the portability of the 11.6 inch machine and the gesture-rific OS X Lion has made this MacBook Air a hybrid between the MacBook Pro and iPad lines of products. I could even see a scenario where a first time Mac user coming from the Windows platform would see the experience of using this machine as something "magical". Seriously (ha-ha, fanboy alert!).

OK, now to some negatives: the only negative for me is the battery life, but then I am coming from a machine that regularly gave me 6+ hours of battery life (which I consider to be above average). This one gives me, I would estimate, about 4-5 hours, depending on the task. Listening to music on iTunes, some web browsing and document editing would be my typical use scenario. At the moment, I cannot think of any other negatives.

In short, I am enjoying the experience of using this machine immensely. I cannot say anything about longevity at the moment; this is based only on 2 weeks of using it, and compared to 10 years of using the PC and another 10 using previous iterations of Mac hardware and software. If anyone is considering the 11.6-inch MacBook Air, all I can say is "go for it". You obviously have already taken into consideration all the pros and cons. If you are still interested, then I'd say you won't be disappointed. Rather, I bet you'd be pleasantly surprised.

Magic Conundrum

2011-08-01T15:44:00.002+07:00

I finally decided to replace my trusty, yet frustrating, Apple wireless mouse. The candidates for the replacement were the latest iteration of Apple's wireless mice, the Magic Mouse, and the ultimate of fanboy gadgets, the Magic Trackpad. With OSX Lion already released, and with the increased use of gestures in the OS, the timing for a new touch device really was quite good.

So, there are pros and cons to either of the two replacement devices I mentioned above. The mouse is more precise, more familiar in the hand, has a slick touch surface that replaces the scroll wheel, while at the same time containing a low profile that can be uncomfortable with prolonged use, has a touch surface that is narrow and thus limits the number and ease of the gestures that can be done. The touchpad provides ample space for making gestures, has more built-in gestures available in the OS, is familiar for users of Apple's touch-based gadgets like the MacBooks, iPads and iPhones, while at the same time also potentially uncomfortable (tiring) with prolonged use, particularly for certain specific uses like document editing that requires quite a bit of precision. I had the opportunity to try them both out at the local store for about an hour before I made my decision. Prior to that, I did a lot of reading up on the two devices and was really leaning towards the Touchpad as Apple's device for the present and future. However, after all my testing, I decided to go with the mouse. There is just something about using a device you are intimately familiar with. It is second nature to you, while at the same time adding some novel features, i.e. the touch surface, that makes it infinitely more useful than previous iterations. I also downloaded the MagicPrefs program (http://magicprefs.com), which adds even more functionality through an increased repertoire of gestures. This is highly recommended.

Just wanted to post this in case it was useful for people trying to decide between the two. From all the articles on the web, I would have to say the Trackpad is heavily favored, almost to the point where the decision is just about made for you. However, you really should try these out before you decide. I'm sure glad I did.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Chelsea On Tour

2011-08-01T15:38:00.002+07:00

This summer has not been the awful, long drawn out period of football-less torture most recent summers have turned out to be for me. I think this has to do with Chelsea bringing the first team squad, as well as some up-and-coming young players (i.e. Rajkovic, McEachran, van Aanholt, Sturridge, Chalobah, etc…) to Asia, including a short 3 days in Bangkok. I cannot begin to explain the fever-pitched excitement Chelsea created by being here, and despite the "friendly", and rather non-competitive, nature of the match against the ultimately rather disappointing Thai League All Stars, just being in the same stadium, breathing the same air as my heros filled me with happiness. It was absolutely surreal seeing the likes of Lampard, Terry, Cech and Drogba strutting around the pitch in their Chelsea jerseys. That will be an experience I take to my grave.

So, in addition to the brilliant reception they received in each of the 3 countries they visited on their Asian tour, Chelsea also took back 3 trophies from their 4 wins (1-0 versus Malaysian XI, 4-0 versus Thai League All Stars, 4-0 versus Hong Kong's Kitchee F.C. and 2-0 versus Aston Villa). I promise they did pick up trophies in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, even if most news sources neglect to mention anything about them and mention only the Barclay's Asia trophy they won in Hong Kong. I have to say, just from their ability to fill the national stadiums in Malaysia and Thailand, that these Asia tours, in addition to the success in recent years, is really putting Chelsea on the map in this part of the world.

An alternative view was recently proposed to me to explain the lack of desperation for the new season to begin: the lack of signings to excite the mind and get the juices flowing. I was of course of a mind to dismiss this out of hand. However, thinking about this a little more, I guess it could have some merit. It is difficult to imagine this same squad that at times struggled to create last season, remaining unchanged yet turning it around and winning everything in their path. I can't deny I still feel we are lacking just that little bit extra. What I will say though is that AVB has brought with him an aura of sensibility and stability to the proceedings. There has been little hoopla with regards to his arrival, and while many players were probably fearing for their futures a little, they now look settled and relatively happy. Also, a clear progression in the fitness and sharpness levels could be observed through their series of friendlies as the summer progressed. By the time they played Villa, you could see the fruits of the pre-season work. AVB must be praised for this.

The results were, of course, expected, as we really did not play anyone of much note, and none of the sides were really expected to give us too much of a torrid time. Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox will be another step up from the sides we've faced and should provide the platform required as we move into the start of the new season against Stoke away. By then, it would really be nice if we had another creative player on board.

So, which players have impressed on our pre-season tour? First up, Nicolas Anelka. I think towards the end of last season, when Nic sat out many games to accommodate the Drogba-Torres partnership, he probably feared the worse. That was probably the kick up the backside he needed too as he has looked focused and sharp in the pre-season for us, and looks like he knows he has a challenge on his hands. I still think this will be his last season with us, as he will be available on a free at the end of the season. But, if his performances are anything to go by, he will be an important part of our squad this season. Next, John Terry. JT has looked a colossus for us in the pre-season. He looks strong, sharp, fit and hungry. This is absolutely key to us having a good season. Third, Paulo Ferreira. Like Nic, I think Paulo probably feels like he is (or was) on the way out. But he looks determined to fight his way back into the reckoning. While Benayoun won man of the match against the Thai League All Stars, I have to say Paulo had a blinder. He was fit, haring up and down that right flank and putting in some good crosses. I am not at all certain both Paulo and Bossa will be with us at the start of the season but what I can say is that it would be 50:50 as to who may be replaced. Fourth, Yossi Benayoun. While Chelsea have not made any significant signings so far this summer (bar Courtois and, soon, Romeu), it will feel a little like we have a couple of new signings in Yossi and Studge. It is well-documented that our priority strengthening, if it happens at all, will be in the creative third of the pitch, an attacking midfielder if you will. If that does not come to fruition, we still do have a midfielder who could turn out to be key. The Israeli captain has looked fit and sharp in pre-season for us, after an injury-hit season for us last time round. If he can continue in this vein, I don't see why we should be too concerned with a lack of additions. We do need to keep him fit though. Fifth, Daniel Sturridge. I'm glad to see that Studge has continued where he left off last season for Bolton Wanderers. He has been used in the wide forward positions by AVB so far, and he has looked good - lively and deadly in equal measure. He'll likely struggle to break into the strikers position with Drogba and Torres ahead of him in the pecking order, but in a wide forward position, I think he has a good chance. We'll need him to do well. I also wanted to mention Slobodan Rajkovic. The young Serbian central defender who has spent most of the last three seasons in Holland has looked really, really good for us in the pre-season. I think the club need to do everything they can to secure him a work permit as he looks ready to step up and challenge the likes of JT, Ivan, Alex and Luiz.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So, what is the plan?

2011-07-19T17:21:00.004+07:00

With the arrival of Andre Villas-Boas, from now on to be referred to as AVB, which I felt certain implied a longer-term plan as opposed to Gus Hiddink, I thought some radical changes were in store for the playing staff this summer.

I would have bet the house on the likes of Drogba, Anelka, Malouda, Kalou, and Bosingwa, possibly even Ferreira, leaving, to be replaced by younger players. This would allow the squad to be refreshed, as well as personalized to AVB's liking.

While there is still a significant amount of time left in the transfer window, I don't things could have turned out more different. AVB has come in and made some significant changes to the backroom staff, which I suppose is to be expected, but as far as the playing staff are concerned, he has decided to give everyone a fair chance to impress him before he makes any required additions/changes.

One area likely requiring a refresh even before the unfortunate Essien injury is central midfield. Jose Mourinho's Chelsea was always about a physical toughness and strength in the middle of the park, even if our midfield maneuvered with the flexibility of ocean liners. Lampard and Essien are not going to dance through three opposing players or send cute passes through or over people in tight spaces. Our passing from midfield is slow and labored. This hampers the style of strikers like Anelka and Torres, who prefer to run onto a through pass than to receive the ball with their backs to goal, a la Drogba.

The well-publicized courting of Luka Modric would seem to confirm this; however, Spurs have remained steadfast in their determination to keep him at the club against his wishes, and quite simply put, Chelsea may have no choice but to pursue other alternatives. Javier Pastore looks a possibility, but all truth be told, I have a feeling the Palermo president is so desperate to sell him that we may be used to drum up interest, so I couldn't say with any confidence we were really interested.

Another area I felt we needed strengthening was the wide attacking role, particularly on the right, although I also felt a viable alternative to Malouda would help to keep him on his toes. More than most, he seems to blow hot and cold, and can often times even seem to be disinterested. At the time AVB was announced as our new manager and Chelsea were being linked to all and sundry at Porto, the one player I most wanted us to be interested in to address this need was Hulk. Forget the likes of Falcao and Moutinho, good players in their own right, Hulk would most directly address the need for a bit of creativity in our attacking play. In all seriousness though, 89 million quid is crazy money for any player.

Talking about Chelsea's transfer plans this summer, I always felt the biggest factor in how things would go was the Drogba factor. I think he is likely one of the most important and big players at Chelsea, outside of JT and Lamps, not only from the dressing room perspective, but also to how we play. With him in the side, Chelsea have played very compact, choosing to lob the ball up to him and then see what develops. He is still a good player, but basing the whole attack on him alone cannot be good in the long run. When he is on form, great for us, but when his head is not in it, we struggle. And when we have to bring on the likes of Anelka and particularly Torres, the total change in play required to accommodate their different styles makes it difficult for them, as quite frankly things don't turn out the way they need to.

As things stand, and again there is still a lot of time for Chelsea to dip into the transfer market, Benayoun is going to be an important player for Chelsea because he brings something different to our midfield, and could be the important link to Torres. I do believe we need to get Torres firing on all cylinders if we want to be successful in the new season. While I would like to see Lamps have another 20 goal season, I don't see it happening, and I also expect that Drogba may not score 30-40 goals. This means that other players are going to have to step up, and that leaves Malouda, Anelka and Torres. While I am happy Malouda had his most productive season with us goals-wise, I do think he needs to concentrate a little more on the assists. In the overall picture, I think that would help us most. Anelka's goals dried up completely in the second half of the season and Torres never got started, but I do feel these are the players who could get a significant number of goals that we require, but only if they get the service.

So there you have it: I believe our defense is settled, although many argue the need for a new right back. I felt Ivanovic was one of our players of the season last season and believe our defense should first and foremost defend. I'd rather we brought attacking players in who are more effective at attacking so our defenders, particularly our RB and LB don't have to be expected to pick up the slack. Ash is always going to be bombing up that left flank anyway, so I think we need 3 of the back 4 to sit tight and cover. As such, I don't subscribe to the idea we need a new right back, except to replace Bosingwa and Ferreira if they leave. The van der Weil rumors have all but dried up now that we have AVB rather than Hiddink at the helm.

AVB says we will make a final decision on player transfers after the Asian tour (over the next 2 weeks). Chelsea begin with a midweek match against the Malaysian national side, followed by a match in Bangkok against the Thai league all stars on the weekend (which I will be attending), and then culminating in 2 matches in Hong Kong over the following week. I will be interested to see what we do after that, and we will likely have some idea from the performances of our players in those 4 matches.

iPad 2 in the House

2011-04-01T23:46:00.001+07:00

Finally bit the bullet and purchased two iPad 2's. Turned in my first generation towards a black 64GB 3G model (tan leather cover) for myself and also purchased a white 32GB WiFi model (red leather cover) for the Mrs.

The following are my thoughts from about 4 days of use:
(a) photos of the new iPad on the various websites, including Apple's don't do it justice; the thing looks smaller and the thinness is absolutely crazy
(b) the white version is absolutely gorgeous; I've always been a black gadget guy but I am getting seriously envious of my wife's white model, LOL
(c) the smart covers weather quickly, my tan colored one is looking older than the darker red one; I suggest getting one of the darker colors as they will probably "last" longer
(d) the magnetic switching on and off of the device is indeed a magical user experience; it feels more natural, rather than having to press a button and then swipe before using
(e) my wife's iPad has the gestures turned on and I have to say they are awesome; I hope Apple turns this feature on very soon - again, less button presses
(f) there is no huge speed bump from everyday use so far, so don't be expecting one; then again, I've not done much gaming
(g) the back of the devise scratches quite easily; I've been quite careful with mine and there are already a few small scratches (ouch)
(h) the angled sides do make attaching cables a tad difficult; noticeably more difficult, actually
(i) button access is also more difficult, especially when the iPad is lying flat on its back, which means some additional maneuvering is required
(j) speakers on the back, as opposed to the bottom, leads to muffled sound, or simply less sound as it is firing away from the user

All in all? What an awesome device!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

iPad Too...

2011-03-22T22:07:00.001+07:00

Apple recently introduced the second iteration of their category-defining product, the iPad. While many technology pundits have expressed some disappointment at the seemingly modest improvements over the first iteration, I personally am very excited. The first iPad was exciting for being a pioneering product - the first tablet-style touch computer that would "stick" in the market. The iPad 2 is exciting for the extra oomph and features that will now slowly begin to push the boundaries of the tablet computer.

I personally only recently purchased the iPad; as a matter of fact, I purchased two for my parents and one for myself at Christmas. Only three months later and Apple has convinced me to purchase another; only, I can't yet because they are not yet available where I am. It is going to be an agonizing wait; that much is for sure.

So, why am I excited? First, the refined form factor, i.e. slimmer profile and less heft/weight, is going to be a big plus. Second, the faster processor and increased RAM is going to make the slight lags with some of the applications a thing of the past. Third, the cameras will be a boon for Skype and FaceTime. And finally, while not a feature unique to the iPad 2, I am going to take the opportunity to upgrade from 32 to 64 GB's. I so enjoy using my iPad that I've filled it with media and applications, to the point where I have to take and leave things off my iPad.

Since buying the iPad, I've had much less reason to bring out my MacBook Pro at home. My iPad can pretty much do what I need. With the iPad 2 and the increased computing power and apps, I can't see this trend changing. As a matter of fact, I can truly see myself moving totally to the iPad in a few years time. Amazing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hola Nando!

2011-02-01T20:08:00.001+07:00

After a long day of "will he, won't he" and "he's on a helicopter en route to Cobham; no he's still at Melwood" and worries that any possible deal may hinge on Liverpool signing a replacement (with Newcastle not looking likely to accept their bid for Carroll), Fernando "El Nino" Torres finally signed on the dotted line and emerged a Chelsea player. Our new #9 is expected to lead the Blues out of our slump and to finally bring the Champions League trophy home to Stamford Bridge.

With the Blues also signing Brazilian center back David Luiz from Benfica, two problem areas have been addressed, and with Lampard on the road back to full fitness and Petr Cech in fine form things are looking on the up in all areas of the pitch.

First up though, is the tricky away trip to Sunderland, for which our two new additions will be watching from a distance and hoping their arrival spurs on their new team mates to an important win to maintain the buzz around the club.

Thanks, Roman, and welcome Nando and David!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Crisis!

2011-01-22T14:41:00.004+07:00

Well, since that loss to Liverpool, Chelsea have gone on to 5 wins, 4 draws and 5 defeats in all competitions, probably our worst, prolonged run of poor results since Roman has come in. That also included a run of 5 matches without a win over the course of about a month (end of November to end of December). During this period, we've scored 20 goals and conceded 16, with the 7-0 tonking of Ipswich in the FA Cup papering over the cracks.

In the league, it has been 3 wins, 4 draws and 4 defeats in this period, seeing us slide down to 4th (a low of 5th), 7 points behind United having played a game more. Ferguson's assertion that our match with them at the Bridge is likely going to decide the title is probably not wide of the mark, because we're pretty much going to have to beat them to even be in with a shot of pulling this rabbit out of the hat; amazing really if you consider we're only just slightly past the midway point in the season.

Most fans and experts put this crisis down to key several key injuries that have forced players to have to play out of position. There is probably no player more key than Lampard, it has to be said. His linking play and creativity in the final third has been sorely missed. Add to this Drogba being way off form (he's supposedly recovering from Malaria) and our goals have well and truly dried up.

Alex has also been a key miss for us, as with Ivan moved into the middle to cover for him we've lost our defensive balance and solidity. Paulo and Bosingwa have given us other things but their defending is questionable. Neither they nor Ash have done a good job of defending crosses and this has led to many poor goals being conceded. One of the key areas we're looking to strengthen in this transfer window is the CB position and this would seem to confirm our defensive weaknesses. Ivan, while not offering much going forward in terms of wide play, does offer us solidity in defending the dangerous opposing wide men.

With Lamps now back in the fold, we've looked an improved outfit in recent weeks; however we need to keep this going. Drogba in particular needs to step up his game. We need him to regain his form if we're going to mount a serious challenge in any of the competitions.

I would be remiss if I did not mention one gem we've unearthed, whose been a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing season - Josh McEachran. Of course, he's not quite ready to step in and shoulder important responsibilities regularly but if Carlo manages him well, we could well have a star in the making.

Onwards and upwards Blues!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Blue tears but no fears...

2010-11-12T15:54:00.003+07:00

We've had a wonderful start to the league season; make no mistake about that. However, this is a tough league and we're not going to have things our own way all the time. Our recent form, particularly away from home, is a slight concern.

And we have finally come unstuck, twice, on our travels to Manchester City and Liverpool. A great individual goal by Carlos Tevez, after a mistake in our midfield, led to a 0-1 defeat for us in Manchester, while a Fernando Torres double aided by some brilliant (and lucky) goalkeeping from Reina led to a 0-2 defeat at Anfield.

The bottom line is this: we're human, and there will be days when things don't go our way. I think that we will get things right most of the time, and we must still be favorites to defend our league title. Where I am more concerned is with our chances in the Champions League. Our bench, while young and promising, with the likes of McEachran and Kakuta waiting for their chances, is not game-changing. This means our hopes are going to rest mainly with our starters and Carlo is going to be somewhat handcuffed by the lack of weapons coming off the bench.

So, don't buy too much into the hype either way, i.e. "Chelsea are going to sweep all trophies" or "The defeat at Anfield spells crisis at the Bridge". We're somewhere in the middle, much closer to the fore than the latter, but still unable to take anything for granted.

Champaign Champion Performances

2010-09-21T13:57:00.004+07:00

The saying goes, "...you don't win the league in September..." or something like that. Maybe not, but I feel you could easily fall out of contention. As a matter of fact, our pre-season form was a matter for concern for quite a few Chelsea fans, me included. Fast forward a month or so and you have to say the concerns were a tad "silly".

Chelsea are standing proud atop the Premier League, with the only remaining 100% record in England. Wins over West Bromwich Albion (h, 6-0), Wigan Athletic (a, 6-0), Stoke City (h, 2-0), West Ham (a, 3-1) and Blackpool (h, 4-0) has seen us go 4 points clear of our nearest rivals, Le Arse and the Devils, with a vastly superior goal difference. This point about the goal difference: I have to say that it is significant as it gives you a psychological edge over your opponents. They will always require at least 1 point more than you to win when they cannot match you on goal difference.

On the European front, we have also got off to a flier in the Corrupt Cup (as I like to call it), with a 4-1 away win over Zilina.

Now, critics like Alex Ferguson may say that we have had it easy, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I say you can only beat what's put in front of you. We'll worry about the likes of the Devils and Citizens when the time comes. As a matter of fact, we play the Blue half of Manchester this weekend so that will be fun. We then play Le Arse the following weekend, which will be doubly fun. If we play the way we did in that first half against Blackpool, nobody could match us. The movement was exhilarating. Of course, the second half was totally forgettable. My theory is the players got over-confident and wanted to rack up a big score, but forgot the basics of passing and movement, settling on everyone wanting to do it themselves. That is something Carlo needs to work on.

But to end on a positive note: teams that have won their first 4 league games, let alone the first 5 as we have done this season, usually win the title. I'm not so attached to the results as I am to the performances. Twenty-one goals in 5 matches (over 4 a match on average) is something to be proud of. Carlo is doing something right. And Chelsea must be in with a very good chance of defending our league title.

Case of the iPad

2010-09-21T13:38:00.007+07:00

So, I had to jump through some hoops, with the help of a good friend, to get a 32GB 3G iPad at a reasonable price. These aren't officially available yet where I am, and thus the prices asked by resellers looking to make a big buck are, well, "big". Anyway, it still isn't a cheap purchase, and protecting the investment is going to be the first order of business.

When it comes to iPad (or iPhone) cases, there really isn't one ideal choice. Different people will have their own different likes and dislikes. I think it also comes down to function. If you are going to be using this in one relatively protected place, e.g. your living room, then a shield-type case with the iPad face exposed will likely be a good option. However, if you are going to be traveling a lot with your iPad, you'll likely want to give it more protection in the form of a reinforced flap, e.g. a foleo-type case.

I can't make up my mind how I will want to use this. I can see both usage scenarios. I will use it a lot at home; however, I bought the 3G model because I can see myself using it out and about where there may be no wifi service. So, I did the reasonable thing and bought two cases. For the foleo-type case, I went with Apple's official iPad case because it offers some protection without adding too much bulk. I also like the folding cover that allows me to use it at a slight angle for ease of typing. The case I am more excited about, however, is the Speck Fitted Case for the iPad (pictured). I am more excited about this case because it will allow me to use the iPad in the traditional way Apple intended for it to be used - as a tablet. No flaps and covers to get in the way. Being a Scot, I also very much like the tartan look of the material on the back of the case (I chose the Faded Gray "color"). Another benefit of this case is the raised "lip" on the front frame of the case, which means that when the iPad is placed face down on a flat surface, the screen does not actually touch the surface.

I'm also planning on looking around for a netbook zipper case/sleeve that would fit the iPad (in the Speck Fitted Case) snugly. If all goes according to plan, I may not even need to use the Apple case.

iPad Someday...

2010-08-30T10:44:00.007+07:00

I don't have an iPad; yet, I have 21 iPad-only applications and 27 universal apps that will run well on an iPad. As time moves on, I feel like I am becoming more and more convinced that this is the future of computing. It is still difficult to imagine doing heavy computing on an iPad, e.g. video editing, hard core spreadsheet work, and more niche computing like statistical analysis of research data, but for everything else, and I include creating and editing word documents, an iPad would work quite well.

Sometimes I feel people sell the iPad short. Apple non-fans will always have a hidden agenda against the iPad, but even fan boys are often saying things like the iPad is a media-consumption tool, as opposed to a media-creation tool (media including things like documents). I don't agree with this. Sure, for long documents you would do well to have an external keyboard, but it is possible. You don't need a physical keyboard to do everything. Camera? Well, maybe front facing for video calls (i.e. Skype), but I'm not sure why I would want a traditional rear-facing camera.

Some of my favorite iPad apps include:

(1) Air Video - for streaming video from my MacBook Pro to the iPad
(2) DocumentsToGo Premium - this is my Office app of choice
(3) Dropbox - wireless document management
(4) Friendly Facebook Browser - for Facebook
(5) GoodReader - document reader and manager
(6) IM+ Pro - for instant messaging
(7) Photogene - for photo editing
(8) Zinio - magazine reader

In addition to these apps are some for reading and entertainment. The bottom line is that the iPad is all about the apps. The possibilities are limitless.

Thoughts on iOS 4.0

2010-07-24T00:56:00.001+07:00

So, I had my jailbroken 3GS updated to iOS 4.0 last weekend and have the following thoughts from a week of use:

a. The general performance is very good on my 3GS; everything is fluid, with very little delays (certainly not any more than 3.x).

b. I like the aesthetic changes, ie ability to set lock screen and home screen wallpapers separately.

c. Folders are great; easy to set up, rename and remove. They add much more flexibility to the user experience.

d. I'm still getting used to the multi-tasking (quick switching to backgrounding apps). It is a pretty useful feature and does save time if you like, or need, to switch between apps very often. I also use SBSettings, so I can see how much free memory I have and have to say backgrounding can reduce your free memory quite significantly and rather quickly. I haven't had problems with apps quitting on me, so I think I must learn to trust the OS to manage the phone's resources.

In related news, I also updated biteSMS to the latest version (4.9.3) and I have to say that it is my favorite app on my iPhone. In addition to the basics, ie SMSing from anywhere, including lock screen, function, there are new aesthetic changes. SMS notifications now include a photo ID, and there is now also a notification balloon with number badge added to the task bar for unread messages.

Bottom line? My year old 3GS feels like a new phone!

iPhone & iOS 4

2010-07-04T10:23:00.004+07:00

So, about a month ago, Apple released the latest iteration of their iPhone, and recently updated (and renamed) their latest version of their portable devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) operating system, iOS 4.

What is new? Apple calls this an A-level upgrade, updating everything but the form factor (height and width). It is also now officially the thinnest mobile phone on the planet.

Gone now are the curvy lines of the plastic iPhone 3G and 3GS, the iPhone 4 being more angular, flat and accented with its glass and aluminum construction (the Apple look of the iMac and iPad lines). The front and back are now both constructed with glass (aluminosilicate), sandwiching a stainless steel frame that holds all the internals together. The aluminosilicate glass is supposed to be scratch-proof and tough, though of course not shatter proof (realistic expectations, people!).

Biggest plus is the high-resolution display (320+ pixels per inch), making the individual pixels non-distinguishable by the "average" retina from a typical distance a person holds a phone screen from their face. The "retina display" is by all accounts gorgeous and looks for all intents and purposes like a printed page.

A front facing camera for videoconferencing ("Facetime" VDO calls over wifi to another iPhone 4), and an upgraded rear facing camera (5 MP with flash with HD VDO capability) make the iPhone an even more compelling image (stills and movies) creation devise.

An A4 chip (iPad speed) with 512 MB of RAM (up from 256 MB) make sure multi-tasking (Apple's version) is implemented smoothly. Folders and a unified inbox (e-mail from several e-mail accounts presented in one inbox) in the mail app round out some of the more compelling features in the new iOS, which is a free upgrade for current iPhone and iPod Touch owners.

Keeping up with Apple's upgrade cycle is a struggle, but they more than most can come up with reasons to make you try, LOL! It is amazing, but next to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS looks clunky and old. Imagine all the drooling that occurred just 1 or 2 years ago with the release of that form factor and tell me how that is possible in such a short time. Jony, I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

New MacBook Pro...

2010-05-19T21:45:00.003+07:00

Anyone following my travails on Twitter or Facebook will know I've had to replace my 13-inch MacBook Pro due to an incident with, ironically, apple juice. The contents of a knocked down mug quickly trickled into the vent in the back of the running machine, which quickly proceeded to black out. I quickly raised up the MBP and the juice trickled out the vent and back onto the table. Thinking it was "just" water, I thought my quick actions, and a bit of waiting for things to dry completely, might give me a fighting chance. Imagine my chagrin when I found out it was actually sticky apple juice!

Well, two apple authorized service centers later and I was left with, basically, a set of spare parts. The motherboard needed replacing at about 95% of the cost of a new computer. Unbelievable.

So, I bought a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. I'm usually excited with new purchases like this, but I have to say my excitement is more than tempered by the cost of the machine - a rather unnecessary cost (but for some spilt juice). Migrating all my apps, documents and settings also took me the better part of two days to complete. I know there must be a better way, but at least the "option boot" into my "old" hard disk helped quite a bit.

From a purely technical perspective, it is a great machine: slightly faster processor (2.4 GHz dual core), double the RAM (4 GB), more hard disk space (250 GB), a better graphics card, even better battery life (~10 hours vs. 7 hours) and all still in the same "perfect" form factor and size.

I am going to be EXTRA careful to keep it away from apple juice, or any other kind of juice for that matter!

Chelsea - English Double Champs!

2010-05-19T08:52:00.003+07:00

So, Chelsea win our first "double" ever in Carlo Ancelotti's first season as manager! What a season, and when any trophy had been in doubt at various times in the season. It has been a roller-coaster season for certain, despite Chelsea being obviously head-and-shoulders above the rest of the league. Mental strength, bounce-back-ability and our stellar results against the other so-called "top four" sides (played 6, won 6!) did it for us in the end. Terry (pictured) came out and revealed that Roman was ecstatic with the success this season but now he has targeted the Champions League as our priority next season. Onwards and upwards!

FA Cup Champions!

2010-05-19T08:44:00.003+07:00

A week after winning the league title, Chelsea took to the pitch at Wembley to contest for our first "double" ever with a match against relegated Portsmouth. The "spoilers" had a relatively good start, but once Chelsea got a grip on the match, it was only a matter of time before we would beat the "spirit in the woodwork" (we hit the goal posts 5 times in that first half!) and get the goal that would secure the FA Cup trophy. It finally came in the second half, after Portsmouth spurned their best chance of the match when their penalty kick was saved by Petr Cech, when Didier Drogba sent a free kick past David James (off the post yet again, but thankfully in this time).

League Champions!

2010-05-19T08:26:00.002+07:00

Chelsea become English league champions for the 4th time (English Premier League for the 3rd since Roman took over) with an 8-0 demolition of Wigan Athletic at Stamford Bridge. All that pre-match angst for Chelsea supporters was for naught as the Blues, despite a nervous start, took control early on and ran riot. What a great performance it was, a great day in the London sunshine for Chelsea fans, and a wonderful end to what was, in the end, a great season for the Blues. Records also went by the wayside as the Blues racked up over 100 goals for the season (103), and Drogba wrestled the Golden Boot away from Rooney with a second half hat-trick!

We're going to Wemberleeey (again)!

2010-04-13T12:06:00.003+07:00

And we make it to an FA Cup final at Wembley yet again!

It was never going to be as easy as the 7-1 a couple of weeks ago, and the pitch was really atrocious for a show-piece semifinal of the premier local cup competition in the world, but Chelsea ran out eventual winners as JT's hint that Villa would run out of steam rang true. After a tough first half which Villa dominated and in which they could have had a penalty, Chelsea came out with more purpose in the second half and prevailed through goals by Drogba, Malouda and Lampard. The weekend's other results pretty much went our way as well as United could only draw at Blackburn, thus potentially losing more ground in the EPL, and Tottenham were sent crashing out of the FA Cup by relegated Pompey, arguably the "easier" opponents for the Blues in the Cup Final. Still all to play for, but if Chelsea can concentrate on the job at hand, who knows what would be possible...

Back to Summit

2010-04-09T05:17:00.001+07:00

The resurgence continues as our recent form is more than a temporary fancy. Our win over United at Old Trafford has propelled us back into first place, with a 2-point lead and 5 matches remaining. Only the bravest among us would put money on us to win it now, with all the twists, turns and utter shockers so far this season, but we have as good a chance as United, if maybe slightly better. Potential banana skins await us at Three Point Lane and Anfield, not to mention at home to Bolton a mere two days after a Wembley semifinal date with Aston Villa in the FA Cup, but we have a better squad than most to deal with this. Rumors of the imminent return of Ashley Cole and Branislav Ivanovic are also most welcome.

But back to the game at Old Trafford this past weekend. A win for Rooney-less United would have made it very difficult for Chelsea, all truth be told, and even a draw would have put them in prime position, keeping our 2 tough aforementioned away matches in mind. And while we hung on at times in the second half, after a first in which we dominated and thoroughly deserved the lead, the win has now given us back the initiative. The title is now ours to lose.

A quick word on some of the controversial decisions:

1. Zhirkov on Park - 40:60 against a penalty but I've seen them given for similar tackles.
2. Neville on Anelka - 100%, absolutely could not believe we did not get this penalty.
3. Drogba's goal - 100% off-side.
4. Marcheda's "goal" - 100% hand to ball.

In the end, it about evened out and I feel absolutely no pity whatsoever for United.

Back to the title race, Ancelotti needs to earn his keep. If the manager cannot get his troops to concentrate the rest of the way to win the league (even at expense of FA Cup if push comes to shove), then I for one will be very disappointed. Against the most ordinary of United sides in recent memory, an Arsenal side with no leadership, and a Liverpool side who've lost heart, not to mention a Man City side who are too young in their development, not winning this season's title would be pretty darned disappointing, particularly since we've steadied the ship a bit, got ourselves back into serious contention, and can now see the finish line.

Slightly more than half a dozen

2010-03-29T19:19:00.001+07:00

It's amazing what can happen in the space of a few days. Down from a home defeat to City and away draw at Blackburn, not to mention elimination from the Champions League at the hand of Jose Mourinho, things were not looking good. United raised past us to top of the league and a resurgent Arsenal knocked us down to third, albeit temporarily. Just about the only thing worth thinking about is how so much worse it could be to support Liverpool (ouch)!

Yet, an away whalloping of Portsmouth and a home mauling of Aston Villa, in the process notching up a dozen goals, seven of which came against the league's stingiest defense, and we're back in second, a point behind United but with confidence restored prior to our trip to Old Trafford next week. Should be some game.

Jose vs. Chelsea

2010-02-17T22:29:00.001+07:00

This has got to be one of our grandest matches in recent history. Jose, one of our best, if not THE best, Chelsea managers of all time, standing in the way of a Chelsea side with ambitions of winning the biggest prize in European football.

Jose has always, and still does, professed his love for Chelsea and the fans, but if you think for one minute he does not want to beat us and Roman you simply do not know Jose well enough!

Chelsea are better than most teams in Europe; Barca on their day may just be more than a handful, but Inter with a determined Jose at the helm is going to be the biggest banana skin of them all. Carlo is going to earn his nuts with an important win here that would see us cruise into the quarterfinals. Either way, you can expect a thriller.

Apple "Tablet" Unveiled

2010-02-17T22:27:00.001+07:00

Well, after months, nay years of rumours, Apple finally unveiled their "tablet" computer, the iPad. They really were on a hiding to nothing though with rumoured specs getting crazier the closer it got to Steve's keynote. And a hiding Apple did get as people wanted their four front-facing video cameras and six solar panels.

Now that the dust has settled, I think we have to see it for what it is, a different category of product that simply cannot be shoe-horned in any of the pre-existing ones. Also, the key for me is what has not yet been released, i.e. the iPad specific apps and book/ magazine deals that will surely happen.

It may not (yet) have some of those "killer" hardware specs, but the iPad is already shaping up to change casual computing forever.

iPhone 4.0

2010-01-03T21:22:00.001+07:00

I've been thinking about what features I'd like to see in iPhone OS v4.0, which will likely be unveiled sometime this year. It boils down to this: I have jailbroken my iPhone for 2 features I really want. These are (a) theme-ing and (b) multiple-tasking, specifically SMS-ing from any application.

Theme-ing is such a no-brainer and how difficult can it be? Almost all phones can do it. Colorful icons on a drab black screen is awful, especially after you've seen what a new well-chosen wallpaper can do for you.

As for multi-tasking, I can understand the resource hog argument to a certain extent but surely Apple can find an elegant solution to this. At the very least, allow basic functionality such as SMS to be invoked from inside any app without ever leaving the app, a la biteSMS. It is such a time saver.

I just wanted to add 1 point, kind of related to my second point above. Notifications. There has got to be a better way than just numbered badges. Please, Apple.

iPhone 3 GS

2009-09-29T17:06:00.001+07:00

I've had the iPhone 3GS for a couple of months now after having used the 3G for about a year. Opinions are divided over whether this is really a new iPhone at all, with it looking almost exactly the same as the previous iteration, save for some silver lettering on the back.

I have to say this though; I don't think I could go back to using the 3G. The video recording feature and focusing for the camera app are very nice, but the biggest difference is the speed. The 3GS zips along where the 3G was brought to its knees. This was particularly evident after OS 3.0 and let's face it who wants to forego upgrading to the new OS?!

So, for all those contemplating getting the new iPhone, and who must be hearing the gurus saying it isn't all that compelling, I have the following recommendation: do it; the difference is like night and day, especially if you like loading the newest apps on your iPhone.

Ancelotti it is...

2009-06-28T14:01:00.004+07:00

Roman finally gets his man. After what seems like months, indeed years, of "courting", Carlo has finally decided to leave Milan and take over the reigns at Chelsea.

Thank you Guus - Chelsea win FA Cup...

2009-06-28T13:54:00.004+07:00

Guus Hiddink signs off in style as he guides us to another FA Cup trophy with what was a very good come from behind win over Everton at Wembley, and the winner by Lampard was worthy of winning any final!

In the end, a hard working Everton side simply did not have enough to compete with us on the day, and it was us who bossed the game pretty much from the start, but especially one we went behind. Drogba's towering header brought us level and Saha's opener and Lampard, determined to get to the ball, despite a slip, and to get off a shot with his less preferred left boot, which he did with deadly accuracy, giving Tim Howard no chance whatsoever.

This really was the least we deserved for our very good form since the arrival of Guus, but we still had to go out and do it on the pitch, and that we certainly did.

Now for next season.

Take that, Arsene...

2009-06-28T13:50:00.004+07:00

What a wonderful feeling it is to steam roller Arsenal at their Emirates Stadium en route to a third-placed finish in the league. True, third place is simply not good enough for a club of our aspirations, yet what Guus has been able to do in turning around our fortunes in the EPL in the short time he's been here is nothing short of impressive.

What stands out the most is the clear upturn in our fortunes against our so-called closest challengers for the various trophies. During Scolari's reign, we just about lost all credibility in this aspect. But wins over the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal have got our confidence back up to respectable levels and given us a good platform to build upon for next season.

The Injustice of it All...

2009-06-28T13:41:00.004+07:00

Well, I've lost a lot of respect for UEFA and the competition called the Champions League. What a horrid performance by Henning Ovrebo, and the only disappointment I harbor towards Didier's and Bossa's outbursts is it allowed UEFA to escape with hardly a mention for the performance of one of their referees.

I normally don't like to point the finger at anyone or shift the blame from my own team. I usually am a very self-critical person and therefore prefer to look internally at why things go wrong, and this is no different in terms of how I consider all things Chelsea. But in this case, I feel compelled. I would hate to think how an Italian or Turkish club, let alone their fans, would react to the "injustice" dished out on the field that day. And to make matters worse, both Didier and Bossa receive lengthy bans, 4 and 3 matches, respectively, while we hear nothing of the inept referee.

For a long while after that match, while I admit maybe sour grapes played some part, I felt I did not care about this competition. The only thing though is that I know the club as a whole, and my heroes on the pitch, do still want to win this competition, if only to ram it down the throats of those at UEFA that it doesn't matter what they do or say, they cannot stop us. We will do it eventually.

So, for now, all I will say is this," I am absolutely proud of my players and will defend them to the hilt" and "Guus deserves so much more for the wonderful job he has done in the short time he's been with us".

And then there were two...

2009-04-23T22:11:00.000+07:00

Hate to admit it, particularly after a really good week to ten days, but now may be a good time to put our EPL hopes to rest. I'm not going to say I am too disappointed, despite it always being the priority trophy for me, as I never thought we were really in with a shout. United were, and still are, too far ahead.

I wasn't even dreaming of any of the cups but I am now. Our recent performance not withstanding, our best hope of silverware must still be the FA Cup. And I like our chances against Barca too; it just depends on how we perform on the day. We match up well again them. They must also hate playing us.

The press like to play our nerves like some kind of yo-yo. We need to remain realistic and hope for one, or both, of the remaining cups.

Blues Prevail...

2009-04-15T17:47:00.003+07:00

Wow, I don't know if my heart can take much more of this; then again, we may not have to worry about much more of this in the Champions League as we play the mighty Barcelona. What am I talking about? That's just the seasoned Chelsea pessimist in me speaking. Bring them on!

I don't know what it is with playing Liverpool but we always start lethargically, fall behind and have to come back and win the difficult way. But for all our defensive frailties, our opponents did bring out the best of our never-say-die qualities. Twice, we came back from precarious positions: 0-2, then 3-4, within just a whisker of what would have been a heart-breaking defeat.

Kudos to Guus for the half time kick up the rear side, Drogba for pulling up his socks and giving it a real good go in the second half, Malouda for putting in a really good shift, and for Captain Fantastic Frankie Lamps for his two priceless goals. Have had a lot of complements from Liverpool and other fans for the Blues being part of a super show.

Now to the small matter of the Arse at Wembley!

Nissin Speedlite Photos

2009-03-19T09:47:00.002+07:00

As promised, here are an assortment of photos. I apologize for the lack of quality as I had to use my iPhone to take these, since the S5iS was part of the photos.

A big improvement...

2009-03-18T22:57:00.000+07:00

I think Chelsea have done better than expected under difficult circumstances since Guus has arrived. Second in the league (4 maybe 7 behind United), in the semis of the FA Cup and the Quarters of the Champions League.

The impressive thing is not the progress in the various competitions as much as the quick turnaround from a precarious position. Two things to take away from this: Guus is the real deal and the upper management made the right decision to part ways with Felipao when they did.

Still, in this business end of the season, Guus and co will be tested to the extreme. We'll likely learn much more about our players and manager from now until the end of the season.

Nissin Speedlite Di466

2009-03-18T22:43:00.000+07:00

Just purchased the Nissin Speedlite Di466 for my Canon Powershot S5iS today after a long deliberation. Not wanting to spend the cost of the camera on a flash (Canon's Speedlite 430ex), it basically came down to either $100 for the Nissin or $200 for the Canon Speedlite 220ex.

Considering the price, plus the Di466 does bounce flash,and has an adjustable head, wide angle diffuser and catch light reflector built in, not to mention flash-activated wireless remote slave mode, it was an easy choice. Sure, there is always a risk with 3rd party accessories, but for the price?

Another nice feature is manual control of flash intensities, as the auto TTL doesn't always look good (however, I'm only just starting to get into flash photography so it could just be me).

Anyway, photos to follow...

Golden Guus...

2009-02-11T22:46:00.002+07:00

So, Chelsea have confirmed the appointment of Guus Hiddink, the Russian national team coach, as our interim manager for the rest of the season. He will continue in his role for Russia and so will be juggling two posts. He's done that before with PSV Eindthoven and Australia so hopefully he is able to do this well.

If there was one manager Roman seemed to want more than Scolari, it is Hiddink, so Roman is going to be quite pleased he has been able to land him, despite the somewhat complex arrangements. Let's just hope this doesn't back fire. We're already the laughing stock - we need to turn things around quickly. But if anyone can, Guus can. His managerial record speaks for itself. He hasn't won the World Cup as Scolari did, BUT he has done wonders for many nations, including the likes of the Netherlands, South Korea and Australia, not to mention now Russia, and is very highly regarded in world football. His wealth of experience is going to be an enormous asset. Let's hope he can get the players pulling in the same direction very quickly.

I am buoyed by this appointment; I really am. It has changed my outlook for the season. Of course, I am not expecting us to be able to turn it quite around in the EPL, though 3rd is a real target. And e must have a good shout of a chance in the two cups (FAC and CL). So this makes it quite interesting.

Anyway, welcome Guus!

Gone, baby gone...

2009-02-11T22:32:00.002+07:00

This is actually a tough one to put a verdict on. Seven months is no time at all to judge a manager, particularly when he has not be supported with funds to bring in his own players so that he can mould the team to play to his style and philosophy. I keep thinking back to last summer and our dogged pursuit of the then Portugal national team manager. We really were determined, and when we signed him I was expecting big things - both in terms of results but also in terms of long-term stability. Fast forward to today and I am underwhelmed on both counts. First, taking into consideration that his players have let him down to a certain degree, Felipao has still also to take some blame. Sure, he got us playing exciting attacking football in the early going, but his record against the big teams, our main challengers, is depressing reading. We drew Man Utd at home 1-1 and lost away 0-3. We lost to Liverpool at home 0-1 and away 0-2. We lost to Arsenal at home 1-2. So, from five matches, we have drawn 1 and lost 4, scoring 2 goals (technically 1 as 1 was an own goal) and conceding 9. Even worse is we hardly looked like scoring, let alone winning any of those games. So, from that perspective, and the fact that he was unable to motivate his players to play for him and the club, players like Drogba and Malouda who have frankly been appalling, and you can see why there is a good case for parting ways. We've dropped to 4th behind Villa and are now in a 3-horse race for the 3rd and 4th CL places which we cannot take for granted. I believe Roman was genuinely concerned we'd miss out and so felt a change was needed to kick start our season.

But again, I cannot lay the blame entirely at Felipao's door, and I have to say that considering how dogged we were in our determination to land him, the club did not back that determination up with any conviction in my book. Scolari was given an unenviable task, made all the more difficult by the lack of options with which to maneuver. Then, when Quaresma is brought in as a bright spot, he gets sacked after the first game he's able to use him. The timing is a bit unfortunate, I have to admit.

So, all I can say is "good luck" Felipao. You didn't deserve this, yet our current predicament suggests we are in dire need of a change. We wish you the best and am sure you will find another job VERY soon.

Riccy right on Q...

2009-02-11T22:25:00.003+07:00

As expected, the injury to Joe Cole, and if truth be told the awful form of Malouda, has meant Chelsea have dipped into the transfer market at the last possible minute to secure the loan signing of Ricardo Quaresma, nicknamed the "Mustang", from former manager Jose Mourinho's Internazionale in the Serie A.

Riccy was extremely highly rated as a youngster, moreso than Christiano Ronaldo even, but his career has not reached the heights of his more illustrious compatriot. Still, at only 25, he has his best days ahead of him, and while he has failed to live up to expectations so far at Inter, Scolari hoped he would be able to bring out the best in the exciting winger.

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that this turns out well for us. Talented, yet temperamental, it is difficult to say if he can settle down. But our need for a pure winger is well-documented, and so if he can drift into games as often as he does out of them, he will have done his job. This is a potentially very exciting signing, and we could be reminded of our excited to see former players like Duffer and Arjen step out onto the pitch for us.

Good luck, Riccy Q!

Joe the Spanner

2009-01-17T18:34:00.001+07:00

I have a feeling a spanner has been thrown into the works of our no transfer policy this Jan window: seems like Joe Cole may be out for the rest of the season, or most of it, with a knee injury he suffered at Southend. Rumors link us with a swoop for Tevez but we're yet to get official confirmation from the club about the extent of Joe's injury.

A Twitterin'

2009-01-17T16:32:00.001+07:00

A little while back I was very happy with the Twitterific app for the iPhone. However, without any warning it became unusable, crashing to and fro.

According to a recommendation from Leo and gang on Macbreak Weekly, I decided to move to the Hahlo web app and was quite happy with it bar the fact that it had to reload all the user interface elements every time.

I finally decided to turn back to the app store and after looking around setled for the free Twitterfon app. Well, as long as it doesn't for some unknown reason become unusable for me, this is the mobile Twitter app I'll stick with. I like the simple, clean interface and peppy performance. Certainly recommended.

iBlogger...

2009-01-16T14:15:00.001+07:00

This is my first (trial) blog post using an iPhone app I purchased (99 cents) today called iBlogger. I'm pretty much living on my iPhone now so I'm figuring anything I can do from my iPhone will be done more effectively (often). Just let's hope this works as advertised.

By the way, I wasn't kidding when I say I practically live on my iPhone now. I twitter (bluebutch) using the Twitterfon app and am now also on Facebook (Daam Settachan), mainly through the Facebook app.

Note: the main problem with iBlogger is that it doesn't yet upload photos to Blogger blogs, so I'll have to manually add those every so often.

Cheers.

What's happening at Chelsea?

2009-01-16T10:23:00.002+07:00

If recent developments are anything to go by, Chelsea fans should be bracing themselves for the worst. I say this in jest though, to a certain degree, for I can't bring myself to actually believe this. Yet, all is not well. Let me explain.

1. Recent form

During Jose, and on through Grant's, reigns Chelsea were near on unbeatable at home. Well, in fact, in the premier league, Chelsea had not lost at Stamford Bridge for a few years. Yet, this season, we've found it difficult to win. True, we were pretty much rocking in the early season, but things have certainly changed, beginning with the home defeat to to title rivals Liverpool (0-1, deflected Alonso shot) and then again to Arsenal (1-2, van Persie's double within a few minutes). We've struggled to draws in a few other games we should have won comfortably and this has left fans feeling a bit uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, quite surprisingly our away form has been better than our home form this season; that is, until our complete and utter devastation at the hands of another of our title rivals, Manchester United, at Old Trafford.

That match deserves a discussion all of its own as many things went wrong. First, the manager has to shoulder some blame. He clearly did not get the tactics right. I think he wanted to give United a lot of the possession in the middle third, lull them forward and hit them with quick interchanging passes for the counter. It looked promising, yet risky. The main problem though was that our forward line simply could not keep possession or create anything. I point my finger squarely at Drogba, who is currently in a slump of form and corresponding confidence. He unfortunately also sulks too much and is not showing any of the fighting character he used to under Jose Mourinho.

Look, I see what Scolari is trying to do with changing us from a mainly defensive, physical team, to a more open, attacking side. However, while our defending is suffering from this more open style of play, with our soft underbelly being exposed due to less cover when the full backs go bombarding forward, our attacks also are not working out well of late, resulting in us being neither here nor there, and thus the bad results coming our way.

I will comment on our lack of transfer interest below, but suffice it to say for now, while Scolari does not, or can not, bring in more of his own players, he is going to have to stick with what he's got. And I am not so sure he can expect them to change their style of play. Clearly, most of our players are not fluent on the ball, nor particularly good movers off it. You need to have these characteristics to play the fluent passing game a la Arsenal. We are a big, physical, combative side and I believe we need to play to our strengths. In the United game, for example, I would have stuck Drogba on Evans all day and booted the ball up to him and see if the boy would crack under the constant pressure. I know that is what Jose would have done, very similar to what he does against Senderos and Arsenal (to much success I might add). Yet, we saw none of this. Naivety? Maybe. Inexperience. Looking like it from Scolari's point of view.

2. Player unrest

We're a team full of big egos. I am not saying this in a derogatory way. This is human nature. All these players have won many things in their careers. They don't have to prove anything to anyone. Deco said as much in a recent interview when reporters were asking him if he was favored by Scolari despite his poor form. Ballack never looks happy on the bench, despite being woefully of form on the pitch. Alex has already said he wants to leave. Joe Cole looks annoyed every time he gets taken off despite also being very ordinary. Bridgey HAS left. And Drogba is clearly angling to leave. With players pulling in the same direction, what is difficult is possible nonetheless. With players pulling in different directions, namely their own, what is difficult is made more so.

Scolari has looked laid back in his role as manager here from the start. His recent dropping of Drogba, possibly also Deco, is a positive move. He needs to take this bull by the horns or this could get real ugly. Drogba should not be let back into the starting line-up until he proves he's up for the fight and fully behind the cause of the team. We're beginning to hear more from the leaders in the team such as Terry and Lampard, and both these players need to stand up and lead more than they've done this season. They are Scolari's generals on the pitch and both have been,largely, ordinary.

3. Skint

It's amazing what a few months can do for you. It hasn't been long since Roman was the biggest thing since sliced cheese. Now, he's skint and has to choose between his beloved yacht or football club (and he's leaning towards the former). I don't know where these so-called journalists get their material from. I'd be surprised, billionaire or no, if Roman kept throwing money around willy nilly in the current financial climate. He has already invested a lot in the team and while he has seen the team win silverware and increased recognition around the globe, this season he certainly isn't getting value for money. I wouldn't myself feel compelled to plough more money into the playing staff until I was confident it would be put to good use. I believe he wants to see how well Scolari manages his current playing staff before he releases more funds.

Having said this, there is reason to make at least 1 addition. Our attacking options are slim, and with Malouda, and now Joe Cole, out injured we could do with a quality addition to keep us fresh and give Scolari a player he feels would fit into his system. Remember, he was promised Robinho in a deal that ultimately did not materialize. Also, we've sold Bridgey for 12 million quid, supposedly. Surely, some funds can be released.

There is the added factor of a certain other team in Manchester who are "pulling a Chelsea" at the moment. One hundred and five million euros for Kaka? If only. Roman may well want to keep his wallet closed at the moment for fear of unrealistic prices being bandied about. The shoe is now on the other foot, or so it goes.

In summary, I refuse to give up on this team. Reports of impending implosion are well wide of the mark. Roman is being prudent, as he should be. And Scolari is looking like he'll be taking the bull by the horns. I don't know how much time he will need to turn things around. I believe we have a lot of very good players in the squad, which should help. We just need to get back to the basics. The eventual thumping of Southend was a move in the positive direction. We need to consolidate that with a home win over Stoke to get our momentum going again. We've been on long win streaks before and we can do it again. The bottom line is this: we all need to be pulling in the same direction, including the fans.

Bejeweled2

2008-11-27T23:00:00.003+07:00

Having posted about the games I have with me on my iPhone, I just added one more - probably my favorite game on a mobile device. I've actually purchased this game three times: the first on my Windows Mobile 5.0-based O2 XDA Atom, the second time on my Palm Treo 680 and now the third time on my iPhone 3G. The game play is simple, yet addictive, with a pleasant music soundtrack and reasonably good graphics. As far as I can tell, the iPhone version of Bejeweled2 has slightly nicer graphics (worm hole transitions between levels) and allows you to "slide" jewels into place rather than selecting the start and end positions (I felt this was a nice iPhone-y touch to the game). But other than that, the game play is the same; just overall a solid, well made port over to the iPhone of an established title by an established developer. Highly recommended!

Games galore...

2008-11-11T21:30:00.003+07:00

To be honest, I am not a "gamer". I do play some games, but I'm not even good at them. Mainly, I enjoy having a few "time wasters" for those moments you need to pass the time, e.g. while at the doctor's office or waiting for my children to finish their weekend classes. What I do like about games is they tend to bring out the best (usually) in your various "gadgets", showcasing the abilities of your computer, phone, etc...

That brings me to many of the games on my iphone, which fall under that category, such as Super Monkeyball, Motion X Poker, and Enigmo. Games that I really enjoy playing include Tetris, Sol Free, 300 Bowl and Tile Sudoku. Then there is another category of games which are the ones I have on the iPhone to occupy my children's attention when they get restless, including Koi Pond and Adventure, particularly the latter for my 4-year old. Other games I enjoy, but which I don't get to so often as they tend to be absorbing are Imangi and Tanzen. These latter two, along with Tetris, are the games that have been the best value for the money I have paid as they are fun and have good replay value. Super Monkeyball, though great for showcasing what the iPhone can do, doesn't have as good replay value, in my opinion. Enigmo, though with promise, is too unwieldy to play on the iPhone - there is too much scrolling left and right, up and down to see all the components.

So that is my quick and dirty review of the games I have on my iPhone.

Technology RSS Feeds...

2008-11-11T21:18:00.002+07:00

Another program that I use a lot is NetNewsWire. A little while back I was looking for an RSS client, preferably free, that I could use to download short news feeds on Technology to read on my iPhone. At the time, most of these apps were new, rather rough round the edges, and cost over $3, which for me is a lot for an iPhone App. For that amount of money, I really would expect something well-designed and ready-for-market.

After searching around, I found that the best of a rather poor bunch at the time was NetNewsWire. After using it for a couple of months, I am happy to say it has become an app I use quite regularly, almost on a daily basis. It does what I want it to do; namely, just find my preset feed sources and download all the unread feeds, displaying a counter for each feed within the program, and a total number of unread feeds as a badge on the app badge. I am also quite happy to report that it works just as well on edge as it does using wifi. My experience using RSS apps on Windows Mobile and PalmOS have not been this positive.

So, if you're looking for an RSS app, give NetNewsWire a twirl.

Twit-terrific!

2008-11-09T07:25:00.003+07:00

As I've intimated in a few recent blog posts, I have now found a new medium for posting my thoughts and experiences - Twitter. But I don't do it through the Twitter site, rather through an iPhone client called Twitterific.

I find it is much less involving than writing a blog entry, although I still enjoy that. It just allows me to post more often. So, if you are interested in following my drivel, please follow me on Twitter; my handle is bluebutch.

So, I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying Twitterific, which is a free app on the AppStore. I am currently following 3 twits in Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann and John C. Dvorak. I enjoy listening to their podcasts, namely This Week in Tech, MacBreak Weekly and You Look Nice Today, and so now also follow their tweets.

You basically change settings for tweets you follow on the Twitter website, so Twitterific just allows you to log into your account and then display tweets according to the settings in your account. The settings in Twitterific itself only has to do with display and sound settings.

So, if you are in to Twitter, or want to find out what it is all about, and you use an iPhone or iPod Touch, then check out Twitterific!

My MacBook Review...

2008-11-01T10:21:00.005+07:00

If you've been following me on Twitter, you will have known that I was waiting impatiently to pick up my shiny new MacBook last week. And on Tuesday October 28th, I finally got the call I was waiting for - my MacBook had arrived. Lucky I reserved mine too, for they were basically gone as soon as they came in the door!

I don't aim to make this review typical of hardware reviews, nor do I aim to make it comprehensive. I do hope it will be informative and helpful to those who are contemplating a similar purchase.

My first impression when I saw the box at the iStudio store was that it was even smaller than what I had seen in the photos on the web. If there is one thing I have now learnt from looking at photos of both the iPhone and MacBook on the web prior to purchase is that photos tend to make things look bigger than they actually are. I felt the boxes and computer were small in the photos, but it really is small. It isn't much bigger than either my old 12-inch PBG4 or the MacBook Air! So, from that perspective I am very, very happy. I have always been torn between power/screen size and portability when purchasing a laptop. I was very happy with the portability of my 12-inch PBG4, yet somewhat cramped by the limited screen real estate. I now firmly believe the 13-inch form factor of the MacBook to be the best blend of ample screen size and portability - 13 is the new 12, eh? Where did I hear that before?

The second thing I quickly saw was that the new shiny black-bezeled screen is absolutely gorgeous. Yes, I did have some early reservations, especially when I flipped open the screen and basically saw a mirror (before powering up). Once you power up the screen, however, the reflections "go away" and you hardly ever notice them again. The "pop" of the colors more than makes up for any little reflection you may notice. I am totally happy with this. Also, again, I just love the widescreen form factor of the 13-inch screen.

The third thing I did was to pick up the computer to see what the unibody design does for the fit and feel. I have to say, I am duly impressed. Though thinner than my 12-inch PBG4, it feels solid. There is no flex, no creeking, just none of that whatsoever. It really does feel solid. Now, I did find one blemish on my MacBook - a very small dent/ding on the front left edge, which is a bit of a bummer. However, I think I'll live with that.

Next, the keyboard: in terms of the looks, I am completely enamored. I love the new black on aluminum design. It is just gorgeous. However, I am still getting used to the "give", or lack thereof, of the keys. My early impression is that the keyboard on the 12-inch PBG4 is better, but I think I'll learn to like this one more with time. As is, I am making quite a few more typing errors, from the fact that it sometimes doesn't register. Frustrating, but I'll learn.

The new button-less trackpad is great, absolutely no complaints with it. The larger real estate is useful and the gestures become second nature. You wonder how you ever coped without them before. The thing hinges to the unibody at its top so you get best response pressing at the bottom edge of the trackpad, where the button used to be, so it feels very natural. The texture of the trackpad is no different to previous iterations, despite it being supposedly made of glass this time round. All in all, great design. I absolutely love the two finger right click!

Another thing I'm slightly unhappy with is the new latch and cover system for the battery/HDD compartment. Mine is not a snug fit, so there is some give when you press on it. It isn't significant but it is a little disappointing.

In terms of performance, this thing flies in comparison to my PBG4. Of course, I expected it would, but I had such a bad experience with Leopard and Office 2008 on that little machine that I doubted the level of improvement I might get with this one. I am happy to say it has been a dream. There has been no lagging, not as much heating up as with the PBG4 and I certainly have not heard any fan noise so far.

Some other observations? Well, I had not found any speakers - seems like the sound just comes out from somewhere under the keyboard area. The screen is glass from edge to edge, unlike on the previous MacBook iteration where there was a thin plastic bezel around the screen (held in place with plastic clips that could break during maintenance of the camera after which the bezel would not be smooth and flat), so that's another plus. I like the battery indicator on the side as opposed to the bottom, BUT I really feel Apple could have spaced out the USB ports a little more. It is a bit of a tight squeeze to get two flash drives plugged in at the same time. I very much like the MagSafe adaptor - though I sometimes wonder if the magnet is too strong to really "let go" when someone trips on the electrical cord. The WiFi signal strength does not appear to be hampered in any way by the aluminum body of the MacBook, and so far, I have been getting approximately 4 hours of battery life.

So, while not perfect as perfect can be, I am absolutely loving my new MacBook. Mine is the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB HDD. I'd certainly give it an enthusiastic two thumbs up!

Down but not out...

2008-11-01T10:01:00.003+07:00

Well, my fears were not unfounded, unfortunately.

This defeat, though still too early in the season to be significant should not be totally overlooked. The most disappointing thing about it was our form leading up to the match, in comparison to our form on the day of the match. As always, Liverpool defended admirably, but I think we played worse against them than we have for many seasons. Though we totally out-possessed them in the first half (65-35%), their possession was much more threatening. Still, it wasn't anything they created per se that beat us; we simply fell asleep at a set piece, allowing Xabi Alonso to shoot speculatively from the edge of the box, his shot scraping Terry's chest before beating a stranded Cech for the only goal of the match. As a matter of fact, had Cech not been alert to a fiercely swerving and dipping volleyed shot by Gerrard we may have lost by more, for truth be told, we didn't muster one shot on target. THAT, dear friends, is the most disappointing aspect to our defeat. I felt out full backs needed to provide more width, and we needed to get men to the byline to put in crosses, rather than cut in and cross in towards the keeper, for Carragher and co were having a whale of a time blocking us out and allowing our crosses to float in to the keeper.

I hope we learn from this defeat, for while we have much time to recover the 3-point deficit, we have yet to convince against our main rivals like Man Utd and Liverpool.

And to top it off, losing our home unbeaten record was not nice.

Flying...

2008-10-26T10:09:00.003+07:00

The stats don't lie - Chelsea are, on form, the best team in England, and are also not doing too badly in Europe, currently leading Group A in the Champions League with their recent 1-0 win over a resolute AS Roma in mid-week.

Our match against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge tonight will go some ways to determining both sides' EPL title credentials. With Man Utd drawing at Goodison Park last night, this is a chance for either side to pull a further two points away relative to before the start of the weekend's scheduled matches. Liverpool will supposedly be without their on-form striker Fernando Torres, while Chelsea are also still without Didier Drogba, and while we don't seem to be struggling for goals, Anelka continues to cut a frustrated figure up front for us. For a main striker, he certainly isn't weighing in with the expected number of goals. Will playing against his former club give him the added incentive that may be needed?

One thing that can clearly be seen when comparing the current Chelsea to the one that played under Mourinho or Grant (aarrggghhh, did I actually mention them in the same sentence?!), is that this one has much more fluid movement - pass and move, pass and move - we can still be direct when needed, and you can certainly see Scolari's frustration when we force it that way, but in general we move the ball along the ground a bit better and our movement off the ball is better. There is more interchanging passes and combinations between and amongst players, and Deco's arrival has certainly added some spice in the final third. So, there certainly isn't a lot to complain about. Mikel has grown and matured and is one of our most improved players. Even Malouda is looking much more effective, though I am still expecting a significant improvement from him.

But we have never played well against Liverpool over recent seasons. No matter how good we are, and how inconsistent Liverpool are, we simply do not seem to match up well against them. Rafa certainly is one of the managers that seems to have our number. So, we'll have to see how this one pans out. Without Torres, I think they will be a bit blunted, but I have always rated Robbie Keane. Gerrard will also always be Gerrard so must be kept an eye on, and Mikel's maturity will be tested fully. I have to say I am glad Riise is not on this Liverpool roster, for while we match up well defensively against Liverpool it is players like that that offer an extra threat that is difficult to defend against.

We will need to have one of our better passing and possession games. If we can starve the likes of Keane and Kuyt of the ball, their industriousness will be limited to chasing shadows rather than causing us real problems.

But I still see this as a close battle. We should be able to eke out a close one but for some reason I am expecting a score draw.

Reserved

2008-10-26T09:41:00.004+07:00

I haven't posted in a while as I've recently found a new medium in Twitter, through the excellent iPhone client - Twitterific. You can follow me over there as bluebutch.

Meanwhile, I have made a decision on my next computer. It will be an aluminum MacBook. I put down 5,000 THB to reserve one from the first lot that comes in (the end of this month supposedly). I also sold my PowerBook G4 12-incher about 10 days ago and have been without a computer since then (silly, silly me). I simply did not think there would be the level of interest in the 12-incher that I received - basically, the chap couldn't wait!

So, I've been struggling along without a computer at work or at home. My wife, bless her soul, has been lugging home her Lenovo T61 just in case (and is what I am writing this blog post on). I have to admit, I have taken for granted a little how important my PB was to me. I now realize that so much of my life revolves around having access to a personal computer.

But on to the MacBook; I checked yesterday with 4 local stores and was told they would likely have them next Tuesday. With next week being another busy one for me, I am not at all sure when I will get a chance to pick mine up.

I have been reading and watching a lot of early reviews of the new MacBook and certainly am liking what I am reading and seeing. Not that it would make me change my mind or anything (and forfeit all that money) but any bad news would certainly help tone down my expectations. As is, I am ready to live with the glossy screen (particularly the bezel borders) and the lack of Firewire (though I have to tell you that my external HDD with the Firewire interface beats USB hands down and I AM going to miss it). I have always liked the MacBook form factor (13.3 is the new 12 as they would say, eh?) but was also very enamored with the aluminum finish of my PB so the new MacBooks are a marriage of what I hold dear in my laptop.

I am also very much looking forward to using Leopard, as well as some programs that are only available for Windows. So, hopefully the wait will be for only a few more days!

New MacBooks...

2008-10-15T09:24:00.003+07:00

Here we go again...Apple have released new highly covetable products for us fanboys to go wild about, seriously threatening our pockets as we move into the holiday season!

Seriously though, I've been thinking of upgrading my notebook for a while now. I've been using a Powerbook G4 12-incher for the past 7 years, and while it has worked a treat for me, I find myself yearning for the ability to run Leopard (I only currently have enough power to run Tiger) - as well as dual boot into Windows, if need be (ducks for cover).

I've sent many a yearning glance in the direction of the MacBook Air, and while that is the ultimate covetable machine from a design stand point (not to mention the weight factor, for those with a bad back like me), but the specs are such that you have to wonder how long it would take to outgrow. A 1.6 GHz processor, non-upgradable RAM and HDD, integrated graphics and non-upgradable battery? [when I say non-upgradable, I mean you have to send it to Apple to do for you and would entail some serious dismantling of the case].

Still, with all these downsides, I find myself now contemplating between a second hand MacBook Air and a new MacBook (for almost exactly the same price). I guess I'll have to wait to be able to see them side-by-side in a local Apple store before I make my decision (provided the young lady looking to sell her MacBook Air can wait).

But the new machines released last night (midnight our time) are great. Although new MacBook Pros, upgrades to the MacBook Airs and a new 24-inch Cinema Display were also released, my attention was fully focused on the 1,299 USD 2.0 GHz core 2 duo, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD version of the new, aluminum clad, black glossy screened MacBook with the NVidia graphics chip (did I mention the new unibody - ahem, "brick"; was that Apple's attempt at saying "ha...think you know what we're doing, eh?" - design?). I don't know when these will be available in Thailand, or at what price, but going by previous models at the US price point it should equate to about 45,000 THB before VAT or about 47,000 THB including VAT, which is exactly what the aforementioned young lady is considering selling her MacBook Air to me for. Dilemma's, dilemma's...

Wigan Athletic 0 - 1 Chelsea

2008-08-27T10:24:00.001+07:00

As impressive as we were in our first match, we were as unimpressive in this one. The short interchanging passes were gone, and we were left pumping up high balls to Anelka and Joe Cole, if you can believe that. True, Wigan gave us much less time on the ball than Portsmouth did, and they were physical and threw us off, but still the difference between our two performances thus far was huge. Deco gave us the perfect start after three minutes when he curled a superb freekick over the wall and past Mike Pollitt, who guessed wrong and had started moving the other way. That is two goals in two games for our new Portuguese midfield maestro, and two beauties at that! But for the rest of the match, Wigan more than matched us, and it was down to Petr Cech in goal to make two or three great saves to keep us in the lead. Scolari said the midweek break did not help us, and that a few players including Ballack were playing with small niggling injuries, but somehow I feel it was more about the new manager and players still settling into the EPL - growing pains if you know what I mean. True, we have the majority of players out on the field who know all about it, but I think we're trying some new things and it may take a little while for Scolari to really work out how the team should play, especially away from home against very physical teams like Wigan. Credit to our opponents though - they certainly gave us a good game.

Chelsea 4 - 0 Portsmouth

2008-08-27T10:23:00.001+07:00

We begin our assault on the EPL title with a convincing win over the defending FA Cup champions. The scoreline aside, this match will be remembered for the total domination of midfield, and thus the game, by Chelsea. In his first game in charge, Scolari started with all his big guns in midfield - Lampard, Deco, Ballack and Mikel - and Portsmouth simply were chasing shadows almost all game long. Joe Cole scored our first goal of the season with a sweetly struck shot across the goalkeeper after he ws put through by a dinked pass over the top by Ballack. Anelka scored the second after an attempted shot back across goal by Deco was blocked and looped up and over David James, giving Nic the chance to outjump the covering Glen Johnson to head into an empty net. Lampard scored the third from the penalty spot after Distin handled from a Bosingwa's cross, and Deco put the icing on the cake with a long range pile driver that James could only help into the top corner of the net. All and sundry were hailing us as the favorites for the title after this impressive performance, and though a tad early, fittingly so. We were top class!

Yippeeee!

2008-08-13T23:43:00.002+07:00

Of all the Chelsea news this summer, this has got to be the biggest and the best, and provides a timely boost as we come to the beginning of a new season - Frank Lampard has signed a new five-year deal at Chelsea, a deal that will likely see him end his playing career at the Blues!

I cannot tell you how happy I am at this news. Frank has been a favorite of mine ever since he signed from West Ham 7 years ago. A large part of my joy in watching Chelsea is watching Frank develop over the years. This summer had been agony, having to read all the news and rumors about Frank possibly leaving, with Internazionale and Jose Mourinho waiting in the wings. Thankfully, Frank has seen the light and done what he should have all along.

This, for me, is bigger than signing Robinho, Kaka or whoever else. Frank, along with JT, is the face of the current Chelsea and in my mind the most key player we have. The number of goals he has scored over the past 4 or 5 seasons is simply astounding, and the fact he is the highest scoring midfield in Chelsea's history says it all.

I'm ready for the new season. Bring it on!

One last signing for the season?

2008-08-06T09:15:00.003+07:00

I have to apologize to any of you out there that are more Chelsea-inclined than iPhone-inclined as I've been a bit pre-occupied with the iPhone in recent weeks and thus all the iPhone-related posts.

We're still in the midst of the "silly season" and new signings are trickling in to various clubs. There haven't been any really big signings this summer, with Ronaldinho probably being the biggest one so far (Barca to Milan). Ronaldo is still being courted by Madrid (though they have almost given up), Berbatov is being courted by Man Utd (not much news there) and Chelsea's interest in Kaka simply has not been given the light of day by Milan.

But the Blues have not abandoned all hope of one more signing before the end of the month. Peter Kenyon has admitted that we are concentrating all our attentions on a certain Mr. Robinho at Madrid. We've been linked with him in the past, and usually it ends with the player himself committing his future to Madrid with the potential of increased wages. And thus why I was skeptical at the beginning of this summer's transfer window. However, there seems to be a continued interest and the noises coming out of the player's camp have been positive. Madrid, for their part, want to have a suitable replacement before they let him leave, and of course we all know who they covet. I've seen some rumors that they are now changing their attention to a certain Rafael van der Vaart, but am not sure if they'd let Robinho leave even if they signed the Dutch international.

So I guess we'll just have to wait and see. On the current player front, Chelsea have now finished their pre-season matches: we beat the Pharmaceuticals of China 4-0, the Blades of China 7-0, the Malaysian national side 2-0, lost to Lokomotiv Moscow on penalties after a 1-1 draw in normal time, and fair drubbed a toothless Milan 5-0 with Nic Anelka scoring four goals. Probably the main point to take away from these matches is that Deco is going to be central to Scolari's Chelsea and fortunately for us, he is settling in nicely.

We can now look forward to our opening day game of the new season against Portsmouth at Stamford Bridge. Harry Redknapp has done some good business of his own and they will be no push overs. It will be a pretty stern test for Scolari in his first EPL match. Hopefully, we will hit the ground running. We need a good start to the season.

The price of admission...

2008-08-06T08:58:00.003+07:00

Well, I'm out of ideas of how to solve this "syncing problem" between my iPhone and iTunes version 7.7.1. As far as I can tell, iTunes is trying to access the iTunes store everytime I plug my iPhone in, my understanding being that it wants to check and see the phone is registered before it will display the contents. I've never seen this before, so I can only gather it is a new "feature" in iTunes. This would also mean that iTunes is having problems reading my SIM, and we all know why this might be. I guess it is all the price of (early) admission. Maybe I should just be happy the phone is working at all, but for the amount of money I've paid, I'm sad to say I am not. It's great as a phone and fun to use, but I also depend heavily on it as an ipod, and so not being able to manage my media files, particularly my podcasts, is a bummer. I can move files onto the phone, but not off it, and that is what I need to do to "refresh" my podcast collection, i.e. remove them from the phone once I've listened to them.

The error message to my left was shown only once in about 20 odd tries. Usually, what happens is that iTunes tries to "accessing itunes store..." for hours on end and just fails to be able to do so. You can see that the phone is present in the devices list but the usual directory tree beneath it is not there. As a long standing Apple fanatic, I have to say this is the first time I'm feeling a bit disappointed, even keeping in mind that I am not following the "usual channels" in this endeavor. I've said so before and I'll say it again, IF I had the choice I'd ALWAYS buy from Apple and go the usual channels, BUT since the launch of the first generation iPhone, these usual channels have not been available in Thailand and so I end up losing out BOTH ways: (a) more expensive, AND (b) no support, including loss of functionality.

I'm sure a lot of people would say, "serves you right, mate! It's the price of early admission!".

Bit the bullet...

2008-08-03T11:34:00.003+07:00

Did it, bit the bullet and bought a black 8 GB iPhone 3G last Friday. Didn't actually plan to buy one this soon but the price came down to something a little more palatable. Apparently more and more phones are being brought in from the USA as the ones from Hong Kong, though sold unlocked, are much more expensive.

I bought mine for 35,000 Thai baht or about $1,000 USD and have had to use a SIM adaptor with it - I was told it was a stealth SIM but I don't know. This is not my thing at all - I was extremely nervous as they had to cut my SIM and file it down with sandpaper!

Anyway, after that ordeal and a thousand bucks lighter, I now am the owner of a working iPhone 3G. Reception-wise, I'm having no problems, but I do have some problems connecting to iTunes. The iPhone is in the Devices List but the content doesn't show, so I am able to move files to the phone but I cannot make changes to the files or move things off the phone, which is a bit of a problem.

So, let's hope I'm able to solve this problem some how. It's a LOT of money to pay for a phone!

Uh-oh...

2008-07-31T19:37:00.003+07:00

Well, if reports are to be believed, there is reason to stop all plans of purchasing a new iPhone 3G and wait to see what is going on with the cracked "plastic" backs. The backs aren't really plastic you know, but whatever they are made of, they are cracking. The cracks are most easily seen on the white iPhones, supposedly, but the black ones are also showing some cracks as well, just harder to see.

This could be a big headache for Apple, and so let's hope they can pinpoint it down to some manufacturing problem localized somewhere rather than a general problem with all iPhone 3G's. Stay tuned!

Can almost smell it now...

2008-07-26T23:55:00.002+07:00

The new English Premier League season is almost upon us - three weeks to go - and so far we have won both our pre-season friendlies in China, beating teams calling themselves the Pharmaceuticals and then the Blades, 4-0 and 7-0, respectively. Amongst the scorers so far have been Kalou (2), Lampard (2), Di Santo (2), Wright-Phillips (2), Anelka, and Joe Cole (2). But while the season is not quite yet upon us, I have another iPhone-related post:

Basically, I found out today that the iPhone 3G has been imported into Thailand and can be used for phone calls! Previously, although a few have been spotted here and there, and at inordinate prices, they have only been able to be used as glorified ipods. We've been waiting for the iPhone Dev Team to release a version of their pwnage tool that would allow us to sim unlock the phones for use with the local carriers.

Well, it turns out that iPhones brought in from Hong Kong are already sim unlocked and can be used with the local carriers, I guess anywhere in the world. The down side? Still the price. Currently, an 8 GB iPhone 3G would cost me 42,500 Thai baht (about $1,400) while a 16 GB iPhone 3G would cost me 47,000 Thai baht (or roughly $1,600). That's steep whichever way you look at it!

So, I can almost smell it now, but it is still some ways off. I think it will take the release of the pwnage tool to make unlocked iPhones ubiquitous before the prices of these things will come down to a more palatable level. As I've said before, I only wish Apple would strike a deal with the local network operators here so that the iPhone would be officially available, but alas, it does not look like happening, at all, not just anytime soon. I think, in part, this may be down to the fact that there are already some 200,000 iPhones in Thailand and the operators probably don't think it would be all that lucrative a contract to sell them officially (and thus may be playing hard ball with Apple, which of course won't work).

So, I am reduced to this: waiting and hoping. I can't believe I even considered forking out $1,400 USD for a phone today. Absolutely bonkers! But that is how much I covet the thing. It really isn't healthy.

What's the difference?

2008-07-22T22:29:00.003+07:00

I think a lot of people are wondering what the deal is with the iPhone in general, and particularly the iPhone 3G that is creating quite a bit of a buzz. The first generation iPhone was, I think, mainly coveted by fans of Apple products, the Apple "fan boys" if you will. However, I think this time around many other fans of technology have joined in the rush for the phones.

Through all of this, I often hear the question, "what is the difference between the first generation iPhone and the iPhone 3G?" and "is it worth it to upgrade?". With this post, I wanted to tackle the first question: what's the difference.

Despite there being quite a few subtle differences in form, e.g. plastic casing (black and white versions) on the iPhone 3G compared to the metal casing of the first generation, flush head phone jack on the 3G version as opposed to the recessed one on the first generation iPhone, and slight differences in width and thickness, I believe that the 3 significant differences are as follows:

(1) The 3G radio - Of course, the most noticeable difference is in the name itself, iPhone 3G. This latest iteration of the iPhone is able to make faster downloads over the 3G network (compared to the Edge network), provided that is available in your neck of the woods. If you don't have 3G where you live, fear not, you will still be able to surf the web on the edge network or through wifi.

(2) GPS - Apple prefers the term location-based services. Currently, there are no turn-by-turn applications that make use of the built in GPS but supposedly some are being developed as we speak (Tom Tom?). However, a lot of apps have been developed that do use the GPS in some way, shape or form, for example for geotagging photos (i.e. tagging with precise location information), location-based suggestions for tasks to be completed, etc... Of course, GPS also works with Google maps, allowing you to pinpoint your current location much more accurately than through triangulation of the cell towers.

(3) Finally, and I think most significantly, is the advent of the AppStore - third party apps for your iPhone. Of course, this is not specific to the iPhone 3G, but it has to be quite a pull for those who don't already own an iPhone. To be honest, this is one of the biggest pulls for me.

Of all the applications I hear people get excited about, the games seem to be the most awe inspiring. Games such as Super Monkey Ball and Moto Racer which make use of the built in accelerometer to steer the main characters through various tracks and challenges are creating a unique gaming experience that is getting some pretty rave reviews.

List managers and chat clients are now also making their much awaited entry. Personally, once I have an office suite of some sort that I can purchase and download, I'll be set. As it is, only being able to review documents but not edit them is a little bit of a limitation. Even then, I am happy to deal with that.

I really buy into this "project" of Apple's and just cannot wait to get to use an iPhone on a daily basis. The third party apps are going to help fill in some of the current limitations of the iPhone without doubt. The most exciting thing is that these are only the first iterations of apps developed for the iPhone. There will be more and better ones coming out very soon!

A bit of Vaja...

2008-07-22T22:17:00.002+07:00

Despite the 3G iPhone not yet being "available" in Thailand, I have gone ahead and ordered a Vaja iVolution SP case in preparation for the "imminent" purchase. By "imminent", I really haven't a clue as to when it is I will be able to purchase the iPhone. Actually, the first handsets have begun to trickle in, unofficially of course, but the inordinately high prices, approximately $1,500 USD for an 8 GB iPhone 3G, are prohibitive, even for an Apple fan boy such as myself. Incidentally, the first generation iPhones are being sold, again unofficially, for about $1,000 USD for the 8 GB version as we speak!

But anyway, back to the Vaja case; I ordered the body in "friar brown" and the stripe down the middle in "nutria", as you can see in the attached photo. I had previously purchased the version for the first generation iPhone for my wife (in red and peach) and was completely sold on the quality of the craftmanship. I truly believe this is the best iPhone case currently out there.

So, I paid about $120 dollars, including shipping to Thailand (from Argentina) and now have to wait about 45 days for the case to be delivered. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don't see an iPhone purchase within that time frame anyway, so I am not really in a hurry. Nonetheless, I cannot wait to see the actual case and feel the leather in my hands. With or without the iPhone encased, it is a thing of beauty!

Highly recommended: www.vajacases.com!

Arrivaderci?

2008-07-11T11:36:00.002+07:00

In a time when we should be celebrating the arrival of a new, charismatic and very respected manager in Scolari, the events of the past week or so has really put a dampener on things. The topic currently on the minds of all Chelsea fans is simply this - will Frank Lampard stay or go to Internazionale.

If you asked me about a year ago, despite a pretty good idea that Jose Mourinho was headed there, I would not have given Internationale a chance of signing Frank. He is a Chelsea idol, a model professional, and has time and again professed his love for Chelsea and his intention to finish his career here.

There is no denying that Frank was very close to Jose, and that he was amongst a handful of Chelsea players who you could see were affected by the way in which the much loved, and maligned, Portugese manager was sent packing by Roman Abramovich. But you always felt that the close bond he had with the club, and with fellow Chelsea players, most notably John Terry, would be much stronger.

Now? I couldn't tell you what was going to happen. What I can tell you is that I am deeply saddened by the way things have deteriorated between the player and club, and by the way many fans have turned on the player and his reported greed. Numbers being bandied about in the various channels of the press are taken as gospel: Lampard wants 150,000 pounds a week for 5 years and won't budge on the request. Chelsea will only give hims 140,000 pounds a week for 4 years. I don't know who comes up with these numbers, but they are now the basis of fans saying that Frank is a greedy so and so for refusing to sign on the account of 10,000 pounds a week or an additional 12 months on his contract. For a player who already has one foot in the grave, at 30 years of age, and who is already a multi-millionaire, he should be ashamed of himself. This is the sort of tripe one has to put up with. "Fickle" is a word that comes to mind. Closely following "gullible".

It is a shame that it has come to this. Not only has Frank been a faithful servant, he is one of the model professionals in football today. He trains hard and he works harder in every match he plays. He has been top scorer for Chelsea in most of the last few seasons and hardly ever misses a game for us. On the few occasions he hasn't played, the team stutter along. I haven't even mentioned that, along with John Terry, Frank is the face of Chelsea. These attributes should mean that the club do EVERYTHING in their power to keep him. Even if he can't play, just having him around will be good for the atmosphere at Chelsea. Having him around in practice must also be good for the other players.

Now, having said all this, I have to give a balanced view and also talk about the alternative view. Maybe, just maybe, Frank has decided that this is a good time to move on. Maybe it has nothing to do with the contract on offer at all - this is all just a convenient excuse, for both club and player, for the break up. Maybe Frank just really wants to (a) try his hand in a new league, and (b) rejoin his previous manager who he greatly respects. Or it could be a combination of several factors. Maybe the contract, though a good one, is not good enough to signal to Frank his importance to the club. You have to remember that there are some really high earners on this roster, some (and I won't name names) who don't play as much, and who don't do nearly enough when they do get game time. Put yourself in Frank's shoes - you know you are the face of the club and adored by the fans. You know you work harder than anyone else both in training and on the pitch. You know you are instrumental to any success the club has garnered over the past few years. Yet, you are being paid less than some other players. How would you feel?

Greed? I'm not so sure it's about greed. It is more about the need to feel appreciated. In this case, Roman has brought this upon himself, and I feel it is a tad absurd to expect to make an example out of a model professional, one of the hearts of the current Chelsea playing set-up.

The bottom line is this - whatever the reasons, we're about to lose one of our best players ever, certainly our best midfielder ever, and it is gut wrenching for me as a supporter, not only to have to deal with this reality, but to also have to read all the mud-slinging in the press and on fan's forums. Respect and appreciation is the order of the day as far as I am concerned. Quite apart from losing an extremely important playing asset, we're about to see the back of a Chelsea legend. He has my respect and unrelenting adoration wherever he goes.

Arrivaderci, Frank!

Down to business

2008-07-08T22:21:00.003+07:00

Well, Scolari has taken his first training session with Chelsea players who were not involved in the Euros, which included the likes of John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge, Didier Drogba and Andrei Shevchenko. Everybody looks happy, including, importantly, Steve Clarke who has been kept on as assistant coach.

Felipe Scolari also held his first press conference in which he made two important points regarding player transfers: (1) Frank Lampard is staying, and (2) Didier Drogba is in his plans. He also said that he needs about 15-20 days with his current group of players to get to know them before he can tell if he needed more additions to the squad. I like what I'm hearing. Clearly his English is not bad, and he is methodical in the way he goes about things. I am hoping for a long and prosperous era under his stewardship!

The Good, the Bad, of the Beautiful...

2008-07-05T22:27:00.006+07:00

(Bullet points from the Trusted Reviews site, while commentary from me) The following is a summary of the Good and the Bad aspects of the iPhone 3G (as gathered from Steve Job's keynote speech). I agree heartily with some of the comments, not so much with others, while totally disagreeing with some of the points. But I think this is a very well put together, exhaustive list of features.

The Good

* 3G is here
Not really useful for all of us though; coverage not great in the States and non-existent in Thailand. But Apple really had to add this if it wanted to remain competitive with other phones p the market.

* GPS is onboard too
This has it's potential uses but no turn-by-turn directions is a bit disappointing; location-based services is exciting.

* Battery life hasn't suffered. It is up to 10 hours for 2G calls, five hours for 3G. Standby up to 300 hours, video playback up to seven hours and music playback 24 hours
Will have to see what the actual usage numbers will be but the ability to turn off 3G and automatically turn on GPS only when needed should help.

* 3.5in screen remains contrary to rumors of it being shrunk
I think, if anything, the screen should be a little larger, but as is, it is almost perfect. As a matter of fact, this is one of the strong selling points of the phone.

* A white edition (the back is white) - for those find this important
I always find the white version of Apple's products to be more Apple-like; but I am partial to the black. Many have said that the metal back of the first gen iphone is more attractive, and while my first impression was that as well, I am beginning to warm to the shiny black version of the iPhone 3G.

* Flush headphone jack - at long last
Not that big a thing for me as I don't have high-end earbuds.

* Weight is cut 2g (most likely by scrapping the metal back in favor of a plastic one)
I think light(er) is good.

* Price - it's cheaper: $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB black and white versions and Steve promises it won't cost more than $199 in any country
It won't help me at all in Thailand. I expect to be parting with something like $800 for my iPhone 3G.

The Bad

* It IS fatter 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3mm verses the original's 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
It is fatter in the center portion of the phone but thinner along the edges.

* The sleek metal back is now plastic. It may be less slippery to hold but what about durability and build quality?
All speculation at the moment. Although initially I felt the metal version was nicer, I have to say the shiny black version is also very attractive. My only worry are the scratches.

* GPS is rudimentary working from a top down view, no 3D mapping
Yes, disappointing, but hopefully this will improve with 3rd party software.

* Screen resolution remains unchanged at 480 x 320 when many rivals have adopted VGA
iPhone screen is gorgeous. Again, one of the main selling points.

* Incredibly Bluetooth A2DP is still left off so no wireless music enjoyment
This is disappointing, but fixable with a software update.

* Video recording unbelievably remains absent
Hmmm, yes; software fix?

* No front mounted video camera, no 3G video calling
I hardly see anyone use this feature in other phones.

* Camera unchanged at two megapixels and no mention of any upgrades (flash, autofocus, etc) this one is a huge let down.
Yes, VERY disappointing for a multimedia phone. Not only that but even the software has not been improved in this regard.

* 8GB and 16GB capacities remain, no 32GB edition for now
For now, this should be okay. With increasing 3rd party software and a potential increase in storing of documents on the phone, increased capacities will be welcome.

* No announcement of Flash for the web browser
Software fix in the future when Steve Jobs is convinced the performance is passable.

For better or for worse...

2008-07-05T11:17:00.004+07:00

Well, for better or for worse, I am ready for the 3G iPhone. I've sold both my Treo 680 and jailbroken iPod Touch and am just waiting for the 3G iPhone to become available in Thailand, officially or not. I hear the two major operators in the country, AIS and DTAC, are still trying to negotiate a deal with Apple but are not having much success. This is getting all too frustrating for me, and so I am not going to wait. If it becomes available at the usual channels where it first has to be unlocked, that's where I'll go to get it. It's not like I want to pay 3-4 times the cost of the phone! Vaja also just announced yesterday their new line of leather cases for the iPhone 3G - again, expensive but well worth it. Hop on over to www.vajacases.com !

Deco quickly follows...

2008-07-05T11:09:00.003+07:00

Well, Chelsea didn't waste any time in bringing Deco in after having announced Scolari as new manager a matter of days earlier. He's going to be another quality addition to an already all-star midfield at the club. But rumors linking Makalele to PSG and Lampard to Inter will simply not go away. So, I guess we'll have to wait to see what our final midfield line-up for the new season will be.

As for additional comings-in, we're currently rumored to be after Andrei Ashavin, the Russian #10, as well as Robinho from Real Madrid and Samuel Eto'o from Barcelona. And goings-out? Apart from Makalele and Lampard, SWP is being linked with Portsmouth, Carvalho with Inter, Sidwell with Aston Villa, Drogba with Madrid as part of the Robinho deal and Malouda with Barcelona as part of the Eto'o deal. Stay tuned!

One down, plenty to go...

2008-06-13T18:54:00.001+07:00

Chelsea made an announcement on their website yesterday that Luis Felipe Scolari, or Big Phil as they call him, will take over the reigns as Chelsea manager on July 1st after the European Championships that conclude on June 29th.

This would seem to end all the speculation about who will become Chelsea boss, and allow us to move on to other important issues, such as now defending our selection. I think most hacks are pleased that we've brought the controversial manager to English shores. The EPL lost a bit of its excitement when Jose Mourinho left, but that excitement is about to be injected back into the league through a man no less brash and confident. Let's just hope he doesn't knock Sir Alex on his backside, as entertaining as that may be. For if my memory serves me correctly, one of the reasons we dispensed with Jose's services is that his constant challenging of authority was putting a strain on our PR department.

But let's look to the positive side of this appointment: in his most recent appointments as manager of the Brazilian and Portuguese national teams, he has overlooked the development of two entertaining footballing sides. True, you could point a finger to the multitude of skillful players playing for those sides, but with the backing of Roman in the transfer market, you'd think Big Phil would be able to bring in a few players of that calibre to inject entertainment into our build-up play.

But the first issue at hand will be this: let's make sure the backbone of our squad remains at Chelsea. We already know that Didier Drogba is on his way out (my understanding is that he has already just about agreed terms with AC Milan and that all there is left is for us to agree on a transfer fee). I think matters might be complicated here by the fact AC Milan also want Shevchenko and that Chelsea want Kaka. The first priority for me though has to be getting Frank Lampard to sign a new deal. Then, convincing Carvalho to stay with us rather than join Jose at Inter Milan will be the next big task. I believe that has to be done as priority.

Then we can think about additions to the squad. The acquisition of Bosingwa now makes much more sense, with the announcement of Scolari as manager. Bosingwa is also the preferred right back for the Portuguese national side and by all accounts is having a good tournament so far. A striker to replace the departing Drogba will be important, although like-fo-like it won't have to be. We already have Nicolas Anelka and one of the most coveted strikers available this summer is likely to be David Villa of Valencia, whose performances for Spain in the Euros is quickly adding to his market value. Our interest in other strikers such as Jan Huntelaar of Ajax will likely depend on Big Phil's confidence in Anelka as first choice target man, or in Pizarro and Shevchenko as squad players. But despite a striker being high on the list, I think the most excitement may be had in the attacking midfielder/ wide midfielder berth. Apart from the number one target which would seem to be Kaka, we also know the likes of Ronaldinho and Quaresma are going to be available.

Having said all this, one rumor that persists is that Deco may be coming to Chelsea as well, although this is a little puzzling, keeping in mind our plethora of options in midfield, particularly if Lampard stays as I hope he does.

Whatever happens, this is turning out to be one heck of a summer for Chelsea yet again. Hold on to your hats...

The "Next" One...

2008-06-10T18:12:00.003+07:00

It never ceases to amaze me the apparent circus following Chelsea be it during the season or in the off-season. Chelsea fans will know what I am referring to when I say this, and of course it is our hunt for a new manager now that Avram Grant has been sacked for finishing runners-up in 3 competitions last season - the Premier League, the League Cup and most importantly for Roman Abramovich, the Champions League.

Everyone and their dog has been linked with, and denied being interested in, the vacant position. Publicly, Chelsea are supposedly happy with the way things are progressing. Something has to give. Either all the rumors are simply speculation without an ounce of truth, or the Chelsea management are indeed getting worried at all the people turning us down. My personal take is that although I feel our club could do a bit more to improve our "image" in the press, the management team are no mugs. Although the likes of promising young managers such as Frank Rijkaard (formerly of Barcelona), Roberto Mancini (formerly of Inter Milan) and Mark Hughes (formerly of Blackburn, now of Man City) are/were available, our attentions are supposedly elsewhere. Our number one choice would seem to be Carlo Ancellotti (crucially still of Milan), but with the public announcements of club and manager himself that he is not interested and will remain at Milan, we must have moved on eons ago.

Again, my personal take is that if we were at all interested in Rijkaard or Mancini, a deal would have been struck swiftly. Regardless of whether Rijkaard needed a break or Mancini was depressed and consumed with his messy separation from Inter Milan, I am certain either would have had the time and the inclination to jet into London and sign on the dotted line as soon as possible. Jobs like these don't present themselves all too readily and they must know this. No, I believe we are not interested in those two. I believe we're after one of 2 managers currently leading their teams in the Euro championships in Switzerland and Austria - Guus Hiddink and Felipe Scolari (pictured). And with the public and very clear refusals from the camp of the former, I have to believe that it is the thorny Brazilian, currently in charge of the Portuguese national team, who will be leading Chelsea on our quest for all and sundry next season.

It just so happens, I also believe Portugal have the potential to get very far into the Euro tournament, semi-finals at least, so I guess we will have to wait and see for quite a while longer yet. It is just a bit disconcerting that while we remain managerless, other clubs are looking to sign our unsettled players, while we also probably will miss out on one or two other players looking to secure their futures quickly before they jet out for their holidays.

Didier Drogba is already supposedly in talks with Milan about a possible transfer, although this one is as good as a goner regardless of whether or not we had a manager. Frank Lampard is the key one for me, for not only is he an important player (top scorer for most of our last few seasons, and this from a midfield position), but also one of the key personalities at the club, along with John Terry. We simply cannot allow him to leave. As for possible comings-in, I hope Ronaldinho doesn't decide on a destination before we are in the position to make him an offer backed by our new manager. He is probably going to be the biggest signing of the season for someone. I am also holding out hope of a double-Dutch signing of Van der Vaart (Hamburg) and Huntelaar (Ajax). I think they would be terrific signings for us.

So, while I would like the manager situation settled quickly, if not immediately, my guess is it will be the end of the month before we know who it will be.

3G iPhone

2008-06-10T17:56:00.002+07:00

I can't believe it's been a year already since Apple released the first iteration if the iPhone. I still remember the excitement I felt, along with some reservation as to its ability to fulfill all my PDA needs. One year along and I've finally purchased an iPhone, only not for myself but for my wife who just adores it. My needs are a little more complex, what with creating and editing office documents.

The second iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 3G was released late last night (Thai time) and I stayed up to catch the Engadget Live Blog. Once again, I am completely smitten with an Apple product. The 3 biggest pluses for this model are (a) cheaper price - $199 for an 8 GB model and $299 for a 16 GB model, as opposed to $400-600 for the previous model at launch; (b) GPS built in, and (c) AppStore - I am hopeful that someone will come up with an Office Suite of sorts although firmware version 2.0 that will be released at the same time as the iPhone 3G - July 11 - will support viewing more file types as e-mail attachments. What about 3G you say? Sure, when that becomes widely available in Thailand I will be ecstatic. But for now Edge is as good as it gets.

Unfortunately for us in the land of Siam, the iPhone will not be available for some time yet. We are not on the list of 70, much less the first list of 22, countries where it will become available on July 11th. As such, I have no idea when I will get my hands on one. We used to get around this by relying on people going to buy iPhones in the US and bringing them back to unlock (at quite a premium too - $700 a pop) but as far as I understand, these new iPhones will have to be activated "in store" at time of purchase. So, this iPhone looks like it's going to be merely a dream for a while (sigh)...

Plantronics Bluetooth

2008-05-10T14:08:00.003+07:00

Well, I did go out to the local IT mall to look for a Treo headset but those are certainly hard to come by. When I did finally find one, it was over-priced and carried a 3-month warranty! So, I had to pass, unfortunately. I spent another hour or so looking over the alternatives and decided on the Plantronics 220 headset (pictured). It's currently charging so I'll need to use it a bit more before I can give a reasonably accurate review of how it works with my Treo. I'll be leaving it in the car so my wife may also be using it with her iPhone, so I may be able to tell you how it works with that as well.

First impressions: reasonably priced, light-weight, and voice quality (person on the other end) is quite good with volume being controllable from the phone itself (so don't have to fumble with the smallish buttons on the headset). The first thing my wife said when she picked up the call on the other end was that there was a lot of echo, but then I was at the mall with a lot of things going on around me so I'll have to investigate that further. The other main option I was mulling over was the iTech Clip, which clips on your shirt and has a earphone-like dongle that goes in one ear. However, I decided on the Plantronics mainly because of the name behind the product.

320d

2008-05-09T16:01:00.004+07:00

If everything goes according to plan, this could be the steering wheel of my next car. It is still a long-ish term plan though, as it will still be about another year before I can seriously contemplate serious discussions at the dealer. However, what was a pipe-dream now seems a possibility, so I can't ask for more at this junction. We're currently getting a garage installed at the house, mainly to protect the children during the rainy season which is upon us in Bangkok, but I also like to think it will offer good protection for...

I've visited the dealers' a few times already just to look around, and I actually received a phone call today inviting me to go to a BMW test driving retreat which sounds like fun. That is coming up at the end of the month, so I'll have to see if I can fit that into my calendar but if I can make it, surely a few photos of what should be an exciting day would provide a good update for the blog!

Bluetooth

2008-05-09T15:30:00.002+07:00

Has it really been 5 months since I last updated my blog? I just can't believe it.

Anyway, a lot has happened in that time. First, Chelsea has gone from strength to strength, much to my surprise and delight. Although we lost in the Carling Cup final to our local rivals Spurs (ouch) and got knocked out of the FA Cup by the mighty Barnsley (double-ouch), we're now pushing Manchester United right down to the wire in the English Premier League and have booked a final date for the Champions League with Manchester United (again) in the first all-English final, to be held in Roman Abramovich's backyard in Moscow! We may still end up with nothing, meaning that Man Utd would win the big double (triple-ouch), but let's keep optimistic and hope we win one of the two.

Second, the local Thai regulations with regards to traffic is now stating that drivers shall not use mobile phones while on the road; a sensible law of course, but which also means the sales of bluetooth hands-free sets are going through the roof. For the past couple of months, I had been contemplating a new car purchase and was happily looking at built-in bluetooth receivers in most of the models I'd seen. Having to shell out the money for a bluetooth headset now seems a bit of a waste, but what must be done must be done.

The headset I've been contemplating the last day or so (traffic police begun warning drivers yesterday and will begin dishing out penalties and suspensions on the 20th of this month) is the Treo bluetooth headset (pictured) to go with my Treo 680 phone. I'll let you know how it works over the next few weeks.

My Customized "SummerBoard"...

2007-11-21T17:29:00.001+07:00

Just a quick post to show you my customized iPod Touch "SummerBoard", or "SpringBoard" launcher for those who have not yet hacked their iPods/iPhones.

Better than expected...

2007-11-21T16:37:00.001+07:00

As club football takes a back-seat to international football, and the disappointing and undeserving defeat and elimination of a plucky Scotland side who probably deserve to be at the European Championships more than England do yet look to be outdone once again by their neighbors to the south, I am left to reflect on what I have to admit has been an impressive sequence of results for Chelsea, considering the upheaval of Jose Mourinho's departure. I don't think any Chelsea fan can claim to have believed we would be where we are, still within striking distance of the impressive league leaders and with one foot in the second round of the Champions League. I think we would have bitten your hand off if you had offered us this at the time Jose left the club by mutual agreement.

So, what have I thought about our performances? I have to say I'm still on the fence on this one. We "seem" like we're more positive and we try to move the ball more quickly. However, we are not really any more effective at breaking teams down than we were under Jose. We just seem to continue to go for goals even when we may not need to. This may seem like the thing to do in the name of entertainment, but as was learnt against Everton the hard way, there are times to go for it and there are times to sit on your lead and close out the game. What started out as a positive approach quickly broke down into naivety. I guess we will just have to learn.

But as I said previously, fourth place in the table and within five points of a high-flying Arsenal side cannot be sniffed at. And we can only get better. The players still look to be suffering from the upheaval. Didier Drogba and Michael Essien, in particular, look unsettled; Drogba as judged through his non-stop destabilizing comments to the press, and Essien through his well-below-par performances. Injuries to key players have also pegged us back. First, it was Lampard. Now Ashley, JT, Cech and Carvalho are out - all key members of our lock-tight defense. At least Lampard is back firing on all cylinders. I really hope we are able to keep him beyond this season.

Michael Ballack is a long-term injury for us, and he has yet to show his true worth to Chelsea fans. I believe his return would be a very welcome one. Joe Cole, despite the "shackles being removed", seems to be playing less effectively than under Jose, which is difficult to understand. I do hope it's just a case of readjusting to a new system, even if it is one that should be suiting him to a T. Malouda, after a bright start, has not been impressing me at all, either with his form or his application. To be honest, he has been a major disappointment. I won't even mention Shevchenko or Pizarro. The striker issue is one that concerns me most about Drogba's impending departure to feature for the Ivory Coast in the African Cup of Nations. I don't see where we are going to be getting goals from, apart from Lampard, and Shevchenko and Pizarro's lack of games is not going to make it any easier for them when they have to step in for the month or so Didier is gone.

But what I really want to say is that we do have a special group of players at Chelsea. Players such as Frank and JT don't need anymore said about them. They are crucial to our club's immediate future. But also players such as Petr Cech, Ricardo Carvalho, Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Claude Makalele, Joe Cole, and particularly Didier Drogba deserve a lot of credit for not allowing us to cave in and write-off the season. We may still end up with nothing this season, but the players have shown us that losing Jose was not the end of the world that we all feared. As long as the players continue to show this commitment and emotional strength and togetherness, I am certain we will pull out of this set-back just fine.

We can re-evaluate at the end of the season. As I said, I am not convinced either way about Avram Grant. He has surprised me a little by guiding us to fourth, as I have said, and even if it is debatable as to how much is down to him and how much to the players, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I also have my doubts about the chemistry of him and the likes of Ten Cate and Clarke, and I don't know how that is shaping up, but I am certainly more willing now to give them time than I was when Jose left and the world was crumbling. Avram deserves his chance; however, he should not expect more of a chance than his predecessor. There are some very attractive alternatives out there so he does need to impress us. I especially will be looking forward to seeing him match his wits against some of the finer managers world football has to offer, for that is where Jose excelled, and that is where I have my biggest doubts about Avram. The match against Man Utd came too soon to really say anything about that match-up, but the up-coming match-ups with Benitez, Wenger and Ferguson, not to mention other top managers in Europe, should really be where he is evaluated as Chelsea manager. We'll see.

A Touch of Fun...

2007-11-19T19:57:00.000+07:00

After debating about what to do, I finally did it; bit the bullet and bought an iPod Touch.

I was very interested indeed in the iPhone. However, with it not slated for official release in Asia until next year, the only iteration I would be able to get is something "unlocked" at one of the local IT malls. I'm not one to be shy of this sort of "hacking" business, as I will talk about a little later, but hacking the iPhone isn't just any old hack. Getting it to work with the local mobile operators is a little tricky, and last I checked, it simply does not do everything well, e.g. SMS. On top of that, the one major feature I find most attractive about the iPhone, which is the ability to significantly upgrade its usability through software updates, is just about compromised by doing something Apple isn't happy about and thereby voiding the warranty. I just feel that is a tad too much risk to bear.

At the same time, I just couldn't wait to experience Apple's new mobile OS and the multi-touch interface. I figured I could do this just as well on the iPod. By all accounts, and I have checked around before making the final decision, I could also get into hacking the iPod for third party applications without having to worry too much about losing out on future updates as restoring is a straight forward process. I figure that Apple will be much more forceful in their resistance to iPhone hacks, and I feel rightly so, as they have to protect their financial interests with all the mobile operators they have struck deals with. But with the iPod, I don't think Apple will be as resistant to the idea that end users want variety.

Ultimately, I believe I will be able to live with what Apple will be able to provide sometime next year once the SDK is released and quality third party apps for the iPod become available. At that time, I would gladly restore the iPod and "go with the program". But for now, I am happy to "have the choice".

Yes, I am the proud owner of a three-week old "hacked" iPod Touch. I just feel that it has the potential to be a very useful mobile device, much more than just the music player Apple expects us to think of it as. I was very disappointed that the e-mail client, in particular, was removed from the iPod (as compared to the iPhone) and that the Calendar could not be updated manually on the iPod (which has since been remedied in the recently released 1.1.2 update). So, really my main objective for hacking the iPod was to add these two features. Everything else was pretty much just extra - just wanted to try it out and see what all the fuss was about. To be honest, I hardly use any of the other software, just the music player, the e-mail client, mobile safari and to a lesser extent the calendar. And I am as happy as can be with this added functionality that the iPod did not have right out of the box. If Apple would give me this functionality in future updates, I would "get with the program" right away.

How are things going? Well, to be honest, I studied the steps required for a long time before I actually "hacked" the iPod. The iPod Touch Fans Forum was visited almost on a daily basis until I felt comfortable that I could do this without problems. So, when I finally began the process, it went by without any problems and I was able to get the Installer.app working, SSH'ing into the iPod to transfer applications and settings, and finally going through all the customizations such as icon arrangement and icon customization. The theme I am currently using is a Leopard theme - just showing my mac colors :)

I truly believe this is the best iPod ever. I've had the first generation Shuffle and first generation Nano before this, and though they both worked well, I don't think I ever quite had as much fun using them as I do my iPod Touch. The large glass screen, video capabilities, and in particular the Multi-Touch user interface just add "touch" to my music. Browsing my collection by cover art in CoverFlow mode is both intuitive and a pleasure. I never thought I could enjoy my music visually as well but I certainly do.

And as an aside, being able to experience this cool user interface has allowed me more patience as I await the iPhone. I was tempted on many an occasion but I always was somehow able to see some sense and opt out, even if I always somehow harbored some disappointment. Now, I'm not in a rush anymore and I know I will be happier in the long run. Somehow, I think Apple had planned this. It would be just like them to have done so...

Avram Grant's Chelsea

2007-10-06T12:45:00.000+07:00

You know how they say that a person deals with a loss in stages? Anger, depression, sadness and acceptance (or something like that)? I think it is going to take me a while to get over the parting of ways between Chelsea Football Club and Jose Mourinho. He literally did take the English Premiership, and Chelsea, by storm. He integrated himself right into the fabric of the club and stamped a brand of football, style and mentality, into everything Chelsea did. As such, Chelsea without Jose is going to need time to readjust.

Avram Grant has the unenviable task of the "follow-up gig". Nobody wants to go on stage right after the best show in town. There's too much pressure and too many comparisons will be made. Plus, the audience never wanted to see the best show leave the stage! As such, they will harbor some resentment towards you.

I want to go on record as saying that although I don't want Grant as our manager, it is not as much about the man himself as it is about my personal belief that the odds are stacked too much against him and we don't have the time for trial and error at this delicate stage (of the season and of our club's history).

I think most Chelsea fans, or football fans in general, will understand what I mean about the delicate stage in the season so I won't really go into that. Suffice it to say, the EPL champions of the past three seasons have all has good starts and led from the fore. We are already behind as it is. We need to steady ship as soon as possible.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about my thoughts on Chelsea Football Club's chance of history and my personal ambitions for the club. Don't let anyone kid you, we are not a club with the same footing as a Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, AC Milan or even Liverpool. Yes, on the pitch we can compete depending on the money we plough into the team, but long-term we don't have the same base of supporters to really compete; yet.

I had high hopes when Roman came in, after the initial questions ran into my mind about whether or not we could trust him, etc... But those were not really footballing issues, just ones that could affect the club. But after seeing his obvious commitment, I did begin to see the chance of a good future with him. Clearly, I am happy that we've taken to branding the club through Peter Kenyon's expertise, as well as re-building our youth system, crucial for our long-term future and viability. These things are important, but I think one of the most important things is on-the-pitch success.

I have a lot of old-school Chelsea friends and I love them to death. I really do. But, what happens when the current generation of Chelsea fans die out? Who will be following us? We need more new fans. I understand some old-school fans' dislike for "johnny-come-lately's" or "wagon-hoppers" but I think those are unfair tags for new fans. We need to expand our fan base. You look at all the "big" clubs; they have massive stadia. We're talking upwards of 50 or 60,000 fans for every match. I cannot honestly say that we could fill such a stadium at the moment. I love Stamford Bridge too, but I think if we realistically want to compete long-term with these "big" clubs we will ultimately have to move into a 60-000+ seater "Samsung Arena" or something like that. I think it is inevitable. We've been making fun of Arsenal and the fact they've had to scrimp and save since they've moved into their new Emirates Stadium, but in the course of about a year, they are already making a lot more money and their long-term future is secured. I don't want to give them any credit but I feel I have no choice (Chelsea old-school fans can insert here a comment about me buggering off and supporting Arsenal if I so like what they're doing - but that is not an option for me).

And how do we expand our fan base? Success, pure and simple. Some people would argue pretty football, but I don't buy it. You have to do the basics first and then you can think about the aesthetics. Sometimes Jose Mourinho's Chelsea bored the heck out of me. but you have to admit that teams like Arsenal and Barcelona, pretty as they were to watch, did not enjoy playing us at all. And how can you argue with a 3-year unbeaten home record? That doesn't come from playing pretty football. Pretty football results in big wins interspersed with frustrating losses. I believe we needed to stick with Jose for at least 5 years and probably more like ten years to rack up the culture of sustained success that would win new fans and keep them coming. Only after we accomplish that first phase can we think about tinkering and "improving". What Roman is doing now with demanding "pretty" football is amounting to the Real Madrid/Barcelona approach but without the "winning history" that is keeping them going. Compared to them, we're still flash in the pan; slightly better than Blackburn but not much so. I'm truly disappointed we've thrown a really promising opportunity of really building an era down the drain. How many Jose Mourinho's do you think there are now? People were against us because we were successful and challenging the established powers. I think a lot of people have tried to undermine us, and disappointingly, they have succeeded.

In a way, I think Jose's immediate success has given Roman the false idea that money CAN buy success. I have this feeling that he now feels it is he more than anybody else that is important, and he has the right to expect whatever he wants as long as he ploughs in the money. If that is the case, he is wrong. At this juncture, I wish it were I that were wrong, and I continue to hope I'm proven so. How many clubs of our stature pre-Roman could dream about not just competing with the big clubs on the pitch on a per-game basis, but also competing with them off it. This is a one-off chance and we really need to grab the opportunity to establish this club while we have this level of financial clout. But money only goes so far and so the financial side and the footballing side really need to be kept separate and run by experts in the respective fields.

But what's done is done. My concern is how do we limit the damage already done, and how do we rectify this as quickly as possible. We seem to be keen on bringing in coaching staff to replace that which we've lost, and that will come in and support Grant in his role as manager. I've already said I have my reservations about Avram, although I cannot of course say he won't be successful if given the time. My feeling is that he won't be given the time and all this will just be a waste of time. If we're looking for a long-term replacement, I feel we need to move now. Despite arguments that this season is not yet lost, I think we're bordering on needing a miracle to win any of the big competitions. Maybe a good cup run is still a possibility. Maybe we'll put all our remaining resources into the competition that the players will most easily be inspired to win, not for the manager or club, but for themselves, as it is the remaining competition they haven't won together as a group - the Champions League.

The 2-1 win at the Mestalla was hailed by all and sundry as the turn-around game. I didn't think we played all that great, and Valencia will adjudge themselves unlucky to lose that. But our players did show that there is still something left in the tank and that the right kind of inspiration can help bring it out of them. The return of Carvalho and Drogba of course also played a big part in making us look more solid and dangerous, but it would be a bit of a concern to think we've turned the corner. I don't think we have, and again I hope I'm proven wrong. I have gone on record as saying that while we're still in transition, there will be games where our players individual form will help us produce some impressive results, of which the Valencia result was one, but we will also have some frustrating results as well. It is going to be a ding-dong season until our dressing room becomes harmonized once again. Players are human beings. They have feelings. Sure, they're being paid top dollar and you expect them to be professional but you can't expect them to feel nothing. I am sure the players are trying to stick together as a unit and get back to producing the results. Maybe the manager will win them over more quickly than expected. Maybe we'll surprise everyone.

I'm already seeing a lot of articles with this smug tone of voice from opposing fans, mainly Liverpool ones, who are writing us off with glee. They know we were one of their main challenges to overcome on the way to their main target of the EPL trophy (as well as everything else). Their relatively good start also has them walking on air. Well, I simply don't have the energy to argue at the moment, nor do I have reason as yet because we need to take care of our own business before we can really stand up and seriously argue our chances. But I'd love for this to be a possibility. And I'd love for us to do the right thing and appoint for the long term future - some like, dare I say it, Jose Mourinho.

Bye-bye, Jose...

2007-10-01T20:31:00.000+07:00

Gone...and with him goes our chances of any silverware this season; that is how I see it.

It is unbelievable how much change a few weeks can bring. We started off brightly, likely going on another adventure that was to bring with it much joy and silverware; at least that is the confidence Jose inspires in his followers. Now? We're the laughing stock of European football. We've once again gone and shot ourselves in the foot. And we've looked pathetic doing it too.

I don't like being like this. Jose had beat this in-bred Chelsea negativity out of me in the three seasons he was here. And in one fell swoop, Roman has given it back to me. Surely, things will improve, but while the club insist Avram Grant is the long-term successor to Jose, I cannot for the life of me see it. I hope they're having a laugh, even at my expense. I'd rather that than them being serious.

It is bad enough when your immediate prospects are swept out the door. I don't want all this to be for naught. We need to build now for the immediate future. The squad we have is experienced, and the players are winners. They are not going to be mucked about. Players such as Lampard, Drogba and Makalele are not going to want to see their remaining "top" years wasted. Grant is simply not going to be given the time to win them over. We need a "winner" of a coach, a proven one, to come in and win over the dressing room instantly. Otherwise? Forget it.

Our recent matches have been memorable for lacking direction. All our key players are feeling they need to step up, but our play is indisciplined as everyone is playing a desperate style of football.

I sincerely hope we turn this around pronto. This is simply not good enough by recent standards. I've supported this club for 20 years, so believe me, I've seen my fair share of disappointments. But this is different. This is totally unexpected, and I firmly believe, unnecessary. This is what happens when the owner meddles too much.

The most disappointing aspect to all this is that we proudly defended accusations of the club being Roman's play things over the past three years. Of course, we all believed that our management would not be so stupid as to allow anything like that to happen. We were building for the future and we were going to rise up against all the condemnations and surprise everyone. Well, if anyone is surprised it is yours truly. Maybe I shouldn't be but I am.

The New iMac - Simply Irresistible

2007-08-19T15:58:00.001+07:00

About two posts back, I spoke about how I've managed to wrestle back my senses and decided to stick with my Treo, even after the iPhone becomes available in Asia sometime early next year. On the other hand, Apple have released an update to their iMac line of computers which is looking irresistible!

I haven't purchased a desktop computer for close to 10 years now, my last being a Dell Dimension Pentium 2 box. I switched over to the Mac about 5 years ago now, and have been using my Powerbook exclusively. My 12-inch machine is however getting a bit long in the tooth and I have been contemplating purchasing a new system for home use for a while. Again, I have been resisting but with this new update I think I'm going to have a really tough time holding the fort so to speak.

From the first time I saw the "white hanging frames" of the previous iMac line, I felt very tempted. Indeed, I was able to convince my dad to purchase a system for his own personal use (the amount of times I was having to reinstall Windows on his previous box was getting a bit unreal), but I also felt in my heart of hearts that Apple would one day release an aluminum clad incarnation of the line, and that was something I loved about my Powerbook as opposed to the iBooks (or MacBooks as they are now known).

I've finally seen them in person at the local Apple store, but have not had a chance to play with their keyboards (the 4 machines available had all been snapped up and so they weren't turned on and available for customers to interact with). But I think I'll wait until Leopard is pre-installed on these boxes before I finally purchase one of these beauties (should be in about 2 months or so). To be honest, I can't wait!

Good start

2007-08-19T15:48:00.001+07:00

Chelsea have not had the easiest run of fixtures to the beginning of their 2007-2008 campaign by any stretch of the imagination.

Many would argue that Birmingham City at home is a walk in the park; however, I'd have to counter that argument by saying that the first game of the season begins with all clubs on even ground. The newly promoted sides are more likely to spring surprises when they are still feeling fresh and while their league positions have not got them depressed. Reading away and then Liverpool away is about the toughest away run of consecutive games as there is available in the EPL.

Against the Brummies at home, Chelsea played relatively well, but paid dearly for two lapses of concentration in defense, Birmingham able to take advantage both times to score goals. Yet, despite the scoreline, a hard fought 3-2 win for Chelsea, we were much better and could easily have won 5 or 6-2.

Against Reading, Chelsea had an awfully bad start, with Reading deserving their one goal lead at the half. However, the second half was a different story, particularly the first 15 or so minutes as Chelsea seized the lead while Reading froze in the headlights. It was a bold move by Jose Mourinho to take off defenders and bring on extra attackers but it eventually paid dividends. The key, though, was the form of Shawn Wright-Phillips at right back. He more than most has been in top form for Chelsea in the early season and long may it continue.

On to the next game, one that Chelsea has always had problems with. In the last 40-something games in the EPL, Chelsea have only lost two and both of them have come at Anfield. I think that sums up the extent of our problems there. So, this is going to be one of the season's most challenging games and quite frankly I'd be happy enough with a draw, although many fellow Chelsea fans believe the time is ripe for an away win over there.

We'll see. But I am confident that or players will be up for this, not only because of the opposition but also because our goal is to regain our league title, and to do that we know we need a very good start. Bring it on!

'Allo 'allo

2007-08-19T15:24:00.000+07:00

The amount of iPhone-related news appearing on the web since it became available is staggering. Whatever you may think about the phone, Apple has certainly done something right. I find myself wanting the phone and I don't even need it. As a matter of fact, were it available in Asia at this time, I think I would have succumbed. However, I have to say that now that I have wrestled back my senses, I have come to the conclusion that, for the time being, my Treo simply does everything I want it to. I see no reason to change, yet, particularly since there are many things the iPhone could not do for me, yet.

I wanted to introduce two new pieces of software that I have recently purchased for my Treo. One is BugMe+ Notepad and the other is Resco Explorer 2007. The first gives me the ability to jot notes in my own handwriting in times when typing on the keyboard simply isn't quick enough, but that's not all it does. It comes with a complimentary application for screen grabs, and also allows writing on top of image files, screen grabs or photos captured through the camera. It also allows you to set alarms for each resultant saved image file - well worth the cost.

The second application I have been meaning to purchase for a while, and had been using FileZ until I finally did not so long ago. With Hi-launcher and Resco Explorer, I am now very comfortable with the way I access files/applications and move them around on my phone. I get the best of both worlds - the familiarity of Windows (kind of) and the snappy performance and simplicity of the PalmOS. I recommend these applications heartily.

Back again...

2007-06-26T12:46:00.000+07:00

After another lengthy hiatus to lick my wounds, so to speak. Chelsea ended the season on a bit of a disappointment at losing out in the two competitions that were the priorities. The FA Cup trophy, the first at the new Wembley, was fantastic of course, and went some ways to atoning for the disappointments in the League and the Champions League, but next season we all know where we will be trying hardest. The additions of Pizarro, Sidwell and Ben Haim will make the squad stronger and allow us to rest players from time to time, but I feel we are maybe one big signing away from really pushing forth and improving the first team squad. My main concern is with the fitness of Arjen Robben. Without doubt, he is one of our most potent attacking weapons and when we don't have him we really too heavily on Drogba. Alexandre Pato, the young Brazilian wiz kid would be a nice addition but I fancy Malouda as being able to come in and do the biz right away.

On to technology and the end of this week is a day that has been waited for by millions (19 million is the reported number) who have wanted to finally lay their hands on an iPhone. Since the beginning of the year when the Apple's newest gadget was announced, there have been rumors and counter rumors as to what features the phone would actually have and what it could actually do. The nay sayers have been attacking it for anything from the virtual keyboard to lack of 3G while the fan boys, of which I guess I could be included, have countered with intuitive user interface and "real" web browser.

Actually, although I own a Treo and love it for its capabilities, particularly the ability to work on documents (Word, Excel) where ever I may be, and although I am a little concerned about not being able to do so on an iPhone (although it will supposedly be able to read/display these documents), I have to say that web browser is so under-rated. I think Apple deserves kudos for what they are trying to do. Have you ever browsed the web on a cell phone/PDA? It is just about bearable when you have no alternative, but really being able to access ALL websites (just about) from your mobile device will be way cool. I don't think people have been able to get over all the "glaring defects" long enough to think about this one feature.

Unfortunately for me, I don't need an iPhone as my Treo works just the way I need it to. But I think maybe my wife might want a new phone some time soon - if only I can just convince her!

Moblog - And then there was two (just about)

2007-05-02T10:38:00.001+07:00

Unlike the upbeat nature of my post entitled 'And then there was three...' where Chelsea fans must have got quite excited at the prospect of reducing Man Utd's lead at the top to a mere three points, this post is reflecting on a rather disappointing turn of events over the past four days. Having been in the hunt for silverware on all four fronts, and secured one already in the form of the Carling Cup, Chelsea have now proceeded to stop short in one competition (Champions League semi-final defeat to Liverpool) after conceding more ground to Man Utd in the league with our disappointing home draw against Bolton at the weekend. That makes Chelsea's best other chance for silverware the FA Cup, where we will contest the final at the new Wembley stadium with Man Utd.

Chelsea have put in some tired performances of late. The first leg win over Liverpool in the Champions League, a distant memory now, was one of the few exceptions. The draws against Newcastle and Bolton in the league, when really the incentive of catching Man Utd should have provided the shot in the arm that pushed us forward, was borne of tired legs and tired minds. The draw against Bolton could also partly be explained by our attentions being somewhere else.

Which brings me to the game against Liverpool last night. I knew it was going to be a tough game, and although Liverpool did try to play direct as expected, Chelsea coped admirably. What did us over was a lapse of concentration at a set piece, maybe partially due to the fact we were highly tuned towards Liverpool's aerial threats and less so by the personnel they had lined up just outside the penalty box. Kudos to Liverpool - they executed the free kick to perfection, Gerrard rolling a ball across the edge of the penalty area and Agger connecting with a sweet left footer that curled inside Cech's near post. The timing of the goal, relatively early in the first half, also meant that Liverpool could play a more controlled game rather than chasing it.

Having said that, Liverpool were the much more threatening throughout. The first half possession was about 65:35% for the home side and that was a telling statistic. Chelsea almost always will beat their opponents on possession. There are very few teams that will beat the Blues in that department. Yet, and this was due in part to Chelsea's tactics, Liverpool really dominated the match and could have won in regular time, or even extra time.

I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed that we've been knocked out of the Champions League at the semi-finals stage for the second time in three seasons, and again by Liverpool, but I am more disappointed by the way we approached this game. I understand that we needed to protect our 'soft underbelly' in the center back department from Liverpool's aerial ability, but I also felt that we lacked enough attacking commitment to chase that goal that would have killed the tie. Didier Drogba, Solomon Kalou and Joe Cole really were isolated from the rest of the team, and even amongst themselves could not get anything going.

I felt that for large parts of the game, we were just hanging in there. I didn't see what we were trying to do. And I definitely dreaded the penalty kicks, not because I didn't have faith in Petr Cech, but because I knew that the atmosphere at Anfield would have an effect. What I also knew was that the positive mind frame the Liverpool players were in for the majority of the game would give them the edge over a rather negative Chelsea. Add that to the penalty takers who lined up for Chelsea and I knew as soon as the 120 minutes were up that we were in trouble. Arjen Robben hasn't had a competitive game in ages. Geremi also has had very limited competitive matches under his belt. It was going to be a big ask for them to get into that killer mentality required for taking spot kicks in such a big game and under such intimidating conditions. I know I have the benefit of hindsight, but I would have put my three club leaders in the first three penalty slots just to give us the best platform for success, those three being Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and John Terry. The way I see it, it isn't the big players that win you penalty shoot-outs, it is the lesser ones. The first three kicks are always 'defensive' kicks because you don't want to fall behind. You can't win with the first three kicks but you can just about lose if you miss one or two. The 4th and 5th kicks, depending on how the first three go, can and often are more offensive kicks - that is, there is the possibility of being able to take them to 'stick the knife in', if you will. I think 'lesser' players, and I say this with the utmost respect, will be in a more positive mindset to take these sort of kicks than the first three and are more apt to be successful. That is just my opinion.

But back to the game, even when we had brought Arjen Robben and Shaun Wright-Phillips on, and I thought we would have brought Arjen on a little earlier, we were not able to get them the ball with any consistency to allow them to run at tiring and cramping Liverpool defenders. Chelsea players were in better physical condition as the game wore on yet we were unable to take advantage and that was disappointing.

I don't know where we go from here. It must be very disappointing for the Chelsea players as well, but they are going to have to pick themselves up quickly or risk losing everything from hereon in. Up next is a potentially tricky tie at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal where Chelsea could officially lose their title to Man Utd if they don't win and Man Utd get at least a point in the Manchester derby. I certainly wouldn't bet against Sir Alex Ferguson's men doing it, especially since the heart of Man City, Joey Barton, has been suspended for the rest of the season for internal problems. Things just don't seem to be working out for Chelsea at the moment. A confident Chelsea with all their key players fit would be more than a match for Arsenal and we have shown this to be so in the last few seasons; however, at the moment, a deflated Chelsea nursing some key injuries seem ripe for the taking and Arsenal will be licking their chops at the prospect of striking the final blow.

But Chelsea have been nothing if not resilient this season, and I believe there is still some reserve left in the tank. The club leaders in John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba will not allow them to just let the season go to waste. It has still been an unbelievable season so far for Chelsea, and there is still a lot to play for. The FA Cup final is on the horizon and that will be a brilliant show-piece competition to win. But even in the league, we have to push Man Utd all the way. As unlikely as it seems, it is not beyond belief that they will flounder. We have to keep plugging on until it is mathematically impossible to catch them.

It was nice to see Arjen Robben back playing for Chelsea. This has been a season of key injuries. The likes of Petr Cech, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Joe Cole and Arjen Robben are definite starters for Chelsea when fit and provide defensive stability at the back and cutting edge up front that we have lacked while they have been out. While I don't want to dwell on this, it is definitely a factor when the opposition have played to such a high standard as Man Utd have done this season. So, although I am disappointed that we look like conceding our premiership title to Man Utd, I am not overly so. I believe the players, and Jose Mourinho, have done a fantastic job all things considered.

But I am disappointed about the end of our Champions League run for the season. I truly believed this was our year. We were in a very good position but we played overly negatively and placed too much burden on our forwards' shoulders. Yes, penalty shootouts are always a lottery, and I felt that would have been more reason for us to go for it. Alas, our first Champions League trophy will have to wait for another year.

Moblog - A Change of Focus

2007-05-01T12:01:00.001+07:00

The previous Saturday, April 29th 2007, may have been a crucial day in terms of results that may decide where the English Premier League title ends up this season. With Chelsea 2-1 up against a depleted and rudderless Bolton Wanderers side, at Stamford Bridge no less, and with Manchester United trailing a Champions League place chasing Everton side 2-0 at Goodison Park, you could be forgiven for expecting that by the end of the day the two top teams in the EPL would be level on points heading into the final three games of the league season. Suffice it to say, things did not pan out as expected, far from it.

With that tired performance ending in a 2-2 draw with Bolton, and with Man Utd taking advantage of some slack defending by Everton to run home 4-2 winners, Chelsea find themselves 5 points behind Man Utd in the league and hoping that one of either Man City or West Ham are able to find the goals and the performance to beat them, in addition to Chelsea beating them at Stamford Bridge on May 9th, of course. If the title wasn't Man Utd's to lose before, it certainly is now. Alex Ferguson will be quietly confident.

As for Chelsea, despite the depth of squad, the challenge facing them in all 4 competitions this season has taken its toll. Having already secured the Carling Cup with the win over Arsenal at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Chelsea continued to huff and puff in the league, FA Cup and Champions League competitions. The matches are coming thick and fast, and the opposition of the highest calibre. Add that to the complexity lent through injuries to key players such as Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack and Arjen Robben and you have a Chelsea that seems to be limping to the finish line. But there simply is no time for second guessing and doubting yourself at this important time of the season. We simply have to chug along.

Next up is Liverpool in the second leg of the Champions League semifinals. Holding a slender yet strategic 1-0 lead from the first leg, Chelsea know exactly what they must do to reach their first Champions League final. If the pressure of an expectant club owner is not enough, they should all be aware that reaching the final, and, indeed, winning it is seen as the natural progression of the club. Losing to Liverpool in the semifinals for the second time in three seasons is almost unthinkable.

But Liverpool will be very mindful of the problems Chelsea have had in the heart of defense. Through all the injuries to Petr Cech and John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho has stood tall for Chelsea, allowing them to just about hang in there in all competitions, and rightly earning himself the manager-proclaimed title of Chelsea's defender of the season. Now, however, with Ricardo out, possibly for the season, it will be left to the likes of Cech and Terry to marshall this defense, with Ricardo's place likely to be taken up by another Chelsea player of the season candidate, Michael Essien. As good as Michael is though, he isn't a central defender, and often finds himself out of position and unable to deal effectively with crosses into the box. As such, I fully expect Peter Crouch and Dirk Kuyt to start, and for the likes of Riise and Pennant to put those crosses into the box at every opportunity. Our defense will be severely tested, and I expect that for us to be successful, the full backs are going to have to defend the opposing wide men very well.

Other key match ups will likely include Makalele and Gerrard, and Lampard and Alonso, not to mention Drogba and the Liverpool back-line. Chelsea's third and final player of the season candidate, and in many eyes probably the favorite, has led the line like a Champion for Chelsea this season. He, by himself, can engage a whole back line and give them a match. As such, it won't simply be Daniel Agger that will be in for a fight, but also Jamie Carragher and Riise and whoever else that happens to find themselves where Drogba fancies a challenge. For Chelsea's part, they know that Drogba is their best goal hope. Frank Lampard, who has been previously relied upon heavily for goals, has simply been drained by his exertions and is looking less and less likely to add to his goal tally this season. Solomon Kalou, who scored both Chelsea's goals at the weekend, is also rather hot and cold. He may be in relatively good form at the moment, but I see him more as a creator of chances than a finisher. Still, if the Liverpool defenders are concentrating too much on Drogba, Kalou could find himself with a chance or two. But apart from Drogba, the other main Chelsea goal threat could be Joe Cole. Joe has a wonderful strike rate against Liverpool over the past three seasons, and it was he who scored the winner in the first leg. Liverpool know they will not be able to take their eye off him.

There is no doubting that Chelsea have the edge. They travel to Anfield knowing that one more goal would force Liverpool to have to score three to progress, an almost impossible feat if Chelsea defend the way they have for the majority of the season. Liverpool know this as well and thus I expect another tight game. Liverpool will not want to concede, and even though Chelsea know that one goal could kill the tie, they will also be aware that if Liverpool decide to keep it tight, a scoreless draw would see them go through. Provided neither side makes any mistakes in the first half, the match may come to life in the second with Liverpool taking more risks to get that all important equalizer, allowing Chelsea to pick them off on the break.

To summarize, Liverpool will look to keep things tight in the first half and hope that their long balls to Crouch and Kuyt will be effective against a depleted Chelsea center of defense. However, if Terry and Co. are able to survive those tactics, with Ferreira and Ashley Cole providing decent cover on the wings to limit the number and quality of crosses, the game will open up in the second half and we could be in for a wild ride.

I'm not an optimist by nature, and while my outlook on Chelsea games has improved with the stability that Jose Mourinho has brought to our style of play, I still find at times that it is difficult to expect a win. However, Chelsea do not need a win at Anfield and it would be a brave man indeed who would bet against them finding the net. Liverpool will put up a good fight, but for the sake of Chelsea and what had looked to be such a promising season up until now, I trust that we will find a way to deal with the expected direct tactics that will be employed by Liverpool and will be able to hang on and get through to the Champions League final.

I still remember, and am frustrated by, that Luis Garcia goal two seasons ago. I have still to see any evidence that proves beyond reasonable doubt that the ball had crossed the goal line. I hope the boys remember that as we enter the Anfield cauldron. I hope the boys will go out with the determination to wipe away the painful memories of defeat inflicted upon us that day. Chelsea have flattered to deceive for the majority of the season from a football purist's point of view, but there isn't a more resilient, determined side in world football. Let's hope that will be good enough to see us through.

Moblog - A Missed Opportunity?

2007-04-26T09:42:00.001+07:00

After getting some impressive results, if not putting in impressive performances, particularly the wins over Valencia in the Champions League quarterfinals, Blackburn in the FA Cup semifinals and West Ham in the English Premier League, Chelsea were pretty much brought back down to earth with a rather dull and tired looking performance in the scoreless draw at Newcastle.

Considering that Man Utd had drawn with Middlesbrough the day before, giving Chelsea the chance to cut their lead at the top of the English premier league to merely 1 point, you'd have to excuse me for being a little bit surprised, and irritated, at our seeming lack of attacking commitment. Sure, Newcastle have stepped up their performances at St. James park against the other three big clubs, beating Liverpool and drawing with Arsenal and Man Utd, and a scoreless draw there cannot be sniffed at, however Chelsea are most definitely better than that performance they gave. I don't think we worked their keeper once all day!

Let me recollect what our chances were: I remember one chance by Lampard from a neat lay off from Kalou that the England midfielder skied over the bar from about 8 yards. I remember another scuffed chance from Kalou that had already beaten the keeper but was cleared, quite comfortably I might add, off the line by Nicky Butt. Those were the two main chances. A couple of headers, one soft one on target from Ballack which was the only shot on target that I can remember, were the only other goal mouth actions for Chelsea.

As I have previously mentioned, I felt we lacked a bit of conviction going forward. Playing Essien in the center of defense, apart from being a bit of a kick in the teeth for Khalid Boulahrouz, probably had a part to play in our lack of intensity going forward, but Frank Lampard who is currently off-form, and Michael Ballack, who is not really an attacking threat except from dead ball situations, and who limped off injured anyway, really could not get us going. Drogba was well marshaled by both Steven Taylor and Titus Bramble all game long. So, it really fell to Kalou, SWP in the first half, and Joe Cole midway through the second, to try and provide some sort of spark. Kalou looked lively but his ball control let him down on many occasions. SWP was quite anonymous and Joe Cole didn't get much of the ball when he did come on.

A missed opportunity? As a Chelsea fan, I would say "yes". Jose Mourinho, bless his soul, tries to take the sting out of the disappointment by saying that we were the same 3 points behind Man Utd after this run of games as we were before what on paper was their relatively easy game against Boro and our potentially difficult game against Newcastle. Deep down, I believe he must feel a bit let down by that performance and he must also feel we are running out of matches.

Had we clawed back to within one point of Man Utd, and considering the home game with them that was coming up on May 9th, I'd really have thought we were in the driving seat. At this point in time, we are still hoping they will drop a couple of points in their next few matches while we get maximum points, before we play them at Stamford Bridge. You have to wonder if, now that they've been let off the hook, they are going to be caught again. Whatever happens, for Chelsea to win the league this season, I feel we MUST go top after our game against them at Stamford Bridge.

The reason for the tired performance? I have to hope that it was because the players had their minds on Liverpool in the Champions League rather than that the multitude of games was catching up with them. If it were the latter, I don't know how quickly they could possibly recover. If it was because of Liverpool, well at least we know we'll be raring to go against them on Wednesday. As difficult a task as it will be to catch and overtake Man Utd in the league, I feel that our colors are nailed on the Champions League trophy this season. It is just a feeling, although it may be more to do with the way I see that a win in the competition is a natural progression to Chelsea's growth in world footballing terms. However, football matches have an uncanny way of wreaking havoc with the best laid plans.

You do have to think though - if Jose is the best manager on the planet, and Chelsea is destined to become the biggest club in world football, and with all the money that has been invested in the club, if we were to lose to Liverpool in the semifinals of the Champions League for the second time in the last three seasons, a bigger spanner in the works than that could probably not be found!

(Update: Chelsea just beat Liverpool 1-0 in the first leg of the Champions League semifinals played at Stamford Bridge. In the first half in particular, our attacking play was much better than it was against Newcastle and we had plenty of opportunities to really bury the tie. However, all we got for our endeavor was a well struck goal from Joe Cole after neat build up play by Didier Drogba. Liverpool played better in the second half and we had Petr Cech to thank for a wonderful save from a Gerrard volley. All things considered, a 1-0 win is a good win for us, even though 2 or 3 nil would have been better, and we certainly had our chances. We are more than capable of nicking a goal at Anfield, which would mean Liverpool would need to score 3 to beat us over two legs.)

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Moblog - Resilience

2007-04-11T17:14:00.001+07:00

Last night, Chelsea emerged from the Mestalla as winners. To some, this may have been a slight surprise. To Chelsea fans, even the pessimistic ones, the squad once more showed us the resilience that has been the hallmark of this season.

True, maybe Chelsea do possess one of the best and deepest squads in world football. However, you still cannot adequately replace players the calibre of Petr Cech, John Terry, Michael Essien and Joe Cole. Still, without these players for varyingly significant parts of the season, Chelsea have still been able to maintain an interest in all competitions they entered at the start of the season. That in itself is impressive.

And having been held to a draw at Stamford Bridge last week by a very decent Valencia side, Chelsea must have entered the Mestalla as slight underdogs. Afterall, Valencia are unbeaten there in the Champions League this season, and have only conceded one goal. Compound that by the fact that no English club have beaten the Spaniards and you begin to see what Chelsea were up against.

And though we began ever so brightly, having the majority of the possession and taking the game to Valencia, not to mention keeping the likes of David Villa and David Silva shackled, we still fell behind to what looked for all intents and purposes to be the "sucker punch" that would have knocked the stuffing out of lesser sides. The goal? From none other than Nando Morientes, scorer of one of the goals that knocked Chelsea out at the semifinals stage a few seasons ago, when he was still at Monaco - just so happened that Jose Mourinho's Porto won the competition that year.

But Chelsea have shown themselves to be nothing if not resilient this season. Despite the aforementioned injuries, and the mediocre form of many of their star players, Chelsea have kept going all season long, and this match was to be no different. As with the previous round, when Chelsea fell behind to FC Porto, we were headed for the exit so to speak. But once again, Jose challenged his side at half time, beckoning them to rise to the occasion and throw away their fear of defeat, and the players once again responded.

For that second half showing at the Mestalla must have sent shivers down many spines. The more the game progressed, the quieter the Valencia fans and the less impressive the famous Mestalla atmosphere. As with the first half, Chelsea completely dominated possession. Once Morientes was taken off, there was simply no threat whatsoever offered up by the home side. And so once Shevchenko equalized, there was only going to be one victor. Essien's injury time winner only shortened the wait.

Don't get me wrong, I yearn for a more attractive style of play, with a more expansive arsenal of attacking maneuvers and plans. However, I cannot but sit in awe of the fighting spirit and the never say die attitude that Jose Mourinho has instilled in this team. I maintain that most other sides would have succumbed to Valencia's well-drilled defensive play (and potent counter attacking threats), especially considering the position they were in going into the second leg, and particularly the second half. One of the commentators had said at the kick off to the second half that Chelsea had 45 minutes to save their Champions League season. It certainly put things bluntly and in perspective.

Everyone played their part and nobody had a bad game. But certainly a few stood out on the night. Riccardo Carvalho continued his impressive performances of late. Not only does he do the important defensive side of his work, he also drives the team forward at every opportunity. Jon Obi Mikel continues to develop at an amazing rate. Earlier in the season we Chelsea fans were wondering what all the fuss was about, but in the past couple of months, Mikel has been absolutely fantastic. He shows a lot of physical strength, positional know-how and also an amazing amount of coolness on the ball, which has helped Chelsea out of sticky situation upon sticky situation. Didier Drogba continues to lead from the front, and although he didn't score himself, was able to put up a really good fight with the dirty Argentine bully; in the process slowly but surely pushing the Valencia defense back. But I reserve the biggest praise for my personal favorite for Chelsea player of the season (sorry Didier). Like Mikel, the early going for Essien was not smooth. Many of us were wondering why we spent all that money to bring him from Lyon. But now, there is absolutely no question. He really is a "bison".

And despite having to play in a myriad of positions all season from central midfielder, to defensive midfielder, to right back to central defender, Michael Essien has done each job admirably. And last night, probably playing through the pain barrier and just back from a knee injury Essien helped stifle the Valencia midfield (and Villa and Silva) from the middle in the first half, and then produce one cross for a goal in addition to scoring another (the winner at that) from his position at right back. Go figure!

Jose Mourinho continues to complain about the amount of fixtures piling up for Chelsea, and citing this as a potential reason for us not being able to win all the competitions we're still in, but we've done amazingly well to get this far and with the quality of footballer that makes up our squad and the resilience that they have shown we must be in with a shout at winning everything.

So, we'll likely face Liverpool in the semi-finals; a repeat of the semi-finals two seasons ago when we lost to a dodgy goal at Anfield, but before then, there is now the small matter of a FA Cup semifinal with Blackburn Rovers that we have to attend to. Make no mistake, we're on a high now from our win over Valencia in difficult circumstances, but we'd be at an absolute low if we let this get to our heads, fail to take Blackburn seriously, and get knocked out of the FA Cup.

Bring it on!

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Handy tools for the Treo

2007-04-09T16:22:00.001+07:00

I've mentioned before how reluctant I am to install too much additional software onto the Treo. Well, today, I would like to recommend 2 exceptions: Hi-Launcher and Palmary Clock for Treo Smartphone.

The Palm OS (Garnet) interface is wonderfully simple; however, I've found that still too many buttons need to be pushed in order to get to oft used programs. One of the warnings you will see in the Treo user's guide is that against installing programs that change the user interface or system settings, such as launchers, etc... As such, despite all the recommendations for launchers such as ZLauncher and the like on various Treo user sites, I've always resisted the temptation.

While browsing the web the other day however, I cam across something that got my interest. It is a simple looking program that does not attempt to hijack the interface and change it beyond recognition, but is there for you to call out when you want (mapped to a hardware key) for personalize-able access to your programs (and certain system settings such as toggling on/off GPRS). I liked this idea very much, and the fact that the UI looks just like Windows-style cascading menus makes it very easy to use.

After about 5 days of use, I have to say I will definitely be buying the full version when the Trial ends. It has helped reduce significantly the number of buttons I have to press in order to access a particular program. And, one of my biggest pet peeves about the Palm OS on the Treo 680 is the fact that accessing the GPRS connection settings is so complicated (unlike in Windows mobile where you can just touch the GPRS connection icon on the home screen to bring up the option to connect or disconnect), so being able to connect/disconnect from this simple launcher is a bonus.

Another of my pet peeves with regards to Palm OS 5.4 is the fact that the World Clock application doesn't give me any flexibility in setting alarms. I think there is a lot of room for improvement here. However, another company has already established themselves in this niche so I'm not so sure Palm/Access feel the need to improve this aspect of the OS. Maybe they can just license the Palmary Clock application and be done with it. Cosmetically speaking, certain aspects of the two applications look very similar.

But Palmary Clock for the Treo is a simple yet comprehensive program for setting time, telling time, and making alarms to certify that you will not forget the time. Cosmetically speaking, the program is also very pretty to look at and contains a "screensaver" in the form of a clock (digital or analogue + next alarm schedule). Now, when I activate the screen on my Treo, I am greeted by a very pretty and useful clock. I've only just begun using it so I am sure I will find out more uses, but it is looking like this is going to be another piece of software that I will have to purchase for the Treo.

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And then there was three...

2007-04-09T14:23:00.001+07:00

The past couple of matches, as has been the norm for Chelsea this season, has seen us maintain our interests in all competitions, yet do nothing to impress fans and critics alike.

In the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals, a tie which Chelsea would seem to be at a slight disadvantage due to having to travel to the Mestalla to play Valencia in the second leg in Spain, Chelsea were unable to seize the initiative despite playing at home and only managed to draw 1-1. As a matter of fact, Valencia took the lead through a 30-yard belter by David Silva, Petr Cech not standing a chance as the ball flew into the far corner from, let's just say, an unfavorable angle. But Chelsea fought back, and after reverting to a more direct approach with balls over the top to Didier Drogba, managed to equalize through the big Ivorian hitman. Thereafter, Chelsea's lack of cutting edge and Valencia's satisfaction with what they had got, meant that the game petered out for the draw.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that on paper, Chelsea have to be one of the favorites, if not THE favorite, of the 8 remaining teams. However, we knew we were going to have a difficult tie on our hands when we drew the Spanish side. They are well organized and in Villa, Silva, Joaquin and Vicente, have a quartet of attacking players with the ability to unhinge any defense. Fortunately for Chelsea, Vicente is set to miss the second leg, yet Chelsea know that they are going to have to play much better if they want to be the first side in the Champions League this season to get something from the Mestalla. We will have to score at least once, AND avoid defeat if we want to maintain our interests in this one. It won't be easy.

Back to the EPL and for the first time in a long while, Chelsea were able to eat away at Man Utd's lead atop the league. In an early kick-off, Chelsea managed to dispatch of a severely depleted Tottenham side 1-0, with a cracker of a goal from Ricardo Carvalho to reduce Man Utd's lead to 3 points. The leaders then took to the field against Portsmouth and fell to a shocking 2-1 defeat. Their resolve is now going to be severely tested. It is a shame that Chelsea don't have the chance to make an even bigger dent by playing (and beating) the leaders at the Bridge earlier than is now scheduled. Due to Cup games, the big show down has now been moved to almost the end of the season. It could be just the reprieve Man Utd need to hang on by their fingernails.

It just so happens that, if things work out to plan, Chelsea may be playing Man Utd in 3 crucial matches in quick succession for the 3 big pieces of silverware available - the FA Cup, the Premier League and the Champions League. In the FA Cup, Man Utd have to dispatch of Watford while Chelsea will have to beat Blackburn in their respective semi-finals. The crucial league fixture has already been mentioned. And, if Chelsea can somehow get past Valencia and then Liverpool, and Man Utd scrape by Roma and then either Milan or Bayern, then all will be set for a titanic struggle between the two dominant forces of English, and European, football.

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Moblog - "If memory serves me correctly..."

2007-04-04T14:03:00.001+07:00

The Treo 650 has been out for quite a few years now but I still hear about how reliable a phone it is and how highly it is regarded in general. It is not surprising since it has only been very lately that Palm has come out with newer Treo models, many of which are not compatible with GSM. But since the 680 was released at the end of last year, I still hear people who suggest that the Treo 650 is a better phone. Of course, "better" is a very subjective idea, and though feature-wise a bigger battery is obviously better than a smaller one in that it provides for longer device use times, there is not a lot else, feature-for-feature, where the Treo 650 outshines the Treo 680.

One of the many features of the Treo 680 that does outshine the 650 is in the amount of phone memory available to the user. One of the main reasons I went with the XDA Atom to begin with is that the Treo 650, which I did also seriously look at at the time, had a paltry 20 MB of free memory available for additional programs. To me, that is just not enough, even considering the fact that programs designed for the Palm OS do not really require that much space. With the Treo 680, after loading quite a few programs, including some space-hogging games, I
still had over 50 MB of free space available to me. I remember the salesman who spoke to me at the shop saying that I didn't really need an expansion card with this phone (I got a 1 GB card anyway).

Well, today, after almost 3 weeks of using the phone, I've decided that I don't need some of the programs I installed on the phone afterall, including classics such as VolumeCare and Butler. The phone is plenty loud, and I haven't used any of Butler's features yet, except the Alarms. So, I have deleted those applications from the phone. I've also tried moving the 4 or 5 games over to my expansion card, all of which has now given me close to 60 MB of free memory available on the phone. I think that will be plenty for quite a while.

One of things I've found from using the Treo, quite unlike when I was using the XDA Atom windows-mobile-based device, is that I don't feel the need to look for accessory software to load onto my phone. Palm has done a good job of making the phone work the way it is supposed to work. But then I guess it makes sense that a smartphone works better as a phone than a PDA-phone does. It just so happens that the Treo is a pretty capable PDA as well!

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Moblog - Some Treo Problems

2007-04-03T15:38:00.001+07:00

Well, I'd like to be able to write only good things about my new Treo on here but it wouldn't be representative of my actual user experience, or objective for that matter.

After almost 3 weeks of use, I have to say that in general I am very happy. Again, I think the battery issue is a real issue that I tend to downplay, probably subconsciously, because I do find myself going out of my way to preserve battery life (and for 2 days max, at that). But other than that, there has been little to complain about.

But there do seem to be some niggling issues: I have 2 to report. First, after a few days of use, I found that my settings for my ringer were being changed. This was strange, as I did not see anything to suggest that there was anything wrong with the phone. I did try the "*#ERR" on the touch screen dial-pad and found that the phone had re-set itself a couple of times due to some errors, but I could not determine if this was what caused the changed settings (basically, the ring tones had been changed, which was annoying). I have not had this particular problem for about a week now, though, so we'll have to see if it happens again.

The second problem has to do with sound. There are two cases (differing symptoms). The first case was a buzzing sound whenever another sound was played, e.g. music from pocket tunes or the usual system sounds when navigating, etc... It was a pronounced buzz which did concern me. I reset the phone and the buzz went away. I still have no idea what happened. The second case was a lack of sound (ringer). Treo phones have a switch to quickly and easily disable all sounds (e.g. ringers, system alarms, etc...) located at the top of the phone. During a recent meeting, I disabled the sounds on my phone to avoid any disturbance. After the meeting, I switched the sounds back on again but found that when a call came in there was no ringtone - the phone just vibrated. I tried going into the sound settings to see if there was a option I was overlooking or something but there wasn't anything. Also, in sound settings, when you choose a ring-tone or volume, the phone plays a sample, but in my case there was no sound coming from the speaker. As such, I finally had to re-set the phone, which took care of the problem.

Now, these are minor issues, and would be even more minor if there was a re-set button. Having to remove the silicone skin, then the battery cover, then the battery, then replace the battery, the cover and then the skin to complete the re-set process is a bit cumbersome, and tends to make minor issues quite a bit more annoying than they otherwise would be.

But anyway, anyone considering a Treo 680 purchase should be made aware of all the good things, and not so good things, about the phone. I'll keep you posted.

(Update: many weeks later and I have not been able to reproduce the speaker buzz or loss of sound problem - knock, knock).

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Lamps in the firing line...

2007-03-28T15:07:00.001+07:00

I will unabashedly say that I love Frank Lampard - not romantically, of course, but he is most definitely my favorite current Chelsea player and very likely to be my all time favorite Chelsea player if I thought about it long and hard.

He does come in for a lot of stick, particularly from fans who have an agenda (I hear the Hammers) or people who simply don't get to watch him do his job for Chelsea week in and week out. I can't deny that he has had a bit of a spell of "unspectacular" form for England, but the amount of vitriol directed at him when compared to players like Steven Gerrard who have not fared any better is bordering on disgusting.

Frank Lampard had a slow start to his Chelsea career. I was one of the few who actually welcomed him from the beginning. I saw the potential. But most just believed the Hammers fans who felt he was overweight and useless. But you can ask any Chelsea fan now and I believe you'd get a pretty positive assessment of Frank's worth to Chelsea (understatement, of course).

What are Frank's main attributes? Well, let's start off with his spirit. Frank is a fighter - not and out-and-out fighter like a Roy Keane who could start a fight with a toddler, but a relatively quiet bloke who will not back down. This is one quality, I believe, that Jose Mourinho saw in Frank when making him club vice-captain to John Terry. He shows this quality when Chelsea are trying to get back into a game, in particular. You can count on him to be pulling the strings or coming up with important goals. Other qualities include his supreme fitness and his willingness to work hard for the team. He'll be as likely to be defending deep in his half as he is to be popping up to score important goals. I often hear that Frank doesn't have any ball skills. I actually didn't personally list this as one of his attributes, but I have to say that his ball skills are very under-rated. You have to watch him play on a regular basis to appreciate that he does in fact have very good ball skills.

But the classic put-Frank-down routine has to be with regards to Steven Gerrard. The common belief is that Lampard and Gerrard cannot play together effectively for England. As such, one should be dropped to the substitutes bench to accomodate more effective partnerships in the heart of England's midfield. The next argument, of course, is then that Gerrard is a much more accomplished and better player and that therefore it is Lampard who should be dropped to the bench. First of all, I'm not convinced that the two of them cannot play effectively in the same midfield. The manager must take a lot of the blame for not being able to find a way to accomodate two first-rate midfielders into his starting eleven. But even if it did come to a direct choice between Lampard and Gerrard, it is not as clear cut a choice as people are making it out to be. Both players have their strengths and their weaknesses.

Let's start with Gerrard. Steven is a very flashy player - the kind that will win ooh's and aah's on the football field. He takes risks and although he wins a lot, he also loses a lot. He is not a good keeper of possession but he does score some pretty goals. Steven is not a particularly good defender, but he can and does take games by the scruff of the neck from time to time and with his athleticism can seem to be able to win games by himself (isn't true of course).

Lampard is a much more controlled player. He defends well, and understands tactics and the need to keep possession better. He also does score some nice goals, but is also prone to getting his shots wrong quite a bit. He is not as nimble or agile as Steven, but his fitness levels are staggering. Most of Lampard's goals come from his astute timing of runs into or around the box.

I admit it would be a difficult choice for any manager, and my personal preference is still to device a scheme that allows both players to start and work effectively together. But I do believe Frank is getting a lot of unfair criticism. The majority of the England side deserve to be dropped, not only Frank.

I just felt it was time someone stood up for him.

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Treo Juice

2007-03-28T14:37:00.001+07:00

Without doubt, one of the biggest criticisms of the Treo 680 since it
was brought to market, is its poor battery life. Palm had to use a
thinner and smaller-lived battery in its quest to keep the phone a
pocketable size (it still has to be considered one of the bigger
devices out there but you have to compare it with its direct
competitor - the Blackberry - to do it justice). There are a lot of
new devices, such as the very attractive Samsung Blackjack, but these
devices have much smaller keyboards compared to the Treos. And
reportedly, battery life is just as bad!

So, users will find their own ways of dealing with this short-coming.
Manufacturers are also coming to the rescue. Seido, for example, a
well known accessorizer for the Treo line of smartphones, has released
two versions of a battery upgrade - one is the 1300 mAh model which
has the same form factor as the 1200 mAh battery Palm ships with the
phone, and the other model is the much bulkier 2400 mAh model that
carries twice the life of the Palm battery. Of course, for those
interested, Seido also provides customized battery covers for their
2400 mAh version as the battery is too thick to fit into the battery
compartment (without this customization).

But I will concentrate on reporting the things that I do to try and
get what I consider to be acceptable battery life out of the
Palm-supplied version. With the XDA Atom, I was getting two days
between charges. Currently, with the Treo 680, I am getting close to
that, depending on the amount of use. I do have to admit that I find
myself thinking twice sometimes about using my phone. Sometimes I feel
I should just charge it daily and forget about the issue altogether.

Anyway, here goes: the first thing, or almost the first thing, I did
when I got the phone was to install KBLightsOff. This program allows
me to turn off (and on of course, but manually) the keyboard
backlights. I currently have it set (default) to where I double-press
the left programmable button at the side of the Treo to toggle the
keyboard backlight on and off. I haven't really found I've needed the
backlight on at all as I don't do too much typing in the dark. The
second thing I've done is to turn down the screen brightness to a
level that is still acceptable. The third thing I do is to turn off
the phone at night (press and hold the hang-up/power button). I find
that this does help significantly. In the two times that I have
actually kept records, I've found that I've gone from 88 to 86% and
from 21 to 18%, respectively, in about 8-10 hours with the phone off.
The fourth thing is not something I do to conserve the battery, so to
speak, but rather to save money. However, it will also save you
battery life. I always shut off GPRS/EDGE data connections when not in
use. I of course pay by the minute and not by the amount of data
transferred so I cannot afford to keep the connection active when not
in use. But just having this connection on all the time will
definitely ware out your battery. And finally, I switch off all
"beams" when not in use, namely the bluetooth and IR connections. As a
matter of fact, I hardly use bluetooth at all, except for beaming
files from my computer once in a while. I used to use a bluetooth
headset with my XDA Atom, but now I just use the wired headset
supplied with the Treo.

If you do these same things, I'm confident that you'll get a couple of
days use of your Treo between charges. However, I should also say that
my phone use is about 20 minutes of calls a day and about an hour of
data connections. If your use is heavier than this, you will of course
run down your battery more than I do.

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Moblog - The Chelsea General

2007-03-28T12:58:00.001+07:00

These days, big things are happening at Stamford Bridge. Every which where you look, changes are abound - changes designed to make Chelsea one of the very best clubs in the near future. The people who have been chosen to come in and "manage" the various areas that Chelsea need to get ahead, e.g. Peter Kenyon on the administrative side and Jose Mourinho on the football side, are arguably the best in the world at what they do.

Which brings me to the alarming number of rumors floating around that Jose Mourinho will not be at Chelsea come the start of next season. What is this based upon? Well, anything from Abramovich being unhappy with Chelsea's "boring" approach to football, to Abramovich being unhappy with Jose personally for being someone difficult to control, to Jose being unhappy because he feels he is not getting the support he deserves from his boss.

Who knows what is going on behind the scenes, but Jose has said time and again that he wants to stay at Chelsea beyond the end of this season. Smart man as he is, he has now left the ball in the court of his Russian boss. If, as rumored, Jose leaves Chelsea this summer, it will look like it was Roman who wanted him removed from his post.

Let's for one minute pretend we believe these rumors, what could Roman Abramovich possibly be thinking? True enough, Chelsea have become big players both in the premiership as well as in Europe, but we are nowhere near to being one of the biggest, let alone the biggest, club in world football. That doesn't happen over night. And as Peter Kenyon has said on more than one occasion, you need to sustain success on the pitch to drive success off it! I truly cannot think of one person I'd rather have as manager of Chelsea at the moment. There may be a handful of top names that may do just as well, but I cannot for the life of me think of one who would possibly be significantly better to the point that it would be worth it to risk undoing everything we have done over the last couple of seasons.

Jose Mourinho doesn't have the easiest job in the world. You know that when your boss spends this much money on the club the expectation levels are high. But he has got Chelsea winning from the start - two EPL trophies in his first two seasons is no mean feat. I cannot deny that we have looked pretty drab on more than one occasion, but the fact of the matter is still that we are in all the competitions we entered at the beginning of the season, and have already won one of those competitions. I have to say I am pretty flabberghasted at this "achievement", money or no money!

I appreciate consistency in the managerial position. I believe that it is conducive to long-term success. I don't believe it is a coincidence that Man Utd are doing quite well and that Arsenal's future is secure (despite a blip this season). I thought we took this view when Roman came in and hired Jose. At least I keep hearing Peter Kenyon say this. I would hope that Roman has not had a change of heart. Surely he wants to look out for his own best interests.

But back to reality, I must stress the fact that all these stories are, up until this point, rumors. The amount of rumors, the kind that you'd think must be unsettling, about Chelsea this season has been nothing short of staggering. Compare this to what you read about any of the other clubs, our main rivals included, and you can see that the bias against Chelsea continues to this very day. I'm actually quite tired of talking about this or complaining. It's all old news as far as I'm concerned.

My theory is that the generation of journalists who are currently in position around the country, England that is, or anywhere else for that matter (for the number of articles attacking Chelsea one way or another in Thailand is just as staggering), are from the eras of success for Man Utd and Liverpool. We've basically got Man Utd and Liverpool fans writing articles for most of the major sports news outlets and these "fans" simply do not want to let anyone else dine at their table, particularly not a team put together with "dirty money".

As Chelsea fans, we must just turn a blind eye and get on with supporting our club. It's no use worrying ourselves with what rival fans think about us. It is more important what we think of ourselves.

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Moblog - Treo

2007-03-27T13:04:00.000+07:00

Still no photos to share, sorry (Update: photo added to previous post). I've had the phone for over a week now and quite honestly the keyboard on this Treo is changing the way I interact with my mobile phone.

With the Atom, I was basically using it to access information that had been entered in, and synced from, my computer. As an independent device, it wasn't the most efficient.

With this Treo, any previous concerns with the syncing software were unfounded, not so much anything to do with the software mind you, but rather because data input and manipulation is so easy with the built-in keyboard.

And thus I re-visit the moblogging capabilities of this site, and hope that it will allow me to keep my blog a little more "current". We'll see.

On the issue of protection...

2007-03-25T20:17:00.000+07:00

The next issue to discuss with regards to the Treo 680 is, just as is the "case" with any other new phone you purchase (gedit, gedit?), how do you take care of it and keep it new for as long as possible.

At the time I purchased the phone, I also purchased a leather case with belt clip. That is just a personal preference of mine. I don't want to risk carrying my mobile in my trouser pocket, and I certainly don't want a big bulge in my shirt pocket either. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, this phone is not the most pocketable phone out there on the market.

The case I purchased is one manufactured by PDAir. It's a nice leather case with white threaded trimmings. As you can about imagine from the name though, it is not the most "protective" case out there. It is a horizontal belt clip case, with the top, a bit in the middle of the bottom, and portions of either end open. But even if you were using a leather case that offered better protection on all sides, when you take the phone out to use for any period of time, and especially if you have to put it down on a desk or something while you multi-task, the phone is then open to scratches or (gulp) worse.

As such, although I am not really a proponent of such things, I am seriously considering getting a silicone skin for the phone. For although the leather case does not offer the best protection of the phone, apart from its good looks it is also a little bit larger than the phone, meaning that there is room for "growth". I am hoping that this room is sufficient for my phone clad in a silicone case. I feel that that would be ideal. An additional advantage to adding a silicone skin is that the phone becomes less slippery in your hands. I remember very well the significant difference in feel of the XDA Atom with and without a silicone skin. I didn't realize until very lately that they sold silicone skin/leather case combos.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find anything similar for the Treo. There are a myriad of cases to choose from, of course, but they are either leather cases (horizontal or vertical loading), neoprene cases, or silicone skins/cases. What I am looking for personally is the thinnest silicone skin available so that with this on the phone would still fit into my leather case. I'll report back on what I find in the local IT stores.

For those of you from foreign lands, Google does quite a good job of finding you lots of different web vendors. For reviews, I've read many good ones on Treonauts, Treocentral, Everythingtreo, etc... As a matter of fact, any Treo site worth its salt will have a review on all the Treo accessories available, for which cases are an important component.

Some interesting ones, generally speaking, and this is all a matter of personal choice, include an all-covering silicone case (Capdase?) which covers not only the usual bits of the phone but also the keyboard and screen (the latter not with silicone of course but with a hinged plastic cover). I've also seen combos with a hard back case and a soft silicone front.

Keep one thing in mind though - all these "skins" are great but if you need to re-set your Treo 680, you'll need to remove the skin in order to remove the batter cover and the battery! So, if you enjoy downloading, installing and trying tons of software on your phone, you may find yourself putting on and taking off these "skins" quite a bit!

Update: I was able to find and purchase a silicone skin for my Treo and after putting it on the phone, found much to my delight, that I was still able to slip the phone into my leather belt clip pouch! Photos to follow!

Early thoughts on the Treo 680...

2007-03-21T18:09:00.002+07:00

I've been using the Treo 680 now for about 4 days and wanted to share my thoughts on its everyday use.

Let's start with the negatives, not all of which have to do with the phone itself as much as with the switch from Windows Mobile to Palm Garnet. But the biggest complaint I have is this - the phone is bigger and heavier than I ever imagined! All truth be told, any phone would be bigger compared to the O2 XDA Atom (no I am not having second thoughts). I just wanted to give you an objective view of what, if you are interested in this phone, you might be able to expect, especially in this day and age when mobile phones seem to be shrinking in size.

I am still learning the Palm (or is it Access) way of doing things, but generally speaking, the OS is very simple to use. However, not everything is intuitive. For example, in Windows Mobile, you can point your stylus onto almost any screen element to get some sort of response (and/or options). Not so with Garnet. My biggest complaint so far is that turning off GPRS after a session on the web or of e-mail must be done by pressing the Applications hard key, scrolling down to Preferences, choosing Network and then clicking on Disconnect. In Windows Mobile, all I had to do was to click on the GPRS connection icon, and then click on Disconnect. So, Windows Mobile ain't all bad! With practice, I think I will obviously get more proficient at accessing the various functions of the phone I need, and until then I will of course be patient. There are 3rd party applications available that address this but I am as yet hesitant to start installing apps willy-nilly.

Other pet peeves include one that I knew full well I was getting into before I purchased this device. Again they are to do with software - the Calendar and Contacts views. With my Windows Mobile device, I got very attached to the Today screen (especially since I had purchased and installed SPB PocketPlus and SPB Diary). Appointments were listed out in detail and the display was customizable. I know there are products such as 2Day and Agendus but I aim to take this slowly and may decide to install extra software at a later date. Unlike with Windows Mobile though, those extra products don't integrate into the Calendar screen, but require opening the applications when you want to access the appointments summary (Today) screen. The Contacts screen does not seem to utilize screen real estate very well, meaning that, depending on the number of phone numbers per contact, you may not see very many contacts at all and end up having to scroll. One feature I do like though is the ability to start typing any contact name on the contact screen to bring up a specific contact. I knew about this feature before and it certainly is working the way I expected it to and making life easier as a consequence.

On to the battery issue: well, my use of the phone cannot yet be considered intensive over the past 4 days. This has partly got to do with the bad reputation of the phone with regards to battery life. I find myself constantly looking at the battery icon to try and gauge how much life remains before requiring a charge. This is quite annoying, and it is frustrating not to see what is going on from inside of other applications (no access to battery icon). But in truth, with maybe 30-40 minutes of GPRS connections and maybe 30 minutes of phone calls per day, I am having to charge the Treo every two days. I'll have to wait and see if this improves or whether it goes the other way with time, but from what I have read so far the battery life tends to improve after a couple of charging cycles. I also do expect that as I become more proficient in the use of the phone, and a little more confident in the battery, I will be using it more each day. As a side note, the AC adapter that comes with the phone is huge. In a time when phones are getting smaller and smaller, I can't understand why chargers remain ginormous! It affects portability of the phone for sure, particularly for phones with average to poor battery life.

But let's get to the positive aspects:

I am a Mac user - I switched about 5 years ago to the dismay of many well-intentioned individuals who thought I was jumping off a cliff. I know a good product when I see one, and I was confident in the Mac platform, even if I knew that software availability and Windows in-compatibility could be its Achilles heel. I've never looked back, and I always felt the same way towards the PalmOS. So, switching platforms is not that big of a deal for me. And PalmOS has been around for longer than Windows Mobile and is well supported. But even so, I've been pleasantly surprised at the ease of use of the OS (in general). The interface is clean and simple.

The tight integration between the software and hardware buttons on the Treo is another big plus. One of the issues I was faced with on the XDA Atom was that to be able to use it efficiently, I needed to pull out the stylus (talk about irony). With the Treo, I am now operating the phone in one-handed bliss (for the most part). Certain operations are still easier with a stylus, but if I were to lose it (and my fingernails) I know I'd still be able to move around the phone pretty easily. This is one of the main reasons I decided to go with the Treo and I am happy to report that things are going to plan and I am enjoying it.

On to the issue of web browsing - with GPRS on the XDA Atom, I was never too expectant as I knew it was much slower compared to WiFi. At the same time, I was browsing mostly "mobile" sites, and so speed or page lay-out was never an issue for me. I never expected that web browsing through Blazer on the PalmOS was going to be significantly quicker. This is one of the more noticeable improvements in terms of everyday use compared to the WM5-based XDA Atom.

Another noticeable improvement is strength of the phone and GPRS/EDGE signals. With the Atom, I was often left with 1-2 bars in terms of signal strength, but with the Treo I have practically never seen anything other than the maximum 4 bars. This means that phone call and data connections are very stable and reliable. Again, expected but pleasantly confirmed nonetheless.

Another main weakness with the XDA Atom, and a point of continual frustration for me, was the quality - or lack thereof - of the voice calls. I could usually not make out what the person on the other end was saying, and from time to time they would have difficulty hearing me too. For a device touted as a phone, I find that unacceptable, and it was really this that sealed its fate. When you're continually asking the other person to repeat themselves, it doesn't go down too well. And, the frustration exponentially increases with the importance of the phone call! I simply don't have this problem with the Treo. I've downloaded and installed the VolumeCare application (basically a volume manager for the various different sources of sound, e.g. handset speaker, external speaker, microphone, etc..., that is able to boost volume by 200%, supposedly) just in case, but I have not had to use it at all. As a matter of fact, I find myself having to quickly reach for the phone when a call comes in as the ring is that loud (at minimum setting).

The next feature, I have added after thinking I'd finished the article. It is something I didn't think about when I purchased the Treo, yet it is something that I feel is significant. When I was using the XDA Atom, one of the more frustrating habits I developed was the need to go to the Memory application in the System settings to clear whatever programs were running in the background, and of re-setting the PDA every so often to clear whatever other programs were running that I could not get to through that application. This is because the remaining phone memory allocated for file storage and RAM was simply too low. With the Treo, I was told I didn't even need to buy an SD card and that I could install applications and files on the phone memory without worrying too much (I had more than 50 MB of memory available at the time of purchase - after several applications and games had been installed for me). I did buy the SD card anyway for documents and multimedia files (pics and videos) but having more than 50 MB available gives me a sense of satisfaction. Of course, the fact that the PalmOS doesn't multitask (with certain exceptions) could be looked upon as a disadvantage, but I haven't felt like I've missed anything in this regard. One of the exceptions is the ability to check the PIMs during a phone call, probably the only implementation of multi-tasking that I feel I'd ever need. Being able to listen to music in the background while I work on a document is also a nice touch.

The final feature that I wanted to mention today, and one of the most prominent features on the Treo, is the built-in keyboard. This is an absolute gem. Pecking on the soft keyboard in WM5, especially on a device as small as the XDA Atom, was like using a javelin to "hunt-and-peck" on a regular sized keyboard! It was frustrating to say the least, particularly since there is some error associated with touch screens, meaning that although you think you've pointed on something the PDA thinks you've pointed on something else! With hard keys of course, this is not a problem. I've found that I'm able to type much faster on the Treo than I was ever able to do on the XDA Atom. I'm still getting used to the unique layout of the symbols and numbers and the location of the "option" key, but all in all it has been a joy to use. As a side note, the "menu" key is another wonderful key to have. Being able to call up menus in the various different programs through a hard key makes navigation a breeze.

So, in conclusion, I've been very happy with my purchase so far. It is not without its quirks, and I'm still surprised at the size and weight of the device (despite seeing, touching and playing with it several times before actually buying). I guess it doesn't strike you until you have to use it everyday, and like I said I was coming from one of the smaller devices out there on the market at the present. One final thing before I end, I don't know how much of a "tinkerer" you are; I'm pretty bad at this - one of the clearer examples is my need to be able to control where my phone saves it files. With WM5 and my XDA Atom, I was able to do this pretty well (particularly after I bought and installed Resco File Explorer). With the PalmOS, I'm finding that I am just letting it do what it does and not worrying about what is going on under the hood as much. Part of this is probably down to my as yet "low" comfort levels with the new OS and my fear of "breaking" anything, but I'm also finding that I don't feel like I want to have to think too much about what its doing, just as long as it doesn't affect me negatively. And to be honest, I haven't found anything major with the Treo not to like.

So, if you're thinking about purchasing the Treo 680, I highly recommend it! But check back and see if I've changed my mind in a few days :)

Chelsea March On...

2007-03-21T18:09:00.001+07:00

Chelsea eased their way past Tottenham Hotspurs into the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and in the process remained in contention for all 4 major trophies in which they entered at the beginning of the season.

It is amazing really, to think that it was even possible that we might win the quadruple. Don't get me wrong, I am not expecting it. We're in the back end of the season now, and putting aside for a moment the fact that we are 6 points behind league leaders Man Utd with 8 games to go, in the 2 remaining Cup competitions (FA Cup and Champions League) we're drawn against two worthy opponents - Blackburn Rovers and Valencia, respectively, so we could just as easily win nothing else to add to the Carling Cup already in our trophy cabinet. Just the possibility this late in the season is something that Chelsea fans should consider themselves fortunate to be witnessing.

Back to the FA Cup though, Tottenham, in a footballing sense, having gone up in my estimation. They've been slowly improving, and this season in particular have given us tough games (3 already with one more to come in the league at the Bridge). Too bad they cannot do this consistently with the other big teams. After a tough come back 3-3 draw for us at the Bridge, we traveled to Tottenham and beat them 2-1 with two fantastic strikes from Shevchenko and SWP, two much-maligned players for us this season. For Shevchenko in particular, this goal, along with another well-taken one against Sheffield United just a fews days prior, must give him quite a bit of confidence going into the final stretch of the season. We'll certainly need his goals if we're to win anymore silverware. In these latest two games, SWP has also put in some competent performances. Let's hope he's turned the corner as well for his Chelsea career was quickly coming to an end (and still might do to be honest).

But it's the league that is looking more and more a lost cause with every passing game. Man Utd simply are in no mood to slip up, and simply put, they must do so if we are to have any chance. Provided we win all 8 of our remaining matches (including the one against the leaders at Stamford Bridge), Man Utd still must suffer two draws in their other 7 games. On paper, that doesn't sound impossible. But things do seem to be falling for them at the moment, and what would be quite impressive is if Chelsea were able to get the maximum points they needed the rest of the way. But one thing we've found out about this Chelsea team, they will not give-up easily. While there is still a possibility, Chelsea will fight on and give it their all. It should provide interesting viewing.

The 8 remaining matches for Chelsea include the likes of Arsenal, Bolton, Everton, and Man Utd, all teams that could give them some problems. Man Utd must be confident that Chelsea will not be able to get the maximum points from all these games, and thus they would have more leeway than 2 draws (plus the defeat at the Bridge). As a matter of fact, that win at the Bridge cannot be taken for granted either, and in most of the interviews with Jose, he does seem to be expecting it. If Man Utd can avoid defeat in that game, I'd have to say we wouldn't need to be thinking about any of the other games at all.

But in closing, with the team showing its resilience and togetherness through the course of the season, it is important that the action is reciprocated by the fans as well. We need to keep believing and continue to push the team on to great things this season.

Afterall, the quadruple is still a possibility!

Imminent Treo purchase...

2007-03-19T20:29:00.000+07:00

After another long hiatus, I return to report that I have finally given up in my battle to remain true to the O2 XDA Atom. Don't get me wrong, it is a splendid machine in its own right. I have no regrets in purchasing this PDA phone to begin with and certainly have no hesitation in recommending anyone interested in purchasing a PDA phone to take a serious look at the O2 XDA Atom, or its updated sibling the O2 XDA Atom Exec, depending of course on what your specific expectations of a PDA phone might be.

For me, in the end the user interface was too important in my everyday use of the phone, and the lack of a built-in keyboard, as well as the relatively low quality of the voice calls have caused me to look elsewhere. I am sure that there will be things I will miss, not least of which will be the small size and portability, as well as richness of features in the compact device (including radio, wifi, etc...) amongst others, but I have chosen to take another trip and face with different challenges in my quest to find a "smart" phone that has the right blend of portability and features that I need.

Which brings me to my next choice of phone - the Treo 680. I know, it isn't exactly a phone that is the top of the features list, and I am aware of its short-comings, chief among which is its awful battery life. I've had to think long and hard about this one. I've spent a lot of money over the past three years on my various phones. I had really hoped to have kept my O2 XDA Atom for a good many years all truth be told.

Five years ago, my journey started with the Siemens ME45, a very basic mobile phone with a black and white screen but with a cool orange backlight. Two years ago, I decided that I wanted more in a mobile phone, and after much searching, went for the Nokia 3230. The symbian-powered Nokia was a good phone, but GPRS connections were difficult to "manage" and the overall user interface, I felt, needed refinement for power usage. Which brought me to, last year, the Atom. I needed reliable connections for e-mail, mainly, but also for very basic mobile web browsing. The Atom was more than able to handle that, but the other functions, such as document processing, and message writing (e-mail or text) got a bit cumbersome and unreliable with the sift keyboard. One-handed navigation wasn't easy either, though there are software solutions available that make life bearable on the Atom, including SPB's PocketPlus and Diary.

I've been looking at the various different options with built-in keyboards for a while now, including the Blackberry Pearl, the Nokia e61, the O2 XDA Zinc, and the Dopod s800 (HTC Herald). The two latter WM5 options, though very attractive in their own, and which would allow me to make use of my WM5 software collection, are far more expensive than any of the other options, making me very hesitant to choose them. If they were "perfect", at least in my mind, I think I would seriously consider, but the fact that I am uncertain about the build quality of their slide-out keyboard mechanism makes my potential decision to purchase one of these questionable, and thus the heavy outlay a bad idea. The Blackberry Pearl is attractive on many fronts, including portability and RIM's reputation in the e-mail arena. But the relative dearth of users, and thus support, in Thailand makes any potential buy questionable as well. As a matter of fact, try as I might, I still cannot find a demo phone that I can hold in my hand and try out the OS. The OS itself looks cluttered, and the small screen, itself part of the wonderfully small form factor, would seem to play against its actual usability. Finally, I am very concerned about the build quality of the "qwerty keypad". I am not so concerned about RIM's implementation of their two-letters-per-key qwerty keyboard, but I've seen video reviews that show clearly that, physically speaking, the keys are not firmly set into the phone, and could quite possibly, likely even, affect typing.

Which brings me back to the Treo. As I've said, I've thought long and hard about this. I've started with Palm the company, and try as I might, have not been able to gauge what the long term future holds for this company. All I read about is rumors of a take over by one of their main rivals, e.g. RIM or Nokia. The fact they have sold their license of the Palm OS (now known as Garnet) to Access also makes me question what is going on. I'd be much more confident of Palm's prospects if they owned their own OS, as they used to do, and if I didn't keep reading about these take overs. So, that is one against the Treo. What, if anything, will happen to the support for this phone? Another thing I've thought about is the OS itself. Coming from an OS such as WM5, I often wonder how I will take to a much simpler, and possibly boring, interface. On the one hand, I think that I would cherish the ability to use the device with one hand and access all the various different features of the phone with a few key presses, but on the other I am concerned that I will easily get "bored" when there isn't anything left to discover. I just hope that my Mac tendencies (I've been a switcher for 5 years now) will mean that I will appreciate a refined user interface. But I know now that I will definitely miss the Today screen. The lack of features relative to my O2 XDA Atom will also likely get me frustrated. I haven't really used WiFi much, mainly because it is a big drain on the battery, but just having the feature gives me some satisfaction, as well as a sense of security that if ever I were to need it, it's there. Same goes for the radio. But I guess I'll have to forego the live radiocasts of football matches and catch updates on the Internet instead. But the biggest concern has to be the battery. I keep telling myself that charging the phone every two days and charging the phone everyday can't be that much different. I also keep telling myself that I will do everything humanly possible to manage the battery life in my phone, including setting the screen to turn off immediately during phone calls, and installing software to manage when the phone is turned on and off (off at night, basically) and when the keyboard backlight is turned on. I trust that I will get two days use between charges. I also console myself by the fact that there are alternative higher capacity batteries available (Seido) if I really needed one (1300 and 2400 mAh).

Because what I like about the Treo is (a) the built-in keyboard that will allow much easier entry of text for SMS, e-mail, and document processing, not to mention searching for contacts and doing number pad-based dialing when needed; (b) quality of voice calls - one of my biggest frustrations with the Atom is the really low volume of most calls. I find myself asking the person on the other end to repeat what they say time and again, which must be frustrating for them too. User reviews of the Treo have given me a good indication that this is not a problem. The availability of software such as VolumeCare will also serve to give me additional solutions IF I need them. These are the two MAIN reasons I am seriously contemplating buying this phone now.

I wish I could say I didn't have any reservations at all, but I can't. Still, what in life is certain? With all the reading up over this phone in the past month or so, what I do know is that I have prepared myself quite well for what I can expect if I do purchase this phone.

Just as a side note, I have looked at the WM5-based Treo 750 as well, but its relatively steep price (unreasonably) compared to the 680 has, as with the Zinc and the s800, caused me to drop this alternative.