Sauble Beach Web-Cam

June 12, 2007

Sauble Beach Web-Cam Jack n Jill’s Surf Shop on Main Street in Sauble Beach has put web-cam footage of the water conditions at Sauble online and available to those of you with high-speed internet. We here at theOwen.com think that the site is a really great idea. The camera will be operating from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and for fifty seconds at a time, you can control what direction it faces and zoom it in and out. What an amazing idea, a Sauble Beach web-cam!!

In a happy side note, since writing this post it has been announced that Sauble Beach has again been awarded the Blue Flag certification. The Blue Flag is an internationally recognized environmental certification verifying that the water at Sauble meets very stringent quality standards, maintains a high level of environmental management, environmental education and safety and services. For more information visit the Sauble Beach Chamber of Commerce or The Sun Times.

theOwen.com would like to send out a special thanks to Gary at the South Bruce Peninsular for bringing this web-cam to our attention!! Much obliged Gary!

Share This

Written by adam · Filed Under Get Out, Sauble Beach, Web Tools, theOwen Features, Internet, theOwen

HICKTech Brings Technology to the Country

May 3, 2007

This weekends HICKTech event was a rural technologists dream come true. Discussions ranging from Internet marketing to new options for high-speed capability in rural settings were of exceptional quality and value to participants. Booths lined the hall of Georgian College with tech-geeks, business owners and artists working in the digital realm exchanging information and email addresses.

With a keynote address at the Roxy on Friday night and 36 different workshops on Saturday the event was a very comprehensive examination of what new technology can do to help people from the Grey Bruce achieve their goals. Amazing possibilities presented by new technologies were outlined including the opportunity to host signal amplifiers on silos in order to create a wireless high-speed Internet connection in rural country where cable is out of the question. Shane Jolley led a seminar encouraging grassroots political interest, political transparency and interaction through political blogging.

The keynote speech at the Roxy on Monday night was given by Jennifer Evans. Titled “The Momentum Machine”, it outlined the creation, nurturing and maintenance of on-line community. It was a discussion of cutting edge social theory concerning how communities, whether online or off, can be maintained in a healthy long-term manner. The speech was of particular interest to we here at theOwen.com as it outlined the importance of interaction between those who run and maintain web sites/services and those who utilize them. Vital communities are interactive and are lead by those who are responsive to the needs of the community they are addressing. Hence theOwen.com wants your opinions and your ideas in order to stay relevant to your needs.

On Tuesday a seminar was given by several local web designers. This seminar outlined services, prices and benefits of web representation for business purposes. The discussion was led by web designers Running Tide, HAVE 1, Dragonfly Designs, and rjgcreative. A quick Google search for these developers will connect you to their services if you have been seeking help in designing your on-line representation.

Francesca Dobbyn led a discussion of 211 services, an Internet application in use in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Simcoe County and the Niagara region that brings together all social services and organizations operating in these areas. A quick visit to 211canada.ca will reveal the importance of this concept. For example, from this sight parents can research the support services available in an area for their autistic child, or someone moving to a new area could research housing opportunities and social assistance housing availability. In this seminar Francesca outlined the possibilities of the program and suggested passionately that the service be utilized in Owen Sound and area.

Along the same lines, Melody King-Smillie outlined the Ontario Telemedicine Network, a project that seeks to create an online hospital records archive. This service would enable doctors to access medical records of patients from out of town without waiting for handwritten records to be mailed from one hospital to another.

Renee Robbins from the Owen Sound Animal Shelter gave a discussion involving an online list of animals available for adoption. The Animal Shelter’s website can be found by clicking this link: Owen Sound Animal Shelter.

A special thanks goes out to Emma Hogbin for her hard work organizing this event. It was a great success for all concerned. For further coverage of the keynote address from the Roxy or the 36 seminars held on Saturday at the Georgian College please click this convenient link: HICKTech

Share This

Written by adam · Filed Under Events, Community, Internet, theOwen

Take Part in Hick Tech

April 12, 2007

Things are as busy as can be around here and as a result the number of posts and the addition of new content has been very low as of late. This is directly a result of the work being completed for the next major release of theOwen.com which should take place around the beginning of May.

hicktech This is aptly timed of course to coincide with Hick Tech, the Rural and Modern Technology Forum. The conference is being organized by Emma Hogbin, a homegrown, and recently repatriated, local IT superstar. When she isn’t hard at work with conference planning Emma runs her own web/technology consulting business @ xtrinsic.com

I had the opportunity to interview Emma today about Hick Tech and what’s in store for the conference and why you should be there. Our conversation was rounded out with some more general discussion of the state of technological adoption locally and some of the challenges and and opportunities this presents.

The audio is around 20 minutes in length, you can listen in you browser with the play button below or you can download the mp3 file here (right click save as…)

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Podcast, Web Tools, Events, Internet, Audio

A little bit more about the Owen

February 18, 2007

In this show, Ryan (I’m the one pushing most buttons around here) is interviewed by Anne Findlay-Stewart about the future of theOwen and how you can participate in what’s going on.

The interview has been split into a couple of parts (the original recording was about 105 minutes.)

In Part One, Ryan and Anne discuss theOwen, it’s goals, the technology involved here (well sort of but for the most part we are trying to keep things jargon free at this point) and some discussion of other thoughts and ideas currently bouncing around the region.

With the play button you can listen to the show.

…or you can download it here (right click save as…)

Running Time: 31:12

Or subscribe to receive all posts containing audio with this feed. theOwen Audio Feed

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Podcast, New here?, Internet, Audio, Administrivia

« Previous Page — Next Page »