Reflecting where the water meets the sea

Watching the waves
Grand Bend, ON
September 2013
For more reflective Thematic, please click here

The day was windy and not altogether ideal for being at the beach. But this is Canada. And as long as it isn't snowing, we'll be out there (and even then...) Because you can't choose the weather, and you never know what the next day will bring. Or the next.

So you take advantage of it now. And if you have to put on a hooded sweatshirt as the wind whips the sand in your face, so be it. It's what being alive is all about.

I'm guessing this gentleman was having similar thoughts as he sat at the end of the pier and watched the crashing surf. I'm also guessing the swimmers in the distance reached the same conclusion. Live for today. Suck up as much as you possibly can. Because you never know.

Your turn: What's he thinking?

On the brilliance of friends

"I am doing the best I can with the equipment I have to understand this crazy thing called life."
Dan Brown

I often post quotes to the blog because, let's face it, we all need as much inspiration as we can get (click here for all quotes-tagged entries.) The quotes I choose are usually things I've found online, typically said or written by relatively famous people - usually strangers, too.

I was chatting online with my friend, Dan Brown, last night, when he shared this gem. And I realized that great quotes don't always have to come from afar. So I'm going to do my best to include perspectives from folks I know.

Your turn: Got a quote from a friend? Or your own? Do share!

Ontario Budget 2014: Nowhere near enough

One of the privileges of being a journalist is you get to do gratifying things with some pretty brilliant people. Yesterday was no exception.

Our provincial government here in Ontario released its latest budget yesterday afternoon. Premier Kathleen Wynne is hanging on something of a thread as her minority Liberal government's future sits in the opposition NDP's hands. If they support the budget, it's business as usual. If they oppose it, we're going to the polls.

As Finance Minister Charles Sousa walked Queens Park through the budget document, I tore through the PDF and looked for perspectives on what it could mean to the province's tech sector. After quickly pulling the key talking points together, I popped on-air with Mike Stubbs on London's 1290 CJBK and we quickly talked it out. For what it's worth, I did this from my wife's classroom, using my laptop tethered to my BlackBerry, as I sat in a desk that was about three sizes too small for my not-overly-large frame.
Mobile technology rules.)

Mike had been quarterbacking fast-response coverage of the budget with a team of folks ranging from the CJBK newsroom to CTV London reporter Cristina Howorun to Candice Malcolm, Ontario Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The audio package is available here, and yet again I'm reminded how lucky I am to do this.

Update - May 02, 10:18 a.m.: It's official. Ontario is headed to the polls after NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced her party would vote against the budget. The move signals the beginning of the end of the minority Liberal government.

Her tweet says it all: We cannot support a budget that is irresponsible and a gov't that is unaccountable. We will not being voting for this budget. #onpoli

Ladies and gentlemen, start your lawn signs and robo-dialers. Here we go...

Internet Explorer - businesses pay the price

This Internet Explorer weakness thing gets more fun by the day. PwC yesterday released the results of its 6th annual Digital IQ Survey, and the numbers highlight a significant problem in Canadian business: Companies want to be more tech savvy, and they recognize the need to do so. But they fail to act on it. Which leaves them uncompetitive. And exposed.

Periodic upheavals like the Heartbleed bug and the IE vulnerability don't help matters. So to illustrate the risks and the costs, I wrote a piece for Yahoo Canada Finance:

IE vulnerability exposes growing Canadian knowledge gap

I'm guessing this is all fun and games until someone hacks you into the Dark Ages.

This just in: At 10am PDT today, Microsoft released the fix to patch the known vulnerability in IE (CNET, blog entry from Microsoft's Dustin C. Childs). Surprisingly, it includes Windows XP. Download it immediately. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Saying goodbye to summer

Reflected not-quite-glory
Grand Bend, ON
September 2013
Thematic. Reflective. Here.

This wasn't the ideal day to come to the beach. It was cold, grey, and windy, and the red-flagged surf threatened to carry foolhardy swimmers out to sea. Or whatever out-to-sea really means when you're beside one of the Great Lakes.

But none of that seemed to matter. Because it was the last full day of summer, and we've always gone to the beach on this day to ease the transition from carefree vacation to structured rest-of-the-year. Days like this are special because they remind us that moments like this are fleeting. We don't get enough of them, and they slip into history all too easily. Some iffy weather wasn't going to keep us away.

So when we were done enjoying the not-so-warm sand, we headed up the main drag of this resort town for one last feel of the place before leaving it behind for another season. It's always bittersweet to say goodbye, but with a little luck from the universe we'll be back there before long.

In the meantime, I wandered around with my camera and tried, apparently vainly, to capture some snippets of the place before we headed back home. I'll try to do a little better on our next visit.

Your turn: When was your last beach day? What was it like?

On stepping outside the worn path

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."
Matsuo Basho

Walking through the rutted paths blazed by others gets old pretty quickly, anyway.

Stop using Internet Explorer. Now.

Hot on the heels of Heartbleed, the web-based vulnerability that generated global headlines and worry earlier this month, we now have our next big technological weakness. This time it's Internet Explorer, the browser that ships with every version of Windows.

Researchers have revealed that IE versions 9, 10 and 11 - which currently runs on 26% of all the PCs in the world - suffers from something called a Zero Day vulnerability. This makes it easy for hackers to launch socially engineered attacks that trick users into visiting fake websites that subsequently infect their machines. Older versions of IE, dating back to version 6, are also at risk.

Following the end-of-support for Windows XP, this is the first major incident where a known weakness in XP (IE ships with all versions of Windows, and is the default browser) will not be patched or fixed by Microsoft. And just like with Heartbleed, we CAN protect ourselves. Here's how:

• Stop using Internet Explorer. Immediately. Any version of Windows and any version of IE: just stop using the browser.
• Switch immediately to an alternate browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (both are free downloads and can be installed in well under 5 minutes.)
• As soon as Microsoft has a fix available for your computer (no ETA yet, but I'm seeing reports that indicate we might have to wait until May 13), download and apply it if you're running Windows Vista, 7 or 8.
• Download and install Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 4.1. It isn't the ultimate fix, but it's better than nothing.
• If you're running XP, download and use an alternative browser, and do NOT use IE again. Ever.
• In all cases, make sure you're using security software on your computer, and that it is regularly updated.

If you needed another excuse to get off of XP, this is it. And if your version of Windows is newer, it's just as well to start using Chrome and/or Firefox exclusively.

Fun stuff, isn't it?

Related media:

• Spoke live with CTV News Channel's Jacqueline Milczarek. Video here.
• Was interviewed for Bryan Bicknell's report on the CTV London 6pm newscast. Video here.
• Chatted with Mike Stubbs on 1290 CJBK London as part of our weekly tech rundown.
• Spoke with Charles Adler on 680 CJOB Winnipeg.
• Talked with Angela Kokott of NewsTalk770 Calgary for our weekly Tech Tuesday segment.

Thematic Photographic 292 - Reflective

Reach for the sky
London, ON
December 2013

I've selected this week's Thematic theme, reflective, because I was flipping through my recent archives and realized I had a ton of window, mirror and similar reflective pics. It's funny how that happens, because I didn't consciously set out to shoot reflective scenes, yet for some reason I ended up with a surplus of them.

Is this the universe trying to tell me something? Perhaps.

Whatever the reason, we'll be shooting into glass and other reflective scenes for the next week. Are you up for it?

Your turn: Shoot a reflective shot - as always, how you choose to interpret the theme is entirely up to you. Post it to your blog or website (or Facebook, Twitter or Instagram stream, or anywhere else, for that matter) and leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Pop over to other participants to share the photographic joy, and feel free to drag in a friend or ten, because photography is always better when there's more of it. For more info on how Thematic works, click here. Otherwise, I'll leave the rest to your optical brilliance. Have fun with this one, gang.

The sun shows its face

I'm very much a creature of habit. I crave even the most seemingly trivial rituals because they give order to things that seemingly have no order, and ground me when all hell is breaking loose.

To wit: When I have an interview, the drive to and from the studio is an integral part of the process.

On the way there, it's all about getting my head into the game. By the time I get in the car, I've already reviewed my notes and research materials six ways from Sunday. My laptop is packed in my backpack, loaded with notes that I almost never need to use in-studio, but still tote along because it makes me feel a little better just to have them with me.

As I back out of the driveway, I pick the right tunes and begin to methodically drill myself on potential questions. I spend the entire drive thinking through the interview, anticipating angles and talking myself through potential responses. I scenario-play the discussion to get a feel for it. If it's a particularly unique interview or show, I'll often mentally snapshot scenes along the way, almost as if I'm recording the moment, just because.

Door-to-door, it's just under 10 km, and it takes, on a bad day, about 15 minutes to get there. By the time I get to the parking lot, I feel as if my brain has already patterned the discussion, and all that's left is to flip on the red light and let it rip.

The way home is all about decompression. Weather permitting, I slide the sunroof open and slowly cruise down from the hilltop studio. I play back the interview in my mind for the first couple of blocks, almost judging myself in the process. On good days, I almost feel like I'm floating, as it's hard to believe I get to do this, at this level.

Once I've boxed the hit up, I turn the tunes up and and enjoy the rest of the ride home. It's a rare snippet of alone time, a moment to reflect before I get back to the home office and have to get back on the keyboard and the phone.

Why am I bothering to share any of this? Because I had an interview on Saturday night that went particularly well. The discussion flowed easily, and the anchor managed to make it both light-hearted and detail-filled - the kind of interview that sets the bar for everything else. The late evening sky was grey, so I left the sunglasses in their holder and hit the road.

As I reached the halfway point home, I noticed an incredibly bright spot in the sky to my left. The sun had emerged from the grey in a tiny sliver of cloudless sky just above the horizon and, in the few seconds remaining before it sank out of sight for good, had become a massive, deep orange ball.

I couldn't get a picture because I was still driving, so the only photo I got was the one that burned itself into my brain. But as I squinted in the few seconds before it sank out of sight, I smiled at the serendipitous timing that put me right there, right then.

It wasn't part of my normal post-interview ritual, but I'll take it all the same.

Getting metaphysical in the fruit aisle

Don't mess with Mother Nature
London, ON
December 2013
Thematic. Chaotic. Here.

After a long hiatus, I'm apparently back to terrorizing grocery stores. As part of my exhaustive review of the BlackBerry Z30, I of course had to make sure its camera passed muster. And what better way to do that than a trip through the fruit bins of the local big box food store?

The amazing thing about stuff grown from nature is how it mixes the random with the ordered. The texture alone seems to offer nothing even approaching order. But the longer you stand there and ponder the metaphysical "why" of a simple fruit, you begin to realize it's anything but chaotic. Billions of years of evolution ensured this particular fruit would grow in this particular way. When you zoom the lens way back, what initially seemed chaotic is, indeed, rather orderly.

Or so I like to remind myself when I get home and tuck into this rather delicious example of nature's chaotic-yet-orderly perfection. I guess I'm just weird that way.

Your turn: Your favourite fruit is...?

#TechSeven - Facebank, iPad fades & Netflix pricing

My weekly Friday afternoon tech talk with Barry Morgan on Montreal's CJAD 800 radio station this week was chock full of geeky goodness. In case you missed it, here's a rundown of the major topics we talked about:

ONE - Facebook wants to be your bank

Would you trust Facebook to be your online bank? You may soon have the opportunity to find out first-hand.

A Financial Times article (additional link here) quotes unnamed sources as saying Facebook is asking Ireland's central bank for permission to launch an electronic wallet that would allow users across Europe to store and exchange money online.

If this gets the go-ahead, it would signify an important milestone in social media's evolution from means-of-sharing-trivial-snippets to a full-blown online utility that's indispensable to everyday life. At the same time, I think this begs a couple of fundamental questions: why would Facebook be doing this in the first place, and should we trust it to be the online platform of choice for our most critical financial transactions?

To the first question, why? 1.2 billion reasons, really. Fully 1 in 6 people on the planet now use Facebook. And if Facebook can upgrade them from status updates to full-on financial transactions, it stands to make a lot of money in the process. This is especially critical now that Facebook is a publicly traded company, with investors who care about growth and profit.

And the pot at the end of the rainbow is a big one indeed. According to Gartner, mobile transactions will grow 35% per year between 2012 and 2017, and the market will hit 450 million users and $721 billion by 2017. Here's some good background on what's driving Facebook's moves here.

Traditional banks, understandably, want a piece of this, and have dipped their toes in the online transaction waters. Canadian banks including RBC and CIBC have all partnered with carriers like Rogers and Bell to launch mobile payment programs - but they haven't fully gone mainstream yet, and most Canadians still haven't broken their addiction to traditional means of payment, namely credit and debit cards, and cash. Facebook's massive size (27 million users in Canada alone, far more than any one bank or carrier) means it could hit critical mass far more quickly.

The move comes as Google adds a payment option to its Gmail service - additional background here - for its half-billion users, and Apple makes moves to include mobile payments in its next major update to its iOS mobile operating system. The battle lines are being drawn.

And then there's the second question around trust, security and privacy. We've already seen a number of high-profile hackings of e-mail and social media services. Our propensity to store all our most confidential data in our inbox and social media accounts doesn't help matters. Facebook also has a somewhat checkered reputation on the privacy/data stewardship front, so any moves to become the e-wallet provider of choice will have to be accompanied by significant assurances that they've learned to treat our data with care.

I wrote about the perils two years ago in an article for Yahoo Canada - Mobile wallets hold promise and peril- and those worries remain as valid today as they were then. Facebook Canada, in particular, has been especially vocal about the global company's moves to become a trusted partner, and will figure centrally as the company further fleshes out its m-commerce, e-wallet plans.

TWO - Is it game over for Apple's iPad?

Apple announced its latest quarterly results, and to no one's surprise it raked in record revenues and profits. A stock split - designed to make shares more affordable for regular folks - and a boost in the dividend sent shares soaring.

That's the good news. The bad news: iPad sales are DOWN for the first time since the iconic tablet was first introduced in 2010. In the year-ago quarter, the company sold 19.4 million iPads. This last quarter? 16.35 million. That's down almost 16 per cent.

I wrote an article for Yahoo Canada: Fading iPad sales mark the end of Apple’s big bang era

CEO Tim Cook tried to explain the drop, saying variations in the supply chain, and a big backlog of iPad minis after the holiday season rush, contributed to the wonky numbers. But in the end, weakness in a flagship product is worrying for the company's longer-term prospects. Could your next tablet be an Android-powered device instead?

My thesis: Folks who have iPads tend to really like them - and don't see much need to replace them every year or two. Also, everyone's waiting for the Next Big Thing from Apple. It could be either a watch, a TV, a fitness device, something for the car, etc. And when it launches, they expect it to end Apple's long-ish period since its last major new category-creating product (the iPad) and power its next major chapter of growth.

Unfortunately, relying on the tech equivalent of a hit record is so last decade. Going forward, Apple's best prospects lie in larger numbers of smaller products, all of which somehow connect to its current iPhone (and by extension iPad) franchise. Software will allow the company to truly differentiate itself from its competitors, and it's only a matter of time before Apple-enabled cars make it a no-brainer for drivers to buy Apple devices, too, so that they can get the most out of them.

So if you really like iPads, buy one now before they're radically redesigned in an attempt to get us to want to upgrade. And if you were planning on camping out for a week later this year to buy the first on your block to have an iWatch, you may want to cancel those plans. The future Apple just won't work that way anymore.

THREE - Game Boy turns 25

We had a big anniversary in tech this week, as Nintendo's iconic portable game machine, the Game Boy, celebrated its 25th birthday. When it was released on April 21, 1989, no one knew it would go on to sell 118 million copies - and another 501 million game cartridges - and revolutionize the world of portable gaming.

No one also suspected it would legitimize the idea of portable electronics. The Game Boy wasn't the first portable gaming system, but it was the most well thought-out, with great performance (for its time), great battery life, and the kind of toughness that today's smartphone buyers wish they had. Indeed, much of today's smartphone revolution wouldn't have been possible if not for this single breakthrough product.

It also turned a strange little game from a Russian developer, Tetris, into a worldwide phenomenon, arguably the first virally popular mobile game. Tetris shipped in the box with the Game Boy, and it legitimized the practice of launching a device or platform with strong software - the killer app, if you will. Today, we may look back at the Game Boy's primitive technology and laugh, but there's no denying how important this one product was to establishing many of the fundamentals of today's mobile economy.

FOUR - And YouTube turns 9

Still with the anniversaries, nine years ago this week (April 23, 2005), some then-unknown guy named Jawed Karim uploaded an 18-second video to a then-unknown website called YouTube. At the time, Twitter hadn't yet been invented, Facebook was still a largely unknown service for students only, and MySpace was the only social media game in town. YouTube.com was actually registered on Valentine's Day 2005, and went live to the public a month after the first video was posted.

And what was in this video for the ages? A trip to the San Diego zoo to visit the elephants. His take?: "The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks."

Since then, of course, Jawed, who co-founded YouTube, sold the service to Google for $1.65 billion. So I'm guessing he can buy the entire zoo if he wishes.

His little video literally started the viral video revolution. Yet as viral videos go, this one did well, but it isn't YouTube's top video, not by a long shot. It's had 14 million views, 130,000 likes, and 7,000 dislikes.

But without it, we would have never had Gangnam Style.

FIVE - Netflix prices could be going up

It's probably the best entertainment value in the universe. 8 bucks a month, all you can watch, any device, anywhere. Movies, TV shows, documentaries, anything: as long as you have the bandwidth, Netflix has stuff for you to watch. It's the single most successful online streaming service, the Kleenex or Coke of the digital content age, and the one that kickstarted the chord cutting revolution. Because of Netflix, more and more of us are getting rid of conventional cable and satellite subscriptions entirely so we can watch content on the cheap online.

Well, that screaming deal may not be so screaming anymore. Netflix has given its biggest hint yet that it could be getting set to raise prices by a buck or two a month. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells all but confirmed they're about to raise prices:

“In the U.S. we have greatly improved our content selection since we introduced our streaming plan in 2010 at $7.99 per month. Our current view is to do a one or two dollar increase, depending on the country, later this quarter for new members only. Existing members would stay at current pricing (e.g. $7.99 in the U.S.) for a generous time period. These changes will enable us to acquire more content and deliver an even better streaming experience.”

Even at $10 a month, though, it's hard to find a better deal anywhere. Still worth every penny. And if the extra revenue lets them buy more and better content - and continue to produce groundbreaking new shows like House of Cards - then it's a price more of us will likely be willing to pay.

SIX - Charge your smartphone...in a TAXI?

We've all been there: you're heading out for a night on the town and you realize you forgot to charge your phone. If you're taking a taxi in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver, the solution soon might be as simple as plugging in.

Telus is partnering with Play Taxi Media and certain taxi companies in each city (Ambassador Taxis in Toronto, Taxi Union in Montreal, Mayfair Taxi in Calgary and Blacktop & Checker Cabs in Vancouver) to install charging stations in about 1,000 taxicabs. The plug-in stations are free to use - well, aside from your taxi fare - and are accompanied by a screen in the headrest that plays ads and other content.

The partnership plans to expand the program to other taxi companies and cities, as well.

The stations can recharge a tablet, as well, but I don't want to imagine how long you'd have to drive around to fully top off an iPad Air. That would be one expensive cab ride.

SEVEN - Glow-in-the-dark roads

It's a common problem, especially in Canada, with its long stretches of highway between distant cities: how do you maximize visibility for motorists and keep them safely between the lines? The Dutch may have a simple answer: glow-in-the-dark road paint.

They're using a 500-meter stretch of the N329 highway in Oss to see if it works. They've added photo-luminescent powder to the road paint. It charges up during the day, then glows once the sun goes down. In its current form, it'll glow for up to 8 hours - not quite all night long, but better than the barely-visible lines that we're stuck with today.

Future versions of the technology could add other capabilities - like notifications when the surface is about to ice up or that hazards may be ahead. It could also allow direct-to-vehicle communication. Smart cars. Smart roads. Now smart paint. Neat.

We'll be back on the air next Friday at 2 p.m. with a whole new set of craziness from the world of tech. If you're in Montreal, tune in at 800 on the AM dial. Online, point your browser to player.cjad.com for the live stream.

On learning to live...differently

"You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."
Anne Lamott

Hardly a day goes by that I don't have one of those moments where something triggers a thought of what once was, of what we've lost. Indeed, who we've lost. The triggers can be anything - something someone says, a scent, a song, a feeling of less-than-full-balance, whatever - and they often hit you when you least expect it.

And yet again I'm reminded that we don't so much recover from trauma as much as we learn the new way of living after the fact. Maybe it's a good thing to have those reminders remain with us. Keeps us human. Reminds us why we still need to be thankful.

Revisiting the Help Desk Rules

Lately, I've been noticing an uptick in the number of spontaneous requests I receive for technology guidance. Because I do a lot of work in media, I'm guessing folks feel comfortable reaching out and asking for my help whenever their tech isn't working, or when it's time to buy something new.

I'm perfectly OK with this, of course, and I'm generally happy to help because I was raised to be polite and to do the right thing to the best of my ability and circumstance. I also don't want folks to think I'm standoffish, so I do my best to respond whenever I'm asked.

But I'm noticing a disturbing trend: no one says thank you. And increasingly, they don't even acknowledge that I've answered them. In fact, for the entire month of April - which I've spent buried under a ton of work and life stuff - of all the strangers who have asked me for help, I heard back from exactly one person. As far as everyone else is concerned, they got what they needed, then promptly moved on. Nice.

It bugs me, because even if my response is a short email, tweet or Facebook posting, it takes time and energy away from whatever else I was doing at the time. Time and energy I increasingly cannot spare on unappreciative strangers.

The logical, rational response would be for me to simply ignore everyone. But that might be perceived as rude. At the same time, I'm getting pretty tired of having my time wasted by strangers who can't be bothered to even let me know that they got an answer from me.

To them, I'd like to politely suggest a re-read of my Help Desk Rules. I first published them way back in 2011, and on further reflection they seem to be as applicable now as they were then.

To everyone else: I think I'm off the free-help-for-everyone gravy train for a while. Friends and family know I'll always be here for them, but folks who ping me out of the blue just aren't worth the effort anymore. I've got better things to do with my time.

Your turn: What would you do if you were in my shoes? Ignore everybody? Continue to help? Something in between?

Rolling out, rolling on

A short pause in the journey
Middlesex County, ON
April 2014

I had been waiting a while for a day like this. Sunny, warm, relatively light long weekend traffic, and just enough openness on the schedule to allow some time for a leisurely cruise through the agriculture-dominated townships that encircle London and offer up a ready-made escape from the noise and chaos that typically define life here.

I hadn't been on the bike in a very long while - a story that I'll get into when the time is right - so I was understandably nervous as I cleaned everything off, pumped up the tires and ensured all the parts were working as they should. It felt a little alien to be handling my machine again, almost as if I had lost my muscle memory over the long winter, or forgotten what "normal" felt like. Still, deep down I knew this was what I should be doing. It was time.

I've had this bike forever. I'm not much of a "stuff" person, but outside of my camera equipment, this is as close as I'll get to having a beloved "thing" as I'll ever get. It's a Specialized Stumpjumper Comp that I've hybridized with slicks and other commuter-ish add-ons. It's taken me, nearly silently, to places I simply would never have seen otherwise. It's kept me in shape, focused my mind when I've needed focus, and calmed me when I've needed a momentary break from the world.

And yet I had let it gather dust for far too long. Life got in the way. And today was the day to get rid of the dust and tell life to stuff it.

So as buttoned everything up, filled up the water bottles and pushed off from in front of our driveway and circled the cul-de-sac a couple of times to get my bearings, it took a few seconds until that sense of balance returned to erase any lingering doubts I might have had. Already I knew: I could still do this.

I turned toward the main road, spun my legs up and felt the wind rustle past my ears as I slowly gathered momentum and settled into an easy cadence. Where I was headed was less important than the fact that I had made it to this point at all.

More to come...

iPad sales drop. Planetary spin affected.

Apple reported its quarterly earnings yesterday, and to no one's surprise the company raked in record revenues and profits. A stock split - designed to make shares more affordable for regular folks - and a boost in the dividend sent shares soaring.

That's the good news.

The bad news: iPad sales are down for the first time since the iconic tablet was first introduced in 2010. In the year-ago quarter, the company sold 19.4 million iPads. This last quarter? 16.35 million. That's a drop of almost 16 per cent.

I wrote an article for Yahoo Canada: Fading iPad sales mark the end of Apple’s big bang era

CEO Tim Cook tried to explain the drop, saying variations in the supply chain, and a big backlog of iPad minis after the holiday season rush, contributed to the wonky numbers. But in the end, weakness in a flagship product is worrying for the company's longer-term prospects. Could your next tablet be an Android-powered device instead?

My thesis: Everyone's waiting for the Next Big Thing from Apple. It could be either a watch, a TV, a fitness device, a dog translator, etc. And when it launches, they expect it to end Apple's long-ish period since its last major new category-creating product (the iPad) and power its next major chapter of growth.

Unfortunately, relying on the tech equivalent of a hit record is so last decade. Going forward, Apple's best prospects lie in larger numbers of smaller products, all of which somehow connect to its current iPhone (and by extension iPad) franchise. When all smartphones look like sleek slabs of metal and glass, software becomes the only way for the company to truly differentiate itself from its competitors. We're getting a glimpse of this with the recently announced CarPlay in-dash technology. It's only a matter of time before Apple-enabled cars make it a no-brainer for drivers to buy Apple devices, too, so that they can get the most out of them.

So if you covet one of the latest iPads, buy now before they're radically redesigned. And if you were planning on camping out for a week later this year to be the first on your block to have an iWatch, you may want to cancel those plans. The future Apple just won't work that way anymore.

On getting one more day

"Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back." 
Mitch Albom, For One More Day

Mr. Albom is, without exception, one of the finest writers on the planet today. If you haven't read his work, which includes the seminal Tuesdays with Morrie, you've been missing out.

This passage begs one obvious question: Do you have a day you wish you could get back?

No traffic. Yet.

Clear roads ahead?
Shanghai, China
May 2012
For more chaotic Thematic, head here

I grew up in Montreal, so I learned to drive on pothole-infested roads crawling with some of the world's most aggressive drivers. It should have prepared me for pretty much anything, yet one look at the zoo that is Shanghai traffic and I was just as glad to not be at the wheel.

I guess there are different forms of "aggressive" in different parts of the world, and from the looks of it, I really didn't want to tangle with the roads here.

So I did the next best thing and shot out the window as we made our way into town from the airport. This is not an overcast day, by the way. It's smog. And I'm guessing I breathed in a lifetime's worth of pollutants in the short time I was there. Yum!

FWIW, the green-lit sign here was a lie: traffic stopped dead not three minutes after we passed this sign. I'm guessing it's some kind of government policy to keep people happy, even if it has no remote connection to reality.

In that regard, it sounds shockingly like the mean streets of Montreal. Maybe we're more alike, after all.

Your turn: Your worst-ever traffic story is/was...?

Thematic Photographic 291 - Chaotic

Nature's Randomness
Drumbo, ON
June 2013

This week's Thematic theme, chaotic, is designed to recognize the unpredictable nature of the world around us. Maybe it's just me, but things on this planet seem to be accelerating, often in every different direction, and simply keeping track of it all can be a challenge.

And so it goes photographically. Which is why I hope we can capture some chaotic moments over the next week. Who's in.

Your turn: Shoot a chaotic shot and share it on your blog, website or social media presence. Leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to share the photographic love, and feel free to pop by through the week if you've got anything new to add - we encourage serial photography around here. For more info on how Thematic works, click here. Enjoy!

#TechSeven - Heartbleed, US Airways porn, & Privacy

This week's tech talk on CJAD Montreal on Friday afternoon capped a rather disturbing week in the technology space. I chatted with Anne Lagace Dowson about a bunch of stuff, and if you weren't able to tune in, here's what you missed:

Heartbleed - the never-ending story

You'd think this story, after raging for the past couple of weeks, would be all played out. Think again: every day this week seemed to bring a new twist to this one. The RCMP Wednesday announced an arrest in the case - I wrote about it for Yahoo Canada - Heartbleed fallout could drive fundamental change - and Anne and I talked about hacker culture, and how it isn't necessarily about busting into systems to score a big, criminal payday. In many cases, it's about street cred, and proving to your hacker peers that you have the technical chops to pull off the toughest exploits.

We also spoke about future job prospects for hackers who get caught. Bizarrely, being arrested is the hacker equivalent of becoming a rock star. Don't be surprised if lucrative job prospects lie in the suspected CRA hacker's future. We live in a strange, strange world, indeed.

US Airways sends a pornographic tweet

There's no end to examples of major brands misusing social media tools and finding themselves in the middle of an online firestorm as a result.

It all started off so innocently. On Monday afternoon, a disgruntled customer took to Twitter to express discontent, tweeting: "You ruined my spring break, I want some free stuff." The airline responded with, let's not mince words, porn. The tweet from US Airways included a photo that is, ah, not even remotely acceptable. Of course, it went absolutely viral within minutes, and spawned a just-as-funny bunch of funny responses. The company, of course, apologized and said it was investigating. This was, of course, too late, as it always is.

I won't link to the pic because it's highly NSFW, involving a woman doing something with a model plane that no model plane should ever have to endure. But I'm guessing it's still floating around Google's index. And probably will be forever. Add another chapter to my ever-lengthening manual of things I wish I never had to explain to my kids, but now have to.

The lesson: Social media can quickly and efficiently turn a small chunk of data into an immediate viral sensation. It can also ruin a career and damage a brand with one finger on a touchscreen or click of a mouse. Companies that forget these basic truths - by ignoring social media's power and engaging employees or agencies that play fast with the rules and the tools - risk getting burned.

Canadians love their iPads - now more than ever

Survey results released this week by the Media Technology Monitor suggest tabloid ownership in Canada is skyrocketing - and most of us are buying Apple iPads.

Over 42% of Canadians surveyed between October and December of 2013 said they now own a tablet. This compares to only 10% in 2011 and 25% in 2012. The 2013 ownership numbers suggest tablet take rates are spiking: up 66% alone over the previous year.

Most of us seem to like Apple: 2 out of every 3 tablets sold are iPads, a number that continues to increase every year. Samsung's Galaxy Tab devices and - this one freaked me a bit because it's no longer supported by the company - BlackBerry PlayBooks each had 10% market share in 2013.

Interestingly, we're using our tablets less often than we used to. in 2011, 46% said they used their tablets several times a day. By last year, that had dropped to 38% - especially among Samsung and PlayBook users. Apple iPad owners appear as addicted as ever, though, with use-every-day stats consistently higher than those reported for any other device type.

For what it's worth, Canada, my birthday is in May, and I like the iPad Air :)

Google makes it official: It's reading your email

I've said it before: there is no privacy online. Anything you do when you connect to the Internet can and will be seen by your service provider and in all likelihood used to serve up ever more invasive ads. Google has raised this process to a high art, scanning your online activities with sophisticated software to get a better sense of your interests, then using that insight to serve up relevant, targeted ads. It means if you just brought your first child home from the hospital, you'll see ads for diapers and not Depends. Or funeral packages.

But this kind of creeps people out, and privacy advocates have taken issue with the secrecy with which most online companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, have operated. No more. Google has just updated its Terms of Service document - the thing that's billions of words of legalese, that we never bother reading because we're too focused on finishing up the registration process so we can start using the service - to make it plainly explicit what it's up to, and why.

Here's what it now reads: “Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."

Before this update, Google said it might “pre-screen” content, but only implied that it was to filter spam or other questionable content, and not to serve up targeted ads. The new Terms of Service clarifies the company's intentions, and comes as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other web services companies find themselves being sued by users concerned over their privacy policies.

It doesn't change the fact that Google's software knows more about us than our own mothers. And it doesn't make the Internet any more private or secure. But a little in-your-face honesty probably isn't a bad thing.

Twitter has an engagement problem

Twitter has become the Internet's temperature gauge. Want to know what your peeps are thinking Right Now? Or an almost-live update from the hockey game? Twitter is your first choice. The service is now closing in on a billion total users - 974 million - with 241 million of them known as "monthly active users". And those numbers continue to grow.

The problem: According to Twopcharts, fully 44% of all Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet. The data suggests even those who HAVE sent tweets aren't exactly burning up their Twitter thumbs: 30% of existing Twitter accounts have sent between 1 and 10 tweets, and only 13% of accounts have sent 100 or more tweets.

Of course, you CAN simply log in and read other people's tweets. But for a service built on making advertising dollars off of new tweets, retweets and favourites, the service needs to find new ways to pull us deeper into its world.

Streaking through the night-time sky

Almost close enough to touch
Way over London, ON
April 2014

Life is full of simple pleasures. Like when the Heavens Above website tells you that tonight's International Space Station overflight will put on an especially bright show (-3.0 mag in London) for anyone who takes the time to head outside and look up. So you grab your camera and tripod, rustle the kids and wander across the street to the dark spot under the trees that's just right for spotting and shooting.

In the 10 or so minutes before the dot first appears high overhead, they ask endless questions about what they're seeing overhead. Planets? Stars? Why do they twinkle? How far away are they? Are there any other satellites up there that we should be looking for? How will we know we're seeing it when we see it?

We discuss the observational differences between airplanes and satellites, and the optical mess known as the atmosphere. We talk about how big the station is, who lives on it, and why we still wave despite the fact that they can't see us so far below. I listen to their chatter, and realize they know infinitely more at their age than I knew way back when.

Finally they spot the moving dot low on the horizon as it emerges from a stand of trees. It brightens as it silently climbs toward us. The Dragon capsule, which launched from Cape Canaveral yesterday on top of a Falcon 9 (SpaceX page, wiki) rocket and is scheduled for rendez-vous tomorrow at 7:14 a.m. ET, isn't visible here. But we still know it's there, chasing the station through the inky blackness, and we make plans to gather around the laptop in the morning to watch the capture and docking.

I shoot as many 15-second exposures as I possibly can. Not because a smudge of light on a dark background makes for a particularly compelling photo. But because I want them to be able to look at the picture someday and feel what it was like to be outside on this night. Because photos make it easier to relive moments you don't want to forget.

In the overall scheme of things, I realize it's a moment that doesn't necessarily shake the earth. We gathered on a dark sidewalk on a cold, clear night and stared up at a moving white spot of light in the sky for a few fleeting minutes before it flew into the planet's shadow and winked out. But I'd like to think our kids somehow added to their growing list of life experiences. No matter how small they may be, when they all get added up someday, I hope they find them meaningful. And I hope their future is filled many more moments on sidewalks.

Your turn: Got a small memory from your own childhood?