January 24th and 25th in Whistler a meeting of WordPress minds will meet up in Whistler, BC. The keynote speaker for the event will be Blogging Evangelist Lorelle VanFossen.

If you’re in the Vancouver-Whistler area, or can plan to be here the $35 entry fee is a great price for such a high-quality event. If you’re already registered, grab a badge and pimp the event on your site, your twitter or anywhere else!

It was great to see a few familiar faces like Rebecca and Raul.

I also got to meet some of the folks who I’d only known online.  Duane, John, John & Andy.  Looking forward to meeting lots of other great people tomorrow.

I did forget one thing tonight: Business Cards.  However, I did manage to find a few spare sheets of my Avery business card blanks tonight.  I also discovered (somewhat to my surprise) that Google Docs supports Avery business card templates.

sample business card from google docs

The implementation isn’t quite as slick as MS-Word, but it will more than do in a pinch.  I managed to whip up this snazzy little number in a matter of minutes.  Now I feel more prepared for tomorrow.  Hopefully Dave doesn’t mind that I borrowed the show logo, I promise I’ll promote the show! 

With a vulnerability so wide-reaching, security researchers decided it would be wise to keep the exact nature of the vulnerability something of a secret until the patches were ready.  They did however announce that a vulnerability had been found.

This announcement was all it took for security-savvy netizens (the ones who know just enough to be dangerous) to start speculating and researching the nature of the DNS defect.  The good thing?  They figured it out.  The bad thing?  They publicized it.

As a keen observer of the whole mess, security expert and blogger Chris Hoff decided to dedicate a poem to the DNS Debacle.  I’ve included a short excerpt:

A bunch of big egos called Dan on a bluff said his vuln was a copy of 10 year old stuff So Dan swore them on handshakes and details were provided and those same cocky claims soon all but subsided

Go and check the poem out.  It’s extremely creative, and as far as I can tell factually accurate to the events that took place.  My hat’s off to Chris Hoff for providing the prose, now we’ll all cross our fingers and see how it goes… 

Photo Credit: xtianyves on Flickr

I’m not the only excited local blogger.  See some posts today from DuaneStory and Miss604 (via the twittersphere of course).

The Apple Store announcement on the Apple website provides all the necessary details for the grand opening and even provides links to start booking your “genius bar” appointments.  Time to get my MacBook case fixed again, the timing is wonderful.

Good morning Your Worships, I’m writing this letter to you from the city of Boston where I’m currently on vacation.  The subject of this letter is also the service which is allowing me to send it; Boston’s first open-Wi-Fi project.  The city has partnered with local companies to provide free Wi-Fi access to residents and visitors of the city’s Faneuil Marketplace. I would like to promote the idea of starting up a open Wi-Fi project in the Lower Mainland.  With the pending influx of international visitors to the region, providing an easy way for them to stay connected to their families and report back on their adventures in BC would cast a brilliant light on our ability to embrace new technologies and the region’s vision for the future. While covering the entire region in time for the Olympics is hardly a feasible option, placing the free access in some key locations around the region could be both cost-effective, and provide basic access to a large number of people. A couple of examples would be: - Key Olympic Venues (GM Place, Skating Ovals etc.) - Library Square, Vancouver - Robson Square, Vancouver - Pacific Center, Vancouver - Metrotown, Burnaby - Deer Lake Park, Burnaby I know there was talk about placing Wi-Fi access points in Vancouver a few years ago, in fact I believe it was mentioned on Mayor Sullivan’s blog.  With the  coming international attention on the city, I feel this would be an excellent opportunity to showcase the region’s growing technology sector and to make the Olympic and Paralympic games that much more accessible to the world. Thank you, Keith Murray

That’s it!  I’ll let everyone know if I hear back from either Mayor.  It’s really windy, and I’ve chosen an outdoor location.  Time to run!

This is a move by the city of Boston which will help to improve the level of technological livability and help the local residents to take advantage of high-speed Internet access where they wouldn’t have necessarily had the opportunity in the past.  This got me to thinking about the situation with Wi-Fi access in the Lower Mainland.

Vancouver has no such municipally supported Wi-Fi efforts, despite some rumblings from the Mayor’s office a couple of years ago.  With the large influx of international visitors that will be descending on the city in the run up to the Olympic games in less than 21 months (642 days as of this writing) the city is in danger of becoming a technological relic.  Wi-Fi coverage in the city is rapidly improving, but it’s all being done by local businesses.  Private companies who are offering free access to the Internet to to their customers.  The problem is that these Wi-Fi networks are not standardized or linked in any way.  Though there are many places in the city that you can pick up a signal, you need to constantly re-connect as you move throughout the city.  This makes technologies like voice-over-IP inconvenient at best, and unmanageable at worst.

The City of New Westminster is once again evaluating the merits of city-wide Wi-Fi.  The issue was raised several years ago but never made it to council.  That delay has provided time for the city to learn from the successes and challenges experienced by other cities across North America and around the world.  Michael McQuillan recently published a piece on this discussion and notes that New Westminster’s small physical size make it an ideal candidate for a “mesh”-style Wi-Fi network.

Tomorrow I’m going to head down and try out Boston’s free Wi-Fi.  I’ll use it to send an email to Mayor Sullivan, and Mayor Corrigan of Burnaby to see if I can get their thoughts on municipally-supported Wi-Fi initiatives.

So much in today’s world needs to be justified with numbers showing us that there is a quantifiable value for every decision. When a company spends money, more often than not they want to know how spending that money will make them more money. This is the concept of return on investment (ROI). How to spend $1 and make $2 as a result. (OK, finance lesson over with).

But not everything is easily quantifiable, or measurable. How to measure employee satisfaction or my personal favourite “engagement” with verifiable, hard numbers? These are by nature qualitative measures.

Photo credit: SqueakyMarmot on Flickr

With a new generation of employees moving into the workplace, the so-called Millennials (Gen Y), that values a balance between work and their personal life, companies are having to adjust. In areas where younger workers are the norm, or at least make up a significant percentage of the population steps are being taken to introduce an atmosphere targeted at attracting and retaining talent. By providing games tables, comfortable seating or in some cases refreshments to employees as a “perk” of the job, some companies are aiming to make work a more fun and balanced place to be.

But if you’re wanting to get some leather recliners or a foosball table into the office, how do you justify the benefits of this to the powers that be? Where are your numbers? There is precious little in the way of hard facts to “prove” the beneficial nature of these perks. There is, however, mounds of anecdotal evidence to show that happy and relaxed employees are more productive and more creative during the hours that they are performing their duties.

This is one of the intangibles that make up a balanced work culture and lead to a more relaxed and creative workforce. By providing a “chill-out space” something with comfortable seating and (god forbid) maybe a television, your hard-working employees have a place to recharge their batteries mid-day and continue to deliver for the company until late in the afternoon.

Photo credit: tojosan on Flickr

I’m not saying that companies should employ masseuses, or servers to cater to employees while they’re on the job (as alleged by 60 minutes), but provide some benefits that help to enhance the experience of going to work. Why does work need to be dull and boring? Invest some money. If even one employee stays instead of leaving for another company, it will be worth your time. The return on your investment comes in the form of not wasting productive hours training yet another new employee (probably another millennial).

So in an effort to collect some more of those anecdotal stories, and maybe even some hard numbers, tell us about your workplace. Do you have a “chill-out space” to use? Does it help? Is it something you would look for in a prospective employer?

This time around the groups were: Chefs, Cabbies, Celebrity Impersonators, Backpackers, Flight Crews and Bloggers.  Members of the blogging team included Vancouver’s own Buzz Bishop, and Rebecca Bolwitt from Miss604 and the Crazy Canucks.

At the end of the day, the Bloggers prevailed winning all three of the available prizes.  Check out Rebecca’s post on the victory and the official Test The Nation website for more.

Kevin Naits put together a great little video montage poking fun at the obsessive nature of the thin MacBook. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate that you can put this bad boy in a manila envelope and be none the wiser that there’s a whole computer in there (well, most of a computer)… The video is quite funny though.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkdVymW8C8]

The Canadian portal will focus on Canadian content, and content uploaded from Canadian YouTube members.

[youtube:http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=_y5MfzSnFLM]

Image: jted on Flickr

This image really does illustrate the point nicely (though the Spam cut is probably a bit too small…). I have to admit, that despite the amount of junk email I get, and lots of it is Bacn, I still continue to sign up for notifications of things. I think it’s just the innate fear of missing something. This way I get all the information I might want to read someday, but most likely I’ll just ignore it.

According to the Wikipedia article, and a couple of other sources, the term Bacn was coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh in August 2007. Apparently this is what you get when you cross over-zealous twiterers with Canadian bacon and a boring stint at the registration table.

I’ve noticed that I take a similar approach to some of the podcasts and other feeds I have subscribed. Even though I never actually read that feed from TechCrunch, I’m reticent to delete it because someday there might be a good story in there for a blog entry or some other purpose.

At the end of the day Bacn is self-inflicted, so I guess I’d better shut up and start fryin’.

This marks a great step forward in helping to curb the amount of tech-trash entering BC landfills.  For more informatio on the initiative, visit electronicsrecycling.ca.

If you’re one of those who made a pledge, be sure to follow up on it… tout de suite!  If you haven’t yet made a pledge the Donation link from the Miss604 website will remain active until July 31st, after which you can donate directly from the Surrey Food Bank website.

Well done, Rebecca!

The Surrey Food Bank receives no core government funding. They assist about 14,000 people per month from the communities of Surrey and North Delta. 42% of our clients are children and babies.

If you would like to support this cause, please take a minute to click-through to the Food Bank’s donation page from her site.  She will be keeping a running list of her Blogathon 2007 posts on her site as well.

Good on ya, Rebecca!

Notice from dozens of traditional media outlets, including a lengthy article on our very own CBC.  No doubt helped to spur on the movement, but it was the podcasting and blogging community that really pushed this initiative forward, and everyone who purchased Black Lab‘s Mine Again over the past while has really done a lot to help.  Not only will this help to legitimize social media, but it has also helped put real dollars into the pockets of students who may not have been able to attend classes this fall.

I first heard about this on RadioZoom which is a Podsafe Music podcast based out of Vancouver.  The host, Uncle John referenced having heard about this on the Daily Source Code.  After which I heard about it on DSC, and found the website.

I blogged about it here, and also passed it on to my blogging guru within our company.  Finally, on the night of the Bum Rush, I spammed select folks on my MSN list. Not exactly the practise originally envisioned I know, but it managed four extra confirmed sales.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the next time someone starts up BRTC, or something like it.  These types of efforts show that a small effort by a large enough number of people can have a huge impact.

Thank you again to all those who participated.

The artist of the hour is Black Lab, and their track Mine Again the lead-off track from their latest album Passion Leaves a Trace. The point of this is to prove the power, reach and credibility that bloggers and podcasters have in the Internet community. I’ve included an excerpt from the BRTC site:

We can do better. We can match and exceed the reach of big media, corporate media, labels, and the entrenched interests. On March 22nd, we are going to take an indie podsafe music artist to number one on the iTunes singles charts as a demonstration of our reach to Main Street and our purchasing power to Wall Street. The track we’ve chosen is “Mine Again” by the band Black Lab. A band that was dropped from not just one, but two major record labels (Geffen and Sony/Epic) and in the process forced them to fight to get their own music back. We picked them because making them number one, even for just one day, will remind the RIAA record labels of what they turned their backs on – and who they ignore at their peril.

I’ll be posting a new post and a link directly to the iTunes store on March 22nd. There will also be links from the BRTC website, who have signed up as an iTunes affiliate. They will be donating the proceeds of any commissions made to college scholarships. A way to pay back students who are a major part of the music industry’s paying customer base.

This initiative has support from some fairly significant players in the podcasting world, including Adam Curry founder of Podshow, and host of the Daily Source Code. So do your part. Spend your $0.99 to support podsafe artists and the dream of a DRM-free tomorrow.

Steve Schmid has created the site VoteForRory.com in an effort to get a fans’ choice write-in candidate into the starting lineup of the All Star Game. After three weeks of voting, his efforts, and those of dedicated voters have managed to get Rory Fitzpatrick into 5th place.

Personally, I think this is a brilliant opportunity for the fans to have a more direct impact on the game. If Rory manages to garner enough support, perhaps the NHL will 1: fix the bug which allows people to vote all they want, and 2: allow the selection of the All Star Team to be performed by people more attuned to hockey than your average web monkey.

So go, visit the Vote For Rory website and do your part to change the face of Hockey.

The bakesperson and a crew of many regulars discuss such important topics as:

• Hired Goon School
• Office Laser Tag
• Philosophy
• Methods for Keeping us Safe from Hydrogen cars in the Winter

So pull out your half-baked ideas, and join the discussion. Maybe just maybe you’ll find some creative inspiration here!

When you walk in the door to the 20×20 room with 40 other people they hand you a box — and yes, you’ll need it. There are literally thousands of books on display in the small room and people are wasting no time filling up their boxes, with dozens of volumes on every conceivable subject. I couldn’t resist. I took my empty brown box and began filling it with the ridiculously discounted tomes ( I found a book I’d bought for school earlier this year on sale for $1.00… I paid about $80).

When the dust settled 45 minutes later, the two of us had amassed a collection of 25 books and one copy of QuickBasic 4.5 that I simply couldn’t pass up (for $1.00). I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it… it’s the 5.25″ disk edition.

So if you hear about a book sale at your local library you should really check it out. The bargains are astounding.