First Glance with Jason Mayoff - blog
Macbook Air
Thu, 2008-03-06 09:15.
I've been testing out one of Apple's new Macbook Air laptops and I must say it's a beautifully ergonomic piece of machinery. It's just the right size and weight and yes, it does fit in a manilla envelope. I love the bright (extremely bright) screen that I have set at less than half the maximum brightness. I love the way the trackpad works, once you configure a few options. It's a little pricey, of course at over $3000, but if you've got the dough -- why not.
Last two HD-DVD titles
Mon, 2008-03-03 10:27.
You kind of wonder, what's the point. Paramount Pictures releases its last two HD-DVD titles tomorrow: ``Things We Lost in the Fire'' and ``Into The Wild''
The company says it plans to switch over to the Blu-ray format after that.
HD-DVD lost out in the high-def format war to Blu-Ray and Toshiba won't be making any more HD-DVD players.
Coulton, Laporte, Mann and Belmont do Rock Band
Sat, 2008-03-01 22:21.
Jonathan Coulton of Code Monkey fame along with Leo Laporte (TWiT), Merlin Mann (43 Folders) and Veronica Belmont (Mahalo Daily) did the song Still Alive on the video game Rock Band. It's lotsa fun.Online T-Shirt Shop by Montrealers
Wed, 2008-02-27 20:21.
Wordans is an online t-shirt shop created by three Montrealers. It's a great looking site that seems to be very user friendly. I'd check them out, if you're looking for an easy way to merchandise yourself, and who isn't these days, right? Check out my shop and buy my products.Montreal Tech Watch says:
The greatest thing about WordAns is that there is no initial investment to create your own T-Shirt, and there is no minimal number of T-Shirts either, allowing emerging designers and artists to have a shop at no costs, with WordAns taking care of the logistics and the (international) shipping. (Montreal Tech Watch Store)
The prices appear a bit steep, $22.95 for a t-shirt before you add your own markup. Then you can take as much or as little commission as you'd like.EDIT: Just got an email from Wordans with the following good news: For your information, you get free shipping on all orders as well as a 5% or more discount if you order at least 3 t-shirts, hoodies or underwears
Trouble getting on Hotmail? Here's Why
Wed, 2008-02-27 09:11.An undisclosed technical glitch blocked millions of users worldwide from logging on to Microsoft's free Hotmail e-mail service and other sites yesterday.
After several hours, the software giant was able to reduce but not completely fix the problem that left web surfers unable to access Hotmail and other services that require a Microsoft login.
Microsoft hit with $1.3B fine
Wed, 2008-02-27 08:54.BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union is fining Microsoft Corp. $1.3 billion for charging rivals too much for software information.
EU regulators say the company charged `unreasonable prices' to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows operating system.
The fine is the largest ever for a single company and the first time the EU has penalized a business for failing to obey an antitrust order.
Government wants eWaste recycling
Tue, 2008-02-26 07:17.The Quebec government wants manufacturers to pay for ewaste recycling and plans a pilot project in the next few weeks.The idea is for companies like Samsung, IBM, and Dell to put in place, and finance, a recycling program to take back their products when they're obsolete, instead of them ending up in the trash.Great idea. I did a quick google search and found almost nothing for the search terms eWaste Recycling Montreal. The only results that seemed to fit were this one and this one this one.Beautiful DIY CD/DVD case
Sun, 2008-02-24 19:50.
[via Slices of Life]
Cool Paper Cd Case !!! Flower Design ..... - video powered by MetacafeiPhone and Nintendo DS band
Thu, 2008-02-21 23:09.What appears to be the first iPhone + DS band. iBand
So... the Facebook decline begins
Thu, 2008-02-21 21:33.Stand back, because this fail is going to be epic.Why Videotron's new Ultimate High Speed sucks
Thu, 2008-02-14 21:57.Sure it's fast, but you'll use up all your blazing speed in about 3 hours of constant downloading
Bacn: it's a bit better than spam
Fri, 2007-08-24 15:39.The newest internet word you need to know. Bacn (bā'kən): email you want, just not right now. It's better than spam, but ... only slightly.
"myspace alerts, twitter followers, newsletters, etc."Tumblr
Tue, 2007-08-14 22:40.Here's a great way to keep a blog, without actually doing much work. It's a tumblelog called Tumblr.
Check out mine at jmayoff.tumblr.com
Interactive display spotted downtown
Wed, 2007-08-08 21:24.An iGotcha interactive display spotted at a shop downtown.
Window shoppers can interact with a touch screen interface, access the Garage website, product info, and participate to forums. The screen is in high-definition and has a viewing angle of 180 degrees.[Read full story via Montreal Tech Watch]Apple also unveils new iLife
Tue, 2007-08-07 20:15.It wasn't just iMacs. Apple also unveiled the new version of its iLife suite (sweet!) of products."So what's new? Well from the look of things, it's a fair bit. iPhoto and iMovie saw the most change, with iMovie apparently undergoing a substantial re-write. "[Read full story via Download Squad]
New iMacs:size matters in Cupertino
Tue, 2007-08-07 19:31.
Apparently size does matter, at least over in Cupertino, California.
Apple has released its newest version of my favorite computer, the iMac. The three biggest changes are the look, now anodized aluminum instead of white, screen sizes and hard drive sizes.Internet Crash of 2007
Mon, 2007-08-06 21:10.Pardon me while I go a little video crazy. Here's a video I talked about on a Tech File last week. It's from The Onion, which has been doing some great fake news for a long time.I can haz t-shurtz
Mon, 2007-08-06 20:25.
If you're a big fan of the I can has cheezburger website, as I am, then you'll be pleased to know they now has merchandiz. The site is a cat lovers paradise. It's got a daily dose (sometimes several daily doses) of cute cats and kittens and other animals, doing cute things with funny mispelled captions like "I can has cheezburger?" Someone coined the term lolcats (laugh out loud cats) for the phenomenon of putting these kinds of captions on these kinds of pictures.Facebook apps
Sun, 2007-08-05 21:51.
The social networking website Facebook is starting to move into the main stream, attracting a lot of users who would otherwise not be part of such a thing. It lets you keep up with your friends and family and what they're doing and re-connect with people you haven't seen in a while.
But if you've been using it for a while, you'll notice there are a lot of 3rd party apps -- little programs -- you're always being asked to install, because your friends want to discuss their favourite books or movies with you.Keep MS Outlook calendar visible on your desktop
Sun, 2007-08-05 21:47.If you use Microsoft Outlook, here's a neat way to keep it visible and usable almost all the time.
It's a free download called Outlook Desktop that let's you keep Outlook right there on your desktop -- all the time and has variable transparency so you regular desktop wallpaper shows through in the background.
One of the hassles with using a calendar on your computer is, unlike your house calendar, it's not write there sitting on the wall next to the phone.Positive tech support experience
Sat, 2007-08-04 11:20.
You don't often hear about positive tech support experiences these days, so I just wanted to tell you about mine. My Linksys WRT54G V.6 router stopped working. I think I did something to it when I was trying to set up static IP addresses for the computers in my home network. I went through all the settings on my router, called my ISP and googled the problem for hours to no avail. Then I decided to try Linksys's Live Assistance support.Fixing Vista and what's next for MS
Thu, 2007-08-02 21:47.The absolute best toilet website on the planet
Tue, 2007-07-31 21:20.
This has got to be the absolute best toilet website ever, not to mention the best toilet seat on the planet.
"The S400s air dryer uses a soothing, precisely-aimed flow of warm air"
I'm sure it's the only toilet that comes with a remote.Second podcast test
Sat, 2007-07-28 10:36.This is another podcast test -- please ignore (or listen, if you like)
Podcast testing
Fri, 2007-07-27 08:24.Just testing out a new podcasting system for the Tech Files. Keep an eye on this website for more news on when and how to subscribe.Tech Files - Bookmarking
Bookmarking is a Tech File from back in February. For all the links, go here.
Interactrivia
Mon, 2007-07-02 22:28.The Tech File Time Waster of the Week: Interactrivia
There are more than a few online places where you can play trivia games, but the one I like is this one.
You play against several others and you get points for getting the right answer and for the speed with which you choose the right answer.
One thing I like about it is that you get the chance to change your answers as the wrong answers are greyed out.Crazy about the theremin
Mon, 2007-07-02 22:03.This week's Tech File video of the week: Gnarls Barkley's Crazy on the theremin.
The theremin, according to Wikipedia, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It was invented by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919, and it is unique in that it was the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched.Canada Day
Mon, 2007-07-02 22:00.It's Canada Day and if you're feeling patriotic you might want to check out some of these websites.
The Canadian Heritage Department has a page with the history of Canada Day, which started off in 1879 as Dominion Day.
If Ottawa is your destination, try the National Capital Commission's website on the activities going on there.
CanadianParents.com
Mon, 2007-07-02 21:41.Rogers is relaunching its CanadianParents.com website and while I never saw the old version, the new one is chock full of information and community features like blogs, forums and podcasts.
You can ask an expert like Pediatric Dentist Dr. Ray Lee... or Child Safety Expert Samantha Wilson
They've also got a bunch of kid-friendly recipes like Cock-a-doodle stew and Hamburger cupcakes.Find all kinds of cool web apps at Simple Spark
Mon, 2007-07-02 21:35.The internet is awash in Web 2.0 services, like Flickr, youtube and web apps like Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
You hear about a lot of them on the Tech Files, but I can't possible tell you about them all, there are just so many. So, I'll recommend a web site instead that has a search engine of useful web apps.
It's called Simple Spark and it bills itself as a place to find and share web applications.
You can search through the user-submitted database for Word Processors Zoho and WriteWith, Freelance invoice tracker invotrak, Papertracker which shows the environmental impact of various types of paper through their full lifecycles.Syncing your contacts and calendars with Plaxo!
Mon, 2007-07-02 21:33.Every once in a while a really useful and easy to use website comes along, something that fills a need and makes your life easier.
Plaxo is one of those websites.
It's for people like me, who can't decide between using Google Calendar and Apple's iCal or Microsoft's Outlook. It's for people, like me, who have contacts in their GMail account, but would like to keep those contacts in Apple's Address book.¡1ooɔ .....buıdʎʇ uʍop ǝpısdn
Mon, 2007-07-02 21:30..unɟ sı ǝɹns ʇı ʇnq 'ʎpuɐɥ uı ǝɯoɔ ʇɥbıɯ ʇı ʍoɥ ǝɹns ʇou .uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ buıddı1ɟ .ɐǝpı 1ooɔ ʎʇʇǝɹd ɐ sı sıɥʇ
1ɯʇɥ.dı1ɟ/ɯoɔ.pɐɟʌǝɹ.ʍʍʍ//:dʇʇɥ
Are you a right clicka... or iBook flippa?
Sat, 2007-06-30 23:10.Here's a video to help you decide...
iPhone released
Sat, 2007-06-30 00:01.The iPhone was released to the American masses yesterday. One reporter who got the phone early liked it ... and made a fun video out of his review ... as he often does. The video, by David Pogue of the New York Times can be seen on his site Davidpogue.com or on youtube. It's funny, but also very informative. For the most part Pogue says the phone has lived up to all the iHype.
The phone is being released ONLY in the US. It will eventually be available through Rogers in Canada ... but there's no time frame yet.
Fri, 2007-06-29 00:01.You've talked about Social Networking sites for teens and young adults, ones for kids and for students and others, how about one for professionals.
It's called LinkedIn.
You sign up by answering a few questions about yourself and what you want to get out of LinkedIn, like help finding a job or getting back into contact with former colleagues you've lost touch with.
You can search for people based on various criteria like name, industry, company, location.Slingbox
Thu, 2007-06-28 00:01.If you've ever wanted to watch your local TV programming while on vacation or on a business trip, then Slingbox is for you.
It hooks up to your cable or satellite and to your router -- and then lets you control your TV from the internet.
It hooks directly into your cable outlet, so you don't even need a TV to run it.
The software that loads up on your computer shows a TV screen ... yours ... and a remote control that'll allow you to change the channel -- and even control your various devices, like the PVR.I'm God's friend
Wed, 2007-06-27 18:49.Imagine my surprise, delight and slight confusion when I got this in my email this afternoon.
Ulinkx
Wed, 2007-06-27 00:01.You know of Youtube of course, but did you know there are other video websites out there?
If you didn't, you're not alone -- not many of us do. While Youtube is the biggest, there are others with videos that you might want to see and someone's put together a social video search engine and video bookmarking site.
They call it Ulinkx.Photoshop Elements
Tue, 2007-06-26 00:01.You've heard people talk about the image editing program called Photoshop -- the defacto standard for image professionals. So much so, it's even become a verb... to Photoshop an image is to digitally alter it with Photoshop or any other image editing software.
The latest version of the program -- CS3 -- will run you more than $700.
That's a little excessive, if all you're doing is correcting a little red eye or cropping your ex brother-in-law out of the family photo.Saving money
Mon, 2007-06-25 00:01.You love saving money and you love using your Firefox web browser.
SavingAdvice.com came up with a list of Firefox extensions that'll help you save.
There's the Grocery List generator that'll help you store your recipe-ingredients and other groceries you need regularly. The write up says it creates a well-organized grocery list to help make your grocery shopping as easy as possible.
The ultimate price checker helps you compare prices at sites like ebay and amazon.Geek holidays
Sun, 2007-06-24 00:00.If you consider yourself a geek or if you consider your significant other a geek, you need to know which holidays to observe, right?
Someone's set up a Geek Holiday Calendar, using google's calendar application.
You can easily add it to your own google calendar, by clicking on the link at CJAD.com.Geek calendars
Sat, 2007-06-23 00:01.You might know that among the many services offered by the Google empire is a calendar application called aptly enough ... Google Calendar.
They've always had public calendars, but now they have a searchable index of all those public calendars that you can add to your own calendar. The events from the public calendars show up alongside your own items.
Mashable.com is out with a list of the The 10 “Must Have” Google Calendars for Geeks.Windows sidebar gadgets
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:36.One of the features in Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is the Sidebar. It's a bar of gadgets that sits on the right side of your screen and can contain several useful items.
By default there's a clock there, but it's an analog clock and takes up a lot of room, so I've changed mine for a smaller digital clock.Safari for Windows
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:32.If you're a Windows user and you like the look and feel of Mac software, like iTunes and Quicktime, Steve Jobs has something else for you.
Apple has developed a version of its web browser Safari, for Windows.
I don't think it will be able to compete with Firefox, which has all kinds of great add-ons and extensions to increase its functionality.
But there are a lot of people out there who are sick of the mainstream browsers and just want to try something new.Flick a Day
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:20.Have you ever seen that video of the guy who took a picture of his face every day for 6 years and then put it together into a 5½ minute video set to music?
His name is Noah Kalina and he started a bit of a trend when he did that.
There have been a whole lot of copycats and now there's even a website to help you make a similar video.Review: Blackberry 8703e
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:15.I've been playing with a Blackberry 8703e for a few weeks now, and I like it a lot.
Its best feature, by far, is its ability to do email well. Email is pushed to your Blackberry, rather than you having to go out at check your email. You then get an audio or vibration alert, and if you don't check it right away -- a little light flashes red to let you know you've got mail. Otherwise the light flashes green.
Much of the navigation is done with a scroll wheel, which kind of feels like the volume control of a transistor radio. It takes a few days to get used to it, but then it's like second nature.Use google better
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:10.You use Google everyday, probably but are you really taking full advantage of the worlds most popular search engine.
Thanks to the Dumb Little Man blog, here are some tips for more efficient google searches.
- If you want to search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotes
- Use the minus sign to exclude certain words. For example, if you want to search for CJAD, but don't want any pages to do with apples, search for CJAD space minus apples
- The asterisk is a wildcard symbol, so if you're looking for the lyrics to a song, but don't remember the full name just search for something like Can't * Me Love lyrics.
- If you're looking for a definition, type define colon then the word you're looking for
- And... if you don't have a calculator handy, just type 2+2, then click search for the answer
- What if you only want to search within a specific site? Type site colon, the site you want to search, then your search terms. For example site: CJAD tech files.
- Google will also convert any unit into other unit. So, you can type something like 27 degrees celcius in farenheit and get the answer, 80.6.
Sputtr
Sun, 2007-06-17 20:03.Here's a neat search site that combines a bunch of different searches into one. I think the appeal has to do with how clean the website looks and how easy it is to use.
It's got a search box and 36 buttons for 36 different searchable sites like Youtube, Google, twitter, Stumble Upon and Technorati.
It's really such a simple concept.
You type your search words into the box and then pick the search engine of your choice. By default it uses Google.Wubuntu
Sun, 2007-06-17 19:57.Didja ever want to take a look at Linux without all the hassle of downloading and installing it?
Someone's set up a webpage to look like Ubuntu Linux they call Wubuntu.
It's got everything from the set up screen complete with logo and log in process, to a page that's got the same look and feel on Ubuntu, complete with colors and even a web browser.Never open Internet Explorer again
Fri, 2007-06-08 23:12.
If you've made the switch to Firefox as your main web browser, you'll no doubt have found a few sites here and there that just don't work, or don't work properly in it, that work only in Internet Explorer. Well, instead of opening up Internet Explorer, why not download Firefox's IEtab. Instead of opening up a whole new broswer, IEtab does just what its name implies, it opens Internet Explorer in a Firefox tab.
When you come upon a site that doesn't work in Firefox, just click the browser logo in the bottom corner of Firefox and it changes automatically to the other browser. Click the logo again to switch back. You can also tell IEtab to always open a certain website using an Internet Explorer tab.Changes to Google Reader
Fri, 2007-06-08 22:40.
If you use Google Reader to keep track of all your RSS web feeds, I've got some news for you. First, you might have noticed the Offline link up in the top right corner of the page. Once you download the Google Gears an extension for your browser, you can download your 2000 latest news articles read them offline.
When can this come in handy? If you've got a laptop, you can put all the articles on your local computer and then read them on the bus, or on the plane where you have no internet connection. Word is, Google will soon let you do a full download from some of its other applications as well.
Also, there's been some speculation that the company that specializes in search might finally let you search through all those blog and news articles in Google Reader. Someone did a little digging around and found a new entry in the page's code that refers to the placement of a search box.Slow motion video
Fri, 2007-06-08 22:22.
The Tech File Video of the Week this week is actually a Video Blog: LucidMovement.com. It's a series of videos taken with a high speed slow motion camera. The videos are super crisp and clear. There are slo-mo videos of some pretty mundane things like an aerosol can being lifted out of a shallow pan of water, or compressed air being blown into a shallow pan of water.
You can see each individual water droplet take on a life of its own.
They've also got some cool shots of what happens when you drop a water balloon. What happens when it bursts, and what happens if it doesn't burst. What does a paint ball look like when it gets shot with a BB? What does a computer look like when it's hit with a sledge hammer.
One thing I found fun is moving the slider on the video player back and forth and watching it more quickly in forward and reverse.
Sproose up your search with Sproose.com
Fri, 2007-06-08 22:11.
Here's another human powered search engine that's got a different twist. This one lets user vote on results they think are the best. The results with more votes show up higher in the list than the ones with fewer votes. If you've ever been to the social news site Digg, it works in a very similar way.
It's called Sproose.com.
And, like other social sites, you can comment on the search results, so the next person who searches for that site will get an idea of what you thought about it. The site uses an algorithm to make sure that a few users can't go in a vote one website that doesn't deserve it .. up the list. Your votes have a high impact on you, next time you come back. A medium impact on your friends, or the people in your clique -- and a low impact on others.
Mahalo: human-powered search engine
Fri, 2007-06-08 22:01.
Google's great. Search and you find everything under the sun about your search terms, usually sorted in some way so that the most popular stuff is at the top. But, there's also a lot of garbage that shows up.
A new website called Mahalo.com is trying to sort through all those search results and bring you only the stuff you need and want. Mahalo bills itself as a the world's first human powered search engine. They've got real people sitting in an office in Santa Monica California who do nothing all day but put together pages of google's search results filtering out all the spam and stuff you don't want. The pages are nicely laid out in categories and sometimes contain interesting facts about what you're searching for.
Unlike Google, Mahalo creates pages beforehand based on keywords. For example some of the top searches currently on Mahalo, the iPhone, Playstation 3, Linux and Pizza. If you search for something they haven't created a page for, they'll serve you up Google's results and let you sign up to receive an alert when they've created a page for you.
Stereogram Tetris
Fri, 2007-06-08 21:50.The Tech Files Time Waster of the Week: Stereogram Tetris. Remember tetris, the old video game where you had to position falling blocks of various shapes. You have to turn them around and position them just so, so they complete entire lines. It was a fun game that used to keep me occupied for hours at a time.
Well, this is a twist on the old game, that makes it all that much more interesting. The Tetris game is embedded in a stereogram. That's one of those pictures that you have to cross your eyes and look real close to be able to see. It's something not everyone can do, but if you can -- this game is really neat. Without crossing your eyes you can see that there's some movement -- but it's only when you "get into it" can you see what's moving and where. The controls are all similar to your basic tetris game and there are three levels of play.. beginner, advanced and skilled.Review: Palm Treo 680
Fri, 2007-06-01 22:55.If you're looking for a smartphone, put the Treo 680 on your list to check out.
I really liked this phone for a few reasons. First, it's got a touch screen with stylus AND one of those mini-qwerty keypads.
It's a nice compact size, but the first thing you'll notice when you pick it up is that it's heavy. But that weight along with the sleek design makes it feel like you're carrying a well-tuned, well-oiled machine -- kind of like the way a fine pen has a sometimes surprising weight to it. You know this is not a toy, the moment you pick it up.Bank gives away iPods
Fri, 2007-06-01 08:25.If you're looking for a cheap way to get your hands on an iPod, just open an account at the TD (no, this is not an ad.) The bank is giving NEW customers iPods based on the following schedule:
What do they give customers who don't move their TD accounts to the Royal Bank? I think I'll ask my bank manager about that. I've been meaning to start looking around for a new bank, anyway.
- Move account over = 1Gb Shuffle
- Move account AND (get gold Visa OR deposit $5000) = 2Gb Nano
- Move account AND get gold Visa AND deposit $5000 = 30Gb iPod
Picture2Life online image editing
Fri, 2007-06-01 00:01.If you need to edit images online for some reason, maybe you're out of town visiting family and your brother-in-law doesn't have photoshop on his computer, you might want to give Picture2Life a whirl.
It's an online image editing tool, that has a pretty decent amount of functionality. You can do standard things like crop and resize, but you can also , with the click of a button, change the look of your picture by turning it black and white, sepia or color it by adding say a whole lot of red or green.Fixing Mighty Mouse's Scroll Wheel
Thu, 2007-05-31 21:40.After about two months of usage (heavy usage) the scroll wheel on my Apple Mighty Mouse stopped working. Well, it would scroll up but not down, which was kind of frustrating. The first hit on my google search for "mac mighty mouse scroll wheel stops working" was a link to the Apple store's page for the mouse and the second comment had a fix. It's very easy. Just take a damp (not too wet) cloth and rub the scroll wheel around in all directions for about 30 seconds making sure you've covered the whole ball. That's it. It now works. Better than ever, I might add.
Video: Amazing juggler at Just For Laughs
Thu, 2007-05-31 00:01.This week's Tech File video of the week: Amazing Juggling Finale. This is a video of a man named Chris Bliss who has got to be one of the best jugglers on the planet.
It's part of a performance that Chris did at the Just for laughs festival. He juggles three white balls.
Just three balls you say? Yes, but he does it to a montage of songs and he does it so well.Digital table from Microsoft
Wed, 2007-05-30 07:20.Microsoft is announcing a digital table today. It calls it "Surface." Very cool. Check out the demo on its site.
Lost: The iPod Game
Wed, 2007-05-30 00:01.The Tech Files Time Waster of the Week: The Lost Game for the iPod. [Link will open in iTunes]
If you're a big Lost fan, as I am, today is the first of about 35 Wednesdays without your favourite show. It doesn't start up again until next February.
Last year, there was The Lost Experience online, to keep you in the mood over the summer. This year, there's an iPod game based on the show.Firefox Extension: Split Browser
Tue, 2007-05-29 00:01.Here's a Firefox extension you might find interesting. It's called Split Browser.
You know you can already use tabs in Firefox. Well what if you could also have a browser within a browser.
That's a little different from a tab, in that these browsers within browsers are always there -- you don't have to switch to them as you would have to with a tab.Finding the lowest gas prices
Mon, 2007-05-28 00:01.If you're looking for the latest gas prices, what's it cost in your area and where you can find the lowest prices try Essence Montreal.
The site lists the top ten highest and lowest gas prices in the last 12 hours.
The site is updated by a group of users in the general public. In fact, you can become part of the site just by adding the price of a litre of regular at your local gas station.
Craigslist
Sun, 2007-05-27 00:01.One of the internet's best kept secrets is a little website called Craigslist. It doesn't get all that much press, probably because it doesn't have that nice modern look and feel -- but it is nonetheless all about what the new modern community based internet is all about.
Craigslist is a giant classified ads website.
You can list just about anything for sale, anything you're looking to buy. You can publicize your organizations event, or even your own garage sale.
You can look for love in all the right places or you can look for love in all the wrong places.Oh, the OFONE
Sat, 2007-05-26 00:01.The Tech File Video of the Week: The Microsoft O-Phone.
It's a little unclear where this comes from. Is it Microsoft making fun of the Apple iPhone, is it making fun of itself. In any case it's funny and its popping up all over the internet.
It's shaped sort of like a three pronged boomerang that slides open and closed, with a circular screen -- one of the prongs looks like it has a keypad, the other two look kind of like cheese graters.Are we all really related? A cool family tree website
Sat, 2007-05-26 00:01.What a great idea. A community family-tree website. Geni.com will let you create a nice looking online family tree that you can show others. But the real power comes when you invite other people to add to the tree.
You start by adding your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and then maybe a few cousins. Then, invite some relatives to join the site and they start adding their parents and brothers and sisters and maybe a few cousins ... and then they start inviting people and pretty soon you've got a pretty huge family tree -- and you might be surprised who you're related to.Microsoft wants you to touch its desk
Fri, 2007-05-25 00:01.Touch screens have been around for a while now on palm pilots, cellphones, restaurant cash registers, but there have been a few companies developing something a little more sophisticated and complex.
Full touch tables or desks.
I've seen a number of video demonstrations of these and they are very cool.
The latest one to come to my attention is from Microsoft and it calls its prototype the Digidesk.Distraction-free writing
Tue, 2007-05-22 21:47.Some people, like me, are distracted pretty easily and so this website can be really helpful. It's a totally distraction free word processor at writer.bighugelabs.com.
The screen is black, you type in bright green, like on those old monitors from the 80s and 90s.
There's no big logo, there are no ads and the necessary links are below the typing box and are in a very faint green, so as not to attract your attention and take you away from what you're doing.Teaching an old (Fire)fox a new trick
Mon, 2007-05-21 21:40.
Here's a simpler way.
Right-click on a bookmark and choose Properties. Then in the keyword field, type an easy to remember keyword. For your ISPs webmail page, for example -- you could use mail. For your direct link to the Tech Files page at CJAD.com you could use Tech. Now, instead of searching for the bookmark, just type the keyword into the address bar, and bam! you're there.Pete Townshend writes YOUR theme song
Mon, 2007-05-21 21:28.Have you ever thought your life was like a movie or TV show? Well, every good TV show has a theme song, right? So, shouldn't you? You should! The Who's Pete Townshend and he's created an interactive website to compose that theme music just for you. All you have to do is go to lifehouse-method.com, record a sample of your voice, a rhythm and upload a sound and picture and then wait a few seconds and voila.
The website says a team of composers, personally approved by and occasionally including Pete Townshend, will regularly listen to these musical portraits and select a few for further development/elaboration, that might eventually be turned into an actual song.
Review: TomTom Go 910
Mon, 2007-05-21 21:24.Travelling in parts unknown can be a little nerve-wracking, especially if you don't have anyone to help you navigate. That's why so many people, especially people who do a lot of driving, have been equipping themselves with GPSes, Global Position Systems. They're devices about the size of your fist that you attach to your windshield and that give you turn-by-turn directions, to where you're going.
Victoria Day
Mon, 2007-05-21 15:36.It's Victoria Day in Canada, the day we celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria who was born in 1837 and died in 1901. But in Quebec it's also The Journée nationale des Patriotes, or formerly the Fetes de Dollard.
Wikipedia.com says because many Quebecers didn't want to celebrate Canada's ties to the British monarchy, a competing celebration was set up in 1918 in honor of a 17th century French settler who was martyred trying to defend a French settlement against Iroquois attackers.But, the online encyclopedia says it was changed to the Journée nationale des Patriotes in 2002, in part because the myth of Dollard des Ormeaux lost its appeal to Quebec youth over the generations.
Universcale
Fri, 2007-05-18 00:01.How big is a light year. How small is a nanometer
It's not easy to visualize the sizes and distances between planets and solar systems, or the sizes of the circuits on a microchip, but Nikon has come up with a nifty website that tries to put things into perspective.
They call it Universcale and its a full screen flash application that shows you the sizes of various items on a scale from Femtometer ... one quadrillionth of a meter, to 100 billion light years. A light year, of course, is the distance light travels in one year.Video of the Week: Domino PCs
Thu, 2007-05-17 00:01.The Tech File Video of the week: Domino PCs
An Irish bloke and a Spanish guy got together one Saturday afternoon in Belmont California, lined up 86 computers and then set them falling.
This is their final attempt.
Everything goes well but the heavy machines near the end almost ended it all. Thankfully there was enough weight behind the toppled machines to slowly topple the heavy ones!Time Waster of the Week: Samorost2
Wed, 2007-05-16 00:01.The Tech File Time Waster of the Week: Samorost 2
The premise, as far as I can tell, is that aliens land on your strange log-like planet floating in space and steal your dog. You take off in your own rocket ship and chase them to their strange looking little planet.
Once there, you're presented with a slug-like-being hammering away at a snail like coil, while two long-snouted rabbitty type animals seem to be sucking water out of a pipe that you need.Windows Live Hotmail
Tue, 2007-05-15 00:01.Microsoft has released the latest incarnation of its long-running hotmail web-based email service.
Windows Live Hotmail was previously known as MSN Hotmail and originally just plain old Hotmail, when it acquired the service in 1997.
It was one of the first webmail services.
The new version is replete with web 2.0-iness including a cool new look with gradient coloring that you can change to suit your mood, ajax functionality and more than your average web based email system.09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0
Sun, 2007-05-13 21:00.There's been quite a hoopla made lately of a long sequence of letters and numbers that make up a secret key hackers can use to override the copy protection on the new HD DVDs.
The AACS consortium says it owns the randomly chosen 128-bit number, and anyone who possesses or transmits it is breaking the law.
The internet community seems to think differently, many people believing you can't own a number.
Recently the major news voting site Digg decided to take down all posts containing the numbers, but that just started a revolt of more people posting the number.New zooomy modems
Sun, 2007-05-13 20:54.We've come a long way since the days of 300 baud modems and US cable company Comcast shows we've still got a long way to go.
It's come up with a new modem that uses what it calls Channel Bonding technology to significantly increase download speeds. They reached speeds up to 150 megabits per second. Just how fast is that?
Well, they downloaded a 30-second, 300-meg TV commercial in a few seconds and then watched it - long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes. They downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary in under four minutes. A standard high speed modem would take more than three hours. On dialup ... it would have taken two weeks.General Lee
Sun, 2007-05-13 20:49.If it holds, it could be the most expensive item ever sold on e-Bay.
A version of the ``General Lee'' -- the 1969 Dodge Charger made famous in the T-V show ``The Dukes of Hazzard'' went for nearly 10 (m) million dollars.
The car belonged to actor John Schneider, who played the blond heartthrob Bo Duke in the show.
The vehicle was in the Dukes movie, but wasn't featured in the original show. It is signed by members of the cast.Review: LG Fusic
Fri, 2007-05-11 00:01.The LG Fusic. A nice little music phone with a cool couple of features.
Swimming to the oldies .. and not so oldies
Thu, 2007-05-10 12:23.Here's a great gift idea for the swimmer in your life.
The SwimP3.
Yes, it's exactly as it sounds, a waterproof MP3 player made for swimmers.
It's a set of goggles with an MP3 player on the back of the strap and two mini speakers that hang off the sides of the strap next to your ears. There are no earbuds that go inside your ears.
When you first power it up and turn it and power it up, you'll notice the minimum volume is very loud and the sound is very tinny and full of high trebly sounds. It kind of makes it sound like a really cheap set of dollar store headphones.Drop those excess pounds online
Wed, 2007-05-09 10:28.Looking to lose a few pounds? Or maybe a lot of pounds.
Well, there's a website out there that's trying to help you.
It's a social networking type site called fatsecret.com.
It's similar to other social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, in that you invite friends to join and you keep track of what all your friends are doing, except that you all have one goal in mind -- losing weight.Time Waster of the Week: Line Rider
Wed, 2007-05-09 09:46.Now bear with me here, because Line Rider sounds pretty lame, but in fact it is quite an addictive game.
You are given a pencil and are in charge of creating a world of lines for a red scarf-wearing, sled riding stick figure to enjoy.
The goal is to make sure you don't kill him with steep jumps and you have to be sure he doesn't fall off the edge of your created universe.iGoogle
Wed, 2007-05-09 09:38.We now know what the ig is, in the URL of Google's personalized home page.
They've rebranded the page "iGoogle" and I don't think anyone but me has speculated whether that means they've got something brewing with Apple.
They've recently spruced up the page with dynamic themes that change depending on the time of day, or weather.
In addition to their shiny new vowel, they've also added the ability to create your own gadgets, which are really the raison d'etre for iGoogle.How to own and copyright a number
Tue, 2007-05-08 08:51.I just wanted to tell you about this really great post by BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow pointing out the absurdity of the whole AACS consortium going after people who post this number on their website.In effect, AACS-LA (the AACS Licensing Authority) claimed that it owned a randomly chosen 128-bit number, and that anyone who possessed or transmitted that number was breaking the law. Moreover, it claimed to own millions more random numbers -- claimed that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalises telling people how to break anti-copying software, gave it exclusive dominion over its many keys.The Webby Awards
Sun, 2007-05-06 00:01.They've got awards for everything don't they?
The people at the Webby Awards have announced this year's winners.
The guys who invented Youtube, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley get the Person of the year award. Ask a Ninja... the very funny video podcast gets actor of the year. Jessica Lee Rose .. aka LonelyGirl15 gets actress of the year.Oh-nine Eff-Nine
Sat, 2007-05-05 22:51.I wrote about the secret AACS numbers a few days ago. Well, someone's set them to music and someone else posted a response to the song with video and someone else dedicated a web site to them.09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Video of the Week: The Zimmers "My Generation"
Sat, 2007-05-05 00:01.The Zimmers are a group of seniors from the UK, doing a wonderful rendition of the Who's My Generation from 1965. If you do the math, this song was not even of their generation, back when it first came out. Most of them would have been in their mid-30s to 60s at the time.
One of the oldest members is 100 year old Buster Martin. The lead singer is 90 year old Alf CarrettaThe secret AACS numbers
Fri, 2007-05-04 08:21.The most talked about numbers in the blogosphere this week have nothing to do with Lost. They are the 16 digits that make up the secret AACS key; the key that is used to encrypt HD DVDs. There is a revolt in the works and these secret numbers are being posted everywhere online and even in places offline, where they've been translated into colours and displayed on a T-Shirt. As fast as they're posted, though the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America is ordering them taken down. Digg, however, has said it would not take down any articles containing the numbers.
For the record, the numbers are, in no particular order:
9d4156c563091102f95688c074e35bd8
Note: As displayed, the numbers are probably useless, but rearrange them into the proper order and you might be able to take over the world.TF Time Waster of the Week: Excite Truck for the Wii
Fri, 2007-05-04 00:01.I could spend hours playing Excite Truck, racing against the clock or against an opponent.
You use the Wiimote to steer your truck around a series of tracks in various countries, including Canada, that get progressively more difficult as you go along. You've got to race against the clock, and beat the other trucks -- but you've also got to gain enough points if you want to advance to the next level.
