Category: Uncategorized

Microsoft on your telly

Post ImageI was fortunate enough to land a guest posting gig over at last100, a blog dedicated to tracking the digital lifestyle. My two part series is about “Microsoft on your telly” and my articles take a look at where Microsoft is and has been in the television market, and where they are going. You can read the first post here. Please let me know what you think!

If you’ve never heard of last100, check it out. From the About page:

The name last100 refers to what industry insiders call the “last 100 feet” problem, which is the gap between the typical home’s computer and its living-room TV set. Whilst the digital living room is a primary focus, we’ll also be covering other areas of the digital lifestyle (VoIP, portable media, mobile web etc).

I love the name!

Looks like my first post has received a bunch of attention on Digg too, so feel free to digg it (up to 95 diggs right now). All I can say is I am glad the Digg mob is focusing their attention on Microsoft rather than on me!

Read: last100

Get ready for a major Microsoft product launch in February

Post ImageNovember of 2005 was an important month for Microsoft developers as Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 were launched. Technically BizTalk Server 2006 was part of the launch too, but it kind of took a backseat to the other two products. I doubt that will happen with the next big launch, coming in February 2008:

Microsoft announced at its partner conference on July 10 that it will launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 together in a single launch on February 27, 2008, in Los Angeles.

Those are three incredibly important products for Microsoft itself, and for Microsoft developers around the world. Combined with Windows Vista SP1, expected to be released alongside Windows Server 2008, it’s going to be a very exciting time. I can almost see the free copies of Visual Studio 2008 now…

The above quote comes from Mary Jo Foley’s post, titled “Microsoft plans a triple-play”. I have to admit, for a moment I half expected to read about Microsoft jumping into competition with AT&T, Verizon, and others! In telecommunications, a triple play means a bundle of high-speed Internet, television, and telephone services.

Mark your calendars!

Read: ZDNet

Policing Edmonton on a Segway

Post ImageThe Edmonton Police Service is hardly the most technologically savvy group in the city (I mean just look at their website) but they are now launching a pilot program to “test a fascinating new piece of technology.” Yes, while the rest of the world considers the Segway old news, EPS is grinning from ear to ear (careful, link is for a Word file…they don’t even have HTML press releases):

In an effort to explore new and innovative methods of community-policing, the EPS is testing this equipment to evaluate its usefulness within Edmonton. Citizens can expect to see EPS officers patrolling on Segways at the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton, Capital Ex, West Edmonton Mall, and other special events.

The two “vehicles” that Segway donated to EPS for the pilot project are similar to commercially available models but also have emergency lights and a siren. The press release notes that “an officer on a Segway will stand 8 inches above the rest of the crowd and will be able to respond to emergencies in a fraction of the time it would take them on foot.” You don’t say!

All joking aside, I think this is good news for Edmontonians. Segways likely won’t be filling up the sidewalks anytime soon, but they are excellent for specific verticals such as law enforcement. Apparently police in Vancouver, Toronto, and Windsor have also started testing Segways.

Read: EPS Website

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

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