I just read an article that basically alludes to the fact that the iPhone has been hacked. While I’m all in favour of this, there seems to be some question as to whether or not it is actually legal to do so. To that end, I’m a fairly certain it could be argued that the iPhone “lock” is a form of copy protection, in which case it would fall under the DMCA, and hence be illegal to circumvent. We’ll have to see how it all plays out, but I suspect the guys are gonna be in for a few legal headaches. — Update So, the DMCA was updated last year with the following provisions: Exemptions are ...

Today I went out for a nice walk, thinking I was going to get a few housewares for my place, and maybe pick up a new shirt or two. While out and about, I decided to swing by Future Shop and see what was new and exciting. When I walked in, I headed over to the DVD player area to see if anything was happening in the Blue-Ray or HD-DVD markets, since I’ve been looking to pick something up for a while. Last week, there was a sale on the highly regarded Toshiba HD-A2 DVD player for $399, and I almost picked one up. However, that was still a little steep for my liking, and I decided to pass on it. ...

I’m at the airport in Las Vegas, about to put some more photos up from last night and write a blog entry. But before I do that, you gotta check out this photo. My pal Joey out in Florida managed to get his hands on an iPhone, and sent me a shot of it pointed to my blog. Very very cool — thanks man. ...

Back in December of 2000, while home in Chilliwack visiting my family for Christmas, I made the digital plunge. I was in London Drugs, looking around the electronics section for something bright and shiny to make me happy, and my eyes settled on the first real section of digital cameras ever to hit the market. For the most part, most of those cameras were nothing more than glorified webcams — they took grainy photos, and really didn’t have any options. However, one in particular stood out above the rest. It was the Nikon Coolpix 880, and it became my first digital camera. I shot all my photos ...

In the last couple days, I’ve read several reports of people discovering embedded user data in the new DRM-free versions of music on iTunes. While I’m not suprised, having embedded user data within these files is essentially a form of Digital Rights Management, which at the very least points to false advertising by Apple regarding these new music files. I’m quite certain that a utility will exist shortly to strip it out, should people want to, but Apple is being very guarded about these files and exactly just how DRM-free they really are. I personally have no problem with my user data being ...

Yesterday Apple released verison 7.2 of iTunes which finally gives users the ability to download DRM free versions of songs from iTunes. The added bonus is that you can also download 256 kbps AAC versions of the files instead of the 128 kbps AAC versions. So, before I actually go into the experience, I’d have to say I was slightly hesitant about this. When people think 128kbps, they automatically think of the old MP3s. And at 128kbps, MP3 files are fairly close to CD quality (for most people), but on my stereo at least, I can notice slight distortions. However, AAC is part of the MPEG4 standard ...

I remember back around Christmas, Sony announced that they were unable to meet the holiday demand for the PS/3. I suspect part of this may have been artificial, since the resulting huge line-ups across the country showered the company with press everywhere. Unfortunately, those events lead to the deaths of a few people in incidents that occurred while in the long line-ups in sometimes cold, outdoor conditions. During that period, I had passively walked into whatever electronics store I could find, and asked if they had a PS/3 for sale. The answer was always no. So here we are, nearly six months ...

When I first started my current job, the COO and one of the founders was a guy named Erik Lagerway. During the time he was at our company, we shared many a beer and even a plane ride or two together (the most memorable being the one to Phillidelphia where we got to witness first-hand drunken broomball in Horsham and Whatchamachukinchunk). His current brainchild is a service called Gaboogie which was designed in an attempt to simplify conference calls in the enterprise environment. Most conference calls today are setup via email, and involve participants calling into a conference bridge at a specified ...

A few days ago, Flickr gave me the not-so-subtle warning that my account was about to expire. Since I’ve had a pro-Flickr account for a full year now, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my thoughts on the service so far. Flickr sort of came to the limelight about 18-24 months ago as one of the leading websites that had real Web 2.0 technology. If you haven’t been there you should definitely check it out. Most of the website utilizes Ajax and as you use it, sometimes it feels more like an application than a mere website, and that was really one of their original selling points. Most ...

I wanted to pen this entry really quick before bed. A few days ago, one of the main encryption keys for the HD-DVD platform was leaked, apparently by an insider within the video industry. Basically, having this key will allow anyone with access to the hardware the full ability to decode and decrypt every HD-DVD that has been manufactured so far. Oops. The key, which amounts to no more than a 128 bit string, has been circling the internet, pulling a string of cease and desist orders along with it. Many a webowner has tried to publish the key online, only to be given a legal letter demanding they ...

I’m a gadget whore, plain and simple. If you were to come into my apartment, you would probably be surprised how many useless techie gadgets I have. From my iPod stereo adapter to my Satellite radio in my car, I just love things the beep and glow. This isn’t a recent development either — when I was a kid, my parents always made sure I had some type of computer around to play with. My first experience in the realm of engineering came probably around the age of 12 when I decided it would be a great idea to dismantle my entire commodore 64 and it’s disk drive using a screwdriver — I did ...

Yesterday, partly by chance, and later by design, I found that I didn’t log into an IM client for nearly the entire day. No Jabber, no Yahoo, no Windows Live or whatever they are calling it now — just me, alone with my machine. And it was everything that I thought it would be. Now let me just tell you what a typical day is like for me on IM. I have, quite easily, well over 100 people on my IM client. A small percentage of these are personal (friends and family), but without a doubt, the majority are business related. During a typical work day, I’d say 70 of them or so are online and working ...

Now that I’m officially done what I came to do here in Finland, it’s really time to let loose and party it up a bit… I just demolished my first beer here in the Oulu airport, and am now working on beer #2 waiting patiently for my plane to board. I’ve spent the last hour researching cool spots to go drink beer tonight in Helsinki, and I have a few in mind that I’m going to check out later.. I can’t be too drunk or out too late tonight since I have lots to do in London tomorrow, but I’m going to do my best to drink as the locals do. Jari and Seppo impressed me with their drinking ability ...

I approximately 24 hours, I’ll be stepping off a plane at Heathrow and rushing madly to see some of London before my connecting flight to Vancouver leaves in the early evening. I think I’ll probably only have about 3 and a half hours to see London, which I’m sure doesn’t give me much time to see very much. With the time constraints, it looks like I’m gonna shell out $100 for the express train that goes from the airport to Paddington Station near central London. From there, I’m really not sure what I’m going to do. It still seems like quite a haul to get to any of the attractions, ...

I’ve been in Oulu, Finland for a few days now, and thankfully last night I actually got to go out and see a few things. Jari and Seppo were nice enough to take me to a pretty fancy Russian restaurant last night where we had some great food, nice wine, and of course some type of random vodka shot. Afterwards, we sort of started our own mini pub crawl, checking out a few of the bars in the Oulu downtown. I really love the architecture over here. I’m not sure how you’d really describe it, but everything is really quant and different looking. Last night was pretty cool because there was this ...

So my body decided that it would take a brief unscheduled break from sleeping at around 2am this morning.. I decided in that time I would throw a few photos up from yesterday (I don’t have that many). Oulu is pretty quaint so far, and I’m actually really eager to walk around and see some things (since the architecture looks really cool from my hotel window). I have to be on-site around 9 this morning (which means I need to get back to sleep), but afterwards I think my hosts are all taking me for dinner. For the most part, my digital SLR has been in my backpack most of the time. I took a few ...

When I lived in Ottawa, there were times when I used to get a little homesick and miss Vancouver and Chilliwack. When that happened, I was fortunate enough to stumble across a little website called KatKam.ca. It’s a live webcam that points into the direction of the evening sunset, only a block or so away from my apartment in Vancouver. To this day, I always religiously check it out from time to time when I’m out of town, just to see what I’m missing back home. Here’s a shot of the sunset tonight that I missed. I’m heading to the airport now to fly up North. See you guys in about a week. ...

As most of my faithful readers now know, I’m currently in Helsinki, Finland with work. So far, I haven’t really seen much of this city, although walking around it was really awesome to see the old style buildings and narrow walkways. Someone asked me what the buildings were like, and I stopped myself before saying “they look European” since I guess that’s obvious. Yesterday someone flew down from a little town called Oulu to hang out with me for the day and work on some stuff. One of the things that we discussed was me going up there for a few days, since there are more people up there ...

So, there are a million things I could say about this week, but I’m just too tired.. It’s been long, and I have to get on a plane in less than 24 hours to head to Europe.. It’s nearly 15 hours of travelling, and when I get there it will be cold and snowing. I went out with Derek and Cisco for a few hours tonight, despite being completely bagged. We ended up at Salt in gastown (which is a really wicked wine tasting place). Here’s a shot of me tonight. And here are a few more from the night. Special thanks to Van for lending me his 24-70 f/2.8L for the week in Europe. ...

This morning I came into work fully expecting to have a long day and then go home to bed. But it now appears I have to go home, do laundry, and pack for a last minute trip to Finland. Which is cool I guess, since I’ve never been anywhere in Europe before (which in itself is strange considering how much travelling I’ve done). It’s going to be a work related trip, so I probably won’t have too much time to relax, but I’m taking a few days at the end (I hope) to explore a little bit and see what it’s like. ...