Author: dave Page 74 of 75

I’ve written before about RSS feeds and why they are important to writers, especially those of us with a strong interest in integrating technology into our daily affairs. One strong proponent of RSS has been Amy Gahran, a US writer with a specialty in online content. In a recent post to her Contentious weblog, called What Are Webfeeds (RSS), and Why Should You Care? Amy has expanded and revised an article she wrote a few months ago about RSS. (And which I referred to in that earlier post.)

Amy was also the person behind an online survey of bloggers to come up with a term that better describes what RSS is. In this new article, she introduces us to the winner, “webfeed.” She is an interesting writer and someone worth listening to if you care about how people get access and make sense of all the information that is available to them on a constant basis. It’s worth checking out what is happening.

This weekend, I’m participating in an annual ritual known as the championship weekend. For those of you who do not have children that play some sort of competitive sport, let me explain. In this case, the sport is basketball, and the participant is my youngest daughter, who is about to turn 16. She plays rep basketball.

Each year, her team forms in October, and begins training towards this ultimate weekend tournament. Beginning in December, and continuing for most weekends throughout the winter and spring, teams from all over the province gather for club tournaments. The various games played all count towards a mysterious ranking system, which ends up seeing the various teams into one of many divisions, depending on their win-loss record, points scored, teams played, etc. And finally, after hours of practice, exhibition games, tournament games, sweat, joy, heartbreak, anger, hurt feelings and simmering feuds, it all comes down to this one weekend of glory (hopefully.)

Kelly’s team, the Hamilton Wildcats, has had a frustrating season, to this point. They ended up ranked 35th in their midget girls category, with a 25-18 won/loss record, which placed them in Division 3 for the weekend. After a strong start to the season, her team ran into difficulty maintaining their momentum, although they regained their scoring (and winning) touch in the last few weeks. If all goes well, they could be peaking at just the right time. (Hope always springs eternal at this time of year, especially among the long-suffering parents who sit through every game.)

The Ontario Basketball Association championships for midget girls (ages 14 and 15) are being held here in London, ON (known by all as the OBAs). There are over a hundred teams competing from all over the province. Kelly has been part of this team for the past three seasons and this is her third trip here. But unfortunately, they have yet to win a single game – until Friday night that is…Last night, playing the last game of the day, Kelly and her cohorts cruised to a convincing 49-27 win over the Whitby Saints. The road to a championship (as CBS might put it) has begun.

Today, the quest continues. Two more round-robin games, then a quarter-final tonight. If they win, they’ll play two more games on Sunday.

Why am I including all this information in this posting? Well, I needed to do an Upload, since I’ve been neglecting my blog lately. Second, this is part of a theme that I want to explore in a few more essays. I’ll be talking about the things kids do, and the way their parents participate…More later.

UPDATE – The Wildcats won both games this afternoon…the quarterfinals are tonight.

FINAL UPDATE — Kelly’s team won a nail-biter in the semi-finals, then lost a close one in the finals. So they ended up with a silver medal. All in all, it was a great end to the season and a great championship weekend. And now…we all get to rest. The kids seem fine, all they had to do was play ball. But the parents are all basket cases. Way too much pressure!

There’s a story today on Salon.com called Don’t be afraid of the big bad Gmail. If you haven’t heard of G-mail, don’t worry. You will. It’s a new web-based e-mail service from Google that offers 1 GB of free storage to users. The trade-off is that your e-mails will show “contextual ads” from Google, similar to when you use their search engine. The idea that machines are scanning your e-mail to decide what kinds of ads to show you has some privacy advocates worried. The Salon article takes a look at what the service offers, how it works and what it means for you and me, the user.

Since The Daily Upload is hosted by Blogger.com (which is owned by Google) I received one of the invitations to be a beta tester of the new service. So I’ve signed up for an account and I’ll let you know what I think about it after I’ve used it for awhile. By the way, if you want to send me an e-mail to help me test it, my new Gmail address is dave.traynor@gmail.com.

It’s remarkable how fast time can slip by. I realize it’s been a few days since my last “daily upload.” Either I need to get more discipline, or I’m going to have to change the name of this blog.

This posting has a couple of messages. I received a note over the weekend from my brother in law in Vancouver. His sister has breast cancer and so he and his other sister have formed a team to particiapate in The Weekend Walk to End Breast Cancer. If you live in Toronto or Vancouver, you might want to consider participating, or perhaps sponsoring someone who is. My brother-in-law’s name is Darryl Condon, and he’s walking in Vancouver, if you want to sponsor him.

But the other reason I’ve highlighted this site is for all of you who are interested in cool applications of web technology. The site is elegant, and it effortlessly lets you find the person you want to sponsor and sign up for a donation with just a few keystrokes. It’s very well done. There are a lot of non-profits and companies who could benefit by getting user-friendly technology like this working for them.

So check out the site, and support a great cause.

Yesterday, I was wondering when, if ever, there was going to be a federal election. Now, it looks like the betting is on again for a June election, at least according to the Globe’s John Ibbitson. To whit:

Mr. Martin is campaigning across the country, endlessly reannouncing his election platform. Caucus members are being told to rent campaign offices. In Winnipeg, rumours are rife that Mayor Glen Murray is getting ready to announce his candidacy, something he is not prepared to do unless and until an election is imminent.

But Ibbitson warns that the Martinites appear determined to move forward with their election plans without healing the rift between the Martin and Chretien supporters, which could prove a significant problem down the road. Still, given the size of the mandate that Martin won from his own party at the convention, it’s hard to see this rift being more than just something the media is perpetuating. If the Liberals do manage to pull out a fourth majority, you can be sure that all will be forgiven. And if Martin does end up going down, he’ll pay the price for that as well.

If the country is going to go to the polls in June, as stories from the weekend are suggesting, it will be interesting to see how the campign develops, given that Canada will be in the grip of Stanley Cup fever for most of that time. That means the CBC newscasts will be running at odd times for most of it. This story could get interesting really fast.

OK…maybe I was a little harsh in linking Paul Martin’s meeting with aboriginal leaders as just another pre-campaign event. At least, Roy McGregor seems willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And there’s plenty more from all the major papers, see here and here. Time will tell whether this is a significant moment in history or not. The Liberals would certainly like to have us think so.

As a Canadian political junkie, I can’t help but feel a little envious at what’s happening with our neighbours. There’s something kind of refreshing about the way that the Bushies and the Kerryites are hammering away at each other, even thought the election is a long ways off. It’s just not the same up here, where we see our Prime Minister (not) campaigning every day at some event or another (Today, it’s a speech to aboriginals) across the country. Tomorrow, it will be another. Meanwhile, our MPs are back in Ottawa without any idea of what they’re going to be doing to earn their money. Will there be a spring election? Or will it be in the fall? Or will it be next year? Does anyone really care?

On the other hand, the gloves are off in the US presidential election. It’s happening and no one is arguing about when or where. George and John (and Ralph, don’t forget) are waging war with each other. The latest shots (beyond the usual rhetoric) is happening on the Internet. Bush’s supporters have launched a new, online video game called “John Kerry: The Tax Invader Web Game.” People who log on get to shoot down tax proposals using a little animated George Bush head that fires the bullets. Cute…

Not to be outdone, the Democrats put together an Internet Ad of their own, called Mistakes Were Made. It features video footage from last week’s televised press conference of the President struggling to come up with an answer to a question on what his biggest mistake was since Sept. 11. While he hems and haws, several suggestions come up on the screen, such as “We found the weapons of mass destruction,” and “Mission accomplished.” The ad ends with the message “Credibility is on the ballot this November.” More good stuff.

I like this stuff. But in Canada, we see self-serving ads from our political leaders that don’t really address much. They’re really soft, and they don’t give much credit to us as voters…then again, since more and more of us don’t vote, perhaps we’re getting just what we deserve…What I’d prefer is to know that we’re in a campaign and just be done with all this “timing” nonsense.

As George might say…”Bring ’em on.”

Last night, I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the latest Charlie Kaufman movie starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. I liked it a lot. It challenges the viewer and entertains. But the title refers to a poem by Alexander Pope and I wanted to know more about it. This is a good feature from the Chicago Tribune about “the eternal lament of Alexander Pope.” I wish I had read it before I saw the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d recommend it, although I had a hard time finding a theatre around here that was showing it.

Here’s a link to the entire poem courtesy of the University of Toronto.

If you’re interested in this blogging phenomenon, but you’re not sure what it might mean in the larger picture, you’ll be interested in this interesting series posted by Amy Gahran, who hosts the Contentious weblog. Amy is a pioneer in the online content business and is a tireless evangelist. Last week, she hosted a panel discussion on blogging for a conference in Colorado and then went home and turned the whole discussion into a very interesting online report. This is the kind of effort that all of us benefit from and it speaks to why the blogging phenomenon is so interesting to watch.

There are some interesting views expressed here, some I agree with and some I don’t, as with most things. But overall, the level of discussion is top-notch and well worth investing some time in.

OK, so I used to work in the telecom sector, and maybe that’s why this story is more interesting for me than it might be for you…but it galls me to think that the US, which usually lags behind Canada’s telecom industry, has embraced the idea that consumers should be able to keep their phone numbers when they switch providers. Doesn’t that seem like a no-brainer to you? But according to this story in the Globe and Mail, it’s not going to happen any time soon.

It turns out that we have regulators in this country who will only consider mandating something like this if the companies want it…Right now, the companies are fighting for new customers, not existing ones. And if they start poaching from each other, number portability will be important. But for now, since the companies don’t want it, the CRTC won’t do anything about it. Yet in the States and Britain, it’s a reality already. Why? Because their regulators think that consumers’ interests should be driving issues like this…

Makes sense to me.