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HICK Tech 2008

April 10, 2008

Following great success in 2007, HICK Tech returns in April 2008 for another year of enlightenment, inspiration, and networking. HICK Tech is a one-day conference in Owen Sound. In 2008 it will feature a keynote presentation by Heather Champ (Community Manager for Flickr) wrap-up session moderated by CBC personality Nora Young and twenty sessions under the topics of Business, Community, Food & Agriculture and Technology.

The event will take place, April 30, 2008 at the Bayshore community Centre in Owen Sound from 8AM-5PM.

For all the details be sure to drop by HickTech.com

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Tech + Life, Web Tools, Community, theOwen Features, Internet 

Net Neutrality

January 7, 2008

On a daily basis I follow a near ridiculous number of conversations on line. It’s only near ridiculous and not actually ridiculous of course as a result of the systems I have in place to track these many conversations across numerous websites, blogs, and a variety of other social media platforms(like Facebook and Twitter as examples).

I have written a little about this system in the past and I will offer some more insight in the coming weeks as well as I continue working towards building an effective means by which we can carry out an ongoing, time shifted discussion of all things Grey and Bruce.

One of the topics that has been increasing in prevalence over the past few weeks is the idea of Net Neutrality. The basic idea being the net should be neutral, that was the original idea and we should stick with it. The fundamental reason the debate is heating up has to do with the wishes of telecom providers (who do own most of the Internet infrastructure) to create a two tiered Internet, with the different characteristics of each tier effectively determined by ones ability to pay to have their information available on line. The following video clips and links will provide anyone interested with the varied details of this debate.

Obviously I am following the issue with great interest. It is the neutral nature of the Internet that allows myself as an independent content producer to easily distribute information and ideas to you, the reader/listener/viewer. Easily might be a bit of an understatement considering the time and money associated with my efforts thus far here at theOwen.com but in principal it is.

As a follow up to this post I will draft up a locally pertinent “future scenario” of how a two tiered Internet might impact your access to local information. In the meantime here’s your homework on the issue.

Do some reading about Net Neutrality. A good place to start would be www.neutrality.ca. Otherwise a quick google search will link you to numerous thoughts on the issue. If you happen to find something you think might be valuable to this discussion please send me a link.

You can also watch the following videos…

CityNews International - Amber MacArthur

Save the Internet. The following is the video that was referenced in the previous interview.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Tech + Life, Web Tools, theOwen Features, Internet, Administrivia 

Google Maps introduces Terrain view

November 30, 2007

The Google Maps team released a new feature today… terrain view. Now when viewing a Google map you can choose the standard map view, the air photo/sat view and now terrain. The implementation at this time seems fairly limited but I can see where this is going (Remember I am actually a geographer at heart!)

A couple quick thoughts on this and then you can go play for yourself. First this tool as it matures will provide us (the people of Grey-Bruce) to make better decisions and to better understand the place where we live. This terrain view of the area might help us better understand the idea of watershed management for example.

Secondly I think it’s important to comment on the nature by which Google releases new features and tools. I mentioned that this tool will likely mature. Google very rarely releases a static project. The are an innovative and iterative company (and it seems to be working for them!). Release early, test with real people and move ahead from there. This is very much the model of development we are following here at theOwen.com. Things change around here often, sometimes you see the half done stuff, sometimes it’s broken. If it doesn’t work or things could work better please let us know. We are going to try and do a better job of implementing a Google like innovation culture around here. This is both in terms of the growth and development of theOwen and the growth and development of the community we serve.

We are starting to get a little reflective around here given the time of the year. Keep an eye out for a series of wrap up/review/reflection posts coming up in the next few weeks. If you think you’re someone we should talk to about this then please drop us a line! Same goes if you can name someone we/the community should here from regarding the events of the past year in Owen Sound/Grey Bruce.

If you want to avoid the formality of contacting us with your thoughts or ideas you can feel free to add a comment to this post or better yet leave an audio message by calling 519 416 OWEN (6936)



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Written by Ryan · Filed Under The Area, Web Tools 

Share your favourite articles from theOwen.com

September 26, 2007

This is just a quick administrivia post to “share” some details about a recent feature we’ve added to the site. As of a couple weeks we now have a Share This link at the bottom of every post on the site.

If you like the article you are reading, want to remember it for future reference or wish to pass it on to your friends, family, coworkers… simply follow the share this link.

Two ways to share…

The first, and simplest, way to share an article from theOwen.com would be to use the email tab.

Simply fill out the required details and hit send it.

The second option for sharing great articles, news and events details from around Owen Sound and Grey Bruce would be to take advantage of a “social networking” service.

Personally I am a huge fan of del.icio.us, which is a lot like your “favourites” if you are a Internet Explorer user only web based and far more functional. I use it to keep track of many facets of my work/personal life. If you would like some more details on social networking/bookmarking you might want to read our post about del.icio.us

This feature is an ongoing part of our effort to improve the accessibility and distribution of local information to those interested. More on this to come. In the meantime why not give it a try with the Share This link below.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Web Tools, Administrivia 

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