Amazon Announces July 15th Prime Day, Will Offer More Deals Than Black Friday →

Amazon is celebrating their 20th anniversary on July 15th with big deals and Amazon Prime members in Canada are in on the fun. Here are a few of the deals that they'll have available. 

/
Comment

Pet Peeve of the Week: It's 'Oriented, Not 'Orientated'!

This one has been driving me crazy for years. I’ve often heard someone say they need to ‘get orientated with’ their new job or new surroundings. Other uses include ‘results-orientated’ or ‘family-orientated’. Sorry. Those are just wrong to my eyes and ears.

The noun is orientation. The verb is orient. That’s it. No ‘ate’.

People have been using the verb orientate from back formation of the noun orientation. It may not look right to add ‘ation’ to orient, but it’s correct. For example, elevation as a noun comes from the verb elevate. That doesn’t mean that every noun that ends in ‘ation’ comes from a verb that ends in ‘ate’. Inflammation doesn’t come from inflammate, it comes from inflame. Improvisation doesn’t come from improvisate, it comes from improvise. We do have conversations, but we don’t conversate, we converse. 

Here is the Google top result on orientate:

The noun form of this kind of orienting is orientation. Sometimes people in their speech will form an imagined verb from orientation and say orientate. At best, orientate is a back-formation used humorously to make the speaker sound pompous. The correct word is the verb orient.

To be totally fair, this is only one Google result. Many others will yield links to articles that are less harsh. The general consensus is definitely that orient is older and more commonly used than orientate, but both are technically correct. What makes a word a real word? Usage. The fact that people say orientate more and more, eventually makes it a real word, even if it looks and sounds so wrong. According to Grammar Girl, orient is the more commonly used verb in both American and British English, but orientate appears a little more frequently in British English.

Stick with orient and oriented.

/
Comment

Apple Music and Beats 1 Launch at Noon EDT June 30th, iOS 8.4 Update Available at 11AM →

Ian Rogers, the senior director of Apple Music has posted to his blog that Apple Music will launch at noon EDT on Tuesday. Set your reminders to update to iOS 8.4 at 11AM EDT.

/
Comment

John Oliver Takes On Online Harassment of Women

John Oliver addresses many of the issues that are important to me, and does a great job of it. Oh, and he's also hilarious. I love his show. 

/
Comment

Apple Watch Will be Available in Stores This Month →

Jeff Williams, the SVP of Operations at Apple, says the watch is coming to stores in a couple of weeks. It will also be available in seven more countries on June 26th.

I've had the Apple Watch since about 5 days after launch and I love it. Certainly, most people don't "need" it, but I've found it to be beautiful, useful, and just plain neat. 

/
Comment

Nasdaq Becomes Latest Firm to Trial Blockchain Technology →

The price of bitcoin has been depressed and stagnant for a very long time now. It seems like 2 years ago this news would have sent the price soaring, but these days it has little effect. There has been almost no negative news in recent months, but the price has continued to remain at 18-month lows. 

/
Comment

Bill Simmons' Take on Tom Brady and DeflateGate - Also the Interview That Likely Got Him Fired

Now, I'm a Patriots fan, and so is Bill Simmons, so maybe we're both equally biased. However, this is the most sane media take I've heard on the Patriots' ball deflation controversy so far. We're talking about footballs that were under inflated by less than 10%, when the rule itself has an 8% margin for error written into it. Brady threw 4 TD's in the AFC championship game after the balls were properly inflated, and he threw 4 more TD's to win the Super Bowl, when the league was managing the footballs. Clearly the deflation gave him a huge advantage.

I totally agree with Simmons' take that Brady handled this whole thing wrong, though, too. The denial is what's making it worse. And the media are blowing the whole thing up like he was throwing self-guided footballs or something. 

And, as Deadspin points out, it may have been his "testicular fortitude" comments about Roger Goodell that led to the timing of his firing. 

/
Comment

The App Store for Apple Watch Went Live Today →

I just looked at the time, and I guess, technically, it was yesterday. I'm a little behind. Just open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and go to the App Store tab.

/
Comment

Apple Has Posted an Apple Watch User Guide

Apple has posted their official user guide here. This could be very helpful if you're expecting the delivery of an Apple Watch tomorrow. 

 

/
Comment

Apple Pay Likely Coming to Canada in the Fall →

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is talking to the major Canadian banks and working toward a fall launch for Apple Pay in Canada. 

I'm very hopeful that this is true. Apple Pay is one of the most compelling features of the iPhones 6, and the Apple Watch. I'm dying to try it.

/
Comment

You Won't Be Able to Buy an Apple Watch at an Apple Store Until June →

French Apple blog iGen has acquired a copy of an internal memo from retail chief Angela Ahrendts to retail store staff explaining that all orders will remain online only through the end of May. 

Supply is definitely tight, so if you're looking to get one, your best bet is probably to place an online order sooner than later. Mine should be arriving fairly close to April 24th, as I got my order in very early, but most watch models are now showing as shipping in June. Apple is likely overestimating the delay in order to manage expectations and avoid disappointment. I would recommend ordering online, and then booking a try-on appointment in an Apple Store. That's the approach I took. If you don't like it in the store, then you can cancel your order. You should have lots of time.

/
Comment

Apple Releases OS X 10.10.3 With Photos App, New Emoji →

The main reason you'll want to download this update sooner rather than later is that it brings the new Photos app that is replacing iPhoto. iCloud Photo Library is also now out of beta, and these updates will work with the new iOS 8.3 update for your iPhone and iPad. 

Federico Viticci, writing on his site MacStories:

There have been many cautionary tales about Apple's cloud services and photo management apps, but I think they nailed it this time. I'm happy with iCloud Photo Library because it's seamlessly integrated with my iPhone's camera and photos – I don't have to manually upload anything, and I don't have to think about managing photos.

I just finished upgrading and I'm waiting for all my photos to be uploaded from the new Photos app to iCloud Photo Library. 

/
Comment

Apple Watch Pre-Orders Start at 3:01 a.m. EDT on Friday, and Apple Posted Guided Tours of Apple Watch →

Four more sleeps until pre-orders for the Apple Watch go live in Canada—three sleeps if you're planning on staying up until 3 a.m. 

Apple also launched a page on their site where they posted many guided tour videos of the watch and its functions. 

/
Comment

Pet Peeve of the Week: You Mean 'You're', Not 'Your'!

By popular demand, I'm going to tackle the common and classic 'you're' vs. 'your' grammar crime. In the age of texting, instant messaging, and social networking this one has proliferated over the past several years. These words are heterographs. They sound the same, but are spelled differently, and have different meanings. 

It's pretty simple and quick to tell the difference. 'You're' is a contraction. It's two words. You are. You are awesome is the same thing as you're awesome. Your awesome is wrong. 'Your' a pronoun that is the possessive form of you. It comes before a noun and indicates ownership. You don't own awesome—although sometimes I feel like I do. You are awesome. But, you're not awesome if you can't get the difference between 'you're' and 'your'. 

In case that doesn't clear it up, here's a video to help:

There you have it. That's your lesson of the week and you're all up to speed.

/
Comment