It's Been a Busy Beaver Summer

So i must apologize for the dismal showing in this blog. It's been one project on the heels of another, with nary a day of downtime (aside from the wee vacation in July. August's vacation is up in the air right now, and dependent on how quickly I can get my components of a certain project clean and beautiful and ordered. I've dubbed it Project Apocalypse. :-)If it doesn't get done, it could very well mark the end of the world as we know it.There *have* been some fun projects though - and much thanks to Frankie and Nick for that Montreal Insanity :-)Here's to a nice, quiet autumn.

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Tags: Ottawa, beavers, Frankie, Nck

Short Commute - Long Wait

I thought it would have been easy - flying into Ottawa last Monday, and then out again on Wednesday. It wasn’t until the landing at Toronto was aborted at the last minute (the flight before me had hit a bird on the runway), that I realized it was likely easier to drive to Ottawa than fly every week.

It’s going to be almost 4 hours either way - flying or driving, which is a bit of a pain in the butt. But at least having a car takes away the airport hurry up and wait feeling. Plus - I could be on conference calls for the whole drive ;-)


When the landing was aborted at the last minute, a wave of resignation washed over me - I was convinced that the next stop was going to be right into the CN tower. How’s that for optimism? ;-)


Technorati Tags: Ottawa, Air Canada, commuter pain

NIN - The Review

It was a dark and stormy night.....
Perfect for seeing The Nine Inch Nails in Toronto.
Folks of various ages and descriptions, in assorted shades of black, lined up hours before the concert for security checks.

We rolled in right after the opening act, but word was that they were above par, as far as opening acts go.

Trent played continuously, from 9 till almost 11 pm. No intermission, no mad dash for the t-shirt stands... In lieu of intermission, there were 3 instrumental pieces that managed to draw a ridiculously huge amount of fan appreciation, considering they were instrumentals. :-)

The light shows were un-believable, I'm still not sure my heart is beating to the correct rhythm yet.
Of course, there was the requisite mosh pit, and we watched fans on the ground surf their way to the stage, only to be dumped into the arms of waiting security - who swooshed them back to the back of the auditorium.

The included photo was from Trent's performance of *HURT*, and it was spellbinding. There was an equal amount of lighters raised in tribute as cell phones. The back-lighting of the cellphone has become the lighter of the 21st century. It was eerie. Despite the security checks, there were still a plethora of people who managed to sneak in cameras and video equipment. So much for body cavity checks. :-)

Head Like a Hole and Closer drew thunderous applause, but we were left wishing that more NIN staple songs made it to the playlist. Considering how much of an emphasis NIN and Trent Rezner put on new social media, Internet 2.0 and fan collaboration, it would have been interesting to see him involve the fans in the playlist a bit more. A collaborative concert would have been phenomenal.

One of the most curious points of note, NIN still plays to 20 somethings... The same way they did 20 years ago. We were expecting to see a mature audience, yet we were clearly the minority. Curious. All in all, it was an awesome event.

The Next 4 Days

For the Next 6 Days

That’s me…. over on the beach.

:-)

I'm Addicted to Really Big Things

Gotcha.

With abysmal tv viewing options, the Wiz and I have gravitated towards impressive educational programming. Really Big Things is on The Discovery Channel. As you might guess, it’s about *really big things*, and how they work or are made. Just last night we got to learn how the gigantic sand islands that make up Dubai’s resort area are made.  That might not be up your alley, so a few weeks ago we saw how one of the biggest Canadian off-shore oil rigs was built. I’ve got to tell you, it’s a pretty neat show. Plus, then you get to say you like Really Big Things too, and not be inappropriate :-)

What Are You Going To Be When You're 34?

Wow! 34 years old and captain of the newest wireless provider in Canada. In an era where the current wireless bigwig is pushing 80-something, being 34 is a pretty big deal.

But Anthony Lacavera has done it; taking a little known telecom reseller company and turning it into a potential force to be reckoned with in the Canadian wireless market. The article in the Nation Post actually mentions the size of Mr Lavavera’s testicles, if you can believe it.

(Photo credit to Chris Young for The National Post)




Technorati Tags: Globalive, Yak, Canada Wireless

I Heard the Coyotes Singing Tonight...

... it's easy to forget, living in a suburb a few blocks off Yonge Street, that I'm surrounded on 3 sides by protected grenspace. Space that's likely home to a few gazillion wild beasts. The coyotes are often to the west - but tonight they were due south. Moving around in the summer, I suppose.

I can see the rosy glow of Toronto from my back deck. I rescued a wee toad that's tried to make a home under a maple tree in my back yard.

Yes, I'm still urban, but it's a pleasing thought to know that nature is still within reach.

Photo from www.rivernen.ca

Technorati Tags: coyote, oak ridges morraine, Richmond HIll

Zen Golf

Coming soon - the golf day…..

Rural Canadians and Broadbank Internet...

Last weekend I had the pleasure of going to Brantford, Ontario for a *Pretty in Pink* girls night out. I knew 3 of the ladies, and the other 4 were brand new friends as of that night. These were normal mom types, who had gotten to know each other through their kids' school activities.

As soon as the hostess introduced me, and let the ladies know I worked for one of the major telcos in Canada, the first question out of their mouths was if rural Canada was going to get better high speed internet service. The second question was about the wireless auction, and who the new mobile phone players were going to be.

Don't doubt for a minute that the average Canadian [someone not intimately linked to telecommunications in Canada] doesn't know what's going on with broadband internet or the cellular industry. They *are* paying attention. They *are* investing time in reading and understanding. Most importantly, they *ARE* asking questions and building insightful opinions.

One of the ladies was from Perry Sound. She uses dial-up still. High speed internet is out of her price range (and would be for us urbanites too) at $150/month. She didn't think that high speed would ever get to her at a price that was affordable. She was worried that once her son's friends started to get high speed, she was going to have a big fight on her hands.

Even the ladies who lived in Brantford proper had feedback and colour commentary about the state of high speed internet availability in rural Ontario. They also had some pretty strong opinions of wireless providers, and even asked me about Globalive and Google.


Canada needs a national broadband strategy - FP Comment

Canada needs a national broadband strategy

At Least 50% of the Canadian Workers Could Telecommute....

...... but only 9% do.

While some jobs will still require a daily commute, it is reasonable to assume that we could achieve a dramatic reduction in energy usage if more people worked at home more often. Estimates suggest that at least 50 per cent of people could work at home today. For employers, this means lower office costs and often more highly motivated employees.

The single greatest barrier to teleworking is management insecurity.
The desire for control is stronger than the desire to do the right thing.
That's sooo 1990.
:-)

Getting Charged for Spam?

At first I didn't mind the fact that incoming text messages were finally going to be a chargeable offense. It's a sign 'o the times. And then I got a text message. An automated, spammy text message. Not from anyone I knew. Had I been on a plan that was less friendly [read: not free], that spam would have cost me $0.15. With the phone, at least if you don't recognize the caller, you can simply not answer. With text messages, there's no such avoidance tactic. I've got a feeling that folks will be clamoring for a way to disable SMS messaging,and that's not the point of the new charges. But with no other control mechanism, how do you avoid getting charged for digital bits you don't want?So much for those free inbound sports scores ;-)

Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility will soon begin charging their customers for incoming text messages under new pricing plans slated for August.

CTV.ca | Bell, Telus to charge for incoming text messages

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Tags: Bell, TELUS, SMS

Update on 2008-07-09 20:55 by jules

Ok, I’m a bit sick of the bellyaching over the *huge drama* of getting charged for incoming text messages. OMFG. You would have thought that the carriers have demanded a human sacrifice in order to enable your cell phone.

I did one quick check. The odds of a user not already being on a plan that includes unlimited text messages, or at the very least, unlimited  incoming text mesages is rare. And if you are one of the schmos who don’t have this feature included in your plan, then you are going to cough up an additional $5/month for it. [TELUS pricing].

I’m also thinking there are a few ways to disable some of the spammy stuff you might be getting…. there is a wicked article on US carriers written by David Pogue, I’m now figuring out the Canadian options.

Gasoline Budget Explodes

I thought I'd share an interesting observation. Sure, we all know that gas prices are high. Sure, we feel the pinch at the pumps. I checked through our gas purchases, and compared 2 months of use.

I picked February, where people weren't griping so terribly about gas, and June, when we realized we were fully ensconced in a gas price explosion.

Neither the Wiz or I are full time commuters. We don't go anywhere exciting all that often, meaning there aren't lazy drives in the country on a Sunday.
In February, our gas bill was $360. In June, the cost had risen to $630. Wow, that's $270 that just disappeared. Poof. Losing an extra $270 every month. That's a big deal. A Really Big Deal. I was wondering why our checking account seemed anorexic for the past few months. I wanted to just attribute it to unexpected purchases, but this is bigger. More Insidious.

That's an additional $3200 a year that's going to go somewhere that's not my bank account. That's like having another Christmas kick you in the ass. That's the annual budget for kid activities (ie. karate and horseback riding and soccer)

We've got 2 vehicles, one, admittedly, isn't terribly efficient (Nissan Pathfinder), but my Toyota Matrix is pretty darned small and economical. Unless all 5 of us have to go somewhere, (chickadees + dog), we normally take the Matrix. The Wiz lives less than 20km from work. We've got a year left on the Pathfinder lease, will we still be able to afford to drive it soon?


Today the price per litre rose again to $1.37.

Technorati Tags: Canada, gas price

What's the Deal with Dipity?

Ok - I'm keen when it comes to neat applications. Last week I set up Dipity. Dipity is a visual aggregator of all the content you create via various sources. I.e Blogging, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, YouTube etc. Dipity creates a timeline that you can scroll through, analyse and share. It's quite neat. The collecting of all my digital noise in one place, in a visual format just tickles me. Go ahead. Check out your noise.


Technorati Tags: Dipity, Timeline

Time Shifting in the Network

A few weeks ago I wrote about the risks associated with the new Copywrite laws being considered in Canada, and specifically how the law is going to affect timeshifting of TV programming. It turns out I wasn’t far from accurate, that Television providers are indeed considering moving the ability to timeshift and record programming into their networks. Michael Geist has an interesting bit on network based PVRs.

In the months leading up to Bill C-61, Telus consistently argued for a “living” fair dealing provision that could adapt to changing technologies. In particular, the company noted its interest in providing a network-based PVR that would allow customers to record and store programs that reside on computers that it hosts. That network-based approach of relying on centralized computers - often referred to as cloud computing - is one of the hottest trends in computing as companies look for efficiencies and consumers seek out convenience.

Michael Geist - Blog

I like having my set-top PVR, and I’m sure that the geeky-minded folks will always have a media centre with their TV, but I wonder how many folks would appreciate having their content stored on their tv providers hard drive? What does that say about privacy? Do you want it known that you’ve recorded 50 hours of Big Brother? There are sone significant issues at play, and it’s not all about copywrite.

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Tags: MichaelGeist, Timeshifting, Canada Copywrite

Dipity

Toronto Girl Geek Dinner -

On Wednesday, I ventured forth into the Big Smoke to partake of bevvies and snacks and geekiness. I’ve been a lurker on the Toronto Girl Geek site for almost a year, but it was last month when i bit the bullet and decided to participate.

And it was good.
Quite Good.
I didn’t sign up because of an interest in the speaker [although, the fact that the speaker ended up being phenomenal was just gravy], but because I figured it was time to discover other like minded chicklets. And besides, you can’t go to soccer games every night of the week.

The speaker happened to be Jayne Hoogenberk, the mastermind behind the e.community for Harlequin Romance. No, she didn’t really talk about product, but all about the technical ins and outs of creating on-line communities, being responsible for the care and feeding of an on-line brand and some of the best practices she used in cultivating a successful online community. There were bits and pieces of her discussion that any industry could take away and incorporate into their own on-line strategy. Stellar and very applicable.


And just guess who’s going to be the speaker for their next dinner? Sandi Jones. Yup. That’s right. One of the greatest thought leaders in the Canadian Internet Industry. I think you’ve got to go.

Technorati Tags: Sandi Jones, Toronto Girl Geek Dinner, Jayne Hoogenberk, eHarlequin

Becoming a Criminal in the 21st Century - Canadian Copywrite Reform

It's a big deal. The Canadian Copywrite Reform Act [if it becomes law], is going to change the way we live, the way we share and the way we enjoy media.

From Michael Geist, there's a beautiful synopsis: The Canadian public get's analog rights, the Copywrite Lobby get's digital rights. You can copy a piece of video media that you *OWN* onto a videocassette, but not a DVD.
~~~~When was the last time you had a videocassette? I haven't owned a VCR for over 5 years.

The most interesting new criminality is the PVR. If you've got a PVR, chances are you actually got it from your TV provider, you are renting or have purchased it, with the explicit permission from the provider to be able to use it to record entertainment to watch at a later date. Poof. This activity, along with time-shifting is going to become a criminal activity.

Let's just put aside the fact that this is a service provided by your cable/satellite provider. How about the financial implications of the Canadian government on said cable/satellite providers? I pay a whopping $20/month for my HD PVR. That's $240/year from just little old me. Imagine the thousands of people who are in the same boat. That revenue stream could simply disappear from the service provider's coffers with a government signature. Why is it that we aren't hearing the screams of the major service providers about this component of the copywrite bill? Are they engaged in their own lobbying? Do they have a plan?

I've got a feeling that they *do* have a plan, and something just as insidious as the Canadian Copywrite Reform. Something that takes the content out of the customer's domain and puts it back in the service provider's realm. My gut says that the TV service providers are going to offer a similar type service, but instead of downloading movies/shows to your PVR, you program the scheduling, and the shows are actually stored to disk on the service provider's premise, and when you want to view the recorded media, you get to *stream* the content down to your TV, but never actually have possession of the media. It's going to be part of the push to make network infrastructures smarter, and put the control of content tightly in the hands of the broadcasters. Think TMN on Demand, a neat service provided by Rogers. Instead of waiting for the appropriate time for a movie to be aired, you can select to watch a TMN movie whenever you want. No waiting, no schedule. Bam, it's there when you want. Rogers also offers the same service for their PPV movies, no schedule, instant watch-ability. With these services, I couldn't *save* the movie to my PVR, I could only watch it in real time. Sneaky. Good and sneaky, but you can see that the wheels are already spinning....

We are all going to be criminals.
I've got to get my tattoo figured out. And a really tough nickname.












Technorati Tags: Rogers, Canadian Copywrite Reform, Michael Geist

Soccerfest 2008

It was a long hot saturday, with a threat of impending rain and the squeaking of hundred of pre-teen girls. Soccer had taken over Newmarket. Whistles and refs and jerseys of all hues covered 5 acres of greenspace. Parents with foldable chairs in snappy carrying bags lined the fields. Cheering, whooping and the odd word cursed under their breath in response to a bad call from the officials.

Baby Shower 2.0: Long Distance Love

This past weekend I was able to attend something very neat: A virtual baby shower. The mom was in California (just north of San Fran) and the rest of the family was in Ontario (just north of Oshawa). Laptops, web cams and a 1010 Casual Calling plan created a spectacular experience. [we would have used skype but alas, it was a last minute tech change].

Pressies were opened and proudly displayed to the webcam, and the oohs and ahhs from the mom were audible over the speakerphone. It worked! The laughter and hilarity of ladies *monkeying around for the webcam* were priceless.

Distance doesn't mean very much any more. Or it didn't, until the mom said "Mom, come closer to the webcam, I want to see your face. I miss you". It's still hard to hug over the internets.