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

• Make and share your own clip art
  Clip art has often had a terrible reputation, although maybe it's at least partially deserved: from the beginning, those drawings had a ...
• Beyond YouTube
  Each day, tens of thousands of videos are posted to YouTube, which is just barely three years old, but it hugely dominates the online video ...
• Etsy bitsy vendors, and virtual fridge magnets
  Surf's up - Imagine a large flea market or even a big garage sale - and then multiply it many thousands of times over. That will give you a sense ...
• Books, biology and March madness
  A site that judges books based solely on their covers, a much-anticipated trove of detail on the world around us, and a nothing-but-net site for ...
• Let's make a date of it
  If you poke around a bookshop or drugstore at this time of year, you may well find a stash of calendars - no doubt deeply marked down from the ...
• An illuminating look at jazz legends
  Surf's up - A famous photograph of musical luminaries, an off-the-wall writing resource inspired by William S. Burroughs, and a game that lets ...
• Another (Lego) brick in the wall
  Surf's up - Fifty years ago last month, the Lego brick was patented in the United States. But Lego, as many former children of an older vintage ...
• File-sharing? Be careful out there
  Surf's up - It's 10 o'clock at night. Do you know what your kids are downloading? We'll get to that rhetorical question in a moment. But first, ...
• What happened to Yahoo?
  Surf's up - Not that very long ago, my online day was built around Yahoo. When I loaded a web browser, it was my start page. I not only used its ...
• Whoot's that, you say?
  We seemed to be venturing into Abbott and Costello territory a little while back, when a few of us were discussing a news item about an unusual ...
• Getting a nudge just when you need it
  A while back, I recommended an e-mail service called Hasslebot, which fires off reminders at random times, prompting you to go to the gym, call ...
• Calendars, picks and hints for a new year
  Belated wishes for a happy New Year. Here are some websites to get 2008 rolling. This is the time of year for putting up calendars and taking ...
• Bright lights and Lite Brites
  In our leadup to Christmas, our weekly web tour has a few seasonal baubles, including some treats for young and old. But first, a darn-serious ...
• Budapest control, and an unseasonable shoot-em-up
  It may be the season of goodwill to your neighbours, but I've been spending a fair bit of time (in fact, far more than I perhaps ought to admit) ...
• Marking Advent, without a physical calendar
  We have a few advent calendars in our house. I added a new one this year - little boxes that open to reveal a daily hit of chocolate. (We've ...
• Make like a flake, and drift
  In this week's hodgepodge of sites around the web, we make a snowflake that won't melt in your hand, get a sobering poke in the eye about alcohol ...
• Just when you thought you were too busy
  On one evening last week, I sat down to check my e-mail, make a play in Scrabulous - the way-too-enticing online version of Scrabble - and make a ...
• Sing a songza six pence
  How cool would it be to have a jukebox that could play any tune you wanted, whenever you want to hear it? That's the lofty goal of a site that at ...
• YouTube drizzles on some maple flavour
  On this week's wicked-fast tour around the Internet, we have a first look at YouTube's Canadian spinoff, a thoughtful site that anticipates the ...
• Books for kids, and the parents who love em
  In October, our family and hundreds of other parents and children attended one of two readings by Robert Munsch, the acclaimed Canadian author ...
• Hit me with your memory stick
  My colleague John Furlong got an interesting media kit the other day, or rather, he got it an interesting way. The Transportation Safety Board of ...
• Very 'interestingness': Get the picture, from all sides
  "Interestingness" is a word that should be familiar to people who use Flickr, the photo-sharing site. It's a section for the stuff that users ...
• Hit them with your best shot
  Three years ago, James Surowiecki published "The Wisdom of Crowds," a book that has helped popularize a concept that is very much a part of our ...
• Clear your head, clear the decks
  Ive had plenty on my plate lately. Tons of stuff to do at work, some pressing family matters, and the return of fall activities have all made for ...
• How green is your neighbourhood?
  Friends of ours broke down recently and bought a second car. Apart from the expense, they were conflicted about the environmental aspects of ...
• 'Star Wars,' as you've never seen it before
  Whenever I meet someone who's never seen "Star Wars," I'm not quite sure how to react. How, after all, can you go through life not knowing how to ...
• Face the Facebook
  Tim is cautiously aware that his mother is now on Facebook. So wrote my friend earlier this summer, to update his status line on the popular ...
• Nudge nudge, wink wink: automatic prods get your...
  I carry a little book in my pocket in which to write down important appointments and I also keep an electronic sort of version on my computer, ...
• Bard silly: Brush up your Shakespearean insults
  Sure, William Shakespeare crafted some of the most lyrical language ever spoken in English, but the fellow could throw out a hell of an insult, ...
• A library without a checkout counter
  Reading for pleasure is something we often take for granted. However, many kids grow up without enough material to stimulate their growing minds ...