Bnpositive's Blog

Seeing as how the b5media HQ is in Toronto, it’s about time we featured a website for Toronto folks don’t you think? The myhood.ca website is an online resource for people fighting through the apartment housing market in one of Canada’s most beautiful cities, Toronto! Might also come in handy for b5media anyway with the way we’re growing our corporate support team in the area. I’m sure somebody will be looking for apartments soon.

Jeff let me know about the site and had this quick synopsis to let me know what it was all about:

That’s where myhood.ca comes in. We give our viewers the ability to search by neighbourhood (Toronto is the city of neighbourhoods – you should be able to search by them), combine rental listings from online classifieds with property managers (think “one stop shop”) and match them with the very useful apartment reviews (over 800) written by current and past tenants – all on an interactive Google map.

The site let’s you quickly search for an apartment of your own, or even find other people that are looking for roommates in your area as well. This is really the sort of thing that would be perfect in many places in addition to Toronto. I’d say this kind of service would be huge in college towns, I know Craig’s List is popular for that as well.

The user interface on the site is really smooth too. As Jeff said, everything is laid out on an easy to use and navigate Google map. Very nice. You’ve also got some of the defacto types of information on the site as well like reviews and tips for moving and finding the right place for your situation.

If you’re in the area and in need of finding a great apartment and/or roommate, Uncover the Internet has done the first big step for you. We’ve pointed you in the right direction for success.

Uncover apartments in Toronto yourself on myhood.ca

Okay, have to mention this, was just browsing through the site and one of the apartment buildings that came up had the street address of “666 Spadina Avenue”. Um, yeah, not going to live there.

Yep, it’s Monday and the work day is over but I’m still working on a variety of tasks for clients. A friend of mine sent me the link to this YouTube video in an e-mail and it couldn’t have come at a better time. This is just one of those moments and songs that just get you fired up and ready to go again.

That’s just a fraction of what the Internet is all about. What you need, when you need it right?

I just popped two 1GB RAM chips into my laptop. I’m already seeing some much anticipated pep-in-the-step of my little Toshiba Satellite laptop. I upgraded hoping to get some extra boost when I’m working on things in Visual Web Developer. It seems to be working.

Now, back to work.

A friend of mine recently forwarded this e-mail to me. Normally I will just delete forwards, but this one was just a little quiz to see how much you know about common, everyday things. Stuff you see and use everyday, but maybe don’t pay that much attention to. Since I got it on the Internet, I figured I’d share it with you.

No cheating!

1. On a standard traffic light, is the green on the top or bottom?
2. How many states are there in the USA ?
3. In which hand is the Statue of Liberty ‘s torch?
4. What six colors are on the classic Campbell’s soup label?
5. What two numbers on the telephone dial don’t have letters by them?
6. When you walk does your left arm swing with your right or left leg?
7. How many matches are in a standard pack?
8. On the United State s flag is the top stripe red or white?
9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial?
10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or clockwise?
11. Which way does a “no smoking” sign’s slash run?
12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial?
13. On which side of a women’s blouse are the buttons?
14. Which way do fans rotate?
15. How many sides does a stop sign have?
16. Do books have even-numbered pages on the right or left side?
17. How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel?
18. How many sides are there on a standard pencil?
19. Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc. Who’s missing?
20. How many hot dog buns are in a standard package?
21. On which playing card is the card maker’s trademark?
22. On which side of a Venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats?
23. There are 12 buttons on a touch tone phone. What 2 symbols bear no digits?
24. How many curves are there in the standard paper clip?
25. Does a merry-go-round turn counter or clockwise?

Check your answers after the break.

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PC Magazine’s got a 4-part series on customizing and optimizing your installation of Windows Vista. There’s a 2-parter on customizing and another 2-parter on optimizing the operating system.

• Customizing Windows Vista: Part 1
• Customizing Windows Vista: Part 2
• Optimizing Windows Vista: Part 1
• Optimizing Windows Vista: Part 2

Technorati Top Searches

A number of weeks ago I received an e-mail from my alma mater stating that one of my professors,?Dr. Kyong Kim, was retiring. They were inviting all of his past students to attend a reception in his honor on campus. I had planned to make the trip back over to Ohio and see him one last time.

He taught a number of the communication classes I worked through in my pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. He was a great teacher, extremely intelligent and very entertaining in class. He was a short little Korean guy, but oddly enough had a huge stature about him. He talked with a strong accent, which considering he was a communication professor always struck me as funny. There are a number of great stories about some of his phrases in class and statements that were made that didn’t come out quite right, but I’ll refrain from sharing them here. One of the odd challenges I had in his class was that for the first few weeks of the semester, I could NEVER stay awake. I’ve got pages of notes where my pen would trail off from a series of words into a then line across the page as I would nod off. However, after those first few weeks, for some reason I’d always perk up and be absolutely attentive the rest of the semester.

Getting back to the reason of this post, he responded back to me thanking me for the note to him and congratulations on his retirement. I had asked him what some of his plans were with all of his new free time, and in his letter back to me he stated he was pursuing the life of Grandma Moses and picking up painting. He attached some of his artwork, which I’m sharing below, and as you can see, I believe he’s got some great works ahead of him still.

You may have seen my previous post of the music video for “White & Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic. Although I had heard of Revver before, I’d never really played with it until the other night. Let me say, I’m impressed. The Revver website states what they do just about as clearly as it could be stated:

Revver is…

.. a video-sharing platform built the way the internet really works. We support the free and unlimited sharing of media. Our unique technology tracks and monetizes videos as they spread virally across the web, so no matter where your creativity travels, you benefit.

.. the viral video network that pays. We connect video makers and sharers with sponsors in a free and open marketplace that rewards them for doing what they do best.

.. committed to the artist. You have something to say and we built our network to empower you to say it.

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This great video came back up as a discussion with some friends this weekend. I had originally shared the video on my own blog through YouTube, but they took the video down. With another search I found it again on Revver.

I hope you enjoy.

Awhile back I shared about a site name izimi that let anyone publish and actually “serve” any file they wanted to anyone else on the Internet. The only thing the recipient needed to have was a browser on their end to view the files.

A commenter named Marc told me that if I liked the functionality of izimi, then I should check-out quickeo.

Looks like quickeo is offering the same service as izimi, let’s hear what they have to say:

We launched Quickeo because we thought it was time that computer users could send to everyone they wanted in a single mailing the 200 photos of their weekend, the video of the wedding or the school fair, or perhaps one of their own compositions.

Still the challenge for me with these types of tools is having another little application that I have to download and leave running on my machine. The interesting thing though that I’ve read with quickeo is that I don’t have to have my machine on for people to access my files. What this makes me think is that some how they’ve mirrored my files on their own servers. After reading through their site I found the following answer in one of their FAQ’s

Quickeo, in all versions, offers integration with its own online storage for seamless synchronization and “always on” Quickeomails, with 1 Gbyte storage and 1 Gbyte bandwidth. You can then buy as much additional storage space and as much additional bandwidth as needed (on demand).

That’s a pretty nice little feature. Obviously this can turn into a serious revenue stream for them if people really start using the service and begin pumping out more and more files. 

Anyone else using this service? If so, send me an e-mail and let me know or leave me a comment below.

Uncover the quickeo site for yourself now

A friend of mine mentioned the Virb.com website to me awhile back. I’d been playing around with it for awhile now and it seems to be a nice little location to hang-out and find a variety of things that may interest you. Of course there’s also the opportunity for the things you like and share on the site to influence others as well.

Virb is a community website that combines social interaction with music and entertainment exploration. It’s a great way to keep in touch and meet people with similar interests. Use Virb to discover music, videos, cool companies and organizations… then share what you find with your friends.

That’s what the folks say about themselves on their site, and it’s a pretty accurate representation of what they’re offering. One really interesting thing they do is with a project called VirbTunes. It’s a little plug-in that monitors what you’re listening to in iTunes and shares that information with your Virb.com network and in your profile.

If you’re into music and entertainment and are always searching for the next new thing, Virb may be just the site you’ve been waiting to be uncovered. If you’re interested, check them out at Virb.com, or you can continue to read more about who they are and what they’re doing on the Virb Blog.

Do you ever find yourself sitting at your desk or in front of your computer and not knowing what to do with your time? Are you kidding me!? If you do, please e-mail me and let me know what your secret is for having nothing else better to do.

My challenge is that when I’m sitting in front of my computer at work I usually find myself looking around the web for stuff that’s a complete waste of time. Now, with the Bored.com website, I can have my own little assistant on the web help me find something less important to do when the “To Do” list is running rampant.

At Bored.com you can get the latest heads-up on different sites on the web to entertain you. Bored.com has categories in the following areas to help you narrow down your Battle of Boredom.

• Music, TV & Games
• Humor & Fun
• Quizzes and Trivia
• Romance
• Dumb & Weird
• Making Money
• Sports
• and many, many more