The Blog Studio

For the past 30 years, the Canadian dollar has been worth less than the American dollar. As a Canadian doing business almost exclusively with US clients, this meant that I put about $1.25CDN in the bank for every US dollar I was paid.

Today, that’s changed. I now get $0.97CDN for every US dollar. This is the first time in my lifetime that the dollar amount that hits my bank account is LESS than what it says on the cheque.

I’m no economist, but I know this: for doing the same work, I’ve seen my income drop by almost 30% in less than six months. The leading reason for this? Currency investors are scared of the US dollar. Between the war in Iraq, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, the growing US debt rate, and the sluggish state of the the US economy, the green back is losing its luster.

For us, that means we face a tough decision. Do we increase our rates? Or do we insist on being paid in Canadian dollars, to the significant inconvenience of our clients? It’s a lose/lose from where I’m sitting. I’m sure there’s an upside to this somewhere, but I’m not seeing it at the moment.

I’ve never posted a video from youtube et al here (to the best of my knowledge), so the fact that I’m doing so now should give you some idea of how I feel about this video. Don’t let the title fool you, this will make you feel great (if not a bawling mess).

If you’re reading this via RSS or email, there may not be video player above. If not click on this to view the video.

I’m deeply sorry for contributing another “I love my iPhone” post to a web sagging under the mass of their combined weight. But I can’t help myself.

It’s just that good.

Being in Canada, I’m simultaneously late and early to the game. Because of our limited and bass ackward carriers, Apple is not selling, and has no short term plans to sell the iPhone in Canada. Until very recently, it was impossible to use the iPhone on a Canadian cell network. With the recent release of a couple of software unlocks though, the situation has changed.

It’s now possible to run a program to “unlock” the iPhone from it’s AT&T dependency, allowing it to run on any EDGE equipped network (Rogers and Fido in Canada). This has opened the door for technological opportunists to purchase iPhones in the US, and sell them unlocked, at a markup, in Canada. The market for these grey-market phones is hot hot hot, as I discovered when calling around to find one. Craigslist pointed me to at least a dozen opportunities to purchase a phone, at an average markup of $150 or so over purchase price and duty.

I paid $700CDN for mine, which sounds like a fortune, until you factor in the $400 I earned from selling my previous phone and 30 gig ipod. And let me tell you, this thing is certainly worth the $300 difference. It’s a game changing device. It’s utterly unlike anything I’ve previously seen or used. The screen, the Wi-Fi, the browser, the touch interface and more combine to form a small marvel of usefulness. In three days, I’ve become addicted to this. I can’t imagine going back to life with a regular phone.

This all smacks dangerously of hyperbole and fanboy-ism. I’m shaking my head at myself as I type these words. Yet it’s true. I’ve been in a protracted nerd-gasm for 72 hours, with no sign of it waning. Everyone who sees this thing has the same reaction, btw. If you buy one, be prepared to do a bunch of explaining every time you take a call in public. Hell, my 88 year old grandmother is desperate to see it.

There are of course a couple of caveats. First is not knowing how future Apple updates may affect the unlocked phones. Worse case scenario here is that I may miss out on features included in iPhone software updates. This is a low probability, and will do nothing to limit my enjoyment of the features already available. The second and more pressing caveat concerns the prison-rape that passes for data plan rates here in the great white north. Rogers, my carrier, wants $15 for 1.5mb of data, or $25 for 3mb. This is insane. In practice, this means that I can’t use my phone for web browsing when away from a Wi-Fi connection. Luckily, jumping on an open wifi network is easy. But this makes hating my cell provider just that much easier.

Let me share one last story that highlights my iPhone experience to date. Moments after purchasing it, while driving home, I remembered I had an important call to make in the evening. Knowing I’d forget it, I decided to set an alarm. Never having seen the clock program on the phone, I was able to set a one-time alarm, with my left hand, while driving, in 10 seconds. Try doing that with your old phone.

wow. Amazing.

It started at the airport. I was waiting for my flight to be called, when I recognized a guy sitting a few rows away from me. More specifically, I recognized his name tag. “Hello”, it read. “My name is Scott”.

“Hey Scott!” I said with some excitement as I walked up to him. “I read your blog” I told him.

Scott has a very successful blog at hellomynameisblog.com. Scott has made a name for himself by writing about approachability, and by always wearing a name tag. He’s kind of a walking social experiment. He’s also incredibly inspiring, and a total machine when it comes to creating captivating content.

One thing lead to another, and Scott and I exchanged cards. A few months later, my phone rang, and Scott and I got down to the business of redesigning his blog.

He was already using a customized Blogger theme, but it was looking tired, and couldn’t gracefully contain the various widgets and whatnot that had been added to the sidebars. The blog is one of Scott’s most important marketing tools, and it needed to reflect his growing expertise and credibility, and better position his books.

Designing Scott’s new site was fun for a couple of reasons. First, the name tag is such an obvious thing to draw inspiration from. The only trick here was to limit it’s use to key areas. Too much of a good thing is still too much. Second, Scott had a fantastic photo for me to use on the header. It’s a pure “super hero” shot. From the moment I saw that picture, I knew it was going to be the star of the site.

The rest of the design came together around those elements. The site has a nice mix of rounded and square lines, the text is easy to read, and the overall contrast is easy on the eyes. The site does a great job of conveying who Scott is, and what he’s about.

Please check out Scott’s new blog, and let us know what you think of his new digs.