Amber Mac

For the links from this week's episode, go to commandn.tv.

March 31st, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9)

I first heard about a third party Internet Service Provider called Teksavvy from my friend Phil, a former collague at Citytv.  He swears by the ISP, an alternative to Bell and Rogers, which offers (offered) up unthrottled bandwidth (thx to an OLD deal from Bell) and (I hear) has the best customer service in the country (something that makes those of us who know Bell's "Emily" jump for joy).  Well, the light at the end of Canada's dark history of traffic shaping (i.e. throttling P2P traffic, including services such as BitTorrent, etc.) is getting even more dim. 

A Globe and Mail article announced today that "Bell was restricting the torrent and peer-to-peer traffic of Teksavvy customers.  'They [Bell] are screwing with our data, which is not their property,' said Teksavvy's CEO. 'Every single third-party ISP in Canada is going to be affected by this.'"

The very fact that Joe Public doesn't understand the terms traffic shaping and bandwidth throttling (and don't get me started on Net Neutrality) is a sigh of relief to executives at Canada's big ISPs.  When customers aren't educated, customers have no voice.  And let's face it, mainstream media doesn't do a great job of digging into this technical jargon.

A Facebook friend just sent me a link that will give you more info and allow you to show your support for Teksavvy and help you understand the state of ISPs in the Great White North. 

Incidentally, I wonder just how much money Bell and Rogers make every year?  I'm sure I can find those numbers pretty quickly online, which will immediately leave me wondering when these ISPs will start giving customers the services we want and the service we deserve for filling up their deep pockets.

March 26th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (33)

After a few weeks of hard work from my good pals at Arktyp and GiraffeSoft, my new site is up 'n running.  The plan is to blog more, post more videos, and basically take over the online world (OK, maybe I am too ambitious for a Monday morning).  Also, I have a few links to add to the sidebar (but I'm impatient, so wanted to go live asap).

I am writing this post from our new studio in Liberty Village.  It feels great to be independent.  Am planning to shoot a video in the next few hours about some of the projects I'm working on, maybe even include a little tech news. 

As always, thanks for stopping by ;).  -Amber

March 24th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (74)

I don't know what to say, but thanks to Kevin for sending me this link ;-).

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (10)