I recently had the opportunity to talk to Kris Reyes and Tony The Cameraperson from CityTV about VoIP:

To add some detail:

• I’m not normal. I don’t have a landline or a mobile. Big Canadian Telco’s are clueless when it comes to pricing this stuff.
• I have Skype at ~$36/year to make unlimited calls across North America. Annoyingly, Skype can’t receive calls (“SkypeIn“) in Canada, although people have been asking for it since at least 2006.
• I use Gizmo5 at $20/3 months to receive calls, in Skype’s stead. That basically gives me a “real phone number” in Toronto’s 416 area code.
• I can receive live calls if I’m running Gizmo5′s desktop application (similar to Skype’s desktop app), but I rarely do, unless the call is scheduled ahead of time. Usually, calls and texts go straight to my voicemail, and those voicemails are immediately emailed to me as attachments. I like isolating things to my inbox.
• At one time, I played with DIDWW, which offers a “real phone number forwarded to Skype” service. Voicemail didn’t work, which was a dealbreaker.

This isn’t for everyone, but if all you want is a phone, voicemail, and you don’t mind “living in software”, it’s the cheapest option I’ve found.

According to this image, Canadian Tire has decided to “discontinue selling products online for home delivery” and will be “making many refinements” to their site.

First things first: good luck to the developers. I hope they’re well-acquainted with the challenges they’re about to face.

When I read this bulletin, I caught a whiff of some strange smells. For instance,

• “Refinements to our site navigation to make browsing and product search faster and easier.” Sounds awkward at best, and at worst like it came from a “coder”, rather than an “enlightened developer”, “software craftsperson”, etc. I wouldn’t say “fixing site navigation” really captures the scope of this project, but maybe that’s just me.
• What is the meaning of “more descriptive pictures”? Pictures composed of text? Or images with text layered on top? Maybe they mean very long alt attributes, but that would be more descriptive markup. Either way, the thought isn’t clear.
• “The site will also look a little different”? Err, wait. How’s it gonna “look a little different” while making “many refinements to our site navigation”? I “get” that you’re trying to not scare me. But the mixed message is scarier than any proposed change could be.

The weirdest part is that they announced “no more online store”, and in the same breath, admitted the online store is crap. Okay, they didn’t admit any wrongdoing, but they aren’t fooling me:

• If I had a dime for every time http://www.canadiantire.ca barked at me for my postal code, I’d have truckloads of dimes.
• There’s also that severe case of gibberish-URL-itis. If you can tell me http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442669579&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396672077&bmUID=1232403481602 is a Folding Resin Table without clicking… you’re probably their senior-most DBA.
• The trim just ain’t polished. I think they chose “optimize for EGA” when rendering some of those buttons.
• Don’t forget the requisite insane user experience. Check out the navigation scattered around a typical page:

Hopefully those whiffs of muddled thinking don’t turn into a stench of confusion. I’ll be watching with interest, either way!