Amber Mac

I'm not going to lie.  I love to travel, but i HATE flying (yeah, I know, I fly all the time and have flown to dozens of countries since I was a wee kid).  But, still, I really HATE flying.  Sweaty palms, shaky legs, you name it and I've got it.

When I worked at Razorfish in San Francisco in 2000, I refused to fly to a company retreat in Las Vegas; instead, I took a 6-hour train ride and a 6-hour bus ride to Sin City (while on Greyhound on the way back to SF, I was one of two people on the ride before we headed up to a prison to collect half-a-dozen newly released inmates - but still, to me, sittin' on a bus with criminals in the desert was much better than boarding a plane).  

For most of the late nineties, I avoided all opportunities that involved air travel.  But in 2004, when I moved back to Canada from the U.S., I started to get sick of being so afraid so my doctor suggested that I take Ativan when I'm high up in the air.  Yes, high up in the air (turns out Ativan is an amnesiac, so you can't even remember that you were afraid - weird, huh?). 

Over the past few years, I've had to fly more and more, and am (finally) getting pretty solid at talking my way through each and every minute while in-flight (oh, and talking to pretty much anyone who sits near me or who works on the plane).   Here's an email I received yesterday from someone I met two(?) years ago en route to Los Angeles (in other words, you might want to hope that you don't ever have a plane seat near me):

"I met you on a plane from Toronto to SF and it was the weirdest flight I ever had... We passed cryptic notes to the crew and scared everyone else... do you remember this?" -Eric

Most recently, I flew from Orlando, Florida to Brisbane, Australia, which is why I've got flight on my mind.  For 13 hours over the Pacific Ocean, on Qantas Airlines, I kept remembering what "Rain Man" said in the movie, so tonight I looked up the video and had a little chuckle.  Here it is for your enjoyment.  And, I'm not going to lie, this silly scene made me feel less sweaty and shaky the whole flight to Oz!  Please tell me i'm not the only one with stories like this ;).  -A

April 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (32)

April 9th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (13)

Took a working holiday this past week in Florida, but couldn't ignore the many emails about the net neutrality debate in Canada. In response, shot a two-minute video news update to shed some light on the situation (thx to CD for shooting and editing this!).  The little kid in the video is hard to hear, but I can assure you that he is one bitter ISP customer!

Feel free to post this video anywhere you want online (there is an embed feature on the video player). I'm off to Australia today for the next week on a work trip, but I'll try to blog from Down Under.

April 5th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (32)

Just in case you've never heard of Spark, it's a weekly 30-minute CBC radio show (and podcast, of course) about technology and culture.  Starting this week, I'm doing a regular (when I'm in Canada) 2-minute audio column for them where I answer your tech questions.  This week I talked about why Canadians can't see most American TV shows online (big thx to Michael Geist for his help on this).  The Spark team has asked that folks post questions on their blog (e.g. What is DVD-RAM and why do technohippies like it? -Andy).

Next show I plan to answer this question, What is net neutrality and how do I get me some?  OK, I might improve the wording a little ;).  Hope you enjoy this week's show (which includes my favourite Mann)!

April 3rd, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)

For the links from this week's episode, go to commandn.tv.

March 31st, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9)

I first heard about a third party Internet Service Provider called Teksavvy from my friend Phil, a former collague at Citytv.  He swears by the ISP, an alternative to Bell and Rogers, which offers (offered) up unthrottled bandwidth (thx to an OLD deal from Bell) and (I hear) has the best customer service in the country (something that makes those of us who know Bell's "Emily" jump for joy).  Well, the light at the end of Canada's dark history of traffic shaping (i.e. throttling P2P traffic, including services such as BitTorrent, etc.) is getting even more dim. 

A Globe and Mail article announced today that "Bell was restricting the torrent and peer-to-peer traffic of Teksavvy customers.  'They [Bell] are screwing with our data, which is not their property,' said Teksavvy's CEO. 'Every single third-party ISP in Canada is going to be affected by this.'"

The very fact that Joe Public doesn't understand the terms traffic shaping and bandwidth throttling (and don't get me started on Net Neutrality) is a sigh of relief to executives at Canada's big ISPs.  When customers aren't educated, customers have no voice.  And let's face it, mainstream media doesn't do a great job of digging into this technical jargon.

A Facebook friend just sent me a link that will give you more info and allow you to show your support for Teksavvy and help you understand the state of ISPs in the Great White North. 

Incidentally, I wonder just how much money Bell and Rogers make every year?  I'm sure I can find those numbers pretty quickly online, which will immediately leave me wondering when these ISPs will start giving customers the services we want and the service we deserve for filling up their deep pockets.

March 26th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (33)

After a few weeks of hard work from my good pals at Arktyp and GiraffeSoft, my new site is up 'n running.  The plan is to blog more, post more videos, and basically take over the online world (OK, maybe I am too ambitious for a Monday morning).  Also, I have a few links to add to the sidebar (but I'm impatient, so wanted to go live asap).

I am writing this post from our new studio in Liberty Village.  It feels great to be independent.  Am planning to shoot a video in the next few hours about some of the projects I'm working on, maybe even include a little tech news. 

As always, thanks for stopping by ;).  -Amber

March 24th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (74)

I don't know what to say, but thanks to Kevin for sending me this link ;-).

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (10)

A few weeks ago Leo sent me a link to this video of Hillary Clinton shedding her skin, a product sample from Aviary.

This week I contacted the people behind Aviary, a company based in Long Island that offers up "a suite of rich internet applications geared for artists of

all genres. From image editing to typography to music to 3D to video,

we have a tool for everything." 

Very innocently, I asked to be bumped up on their Beta list so that I could show off their tools during an upcoming segment of The Lab with Leo Laporte on G4TechTV.

One of their very creative artists used Phoenix, their Flash-based image editor, to give me the AlienMac look that you see above my "before picture" (just so I could see the product's potential in full swing).  Ah, yeah, thanks guys, love ya.

If I wanted to maintain a professional reputation, I'd probably hide this photo.  But, let's fact it, beside my two gorgeous friends Jenna and Marcella, I look like a renowned member of Star Trek - and that is too good NOT to share.   

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (10)

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (11)