The problem with large mail stores (Gmail, Fastmail, etc.), is that when you have 2 GB of storage, and you’ve only used about 200 MB of it, you have no motivation to clean it up, archive it, or make any particular effort to keep it organised.
I watched part of the US Vice Presidential debate tonight. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it other than complain about Edwards. I’m not even listening to the analysis of the debate, but it seemed pretty clear to me that Cheney looked generally more competent than Edwards.
Not to even touch on the fact that Edwards completely sold out on all of the marriage issues. He continued talking about how he and Cheney agreed on the definition of marriage, and harped on the fact that Cheney has a gay daughter. At least Cheney looked like a dignified moron.
In October 16, less than 2 weeks from now, those of us that live in the city of Vancouver will be voting in a plebiscite on whether city council should be elected in the present at-large system, or as wards, like many other large cities in the country.
I was called by the pro-wards campaign asking for not only support, but money and to volunteer. I told them I was supporting, but I would not be donating any money.
Part of the problem is that I don’t feel all that confident in a wards electoral system for Vancouver. But it’s not that easy.
COPE is strongly pushing the wards system for pretty clear political reasons: they stand to dominate city council for sometime if the city were to be divided into wards. They are claiming that it will offer better representation to minority groups within the city.
Councillor Sam Sullivan of the NPA, on the other hand, is not only against wards, but supports the current at-large electoral system, claiming that a wards system would make councillors less acountability to issues that aren’t relevant to their ward.
And yet there’s more to the debate than just that. There are others that are voting ‘no’ because they don’t support wards, nor do they support at-large. They are after things like a hybrid wards and at-large system, or pro-rep (something the Green school trustee is supporting).
So there are an infinite number of options, but only 1 question (with 2 answers) being asked.
As I said, I will be voting ‘yes’ in the upcoming plebiscite. I will be voting yes because I support something other than the present at-large system. My hope is that it will elect more balanced city councils — though this is just my hope. I worry that in many ways, parts of the city will actually loose representation, the way many people feel about the wards system used provincially.
According to the proposed boundaries, I will be in the Point Grey-Kitsilano ward. My guess is that this ward would be controlled by the Point Grey, right-ist voting population, and less by the hippy/young family/student population of Kits. So for me, having an NPA councillor (or worse), would mean that I would only actually have one councillor to represent me, one councillor to ignore and disregard my issues, and only one councillor to blame.
I suppose I’ve become somewhat ambivalent on the issue. But, come October 16, I will be voting ‘yes’.
Remember last September when I purchased a very, very cheap brandless digital camera as an attempt to get a cheap and not very high quality secondary camera?
Well the camera didn’t turn out to perform as well as I had expected, despite having very low expectations for the camera.
Still having a need for a secondary camera, I spotted the Samsung Digimax 202 at Future Shop. This camera doesn’t even come in a box; it’s one of those that ships in that hard form-fitting plastic cages. So I decided to pick it up and give it a try.
I brought it down to Oregon with me, and the photos turned out quite well. I did a small variety of outdoor shots before I left, and I was quite impressed. Indoor shots didn’t turn out as well, but that’s just a product of a cheap lens and bad light metering — something I was expecting. I’ll probably write something else about photo quality later, and perhaps do a side-by-side comparison.
As for physiccal specs, it’s very small and compact, and weighs just about right. For the price, it came with a set of disposable double A alkaline batteries and a small carrying case. Not too bad for $130. It uses MMC/SD, so I had to purchase a Secure Digital card in order to store more than 6 MB of worth of photos. It being only a 2 megapixel camera, only a small media card is necessary, especially considering it’s meant to be a secondary camera.
It has a fixed focal length, which is fine, and the lens has a built in automatic cover. The lens is also fitted with a permanent plastic flat cover that fits over and above the lens and cover. This means that the only thing I have to worry about getting dirty is this plastic cover. However, if this is scratched, it’s as bad as the lens itself. Interesting design choice. At least I got a free case.
I’ve been a Fastmail user for several years now. My enhanced account with 150 MB of IMAP storage, plus file storage, with an excellent web interface makes managing my e-mail nice and easy.
And while I pay $40USD/year for Fastmail, my Gmail account gives me 1GB of storage free. But it’s certainly no where near as powerful as Fastmail, but most importantly, I don’t get native client access (via IMAP) to Gmail.
In response to Google and all the other competition, Fastmail has increased the storage. I now have over 2GB of storage with Fastmail.
