Our town is like most small communities in Ontario, just far enough off the beaten track that politicians forget us when it is time to hand out education funding and too far south to qualify for ‘northern benefits’. This becomes most obvious when you look at technology. 10 miles from downtown Toronto you have your
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Lots of times in my ‘teching’ I will come across situations where the computer refuses to boot to the hard drive – be it from a virus, faulty hard drive or simply a loose cable from the last time you kicked the PC under your desk. But what do you do when your computer simply
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Computers are supposed to make our lives easier right? These days just about everything you do with your computer will either involve clicking and/or dragging with the mouse or tapping onscreen buttons. But are they the most efficient way to interact with your computer? A couple of events in the last couple of days make me
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Imagine a world where technology was a human right? Where the cost of your computer hardware included ALL the software you would EVER need? In 2004, South African entrepreneur and ‘uber-geek’ Mark Shuttleworth had this dream, creating a company, Canonical, to promote free and open source software (FOSS) worldwide. And who better to do this
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Today is the final day of the Olympics, all the hoopla about to come to an end and the post-games financial headache for Britain about to begin. These Olympics have a much different feel to me than Beijing or previous games. Even Vancouver, with all the nationalistic fervor had a different feel than what we
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I have a running ‘discussion’ going with a good friend from Sarnia (G’Morning Casey!) about the merits of open source vs. proprietary software. In my seminars I talk about ‘all the software you will even need for less than 5 bucks’, so today’s task is to come up with all the software you will even
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Ever have one of those Saturday mornings, perhaps a little cloudy and showery like today, when you get that ‘sniff of salt air’ or ‘the open road’ and you have a strong hankering for that ‘kinder and gentler’ time (not to mention writing a column full of really bad cliches)? Today is one of those
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The Internet can be an amazing place, informing, educating, entertaining and connecting. The last part is perhaps the most important – the Internet has the ability to connect people, across borders, time zones, ethnic and political backgrounds. But it is this ability to connect that creates the biggest need for responsibility. How many times have
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Well, the kids are back in school for another year. This is the time of year when we leave Walmart with endless bags of school supplies that will probably end up in the bottom of a locker wrapped in a three month old bologna sandwich. Technology is the same. With the start of a new
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These days all you hear about is 3G, 4G, iPod, iPad, Playbook and Kobo – it seems somedays like the noble pen has gone the way of the dodo bird! Don’t get me wrong! Some of the new technology is both mind boggling and absolutely to drool over! The key word here is ‘Some’! A
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Technology can teach, assist and often frustrate the heck out of you! But occasionally I will come across a new technology that is just plain cool – the kind of ‘techno-gulty-pleasure’ you want to sneak under the covers with a flashlight! It’s even worse if you are an old movie or esoteric film buff like
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This is probably a bit of a segue from my usual column on new apps and systems, but if you bear with me there is a relationship… * * * The boss wrote a few days ago about people turning to the Internet for real news and a couple of articles today make me start
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