Lets get this out of the way early on, lakes in Scotland are usually called lochs but this one (which I’d always thought was the only lake in Scotland) is called a lake. It isn’t very deep and we were told in Geography at school that it is a kettle lake. It has three small islands, the most famous being Inchmahome, the location of a Priory where Mary Queen of Scots took refuge for a few weeks in 1547. I’ve been to Inchmahome Priory before as a kid and it is a local tourist attraction maintained by Historic Scotland who usually provide a boat service over to the island from the strangely titled Port of Menteith village.

The lake hasn’t frozen over since 1979 but when it does to a depth of at least 7 inches an outdoor curling tournament called The Bonspiel or the Grand Match is held on the loch. Unfortunately the event was cancelled but at least Dad and I got the opportunity to walk over to two of the islands, Inchmahome and the nearby Inch Talla with it’s ruins of a castle usually unreachable to the public.

It was a strange feeling to walk on the ice. Any concerns of it cracking were quickly allayed and throughout our time on the ice we saw some stable cracks but never heard any new ones. In places there was a covering of snow which made it easier to walk on without slipping and sliding around. We wore the wrong footwear though, we could have been over to the island in minutes if we’d brought ice skates.

The frozen lake

Mum and Dad standing on the ice

Approaching Inchmahome Island with the priory in front

A wall of the ruined castle on Inch Talla

Growl (free) and OmniGrowl (free)

Growl (free) gives you notifications on your screen when something notable happens. It’s able to notify you of events that originate in other apps, like Firefox and with OmniGrowl (free) you can extend that functionality to notifying you of the weather, birthdays, flights arriving, etc.

Perian (free) and VLC (free, also for Windows/Linux/etc)

Perian is the Swiss army knife of video codecs. After you install, QuickTime Player will be able to playback almost any type of video. Simple. If what you’re trying to watch still doesn’t work, try VLC (free).

Dashboard Widgets (free)

If you don’t use the Dashboard you’re missing out on a lot. Simply by pressing a button on the keyboard you can view lots of information, make calculations, check cinema times, view weather info, snow reports and even tweet. Personally I use iStat Pro (free, shows you statistics on your computer like CPU and memory info), Twidget (free, allows you to tweet and view the tweets of people you follow), Currency Converter (free) and a handful of built in widgets Apple provide such as the calendar.

Adium (free)

iChat is great but with Adium you can send instant messages to users of: AIM, MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac), ICQ, XMPP (formerly known as Jabber), Google Talk, LiveJournal, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo! Messenger, Bonjour, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Tencent QQ, Facebook Chat and a whole host more with plugins.

AppFresh (free)

Some apps tell you when they have software updates available but AppFresh will search your hard drive for applications and then check to see if you have the latest version. If there is an update it will even direct you to the correct page to download it.

AppTrap (free)

Trying out software on the Mac is great. To install you drag it to the Applications folder and to delete you simply drag it to the Trash. What isn’t as widely known is that programs leave behind preferences and other files. That’s where AppTrap comes in handy; drag the app to delete to the trash and it searches your hard drive for associated files then present a list where you can choose what to get rid of.

Cocktail (from USD $14.95)

Computers can be a bit like cars; from time to time you need to have them serviced to keep them in perfect working order. With Cocktail you can easily perform otherwise complex maintenance tasks outside of the remit of Apples otherwise excellent Disk Utility. Cocktail also allows you to customize look the look and feel of you computer and alter system settings.

BetterZip (USD $19.95)

With the advent of Mac OS X you could expand and compress files without the need of other software such as the classic Stuffit. The operating system can’t decompress everything though and occasionally you will still come across something a little more exotic than your standard Zip file. BetterZip has inherited StuffIt’s crown in my book with it’s easy to use interface and ability to handle zip, tar, gzip, bzip2, rar, 7-zip, cpio, sit and hqx archives.

We spent the majority of out time in Kota Kinabalu (KK to the locals) with Bhav’s Dad but visited Kuala Lumpur (KL, the capital) and Bhav’s extended family for a weekend too. I’ve never really been to KK before, my previous experience was getting a taxi from the international to domestic terminals before the recent building work. The city is quite spread out with a few hills separating residential parts. The waterfront area is the main location for tourists but even then KK isn’t a very attractive city and doesn’t have much in the way of tourist attractions. The Sabah Museum and Heritage Village is probably the main attraction. The museum is poorly laid out and quite dull but the heritage village outside is much better. Like its counterpart in Kuching, Sarawak (the other Malaysian state on the island of Borneo) the heritage village is a collection of buildings in the traditional style of the various tribal groups.

We enjoyed our time in Malaysia, and who knows, maybe it’ll be the next destination after New Zealand.

Me, Bhav and her Dad with KK behind us

Bhav and I at the Sabah State Museum and Heritage Village

Bhav on TV at the pretend studio in the Sabah Museum

The Heritage Village, Kota Kinabalu

Our detour to Brunei was only short but was our first taste of things to come; the food, the heat and the way of life. It’s funny how you fall so quickly back into things.

Kampong Ayer, Brunei

The Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery

Me eating a banana at the Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery

Before I left for sunnier climes graduate (or any form of entry-level jobs) were a bit like hens teeth and it was a situation that everyone knew was going to get much worse before it got any better. A survey by High Fliers Research of 100 firms found recruitment targets had been cut by 17% for this year. The economic downturn had rather predictably hit financial sector recruitment, with 47% fewer graduate entry-level jobs.

3 month long internships were suggested as a way to improve the skill sets of recent graduates and make them more employable. Governments don’t have the best track records with job creation however, “fancy a job comrade?” You can’t magic something out of thin air.

Now the Government is encouraging students to try looking for opportunities abroad. It kinda sounds strangely familiar but coming from Universities Minister David Lammy MP it does smack of trying to offload the problem to someone else.

New Zealand is currently trying to fight a “brain drain” which sees many young people each year move to Australia. Roughly one in four tertiary-qualified New Zealanders leave the country to live overseas, more than any other country in the developed world. What New Zealand’s PM is trying to do is get them back.

So vote for Ben!

The full story is available on Yahoo!Xtra. Freaky!

What I’ve found to be helpful to getting my head around Objective-C quickly (making use of the OO languages I already know) is a series of screencasts and a book called Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. I watched the screencasts first to see if I could get interested in it enough to stick with it and found that they were created in such a way that you can get stuck straight into the code. They’re US$5 a time but I found the first 2 very helpful (at the time of writing there was only 2 of the series). Apple also has a number of resources available for free (requires registration) on the Developer site. From my perhaps limited experience of development environments I’d have to say XCode is one of the best I’ve used and makes coding a very logical and easy process. XCode, various other applications and even an iPhone simulator are available to play with through your free developer membership.

I’m still working my way through the book but I hope to be making my own apps for the iPhone soon. All that remains is to actually by one!

I fly out early next month and I’m due to return at the start of December but you never know what the future might hold.

One thing’s for sure, it’ll be a big change.