Own This World – Buy This Game

Seriously – buy it. It’s a frickin’ dollar for Christ’s sake.

It’s GPS Risk for your phone, and cool dudes from Calgary made it.

It’s one dollar!

Download here

My Love Letter to Microsoft re: Cross-platform functionality in Canada.

Originally posted here: http://bit.ly/ju0U5F

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Can't find a forum on the WP7 or the Zune websites, so sorry to post this here. Figured it would be ok, since various Microsoft departments must communicate with each other quite well right?

Bought a WP7 phone recently. Have two 360 consoles, and 3 PC's running Windows 7. 

Was really looking forward to the standardization of media across all platforms. 

Then I found out a couple things. 

1. No Zune Pass in Canada. 

2. Zune is incapable of searching for, and subscribing to podcasts through it's marketplace in Canada. 

3. No ability to update podcasts wirelessly on the road through Zune,.

What!?

How can something iTunes has been doing for years simply not be possible through Zune across an entire country?

This, for me, is the core functionality of the entire platform. 

I can understand why the Zune Pass may be on hold. I know Microsoft doesn't have total control over all the silly copyright issues at play, and that it takes some time to sort out. (though Netflix seemed to get it all squared away.)

But the lack of podcast functionality is beyond comprehension. I have been able to manually enter RSS feeds to subscribe to podcasts that way, but there's far lighter freeware programs out there that would do that. I was looking forward to the browsing features of iTunes, and the social aspects of Zune. None of that is available, and I'm very quickly running out of patience. 

I resisted moving to an iPhone, while all my friends did. I also resisted adopting the Android platform, which was very attractive as I use a lot of Google's apps. Instead, I limped along with my Windows Mobile 6 phone for two years after my contract expired, because I was so certain WP7 would integrate so well with every other piece of Microsoft hardware in my house. I even held on a bit longer after the WP7 launch, thinking that, "these guys will get the functionality worked out... it's just a matter of months."

No such luck. It looks like all the warnings of my friends are beginning to come true. My questions to a Zune support staff resulted only in the answer: "We have no information on any of this."

It's really unfortunate. It's doubtful there are more loyal Microsoft customers out there than me. But even my patience have their limits. I have a few months remaining on my Xbox Live subscription, and if the three items above aren't remedied by the time it expires, I'll feel like I gave WP7 and Zune the best chance that could be expected. I'll exercise the ability in my carrier contract to swap my WP7 out mid-term for another platform. I won't renew my Xbox Live subscription, and I'll start investing in another platform entirely. 

Haven't really felt this way since Sega released the 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast within months of each other, without any thought to how these devices would work together. 

Really hope you guys can pull the platform off, and make it a success. It really does have so much potential, with cross-platform functionality at it's core. 

Consumers, of course, can only be expected to endure so much. 

Strong Public Sector Jobs Strengthen Private Sector Wages.

In response to the June 8 2011 Editorial appearing in the Prince George Citizen entitled: SAYONARA SNAIL MAIL?

Dear Editor,

Glad to see your paper acknowledge that Canada Post, a crown corp turning healthy profits for a decade and a half, remains the most cost-effective and efficient delivery service going.

I disagree, however with your editorial's assertion that the "tide of sympathy doesn't appear to be with the workers," or that "people are asking: 'why should workers with job security, good pensions and good wages get an even better deal, especially when those in the private sector aren't?"

To which people are you referring? The only person I've heard make that argument is Ezra Levant from Sun TV, a man yet to discover Canadians recognize the difference between journalistic integrity and unsupported right-wing assertions.

And to which private sector workers are you comparing postal workers? Are you talking about the private sector tradesperson who makes $50/hour, has a company truck, a gas card, and a 100% employer–paid pension? Or are you talking about the private sector burger flipper at Pat Bell's Wendy's making minimum wage? Perhaps you're referring to the private sector CEO, who on average in Canada, is now approaching earnings of $7.5 million per year?

In any scenario, how do any of these comparisons trivialize the desire of working people to see their wages keep pace with rising prices, to secure a safe and healthy retirement, and to ensure they don't risk missing a mortgage payment every time they fall ill?

One group of workers achieving fair earnings does not restrict the ability of another group to do the same. Quite the contrary, when workers in one sector successfully regain their lost share of the profit pie from CEOs who as a group, now obscenely hoard more real dollars than any other point in Canadian history - those workers strengthen the ability of workers in other sectors to also re-balance the equation.

Last time the income gap in Canada reached similar proportions, we suffered the Great Depression. The smaller the income gap between workers and CEOs, the more money rests in the pockets of consumers. This hard economic reality strengthens the middle class and by extension, the fortunes of the small business sector which depends on middle class spending power.

The resolve of Canada Post employees to resist their bosses' efforts to roll them back now, when prices are rising so fast, is a fight benefitting all of us. They've undertaken it because they can. Too many of us work in non-union environments where we've no option but to accept the concessions imposed by our employer.

Rural Canadians, like those of us in Prince George, understand better than anyone the vital importance of this fight, and support postal workers for standing strong. Their success represents a victory for citizens and business, particularly here in the North who all depend on a strong, efficient, public mail service.

Perhaps more importantly, Northerners also understand the need to protect the few family-supporting jobs our communities still have left.

Aaron Ekman | President

North Central Labour Council