Optic Frog Blog

I'm pretty excited to start blogging for Techvibes.com, who's mission is to "unite the technology community" of Canada. Specifically, I'll be writing posts for the Calgary high-tech community, and my journey as I re-immerse myself in the simmering local screne after myopically focusing my work on Greenpoint and Intuit for the last seven years.

I'll still be posting here about non-technology stuff ... which is mostly what this stream of consciousness is anyways.

As always, thanks for readin'. Hope all is well in your world,

Stephen

December 20, 2007 - I had lunch today with Cameron and Doug; two old friends I grew up in business with (and in life for that matter). We had indian food.

When we were done lunch, Cameron asked me "So, is any of this going into your blog?" "Naw," I said. Nothing earth shattering was chatted about.

But, then, blogs aren't really about earth shattering stuff. So, just 'cause Cameron mentioned it, here's two things on my mind from lunch:

a) We all agreed that the three things you miss from corporate life when you leave are i) Your expense credit card, ii) Mobile phone charges being paid and iii) the ability to tack on a couple vacation days when you travel for business

b) The Canadian version of Quicken from my former company Intuit Canada (where I was VP, Marketing and Sales if you recall) is awesome ... I just bought it about a month ago and got my finances up to speed (finally!). I remember when we were branding / designing the box before I left ... the main sunburst message on the front of the box says "Makes online banking easier" ... the #1 sales message to make people buy the package. As it turns out, Canadian banks have changed their security logins from a single screen to a double screen, and thus, Quicken doesn't work with any Canadian banks. At least, that's what the service guy told me. He also told me I could go online at the bank, print out the bank transactions and enter them in manually into Quicken. Ummm ... exactly how does that "make online banking easier?" He didn't know. He told me they "knew about the problem." He couldn't confirm they were working on it. Nor, when it would be fixed. Nor, how he would contact me when it was fixed (I offered my email address, but I'm pretty sure that was discarded after our conversation). Nor did he offer any sort of compensation for the company lieing to me. At least he didn't charge me the $14.95 for the service call. Ahhh well ... I still love Quicken, and it is worth the $99 I spent, but this is the kind of thing that happens when product development and marketing don't talk to each other (and, yes, I take partial blame for it since I was running marketing when we did the messaging!)

Anyway, thank's fer reading. Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

c ya in 2008,

Stephen

P.S. My sister-in-law Linda called me today ... her Norton Antivirus popped up a message regarding a trojan horse virus: "Virus name: Trojan Horse" followed by "Access denied." No other detail or information. Then, a single button: [Ok]. We wondered where the [Not Ok] button was. Anyway, if Symantec wants us to pay their $100 a year for up to date virus information, you should probably put some effort into making it actually work better for people who aren't techno-savy.

P.P.S. By the way, did you know that the notion of modern day Santa was a marketing creation by Coca-Cola to sell more coke? All those nostalgic feelings and family close moments brought to you by your local bottler. :)

October 27th, 2007 -- I just spent the last week and a half gearing up the ManRoom (a.k.a. my li'l music studio space) to do some recording again. I love recording new music ... oozing notelets of music across a blank canvas. I've decided to take just a wee bit more time in my "between careers" phase of my forty-something angst and bury myself in the creative process (and, by "bury myself" I mean "obsess" :).

As I look back on the last 6 CD's, it's interesting how my studio gear has slowly improved over time ... a couple of the very first songs were done pinging tracks back and forth between two cassette tape recorders. I remember that one was slightly faster than the other and so I had to tune my guitar up slightly between takes in order to stay in pitch with the song. :)

Then, I graduated to a Fostex 4 track ... the CD's Optic Frog Session and the original Echo album were done on this. In 1995, I setup my first computer digital workstation (using the SAW Software Audio Workshop software). Yeah! was recorded on that setup, and Temporarily Jaded was a mixture of both SAW and the Fostex.

In 2002, I picked up a Zoom Multi-track workstation ... 12 glorious tracks on a single device. I only used the computer for post-production, 'cause frankly, I was tired of updating PC drivers and dealing with Windows crashes. I just wanted to record, u know? Which I did ... the double CD "Fields of Yellow" came from that studio setup.

Which brings us to the present ... I've moved back to the computer, but this time it's a MacBook Pro (hmmm ... the commercials are right ... Mac's Rule, PC's suck). Using Cubase Studio software, a Mackie Universal Pro controller, Firepod 8 input firewire audio interface, Korg Triton LE keyboard, Sonor drum kit. All of which adds to the usual collection of acoustic and electric guitar and basses.

Woooooohooooo! I've kinda finished one song already ... although I have more time to spend on the songs now, they also take more time to do just 'cause of the sonic options, u know? Fer example, since I can finely control the EQ of different tracks, it's useful to be able to ensure that the bass, bass drum and lower frequencies of the keyboard and guitar don't interfere with each other (I read about this technique once that Bob Rock used when recording Metallica's black album).

Anyhoo ... I'll be trying to keep this blog up to date with my ManRoom meanderings. I'll probably upload some sample songs along the way for y'all to enjoy. If you wanna know when I do, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed at the bottom left side of this blog.

C ya latah alligatahs. Thanks for readin' and listenin',

Stephen

October 16, 2007 -- It's the day after my daughter's 9th birthday. 9 going on 19 ... kids are exposed to soooo much these days that not only does the time fly by quickly, but their development seems to be accelerated too. She knows (and cares about) so much more than I did when I was 9. That includes world events and politics as well as the latest Be-Bratz and Webkinz toys, not to mention her world of music! And, she's doing really well in school.

Which brings me to the point of this blog entry. Allow me to be the peacock strutting Dad for just a second. Last year, she wrote her grade 3 provincial exams and nailed them. Her math score was 44 out of 45. She placed in the top 10% of the province, which is awesome for her.

I wanted to do something special to reinforce how important it is to do well in school.  I think that a happy life is one where learning and curiosity are constant, and opens up worlds of opportunity. Seeing her do so well for herself needed to be recognized. So, off I went to the local trophy store. I browsed through the aisles upon aisles of sample trophies with flashy faceless sports figurines sitting proudly on top:  Bowling. Tennis. Baseball. Hockey. Darts. Pool. Swimming. etc... I realized how hard it was to find a trophy that recognized academic achievement.

The lack of education trophies shouldn't have surprised me. Popular media celebrates sports ... our North American culture embraces it. You rarely see TV shows devoted to education (spelling bee's perhaps, and some game shows could fall in this category), whereas sports has dedicated channels.

Anyway, it's time like this that I pause and reflect how important it is for parents to guide their children and not let popular culture lead the way.

By the way, I finally found an appropriate trophy. The Lamp of Knowledge. Looks like like Aladdin's lamp. Learning and knowledge go in, and wishes and dreams come out.

Thanks fer readin'!

Stephen

October 5, 2007 Since I finished my Second Life video in early summer (see www.opticfrog.com for links, or go to Youtube.com and search for Stebankag), I hadn't been "inworld" for some time.

As you may or may not know, or may or may not care, I have an "office" in the "Sanctuary Rock" mall area ... since I did my video, the amount of work the owners have put into their night club / mall has been incredible. Instead of small tent-like stores on the ground, they've installed 3 stories of retail stores along with some impressive architecture developments around the dance floor. The music is now DJ'd ... meaning that, like a radio station, a live announcer comes on every couple of songs to talk.

The dance floor tonight had about 60 people in it ... I chatted with a fellah who bought an Eric Clapton strat guitar from a site called www.slexchange.com that allows you to buy SL stuff on the web outside of SL which gets delivered to you inworld (this is actually pretty handy, since you don't have to adventure around Second Life for stores that offer the objects for sale).

Anyhoo, this rapid development is occuring everywhere in Second Life ... I've got a house, too (yah, I know, I'm a geek), and the area around my house has changed drastically. Lots of private clubs. The ranch beside my house has been greatly developed as well ... used to be wide open land for the cyber-3D-horses to glide around in ... now there's a bunch of stables, water and hay areas, and other buildings. Someone hung a huge moon right beside my house ... which, frankly, is pretty cool.

Second Life, overall, has grown immensely. Another big island has been added. There are now 9.8 million citizens (vs. 2 million last December, 2006). The outlying islands dot the map in huge numbers, each a detailed fantasy of their owner's Second Life. The large number of users is exponentially accelerating property and object development .. kudos to Linden Labs for grabbing the tiger by the tail.

The CRAZY thing is that 3rd party real estate prices in Second Life are increasing. Unlike RL ("real life"), where land is finite, SL land is infinite due to cyberspace having no boundaries except for server farm capacity. This means the supply curve can always be ahead of the demand curve. So, why would property that once cost $20 U.S. now costs $70? It's not even location that's driving up the prices ... since you can teleport instantly to any part of Second Life, proximity to highly desireable property is irrelevant. A weird kind of gold rush, where everyone can get gold, you don't need to go to Alaska to get it, but the price increases anyway.

Social networking on the web is way, way, way past the FAQ and support forums we used 5 years ago. I love the world-wide interactivity. As I was saying a couple of weeks ago in a swimming pool in Belize (1st Life, donchyaknow), in a slightly rum-infused rant about the politics of the world, the connectivity between the average joe's of the world through social networks on the web is ultimately going to save us all ... giving power back to you and me, and away from political and power hungry corporate leaders ... people talking to people. Kind of comforting in a way, methinks (although, admitedly, one has to get past the random hanging moons to have some real conversations).

Ok ... it's late ... gotta get to bed. latah & thanks for reading',

Stephen