Press to go up to Eight

The elevator button from my building. This is the first of many "eight" themed photos to come.

Latest Toronto photos on your iGoogle

I just created a little Google Gadget that you can add to your personalized iGoogle homepage, or embed into your own web page. The widget simply displays a tiling of the most recent photos uploaded to my Flickr account with the tag "Toronto".

To add it to your iGoogle homepage, the easiest way is to follow this link. Otherwise, go to www.iGoogle.com, sign in (or register), then click the "Add stuff" link below and to the right of the Google search box (or just follow this link directly). Next, select the little "Add by URL" link to the right of the search button. Finally, enter the following URL:

http://lifeoneight.googlepages.com/lifeoneight_google_gadget.xml

To embed it into your own web page, add the following code to your HTML source file:

<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://lifeoneight.googlepages.com/lifeoneight_google_gadget.xml&up_title=Photos%20from%20Toronto&up_user_method=username&up_userid=&up_username=lifeoneight&up_count=6&up_size=s&up_display=latest&up_interval=no&up_tags=toronto&synd=open&w=278&h=180&title=Flickr+Photos+from+Toronto&border=http%3A%2F%2Fgmodules.com%2Fig%2Fimages%2F&output=js"></script>

Unlocked iPhone: Still crippled for Canadians

I just read about George Hotz's exploit; he is the first to manage to fully unlock his Apple iPhone (instructions can be found on his blog). It's not so trivial a task, at least for the moment, for an avrerage user to achieve (no simple crack.exe to run, we're talking about some precise soldering here), but a flood of unlocked iPhones will surely appear on eBay shortly. Gadget geeks in the USA won't likely be the most interested in these, however, but rather those in the rest of the world. Americans will now be able to choose T-Mobile service instead of AT&T, but for the world citizen it means that the iPhone now becomes an actual option. Here in Canada, unfortunately, an iPhone would be effectively still crippled. It would be a nice looking and performing phone for sure, and a sleek iPod replacement to boot. But Internet/data? Forget about it. Unlike the competitive rates in many countries around the globe, where some service providers offer unlimited GPRS data transfers for a reasonable monthly fee, here the best option we have is currently around $100 for a mediocre 200 MB per month. Forget video or music streaming, and forget using your new eBay-iPhone as a connected camera to populate your Flickr account on the go... unless you have deep pockets...

An introduction to life on eight

Life on eight is a quiet, peaceful life. In the already incognito living that permeates downtown highrise life, an eighth floor address is even more so -- no high floor cachet, but higher than the dust and most street noise. It's high enough to have an interesting field of view, but not beyond the reach of a brisk stair climb (say, during a blackout). Sharing an elevator to floor number 8 is also just right: it gives passengers (neighbours) enough time for a quick hello and a friendly inquiry -- just enough to feel like a social human, but not enough time for awkward silences or fake chit-chat. I'm told that 8 is a lucky number in some oriental cultures. Luck, I don't know, but I do feel fortunate living at this level. Life on eight is good.

First post

And we are off...