Josh Davey showing off the Madeam.com website

Madeam was recently featured in the June 2009 issue of PHP Arch magazine alongside CodeIgniter, Solar, Zend Framework, and others. One main idea covered in the article was trying to express how Madeam stands out and finds it’s own place in

During the interview I chat with Josh and ask him questions regarding Madeam’s motivation, what makes it different from other PHP frameworks on the market, and what he thinks of the PHP developer community in Toronto.

You can find out more about Madeam at www.Madeam.com (@madeam).

You can also follow Josh Davey on Twitter, @joshdavey

Right off the bat when I saw the calendar, a thought occurred to me.

“This is it. This is what we need.”

The idea of an event wiki is not new, but the way this calendar is able to fill such a need for our community in Toronto is a great example of how a collaborative system, properly applied enables us to accomplish more than we ever could separately. TOGeekEvents ran a great calendar, TorCamp ran a great calendar, but when we have an open system that’s flexible enough to integrate into the existing registration systems we already use like Meetup.com or Eventbrite, then we all benefit from it:

• There’s only a single reference to share,
• A single feed to follow,
• There’s less competition amongst competing calendar managers,
• More freedom to add smaller niche events,
• Increase attendance overall,
• Increase social practice of adding and contributing in our community.

Community created, community run, community focused applications are amazing. We should have more of them. I and downloaded JobberBase and installed it at http://torontodev.ca/jobs/ not because there are not enough different cool sources for jobs in Toronto, but because I could see the community benefiting from a job board that: wasn’t tied into any particular business, was open to submissions from the community, and that could provide the same sort of advantages from the preceding points (though my lack of promotion and lack of updating this blog were detrimental to say the least).

An event calendar is only the start, but the Say Yeah! calendar did a great job to set the tone for what we should be striving for when creating new applications. We should be finding out different wiki, or  community-centric applications the Toronto community could be benefiting from. We could benefit so much from having more applications built and suited for the Toronto Tech and Social Media community. By, and for the community is the way to do it. These applications would be “community-centric” in the terms of being:

• Community created,
• Community managed,
• And For the benefit of our community.

What other types of wiki systems could help us focus our efforts and add more value to the community? Some ideas might include:

• Job board
• Idea board
• Unconference organizer tool.

An exploration of what practical sorts of wiki systems and how they could help Toronto’s tech, or other communities, would be an interesting discussion that might be appropriate for Toronto Wiki Tuesday, maybe as a sort of town hall.

The collaborative route could go further than any of these examples as well. We could do something at a higher level and more positive even and create a positive place for community members to share their goals whether they be career, technical, educational, and provide a place to look for and to get support from others to achieve those goals. Of course maybe not all of these projects would technically be wikis, but like wikis, they could take advantage of the community centric approach to encouraging participation and being a place to add value to a common place for the benefit of all others,

To solve problems is what we need. To move forward is what we need. To be creative is what we need. To add to the community is what we need.

If you’re in, say yeah!

Taking inspiration from the TED conference, Robert posts video interviews with authorities in the Canadian, and now the international nursing industry, and to the mission of his podcast, spreads ideas to nursing students and nurses.

“I believe that nursing needs to become a more open profession, that shares ideas, inspires innovation and involvement. Nursing needs to strengthen its collective voice, in order for this to happen there must be a stronger internal dialogue to unify the efforts and ideas within the profession. Every nurse does not need to agree with all practices, ideas, or principles, but there should be a basic concept of what is happening within the profession, including the relevant research, resources and thought on various topics.” – Nursing Ideas.ca

Rob is a friend of mine and was kind enough to answer a few questions I had for him about the site and the podcast.  I was especially interested in how he sees other nursing students and nurses adopting social media, and in getting used to learning from podcasts.  Being in a profession where ability to care for a patient is one of the benchmarks for success, I wonder if that sort of personable quality that nurses have might lead them to adopt new communication tools or a richer and more personable learning medium like Rob’s video podcast…

As a nursing student yourself, how are you seeing other nursing students adopting new ways of learning about their profession, like your podcast, and connecting with other nurses and students through tools like Twitter?

Robert: To be honest, the adoption of new technology in nursing is slow. I’m very happy that the this is slowly changing, but podcasting to Twitter, there is not a ton of nursing stuff. There is a slow growth, and also since these technologies are international there is a decent growth in these communities. Even I shouldn’t be taking part in this, I’m just lucky that I have always been a little bit tech-savvy, always enjoy learning and have a wide variety of friends. I never heard of twitter until a friend (@joshdavey) explained a couple things that he used it for, and I was SOLD on the idea. So I joined and went searching for other nurses. Really I think that that is the best part, you don’t have to be physically close to people that are like minded. Now I can just join the online connecting communities like Twitter and tap into those that are taking part in the same communities. I love that when I find a someone I can also see how they talk with, follow or are connected to so the growth of people I am connected to keeps growing.

Since you’ve started Nursing Ideas, has it opened up any opportunities for you?

Robert: That is a difficult question, mainly because there has been a lot of different things that have happened. I jumped in to this whole social media world around the same time of launching so it has been through a variety of different channels, but a lot of different things. As I mentioned before there is not huge adoption of these new technologies, so I have been encouraged and pushed to do graduate studies relating to the topic and how it affects learning (still waiting acceptance). Through twitter I was linked up with a number of people that have been quite helpful, from answer questions, to connecting me to related professors, starting research projects and submitting conference abstract.

I was also told by a professor that I would be submitting to a Semi-Annual National Nursing Leadership Conference. I was accepted before I knew what an honour it was, and go to give a 20 minute presentation on Social Media. There was a lot of questions and I had a lot of people come talk to me during all the networking breaks.. A lot of them didn’t come to my presentation but had heard about it. So I think the idea of using Social Media in nursing is starting to get a bit more traction.

Recently the biggest thing I’m realizing is that running this website has created massive opportunity because I benefit the person I interview because I expose them to a larger audience, nurses/nursing students benefit from being connected to these people, and I benefit from getting the chance to build a personal brand and meet with these leaders in healthcare. Even if I only get a short time with them it is 10-15 minutes they do not forget and then I get to correspond with them afterwards. I really didn’t realize what a great chance [it was] to network and also link people together until I interviewed Tjitze Hoekstra who pointed out this opportunity.

What’s been the most important idea or lesson you’ve learned so far since beginning Nursing Idea

Robert: Another tough question, I have learned a lot. From the skills from doing all of these things (taping, editing, developing, etc) to the life experience and fun that I’ve had. The biggest thing I have learned is if you have an idea that you think is a good one than listen to yourself! Start to develop it, work on it, create it, make it happen! I cannot tell you how far away from where my original thought was, and in 5 years I have no idea what will have evolved. I never would have been anywhere though if I didn’t start. There are so many cool things going and happening, and there is room for a ton more of great ideas and projects, the limiting factor is people and time. So if you get your idea that you think is awesome, then go for it. Even if you fail you will learn a hell of a lot more than you ever will from doing nothing.

For those of you who don’t have an idea or know what you want to passionately pursue, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to know right away, but you should really be trying a lot of things until you do. Read a ton of books, go places, listen to a ton of podcasts/vodcasts, and just expose yourself to anything and everything you might find interesting. Doing this is a great way to know a lot more about the world and helps you to think a bit different, and hopefully you will eventually find something that you can be passionate about.

You can find Robert at Nursing Ideas, and on Twitter @rdjfraser

The advancements of Information Technology (IT) in the past decade have pushed this discipline and industry into the forefront of solving increasingly complex problems. With the relationship of IT and the social fabric of society generally overlooked we are witnessing an unparalleled time of break-fix solutions and ailing innovation. Challenges faced by individuals, society and ultimately the city can no longer afford to be solved superficially.

Small Rooms | Big Ideas challenges existing debate and conversation methods by breaking the big issues into small bites. We will explore the various ways IT impacts our lives and areas of habitation. By using the city as a focal point, we will create conversations about enabling citizens in ways unique to their social, political and economic structure at both the local and global level.

Two people who are going to be at the event that I can’t wait to hear from include Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, who will be giving the keynote lecture, and Mark Kuznicki, Principal at Remarkk! Consulting, who will be sitting on the panel, “Global Knowledge Cities: Does Toronto make the cut?”.  You can see the full list of speakers on the Connec IT 2009 Speakers page.

I asked Jaime Sorgente, one of the co-organizers why students should go to the event this year:

“Small Rooms | Big Ideas speaks to the power of collaboration and sharing ideas through the use of participation-centric technologies.

By attracting Toronto’s biggest and brightest tech leaders, strategies for managing technology and innovation developments help position Ryerson students as future leaders in the sector…

…With 25% of delegates being industry professionals students are also given the opportunity to interact with potential employers and gain access to real-world insight and experience.” – Jaime Sorgente

Previously, the event featured keynote speakers such as Thomas Homer Dixon, and Mitch Joel.

Connect IT will be held on Wednesday, March 4th from 11:00 am – 10:00 pm , at the Arcadian Court, 401 Bay Street.
The event is $30 for students (from any university) to attend, and $60 for industry attendees.  You can register for Connect IT through EventBrite.

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• Q & A: Sheldon Levy (cbc.ca)

There are two events now happening at MaRS on February 24th.  FacebookCampToronto 5 is starting at 6pm, the event already has 221 confirmed guests on it’s Facebook event page, and before that, just announced today, Jay Goldman will give a talk on “New Models of Web Application Development”:

New Models of Web Application Development

The web is more interesting when you can build apps that easily interact with a myriad of sites and users out there that want to share information. But with the growing trends in social media applications also comes a growing list of market and technology rules that players from small start-ups and big corporations need to be aware of. With emerging technologies and common API frameworks such as OpenSocial currently being developed by a broad set of members of the web community, what’s the best approach to understanding how to build and connect to information all over the web? Join us as we explore how this emerging era of open standards and connected social networks is creating an exciting “free-range” digital content bonanza.

• Mashups: The promise of the API realized on the web
• How web applications can best be used in corporate enterprises using these emerging frameworks
• An overview of “Open” vs. “Walled” gardens and “Cathedral and The Bazaar“: What’s the model for web application development
• Case Study: Toronto Transit Commission – How MyTTC.ca shows a glimmer of what could be possible in an open environment

It also looks like there’s the opportunity to pick up some free O’Reilly books by attending as well, such as:

• Facebook Cookbook
• FBML Essentials
• PHP Cookbook

Speaking about Open Mashups and APIs as Web App Development Models » Jay Goldman.

Image by artin via Flickr

Word Camp Toronto, this year being run by the folks at PHUG, have started the WCT2009 Awards.

Submissions to the awards are free, but you must submit any sites by April 1st.

The categories this year are:

• Best Theme Design
• Best Plug-in
• Best Student Blog/WP Site
• Best Professional/Corporate Blog/WP Site
• Best Education/Instructional Blog/WP Site
• Best Creative use WordPress (outside of a standard blog)
• Best Blog from any Category

Wordcamp Toronto 2009 still has its contest open for finding a Logo Design.  The submission deadline for that contest is Feb 15th 2009 at 5pm EST.

Submit your entries at WordCamp Toronto 2009 Awards | Word Camp Toronto 2009

Who do you think will be winning an award?

Image by Eva Blue via Flickr

For US $29.00, you can get a digital download of five of SitePoints books (at what would cost a total of US $149.75).

The sale is only on for three days and ends Friday, February 13th.

Here’s a list of all the books on sale:

Design

• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
• The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques

HTML & CSS

• Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong!
• The Art & Science of CSS
• The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, 2nd Edition

The Ultimate CSS Reference

• Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, 2nd Edition
• The Ultimate HTML Reference
• HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, 2nd Edition
• Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8

JavaScript

• Simply JavaScript
• The Art & Science Of JavaScript
• Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications
• DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM

Flash & ActionScript

• The Flash Anthology: Cool Effects & Practical ActionScript

Server-side

• Simply SQL
• Simply Rails 2
• The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, 2nd Edition
• Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, 3rd ed.
• No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP
• Build Your Own ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site Using C# & VB, 3rd Edition
• The ASP.NET 2.0 Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks
• Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache

Management & Business

• The Principles Of Project Management
• The Principles Of Successful Freelancing
• Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists

Check out the SitePoint Bushfire Relief Sale.

The session schedule for PodCamp Toronto 2009 is now open for people to edit and to put their sessions into the time-slot of their choosing.

44 of the more than 50 sessions have been scheduled so far, so if you want to plan your time you can get a pretty good idea of how things will play out.  Needless to say that figuring out a plan with the more than 50 sessions being run over the two day event will be challenging for most.

There are so many interesting sessions being run this year that the chances of an over lap in sessions you want to see is likely.

Following the Law of Two Feet:

“At any time, if you’re not learning what you want to learn, if you’re not getting what you need, you have every right to depart the session you’re in and move to a different one, or none at all.”

Taking a break during the day and taking a break while all the sessions are going on is a good way to mingle with others in a less busy environment as well if you find your self getting tired or overwhelmed.

There won’t be lunched served at PodCamp Toronto 2009, but thoughtfully a Google Map with dinning spots has been put together for finding spots to dine for lunch. The question really boils down to: Wings or Thai?

What are your must-see sessions at PodCamp Toronto 2009?

Today Mayor David Miller announced on Twitter:

“Announced Toronto Helps toronto.ca/torontohelps -programmes to help seniors, job seekers, youth, tenants: please RT” – @mayormiller

In these times not only is it especially important for government to have programs in place to help people, but like with anything else online, nobody will ever use it unless the information is easy to find, easy to navigate, and designed in a way to let users accomplish their goals.

Besides Toronto.ca still looking like a website from 1996, Toronto Helps uses a horrible double select box navigation.  The easiest way to see all the programs offered is to go to the Business Progams, or Residential Programs page, even though going to those pages is pretty overwhelming, each listing over 40 programs, all without any description as to what they really provide.

It’s always nice to have the city make even incremental efforts to putting more resources and information on programs online and to make them accessible in general, but this portal could maybe could have done a better job by helping people identify what problems they have, and then guiding them to the correct program that could help them.

Another option for organizing these programs could have been to identify who the reader was, maybe a small business owner, and then not only list the various programs available, but also pointing out what they actually do and how the programs could help them: “These programs provide cash rebates”, “These  programs help you with your taxes” etc…

Some people were also impressed with the mayors’ knowledge of asking people to “RT” or Re-Tweet his message.

What are your thoughts on Toronto Helps?

Image via Wikipedia

Taking a cue from BookCamp London, a group of Canadians have organized an unconference in Toronto to bring together authors, publishers, and technologists to discuss the future of the book.  BookCampTO is a free one day event being held June 6th at the MaRS Centre already has a list of 45 session ideas that people have volunteered to lead, or that people want to hear discussed.

“The future of books, writing, publishing, and the book business in the digital age.”

Some of the 45 session ideas listed for BookCampTO include:

• Building community to build your book sales
• Kindle, Sony Book Reader and the future of paper
• Lesson learned from the music industry (or how to avoid the same pitfalls)
• Schools, Libraries and Educational Facilities – how does the Digital Age change the way we learn from books?

The session ideas cover a wide landscape of possible futures for books and publishing from how social media can grow the brand of books and authors online, to podcasting and delivering books through audio and video media, to changing the book experience by using all variety of screen mediums like ebook readers, as well as smaller screens like the iPhone and Nintendo DS.  Reading books on cell phones in Japan is already a hugely popular activity.

I asked Mark Bertils on his blog who should go to BookCampTO, wondering if there was a lot of publishing industry jargon that might make it confusing to the average book lover.  He told me that because of a large industry trade show getting canceled, BookCampTO has received a lot of that traffic coming directly from publishing companies, book focused websites, and bloggers.

Though if you have creative ideas on story telling or on hacking the book then you’ll find a good audience to share your ideas with at BookCampTO

The event limit is 150 people, and as of this morning 99 people have already signed up. If you’d like to attend there’s still time to register.

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• Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones (nytimes.com)
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Image by toxophilite via Flickr

Keeping track of all the cool Toronto events happening was one of the main reason for this blog long ago.  And what do you know?  Other people since then have done a great job of putting together online calendars that you can use to keep track of them.

TOGeekEvents

@TOgeekevents is a twitter account that does a great job of finding all sorts of events happening in Toronto and has a public Google Calendar available that does a great job of bringing all these events in one place.  Not limited to development related events, TOGeekEvents also brings together literary events, community meetings, breakfasts and brunches, and even skating socials.

See also TorCamp Google Calendar

StartUp North

Focused primarily on events relevant to tech startups, StartUp North has event Google calendars for: Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, & Vancouver.

Meetup.com

Meetup.com is the popular choice when it comes to interest group events in Toronto.  There are both social and educational meetups.  While the events that are organized on Meetup might not be for everybody (some are very niche or organized for only specific demographics), some of the biggest monthly meetups use it, like Third Tuesday Toronto.

Some event details are hidden until you sign up for a group on meetup.  After signing up you can see the full event details like location and time, attendee listings, and you can also receive emails from the group organizers, which are often used to announce new meetups.

Blog TO Events

While most of the events on Blog TO relate to Arts and Culture, if they get word of an event and its gets submitted to their list, you might be able to find something new there.  Two examples of events that have been covered on Blog TO include Cupcake Camp Toronto, and StartUp Empire.

Image by ortizmj12 via Flickr

If I may…

Canada

1. Feb 6th, 2009 – CSSSCampSaskatoon – by BarCampSaskatoon, Saskatoon, SK
2. Feb 11th, 2009 – CloudCamp – Toronto

Canada has 2 events listed… And the United States?

52 Events!

The list for Canada’s events is clearly incomplete as it even leaves out PodCamp Toronto which is maybe Canada’s largest unconference.

Take a look at the list of all the unconferences happening in the States. This list should really encourage you to start an unconference if nothing else.  Here’s a breakdown of the topics of the events being put together in the US:

• Health
• UX
• Bands
• Linux Dev
• Ruby
• Freelancing
• Photography
• Green
• eDemocracy
• Government 2.0
• Banking
• Presenting
• Cloud Computing
• News Innovation
• Homelessness
• Design
• Skepticism
• Accessibility
• Product Marketing and Management
• Finance
• Social anything (including Social Media)
• Tech & Programming
• Media Communications
• Higher Education

There’s a ton of opportunity to put on new unconferences in Canada!  We just can’t rely on the same people to put together all the events, we need new people to step forward and take the initiative to organize them.

Do you know of any resources that can help first timers organize an unconference?
What unconferences do you think Toronto needs the most but is missing?

Update: I forgot Toronto’s events were listed at http://barcamp.org/TorCamp

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Users can now use TinEye without having to register or signup, and performe reverse image searches online.

What is TinEye?

“TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.” – TinEye.com FAQ

Registering might still make sense as they get a few benefits over unregistered users:

• First access to new features
• Ability to give feedback
• Link and share results
• Search history
• Newsletter

Here’s a demo video of what TinEye can do featuring Amber Mac:

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Image via CrunchBase

30 people have already RSVP’d ‘Yes’ to the event so there’s sure to be a big crowd there.

What is Gen Y? There are a few descriptions

“The Generation Y are sometimes called the “Trophy Generation”, or “Trophy Kids,” a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports (as well as many other aspects of life) where “no one loses” and everyone gets a “Thanks for Participating” trophy.” – Wikipedia

But a nicer name and description can be found on the flap of one recently released book:

“Instead of passively watching television, the “Net Geners” are actively participating in the distribution of entertainment and information… and they’re changing every aspect of our society – from the workplace to the marketplace, from the classroom to the living room, from the voting booth to the Oval Office.” – Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital

You can RSVP here twtvite ::GenY Toronto Tweetup.

Although we already all had a pretty good idea that Toronto was a strong competitor on having the most addicted Twitter users in the world, we now have the final word from a fairly reliable source to back it up.  The ranking isn’t a direct measurement of Twitter usage by city, but is instead measured by what’s written in the Location field of users’ profiles.

The top ranking included:

1. London
2. United States
3. San Francisco
4. New York
5. Chicago

Canada ranked 13th on the list.

Toronto Twitter users know that they are some of the most “dedicated” users of the service.  In Toronto and across Canada, we constantly seem to be featured in the trending topics on Twitter Search.  From having conversations online on the latest news from the coalition, to organizing and discussing add-hoc events such as HoHoTo, which raised more that $10,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank, or letting the world know of our battle with the evil winter villain known as #Snowmageddon.

Next year I’m sure Toronto will be less productive, and Twittering more than ever!  Toronto will show “London” who has the most dedicated users.

Read the original article here: globeandmail.com: Toronto tops the Twittersphere.

When: Sunday December 28th, 3pm – 7pm

Where: Irish Embassy Pub & Grill, 49 Yonge Street

Facebook | Toronto Tweet Up – Farewell 2008 edition – Dec 28th.

It seems like Toronto’s tech scene is moving at light speed ridiculous speed ludicrous speed these days, and trying to provide an complete picture of all that activity will be Toronto Dev’s goal. It will cover tech news in a broad sense, trying to give everybody in the community a reason to visit.
* Tech Startups
* Social Media
* Web Apps and Services
* Camps, Meetups, and Conferences
* Government Tech Policies and Social Media Adoption
* And Interesting Stuff.

The site is going to be open to contributions of all sorts. I see site being more valuable to people, and lasting a lot longer the more an open-source publication method is adopted. If it will be useful to the people of Toronto’s tech scene, it’s likely it will be published (This is a very subtle way of saying that the site might only publish 5 posts a year if I’m the only one writing content.).

To keep contributing easy, and to support the site’s emphasis on the community, not to generate ad revenue, content published on Toronto Dev will be licensed Creative Commons Attribution to the individual authors of the content. All content will be licensed CC-BY unless other wised noted.

The first goal was to simply make the site live, but I have a couple of ideas for it in the future. If you have any ideas you’d like to suggest or work on, contact me and we’ll get some discussion started.

See you around.