Apple Love - The AppleSac

It's been a month now, give or take a few days, and I'm ready to get yummy Apple accessories for the Mac.
Last week it was the Mighty Mouse.
This week... an AppleSac. For safety and security. I've been shuffling the Mac from one location to another in the house, and it's yet to go on a trip. But soon summer will arrive, and at some point, the Mac is going to have to go on vacation. With me, of course. It deserves safety. Plus, who can say no to Sherpa fleece linings? No one can say no to a Sherpa. period.

Red Delicious. Red Burlap and Fleece MacBook Sleeve by AppleSac

Why No One in Canada Is Talking About the Sea Shepherd and the Seals

I've been following the brave adventures of the Sea Shepherd, ever since the Canadian seal massacres started this spring out east. The coverage in Canadian media has been spotty at best, and more often than not, simply one sided. The surprising long arms of the Canadian government have seeming silenced objective journalism when it comes to the Canadian Seal Hunts.

Last week, the Canadian Coast Guard attacked and boarded the Farley Mowat, the Sea Shepherd's vessel, resulting in arrests all around. The folks aboard the Sea Shepherd aren't your average conservation folks. They are some pretty bright, respected individuals who volunteer from around the world, spotlighting the utter ridiculousness of the Canadian Seal hunt.

There's lots of global attention, and yet very little is being said within the Canadian media industry, until today. Yesterday, Farley Mowat joined the volunteers from Sea Shepherd in the media spotlight.

The Sidney Herald has one doctor's account of the terrors of the Canadian Coast Guard Attack.
CTV covers Farley Mowat donating half the bail needed for the crew of the ship that bears his name.
Atleast the Ottawa Citizen has a bit of decent coverage.

At some point, the government and folks in the east will realize that times have changed, that *ways of life* do NOT necessarily need to be preserved (at some point, people thought slavery was an acceptable way of life). The seal hunt is an antiquated, inhumane practice. Had the Canadian government spent as much on the hunters in re-training, relocation or creating a new industry as they did this year on *marketing* and coast guard operating expenses, the Canadian Seal hunt would cease to be a big deal.




Technorati Tags: Sea Shepherd, Farley Mowat, Canada, Seal Hunt

First Cattle, The Pigs... Up Next: Chickens

There's been a rash of livestock incidents in the GTA this spring.

A few weeks ago, cattle were loose on the 427.

Yesterday, pigs escaped on the 401.

I'm fully prepared for a chicken rig to flip on the 400 before we hit the Canada Day Weekend.

And why? It's not *all* driver error. Considering the laws of probability, and the number of livestock trucks traveling through the city, it's just a question of time before the chicken scenario occurs.

In January 2008, a chicken truck in Oregon spilled chickens all over the roadway.

I say again. Simply a matter of time. Imagine 200 chickens on the 400. Like a massive pillow fight. But much worse.








Technorati Tags: cattle, chickens, pigs, GTA highways, 401, 427, 400

Guitar Hero-A Whole New Game with 2 Guitars

2 weeks ago, the Wiz set sail for america, and returned with gold in the form of an additional Guitar Hero guitar for our Wii. The game has never been better. The competition, the collaboration... the battles! Instead of having to just watch each other, the players in this house are now PLAYING each other. The chickadees are so much better at the game. No more need for a grownup to do the strumming, they are battling each other in duels all over the place.

The only downside of having Guitar Hero for the Wii is the inability to buy and download more songs. We actually considered getting Rock Band, if only to draw from a new pool of music. Now that's just insane.
:-)


Technorati Tags: Guitar Hero, Wii

Facebook: People You May Know

Over the weekend I ran across a nifty new facebook feature: People You May Know.
It presents friend recommendations to you, based on the number of friends you and the recommendation have in common. Now there's no more need to troll through all your friends' friends lists ;-)

This could have been handy about 11 months ago ;-)
Although - there is a flip side to this - if, perchance, you are picky with who you are accepting as friends (and I say this only because friend filtering is starting to set in....)it's oddly creepy that folks can see who you are friends with.

That being said - I'm there is also a setting that you can tweak in the privcay settings that will keep you out of those friend referral recommendations. It's the ability for friends of friends to be able to see you.... ;-) If you set it to Only Friends, you will be placed in stealth mode.




Technorati Tags: facebook

eBay.ca Motors?

An interesting piece of fluff floated into my inbox this afternoon - eBay.ca Motors --- selling your car using eBay.
And from April 13 - 19th, there's no commission fees! ;-) That being said, when you check out the fees, they are fairly small potatoes. Now you can easily *buy* cars on eBay.

This could be the big competitor to the AutoTrader.ca
It will only be a matter of moments before there's also an eBay leasebuster option that rivals leasebusters.ca

Gulp. What's next, selling your house on eBay? Wait - I think I might have already written about that ;-)


Technorati Tags: eBay Motors, Leasebusters, Autrotrader

Testing mobile posting

Hello world!!

Radio Interference and Blackberries

This is always something I’ve questioned: why do GSM Blackberries cause radio/speaker interference? You know what I mean, you’ve got your berry too close to the radio, or to any speaker, and every once in a while (likely when the Berry is checking with the cell tower) you get the worst feedback/clicking/irritation. It can happen at home, in the car, on a conference call. Once it even happened to me when I was in a hockey arena, and sitting too close to the timekeeper box.

Wow - did I get the big heck that time ;-) Still, what to GSM berries do that CDMA berries don’t?My TELUS Berry Pearl is polite and quiet. It’s the Rogers Berry Pearl (belonging to The Wiz) who’s troublesome and chatty.I’m forever locking it in the bathroom to keep it from interfering with every other sound device in the house.:-)

According to this smart fellow, Al Sacco, it’s because CDMA phones are using less RF frequencies than the GSM phones. 

….some phones cause more buzzing than others is related to the specific frequencies they emit and at what power levels. (Specific absorption rate [SAR] regulations in the United States limit the amount of power cell phones can emit to roughly two watts, according to Bradley. The SAR is a measure of how much RF energy humans can safely be exposed to.)

This leads me to believe that CDMA phones, in theory, at least, are less harmful to humans.

Hmm, CDMA carriers should use this in the marketing!! :-) 

Personalize Your.... Kleenex?

I'm oddly amused and slightly interested in this.Kleenex takes a *page* from Jones Soda and creates an environment where end users can customize the product. My first thought - if this doesn't get get kids blowing their nose on their own, nothing will.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: kleenex, jones soda

Blogging on Topic: Creating Personal Interest?

“I Help You Blog” has an interesting conversation regarding frequency vs topic, for blog publishing.

Here at jules.ca, I try to stay focused on telecom bits and technology pieces.  That being said, there is likely a plethora of commentary that could be related to neither. Be it photography or little personal anecdotes. Why? Well, it’s illustrating a side of me that’s beyond bits an bites, I suppose.

Well, here’s my arguement, and it’s completely a personal one - there are about two dozen blogs i read religiously and they’re very focused, but the posts that seem to resonate the most are the ones that show a glimpse into their real lives. Darren Barefoot does this really well. Alec Saunders has it figured out…So does Liz Strauss. And Seth Godin.

So - i guess the question is - do you post on topic to attract an audience, and keep them by creating personal interest?

Maybe this blog is more like a mullet: Business in the front, party in the back?

That’s a shameful comparison ;-)


Technorati Tags: blogging, Alec Saunders, Darren Barefoot, Liz Strauss, Seth Godin

The Only Thing I'll Say About Bell's Traffic Shaping

The internets are abuzz.
Disgruntled consumer and wholesale customers alike are beating the drums of revolution.
Michael Geist has lively discussion.
Mark Goldberg has lively discussion.



Ahem.
Free markets dictate that if the service you are paying for is left wanting, you have the ability to take your dollars elsewhere. (once your contract is up, of course)
Free markets also dictate that a new provider will jump into the ring and take over where the incumbents have left off.
Folks who want unfettered internet access, lumping the good the bad and the ugly all-to-gether will likely be able to buy that type of service from specialized providers. There will likely soon be ISPs who are willing to take the risk, take the initiative and and jump into the swelling sea of net neutrality. But it's just not net neutrality, it's naked internet, if you will. Wild west internet. It's not a bad place, it's just a hard place to put any guarantees to. And I think that's where folks like Bell are trying to get to. More people want guaranteed internet than unfettered internet. To get to a place where you can have guarantees, you've got to be able to control some of the nuttiness that's going on inside your walls.

That being said - it's sort of odd that they are also throttling/shaping their wholesale service - but from what I'm reading, they are shaping the last mile, as opposed to the traffic heading out-to and back in from the internet. That's a bit of a dog's breakfast - traffic shaping at the DLS level. In theory, that's private network. Shared network, but private none-the-less. ISP resellers are going to have to figure out what they want to do to get out of that storm. They need to figure out their own guarantees and dedicated infrastructure from the BELL central offices back to their own networks. Maybe they have to shift away from buying shared network services, to buying dedicated network services. If the end user wants, nay, demands unfettered internet, I think there's got to be a premium for that as well.



Maybe Barrett Xplore has the right idea by building their own last mile?

I'm going to track down ISPs in Ontario who aren't affected by traffic shaping from their upstream providers, and list them here. :-)


Technorati Tags: Bell Canada, traffic shaping, throttling, Michael Geist, Mark Goldberg

Update on 2008-03-28 11:02 by jules

Ok.

I can’t find a single ISP so far who isn’t impacted by throttling, either by their own hand or by someone else’s.

That being said - this issue has been pulled fully into the mainstream:

The Globe covers a Rogers Deliberate Pricing Change 

The Globe Covers the Bell Throttling Story 

Beating throttling with Vuze 

Comcast Changes it’s Strategy 

WiFi Photo Frame - The Future is Here

It's a brave new world, world.Imagine having a wifi enabled digital picture frame. Anything you shot, or had shared on the internet, or had stored on your hard drive could automatically be sent to the frame. Now imagine your grandmother having this frame on her desk in Florida. Imagine your parents with a frame in their kitchen. Sharing photos has never been easier. No more memory cards to load and replace. You could be anywhere, and could email new pictures to the frame with a few clicks of your camera-phone keypad. I just need one of these. In fact, I think I need 3-4 of these!

WiFi Photo Frame - WiFi Digital Picture Frames - WiFi Wireless Digital Photo Frame - eStarling

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: wifidigital picture frame, eStarling

10 Days In - Life with Mac

If it wasn’t for work, and life bits like showering and eating and sleeping, chances are i would have spent the last 240 odd hours glued to my new mac. I’ve bonded, so to speak.

I’ve migrated all my good media, (and even some bad) I’ve found all the apps that I want to use. I’ve added windows for those apps that just don’t come in an apple flavour. I’ve logged dozens of hours sitting at my cozy chair working, playing and editing.

• it took 4 days to figure out that there really is a right mouse button.
• i still don’t have a mouse, and I think I’m ok with that. The touch pad is lovely.
• windows is slow regardless of what system it’s running on ;-)

Things I still don’t really understand:

• the brightness of the display tends to change randomly, regardless of whether I’m plugged into power, or using battery power
• the mac gets damned hot - as hot as my Dell laptop
• i miss not having a backspace key (maybe there’s something similar I haven’t found yet?)
• i miss not having home and end keys
• my airport wireless card sometimes flakes out and loses my internet connection. Not often, but enough to notice

Still. I’m in love.
P.S. Flock rocks on the Mac.

Are Real Estate Agents on the Brink of Extinction?

10 years ago you would have had to depend on a real estate agent. 5 years ago it was likely you still needed their services. Today, with the plethora of alternative options, you could reasonably buy and sell your house on your own, without ever setting foot in a real estate office.


I’ve never had any success with an agent helping me to find a place. And now, I’ve gotten pretty good at taking advantage of easy tools to let me sell houses on my own. The only person you can’t cut out of the real estate equation is the lawyer. :-)


MLS.ca does a decent job of showing houses on the market, but now there are a magnitude of similar sites - some better, some worse, but all getting into the on-line property game.

Facebook’s Neighbourhoods application has partnered with Point2Homes, showcasing houses that are for sale in your neighbourhood, and allows you to browse other neighbourhoods! Virtual tours, digital photography, ubiquitous internet access all mesh to reduce our dependency on agents. Who wants to spend an afternoon with a stranger, looking at houses that *they* think you will like? Aren’t you the best judge of that?


If you want to *sell* your house, there are still many options, and most of them are painless. Social networking sites like Facebook, eBay, Craigslist. You name it, you can sell it. People in the market for a new house have no problem being interested in cutting out the 5% of the sale price that has to be inflated to cover the cost of the agent.


Historically, the value that real estate agents brought to the table was one of audience. Agents controlled the audience of people looking to buy and looking to sell. There were no alternatives to easily discover houses for sale (unless you spent countless hours driving through the neighbourhoods you were interested in). There were no alternatives to advertise your home for sale either. Now both of those activities are easily subbed out to various different internet applications.

The value of the real estate agent today? Administrative paper-pushing. Agents know what paperwork needs to be filled out. I recently sold a condo on my own. A few google searches, and wham… I had all the paperwork I needed. The other value that an agent brings to the table: mediation. People are generally uncomfortable with negotiating the price of their home. It’s an emotional sale. But if you can wrap your head around dealing with a little personal discomfort to save $15,000 or more, it’s a worthwhile pain.


:-)


How are you going to buy or sell your next house?