Outsourcing Child Care

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas

Too funny

The 700 Mhz Spectrum in Canada

As some of you may already know, Google announced that it would be bidding for the 700 Mhz spectrum that is set to be auctioned off in the United States. For more details on what all this 700 Mhz garbage is all about, you could read this article or listen to Leo Laporte's Tech Guy podcast at about the 1 hour 19 minute mark.

In 2011, Canada will be undergoing a similar change. The question is who will control it? Will it be auctioned off to the highest bidder without regard for "openess" and the competition that this country desperately needs. We are already ripped off for data and cellular by Bell and Rogers (see previous iPhone posting) , it would be wonderful to have a cheaper alternative that, in many parts of the country, would work better than today's options.

Perhaps the government should consider setting up another crown corporation like the CBC or maybe federal regulation is a better route. Either way, we'll all just have to sit back and wait to see what the CRTC decides to do, which will likely be nothing until the debate is settled in the States.

REGARDING TRUE KNOWLEDGE: damn trebeck

A funny webcomic. More at http://www.mulberrygallows.com

In honour of Hawk Wings - My Apple Mail setup

One of my favourite blogs is back. Hawkwings.net. In celebration, I thought I'd share my Apple Mail setup. Most of these plugins were discovered through Hawkwings.

Freepops via MacFreepops
Over the years I have accumulated many email addresses, some of them through web based services like Hotmail and Yahoo!. I prefer to have all my email come to one central location and although these services offer POP access, it isn't free. Freepops to the rescue! It acts as an intermediate between the web interface of these email services and your Email program, allowing it to access your email the same way it would if it had true POP access. It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux, but because I am a Mac user I use MacFreepops which wraps Freepops in a nice little GUI.

Spamsieve
This isn't free, but well worth the $30 USD to help get spam out of your hair. It's a Bayesian filter so it will learn over time and adapt to what YOU consider spam. Nice little tip: Use "Ctrl + Command + S" to quickly mark spam and "Ctrl + Command + G" to quickly mark good ones.

Mail Badger
Similar to Dockstar except FREE! This little app lets you display the number of new emails arriving to certain email accounts or folders in Apple Mail in seperate little icons on the main Mail icon. It's how I sort between emails from DVShop and emails like the ones from YOU.

Dr. Steve Jobs or: How I learned to stop worrying and love my bombed workflow

Note about me - I work with video. I'm using Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 to cut, but I often review several quicktimes at a time coming off an ftp in Quicktime player.

Both of these applications were updated recently.

FINAL CUT PRO 6:

I found myself in a situation where I needed to load one of my FCP5 projects on a mac running FCP6. That's when the fun began. For some reason, exporting quicktimes from the FCP timeline caused some clips to substituted for others. That is to say that they appear and playback fine while in the timeline, but as soon as you export to another format it's as if FCP gets confused and decides to make up its own edits - HEY! Who's the Editor here? Furthermore, the fields seem to be out of alignment when exporting an MPEG2 for DVD. I'm sure this is just a glitch when using a FCP5 project. I do intend to upgrade to FCP6 once I can afford to buy a new Mac that can handle that program.

QUICKTIME 7.2:

More recently I mindlessly upgraded my Quicktime to 7.2. I haven't noticed any incompatibilities yet with websites as some users have mentioned on the Apple Forums, but I have noticed a huge difference in the way Quicktime hides itself. As mentioned earlier, I often review several QTs at once, hide the ones I want to review again, closing the ones I don't and moving on. With Quicktime 7.2, closing a QT brings up the last QT you hid as opposed to the next QT in line to be viewed. This is highly irritating as it means I am constantly re-hiding QTs that I've already reviewed.

Anyone else having this problem?

iPhone + Rogers will cost me my first born

Ok, so until my girlfriend tells me differently, I'm not a father.

However, as Americans enjoy their new iPhones I'm stuck up here in the great white north wondering 'Where's mine?'. The real question isn't 'When is the iPhone is coming to Canada?', but rather 'Can I afford one?'

The obvious carrier is Rogers, but as Michael Geist points out in his blog, Rogers data rates are insanely over priced.

500 minutes (Canada-wide, no rollover) - $60
500 additional evening and weekend minutes - $25
500 MB of data (no unlimited data offered) - $210

$295 a month!!!!!!!!!! and that's not even with unlimited data!

I see one of two things happening here:

• Apple drops its demand for unlimited data
• Rogers cuts its prices

If Apple were to concede the unlimited data then the unless you are lucky enough to be by a wi-fi access point, your bills will still be too high to truly enjoy all that the iPhone has to offer

If Rogers cuts it data prices, even by 50%, that's still $190 a month.

Between saving for a down payment on a mortgage, finding money to buy webhosting (feel free to donate) and the burdens of a yet to be conceived child (I'm told her name will be Lillian) the iPhone will remain out of reach for me.