The Blog According to Buzz

Okay, we got an iPhone announcement. When we actually get an iPhone is still up in the air.

Ted Rogers dropped the news in a press release earlier today.

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

An iPhone update is due this summer. So we will get version 2.0, or the original? The data plan issue still needs to be worked out, and whether or not they’ll hose us on the exchange rate. Rumblings for a 32GB iPhone 2.0 have it at $699 in the U-S.

How much will it be in Canada?? Well .. stay tuned, eh?

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Thanks to Chris Brogan for tweeting and blogging Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero video.

Its basic, your nose is on your face type stuff, but while the video was rolling, I scrolled through my inbox and, got it to zero.

Now I need someone to do a Desktop Zero video. My crystal clean screen has files and bookmarks all over it.

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Leo Laporte is the host of many podcasts, tv and radio shows about technology. His TWiT Network is one of the most listened to online, and he comes up to Vancouver 1 week a month to work on The Lab With Leo.

He loves his gear. He’s usually on the bleeding edge for buying the latest and greatest, sitting on waiting lists until something new is released.

But every now and again Leo waits and buys something a little further down the line, and when he does, it means the item is about to be discontinued.

He’ll buy the HD DVD player the day before the battle is lost to Blu Ray, he’ll buy a new iPod the day before the memory is doubled and the size is shrunk.

It’s called getting Leo’d, and it just happened to me.

I finally received my iPod Shuffle that I scooped on the Future Shop Boxing Day Sale for $59.99. A GREAT deal I thought. Nope.

Today Apple announced the price of the shuffle has dropped to $55, and a new 2 gig model is being introduced for $75.

Grrr.

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A lot of people found a way to e-commute today. Get things done from home with the kids instead of hiking up the skirt and pounding through the slushy puddles.

That’s fine, but could you do it everyday? e-commute, I mean.

Darren Barefoot does. He has a Vancouver based web marketing company called Capulet Communications. For the past 8 months Darren has been running that company remotely, from Malta and, most recently, Essouira, Morocco.

But you’d have no idea if he was in a trendy Railtown loft, or his ancient riad on the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Pretty cool. I profile Darren in today’s cyberbuzz. I’m working on a feature piece on his efforts for a magazine later this spring.

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Scrabulous.

That’s about it for me. I’ve long jumped the Facebook shark. Too many app spams. Too many people I don’t “know” on my friends list. I reconnected with the friends I was looking for, and don’t have anyone else I need to find.

It’s just kinda slowed down for me - except for playing Scrabulous. Now, that might be taken away.
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Lots of stuff to get to today, gang - here's what's up:

    - Woah! Someone got a haircut!! Check out the Crave Cam to see Kuljeet's new 'do.

    - The Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas. That means gadget mania.  Check out my cyberbuzz site for updates.

    - I hope you didnt choose HD DVD on Boxing Day.  In the battle of Hi Def formats, it looks like Blu Ray is going to win.

    - Want to save money? Like to print coupons? Check out SmartCanucks.ca.

    - Mr Blackwell is out with his list again. *yawn*

    - How celebrities should behave - Melissa Joan Hart and her family.

    - If they marry she'll become Hayden Panettiere-Ventimiglia. Mouthful.

    - Is this rock bottom for Britney?

    - Remember Lee Press-On Nails? Now there's Press-On Eye Shadow.

    - Luongo will be the starting goalie for the Western All-Stars at the NHL All Star Game in Atlanta.

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You know about Recycling. Take your cans and put them in the blue box. Call 604-RECYCLE to get some tips and find a place near you that will chip your Christmas Tree.

You know about eCycling. Take your computers and electronics to places that can responsibly dispose of them, or turn them into useful things for other people.

But what about Freecycling? Have you heard of that one?

Imagine if everything on Craigslist was free - that’s freecycling.

Basically if you’ve got something you don’t want, you offer it up and see if someone else needs it. If they do, they come and pick it up, no money changes hands and all is happy in the world.

I mean, be honest, most of the stuff we try to dump on eBay or Craigslist is just taking up space in our place. The benefit to us is being rid of the item, it’s almost a greater value than getting $10 or $20 or $50 for a nasty old couch or bookcase.

There are thousands of people already Freecycling in BC and there’s probably a group near you.

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I recently chatted with Dan Kesselring from Panasonic to get some tips on how to buy a digital camera for my column in 24hrs.

Megapixel is where a lot of people get confused. It simply refers to the dots in the image.

If you have a 7 megapixel camera vs one with 10, you’re really only going to see the difference if you’re using the camera to make very large prints, say beyond 19×13. Dan says really 5 megapixels is enough for most of us who are just printing 4×6 or archiving family memories

When it comes to specific features, “image stabilization should always be top of mind,” says Kesselring. “Its almost become a generic term, but there are different types and optical is providing the best form of stabilization.” [link]

A test done by a German company is now coming out with similar information. More megapixels does not equal more better.

The study actually finds that picture quality over the last 3 years has actually decreased as megapixels have increased.

But why? Well, compact cameras are supposed to be small and reasonably priced. Therefore small image sensors, e.g. format 7.5 x 9.4 mm or 5.4 x 6.8 mm, are built into the cameras. To increase the pixel count, the sensor has to be divided into smaller and smaller pixels.

The result is a decrease in sensitivity of the camera and an increase in noise because the amount of light collected by a single pixel is smaller. [link]

So as the CCD sensors have to stay small for the point and shoot, they have a harder time getting the larger amounts of data processed properly. The study found the optimum relationship between CCD and MP comes in at 6 Megapixels.

That’s got to be the reason so many more people are stepping up to Digital SLR. Me? I’m not quite ready, so I picked up the Panasonic FZ-18 instead. It’s $500 list price, but I managed to grab it on sale for $250 at Amazon.com. What a steal!

Check out some of the pictures I’ve been able to grab with it:

Since the FZ18 is kind of a “hybrid” between a DSLR and a point and shoot, it’s offering me the chance to just grab it and take a picture, or work with the settings for something more artistic.

For that sunset shot, I just pointed and clicked. Nice.

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Miss 604 did.

So did Meg.

After a little bit of stress, I bought one on Boxing Day (it was actually Christmas Eve, but it was a Boxing Day sale).

Anyhow, if you’re switching over to Apple - thank you.

Back in the middle of September, I swapped out my MSFT stock in my RRSP for some AAPL. Since then it’s +50%.

Today, 5 of the top 10 selling items on Amazon were from Apple and the stock closed over $200 for the first time.

When I’m retired, I’ll send you an iCard.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

FYI, in addition to the fun little ramblings on this site, I also have a blog at cyberbuzz.com

It’s the home to my print articles and radio shows. I’m working on rebuilding the archive, in the meantime, check out my new updates, including today’s article on the new Amazon MP3 store.

The cyberbuzz podcast has also been fed to iTunes, so you can subscribe to it as well.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?