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Photos of 2010 Winter Olympic National Teams

Ian Lee — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:22:51 +0000

I attended the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies last evening and it was definitely a chance of a life time experience. Here are photos of all, or rather, most of the teams that are participating in the 2010 Winter Olympics. I may have missed photographing a few teams during the march-in as I was also busy enjoying the moment. In accordance with Olympic tradition, Greece entered first and Canada being the host country, marched in last. It was quite amazing seeing all the participating teams in their unique uniforms enter the stadium. Enjoy!

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Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs

Ian Lee — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:02:15 +0000

Since AdAge launched its daily ranking of marketing blogs, there have been over 1,000 marketing blogs added to it. In the spirit of Scott Weisbrod listing the Top 30 Canadian Marketing blogs based on the AdAge rankings, here is a quick update of the current Top 50 Canadian marketing blogs for 2010. I am definitely honoured to be part of such a distinguished list and a big congrats to my fellow bloggers! Don’t forget to grab your badge at the bottom of this post if you are on this list. And for those who want to re-publish the list, raw HTML codes are also below. Scroll down, copy and paste.

Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs for February 2010

The Michel Fortin Blog

WebTrafficROI

Twist Image

adgoodness

David Leonhardt’s SEO Marketing Express

Pro PR

Profectio

shape+colour

InspiredMoneyMaker.com

The Praized Blog

ideasonideas

Ian Lee – ADS-Links.com

Buzz Canuck

Blogging Me Blogging You

Canadian Marketing Blog

Leo Burnett Toronto

ASK Enquiro

Search Engine People Blog

MediaBadger Monitor, Measure, Manage

Burning the bacon with Barrett

For anyone wanting to re-publish the above list, here is the HTML code. Just copy and paste.

Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs 1. <a href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow dot Com</a> 2. <a href="http://www.doshdosh.com/">Dosh Dosh</a> 3. <a href="http://dannybrown.me/">Danny Brown</a> 4. <a href="http://ittybiz.com/">IttyBiz</a> 5. <a href="http://davefleet.com/">Dave Fleet</a> 6. <a href="http://www.getelastic.com/">Get Elastic</a> 7. <a href="http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/">Web Analytics World</a> 8. <a href="http://www.radian6.com/blog/">PowerShift</a> 9. <a href="http://www.michelfortin.com/">The Michel Fortin Blog</a> 10. <a href="http://www.webtrafficroi.com/">WebTrafficROI</a> 11. <a href="http://www.twistimage.com/blog/">Twist Image</a> 12. <a href="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/">adgoodness</a> 13. <a href="http://www.seo-writer.com/blog/">David Leonhardt’s SEO Marketing Express</a> 14. <a href="http://propr.ca/">Pro PR</a> 15. <a href="http://profectio.com/">Profectio</a> 16. <a href="http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/">shape+colour</a> 17. <a href="http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com/">InspiredMoneyMaker.com</a> 18. <a href="http://blogs.praized.com/seb/">The Praized Blog</a> 19. <a href="http://www.ideasonideas.com/">ideasonideas</a> 20. <a href="http://www.ads-links.com/"> Ian Lee – ADS-Links.com</a> 21. <a href="http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/">Buzz Canuck</a> 22. <a href="http://edlee.ca/">Blogging Me Blogging You</a> 23. <a href="http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/">Canadian Marketing Blog</a> 24. <a href="http://lbtoronto.typepad.com/">Leo Burnett Toronto</a> 25. <a href="http://ask.enquiro.com/">ASK Enquiro</a> 26. <a href="http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog">Search Engine People Blog</a> 27. <a href="http://adjoke.blogspot.com/">AdJoke</a> 28. <a href="http://blogcampaigning.com/">Blog Campaigning</a> 29. <a href="http://www.azaroff.com/">azaroff.com</a> 30. <a href="http://chromainc.typepad.com/">chroma</a> 31. <a href="http://www.onedegree.ca/">One Degree</a> 32. <a href="http://www.mediabadger.com/">MediaBadger Monitor, Measure, Manage</a> 33. <a href="http://www.ppc-advice.com/">PPC Advice</a> 34. <a href="http://www.scottweisbrod.com/">Experience Planner</a> 35. <a href="http://www.great-ads.blogspot.com/">Great-Ads</a> 36. <a href="http://www.radicaltrust.ca/">Radical Trust</a> 37. <a href="http://www.everyjoe.com/topic/marketing/">Behind the Buzz</a> 38. <a href="http://www.brandinfiltration.com/dailygrind/">The Daily Grind</a> 39. <a href="http://www.burningthebacon.com/">Burning the bacon with Barrett</a> 40. <a href="http://www.emailkarma.net/">EmailKarma.net</a> 41. <a href="http://www.ryananderson.ca/">The New PR</a> 42. <a href="http://www.advertnews.com/">Advertnews.com</a> 43. <a href="http://www.mynameiskate.ca/">My Name is Kate</a> 44. <a href="http://www.saulcolt.blogspot.com/">Saul Colt</a> 45. <a href="http://www.theclientsideblog.com/">The Client Side Blog</a> 46. <a href="http://davejones.ca/">PR Works</a> 47. <a href="http://inmedialog.com/">The inmedia blog</a> 48. <a href="http://www.socialmediagroup.com/">social media group</a> 49. <a href="http://advertfan.com/">The Advert Fan</a> 50. <a href="http://www.flacklife.com/">FlackLife</a>

If your blog is listed above, feel free to grab your Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blog badge below.

300 Pixels Wide

125 Pixels Wide

Text Link

Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs

<a href="http://www.ads-links.com/index.php/top-50-canadian-marketing-blogs.html">Top 50 Canadian Marketing Blogs</a>

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Syncing iPhone to a New Computer

Ian Lee — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:52:36 +0000

Did you get a new computer and now want to sync all your iTunes and iPhone data to the new computer? For anyone going through this process, take comfort in knowing that there is a simple way to seamlessly transfer all music, photos, data and iPhone apps to the new machine. There are quite a few articles discussing this but having to wade through all the technical data is daunting. In short, here is a simple process that worked for me. Note, I installed Windows 7 on a new harddrive so I still had all my old data after the new install. If you are doing an upgrade, be sure to backup all your data for the move and you will still be able to use this migration method.

Deauthorize iTunes

Install the latest version of iTunes

My original setup on the old iTunes machine was pretty much default and I just let it control most of the settings. So by setting iTunes up on the new machine similarly, I was able to just copy the entire My Music folder (where the iTunes folder is stored in) and let iTunes re-sync everything. iTunes did not miss a beat and did not complain about any missing libraries (or anything else) on the new machine. To my delight, it just continued to sync with my iPhone as if it was running on the old machine.

So if you are moving to a new computer and want to sync your iPhone to a new computer, give the above process a try. As with any computer move, just be sure to have backups of all your data before the move. Smooth syncing!

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Upgrading from Microsoft Vista to Windows 7 – Microsoft Ripped Me Off

Ian Lee — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:52:04 +0000

There was a time when a personal computer would just do what it was supposed to. I am referring to the tried and true Windows XP operating system. Over the last two years, newer computers came loaded with its successor Windows Vista. I have to admit, I liked the new user interface and some of the powerful tools that came bundled with Vista. In fact, the install disc contained a tool that fixed one machine (twice) when Vista just refused to boot. I can remember both times thinking to myself how cool it was that a corrupted OS can self heal. Thinking back now, if Vista did not break itself, I would have had to use that boot-up disc at all! Enough about Vista. The following is a recap of my own experiences upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 and why I feel ripped off by Microsoft. It is not what you may think.

After much encouragement from a colleague, I finally dedicated some time to upgrade my Vista Business machine to Windows 7 Professional. The funny thing was, this colleague had never even used Windows 7 but like many others (including myself) had just heard many good things about this newest operating system from Microsoft. I had a gut feeling that they just wanted me to be the guinea pig and report back. Nonetheless, I performed a clean install of Windows 7 Pro on a new hard drive in my machine.

Microsoft Ripped Me Off

Since installing Windows 7, I felt totally ripped off by Microsoft over the last 2 years having to endure Vista all this time. It was not until I installed Windows 7 on my first machine that I realized I had been forced into a life of time-wasting; either waiting for Windows Vista to load, trying to fix software and hardware incompatibility issues or unknowingly agreeing to run my computer slower than the hardware would dictate otherwise due to all the overhead that comes along with running Windows Vista. Based on the overwhelming comments on one single article I posted called How to Fix Windows Vista Slow Network Transfer, I know that there are many other frustrated Vista users out there.

No cure for a deadly disease was discovered and it has only been a few weeks or so since the Windows 7 upgrade but I must admit, I feel completely liberated – if there is such a thing when describing about a piece of technology. Just knowing that my personal computer will once again do what it’s supposed to and do it rather quickly is a comforting feeling. Nonetheless, I still created a recovery disc for Windows 7. You never know when that might come in handy. I am hoping never.

Benefits of Upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7

As a heavy computer user, here are a few things that I can share with you about upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7.

tweak Vista to get decent transfer speeds

higher transfer rates were not sustainable

hard drive thrashing

More Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7

For many of you sitting on the fence and wondering if you should upgrade your Vista machines, take comfort in knowing that when you do upgrade to Windows 7, your effort will be highly rewarded. Of course, remember to download and run Windows 7 Advisor to make sure your computer is ready for the new OS. In addition if you do plan to upgrade instead of do a clean install, do your research and know which version of Windows you currently have as there is only one specific version of Windows 7 that will allow you to smoothly run the upgrade.

I have performed a clean install as well as upgraded a Vista Business computer to Windows 7 Pro and both times, it brought new life to these machines. I am very happy to announce that I have been completely purged of Windows Vista. Three cheers for Windows 7 – hip, hip hooray! And yes, the more I use Windows 7, the more I feel that I have been ripped off by Microsoft for having to put up with Vista all this time. It’s going to be smooth computing with Windows 7 and XP from here on. We must have hope right?

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Fixed – Windows Vista Network Slows Down Over Time

Ian Lee — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:52:15 +0000

While you may finally be able to achieve fast LAN transfers under Windows Vista, the high speed you managed to have gained may not last. The annoying symptom of moving large files over a LAN in Windows Vista’s is that network performance may simply slow down before the file is fully transferred. The problem was not easy to detect since it was not an issue when transferring smaller-sized files. No need to pull out any more hair, here is the solution.

After systematically shutting down services inside Windows Vista SP1, here is a fix that resolved the issue of a slow down in network performance as you transfer large files. My internet security suite is was Shaw Secure and it turned out that 1 particular setting was causing network performance to drop during large LAN transfers. In order to achieve maximum network performance and sustain high transfer speeds, Shaw Secure’s real-time antivirus protection had to be disabled. Here is a network bandwidth graph of transferring a large file over the LAN with real-time scanning enabled. See the drop in transfer speed after a while and it just never recovered.

If you run Shaw Secure or another security software and your Windows Vista network speed slows down over time, try disabling your real-time anti-virus scanner to see if it fixes the problem. Of course, if you do decide to disable real-time protection, be sure to schedule frequent scans of your computer to keep yourself protected.

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Fixed – Wordpress Admin Pages Slow

Ian Lee — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:52:05 +0000

Recently, something very odd has happened to Wordpress that powers this blog. Front facing pages load fast but the back end Wordpress admin pages are extremely slow to load. So slow that at times, when I save a draft, the new content would not even take. Nothing times out but many admin pages are just extremely slow to load. It turned out to be one of the plugins. Luckily I don’t have many plugins on this blog and just systematically deactivated each. The culprit was an older Google Sitemap plugin. Simply made a quick update to a new one and admin sluggishness was gone! Can’t believe how fast Wordpress can be when it’s working right. If you are also experiencing Wordpress admin pages loading slowly, try deactivating your plugins.

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What I Won From HomeServerLand

Ian Lee — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:52:12 +0000

Last year, I setup a Windows Home Server (WHS) to run as a file and backup server. During the time, I connected with some of the industry leaders in the WHS realm. This was when I met a WHS expert by the name of Alexander Kent. Alex had developed a powerful Add-In for WHS called Grid Junction. Simply put, Grid Junction is a “must-have” Add-In for anyone who powers their WHS with an uninterrupted power supply (battery backup). During a lengthy power outage, Grid Junction can be scheduled to safely power down your Windows Home Server and networked PC’s to prevent data loss or Windows corruption. Through the tweaking of Grid Junction, I got to know Alex via instant messaging and email. I learned that Grid Junction won the Best Windows Home Server Add-in of 2008 Award and that Alex had received Microsoft’s Prestigious MVP Award for his contribution to the Microsoft Home Server. In short, this guy knows his way around Windows Home Server. Recently, Alex held a contest at HomeServerLand.com to give away copies of Windows Home Server and I am happy to report that I am a recipient of one of these! In fact, the above image shows what actually arrived in the mail; a copy of Windows Home Server, a paperback copy of “Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?”, a paperback copy of “Server Feng Shui”, a WHS Pen with stickers to match! So a big thank you goes out to Alex for not only sending some cool items but for all your help in tweaking my Windows Home Server.

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Thank You to a Great Partner – Doclix / AdSide

Ian Lee — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:43:19 +0000

Throughout the years, I have worked with some really good partners. Whether it is being very responsive, super proactive or just plain easy to work with, every so often, a particular partner would stand out from the rest. Today, I wanted to give a quick shout out to one particular partner that is all of the above… and more! That partner is Doclix’s AdSide Network.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of participating on an AdTech San Francisco / AdSpace panel with Leora Blumberg, VP of Business Development from Doclix. To make a long story short, Leora and I immediately connected and we are now partnered with AdSide (Doclix’s advertising network) to delivery their ads. Not only was it a pleasure to meet Leora this year, but I also began working with AdSide’s VP of Sales and Marketing, Yael Yekutie. I only need to say that both of these ladies are simply fantastic people! Period.

It was definitely great to have built another good business relationship this year, but the icing on the cake actually came last week. To my surprise and delight, AdSide sent us a holiday care package. Here are the goodies from Harry and David that arrived in the mail a few days ago. There were actually some delicious mint chocolate cookies as well but they did not make it to the photo shoot. I had eaten them already.

It’s nice enough to be able to work with great people in the advertising industry but it gave me extra warm and fuzzies this Christmas when a great business partner cared enough to send a nice gesture. So a giant thank you goes out to the AdSide team. Not just for the yummy goodies but as a partner, you guys & girls completely rock! Know that the goodies will be thoroughly enjoyed over many movies throughout the holidays.

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Microsoft Banned for Port Scanning

Ian Lee — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:52:28 +0000

Recently, a client contacted me to share that their web server’s firewall was busy banning IP addresses from port scanners. Sure enough, a quick peek at the server logs show that there were indeed multiple IP bans lately. Most of these were temporary bans as the firewall did not deem these infractions critical enough to be permanent bans. When looking at the notifications, a particular domain in the ban list caught my eye. It was a microsoft.com domain along with an IP address. A WHOIS lookup shows that this IP does indeed belong to the software giant Microsoft Corp, manufacturer of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. The reason for permanently banning this IP was that the IP itself had too been temporarily banned too many times in a certain time frame. So after a few warnings, the server’s firewall permanently banned this Microsoft IP from hitting the client’s web server again.

131.107.0.114 (US/United States/tide544.microsoft.com)

After some more digging around and research, could this be a case where it is a false positive result for port scanning? Since we do not want to hinder any of MSN’s servers, whether it’s Bing.com or MSN search, from crawling our web sites the more important question is actually should I unban this IP address? Anyone else also experience your firewall banning Microsoft IP addresses for port scanning? What would you do?

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How to Filter Out Spam From Twitter Search

Ian Lee — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:32:04 +0000

Twitter’s search actually does a pretty good job at locating tweets for a particular geographical region. Just enter the city name in Twitter search and it will find all results containing this city. Recently, there has been an increase in Twitter robot accounts taking advantage of adding a city name to their auto-posting of classified ads. When I search for the term Vancouver, I now also see a list of annoying classified posts from various “for sale” bots. I was so annoyed by this that I even tried Twitter’s LEAVE and BLOCK commands but apparently, the spam classifieds still show up in Twitter search results. Luckily, there is a solution to remove spam from your Twitter searches.

User Twitter Commands and Operators to Fight Twitter Spam

Since neither LEAVE nor BLOCK was able to filter Twitter spam in search results, I tried using a typical “-” operator, a common function used in many search engines, and sure enough, that worked! So if the Twitter spammer’s handle is @sellyourstuffusingtwitterspam, you would type it into Twitter search (without the @ sign) following your keyword. In my case, the keyword was “Vancouver”. This will remove any tweet that contains Vancouver AND the spammer’s username, essentially, filtering all their spam tweets out of your search results. Here is how your spam filtered searches would look like:

Filtering 1 Spammer:
Vancouver -sellyourstuffusingtwitterspam

Filtering 2 Spammers:
Vancouver -sellyourstuffusingtwitterspam -anotherspamusername

This little minus (-) operator has helped me gain control of Twitter search once again allowing me to completely remove all spam ads with a city name. In fact, I was surprised Twitter has not disabled these bots from auto posting free classifieds in Twittersphere. But luckily, there was a fix. I hope the above tip can help you enhance your Twitter experience.

After discovering a way to filter out spam from Twitter search, I did some research and found that Twitter indeed has many commands (for accounts) and operators (for searches) that users can utilize to help manage their Twitter accounts.

Enjoy spam-free searching on Twitter again. I know I am!

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Cannot Upload Twitter Background – RESOLVED

Ian Lee — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:52:40 +0000

Twitter is a fun and productive tool that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates. This free social networking service has grown so exponentially that, unfortunately, it is often times plagued with bugs and server time outs – frustrating to say the least. The latest bug that is tormenting Twitter users worldwide is the inability to upload a background image. A Twitter background has to be 800 kilobytes in file size and must be in a JPG, GIF or PNG format. But even if you abide by these rules, many users are still getting the dreaded “There was a problem with your picture. Was it an animated gif? We don’t support those!” error. No Twitter, I was trying to upload a JPG that was 700 kilobytes in file size. Seems like Twitter already knows about this bug but there has not been a fix yet… until now that is.

Over at Joomlabear.com, there was a solution to remove metadata from the JPG itself and this allowed the image to be uploaded to Twitter. Unfortunately, this did not work for me.

Resolution – Cannot Upload Twitter Background

Although not a formal fix, what did work for me was to click on “Don’t use a background image” before clicking “save changes” during the upload process.

Using this work around, I was finally able to update my Twitter background. How do you like the design?

I hope this can help all of you who are also having difficulty trying to upload a background image to your Twitter account!

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Canadian Wine Export Increased by 400%

Ian Lee — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:23:37 +0000

Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to John Tsang, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, speak about business opportunities for Canadians in Hong Kong. The full day forum took place at the new Vancouver Convention Center. One memorable remark was that in 2008, Mr. Tsang removed the alcohol import tax in Hong Kong. This lead to a 400% increase in Canadian wines being exported to the now alcohol import tax free country. That is definitely great news for businesses, Canadian or otherwise, that export alcohol to this part of Asia. To the right is a photo of John Tsang speaking at the HKCBA (Hong Kong-Canada Business Association) luncheon.

Thanks to Shirley Wong from Invest Hong Kong for the invite! It gave me the chance to meet some very interesting contacts like:

Jeremy Godfrey – Hong Kong’s Chief Information Officer
Lee Kane – Canada’s Trade Commissioner, North Asia Commercial Relations
Tatsuya Nakagawa – President & CEO of Atomica Creative
Kenneth Wong – BCIT’s Major Gifts Officer

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