Author: Jason Dunn

Dell XPS 13 2015 Edition: You Shall Be Mine!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA/ photo courtesy of Slashgear /

I’m tremendously excited what Dell has done with the new XPS 13, announced at CES 2015 recently. Talk about some amazing hardware design! It’s been a few years since I owned a Dell laptop – my last one was a Dell Vostro V13, which was a decent laptop for day to day work with a nice design, but ultimately had a very ho-hum screen, was underpowered, and had fairly poor battery life.

For the past three years, I’ve been using an HP Envy 14 Spectre – an audacious, premium design from HP that sadly was a one-off and not the first of a new line. Sure, they’ve carried the ENVY name forward, but none of them have been Spectres or been premium. The Envy 14 Spectre was, and is, a fast machine with a great design. The overall weight though makes it a hassle for travel, and the battery life isn’t anything to write home about. I was particularly frustrated when, after ordering if the first week it came out, within a month of getting it Intel had announced new chips – HP decided to release this new product at the end of a chip cycle from Intel. This was right after I’d moved to the USA, and I frankly wasn’t in the loop on Intel’s roadmap. It’s still a fast laptop for most things, but I’d have preferred to wait and get the newer generation of chip from Intel, all things being equal.

The new Dell XPS 13 comes with a Broadwell-U chip. I’d initially been excited about the Core M chips and the idea of a fanless design, but once I saw how performance-limited they were, I decided I needed to go for a Broadwell-U chip. Here’s what’s funny though: Broadwell was supposed to ship in products last year, and all the rumours point to Intel releasing Skylake midway this year. Skylake is a new chip design and promises significant advances over Broadwell…so by ordering this Dell XPS 13, am I setting myself up for another scenario where mere months after I get a new product there’s already a new chipset? Could be. At least this time I know about it! Hopefully if Skylake products won’t ship until Q3/Q4, I won’t feel bad about snagging a Broadwell-U based system…as long as it rocks, that’s all I care about.

Dell used to be the king of customization, but I find it ironic and sad that now that seems to be more Apple’s game: I can order a Macbook Air with a Core i5 or i7 CPU, 4 GB or 8 GB of RAM, and a choice of 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. Dell has a few configs, but if you want a 512 GB SSD, there’s only ONE config: the Core i7, 8 GB of RAM, and the QHD+ touchscreen display. I’d have been perfectly happy with the 1920 x 1080p non-touch display as that unit gets better battery life…somehow Dell decided not to let people pick that option. I’m feeling very iffy about Window 8.1’s ability to handle a resolution that high. I’ve never liked how the Windows UI looks with high-dpi settings turned on, so I’m a bit concerned how well this display is going to work with my apps (and eyes).

After wasting two days playing telephone tag with Dell – their practice of needing to call you on the phone to verify your order is as old-fashioned and quaint as it is wasteful and inefficient – my laptop is finally in pre-production. I expect to have it in my hands by February 6th…can’t wait!

Unlisted YouTube Videos Do Work Properly on Twitter

Earlier today I needed an answer to a simple question: if you posted a YouTube link to an unlisted video on Twitter, would it embed the video properly in the feed and work exactly like a public video? Surprisingly, I couldn’t find the answer despite several searches. So I performed a quick experiment, first uploading a video of my son to my personal YouTube account and marking it as unlisted:

youtube-unlisted2

Then I took the YouTube link and posted it to Twitter. The video embedded in the timeline just as you’d expect:

youtube-unlisted

So there you go: post your unlisted videos on Twitter and they’ll work just like you want them to.

Kids and Screen Time

A work colleague of mine posted a question on Facebook asking about how other parents handled screen time with their kids. Below was my response. If you’re a parent, how do you handle screen time with your kids?

Most “experts” (and I use that term loosely because there haven’t been many really solid studies on this, so it’s mostly guessing) say 2 hours maximum of screen time per day for kids. So with our five year old, we give him 60 minutes total screen time per weekday, and 90 minutes on weekends. We’ll scale that up as he gets older. We give him little plastic coins (5’s and 10’s) for time counting that go into a little tray so we can also teach him basic math while we’re at it. He decides how he wants to spend his time between iPad, TV, computer, and Xbox. We try to encourage him to use no more than 30 minutes at once, taking a break in between. No screen time before school, ever.

For the most part, this system works out quite well – he rarely uses all his screen time on weekdays. He understands the limits and rarely complains about them. We’ve had the occasional case of him becoming a little obsessed with a game (Tiny Thief and Minecraft on the iPad so far), but by having the preset time limits in place, the answer is always the same: “You can play it tomorrow”. 

For me, what makes this work is defined limits that the kids know about and agree to. Without that, you have “it’s whatever mom and dad say”, which creates uncertainty in your kids. They adapt to that by whining/screaming more if they feel the whim of mom and dad doesn’t go their way. Same thing goes for allowance and buying things at stores – pre-defined solutions (allowance) encourage your kids to think about how they should use the resources they have. I’ll write more about this in a future blog post and it’s something I find very interesting!

Zero screen time for our toddler until she’s two, then we’ll give her a little bit of time with the iPad.

Concrete Equities and Wealthstreet Alberta Securities Commission Documents

I’ve had these documents for several years and had been meaning to put them up for public access – all text below is taken verbatim from the documents in question.

Alberta Securities Commission: Notice of Hearing (Oct 2010) [Download PDF]
To: Wealthstreet Inc, Colin Davis Jones (aka David Colin Jones, aka Dave Jones), Rachael Poffenroth
Allegations & Summary of Breaches:

  1. “Staff (Staff) of the Alberta Securities Commission (Commission) alleges that Wealthstreet Inc. (Wealthstreet), Colin David Jones also known as David Colin Jones (Jones) and Rachael Poffenroth (Poffenroth) (collectively, the Respondents) engaged in illegal trading and distributions of securities in Alberta to Alberta investors.”
  2. “Staff also alleges that Jones acted as an advisor in Alberta without being registered as an advisor, made prohibited and misleading or untrue representations to Alberta investors and engaged in unfair practices in transactions with Alberta investors.”

Alberta Securities Commission: Amended Notice of Hearing (Oct 2010) [Download PDF]
To: VARUN VINNY AURORA, DAVID HUMENIUK, DAVID JONES, VINCENZO DE PALMA
Allegations & Summary of Breaches:

  1. “Staff of the Commission (Staff) allege that Varun Vinny Aurora (Aurora), David Humeniuk (Humeniuk), David Jones (Jones) and Vincenzo De Palma (De Palma) breached the Act by acting as dealers without being registered in accordance with Alberta securities laws, and without an applicable exemption to the registration requirement, or by authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in such conduct by one or more corporate entities of which they were a director or officer.”
  2. “Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk and Jones breached the Act by making, or by authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in the making of, statements each knew, or ought reasonably to have known, were misleading or untrue in a material respect, or that did not state a fact that was required to be stated or that was necessary to make the statement not misleading, and that would reasonably have been expected to have a significant effect on the market price or value of the security in question.”
  3. “Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk, Jones and De Palma each breached the Act by trading in securities on his own account, or authorized, permitted or acquiesced in the trade of securities on one or more companies’ own account, in circumstances where such
    trades were distributions, without having filed a prospectus or preliminary prospectus for which a receipt had been issued by the Executive Director of the Commission (the Executive Director), and for which no valid exemption applied.”
  4. “Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk, Jones and De Palma each acted contrary to the public interest.”

Alberta Securities Commission: Notice of Decision (Dec 2011) [Download PDF]
To: Wealthstreet Inc, Colin Davis Jones (aka David Colin Jones, aka Dave Jones), Rachael Poffenroth
Recognition of Seriousness:

  1. “Jones, in our view, still does not recognize the seriousness of his misconduct. Communications to investors that are in evidence and his statements before us (on the few occasions that we saw or heard from him) demonstrate Jones’s persistence in contending that any issues with the Promissory Notes and the other securities sold through Wealthstreet were caused by global economic conditions and not his actions. He continues to accept no blame or responsibility for his illegal actions. When cross-examining investor witness KC, he implied that she was in a more balanced position with her current investments (through Wealthstreet) than she had been before meeting Jones. In fact, KC had gone from having retirement savings of over $200 000 and real estate equity of several hundred thousand dollars to apparently losing all of her savings and owing $540 000 on home equity lines of credit. In addition to not accepting responsibility for the financial harm he caused his clients, Jones seems unwilling or unable to appreciate the fact that his actions contravened Alberta securities laws and were contrary to the public interest.”
  2. “We believe that Poffenroth recognizes the seriousness of her misconduct and sincerely regrets both her involvement in Wealthstreet and the harm caused to Wealthstreet investors. She candidly admitted that she was not qualified to act as Wealthstreet’s president. She also testified during the Merits Hearing that she experienced “shock and hurt” at learning some of what Jones had done and how the investors had been affected. She appeared to accept the majority of the sanctions suggested by Staff as appropriate and expressed her intention not to be involved with public companies in the future. However, the evidence also indicates that Poffenroth had concerns about being under-qualified and being upset over some of Jones’s activities while still employed at Wealthstreet. Despite her concerns and reservations, Poffenroth continued for a time to act as Wealthstreet’s president and collect her generous remuneration. She later filed a claim with the Trustee for money owing to her from her wrongful dismissal claim. At no time did she report Jones or Wealthstreet to any regulators. We conclude that while some of her remorse and recognition of seriousness is genuine, some of that contrition stems from her desire to minimize the sanctions she might receive.”

All Expedia Sites Are Not Created Equal: Do Your Travel Research

This is an oldie, but a goodie: I’ve had these screen shots kicking around my hard drive for a few years (one of the many draft posts that were stuck in my own head). I was booking a trip to India when I first started at HTC, and my first stop was Expedia.ca. The price tag? A staggering $5196 Canadian (and this for coach class):

expedia-canada

Below is the same trip as booked from Expedia.com, and it’s 52% LESS EXPENSIVE for the same flights on the same dates! There’s a slight exchange rate to factor in there, but not much of one. If ever there was proof how expensive it is to book things from Canada, here’s the sticker shock to prove it!

expedia-usa

Blockless Ad Blocker: The FAQ They Missed

Yes, I’m kind of a smart-ass sometimes, but this is really how I feel about ad-blockers. Despite how much I like Blockless (DNS trickery is so much cleaner than a full-blown VPN solution), I won’t be paying for their service. As someone who once made a living off providing content for free, and supported his family off of advertising, I know that ad blocking is theft. It’s just a theft that most people can’t wrap their brains around because there’s no real-world equivalent.

Blockless-Ad-Blocking

UPDATE: To their credit, the community manager at Blockless replied to my email: “As a professional who has sold advertising for over 5 years, currently uses advertising and manages many affiliates of Blockless I have to disagree. Either way you are entitled to your opinion and not sure if you noticed but Ad Blocker does have an off button. Let me know the email attached to your account and I will cancel and unsubscribe you from our service.” If he was on the publisher side, he’d get it.

WordPress JetPack Annual Report Shames Me

As if I didn’t already realize how little I wrote here in 2014, the very cool WordPress JetPack plugin/service sent out an email showing me exactly how little…2015 is going to have a lot more green boxes!

blogging-in-2014

Why am I scared to blog?

I finished reading Seth Godin’s excellent Linchpin book recently, and I’ve been reading Steven Pressfield’s War of Art. Both books talk about the Resistance. The Resistance has been beating the hell out of me when it comes to blogging here on my site. I have at least ten draft posts that I’ve started – things that I’ve want to write about for months – but I haven’t finished any of them. Here’s Pressfield on overcoming the Resistance:

Why haven’t I been writing? I used to think of myself as a writer – I wrote tech reviews, tech books, and generally spoke up about whatever I was passionate about. Writing comes fairly easily to me. When I started my job at HTC, that all went away. The job was all-consuming, and along with the adjustment of living in a new country (and a second kid), I didn’t have it in me to write from a time or energy perspective. Since leaving HTC though and moving to AT&T, I’ve achieved a better work/life balance and I have both the time and energy to write…if I really wanted to.

What’s been stopping me? There’s that saying that if you name your fears, you’ll gain some power over them. So here’s why I think I haven’t been blogging, written in the form of what the Resistance has been whispering to me:

  • You don’t have a platform of significance to speak from anymore
  • You don’t have a tech site or real community any more, so no one will read what you have to say anyway
  • You’re a has-been in the tech world, so why would anyone care what you have to say about tech?
  • You have nothing worth saying about topics beyond tech anyway, so why bother?
  • You don’t have time; there’s that TV show you wanted to watch, that book you wanted to read, those photos you wanted to edit…

To all of the above reasons, and to the Resistance, I say…shut up! I’m going to blog anyway, about whatever I want. I don’t do it for the approval of others; I do it for myself and to contribute small pieces of knowledge and understanding to the world. Head down, pushing forward, I’m going to blog.

What has the Resistance been saying to you?

Three Years Ago Today We Came to America…

Coming To America

Three years ago today, my wife, my son, and my dog, came to America. Every time I think of that statement – “Coming to America” – the same two things pop into my head. Eddie Murphey’s hilarious movie – it was hilarious when I was in my teens at any rate – and Neil Diamond singing “America”, the opening line of which is “Far…we’ve been traveling far, without a home, but not without a star”. So that’s why you’re looking at the epic graphic above. You’re welcome.

There are a lot of things I can say about the past three years, but given this my first blog post in five months, to say I’m rusty at blogging is an understatement. I’m going to keep this simple.

My wife and I grew up in Calgary and spent all our our lives there. We never thought we’d leave. A plan for our lives (His plan) began to unfold that presented us with a choice: stay “safe” or take a risk and “Come to America”. That decision – one of the most important we’ve ever made – put us on a path of personal growth, happiness, and prosperity unlike anything we could have expected. It was a pivotal moment in our lives, and one that we are truly happy we made. It changed everything, all of it ultimately good. We are blessed beyond measure.

Three years in, what I can say is this: if you’re ever presented an opportunity to take a leap into the unknown, to step outside your known world into into something new, take it.

Over to you Neil…

Off to a New Adventure: I’ve Left HTC & Joined AT&T

 (It’s funny how you can start a blog post with the best of intentions to publish it immediately, then four weeks later it’s still sitting in your drafts folder…time to pull the trigger!)

In the instantly-connected world of social media, it seems like a curious thing to announce a big change on a blog (how very 2008 of me!), but I felt like I wanted to make it official beyond the realm of 140 characters. On April 11th I finished my time at HTC, after 2 years and 8 months at the company. It was an amazing opportunity for me; I learned and grew so much in that role. HTC is an amazing company with tremendous innovation and passion, and I’m deeply grateful to all my co-workers for making my time there so special. As Proverbs 27 says, “iron sharpens iron”. I worked with some smart, highly skilled people and I had to push myself to keep up with them. I’m thankful for the opportunity to learn something new every day.

Being a fan of HTC before working there, I remain one today, and will always bleed green!

Having the opportunity to create and run a world-class VIP fan community, HTC elevate, was the proudest moment of my career thus far. Envisioning, creating, then leading a community of like-minded people was truly a dream job and I’m eternally grateful to my first manager, John Starkweather, for giving me the opportunity. I deeply respect HTC as a company, so I won’t fully explain my reasons for leaving in public, but I will say it was related to me being a Canadian working in the USA and not receiving what I needed to stay with the company long-term. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions to protect your family’s well-being, and this was one of those situations. An opportunity came along that would allow me to do that, and to work with John again, so I took it.

So where am I now? In case you missed the headline, let me make it obvious with a giant logo:

AT&T

I’ve accepted a role with the AT&T small business team in Bothell, WA. I went from being self-employed to working for HTC, which seemed to me like a “big corporation” at the time (with some 17,000 employees), and now I’m at a company with over 250,000 employees.  It’s been an interesting adjustment to say the least; things I assumed were normal from my time at HTC are most definitely not the norm at AT&T, so every day I’m learning and adjusting to my new surroundings.

I’m doing a different sort of work than I was at HTC, which is adding to my career toolkit and working some new mental muscles. I was hired as a community manager, but since there’s no community just yet on this new project, I’m getting to project manage, direct developers, evaluate UI/UX, coordinate events, and use my technical chops to assist the team I’ve joined. I’m really enjoying it, and while I miss HTC and my elevate community, I’m all-in on this new role and am looking forward to the future!