This morning I went to use my internet and was redirected to a page that indicated I had exceeded my bandwidth for the month. Granted, with my recent purchase of Apple TV, I have been using more bandwidth. But as far as I’m concerned it’s not anything crazy (the odd TV show), and it’s strange to me that I hit my limit.
I upgraded to the next plan up which is a small SoHo package for now. The part that concerns me is that my upstream bandwidth was larger than my downstream, which makes no sense at all based on the things I do with my computer. My NAT is locked down, so it’s basically impossible ...
Yesterday afternoon I placed a few calls and booked myself into the Calgary hotel where all the media are staying for the Junos. It’s right downtown and should be close to all the major events. I actually have a few friends from high school out that way, so I’m looking forward to seeing some of them again on their own turf.
I went to Flickr late last night and did a search for Juno photographs. Surprisingly, I couldn’t really find any. I spent some time thinking about what that means and either a) bloggers and new-media type people typically don’t end up at the Junos or b) most photos ...
My birthday is fast approaching, and the only real event I’m looking forward to is having a plate of nachos somewhere in the city with a friend or two. So, my question to all of you is: where are the best nachos in this city?
My favourites so far are probably the ones down at Smiley O’Neils on Pender, but I’m open to suggestions. Drop a comment if you’ve had nachos somewhere in the city and let everyone know how they were (if they sucked, say so).
I had nachos last night down at the Atlantic Trap and Gill, and the beef on them was actually a cut-up hamburger patty — not cool people. ...
When the Juno awards were announced a few months ago, I put my name on the list for media accreditation. I didn’t hear anything for a while, so I sort of assumed it wasn’t going through.
Today I got an email saying I had a media pass, which means I have full access to photograph the Canadian Juno Awards. I’ll be photographing and writing on behalf of Urban Vancouver, so look on my blog and over there from time to time for photos and a few entries.
I still have to sort everything out and see if I can get a hotel room and what not, but it’s fairly likely I’ll be heading to Calgary for ...
Going through Google reader tonight, I’ve encountered a lot of shared articles about the Apple iPhone SDK. And for the most part, every one of the articles praises the SDK and Apple’s approach with it.
Photo by John Biehler
But in pure Office Space style, I’m going to have to go ahead and, you know, sort of disagree with you all. In particular, I’m going to outline a few points from one specific article and give my take as a cross platform application developer who actually *has* developed software from scratch on the Mac using both Carbon and Cocoa.
First point:
Overall, it is deeply ...
I read this fairly alarming (although not entirely surprising) article yesterday detailing how prescription drugs are being detected in municipal water sources.
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
..
• Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, ...
As most of you are now aware, last night we moved our clocks ahead an hour due to daylight savings time. At 7pm tonight, as I pumped endless money into my Apple TV, I looked out the window and saw the sun still setting, a nice change from the dark evening skies of winter.
This year I’m going to do something different with regards to the summer — I’m going to keep all my weekends open for me. For the last three years, I have basically not really had any time in the summers to do the things I wanted. The summer of 2005 I spent in a small office in Burnaby with a bunch of other guys, literally ...
As I mentioned in my last post, my mind is starting to drift towards a vacation sometime in the next two or three months. I’m thinking about overlapping it with a trip I’m making in June to Disneyland (to hang out with some of my family who will be there).
Here are a few ideas:
Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Costa Rica: I loved Costa Rica when I was there, and it might be cool to head back and rent a little place on the beach for a week. The flights for the entire trip are about $1000 right now. Not bad for five flight segments.
Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Cancun: I’ve actually ...
John and I made it. I was pounding back caffeine most of the way which meant I had to pee a lot, but we’re at the Holiday Inn now (yes, very classy I know), having a liquid dinner in the hotel.
We’ll be heading down to the Tractor Tavern in about 90 minutes to catch the show. I’m charging the camera now, so hopefully I’ll grab a few shots.
Also, just checked the official website. The only musician to have a sell-out at the Tractor Travern this month:
...
Yesterday Apple released their long-waited for SDK for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. What this means is that if you’re interested in developing applications for the iPhone, you can simply download the SDK and get cracking. That is, unless you live in Canada.
That’s right, Steve Jobs has limited real development to people with valid US addresses. And even then, it’s an application process that costs a minimum of $99 to be a part of. I realize Canada is a really small demographic compared to the United States, but we’re not *that* small, and there really are some bright people up here. ...
That’s the phrase of the day people. I was debating a hard problem at work with a few people and after banging our heads on the table for 30 minutes, Cisco interjected “everyone really should have their own GUID.” Yes that would be a rather perfect solution, albeit fairly nerdy.
Some day. ...
Yes, they are here — my Moo cards finally arrived in the mail today. I officially ordered them exactly one month ago, so it took a full four weeks to get here. Looking at the packaging, it looks like they went from London, UK to Germany, and then finally over here to Canada.
Considering that they state they all shipping is done with First Class airmail, I’m pretty surprised that it not only takes this long to get here, but also that there isn’t some sort of tracking number. In fact, there are no markings on the packaging at all to indicate when it finally did ship from London, which seems ...
I’ve had gravatars on this site a few times over the last few years, but they always seem to disappear whenever I do a retheming. I’ve added them back in the comments and also added the last comment to the main page along with a gravatar.
If you don’t have a photo next to your name when you comment, that means you don’t have a public gravatar available. If you want one, head over to Gravatar.com and sign up. It’s free, and as soon as you add your photo to it you will start noticing it automatically show up on various sites around the internet. If you don’t define one you’re going ...
I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last few months trying to understand how search engines work, and how sites get indexed. In my last article, I recommending that the XML Sitemap generator for WordPress should be installed on sites to help with search engine crawling. On this site, Google has gone from around 400 indexed articles (about 20%) up to around 1600 articles (about 80%) for my website — a substantial increase, entirely due to the sitemap.
I want to write briefly about WordPress title tags in the context of search engine optimization. Most default WordPress blogs are configured ...
Today I took the plunge and quickly upgraded my WordPress installation from 2.3.3 to the Beta for 2.5. In terms of look and feel on the front-end, I doubt you’ll notice any major changes (especially on sites where you don’t have to login). However, they’ve completely overhauled the administration section in the back to make things a little easier to find.
I’m not going to really review it, because in all fairness it’s not quite done yet. However, the back end does seem a bit slower, maybe due to the new additions. Also, I have been completely unable to add media using the new interface. ...
I actually took this shot about a year ago, but I felt like posting a photo today and stumbled across this one. I took it from my patio first thing one spring morning. It’s a three shot HDR with a bit of post processing.
Enjoy. ...
Mark just swung by my desk at work and we spun into a debate about who was the bigger nerd. This somehow led to a discussion about the first computers we ever owned. My first computer was probably when I was around six years old. It was a Radio Shack’s Tandy TRS-80. Back in those days you’d go out and buy a magazine with BASIC code in it and have to manually type your own games into the thing. I remember my dad and I struggled for days just to get this stupid game going where dots would bounce around the screen.
The Tandy TRS-80, From Wikipedia
Next on the list was my Commodore 64 computer. ...
Well, it was an interesting day in the blogosphere, one that I’m thankful is over. Tonight I was sitting at home debating drinking myself into a coma when Rebecca pinged me online and said I should come over for wine. I was pretty comfy in my flannel pants and briefly debated staying at home. But since I really needed a few drinks, I decided to head over as I was, flannel pants and all. So for the last few hours I’ve been sitting on Rebecca and John’s couch in my flannel pants with a big-ass afghan draped over me. It was pretty much exactly what I needed tonight (although I’m looking forward ...
Last night I went over to John Biehler’s house to sit around, drink diet pepsi max, and to watch a movie. We ended up renting Michael Clayton, which is a really good movie if you are looking for something to watch. John gave me a pretty exhaustive tour of the Apple TV (which they recently updated to version 2.0 of the firmware), and I have to say, had London Drugs still been open when I left his place, I would have rushed over to pick one up on my way home last night.
No matter. After bouncing between Best Buy, Future Shop, and London Drugs today I am now the proud owner of an Apple TV. For ...