that ring of confidence

The Georgia Straight geek gift guide is online

 

The Georgia Straight's "Geek Gift Guide" written by yours truly is up online now [tgs].  It's a pretty good collection of some of the coolest gadget gifts that you can get this Christmas.  I was pretty happy that the Kindle was able to make an appearance, since I was going to go with the Sony eReader instead since Amazon's device was not available in Canada until a few days before the article was due.  There was also a really cool set of Sony Ericsson headphones that I ended up leaving off the list because I could not find them for sale anywhere in Vancouver and Sony Ericsson would not get back to me with where one would buy them in Canada.

The Canon PowerShot S90 is especially tasty looking.

Also for the record the Teddy Ruxpin reference was in there before 30 Rock made a Teddy Ruxpin joke in their last episode.

Techvibes

I'm doing some writing for Techvibes, a technology blog that's based in Vancouver but covers most of the continent and a few places beyond.  My first post is about a new iPhone application that helps users pick out outfits to wear based on what they have in the closet, and it's online now [tv].

The Kindle and some tech writing

It seems like since I've gotten back from my honeymoon I've been kind of on the ropes and running behind on everything.  I picked up swine flu somewhere in Maine on our trip and was incredibly sick when we returned.  However having missed two weeks of work already for the trip I headed back, only to pass the flu onto at least one of my co-workers and possibly two.  After a few days, and a definitive doctor's diagnosis of H1N1 [wp] I ended up back at home for nearly another week.

I was just over that and back to work when I got the news about David [jks], and so blogging has certainly not been my top priority.  Add to that two articles that I've finished off for The Georgia Straight, and I actually don't feel bad about ignoring this blog.  Besides apart from an accounting of the honeymoon I've not had much to write about up until recently.  Ironically when I have blogged it's been for the Straight and that has been about the new Kindle I got for my birthday [tgs].

Well actually I combined a few of my gifts into the Kindle, using the money my parents and my brother gave me to order it from Amazon.  Since the Kindle was only available in America when I bought it I had to get it sent to a business in Sumas that specializes in receiving packages for Canadians.  Since then the Kindle has begun shipping to Canada [tgs], though I've heard that it does not have the web browser.

I've also blogged about Indigo/Chapters' moves into the ebook market [tgs] for the Straight. While I was on my honeymoon my article on Facebook games for The Georgia Straight as well [tgs].

I'm also likely going to be speaking at the 72nd annual Canadian University Press (CUP) National Conference in Edmonton this January.  It's being hosted by the University of Alberta student paper The Gateway, where a number of my closest CUP friends worked at, and though it's been awhile since I've been to a CUP conference it should be fun.  I've not gotten all the details nailed down, but I appear to be listed as a speaker [cup] so that's always a good sign.  The last CUP conference I spoke at ended up with me writing for the Straight, so hopefully this will also be a good networking opportunity.

Vancouver internet start-ups in The Georgia Straight

One of the things I told students at the Canadian University Press conference

that I spoke at was to always take any assignment offered [jks].  The life of a freelance writer is such that we really never know what will be our last job, and saying no to work is always a risk especially when you're trying to build a relationship with a publication.  While I've been writing for The Georgia Straightfor over a year the spacing between each article is long enough that I'm always a little concerned that maybe they'll forget about me.  The technology section only really has one regular writer (Blaine Kyllo) and having heard enough stories about freelancers who said no to one job and had publications just assume that they were no longer interested in writing, I pretty much say yes to anything and everything. 

Looking back on it I probably should have said no to an article being due just over a week after my wedding.  However I had been pitching the story since I first started writing for the Straightand it was the fall technology issue so it was hard to say no.  I also completely underestimated how much work a wedding was, and moving my wife into my apartment would be.  Which is a long way of being honest and saying that tech editor Stephen Hui had to do a lot more on this one than normal and so while I think the interviews went well the structure of the article is mostly thanks to Stephen, in however good it is.  Anything wrong with it is my fault.

The article is in the Straighttoday and on-line [tgs].  It turned out well in the end though I think if I ever do my song and dance for mold-able minds, I'll ad weddings as an exception of a time when begging off an assignment is probably a good idea. 

A last note about the article that

I feel I should mention is that I did a lot of interviews with people that did not make it into the finished article.  It turned out that I just had too much material and given that it takes at least 100-300 words to introduce and give details about a start-up company, some of the ones I spoke with had to be left out in order to keep in the assigned space.  Those interviews however aren't going to be lost, and I'll be turning them into short pieces for The Georgia Straight's website's tech section [tgs] over the next week or two. 

My article on open social networks appears in The Georgia Straight

My latest article is in this week's The Georgia Straight in all the finest newspaper boxes around Vancouver and on-line [tgs].  This one was a bit trickier to get my head around, because while I know what "open" means when it comes to having social networks like Twitter, Facebook and the like be more open not everyone agrees what that means.  For some people it's part of a larger view that all information should be open, while to others it's a call for users to actually have more control over their data and privacy than they do now.

So some people are for more privacy, others are for less, and yet they're all on the same side.

The other issue was that it's hard to get the other side of the argument.  Facebook never got back to me, and nobody is going to really stand up for less openness and user control over data but yet there may be legitimate reasons that it's necessary sometimes.  These might not be the strongest reasons, but it's a bit hard to look at an issue objectively when one side really won't talk.

I'm happy with how the article ended up though, and it's a case where it was nice to have an edit on it to help focus it a bit and make sure that I was making sense to anyone aside from myself.

New Georgia Straight article: iPhone games

 M y latest article for The Georgia Straight is now up online [tgs] and on the newsstands in the Meatspace edition.  Of the articles I've written for the Straight so far this was probably the most difficult, in that it was by far the most tightly focused.  The idea of doing an article on local schools that taught iPhone development seemed like a good idea, but the fact that only BCIT seems to be doing any thing like that limited my potential subjects.

For my Twitter article [tgs] for example I had pretty much every Twitterer in Vancouver to draw upon for interviews.  With this one I had far less in the way of options, and while I think everyone I managed to interview did a great job and I'm grateful there was less variety in the type of people I spoke with.  In the end I talked with three software developers, one who had taken the iPhone course and another who had taught it, and an administrator from BCIT.  There's no real opposing view to the notion that the course taught by BCIT, and the potential program, is a good idea.

Not that I was expecting to find someone who was against the teaching of iPhone development, it's not exactly abortion training or any sort of hot topic like that.

Still I'm happy with the outcome, and the fact that it made the paper.  If you're in Vancouver be sure to pick up a copy this week at the newsstand.  If you're not then use the internet and check it out.

Picture taken by Stephen Hui for The Georgia Straight.

The Zune arrives

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 11/15/06.

Last week I complained about how early it seemed that Christmas was starting, and this week it's in full swing as a number of new products are hitting the shelves aiming to be your Christmas gift purchases. Sony's Playstation 3, Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Zune are all out this week, and all trying to get you to open your wallets. I've written about the video games console war that's about to erupt before, with the Playstation 3 and the Wii competing against the already released X-Box 360 from Microsoft. Today though it's a chance to look at the Zune, the newest MP3 player from Microsoft and their third attempt at an iPod killer.

As I said the Zune is Microsoft's third attempt at toppling Apple's iPod, the portable music player that's changed the way the world listens to music and made Apple a resurgent force in both the personal electronics field and also once more in the computer field. Their first two failed miserably and that's why you won't find a mention of them in any of the media coverage of the new device, because in the style of George Orwell's book Animal Farm if Microsoft just pretends it didn't happen it didn't happen and for the most part the press doesn't pick up on it.

Here Microsoft is playing an interesting game. In its desire to knock Apple off the MP3 block it's being a little bit sneaky with how it's selling the Zune and historical revisionism isn't it's only trick. For example the Zune is considerably bigger, clunkier and heavier, than the comparable iPod. So instead of comparing it to an iPod with the same amount of memory Microsoft's size comparisons are against an iPod with over twice the storage capacity. The goes for the battery life comparisons, and in some reviews in the media the newly released Zune gets compared to iPods that are up to two years old instead of newer and sleeker versions.

Playing with numbers like that is not anything new sadly. When was the last time you bought something with a battery where the battery actually lasted as long as it said it would on the box? MP3 players, cellular phones, laptops and all electronics get a bit of fudging in the numbers. Battery estimates tend to mean that under the best conditions a battery possibly could last that length of time. These estimates are talking about what possibly could maybe happen in a perfect world, which means it's never actually going to last that long.

The more pressing issue though is the previous attempts at dealing with the iPod, because it offers a warning for all those who might be thinking of buying a Zune. Like the iPod the Zune has a store where you buy music for it, or you can rip your already owned music from CDs. The music from the Zune store only works on the Zune, just as purchases from the iTunes music store only works on the iPod and not other devices. Fair enough, but the fact is since the iTunes music store has been released the songs have worked on all iPods, and a song you buy this year will work on an iPod you might buy two years from now.

In 2004 Microsoft had Portable Media Centers meant to unseat the iPod. In 2005 they joined with a wide range of different music services and device makers to create a standard music format called "Plays For Sure". The promise of "Plays For Sure" was that any MP3 player that used Microsoft software would be able to play any of the songs purchased at these stores such as Napster. Though never as successful as the iTunes music store a lot of these devices were sold, and a lot of songs were sold, now they won't work on the newest device from the company that made the format. The Zune does not work with the Microsoft "Plays For Sure" songs, and Microsoft is now competing against the device makers and music stores that they were supposed to partner with.

So if the Zune isn't a success in knocking the iPod off its block how long before Microsoft decides to pretend it didn't happen and bring out a new device with a new format? Any songs you might buy for your Zune could be outdated in less than a year. But hey, at least it's not so big that it won't fit under the Christmas tree. Or at least that's what Microsoft is hoping.

Sports money

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 11/02/06.

The purchase of Chelsea Football Club, one of the most historic teams in the English Premier League, by Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich in the summer of 2003 sent shockwaves through England's top soccer league. The purchase saw the club, which had been a mainstay of English soccer since 1905, go from being a mid-level English side to one of the most successful teams in the world. With Abramovich's money they won the Premier League Championship in 2005 ending 50 years of drought. Since buying the club for 60 million pounds (about 130 million dollars Canadian) Abramovich has spent over 100 million pounds (about 217 million dollars Canadian) on buying up the best players in the world, and altering the landscape of English football.

Football for Abramovich is a hobby, and he has clearly stated that he has no real interest in Chelsea as an investment. The soonest the club might begin to be profitable is 2010, and that probably won't include the vast amounts that Abramovich pours into the club to buy up players. It has made it impossible for teams who are either owned by owners not as interested in loosing millions of dollars, or owned by shareholders and traded on the stock market, to compete. Even Manchester United, one of the most successful teams in the history of professional sports, has failed to compete.

Manchester United in fact have gone from a team in excellent financial health to a team wracked with debt when foreign investors also bought them out. United's purchaser however wasn't an oil rich sugar daddy looking for a reason to hang around England on the weekends but a wheeling and dealing American looking to make money. Malcom Glazer already owned the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he bought Man U, and because he did not have the cash just lying around his house the way Abramovich did he had to borrow heavily. The debt from his borrowing was put on the club and Manchester United, which previously had no debts, now owes the bank more than 660 million pounds (about 1.4 billion dollars Canadian). Rather than being hailed as a savior, like Abramovich had in Chelsea, Glazer was burned in effigy by fans and is still one of the most hated owners in English football.

While Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea is undoubtedly good for Chelsea, at least as long as he's content to pump millions of pounds into the club, but is it good for football or sports? The question of course is whether sports is a business or a pastime. Remember Peter Pocklington in the 1980s? The Edmonton Oilers were his play thing every bit as much as Chelsea is Abramovich's. They were his way of showing the world how rich he was, the most visible part of his business empire. The trouble for Oilers fans came when Pocklington's other businesses, the ones that were expected to fund the Oilers, stopped being quite so profitable and the rich Albertan started to try to squeeze money from the club.

Gretzky left the Oilers in exchange for cash, and later Pocklington would sell the team. The Oilers were no longer the most exciting and talented club in hockey, no longer a dynasty, and fans were lucky that the club did not close or get moved like Winnipeg and Quebec City. They're now running on a much tighter budget, and because of this and their teams tend to be younger and established stars are traded for up and coming talent. This managed to work last season when the Oilers got to the Stanley Cup Final, but it's a long way down from the Dynasty that dominated the 1980s.

People have a very powerful connection to their favorite sports teams. It's a connection that can survive nearly anything, and is often passed down through generations. This is why it's always hard to look at spots teams as businesses, because they're so much more to so many people. While we'd probably all love a Roman Abramovich type owner to buy the Vancouver Canucks and turn the team into the most powerful force in the NHL, in the long run it probably would not be a good thing because when the money faucet dried up the fans would still be there, but the high priced players would be moving on, they would leave as quickly as the money did.

When nothing works

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/26/06.

The Klingons have a saying, you know this is going to be a great article when it starts by referencing Star Trek, "Today is a good day to die." You know that's supposed to sum up their warrior culture and their willingness to die in battle. Great, great I understand glorious death in battle, check. Those crazy Klingons, I bet they're a ton of fun at parties.

For me the other day seemed like a good day to die, though not for honour in battle but only because everything I touched that day seemed to just screw up on me. There was a point during the escalating comedy of errors that I refused to look up least an airplane fall out of the sky and land on me.

You want some examples? My alarm did not wake me up in the morning, so when I woke up to see that I was supposed to be at work in one minute I assumed I wouldn't be able to make it. There is no mode of transportation yet invented to allow me to get across town in one-minute, much less shower and shave during the trip. Like in Star Trek transporters would be handy, but they've not been invented yet.

Thankfully I had forgotten about the world falling back onto daylight savings time, and so I had an hour extra and I made it to work on time. I'm not sure if we all set our clocks back an hour just to ensure that I won't be late for work one day a year, but it seems awful convenient that it worked out that day.

The trouble of course is that I now no longer trust the alarm in my phone to wake me up, despite the fact that it's worked fine for months. It went off, it just was not loud enough to wake me from the coma I had fallen into. I'm going to have to start setting two alarms, maybe even three, just to ensure that I rise on time.

Getting to work on time was nice. What wasn't nice was when I discovered that the store had no paper, at all. I went to print something and heard the familiar "out of paper" sound that our printer makes, so I went to get some more from the drawer. None there, so onto the supply closet, none there, so into the product room and again there was none. Now we use a lot of paper, and without it I basically can't do anything. People talk about the paperless office one day becoming a reality, yet every week there seems to be at least one more form I need to fill out on a regular basis.

It was a Sunday, and I work alone on a Sunday. So with nobody else to get paper I had to put a closed sign on the front door and leave to search for some. I managed to find a package at Future Shop, and quickly headed back to the store.

Really no paper? You'd think that would have gotten checked before the weekend, but then I suppose I'd be the one whose supposed to have checked that.

So two of the things I rely on failed me that day, and then I'm could only wait for the other shoe to drop. Thankfully I don't drive to work, otherwise my brakes would have probably failed. I was fearing the best course of action was either to kill myself now in fear of what is coming or get home as soon as I can after work and hide behind my couch in the fetal position. I chose the later, it seemed the easiest and I knew eventually something had to work. So my new saying is, "Today is either a good day to die, or a good day to hide behind a couch weeping like a little girl."

I bet it sounds cooler in Klingon.

The future of print

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/26/06. However eVent declined to publish an article that questioned the future of newspapers.

I was initially going to write an article about the release of new versions of the two most popular web browsers Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. It's important because these days if most of us are using a computer we're using one of those two programs, and the browser increasingly our conduit onto the world in a way that television, radio and newspapers once were. That's right, in the pages of your newspaper I'm calling out newspapers as no longer being the cultural staple that it once was.

Now here I run two risks. The first is getting the people who pay me money to write for them mad because I'm saying that the newspaper is not longer the cultural touchstone that it once was. The second is in using my life as part of a broader example of what the rest of the world is doing (ie. I don't eat waffles very often so obviously waffles are not popular), and thus looking like a self-involved jerk.

The fact is though by the time I read the newspaper in a day I've already surfed the web. Most days by the time I come in contact with the Daily Courier I've already checked the sports scores both through the Canucks or Rockets' own websites and also in the case of Arsenal through the London Guardian's website or a fan blog. I've also used the London Guardian's site to check the world news, and then checked national news through the CBC's website. I've discovered almost all I need to know about the world through my web browser.

Similarly throughout the day I have news updates delivered to my RSS reader both on my computer and on my BlackBerry. RSS is a way of subscribing to certain news sources so that anytime they update their site or release a new story your RSS reader lets you know and gives you a summary of the story. RSS readers are built into most web browsers now that Internet Explorer 7 has finally added one years after everyone else did.

What I am saying about newspapers is not going to be groundbreaking around the offices of either the Daily Courier or the competition. If it was then it's a good thing that I've been stashing my eVent! money under my mattress because the local newspaper publishing industry is going to implode in about twenty minutes. No, but seriously, as far back as ten years ago the internet was something that people knew was going to change our lives. Newspapers have adapted, and continue to do so.

See when I talk about not having come in contact with a newspaper until after my daily web browsing I left off a couple of sites that I do visit regularly. The first is the Daily Courier's own website (kelownadailycourier.ca) which I check for local news. Most newspapers have online sites, and the Courier's is a very good one. With it I'm able to find out the important local news of the day before I can read through the paper later on.

What newspapers do best they still do best, and that's provide context, analysis and opinion on a story. Television journalism rarely gets very deep into a story, and unless it's a feature report on CBC Newsworld you only get the briefest details from a television news story. The same is with radio, unless you're listening to an in-depth feature on the CBC the news is brief and generally without context to explain why what the presenter just said is important.
While the internet is harder to dismiss because it can provide that sort of context, analysis and opinion that newspapers do, the fact is the best of the web still tends to be newspapers. The London Guardian is a traditional newspaper and it has done extremely well building up a web presence, and shows that non-public media outlets can have a good site in a world that was initially dominated by public media companies like the BBC and the CBC.

The trick then is to turn the people surfing to a newspapers website into money in the bank. The Daily Courier's website does this through both advertising and by using the site as a way of selling newspapers. Like what you see on the site, well the real paper has more goodness so come and buy it. One of the draws they use to get people buy the pulp and print version is that the columnists' work is not showcased on the site. Not being able to read columnists might be a powerful incentive for some to buy the newspaper and I certainly enjoy reading many of the paper's columns but I don't think that they will still be offline in ten years, just as I can't see the Daily Courier not offering some level of RSS support on their site for much longer.

The fact is we now live in a world with the internet. Like the music companies had to learn that suing teenagers on behalf of Metallica was not the way to deal with the changes in the media landscape so to will our most traditional media outlets, the newspapers. Increasingly many of us now see the world through our web browsers. The traditional response of protecting what is known and safe did not work for the music industry who ever year sell a larger and larger percentage of their music online via stores like iTunes, it did not work for the television industry who now also sell their shows online and many of which stream them free on their own websites, and it won't work in the newspaper industry.

The first newspaper was printed in 1605. With the newspaper is a survivor, and it'll survive the internet just like it survived radio, movie news reels and television. Its survival will be because it embraced the possibilities that the web provides, while remaining true to what made them great in the first place.

The video game war

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/19/06.

For the rabid video gamer Monday October 16th was more than just your typical fall Monday, it was Line Up Day, the day that stores began accepting pre-orders for the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii both to be released shortly. If you did not get up at the crack of dawn or camp out outside of a shopping mall to be one of the first to put their name down for the new videogame machines, well let's just say that your Christmas shopping just got a little harder. With five major videogame systems set to do battle this holiday season where will you be spending your gift dollars, and what will you be driving from store to store trying to find? Read on.

Console: Nintendo Wii (pronounced We)
Release Date: November 19th, 2006
Christmas Availability: It's not clear how availbe the Wii will be. The pre-order units are all claimed, but unlike Sony Nintendo is not having to cut back orders, so you could possibly see some on shelves for Christmas if you're lucky
Notable Games: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports
Cost: $270.95
The Scoop: Nintendo got tired of playing third clarinet in the orchestra that it started (the home videogame market) and so instead of competing on graphics and processor speed decided to go in another direction with the Wii. Rather than touting its' graphical abilities Nintendo has focused on the fun factor, and made a system that sounds like it's going to be shockingly fun. Remember, videogames are supposed to be fun. They're also going for the non-gamer market, one that they've been successful in reaching with their portable Nintendo DS. By making games that are fun, unique and appeal to a wide range of non-traditional gamers and combining that with a price that isn't going to need you to mortage your house the Wii is well positioned to be the must-have Christmas gift. You'll be looking to buy one of these for everyone from your young daughter to your thirty year-old shut in brother who lives with your parents and nobody can understand because all he talks about is how Frank Miller's right to shun Hollywood.

Console: Playstation 3
Release Date: November 17th, 2006
Christmas Availability: If you haven't pre-ordered by now you might be able to buy one by April.
Notable Games: Resistance: Fall of Man, Tony Hawk's Project 8, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Cost: $549 for the basic configuration, $659 for the full setup
The scoop: Sony's third Playstation home system is by far the most expensive and technologically impressive system out there. Hindered by production problems, and a release date that kept shifting further and further away it however will only be a story this holiday season because of the fact that you won't be able to buy one. There will be less than one million units available in North America this year, and if you haven't already pre-ordered one you won't be getting it unless you pay through the nose on eBay. Kelowna will be lucky to see 10 maybe 20 units in total this year. My advice, don't do it. Most of the same games will be available on the Xbox 360, which you can already buy, and the graphics difference isn't that extreme to make up for the extra cost of the PS3. Even the addition of BluRay, one of the two possible successors to the DVD movie, doesn't make it worth it.

Console: Xbox 360
Release Date: Out Now
Christmas Availability: It's going to be on shelves, though maybe buying one in November as opposed to late December is a smart idea just in case.
Notable Games: Gears of War, Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Cost: Around $500
The Scoop: After being the hard to find gift last Christmas it might seem that the Xbox 360 is old news, the fact is though it offers everything that the Playstation 3 is going to offer, costs less and is available now. The pending release of a HD DVD player for the console will allow owners to take sides in the upcoming format war as Sony's Blu Ray battles everyone else's HD DVD to see who is the Betamax and who is the VHS of the new generation of home movies. Unless you're rich, or a videogame fanatic, you're most likely going to own either the Xbox 360 or the Sony Playstation 3. For the money, and because you're going to be able to buy one before next April, my money is on the Xbox.

Google buys YouTube

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/12/06.

On October 9th internet search engine giant Google (www.google.com) announced it would buy the internet video website YouTube (www.youtube.com). Previously I'd written that as with many successful websites the only real business model for YouTube is to hope a larger company buys it up. The name of the game for YouTub, as it was for photo hosting site Flickr (www.flickr.com) and social networking site MySpace (www.myspace.com) is to build up a large user base and then deliver that user base to someone else. YouTube did it successfully and Google paid $1.65 billion US for that user base.

Google is buying users with their money. They had already have a competing video service, Google Video (video.google.com), that in many ways was superior to YouTube's but had failed to catch on with the public in the same way that YouTube had. What will happen to Google's video service now that they've bought their chief rival has yet to be announced. Also unclear is how exactly any money is going to be made off the vast number of videos uploaded and watched on the site.

With costs upwards of a million dollars a month YouTube has never been able to monetize its success. Yahoo has still not managed to begin to cover the costs of running Flicrk, which it bought from Vancouver based Ludicorp, which has similiarly high operating costs because of the amount of storage and bandwidth needed to house and transmit its large library of photographs. Whether Google has the magic touch to turn YouTube into a profitable venture will have to be seen.

The chief source of revenue will come from ads placed on the site, which most likely now will be Google's own AdSense ads. YouTube has also been in the process of striking deals with traditional media companies, such as NBC. NBC which initially threatened to sue the site because clips of Saturday Night Live had been uploaded by users, now pays YouTube to host clips of its television shows. Clips and behind the scenes footage for new NBC shows like 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights have been put on the site by the broadcaster. Though financial details of the deal have not been disclosed YouTube has been active in seeking out similar partnerships with other companies. Like the deal with Google what YouTube offers is eyeballs.

How many people watch YouTube? Over 100 million video clips are watched everyday on the site and 65,000 videos are uploaded during the same amount of time. Well used it can boost a show's popularity, something Stephen Colbert knows. The host of the Colbert Report has been savvy enough to not only have the directors of some of YouTube's most watched videos on his show, but also to use YouTube for his own ends. Recently Colbert finished up his Green Screen challenge. Releasing footage of himself waving a lightsaber from Star Wars while jumping around in front of a green screen like the sort used in movie special effects, Colbert challenged his audience to edit the footage in any way they wanted. The resulting clips largely ended up on YouTube and there's over 160 entries on the site showing Colbert fighting everything from bears and the liberal media to himself.

At least for the foreseeable future YouTube will be run separately from Google and Google Video. Also for the foreseeable future it's going to lose money. At least now it can afford that since it's going to be drawing from Google's nearly bottomless pockets.

Then Bill Clinton comes to town

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 10/05/06.

At a loss for what to write about this week I began to do what I always do, surf the internet. Surfing the net is a fine way of finding a story, and often I browse the world wide web for something that will spark the imagination and get my creative juices flowing. I read the front pages of the Kelowna Daily Courier, eVent!, Castanet.net and that other local paper that we'll refer to as the distinguished competition. Then I Google something like "hot girls" and get sidetracked for a while, but eventually I find something to spark my interest and a few key strokes later you're reading this article.

This evening it was the reminder that in November former President William Jefferson Clinton will be appearing at Prospera Place. That's right, the subject of a thousand Jay Leno monologues will be here in Kelowna. I know I used to get faint whenever Jean Chrétien would crash at Senator Ross Fitzpatrick's place, the thought of a world leader being within driving distance was so exciting. This though will be monstrous. For someone who changed majors from OUC's Political Science department this is like the Beatles coming to town.

I mean Bill Clinton. I'm breathing heavily now just thinking about it.

This man used to have the power the launch nuclear missiles anywhere he wanted. With a push of the button he could have solved the question of whether Westbank should incorporate or not. This man has been on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This man met Bono, more than once. I bought his autobiography and almost finished it. It looks very impressive on my shelf, and the half that I did read has helped me win many a game of Trivia Pursuit. He's coming to Kelowna, and I for one am as excited as.... as excited as... as excited as...

Okay, I'm back. I had to lie down after hyperventilating there. As you can tell I'm fairly, um... excited. The only thing that's keeping me grounded is that I won't be seeing Clinton when he's in town. I mean have you seen the ticket prices? $185 to get close enough to throw my underpants on stage, that's a daunting chunk of change.

Now I known that Bill Clinton is a premier act, yet how expensive can he be? It's not like he's touring with a giant mirror ball lemon and the world's largest television screen. I suspect all he needs is a microphone, a speaker setup and some fake potted plants as a backdrop. I bet he doesn't even have an inflatable pig.

Maybe on the night he's in town I'll hang outside Prospera Place, smoke some marijuana that I won't inhale (sorry I couldn't resist the joke) and see try to find someone to sell me their ticket at half price. If that doesn't work I'll just have to comfort myself by reading the second half of his autobiography, and prepare myself for more games of Trivial Pursuit.

At the very least Bill Clinton's coming to Kelowna is going to give me at least five more columns worth of material. My days of aimlessly surfing the internet to find material are over for now.

Newspaper subscription

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 09/28/06.

My parents recently started getting a subscription to The Kelowna Daily Courier, and so now can read these articles since eVent! is now delivered to their door. I'm quite glad because finally they actually believe me when I tell them that I write for a newspaper, and actually get paid for it. Ever since I told them that I wanted to be a writer they've been concerned. See unlike being a carpenter, accountant or vampire slayer being a writer rarely offers a steady income, an office and a company car. Since I have to maintain a full time job in sales in order to continue my freelancing career my parents seem to be under the impression that like my Popple best friend, my writing career is make-believe.

Take for instance when I was in university, writing full time for The Phoenix, the local student newspaper and in creative writing courses as part of my studies. My mother, helpfully, wanted me to take evening courses in writing in a continuing education course at OUC in creative writing. Explaining to her that I was already in school did not convince her that I had any idea what I was going to be when I grew up and that a month of night courses in the continuing education program would set me on the course to write the next great Canadian novel.

The other week my mother found an ad in a Vancouver newspaper for a contest where readers could write a chapter of a mystery novel, and have the chapter published along with the other selected readers' chapters to make a big collaborative novel. That it was a contest, and that I'm not a mystery writer did not deter her enthusiasm for my taking on the project. I tried to explain that I get paid real money to write and wasn't looking to do it for free just for the slim chance to win a chance to have written a chapter in a novel. I'm a professional freelance writer; I actually get paid for this.

It's not just me who gets this sort of professional skepticism from their parents. Mark Millar is one of the most popular writers in comic books today, penning best selling series like The Authority and more recently best selling Marvel comics like The Ultimates, The Ultimate Fantastic Four and Civil War. Since American super hero comics are not as popular in his native Scotland as they are in America, in a recent interview he claimed that it's only when he gets short articles published in local Scottish papers that his mother really sees he's actually writing for money.

Of course I've written before, though a lot of that was for student papers or publications on the web. Despite writing for places with readerships much larger than eVent! it wasn't really real to them because it was on the interent. And I certainly never showed them my articles in the Phoenix, because I cursed a lot in those. Plus to be honest I was only paid in wooden nickels by the student society that owned the newspaper. (Where they kept getting so much money made out of lumber I never knew.)

I appreciate that my parents want to see me be able to become a full time writer, with enough money to afford food to stock my fridge and pants to warm my legs. They feel guilty because they had to be the ones who informed me that my previous dream of being a math genius like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting wasn't going to work out if I was going to insist on using a calculator for long division. Then they had to inform me that there was already a Lord of the Dance, and that can't have been easy for them either.

Lawn darts

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 09/22/06.

Summer is ending. This evening I wore a sweater out, as the chill was in the air. As we all know with the end of summer comes the end of lawn dart season. Putting away my lawn dart kit in the garage I'd like to take this moment to look back on what was a remarkable season in what many of us in the lawn dart community call "The Poor Man's Cricket".

As you most likely are aware this year lawn darts is celebrating its eighth hundred year as an organized sport and the international lawn darts league Projectiles Hefted With Force Toss or PHWFT (it makes more sense in its original Latin). The Romans brought the game to North America when they first settled in what is now New York after traveling to the New World in their airships in 17 BC. From there the game spread amongst the indigenous peoples of North America after the official rules were eventually reintroduced to Europeans when it was traded for Hudson Bay blankets and Ann Rice novels.

Canada of course became on of the world powers of lawn darts, battling with the Soviet Union for lawn darting supremacy. Who can forget the summer of 1972 when we all waited by the radio to hear if Team Canada could beat the Soviets in a best of seven lawn dart challenge? Well I don't remember it because I wasn't alive, but the moment that Walter Henderson put the last yellow dart into the target hoop is etched in every Canadian's memory. People like me who were too young to experience it via the CBC coverage have seen the dramatization on the history shorts that the government does, and also when they re-run the footage on TSN every so often.

Sadly Canada is slowly loosing its dominance in lawn darts as fewer and fewer young Canadians are entering youth leagues, instead flocking to sports such as soccer and the three man bobsled which are sports that require less equipment than lawn darts since they started as hobo sports and slowly worked their way into the lives of the non-hobo community. As such it's important all patriotic Canadians to force their children into lawn dart youth leagues, so we can once again be the best in the world at something.

Now below are five tips to being a better lawn darts player. These will help improve your game, whether you're hoping to turn pro or just out on the course for a recreational game with some business associates before closing the big sale.

- The pointed end goes into the ground: I know it seems obvious but knowing the fundamentals is incredibly vital in a complex game like lawn darts.

- Visualize the target: It's true that lawn darts was initially created to teach young children to hunt very slow mammals, and so it can be useful to visualize that as you are playing. Some of the best players such as Paul "One Eye" Hewson like to visualize that they too are hunting small animals as they throw their darts. I, being an animal rights advocate, prefer to visualize the dart piercing the chest of a Keebler Elf.

- Gravity is your friend: we spend our lives and our NASA research money trying to find ways to wrestle gravity into submission. In lawn darts though gravity is your friend. Learn how to be one with gravity, and you will never have trouble getting your darts to fall to the ground again.

- Don't take drugs: sadly a lot of the young people see professional lawn darts players using steroids to beef up. The trouble is it hurts the game because fans are beginning to feel that there's no longer any true integrity left in the sport. Also if you take steroids you may never be able to urinate again, so there's that to think about.

- Since most modern games of lawn darts are played during the day it is rarely affective to suddenly shout out, "Oh my god there's a vampire!" during your opponent's shot. Most players therefore no longer use this famed tactic of Rusty Conner in this day and age. However if you're quick on your feet you can substitute the word "vampire" for something more likely. My personal favorite is "pineapple" because it confuses most players.

iTunes 7

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 09/14/06.

Apple Computers is a company that is very much burdened by their own success. With the iPod and iTunes store Apple has revolutionized the way people listen to their music. Aside from the internet I consider the iPod the technological development in my life time that has most changed the way I live. As a music lover I used to have to carry around a big book of CDs every time I left the house, now all I need is a slender pocket sized iPod and I've got all the music that I own stuffed onto a 60 gig hard drive.

So how many times can one company revolutionize an industry? Apple did it twice with the world of computers, first with the Apple II the first real personal computer and then with the original Macintosh. However since the iPod was released the changes in the device have been evolutionary and not revolutionary. Video was added last year, the introduction of Podcasting into iTunes allowed the newborn medium to take off and there have been minor updates but fundamentally the iPod remains the iPod.

Which is not a bad thing. The iPod remains the easiest music player to use. While it might lack some feature of other players, the combination of ease of use and the magnificent iTunes software make it by far the best choice to house your tunes. However with each new version of the iPod there are countless disappointed fans who were wanting for so much more.

A perfect example of this iPod let down was this last Tuesday, when Apple brought out a few new devices. Apple fans and iPod enthusiasts had spent months speculating on what Apple CEO Steve Jobs might release at the September 12th press conference. The more industrious of them had created fake images with Photoshop showing widescreen iPods with a futuristic touch screen interface. When nothing of the sort was revealed disappointment flowed around the internet like tears at a poorly planned children's birthday party. Instead the 5th Generation Video iPod got a slightly brighter screen, gapless playback and a new search function.

What is exciting however is the overhaul to iTunes with the release of iTunes 7 on the same day. Apple's media management software is what puts the tunes on the iPod and allows your computer to be a centralized repository of movies, television shows and songs. The new version of iTunes has a jukebox like album view called CoverFlow, gapless playback and the ability to load games onto the iPod. It's slick and designed, as only Apple seems to be able to make these things. Again it's not a giant leap forward, but it's so wonderfully designed that it makes just flipping through your music collection fun.

Potentially the biggest announcements of the day were that Apple was now selling feature film downloads through iTunes. While the films are only available in the United States at the moment, the idea of buying movies through the computer and watching them on that same computer could potentially change the way we watch movies. The movies, just one more industry for Apple to revolutionize.

Let's do some geotagging

IMG_0065
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 09/05/06.

One of my favorite websites right now is the photo storage and display site Flickr (www.flickr.com). Yahoo bought the site, which originally started in Vancouver in 2004, on March 2005 for somewhere around $20 to $30 million dollars. Since then the search engine giant has struggled to figure out a way to monetize Flickr, as its monthly bandwidth and storage costs are incredibly high. While no fantastical scheme to make money from the free photo site has materialized the Yahoo / Flickr integration has provided one cool new feature, geotagging.

Tagging is the ability to add specialized bits of data to the photos that you upload to Flickr to make them easier to search. This data can include the type of camera you used to take the pictures, key words to describe the contents of the picture and the date and time the picture was taken. Geotagging allows the geographical data associated with a picture to be added to photos on Flickr, with the use of Yahoo Maps a massive worldwide online map. Just find where your picture was taken on the map and drag and drop it and then presto it's geotagged.

Now why would you want to geotag your photos? Well aside from making it easier for stalkers to track your real world movements, it's an interesting way to allow your friends, relatives and even yourself to interact with your photos. Want to see all the photos your daughter took during her trip to Cuba? Simply go to their Flickr account, pull up their map and you can see not only which photos were taken in Cuba but also where they were taken within a few feet. Want to see other people's photos that were taken at the same hostel that you stayed in Paris? Well simply pull up Paris and look at all user photos on the site for that specific area.

All joking about stalking aside Flickr does allow you to restrict access to both your photos and your map to only those people that you decide to allow into your circle of friends. As always you should be conscious of how much personal information you give out on the internet whether on Flickr or sites like MySpace (www.myspace.com) or Friendster (www.friendster.com).

Since launching the geotagging feature last week over three million pictures have been geotagged on Flickr. In Kelowna there are over 1,500 pictures already tagged, and more are being added every day. Pictures range from a couple's trip to Summerhill Winery, to weddings and even my girlfriend and I at the lake. Though I haven't yet found the photos of anyone I know through my random searching of Kelowna's map it's still a fascinating peak into the lives of those other people who either live in town or have visited for summer vacation.

While safety is always a concern when online the addition of geotagging to Flickr is a new and very cool tool for the photo website. A positive result of the multi-million dollar Yahoo buyout, the maps are one of the wave of cool new things appearing on the net. Now if only someone could figure out how to make money off of Flickr everything would be perfect.

The television shows to watch this year

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 08/31/06.

Arrested Development is cancelled, Sopranos is winding down its final season on television and Murder She Wrote hasn't been on the tube for years. So with a new television season approaching what are the shows that you'll want to tune in for? Well thank goodness we've given you this handy-dandy little guide. Check local listings for show times and prepare for some fun emulating a couch potato.

CBC's Hockey Night In Canada

The playoffs last year proved that we're in a brand new NHL with Edmonton making it to the Stanley Cup Finals. If Edmonton could do it that means that almost any team can be a Stanley Cup contender in this new post-lockout NHL. Add to that the fact that the CBC's agreement with the NHL for live hockey might not be renewed, and instead bought up by CTV and TSN, then this could be the second last season for the show that has been a part of Canadian culture since 1952. So tune in to Hockey Night In Canada while it's still around, and while we still own it, because once it leaves the CBC things won't be the same.

Andy Barker PI

Andy Richter is becoming the King of the Failed Television Show. After Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Quintuplets both failed to translate his success as the sidekick to Conan O'Brian into a sitcom career, he's hoping that the third time is the charm. In fact Richter has become so well known for having shows be cancelled on him that his arrival as a guest-star on Arrested Development was a sure sign to fans that the comedy did not have much longer. Co-starring Arrested Development's Tony Hale (he played Buster) and produced and co-written by O'Brian this one just might last. The safe bet though as always with an Andy Richter show is to watch one of the early episodes before it's cancelled.

Survivor: Cook Islands

Remember when Survivor was must watch television? Watching that schemer Richard Hatch wander around the island naked and then eventually win the million dollars was such a unique television experience that it still stands out after 13 years. Subsequent seasons have failed to live up to the template left by that first one, but it's still some of the most compelling drama on television. Add to the controversial decision this year to split the castaways up into racial groups and it might just be time to give the show another shot.

Battlestar Galactica

One of best television shows filmed in Vancouver and one of the best science fiction series ever; nobody really gave this show a chance when it first came out because it was based on the campy 70s' series of the same name. Still three seasons in and BSG is one of the best shows on television, a character driven drama in space. Leave behind your Vulcan ears and feed Spot the Cat because you're going to get engrossed in this one. Make sure you pick up the first two seasons on DVD to get the full weight of what's actually going on.

The Colbert Report

The bastard child of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report has become one of the best shows on television. Funny, controversial and oddly irreverent the Report (pronounced like Colbert's name without the 't') is like Fox News on a sugar high. Having given the public new words like 'truthiness' and 'wikiality' the show is a cultural touchstone.

It's hard to do a round up of all the must watch shows on television. I've yet to mention The Office and of course The Simpsons, and already its time to go. Check your local television guides, check eVent! and checkout these shows to make the most of this upcoming television season.

Crying in my beer: a sports story

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 08/23/06.

Sometime late last year I wrote an article about how after over two decades living in British Columbia I was switching my allegiance from the Edmonton Oilers to the Vancouver Canucks. I grew up in Edmonton. The Oilers teams of the 1980s were my teams; I still worship Wayne Gretzky as a living god. When I was young I thought that sporting victory was a birthright that my life would be filled with a procession of Stanley Cups for the Oilers and Grey Cups for the Eskimos. Sure some years they'd make it interesting and Steve Smith would score on his own team, but the next year the Oilers would be back holding the cup. So it was written.

Except obviously nobody read what was written because Gretzky was traded and the dynasty ended. Though the Oilers managed to win one more Stanley Cup things were never the same. My family moved to Kelowna and I was supposed to follow the Canucks. Last year I gave in. The Oilers had not made the playoffs for a few years, and I had the chance to go to a few Canucks games over the course of the season, so I declared the Canucks a team that I would support. To make it official I wrote about it in these very pages, I was now a Canucks fan.

So as we all know the Canucks did not make the playoffs. Despite having a team that was considered one of the prime contenders for post-season glory at the start of the season the team never gelled and the super-stars like Todd Bertuzzi were the first ones out on the golf course. Strike one for Jeffery Simpson, super fan.

Meanwhile Arsenal, the English soccer (football) team that I support in the Premier Leauge had a terrible year in their league. The spending power of Chelsea overpowered them and instead of competing for first place in the league they ended up needing food poisoning to take out cross-London rivals Tottenham in order to squeak in at fourth place. However thankfully there was a silver-lining there and while they had their worst league finish in over a decade they made it further in the European Champions League than ever before. They made it all the way to the finals where they met Spanish giants Barcelona.

I was in Vancouver for the game and was in an English pub before noon. With my Arsenal jersey on (with their goalkeeper Lehmann's name on my back) I sat in a packed pub and watch my team take the field. I cheered a few early shots on goal and then suddenly Lehmann, whose name let's remember was on my back, was kicked out of the game for bringing down a striker in the box. Disaster and though Arsenal managed to take the lead while playing ten men against eleven the inevitable happened and finally Barcelona scored. Yet another disaster, and yet more tears pouring into my beer and the end of the world once more.

A friend of mine was getting married in Edmonton, and I made the trip. Meanwhile the Oilers had fought their way into the Stanley Cup finals with the sort tenacity that the Canucks have always lacked. The last time they were there they 1990s' were just starting and their dynasty was ending. Game six took place in Edmonton during the reception. We watched the first period in a bar and then moved onto the dinner. Updates were phoned in and announced and we cheered as the Oilers held onto to win and take the series into a final game. Game seven. It was the stuff of dreams.

My temporary allegiance to the Canucks forgotten we went to Whyte Avenue and joined the swarms celebrating. Sure there are always a few idiots into a crowd like that, but there was hope. Carolina did not deserve to win the cup, Edmonton did. If fan devotion won cups then Edmonton's dynasty would never have faltered. Yet that night on Whyte Ave did bring home the cup. Watching the seventh game on television back in Kelowna the inevitable happened and the Oilers lost. There was no beer this time, just tears.

In the World Cup I was cheering for England, yet a moment of madness on the part of England's star striker Wayne Rooney spelled the end of that dream. Only Calgary native Owen Hargreaves ended up playing any good for England in the game against Portugal and yet more tears into beer.

I then switched my allegiance to France, because of Arsenal's striker Thierry Henry is on the squad. I had watched cheering then on against Italy. Anyone who's been able to pick out the theme of the article will know what happened next; French Captain Zinedine Zidane head butted Italian player Marco Materazzi and was sent off in the dying moments of the game. Italy ended up winning in the penalty shoot-out.

Tears in beers my friends, tears in beers.

So if this season you're at a Rockets' game and see me in the stands of Prospera Place cheering on Kelowna, please do us all a favour and have security remove me from the building.

There's some snakes on this plane

Originally written for eVent! [ep] magazine on 08/17/06.

Snakes on a plane.

Just that one phrase has become the basis of a cult movie even before the film has been released. With Samual L. Jackson in the lead role the movie initially caught the public's attention because it was a movie called Snakes on a Plane featuring Samuel L. Jackson. A late attempt by the studio to change the name to Pacific Air Flight 121 met with resistance from both the star and the fans of the film, if one can be a fan of a movie they've not yet seen. It's been the buzz of the blogosphere, and the world of podcasting.

So can what would normally be a C level movie starring Samuel L. Jackson an actor who works best as a co-star or in an ensemble cast (such as Pulp Fiction) than as a lead (Shaft). Is it just an inventive title that's getting blown up into a cyclone of hype for a movie that has nothing but Samuel L. Jackson and some computer generated snakes or is there something to this Snakes on a Plane? Could this be the greatest movie ever, a cult hit on par with The Rocky Horror Picture Show or simply another creature flick with a few great lines from Jackson like Deep Blue Sea?

Whether Snakes on a Plane ends up being a hit or a flop, whether it ends up being any good or just a clever title it has already breaking new ground for pre-release marketing. A few days ago my girlfriend got a telephone call from Samuel L. Jackson himself telling her to go and watch Snakes on a Plane. Okay so it wasn't a live call, but the movie's official website allows visitors to personalize a message from the actor and then have the message sent to their friends and relatives through email or via telephone. The message is hilarious; using the same sort of over the top humour that the title would seem to imply informs the entire movie.

The internet buzz was so strong that additional scenes were filmed to bring the film in line with the sort of over-the-top action that one expects from a Samuel L. Jackson creature feature. Included in the additional scenes filmed was one where Jackson said the line which had been a joke on the internet based on his previous film appearances where. The line? "I have had it with these mother@#%&ing snakes on this mother@#%&ing plane!" Based on the buzz there's also a direct to video knock-off movie that was released on DVD called Snakes on a Train timed to hit the store shelves days before the release of the real movie.

Since the success of the Blair Witch Project's viral online marketing campaign the internet has been vital these days in creating buzz more and more movie studios are going to be willing to pander to the online fans. Whether it's shooting additional scenes, or keeping a name that's caught on with fans Snakes on a Plane will be a test case on whether what works on the internet will work in a theatre.