Archive

Archive for December, 2007

How Many Do You Know?

December 13th, 2007

Via David Crow, a link to TechVibes’ Toronto Start-Up Index for December. I know fewer of these companies than I’d expected to; hope to get to meet the rest some time soon.

b5media yes
ProductWiki not yet
AdaptiveBlue yes
FreshBooks yes
ZipLocal not yet
Defensio not yet
Groovle not yet
ConceptShare yes
Sneakerplay yes
AideRSS yes
OfficeZilla yes
Quotiki yes
Awareness yes
BumpTop yes
JobLoft yes
Domainer yes
FileMobile yes
CakeMail not yet
Onaswarm yes
YowTRIP not yet
vLane not yet
Cosimo not yet
mDialog not yet
xkoto not yet
Zerofootprint yes
myhood.ca yes
Octopz not yet
Clay Tablet not yet
Semacode yes
ViaVol not yet
Cytoscape yes
EasyPost.ca not yet
SlashID yes
Realosophy not yet
Workspace not yet
Pursudo yes
Ogrant yes
FeelingBullish not yet

DemoCamp

Welcome Caden to the World

December 13th, 2007
Comments Off

Please welcome my newest nephew, Caden Lewis Anand Vivegananthan, to the world.  He arrived Monday (8 lb, 2 oz); mother and child are doing well, and Esan is thrilled—just thrilled—to have a baby brother.

Family

Good News About DrProject

December 13th, 2007
Comments Off

Two pieces of good news about DrProject this week. First, a report from one of our external users:

The software has been running reliably for so long I forgot how to restart it. For your info, it has been running reliably since August, and the only reason I had to restart it then is because of a power failure.

Second, I will be hiring one of the student developers full-time starting in January to harden and package the code for the next release (which we hope to have ready in March).  Stay tuned…

DrProject

The Other Kind of “Cycles”

December 13th, 2007

A team of 10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology cyclists highlighted the range of energy activities at MIT in a unique way Tuesday by using bicycles to power a supercomputer conducting research on nuclear fusion. The computer run was the largest human-powered computation in history. (from Supercomputing Online)

Uncategorized

The Downward Spiral

December 12th, 2007
Comments Off
  1. Being tired makes you stupid.
  2. When you’re stupid, you make mistakes.
  3. Mistakes cost you time.
  4. Trying to make up for lost time makes you tired.
  5. Hey—haven’t I been here already?

Can’t wait for this term to be over…

But on the bright side, we’re having a DrProject/OLM/UTest hack-a-thon on January 4-6. Jeff’s coming up from Florida, seven others have confirmed they’ll be there for at least part of the time, temporary network connections and door cards are in the works, I’ve confirmed that my favorite pizza and Lebanese takeout places will be open — it should be a lot of fun.

Uncategorized

Agile 2008

December 11th, 2007
Comments Off

Adam Goucher has reminded me that Agile 2008 will be in Toronto (August 4-8).  I’m hoping I’ll be able to attend — it looks like it’ll be a good show.

Announcements

First, Fifth, or Twelfth

December 11th, 2007
Comments Off

U of T’s Blue Sky Solar Team finished first among Canadian entrants, fifth out of 18 in the Adventure class, and twelfth overall out of 37 entries in the Solar Challenge in Australia.  Yay, team!

Uncategorized

NSERC USRA for 2008

December 10th, 2007
Comments Off

Every year, Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council provides hundreds of scholarships to give undergraduates a chance to spend a summer working with a professor on a research project.  My first programming job was a USRA for Prof. Selim Akl at Queen’s in 1982, and many other faculty and grad students have done USRAs as well. An announcement has just been posted with details for the 2008 program; if you’re in CS at U of T, interested in software engineering, meet the criteria, and would like to find out what research is all about, please give me a shout.

Announcements, Research, Teaching

Robert Kahn Speaking at U of T Tomorrow (Tue Dec 11)

December 10th, 2007
Comments Off

Robert Kahn (co-inventor of TCP/IP, among other things) is speaking at U of T on Tuesday, December 11.  His talk is titled “Managing Digital Objects on the Net” — it’s open to the public, and I hope to see a lot of you there.

Announcements

Now It’s Lou Reed…

December 9th, 2007
Comments Off

…and a plush toy design tool that reminds me a lot of Ryan Schmidt’s ShapeShop3D demo.

Uncategorized