Google maps here, there, everywhere!

Check this: you can now easily embed Google maps pretty much anywhere, the same way you embed YouTube videos. Best of all, you can link to your own customised maps!

Like, this where Heather is right now:


Agrandir le plan

And this is a satellite view of how to drive from where I am to Nice (yes, I AM trying to make you jealous; don't worry I'll be back in the rain and cold soon enough):


Agrandir le plan

It's easy as pie! Go to Google maps, search for a location, click on "Link to this page", copy the embed HTML provided into your source and voila!

Don't be an email slave

It's a bit long (58 mns) but it's enlightening and entertaining. It's called "inbox zero" and this guy explains how we're letting ourselves be overrun by emails and what we can do about it. Check it below.

Back to the Futurama

Good news everyone! After years of waiting, the absolute best animated TV show in the universe is coming back.

I cannot express in words how excited I am we finally have a date for the release of new Futurama episodes. Who cares it's only 4 at first (1 DVD), the creators have promised we'd get a lot of asses and I know they won't disappoint.

During my first term as VP Comms at the McGill MBA, I always used to sign the newsletter off with a Futurama quote; I think not many people understood my addiction to the show, and I had a fair number of heated arguments trying to convince people why Futurama was so much better (and clever) than the Simpsons.

So here's one for the road...

AMY: Let's all take her out tonight. There's lots of great places to meet people.
HERMES: The Federal Sex Bureau?
BENDER: A saucy puppet show?
DR. ZOIDBERG: The rotting carcass of a whale?
AMY: Mmm, I'll pick.

Kevin Smith to direct Heroes!

I'm betting this is going to be special. Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob fame is taking the reins for one episode of Heroes:Anthology, the spin-off of one of the most popular TV shows of 2006.

If you don't know Heroes, it's a bit like X-Men, except there's no Charles Xavier and the bad guy is actually truly evil (as opposed to only mildly evil for our favourite Master of Magnetism).

Anyway - expect something different, hopefully not as clean-cut as the original Heroes series.

More info here (TV Squad), here (E! News) and there (official Heroes site).

You can only hit "snooze" so many times...

Phew - this is what one would call the longest washroom break in history. Actually, I have no fact to back that up. Let's just say that after staying off the interwaves for so long, I have decided to start writing again.

And for you, my captive audience, I have this little gem: Don't Blink! Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And DON'T BLINK!

Now that I have your attention... check out the tenth episode of the third season of the new Doctor Who. Just as I was starting to think the show would never recover from the departure of Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper, the aptly named "Blink" written by Steven Moffat came along... and blew every other Dr. Who episode out of the water. It's creepy, fast paced and the acting is superb. I have already watched it three times and just writing about it makes me want to play it again, just to feel the chills as the Doctor warns Carrey Mulligan about the weeping Angels...

Get it. It's pure gold.

Now you can blink.

We'll see you after the break

I've had enough to feel guilty about not posting on this blog. Stuff is happening and there is plenty of material to write about, but I simply don't have the time to keep it up.

I encourage you to visit my Picasa site regularly, and to sign up for updates so you get notified when I post new photos there. I may start writing again this summer when I am sitting by the pool in France... I'll let you know.

I'll keep updating the "Tales of interest" and bookmarks found on this page.

Talk to you all soon

Matt

Picasa web album

Her star shines bright...

On thing I've loved about Montreal is the opportunity to watch cool bands in small venues. London was amazing because of the shear number of bands one could watch on any given night, but even small bands attract big crowds so it always takes too long to get a refill of Stella.

So it was cool to pile up inside Club Soda to watch Lily Allen do her thing. I'm a big fan of her first (and only) album with its clever lyrics and happy tunes. The concert was great, although I must admit she pretty much sang the album plus a couple of covers without too much value added.

I read later on this was the first sober gig she did in weeks. Maybe that's why she seemed so tame!

Formally Spring

The Spring Formal organised by the MBA Student Association took place on the 31st of March, and presented burnt-out students with the opportunity to get dressed up and drunk for a moderate sum.

I came down with a virus the week before the formal, so I decided I would drink moderately on the night. What a mistake. As my companions descended into happy drunkenness, I was left to witness dances and conversations I hoped never to experience sober.

The party went well (the meal was great), but my state of total sobriety ensured that I was yawning by 11 and home early. Heather and Catalina (left) had a grand old time so at least somebody enjoyed the party.

Thanks to all the organisers and participants!

Gore'd

A few of us went to watch David Suzuki and Al Gore give a talk on climate change yesterday. I believe it was the first time I saw an Academy Award winner in the flesh (and by that I'm not referring to Gore's plumpy looks). The talk was entertaining and inspiring, mostly stuff taken from "An Inconvenient Truth".

It is obvious that people's attitude towards the environment has shifted recently, with more attention being paid to CO2 emissions than ever before. Suzuki and Gore referred to the irresponsibility of the media, covering for weeks and months such enlightening issues as the Anna Nicole Smith death / murder / suicide / who cares, but deeming the climate change issue not "newsworthy". Of course, only a moron would deny that all the CO2 we're pumping into the air is having a negative effect on our environment. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with this fact, but naysayers still get 53% coverage in the media. Talk about fair and balanced reporting!

On a final note, Gore's presentation was put together using Keynote 3, and it looked fantastic (my Powerpoint days are now officially over). He said one of the advantages of sitting on Apple Inc.'s board was that he got Keynote's "bouncy effect" feature put back in after it was initially suppressed. Saving the environment and the geek community? What a man!

Photobooth fun

Man the simplest applications are often the best. The Mac comes equipped with a webcam and a snapshot program called Photobooth. Photobooth can apply all kinds of wacky effect in real time, and the results are always hilarious. I got a gallery of trials posted here.

Almost as good a time waster as Pepsi's Nex2 typing challenge, to which I'm simply addicted. Not big on typing? Pick your brains on this Impossible Quiz...

Homework? Nah, homework's for chumps mate!

Snowballed out

About 30 MBAs gathered at Parc Lafontaine last Saturday to compete in the second McGill MBA Winter Olympics, an event rivalling in grandeur and prestige with the competition organised by the I.O.C. every four years. The Gods of Olympus (the mountain, not the brand) were looking down on us kindly, as they dumped a massive 30 centimetres of snow on Montreal the day before the MBALympics, and then sent us positively balmy temperatures on the day of the event.

It was my first time on a crazy carpet and I realised that going down the hill in an elegant fashion is a difficult feat! Also, playing football on a field full of fresh snow is challenging, and downright messy when there are two balls in play.

I posted some pics of the event - check them out.

Thanks to all the organisers and participants for a most definitely fun day.

Tales of interest

I really like blogs. I read the blogs of my friends, most of whom spend their time moaning about their experience studying abroad (it seems to be a Canadian trait). I read tech blogs, Apple blogs, TV blogs, news blogs and even management blogs.

Naturally, blogs by their very nature need to be constantly updated. Nothing is more frustrating that visiting the same website over and over again just to realize that nothing new has happened in hours / days / weeks. Hence my frustration with maintaining my own blog; I simply don't have the time to write insightful and witty posts twice a day. Or even twice a week, for that matter.

Of course, the beauty of RSS feeds is that you don't actually have to visit a website to check whether there is new content or not. That's the job of your feed reader. Google Reader informs me when Angus finally follows his first post with some elusive thoughts on how to fix a washing machine in Paris. Or when a new movie trailer is available on the Apple website. This means I have to physically visit sites only when there is something of interest for me there.

One of the wickedest recent innovations in Google Reader also allow me to share with you, my reader(s), the cool articles I come across on a daily basis with a simple click. They are displayed in the box on the right titled "Tales of interest". Check it out.

Unfortunately, for most people out there, RSS feeds are still known as "RSS whaaaaa??" and I fear they might be a technological step too far for a certain generation of web users. And when I say generation, I don't necessarily mean old people - it always comes as a surprise to me how many young professionals suck at using a computer, the web, or both, properly (One of my first jobs was in tech support and I often think I left part of my sanity there).

For more info on RSS, check out this BBC guide. Firefox 2, Safari and IE7 (but you don't want to use that) also have integrated RSS support. Look for the orange icon (as shown above) in the address bar...

Finally a PORTABLE laptop...

The wait is over - the pain has gone. After two months of having to plug the beast in each time I needed to use it, I have finally received a new laptop battery from Apple and am enjoying my newfound computing mobility.

Apple is partly to blame; after all, the first replacement they sent was faulty (imagine my disappointment). They then sent me off to the Apple Store in Laval, only to be told they were out of Macbook batteries.

However, DHL has to bear the brunt of my resentment. I waited 3 weeks - twice! - for the Apple shipment to reach me. I blame DHL for:

• Not leaving notes informing me they had tried to deliver. Then how the %$#@ am I supposed to know I gotta call to arrange a re-delivery?
• Their arrogant and somewhat useless staff that told me I could redirect the delivery to my work address. Their contract with Apple forbids them to do so - leading to another week's worth of waiting. Of course, they never called to inform me of their mistake while I was waiting after-hours at work
  
• The rigidity of their delivery hours (You work during the day? Tough shit! Deliveries are "sometime between 9am and 5pm")

Anyway, all is good now, the baby's fixed and I'm looking forward to a long, injury free collaboration.

Will the real Montreal please stand up?

20 centimeters yesterday... finally Montreal is living up to its reputation

Styling it in Quebec City!

On Saturday, Heather and I rented a car and went to Quebec City (about a 3-hour drive from Montreal). After walking around the beautiful old town, we treated ourselves to a pint of the black stuff (NOT Bovril!) at the local Irish and then went for steak frites at l'Entrecote St Jean, only to discover that the place is not related at all to the Montreal restaurant bearing the same name. Still, the meat was pretty tasty and the fries delicious.

Feeling the buzz, we went to "Chez Son Père", a rustic bar serving mediocre beer but excellent live music. We were served a mix of English and French classics to the sounds of an acoustic guitar and a husky voice. Later, we stumbled back to our B&B in the freezing night, stopping only to leave our imprints in the fresh snow. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I had to walk the remaining of the way with snow up my back which, despite the many beers, was not an essential addition to the experience.

The next day, thankfully hangover free, we walked through the back streets of Quebec, absorbing the vibe and loving every minute of it. I was looking for an appropriate adjective to describe it, but instead I'll use a list of adjectives: historical, cultural, bohemian, naive, human-sized, cold, warm and friendly.

On the way back, I felt a bit tired so I asked Heather to drive, only for her to wake me up in a mild state of panic: we were right in the middle of a snow storm and visibility was seriously screwed! To her credit, she handled the situation like a star and we were soon back in Montreal safely and soundly.

Check out our pics here.

Bridging platforms is so much fun!

In case some of you don't know, I am the VP Communications for the 2006-07 McGill MBA Student Association.

My main project this year has been to improve the use of the web and reduce our reliance on email to communicate with the student body. Previously, the student association's website was a single page with a few pictures and often outdated news. All coms, from trivial to crucial, were sent through email. Our inboxes were so solicited that many people stopped reading messages coming from the Student Association’s address.

To correct this problem, I decided to set up a new website containing useful information for students, news, a picture gallery and, more importantly, discussion boards and a web-based calendar (based on the SMF platform). The boards gave me the perfect excuse to stop sending emails - apart from the weekly newsletter - and start advertising the forums as the best and most current source of information. The calendar allowed the student council and clubs to advertise their events, placing the responsibility of content creation and management on the clubs themselves and not on me. User acceptance was good, usage went up and I turned my attention to the sucky start of the season by the Arsenal.

However, after running the website for a semester, I realized there were some shortcomings in my approach. First of all, the site was a nightmare to maintain – relying on my old Webmaster days, the base site was coded in HTML and SSI and any update or modification had to be done through Dreamweaver and demanded precious time. Moreover, transferring the site to the next VP Comms could prove very difficult – and might even kill the project altogether – should my replacement have no knowledge of web back-end. Finally, the content was rather static and not frequently updated. A new solution was needed.

I looked at a full-blown content management system (CMS) but it would have required migrating content from the old boards, calendars and photo gallery to the new platform; it also offered way more functionality than we needed. Instead, I settled on a blog platform called Wordpress. Wordpress makes it easy to post new content, is fully customizable and offers hundreds of plugins to add functionality. This way, I have a platform simple enough for any technologically challenged wannabe veepee, but expandable enough to be usable for years.

Of course, every launch needs its "killer app" - something that will drive traffic. For us, it is the explosion in the number of blogs maintained by our students, either here in Montréal or abroad on exchange. These blogs are funny, insightful, creative and totally addictive.

Almost as satisfying as a vintage Thierry Henry goal.

Terrorist? Separatist? Nope; it's Montréal in winter

I checked the temperature today before leaving the house and it was a balmy -21, compounded to -33 thanks to the ever agreeable wind-chill factor. This picture is not me on my way to blow up a bus (mind you, the flower on my beanie is probably giving that away). Apart from Hockey, winter is what Canadians are best at.

You got to be wondering why people settled here in the first place. Remember that this was before the time of central heating and underground public transport. I mean, it's not like there isn't a multitude of places around the world with warm climates, an abundance of food and water, natural resources aplenty and all the creative spirit required to combine potatoes and cheese curds for that oh-so-delicious drunken snack.

Instead, as you step out of your house, your nose start running, your eyes water and the tears instantly freeze your eyes shut. The all-precious scarf is covering your face, safely tucked in your hat. But in your haste to rub your eyes, you forget about the twelve pairs of mitts that you put on this morning and your clumsy reaction loosens the scarf.

Your mind screams in panic. It is the end.

Like a harpooned whale, you know your fate is sealed. The freezing air grabs you by the neck, sprints down your spine before viciously reaching for your soft underbelly. Whatever you do now, you know you won't be warm until you reach your destination. The only sensible thing to do is to reconstruct the hat-scarf-collar seal, which means taking the gloves off. It's game over. Winter wins again.

Twas the biggest game of the season

You could be forgiven for not being aware that the biggest game of the season was on yesterday. Canadians are woefully ignorant about the Premier league, and whenever I talk about football here, people usually think I'm going on about the NFL. One channel actually shows three games every Saturday, but the rigid programming means that it never shows the usually more appealing Sunday tie - such as yesterday's Arsenal v. Manchester United. It is possible to catch these games in certain bars, but the dirty scoundrels at Champs have started leveraging their hold on the expat community and now charge a $5 entry fee for big games.

To make matters worse, my final Advanced Negotiations class was taking place yesterday from 9 to 5.

As usual, technology saved the day (are you listening, Climate Change?); thanks to the Bittorrent model, I managed to catch a live feed from Asia using PPMate. Tucked at the back of the class, riding on McGill's wireless network, I was able to watch the entirety of the game, minus the Mandarin commentary. The picture is no HDTV, but still sharp enough to identify the players and follow the action.

Of course, a classroom setting is not the best for watching football (in case you ask, in the pub with a pint of beer is the best setting for watching football). I mutely protested as Thierry Henry was fouled in the area and the referee denied us a penalty. I cried in silence when Fatso Rooney opened the scoring for United in the 53rd minute. I wrung my hands without a squeak as the minutes passed by, getting us closer and closer to our first defeat at the Emirates Stadium. I punched the air under the table when Van Persie equalised with 7 minutes left on the clock.

But there was nothing I could do to contain my joy when, deep in extra time, Thierry Henry headed home, securing victory for the mighty Arsenal. I jumped up, shouted a resounding "YES" and threw my pen on the table where it smashed in pieces, showering the people around me with broken plastic.

I looked around and everybody was staring at me in silence. The referee whistled full time.

I sat down and prepared for my next negotiation.

Mais où est Angus?

Angus Munroe, aka Dazzler Fantastic, has disappeared from the face of the web. A promising first post, in contention for moaner of the year, was followed by nothing but white noise from the HEC student's blog. At the time of his disappearance from the electronic superhighway, Angus was complaining about the lack of WiFi in the French capital. There is suspicion that this might be the cause of the lack of activity coming from France. Either that or Angus is lying in the gutter in Le Marais, unable to deal with the abundance of cheap French wine, cursing the day he decided to compensate for the lack of WiFi with a cheeky bottle of Gigondas.

Brace yourselves - Angus fans may have to wait much longer for that elusive second post...

Wait - I got something to say about the iPhone too!

The most amazing thing about the iPhone is how much people are praising/criticising it even though nobody's had a chance to try it. Most writers are saying Steve Jobs is God and they want to have his babies. Others predict the iPhone spells the end of Apple Computer Inc.

So... the iPhone. All in all, an impressive piece of technology which will define how the cell phone / PDA market evolves. I've longed for touchscreens on personal devices for a while now, because they allow the interface to change with the application. This is the real winner.

Initially, I think Apple will be facing a couple of challenges in trying to replicate its iPod success with the iPhone. First, because of the price - although people have got a lot of disposable income these days, we are used to paying very little for our cell phones in return for signing long term contracts - especially in Europe. This mentality will have to change if Apple is to gain a foothold in the market, and changing mentalities takes time.

Second will be reliability. Man, those first iPhones will be buggy. That's a given. There's way too much new technology in too tight a space for things to work smoothly straight away. Now, people can live without their iPod for a few weeks while it gets sent back to Apple for repair (hey Tyler?). I can live without a laptop battery for a few weeks while Apple sends me a replacement. I managed. Terry managed. Not happily, but we did.

Living without a cell phone even for a few hours is a dangerous, unsettling and excruciating experience. Trust me, I've tried.

So, my advice: wait for these second or third gen iPhones. Innovators are suckers anyway. Meanwhile, Apple is once again showing the way.

Let it snow, let it... arf whatever

It snowed all day today - there's fresh snow everywhere! This time it's set to stick around, principally because the forecast predicts temperatures to hover around -15 all week. Yikes. Just when we started thinking winter was going to pass by and miss us.

Well at least it won't rain for a while.

I've also uploaded the photos of Saturday evening at Les Minots when we went to watch Keston. View the pics here.

Picasa: use it already!

I finally uploaded the photos taken during our memorable farewell party at La Distillerie in December. Sorry for the delay, but I believe you guys will enjoy reliving the good times.

In the past, whenever I wanted to share photos online, I usually used some kind of web page generating tool such as JAlbum, got some server space, created a couple of templates and managed the site myself. However, while browsing Travis' blog, I realised that online photo albums have gone a long way! Instead of sharing photos once every two years because I can't be bothered with the process, I can now share pix in two or three simple clicks because Picasa integrates seamlessly with iPhoto! Result: Matt is sharing photos like it's going out of fashion! Check them here!

If everybody else is doing it...

It's cold. School is slow. Time to dip my toes in the blogosphere!

Christmas at home was paradise. Eating, drinking, shopping... it was too good to be true.

Now it's back to the grindstone.

I missed most of the first week of classes because of an intensive Advanced Negotiations class. Then I missed most of the second week because of a business trip in the east. Arumph. It's not even mid January and I'm already way behind in school work and readings!

Thankfully, the gargantuan cocktails at La Distillerie should keep us all sane. In particular the delicious Jack-à-Razz; a delicate mix of raspberry coulis, cranberry juice and Jack Daniels served in a one-liter Mason jar. Two of those and I'm on the road to redemption.

I suppose I should get down to business and do my reading for tomorrow. We're off to watch Lucas and his band tonight, I'll post a review for those of you who are interested. (anyone?)

Oh, and a ten-man Arsenal beat Blackburn two to nothing. Next stop: Man U at home. Bring it on!