We all have our little pleasures, I guess. Some people eat ice cream, some curl up with a good book. Me? I read The Economist. In many ways, it's like trying to get drunk on Guinness: it tastes great, but man is it heavy after awhile. I subscribed at one point, but mostly ended up feeling guilty about not reading it most weeks. So now, it's an occasional purchase before a trip or what have you. But I still love it.

So will you pardon me tooting my horn by mentioning how neat it feels (yes, geeky lame-o neat, I admit) that I am the lead in a story in this week's edition? Turns out that this blog post about watching the World Cup on the train via WiFi caught the eye of a writer working on a story on that very topic, and it went from there.

The story is here.

Tags: wifi, the economist

It's funny that the English language doesn't have a single word for what the Germans call schadenfreude, which wikipedia defines as: "pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune." The Dutch have a similar word ("leedvermaak") which they use in a proverb that goes Geen schoner vermaak dan leedvermaak: No better joy than joy about someone else's sorrow. I used to live in The Netherlands. Got to love those kids. Anyhoo...

In a completely unrelated vein, I note with interest that Steve McArthur is leaving as President of Expedia.com. I am sure that I join a massive chorus of countless others who wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavours.

Tags: Expedia

As some know, I haven't really been on the whole "podcast" bandwagon. I sort of listened to some while online, but the whole subscribe-via-itunes-and-listen-later thing wasn't really something I had bought into.

Until now.

I decided to try to get a few podcasts and listen to them during my commute. So here I sit on the subway listening to "Bill Maher" and laughing out loud. Yesterday, I listened to CBC Radio One's global perspective show "Dispatches" in the car.

I have to say I am really enjoying doing it. In both cases, they are either shows I can't get (Maher is on HBO in the US which I at least don't get on cable here in Toronto) or usually have to miss (the CBC show is on around kids' bedtime).

They are both great, and I have to say that this place-shifting plus fresh-content thing might be handy after all.

(Posted via blackberry)

  As Chair of the Nominating Committee, I've been remiss in not mentioning that the CIRA Board Elections are happening now. If you own a .ca domain, this is your chance to influence the direction of the Internet in Canada, and I would encourage you to check out who is running, what they think, and to vote!

Tags: CIRA

Cool to see that RIM is going public with the much- blogged-about-already Pearl, their new multi-tasking (music, camera, expansion slot etc.) device. As a devoted 'berry-man (skip the Chris DeBurgh jokes please ;-)) and having FINALLY recently upgraded to the 8700 (more on that whole story later) I am really pleased to see them getting with the multipurpose program.

But why, oh why are they sticking with the awful phone-not-QWERTY keyboard? Unfortunately, that call means that I, for one, won't be buying. That dinky thing is a nasty way to write an email.

Shame.

Tags: blackberry, rim, pearl

I sampled the new service at a downtown location yesterday. It was easy to get online by getting a userid and password via SMS to my 'berry, though I couldn't figure out how to change either after the fact (e.g. am I stuck with the wacky randomly assigned thing in the future or can I change it?). The service was also a wee bit slow - not the connection, which was both broad and "excellent" for the time I was connected, but the speed whereby pages were being served up was very slow. Not sure what might be behind that.

All in all, it was handy and since it's free for the next 6 months, great value too :-).

Update: Sitting here at my Second Office (the *$ at the northeast corner of Yonge and King here in the Tdot :-)) back online with the Hydro service. Around me, people are having problems getting passwords and userids: upon entering their mobile numbers and hitting enter, the next page deosn't load, so they are getting nowhere. This also happened to a friend yesterday. For me, since I already have login info, I got in right away.

The signal is strong, and I am loaded and viewed a couple of YouTube videos just for the heck of it, and the Slingbox is streaming well to boot. Although, I did turn it off since there's only so much "Backyardigans" an adult should have to watch in one morning, and I had my fill at home ;-)

And as a final note, just as I went to publish this, my connection died.

So, my overall rating? Early days, so I am going to give them some slack and assume that they will work these niggles out. This is "beta" so it is not necessarily indicative of where this system will end up.

Tags: toronto, wifi