I’m so impressed with these guys.

I’ve bought stuff from Vistek.ca a few times. Although I always prefer to buy from local suppliers, these guys have great prices and quick service.

10 days ago I bought a new camera from them.  They pay the shipping and it showed up a few days later as promised.  Fantastic. 

This morning, as I was looking for something online, I discovered that they just put the very same camera on sale, reducing it by 500 dollars. 

Wow, that’s a big difference.  I figured I’d get on the phone and see if I could get them to adjust my price, even though the deals been done.

Unlike a lot of online sales operations I’ve encountered, I was able to reach a sales person right away.  I explained the situation, and without even a pause, he said he was pretty sure he could offer the savings, but had to check with his boss.  A few minutes later, I got an email confirming that indeed they would give me the reduced price, and credit my account.  Just like that.

I’ll say it again.  Wow.

It doesn’t get much better than that, and they’ve got my business locked in, that’s for sure.

This is by far the most fun I’ve had in days. This is a very cool applet that takes any web site url and turns it into a graphic.

Here’s what this blog looks like.

And the dots represent:

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

This story about one of the films at Cannes should make you feel a bit better about YOUR day.

Morally and metaphysically confused, unfunny, heavy-handed and as prone to waste, excess, idiocy and decadence as the emphatically allegorical world it imagines, it comes across as the dopehead nerd hipster’s alternative to ‘The Da Vinci Code’

Ok. I took the test.

Here are my results, eh.

***Your Linguistic Profile:*** 55% General American English 20% Yankee 10% Dixie 5% Midwestern 5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Poaching the Big Boys…
How big is the mobile phone business ? Big enough to scoop one of the world’s top bankers.

World Follower…
Even though Canada is a world leader in broadband connectivity, it’s wired connectivity. In the US, citywide wi-fi is all the rage. New York is seeing some interesting development, and here for Philly and New Orleans.Meanwhile, in Canada, proceed at your own peril. Maybe we should just let Starbucks do it.

iWiFi…
Stranger things have happened. The iPod seems to be saving the music industry. Maybe this is what will eventually drive citywide wi-fi.

Breaking story…
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Manitoba discovers a new “high-tech phone”. Wow, who knew ? You can use the Internet to call people.

Speaking of Manitoba…
Someone there should get onto these and make a bundle this summer.

Speaking of Canada…
Here’s what we’ll all be watching on TV next season.

If It Isn’t On Fire It’s a Software Problem…
LA’s most ambitious opera delayed due to computer. I guess it ain’t over until the FAT partition sings.

Broadcasters – Nervous Yet ?
Audio on the Internet grows by 50% from a year ago, and they aren’t listening to traditional radio stations online. Video on the Internet clocks 165% increase in 3 months.

Vinyl Never Dies, It Just Gets More Expensive…
When all we had were vinyl records, we longed for music that wasn’t filled with snap, crackle and pops. It’s been 25 years since the first CD players hit the consumer market. And still we’ve got vinyl envy.

Is this BC’s version of outsourcing ?
Why import 1600 keys of pot into the pot capital of Canada? The RCMP acknowledges that Mexican pot isn’t as potent as BC bud but “some people like domestic wines, and I guess some people like imported wines. There’s a market for this. That’s why it’s here.”

Last year Eileen and I produced How I Learned to Drive at Performance Works on Granville Island.

Today, that production received an amazing five nominations for the Jessie Richardson Theatre awards.

The nominations are in the small theatre category and include:
(drum roll)

Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role – Alan Morgan
Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role – Eileen Barrett
Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role – Kelly Metzger
Outstanding Direction – James Fagan Tait
Outstanding Production – Overdrive Productions

The web site for the production is online here.

This is an interesting example of how passion and people make things happen, not necessarily big budgets or access to cutting edge technology.

Overdrive Productions is the epitome of small theatre – it’s really just Eileen and I.  Our 2 boys ran the concession at the theatre, one of them had to stand on the cash box because he couldn’t see over the counter.  The actors and director and lighting designer all got involved because they were passionate about the script, and felt they could do it on a world-class level. Performance Works made it possible by partnering with us on the venue. Friends helped out on all sorts of levels, including helping put together the opening night goodies.

The production got rave reviews and it was gratifying to see critics acknowledge that good theatre can be done on small budgets. I’d like to personally thank everyone on the Jesse committee who nominated the production.

The awards will be announced June 19th at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver.

Wearing my At Large Media hat… 

One of the many benefits of working with Sara Bailey is that our ALM “Out Loud” newsletter looks better than ever. Here’s a screen grab of the first page – download the PDF by clicking on the image.

You can subscribe to the newsletter via the web site or grab the At Large Media RSS feed.

It would be great to think the Wall Street Journal picked up on some pithy comment or earth-shattering insight made here on bigsnit.com.

Turns out  my post about using a power washer to blast dandelions, and a neighbourhood friend, are my path to WSJ fame.

Here’s what happened.

Last weekend I noticed a ton of hits on the blog coming from the Wall Street Journal.  I don’t subscribe to their pay site, so I wasn’t able to follow the link back to see why I was suddenly getting all this traffic from WSJ.com 

Turns out my friend Keith Gardiner had commented on one of their articles about pesticide free lawn care, and suggested that “anything that gives a guy a chance to use his power-washer can’t be all bad” and tipping them to my post about blasting my front yard dandelions. They ran his comment and a link to my blog entry. 

See mom, this blogging thing isn’t a waste of time.

(actually, that’s a bit unfair.  My mom proudly tells everyone I have a ‘blob’)

Nathan Sellyn is guest blogging over on the Raincoast Books blog.

The neat thing is, he’s answering questions people send in.

So, if you’ve got a question for one of Canada’s hottest new authors (you’ll be able to say you knew him when), stop by the blog and fire off some questions to him.

PS: If you haven’t heard his podcast yet, check it out here.

An excellent article on the future of TV by Robert Young in Om Malik’s blog.

…there will be a mini-disruption in the near term. To be specific, it is likely that most of the hundreds of channels we get today via our cable & satellite subscriptions will disappear and there will be only 10 to 20 broadcast channels left standing. Here’s why…

Here’s the full article.

I’ve been shooting a lot of flowers this year, mostly because the garden keeps popping up with surprises.

So, here’s a special Flowers Screensaver.  Native resolution is 1920 by 1200 but it will scale to your screen or multiple screens, and it has a number of options you can change.  The the .zip file here – it’s 16 meg.

Sorry – windows only.

When we worked on the Get Your Vote On campaign last year, one of the applications we developed with Exponentia was instant polling via SMS.

At a live event, we could use our web display on big screens to pose questions, and let those in the audience vote in real time using their cell phone.

Kevin Millsip from Check Your Head had a brilliant idea on how to get people interesting in taking part. He suggested the first poll question: “Should the guy next to you buy you a beer ?”

According to The Register, Virgin Mobile in the UK is on the same page:

Virgin Mobile is offering its gig-going punters free beer and kebabs this summer as part of plans to be nice to its customers.Virgin Mobile punters attending certain youth-oriented events will be invited to text the word “beer” or “kebab” to a short code number. In return, they’ll receive a text containing a voucher for two free beers and a kebab.

So, if we had it to do all over again, maybe the question would be:
“Should the Virgin next to you buy you a beer?”

It’s official.

Despite some serious misadventure last year, the kind of antics that would deflate even the most brazen among us, PJ will not only be back, but will be the official VidFest 2006 blogger. It just goes to show you that this is a serious west coast party AND conference rolled into one.

PJ’s Vidfest blog is here.

Vidfest is here.

This isn’t some cheezy accessory – this is a full-on hardware mod for the iPod from the fine folks at Red Wine Audio.

We are very pleased to announce the first audiophile hardware modification to be offered for the Apple iPod… take the sound quality of the iPod to a level that is very competitive with high-end CD Players costing many times the price and lacking the features and benefits associated with a battery-powered, hard-drive based music source

Only available for the 4th gen iPod – mod cost is 199.00 USD plus shipping.

There’s an joke you can adapt to fit just about any profession, but for some reason it works perfectly for jobs in radio.

It goes like this.

A guy runs into another guy at a party.

They do the usual introductions and chit-chat.

After about 10 minutes guy #1 says, “Hey, did you hear the one about the radio announcer at the pool party?”.

Guy #2 says, “hey, watch it, I am a radio announcer”.

Guy #1 says, “ok, I’ll go slow then”.

I was reminded of this gem after reading Scientific American’s story about a promotional event at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Not quite the WKRP Turkeys from a Helicopter bit, but equally stupid; a Martini party…

When the event is dubbed Martini­fest–unlimited martinis for $30–the idea becomes even more questionable. Next, add a suspicious martini recipe, which included vodka and “drink mix”… the event was run by Clear Channel, the radio / billboard / concert-promoter giant, also working outside its area of expertise in an art museum. Finally, cram about 1,900 people into a space meant for about 1,400.. people threw up, passed out, were injured, got into altercations and climbed onto sculptures

SA’s analysis of the dangers posed to artwork from the chemicals spewed by Martini and appy filled party-goers is sadly hilarious.

From a quick walk around my front garden this morning.

Just when I thought I had kicked my Google Earth habit, out comes Atlas.

They’ve got a way cool interface and the ‘birds’ eye view’ feature is totally addictive interesting.

 
Hopefully they’ll get more aerial detail of Canada up soon, but in the meantime, get a bird’s eye view of your favourite spots in the good ole USA.  Atlas.

Tunes

You’ll need some music to go with your new Atlas addiction.  Check out Hype Machine, an audio blog aggregator that makes finding music super convenient.  These new services are starting to really make a difference in both finding new content and ease of use.

Plus Que Ça Change…

If sitting around watching tv makes you a couch potato, what does sitting around watching tv on the computer make you? Apparently, it makes you an animated potato…

Time Warner Inc.’s AOL and Warner Bros. units are running their first campaign to promote In2TV, a broadband television network offering free on-demand TV shows over the Internet.An animated potato is the main creative hero. The point is simple: The regular “couch potato” watches TV from the sofa, while this animated potato sees In2TV through a wireless notebook computer…       Read more and see a pic of the spud at dmnews

Shop Until You Drop

If you’ve got a taste for online shopping and just can’t get enough, here’s something for you.
The Scripp’s “Shop at Home Network” is selling its cable and online shopping network.

…internet side of the business was growing, but not the cable side; the unit had e-commerce revenue of $57.1 million in 2005, up 30 percent from Internet Retailer-estimated sales of $44 million in 2004.          Read the full story at Internet Retailer

Vonage gets to stay.

Less than a week ago I mentioned that I was going to try out Shaw’s new digital phone.

The verdict is in. And this service just isn’t ready for prime time.

Here’s why.

One of the key features of a telephone is that when people call you, they get through.

However, this hasn’t been the case.

My beta tester (my business partner) has grown weary of trying to call me on my ‘new’ phone only to get a message saying that there are no circuits available.

Now, if she was on the other side of the world, that might be ok, but she lives about 15 miles away as the crow flies. And this isn’t just one or two occurances. It’s been every day.

When calling out, people have complained about poor quality – certainly this happens with my Vonage phone as well – but Shaw has made a big deal about saying their Quality of Service is better.

Sorry Shaw.