that canadian girl

Latest adventures…

  • Synching iCal with PocketPC

    IT WORKS!

    That’s all I’ve got to say. I bought MissingSync from MarkSpace and it’s solved every synching problem I could ever have. I’m likely to use it to copy certain things over from the PC to the Mac, such as anything else stored within Outlook. iCal/Address Book/Mail just don’t seem to get along with bullying Outlook, so MissingSync will have to mediate the relationship!

    Seriously, now I have no reason to go back to my PC, and am sooo happy with the Mac! It’s great! … I just need more time to play with it, please!

  • Wondering where I've been?

    I’ve been giving my food blog a bit of tender love and care this weekend… and giving my brain a break from the computer as well…

    Friday we had raclette with some friends and I’ve decided I’ll put together THE official best raclette & fondue resource on the wibbly wobbly web! I’ll post here as well once I’ve done that. We ate way too much and way too well, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Then as if that wasn’t enough, Saturday night was spent at a friend’s BBQ, eating and indulging again. So now I’m up to my eyeballs in indulging. I think I might need a week of light miso soups and salads to recover… As I described it Friday, it was like a food hangover.

    And if this post isn’t satisfying enough for you as the only thing I’ll bother posting today before I slip into a nice hot bath and relax for a while, well… have a bananaphone.

  • Blogging vs Dogging?

    “More people know what dogging is than blogging, according to a survey which suggests that Brits are not as tech-savvy as might be expected.”

    Research conducted among taxi drivers, hairdressers and pub landlords – backed up by conventional market research of more than 1,000 adults in the UK – has found that seven out of 10 people don’t know what a blog is. Nine out of 10 don’t know what podcasting or flashmobbing are.

    Four out of 10 know what dogging is, perhaps due to the activities of certain celebrities. Only 49% of people know what a chav is, despite the widespread coverage they have received in both tabloid and broadsheet papers.

    So I could start explaining blogging, but if you’re reading this blog, you must already have an idea. And I could start explaining dogging, but I might just let the Beebs do it.

    The point this article makes is that outside of the media industry bubble, not very many people are aware of what a blog is. The fact is, new words are appearing at the speed of the evolution of culture (and by this, I don’t mean Intellectually Enlightening Culture with a Capital C, I mean “Queen Chavette Jordan” kind of culture…) and no one can keep up with them. We each keep up with the vocabulary that matches our lifestyle, so the odds of “cabbies, beauticians and landlords” needing to know all about podcasting and blogging are rather low.

    Oh and the other point the article makes is that Brits are a right bunch of perverts! 😉

  • Japanese Ronald goes sexy

    Has anyone seen what the new Japanese Ronald will look like?

    All I’ve managed to find is this article, which shows a teaser of what the new feminine, slim and healthy mascot will look like. I’m very curious to see how they’ll represent McDonalds using a bikini-clad lady…

    Listening to: The Cardigans – Carnival (I love snooping around other people’s iTunes collection, some real gems sometimes! Thanks Paul! ;))

    —-

    Ten minutes later…

    I found this pic!

    McGirl

  • Can any of you speak German?

    I need help solving this mystery. I’ve had +400 visits from a message board called Castplenum this month. You’ll find it here. If you speak any German, go take a peak and try to find out why they’re talking about my blog and linking to it. It’s been puzzling me for a month now, so I need to find out!

    In exchange, I’ll give you the next part of the much awaited “Stupid Google Searches of the Month” – Some had me laughing out loud by the sheer dumbness of the search string.

    I’ll just give you this one as a preview: “lots of knickers on stage charlotte church party in the park 2005 oxford.” Ooooh yeah we’re in for some fun this month.

  • Finding Nemo

    A few people have emailed or commented on the clownfish wallpaper Andrew has on his huge Mac Mini screen.

    The image is contained in the Nature set of Desktop images on OS X Tiger so unless you plan on buying a Mac soon, I can’t say I’ve seen the image as freely available anywhere, sorry guys!

    But here’s a fascinating National Geographic one of a clown fish peeking out of the anemone.

  • BitTorrent goes legal

    Had to happen, didn’t it? The same happened to so many other illegal music-sharing sytems that BitTorrent’s system was too good for the industry to pass.

    The idea? Gather movies, music, games, and software from Hollywood studios and indie producers alike and distribute them to consumers. BitTorrent would generate revenue either by selling ads within the content or charging a fee for the files.

    That’s a pretty dramatic turn for a technology that up to now has been so closely associated with illegal file sharing. BitTorrent was developed and released in 2002 by independent programmer Bram Cohen as a way to efficiently distribute the free Linux operating system that competes with Microsoft’s (MSFT ) software. But it was quickly commandeered by file sharers for illegal swapping of copyrighted movies and TV shows.

    Such a strong and popular system, BT created a whole new channel for itself and now, it’ll be made legit by asking people to pay for their downloads. Sounds really rather familiar, yet I’m not feeling that it’ll really be successful. BT may have shown users how easily they could get the content, but it’s also given them all a taste for free stuff.

    As long as Hollywood turns out big-budget pure-rubbish movies, I’ll be all for people finding the movies online for free. They’re simply not worth what we’re charged. When I find a truly good movie or music album, I’ll be more than happy to pay for it. Unfortunately, when it comes to movies, the good ones are rather sparse these days.

    I’ll be curious to see how much they plan on charging users. It’s likely it’ll be ridiculously expensive for a chunk of data that costs them nothing to distribute in comparison to a physical DVD. Not only are they likely to be overpriced but your average BitTorrent user doesn’t necessarily have a credit card to pay online, purely because of the age group they belong to.

    Bah, the idea seems to be riddled with problems, but the big bucks will do their best to make things go their way, as usual.

    (Found via Digg)

  • Comments working again

    If you tried to leave a comment in the past few days and haven’t succeeded, many apologies!

    Andrew tried so hard to stop spam from getting through to comments that he stopped comments from getting through altogether! Woops!

    But now everything should be working perfectly, so feel free to pour your heart out 🙂

  • Isn't it pretty?

    After a week of owning each a brand new Mac Mini, the verdict is a definite thumbs up!

    This one is Andrew’s, full-on with 20 inch cinema display, white wireless keyboard and Mighty Mouse. Please excuse the nasty wallpaper in the background – that’ll be dissapearing as soon as we get the courage to do an entire room of un-wallpapering!

    My computer setup looks a bit more low-key as I’m using a smaller and squarer flatscreen, and still have the clutter of a PC by my desk. But the result’s the same, a great little machine that does everything I need!

    Andrew’s favourite widgets: Hula Homer and Google Maps
    My favourite widgets: Sing that iTune! and Say Cheese (aggregates all my favourite cartoons)
    All available on Apple’s Dashboard page.

  • Been ripped off by Red Letter Days?

    If you’ve been ripped off by Red Letter Days because of the recent events, visit The Red Letter Days Ripoff Forum.

    As I seem to get quite a flow of Google searches relating to Red Letter Days, I thought I’d link to this forum. The purpose of it is to allow customers and suppliers to discuss how they successfully made a claim and got a refund or managed to use their voucher. It’s been started by a disgruntled Red Letter Days voucher holder who never got to take advantage of the event he’d booked because of RLD’s incompetence at managing its own money.

    See previous posts here, here and here for my thoughts on snotty Rachel’s failed business.

    Edit: Oh yeah forgot to say, if you go post/comment, keep it useful and polite. Flaming RLD for being run by a bunch of slapheads is fun, but not very constructive so keep the Rachel slander here, close to my heart, rather than on Red Letter Days Rip Off!