I arrived in New Zealand late last night, after quite a bit of drama at the Cairns airport earlier in the day. I almost didn’t make it to NZ for multiple reasons. For the biggest bit of drama, if you know me, ask me about getting detained for knocking a security guard on his bum, most likely ending in him having a black eye this morning. continued

For those of you loosely following along on the OZ/NZ adventure, I just wrapped up five very relaxing days at Airlee Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. It was a perfect spot to use as a base for exploring the nearby islands, and ended up being a great spot from which to head out to the Great Barrier Reef. continued

A few times while traveling around Australia, either I’ve noticed a slight glitch on a site (Stopdesign, or a client site), or someone else points out a bug or problem with some file on a site I have control over. I left my laptop and cables, etc. in Sydney to shed the weight, so I haven’t had access to the tools I normally have at my disposal. Any of these changes are usually quick edits or corrections of previous oversights, assuming I have any type of net connection and my normal toolset with me. However, I’ve been missing some sort of text editor that can work on files remotely via S/FTP. continued

Check out the latest Stopdesign mini-project: Mighty Goods, a new shopping blog by Margaret Mason, known for her long-running Mighty Girl weblog. Margaret came to me wanting a simple, clean design with integrated images for most of the items she posted. This is the end result of holing ourselves up in Canvas for a Saturday a little over a month ago. continued

I stepped off the plane yesterday in Cairns and immediately got hit with a warm tropical breeze. It was a drastic change from the cool San Francisco-like weather of Melbourne. I loved Melbourne, and wished I could stay longer, but this short trip mandates that I keep moving so I can experience everything I planned. continued

Firming up more of my itinerary the next couple weeks made me realize how little time I have left, and how much more I still want to see. Which means I’m now flying out of Melbourne tomorrow morning, heading up to Cairns. continued

I’ll be joining up with Peter and Russ to fly into Melbourne this Tuesday afternoon (5th of October) for a spontaneously rescheduled Web Standards Group meeting that night. Dave Shea and his wife April are traveling to Melbourne, so they’ll also be there for the meeting. If you’re in the area, please come out and join us, whether you’re a member of WSG or not. Details on time and location will be posted to this page on the WSG’s site when they become available. continued

Man, is Sydney beautiful once the rain and overcast skies go away. I woke up at 6:30am this morning, gazed outside my window, and saw bright sunshine already casting its brilliance over Sydney, so I rushed to get out to experience the day. continued

Well, Web Essentials wrapped up on Friday night, and I can truly say it was one outstanding conference. Earlier, I think I wrote that it looked to be the largest web standards event in the southern hemisphere this year. That… was an understatement. It was easily the largest event focused exclusively on web standards in the world (outside the W3C), and the wonderful organizing team pulled it off flawlessly. continued

Just arrived in Sydney this morning. Still trying to orientate myself. John Allsopp picked up Joe Clark and me (we happened to be on the same flight out of LAX) from the airport early this morning. I only have 6 minutes left on a pay-per-minute access account, so this is going to be a quick one. Dave and I have walked all over the Chinatown/UTS area looking for wireless access, or some place where we can connect our laptops to a wired connection. No one seems to know what wireless access or “wifi” is here. And all the “internet cafes” (they look more like gaming casinos to us) all require that we use their computers. And the local proprietors all stare at us blankly when we ask where we might find such a rarity. continued