Entries Tagged 'Tech' ↓

I watched a show on TV Ontario last night about “the cloud” and it’s impact on the internet population. I had never thought of it, but I store and update data in the cloud every day when I log into Gmail or Google Docs. The cloud is a term for the collective storage space out there on the internet, typically managed in large data centers run by companies with too much money to spend on hardware and square footage. One such company is Google, who recently spent a couple billion dollars on new server farms in the United States. When you you update your documents stored on Google Documents, they are are saved somewhere out there, out of your control, but safe from hackers and such.

But are they really? We assume that companies will be responsible with our data; that they will protect it from malicious people who might abuse the information to their advantage. We also tend to forget to read the fine print about ownership of said information. Does Google own my spreadsheets since I store them on their portion of the cloud? Or are they just storing them for me? I better go back and read the terms of service…

This past week, Rogers introduced a new unlimited data plan for a flat rate of $20. This move helped align Rogers with the other major cell providers in Canada (Telus and Bell Canada) by offering low-cost, add-on plans for data users. Until now, Rogers had one of the most expensive data usage rates around, charging hundreds of dollars to the power users. My personal experience with the cost of data on the Rogers network was when I first purchased my SMT 5600 smartphone. I decided to try the online connectivity by signing into Mobile MSN from my phone. I was logged on for no more than 30 seconds, so I thought I would not be hit too hard with data costs. When I received my bill in the mail, the cost for my experiment was almost $14 CAD!

The speculation is that Rogers may have introduced the flat rate as a precursor to the iPhone being released in Canada. I think Rogers is testing the waters to see how the flat-rate plan is adopted across it’s subscriber base. The problem is that they have excluded arguably their largest subscriber populations - Blackberry users and customers with smartphones. The plan is tailored to a specific phone (Rogers Vision). The fine print for the flat-rate plan reads (bolding is my own):

Important: This plan includes unlimited on-device mobile browsing only. Plan is available on select phones only (PDAs such as Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices, PC cards and non-Rogers certified devices are not eligible). Data usage incurred on ineligible devices, incurred while tethering (using device as wireless modem for laptop) or incurred using non-Rogers (3rd party) applications downloaded to your device will be subject to pay-per-use charges of 5 cents/KB.

So, if you own a smartphone or Blackberry, you aren’t any further ahead. You still pay $0.05 / KB for ad-hoc data usage. And even if you could apply it against your Blackberry account, you would not qualify for the unlimited data for external applications that reply on always-on internet connections (Google Maps, Google Talk, etc).

Why bother introducing the plan at all? The plan is a step in the right direction, but until it is mated to a device that is useful (iPhone?), it won’t be too appealing to me.

Mac OS X has many great features, and the next release of the operating system has many more that look to be amazing. One great thing about the current version, Tiger, is something called Finder Smart Folders.

Smart Folders appear in many Mac applications, from Apple Aperture to iTunes. They typically represent an automatic grouping or search of content based on a certain criteria set by the user. In iTunes, this can mean a smart “album” of music from the 1960’s and 1990’s. In Aperture, a smart “album” can mean photos that span the year 2006, have particular keywords assigned, and are from a certain area of the world. They can be as simple or as complex as the user wishes.

Smart folders in Mac OS X Tiger’s Finder are similar to those described above - they search various sources for particular content and display it in a grouped fashion. Continue reading to see how you can use Finder’s Smart Folders to find files that are up to 1GB is size on your drive in a few simple steps. Continue reading →

Today’s links are all about what it takes to setup your own website. Although this is a pretty high-level overview, these links should be helpful to point you in the right direction when you set out to create that award-winning website. (Admittedly, most of the links point to Mac applications - if there is a demand I can compile a list of Windows applications that perform similar functions.)

• First, you need an idea for a site design. Use Smashing Magazine to get great ideas on what other people and companies have done, and what is possible these days. It’s worth checking the Design Showcase section, as well as the Best of the Month list.
• With a design in mind, you need some content. What’s your site’s primary focus? Who is the intended audience? Questions like these will help you write content that suits your site. At the most basic level, a personal website should have a primary page with an introduction (index page), a page that describes you to the world (about me page), and some kind of contact page providing email links and/or address information. Company sites are similar, except they describe the company! Provide a good mix of text and graphic content to keep the site interesting to the visitor. You can add pages as you see fit - for example, showcase some of your photos using a viewer like Airtight Interactive’s SimpleViewer.
• Content in hand (er..on disk), you need to be able to create it. You can go old-skool and use a plain-text editor like TextMate, SubEthaEdit or BBEdit, or you can try a more user-friendly (ie: don’t have to write any HTML code if you don’t want to) tool such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Coda or RapidWeaver.
• By now, you should have yourself a well-designed website, complete with useful content. But you need somewhere to put it so that people other than yourself can see it! That is where hosting comes into play. A web host will “host” your web pages (for a fee) and serve them up to people who visit your website. Most hosting companies offer a basic plan that includes a domain name, but if you already have one you can usually do some simple configuration to associate your domain name with your host’s servers. Hosting companies like Dreamhost, Webserve.ca and Servage.net all offer introductory hosting plans for those starting out.
• Now that your website is live, wouldn’t it be nice to know who is visiting? You can add detailed statistics about your visitors by using Google Analytics. It’s a free service that offers very detailed information about your visitors, including who visited, from what part of the world, what pages they viewed and how long they stayed on your site!

Do you have any good tips on website creation? Share them in the comments!

As an amateur photographer, I’m always looking for the perfect application that will allow me to manage my photo collection. By perfect, I mean an application that allows easy (or detailed) adjustment tools, a way to organize my photos by keyword, and good print support. I like to print two photos per page if possible, since that reduces paper usage and allows me to stick the sheet in a portfolio or binder very easily.

Since taking possession of my MacBook Pro, I’ve had the opportunity to try the trial versions of Apple Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but this article will focus on the printing functionality of Lightroom alone. I will detail Aperture’s functionality in another post.

Lightroom has a very flexible print module. It allows you to create templates for various print layouts. You an do the same with the Web module, defining your own web templates to upload to your web site. By default, Lightroom has a very limited set of print templates - mostly contact sheet and full sheet-specific. But with a little customization, you can define your own template for printing photos at home.

Click below to follow along with a short tutorial on setting up a simple Lightroom print template.

Update: I just checked the settings again on LR 1.4.1 and it does not accept 0.13 as right/left values.  Try setting the values at left 0.25, right 0.25, top 0.25, bottom 0.56, and make sure to set the cell size height to 5 and the cell size width to 7.  This will produce the correct template.  Thanks Julia!

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I rely on Gmail quite heavily.  It’s my primary email client, and my primary email address is an @gmail.com address.  I remember getting an invite way back in the day when Gmail was invite only.  It was cool to have a Gmail account!  Now they are free for anyone, and it makes sense to have one for various reasons (2+ GB of space, 20MB attachments, Gmail Drive, web-based, etc).

One great feature of Gmail is labels.   Labels allow you to assign words to your email messages that help describe them, and make searching through your email very easy.  You can have as many labels as you can imagine.

After the jump, see an example of using a label in Gmail.

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Since I’ve set up this blog, I’ve wondered how other blogging sites include the “Continue reading…” link at the end of some posts. It’s a great way to shorten the amount of text on the main page, and allows you to create longer posts that users have the option of reading.

After downloading and installing plugins for Wordpress that I didn’t need, and reading many Google search results, I figured it out. Windows Live Writer provides a quick and easy way to create a logical break in your post text.

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Apple today announced an update to their MacBook Pro laptop models.  Faster processors, LED backlit displays, 2GB ram standard and a nice bump in video cards makes for an attractive upgrade!  I’m happy with my MBP, as it suits our needs perfectly well.  But one can dream, right?

See details here: Apple MacBook Pro