Category: product endorsements

The Great Eastern – best radio comedy ever

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, humour, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Billed as Newfoundland’s Cultural Magazine, The Great Eastern was an hour long summer replacement show on CBC Radio One for the first two seasons, and then became a half hour regular show for the next three seasons.

Rockin’ Downtown Rocktown Ronnie sent me a CD of the 1994 to 1999 broadcasts as MP3 files.

Fantastic.

I’ve just finished Season 1 and am enjoying it immensely. It’s as smart and sophisticated as The Daily Show, Colbert or Rick Mercer.

Paul Moth
Paul Moth

It’s a spoof of all lame, self-important local radio affiliates everywhere, propped up by tax dollars.

Paul Moth, the radio host, kept a blog during the production of The Great Eastern, it seems.

Happily, a fan named Gerry Porter maintains a website dedicated to the Great Eastern which includes a full archive of the shows. Episode 1, series 1 starts here if you want to check it out.

Or click the link to hear a sample “historical” clip from the show where the Mayor of St. Johns, NFLD surrenders the city to the Germans.

CBC Radio is too slow, fat and thick to make those classic broadcasts available on their own site. (Someone should parody that company.)

In 2004, the character of Paul Moth was put in a new CBC show called Sunny Days and Nights. Fired from the BCN, Moth gets a temporary job with fictonal CBC affiliate CBNR in the “cottage country” region of Ontario. … The series ran for only one summer.

The Great Eastern – Wikipedia

We miss you Paul!

best phone for international travel

On By Rick McIn product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

The respected Gadling blog recommends (in the States) the T-Mobile Blackberry Curve:

… I’ve written about the scam that is international roaming charges in the past …

Why the curve, and not the sexy iPhone? Well, the Blackberry Curve has 2 very interesting features you won’t find with any other carrier, or any other phone. One is unique to the phone itself, and one is unique to T-mobile.

click through to read the rest of the article – The best phone for international travel?

the future of automobiles

On By Rick McIn product endorsementsLeave a comment

In Florida last year we stayed close to a new toll freeway that had almost no traffic. It was eerie in a dystopian future sense of the word eerie.

Could we end up with empty freeways in future?

I doubt it.

Perhaps we’ll end up driving something like the Tato Nano.

Tata Nano, the $2000 Indian ‘People’s Car’, Finds Factory a New Home in Gujarat – Treehugger

Some people thinks it looks like a Box Fish.

If the Nano is too conventional for you, check out another (Apple inspired) vehicle, the AirPod.

best picture – The Dark Knight

On By Rick McIn movies, product endorsements1 Comment

Finally saw the latest installment of Batman. On IMAX no less.

It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

In fact, I deem it almost perfect … for a mindless “Action” blockbuster.

My only complaint is that it ran a little long. A good edit could improve this movie.

Heath Ledger should be a strong candidate for best actor at the Academy Awards. His role as the Joker was superb.

All the actors were excellent, I thought.

I missed 2005’s Batman Begins. But will see it soon.

the first Google Phone

On By Rick McIn Apple, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Something tells me this is the iPhone competitor Apple will be looking at most closely.

… how does this one stack up against the one and only iPhone? It doesn’t have quite the finish of the iPhone (both in terms of hardware or user interface), but it comes pretty damn close. (John Biggs at CrunchGear calls it “almost perfect”). And more importantly, it matches the iPhone on many fronts. It’s got GPS, WiFi, a touchscreen, an accelerometer, a camera, Gmail, Google Maps, a Webkit-based browser (just like Safari on the iPhone), and an App market.

The first Android phone even has some things that the iPhone doesn’t, like …

Touching The Android: It’s No iPhone, But It’s Close – TechCrunch

In the States it’s only available on a crappy network, T-Mobile.

“ambient awareness” – Facebook

On By Rick McIn internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

When people first hear of Facebook they all think the same thing: “Why would anyone want to do that?”

… users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. …

NY Times article – Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

I log in to Facebook a couple of times a day myself.

The concept of “ambient awareness” is so new, by the way, that there’s no Wikipedia page for it.

(via Lightspeed)

Acer Aspire One

On By Rick McIn product endorsements1 Comment

David Sykes recommends his new laptop: $330. Weighs only 2lbs. Comes preinstalled with Linix.

Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB Solid State Drive, Linpus Linux Lite) White

Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB Solid State Drive, Linpus Linux Lite) White

iPod Touch, microphone headphones

On By Rick McIn Apple, audiocasts, music, product endorsements2 Comments

Note to self: buy in October.

Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic – Apple

On Wednesday Apple updated their iPod lineup:

Touch Changes: Minor

The iPod Touch expectedly gets a dramatic price drop that brings it more in line with the iPhone 3G’s pricing, if you want to pay a slightly higher price for a multimedia player that doesn’t have phone capability. The 8GB iPod Touch will sell for $229 ($30 more than a comparable iPhone 3G), while the 16GB model will sell for $299–which means you’ll get double the memory for the price of the old 8GB iPod Touch.

The design of the new iPod Touch remains similar to before, but like the Nano, the Touch thins down compared with its predecessor. The chassis remains contoured stainless steel. The biggest hardware additions: Integrated volume controls on the side, and a built-in speaker (similar to what’s on the iPhone 3G) for casual listening. Jobs said the volume controls were the number one requested feature for the iPod Touch. Also now integrated: Nike + iPod software and receiver; now, you only need to buy the Nike+iPod transmitter for your shoe, and don’t need the extra receiver dongle, as before.

In spite of its thinner profile, the Touch’s battery life is rated for an impressive 36 hours for music, and six hours for video.

PC World

The compelling new feature for me is an easy way to leave myself voice notes (when I get the odd flash of brilliance).

The iPhone is OUT for me now.

Meet Chrome, Google’s Windows Killer

On By Rick McIn Google, product endorsements1 Comment

Not much worries the gang at Microsoft. Their Windows Operating System monopoly seemed unassailable.

Until now.

The cartoon is a joke. … But, not really.

Chrome, the Webkit-based Google browser that launches tomorrow at Google.com/chrome, will give them a real foothold on the desktop and way more control over how web applications perform. While it seems that Chrome is aimed at IE and Firefox, the target is really Windows.

… Chrome is nothing less than a full on desktop operating system that will compete head on with Windows.

Expect to see millions of web devices, even desktop web devices, in the coming years that completely strip out the Windows layer and use the browser as the only operating system the user needs. That was going to happen anyway, but Chrome + Gears just made the decision a whole lot easier for hardware manufacturers to make.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is stuck with a bloated closed source browser that they don’t even tether to their search engine for fear of more antitrust woes. Google can push their search engine and other web services all day long on Chrome, with no government interference. So not only will Chrome drive lots of incremental revenue to Google, it also paves the way for a Microsoft-free computing experience.

I love Chrome already and I haven’t even tried it yet (nor will I be using it much soon, since it will only work on Windows for now). …

Michael Arrington – Tech Crunch