Sprawl

For most of us, this would be complete interface overkill. But after seeing Ethan Kaplan, head of technology for Warner Bros. Records, at the Mesh conference this year, I think his brain moves fast enough to make use of it.

Pluses and minuses of living in Canada

Minus: Putting up with second rate mobile phone companies.

This week us Canadians are sitting here watching America go crazy for the iPhone (launching at 6pm this Friday). You’d think now would be the perfect time for Rogers to announce a release schedule for Canada. But no, silence. To rub salt in the wounds we all got a nice look at the AT&T/iPhone rate plans announced yesterday. They are about half the price of a regular Blackberry plan in this country and they include unlimited data transfer!!

Comparison…
AT&T iPhone plan: $59.99 (USD)

• 450 daytime minutes
• 5000 nights and weekends
• Unlimited mobile to mobile
• Unlimited data
• 200 text messages

Rogers Blackberry plan: $112.95 ($90 + $6.95 system access + $6 text plan)

• 350 daytime minutes
• Unlimited nights and weekends
• 25 MB data
• 125 text messages

Today’s USD exchange rate: 0.94

Tom had a great post a couple of months ago detailing our fate as Canadian mobile data consumers. It’s not pretty.

The firestorm will begin in 3… 2… 1…

Get ready to hear from some rather unhappy WordPress.com users over the next couple of days. The hosted blog site decided to remove feed statistics this afternoon, and we all know how much bloggers like to obsess over their stats. WordPress is an incredible tool (hell, I’m using it right now), but I think they might have some very unhappy customers on their hands.

Here is the quote from Matt:

As important to us to be constantly adding new features and functionality for you guys, sometimes we have to retire or prune things that just didn’t work out or that we don’t have time to focus on right now.

So today we bid farewell to our good fried Feed Stats, which tried to tell you how many subscribers you had to your blog and what software they used.

UPDATE: Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought. I guess WordPress users are a mild mannered bunch. Personally, I got around the loss of feed stats by switching to FeedBurner for my RSS feed.

Back to Algonquin Park

Tomorrow morning Rosalynn, Duncan, Deiss and I are all heading into Algonquin park for the first time this summer, and I can’t wait.

Algonquin is an absolute gem in my opinion. Having it so close makes living in Toronto twice as enjoyable. For anyone who lives in Toronto and hasn’t made the trip north yet – Go For It!!

Blogging will (obviously) not be happening in the next few days, but if I can get cell coverage I’ll try to send some photos to flickr.

Have a great weekend everyone.

What a startup can get out of the Mesh conference

I’m sitting here this afternoon reflecting on the Mesh conference, which was finishing up this time last week. I had an unbelievably good time and got a lot out of the 2 days (and nights). In particular, our startup benefited a lot from Mesh.

If you are running a startup yourself, here is a short guide to what you can get out of Mesh next year:

1. Knowledge
This is an obvious one. Pick your sessions carefully and you’ll walk away with some valuable startup tips. In particular, look out for any workshops relating to the basics of setting up a business – funding, legal issues etc.

2. Contacts
Another obvious one. Mesh might be the biggest opportunity of the year for Canadian tech startups to find your next adviser, lawyer, partner, employee, landlord, client etc. Make sure you share cards/details and remember to be nice and email your new friends in the days following the event to say hi.

3. Energy and excitement
I find Mesh like a shot of adrenalin. I have so many inspiring conversations that I leave the conference FULL of passion for my business and for my life. This kind of excitement can fuel you for months.

4. Feedback
Mesh is full of smart and experienced tech minds. This is a great environment to quietly, and respectfully, pull someone aside and ask if they would like to see your prototype product. A quick demo is almost sure to get some constructive feedback that will help you improve whatever you are working on.

5. Media and promotion
Hundreds of blog posts are written before, during and following Mesh. Many people are genuinely interested in writing about new startups. If you seek these people out you might be lucky enough to grace the pages of some very well read blogs. There is also 15 Minutes of Fame – a great initiative to showcase Canadian startups.

6. Friends
Definitely the most important thing I got out of Mesh. I met some wonderful, smart, generous people this year, as I did last year. When you are getting a project off the ground having good friends is invaluable. Be friendly, approach people and make sure you buy a few rounds at the bar!

See you next year!

Photo: Rob Hyndman (Mathew Ingram talks with Michael Arrington at Mesh).

“Eee slaughters the OLPC with ease” – ZDNet

Let me start by saying that I think One Laptop Per Child is a great initiative. Sure, it has its critics, but this is an incredibly ambitious project aimed at making the world a better place – and I would never stand in the way of that.

Selfishly, from the very outset of this project I’ve always liked the idea of owning one of these little green machines. They’re (going to be) cheap, small, fast and rugged – all things that make them an appealing second laptop for the times I don’t want to lug my PowerBook around. Also, the idea of a fairly low powered (dumb) little machine to access all of the web applications (smart) I use to run my life is perfectly in tune with my idea of technology.

So, while we wait for Nicholas Negroponte and his team to get these little PC’s into production, ASUS and Intel have come out with an alternative, and it looks pretty cool.

Here is the word from George Ou at ZDNet:

The ASUS Eee computer will cost a mere $199 for the 7″ LCD model whereas the so-called $100 OLPC costs $175. Given the fact that Eee can run Linux or Windows XP and it can boot off NAND flash memory in a mere 15 seconds, the Eee slaughters the OLPC with ease.

And some more info from CNET Asia:

Like the Fujitsu LifeBook FMV-U, the ASUS Eee PS runs off an Intel Mobile processor and is fully compatible with Windows and Linux. Named after the ideals of easy to learn, work, play; excellent Internet experience and excellent mobile computing experience, the Eee PC sacrifices raw power to keep its form factor at a handy 225 x 165 x 35mm, while weighing only 890g. The unit is also fully connected, with access to both wired and wireless networks though its modem, Ethernet port, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth radios.

Nice touches include the use of a solid-state harddisk that is resistant to shock and drops. Sitting on the hinge just under the 7-inch display is an integrated Webcam for video conferencing.

Community Spirit

(NOTE: This is an extra special guest post from my lovely wife, Rosalynn)

I have just got back from a small farmers market that started today in Trinity Bellwoods Park and I am really inspired. It was great to see local stalls set up and plenty of people wandering through to check it out. The strawberries looked delicious, cheese tasted beautiful and I think each Tuesday afternoon I will be going back to get some bread and weekly greens. It was a really cool feeling to know that this is taking place in our neighbourhood and that people are actually interested in it.

I arrived at 3pm to see the opening ceremony. Joe Pantalone, Deputy Mayor, was there to cut a strawberry – nice touch instead of an organic ribbon :). The crowd then mingled and made their purchases. I went back at 6:30pm to take some photos to find that it had been a great success… the meat was sold out, as was a lot of the other produce.

Thank you to Friends of Trinity Bellwoods Park, the vendors and everyone else that helped make this possible.

See you next Tuesday.

Trinity Bellwoods Farmers Market
Tuesdays 3pm to 7pm
June 5th to October 30th, 2007 (rain or shine)
North West end of the park, at Dundas W & Shaw

2012 Olympic logo

London unveiled their 2012 Olympic logo today. Brutal. Just brutal.

UPDATE: It seems that 32,000 Brits agree, that Wolff Olins could have done a better job with the logo.

Wikis explained in plain english

Next time you’re trying to explain what a wiki is, or if you need a little clarification yourself, hit play on this handy little video.

Thanks for the link Bryce.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY]

First impression of the Lee-Chin Crystal

I was lucky enough to visit the architectural opening of the Lee-Chin Crystal at the ROM today. Here are some first impressions:

Daniel Libeskind has created an incredibly bold piece of architecture for Toronto. I think the Crystal will give architects permission to push the boundaries a little more in a city that has a generally conservative approach to public space. Now architects can tell their critics, “sure, it’s a little crazy, but it’s not as crazy as Libeskind’s Crystal!”

There are a few areas in the Crystal that open up – the atrium and the top floor for example. These have a fantastic uplifting feel and are some of my favourite parts of the building.

Unfortunately, one of the main things people were discussing in the Crystal was the fact that it wasn’t finished. There were floor grills missing, loose wire hanging from the ceiling and muddy footprints on some of the low walls. For a lot of people it was hard to look past this.

At many points in the Crystal Daniel Libeskind shows us the mechanics of the building. He used floor grills, uncovered stairs and glass to give us an idea of how the building functions and what holds it together.

The light is, not surprisingly, pretty spectacular in some of the spaces. As I wandered through the building it was interesting to watch people drawn to it – congregating around the windows.

A building as spectacular as this certainly didn’t need balloons at the entrance :(.

One of my favourite things about visiting the opening of the Crystal this weekend was seeing how excited Toronto got about it. This was the line for tickets on Saturday. It stretched down University and a block into Harbord. It’s not often that architecture takes centre stage in Toronto and I’m very glad that this weekend it did.

FOR MORE ABOUT THE OPENING OF THE LEE-CHIN CRYSTAL:

• Marc at Torontoist has a great post with lots of photos.
• Kagan McLeod and John Richardson from The National Post created a cool animated fly through.
• And for the real fan, there is always the live webcam.