May 3 2012
The World’s First Product Support Service Call
Rare footage from the world’s first IT service call in Norway. There are subtitles in English for those who don’t understand the native language.
Videos
Sep 7 2010
Arthur C. Clarke and the Dot Com Lifestyle
Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most famous science fiction authors and was known as one the “Big Three” of science fiction (the other two were Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov). His book, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the film made from it inspired a whole generation of children to pursue engineering and the natural sciences.
Predicting the Future in 1964
In addition to his writing ability, he had a talent for predicting the future. The video clip below shows him predicting what the future may hold 50 years later. This is from a BBC programme called Horizon made in 1964. At the time, there was no Internet and its forerunner, ARPANET, wouldn’t go online until 1969. He predicted what is becoming more and more common today: people working from home and making money online. Instead of going to a physical location to work, they would be able to work anywhere and communicate with clients/co-workers through the Internet.
Highlights of the Video
“A world in which we can be instant contact with each other, wherever we may be, we can contact our friends anywhere on earth even if we don’t know their actual physical locations. It will be possible in that age, perhaps only 50 years from now, for a man to conduct his business from Haiti or Bali just as well as he could from London. In fact, if it would prove worthwhile, almost any executive skill, any administrative skill, even many physical skills could be made independent of distance. I am perfectly serious when I suggest that one day we may have brain surgeons in Edinburgh operating on patients in New Zealand. When that time comes, the whole world would have shrunk to a point and the traditional role of a city as a meeting place for man would have ceased to make any sense. In fact, men will no longer commute, they will communicate. They won’t have to travel distance any more, they’d only travel for pleasure.”
The Dot Com Lifestyle for Everyone
We’re not quite at the point which Clarke describes and it will probably be another decade or two for it to happen. Canada and the US are increasingly becoming information and services based which is ideal for working online. The only real challenge is the acceptance of working this way and if the growth of social networking is any indication, we’re well on our way there.
Jul 16 2008
WordPress 2.6
The latest update to WordPress was released on July 14th and it was another easy upgrade procedure with this blog. The theme and all of the plugins work correctly. I backed up my web sites and the databases they use daily with a custom application that I’ve created. Its always a good idea to make backups before you upgrade your blog software in case something goes wrong and you need to go to an earlier working version.
Improving the Blogging Experience
Version 2.6 added version control (finally!) to your posts, so you can track who made changes to them and go back to an earlier post if the current one isn’t satisfactory. Another useful feature is Press This. If you find a web page that you would like to blog about, you can hit the Press This button on your web browser and it will start a WordPress post. From there, you can quote text or embed a photo or video.
WordPress also uses the Gears application which allows you to cache JavaScript and CSS files from your blog locally on your computer. This will allow you view your blog faster. Its an interesting feature, but if your on a high speed DSL/Cable connection, it probably won’t make that much difference for you.
You now have the option of previewing a theme before you make it active on your blog. This is a useful time saving feature that won’t leave your users wondering what’s going on with your blog while your trying to decide which theme to use.
Many New Features
The WordPress team added many other useful features, such as displaying a word count while writing a post, adding captions to images, better image control that’s integrated with the WYSIWIG, improved management of plugins, and many other features.
Apart from all of that, its a good idea upgrading your blog to 2.6 because 194 bugs were fixed in the software. These bugs may compromise security so its wise to keep WordPress up to date.
This video gives a good overview of the new features in WordPress 2.6.
Jun 27 2008
Searching Google with Your Phone
Google has a search tool that can be accessed through your phone. Dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 (or 1-800-466-4411) will allow to give verbal commands for items that you want to search for. If you want to find a pizza restaurant in Vancouver, you tell this to GOOG and it will give you a list of restaurants in that city.
The search works surprisingly well. Its not as fast to use as searching on a computer, but it is a good alternative when you don’t have a computer nearby for searching.
Apr 25 2008
Moon and Sun Over North Pole
This is an amazing photo of a crescent moon taken at the north pole. I don’t have information on who took the picture, but it is outstanding and the work of a very talented photographer. There is also the possibility that it’s a computer generated image. I’ll let the pixel people figure that one out.
If you click on the photo, you can view it in its original size.
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