Acquisitions

Posted on May 23, 2007 by mfagan

I think there are two web companies in the last few years that I’ve really wrote here about how great I thought they were, JotSpot and Feedburner. Now 2/2 acquired by Google… of course, let’s hope this purchase goes better for Feedburner than it appears the JotSpot one went for them.

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Popfly

Posted on May 18, 2007 by mfagan

Popfly – I heard about this first though email, but it’s all over the web as well. Microsoft has done an amazing job of making it really easy to combine web services, and I only hope that the output itself (something in an iframe?) is just as web malleable as the services it uses.

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You Are What You Grow

Posted on April 23, 2007 by mfagan

You Are What You Grow – this is a very true and depressing story of the massive implications of the US’s farm bill, which everyone should read. Via del.icio.us.

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SmugBlog: Lifetime free Pro accounts to developers

Posted on April 20, 2007 by mfagan

SmugBlog: Lifetime free Pro accounts to developers – now that is a smart idea

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Don McMillan

Posted on April 15, 2007 by mfagan

Thanks to PowerPoint: sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying I found out about Don McMillan. The first two clips on there are absolutely fantastic. That lead me to his site, where part of his demo video had me laughing for longer than I’d like to admit, and it was actually his non-technical jokes.

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EMI, Apple Are Announcing Sale Of Non-DRM Music for $1.29/song

Posted on April 2, 2007 by mfagan

EMI, Apple Are Announcing Sale Of Non-DRM Music for $1.29/song – I only follow the music business peripherally, but this could be the start of things that tip the balance in the right direction. Or it could be just a blip.

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Greening businesses, one step at a time

Posted on March 30, 2007 by mfagan

Greening businesses, one step at a time – somehow I got dragged into writing an article for my campus paper this week about an event (Environment and Business conference) I was attending.

Anyhow, writing for a newspaper just felt really wierd, almost like going back in time ;-). I’m much more accustomed to my blogging style (obviously). The article was supposed to be a fixed length, of course, which just feels funny. Writing from a semi-neutral tone was the hardest part, I’m so used to using “I”… it just seems so drab otherwise.

Then I submit the article to the editor. “So, I guess you edit it and send it back to me?” I asked naïvely. Of course not, they just make their changes, then publish it, with my name on it of course. Naturally I’m not hugely in favour of the changes, as what person likes their writing modified? My biggest complaint? They took away one of my exclaimation marks.

Oh, one last point… I wasn’t responsible for the headline, subheading, photograph, or photo caption.

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Systems Design Engineering Workshop Projects

Posted on March 21, 2007 by mfagan

2006-2007 SYDE 461/462 Workshop Projects – I’m no big fan of my school itself, but I’m a huge fan of the students. Today I checked out the systems design engineering fourth-year project on display and pretty much every one of them was amazing, and many of them look very commercializeable or otherwise realizeable. Note that the list on the page is incomplete, some of my favourites aren’t listed there.

update: I’m not the only one that thinks so: Touchscreen Smart Mirror: Widgets in the Mirror – Gizmodo

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BarCamp / BarCampWaterloo

Posted on March 3, 2007 by mfagan

BarCamp / BarCampWaterloo – went to the third BarCampWaterloo today, it was pretty cool. It’s always neat being able to talk to people without first mentally determining how to explain it, where you can throw out words like microformats and OpenID without getting confused looks.

This time there was actually food (thanks to Tech Capital Partners), which improved matters greatly. Turnout was small to begin with (hmn, Saturday morning), but overall was not bad, with a record two females. It would have been nice if more people had presented, but it wasn’t hugely deficient, and I got to learn about ham preservation.

I showed off my Quizify tool (no link, it’s still not quite ready), and it seems like people liked it. Larry liveblogged some of the event, and in the crowd photo, I’m just too far to the right side to be in the shot 😉

I’ll miss the next BarCampWaterloo (I’ll be in Seattle), but hopefully can present or at least attend the one next fall. Thanks to Jesse for putting all this together.

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London Free Press – Local News – Ban on clotheslines put through wringer

Posted on March 2, 2007 by mfagan

London Free Press – Local News – Ban on clotheslines put through wringer – so for a couple of weeks I’ve been pondering putting together a one-page poster infosheet to convince people to hang-dry their clothes rather than use appliances. (Also need to work towards accomplishing this myself).

Today on CBC Radio I hear that some cities are banning clotheslines? I’ve never heard anything so isane (well, okay, anything from the Bush administration, but still).

They’re more environmentally friendly, cheaper, make clothes last longer, etc. The supposed “problem” is that people don’t like seeing each others’ clothes. That’s just ridiculous and is yet another symptom of the North American attitude of everybody being afraid of each other. So much for community.

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