Planete Fortier
The 2 Fat Dads sites are going to be down this weekend with the slight exception of this blog which is hosted by Blogger (for the moment).
This is because we are making a move over to PHP after a very long relationship with ASP which became ASP 3 and eventually ASP Classic. Yes it means losing out on the awesome power of a very solid MS SQL server, but as all the sites ran off of the same database, it was becoming a real chore to manage the tables.
On the upside it will mean finally being able to adopt the awesome power of a superior PHP object oriented platform. It also means customised WordPress template and playing with the new generation of LAMP tools.
We hope to only be down for a short period over the course of the weekend, we apologise for the inconvenience and please don't remove us from your Delicious bookmarks, blog rolls and Follow list.
We'll Be Right Back After This.
We went for a family walk in the Ile-Bizrd Nature Park. The weather was gorgeous and the ducks were out in their full glory. I took all these shots with the Samsung point and shoot I got from Xmas party draw a few years back. I had to play around with them a bit in iPhoto to tweak some of the exposure and temperature settings in order to make these photos look as much as what we saw with out eyes on the day. I didn't really have a choice in the camera, our nice Fuji S5000 died of a fatal zoom error on our summer camping trip. We have been debating on whether to make the jump to full DSLR, but the I'm afraid the click through rate will have to go up quite a bit if I'm going to make any decision before the twins are born.
Hope you like the Photos! You can visit any of Montreal's Nature Parks throughout the year. We bought a parking pass for cross country skiing at Cap St-Jacques which allows us to visit and park at any of the sites for free.
Chloe and the girl's of the Carolina Courage are the 2008 Under 8 Female Champions. The game was a nail biter against three of her very good friends on the New York Power: Elise, Patricia and Elizabeth. As John Motson would say: "In the end it's a game of two halves and their has to be a winner and a loser, and today, the better team won." The game could have gone either one, but half way through the first half, Gabby riccochet'ed a roller off of a few blue shin pads before rolling past the goalie and finding the back of a the net. The second half was fought with passion and grit as both teams struggled to find the net. Gabby, Jenny, Carmen and Paige all had great shots and Elisabteh and Kaninna (apologies for spelling) put up some solid defensive moves and were able to shut down the strong Courage offence. As the ref blew the final whislte, the Courage bench was cleared and the celebrations ensued.
More pictures to come...
Everyone knows that I am a little obsessed with quality electronics goods. I love my Apple gear: MacBook, iPod, Airport Base Stations, my Acoustic Research speakers are old but still sound awesome, I still love my and often use my Beyer Dynamics DT770 pro headphones for my audiophilia. And although I don't have a big screen TV for the PS2 (incumbent Wii), it is only a matter of time before the basement wall gets adorned with 65 inches on hot liquid plasma.
So it should come as no surprise that our little Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner that was generously donated to us by my little bro decided to pack it in, we would inevitably look into a vacuum cleaner any geek would love. Bypassing Hoover all together, we went straight to the next best thing to some out of England since the Mini Cooper S and Jonathan Ive: The Dyson. We first saw the Dyson about ten years ago and simply laughed: "a $2000 yellow Hoover with no bag?" It just seems completely over engineered and the design was just just so pretentious: "Hey look at me I can afford to drop 2G on a Hoover!" I had nothing against it's cleaning power, a very good friend spent a few summers selling Kerby's for about the same price so I understood where this machine would position itself. But still it just seemed like such a silly looking machine. Not to mention that James Dyson himself always looked like he belonged on the deck of the Death Star along side Lord Vader. He has one of those Berkshire/Oxfordshire accents that you just want to pummel with the fat end of a Cambridge / Oxford roaring oar. Yet, like another egomaniac Tech genius for Cupertino California, you just can't help but listening to him and then really liking everything he has to say. Dyson's landmark battle against Hoover who turned their noses at Dyson's bagless cyclonic wonder and then systematically cloned his devices (Hoover lost big time) is not far removed from Apple own journey with the Macintosh and iPods.
Both the Dyson vacuum cleaner and the Apple computers are superior products than anyone else in their field and sure they cost more but once you use them, even for a few minutes, you know exactly why you should pay top dollar for them. So when we got home from the mall yesterday, we ceremoniously unpacked the Dyson DC25 and tested it out on a small 5 x 8 foot living room rug. We had vacuumed this rug only a couple of days ago and we were in shock at how much dust and dirt were ripped out of the rug. After the initial embarrassment brought on from realising that we are essentially pigs in a blanket, our purchase was forever justified in our minds and we then proceeded to vacuum the whole house. The bottom line is that this Dyson really SUCKS! And we love it already.
Make sure you vote up Mikey and The Republic of Peach for their entry in the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge.
[UPDATE]
Forgot to post the link to vote
Friday, October 17, 2008
The 2 Fat Dads sites are going to be down this weekend with the slight exception of this blog which is hosted by Blogger (for the moment).
This is because we are making a move over to PHP after a very long relationship with ASP which became ASP 3 and eventually ASP Classic. Yes it means losing out on the awesome power of a very solid MS SQL server, but as all the sites ran off of the same database, it was becoming a real chore to manage the tables.
On the upside it will mean finally being able to adopt the awesome power of a superior PHP object oriented platform. It also means customised WordPress template and playing with the new generation of LAMP tools.
We hope to only be down for a short period over the course of the weekend, we apologise for the inconvenience and please don't remove us from your Delicious bookmarks, blog rolls and Follow list.
We'll Be Right Back After This.
Labels: reviews, sites news, tech
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
We went for a family walk in the Ile-Bizrd Nature Park. The weather was gorgeous and the ducks were out in their full glory. I took all these shots with the Samsung point and shoot I got from Xmas party draw a few years back. I had to play around with them a bit in iPhoto to tweak some of the exposure and temperature settings in order to make these photos look as much as what we saw with out eyes on the day. I didn't really have a choice in the camera, our nice Fuji S5000 died of a fatal zoom error on our summer camping trip. We have been debating on whether to make the jump to full DSLR, but the I'm afraid the click through rate will have to go up quite a bit if I'm going to make any decision before the twins are born.
Hope you like the Photos! You can visit any of Montreal's Nature Parks throughout the year. We bought a parking pass for cross country skiing at Cap St-Jacques which allows us to visit and park at any of the sites for free.
Labels: reviews, sites news
Monday, September 08, 2008
Chloe and the girl's of the Carolina Courage are the 2008 Under 8 Female Champions. The game was a nail biter against three of her very good friends on the New York Power: Elise, Patricia and Elizabeth. As John Motson would say: "In the end it's a game of two halves and their has to be a winner and a loser, and today, the better team won." The game could have gone either one, but half way through the first half, Gabby riccochet'ed a roller off of a few blue shin pads before rolling past the goalie and finding the back of a the net. The second half was fought with passion and grit as both teams struggled to find the net. Gabby, Jenny, Carmen and Paige all had great shots and Elisabteh and Kaninna (apologies for spelling) put up some solid defensive moves and were able to shut down the strong Courage offence. As the ref blew the final whislte, the Courage bench was cleared and the celebrations ensued.
More pictures to come...
Labels: reviews, sites news
 |
| From Dyson DC25 |
Everyone knows that I am a little obsessed with quality electronics goods. I love my Apple gear: MacBook, iPod, Airport Base Stations, my Acoustic Research speakers are old but still sound awesome, I still love my and often use my Beyer Dynamics DT770 pro headphones for my audiophilia. And although I don't have a big screen TV for the PS2 (incumbent Wii), it is only a matter of time before the basement wall gets adorned with 65 inches on hot liquid plasma.
So it should come as no surprise that our little Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner that was generously donated to us by my little bro decided to pack it in, we would inevitably look into a vacuum cleaner any geek would love. Bypassing Hoover all together, we went straight to the next best thing to some out of England since the Mini Cooper S and Jonathan Ive: The Dyson. We first saw the Dyson about ten years ago and simply laughed: "a $2000 yellow Hoover with no bag?" It just seems completely over engineered and the design was just just so pretentious: "Hey look at me I can afford to drop 2G on a Hoover!" I had nothing against it's cleaning power, a very good friend spent a few summers selling Kerby's for about the same price so I understood where this machine would position itself. But still it just seemed like such a silly looking machine. Not to mention that James Dyson himself always looked like he belonged on the deck of the Death Star along side Lord Vader. He has one of those Berkshire/Oxfordshire accents that you just want to pummel with the fat end of a Cambridge / Oxford roaring oar. Yet, like another egomaniac Tech genius for Cupertino California, you just can't help but listening to him and then really liking everything he has to say. Dyson's landmark battle against Hoover who turned their noses at Dyson's bagless cyclonic wonder and then systematically cloned his devices (Hoover lost big time) is not far removed from Apple own journey with the Macintosh and iPods.
Both the Dyson vacuum cleaner and the Apple computers are superior products than anyone else in their field and sure they cost more but once you use them, even for a few minutes, you know exactly why you should pay top dollar for them. So when we got home from the mall yesterday, we ceremoniously unpacked the Dyson DC25 and tested it out on a small 5 x 8 foot living room rug. We had vacuumed this rug only a couple of days ago and we were in shock at how much dust and dirt were ripped out of the rug. After the initial embarrassment brought on from realising that we are essentially pigs in a blanket, our purchase was forever justified in our minds and we then proceeded to vacuum the whole house. The bottom line is that this Dyson really SUCKS! And we love it already.
 |
| From Dyson DC25 |
 |
| From Dyson DC25 |
"Yup we are slobs, but the Dyson makes sure no one else wll ever know"
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Make sure you vote up Mikey and The Republic of Peach for their entry in the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge.
[UPDATE]
Forgot to post the link to vote
Labels: reviews, sites news, video