Don’t forget to double those prices if you live in Canada!

The most ridiculous news was announced today, Telus and Bell (the two cellphone carriers on the CDMA network in Canada) will start charging customers 15 cents per received text message.

Did I mention that spam messages or other unwanted messages will also cost you? Oh, and these new charges start in August!

The two carriers want people to purchase text messaging plans or bundles (you know, the $5+ a month plans), and they are using this new pricing scheme to force people into them.

What about Rogers (the cellphone carrier on the GSM network)? Well, as far as I can tell, they plan to continue allowing free incoming text messages.

Makes me glad that I made the switch to Rogers when I did.

Since launching my first Facebook application - Politics in Canada, the number of users has soared. I now have over 135 users!

I have also received a positive review from Best Facebook Applications.

Here is an except from the review: “I’ve been watching this application for the past week as more people join up. This allowed me to see what areas supported what party. A nice graph is also available to show support throughout the nation and by province. The goal of the application is to raise awareness and to get people involved politically. This is seems to be successfully accomplished by providing links to all the party’s websites.”

Read the full review here. Also, feel free give a rating at the end of the review (no registration required).

In case you were wondering how things are going with the Application, here is my quick update:

The Conservative Party has taken the lead nationally, with the Green Party actually tied with the Liberals for second place. Maybe it’s demographics; but, maybe it’s just another indication of how strong the Green Party’s support is across the country.

The National Map is also starting to fill out with support all across the country. The most populated support areas are currently around Toronto; however, many of my friends have been showing support in New Brunswick - which is great to see by the way. Winnipeg is another area with a solid support showing!

The other random thing I have to mention is that I will be presenting this application at T4G’s Geekfest 2008 in Toronto this Thursday. My posting on their blog is here. If your in the area, remember to sign up and stop on in. You won’t want to miss my presentation

As always, check out the Politics in Canada application, and show your support today!

Today, the first review of my Facebook Application, Politics in Canada, was published. It was reviewed on the Facebook Applications Review blog.

I am quite happy to see people taking an interest, and I will be taking all of the great feedback and suggestions in to account when I release the next update to the application.

Remember to send me your comments, and keep spreading the word!

Last night, I launched my Politics in Canada Facebook application.

My goal is to provide a way for people to show support for political parties. I really want people to see the various choices available and to have the ability to make an informed decision. I believe, by raising awareness, we can get more people involved in the political process.

One main feature of my application is that by entering your postal code, an icon can be placed on a map of the country or province showing the party you support. Eventually, as more people add the application you will be able to see areas of support for a party across the country. The map is integrated with Google Maps, allowing you to zoom in and around.

Oh and speaking of awareness, did you know:

• Canada has a Community Party and a Marijuana Party.
• New Brunswick and the Yukon only have three politics parties.
• Alberta has a Separation Party.

Check out the application here and find out more today! Remember to send me any comments or feedback.

“Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?” is a children’s book dedicated to “Helping Your Child Understand the Stay-At-Home Server.”

Written by Microsoft, it is an extremely funny PR piece. It does a wonderful job at promoting their Home Server product.

You can’t help but laugh at some of the lines such as “Offices are why big people get grumpy, and say bad words”, “Or your Uncle who smells like bark.”

I would encourage you to read the entire book here.

You can find more funny videos and information at their Stay at Home Server website.

As a web developer, I’m constantly working on small projects. I love trying out the latest technology and seeing it work online. Because of this, I am always out looking for web hosting.

This time, I was searching for ASP.NET hosting. I thought that instead of going to the big websites hosted down in the states, that I would look locally first. After doing some searching, I found that Aliant had a pretty good package available. Check them out here. It clearly says that they support ASP.NET. I even called to confirm that they could support my application. They assured me that it would work, so I signed up and started setting things up.

My first comment is that their web management interface is utter crap. I say this after working with a lot of other hosting providers. The interface is terrible to navigate, slow, and the settings are difficult to manage. Aliant could take a lesson from nearly every other provider out there, even the small $5/month companies. However; as long as it works, I would be content. Needless to say, you can tell where I’m going with this.

So, after turning on ASP.NET support, I published my application to the server. I navigate to the page and bam. ASP.NET error page telling me that the virtual folder is not configured as an application. Makes sense, so I start looking for a way to configure it as an application. Remember when I said their interface is crap? Well, I wasn’t able to find where to configure it, so I start up a chat using their 24/7 robot support.

I inquire where I can go to set the folder to be an application. The response?

AlexG: I apologize, but we do not provide such service. You should to upload any ASP.NET script to any folder within /public and may access it from browser.

Immediately after this I get the following message:

AlexG: Is there anything else you would like me to help you with today?

Yes, maybe you can help me with THIS problem for starters!! I then ask about why this isn’t configurable. I also explain to him that I need to set this up so that the application can access the DLL files in the bin folder properly. His response?

AlexG: We support only *.aspm and *.aspx pages. We also support .vb extension if you use it in CODEBEHIND. Please note that you may use SRC directive in order to use .vb files for the CODEBEHIND. It is the only alternate I may suggest you instead of DLL.

Wow. I was blown away. I would love to hear from anyone who has built an ASP.NET application that does not compile it’s code into DLL files. Serously, what does Aliant think this is - 1997? Nobody writes ASP.NET code this way. And once again I get this lovely response:

AlexG: Thank you for being patient while I researched your issue. Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?

So, I called and canceled the hosting. No questions asked. In a way I was hoping they would ask why I was canceling to explain to them how they are lying about the services they provide. I guess I’ll have to settle with blogging about it instead. If I’m lucky someone there might read this and actually explain to people they support ASP.NET in such a way that it is useless to anyone asking if they support it. I think it should ultimately be removed from their feature list.

Thank you Aliant - for being here to annoy me!

Now here is an excellent site from Veterans Affairs Canada. The Canadian Virtual War Memorial allows you to search for Canadians who have been killed during their service.

I was able to search for my Great-Uncle Lee Frank Long, who was killed on July 8th, 1944 during World War 2. It links directly to his page in the Second World War Book of Remembrance, as well as showing the exact location where his grave is located - in Beny-Sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery - Calvados, France.

“It was on the coast just to the north that the 3rd Canadian Division landed on 6th June 1944; on that day, 335 officers and men of that division were killed in action or died of wounds. In this cemetery are the graves of Canadians who gave their lives in the landings in Normandy and in the earlier stages of the subsequent campaign. Canadians who died during the final stages of the fighting in Normandy are buried in Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery. There are a total of 2048 burials in Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery. There is also one special memorial erected to a soldier of the Canadian Infantry Corps who is known to have been buried in this cemetery, but the exact site of whose grave could not be located.”

Try it out yourself here. Try searching for your ancestors who gave their lives for our freedom today!

It first occurred for the first time several weeks ago. Now, it’s each time I try to update my copy of Windows Vista. What is it? It’s the dreaded error code 80073712!

So, like the average person, the first thing I did was wait for it to fix itself. Seriously, it’s shocking what can change after a reboot. After that failed, I set out to fix this issue myself. My first step was to search Google for the issue. The plus side? Lots of results to look at. The down side? It’s terrible that so many other people are having the same issue!

There are many legitimate sites that, on first reading, appear to be using rude domain names. Often it is not until you take a second look that you realise that they can also be innocent. This is the list of the top 10:

1. Whorepresents
A site called ‘Who Represents‘ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it… is www.whorepresents.com.

2. Expertsexchange
Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com.

3. Penisland
Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net.

4. Therapistfinder
Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com.

5. Powergenitalia
Then of course, there’s the Italian Power Generator company… www.powergenitalia.com.

6. Molestationnursery
And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com.

7. Ipanywhere
If you’re looking for computer software, there’s always www.ipanywhere.com.

8. cummingfirst
Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church. Their website is www.cummingfirst.com.

9. speedofart
Then, of course, there’s these brainless art designers, and their whacky website: www.speedofart.com.

10. gotahoe
Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website at www.gotahoe.com.