Category: Uncategorized

PS3 Pricing Announced

Post ImageSony announced pricing for its upcoming PlayStation 3 gaming console yesterday, and as generally expected, the console will cost more than Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Though not nearly as much as I expected! The system comes in two options, though the only difference between the two appears to be a larger hard drive:

Sony, which unveiled the specs and pricing of its PlayStation 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on Monday, will charge $499 and $599 for the consoles when they arrive in November.

Many people seem to think that it will all come down to Blu-ray. I am not so sure. I don’t exactly have a strong desire to own a Blu-ray device, though I admit the PS3 is by far the cheapest such device available. The $499 model comes with a 20 GB hard drive, making it more similar to the higher end Xbox 360 console. Who knows what kinds of controllers or other extras the PS3 will come with though.

Does anyone else think it’s stupid to charge an extra $100 for 40 GB of space? I can buy a 300 GB hard drive for just over $120 CDN for crying out loud! Unless there’s something extra, that $100 is a complete rip off.

Oh, and the sexy controller in the picture is not what the final controller looks like. Nope, the real one is much more mundane.

Read: CNET News.com

Kudos Symantec

Post ImageI’d be remiss if I didn’t give props to Symantec today. It seems that Google, Sun, and many of Microsoft’s other so-called competitors could learn a thing or two from the security firm. Instead of whining to the government, Symantec plans to innovate and compete with Microsoft:

John Thompson vowed that it would put more resources into research and development over the coming the year, speaking to reporters at the Symantec’s annual Vision conference here.

“Our strategy is to out-innovate Microsoft. We know more about security than they ever will,” Thompson said.

How refreshing to hear that a company is going to compete against Microsoft for once!

Read: CNET News.com

Happy Birthday Tom!

Today is my brother’s birthday, making him “bar age” in the Northwest Territories, not that you’d want to go drinking there but that’s another story. We went to the reptile show today, which was kind of cool though not as big as I remember it being the last time I went. Tom has a few snakes back in Inuvik and has always liked reptiles and lizards and things. You can check out some pictures here (they were quick shots without a flash, so a few are fuzzy).

After the show we came to the office to play some Madden on the Xbox 360 – I was winning by two touchdowns when the Xbox restarted because the cord on the power box had come loose (thats what I get for having cords all over the place). It’s just as well, Tom probably would have made some spectacular comeback!

So we’re partying it up tonight! If you want to come, give me a call on my cell and I’ll give you the address. Things will probably get underway around 8 or 9.

Happy Birthday Tom!

Corel buys WinZip

Post ImageThe last time I wrote about Canadian software company Corel, I mentioned that they struck me as a company “without focus, or at least, too many different focuses.” But don’t take my word for it, just look at their most recent announcement. Larry Borsato explains:

Corel, the makers of all of that once great software that nobody uses now like WordPerfect, has acquired WinZip. I must have a sixth sense about this sort of thing because I stopped using WinZip a couple of months ago and switched to WinRAR.

I just got my new computer all setup this week (more on that later) and what do you know! Like Larry, I too only have WinRAR installed, no WinZip for me. Whew, that was a close one. Any idea why Corel would buy WinZip? I don’t see how it fits with their company…but maybe its just me.

Read: Larry Borsato

Jeff Martin in Edmonton

Post ImageFor those of you who don’t know, and I admit I didn’t realize it at first, Jeff Martin is the former lead singer of The Tea Party who now has his own solo project. I guess he had reached a point in his life where the dark music of The Tea Party didn’t match up with the joy of everything else (his wife, his new baby boy, etc). Anyway, he played a show last night at Red’s here in Edmonton, which Megan and I attended.

And as it turns out, we were among the few who did attend! As Jeff himself remarked, the show seemed to be “Edmonton’s best kept secret”. At the end of the show, he said he was going to beat the promoter, but that the show turned out to be “intimate and beautiful.” And it was. He is an amazing musician, with a voice that is just so distinct and intriguing. Even though he’s moved on, he has the perfect kind of voice for The Tea Party’s style of music.

Most of the songs he played were from his new album, titled “Exile and the Kingdom”, and each one had an interesting story behind it. Turns out he’s one of the happiest rock stars ever (Megan’s words, not mine) with joyful new music, and a very upbeat “thank you very much” a la Elvis after each song and applause. It was actually a very entertaining show!

Also entertaining was the opening act, Sonic City. At first we thought it was a joke, as their guitarist (Danny Sveinson) looks like he’s twelve years old! And it turns out, he’s only about 14 (I think). But don’t let his age fool you, the kid is absolutely amazing.

Read: Jeff Martin

CBC Radio Podcasts

Post ImageCBC has launched their updated podcasting initiative, with a broader array of content, an updated website, and regional podcasts. Tod Maffin explains:

It’s taken many months of planning, training, software development, and consultation — but I’m finally pleased to announce that CBC Radio is now making an unprecedented number of programs available for free download or subscription, including “best of” editions from THE CURRENT, DISPATCHES, DEFINITELY NOT THE OPERA, IDEAS, OUTFRONT, AS IT HAPPENS plus comprehensive highlight packages of regionally-based radio programs.

This is really great news for Canada and for CBC – I’m really happy that our national broadcaster is now one of the world’s leaders with regards to podcasting. You can check out all of the shows at the new website, http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/. If you’re in Alberta, you can subscribe to the new “Alberta This Week” show here.

Read: Tod Maffin

Browser Extensions

Post ImageAs I mentioned before, I have been testing Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. As part of my testing, I have been using it almost exclusively. Turns out, some pages simply do not render in IE7! Sometimes this is because the rendering engine has changed so much, other times its because of crappy programming on the part of the web developer. In any case, I found that I needed to load these pages in Firefox (sounds eerily familiar to when I started using Firefox way back when and had to view pages in IE).

I have had the IEView extension for Firefox installed forever – it lets you right click on a page or link and display it in Internet Explorer. Today I came across FirefoxView, which as the name suggests, lets you right click a page or link in IE to display in Firefox. I love it! The only strange thing? It’s a Firefox extension that adds things to IE – go figure!

I am starting to think my friend Kevin was right. We chatted last week about the two browsers and he remarked that unless IE had extensions like Firefox, there was no reason for him to switch. I have to admit, I wish IE had extensions like Firefox.

Grow up Google!

Post ImageSometimes companies do things that just leave you baffled. There’s lots of commentary out there that suggests Google is taking the evil away from Microsoft, and the latest bit of news seems to support that. Apparently Google is not happy with Microsoft’s new browser and the way it features MSN Search:

“The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” said Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google. “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.”

So now they are lobbying the government, expressing concern about competition in the search business. Are you kidding me? First of all, it’s dead easy to change the default search provider in IE7 to Google (or anything else for that matter). Secondly, are they totally forgetting that they made a deal with Firefox to be the default seach provider (and start page too) in that browser? Or that they pay a lot of Mozilla’s employees? I mean seriously.

If you’re going to complain about something, at least make sure you’re not doing the very thing you’re complaining about. All too often Microsoft’s competitors run to the government. It’s kind of sad, really.

UPDATE: As this post explains, MSN Search is not the default search provider after all!

Read: CNET News.com

Arctic Monkeys

Post ImageIf you haven’t heard of the Arctic Monkeys yet, you will soon enough. I was introduced to them a few weeks ago when I heard their single “I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor” (yes, like Fallout Boy they seem to enjoy incredibly long song names) and I have really started to like them since. And I am not the only one apparently:

The musical impact the Arctic Monkeys have had in the past six months, on a global scale, is astonishing.

Not content with creating the fastest- selling British debut album of all time in the shape of Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the band have also made serious inroads into a fickle American market with a record that is based on the British vernacular experience.

That’s right, fastest-selling British debut album of all time. Faster than Oasis, The Beatles, you name it. If you know nothing about popular culture, that’s fast kids! Apparently the band still isn’t used to the celebrity parties, despite having already met stars like Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg.

I encourage you to check them out! They have a very unique sound (and a unique name for that matter) and have been getting rave reviews for their concerts. The band also seems to “get” the current trends in pop culture – they have a MySpace profile!

Read: Arctic Monkeys

Digital Newspapers – Coming Soon?

Post ImageA little over a year ago, I wrote that newspapers are one of my least favorite forms of media. To reiterate:

I hate almost everything about newspapers. I don’t like the size of the paper. I don’t like the way it makes everything black. I don’t like that every page has to be jammed full of stuff. I don’t like that the pages are not full color. I don’t like that once I find something interesting, I can’t do anything with it (like send it to a friend, or blog about it with a link, etc).

These things hold true today. So what has changed in the last year? A few things. The “magazine-newspaper” called Dose launched in some of Canada’s larger cities, and I have to admit that I like it better than a typical newspaper, probably because of the size of the pages and how they open like a book, rather than being folded horizontally. There’s lots of color and non-standard layouts too.

More interesting than that however, is that newspapers of the future, such as the one seen in “Minority Report”, are coming sooner than previously expected:

In the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” a subway passenger scans an issue of USA Today that is a plastic video screen, thin, foldable and wireless, with constantly changing text.

The scene is no longer science fiction.

The so called “e-paper” technology is finally beginning to mature, making it feasible to employ for products like newspapers. Despite the recent advances, there is still a long way to go – there is no standard (not that we need one I guess) which means some e-paper is flexible and some is rigid, some can display full color and some cannot, some require a power source and some do not. I think it’s only a matter of time before the details are worked out however.

I eagerly await digital newspapers, and the editors of today’s publications should be excited too! The newspaper could once again be as “up-to-the-second” as TV stations, and the potential for advertising is immense – think Google AdSense, but in your dynamically updating newspaper. Digital newspapers would be better for the environment too! Let’s hope the technology advances and costs decline so that the digital newspaper will be a reality.

Read: CNET News.com