Edmonton's Next Generation

Post ImageWe hear lots here in Edmonton about how our city needs to improve, but less about what is being done. I got an email recently about a survey from the Next Generation Task Force. If you’re in Edmonton, you might be interested in this:

The Next Generation Task Force is a temporary committee of Edmonton’s City Council. Chaired by Councillor Kim Krushell, it is charged with providing recommendations to City Council, on making Edmonton a more fun, attractive, and pleasant place to live. It is composed of twenty Edmontonians from diverse backgrounds and walks of life. Over the upcoming months they will be inviting public input on the six broad themes they have chosen (listed here in alphabetical order): Arts and Culture, Business Opportunity, Edmonton’s Image, Human Capital, Sports and Recreation, Urban Living Environment.

They have a ten minute survey up on the website that you can use to offer your opinion on these topics.

Read: Next Generation Task Force

PlayStation 3 delayed a year?

Post ImageLots of PlayStation 3 news lately, and most of it is not good if you’re pulling for Sony in the gaming wars. Apparently Sony is planning a Hub service to compete with Xbox Live, but confirmations have been difficult to get, leading me to believe it may just be posturing on Sony’s part. The worst news though is about extremely high prices and potential delays:

Sony’s next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console might not appear in key markets this year and could cost the company $900 per unit to produce initially, according to Merrill Lynch analysts quoted in the Financial Times on Sunday.

Merrill Lynch analysts in San Francisco have estimated that the initial bill of materials for PS3 could approach $900, falling to $320 by three years after launch, the FT said.

Keep in mind those figures are in US dollars. I said a long time ago that the PS3 would likely cost an arm and a leg, so this story is validation. You just can’t introduce so many new components and expect the price to remain the same – the cell processor, coupled with Blu-ray drives are going to drive the cost of manufacturing quite high.

I don’t think Sony has extremely deep pockets like Microsoft, so I can’t see them taking a massive loss on each console. Hopefully we’ll find out more soon.

Read: CNET News.com

iBuzz – music activated iPod sex toy!

Post ImageIt’s hard to think of a device that has spawned as many third party accessories as the iPod. And when you consider that Apple isn’t known for being open or willing to make things easier on partners, the huge pool of gear is even more amazing. The iBuzz from Love Labs is the most interesting accessory I have seen in a while though (hat tip: Podcasting News):

Steve Jobs, we salute you! iBuzz USA celebrates your birthday with the launch of the iBuzz music-activated vibrator in the US.

We love the iPod and we love it even more when an iBuzz is attached.

And Steve, don’t forget to check your mail on your birthday for a surprise from us!

iBuzz is the musical orgasm machine! The music-activated vibrating bullet stimulates you in time with your favourite music. Which song pushes your butttons?

I can’t be sure, but everything looks legit. Too bad they didn’t have this out for Valentine’s Day, I am sure they would have attracted quite a bit of traffic! Apparently the device has a “bullet” that vibrates in time with the music and gets stronger as the volume goes up. And now I am going to end this post, because just the thought of someone getting off to William Hung is too much for me.

Read: iBuzz

Family Day

Today is Family Day in Alberta – hope you are spending some time with your family! I went for lunch with my extended family of friends today at Red Robin’s downtown. Here are a few pictures.

According to my Dad, we may be giving up Family Day if the Conservatives are successful in declaring a national “flag day” holiday. I personally don’t see the point in having a flag day. We don’t have separate holidays for our anthem, or national sport, etc. Seems to me “flag day” is really just part of Canada Day!

Notes for 2/19/2006

Yay for reading week! Here are my notes for today:

  • It was a pretty good week for Paramagnus in terms of our business plan competitions. We made it to the semi-finals in the VenturePrize competition, and the finals for the local part of the Wes Nicol competition. We present to the judges on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
  • My Dad was here this weekend too! Was nice to hang out yesterday.
  • The Canadian Men’s hockey team lost again today! It’s a good thing we’re already in the quarter-finals, but something has to change. Shut out two games in a row – terrible!
  • I think I am going to be starting a new notes weblog to exist alongside this one. Thing is, there’s lots of times I want to post something tiny, like a random thought or link or picture or even just a simple sentence, and this blog isn’t really appropriate for that kind of thing. With the notes weblog I can post a quick thought whenever it hits me, even from my cell phone! Fear not, this blog won’t change, it will just have a sibling 😉
  • Interesting new search engine for programmers is coming soon, called Krugle.
  • Look for more articles like this one over the next year: Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista. The article also includes five reasons you might not want to get Vista.
  • Favorite song of the moment: Madonna’s new single, “Sorry”.
  • A fairly large group of my friends are heading out for lunch tomorrow, on Family Day here in Alberta. Pictures to follow!

Paramagnus Finalists in Wes Nicol Competition!

It’s been a great week for Paramagnus! On Wednesday it was announced that we were semi-finalists in the VenturePrize competition and last night we found out that we were selected as finalists for local part of the Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award, also a businss plan competition!

The Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award is a national non-profit competition designed to promote entrepreneurship with Canadian University students. Now in its 9th year, the program is launching its second national Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award ceremony, to be held March 23rd, 2006 in Ottawa.

We present to the judges on Saturday, and if we win the local competition we get to travel to Ottawa to compete against the rest of Canada. Needless to say, we’re pretty excited!

If you’re going to participate in a business plan competition, you might as well compete in another. There ends up being quite a bit of overlap in terms of the work you need to do, but you meet different people and learn different things from each.

Hopefully a week from now we’ll be making travel arrangements for our nation’s capital!

UPDATE [10:02 PM]: I fixed this post to say “semi-finalists in the VenturePrize competition” as I had erroneously put “finalists”. I’m getting ahead of myself 🙂

Read: Wes Nicol

Edmonton Rush take first win in Calgary!

Last night can only be described as sweet! The Edmonton Rush organized a bus to take fans from Edmonton down to Calgary to watch the Rush take on the Roughnecks, so Tom and I bought tickets to go. In all there was about thirty people on the bus, give or take, but there were far more fans in the Rush section (which was section 210 if you know the Saddledome). And man am I ever glad we decided to go – seeing the Rush record their first ever franchise win, and in Calgary no less, was awesome! Sure it would have been nice to win at home, but if you have to win elsewhere, might as well keep the Battle of Alberta alive while you’re at it.

The first half of the game was actually very tight, with no more than a goal separating the teams. Eventually we took a four goal lead (our first such lead ever) only to see it wash away almost as quickly. We were up by one goal with about 30 seconds left, and Calgary overturned the ball. Our goalie Campbell, who played an amazing game stopping 67 shots, got the ball and instead of killing time, decided to throw it up the middle! If you know how bad that is in hockey, trust me, it’s worse in lacrosse, and sure enough they tied the game with about 10 seconds left. We thought we were going to OT, but Bergman somehow saved the day:

Bergman scooped up a loose ball at centre and, with time running out, ran down the floor and fired a shot at Calgary goaltender Curtis Palidwor. The ball bounced straight out off Palidwor’s pad, hit Calgary’s Andrew Biers on the leg and bounced into the net as the final buzzer sounded.

It was crazy! I really didn’t think there was enough time left, but the goal was reviewed and it stood, and we’ll take it. Everyone in the Rush section went crazy, and Calgary fans started to leave and throw things on the field.

Some other things of note:

  • There was about 12,000 people at the game last night.
  • When the Roughnecks come on the field, they run through a small, crappy version of the Oiler’s famous oil derrick.
  • Even though we had some penalties, the game looked like one of our most disciplined this season. We need to stay out of the penalty box!
  • The dance team in Calgary is called the Drill Crew, and they are pretty good. Our Crush girls even did one dance at the game.
  • The screen at the Saddledome is not nearly as nice as ours, but they have little TV’s above all the urinals in the washrooms! And they have Tim Horton’s and Subway inside the concourse too!
  • Tom and I were sitting one row behind, and about 6 or 7 seats to the right of some of the Crush girls. With about three minutes left in the game they started looking back at us provocatively! As Tom said, “have the gods shone down upon me?” Turned out they just wanted someone to go buy them more beer – sorry girls, not when we’re about to win the game!
  • I was surprised that we were on an ordinary old bus. I kind of expected the Rush to have some fancy barbed wire bus plastered with Rush logos! I guess they have set expectations high with all of their other marketing stuff.
  • The Edmonton guys do a much better job of keeping things interesting, keeping the tempo up in the stadium as the game goes on. Rush home games seem like much more of an event!

The bus ride home was much more high energy than the ride to the game. As we drove away from the stadium, everyone started chanting “one and six, one and six!”

The Rush take on Colorado on March 3rd, where hopefully we’ll get our second win and move one step closer to the playoffs!

Read: Edmonton Rush

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yup, today is my Dad’s birthday – and he’s not even at home to enjoy it! He’s on a trip to Ottawa, taking some great pictures that you can check out at his site. See you on Saturday!

Office 2007 Announced

Post ImageMicrosoft announced yesterday some new details on Office 12, which will officially be named Office 2007. Most interestingly, pricing will not change significantly, and the Student & Teacher edition is being replaced by a Home and Student edition. There are lots of new features in Office 12, which is probably why Microsoft’s Parri Munsell described it as “the most significant advance in over a decade.”

Munsell said the new Office will offer a bevy of new features, including an all-new user interface and new XML-based file formats.

Microsoft released an initial beta of Office 2007 in November, with a second beta planned for this spring.

I can see why people think Microsoft has confusing marketing. They describe both Vista and Office 2007 as the most significant releases in a decade, yet they don’t qualify that. Office 2007 is a significant release in terms of user interface, but not too much else (XML file formats aside). Vista on the other hand is a significant release in terms of “under the hood” (despite the new 3D capabilities, it looks more or less like Windows XP).

You’ve got to pay attention with Microsoft lately, they seem to throw around the cliches and superlatives like there’s no tomorrow!

Read: CNET News.com

Paramagnus selected as VenturePrize semi-finalist!

I am really pleased to announce that Paramagnus Developments Inc. has been selected as one of six semi-finalists in this year’s VenturePrize Fast-Growth Enterprise Award category. As some of you may know, Dickson and I have been working on a business plan for Paramagnus for the last four or five months, and we submitted it to the VenturePrize business plan competition at the end of January. From the press release:

These six semifinalists will present their concepts to a judging panel who will announce the final three contenders at a March 6 special reception. These three finalists will then make a final pitch to judges and a sold-out audience at the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) Annual Luncheon on March 22, 2006, where the grand prize winner will be crowned.

“This is an exciting group of contestants representing a range of innovative business opportunities,” said Jay Krysler, VenturePrize Program Manager for TEC Edmonton. “The business plan screening panel, who are business and finance industry professionals, certainly had a difficult time selecting only six from so many great business concepts. Alberta will be well-served when all these plans move forward.”

It feels very good to have your business receive validation and recognition from some very smart people. We’ve learned a lot throughout the process so far, and I know there’s far more learning ahead.

We’re really excited about making it this far in the competition, and we’re going to do our best to blow the judges away with our presentation. If all goes well, I’ll be posting again on March 6th that we made it to the final three! No matter what happens, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished already, and I am eager to see the feedback on our business plan.

I also can’t wait to get our products and services launched!

Read: TEC Edmonton