Notes for 4/13/2008

Made it to San Antonio tonight finally, and then spent a couple hours meeting both Questionmark staff and customers. Should be a great conference this week!

Here are my weekly notes:

Not sure how much I’ll be blogging over the next few days, but I should be able to sneak in a few posts! I’m gonna get some sleep now though, it was a fairly tiring day.

En Route to San Antonio

I’m traveling to San Antonio today for the 2008 Questionmark Users Conference, taking place through Wednesday at the Westin Riverwalk. I didn’t find out I would be attending until late this week, so the flight options were pretty limited. I was scheduled to leave Edmonton this morning at 6 AM.

I left my house a little later than I wanted to, meaning I didn’t get to the airport until just before 5 AM. That would normally have been okay (though cutting it close), except that the self-service check-in machines were all down. So I got in the incredibly long line and started to wait. I gave up on that after about ten minutes, jumped into the first class/business line, and pleaded my case.

The service agent was really helpful, and she helped rebook me on a later flight. Frankly I was fairly surprised at how busy the airport was so early on a Sunday morning. Anyway, I’m in Denver now, on a long layover. I should arrive into San Antonio tonight at around 6:30 CDT.

The great thing about the Denver International Airport is that they have free, ad-supported wireless Internet – something I wish we had in Edmonton. I’ve been using it for a while now, and it seems pretty quick. Uploads are really fast actually, faster than my connection at home, at least to Flickr! I uploaded a bunch of pictures from Megan’s birthday celebration last night. Happy Birthday Megan 🙂

More later!

Windows is not doomed

windows For the last few days, articles about a recent Gartner report have been unavoidable in the tech blogosphere. The report suggests that Microsoft’s Windows operating system is going to collapse under its own weight, and that it needs major changes in order to stay relevant. You know, the usual anti-Microsoft FUD.

Finally, today, I came across Mary Jo Foley’s post on the topic over at her All about Microsoft blog:

It’s not news that Windows is huge and unwieldy. Many (probably most) of Microsoft’s own Windows developers would agree with that premise. But to suggest that Microsoft is burying its head in the sand and hoping its problems just go away is ridiculous. And to pretend that online advertising revenues will be Redmond’s bail-out money for its Windows/Office franchises any time soon is a joke.

Finally someone who tells it like it is. Like it or not, if you think Windows is going to disappear anytime soon, you’re seriously delusional. She finishes with:

Microsoft’s continued unwillingness to talk Windows 7 and Windows futures shouldn’t be confused with a lack of plans for how to keep Windows and its successor(s) alive. I think there’s still a lot more fight left in Microsoft than folks seem to realize. And Windows is going to be a key part of Microsoft’s future arsenal, not just a remnant of its monopolistic past.

Maybe we’ll look back on Vista in a negative light, but that doesn’t mean Windows in general is doomed.

Read: All about Microsoft

2008 Mayor's Celebration of the Arts

mayor's evening for the arts On Monday night I attended the 21st annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts at the Winspear Centre downtown. The annual event features performances by members of Edmonton’s arts community, and awards to celebrate the individuals who helped to make Edmonton the Cultural Capital of Canada. I came across it a couple months ago when I noticed that Teatro La Quindicina would be performing. Sharon and I are both fans, so we decided to buy tickets.

We paid $25 to sit in the front row of the Upper Circle level. The gallery (top level) was filled with students who were sponsored by Epcor and other businesses. The main level seemed to be full of representatives from sponsor organizations, the award nominees, and their friends and family. The reason I mention all this is that we got the distinct feeling we were among the few who actually paid out-of-pocket for tickets. Apparently attendance was up this year though.

The inside page of the event programme contained this message from Mayor Stephen Mandel. I quite like it (wonder if he wrote it, guessing not) so I’ve included it here in its entirety:

Take a bow, if you make your living in the arts – you give us the kind of City we want to live in. You make us laugh and think and smile and marvel and tap-our-toes, and you contribute to our great quality-of-life.

Take a bow, if you’ve supported the arts. Businesses, individuals, groups and volunteers – you’re vital in making sure our Creative Community flourishes so that great quality-of-life continues.

And take a bow if you’ve bought a ticket to be part of an audience. It gives you license to be a critic and a fan – and it ensures that even when we pass the title to another city, Edmonton will continue to be “Canada’s Cultural Capital”.

On-stage, on-screen, in theatres and cafes, out on our streets and in our concert halls, it’s a privilege to live in a City that’s bursting with so much creativity. And a privilege too, to be part of a City that’s filled with those who invest in and support it.

Congratulations to everyone who’s part of Edmonton’s professional arts community – and everyone who supports it.

The event was emceed by Peter Brown from CBC Edmonton, and Carrie Doll from CTV Edmonton. They did a great job, and Peter was especially funny! I found the most boring part of the show to be the awards. You can view the list of winners here (PDF).

The performances were what I really went to see. Kita No Taiko, Renee Brad of the Edmonton Opera, Red Power Squad, Brian Webb Dance Company, Samantha Schultz, Teatro La Quindicina, and Le Fuzz all performed. My favorites were definitely Red Power Squad, Samantha Schultz, and Teatro. The final performance by Le Fuzz was pretty cool too, as many of the attendees got up on stage and started dancing, including the mayor himself.

Not sure if I’d attend every year, but the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts is definitely a great way to sample the variety offered by Edmonton’s art scene.

Where is everyone? The Winspear Full House Dancing!

Edmonton Next Gen WiFi Focus Group

edmonton next gen Unfortunately I am not going to be able to make it to this event (I’m going to San Antonio on Sunday) but I thought I’d mention it in case someone else wants to go and can fill me in later! Edmonton’s Next Gen organization is hosting a focus group on WiFi, to discuss the next steps in their initiatives for public wireless access in our city:

Now, Next Gen and the City’s IT branch are preparing a new report to City Council, which will give an update on the success of the pilot projects over the past year, and recommend next steps to take towards Next Gen’s vision. If you would like to take part in deciding what those next steps will be, please contact Megan Pilby at megan.pilby@edmonton.ca to RSVP for our upcoming session.

The deadline to RSVP is tomorrow at noon. The event takes place on Sunday, April 13th, from 1pm to 4pm. Location details will be given once you RSVP.

For background information, you can read the NextGen report on WiFi (PDF). To learn more about Edmonton’s Next Gen, check out the website.

Dessert Party

As my Twitter followers all know, Sharon and I hosted a dessert party on Sunday. When Sharon pitched the idea to me (she had been thinking about it for a long time) I thought it sounded kind of neat. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I figured it would be fun anyway. What I didn’t realize, of course, is how much work it would require!

Dessert Party Invitation

Sharon has this book that gives you tips on how to host parties like this. I’m guessing it was written a long time ago, before Facebook came along, because it of course says you should send invites. And so we did! I bugged her a lot about sending paper invites to our friends, all of whom have Facebook and email, but in the end I actually really liked the invitations. I think they looked great!

Over the last couple weeks we did some “practice runs” of the desserts that we wanted to serve. For instance, we made the chocolate cake and the white chocolate tartlets. Turns out that was a good idea, because we were able to learn from and fix the couple of mistakes we made the first time around.

We got started at around 1pm on Saturday, and weren’t really finished until 1pm the next day when the party started! Okay it didn’t take 24 hours obviously, but it certainly felt like all we did was bake. Though the worst part was definitely having to re-wash dishes repeatedly!

CupcakesCookies
White Chocolate TartsPanna cotta

Our final menu consisted of: Chocolate Cake, White Chocolate Tartlets, Panna Cotta with Strawberries, Cupcakes, and Cookies with Strawberry Jam. We also served coffee, tea, and wine.

Sharon had made the panna cotta in the past, so I was pretty sure it would turn out well. It was delicious as expected! My favorite was probably the cookies, but that might be because they were the hardest to make. Piping dough is not for the faint of heart! I learned you need to warm it up a bit to make it easier on yourself. My least favorite were the tartlets, though they tasted good and everything. They were sort of difficult to make as well, thanks to the phyllo pasty.

I think everyone enjoyed the desserts – there wasn’t too much left over when all was said and done. I was glad to have some extra panna cotta and chocolate cake to eat though 🙂

I don’t think I’d jump at the chance to host another dessert party, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. I’m getting better in the kitchen too!

My photos of the dessert party are here.

UPDATE: Sharon’s much more detailed post is now up!

Notes for 4/6/2008

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Sharon and I hosted a dessert party today for a few friends. It was something that she had wanted to do for quite a long time, and it went really well! I’ll post more about it tomorrow (with pictures) – it was a lot more work than I anticipated!
  • While preparing for the dessert party, I had my iPod plugged into the stereo system for some music. It was working fine for a while, then the next thing I knew, I had a paperweight on my hands 😦 Not sure what happened, but it won’t turn on at all now. Won’t even reset. I have filled out the service thing for Apple, so hopefully it’ll get replaced soon.
  • You can find everything on the Internet: Porn for the Blind (SFW).
  • If you live near Edmonton, you almost certainly heard about the terrible accident this past week with the semi truck. Here’s the initial Edmonton Journal article.
  • It was bound to happen sooner or later – Apple has surpassed Wal-Mart to become the #1 music retailer (overall) in the United States.
  • Here’s a couple of recent pieces on blogging from the New York Times. The first talks about bloggers getting book deals, and didn’t generate a lot of discussion that I saw. The second is about the toll blogging can take on a person, and it generated tons of discussion. My favorite response is this one from Marc Andreessen.
  • In gaming news: 72% of the U.S. population plays video games, and EA has dropped the PC version of their best-selling game, Madden ’09.

Time to sleep – very tired!

EdmontonTweetup anyone?

twitter A few weeks ago status_girl, myself, and a few other local people on Twitter started throwing around the idea of having a meetup (for some reason it seems weird to use a Twitter friend’s real name until I’ve met them…status_girl is actually Melanie Nathan). She created a Twitter account, etowntwits, and asked anyone who was interested to follow it. So far, twelve people have.

Nothing happened since then, and I started thinking about it again a couple days ago. I learned that there is actually a name for these events; a Twitter meetup is called a Tweetup. It seems to be less organized than a barcamp, but a quick Google search reveals Tweetups happening in Buffalo, Atlanta, Huntsville, Boston, and many other places. Why not Edmonton?

So being the geek that I am, I registered edmontontweetup.org, and created the requisite Twitter account. There’s nothing at the website yet, but I think a wiki or something would work well. Every day I find interesting new local people on Twitter, so I think a Tweetup would work quite well!

A few location ideas that have been thrown around so far are Three Bananas Cafe downtown in Churchill Square, Cargo & James Tea on Whyte, as well as the other coffee shops along Whyte Avenue. The first two have free Wi-Fi which makes them especially attractive.

If you’re on Twitter, would you come to an EdmontonTweetup to meet your fellow tweeters? If you’re not on Twitter, would you come to learn what it’s all about?

On a related note, I came across TwitterLocal today, which is a cool site that helps you find people on Twitter near you. Here’s a list of people near Edmonton.

Earth Hour: Lightcrime

lightcrime I thought I was done with Earth Hour-related posts, but then I came across this article at the National Post while reading Larry’s blog. You really need to give it a read, but here’s a bit of a teaser:

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four invoked the nightmare of “thoughtcrime,” by which dictators sought to erase even the possibility of challenge to their rule. His Thought Police were based very much on the techniques actually used by the Soviets. They sought by surveillance and other methods to root out any trace of “unorthodoxy.”

On Saturday night, the awful possibility of “lightcrime” appeared on the deliberately dimmed horizon. Who among those who knew about Earth Hour did not feel an internal compulsion to turn down the lights for fear of public disapprobation, even if they believed that the whole thing was either a pointless or subversive stunt?

Author Peter Foster explains the metaphor further, and finishes by sharing this incredibly sad comment from a 12-year-old in Toronto:

“Earth Hour is important to me because my kids and grandkids will be living on this Earth,” declared Morgan Baskin, aged 12, at an event at Holy Trinity Church in downtown Toronto. “I don’t want my kids to be around for the end of the Earth.”

Like Peter says, this is child abuse. Instead of being taught to learn about the environment, to read and to think, children are being taught that unless you turn your lights off for an hour along with everyone else, the world is going to end.

Read: Lightcrime

Does Starbucks really offer 87,000 drink combinations?

starbucks I’ve written in the past about Starbucks and how it claims to offer 87,000 different drink combinations. I haven’t ever questioned that number though, and in retrospect I really should have. Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy did question it:

Over the following weeks, I placed several phone calls and sent several emails, but didn’t get an explanation for the calculation. Nor could the company tell me who did the math. “It’s something a statistician put together, based on our menu board,” Starbucks spokeswoman Lisa Passe told me. “If you take all of our core beverages, multiply them by the modifiers and the customization options, you get more than 87,000 combinations.” She said a spreadsheet contained the relevant calculation, but added, “it’s not something we’ve ever circulated.”

Turns out he never did get a straight answer. The math isn’t simple. You’d have to know all of the various syrups, sizes, milk options, cream options, etc. You’d have to know all of the drinks and bean types, and you’d have to keep up with menu changes. I’m not surprised that no one seems to know the true answer. It would be nice if Starbucks could justify their marketing somehow, though.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t matter much. Even if it’s closer to 8700 than 87,000 the simple fact remains, there’s no shortage of choice at Starbucks.

Read: The Numbers Guy