Some people might think I’m a control freak… Or that I am anal… Or I have an ego to satisfy… But I think it is absolutely important that a brand is 100% consistent through all mediums.
Business cards, letter heads, advertising collateral, uniform clothing, stationery, vinyl prints for company vehicles, digital marketing campaigns and website artwork should all use the same corporate identity and branding.
Inconsistencies make a company / organisation look unprofessional. End of story.
Why do I feel guilty when sticking up for myself? When someone else throws their opinions at me, I accept their point of view and then carry on with life, albeit a little surprised at how narrow minded, shallow and selfish some people can be. But why do I feel guilty when it’s my turn to start throwing my opinion around / sticking up for what I believe in / flying the flag for team Ando?
Each year as I grow as a person, I discover more about myself and how to deal with little challenges. The person I have become is a farcry from the socially inept and arrogant little shit I was as a teenager. The biggest surprise is the inherent people skills I never thought I possessed. I am able to use these people skills daily on my job, on the weekend with friends and when meeting new people. My horizons have consistently broadened and I hope this continues on my journey through life.
It’s my wife’s birthday today, and I owe her immensely for her never ending support. I believe we all take for granted the love and support extended by family and must cherish every moment we can spend in their company. Amy comes from a lovely family and the values they have instilled in her are one of her many qualities. Yesterday we celebrated Amy’s birthday in the Swan Valley, surrounded by friends and family.
Whilst celebrating, a relatively insignificant ordeal occurred, no one would have any idea it even happened, but it did. As trivial as the incident was, it highlighted this guilt issue that I experience when sticking up for what I believe in. I’m a straight shooter and a bit of an authoritarian when it comes to rules governing anything from the construction of a website, enforcing team culture or the rules of a game. When people break rules and etiquette to suit their own agenda, I find it hard to understand why a task is even being carried out in the first place. To cheat rules, is to cheat one’s self. Anyone who thinks differently is fucking kidding themselves. Anyways, on this occasion I took the bull by the horns and stood my ground, despite how much of an anally retentive prick I may have portrayed myself to be. What amused me was the usual tactics and mind games employed by people to get what they want out of a situation can be thrown out the door in a nanosecond in order to play the martyr/victim. I won the battle and the war, which was not well received at all… hehehe.
I sit here and type this for therapeutic reasons, performing a dichotomy, attempting to view the situation from the outside and through my own eyes. Given my authoritarian nature of conducting a task by the rules that govern it, I am very good at being objective. I believe this objectivity is the reason for this post topic – feeling the guilt when standing up for myself.
By being objective, I’m effectively experiencing the same annoying discomfort of someone’s shithouse opinion. By being objective I’m experiencing my own shithouse opinion through the eyes of the second party and this is what makes me feel guilty.
I think I need to stop caring what others think, the same way they don’t care what I think! I’ll take a leaf out of Amy’s book, she’s damn quick to dismiss an opinion she doesn’t agree with, and once that’s done, she forgets she heard the words in the first place. Happy Birthday you beautiful girl 
I’ve used the ‘My Computer’ title to remind me of my one and only illegitimate version of Windows (XP). For my 21st birthday, my parents bought me a P4 2.67GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 512MB RAM system, built by a dodgy computer shop on Grand Boulevarde in Joondalup. The business owner was a few ethical practices short of a reputable business, and handed me Windows XP on a burnt disc with a serial number scribbled on it in Artline texta, when I quizzed him about my OS software. The serial number worked for 4 years until MS flagged my OS as a pirated copy whilst performing some automated Windows updates. In case you’re wondering, the computer shop is no longer in operation. A workmate of mine at the time was helpful in providing me with a trusty old WGA patcher. After all these years, and the development of some moral standards, I thought I’d escape the world of magical number generators, hacking, cracking, patching, system restore points and disabling Windows updates.
The pricing incentive to purchase an OEM version of Windows 7 was just too hard to resist. Another incentive was my expiry of the Release Candidate I installed 6 months ago. I must hand it to Microsoft, Windows 7 is pretty good. However, I never did understand the resentment of Vista. Some people are scared of change, when in reality, the only thing in this world that’s constant is change. The purchase and installation of a 1TB HDD has allowed me to not only install Windows 7, but setup a Linux partition too. Enter Ubuntu; this thing is an absolute breeze to install and configure using Wubi, there’s no excuse to not run a Linux based OS on your computer (unless your constrained to a pissy little 80GB HDD). I have even skinned Ubuntu to look like Leopard OSX! Upon finishing the skinning, I realised that I was using Apple products before the majority of computer users knew what the hell a Mac was.
1987: I was brought up using Apple products, the first computer Dad ever carted home was a 512K ‘Fat Mac’ I played a monochrome version of Dark Castle on:
512K 'Fat Mac' Macintosh
1992: The second being the mighty Mac Classic THAT HAD AN 8MB HDD! I used to play monochrome MacCricket and King’s Bounty on this one, both games used to crash on the old 512K. In its later life, I hacked the hell out of this machine with custom sound themes and even installed a JPG viewer! The images took around 30 seconds to render and were displayed in monochrome of course.
Macintosh Classic
1997: The third actually had a colour screen that I could play Doom II, Rebel Assault II, discover the Internet and unearth Geri Halliwell nude pictures!!!
Macinstosh Performa 5600
In between these fantastic works of art and science, I subjected myself to an old Intellivision, a Commodore 64 with a dodgy SID chip (sold to my parents by my Uncle…), Nintendo gaming consoles, a borrowed 468 and a Pentium 1.
Acquainting myself with an iPhone was a step back in time for me, returning me to my roots of Mac use. I’m getting a bit too nostalgic here for my own good… I digress.
Ubuntu rocks! I have combined my favourite elements of Mac, PC and Linux operating systems in this Ubuntu installation.
My only gripe in regards to my new machine is the fact that Windows 7 wont talk to my iPhone because of an Intel P55 chipset issue but apart from that, this new setup is awesome.
I was destined to work with computers… despite getting a D for computing in year 10
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