Chris at Podcast Alley has done a really excellent job on the new site design, so check it out. Part of the reason for the redesign was a flaw in the old voting system, so votes were reset. So if you like BlogosphereRadio, please vote for us!

I have posted about improving the speed of Adobe Acrobat before, but I just found a much better way to go about doing it. Greg Neumiller tells us about an application called PDF SpeedUp (second item on the page). Looks like it has a ton of features that will help you tweak Acrobat from versions 3 all the way to 6.02.

It’s old news by now, but it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t post something! Jeremy’s auction closed with a final price of $3350 USD thanks to a last minute surge. Good thing too, as that price is still quite low for the value you’d be getting. Now, time to turn your attention to Darren’s auction. Also, be sure to check out InsideBlogging.

And I should mention that my special report on the auctions has been very well received, thanks everyone for the excellent comments!

I am pleased to announce that a new Special Report has been posted on Blogosphere News (you can get the usual headlines episode from yesterday here). In the new episode titled “Special Report: Blogger Auctions“, I talk all about the auctions created by Jeremy Wright and Darren Barefoot. A really cool part of the new show is a conference chat I held with Jeremy and Darren, you don’t want to miss it!

Also in the show are comments from three bloggers I spoke with about the auctions: Michael Specht, author of My HR Blog, Wayne Hurlbert, author of Blog Business World, and Mick Stanic, author of SplaTT’s Blog. As an aside, Mick is also a co-host of the G’Day World Podcast, and he talked a little about the auctions in his new podcast, so you might want to check that out.

Lots of firsts for this show. First show with returning guests! First show with multiple interviews! First show to include a schedule of segments (in the feeds and on the details page). First show to include information about copyright and Creative Commons in the audio itself.

I rather like this episode (and it involved more work than any of our previous shows) so let me know what you think!

Listen Now!

I need to congratulate my Dad, who many of you know. His blog has been nominated in the 2004 Weblog Awards in the Best Canadian Blog category. You can check out Martin’s post on this here, and be sure to vote here! The polls close on December 12th, and you can vote once per day until then.

Martin said to me he didn’t know who nominated him or why. Well I didn’t nominate him, but I should have, and I think I know why. He has done a great job of bringing an unknown part of Canada to life to share with the world. So yeah, congratulations Dad, and keep up the great work!

I am in a bit of a blogging mood here, though I really should get some work done. Anyway, here is one for all your snowboarders:

Burton’s new snowboarding helmet with a built in audio system and an ear clip design that lets those bass notes boom right where you’ll feel’em might be one of the best ways you can find to spend $150 bucks. A mute button and an emergency-disconnect plug means you could also wear this baby in the real world, like on your bicycle, and still hear what bums were shouting at you.

Read: Engadget

Early today Apple launched iTunes in Canada! And according to CNET News.com, we are getting a pretty good deal. Songs are just 99 cents CDN…which works out to roughly 83 cents US (rates here). Now if only MSN Music worked in Canada, life would be happy!

Two very cool things released from MSN today. The first is called MSN Spaces, and is a free blogging service, much like Blogger.com. I setup an account just to test it out (and to protect “mastermaq” of course) and it seems simple enough – you can take a look here. One thing I don’t like right off the bat is that there is no XML icon to get the RSS feed! Fortunately, thanks to Firefox, I can confirm that there is in fact an RSS feed for your space. Anyway, I am not moving my blog or anything, just wanted to test it out.

The second new thing is MSN Messenger 7 Beta. I just installed it and for the most part, it looks pretty cool. My first complaint is that they have changed the Away, Busy, etc icons in the contact list. Now everyone is a green MSN guy with the away or busy logo beside it. Makes it very difficult to see at a glance who is online or not. At least I think so – may take some getting used to. Display pictures are more emphasized, and there are two new features called Winks and Nudges that I will have to wait to try as the other person needs version 7 as well. Cool new features? Maybe the option to “Show my last conversation in new conversation window”. VERY useful. The absolute BEST new feature however? The ability to set your status BEFORE you login. Haha I love it!

UPDATE: Is it really so hard to click the link above to get MSN Messenger? I mean seriously. Your comments are starting to annoy me. For those of you that find this concept too hard to understand, maybe this will help:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MESSENGER BETA 7.0

A pretty big story that isn’t really getting a lot of attention is the current “crisis” at the United Nations. The organization is being questioned on a number of fronts, including whether or not it is relevant at all. In his annual report last year, Secretary-General Kofi Annan commented on the issue, “Rarely have such dire forecasts been made about the UN. We have reached a fork in the road…a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the UN was founded.”

Today, December 1st, is the day that Annan is supposed to receive a report on collective security from a high-level panel of 16 international members. The report, analysts say, may help decide the fate of the UN. The major problem with the panel? The average age of the panelists is over 70. I am no expert on this sort of thing, but it seems to me that the way to reinvigorate an aging organization is not by asking it’s oldest members what to do. I think there needs to be some younger perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we should have teenagers on the panel, but certainly someone younger than my grandparent’s age.

In any case, there are calls for a revamping of the Security Council. Specifically, six new permanent members would be added, possibly with a veto, but likely without. The “aspirant four” that would likely get seats are Japan, Brazil, India, and Germany. That makes sense – Germany is clearly a power in Europe, Japan probably contributes more money to the UN than the United States, Brazil is a very healthy South American country, and India is home to one sixth of the world’s population. The other two seats are likely to go to African countries.

Now I have been reading about this quite a bit lately – it is something that really interests me. So when I came across this Reuters article, I was quite surprised. The article mentions the so-called “enemy state” clause of the UN Charter:

The clause, dating back to the Second World War, allows for military action against Japan and Germany, without any endorsement by the Security Council.

Could such a clause really exist? After all this time? I was so surprised I went and checked the UN Charter myself. Sure enough, articles 53 and 107 both talk about such action being allowed. The Second World War was decades ago. Why hasn’t this clause been removed? It certainly doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that belongs in the charter of an international organization focused on peace!

I know circumstances were different in 1945, but this is 2005 now (almost). If nothing else is changed at the United Nations, I hope that at the very least this stupid clause is removed from the charter. I think it is appalling that such a clause still exists. Now it is expected that the panel will recommend its removal, but you never know. I’d also really like to see at least the “aspirant four” nations added to the Security Council with permanent status and a veto. Actually ideally, I’d like to see the whole veto thing dropped completely. Two-thirds majority of Security Council members should be good enough, no vetoes necessary.

The whole issue is quite interesting, and won’t be sorted out tomorrow. If you care about the future of international relations you should definitely be paying attention. In my opinion, the United Nations should be the dominant world body, not the United States, China, or any other country. Here’s to hoping the UN can fix the problems and grow even stronger.

[I used this Economist.com article and this Google search for background information and quotes. You might also find this Wikipedia article useful.]

I never thought I’d see the day that Netscape would use Internet Explorer’s engine. Never in my wildest geek dreams. Apparently, it has happened:

As of 8 a.m. PST Tuesday, Netscape fans were test-driving a prototype Netscape browser that runs on two different browsing engines: the Mozilla Foundation’s Gecko engine, which powers up the Mozilla, Firefox and older Netscape browsers, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer engine, which many consider the de facto Web standard.

It’s actually a pretty good idea. Too bad Firefox doesn’t have this capability.

Read: CNET News.com