Month: June 2007

Telus and Bell to merge?

Post ImageI didn’t see this one coming, but apparently Telus is interested in acquiring Bell parent BCE Inc. Such a move would create a truly national telecommunications company here in Canada, but I am not sure that’s such a good thing. Telus CEO Darren Entwistle seems convinced though:

“This acquisition will create a strong, integrated competitor that would generate continued expansion and growth in the years ahead,” CEO Darren Entwistle said in a media conference call.

“This particular acquisition makes enormous sense for our country. This move will create a truly national provider with the size to stand along side any telecom company in the world.”

Fellow blogger Mark Evans speculates on the deal and wonders if Rogers and Shaw would cozy up in response.

Who knew the Canadian telecommunications industry could be so interesting?

Read: TheStar.com

Bloomberg for President?

Post ImageI don’t know about you, but when I think of “Bloomberg” I generally think of money. Maybe that’s because Bloomberg L.P., the company that current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg started back in 1981, is the largest financial news and data company in the world. Or maybe it’s because Mr. Bloomberg is filthy rich! Either way, it takes more than money to run for President doesn’t it? Okay, okay, money is important. Still, that’s pretty much all the press has to go on at the moment:

The announcement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent was made after nearly two years in which his aides had laid the groundwork for a potential independent run for president.

Oh no, not the aides laying groundwork! That means he must really be planning to run for President! Nevermind that he made it clear he wants to finish his term as mayor:

“My intention is to be mayor for the next 925 days and 10 or 11 hours,” he said. “I’ve got the greatest job in the world, and I’m going to keep doing it.”

Ah I can just imagine what the reporters were thinking – he has money, so he must want to run for President, let’s find information that proves us right! Maybe I am just being naïve, but if he says he isn’t running, don’t you think there’s a small chance he is telling the truth?

Bloomberg becoming an independent is interesting, for sure, but I find it kind of comical that the media want to make becoming an independent mean running for President. Perhaps Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have become boring?

Read: NYTimes.com

Ustream.tv and Lifecasting

Post ImageA couple weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in guest posting at the 2007 Vancouver International Digital Festival (Vidfest) blog. Of course I said yes! The topic was left up to me, so I decided to write about Justin Kan and the emerging trend of lifecasting:

Have you heard of Justin Kan? He’s the adventurous geek behind justin.tv, a website that shows a continuous live video and audio stream of his life. Everything he sees and hears, you see and hear.

I am slightly in awe of Justin and his fellow lifecasters – being on camera 24/7 without any editing must be very strange, not to mention tiring! At the same time, I can see how it could be an extremely rewarding experience.

I am not planning to become the next Justin or anything, but I have been playing around with Ustream.tv lately. They make it easy to broadcast your webcam to the world, just like Justin does. From their FAQ:

Ustream.tv is LIVE INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOR EVERYONE. Ustream.tv quickly and easily allows anyone with a camera to broadcast to the world.

All you need to stream is a computer, internet connection, a microphone and a webcam or video camera! Our system will auto detect your camera type.

I am not sure why they are screaming at me in the first sentence, but they are right, you don’t need much to get going. It’s really quick too! Once you create an account, you’re basically two or three clicks away from streaming live. The interface is really user-friendly and clean looking. Much better than blogtv.ca, which Tod Maffin showed me last week.

I have tested it a few times with my Dad and Aimee, and they both report that the audio and video quality is excellent. And because everything is done using Flash, all you need is a browser (assuming your browser has Flash installed, which is 98% likely). My very boring show is here if you want to check it out. I’ll keep it going for a little while tonight.

Unless you’re Chris Pirillo, I think scheduling a broadcast is the way to go. There is a certain “cool” factor to streaming live, but it soon wears off when you realize the content sucks! It really depends on what your intentions are though. If you’re lifecasting, I guess your stream is only as interesting as your life.

What do you think? Will lifecasting catch on? I think it has incredible potential!

Read: Ustream.tv

REVIEW: Good Girl Gone Bad – Rihanna

Post ImageCan you believe it has only been two years since Rihanna released her first album? It was August 2005 when Music of the Sun hit store shelves. I reviewed that album, and wasn’t incredibly impressed. In April 2006 she released her second album, A Girl Like Me. I didn’t review it, but I did like it much better than the first. It spawned more singles than the first album too, such as the incredibly catchy track SOS.

Now Rihanna is back with a third album. Released on June 5th, Good Girl Gone Bad (wikipedia) has already reached #1 in Canada and #2 in the United States. Most reviews have been positive, as they should be – the album kicks ass!

You may recall that I was “completely addicted” to Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds last year (still am, looking forward to the concert in August too). I shouldn’t be surprised then that I love Rihanna’s new album, as Timbaland produced three of the songs, and Timberlake co-wrote and provided backing vocals on one of them. Other collaborators include Jay-Z and Ne-Yo.

To say that the album is different from her previous efforts would be a big understatement! It is more up-tempo, fun, and memorable. The first single is also the first track on the disc, Umbrella. It “features” Jay-Z though he really only has a short rap at the beginning. I think my favorite song on the album would be the fourth track, Breakin’ Dishes. The second single, Shut Up and Drive, is also really catchy. The Timbaland-produced Sell Me Candy is also a great song, but it’s too short at only 2 minutes, 45 seconds.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are four or five singles released from this album – I think it’s that good. That’s probably a good thing for Rihanna, considering she probably will want to take a break after three albums in two years! I definitely recommend Good Girl Gone Bad.

Read: Rihanna

Al Gore is the new Bono

Post ImageWhat do you call people such as Bono (Paul Hewson) and Al Gore? They are stars, activists, and political figures, that’s for sure. It almost seems as though we need a new word to describe them though, because they transcend so many labels. There are many others who might fall into this category of people I have in my head (such as Bill Gates perhaps), but Bono and Gore are the two that come to mind first. You might say “activist” is a good enough word, but I don’t think so. More on that in a moment.

When I say Gore is the new Bono, I mean that in a good way. Al Gore seems to have taken the template used by Bono and adapted it for his own purposes. It goes something like this:

  1. Become famous.
  2. Find something you’re passionate about.
  3. Use your fame (and perhaps wealth) to support your passion.

Obviously Bono wasn’t the first person to do this, and Gore won’t be the last. I just point them out because of timing – I’m too young to really recognize the pattern in anyone before Bono, and thanks to the Internet and other present-day methods of global communication, the efforts of Bono and Gore are more visible than ever before.

I should also point out that Bono and Gore are different from people like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and others. All are activists, sure, but the latter group are famous because of their activism, whereas Gore and Bono became famous first for something else and then turned to becoming activists.

Bono has been a special guest at all sorts of events that you wouldn’t expect a rockstar to be at. Gore is doing the same at events you wouldn’t expect a former Vice-President to attend. Bono helped organize Live8 back in 2005, and Gore is doing the same for Live Earth this year.

Bono was named by Time as a Person of the Year back in 2005, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. Gore has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and who knows, maybe he’ll grace the cover of Time come December.

Bono’s passion is for humanitarian issues, Gore’s passion is for environmental issues. Makes me wonder who will come next and what it is that person will have a passion for.

My parents are on Facebook – so what?

Post ImageIt was only a matter of time I guess – the “oh my god my parents are on Facebook” articles have started to appear in the MSM. Here is what Michelle Slatalla wrote about her experiences with Facebook in the New York Times a couple weeks ago:

After I got my Profile page, the first thing I did was to search for other members — my daughter and her friends — to ask them to be my friends.

Shockingly, quite a few of them — the friends, not the daughter — accepted my invitation and gave me access to their Profiles, including their interests, hobbies, school affiliations and in some cases, physical whereabouts.

You can read the whole thing if you like, but essentially the story is that Slatalla’s daughter was very unhappy her mom had joined Facebook. A week or so later, Patrick White wrote a similar article for the Globe and Mail. I was interviewed for the piece, but my quotes were not included, probably because my story is pretty boring by comparison – I don’t mind that my parents have Facebook at all! Anyway, here’s a quote from the article:

The site now bridges a chasm once rarely crossed between student life and family life by offering a window into the lives of both children and parents. Family dynamics may never be the same.

Mark Evans and Chris LaBossiere, among others, have also written recently about the older crowd joining Facebook.

I don’t understand what the big deal is. Facebook is just a tool – not a tool for teenagers or a tool for older folks, it’s a tool for everyone. My parents joined Facebook about a month ago and use it daily. They have connected with colleagues and friends, and they both update their status many times a day.

So what if there are pictures of me drinking on Facebook? Who cares if they can read all of my wall posts? Let’s assume they saw something they didn’t approve of – what are they going to do about it? There’s nothing they can do! Besides, I know my parents trust me to make smart decisions and to take responsibility for my own actions – that’s the way I was raised.

If you have a problem with your parents joining Facebook and seeing your profile, I think you need to take a closer look at the relationship you have with them. Having your entire family on Facebook shouldn’t greatly impact the family dynamic, except maybe for the better by creating another avenue for communication (but for communication that should already be taking place).

The only big difference Facebook has made for my family is that we use MSN Messenger slightly less. We don’t have to send the standard “what are you up to” messages because we get each other’s status updates instead.

When my parents joined Facebook, my first thought wasn’t “omg what are they going to see now” it was “damn this is cool my parents are technologically savvy!” At the risk of sounding condescending or mean, I would suggest that if your reaction is the “oh my god” kind then the relationship you have with with your parents probably isn’t as good as it should be (maybe you already know this, maybe you don’t). View them joining Facebook not as a negative thing, but as a way to improve your relationship!

Of course it’s easy for me to say these things, because I have a great relationship with my parents. All I am trying to get across is that whatever problems you think your parents joining Facebook will create likely existed long before Facebook did.

Notes for 6/17/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.
  • The trip to Calgary was lots of fun (minus the rain all day today)! Nice to see some friends and their new houses. Kind of makes me feel old though, because we started coming up with ideas for renovations. I mean, we got excited about kitchen appliances and paint colors! Not to mention that we felt sleepy around 10 PM.
  • This story exemplifies everything that is wrong with the legal system (granted I don’t think Canada’s legal system is quite as bad as the States).
  • Here is the U of A ExpressNews article about Dr. Klawe, the honorary degree recipient from my convocation.
  • Microsoft released Windows Home Server RC1 earlier this week – looks like a very interesting app indeed.
  • I think there’s a bug in Facebook’s mobile status updates feature. It seems that every couple of days or so one of the people I have specified I’d like to recieve updates for is removed. I can add them again, except then someone else gets removed a few days later. Very annoying!

Road Trip! To Calgary

I am off to Calgary this morning with Jane and Andrew to visit some friends. It’s amazing how many people have moved south in the last year or so! Anyway, I’ll be back sometime on Sunday.

I am always on Twitter though!

Team Fortress 2 Release Date: October 9th

Post ImageOne of the most delayed and over-hyped games of all time has finally been given a release date: Team Fortress 2 (TF2) will ship on October 9th, 2007 along with Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Portal, according to a report at Shacknews. Regarding the platforms:

Valve is handling development of the games on PC and Xbox 360, with EA UK’s Chertsey, Surrey office bringing the titles to PlayStation 3.

Today’s news follows rumors originating last month that the PlayStation 3 versions of the games would be delayed into 2008. Valve’s Doug Lombardi noted to Shacknews that development has been progressing well on all three platforms.

I used to be a Team Fortress Classic (TFC) addict so I am definitely interested in giving TF2 a try. I am really excited that the game will be available for the Xbox 360 too!

I really hope TF2 doesn’t suck. Since being announced way back in 1999, the game has undergone a number of design changes, with co-designer Robin Walker admitting that Valve built “probably three to four different games” before settling on a design. Let’s hope they picked the right one!

Read: Shacknews

Tutoring CMPUT 101 – Introduction to Computing

Post ImageA few months ago I was walking through HUB Mall at the U of A when I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen since high school. We had a brief chat, and I of course told her about all of the geeky things I do. Turns out she was taking CMPUT 101 this semester (spring term), and asked if I’d be willing to tutor her. I said sure, not knowing what I was getting myself into!

Her final exam was today (hopefully she did well) so our last session was yesterday. Throughout her course we met twice a week for roughly two hours each time to go over the concepts she was learning in lecture, and to work on her labs. It was a really good experience for me, and she said my help was really important for helping her understand the material. Actually, she told me yesterday “you have a gift you should share! maybe you should join the tutor registry.” I think she was being overly nice 🙂

Here are some thoughts:

  • As this was an introduction course (that I never took actually) I really had to refresh my memory on some of the topics (like Two’s Complement). Mostly it all came flowing back to me though!
  • There were definitely some frustrating times, for her and for me! She would have trouble grasping a concept and I would have trouble explaining it. We worked through it though, and found a way for it to make sense. So I learned that tutors need patience.
  • I get the feeling that taking a computer course in a compressed term (spring or summer) is quite hard, especially if you’re not a computer-person! The content is just rushed.
  • I think tutoring a higher level class would be fun, where the student already knows the basics.

I know she’ll pass the course, so I am just eager to see how well she does! She gave me a gift card for Starbucks yesterday as a thank you – incredibly nice of her, but completely unnecessary!

I don’t know if I am going to join the tutor registry, but I’ll definitely considerate it now that I have some experience.