Posted by Rossman on May 9th, 2009

Replacing our dodgey fence with a hedge

We wanted to get rid of the ugly, rotting fence in front of our place, so we did some checking around and decided to get a cedar hedge put in, instead of another fence. Sure, they require maintenance and upkeep, but I think the benefits outweigh the work involved in keeping it up. It'll give us more privacy, cut down on road noise, and should stop a lot of garbage from accumulating in the previously unused corner of our lot.

I looked at the cedars they sell at big box garden centres, the "emerald cedars" which are 6-8' tall, but apparently those are better for decks and don't really fill in to become a solid hedge. They also would have been cost prohibitive at around $20 each, and a ridiculous amount of work for me to plant myself. After a bit of searching I found the Cedar Guys, who are a small, local operation just northwest of here.

They have great prices, provide a warranty for their work, and sell Ontario white cedars which is exactly what we were looking for. I took a few pictures of the job coming along:

These guys were real pros, they came in with three guys and two trucks, and had the trench dug and the cedars (all 170 of them) planted in around three hours. They cleaned up the job site and overall Heather and I are both very satisfied with the new hedge!

Posted by Rossman on November 25th, 2008

What is the problem with wind power?

So they are trying to put up some devices which measure the wind (anemometer) in Lake Ontario just off of Scarborough, and the residents are apparently up in arms. I don't really understand what problems people have with wind power, but I'd like to address a couple of claims the naysayers have been using to prevent the development from going ahead.

"Wind Turbines are an eyesore!"

To which I'd respond, which of the following is less of an eyesore, wind or coal? The power has to come from somewhere!

"Migratory birds will be killed by them!"

This has actually been proven false in locations where wind power has actually been implemented in the real world, such as Europe.

"Radar studies from Tjaereborg in the western part of Denmark, where a 2 megawatt wind turbine with 60 metre rotor diameter is installed, show that birds - by day or night - tend to change their flight route some 100-200 metres before the turbine and pass above the turbine at a safe distance."

The thing I really don't get is where people think all the power is magically going to come from if we don't harvest the best free resource we have, the wind. It's clean and about as environmentally friendly as you can get.

Here's hoping we see more wind turbines and solar panels in the future, Ontario!

Posted by Rossman on November 16th, 2008

Adobe AIR is great stuff!

Been diving into Adobe AIR pretty heavily lately, just for some personal projects which will be unveiled in a new few weeks, and I gotta say it's a great way to put together small desktop apps.

Stay tuned for some new releases coming up!

Posted by Rossman on May 13th, 2008

Spring House Photo!

The plants and shrubs are all coming into bloom, making for a pretty nice photo!

Posted by Rossman on March 13th, 2008

New HOWTO uploaded

Here's a super quick and dirty HOWTO on encoding h.264 video for flash 9, using Premiere Pro CS3.

Hope it saves someone out there some time!

Posted by Rossman on February 27th, 2008

New Video Players released

Over here at my new gig at the CTV Digital Media Group, I'm working with the development team building out CTV's new online video players, which will get deployed across most of CTV's properties. Here's a few of the currently deployed players (still in Beta, but they work well.)

Posted by Rossman on February 21st, 2008

What the hell is "Progressive Progressing"?

So I got a promotional email from Amazon today, recommending some items they thought I should buy, which, you know, I really appreciate.

Anyway, one of the items they were promoting was a Panasonic Blu-Ray player, and it was listed for $698USD, which I thought was rather steep, so I thought I'd check out the listing and see what was so great about this player.

Apparently, all that extra money is for the "Pixel Precision Progressive Progressing for HD" component. Seriously, what the hell is that?

Posted by Rossman on December 7th, 2007

Canadian DMCA protest tomorrow!

I just read on BoingBoing that tomorrow (December 8th, 2007) is going to be pretty much our last chance as Canadians to avert the disaster that has become known as the "Canadian DMCA".

Essentially, the right honourable Jim Prentice is attempting to reform copyright law in Canada, that will take away all of our fair use rights (ie format-shifting, parody, time-shifting, etc), which is pretty nasty when you really give it some thought. I mean, without parody, what are Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes going to do? ;)

At any rate, even though few people read this page, I strongly encourage people to call in tomorrow and have your say.

Posted by Rossman on November 27th, 2007

Changing it up - new house!

Heather and I just bought a new house! We close December 10th - more photos coming up!

Stay tuned for the unveiling of a new web project and some more HOWTOs coming soon!

Posted by Rossman on November 11th, 2007

NBC Direct Player in action

As most of you probably don't know, I was the front-end/UI developer behind the flash player that NBC ended up using for their beta NBC Direct service.

Luckily, some kind reviewer has made a YouTube video of the player in action, so you all can see what I've been working on...

Too bad about those exceptions/errors popping up throughout the video! Guess we didn't quite get all the bugs ironed out yet ;) I guess that's why they call it a beta!

Posted by Rossman on April 21st, 2007

New Experiments

I've been working quite a bit on the site as of late, and have added a few experiements. I think the most useful one is my HOWTO on using Microsoft's new Windows Media Player plugin for Firefox, just released on April 16th, 2007. It's going to make life a lot easier for web developers, and also for end-users

There are a few other new things in the experiments section, but some of the need some work. I'm working on the Fjord Rowboat MP3 player this weekend and hope to get that finished off.

Otherwise, things are more or less the same, the playoffs are on, so keep your stick on the ice!

Posted by Rossman on March 8th, 2007

Early 2007 News and Updates

Wow, I can't believe a whole year has gone by without me doing a single update to my own site. How embarassing!

I guess I should start off by saying that although I didn't update the site previously, the Mustaches for Kids fundraiser pulled in a little over $4,000Cdn, which is pretty darn awesome. With your help, we donated over $200!

Anyway, on to more recent news...as you can see the site got a bit of a visual overhaul, thanks to my buddy Hoops.

Posted by Rossman on November 6th, 2005

Mustaches for Kids - update!

So far - two pledges, bring the pledged total to $35 - and a complete total of $70 with my matched contributions!

Thanks friends, for helping the kids have a great Christmas!