It is that time of year again where we all man-up and grow a fierce stache for the kids.  Last year M4K Ottawa raised $20,000 for the Make a Wish Canada through pledges and brave growers.

Clean-Shave Day Meetup
Friday, October 30 @ 7:00pm
Clocktower Brew Pub
(575 Bank St.)

Website: www.m4kottawa.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=190607961123&ref=ts

October 19, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm at the Clocktower Brew Pub, 575 Bank Street, Ottawa.
Sign up to attend | DemoCamp 12 wiki

Woo Hoo! DemoCamp Ottawa is back after a summer break.  I recently cornered Mark Stephenson to tell him I am dying for another Demo Camp. In true community fashion he told me to get off my butt and help. So, besides a little labor I offered the following rant.

What is your business plan?

The recent Demo Camp Ottawa measuring stick.  A question which comes from a genuine place,  serves as a reality check to the business model ignorant, and offers comfort to those with nothing worth demonstrating. It can be sobering, like when the Dragon’s Den crushes your dreams in order to save you time & money in the long run.  However; in my opinion, asking a bedroom/basement/garage developer for his business plan or monetization strategy is simply not rewarding.   These presenters are full of passion and have come not only to share their work, but a story of motivation, design decisions, comprises, challenges conquered,  and lesson’s learned. Yet we routinely ask them to prove their project’s value in market terms and fail to dive into the truly interesting and en-lighting parts of their story.

Demo Camp is about sharing and feedback.  So in the spirit of collaboration and keeping things interesting, I propose that we avoid the business plan question in favor of questions regarding the work itself.  There may be the odd demo with  a mind blowing business plan, but in that case I am sure the presenter will mention it.  If the presenter tells you he is going to make it rich off of his work, you have my support in asking how they plan to do so.  Otherwise, lets appreciate the projects for what they are, and not focus on their potential shortcomings as businesses.

Your thoughts?

I have noticed that many professional photographers have been using split toning for very pleasing effects with their  photos. In fact, split toning has probably reached the point of overdone, which means it is time for me to learn it. I used the split toning feature in Adobe Lightroom and whipped up these in a matter of minutes. Would you like to know how you can do this too? Watch Yanik’s Split Toning in Lightroom tutorial and learn all you need to know about the split toning tool in Lightroom.

Time for more research so I can master my mimicry technique.

Aquafrolics - a wakeskate film from Nike 6.0.  Amazing!!!  Stream it or download if for keeps.  Watch it closely because we are going to up our game on the water next year!

Check out my photos of the Munnies on display at this year’s munny show at lost marbles in Ottawa.

It finally happened, over the weekend I dismantled the CarPC in my Mazda 3. I hadn’t turned it on in over a year due to the constant maintenance it required. But, while the blank touch screen was still visible I maintained the illusion that one day I would fix it and have it up and running again. Well, that dream ended Saturday when I ripped out the system and replaced it with my stock unit. I have been rocking the CarPC since 2003, and it was installed in my 2005 Mazda 3 from day 1.

I posted about my CarPC adventure on my site at the time, and you can still check out the installation pictures, specifications, and the pictures of the final install.

Why the sudden uninstallation?
My iPhone. Recently I have hijacking the CarPC’s audio input jack to use with both my iPhone, my girlfriend’s iPod, or whatever portable music player we could throw at it. It is just easier, a polished interface with full and up to date music libraries.

GPS Navigation
There are serious trade-offs, like the iPhone needing internet for Google Maps, and the iPhone’s turn by turn navigation doesn’t even come close the CarPC’s. However, the up to date maps and phenomenal search features of Google Maps more than make up for these limitations.

The good old days
Kareem Sultan inspired me to build a CarPC, and guided me through most of the process. Together we would brainstorm new features and outline plans for an ad-hoc wireless networks for cars to share data on the freeway. We patiently waited for the day when cellular networks lowered their bandwidth cost, or for Ottawa to launch city wide wifi. We envisioned a series of network enabled applications in your car for real time traffic, weather, news, and streaming multimedia. We wanted the full internet in our cars, but in 2003 the cellular data networks were too slow and expensive.  Currently all of these are features available on the iPhone.

Regardless, the adventure was fun and was worth it just for the learning experience alone. Kareem used the lessons he learned from the CarPC to create RaceDV (with my help of course).  When people ask where the idea for RaceDV came from, I respond that with the amount brainstorming and experimenting we conducted the end idea was rather obvious. RaceDV’s first prototype was simply the re-purposing of the tools we had already built to fill an obvious need based on our horrible videos at the track.

So, with the CarPC officially put to bed it is time to invest in something new to experiment with.   Hopefully it will spark a series of ideas which will keep my engineering mind occupied for another 5 fun years.

Rebecca and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Rome & Prague. I am slowly posting pictures to my flickr account.

War is over! if you want it.  From the  The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko Exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Free Admission from April 2 – June 21, 2009 – www.mmfa.qc.ca/imagine/en/

Bex took this shot of her friend Emily and her boxer Nathaniel James Green.