Notes for 10/14/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • The RestorAction Charity Gala last night was a major success! The signed Oilers jersey ended up going for $675. I’ll have pictures up as soon as I get my camera back from Sharon.
  • Tomorrow is Blog Action Day! “One issue. One Day. Thousands of voices.” The topic tomorrow is the environment. If you’re a blogger you should totally take part!
  • Also tomorrow is Edmonton’s municipal election. I was out yesterday morning dropping flyers for George Rice, my former principal, who is running in Ward G for the Public School Trustee position. I live in Ward G, so I’ll obviously be voting for him! Get out and vote!
  • With Al Gore winning the Nobel, I expected the chatter about a potential presidential bid to increase. Didn’t expect the commentary to suggest a run is less likely now though! This article and this article explain things quite well.
  • Interesting post from Nick Carr on the topic of super-inexpensive storage. The example he uses is definitely not typical, but it nonetheless illustrates that utility data storage (like S3) is really, really affordable. Now we just need other utility services to follow!
  • TechCrunch noted that the one year anniversary of GooTube was this past week.
  • Marshall Kirkpatrick says that Twitter is paying his rent! Essentially Marshall is finding that stories break on Twitter first. I’ve started getting the majority of my news through Twitter too.

Music
My favorite song at the moment is The Pretender by Foo Fighters. Such a wicked track! Some other songs I’ve been enjoying: Hot by Avril Lavigne, How Far We’ve Come by Matchbox Twenty, Foundations by Kate Nash, and Say Goodbye To Love by Kenna. Oh and Gimme More by Britney Spears, which I commented about this week:

Enjoying Britney’s track “Gimme More”…Britney is like Michael Jackson…enjoy the music, ignore the person.

Notes for 10/7/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

Notes for 9/30/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Megan’s parents took us out for dinner tonight, to celebrate our entering the workforce. We’re now contributing to their pensions 🙂 Heh, very nice of them, and dinner was excellent.
  • Ever wonder what the world would be like without Google Maps? We’d have more swastika-shaped buildings, that’s for sure.
  • After a bit of a hiatus, I had two articles published at last100 this week. The first was on Halo 3 and Microsoft’s strategy beyond gaming, and the second was on the potentially doomed Zune.
  • In a post that received lots of attention, Scott Karp outlined five reasons why he feels the mobile web sucks. He then wrote a follow-up post responding to some of the hostile comments left by readers of the first one. Both are worth a read.
  • Here’s what I like about Wired magazine: I can purchase the relatively inexpensive physical version, read it without requiring access to an electronic device, and then go online to bookmark my favorite articles later because they are all available at the website for free.
  • I downloaded and quickly watched the first episode of the new CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, solely because Kaley Cuoco (from 8 Simple Rules) is in the show. All I can say is I am glad I didn’t have to pay for it.
  • The new Smallville which aired Thursday was excellent! They must have spent a fortune on the special effects. I was impressed that they had a nice mix of both subtle (Clark’s skin healing in the sunlight) and over-the-top (Clark vaporizing a river of water) effects. The new girl, Canada’s own Laura Vandervoort, didn’t have much screen time in the premiere. I’m sure we’ll see much more of her though!

Notes for 9/23/2007

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Things I should have posted about already

I really don’t like these “catch up” blog posts, but they sure are easy to write. Here are a few things I’ve been meaning to post about!

The Casino
I worked at the Baccarat Casino here in Edmonton on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. The reason? Fundraiser for The Learning Centre. We raised quite a bit of money, so that’s great! My position was the banker, which means I was responsible for all the money and chips. When tables needed chips, they would call for a chip run. I would do the transaction, prepare the chips, and send them with a chip runner (another volunteer). It was also my job to ensure the cashiers had enough money to give out when patrons brought us their chips.

A few things of interest:

  • Apparently Alberta is the only province in Canada that still allows volunteers to handle money and chips at casino fundraising events.
  • Working a casino can be pretty boring. There are long stretches of time when there is very little to do. On the other hand, you get free food!
  • It is extremely hard to screw up. Not surprising I guess, but there are always at least two people doing everything (counting, for instance) and even the software I had to use was smart enough to prevent me from making mistakes (like giving too much money or something).
  • There’s a wide range of people at the casino. One person might come to exchange ten dollars worth of chips, the next might exchange ten thousand dollars worth. One or both of them might be drunk.

Not sure I would volunteer to work two days in a row again (so tired) but I am glad I was able to help out!

YRAP presents RestorAction
restoraction Another group I volunteer with is the Youth Restorative Action Project (YRAP). Our second annual charity gala is coming up on October 13th. Funds raised will go towards mentoring programs for at-risk youth. Mentors will use the funds for such things as enrollment in music or art programs and providing materials for extracurricular activities. The main aims of this program are to direct youth away from negative or criminal activities and focus their time on alternative and positive social activities and become contributing members of society.

You can find out more information at the RestorAction website. If you want tickets, let me know!

The Dollar
For the first time in 31 years, the Canadian dollar reached parity with the American dollar. That’s pretty crazy. As a consumer, I think it’s great…well as soon as prices are updated to reflect the parity. As a small business owner offering services in U.S. dollars, it’s not so great.

Developer Night in Canada III
dniclogo

John Bristowe will be in town on Wednesday evening for a session on “Bringing the Power of the .NET Framework to Your Existing Application” being held at the downtown library. John will go through some real-world tips and tricks for migrating to .NET, and he’ll cover some of the issues that you might encounter when integrating with legacy applications.

Canadian developers will share their experiences and insights, and you can too! You can find more information and register here. Also, don’t forget about Edmonton Code Camp coming up in October.

Notes for 9/16/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

Notes for 9/9/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Dad was in town for the weekend for business. Was nice to hang out with him and do some shopping. Oh and I went to get my eyes tested for the first time in eight years – doctor said I had very minor changes in my prescription…boo yah!
  • I am using Windows Live Writer for this post which I haven’t used since the early betas. Just downloaded and installed it using the new integrated Windows Live installer. All the apps say Version 2008 and sport a very nice “Vista” look.
  • Speaking of Vista, I got a new computer this weekend that has Windows Vista Business on it. I’ll post more about this later, but so far, I think the wireless support in Vista sucks compared to XPSP2. My computer is awesome though 🙂
  • Twitter is doing some cool stuff for the MTV Video Music Awards…congrats!
  • Windows Live Translator is on the way! Online translation hasn’t changed much in years…I hope the Live team has some good ideas for improvements.
  • I detest coins smaller than 25 cents, so I absolutely think we should get rid of the penny.
  • Like Dave Winer, I wish synching was a thing of the past. The iPod with Wi-Fi gets us one step closer, but there’s lots of work to do.

I think it’s safe to say that Windows Live Writer is my new favorite blogging client!

Notes for 9/3/2007

Weekly notes, this time on holiday Monday:

  • Can’t believe it’s already September!
  • On that note…I’m so happy I don’t have to go to school this week. I can honestly say I don’t miss going to class at all. I admit I’m somewhat curious to see what has changed on campus over the summer.
  • For those of you in Calgary: have you ever been to Yardhouse Restaurant? A friend sent me this blog post which says that the Yardhouse has 100 wings for $15!!! Definitely going to have to check that out next time I’m in Calgary.
  • Russell Beattie says: Buy Opera. I love the desktop browser, but Russell says the company is valuable mainly because of Opera Mini.
  • I’m guilty of having lots of electronics in my bedroom – cell phone, computer(s), TV, Xbox, etc. Interesting story (though not surprising) that all of those gadgets in the bedroom lead to “junk sleep” in teenagers.
  • Is Vancouver Canada’s greatest startup city? There’s certainly lots of cool stuff happening there.
  • Hope you had a good long weekend! Mine was pretty good. Dickson & Andrew hosted a pretty awesome BBQ yesterday. Jane moved into her own place on Saturday and a bunch of us helped. Tom was up in Edmonton for a soccer tournament this weekend (they finished 4th). Got a haircut, washed my car, did some other random things.

Notes for 8/26/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • We finally got around to doing a long-planned server move this weekend. It went quite well, all things considered!
  • Sharon and I went to see another Fringe play on Friday, called Out of Pocket. I liked it, even if the story was sort of expected. The female actress switched between her characters amazingly well.
  • Have you seen Tafiti? Cool demonstration of Silverlight technology, not very useful though.
  • Here’s a handy list of tools for web developers working with Internet Explorer.
  • My favorite t-shirt is missing 😦
  • Justin Timberlake concert is Tuesday! I’m excited 🙂

Notes for 8/19/2007

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Today seemed to absolutely fly by. I don’t know where the day went!
  • Do you like Crocs? Wish you could wear them in the winter? Yeah, I can’t believe it either, but there’s a new “Mammoth” version of the shoe for colder temperatures. Stop the madness! I saw a lady on the street wearing orange Crocs today. Ugliest thing ever.
  • Great quote: “Allowing CDMA and GSM in North America is like allowing left and right hand drive cars simultaneously.”
  • I haven’t checked out Pulse yet, but Robert seems to like the new service from Plaxo. Like me he was not impressed by Pownce, so maybe we’d have the same opinion on Pulse too. I’ll have to see.
  • The first thing I do now when I come across another Twitter clone is look for an API. Sadly, Yappd has no such thing.
  • Really interesting post from Larry on world temperature figures. Evidently NASA has corrected previously published information, and the change means that five of the ten warmest years on record occur before WWII. Umm, yeah, so how about that global warming?
  • Kim is back in Edmonton tomorrow!