NEW YORK.  We’ve been planning this trip for ages.  We’ve many purposes for being here – catching up with my big sister, shopping, sightseeing, and simply a much-needed break from Moscow.  And, of course, a visit to the Apple Store.

One of the possible motivations of said visit was to finally buy myself an iPhone.  I’ve been swithering for ages, but perhaps it’s finally time to give in to temptation.  

I’d tried to source one in the UK a couple of weeks ago, after O2 and Carphone Warehouse dropped the price of the 8GB model.  No joy – they’d sold out before I could get one.  No worries, I thought, I’ll get one in New York.

Apple Store, 5th Avenue, Saturday evening:  no iPhones.  So we left with a black MacBook and an Airport Express instead.  They may or may not be getting more in during the week (and I’ll be back for some more AirPort bits anyway).

AT&T store, TImes Square:  Yes, we have iPhones, but you’ll have to activate (and sign a contract) in-store.  Er … no thanks.  Oh, and the assistant was perhaps the rudest person I’ve encountered since we got here.

Perhaps I’m fated not to have one.  Perhaps I should be sensible and wait for the imminent 3G update.  But Russia doesn’t have 3G, so unless the update brought with it either GPS or a much better camera, I could live without it.  And there’s always the possibility that the update will break the existing unlocking tools.

Yesterday afternoon we were out and about in Central Park.  Strange absence of maps and signage – for us foreigners it’s rather easy to get lost.  Unless you’ve got a cellphone with Sat-Nav.  Perhaps my N95′s not quite so useless after all.  It takes good photos, too.

But, with apologies to the kids’ favourite TV show,

I just want my iPhone, Charlie …

confession:  that’s not an apple Lola’s holding, it’s a tomato.

Steve mentioned a while ago that tomorrow is Shutdown Day.

Given that I’ll be spending most of the day in the air, that’s alright by me. Can I leave the Mac Mini running to record Battlestar Galactica, though?

Just upgraded the MacBook Pro’s memory from 1 to 2GB.  Wish I’d done it ages ago – it’s so much snappier, and no longer gives me the spinny beachball when I’m trying to run VMWare Fusion and a couple of other applications at the same time.

The poor thing’s only a couple of years old but I very nearly replaced it recently.  Instead I’ll replace the dead optical drive, and throw in an 802.11n card and bigger HD at the same time – should keep it current for a goodly while yet.

Given my slightly more well-known namesake, I guess I was quite lucky to be able to grab the domain I’m using for this blog. jamesbarbour.net has already gone, to a link farm who, if you believe the popups, want to give me not one, but two free iPods.

But what if the .org is not enough? Neville tells a cautionary tale of Shel Israel, who forgot to register his own dot-com and was parodied by a glove-puppet (with apologies to Hilaire Belloc).

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure about the whole .org thing. I very nearly went with a subdomain of wordpress or blogger. But having had my previous blog disappear for a couple of months for reasons beyond my control, I wanted to keep a hold of things this time around.

I did rather like the comfort-zone feeling that comes from being part of a corporate blog, though. I agree with Richard Bailey that anonymous corporate blogs aren’t that enticing, but the collegiality was a huge advantage, particularly to a novice blogger. Get stuck for something to say? Just bounce off your colleagues, add to the dialogue and you’re away. Out here on my ownsome it’s a little tougher, and I do sometimes wonder who’s listening. (at least StatCounter can answer that one).

I’ll stick with the .org, then. It’s portable – not that I have any intention of changing jobs in the immediate future – and it’s mine. Apparently I could have .info, co.uk, .tv and a whole host of others, too, but I don’t feel the need right now. Hope I’m right.