Last night I revealed how i discovered the Sobeys blog, Countertop Buzz and raved about it.
This morning, it’s all about Canpages, and the Canpages Blog. Part humour, part travel guide, part date guide - and interesting How—To Articles on picking everything from plumbers to lawyers…
I am completely twigging onto how non-traditional venues are picking up on blogging, and extending their audience reach in a very conversational way. Folks are commenting, and conversing and sharing in the Canpages discussions. What an innovative way to look at directory services as interactive applications. And if you happen to be one of the businesses that is the topic of discussion, can your publicity get any better? What a great stretch of an advertising dollar.
:-)
Last night I crashed.
Crashed and gave into the
Twitter phenomenon. I couldn’t take the pressure any more of holding out. ;-) Plus, I had just read an article from
Thomas Purves about Twitter being the Last Refuge….and I pulled the Twitter chute.
I’ve got to admit, I think I like it. It’s IM and Facebook for the 21st century. Right now, I’m a bit addicted to looking through who people are following and who are being followed.
I think as my neighbourhood grows, I will only continue to be intrigued by it…..
So C’mon - twitter me!
:-)
Who would have thought - blogging as an application for a grocery store… but it works. It works fantastically for
Sobeys.
Their site -
Countertop Buzz, features a blog that is full of fantastic conversation on cooking, recipes, tips and entertaining. They’ve got 2 chefs blogging about these different topics, and on first blush, the writing is engaging and personable, the images capture your interest, and I’m hooked!
Chef Ryan and Chef James are entertaining, educational, and best of all, they are conversational.
I can figure out how to cook meat to my preference, get ideas on what to feed troublesome kids and use the blog to get my own creative juices flowing again.
Well done Sobeys! The site is nicely laid out, has got all the requisite blog bells and whistles, and is certainly something that’s going to get added to my RSS reader. *grin*
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Once in a while you can happen upon a *really neat* company, where you think, “wow, I wish I could work there”….
Idee is one of those companies (my apologies for not being able to include the accent aigu to the word)…. Reading through the blog, the fun, the performance and the engery simply exudes from this group of smarties.
Idée develops advanced image recognition and visual search software.
The Idée Blog
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It’s one of those years. One of those years when the Wiz has 2 hockey games on Valentine’s Day. I should have been tipped off that something was amiss, considering he had asked at least 4 times in the past week what we wanted to do for Valentine’s Day. Apparently *TWO* of the other goalies in the
ORMRHL.COM had already been corralled by their sweeties into dumping Thursday night hockey, and the Wiz was enlisted into doing triple goal tending duties. Can you say pulled groin?
Last night was the first night in the *making up for playing 2 hockey games on Valentine’s Day* process. Apparently, when a man can’t make the official day, he has no problems stretching out Valentines to make up for it. The alternative, having to tell his hockey team that he’s being cow-tied into a commercialization of love, is unthinkable ;-)
Last night was Korean Grill House with the chickadees and bunches of flowers.I can’t wait to see what tonight will bring. I think it’s my turn ;-)
If you’re on the fence about Valentine’s Day, check out 4 (or 5!!) Reasons Why Valentine’s Day is a No-Win Proposition
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Had I not been a regular checker of things internet-y, I wonder if I would have stumbled across this news update on the CBC regarding Bell’s loss of customer data. I’m also questioning whether we would have been made aware of this loss, had the data not been recovered.
Apparently Bell realized the data for over 3 Million customers had been lost in mid-January, and was *recovered* in the past week. It’s a happy ending, except for the folks who were nabbed with the data, but really - if the perps were never caught, would we ever have known there was a breach in the first place? Shouldn’t corporations be legislated into releasing the news of a security breach within 24 hours of knowing that there’s been a breach?
Will I be caring about this so much once I migrate all my services off Bell, and onto Aurora Cable Internet this summer? That’s right, 5 more months left in my Bell contract. It’s been the longest wait ever. In August, everything will go. I’m tired of banging snow off the satellite dish. And tired of having a really crappy PVR.
Bell recovers stolen data on 3.4 million customers
I’m paralyzed. It’s my first free weekend since the beginning of December. Really Really. It’s a no-obligation weekend.
I can finally take down the lingering Christmas Decorations.
I can finally beat down the mounds of laundry that are taking over my bedroom.
I can finally get around to making business cards for Floobergeist Fotos.
I can finally cook something more exciting than stew.
I can finally do something with the 400 pictures from the holidays.And here I am, just procrastinating, thinking of all the things I can do.I think I’m going back to bed ;-)
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I was perusing the
news stories this morning, and it dawned on me [albeit later than it should have, since I've been laid up with the flu all weekend] - what's going to happen to Flickr?
I've dodged the Yahoo empire for nigh 7 years - up until they acquired
Flickr, and I had to bite the bullet and migrate my Flickr account to a *yahoo* account to keep my photos moving smoothly. And it was smooth - Yahoo was smart enough to not change a single thing, and to keep the development initiatives of the Flickr application moving forward.
Now, with Microsoft buying Yahoo, do I need to keep adding new accounts? What could Microsoft do to my photos? For some reason, having Microsoft in charge of my photos makes me feel a little creeped out.
Dare I take the plunge and move everything to Google's Picasa Web Albums? They aren't nearly as cool as Flickr. But they also aren't Microsoft. Aie, the devil's in the details.
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In December I noted the evil game that Ebay and Paypal were playing with the exchange differences between the Canadian and US dollars.
Today Ebay decides to reflect parity between the two currencies, and will display prices with more accuracy.
Wow!
The
Ebay forums have been rife with folks questioning and complaining, and now, almost 4 months after the Canadial loonie has gained muscle, they are going to update the systems.
Now if only PayPal will follow suit! :-)
As seen this morning:
The wiz comes downstairs.
Goes directly to the freezer in the kitchen.
Sneakily takes out a ziplock bag and deposits it in the garbage.
Me: What the heck was that?
Wiz: I wanted to make sure he was dead.
Me: WHO!?!?!?
Wiz: The mouse that was caught in a trap last night.
Me: Oh. Thanks for putting him in a ziplock. And thanks for just not putting him in the fridge.
Wiz: Yup. Not taking any chances. See how much I love you?
Wiz walks away giggling.
That's when it occured to me - I've come a long way, baby. At one point in my life, there was a MOTH (man of the house) who couldn't even stand to have the same silverware used between dog and human. And now, here I am, sharing space in the freezer with a mouse-sicle. It's a slippery slope. What's next? I'm afraid to ask.
For the past year or so I've been contemplating podcasts, the value and the growing popularity of them. I've never been a podcast listener, not really, unless it was something really neat. I've listened to
Jon Arnold's Podcasts (But that's because he has interviews some really neat people!!) :-) Normally I bypass the podcast for the actual text of the story...
But now, with my iTouch, it's becoming easier and easier to pack up a few podcasts, especially those free ones on iTunes.... and bring them with me when I'm travelling, as an alternative to music. I am beginnging to find that the creative time available to write my blogging bits is continuing to decline, yet I've got more and more time to sit and think and speak potential blog *monologues*. I can walk through an entire article that I want to write in my head [yes, i admit, i talk to myself frequently] while i'm sitting in traffic.
With the right recorder, I'm thinking that I could do a podcast, as opposed to writing everything. Alas - I'm not terribly convinced about the popularity of them.
I'm not a good listener of podcasts as a rule - I'm a better reader. But is is easier to listen than to read for most people? Am I abnormal? ;-) I suppose the only way to find out is to give it a whirl. It's a shame my current blackberry doesn't have a voice recording function ;-)
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It's a tricky business, differentiation in the telecom industry. Some organizations work on fantastic services, some work on geographic location, some rely on beavers. Differentiation can be found in income trust rebirths, or private sales.
Imagine how neat it would be if one of the big 3 were to dive in to what Mark Goldberg discusses.....the possible sale of Toronto Hydro Telecom.....
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Methinks this may be an entire month of being *behind*. I've been back for 3 days, and am still hip deep in email and actions that deserve action.
Not to worry - before I get too caught up, next week is another week of limited working potential, what with 5 days of conference and meetings.
I'm optimistic about February, so far.
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Aha!
January is a good month. This year I’m off to Puerto Rico. Leaving this morning. It’s going to be my first time having to switch airplanes in mid-stream, and I have little confidence in the whole procedure. I’ve only got 40 minutes in Miami to find my way. A wee lost Canadian gurl. Aie.
For your reading pleasure - see where I spent last January.
See you next week!
Ever since reading about the develipment of wireless memory cards, both SD and CF, I've been dreaming about the possibilities.
Now, of course, I want one *right now*, and they are hard to come by in Canada [read: Impossible].
Still, a girl can dream. I'm going to be in Miami for about an hour on Tuesday, maybe I can get one there?
SanDisk's Wireless SD Card Has Memory
- Telus Is Considering Switch to GSM Network Bloomberg.com: Canada
- Shaw moving into Thunder Bay- Shaw Communications launched its digital phone service in Thunder Bay. Shaw's goal is to claim 25 percent of Thunder Bay's home phone market. The entry of the Western Canadian giant into the city has been at the center of a massive marketing campaign over the last few months and Shaw is hoping to capitalize on what it sees as a market ready for a new option. This is the first real competition municipally-owned TBay Tel has ever faced. www.shaw.ca www.tbaytel.net
- Telus gets competition approval to acquire Emergis - Telus Corp. says it has received Competition Bureau approval for the company's friendly $766 million takeover of Montreal-based Emergis Inc., an information technology company that provides software and data management services to the health care and financial services sectors. Telus said Tuesday the Commissioner of Competition has advised the company that she does not intend to challenge the transaction under the merger provisions of the Competition Act. www2.telus.com
- Kenora Municipal Telephone System sold to Bell Aliant - The City of Kenora and Bell Aliant announced that they have entered into an agreement under which Bell Aliant will purchase the assets and business of Kenora Municipal Telephone System (KMTS). Bell Aliant says the acquisition is a natural fit since Aliant already serves customers in Jaffray Melick and other neighbouring areas of Kenora in Northern Ontario. The proposed transaction is subject to final approval by Kenora's City Council following a public information meeting which will be held in Kenora on January 15, 2008. www.aliant.ca
Check out The Fox Group for additional details.
What do folks do with the plethora of online images that they have, that may be strewn about the internet? Am I the only loser who's got images with
Flickr, with Picasa Web Albums and with
Facebook?
I use the different buckets to help differentiate usergroup permission, and to deal with the fact that some folks aren't using some applications, and to also simply simplify some of the Picasa things that I do.
Some may say that it's ok to have multiple copies of the same photos on multiple image applications. Me, I think that's just adding digital litter to the internet. In a perfect world, there would be one bucket, and I could choose which apps to dole out images to. Images would reside in one place, and be *pulled* as needed into the various apps that would become a vehicle for delivery, as opposed to being a vehicle for storage.
What do *you* do with your images? Are you disciplined enough to have only one image application?
In this era of digital personas, profiles, accounts, applications and media, how does one keep track of all the online lives they have, so that in the event of a terrible, unfortunate incident, these digital accounts can be closed off and taken care of. This morning, i bumped up against a scrap of digital ghost-iness from one such lovely lady.
I re-read her out of office message in Instant Messenger, and it brought back the proverbial flood of rememberies and goodness. And then it made me think.Do we need to have digital estate executors? Someone to tidy up after us, after we’ve gone on to new adventures?
Do *you* know all of your on-line accounts? Your Linked-In, Flickr, eBay, iTunes, online banking, PayPal and Facebook accounts can keep going for a *long* time. Would a loved one be able to housekeep for you? Do you have a file saved with all your on-line accounts and passwords? Does it really matter? Likely it matters, if only to keep those folks still in the analog world from rubbing up against your digital personalities in the future. Me, I’m going to set up a digital estate executor.
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