GMail 2.0??? Isnt't it still in Beta?

There is a nasty rumour running around that GMail quietly going 2.0 the same way slow roll out it made with IMAP. I got my IMAP access on the same day as they launched it but I still haven't had any updates on GMail 2.0. But you can bet that I will blog it the minute I get it.

Ten Myths of Leopard: 1 Graphics Must Be Slow!

This is another great review of Mac OS X Leopard produced by Daniel Eran Dilger taken for the point of view debunking popular misconceptions of Mac's and OS X. Daniel's articles are always a great read and he links to past articles and other research beautifully and the fact that up until recently hi entire site was written with iWeb speaks mountains about someone who obviously lives and breathes Apple.

Get Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard from Amazon.ca HERE. You'll save $10 and help encourage of couple of Fat Dads. Cheers!

Lego Star Wars Symphonic Orchestra

I've never seen this Lego set at Toy'R'Us

And you thought the Smart car was small

I need one for the drive-thru Tim Horton's before my Monday morning meetings.

Motion Detecting Silly String

I need to find more time to potter about in the garage.

Mahalo Daily..... Coming Soon

I've always liked the stuff Veronica Belmont did on TWIT.tv and I was just starting to think she was the best part of Buzz Out Loud when she decided to go to Mahalo. So I'm really glad that the launch of Mahalo Daily it is just around the corner. Nov 5 is supposed to the big day. So break a leg Veronica, we'll be watching.

Canuck iPhone Bricks: Still Amazingly Useful

I love the Canadian sense of humour...

BTW Using Mac OS X 10.5 Now & Lovin Leo

Upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on Friday and been using it all weekend... WOW!. I know that does seem like a very long time for a test drive but for a Geek who had a very busy weekend sorting out friends WiFi networks, migrating them to newer machines and troubleshooting various Windows nasties this is was a true test of robustness.

First the upgrade went very smoothly. I have never seen such a simple and clean upgrade path in all the years I have been using personal computers (Windows, Linux and Apple). Just pop in the disk, answer a question and bang 25 minutes later you're using Quickview to play movies.

Which brings me to the way they have pimped out Finder. Coverflow and the way that is moves between pages on the highlighted document. Quickview that you can access just by hitting the space bar. Guess What? Spotlight is actually useful again. It's still no Quicksilver and you can't really do any kind of file manipulation in Spotlight nor can you control iTunes with it, but it's indexing just got a whole lot smarter and quite a bit faster.

And it's FAST!!! I mean real fast, I have never had a new OS run faster on an older machine before so this is all new to me (I know this has been for the par with Macs). Fact is: I am truly impressed.

As for the feature enhancements like Photobooth effects in iChat, Spaces, desktop sharing and Time Machine. They are cool and fun but I will let some better reviewers talk them up:

David Pogue: More Goodies in Apple’s New Operating System
Leo Laporte: First Look at Leopard
John Siracusa, Ars Technica: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review
Scott McNulty, TUAW: Liveblogging the Leopard install
Walt Mossberg: Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista
Ryan Bloc, Engadget: We've got Leopard, what do you want to know?

BTW Amazon, I am still rather annoyed that I can not link to Leopard in order to capitalise on my affiliate account. The Canadian selection of Amazon is no where near as strong as the US selection not to mention that it is not updated that often either. I should at least be able to link to a US product and let the customer decide if he wants to pay shipping and duties. Reality is that the Loonie is well above the Greenback and now more than ever cross border shopping actually makes sense.

Get Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard from Amazon.ca HERE. You'll save $10 CDN and help encourage of couple of Fat Dads. Cheers!

2Fat Dads says ThinkGeek

As proud owners of many Geek Tees, we are proud to announce our partnership with ThinkGeek
for Tees and all of you USB Nerf Missile Firing needs. So next time your in the market for a red Swingline stapler, my personal favourite: the RTFM t-shirt or even some laser guided missile launchers to protect your "Cube", make sure you stop by here first and click-thru via one the ThinkGeek banners and show us your support.

GMail goes IMAP... Still sucks on the Treo

For the first time in my Googling experience, I am very disappointed.

The specific lack of Versamail IMAP support for the Treo is just one more frustrating blow to Treo users that are increasingly being left out of Google's projects.

The Gmail Java client was not very strong and rather quite buggy with screen flickering and lack of key mapping support. However the BlackBerry version of GMail was rather impressive.

Of course we all used some kind of workaround to get POP up and running on more than one client (Treo & Notebook). Mine consisted of creating a second GMail account for the Treo and forwarding all my mail to this account. This meant not having sent emails stored in my main account and notebook for off line use as well as having to manually sync all my mail once a week to mark everything read. This was never ideal and would often break, causing me to reset my GMail account on the Treo and then download all my messages again. And you could never really delete old messages, this morning before the IMAP switch, I had over 547 emails on the Treo, at least 400 of them I really did not need.

Google Maps on the Treo is still nowhere near as powerful or easy to use as the iPhone version although it has come a long way. And of course the lack of traffic info for Canada is frustrating, especially when you are constantly reminded of the feature. HINT: We are still 35 million Canucks who also get stuck in traffic! Ever been anywhere near Montreal during normal work hours? Or the world's longest parking lot: the 401 in Toronto.

Palm has never had so many different versions of the Treo out both Palm OS and Windows. On some networks in Canada, the options are limited do their technology choice. Bell and Telus operate CDMA and the only real high speed network with national coverage, Ev-DO, and is therefore prevalent in the corporate world, the Treo it is the only real alternative to the BlackBerry as the HTC and Motorola Windows devices have yet to make a dent and to be quite frank are still quite flaky. The Palm EAS update which allow push email from Exchange 2003 servers is great and FREE as long as your company has the appropriate MS Server. Other IMAP clients work great as well. It's just disappointing to see Google launch IMAP and make it compatible with Windows, MAC OS X, Symbian, BlackBerry and yet leave out Palm; the first and longest running smartphone on the market.

Palm conspiracy theorists are probably blogging all kinds of outlandish claims. Phone Pundits are probably seeing this as yet another GPhone hint.
I am simply disappointed...

Can I take a hit on your iPhone?

Some days the people in my office actually sound just like this. I, for one, remember nipping into IT to ooggle and fondle the iPhone when it first came out. I still love my Treo 700P but have started have these feelings for the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition (Panther)
. It's getting pretty bad I can't seem to hold on to a device for more than 6 months.


"It's funny because it's so true"
-Homer J Simpson

Windows Vista Boxes Suffer Identity Crisis... Hates themselves!!!

What can I say... I don't think I will be switching back to a PC anytime soon.

NASA to Launch SpaceTubes

According to Engagdet : "a team of diligent engineers at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, standards for space communications could be established in just three short years, meaning that an "interplanetary internet" could be just around the bend."

Great, now we're paying astronauts and and Mars landing rovers to watch YouTube videos while they galaxy hop! I can see it now: First contact is made by an alien kicking our boys in the nuts and then turning to his buddy and saying:
"I don't get it, why is he upset, these bozzos are always doing this to each other! They're usually laughing out loud and rolling on the floor. You know maybe this was a bad idea after all."

I Can Has Cheezburgers

From xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

Sometimes the InterWebDiggBook is just plain stupid. ICanHasCheezburger.com

Palm Centro - $100 Smartphone and I want one

This is the new Palm Centro. It's basically a $ 100 dollar Treo. I'll have one in black thank you. It's Already with Sprint and their are CDMA so there is a very strong chance that Bell or Telus will also get it up here in The Great White North soon enough.

What's so good about it, nothing much better than the current Treo: Ev-DO 1xCDMA network, 1.3 megapixel camera, MicoSD slot now up to 4 Gb. It's still Palm OS 5, it still has a 320 x 320 screen, OH and it's about half the size of the Treo 700p and 680: 4.22" (L) x 2.11" (W) x 0.73" (D); 4.2 oz.


Software loaded on the device: Bluetooth®, Calculator, Camcorder, Camera, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Memos, Documents to Go® Professional Edition 10, Downloads, Google Mobile Maps, HotSync®, Instant Messaging, Nuance Voice Control, My Centro, On Demand, Phone, Pics and Video, PocketTunes™ Deluxe, Quick Tour, Sprint Mobile Email, Sprint Store, Sprint TV, Sudoku, VersaMail® 4.0, Voice Memo, Web (Blazer® 4.5), World Clock

Spoke POV - Persistence of Vision for your Bike!

"Spoke POV is an easy-to-make electronic kit toy that turns your bicycle wheel into a customized display! The project includes a free schematic design, open software for uploading and editing stored bitmap images, and a high-quality kit with all the parts necessary to build your own.

Kits & PCBs available for purchase now!"

Thanks Eric for sending in another great link.