Tech Talk One

Hello hello, here's this weeks Tech Talk, where we take a look at the top tech news.

Starting us off this week is what else but the music industry. Sony BMG has recalled several cd's it's released after the technology used on the disks to copy protect music was found to cause a serious security hole that virus writers could take advantage of. As if that wasn't bad enough the fix Sony posted to uninstall the software caused an even larger security hole causing high profile companies such as Microsoft and Symantec to issue patches designed to remove Sony's software properly. The music industry has been trying to clamp down on the copying of music off cd's with little luck for the past several years in an effort to thwart free music sharing services the recording industry claims are illegal.

Microsoft on Wednesday released a test copy of the companies latest version of Office to some 10,000 users. The software which currently is being called “Office 12” is said to be the most important Office update in 10 years. The software suite which features popular productivity applications Word and Excel is responsible for a large portion of Microsoft's revenue.

The new version of Office is expected to go on sale late next year, somewhere around the same time as the company's new operating system “Windows Vista” is expected to ship. That version of Windows is expected to face some competition upon launch as Apple Computer has announced it will release it's new Operating System Mac OS X Leopard around the same time. Apple, who has seen it's market share rise by a percentage point over the past year at the expense of Windows, continues to fly high on the success of it's iPod digital music player. Apple last released an Operating System in the Spring of this year while Microsoft hasn't shipped a new consumer version of Windows since the Winter of 2001.

The non-profit organization developing a $100 laptop for poorer nations said this week that the device may be ready to ship by next year. A final design version of the hand-cranked laptop was shown at the United Nations Internet summit this week where U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the one laptop per child project a “moving expression of global solidarity and corporate citizenship." The laptop which may someday be sold commercially in richer nations at a higher price, is substantially less advanced than currently marketed laptop computers. However the organization developing the product believes that it will be more than adequate to deal with the requirements the laptops are likely to face in everyday use.

And finally a London schoolgirl has beaten out hundreds of rivals, doodling a new temporary version of the Google logo for the UK version of the popular search site. Eleven year-old Lisa Wainaina won the competition that was held in honour of the opening of Googles new UK Googleplex, which was built to help expand the company into international markets.

That's all for this weeks Tech Talk, later ya'll.

Prolonged Phone Calls

Well, today I got my cell phone bill and I thought it would be neat to take a look at my top 3 calls as far as length is concerned for my last billing period. I love stats...

Tied for number three at 5 minutes (Rogers rounds to the minute) are Jill and Jessica, both students in my Media Production class. We were talking about school and stuff I'm sure...

At number two with 10 minutes is April, a friend from Wal-Mart. I actually can't remember what this discussion was about, sorry April!

And at number one with the longest phone call on last months bill...

SARAH! With a 24 minute phone call during which we bitched about Wal-Mart and made plans for a movie. Must have been during a bad time at Wal-Mart since I only called her one other time and that call only lasted a minute...

Anyways there's some pointless stats for yea. It doesn't really mean anything since I use my cell phone so randomly and so little when compared to MSN Instant Messenger. In total I made 24 phone calls (not counting voice mail) and received a ton more.

Now who wants to pay my bill?

War!!

First off before we get into todays primary topic I just wanted to remind everyone that episode two of the Pub Crawl has been posted to JSN and is available for free download via either the podcast page of the JSN site or via the pub crawl podcast. Also, development of episode three, featuring an as of yet undisclosed subject is set to begin next week with a release date set for November 18th.

Now onto the meat and potatos of todays post.


It's been just over two weeks now since the opposing side fired the first shot and declared war against us. It seems more like 4 weeks, or perhaps even more. The red side, the side that I'm on is tired, frustrated and angry. We're losing this war, and we don't know how to turn the tide.

We lost a member of our team today, he's been with us since before I joined the ranks. I only hope that where he's going turns out to be a better place. As we lost him we gained another enemy today. Someone who seemed to be more then happy to stay in the middle now seems to be siding against us.

With our ranks falling and theirs rising we're starting to feel cornered. Looking at options we never would have considered before we're starting to realize that if we're to have a chance at surviving this war we're going to have to make a large attack against them, and soon...


Ok so obviously I haven't joined the army and gone off to a real war over the past few days, but at work today my co-workers and I came to realize that in a way we're fighting a war of our own. Not with guns or bombs, but with words and actions. Our lives may not be at stake but the quality of our livlihood certainly is. Those words above describe my day today. I can only hope the tide of the "war" will turn tomorrow.

Pub Crawl Complete

I'm pleased to announce that the second episode in the B-Side Pub Crawl series has been completed and mixed down. This new episode, following birthday girl Karli Klippenstein features a special appearance by Kim Gallant (half the focus of the first episode) as well as several special audio effects which help to tell the story of Karlis night on the town.

This new episode will come in at the low end of the Pub Crawl time spectrum (2-4 minutes) and runs at a slightly faster pace than the previous episode (partly no doubt due to the frenzied pace it's taken to get this edition out the door in time!)

Episode Two of the Pub Crawl is scheduled to premiere tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 on CJ-106 FM followed by the worldwide internet premiere at 3:30pm CDT on the main JSN web site. Also be sure to stay tuned to JSN over the next few weeks as I'm hoping to release a few "bonus cuts" from both episodes, giving listeners a look at some of the great audio that always seems to get left behind on the cutting room floor.

So set your watches, mark your schedules, tune your radio and set your homepage cause another episode of the Pub Crawl is on it's way...

Flash Film Fest

This is just a notice that the presentation for the classes ten second flash films is nearly complete, and as such my animation is now available for viewing on jsn. The link to that animation is now available below.

http://jaycr.sytes.net/tensecflash/cruickshank_weathertroubles.mov

It took me less then a day to build and as such it's not quite as nice as I had hoped for, hope you still enjoy it though!

Now it's November

First off I'd like to say that my flash animation was not posted to JSN yesterday. It will be posted tomorrow after the in class presentation for them is complete.

Last night I worked and while I didn't get dressed myself several of my co-workers did and what great costumes most of them had. Way to guys, now go get yourselves some clearance candy.

For the Mac users out there OS 10.4.3 was released yesterday and the difference between 10.4.2 and .3 is like night and day. If you have Tiger running on your mac download it, now.

I've started work on episode two of the pub crawl but I'm having a tough time getting going this week. I've also yet to hear much about this weeks B-Side episode so we'll see if things actually get to air this week. I am on my way to getting some of my Profile work done this week though, so obviously I'm happy about that.

I bought my copy of Star Wars 3 today since dvds always seem cheapest on day one. Tonight my plan is to go see Saw 2 and then hopefully come home and watch the latest star wars flick. My profile subject works tonight and I'm waiting on my last story to get ripped before I shoot my next one so that's why I can take a little time off tonight.

Anyways I'm off to do more work on my pub crawl, later y'all.