Year: 2008

Microsoft launches 'I'm a PC' commercials

microsoft A couple weeks ago we saw the first commercials in Microsoft’s new ad campaign. They featured Jerry Seinfeld and were quite polarizing – either you liked them or you didn’t. Unfortunately for Seinfeld fans, he didn’t last long. Microsoft’s new commercials went live last night, as described by TechCrunch:

The three new non-Seinfeld commercials, which the New York Times described earlier this week, still don’t talk about Vista features. But they do try to break the stereotype that cool and interesting people use Macs, and everyone else is on a Windows machine.

The ads features a number of Microsoft employees and include email addresses for each. The star, Sean Siler, has an autoresponse to his sean@windows.com email address.

TechCrunch has embedded the three commercials in that post if you’d like to check them out. You can also see a longer version and a really funny comic at Long Zheng’s site.

I have to agree with Mary Jo Foley – I’m a little surprised that Microsoft is going after Apple. The “Mac vs. PC” ads have been incredibly successful and are very widely known, so I think directly responding to them is an incredibly daring thing for Microsoft to do. That said, I really like the new ads. They make Apple seem a little elitist.

I like this approach better than the Seinfeld commercials, and I look forward to seeing what Microsoft has planned next. Their marketing story is finally starting to get interesting!

By the way, I first noticed the new commercials were live when “I’m a PC” became a trending topic on Twitter Search. If you’re not already a regular user of Twitter Search, you should be!

Canada gets a conference for startups: Startup Nation

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?

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton3

It’s hard to believe that nearly four months have passed since our last DemoCamp here in Edmonton! Of course, we did have BarCamp back in July, but our last official DemoCamp was in May. It was about time for another one! Tonight’s event went very well, with an audience made up of both familiar and new faces.

DemoCampEdmonton3 featured six demos:

  1. Adam & Andy from dub5
  2. Aaron from SpatialQ
  3. Michael & Brendan from Edmonton Free Library
  4. Darren from Playerrs
  5. Kerri from Tynt
  6. The U of A’s Autonomous Robot Vehicle Project

I think every demo was slightly under the 10 minute mark, which meant more time for questions. Tonight was a night of firsts! Kerri was our first female presenter ever, and ARVP provided us with our first hardware demo. Very cool stuff.

DemoCampEdmonton3

For those of you who couldn’t make it: Dub5 is a calendar/scheduling application that hopes to play well with existing applications and services. It features an SMS interface, which made for a neat demo. SpatialQ is a solution for geospatial search, a way to associate data sets with geographical information. The Edmonton Free Library project is a community site for sharing books, music, and videos. Playerrs is a sports analysis and research site which makes it easy to track your favorite teams. Tynt is a browser plugin that lets you annotate and share the web. And finally, the Autonomous Robot Vehicle Project is a research project at the U of A (with a fairly self-explanatory name).

I’d have to say that my “demo of the night” goes to dub5. The ARVP demo was really neat, especially to see the robot in action, but dub5 was both entertaining and impressive. I definitely think they have challenges ahead, but they seem like a smart group with a good idea and lots of passion.

We had over 80 people attend tonight, and roughly 30 of those people made it out to The Windsor Pub afterward – an awesome turnout, thanks to everyone who came! Also, thanks to Reg and the Zigtag team for getting that all arranged. I think the venue (ETLC) worked really well tonight – everyone could see and hear the demos with ease. Another positive tonight was that we had free wifi, provided by the Free WiFi project. Despite some initial connection issues, I managed to get our WiMAX router working properly! We had fairly consistent usage through the evening.

You can see my photos of tonight’s event here. If you’d like to be notified about future DemoCamp and BarCamp events in Edmonton, sign up for the mailing list here.

See you at DemoCampEdmonton4!

More on co-working

coworking A couple weeks ago I posted about WorkSpace in Vancouver, and suggested it would be good to have something similar in Edmonton. Clearly I’m not the only one, as there were quite a few comments on both that post and Twitter. Cam posted a link to Edmonton’s Beans and Boardrooms, which while not quite the same concept, looks interesting.

Last week Sharon sent me this Globe and Mail article on Citizen Space in San Francisco:

Sebastien Provencher takes the bus into San Francisco for another day at the office. At the third-floor loft of Citizen Space, he sits at a desk, fires up his laptop and gets to work.

This type of service, known as co-working, lets travellers like Provencher rent a desk in a communal setting. Once mainly the province of tech-oriented freelancers, co-working centres are attracting a broader spectrum of consultants and small-business people in search of space to work – and network – on the road.

Citizen Space and WorkSpace sound very similar. The most interesting part of the article is found near the end:

Today, there are co-working sites across the country that welcome out-of-town visitors, including others in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Thunder Bay; others in Calgary, Guelph, Ont., and Halifax are in various stages of development.

And not surprisingly, given their appeal to jet setters, co-working sites are establishing global connections. The Hub, which is scheduled to open this fall in Halifax, will be linked to 13 sites worldwide including space in London, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Sao Paulo. Members of one site will get privileges at the other spaces.

You can check out The Hub Halifax here (and their excellent links page here). Being connected to other sites around the world would be good for travellers, but I think WorkSpace and The Hub probably have very different clientele for the most part.

Apparently WorkSpace and Citizen Space are trying to form a similar network. I think that makes sense. As more and more similar spaces crop up, those connections will become really valuable.

I’m curious to know what’s going on Calgary – anyone have any information?

Who knows if or when something will get going here in Edmonton, but at least we know there are existing resources and people to tap into for help.

Notes for 9/14/2008

Here are my weekly notes:

  • I think text messaging rates in Canada are probably much more reasonable than they are in the US, but I am glad to see the Senate Judiciary Committee asking for answers south of the border nonetheless.
  • Here’s a great site I came across this week for coverage of the US election – FiveThirtyEight.com. Lots of maps and graphs, updated very frequently.
  • The latter half of this Edmonton Sun article is well worth a read: Here’s reality: capital region is one big city.
  • Google announced they are making complete newspaper archives available through Google News. Goodbye microfilm.
  • Swype is a new, gesture-based input technology. Looks incredibly awesome. Too bad their name is so similar to Skype.
  • NAIT will be participating in the Culinary Olympics again this year, and Sharon and I were invited to check out their practice event yesterday and today. I took quite a few photos, and will have more to write later this week.
  • Tina Fey played Sarah Palin on SNL last night. Here’s the clip, in case you missed it.
  • The Fitbit is a new gadget that is supposed to help you track your fitness and sleep. Looks interesting.
  • Speaking of gadgets, here is the largest Swiss army knife ever! Sadly, no laser.
  • I accompanied Sharon to the Hanson concert last night. I think that’s the first time I’ve gone deaf at a show not from the music, but from the screaming girls! The audience was fairly diverse though, with guys and girls, old people and children, and everyone in between. Another observation: everyone has a digital camera now, but most people seem to have no clue how to use them.

Team NAIT Culinary Olympics PracticeApple-Cheddar Turkey BurgersToasted Ham & Cheese BagelDon Iveson

ETS Centennial Week: September 12-20, 2008

edmonton transit Today marks the start of Transit Centennial Week here in Edmonton, celebrating 100 years of public transit in our city. The official proclamation occurred today from 11am until noon at City Hall. All week you’ll be able to find displays, special events, free tours, and more.

The festivities get underway this evening at 7pm in Churchill Square. Local band Shout Out Out Out Out will be on hand along with The Whitsundays and the Trevor Tchir Band.

On September 14th you can see Le Fuzz, Ayla Brook, Manraygun, Ben Sures, and Robin Hunter and Six Foot Bullies, a musical event fit for the entire family. On September 19th at both 8pm and 9:30pm, Rapid Fire Theatre will be performing “Kiss My Bus”, a live play on a bus! They also performed this show earlier this summer at the Fringe festival. The big finale on September 20th will be Movies on the Square presented by ETS.

All week in Churchill Square you’ll be able to find information displays and the Big Tent right in front of City Hall which contains transit artifacts and memorabilia, film footage, and other multimedia displays.

For more information and complete event listings, including free tours and garage open houses, check out the Transit Centennial Week website.

If you’ve never been on the High Level Streetcar before, I’d definitely recommend it. There are free tours from 11am until 4pm on the 13th, 14th, and 20th. I think the D.L. MacDonald garage open house would be pretty neat too (the LRT garage…open house is noon to 4pm on the 20th).

Pecha Kucha Night: Edmonton #2

Tonight was Edmonton’s second Pecha Kucha night, the first was held back in May (you can learn more about Pecha Kucha here). Aside from the name, I’d say there was very little in common between the two events. Pecha Kucha 2 received a lot of press, largely as a result of the success of the first one, and that clearly had an impact on the audience. The show was sold out tonight (at 300) and unless you RSVP’d ahead of time, it was difficult to get in (a few did, however). The audience also skewed older tonight – I felt much younger than most of the people in the crowd, which was different than the first Pecha Kucha.

The presentations this time around were much better than at the first Pecha Kucha. Even though the first and last presenters this evening were clearly nervous, every presentation held my interest and more than a few of them incorporated elements of humor. Overall, it was much more entertaining than the first one. I really liked Christian Nelson’s Reclaiming Deadmonton, and the gamer/geek in me loved Matt Bouchard’s exploration of gaming console controllers, past and present. My least favorite was probably Rob Andruchow’s presentation on What is design?, as it felt out of place and was probably a topic too large for a mere 20 slides. He still managed to hold my interest though. I think keeping the number of presentations to just ten this time was a good idea.

Pecha Kucha 2

My biggest complaint about the event was the lack of wifi. You’d think that Next Gen would have wifi at their own events, considering it is one of their top priorities. I think they may have tried tonight, as I briefly found an open network, but it didn’t work and quickly disappeared. Very disappointing.

There was free food this time, and the venue was much improved. The first event was in the lobby of the Winspear Centre which sounds cool, but was actually quite impractical. Tonight’s event was in the Westbury Theatre at the TransAlta Arts Barns, which meant stadium-style seating! Everyone fit comfortably, and everyone could see the presentations. Good call on making that change!

Next Gen is planning two more Pecha Kucha nights before May, with the next one likely taking place in January. Overall I’d say that Pecha Kucha 2 was an improvement over Pecha Kucha 1, largely on the strength of the presentations and venue, so I look forward to continued improvements for the next ones. Subscribe to the Edmonton Next Gen mailing list to be notified right away about the next one!

You can see my photos from the event here, and also check out the Next Gen pool here.

The Large Hadron Collider

At 4:28am EST today, scientists at CERN successfully turned on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider. After nearly 15 years of work and roughly $8 billion USD of investment, I’m sure everyone involved in the project breathed huge sighs of relief when it didn’t explode this morning.

Eventually, the collider is expected to accelerate protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts and then smash them together, recreating conditions in the primordial fireball only a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists hope the machine will be a sort of Hubble Space Telescope of inner space, allowing them to detect new subatomic particles and forces of nature.

The LHC has received lots of negative publicity (but publicity nonetheless) in recent months, as some individuals feared that the collider could create a black hole that would swallow the Earth in an instant. Scientists from around the world unanimously declared that such a notion was complete nonsense. But the naysayers persisted.

Fortunately, naysayers inspire comedy on the Internet!

Here are a few funny LHC-related things I came across today:

Also funny looking though it isn’t meant to be, is the official LHC website. I didn’t know 1994 was back in style!

I think the LHC is pretty exciting (apparently Google does too, as they devoted a Doodle to it). I hope it enables all of the discoveries that scientists think it might. To learn more, check out the Wikipedia article.

My klean kanteen is green

klean kanteen Last week Sharon bought me a water bottle. More than just a simple gift though, there’s a story behind this particular water bottle. You see unlike me, Sharon actually pays attention to the news when they talk about health scares. To me it seems like there’s a new study released every day telling me that the things I am enjoying right now are going to kill me, so I tend to tune the news out. It was over one of these “health scares” that we had a disagreement, many months ago. Sharon had been reading about plastic bottles, and how they can leech dangerous chemicals. My gut reaction was that her concerns were probably exaggerated, and I told her so at the time.

Of course, it turns out she was right (she usually is). Most of the problem centres around a compound known as Bisphenol A, or BPA. In the last year, many governments have issued reports questioning the safety of the compound, including Canada. Perhaps more importantly, the private sector has jumped on the anti-BPA bandwagon, with manufacturers like Nalgene issuing statements about the chemical and launching new BPA-free products. I’m not sure there is any conclusive evidence one way or the other, but it doesn’t matter – consumers don’t want products that contain BPA.

As a result, we went shopping for a new metal water bottle for Sharon (though there are some safe plastic ones – see this article for an overview). She eventually settled on a 18oz bottle made by klean kanteen. From their about page:

Klean Kanteens are made from #304 stainless steel, the material of choice in the food processing, dairy, and brewery industries. Stainless steel is easy to clean, durable, inert, sanitary, toxin-free, and non-leaching. Klean Kanteens are the stainless steel alternative to plastics. Plastics in landfills and oceans are one of the most alarming of today’s environmental stories.

I don’t think she chose it for the brand at the time, but rather because it seemed durable, affordable, and was surprisingly light (the 18oz bottle weighs 6oz). Another plus was the relatively large mouth on the bottle, making it easy to fit ice cubes inside.

Her purchase ended up being a good one! She takes her water bottle everywhere, and it does its job very well. And because it’s made of metal instead of plastic, water stays cold forever! Just another reason to ditch your plastic bottle.

I’ve never carried a water bottle around before, but I’ve gotten used to Sharon having hers. Like most people, I don’t drink enough water. If I have a water bottle handy though, I drink more.

Which brings us back to last week and the gift. I guess Sharon decided she’d had enough of me continually commenting on how great her water bottle was and drinking all her water, so she got me my very own! I have been taking my shiny new green, 27oz klean kanteen with me for the last few days and it rocks. I fill it up with water and ice cubes in the morning, and the water stays pretty cold throughout the day. Sometimes I fill it up again. I’m definitely drinking more water than I used to (and presumably ingesting less chemicals than I might have with a plastic bottle). Thanks Sharon!

If you’re in the market for a new water bottle, I’d definitely recommend klean kanteen.

Canadian Politicians on Twitter

twitter Canadians will be heading to the polls on October 14th to elect the 40th Canadian Parliament. That means it is officially election season here in Canada! For those of us fascinated with the American election however, it has been election season for months already. It kind of feels like Canada is playing catch-up to the US.

Similarly, our political leaders are playing catch-up to their counterparts south of the border – at least on Twitter. Barack Obama has amassed 75,000 followers on Twitter, and Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden also have accounts. John McCain doesn’t use a computer of course, so he doesn’t have an official Twitter account, though his followers have set this one up. There are dozens of members of Congress on Twitter.

Here in Canada, we now have two well-known politicians using Twitter:

  • Prime Minister Stephen Harper (English & French)
  • NDP Leader Jack Layton (English & French)
  • Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe (French) – official?
  • Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (English) – official?
  • National Director of the Liberal Party of Canada, Greg Fergus (English)

No sign of Stephane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, or Elizabeth May just yet (I’ll update the post if I find they have created accounts).

The Globe and Mail on Friday wrote about the Prime Minister getting his microblog on:

Like rats scurrying up the ropes before an ocean liner departs, politicians have sharp noses for knowing when to hop aboard a trend. It’s not just Harper. Barack Obama Twitters. All told, the Twitter population has passed the two-million mark.

So far @pmharper has 333 followers, while @jacklayton has 286. Though both probably have staff members updating for them, the style of posts on Jack Layton’s account make it seem as though it could be him.

Have you come across any other Canadian politicians on Twitter?

UPDATE: Track Canadian political conversations on Twitter using govtweets.
UPDATE2: Also check out electopinion.ca which tracks Twitter.
UPDATE (12/2/2008) The Liberals have launched a new account, @LiberalHQ.
UPDATE (12/12/2008) I should mention @M_Ignatieff, the new Liberal Party Leader.