Dr. Brown’s increasingly secretive Government and the closed-doors policy of bodies like the Corporation of Hamilton have given a sharp poignancy to The Royal Gazette’s Right To Know campaign for increased Freedom of Information. The paper launched the campaign today to “throw open the doors of Government and publicly-funded groups to give the people of Bermuda access to information that shapes their lives”.It’s in all our interests to throw our support behind this long overdue move. As former Premier Alex Scott, who published a green paper on public access to information in 2003, said: “This is not an anti-government exercise. It’s a pro-democracy vehicle for the public that we serve.”The Gazette is campaigning initially to see a commitment in the Throne Speech on February 1 to table a public information bill in the next House of Assembly. Go to the Gazette’s Facebook page to vote or e-mail comments to arighttoknow@royalgazette.bm
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Early vote for one of the albums of 2008: the brilliant British Sea Power’s Do You Like Rock Music is a tour de force. Check out the above video for one of the best tracks, Waving Flags. And if you like that, Remember Me is another great song and a clever video.
Google quietly launched a useful bit of software over Christmas with Google Mobile. Basically, it will not only load Google apps like News, Picasa Documents, and Maps on to your mobile device but will also sync GMail and Calendar.
For me this couldn’t have come at a better time. I have a Blackberry and have been running into a lot of trouble trying to sync with iCal on my Mac. The excellent free PocketMac usually does the trick beautifully but my iCal has been crashing continually and, despairing of a fix, I started using Google Calendar as an alternative. Google Calendar is great and as I use GMail almost exclusively these days and iGoogle is my home page, it all tied in pretty well. The trouble was, syncing up between Google, iCal, and my Blackberry was becoming a pain. Spanning Sync is a limited option for the Google/iCal part but you still have to then sync separately with your device – and this week, any iCal sync starting wiping out any new entries on my Blackberry.
Google Mobile has now solved my problems at a stroke – it syncs Google Calendar beautifully with my Blackberry calendar automatically and I can add or delete items on the fly. If this is a sign of Google’s mobile apps to come, it’s a good start and until I pick up a new Mac and I can use an iPhone properly in Bermuda, this will certainly be my preferred option.
To set it up, simply go to mobile.google.com on your device and download the apps you want. You need a Google account to get started – if you need one, e-mail me and I’ll happily send you an invite.
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