Ze has some things to say about web developers.
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Last night’s gig was fantastic. Seeing Robyn rock with the Venus 3 made for a very different concert than the first time I saw him, but still a lot of fun. He is such a great entertainer and he’s got this fantastic voice. And hearing Peter Buck’s signature guitar ring through was equal parts new and familiar, particularly when he was playing the six-string Rickenbacker.
Beth writes about the gig over at BlogTO, and has posted some pics of the show on Flickr.
It was also my first time at the Mod Club and I’d say it’s Toronto’s best concert venue. You can see and hear perfectly from anywhere in the room, so there’s no stress of finding and defending a good spot. Best of all, it’s just a walk down the street from our house.
Finally, it was great to see a gig with Chris & Carolyn (and Fred). Chris & Carolyn and Nicky & I started seeing Toronto gigs together 15 years ago. Old times. The biggest difference is that we had to leave before the gig was over because we all had to relieve babysitters at 12:30. Oh well.
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We’re off to see Robyn Hitchcock tonight. He’s playing the Mod Club with his current band, the Venus 3. The Venus 3 are 3/5 of REM, including Peter Buck.
I saw Robyn play a few years ago at The Sweetwater in Mill Valley. He played with Grant-Lee Phillips and they performed one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. Charles Redell provides a set-list and writes a great review of the show:
Two men got up on stage with a sublime sense for entertaining and a remarkable talent for keeping audiences engaged and tried, while playing perfectly with each other, to always outdo one another too. They put on a show made up of their absolutely wonderful songs, hilarious interludes between those songs, and a tribute to the pop music history that allows them to exist as the entertainers they are today.
Hopefully he’ll deliver something equally great tonight. His current album, Ole! Tarantula, is fantastic so it should be good.
For more information on Robyn, check out Mike Doherty’s article about Robyn in today’s National Post.
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In last Friday’s show, zefrank refers to Bush’s Iraq quote of the day, “If we leave, they will follow us here.” To which Ze responds, “Of course if we stay, they don’t have as far to travel.”
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In Silence of the Clams, Rob does a nice job describing what’s special about PEI and captures the end-of-summer sadness that comes for us and many of our friends and relatives who are fortunate enough to call the Island home.
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I was interviewed, along with a few others, for an article about T4G in the Telegraph Journal. The bit about me is along the same lines as the Globe & Mail article from a while back: T4G allowing and benefiting from a progressive approach to work arrangements and work-life balance. They even mention Nicky doing her Ph.D.
NB Telegraph-Journal | Money – As published on page c1 on September 25, 2006
T4G Limited helping to keep Saint John online. Growing Service company one of the fastest growing in Canada
Kate Shingler
Special to the Telegraph-JournalGRAND MANAN – The technology services company T4G Limited is an Information Technology consulting firm making waves across North America and beyond.
With several hundred employees in Canada, the project-based company works with more than 100 leading firms in a wide range of industries, namely retail, communications, travel, healthcare and financial services, including leading Fortune 500 companies.
T4G does everything from developing online catalogues for companies like L.L. Bean to analyzing sales data for other retail giants like J.
Crew, Orvis and Best Buy, to managing content for government tourism websites, including the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
The private firm was established in Toronto in 1996 with a team of 23 employees, but founder Geoff Flood, a Saint John native, soon opened up an office in his hometown. T4G expanded to Saint John in 2001, and opened for business with eight employees on board. Now there are more than 50 people on staff. Flood lives in Saint John, and works in the Toronto office part-time.
“New Brunswick is a great place to do business,” says Flood, who applauds the mayor of Saint John, Norman McFarlane, for promoting technology and turning the city into an IT-friendly place. “It is a destination of choice for a lot of people. We’ve got a lot to offer in Saint John.”
Business is so good that the company, also an authorized training centre for Microsoft, is constantly recruiting.
“There is full employment in the technology market in New Brunswick and in Saint John,” notes Flood. “Really good people are in high demand.”
T4G is one of the fastest-growing professional services companies in Canada. The company’s revenue has more than doubled over the past three years from $12 million in 2002 to $25.5 million in 2005. The target for 2006 is $30 million.
In addition to the Toronto and Saint John operations, T4G now has offices in Vancouver and Halifax. It has distinguished itself as an award-winning solutions provider and is the first company in Canada to earn five Microsoft Gold Certified Partner awards.
The company attributes some of its success to its practice of combining teams from across Canada.
An employee with the technology services company T4G sits at a work station in the above photo.
One of the company’s key players, Director of Travel and Hospitality Solutions, Dave Hyndman, works from his home office on Prince Edward Island.
Hyndman, a sought-after IT consultant who has worked all over the world, is currently in Toronto for a 10-month stint while his wife completes her doctorate.
Whether he is based in Charlottetown or Toronto, Hyndman heads up a team that is working with several provincial governments on developing comprehensive tourism websites.
T4G’s MyTravelHost is an innovative tool that uses technology to help boost the province’s tourism industry in many ways. It enables consumers, tourism operators and government to exchange information, ultimately generating interest and attracting more visitors.
While Hyndman acknowledges he travels several times a month for his job, he believes T4G’s unique organizational structure works because it allows employees to work where they want to live.
“People work on things irrespective of their locations,” says the father of three, who adds that while there are benefits to being in a big city, he prefers the quality of life on PEI.
T4G’s Atlantic Operations General Manager John Ceccarelli is originally from Ontario. He admits he had reservations when he moved east to head-up the local office.
“I was working in downtown Toronto when I moved to Saint John… I was reluctant at first,” he says.
Now, he is enjoying the city and working environment so much he is trying to persuade his former colleagues to join him.
“We have a good roster of employees in other offices – we would encourage them to move to Saint John.”
While Ceccarelli acknowledges that Saint John doesn’t have the customer base of larger urban centres, he says in terms of delivery of services the local operation is among the best in the country.
“Development teams can be anywhere; in the technology industry you can deliver anywhere,” he says calling T4G an end-to-end technology services organization.
With the company’s four offices spread out across the country, he believes T4G has the best of both worlds.
“With 200 employees and a federated business model, T4G is able to deliver sophisticated enterprise solutions while paying close attention to customer requirements,” he says. “We deliver measurable value with each project.”
One of the secrets to T4G’s success is that its employees have a passion for learning new technologies and they are always eager to find opportunities that allow clients to achieve their goals, according to Ceccarelli.
“For a number of reasons, including good luck, we have been able to hire talented, creative and entrepreneurial employees,” he says.
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of Alex, my seven year old, reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. To make it particularly challenging, Alex is currently missing two front teeth.
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My cousin Rob just ordered a couple of Joe Purdy CDs from CD Baby. He received the common ecommerce, “your order has shipped” email. But it was somewhat uncommon:
Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
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This is hilarious: John Gruber anthropomorphizes the brushed metal look of certain Mac applications. Brushed Metal, or B.M., calls his agent about being dumped from iTunes 5.
Funniest thing you’ll read today.
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Our good friend, Matt Rainnie, CBC Radio’s regular host of Mainstreet PEI, is doing a new national radio show for CBC Radio One called Lost & Found.
Life is made up of the lost and found. The search for things that have left you, or the discovery of something you’ve never had. Lost & Found explores personal stories on everything from confidence and identity, to love and luggage.
Tune in to Lost & Found, airing weekly beginning this Saturday, 1-2pm.
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