Technology & Business
Canadians hate the 36 month mobile phone contract
The CRTC is considering to create a national code for wireless services and had asked Canadians to provide input. A total of 1043 submittions were presented. It seems the most common complaint was the 36 month cell phone contract term that Canadians find excessive and that it stiffles innovation. The CRTC used twitter to thank participants and asked their followers to check back January 28th for the draft version of the code. CBC articled entitled "CRTC gets earful on 3-year cellphone contracts"
Kindle store comes to Canada
As a Canadian north of the border, we have had to rely on the US Kindle store until now. This meant we had a US centric portal with limited Canadian content and all transactions were conducted in US$. Amazon has finally opened a Canada flavoured version,were Canadian authors are prominently shown and we can pay in our own currency. Too bad we still can't get the full Amazon experience (many of the products sold in the US are not yet available in Canada, we can't buy the Kindle Fire HD, we don't have Amazon Prime, etc).
Save $50 on a Kindle Fire HD 8.9" today only
The Kindle is a fantastic device if you live in the US and have access to its ecosystem. Well now Amazon is giving you one more reason to buy one [today], you get a $50 instant rebate on the already cheap Kindle Fire HD 8.9" tablet. Use the coupon code FIREHD89 during checkout. I first spotted the deal on the Kindle Twitter account:
Facebook Tip - It's time to unfriend
Go through your facebook friends list and I guarantee you will quickly find a handful of people you don't know why you friended. It is a good habit to periodically review your friends list and unfriend people you are no longer interested in. Keeping a "clean" friends list means you are sharing your personal information (pictures, locations, personal relationships, etc) with the appropriate people. Q. If you unfriend someone, do they get notified? A. Facebook does not automatically notify people when they are unfriended but there are third-party programs that could generate lists of people who have unfriended you.
The best HDMI cables are the cheap ones
As we approach the holiday season, you're probably thinking about all the guests you'll have to entertain. I can't think of a better way to entertain the boys than with a new high quality TV. Just because you bought one of those new fangled really cool 3D TVs doesn't mean you have to fork over $100 for a "name brand" HDMI cable (regardless of what the teenage sales rep tells you). There are dozens of reputable blogs and audio video specialists that preach the same sermon.
Bring back the start menu in Windows 8 for free
Other related articles your may like to read: Bringing The Start Menu Back To The Windows 8 Desktop RetroUI - Bring Back The Start Menu In Windows 8 I recently discovered a new way to get the start menu back for free and improve the performance of your PC for free. When I was on Windows 7, I was using a free PC maintenance software called Soluto. I used Soluto to: Keep Windows up to date cut down boot time find out what programs are crashing find out what programs are using the most horsepower Easily install some of the most useful free software around After upgrading to Windows 8, I found out Soluto was compatible so I installed it then logged into their management web interface and saw a new option
Run any Android app on your Windows or Mac computer
Imagine being able to run [almost all] of your favorite Android apps on a standard Windows PC or tablet. Bluestacks does just that. Using a proprietary emulation engine, they allow you to run almost any Android app on your Windows PC. If there are some non PC android apps you absolutely love and can’t live without, you can now use them on your PC (or Mac or tablet). Windows 8 RT doesn’t have enough apps The biggest complaint I have heard about Windows 8 RT (aka Surface RT) is the lack of apps.
Corning unveils thin & flexible glass called Willow Glass
Glass is rarely an exiting topic but most tech analysts were extremely rilled up when we saw Corning's announcement of Willow Glass. It is a 100 micron thin flexible glass for LCD and OLED screens. This will allow manufacturers to come up with new and interesting mobile product designs... It seems that with all the flexibility and thinness, Willow Glass maintains the though Corning Glass qualities. Corning has said this will first be used in mobile phones. Here is hoping the Samsung Galaxy S IV uses this new product in wonderful ways.
Outage Analyser shows cloud service outages
Outage Analyser is a free website that compiles data from 150,000 Compuware Application Performance Management agents deployed at customer sites. This is an interesting administrator tool because it attempts to show the root cause of an internet service outage, regions that may be affected, dependent services and detected down websites. Each service provider has its own service status page (Amazon AWS, Google Apps health dashboard, Microsoft Azure Status Dashboard, Salesforce.com system status, etc). Outage Analyser is a neutral third party which attempts to aggregate most of that data (and more) and show it in an unbiased map.
Google apps & gmail will no longer be free for small business'
The Google blog has stated that the free Google Apps for business option is going away. Until now, a small business with fewer than 10 users could opt for the free version instead of the $50 per user per year business option. Google says this will be better for individual "who often have to wait to get new features while we make them business-ready" and better for business' "which includes 24/7 phone support for any issue, a 25GB inbox, and a 99.