GotVMail, a telephony company that offers voicemail for business, rebranded as Grashopper in 2009. I hadn’t given them a single thought when I left them in 2006 and switched to VirtualPBX , … until I received an email from them on Friday.

For the record, in 2005 and 2006, GotVMail couldn’t get their act together and  a number of my clients ALWAYS had problems getting in touch which doesn’t bode well for a company providing phone service for business. To compound the issue, GotVMail admitted to blocking the calls on purpose because the caller ID sent by Skype and Fido, a Canadian mobile phone carrier, wasn’t to their taste.

I can see online that GotVMail has since had a slough of problems relating to outages and poor customer service so I’m glad I did my research before signing up for service or worse yet, referring friends.

Bottom line, do your research before subscribing to any mission critical online service or you might wind up dead, grasshopper.

Some time ago, I received a message from Erik Wachtmeister, founder and CEO of A Small World. Interestingly, when I tried to connect with him on his own Social Network, the site denied me with an error message; “You cannot connect to this member, they are in ABIGWORLD.”

According to Wikipedia, aBigWorld is a place where problematic users are supposedly exiled to… You can’t find many references to exiles, so perhaps that’s only what their marketing people want you to believe, or maybe people are too embarrassed to reveal that they’ve been moved to aBigWorld…

Since then, I’ve seen that founder and CEO of aSmallWorld is now starting a new social network called Best Of All Worlds, described as the Next Generation of Social Media.

Curious? Me too! You can register on the site for early access (when it becomes available), but for me, that wasn’t sufficient. According to an exclusive interview given earlier this year, Erik Wachtmeister described Best Of All Worlds in five bullet points, all very interesting:

1. It’s a discovery platform for new people, places and things. Facebook is aggregating the social breath and kind of finding everybody what you’ve ever met or you know, it’s kind of your old network. We’re focusing on your future network.
2. A global melting pot that aggregates people 3 degree networks and people who share similar interests. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that it aggregates people who already know each other but it aggregates people who know each other by 3 degrees or are not connected by 3 degrees but who have the same passions.
3. We’re an aggregator of online activities including your activities on Facebook, your activities on Twitter, on Flicke, LinkedIn, Zing, etc. so we will be at hub where you will be able to get all your feats if you want them; 2 ways where you can get your information, your messages from Twitter and Facebook for instance and where you can post and it will post on to those networks.
4. We are a social operating system with very wide ranging search and matching tools. So if you’re in Geneva on business and you don’t know anybody in Geneva and you’re there for two days, you can actually look in your iPhone and look say within 500 meters, who in my friends of friends’ network who plays tennis is here right now? And you will be able to find out immediately in real time.
5. We’re developing and we will be a platform for diverse global interest groups. So everybody talks about niche groups; so rather than people joining 50 different niche communities and with different log-ins and passwords, they can join Best of All Worlds and they can be part of the hunting group or the new mothers group or fashion mavens or golf players travelling around the world or entrepreneurs; so we will be creating global groups that actually don’t exist today on any other platform. So our mission is really to aggregate the best that’s out there and available online and bringing relevant information such as the best iPad apps, the best iPhone apps; you know there are hundreds and thousands of apps and who knows what apps you want to download but if you can get good ideas from people you trust, I think it’s very helpful. Also movies, music, hotels, house rentals, etc.

I haven’t seen any activity on the site or notice of any impending launch, but I see that Wachtmeister is active on Quora, twitter and on facebook, indubitably doing his research and preparing to take the world by storm.

I frequently travel through Hong Kong and use it as a hub when visiting other Asian countries. One of the things that I like about Hong Kong International Airport is that they offer free WiFi and they also have a Caviar House & Prunier that I frequent during stopovers.

Recently, while exiting the plane, I encountered an error while trying to connect to the free wireless sytem at the airport. It didn’t become apparent that this was an issue with my iPhone 4 running iOS5 until I later opened my laptop and was able to connect.

At Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) you can connect to either to the #HKAirport Free… the PCCW or the PCCW1x (using username: pccw and password:pccw) access points for free access.

The error I encountered was:

Sysetm is busy. Please try to restart your browser and try again.
[Page Not Found - /MsgPage/error.htmlerror id=119134].

I later realized that the issue dealt with my iPhone’s ability to accept cookies, thus resolving the issue. Read more about how to fix this issue, after the jump.
[read more…]

I recently hired a new virtual assistant who resides in Kenya. He’s sharp, he gets my directives and is efficient. The hitch? Apparently facebook doesn’t really like him.

On four (4)  separate occasions this week, facebook temporarily locked us both out of my account. This has not only repeatedly disrupted my authorizations from other applications and social media work, klout, facebook messenger (now a vital communication piece), and Microsoft Outlook  integration, but it’s sucked a bunch of my time up, too!

It seems only I can unlock my account from my office computer, so poor Sam sits idle at night and then has to wait for me to come to the office in the morning to unlock the accounts.

Can you say annoying? After jumping through facebook’s little hoop four times, all I can say is can you get the hint, facebook?!

Well, no more – I recently turned on the VPN box I have sitting in Amazon’s cloud. The same VPN in Singapore that I used to get on facebook from China. Let’s hope that Sam can use this to get online and get to work.

I’d hate turn him to the door because of a social network that won’t let me inherently trust a whole country or ISP. I can’t imagine what would happen if I traveled to Kenya and wanted to post updates on my travels. Yikes!

Okay. We got bike lanes. We got chicken coops. Now, with Vancouver’s City Council’s help, organized labour can prevail over the evil ruling overlords.

‎”We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” –Adolf Hitler

I’m talking about Rocky Mountaineer Railtours (RMR) here. It’s a small, 100 man operation that is one of the gems of BC’s Tourism Sector. In February, the on-board attendants changed their union from the Canadian Auto Workers’ Union to the Teamsters (Local 13 – sidenote: anyone find Jimmy Hoffa yet?), which was mostly seen as a move to muscle more out of RMR for the workers (yay).

That’s fine and said but then fast forward to June, a couple weeks after RMR’s owner, Peter Armstrong, announced that he was going to Chair Vancouver’s Non-Partisan Association (NPA), things really went haywire.

First Teamsters Local 13 advised RMR of their intent to strike (uh oh!). Then RMR locked them out and hired replacement workers (double uh oh!).

Apparently by all reports, things are going alright onboard RMR’s trips right now. Customers are satisfied and RMR is having an okay high season minus the slanderous remarks and fake reviews being posted online regarding the company.

Anyhow, that’s not where things get weird. This is:

(click the image or the link HERE to view the original letter in full or keep reading)
[read more…]

Apparently not, but facebook may discriminate against you if you’re too skinny. Well, if your photo is too skinny, that is.

I recently encountered an issue with posting a photo from an app on my iPhone called IncrediBooth. When I sent the message to facebook’s email to posting system, the images simply disappeared. When I tried a  manual upload I got the message as pictured above: “The photo was either too tall or too skinny.”

IncrediBooth’s own internal facebook posting tool actually adds white padding to an image to make the image a square as a workaround but if you want to have a tall, rectangular image, for now you’re out of luck.

Facebook recently implemented this change after users started hacking their profiles to include banners and other assorted stylistic changes as seen on Alexandre Oudin‘s profile. Find out more about the hack to see what I’m talking about, HERE.

June 15, 2011 is the 90th Anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in BC and the establishment of government control of the sale of liquor within the province. The BC prohibition commenced on October 1, 1917. It was soon judged a failure, resulting in law-abiding citizens becoming criminals for simply wanting to have a drink with their dinner. Following a referendum, prohibition was repealed on June 15, 1921. On the same date, a “government control” system was implemented for the sale of liquor within the province.

It is the 90th anniversary and the government monopoly Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) still controls and sells all liquor within BC at the wholesale level and still sells a vast amount through its government retail stores which have extremely high operating costs. The LDB is a $3 billion per year business in B.C. It generates about $900 million per year for the government but costs about $300 million per year to operate.

The following are some of the legacies of prohibition which make BC look ridiculous when compared to the rest of the world:

• Today, all liquor sold within BC must be registered and listed with the government. All imports of liquor must be approved by and processed through the government wholesaler. Yet, we don’t do this for cigarettes or guns.
• Today in BC, and unlike most of the rest of the world, it is still illegal to consume alcohol in a public place such as a park. BC citizens cannot legally enjoy a glass of wine while enjoying a picnic.
• It is still illegal to carry liquor across provincial borders (a criminal offence with possible imprisonment). In Europe, you can ship alcohol between countries without a problem. While Canadians cannot legally return from a vacation in another province with any alcohol, they can bring back 2 bottles per person after a trip to another country.
• We have excessively high taxes on liquor which result in prices being about double what they should be.           For example, Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling, a Washington state wine, is commonly available for $6 south of the border. It is $15.99 in BC because the standard LDB markup on wine is 123% plus 12% HST on top of that for a grand total of 135% tax.
• Wine is good for you when used in moderation as intended. No amount of soda pop is good for you but that is taxed at only 12%.
• We have arcane regulation of restaurants and private retailers such that these independent businesses are not permitted to do things which are otherwise commonplace. For example, they cannot store liquor off-site. They cannot transfer liquor between locations of the same restaurant or retail chain (even if the LDB is out of stock). They must buy nearly all their liquor from the government, usually from a single designated government store. If they order anything other than mainstream products, they are forced to order in full case lots via a slow and inefficient delivery system. As a result, restaurants frequently run out of products or encounter storage and financial issues due to the requirement to order in such large quantities.
• Restaurants and bars are denied wholesale prices entirely. Private retailers are given wholesale prices which are fixed artificially high by their chief competitor (the government stores). As a result, there is virtually no competition in the retail liquor business and consumers are denied the sales and good deals that are common in other countries.* It is illegal for a private person to sell a bottle of liquor to another private person. Auctions are also illegal (unless done for charity).
• Citizens cannot take their own wine into a restaurant and have the restaurant charge them a corkage fee (even if the wine was purchased from a government store). This is illegal – it’s considered to be “illicit liquor”.

Happy Anniversary LDB, but don’t expect the rest of British Columbia to be joining you to celebrate the 90th birthday of the establishment of government control over the sale of liquor within the province.

-30-

For more information about wine and liquor laws in BC and Canada, visit www.winelaw.ca.

Mark Hicken, BA JD
Vintage Law Group
T: 604 868 1375
E: mark@winelaw.ca
W: www.winelaw.ca

Julia Watt
Gala Events & Marketing
T: 604-790-4484
E: julia@galaevents.ca
W: www.galaevents.ca

It’s interesting to travel and use facebook from foreign places. In China and Vietnam, for example, in most cases you’ll be blocked by the Government’s firewall and then you’ll be subjected to use a VPN or some other access technique to get onto facebook. In other places, facebook delivers localized tools or design.

On a recent trip to Vietnam, I was forced to use a VPN that I set up in Singapore. It was interesting to see that facebook asked me (in the sidebar) straight up if I was in Singapore, if I was visiting Singapore or a permanent resident.

On my most recent trip to Japan, more neatness. Facebook makes it easy for Japanese users to log into their site with a disposable autologin QR code as seen below.

Use Facebook on your mobile phone

We’ve been working hard to make Facebook Mobile usable in Japan. There is still a long way to go but most of the basic functionality is there. Please check it out and let us know what you think.

Facebook Mobile is helpful for keeping up with your friends when you’re on the go.

Read the “auto .ogin QR code” with your mobile phone.

http://m.facebook.com

Do not share this QR code with anyone else – it is personalized to log you in automatically. For your protection, the QR code can be used only once and expires after 24 hours.

Click the image (above) for the fullsize screenshot.

The Bocuse d’Or is a biennial culinary competition among the finest culinary masters in the world. The event was named after famed nouvelle cuisine chef and creator of the competition, Paul Bocuse. Aside from giving young, up-and-coming chefs the unique opportunity of weaving their gastronomic artistry in front of the crème de la crème in the culinary world, the Concours Mondial de la Cuisine or World Cuisine Contest has also created a global community of chefs and culinary masters dedicated in attaining excellence in every facet of their chosen profession.

You can download the this week’s edition in PDF format HERE (or grab the full newspaper HERE) or just keep reading (the unrated version) below.

Chef Ryan’s going for the Gold

Photo cutline: All hot chefs in their own right, mentor Scott Jaeger, assistant Talib Hudda and Ryan Stone are ready to do battle in Lyon, France, on January 25^th and 26^th to take home the gold for Canada.

A chef isn’t the type of person to back down from a challenge. They will stop at nothing in order to be perceived as the best. This makes for really scary encounters should you ever bump into one of these people in a dark back ally.

Fortunate for dark back ally-goers, BC’s own Chef Ryan Stone from the West Coast Fishing Club has channelled his energy into something much grander. He’s going to Lyon, France, this month to compete in one of the world’s most prestigious culinary competitions.

Chef Stone has been preparing his entire career to represent Canada on the world stage, and with the goal in sight and having been chosen as our country’s delegate, he’s now putting in insane 16 hour days to perfect the game. Given his dedication, mentorship and the team he’s assembled, Canada has a really good chance at winning this year.

At a special media tasting this week, Chef Stone presented a meat platter and a fish platter so beautifully presented, you know no money could ever buy the experience. What’s equally amazing was that the dishes were prepared from scratch in less than five and a half hours, the maximum allowable time for competitors to present their dishes to the judges.

This year, the Bocuse d’Or Culinary Competition will pit 24 countries’ best chefs against one another in a quest for gold. On January 26^th, only three chefs will be deemed worthy of being able to step up to the winners’ podium.

—

Raj Taneja is part technologist, part entrepreneur, part social media thought leader and part foodie. You like amazing food photos? Check out his photos at flickr.com/photos/urbanmixer. His twitter username is @tinhead.