Piece O Cake

by

Piece O Cake

I love small businesses that take risks and use innovative marketing alongside a great product. Piece O’ Cake is Saint John’s newest hot spot and has people in love with cupcakes all over again.

If you’ve visited Vancouver lately you would notice numerous Cupcake Girls locations throughout the city, and they are so popular that they even have their own TV show. I am not comparing the two businesses but merely pointing out that cupcake bakery’s can be successful by simply providing a great product and some smart marketing. More… →

Understanding the NBA Lockout

by

NBA Lockout

I believe everyone has the right to negotiate fair wages and employers also have the right to discuss revenues and changes that need to be made in order to be profitable. When it comes down to it, our businesses foremost need to be profitable before employees can start making sensible arguments towards fair wages. Everyone has their own point of view on the NBA Lockout and labour disputs, unions, etc, but it all comes down to one thing, profits. A business will not succeed being in the red at the end of a fiscal year, and that is why this years NBA lockout is not only ridiculous, but it’s a huge hit to the U.S. economy as well.

First I need to point out that there are 7 teams in the NBA that are the only major league sports team in their city. Oklahoma, San Antonio, Portland, Orlando, Utah, and Sacramento all share this commonality. To gain some perspective on how different they really are from the rest of the 23 teams in the league the Portland Trail Blazers formed a study (complied by Forbes), which showed the 23 other teams created a net loss of value in their market of 11 million dollars from 2009-2010. This is not surprising with the economic downturn the U.S. had over this time. On the other hand the other 7 teams combined for a +64 million value in that same stretch. Obviously being the only major league sports team in your city is going to create an enormous value to your city. The hard part to swallow is the devastating amount of job losses and economic value the NBA lockout has caused and may cause even further if the season is cancelled. More… →

OS X Lion

by

Lion OS X

I finally updated my Macbook to OS X Lion. I debated updating for awhile now but finally pulled the trigger after asking a friend if all the bugs were worked out yet. I always have a hesitation to upgrading to a new OS because they are usually buggy until the first patch comes out. He gave me the thumbs up and soon as I ended my last project with a client, there was nothing else that could hold me back.

The neatest feature: The gestures using the trackpad is still new to me but I can already tell that I’m going ot save time from going app to app. A 4 finger swipe to the side and I move from Photoshop to Chrome in less than a second. Love it! More… →

The iPhone 4S

by

iPhone 4s

I’ve been asked by several people how I like the new iPhone 4S and I haven’t brought myself to say one bad thing about it. A mobile device in my world is one of the most important pieces of equipement I own, so I didn’t take this decision lightly. I am constantly on the go and with a 24/7 hour career, being involved with many community clubs, and most importantly a family man, I need to have instant communication and organization in my hands at all times. A time saving mobile device has become a necessity to me in everyday living.

I’ve previously owned flip phones, my wife has a blackberry, (God bless her), and I’ve played with various android devices that many friends and colleagues use. The Blackberry was not even an option becasue they’ve fallen so far behind in innovating for their phones. If I just needed the phone for talking to people and checking email, I would definitely consider it because they are built like bricks and they are sturdy. I like the Android OS and it can accomplish pretty much anything the iOS can, but let me be clear when I say, Android is like a Chevy, and iOS is like driving a Cadillac. You can tell the difference by just driving it. More… →

Why I chose the t2i

by

t2i

Photography is my newest passion that I’ve dived into in the past 6 months. I purchased the t2i for 2 reasons. It first shoots high quality video in full 1080p HD, and secondly, it takes amazing pro looking photographs without the pro costs. Here is a bit more detailed info on the t2i if you’re looking at taking the leap into photography.

18 Megapixel camera: First of all, the megapixels is not the whole story. When you’re looking to buy a camera the megapixels should be the last thing you look at. I’ve seem 12 MP camera’s outshine 15 MP camera’s so you really need to do some research and look at example’s online of what your potential camera can take. Many photographers on Flickr and other photo sites list what camera and lens they were using when taking the photo. Canon and Nikon have always been known to be great quality camera’s because of their great censor’s and sturdy builds. More… →

Getting Video Ready for the Web

by

video killed the radio star

Getting video ready for the web has been made much easier because of great online services such as Vimeo, YouTube, and Facebook. Many software applications including iPhoto for Mac enable you to simply send your videos directly to these online video hosting providers. They allow you to share your videos with family and friends with one click. What I would like to share with you today are a few ways to get your video on the web from your digital or video camera. It’s not as hard as it sounds and sharing those precious home videos is important, so let’s dive in. More… →

WordPress 3.1

by

wordpress 3.1

So as many of you know I am a WordPress geek. I love it’s capabilities and I use it for every website I build, whether large or small. I read blogs about it everyday, I dig into the code everyday, you can basically say I am a WordPress junkie. I have to applaud the WordPress community for bringing it as far as it has to where it is today, version 3.1. I’m going to talk a bit about one of the minor updates that was included in 3.1, which is archives for custom post types. It may seem a bit geeky, but what this means for the CMS non-techy type is really a big deal. There’s a lot of documentation on what custom port types are, and you can simply do a Google search and you will be a guru on custom post types in a week. Again, one of the main reasons why I love WordPress; Documentation and resources at your fingertips. More… →

Google Apps for Businesses

by

So this post is targeted at both the young entrepreneur who needs to keep things organized and the veteran businessman who wants to keep costs low and keep things simple. Google Apps has been a great tool for my small business, Memorywalk, and I can’t imagine what I would do without it. Google Apps is essentially a v areity of products that Google has put out to the public, free of charge, that can be accessed from the same account.

“Reliable, secure web-based office tools for any size business”

It is very simple to add people to share documents, calendars, and it’s a breeze to schedule appointments. Mind you, Google Apps has a ways to go, and does not compare to the robustness of a Microsoft suite set up on Exchange, but I will remind you, Google Apps is free.

The main tool you can use is Gmail or host your own domain for use of email. For example, if your domain was www.mj.com, you can set up your email addresses @mj.com into Gmail. With Gmail’s new labelling system you can create tons of folders to organize your email and even create filters to keep the clutter to a minimum. More… →