For those of you haven’t signed into your Gmail account yet, you might be surprised to see that Google has added theming to their popular minimalist webmail app. The new themes are sleek and quick to load, and I for one applaud the move towards allowing users a bit more freedom in customizing the look and feel of their inbox. In case you moved too quickly to close the message at the top telling you about the new themes, you can find the “themes” tab located in your Gmail settings.

I decided after much deliberation that rather than buying a whole new laptop ($2,700) I would simply update my aging Apple Powerbook G4 1.67Ghz with a pair of new 250GB Western Digital hard drives (one for backup), a Logitech MX Revolution cordless mouse, Apple wireless keyboard, and 2GB of memory. This all came out to $400, much easier on the wallet.

On the topic of old becoming new again I have discovered an office that is planning to recycle a bunch of old Pentium 4 machines at this weekends recycling, uh, event, I guess you would call it. Given that these machines are not too terribly outdated, most being 2Ghz+ with at least 512mb ram and 40gig hard drives, I thought maybe Rev Software could take them. Since then I have been trying to decide what I could do with these old computers, a few thoughts were buying some larger hard drives and maybe turing one into a webserver, and another into a media server for home. Another idea I came up with was to try my hand at some linux clustering, or pixel farming, or even setup a little LAN gaming room.

Any Suggestions?

Following the recommendation of the Director of Community Economic Development, Alan Mason, Revelstoke City Council has agreed to endorse the application of Citation Networks to have land removed from the Crown for a new high tech park in Revelstoke.

The high tech park was pitched by Robert Sharkey, CEO of Citation Networks, at a public hearing several weeks ago, where it achieved unanimous approval by all 37 people who attended. The park, which would be located on Westside Rd, could provide up to 300 white collar IT jobs and attract a new demographic to the area. The bootstrap resident for the proposed technology park would be a 450,000sq/ft datacenter with the aledged business backing from the likes of IBM, and Microsoft.

The reasons for building such a facility in Revelstoke may not seem immediately obvious, but dig deeper and the reasoning becomes clear:

1. Two hydro dams within 100km to provide cheap reliable green power
2. All four transnational fiber optic lines run along side Highway #1 directly through Revelstoke
3. Land for the datacenter is located on the Columbia River which could provide ample cooling
4. The temperature profile of Revelstoke means little need for A/C most of the year
5. As if all of that wasn’t enough, there is of course the world renown Revelstoke lifestyle.

With similar projects already completed along the Columbia River in Wenatchee (WA),  Quincy (WA) and most recently, the Dalles (WA),  it seems only logical that the quest for cheap power, fat pipes, and cool weather would bring development of such facilities to this area.

Expect to hear more on this as I hear about it.