Moved to http:/blog.nsexplore.ca/

Yes, I know, I’ve only been here for a month or two and already I’ve moved. Its not for dislike of wordspace.com, hats off to this hosting space, I liked it so much I decided to install wordpress in my own domain so I’m movin’ this conversation on over to http://blog.nsexplore.ca/ and I’ll be more than happy if you come on over and contin ue the connection over there. Thanks wordpress.com and thanks wordpress.org for providing the template to broadcast from my own space.

Ornithopters

I’ve been playing with Google Earth and its ability to display 3D visualizations of aircraft in flight in real time over Halifax and over Vancouver. So I happened to be looking up an aircraft tail number in the Canadian Civil Aircraft Register and took a moment to look at their advanced register search. One of its options is to search Canadian Aircraft by category, the choices being; Aeroplane, Airship, Balloon, Glider, Gyroplane, Helicopter and Ornithopter.

Waaaaaait a minute, Ornithopter? The flapping wings contraption that we see guys jump off hills and buildings injuring themselves severely in fuzzy old movie clips? I’m curious if this is some kind of internal humour at Transport Canada  or there happens to be a need to register Ornithopters in Canada.

Weekend Update

Stayed pretty close to home this weekend due, in no small part, to the pile of snow we received here in Halifax. Combined with my AlexnWonderland being submerged in homework good progress was made getting my head around Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and really getting a feel for it now. What a great photographic asset management tool. There may well be better ones out there but considering that to date my digital photo asset management has been folders by day, month and year its a great improvement. It looks like this will bring me back to shooting RAW files again which I did for awhile after getting a new camera at the beginning of 2007 but didn’t really flesh out with Photoshop. I knew there were inherent benefits to shooting RAW files but Lightroom has opened new doors that were not immediately apparent in my habitual Photoshop practices.

So the weekend update goes something like this; Wake up Saturday morning early, work with Lightroom cataloging digital photos 1998 through November 2008, shovel lots of snow burying the the car in the backyard (note photo above), make a run for Fair Trade Ethiopian coffee beans (NOT from Starbucks who armwrestled the people of Ethiopia over trademarking Ethiopian regional names, gawd) and Pinot Grigio both of which have useful properties. Watched Zucca (Cat 2.0) and Dolce (Dog 1.0) get their heads around the fact their familiar landscape was now covered new improved ultra low fat ice cream. Tried another Jamie Oliver recipe from his Ministry of Food series, well worth checking our as a podcast in iTunes, we did the Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yogurt. We had done the Parmesan Chicken with Crispy Posh Ham before and the Salmon was not a let down. Might have to do his Banana Tarte Tatin by the looks of his podcast, even though we don’t normally do the desert thing, if we did dessert we’d be as big as Yanks. Watched the movie ‘The Hours‘ with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep… in the movie that is… they weren’t here on the couch watching with us. Other than the pancake breakfast with neighbour Sandra, beautiful AlexnWonderland and Chinese student Jason it been pretty much a day of getting into Adobe Lightroom. So here’s a photo update of the backyard snow conditions and a snap of the Romanesco Broccoli that neighbour Sandra brought over to show off… which is a Cauliflower… called a broccoli… you figure it out.

Open the Gates

Open the Gates! Let loose the Hound! Every year we need to prepare the backyard for getting the car off the street during winter storm plowing. Hearing Halifax may have 30 cm of snow down by Saturday morning, today Friday November 21st was the morning to get preping. Here in the north end Halifax Hydrostone district most of us have parking on the street or in the tiny backyards we access from the common back lanes. Lucky end units on these 1920’s townhouses have driveways along side.

All summer long we close off the backyard, garden in raised beds and half whisky barrels, allow Dolce (Dog 1.0) to lay in the sun without needing to be tethered and generally appreciate the privacy of the little world back there.

So today, with a winter storm promised, in the early hours of the morning I loosened the whisky barrel planters from their frozen to the ground spots, dragged them out of the way and opened our big gates fasteneing them back thinking of the winter winds we’ll see too soon.

Giving Brightkite a Second Look

I’ve been checking out a number of different iPhone apps in the last month or so and one I tested recently was the mobile version of Brightkite. I’ve only ever glanced quickly at Brightkite in the past but curiosity got the better of me and I signed on using the iPhone app. As I might have expected Halifax is pretty much barren for users, it somewhat reminded me of the first time I tried an avatar virtual world, moving around in a big space and (very) rarely bumping in to someone… or not.
Chris Brogan has some interesting things to say about Brightkite and sounds like he also gave it a second look after trying out the iPhone app. The Brightkite mobile app on the iPhone makes use of GPS type positioning and on the iPod Touch, which doesn’t have that ability, positioning is achieved by taking the physical location of the Wi-Fi access point from the Skyhook Wireless database. I’m presuming Skyhook doesn’t have access points for Halifax in it’s database as Brightkite tried to guess I was in Ottawa. Perhaps I’ll try the Skyhook access point add form and see how long & if they actually add some local points, which means entering the access point’s MAC address, not something too many people are going to bother doing. Until then I’m still able to log on both mobile and with the web based client at home and in the office, so occasionally I’ll poke my head in there and see if anything is happening in our area. I’m inclined to agree with Chris Brogan that its something that really could go somewhere, all depending on where the folks at Brightkite take it.

Pferd und Katze

Sunday will likely be a frenzy of cleaning, so just to feed the blog monster until I’m able to sit for a bit here’s a snap from Saturday night with Bruce and Dana. Tikal the cat and the crazed horse marble bookend.

Pomegranate Phone

Always interested in checking out websites of media production companies, I followed a pointer from Twitter to the Stitch Media site. Interesting company and crew, and I stumbled into the Stitch Media blog with a comment by Windom Earle lead guy Stephan MacLeod on the pomegranate phone web promotion for Nova Scotia that, rumour has it, was done by Bristol Communications. Stephan’s comments took me back to the pomegranate site based on his generally positive tone, which also added a new perspective, for me, on the feedback the local industry has given the site. Some respected industry professionals have offered feedback on the successes and failures (mostly failures by my count) of the pomegranite campaign. There’s something to be said for the critical input of people in the local industry that is perhaps part of the growth and maturing of the media/ad community here. I was also reminded of something Jian Ghomeshi said in his talk at Dalhousie, how he envied the supportive nature of the music community in Halifax, something he didn’t see in Toronto. I made a connection to the Pomegranate Phone promotion and its criticisms, and then back to Stephan’s positive feedback. I have to say that while criticism may be part of growth, positive support should come with it.
Hats off to Stitch Media for providing some positive outlook, it speaks well of you as a company.

10 Questions for Jian Ghomeshi

CBC host of Q,  Jian Ghomeshi, will be giving a talk at the Dalhousie House of Fries….  I mean McCain Arts & Social Science Bulding across from the Student Union Building on University Avenue. I’m looking forward to grabbing one of the free 500 seats, if there isn’t a flood of students, to hear what Jian has to say about “the arts in Canada, new media, and the role of live radio in an iPod world” which he plans to speak about.

I’d not followed Q on any regular basis, actually I can’t even recall when I last heard or saw him on CBC but have been regularly following his QTV video podcast via iTunes and enjoying it a great deal.

Jian will be taping a live show tonite, Thursday Oct 23, at the Sir James Dunn Theatre which seats only 170 people. (Doors open at 6:15, show at 7:00, seats first come, first served)

His lecture Friday runs 1:30-2:30 in the McCain Building, seating 500, also free.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fri 24-Oct-2008 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM
Where:	McCain Arts & Social Science Bulding, Ondaatje Hall 6135 University Ave
Description:	Popular CBC Radio One “Q” host Jian Ghomeshi gives a lecture on the arts in Canada, new media, and the role of live radio in an iPod world?. Seating is open to 500 people and will be a first come, first seated event. Doors open at 1:30 p.m.
Cost:	Free
Contact:	Bernard, Chantal 902-420-4306

Free Stuff

Winter is usually a time of the year that I default to evening TV watching. This year I’ve started laying out some plans for avoiding that particular box and incline to agree with Matt Good. Just when I came across the most useful TV guide, ‘What’s On?’ for the iPhone/iPod Touch… oh well. Actually it’s that little box, the, iPod Touch, that set me out looking for content, finding a wealth of written and visual material. Audio and video podcasts, audible books and surprisingly good screen reading of text. Twitter has also turned me on to good sources of material as well, or at least the people I’ve been fortunate enough to connect up with there.

So on to the Free Stuff. Here’s two good bits if you’re, like me, interested in current digital cultural trends and how to approach them for web workers. A free, while it lasts, audio book from audible.com of Seth Godin’s ‘Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us’, thanks to Carman Pirie for tweeting that, and a Radiohead style pay as you like copy of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism’ by Matt Mason. As Matt points out; “There are millions of books on amazon.com, and on average each will sell around 500 copies a year. The average American is reading just one book a year, and that number is falling.” Thanks to Radio Butt for pointing in the direction of that one.

So read a few books this winter and put yourself above the average American.

Day One

So I’ve been following lots of other blogs, time to work at one of my own. Bear with me as a set things up and follow the links to my Flickr, Twitter and Facebook sites…