Configuring Mail in OS X for Use With Shaw
Recently, Mail stopped sending through my outgoing mail sever on my MacBook. In the office, we have SHAW and send through shawmail.wp.shawcable.net as our outbound mail servers. Shaw has a tool if you need to find your local mail server and they also have a complete step-by-step walkthrough there as well. However, this one issue is not documented there as of this writing.
Apparently during a recent upgrade, Shaw's mail servers no longer allow the default setup in Mail.app to work. The default setup polls the mail server on potential mail ports at 25, 465, 587 until it finds the correct one, then uses that port to send through. This now fails.
In order to fix this, you need to choose the second option and specify that you want to use port 25 exclusively. That should do it.
Daily Links
ACTA
The EU Commission posted online a new final version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.Importance Of Side Projects
Some good reasoning why developers should fiddle around with side projects to exercise their creativity and keep up their skill set.CUPW Strike?
Canada Post was given notice that the Canadian Union of Postal Workers intends to begin strike activities at 11:59 p.m. EDT on June 2, 2011.How to Properly Send Email
I'm not sure how many times we have had conversations about email and how bad the medium is for productivity, but it must be in the hundreds now. Regardless, there is a nice article at Matt Might's site about some tips he has gleaned over the years. My absolute number ONE email rule, keep it short.Daily Links
RIP Gil Scott-Heron
The clip above is from his 2010 album and it is a cover of a "I'm New Here" by Smog (aka Bill Callahan). Widely regarded as one of the major influences in today's hip hop music, Gil Scott-Heron was a brilliant poet, an activist and a voice for a generation during the 70s.
Here is the wikipedia page for more information about the man.
Another piece of his you might be familiar with - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (youtube).
Following his death, Chuck D of Public Enemey posted this tweet,
RIP GSH..and we do what we do and how we do because of you.And to those that don't know tip your hat with a hand over your heart & recognize
In honour of the poet,
Remember,
time catches us all.
It waits for nothing,
and does not stall.
Use it wisely,
Before you regret
your gifts.
Jm
Daily Links
Minimum Wage Going To $10 An Hour
Minimum wage in Manitoba will go up 50 cents in October 1st, from $9.50 to $10 an hour.Paypal Sues Google
Specifically, Paypal sues Google and two former employees who are key execs behind the new Google Wallet... which was just launched yesterday. Amanda Pires, a senior director at Paypal, urges you to read the entire lawsuit for yourself.Study Finds iPad Apps Need To Work On Their UI
Nielsen Norman Group group did a usability study on iPad apps and found that participants, even after having owned an iPad for at least two months, were flummoxed by app interfaces a third of the time. iPad developers, you might be being a bit too clever here.Literally Unbelievable
Stories from the Onion that appear on Facebook and are taken seriously.Windows Phone Mango
Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president in Windows Phone shows off some of the new features coming in the Mango release of Windows Phone. Have to say, looks like good stuff.Things in PHP That Make You Sad
What a great little site.Shaw's New Internet Packages Might Be OK
Since I'd attended one of the Customer Consulation Sessions Shaw set up after attempting to implement Usage Based Billing this winter, I was invited to another one to comment on the new internet packages that resulted. The information on the plans themselves is already online, but it was good to get a detailed explanation of how things will work. Not knowing what the plans were prior to the consultation session, I went in prepared for the worst. I would not have been surprised if the new plans looked a lot like the proposed UBB plans from earlier in the year. Luckily, that was not the case. Shaw's new plans are very forward looking and do address all of my main concerns with UBB.
The new plans:
In a nutshell, the proposal is to reclaim a lot of the bandwidth currently used for analog TV and use that for IP traffic. According to Shaw this action, while costly, would triple the bandwidth available for internet traffic. That would give them a lot more breathing room before having to worry about congestion. To go along with the new bandwidth there would be new, significantly faster packages. Shaw's existing internet packages are to be kept more-or-less the same as they are (i.e. without UBB charges), but the faster plans will have increases in their download speeds and data caps. The new plans will be bundled with TV service, and will roll out in two phases. The first will start in June with a second phase of higher speed packages rolling out in selected areas starting in August. The expectation is that the second phase plans will be fully available in all areas by August of next year.
What's to like:
- The new broadband packages have much higher speeds than anything else currently available in most areas. (50, 100, and 250 Mbps).
- The new broadband packages have much higher data caps.
- There is a low-end option with unlimited data for users who don't need high speeds and don't want to worry about ever going over their limit.
- There are two high-end options with unlimited data for heavy internet users.
- Customers who opt-in one to the new broadband packages that has a limit will automatically be bumped up to the next higher plan if they go over in a given month. The next month their plan will return to normal. So the only reason to choose one of the more expensive plans as your default is if you know you want higher download speeds. This also limits the total charges for bandwidth to that of the high-end unlimited plan.
- The new plans are far beyond what Shaw's competitors offer either in terms of download speed, data usage, or both. This should shake up the Canadian market, which is something that's long overdue.
Downsides:
- Rolling up to the next higher plan will be more expensive for users who frequently go over their base bandwidth by only a small amount. I still prefer this option to UBB. Especially since there is an unlimited option to eventually stop the cost increase.
- As proposed, the new broadband packages must be bundled with Shaw TV service. Either one of their legacy TV packages, or the newer Personalized TV. Those who currently don't have TV or who are considering moving in this direction will either need to use a legacy internet package or pay for TV anyway.
- The low-end unlimited option is the same cost as the next higher plan, which has a 400GB cap, but if you download at 1Mbps constantly for 31 days you can only download 335 GB. I still see the point of the plan, but it should probably be a bit cheaper.
Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic about Shaw's new direction. With bundled TV, it's likely that the cost to me personally for internet access will go up ... at least if I decide I really want the higher download speeds. So far I rarely use over 70GB of data per month, and I'm not really suffering from downloading things too slowly. So I may stick with the legacy plan for a while.
Daily Links
Hedge fund star calls for Microsoft's Ballmer to go
Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn has called for Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to step down, saying the world's largest software company's long-time leader is stuck in the pastHistory of Advertising on Twitter
Mashable provides a great infographic on how Twitter has experimented with ad revenue since 2006. One of the things I do like about Twitter is that they have been very careful to not make any advertising or monetization overly in-your-face.In 2169 A 500m Asteroid Will Pass Earth at 400 Miles
Nasa is dispatching a satellite to the asteroid to get a more accurate read on its trajectory.Daily Links
Dan Benjamin on His Favourite Programming Fonts
Since we started using Coda in the office, it has been pretty much Panic Sans all the time for us. What is your favourite?Laser Shows At The Planetarium
Every Saturday starting May 21, the Planetarium will be doing it's musical laser shows. Featuring the Beatles, Radiohead, Daft Punk, and Pink Floyd.Youtube Stats after Six Years
YouTube has just turned 6 years old. From the above linked article:"We're amazed that over this last weekend, you drove YouTube past the 3 billion views a day mark, a 50% increase over last year. "
Portal 2 Soundtrack
Valve has released volume one of "songs to test by", the Portal 2 soundtrack, free to download. As an extra bonus, they've included several tunes trimmed and ready to use as ringtones. For science. You monster.Daily Links
Textify
A pretty cool little experiment. Convert images to HTML text.Mozilla Rejects WebP Image Format
Google continues to push video and image formats based on it's 2009 On2 acquisition. WebM video sports a royalty-free license, enough to make it an attractive solution to a real-world web problem, but do we really need a JPG alternative?Wordpress Drops Support For IE6
Wordpress has decided it's no longer worth their time juggling "increasingly complex code trickery" just to make their dashboard work in a ten year old browser. And they are hoping to drop support for IE7 within a year.Twitter Buys Tweetdeck
Twitter scoops up another third-party twitter client as it continues to piss off third-party twitter client developers.Death Cab for Cutie's Codes and Keys - NPR Has It
Go now. Do not wait.May Long Weekend Wishes You Well Winnipeg
As we get older and wiser, we have come to the realization that long weekends are AWESOME! The May long weekend has always had a special place in the hearts of Canadians, as it is the unofficial kick off into summer. If you are spending the weekend in Winnipeg, here are some fun things to do:
- Fireworks at The Forks on Sunday May 20 at 10pm - who doesn't love fireworks?
- The Quilt of Belonging exhibition opens at the WAG - yeah, I know. A quilt? But after reading about the exhibition, what it represents and seeing the photos, I'm now intrigued and will be checking it out.
- Music, music and more music this weekend. Check out the ManitobaMusic.com calendar of events. There are some many good club shows that it is ridiculous.
- The Titanic Exhibition is showing and Tourism Winnipeg has details
- If you want to do a little fishing while in town, Fort Whyte has FREE FISHING all weekend.
- For a little more excitement, the Casinos of Winnipeg has great entertainment as well as their usual games.
- and finally, if you are travelling to the states on Highway 75, don't forget that you can use EmersonDutyFree.com to pre-order and have your items delivered to your car so you don't lose your place in line.
If you are heading out town to go camping, or visit the cottage, remember sun screen, bug spray, reading material, snacks, as well as warm, wet, and cold weather clothes. As we all know, the May long weekend weather can be unpredictable.
As for Visual Lizard, we are happily closed on Monday, May 23 to recharge our batteries. We will return to business as usually on Tuesday, May 24. Have a fantastic weekend everyone.
Cheers from,
Julian, Doug, Ross, Wil, Dwayne and Max