All posts by Raymond Tomlin

About Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.

ALERT, INSTALL IMMEDIATELY: All-Inclusive Microsoft Update

Web & Tech

MICROSOFT SECURITY UPDATES

Aiming to patch
20 critical vulnerabilities, Microsoft yesterday delivered its monthly batch of security updates — including 11 critical issues in the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.), Internet Explorer and even its own anti-virus tools — matching its all-time high for monthly security fixes, its largest security batch since August 2006.
Now, it’s true, you could wait for the fine folks at Microsoft to notify you about the absolutely critical updates — say tomorrow, or next week, or whenever you’re on their notification list of one billion computer users. But do you really want to wait? Should you? VanRamblings thinks not.
Among the factors contributing to the unusually high volume of February patches could be the discovery of four vulnerabilities Microsoft had planned to address in its January 2007 security bulletins, but didn’t.
Okay, so now is the time for you to surf on over to Microsoft’s Update site (in Internet Explorer), and download and install the patches. Immediately.

As The 2007 Oscar Ceremony Draws Nigh

Cinema

With the 79th annual Academy Awards only two weeks away (that would be Sunday, February 25th, and we’re making preparations, even as you read this), VanRamblings is attempting to publish a comprehensive set of reviews of the films up for Oscar consideration, as we began here and here.
At some point in the week prior to the Oscar ceremony, VanRamblings will publish our predictions of those who are likely to emerge as winners at the 2007 ceremony at the Kodak Theatre, along with a set of links and much speculation by other observers who spend, as VanRamblings does, far too much time on something quite so inconsequential as Tinseltown nonsense.
But still …
In this posting, we take a look at four more Oscar contenders …


BLOOD DIAMOND_THE GOOD SHEPHERD_THE LIVES OF OTHERS_THE QUEEN

With Leonardo DiCaprio up for Best Actor, Blood Diamond has deservedly won greater prominence in the Oscar sweepstakes, and at the box office, than otherwise might have been the case. Although, initially, the film has about it a whiff of ‘good for you’ advocacy filmmaking, by movie’s end this look at the bloody underbelly of the international diamond trade emerges as an entirely involving, wonderfully acted and thoughtful history lesson, even if it’s not quite up to the standards of The Constant Gardener.
The pick ‘o the bunch is Robert DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd, one of the most literate and engaging films of 2006. Woefully overlooked by the Academy (particularly Matt Damon, for Best Actor), this remarkable study of the corrosive effects of fear and power focuses on the life of a top CIA officer, from the inception of the CIA in WWII through the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961. Even at nearly three hours, this tour-de-force film involves from beginning to end.
If there was any justice in the world (or within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), The Lives of Others (also championed by The New York Times’ A. O. Scott) would walk away with the Best Foreign Film award. Offering an unflinching look at East Germany under the Communists in the decade prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is supremely intelligent, historical filmmaking at its very best. Due to open in Vancouver this coming week, you’ll want to rush right out to see it as soon as it hits town.
A British kitchen-sink drama — except this time it’s set at Buckingham Palace and those standing around in the kitchen are Queen Elizabeth, Princes Philip and Charles, and Prime Minister Tony Blair — we would like to be excited about The Queen (because it’s up for Best Picture, and Helen Mirren is a lock for Best Actress), but we can’t muster much enthusiasm. The movie seems little more involving than a TV drama, but Best Picture? We think not.
C’mon back early next week for four more reviews (including Letters From Iwo Jima), and later that same week for our all-encompassing Oscar post. You’ll be glad you did (we think …).

A Primer on Web 2.0. What The Heck Is It, Anyway?

Web & Tech

What is Web 2.0?
According to the entry in Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is all about online collaboration and sharing through wikis (like Wikipedia), social networking sites (think Friendster, Nexopia, Stumbleupon or Windows Live Spaces), and certainly blogging fits nicely into the definition of Web 2.0.
In other words, what you knew about the Web when you first went online has transformed from a relatively static ‘push-button’ experience to a more collaborative, engaged and engaging experience …


WEB 1.0 vs WEB 2.0

Got a few minutes to procrastinate? You might like the following “digital ethnography” video that VanRamblings found courtesy of CNET News. It’s all a little bit techno-utopian, but nevertheless pretty cool.