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 And hopefully most people understand that one year old technology is very outdated.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?

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Who am I?

No, Really? What makes me different than the 42 billion million other wanna be someone bloggers? As of now? Not to much, and to be honest… I don’t really care. I don’t write here for anyone per se, I kind of use it (currently and historically) as a bookmarking or link sharing site for anything I find interesting.

But that’s wrong. No really… It is. The web is full of junk. Full of crap… similar to this post. It’s irrelevant to literally everyone out there. No joke. No one actually cares. To me this is fine because… I don’t care too much about this site. But to the other blogs that are exactly like this: I’m bored. Constantly running across people’s diaries is a waste of what this amazing series of  1′s and 0′s can do. I mean there is nothing wrong with expressing your ideas… but most of it is the same old stuff. There is nothing original. I am guilty of this. I’ll just repost something that’s interesting. But that shouldn’t be what Blogs, or Websites are for. That’s twitter. Seriously… that is what twitter does… and it does it well! Blogs are for content, ORIGINAL content… stop wasting space, sign up for twitter/tumbler/friendfeed and buy a diary to kill trees and publish something only when it’s worthy of being published.

More recently I’ve grown tired of users around the web. I’m sorry for not being tolerant. Because of amazing, amazing, web apps like wordpress and anything Google does, people seem to think that everything is simple. When it’s not… they complain! Or feel angry when a legitimate member of the community wont go completely out of his* way to do something for them for free. This might be something that others have noticed, but as I learn more I find it annoying. The internet is full of knowledge(once you get past blogs on twilight and the jonas brothers), but you have to try in order pick it up. If you don’t want to try… then you should probably pay someone. I’m cutting this rant off, and skipping to my point. *”If only defeating sexism were as easy as throwing in an occasional he/she, she, her or hers. I use the masculine pronouns merely as a shortcut… …Don’t look for sexism where none exists” – Guy Kawasaki

So what? I can only control a minute portion of the web. And I’ve controlled it wrong. For that I’m sorry, I apologize, and here is what I propose:

1. All posts on my site categorized as “uncategorized” are showed only as titles with a few exceptions:
   1. The latest post created (first post shown) will always be displayed in a summary view.
   2. Any “uncategorized” post with comments will be displayed in the summary view to encourage discussion.
   3. Viewing the “uncategorized” category will show all “uncategorized” posts in summary view.
2. I will post original content that does (but isn’t limited to) the following:
   1. Informs readers of something new. Could be like News, or could be an explanation of something commonly mis-understood.
   2. Inspires readers, or it will be my intention to inspire readers. (I can’t be held responsible if they do or don’t get inspired)
   3. Teaches someone something.
3. I will attempt to make every post of the highest quality I can provide at that time.
4. I will only write posts I feel are worth reading (with the exception of “uncategorized posts).

What are the posts going to be like then? That will entirely depend on What I’m interested in.

What Am I Interested In?

That’ll change. Or at least I’m assuming it’ll change. As of right now I can see four major things I will be posting about.

• Web Design
  • Why? Cause I love it. I like looking at trends, I like playing around in Photoshop. I like hacking together little pointless sites.
• Web Development
  • I see most of this being quick hacks for wordpress.
  • I also think I’ll cover basic html, javascript, and css
  • I’ll hopefully be posting tutorials on how to do things, that I had to figure out myself somewhere… so that the next person can implement it quickly
• Start-up Businesses
  • Highlights of some cool start ups or businesses that I may have found
  • Ideas for businesses or new business plans
• The mobile tech industry
• I see this as being the new computing industry. This may just be news, It may be more… not too sure
• General thought provoking knowledge.
  • I guess that covers a lot

If you’re looking for the random videos, or stupid pictures, or pointless rants… They’ll be here… they just wont be prominent.

Where is this Site going?

As always… I don’t know. This site is going where I take it. Right now it’s going with my interests. Maybe one day I’ll be important enough for the domain “brennanmceachran.com” to be valuable to me in more than just a bloggy sort of way.

More than anything I want to encourage discussion. Not only does it give me feed back, and make me feel good, it answers a lot of questions I may have about you, or questions someone else may be thinking. OH, and ontop of that the comment system looks super sweet… so… use it!

What do you think? What do YOU want to see on the site? Where do YOU want it to go? Leave a comment.

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