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Archive for June, 2005

Getting Close Now!

Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

The big day (wedding) is only about 10 days away now! Amanda had her last day of teaching for the year yesterday and has just a couple of administration days left. We think the wedding planning is going relatively well - lots of little things to tie up, but we should be good to go. Then it’s off to New Zealand for about three weeks which we are both really looking forward to.

As a result, posting here will be non-existent for the month of July. I promise we will take lots of pictures of everything though and I’ll get them up on the site as soon as I can after we get back. Hope everyone has a good start to their summer!

Get your Tech Fix!

Monday, June 20th, 2005

A lot of people ask me how I stay on top of things in the world of technology. I’ve talked about feed aggregators in the past which help to bring all of the information from the various websites that I read into one place. Reading is fine, but it’s definitely not the same as audio and video.

I used to watch a television show called The Screensavers that was on TechTV before the network was bought out by a gaming network. The new network got rid of the most of the old personalities and the show went downhill from there. Leo Laporte was the former star of the show and he has brought together some of the other former on-air talent for a weekly podcast talking about everything in technology. The show is called This Week in Tech (TWiT) and it’s usually about an hour in length. They’ve done 10 shows already and the technology content is really good.

Kevin Rose, who also used to appear on The Screensavers and now apprears on TWiT, also has his own internet video project called Systm. They have put out two episodes so far and it seems that these videos will cover more hard-core geeky tech information.

Leo also hosts a show that airs in Canada and Australia called Call for Help. Through the magic of BitTorrent and the Call for Help Tracker you can download episodes of this show which are aimed at beginner tech users but still contain enough geeky content and product reviews to satisfy everyone.

Amber and Mikey who also have segments on Call for Help have recently started a video project called Command-N. They are putting out a weekly video about 10 minutes in length covering tips and tricks from around the internet. Definitely worth the watch!

As you can see, there are many options out there that do not involve traditional broadcasting methods to receive audio and video. I beleive that podcasting and interent delivered video are on the verge of getting even bigger than they already are and the face of content delivery is about to change drastically. It will be fun to see how things develop!

Almost 4 years + 2 hours = PhD!

Friday, June 10th, 2005

Just wanted to let everyone know that yesterday, I successfully defended my PhD thesis - so I guess that makes me a Doctor now!

After spending close to the last 4 years doing research in Medical Science, I handed in my thesis 4 weeks ago and then prepared for the oral defence yesterday - hence the lack of posting here lately. After a 2 hour oral defence, I was congratulated for having fulfilled the requirements of the PhD portion of my degree. I start medical school in August for the second part of the combined MD/PhD program I’m enrolled in which is another 3 years to go before I officially convocate and receive the combined degree.

Thanks to everyone for the support over the years and helping me reach this milestone!