Too Busy Being Optimistic to Attend Panic Party

Finally, someone who isn't all doom and gloom about the world. Thank-you Charles Adler. A number of weeks ago I decided to swear off reading about, Tweeting about, "liking", and otherwise supporting all of the panic that the media and others are spreading about the fate of the world economy. Why are we panicking and dwelling on only the bad things? Don't get me wrong, many people are in really tough spots. Does that mean that their lives are over? Does that mean there is nothing good happening. I often find it is the people who have the fewest number of "things" that are the best at finding something good in just about anything. Adler brings up an OECD report that has a number of reasons for Canadians to be optimistic. I had a hard time finding anything on the internet that actually discussed the positive aspects of the report. Instead of saying Canada's real GDP growth will be down next year by a miniscule .485% and that in 2010 it will grow by 2.131%, the press reports that in the first quarter of next year, growth will be down by 1.4%.  How much front-page news the last few days has been given to hilighting the fact that retail sales have been better than expected, or that auto sales are actually up in Canada, or the the stock markets have been on a tear this week? It's all about continuing the panic and getting news sales. We all know that bad news sells better than good news.

So, I'm going to stay positive and live every day for what it is; sure my RRSP's suck at the moment, but I have a family that loves me, a place to live, food on my table, a job that I like, and a car to get me places. I live in one of the best cities in the world in one of the best countries in the world, the sun is shining and the sky is blue. In the spirit of American Thanksgiving I have plenty to be thankful about and I don't need the media telling me why I shouldn't be.

Drat a Canadian Election

Just when the U.S. election was getting fun, we are stuck with a staid boring Canadian election. Oh well, a lot more fodder for blogging.

First thing I noticed? There are 3 pictures of Stephane Dion on the home page of the Conservative Party of Canada. There are only 3 pages of Dion on the home page of the Liberal Party of Canada. What does that tell you? I don't know but the Conservatives are certainly in attack mode.

Palin and Teen Pregnancy

So I have said that I think Sarah Palin is a good thing for the McCain campaign. However, that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with the Republican's platform. This article shows conservative hypocrisy at its best.

"Palin on Monday revealed that her daughter Bristol is pregnant and will
marry the baby's father, adding that she and her husband are "proud of
Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become
grandparents."

The word decision usually means choice. Does that mean that her daughter had a choice? Did she choose to keep this baby? If so, then why shouldn't other women have the right to choose otherwise?

And on sex ed:

"In that same questionnaire, she was asked if she supported funding
for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of "explicit
sex-education programs."

"The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she said."

Uh huh, and how well did the abstinence approach work for her daughter? Or will she blame this on the fact that the schools taught an "explicit sex-ed program"? Her daughter is a teen pregnancy statistic and people really need to consider Palin's record as a parent. I know this stuff is pretty off-limits to the democrats but I hope lots of people are reading it and considering the ramifications.

Female VP?

I would just like to say two things for the record...

1. McCain will likey be the next POTUS
2. If McCain chooses a female running mate, Obama has no chance.

If McCain chooses Sarah Palin as his running mate, it will be a brilliant move. Obama and Clinton would have been unbeatable and I think Obama blew it by not sucking it up and asking her to be VP. I have thought from day 1 that if McCain won the nomination he would win, but hadthe Dem ticket been Obama/Clinton it would have made it a lot tougher. The current Dem ticket is no match for McCain never mind McCain and a woman running mate.

Olympics, My Last Words

Alright, so the Canadians had a pretty fair showing after all. They beat their medal count over Athens, but... there will still plenty of opportunities left behind. A lot of the favorites didn't perform as hoped and it was often the underdogs who did. I'm not sure what that means. Why did van Koeverden place 8th in a race that he was expected to medal in, yet we had a mountain biker who placed 4th that wasn't expected to be close to a medal? Maybe this is typical and I haven't paid close enough attention in the past.

In any case, well done all of Canada's Olympic athletes. Let's hope the dialog continues now that the games are over.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Making Progress

Well, Canada now has as many medals as Michael Phelps! It's been a good weekend and it looks as though we're in line for some more. I've also been hearing a number of athletes say that they will be disappointed if they don't win a medal. That's more like it! I still stand by my more funding rant though. China had a plan after the Sydney Olympics to increase their medal count. They went about it by looking at the sports where there were the highest possible number of medals available and then concentrating on those sports. Seems to be working well so far, China currently has 67 medals, 39 of those are gold. They don't have the medal count of the U.S., but they have way more gold and if that's measuring stick, they've succeeded.

Yes, China is waaaaayyy bigger than Canada and should win more medals, however Canada is still a long way back of Australia.

Keep up the fight Canadian athletes! Get out your cheque book Canadian governments!

Does it Matter that Canada Can't Win Medals in the Summer Olympics?

I don't intend this post to appear as a slam against any of our athletes currently competing in the Olympics. I can't do what they're doing and they're working hard to represent our country. My concern is that these people aren't being given the tools then need to be competitive and I don't think it's fair to them...

OK, so we're only six days into the Olympics, but already Canada is behind Uzbekistan and Togo in the medal count. Why is it that Canadian athletes seem to have so much trouble winning medals at the Summer Olympics? Do they need to? Scott Russell seems to think we put too much emphasis on winning medals. I think there needs to be a happy medium. Are the athletes really satisfied with the fact that they did their best? Or are they just saying that because they don't want the inevitable questions that come along? Is everyone else on performance enhancing drugs?

I think we need to win medals when we go to the Olympics. Sure, if all our athletes are getting personal bests and beating Canadian records, that's great. However this is a competition. If the Olympics was all about beating personal bests, then you'd get a medal for that. Why isn't there a standing that shows how many countries have broken records held by their athletes? The Olympics is all about showing how you stack up against the rest of the world. Right now, Canada is comparatively mediocre. One of our best hopes for a medal (I know it isn't all about that) in swimming placed a distant 6th in one of his hallmark events. 6th our of 8 isn't all that special. Sure he's better than the other 10 or so swimmers that didn't make it to the final, but is that what he went to Beijing to do? And if he only went there to place 6th, why did he go in the first place? Canada won 5 medals at the World Aquatic Championships in 2007, maybe that's our venue? To me it's all about performing on the world stage and if you're not into being the best in the world then maybe the taxpayers shouldn't be spending money to send you to the competition. The more likely scenario, I think, is that these athletes can only do so well because they aren't being given the tools and opportunities they need to be top of the world, not just somewhere in the middle.

Part of the problem as I see it is that people in Canada only care about the Olympics when they're on. As soon as the Olympics are over will anyone care anymore that the athletes didn't live up to expectations? We should. Remember what happened in Australia? They decided that their country needed to no only perform, but be competitive and win medals. They sunk a whole bunch of money into coaches, programs, and facilities and look at them now. A country with fewer people than Canada and a similar lifestyle and they're 4th. What has Canada done? They've bribed the athletes by saying they'll pay them for medals. No drastic increases in funding, no significant new facilities (except for winter sports) but for any of those athletes currently living in poverty, we'll pay them a one-time payment for winning a medal. Unless they get a big-name sponsor, most athletes in Canada have to have a job in order to live. Is that the way to make a successful elite athlete? Does Michael Phelps have a job at the local sporting goods store or does he spend all his time training and preparing for events? However, the problem in Canada is that we're a winter sports country and it only seems like the government is willing to put up the money for the winter sports. It's time Canada supported our athletes financially. Spend the money on facilities, get the best coaches, give the athletes places to live and train.

I hope that the next couple of weeks proves me wrong. That we end up with a substantial medal tally and all our athletes come home happy with the fact that they were successful on the world stage. However, I think the way our summer sports athletes are supported in Canada is inadequate and only significant change is going to make us competetitive at this ikind of competition. If that change doesn't come we can continue to see a wealthy, healthy, big country continually hanging out in the ranks of countires that have no Olympic programs to speak of and only send 10 people to the games.

GO TEAM CANADA GO!!!!

The Sad Story of Zimbabwe

Yet another example of what Robert Mugabe has done to this country.

I'm not sure how history will deal with the way other African leaders have handled this situation, but I hope it is harshly. The leaders have watched from the sidelines as a single person has financially ruined a country at the expense of it's citizens. Mugabe should be taken out of office and forced to live the way he has forced his people to live. Forget sentencing him to death, sentence him to the same life he has created for everyone but his friends. I'm sure it would be a lot more harsh.

The Apple Mystique (Part Deux)

So I haven't had a whole lot more time with the Mac so I can't really update my impressions on the OS after having used it for a while. However I am going to comment on the hardware. Just an FYI; as an IT manager I've used notebooks from IBM/Lenovo, Acer, HP, and Dell within the last two years so I'm not just comparing this to a Thinkpad T62 or something.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am running a Macbook Pro. This one has the 15.4" screen. It is a nice looking laptop, as I would expect from Apple. The screen is nice and bright and sharp (not sharp, ouch, as in the Air). The aluminum case is nice and will probably wear better than most of the plastic ones widely used these days. It is slippery though and I really liked my IBM Thinkpads because they have a non-slip coating on them that make them much nicer to handle. Of course it has the illuminated keyboard which is a really nice touch and I wish every other notebook manufacturer would catch on to this one (or has Apple patented it?). However the Mac logo is definitely a "Look at me, I'm an Apple user!" piece of bling that follows the form over function school of thought. Speed wise, it's on par with what you would expect from a dual core machine with 1 GB of RAM. Another GB would take it up a notch and allow more applications to be run at the same time; but really, how many apps do you need running at once? The performance is certainly as good as (if not better than) my Vista Ultimate notebook that has 2GB of RAM. The iSight is pretty amazing in that it has such a tiny lens and sensor and does some reasonable video.

So, the not so good? Well, it has the worst keyboard I've encountered on a notebook computer. Nothing compares to a Thinkpad keyboard, however this one isn't even close to as nice as either my current Dell D830 or my home Acer notebook. It feels like I'm typing on a marshmallow; there's very little feedback and it's tough too know if I've pressed a key or not. The touch pad also drives me crazy for two reasons. 1) Why can't Apple just join the club and have two mouse buttons? I've never realized how much of a timesaver the context sensitive menus are from a right-click in Windows or Linux. No wonder Mac users spend so much time memorizing keyboard shortcuts. Also I went for about a week before I found something on the web that explained how to use two fingers to scroll using the touch pad. Why can't they have a specified scroll area, or at least tell you somewhere that you need to use two fingers? 2) There is such a small difference in feel between the touch pad and the wrist rest that I often find my finger has drifted off the touch pad and I can't figure out why the cursor isn't moving. This seems like another form over function thing to me. Sure it looks sleek, but couldn't they have made a slightly larger indentation in the wrist rest for the pad? And what is with Apple and their battery technology? This is the only notebook I've seen where if you leave it unplugged and shutdown for a couple of days the battery is dead when I go to use it again. Is this like my iPod in that it never really actually turns off? I expect that when I use the shutdown option from the OS it is actually shutting down. I wonder though if that is the case.

Oh how I wish Apple would make OS X available for other hardware. Also, why, with so many negatives do I still find this notebook intriguing? It has that Apple "thing" to it. I want to like it, I really do. However, this morning I saw something that woke me up to reality again. One of our big box retailers is selling an HP notebook with a Core 2 Duo T5550, 4GB of RAM, 250 GB HDD, 14.1" screen, Wireless N, Webcam, 5-in-1 card reader, dual layer DVD, and Windows Vista for $799. The same retailer is selling a Macbook with the same T5550 processor, 2GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, 13.3" screen, Airport Extreme, iSight, and of course OS X 10.5 for $1,349 (sale price). I'm going to have to spend more time with the OS to see if there is any way I could justify that kind of price difference. At this point I don't think I ever will, but I'm not going to give up yet.

Idol Confession

Those of you who read my post a long time ago regarding American Idol will be surprised to hear that this season I watched the entire thing from start to finish. Well almost, I didn't record it if I was going to be out, but I always watched some of it if I was home.

Why the change of heart? I'm not sure, but I do have a couple of theories.
1. I normally watch until the final 12 and this year the final 12 was a truly talented bunch of musicians.
2. I usually get frustrated when the top talent gets voted off because they aren't popular. This year that didn't happen (with the exception of Michael Johns, that was a bit of a shocker and the Castro guy should have been one of the first to go).

The format was dry and some of the guest mentors they brought in were lame, but overall I thought the talent (which is the whole reason I watch it) was first rate and there were a number of people who had a chance.

A couple of predictions...
1. There will be more successful musicians produced from this group than any other season.
2. David Archuleta will follow Clay Aiken into obscurity.

The first is because of the talent that these people have. The second is because the kid doesn't have the package. The only thing that could make him popular is if he does the Josh Groban or Michael Buble thing. Right now he doesn't have the charisma or stage presence to pull that type of music off, but his voice doesn't lend itself to any other style. So he either needs to reinvent himself or he needs to go to Dale Carnegie.

Of course, I thought this whole thing was going to die after the first season, so my predictions are likely to be the exact opposite.

The Apple Mystique (Part 1)

What is it about Apple products? How have they achieved such a lofty reputation and rabid following? Why don't people just view the products as over-priced, form-over-function devices? Are they really that much better? Well, here is my opinion (note, I said opinion).

I am currently typing this on a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5 and MS Office 2008 (although I'm using ScribeFire in Firefox to create this post...). I started a new job a few months ago and as an IT manager in a company where there are a significant number of Mac's in use (significant being less than 5%), I decided it was time to learn it so that I was prepared for the inevitable, "will it work on my Mac?" questions. So for the last week or so I've been upgrading it and playing with it a bit to figure out how it all works. As I started using it I really started to wonder if I was being seduced. So, hence these two (I suspect it will be two) posts. And with that disclaimer/intro out of the way, here it goes.

My very first computer (well my family's first) was an Apple II+. It was pretty fancy with a monochrome green monitor, 48k of RAM, a 360k single-sided floppy, and a 1200 baud modem. I seem to recall that it cost about $4,000.00 back in the day. It was really nothing special. It's design wasn't particularly cutting edge (not like the IIc which I coveted). I remember a conversation with a friend of mine where he told me that we should have gotten one of the new IBM PC's because they were going to be the way of the future for home computers. I really didn't know what he was talking about and as far as I was concerned the fact that there were way more games for the Apple meant it was all I was going to want.

Fast forward 20 some years and my, how things have changed. That was the last Apple computer I ever owned, even though I always wanted a Mac. I have been an iPod owner for about 5 years, but I still have my 5-year old iPod. It's all I need really, even though it has pathetic battery life and a somewhat dim monochrome display. On the computer front though it's been all "IBM". While I prefer Linux on my desktop there are just too many Microsoft apps that I need to survive in my world to use it 100% of the time (if only Evolution didn't suck so much I'd use Linux even more). So I have XP, Vista, and Linux machines at home and XP and Linux at work. Games for my kids? Windows XP is the only way to go (ironically opposite of my childhood). And now I've bravely waded into the Mac waters to see if I really need to have one of these things or if it is just all about the image.

So today it's software. Keep in mind these are pretty much first impressions, but I think they are as valid, if not more so, than comments from people who have been using the OS since it came out. To me, in order to be successful, this computer and OS have to pretty much be easy to use and to get up to speed. That's the Apple mantra isn't it? Everything just works. That being said, I've discovered that while everything might work, it doesn't always work the way I would expect and therefore is taking a fair bit of getting used to.

I started out by doing a version upgrade from 10.4 to 10.5. This machine is used for our internal support folks so it needed to have the latest version of the software. This was the source of my first big surprise; it took 3 hours from the time the upgrade started to the time I was done installing the latest batch of updates. That is about 3 times longer than upgrading a Linux desktop and about on par with a Windows upgrade. There were almost 400MB worth of updates after I did the upgrade. That's pretty hefty for an OS that's only been out for 6 months. So I played with it a bit and discovered that the person who had used it before me had removed a lot of the standard stuff and I decided to do a complete new install. This took much less time, about 2 hours, but would have been even faster if it hadn't taken 40 minutes to verify the DVD. That's closer to a typical Ubuntu install.

So what about the actual user experience? Well I'm a bit undecided at this point. I'm all for an uncluttered computer desktop and the long row of big application icons along the bottom doesn't do it for me. I need to go through and decide what I want there and what I don''t want before I pass judgment on it. I've made it pretty small, but it still steals a significant chunk of screen real estate. I may even try hiding it but I don't like to do that in Windows so I'm not so sure I want to do it on the Mac either. As a Windows user I'm also having a hard time with the fact that the menu items for applications are on the top menu bar rather than on the app window itself as well as the fact that when I click the 'x' on the window the application doesn't close. If I'm going to use another app I usually just open it, I don't get rid of the first one and then open the next. If I do that I'll just minimize it. For some reason I can minimize application windows in OS X as well; so why would I want to close it but still have it running when I can minimize it and quickly access it from the dock when I want it again? While it has a silly name, I also really miss the Start menu (or the application menu in Gnome). When there is an application that I want to run that isn't on the dock, it takes a lot of steps to get to the applications folder in finder.


I could nit-pick for a while but I won't. Partly because I'm sure I'll learn all the shortcuts (command+tab to sift through running apps is a new innovation in 10.5!? Windows has had that since 95) and so I'll see how the learning goes. The good? I think this is the best implementation of Linux for the desktop so far. I just installed Ubuntu 8.04 on one of my machines and while it is great, it is no OS X. And that is one of the reasons it interests me so much. As a Linux user this level of integration really has me impressed and the apps themselves have some pretty cool features. The fact that so many audio and video codecs have sketchy patents means that for an open source desktop like Ubuntu there is a lot of work required to have a/v work "out-of-the-box". OS X has it all there and that may be worth paying the money for the OS, unfortunately you have to run it on Apple's hardware but that is another post. The only app that I really think falls flat is Safari. It may be fast (although I haven' noticed it) it doesn't fit in from a look and feel point and it really doesn't come close to Firefox for expandability. Otherwise I'm enjoying playing with the other applications.

So, at this point the OS wouldn't convince me to switch, although (and this is the "is it seducing me" part of the article) I have to try Entourage because if it has good Exchange integration and doesn't crash all the time like Evolution, that might be the killer app to convince me. However, the problem there is that it is Microsoft. I suppose that is also why it is likely to work better than the open source alternative. I'll post more on the OS when I've gotten more comfortable, but up next will be the hardware.

This is Cool

I haven't tried this yet, but I'm going to. It looks like creating your own Outlook Today page is easier than I would have thought.

Tech Recipes Blog

Back again, can I make it stick?

So here I am, a year and a half later. I have a new job, the Liberals didn't get elected and there is an upcoming election in the US of A. Should be some good blog fodder.