BB bold to have Skype?

Technovia: UK BlackBerry Bold to come with Skype - how long to have this in Canada now? We're not quick on this sort of stuff here, I hope it will be sooner than later.

Gmail and Google cal on googleGear!

Google Gears Coming to Gmail and Google Calendar Soon - ReadWriteWeb
Please please please - Wouhoou if it's true! Like the post says as long as there is no offline mode, I can't have gmail my main client, although I use the backend. Getting the contacts through SyncML is great, if only the BB had a SyncML stack built in like many other phones. I wonder when Google is going to come up with a task management system, or buy RememberTheMilk.

YouTube monetizing

Schmidt: YouTube + ads = 'holy grail' | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Is it me or there is something wrong with the following paragraph?

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt has spoken more than once this year about monetizing YouTube, but he showed some signs of patience on Thursday for finding a new, good way to sell ads on the video-sharing site. And when Yahoo gets the mechanism right, Schmidt said he expects to hit the mother lode."

unless I missed a press release recently about Yahoo and google!

From the wouldn't-that-be-great-coup dep: Hawking in Waterloo

Physicist Hawking ponders move to Canada | The News is NowPublic.com
Apparently the invite has always been there for him to join the Perimeter institute of waterloo(which was founded by no other than Mike Lazaridis, co-ceo of RIM). I still remember reading A Brief history of Time and being in total awe about how easy it was for this guy to explain all that complex science.

Pure physic is a long shot, but developing leadership in that field is no doubt a great investment for the whole country.

Ottawa and Plasco Group getting down to business

Ottawa Building North America’s First Gasification Facility | EcoGeek - I don't know how I missed this one, and I had to pick it up from EcoGeek, but this is good news. Ottawa apparently has unanimously voted to have Plasco setup a full fledged thrash processing plant. It's technology I don't understand, but after hearing Rod Bryden the ceo talk about it, I wanted to give him money. He is a very good salesguy no doubt, but I also think his group has got something going -it's not smoke and mirror. I'm very happy to see Ottawa buy local.

Blackberry or iphone - which is it going to be?

BlackBerry busted - iPhone success sees analyst RIM downgrade | 9 to 5 Mac - one analyst thinks it's not RIM who has the winning hand. From the coolness factor Apple has the winning hand, but RIM in my mind has got a very full fledge enterprise offering, manageable by the IT department of large organizations. I think it would make RIM the kingpin of the Enterprise compared to iPhone. Apple has got a long way to go to get enterprise ready, and this is if they even care about that market.

Successful hiring

Official Google Blog: Our Googley advice to students: Major in learning -
here is a good short blurb on what Google thinks. The usual suspect - analytical reasoning(being able to see beyond the obvious), willingness to experiement(ie it's ok to be wrong, i will find another way), communication skills(can you explain what you've done), team player(it's too bad when you have to go to a really smart guy/gal and say: look you really got to work on your people skills because nobody wants to work with you.), passion and leadership(no no leadership is not a bunch of people doing what you asked them to, it's the ability to inspire others to follow) and one that I really want to single out Passion, in my mind the person I hire must have a spark if not it won't work.

For the calculus freak in you, and a post similar to this see Passion:
if G = gift out of the factory, how intelligent one is, the raw talent
if P = drive, desire to make things happen, take on challenges...
if t = time

Successful candidate = G + Pt
the first derivative is P, over time what really matter is Passion. So I know it's over simplified but my point is simple - without passion in what one does one will not excel or contribute to its fullest to the organization. The passion post I wrote explains how a company should think its interview process with that in mind. For the hockey fans out there check out Alexandre Daigle, what do you think - lots of talent of out of the factory, but no passion - top pick for the ottawa senators, but ended up being booted out for two dozens hockey sticks.

Does anyone know when Kindle will make its way to canada?

Kindle 2.0 Coming Around October 2008 - amazon is talking about the new version and we still have no word here in Canada where we stand on the kindle front. So what's the scoop Jeff?

TOP and OCRI for Innovation Hub

It looks like the innovation hub is making some progress. I'm very happy that Ottawa is standing up for its fair share of money regarding this kind of infrastructure. I was at the Mars center in Toronto, it's pretty impressive and vibrant place to visit and work. I'm also very happy that the site they are looking at in Ottawa is downtown. There is so much going on in the market now, this will help create even more tech activities in that area.

Mining and lakes - a toxic combination

Lakes across Canada to be used as toxic dump sites | The News is NowPublic.com

I don't know if you've read about this story before but it frustrates me. The situation is mining companies are using lakes as a reservoir to dump their toxic waste - resulting from their mining activities. I can't believe that in 2008 with all the awarness around the environment it's still acceptable to do so. This is one of the reason why I think we must seriously factor in the environmental impact of our activities - and make it show on the bottom line. Should we have any framework in place to make sure the impact on the environment is considered in the earnings of a company - this situation would not have its place in Canada. Maybe this would drive business elsewhere - yes maybe.

Vista SP1 con't - take III

AS you may recall from my posts - my journey to SP1 has been anything but easy. I'm now proud to announce that I'm running a new and improved windows Vista, SP1 finally did install. How so I hear you ask - well finally Windows update has informed me it was ready to install SP1 on my machine and it has successfully installed. Who said a machine was not better than a human, in this case it's Machine 4, me 0 - 4 being the number of times I tried to install the darn thing. I'm now crossing my fingers that my machine is now going to be much faster and reliable. For example that darn WMI service crashing on me all the time. ok now back to enjoying my new life as a member of the SP1 club! ta-ta!