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Another Canadian election has come and gone. Programmed mainstream media coverage was again, less than inspiring. I found that to truly enjoy this national exercise, you have to watch it in the company of friends, as you would a Saturday afternoon hockey game.

I spent election night online. Using a variety of free sources, I was able to watch the results as they came in. Using Twitter, it was possible to know results in eastern Canada before the blackout lifted here in Alberta.

Here are some of the tools I used to monitor the 40th Canadian Election:

• Twitter — dedicated default communication channel. CB Radio. Fun. By using Hashtags, you can focus your discussion to others who monitor the same Hashtag (Channel). The best election Hashtag was #CanadaVotes. Oh, and yes, please do follow me on Twitter
• TweetDeck — Twitter application that allows you to group, sort, filter, slice and dice your incoming Twitter flow. In the screenshot of my election night desktop, it took up my left-hand 22″ monitor.
• Google Chrome — having multiple browser windows open at once would prove challenging to Firefox. I have 20+ plugins so I run a Fat Firefox. Chrome is lightweight and each instance runs independently; if one window crashes, the others stay running. I had four instances of Google Chrome running in my second monitor (17″) on the right.

Ok, that’s the tools, now what was I doing with them?
I’ve already mentioned that TweetDeck was my main communications medium for the evening. The back-and-forth discussion amongst people monitoring the #CanadaVotes channel was insiteful and entertaining. It was great engaging with other Canadians in a national discussion.

On my other monitor, I had Google Chrome running (in clockwise order):

• CBC Website – live results map of my ridings of interest
• CBC Website – live national results map
• CBC Website – live streaming TV coverage (sorry, it doesn’t show)
• Globe & Mail website – Live national results chart broken down by party

At one point, I did have another two windows onscreen containing Global and CTV coverage, but frankly, there wasn not enough new or insiteful commentary, so I reduced the redundancy and dumped them.

Overall, watching the various media sources and participating in the Twitter traffic was the best way to engage in, what many believe to be, a somewhat mundane national exercise.

Your turn, what did you use to monitor the results? Traditional media? New media? Comments are open!

Technorati Tags: Canada, Election, 2008, Canadian, PC, Liberal, Twitter, Social Media, Monitoring, Results, Election Results

photo credit: nickwheeleroz

With the financial crisis swirling around this week, I took another look at ways I keep my data safe. To best achieve this, offsite backups are a must. Should my computers become damaged or stolen, my data is still secure.

I’ve written before about Mozy, an effective automated online backup system, but recently I’ve discovered a couple of other ways to ensure my data is safe. These solutions are simple file-copy based, but work well for most applications.

Online Backup Redux
SyncBack (Freeware) is a simple yet effective backup utility. To quote from the helpfile:

SyncBack Freeware is used to back-up, restore, and synchronize files and directories, whether they be on a local drive, a network drive, an FTP server, a ZIP archive, or on removable media.

And it does exactly that. Through my web-host, I have an FTP account that I’m using to regularly backup my extensive digital photo collection.

SyncBack simply logs into my FTP account, looks for changes in the file or directory structure, and then synchronizes the offsite structure with the local one. Zip compression is an option.

As a freeware utility, it works well, though the full (paid) versions offer more utility including data encryption, CD/DVD backup and many more. View the handy comparision chart for more details.

Simple Hard Drive Backup — really simple!
My next door neighbour (a bit of a hardware geek) introduced me to the Thermaltake BlacX USB Hard Drive docking station. That’s a mouthful, but it describes the item.

Basically, you plug this little device into any free USB 2.0 slot on your PC. Insert a SATA Hard Drive (up to 1 TeraByte) into the dock. A quick initialize and format later, you have a fresh, empty HD on your system.

Setup time: under 2 minutes.
With the cost of drives continuing to drop, this kind of personal complete backup becomes more and more affordable. My setup cost under $100, CAD.

Your Windows or Mac system will recognize the adapter and drive as a removable storage device. Which means you can now use your favourite backup software (SyncBack works for this) to save your data. Or, simply copy your files and folders to the new drive.

When you’re done, eject the Hard Drive, and store in a safe place off-site. If you want to get fancy, you could automate your backups to the BlacX drive, and cycle between two (or more) drives, keeping the most recent backup at work.

The one downside to any backup solution is the time to backup. Using SyncBack you can schedule your backups to run evenings or whenever you’re not using the computer. Also, to make your backup have less impact on your work, you could stagger your backup: Photos day one, Documents day two, Save games day three..etc.

So, between Mozy, FTP and offsite HD storage, there are many good solutions for the paranoid user to consider.

Previously I’d written about iOptOut, a free service, set up by Canadian Law Professor Michael Geist.

Well today citizens of Canada are now able to register on another Do Not Call list, this one run by the government.  Marketers should realize that telemarketing is so 20th century.

But, even with this double-double assault on telemarketers, this new solution isn’t perfect.

The problem is, Canadian law allows many exemptions to the Do Not Call regulations, including political parties, survey companies, newspapers and registered charities.

As well, if you have a previous business relationship with an organization, yep, they can market to you over the phone.

Now, here’s where iOptOut differs from the federal opt-out service.

Under the law, exempted organizations are permitted to make unsolicited telephone calls despite the inclusion of the number in the do-not-call registry. However, organizations must remove numbers from their lists if specifically requested to do so.

iOptOut is a service that ’specifically requests’ that your number be removed from telemarketing lists. It fills the holes in the legislation by maintaining a list of organizations (some of which you have dealt with in the past, banks, airlines, etc) and once you set up your profile, contacts them on your behalf and asks for your number to be removed. Simple and effective. And, when coupled with the federal list, maybe even doubly so.

Yikes! This is waaay overdue (sorry about that) The Mini-Book Expo concept is simple, yet I managed to blow Rule # 4:

Blog it.

* Post something about the book within a month of getting it

So, without further ado, here’s my mini review!

Title: A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Author: Mohammed Hanif
Publisher: Random House (Canada)

Quick Takes

Pre-read thoughts: This might be interesting. A newsy event (death of Pakistan’s leader) related as a mystery. And other reviews seem to think it mildly amusing. Who knows, I may learn something.

Part-way through: This is one weird-ass book.  There’s not enough of a distinction, so maybe the humour is subtle. Yeah, that’s it. Or ironic satire…hmm, but wait, it’s based on reality so maybe there’s something here. I mean, our main character (the son of a disgraced (or not) famous general) is variably infatuated with a military academy room-mate who’s gone AWOL.

Then there’s this crow. A cursed crow. A crow carrying a curse against the dictator of the country!

Basically, there’s a lot of motivation in a lot of characters built up by this point. But the pace of the plot development was slow! I could have ridden a Pakistani Pachyderm faster than this book developed. Or maybe that was deliberate — an invisible homage to the slower pace of life in Pakistan.

But I’m still engaged, that’s a good thing.

The End: Ok. It’s over. Not a bad read. I learned a bit more about Pakistan. I learned more about the events surrounding the death of General Zia. I learned that I could read a book that wasn’t a fast-paced Tom Clancey action adventure, and still pull some enjoyment from it.

My Take: Frankly, not my cup of tea. It was an interesting read, especially over the summer, but not my normal fare. I found myself wanting to skip ahead as the plot unfolded; yet hesitant to do so as there was the promise of brilliance here. Meh, it didn’t happen.

 

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

As Twitter moves into its more mature phase, a number of Twitter utilities have emerged, some good, some not so good. I’m an early adopter and a daily Twitter user and have experimented with many Twitter tools over time. Please feel free to follow me but without further blather, here’s my top 3, must have, twitter tools:

• TwitThis.com — Though showing its age, TwitThis is a very cool tool. In a nutshell, simply browse to a web page that you want to share. Click the TwitThis bookmarklet (that you’ve previously installed). If you’re not logged in to Twitter, you’ll be prompted to do so.  A window pops up, and you can edit your Tweet and then send it to your Twitter stream. I like it because for quick Tweets, I don’t have to jump to another application, load a Twitter tab in my browser, etc.
• Twitter Twerp Scan — If you care about managing your Twitter Followers, then you need to run the Twitter Twerp Scan from time to time. Basically, Twerp Scan checks your Twitter account for people with extremely high following to follower ratios. These are most likely ‘bots or marketing drones — who could be potentially bringing down the value of your ‘Twitter Juice’ (is there such a thing? I’m thinking of Google Juice here, that mythical elixer that adds Page Rank to your website based on the power of incoming links). You can customize your Twerp ratio but if you have a high number of Twerps, the block/removal process is a bit tedious. Id’ love to see a ‘batch un-follow’.
• TweetLater.com — Ok, you’ve used Twitter for a while, are used to updating your followers, and have a good social network online that notices when you’re not there. Or you’re the Communications specialist for an organization that uses Twitter to keep your audience informed. Regardless, you also have a need to publish Tweets on a regular basis, then TweetLater is for you.  Simply, it’s a hand site that allows you to queue-up Tweets, to be published at a specific time.  One very cool and not-so-obvious feature: you can also set TweetLater up to autofollow people who follow you. Reducing your Twitter maintenance chores, though I’d remember to run TwerpScan from time to time Just to nuke the Twerps.