Contributed by Doug Ross, Wil Alambre, Julian Moffatt, and Dwayne Kristjanson over the course of May 31st…

• NHL announcement at 11AM today. The return of the Jets?
  

  The NHL is poised to return to Winnipeg. There is a major press conference scheduled today at 11AM

• It's About The Hashbangs

  Dan Webb writes a solidly thought out opinion about the now common practice of using hashbang URLs. I didn't like them when they started becoming popular and I still don't like them now.

• Think Before You Tweet

  Egregious Facebook posts or angry tweets about supervisors can be considered just cause, meaning workers can be shown the door with no severance. Even with the protection of a union, blasting the bosses online can also mean losing your job.

• World Health Organization is Now Listing Cell Phones as Carcinogens

  Not that I normally link to CNN, but WHO (World Health Org.) has just moved cell-phones into the could-be-carcinogenic-to-humans category. Same as ever really, but in a nutshell, keep your kids off them and keep them away from your body if you can when they are transmitting.

• Don't Design Like A Programmer

  Those of us here who are programmers are sometimes guilty of this. Having the warning signs spelled out helps.

• Introducing the Follow Button

  You can now add to the flood of social media icons and labels on your web pages with Twitter's new "follow" button, allowing visitors to instantly follow Twitter accounts without leaving your site.

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 30th…

• 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.

• U2 Live In Winnipeg
  

• 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.

Contributed by Julian Moffatt over the course of May 28th…

• 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

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 27th…

• 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.

Contributed by Doug Ross, Wil Alambre, and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 26th…

• 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 past

• History 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.

Contributed by Julian Moffatt and Wil Alambre over the course of May 25th…

• 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.

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 24th…

• 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.

Contributed by Julian Moffatt and Wil Alambre over the course of May 20th…

• Improve Your Intelligence

  This is a great list of little things you can do to help your brain. I'm a constant new experience seeker, but I certainly gained some insight from the other four tips.

• Screenstagram

  A screensaver using instagram pics, looking very similar to Apple's iTunes cover art screensaver.

• Spicy Chicken Breakfast Sandwich
  

  Bookmarked for future development. This looks fantastic.

Contributed by Doug Ross, Julian Moffatt, and Wil Alambre over the course of May 19th…

• GPS Locator for your laptop

  Prey lets you keep track of your phone or laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen.

• Wooden iPhone Alarm Clock
  

  Yeah. That is pretty cool.

• Beer At Grocery Stores?

  Consumer Affairs Minister Gord Mackintosh said he wants to update the Liquor Control Act to allow MLCC boutiques in grocery stores, as well as a huge list of other changes.

• May Long Weekend Closures

  Access Winnipeg provides a good solid list of what's open and what's closed for the 2011 Victoria Day long weekend.

Contributed by Wil Alambre, Julian Moffatt, and Max Chiriac over the course of May 18th…

• Netflix Largest Source Of Internet Traffic

  I just signed up for the free trial of Netflix this weekend through my Xbox, and I'm not surprised by this statistic. It's a brilliant service that is available in all the right places.

• The Adventures Of Tintin Trailer
  

• What Is Bitcoin?
  

• Optimizing Error Pages

  This is why we make sure our Catalyst CMS allows admins to manage their error pages, including the 404 page; a great chance to turn a mistake into an opportunity!

• Google Acquires ITA
  

• Canaveral - the Font
  

  An awesome font and you set the price. Pay what you feel is fair.

• Manitoba introduces new law to simplify cell-phone contracts

  The Manitoba government ushered in new rules for cell-phone companies today by introducing a new law to simplify cell-phone contracts.

• Three Man Chess In The Round

  Okay, this looks pretty damn cool, would love to try it out.

Contributed by Julian Moffatt and Dwayne Kristjanson over the course of May 17th…

• Moonlight Graham's Wish

  Posted in preparation for the annual coming of summer. May long weekend always features a traditional screening of Field of Dreams.

• Using the Social Web to Fly Like a Rock Star

  This idea is awesome. I hope it reaches critical mass and we say good bye to marginal commercial carriers by way of self organizing our own direct flights. Hello future.

• Full Browser Bars

  Nifty little CSS idea from CSS-Tricks.com for making elements stretch the width of the browser.

• Qemu ported to JavaScript. Runs Linux.

  Did you ever want to boot up a complete OS in your browser? Now you can.

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Max Chiriac over the course of May 13th…

• Infringements on In-App Purchases?

  Some iOS developers are receiving lawsuit threats from Lodsys saying it has a claim on using the in-app purchase functionality as an "upgrade" button.

• Targeting High Screen Densities with CSS Media Queries
  

  An interesting read about pixel ratio based media queries. By using them we can create great adaptive layouts.

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 12th…

• Map Pins and Tooltops

  A photoshop file of standardized map elements for your design toolbox. Considering the number of maps being added to sites, this will be handy sooner than later!

• Was Textmate 2 Released?

  Keeping you informed with another single serving site of the day.

• Google Chromebooks

  Samsung and Acer will each be offering Chromebook laptops in the US starting June 15. They will also be available internationally in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy.

• Google and Motorola and Skyhook

  Nilay Patel goes summarizes 750 pages of documentation, giving us a peek into the nitty-gritty of Google's Android device approval process.

Contributed by Julian Moffatt over the course of May 11th…

• Wired Covers the New Photoshop Apps for iPad
  

  These apps are making me think about springing for CS5. Gonna stick to our plan of only upgrading on the even numbers for now. But thinking. (image via Wired)

• PhyMyAdmin 3.4.0 Released

  If you are a Safari user, you should be excited. If you are a semi-super geek and you don't use the command line for MySQL, you should also be excited. If you are a designer, nothing to see here. Please move along!

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 10th…

• Microsoft to Acquire Skype

  Microsoft agrees to acquire Skype Global for $8.5 billion in cash.

• 45% MPI Rebate Cheques In The Mail

  579,257 rebate cheques from Manitoba Public Insurance go into the mail Tuesday. The average rebate will be about $420.

• Good Discussion at Hacker News About The Robots TXT File

  The Archive Team's policy about completely disregarding the ROBOTS txt file has sparked an intelligent discussion over at Hacker News. If you know what the robots txt file is, it is worth a read.

• FitText

  A jQuery plugin that makes font-sizes flexible. Amazingly useful! O_O

• Track Page Load Time With Analytics

  Google has provided us with a tool for tracking page load times through Analytics. Very handy!

• Hoefler & Frere-Jones Release Ideal Sans
  

  What a gorgeous font.

• Google Ice Cream Sandwich

  Google announced at it/s I/O keynote that next version of Android OS, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, will maintain a single UI across all devices, allowing developers to make apps for all form factors. Not that there's a fragmentation problem.

• Pearl Jam on Austin City Limits with Just Breathe
  

  To go with this grey rainy afternoon, a little Pearl Jam. Also marked because I'm working on learning this one on guitar.

Contributed by Doug Ross, Wil Alambre, and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 9th…

• Jerry Seinfield launches site of his favourite bits

  Every day, Jerry posts a few of his favourite stand-up pieces on video/audio. Short bursts of chuckles for all you who need a monday morning smile.

• Lingerie Football League looking at Winnipeg

  The LFL in the US is eyeing Winnipeg as a potential location for a team in a planned, affiliated Canadian circuit, which is slated to kick off with six franchises in Sept 2012.

• City of Winnipeg Compost Bin Sale

  One day sale on May 14th. The bins, normally $100, will be $30 and the rain barrels, normally $120, will be $50.

• Existential Star Wars
  

• Skype Update for Mac Fixes a Security Hole

  Update to Skype for the Mac. The new interface for Skype 5 is really bad. /sigh

Contributed by Wil Alambre over the course of May 6th…

• Safehouse

  Wall Street Journal launched a wikileaks clone today, and some are already reporting that it's crude, insecure, and willing to tattle on. So kind of the opposite of wikileaks.

• Roll A D6
  

Contributed by Max Chiriac and Ross McDowall over the course of May 5th…

• Opera Dragonfly 1.0 emerges from beta phase
  

  A full suite of tools are ready at your disposal. Debug JavaScript, view the DOM, monitor network traffic, preview resources, edit colors and a whole lot more. If you are a developer, or a designer, Opera Dragonfly has the tools to keep you covered. Develop for mobile, tablet or TV? Opera Dragonfly has that covered. Remote debugging allows you to connect to a Opera Presto-powered browser on your device, and start debugging from your PC or Mac. All the features are available so you don't need to compromise. For more information follow Opera Dragonfly Documentation

• Ancient Swordsmithing - a skill that would be cool to learn
  

  A short video clip from the BBC show A History of Ancient Britain on how to make a bronze sword.

Contributed by Wil Alambre, Julian Moffatt, and Ross McDowall over the course of May 4th…

• It's Okay To Not Like Things
  

• RCMP Not Interested In being "Copyright Cops"

  Unsurprisingly, the RCMP have serious doubts about the industry's piracy statistics, serious concerns reallocating resources that could be better spent investigating terrorism or drugs, and serious worries that it could potentially create an "unhealthy incentive to shift enforcement from the private sector to government."

• The Last Post from Derek K. Miller

  It certainly didn't help that Band of Horses - The Funeral jumped up over iTunes while I was reading this, but if you have never visited pennmachine.com, the last post is a good place to start. Take a few minutes to read it. Go ahead and cry for what won't be in someone else's lives. I did. And I can only hope to face my end as courageously.

• Best Bottle Opener Ever!
  

  This is a very computer geek thing. Bottle opening short cut.

Contributed by Doug Ross, Wil Alambre, and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 3rd…

• Po-Motion: Interactive Motion Tracking Software

  Local Winnipeg company launches interactive floor and wall software

• Conservative Majority and Digital Policies

  Michael Geist speculates on what the new conservative majority might mean for the telecom market, net neutrality, copyright reform, and privacy. A must-read article.

• Marketers rethinking social media

  Expectations on what social media can and can't do are coming back down to earth. Hopefully this will mean companies will use it as social media as opposed to just another advertising platform.

• Sony hacked again?

  12,700 more credit card numbers and 10,700 direct debit records stolen as Sony Online Entertainment takes its services offline.

• Planetary

  A free visual music player for the iPad by Bloom Studio. Artists are stars, albums are planets, songs are moons! :D

• Time To Kill Big Oil

  Osama Bin Laden has been killed. I'm not happy that another human has died, but I do think this will strike a blow against Al Qaeda. But if we are truly going to make the most of this event, we should now be aiming squarely at killing OIL. Glenn Hurowitz articulates this better than I can over at Grist.com.

Contributed by Wil Alambre and Julian Moffatt over the course of May 2nd…

• Vote!

  May 2nd is election day in Canada. Be sure to get out there and flex those democratic rights!

• Video Game Developer Commentary

  Videos from Bayonetta Director Hideki Kamiya as he plays through the game and recording a commentary track, similar to how movie directors do for DVD releases. Valve has been including an interactive commentary in their games for years. I would love to see more game developers do something like this.

• President Obama on the death of Osama bin Laden
  

• Guy Unkowningly Live Tweets the Osama Raid

  Twitter can be so much more awesome when news is breaking.

• Winnipeg Sun Stays Classy

  What a bunch of clowns over at the Sun.