Archive for October, 2008

Five Consulting Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

I had the pleasure of talking with a new vendor today - a local web designer named Gwyn Pritchett - who is going to help be design a new website for the Learning Disabilities Association of BC. We met this evening to go over the design specifications for the new site and after we [...]

When Flying is Cheaper

Monday, October 27th, 2008

I had the pleasure of taking the Helijet from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria today. For those of you not familiar with the trip, it’s about 2.5 hours from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria if you drive/take the ferry (see map below). If you take the Helijet, it’s only 35 minutes. Sure, it costs five [...]

Why References for Clients are Important

Monday, October 27th, 2008

During hard times (like the ones we’re entering right now), it’s important to make sure that your consulting clients are of the highest calibre. It’s important to have high quality clients all the time but when the money’s rolling in and a few of your clients stiff you on the bill, it’s not the end [...]

Blog Action Day: Poverty Is Only A Bit of Bad Luck Away

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

It’s hard to imagine better timing for the theme of poverty as countless millions in developed countries stand on the brink of poverty. In this post, I want to highlight not how poverty affects faceless billions overseas because to most of us in the developed world, poverty in developing nations is a sad but abstract [...]

Go Bag: The BlackBerry Bold

Monday, October 13th, 2008

In part three of my four-part series of what’s in my “Go Bag”, I want to talk about my first week with the BlackBerry Bold and some common misconceptions about the device. I’ll start by saying that I’ve always been a fan of BlackBerries and if you want to read why I recommend the device [...]

Go Bag: The Sony VAIO FW Laptop Series

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Back in July, I wrote an in-depth article about what kind of laptops I think are best for the mobile professionals [READ]. At the time of writing that article, my workhorse was a two-year old Toshiba U200 - a very portable, lightweight 12.3″ laptop. When I bought the laptop, I was spending a lot more [...]

Go Bag: 30 Hour Laptop Batteries

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Like all self-employed professionals, I have a “go bag” with everything I need in it to get through a workday away from my home office. LifeHacker had a great post last year where readers showed off what was in their Go Bags [READ]. This posting is the first in a series of four. The next [...]

The Ironic Connection Between The Stock Market Meltdown And Smoking

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Health has an article up today that says stock brokers on Wall Street smoke more when the market is in rough shape [READ]. That’s a bit of a no-brainer - smokers smoke more when they’re stressed?? Call the Associated Press! Call The Economist!! There is a link between smoking and stock-market volatility - the vice [...]

CERN LHC: The Definition of Anti-Climactic

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Clearly, the world didn’t implode on September 10th or you wouldn’t be sitting here, reading this post. To be fair, what happened on September 10th at CERN LHC wasn’t a full-on power-up of the system with the particles and the smashing and the OY VEY! What happened on September 10th was the equivalent of some [...]