YouTube, Not Just For Hosting Anymore

The Official Google Blog is reporting that the YouTube engineers have been hard at work developing editing capabilities into the service that will enable you to quickly and easily preform some basic editing of your video works of art. The new feature is available through TestTube now, and will give you access to thousands of soundtrack audio clips, provide cropping abilities and also allow stitching of multiple clips into a timeline. Check out this video intro: 


Note: it is safe for work, and maybe it's just me, but it's a little disturbing, educational, and entertaining all at the same time. British humor... :)

Working In The Cloud

Google is bringing 16 new apps to the Google Apps Marketplace. Six months ago this would not have meant anything to me, today however my work largely happens in the cloud as my current employer has embraced the idea wholeheartedly. We are a Google apps shop, gmail handles our mail, calendar our schedules, sites and documents our files. At first it was a bit of a change for me having moved from a Microsoft Office environment, but day by day I'm learning the virtues of life in the cloud.

The Official Google blog provides a link to this video which explains how to add an app to your domain.

According to their post "We’ve added some great new apps since we launched in March and today we’re bringing you 16 new apps to the Marketplace." Three of the featured apps are:

* Jive: Jive Social Business Software combines collaboration, community and social networking software, allowing you to engage employees, customers and the social web.

* Harvest: Harvest is a simple time tracking application that makes it fast and easy for businesses to track billable hours and create invoices.

* Floorplanner Pro: Floorplanner Pro provides a quick and easy way for real estate agents and facilities professionals to create and share interactive floor plans in both 2D as 3D.

Life in the cloud is not as scary as we all thought it would be and Google is making the addition of new apps as easy as adding an app to your smartphone.

Border Crossing Wait Times Tweeted By Canadian Border Services Agency

The Canadian Border Services Agency is now trying to assist travelers to the US via Twitter, at least through this busy summer season. "The CBSA is committed to applying low-cost technologies like Twitter to keep service delivery standards high without increasing costs to the taxpayer," Stephen Rigby, the president of CBSA says in a news release on the agency's website. This page will take you to the agency's instructions for it's feed in this 3 month pilot project. It works like this:

You can simply follow @cbsa_bwt or use the hashtags below to select your desired crossing and search for tweets on the estimated wait times in effect.

St. Stephen, NB / Calais, ME #CBSA_STS
Belleville, NB / Houlton, ME #CBSA_WSR
Stanstead, QC / Derby Line, VT #CBSA_STD
St. Armand, QC / Highgate Springs, VT #CBSA_SAP
Lacolle, QC / Champlain, NY #CBSA_SBL
Cornwall, ON / Rooseveltown, NY #CBSA_CWL
Lansdowne, ON / Alexandria Bay, NY #CBSA_TIB
Queenston, ON / Lewiston, NY #CBSA_QLB
Niagara Falls, ON / Niagara Falls, NY #CBSA_RBB
Fort Erie, ON / Buffalo, NY #CBSA_PBR
Windsor, ON / Detroit, MI #CBSA_ABB
Windsor, ON / Detroit, MI #CBSA_DCT
Sarnia, ON / Port Huron, MI #CBSA_BWB
Sault Ste. Marie, ON / Sault Ste. Marie, MI #CBSA_SSM
Fort Frances, ON / International Falls, MN #CBSA_FFB
Emerson, MB / Pembina, ND #CBSA_EMR
North Portal, SK / Portal, ND #CBSA_NPL
Coutts, AB / Sweet Grass, MT #CBSA_CTS
Surrey, BC / Blaine, WA #CBSA_PCH
Surrey, BC / Blaine, WA #CBSA_DPA
Delta, BC / Point Roberts, WA #CBSA_BBY
Huntingdon, BC / Sumas, WA #CBSA_HTD

If you are travelling to Detroit this morning you'll be happy to know that:

#CBSA_ABB Commercial Flow: No delay, Travellers Flow: No delay

E3's Here, What Games Will We Be Playing Next?

E3 is upon us and if you want to know what you'll be playing come Christmas time, check out Wired's round up of the top 10 game trailers. Look's like a number of the great game franchise's are represented: Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock, Rock Band 3, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures (online), Transformers War for Cybertron, and the one I'm most interested in, Call of Duty Black Ops!

Taking Time For Mother Nature

Yesterday I woke up and smelled the roses...

We've had what seems like weeks of rain and temperatures that I'd guess are below seasonal for May and through the first week of June. Saturday, albeit cool, was a beautifully sunny day on Prince Edward Island and rather than the usual weekend running around we decided to take a little break to appreciated what we have here. Armed only with my trusty Canon PowerShot S5IS, a few years old but I love it and have no intentions on replacing it any time soon, we hopped in the car and headed towards Cavendish and Mother Nature smiled on us. 

Being a native Northern New Brunswicker, where wildlife grows large and plentiful, I've always loved my chance encounters with animals of all types. Moose, deer, black bear, coyote, porcupine, fox, skunk, rabbit, I've more than one story I could tell you about each. Since moving to Prince Edward Island in '99 I've never really appreciated the local wildlife scene, there are no large wild animals here, and except for the occasional fox, which are rather plentiful, I've not experienced much of the local variety. Yesterday, I slowed down, open my eyes and was rewarded for it. The trip from my house to Cavendish can be done in under a half hour but I'm sure it must have taken 2 to 3 times that yesterday, I wasn't counting. I didn't take the direct route choosing instead to slow down and meander along the coast looking at the great landscapes, some beautiful homes, and was rewarded with a new appreciation for the local inhabitants. While the pictures can't truly express the feeling of seeing these beautiful creatures up close, I hope you'll find some joy in them as well.

What Motivates Us - A Follow Up

Ever notice that when you buy a new car you start seeing that car everywhere? Same make, same model, same colour... it just feels like every where you go you bump into someone else driving that exact same car. This week has been somewhat like that for me. No, I didn't buy a new car.

A week ago I wrote "What Motivates Us" and the reaction was instant. My little rant struck a chord with a number of readers and traffic to my blog increased significantly. I received comments, tweets, e-mails, and I  realized that what had been bottled up inside of me for a very long time was a common theme amongst many of you.

This week a couple of things happened. First, I started reading Jeff Jarvis' book "What Would Google Do?" and in it he discusses Dell's previously poor reputation for service and what the company did to turn things around. What it boils down to is that instead of dismissing the rumblings of it's customers, Dell began to embrace them, reading blog posts, forums, e-mails, etc. and quickly dispatching employees to address the issues which incredibly turned disgruntled purchasers into champions of the Dell brand. This got me thinking about an exercise a former employer went through by hiring a human resource consultant to interview management and a sampling of staff members. The consultant asked, what I presume was, similar questions to each group regarding their perspective of the HR policies / practices of the company. I was not chosen to participate but I understand that there may have been a huge gap between how the staff and management scored the company on several levels of employee satisfaction. The result was a report given to management (only to management) and a subsequent e-mail to employees, roughly some time in April, outlining measures that would be implemented. The e-mail contained a number of items that would benefit management and a number of items that would benefit staff, the plan was to implement these changes over a period of about 6 weeks and we were given hope that change was coming. I kept that e-mail. The items on the management side of the equation were swiftly implemented. From time to time, I'd return to my inbox and open that e-mail reading the list of items that where coming our way, and as summer drew to an end counted 5 long term employees with roughly 45 years combined experience (at our company) who had abandoned ship. Two years later the employee side of the equation was yet to be implemented.

The second thing that happened this week was iTunes downloading episode 154 of net@night with Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur. This week's guest was Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Tony has just released a book called Delivering Happiness A Path To Profits, Passion, And Purpose. Zappos.com is an amazing success story and the success has been driven by the company's number one priority, company culture. You must listen to the interview! There are a number of things that Tony says that will flick the light switch in your head. Perhaps the one that most resonated with me was "... a lot of companies have, they might call them core values or guiding principles, but the difference is for most  companies it reads kinda like a press release that the PR department put out and they are very lofty sounding and maybe you learn about it on day one of orientation, if you are a large corporation, but then it becomes this meaningless plaque on the wall that no one pays attention to, for us we wanted to come up with committable core values..." Tony goes on to explain how Zappos.com offers new hires a chance to quit after their first week of work with $2000 and their earned wages to that point! This is because they don't want people who are only there for a pay cheque (sound familiar), they want employees who are there for the company's long term vision... 

This post IS directed at those in a position of power, but not as a cheap shot. It is with hope that you will take this seriously. Look at the comments of the last post, not my comments, but those of others who felt compelled to respond. Listen to episode 154 of net@night. Read "What Would Google Do?". Read Tony's book and take a hard look around your organization, people are not nearly as motivated nor as happy as you might like to believe. As Tony says "I think 50 years ago people had to choose between maximizing profits and making employees or customers happy..."

Scott Adams Weighs In On Ideas vs. Execution

I am a huge Scott Adams fan! Who in their right mind doesn't love Dilbert? If you don't you've probably never walked in his shoes. In a recent blog post Adams examines the idea of a Dilbert Movie and dissects what the detractors are saying. I like the post, and I think there is a bunch of insight in the few hundred words used to make his point.

"How about a movie about two gay cowboys? Done! Academy Award!"

Go for it Scott! I'd love to see a Dilbert movie, and hey if you need a geek to play the part, cameo appearance, random guy using smartphone? ...just saying.

Suicides Prompt Taiwanese Company To Double Pay Of Chinese Employees

There has been a fair amount of press lately about Foxconn a Taiwan based company with manufacturing facilities in mainland China. The company manufactures much of the hot consumer electronics products that are coveted world wide, including the Apple iPhone and iPad. The BBC is reporting "Ten people have killed themselves at its plant in Shenzhen, in southern China, which employs about 400,000 people. Three more apparently tried to take their own lives." It's unbelievable that people are pushed to these tragic endings, however as others have reported 10 in 400,000 is well below the national average in China. In my humble opinion it's highly likely that the reaction by Foxconn to increase wages is more the result of pressure from Apple and other companies who use their service, than out of concern for the employees. To qualify for the pay rise, workers will first have to pass a performance test lasting three months (the old carrot and stick again). The company has also hired psychiatrists and installed safety nets on buildings, seriously!

What Would Charles Schultz Think?

Stumbled upon this via ars technica and couldn't help but wonder if this is what Charles Schultz was dreaming about when he drew the lovable beagle on top of his dog house dog bowl in hands, er paws... I think this is exactly how he envisioned the World War One Flying Ace! Available now on Xbox Live Arcade, for 800 points or $10.

 BTW, traffic is way up this weekend. Thanks for visiting!

The Power of MooTube...

I had to share this. Cows Ice Cream is a local (Prince Edward Island) based ice cream shop that has turned into a recognizable brand and is very popular with locals and tourists alike. Besides ice cream they also are known for their parody of common memes on t-shirts and other novelty candies and bovine themed trinkets. They are now taking the parody to the next level and it's quite amooooozing :)