The Blog of Brad
Posts tagged internet
List: Services Not Available in Canada [UPDATE x3]
Jan 31st
Here is a semi-complete list of everything I’ve come in contact with that aren’t available in Canada:
- Lala (international copyright issues) -> See Video <- (not available ANYWHERE as of May 31)
- Pandora (international copyright issues) -> See Picture <-
- Hulu (international copyright issues; this includes embeds for any associated companies including the Comedy Channel for example) -> See Picture <-
- Google Voice (won’t forward to Canadian numbers; suspicion is that it’s CRTC regulations on E911 services) -> See Picture <-
- Amazon MP3 -> See Picture <-
- Amazon Prime
- Amazon streaming TV and movies
- Netflix Streaming (Netflix physical media rentals are provided by Zip.ca)
- textPlus (won’t accept Canadian phone numbers; although, GOGII is conducting a beta regarding that, see here.)[UPDATE! textPlus is now available in Canada as of February 16, 2010]
- Motorola Droid (or GSM/UMTS version called the “Milestone”) – no carriers yet – available in Canada on Telus as of February 2010
- Nexus One (won’t ship to Canada; Nexus One uses irregular UMTS bands that none of the major 3 Canadian carriers use; AWS is going to be provided by WIND mobile — currently in Toronto only) – available as of March 2010 on Rogers, Telus, and Bell. Orders as AT&T compatible, ships to Canada. Paid apps are supported.
- FitBit – won’t ship to Canada; hasn’t been approved for sale in Canada.
Xmas Wish List: 5 Services Canada Doesn’t Have
Nov 22nd
These are the services that I wish were available to Canadians in the same way as they are to Americans
- Google Voice
- Hulu
- Spotify
- Last.fm
- Netflix (physical and real)
Ninite Application Installer
Oct 25th
This week has been an interesting week: it’s been Windows 7 week! I chose not to write about Windows 7 this week because for most people it’s not big news –I’ve had it for months from MSDN, a lot of those who care have tried the betas, and most “regular” people don’t upgrade their operating systems until they get a new computer. However it’s worth mentioning that there is a great service out there that will be useful for those reinstalling their OSes (recommended as opposed to an in-place upgrade for Windows 7), reinstalling your Vista or XP install, or just got a new computer and need to get all of your applications on your computer. Ninite has a solution for you.
Ninite, a new service that allows you to check-off what software you’d like to batch-install, creates an executable that takes care of downloading and installing the applications you chose from the list that they provide. However there are free and open source programs on this service, you can also get paid software such as Microsoft Office 2007 Standard, which just downloads a trial of it, allowing you to activate it using your purchased product key.
As I said before, this site creates a batch installer mini-program that takes care of downloading and installing your applications. I should clarify that the application you download from this site is small, less than a megabyte (165KB in my case). When this program is executed it does the downloading, meaning that this will not install applications offline such as downloading this on a computer with an internet connection and trying to install applications on a PC without an internet connection won’t work and trying to use this to install applications on a PC with a slow internet connection won’t be beneficial.
Here is how the interface works:
And this is what the installer app looks like in Windows 7:
I give this service top marks for it’s usefulness, uniqueness, ease-of-use, and wide selection of applications. However I’m interested to see if they will offer a way to do offline installs of applications (a lot more useful if performing a lot of installs on a lot of machines).
Quick Tip: Stream Audio in Background on iPhone/iPod Touch on OS 3.0
Jun 24th
I’m a TWiT aficionado and always use the TWiT.am app from the App Store, however it doesn’t work in the background (a feature I LOVED when I had my iPod jailbroken) however, I got curios and tried this, and so can you!
- Go to http://twit.am/ in Safari
- Click on Listen Live
- [A Player opens – as seen below]
- Click the home/menu button on the front of the device and the audio keeps playing in the background.
Firefox Extension: Tree Style Tabs
Apr 16th
I heard this recommendation on Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson’s Security Now podcast (episode ##) for a Firefox addon called Tree Style Tabs which is just about the most UI concept I’ve ever seen. (Given that it does almost have a terminal-esque geeky feel to it, so this is not universally grandma-friendly). Basically, this just moves the tabs from the tab-bar to a tree-list on the side of your browser (btw, because of the tree-list metaphore created back in the ’90′s, that means you have parent and children items..). See the screen shots below and get your copy free for Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 here… More >
