Year: 2008

Edmonton in 2008

What do you remember most about the past year in Edmonton? I think I’ll look back on 2008 as the year that I started to fully appreciate everything that our city has to offer. I learned a lot about Edmonton this year, and I look forward to learning even more in the years to come. Hopefully I can have a positive impact on the city as well!

Edmonton Skyline

Obviously a topic as large as an entire city is impossible to recap, but that doesn’t stop everyone from trying. Makes for interesting reading, right?

Here are some Edmonton-related year in review articles from around the web:

Know of another list or article that I missed? Leave a comment or email me and I’ll add it.

Now for a list of my own! Here are the 5 most popular Edmonton-related posts on my blog from the past year:

  1. Big Earl 96.3 is now Capital FM
  2. The Apple Store opens in West Edmonton Mall
  3. Edmonton is home to the future of Future Shop, and very close behind that, A look at Edmonton’s new Future Shop
  4. Use Google Maps to find Edmonton Transit schedules and trip plans
  5. New Concept for Edmonton Arena in The Quarters Downtown

All of those posts were written in 2008. If I had included the popular ones written in 2007 and earlier, four of the five would be related to Edmonton radio stations. Work at a radio station, particularly a NewCap radio station? You need to improve your web presence!

These three were close to making the list also:

Finally, here are some facts and figures from 2008 that I’ll likely want to refer to again at some point:

  • Population of Edmonton: 752,412 (source)
  • Edmonton Oilers record (calendar year): 42-31-5
  • Capital EX attendance: 743,374 (source)
  • Homeless Count: 3079 (source)
  • Number of homicides: 35 (source)

If you have another fact or figure for the list, leave a comment or email me.

I’m looking forward to a wonderful 2009, thanks for reading!

Edmonton Tech in 2008

Now that 2008 has come to a close, I think it’s safe to say that the Edmonton tech scene has had a fantastic year. It feels like the community grew tenfold, but I know that’s probably not true. Instead, I think the community just became more integrated and public. We had far more events than ever before, which resulted in lots of opportunities for everyone to meet one another.

DemoCampEdmonton2DemoCampEdmonton3Cam LinkeEdmontonTweetup2Lined up outside the Apple StoreNAIT Digital Media ExpoNew Future Shop in Edmonton

Geoff Hayward, DataGardensnovaNAIT Challenge 2008Local Twitterers!Lift Interactive OfficeReg assembles the agendaFree Wifi @ DemoCampEdmonton3EdmontonTweetup

There were many tech groups active in Edmonton this year. We held four DemoCamp events (one, two, three, four), and one BarCamp. It was great to see attendance increase with each one. In November, we held the 3rd annual Code Camp event for developers. We also held three Tweetup events (one, two, three) this year. The Edmonton .NET User Group, Edmonton Microsoft User Group, and Edmonton Flash User Group all held fairly regular meetings throughout the year. The Agile Edmonton User Group was established this year and held a few meetings. A few other meetup groups got started toward the end of the year, and should be quite active in 2009 – Edmonton Web Design Meetup, Edmonton Social Web Meetup. There were a number of other tech events that took place throughout the year as well, such as the ICE Technology Conference, Moonlight in the Meadows, and the NAIT Digital Media Expo.

Here are some of the year’s most interesting Edmonton tech stories from my blog, Techvibes, and elsewhere:

And here’s the collection of Edmonton Startup Index posts at Techvibes (prior to September all of Alberta was grouped together – yet another sign Edmonton is getting stronger):

I’m really impressed with the way Edmonton’s tech scene grew both larger and stronger this year, and I think 2009 can be even better. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen.

Ups and Downs for Podcast Hosting in 2008

podcasting Back in October, Dickson and I announced that we were shutting down our hosting service Podcast Spot. At the end of November, we disabled uploading and are now in the final transition phase for downloads and RSS feeds. In February 2009, the site will be taken offline completely.

We’re not the only podcast hosting service that shutdown in 2008 – at least two other services also called it quits recently:

The most visible of these services was Podango, so news of its demise created some discussion over the holidays. From Podcasting News:

While Smith attributes Podango’s state to the effects of the financial market, Podango and other podcast hosting services have not demonstrated that there’s much of a need for podcast-specific Web hosting services.

Podcango’s situation raises the question: Is there a real need for podcast-specific hosting services?

It’s a good question, and one I have thought about quite a bit in the latter half of 2008. For the vast majority of people, YouTube, Flickr, and similar tools are good enough. If they want to share some audio or (more likely) video, these services make it easy to do so. Increasingly, video cameras come with built-in support for YouTube, so the user doesn’t really have to do anything but record. This was the curve we attempted to get ahead of with Podcast Spot.

For a smaller number of people, something more advanced is required. Maybe they want to sell advertising, or have more control over production quality, or gain access to better statistics. I think this group can be split into two – the DIY crowd, and the use-a-hosting-service crowd. So yes, there is a need for podcast-specific hosting services, but perhaps the market is a lot smaller than everyone thought.

It wasn’t all bad news for podcast hosting in 2008 though. Some familiar services still appear to be going strong: Libsyn, Podbean, and Podkive to name just a few. Back in July, RawVoice announced they were entering the market with Blubrry. In August, Wizzard Software announced increased revenues and decreased expenses and losses. And on October 21st, Blip.tv announced they had raised another round of investment.

I’d expect 2009 to be similar – a mix of ups and downs for podcast hosting services.

It’s important to realize that we’re talking about podcast hosting here. I don’t think the demise of Podango or any other service should be taken to mean that podcasting itself is in trouble. As Paul Colligan said:

Podango’s problems say as little about the future of Podcasting as GM’s problems say about the future of cars.

Podcasting is all about communication, and the need for that hasn’t gone away. Podcasting itself is doing just fine.

Notes for 12/28/2008

Today was my 25th birthday – thanks everyone for your birthday wishes on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere! Special thanks to Sharon for making it a birthday to remember!

Birthday Eggnog PancakesThe Art of the BrickThe Art of the BrickThe Art of the BrickThe Art of the BrickThe Art of the Brick

She made eggnog pancakes for me this morning, and stuck a couple candles in them for me to blow out. We went to the TELUS World of Science in the afternoon to see The Art of the Brick. Definitely made me feel young playing with LEGO! For dinner we went to my favorite Edmonton diner, Route 99. From there it was on to Starbucks, and then to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I really enjoyed it, but at nearly three hours, it’s a bit of a marathon. All in all, a great day!

Here are a few notes for this week:

REVIEW: Staples Copy & Print Centre Online

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I did, and enjoyed a small break from blogging too. Time to get back into it!

staples logo One of the things I got Sharon for Christmas was a food calendar. I wanted to get her something related to photography and food, but another picture frame just didn’t seem that interesting. When I was in Staples one day, I noticed their advertising for the Copy & Print Centre, and specifically for the calendars. I took a card from the counter, and checked out the website when I got home. A couple of hours later and I had a professional looking calendar, filled with photos of food we’ve made together or of restaurants we’ve visited.

I found the website very easy-to-use, if a little basic. You can do pretty much everything online that you can do in the store. Want to print or copy something? Simply upload a file and go. You can also order custom items, such as business cards, labels, greeting cards, bookmarks, agendas, and calendars (you can download the price list in PDF here). Obviously I was interested in the calendar option.

There are four calendar styles to choose from: deluxe, classic, express, and year in view. I went with the deluxe, which lets you completely customize a full color calendar in two sizes (8.5” x 11” or 11” x 17”) and either 12 months or 18 months. Once you’ve picked those options, you can get started creating your calendar. They display some tips and tricks before you get started, which I skipped over the first time. I later went back and read them. They suggest organizing and uploading photos ahead of time rather than on the fly, and that turned out to be really good advice. By uploading your photos first, you can save your calendar before it’s finished and return to it later. It also makes it a bit faster to customize each page.

I chose a template in the 11” x 17” size and got to work. It took me quite a while to get all the images uploaded and organized and placed on the appropriate pages, but it was worth it. After you submit your order and select a store for delivery, you can download a digital proof in PDF (mine was just under 7 MB). A few days later, you’ll receive an email notifying you that your calendar is ready to pick up! Simply pay in store and you’re done. Very easy.

A few other quick comments on the website: it appears to be written in ASP.NET, which I thought was kinda cool. They also make use of some Telerik controls, such as the RadUpload component. Interestingly, I can’t find a single link back to the main Staples website – the Copy & Print Centre seems to be completely separate.

I was really impressed with the result (the photo above is from the proof). It actually does look like a professional calendar that you’d buy in a store! It helps to have high resolution photos too, I guess. On the very back of the calendar is the Copy & Print Centre logo, but otherwise it’s completely free from logos or advertising. I wonder if you could pay to have that removed? Maybe for large orders.

I’m happy to report that Sharon loved her calendar! So did her sister actually, so much so that she set about creating her own soon after seeing Sharon’s. It’s a unique, easy-to-create gift. Based on my experience, I’d definitely recommend the Staples Copy & Print Centre online.

Tracking Santa in 2008

It’s that time of year again! Santa has started making deliveries around the world and will be coming down your chimney before you know it. He just arrived in Pinsk, Belarus according to the noradsanta account on Twitter! Santa is getting some help from Bitz the Twittering elf, who is keeping the account up-to-date. Very cool.


“Santa Claus is coming to town” by Zanastardust

There are a number of different ways to track Santa this year. Here are some of my favorites:

For a few more options, check out this post at Search Engine Land.

Happy Holidays!

Edmonton’s BrightNights goes green

Holiday Light Up!Ever since the BrightNights festival opened for the year on November 22nd in Hawrelak Park, I’ve been meaning to write about it. Not because I love it and am keen to promote it, but for quite the opposite reason actually. I attended back in 2006, and came away unimpressed. I’ve got two major issues with the event – it’s relatively expensive and it’s terrible for the environment. Or at least it was.

This year, the organizers went with a “green theme” to make the 2008 edition of the festival the most environmentally friendly ever (didn’t you know green is the new black!). I noticed a video on the Edmonton.ca site recently talking about the improvements and changes (unfortunately they don’t use permalinks so I can’t link to the video) and took some notes:

  • BrightNights is operated as a not-for-profit.
  • The drive-through lights display runs from November 21st until January 4th, and covers 2.5 km of road.
  • Food Bank donations are encouraged, and any extra funds go to the hot lunch program.
  • The goal this year is to be carbon neutral. They’ve purchased carbon credits to offset emissions from both the power used in the park and from vehicles driving through.
  • All the lights are on timers this year, to avoid human error of forgetting to shut them off. Also, the hours of operation have been reduced from 6 per day to 5.
  • Enmax has joined as a sponsor for three years, and is working to ensure energy consumption is powered by wind.

The website also mentions high-efficiency lighting and certified forestry managed paper for marketing materials. Additionally, BrightNights has teamed up with Climate Change Central to help educate Edmontonians about going green at home.

Apparently the cost has gone up from $15 per vehicle to $20, so the event hasn’t become any more affordable. I’m not sure what kinds of displays they have, but I suspect it is similar to previous years.

Even though I’m still not that excited about BrightNights, I am quite happy to see the changes they’ve made to become more environmentally friendly. The City of Edmonton hopes to have a number of events operating green within three years, and BrightNights is just the first. I hope more festivals and events in Edmonton follow suit.

Old & New Media: Why can’t we work together?

This morning I attended a press event at NAIT where the winner of the 2008 novaNAIT challenge was announced. Congratulations to Stephane Contre who won first place with his crime forecasting software. You can read more in my post at Techvibes.

There was an impressive number of media people present – perhaps, as one of the NAIT representatives remarked, because everyone is sick of doing Christmas stories. Or maybe they were there simply because it’s their job to be there. While I was standing around, I happened to overhear a conversation between a couple of the camera guys. One guy did most of the talking, and though I only heard part of it, I think I caught enough:

“Why would you put this on the web? No one cares about this kind of story. You basically have to force-feed it to them during the evening news.”

Not word-for-word, but that’s the gist of it. I’m not sure who he is or which organization he’s from, so his job is safe (not that I’d name names anyway). If I were his boss however, I’d have fired him on the spot had I overheard that remark. He clearly doesn’t get it.

novaNAIT Challenge 2008

Why wouldn’t you put this story online? Give me almost any topic, and I’ll find you a community of people who care about it on the web. That’s one of the greatest things about the web – it makes it easy for small, geographically separated groups of people with similar interests to come together. And when they do, they’re not so small anymore.

Anyway, I don’t know what he was talking about. Technology and entrepreneurship, especially together, are topics that tons of people care about. Such as the community of people that read Techvibes.

Here’s a better question – why bother sending that camera guy for a story like this? I arrived with a point-and-shoot and my Flip video camera. The media guys all had DSLRs and large fancy video cameras, complete with lighting and microphones and other equipment. Obviously they acquired some higher quality content, suitable for broadcasting, but one camera could have done that – half a dozen wasn’t necessary. Heck, give one guy a Nikon D90 and he could have recorded high quality stills and HD video for the evening news. It seems like an incredible waste of resources the way news is gathered now.

Basically, what many people have been saying became real for me today. Local media organizations should be doing what they do best, and linking to the rest. This wasn’t a “breaking news” kind of story – why not let the citizen journalists gather the news and use the organization’s resources for something else? Why can’t we work together?

Of course, most local news organizations don’t know the meaning of the word link. They can’t even be bothered to hyperlink the URLs they include inside their own stories!

Here’s the funniest part of all this. This story will probably get a sixty second spot on the evening news, and the folks who are interested will fire up Google to find out more (I remain unconvinced that anyone uses those annoying “links in the news” sections of TV station websites). And guess where they’ll end up? Potentially here, and definitely at Techvibes (and they can then follow a link to all my photos and videos from the event). Heck, four of the top ten results in Google for “novaNAIT challenge” were created by me and all I did is write a couple of posts and upload some photos. So, thanks in advance camera guy!

Notes for 12/21/2008

Here are my weekly notes:

  • On Friday, ProTraining held a holiday open house. I took some photos. Thanks guys! Also on Friday, I went to liveblog Walter’s session on social media at CPRS Edmonton – photos are here.
  • Twitter doesn’t really have a policy on usernames at the moment. It’s a free-for-all, unless someone makes a trademark complaint. That happened to Steve Poland recently, which prompted him to argue that Twitter needs a better policy on usernames. I would tend to agree, keeping in mind that a similar situation has worked out mostly okay with domain names.
  • In his new book Outliers (which I think Santa sent me for Xmas!) Malcolm Gladwell explains the 10,000 hour rule – basically that it takes that length of time to become truly expert at something. I’ve seen a few people agree with this, such as Chris Anderson. Can’t wait to read the book.
  • I’m sure you heard about the Iraqi journalist throwing a pair of shoes at President Bush. Not surprisingly, a few folks have cashed in on the event, such as Alex Tew who built a flash game and put it up at sockandawe.com. He then sold the domain on eBay for £5,215. Not bad!
  • Apparently a few more undersea cables were cut this week, again within a short period of time. Curious.
  • Interesting report from The Bivings Group that I’m definitely going to have to examine in more detail: The Use of the Internet by America’s Largest Newspapers (2008 Edition).
  • Sharon and I had a great time at Jennifer, Martin, and Andy’s place for dinner tonight. Thanks for having us!
  • Just four more sleeps until Christmas! I need to get my shopping done…

Andy playingProsciutto-wrapped chicken stuffed with pesto and risottoProTraining Christmas Open HouseLocal Twitterers!Smile!

Edmonton Notes for 12/20/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week: