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Sequeunce mode pictures on my Nokia

Rebecca is the one that made this discovery after getting her very own Nokia 6682 through the buzz marketing campaign by Matchstick. The cellphone will take a series of six pictures at a time when in sequence mode. I tried it out while having dinner on Robson Street and made it into an animated gif.

Nokia on sequence mode

This is actually a group of two sequences. I know that you can make movies just as well, but I wanted to at least show the phone’s ability to capture images like this. It struck me as being a cool feature. If you want to see the sequence again, just click on the pic.

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Making a switch over to Firefox

Screenshot of my Firefox setup Being the Apple fan that I publicly am, I’ve also been very partial to Safari.  That changed the other day when I launched Firefox while just being curious about how it stacks up to my “usual” browser.

I really like Safari.  That being said, in the past few days, I am not longer using it as my default browser.  The element I really liked about Safari was the RSS feature.  After numerous, spinning beach balls(Apple users will know what I’m talking about), I grew tired of how it behaved.

It’s annoying and time wasting to have that happen.  RSS was made to make getting info more simple and quick.  On top of that, Safari does not fully support WordPress.  So for creating my posts, I ran Camino along side Safari in order to use the “quicktags” feature in WP.  You can’t use that in Safari, so posting with that browser reverts back to manually typing up HTML code as well as your text. Can you see the headache going on here?

I also experimented, briefly, with making Flock my standard browser, if not something to use in conjuntion with Safari and replacing Camino.  I can’t say that I was overly happy with its performance, RSS interface, and overall feel.  I still think that it’s a great browser, but the development needs to keep going on it until I would be comfortable using it full time.  Maybe it’s something to keep revisiting as the built-in blogging and photo sharing support is pretty cool.

That being said, I think I am 80% with being fully converted into using Firefox.  The ability of using plugins has already found me pretty happy.  Using Tab Mix Plus and Wizz RSS News Reader has me feeling even more efficient than I did with Safari.  Additionally, I’ve changed the theme to make it look more like Safari.  That might sound sad to some folks, but having it look like how I’m used to made the change all the more easier.

Pages load quicker than before, and I mean that by being more snappy.  Clicking on a RSS article has the page load in a few seconds.  And if I want to blog about something I read, I open a new tab and make a post.  Even publishing a podcast gets easier because if I need to search for info to add a link into the show notes, eveything is all in one.

These are just some preliminary thoughts about the switch.  I have to say that I’m pleased with how easy it was, but my experience with doing these things might be more than the average user.  For now, I’m sticking with Firefox.

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RadioZoom Episode #108 – Hockey Talk: VancouverCanucksOpEd.com

A very special episode because this episode was a very fun one to record.

A Skype interview with blogger Alanah Downie from Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, Rebecca and I find out more about the history of the blog, thoughts on the coming hockey season, and plenty about our favorite team, the Vancouver Canucks. It’s one of our daily stops for the latest news and discussions about the team, so having Alanah on the podcast was a lot of fun and a real treat. We hope it won’t be the last time.

This is another venture using Ubercaster, as well as the first Skype interview in the history of the podcast.

47:36 minutes
radiozoom.net

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They’re vicious little critters

I have had a long time fascination with squirrels. I know how sad it sounds, but it’s true. I often ask Rebecca if we can have one for a pet, and she has told me numerous times that you are to never feed rodents in the city. I have only suggested doing such things, never actually done it.

A family today told how a squirrel went berserk and trashed their house after falling down their chimney.

Retired engineer Alan White, 67, and his wife Janice, 65, came home from a weekend away to find their lounge had been ransacked, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

The couple initially feared burglars had broken into their home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but the culprit was found to be a squirrel which had left sooty paw prints all over the room.

The trapped rodent had tried chewing through the window frames and tore the curtain and settee to shreds in a desperate bid to escape. [guardian]

Yeah, it’s never going to happen. It doesn’t help that even I have some sort of struggle with wild animals as pets and all the rest of the things that rights activists would have problems about having such rodents in captivity, blah blah blah.

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The RIAA doesn’t want your next of kin anymore

The Recording Industry Association of America[wiki] had a lawsuit against a Larry Scantlebury of Michigan for illegally downloading music over the net. Apparently, the actual offender was his stepson, but, naturally, the lawsuit came against Larry. This sounds like a common story that we’ve heard before in the news.

What’s unusual is that Larry passed away in June. Did the RIAA drop the case? Nope.

The RIAA represents Warner Bros. Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, BMG Music, Arista Records LLC, Capitol Records, Inc., and Atlantic Recording Corporation all of whom brought suit against Larry. The lawyer representing the RIAA is Matthew E. Krichbaum of law firm Soble Rowe Krichbaum LLP (although I’m not sure if he’ll answer, he can be reached at matthew@srkllp.com in case you want to ask him questions about the case). […]

Getting back to, Mr. Scantlebury, apparently, his death isn’t enough for the RIAA to take its business elsewhere. No, Krichbaum has already invested time and resources into this case and so now, he must still bring it across the finish line. So, in pursuit of a settlement with our war heroe’s estate, Krichbaum has made a motion to allow Larry’s family 60 days to grieve after which time they’ll have to give depositions. [zdnet]

Two months and then his family was under the gun by the RIAA to pay up on the settlement. Incredibly cold hearted, yes. There is something to be said about how the legal system works in events like this, but compassion is not apart of the equation here. Deaths in the family take a toll on emotions and finances, so even a year or two could have been more appropriate if they were that hellbent on seeing the case through.

Now that this story has circled the news outlets and blogs, the RIAA is doing some clean up to their image of being a heartless beast of control. They dropped the case.

Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case. [boingboing]

Aside from misspelling Scantlebury’s name, the RIAA is showing some heart and a swift CYA move in the public relations department. Maybe the spelling issue actually shows some human element, but they’re far from able to demonstrate a sense of humor. Cory Doctorow lays it out pretty well on the same post over at BoingBoing.

This is reminiscent of the RIAA’s approach to things like YouTube lipsynch videos: “our songs are released to be listened to and nothing more; should you dare to make them part of your life, we will use the copyright law we bought to break you.” [boingboing]

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Jiminy Jillikers, Radioactive Man

No stone is left unturned in the War on Terror[wiki].

An 83-year-old Surrey man who had been injected with a radioactive dye as part of his medical treatment set off a nuclear alarm at the Peace Arch crossing south of Vancouver last week.

Stanley Smith had undergone an injection of a radioactive dye into his heart as part of a diagnostic scan.

He was on his way to the Ferndale Casino in Washington state when the alarm sounded.

Mike Milne, who speaks for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, says guards took the senior to the secondary inspection area, where he was interrogated for half an hour before being allowed to proceed.  [cbc]

My mother has to carry a card with her whenever she travels commercially because of a knee replacement she had a few years ago.  That way the TSA knows that there is metal in her knee and not a concealed weapon.  This a far cry from detectors picking up nuclear material at the border, but maybe they should issue cards for radioactive, elderly folks as well.

Maybe it helps him see what the dealer is holding at the blackjack table.

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Losing the biggest step for mankind

There is something about this that really bugs me. You would think that some one would have marked these tapes in big, bold letters, but then again, I taped over the VHS my cousin’s first communion with Beavis and Butthead[wiki] during my adolescence days.

NASA no longer knows the whereabouts of the original tapes of man’s first landing on the moon nearly 40 years ago, an official of the US space agency said.

“NASA is searching for the original tapes of the Apollo 11 spacewalk on July 21, 1969,” said Ed Campion, a spokesman for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb.

The tapes record the famous declaration of Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, as he set foot on its surface: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The original tapes could be somewhere at the Goddard center or in the archives network of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Campion said. [breitbart]

Where the originals could be? The U.S. Declaration of Independence[wiki] and Constitution[wiki] is protected with bullet proof glass and armed guards. The Enola Gay[wiki] is on display at the Smithsonian[wiki] to showcase the history of the only time nuclear weapons were used in combat, not to mention as a symbol of American military triumphs. Even the plane that the Wright brothers[wiki] used for the first, manned flight in history is there. And yet, no one knows where the original vidoes of man’s first steps on the moon went to?

Doesn’t this bother anyone else? It is one of the greatest achievments that humanity has made since the wheel, fire, or the industrial revolution. This is history that is bigger and more impactual than anything that has come before it. Scientists are looking back to Project Apollo[wiki] today to help future exploration of the Moon and Mars. Talk about a picture perfect version of bureaucracy at its finest.

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Why so many power outages?

Maybe I’m not used to living in a large community like the one that makes up Vancouver and the surrounding areas, but it seems like there are a lot of power outages that occur.

MAPLE RIDGE/CKNW(AM980) – A fire at a Hydro sub-station in maple ridge has knocked out power to more than 16-thousand customers, and it’s also causing traffic delays on Dewdney Trunk Road.

Ridge-Meadows RCMP are warning drivers about a lane closure west of 216th as crews try to douse the fire.

The power’s been out since shortly after seven this morning and it’s not expected to be restored before 9am.

The affected area covers 246th street west to the Pitt River and the Fraser River North to 144th Avenue.  [cknw]

Of course, this stands to make sense, but there is hardly a month that goes by where I don’t catch news about some area being without power during the morning news.  Trust me, I’ve been the victim of being caught in the dark because a rodent met its demise at a sub-station.  I understand that these things just happen, but is the power grid to blame or are there just that many accidents that disrupt the flow of electricity around the lower mainland?

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Cracked magazine relaunches

Cracked MagazineVia BoingBoing, this is hilarious.

There used to be a collection of these things sitting around the closests of my bedroom when I was growing up. Combine old issues of Cracked with Mad Magazine, and suddenly I’m starting to have a greater idea of where my corrupt sense of humor stems from. I even recall a plead with my mother while at the grocery store to buy me one of these said publications. Yes sir, those were the days before the internet as we know it.

Regardless, this is a great cover, no matter how un-warped you are.

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Blogger taken into beta by Google

Finally, after buying Blogger a few years ago, Google is starting to make some changes. I would say improvements, but that remains to be seen.

The new Blogger is only available to new users and a select group of existing users right now. A full roll-out will happen “eventually,” according to Blogger’s Buzz news blog. Blogger users who want to try out the new tools can sign up for a new user account under a different name, then merge their accounts later.

New features include the addition of tags, which Blogger calls “labels,” to posts and photos. The new beta also has updated privacy and user management options which allow for private posts, tiered user permissions and multi-author blogging. Blog owners can define whitelists of “blog authors” and “blog readers” who have access to publish and read blog content. [wired]

When I first started out blogging, and like many other people out there in the same boat, I used Blogger. And for those just getting into the whole blogging thing, it’s great. More importantly, it’s free. All you need to get going with your own blog is an unused name for your URL and internet access.

Oh wait, did I just say that it’s great? I meant to say that it can be a real pain, and that goes beyond your butt. The reliability isn’t always the best. Somedays it will publish your posts, other days you’ll sit staring at the screen screaming, “Oh come on already! PUBLISH!”

There’s lots of other things about Blogger that made me jump to WordPress, and I haven’t looked back since. It’s about time Google did something about it. They’re promising lots of changes to come. I’m curious to see what they come up with.