Looking Back 2009 - Looking Forward 2010...

So here we are - the end of one year and the beginning of another - time to look back and look forward - the adventures and opportunities of the year past and the adventures and opportunities of the year ahead...

2009 was a full and busy year - I began a regular gym routine which has morphed into a six-day a week routine - I'm in much better shape now than I was a year ago and fully expect to be in even better shape by the end of 2010. My virtual cross Canada trek from Halifax to Vancouver has me somewhere around Winnipeg right now (more posts to follow on that) - I hope to be in Vancouver by October or November 2010. The gym and fitness has become part of my life - a big lifestyle change for me. In 2010 I plan on running (well slogging - slow jogging) the Bluenose 5K - I've walked it the last two years. Also plan on playing more golf in 2010 than I did in 2009, but that will be u to the Golf Gods...

On the technology front 2009 was the year where Twitter became my most used Web 2.0 tool and Facebook declined in use - in fact if it were not for the ability of TweetDeck to simultaneously post to Twitter and Facebook, I might never use Facebook - although it is still my preferred tool for tracking Birthdays etc. As it is I use Greasemonkey scripts to customize facebook and get rid of a lot of the superfluous stuff that seems to spring up all over Facebook these days.

I also blogged less in 2009 but plan on doing more in 2010 - Twitter took a lot of what I wanted to say, but some days I just need more than 140 characters. Twitter changed the way we look at and get news - look at the uprisings in Iran and the Haiti earthquake - Twitter got the news out to the world...

I'm still looking for that killer Web 2.0 app that will tie all these social media sites together - if you create it, you will make a fortune. I thnk in 2010 the desktop and operating sytems will become less relevant and the move to the cloud will continue. I wonder what impact that Google's Chrome OS will have? Google's influence will continue t0 grow - it will be a noun, verb, adjective, and who knows maybe even a preposition bythe end of 2010.

Devices will continue to shrink - more and more folks will use smartphones an netbooks to connect - I can't wait to see what Apple does with their tablet (iSlate, iTablet or who knows the Newton II?).

All in all 2009 was a great year and I'm looking forward to what 2010 brings. Hmmm...

40th Anniversary of The Mouse...

It's the 40th anniversary of the mouse first seen in the "Mother of All Demos" done by Doug Englebart at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) in San Franciso.



In the demo the first mouse, made of wood was used. Where would we be today without the mouse. Happy anniversary!

Support Our Troops...

Regardless of how you feel about Canada's mission in Afghanistan, supporting the troops that are there carrying out the mission is the right, patriotic, Canadian thing to do. This video tribute is from the Manitoba Moose AHL hockey team, and was shown after a game in which they wore special camouflage uniforms to show their support for te troops.



I want to thank all the troops who have served and are serving in Afghanistan for their professionalism, courage and dedication. They are all heroes...

The Smiley Turns 25

Happy Birthday Smiley :-)!! The smiley :-) turns 25 today. Here is an article telling the tale of the smiley's creation and first use by Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman. An excerpt from the article explains the origins of :-) :

"Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.

"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote Fahlman. "Read it sideways.""

Emoticons have given us a simple way to convey emotions in typed conversations, adding depth and context to many conversations over the past 25 years - Happy Birthday smiley :-), may you have many more...