After seeing this article in Fredericton’s Daily Gleaner, I couldn’t help but give myself the old facepalm. Do people around here have short memories? Do we not remember what happened to all the other e-learning companies around here? We have a few that remain, but they are only shells of their former selves. The majority of these are out of province companies that go shopping around for which government agency will give them the most money. Once the contracts have dried up, they lay off their staff and go home.

What most people don’t know is that there are 2 different types of IT companies: Product developers and contractors.

Product developers are ones that make their own product and sell it. There are many of these companies around Fredericton, most of them homegrown. A short list: Caris, Radian6, Q1 Labs, Chalk, Indosoft, Measurand, Remsoft, Virtual Expert Clinics, IVS, EDP, T4G

Contractors are ones that do work for other companies or government agencies. A short list: CGI, XWave, Accreon, PQA, Fujitsu, Unisys, Skillsoft

Most of the product development companies started in Fredericton while most of the contractor companies have head offices elsewhere. I’m not trying to say that contractor companies aren’t worth investing in, but that product development companies are better.

Let’s look at 2 relatively recent failures:

1. FatKat, a contract based animation company – They were given a lot of money, but when the contracts ran out, all economic activity stopped and the government lost their investment. No, it’s not an IT company, but there is very little difference between it and the average IT consulting company.
2. Mathis Instruments, a product development company  – They had a great product but couldn’t sell it. They went under, but their product was bought by C-Vision who continues development and is actually able to sell it. Sure, the government lost money, but C-Therm (as it’s now called) still has an office in Fredericton that employs people.

All we’ve been hearing about is how great it is that Company X is coming in and creating 200 jobs after getting lured in by the government. They get a lot of buzz because they’re big numbers, those 200 jobs come fairly quickly and look good politically. Product development jobs come more slowly and therefore don’t look good for the politicians. As any politician knows, true progress doesn’t get you in the newspapers.

If someone seriously wants to attract the good kind of IT companies, a two-pronged approach must be taken. Rather than simply spending all the effort into luring companies away from other jurisdictions, effort also needs to be spent in establishing home-grown companies. A few hints on how to do that:

• Bring back Incutech, but this time, put some effort into it. Don’t just put it in some old run-down UNB building with cheap rent; put it downtown in a nice building. It needs to be more than just office space, there needs to be assistance with things like creating business plans, marketing and other non technical aspects of running a company.
• Venture capital is what brings products to market quickly. Provide assistance to companies who are looking for VC funding. Market NB as a place for investors to invest. Yes, ACOA exists, but it is more focused on spending money than building companies.
• Tap the potential of the universities. There are many great ideas that are stuck in a lab or a student’s head. Opportunities are being lost as these ideas aren’t able to be commercialized.

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As seen on Twitter:

Reference (in case you didn’t get it)

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Here are some tips on how to make your child’s 4 and under soccer experience better for everyone:

• Realize that your 3 or 4 year old isn’t going to be good at soccer. If he/she can even just kick the ball, or even participate at all, that’s an accomplishment.
• Not all kids are happy all of the time. If your child is crying, don’t drag them out onto the field and hold them there. Just let them sit it out while things calm down.
• Cleats. Really? What do you think they are going to accomplish? Will cleats make your kid kick the ball towards the opposing teams net instead of his own? Will cleats improve his hand-eye coordination so that he actually makes contact with the ball for every attempt? I don’t think so. Your kid runs around on your lawn all the time and has no problem with it, why would a soccer field be any different? All they are going to do is give puncture wounds to other kids.
• Shin guards. Congratulations at being able to get those on without a lot of screaming and yelling. It’s too bad they aren’t actually going to help much as the shins are the last place that will get hurt. Most of the owies that I’ve seen are from 2 kids running head-on into each other at full speed. That is usually head-to-head contact. The second one is when a kid falls over on the field and gets trampled on by 3 or 4 other kids (some who wear cleats).
• Even though they tell you that parents are allowed on the field at any time, don’t do the drills for your kid, let him do them, that’s the only way he’ll learn.
• All kids are going to get hurt at some point during the season, some of the collisions might actually be quite funny. Try not to let the kids see you laughing or else the other kids will start imitating. We don’t want them to qualify for the Italian team just yet.
• When it comes to snack time, don’t be too picky about what the treats are. Let your kid have the sugary stuff, they will burn off the calories.
• If you see a kid that’s acting hyper, it’s probably because they are excited about being at soccer. They do not have a food allergy that is only diagnosable by a chiropractor pushing down on his arm while reading out things like “Yellow #8″. Yes, I did roll my eyes, but at least I restrained myself from making quacking noises.
• You may have to bring a younger sibling to the practise, however, please keep the toddlers off the field. It may be cute when a 16 month old tries to chase the ball, but it isn’t cute when they get trampled by a bunch of kids wearing cleats.
• Realize that your 3 or 4 year old isn’t going to be good at soccer. Look at what the other kids are doing, they aren’t going well either. In fact, it can be quite funny. Enjoy yourself and your kid will too.

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The last time I suggested a building get torn down, it actually got torn down. Encouraged by my previous 100% success rate, I’m continuing to make some more suggestions.

On a more serious note, urban sprawl is an issue, but it doesn’t need to be as we have plenty of space downtown, we just aren’t using it very well.

Originally built as a grocery store, this eyesore has been vacant for years:

Not much you can do with a single story grocery store, but it does have a large footprint. Compare it to Frederick Square (in blue):

You could build a really nice building here (as long as you don’t mind the occasionally flooded basement). This would be a perfect spot for the rumoured courthouse.

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Saw a press release for Fredericton’s new doctor recruitment web site that’s available at: http://www.gofredericton.ca/

I then imagined myself as a doctor looking to set up shop somewhere. I’m first greeted with a fairly blank page that has the YFC flight status and the weather. I’m happy to see an efficient airport with on-time flights so all the donated organs will arrive nice and fresh.

I read around the site a bit and see that it has all the artsy and cultury stuff that I need to entertain my highly educated brain. Looks like I’ll fit right in. I want to see what my peers have to say so I click on the link titled “what our doctors say” and get this:

Maybe someone should make sure they finish the web site before making the press release for it. Come on, we can do better than this.

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Now their transit system not only has wi-fi, it has live real-time GPS data displayed on a Google map:
http://www.codiactranspo.ca/GoBus.htm (for best results, choose the Express route)

Oh well, at least our buses have a nicer paint scheme (anything’s nicer than pink and purple wavy stripes):

Ugh....

Update: Looks like a driver’s a little lost:

Update again: Here’s one that has 3 lost drivers

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Here’s a quick update to this earlier post I made:

The broken destination sign has been fixed, however, I saw another one on another bus that was also broken, but I didn’t think to note the fleet number so I don’t know for sure whether it’s fixed or not. From now on, I’ll be more careful about recording the fleet numbers with any maintenance issues I find.

Speaking of fleet numbers, I’ve decoded them. The first number is always 8, the next 2 are the last 2 digits of the year, and the last one is a counter for the year. SO bus 8994 is the 4th bus they bought in 1999. I’m not sure if the year is the model year of the bus, or the year they got it. Some of them have different numbers inside the bus so they may have got them used from other transit systems.

The consultant’s report that they are constantly referring to suggest that trial runs of new routes should be at least 1 year long.  They seem to be ignoring the advice they paid for with the Two Nations Crossing trial by only having it run for a few months. They shouldn’t just be cherry-picking only the options they like out of it.  They are also ignoring the pleas of the box store workers who are asking that the bus run until 10pm so they can finish their shifts and take the bus home. Hopefully they won’t give up too soon and declare the run a failure without giving it a proper trial.

Speaking of the consultant’s report, not much else has been done with it, other than asking other levels of government for more money for a new garage and sub-terminal at the Regent Mall. Where’s the extra advertising, re-branding and route number / schedule simplification?

Speaking of improvements, why aren’t they promising any with the UNB universal pass? The students are going to vote on having to pay an extra $100/year for some vague hints that the transit system will be slightly less useless in the future. For STU, they were given the details of the service improvements before they went to vote.

How long has it been since Aliant transferred their wireless division to Bell? I think it’s been a while, however, there are still Aliant Mobility ads inside the buses. I suspect that they leave them up even after the contract has expired so the ad panel doesn’t look too empty. If you want to save on your advertising budget, just run an ad for a month and Fredericton Transit will leave it up for years.

They repainted some of the buses and they no longer put “Fredericton Transit” across the doors. Now they don’t have to worry about using the right font when replacing the doors.

Why don’t they join forces with other local transit agencies and bulk purchase? Surely there’s a price break when you purchase 20 units at once? It seemed to work with road paint. They could even do something as simple as keep a centralized parts repository.

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With all these stories about identity theft and crime on Facebook, I thought I’d give a few pointers on keeping yourself secure.

1. Make sure you don’t have anything set to “public”.  There’s a lot of information on there that you don’t want random people seeing.
2. Keep the personal information to a minimum. Can you trust all your friends? Really, all 500 of them? Can you trust that their accounts will never get hacked?  No you can’t, which is why you shouldn’t have your address or your date of birth on your profile.  These can be used to gain access to accounts.  If you wouldn’t want it in the phone book, don’t put it on your Facebook. Don’t forget that some applications will steal your data; you will probably never know which ones are doing it.
3. Beware of long-lost relatives, they probably aren’t long lost relatives.  Eventually, they’ll come up with some sob story and ask for some money.
4. Beware of impostors, sometimes people aren’t who they say they are.  If it seems a little suspicious, put them on a limited profile until they can prove they are who they say they are.  Ask them something they would only know if you met them in person where they said they met you (such as Junior High)
5. Don’t say that you’re away from home.  One of your idiot friends will tell one of their friends who will break in to your house and steal your stuff.  Post your vacation pictures after you’ve come back.
6. Don’t advertise parties or else you’ll find 200 people showing up at your house and trashing it.  Also watch out for idiots who post stuff on walls about your party, don’t invite them.
7. Use a good password, don’t use ones that are easy to guess. If you login with a Gmail or Hotmail account, don’t use the same password for both.  If someone does get your Facebook password, they’ll get also have your e-mail password.
8. Facebook will never phone or email you asking for account details. If they do, then they aren’t really Facebook. They are just trying to hack your account. 99.99% of account hacks are caused by people giving away their account information to strangers.
9. Beware of hacked accounts. Your friends may have given out their passwords.  If you get an urgent message from them saying that they are in jail in Mexico and need money for bail, it isn’t really them. Remember that they will have a lot of personal information in their account (and they will be able to see your account).
10. Remember the golden rule: if it sounds fishy, it probably is.

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about privatizing parts of our health care system. Some people claim it will be the end of the world and the model won’t work out.

Most people are unaware that there are already a lot of private interests in our health care system. The biggest private involvement is your local doctor’s office. If you look any official documentation, you’ll see that you paid a visit to the “Dr. Smith Professional Corporation”.  Yes, your family doctor is a corporation. Medicare pays out a set rate for each office visit. Out of that, your doctor then has to pay for the receptionist, nurses, rent, tongue depressors, etc. Anything left over is considered a profit.

How is this different than someone buying an MRI machine, and then charging Medicare for each time it gets used?  Wouldn’t the most obvious solution be to just extend the model that exists already?

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