A Path to Success

Blader Runner Turns 30 on June 25 2012. We are 7 years away from its potential future.

2012-06-02T12:18:44-04:00

Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's vision of the future turns 30 this year. This vision of the future was released on June 25th 1982 and continues to live on, I believe, as the closest portrayal of our world's future. There are so many fascinating conclusions that this film makes: technological, political, physical, psychological. And the predictions in the film are even more bang on -- it's as if Scott had a crystal ball to look into the future and filmed us an infomercial of a potential world, warning us to "Be careful of what you want. You may just get it."

Enjoy this short "documentary" on Scott's vision filmed in 1982. This adds yet another layer to a must-see film. See Blade Runner every year as we approach 2019, to remind you that the decisions we make every day lead to our eventuality.

Try Chromium OS on any laptop with a Bootable USB stick

2012-06-01T13:09:31-04:00

When experimenting with cloud apps, I am finding that older, out of date or low on memory computers are not great at running sleek, modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox. That netbook sitting unloved because Windows XP chews up memory and makes it run slow? Or that 10 year old desktop with 1GB of RAM and the hard drive that churns and churns and churns as you open your huge Outlook folders?

You can give it new life with Chromium OS. Chromium was launched in November 2009, and it has come a long way in 2+ years.

With that in mind, I tried the latest build of Google's Chromium OS. This operating system is as simple as possible: When you start, you just login to your Google account (gmail for example) and then you are presented with a Chrome web browser. Settings from Google's sync mechanism are available to you so your default bookmarks and tabs are brought over into Chromium. Basic things like touchpads, graphics, sound are supported without any drivers. I've tried this now on an Acer AspireOne netbook and an IBM Lenovo with success.

To give this a try, load up Chromium on a USB stick. I used a 2GB stick with success, although some websites suggests a 4GB stick. 1GB sticks or less won't do it. You're not going to be storing too much on this stick anyways, everything you access will be in the cloud! But if you need to store documents locally you will need some space for local files, although other filesystems (hard disks, DVDs) will be accessible from the "Google Drive" option.

Here is a step by step:

1. Get the "vanilla" build of Chromium OS from hexxeh. The latest build is probably best. The download is about 250MB and you will want to extract the .img file from inside the .zip file.

2. Use Win32DiskImager or this command line utility flashnul to create a USB stick with Chromium OS downloaded in Step 1. There are Mac and Linux utilities available online for writing IMG files as well. This will erase the contents of your USB stick, by the way!

3. Boot your computer holding F12 at the BIOS screen or F2 to get into the BIOS and tell the computer to boot off the USB device. This is key. If you cannot boot of a USB stick you will have to see other methods to try this out.

4. Be patient when you boot off the USB stick for the first time. It may take a 5-10 minutes for the video to be recognized and boot into the welcome screen. Follow the steps.

UPDATE: Using the USB drive as a way to run Chromium long term is not ideal. The speed of the USB key will severly hamper the performance of Chromium. So it is best to experiment and then when you are ready install the OS right onto your hard drive. Not that this will erase your hard drive completely, so be careful.

UPDATE 2: Flash is not being included with new Chromium builds. Something called Pepper is being built by Google to support Flash. Here's how you install Pepper (Flash for Chromium).

5. To turn on your mouse pad tap with 2 fingers simultanously. There are new swipe modes available in Chromium. And tons of keyboard short cuts. Use control-alt-shift-? to see a popup cheat sheet of all the keyboard short cuts.

6. Enjoy a super fast browsing experience, and remark how your computer feels brand new. Install Chrome apps, play games, go to Gmail, try a few websites. Load up youtube. It all works surprisingly well. Try Google Print in the Cloud. You can print to your printers at home from anywhere on the Internet, securely!

Google is selling a Chromium desktop and laptop now for $500, but you can reuse that old desktop, netbook or laptop quickly with this nice 15-20 minute project. Here's what Chrombooks look like:

Here's a video on Chromium OS in plain English:

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

How smart design changes policy - aka "fradusters steal money by filing fake US Tax returns"

2012-05-30T12:32:39-04:00

So I am reading a New York Times article off my twitter stream that catches my eye:

"Fraudsters steal money from the IRS (ie tax payers) by filing fake US tax returns"

I'm thinking, "Ah this can't be too big of a problem can it?" There's tax preparer fraud, there's outright filer fraud, but people filing fake tax returns? Over $5B of returns are still not caught, and it could be much more in the future as the Times makes this issue public and more criminals become white collar. And as Americans abroad, who rarely file, can be used as the new guinea pigs for fake returns. That's another 5M returns that can be faked when they get tired of faking returns of seniors and youth and start to target these folks abroad who have forgotten to file.

But there is a solution in Canada, called the CRA "notice of assessment" which I receive every time I file a Canadian tax return. You can even get a replacement one online if you need one. It is a confirmation of the receipt of my tax filing, and a friendly reminder of how much room I have in my retirement plans for contributions (RRSP). This is a straightforward exercise that happens to the millions of tak filers in Canada and has been in effect at least since the mid 90s. It looks like this:

The IRS could (at a nominal cost of say $1 per mailing) institute this for the 100M returns. You could send one to the current address on file and the previous address one file. If I received one of these babies and I have NOT yet filed for the past tax year, bingo, there's a problem. I should call the IRS and tell them there's an issue, and they'd investigate.

I bet this few hundred million dollar solution would probably eliminate all of this fraud. So why has the IRS invested millions on training and all sorts of other systems and procedures, rather than just send you a receipt of your filing? Heck, even an email receipt would be a nice touch and be faster to avoid issues in the e-future.

Control Your Computer Just like Minority Report

2012-05-25T12:09:43-04:00

Leapmotion has announced a tiny controller that will allow you to manipulate content on screen with your hands and fingers. In thin air. Remember Minority Report with Tom Cruise? Yes, just like that.

But what will this gadget do for the porn industry? The mind reels at the possibilites. I expect Apple to buy this company before one product hits the shelves at your local Futureshop.

Bank fee tip: Avoid those nasty Interac and epayment fees!

2012-05-01T12:05:30-04:00

If you are an online banking customer, you will be familiar with the ease of use and convenience that you get with online banking. These days though, as online banking becomes prevalent, the banks have realized that they would love to charge for the convenience. My bank, Royal Bank of Canada, has gone overboard on a savings account I use. The average fees I am paying in 2012 for 3-4 interac e-transfer transactions is about $20/month (!).

Turns out that many banks have a set of free transactions for Interac email money transfer as long as you pay a monthly fee. My chequing account for a $13.95 fee gives you 5 "free" Interac email transfer transactions which can be sent to anyone in Canada and deposited to their own bank using email only.

Also you should be aware that transfer between bank accounts within the same bank (yours or others within the same bank) should always be free between any account. Anything less is unreasonable because it costs literally nothing for a bank to transfer funds between accounts.

The approach I am taking these days is to do direct any deposits (esp direct deposts) to an interest bearing savings account which yields a few bucks each month (covering any small fees when possible). The float in this account can be used to transfer to other accounts within the same bank for free. You may have to rearrange how your direct deposits are directed, but trust me -- it is worth it. Flowing money through interest bearing accounts even if it the money sits there for a bit, offsets the nickle and dime fees that banks have been instituting. I figured that if I didn't do anything with my online payment habits I would be spending over $250 in bank fees alone for one account (Royal Bank's interac email fees are $6/transaction). It all adds up -- call your bank and review your fee patterns in your various accounts. You may be surprised what the banks have changed in 2012!

The thing that gets me of course is that in theory an electronic transaction should be cheaper than one done in person or via a physical cheque, yet banks have (as always) figured out a way to make something that costs them less, cost us more. Fight back!

A better, smarter smartphone design

2012-05-01T11:31:12-04:00

This chart on the cost of producing an iPhone in the US got me thinking.

This chart indicates that producing an iPhone in the US would cut Apple's profit margins on an iPhone by 20% or more. That's not really what got my attention, though. As an engineer, I started thinking about how a phone could be made cheaper, more effective by selecting a trade off in the parts you actually select to use and integrated into the device.

What if, for example, you decided your phone had no accelerometer, gyroscope? Switching orientation would happen with a softbutton in software. What if the camera disappeared? What if the battery you used was A LOT better, 3-4x the cost and quality and capacity? What if the screen and memory were the best money could buy? According to this chart the UI costs a fraction of the display and memory - that seems to be one part of the chart that has me flummoxed somewhat. The more iPhones Apple sells the less the cost of the UI per phone becomes, so I guess this price continues to dwindle as the power of the engineering continues to be spread over more and more devices.

I can see a lower cost device being made by another manufacturer as long as they got the important parts of the device well - that is fast internet, social media and email/calendar integration and a terrific phone experience. On a great screen with awesome battery life, such a phone could put a dent into Apple's domination. Making it in the US would be a great story as well. Is any manufacturer up to such a challenge?

UPDATE: Cover the bottom 4 parts of this pyramid and you're good to go:

The Future TV is most definitely apps - content apps

2012-04-18T10:15:19-04:00

Our family cancelled our Netflix account today. We've cut the (TV) cord after we moved into our house and decided against spending $100 per month on cable TV services. It just wasn't in the budget and seemed like an easy luxury to cut along with a newspaper subscription. The digital world is most definitely changing the way we consume content, step by step, value proposition by value proposition.

Instead, we installed a cheap $25 antenna to local channels that are within 20 miles of our house. We can't pickup the US stations in Buffalo, but that would require a multi hundred dollar installation as well. Do we miss those stations? Not really.

Instead what we've decided to do is shape our habits and become selective about what we consume. Just like a food diet, a TV/News/Media consumption diet is good for the soul. You spend less time on the couch. You are more selective about what you choose -- you listen to advice, curation and your gut feel about putting less junk into your diet.

The result is fantastic. With our AppleTV (we'll soon have 2), a Synology Diskstation and an OTA antenna we get the best entertainment money can buy. We rent videos only when they make sense and are compelling on Bluray, we only watch TV shows we can easily buy on iTunes.

With HBO Go recently launching on Xbox 360, it seems that the likely way consumers like us will be appeased is with apps that live stream content and make archives available for a monthly or yearly fee. Each app will feature a show or a network of shows. Anything less is unacceptable in this age, so it's just a matter of figuring out a transition path in terms of pricing and packaging.

How Mr. Blanzy and Mrs. Miller Helped me Learn Computer Science in 5th Grade

2012-04-05T11:28:01-04:00

This is near and dear to my heart. In 1981, while I attended 5th grade at Avery Public School in Oak Park, Michigan, Mr. Blanzy introduced me and a few other bright math students to an Apple ][+. It sat behind the classroom, with it's green screen monitor, waiting to be discovered.

The next year Mrs. Miller started an after school computer club where a small group of kids worked on programs and displayed them on a big projector screen hooked up via a funky video out interface on our Apple //e. We wrote BASIC and launched space shuttles (remember NASA launched Columbia, the first space shuttle recently) on screen. We watched the booster rocket parts descendto a "splashdown". The program all used ASCII and we marvelled at the beauty of how building something, piece by piece could accomplish something that to us looked like art. For the next 5 years until the end of high school, I studied programming with my Nibble magazine and did machine language entry of cool games, modified existing LONG BASIC programs, cracked games, got my first 300 bps modem and occupied my parents phone lines for hours on end. I eventually upgraded to a 2400bps Practical Peripherals external modem, and I thought that speed was unlimited then. Today, the slowest high speed Internet connection at 1Mbps is literally 500 times faster than this "speedy" modem. The 25Mbps connection then is over 12,000 times faster. Regular phone lines were used, and we didn't have call waiting whose clicks would interrupt my BBSing. Only picking up the phone caused my line to drop. Mom and Dad never bothered me and never told me to "get off the phone". They knew something amazing was happening. My mind was opening up.

These days, kids Hoogle, copy stuff of Wikipedia and rarely actually LEARN how computers work. Most kids take these gadgets for granted. But it does seem like the UK is doing something about it. I love the arduino, netduino and sites like instructables.com -- but parents are now engaging their kids it seems, rather than schools. So I ask is there a place for computer science in schools like in the 80s? Even a better version?

Chasing the consumer smartphone market is killing RIM

2012-03-30T09:16:19-04:00

And that's why RIM must find a way to partner or acquire with a company like Microsoft, and fast. The reason is simple: If Microsoft wants to have a foothold in the mobile space in the long term, which seems like a must for their software business, they must find a way to acquire a ton of customers that are considering a switch or may be forced to switch to RIM. That planning is happening now at many companies, and the Bring Your Own Device mantra is just one side-effect of this planning process. In the absence of a plan, people bring their own device. Microsoft is waiting patiently for that suitor. They are waiting to strike, like they always do.

The enterprise won't wholesale switch to Apple iPhone and iPads. Apple doesn't sell to enterprises and all their previous attempts have failed (A/UX, X Server, DAL, etc etc). There is nothing to indicate that this will change any time soon. Sure there are small and medium sized companies who adapt the iPhone, but that happened with Macs in the 80s and 90s, and they are back using Windows now. Apple is a consumer electronics company, not a business company. Companies adapt iPhone because their employees subsidize this effort.

RIM though is an enterprise company. I contend that their lunch has been eaten by Android, not iPhone. And that's because they squarely lost focus and decided to chase the money in consumer sales in the US (failing) and internationally(seemingly winning). These charts by Dan Frommer at SplatF indicates that very clearly:

It's easy to say that iPhone killed RIM, but that is just a coincidence. Everyone bought smartphones in 2007-2011 and now almost 70% of phones bought are smartphones. The truth is that RIM entered the consumer market in a big way across the world, and they still claim that this is the reason for their growth. Sure it is, especially internationally. But this is a low margin market for anyone BUT Apple. You can't make up in volume in a market where people are getting your device practically for free. The Blackberry sips data too, and the telecoms want to sell big data plans. So even there, the Blackberry becomes the only feature phone among the smart phone manufacturers. That feature is BBM, and the Blackberry is at the bottom of the heap. Even android with its weird interface wins out when consumers look to the next big thing and the charts show that.

There is one clear saviour for the company -- it's strength is in the enterprise. Apple's strength was in simplicity of design, Steve Jobs cut all the models of Macs when he came on board and consumerized IT with the iPod and iPhone. Now RIM needs to take their strength back again and leverage their QNX acquisition and show the world just how terrific their toolsets are in the enterprise.

This can only be done by strong partnerships with a company like Microsoft. They must focus on products spaces beyond email communication. RIM must look at Microsoft Dynamics integration (the current mobile offering on CRM2011 pales in comparison to what salesforce.com is doing in mobile). RIM must talk to the enterprise and introduce features that make sense to procurement, billing, system management. Above all they must encourage their ecosystem to write compelling enterprise frameworks and integrations. Need for Speed HD should not be the leading demo when you show launch a Playbook.

RIM must make itself an attractive acquisition target now. Noone will buy them the way they are right now, all over the place. It's like a wedding -- even the ugliest bride can get all dolled up for the big day. RIM, it's time to get married and you need to look your best for the big day.

The Internet moves into Moore's "Early Majority" phase

2012-03-21T12:48:19-04:00

Something very interesting has happened while we were busy talking about the Great Recession. The Internet has moved into the "early majority" phase of Geoffrey Moore's technology (innovation) adoption lifecycle. This is the lifecycle:

The theory that Moore adopted from others before him states that the population adopts technology in this manner. The percentages break up the target market audience with 2.5% of the audience being innovators, 13.5% being early adopters, 68% in the majority, and 16% being laggards. Laggards adopt pretty much nothing or have to be pulled kicking and screaming into technology once 85% have already adopted. Moore improved the theory and said that there was a chasm between early adopters and the early majority (right there between 13.5% and 34% of the potential market). If a product doesn't break this chasm it fails and withers and dies (think BETA video tape and now music Compact Discs). The Internet it appears has broken through the Early Majority. (click on chart for a larger view).

The indicator show above is a simple one: the # of generic top level domain names that have been registered. A domain name is registered for any somewhat unique entity like a business, a person, or an idea. They are cheap, ubiquitous and easy to obtain. They must be maintained and usually derive some value for the owner. The curve of total registred gTLDs (.com and .net as well as .biz, .org and .info) is similar to the one proposed by Moore, chasm included (the .com bust). It continues to rise hitting 113.8M in Q42011, indicating that there is still more to be sold, marketed and invented to be described on the Internet. If you have ever tried to buy a domain name in the .com or .net TLD you know how hard it is to pick one that isn't already taken, not suprisingly.

The total number of top level domains (TLDs) hit over 225M which includes all the country code (ccTLDs). This indicates the late majority and laggards will enter the field (if they have not already) from international registrations that cannot or do not want to obtain a gTLD.

This is an important event, because it not only means that the Internet is here to stay (duh), but that the products and services that are now being developed should meet the needs of the late majority, the next biggest piece of the audience, equivalent in size to the early majority. I think this explains the rise of the tablet device: this is the access and consumption device that the late majority (and maybe even laggards) want. Now it is a question of the standards (HTML5?), the deployment platform (apps?) and the access (wireless LTE speeds?) that is required to power the biggest chunk of the audience that is yet to come.

This is an incredible opportunity for the Internet and all the companies that work online. Service the majority well, and you will be rewarded.

Can Apple Sell 80 Million iPads in 2012?

2012-03-08T13:07:40-05:00

That's the main question on everyone's minds after yesterday's "new" iPad launch. The device is getting better with every iteration and it now has a screen that has more resolution that your 60" 1080p High Defintition television. Think about that - 3.1M pixels on the screen for your media. It is a hugely impressive device. It runs on the latest 4G LTE network capable of 70Mbps+ download speeds.

But the main question on everyone's mind is can Apple double their sales of ipads from 2011. Can Apple sell 80 Million iPads in 2012?

The current estimate is 50-60M iPads in 2012, bringing the total iPads sold to 100M since April 2010, when the iPad was introduced. That means keeping the current trend of 15M iPads per quarter at a standstill, which is very conservative. But if they sell 80M (very likely if the current trend shows) in 2012 they will effectively make more revenue from iPads than they made from ALL products in 2009. That is saying something -- it puts even the much lauded iPhone to shame.

Let's look at the trends:

The iPod was a cyclical device bought around the holidays and product announcements, it never really took off. The iPhone is a subsidized device that accelerated as more telecoms carried the device around the world. The iPad is a non-subsidized, laptop/PC replacement. Some families have multiple units. There will be repricing of the lower end iPad2 and with the new iPad name you can expect various pricing shenanigans to squeeze out every cent without going to a 7" tablet, ever. The new iPad will set the bar for all other tablet makers. And as a result the traditional PC makers have a lot to fear from this trajectory below - 80M iPads in 1 year is very likely.

UPDATED:The R value of .9863 is for a 3-rd order polynomial curve trendline which is a better fit than an exponential trendline. It includes the last 3 quarterly forecasts for rest of 2012.

In fact, if Apple doesn't hit 80M iPads this year, it means that the overall tablet market has peaked (or that Apple's addressable market has been saturated). What other tablet makers cannot match in technology they will have to make up in price and value. If Apple does not hit 80M iPads you can be sure that the Mac vs Windows effect will hit iPads too -- that is, people are willing to pay less for an inferior tablet or even buy 2 for the price of 1. And if that happens, the Apple roadmap will come into play forcing people to ask what else the technology pipeline has up its sleve. Beyond the iPad horizon stands an interactive TV. Apple has to go up, because the only other way is down, and it has been there before. I hope the enterprise picks up the iPad once and for all because this is where the buyers are to support the trendline above, failing that I do not see how we can be in Tim Cook's "post-PC" world quite yet.

UPDATE 2:

Ryan Block says:

“The resolution is what brings it home though. Let me put it this way: when I pulled up a nice, high resolution photograph on the iPad 3rd-gen, I genuinely could not tell the difference between what I was seeing onscreen, and a nice, beautifully shot, well-printed, glossy photograph. It was seriously to that level.”

Aereo Gets Sued by Pretty Much Every Media Conglomerate

2012-03-02T17:02:01-05:00

Poor Aereo -- 2 weeks before launch they are hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit. The $20M funded company wanted to rent out mini-antennas all over New York City and allow you to watch OTA HD TV from any device on the Internet. And record the content. It would probably increase reach of each local affiliate but instead they are all suing them. One of the full legal filing documents is below. There are others.

Broadcasters v. Aereo

NextBox 2.0 from Rogers - "No I don't have the service, and never will."

2012-03-02T12:19:56-05:00

Rogers just announced their next generation set top box and whole home PVR service called NextBox 2.0. There are a lot of very compelling features that many some people are now used to having with services like Boxee, AppleTV and FibeTV from Bell. Rogers is using the Cisco set top boxes, which is the newly minted Scientific Atlanta acquisition from several years back. Hinted at selling the full set top box business, Cisco reiterated to their support for this product line. Good for Rogers -- you would not want to offer the next generation set of hardware on a product line that is on its death bed.

The features are as follows:

a PVR with a 1TB hard drive to record hundreds of hours of content
watch TV on any TV in your home, live or recorded
Start watching on 1 TV show, finish on another TV or Tablet
Rogers Live TV allows you to use your tablet to stream many of the channels on an iPad or Android tablet

The review after the break...

The key points to consider after watching the TV ad of a frenetic father pausing TV and restarting a movie in 2 different rooms:

1. The pricing is absolutely insane: the Diamond package costs over $5000 for a 2 year term. Seriously? That's more than a lease on a Honda Civic! And a full tank of gas to get you to work. Of course the "Unlimited" Internet package is bundled, but more on that later. The other packages are cheaper but still will amount to at least $120 per month in fees, and include paltry 70GB download caps.

2. Rogers Live TV is only available on your Rogers Internet service. It runs over wifi of course, but only when you are on your home network. So, you take your mobile tablet to a Starbucks that runs Bell Internet? Sorry no go. This is the most mindless (and artificial?) limitation I have ever seen on any digital service. Dear Rogers, the word mobile means more than just the confines of your home wifi hotspot. This feature, while seemingly ultracool, is dead on arrival especially if you consider many of the content providers like GlobalTV, CityTV and CBC offer their content on apps already on the iTunes App Store.

3. These features are too little too late for the informed TV watcher. These capabilities are ALREADY available to just about anyone with a home NAS, a good digital entertainment adapter like an AppleTV or Boxee or Roku. Add an over the air antenna and you're pretty much good to go for most content that most people watch anyways - the major US and Canadian TV networks.

And now about that weak, bundled Internet service Rogers is offering on everything but the Diamond plan. Rogers knows that the Internet is being used to deliver all sorts of content you normally pay for on their cableTV network, legally and otherwise. To Rogers, the pipe seems to now be a feature of their cable TV offering.

That is simply not the case, and most consumers know it. A reliable, fast Internet connection is way more important than the 500 channel universe to most. But Rogers doesn't seem to think so. Their bundle gives you an insignificant cap to limit your Internet usage. This is very surprising because only the $2500 per year Diamond package offers unlimited Internet.

So this is what it boils down to: You are going to be paying Rogers through the nose for the best cable TV experience, or else. It is surprising to me that Apple would negotiate with a content provider like Rogers at all -- Rogers is not interested in Apple making 1 red cent, of that I am pretty sure. And Rogers is all about ensuring that tier captive customer base continues being served by them in the way that Rogers wants. In many ways, they are like Apple but I am not sure they care about the customer experience at all.

When Apple eventually ships an interactive TV, I would imagine you're going to see content providers (all the networks and sports leagues) switch to getting revenue streams directly from Apple for live and recorded archived content. Just like music, the content providers while very deliberate right now, have no real choice in the matter. The future is complete dis-intermediation with the content providers selling media of all kinds directly to consumers through the next media giants of the world with Apple leading that pack.

Just do the math:

a. Pay $2500 per year for Internet and TV to Rogers.

b. Or pay up to $1000 per year for 25Mbps+200GB Internet (or less) and use as much as the remaining $1500 to spread around buying a la carte content from Apple?

There is a c. but I am not going to describe what that looks like. Just let's say it is a lot less than $2500 per year.

Apple knows that a la carte pricing in iTunes works really well at milking small dollar amounts out of their customers. It's the "Starbucks-latte" approach of paying for content. Apple (and the content providers) see the dollar signs in their eyes. Splitting $1500 (or more) between Apple and the Content providers per customer would be a huge windfall. And the pirates would be held at bay, because the Apple experience with content might just be really worth it to keep the torrents to a minimum. And even Rogers wins because they can continue selling the pipes, probably holding us hostage to exorbitant fees as well, but hopefully not.

How Civilization Went from High Value to Zero Value

2012-02-27T14:45:52-05:00

I've been thinking about a particular idea recently: how the perception of value is changing in the 21st century. What I mean by "perception of value" is the idea that people value intangible assets less than tangible assets. And people value assets that are private in nature much less than things that are public. The image below will change over time as I receive feedback on this observation. It is an embedded Google Docs drawing that will introduce examples of items in all 4 quadrants of tangible vs. intangible and public vs private. The interesting insight I am trying to make is that civilization started mostly from tangible items that are held in private regard. That is, we all started thousands of years ago only with things we could touch, see and make and things that we owned personally. Eventually as civilization grew the stuff we held in private started becoming more public in nature. It could be observed by more and more people, and potentially was used by the public in a shared sense.

As technology took hold and the industrial age gave way to the information age in the 20th century and interesting transformation started to happen -- the rise of the intangible asset such an idea or a patent. These things were firstly something that was held in public view as well, as intangible assets were first the manifestation of a public asset that become intangible. The Internet for example can be thought of a public, intangible asset. It is hard to hold it in your hands, for example, but it surely can be considered a gigantic asset to us all. A public washroom waste bin can be thought of as a public tangible asset.

In the late 20th and early 21st century an interesting transformation occured - intangible assets became private in nature, just like the tangible assets that we strarted with. We started owning assets that we did not make, that we could not hold in our hands. In fact, many of the items you hold in your possession today are simply intangible assets -- for example your citizenship or your collection of music.

The main insight I would like to make is that during this transformation, civilization appears to have started to value the intangible, private assets less and less. It appears that the notion of private, intangible items are valued so little, we are comfortable with stealing them. The producers of these intangible, private assets are intent on making it as difficult as possible to keep the items full of value, when the audience appears intent on finding ways to devalue them.

If you can agree with this observation, or disagree I'd like to hear from you. If you think it is nonsense, please chime in. But I do want to leave you with this: does the cycle continue? That is, will we continue full circle and cycle right back to private, tangible assets as the only way to recreate value again? Is the only way to ensure value to again create and consume assets we can see, touch, taste and really own?

Accessing subgrids (aka grids) on CRM2011 on onLoad and onSave events

2012-02-14T16:11:55-05:00

CRM2011 has an interesting new feature called subgrids or grids. Basically they are UI elements that show related data on a form. You can load up a form and then load the related records for that forms records in a subgrid. You can then access that data, and even add rows into the subgrid without really leaving your master record. Grids are used throughout CRM2011 and can be used with custom entities just as well. Here an example on the default Opportunities form:

The name in green text above are the CRM names of the grids assigned in the properties of each grid on the form designer. Double click on each grid and you can see the unique grid name.

The name of all grids are case sensitive in Jscript. So, the question arises -- how does Jscript read the contents of these grids? And how do you access them with onLoad and onSave events on a form? The interesting issue is that when you run any Jscript to access these forms on an onLoad you witness a fascinating behaviour - the grids load AFTER the rest of the form has loaded. As a result your Jscript accessing the grid contents will fail due the fact that the grid content has not fully loaded when the rest of the page has loaded. It may take a second or more for all the grids to load after the onLoad event fires. All the code samples of people asking this question do not address how to access grids on an onLoad, except this one. Using this self-referential call to continuously wait for the grid container to appear caused a loop to occur for me that doesn't stop. Furthermore it doesn't check for the contents of the grid, but rather just the container of the grid. There does not seem to be a way to check whether the contents of the grid (.control) has fully loaded!

Using an onSave of course is easier because the grids have already loaded and as a result you don't have to check to see if the content in the grids is fully loaded. The code below shows how to read the content of the grids on an onLoad event. Notice that there are 2 routines. One calls the other and allows for the form to load. Both can be used with onLoad and onSave, but for onSave you can call the routine with a 0ms wait time since you don't really have to wait for anything to load.

function waitTimeout(obj,ms)
{

// alerts can be removed, used for debugging

alert('subgridname='+obj+' timeout='+ms); //check values passed in

setTimeout("JS_RefreshSubgrid('"+obj+"')",ms);

// call grid reading routine after timeout of ms milliseconds
}

function JS_RefreshSubgrid(subgridname)

{
alert('called JS_RefreshSubgrid with param '+subgridname); //did we get into the routine successfully?

var s = document.getElementById(subgridname);
// set s to the container of the grid with timeout val (ms)

alert('s.readyState= '+s.readyState);
// NOTE: only container of the state will show you the readyState which is
// 'complete' when container loaded

var gridControl = document.getElementById(subgridname).control;

// set the gridControl to the control method -- the contents of the grid -- // you cannot call gridControl.readyState unfortunately as the result is
// always 'undefined'

alert('gridControl.readystate: '+gridControl.readyState);

    //    gridControl.refresh();    NOTE: on an onSave calling .refresh() will cause the grid in question to reload
   //     making the following code fail when iterating through the routines

        alert(subgridname+' has '+ gridControl.getRecordsFromInnerGrid().length + ' rows.');
// get num of rows in grid, if grid not fully loaded this will be 0 !!!

// loop through each row and access each field and show the contents of the grid

for (var intRowNumber = 0; intRowNumber < gridControl.getRecordsFromInnerGrid().length; intRowNumber++)
                {
        for (var intCellNumber = 0; intCellNumber < gridControl.getRecordsFromInnerGrid()[intRowNumber][3].cells.length; intCellNumber++)
                                {
                                           alert(gridControl.getRecordsFromInnerGrid()[intRowNumber][3].cells[intCellNumber].outerText);
                                }
                }
}

Here's the call to the waitTimeout routine configured in the Form onLoad trigger:

If there is a different way to do this I sure would like to know as this seems like a hack to load the grid values through an onLoad event.

Isaacson on Jobs Biography on Tech Crunch

2011-12-14T19:07:37-05:00

Who was Steve Jobs, really?

The Plex Media Server

2011-12-09T07:29:48-05:00

The Plex media platform appears to be an evolving "standard" for running a media server on any PC or NAS device. You can configure Plex server to serve up and collect/manage media from variety of sources and formats. You then can use Plex clients to stream and view content in your home and on the Internet. Again, you are making your own media cloud. It looks like plex clients are available on LG TVs, Android, iPhone and even AppleTV with the Firecore atv Flash extension.

It turns out the the Plex team is adding support for the Plex Media Server to even run on a variety of NAS devices which usually run Linux. For now Synology Intel-based NAS devices are support in the Labs section. Unfortuantely most lower-end Synology NAS devices are ARM-based are not yet supported. The lowest end device supported costs close to to $600 WITHOUT hard drives.

RFID Sleeves for your Credit Cards and Passports

2011-12-08T16:09:37-05:00

Those chip enabled bank and credit cards are not secure. And our Canadian 2012 issued passports and US passports? Also unsecure. This is worse than before when you needed physical contact -- now you can read cards wirelessly. 16x9 reports.

This company offers sleeve protection. Identity Stronghold says that if banks admit and sell these sleeves, that they'd be admitting guilt. And right they are -- better get em while you can in US. In Canada you can get them here.

How to Create the Perfect Resume

2011-12-02T17:22:14-05:00

These tips for creating the perfect resume are awesome! Besides making a beautiful, easy to read and understand resume, these tips will reduce the size of your resume by 50% or more without leaving any content out. These guidelines reduced mine from 6 pages to just over 2 pages without leaving any experience out! And it made my resume much more usable - recruiters look at resumes for an average of about 6 seconds. And you better do a good job helping them identify the places they are looking for -- there are only 6-8 pieces of information they really want to see. Click on the image below to enlarge.

The most bizarre Excel formula that is not a formula - EVALUATE()

2011-11-28T16:06:43-05:00

Excel is a very powerful product from Microsoft that helps people around the world make budgets, create forecasts and evalaute financial information of all kinds. It's also a great text processor. It turns out that Excel has a few undocumented formulas that have been deprecated, but that still work in Excel 2010 for backwards compatibility. One of them is not a function at all, but rather a macro that can be evalauted from named ranges only (aka 'names') in Excel. This macro is called EVALUATE(). You must enable macros to use it. Click below to see a full description of how this can be used to dynamically create formulas.

EVALUATE() cannot be called in a cell like =EVALUATE(...), it can only used in a Refers To: part of a named range definition.

EVALUATE() is the most strange Excel function in that it lets you take a string and literally make Excel evalaute the string and convert the string to an Excel Formula. The contents of a cell referring to the named range that calls EVALUATE(...) then spits out the result of this formula.

What does this give you? The ability to dynamically create Excel formulas using a variety of rules and then evaluate the resulting formulas in Excel. You can write a formula generator based on various rules, create the formula as a text string and then use the result in Excel. Click on the screen shot below to see the full explanation.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The =Result cell above DOES not recalculate if the underlying worksheet values (2001,2002,2003) change. It only recalculates when =Result is reentered or if the dynamic formula in Sheet1!A1 is changed or just reentered. Normal Excel recalcs do not affect this because EVALUATE() is not a regular Excel formula, but rather a macro call. And you must have macros enabled for this to work.

Bizarre huh?

Apple's Imminent Foray into TV, But How?

2011-11-24T08:39:09-05:00

Watch Steve Jobs response on the problem with TV. It's "balkanized", he says due to the fact that there are contractual and technical challenges to creating a superior TV experience, internationally. It's kind of curious that he's so bearish on TV whereas he was so bullish on music, when Apple essentially created a standard for digital music distribution and gave everyone a way to legally buy music one song at a time. Pretty much all music is on iTunes and you can consume music in just about any way you want. But that surely is not the case with TV or Movies right now.

So why can't TV be treated the same way? I think it can. And what I think Apple has to do is not simple, but obvious: Apple must partner, like it did with iPhone and AT&T for mobile. Apple must partner with a telco provider that provides broadband to a large part of the US. And then it must continue partnering with other telco providers around the world, providing a strong hardware+content distribution platform.

Why?

Because the large incumbent telcos have at least 2 lines of business -- TV and broadband. They sit on both sides of the fence. If you will, a modern ILEC (incumbent telco) is the equivalent of the record label in the music industry. They sell you cable TV, subsidize the set top boxes and also sell you broadband as a hedge against their cable/satellite revenue. The telco basically has a stranglehold on the delivery of TV to your home.

People have tried to liberate themselves of the telco for many years and folks like myself have finally done it for the most part: except one very important telco-provided connection: broadband Internet.

The thing is that when you "cut the cord" you cannot cut Internet, especially ultra hispeed 20+ Mbps Internet. When your Internet connection is reliable and fast, you get used to be able to do just about anything online. Streaming video is no brainer. You don't cut the cord really, you just take all your other cords and tie them to your ethernet and wifi connection, so to speak.

We've installed an OTA HD antenna, got An AppleTV jailbroken with Firecore's atv Flash and installed a NAS that does an amazing job of storing and streaming our digital content (music, photos and video). This solution set is as close as you can get to a replacement for anything the cable/satelitte TV guys give you. And the math looks like his:

AppleTV - $100
NAS - $500 (including 2x 1TB hard drives for redundancy)
OTA HD - $100 antenna + installation ($350-500)
Fast Internet - $80/month

For roughly a $1000 home improvement fee and about $80-100 per month in broadband you get the future of TV right now.

Live local TV stations (sports, news, local shows).
Netflix streaming
iTunes rentals
Access content on the NAS to stream to your TV an archive of videos, music and pictures

So, what should Apple do?

Partner with a national telco that provides broadband to a large swath of the US and make a new AppleTV that comes with a broadband Internet connection. Ensure that owners of that box have access to their local media ala Firecore/NAS approach (make it omnivorous, as others have stated). Continue partnering with telcos who do broadband really, really well. And partner on the content side to ensure all live and prerecorded media is available. Then make all movies rentable or buyable through iTunes as they have already started to do through the existing PPV options available through the telcos.

Once you do this, you essentially have your set top box that can be more than $100 (it could be close to $1000 from the math above). You need local storage done well with a NAS style solution. This is where Apple can make money like the always do -- on he hardware. And then the data plan for your home entertainment is like the phone plan for mobile. The telco wins as well, just like AT&T did. And the telco COULD subsidize the AppleTV solution just like they do with iPhones. Or not, it will depend on the customer possibly, but if the telco went all in they could get lots of new hi-speed broadband customers, fast.

The solution for Apple is morphing the iPhone technology (iOS) with the iTunes partnering (deals with distributors) for solving the TV dilemma. Apple will continue making hardware that is profitable and continue doing deals with telcos that provide the content as long telcos get more and more broadband customers.

I expect Apple will enter this field in 2012 in a big way. And I am not sure why they have to make a TV other than to show clean integration of the experience. Hopefully there will be a solution to retrofit existing TVs. I don't see why not.

The go to market strategy is right there, Apple. This is your way to avoid "jumping the shark" and pulling into yet another arena that you haven't been yet to continue to diversify the product lineup. It may take a few years just like it did with iTunes (5 years or so), but it is imminent and completely possible. I await eagerly.

Synology Videos Galore - Hybrid RAID and More on the DSM

2011-11-22T10:49:15-05:00

Synology makes a few excellent presentations describing the DSM (the OS of the NAS enclosures) and the Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR). SHR allows you to maximize usage of various sized disks in a RAID array and includes data redundancy. 1 drive can fail and the RAID array continues to operate without fail.

DSM videos

Part 1

Part 2

Synology Hybrid Array webinar

A 5 minute trip through the US in time-lapse photography

2011-11-22T08:17:40-05:00

A quick trip around the country of the United States of America.

Synology NAS enclosures - your own cloud and media center

2011-11-20T10:18:09-05:00

I've been experimenting with a solution to back up all your media off your computers and onto a central place in the home. The main problem with media like movies, photos and music is that if they are available on a USB stick or a hard drive on a laptop or computer, then they are usually unavailable easily to any other device. If your home computing situation involves several laptops, an AppleTV or Boxee/Roku, an IPad or Android phone or tablet then you want to be able to share the media between them.

You also want to be able to backup your files and have them stored on a server somewhere hidden away in a closet, but you don't want to do too much to maintain it. It would be nice to have facility to allow streaming off the media to any other device. And hey how about ability to store home surveillance streams/pictures from your wireless IP cams? And a "download station" to download your favorite content while you sleep? Oh and yes, make it available to the Internet and run your own "private cloud" to access the content from anywhere!

Well you can build your own Network Attached Storage (NAS) device for a few hundred bucks or try out the Synology line of products. I got the DS111 device that supports just 1 drive, but Canada Computers has the new DS211j on sale for $159 after a $30 rebate. This is a terrific deal for a 2 bay device that pretty much does everything short of cook your breakfast.

The most amazing thing about this device is that after formatting your hard drive(s) it installs the latest version of what Synology calls DSM. The DSM is the operating system of your NAS and have no fear this is a full Linux kernel running a browser based operating system that allows you to install applications that extend the functionality of your NAS beyond what you get out of the box.Here is a screen shot of the DSM OS to give you an idea of how it works.

Synology DSM Screen Shot

The list of applications is very impressive, although I have not tried them all. The sharing capability to setup a Windows or Mac (SMB or AFP) file server works really well. You can stream content to any device over your network. There is support for a DNLA UPnP server for Xbox360 and Playstation3. There is an FTP server, a Webserver, and even PHP supported to run your websites (!). The "download station" supports RSS feeds (use feedburner.com for the best compatibility) and can download your RSS feed contgent in the background as the RSS feed updates as per a user-configured update interval.

Finally, the new atv Flash (black) media player works really well with this NAS, which is the most important thing. There is a good discussion of preferred NAS devices at the firecore support forum. One thing I found is that my wifi router was acting up a lot, dropping connections. Once you have streaming setup from a NAS, your wifi router may start to hiccup more. To fix this, check the channel you have set for your router -- if you have lots of wifi hotspots in your area you will want to turn off "auto scan" on your router and select a channel not frequently used by default. I used channel 8, which seems to be working. Here is the screen shot from my DIR-655 router to indicate the setting. This is crucial for wifi success, because if you have a persnickety router dropping your connections your NAS will be sitting there useless because your clients won't be able to connect to it.

UPDATE: Note that any hard drives you put into a Synology NAS enclosure WILL BE REFORMATTED in ext4 format. That means you will have to load up your hard disks with backups of your files. You can use a USB key or an external hard drive attached to one of the USB ports on the outside of the NAS. There is a one-button copy feature that places all the files in the "public" folder, and then you can move the files using the DSM. The upload over the network feature out of DSM is slow and probably not the way you want to go if you plan to load up the NAS with 10-several hundred GB of files at the outset. This is the only part of the process that's not ideal. MAKE BACKUPS OF EXISTING FILES FIRST!

TV finally gets real - 1.0 of atv Flash (black)

2011-11-17T15:14:01-05:00

Firecore, a small company in Colorado, recently released v1.0 of the much awaited AppleTV solution, called atv Flash (black). This "hack" allows the black AppleTV (2nd generation) device to gain several important pieces of functionality. To start and give you an idea of what is now possible with the very affordable AppleTV check out this video from firecore.

Now that you've checked it out, here are some thoughts on strategy and where Apple ought to be going. At this rate, the hacking community will turn the AppleTV into the most amazing little piece of technology to hit the TV since the remote control. You can be sure of that.

Firecore has created something that is very unusual. By providing a "jailbreak" of the AppleTV they have enabled added functionality to be added to the AppleTV WITHOUT removing the existing functionality previously available. So by installing atv Flash (black) you get to keep the out of the box experience Apple provides AS WELL AS have additional functionality.

At every firmware OS release Apple provides (currently at 4.4.3) Firecore essentially enables you to upgrade to this OS and then keep the added functionality running along side new Apple featuers. This is unprecedented. It's as if Apple has gained a kick butt developer of functionality of new AppleTV features, all for less than $30 per year of support.

The features you get are not trivial -- along side simple added features like interactive weather and RSS feed reader you get a full featured Media Player that can play videos, music and pictures off ANY shared Windows or Apple hard drive or NAS. You get a fully HTML5 compliant web browser called Couch Surfer Pro, which of course does NOT run Flash or Silverlight. But it does support HTML5 embedded video and audio. There is zero chrome on this browser -- your TV bezel is the chrome on Couch Surfer Pro.

And you get a terrific implementation of Last.fm radio. The last.fm implementation looks like it was done by Apple -- it's that good. Apple-like touches live inside of the last.fm application in atv Flash (black). When a song is playing AppleTV goes into screen saver mode and shows beautiful pictures of the artist. Last.fm may make you dump your MP3 collection for good -- it's available for use in several countries but not the whole world.

atv Flash (black) is not for the technically challenged. It does require you to "jailbreak" your AppleTV which means support from Apple is effectively gone. You will also need to apply updates should you want to update your firmware, because automatic software updates from Apple are effectively turned off. Firmware updates will have to be done using the "jailbreak" software each and every time.

Lastly if you use 4.4.x of the AppleTV OS (iOS5) you will find that rebooting (menu+down until fast blinking LED) or power cycling the AppleTV requires a "tethered" reboot. This means you have to connect your AppleTV via USB cable to a PC or Mac and "help" it reboot properly. It won't reboot on its own, as it will show an iTunes + USB cable icon. Previous 4.3.x AppleTV OSs allowed "untethered" reboots, and Firecore will most likely support this once the community has figured out how to the reboot the AppleTV without help from a PC. Sleeping (holding down play/pause until sleep) and returning from sleep mode on the AppleTV does NOT require tethering, to be sure. This is definitely the biggest draw back, as I've had to reboot several times due to unresponsiveness in the browser so far.

The final analysis is this: Apple better get cracking on an AppleTV that provides a lot more functionality than the current AppleTV. atv Flash (black) is the best $30 you will spend in 2011, that is for sure, especially if you love your AppleTV. And Firecore is just getting started. This is v1.0 of the next generation of television.

ps. Reading the forums leads you to believe that AppleTV can now run Boxee, XBMC and various other plugins. Have fun and stay safe! Remember you can always restore back to the original AppleTV OS by restoring in iTunes after you connect the AppleTV to your iTunes-enabeld PC/Mac via your microUSB cable.

Android - the "Windows" of the Smartphone Market

2011-11-16T10:22:54-05:00

No matter how you slice it or dice it, Apple is losing the smart phone market share battle. For now Apple has a huge lead in the apps space and mindshare among developers. The marketshare story though doesn't lie. If the long-term trend is towards Android as the "Windows" of the smart phone market developers will switch over very quickly. The smart money (or any money) may not be there but once the numbers are there in terms of users, you can be sure you can make money writing apps for Androids over iPhone.

The writing is on the wall, Apple. Apple has jumped the shark, yet again. Apple lost the PC battle for the enterprise customer between 1985 and 1995. They had every reason to build out a "Macintosh Office" in the mid 80s, and failed to do so. It took Steve Jobs to bring them back from near-death, but unfortunately he is not there to guide them now. I wonder if Google will take over the mantle of the true consumer-oriented company in the second decade of the 21st century. Let's see where this is by end of 2012.

Tracy Ann Kosa Talks the Impact of Technology on Privacy

2011-11-10T17:51:58-05:00

Scary, amazing, thoughtful stories by the incredible Tracy Ann Kosa.

About Tracy Ann Kosa: Midway through a doctorate in Computer Science, developing a model to predict privacy risk on emergent technologies, Tracy Ann Kosa is a Privacy Impact Assessment Specialist with the Government of Ontario. In that capacity, Ms. Kosa works with Ministries and organizations across the broader public sector to assess and implement privacy requirements. Prior to working in government, she held various positions in ehealth privacy, largely focused on training and education initiatives. Ms. Kosa is a regular contributor to Security Matters magazine, and invited speaker at conferences and universities.

What is a #rootstriker ? Lawrence Lessig answers this question and much, much more...

2011-10-28T09:05:00-04:00

An absolute must see video. A fundamental call to action for the 21st century citizen.

Being Hired by your Alma Mater - Since 2003

2011-10-25T17:38:57-04:00

This is not really a success story in my opinion, although the visualization is amazing. Check out this graph from LinkedIn on where graduates from your alma mater are working. On my U of Michigan graph, there is a disturbing trend:

Seems like since 2003 roughly, the graph has swung away from the auto company employers that dominated the Michigan economy towards the major universities themselves as the major employers in Michigan. So the major publicly funded institutions are now the top employers of university grads (who they hatched). Oy vey! That's some bubble.

2000 U of Michigan LinkedIn Stats (4 out of top 25 are public sector):

2010 U of Michigan LinedIn Stats (9 out of top 25 are public sector):

Update: I added a fake alma mater U of Toronto to my profile to check Toronto stats. They are even more startling. Look what happened to 2000 grads vs 2010 grads. They are all being concentrated as employed by U of T. Notice also that MANY less grads in 2010 are moving to the US for employment. It is startling -- the brain drain is practically gone!

2000 U of Toronto graduates:

2010 U of Toronto Graduates (more than two times as many as in 2000!)

Note I am depending on LinkedIn analytics to properly identify working vs going to school. It is possible that the idea of where they work... may mean for some where they are (continuing) going to school. It will be important to differentiate between working at an alma mater and just doing the next degree as "work".

Steve Jobs Autobiography on 60 Minutes

2011-10-23T20:13:52-04:00

Fascinating piece on Steve Jobs -- via Walter Isaacson's biography that is in stores tomorrow.

The 6 Killer Apps of Western Civilization

2011-10-10T07:50:18-04:00

I must say I have seen this TEDtalk now several times. It frames very much what concerns me about Western civilization. If we turn off these 6 killer apps one by one, Western civilization may very well go the way of the dodo. And others (eg Easterners) may morph these apps, nay hack them, into something very, very different. At 8:40 or so into the video Niall Ferguson discusses the 6 killer apps, which are self evident but framed and contextualized very nicely in this 20 minute video.

Competition: Europe was politically fragmented, and within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities.
Scientific revolution: All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology happened in Western Europe.
Property rights and rule of law (government): This optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
Modern medicine: All the major 19th- and 20th-century advances in health care, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
The consumer society: The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
The work ethic: Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.

They seem obvious in retrospect that Western civilization leveraged these killer apps to effectively dictate to the rest of the world their terms. Notice that "democracy" and "capitalism" are not really described in any way, short of property rights. Places like China and India may very well adopt some but NOT ALL of these killer apps, and introduce some new ideas that effectively make them more competitive than Western civilization (North America and Europe). And what happens when these killer apps are hacked and the idea of "work ethic" is turned on its heads and uses child labour to power Western civilization. What happens when we stop providing modern medicine to the needy? Western civilization must continue to continue to "rev" all these killer apps to continue to compete in the 21st century. It is imperative.

Save $700 per year - Get your own antenna and get free HD

2011-10-07T12:04:26-04:00

UPDATE: Interesting article on the art of antenna installations and savings.

UPDATE 2: I have heard of people getting basic Rogers for $15.99/month + HST. To get HD you'd need the receiver so the best you could do is about $32/month! Also SunTV stopped HD broadcasting on November 1 2011, as Quebecor lost their over the air transmission license. We need an all day news channel to broadcast OTA - CP24 for example!

UPDATE 3: The Wall Street Journal describes the second wave of rabbit ears!

Rogers Digital Basic costs $36.01 per month. You must get an HD receiver at $12.95/month to actually GET the HD channels. So they're not really free are they as described: "Over 42 FREE HD channels and growing"? All Rogers is really doing is eliminating the physics of the physical world -- they eliminate the weird little issues that Over the Air (OTA) HD comes with (curvature of the Earth for example, and other physical obstructions like buildings).

To get OTA HD get a $20 aluminum outdoor antenna at any of the discount computer stores, or Futureshop or BestBuy. Or splurge and spend $50 for this one. The Clearstream 2 antenna for over $100 is a good bet in Northern Toronto. Of course, my friend S, tells me you will need a fairly long coax cable to plug into your coax cable plant or directly to your TV. This should cost you another $20 max. Note that many places you will find these items sold out, for good reasons, no doubt. Here are the pictures of my outdoor antenna connected to a "juliette" balcony about 50 ft off the ground. And a home made coax jack I made by stringing the coax from the antenna directly to this jack on the outside of the house. I did need to get a 12" masonry drill bit to make a hole on the outside of the house to get the coax into the jack. I also decided to ground this puppy to avoid lightning strikes killing my TV. YMMV.

Below is a grounding block connecting 2 coax wires. The black wire is grounding quality copper wire.

This picture shows the copper wire going to a 4 foot copper stake going into the ground. That's why it's called grounding!

Then make sure your HD TV has a digital tuner. Most TVs made in the last 3 years have a digital tuner, but make sure you ask before you buy your next flat screen. Here's the state of digital TV in Canada. And here are the channels you could get in Toronto.

I get 25% of the HD channels Rogers Digital Basic offers - FOR FREE. You're paying for free stuff, people. If I pointed my antenna south and mounted it properly as per tvfool.com indicates for my area, I'd get the American channels too! I'll do this soon and report back.

Here's a super deluxe installation with $200 worth of parts -- this install most likely is over $1000 to do professionally. Most people though will be fine with just $100 worth of parts and $250 worth of labour.

The 15 HD channels I get for free, in bold and red based on the Rogers HD lineup below the break...

APTN HD

CBC News Network HD

CTV HD British Columbia (HCTVV)

CTV HD Toronto (CTVTO) HD

ABC Buffalo (WKBW) HD

CBC Ottawa (HDCBO)HD

CBC Toronto (CBLT) HD

CBC Vancouver (HCBCV) HD

CBS Buffalo (WIVB) HD

CHCH HD Citytv Toronto HD

FOX Buffalo (WUTV) HD

Global BC HD

Global Toronto (CIII) HD

NBC Buffalo (WGRZ) HD

OMNI.1 HD

OMNI.2 HD

Pay Per View 1 HD

Pay Per View 2 HD

PBS Buffalo (WNED) HD (+2 PBS subchannels that Rogers doesn't televise!)

Preview Channel HD

SRC Toronto (CBLFT) HD

SUN TV

NFL Network HD

OWN HD

RDI HD Rogers TV HD

Sportsnet East HD

Sportsnet Ontario HD

Sportsnet Pacific HD

Sportsnet West HD

Télé Québec HD

TFO HD

The Aquarium Channel HD

The Cottage Channel HD

The Score HD

The Shopping Channel HD

The Sunset Channel HD

TV5 HD

TVA HD

TVO HD

V HD

YTV HD (East)

ps. Here are the stations you can get across Canada now in HD, for free

Province	Market	Mandatory Market	Transmitter	Status	Notes
AB	Burmis	No	CJIL-TV-2 (Ind)	Shut Down	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range.
AB	Calgary	Yes	CBRFT (SRC) CBRT-DT (CBC) CFCN-DT (CTV) CIAN-TV (CTV Two) CICT-DT (Global) CJCO-DT (Omni) CKAL-DT (Citytv) CKCS-DT (CTS)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air Shut Down On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air	CTV owns Access. The station is now only available through cable or satellite.
AB	Edmonton	Yes	CBXFT-DT (SRC) CBXT-DT (CBC) CFRN-DT (CTV) CITV-DT (Global) CJAL-TV (CTV Two) CJEO-DT (Omni) CKEM-DT (Citytv) CKES-DT (CTS)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air Shut Down On-Air On-Air On-Air	CTV owns Access. The station is now only available through cable or satellite.
AB	Forestburg	No	CBXT-12 (CBC)	Reduced Analog Power	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. To stay on the same channel in analog at reduced transmission power, becoming a low power transmitter.
AB	Lethbridge	Yes	CBRT-6 (CBC) CBXFT-3 (SRC) CFCN-DT-5 (CTV) CISA-DT (Global) CJIL-DT (Ind) CKAL-DT-1 (Citytv)	Not planned to go digital Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
AB	Lloydminster	Yes	CITL-DT (CTV) CKSA-DT (CBC)	On-Air On-Air	On August 31, 2011, CITL-TV shut down its analog re-transmitters in Bonnyville, AB; Wainwright, AB; and Provost, AB. At the same time, CKSA is shutting down its analog transmitters in Wainwright, AB and Provost, AB. There is no regulatory requirement for those transmitters to shut down or to convert to digital.
BC	Spillimacheen	No	CBUBT-6 (CBC)	Shut Down	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range.
BC	Vancouver	Yes	CBUFT-DT (SRC) CBUT-DT (CBC) CHAN-DT (Global) CKVU-DT (Citytv) CHNM-DT (Omni) CHNU-DT (Joytv) CIVI-DT-2 (CTV Two) CIVT-DT (CTV)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air	CKVU-TV broadcasts in analog with one transmitter serving Vancouver and Victoria. In its place, two digital transmitters will broadcast, one for Vancouver and one for Victoria.
BC	Victoria	Yes	CHEK-DT (Ind) CHNM-DT-1 (Omni) CHNU-DT (Joytv) CIVI-DT (CTV Two) CKVU-DT-2 (Citytv)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air	CKVU-TV broadcasts in analog with one transmitter serving Vancouver and Victoria. In its place, two digital transmitters will broadcast, one for Vancouver and one for Victoria.
MB	Winnipeg	Yes	CBWFT (SRC) CBWT (CBC) CHMI-DT (Citytv) CIIT-DT (Joytv) CKND-DT (Global) CKY-DT (CTV)	Transmitter approved by CRTC Transmitter approved by CRTC On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
NB	Fredericton	Yes	CBAFT-10 (SRC) CBAT-DT (CBC) CIHF-DT-1 (Global)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air	The analog transmitter covers both Saint John and Fredericton. The CBC has received permission to change CBAT's city of license to Fredericton and add a digital transmitter to serve only Fredericton. The CBC has also received permission to maintain, but lower the power of the current CBAT analog transmitter in order to serve Saint John.
NB	Moncton	Yes	CBAFT-DT (SRC) CBAT-TV-2 (CBC) CIHF-DT-3 (Global) CKCW-DT (CTV)	On-Air Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air
NB	Saint John	Yes	CBAFT-1 (SRC) CBAT-TV (CBC) CIHF-DT-2 (Global) CKLT-DT (CTV)	Not planned to go digital Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air	The analog transmitter covers both Saint John and Fredericton. The CBC has received permission to change CBAT's city of license to Fredericton and add a digital transmitter to serve only Fredericton. The CBC has also received permission to maintain, but lower the power of the current CBAT analog transmitter in order to serve Saint John.
NL	St. John's	Yes	CBFJ-TV (SRC) CBNT-DT (CBC) CJON-DT (Ind)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air
NS	Digby	No	CBHFT-6 (SRC) CBHT-7 (CBC)	Reduced Analog Power Reduced Analog Power	Full power analog stations occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Both to stay on their same channels in analog at reduced transmission power, becoming a low power transmitters.
NS	Halifax	Yes	CBHFT (SRC) CBHT-DT (CBC) CIHF-DT (Global) CJCH-DT (CTV)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air
NS	Truro	No	CBHT-8 (CBC)	Reduced Analog Power	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. To stay on the same channel in analog at reduced transmission power, becoming a low power transmitter.
ON	Barrie	Yes	CBLFT-11 (SRC) CBLT-TV-1 (CBC) CHCH-DT-3 (Ind) CIII-DT-7 (Global) CKVR-DT (CTV Two)	Shut Down Shut Down On-Air On-Air On-Air
ON	Belleville	No	CICO-DT-26 (TVO)	On-Air	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Broadcasting in digital on a channel lower than 52.
ON	Brighton	No	CKWS-DT-1 (CBC)	On-Air	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Broadcasting in digital on a channel lower than 52.
ON	Chatham	No	CBLN-TV-3 (CBC) CICO-DT-59 (TVO)	Changed Analog Channel On-Air	Full power analog stations occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. CBC applied to the CRTC to broadcast within the 52 to 69 range, but at low power. TVO approved to broadcast in digital on a channel lower than 52.
ON	Cloyne	No	CICO-DT-92 (TVO)	On-Air	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Broadcasting in digital on a channel lower than 52.
ON	Fort Erie	No	CIII-TV-55 (Global)	Shut down	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Station's Toronto transmitter will provide digital signal to area covered by this transmitter.
ON	Foymount	No	CBOT-1 (CBC)	Changed Analog Channel	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Staying in analog, on a channel below channel 52.
ON	Hamilton	Yes	CHCH-DT (Ind) CITS-DT (CTS)	On-Air On-Air On-Air
ON	Kitchener	Yes	CBLFT-8 (SRC) CBLN-TV-1 (CBC) CICO-DT-28 (TVO) CIII-DT (Global) CKCO-DT (CTV)	Reduced Analog Power Changed Analog Channel On-Air On-Air On-Air
ON	London	Yes	CBLFT-9 (SRC) CBLN-TV (CBC) CFMT-DT-1 (Omni) CFPL-DT (CTV Two) CHCH-DT-2 (Ind) CICO-DT-18 (TVO) CITS-DT-2 (CTS) CITY-DT-2 (Citytv) CJMT-DT-1 (Omni)	Reduced Analog Power Changed Analog Channel On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air	CKXT was digital-only in London and Ottawa at the time of original construction (2008). CKXT's licences will be returned for cancellation in 2011, replaced by the cable Sun News Network (Sun shutdown HD broadcasting Nov 1 2011)
ON QC	Ottawa Gatineau	Yes	CBOFT-DT (SRC) CBOT-DT (CBC) CFGS-TV (V) CFMT-DT-2 (Omni) CHCH-DT-1 (Ind) CHOT-DT (TVA) CHRO-DT-43 (CTV Two) CICO-DT-24 (TVO) CIII-DT-6 (Global) CITS-DT-1 (CTS) CITY-DT-3 (Citytv) CIVO-DT (TQc) CJMT-DT-2 (Omni) CJOH-DT (CTV)	On-Air On-Air Transmitter approved by CRTC On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air	CFGS has received an extension until October 31, 2011.
ON	Peterborough	No	CFTO-DT-54 (CTV)	On-Air	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Broadcasting in digital on a channel lower than 52.
ON	Sarnia	No	CBLFT-17 (SRC)	Changed Analog Channel	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. Staying in analog, on a channel below channel 52.
ON	Thunder Bay	Yes	CBLFT-18 (SRC) CHFD-DT (Global) CICO-DT-9 (TVO) CKPR-DT (CBC)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air
ON	Toronto	Yes	CBLFT-DT (SRC) CBLT-DT (CBC) CFMT-DT (Omni) CFTO-DT (CTV) CICA-DT (TVO) CIII-DT-41 (Global) CITY-DT (Citytv) CJMT-DT (Omni)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
ON	Windsor	Yes	CBEFT (SRC) CBET-DT (CBC) CHWI-DT (CTV Two) CHWI-DT-60 (CTV Two) CICO-DT-32 (TVO) CIII-DT-22 (Global)	Changed analog channel On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
PE	Charlottetown	Yes	CBAFT-5 (SRC) CBCT-DT (CBC) CIHF-DT-14 (Global) CKCW-DT-1 (CTV)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Lac-Etchemin	No	CBVT-4 (SRC)	Reduced Analog Power	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range. To stay on the same channel in analog at reduced transmission power, becoming a low power transmitter.
QC	Montreal	Yes	CBFT-DT (SRC) CBMT-DT (CBC) CFCF-DT (CTV) CFJP-DT (V) CFTM-DT (TVA) CFTU-TV (Ind) CIVM-DT (TQc) CJNT-DT (Ind) CKMI-DT-1 (Global)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air Transmitter approved by CRTC On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Quebec City	Yes	CBVE-TV (CBC) CBVT-DT (SRC) CFAP-DT (V) CFCM-DT (TVA) CIVQ-DT (TQc) CKMI-DT (Global)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Rimouski	No	CJBR-DT (SRC)	On-Air	Rimouski is not a mandatory market. CJBR was not required to convert to digital or change its transmitter in any way by August 31, 2011.
QC	Rivière-du-Loup	Yes	CFTF-DT (V) CIMT-DT (TVA) CKRT-DT (SRC)	On-Air On-Air On-Air	Analog re-transmitters of CFTF-TV, CIMT-TV, CKRT-TV are all planned to be converted to digital by September 2011. Affected markets in Quebec include Baie-Comeau, Baie-St-Paul, Carleton-sur-Mer, Dégelis, Cabano, Forestville, Gaspé, Les Escoumins, St-Urbain, Sept-Iles, Rimouski, Trois-Pistoles. Affected markets in New Brunswick include Edmundston. Not all three stations are necessarily in the same markets. There is no regulatory requirement for those transmitters to shut down or convert to digital.
QC	Rouyn-Noranda / Val-d'Or	Yes	CFEM-DT (TVA) CFEM-DT-1 (TVA) CFVS-DT (V) CFVS-DT-1 (V) CIVA-DT (TQc) CIVA-DT-1 (TQc) CJDG-DT (SRC) CKRN-DT (SRC)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Saguenay	Yes	CBJET (CBC) CFRS-DT (V) CIVV-DT (TQc) CJPM-DT (TVA) CKTV-DT (SRC)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Sainte-Famille	No	CBVT-2 (SRC)	Shut Down	Full power analog station occupying channel within 52 to 69 range.
QC	Sherbrooke	Yes	CBMT-3 (CBC) CFKS-DT (V) CHLT-DT (TVA) CIVS-DT (TQc) CKMI-DT-2 (Global) CKSH-DT (SRC)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
QC	Trois-Rivières	Yes	CBMT-1 (CBC) CFKM-DT (V) CHEM-DT (TVA) CIVC-DT (TQc) CKTM-DT (SRC)	Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
SK	Regina	Yes	CBKFT-DT (SRC) CBKT-DT (CBC) CFRE-DT (Global) CKCK-DT (CTV)	On-Air On-Air On-Air On-Air
SK	Saskatoon	Yes	CBKFT-1 (SRC) CBKST (CBC) CFQC-DT (CTV) CFSK-DT (Global)	Not planned to go digital Not planned to go digital On-Air On-Air

Eric Schmidt at Zeitgeist 2011 - A word on economic creativity

2011-10-04T11:19:17-04:00

The web is a platform for millions versions of vision and innovation from all of us. And that is why it works to make the best solutions win. Not suppositions, or worse - lies. Eric's advice - "Take the long view, not the short-term."

Los Altos School Board Administrators talk Khan Academy

2011-09-08T15:03:59-04:00

I wish other school boards tried this approach that Los Altos has taken. And you don't need expensive Macs to use Khan Academy. It's really a revolution in education. My son has been using this site for the last few months and we've developed a reward program called "Homework Happiness" from the points he gets on Khan Academy. He can redeem the points for prizes of various levels, and he can save up for the really really big prizes too. It's clear that in our technologically immersive culture, that learning like this and having teachers use technology to help can help not only the smart kids but also kids that need help to get ahead. Khan Academy lets each child have a personalized experience, assisted by their parent(s) or teacher(s).

Festo's Making of a Smart Bird

2011-07-26T11:57:54-04:00

An absolutely marvelous short documentary on the design of a bionic bird. What are the commercial applications of such a design?