PureGin.org

I just saw this GrowLab post about an initiative to get local companies to get listed and link to a directory of Vancouver companies.

Now, I definitely think we can do more to celebrate being based here in Vancouver, as we digital creatives go out to sell to the entire world, but I hate seeing us once again starting yet another directory from scratch!

What other directories could we re-use the data from?

How about Crunchbase (143 companies listed)?

Or Angel List (172 startups listed in just Vancouver)?

Or the StartupNorth Index? Even Techvibes has a company directory!

Now, of the four, I think only CrunchBase has a Creative Commons license that easily encourages re-use of the data. (And yes, I'm still waiting for StartupIndex.ca to publish what their license is, and I've bitched … err, "suggested" to Techvibes that they should have an open license, too).

But it means that companies have an incentive to fill out and keep the information up to date. Both StartupIndex and CrunchBase are wiki-style, meaning anyone can help keep the information up to date.

So, let's re-think creating directories from scratch. Talk to some of these existing sites, and by all means make http://www.vanmade.ca an interesting hub to tell the stories of these companies.

But more stale directories is not what we need.

(ironically, this might have been just a brief comment on the GrowLab site, but comments are turned off)

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Dave Winer is right as usual. Actively pick your news sources (plural, not 1000 like me but at least 2 dozen!), pick real voices, no crazy algorithmic ones like TechMeme or preaching to the choir rags like YCombinator News (I love YC News but really it's so over the top Silicon Valley startup it's not even a joke :-) !)

tags:

• active news reading
• passive news reading
• just say no to techmeme
• just say no to passive news reading
• techmeme
• ycombinator news

I have been trying to buy some roses each month for the woman I am courting, on the monthly anniversary of our courtship. Today, it didn't go as planned - I actually bought the roses, but I forgot to give them - I left them behind in the car when I picked her up for Mass. And she told me later that she was expecting them too. So I felt a bit bad.

How does one deal with the guilt or regret that accompanies failure? She said that I could just bring the roses tomorrow, but you still feel bad because things didn't go perfectly. One approach is to follow the advice of the AA prayer ("God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...") and just accept the fact that it now lies outside of your control, and just move on. But still, you feel bad about the failure. Is there another way to look at it?

You could say, it's God's fault/will (or it's fate). Then you wouldn't feel so bad. But then you'd start feeling bad again because you know deep down that it actually was your fault.

The way that works for me is to realize that yes, it is my fault, but God can make some good come of it. Aquinas demonstrated that God is existence itself; so as I see it, when we mess up, he can order things so that good can come of it nevertheless. There is also a Bible verse that says that "in everything God works for good." So it is interesting to see, when bad things happen, whether any positive things can happen as well.

Such as this blog post! It's something good that sprung up from my failure, and maybe there's someone that will be helped by it.

The Fuji X-Pro 1 sounds fantastic. Big sensor. Some great looking prime lenses and a great EVF. The rumoured $1700 for the body plus $600 for lenses sounds a bit too rich for me so if an Olympus or Panasonic with a great built-in EVF and updated sensor becomes available I still might end up with Micro Four Thirds. Now if only there was a built-in GPS and WiFi option in a MFT 4/3 or Fuji camera then I would have the perfect social camera. Much as I love the current crop of cameras and the cameras I have, it's very annoying that none of them has built-in Internet sharing and integration and an app platform (except the iPhone but except for Slow Shutter I quickly tire of its limited camera; when compared to the N8 and my Fuji X-10 the iPhone 4 camera still seems like a toy)

tags:

• fuji x-pro 1
• social camera
• micro four-thirds
• mft
• panasonic
• olympus
• traditional camara maker mindset
• most cameras will have GPS and internet built-in eventually

(Via Chuq, Lightroom 4 is out on the eve of the 6th anniversary of Lightroom beta 1 back in 2006!!) I have been using Lightroom since Beta 1 six years ago (and I love Lightroom but really don't like any other Adobe software!)! Time to up my game. Re-learn Lightroom 4 (it seems to be have lots of great radical changes in the develop module so my Develop Module workflow which is almost automatic so much so that I don't consciously think about it is now obsolete!) AND shoot more JPEGs (or at least tweak my Fuji X10 settngs to get the most out of RAW + JPEG and just post the JPEGs if they are good enough)

tags:

• lightroom
• lightroom 4
• lightroom 4 beta

that's all I want in 2012 from eye.fi :-) ! Seems a bit ridiculous :-) for the top of the line Pro X2 eye.fi card  to be stuck at Class 6, 8 GB. I and presumably lots of others need faster cards with more storage! I need a card that works with my Fuji X10. Apparently the Pro X2 doesn't work with my X10!

tags:

• eye-fi
• eye.fi
• pro x2
• sd
• class 10
• fujifilm x10
• x10
• fuji x10

There is great momentum about lots of people learning to code this year.

I just saw a tweet from @codinghorror --

RT @codinghorror: "everyone should learn to code" is a bad idea because it presumes code is the solution, when it's frequently part of t ...

— Rob Loach (@RobLoach) January 5, 2012

This is important to think about. First, from a business perspective, many don't understand the cost involved in code 'just for them'.

Hosted services or using open source might be better answers than coding something from scratch.

If you are non-technical and have a *little* money, then you should pay to get an education on how to work with developers. See Derek Sivers' excellent post on the subject: http://sivers.org/how2hire

Second, the happiest day in a real developers life is when she can DELETE code. The most stable, secure code is the code you didn't have to write in the first place.

In parallel to the NOT coding options, I feel strongly about people learning to NOT web host.

Technical as well as non-technical people fall into this trap: I'll just maintain and manage another server, it's "cheaper" than the platform or API or fully managed service equivalent.

All that being said, the expectation for understanding things of a technical nature is higher. Be technically informed, software really IS 'eating the world'.

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I don't have any image editing apps on my Mac other than Preview.app (well, and Skitch), so I was looking for an easy way to make animated GIFs without having to have a dedicated app of some kind.

(All done on OS X Snow Leopard)

First of all, it turnes out that Preview.app makes it really easy to create animated GIFs. See Robert Harder's post for a full tutorial.

Short version: open the Preview.app sidebar, drag and drop your GIFs on top of the first GIF, save the whole thing to get an animated GIF.

But Preview.app doesn't let you loop the resulting GIF, or set the delay between frames. Enter this SuperUser Stack Exchange answer.

Short version: grab and install this precompiled .pkg of gifsicle, then run something like the following in the Terminal:

gifsicle -bl --delay 100 oh_yeah_andrea.gif

-b does batch mode and writes back to the source file name. -l sets looping, which is infinite by default. --delay sets the delay between each frame in 1/100 of a second, so 100 is a 1 second delay.

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Here's a simple way to shred a document by hand. It's easier and more effective than just ripping it up haphazardly.

First, take the thing you want to shred (a document, or just your address), and fold it many times:




Then cut it once:




Finally, put one half in your recycling bin and the other half in a garbage can. If you do that, it should be pretty safe.

A couple of days ago, I watched a movie called "We Bought A Zoo". I thought it was pretty good. Anyway, I liked the following quote:
Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just, literally, 20 seconds of just embarassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

My brother does this interesting thing when he buys gas, similar to "dollar cost averaging" in investing (i.e., investing the same amount each month, regardless of whether the price is high or low).

Basically he pays the same amount at the pump on each visit ($20), regardless of whether gas prices are high or low.

I was trying to think if this has any real benefit, and actually I think it does. When gas prices are low, $20 will last a long time, which is good. When gas prices are high, $20 will last a short time, and you will be forced to retry again soon - so you will have more frequent opportunities to try again for a lower price. Kind of makes sense.

Compare this to filling the tank to the top every time. You will be visiting the gas station at a constant time interval, without the automatic adaptation mechanism described above.

Interesting!

I recently found myself in a dancing situation at a Christmas party, and really had no clue what I was doing. Afterwards, I did some googling on the subject, and found this useful video on a basic dance move that works for a variety of types of music.

If you are as inept at dancing as I am, check out the following video:

In 2012, what other crazy words and phrases should we strive to replace with action that moves things forward for good?

tags:

• clichés
• language
• over used
• abused
• making not pontificating

mongohq  + GS API +  mongoPoll.rb on my VPS + emailReport2.rb + cron = awesome twice daily Thunderbird support report with trending tags, topics, anti-virus, ISPs and mail providers on posterous and in my inbox. Code is open source. Pull requests welcome!

Bugs

1. posting to posterous via email or the API results in truncated posts (I guess that's what happens when you have 2500 line long posts :-)! )

features that i intend to add:

1. trending Thunderbird add-ons
2. trending nouns that aren't: ISPs, Mail Providers, anti-virus, tags or add-ons
3. remove polling, use Web Hooks instead

tags:

• mongodb
• mongohq
• ruby
• cron
• mozilla thunderbird
• get satisfaction api
• posterous

So I am looking for a camera w/built-in Fuji X100-like hybrid viewfinder + interchangeable lenses. Anybody know of one :-) ? Perhaps Fuji will make one such camera in 2012? Pretty please? Oh and it would be so awesome if it had a GPS and WiFi connectivity built-in too so we can finally have a social camera that's not also a phone !

tags:

• social camera
• fuji x100
• evf
• ovf
• hybrid viewfinder
• panasonic GX1

Lovin' the brand new Fuji X10 so far especially the super (1 cm) macro mode.

Check out C Chaan pic below:

 

 

tags:

• new town bakery
• new new town
• new town
• c chaan
• fuji x10
• macro
• super macro

Kalv, since you and Boris refuse to charge me for RSS Hero :-), I would like to buy you lunch anywhere in Gastown, Yaletown or downtown Vancouver before Christmas or in Mid January 2012. Text me  at 6oh47297924 or email me roland AT rolandtanglao.com

tags:

• boris mann
• kalv
• boris
• rss hero
• there is such a thing as a free lunch

don't know why time machine restore didn't fully restore my Mac OS X Lion ruby install but who cares :-) ! And don't know how I figured this out. Other than looking at  the yakshaving to get ruby working with mongodb on my VPS.

tags:

• ruby
• mac os x lion
• yak shaving
• systemtimer
• mongodb
• timeout
• time machine

What is the best Bluetooth headset to buy for recording podcasts while bicycling? My guess is something with great noise reduction like the Jawbone Era.  What say you? (I am not interested in listening to music so A2DP not required, just want to record my off the cuff thoughts while bicycling using an app like Cinchast)

tags:

• bluetooth headset
• cinchcast
• jawbone
• jawbone era
• podcasts

The Zagg Folio keyboard case for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is great for editing (e.g. Google Sites or blogging on your Drupal or Wordpres site with WYSIWYG editor turned off). A fun, light way to blog on the road without having to carry a laptop. Better than a bottom of the line MacBook Air? No but a lighter and viable and slightly cheaper alternative. Recommended!

tags:

• zagg folio keyboard case
• zagg
• samsung galaxy tab 10.1
• almost as good as a macbook air