When it comes to free software, I think Google is the King. Most peopleknow about the Google search engine, but there's so much more. Gmail is a full-featured email client that will connect to your existingaccount, or let you use your Gmail address with Microsoft Outlook orMozilla Thunderbird. It offers seven GB of storage,...

When the concept of a Castlegar Sculpturewalk was first brought to city council, I thought it was a neat idea – but let's face it, tons of neat ideas are floated through those august chambers, and few of them ever amount to anything. Usually they just kind of fizzle out, or are so poorly executed that the 'neat' part doesn't...

We’ve all heard the saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Usually that is excellent advice, but there are a few exceptions. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to look at some of these exceptions within the world of computers. Before I get into specific examples, there are a […]

Castlegar & District Community Services Society (CDCSS) is a non-profit social agency whose clients cross all demographic boundaries. The City of Castlegar is a community in which the residents cross all demographic boundaries. The difference is that the city’s “clients” are all the people who live in the community, while...

As of July 1st, the governments of Canada and B.C. intend to institute a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) of 12 per cent, combining a 7 per cent Provincial Sales Tax (PST) with a 5 per cent federal Goods and Service Tax (GST). As well, despite the Provincial bill still not being passed at the time of this column’s writing, some...

Ed. Note: The following was copied to The Source for publication as a letter to the editor:  Dr. Robert Halpenny, CEOInterior Health Authority220-1815 Kirschner RoadKelowna BC V1Y 4N7 Dear Dr. Halpenny, I was dismayed to learn that the IHA has decided to cut the Social Work positions that offer direct support and care to people and […]

The sorry spectacle of Conservative cabinet ministers flying around the world defending banks from a tax to cover their next, inevitable, meltdown is bad enough. What is perhaps worse is that it is being largely justified by the perpetuation of the myth that Canada did not have to bail out its banks.Wrong.We are, according ...

In March, the government released a discussion paper intended as background for its Canada-wide public consultation on pension reform and Canada’s Retirement Income System.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s not surprising. It involved only three town-hall meetings, three by-invitation expert roundtables, and a voluntary on-line component.  You could also write in. Their plan […]

The oil spill that now jeopardizes the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, and potentially beyond, is a chilling reminder that all is not well with our planet. And what’s actually worse: the amount of oil gushing from the seemingly impossible-to-stop deep-sea oil well or the complacent attitude taken toward the spill by...

Given what I do for a living (I'm a computer tech), I probably download more files (primarily software) in an average day than most non-geeks will in the average month. That doesn't change the fact that we all run into situations where we'redownloading large files - software, large PowerPoint presentations, movies, etc. And,...