I’m leaving for a longer business trip (3 weeks in total) this Sunday. During that period, both the NFL and NCAA football seasons start. My problem: the EPG on my Sky HD box doesn’t have the programming information for more than a few days. And as a result, I’m not able to schedule to record the games I might want to see when I return.

Sky offers a great service called Remote Record. On their website I can schedule the programmings I’d like to record and then that information is transmitted to my Sky HD box. Works great and I will definitely use this to record the games. But it would be much cooler to have a native application on my iPhone that connects to Sky for the EPG and allows me to select the programs to record. This shouldn’t be too hard to do for the engineers at Sky and the web interface they have right would work on an iPhone as well.

Well, hopefully we’ll see an application for this soon. Not because it’s the killer app for the iPhone, but just because it’s cool to show off to your mates in the pub.

It’s my final day in Newport today. I’m sad to leave, as I’ve had a great time. The cycling and walking cleared my mind for the coming weeks, so with the busy weeks ahead (three XenApp training sessions and a distributor event in Denmark), I’m good to go.

Spending time with Kristen is always great. She is one of the most wonderful people I know. Unfortunately she had to work a lot, leaving only time at night to do things together. But I certainly enjoyed my time with her and will be back here very soon.

The final day consists of getting rid of all the alcohol I consumed last night (thanks Joe and Gordon for introducing me to that great drink), going out for a nice lunch and then later on to the airport. My flight is at 7.45pm and I’ll be arriving at London Heathrow tomorrow morning at 7.15am. It’s not too long, hopefully I get some sleep on the plane. As I’m tired already, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

According to Ars Technica, Apple removed the push notification functionality from the current iPhone 2.1 firmware beta. While it’s certainly true that there are more pressing matters to fix in a new release (my Mail.App crashes very frequently when sending mail via my Exchange account), this functionality is definitely needed quickly. The value of an applications like AIM is now very limited and I’d like to see those apps coming for MSN and Yahoo as well.

While it’s not the biggest issue in the world, it would be bad if Apple can’t keep its promises and misses the announced September release for this functionality.

My short vacation in Rhode Island is coming to an end. Two more days to enjoy the weather and the good company of Kristen. I really had a great time and wish I could stay longer. Not because Newport is such a great place to be (it is fun, but there is not really a lot to do), but because being around Kristen really makes me happy.

After we had dinner and some drinks last night, we made plans to go cycling this morning. So I woke up at 6.30am, got dressed and we were on our way at 7am. We took the Ocean Drive in the opposite direction I took last Monday. Although Kristen says she is a bit out of shape, nothing like that showed while we were riding our bikes. She is in a good shape and I’m horribly out of shape. I really need to start cycling when I return to the UK. But unfortunately within a week of returning I start another 3-week trip to the continent. So no cycling for me before the end of September or even early October.

We finished our lap of Ocean Drive and the Salve Regina campus in about an hour. We didn’t really push ourselves, but had a great time on the road. After that, we had a nice breakfast at Katrina’s. The blueberry scone I had was really good. With breakfast taken care of, we went into the Boardwalk, the local surf shop. Kristen fell in love with a real nice board and I would’ve bought it for her if she would let me. Of course, I can buy it and then store it at her place, but it’s kinda odd to buy a board when you have never surfed. Still, it’s a nice board and she deserves a great board to surf.

For the rest of the day not many activities are planned. We’re going to the beach later today, skipping lunch because we are still full. I might get my first surfing lessons this afternoon, which if I really enjoy it would give me an opportunity to buy a board and lend it to Kristen. With the current Pound Sterling – Dollar exchange rates, it’s not even that expensive. I’ll have to watch to not max out my credit card again this early in the month, as I’ve a lot of business travel coming up.

I’m not completely sure yet, but it looks like my iPhone battery is lasting shorter everyday. It’s a first generation model, updated to firmware 2.0.1. And it certainly feels like it started after the update.

Of course, there may be good reasons for this. First, GSM coverage at the beach is unstable, so the phone is searching for a signal a lot. And then there is the added usage of applications. I particularly use the Mail.App a lot, pulling in all those messages doesn’t help either.

So, I’ll see what happens when I return to the UK.

After getting burned pretty badly yesterday, today no beach for me. Or perhaps late in the afternoon. Kristen should be home early (she promises that every day), so we might go together. Considering the burn, I did have a pretty good rest. I was awake a 5am, but only because my phone rang. The lidocaine in the after sun lotion and the painkillers did a pretty good job.

As we had quite a big dinner last night, Italian so a lot of carbs, I went for a long walk. I walked up to Memorial and then entered the Cliff Walk. I walked all the way down to the other end, which took about 90 minutes. The Cliff Walk is really nice, beautiful mansions and the view of the ocean is magnificent. And the buildings of Salve Regina University make me wish I had focused on my studies more and had come here for at least a semester.

Walking back home I stopped at Katrina’s Bakery for a sandwich and something to drink. I’ve become a regular here for this week. Their products are fresh and very delicious, no wonder Kristen loves to come here.

I’ve just read an article on Doug Brown’s site that there is a RDP client now available for the iPhone. While it hasn’t shown up yet in the Dutch AppStore (and I don’t have access to the US AppStore for another few days), I can’t test it. But it does look very interesting and I’m curious to see how good it works.

Perhaps this means an ICA client for the iPhone is nearer than we expected.

It looks like I’m not going to attend the game between the San Diego Chargers and the New Orleans Saints at Wembley Stadium. The day of the game is also the start of Citrix Summit in Orlando, FL. And although my attendance has yet to be confirmed, it’s likely I’ll have to be there. So probably no first NFL game for me, which is too bad. So in the near future I’ll be looking for someone to buy those tickets.

Going to Florida again also has some good points. The first is that I’ll be meeting my co-workers and friends again. And second, another trip to Newport might be sooner than I planned. And having a chance to meet Kristen again always beats going to a NFL game (although going to a game with Kristen would be even better).

Today will be an uneventful day. I’m going to Second Beach, as the weather looks very good today. Hopefully the rainstorms will stay away, at least until I get back home.

Another good thing is that Kristen had a very early start today and should be back at the end of the afternoon. Can’t wait…

VMware has released a patch for the date bug that was introduced by Update 2 for ESX 3.5(i). You can download it here.