Tech Blog

The title of this post refers to something that is kinda alien to me. Yet, it shouldn’t be. For the last 20 years or so, my life has been online, in one form or another. Yes, I’m a digital nomad, living in a digital world, confused by those who insist on staying offline.

Earlier today I saw the latest cover of Rolling Stone. An awesome cover featuring two vampires and a human. Naked. Check out the real magazine cover as the image I’m using can’t do it justice. Yet, it's not the program but the programming that is the key... Read more...

Once upon a time, not too long ago, in the latter part of the last century - say the 60’s and 70’s, consuming media was clumsy and cumbersome. It seemed that you had to make a special appointment with your hardware to listen to the latest band or show some friends your latest photos. You had one device for each media, and sharing and consuming media was not something you did every day, on a whim, or easily. You had to have a special place to consume your media. And you had to set aside special time for it. Consuming media was special, and I'm thinking we've lost that sense of 'special'... Read more...

In the computer / tech space these days, it seems that free is rather commonplace; free OS, free apps, free cloud services etc. Free tools. Therein lies the power if we choose to recognize it. Ahh, but the kids these days; they just don’t realize how good they have it. I’m sure you’ve all heard profound statements about how the modern doorbell has more computing power than NASA did when they landed a man on the moon. Computers have really changed things; yet they’re still only tools. Read more...

I’ve written before about the flawed state-of-the-art that exists with eBook readers. It all relates to business model and DRM. Though today, I think I may change my tune, maybe just modify it a bit - thanks to iTunes (believe it or not). Read more...

Recently I bought a simple eBook reader online. My wife has one too, from a different manufacturer. All’s good; they both work great and make it easier to read books in situations where turning pages is harder than pressing a button (on the treadmill, for example). It’s also great to have a nice light device that I can carry with me in a form-factor thinner than most paperbacks. Or should I say, almost all’s good; unlike a physical book, we can’t share our purchased eBooks between our two different devices easily. Even if they’re in the ‘portable’ ePub format. Read more...

I’ve been involved with the Internet since the ‘90s. Over that time I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t always trust what you read online. Back in the day, it was ‘You can’t always trust what you read or see on TV’. Hoax email were the trade of the day, and eventually sites like Snopes helped distinguish the real from the hoax. The media has evolved since the end of the last century, but our need to be able to trust what we consume through that media hasn’t. Read more...

Yes, this is going to be a bit of a tech rant. Leave now if you're not in the mood. Otherwise... Read more...

Today I'm going to delve into a facet of social media or writing that's not often discussed or obvious, yet is a benefit to blog authors and owners, and often encountered by visitors to blogs. FYI: This article refers to an arrangement on my personal blog, and doesn't reflect my situation with Future Shop. I'm writing about it because I find it a very interesting facet of marketing and blogging, and I believe you too may be interested in. If so, then... Read more...

Back when TV was new, watching TV was a family event -- not the ubiquitous always-on attention sink it is now. Families made plans to gather before the small glowing box and be entertained in a new way. It seems that everything old is new again as 3DTV technology begins hitting the marketplace. Read more...

And I thought bloggers lead complicated lives. So get this, IDG (they publish ComputerWorld) had a journalist by the name of Randall C. Kennedy who often wrote about Windows and cited benchmark and other data from "Devil's Mountain Software". Okay, not a problem. The spokesman for DMS was Craig Barth, CTO of the company. All good right? Yeah not so much. Turns out that Barth doesn't exist. Barth is Kennedy. This might be just "bad" if this was a recent thing, unfortunately Kennedy has been doing this for, oh a decade. Read more...

Over the weekend some comments raised good points about longevity of media. It was on a post about Microsoft planning to shut down Xbox Live for the original Xbox gaming console. This got me thinking that I'd kinda heard these arguments before. Perhaps applied to different systems, maybe even to different technology, but they weren't new... Read more...

Given all the hype eBook readers are getting these days, especially during and after CES, I thought I'd explore which was more valuable, the data object, or the data. Read more...

One Tablet, two tablets, three tablets, four. This week's a zoo, I can't take it any more! Read more...

Lately I've been testing, reviewing and thinking about eBooks and eBook readers, which has got me to wondering about the value of a 'real' book, the dead-tree kind. Read more...