Kyle over at BlackBerry Cool posted a first impressions of Facebook 1.6 for the BlackBerry article, which was released over the weekend. Since this is an app that I use fairly regularly, I fired it up on my BlackBerry and clicked on the “check for updates” link in the options menu. It reported a new version was available and took me to the over-the-air install site.

The first thing I had to do was select the language for the install from a pulldown menu. Oddly enough, the default language was “Chinese (Simplified)”, which could be a bit of a gotcha for some people if they don’t notice it. I was surprised that the default language wasn’t the preferred language in my browser; or simply pre-selected based on the language of the existing install; or just English. The download and install was pretty straight forward, but did involve a device reset, presumably because Facebook weaves itself into the address book, messages thingy and other base applications.

Firing it up after the reset meant accepting a new EULA, which was similar to other RIM EULAs (or BBSLAs as they seem to be called). It didn’t appear to have any Facebook-specific terms in it. After accepting the EULA, I logged in with my Facebook details and it started updating my friends list, etc. Like the previous version, it’s much more integrated with the BlackBerry calendar and address book than versions in early days were.

The interface itself is “prettier” than previous versions and looks more like the web interface. There still isn’t a way to use the chat functionality of Facebook with the BlackBerry client, but that’s not a huge inconvenience as I don’t chat using Facebook that often. Still, you would think that would be fairly straightforward to implement and is a feature that is noticeably missing.

The status screen has become a bit cluttered, but that could be fixed if they removed your profile picture from the screen. (I have a BlackBerry Curve 8310, which has a lower-resolution screen than most of the BBs available today, like the BB Curve 8900, so this may not be as much of an issue on newer devices.)

One commenter on BBCool said it was slower, but I haven’t noticed that, yet. There are many factors that can affect how quickly something runs on a BB, so it could be an issue with the commenter’s BB than a general application issue. I’ll post an update if I notice that it’s slower.

Ring To The World, the Ontario Guild of English Handbell Ringers‘ biennial handbell festival has been taking place at Carleton University the last couple of days. This is the second time in recent history it’s been held in Ottawa and this is the fourth or fifth Festival I’ve gone to in the almost 30 years I’ve been ringing bells.

There have been workshops on all sorts of things related to handbells from sessions for beginners to workshops on techniques such as four-in-hand to solo ringing to conducting to composing. There was even a workshop on the ergonomics of ringing. I signed up for a number of workshops, but I only ended up going to three of them. One was on change ringing, another was sight-reading some new music and the other was on advanced conducting techniques.

In addition to the workshops, there are a number of festival choirs, split up by the level of experience of the ringers and the difficulty of the music. The bell choir I usually ring with is in the bronze level, which is the highest level of the larger groups. I’m also ringing in the gold choir, which is doing a pair of quite challenging pieces. Adding to the challenge is the fact that the person leading the gold choir (and the bronze choir, too) is Tim Waugh, who wrote a number of the pieces.

Because the gold choir is made up of people from all over this is the first time many of them have played the pieces. (My regular choir had copies of the music so we ran through it a couple of times prior to Festival.) Thus, I’ve been doing a lot of ringing. Thursday evening, we rehersed for a couple of hours. Friday, I rang for about 6.5 hours, including the workshops. Today, I’ve rung for about 5 hours so far and the final concert is to come. So, I’ve been through the ringer. (Pun intended — substitute your own bell joke if you don’t like it.)

But there’s been more than ringing. After the practice yesterday evening, there were some step dancers who did some amazing tap dancing.

And then the Maria Hawkins Band was introduced. Maria Hawkins has visited a lot of schools over the years in support of an anti-bullying campaign. She’s also performed with a number of famous artists, too.

So, she started singing and interacting with the audience and at one point she said she needed an A. Well, someone grabbed an A off one of the tables. Then she said she also needed a C and a couple of other notes, so I went and grabbed a C5 while other people grabbed other notes. And then we jammed on Mustang Sally and some other songs. And we rocked!

I bet that’s the first time someone’s jammed with a D3 bell!

It’s about 20 minutes to showtime, so I’m going to post this and then start getting ready for yet more ringing.

Mikhail Lennikov, his wife and son have been living in Canada for the last twelve years. Before coming to Canada, he worked as a low-level translator for the KGB (which was disbanded in the mid-1980s) for five years, which probably isn’t as big of a deal as it sounds. Lots of people worked for the KGB as translators and agents, many of them involuntarily. His wife and son were granted permanent residency on “humanitarian and compassionate grounds” earlier this year, but that apparently does not extend to Mikhail.

Lennikov has been deemed a security risk according to a CBC report and is scheduled to be deported on June 3rd. He appealed to the courts to overturn the Minister of Public Safety‘s decision, but that was denied. Now, he has claimed sanctuary in a Vancouver church in order to avoid deportation. He fears being arrested and charged with treason should be be returned to Russia, something the judge decided was not well-founded.

The questions I have are these: If he really is a threat to national security, why was he even allowed into the country in the first place? Presumably he underwent some sort of background check when he first applied for permission to stay in Canada and whatever was found was not determined to be a reason to exclude him at that time.

And if he is returned to Russia but his wife and son remain behind, is the risk any less? Could not his family be coerced into spying for whichever organization has replaced the KGB by telling them that he’ll be arrested/disappeared if they don’t do as they’re told? Finally, he’s been in the news lately, so it’s not like he has a low-profile, so presumably any risk he posed has been significantly attenuated.

The way to deal with this is to allow him to stay, assuming he hasn’t been engaging in illegal activities, and simply deny him a security clearance if he applies for a job that needs one. And if the screening system is really broken, then fix it so that this problem doesn’t happen again in the future.

Canada has allowed much more undesireable individuals to stay in the country, so I really don’t see the point of deporting this person who doesn’t seem to be “undesireable,” at least based on the reports in the media.

I decided to upgrade the firmware on my D-Link DIR-655 router this evening. I downloaded the latest firmware from D-Link’s website and reviewed the instructions. Basically, they said to make a backup of the settings, upload the new firmware to it, connect to the web interface after it rebooted and then restore the settings. Sounded simple.

Of course, my experience was slightly different.

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I originally wrote this for my dragonboat team, the Algonquin College Singapore Slings, and I thought it might be of interest to a wider audience.

If you’ve been dragonboating for a couple of years, you’ve probably heard your steersman or caller issue instructions such as “check the boat”, “all up”, “right side draw” or “let it run”. And you (hopefully) know what the person wants you to do. But, if you’re new to dragonboating, it might be Greek to you.

So, to help demystify things, here’s a list of the most common things your steersman is likely to say and what they want you to do.

In general, when you’re paddling, whether it’s paddling easy during a practice, drawing at the start line or during the race, all the paddlers should be hitting at the same time. If even one person is out a bit, the paddlers around them will tend to get off beat.

Happy paddling!

I had a lot of fun this past weekend. Saturday started with a dragonboat practice followed by brunch with some of the other people on the Algonquin College Singapore Slings. Once sated, I did a bunch of errands that saw me drive back and forth across Ottawa from place to place. Tiring of that, I headed out on my bike along the Ottawa River path to the top of the locks and into the Market for gelato at Piccolo Grande on Murray. Happily full of a double-chocolate gelato that had big chunks of white chocolate in it, I headed back towards the Cenotaph to check out the festivities related to the Ottawa Race Weekend.

To say the area was crowded would be a bit like saying the Pacific Ocean has a lot of water in it.

Most of the roads were closed to cars because they were packed with people. People who had just finished a race, people who were getting ready to race, people who were in a race, people who were watching the races and people who were trying to figure out how they could get to where they wanted to be given all the road closures and people.

A friend of mine was doing the 10 km race, so I found a good vantage point near the first turn and waited for the race to start.

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Once again this year, I am steering a dragon boat in the Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival for the Algonquin College Singapore Slings.  And like the other teams in the festival, we’re taking part in the pledge challenge raising money that will go to support the charities selected by the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation. These charities do very important work in the Ottawa area and are worth supporting.

If you’d like to help my team reach its pledge target and thus help the various charities selected by the ODBF, please consider clicking on the link at the top of the right column, and sponsoring me.  All donations of $20 or more automatically receive a tax receipt and you can request one for donations of less than $20.

Many thanks for reading this and thinking about it.  And a special thank you if you do sponsor me. 🙂