Techvibes Technology News

CanUX 2008 Links & Resources

Posted by Mack Male on Wed, November 19, 2008 8:49 PM · Filed under Calgary , Edmonton , Montréal , Ottawa , Toronto , Vancouver , Victoria , Kitchener-Waterloo , Events , Web Development · No Comments

With CanUX over, I found myself looking for all the links to templates and other information that were mentioned during the sessions. I thought I might as well share my list with others! Here it is (if you have something to add please let me know in the comments):

Web Form Design – Luke Wroblewski

UX Swimlanes – Yvonne Shek

A Better Method for Designing with Developers – Jerome Ryckborst

Sketchboards: Good Design Faster – Brandon Schauer

Visual Thinking in Practice – Dave Gray

Microsoft Surface – Dennis Wixon

Books

  • Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  • Subject to Change by Merholz, Schauer, Verba, Wilkens

The next event from nForm will be the Web Strategy Summit, taking place in Calgary on May 4th & 5th, 2009.

If you’d like to read more about CanUX 2008, see my posts on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. I also posted some sketches here, and a list of attendees on Twitter here. My photos are here, and you can find other related photos on Flickr here.

YAPTA wants to help you fly for free

Posted by Karilyn Kempton on Wed, November 19, 2008 7:40 PM · Filed under Portland , Seattle , Start-up · No Comments

Even though I only have enough air miles to buy a blender, I still dream of the day when I finally have enough points to book a flight, only to be thwarted by airlines not having any award seats left. Yapta is taking care of that problem - their new service provides award seat alerts on flights on Alaska Airlines, Continental, Delta, United, and U.S. Airways, so that you can know exactly where and when you can redeem your award miles.
Yapta (which stands for Your Personal Travel Assistant...cute) also offers price change alerts that have saved travelers over $90 million since the company was founded in 2006. If the price of your flight drops after you've booked on an airline's website, you're eligible to a refund or travel credit. The free service also tracks price and availability of flights of any flight that you choose, every day.

"One of the biggest frustrations for frequent travelers is not knowing when they can actually redeem their miles to book an award seat," said Tom Romary, president & CEO of Yapta. Romary is also looking at it as a service to airlines: "Airlines want their frequent fliers to use miles because it strengthens their loyalty program,"he says. "Our award seat alerts stimulate the usage of frequent flier programs and therefore will have a positive impact on the airline's balance sheet and income statement."

 

 
Company:
Yapta
Website:
http://www.yapta.com
Location:
Seattle, Washington, United States

Our purpose is to make it easy for you to secure the best airfare deals available on the Web. We do this by giving you a tool to "tag" the trips... [more]

 

2009 Northern Voice - Calling all speakers

Posted by Rob Lewis on Wed, November 19, 2008 3:42 PM · Filed under Calgary , Edmonton , Montréal , Ottawa , Toronto , Vancouver , Victoria , Kitchener-Waterloo · No Comments

The 2009 Northern Voice website went live today and they're looking for speakers. As Canada’s largest Blogging and Social Media conference, this is THE event to present at if you're experienced and passionate about social media and blogging.

While Nothern Voice is celebrating its 5th year, some of you may not be familiar with the conference. In that case, check out last year's speakers schedule to get a feel for what they're looking for. The call for speaker’s deadline is December 19, 2008.

Logo and artwork by basco5.

Brother Contest Winners Announced

Posted by Rob Lewis on Wed, November 19, 2008 2:54 PM · Filed under Calgary , Edmonton , Montréal , Ottawa , Toronto , Vancouver , Victoria , Kitchener-Waterloo , Awards , Success Stories · No Comments

This announcement is long overdue but at least two of you will be happy.

Brother Canada was kind enough to sponsor our Small Business Week contest and have provided Techvibes with two Brother Colour Multi-Function Centers (valued at $350 each) to give away. In order to enter the contest, all you had to do was comment on one of the following Small Biz profile blog posts:

And the winners are... Jess Sloss and Rory Hansen. I'll be in touch to coordinate delivery and/or pickup.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

 
Company:
Brother Canada
Website:
http://www.brother.ca
Location:
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Brother International Corporation (Canada) Ltd. markets a range of business machine products known for their originality and creativity. A Japanese... [more]

 

Toronto's Clutterme.com on the auction block

Posted by Rob Lewis on Wed, November 19, 2008 11:38 AM · Filed under Toronto , Start-up · No Comments

Via Jevon MacDonald of StartupNorth, Toronto startup Clutterme.com has put themselves on the auction block at eBay.

Clutterme.com a do-it-yourself website builder and domain purchasing site is for sale, on ebay. This isn’t the first startup to put themselves up on Ebay, Toronto based Tucows bought kiko.com in an ebay auction for almost $260,000 a few years ago.

Will Clutterme get bids well past $200,000? Probably not, but I think the service is worth something, and a registrar such as Tucows, GoDaddy or another could really make good use of it. Clutterme is what they say it is: A really, really, easy way to make a website. It is the kind of really simple website builder that your mom would be happy to use. They also have a really slick domain purchasing system set up that lets people get their own domain and website builder all wrapped in to one.

Most established domain name registrars already have a free or cheap website building tool in their product mix but the Canadian domain space has a large number of registrars that don't do retail. Why is that? For a domainer, getting accredited with CIRA as a registrar is the easiet way to guarantee wholesale renewal rates for your own portfolio and get unencumbered access to expiring domain names.

Acquiring an established site like Clutterme.com could turn a domainer with accreditation into an instant competitor in the website builder space. Current bidding is at US $51.00.

 
Company:
CIRA
Website:
http://www.cira.ca
Location:
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not for profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the dot-ca Internet... [more]

 
 
Company:
Clutterme Inc.
Website:
http://www.clutterme.com
Location:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Clutterme Inc is website creation for dummies. Make a free website in seconds or upgrade your simple website to a .com, .org, or .net domain for... [more]