... everything's a blur ...

Test mobile post from TypePad for BlackBerry

Test post from the TypePad client for BlackBerry. The photo crashing bug on camera-less BBs is fixed, but it still does not adhere to regular BB text entry APIs; it does not automatically capitalize after a period, does not auto punctuate, accept line feeds (seriously? I'm to type in one long paragraph??) and does not insert a period after pressing space twice. I also can't seem to get my categories list to update. Me thinks this will be uninstalled yet again.

Shaking out the cobwebs

Wow.  I've been horrible about getting this updated haven't I?  Between all of the wedding planning last year (awesome), our huge honeymoon trip around south eastern Asia (really awesome), enjoying married life (excellent), and moving into our new condo (gorgeous), blogging has totally fallen by the wayside.  The most I can mentally get around to is micro-blogging via Twitter (which is disturbingly addictive once you get into it). No grand prose or exposition needed, just whatever the frak you're doing or thinking in 140 characters or less. I highly recommend it.

So now we come back to this blog.  I don't know what I'm going to do with it just yet, but TypePad is paid up until October (I should have cancelled last year, but renewal was right before the wedding and I plum forgot), so it behooves me to make use of it since there are no refunds for cancellation.  What do I have to say that might be interesting to someone else (or no one else!), that is greater than 140 characters and deserves more screen space than a tweet...  TBD!

In the meantime, pardon the mess while I knock down a few cobwebs and see what's underneath.

The long awaited update is coming...

And it´s going to be HUGE.

So much has happened in the last few months (since my last pathetic update)... The last few months of wedding planning, selling Marie´s condo, getting married... And now look. Marie and I are off on our crazy month-long honeymoon tour of Asia.

So far we are busy adjusting to the craziness of life in Hanoi, but I do have a lot of updates to post once I get the chance to stop and finish reflecting on the events of the past six months. It really has been crazy. And now we´re HERE of all places.

I bought a new Canon Rebel XS dSLR shortly before leaving, so hopefully I´ll get a couple of good pictures out of the kit lens. So much you really need to see with your own eyes to truly appreciate.

In a couple short hours Marie and I will be boarding an overnight train from Hanoi down to the old imperial capital of Hue. Day 5 of 30. THIRTY! This vacation is nucking futts...

More to come very soon. Pictures and posts galore (both of this vacation and my personal recap of our fantastic wedding day).

Native TypePad app for BlackBerry!

Cool! I didn't notice this last week, but SixApart has finally launched a native application for BlackBerry! i just got it installed, and it looks good. functionally reminds me very much of the S60 client, but I do have a few issues with it. 1) Can't add additional paragraphs/line feeds! 2) doesnt use the blackberry auto corrections when typing! 3) seemingly no way to update my category list... 4) no image resizing? So close, yet so far...

Finally fixed my free Flickr Pro!

Bad mouth as much as you want about my former monopolistic/oligopolistic
(depending on what industry you're looking at) employer, but I will give them mad props for their partnership with Yahoo! (keep up the good work f1x :). I was particularly jazzed when I heard that they were ditching their annoying Yahoo! Photos site and giving all of their customers free upgrades to Flickr Pro.  That's just FAN-fugu-TASTIC.

Unfortunately, it has taken me this long to friggin fix it.  I've had a Flickr account for a long while, but really never used it much (i.e. since the free version capped uploads per month, and I was trying to be a cheap bastard).  What broke down in this whole upgrade process however, was that trying to associate my existing Flickr account to a rogers.com email address didn't always register properly (a widely reported issue).  Surely I could have just started a new Flickr account, you might think, and right you'd be...  Except my username and custom URL are all tied to my existing account. :(  So after digging around on the community forums, sending off some emails to technical support, and twiddling my thumbs for a while, it finally got fixed!

No more stupid "everythingsablur2008".  Helloooooo/Welcome back everythingsablur. :)

Now that my Flickr is unlimited, with all my crazy toys and gadgets, and an awesome wedding/honeymoon/vacation/boys trip/etc. coming up, my photostream should be a lot more active.  I just need a new/better camera.  Any chance I could fit that in the budget somewhere, baby?

... maybe I shouldn't upload pictures from the boys bachelor party trip...  Hmmm...  Close call!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Keeping tabs on Toronto traffic from your BB

Ah, Toronto in the spring...  Just like the first snowfall of winter, the advent of warm, sunny weather in Toronto invariably means that all Toronto drivers instantly lose their minds and forget how to drive.  Couple that with Toronto's two seasons (winter, and road construction), and that's a recipe for long, frustrating commutes in traffic.

My recent return to the world of BlackBerries (which I'll blog about later) has fortuitously also given me the freedom of just using data whenever the heck I want, so I've been searching for cool new uses for my BB.  And sure enough, from the most unlikely source, here's a damn cool one:  TrafficEye, from The Weather Network.  Yes, the 24-7 TV weather channel has a killer mobile application, and it has nothing to do with weather (though there is a WeatherEye application too).

From your BlackBerry or supported mobile phone (only Rogers/Fido phones, but any carrier's BB), you have access to the following.

• Real Time Traffic Flow for the Greater Toronto Area
• Details of scheduled incidents (e.g. construction, road closures etc.) and unscheduled incidents (e.g. accidents, congestions etc.)
• Traffic Speed
• Camera images for your route

That's pretty freaking awesome.  And it's FREE.  You do get what you pay for though, as the navigating around the application is pretty clunky.

PS: I love the splash screen disclaimer that says "Do not use while driving"!  I guess we can all consider Toronto at rush hour is NOT driving.  :)

Link: The Weather Network - Mobile - TrafficEye.

Facebook test

Why aren't my blogs updating/notifying to Facebook?

Mobile test post!

This is a test post from Maemo WordPy 0.6.1-5 from my Nokia N800  to TypePad!

Things I've noted in my limited testing:

• No Category support for TypePad
• Published posts are uploaded as Drafts; have to log into the TypePad web client to move them to published status

Thanks for the great work so far Daniel!

Things to do Downtown: The Funky Bunch cometh...

Can you believe the spring is only two weeks away?  Yeah, neither can I.  Not after 40 cm of snow showed up over the weekend.  The snow is so high outside of my parent's place that you could easily lose my car if it weren't for the remote control-like antennae. 

So what is there to do in Toronto these days mired in the (increasingly less) white stuff?  Well, unless someone can hire Chuck Norris to come roundhouse kick Ol' Man Winter away, we get the next best thing (term used very loosely).

Marky Mark in da house!

Yep, Mark Wahlberg (sans Funky Bunch, sorry for misleading you in the title) is apparently in town shooting the new Max Payne movie (Really?  That was so last console generation...)  If you'd ever seen or played the games the movie is based on, you'd know that the story and style have big budget action thriller written all over it.  Rumour has it that Mila Kunis is starring opposite Mr. Good Vibrations as an assassin.  I wonder if she'll play towards her turn in American Psycho 2, or more like Meg Griffin meets The Bride.  All the more reason to wander around town this weekend to see what's going on!

Joystiq posted a list of some of the shooting times and locations (and thus, the street closures) of where they will be shotting in Toronto.  Looks like the financial district will be pretty busy this weekend!

• Yonge St., between Wellington St. and King St., will be closed on March 15th from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m.
• Yonge St., between Wellington St. and King St., will be closed from March 16th at 6 a.m. to March 17th at 6 a.m.
• King St., between Yonge St. and Bay St., will be closed on March 16th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Bay St., between Wellington St. and King St., will be closed on March 24th from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m.

It's really good to see big Hollywood still coming up north of the border to make their movies despite the rather abysmal performance of their dollar and the strength of our funny money.  With the cost advantage of the old greenback gone, they must still have some reason to come up here.  Must be all the snow...

Link: Pics of Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne emerge - Joystiq.