Less than 2 weeks ago, Mozilla released its latest marvel, Firefox 3. The new browser is sleeker than most and includes exciting new features like the Smart Location Bar and Color Management support. However an exhaustive list of all the cool features would take pages and I’ll leave it up to you to do your research. One thing I can tell you: if and when you switch to Firefox, you won’t come back, even if only because of its fantastic add-on architecture.

I’ve been having fun analyzing users habits and browser trends. It seems that Firefox users are generally much more aware of their browser’s capabilities and released updates, and to me that implies a different approach to the web and surfing. In other words, suddenly, I am thinking about tailoring my web design according to browsers in order to please a more targeted audience - and forgetting about the sacred rules of cross-browser compatibility, as it was suggested here. I wouldn’t go as far as dropping the ball completely for IE users and merely providing them with a laconic message like « Sorry. This site has been optimized for Firefox. Please switch browsers and come back later. » That would be fun, though. But I must admit that the bulk of my efforts with CSS and scripting is beginning to focus on Mozilla and forget about IE.

Let me throw a few figures at you to illustrate my point. Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001, buggy and messing with standard compliance; it was simply a bad browser and soon started losing ground to the new comer Firefox. 5 years later, in 2006, Microsoft unleashed IE7, hoping to stop the fall of its Windows-native browser. It failed. IE7 still cannot compete with Firefox, even if it did manage to regain some lost ground. But what’s interesting to me is that according to Google Analytics stats, 38% of my Internet Explorer visitors are still on IE6, 7 years after it was released and 2 years after a newer and better version came out.

Let’s look at Firefox. Version 2 rolled out in 2006. On June 17th, 2008, Firefox 3 was released in its final version. Yet, my stats show that 36% of my visitors are already using version 3, less than 2 weeks after its release. What does that say to me? They know what they want. They know what they don’t want. They’ll do something about it. My web site had better be polished otherwise they’ll go somewhere else.

« Well, but Firefox users probably do not yet represent such a large share of the crowd, » you might think. Think again. As of today, 45% of my visitors are using IE, 42% are on Firefox, 8% on Safari and the rest is negligible. Wow. The gap has been bridged.

Watching the web evolve these days is plain and simple fascinating. You need to be alert. Things are changing so fast blinking at the wrong time will make you miss a supernova. I can’t wait to see what unfolds next. And all isn’t pretty on that front. A US telecommunications policy debate is raging about the future of Net Neutrality. Now that’s scary.

But then again, there is no doubt that the internet is the next Superpower, and Superpowers will fight to death to control it.

This was found here

Or a list of the incredibly important areas school failed to address, leaving it up to me to find out about them, often painfully, always late.

1. Goals and focus. Sure we were given homework. Sometimes a helluva lot of it. But homework doesn’t really address itself. It overburdens a student into spending entire evenings or even nights fighting for some essay or a score but it never includes instructions. Students are left on their own figuring out how to properly manage their time, set priorities and achieve their goals, and most never do. They treat homework and school classes as annoyances, unavoidable pains that have to be endured until eventually freedom comes. Never are they told that freedom could be there this very day while doing homework, and that finishing school won’t yield any relief in life unless they have learned how to manage said life. A 1952 Yale study revealed that only 3% of the graduating class members had written goals. Twenty years later, another survey of the class indicated that the net worth of the 3% of the class that had written goals now exceeded the net worth of the other 97% of the class! That 3% also had statistically fewer divorces, and an overall better quality of life. Well, it’s just numbers. But those numbers presented by a great teacher with charisma and vision would sure as hell have made me think!
2. A healthy mind in a sane body. Was it once a week? We would go to the field and play team sports. I was also enrolled into a very intensive sports-study gymnastics program, which I hated because it was not about my own improvement or training; it was about, because and for competition. What I didn’t know, and it was never explained, is that there is no dichotomy of the mind-body machine. There are, among the average population, no brains on one side and muscles on the other, no one group mocking the other, unable to grasp or achieve the level of performance of their opposite. What there is, is a bunch of innocents who have been lead to believe they are better brains or better muscles, and that this simply has specialized them a little more and is quite acceptable. Bullshit! The mind cannot work without the body and vice versa. They both need to be in top shape. Keeping up that shape should be of the utmost importance throughout our life. And always, always, they should work and play together. Why was I never told that eating well would make me a better student? Why wasn’t it explained that more exercise would help me concentrate on homework? And why oh why didn’t they tell me that the mind has to be trained just as hard as the body? They implied it by forcing me to go to school. They just never said it!
3. Right and wrong. I was given plenty of wrongs, and a few rights. Wrong to be distracted in class. Wrong to be lazy. Wrong to chew gum. Wrong to be different. Wrong to fail an exam. Wrong to speak during class. Right to understand that all of these are wrong. Right to play the game. Right to be a good boy. But these are jokes. They have nothing to do with reality. The reality of our world is that all humans need a set of values. These values are acquired, they are not inherited. Human values define the world by defining us and so we should be educated towards values just as we are with biology and calculus. Values can be shaped into tools. Kids needs to learn why lying is wrong, not just told not to. They must be shown how to give. How to care. How to commit. How to be fair. How to be strong. Honest. Forgiving. Loving. Hardworking. Patient. How not to take themselves too seriously. Where else than school can one learn all this? After school, it’s too late. Habits have been taken, the mind has become lazy and sometimes already wandered to the dark side. But no, I was learning about sine and cosine. How very helpful that has proven to be.
4. Play the saxophone. My whole life would have been different. But, hey, they taught me to play the flute.
5. Love, fear and other foundations of life. As a kid in school, I was never told to look inside of me and face my demons. If anything, I was lectured that such demons didn’t exist. Be brave, they said. They meant for me to be quiet. Granted, adults who have not conquered their own fears cannot possibly teach about them. So we end up in a giant vicious circle. Still, as a child, I think I would have loved to learn more about my emotions. I would have enjoyed, with the curious and innocent morbidity of children, being lead to look into my own suffering, to venture towards the heart of my fears, and to explore the very taboo world of my young linkings and dislikes. I think that if it was explained properly, I could have understood much earlier that fear can be faced, and tamed. That it doesn’t have to govern our lives. And that love will fare so much better, when the fear is gone. School could have taught me about myself; instead, it chose to teach me about itself - an outdated, mostly useless and self-deprecating institution that manages only to waste a few precious years of very precious lives, wasting time on theory when so much practice is needed. Mr. Keating had it right; he got fired for it. Who will pick up the flame?

Still to come: « 5 great things I managed to learn any way. »

... Or a list of the worse absurdities years of traditional school have painfully engraved into my young mind, polluting it and wasting precious space and resources that could have been so much better used.

1. History. My ancestors were barbarians. From immemorial times, they have killed, plundered, coveted, destroyed and trashed. They have waged wars, endlessly, showing that greed and cruelty are two of mankind’s main assets. So to make sure all this History is retained and passed on, our education system rolls its students in it thoroughly, day after day, year after year, insuring they are properly branded and labeling them psychologically as the descendants of the beasts. We are told to be proud of the blood that stains our path. Never once is a moral judgment made on past actions. It’s all studied in the name of science, as a curiosity, as an ongoing experiment and a collection of dates and heroes - because no matter what they did to mankind, they are all famous. Napoleon, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Columbus, Socrates, Da Vinci, Attila, Custer, what’s the difference? Good, bad, they’re all historical figures, they make a speaker’s eye shine. Not once did a history teacher take a minute to pause the lesson and show us history repeating itself in the form of a present war, some unnecessary greedy killing for oil or money or diamonds, live, somewhere on the planet. Not once were we told that the butchers we are should become farmers. It’s not part of a history class. With only peaceful dates to remember, history teachers would be like a crowd without any sensationalistic newspapers to read. Bored.
2. Conformism. My first point leads to the second. History was taught, like every other topic, in carefully arranged classrooms, row after row of perfectly aligned tables and chairs. Every student had the same desk, the same books, in some cases the same uniform,
   « It is a miracle that curiosity survives the formal education. »
   Albert Einstein
   and uniform behaviour was expected. At the beginning of the year, the entire class would be sent out to buy the same exact supplies, no deviation allowed - type of pencils, color of binders, ruler size, everything was orchestrated to the smallest details, in the name of conformity. Then throughout the year, great efforts were made by the teachers to keep that conformity up. Vincent, can’t you do this like everybody else? Shame! As students we were being slowly trained to become perfect sheep, socially functioning mindless zombies with no desire for individuality, seeking only to belong and melt into the mass, finding approval and recognition from their peers by looking alike. Our society functions on mass control. Everything depends on how easy a population is to manipulate; politics, advertising, entertainment, fashion, retail, pharmacology, they all thrive on their ability to influence an audience via the media, convincing minds and hearts that they must do like everybody else in order to be happy and fulfilled; and all that started on my first day in school.
3. « Can do better ». One of the most common comment that appeared on the monthly student report sent to my parents was « Vincent is lazy. He has potential but could do better. » Given that I was usually in the top quarter of the class, I got used to it. It wasn’t bad. I was good, and probably could have been better. But my parents were satisfied with it because they focused on the word « potential » rather than « lazy ». God bless them. The school, however, never once bothered to teach me how to actually become better, how to use that potential. It never pushed me to go the extra mile, to leave the pack behind and do something greater, on my own. It had to stick with point 2. The teacher’s role was very simple: rate the students’ performance, write it down on a report and pass it on to the parents. Hands wiped, job over. The parents would mysteriously make it happen, they would use their parenthood to metamorphose this potential into a reality. But most parents see their kids less often than the school does, and they don’t have the opportunity to seriously educate their children socially - their education is family-oriented, and so it should be. It’s then left mostly to the schools to fit children into society. A society only progresses because of the remarkable efforts of very few. The majority of people are acting like a dead weight on evolution. It’s the few who pull us forward. Yet people in school never bothered to show me motivating examples of that leading pack of a few, to tell me I could make it there and be an architect of my own times. They merely said I could do better.
4. Play the flute. I wanted to play the bloody saxophone. What else can I say?
5. « School sucks ». We spend 10 to 20 years of our lives in some kind of school. It plays a major role into who we become as adults, and ultimately as shapers of our world. Yet there is overwhelming social acceptance that school years are among the worse we have or will go through. It is in school that we are taught the hard way to accept our faith silently and lower our heads, and do « it » because « it » has to be done. We then go into life and settle for more of the same; we accept less than perfect family situations, take a job we don’t like and go through our existence thinking there must be something better, without ever really seeking it. It doesn’t have to be that way. School must evolve into the best time of our life. It must become a real cradle, a place where creativity is unleashed and potential nurtured and exploited, a time during which kids have fun discovering who they are and what they will accomplish. Finding out about their differences and how those will serve the greater good by bringing in diversity. Learning about past mistakes and being shown how to correct them. Not allowed to settle for less than the best. School must change if we are to.

Coming next: « 5 things I wish school would have taught me instead » and « 5 great things I still managed to learn, in spite of all my laziness »

Sometimes, unaware, I catch myself complaining. It happened to me last night as I’d gone out to shoot the sunset. I was missing my bokkie. A stubborn layer of clouds was obstructing MY horizon and dimming what I had hoped would be an explosion of airborne colors. And there were too many people on MY beach - well behaved, mostly quiet and enjoying a beautiful end to the day, but too many of them. So I snapped a few pictures and went back home without touching the fancy drink I had brought for myself, and which I drank sitting next to MY balcony instead - not on it because the bloody pigeons are winning the battle and covering it with an effective layer of guano. Effective, I say, because it turns the balcony into a stinky minefield for me, and a happy playing and breeding ground for them. Whoever was criticizing pigeon-dislike recently should be tied up and rolled into said layer until he understands the ridiculous stink of his pompously futile discourse.

But then, at home, sipping on my Ice Bet while I glanced at the sunset pictures which turned out to be quite nice, it suddenly dawned on me that I was an idiot. Yes, you might have known that about me for a long time, but for my part I frequently lose sight of such a trivial fact. There I was, bitching about nothing and less, standing in the middle of a little paradise, my mind filled with the presence of a beautiful freckled angel.

Understand this: I live in an extraordinary place. From my balcony, I see the ocean. The beach is located exactly half a block away. In the morning, I am woken up by the cry of seagulls. If I walk lazily 10 minutes further, I get to a park that is arguably North America’s largest urban green space, and certainly the most stunning. From home, I have 30 km of uninterrupted waterfront running/biking paths available to soothe both bored pleasure and addicted running needs. So my nearly daily encounters while running are raccoons, swans, harbour seals, turtles, eagles and balanced stones. A little over an hour by public transit takes me to bear country, lush temperate rain forests, wooden suspension bridges, pristine mountain streams and peaks that remain snow-capped most of the year. Killer whales are roaming not too far to the south. Cougars to the north. Yet within five minutes from home I have groceries, liquor, drugs, food, movies, transport and restaurants. I can walk to work in 35 minutes. Actually, there’s nowhere downtown I can’t walk to. And there are flowers everywhere.

Yet I bitch. Is it human nature to always want more? Probably so. And to be honest, I will soon get it. But the fact remains, this.is.extraordinary. So I do my best to cool my head and appreciate it all as one does of an ephemeral bloom, long awaited, sudden, intense and so short-lived, yielding its glory to the distant glow of memories and expectations of what’s to come next, all over again. The seeds will have traveled to new grounds. The bloom is always different. The awe remains.

Despite being dead tired I can’t sleep so I might as well write maybe my fingers will get sleepy and drag the rest of me to bed today I learned that medicine has a name for that annoying feeling people get in their legs sometimes which isn’t really painful but bugs the hell out of them and keeps them awake for hours counting sheep they call it RLS Restless Leg Syndrom I’m having RMS Restless Mind Syndrom man it sucks I tried banging it against a wall but it sounded empty and I was afraid to break right through it the wall not the head you know how they build modern apartments a couple of layers of sheetrock and you’re in the neighbour’s flat his head would be priceless if mine the head not the wall suddenly blasted into his space and stared at him in his underwear so any way I stopped and now I am using a softer approach because I am smart and I am afraid of my neighbour but tonight I cooked I had a great recipe given to me by my mentor along with detailed instructions which I followed closely but it didn’t go as planned first I had to find the kitchen and that’s difficult because my place is messy but I remembered that it’s like night diving and if you look behind you once in a while you will find your way back and I did and there was the kitchen I took all the ingredients out of the fridge but put them back so that I could remember where the leftovers would fit once I was very stressed by the cooking and then I got the board it’s like an ironing board but without the legs and harder and I started chopping up mushrooms and I remembered how I cut my finger last week it was while cutting mushrooms because there was dried blood left on the board and I was more careful this time that knife is sharp as a knife and then I stabbed my hand with a garlic head trying to crack it open like my mentor but it was pointy and now there’s more blood on the board but I’m not worried because garlic disinfects and I sliced it and also some parsley just because and I mixed the eggs too but not too much this was not an hamlet it was scrambled eggs so no frothing and by then the pan was hot so I started with the mushrooms and the garlic slowly with butter I love butter I wonder if there is a club and when the garlic was getting cooked I poured the egg mix and the greens and that’s when it all became tricky because the last time I had made an hamlet but involuntarily so I had to reduce the heat on the stove but then nothing was happening and major wobbling continued so I increased the heat and still nothing and then more heat and it started happening and then it happened too fast and the bottom stuck to the pan and the wobbling was gone and I had to rescue the meal and put it on two toasts because that’s the only bread I had and it was 2 weeks old but without green stuff growing on it so I ate it with my eggs on top but more like a broken hamlet that tasted good but looked like shit.

There are times and places when - and where - one wishes the former would stop and the latter could be taken home. But time surely never stops and those places only follow us home on frozen photographs and wrapped up softly in our memories. It’s up to us, then, to match our pace to that of life around us and to make sure the memories live on and generate new dreams.

The Seawall is one of those places, and last Sunday night, one of those times.

I had noticed on my afternoon run that Kent Avery, the singular man behind the famous balanced stones, was at work on his regular spot half-way between Ferguson Point and Second Beach, and I’d decided to come back for sunset.

When I arrived, the sun was just dipping lazily behind the gentle mountains across English Bay, leaving us with nothing but a cloudless sky and a palette of colors that were still too dull to exploit. I would have to be patient.

As I was slowly setting Abe up on the tripod, a man rushed past me, headed towards the city, and said: « If you hurry up and turn around, there’s barely enough light left to get a shot of this. » He was pointing at the moon. I smiled to myself and muttered: « Dude, you have no idea how wrong you are. The light hasn’t even appeared yet. »

Kent was still around, balancing two last stones near the water’s edge. Eventually, seemingly satisfied with his work for the day, he came over and started talking with passers-by. After glancing at my camera, he asked in a melancholic tone: « Did you ever use Kodachrome? » It said nothing but said it all. I replied that I had been more of a Fujichrome fan and the conversation picked up. We talked about good old times vs the new, about the Photoshop lab we now have at home and about the ever-lasting need to still get it right from the start, in-camera. He mentioned he was working on a book of photos of his art and stories he’d accumulated during nine years of « being around ».

People were walking past us, commenting out loud, in admiration. « They look like little people » said someone. « I can’t understand how come they don’t fall down right away » added another. « This is so peaceful » said a small girl that could not have been older than 10 or 12. True, there was a peculiar stillness in the air and the balanced stones seemed suspended in space, defying gravity and our very understanding, as if painted unto the scenery and as such, immortal. They would, however, be short-lived. Tides and the wind have been making sure to keep Kent coming back week after week, and he does.

I was in no hurry to shoot anything, and neither was he. I knew that the magic was probably going to happen after most people had given up and gone home. There are, really, two golden hours. One is the painters’ favourite, late afternoon, when a low sun washes over a scene in warm orange tones and long shadows. The other is the photographer’s, or maybe just mine. The sun has already disappeared below the world, light is evening itself out, shadows give way to richer midtones, and if one is lucky, the sky puts up its most amazing display of colors as the sun’s rays are still reaching far up into the atmosphere. It’ll happen anywhere between a few minutes after sunset and a good hour later. As a rule of thumb, when people are getting chilly and leaving and I wonder what to do, I stay. It usually pays off.

As time passed, the Seawall was emptying itself of its human fleas. Darkness was gaining on a long day. People were fewer and fewer. At last, the light changed. Subtle nuances emerged in the sky and calm water by the shore began flirting with them. Abe came to life on her pedestal.

XXXX

It was getting late. Kent had finished taking shots of his open air temple on a small digital point-and-shoot and took leave. « Come by and show me your pictures some day, he said. » I was about to ask him where his office was when I remembered I was standing in it. « Sure, I replied, ‘be glad to. » Even he might be a little surprised by the results. It’s hard to believe that in the almost complete darkness which reigns an hour after sunset, so much light still exists for the sensor to record.

At such long exposure settings, the game is one of patience, of trial and error. Reciprocity failure kicks in and makes any precise calculations pretty much impossible. But nothing about Sunday night’s conditions was precise. It was the romantic hour, a time for fantasies and visions and dreams, for drifting thoughts and longing unleashed. I had to see the colors with my inner eye, the real ones having gone almost blind as Abe, even in manual focus and with my guidance, struggled to find her crisp edge.

And there, unavoidably, as the shots were stacking up unto the memory card and a silent night had fallen on the Seawall, I found myself connecting, to other places and different times, to memories and paths and directions, to the absent one who ought to have been standing there next to me, and soon would be, somehow, somewhere.

Strangely, the idea waited to cross my overexcited mind until Marie and I were happily browsing through the colorful aisles of Granville Island Public Market on a late Friday afternoon. So while she was busily acquiring amazing organic strawberries, our ritualistic duck prosciutto and other wonderful goodies, I whipped out my Blackberry, browsed my way to a web page and found a lost phone number. It was 4:30 pm. Around 5:00 pm, the phone buzzed back. That was it. At 7:30 the next morning, we were arriving at Waterfront Station with our backpacks, heavy clothing, our dear cameras and a hearty picnic. You gotta love improvisation. And friends.

The weather was moodily chilly, offering Vancouver a brilliant demonstration of my newly written local adage: « In June, your clothes don’t shed too soon. In July, the sun might still be shy. In August, watch out for the tempest. And in September, it’s again time to shiver. » Yeah. Well.

There must have been a few no-shows because less than 10 people joined us aboard Prince of Whales’ Ocean Magic docked outside the Seabus terminal. (See previous posts A killer time with killer whales, A killer Time - Part 2 and Fall is upon Vancouver.) We headed straight up to the flying bridge and I began unpacking many layers of extra clothes before an incredulous Marie who thought I was joking. I wasn’t. The air temperature downtown might have been in the low or mid-teens, I knew that once the boat got on plane and rounded Stanley Park’s Prospect Point, 30 knots of relative wind were going to chill us to the bones. Been there, done that. If fifteen years aboard dive boats have taught me one thing, it’s that wind bites and fleece rocks.

So while a crew member was conducting a witty safety briefing, we zipped and buttoned up and tucked here and wrapped there, until we felt like winter had reappeared. The whale-looking Diamond Princess was docked alongside Canada Place and towered above us from all its 13 decks. I took this as a good sign. We were going to find some whales.

The crossing was a bit rough, the Strait behind ventilated by a nasty northeaster that forced our Captain to play with his throttles and the wheel like a virtuoso on a piano, both hands, all fingers, fast, crossing, feet agile, never a break. We headed towards Active Pass in the Gulf Islands to get to their relative protection as soon as possible. The radio was on and the network active. Soon, reports of sightings came in on the airwaves: a pod had been spotted on the west side of San Juan Island, slightly south of the imaginary border line between the US and Canada. Ocean Magic turned her bow to the south. On the way, we watched a couple of bald eagles and a small colony of harbour seals by a cute lighthouse. It was all falling into place.

The whales we eventually found were part of the J pod, one of 3 families of resident killer whales. They were rather spread out, swimming in small groups, some of which appeared to be on autopilot; half of their brain asleep, they would stay really close to each other and come up to breathe, like me getting up in the middle of the night and going to the fridge - never too sure of where and when I am. We spotted Ruffles, the larger male, with his signature undulating dorsal fin. The crew explained that he is the luckiest killer whale alive, having been captured six times by aquarium teams and released as many, because it was believed his irregular fin would displease audiences!

In the wake of recent regulations aiming at protecting the whales, boats are no longer allowed to approach the pods as close as it use to be the case, not even passively (by shutting engines down and letting the animals swim towards the boat). Since we were in US waters, a US patrol boat was present, taking laser measurements of the distance between the few boats on the scene and the mammals. The ones who cheated would be fined. Humans, that is. Marine mammals can cheat. It seems the patrol boat had exonerated itself from the rule, though, and stood smack on the path of the killer whales that swam right next to it. We were granted a couple of spectacular breaches, very hard to photograph without a powerful zoom lens, but I’ve cropped them a bit for fun. Then we headed for Victoria. I can attest that someone’s fingers were at that point much colder than my guts, having allowed them temporary contact for warming purposes.

Sailing into the Victoria harbour is always an interesting experience. So much activity is packed into so little space that it always seems like something is going to jump out of the scenery as if ejected by the general momentum, like a full stomach popping out a shirt button after too large a meal. At least that’s what they do in cartoons... The seaplanes were buzzing around, vessels of all sizes cruising past, music was playing on the banks, buses circulating in and out. If the air had been warmer, this could have been the Caribbean. No Jamaican patties to be found here, though, but I had a date with the world’s best coconut buns.

Our first stop on firm ground, firmly navigated to and all other distractions set aside, was a pub. Sailors will be sailors. Liquid was needed, and would be had. A hot soup to warm up frozen extremities and a tall wheat beer to hydrate the soul. Funky combination maybe, but it recharged our batteries and allowed us to walk a few more blocks west to Frank’s Honeybun Cafe and stock up on their divine coconut buns (I bought 5, they are over 20 cm long each), and then on to Market Square to escape the wind and eat our duck prosciutto sandwiches in the calm sunny protection of the inner courtyard.

Time was flying by and we ran back to the Empress Hotel to catch a Grayline bus to Butchart Gardens. Isolated at the bottom of the Saanich Inlet, a ocean arm digging deep into the Vancouver Island from north to south, the gardens are strategically positioned half-way between Victoria and Swartz Bay, the BC Ferries terminal connecting to Tsawwassen on the mainland. Once there, we did the tourist thing, among many of that kind.

These are very nice gardens, but, personally, I think there are waaaay too many annuals.......... I mean think about it: you only visit the place once, maybe twice in the year, so why should there be so many annual plants? It’s a waste of labour and resources. Even if you go back the following year and the same flowers are there, you’re not going to recognize every single plant as a déjà vu, right? (Well, I know someone who might, actually.) So why replant so often? Why not weeklies, while we’re at it? No, the best flowers in my expert opinion, would be oxo-biodegradable plastic flowers. Plant them every 5 or 6 years, then they decompose into nice compost. The gardeners can play tennis more often and all that water can be sold for profit.

Then it was late and we had to rush through the beautiful Japanese Garden and exit via a small, remote gate that leads into this charming little cove on the inlet. Ocean magic was already docked there and two cute harbour seals played around in shallow water. The cruise back to Vancouver followed a completely different route, a little too far north for whale watching but rewarding us with magnificent scenery, calmer waters, a smooth ride, isolated pretty little islands, funky currents and the upper deck pretty much to ourselves, as the sun was slowly going down behind our backs.

As we were approaching the city, the sun managed to hit the urban core on a background of very dark clouds, seemingly setting the buildings on fire. Abe was relentless. We zoomed past a few freighters guarding English Bay and slid underneath Lions’ Gate Bridge as runners scaled the Seawall at what seemed a turtle pace. Then we were back home. Hot shower, some cooking, shinny eyes, tired, happy sailors. Prince of Whales had done it once more. What a wonderful day. But then again, I was in the best company.

Well, I got sidetracked. Again. In the middle of posting pictures of the recent Victoria whale watching expedition with Marie, I drifted and have just upgraded the South Africa galleries [1] and [2] with the coolest eye-candy, a 3D photo browser called PicLens, by Cooliris. Now this is going to require a small effort on your part (so small, really) if you want to enjoy the full experience, but I guarantee that if you bare with me, it will blow your mind!

So what are we talking about here? Well, until now, I’ve used (and still do on the blog because implementation here isn’t yet an option) the awesome Lightbox 2 Ajax script to display my photos in a slideshow fashion. However, web-based applications are evolving fast and more than ever, it’s about user experience and 3D interfaces. That’s where PicLens comes in: you install a plugin to your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser and voila (voila, but as always, the plugin installation is much faster and easier on Firefox than IE. No sweat for you sorry Internet Explorer users though, it’ll just take a few additional clicks and maybe a browser restart); the plugin transforms each photo gallery into a super-slick 3D photo-browsing interface, completely immersive and fluid.

Now, for those of you who are really lazy and don’t want to install the plugin, you will still get a PicLens mock-up, but without the 3D effect which, I think, is the most amazing part of the trick. So be bold, install the little plugin, it’s a matter of seconds, you can always uninstall later if it doesn’t live up to your expectations. Convinced? Cool. (No, I’m not getting a commission. I just love the gadget!) Click on one of the browser links above to get the plugin and see you soon in the South Africa galleries...

I’ve placed an entry link at the top of each gallery (gallery links above) but once on the gallery page, the mouse hovered over the lower left corner of each thumbnail will also reveal a blue arrow allowing you to start PicLens on that image.

Once in PicLens, have fun! Drag the 3D wall with your mouse to navigate along it, roll your mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the wall, click on pictures to enlarge them, navigate in all four directions with your cursor arrows, double-click on an image to get the slideshow in full screen, it’s all very intuitive and mesmerizing.

And of course, if you install the plugin and have Picasa Web Albums, a Flickr account, or even Myspace or Facebook, or Youtube, it’ll work there too! And if you don’t have accounts, you can still do generic searches on those sites and get the effect! Or try a Google Images search.

In case I haven’t convinced you yet, you can watch a video of the 3D effect here. Yeah, I know, I’m biased.

You gotta love Web 2.0.