It has been a while since I have written a telecom piece, but a recent experience with Rogers has left me with the desire to write an organized rant. Before I begin, I would like to say that all of the Rogers representatives I dealt with on the phone and in person were friendly, understanding, and easy to talk with. Because of this, I never had to raise my voice or get outwardly angry in any way.

Thanks to the advancement of the Web, it is possible for anyone to share their experience with the corporate world – be it positive or negative. Many of my posts in the past have focused on the positive, but sadly it is time to turn the table.

Last week, we received the monthly cable/Internet statement, but this time something was different. Cogeco, a Canadian telecommunications firm, had charged us $31.50 for exceeding our bandwidth limit by 40.74GB in October of this year. I scrambled to the Internet usage section of the Cogeco Web portal to see that the statement did match their records. What was more interesting was that the usage did not fit our bandwidth patterns. For instance, in August of ’09 we used 37GB with 31GB in September, 100GB in October and 50GB in November.

Apple.com is now taking advantage of HTML 5 in various WebKit-based browsers! This is fantastic news for the proliferation of HTML 5 – the replacement for HTML 4.01. I will shy away from jumping into all of the differences between HTML 4.01/DOM/XHTML and HTML 5 but the main difference, on the surface, is the multimedia capabilities of HTML 5 – most notably video. Rather than using browser plug-ins, such as Flash, to render video the browser itself will be responsible for the rendering and controls. Not only does this provide a performance increase, it also allows objects to be layered and presented in a much cleaner manner.

Geek Technica recently posted a great article, complete with the relevant screenshots, discussing Apple’s recent decision to take advantage of HTML 5 on capable browsers. I gave the videos a shot with both Firefox and Safari, and now I am even more excited for HTML 5. Exciting times are ahead!

It has been a while since I have talked about my love affair with the Canadian wireless industry, but it is time to praise WIND Mobile, yet again. In a previous post titled New Wireless – WIND Mobile, I discussed how Globalive is using the WIND brand to change the wireless industry in Canada – a great relief for many of us that are passionate about the industry.

Not only is WIND trying to change wireless, they are also changing the hiring process. A major new entity, such as WIND, must have a strong focus on quality recruiting in order to become successful in an already established industry. How are they doing this? The recruiting team has been using the power of social media to reach out to motivated and passionate job-seekers. Specifically WIND has employed the use of Facebook, Twitter and a community-focused website to establish amazing two-way communication.

Check them out!
WIND on Facebook
WIND on Twitter
WIND CEO, Ken Campbell, on Twitter
Globalive CEO, Tony Lacavera, on Twitter
WIND Careers on Twitter
WIND community site

Here is to hoping that WIND starts to hire for marketing/product/analysis roles soon!

I have received quite a number of questions regarding my move from shared hosting to a VPS, so I would like to take the time to go into a little more detail in how I justified the move and the overall process.

What is a VPS? Virtual private servers enable users to experience dedicated server-like performance, but at a discounted cost. Essentially, multiple VPS’s will exist on the same server hardware, but are each run independently thanks to operating system virtualization. For a more detailed explanation, hit up Wikipedia.

Why did I move to VPS? Cost efficiency and control were the two main reasons for the transition. On a monthly basis, I was paying $12.40 to Squarespace and a combined $11 for my two shared hosting accounts. While I am now paying over double that sum, I have a superior level of control and room to grow. When it comes to control, I am referring to the ability to install applications, enable features and reboot the server on my own. When my shared host of choice could not offer SSH, FFMPEG or Ruby, I knew that it was time to move on.

Read on for a list of things to consider when shopping around for a VPS!