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"Ask Tucows" IRC Chat Today

Photo: Two 'Cows' from the cartoon series 'Cow and Chicken' dancing.Don’t forget that the “Ask Tucows” Chat

— in which you can chat online with me and other people who work at

Tucows — takes place today at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m.

Pacific, 18:00 UTC). A number of people within the company have signed up to join in the

conversation, so it looks as though most departments within the company

will be represented.

The chat is an IRC chat and will take place on the #asktucows channel on the IRC server irc.freenode.net. If you already have an IRC client installed on your machine, all you need do is click here to join in.

If you don’t have an IRC client installed on your machine, you’ve got a couple of options:

  • You can download and install one. I’ve written up instructions for Windows and Mac users in this post.
  • You can visit developer.tucows.com/asktucows, where we’ve set up a Java applet that will let you join in the chat without downloading an IRC client (you’ll need Java installed on your machine, of course).

Once again, the chat starts at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (18:00 UTC) and will run for about an hour. See you there!

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

On Bikes

Who Took My Seat?

It looks as though — knock on wood — that we’ve seen the last of serious snow, which means I won’t have to put up with this for another eight months:

Photo: Joey deVilla's bike, 'The Scorpion King', after the last major snowfall in Toronto, March 2005.
My bike, last winter.

Of course, there are still other annoyances with which to contend. In my case, it’s theft. This morning, when I went down to the bike room in my apartment building, I found that someone had stolen my seat. I’d never gotten around to replacing the quick-release bracket with a permanent bolt. I usually take the seat with me when I leave the bike outside, but I figured that I wouldn’t have to worry about that sort of thing in locked bike room in a nice part of town. Luckily, there’s a security camera near the door; I’m going to have to see if the security guy has the thief on tape.

Run Off the Road

I reported the theft to the building’s management. The woman who took down my report told me that she was just recovering from a cycling injury. She was biking with a friend in the Beaches area of town when a car ran them off the road. She had to be taken to the hospital for head injuries near her eye, but thankfully there was no permanent harm done.

I’ve only had one incident where a car ran me off the road. I was biking home along College Street when a car full of drunk guys — probably coming from the nearby clubs — deliberately tried to run me off the road. They pulled ahead of me and directly blocked my path, and the guy in the font passenger seat challenged me.

“You on the bike!” he yelled. “How ’bout a game of ‘chicken’?”

I pulled out my cell phone and held it so they could see it. I called out the numbers as I keyed them. “Nine! One! One!” I then called them out: “How ’bout a game of ‘breathalyzer’?”

They peeled off in a hurry. I took a note of their license plate and saw the car dealership name on their trunk. Scarborough. “Scarberia”. It figures: bored kids from “the 905” — the deep burbs.

101bike.com

While I’m talking about bikes, let me introduce you to my co-worker Mathijs and his blog, 101bike.com: 101 Days to Buy a Bike. Mathijs has recently come to Accordion City from Holland.

Mathijs observes that here in North America, bikes are more of a niche thing, ridden by largely by kids, fitness enthusiasts, the creative class and extreme sports practitioners. Over in Holland, they’re as ubiquitous as cars. As a result, what he knows about bikes is limited to riding them. He started his blog to learn more about bikes and to get in touch with the Toronto biking community.

The blog’s name is derived from the fact that he’d giving himself 101 days to do the research, both on his own and via the blog, after which he’ll buy the bike. As of today, he’s got 91 days to go. Drop by his blog and check it out!

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Getting Ready for the "Ask Tucows" Chat

Windows Users: Installing and Setting Up mIRC

mIRC Icon.

For those of you using Windows, I recommend using mIRC as your IRC

client software. Download the installer from their site and install it.

The installation process should take less than a minute.

Once you’ve installed mIRC, you should launch it so that you can set

the name you’ll use in the chat. When you launch mIRC, you should be

greeted with this “About” window:

mIRC 'About' window.

You can use mIRC for free for 30 days, so you don’t have to register and pay for it immediately. Click the Continue button.

The “About” window will disappear and the “mIRC Options” window will appear:

Enter your full name and email address into the Full Name and Email Address text fields.

On IRC, a nickname is the name that appears beside anything you “say”.

It’s like the name that appears beside whatever you “say” on other chat

systems such as AIM, MSN Chat, Yahoo! Chat or ICQ. Think up a nickname

and enter it into the Nickname text field.

In case your nickname has already been taken, enter an alternate nickname into the Alternative text field.

Once you’ve done this, click the OK button, then exit mIRC. mIRC has now been set up.

Mac Users: Installing and Setting Up Colloquy

Colloquy icon. For those of you using Mac OS X, I recommend using Colloquy as your IRC

client software. Download the .zip from their site and unzip it. Unzipping it will create a folder that will contain the Colloquy program; drag it to your Applications folder.

That’s all the setup you’ll need to do.

Joining the “Ask Tucows” Chat

Windows Users

The easiest way to join the “Ask Tucows” chat is to either:

This will automatically launch mIRC and connect it to the “Ask Tucows” channel.

Mac Users

The easiest way to join the “Ask Tucows” chat is to either:

This will automatically launch Colloquy, which will pop up a “New Connection” window:

On IRC, a nickname is the name that appears beside anything you “say”.

It’s like the name that appears beside whatever you “say” on other chat

systems such as AIM, MSN Chat, Yahoo! Chat or ICQ. Think up a nickname

and enter it into the Nickname text field.

Enter irc.freenode.net into the Chat Server text field.

Click the Connect button. You will now be in the “Ask Tucows” channel.

Chatting

Chatting in IRC is similar to other “chat room” programs such as AIM, MSN Chat, Yahoo! Chat or ICQ. Type what you want to “say” and hit the “Enter” button to “say” it.

For the Windows users, here’s what a chat session looks like:

What people say is preceded by their nicknames. The right column displays who else is participating in the chat. Any nickname in the right column that is preceded by an “@” sign is a channel operator and is in charge of the channel.

For the Mac users, here’s what a chat session looks like:

What people say is preceded by their nicknames. The drawer on the right displays who else is participating in the chat. Any nickname in the

right column that is preceded by a silhouette with a red background is a channel operator and

is in charge of the channel.

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Reminder: "Ask Tucows" Chat Takes Place on Thursday, March 23rd, 1pm EST

Don’t forget: Tucows will be hosting the first “Ask Tucows” IRC chat,

in which I and a number of Tucows employees will be available to answer

questions, take comments and suggestions and generally talk about

Tucows. It takes place on Thursday, March 23rd at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. Pacific / 6:00 p.m. UTC).

Tomorrow, I’ll post an article on how to join IRC chats for those of you not familiar with the medium.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

DemoCamp 4: Tuesday, March 28th at MaRS Centre


DemoCamp 4 will

take place on Tuesday, March 28th at 6:00 p.m. at the MaRS

Centre, (101

College Street, southwest corner of College and University,

right by Queen’s Park subway

station).

Remind me again — what’s

DemoCamp about?

The purpose of DemoCamp is to bring together

the many bright lights in Toronto’s high-tech community to show each

other what we’re working on. If you’re working on a software or

hardware tool, application or gadget and you want to demonstrate it in

front of a group of your peers, you can demo it at

DemoCamp!

What sort of stuff gets

demoed?

We’ve seen projects of all types demonstrated at

DemoCamp: commercial and non-commercial, proprietary and open source,

mission-critical business applications and applications developed in

the developers’ spare time, hardware and

software.

Who can attend?

As

long as you have an interest in technology and the local tech scene,

you can attend!

You can either present a demo at

DemoCamp or be part of the participatory audience. Demonstrators

present their work — no PowerPoint; just your stuff in action — and

everyone else participates by asking questions and making comments and

suggestions.

What are DemoCamps

like?

Think of them as a techie’s “town hall” meeting, with a

steady exchange of ideas and the city’s brightest minds all gathered in

one place. We go out for drinks and dinner after the meeting, and the

idea exchange keeps going.

I’ve written up earlier

DemoCamps; here’s my

writeup for DemoCamp 3 last month and DemoCamp

2 in January.

When is it

again?

It’s on Tuesday, March 28th at 6:00 p.m. at the MaRS

Centre.

If you plan on attending, please add your

name to the DemoCamp 4 wiki

page.

Categories
It Happened to Me

My Package from "The Regulars"

'The Sales Conference' from 'The Regulars'.The

Regulars is a weird site. From first

appearances, it seems to be a

photoblog featuring photos of a guy in a gas

mask posing as different

sorts of people, such as “The Hipster”, “The Tourist”, “The International

Traveller” and “The Bass

Player”.

The “About”

page doesn’t

offer much of a clue as to what the site’s about; it merely describes

the gas mask (“A replica Russian gas mask purchased from an army

surplus store. Also sold as an East German or an American gas

mask…Very difficult to breathe in, ironically”) and how the photos

were taken (“Typical setup with remote shutter, tripod, gas mask and

necktie”).

For a while, the site had a form you could fill out to receive one of

a

limited set of gifts. I signed up for one, and it arrived at the

office

this morning. You’ll have to forgive the poor quality of the images;

the only camera I’ve got at the moment is the cheap webcam hooked up

to

my office machine.

The whole package came in an orange envelope…

Envelope sent to me by 'The Regulars'.

…containing a photo of an old 35mm film camera with “WE

MISS THE SIMPLICITY” written on it in magic marker…

Photo sent to me by 'The Regulars': 'WE MISS THE SIMPLICTY'.

…two stickers with the Regulars’ “R” monogram:

Stickers sent to me by 'The Regulars'.

…and this puzzle:

Puzzle sent to me by 'The Regulars'.

The webcam didn’t capture the puzzle very clearly, so I’m repeating it

below:

THE REGULARS

_ _ _ _ 8

_ _ _ _ _

www.regularworld.com/bonus

Other people who signed up for the packages have posted photos of their

free loot:

The question remains: What is The Regulars? An art project? A Griffin and

Sabine-esque puzzle? An eccentric part of the

internet gift

economy? A prankster with a gas mask?

Categories
It Happened to Me

On the Reading List: "The Art of the Interview"

Joey holding up 'The Art of the Interview'.In anticipation of the number of podcasts I’m supposed to produce this year (such as the one I did last week), Ross had the company purchase The Art of the Interview

for me. The Amazon reviews seem to indicate that it’s more of a memoir

than a how-to book, but there’s a fair bit of information that I’ve

been able to glean from it nonetheless. Watch out, Larry King!