Do you use the internet (even watching videos on YouTube and Facebook counts)? Do you use an iPod/iPhone/iWhatever? Do you watch downloaded movies? Are you a student (or thinking of going back to school)? Then you’d better pay very close attention, because your beloved Federal Government under Stephen Harper is about to pull the rug out from under you.

If you somehow missed the bruhaha over the United States’ failed SOPA bill, you cannot afford to miss Canada’s attempt at the same thing. We’re very close to passing bill C-11, a bill sponsored by big media (notably movie studios, the music industry, and publishing giants) who want to control the way you access your music, TV, and books. They want this control because they are unable to cope with the digital economy, and want the Government to create laws that heavily restrict your actions, and impose ridiculous punishment.

Now I am no expert on these things, but I read someone who is: Professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law. (I mean, really, could you possibly get anyone better?) He has written some excellent articles on just how bad C-11 is — and has been very clear on how it could be improved so it’s not so terrible. (The Government, to no surprise, is not listening.)

I offer you the following from Geist’s blog. The intros here are my paraphrased summaries of the articles.

• Mr. Geist’s response to the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association)’s op-ed saying that C-11 isn’t that bad (as you can guess, it really is that bad)
• The politics behind why Canada is keeping digital lock rules that will greatly hamper fair use of video, music, and books. That means: no more funny YouTube videos, and good luck at quoting books or articles for your research papers.
• The Canadian music industry threatens critics of C-11, effectively branding them as criminals. It’s the moronic “you’re either with or, or against us” stance.
• Mr. Geist asks ten key questions of the various copyright agreements. The answers aren’t pretty.
• What’s going on behind closed doors, and how these bills are ending up in our Legislature.
• Could YouTube become illegal in Canada?
• How US lobbyists are pressuring the US Government to exclude Canada from international agreements because we haven’t bowed to their demands. Worse still, they refuse to allow for any cultural considerations (remember, we are a multicultural nation!)

And he also visited with Strombo on the CBC to talk about C-11. It’s less than two minutes, and it explains just about everything. Even if you don’t read the above articles, you really should watch this video.

In short, our beloved Government is refusing to adopt the perspective that they represent the Canadian people. They are preferring to listen to corporations and corporate associations, and worse still — foreign corporations who have no business dictating our laws.

Okay, so what do you do?

First, sign up with OpenMedia’s petition. It only takes a moment, and every single little bit helps. (SOPA died in the United States because the vocal backlash was loud enough.)

Then, can I suggest sending the following text to the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper (stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca), the Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture) Hon. Christian Paradis (christian.paradis@parl.gc.ca) (he’s the Minister putting C-11 forth, and hence is responsible for our impending nightmare), Nycole Turmel (nycole.turmel@parl.gc.ca) (she’s our official, albeit interim, Leader of the Opposition), Hon. Bob Rae (bob.rae@parl.gc.ca) (our most experienced elder statesman in Parliament), and your Canadian Member of Parliament.

Dear Gentlemen and Madams,

I am writing to express my deep concern regarding Bill C-11, now put forth in our Parliament.

While I am very much aware of the need to address copyright laws within Canada to ensure that they meet international agreements, the terms and conditions being put forth in C-11 appear to be overlooking the needs of the Canadian people, both in the present and in the future. These terms go far past those required by international agreement, and introduce unnecessary restriction and overly punitive damages.

The proposed conditions are being driven primarily by corporations, and are also heavily influenced by foreign governments and foreign corporations who have no right to comment on Canada’s laws. The Canadian Federal Government is supposed to stand for its people, yet we are being considered last in this process.

Please stop the blind approval of this damaging legislation and reopen it to Canadian legal experts who have offered wise and just opinion on how C-11 could still address the needs of Canadian law while not imposing unnecessary (and unfair) restrictions on law-abiding Canadians.

Most sincerely,

[Your name here. Please use a real one.]

The Stop Online Piracy Act is a bill before the Government of the United States of America that proposes — in a general sense — a series of rules and penalties in an effort to eradicate online piracy. At a high level, it certainly seems like a reasonable request. In fact, so reasonable that anyone not spending time reviewing the details of the bill might very well have missed some of the more draconian measures being implemented, allowing — in effect — individual companies to disable outright any website they believe to be infringing on copyright without right of trial, so long as said website has some dependency on US-based services (which a tremendous percentage of websites have).

In effect, a US company can shut down your otherwise legal operation because they’ve told their government that you’re the bad guy.

Sound unfair? It should. But this, dear reader, is also where things get more sinister.

The authors of this bill are members of the American government, but that’s not who is really driving it. The backers? Big media. Notably, the same companies who have been engaging in a futile, misguided, and often grossly misdirecting effort to have laws enacted to protect their business models. Companies represented by the RIAA and MPAA, and a host of old companies who don’t want to change.

They’re flailing, and failing. They’re unable to grasp the concept of digital media. They’re used to their physical world — one book to one person, one CD in one CD player, one VHS tape showing on one tube-based television set. The new world allows a single copy to be copied, cut, remixed, and displayed on millions of devices simultaneously. The media companies chime: “Show me the money.”

But instead of adapting, they cry foul. They cry piracy. They claim that they’re losing money hand-over-fist, and they will expire without the assistance of new laws. Yet, they’re not losing money. In fact, many of the music labels are making more than ever, largely in part to Apple, who strong-armed them into making music cheap, and — to absolutely no surprise to any armchair economist — removed the barrier to entry, and sold music in such quantities that the music industry was very likely saved from imminent death.

Hence, SOPA. And while the White House chosen to not sign the bill, there is no reason to believe it won’t be back in some other odious form.

Beyond the American government, I have reason to also fear this bill because of the efforts of my own government. The Canadian government has thrice shown to be spineless in its resistance to these same groups lobbying for ridiculous legislation in Canada that would put our own culture and identity as unwarranted in terms of content ownership. Our politicians, who had in decades previous been those who stand only for its own people, now show to be bowing to massive foreign conglomerates, leaving its own people to suffer as a result.

SOPA, and bills like it must fail. Because they are flawed in their consideration of evolution, because they fail to take digital commerce into account, and because they will unnecessarily bind our children into false agreements and behaviours that will haunt them their entire lives.

If you are an American, please write your congressperson. If you are Canadian, please write your MP. In either case, don’t let your government become party to Big Media’s insanity, don’t let our future be dictated by corporations. Learn more at AmericanCensorship.org.

Content yearns to be free. Not free as in ownership, but free as in freedom, free as in life. Let content live.

One such example is the recent OS X “Lion” release, hailed by Apple as the next coming of operating systems, and anyone foolish enough not to install it might as well ship themselves off to a leper colony. Of course, anyone who has done systems support in their life (i.e. me) knows that upgrading to any “new” OS just begs for things to go wrong.

Which is why I volunteered to be a guinea pig.

There’s more than enough people out there who’ve been complaining about the new features in Lion to make one stop and wonder if it’s safe to do a mass upgrade in an office comprised almost totally of MacBook Pros. All you need is one feature to not work to totally ruin your day.

Like, say, Time Machine, running against a Drobo-based file share. (Apparently, the Drobo FS has an issue with Lion; Drobo’s working on a firmware update as I speak.) When you depend on said service to ensure business continuity, it’s mildly important to have people go forward with due diligence.

That’s where I come in. “Due Diligence” is my middle name. (Y’know, right after “Benton”, “Danger”, “Jerk”, “Righteous Asshole”, and “Are You Going To Finish That?”) I wanted to make sure that within our gilded walls, we’d hear not a whine.

So last night, I finally managed to get Lion up and running, and today did the final run of initial tests. So far? No show-stopping issues (aside from the above-mentioned Time Machine — but we have a Time Capsule to handle that for now), and Lion does seem to behave a little nicer, all things considered.

My impressions? Allow me to share…

1. Lion is a pig to download. It’s more than 4 GB, and Apple’s servers run a lot slower with Lion than they do with the newest iTunes HD release.
2. Expect upwards of an hour to install. The installer suggests “about 33″ minutes when it starts, but I think Apple’s estimation algorithm was ripped out of Windows Explorer, ‘cuz it was wildly inaccurate, and even reverted 14 minutes at one point for no explicable reason. The “1 minute equals 4 minutes” timewarp is especially unsettling at nearly midnight, when all you want is to go to bed…
3. The Login screen (if you use it) is a little different, but not unsettlingly-so. It’s a little cleaner, and the “wake up” login is almost devoid of anything but the password box.
4. Almost everything has a slight animation. It’s unnecessary, really, but it’s also not annoying.
5. My name initially appeared in the top-right corner of the screen, on the menu bar. This was a quick-switcher to other users in the system (possibly because my user is also an administrator?). This is potentially handy when you have a system with multiple users, but I’m the sole user on my work lappy — I disabled that through the Users & Groups preferences.
6. Immediately, the Setup Assistant lets you know about the awe-inspiring new way your computer handles page scrolling … which is the exact opposite we’ve been doing it for the better part of two decades. (This is an example of how, as Brian X. Chen of Wired puts it — Lion is trying too hard to be iOS.) At least they tell you up-front.
7. My mouse cursor kept disappearing just above the Dock, and I’ve yet to understand why. It still worked — I could click on things — but I had a hell of a time guessing where it was. When I restarted Skitch, however, it reset whatever was wrong and my cursor came back.
8. CS5ServiceManager prompted me to install a Java runtime (really? JAVA? C’mon, Adobe!), which begs the question — did Apple remove the Java runtime from Lion?
9. Gestures, gestures, gestures. There’s a bunch of ‘em now, at least if you have the unipiece trackpads. And — to be honest — I like quite a few of them. Some of them are even supported on the Magic Mouse without any additional fiddling or software.

   But.On a single monitor, they’re fine. On a dual-monitor system, they make the secondary monitor change as well. I can understand this to a point, but it’s rather overkill. Not to mention that being able to see a list of numbers that you might be tabulating with the Dashboard calculator widget is suddenly a LOT harder to see.

10. Stickies finally actually scroll! Well, for me, anyway. Never did before, for whatever reason.
11. Mac Mail gets a fairly significant overhaul, not just visually but also in operation (there’s a database upgrade that can take a while if — like me — you’ve got a lot of mail). Make sure you do a Time Machine backup before you upgrade to Lion, folks!Mac Mail also gets a fairly significant UI change, and will (after install) present you with something very unfamiliar — though refreshingly handy. That said, if you absolutely cannot do without the “classic” interface, you can restore it through Mail > Preferences.
12. Mail’s new interface also — inexplicably — turns off the folders previously seen on the left side. Easy enough to turn back on, though.
13. Despite a few people saying that Flash and Air weren’t working on Lion, I have yet to notice any issues. Nor have I noticed the worrisomely “huge” increase in CPU usage (the only “huge” increases I’ve noticed have been in mdworker and mtmfs processes, which are OS X apps).
14. Spotlight, that handy search tool, is going to reindex your computer. You’ll know when it sounds like a jet plane is taking off next to you as your CPU goes crazy with the mdworker process. That said, once finished, the overall CPU load actually seems lower.
15. Mail, Contacts, and Calendars configuration in System Preferences seems like far less the bastard child of old, and more like real options. And if you’re like me and have a lot of accounts, this is a Good Thing™.
16. I’m torn on the “All My Files” pane that’s now in Finder. It’s quasi-handy, but it also hides reality. For example, finding pictures? Neat. The “Developer” section gloms files together from several projects, which is grossly misleading. It’s likely going to be disabled before the end of the day.
17. QuickTime Player now occupies the entire screen, and dominates the display when you’re playing back. Admittedly, not too big a deal when you’re watching a movie.

    But.It does this also on dual monitors, rendering the other monitor useless. Really? Steve, you wondrous jerk — what the hell?? What if I wanna watch a movie while I work? Not an option?!

18. Right after I finished Lion, I needed to download a new iTunes, too. Couldn’t be a part of the Lion install, guys? Really? I was already downloading over 4 GB — another 60 MB was a breaking point?
19.  Calendar now looks like we’ve reverted to the 90s; it resembles one of those giant pads that used to sit on office desks. Yeah. ‘Cuz that paradigm continues to live on and all. And there’s no way to turn that off, or choose something different? What is this, Microsoft?
20. “Full screen” mode for apps is … well, I’m not sure what to make of it yet. Handy? maybe. But I’m a windows freak — I have at least a couple dozen going at any time, so hiding all of them behind an impenetrable wall doesn’t strike me as “handy”.
21. The scrollbars for nearly any window are now disappearing tricks. Some windows have them always on, and some don’t. The latter are the trickier ones, since when you scroll the scrollbars appear, and shortly after you stop scrolling they vanish. Also, there’s no more little arrows to help nudge you little-by-little (useful on Excel spreadsheets, which are periodically hell to scroll with because of too-tall cells).
22. Apparently, documents will get “locked” 2 weeks after they’re edited. This is to support the Auto Save feature. I haven’t run into this yet (can’t wait; my entire dev repository will be a pain in the ass), but it apparently can be disabled through the Time Machine configuration.
23. For some reason, the Drobo FS won’t work with Lion’s Time Machine, as I mentioned earlier. Hopefully, this is the worst we see.
24. Finder moved the “Devices” list to the bottom of the left sidebar, which I find particularly irritating, since I use that list a lot more than I do “Favourites”. Nor can I change the order of those items.
25. Finder’s Path and Status bars are also turned off in Lion; they can be enabled through the View menu.
26. Under Snow Leopard, I could shift my Magic Mouse and the computer’s screen would light up. Now I have to click. Not sure if this is a setting or not — can’t seem to find one.
27. Air Drop is a neat feature, and seems to work fairly well. We have a network issue in-house that’s causing some hiccups, but a local test moved along the 4.3 GB XCode DMG in less than 10 minutes (which ain’t bad, considering the size).
28. Scrolling. Yes, the one most complained about. After installing, it’s set to “Natural”, which is the scroll you see on iOS — pull down on the screen, and the page goes down. (This was previously known as “inverted”.) I know people who love it, but it’s the first thing I changed. I might yet give it a try, but we’ll see…

So that’s what I’ve found so far. Overall, it’s stable, decent, and hasn’t given me an ounce of trouble. Ever app I’ve got (including Photoshop CS5, VMWare Fusion, Evernote, my LAMP stack, Office, and my plethora of dev tools) continue along like nothing ever happened.

Next up… the rest of the office!

That’s where analytics packages come in handy. They can tell you who is visiting your site, where they’re from, what browser they’re using, their navigation path, search terms, etc. From a metrics perspective, it’s indispensable information. And there’s a lot of packages that’ll help you get all that.

But only one of them will get you into Google’s search index almost instantly.

Okay, let’s back up a sec. Going back a few years, one of the things I did frequently was work on search engine optimisation. I’d spend hours — days, even — writing code in specific ways so that it would be equally accessible to a search engine’s spider (such as Google) as it would to any normal human. But, most importantly, when the search engine read it, that without having human knowledge, it could categorise that information accordingly.

We regularly had to tell clients that significant changes to their sites (especially site redesigns) could take weeks, even more than a month, to show up in search engine indices. This was always a troubling point, as clients were often worried about making sure important information was indexed as soon as possible.

Today, my team launched a new website for our client, Big Rock Brewery. It was one we’d planned for a while, making sure the site was carefully built, and all the appropriate 301 redirects were in place to assist with the inevitable ranking shift due to URL changes.

Now, knowing how Google et al behaved in the past, one would think that I wouldn’t spend any time peering at Google’s results to see what had already changed, wouldn’t you? Well, maybe my old self would. My current self, however, is just too darned curious.

Imagine my shock when I saw, within less than two hours from seeing the first hits to the new site (which was on a completely different server), I saw the new URLs and even whole new pages showing up in Google’s index. Complete index, too, I might add — copy and description already in place.

“Stunned” doesn’t quite cut it. It’s almost as if the world had changed.

Naturally, being curious, I wanted to know why. So I pestered some colleagues of mine who deal with the search aspect a lot more than I do. Their thought? It’s Google Analytics.

Now, without actually peering under the hood (‘cuz even long-time Googlers don’t get that kind of privilege), I can only surmise that each hit from Google Analytics is being translated into an index request at Google’s end, which is then verified by a separate spider request (which obtains the copy and meta tags). I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that seems pretty reasonable at a basic level.

I’d read somewhere a while back that Google chewed through something like 20 petabytes of data per day. (After some poking around, it looks like that was circa 2008, by the way.) During that time, it took a while for a simple change to appear. Now? It might as well be 20 petabytes an hour, or Google’s gone through some really significant changes in the indexing algorithms.

Frankly, I think it’s a double-edged situation. It’s a boon to those of us who plan releases, because we know it’ll get indexed pretty quickly. But it’s also a danger — one wrong move, and Google will have your mistake indexed before you know it.

The biggest problem is not really the number of people — it’s the time councillors need to connect with them all, while still doing the job for which they were elected. In a physical sense, it’s nearly impossible. Some have turned to the internet to help bridge the gap, using technology to connect.

Allow me to show you an example, which I experienced today…

While waiting for one of my software commits to complete, I took a few minutes to read my news feeds. One article, which caught me more than a little off-guard, was a note about radioactive particles from the Japanese Fukushima reactor appearing in Vancouver’s water supply. It was surprising as no-one had really expected that to happen, and moreso because the levels were a lot higher than I would have imagined.

My first thought was how that would affect the water supply in Vancouver, especially towards children (it’s already an issue in parts of Japan, and BC has already had a scare that led to a run on iodine tablets). My second thought was: the rain on this side of the Rocky Mountains often comes in from the Vancouver area.

Now I — as a regular, ordinary citizen of Canada’s fourth largest city — would likely have to spend quite some time to find out where to start to see if that problem had arrived here. But I’m not “regular” — I’m highly connected. And not in the “I know people way”, I mean by the internet. And I follow my ward’s alderman, John Mar, on Twitter. Who better to find out if Calgary’s at risk than one of Calgary’s tooth-and-nail fighters?

I started with the simple question:

Knowing that John’s a busy guy (he regularly tweets his activities; which I gotta say, it’s a very handy way of knowing what your elected representative is up to without having to call them on a regular basis), I didn’t expect an immediate response. Heck, I’d have been happy with a simple “yes/no” answer. I got John’s response just a few minutes later:

Okay, first off, in any service-based organisation — public or private — immediate (or at least near-immediate) response — even if it’s “we’ll get back to you” — is necessary to instill confidence. Lack of response breeds doubt, and especially with government, makes people think things are being done behind closed doors. In an era where we demand transparency, acknowledgement of a request is the killer app.

It took a little while — still less time than it would have taken me, I’m sure — but I got my answer:

There you go — we were safe. And you feel a lot more secure with an answer from a public figure than you do from a city bureaucrat. But John’s answer got me to thinking: a) Iodine 131 is probably not regularly tested for in water supplies (why would it be?), and b) that’s a fairly recent test. Which led me to wonder if it might be an ongoing test for the foreseeable future:

John’s response, interestingly enough, I mostly expected:

Now, it’s very easy to dismiss that as “well, that’s not answer” … and you’d be right, especially if you’re concerned about this sort of thing (which I am). But, where John does not fail, he followed up (unprompted) with this:

So, net result, at least so far as Calgary’s water is concerned: we’re okay. But that’s actually the lesser part of the story. The more important, I think, is that I got an answer to a pressing question over Twitter (not waiting on phones), and directly from my elected official.

As an interesting aside, John actually left Twitter early last December, after he received a fair amount of abuse from people who didn’t think he was tweeting enough. It was a loss for us who followed, since he had been a valuable source of information on the regular goings-on in city council. Thankfully, John returned to Twitter about two months later.

It’s a tough gig, being a public figure on Twitter. There are a lot of demands from the informed and uninformed alike, and people’s patience online is about a tenth of what it is in person (and politeness can sink to a hundredth or less). Somehow, people seem to forget that Twitter is an outlet, not a full-time job. John, so far, has done an admirable job of balancing the act, and remains (in my view) the best of Calgary’s city council in using Twitter is a communications tool.

So go on, ask me if I feel my councillor is out of touch. I dare ya.

During these last ten years, and notably the latter five, I trended more and more away from programming and more into management. I managed people, I managed projects, I managed implementations, and pretty much managed to avoid coding of any kind. I convinced myself that it made more sense for me to focus on the higher-level technology planning than it did on the actual implementation — there were others who did it better than me, and it was a waste of effort to try do it all.

And suddenly, I found myself checkmated.

In June, it became painfully clear that my role as a technical architect was going to run out, and soon. (I ended up taking all of August off — partly because I’d planned to do so many, many months ago, but also because work for my role had run out.) And despite looking around, there just didn’t seem to be a demand for mid-level technology managers with an emphasis on internet applications. I’d managed to — quite literally — position myself out of a career.

My father ran into something like this himself, after his company rather callously raped him of his respect after a great many years of service and profit. He, had risen from a junior employee to a manager after many years (even running an entire division of the company), and his fall was painful. He was 50 at the time, and starting out new again ain’t easy. After the shock wore off, however, my father strived to reinvent himself, doing what he did best: sell. He went from construction equipment to selling oil-absorbing peat moss (in effect, going green long before it was common knowledge, let alone trendy).

I now face a similar need to reinvent. I’m only 38, so it should be easier, right? (Right?) But I have a problem. Unlike my dad, I’m not a specialist anymore. I was, about ten years ago, but I’ve since become a generalist — in both the best and worst cases. I know a lot about my industry, but in most cases I don’t know quite enough to be truly useful in specific situations. And add to that, my specialist skills have rusted. They’re out-of-date, and some of my knowledge includes developing for now-unsupported platforms.

The newer libraries are unknown to me, and I’ve never been particularly good with object-oriented programming (the OOP style was not harped on when I was in school, so I’m a functional programmer). But today’s environments require me to know how to use these tools. The guys I work with can make them sing and dance, and I feel as if I’m lucky to get them to just stand up.

I still plan to use my management years for their wealth of experience — there’s a lot to be said for the things you learn while trying to make sure everyone else has an easier time fo their job. Those skills, however, don’t offer me a current job as a manager. Going back to my older skills is proving quite a challenge. I gotta tell you, it’s been like watching someone restore a rusted engine, and try to get it to turn over for the first time.

I also can’t help but see the irony that the very same interview questionnaire that I helped write over a decade would now exclude me from being hired. I almost feel like that guy you’ve hear about, laid off from a job he had for 30 years, whose industry has waned, having to do something totally different now.

Make no mistake, I am retraining — relearning something I knew how to do (and do well), to keep my skills strong enough to keep me employed. Unlike formal programs, I have to do this on my own, without a teacher. I have only the contacts I’ve made over a decade as assistance, and more RSS feeds and Twitter accounts than I care to think about. Ultimately, I have to rely on my aged brain to do things it used to find trivial, and now finds difficult.

It’s stressful. I feel like I’m having to learn to walk again. I’ve had to do the simple projects, to re-master the basics. (You gotta walk before you can run.) I’ve spent many late nights reading all forms of documentation and standards, and in particular, I’ve been reading Drupal documentation voraciously (helped in part by my much-stronger colleague Brian) — the concept of a CMS I understand; it’s the implementation I need to know. It’s also learning deeper PHP (and PHP frameworks), jQuery, more complex SQL, and learning the newer tricks found in HTML 5, and CSS 3. If I had the time, I might even try my hand at ActionScript. But I already feel overwhelmed. There’s just not enough time in a day.

It’s a different mindset, too, and refocusing it onto code has been a challenge. I find myself planning out implementation strategies, and not focusing on the current need. I try to do a simple implementation, and I’m soon debating whether I should build an XML parser, or go straight to a simple CMS build to side-step some of the issues. I’ve had to rely on friends to help fix implementations, only to see the fix and slap myself in the forehead for not thinking of it myself.

It’s coming, though. Every day makes greater strides, and working under others with deeper experience is helping rebuild the skills I had feared lost. It will take time. But I’m strong. And I will survive.

We moved to Telus. Not solely because they’re really the only other option in town, but partly because the new Optik service had proved highly appealing (nicer interface, and free PVR with long-term contract), and a very lucrative introductory offer combined with Shaw’s epic failure really cinched the deal.

Not that it’s gone completely flawlessly…

If you followed the link above, you’ve already read that the install didn’t go according to plan. In fact, thanks to Telus’ internal systems, it didn’t go at all. Telus was almost painfully apologetic about the incident, and has made strides to make up for the oversight. Nearly a month after calling, they did finally arrive, on the 29th, to set us up with brand-new service.

The installer, Glenn, arrived just after 9:00 and proceeded to make sure he knew where everything was, notably the TVs, and the Telus phone panel. The TVs, easy to find. The panel? Not so much. Over the course of renovating the basement and a year and a half abroad, our phone panel had gone missing. And, equally inexplicable, the Telus line outside the house was completely cut. (We had a second cable, yes, but apparently both were Shaw — Shaw told us one was Telus.)

Glenn had to run all-new wiring, which I viewed as a good thing. Sadly, for simplicity’s sake, it also meant running along the wall outside, since there was no easy way for it to enter the house where the Shaw line went in. It’ll be something we can live with for the time being, and when we do proper renovations upstairs, we’ll move it.

Once inside, Glenn set to work removing the Shaw hardware (which is headed back to Shaw tomorrow — I wanted to wait a bit, and you’ll see why in a moment), and hooked up the DSL router (quite literally, a black box) and the Telus wireless router (a special one that allows TV signals to be routed as well). He then set up the PVR in the living room, and the set-top box in the bedroom. The two are networked via the cable and the wireless router (though I can’t see them on the network — the HDPA part of the network is invisible, sadly).

Telus quoted four hours. Glenn was done in under three. Barely before he was out the door, I’d already set up the PVR to start recording every episode of MythBusters and Dirty Jobs. I also lobbed in a setting to start recording some of Monkey’s favourites, the ones Alex and I use when we need 30 minutes of peace.

In theory, this should have been the ultimate end of Shaw. But knowing my luck, I opted to hang onto the Shaw stuff, just in case something else went wrong.

Which it did.

Two days after install. Suddenly, the TV and internet signals were gone. (The phone, now a hard-wired landline, continued unabated.) Alex called Telus, and after a short wait, was told to reboot both the DSL box and the wireless router. Boom, TV and internet were back.

Problem solved, right?

Sunday evening, same thing. Rebooted both DSL and router again, without calling Telus, and all was well. One time, I could understand. Two was beginning to look like a pattern. I swore that if it happened once more, I was calling Telus. Which I did, on Monday evening.

I was talking to a human within five minutes. The problem was already flagged in their system as “reoccurring”, which apparently immediately afforded me a lot of attention. The first tech (yes, first) and I went over the scenario, and reset the system before he transferred me (and did the introductions) to the next guy, who worked with the hardware group. We proceeded to check the router settings and make sure that it wasn’t the problem.

Which, he felt, it might be. Here’s where the Telus setup has a flaw: unlike Shaw, where you provide your own internal router, Telus has to provide one in order to deliver the TV service. The router, made by D-Link, has custom firmware to allow all the fancy stuff (namely the TV signals embedded in the DSL channels, and the PVR network). Part of that requires a bridging of wireless and wired networks. In theory, this is transparent to the user, and you’d never know. In theory. In reality, there’s a weird behaviour where wireless devices (notably Apple devices) are unable to see wired devices. Sort of like, say, an Apple TV trying to wirelessly sync with a wired computer.

I discovered this through the wonders of the internet a few nights earlier, after I became unable to sync the Apple TV. This drove me to re-enable my Linksys router to serve the Apple TV, and routed the desktop computer appropriately. Boom, problem solved. But the second tech thought this could actually be a problem, where the two wireless routers were now fighting, and the Telus router might hiccup and hang. Odd, yes, but D-Link stuff (at least in my experience) has always been a bit “odd”, so I wasn’t surprised.

Telus wireless disabled, and we moved on in life. Which meant tech #3, who worked in the networking group. He wanted to send out a tech to verify that the lines were okay. He felt it might be an issue. Seemed perfectly fine to me, so we set up an appointment. Total call time? Nearly 90 minutes. Very little of it on hold. I’ve been on short calls that had me really, really angry. After 90 minutes, you’d think someone had just given me a million dollars, I was so happy.

Now I should point out that Glenn actually left us his card, with instructions to call if there were issues. In my (crappy) defence, I saw that only as a nice token, and that real work wouldn’t get done unless I called Telus. This was, after all, how Shaw has treated me for the last nine months — why should Telus be any different, right?

J.P., the next service tech, came out and looked the place over. He did a couple of trivial things, checked the lines (and spent an hour doing so), and all seemed to be well. Emphasis on “seemed”. Sure enough, boom, the TV and internet dropped again. We tried calling J.P., but for some reason, we could never connect. Fortunately, Telus was very nice to set up a call for Saturday. Lo and behold, Glenn came to the door.

Glenn was fairly well-briefed with the situation, and having already been to the house, was familiar with the setup. His thought? The card at the other end — the part that our line eventually plugs into to access the Telus network. He swapped it, and that was pretty much it. In my view, this makes sense — it was the DSL modem locking up, and if it was losing sync with the network because the card was faulty, it would explain why we were having trouble. That was almost five days ago, and we haven’t had a single issue since.

And because so many people have asked, here’s how I net out Telus’s offering thus far:

TV: Mildly irritated that I have to get the next package up to get my MythBusters, but the extra channels are kinda nice. The ability to search for a TV show is the killer app, here, and the only real improvement would be to allow recording for a given show across any channel, not just one.

Internet: Po-tay-toe, pah-tah-toe — roughly the same as Shaw, and I’m in no screaming need for insanely fast internet. I just don’t (ab)use it enough at home to need it. 15 down, 1 up is plenty for my needs.

Phone: Landline. Enough said.

Service: Here’s the real deal-breaker, kids. So far, Telus is lightyears beyond what Shaw had offered me. They’ve actually reestablished my faith in the telecommunications industry, and make me feel like they’re listening to my concerns and have a genuine interest in repairing my problems. The issues cropped up two days after install, and were resolved just over a week later (I hope). Telus’s staff have treated me with dignity, kindness, and respect (even talking techie with me once they realise that I do know what I’m talking about), and have been very good with promptness and callbacks. And the two-hour window (opposed to Shaw’s five-hour window) makes planning life a lot easier.

So far, I’m glad we switched. I hope it stays that way…

Some nine months later, I’m ready to heave Shaw out the door like a long-overstayed houseguest, and welcome in a new tenant: Telus. Since our last major investigation, Telus has rolled out a new television service (which, at least from reports, is quite good) and is taking on Shaw toe-to-toe to steal and cajole whatever marketshare they can. In theory, it’s a buyer’s market.

There’s only one problem: both of them have serious service issues.

For those of you following me on Twitter, you know I made this decision to change back at the beginning of the month. This was a result of the last service fiasco with Shaw, after our internet and phone (Shaw implements a VoIP system that goes over the same cable as the TV and internet) up and died without warning at the end of August. We went on vacation, unable to call Shaw (we were literally leaving the next day, and no-one would have been here to resolve the questions), with a faint hope it might be resolved while we were gone. Hey, it could have been a line issue.

Yeah, and my grandmother was a Chinese fighter pilot…

Not unexpectedly, the phone was still out when we got back. This precipitated some of the most infuriating conversations I’d yet had with Shaw. Okay, in their defence, I was calling during a long weekend. That’s fair, and I’ll grant them the lower staff/higher call volume than usual. But Shaw has no message telling you how long you’re going to wait, and their “scheduled callback” service was never presented as an option.

First call, I waited about 30 minutes to talk to someone. The tech calls this a “recurrent issue”, and says we get to jump the queue a bit. I think: Fantastic! We’ll get this resolved quickly! Only problem: They have to check for when someone can come, but will call me back.

There’s no call the remainder of the day, or the following morning. At 11:20, I call Shaw again to find out when/if we’re going to see someone. The tech says that “a message was left”, and that we’d see someone between 8 and 12. That morning. Oh, did I mention that we were not at home at the time? The tech says that they guy hadn’t come yet, and would be arriving closer to noon. We flew home, only to find the lovely green ticket that says: “Sorry we missed you.”

It should have said: “Sorry, we’re idiots”. I called Shaw again, just short of spitting fire. Wait time? Nearly 45 minutes.

Shaw Tech: We left you a message!
Me: How? We have no phone!
Shaw Tech: (Silence, while checking) Confirmed, sir, we left  you message at 403-XXX-XXXX.
Me: (Stunned silence. The phone number they gave me was my old cell number, disconnected in 2008, before moving to Costa Rica. This is a new Shaw account. I have no idea how the hell they got that old number.) That number hasn’t existed in over two years.
Shaw Tech: (Silence) I’ll put in an urgent request. Someone will call you with a time.
Me: At what number?
Shaw Tech: 403-YYY-YYYY. Oh, that’s your home number. It doesn’t work, right?
Me: (Gumbling.) Correct.
Shaw Tech: Do you have another number we can call you at?

At this point, I’m continually reminding myself that I once had this guy’s job years ago, when I did computer tech support, and had to deal with people as irate as I was acting. But, still, there’s a certain amount of logic that’s just not being followed. Of course I have another number — how the hell do you think I’m calling you?!

The next day, still without any update on time, we’re in Garrison Woods running errands. I’ve taken the Monkey and Choo Choo down to the playground, a good 10-minute walk from the car and Alex. Which, of course, is exactly when Shaw calls me to tell me that the technician will arrive at our house sometime between 12 and 5 … which is in just over 15 minutes.

A 15 minute warning. Thanks, Shaw, for recognising that people never leave their houses, and are always available for when you decide to get around to showing up.

I abort all activities, resulting in the Monkey crying all the way back to the car, embarrass the hell out of Alex (who’d arranged and pre-paid for Monkey’s haircut, and now had to get a refund), and break a few laws trying to get back home before the Shaw technician arrived. (Which, incidentally, wasn’t for a couple of hours.) Thanks for that, Shaw. I love torturing my family to support your asinine business practices.

The technician gets to work, and after a while pronounces things fixed. The first thing he says: “The last technician didn’t know what he was doing.” Funny statement, that — it was the same thing the previous three technicians told me, almost word-for-word. Which says to me to believe that a) Shaw hires people who don’t know what they’re doing, and b) are missing massive opportunities to win confidence with their customer base.

Example: (Shaw, you paying attention?) Every time I called Shaw to ask what was wrong with my internet, they’d tell me how they could see that the modem had been “flapping”. Well, here’s a thought, Shaw — if you have the ability to see the flapping, maybe you should write a few programs to check for flapping modems and preemptively schedule service calls so people think you’re paying attention, preventative, and not constantly trying to clean up after yourselves.

Oh, and I really hate the underlying message of all that, too: “It’s not my fault. Don’t blame me.”

After that, I was done. Past done. The very next thing I did was call Telus. (It also helped that we had a card from Telus with a really-hard-to-argue introductory offer, which would save us a lot of money over the first year.)

And this, folks, is where I thought things would get better. I really should learn not to be an optimist — it just sets you up for disappointment.

Today, we were to have a new Telus installation. But by noon, there had been no installer, and Telus had promised a window between 8 and 10. I called Telus, and was left with a poor woman who bore the brunt of my rapidly-rising frustration.

Telus: There was a problem with the order, sir.
Me: A “problem”? What does that mean?
Telus: We couldn’t put the order through. We have to cancel it.
Me: Cancel? What? Why didn’t someone call me?
Telus: I don’t know, sir. We have to cancel it.
Me: (Feeling very forlorn, and thinking I’ll have to stay with Shaw.) So I don’t get the pricing deal?
Telus: You still can have the pricing, sir. We just have to re-enter the order.
Me: (Forlorn gone. Frustrated again. I go on a rant about my little experience.)
Telus: I’ll escalate this to a manager, sir. They’ll be able to help you much more easily. You can expect a call in about four hours.

So I wait. Four hours. I’ve already waited nearly two weeks, because Shaw requires seven business days to release the phone number (we’re porting it over). Four more hours, and a bit of hope that before this weekend is out, I’ll have a hard-line I can trust again. I tweeted my experience, since I know a few people have been following this little escapade. I get a response from @TelusSupport. I like these guys — they helped me with my cellphone problem a couple of months ago. End result: have to wait for the manager to call.

When the manager calls, I receive an apology for the trouble that actually sounds sincere. She explains what happened — a breakdown in their internal systems that caused part of the order to fail, but didn’t raise any alarm — and immediately offers to correct the situation, along with sizeable credit on the account. There’s two more calls, the net result of which has a new install date, on 29 September.

Why the wait? Well, there’s still that 7 day wait period with Shaw, and because of the internal kafuffle, the entire order has to be restarted. It’s going to be nearly a month from start to finish. “Frustrated” doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. I made sure the manager also knew that using the word “cancel” with a customer was a poor choice of word, regardless of Telus’s internal terminology, and even offered a replacement.

And then I went on a rant with the poor woman.

Okay, so here’s the deal, Telus: you’re on a short leash. You’ve screwed up pretty badly, and are catching the brunt of my troubles with Shaw, to boot. Don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry. (And yes, there are places to go beyond you.)

The average person who just installs and starts using WordPress right away won’t ever see this. It’s only when you try to move the installation to another domain name (such as if you moved your blog from “www.mysite.com” to “blog.mysite.com”), or if you move to a new service provider (and the internal file paths change) that it becomes painfully visible.

And, although I do love you WordPress, this is something that’s gotta change.

Maybe it’s years of having application transportability being drilled into me (and drilling it into others), or the fact that I develop things on temporary URLs (often patterned on “http://localhost…” or “customersite.[my company's domain name]“, and in a few cases on some wacky TCP port that’s not 80. In any of those cases, WordPress remembers what I did.

Don’t believe me? Delve into the wp-options table in your WordPress database. You needn’t go any further than rows 1 and 37 (bearing the option_names of siteurl and home
). That URL is used by WordPress to fully qualify every page in your site. Change those values (or change your hosted domain), and the site stops working.

Now, don’t get me wrong, WordPress, I know why you do that. I just think, especially given how you’re positioning WordPress to be a more serious small-scale CMS competitor, you might want to take developer approaches into account. It would make life a little easier for those of us using WordPress as a solutions framework. And frankly, if you’re providing your own extensive instructions on how to move a blog, you might want to rethink the approach.

(And before anyone starts harping on how WordPress isn’t sufficient to the task, and I should be using a proper CMS like Drupal, Joomla, Sharepoint, Interwoven, bla bla bla, I stand by WordPress as a perfectly valid option for simple, small needs. It’s simplicity and limitations are an asset when you don’t want to worry about the larger needs of a full-featured CMS.)

But.

It doesn’t need to be this hard. Really. It’s not like this information isn’t freely available through existing PHP methods. The $_SERVER is filled with this information — it is trivial to initialise global variables using that as a base, eliminating the need to store that information in the database (and worse, hard-code it to all the URLs).

And while we’re at it, create a global variable listing the base filepath for the install. Again, this is easily handled through something as simple as dirname(__FILE__).

Am I being naive? Maybe. I’ve done enough reading to suggest that perhaps I’m missing something. But on the same note, I haven’t seen anything to suggest a concrete reason why it’s the way it is.

For now, though, I’ve found an interesting workaround (dare I suggest, “hack”?) that overrides WordPress’s database settings in the config file. A far better option, at least in my opinion, because you just sometimes can’t get to the database easily, and having to rewrite the SQL import by hand just seems so very, very wrong. I haven’t tried it yet, but my next foray into WordPress development will be putting it to the test.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled day…

Things changed, and I went the route of contracting, something I hadn’t really done since I left university. Initially, it was with my friends over at Evans Hunt Group. The result was VisitCalgary.com. Since then, I opted to take a vacation, and now it’s time for me to get my own little consultancy off and running.

It’s time for me to Get Geeqee.

Yes, it’s pronounced “geeky”. I could have done the 1337 thing and spelled it like “G33k” (already taken, I might add), but I liked the way “Geeqee” actually looks. (True story: the idea came to me while I was sitting in a meeting discussing need to get “visitcalgary.com” for the website project.)

I didn’t do much with it right away — I was already too busy with my existing projects, and I wasn’t in a rush to spend my vacation working. So, some nine months after purchasing the domain, I’m proud to announce…

Geeqee is my professional side. I’m leaving Sowrey.Org as my blog and general havoc-wreaking area. I need something a little cleaner, a little more polished for anyone who might wish to use my services.

Speaking of services, there is the question of what I do. Well, let’s keep in mind that, as a geek, I tend towards technical services, and generally related towards interactive marketing (namely, websites). Over 15 years of experience in this business has given me a lot of experience, and thanks to an exceedingly long list of teachers and mentors, I have a lot of skills I can throw at a given problem. I’ll free admit that I’m not an expert in everything (rather difficult to do that, if you ask me), but I’d like to think that I’m more than good enough to do the job.

What job, you ask? Well, try these on for size:

• Development / Programming
• Technical Direction, Strategy, and Architecture
• Technical Documentation
• Business and Functional Analysis
• Website Analysis
• Team Leadership
• Offshore Development Management
• Hosting Administration
• Release Engineering and Code Management
• Systems Administration
• Technical Support

Think I might be able to help you or someone you know? Drop me a line, I’d love to chat!

Geeqee. No bull. Just what you need.

A few years ago, this probably would have put me into a panic. And a few years ago, it would have been just me to worry about. Now I have a wife and two kids (well, one at the time, and one on the way) to support. Really, that should have put me off the deep end. Having lived through a significant amount of adversity over the last couple of years, though, I found myself not even concerned about the prospect of unemployment.

I attribute that to having kept contact with just the right people.

And so it came to pass that on 5 January, I walked into a meeting room on the 2nd floor of 805 10th Ave SW, and sat at a table with nine other people. Nine people I already knew. Nine people I’d already worked with before at another company. I couldn’t help but smile.

I was working — and still work — for the Evans Hunt Group, a small interactive marketing agency made up, largely, of former employees of Critical Mass. The principals of the company, Dan Evans and Bill Hunt, were both my managers at Critical Mass at one point or another, and Bill had been the one who started up the Costa Rica operation. My long-time mentor and also former Critical Mass manager, Allard Losier, is the technical lead, and the one who really convinced me to come in.

That conversation had occurred at the Cabin Cafe on Bow Trail and 45th St. SW, on 22 December. He and I had sat down over a coffee (two, in my case), and had a long conversation about events of the last 18 months, and potential events for the future. I hadn’t made any decisions at that point, although there had been heavy hinting at coming in to work for Evans Hunt, and I was rather enjoying the not-working aspect of my life.

The conversation had really shown me the things that I had really missed over the previous 18 months: mentorship and trust. I had lost my mentor when Allard had left Critical Mass shortly before I went to Costa Rica. And I had felt since about that time that there hadn’t been much trust in me, and always felt on the defensive. Going anywhere else was … well, it needed to be the right place.

My project — the reason I was brought in — was to help Tourism Calgary with their website. The project, at least at a high level, was pretty simple: site overhaul. (Yes, at the high level, that’s all it is. Once you start going down in the levels, you really find out what kind of trouble you’re creating for yourself.) My job? Lead the tech team, work with the PM, and help deliver the final product. Time was originally pegged at about three months, and we’d see where things would go from there.

I didn’t get a consulting agreement for three weeks. Normally, that would probably freak most people out entirely, my Mom being one of them. From her perspective, which I totally understood, I was working without any legal backup, and was likely to get screwed somewhere along the line. From my perspective, I wasn’t working for a company — I was working with friends. Friends I trusted, and who trusted me. People I knew wouldn’t pull anything shifty, so long as I didn’t do the same.

That level of trust has permeated my now five-month tenure here at Evans Hunt. Knowing that the right people are there, that the right things will happen when they need to. All of that led us to the launch of our newest little baby, VisitCalgary.com. Today, I supported Jim at a presentation by Tourism Calgary to the tourism industry at the Glenbow Museum (chosen because of Calgary’s recent bout of inclement weather — originally, it was supposed to be outside), and got to see the reaction first-hand of the very people we’re trying to support.

And that’s when it really hit me. I’m not working for some massive multi-national conglomerate. I’m working for a group who’s trying to bring in tourists to the city I live in, to bring in money to the businesses that exist in the city I live in, to support the families of the people who work for the companies in the city I live in. I had disconnective issues working with American and European vendors for a very long time, partly because they never really affected me in any way. But this? This, I can get behind.

It’s been a long project, and a little harder than I’d thought it be. The site, for the record, runs on Drupal. (For those of you unfamiliar, I suggest checking it out. Very powerful tool, Drupal.) I approached the project with a lot of confidence, believing that we’d be cruising along in no time. That’s when reality hit me.

Drupal wasn’t at all like any content management system I’d ever worked with. And as a result, I was giving bad directions. It wasn’t until we started to engage Brian, one of Evans Hunt’s developers, that I began my Drupal education. A content management system, it is not. As Brian put it, it’s a content management framework. Yeah, I know, I know — splitting hairs, right? Not really.

In every other CMS I’d spent significant time with, the rule of thumb was to build your templates first, and then embed the CMS functionality into them to build out the site. But with Drupal, you do it the other way around — let Drupal define the structure, and then make it look pretty afterwards. We lost time because of my direction.

Thankfully, we also had some very talented developers. The first up was Lorne of Open House Concept, who was the initial developer, and was the core layout guru. Kalen jumped on not long after to work on templates, and then buzzed back in towards the end of the project in a weird little game of leap-frog. Brian joined the project, which got us pointed in the right direction again (notably, correcting my oversights), and we brought on Boris to help us with the backend data synchronisation.

It sounds like a lot of people, but in truth we only had three developers running at any one time. And considering I can barely code my way out of a paper bag, I am truly amazed at what the four of them did to get this site out the door. Especially considering that the office is just finishing a near two-month renovation, which had us working remotely from our PM-extraordinare January’s house for over a week.

And yes, there were a lot of hours put into this project. They kept us working late, and more than a couple of weekends. This is where, in the past, I would lament the time away from my family. But this is also where that aforementioned trust comes in. Working from home is encouraged (assuming you don’t need to be in the office), and working at hours that suit your schedule is not a problem (provided you get your work done). End result: long hours, but still got be a family man.

So, damn right I’m a happy camper. All told, I would say this has been one of my more favourite projects, and I’ve had a few doozies to compete with, too.

And, really, you can never go wrong working with friends. (And yes — with, not for.)

The events of the last few weeks have been extremely tiresome to say the least. Far too many people and groups have been prognosticating the future of personal computing, and there’s been far too little in doses of reality. The future is coming, but it’s not coming nearly as quickly as everyone thinks it is, and rushing to meet the future will likely only harm the present. A little rational thought would be appreciated.

Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room, first. Steve Jobs hates Flash. There, I’ve said it. Now let’s move on.

I’m not here to argue about openness or stability, or any of the claims/counter-claims made by anyone. There’s no point, since a large part of it is highly subjective. Apple will do whatever Apple wants to do, regardless of any other company’s desires, intentions, or abilities. And while Apple might be on the right path to the next major shift in personal computing, we’re still quite some time from critical mass.

Right now, in the industry, we have a need for rich, engaging experiences. These experiences are the things that help capture attention and keep people using a website or service long enough for that website or service to deliver its message and achieve its function. It could be easily argued that a much simpler user interface can do the same thing, but I can also easily argue that there is a wide gulf between utility and ubiquity: I love the simpleness that comes with pure utility, but the ubiquity of “fun” is what wins the day.

As a result of Apple, a lot of people are starting to tout the death of Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash. It’s doomed because Apple said so, or at least that’s the narrowly simple version of the story. A longer version introduces the up-and-coming HTML5 standards, which start to blur the lines between what Flash does now and what could be done without Flash. That’s what a lot of the major players (Google and Apple being the two most obvious) are moving towards, and there’s no reason why their direction shouldn’t be taken as the final chapter on Flash, right?

Right?

To the best of my knowledge and five minutes on Google, there has never been a technology that has up-and-vanished overnight (even figuratively-speaking) merely because one company said so. While I have a significant amount of respect for Apple and their attention to detail, and I nearly worship at the Altar of Google, I’d be quite the fool to be agreeing to abandon Flash.

Yes, you heard me. Dropping Flash is a foolish idea.

I know, I know. Don’t I hate Flash? Aren’t I the one who railed against it for years and years and years. In a word: no. I’m technology agnostic. I’ve been agnostic for a almost a decade. I learned a long time ago that ignoring a solution merely because you don’t like it immediately cuts you out of possible success, and you end up reinventing wheels. I don’t hate Flash — I hate inappropriate use of a technology.

Flash, as a platform for providing a rich media solution, has a place in our industry. For today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable short-term future (I’m saying at least two years, personally), any company pulling support for Flash is being extremely short-sighted. It’s like ditching your extremely reliable car at the side of the road to climb into an open chassis that has no doors, no roof, the colours and interior are still being decided, the engine periodically doesn’t work properly, and you’d better hope the dang thing has brakes.

Yes, you can do a lot without Flash right now. A number of websites (the site for new Nissan Leaf, the HTML5 presentation, HTML5 video, HTML5 audio funkiness) have proven that you can use these new standards quite effectively, and move away from Flash. And to that end, I say “congratulations, I hope you do well”. You’re going to need a lot of help, and pray that you can get away with it.

Why? Well, guess what folks, the HTML5 “standard” isn’t complete — It’s still a working draft. CSS3? Not finished, and not properly/fully supported by any browser. Video? Well, as much as Apple has tried to say that H.264 is the de facto standard, it’s patented, and the license fees will kick in at the end of 2015. Google’s bought On2, with the widely-held hope that they’ll release the VP8 codec openly. Firefox is only supporting Ogg Theora. And lest we forget the Browser That Just Won’t Die: Internet Explorer 6 will make your life a living hell.

Anyone remember the standards fights from the late 1990s? Does any of this look at all familiar?

Okay, so let’s assume that you can develop to some standards. How many authoring tools are you going to need? How many libraries? There’s no one consistent authoring tool, and your developers are going to need some seriously good (and seriously expensive) skills to make it all blend together smoothly.

Now let’s add in the added complication of rights management. Try find that little detail in the HTML5 specs. Go on, take a look, I’ll wait. Didn’t see anything? That’s because it’s not there. Big Media (read: Dinosaur Media) needs this in their vain attempt to keep their archaic business models creaking forward. They need DRM. They need encryption. They need the stuff built into Flash to keep their delivery systems operating. If for that reason alone, Flash has a long life ahead of it.

I’m not dancing around here with rose-coloured glasses. Flash is dying, of that I have no doubts. As a plug-in solution, its days are numbered. More than likely, it’ll morph into a development system not unlike Microsoft Studio, where it will be a rich media solution system. What it generates as a final product will depend on the need, supporting different outputs is definitely a possibility.

But for now, I’m sticking with Flash. It’s helpful, it’s handy, and it works.

One thing that regularly amazed me, however, was how often a client’s internal IT group seemed to have non-trivial input on almost every aspect of an initiative, from the way it was hosted right down to the specific use of a given image. I often found myself watching our best-laid plans being eaten away to the point of delivering something I was less than happy with. The repeat experience led me to focus on one inexorable fact:

IT departments should never have any input on the marketing website. Ever.

Before the IT folks all try to kill me, please understand something — I’m on your side. My background is technical — I have done corporate IT in my previous lives, and am well aware of the implications and consequences of a haphazard platform rollout or a half-baked application install. I know why Sarbanes-Oxley creates havoc every quarter. And yes, I too have denied people hardware upgrades merely for the reason that I didn’t see the need. I know where you’re coming from.

To over-simplify things, it’s the men and women problem: they’re both human, but communication and understanding sometimes comes in very short supply. Hence the book, and the numerous parodies thereof. (Though why women got stuck with the toxic atmosphere planet remains a mystery to me.) In my view, IT and marketing are on equally distant worlds, with the same challenges to understand given needs.

This is not about just mere communication. This goes past communication to perceptions, politics, policies, and also budgets. The resulting confounding confusion ends with uncertainties, namely: who actually is responsible for the website, who owns the website and its operation, and who pays for it. (Yes, IT and marketing work for the same company, but each has their own budgets.) This is where the tug-of-wars start, and why IT tends to get sucked (or shoved) into the website space.

Like I said, IT, I’m on your side. And believe me when I say this: You do not want to handle the trouble of the marketing website.

Simply put, a marketing department’s purpose is to sell a company’s products or services. As the adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. In the world of profit/loss, a marketing department is almost entirely loss — they spend the money to raise awareness and encourage sales of their organisation’s wares.

An IT department’s purpose is to support the organisation’s internal operations through implementing technology standards, ensuring stability and control over technology infrastructure, and assisting when things go awry. Like marketing, internal IT is entirely loss as well — it is the traditional form of a “cost center”, meaning it doesn’t even feed directly into a revenue chain. That also means that it’s a constant focus of cost control.

The two departments also (typically) report up through different executives as well, with marketing going to a marketing-oriented office (such as a Chief Marketing Officer) and IT going through the financial/administrative office (such as a Chief Financial Officer). This means that messages provided to each of them are different, the directions given to them are different, and their are told to focus on different things.

Which means, of course, that when the marketing department asks for something, the IT department will think it means something else.

In my experience, this usually arises when a company’s web presence is the point of discussion. This is the ultimate tug-of-war: marketing needs the freedom to do what they need to do to their job, and IT sees this as something they need to own and support. Almost invariably, it ends up getting messy, and the marketing department ends up subservient to the IT department.

Now, before all you geeks out there cheer for this apparent victory, this is a bad thing. As alluded to above, IT departments do not understand marketing needs. What IT departments see is a need to keep things in line with supported standards, and keep costs to a minimum. This misunderstanding has been lampooned many times in cartoon, often sending those in the industry to nod their heads sadly at the truth.

Consider the following scenario: Marketing has a project that will raise awareness for a new product. Their budget allows for about two weeks of work, and will have a one year lifespan. They want to really reach out to Gen Y as a primary audience. When Marketing and IT see these rough requirements, they’ll each see something different:

There’s two places where IT falls short: understanding the creative aspect of marketing, and the need for flexibility. Marketing campaigns are highly creative, by sheer necessity — remove the creativity, and all you have is a message without hooks. The flexibility allow marketing to react to need, as well as attempt strategies to better broadcast a message. Such flexibility flies in the face of most standards, which strive for stringent consistency.

In other words, marketing is not something an IT department should ever want to understand. I assure you, it can make your head hurt.

So what are we left with? In my view, keep IT doing what IT does best: supporting the internal infrastructure of a company, and staying out of the website game.

As for the website, it should never live with the company (unless the company itself is geared utterly around its website, but that also changes the game entirely). The website should live at an external location with a third-party hosting vendor. There are thousands to choose from in all sizes, shapes, securities, and softwares. You do this because you don’t want to have to deal with the infrastructure of a website that supports your business (either directly or indirectly), and because it allows a marketing department to do things that would scare the bejeebus out of an IT team.

So, dear IT friends, do yourselves a favour: if someone ever tries to suggest you take on the task of managing the company’s website projects, do yourselves a favour: run. And leave behind a note with the five hosting sales reps who cold-called you last month.

One question I also expect them to ask is how I watched TV without having my computer in front of me, firing off notes through Twitter, Facebook, or whatever social media network will be in vogue in 5-8 years from now. I’ll look at their cute, adorable little faces, and tell them as seriously as I can: There was a time when we watched TV on our own. We went to sporting events in small groups, we went shopping without telling everyone what we were doing, and we could vanish for hours on end without anyone knowing where we were.

The idea that we exist solely as individuals is rapidly becoming extinct.

I’ll freely admit that I’m on the leading (okay, okay, obsessive) edge when it comes to Twittering et al. I’ve been broadcasting status updates (in one form or another) for a couple of years, in frequencies varying from every few days to every few seconds — those of you following me during the 2010 Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey gold medal game or during last night’s Oscars know what I mean. That means I’m not only keenly aware of the potential these services offer, but also the potential impact.

Let me rewind a couple of weeks to the start of the Olympics on 12 February. While most of you watching the opening ceremonies might have had a word or two between you, there were a few of us (I’ll estimate at least a few thousand) who were offering up our views as the show proceeded. In real-time. Publicly. You could track the entire thing under hashtags, or even by following a few people.

As the Olympics proceeded, the effect only continued to grow. For me, it was a way of communicating — and to some degree, even participating — with the games through friends who were actually there. (Of particular note is Canada’s unofficial Lucky Charm, my friend Katrina, who was present for no less than two gold medal wins.) It was a real-time feedback, and a way for me to feel that I wasn’t just trapped here in Calgary, unable to witness it for myself.

And lest we forget the Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey gold medal game between the USA and Canada. All epic-ness of the game aside (I stand by my statement that the game is the Summit Series of my generation), the game probably produced the largest amount of Twitter and Facebook traffic from Canada this year (and that includes all events yet-to-come). You almost didn’t have to watch the game on TV (although, really, it was one of the best-ever hockey games) — follow a few people, and you almost got the play-by-play, along with healthy doses of (periodically profane) comments about plays, shots on goal, and so forth. The only thing that would have made it better is if Don Cherry were tweeting it.

Which, interestingly enough, was what happened last night on the Oscars. Except it wasn’t Don Cherry, it was Roger Ebert. Though not nearly as copious with comments as I had expected (he was live-blogging as well, which I didn’t have access to), events were still punctuated with exceptionally-timely thoughts, all backed-up with his decades of experience in the industry.

Okay, so what does this all mean?

I didn’t watch alone. I might have been alone in the room, in front of my TV, but my network of friends and contacts kept me company. For years, people had talked about interactive TV as being a major shift in the industry, but to virtually no fruition. The act of side-conversation might not be the interactive we all had in mind, but imagine the joy of side-discussions (and even trash-talking) with people who have the same interest, without the ugliness of having to pack everyone into a small room at once.

I don’t see this ending soon, either. While I don’t watch a lot of TV (I generally avoid everything except MythBusters and Dirty Jobs), this sort of thing would definitely play out for regular sporting events (hockey, football, basketball, and even — dare I say it? — golf), reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother, soap operas, and similar genres that tend to collect an obsessive and conversational bunch (imagine if Star Trek: The Next Generation or the rebooted Battlestar Galactica came out now).

And, of course, this goes beyond televised events. People in the stands of the game, people following poker tournaments, people watching parades, let alone people broadcasting the latest disaster (follow the #temblor hashtag sometime — the USGS does).

This is the promise of social media, folks. We always thought it was just about bringing people together. In reality, it’s about keeping us from feeling alone.

A few years ago, the “hybrid” car was introduced, a shining new example of how to make vehicles more efficient, and spawned a new movement of environmentally-aware manufacturing. Today, Nissan stands ready to finally release the first mass-market all-electric vehicle, amping up the competition to become the centre of the environmentally-friendly transportation universe. I, for one, welcome the arrival of the electric car, long overdue from formal acceptance in North America. At the same time, however, I also curse its arrival because it doesn’t actually address a primary problem.

The electric car strives to perpetuate a bad idea: that we all need a car.

World War II changed the world in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track of them all. It ushered in our nuclear age, brought computers out of the closet and into our common perception, and brought about a new sense of prosperity and demand that the world had not previously witnessed — especially in North America.

The message was clear: prosperity through purchase. North Americans were told through the power of the media that they had to live the “American Dream”: own a large home in the suburbs, the newest appliances, fancy clothes, a television, and no home was complete without at least one car.

It was the car that became the shining star of the American household, and a symbol of freedom. No longer were you tied to others’ schedules — you were free to go where you wanted, when you wanted. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 gave birth to the Interstate Highway System, and forever sealed the dream in the minds of Americans, and the neighbours to the north (because, let’s be honest, as much as we Canadians want to be different than America, we want to play with the same toys).

Long-distance travel changed. It was now about driving long distances in cars. It was driving into the city. It was driving to the local store. Drive-through restaurants, drive-in movies. Driving.

The automobile as we know it — an individualistic vessel of identity — encourages people to live away from their daily lives. Instead of living in tall buildings, we live in spacious suburbs. We thrive for neighbourhoods with only houses, and drive to expansive commercial malls. We want industry away from our little edens, and don’t want to our daily grind anywhere near our castles. When we have to go to other places, we want to do so on our terms.

All of this has come at an expense: fossil fuel consumption never seems to stem, nor does our energy use to allow us to live apart and at a distance. Our land use spirals, allowing some of our cities to resemble single-celled protozoa that expand to consume what’s near them. Calgary, in particular, has been listed as an “ecological disaster” on those very terms. I would be very curious to see a comparison with Manhattan, which I think it is likely the most efficient places in the world: over 27,000 people per square kilometre (most of them don’t own a car), hundreds of thousands commuting by public transit, and elevators use less energy than a refrigerator.

In our strive to achieve, we have forgotten the need to preserve.

Slowly, thanks to decades-long efforts and a few more mainstream mentions, the world is becoming attuned to alternative energy, with a notable focus on electric. It’s been a slow adoption, but the ever-present call to heed environmental changes and the need to act more responsibly has brought about mass demand for something beyond burning fossil fuels.

To be fair, there are three types of electric vehicles floating about. We have seen the parallel hybrids (Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, to name a few), the very long overdue series hybrids (notably the Chevrolet Volt), and the pure electric (the failed EV1, and the up-and-coming Nissan Leaf). We have latched onto these vehicles as the saving graces for our obsession with the automobile. All of these have problems:

• Parallel hybrids are an awkward mish-mash of traditional gasoline power and electric power, where the gasoline half is still largely in control, and even the slightest press of the accelerator can throw off your mileage
• Series hybrids wisely disconnect the gasoline engine from the wheels and use it only to charge the battery when it starts to get low; diesel would be a far better choice for fossil power, though it is highly unpopular in North American-made passenger vehicles due to memories of the 1970s
• Pure electric vehicles try to come off as the greenest options, but conveniently side-step the question of power source — unless you obtain your electricity from solar or wind, you’re getting it from falling water or nuclear (slightly less green), or from burning fossil fuels (electric is cheaper, no question, but you’re still burning)

And none of them address the original fundamental problem: they all perpetuate the bad dream. All of them remind us that if we don’t own a car and a big house, live in a nice suburb, and drive wherever we like, that — somehow — we’re not successful.

Meanwhile, public transit withers. Yes, for all my bitching about my local public transit, I still find it a far preferable alternative to a car — at least when the public transit offering is well-handled. However, therein lies the problem — all over North America (which, really, is the biggest problem in the world), public transit organisations have to reduce service and inflate prices to keep themselves afloat. Long-distance train travel has gone from our primary form of inter-city travel to mere tourism. The long-distance bus services are now regarded as “last ditch” options when you can afford nothing else.

You think public transit is awful? It’s an inconvenience? Talk to the millions of people who float in and out of major cities on a daily basis through buses and trains. Talk to your average Londoner, who is fined if they try to drive their car into the core of the city. Talk to anyone living in Japan about the difficulty not only of owning a car, but trying to drive it. Public transit remains the best option for moving large numbers of people. And yes, it is rather easy to adapt to a known schedule and not have it wreck your life.

While one dream lives on, another one dies. The dream of a utopia where people live quietly and closely, where automobiles are rarely seen and heard. That dream started dying a long time ago, and save for a few dedicated efforts to preserve the utopia, there are few places in the world the car has not touched. The utopia will one day be merely a thought, a vague entry in our collective memory, passing into the distance like a car into the fog.

Yeah, I’m having a good laugh at this one, too! But since I am a Know-It-All, and someone asks, it’s really hard for me to say “I don’t know”. I mean, it’s not like I don’t have an opinion on it or something…

A Senior Developer is more than just a developer. They encompass several traits and abilities that make them very important to small and large projects alike. They are looked at as a skill centre, teacher, standards guru, and programmer all at the same time (often by different people). The catch is to ensure that a Senior Developer is anointed appropriately — bestowing a Senior designation without due diligence is just asking for trouble.

Hard Skill vs. Soft Skill

Okay, let’s get this elephant out of the way, first.

Any job, and I don’t care if it’s building video games or sewer maintenance, requires two key skills. The first is the “hard” skill — the one needed to actually perform the task at hand. Different jobs require different levels of hard skill, and some of them (such as, oh, brain surgery) require a lot more skill than others. The other key skill — “soft” — is what allows you to interact with others, to see yourself (with ego removed) for who and what you are, and assist you with your growth and education.

The former, for most people, is easy. The latter is the one that a lot of people fail at. You know those people: the jerks, the guys who yell at others, the people who “don’t listen”. Soft skills are hard to learn, and are almost always what hold people back.

And no, this is not a trivial point. Hard skills are needed to be able to manage the work, and soft skills are needed to manage the people. A failure on either is a failure of the whole.

Programming Omnipotence

A Senior Developer needs to have near god-like understanding of their given programming environment. This is because the Senior Developer is often the key resource for that environment, and the one people will look towards to set precedent, and ensure correct habits.

• Know (and often off the top of their heads) a dozen different ways to implement (and know which one is the best approach)
• Know the language’s methods, syntax, structure, parameterization, memory leaks, and looping methodologies without the need to regularly consult the documentation
• Know the best practices for development with authority
• Know when a framework is required, a nice-to-have, and when to avoid

And yes, I do expect some ego along with omnipotence — it goes pretty much hand-in-hand. To some degree, I also encourage it, because that Senior Developer should know more than I do about their given language, and I want them to express that knowledge.

Understand External Dependencies

In my world, technologies rarely live in their own. Just because you can reproduce a complicated Photoshop design into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript means nothing if you can’t get the design to work with the equally-complicated database.

The trick here is that I don’t need a Senior Front-End Developer (be they masters in Flash or HTML/CSS/JavaScript) to also juggle the backend processing tasks. But you’d better expect that I need that the developer understand the process for passing requests to the backend, and how to handle the backend’s results.

Similarly, I expect the Senior Applications Developer to know what sort of information he should expect (or need), the APIs or ASPs he can use to implement the solution (without having to write the entire thing by themselves), handle database requests (without necessarily doing the database work themselves), and the best way to return a result to the front-end.

Likewise, a Senior Database Developer shouldn’t care about the presentation of data, only the best way to organise it to provide optimal normalisation and long-term data management, the correct methods to store  and recall data (via stored procedures, views, queries, and so forth), and managing the database software’s operation.

This also assumes a more granular breakdown of tasks, and having the people available to handle said tasks. Naturally, smaller places will combine roles into a single person. Mind you, they might also eschew titles for simplicity.

Solutions Design

While a Senior Developer isn’t necessarily responsible for an entire implementation, I have the expectation that a Senior Developer can adequately specify the pieces of the puzzle for which they are responsible. Furthermore, they should know how those pieces break down (for assignment to others, if needed), the time it should take to develop those pieces, and ensure that the pieces will integrate.

Fair Communication

Rarely will a Senior Developer work on their own. Almost always, they need to work with others on their team: junior developers, project managers, and creative staff. All of these people require the same amount of respect, even though the messages will differ between them.

This is often a major failing point for people who think they are Senior Developers, but have not yet been granted the title by their company. Inability to communicate properly leads not only to breakdowns in communication, but can cause personalities to clash, further muddying the waters. Technical mastery means nothing if you’re a jerk to others — it means people won’t want to work with you.

People who fail at communication often believe the problem is not with themselves, but with others: “I told them what they needed, it’s not my fault if they didn’t listen.”  The real test is convincing someone else of what you want to do. The inability to convince someone else is not a fault with the other person, but yourself.

• Junior developers need a mentor: a resource and a teacher. Someone who will help more junior staff see mistakes and learn from them, who will help people with difficult problems, all the while not talking down to a weaker skill.
• Project managers require concise communication that does not involve a blizzard of jargon. Project managers rely on numbers: estimates, dates, times, milestones.
• Creative staff think in pictures and possibilities, whereas technical minds live for logic and limitation. They can live together very easily, so long as people keep an open mind and give each idea the respect that is due.

Consistency in Deliverables

A key trait amongst Senior Developers is consistency throughout their work. Opening three or four random projects reveals the same programming style, the same general approach, the same naming conventions. A Senior Developer influences these same traits amongst those on a team, ensuring the entire team’s deliverable contains similar consistency.

This is not to preclude change. A good Senior Developer is also a researcher, always looking for better ways to handle a given problem.

Accept Responsibility

With great power comes yadda yadda yadda — you know the story. Being a Senior Developer means taking on the responsibility for part (or all) of a project. You’re the one who’s being asked to deliver something, and possibly lead others in that delivery. Ultimately, if something goes awry, it’s you who made it that way.

“It wasn’t my fault” isn’t something you get to say anymore, even if you handed that task off to a junior developer. When your project manager / lead / boss comes knocking, you’re the one who has to stand up and explain what happened. It’s your neck officially on the line, and you’re the one who’ll be held accountable. (Incidentally, that applies for everyone else above you, too.)

Side-stepping responsibility and putting someone else into the firing line is not only disrespectful, it’s a guaranteed way to strip trustworthiness. One key aspect of responsibility is someone’s trust in you to handle something. Shirking responsibility is the same as saying: “you can’t trust me”.

Open-Mindedness

Finally, here’s where I’ll flip-flop a bit. Earlier up, I said I want a Senior Developer to be egotistic (to a degree) and tell me what they know. I still want that, but I also want to eat my cake, too. I won’t expect a Senior Developer to be immediately open to other ideas, but I do expect recognition. As the Senior Developer progresses to higher roles, open-mindedness becomes a significantly more important factor.

This also helps prepare the Senior Developer for one inevitability in life: even if you have all the chops, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the meat.

I propose April 1st be “IE6 Dies” Day. It’s time that IE6 be shown the door. But we’ll need help.

This isn’t the first time people have called for IE6 to go away. But previously, these were developer-led challenges, all of which met the same problem: we’re not the ones who get to make that decision. All a client needs to do is pull out a report from their stats engine to prove why they need it. (Or simply open their company-issued laptop to show the IT-mandated browser.) Going against this kind of weight, we’re lost.

We need to go the other way. Not to the browser makers (they’re on our side), but to the people offering services that people want to see. Want to punish a child? Take away its access to its toys.

We need to call out to the Big 3 search engines. Google, Bing, and Yahoo: Block access to IE6. And I don’t mean provide a subtle hint page, I mean block it entirely. With a big, bold page that says:

We’re sorry, but your browser is no longer supported. Please upgrade to one of the following [insert browser list here]. If necessary, please contact your IT department.

Google’s already on this path. Microsoft has encouraged upgrades to IE8. Yahoo hasn’t really said anything yet, but I imagine they’ve thought something similar. Take these three pages away, and you cut off a primary tool that millions of IE6 users go to daily. With these unavailable for no reason other than a browser update, it should help drive that final spike into the heart.

So why April 1? Well, there’s the obvious reason: IE6 has been “fooling” us for far too long, and it’s time that we prove that we’re not fooled any longer. But a bigger reason is time: Namely, give companies some warning. The upgrade cost can be significant, and companies need time to get things in place. Frankly, they’ve had enough, but a sudden stop without warning can cause some pretty major headaches. (I may be a jerk, but I’m not without sympathy for IT teams, having some good friends who do IT, and having enough IT to respect the problems they solve.)

I can’t do this alone. For this to work, we need as many people as possible to spread the message. Tweet/retweet this message as much as you can (please use the hashtag #ie6diesday, if possible). Send them this message:

Dear Search Provider,

Due to the on-going security and support problems with Internet Explorer 6, I would like to suggest that you consider April 1 “IE6 Dies Day”, and block IE6 from accessing your search engine. There are many other options and alternatives. http://bit.ly/bZTUej

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Here’s some quick links to get you started!

• Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/indexing/webmaster-01.html and http://www.ysearchblog.com/
• Google: http://www.google.com/support/contact/bin/request.py?bdpg=1&hl=en and http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
• Bing: https://feedback.discoverbing.com/default.aspx?productkey=bing

Spread the news. Let’s convince the search engines that it’s time for IE6 to die, once and for all.

Greed kills innovation.

It’s short, it’s simple, it’s sure to raise the ire of a lot of people, but it’s also a major problem we’re seeing lately, especially in internet technologies. It’s a problem that’s dogged humanity for generations. And it’s getting worse.

It’s getting worse because of the pace of technology. There was a time, roughly my current lifetime ago, when there were only a handful of companies engaged in developing technology. They made hardware, wrote the software, and generally all of them hoped things would work.  People took ideas from one another, all hoping that they could make it into a better idea. Witness how Apple and Microsoft flourished on an idea from Xerox…

But things changed. Today, we look back on Xerox, and we think: You yutz! You should’ve sued Microsoft blind! Why? Because we all got greedy. It’s not about making things better, it’s about making money.

Patents Gone Wild! See them on the streets of Silicon Valley, beating up struggling entrepreneurs trying to make something good. Or in the Northwest, terrorising established companies for no valid reason. Bringing down entire corporate communications, regardless of impact. Not being able to display a video because the cost is too high.

My problem with all of this isn’t that it’s illegal — it’s not. A patent holder is allowed, by law, to defend their patent against encroachment. My problem is that it happens with increasingly dangerous frequency, often initiated by people who, frankly, have no business holding a patent.

The laws in North America have bred a two-tiered system: those who patent to protect their business, and those who license patents (and quite often end up in big name lawsuits). I know many people in the first group whose companies have pushed them to file patents, to ensure that their business is protected. And we’ve all seen the prolonged battles of the latter.

I fear we’re entering an era when innovation — real innovation, not incremental one-upmanship — will become stifled. The fear of lawsuit and the yawning chasm of bureaucracy needed to protect an idea will become roadblocks. People who might have done well on their own will look at the challenges and say: No, thanks.

Imagine if Steve Wozniak had said that. No, thanks, I don’t want to sell this computer kit to anyone. Or if Henry Ford had looked at his dream of consistently templated automobiles and thought: Who’s waiting around the corner with a lawyer? Page and Brin might have looked at Yahoo! and said: Y’know, what’s the point?

Maybe I’m too altruistic. Maybe because I’ve grown tired at seeing the petty bickering over hundreds of millions of dollars, while reading headlines about mass suffering around the world. Maybe it’s because we’re a decade behind having a viable electric car in widespread use anywhere in the world. Maybe I just want the frickin’ jetpack we’re all supposed to be using now.

In time, a phrase was born: The sun never sets on the British Empire. Great Britain’s influence extended far beyond its native shores, its power unquestionable. A few thrived under the colonial system, but the majority — the people living under colonial rule — were marginalised as being little more than the ignorant masses; significant numbers suffered horribly.

It’s really no wonder that the Empire collapsed under its own weight.

Flash forward now to our present, a world where corporations, not governments, run the world. Oh, sure, we see the laws passed by governments in the interests of its people, but it’s not the governments creating them. It’s lobbyists, working on behalf of the corporations. It’s the corporations funding political careers through donations (legal or otherwise). It’s the corporations funding large-scale advertising campaigns placing candidates more friendly to their needs into office.

It is these corporations directing the current colonialism: copyrights. Think of these not as the legalese that they are — instead, think of them as land claims, which were a significant part of the British Empire. A land claim meant you had title to earn money from people who worked your land, and the power to treat them however (un)fairly you wished. If anyone tried to take your land, you were obliged to defend it with as deadly force as you could muster.

Copyrights have been with us — and have been a controversial topic — ever since Thag copied Zog’s cave painting, and Zog hit Thag over the head with a rock. Interestingly, that form of retribution hasn’t changed much in the roughly 45,000 years since. It’s been a battle for recognition of ownership, of artistry, and for “what’s right”.

One of the biggest problems is that copyright enforcement hasn’t been particularly consistent over the years, either. Zog was lucky enough to avoid a complex judicial system. Until the early 1990s, we had to rely mostly on physical presence (namely, you had to buy an actual piece of art). Software copyrights existed, but were poorly enforced, even within large law-abiding corporations. The advance of technology broke the physical barrier, gave people the ability to access materials on their behalf … and shortly afterwards, gave corporations the ability to know who was breaking their rules.

We saw the first signs of the new colonialism at the turn of the 21st century, when one of the corporations — the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — launched what would be come the first of many public and painful lawsuits. Metallica brought the battle into the public eye when they effectively offended the then-denizens of the internet, decrying the “fair use” belief held by many (the legality of said perspective notwithstanding). It was the first shot fired in the new independence, the first time that people showed to the world that they wanted things on their terms, not someone else’s.

The weapon wielded by groups like the RIAA and the MPAA (Motion Picture Assocation of America) was not a battle axe or a howitzer, but the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — the DCMA. This law, enacted in the United States of America, implemented two of the treaties agreed upon by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) in 1996. This is how we came to know DRM (Digital Rights Management). They used it to guilt us to not copy, and then slaughter us when we did. The corporations had found legitimacy for their battle through governments.

In theory, this should have worked entirely to the corporation’s wishes. Within their own borders, the laws were clear, and things went (mostly) according to plan. But they weren’t so effective in the international reality. Not all countries recognised, or even seemed to care, about other country’s laws — and certainly not about the ones that enforced copyrights. Governments were engaged again to help enforce the corporations’ will.

When you have to go up to the biggest kid in the schoolyard and ask for your toy back, all you can do is whine. I imagine “aw, come on!” was heard a lot when the United States asked China not to copy software, movies, or CDs. But China opted to give only a token of acceptance — sort of like giving back only one of the wheels from the Tonka truck. China can do that, because it owns a huge portion of the United States debt, and provides the United States with cheap imports.

Where were the WIPO and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in all of this? Someone’s got to run world court, right?

But the rules started changing. In the last two years, Canada had to improve its own copyright legislation, also based on DCMA, and driven by the industry — the corporations — and not by the people whom the government should represent. The sledgehammer just fell on Costa Rica: fix your copyrights, or the United States will stop importing sugar (note that coffee and bananas were excluded from the ban). Lo siento, Costa Rica, but CAFTA/TLC won’t help you here — remember, the United States wrote the core of it to benefit themselves.

Costa Rica and Canada are not alone. Dozens of countries are now working on ACTA — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement — a virtually secret pact designed to do only one thing: enforce a DCMA-like mandate worldwide. Governments don’t want to talk about it. The corporations? They’re smiling like buddhist cows.

Colonialism was best defined when the powerful centre took after its weaker neighbours and opponents. You either fought them, or you joined them. The colonists in all of this are us, the people. We’re the ones being handed the royal decrees without benefit of democracy, the ones getting taxation without representation. We’ll be the ones held in stockades, heads put on pikes, and held up as terrorists to the state (covering for the corporation).

Now lest anyone thing I’m against copyrights, I’m not. I respect the creativity needed to make something new, and the need for that artist is duly compensated for their efforts. But I’m against the inappropriate use of copyrights (and patents, for that matter). When copyrights are flaunted by corporations and not by the artist, it becomes a debate of what’s more important — stockholder dividends, or protecting the artist’s needs?

‘Cuz from what I’m seeing, another war for independence is coming. But this one will cross nearly every border, involve almost everyone, and probably install a new form of class structure in the process. Suddenly, that remote cabin in the mountains looks a lot more appealing…

The year closed out on a more sombre note for me, in many ways. Much quieter, and I got to spend a lot of time with my family (which I cherish now, and cannot regret in anyway), but the future is a little less certain. I’m less concerned about that fact than I thought I would be, however.

On with the year that just was…

• Rang in the new year watching fireworks go off all over the Central Valley in Costa Rica (a spectacular sight, if you ever happen to be in Costa Rica at New Year’s)
• Had numerous run-ins with illness between The Monkey, myself, and Alex (and some far less pretty than others, lemme tell ya!)
• Experienced my first, bonafide, scare-the-crap-outta-me earthquake, measuring in at 6.2 at its epicentre
• In Costa Rica, travelled to:
  • Villa Blanca (Los Angeles Cloud Forest), three times
  • Arenal (for my very wet birthday)
  • Parque de Diversiones
  • Playa del Coco
  • Playa Hermosa
  • Playa Chiquita
  • Puerto Viejo
  • La Paz Waterfalls
• Had a few troubles with our trusty Suzuki, Dave, and spent more than a few bucks getting ‘em all fixed
• Managed to avoid becoming totally addicted to coffee, but still drank a lot of it
• Took pride in The Monkey starting school (yes, even though she wasn’t even 2 years old yet)
• Worked through the challenges of getting a startup business up and running; the stress took its toll on me and my family, and likely all lead to where I am at this very moment
• Travelled to Canada for a visa run, though it was originally planned as a family visit:
  • Barrie
  • Bolton
  • Oakville
  • And wee bit of Toronto (I had to go into the Toronto office) just for flavour
• Saw far too few sunsets on beaches
• Discovered great Indian food in Costa Rica
• Moved from our first apartment to a new apartment, after our condo management company couldn’t come to an agreement on a contract extension
• Got utterly screwed by the aforementioned condo management company, to the tune of about USD$1,500
• Celebrated 20 years of journalling/blogging with post #1,000 (total coincidence, I swear!)
• Did a Stampede-style breakfast for my co-workers
• Finally acquired my Temporary Residency visa … after realising that staying in Costa Rica long-term wasn’t an option for my family, and we’d decided to go home
• Waxed poetic on management and management style (perhaps too much so?)
• Cringed as The Monkey crossed into “The Terrible Twos” (which, thankfully, haven’t really been that bad)
• Finally snapped after running into a “Perfect Storm” of difficult project, dealing with the relocation company, organising the family, trying to sell the car, cancelling services, and making sure that what little money we had saved was properly moved out of the country before we left — I was an utter wreck at the end
• Ate far too many of our last meals in Costa Rica in a Denny’s
• Managed to survive the 19-hour ordeal of moving from Costa Rica; flying through Houston with a few bags, an irate cat in a bag, and a toddler hell-bent on doing her own thing; finally arriving in -18 degree weather in Calgary after 22:30 at night
• Moved back into a house we hadn’t seen in a year and a half, finding things we hadn’t seen in probably over three years
• Bought a 2006 Jetta TDI
• Critical Mass and I parted ways after about 9.75 years
• Landed a wonderful case of Benign Positional Vertigo on Boxing Day
• Realised that, yes, there are many things that Costa Rica has better than Canada … beyond the weather
• Rang in the new year year to come with a visit to the Calgary Zoo’s “Zoo Year’s Eve”, at -22 degrees Celsius

I’m missing easily a couple of months’ of detail in there, but the simple fact is that most of Q1 and Q2 last year were chaotic, busy, and stressful. I’m proud of what we all achieved, and I miss the people I left behind in Costa Rica. Time changes, and people have to change with them. As such, 2010 will be a year of change for me. I don’t see that as a bad thing, just that as with any human, change ain’t easy.

But change is exciting.