http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/390219
The first session that just wrapped up was quite interesting - Chandran Nair took us through a look at the world's problems and how many misconceptions there are about what can solve them. What I found striking was the comparison of world problems to spending on trivial/much less meaningful things:

Health Nutrition ($13B) : Petfood Spending in the USA ($17B)
Water and Sanitation ($9B) : Ice Cream in Europe ($11B)
Education ($6B) : Cosmetics in the USA ($8B)

Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the co-founders of Ethos Water, also gave us a compelling look into the world of Water and how simple and cheap ($25/person) it is to solve. The one thing I don't get - on a $1.79 bottle of water, Starbucks (which acquired Ethos) donates 5 cents (10 cents in Canada oddly). They were founded on the basis of donating 50% of profits... I can't believe profit on that bottle of water is only 10 cents! (considering how much cheaper other bottled water is). Anyway, he now works with a new magazine - GOOD - which has a unique subscription model of giving away the $20 subscription fee to a charity of your choice.]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:49:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/390219 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/369951


I'm very proud of them for ending the video with the simple message of "vote" - resisting the urge to squeeze it beyond need towards the candidate.]]> Mon, 12 May 2008 02:59:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/369951 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/366503
My Dell XPS m1330 is my favorite laptop yet (I think it's my 10th in 10 years!), but Dell and Microsoft have made it far too hard to re-format it cleanly without Windows Vista Blue-screening on every second boot (caused by the AHCI setting in BIOS, but not providing AHCI drivers during install). It took me awhile to figure out how to do this properly, so I thought I'd share to help the rest of the Internet figure it out.

1) You have to download these drivers from Intel:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=NProductID=2101DwnldID=14848strOSs=150OSFullName=WindowsVista*64lang=eng

2) Run the file with a "-a" from the Windows commandline, which will put those files into the "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage Manager" directory

3) Copy the files from the "Drivers" or "Drivers64" (64-bit Vista) directory onto a USB Key

4) When you install Vista from the DVD, pick the "Custom" option, then click "Load Drivers"

5) Click "Browse", and point to your USB stick. Load the drivers from it.

6) Oops! You may then get a strange error "windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume" -- you'll need to change a setting in your bios to disable USB booting which you can-reenable later (More info: http://www.dashken.net/index.php?/archives/204-Windows-could-not-determine-if-this-computer-contains-a-valid-system-volume.html) This happened to me this time, but not the last time I did this.

And then you'll be on your way. This kind of step-by-step would have saved me hours, so I hope it'll help others too!

P.S. I'd highly recommend a 64-bit install - you can get excellent help for this here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=158277]]> Mon, 05 May 2008 15:37:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/366503 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/334745
The one thing that never ceases to annoy and frustrate me though is their IVR phone system. It's probably been 3 years that I've been calling and every time I get through, I complain and ask them to note it down. They always acknowledge that everyone complains and they say they're working on improving it, but it never happens.

I don't know how they can get it so wrong compared to other industries (airlines, banks, etc.) or even their U.S. competitors like Verizon which have great phone systems! Here are the steps to get to Wireless Customer Service for example:

1. Say "Wireless"
2. Say "Talk to a Representative"
3. Say "Account Changes"
4. Say "Blackberry" or "Phone" (how does this make any sense?)
5. Punch in your Phone Number
6. Be greeted by a representative, who then asks for your phone number again?! Then you have to verify your name, postal code, and DOB. What a waste of time... they should just instead let you pick a PIN and then use that instead.

The best part is that this happens even when you dial 611 from your phone! It could easily detect your number from caller ID and not even bother to ask you anything.

There's a great site called gethuman dedicated to frusturation about IVRs and phone systems, and they've developed a Gethuman Standard for well-designed phone systems. A key point from it:

"# Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call."

The day that Rogers implements a proper system that does justice to their innovation in so many other areas, I will officially call them a company I love.]]> Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:48:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/334745 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/318657 170,000 miles of flying, if you can believe it!



YYZ-SEA-YYZ
YYZ-YVR-HNL-SYD-AKL-SYD-PER-SIN-HKG-YVR-LAX-TUS-LAX-YYZ
YYZ-YVR-YYZ
YYZ-BOS-YYZ
YYZ-YHZ-YYZ
YYZ-LHR-YYZ
YYZ-YQB-YYZ
YYZ-SEA-YYZ
YYZ-LHR-CAI-FRA-NRT-TPE-LAX-JFK-YYZ
YYZ-BOS-YYZ-YYC-YYZ-IND-YYZ
YYZ-LAX-TPE-SIN-SYD-SIN-TPE-LAX-YYZ
YYZ-YEG-SEA-FAI-SEA-YYZ
YYZ-LHR-HEL-LHR-YYZ
YYZ-SFO-SAN-YYZ
YYZ-LHR-BAH-LHR-YYZ
YYZ-LAX-TPE-SIN-KUL-SIN-TPE-BKK-LHR-YYZ

Speaking of travel, one of my favorite things to do in other countries is visiting supermarkets and buying some local treats... Now I can't visit New Zealand without brining home Tim Tams and Manuka Honey... and I have Milo from Bahrain in the kitchen! It's a fun way to check out the local culture.

Now I'm going to work on offsetting my flights by working on our new Understanding the Issues page on Climate Change!]]> Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:45:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/318657 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/300847 What an interesting 48 hours! After Susheela and Andrew’s wonderful wedding on Saturday afternoon, I headed off to the airport to speak on the final day of the Fikr 6 conference happening in Manama, Bahrain. Today, I attended a morning session with John Clippinger moderated by Joi Ito, discussing the implications of technology on the region and for the future. The discussion got into intellectual property and open source, and I found particularly interesting comments made by the panelist from Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company, who spoke about the fact that SA was a very open partner and keen participant in many technology collaborations, attributed to the fact that they weren’t interested in owning or licensing intellectual property, but rather just getting access to the best ideas that they could implement locally. It’s nice to be in that position sitting on top of such a resource!

Later, there was a discussion on sustainable housing and building – and the future of energy in the region. One of the speakers was talking about how valuable the sun resource was in MENA - and quoted the fact that a 50x50 square km field of solar panels (current technology) could power the whole MENA region, 100x100 all of Europe, and 300x300 sq km all of the world! Everyone seemed quite intrigued by that, reflecting that only the low low cost of oil has prevented that from becoming a reality. I hope that the cost of Solar will come down to make these types of projects possible in the future…

Before our panel on Social Networks, the Crown Prince of Bahrain was interviewed on stage, and the conversation really heated up over a government plan to impose 200BD ($500 CDN) surcharges on companies for hiring immigrant workers. An interesting solution to a perceived challenge of immigrant workers taking jobs from locals – however, it was also acknowledged that many locals aren’t interested in certain types of hard skill jobs. The prince committed to re-opening a polytechnic college to train more locals on skills.

My panel on Social Networks included Cory Ondrejka From Linden Labs / Second Life, Eric Case from Google / Blogger.com, and Joi Ito (photo credit to Joi for the Prince Bandar photo). We discussed why Web 2.0 isn’t just about wasting time, how sites (like TIG!) can be used for youth to continue the conversations and take action on the issues discussed, the digital divide, and closed with a question of the potential negative impact of technology. (Joi and Cory saved it from being too much of a downer...) :)

Later this afternoon three different youth innovation groups presented ideas on Technology, Investment, and Education for support and endorsement from the audience – all very articulate and with great ideas! Tonight there’s a dinner hosted by the Prince and then tomorrow I have a few hours to relax and check out Bahrain’s UNESCO site before heading home…

P.S. To follow-up on my last blog, we were surprised and honoured to find out in San Jose that we weren't just a Tech Awards laureate, but the prize winner in the Education category! Congratulations to Luke and Emily for leading TIGed to make it all possible!]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:24:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/300847 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/270367
During the last week of October, I had the honour of presenting at the TTI/Vanguard conference on leveraging networks - this is the conference that Jen and I were invited by Nicholas Negroponte to speak at back in 2000 that connected us to several friends and advisors, so I was excited to have the chance again, and it was a great learning experience too! Although I had to leave after the first day to speak at a conference in Calgary.

Later that week, I visited the amazing Orchard School in Indianapolis, where I spoke at the Middle School leadership conference, and also to the faculty about TIG and how they could get involved with global education through the TIGed tools! I got some great feedback and several of the teachers saw immediate ways to get started on TIG.

In the first week of October, I was supposed to fly to another conference in Sydney stopping in Auckland to present two workshops at ULEARN 07 with the help of Cherrie Kong, one of our TIG members from NZ that was involved in our Student Voices contest and been involved in helping with many other things since then. However, after the crazy few weeks beforehand, and with a lot of needs at TIG on the tech front, I decided to stay home for the week and carve out some serious coding time to catch up with all the things I needed to work on! Cherrie was a HUGE help managing the workshop remotely and I presented via video conference :)

Last week, I travelled to Sydney to speak at the Australian Council for School Leaders (ACEL) and ASCD joint International conference, where I shared my story and TIG's vision and programs with over 1,500 school leaders from Australia, Asia, and the USA. I feel like it went very well - I've been invited back by a few different people and noticed many new Australia TIG members each day for the last few days! I did something a bit silly too. I really wanted to get Air Canada Super Elite status this year (which you get by flying over 100,000 miles) - so I flew to Sydney via Taiwan and Singapore - an extra 7 hours each way! It was the same price and Singapore Airlines is fabulous, so it wasn't too bad. (plus I got upgraded on several of the flights so I ate some tasty food - and spent time in the gym at the Singapore airport in both directions!) And now I have the status so I'm looking forward to extra-special treatment by Air Canada in the future :)

This week, I spoke in Edmonton yesterday at the Alberta Distance Education symposium to about 500 educators from K-12 and Universitiy, and hopefully got a lot of people in Alberta excited about TIG and TIGed! I took a few hours before dinner to check out the West Edmonton Mall which was actually quite cool.

Today I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska to speak at the University of Fairbanks tomorrow to their Student Leadership conference, and Monday to University faculty and local educators before flying back home on Monday night. I'll enjoy almost a week at home before heading to Helsinki, Finland next week for the School of the Future conference where our advisory board for the MS education program will be meeting, and I'll be presenting TIGed. The week after that, I'm excited to be travelling with Nick to the Tech Museum Awards, where TIG is being honoured this year as a winner in the Education Category!

I hope all of you are doing well, and welcome to all the new TIG members that I have been recruiting in my travels! :)]]> Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:38:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/270367 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/190509

]]> Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:21:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/190509 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/167205
To start with, you can find a feed link on every city, state/province, and country site (that's over 3 million sites total). It will automatically update with the latest blogs, events, organizations, gallery submissions, and panorama articles from the city, region, or country you choose! You can either create a "Live Bookmark" in Firefox or you can subscribe to them in IE7. Or, if you use My Yahoo, My Google, or My MSN, or one of hundreds of personal homepages, you can paste the TIG RSS feed for your favourite place(s) there and get updated on what's new automatically!

Soon you'll be able to access RSS feeds based on categories when the new Understanding section launches. But for now I hope this helps to quench your thirst for TIG content updates! Let me know what you think :)]]> Tue, 20 Mar 2007 02:39:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/167205 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/165281 Hong Kong, one of my favourite places. I thought I had to get a flight at 9 AM, but it was actually at 2:50 PM, which was a nice surprise!

After getting to the airport via the convienent Airport Express (you check your bags in at the train station), and enjoying a few delicious Thai treats at the Thai lounge (note: when you fly a lot - over 35,000 miles a year, and you get access to lounges, and you have the choice between a United Airlines lounge and a Thai Airways lounge, always pick Thai! You will thank me some day!), I made a timely arrival and boarded my trusty Airbus 340-300 AKA Air Canada flight 8.

I had 3 whole hours in Vancouver to catch my connecting flight to LAX, which I figured was more than enough for anything unexpected. But then a sensor on one of the Engines failed, and we spent about an hour and a half waiting while they opened the engine up and repaired it, which was a great thing to do.

The pilot however decided to wait until we were taking off (instead of the 1.5 hours on the ground where I could have used my cell phone) to let us know that because of strong winds, we would take an extra 1.5 hours to get there, meaning we would be three hours late... arriving 30 minutes after my connecting flight. So I spent my first Sunday (HK time - 9 AM to 11 PM) on the flight, wondering what would happen to my connecting flights, and then my second Sunday (Vancouver time, 1 PM to 11:30 PM) scrambling to get on standby on full flights and make it here to Tucson to speak at a conference on time this morning.

Two Sundays on planes. Now that's a weekend! :) Once I'm back in Toronto I hope to have time to post some pics and highlights of my trips to New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong!]]> Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:32:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/165281 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/59405 Dissappeared! (sorry!) when V5 launched last year: E-mail Blog Posting!

To post to your blog by e-mail or mobile phone, just send an e-mail to:

yourusername-yourpassword@tigblog.org

That's a dash in between!

Your Subject will be your blog title, and e-mail body will be your blog
post! Try to turn on "Plain Text" -- don't use any fancy HTML, it
probably won't work because of how most e-mail clients send HTML e-mails
(it isn't pretty or easy to deal with). I hope you all find this very
useful!

(This is an e-mail blog of course!) :)

-- Mike
]]> Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:48:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/59405 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/42789
By matching this information, this means that you can find local maps of organizations for any city in Canada, the United States, or Australia, linked from every local site (and country site) -- under "View by Map".

Check out these examples:

- Toronto, Canada
- New York City
- Vancouver, Canada
- Sydney, Australia

Are there any other cool things that you think we could do with the ability to map information on TIG? We also have a Global Event Map, maps of your friends on TIG, and members online maps.]]> Sun, 03 Sep 2006 00:17:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/42789 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/39708
In this Video blog below (requires Quicktime), Jennifer Corriero and Sarah Richardson give a tour of the tidy beautiful space, the calm before the storm...
]]> Mon, 19 Jun 2006 04:45:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/39708 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38654 URGE, the new Music service MTV launched today in partnership with Microsoft.

First, I went to the URGE site and downloaded the application. After running it, it told me that it required Windows Media Player 11, with an OK button that just closed the application.

On my own, I had to figure out how to go to the Microsoft site and download Windows Media Player 11, which by the way is a beta program! (asking for trouble from less advanced end users here?)

After that, I had to download and install URGE again as part of the WMP 11 setup... after selecting URGE in the install process.

Then, I opened the program, and clicked on Free Trial (14 day free trial - no credit card required!). After setting up a brand new account, it tells me 'Our records show that this account has already used its free trial.'

Really? Even though the service just launched today, I used a 14-day free trial? I tried setting up a different account with a different e-mail address with the same problem. This is the kind of user experience (and I'm a bit more savvy than the 'average' computer user) that URGEs people to keep using iTunes -- and MTV is putting their name on this? Ouch. ]]> Thu, 18 May 2006 02:15:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38654 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38313
As a member of the Toronto Youth Force (a coalition of youth groups supporting youth activities at the summit), we have been hard at work building the Youth web site for the summit, which launches this week in English, and soon after in Spanish and French. You can have a sneak peek here - and let me know what you think. When complete, it will fully integrate with the TIG Events system for blogs, photos, attendee list, and much more!]]> Mon, 08 May 2006 01:34:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38313 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38243
Monday, May 1
I started my week in Connecticut, at the Metropolitan Learning Center, where I spoke to two groups of amazing students, who are learning in an extraordinary environment with some exceptional teachers. It is a magnet public school with 1:1 laptops focused on global studies. A dream come true for the students... who seem deeply engaged. We will definately be working with them in the future.

Tuesday, May 2
On Tuesday I did three talks at the Beyond Technology conference in Springfield, MA. My keynote at lunch was really fun - and I got some great questions from the group. I followed up with a hands-on session explaining how TIGed works, and then a conference closing panel with other speakers. So far over 10 schools from the conference have signed up to use TIGed, which is great!

Wednesday, May 3
I drove down to Manhattan (New York New York) for a Global Youth Action Network board meeting. Unfortunately I had to leave right away, and decided to try a new car service called OZO CAR (hybrids, in-car power, satellite radio, and wifi internet!) - it was awesome, and the driver was so nice...he was a hip-hop artist and shared his work. Too bad traffic was absolutely insane, and I missed my flight! (only the second time ever) I actually didn't mind, because it meant Franziska, Vidar, Ben and I could enjoy a scorpion bown pina colada at Waikiki Wally's to celebrate Ben's birthday!

Thursday, May 4
Off to Austin, Texas, for the World Congress of IT. I spoke on a keynote panel with 3 other youth (including TIG member Cherrie!) and Don Tapscott. We got the only standing ovation of the conference, so I guess that means it was good? Other speakers included Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer, and Colin Powell. AMD gave a Personal Interet Communicator to every attendee - basically a simple Windows CE-based computer that can be used for Internet, Office, and E-mail.

Friday, May 5
Before driving to Houston to head home, a few of us headed to IHOP for breakfast. I had my usual: Chicken Fajita Omelette, no mushrooms, egg whites, with harvest n' nut whole wheat pancakes. It's been almost a year... I missed it! I didn't realize how 'famous' of a city Austin was... I wish I had an extra day to spend there. Apparently it was rated the #1 big city in the US to live.]]> Fri, 05 May 2006 22:44:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38243 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38096
We are launching Podcasting in partnership with the 2006 International AIDS Conference coming to Toronto in August, where several journalists will be podcasting on TIG and on the AIDS 2006 Youth site (currently in development)

It will be live and available for all users soon!]]> Mon, 01 May 2006 16:16:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/38096 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/35799
In Fortune this week:

In an industry where others are sputtering, Toyota is a juggernaut. It is producing nearly 50 percent more cars than in 2001 and this year it will almost certainly pass General Motors to become the world's largest auto company.

Toyota (Research) alone earned more than all the rest of the world's 12 largest auto manufacturers combined -- $11.4 billion. And it is pioneering a new technology for the 21st century that will shrink gasoline consumption and limit greenhouse gases.

And this from Auto Spectator:

Billboard tracks gasoline saved by Toyota hybrids: 100,000,000+ gallons

Toyota estimates that drivers of Toyota and Lexus hybrids have saved more than 110,000,000 gallons of gasoline as of January 31, 2006. An electronic billboard counter alongside the 405 Freeway in El Segundo, California updates the running total every four seconds. Toyota and Lexus hybrid drivers have also avoided emitting an estimated 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and more than 3,000,000 pounds of smog-forming gases.

--------------------------------

You know, I'm pretty disappointed in Nissan... the car company I've supported to date. According to Fortune, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Japanese rival Nissan, likes to poke fun at Toyota's supposed social responsibility. "Some of our competitors say they are doing things for the benefit of humanity," he says. "Well, we are in a business, and the company has a mission of creating value."

Value for who? For what? Shareholders? How about value for humanity! In the future companies will increasingly be judged by the value they contribute back to the world, not only the value of their products to consumers.

Why not start now? Kudos to Toyota for their success, they deserve it for being amongst the first to take many big steps in the right direction. Now it's up to everyone else to catch up, or fall behind.

Who can disagree with this copy from Toyota's site - and I wouldn't usually quote advertising:

"Life is full of truths. That cleaner air is better for all of us. That more power from less gas is smarter. That looking after our planet is not just a choice, it's a necessity."]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:46:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/35799 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/35614
Four jobs I've had:

1. Newspaper Delivery Agent (Etobicoke Guardian, you make the news so sweet)
2. Teacher
3. Internet Superstar
4. Hero

Four movies I watch over and over:

• Why would anyone want to watch a movie more than once?
• Okay, anything Quentin Tarantino made, and anything Chris Farley or Will Farrell are in.

Four places I've lived:

1. Etobicoke (5 minutes from the airport, facilitating sleep!)
2. Toronto (Cityplace - Fibre Optic Internet)
3. Seattle
4. New York (if you add the number of days I've spent there together...)

Four TV shows I love:

1. Conan O'Brien
2. Saturday Night Live
3. The Daily Show
4. Family Guy

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Adventure of the Seas
2. Maui/Honolulu, Hawaii
3. Hammamet, Tunisia (ONE DAY COUNTS!)
4. Countless Family Florida Roadtrips

Four of my favourite dishes:

• Butternut Squash Soup (Wolfgang Puck, you are my hero!)
• Butternut Squash/Sweet Potato Ravioli/Gnocchi (Milestones many others)
• Peking Duck (preferrably with soft pancakes)
• Rack of Lamb with Mint Jelly

Four sites I visit daily:

1. I'll never reveal my sources!

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. French Polynesia's about it. I like it where I am quite a lot.
2. A distant #2: Buying New Technology Gadgets (Sharper Image, Brookstone, Future Shop, Best Buy, CompUSA)

]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:37:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/35614 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/32991
After arriving home, I caught a cold (probably from the sub-zero temperatures in Toronto!) and it took me longer than it should have to recover, mostly because there was no time to breathe!

Among other things, in the last few weeks, I've been busy working on:

- Launching the TIG site in Chinese (to be formally announced soon - you need Chinese fonts installed to see it!)

- Finishing minor bugs and launching BeyondKyoto.org, a community site around the International Youth Summit supported by the Canadian government.

- Launching the PictureChange.ca web site with an alliance of Canadian NGOs working to address HIV/AIDS stigma and awareness across Canada. (thanks to Conail for helping to do most of the work on this!)

- Building Chapter pages for Journalists for Human Rights using our Project system, which will launch in the new year

- Geocoding Organization and Event data, which will soon be accessible from the site - but for a preview, check out this link for Toronto Organizations!

- Adding "Higher Education" as a feature on TIG - you can now edit your profile, and add your university/college experience, which then becomes clickable - you can find other TIG members who attended are attending your school! Try it out!

I hope everyone out there had a great November - I can't believe it's December and holiday season already!]]> Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:31:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/32991 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31905
But why wasn't I on a bus? After picking up the final bags from Hugh and Luke upon their arrive, Mhamed really wanted to take them to the expo: at 2 AM. He convinced me pretty easily since it meant I wouldn't have to lug them via bus in the morning, and we headed to the security checkpoint at the Parking spot. After about 20 minutes of negotiation, they told us a bus would come to pick us up. You see, the closest you can get is about 2 KM to the Kram Centre -- then you have to park your car or disembark from your taxi, and take a shuttle bus with your things to the Kram.

It got to about 2:45, and I was getting tired of playing the "is that a bus coming towards us from a distance?" game with Mhamad, and joking about walking to Kram with our bags. Mhamad went back to speak to them, and came back and told me we were walking. Seeing a police SUV at the checkpoint, I thought this was a joke of course, and loaded up the bags to walk over.

But we walked past them. And kept going... after about 1 KM, a tractor carrying cleaners came by us headed to Kram, and Mhamad managed to convince them to give us a ride. Although the attempt was quickly thwarted, we did save a good 10 minutes of walking.

Around 3:15 AM, we finally arrived to the ICT4All security check, and after getting 3 rounds of "NO WAY" (I think the arabic translation is about 5 minutes of arguing!) someone senior enough to allow us in finally arrived, and after a quick x-ray, we dropped the things off in the Youth Hub. The president visited to expo this morning, so you can imagine security was tight - checkpoints at every corner, flak-jacketed police with shotgun or rifle in hand crouching in bushes along the way.

But we had made it, and by 4:30 AM I was alseep. Today, the summit begins. And now that I've had time to eat breakfast, and post this blog, I'm headed there -- by bus I hope!]]> Tue, 15 Nov 2005 05:01:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31905 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31904
I arrived at the security checkpoint with Mhamed, and they had closed the ICT4All expo for security checks. Outside were two people arguing in English with the security chief, who could not understand them at all. The two people speaking in English were actually the Assistance Secretary of Commerce for the United States and a representative of the US Embassy in Tunisia, and they really needed to get in to attend meetings with the head of the US Delegation... that's what I could understand at least!

To the rescue came a young Egyptian who provided enough translation to help the chief understand their importance. As he was talking, he turned to both of them and asked "Do either of you speak French?" -- and they both shook their heads. It was just a striking moment of ignorance... that one of the most important people at the Summit had a locally-based staff member who didn't speak French or Arabic.

But we all managed to get in, and we got to work putting the Finishing touches on the hub... later we would pick up the last of the materials from Hugh and Luke arriving at the airport around 1 AM.]]> Tue, 15 Nov 2005 04:49:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31904 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31849
In the early afternoon, we headed to the Badging Centre and were able to register and get our badges in only about 15 minutes. Then, we eagerly headed over to the Kram centre and to the ICT4D Expo to get to work assembling the Youth Hub exhibition space.

After several exhausting hours of assembly and cleanup, the Youth Hub was beginning to look complete. We'll get some more pictures posted later today when we have above dial-up bandwidth. When Hugh and Luke arrive tonight with the final pieces, we will add the finishing touches in the morning.

Today, most others will arrive, so we're enjoying a few hours of calm before the busy schedules begin tommorow... another update soon!]]> Mon, 14 Nov 2005 05:13:00 EST http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/31849 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/30526 Details here). Over the life of the bulbs, they will save you over $50, but more importantly, they will reduce energy use by 75% assuming they replace normal bulbs.

I've been keen to buy energy saving bulbs over the last few years especially after seeing them even in much simpler residences in Ghana, which got me thinking... it is a higher up-front cost, but it's a good investment that pays off financially (they last 6-10 times as long for 2-3 times the price) and environmentally!

Isn't this such a brilliant initiative? I'm glad our power company (although deregulated) is thinking innovatively!

Did you know? According to the Clean Air Foundation (CAF) if every household and business in Toronto replaced just two bulbs, we could eliminate 17,667 tonnes of green house gas emissions annually.]]> Fri, 07 Oct 2005 02:19:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/30526 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667 http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/29734
So as part of V5, you have probably noticed that we migrated to more specific State/City matching for members, events, organizations, etc. Have you edited your profile and updated yours? We're still working out a few problems as it was very hard to get extremely accurate data for the world's states and cities!

Along with this data we got Latitude and Longditude mapping for each city, and I realized one night (it was in a dream I'm pretty sure) that because of this Long/Lat data, and a new feature on Google Maps, an idea Ziga was sharing with me in Scotland in August was possible: a world map of your friends!

And not only that, we can create dynamic maps of many kinds of data on TIG: organizations, events, even members in a country!

For now, if you haven't already checked it out, you can click the little globe icon beside Members Online on the homepage, and also the same icon beside My Friends on your My TIG page. Even more hidden is the fact that on any country site, you can click the map of that country and see all the cities where we have members in those countries (and how many members in each)...

I'd love to hear comments and ideas for how we can do more interesting things with this technology in the future! Also please note that only about 40-50% of TIG members cities are properly linked up so far, because of how complicated this is to do. About 95% of new members cities are being linked properly, and the best way you can help is to Edit your profile and make sure that your city and state are listed correctly!]]> Thu, 15 Sep 2005 01:19:00 EDT http://mfurdyk.tigblog.org/post/29734 43.6666667 -79.4166667 43.6666667 -79.4166667