In Canada we’ve been experiencing a fairly large scandal involving Robocalls to Canadians surrounding the 2011 election. I’ve been frustrated with Robocalls for several years and the lack of regulation by the CRTC. A few years ago I kept getting Robocalls from a collection agency ( trying to reach someone named Brandi ) and recently […]
The Great US Paywall
I was recently in Florida for a Vacation and purchased an Amazon Fire device. The device is very similar to the Barnes and Noble Nook I purchased last year but I thought the Amazon content and store would provide a better experience. The first thing I did was sign up for Amazon Prime Trial, with […]
I love Canada Post
Over the past few weeks I’ve ordered a number of things online and received shipments for all major shipping companies. My building has conceige that can sign for all packages that don’t require a payment for duty or COD. Its very interesting to see the process each company uses handle deliveries and collect the duty/COD […]
The problem with Dropbox Teams
I’ve been a long time user of Dropbox and have had the 100GB personal account for several years now. I’ve been very happy with the way the system works and I’ve setup it up on all my computing devices. My wife now shares the account and we use it to save files we want backed […]
New Site and Domain
After a long delay I’ve finally updated my blog and website. In the process I’ve also moved to ColinSmillie.com to ensure I have greater reach outside of Canada. The design is based on a WP Timeline theme, which I’ve modified to move away a little from the Facebook Timeline which it copied. Let me know […]
Skype Reliability?
For over 2 days my skype account was offline and I was unable to login. I could reset my password with the password recovery system ( and did multiple times ) but every time I kept getting an error that I couldn’t login. No details were provided or contact for additional assistance. Eventually I tried […]
My Presentation at Facebook Garage
We had a great event last night at Mars for the Facebook Developers Garage Toronto. It was our 6th event and we had a great crowd and speakers. My presentation on the Open Graph API is available here: Facebook Open Graph API View more presentations from Colin Smillie. We’ll try to get the other presentations […]
Facebook Developer Garage Toronto – Oct 21, 2010
It’s been a while since the last Facebook Developer Garage Toronto. Come meet with fellow developers, marketers and agencies, members of the Facebook community in Toronto. Formerly we called these Facebook Camps and its a great free event for Developers and Marketers. The evening is free to attend and we have a great line up […]
Why is Point of Sale getting harder?
Like most Canadians my credit card was recently replaced with a Chip Card. Now my Visa requires a PIN to be entered when the transaction is processed. This creates some very frustration experiences: 1/ No Remote Machine Many restaurants only have Visa terminals in one location in the restaurant. This means that I have to […]
iPad Day Two Thoughts, Apps…
Ok, been using the iPad a lot to consume content. The Apple closedness does kind of get in the way of watching videos but hasn’t really been an issue for anything else. There are a few really great apps for it: Media There are several media apps available but most don’t work well in Canada. […]
iPad Day One…
I got my iPad today and I spent a few hours using it now. My initial impression is that is a great 2nd device to consume media. The screen is beautiful and watching video on it is awesome. The input is ok but will never really replace a laptop and is probably by design. I […]
The Power of Real-Time Search
For years now Google has dominated the search marketing field. Its Pagerank algorithm attempts to find content that is the most relevant to the keywords being search. In most cases this means placing a greater emphasis on older more established content and ignoring the newer content. This has worked well for most content types except […]
DemoCampToronto19
Democamp was back on last night at the Imperial Pub. It was back to its root with a small crowded venue with hard to hear and see demos. I think with a 2nd speaker near the back would probably fix all this and the location was certainly work-able. It was also a lot of the […]
Top CNN Technology usage for Obama coverage
CNN really surprised me today with its use of technology around the Obama inauguration. There’s 3 main components that I think stand out: Facebook Connect integration, it was awesome watching the video online and getting comments/status updates from your friends or the general public in real-time. This absolutely made the experience for me and I […]
IP Law gone wrong…
Matthew Ingram has a great article about the US Government trying to get control over a trademark controlled by a bike gang. Matthew compares it to the Al Capone situation with regards to tax evation. I think its a great example of IP Law gone wrong. The US Government has put so much effort into […]