Watching Your Digital Footprints.....

Seth Tee got his first Hotmail account in Grade 4. By high school he was posting content on the Web. Now, at the sober age of 22, the University of British Columbia student realizes his teenage musings are just “a Google search away” for the rest of the world, and there is not much he can do to take them back.

This is a situation I seem to come back to again and again —- paying attention to what you put on-line for the internets to find.

Twentysomethings, and younger, high school age webbies are just starting to realize the long, so-very-long ramifications of throwing their whole life out there for the internet to see.  I am continuously baffled by folks who think it’s ok to publish drunken party pictures, or other juvenile hi-jinks.

Um, hello? When I am part of an interview panel, the first thing I do is google people.  I check to find them on facebook and I shake my head at the *limo booze cruize photos* they’ve posted.

You want to get into grad school? Know that someone is going to check into your internet life first.  Same wth a job interview, same with even getting a first date.

Yes - be on the internet.

Yes - have a digital personal.

Make it be a positive reflection, though.  No one needs to lose opportunities because of something ridiculous they posted to Facebook.

:-(  Sigh.

globeandmail.com: Where everybody knows your teenaged musings

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General Motors Twitters Back.....

I'm not sure how I feel about this.
Krystyn Heide blogs about how GM has decided to halt the construction of a new plant in Flint that would produce GM's new Volt. Blog is picked up in Twitter. GM responds via Twitter to retract the statement...

"just because they aren't going to build the plant, doesn't mean the Volt is not going to be produced." (right, elves under the bridge in Detroit will cobble the Volt together).

Is it odd that GM is battling back via Twitter?
Is it an innovative marketing tactic?
A waste of time?

Perhaps it's the fact that GM is trying to do damage control via Twitter?
At this point in time, is it worth the effort?

On a lighter side (I've always got a lighter side), it's refreshing that dinosaurs are getting plugged into social media.

Online Shopping: Some Merchants Just Don't get It

It’s been one of those years, time gets away from you, weather drags you down, and all of a sudden it’s the middle of December and you’ve got to shop on line, and swallow the expedite charges.

I L-O-V-E shopping on line. I can browse for hours. The warm fuzzy feeling of clicking the shopping cart. It’s a little slice of heaven.

E-commerce and online shopping isn’t new, it’s not even novel. It *should* be table steaks for any bricks and mortar shop. For EVERY bricks and mortar shop. Why is it then, that there are so many screw-ups when it comes to online shopping.

1. I’ve ordered things and never received an email confirmation.
2. I’ve ordered things only to find out (via PayPal) that the order has been canceled (with no reason given).
3. I’ve emailed on-line shops to find out the status of something, only to be ignored for weeks on end.
4. I’ve been sent to confirmation pages that end up displaying a web server error (not a 404) that made me think the order was lost. [it wasn’t and now I’ve got too many ShamWOWs]

I’m still struggling with a boot company in the US, trying to find out if my order was accepted, lost or cancelled. Paypal isn’t any help any more, since the payment has been accepted, rejected and now on hold.
Cripes folks. This isn’t rocket science any more. E-commerce has matured, why haven’t the e-tailers kept to a minimum of service for on-line shoppers?

The Big Wind-Down

Police in the Philippines use water cannon to break up a protest in the capital, Manila, against politically-motivated killings.

… it’s that time of the year. When, in theory, there are only a handful of days of paying attention to work. A handful of assignments and projects to tidy up before a few well deserved weeks of relaxation christmas chaos. This year, it *is* going to be more relax, less chaos.

Sure. I say that every year. Already I know I’m a liar. I’ve got 5 days to get my ducks in a row. 5 days to finalize shopping for the Wiz, the dad and maybe a kid or 2.

5 days to figure out one of the hardest problems at work I’ve ever come across. Whew. Maybe we could push christmas back until the end of January? I’ll be in better shape by then.

Colossal Waste of Money: 2010 Olympics

The Games’ biggest sponsor, Bell Canada and affiliates including The Globe and Mail and CTV, is in for at least $200-million. That represents the largest corporate sponsorship in Canadian history.Bell and its affiliates are paring back, slashing thousands of jobs this year as they struggle to increase longer-term profits. But there is no risk to VANOC, said Loring Phinney, Bell vice-president of Olympic and corporate marketing: “We are a very stable organization.”

globeandmail.com: Can the 2010 Games avoid a financial crash?

Um… helloo?

I’m going to say it right now:

THE EMPEROR IS WEARING NO CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!!!

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Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Alec has got a few awesome things going on - one is how to deal with a bloated inbox. I've really got to organize by conversation. There's nothing worse than responding to somethin that's got 3 new updates to it.

Next, I read the remaining messages using “conversation view”.  That way I can simply read the last mail in the thread, respond and delete the rest.  It’s fast, and very efficient.   It’s even faster, more efficient and easier on the wrist if you ditch the mouse and learn to use the keyboard shortcuts in Outlook — CTRL-R to reply, CRTL-SHIFT-V to file, DEL to delete.Alec Saunders SquawkBox, Oct 2006

You should read the whole article.

Plus - Alec's also got this wicked widget that lets me write my *own* blog article based on a quote from his blog. Zemanta. I want more people to use it!!! ;-)

A Little Sad About Ted...

So very many better writers than I have already written such interesting and thoughtful pieces on the death of Ted Rogers. Mark Goldberg, Mark Evans, and of course, Macleans has a huge, huge section dedicated to Mr Rogers. (I didn’t know him to call him Ted).

Whether you loved him or cursed him, he really was one of the most significant driving forces in Canadian Telecommuncations. He pushed his competitors, the government and his own teams into creating, investing and innovating the Canadian communications industry. Really, no one in Canada has not been touched by Ted Rogers in one way or another. There’s few people who can be described in such a manner. Sigh.

Thanks Mr Rogers.

Westman Communications: A Good News Story

In Canada, there really aren’t all that many independant cable (tv) operations left. The vast majority have been gobbled up by the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco and Mountain Cable. Manitoba might be a different story

There’s a neat company doing its own thing out there: Westman Communications. Last week they announced a new product to their portfolio of TV, Radio and Internet services…. Home Phone Service.

In a world of corporate giants, Westman is very much an entreprenneurial organization, working quickly to stay ahead of the curve, and yet maintain focus on family, community and quality. I had the pleasure of working with some of their technical folks last year. It was a good experience. Heck, all things considered, it was great, who am I kidding. Their teams were nimble and dedicated and always had the best interest of Westman and their customer base at the core of everything they did.

I’m thrilled that they’ve been able to launch what sounds to be a very exciting service. If you are in the Western Manitoba area, you are lucky to have some great choices and options for home communications services. Congratulations guys! :-)

Two Things...

1.  Ok, this is the neatest ad I’ve seen in a while. I fell for the wee lemur sitting in the corner of the MobileSyrup page…..

Nifty the things that advertisers can put together with a bit of fancy code and polish.

2.  What’s the deal with Saskatchewan and the subsidizing of broadband for all? I suppose that stratergy only works when the government owns all the telecom infrastructure. :-( God help any independants in Saskatchewan. (are there any?)

3. Etsy completely rocks my world. Ok, I said there was only 2 things, but this is worth mentioning. I’ve recently started purchasing bits and pieces of beauty from Etsy. The independant sellers sent me email thank yous, included thank yous in my packages, and even showered me with free gifts. Cripes. I think I should invite them to Christmas dinner. They *are* amazing. I check the mailbox every day for more
postal love.

Ontario: Go Out And SHOP

CTV Toronto- McGuinty urges Ontarians to spend this Xmas - CTV News, Shows and Sports — Canadian Television

“But if you don’t buy that car — even though you can actually afford it — if you don’t buy that fridge, if you don’t shop at Christmas time, it can actually put us in a bit of a downward spiral.”

McGuinty said he’s not trying to tell families not to be prudent and responsible, but they should be aware that about 60 per cent of the economy is connected to consumer spending.

Now this is simply bizarre. I understand that he’s trying to keep the weak economy crawling forward, but that’s a pretty insensitive comment, considering all the job losses this week.

Operational Efficiencies in a Time of Economic Turmoil

I’m tightening my belt.
Companies all over the world are doing the same.
In times of uncertainty, it’s *prudent* to be conservationist when it comes to finances. Of course, I’m not saying anything you don’t already know.

But in our house, there are a few levers we can pull to reduce operational expesnes: 

1.  Be more practical with groceries: no more silly purchases. Just the food, ma’am. The diet we are on has helped cut down on frivolity significantly. I don’t buy *too* much any more or end up throwing out foods that have spoiled.  We also don’t have many leftovers any more. Good news for us. Bad news for the dog.

2.  Thermostat: 69 degrees. Full stop. I’m working on getting the Wiz down to 68, but he’s getting old and feeling the cold more ;-)

3.  No more PPV movies. (and no more rented movies) As easy as it is to succumb to PPV movies, we’ve now got such a build up of shows and movies that are PVR’d that we could watch pre-recorded entertainment until Spring 2009.

4.  Controlled Christmas Spend. This is the first year I’ve actually put together a Christmas Budget. In a spreadsheet. In a Google Docs spreadsheet, so I can get to it wherever I am, and from whatever computer I happen to be at. Sure, we usually have an idea of what we spend for Christmas, and it’s always too much. This year, I’d like to have our January bonus (which is likely going to be slimmer this year than in previous years) to go to something other than the Amex bills.
I’m making more gifts this year. :-)

5.  Reducing vehicle costs. The leases on both our vehicles are up this spring. Already we are sussing out the new alternatives. Already we’ve put limits on how much we want to spend. :-) We are going to be able to go from $1100/month on vehicles down to about $800. That’s an exciting $300/month more in our bank account. If’ I’m really tricky, maybe we can get it even lower!! :-)

How are you creating operational efficiencies in your home?

operational efficiency, economy, savings, budget

Allstream: The Good and the Bad

Yesterday, MTS Allstream announced that Dean Prevost would be succeeding John MacDonald as the new President of the Allstream arm.

Dean has always been a brilliant visionary, and this is simply a fantastic move.

On the flip side, it’s November, and Allstream has been partial to November layoffs. The Enterprise group is going through its usual house cleaning, with casualties coming in the form of layoffs and 3 month *wondows* to find alternate roles within the organization. The last big November sweep was in 2005, where over 300 employees were released to the industry.

In these uncertain economic times, we're very mindful of the need tomanage and reduce our costs while 
improving our decision-making speed and effectiveness," said Mr. Blouin. "The streamlining of our executive 
team is but one example of what is happening across the company to strengthen our competitiveness.

There's a Storm on the Horizon

A Blackberry Storm, that is.
From TELUS.
I can’t begin to contain my wee bit of excitement over this phone. I’ve had a Blackberry for 9 years. Sometimes I’ve had to have a cell phone as well as a Berry (since there was a time when the Berry was just a Berry). But I’ve been a one-device girl for the better part of the 21st Century.

I’m not the only one talking about this phone. The anticipation is huge.

I love the look and feel of the new Storm. And you know I can’t wait until it gets added to the list of potential company provided phones. I would even consider subsidizing it:-)

TELUS, Blackberry Storm

SMS Dying in Canada?

A neat article about the future of SMS in Canada has got me thinking. Twitter is changing their service model for SMS messages to Canadians because of the *pricing* that carriers are charging for delivery of those wee bits of bytes.

Hmm..... Considering that inbound SMS messages are charged to the user now, I'm finding it tricky to understand where the additional costs that Twitter is complaining about are coming from.... unless there are a gazillion twitter updates being pushed to a gazillion phones in Canada. Of course, there would be a charge to twitter for putting the messages into the network, but the bulk of the cost of delivery should now be paid by the user.

I wonder if originally it was free for twitter to dump SMS messages into a wireless network? Or it was cheap because there were few Canadians interested in twitter?  Here is a great example of twitter being able to actually build a revenue stream, but oh no.... it's gotta be free. :-(

twitter, SMS, Canada

Work Dreams...

I've had a few days respite from work related activities (sort of, I will admit I've had one eye on the berry at times).... and I was all set for a wee afternoon nap today. I awoke in a cold sweat. I was in a customer meeting selling "Managed Furniture". We had spreadsheets, designs, quotes and samples. I couldn't figure out where the network designs were, or what the real telecom solution hook was. I asked, and the dream people said that it was a full furniture solution. No network.

I hate afternoon dreams. Sheesh.
Although, managed furniture sounds like a pretty neat portfolio.

All I Wanted Was Animal Planet

It was was of those routine things to do: add a channel to my Bell TV Package... certainly not brain surgery.
Last night I invested over 2 hours trying to use Bell's "my bell" service to add The Animal Planet to our account. (Side Note: Starting today, Animal Planet is running a 7 episode mini-series on Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd)

Easy, right?
Ahem. No.

Easy enough to log into mybell, pretty obvious to navigate to the area where you *should* be able to add additional channels, and then all hell breaks lose. The web application coughs, chokes and explodes.

Last night, there were page load delays, painful error messages and timeouts. I tried Flock, Firefox and Internet Exploder. None of the browsers worked.  I chalked it up to a bad night on the server farm.

This morning, i thought the dawning of a new day would bring better results. After all, Whale Wars doesn't start for another 12 hours....I've still got time.

And...... no. The self serve application woefully fails again.
At least the delays are improved when it tells me the service experienced an error.

Sigh.
So much for self serve.
Bell, you are headed down the right track, but if you want people to help themselves, please help your tools.

Bell, Animal Planet, Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd

Checking in on GrandCentral - No News is Bad News

Eleven months ago I wrote about GrandCentral, one of the neat new telephony innovations purchased by Google. Since then, I've got a feeling that the Google purchase has resulted in the touch of death for GrandCentral. In February, I provided a non-status update.

Despite the interest, globally, for GrandCentral, the past 2 years have brought no changes to the GrandCentral site, offerings or availability.
In fact, I've got a feeling that the service has stalled in the US, never mind being able to offer it in Canada. It's not  likely a good sign that their blog hasn't been updated since April 2008. They mention that they are incorporating feedback into the new version. How about "do something". Google, what did you do to GrandCentral?

Valium With Your Milk?

Who would have thought, in Ontario, that farmers are using sewage “sludge” as fertilizer for food crops? It sounds like such an American thing to do… (and I suppose it is)

In Georgia, for instance, farmers fertilizing with sewage sludge discovered the milk that their dairy cows produced was extremely high in Valium. Several major food companies, including Campbell and Del Monte, won’t use food that has been fertilized by sludge, saying not enough is known about it.

Macleans has a horrifying story on the usage of sludge in Ontario farms:

About 120,000 tonnes of sludge are spread on 150 square kilometres of farm fields in Ontario with what critics say is no real monitoring system to track health concerns.

The potential impacts are staggering. It’s a complete contamination of Ontario’s food chain. :-(

Paypal At it Again with Exchange Rate Gouging

Last year, with the falling value of the US dollar, PayPal came under fire for having exchange rates that weren't a reasonable representation of the economic exchange rates between the US dollar and the Canadian Loonie.

It looks like they are at it again. FYI - the exchange rate for October 28th 2008 was $1 CDN= $0.7796 USD.

Paypal Canadian Exchange Rate, Gouging

Hate Crime and Punishment: 45 Days

A 26-year-old man was sentenced to 45 days in prison this week after pleading guilty to a hate-crimes charge, York Regional Police said yesterday.

The charge stemmed from an incident last year where the man painted a skeleton black and hung it by a noose from a flag pole - which was flying a Confederate flag - outside a Georgina, Ont., home.

globeandmail.com: Georgina man jailed for hate crime

45 days? That's it? For being about as hateful and obnoxious as you can be? In Ontario? I get it, Canada's a pretty tolerant place, but do we have to be tolerant of hate crimes as well?

Ontario, hate crimes, Georgina, Globe and Mail