Monday, August 28, 2006

Mallorca

First and foremost, I honestly apologize for having neglected Mallorca, this beautiful island in the Mediterrean Sea, for so long. I had been thinking that it's just a party island, only good for beer-drinking hooligans and bachelor parties, consisting of little else than concrete towers.

I could not have been more wrong! So sorry for that. Once you are there, the islands' beauty can be easily spotted and is sometimes even breathtaking. The island seems to combine many places in one place, and you can do almost everything from sailing to hiking, from partying to relaxing.

We were out there in June to enjoy the beaches and the beauty, and it turned out that ten days were not enough to see it all, especially when it's as hot as this year! But relentlessly we took our rental car to some of the most remote places, like Formentor or Punta de Capdepera to report back home how awesome Mallorca is indeed.

I took roughly 900 photos, of which I selected 169 for the site. So please enjoy our visit on the pearl called Mallorca!

Mallorca Photos

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Dog and Bone

Usually I refrain from connecting my daytime work with Zanzig.com, but this time I just have to do it, and there is a good chance that you may like it.

In my department at BenQ mobile we do not only see a lot of new technology earlier than the average Joe, but we do also work with some bright talents creating content for these new technologies. After all, what is a technology without any valid use case?

One of the finest examples for such new content is the sponsorship of the MicroMovie Awards, which encourages young directors to submit short movies optimized for mobile phones. We are proud that this early engagement resulted in a mini-series, exclusively designed for BenQ mobile devices. It's called "Dog&Bone" and tells the story of a mobile phone that after a mishap ends up in the mouth of a dog named Ben - who then spends an exciting day in the city.

Directed by Andreas Hafele, each episode will take you further in the hilarious story. Hafele was one of the nominated directors for the MicroMovie Awards in 2004, and in July 2006 he won the "Young Director Award Cannes 2006".

If you like the idea, please feel free to download the movie free of charge from the BenQ site - and, of course, tell your friends about it. :-)

Dog&Bone Episode 1 (at YouTube)
Dog&Bone Download Site (at BenQ mobile)
MicroMovie Series (official site)
MicroMovie Award (official site)

Saturday, August 05, 2006

From The Mailbag: Shahram is looking for a camera

OK - I am used to spam. My spam filter deletes about 90% of all mails automatically without me even seeing all the crap. I don't see ads for Prozac, Xanax, housewifes and so on and so on. All this goes straight to the garbage can. But sometimes an interesting headline makes it past the filter, and while I almost smell that it's spam, I do open the mail anyway. Like I did this morning...

From: "bo dr" <shahram463@yahoo.com>
To: <mark@zanzig.net>
Re: help me about buying camera
Date: Saturday, August 5, 2006 01:31

hi dear im shahram 27 years old amatour photograph
i like buying a canon AE-1 u think is good for now now is digital life
but i like buying AE-1 tell me about
thanks i waiting for u mail
tace care

Huh? What?

Shahram, it's nice that you call me Dear, but I prefer just my wife calling me this way, so I'd appreciate a more formal approach, like Hi, Mark or maybe Dear Mr. Zanzig. But heck, let's see whether I can help you.

So you want to buy a AE-1 camera? And you want me to tell you something about it? But what? About how to put film into the camera? About how good the camera is? About how old-fashioned it is these days where everybody has gone digital (even me)? How about visiting my page on the Canon AE-1 Program? You said correctly "now is digital life", and there are many useful services that might cough up thousands of pages on the AE-1. Think of Google, just for example. Don't be afraid - it's easy. Just visit www.google.com, and enter "Canon AE-1" into the text entry box, and hit ENTER. Within seconds you have more information on your screen than you could possibly ever understand. :-)

Anyway, I wish you good luck finding more information on the AE-1.

-- Mark

P.S.: Oh, nd pls do nt hold u breath w8ing for me reply - it'll never come. U would not understand it anyway. Tace care! ;-)