MediaVoice BLOG #5

This week... Hurricane Bill, Car Radios and a FREE app for tracking your cash.

So what happened to Hurricane Bill? Here in West Hants Nova Scotia, Hurricane Bill turned out to be little more than just another windy rainy day. Valley Orchard owners however breathed a huge sigh of relief as there was widespread fear the hurricane could have literally wiped out what many are calling a ‘bumper’ crop of Valley apples this year. Thankfully the storm stayed far enough south to simply skirt the Annapolis valley. It’s strange to have access to Environment Canada’s data to monitor from your own home. One site I bookmarked and I find is accurate is the local radar image that shows all forms of precipitation. You can literally follow the rainclouds as they approach your town and it’s pretty cool to watch the rain approaching on your desktop, then see it start raining minutes later in your backyard. Here is EC’s Radar Image page that you can customize to your own local area. And if you really want to stay on top of storm developments, here’s the Nova Scotia Power Outage Map. A great site that is, until you ..uh…lose power. Why is it 30 years ago, I hardly ever remember a power outage, they were extremely rare? Today..not so much…it’s almost expected whenever bad weather is forecast. For a colorful answer to that question, just ask any Nova Scotia arborist.

I happened to be out car shopping with LA this past last week and we hit a number of Metro Car lots. It was amusing how long it took from the point of arrival on each lot to when a salesperson would appear from the door heading straight in our direction. I haven’t seen ‘The GOODS’ yet but one salesguy told me it was quite funny. One of the lots we visited was O’Regans KIA in Dartmouth. What surprised me the most was how far the KIA brand has come in the past 3-5 years. We tested some awesome new vehicles and KIA has really made huge strides in the quality and design of their brand line. What amazed me the most however was how far the traditional AM/FM Car radio has come in just the last 2 years. Every vehicle we tested included a virtual digital entertainment centre up front. All were Sirius Satellite radio equipped along with CD/MP3 players with auxiliary inputs for iPods plus USB ports for loading up a Flash Drive worth of Music and all of it Blue Tooth capable for fully automated hands-free Cell Phone use. As well, more power connections for laptops than I could count. What was once the one part of every car literally owned by terrestrial radio is now a buffet of audio content choices. I’ve calculated that in the past year alone, the number of audio podcasts that I’ve listened to in my Rav 4 probably add up to about 6-7 hours a week. Why ? That’s easy. Unique informative or entertaining programming both music and talk based and this trend you know is going to continue. Curious about what we ended up buying ? It surprised even me that we actually left the Toyota brand for the first time in 6 years and we decided on ( no check that... Leigh-Anne wanted ) a GMC Envoy. Though now after a test drive on Friday night, I'd really like a new Kia Soul for zipping back and forth to the Campus. Wow, those Kia Souls really can fly and what a cool interior with a totally solid ride.

Finally this week, a FREE software suggestion for those of you who may be either starting your own small home based studio business...or simply looking for a way to track your money both coming and going. Years ago I was into a program called Quicken...it was the rage back in the 90's but over the past few years I just can't keep up with all the details in it that you have to stay on top of. Look... an accountant I'm not and beancounters are worth their weight in gold. But recently I found a really cool program that tracks all your $. It's called Expenseview and you can access it online from any PC or Mac from anywhere. It's a breeze to set up and I had it up and running in just minutes. I think I checked out 20 different programs on the Apple.com site before I found it. Did I say ExpenseView is free, and so simple to use. It tracks your expenses, budgets and income. And for students this little app will really show how you're spending or not spending your money. If you'd rather create than count, then give it a spin for a week. I think you'll really like it. We're back to the campus next week....and as my colleague Yvonne Colbert noted, to prepare for the arrival of 32 new ducklings. I can't believe summer is coming to an end so soon.

As always, I look forward to your comments and feedback.

David '0db' Bannerman