Merry Christmas to all...

i've added a thank-you to our site...have a massive 2008 everyone...

lifehacker...web apps list...

found a great little web apps list at lifehacker and thought you'd like to see it...i haven't tried all the suggested software listed there, feel free to make a few suggestions of your own if you know of something more effective...

to be clear...

i'm not at all adverse to people choosing to be environmentally responsible. the point of the last post and rant was to express my lack of respect for government who simply feel it's their duty to grow, tax and fine the population in order to look like it's proactive...

how about reduce in size, become more effective with less and motivate and reward rather than the current standard of tax and fine? red light cameras and photo radar as examples of the cash cow mentality...

i understand it's necessary to create new laws because our world is ever changing and sometimes we aren't responsible enough ourselves, such as turning off our vehicle while in a drive-thru for example or during extended periods of idle time. we shouldn't need a law for this type of commonsense, that said, we're lazy in many ways and so to effect any real change rather find a non-bylaw solution to motivate the population, they opt for a lack of creativity, write a poorly constructed bylaw and the result, well that varies from ridiculous to ineffective.

it's against the law to speed, vandalize and do all sorts of much worse things - all for the most part commonsense...yet every day there is a lack of motivation and general accountability enforcing these rule breaking behaviors in many and the police are kept very busy.

i suppose that what i'm asking for here is much more difficult than simply creating a new bylaw and then let the police handle enforcement...i probably shouldn't ask too much of our governing bodies...if they stray off the beaten path too much then the non-creative segment of our community will question as to why they didn't just simply pass a bylaw and be done with it...

i'm clearly speaking about a much bigger issue than a anti-idle bylaw...that was really my point.

time to rant...

RESPONSE: Putting a stop to idle time

Victoria Handysides
News Staff
Friday December 14, 2007

As a private Sherwood Park Chevy Tahoe driving resident, I’d like to comment on this issue from another perspective. Regardless of whether this is a good environmental idea or not, let’s take into consideration the potential collateral impact of this idea “when it comes down the road” here in Strathcona County.

First, drive-thru revenue is crucial to those businesses that have them…cutting that puts people, including the elderly and others on fixed incomes (whom often take these jobs out of necessity due to things like a 9% tax hike) out of work. Secondly, look at this from a family perspective, mothers use the drive thru option. Why? So that they can get a cup of coffee, lunch for the kids or remove money from a bank account and they so don’t have to unpack all the kids and stand in line for lunch on the way home, many of our councilors are well past those years now and may have forgotten what it’s like.

Further, here in Strathcona County, we’re very unique in the region, we have a considerable amount of large industry paying taxes to help with our high standard of living and “we” (including myself) am very happy to invite and welcome billions more in investment of this type, (investment that both the City of Edmonton and Strathcona County are willing to fight over by the way.) We could balance this by focusing on attracting clean technology businesses but our Mayor thinks we’re already very well diversified on that front and so we don’t have a strategy for that, but that’s another story. By the way, during the past election she referred to in part the very businesses that would be directly affected by a bylaw of this type as part of that strong diversification. On the downside of those positive press releases stating another upgrader investment to locate here, comes a certain amount of pollution, not a surprise to this community, since that’s been its bread and butter for decades now, regardless of whether “they’re diligently operating within accepted air quality parameters” or not, that’s a fact, just look outside your window. So, who is adversely affected by this fancy new environmental stewardship? Well, almost everyone but certainly the elderly segment of our steadily aging population whom are still able to drive. Many whom are suffering from poor circulation or arthritis for example, which is a larger issue in -20 to -30 weather and requires a very warm vehicle to help alleviate the affects, I guess we should just say that all elderly should stay home in the cold or be prepared to shut off their cars, get off their lazy polluting duffs and quickly hop into the store…And should they fall and break a hip while being strong environmental stewards and obeying the law? I guess in the name of environmental stewardship we should accept that resulting increase in healthcare costs, how many beds does our soon to open new hospital have? How many elderly care facilities do we have here in Strathcona County?

I’ve got an idea that will actually address the “cut emissions during rush hour” issue…pass a car pooling bylaw, all residents traveling to and from the City of Edmonton must car pool or take public transportation unless you’re driving a hybrid. In the name of environmental stewardship, “let’s tax em and fine em”…I can hear the battle cries in the halls now…

But by far my favorite lead by example idea, another bylaw may state that all of Council must use Strathcona County public transportation to travel within County limits and when traveling to the City of Edmonton. That might actually be feasible if this Mayor and the last Council hadn’t lost touch with the needs of the citizens.

I suppose the positive irony out of all of this is that once our aging council decides to finally retire they’ll still be subject to their own law. May we be greeted by them at a fast food drive thru sometime soon, oh wait a minute, I forgot about those great pensions…

dell has the guts to see it through...

i was cruising by horsepigcow.com and came across a video post regarding dell's blog and social networking strategy. i commented on the fact that i don't believe the story to be that unique, many large companies have experienced a loss of direction and fallen out of touch with their customers which has adversely affected their bottom-line (example below).

however, dell is probably unique in the sense that they had the guts to follow through with the strategy properly through the bad and the good. by the way, it should be noted that i've been to dell's Canadian hq when conducting business with them and found the people i was doing business with very friendly and ethical, unlike the experience this guy had some time ago, actually i found a lot of these types of blog posts...

one final note, i have in the past purchased a dell machine, an inspiron was my first laptop, i have not went back to them because of a few reasons but mostly because i have a client Alan Wong, owner of honor computer systems who sells computers locally and i choose to support him whenever possible.

open source marketing???

my new facebook friend Jeremiah Owyang - web strategist and all around good guy has a video on his blog where a group of guys talk about the need to develop a more aggressive open source marketing strategy, that would include more corporate like action. (my comment is on his blog). i mention that i like the idea in spirit, however, i've worked with programmers who "rage against the corporate machine", all i can say is good luck boys...

POST method report...

i dropped in on Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's blog this morning, the first time in a while and found some interesting work their doing as part of their role at forrester research. i've wanted to for sometime now move to the next level of discussion with respect to how to truly maximize one's efforts regarding social networking etc...

and this morning it seems as though Josh and team are zeroing in on that very subject...cheers guys...

POST stands for "people", "objectives", "strategy", "technology", everything a growing social networking neophyte should consider before launching the big blog...i've put in my request for a look at their recent report and hope to get a response and the report so that i can report to you and back to them my thoughts...

think before you drink...

having just been traveling, i wish i would have seen this video prior...UNBELIEVABLE!!!