Profile of John Gushue

Biography

John Gushue takes a tour through the Internet with the Surf's Up column each Thursday. He is a former editor and political columnist with The Telegram , and is now a news writer for CBC.ca in St. John's. Read past Surf's Up columns (and much more) at his blog: johngushue.typepad.com .

All articles of John Gushue

• New York unravelled and your digital gear explained
  This week we deconstruct Manhattan without touching a brick, we find out where the geeks go for their technical help (the rest of us are welcome, ...
• Up to your arms in alligators and information
  Surf's up - Young people don't vote: everybody knows that. Sure, some keeners will show up next Tuesday to cast their ballots, but most young ...
• Learn a language, with a Mocha flavour
  Surf's up - Mastering a new language - or even just getting started - can be daunting. This week's tour of the web starts with a service that ...
• Ballots and ballads: surfing the federal election
  Surf's up - Canadians vote Oct. 14 for our next set of parliamentarians, and in the process set the course the country will take for the next few ...
• Putting political buzz in the palm of your hand
  Surf's up - Once in a while, you experience one of those little moments that explain to you how clearly the world is changing. On the night of ...
• Browse that: looking beneath that Chrome finish
  Chrome. Such a cool word for Google to choose to name its long-awaited web browser, a product it has been working on for years, for one of the ...
• Getting away from it all, but with key lines intact
  Surf's up - Here's a truism: signage along our regional highways sucks. Even on the Trans-Canada Highway, signs are either too few or too far ...
• Fact checkers and fad smashers
  Surf's up - A site that takes politics out of the spin cycle, a pop-culture trove that takes itself surprisingly seriously and a daily dose for ...
• A history of goofy Internet fads
  Surf's up - Do you remember the first time somebody sent you a joke by e-mail? How about the first time you got a link sending you to something ...
• Books to give and receive
  Surf's up - The word "mooch" has a bit of a pejorative tone to it; after all, a moocher is someone who is looking for something for nothing, or ...
• Save it for later: downloading online videos
  Surf's up - We may live in a culture that puts a high accent on high-definition images - witness the move to HDTV or the proliferation of cameras ...
• From Cuil to ice-cold: how not to overthrow Google
  It takes some brains and power - and gonads, for that matter - to take Google on at what it does best. When upstart search engine Cuil launched ...
• With Howcast, showing is knowing
  Surf's up - Missouri boasts of being the "show me" state, and puts such a high value on its slogan - a call for proof - that it prints it on its ...
• Taking a vacation on the home front
  I won't be taking my summer vacation until mid-August, but my mind has been on taking it easy. A few weeks ago, our son made a list of things ...
• Light and fluffy in the summer sun
  Surf's up - With the hot, sunny weather we've had this week, it's hard to want to do anything half-serious. So, with that in mind, your weekly ...
• Fill your cup and shadow the stars
  Surf's up - Learn how the Stanley Cup evolved from a fairly simple bowl into the iconic, extended shape it has today, plan your vacation stops ...
• By and Marge: How well do you know Springfield?
  Surf's up - How well do you know the people in your neighbourhood? More than five dozen faces appear before you and you have a limited time in ...
• Where there's fire, there's Firefox
  Surf's up - One thing dominated the web this week, and it has a curly red tail. Firefox launched its latest edition Tuesday, and enough of the ...
• The weight of the world, measured in cats
  Surf's up - I've bookmarked a few helpful websites that handle conversions: you know, from metres to yards, pounds to dollars, centimetres to ...
• My phone is crappier than your phone (and I don't care)
  Surf's up - In the film version of Sex and the City that opened last weekend, there's a scene in which a distraught, hysterical Carrie Bradshaw ...
• Life on Mars? ... and other questions
  Surf's up - If you're a David Bowie fan, you probably know the tune "Life on Mars?" a punctuated song that came to mind as I heard a newscast ...
• Dylan and Cohen cross paths on Duckworth
  Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, as fate should have it, will each be in St. John's this weekend. Dylan will be celebrating his 67th birthday with a ...
• Listen up: new sites for adventurous ears
  Surf's up - Just when I thought I had maxed out on sites that can deliver music to my ears, I found some more. Truth be told, I don't stop ...
• Evolution, Great Big Sea and getting Lost
  Surf's up - The most popular band in the land overhauls its website, the dean of evolution gets the full-on literary tribute, and an easy tip to ...
• Beautiful losers: Who's not going to pick up awards...
  Surf's up - The Webby awards, which honour the best of the Net, sure do things differently: the five-word limit on acceptance speeches is proof ...
• Go! goes to the LSPU Hall
  Provincial - I like my rituals. Saturday morning is often bookended with swimming and piano lessons for the boy, with Dad enjoying lazy sips of ...
• Going with the Cyber flow
  Surf's up - Here's a scenario I'd like you to consider for a moment. You enter your local library and you see on the desk a pile of books that ...
• Hard to see the hoopla about Hulu
  Hard to see the hoopla about Hulu It's not often that a site launches with the buzz that Hulu had last month. Then again, not many sites have as ...
• Inquiry minds want to know
  I've heard it on the open-line shows, I've heard it in the mall, I've heard it from the cashier at the store down the street: the cancer inquiry. ...
• From house to mouse, and back
  Surf's up - On a busy day, more people crowd into Disney World than live in St. John's, with about 90,000 crowding into the Magic Kingdom alone. ...