I am 30 years old today, born on a snowy afternoon in the middle of April 1975. It doesn’t usually snow in April in the UK and that was followed by one of the hottest summers ever. Today, the weather is thankfully a little better, but not much!

It’s a strange birthday; no “life begins at…” type sayings or other things to make you feel better, and now I will have to get used to choosing another option on pop-ups like this:

So instead, I find myself approving of pop-ups like this:

Everyone is being very kind, speaking softly, almost sympathetic. Indeed, you can sense the compassion. “Poor boy,” they must be saying amongst themselves, “he’s 30 today”.

But it’s OK. I’ve come to realise I’ve barely completed the first act. Not everything in my world is rosy at the moment – when is it ever? – but I’ve never been so happy and get the feeling the best is yet to come!

Today my good friend, Californian dude, occasional Reinvented Software developer and refreshingly mad person Hans Kim started his own blog and – ahem – dedicated the first post to me. Thanks Hans! 😀

The Blog is called Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, which if my Latin serves me correctly translates as “After This, Therefore Because of This” or the assumption that because one apparently related event follows another, then the first must have caused the second.

To test that in a silly way: Did Hans start a blog the day of my 30th birthday because I started one the day after his? Er, no. The coincidences don’t mean anything. In fact, Hans was the first person to tell me I should start a blog, while long before that had told me he wanted to start one himself. I’ll let you work out the Latin (or even the English!) for that in your own time.

Happy blogging, Hanso!

My good friends and regular Reinvented Blog contributors Ade and Claire have started their own blog called Naked Lives, so I’ve added a link in the sidebar. They haven’t told me what it will be all about, but to hazard a guess… everything!

Think of them as Dawn and Drew, with the VW obsession but much better looking. 😉 And don’t forget to spot the Angelina Jolie references.

Good luck with the blog you two!

I often talk about Reinvented Software as being just me. This isn’t quite true. Apart from the close friends and family that support me and put up with my rants day and night, I should mention some souls for their active participation.

For Feeder, friend and fellow Mac developer Hans Kim helped me thrash out usability and testing issues – thanks Hans! An always-present member of the team, albeit in a purely supervisory role, is Beth the cat. Her full name is (probably) Princess Bethan “Bunny” Boos (although she has many other titles) and that should give some indication as to her character.

See how she poses for the camera:

Class, beauty and distinction are gifts presented at birth; they cannot be attained. Beth knows this and expects to be brought a succession of tasty nibbles, have all the best places to sit and plenty of petting and grooming throughout the day (the grooming is actually for furball-prevention purposes, but we don’t tell her that). She knows that she deserves nothing less. Like many well-heeled individuals, in her spare time – which is all of it – Beth enjoys country walks and a spot of hunting. Those tiger stripes conceal her from her quarry, which doesn’t stand a chance.

When you purchase “our” software, you are helping to keep Beth in the manner in which she is determined to remain accustomed, while hopefully saving the lives of many less fortunate small furry creatures.

This isn’t the first time I’ve managed to potentially offend an entire nation and maybe it’s not as bad as when I left Swedish off the list entirely. However, I received an email from Down Under, where Ian Graham of Lane Realty had this to say:

In supported languages, it should be English (Australian) NOT Austrialian. C’mon cobber, for a true blue bit of clobber like this you’ve gotta be dinki-di 🙂

I can only apologise. I blame a subconscious bitterness that many, many years ago some fool decided to set up a penal colony on a beautiful and sunny continent, while us whinging poms were left to eat potatoes back here in grey old Blighty. It should have been the other way around. Perhaps our Australian cousins were taught how to spell whilst in prison. There I go again! Sorry. 😉

Before I do any more damage, I should say that Feeder 1.0.4 is released today to fix this problem and a couple of other things.

Thanks, Ian, for letting me quote you here.