Check it out, I’m in this week’s Galacticast! Galacticast is an award-winning weekly comedy/parody show based in Montreal, produced by Rudy Jachan and Casey McKinnon. Just plain awesome.
Here’s the YouTube version, but the quality is not so great so I’d recommend you watch the higher quality version on the Galacticast website.
OK, so this is not tech-related, but the show is produced by Montreal Tech Community members… and besides, I’m in it. So there. ;-)
Thanks for coming to BarCampMontreal2 everyone! As usual it was a blast. And man, am I tired after such a great day!
So I present, as usual, my after-camp Wrap-Up, which is just links to the reports various folk are kind enough to write up. :)
First things first: BarCampMontreal2 pictures.
Now, the list of reports:
See you guys again soon!
BarCampMontreal2 is almost upon us! It will take place this Saturday, April 28th.
To be very honest, I’ve been intentionally keeping quiet and taking a bit of a back seat for this BarCamp. This is really kind of to force the community to pick up the ball and run with it: Afterall, the *Camp community will go nowhere if I have to constantly push it myself, right? Well, I have to say so far I’m quite impressed! As of 4pm on Thursday there are already 23 scheduled presentations and 53 registered attendees.
I have to thank several BarCampers for stepping up and doing the heavy lifting on BarCampMontreal2, including (but not limited to of course!) Simon Law, Sylvain Carle, and Laura Vizbara.
I would also like to give a big Thank You to the sponsors of this edition of BarCamp. They are:
(If you or your organization would like to sponsor this worthy initiative, we are always looking for sponsors so please get in touch with me at fredngo at gmail!)
The press is picking up this edition of BarCamp as well: Here’s a recent article by La Presse, and our own Sylvain Carle will be interviewed on CIBL radio for the show Citoyen Numérique today.
This looks like it’s going to be another great BarCamp. See you on Saturday and don’t forget to register!
Update: I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for PowerPoint Karaoke, being organized by Martin Dufort. Any other takers? (What is PowerPoint Karaoke?)
Our friend Mat Balez is looking for a partner for his project: codename::ideack.
From his posting:
I’m looking for someone to help me build the thing, likely in a partnership capacity. Someone with significant Ruby on Rails (or Python/Django if you are convincing) and Javascript expertise to lead the site’s development, and with design chops sufficient to create something that might be characterized as ‘easy on the eyes’.
If you are this person, you will be:
– passionate about web technologies
– capable of building software that will scale
– eager to work hard to help bootstrap a cool new web project
– an all around good person
– preferably based in MontrealIf interested, send me an email and we’ll get together to chat further.
Best of luck in your partner search Mat! I’ll be fully supporting you in this project as we start to create a startup culture in this town of ours. :)
Why is it there is no SIGCHI local chapter in Montreal?
This is old news already, but it looks like I won Montreal Tech Watch’s Montreal Innovator of the Month award for March!
For my acceptance speech, I will just say that I am so happy the Montreal Tech Community is finally coming together like it’s never done before. It’s like a dream come true. This is especially true for budding entrepreneurs (like myself many months ago) who keep running into dead ends in their networking efforts—it is now easier than ever to get “plugged in”; what with all the events popping up like BarCamps, DemoCamps, Tech Entrepreneur’s Breakfasts, Web Analytics Wednesdays, and the news and community sites that are bringing people together, like Montreal Tech Watch, TechnoCite, and the Montreal Tech League.
I also have a couple of aces up my sleeve that will be played soon (all to the benefit of the Montreal Tech Community of course) so watch for them. :)
Thanks Heri. I know it’s a virtual award and all that but it was still a fun experience!
Today I am finally unveiling the new startup that I keep talking about — StandoutJobs. I am working on StandoutJobs with two incredibly rockin’ co-founders: Ben Yoskovitz and Austin Hill.
If you’ve been reading our blogs, you may have noticed that we’ve brought up recruiting issues from time to time. Unfortunately we are not yet prepared to announce more than just a landing page, but you can be assured that we are out to do no less than totally change the way recruiting is done. It’s gonna be a wild ride and I hope you’ll come with us.
Finally, I have to echo Ben’s sentiments in saying that it’s an absolute blast working with these two guys. I too have already learned a huge amount and I have never felt more challenged or inspired in years.
So whatcha waiting for? Leave us your email address at standoutjobs.com and you’ll be the first to know when things start shakin’ and bakin’.
A quote from Paul Graham’s latest essay “Microsoft is Dead“:
I’m now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s.
This phenomenon is easily observed at the BarCamps and DemoCamps here at home as well…
I too have to confess that I’ve also switched to Mac. I made the switch when the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros were released last November, but interestingly enough, my reasons for switching were more pragmatic rather than idealistic.
I was at a point where I needed to replace both my old desktop (4 years old) and my old laptop (2.5 years old). I added the numbers up, and figured that the new MacBook Pro would serve just fine as a new laptop and desktop replacement, for basically the same amount of money!
Another big reason for the switch is that I had already been using Linux on my personal machines for more than a year (and using it professionally for way longer than that), and the fact that OS X is built on top of a Unix kernel is just phenomenal. It’s like having the command-line power of Unix without the crappy user interface.
One big enabling factor for the switch is the mass migration to online tools. I used to be an Outlook Slave for many years, but ever since I adopted GMail, wikis, and other online tools it was much easier to make the switch to Linux and then Mac.
So far I’m very happy. My MacBook Pro does have some glitches; it crashes hard occasionally, but mostly when entering or exiting sleep mode. I’ll have to get that looked at some time… but it’s probably a tiny hardware glitch and nothing that the Apple stores can fix anyway.
One great thing about OS X is that, in contrast with Windows, it rarely ever asks you to “Confirm” stuff, and 3rd party software rarely ever forcibly notifies you of silly things (“An update for your HP printer driver is available!”). The OS just gets out of the way and lets you work.
I’ve had to learn a whole new set of tools on the Mac, but it’s been really fun and worth it! I’m now using the fabulous TextMate for day-to-day work and let me tell ya… I can’t and won’t ever go back to plain-old Emacs and plain-old X-based UI again.
One other thing; and I’m not sure if it’s just a placebo effect, but I feel I’ve been way more creative since I started using a Mac. Fact or Fiction? Who knows. :)
Heri of Montreal Tech Watch has started a cool new project — the Montreal Innovators Award — and I’ve been nominated for March!
So, here’s a not-so-subtle call for votes… Yes, my dear readers, please vote for me!
But in all seriousness, it’s a great initiative and I hope it takes off. May the worthiest innovator win. :)
I’ve been researching Venture Capital lately and I’ve found a couple of good resources I’d like to share with you.
First is a very new blog called Venture Hacks. It is an “Entrepreneur’s Guide to Hacking Venture Capital”, and has some great insights into the VC process. It started on April 1st but is definitely not a joke. Highly recommended.
Second is Brad Feld‘s Term Sheet Series. It explains all the various ideas related to the term sheet, such as Drag Along, Anti-Dilution, and Pay-to-Play. There is a lot of stuff here and I’m still getting through it, but so far so good.
Silicon Island 