Latest Twitterance:

@ianb: Ah, another 14-hour work day comes to a close. Slainte, all ye St. Patrick's Day beer swillers... 13 hrs ago

The 10 Most Disappointing Technologies of the 2000s

December 31, 2009

I have just realized that FOIB and ianbell.com passed their 10-year anniversary some time in 2009 without me really marking the event.  During that time I’ve authored thousands of articles, missives, and comments that have been shared from my online pulpit and you, dear reader, have astonishingly tolerated it all with few complaints.  Thanks!
Lately I [...]

Read the full article →

On Microsoft and Schadenfreude

August 12, 2009

The blogosphere is all a-twitter about yesterday’s East Texas court judgment, which previously awarded $290 Million to appropriately-named Canadian patent troll i4i (well, OK, not exactly a troll) and further granted them an injunction preventing Redmond from selling any more copies of Microsoft Word starting in 60 days.  Microsoft, which aggressively patents its own technologies [...]

Read the full article →

Facebook built my Feedreader

July 29, 2009

I have always asserted that Facebook’s most valuable asset was its event stream (which you can see by clicking ‘home’ from within Facebook). It shows you what’s happening in your network. The other day I complained about having to block more than 100 apps within Facebook to keep their spam out of my [...]

Read the full article →

iPhone translator: Thank you, Captain Kirk

July 8, 2009

It doesn’t have the convenience of a Babel Fish, but this is about as close as we can get with modern technology.  Sakhr, a company specializing in English/Arabic translation which serves such clients as the U.S. Department of Defense and Homeland Security, has revealed a demo for an application you can’t yet have.  Like most [...]

Read the full article →

Rogers Wireless iPhone 3G = FAIL

June 22, 2009

Have you had problems returning a damaged iPhone to Rogers Wireless?  If so, I’d like to hear about it in the comments.
It has been a year since Apple and Rogers Wireless launched the iPhone 3G in Canada.  It was that summer, in 2008, I unloaded my first-generation unlocked iPhone for a legit iPhone 3G from [...]

Read the full article →

iPhone Skype for Canada — A workaround

March 31, 2009

Skype launched an iPhone client this week, everywhere except for Canada.  According to a Skype representative interviewed by Tom Keating, “There are some patent-licensing issues which prevent us from offering it there.”  Translation:  This is a long-term issue.  The representative further went on to state that “it’s codec related.”
I’m thinking that might be a dramatic [...]

Read the full article →

iPhone 3G Launch: Big media black-eye for Rogers

July 11, 2008

Even after the stores opened and the customers have packed home with their lawn chairs, the disaster that has been the iPhone’s launch in Canada continues to ring (pardon the pun) in the ears of consumers. I took a spin around Vancouver on my motorcycle (sorry, going too fast for photos) this morning at 7:30 [...]

Read the full article →

Rogers Communications iPhone Backlash Solution: Unlock the 3G, Too

July 3, 2008

In a week, when Apple FanBoys are lined up outside the Rogers and Fido stores to purchase their iPhones and get locked into Rogers’ draconian service plan for the next three years, yours truly wil be cooling his heels waiting for a shipment from the UK to arrive at his door. In this package, [...]

Read the full article →

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPhone

October 24, 2007

I’m starting to think this subject warrants its own WordPress Category. As I previously disclosed, despite the fact that Apple is at war with its users on the iPhone and other platforms, iBought. I seriously love the thing. It has a great user interface, the applications are easy to use, and [...]

Read the full article →