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Down with AT&T!

This is what happens when you have no real, substantial, competition in your marketplace. In most of the US, as I am led to understand, AT&T is the "last-mile" copper provider, but as is the same with Bell in Canada, they must lease that copper out to other companies who wish to provide services on it to allow for open competition. Problem is, that except in the major markets, they don't have any real competition.

So now they change the terms of their internet service contract to a text that basically says, "talk bad about us and we'll cut you off."

Initially I read this on BoingBoing Saturday when it was posted, and was maddened at least enough to repeat "glad I'm not in the US" a few times, but this morning I've heard about it from several sources again, Stacey's shared items feed, and Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech podcast both come to mind right now.

Good to know that others are jumping on this, not that I'm at all convinced it will change anything.

Mailplane

If you're a Mac user and a Gmail fan, I would highly suggest you head over and check out Mailplane. This application adds all of the functionality to the Gmail user interface that I've ever thought was missing.

Basically, it's a separate app that presents you with a browser window that shows your Gmail account...all of the widgets of course now use proper Mac styles, and allows more advanced interaction through the use of buttons on the toolbar and drag'n'drop functionality.

For example, need to send a partial screen shot to someone? Start composing your message, click the screen shot button, and drag the area you want to send. Nice and simple.

Have multiple Gmail accounts? No problem, just double-click each account in the drawer to switch between them. (It also offers the possibility to add all passwords to the Mac keychain.)

Full Growl integration is also nice as I use it as my master notifier on my system.

Mainplane is in beta right now (invitation required, but it only took me 24 hours to get one sent to me), it will be shareware when it hits public release. I'll definitely be dropping the small cost on it...I'd argue that it has saved me or Canadian Tire that much money in the few days that I've been using it.

Fixed.

Okay, so I didn't happen to try that feature out properly before I posted about it. I was always connecting from an authenticated browser session so the image always came up for me.

I've fixed it now by having the camera send pics every minute to another web server and the image you're seeing is coming from that.

I realize the picture is tiny...I'll try to find a way in the future of integrating it onto the blog in a larger format. Watch for the camera moving and scanning the surroundings!

New Feature

Not like it's all that interesting...but on the right you'll now see a live picture from out the front of my house. I've started mounting embedded Linux network cameras around my property to provide some extra security. (They do all the cool stuff like motion analysis, picture emailing, text messaging, and mag-switch monitoring so they can tell me the open/closed state of the doors in the house.) Yay Linux!

Update: Ooooh, and I forgot the best part. It's also full of PTZ goodness...so if someone is walking up the stairs the camera will move to zoom in on the stairs, take pictures, and email them to me and SMS my cell. Then it moves back to the wide shot again.

Wii

Okay, Wii = the coolest thing ever. And I got one...just happened into Futureshop and they had one left in their lockup. Now my arms are so sore (after 6 hours of Wii boxing) that I cannot move them anymore.

Ewww.

It's so humid here right now that I'm sitting here, in my AIR-CONDITIONED lab, and my fingertips are sweating. Yes, my fingertips.

Conversations on a Theme

For those of you unaware Lennoxville (or, post-LV) types, you should know that the staff at BU is currently on strike. It started last week while I was at OLS. Originally it was supposed to start in August but was advanced because the union said that the administration was going to terminate 15-20 people. It turns out that this isn't true, at least according to the management I spoke to today...it was going to be a very small number of jobs that would be actually 'ended', but there would also be a number of people retiring who would not be replaced. Anyway...'truth' is a very bendy line in a situation like this...there's plenty of propaganda vomit coming from both sides.

I've been writing about this in Facebook, in a group that the Poutine Press set up to discuss (nay, provide groundless support for) and Nelly Khouzam (a prof of mine...and someone who used to head the union) sent me an email last night. Reprinted with her permission:

Dear Scott,

I have just spent some time reading all the material on facebook concerning the strike, and I was quite saddened to read your messages. I think you have a very wrong idea about what the APBU is about and stands for. The records office is actually understaffed, and if the employees who work there did not go as far beyond the call of duty as they do, things would be a lot less smooth than they are presently. The APBU does not protect the lowest common denominator. We work to ensure that everyone is treated with fairness and equity. I have been active on the APBU Executive for 9 years, and became so after I was treated unfairly by the administration, and the APBU helped me. I would strongly argue that I do not represent the lowest common denominator. I understood and appreciated 9 years ago what the APBU stands for and I decided then to put a lot of my energy into supporting and defending their principles. I would also argue that I have done this at no expense to my main job, which is serving the students and accompanying them
in their education and learning at Bishop's.

I would be more than happy to spend time with you, if you so wish, to try and rectify some of the misconceptions you have about the APBU,

sincerely,

Nelly Khouzam
Professor, Computer Science
Past President, APBU
Member of the APBU Executive
Member of the APBU Faculty Negotiating Team
Member of the APBU Staff Negotiating Team
Member of the Faculty Evaluation Committee
Former member of the Bishop's University Executive Committee of Corporation
Former member of Senate
Former member of the Senate Planning Committee
Former Chair of the Computer Science Department
and many others.

And my response:

Hi Nelly,

It should go without saying that I don't consider my statements as a direct reflection of you.

My disagreement is with unions as a whole, and because of my affiliation with Bishop's, with the APBU specifically. I have seen, either through poor PR from the union or a lack of credible examples, very few points which would cause me to feel support for _this_ union when in general I lump them all into the category 'evil'. Perhaps evil is too strong a term and certainly its alignment with 'chaotic' is not correct, but I use it to express my absolute distrust in whatever motive they purport to have.

Forgetting everything else I feel about them, unions support the weakest of the group so as to bring the standard of work down, and for this alone I can never support them.

This said, I would be happy to meet with you at any point to discuss this further as I would always prefer to be well-informed, however I would find the possibility remote that you may change my mind on the larger subject. I am on campus every day now during the week, most likely in the mornings.

I'm going to take her up on the offer to speak about this further. Details of that conversation will follow on this blog in the next few days. As I wrote, I would always like to be better informed (you know, that whole "information is the only thing that really empowers" stuff).