As has been posted widely, Pandora was shut down in Canada due to license restrictions.
But Pandora's IP blocking mechanism isn't 100% - I just tried from my office computere here in Toronto and I could access it without any problems. I'm not sure what their criteria is for blocking but I'm just happy I can get through and still access the service.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Best Old Computer Commercials
Here are some great old computer commercials.
One thing that is noting is how amazing sexist they are - Dad always is the one who buys the computer and the Son is always the recipient because he has poor grades. The most Mom ever uses a computer for is to put in a recipe or two and sister is almost never seen. The worst case is the last ADAM commercial below where the sister helps brother get a computer so that she can get a Cabbage Patch Kid - heaven forbid she might want to play Donkey Kong herself!
William Shatner got as fat as bloatware!
Apparently, only boys played with computers in the 80's!
Computers don't lie - they're honest...huh?
Balmer still sounds like that 20 years later...and when did Reversi become a feature?!
I had this computer myself - for the price it was actually a great computer, but it got smoked thanks to poor marketing and support from TI by Commodore in the mid-80s.
I had this computer as well. This was one of the last generation of personal computers before the PC takeover in the mid-80s which accounts for its everything but the kitchen sink approach. It had video games, a super speed tape drive, a daisy wheel printer, a build in word processor, etc. It was an odd computer, and it didn't sell very well. But I had one for about 2-3 years and it worked quite nicely for my needs when I was in junior high school.
Another strange note on the ADAM: the version of BASIC was a complete rip-off of Apple II BASIC. I noticed the syntax similarities when I was over at a friends place and then went to the library and borrowed all the Apple II BASIC programming books I could find and had a blast!
One thing that is noting is how amazing sexist they are - Dad always is the one who buys the computer and the Son is always the recipient because he has poor grades. The most Mom ever uses a computer for is to put in a recipe or two and sister is almost never seen. The worst case is the last ADAM commercial below where the sister helps brother get a computer so that she can get a Cabbage Patch Kid - heaven forbid she might want to play Donkey Kong herself!
William Shatner got as fat as bloatware!
Apparently, only boys played with computers in the 80's!
Computers don't lie - they're honest...huh?
Balmer still sounds like that 20 years later...and when did Reversi become a feature?!
I had this computer myself - for the price it was actually a great computer, but it got smoked thanks to poor marketing and support from TI by Commodore in the mid-80s.
I had this computer as well. This was one of the last generation of personal computers before the PC takeover in the mid-80s which accounts for its everything but the kitchen sink approach. It had video games, a super speed tape drive, a daisy wheel printer, a build in word processor, etc. It was an odd computer, and it didn't sell very well. But I had one for about 2-3 years and it worked quite nicely for my needs when I was in junior high school.
Another strange note on the ADAM: the version of BASIC was a complete rip-off of Apple II BASIC. I noticed the syntax similarities when I was over at a friends place and then went to the library and borrowed all the Apple II BASIC programming books I could find and had a blast!
New Feature Request for Facebook - Add Support for Maiden Names
I've been on Facebook for a few months now and am always searching up old colleagues, highschool mates, etc.
But I've found one general problem - searching for people who have changed their last names.
What about supporting searching by maiden names. For those people looking for people they knew when they were much younger, that would help immensely. I've had several people I couldn't track down because they married and changed their name.
But I've found one general problem - searching for people who have changed their last names.
What about supporting searching by maiden names. For those people looking for people they knew when they were much younger, that would help immensely. I've had several people I couldn't track down because they married and changed their name.
Bug of the Week: Blackberry Bug
For those who have Blackerries, Brickerbreaker is the Breakout clone that comes with the Blackberry OS.
In the latest version, I have found a mystery bug - for some reason every once in a while, the ball hits the top of the screen and instead of bouncing downwards, it instantly moves to the bottom corner of the screen and starts going upwards! Its not that common, but given enough play testing you would definately experience it.
The strange thing is that I cannot figure out the pattern as to why it happens - it doesn't seem to be any particular spot, ball position, level, etc. that causes the bug.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Web 2.0 Bug of the Day - Facebook Bugs
I found a couple Facebook bugs today...
1. If you click on "My Friends Posted Items" it should give you an RSS feed. However, instead it prompts you to save a PHP file with the XML inside. MIME type isn't right I'm assuming?
2. The paging in Facebook isn't quite right. For example, if I do a search for classmates from my highschool (Woodlands School, Mississauga, Ontario, 1991 Graduation Year) I get a list of 23 people. If you go to page 2, you get 2 people repeated from the previous page.
3. Facebook security check routinely now returns an image that is unreadable. Sometimes you have to hit the refresh 4-5 times to get it to come up.
1. If you click on "My Friends Posted Items" it should give you an RSS feed. However, instead it prompts you to save a PHP file with the XML inside. MIME type isn't right I'm assuming?
2. The paging in Facebook isn't quite right. For example, if I do a search for classmates from my highschool (Woodlands School, Mississauga, Ontario, 1991 Graduation Year) I get a list of 23 people. If you go to page 2, you get 2 people repeated from the previous page.
3. Facebook security check routinely now returns an image that is unreadable. Sometimes you have to hit the refresh 4-5 times to get it to come up.
New People Search Engine - Zoom Info
I'm always interested in networking sites, especially those with good people search engines. Since I've been on the Internet a very long time (pre-WWW was even invented) I have a very long trail of posts, press articles, and teenage writings from years and years ago.
As I've written before, finding people is not difficult if they have contributed to facebook, MySpace, etc. and there will definitely be a problem in 10 years where people want to remove their facebook pages after they have grown out of their teenage years. See my article on this previously.
For those who are in my generation (I'm 33 years old), many never were as adventurous and so finding people becomes a big more difficult, but not impossible. Almost everyone has some kind of Internet presence. Its a matter of digging in the right places to track it down.
A new tool called ZoomInfo helps in this regard. Type in any name and it will find many old press references for that name. What's smart about it is that it seems to be good at parsing out references to relationships between people, companies and other colleagues. It also seems to be able to collate references together into a profile, e.g. it can recognize the same press article in multiple places and summarize them together.
If you look up yourself and find your own profile, you can claim your profile either by verifying against your credit card. They don't charge the card, they just use it to authenticate your name.
As I've written before, finding people is not difficult if they have contributed to facebook, MySpace, etc. and there will definitely be a problem in 10 years where people want to remove their facebook pages after they have grown out of their teenage years. See my article on this previously.
For those who are in my generation (I'm 33 years old), many never were as adventurous and so finding people becomes a big more difficult, but not impossible. Almost everyone has some kind of Internet presence. Its a matter of digging in the right places to track it down.
A new tool called ZoomInfo helps in this regard. Type in any name and it will find many old press references for that name. What's smart about it is that it seems to be good at parsing out references to relationships between people, companies and other colleagues. It also seems to be able to collate references together into a profile, e.g. it can recognize the same press article in multiple places and summarize them together.
If you look up yourself and find your own profile, you can claim your profile either by verifying against your credit card. They don't charge the card, they just use it to authenticate your name.
My Opinions in the Press - 2000 and Today
I found this article today from 2000 that I did press for when I worked for Chapters Online (the equivalent of Borders/Amazon here in Canada).
I just landed in the press again for a project we did at the Foundation with Microsoft using their new Expression Blend product. In working with Microsoft, I also did some press with them to show our support and extend our partnership with them. You can see the resulting article in the Globe and Mail here.
I just landed in the press again for a project we did at the Foundation with Microsoft using their new Expression Blend product. In working with Microsoft, I also did some press with them to show our support and extend our partnership with them. You can see the resulting article in the Globe and Mail here.
