Tech Days Canada 2008 Instructors on Twitter

By Mack D. Male · December 11, 2008 at 10:38pm

My list of CanUX 2008 Attendees on Twitter was well-received (and I found it useful myself), so I thought I’d do something similar for Tech Days. Instead of attendees however (not possible given that thousands of people across the country have attended), I’ve started a list of instructors on Twitter (there are about 70 instructors listed at the official site). The people on this list are leaders in the Developer and IT Pro communities in Canada, so follow them and I’m sure you’ll learn something new!

Here is everyone I’ve found so far:

If you should be on the list or know of someone else who should be, please let me know and I’ll update it!

You might want to follow the official Tech Days Canada account too!

My Tech Days Sessions: ADO.NET Data Services and Internet Explorer 8

By Mack D. Male · December 10, 2008 at 3:02pm

I’m in Calgary right now at Microsoft’s new paid conference, Tech Days. Despite being a little critical of the event when I first heard about it, I was asked to speak in Calgary. I figured it would be a great opportunity to get a first-hand look at the event so that I can offer more constructive feedback for future editions of Tech Days, and besides, I love sharing what I know with others!

I did the first two presentations in the Web Developer track – a session on ADO.NET Data Services followed by an introduction to Internet Explorer 8 for developers. I think my presentations went well for the most part, despite a few glitches with the demos. Initial feedback from people in the audience was positive anyway! Here are a few resources.

Goin’ Up to the Data in the Sky: ADO.NET Data Services for Web Developers

Internet Explorer 8 for Developers: What You Need to Know

Thanks to everyone who came to the sessions – feel free to contact me if you have additional questions.

Also, thanks to John Bristowe and the team at Microsoft for the opportunity to be involved with Tech Days. I’m looking forward to the rest of the sessions!

Following the current Canadian political drama on Twitter

By Mack D. Male · December 2, 2008 at 5:05pm

As I’m sure you’ve heard or read by now, we’ve got an interesting situation unfolding here in Canada. Essentially the Liberal Party, NDP, and Bloc Québécois have joined forces to propose a new Liberal-NDP coalition government that would replace Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada. You can learn more about the sequence of events at Wikipedia.

Back in September, I wrote about Canadian Politicians on Twitter. My guess is that our political leaders created accounts in reaction to what was happening south of the border, particularly with Barack Obama’s campaign. So I’m not surprised that none of them have updated their accounts with news about the issue at hand, with the exception of the newly launched LiberalHQ account.

Canadians are definitely talking about the news on Twitter, even if our politicians aren’t. At the moment, the hashtag #coalition is the second most popular topic according to Twitter Search. Other hashtags being used include #canadarally, #canada, #democracy, and #libndp.

Click here to see all related tweets.

There are also a bunch of new accounts being created to cover the news. You can follow both @yes_coalition and @no_coalition if you like!

In addition to some really thoughtful, funny, or otherwise interesting comments from fellow Canadians, you can find links and other resources related to the coalition on Twitter. Here are a few of the things I found:

Also found via Twitter – the news made The Huffington Post today! You’ll find dozens of other news articles, but one that caught my eye is the Globe and Mail’s list of Harper’s ten options.

I’m sure even more interesting things will surface over the next few days. The mainstream media will do a fine job of covering the news, but they can’t match the speed of Twitter. If you want to track the situation in real-time, keep Twitter Search open at all times!

World AIDS Day 2008

By Mack D. Male · December 1, 2008 at 3:42pm

Today is the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. According to statistics from UNAIDS, there are 33 million people living with HIV worldwide, 2 million of which are children under the age of 15. Last year, 2 million people died from HIV. Today, the National Post wrote about how Canada will help cure the biggest humanitarian health crisis of our time:

Canada is poised, yet again, to play a leading role in advancing knowledge about HIV/AIDS to help find a cure. With the partnership announced in 2007 between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the government of Canada to establish the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, we are now one of the countries pioneering the next stage. This commitment of $139-million is a major boost to Canadian and international HIV/AIDS vaccine research and development efforts. Through this funding, a manufacturing facility will be built in Canada that will produce promising vaccines that can move more quickly to clinical trials. Stephen Lewis has declared this initiative an "important step forward," a sentiment shared by HIV/AIDS organizations around the world.

Stephen Lewis, a Canadian, was the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. You can learn more about the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative here.

Closer to home, HIV Edmonton has compiled a list of community events taking place today. The largest event is a non-denominational evening ceremony followed by a candlelight walk:

WHAT: World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008, 7:00pm
WHERE: Citadel Theatre, 9828 101A Avenue NW. Room TBA.

Please RSVP to Sue Ann Paydli via email or call 780-488-5742 ext. 221.

They point to the World AIDS Campaign website as an additional resource. You can learn more about the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at Wikipedia, and for local information and events, check out HIV Edmonton.

I think what Terry Duguid said in the National Post is true, “it is easy for those of us in Canada who may not be directly affected by HIV/AIDS to become complacent.” I guess I am guilty of that. It’s only recently that I’ve become engaged, with events like the Aids Walk for Life. I’ve had Stephanie Nolan’s book 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa on my shelf for a while now, but haven’t gotten around to reading it. I really must do that.

Stop Aids. Keep the promise.

Canada votes, nothing changes

By Mack D. Male · October 14, 2008 at 9:22pm

Another Canadian election has come and gone, and nothing has changed. Despite just over a month and millions of dollars spent on the campaigns, we are once again left with a minority Conservative government. Does this mean we’ll be back at the polls again soon? So far analysis suggests it’ll be 2010.

Here’s the news from CBC:

As the final tally approached, the Conservatives were up less than one per cent in the overall popular vote, which translated into a 20-seat increase from the last federal election. The Liberals, in turn, were down 2.4 per cent, or 25 seats, according to the projections.

I didn’t feel a connection with any of the parties or their leaders. I ended up voting for the Green Party. In the past, I’ve voted Liberal, NDP, and Conservative. I studied the ballot for a long time today, but couldn’t find Barack Obama’s name. I really wish we had inspirational leaders like they do south of the border!

Speaking of which, with the Canadian election now finished, I can turn my full attention back to the American election. The third and final presidential debate takes place tomorrow night at 9 PM EST. Go Obama!

UPDATE: CBC says voter turnout was less than 60%. About ten million Canadians gave up their right to complain. Sad.

UPDATE (1:20 AM MT): Voter turnout hovers at around 59%, the worst turnout in Canadian history. NDP candidate Linda Duncan pulled off a major upset in Edmonton – Strathcona, defeating incumbent Rahim Jaffer by just 442 votes. The Conservatives otherwise swept Alberta.

Telus and Bell team up, plan to roll out 4G

By Mack D. Male · October 10, 2008 at 9:30pm

Big news today in Canada’s wireless industry. Telus and Bell announced they are partnering to upgrade their wireless network to 3G nationwide, laying the groundwork for an eventual move to 4G. The move should put both companies on equal footing with Rogers, but playing catchup is expensive:

Although both companies declined to provide any clear insights to the cost of the upgrade, analysts expect it to be approximately between $750-million to $1-billion, split two ways between Bell and Telus. Mr. Entwistle said that initial capital expenditures for the new network are included in Telus’ original guidance of approximately $1.9-billion this year and is expected to be $750-million higher than historical levels in the following year.

I’m not sure how I missed it, but apparently rumors of this specific deal actually surfaced back in July. The first rumor, that Telus would switch to GSM, started back in January. The announcement today covers the launch of a network with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA/GSM). Bell and Telus hope to have the network ready just in time for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. After that the goal is to move to LTE (4G), which is in line with the plans of most other carriers around the world.

Clearly this is great news for Canadians. Having a single network standard will bring cost benefits, and faster time-to-market for hardware. I’m looking forward to it.

Here’s the Telus press release, and here’s the Bell press release. Both are incredibly similar, though neither one mentions the other! I guess we should use the term “partnership” lightly.

Microsoft Tech Days Canada 2008

By Mack D. Male · October 9, 2008 at 6:25pm

microsoft tech days If you’re a Canadian developer using Microsoft technologies, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the upcoming Tech Days training conferences taking place in 7 different cities across the country. Tech Days is Microsoft Canada’s first attempt to move beyond the marketing tour-style events they usually do and into something more substantial. This is immediately obvious from the price – these are not free events. Some cities are one-day events, and cost $249.99 (or $129.99 before October 15th). Others are two-day events, and cost $499.99 (or $249.99 before October 15th).

What do you get for your money? Your choice of sessions from five tracks, plus a fairly impressive learning kit worth about $1000. Quite honestly the learning kit alone is almost worth the price of admission – you get a full copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional, a full copy of Expression Web 2, the complete TechEd 2008 DVD Set, and a 6-month subscription to TechNet Plus. Do the math…$249.99 isn’t bad at all.

What about the sessions? I’m going to be honest, my first impression is they aren’t much different than the marketing tour. Here are a few examples:

Building Killer Line-of-Business Applications with WPF
Goin’ Up to the Data in the Sky: ADO.NET Data Services for Web Developers
Mastering Your Samurai Skills of Silverlight
Beyond Relational SQL Server 2008: Managing Unstructured and Semi-Structured Data

Notice anything? WPF, ADO.NET Data Services, Silverlight, SQL Server 2008 – these are all the latest and greatest from Microsoft. I wonder how many developers are using these things right now. I know I’m not. How much will developers be able to take back to their jobs? Especially considering each session is just an hour and a half?

There are some sessions that aren’t so focused on the new stuff, and the IT Professional sessions seem even less marketing-like. There are also some sessions that are likely to have a much bigger impact even if they are focused on beta bits, such as the one on ASP.NET MVC. Still, I’m left wondering where the WCF sessions are, or even sessions on Workflow! What about something from Patterns & Practices? And if Microsoft really wanted to make it interesting, why not a session or two on some commonly used open source technologies like NHibernate or SubSonic or something?

David Crow wrote about this today too, and he says the website is a bit misleading. You should definitely read his post on the event. David points out that the primary innovation here is that 90% of the content is being delivered by non-Microsoft employees:

Once you scroll past the usual suspects, you’ll find a group of Microsoft friendly people from other companies. Consultancies. Big corporations. Smaller companies. Client side. It includes MVPs like Colin Bowern, Mark Arteaga, Laurent Duveau, and Barry Gervin. And others like Robert Burke and Ken Cox. Sure lots of these speakers are MVPs, it means that they are “exceptional technical community leaders”. They are experts. They write books. They blog. They consult. They build things in the real world.

He makes a good point – but simply having non-Microsoft speakers doesn’t guarantee quality, of course. It remains to be seen how effective this format is.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the cities in which Tech Days is happening. Developers in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Halifax, and Vancouver don’t have to go anywhere. Everyone else needs to get to one of those cities to attend. I don’t know how Microsoft Canada came up with that list, but I’m once again disappointed to find that Edmonton is missing. We’ve got an amazing developer community here, one of the most successful user groups in the country, and yet we’re passed over for Calgary. That sucks. I know it’s expensive to get everywhere, but why not force the Calgarians to come up to Edmonton for once?

I encourage you to check out the Tech Days website for yourself. Read the session abstracts and figure out which ones would be useful. If you want to attend, you’ve got until October 15th to get the early bird price. Finally, check out John’s funny post on the Canadian Developer blog. You’ll laugh!

Canadian Do Not Call List goes into effect today

By Mack D. Male · September 30, 2008 at 6:17pm

Starting today, Canadians can add their numbers to a national Do Not Call list. Nearly four years have passed since the Government of Canada announced that they would introduce what eventually became Bill C-37, legislation which empowers the CRTC to setup and manage the Dot Not Call List and to dish out penalties to violators. You can learn more about the history of the list at Wikipedia.

To sign up for the list, visit the DNCL website or call 1-866-580-DNCL (or 1-888-DNCL-TTY). I just added my number online, and it was a quick and painless process. Two things caught my attention:

Your number doesn’t remain on the list permanently. My registration will expire on October 31st, 2011.
There are quite a few exemptions, including registered charities, political parties, newspapers, and businesses you are already doing business with.

According to CBC, so many people tried to add their numbers to the list today that the website went down and the phone line was constantly busy. Global TV reported tonight that over 1 million Canadians have already tried to register. The CRTC originally projected that 16 million numbers would be on the list within the first two years.

Michael Geist has been one of the DNCL’s most vocal critics, and setup iOptOut to help Canadians create and manage a personal DNCL. I don’t know how effective the list will be, but I figure it can’t hurt to get my number on there.

.NET Developers: Questionmark is hiring!

By Mack D. Male · September 29, 2008 at 12:54pm

questionmark logo The company I work for, Questionmark, is looking to hire three developers to join our Canadian team here in Edmonton. The positions are Software Developer, Lead Software Developer, and Senior Software Developer. Here’s a bit of background on the company:

Questionmark is a company with recognised global presence in e-learning and assessment automation with software covering all aspects of this field, from authoring to delivery and reporting. Our software is used by over 3 million people in 15 different countries throughout the world. Questionmark is a fast-growing company, with a dedicated, passionate, and global workforce. We have offices in London, UK, Norwalk, CT and Tubize, Belgium. We care about the satisfaction of our employees and we reward them for meeting or exceeding expectations. The company promotes a relaxed, fun and highly productive approach to work.

I enjoy working for Questionmark! We’re an agile shop using Scrum and other things you’d expect such as unit testing and continuous integration. Another plus is that we’re not stuck in the past – we’re using .NET 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX, and lots of other new and interesting technologies. You can find more information in the job descriptions:

Job Description for Software Developer
Job Description for Lead Software Developer
Job Description for Senior Software Developer

If you’re interested in any of the positions or would like more information, either send me an email or email Kaitlyn Lardin.

Canada gets a conference for startups: Startup Nation

By Mack D. Male · September 18, 2008 at 11:57pm

Early this morning Jevon MacDonald at StartupNorth announced Startup Nation, a conference for startups in Canada. The two-day event will take place in Toronto on November 13th and 14th and features a number of high profile speakers, including Howard Lindzon, Lane Becker, Leila Boujnane, and Canadian participants in the YCombinator Summer ’08 class. Here’s how the conference is described:

StartupNorth is Canada’s only grassroots conference for startups. Created for entrepreneurs and by entrepreneurs, StartupNorth aims to educate and inspire by connecting you with other entrepreneurs, mentors and the ecosystem of support needed to create and operate a successful startup in Canada and the world.

Yes, they seem to be conflicted about what to call it. Some pages and images say “Startup Nation” while others say “Startup North”. The URL is http://startupnation.ca.

I think this type of event is great for Canada. The more opportunities we have to get people face-to-face meeting one another, sharing knowledge and ideas, the better. That said, there’s something about this conference that rubs me the wrong way.

At first I was put off by the fact that it takes place in Toronto, yet is called “Canada’s conference for startups.” I guess you can’t really hold that against them though – you’ve got to start somewhere, and Toronto is as good a place as any. Other conferences such as Mesh and Northern Voice are similar in this regard.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my problem with the conference is the price. A regular ticket costs $355 CDN, with early bird tickets running $295 CDN (before October 12th). What was that about grassroots and such in the description?

I am kind of surprised at the price. Even if the conference wasn’t completely free, it seems expensive compared to something like Northern Voice which only costs about $50. They are able to do that with the help of sponsors – surely Startup North could have signed up enough sponsor support.

I was further put off by Jevon’s comments on his post when others asked about the price. He seemed to take a very defensive approach. Furthermore, he listed Red Herring Canada and TechCrunch50 as examples of more expensive events. Sorry Jevon, I hope the conference is a success, but you’re not TC50.

There is a lot of talk about connecting, and networking, and meeting with some really smart people. Thing is, many of them are fairly accessible already – no $400 fee required. So what does Startup Nation offer beyond that? Can the workshops and training make up for the steep entry fee? I’m not convinced you can learn that much in a day or two.

What do you think? Would you pay $400 on top of travel and accommodations to attend Startup Nation?