Edward Kiledjian

Rad URL is an interesting website that lists the 100 most popular links being shared on Facebook and Twitter.

You can sort the list to see Facebook or Twitter only lists or watch the entire combined glorious list displaying the sentiment of the internet. The list is updated every 15 minutes but major changes to the list happen every  hour or two.

RadURL

As the holiday season approaches, you may be looking for a great all purpose camera and the Canon Rebel  SL1 will definitely not disappoint. It is called the world's smallest and lightest APS-C dSLR.

The Rebel SL1 is the smaller brother of the larger Rebel T5i. They both share the same 18MP sensor and DIGIC 5 processor.  Its fantastic that Canon was able to fit all of the t5i guts into such a small body and at the same time keeping most of the Rebel family buttons intact.

Typically most users jumping to this family of device are coming from point and shoot devices and are looking for better quality photos but also fast autofocus. The Rebel SL1 won't disappoint with the generation 2 of Canon's hybrid CMOS Autofocus system. 

Picture Quality

Even though I knew the SL1 contains the same guts as the T5i, I was expecting sub-par image quality but I was wrong. The device produced beautiful beautiful, vivid and sharp JPG images from ISO 100 to ISO 800. The in camera processing was excellent which means you won't have to save in RAW then spend time converting to JPG with a PC app. When you reach ISO 1600, you start to lose some of the finer detail and the inclusion of light artifacts.

As you continue to increase the ISO, the images become less sharp, you start seeing chromatic aberrations and you lose some of the vividness. The worst of it hits around ISO 12000.

The camera supports the Canon RAW format and at lower ISO (under 1600) the quality is comparable to the in-camera generated JPG. The higher the ISO the better it is to shoot in RAW so you can perform post-processing to improve the final results.

Conclusion

Overall I think this is a fantastic camera for the general camera user looking for a small and light dSLR. The design is small but easy to grip. Images up to ISO 6400 are wonderful even when using the in-camera JPG conversion feature. The screen is touch responsive and a good representation of the picture you will take. The new hybrid auto-focus is fast and accurate (little lag between press and take). Little chromatic aberrations and full HD video recording capabilities.

Are there any negatives? Yes Sir!

Although many may prefer the smaller frame, those with bigger hands may find it too small.the Autofocus illuminator is built into the flash which means the flash has to be enabled to use it. This is not desirable because I tend to prefer non-flash pictures when possible.

Overall an excellent purchase for most consumers and highly recommended. 

Knock is an iPhone app that allows you to unlock you Mac by simply knocking your iphone. You will also need to install their Mac app available for free on their site.

The iPhone app is currently on special at $3.99 on the appstore.

Installation takes a couple of minutes and voila. The iPhone app has to be started but doesn't have to be the active app when knocking it. (and your phone can even be locked).

This black magic uses low power Bluetooth and the transaction is done over a secure connection.

The company     is working  on a Windows version as well. 

Root Metrics performed an exhaustive 47,000 point network test in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to determine which network would be crowned king. The final results show that each city had a different winner. 

• Montreal - Bell
• Toronto  - Rogers
• Vancouver - Telus

They did point out that all 3 players offered reliable services throughout.  

A short video by the Government of Canada explaining that Canadians deserve more choice, more competitive pricing and better contract terms. 

15 bidders submitted bids for the upcoming 700mhz wireless auction, you can see the list here.  On November 8, it will publish the list of qualified bidders that have submitted the required deposit (those who will be allowed to participate in the auction). 

The official statement from the government was: 

"Today, Industry Canada published the list of applicants for the 700 MHz spectrum auction scheduled for January 14, 2014. This high-quality spectrum will soon be deployed across Canada, providing Canadians with dependable, high-speed wireless services on the latest technologies.

"Well before this summer's public debate on wireless policy, our Government introduced a number of measures to create more choice in Canada's wireless market and to defend consumers. As a result, prices have come down, the number of jobs in the wireless sector has increased and consumers have more choices. This trend will continue as a result of January's auction.

"In addition to this auction, our Government will continue to aggressively pursue policies that ensure consumer interests are at the core of all Government decisions." - link

The Pebble team seems to be working on something "important" that will be unveiled tomorrow (November 6). You are invited to watch the live stream. On the developer site, they say:

"It’s no secret that we’ve been hard at work developing better software for Pebble and this Wednesday, November 6th, we’ll be making a very important announcement. You’re invited to join our livestream event at 10AM PST to hear what awesome new things we’ve been working on to make Pebble a more robust and feature-rich platform. To tune in, visit https://www.getpebble.com on Wednesday morning after 9AM PST to obtain a link for the livestream. After the live broadcast hosted by Eric and our very own Thomas, we will be leading a Reddit AMA discussion at noon (12PM PST) to answer any lingering questions you may have."

I love a good surprise and can't wait to see what they will unveil.

It seems everything we buy these days is disposable, Disposable phones, tablets and e-readers. Imagine my surprise when the master disassemblers at iFixIt.com gave it a repairability score of 8/10. 

This means that the average person can easily replace the most common consumable (battery) or breakable (headphone jack) parts. And all of this with basic easily available tools (no esoteric pentalobe screws like Apple).  

The Google Nexus has has been selling on the Google Play store for 2 weeks now and most Canadian carriers list it as coming (Telus, Fido, Rogers, etc.) Now we learn that it may finally switch to shipping as early as this Friday November 8. 

None of the carriers have confirmed the release date or pricing but we expect it to sell for between $99-149 with a 2 year contract ($499 outright without a contract).  

In an effort to differentiate itself through better customer service, Fido launched a new scheduled customer service offering called Check-Ins. It is a way to get support (for account related issues) without having to wait on endless hold.

You can book your time-slot by logging into your online Fido account and choosing a date and time (up to 7 days out). 

Source: Fido.ca 

After a long and painful wait, IOS users finallt get some Google Now loving... The sultan of search release an update today to its Google Search App for IOS with brings notifications, reminders, voice response and much much more.

Wait... what? Voice search? Oh yes my friend. You open the Google search app and trigger it by saying OK Google then issue your command. The Google robot army will then respond accordingly.  (this feature requires an iPhone 4s or newer).

It can also trigger notifications using the IOS native notification system for appointments, reminders, news, tasks or unusually heavy traffic for your drive home.

Overall a wonderful update that warmed my heart

NOTE: The event started late and you can fast-forward to minutes 13.

Most stylus' have large tips which result in imprecise device interaction and an ugly overall user experience. Evernote wants more people to use its services and partnered with renown stylus designer Adonit to build the best stylus money can buy.

Here is the Adonit Jot Script for Evernote

This is a bluetooth connected pen with an incredibly fine tip

The pen was designed to work with Evernote's Penultimate app with advanced palm detection technology. I can't stress how important palm rejection is. Palm rejection means you can rest your hand on the screen while writing and the software is intelligent enough to disregard it. Because my Nexus 7 doesn't have it, it is impossible to do "good" handwriting on it.

Before you panic though, Adonit is making the enhanced functionality available to third party developers through its developer kit (I expect most ipad apps to include this going forward). 

Because the pen's advanced powers come from its Bluetooth connection, it needs juice and that juice comes from a user replaceable AAA battery.  

The Stylus can be ordered today (but will ship early November) for $75. 

Evernote says. Mobile auteurs can buy the stylus today for $75, and the corresponding Penultimate app is available for free.

You can pre-order it from Adonit  or from the Evernote Marketplace.