wordbit

Bollywood comes to Netflix Canada

Netflix Canada’s strategy is to work the multicultural angle to make up for their poor selection of blockbuster hits. While they’re a bit short on the Hollywood, they’ve just loaded up on the Bollywood with about 60 new movies that’s sure to pique the interest of any fan of the genre. And with quirky titles like Mashaal, Dhoom, and Fraaandship, how can you go wrong?

My only niggle with this release is that they threw in a couple of Russel Peters shows in there too. I love Russel Peters, but listen up Netflix: Just because the guy is brown doesn’t mean you can lump him into the Indian movie genre. You’re welcome.

Going email free

Resolution #27: Sort through the 250 unread emails in my inbox.

That dreaded resolution sound familiar? How about taking it one step further and eliminating email altogether? A few weeks ago the IT firm Atos made waves when they revealed they were phasing out internal emails in favour of other networking tools. That got me thinking that email is dying a slow death for personal use as well.

Email was invented in 1972 and has had a good run, but it’s time to move on. Let’s take a look at the facts:

1. Texting and IM has become more of the norm.
2. Networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow you to stay in touch with friends and colleagues.
3. Email newsletters are dying in the face of highly personalized reading tools like Google Reader, Flipboard, and Instapaper.
4. Free organizational tools like Evernote allows you to create tagged notes and task-oriented lists. No need to email yourself anymore.
5. Web browsers like Firefox can be synced so that all your bookmarks, history, etc. is available on any computer.
6. Smartphones offer instant notifications from all of the above and has become the communication nexus for most people (no pun intended).
7. Official organizations like your bank or the government won’t even touch email because of security issues. Yep, still a fax or phone call for these guys.

That leaves email as nothing more than a digital garbage can for junk mail. And who wants to waste their precious time being an online janitor? Not many. So forgive your grand-kids for laughing at this quaint “email” you tell them about - it’s just so 70s, man.

Which kindle is the best?

Answer: None of the above.

Back when the Kindle came out in 2007, it cost $400 and I didn’t think anyone would want one. But these days, a Kindle starts at $79 and is highly affordable. There are also more options to choose from.

If you’ve been buying e-books from Amazon, then you’re pretty much locked into their ecosystem. You may be wondering if it’s worth upgrading to one of the new kindles. Or perhaps you’re thinking about exchanging your crap Christmas present for one. Either way, let me tell you straight up: The best kindle is what is now known as the Kindle Keyboard 3G. Yes, that’s the Kindle 3 that came out over a year ago. Why? Well, let me tell you why the other ones suck:

Kindle: Without a physical keyboard, searching the store or browsing through books has become a major hassle.

Kindle Touch / Kindle Touch 3G: The bezel is far too small to grip comfortably. And without the extra space at the bottom, accidental page turns are frustrating.

Kindle Fire: No e-ink! You can’t read books in sunlight and the LCD screen is harder on the eyes. The Fire fails as a dedicated e-book reader.

With e-ink, a wider bezel, a physical keyboard, and physical hard keys for page turns, the Kindle Keyboard 3G is by far the best kindle you can buy today.

The old site is dead. Long live the new wordbit!

Visitors to wordbit.com may be surprised to see that everything has changed. I decided it was time. The days of traditional personal blogging have long since waned for several reasons:

1. The rise of social networking and micro-blogging.
2. The tenacity of spammers who bypass all known spam-blocking plug-ins.
3. The ghost town of most blogs that don’t have a cross-platform community.
4. The dominance of corporate-run blogs where bloggers are paid to post something earth-shaking every hour.

With all these pressures, and the fact that I couldn’t update my 2.0.9 Wordpress installation without breaking it’s back, I decided to move to where all the cool kids hang - Tumblr. Feel free to join and follow, or don’t. Either way, wordbit will continue to evolve and I will continue to write. That is all. Carry on.

PS. If you know me in person, ask me for the password to my Private blog. If you want to hire a writer, go to my online portfolio. If you miss the old site, I’ve kept it around on my About page. All the content is still there, but it’ll take me a while to patch up all the broken links.

Game of Thrones review

You may be wondering if I’m talking about the book or the HBO series. Well, I read the book first, so the TV show paled in comparison, as is usually the case. I was optimistic at first, mostly because of the glowing reviews and comparisons to Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson undoubtedly won the hearts of purists and lovingly captured the spirit of the books. Unfortunately, the Game of Thrones TV series falls short of this benchmark. It’s not terrible, but not awesome either, the way LOTR inspired awe.

The screenwriters obviously took great delight in exaggerating and extrapolating on certain scenes and themes in the novel. It seems like there is some sort of mandate at HBO to maximize on vulgarity and shock value. I’m sure some people get a kick out of this, but if you’ve read the book first, it all seems so unnecessary.

As for the book, I can only say that it’s rooted in political intrigue without being mired down in politics. The characters are well fleshed out, but nothing genre-bending. I like long epic stories with many interwoven plot lines, and this exactly is what you get here. Perhaps my only real complaint is that the few brief battle scenes are often told through second-hand accounts instead of diving first-hand into the action.

I’ve just finished reading Clash of Kings as well, and there is a lot to enjoy so far in the Song of Ice and Fire series. I can’t say I’m looking forward to a mangling of this excellent second book on TV though. Not that I won’t watch it anyway.

No rest for the dead…battery

My recent article on Battery Recycling is now available in the November issue of alive. I wasn’t aware of this before researching this topic, but you can recycle both single-use and rechargeable batteries in British Columbia.

Personally, I’m a big fan of eneloop batteries. I believe the batteries Apple uses in their wireless mouse and keyboard are re-branded eneloops.