“Available Tomorrow on iTunes”

Posted by rae in entertainment
at 11:52 am on Saturday, 27 January 2007

Dresden Files advertising its presence on iTunes
Dresden Files advertising its upcoming presence on iTunes

I was watching the new show “The Dresden Files” (which is pretty good, btw) when something unexpected came up. SciFi is constantly putting annoying promos in the bottom banner of the screen during a show, and I can usually ignore them, but this one had this large, light grey element that caught my eye. Especially the white logo inside it.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a TV show advertise the fact that the episode currently running would be available for purchase the next day on iTunes. Makes me wonder if anyone paid for the promo, since it’s in the interests of both Apple *and* SciFi, maybe not.

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Upgraded ReidNews to WordPress 2.1

Posted by rae in Reid, web site
at 10:38 am on Thursday, 25 January 2007

.. not that you will notice at all.

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Full bandwidth restored

Posted by rae in General
at 2:51 pm on Wednesday, 24 January 2007

You can all stop writing protest letters to CyberSurf..

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Continuing internet problems

Posted by rae in family, hardware, web site
at 12:18 pm on Tuesday, 23 January 2007

Although our connection came back up on Sunday, it was only a 500 kbps connection, and it remains so today. It *should* be a 5,000 kbps connection. So for some reason, we’ve been throttled to 1/10th of our paid-for speed.

When I tried to access igs.net today, I encountered a new page that redirected me to cia.com, which is some sort of parent company of IGS and other DSL providers. So it looks like they were doing some sort of big switcheroo and it screwed up, big time.

We’ve been looking around for another DSL provider, and are looking closely at TekSavvy. If anyone has any opinions on other providers, feel free to comment!

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Internet down

Posted by rae in family, hardware, the Net, web site
at 4:19 am on Saturday, 20 January 2007

Late on Friday afternoon our internet service went down. It’s still down now, but I can access our ISP’s site at least, from which I got a phone number. I called and an automated (but constantly-cutting-out) voice semi-squaked that service was out for many customers in southern Ontario, and that the office is open on Saturdays at 10am. I stopped listening at that point since I now knew when to call back.

Our ISP is (mostly) igs.net. It’s kind of weird. We’re also under 3web.com and cybersurf.net. When istop.com gave up on its residential DSL service in August of 2006, the company in control of our destiny was never quite clear. CyberSurf was mentioned prominently in related email, but the company itself is very minimalistic online. At some point I was redirected to 3Web, which seems to be some sort of joint Rogers/Bell thing, offering both DSL and Cable high-speed access.

Ah well, hopefully it will be all sorted by tomorrow. We’ll see.

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Week at OSAF last week

Posted by rae in Reid, entertainment, friends, work
at 4:09 am on Saturday, 20 January 2007

I spent the week last week in San Francisco, working at OSAF HQ during the week. As always, it was a lot of fun, and this time, the walk from the hotel to work was fraught with peril.

I stayed at the Hotel Fusion, which is two blocks from the Apple Store on Ellis Street, off of Market (the main drag in SF). So my first hurdle is to walk past the downtown SF Apple Store without going in. Once on Market, a couple of stoplights away is CompUSA. And this CompUSA has a big Apple section. Oh, joy! And this CompUSA had a way, way bigger selection of computers, accessories and peripherals than any Future Shop, Best Buy or Compu-Smart in Toronto.

At this point, I’m about ½ of the way to OSAF. But the path is not clear yet!

There is a store around 2nd and Market that I think is called “Jeffrey’s” or maybe “Jeffrey’s Toys”. I remarked on it at first because I thought it was funny to see the name “Jeffrey” displayed so prominently close to OSAF because one of my OSAF buddies is Jeffrey H. But on the way back on my first work day, I decided to wander in and check it out. Bad news!

From the outside it looked like it had the usual assortment of novelties and games. Yo-yo’s, frisbees, Monopoly, etc. But then I found a small section filled with .. German Boardgames. Urk! On that day, that’s as far as I got. I spent about ½ hour just delving over the assortment of games they had to see if I wanted to buy one. I managed to make my saving throw though and me and my wallet left unscathed.

But I was definitely going to return.

And I did, the next day, again on the way back to the hotel. But this time, I decided to explore further in. I had seen people holding magazines and I thought I would check out the magazine rack. The store goes pretty deep into the building!

I walk back to the slightly darker area in behind the cashiers, only to find.. comics! Lots and lots and lots of comics!!

Now, I’m a comic collector from way back. Since I was 8, in fact. Just ask Luisa about when we were house-hunting a decade ago, asking if the basement had enough room to store 43 4-foot long boxes of comics. Yes, 43.

So here we have not just a few comics, like you might see in a variety store (US translation: liquor store). No, here we have all the new titles separated by publisher. DC, Marvel, and the rest. Plus a section for recently-released stuff (older than a week), and the usual boxes of back issues (roughly older than a month).

My main worry once I was finished spending money was how I would fit it into my luggage to get home! I thought I had already exhausted all my extra space with all the books I had bought a block from the hotel!

I should put up some pictures I took of the books and comics spread out on my hotel bed. I’m such a nerd.

*sigh. Just doing my bit to help the San Francisco/US economy!

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Twitter and Macworld

Posted by rae in General
at 3:46 am on Tuesday, 9 January 2007

ichat-03

This week is Macworld, and tomorrow at 9:30am PST is the keynote, given by Steve Jobs. Jeff, Iain and I got on iChat and video-chatted about what might be revealed.

Common wisdom says an 8-core Mac Pro will be announced, but what else?

I told them about Twitter.com and they both have accounts now. You can see mine at twitter.com/clith. I should change the picture; it’s kind of big.

Twitter is half way between a blog post and an instant message (IM). It has the permanancy of a blog post, but the ephemeral quality of an IM. It kind of reminds me of FORUM on the Dec-10 back in the 1980’s.

My favorite Twitter feature is that I have added Twitter to my AIM buddy list, and I can just send an IM to it and it updates my Twitter web page. You can set up Twitter to IM you when a friend updates, but that can be irritating. I have it off right now, but I might turn it on tomorrow when the keynote is on in case anyone is updating the Macworld twitter group with keynote news.

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I’m in San Francisco this week

Posted by rae in General
at 3:37 am on Tuesday, 9 January 2007

OSAF is having one of its week-long get-togethers this week. It’s kind of a “sprint”, but not really.

After I got off the plane, I did my usual transit to downtown via BART. While waiting for the train, who should walk down the escalator but Jeffrey!

Jeffrey on the train

He ended up feeling sick today and didn’t come to work. Hope I don’t come down with it too! The meeting-of-people was complete when I ran into Ted and Robin on the way in to OSAF this morning. I had gone to CompUSA to exchange a Logitech headset (hope the new one works), and we had taken completely different paths from our hotel to OSAF.

I am staying at the Hotel Fusion, and it’s one of the smallest rooms I’ve ever had.

Hotel Fusion room #1

The funny thing is, I really like the room! It has a fridge, an HDTV, ethernet connectivity, and a desk for my Powerbook. I don’t really need anything else.

Hotel Fusion room #2

Well, okay, a comfy chair to sit in and read my book would be nice. But just look at all the connectors the HDTV has! Next time I will bring my DVI-to-HDMI cable and RCA audio jacks so I can use the HDTV as a second monitor for my Powerbook!

Hotel Fusion TV

Ya, I broke my own usual rule about using Flickr pics in my blog. I’ll try to remember to fix it later.

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