Reactions from the mainstream media went from surprise, to shock, to outrage when Amazon recently opened up the Kindle for shipping to a large list of countries, that did not include Canada. The Kindle is a “Wireless Reading Device” (commonly known as an eBook reader) that includes free global wireless coverage and doesn’t require a computer to access new content from the Kindle Store.

I personally don’t really understand what the hype is about this class of device. I much prefer reading my books in paper form, or to have all the other features of a mini computer that are built into my iPod Touch. But there are many people out there who rave about these things, and they love the convenience of having nearly instant access to hundreds of thousands of books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs on a device with a screen that “Reads like real paper without glare, even in bright sunlight”. I’d love to give one a try, if only to see what the hype is all about.

For any of my fellow Canadians that have been waiting to get their hands on one, your time is now. For only $259 US you can order one now and have it with plenty of time to spare before Christmas!

The Kindle Store: More Than 360,000 Books
At Amazon, we’ve always been obsessed with having every book ever printed, and we know that even the best book reader is useless without the books you want to read. We are fortunate that we have tens of millions of book customers at Amazon, and as a result, we know the books customers want to read and we prioritize getting those titles. Today, the Kindle Store has more than 360,000 books available, including 101 of 112 New York Times® Best Sellers, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Our vision for Kindle is to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds.

The controversy over “Net Neutrality” is all over the tech media these days. If you haven’t heard about it there are some great articles on Wikipedia to help you learn more:

• Network Neutrality
• Network Neutrality in Canada
• SaveOurNet.ca

The second Wikipedia article specifically about Canada is important because the Canadian telecommunications companies, who happen to be the largest Internet Service Providers, are on the leading edge of Internet Throttling (aka Bandwith Shaping) technology and they recently won a landmark ruling by the CRTC allowing them to continue this practice. The ruling does place some rules around the practice and also puts the onus on the telcos to prove that they are doing it only when required (eg. “as a last resort”) and only after fair warning has been given, but it still allows a practice that many users find abhorrent. This decision is precedent setting and will likely become the template for other government regulatory bodies in the near future.

My summary of Net Neutrality: Net Neutrality is a principle that argues that a given user should be able to access any web site or service with equal bandwidth as any other site or service, within the limitations (eg. bandwidth caps) of their internet access service plan. This means that ISP’s should not be able to limit or reduce the bandwidth available for access to certain types of service (eg. video on demand, torrent streams, or audio files) preferentially over other types of service (eg. email, searches, or blogs).

My Take on Net Neutrality: In this day and age of tiered internet access packages, where users pay different monthly fees depending on the instantaneous and monthly bandwidth quotas allotted to them, there should be no need for bandwidth shaping or traffic throttling. To do so is a form of discrimination. If a user pays for a certain amount of bandwidth then she should be able to freely choose how she distributes her use of that bandwidth. If she exceeds her monthly bandwidth cap then of course she should be charged more than another user that lives within his quota. But her decision on what sites or services to access should not be dictated by her internet service provider.

A Concrete Example: I choose to pay for the Hi-Speed Extreme package offered by Shaw Cable in Alberta, Canada. This package gives me up to 15 Mbps for downloads, 1 Mbps for uploads, and a monthly quota of 100 GB. Shaw also offers a Hi-Speed package (7.5 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 60 GB/month) for a little more than half the price of the extreme package, or a Hi-Speed Warp package (25 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 150 GB/month) for 4 times the cost! If my neighbor is paying 4 times as much for his internet service shouldn’t he be able to access whatever sites he want? Shouldn’t he be able to use all of his 25 Mbps right up to his 150 GB per month? If he exceeds 150 GB in a month then I totally understand charging him more, but if not, then what right would the ISP have to decide that a Video on Demand service offered by one company is more important than a similar service offered by another company?? It shouldn’t matter what package a user chooses to pay for; we should have the right to access the full bandwidth we’ve paid for, right up to the monthly quota included in that package.

If an ISP simply can’t accommodate users actually using the bandwidth they have paid for, then they should limit how much bandwidth they are selling, not what their customers do with it!

NOTE – I’m not getting any kickbacks from Shaw to post this here, and by no means should this be considered an endorsement OR a criticism of Shaw. I have been totally happy with the service I get from them and I haven’t seen any personal impact of Traffic Throttling or Bandwidth Shaping in the few months that I’ve been a customer of Shaw. I have heard a few complaints from other users though…

This may seem overly simple, but why should somebody else decide what sites or services are more important than others?? How do you feel about this? Am I missing something? Please use the comments to tell me how you feel about this.

We bought a iRobot Roomba Vacuuming Robot last year to try to try to help keep the copious quantities of dog hair in our house under control. These are the ultimate in geekly gadgets and they are simply amazing to watch in action. They use simple algorithms that ensure they clean the entire room (such as following walls, spirals, and randomly changing direction after bumping into something); however, they are by no means efficient in how they do so. In fact they hit some areas of the room many times and other areas only once or twice. They are mesmerizing and hilarious to watch!

For the most part our Roomba works very hard and she cleans reasonably well. It’s not a perfect clean by any stretch, but it’s virtually effortless on our part, and we’ve had very few problems with her. Until yesterday anyway. I had some company coming over for dinner last night so I fired the little dude up in the afternoon in order to give the living area a quick once over. The poor thing couldn’t figure out how to make forward progress. She just stayed in the middle of the room, spinning in circles. Her sad cry for help at the end is rather pathetic…

I have put in a support ticket on the iRobot website and they have been very helpful so far. The initial indication is that one of the proximity sensors on the front has failed. Fortunately the entire robot is modular and each component can be easily removed for cleaning or replacement. Many people figured this out and have learned how to hack their Roombas to do fun and crazy things. I haven’t tried any of these hacks yet, but maybe someday…

Sep 22 UPDATE – iRobot tells me that Roomba is dead and that I need to replace her. RIP Roomba.

I generally want my computers to automatically logon to my personal account when I turn them on (or when they restart in the middle of the night following an automatic Windows Vista update) so that I don’t have to waste any time logging in when I sit down to use the computer. This may not be the ideal thing for a computer shared by several users, but for a computer that has a single main user it is often very desirable.

I just got a new desktop computer and I’m in the process of setting it up with all my personal preferences.  This seems to take longer and longer as Windows gets more and more filled with bloat.  It seems to me that setting up automagic logons was a lot easier in Windows XP than it is in Vista, but I can’t actually remember how it was done there either. Maybe it was included as an option in the TweakUI Powertoy. Anyway I always have to hunt around to find the trick for Vista machines, so I thought I would write it down so that we can all find it easily the next time we need it.

Fortunately there are only a couple of easy steps:

1. Click Start and type netplwiz in the search field (or in the Run… dialog if you are using the classic menus)
2. Click Continue if one of those uber-annoying “User Account Control” windows appears
3. Select the user account to which you want to automatically logon
4. Clear the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” option box up above the User Accounts window
5. Click OK
6. When prompted, enter the password for the user account you selected in step 3

That’s it.  From now on whenever you start or restart the computer Windows Vista will automatically logon to your preferred account.  I assume that this method will also work for Windows 7, but I haven’t been able to test it yet.  I’ll get back to you sometime on or near October 22nd!!

UPDATE Oct 27, 2009 – This trick is definitely still applicable to Windows 7, and it works perfectly!

NOTE – this is a rather CANADA specific entry, but that’s because the retailer in question (NCIX.com) is a Canadian company that offers a service unlike anything I’ve ever seen from another online store. I plan to expand or followup to this article if I find that there are other retailers offering similar services.

PriceCanada is an online price comparison service. They have a similar business model to PriceGrabber, BizRate, NexTag, or any of dozens of other online price comparison tools. The difference that makes them stand out for me is that their pricing is all in Canadian Dollars.

NCIX is a fairly typical online retailer of computers, components, and other high tech electronic gadgets. They have a similar business model to Newegg, Buy.com, Best Buy, or any of dozens of other online retailers. The difference that makes them stand out for me is that they are locate in Canada, they sell using Canadian Dollars, and (most importantly) they have an extremely easy to use price matching service built into their shopping cart system. I recently saved more than 30% on my total order by utilizing this service!

NOTE – NCIX has a USA based store as well (NCIXUS.com); however, at present they don’t allow price matching.

If you are only ordering a single item then you might as well just order it from the lowest price retailer (or from a store that offers free shipping), but if you are buying multiple items then this is definitely a really easy way to get a great price on all of your purchases!

Price matching with NCIX couldn’t be any easier:

1. Find the items you want to purchase at PriceCanada and determine the lowest price.
2. Ensure that the retailer with the lowest price is actually in Canada and has the item in stock. Save the URL to that product page.
3. Find the identical items at NCIX and add them to the shopping cart.
4. When you are finished adding items to the cart, scroll down to the bottom of the shopping cart page and click on the big red “Start a Price Match” button.



5. For each item in the shopping cart enter the lowest competitor price and the URL to the competitor product page.  You can get both of these from PriceCanada.



6. Checkout.

That’s it.  NCIX will verify the prices for each item you are purchasing and, as long as you did your homework correctly, they will send an email reply when they have confirmed the price match.  This process could add a day or two to your order process, especially at busy times of the year like Christmas.

This is easy peasy!  I’ve never seen another online retailer that does this.  Lots of bricks and mortar stores offer price matching, but it’s usually a whole lot harder and much more time consuming.

If you know of any other online retailers that do it please let me know and I will start to maintain a list…