Apologies are in Order

Well, I said I’d be doing pen and paper blogging while I was in Ireland… But I certainly did not. Not only that, though, but I also haven’t doing blogging of any description for an extremely long time. I’m sorry to all one of you who is reading this. I promise to be a little more on the ball in the future.

Pen and Paper Blogging

Tomorrow I’m leaving for Ireland for a week. I’ve decided that since I’m camping, this is the perfect time to go on a techno-fast. I’m not bringing my iPod or any other technology more advanced than a flashlight. I’ll be writing my blog the old fashioned way: with a pen and paper. I’ll be posting it all after I get back.

Let the techno-fast begin.

App Store Rolling Out Real Updates Now

One of the problems I’ve been having lately with the iTunes App Store is the lack of updates being rolled out. I guess Apple is a little backlogged with fixing MobileMe and approving new apps to be added to the store. Updates to apps were a likely candidate for the back-burner. But, I opened up iTunes this morning and clicked the “Check for Updates” button in the Applications section and, to my surprise, there were actual updates.

I’ve had false positives before, in which I was told there were updates, but the iTunes just went ahead and re-downloaded the 1.0 versions that I already had. This time, however, I got version 1.3.1 of Brain Challenge and version 1.1 of PhoneSaber to replace my 1.0 copy of it. And thank goodness PhoneSaber got an update because let me tell you, it was a mission-critical app for me. If it had crashed one more time while I was swinging my iPod touch around, pretending to be Mace Windu, the results could have been disasterous.

Now I just have to wait the hour it takes to sync my iPod touch with iTunes…

Things I like: Vay

Ever since the release of the iPhone 2.0 software I’ve been browsing through the app store and downloading any app that catches my fancy. The latest one is Vay: an RPG that, though I’ve never heard of it, was apparently previously released on an older Sega console.

Vay is great. Despite the old-school graphics and the terrible dialogue, it’s a blast to play. And it’s a bargain at $4.99. I’ve spent about nine hours on it already and I plan to finish it. This is the reason I was excited for the 2.0 software and, hopefully, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s an iTunes download link for anyone who’s interested: Vay

Canadian ISPs Holding Back Cloud Computing

As “Cloud Computing,” gains more traction with a mainstream audience, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the bandwidth caps imposed by Internet service providers will need to go away.

Cloud Computing is a whole new computing experience in which the particular computer you’re sitting in front of doesn’t matter, because everything that makes your computer yours is stored in the “Cloud,” i.e. on the Internet. It’s an interesting concept because not only do people have multiple computers which they use every day, (desktop, laptop, phone) but people also want the ability to sit in front of, say, a friend’s computer and have everything look familiar. As this new idea gains more traction with a mainstream audience, it’s becomes increasingly clear that the bandwidth caps imposed by Internet service providers in Canada will need to go away.

Google has been doing Cloud Computing for years, with its web apps like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs, but recently two new players have entered the Cloud Computing game: namely, Apple and Microsoft.

Apple’s MobileMe service got off to a rocky start last week, but it essentially combines email, calendar, contacts, and bookmark syncing. It also has photo gallery and file storage features. It’s compatible with both macs (through the iLife suite) and windows-based PCs (through a combination of Outlook and a web interface). The service is also compatible with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, and supports push email, calendar, contacts and bookmark syncing through those devices. Users get 20GB of storage space in the Cloud.

Microsoft’s Live Mesh, though still in tech preview, is also a very impressive service. It takes a little bit of a different approach, by giving the user not just storage space, but also a virtual desktop online that syncs with the user’s home computer’s desktop. The eventual goal of the service is to make it into an entire computing platform, like Windows. Like I said earlier, this service is still in tech preview, so features like mobile phone and OS X syncing are not yet live. But all in all, it has the potential to be a great service.

Obviously, Cloud Computing has the potential to suck a whole lot of bandwidth. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that almost all Canadian ISPs impose low bandwidth caps on their users. Shaw Cable’s standard high speed Internet package, for example, has a limit of 60 GB per month, combined upload and download. With all the data that is constantly being moved around from the users’ computers to the Cloud and back, users will find the 60 GB monthly bandwidth allowance sorely lacking. Smaller, local ISPs provide higher bandwidth caps, but that is only a temporary solution. The very idea of a bandwidth cap is fundamentally flawed; as technology improves and file sizes increase, bandwidth use is only going to go up. Quite simply, bandwidth caps need to go away.

Cloud Computing is catching on quickly in the mainstream, with more and more services relying very heavily on the Internet. Whether or not Canadian ISPs will evolve to accommodate it remains to be seen, but if not, they will have several million angry users on their hands.

iPhone + Skype = A Slightly Easier Decision

Ever since the announcement of the 3G iPhone in Canada, I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I can fit it into my decidedly student-sized budget. When I first found out about it and that it was CAD$199 I had all but decided that I was going to get one. Then Rogers came out with astronomically high pricing plans that included, very few calling minutes, very little data and no caller ID. At that point I pretty much decided I was not destined to own an iPhone.

Then a thought occured to me: Skype. If Skype managed to pull together a native iPhone app for the App Store, it could prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of working an iPhone into my budget. I did a little research and found out that Skype offers a subscription based unlimited calling plan under which you can call anybody in Canada and the USA for under two euros, or just a little over three Canadian Dollars. In other words, anywhere I have access to Wi-Fi, I could make calls for very little money, thus saving me precious anytime minutes on Rogers’ iPhone “high-value plan.”

As it stands now, I still haven’t decided whether to get it or not, but if I do get an iPhone, it certainly won’t be on the release date (July 11). I’ll be waiting to see whether or not there’s a native skype application first.

First Post

I’ve had (and resisted) the urge to start a blog for quite some time now, but I’ve finally caved. Naturally, I expect that no one is going to read this but it should serve as something of an outlet for all my mildly technological ramblings that none of my friends want to hear. I only hope that I’m able to stick with it and actually write some posts.