We received a package from Andrea Beaty, author of several children’s books including Iggy Peck, Architect (a Time Magazine top-10 children’s book for 2007) and Dr. Ted.

We ceremoniously opened our package this morning and uncovered two boxes of Gummi Bandaids for our two daughters, and three ‘prescription notepads’ that promote her book, Dr. Ted.

What a brilliant idea!

Click on the image to see a large version and take a look at how the text on the pad is used to promote the book and the publishing company. The campaign would have been perfect if it had a URL to the book itself.

Click here to listen to an interview with Andrea Beaty.

Nora Young and the production team of CBC Radio’s Spark have published this video which explains the origins and inner workings of their fantastic radio show — with only a bit of humour.

Chris Sherry (creator the the Kaflooey podcast) dredged up this gem of Bob Goyetche and me following Podcasters Across Borders 2007. According to Chris, Photoshop was not involved.

Original photo by Nico.

We happened upon this poster in downtown Toronto last night.

Click here to see more Obay posters in Flickr.

During the installation process, Waves plug-ins automatically attach themselves to key audio and video production applications on your system. In my particular case those applications are Cubase and Final Cut Express. If you’re like me, you don’t want to use your Waves plug-ins in Final Cut. More directly, you don’t want the dependency of your iLok key in order to use Final Cut.

Thanks to Waves customer support for telling me that there’s a simple way to decouple these two tools without affecting your other applications (like Cubase). On your Mac, navigate to…

Macintosh HD / Library / Audio / Plug-Ins / Components

…and remove the Waves component from the folder (I deleted the file and then emptied the trash bin).

Follow that simple procedure and the next time you launch Final Cut you can do so without needing your iLok.

I’m probably the last person in the world to figure out that Gmail is pretty smart with the way it handles events embedded within email messages; even multiple events. The fact is, I probably never paid attention to the the right-hand column of the page when I read my email because I figured that I was being presented with advertising I wasn’t interested in.

It turns out that Gmail has the intelligence to identify date and time relevant text in an email message and offers you the ability to add, separately, any number of events identified in the email to your Google Calendar (click here to see an image).

Capitalizing on the popularity of Austin Powers, TimeStep Corporation (a company I worked for) launched a campaign with a character named Awesome Powers.

Awesome’s job was to protect data from his nemesis (whose name I forget at the moment) using TimeStep’s IPSec Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology, and like his inspiration, save the day. His tagline was “Email me, baby!” Yeah.

Sadly, TimeStep, it’s incredible product line and Awesome himself are all historical accounts on the Internet time line. Its website — and Awesome’s — has been scooped by a click-through company.

The image in this post shows both sides of Awesome’s business card, which I found while cleaning my office.

Terry O’Reilly, host of the amazing CBC program, The Age of Persuation, announced on his blog a few days ago that season three of the show will hit the airwaves again beginning in January.

When I was growing up, my Saturday nights usually involved listening to (or recording) the King Biscuit Flower Hour concerts on Chez 106. Where else could you get great live performances of Genesis, Elvis Costello, Big Country and Duran Duran. I miss the days of great music on the radio.

Enter the the official King Biscuit Flower Hour concert vault — a website that streams the concerts that made radio exciting.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be attached to my computer and headphones for the next few days.

Hat tip: Maurizio Ortolani

I just read a post at Hear 2.0 about the intersection of personal computing and driving Ford vehicles (At Ford, Windows is Job One). The possibilities are limitless (including the potential of fresh Podcast consumption replacing radio listening) provided the driver can keep his or her eyes on the road.

If Mac gets into the game, there is the potential that vehicle purchases could be influenced by consumer loyalty to operating systems.