Son of a Beekeeper

Jul 2

Lenzr = Photo Contest

First Lenzr Photo Contest

The first photo contest on Lenzr.com asks public to upload their best shots of Toronto’s skyline. Contest ends midnight August 31st; the winning photo, the image with the most green thumbs up, wins the prize.
The prize is a new digital camera, a Pentax Optio P70 is a 12 megapixel super compact camera with a wide-angle 4x optical zoom lens (27.5-110mm equiv.). It has a 2.7-inch LCD display, Advanced Face Detection, Smile Capture, Blink Detection, and Pixel Track Shake Reduction “to assure sharp images with low noise even in poor lighting.” The Optio P70 can also capture 720p HD video at 15 frame-per-second.

Jun 14

The Complaints Website As Citizen Journalism

Angry content is good content, and few categories are as compelling or infectious as user submitted complaints.

Because such a large percentage of Canadian society now has a voice, its only logical that a truly canuck customer service website should appear to harvest opinions and data from people when they are the most emotional.

Right after a customer snaps, they need to vent. When Canadians go online they end up on American sites where their remarks cant do much good (or bad) to a local homegrown company. Only local complaints websites could ever be expected to advocate on their behalf.

The complaints department at Sears TellOscar.com is Canada’s first online complaints website, and it’s as cathartic as it is effective at soliciting a response from this nation’s worst business offenders.

Good complaints are an art form. This type of user submitted content is rare and precious and very readable. The best complaints websites put that angry content right up front, and remove all barriers to harvesting it on the back end. For example new users can register after they’ve recorded their beef, as part of the submission process.

May 26

Miss Teen Canada And Her Blog Army

Things are different this year at The Search For Miss Teen Canada World.

This year each of the contestants must keep a personal blog. In fact they are graded 10% of their final score on the quality of their web journal.

And that’s because social networking is breathing new life into the beauty pageant.

And now the pageant director actually depends upon the reigning champion to be able to manage her share of the expanding MTCW social net. Its not a one sided relationship anymore; now they are partners who go to work promoting events and sponsors together.

Katie Starke keeps a blog right on the Miss Teen Canada World website.

And all the contestants are now blogging on the Sugar blog network.

So with all this advanced social media innovation, The Search for Miss Teen Canada has become more than a beauty pageant; now it’s a real quest for an new internet celebrity to represent our nation in Houston Texas at the Miss Teen World competition in August.

The four MTCW Judges (Elmer Olsen, Lorraine Zander, Eltom John, and Clarence Ford) have been asked to award high scores to smart girls with great personalities. So believe it or not, a girl’s physical appearance is actually not that important anymore. Now the succesful candidate must indeed be a leader.

Miss Teen Canada must be able to take command of a powerful blog army.

May 7

This week’s Smojoe blog is entitled, How Smojoe Uses Squidoo Lenses and its handcrafted by me to help readers understand Squidoo and how to bring traffic to what can be a pretty lonely place. Squidoo can help you social market your client’s diverse goods and services (and ideas) all in one place. In the blog post you will find seven social marketing tactics which you can apply to help market the Squidoo lens at the center of your next branded social net.

May 3

Beekeeper Turns Blogger On Sugar

A beekeeper’s blog! Don’t miss this amazing 75 year old blogger as he describes his day to day existence as a Canadian beekeeper.

Barehugs is the boss at Campbell’s Honey , which is located near Dartford Ontario Canada. Each summer this apiarist and his family unwrap their beehives, feed medicine and add supers to help the honeybees harvest the sugars from local flowers and make tasty pure honey. This summer however, something is different - now the Canadian beekeeper is blogging On the Sugar blog network.

Follow along as Mr Campbell describes the apicultural advancements necessary to make several tonnes of pure Canadian honey each season. He talks about the science and the art of beekeeping. Its a lifestyle choice that he compliments with Yoga and fresh baked bread.

Is Honey Good For You?
Years ago, I wrote an article, Is Honey Good For You? which has since become a top search result for that common question. If you’re looking for knowledge, there’s a lot of information about health and bacteria and the benefits of eating honey. There’s also a great deal of insight single variety honey - that’s honey that was made from just one flower source and its the latest craze with gourmet chefs.

Apr 23

2009 Toronto Bottle Show

Terry Matz of TorpedoBottle.com was all smiles when I pointed the camera at him. He collects torpedo bottles of all colours and nationalities. He’s my newest friend. You can see his interview here, and read all about the 2009 Toronto Bottle Show on Dumpdiggers.com.

This scene from the 16th annual Toronto Bottle Show in the gymnasium at Humber College on 19th August, 2009.

Mar 30

Understanding Umbilical Cord Blood

United States is poised to become a world leader in embryonic stem cell research, passing Canada by leaps and bounds.

On March 9th, 2009 US President Barack Obama reversed the federal opposition to Stem Cell research, and overturned an order imposed by former President Bush that both financially and legally limited the science. The best Canadian minds will probably migrate south, following the money, but the medical breakthroughs that result could benefit all mankind.

Stem Cells and Disease

Stem cells are thought by most scientists and researchers to hold potential cures for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and even cancer. There’s no question that hundreds of rare immune system and genetic disorders will soon be cured by stem cell technology, and perhaps much more.

Pro-Life Opposition to Embryonic Stem Cells

Advances in embryonic stem cell research will benefit us all, but the research is not without debate. Staunch pro-lifers and most pro-life organizations regard the destruction of the blastocyst, which is a laboratory-fertilized human egg, to be the murder of human life. They believe that life begins at conception, and that destruction of this pre-born life is morally unacceptable. Induced pluripotent stem cells might mitigate some of that controversy - these cells were first produced in 2006 from mouse cells and in 2007 from human cells. This has been cited as an important advancement in stem cell research, as it may allow researchers to obtain pluripotent stem cells, which are important in research and potentially have therapeutic uses, without the controversial use of embryos.

Umbilical Cord Blood Is Much Less Controversial

Private cord blood banks do not store embryonic stem cells. Their business is to preserve newborn baby’s cord blood, up to 180mL of blood from a newborn baby that is returned to neonatal circulation if the umbilical cord is not prematurely clamped, from the delivered placenta of the mother. Cord blood collection poses no harmful risks to either the mother or the baby. This procedure does not really affect mother or baby, nor does it interfere with the process of giving birth. Cord blood contains haematopoietic (blood) stem cells, and there are already current therapies (eg bone marrow transplant) that use HSC to treat blood/immune diseases and cancers. So the banked cord blood is “useful” whether or not iPS technologies come to fruition or not.

Cord Blood Contains Adult Stem Cells

umbilcal cord, baby over globe, In 2005, University of Toronto researcher Peter Zandstra developed a method to increase the yield of cord blood stem cells to enable their use in treating adults as well as children.

Canadian scientists share the international community’s excitement over the new American position and increased funding policies, because the technologies to be discovered will enable North American families to use their baby’s cord blood stem cells for a wider variety of illnesses. The potential for new therapies and treatments is huge, and it’s all possible with cells harvested from biological material that up until this point in history was often thrown away, buried below a new shade tree in the backyard. It’s safe to say, each newborn baby’s cord blood could hold the secret to so many of life’s mysteries, and end so much pain and suffering without any negative moral implications. With an eye on tomorrow’s medicine, this is your family’s biological insurance policy.

Mar 25

Virgin Mobile says Screw You Recession

Virgin Mobile is now targeting frugal teenagers.

A funny web site called Screw You Recession encourages visitors to message money saving tips and interact with a funky custom built recession panic meter.

All joking aside, that’s actually where I learned about Freecycle and that site looks amazing, a place where good karma is currency.

Feb 22

Stone of Destiny opens in Canada on Friday Feb 19th, 2009 (limited release). This movie is based on the true story of Ian Hamilton’s Christmas morning 1950 heist, when he stole the rock from Westminster Abbey in London.

Directed by Charles Martin Smith, Stone of Destiny stars Charlie Cox, (Stardust), and Robert Carlyle of (Trainspotting, Full Monty) and some brave Scottish students that include Rab Affleck, Kate Mara and lets not forget about Billy Boyd. There’s a very cool Billy Boyd fan site here.

Feb 20

Z.O.S. TV Show Website Has Breakthrough Flash Game

ZOS web game prostitute

Would you trust this beautiful woman? Follow her into that seedy bar and she will lead you to a criminal warlord who gives you a needle and an ounce of heroine.

Zone of Separation is a new Canadian TV show which airs Monday nights at 10 PM EST on The Movie Network (TMN), Movie Central. The show details the troubles had by international peacekeepers in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Last Tango in Jadac is a new interactive website for the television show that presents users with an interesting challenge - try to get out of town alive.