I took a Flickr vacation for six months while I experimented with Nokia’s Share on Ovi service. I’ve moved my photo-sharing focus back to Flickr now, and I created ovi2flickr.php to bring my photos back with me.

Share on Ovi proved itself a capable peer to Flickr and technically it matches Flickr in almost every respect but a well-documented API. What’s missing from Ovi, however, is a community. Or at least my community. In the months I used Ovi as the home for my photos only two comments were left, and I became “contacts” only with Jonas.

Meanwhile, back on Flickr, I’ve got almost 100 contacts, and I receive a couple of comments a week.

The idea of centralized photo sharing has never really worked for me spiritually — I wish there was a way to decentralize the Flickr experience and let photos be stored locally and comments, favourites, contacts and other aspects of Flickr work under more of a “federation” system. But, for the moment, there is not. And so my photos go where the community goes.

Most of the time what you get at a “bakery” in Charlottetown is more “different forms of doughy glop” than it is something you’d actually look forward to eating. This is may be about to change: Leonhard’s Café and Bakery is set to open later this month at 42 University Avenue, in the space next to to Blue Note that was formerly occupied by the Perfect Cup Café, a pizza place and, most recently, by a lamp store.

Leonhard’s has been selling bread and cakes at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market this season. Their bread is almost always sold out by the time Oliver; a testament, I hope, to its wonders. Stay tuned.

Ampersand, the café slash T-shirt shop owned by my dentist and managed by a rotating cast of urban hepcats, has retooled itself for winter: the merchandise is all gone, so the motley collection of chairs and tables has been moved downstairs and the result is the closest thing that Charlottetown has to a “hang out all day drinking coffee and working on the first novel” coffee shop.

Our vegetable delivery man, Aaron Koleszar, now has a website where you can find out more information about his products and his delivery system. I wholeheartedly endorse Aaron’s products and service: we’ve been happy customers for more than a year, and Aaron has never failed us.

Sign on the window of the Clover Farm grocery store in downtown Charlottetown:

It was a beautiful afternoon, and so instead of coming back to the office to type in the darkness, I swung down Pownal Street from Tai Chi Gardens and along the waterfront. The tide was high — a foot or two higher and it would have been lapping over the edges — and the sun was bright. At Peakes Quay the shops were all shut tight:

Google Maps now includes walking directions as well as driving directions. And so I can find that walking from Charlottetown, PEI to Atlin, BC would take 54 days and 9 hours. I’m also warned:

Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.

Perhaps more practical, it’s good to know that I should be able to walk to Halifax in 2 days once the oil runs out.

Just before Zap Your PRAM started, Olle and Luisa and I sat down with Matthew Rainnie to record a piece for Mainstreet. We talked about Zap, but also about Olle and Luisa’s Artist in Residence project.

Iceland-owned and Denmark-based, budget carrier Sterling has shut operations and posted a detailed explanation of the reasons that says, in part:

Sterling Airlines’ trademark has always been excellent staff and service. Among the staff the Sterling spirit will continue to exist. We have made our mistakes over the years. But hopefully we have done more right than wrong, and at least we have made the market more competitive to the benefit of our customers.

This surely isn’t going to be the last airline to fail; if you’re planning to fly this year, a read through Edward Hasbrouck’s FAQ about Airline Bankruptcies might be in order.

Photographer Rannie Turingan shot portraits of everyone who attended Zap Your PRAM. Never have so many geeks looked so good.