I was hard at work on getting Podcast Spot published for testing, so I didn’t post any notes yesterday. Here they are today instead!

• Closed beta testing for Podcast Spot just started! I’m very excited 🙂
• I went camping on Friday and Saturday with Megan, Greg, and some others. It was fun! I took a few pictures.
• My sister, Kim, returned to Edmonton on Saturday evening! She’s now in training to be an RA at Grant MacEwan.
• Remember the Windows 95 launch? I don’t – I was too young to care I think. Here are some great old commercials though!
• Get a graphic for your name, Web 2.0 style.
• I’ve definitely got to look into Windows Live Contacts a bit more. Looks very interesting!

Another week, another round of notes!

• So Dickson left this last week, and thus, I am slightly behind on getting the testing started. I also took a little break today to work on something else – more on that tomorrow.
• Went to see Step Up tonight. The critics seem to have hated it, while the users (the fans) seem to have loved it, judging by the Rotten Tomatoes ratings. I thought it was like most other dance movies (a poor guy makes something of himself through dance) but it was enjoyable! I was surprised to see that Mario had a role. Oh and that one girl from all the Missy Elliot videos too. If you just want to sit there and see some cool dancing, this is the movie for you.
• You know how I like wireless everywhere. Now, behold, environmentally friendly wireless everywhere!
• I realized just how big MySpace.com has become the other day, when I saw players in a public TFC server using MySpace addresses as their gamer tags. For those of you who don’t know, TFC is Team Fortress Classic, a mod for the original Half-Life. I used to be in a clan, a long time ago. I don’t ever remember seeing websites as gamertags!
• As my Mom pointed out to me, the PC turned 25 years old on Friday! It’s kind of hard to imagine how the world would look today without computers.
• I’m not sure I’ve used any of these, but apparently they work – ten sure-fire headline formulas that work.

Can you believe it’s August already? I can’t. Seems like the summer has just flown by! On the plus side, it has been pretty productive for me so far.

• Busy day ahead for tomorrow – let the Podcast Spot testing begin!
• Ever been on a date where you didn’t talk, but only typed to one another? Me neither. Apparently it isn’t that unusual, however. The so called “Netorati” even have a name for it – “couple surfing”. I have witnessed this first hand in the past, and I must say, it adds an interesting element to the atmosphere in the room. I’m sure it somehow improves the couple’s communication too.
• Four words: SNAKES ON A PLANE. I can’t wait for the movie! I never use MySpace, but I did update my profile to use the SOAP theme. Do yourself a favor and watch these amazing early auditions (fake of course). You won’t be disappointed!
• Looks like .NET 3.0 might RTM within the next two months!
• Apparently half the United States still thinks Iraq had WMDs. If you’re an American, you better hope the country’s future leaders are from the other half.

I’m a little late for these notes, though I have been doing pretty good lately.

• Cell phones that work on Wi-Fi networks, coming soon to a store near you?
• Lots of great music out lately! I’m really liking Mobile’s “See Right Through Me” and Stone Sour’s “Through Glass” at the moment. But why stop there? I really like Breaking Benjamin’s “The Diary of Jane” and Lostprophets’ “Rooftops” as well.
• I went to see Pith! earlier tonight at The Fringe Anniversary Showcase, which featured “four of the most memorable performances from the last 25 years of Fringing!” Jeff Haslam was tremendous in the play, and after it was over, Sharon even had a “Ron Peterson sighting” which I haven’t heard the end of since. The 25th anniversary of the Fringe starts August 17th here in Edmonton.
• It’s official – .NET has beaten J2EE. Though I’m a big .NET fan, I find these little battles kinda funny.
• Does anyone know anything about HDR photography? I was eager to try it out, so I made a quick stab at it, but I think this is one effect that will take quite a bit of practice.
• BlogTalkRadio looks like an interesting new mixture of blogging with audio.

Here are my weekly notes:

• You really must look at this post from Jason Kottke. Everyone knows a picture is worth a thousand words, yet sometimes it’s hard to find a good example. Well, here’s a great example.
• I absolutely hate that PodcastingNews.com can’t put the important links from a story right inside their RSS feed. If it’s a full-text feed, include the damn links! If you want to make me visit your site so you can display advertising, don’t offer full-text feeds, and I won’t subscribe, it’s that simple.
• Have you seen those “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” commercials? I’m sure you have. This is what I think of every time I see them. How about you?
• Looking for podcasts? Here’s yet another directory. I really wonder why there are so many directories when so few tools of creation for podcasting actually exist. Makes me want to release Podcast Spot right now! (We’re in testing now, by the way, so very close. I’m really excited to start sharing our project with everyone!)
• This was one of the best Rocketboom episodes I have seen. Clever and funny!
• I’m just about finished reading Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat. Great idea/theory/strategy, and the first half of the book is really excellent. I think I could probably have skipped the second half of the book though, it tends to go on and on without offering anything new.

I’ve been programming lots, which is why I haven’t posted as much as usual. Here are my weekly notes:

• Here’s a really great video I came across from the Inside CBC blog. It’s the first news report CBC TV did about the Internet, back in 1993. I think it’s funny how they refer to it as “Internet” and not “the Internet”.
• Went to Delux Burger Bar tonight, and had the grilled cheese. There portion was quite small, though there were lots of fries in these interesting little shopping carts (instead of say, a plate). The scenery is great, and they give you cotton candy with your bill!
• Addicted to video games? You might want to visit the new rehab center in Amsterdam.
• Mark Evans linked to the Canadian Tech Mob (basically a webring), which is an effort to show that “Canada kicks ass in tech and innovation.” I thought it was cool until I saw the website. No showing off tech and innovation here. Admirable idea, but seriously, the website looks like it was made in 1995.
• YouTube serves over 100 million videos a day now. Staggering isn’t it?
• Went to see Pirates 2 last night, and while it was an enjoyable movie, it is a complete setup for part 3. There’s lots of great action and stuff in this one, don’t get me wrong, but you’re left with that sense of “damn, now I have to wait a year.”
• As you may have heard, Intel unveiled their new Core 2 Duo processors this past week. By all accounts, the new chips look amazing! And as an Intel nut, I am glad they have reclaimed the lead from AMD.

Megan and I got back from Lisa’s party late yesterday, and I’ve been trying not to move around too much ever since. I learned a valuable lesson this weekend – sunscreen is your friend! Yep, my legs and arms got a little too much sun. Oh well, that’s what happens when you spend all day in front of the computer and then venture outside haha!

• Here are some pictures from the party. Thanks for having me Lisa!
• Zidane…what where you thinking? Italy won the World Cup today on penalty kicks, and Zidane was red carded in the extra time period for headbutting one of the Italians. The shot of him heading to the dressing room, walking right past the World Cup trophy, was very telling.
• Montreal and Toronto are getting really fast fiber Internet connections to residential areas, similar to what has been happening in the US. I wonder when such great things will move west? They aren’t too expensive either.
• If it’s true, I know what I want for Christmas/Birthday!
• I think something needs to be done about the oil companies. There’s no reason that the gas I buy for my car, which is refined less than 40 KM from the gas station, should cost almost ten cents more than gas does in Toronto. And I wish the US would just get it over with and do something about North Korea, if only so that prices don’t jump every time Kim Jong-il wants to get his gun off.
• Will there really be a talking iPod?
• Big week for my parents this last week! They officially decided they are moving from Inuvik to Yellowknife, which I think will be great for them (even though it’s still in the north). Along with my brother and sister who are back in Inuvik for the summer, they had a garage sale this weekend. Apparently about fifty people lined up before it started yesterday at noon. I told my parents, “your reputation precedes you! everyone knows you guys have lots of stuff, and thus they’ll probably find something good.” Hopefully my Dad will post something about the move soon (as Megan noted, he seems to have taken a little blogging break).

I didn’t touch a computer at all yesterday, which has got to be some sort of record for me. I also went most of the day without any Coke, which resulted in a headache! Anyway, as a result, I didn’t post my weekly Sunday notes, so here they are, for today instead:

• Congrats to Violet & Vincent! If anyone has additional pictures and you want help posting them, let me know.
• I must have missed the link when I saw the trailer, but Joe Wilcox points out that the upcoming movie “John Tucker Must Die” does not have a URL, other than it’s MySpace page. More proof that MySpace is growing in value – when will it end? Or will it? I want to see the movie simply for Sophia Bush, though Arielle Kebbel looks really pretty too.
• Excellent piece on the NYTimes website today about Google and their inventiveness (is that a word?). There is speculation at the end that Google will delve into microprocessor design, if you can believe that. Worth a read.
• With the recent renaming of WinFX to the .NET Framework 3.0 comes a brand new and very useful website.
• Maybe Renault/Nissan can save GM? I never would have guessed it either.
• Apparently Space Shuttle Discovery is a “Go” for tomorrow’s scheduled launch – take that, foam! Full coverage is available from the NASA website.

Here are my weekly notes:

• My parents are back in Inuvik now, as is Tom who went up for the summer at the same time. It was nice to see them for a short while!
• I simply cannot wait for Superman Returns! I’m really looking forward to the movie. It opens June 28th.
• Warren Buffet is giving over $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Are we at the beginning of a major shift in world philanthropy? Sure would be nice if more extremely wealthy people joined the cause.
• This picture is just creepy.
• A simpler controller for the Xbox 360 a la Atari? That would be kinda neat I think!
• Beckham scored a lovely goal today to put England into the quarter-finals against Portugal.

Here are my weekly notes:

• Today was Father’s Day, so Happy Father’s Day to my Dad, and to all Dads out there!
• I don’t know for sure, but I think my recent .NET Wizards post is the longest I have ever written on this blog. I’ll try to be more succinct in the future 😉
• Anyone hear Oakenfold’s new track “Faster Kill Pussycat”? It features Brittany Murphy – yes that Brittany Murphy. It’s a pretty good song actually!
• There have been a lot of “looking back on Bill” posts since Gates made the big announcement. I particularly like this one.
• I noticed today that Gnomedex has managed to get Senator John Edwards to keynote this year’s edition of the conference. Unfortunately I won’t be going this time, but I’ll be eagerly watching online for posts/pictures/podcasts to trickle out.
• Game 7 is tomorrow night. According to Epcor (our city’s water/power utility) water usage in Edmonton increases by millions of litres in between periods, and drops to abnormally low levels when the puck is in play. GO OILERS GO!!