In PHP:

In Javascript:

Here’s how I do it with javascript. There are more ways of doing something like this… but I like to change up the colors all the time and this way allows me to quickly do so.

A professor of mine started up a new concept of Venture Capital. “Community Powered Capital” he described it as, and he named it VenCorps.

It’s a neat idea and I see a ton of potential in it. Why? Because if executed in the way I imagined it’d be something I’d get addicted to. Of course that’s not the case… but I’m [this] type of person… so instead of moan and move on, I somehow feel compelled to figure out how to make it better.

One week later, I present the following report to my prof, in hopes to improve it. He was flattered and sent the report to some employee’s at the company. I got an email back saying thanks and that the ideas are being put in consideration and many of them are planned. I figured I might as well let you folks see it.

*I hope he’s not pissed I put this up here*

We’re in a digital age. Companies like twitter are always expanding what their product can do, based on how people use it. With a few exceptions, everyone seems to be jumping on the community driven bandwagon. The music industry isn’t, and maybe it has a right to hate it’s digital consumers.

I’ve downloaded music “illegally” but I’ve also downloaded it legally. I’m almost embarrassed to say I’ve paid for music in as so few people do. Slowly though it’s becoming easier to access legal ways of getting music on a computer, and I think everyone expected that. It just took time.

But really the music isn’t any different. I mean, if you download one legally, and one illegally it’s essentially the same thing. The biggest problem is downloading album art, and fixing ID3 tags.

I hate ID3 Tags…

I didn’t before. I just do now. It has to do with the fact they suck, and that’s purely it. Someone should redo them so they actually work properly. What do I mean?

Well they’re said to organize your music, and they do that just fine. But I mean it’s fine for like… 1995, where each kilobyte counted and you couldn’t store 160 gigs of music in your pocket. I mean songs can be 2MB, 4MB, 8MB, or 16MB I don’t care, storage of that size is almost free anyways. ID3 tags up a tiny fraction of that. I’d rather it take up twice the space as the song, if it did it’s job properly.

Say you’re searching for a new song, maybe “Young Forever” by “Jay-Z”. So you go to artists, and you look for “Young Forever”. But you don’t see it what’s the problem? Did he not make it?

He did, but the song features “Mr. Hudson” (whoever that is) so to find the song, you have to look for the artist “Jay-Z feat. Mr. Hudson”. That’s… stupid.

Have a separate field for features… Call it Additional Artists, or Collaberators, whatever you want, but don’t make me download an album and have all my music players think it’s by 30 different artists because each song has a different featured artists.

As any grade 10 kid will know. Common Factor that shit out. And maybe the Tagging is laggin behind, but surely there must be a computer science major who is smart enough to see the same problem. Surely he’s passed grade 10, and surely he knows you can parse text strings and “Common Factor that shit out”. You’d think giant corporations who make money with media players would do that… but they don’t. It’s… stupid

So… Maybe…

I hate all media players…

Because they suck. I want to listen to music. That’s it. Make it simple, make it intuitive. The “masters” have even failed and produced iTunes.

I mean, I don’t even want to get into the industry.. but there must be someone out there who can make money from this. It’s becoming better just to go on youtube and search for the music video of the song you want. Maybe Google needs to take a crack at it, they seem to be the only one out there that understands algorithms can help users find what they want.

Also, duplicate files are pointless, unless for backup purposes. So don’t show the exact same file in a media player’s library twice. That’s… stupid. Who wants to listen to the exact same song, in a row? People who put that song on loop.

What Should happen?..

Change. Innovation. Ideas. Something. Maybe It’ll happen like twitter, where the 3rd party apps make all the progress and then the common/great features get implimented into the actual product. ID3 tags maybe should lag behind media players, but not by much. Stay on your toes.

Here is what I want to see:

• Free. I wont use it if I have to pay for it. No one will. Find another business model. I don’t really care who knows what music I’m listening to. Most people sign up for Last.fm and want people to know what music their listening to. I REALLY don’t care if you collect anonymous information about my listening habits and sell them back to the music industry to pump out more songs I’ll listen to. That… really just makes sense.
• Connected to the cloud. I mean this in the most advanced, complicated, awesome way possible. I want all my music on my iPod, Cell Phone, Laptop, Desktop, Tv, anything connected to the internet. I want it available offline, and I don’t want to manually sync it. I’m needy… sorry. But not just basic cloud connecting crap, like saving your account online. I mean, fix all the tags for me, fill in the missing ones, get album art, suggest songs that I’ll like,
• Smart. I’m dumb, so make it smart. If I want “Jay-Z” realize that I mean “Jay-Z feat. Mr. Hudson” too. Realize also, that if I’m looking for “Mr. Hudson” I’m probably also looking for “Jay-Z feat. Mr. Hudson”. Fix all my tags. I like things to look pretty, so fix everything for me. Pop/Rock is the same as Rock/Pop so just choose one, and switch all the others so they match. Fill in album information too.
• Be Reall Smart. I mean if Shazam can match any song using 30 seconds of audio, you can too. My desktop could’ve probably got NASA to the moon in the 60’s and your super server should help. If I don’t have any of the tags, do it up, magically! But… don’t get it wrong!
• Be Simple. Minimalistic, and intuitive. I want it bloated with features, but most of them should be invisible. You’re job is super duper complicated so mine flows smoothly. Spend time on UI design… A LOT of time. All of your features will suck if I don’t like how it looks
• Community Centered. I’m your friend… even though I’m needy and I make you want to say “Do it yourself!” Open up to plugin/extensions. They’ll do you good! The great ones, implement them directly in. Keep the people with the ideas, focusing on the ideas, you make sure everything works perfectly.

That’s all I’ve got.

What would you add to the list?

Comment below!

This is one thing that I hate about Canada. We’re a G8 nation (technically a G9 because of stupid Spain having a higher GDP in recent years) but we don’t get anything new, or up to date! It takes us, at least, a year in order to get the newest tech into our stores. And hopefully most people understand that one year old technology is very outdated. I like new tech, I want new gadgets! But Canada is great at scaring them away.

The Kindle has been out for a while, and it’s available in over 100 countries worldwide. I find it embarrassing to be a “G8″ nation and not be included on that list. The Kindle looks awesome! I would’ve liked to have the Kindle, heck I’d still even settle for the Kindle now that the Nook has come out.

The Nook is just like the Kindle, except it looks nicer, is faster, and has a second screen that’s colour and is a usable touch screen. I want the Nook! But we Canadian’s can’t, here’s why.

Wireless Service Providers. In the US the Kindle uses the Sprint Network but has a contract with a company called Jasper (more info). Jasper specializes in Machine to Machine Communications over cellular networks. This may be an issue with the current providers, seeing as they’re kilometers behind their American cousins.

The Kindle, and the Nook use the same antennas that our in our cell phones and use that existing technology to transfer the books to the device and charge the user. It’s quite a brilliant idea, and obviously revolutionary in the book sales industry. Amazon is in talks with setting this up with our providers, but no one seems to know how far along they are… or if it’s possible. Although, I suspect it’s possible seeing as Bermuda, and Mongolia seem to be able to do it.

Canadian Publishing Rights are another issue. As the National Post put it:

[Amazon] still has a number of issues to solve before the device can be sold, including Canadian digital publishing rights and electronic distribution negotiations. (read more)

Which makes me think that this is the biggest problem. I mean yes, we lag behind in tech. But I think our laws for electronic distribution are too sketchy for book publishers right now, and that’s what’s keeping this tech at bay.

So where does that leave us?

Keep an eye on Chapters/Indigo. Being the biggest Canadian Book retailer, they’re surely not turning a blind eye to the Kindles and the Nooks. They’ve recently launched ShortCovers, a e-book distrubtion system for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, and Android Devices as well as standard PC’s/Macs.

I’m fully expecting Indigo to release a Kindle/Nook clone soon. If they miss this opportunity it’ll be their own fault. They are the only retailer here that can compete with the global scale of Amazon and it’s Kindle and neglecting to get a head start on market share would be stupid (I mean let’s face it, the Kindles will come). Expect a ShortCovers device soon. Seeing as they have an Android App already, and Android is powering the Nook it’s not far off to imagine an announcement to come within the year (also B&N says they’ll be allowing apps on the Nook in the future, so theoretically you could have ShortCovers on a Nook device). EDIT: I hope I didn’t imply that Chapters will use the Nook. I mean that Chapter will create a similar device to the Nook.

That’s all just my honest, slightly educated guess though. Nothing confirmed or mentioned or alluded to by Chapters/Indigo.

What are you’re thoughts?

Windows 7 is going to be widely accepted by the general population. This will be a big change from Windows Vista which, according to the mass public, sucked.

I’m not a huge hater of Vista. I mean I tweaked it slightly, so it didn’t annoy me as much. But overall it hasn’t been that bad. There are a lot of improvements over XP… something that few people will admit, or know. I also haven’t run into any combatability problems… although I’m told they exist with almost every third party software. The reality is, that that program that work on 98, will probably not work on Vista. But give Microsoft a break for a second. 1998 was a long time ago. It was over 10 years ago. To visualize 10 years ago, this is what people viewed on their interweb machines:

Apple.com - Yes that Mac is actually a rotating animated gif. Hi-Tech!

McDonalds.com - With an animated gif of a guy cleaning the golden arch.

Microsoft.com - Probably realizing that when myspace comes out animated gif's will be taken over by 12 year old girls and dancing ponies, microsoft excluded them.

Vista Sucked because we decided it did. The early adopters, us tech nerds, on the internet decided we didn’t need to be handled like Sally – your 93yr. old grandmother – We are quite able to understand the difference between installing AVG and a Virus. This annoyed us, we complained (and blogged), and told our friends how annoying it is. That’s how Vista started to suck.

Once the general consensus was out, we just started looking for reasons for Vista to suck more. Did a damn good job too. The reality for me is that I feel like Vista sucks, but I can’t tell you at all how it’s slowed me down at all. If anything I’ve done more on Vista than I have on any other OS.

Windows 7 isn’t out yet. But if you look around everyone loves it. I mean I’ve played with the RC, and it solid, has some nice new features etc. I think I’ll make me slightly more productive. But the major flaws people hate in Vista will be there in 7. You still wont be able to play your game from 10 years ago, and the base security measures are the same.

Windows 7 is, as far as my slightly educated mind thinks, just a giant, great update to Vista. Vista was a complete revamp. Obviously you’ll see more problems with compatibility with a revamp, than with an upgrade.

That’s where the general population will accept 7. Because everyone is either on XP or Vista now. Everything on XP or Vista will work on 7. So… no problems. No retraining for software. No new learning curves. General Population will like it. Tech nerds like it cause it allows us to tell it we’re a tech nerd, and it treats us like one… finally.

7 will be good, we will like 7, but not nessicarily because it’s 7… just because it’s time for 7.

(via engadget)

It’s amazing how far an email will go. You know, I contemplate writing the governor general every once and a while, then realize I probably shouldn’t spend a long time on something that no one will read. I mean, of course I exclude this website from that list of stuff.

However, on occasion and mostly out of frustration, I do write the seldom thought or idea down. Most of the time it’s to get it out of my head and it’s really only for myself. This one included (I just happen to be writing it here, rather than… wherever people wrote things before weblogs). There are occasions that these frustrations manafest in letters. Sometimes open letters to every annoying person in the world. Sometimes to everyone about every annoying person in the world. Sometimes they’re about real issues… and sometimes I send them to people.

I sent an email to the president of my school, not a student president… like THE president. Like the actual guy who runs the place. I don’t consider him just a dude, although, I’m sure he is… He’s more than that, as the school paper has told me. He really is a great leader and an inspirational one at that (something that is rare, I think). I recently, as of last year, realized myself to be an inspired person. I’ve always been told, by my parents, teachers, and old people (sorry mom&dad) in general… that I can be anything that I want, the only thing stopping me… is me. It was kinda just water under the bridge, never really hit home. I never really realized it was true. Realized is the wrong word, believed is better. Until, that is, I met an inspired student at my current school. He had a plan, and he was driven. His inspiration was inspiring. If that makes sense?

It hit me on a deep level. The people who achieve success are the people who go after it. It’s not about what the dream is, it’s not about that great idea… It’s about the pursuit of the great idea. What leads to success is chasing success. It’s going the extra mile, the mile most people are too lazy to go for. It’s continuing when others give up, and pushing yourself further just as you are about to give up. That’s where success comes from. And the fact is, or so I believe, that most people don’t go that mile (or kilometer). The only things stopping us… is us. Just like everyone says. We can be whatever we want, do whatever we want, whenever we want, we just have to work harder than everyone else to do it. That’s how people achieve success, and why can I be one of those people? I guess, I can… if I try as hard as I can. Right?? And so could you…

So sometimes I wonder, if something is wrong and you’re complaining about it… Why not do something? At least an attempt is better than the average moaner, right? So on occasion I’ll write a letter, out of boredom or frustration. Just a way to voice my opinion. Even more rarely I’ll propose something. I never expect responses from any of these.

I throw out wild ideas, because… why not? I mean a $100 laptop was insane now it’s reality. Star trek communicators were science fiction until they weren’t. Sometimes the wild ideas work! Sometimes I email the president of my university, and he replies wanting a sit down meeting to discuss further. Sometimes, I feel as I’ve bitten of more than I can chew.

So I think to myself: What should I do? Nothing, and be like every citizen who has complained about their democratic system? Water things down and hope I’ll be able to handle something less effective, less crazy, and it wont solve the initial problem? Or go for broke and be the crazy guy preaching for something better? I mean if you want to make a splash: do you do nothing, drop a pebble, or throw a rock? That’ll depend on how scared you are of it landing on your foot.

The truth is, I’m scared of this landing on my foot. It’s deterring me from throwing the rock, as I’m sure it would most people. But isn’t this where I should keep going? Give it a really honest effort, and see where it leads me? Even if it’s impractical and unreasonable? I mean they are synonymous with visionary.

So, I’m scared: I’m scared I’ll fail; I’m scared I’ll look like an idiot; I’m scared it wont work. But I’m doing it anyways, even though I don’t really want to. Hopefully my wings aren’t made of wax.

I wont include a lot of screenshots… because they’re everywhere. It’s the same basic thing, but with different content. So I’ll try to focus on how this can be useful.

For me, it’s incredibly useful – although slightly unstable at this point. Think of it as an instant messageboard with the focus being on content and more collaborative features.

What’s strange that stands out right away. Is if someone sends me a message, I can edit it. I can erase words and add new ones. It’s strange to have such a feature, but it make so much sense. I mean I’ve used it most recently with finalizing interview questions. Instead of copying and pasting, editing and then resending… like you’d have to do with emails, IM,  message boards, or whatever you just edit them. Makes so much sense. It’ll let you know who’s edited what, too… if you want to know. It works well.

What makes this so much of an awesome tool, is that it really is useful. Small businesses will gain so much from this, in my opinion anyways. It has the speed of IM, but with the functionality of email. You really can do a lot, not necessarily in it, but through it. Attaching files, images, whatever. It’s got it all.

My "wave(?)" being updated in real time by a collaborator

I also rarely consider it a webpage, although… that is what it is. It’s really a very powerful application, it just happens to be viewed through a web browser. The only way you’ll ever know you’re in a browser is if you try and select some things and also happen to select part of the user interface… something that never happens in “real” applications.

It’s a game changer, but it’s definitely not finished. What’s missing, and really needed, is the ability to create tables. Which is strange because it’s such a basic feature. Also there are parts of the day where some things just don’t work as they should. But that’s to be expected in a preview.

It wont replace email. Email has this way of being able to transform itself as needed. I can send a very informal email and then send a very formal email. The way I’ve been using wave, it is very very informal. Think email but almost with an IM style. You can start answering questions before they’re finished being typed. It saves time, but kills formality. Which is great for getting things done. But I wouldn’t use it for any sort of professional comunication… especially with that edit feature.

As questions below in the comments!

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

But do they have it right? I mean, how reliable, or precise will it be… especially if you can’t see where you are touching. If you know what I mean.

(via TechCrunch)

As always, Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts.

As I was walking back from a new job I figured I might as well stop by the bank and pick up a direct deposit form. After that simple task was done, I noticed the dollar store sirens singing their song of savings (note: there was no one singing, but I’m drawn to savings… like how sirens [the greek kind] draw in boats).

To start this story off I should probably give a little background info. I live with three other guys, and although we’re all fully grown, we’re not fully mature. So, having just run out of our “Garfield” soap, it was my turn to keep the swine flu at bay. I decided to go to the dollar store and pick up some sudsy stuff!

If you want you can click this to see a higher res version. But please don't tell anyone you did...

I kept walking and a few steps later she turned slightly, this is when the second though came into my head, “Oh, that’s cool! She has a tattoo on her pan– OH MY! She isn’t wearing any pants!” It took me a couple seconds to fully take it in, but once I did, I dared to look and see if she was wearing anything below her waist at all!

She wasn’t. Although it didn’t come to me that quickly… my mind didn’t accept the idea of her just shopping half nude so I assumed she thought her sweater would cover her bum and didn’t need the pants on that particular day. So when I look a bit higher and remarked on how funny it was that she was wearing skin coloured (I’m Canadian, It’s sucks when you go from css coding to english class…) underwear the same day she decided she didn’t need pants. My mind chuckle stopped right as I saw the butt crack.

Yeah, and that’s when I decided this was no ordinary day. This was a day to remember. So instead of walking in and shopping for soap, I decided to grab a seat on the bench to watch how this played out. What was curious to me was why no one behind her in line was reacting to her pants-less outfit… hmm, maybe they didn’t notice?

If I was mature, I would have kept walking and not payed her any attention. If I was mature, I probably wouldn’t have loaded up my phone’s camera. If I was mature, I probably would be the only mature one in that situation.

Our little friend’s stunt was grabbing attention of the store manager. When he walked out I noticed look of frustration and disapprovement and his tone suggested the same when he told the cashier to “not serve her.” My ears perked up, he was the guy in charge and this is the start of what I’ve been waiting for. She was going to be taken out… and I could finally act mature and buy my soap.

The manager walked out and pulled the store phone off it’s clip and up to his ear. His face seemed to change instantly when security was patched through, “You’re NOT going to believe this,” he said, “just get down here.”

I couldn’t hear much when security arrived. Most of it happened too far away from my bench of curious onlookers. But I do remember her saying that they “couldn’t kick her out” she hadn’t been stealing anything! Maybe if she took into account the virginity of little kids’ eyes she would admit she stole a lot.

Go ahead, click the image to make it bigger... yah creep!

The handcuff’s got pulled out and she was slowly persuaded out of the store. At this point people were close enough to allow me to feel like I was in a 3d movie theatre (without the glasses, duh [theater = theatre x American spelling]). With an larger crowd gathering, and the people who were behind her in line FINALLY realizing she has no pants on, the security were concerned about people seeing things they shouldn’t see in public places.

At this point the Mall Manager came strutting over in his expensive suit. He wasn’t impressed! He asked the Dollarstore Manager for a table cloth from his store to cover her up with. The idea of that alone is pretty funny, but trust me, it’d be funny if you were there.

You see, it’s near Halloween… and dollar stores being holiday sluts all they had was Halloween items. So what came out wasn’t a standard tablecloth, oh no, it was a purple one with white ghosts. Can’t blame them for being white… If I had to get that close to her junk I’d turn white too (if not green). I wish I had a picture for you, but the next parts happened very quickly.

She was rushed away claiming she did nothing wrong. In her mind she was wearing shorts, I think. Which I guess just cements my thoughts of her as a crack head. “I’ve never had handcuffs on before, I’m a nice person.” The suit wearing manager replied, “don’t worry, they loosen up after a while.”

No they don’t, no need to be rude! The best part comes in just after she is taken away… When I look back at the Store Manager pressing a button on his phone and then closing it, looking at me and saying “Youtube!” Here’s to you Mr. Manager, I hope you see this and send me your video!

Never-the-less, I got into the store and bought my soap. I went through the same line as the crack-head-naked-crazy-lady to hopefully get a comment on the situation from the cashier. I brought it up… I don’t think she spoke any english… Oh well, I got my (even-less-mature-than-the-last) soap.

Damn straight that says Hannah Montana!

So what do you do if it is taken? Or if you run out of ideas.

Well simply enough you go to Domai.nr and scavenge around. It’s the place I go, to check and see if any stupid names are available.

Type in anything you want and Domai.nr will check the stardard .com .net. org domains, but also some of the neat domain hacks. You can view each domain and even get linked to a registrar! I’m not even getting paid for this post… I just think that it’s such a great service.

Check it out: www.domai.nr