Skip to Content

Fragapalooza 2011–Day 1

Written on August 5, 2011 at 9:39 am, by

DSC03839

Well, we made it through an entire day of Fragapalooza without losing power.  That sounds trivial, but after going almost 18 hours without power last year, it is a pretty big deal.  That meant more time for games, trying to find games, and screaming at the trivia bot(more on that later).  Overall, Fragapalooza is off to a great start.

DSC03838We have the power

People always trickle in to Fragapalooza throughout the first day.  I arrived at about 11, and the venue was less than 1/4 full.  That was fine with me, since it always takes a couple of hours to actually get everything set up.  It’s a few trips of bringing the computer in, bringing the cooler with the drinks and the food in, as well as bringing in things like my keyboard and mouse which, funnily enough, are pretty important.  Setting up the tent this year was actually a lot nicer, as I found a grassy area to put my tent up.  Last year I had to set the tent up on a gravel area, which made me feel like I was sleeping on the side of a mountain, so sleeping on grass felt so nice.

Thursday is always the quietest day of Fragapalooza, so I took mostly to playing Team Fortress 2, as it was one of the few “popular” games that I could consistently find people playing, with a few breaks in the action.  Though one of my favorite things about Fragapalooza is that people can hop into the chat room, and generally find people to play most games you may want to play. I spent a couple hours playing a worms clone (I had a team of ninjas!), where I successfully managed to murder myself several times, and a Tron-like game where I also successfully managed to murder myself several times.  but games like that are what make Fragapalooza, and I enjoyed it, and hope to play more of them today.

There have been a few glitches though.  Late last night we were trying to get a game of Left 4 Dead 2 running, and it kept error-ing, so that was annoying.  I’m itching to kill some zombies, so I’m looking forward to getting into that game today.  The other glitch was my with the friend that I’m sitting with.  His computer had issues that we spent about an hour trying to get fixed, but all is now well with him.  But overall, Fragapalooza is off to a strong start.

I also spent a couple of hours playing trivia.  A trivia “bot” in a chatroom channel spits out questions, first person to type the correct answer gets points.  Pretty simple in practice, but this year’s Trivia bot is cruel and torturing.  There have been some hilarious moments; when 10 people couldn’t figure out how to spell “hamburglar”  and it asking the exact same question twice.  but there have been other times when the questions are so obscure that no one has a clue, or the answer needs punctuation.  Though the worst part is the hints it offers.  ___-________ __ _______ is not a good hint, at all.  I’m a sucker, and kept coming back for more, but I may have to throw my keyboard through my monitor before the event is done.

DSC03841

Quiet in the morning

As I begin day two, I had a good swim in the rec center pool, had a good shower, and am ready to go.  The worst part of the day? Waking up in a tent when it is 6 degrees outside. that was not pleasant.  It took a lot of effort and will power to crawl out of my sleeping bag this morning.

That’s it for this post folks, I need to get back to the gaming.  As always, you can follow me on Twitter @wunderbar for updates throughout the day.  Happy fragging.

fragapalooza , Comments Off

Fragapalooza 2011

Written on August 3, 2011 at 9:21 pm, by

This year is the 15th year of Fragapalooza, and my 5th year going.  As I have done for the previous two years, I will be blogging every day from Fragapalooza, to give a sense of what the event is like.  I enjoy doing it, and I’ve received good feedback about how I’ve shared my experience.

For those who don’t know, Fragapalooza is a 4 day video gaming event that is held in the Edmonton area.  People bring their own computers, and play any game they want.  Fragapalooza is not as big as it used to be, but it is still a chance for 250 or so people to get together and play video games for 4 days.  It is a unique event in that it runs non-stop 24/7 from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon.  I’m personally very excited for this year not just because this is the 15th year of the event and my 5th, but that this will be the first time that I’ll go to the event in the same venue two years in a row.  I went to the last year at the Mayfield, the year at the SportEx, the year in Fort Saskatchewan, and last year in Leduc, in the Leduc Recreation Center.  This year returns to the same venue in Leduc, and I couldn’t be happier.

The venue in Leduc was fantastic last year, except for the one major problem where we didn’t have power for about 12 hours.  We’ve been assured that there will be no power problems this year, which makes me happy.  I really do like the venue, and can’t wait for the event to start.

This year is a bit of a departure for me.  In previous years I tried to sit a bit away from the stage and head table, out of some of the higher traffic areas.  This year, I’m sitting literally right at the end of the row in front of the stage.  It should be an interesting experience, and I’m excited to see the traffic that comes by.  Though I’m sure i’ll be less excited when there are a ton of people playing games on the stage at 3am.  Either way, it’ll be fun.

I’m setting myself up in Tent City again this year.  Tent City is exactly as it sounds, an area for people to pitch tents.  If the area is the same as last year, it will be outside behind the building on a slightly rocky area.  The rocky area does not excite me that much, but I will live.  I wish tent city was closer to the doors to the venue, but considering I’m pitching a tent for free, I won’t’ complain.  Sleeping in Tent City is made significantly better by the fact that the Leduc Recreation Center has an excellent pool facility.  Last year, when there was no power on Friday morning, I went for a swim, enjoyed some time in the hot tub, and had a good shower.  I enjoyed it so much that I did it every morning during the event, and plan on doing it again this year.  this also takes care of my hygiene, which, unfortunately, can be an issue with some people at this kind of event.

All in all I’m super excited to get Fragapalooza started this year.  I can’t wait to see what the organizers have planned for year 15 of this event.

I will be tweeting regularly at all times of the day on my twitter account, @wunderbar.  You can follow the official Fragapalooza account @Fragapalooza.  My blog posts will likely appear in the mornings, so look for them then.  And lastly, Fragapalooza is open to the public  to come and see from 10am to 9pm Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and from 10am to closing on Sunday.

I’ll see you at Fragapalooza!

Oh, and I don’t know how I didn’t think of this until this year: but I bought a box of Wunderbar’s for the event.  I’ll probably give almost all of them away, but man, how could I not have thought of that before yesterday?

fragapalooza , Comments Off

The New BlackBerry Devices

Written on August 3, 2011 at 11:43 am, by

So, RIM’s new BlackBerry lineup is finally taking shape.  Aside from the next generation Curve, we now know what the next generation of BlackBerry devices looks like.  The quick response to them is that they’re very good….but they’re still BlackBerries.

There are 3 devices that will essentially run the same hardware.  The BlackBerry Bold 9900 (9930 CDMA model), The BlackBerry Torch 9810, and the BlackBerry Torch 9850 (9860 CDMA model) will all run on 1.2GHz single core processors and 768MB of ram, with 8GB of storage on the Bold and Torch 9810, and 4GB of storage on the Torch 9850.

Now, none of these devices are revolutionary.  The Bold makes a return to the form factor of the original Bold 9000, which is still the best BlackBerry RIM ever made.  The Bold is the traditional BlackBerry form factor with a 2.8″ 640×480 touchscreen.  For those who need the best possible keyboard possible, the Bold 9900 will without a doubt be your device.

The Torch 9810 is basically the Torch 2, or as many say, what the first Torch should have been.  I’m personally not a fan of the Torch form factor.  I think that they keyboard is too small and stiff in use (though they may be able to fix the latter in the 9810), the screen is too small to be used as a touchscreen only device, and my biggest complaint is that the device is inexplicably heavy.  It just felt too heavy for the size, and when the keyboard was open, it just felt way too top heavy; like it would tip over if I’m not careful.  The Torch 9810 is the exact same weight, which is not good.

The Torch 9850 is essentially the Storm 3.  I think RIM folded this device into the Torch brand and retired the Storm name since the Storm and Storm 2 were among the worst devices they’ve ever made.  The Torch 9850 aims to fix that, by ditching that clicking surepress screen in favour of a standard touscreen, and bumps the screen size up to 3.7″.  This is the most interesting device of the bunch, because it is the closest thing to an iPhone or Android touchscreen phone that RIM has.  I don’t think that the BlackBerry OS makes a good touchscreen only OS, and it really felt like it was missing something without having a physical keyboard.  BlackBerry OS 7 appears to do little to change that, but with a larger screen it may be more usable.  Only time will tell.  One other interesting thing is that the Torch 9850 is being marketed as the multimedia heavy BlackBerry, with a large vibrant screen that screams to have movies on it, has the least amount of included storage of these 3 models at 4GB.  I personally don’t understand that move, at all.

Now, these devices are all going to be fast, probably the first devices capable of actually running the BlackBerry OS at full speed with no lag. That will go a long way towards addressing the issues that were had with devices like the Torch 9800.  I look forward to getting one of these devices to test, just to see how good of an experience it is.  I have no doubts that these will be the best BlackBerries ever.

But at the end of the day, these are still BlackBerries, and still run BlackBerry OS, which is at this point so far behind anything Apple Google and even HP/Palm have to offer.  Again, perhaps the speed improvements will be a huge factor and make the OS feel better, but speed cannot fix fundamental flaws in the OS.  I’ve personally always liked RIM’s hardware, but it has been about 3 years since it felt like the device software has been anywhere close to the competition, and it has really held the devices back, especially in the Bold line.

There is also an issue of these devices probably being stillborn.  They run BlackBerry OS 7, which is actually version 6.1, a marginal improvement over last year’s OS release.  RIM has stated it plans to move the company’s phones over to its QNX platform, the OS that runs on the Playbook, in 2012, and that it was unlikely that BlackBerry OS devices would be able to upgrade to QNX.  Selling a phone that will be a dead end in a year or less is not an easy proposition for RIM, no matter how good those phones are.

That being said, i am due for an upgrade of my BlackBerry from the original Tour, and I will probably be getting the Bold 9900 in September.  I’ve always been a fan of the Bold hardware, especially that of the original Bold 9000, and I am very much looking forward to the new hardware.  I just hope that the software can keep up to it, though I’m not holding my breath.

gadgets, thoughs , , , , , Comments Off

MacBook Air Review – Mid 2011

Written on August 2, 2011 at 7:37 am, by

DSC03567 2011 07 29 at 16 29 14

The MacBook Air is now an interesting part of Apple’s product lineup.  With the discontinuation of the White MacBook customers now have to choose between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro.  At the low end, the MacBook Air is $999 (though I don’t recommend that model), and the MacBook Pro is $1250.  Bump up to the recommended model of the MacBook Air, and you have a $1200 11″ notebook against a $1250 13 notebook.  Is the Air a better choice than the Pro? Read on and I’ll give you my two cents.

Hardware

DSC03553 2011 07 28 at 16 09 34

The MacBook Air is an absolutely beautiful little machine.  that’s the one thing that Apple didn’t change.  At first glance, the 2011 Air is exactly the same as the 2010 version.  A bit more examination shows two differences: the addition of a Thunderbolt port and a backlit keyboard.  Aside from that it is pretty much identical.  Is it perfect?  No.  The webcam (sorry, I refuse to call it a FaceTime camera) is not an HD cam like what is found in the MacBook Pro and iMac.  Perhaps the machine is just too thin to stick a HD sensor in, but it’s still a little sad.  Also, while this is an 11.6″ screen, the large-ish bezel around it could have easily accommodated a slightly bigger, maybe 12.1″, screen with no effect on the size of the machine.  It may not sound like much, but it really is a big bezel.

DSC03551 2011 07 28 at 16 09 13

If you’re looking for every connectivity option under the sun, stop right now because this machine is not for you.  On the 11″ Air you will find power, 2 USB, Thunderbolt, and a headphone port.  that’s it. No ethernet port at all.  There is a USB adapter for Ethernet, but then using that uses 50% of the USB ports on the machine.  I picked up an Ethernet adapter personally.  I won’t need it often, maybe 2-3 times a year.  But for those 2-3 times, it will probably be a life saver.  Sure, the potential of port expansion through the Thunderbolt port exists, there is not a lot of options on this little guy.  There is an SDXC card slot on the 13″ model, which is nice.  I’d like one on the 11″, but there physically isn’t room on the logic board for one, so I’ll live.

Trackpad and Keyboard

DSC03568 2011 07 29 at 16 29 23

The trackpad is massive for a machine this size.  that’s the one advantage of the large bezel.  It allows for a bigger palm rest and trackpad.  And with all of the multi-touch gestures now in Lion, you’ll need every centimetre of it.  The trackpad itself is pretty standard for apple, but slightly smaller than found on the 13″ and bigger models.

DSC03583 2011 07 29 at 16 34 21

The Keyboard is also fairly standard for apple, save for a few things.  The dashboard and expose function buttons have been replaced with controls for Launchpad and Mission Control.  The actual typing experience is about 90% of what I would expect from an Apple keyboard. Where I notice a difference is in the depth of each key press.  It is another necessary evil because of how thin the machine is, but the typing experience on the MacBook Pro is slightly better because of the longer travel distance on the keys.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t’ enjoy the MacBook Air keyboard, in fact, it’s a great keyboard for the size of machine.  But the keyboard on the Pro is slightly better, emphasis on slightly.  The speakers on the Air are a bit tinny. they get the job done, but if you want to do any serious music listening or movie watching, it is best to use headphones, which sound great.

DSC03554 2011 07 28 at 16 09 40

The last thing I will say about the hardware itself is that the machine is remarkably solid, especially for a machine of this size.  That is a result of Apple’s unibody construction, where the machine is basically made of 2 pieces of aluminum and the screen.  I’m not going to try it, but it really does feel like I could drop this machine and it would still work perfectly.  there is a little flex in the screen, which is understandable considering how thin it is.  But that is not enough to worry me.  The rest of the machine simply does not bend, which is perfect.

Software

Screen Shot 2011 08 01 at 9 15 09 PM

The MacBook Air, naturally, runs OS X Lion.  The experience is a little different than installing on an existing machine.  First off, Before you even get set up, it prompts you to connect to a wifi network. Then you are required to enter in an apple ID when you first boot the machine.  If you do not have one, you will have to create one.  This is the first sign of just how important the cloud is to Lion.

Past that, it actually kind of surprised me how many settings and preferences that were kept when I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Lion.  The out of the box Lion experience was vastly different than the upgrade.  Some of the multi-touch gestures were different (the Lion defaults), and even some of the interface elements were different.  I’m still going through all the settings trying to get things the way I want them, and I’ve found ways to fix several things that I mentioned bugged me in my review of Lion.  I plan to use this machine for a few more weeks then make another post about life with Lion.

While i’m still a bit tepid about the Mac App store, the fact that I was able to simply log in to it, and then re-download my purchased apps was really slick.  It even remembered which free apps I had downloaded, which made getting the machine up to speed, limited only by my internet connection.  I also used the iTunes home sharing feature to bring my music over form my main computer.  The last thing I did was grab all the files I wanted to keep out of the home folder from my MacBook Pro.  I actually did this using AirDrop, which was really slick, and amazingly simple.  I was able to just drag about 5 GB worth of files into the icon for my MacBook Air in the air drop GUI, on the Air I was prompted to accept the transfer, and it just stuck everything into the downloads folder, which I was then able to move to my home folder.  Apple really need to put AirDrop into iOS. I think it would be a pretty massive feature.

Performance

 

Now, I’m not going to run benchmarks and give you graphs and pie charts of how the MacBook Air performs.  Others have done that, and I don’t need to.  The Air I purchased was the 11.6″ version with the base 1.6 GHz Core i5 processor (which is the intel low power ULV chip), 4GB of RAM, and the upgrade to a 256GB Sold State Drive.  Every MacBook Air uses the i5′s integrated graphics processor, the Intel HD 3000 graphics, which uses 384 MB of system RAM for video memory.

Now, this machine is the fastest machine I’ve ever used in day to day use.  This is largely because of the sold state drive, which the Air is my first experience in using one.  It goes from off to the log in screen in about 7 seconds, and after I put my password in, the desktop is loaded 3 seconds after that.  It sleeps instantly, and wakes up instantly.  Applications launch blazingly fast. I’ve been using the Air for about a week now, and it still amazes me how fast it is.

The processor on this machine is plenty fast as well.  Would i make it a main video editing machine? No.  But it can definitely handle itself as a video editing machine for mobile users.  my desktop runs a previous generation Core i7 920, which is still faster, but the Air is fast enough for all but the heaviest tasks I can throw at it.  It is simply not in the same universe from the ULV Core 2 Duo from the previous MacBook Air, and is significantly faster than the full speed Core 2 Duo in the 2009 MacBook Pro.

Battery life seems to be roughly what Apple claims for the 11″ air, 5 hours.  I haven’t run any extensive tests, but I can say that I can regularly get over 4 hours doing my normal activities (browsing, IM, Twitter client polling every few minutes, and some app use like Reeder), but not more than 5.  I wish the battery life was a bit longer, but again, on a machine this small, I will trade a bit of battery life for the size.

I didn’t buy the Air to be a gaming machine, and I’m obviously not going to try running a lot of high end games, but that being said I loaded up Civilization V and it was playable at the native resolution; albeit on the low settings.  Most games that are a few years old seem to run fine (Star Wars: Empire at War was my main test case), and the Air runs Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies like a fiend.

My only real concern is that the Air runs a little warmer under idle conditions than I would like.  While my MacBook Pro idled at about 41-44 degrees, the MacBook Air idles about 10 degrees warmer than that, and regularly gets over 65 degrees under a moderate load.  Time will tell whether that will be an issue or not.

Wrap-up

DSC03574 2011 07 29 at 16 30 47

So the main question still remains. Can the MacBook Air be a users only computer.  For me, the answer is still no.  The MacBook Air is a fantastic computer, but I am still too much of a power user.  My Air has a 256GB hard drive, and I have 5.5 TB in my desktop.  I game on my desktop in ways that simply aren’t possible on the Air.

That being said, I can see the Air being a perfectly acceptable computer for most users.  I absolutely do not recommend the $999 version though.  a 64GB SSD and 2GB of RAM are frankly unacceptable in 2011.  I think that the $1,200 model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD should be the minimum users should consider.  For other things, like the ethernet port or optical drive, a simple question needs to be asked: When was the last time you used them on your laptop.  For me, I hadn’t used the optical drive in over a year, and the ethernet port only 2-3 times in that year, which can easily be fixed with the USB adapter.  A USB DVD drive can also be bought for the few times when an optical drive is needed.

If you can live without having an ethernet port or a DVD drive every day, and understand that the $1200 model is the minimum that should be considered, the MacBook Air can absolutely be someone’s only computer. Especially the 13″ model, which offers higher specs and a slightly larger screen.  Even for me, where the 11″ Air is going to be my secondary/couch/travel computer, I could not be happier with it, and it comes as highly recommended as I can.

You can see more pictures of the MacBook Air, including size comparisons to the Mid-2009 13″ MacBook Pro here

reviews , , , , Comments Off

The Big Cat – OS X Lion Reviewed

Written on July 25, 2011 at 8:24 pm, by

On July 20, 2011, Apple released the 8th major version of OS X, version 10.7 Lion.  I’m not going to spend time doing something that’s been done better in many other places.  Ars Technica has what is probably the comprehensive review of Lion; a massive document totaling about 27,000 words.  If you are looking for the definitive review, that is it.  What I’m going to talk about is my experience with Lion.  What I like, what I don’t like, and what’s changed compared to how I used Snow Leopard on a day to day basis.  Another thing I’m going to try to do is separate how I use OS X, and try to look a little more at how a novice OS X user would use it.  Many of the new features in OS X are designed for those users, and while I personally may not like them, they may make the experience better for a good number of users.

Begin!

After almost a week of using Lion, I can say that it’s a mix of good things, puzzling things, and things I frankly don’t like.  That’s not to say that it’s bad.  Lion’s goal seems to be improving the accessibility of a desktop OS, and making it easier for anyone, especially those who have use an iPad, to pick up and use.  In the process they have made things harder for long time users of OS X, and computers in general, by changing some of the fundamental things in a computer that users have been accustomed to for 20+ years.

Scrolling

Lion’s default scrolling is backwards.  That’s right, backwards.  The same way we’ve been scrolling documents, web pages, code, pictures, etc for 20 years has been turned backwards.  I tried it, I really did.  I used it for 2 days, and I frankly cannot stand it, and changed it back to “normal.”  The problem is that Apple set the default to be like scrolling on an touch screen device like an iPhone or iPad.  That works fine on a touch screen, when you’re actually interacting with the object you’re moving.  But when using it with a touchpad, it simply feels backwards because I’m not interacting directly with the object that I’m scrolling. And honestly it does not feel right.  Of all the new multi-touch gestures in Lion, this is the one that I cannot get used to.  But thankfully, it’s actually the only one that can be switched back to the way it was before Lion.

Trackpad gestures

Since I talked about scrolling, it is time to talk about the rest of the multi-touch gestures.  At first, I hated them, and now I can say that I’ve gotten used to them.  That doesn’t mean that I like them, but I’m not doing the wrong thing constantly anymore, which is nice.

In Snow Leopard, there was a universal gesture.  3 finger swipe back would take you back one page anywhere in the OS: finder, system preferences, Safari, Google Chrome, The App Store, you name it.  swiping back with 3 fingers would take you back one web page, back to the main system preferences window, back a page in many apps.  It worked nicely, and was the gesture I used more than any other in Snow Leopard, hands down.  And now it is gone.  I personally think that was probably the stupidest thing that has changed in Lion.  It may not feel like much, but when I had come to depend on that gesture for 2 years, it suddenly being gone is driving me crazy.  I’ve never wanted to throw my computer out a window more than I have in the last week of using Lion because of that simple gesture.  It has been replaced by a two finger swipe gesture to go backwards, but that is app specific; meaning that each app has to be written to take advantage of it.  It can be changed to 3 fingers, but it is still app specific, and doesn’t work with other apps.  Safari is, but pretty much no other app is right now, not even Apple’s own applications.  It is frustrating, and one thing that Apple really didn’t have to change.

The other one’s aren’t nearly so bad, but they are different.  App expose has been moved from a long click on the icon in the dark to a 4 finger swipe down.  Mission control is a 4 finger swipe up, and changing between spaces and full screen apps is 4 fingers to the right or left. (more on mission control and spaces later).  Those are all new, and took a few days for me to get used to.  The one that I find hilarious and terrible is the one that launches, err, launchpad.  The gesture is 3 fingers and thumb pinching together.  I’m doing it as I write this, and it makes me laugh every time.  It feels so un-natural, and odd, almost like I have to contort my thumb to make it work.  Launchpad is supposed to be a big feature of Lion, and the gesture for brining it up is easily the worst one in the OS. It is a curious choice, at best.

Versions

Versions, I think, is the best feature in Lion.  In a nutshell, if you have an app that supports it, you will never have to worry about saving a document or losing data again.  I usually use an app called Mars Edit to write on my blog, but for this post I’m using Pages, to test versioning out.  Versioning is, essentially, what Microsoft and Apple have been trying to do for years: get document auto-saving working correctly.  I could close this application right now, and my document will automatically save.  When I launch it again, the document will come back up exactly where I left it.  As I add to the document, it saves it.  If I accidentally delete a paragraph, or actually delete a large chunk of text on purpose, I can go back to a version of the document that has it, and copy it into the current working document.  It does this in an interface that looks almost exactly like Time Machine, which is elegant.  I think that it could get a bit difficult to deal with versions if you make lots of changes, add and remove stuff from different versions, but overall, this is a fantastic feature, and, as an IT pro, one that I’m crying for in the Windows world.

In the vein of never losing data again, Apple has added a version of Time Machine that works directly on the computer.  Basically, it keeps a local time machine backup of some changes, like when you create or delete a document, and will add those to your time machine disk backup when you attach it again.  It’s not really a user facing feature, but another good one that will help reduce the chance of a user losing data.

Full screen apps

Apple has decided to bring this “feature” of iOS devices to OS X.  On a tablet or phone, it makes sense, because the screen is so small it is not practical to see two things at a time.  Apps that are updated to take advantage of it, and there are many now, can be set to run full screen, which then puts them in their own space, and the 4 finger swipe lets you switch between full screen apps and the regular desktops.  Now, I like to run a lot of applications, so full screen apps rarely make sense to me, but I’m using Pages in full screen right now, mainly to write this post without distractions, and it does work in this circumstance.

Honestly, I can see it working on Mac with a smaller screen, like the 11” MacBook Air.  I can see cases where I will make use of full screen apps, and may use it on occasion, though I will still run mostly in the “normal” desktops.  One place where full screen apps make zero sense at all though, is on larger screens, like the 27” apple display.  Why would I want to run a single app on a screen that’s a higher resolution than 1080p?

Mission Control

Mission Control……..I need to take a breath before I start.

Mission Control is a great adaptation of Spaces and Expose.  But it is not for me.  I was a heavy user of Spaces and expose in Leopard and Snow Leopard.  I’m still a heavy user of spaces, or Mission Control as it’s called now, but I’ve had to completely re-wire my brain.  I’ve had a number of people tell me that Mission control is so much better than Spaces, but I’m struggling with it, a lot.  I know I will probably get used to it over time, but for now, it is giving me trouble.  Spaces actually has fewer features now to make it easier to use.  It is harder to drag applications between spaces now, there is no way to re-order spaces, and it is harder to see what is in the spaces when you have more than 5, since they start to shrink in the row at the top.  Lion also re-orders spaces for you if you open an app that is set to always open in a certain space.  So on my MacBook Pro right now, the order of the spaces is 1, 5, 4, 2, 3, 6, with no way to re-order them to the way I like.  the 4 finger swipe between spaces is nice, but when I have 6 spaces and 3 full screen apps running, is not very practical.  The one thing I do like about Mission control, is that it is very easy to create a new space.  Simply drag an app to the top right of the screen in mission control, beside the last space, and it will create a new one.  I love that feature, but again, without being able to re-order the spaces, my use of it is more limited.  Full screen apps also run as their own space, which further complicates their use, as it adds more clutter to spaces.  Admittedly that is probably the best way to do it, but when I have 6 spaces and 3-4 full screen apps on my screen they become so small in mission control it’s nearly impossible to see what is in each space.

I think Mission Control has potential.  The core idea is interesting, but it needs some modifications that don’t really make it more difficult to use, but will make people who have used it in the past happy.

All My Files

This one, frankly, makes me want to cry.  The new default view in Finder is what is essentially a saved search called “All My Files.”  All My Files tries to aggregate, well, all of your documents, pictures, videos, etc into one finder window.  I don’t even know where to begin as to how stupid this is.  that view in my MacBook Pro is essentially a giant list of pictures that aren’t in iPhoto, the 25 or so versions of this review, and other random documents that I don’t want to see.  It tries to organize it into categories of “documents” “pictures” etc, but the list is so long that it’s useless, and I have to do another search within that search to find anything.  As someone who likes to keep my files organized, this view is unusable.

Now, I can see where Apple was going with this.  They wanted to aggregate all the content on people’s computers.  I know people who have 100 files on their desktop, and then just save anything to the default location, and then can’t find where that document is.  All My files is a terrible way to try to fix that.  Apple built a great tool in 2005, it’s called Spotlight, which is the search.  I don’t understand why All My Files was necessary when spotlight exists, and is a far superior solution.  Even Microsoft, who introduced Libraries in Windows 7, has this right.  Libraries aggregate folders you choose in to a buckets, and it has different buckets.  My “Pictures” library in Windows 7 has 4 folders from different locations in it, but it is all pictures, and I choose what goes there.  Microsoft has nailed this concept, and Apple would be wise to look at Libraries and then look at All My Files, and see where they went wrong.

Launchpad

I hate the Launchpad.  I hate everything it stands for.  There, I said it.  I think it’s possibly the worst new feature in Lion.  However, I also think that it’s going to be the biggest fan favorite.  Why? Because it takes the iPad interface and puts it onto Lion.  Now that I’ve looked at it and have seen how it works, and can talk about it’s functionality, I will never use it again.  But many people will.

Now, launching apps in OS X, for a lot of people, is actually surprisingly hard, mostly for those who don’t know/use spotlight.  With Spotlight, it is easy, hit command-space, type the first 2-3 letters of the app, and hit enter.  Easy.  Except that even for me sometimes, if it’s an application I don’t use all the time, I might forget the name of it.  The Applications folder in finder is ok but 100+ apps in and it’s a bit of a mess.  the Dock is good to keep the most commonly used apps all the time, but again, what about those apps that get used once a month or so? This is one area where the Start Menu in Windows is actually superior, because I think it is easier to find apps in it than in finder.  My personal solution is that I have the Applications folder pinned to the right side of the dock, and when I click on it it brings up the grid view of everything in that folder.  It works well for those few times that I know what app I need, but I just can’t remember the name of it since I haven’t opened in in 3-4 months.

Launchpad, admittedly, does make that easier for people.  Ignoring the hilariously bad gesture, once launchpad is on the screen (launchpad can also be launched from an icon on the dock or in the application folder, which is the way I recommend), it provides a simple grid of applications like you see on an iPad or iPhone.  For what it is it is elegant and simple, and works well.  The only thing, functionally, I don’t like is folders.  You can, like on an iOS device, put apps into folders on the screen.  however, that doesn’t actually correspond to anything on the system, so you can put 10 apps into a folder, but their physical location on the disk doesn’t change, nor is there a new folder on the filesystem with those 10 apps in it, not even a shortcut.  That organization exists only in the Launchpad, and I think it would do Apple well to allow people to be able to match that in the filesystem in the applications folder, or at least let people export the configuration out of launchpad.  But that likely won’t happen.

The main reason I don’t like it is because it is the most visible sign of iOS coming to OS X.  I don’t like that on principle, because I think that a desktop computer and a tablet or phone device do distinctly different things, and I don’t understand the need/obsession both Apple and Microsoft have with trying to combine those two segments.  Each segment is good at different things, lets develop software for each that takes advantage of that, instead of trying to shoehorn things in that don’t make any sense at all.

Miscellaneous

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk briefly about things like  Scroll bars, Mail, Address Book, and iCal.  Scroll bars are gone in Lion.  That is to say, they are like they are on iOS now.  Invisible unless you are actually scrolling.  That will make the 10 people who still use the little arrow keys to scroll very unhappy, but what I have trouble with, especially on long documents or web pages, is that there is no quick visual cue as to where you are on the document.  You actually have to scroll a little bit to get the scroll bar to appear to see if you’re near the beginning, middle, or wherever.  I like the thinner transparent scroll bars scroll bars, just wish they were “always on.”

For iCal and Address book.  I don’t like the new look, mostly because they look like “real” books and calendars.  It’s a computer, and it’s 2011.  Can we please make applications that are functional, and not something that’s supposed to look like the calendar hanging on my wall?  iCal in full screen is amazingly bad, because all it does is stretch the weeks to make them bigger.  Why can’t it just display 10 weeks on the screen, instead of just the weeks in the current month?  I know that sometimes form over function is a good thing, but this has gone too far.

Mail’s overhaul is largely good.  It looks more like the iOS app, there is a proper 3 column view, there are threaded conversations, and it seems to work.  The only issue i have are the issues people with Gmail always have on dedicated clients, which is not for this article.

The End!

I like Lion.  There are some things in it that are really well done, some that are requiring me to re-learn almost 20 years of computer use, and some things that I hate.  The good outweighs the bad, and for most of the things I don’t like, I can acknowledge that they are better for the general consumer.  Lion is the most user friendly release of OS X yet, and is starting to blur the lines between the traditional computing experience and where the future computing experience is going.  That is both exciting and scary to me, but I’m at least willing to see where it goes.

The one thing I will say about Lion, is that I don’t think that the current machines that run it are what Apple really envisions for the future of desktop computing.  Lion very much feels like an operating system that wants to run on a touchscreen, except that it doesn’t, on any device.  While I don’t think that Apple wants OS X to run on a touchscreen, there is something coming in the future that will, OS 11 perhaps, and OS X Lion is the first taste of that.  That makes it awkward to use at times (seriously, the backwards scrolling is terrible), but in 2-3 years, when we see the Apple’s plan for the future of “traditional computing” I think we will be able to look back at Lion, and see that it was the first step towards that.

reviews , , , , 1 Comment

Shaw Launches Movie Club, badly.

Written on July 15, 2011 at 9:41 pm, by

Today Shaw launched a new product aimed squarely at Netflix called Movie Club.  Movie Club is very similar to Netflix in that for a flat monty fee users have access to a library of video content that they can watch.  Movie Club itself is an interesting product, but this article is going to focus more on the Shaw’s launch of the product today.

I’ll be frank.  Shaw fumbled the ball on this one, really badly.  A lot of the good talk about Shaw since the restructuring of their Internet plans has been hurt by how this launch was handled, and it is sad to see.

Confusion started literally minutes after the launch of Movie Club.  Shaw put out a news release, and several news publications put articles up on their respective websites about the new service. Even US based Ars Technica and Tech News Today ran with the story (though Tech News Today was able to correct the story at the end, thanks to a live chat room audience).  The reason for this is that the initial reports were that Shaw was going to deliver this service both to set top boxes and through the Internet, but that the delivery though the internet would not count against data caps on user’s accounts.

Let me stop and say that again.  The initial reports were that delivery of Movie Club through the Internet would not count against a data cap.

I will stop you there again, because that is not true. But I will get back to that in a second.

Needless to say, the Internet kind of blew up at this.  Net neutrality proponents slammed the move, and many people got very upset at the fact that Shaw seemed to be putting in a plan that gave them an unfair advantage over a service like Netflix.

Then, came the “clarifications.”  Shaw’s official twitter accounts, Shaw employees speaking on Twitter, Facebook, and Internet forums on behalf of Shaw immediately came running to the public to say “No no no no.”  It was clarified to me, along with everyone else, that watching content on Movie Club on a TV through a set top box via the Video On Demand interface would not count against a user’s data cap, as the content is transmitted through the traditional QAM cable TV system that VOD content moves through.  Watching content through a computer or other device via Wifi goes through the Internet, and will count against a user’s cap.  Shaw employees and PR spent most of the afternoon doing damage control, and trying to get the accurate information out there.  Several news publications put out new stories with clarifications, and Ars Technica updated their story (albeit much later than I would have liked).

So what happened? How did Shaw allow such confusion to happen on this launch?  I’ve done a lot of reading on the various news articles, and Shaw’s news release for Movie Club, and the confusion comes from two simple things.

  • The CEO was quoted as saying that on your box or online, this will not have any impact on your capacity or usage.
  • The news release from Shaw had no indication one way or the other whether this would affect the data cap.

Now, with a quote from the CEO saying one thing, and a news release not disputing that, journalists ran with the idea that all Movie Club content would not count against the data cap. If I were working for one of the many publications that put articles out, I would have done the exact same thing given the information available to me at the time.  Could this be a case of a CEO being mis-quoted? Possibly.  But what is likely is that he just got a fact wrong, or just misunderstood a question.  either way he made a mistake.  Those things happen from time to time.  Engadget has a feature called “C-E-Oh no he didn’t” that catalogs tech company CEO’s that make mistakes, and it can be quite entertaining.  This is another one of those cases, and unfortunately for Shaw, it kind of blew up in their face.

To Shaw’s credit, their PR team worked very hard all day to try to get the correct information out, to clarify to angry customers what the truth was, and to work with news media to get new or updated articles posted.  Unfortunately in most cases where mistakes are made, it takes 10x the amount of effort to fix them, and that is what Shaw faced today.  The net neutrality people might no longer be mad at them, but a new group of people are mad and accusing them of lying, trying to spread mis-information, and confusing people.  It only takes a quick look on Twitter, Facebook, or even Google+ now to see the anger at Shaw over the confusion on this launch.  The Shaw PR team was put in a difficult situation in which there was no way for them to come out in a good way.  i applaud the PR team for doing what they could to try to clean up a pretty nasty mess that was left behind for them.

This confusion during the launch has really masked the actual product they are trying to get off the ground. I’ve written almost 900 words to this point and I haven’t even talked about the actual product that is Movie Club.  That is not a good thing for Shaw, at all.  I should have spent the last 900 words talking about the product, now how they fumbled the launch, and that is unfortunate.

As a quick recap of the above, in case it was still missed in there, Shaw Movie Club will not count against the data cap if being watched through a Shaw set top box via the Video On Demand interface.  Movie club will, like all content, count against the cap if watched through any Internet connected device like a computer or mobile device.

Now, onto the actual product itself, 997 words in.

Movie Club is a subscription service, much like Netflix.  I had actually heard about this service during the Shaw customer consultation sessions earlier this year.  The Shaw representatives there told us that they did have a video subscription service in the works, and that it was being considered as something that would be more valuable than Netflix, because they could deliver it through their existing Video On Demand service and not have it count against a user’s data cap.  They stressed that while they probably could not match the volume of movies and TV that Netflix offers to customers, they wanted to focus on quality and getting newer blockbuster movies onto their service before Netflix could. They seemed very excited at this project that they were working on, that has now become Movie Club, but had asked us not to talk much, if at all about it because it was a product still in development and things could change before they launch, if they ever even did launch it. Today, that project finally saw the light of day, and Movie Club was launched. Unfortunately, it simply does not compare to what Netflix has to offer.

To start, Movie Club is a $12/month service, and that is for Standard Definition content only.  Movie Club HD will be launching “later this summer” and will be an additional $5/month, for a total of $17/month to watch HD content. Netflix is $8/month for the entire service, including all HD content.  That means that Movie Club is at a huge disadvantage out of the gate being $4 or $9 more expensive than Netflix. So, if Movie Club is going to be more expensive, it had better be beating Netflix on Movie selection.  However, a quick trip to the Movie club section of vod.shaw.ca shows a total of 139 movies available for streaming.  I don’t have an exact number for the Netflix library, but needless to say it is significantly more than that.

But again, Shaw’s word to us months ago was that their service would aim to go for quality more than quantity.  A quick look through the 139 titles currently available include many recent titles that are not available on Netflix in Canada, like Burlesque, The Blind Side, The Tourist, and Fast & Furious.  There are also many older moves that are both available, and not available on Netflix at this time.  There are definitely movies on the service that I would like to watch, some movies that I’ve never seen, but for me personally, I don’t think that it is worth the price.  I honestly would not sign up for a SD service at this point.  I have a 47″ HDTV and the though of paying $12/month to watch SD movies on it when I can pay $8 to watch HD movies simply does not make sense to me.  Would I pay $17/month for the HD content?  Again, probably not, because I can get many more movies in HD for less than half the price.  Sure, I can’t watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Netflix, but I’m fairly sure that I can find 9-10 other movies that I’m perfectly content watching for less money.  What it comes down to is that for me to want to pay more for Movie Club than I do for Netflix, Shaw has to provide me with a very high number of movies that I want to watch right now that I can’t get on Netflix.  And personally for me, they aren’t even close.  Shaw does say that they are committed to adding new content every month, but that does not help the fact that right now, today, there are only 139 titles to choose from. Right now Shaw does not have the quantity to match Netflix, nor do they have a high enough number of quality titles to justify the price.

Does that mean it will stay this way forever? I hope not.  I really do think that a market does exist for newer movies on streaming services.  But Shaw’s problem is that Netflix is desperately trying to get there as well.  If Shaw wants Movie Club to have any chance of success they either need to get a lot of newer (under 1 year old) blockbuster movies on there very soon, or drop the price significantly.  I think that people might pay a higher price to watch movies they can’t see anywhere else, especialy if Shaw can swing a deal to get some movies on to Movie Club that aren’t even available on Blu-ray or DVD yet. But as it stands right now; Shaw does does not have a competitive product.

Now, for all the confusion over the actual content delivery and whether or not it counts against a data cap, the fact that users can watch content as much as they want through a set top box and not have it count against a dat cap is one of the things that I actually do think is good about the product.  It is a value-add that Netflix quite frankly cannot match, and a good one at that. Many people have pointed out to me that doing that may get Shaw a visit from the competition bureau, and I think they are right.  But I also do not think that there is a problem.  If the story had been true that Shaw was providing the internet streaming and not having it count against their data cap, then there would have been serious anti-competitive issues.  But Shaw is offering an internet based service that is exactly the same as Netflix, with a value-add of the set top box delivery.  Shaw is not trying to make Netflix worse and less valuable than their product, they are trying to make their product better and more valuable than Netflix.  That is a very important, if a bit subtle, distinction that people need to understand.  You can do anything you want to make your service better as long as it does not purposely make someone else’s worse.

the last thing I want to talk about is something I touched on a bit earlier.  Shaw launched Movie Club today in SD only.  In 2011, when HDTV’s are commonplace, that is simply unacceptable.  I can’t even begin to say how much that move does not make sense to me.  With the promise of the (more expensive) Movie Club HD service coming “later this summer” it would have made more sense to me to wait to launch the service until the HD portion was ready.  There is quite honestly no way I will even consider getting Movie Club in SD when it’s main focus is on delivering newer movies, which are filmed specifically for HD, and do not look nearly as good in SD.  If I want to watch Transformers, I will be doing it via some method that will let me watch it in HD, which Shaw does not offer today.

To say that Shaw fumbled the ball today would be an understatement.  From communication issues early in the day, to actually launching at a product that is in many ways inferior to some of it’s main competition, to launching without HD; Shaw made a mess of this product launch.  Could Shaw rebound from this and make a good product?  Absolutely.  Like I said.  I do think that there is a market for a “premium” streaming service.  However Shaw needs to get there before Netflix can do it cheaper if they want any chance of success, and they need to do it quickly.  It may be a bit unfair, but we live in a world where news moves fast, and in many cases the first impression is everything.  Shaw has left a very bad first impression here, and if not fixed quickly, they risk having the product slip into irrelevance before it even gets off the ground.  The product launched poorly today but it still launched. And because of that, the clock is ticking.  Can Shaw fix it before the time runs out? We’ll see.

[Read] – Shaw Movie Club Press release (PDF link)

[Read] – Original Calgary Herald Article

[Read] – Montreal Gazette article with clarification

[Read] – Ars Technica article, original with update

[Read] – Shaw Facebook discussion thread.

[Read] – Shaw info twitter account.

Shaw , , , 1 Comment

The Vancouver Riots

Written on June 16, 2011 at 7:23 am, by

I am embarrased and ashamed.

After Boston won the Stanley Cup, chaos erupted in downtown Vancouver. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures, and watched the video.  It was something that we shouldn’t be seeing in a country like Canada. Just 16 months ago, Vancouver hosted the Olympics in what many can agree was one of the most unifying moments this country has ever seen.  The world watched Vancouver celebrate the winter olympics, and watched Vancouver, and the country, celebrate our game.  Last night and today the world again has been watching, watching a city burn.  They watched looters destroy businesses, and violent fights.  Exact numbers aren’t yet known, but there have been several stabbings, and all we can hope for is that no one died in the riots.

I don’t remember the riots of 1994. I was 7 when they happened, and didn’t really care what was happening in the world.  But I, like many others, have seen the videos of it, and were appauled at how Vancouver acted in 1994.  After the Olympics of 2010, many thought that Vancouver was past that. Clearly, they were not.

Now, lets be clear.  The people who rioted for hours were *not* the majority.  There were over 100,000 people in downtown Vancouver last night for the game.  Only a few thousand were really involved in the riots, with only several hundred likely doing the most damage.  The type of people that will do something like this are the type of people who would have done the same had Vancouver won.  They were a group of people who were just looking for an excuse to incite a riot, and having 100,000 people in a (relatively) small area to basically serve as cover for them was an easy setup.  Many of the worst rioters covered their faces with bandannas to try to hid their identity.  The people who would do this are the type of people who were prepared to do this.  Not many people who would “spontaneously” join a riot would even think of doing something like that.  Those people knew exactly what they were doing, and they were there for one reason, and one reason alone.

I stayed up very late last night watching live coverage of the events, and it sickened me to watch people causing that much damage.  I am almost afraid to look at the pictures that will come out this morning, of the charred vehciles, glass and garbage in the streets.  This riot will cost millions of dollars, and the people who will be hurt the most are the small business owners.  It is disgraceful.

It is shameful that a small group of people have put a black eye on the most beautiful metropolitan area in the country.  Here we are, the morning after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the game almost seems like a distant memory right now.  At a time when we should be celebrating our sport, we now have this to deal with.  Instead of talking about hockey, the playoffs, or the final, we have to try to defend our country’s image and our reputation to the world.  There are many countries in the world where hockey is a sport that they barely know the name of, but this morning they are talking about Vancouver, for all the wrong reasons.

The worst part of this is that Vancouver, Canada’s olympic city, has now list the wonderful respect and reputation it garnered worldwide in February 2010 during the Olympics.  The years of planning for that event, and the wonderful 2 weeks that the world witnessed have been erased, replaced with pictures of cars on fire and people looting businesses.  A small group of people have done this, and destroyed Vancouver’s reputation to the world.

MAny efforts are already being made to work to clean the city up.  The Vancouver Police are asking everyone who was downtown last night to submit their video and photos so the police can identify those who caused damage, and bring them to justice.  Facebook groups are being organized to help clean up the streets of downtown Vancouver, as well as posting pictures of those who did take part in the riots. While I don’t necessarily recommend putting the pictures directly onto Facebook, I hope that the Police get everything they need.

I’d also like to say that CTV had by far the best coverage of the riots last night.  While other news organizations stopped their coverage for part of the night, CTV pre-empted everything, and continued to cover the riots, even after I finally went to bed.  Their reporter on the ground, Rob Brown, did a simply sensational job covering this, along with his camera man.  They put themselves in danger to bring what were by far the best pictures and video I could find last night.  Last night CTV provided an example of journalism at it’s best, and I thank them for that.  On a similar note, all of that coverage was streaming live on CTV’s website, which is where I was watching it.  that was also a great example of how “traditional” journalism can use new media to provide news, and I wish it happened more often. I’ve been saying for years that news should be streamed live to the internet, and this only cemented that.

Here I am, about 12 hours after the Stanley Cup was awarded to Boston, and I’ve written nearly a thousand words. Not about the game, or anything to do with the game.  I’ve written a thousand words about the shameful act of a few thousand people who decided that last night, they were going to do everything they could to destroy a city.  I know that the majority of the people in the lower mainland were not involved with this riot, but that does not change the fact that the morning after, we are not talking about what we should be talking about.  We are talking about one of the most shameful things I have ever seen in my life.  It is very unfortunate because 10 years from now we will not remember the amazing run by the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup. We will not remember some of the truly fantastic hockey games along the way in the playoffs, and we will not remember how Boston was able to celebrate their first win in 39 years.  We will remember Vancouver, and the night the city was set on fire.

I am embarrassed and ashamed.

Canada, news, Opinion , , , , , Comments Off

Game 7 – Stanley Cup Final

Written on June 15, 2011 at 7:09 am, by

Tonight is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, and I can’t wait.  Game 7 of the Cup final is one of the biggest stages in all of sport, and, as cliche as it may be, is a time when household heros are born.  Not only will this conclude the season, Game 7 of the final does not happen often, which makes this spectacle even more special.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Stanley Cup is not the hardest trophy in the world to win.  That distinction goes to the World Cup, but I do believe that the Stanley Cup is the hardest in North America by a wide margin.  This will be the 107th game for both Boston and Vancouver.  That is 107 games of hard, physical play.  Tonight, the season will come to an end, and one team will get their 16th win of the playoffs, and win the Stanley Cup, 8 1/2 months after the season began.  It is a grind like no other.  In something of a rarity, of the 40 active players that will likely play game 7, only 2 have won the stanley cup in the past.  That means that for both of these teams, it is their first, and possibly only chance, to win the Stanley Cup.  I hope the players recognize just how special and rare this chance is, and we get a fantastic game out of it tonight.

The first 6 games of this series hasn’t been as good as you would initially think.  Yes, each team has won 3 games to get us here, but it hasn’t actually been that good.  The games in Vancouver have all been 1 goal games, with one being decided in overtime, and another with 19 seconds left.  Either team could have easily won those games if not for stellar goaltending in both nets.  In Boston, there simply has been no series.  Boston outscored Vancouver 17-3 in 3 games, and Vancouver looked like a team that had no business being in the playoffs, never mind the Cup final.  In each game, the team who has scored first has won, and there has only been one lead change during a game, in Game 2 when Boston took a 2-1 lead after Vancouver scored first.  Tim Thomas has easily been the best player in this series.  At home, he has posted a .982 save percentage, which is almost impossible.  Even in Vancouver, in 3 losses he has a .945 save percentage, a level most goalies can only dream of.  If Boston loses this series, it will be solely because Boston was unable to score in Vancouver.  Krecji, Seguin, Chara, Bergeron, and Seidenberg are all players who are capable of playing at another level. If even one or two of them can elevate their game tonight, Boston will win.

That being said, Vancouver has earned home ice in Game 7, and with that, anything is possible.  A Stanley Cup Final Game 7 has not happened in Canada since 1987 when the Oilers beat the Flyers at the then Northlands Coliseum.  That makes this game even more speical and rare, if that’s even possible.  Vancouver does have their work cut out for them though  The Sedin twins have been non existent, Kesler is playing hurt, and the defence, while being very good in shutting down Boston’s offence while at home, has contributed very little offensively.  If the Sedin twins can actually show up, Vancouver has a very good chance of winning.

I know that many of you reading this will be watching the game later.  16.2 million people watched at least part of Game 6 on CBC on Monday, averaging 6.6 million. Who knows how many more were watching on NBC like I was.  I will be watching at home, enjoying the biggest spectacle this great sport has to offer.  It is Hockey Night in Canada.

I said on twitter before the series that I thought Boston would win in 7.  I’m going to stick to that.  Boston, 2-1, in overtime.  The only thing we don’t know, is who the hero will be.

nhl playoffs , , Comments Off

It Was A Beautiful Day

Written on June 2, 2011 at 5:18 pm, by

U2 Concert 317

That’s where I was last night. It was pretty spectacular.  I’ll be putting a lot more pictures on Flickr in a few days, but for now, I’m going to sleep.

awesome , Comments Off

The NDP & Quebec – should we be surprised?

Written on May 31, 2011 at 8:01 pm, by

The 41st Canadian Parliament is about to get underway, after the election in May 2011. In that election, the New Democratic Party(NDP) won a landslide victory in Quebec, Taking many seats from the Liberal Party and Conservative Party of Canada, and all but eliminating the Bloc Quebecois, leaving them with only 4 seats.

This came as a massive surprise to almost everyone, but after a few weeks and some thinking, it’s easy to understand why this happened.

The NDP is the furthest left on the political spectrum of all the major parties in Canada.  Because of this, their policies in general reflect certain things.  They believe in bigger government, more spending on social services, and more control over businesses.  They want more government regulation on industry, and believe that the increased degree of control they want will improve the economy because it ensures a more level playing field for all, and doesn’t allow one company to get too big and control too much of any market.  NDP budgets, or election promises, are usually higher than most other political parties because of this.

Now, let’s take a look at Quebec.  As a province, they have more independent social programs and government programs than any other province.  Things like the Quebec Pension Plan and redundant services the province supplies that are also offered by the Federal Government.  Quebec has many crown corporations for the province, and is more regulated than other provinces, especially those in the west.  Quebec also receives more monetary assistance from the other provinces in the form of equalization payments from the Federal Government.

Now, let us combine those two thoughts.  When we do, it really does seem like Quebec and the NDP are made for each other.  Quebec, in general, wants bigger government and more government services, and the NDP is a party that wants to provide a bigger government, as well as more regulation and control.  Sitting back and really thinking about it, It does kind of boggle the mind how this was the first time that the NDP have had any success in Quebec.  Taking all of these concepts into consideration Quebec should be an NDP stronghold, and should have been for years.

So the question is, why hasn’t it been?  That’s a much simpler answer that goes back to Confederation, and the issue of separatism.  Quebec has had deep roots in the Liberal Party, which has existed since Confederation and have historically been very strong in Quebec.  In the recent past, the rise of the issue of Quebec separation brought in the rise of the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois, which have dominated politics in Quebec for many years.  In the last 20 years the Liberal Party and the Parti Quebecois has struggled for power in provincial politics, and the Bloc Quebecois has won the majority of the seats in Parliament for Quebec.

That changed in the 2011 election.  I think that it has more to do with the people of Quebec finally giving up on the Bloc Quebecois and their tired message, and being fed up with the Liberal Party under Michael Ignatieff.  So, when the people are sick of the separatist party, and sick of the Liberal party, who can they turn to?  The options left are the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party, which are the two parties furthest apart on the political spectrum in the country.  And again, based on the concepts of what the NDP stands for, compared to the Conservative party, which is a right leaning party, the choice was pretty obvious.

In the end, I’m still very surprised to see the NDP landslide victory in Quebec.  Quebec going NDP is a logical choice based on the general beliefs of the voters and the party.  I’m still surprised that the people of Quebec have finally had enough of the Bloc Quebecois and are done with the issue of separation.  That in itself is as big a shift in politics in this country as the actual rise of the NDP to second party status.  Either way, there was a seismic shift in Canadian politics in the 2011 election, probably the biggest shift ever that did not involve a change of government.  I make the argument that the shift finally brings politics in this country to where they logically should be, but regardless it will make the next few years of Canadian government and politics very interesting, and I can’t wait to watch. Let the 41st Parliament begin.

Opinion, politics , , , , 1 Comment