How to use the Internets
Editor’s Note: My wife Erin is doing an amazing charitable run (on her own – not as part of a large group) across the West African nation of The Gambia this summer. I chronicled some of her experiences in online fundraising and awareness-raising in a recent post here. I also wanted to get her perspective on … Read more
Your Hard Drive is Obsolete (move to the cloud)
This post is about Software as a Service (SaaS) and “the Cloud”. Most people know what these are, but just in case, you can get good descriptions from Wikipedia here and here. Full disclosure, my employer sells SaaS products. However, none of the products I mention below are affiliated with them. A few weeks ago, … Read more
The secrets that web amateurs sometimes learn faster than pros
My wife recently began a blog to support her run across The Gambia this summer. She is doing this to raise money for the Nova Scotia Gambia Association (more on her amazing journey here). I recommended she use WordPress, but other than that (and a few tips at the bottom of this post), she developed … Read more
Micropayments aren’t failing – Facebook and Apple own the Space Already
Micropayments fall into that category of things that were going to revolutionize the Internet, but most would say, never really took off. It was forecasted we were going to surf the web and magically pay for news stories, wallpapers and music without ever pulling out a credit card. The primary reason this never took off … Read more
Why Haven’t You Heard of Spotify?
If you live in North America, it is very likely you haven’t heard of Spotify. The company’s service is not publicly available here yet, primarily because they’ve been unable to make arrangements with the major music labels (although this may be changing – click here for more on that). Perhaps the easiest way to explain Spotify is … Read more
Could Teksavvy Match Bell, Rogers and Telus to Offer Their Own Triple Play?
Here’s the deal – most Internet providers dislike Netflix – a lot. Netflix is a dual threat to them. The amount of bandwidth it consumes is (purportedly) going to clog their pipes. Additionally, the major Canadian Internet providers all sell TV (and in most cases own TV channels). Since they rely heavily on the traditional … Read more
Comments on Arianna Huffington’s AOL Announcement
There are three types of people in the world, ones who hate Huffpost, ones who love it and those that have never heard of it. In my experience, there isn’t much of a middle ground. Now the Huffpost is being acquired by AOL (click here to be taken to Arianna Huffington’s announcement). AOL arguably has a similar … Read more
Forget About Buying Music Online — People Don’t Even Want To STEAL Music
Forget About Buying Music Online — People Don’t Even Want To STEAL Music. This article from Business Insider (also love their image) is a great update to my post a few days ago about why iTunes integration could be so important to Interac (click the headline above to read it on the Business Insider site). … Read more
Interac isn’t a payment option on iTunes: Why it’s hurting the music industry and your bank
First, a bit about Interac in Canada Here’s a question – what is the preferred method of electronic payment amoung Canadians? It’s Interac (to be clear, these stats are from Interac’s website interac.ca and for whatever reason have not been updated in some time). Interac is insanely popular here (only the Swedes conduct more debit transactions … Read more
Michael Geist – Unpacking The Policy Issues Behind Bandwidth Caps & Usage Based Billing
Michael Geist – Unpacking The Policy Issues Behind Bandwidth Caps & Usage Based Billing. I recently wrote a nice little post about the impact that UBB (Usage Based Billing) would have on Canadian Internet use and the problem about the Internet provider Oligopoly that exists in Canada. Then Michael Geist posted this today. Do … Read more
