Archive for April, 2008
Surprise, surprise, Federal Government employees have been using cellphones and blackberries at the expense of the tax paying public. One in five workers that has a phone has no work-related need for it, and employees have been allowed to get their own plans from cellular providers at an estimated unwarranted expense of $500,000. That’s a whole lot of Facebook updates and text messages.
It took me a few days to get my MacBook back to the way I like it. For some reason on my initial searches I could not find my preferred world clock dashboard widget. A lot of them force you to have a different box for each city, while others only give time, and the worst of them show a simulation of the time of day. Simple World Clock is just that, simple. One list where you add the cities manually and select the correct time zone. I would like it if you could drag to re-sort the order, but it works fine once you get it set up. I haven’t encountered any problems with daylight savings around the world. [direct link to developers site]
Last September Australia hosted the APEC summit, and a local spoof-news program ‘The Chaser’s War on Everything‘ infiltrated the security network that cost about $163 million. I seem to recall it made a brief appearance on Canadian news, as they used a fake Canadian flagged motorcade in the stunt to bypass security. The perpetrators of the stunt were charged with a number of criminal offences, but today the case has been dropped.
With an estimated 1.3 billion people on the Internet, and upwards of 100 million active websites, keyword search, the most common way to find information online today, will become less and less useful. Search results are becoming diluted, and it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack of haystacks. TechCrunch looks at the ideas of the semantic web.
I’ve been using computers for some 20 years, having started back in the late 80’s with an IBM XT clone sporting a 5 1/4″ disk drive, and moving steadily forward through generations of Intel chipsets (386, 486 DX66, Pentium II, Pentium 4 etc.). In all those years, over all those computers, I never experienced a hard drive crash. Sure, there were times where Windows would die thus requiring a format and a re-install, but the data was never lost.
Last week, on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon, I returned to my MacBook to find a frozen screen. Thinking I had encountered a rare malfunction I calmly turned off the computer and turned it back on. No sooner had power been returned did I hear the tell-tale sounds of ‘click, click, click’ coming from the hard drive. My screen produced a lovely folder with a giant question mark on it, indicating the computer couldn’t access the hard drive. My reaction was a sly laugh and the half utterance of the phrase, “you have got to be kidding me.” I can only imagine how irate I would have been had I not started regular backups of my data in January, when I purchased a 500gb external hard drive to use with Time Machine, the included backup application in the most recent Apple operating system OS X Leopard. I’d chosen to back up my documents and my photos, leaving my iPod to be the safe haven for my music files. Ironically I had just performed a backup some 8h prior to my current situation.
My first instinct was to contact a local Apple approved service location. This act proved more difficult than anticipated as my computer no longer worked. It’s funny how many things we rely on computers for. I couldn’t email anyone to get advice, I couldn’t call anyone, as my address book is on the computer, and I couldn’t find my nearest Apple store to book an appointment. Luckily I remembered the desktop in the house, and used it to find the numbers I needed to call. I ended up booking an appointment with the Apple Store in Toronto for the following morning. When I arrived at the store and explained my situation they got to work typing details into their computers. I had contacted Apple previously about a crack on my top case that is covered under warranty, but didn’t have the time to leave my computer with them for the 2 days it would take to get the part and fix it. From their notes the girl knew I had this problem, and she went into the back to see if they had the items in stock. What luck! They had a new hard drive and the top case in the back, so it would be less than 48h for them to fix it. I could have taken the hard drive from her and been on my way, but I wanted to get the top case done since I’d already set up self up mentally for a few days without the computer. In reality it’s a 10 minute job to replace the top case, and all of 60 seconds to stick a new hard drive in. At 11:45am I departed Apple, and by 1:30pm there was a message on my phone that the repair had been completed. Unfortunately I did not get this message until later, so I’d have to head in the following day to pick it up.
I was one full day without a computer, and to my shock the sky did not fall, and the earth did not stop spinning, nor did any other signs of the apocalypse appear. To be honest, it was a bit nice to know I couldn’t use a computer. If I didn’t already read books it would have been a great time to start.
Like everyone else I’ve seen the Koodo ads around town and thought, “hmm, that sounds like a deal. I’ll take a look.” My friends and I had a debate about who Koodo was, and today we found out it’s Telus marketing to the youth market. This just proves my one friends was correct in saying, “There is never a new carrier.”
I’m currently mobile phoneless, becuase I just can’t justify a 3-year term contract and upwards of $40 a month for service. While in Australia I was paying $30 for credit that expired after 60 days through Vodofone. It included 60 texts, and 100 ‘calling to same service provider’ minutes. I had my own phone, but could have bought a basic one for $60-80. I think the one time activation fee was $9.95 or so, and it included free voicemail. I’d rarely go through all my credit before it expired, but if I topped-up I’d get to carry forward anything I didn’t use. Maybe it was the small town, or seeing people in class and on the beach that resulted in my low usage. It only takes 1 messages to say, “VB @ 12:30″, and 1 to reply, “Cool. I’m in.” Sure, if I got into the habit of calling people I’d be burning through my credit like no ones business (20 cents connection fee, then 30 cents for every 30 seconds), but the solution is easy: don’t call. Does not calling defeat the purpose of having a ‘mobile phone’? Maybe, but $15 a month seems like a reasonable amount to spend on mobile service.
I guess I’m just saying I want a reasonable cell phone plan in Ontario. I want to be able to text people with no chance of ‘going over’ or ‘incurring extra charges’, make a handful of phone calls, and access voicemail for less than $30 a month — taxes in. It would be awesome if I could do this without a contract and on a phone that I can buy for less than $100 — a small phone, that fits in a standard pocket without producing a bulge. Until we get affordable unlimited data plans and/or true G3 speeds (and the iPhone in Canada) I have no use for Internet, email, video and a camera. I look at Koodo and they want $75 for a phone, then $25 a month for service that looks to meet my needs. However, if I want voicemail that’s an extra $5 a month. Oh, and don’t forget to add the tax. That’s no great deal, and Rogers, Bell, and Koodo parent Telus have similar plans.
I’ll suppose I’ll just keep looking, and modifying me needs to comply with the limited options offered by wireless carriers in Ontario. They wouldn’t want to offer a product I actually want and see value in, no, because where’s the money in that?
Update: Well, I caved and purchased an iPhone from Rogers with a voice and data plan. I tried out a prepaid from Rogers and it wasn’t that bad, but my old phone was acting up, and I needed mobile Internet access for some work I’m doing. The voice plan is $35, which includes 250 minutes, free evening and weekends, voicemail, some texts, as well as Canada-wide My5 — which means I can call any 5 numbers in Canada for free. As I currently live in a different city then family and old friends this is actually a great deal. However I have had nothing but problems with the 3G network Rogers runs, and I have detailed my hassles in a recent post.
Some research might show that smaller, regular doses of caffeine may do more to boost alertness and reduce jitters than a large steaming mug. The other argument is to go caffeine free and stick with apples and a good night sleep. This should help to put an end to the 1/3 of cold coffee that tends to end up in the bottom of most mugs when people get a little busy — and hey, more coffee breaks for a fill up.
Add another item to that list of things that will probably give me cancer. I’d heard about the Nalgene bottles causing cancer, but hadn’t actually read an article about it. The chemical bisphenol-A, used in hard plastics like the ubiquitous Nalgene bottle, has been linked to neurological and behavioural problems in babies and obesity, diabetes and some cancers in adults. So if coffee, the sun, pesticides, heavy-metals, lead, or ‘your favourite cancer causing product here’ doesn’t get you, then that sneaky water container in the fridge will.
I think bottled water is a bit of a joke to begin with, and the enormous amount of waste plastic it creates is ridiculous. What is even more ridiculous is the profits involved. The Ontario government has renewed a 2-year permit for Nestle to pump up to 3.6 million litres of groundwater a day from its site in Aberfoyle, near Guelph. The cost? A one time $3,000 administration fee for the complicated water permit. Starting next year they will be charged $3.71 for every million litres they take. I’m sure they have a substantial capital investment in equipment and such, but still. The Government really should be making some money off this, instead of just giving away a resource. Selling water; what a racket.
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