I received this note today and thought I would spread it around.
The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce received this message from the RCMP and in case you haven't heard about this, we thought we should pass this on to you:
The RCMP have just informed us that there are five dollar bills and twenty
dollar bills in circulation that are counterfeit.
HOW TO IDENTIFY:
The $5.00 are the "Canadian Journey Series" with Sir Wilfred Laurier on the
front and kids playing hockey on the back. The serial numbers are all the
same and are: APD6321016.
The $20.00 are also the "Canadian Journey Series" with the Queen on the
front and a First Nations paddle-boat on the back. The serial numbers are:
EYH7778494.
If you identify any of these, do not accept them and call the RCMP
immediately at 667-5555.
After a bit of a prolonged time off (caused directly by the crazy schedule of events that "Yukon Living" presents) I have finally moved to the latest and greatest version of Drupal (4.7.2) and a new less "busy" theme.
There are many new ideas and a new focus to present in the coming months and I hope that this will provide the few readers that remain after such a continuous silence with something to chew on.
I hope the wait was worth it.
ps. yes I am aware that if you have a feed reader that you never really went away, you just didn't get updated news for a period of time...
I just exchanged a quick note with Jeremy Andrews (the maintainer of the KernelTrap.org website and the Drupal spam module) and he has declared the spam module ready for 4.7. (4.7.1 due to a recent security patch update).
I have delayed moving to 4.7 because I can't run a Drupal site without the spam module. I regularly get hundreds of posts a day that I would have to manually delete without the automated wonder that the spam module is. My free time is waaay too valuable to waste on comment herding.
Now I will be able to upgrade this site (and others) to 4.7 and enjoy many of the great new "no programming skills needed" features along with a spam free existance!
Download, install and enjoy!
I have done a bit more digging and come up with these jewels of information along the info by-ways.
1. The radio spectrum that Inukshuk uses is not for Mobile use. Its what the link refers to as Nomadic. Meaning this isn't the pancea for mobile VoIP phones yet.
2. The WiMAX devices are using pre-final certification hardware. I have also not been able to find a single snippet of info to tell me that an upgrade is a firmware flash away. This might be a case of buy early , buy again later.
3. The pricing is insane: 50$ or 130$. Rogers has a much better price point when you factor in cost of the modem and plan details
If you thought the 10GB that Northwestel limits users to was bad then imagine less than half that each month. Although, if you compare the Lite package (2GB/month) vs the Unplugged (4GB/month) its a bit more apples to apples in terms of speed and caps and such.
I would be interested in seeing a demo of this kit at work but I don't know if others have any interest in using this. It's still all going over the same backbone to the South.
I will post more information as I can find it on the 'net.
Big news in the world of wireless broadband: Inukshuk has been rolled out in Canada! Inukshuk is a Bell/Rogers initiative to put pre-final certification WiMax equipment into cities and (as dictated by the CRTC) rural communities.
Check this link for availability in your area. (link to Bell's site)
or
Check this link for availability in your area. (link to Rogers' site)
Aside: if you go to the Bell site and reload a few times you will be able to see the black book-sized modem that provides your internet connection.
This is great, although it appears to be a re-branding and country wide rollout of Fido's old iFido wireless system. Amusing to see Bell/Rogers push out one of the front of the curve technologies that Rogers(nee Fido) had in its stable.
This launch is a huge win for rural towns as WiMax has the *potential* to facilitate immediate rollout of highspeed internet access to smaller communities for much less cost than digging ditches and laying wires.
Now for the bad news. There are download caps (as low as 4GB/month!). There are roaming fees (so much for being "unwired" and "mobile"). There are no additional features (these will be rolled out over time).
The biggest road block: its freaking expensive. The 3Mb/512Kb connection is 130$/month.
Ouch.
But for some, this is better than dial-up and perhaps the only other option.
Summary:
The caps will go up with time (slowly) and the roaming fees will melt away once WiMax cards start making their way into notebooks but in the meanwhile this is very much not for widespread adoption.
They came, they saw, they filled the two tables at Zola's.
A big thanks to the folks that showed up for the first Yukon Developer Meet-up. I have been meaning to post on this prior but hadn't found the time.
The meat of what I took away was that people definitely enjoyed the "geeking out" and that we had one "marketable" idea bounce around was excellent. I hope I didn't belabor the point that Drupal is awesome for community websites and is amazing in general (after Trac failed to install properly on my archaic iBook)
I know that some folks took away some "things to look at in the future" tasks and I hope to have more feedback on those in the weeks that come.
I would like to note that the majority of the skillset around the table was web related so I hope to see some nifty thoughts from Geof, Jason, Shane, Chris and Ryan.
Comments for next time?
Ok, we have waited long enough for the people to respond and the final tally is about two small tables of people.
Not a huge turnout but it is a start!
We are going to meet after work at Zola's at 5pm on Monday, March 20th. I will be bringing my laptop with me and will setup an adhoc wifi network so that people can play with Trac. There is no wi-fi at Zola's anymore (that I know of).
The agenda (as such) is going to be this:
5pm - show up and take over two tables
+minutes - Introductions, socializing, drinks buying
+minutes - Trac Presentation/Demo by Evan
+minutes - Questions
+minutes - any other things people want to talk about
some time after 6pm we will head home and ponder the wonder of it all!
Bring any cool tech you want to show off or get feedback on. Let's get things rolling in the 'horse!
File this one under "Do They Even Get Security".
I was cleaning out my bookmarks just now and decided to see if Shaw had finally closed down my old email account as I did close/transfer my account to a friend when I moved to the 'Horse.
They haven't, but the even more fascinating thing is the total lack of security in their webmail login.
Try this :
In the past two months I have had to explore the business community of the Yukon I have come to realize that it relies heavily on meeting people. Great, easy to do right? This is a small town. (20 000 people or so).
Now, imagine you have been brought up in the age of the internet and wish to find contacts/comanies/anything in, say, Whitehorse.
Go ahead, use Google, I dare you.
Read this article then read this article before moving on.
