Year: 2007

Interview with todbits.tv

A couple of weeks ago Tod Maffin was in Edmonton to broadcast and record his video show, todbits.tv. I went down to the Hotel MacDonald to check it out, and it turns out I was the only one in Edmonton who went! What’s the deal with that local tech people?!

Anyway, we couldn’t get the live stream going, so we went outside to record it. Tod talked about his LG Cherry Chocolate phone, then we did a quick interview about Paramagnus and Podcast Spot.

You can watch the 12 minute video here. Thanks Tod!

Read: todbits.tv

Remembering Jordan Anderson

Unfortunately, Canadian soliders being killed in Afghanistan and other places around the world is not extremely rare. It’s also very sad when it happens, so I’ll be honest, I usually skim the headlines. I hadn’t even had the chance to do that yesterday morning, however, when I got a call from a CBC reporter looking for a comment on the death of Cpl. Jordan Anderson.

At first I thought she had the wrong number, but after checking out the group she mentioned on Facebook, I realized I did know Jordan. I was really good friends with his younger brother in elementary and junior high, and you could say our families were friends.

Along with five other soliders, Jordan was killed Wednesday when their armoured vehicle struck a massive roadside bomb near Kandahar.

A human interest story about Jordan ran in today’s Edmonton Journal:

“I would like to see Afghanistan turn into somewhere I could visit one day,” [Jordan] said last January, just days before he left Edmonton for his second tour of duty in Afghanistan.

He was quietly proud of the work he and his colleagues were doing. He genuinely felt he was making life safer and better for Afghans and thus helping rid the country of international terrorism. And, as odd as it might sound in a war zone, Jordan seemed content.

The last time I saw Jordan was many, many years ago. My friend Matt, who is in the Forces and who worked with Jordan, said he was “funny as hell.” I get the impression from talking to Matt and reading some of the articles, that Jordan was one of those guys you just wanted to be around.

I feel so sad for Jordan’s family, it’s such terrible news. I also feel extremely thankful for people like Jordan, who risk their lives every day to make the world a better place for the rest of us.

Thank you Jordan, you will be missed.

Read: Edmonton Journal

Why not move to Edmonton?

Post ImageI’d like to take a moment to share with you some figures, statistics, and other information about the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. As most of you reading this are probably aware, I live in Edmonton. I was born here, moved away for most of my youth, and have been back since 1998. I love the city, and while it is not without its faults, there are much worse places to live.

  • Edmonton is the capital city of the province of Alberta.
  • Edmonton is the sixth largest metropolitan region in Canada according to the 2006 Census, with a population of 1,034,945. (Source)
  • It is also the northernmost North American city with a metropolitan population over 1 million. (Source)
  • The population density of the Edmonton region is just 109.9 persions per square km. This is half the population density of the Calgary region, 1/7 of the Vancouver region, 1/8th of the Montreal region, 1/2 the Ottawa region, and 1/8th of the Toronto region. (Source)
  • Edmonton is home to West Edmonton Mall, North America’s largest shopping mall, and the third largest in the world. (Source)
  • WEM also holds the world record for the largest car park. (Source)
  • Edmonton receives 2,289 hours of sunlight each year, making it one of Canada’s sunniest cities. (Source)
  • There are more than 60,000 full time post-secondary students studying at schools in the Edmonton area. (Source)
  • A very impressive 66,000 new jobs are projected to be created in the Edmonton region between 2006 and 2010. (Source)
  • Edmonton did not make the 2006 list of most expensive cities in which to live (the list contained 150 cities). Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal all made the list. (Source)
  • Edmonton was named the Cultural Capital of Canada for the year 2007. (Source)
  • The annual Fringe festival is the largest alternative theatre event in North America. (Source)
  • Edmonton’s 60,000-plus elm trees make up the largest concentration of disease-free elm trees in the world. (Source)
  • Alberta is North America’s only rat free area (not including the territories). (Source)
  • Edmonton has 225 kilometers of designated bikeways, and 41 off-leash parks to walk with your dog. (Source)
  • The River Valley park system is the longest urban park in North America, 21.7 times larger than New York’s Central Park. (Source)
  • Edmonton is home to five professional sports franchises, including the very successful Edmonton Oilers and Edmonton Eskimos. (Source)
  • Air quality in Edmonton is rated as good (the best level) at least 90% of the time for any given year. (Source)
  • Edmonton leads the nation in effective waste management. For example, the city’s curbside recycling program has reduced by 60% the waste sent to landfills. (Source)
  • Edmonton is down right beautiful at times, as you can see in the thousands and thousands of photos available at Flickr. (Source)

I could go on, but that’s a good start.

I look at #4, the population density, as a good thing. It may be a negative thing for hockey players and other celebrities seeking anonymity, however. One other negative that comes to mind is that we have a relatively high homicide rate, though it’s not as bad as rural regions of Alberta. Aside from that, what’s so bad about Edmonton?

Why do the wives of hockey players not want to live here? Is it just that Chris Pronger and Michael Nylander married nutcases, or is there more to it?

I don’t get it. However, unlike a lot of folks out there, I don’t think the blame falls entirely on Kevin Lowe’s shoulders. There’s got to be more to it. I’ll have more on this at SportsGuru this weekend, and I suspect my Dad might too.

What’s missing?

REVIEW: Transformers

Post ImageWow, just wow. I went to see Transformers last night, and I left the theatre damn impressed. Keep in mind that I’m not a Transformers geek. I never played with the toys, nor did I watch the cartoon. Thus, it would have been hard for me to be disappointed about “staying true to the story” or something like that. Turns out even the big fans loved the movie though. Take Justice, for instance:

I will be proselytizing this movie to random strangers starting tomorrow; I won’t stop until the entire world recognizes how great this film was. If you were ever going to do Transformers as a live-action film, this would be how to do it.

Don’t listen to the critics, listen to the audience. I’ll echo what Justice said: go see the movie, you’ll like it.

I read the Wikipedia entry for the movie the other day, the most interesting part of which is the section on the development of the film. Fans of Steven Spielberg (such as myself) will notice his stamp all over the film. Alien comes to earth, finds boy. Boy is afraid at first, then develops a relationship with alien. Boy is only the only one who can understand alien. Later, alien is near death, boy is heartbroken. Sound familiar? It should. A large part of the storyline in Transformers might as well have been lifted right from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. And that’s not a bad thing.

Anyway, here are some comments:

  • I didn’t expect the movie to be funny, but there was some clever humor injected throughout!
  • Awesome action sequences, just incredible. Though if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a lot of the major eye-candy-scenes. Still, the CGI in this movie is breathtaking.
  • Not one, but two incredibly attractive women in this movie: Megan Fox and Rachael Taylor.
  • Shia LaBeouf was incredible. Looking forward to more movies with him as the lead.
  • I suppose one negative is that the movie could be taken as an extended commercial for GM.
  • Great music, both original and included. The new Linkin Park stuff was featured pretty heavily.
  • Don’t let the length (144 mins) deter you from seeing the film. Like Pirates 3, it did not feel that long.

Apparently two sequels have already been greenlit, with Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox on board for both. I’d go see more Transformers movies! Heck, I’d go see this one again!

Read: Transformers

Ticking time bomb for archived data?

Post ImageI took a class at the University last year called Literary Computing (ENGL 304) which examined “the applications and implications of computing technology to the three pilars of literary studies: reading, researching, and writing.” One of the things we talked about at length was information preservation. If I remember correctly, the class was split right down the middle with half thinking that our digital world was bad for preservation and the other half feeling the opposite was true. As you might expect, I was in the latter group.

I was reminded of the class today when I read this article in BBC News:

The growing problem of accessing old digital file formats is a “ticking time bomb”, the chief executive of the UK National Archives has warned.

The National Archives, which holds 900 years of written material, has more than 580 terabytes of data – the equivalent of 580,000 encyclopaedias – in older file formats that are no longer commercially available.

I fail to see the issue. Is it not the job of the National Archives to ensure that documents and historical information are preserved? And that the public can access such information? Of course it is. Instead of complaining every couple of years about the pace of technological change, why not do something about it? There’s only a “ticking time bomb” if you sit back and do nothing.

Part of the problem is the way archivers look at digital media versus paper:

Ms Ceeney said: “If you put paper on shelves, it’s pretty certain it is going to be there in a hundred years. If you stored something on a floppy disc just three or four years ago, you’d have a hard time finding a modern computer capable of opening it.”

That’s true, as long as you store the paper properly. And that position fails to take into account the advantages of digital media over paper: searching, indexing, encrypting, etc. That’s the trade-off. If archivers were really interested solely in preservation, why not just print everything out on to paper and store that? Clearly more is desired. As with most everything, to get more out, you have to put more in. In this case, that means more effort to take advantage of better functionality.

I don’t understand how the National Archives (and other similar organizations around the world) can claim that some digital documents have been lost forever because programs which can read them no longer exist. Has Microsoft disappeared? Is it impossible to install Windows 3.1 on a computer to open documents? Heck, why not just hire some programmers to write new conversion tools? USB floppy drives can be purchased for around $15. Older drives that read 5.25″ floppy disks haven’t vanished from the face of the earth. It’s simply a matter of effort and determination (and money). This “we give up” attitude makes me sick.

If you shred a piece of paper, or douse it in water, it’s damn near impossible to recover. Have a digital file in a really old format? It might be difficult to recover, but it’s certainly not impossible. It’s all zeros and ones, after all.

That is why I took the position I did in my ENGL 304 class, and why I still haven’t changed my mind.

Read: BBC News

Thank you, come again!

Post ImageI was surfing around Yahoo! News yesterday when I came across this story: 7-Elevens become Simpsons ‘Kwik-E-Marts’. How awesome is that? Eleven locations in the US and one in Canada have been converted to Kwik-E-Marts, selling things like Buzz Cola, KrustyO’s cereal, and Squishees. There’s a wicked photoset at Flickr that shows just how detailed these real-life Kwik-E-Marts are.

John Biehler visited the Coquitlam, BC location yesterday (lucky bastard):

One thing that struck me (and that others have posted about) is the lengths they went to do it right….it’s easy enough to slap a few posters up for a big movie but to transform an entire store to something as beloved as a Kwik-E-Mart is pure genius.

Agreed. This is one of the best movie promotion ideas ever! Too bad I won’t get to see one of the Kwik-E-Marts in person. The movie opens July 27th.

Read: Yahoo! News

Switching to WordPress…Eventually!

Post ImageI’ve decided that I am going to switch my blog to WordPress. I am running Community Server 1.1 at the moment, and while it works well enough I know I’d be happier with WordPress. When I have time and have solved the issues with doing such a switch, I’ll make the move.

There’s a very large, very vibrant, and very active community surrounding WordPress. For example, it’s rare to find a blogging tool that supports Community Server – all of them support WordPress. Ditto for widgets and other third party services. Most of all though? WordPress just works the way I want it to.

I’ve used .Text and Community Server for this blog (and DasBlog waaaay back in the day). Blogosphere.ca is still running .Text if you can believe it. My Dad’s blog and the SportsGuru blog we co-author run on MovableType. I’ve played with Blogger, LiveJournal, Windows Live Spaces, and other hosted engines. I’ve seen WordPress used over the last couple years, and was particularly interested when Scoble switched. I started using WordPress quite extensively a couple weeks ago when I started WindowsMediaBlog.com. It became clear to me very quickly that WordPress is the way to go. Easy to setup and configure, easy to manage.

These are the goals I have for the switch:

  1. All posts, comments, trackbacks, etc. migrated to WordPress.
  2. All existing URLs will continue to work. The switch shouldn’t break anything.
  3. Existing content will be “cleaned up” a bit (tags stripped and stored in the database using a widget, for example).

I’ve looked around a little, and have come to the conclusion that the only way to achieve these goals is to write some code. WordPress cannot import from Community Server, and an RSS feed isn’t flexible enough to include comments and trackbacks. BlogML is promising, and it might help to an extent, but only with #1. If anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear from you!

My blog will likely be the last that I’ll switch to WordPress, actually. EclecticBlogs, SportsGuru, and the Blogosphere.ca blogs will all be migrated first, in varying degrees (Blogosphere will likely be a fresh start using WordPress MU and a static archive of what currently exists). By the time I get to my blog, I should be an expert!

Thoughts? Suggestions? I’m all ears! I’ll share my migration experiences here as I go.

REVIEW: I think Pownce sucks

Post ImageI mentioned in my last notes post that I’d write about Pownce, so here it goes. Nothing can top the iPhone in the hype department, but Pownce has come close recently. And unfortunately for Kevin Rose and his crew, it doesn’t live up to any of it, unlike the iPhone (note: I don’t have one). Ted was a little mean over at uncov, but for the most part I have to agree with him.

Let me get this out of the way right now – I really like Twitter, but I’ve been just as annoyed as everyone else with their crappy service at times. It has gotten much better lately though. And my first impression upon hearing about Pownce was – what does it do for me that Twitter or Facebook or instant messaging doesn’t already do?

Here are some thoughts on Pownce:

  • It works kind of awkwardly in Opera. Scrolling is not smooth, and clicking on the “home” button at the top takes way too much effort (you have to be right on the text or something).
  • Spam. By default, Pownce thinks it’s cool to send an email to your inbox each time something happens. Problem is, you have to click through to see any details.
  • Crazy invites! Who are all these people that have requested to be my friend? I have accepted them all, but I only know a few of them. This hasn’t happened to me with Twitter.
  • Maybe I am blind, but I don’t think Pownce has ever heard of RSS. I’m surprised their blog has an RSS feed. Seriously, why can’t I subscribe to anything?
  • Lack of mobile support. That’s the second best thing about Twitter as far as I am concerned, so it sucks that Pownce is web/desktop-only.
  • The best thing about Twitter is the API – Pownce doesn’t have one.
  • The file sharing feature of Pownce strikes me as a solution looking for a problem.

Honestly, Pownce is a horrible attempt to aggregate the functionality of a bunch of services into one place. Twitter is better for messaging (heck so is IM). Email/IM is better for sending files to individuals, services like box.net do multiple people. Facebook is better for creating a network of friends, and for creating and sharing events. del.icio.us is better for sharing links.

And here’s the thing: I already use all of those services, so why would I switch to Pownce? It would have to be ten times better than all of those services to make it worthwhile. It’s clearly not.

Sorry folks, but if it weren’t for Kevin Rose, Pownce wouldn’t have received a fraction of the attention it has thus far. I realize I am contributing to that attention, but I see this post as a sane reply to these idiotic ones. Two of the authors of those posts admitted their gut feeling was to hate Pownce. My advice? Learn to trust your gut.

Another thing: who gives a shit what technology Pownce was written in? Only the very geeky will know what django is. Twitter had the same problem – who cares that it’s written using RoR? Make it work dammit. And to anyone who thinks Pownce will get tons of people to install Adobe AIR – get a grip! AIR will be installed very widely, yes, but it won’t be because of Pownce. I’m all for getting my geek on, but shiny new web frameworks distract from having a solid, usable product.

One more thing (heh I sound like Steve Jobs…): why not use Leah Culver (Pownce’s lead developer) to your advantage, Pownce? If her photo appeared in every Pownce review I’ve read, or on every page of the site, I might feel better about the service. Heh, sorry for getting chauvinistic, but come on, I’m trying to find something that would get me to use Pownce. And besides, would you rather look at Leah or Kevin? Thought so. Maybe that’s what we need for Podcast Spot – an attractive, female lead developer. Hmm…

Okay, that’s it. If for some reason you’re dying to try Pownce, I have some invites left, just send me your email.

UPDATE: I just found some feeds! Turns out you have to visit someone’s public profile to see an RSS icon of any kind. Dumb!

Read: Pownce

CBC's Great Canadian Wish List – pathetic, just pathetic

Post ImageI just read on Mashable about the CBC’s Great Canadian Wish List project. I hadn’t heard about it until now, but apparently the CBC created a Facebook group asking users to vote on their top 30 wishes. Mashable explains:

More than 16,000 people responded to the questions posed on this Facebook group, says the TV network, thus confirming that Canadian college kids are largely Christian right wingers. The results, of course, have no basis in fact: the Facebook voting has been hijacked by a group of conservatives involved in mass voting.

Abolish abortion? Restore the traditional definition of marriage? Bring about a spiritual revival? Are you kidding me? Do those “wishes” sound like something you’d expect from the largely secular, technology-savvy youth of our nation? I don’t think so. And sure, I’m painting with a broad brush here, but I don’t think I’m wrong.

I am kind of insulted that CBC acknowledges these “results” as news. I hardly think it is representative of Canadians in general. Their blog post makes no attempt to suggest that the results are highly unscientific. Did anyone at CBC think this through before going ahead? I applaud the use of Facebook, but seriously, do it right.

Very pathetic, CBC. Way to completely ignore your mandate.

Read: Mashable

Notes for 7/1/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Happy Canada Day everyone! A very impressive 140 years.
  • I have five Pownce invites to give out. Leave a comment with your email or contact me if you want one. I’ll write about the site later…not that impressed.
  • The Oilers traded captain Jason Smith as well as Joffrey Lupul to the Flyers for Joni Pitkanen and Geoff Sanderson earlier today. The Rangers picked up both Gomez and Drury, leaving Smyth as one of the few remaining “big” names available (as of right now at least). I don’t think he’s coming back to Edmonton though.
  • Here is the iPhone disassembled.
  • Another really cool “world statistics” visualization, this one with deaths broken down by cause.
  • Open-air urinals are coming to Whyte Avenue. I doubt they will be very effective, but you never know.
  • Rolling Stone article on the decline of the music industry.
  • I decided to give Google Reader a try this week. I like that it works in Opera – it feels snappier than the NewsGator Online beta too.