Sunday, April 30, 2006
Cheap eats in Toronto
From one of my teammates (Minaz), comes a link to Now Toronto's list of top 25 cheap eats. Enjoy!
CHI was a great conference this year in Montreal. Nice badges too :)
CHI was a great conference this year in Montreal. Nice badges too :)
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Saturday, April 29, 2006
Say hi to Maggie
A great old highschool friend.
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Selling alcohol on the sidewalk
In front of a school, no less... Oh Toronto :)
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Friday, April 28, 2006
Why we all need Sun...
Larry McVoy, CEO of BitMover, wrote an article in Forbes.com about why Silicon Valley needs Sun. It's funny, because Paul, Leila and I were talking about Sun over dinner last night. HP was the original Silicon Valley garage startup, SGI used to be pretty cool too... and yet, for both of those companies, there glory days seem pretty far behind them. Sun... Sun still has a chance, I'd like to think. The company that brought us rock-solid Solaris, Java, and practically ran the core of the Internet for several years is simply filled with way too many smart people to die. I don't know what's in store for them next, but I for one would love to see Sun really recapture that innovation, spirit and drive they once had. Good luck with it Jonathan!
Code Monkey
Discovered by one of my team-mates Mike, I give you Code Monkey. Perhaps the best song ever, and now the TorCamp theme :-)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Why I love our team
Most people that've seen our user-interface come away pretty
impressed... we've worked really hard to make things lightweight,
simple, fast and easy... and yet, the team all sat down, phones in
hand, for about an hour and we came up with a page and a half worth
of bullet points for things we either didn't like, wanted to improve,
throw away, or that we think are possibly just bugs.
I've got a quote up by my desk now (see next post), and our team
embodies it. I love it. :)
Leila != follower
She didn't GET tagged... she STARTED the In My Lifetime tag thingy...
just to be clear (and save me from some sort of maniacal torture)
simplicity
A design philosophy to live by.
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Phone testing is such a blast!
Phone testing is such a blast!
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In my lifetime
Leila pinged me about this notion of 3 things I'd like to see happen in my lifetime. Her list is pretty impressive... real big-picture kind of stuff... so I'm having a hard time thinking of many different things. Here I go, though:
(1) Humanity and peace trumping politics and economics.
Some of you who know me also know my parents are from Sri Lanka. If you really know me, you might've heard my rant about giving both sides 30 days to come to a peaceful agreement or simply nuking the island out of existence. Harsh? Sure. Rant? Yeah, it is. I'm not sure I'm that serious, but it's a horrible shame to see people at war, for so long... and of course in a civil war, neither side wins. Ever. Go watch Hotel Rwanda... if you leave not feeling ashamed to be a citizen of the western world, you missed the point.
(2) I'd like to see Canada build a real technology economy.
Yeah, it's pretty small relative to (1), but it's one of those things drives me nuts... Canada (especially Toronto) has some of the most amazing minds in the world, and yet we haven't got nearly the innovation economy that we should. Why? I've got a few thoughts. Most of 'em center around a lack of early stage funding and mentoring, and few success stories to inspire those just getting up and running. I think Canada's got the potential to really show the world how you build a thriving economy, a booming tech sector, and all in a country that has really set the stage for what an accepting, multicultural society should be.
(3) Real democracy and education for all.
It's all about education, isn't it? The antiquated education system in North America is putting us at a disadvantage here... the lack of one puts people in less-than-democratic countries all over the world at a disadvantage there. For someone who ran through school as fast as he could, it perhaps sounds a bit odd, but there really can't be anything more important than solving this... people who're well educated don't start race wars or holy wars, they don't let dictatorships take power (often), they don't abuse people, animals or the environment for near-term gain or morbid satisfaction. Hmm... maybe I should make this #1?
In the spirit of passing this on, I'm going to pick David, Mike, and Rob to tag next. :-)
(1) Humanity and peace trumping politics and economics.
Some of you who know me also know my parents are from Sri Lanka. If you really know me, you might've heard my rant about giving both sides 30 days to come to a peaceful agreement or simply nuking the island out of existence. Harsh? Sure. Rant? Yeah, it is. I'm not sure I'm that serious, but it's a horrible shame to see people at war, for so long... and of course in a civil war, neither side wins. Ever. Go watch Hotel Rwanda... if you leave not feeling ashamed to be a citizen of the western world, you missed the point.
(2) I'd like to see Canada build a real technology economy.
Yeah, it's pretty small relative to (1), but it's one of those things drives me nuts... Canada (especially Toronto) has some of the most amazing minds in the world, and yet we haven't got nearly the innovation economy that we should. Why? I've got a few thoughts. Most of 'em center around a lack of early stage funding and mentoring, and few success stories to inspire those just getting up and running. I think Canada's got the potential to really show the world how you build a thriving economy, a booming tech sector, and all in a country that has really set the stage for what an accepting, multicultural society should be.
(3) Real democracy and education for all.
It's all about education, isn't it? The antiquated education system in North America is putting us at a disadvantage here... the lack of one puts people in less-than-democratic countries all over the world at a disadvantage there. For someone who ran through school as fast as he could, it perhaps sounds a bit odd, but there really can't be anything more important than solving this... people who're well educated don't start race wars or holy wars, they don't let dictatorships take power (often), they don't abuse people, animals or the environment for near-term gain or morbid satisfaction. Hmm... maybe I should make this #1?
In the spirit of passing this on, I'm going to pick David, Mike, and Rob to tag next. :-)
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Joey...
The Accordion dude :)
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Don't kill the 12"
I'm sitting in Montreal's Trudeau airport... with my nice little 12"
PowerBook. The 15" MacBook Pro made me (for a short time) consider
getting one and dealing with the additional size and weight. Then I
heard about Ron's new ThinkPad X60s and decided pretty strongly
against that.
Yesterday Apple launched a new 17" MacBook Pro... it's pretty sweet..
actually, feature for feature it's CHEAPER than the 15" MacBook Pro
(isn't there something wrong with this?)
So, anyway, all I'm saying? Keep the 12"... make it even thinner,
even lighter, with even more amazing battery life... and between the
sweetness of OS X, and the availability of Boot Camp and Parallels,
I've got to imagine that such a machine would really hit a new sweet-
spot for Apple in the corporate world.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Apple: Make an ultraportable
So I was talking with Ron (look below and say hi :-) earlier today.
He's getting himself a ThinkPad that makes my 12" PowerBook look
positively obese.
This ThinkPad (X60s, I think) weighs less than 4 pounds when it's got
it's massive 7-hour battery attached... AND it even has a built-in
EVDO card. Now.. a few downsides: a) It looks like a thinkpad. b) It
doesn't run OS X. c) It doesn't have any integrated optical drive...
you need to use the docking station.
To be honest, that last one doesn't bother me... when was the last
time YOU used the CD/DVD drive in your laptop on the go anyway?
So... I have to say, if that thing ran OS X, I'd be pretty set on my
next laptop being a ThinkPad... since the move back to Windows isn't
high on my list (especially now that I can run it on an Intel-Mac at
a decent speed), Apple: PLEASE start shipping uber-light machines
like that one... the 15" MacBook Pro is great... but a laptop that
checks in at < 3 lbs with it's "normal" battery, and <4 with a
battery that delivers 7 (!!!) hours of battery life, is truly
something special.
First day in the wild
We've been working pretty steadily and quietly at Ambient over the
last little while, and we've finally started to let a few outside
folks play with our new work-in-progress content/community platform.
So far the response has been positive... everyone's been able to
figure out how things work, and have been generally impressed by what
we can do, and how easily we can do it (we are admittedly UI zealots
around here...)
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Still quiet on queen st
give it another hour...
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Monday, April 17, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
They actually sell these?
woah, I gotta get one of these for the office :)
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
... and here's a pic of that booksale
.. Ah, almost summer in Toronto...
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Friday, April 14, 2006
First picture from a nokia.
First picture from a nokia.
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
...
Minaz gets his shot at the board.
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Back at the whiteboard.
Back at the whiteboard.
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Making publishing easier
Phones are great. They let you capture all sorts of cool pics and
videos.
Blogs are great... they let us appease our inner narcissist.
Why don't blogs and phones work together well? Dunno... we're making
it better... as the influx of pics on my blogs show :)
On that note, we're still up working away on things... Jay Goldman
over at Radiant Core (radiantcore.com) discovered we had a bit of a
bug (thanks Jay!) ... and it got fixed in ... oh ... 5 mins... our
team rocks!
Monday, April 10, 2006
Friday, April 07, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
checked in at the convention center...
The Las Vegas convention center has those little check-in / boarding
pass printer things RIGHT THERE... so you can get to the airport and
already have your boarding pass in hand. Very cool... and contributed
to my actually making my flight out of Vegas tonight. CTIA was a
blast. Met some fantastically smart people, and think we'll have a
few cool things to announce in the not-too-distant-future. Now off to
Boston (written in Long Beach, CA).
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
WiFi needs to be free...
... in the United lounge at SFO... flight delayed by half an hour
(ugly rain all day long in SF today)... Oh, look there's a hotspot
sponsored by T-Mobile... No, it's not SPONSORED, it's just any old T-
Mobile hotspot that wants me to pay $10 to use it. Thanks guys. You
know, WiFi is free in the Air Canada lounge... like it should be.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Naked Conversations
I'm sitting at 35,000 ft, looking over some gorgeous mountainscapes
between Toronto and San Francisco this morning, and reading Naked
Conversations. (And it's a pleasant flight with the exception of the
mountain-induced turbulence at the moment.)
Anyway, this book is a must-read, but perhaps not for the reasons you
might think. Its not that the book's (yet) revealed any earth-
shattering truth, but it HAS made me think... About blogging,
building buzz, learning from users, etc. Any book that gets you
thinking is worth the time to read it.
I guess the test will be whether I actually get myself into this
blogging groove :)
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Hi-8? really?
So last night I was out with a friend in Toronto and we ended up at a lounge that was projecting a ridiculously low-quality version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... Until we noticed that they were actually using a VHS source (!!!).
So, waiting for the restroom on the plane this morning, I happened to notice that the video source here happens to be Hi-8... NOT DVD... Which, for the daily newsreel they play sort of makes sense, but even for the movie? (I haven't seen The Chronicles of Narnia yet, but I think I'm going to wait to watch it at home with a decent picture and sound to accompany it...)
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