I also changed the theme to the default wordpress theme for now until I find a new one. I felt this one was very plain and simple which is what I’m looking for. No more fancy-weird colour schemes and small layouts. I can now probably fit 720p youtube videos into the posting areas of layout now.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve really posted anything or actually “updated” the blog at all, and I’ve still barely posted to picaday.

I do have about 6 months of Olympics photos, that I took while I was working. I think I’ll start a “Reliving the Vancouver Olympic Games” series on picaday.ca in a short while.

Stay tuned!

the effects of the mightymouse....

Ok, actually, from talking to my mac fanboy friends, the game doesn’t work too bad but they mainly have REAL PC mice with mousewheels and etc…

Here’s a funny snippet from the Steam Forums.

MacUser: “How do I select the other portal”
PcUser: “Mouse 2″
MacUser: “I only have one mouse button”
PcUser: “MacFailed”

Photo Source: http://www.goopeg.com/img/ZsXg0uHn.jpg

You may have noticed the word “mac” in the title of this post….yes..that’s right. For all you mac loser and apple lovers who have “macs…”
You can now play any Source game on your “mac” for free….Well…err, you just have to own a copy of the game already.

For any of you converts, here’s the chance to play your old beloved-missed games because you bought a “mac”

If you haven’t figured it out yet. I despise “macs”, however, mainly apple products.
That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use them, cause if you can…I should be able to as well!

Now I haven’t posted recently…(i mean a super long time) but I’ll try and get a new layout and more posts soon!

To STEAM to get portal!

Anyways, watch here! (click the full-screen video mode since it doesn’t fit properly in the blog page)

Links:

Innerlife Project website
You tube Page

Not 100% sure if this would be a permanent 100 local minutes a month for a limited amount of time or if this is a one-time deal.

Check it out at bell.ca/clientappreciation

What does this mean for you?
Firstly, go to Bell, Telus, or Rogers and check out their plans…
Secondly, compare those plans to WIND mobile’s plans.
Thirdly, think about how Canadian cell providers rip most people off.
Fourthly, Pray that it’ll lower the average wireless rates in the next few years.

You should notice a significant difference in the monthly rate as well as NO CONTRACTS at all. I’m not going to bother comparing exact numbers cause I’m too lazy to do the math and I’m sure the 3 big providers will begin re-shaping their plans in the next year.

WIND has a two-zone system (Home/Away zones) setup in Calgary and Toronto with expansion in Vancouver and Ottawa in the next few months. They are fairly limited and if you step out of the home zone, you will be charged 25cents a minute (this likely doesn’t include long distance fees which would be 15cents extra a minute). This sorta system is probably not well suited for the average university student as they are likely living outside the home-zone area and are visiting friends in other schools.

WIND’s network is a 3G network within its Home zone, however it will fall-back to EDGE (2G) on Roger’s network while roaming. It uses the 3G AWS spectrum, the same spectrum which is used by T-mobile in the USA. Please note that these phones are unlockable, but they are NOT compatible with regular HSPA+ networks. So don’t buy a WIND or T-Mobile phone and unlock it hoping to use it for rogers/bell/telus.

I don’t personally know anyone using this new network, but would be interested to see what happens when it is fully expanded to Vancouver. If you are near the end of your cell term. Consider waiting a few months to see what happens as I think the big 3 providers will offer better deals in order to prevent people from switching. Perhaps they’ll lean towards 2-year contracts instead of the dreaded 3-year deals they currently have.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen some of their promo videos already, take a look here

Here’s some other info/links for further reading:

BGR – How WIND mobile changed Canada in less than 24 hours
Wikipedia – Wind Mobile
WIND Mobile Blog

I really haven’t used google wave that much since I got it and I really only noticed that I had invites to give when my friend Michael Sengara posted something about it on his blog.

So like him, I do have a few invites left and I’m gonna follow the same sorta base rules.

1. I must know who you are
2. I would like to be able to talk to you in order to use it more!
3. You need NOT to be a GMAIL hater, as obviously, you will need a gmail account

Please contact me by whatever medium you use if you want one.

Also, google wave invites are NOT instant, they usually take 2-3 days after I enter your email address into the system for them to activate/send you and invite.

Enjoy!

Also, at the time of this post, there are officially 100 days left to the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.

I mentioned in a previous post that I would give a quick synopsis on how I got hired and I just realized I had forgotten.

From my perspective, living in a city that has been selected to host the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was present at GM Place during the IOC’s final vote on July 2nd, 2003. The atmosphere there was euphoric! Here’s a photo from the event [picaday] Back in 2003 though, I was a bit young to realize what it really meant.

Fast forward to Spring 2009. After spending another cold winter in Guelph I decided that I needed a change and if the opportunity to work were available I would take the year off for it. I finish the year in Guelph and packed my stuff away in storage, courtesy of a family friend who is also a professor at the University of Guelph. After returning to Vancouver, I snuck into a 2010 Olympic Job fair hosted by UBC and met with OBSV, VANOC, and NBC.

A few weeks later I was contacted by NBC’s HR dept and an interview was scheduled at the GE Capital offices in downtown Vancouver. One of the first things I was asked was, “If you are currently studying in Ontario, how do you plan on working for the Olympics?”. Subsequently she listed a bunch of dates. November to March, January to March, Feb during the Olympic/Para-0lympic games.

BTW, the plans to attend my cousin’s wedding in Hong Kong and travel China in mid-October were getting booked around the same time, so my answer was more or less, “I am planning on taking the year off if given the correct opportunity, and the November time frame is…well…perfect”. From there, the usual HR interview was done. (What do you expect, why would you like this experience, what do you know about this…that…etc).

After a general interview with human resources, I was told I would be meeting with the VP of Technology of NBC-Olympics….right…now and I was brought to his office as he was in town for the week. We went through my resume and talked about previous IT experience at the University of Guelph and other prior jobs.

For those of you who do not watch 30 Rock or do not know in general. NBC-Universal is owned by General Electric. (I did not know that at the time of the interview….how embarrassing, but this isn’t business, this is IT…I guess it didn’t bother them that much). NBC follows most of General Electric corporate mandates for IP solutions and networking and GE’s main vendor is, Cisco Systems. Despite Nortel being the official sponsor of the 2010 Olympic Games. NBC will still be using Cisco equipment. side note: Nortel is no longer a sponsor for the 2010 London Olympics. Cisco has taken that role since Nortel is bankrupt.

After a lengthy discussion about Cisco equipment from phones to routers and switches, we also talked about a variety of support tactics and general knowledge of other computer related things. About 40 minutes later I headed home on the bus.

A month and a half later, a few dozen emails sent around, and a Skype conversation with a few people at Rockefellow Plaza in New York and I am now privileged to be part of the NBC-Olympic IT team.

I’ll see what I can comment on during contract as some sort non-disclosure will probably need to be signed! (Knowing me I’ll get lazy and not post anything for a while anyways)

PS: Cisco will be featured in this week’s 30 Rock episode

PS: Some of you do know that my father works for 2010 Legcies Now and he had no influence to my hiring. All he did was give me my support to take the year off.

UPDATE: Nov 5th, 20:00 – Fixed minor spelling mistakes and little things….

Most of the new providers hoping to enter into the market will be offering HSPA networks and deploying them in major metropolitan cities. WIND, Public Mobile, Videotron (Ontario/Quebec only), and another one possibly named after everyone’s friend, DAVE Wireless.

WIND mobile recently made Canadian news headlines as the CRTC has denied the further use of WIND’s license due to its parent company, Globalive, being majority owned by an Egyptian firm. Apparently under the Canada Telecommunications Act, any wireless carrier in Canada must be 80% owned by Canadians. Of course rogers/bell/telus jumped to the CRTC right away to point this out. They don’t want anyone impeding their oligopoly.

Anyways, I won’t bore you with what the media hasn’t already spoken about. Feel free to read the links below for more information about WIND, Globalive and the CRTC ruling.
BTW, my take on the CRTC is that they need to be abolished or restructured. They are outdated and inconsistent.

Globe and Mail – Globalive fails ownership test: CRTC
WIND Mobile Official Website
Boy Genious Report – BGR Sits down with WIND CEO Ken Campbell
CBC News – CRTC says no to Globalive

I needed a local linux box to do stuff via command line. My server is running HyperV, not VMware, and apparently just installing any old linux distro doesn’t satisfy the network emulation drivers…etc. I found that out the hardway by doing a full Fedora 11 installation, only to have no internet access.

So, I went google hunting…and found this posting online that gave you almost step-by-step directions on what to do. I’m plain lazy. So I cheated….Here’s the step-by-step instructions if you want to waste your time….Hyper-V Linux Integration Components in x86_64 and x86 CentOS and RHEL

And here’s the hyperV VHDs that you can download and run without hacking around….plain simple and easy in just a few minutes! Hyper-V CentOS 5.2 Distributions FYI, CentOS is pretty much a free version of RedHat Enterprise Linux.

Now of course, if I were running VMware, I wouldn’t have this problem.