Apple took the wraps off its next-generation operating system, code-named Tiger. The desktop version of Tiger sounds like it's got some neat features, particularly an improved system-wide search function and something called Automator. Automator sounds like the Macro Recorder I used to use on WordPerfect for the PC ...   more »

Paul Martin's Liberal Party won a minority government in yesterday's general election. Investors, currency traders, bond traders -- the whole lot of them -- didn't seem much interested. Here's a sampling of reaction from some Bay Street economists:

Andrew Pyle at Scotia Capital:

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin pulled ...   more »

Your blog author hoists a sample of the good stuff at Granville Island Brewery in Vancouver earlier this year. Photo: Greg Robinson

Of course, expert beer drinkers -- that is to say, most of the adult Canadian population -- know that you cannot have just one favourite beer. There is ...   more »

A new study out today suggests that the level of free (unauthorized in some circles) music downloading picked up again in May, despite attempts by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) to sue Canadian music uploaders. Of course, CRIA's day in court turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Not ...   more »

[CTV.CA column] When Bill Clinton beat George Bush in the 1992 U.S. Presidential race, he did it with a slogan that had an immediate resonance with American voters: "It's the economy, stupid!"
In 1992, Clinton was trying to beat an incumbent whose popularity had soared after the first ...   more »

[Clipped from the Technology Review blog. Technology Review the magazine, incidentally, has a new editor: Jason Pontin last seen as editor-in-chief of Red Herring] Try this now: Go to Google, enter out of touch management, and click Im Feeling Lucky. You might be surprised to see whose executive roster shows ... [...   more »

Wired News is reporting that bloggers are welcome to apply for press passes for the Democratic National Convention in the U.S. The Republicans, on the other hand, are a tad nervous ... ============================= Blogs Welcome at Dems' Convention Coverage of this summer's political conventions could be a little more colorful ...   more »

The New York Times is taking it on the chin from all sides recently. (The Jayson Blair scandal is one thing -- something that was 'solved' with some new editors.) The new charges --- one critic is from the right and the other is from the left -- suggest that ...   more »

Roger Ebert, of course, isn't just any newspaperman. He's one of the world's most famous newspapermen (and I'm using that term not to exclude women who work for newspapers but in the hopes that readers will attach some of that old-fashioned, blue-collar, Matthau-and-Lemon-in-The-Front-Page moxy to the term).
That ...   more »

One of the way-too-smart economists behind the Marginal Revolution blog have posted some very helpful tips on getting through tough books. Number 7 and Number 5, in that order, are my favourites. I highly recommend them to anyone who's having trouble getting through, say, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene...   more »