We all know that I am and have been a fan of Microsoft products. I love me some Metro. My Windows Phone actively makes life more enjoyable. The XBox is far and away my favourite console. And Windows 7 is a delight to use, fitting perfectly into my workflow.

Thus far, I’ve been really looking forward to Windows 8. The prospect of having a Transformer-style product running Windows 8 is exciting. The fact that the dev team is actively listening to users and incorporating feedback into their decisions is awesome.

And then, we get this.

So this leads me to my central question for this post: Guys, I love you. But what are you doing? Even when you explain, and even take an approach I feel like I suggested in Why Windows, I can’t agree with your justification.

What you’re doing here, as Armin over at Brand New says, is breaking a long and effective design continuity. Windows Phone and the excitement surrounding Windows 8 are starting to restore some consumer goodwill in the Windows brand, and here’s what consumers identify with Windows:

I understand that this is “old Windows.” This branding came in around XP, and you’re pushing to enter the Metro Golden Age. But maybe the association with XP isn’t a bad thing. People liked XP. Enterprise and education use a lot of XP. It’s associated with stability. It’s also the logo you’re using with Windows Phone:

There’s currently strong continuity between the desktop OS and the mobile OS. If you continued with it, you could draw continuity onto the third screen as well. At this point, why are you pitching the baby out with the bathwater?

Further, what do you think is Metro about the Windows 8 logo you’ve produced?

Sure, it works with the “tile” aesthetic, but that’s where it ends. Guess what Metro doesn’t have? Perspective. Even when it’s “welcoming you in.” (It’s actually siding you away from the wordmark, but that’s another argument.) Metro is flat tiles. Period.

So, let’s fix this problem. Metro has no perspective thus the logo is non-sequitur, we like the Windows flag-style logo, and furthermore, Segeo works best as a leaner font. Here’s my take:

It’s far, far from perfect (kerning/tracking needs adjustment), but I really think it’s more Windows than what you guys have put together.

Let me speak to the Windows team directly (via my spillway avatar, so I guess not directly at all) for a minute.

Lots of love, Windows team. More on this subject later. I think I know how the Windows Phone-style logo would work as a motion graphic for Windows 8, and it’s kind of awesome. Stay tuned.

Usually I sign off with “paddle your own canoe,” but in this case, I’ll remind you that you’re paddling upstream at this point, and in it helps to have someone in the bow to help you navigate.

Yours,

Trevor

I really thought I had it figured out. I wanted to finish and put to rest an idea that’s been kicking around since, probably, seventh grade. It’s evolved since then, but the core of it has always been the same. A story about relationships in wartime, about disparate definitions of right, about making tough choices and taking terrible, necessary action that you know will ruin any semblance you have to the person your partner fell in love with.  It’s since gained a setting and philsophic base torn from the pages of Plato’s Republic. It’s a Final Fantasy-inspired JRPG called Spuria, and it’s experienced fits and starts in various forms since I discovered RPG Maker about five years ago.

When I read about the impending English-language release of RMVX Ace, I figured this would be the perfect time to do it.  New system, more options, some enabling constraints on what I could and could not do.

Something kept nagging at me as I began to make notes on this game.

It’s big.

It’s too big for me to do as a labour of love. It’s something that would need a team.

And I don’t want a team on this “make a game 2012″ project. Not really. This is something for me to challenge myself, to put something together in a medium that will tax my writing and artistic abilities, my direction and ability to create something complete.

I did a little mental pro-con list about pursuing Spuria. Pros were really limited to “finally excising this idea from my brain.” There was some self-congratulatory stuff about having really fascinating characters and building in tangential learning opportunity. There ended the good ideas.

But the cons didn’t end. Too long. Too big. Sisyphean, if I really wanted to put a word to how it feels. Using a toolkit I’m not thrilled with. A genre I chose because the source material for this idea started as an homage to Final Fantasy VIII a squillion years ago, a genre I wasn’t overly familiar with or fond of. Limitations on my art. Limitations on how much voice acting I could include. Limitations on the gameplay I could offer without learning the RGSS scripting language.

I’m not equipped to create a world in my spare time. But as I had no other ideas, I halfheartedly kept making notes and slowly updating a wiki to organize everything. For the last week, I’ve been developing a game I didn’t want to make.

Then, today, while putting away the dishes, I had a flash of insight. Just a mental image:

A man crawls out from behind a snow-frosted and upturned table, bleeding. The vessel he’s on is abandoned. He knows why he’s there and who he is, but has no idea why the boat is silent. It’s night. Polar night. He’s in the high Arctic, freezing to death, and alone. And something doesn’t want him to get off the boat.

Then I sketched this.

This is it. This is my game. Confined by the size of the boat. Confined in its scope. Atmospheric. A character study. An old-school adventure game, built on free tools, an opportunity to really showcase my art and writing. Fewer voice actors needed. And way more accessible than a JRPG.

I don’t have a name for it, or a high philosophical concept, or a motivation to make it that borders on obsessive. What I do have, however, might be something that people would want to play. And something I feel I can make–and make well.

Paddle your own canoe, guys and gals.

-Trevor

*I know the TIATW feed is broken. I need to sit down and get it up and running again; Feedburner is pointing to a domain that no longer exists and the permalinks are similarly all broken. I’ll post when I’ve fixed all the things.

Earlier, I was at the local store for a smash-and-grab stop for salad dressing. This is always a longer buy than I want it to be, because, in my compulsive world, anything processed and in a bottle needs to be compared to three other processed-and-bottled things so that I’m getting the one that’s best—sorry, least bad—for me.

With my thoughts on something else entirely, I wove through aisles looking for the dressing and several times crossed paths with a family of four. And each time, the snippets of conversation I overheard were strikingly similar.

While near bread: “… Hamburger Helper…”

While pausing at a boxed meat display: “… with the Hamburger Helper…”

Grabbing fish fingers: “…Hamburger Helper tonight…”

At pop and chips: “…next it’s Hamburger Helper…”

These weren’t just fixated younguns, either. This was the entire family, and the kids were grade school seniors or in grade seven.

I found my aisle and ducked down. I grabbed a PC Blue Menu yogurt dressing, an Irresistables, and a fat-free generic one. A couple of minutes with the labels and a handful of comparisons (the yogurt one actually had significantly more carbs than the others, and the fat-free one more sodium) made the choice for me. I grabbed some pasta, too (as it was on firesale), and headed out.

On the way, I passed the family again. They were doing their own comparison.

“We’ll get these, then, and leave the cheesy shells for next time.”

The cheesy shells were abandoned and the family headed out.

Notice a difference?

Maybe it’s my compulsion. Maybe it’s because I have a wonderful mother who has for some time worked at Health Canada, and who drove home the importance of eating balanced meals early. Maybe it’s a combination of the two, resulting in mental math every time I prepare a meal to see how well I’m providing servings of the food groups. But irrespective of my compulsiveness, the fact that they spent as long selecting the night’s flavour of Hamburger Helper as I did comparing nutrition labels says something.

Taken by itself, that night’s helping of Helper isn’t significant. But when your cart is full of cheapo red meat, pop and chips, juices, processed chicken patties and fishsticks, a couple of tins of vegetables, bottled sauce and a half-dozen assorted types of Hamburger Helper and you start to develop a clear picture.

I try not to be someone who judges peoples’ health based on size. I creeped on their cart at the checkout because I didn’t want to make assumptions. This was a big family. Pale, too, and the kids walked with splayed feet, both of them. This isn’t a case of assuming these folks weren’t too healthy based on a smattering of conversation and their size. Their colouring, stride, grocery loadout (checked off a list), and size all contributed to a clear snapshot.

What I’m getting to is this. It’s unfortunate that the adults in this situation have poor nutritional sense. Neither of them were in great shape, obviously. But the fact is, once you have kids, your bad nutritional habits aren’t just your own. They become your kids’ bad habits too. And whatever good sense your parents have that set you up with a nutritional baseline you could fall from, you’re condemning your kids right from the start.

The parents were in bad shape, but they were models of athletic health compared to their children.

I wish Health wasn’t limited to a part-time course in high school, and that nutrition didn’t have to fight with sex and drugs for time at the podium. I wish Home Ec was compulsory and in every grade. I wish the importance of activity, any activity, was stressed more by teachers, that balance was paramount, that we valued health care instead of sick care, that prevention was more important than treatment. I wish that parents like that saw what they were doing to their childrens’ health and that the difference between poor and proper nutrition can be the difference between anxiety disorders and not, back issues and not, compromised cardiac and pulmonary function and not, arch issues and not, stroke and not. That’s not just weight-related stuff, that’s cholesterol, sodium, sugars, chemicals, and the rest. Things that can be controlled by being aware of what you’re putting into your body.

Learn about nutrition. Start with Canada’s Food Guide and the Percent Daily Value on nutrition labels. Know what exactly a portion size is (a 40g portion of those cheesy shells is barely half the size of a hockey puck). Then move on from there and tailor your nutrition and activity to yourself–Health Canada’s web tool will do it for you. Figure out how you should be eating and do it. Figure out what level of activity you should have and do it. Don’t think of it as health for health’s sake. Think of it as health for a better quality of life.

It’s its own reward.

Paddle your own canoe, guys and gals.

-Trevor

Postscript: Taking another look around the Food Guide website has made me really appreciate the work that HC does. Mom, and all your coworkers, thanks for looking out for us, in spite of our best efforts to wreck ourselves and blame others. And on an only slightly related note, Mom, I love you. And thanks for helping me develop those helpful supermarket-aisle compulsions.

I came across this list of what games say about the people who play them. I find them unnervingly accurate.

What do your favourite games say about you? Here are mine:

Minecraft: You’re a very attentive lover.

No comment. 

Starcraft: You like cooking, but not baking.

Check out some Throw It Against the Wall for discussions about how much I don’t like baking. And how much it doesn’t like me. 

Portal: You’ve started a Twitter hashtag game.

Several times. Sigh.

Civilization: You get excited by the bulk bins at Whole Foods.

I’ve never been in a Whole Foods. But I’ll bet the bulk bins are freaking awesome.

Fallout: You know how to arch your right eyebrow, but not your left.

I HAVE BEEN TRYING THE WHOLE TIME I’VE BEEN WRITING THIS AND I CANNOT ARCH MY LEFT EYEBROW AT WILL. 

Plants vs. Zombies: You say, “All that matters is my car gets me from Point A to Point B.”

Sometime soon, I need to write an article about the Rustmobile. It got a shout-out way back when but I haven’t addressed it since. 

So what do you think, folks? Is this blogger’s list creepily astute, or what?

Over the Holidays

I went to Costa Rica. Be jealous.

This is in the jungle, on the side of a mountain, within sight of the Pacific, in the middle of nowhere on the Nicoya peninsula. While I was there, I had some beer and met a dog.

Oh, and a pig.

I got back at about 2 AM Dec. 30th and spent New Year’s with my favourite lady.

School

Oh hey, yeah, I’m back at school. Taking a couple of classes to upgrade. The Reader’s Digest version is as follows: a mediocre undergrad was followed by a BEd in which I did some work I was pretty proud of. Said BEd has no grades–it was a pass/fail program with an occasional course with honours. During my BEd, I found a reason to pursue a Master’s in Ed. I got excellent references and put together a quality letter of intent. Turned out, only the grades mattered. So I’m taking some poli sci (finally!) and history (of Ontario, specifically) courses in order to boost my grades to reapply.

I’m having fun. School is great. And the fact is, I can do these courses while still doing

Work

Tutoring at a local high school’s after-school program, doing athletics programming, and now a university prep course. May be adding to that sometime soon. We shall see. I can always use more monies.

I’m also becoming increasingly involved with the Liberal Party and the Ottawa-West Nepean Young Liberals. Just went to the Biennial Convention, had a meeting with the federal riding association, and launched the youth club’s new website. Still needs some work but it’s on its way.

Creative Stuff

This blog, of course! Have a couple of stories in the pipe.

I’m shuttering the Bent website. It’s run its course. It’s been backed up and saved for posterity but I just do not care about being an entertainment journalist. I’m not. I can be a commentator here, or on Bent, which will continue (just hosted using free solutions instead of paid ones). Kev and I are discussing ways to reinvent it, but the likelihood will be just getting episodes out once or twice a month and continuing the way we have been.

Throw It Against the Wall will continue to continue, as Natalie Joy and I continue to have things to talk about!

I applied for a grant to write a play recently. If I get it, I’ll be working on that. If not, I shan’t for the time being, and I’ll look for other ways to buy time. I could, of course, just do it, but the way it’s planned, it’s a big undertaking and I’ll need to be able to dedicate fairly substantial chunks of time to it.

I also have started poking at a script for a video game that has pretty much been in development, in one form or another, since eighth grade. It’s jumped from book to video to graphic novel to RPG. As it’s pretty early (i.e. NOT YET WORTH TALKING ABOUT) I will share this image and then put it away until I have something substantial to share.

Glean from this what you will.

Conclusion

I am still very much alive. And looking forward to getting some stories back here in the spillway.

Paddle your own canoe, everybody.

-Trevor

It gets messy.

Less often do I see those kinds of astronomical volumes of cookies being produced. This year I’ve been privy to Natalie Joy’s Christmas baking, which has been at once conveniently delicious, awe-inspiring, and a little terrifying.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence, really. Remember the experiment with cookies and making ice cream sandwiches? There are always a ton of cookies around. Like, more cookies than one normally sees in any one place at any given point.

And it’s got me thinking.

Everything in the known universe comes from a finite amount of matter. Conservation of energy and mass means that unless something dramatic happens, the universe is only ever going to have so much stuff in it.

What if the laws of nature, of physics, what if the cosmic equation can only balance out properly if there’s only a finite number of cookies in the universe?

I worry about these things, not being a scientist who studies the concrete reality of things. Those of us who don’t plumb the truths of the universe suffer glitches in our understanding because of the limits of our perception. Like how salt and sugar look the same at arm’s length even though one’s a mineral and the other’s a carbohydrate.

What if Natalie Joy is baking cookies, producing a squillion-dozen for friends and family:

And elsewhere in the universe, beyond our perception, cookies are disappearing?

More than just the existence of a Universal Cookie Constant that can be exceeded, I wonder if the constant is high or low. If it’s high, that would be great, because there’s less chance of it being exceeded, and more people can enjoy cookies all the time. We wouldn’t have to eat them as quickly, we could savour and even warehouse them. I imagine that the conglomerates, the multi-trillion-dollar cookie internationals, would love this idea:

But this, to me, diminishes the joy of cookies.

Cookies are always best when baked for those loved, when gifted or purchased relatively fresh, when enjoyed within hours of coming out of the oven. Stockpiling a hundred squillion dry, preserved, generic cookies makes that impossible.

I like the more dangerous idea of a finite Universal Cookie Constant. Yes, you’re in greater danger of exceeding it, leading to spontaneous quantum cookie fluctuations all over the universe. But if you’re responsible about your cookie production and rate of consumption, you can work with the universe to ensure that cookies are produced, gifted, and eaten at similar rates.

This holiday season, folks, bake and eat responsibly. Make many cookies, eat as many or more to make room for others’ cookies elsewhere in the universe. It’s all about being a good neighbour.

Merry Christmas, everyone, Happy New Year, and, as always, paddle your own canoe.

Yours,

Trevor

So some time ago, WMPowerUser.com posted their call for video entries for a contest. Seeing as I was writing Why Windows? at the time, I figured I couldn’t go wrong adapting it to video. It answered pretty accurately the call:

Unless your device was supplied by your company, all of us made a conscious decision to buy and use a Windows Phone 7 handset.  Sometimes I am sure the decision is difficult for others to understand, given the small number of Windows Phone 7 users at present.

That is why we are running a campaign this month to help tell the world why we all chose to use the slickest operating system in the world, and to help things along we are offering cash prizes.

The competition is called “The WMPoweruser.com Why I chose Windows Phone” contest and will require entrants to upload a short video to YouTube explaining why you chose a Windows Phone over the other competing devices and operating systems.

So I did.

Here it is, for your enjoyment:

Paddle your own canoe, guys and gals,

Trevor

It was the first console I’ve ever owned. I have seriously fond memories of playing NHL ’94 (at least, I think it was ’94–the one that brought in fights), GT Racing, Mortal Kombat etc. over at my buddy Paul‘s place down the street. Bikes would get piled out in front of the garage and the neighbourhood kids (our group, who I now refer to as “the Briargreen Old Boys”) would get piled up on the couch, swapping controllers between four or six of us.

I never owned the console myself–beyond the PCs that were a constant feature in my house, we were a console-free family. It didn’t make much difference, honestly. There were enough SNESes and N64s around in the neighbourhood that I never felt wanting for games, and I lived on RTS games at home. But the SNES stuck with me, even though Max Payne and the dawn of the XBox. Something about seeking out a cool living room or basement during a muggy summer afternoon. About sharing the time on the console, about arguments about who passes next or what we should be playing. About the interaction that comes from sitting around the same console instead of having Steam or XBL between you.

Anyway, all that nostalgia (as well as wanting to play some of the classics–Metroid and Paper Mario especially–properly for once) resulted in tracking down a used games place in Kingston and dropping a few bucks of my OSAP money on the console, Street Fighter II, and ShadowRun. Immediately, I thought I was shortchanged because Street Fighter did NOT work. That was easy enough to sort out.

Just corroded contacts--rubbing alcohol sorted it out really nicely.

But there is a far more insidious issue that was to befall my SNES.

Something that befalls many beloved Nintendo consoles.

It’s a scourge, eating at the console.

No! Anything but that!

Yes, that.

Console yellowing.

From what I read, there’s really nothing I can do about it. It seems to be a simple oxidation of some of the chemicals in the plastic. Short of turning my console into a sort of hermetically preserved bubble-boy this process will continue. And I can’t have that.

So, it’s time to beautify the console.

My goal is to turn it into a piece that’ll look consistent with other new technology, and be a piece that looks kind of cool. It’s not going to be a casemod (no interest in adding LEDs and whatnot), but a paint job. Some high-gloss automotive black and highly reflective silver. Ultimately I want it to look like the new XBox 360, just a little shinier.

Similarly, without the LEDs.

Part of me thinks that the hi-gloss paint will pick up fingerprints, but part of me doesn’t really care. It’s a full-time fixture and a part-time curio, not really a gaming console.

Anyway, the first order of business after making sure that I had the paints was to remove the case in order to get a nice clean paint job. Of course, Nintendo doesn’t want you jumping into the guts of your console (in case you modchip it or whatever) so since the dawn of the NES they’ve been using what I have lovingly deemed “bastard screws.”

The Nintendo security screws are so tenacious that people sell drill bits and screwdrivers to remove them. What a pain. And not really a homebrew solution. I did come across a couple of decidedly more DIY ways to go about it here. One way is to dremel out the inside of a screwdriver. But there was an even more appealing method I wanted to try. From the article:

Pen version – Tools Required:

• A pen – the clear plastic type work best. Since about 50% of the pens in the average household don’t work anyway you should be able to find one to sacrifice.
• Some sort of flame source, lighters, matches, gas stove. Sigh — kids, ask your parents to help with this part.
• This pen is about to do a far, far better thing than it has ever done. Writing? Whatever. The hack is mighter than the sword.What to do:
  1. Have your Nintendo system ready and close at hand, screw wells exposed and up.
  2. Remove any plastic caps and then light the end of the pen. It should burn quite well. Don’t let any gunk drip onto yourself, it’ll probably hurt. Worse than solder. It will also stink, so open a window if possible.
  3. Once it’s burned for a few seconds and the plastic has kind of melted shut the hollow opening, cram it down into the screw well and onto the screw.
  4. Don’t move – let it cool for about 15 seconds. The plastic is forming to the shape of the screw.

Carefully pull the pen out – you should see the shape of the screw in the plastic.

You can now use this pen as a screwdriver — simply stick it in and twist. Make sure you feel the grooves latch into place, then press down hard as you turn for best results. If the plastic bits strip out you can always relight the pen and make another mold.

That. Sounds. GREAT.

Anyway, I set about doing just that. The first couple of times, the plastic charred a bit from being lit on fire, as suggested in the article. It became brittle and snapped. So I was a little more cautious about it, and just slowly melted the plastic instead of lighting it aflame.

Forming the tool, attempt number two squillion.

The tool, she is formed! Note the good end versus the grody blackened end.

But, alas, even with a nicely-formed tool, there were problems. The plastic in the pen wasn’t nearly as solid as it needed to be–not for these bastard screws that have been sitting for over 15 years.

It stripped immediately. No go.

Not easy to see, but the little white bits are where the security screws stripped the plastic.

So it looks like I’ll be ordering that bit after all. It’s not all bad that I didn’t get this done tonight, though. I should have some kind of hard clearcoat for the paint, especially for the controllers, and I don’t at the moment.

In the meantime, if you have suggestions for the colours of the buttons on the controllers (which will be black), I’m all ears. I’m leaning towards gloss black on the body, matte on the D-pad, silver on the shoulders, and then a single colour for each of the four face buttons. I’m leaning towards an orange colour (like we use over at Bent) but I’m certainly open to other ideas and looking for suggestions.

In the meantime, it may not be pretty, but I’m still glad I’ve got the console.

Paddle your own canoe, guys and gals.

Yours,

Trevor

Podcasts

For those who don’t yet know, Natalie Joy (of A Year of Joy) and I have launched a sorta-semi-weekly podcast called Throw it Against the Wall. It’s a rollicking look at what’s going on in current events, nerd news and tech, food, and our creative projects. You can find the show on iTunes or at the feed, and soon on Zune. Be advised, there is some cursing in this show, though less than in my other podcast. Our episodes thus far:

1: In Their Own Way, in which superheroes land in jail, Fillion’s Fusterclucks are distractingly delicious, we shout out to Ottawa’s best Vietnamese restaurant, pick apart the iOS5 launch, and both NJ and Trevor fight off writer’s block.

2: All People Are Dinosaurs, in which we return to have a serious talk about serious news, check out Windows Phone’s Mango update, eat out of pure necessity, classify people the way dinosaurs are classified, and get back on the writing horse.

3: Craft Herpes, in which we argue the merits of Halloween, make math fun, chow down on candy, debate Joss Whedon’s upcoming Much Ado, and keep plugging on their play and movie.

4: Swimming With the Spishes, in which we take to the high seas to talk about seasteading, critique Kobo, talk about Tegra, introduce (and stuff their faces with) Sweet Pea Treats, and update everyone on their projects.

In other podcastery, Kevin and I continue to rock out on Bent. You can find streaming episodes at the website as well as on the feed and on iTunes. Similarly, coming soon on Zune. Bent is an arts and entertainment revue in which we talk about movies, games, and television, chat about the entertainment industry, and often various varieties of vicious animal. With rotating guests such as Sandy, Chris, Kelsey, Kevmoh, Leslei, and Marco, each bringing their own unique brand of nerdiness to the show, Bent is rarely the same twice. It is, however, ALWAYS fairly raunchy, so discretion is advised. Recent episodes:

September: Septembercast. Nerds are angry in this long-lost episode. With Netflix spiralling out of control, Facebook becoming THE destination for streaming music, and Lucas wanking his original trilogy onto Blu-Ray, Kev and Trevor attempt to find some sanity amidst the madness.

October: Silk and Velvet. A new guest joins the show to discuss Battlefield 3, Max Payne, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard: DOTA, and the Avengers trailer. Things go from bad to worse as Marco’s deranged commentary infects Bent. Can Kevin and Trevor survive?

About Me

I’m going to update the “About” section on the blog, but, in the meantime, check out my new about.me page! Correction: It is now updated to be less awful and now links to my about.me page.

Blogroll

I’m also updating the blogroll to reflect some peoples’ recent projects. My Bent homeboys, for example, Leslei’s new blog, NJ’s blog, etc. I do suggest checking them out, because they’re worthwhile.

Projects

Tron: Morphology is, for all intents and purposes, a dead project, but I’m still considering ways to bring it to life. It’s a cool bit of storytelling and there was a lot of (in my opinion) strong design and concept work happening.  More on this as it develops, but don’t hold your breath.

There’s a WMPowerUser contest for which I will be adapting to video my last blog entry, Why Windows? I’m pretty excited for it. I’ll post it here when it’s done, this week or next. The competition is heating up, but I’m still hopeful.

In TIATW, I have alluded to a screenplay for a short film I’m working on, a post-apocalyptic allegory for capitalism gone awry. It’s clipping along, sort of, but there are more time-sensitive projects I’m after, such as

A play I’m developing and hoping to get some funding for, or at least get my name known a little via the application for said funding. It’s a comedy featuring the Tom Thompson mystery and my family in Algonquin Park in the 1950s. Then there’s the project it superceded, which is

my non-fiction book, a no-bullshit guide for college/university students who want to keep up their writing and develop as writers, packed with exercises and interviews so that there should, in theory, be something for everyone in there. I hope to try for some funding for this, too. But the play money comes first.

So there’s lots going on, as always, but I’m feeling pretty good about the quality of everything I’m working on, for the first time ever, I think. I’m proud of all of my current projects and that’s rare for me.

School

I need to bump up my undergrad grades in order to pursue an MEd and do some thesis work that I’ve had percolating for about six months, and I’m looking forward to starting that process as soon as I can, taking assorted classes to expand my repertoire.

Work

I love being in a school again. I’m underemployed, as are many recently-graduated teachers in Ontario, but the work itself is awesome.

Conclusion

Things are pretty solid right now. I’m generally pleased. I’ve gotten better at managing stress, at managing my time. And I hope that we’ll see that contentedness and time management result in more and better work here in the spillway.

Paddle your own canoe, guys and gals.

Yours,

Trevor

There’s a messy pedigree there. And with technology becoming increasingly homogenous in terms of features and capability, people are right to ask why they should want to go back.

It took me a while to figure out why I love Windows Phone as much as I do, and why I’m so excited about Windows 8. And it goes back to Windows itself, and the philosophy behind its naming in the early days of home computing.

Imagine yourself in the beige box days of computers.

I was fortunate enough to be in a house that had a computer from the first days (well, my first days)—my folks had one for work and upgraded frequently (from 386 to 486 to an early Pentium, each one becoming more in line with current tech). And at school, we had tons of classic Apple Macintosh computers. So far from being bred into an ecosystem, I got in on the ground floor with both systems. As the home computers got better, we slowly evolved at school into Power Macs, then candy-coloured iMacs and beyond.

While I remember vividly the Number Munchers and desktop publishing on Macs through the years, something about having “Windows” at home spoke to me.

Imagine the pre-internet home computer model (especially from a child’s perspective). You’ve got the computer box, where all the stuff goes.

Then, you’ve got the monitor, which lets you look at all the stuff you’ve got in the box.

The file structure of the computer always seemed a little like different rooms to me. You go in the front door of the big house that is your computer when you turn it on. You go into the foyer, to your desktop, and from there to different rooms.

The Windows name made sense to me. I’m not really in the computer, of course, but I can look into each different room through a special window.

Now, it doesn’t do you much good to have a window going from one room into another. But you were only ever inside your computer in the pre-internet days. When the internet came about, you got the opportunity to get out of the house and run down the street and poke around in other houses, and there was, for Windows users, an icon that became your front door.

Smartphones, at least since the iPhone, are characterized by always-on data connections and being constantly connected to different apps, services, and people. But even when the iPhone launched, we were still working with variants of the rooms analogy, only now, instead of windows, we got doors.

And sure, plenty of these doors had awesome stuff delivered to you when you went through the door.

Sometimes, there’s even a knock at the door to let you know when something’s arriving.

I was really excited by the prospect of Android, following the debut of the iPhone. Not only would you be able to go through all of the same kinds of doors, but you could cover the walls in widgets! And it was all open-sourced and to be built on by the community. But when I got my hands on a couple of Android devices, the spartan hallway I saw with the iPhone started to look like this:

Enter Windows Phone. The always-on data connection of the other big contenders, plus a slightly different philosophy on how you interact with your information.

Windows has always been, in my mind, about seeing into your technology. The desktop OS has been about looking into your computer, occasionally stepping out into the wider world. But there’s always been a door between the two.

Now, with Windows Phone, the curtains roll up. Each live tile is a window, not just into the phone, but into the big wide world.

It’s a better way to do it. It really is the evolution of the Windows brand, and fundamentally it gets back to what Windows was all about in the first place. Letting you look into your technology, or out into the wider world.

And the whole ecosystem is going this way. Windows Phone, Xbox, and Windows 8 – all are going to Metro UI, all adopting live tiles and connectivity in a way that makes it easier to immediately gain access to information and interact with technology.

So why do I like Windows Phone? Because it gets back to the original Windows philosophy, the idea that charmed me back in the beige box days. I want to see something open when I look at my technology—not just a bunch of closed doors.