Boss Ross, who coined the name “Blogacatmas“, is even more pleased than I am that it made it into a story in today’s Globe and Mail!
Ross and I both send our thanks to Ivor Tossell for writing the story.
Ross is all giddy; it’s not every day one makes a contribution to
popular culture.
[via Torontoist] Accordion City lawyers say that Segways are catch-22
victims:
Thanks to this catch-22, the only place you can legally operate a
Segway is on roadways in city parks (and perhaps Segway rinks, should
they ever come into vogue).
Naturally, Segway of Ontario is upset at this development, and I’m sure
that Chariot Media, who use the innovative cute-woman-on-a-Segway
advertising platform are none too pleased either:
A photo from a blog entry of mine in 2003
— she’s promoting the CIBC outside Union Station. I’ve seen a fleet of
women on Segways advertising Revlon products on Queen Street West too.
I’ll be speaking at the blogging workshop of the CASCON 2005 Conference
which takes place next Wednesday, October 19th from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel and Convention Centre in Richmond Hill.
Here’s the abstract for the workshop:
Many components of pervasive computing are already in place, including
collaborative and communication applications such as instant messaging,
e-mail, text messaging, and conferencing. In addition, mobile devices
are providing ubiquitous computing and communication capabilities.
Improved methods are now needed to support collaboration that goes
beyond explicit authoring, messaging and conferencing. Techniques such
as collaborative filtering (e.g., in book recommendations by Amazon),
social networking (using systems such as Orkut), and blogging, are part
of an emerging domain of social computing. We are interested in the
impact of blogging and related communication and collaboration
activities, and how social aspects such as community building can
enhance the performance of business activities.
This
workshop will provide a forum for the discussion of issues related to
the development and usability of social computing systems and
applications. Part of the workshop activity will include requirements
analysis for applications of social and pervasive computing. Speakers
from academia and industry will describe their experiences in
researching and deploying social computing applications.
Topics of
interest include: blogs and wikis, semantics, creating and building a
community, e-commerce, and information epidemics. Specifically to
blogs, the workshop will address bottom-up (grassroots, personal,
diary) blogs versus top-down (topic-oriented, corporate sponsored,
political party, etc.) blogs. Other topics to be covered will include
musicblogs, photoblogs, mobile phone blogs (moblogs), and videoblogs.
The syndication and aggregation of blogs using RSS (Really Simple
Syndication) will also be discussed.
…and here’s the abstract for my ten-minute talk…
Businesses have adopted a number of technologies that once
weren’t thought of as essential. The telephone, fax machine,
photocopier,computer, web site and high-speed network all made the leap
from niche gadgets to must-have business equipment. Twenty years ago, a
business without a fax machine would have been considered archaic;
today, abusiness without a presence on the world wide web seems equally
so.
My talk will cover the business applications of blogs and related social
software technologies for companies ranging in size from the solo
entrepreneur to the multinational corporation, based on my
own experience and observing other business blogs. We’ll take a look
at some business blogs that I find interesting, and I’ll tell
some stories of the right and wrong ways for companies to make use of
the power of blogs.
Presenting along with me will be:
Admission to the conference is free. If you’re interested, visit the registration page today!
You may want to check out these links:
My thanks to Alvin “GadgetMan” Chin and Sascha Chua for organizing the event, inviting me to participate and putting up with my general non-availablity last month!
We’re smack dab in the middle of Yom Kippur,
which started last night at sundown and runs until sundown tonight.
It’s the most important holiday of the Jewish calendar, analogous to Easter in the Christian tradition (you might think it’s Christmas, but technically it’s not) or XBox 360 Day
if your religion is videogames. It’s the day of atonement for sins
between yourself and God — you’re supposed to have made up for sins
committed against other people prior to this day.
[Memo to former roomate who still owes me thousands of dollars: hint, hint.]
Another traditional act carried out on Yom Kippur is fasting. In
solidarity with Wendy. who’s not fasting completely, but eating as
little as possible, I’m going to see how little food I can get by with
today. Come sundown, we’re going to “break fast” with High Park’s other
Asian guy/Jewish girl couple, Herb and Jessie and dive into a nice
dinner followed by a tray full of Wendy’s butterscotch brownies.
Since Yom Kippur is technically a sabbath and since I’m showing
solidarity with Wendy, I really should not be working today. Perhaps
I’ll just be completely non-productive today and just BitTorrent some Battlestar Galactica episodes…
[realizes that the boss, CEO and shareholders read the blog]
…er, ah, I mean work like a superstar and maximize shareholder ROI.
We often don’t see eye-to-eye politically and we’ve traded pot-shots
(she called me an egomaniacal dimwit, which is half-right) on our
blogs, but in real life, we get along. Having been a blogger for five
years this past Tuesday, she’s been at it for longer than I have,
during which time she’s become a star in the right-wing blogosphere and
a much-needed irritant to the left. As my most frequent blog sparring
partner, she keeps me entertained, honest and on my toes. She’s Kathy
Shaidle, and her blog is Relapsed Catholic. Congratulations on five years of blogging, Kathy!
Marc “Paved” Weisblott
has noted in his 50 Most Toronto blog that:The
two longtime local bloggers whose names most frequently come up in
conversation about the medium (if hand-waving dialogue with Brett Lamb
is anything to measure things by) are both female: Kathy Shaidle and
Raymi [may not be safe for work — she sometimes posts pin-up shots of herself].
Kathy. Raymi. Several reality show concepts have just formed in my mind!
Google for the phrase “Rodney Dangerfield of instruments” and you’ll get results for:
This one goes out to Mark Frauenfelder, founder of Boing Boing and uke player — Today’s edition of the National Post covers the poor ukelele, an instrument whose reputation was nearly destroyed without hope for rehabilitation by Tiny Tim. Even the combined forces of Urkel, Weird Al and Myron Floren didn’t do as much “de-cooling” to my beloved accordion.
No, that’s not one of my cousins.