He Said It, He Did It

Sam Sniderman, the founder of Sam The Record Man, has died at the age of 92.

The Sam The Record Man chain was founded in 1937 and had become Canada’s largest chain of record stores by 1982, which enabled the chain to be a major promoter of Canadian music.

In 1961, their flagship store at 347 Yonge Street in Toronto opened and had become a landmark due to its pair of rotating neon signs, which were prominently featured in film and television including Marvel’s “The Incredible Hulk” and one of my favorite music videos, Alphaville’s “Big In Japan”.

Unfortunately, the chain and flagship store closed by mid 2007 due to competition and advancements in music distribution technology. But Sam The Record Man will be remembered for his contributions to the Canadian music industry, including the independent scene, which flourished in the 80’s and 90’s because of his support.

Sam The Record Man RIP 1920-2012

E-Reader News For Canadians

It appears that Walmart will stop selling the Amazon Kindle e-reader line at their local stores soon. And the new HD e-readers from this line will unfortunately not be available to Canadians when they are released in November.

On the other hand, the Kobo Mini eReader and Kobo Glo eReader will be released in October. The full color Kobo Arcicon will also be made available that month.

Unfortunately Barnes & Nobleicon does not ship its Nookicon line of eReaders and tablets to Canada.

Warning For Canadian iPhone 5 Purchasers

Do not line up at your local Apple store unless you are willing to commit to a 3 year contract.

A unlocked purchase is available from Apple’s online store instead : “When you purchase your iPhone from the Apple Online Store, you’ll get it unlocked. So you can sign up for service with the carrier of your choice and change your carrier at any time.”

I am so tempted to get this…

I used to watch the Kids in the Hall quite regularly on CBC in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s pretty much responsible for my dark humour, along with Black Adder, Father Ted and Monty Python. 😉

This 2006 version of the Kids In The Hall Megaset is on sale at Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. But a more recent 2011 megaset is also available at Amazon.com, which apparently includes the “Death Comes To Town” mini-series.

Germany Issues Security Warning

The government of Germany has issued a warning to their citizens asking them to use alternatives to Internet Explorer because of a security issue that has been discovered over the weekend.

Germany’s Internet Explorer users have been urged to use alternative browsers like Firefox or Chrome until a patch is issued by Microsoft.

Microsoft is currently working on a patch and asks users to install the latest version of their Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit as a temporary measure until this patch is released.

I personally use Firefox to browse and Spybot’s Search & Destroy immunity function, which instructs all of the browsers to block problematic sites. But I’ve turned Spybot’s resident “SDHelper” and “Teatimer” off to avoid conflicts with my security software.

Parliament Is In Session

So, Parliament is now in session and several issues are back on the table.

Quite a few of the more controversial bills have passed through, some changed slightly like the Copyright Modernization Act. But the primary issue I’m having now is related to privacy in the internet.

We have progressed, the Office Of The Privacy Commissioner of Canada offering an online form for complaints. And the debate persists in the media, as it’s been since Bill C-12 was introduced in September 2011 by the Minister of Industry and Ministry of State (Agriculture).

The issue of course is the wording of the proposed amendments to Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in Bill C-12 and other documents, which could cause problems later on in its interpretation and enforcement.

At the moment the member of parliament are concentrating on the budget, which will be tabled next week. But quite a few citizens are also wondering if they will be required to pay for technology to spy on every day citizens through their internet providers. And others wonder what will qualify as “probable cause” to start an investigation of an individual.

For example, will the past downloading of files from services like Megaupload result in an investigation in regards to piracy because of the accusations made against the service by the United States ? Will the viewing of a fundamentalist video on Youtube result in an investigation related to terrorism ?

Some people assume that they will be determined innocent with little to no effort if they were ever exposed to these issues. But what will be the due processes and how inconvenient will they be to the accused and the system ?

I am concerned about the mass prosecution of people and financial toll this will take on our internet providers and legal system. And having avoided the use of peer to peer transfer programs because of malware and spyware, I do not appreciate being exposed to the possibility of security issues through the implementation of a system that could have security issues of its own.

“Haste makes waste”. We need to tread slowly and thoughtfully through the process.