Time for my weekly notes again!

• We’re launching tonite! Yay!
• Congratulations Chu and Michelle on your engagement! Here are some photos from our small get together the other day.
• Andrea and Felicia are in London. They are travelling Europe for a month. I’m not jealous. No really.
• Apple to trademark the word podcast? What a bunch of morons. I wonder if their PR department will do some damage control this week.
• What a cool way to visualize the blogosphere!
• I got a postcard in the mail from the fine folks producing the Jackass 2 movie a couple weeks ago. They wanted to know my shoe size, so I emailed it to them. And to my surprise, they sent me Jackass 2 shoes! Coolest swag ever! You can see them here.

Damn it’s cold outside! Here are my weekly notes:

• Winter is definitely on the way. There’s too much yellow outside already!
• Podcast Spot is looking pretty spiffy if I do say so myself! It will be public late this week if all goes according to plan. Brad Gibson was kind enough to mention Podcast Spot in his latest Bradcast. Thanks Brad and welcome back to the podosphere!
• Like Kyle, I attended the first Edmonton on Rails meeting on Thursday. Here’s a photo of our small get together.
• Here in the best province in Canada (you know it’s true) we’ve experienced a 43% rise in GDP between 2002 and 2005. “That puts Alberta’s growth rate not far behind that of China’s.” Pretty crazy! China is of course far and away the fastest growing large economy in the world.
• Cold weather means hockey! As I write this, the Oilers are beating Phoenix 3-0 at the start of the third period in tonight’s first pre-season game. They’ve got Torres, Peterson and Lupul on a line together.
• It seems everyone is talking about the new iPod Nanos, which I admit, are pretty cool. Even more cool is that they have really good recording capabilities now!
• You can find some very interesting stuff in China. Like this building, designed to look like a cell, complete with mitochondria and everything. Kinda creepy, no?

Here are my weekly notes:

• In some ways I find it hard to believe that is has been five years since 9/11. Yet in other ways, it seems as though it happened just yesterday. I suppose that feeling of disorientation is normal with such a poignant event.
• Do you love putting people on the spot? Asking the tough questions? Now’s your chance! Tris Hussey of Qumana is running for a position on the CIRA board (they look after domains in Canada). You’ve got until Thursday to post your questions on their forum. Tris is a great guy, and I know he’ll do a fine job if elected.
• Here’s an excellent article on Sony and the position in which the company finds itself. Business people like to use the phrase “we’re betting the company on this”, even if they don’t mean it. Sony however, really does seem to be betting the company on the PS3. Not that I think Sony will go away if the PS3 flops or anything, but the PS3 could be the difference between a resurgent and successful Sony and a “let’s take a step back and evaluate everything to almost start over” Sony.
• I’m a big fan of del.icio.us, so I was happy to see founder Joshua Schachter was named the Technology Review’s 2006 Innovator of the Year.
• The audio enhancements that have gone into Windows Vista look incredible.
• Hungry? Check out this gigantic hamburger. The final, assembled burger weighed in at 29.75 pounds.

Here are my weekly notes for the first Sunday of September:

• As soon as this post is done, we’re going to publish a bunch of changes for Podcast Spot and send out more tester accounts! We’re a little late sending the accounts out, but we took the extra time to implement some new features 🙂
• There were two, count ’em two, articles on CNET this week (here and here) about fiber optics improving lighting technology. Is the lightbulb dead? Probably not for a while.
• An interesting retrospective on President Bush and 9/11 from The Economist.
• Tom leaves for Red Deer tomorrow! We went down this weekend to sort out his place, so he has somewhere to live now. And his room has the largest non-walk-in closet I have ever seen! Good luck Tom! Oh, and study hard and all that jazz 😉
• Message to Kim: are you reading this? are your residents treating you well? getting any sleep?
• Message for Megan: where oh where is Megan’s favorite book!? If you have it, let her know! (wouldn’t it be awesome if someone actually read this and gave her back her book? haha…unless I have it…probably not gonna happen.)
• Not sure when it was announced, but I stumbled across the Web 2.0 Expo this past week. Looks interesting!
• Most awesome music video ever!

It’s been a very busy day, which for me started at 5:30 this morning. Here are some notes:

• Dad came and went this weekend. He was here getting some stuff for the new house in Yellowknife!
• I’ve been at J&M’s most of the day today, helping them pack and prepare for their year long trip to Salzburg. They’ve got a blog too, so check it out! Tomorrow’s the big day.
• Dickson returns tomorrow. He’s going to help me move, and we’re going to do some big updates to Podcast Spot this week too! I’m really excited for adding more testers and features/updates.
• I am not, however, excited for my last year of University which starts on the 6th. I think.
• And here’s at least one non-personal item – Google is launching a new service that sounds a lot like Office Live.

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.