Feb 4, 2010 0
You can call me Mr. Solo Dolo cause i got them beats!
I caved! I did however not give in to the Bigger Dre Beats. These sound great. A little bassy, but that's what you expect. Overall A+!
Feb 4, 2010 0
OEC 2010
This weekend i participated in the Ontario Engineering Competition where i competed for Innovative Design. Unfortunately we had some great competition and our Marketing Plan needs a little work. Regardless it was a great experience and made me a better entrepreneur. Here are some photos from the competition:
more photos to follow soon…
Jan 24, 2010 0
2Guys1Wave #1: Apple Tablet (ALPHA Post to say the least)
Hey all,
We’re having a few technical difficulties setting up the wave. We have recently found out that embedding a public wave does not make it visible to the rest of the web (d’uh). Rest assured we are looking into ways either exporting the contents once done waving. In the meantime Wave users can view the progress so far.
ANNOUNCEMENT: If you would like a Wave invite leave a comment with your desired Gmail address or email contact_at_filipmares.com (remember to replace ‘_at_’ with ‘@’).
Enjoy!
Jan 19, 2010 0
Announcing 2Guys1Wave!
A lot of time has passed since i focused on blogging. I’ve been mostly tweeted out my tech thoughts and sharing (or over sharing) what i thought was interesting. I kept thinking of a way to revolutionize the way blogs are done. There is a lot of effort that goes into a post. I personally do not have that much time to compose and gather all my thought at once. I’d love to write short blurbs and patch them all together over time. I guess that is why i am not a writer/journalist. As much as i would love it.
A new idea of publishing content came to me on a late night of browsing the internet and waving on Google Wave. A close friend of mine and myself wave back and forth to keep in touch. We mostly talk about technology and web trends. I quickly realized that our heated debates and sometimes agreements on matters might make for a good editorial. I was always a fan of conversations and i guess that’s why i love twitter and Facebook so much. The ultimate thing that opened my eyes to the entertainment aspect of blog posts based around a discussion was a piece by Engadget on the Nokia N97. I was blown away by the sheer creativity of doing a blog post mimicking “mail correspondence”. If you have not read the piece i suggest you have a look and i guarantee you will be in tears laughing by the end of the review.
From all this we derive my next creation: “2Guys1Wave”! 2Guys1Wave will be a blog maintained between my friend Raj Paramerswaran and myself. We will be creating blog posts consisting of a Waves in which we discuss a certain topic. Each blog post will hopefully evolve over time into what we hope will be a semi-professional blog post. We plan on discussing such topics as:
- technology
- gadgets
- web services and applications
- events
- cars
- anything else that might interest us at the time
The posts will be on a weekly to bi-weekly basis as all changes we will do will be reflected throughout the week. We won’t be discussing anything we haven’t had experience with as I’d like there to some credibility to what we do. The only time we will do that will be when discuss product rumors and predictions. I will be posting the first few posts on here till we get Wordpress setup just the way we want it for the blog. I’ll announce the launch as soon as it’s ready.
Check back in a couple of day when i will be posting our first 2Guys1Wave post on the Apple iSlate rumors. Just in time for the January 27th announcement!
Jan 17, 2010 0
MindTrust Day 1
I recently got accepted into the MindTrust Leadership program held jointly by the Sprott School of Business (Carleton University) and Telfer (University of Ottawa) School of Management. MindTrust offers CEOs in Ottawa the opportunity to impart their knowledge and experience with the future leaders of tomorrow. The program is broken into multiple sessions as follows:
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Module – 1: Program Launch – Themes in Leadership – Challenges and Issues
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Module – 2: Communication and Influence – Leadership from Within
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Module – 3: Leadership From Within
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Module – 4: Balancing Personal and Work Demands
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Module – 5: Team Facilitation
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Module – 6: Leadership in Action
On Friday Jan. 15th we had our first session at Telfer. After a good lunch, we got started and covered leadership dimensions.
Leadership dimensions:
Self Awareness: Recognition of our personality our strengths and weakness and our likes and dislikes.
Engagement: Engagement happens when the values of an individual align with the work they are doing.
Results Orientation: A strong drive to set challenging objectives and achieve results by competing against high standards.
Communication: A process which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding.
Relationship Building: Building effective working relationship, networks of contacts and partnership with individuals by acting with integrity, building trust, demonstrating respect, and valuing people.
Vision: A mental image of what an individual or organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future.
Are leaders born or made?
There were many disagreements when answering this question. In the end we believe what we want to believe. I am personally of the school of thought that some people are born with some skills and develop other through the many experiences in their lives. A leader can be born with with ambition and determination. With time and experience the person becomes a leader by dealing with conflicts, teamwork and you find your passion.
Panel Discussion - Challenges & Issues:
Julia Elvidge (ChipWorks): “Practice leadership skills. It’s not a natural process, but the difference is noticeable. Learn how to moderate your body language and constantly ask for feedback.”
Don Hewson (HBS Marketing): “Economy made use re-evaluate and adapt our vision. Dealing with inter-generational challenges is a part of a leader’s role. Technology has become a commoditizing profession. It’s a great time to hire talented people on the market. Companies can’t be just profitable, they have to become more transparent and great citizens. They should keep thinking about sustainability of culture. Remember the value of brand and that nothing is forever!”
Claude Haw (OCRI): “I’m a student of the Terry Matthews school of hard knocks. Vision is important when dealing with a multiple group organization. Communication is important. Try and communicate one-on-one goals and motivators. Need to figure out not only where you want to be, but what your values are. Public speaking is very important for an engineer to communicate well with his/her audience. Face-to-face meeting reinforces the importance of community.”
Larry Poirier (Nitro Microsystems Inc): “Try not to be somebody you’re not. Focus on what you do best rather than pleasing everyone. Hire people who compliment your best skills. Know yourself. What gives you value and makes you feel good? I am trying to learn the motivators for our new generation.”
Danny Osadca (Med-Eng Systems): “Look beyond growth and realize that you need to sustain it. When you’re small you can rely on institutional knowledge. When you grow beyond that, you realize that you need to grow a culture. Work hard at creating a vision and have a passionate drive for results. Build a team that is synergistic. You can’t all have the same skill sets since you need to complement each other. Strategy is directional because you can always change it. Go from liking doing and achieving results by moving others to like doing.”
Ed Ogonek (Bridgewater Systems): “Leadership + Strategy (2 of the most loaded roles). There is a confusion of leadership and who’s in charge. You have to do everything in that house to get things done. Unfortunately, when dealing with a large team it is next to impossible to do so. Find the leaders in your team and communicate with them. Many leaders are not managers necessarily. Leaders earn trust and know how to get things done. “
Q&A:
What do you look for in new hires?
- enthusiasm in the company
- drive to achieve something and grow within organization
- skills to solve current need in organization
Do you see any new waves of businesses other than tech?
- still tech, just different technology
- telecom wave passed. it is now growing only in emerging markets
- clean tech, content creation, animation and social networking
- online entertainment because it’s content you don’t have to pay for
- we distinguish our culture by innovation since work can be done cheaper and as fast in other emerging markets
How do you manage collaboration and communication between generations?
- pure money doesn’t matter to younger generation, more social efforts needed in workplace
- get them to understand each other
- remind them the common goal
- sponsor time off for charity work
How do you recognize opportunities in the industry?
- understand the environments and cultures of your locale
- recognize what’s important to you
- look for speed of innovation and get with the pace
What is your retention plan for keeping leader in Ottawa?
- OCRI to provide info to Ottawa students
- There are two times as many businesses since 2000 and same number of employees
The session was very insightful and i enjoyed being part of a group considered to be the leaders of tomorrow. I look forward to the next session on Jan. 22.
Oct 7, 2009 0
Google Maps Street View live in KW!!!
Aug 15, 2009 2
Watch Hulu from outside the US
We have waited too long for access to Hulu here in Canada and are stuck with alternatives such as Megavideo and other online video providers which constantly get taken down for copyright infringements. A little while ago i recommended Hotspot Shield as my #tip-a-day tweet (now #FilTip) as a means to watch Hulu on your PC or Mac. Hulu has smartened up to the proxies and has started blocking all access through them to the site. Fortunately, this week i have discovered another method (more elegant) of watching your favourite shows and movies on Hulu.
You will still need Hotspot Shield as a means to access, but we will be using the Hulu Desktop Application.
Requirements (Downloads):
Instructions:
- Install the above software (Hotspot Shield and Hulu Desktop)
- Run Hotspot Shield
- This will launch a web browser window which will provide connection info
- Once connected you will be redirected to your home page
- Close the browser window
- Run the Hulu Desktop application
- Choose a show and enjoy
- if the video does not load fast enough or you experience buffer delays, select the ‘Low’ quality setting
Conclusion:
Using the Hulu Desktop application allows users to watch their favourite TV shows and movies through the Hulu network in a way similar to the Windows Media Center experience. It has a very intuitive interface and the show quality exceeds all the other video alternatives on the web. I find this a much better experience than the previous web method.
Other Related Links:
Live Sports and TV Channels: http://atdhe.net/
Collection of TV Show links and Movies:
http://www.surfthechannel.com/
Jul 8, 2009 0
Living in the Cloud: Instant Messaging (meebo)
It’s been just over a month since the introduction post of the ‘Living in the cloud’ series of post. I’m going to kicking it off with an important part for all you social users out there (you know who you are), instant messaging.
Normally, a typical user would use a desktop client such as GTalk, MSN Messenger, Yahoo and AIM. To aggregate all these services one can use clients such as Digsby, Pidgin and Trillian. But what if you’d like the same features across all desktops you use? In comes Meebo!
What is Meebo?
Meebo lets users gather their friends on a single buddy list where they can communicate in real-time across different IM platforms, communities, and traditional social networks.
At meebo.com and with Meebo for partner sites, users can keep in touch with friends across dozens of IM platforms, including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, MySpace IM, Facebook Chat, and more. With 50 million people sharing over 5 billion messages and 75 million links every month, Meebo is one of the Web’s fastest growing social media companies.
Screenshot of chat client (of course, i blurred out all personal info)
So Meebo is an easy centralized way to IM on Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Facebook, Jabber and ICQ. There are a couple of ways to chat on Meebo:
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Keep your conversations in a tab in your browser
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Keep your conversations in a separate browser window
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Pop the client and all chat windows out of browser for a more native feel.
You can also install a notifier app which will display new message and logins info as displayed below:
Update: Meebo also supports voice and video chat in browser. The quality is very impressive and carries a great native feel.
This seems to be a lightweight option as it only take about 6MB of RAM.
Overall i find Meebo to be a great alternative to multiple IM clients or an all-in-one. I use a desktop PC , a notebook and occasionally public computers at school and i love having the same friend list everywhere i log on. I especially like having the ability to be reached via Facebook chat when I’m not on Facebook stalking.
So check out Meebo!
