I’ve been giving my mom my castoff MP3 players. Recently I bought my parents His & Her’s iPod Nano’s. New ones even. And that’s when Mom discovered the joy of podcasts. She’s got her own faves, but they’re mostly (all) French, which doesn’t really jive with my readership (yep, the same three dudes). So I thought I’d tell you about some of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis.

(BTW, if you’re not clear on the whole “podcast” thing, don’t sweat it. Check out these resources:

Tucows: How to Listen to Podcasts
Tucows: Tell Me About… Podcasting
butterscotch: Tune In: A Novice Guide to iTunes)

But first a quick rant about why podcasts are important, and should be part of your life. You’ve got limited time to expose yourself to content. You can choose pre-packaged, pre-digested, top-40’s content, or you can consume interesting, thought provoking material. You are what you ingest.

We’ve spent the greater part of our lives consuming content curated for us by others. The promise of the Internet was that we could assemble our own content feed. Is this good or bad? If you seek out content which agrees with your opinions, you’ll have no challenging opinions. No counterpoints. That’s probably not a good thing. So, I recommend finding content from a wide spectrum of sources. You may disagree with some of the views, but at least you’ll have exposed yourself to challenging opinions, and will be better able to articulate objections to those views. (OK, rant off.) (more…)

Our favourite moron is giving $150 million to private broadcasters, but is forcing the CBC to decimate its workforce by some 800 heads.  If we had any doubts of the Harper government’s agenda to put down the CBC, they’ve now been put to rest.

I don’t know about you, but I’m livid.  Clearly Harper missed the class where they explained the difference between public organizations and private enterprises.  If the private businesses can’t make it through these tough times, I say let them die, and allow new, more agile businesses take their place.  Not only are you delaying the inevitable, but you’re squandering public moneys.

As forests need the occasinal forest fire to renew and replenish themselves, to allow newer, more vital growth to take the place of the old growth, so too does business need to make way for newer businesses, with new business models and methods.  The world is changing, and we need innovation in every facet of our country, including the boardroom.

The other point which is blatantly obvious to the public, in spite of how gullible this government might believe us to be, is that with this “grant” to the private broadcasters, they’re now indebted to Harper and his minions.  Their journalistic integrity has been compromised.  I can no longer trust their judgement.

One of the victims of the CBC’s forced cull, has been Jesse Brown and his very excellent Search Engine podcast.  But in this case the story has a happy ending: TVO has picked up the show!

You can find the feed at this URL: http://feeds.tvo.org/tvo/searchengine.

(Nota bene: I had a terrific picture of Harper eating the CBC, which I’d spent a couple of hours on with Photoshop.  But it wasn’t backed up, so I lost it with Bender the first.)

I missed it last year, but I’ll be there with bells on this year!  WordCamp is a series of regional conferences dedicated to our favourite blogging platform, WordPress, as well as blogging and social networking in general.

Get the 411 at http://phug.ca/wordcamptoronto/.

WCT is coming this Friday May 8, through to Sunday May 10.  Registration is $35 for students, and $50 for us reg’lar folk.

I’d heard about RiP: A Remix Manifesto on CBC’s very excellent Search Engine podcast a couple of weeks ago.  I’m not sure how it bubbled up (probably through Facebook), but I ended up going to see it at the Royal on opening night with Morty and Bebe.

WARNING: You will come out of this movie hating the Disney Corporation with the red-hot intensity of a thousand suns.  (You know… if you didn’t already.) (more…)

The CRTC is in the process of gathering comments on Net Neutrality from Canadians, in preparation for their hearings on the subject this summer.  Now is your oportunity to let your voice be heard on this important subject.

Our friends at SaveOurNet.ca have set up a handy form to send your thoughts on the matter to CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein.  They’ve even provided you with a very well crafted default letter (which you can easily edit, or override), in case you don’t have time to write one yourself.  The deadline is Feb. 16, 2009, so don’t delay!

Update: According to Mediacaster Magazine, the deadline has been extended by a week, to Feb 23.

Last night my friends Kali and David invited me to a memorial for Lupe Rodrigues, the CBC’s artist-at-large.  I’d heard Lupe reviewing art exhibits on CBC radio’s Here and Now program, hosted by Matt Galloway.

As it turned out, I had intersected with her a couple of other times, but hadn’t connected.  A few years ago, on my way to a play at the Canadian Stage, I had dinner at Hernando’s, and had admired the colourful paintings.  It turned out they were all by Lupe Rodrigues.

Lupe, it turns out, was a regular at Kali’s very crowded parties. Not a surprise I hadn’t met her there: I’m usually happy to have met and chatted with 3 to 5 people in an evening. Kali’s friends are too interesting not to spend time with.

But Lupe was actually from David’s crowd. They’d both gone to Jarvis Collegiate; as had many of the musicians and artists who helped us celebrate her life and work.  Among them Victor Bateman, Jaron Freeman-Fox, Fergus Hambleton, Cindy Jones, Joanna Kidd, Kevin Laliberte, Amanda Martinez, Kathleen McDonnell, Don Rooke, Anjellica Scannura, Roger Scannura, Valeria Scannura, and John Sheard, the Music Director for the evening.

Our host was Matt Galloway, and speakers included Linda Rosendbaum, David Liss, Bianca Roberts, Lupe’s sons, Sebastian and Liam Cushing, and her husband, Danny Cushing.

Many of the people there had met in high school at Jarvis Collegiate, so it was a bit of a reunion for them.  I know that’s a powerful thing.  It both, reminds you of your youth, and the long road you’ve travelled.  There’s great joy in the thought that at least part of that road was travelled together.

‘We desire death as you desire life.’

- Hamas

Melanie Philips of the Daily Mail in the UK wrote a devastating analysis of the war.  The one place I disagree with her is in her conclusion:

But the Middle East conflict will not end until and unless the West comes to realise that Israel is in the frontline of the West’s own fight for survival, and starts properly defending the country struggling to defend civilisation instead of siding with those waging holy war against it.

There will be no peace until Hamas and organizations like it stop indoctrinating their children in hate, and martyrdom.  Otherwise each generation will have the same prejudices as the previous.

Israel Hamas Gaza TV programme Indoctrinates Children To Hate Jews

Hamas Indoctrinating Toddlers

11-year-old Palestinians: Martyrdom better than this world

Every Palestinian has a right to a full and productive life.  They are being robbed of that right by the people who teach them hate and martyrdom.  Do not be fooled by their manipulations of public perceptions.

Every Israeli has a right to a full and productive life.  They are being robbed of that right by the people shelling them with bombs.  They’ve had enough and it’s time to retaliate.  If Hamas decides to put their own people in harm’s way, that’s a tragedy; but Israel shouldn’t be expected to sacrifice its people because of Hamas’ lack of scruples.

I’ve been kept very busy over the past couple of months setting up butterscotch.com: Tucows’ new video network, brimming with terrific videos, short and long, providing tips, tricks and insights into technology for pros and tyros.  Our new team includes tech media veterans Andy Walker, as General Manager and Executive Producer; Amber MacArthur, Director of Content; Sean Carruthers and Matt Harris, Senior Producers; and Andrew Moore-Crispin, Web Editor.  In addition to our existing Tucows team, that’s a lot of talent coming together.

Our current line-up consists of regular shows, such as Andy and Sean’s Lab Rats, and Cheryl Poirier’s spin-off, Miss Download; as well as standard and special tutorials.  Tutorials are screen captured how-to’s with a voice over.  Special tutorials are a series of ten or so episodes on a particular topic.  For example, the two special tutes we have on offer right now are Facebook for Grownups and Gmail for Beginners.

We do have other shows already on the site, and many more are coming, so check back often at butterscotch.com, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed.

The challenges, for me, in putting the site together, were:

• slicing up the composite and creating the base page (HTML and CSS) (got a lot of Photoshop help from Joan, our graphic artist at Tucows)
• establishing single signon between butterscotch and Tucows.com
• creating the backend CMS (content management system), where Andrew maintains the content which appears on the site

Of course, we’re not done yet.  We’re still developing new and terrific functionality, and figuring ways to integrate the butterscotch and Tucows content.  It’s all about bringing more value to our visitors and authors.

Sure developing the site was a marathon of long days and late nights, and it kept me from family and blogging, but this is the sort of challenge which stretches your abilities and forces you to find new insights into your work.  I loved it.  I wouldn’t want to do it again real soon; but I loved it.

On June 19th one of my favourite podcasts, CBC’s Search Engine, announced they were being taken off the air.  I was so upset I started a Facebook group, Saving CBC’s Search Engine, which managed to attract over 800 other unhappy fans of the show.

Search Engine tackles some of the most important issues facing Canadians in the Digital Age.  Their motto was “We predict the present”. (more…)

Over a month ago I contacted Ken Dryden’s riding office to arrange a meeting with my Member of Parliament.  I expected to see him within a week or two; I’d tell him of my concerns related to various issues of the day, and he’d take that into consideration when he returned to Ottawa.

But no.  It’s been over a month, and I don’t even have an appointment yet.  I was told his office had been flooded, and was currently being renovated.

If my office were flooded and needed to be renovated you can be sure I wouldn’t wait for the renovations to be completed before seeing my clients and assuring them I’m still on the job; that they can count on me to continue getting things done for them.  That it was business as usual.  I wouldn’t let a small matter like a bit of water get in the way of the important work I’m doing for them.

But hey, I’m not a politician. (more…)