technorants

Screw you, Hotmail!

2010-03-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

If anyone got a spam email from my old Hotmail account, I'm sorry.

To Microsoft: I am so pissed off right now it's not funny.

Okay, I didn't have the most secure password in the world. But it wasn't 'password' or '1234' and it wasn't a word you'd find in the dictionary. But it looks like I got a message from someone else who was hacked a while back, and then my account sent the same messages just tonight. I don't think it's spyware on my computer. I have Windows 7 with Microsoft Security Essentials installed with no threats found. Again, not the biggest fan of Microsoft right now but I'm reasonably sure I'm protected there. I also am pretty reasonably sure I didn't go to any fishing sites and certainly didn't enter my Hotmail password anywhere for at least the last year. So I'm going to assume that somehow the account was hacked either by a dictionary attack or some other vulnerability.

The first thing I did was change my password to a secure password, but I'm not sure that was enough. At this point, I rely so little on my Hotmail password and lost enough confidence in Hotmail (not to mention being pissed that I get Hotmail emails from people with advertising in them) that I decided to close the account.

Here's where it gets really fun. So closing the account isn't something in Hotmail's settings. It's in the "Live Account" settings at the top right. Fine. Finally find the 'close my account' form. I enter the password and click close. I'm then informed that I can't close the account because I have an email address (the one I was trying to close) that's associated with the account, and I'm prompted to close that email address. I try that option, and I'm THEN told that I can't close THAT account because I have billing associated with it. Again I'm given a friendly link to close the billing associated with the account. When I get to that, I'm told that there is no billing associated with my account.

Seriously, this is starting to look like a Kafka novel at this point. Why on earth would they build an infrastructure this confusing and byzantine? I guess because Microsoft is such a large and multi-divisional company whose divisions just don't talk to each other all that much, but like the linking they get from having someone's account associated with their division.

Or something.

Anyway, I click one of the help links actually expecting to find some help. Instead I'm pointed to a forum where I can search for questions. This is how I expect to get answers to a problem with installing Linux, not from a multi-billion dollar company.

So I find a topic that's similar to mine, and it's RIDDLED with similar complaints: people's hotmail accounts were hacked, want to close the account, are running in circles with no way to close the account. The MS support reps seem fairly helpful, but basically just point people to the MS billing support site, asking that people contact them directly. Wait a second, you're Microsoft. I don't care what department handles it, if you work there. You find out the information and help me.

I know all of this complaining is about basically a free service. But it's a service I (used to) trust with my contact information and that trust was breached by a security violation. And when I try to leave the arrangement, I'm lead through a maze that gets me back to where I started.

If this were any other company, I'd write a letter to the CEO about it, and probably get some action or something. But since this is Microsoft, I couldn't do that without fearing that I'd get a chair thrown in my face by crazy ol' Ballmer.

Microsoft.

Fail.

/endrant

Idea for Streaming to iPod

2009-12-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if the lala acquisition would help with this, or if this is something Apple is even interested in doing, but I had a really great idea a few days ago that Apple could incorporate into iPods:

Stream your whole library to your iPhone/iPod touch.

My music library is currently sitting at 30GB. Even if I got the 32GB touch or Iphone, I'd want to save some space for application data, pictures, videos, etc. So why not sync, say, 10% of my newest or most highly played or rated songs to the device, and make the rest of my library available, stramed right from my Computer to the device?

For it to work, it would have to be seamless. So if I'm online, it will let me browse my entire library. If I listen to a song, sync it locally. If I'm online, only show me the songs that are synced locally.

Even though this would be great, I have a feeling the record companies might shit themselves for some reason if this was done. Best case scenario, Apple would only make your 'purchased' songs available for streaming. Because obviously anything in iTunes that I didn't buy from ITMS must have been pirated, right Apple?

Sticking to a System (or Not)

2009-07-30T18:52:00.001-07:00

I'm a big fan of Getting Things Done. It lays out a pretty good system for dealing with tasks that need to be done. I find it helps to know the workflow and follow it by habit so that I can quickly burn through my to-do list and not get too stressed about new tasks or requests coming in. It's a pretty good system and it works for me.

BUT.

There's always exceptions.

Today I set out to do a fairly small task on my list. Probably a 10-15 minute task all-in-all, involving setting up a small informational page on our company intranet. As I got into it, I realized that the page would be way better if it was part of a broader site containing related information, with the page I was setting up one of several sub-pages. It's the kind of organizational thing I really like setting up, and something I honestly thought would make a big difference where I work.

So I just did it.

Or most of it anyway. The point is, I completely waivered from what I was doing and spent about an hour and a half on this new task. The idea and the creativity hit me and I acted on it. If I had strictly followed the GTD system, I would have had to stop and add it to my to-do list, made an outline of what I wanted to do, and then get to work on it. If I'd done that, I would have completely lost that creative drive I was on. I would have had the task or outline sitting there the next day, not be as excited about it anymore, and probably not have done it.

I'm not saying there's not a time and place for that kind of planning and brainstorming, and I'm not even saying that GTD gives you a strict set of rules to follow. My point is that I had a system that worked, but I knew when I neeed to break from it, and came up with some great output as a result.

I've seen quite a few project managers who have their PMP certifications who follow every project exactly according to the methodologies laid out by the Project Management Institute, only to have their projects languish or fail. They spent so much time making sure their project was being done to 'code' that they weren't able to adapt to the project's unique situation or stakeholders. The PMI, like GTD, has some great methodologies, but I think it's important to understand when they need to be used and when they can be forgotten if a proejct is going to have any real success.

In a broader sense, I think this can be a problem with other 'systems'. From ones as small as diets to more important ones like religion, ideology, and even laws. You can follow a diet, but you'll drive yourself crazy if you never have a chocolate bar ever again. There are those who choose to interpret everything in the Bible literally (snake handling, subjugation of women), and those who just follow the important stuff (love, compassion, forgiveness.) Who are the people you'd rather hang out with?

Twitter Follower Breakdown

2009-07-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

So I just realized my Twitter account has 96 followers. I've never really cared that much about getting a bunch of followers. Mostly I just use Twitter to rant about stuff, spread propaganda about my own beliefs, or follow people of interest.

But 96 seemed like a lot of people. I started wondering who all these people were. I knew I had some friends that I exchanged tweets with, and I know I get 'X is now following you' emails every now and then but I rarely follow back or pay much attention. So I did what any good nerd would do. I exported my followers to a spreadsheet, categorized them and made a chart:

Here's how I broke it down:

Bacon - 27%
The biggest category by far. By 'bacon' I mean stuff that's not technically spam, but that is some company or website that I don't care about in the least who is following me to build their follower list or profile, hope that I'll follow back, and generally market their business. All the best to them, but I almost never follow these people back.

No idea - 23%
People who seem like good people who have decided to follow me for whatever reason. I have no idea what lead them to me, have no connection to them whatsoever, and I rarely follow back. I know that's not good Twitter etiquette, but so be it. I try to keep my following list down to a manageable level of interesting people, so there's just not room for these people.

Friend - 14%
A person I actually know in real life who updates regularly and that I frequently exchange with. I wish this was the largest category, but I fear it never will be.

Friend who never updates - 14%
A friend who signed up, scanned their address books for contacts, followed me, posted once, and never updated again.

Spam - 9%
This is surprisingly smaller than I thought it would be. I really assumed that 99% of the follows I was getting was spam. But even 9% is too high I think. Especially annoying is a lot of these followers have been around for a while and haven't been banned yet. If there was a 'report abuse' button I'd use it, and these jerks might go away.

Company/celebrity I follow - 7%
Self explanatory. I follow a few 'celebrities' (mostly noted tech writers) and some of them are cool enough to follow me back. Also in this list are companies that I want updates on (like @Tweetdeck, @Boxee) that decide to follow me back. Good job to everyone on this list. You know who your fans are, and you engage with them. Seth would be proud.

Common Interest - 4%
Most of these are people I found during searches for updates on the Toronto Outside Workers Strike whose comments I liked.

Foreign Language - 3%
One tweets Spanish, the other German. I assume they speak English, but I speak neither. I have no idea why they follow me.

This data is basically anecdotal, but it's not going to stop me from making wild conclusions based on it. So what are they?

Most of your followers are people you don't care about, are trying to sell you something, or are people who don't even really use Twitter.
Don't stress out that much about how many followers you have, because it's basically meaningless. Tweet what you feel like, follow interesting people, and have fun.

FYI. I used tweetake to get my list of followers as a *.csv file. It asks for your Twitter password, so use at your own risk, but it looked legit enough to me.

Mac vs. PC on Price:" My Take

2009-05-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, is there any debate on the Internet that is more covered than Mac vs. PC? Probably not. Maybe Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Or Superman vs. Hulk. (Superman FTW, but more on that later.) Anyway, I'm not really a fanboy of either Mac or PC, but I do choose to use a PC, and I think I have a pretty good reason why:

Value.

Yes, value. Not just price, but actual value, to me. PC's are less expensive, and yet they do everything I need them to do.

Now, I know that if I owned a Mac, it would be a better experience. Nice hardware to look at. Software that is nice to look at, intuitive, and easy-to-use. No bloatware installed when you buy it. But you pay for that nicer experience. To me, the frills just aren't worth it.

It's like with luxury cars. I drive a Honda Fit. Cheap car, no frills like air conditioning or built-in GPS, or cruise control. But for the amount of driving that I do, it's great. And the seats fold down. I know that if I bought a Lexus, the drive would be nicer, I'd be more comfortable in the car, and it would probably be a lot nicer to look at. But the extra price I'd have to pay for those frills just isn't worth it to me. I'm happy enough with the fit. So my Fit is a better value.

Same with PC's. PC's are like a Fit (or Yaris, et al.) Mac's are like a Lexus. I'm just not willing to pay that extra bit of money for the nicer experience. The benefit that I'm getting isn't worth the extra money. To me anyway. Maybe to some people it is, and god bless 'em. If I had more disposable income, I'd probably treat myself and get a Mac. But for now, a PC does the trick.

And I'd just like to call bollocks on the "total-cost-of-ownership" argument. The argument goes that owning a PC carries a 'higher cost of ownership" than a Mac because you have to buy virus protection, and it doesn't come with free software like iPhoto, iMovie, etc. And you might have to pay to have someone 'clean it up' for you. First of all, virus protection is free from AVG, as is most of the software you'll want. Picasa for photos is free. OpenOffice, iTunes, lots of others, free software for almost anything you'd need out there.

So maybe computers intimidate you a bit, and you want to pay the extra price for a Mac so everything 'just works'. Or maybe you like the nicer interface and hardware of a Mac and you want to pay for that. But for me, the extra price is not worth the benefit I'd get.

2009-05-01T21:31:00.001-07:00

MacRumors' Buying Guide Helps You Time Your Next Apple Purchase [Apple]: If you're wondering when the best time .. http://bit.ly/rdZ3B

Semi-Automatic Tunes

2009-04-09T09:44:00.001-07:00

So this is how awesome technology (especially web 'cloud' services) are these days.
I now use drop.io as a place for friends to upload music to. I get an e-mail when new files are added. If I'm at work, I save files I'm interested in to my DropBox folder, which automatically syncs to my DropBox folder at home. Are you following me camera guy?
At home, I have Belvedere set up to automatically monitor mp3 files in my dropbox folder and add them to iTunes.

In iTunes, I have a 'smart playlist' of 'recently added' tracks, which those files get added to. When I plug my iPod in, it syncs that playlist automatically.

So when I'm out and about and want to hear new music, I check out my 'recently played' list and listen to new stuff.

That's wizard-level shit right there. Thanks to: http://drop.io
http://ping.fm/SgbWw
http://ping.fm/nzYjg

Using Ad Block Plus to Go Straight to a Game

2008-07-03T11:55:00.001-07:00

If you're a fan of Flash games, but hate seeing all the clutter around them, here's a good way to cut straight to the chase using AdBlock.

First, go to the page where the game is. Look at all that junk!

Next, open up the AdBlock interface and look for the link ending in "SWF" that looks like it's the game.

Open that up, and copy and paste the link into your address bar, and voila:

The great thing is that the game will now take up the entire browser screen, and you'll avoid all that crap surrounding it.

A Modest Telemarketing Proposal

2008-02-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

So the phone rings while I'm doing dishes around 6 o'clock, while I'm trying to finish dishes before my wife gets home so she can start supper (man I'm a great husband.) So I remove the gloves (make fun of me if you want) and check the call display. It's an 800 number. You know where this is headed. It's gonna be a telemarketer. I have a compulsive need to answer anyway, because if I don't and they don't leave a message, I start to get worried I missed something important.

They ask if I'm Thomas Robertson, I say yes, and they say that they're contacting citi Mastercard holders about an exciting offer for medical leave credit insurance or something. I didn't let them finish - I knew I wouldn't be interested, told them and said to remove my name from their callers list. (Hey, I figure it's worth a shot.)

The thing that really gets me though, is that they were obviously referred by my credit card company. And it wasn't even the credit card company that called me - just one of their 'partners'. So basically, they're selling my information to these people directly, or taking a cut of the sales. This really infuriates me.

Why is it that when I go to a free website where I'm asked to give my email address, 90% of the time it will say "we will never sell your email address or information or share it with any third parties" but other services that I sign up to be a paid customer with feel it's okay to share my information? And the ones that do, at least they offer a link explaining it. Most places you sign up with over the phone don't even give you that opportunity.

So this is what I'm doing and I'm proposing. First, I'm calling citi and telling them to remove my name from all of their marketing materials and to inform their 'partners' to do likewise. And I'll tell them that if I receive a marketing call from them ever, I'll cancel my account with them. Simple bargain.

Part of me wants to take this one step further. I'm pretty sure that ANY company I give my information to over the phone or by form, I'm going to tell them the same bargain.
If I get a telemarketing call from them or one of their 'partners' I'm canceling my service with them. If we put as much pressure on 'offline' businesses as we do on online ones, maybe they'll stop this invasive and annoying practice of selling my information.

Rogers Doesn't "Support Linux"

2008-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

So I'm having trouble with Internet connection last night. Basically, pages are sporadically not loading up. I recently installed a wireless router, so I thought I'd plug the computer directly back into the modem. Reset the modem - still no Internet. So, I thought I'd boot into my Ubuntu partition to see if it's an OS issue. Same issue in Ubuntu. Okay, so it must be something to do with the modem. I reset it once more to no avail before I try Rogers Technical Support.

After the ridiculously slow voice-activated menu system "Okay, Technical Support for hi-speed Internet. Did you mean Blackberry, Wireless, Hi-Speed..." (I kid you not) I get through to someone.

"Hi, I'm having a problem with my Internet connection. My computer won't receive a network address from the modem."

"Ohay sir (for some reason he said 'okay' like this*) can I ask what version of Windows you have?"

"Oh, I'm in Ubuntu Linux."

"Ohay sir, we actually don't support that Operating System."

"Um, okay. I could start into my XP partition then." (I didn't want to get into a fight about it.)

"Ohay, could I ask that you do that then?"

So I started the long process of rebooting into Windows. During the 5-minute process (I have a lot of crap that loads automatically. I want it all to load, but it takes a long time) I get asked about 10 times "Ohay, have you rebooted yet?" to which I responded "Still waiting. I'll let you know when it's booted up."

So finally, I tell him I'm booted up, and it's still not receiving an IP address from the modem.

"Ohay sir, I'm pinging your modem and the communication is fine to it. Can you try unplugging your modem for 10 seconds, then plugging it back in."

So I did this, and this time, for some reason it works. It may have been that I didn't leave it off for enough time last time.

So my question is, why could this problem not be resolved in Linux? Unplugging the modem and plugging it back in? Could he not at least have tried that option while in Linux? Pity Joe Consumer who bought a cheap Linux box from Walmart, or Ubuntu pre-installed from Dell, only to find out that Rogers won't even try to help him with his Internet connection.

So finally, I ask him what he thinks the problem might have been.

"Do you have a firewall?"

"No, I have Windows Firewall turned off."

"Ohay, well I think you might have a firewall."

"No, there's only one, and it's turned off. And I had the same problem in two OS's, which leads me to think it's not an OS issue."

"I think you might have a virus."

"But it was the same problem in Linux. How could I have the same virus in Windows and Linux? You know how almost impossible it is to even get a virus in Linux?"

"You never know these days, sir."

I really didn't feel like fighting him. He has his job to do, whatever.

But Rogers: you suck. As soon as I can find a reasonably priced alternative ISP, I'm gone. It's just a matter of time.

*About the 'ohay' in case anyone's wondering. He was a native English speaker - I'm not trying to make fun of another culture or anything. I just believe that this 'ohay' was his own annoying little 'thing'.

What Happens When a Business Analyst Day Dreams

2007-12-06T05:58:00.001-08:00

I had to put together yet another flowchart yesterday, but discovered some new shapes in Visio and took 5 minutes to map out what my inner-10-year-old wanted to.

(Click the Image for a Larger Version.)

Proposed new Copyright Reform

2007-11-28T09:29:00.001-08:00

There's apparently a potentially dangerous (for consumers) new copyright reform bill about to be pushed through the Federal government by the Conservatives, with little or no opposition. This is a bill that's a virtual clone of the anti-consumer DMCA bill in the states, and one that is basically authored by big US Media Interests. Below is a copy of the letter I sent to my Member of Pariliament about it. I'd encourage anyone to read the links and if they agree, to also talk to their MP.

Dear Madam,

I'm very concerned about reports I've been hearing about Parliament proposing a new copyright bill that will limit consumer freedoms and fair-use rights. From what I hear, the new bill will be a virtual clone of the US DMCA act. This act includes forbidding the use of copy-protection circumvention policy, something which I feel is antithetical to consumers' right to fair use of media. By placing copy controls on media, companies prevent consumers from enacting their fair-use rights, and can enable 'device lock-in.'

For instance, while it is perfectly legal to buy a song from the iTunes music store and transcode the file to play it on a non-Apple MP3 player, one would have to circumvent the copy controls to do so. Under this proposed legislation, doing so would be illegal. This would mean that consumers could potentially have to buy one copy of a song for every device that they own. While companies are not necessarily obligated to make it easy for consumers to copy media for their legal, fair use, I feel that it is wrong to punish consumers for circumventing those protections to make legal copies of copyrighted works for their personal use.

Big media will argue that these laws are necessary to protect and nurture content to be created. Copyright creates incentive for artists and businesses to create media, because there is a potential for financial reward. While this is true to a certain extent, it's also true that the more controls and restrictions are placed on media, the more frustrated consumers will become with purchasing media. This limits the market growth, and in the long term, revenue for the media companies.

Please do not side with the US Big Media lobbies on this one. Fight it. Debate it. It's not a black and white issue, as the media companies would have you believe. It's about consumer rights, and the importance of a flourishing artistic and cultural atmosphere.

Links for more information:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071127.WBcyberia20071127170629/WBStory/WBcyberia/
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2419/125/

thank you,

Tom Robertson

Getting rid of Bacn in Gmail

2007-10-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

When I first signed up for Gmail, I totally drank the Kool-Aid and took Google's advice: don't delete anything. I had 1 GB of room, so why would I ever need to? Recently that's gone up to about 3GB, and my usage went to 511 MB, or 17%. That's after a little over three years of activity. So at my current level of growth:

17% / 3 years = 6% a year

It would still take me another 17 years or so to fill it up if my math is correct.

But part of me still thought I'd better start tackling the problem now. But what to delete? The thing I love about having all my email archived is looking back at cute conversations I had with my wife when we were still dating, funny threads with my friends, and reference items (more about that later). It's a nice little 'life record' that I think will be really neat to look back on twenty or thirty years from now (if the Internet still exists and doesn't somehow exist in our brains or something.)

So what do I go after? Looking through my mail recently, a lot of what I get is what's now known as "bacn". Bacn is not quite spam, but not quite real email either. It's notifications from Facebook, newsletters from companies, weekly flyers I've signed up to, etc. I even extend it to announcements of plays and other events that friends are putting on that are elapsed. I'm really never gonna wanna see this stuff when I'm old. It's like hoarding junk mail.

So I came up with a pretty good method of deleting. Basically, I started going through my box, one by one. As soon as I came across some bacn, I just did a search for the sender's email address (in Facebook's case, just "facebookmail.com") then did a 'select all' in gmail, and hit delete. Then, back to the inbox for more.

It took me about half an hour to do this, going back about three months of emails hunting for bacn. And in that time I deleted 1125 'bacn' emails. Holy shit! I emptied the trash to see how it would affect my space usage, and it had dropped from 511 to 472. That's 30MB cleared in 30 minutes! Nice.

Aside from the space saved, the other good thing about keeping your mailbox free of bacn is it actually makes it so much easier to look at the nostalgic old emails from friends or reference items I want to retrieve later.

Damn you Excel!

2007-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

And your icon pop-uppery!

Why we need to move to Linux

2007-09-29T15:34:00.001-07:00

I've been a Windows user for a long time now; probably almost 20 years. The reason isn't because of loyalty. I mainly use it for the same reason everyone else does: it comes with the computer, and I get stuck with it because pretty much every piece of software I need runs on Windows. But I know it's not the nicest system to use. Mac OSX gets a lot of things right in terms of usability. And it's pretty. You get the sense that they really think about the end-user and want to make a good experience for them.

But ultimately, OSX has to fail the end-user for the same reason Windows does: corporate interests. Apple doesn't want to make it easy for you to, say, copy music from your iPod to your computer. Microsoft doesn't want to include bit torrent functionality out of the box. Why? Because they don't want to piss off content companies that they're making deals on the side with.

Ubuntu Linux offers you both of those functionalities right of the box. Why? Because those are popular use-cases for the user. People want to do those thigns. Seriously, how many people have you heard complaining about not being able to copy music off their iPod easily? Most people are surprised this isn't something that's available by default.

Now, we can get into the ethics of piracy, but at the end of the day, I don't think that software companies should be dictating what you should and shouldn't be doing, especially when the only reason they're doing so is because content companies don't like it. And remember, it's not illegal to copy music from my iPod onto another computer I have. That's fair use. And Bit Torrent doesn't necessarily need to be used for piracy. It's like selling a VCR that won't record because it might be used for piracy.

Sure, Ubuntu doesn't offer MP3 playback out of the box - a hugely popular use case for users. But that's a trade-off. It means they can distribute it for free without being sued. And at the end of the day, moving to open source codecs is really better for the consumer: it makes things cheaper!

The world of open-source software I think is always one that is going to do things in the best interest of the user. Even if the total package isn't there yet, give it time. It will be.

Automatic Online Backups... made easy

2007-07-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

So we all know we should backup our files, right? Especially these days when all our music and pictures are stored on our box, it's really more important for the personal user than ever.

Now, you could get a removable hard drive, and set up an automatic backup there. Fine. But what if you get robbed, and the robber takes that nice shiny drive sitting next to your computer? Even if it's hidden, what if your house burns down?

For me, it's pretty obvious you've got to go online with your backups. Not only are you protected if your house burns down, your data is backed up on servers by trained professionals. So a lot of things really have to get fucked up for you to lose your data.

Sure, there's the security concern. Fine. Some guy could look at your files. For me, I don't care. I don't have naked pictures of myself on my machine and I don't really have anything that's embarrassing or even sensitive info like my credit card number in my backup files. Sure, I guess I'm exposing myself to some amount of risk, but I generally trust these data center guys.

So... now that you're sold on online backups, what to do?

1. Sign up for Amazon S3

This is a data storage solution from Amazon. I won't get into specific numbers, but it's cheap. You can keep gigabytes there for pennies a month. The cost is so low that it would take about ten years of having the service before you'd have payed for an external hard drive, and we all know one hard drive probably won't even last that long. And there are open API's, which mean that applications can access your data (provided you log in with your password and key. Amazon's such a big company that I definitely trust my data with them. But now that we have it, how do we do backups? Well..

2. Get JungleDisk

JungleDisk is free, as in beer, and it sets up Amazon as a drive on your machine. So now you have a letter drive that's your Amazon S3 account that you can write data to. Sweet. There's some rudimentary backup stuff in JungleDisk, but it's only a 'full backup', which means every time it runs the backup, everything you specify is uploaded to Amazon again. Since you do pay (small) data transfer fees to Amazon, this isn't great. So...

3. Get Cobian Backup

A backup application that's free, as in speech and beer. It's a super easy application to set up a task to do nightly, weekly, whatever, backups. And you can do incremental backups. This is pretty key. It means it's only backing up what's been changed. So you save those Amazon S3 data transfer fees. Sweet.

Now all you gotta do is sit back and relax as you try that Vista install, knowing your data's always going to be out there in the ether somewhere...

Low Rent Google Calendar/Outlook Sync

2007-03-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

If you don’t feel like installing Microsoft.net framework or shelling out money for an Outlook/Google Calendar syncing app, try the low rent method.

1. Create a new Gmail account, and a Calendar account with that address
2. Share that new calendar with your current Gmail address
3. When you’re setting up any meeting in Outlook, just cc the new Gmail address
4. The appointment will automatically show up as tentative in the new calendar.
5. If you’re making an appointment in GCal, just do the same, in reverse: include your Outlook email address. The appointment will automatically show up as tentative in your Outlook calendar until you accept.
6. If you’re accepting a meeting, just forward that request to the appropriate email account for automatic tentative adding.

Sure, this isn’t as elegant as an automatic sync, and it doesn’t handle moving of appointments very well, but it’s a great low rent solution that would probably also work for iCal, Thunderbird, etc.

iPhone Rant (Or Rave)

2007-01-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

Another entry on the iPhone. The New York Times alone has had about ten stories about iPhone, which is pretty unprecedented for a gadget that was announced only 3 days ago and isn't even out yet. Now, I'm pretty sure everything's been said that there is to say about the device, so normally I wouldn't bother posting about, but this Toronto Star article caught my ire.

Basically, the article is saying that in Japan, the iPhone isn't such a big deal, because they already have phones there that can play music and surf the Internet. Well, guess what? So do we! I'll concede that Japan's phones are usually more advanced than those in North America, but I'm pretty sure they haven't got anything like the iPhone there.

See, the iPhone isn't about all the features it has it in. There are any number of phones out there that I could go out and buy right now that have music playing, email, Internet surfing, etc. But the whole point of the iPhone is it doesn't get bogged down by those features it packs in. It makes everything really easy to use. Every phone I've ever had has had a pretty disastrous and irritating UI. The whole point of the iPhone is that it's easy and pleasant to use.

And for those saying it will only sell because it looks nice, they're wrong. The RAZR looked great, and did get a lot of sales because of it. But ask someone who owns one how they like their phone, and they'll say they're really bothered by it. Ask anyone who has an iPod what it's like to use, and they'll say it's great. I think a lot of those burned RAZR users and devoted iPod users will be lining up for, finally, a nice experience using a phone.

Logitech Harmony Remote

2006-12-27T06:54:00.000-08:00

I got an awesome Christmas present from my wife this year - the Logitech Harmony remote (520). Finally, one remote to control all my devices, even my obscure (but great sounding) Teac AV receiver.

The great thing about the remote is the LCD screen. Unlike a lot of other remotes, which lack the buttons to be able to control every part of your device, the LCD screen on the Harmony creates soft buttons for any buttons not included on the main part of the remote. Finally, I can be sure to control every part of of my device with just one remote - no more fishing out the original remote when I need to change video inputs or menu selections.

Anyway, a few things that are (for now) missing that I'd really like: iPod support (for use with the IR port on the Universal Dock) and macros. It already comes with basic macros, called 'Activities', for "Watch TV" or "Watch DVD" which will turn on all appropriate devices and put them to the right inputs, which is a nice feature. But I'd love to add a macro to erase a show from my PVR (which takes five button presses right now).

Anyway, I created a Google Group for Harmony owners to discuss these issues and share any tips and tricks. If you got one for Christmas, stop on by and geek out with me.

Sick of your Music? How to mine iTunes for Gold

2006-11-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

I have about 4000 songs on my iTunes library, but sometimes it seems like I'm just listening to the same stuff over and over again and I get sick of it. I get lazy. I go for what I like best. And I'm really bad at discovering new music. Luckily, I figured out a way to take the music I already had and get more out of it.

We all have songs in our library that we've never heard, don't we? Okay, sometimes that's for good reason, but a lot of the time I just get lazy and keep skipping through shuffle 'til I find something I know I like.

Now, my all-time favourite feature of iTunes, and what ultimately led me to use it as my primary player (and also buy an iPod) is the "Smart Playlist" feature. It lets you create a playlist that's more like a search query. So you can make one that only shows your songs with three or more stars ("My Favourite Songs"). Or one that shows you all the new songs you've added in the past three weeks. Or all songs that aren't hip-hop (you know, for when the parents are over).

So recently I decided to make a Smart Playlist of songs in my library with a play count of zero - "Never Heard." Every time I listen to one of the songs, it comes off my list. I really have to pat myself on the back for this one - I'm finding it great! It's like I just added 10 or 20 CDs to my music collection. And this playlist is automatically synced to my iPod, so whether I listen to it at work or on the iPod, the list stays up-to-date.

Oh, and one last great Smart Playlist. As I go through the songs, I'm finding some that I like and giving them three or four stars. The playlist I made only lists my favourites that I've listened to within the past two weeks. It's called "Latest Mix-Tape." This is just how I used to make mix-tapes back in the day. Listen to a bunch of new music for a few weeks, then make a tape of my favourites. Now it's automatic.

Starscream Halloween Costume

2006-11-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

A day too late, but I wanted to call attention to my friend's brother's awesome Halloween costume: everyone's favourite Decepticon: Starscream!

Apparently he built this whole thing out of sheet metal.

It actually transforms too. Well, the nose cone comes up and he lays on the ground.

IM Screen Names

2006-10-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

Please, please, please just make your IM (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Gtalk) name the same as your own name, okay?

I can't stand looking at my MSN list and seeing a myriad of quotes or 'funny' sayings. When I go to my IM window, I want to see which of my friends are online and find which one I want to talk to. It's such a pain in the ass to double click or hover over a name just to see who it is.

Many clients now feature a comments section, where you can put all your funny quotes and phrases. Please do that and keep your screen name to something that identifies who you are. It would really make me a lot less irritated.

Pop-Ups - Not the Spyware Kind

2006-10-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, there's some Windows XP behavior that's really starting to bother me.

If I open a program, like Firefox or Excel, and my machine is taking its sweet time to open it, I'll switch over to Outlook or something else to do something while it opens (I'm ADD like that.) Then I'll get into another task, and figuring even if that program opens, I'll still finish the task I'm on until it's complete.

So why does Windows interrupt me by switching the new Window into focus right over what I'm doing? Same thing with dialogue boxes. I plug my iPod in, then switch to some data entry, where my fingers are flying fast. In the middle of keying an order, a dialogue comes up just as I'm hitting the space bar, and boom, I've said okay to something. Would it kill it to keep that dialogue box out of focus and alert me that it's there by flashing its tile in the task bar?

Now I'm sitting here with a frozen iTunes not knowing what the hell I've done.

Gadget Cases

2006-10-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Remember furniture coverings? Those plastic things that people put over their furniture to protect them from stains and damage, but made them uncomfortable ugly to look at? Notice how they're not around anymore?

This is my theory about these protective cases. We put them around things that are valuable to us, and are new. I think those furniture coverings were popular in the 50's and 60's when a lot of people were new to the middle class and the idea of expensive new furniture was a bit of a novelty. So they protected them. Now that people are more used to them, they don't cover them up as much, because they're not as freaked out about a few scratches or stains.

I think it's the same with gadget cases. I used to hate looking at those stupid leather cell phone cases that seemed to be endemic among middle-aged men. Why make the phone thicker and harder to fit in your pocket? Why make the keys harder to press by putting a piece of plastic over them? I think people put these cases on their cell phones because they were new to them, and valuable. Now that cell phones are so ubiquitous, you almost never see the cases anymore. People are used to them.

Now what's getting wrapped up in ugly? iPods. Same thing. Fairly new product, pretty expensive, so people throw a case on them to protect them. Okay, protecting the screen is one thing - and there are guards which just protect that. But why take such a nicely designed product that fits so well in your pocket and cover it up with ugly leather or plastic and make it hard to fit in your pocket? Really, will surface scratches make the thing any less useful to you? And how can you enjoy that scratch-free product when it's all covered up?

I've honestly never seen someone on the subway with out a case for their nano. I think people see that it's so small, it needs to be protected. It doesn't. Because the nano doesn't do video, screen scratches aren't that big a deal - they all but disappear when the screen is illuminated. I borrow my wife's nano a lot, and I never use a case for it.

Anyway, stay tuned for my next rant - clip on belt cases.

And persistent bluetooth headset wearers. (Unless you're driving, keep it in your pocket until you get a call okay?)

Slow Response Time on Cell Phones

2006-09-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

This one's short but sweet. Adapted from a comment I left on David Pogue's blog:

When I press a button on my Sony Ericcson, it takes almost a second to pull up the menu. It’s like working a phone underwater. I wish the UI designers would take a second to try to figure out how to optimize their phone’s response time to the hardware they’re going to use it on. It’s not hard people - Apple seems to know how.

The best UI I’ve ever seen on a phone is Nokia. Simple, direct and fast. My next phone is definitely a nokia.

Why the Hell Buy Windows?

2006-09-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

So I downloaded iTunes 7 today and thought I'd play around with the new album artwork browser. But, apparently I need DirectX 9 to do this.

So, I hop on over to Microsoft to download DirectX 9, and realize my copy of Windows has to be validated before I can download it. Ah... okay Microsoft, go ahead, umm (sweat coming from brow) just validate it and gimme the download already. It's legit, I swear.

Obviously I have a pirated version of Windows. I've never paid for Windows, and I don't know anyone who has. So I don't pass the test, and I don't get the download.

But... Microsoft offers me to upgrade my Windows to a genuine version for a small price. Even though I hate the thought of paying for Windows, they've made it so annoying for me (no SP2, no IE7) that I figured I'd at least see how much it was.

It was $199!

Okay Microsoft, I don't understand why you charge so much for Windows. At least it's lower than the $249 (CAD) you're charging at Future Shop. But who honestly buys that? Is it making you any money at all?

First of all, if I really want to buy Windows, I'll go to Chinatown and get a perfectly legal OEM copy for $100.

Third, my computer's pretty old, and I was meaning to build a new one. One of the biggest costs is Windows. But I can buy a pretty decent machine from Tigerdirect for $400, and that includes a 'genuine' Windows pre-installed. Again, why would I pay for Windows when I can get a whole new machine for only twice the cost of a purchased copy of Windows?

I know I can't abandon windows just yet. But everything about it is inching my closer and closer to Linux on my next box. The only thing holding me back is losing iTunes and my iPod.

I want to start a new club. It's called "I WILL NEVER PAY FOR WINDOWS CLUB". If you join, you promise to never pay for Windows. Sure, you're technically paying for Windows when you buy a machine with it pre-installed. But the discount there is so cheap that you might as well not be paying for it if you know what you're doing. So everyone, join the club!

Mozilla Store too Expensive for Canadians

2006-06-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

So, partially to bug my fiancée, and partially to look like a big nerd, I decided to order a Firefox tee-shirt. The Mozilla Store is based on the States, and I live in Canada, so I didn't think shipping would be a big problem. I've ordered off of Amazon.com before, as well as through people on eBay, and the shipping costs have never been too bad.

So about three weeks after I made the order, I get an e-mail from Gateway CDI, the company that handles orders from the Mozilla Store, asking me to confirm the shipping charges for the order. They were as follows:

Net Amount of Your Order: $17.00
Shipping Charges: $26.94
Total Amount Due: $43.94

So the shipping charges amounted to about 150% of the original price of the product. And this was all in US dollars.

I have to say, they were really nice about it. I'm really glad they didn't charge my VISA before asking, and they were nice enough to cancel the order for me instead of proceeding with the charges. But it really irritates me. Can it really cost that much to ship a tee-shirt?

Now what do I do to bug my fiancée?

Napoleon Vs. The Turk

2006-05-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

I know this is a blog about technology (and rants thereof) but I thought I'd use it to shamelessly plug a play that I wrote, Napoleon Vs. The Turk.

The Turk was a chess playing 'automaton' from around the late 18th - 19th century. Except that it didn't play chess on its own - it was an elaborate hoax that hid a man inside the box who actually controlled the game. Oh, and it played a game against (and beat) Napoleon. Yup, that Napoleon.

The play is based on that match, with a lot of other stuff made up around it. It's been a dream of mine to write and produce this play since about 1999, and it's finally happening at this summer's Toronto Fringe , July 6-16th. We have an excellent director, Luke Davies, and a really top-notch cast, original music, and custom-designed costumes. It's going to be great.

Check out our website, www.theturk.ca, and make a donation to help a great project get off of the ground!

Well, I was wrong

2006-04-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Goddammit Google, where's my CL2??? April 1st is here, and all we get is a special 'birthday' logo on the Gmail page? Not even a new feature?

Goddammit, I needs my CL2!

Some great ideas for CL2:

Contextual advertising based on the day you're looking at.

Say you're looking at April 14th, and CL2 knows you live in Toronto. It could tell you about a concert or even happening that day.

That's it.

I just want some CL2 already.

Google Calendar: Launch Prediction

2006-03-10T06:10:00.000-08:00

A good segment of Google fanboys (like me) are hotly anticipating Google' new Calendar, CL2. Apparently, it's in limited release right now, to a small group of 200 'trusted testers'.

When will it come out? Here's my prediction: April 1st, 2006.

Think about it. Gmail was launched April 1, 2004. Remember how revolutionary it was? One Gig of space. Fast, spiffy AJAX design. It really took the tech world by storm. Fast search. People (including myself) were buying invites on eBay, and there were reviews everywhere. Some politician in California heard about the contextual advertising, and wanted to pass a law to ban it.

Then, the next April 1st, 2005? Well, tons of new features, and another shot across the bow: two gigs of space. And the number of space keeps growing (and still does on the homepage.) Now it's almost close to three gigs of space.

The next revolution? A spiffy AJAX calendar that's smart and tied into your Gmail. Sure, 30 Boxes, with its AJAX design and smart interface (even a Gmail skin!) has stolen a bit of Google's thunder, but I still think CL2 has a few tricks up its sleeve. The biggest I think will be the ability to scan your email for calendar dates and have a button to add that to your calendar. Or even clicking on a day of the month, and seeing all email in your inbox that references that day. That's a function that I suggested to them about a year ago, and which I don't think anyone's doing right now. It would really add seamless integration between calendar and e-mail.

So anyway, I think as (recent) history shows, they'll most likely wait until April 1 to make that announcement. If they don't, they'll no doubt have something up their sleeves for Gmail's second birthday.

Using tags effectively in del.icio.us

2006-02-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

Anyone who isn't already using del.icio.us should be. With all the different computers most of us use and the flood of information we deal with, it's so essential to remember to keep all the useful links you find somewhere easy to get to.

Del.icio.us has a search feature, which is a great way to find something when you know exactly what you're looking for. But when you don't know exactly what you want to find, tags are a great way to browse through your (or someone else's) links.

But have you ever tried to browse through 500 tags? It's pretty inefficient. Del.icio.us does try to help with tag bundles and increasing font sizes of more active tags, but the best way to keep things organized is to tag properly and not to overdo it.

To that end I've put together some guidelines on how to tag effectively.

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Generalize as much as possible
If you're tagging a recipe for lasagne, just tag it 'recipes' or 'food.' There's no point in tagging it 'lasagne' unless your master's thesis is on lasagne and you're tagging a lot of lasagne stuff all the time.

Popular tags can be your friend or your enemy
Not sure how to tag something? Del shows you popular tags that others have applied to that link. Sometimes it's useful if you're stuck, but you don't always have to follow them. Crowds may be wise, but they're made up of individuals making individual decisions. Your tags are first and foremost for you, not for anyone else. To that end...

Pick one word and stick to it
Should the Hipster PDA be tagged "lifehack"? How about "productivity"? How about "organization"? All three probably apply. But if I use "lifehack" to describe the PDA, and "organization" to describe the pocket mod, then these things will be in different places when I'm browsing my tags, even though they should probably be grouped together. Tag bundles are great for this, but it takes time to organize them later.

Don't tag to be cool
I understand there's some ego involved in being the first to tag, and showing that you're cooler than someone because you tagged it first, but come on. If you read an interesting article, but you don't need it anymore, why are you tagging it?

-------------------------------

Now, I should note that these guidelines are mainly for people who want to use del.icio.us the way I do: as a kind of toolbox. I put useful things in there and want to find them quickly. If that's how you use it, these guidelines will be helpful to you. If you use it for some other purpose, that's great, I'd love to know about it, but these guidelines probably aren't for you.

Escapa!

2006-02-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

Escapa!

This is the most simple game I've ever played, but also more fun than any of the latest generation video games I've played too. Okay, maybe it's not as fun and immersive as GTA, but it still goes to show, you can have a fun game without photo-realitstic graphics.

Bayesian Priority Filtering?

2006-02-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

Outlook 2003 has a great feature where you can give a message a red flag for follow-up. (Gmail also has the pretty much the same thing, but it's a star instead.) To deal with my overflow of e-mail at work, I have a filter set up to automatically flag some e-mails so I can jump to them first. Any e-mail that's directly addressed to me and has the phrases "can you" or "could you" gets automatically flagged. I find this works really well, except that all my follow-up replies get flagged when I don't need necessarily need them to.

So this got me thinking - computers are smart. Can't my computer figure out what should be flagged and what shouldn't? Shouldn't it learn? Well, it does with spam.

Most of us know about Bayesian Filtering to filter spam - it's probably one of the most common ways of doing so. It's what Gmail uses anyway, and it seems to work pretty well. Basically, instead of building a whole bunch of criteria manually to detect spam upfront, you just say 'report spam' every time you see a spam email. If something gets marked as spam by mistake, you hit 'not spam.' Every time you do that, an algorithm looks at the similarities between spam messages to see what makes them spam, and what makes non-spam non-spam. The more you identify, the better it gets.

So, connect the dots here, and you've potentially got a way of automatically prioritizing e-mail. Every time you flag (or star) something, the ol' Bayesian filter gets a little better. If it flags by mistake, you just tell it it's made a mistake. I'm sure the existing algorithms wouldn't even need to be re-written all that much for them to work for this purpose.

So, to everyone at Google and Microsoft - get to it! (Don't worry, Yahoo, no one expects much from you guys anyway.) This could really change e-mail for the better. Everything that's most important would always be at the top, and those forwards with hilarious videos of singing penises would always be at the bottom.

2006-02-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

I was checking out the trash bin in my Gmail the other day, because, hey, I get bored, when I saw this little headline in Gmail's webclips.

For those of you who don't read pixelated text very well, it says:

"You can make a lovely hat out of previously-used tin foil."

This is a joke I see on Slashdot a lot. Basically, if you want to accuse someone of being too paranoid about the government or big brother reading their emails or monitoring their cell phone conversations or whatever, you'd say that they should get a tinfoil hat. This implies that they they are akin to a crazy person wearing a tinfoil hat so the CIA can't read their brain waves.

I thought it was pretty funny that Gmail put this in there, especially considering all the controversy they stirred up when it was announced, either over scanning their email for advertising purposes or something in their FAQ about not being able to guarantee that their e-mail will be permanently deleted.

Is Google making a subtle dig at people who delete all their email, despite Gmail's suggestions not to?

Are you James Bond or MacGyver?

2006-02-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

As anyone who knows me can attest, I have a real problem with gadgets. About 80% of my online reading is devoted to gadgets and technology in general. I have a serious amount of salivation built up for various laptops, PDAs, televisions, cell phones, etc. All of these things, I'm convinced, will totally change my life for the better. At least that's what I think until the inevitable post-buy disappointment sets in.

So the other day I was thinking, Why do I need the gadgets? Why do they all have to look sleek, like my iPod? The answer: James Bond. A lot of guys want to be James Bond, for varying reasons: be it the girls, the cars, the style, the stunts, or the gadgets. Cars are okay, and I'm a little too uncoordinated for stunts, and my style is entirely courtesy of the Gap, and, hey, I'm getting married in a few months, so there goes my chance with Pussy Galore. So all that's left is the gadgets. (I'll save my rants about cars for another post.)

But it's not just that Bond has the gadgets, it's that he always seems to have the right one at the right. That locked door getting in the way? Good thing Q hooked you up with that laser-beam watch. Need a good distraction? Oh, right... Q just happened to install that remote-control device for the Roadster. This is what I think gadgets will do for me. Right Gadget, right time.

"Can I meet you next week? Let me just check on my handy Treo 650, which is synced to my Outlook at work."

"This party could do with some music."

"No problem - I've got my trusty iPod with an stereo-to-RCA cable."

That's the hope anyway. The reality is more like:

"Hey, when's Flag Day again?"

"Oh, I've got that online, let me just fire up the laptop."

"Isn't it in February?"

"Wait... booting up. Is there a wifi connection in here?"

"Yeah, I think it's February 7th."

"Password? What the..."

Of course, everyone wants to be James Bond, but as the above scenario makes pretty clear, it's pretty tough. Even if you have all the gadgets you'll ever want, there's the problem of carrying them all, and making sure they actually work the way you want them to when you want them to. And most of the time you're going to looking for uses for your shiny new gadgets when a more low-tech solution might really be the answer.

So what's the compromise? I know the compromise I make is to MacGyver it. This option also makes sense if you don't have MI6-type cash floating around to spend. See, MacGyver didn't need that much stuff, except his handy, off-the-shelf Swiss army knife. The rest he just improvised. Heck, even without the knife he could improvise. This is why I like to keep spare electronics floating around. Cables, wires, old remotes or game controllers, all get stored in boxes in the closet for parts. These things always come in handy.

A good compromise between MacGyver and Bond was a few months back, when I wanted to have sound from my stereo system pump into the kitchen for doing boxes. Luckily, my receiver supported A and B speakers, which could be turned on and off separately. Very Bond. But to really be Bond, I'd have to spend some serious money on some wireless speakers. Of course, the lack of cash led me to MacGyver it. I found a great deal on a big pair of no-name speakers from Goodwill, which didn't have proper speaker wire inputs. A little work with some wire-strippers and small bit of speaker wire allowed me to attach proper speaker wire to the back of them, which I painstakingly ran along the side of the trim and under the baseboards into the living room. So now I've got music in the kitchen, and it cost me $5.

Beat that Bond.

If anyone else has some good Bond or MacGyver moments, let me know and I'll throw 'em up on the blog. Or just leave a comment.

What's Wrong With Google Desktop

2006-02-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, I like Google Desktop. A lot. Finding files fast is obviously its biggest benefit. It will beat Windows Search every single time in terms of speed. And simplicity. By default, Google Desktop searches for file names, folder names, and text inside files - without having to check any boxes.

The other big benefit is, believe it or not, as an application launcher. When I want to launch notepad, I don't have to worry about going to start/program files/accessories/notepad. I just type 'notepad' into the handy little box on my taskbar and it comes up. Huge time-saver.

But there's one thing that really drives me crazy about it. Google Desktop keeps serving me dead search results - on my own desktop! In other words, it points me to files that have been deleted or moved, and tells me that it can't find them when I try to open them.

Why? When you search with GD, you're basically just searching the index of your files that GD has created. The index seems to monitor new files that are created, but doesn't update when you delete a file, or move it to another location. What's worse, even when I click a search result, and it says it can't find it, it still doesn't remove that result for the next time I search! Does that make any sense? This is supposed to be first-class software from a first-class company.

There's a simple solution to this, obviously, and I seriously hope they're working on it for the next version. First off, when you find that a link is dead, remove it from the search index. That seems like really easy and intuitive code right there. Secondly, update the index when I'm not using the computer. GD does this when you first install it - scanning and indexing your hard drive when your computer's inactive. But then it stops, content that it's finished and done a great job. So all it's got to do is go through that index and check it against what's actually on my hard drive, and then index that. Google Web Search does this for the entire Web - why can't it do it for my desktop?

What to Do With that Pesky Land Line...

2006-02-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend... er, fiancée, and I both have cell phones and share a land line. No one really calls us on our land line that much. Just about everyone (except our parents) call on our cells. So why not ditch the land line? I faced this when I first got my own apartment, figuring I'd just keep the cell phone. The problem? The minutes get eaten big time. I tend to use my cell phone pretty sparsely - it's not so much a conversation device as it is a planning device. "Where are you?" "I'm in the food court." "Be right there." I use land lines mainly for the "how's your life been going" sort of conversations, and those tend to be much longer. My first cell phone bill without a land line was really huge, and made me get a land line very quickly. And don't even get me started about long distance calls on it are especially expensive.

So basically the outgoing line is there for long conversations and long distance conversations. It's $30 through the cable company which is pretty cheap. So obviously there's the VOIP alternative. But a lot of conventional providers are charging, at the bare bones, $20 a month. Not enough savings for me to be able to justify relying on the Internet for my phone.

Skype is a solution that could be much cheaper. It's free for PC-PC calls, and the sound quality is great, but a lot of friends only check their emails about once a week, so you can imagine how hard it would be to convince them to invest in (albeit cheap) headsets and sign up to Skype and be at their computer enough to make it practical.

You can make outgoing calls with Skype, for a price, which is actually insanely cheap. It's about 3 cents (Canadian) a minute anywhere in North America or Europe. So... if we were to use it for 500 minutes a month, (more than we ever probably use) that would be $15 a month - half of what we're paying now. That's definitely enough for me to think about switching. But what about incoming calls? There is Skype-in, which provides you with a real number that people can call you at. But... there's no Toronto numbers available yet, so people would still burn our cell phone minutes when we got incoming calls. (unless we did the 'call you back!' thing which can get annoying.)

Okay, so assuming we could live with the 'call-you-back' option, there's still the problem of being tethered to the PC. Sure, there are wifi Skype phones, but I really don't feel like setting up a wireless network just for that just yet, and it's still too pricey. There is potentially a good solution - why not just hook up a regular phone to the PC? There are fairly inexpensive phone-to-PC bridges, built explicitly for Skype, so it lets you use your phone's number pad to dial Skype numbers.

But I'm really surprised there isn't a simpler solution to this. A phone is basically just a speaker and a MIC, so why is isn't there a cheap analog adaptor that converts a phone wire into a MIC and a speaker mini-jack? Sure, I'd lose the ability to dial out using my phone dial pad, but I'd be happy enough dialling sitting at the computer, and then using a cordless phone to roam around from there. I asked the guy at Radio Shack (sorry... "The Source") about this and he stared at me in bewilderment. He suggested a headset that I could plug into my cordless phone. Thanks dude.

Okay, so there are still lots of limitations to moving to Internet-only calling, but the costs are definitely worth it. My phone right now costs me $30 a month, which is $360 a year. At 500 minutes a month, Skype rates would just about halve that. And the more people who sign up to Skype, the less everyone would be paying. But I really think though that the comfort and ease factor need to be there for more people to make the transition. Find me an analog phone-to-stereo adaptor and I'll personally buy one and set it up for my friends and family.

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