We call it April Fools DAY for a reason!

We don’t call it April Fool’s Week. We don’t call it April Fool’s Month. I don’t know how we can make it any clearer, but April Fool’s Day is just one single day people! Here’s what Wikipedia says:

April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1.

So why then, are pranks becoming so common post-April 1st? Last week the hoax was that a podcaster was taking over for Imus on CBS. This week the hoax is having a trademark on the term “podcast” in Canada. Who knows what we’ll see next week. I’m sure there are others I haven’t come across too.

What’s the point of posting a hoax more than two weeks late? It does nothing but cause confusion, however temporary it may be. I suspect the people posting these late pranks are simply trolling for traffic. And in that respect, I guess it works. However, I think “scanning” is becoming more and more common as a result of the thousands of posts and articles created each day, so it’s becoming easier to fall for a hoax.

This comment from “Se7en” on Scoble’s post is worth thinking about:

Sigh, and bloggers wonder why they aren’t considered credible.

I’m all for some humor once in a while, and I believe you need to read things critically no matter what date is on the calendar. That said, I think April Fool’s Day pranks post April 1st just plain suck. Please don’t post them.

Celebrate Earth Day at Starbucks

Post ImageEarth Day is coming up this weekend, and that means it’s about time for companies to capitalize on the environment being so prevalent in our social conscience. Sharon told me about this last week (not sure how she knew), but I just found the press release from Starbucks:

On Sunday, April 22, customers who bring in their own reusable tumbler will receive a complimentary cup of Café Estima Fair Trade coffee.

And as always, if you bring a reusable mug in to get your coffee, you’ll save ten cents. The press release highlights other “green” efforts from Starbucks, including their Post-Consumer Fibre Cup, Ethos Water, Grounds for Your Garden program, and more.

I think they should have launched new sleeves with Earth trivia on them! You know, like the “Akeelah and the Bee” sleeves they came out with last April. Speaking of trivia, my Dad is posting Earth trivia on Tuesdays, so feel free to go show him how smart you are.

Here’s a random thought for the day: maybe we should rename “Earth Day” to “Gore Day”! After all, when you think Al Gore doesn’t the word environment come to mind? Maybe it’s just me.

Read: Newswire.ca

I would like an @live.com address!

Post ImageThe fine folks over at the LiveSide blog had the chance to interview Omar Shahine and Ellie Powers-Boyle of the Windows Live Hotmail team this morning, and they asked some great questions. The reason for the chat was to talk about Windows Live Hotmail, which started its rollout to selected markets this week. You can download the 25 minute MP3 file here, but I figured I’d transcribe the most interesting part:

“Our short term concerns are around taking our existing user base, which is currently using the @hotmail.com namespace primarily, and making sure that they have a smooth transition. Once we feel that we’ve gotten that work sort of comfortably under our belt, we’ll move on to things like the @live.com namespace…”

So it sounds like users will be able to acquire an @live.com email address at some point. It would definitely make for a pretty cool email address – sign me up!

Read: LiveSide

How gay is Edmonton?

Post ImageApparently the city I live in is gay enough to make it into Out Traveler magazine’s top five gay-friendly tourist destinations in Canada. Vancouver, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Toronto are the other cities. Here’s what they say about Edmonton:

Its hard not to take a shine to Edmonton, the laid-back capital of oil-rich Alberta. A refreshing optimism permeates this city of one million–buoyed by its oil-boosted fortunes. Edmonton has struck it rich but hasnt changed its friendly down-to-earth charm.

Let the herds kick up a ruckus about Calgary; bold, assured Edmonton gallops way ahead, leaving the rest of Alberta in the dust.

Such kind words! The magazine notes there’s a number of gay and lesbian bars and clubs in “the burgeoning gay village of Jasper Avenue, a two-block area with half a dozen gay businesses.”

Sun Media talked to editor in chief Ed Salvato, who had this to say:

“We chose Edmonton because we think it’s one of the more interesting places for gays and lesbians to visit in Canada. It’s a bastion of progressiveness. It’s surprisingly gay-friendly.”

City councillor Michael Phair, who is openly gay, said the magazine showcases Edmonton as “diverse and welcoming.” Sun Media also talked to gay activist Kris Wells, who wasn’t so upbeat:

He says he still doesn’t feel safe walking down Whyte Avenue hand-in-hand with his partner. “It’s still not safe to be visibly gay or lesbian. You put your life at risk.”

So I guess Edmonton is gay-friendly but most Edmontonians are not? Perhaps that’s because Edmonton is situated in the Texas of the North! Clearly we have some work to do.

Read: Canoe

Microsoft releases a hotfix for Outlook 2007

Post ImageAll my posting about Outlook 2007 has come in handy! On Saturday, Kevin sent me this link, and today Justice sent me this one. Both point to a hotfix from Microsoft for Outlook 2007:

This update fixes a problem in which a calendar item that is marked as private is opened if it is found by using the Search Desktop feature. The update also fixes performance issues that occur when you work with items in a large .pst file or .ost file.

I have installed it on both my main computers, but haven’t really had a chance to test it yet. This thread at Neowin.net looks positive though. Here is the KB article, and the download page. Enjoy!

Read: Download Hotfix

Amazon S3: 5 billion objects and counting

Post ImageOne of the more interesting stories to come out of the Web 2.0 Expo is that of Amazon.com’s Simple Storage Service (S3) passing 5 billion stored objects. You can watch a video of Jeff Bezos talking to conference attendees here. According to Bezos, S3 was storing just 800,000 objects in July 2006. That’s some pretty incredible growth, and I expect it will only continue.

More and more I am convinced that web services like S3 will become the norm. Companies like Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and eBay are all very good at building and maintaining the infrastructure their services require to operate smoothly and efficiently. It only makes sense to further monetize that competency.

S3 has had an incredibly positive impact on Podcast Spot, and I know we’d be able to make use of additional web services if only they existed.

Read: TechCrunch

Why does Microsoft hate Opera?

Post ImageI just went to checkout the Silverlight website, and was presented with this message:

Your current browser does not support WPF/E (codename). Click here for more details on WPF/E-supported browsers and platforms.

I am using Opera of course. So I click through to the suggested link, and here’s what I find:

Silverlight media capabilities include fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality audio and video to all major browsers including Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer running on the Mac or on Windows.

What?!

According to these stats, Safari had 1.7% market share last month compared with Opera’s 1.6%. The numbers are a little lower at Wikipedia, but it’s not like Safari has ten times the market share.

I realize that Safari is the offical browser for the Mac, but I still think that Opera is being unfairly left out by Microsoft. And it’s not the first time – it took them a very long time to support Opera with ASP.NET Ajax.

Especially with Silverlight, I think Opera should be supported. It is widely used on mobile phones and other devices, like the Nintendo Wii.

Read: Silverlight

Notes for 4/15/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • My Dad relaunched his SportsGuru blog this past week, and from time to time I’ll make some posts there was well. Here’s my first post.
  • Tom came to town late Friday night for a visit and computer help. And Xbox 😉
  • Went to Squires last night to celebrate Megan’s birthday. It was fun!
  • You probably saw this on the news, but Apple announced this week that they have sold 100 million iPods. Hardly surprising, but still impressive.
  • Apparently the Twitter dev team thinks the performance of Ruby on Rails is horrible. Python, Java, and PHP are mentioned as alternatives. The author of the post says: “At one time, Java was almost unacceptably slow. That has changed.” Has it really? I don’t think it has. ASP.NET people!
  • I am excited for Thursday – finally a new episode of Smallville!
  • Just found this: the tech formerly known as WPF/E is now Silverlight.

Google buys DoubleClick

Post ImageIn a way it’s pretty incredible that “Google” has become synonymous with search. It really should make you think of advertising, and perhaps in 25 years, it will. Today Google ventured further down that rabbit hole, acquiring one of the web’s oldest ad companies (via Scoble):

Google reached an agreement today to acquire DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced, an amount that was almost double the $1.65 billion in stock that Google paid for YouTube late last year.

Two days in a row now, I’ve seen news break on Twitter. Last night it was the earthquake in Mexico City, and today this acquisition. This is pretty significant, don’t you think?

Anyway, I don’t think Google buying DoubleClick is earth-shattering news. It’s not much of a stretch if you consider Google to be an advertising company, as I do. What’s more interesting is that Microsoft was apparently trying to purchase DoubleClick too. Why? I can only imagine it was an attempt to harm Google.

Read: NYTimes.com

Google on Acquisitions

Post ImageA few hours ago I was reading some of the stuff on TechMeme, when I came across this article about Google. I thought Dickson might find it interesting, so I fired it off to him in an IM. He replied a few moments later with this quote from the article:

Google wants companies that can build revenue streams from their users, instead of buying firms with a lot of users that don’t bring in much in sales, Ullah said.

“We don’t do traffic for traffic’s sake,” he said. “It has to be highly monetizable.”

And then followed that up with this message:

Uhhh…YouTube?! lol

Haha so true! Ullah, who is Google’s director of corporate development, basically just described the very company they purchased last year for $1.65 billion. Which begs the question…what kind of companies do they really want?

Read: Bloomberg