Wow! It’s amazing how many busy days go into launching a new product. I am in charge of marketing and business development for KidStarter, a Windows desktop replacement for kids aged 3-8.
Every day it means conquering some new facet of marketing (SEO, Retail Sales, Online Delivery, etc.), but it certainly keeps the days fresh and exciting!
Feel free to drop by KidStarter.com and download a free trial copy.
Exciting times right now… I’m one of the partners of Brilliant Software and we are about to publicly release our first software!
KidStarter is a program aimed at kids aged 3-9 which makes using any Windows computer safe, secure and easy-to-use.
After months of work, the software is finally ready and I’m excited about doing my part and bringing the product to market.
You can learn more about the software and also download a free trial copy at KidStarter.com
Wow, so I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago lying in a hotel bed watching the BBC World Service and guess what came on?!?!
BBC’s programme Click had a feature all about iStopOver.com, the site I’ve been working on for about 6 months. It’s unbelievable how much traffic we got from that exposure. It’s also really gratifying to see a big site like that comment on how cool your project is!
Anyhow… check out the site! It’s pretty cool and I just gave it a total design overhaul, so it’s really in top form.
So as part of a new year and new challenges, I’m knee-deep learning a new language. In this case I’m talking about a programming language, Ruby on Rails. As part of my desire to be more hands-on with technology, I’m excited about actively improving my skills, and the chance to learn a new language is certainly part of that.
But as with so many things, what seems good on paper is a bit of a nightmare in real life. I’m getting by fine in Rails, but it’s just so frustrating to try to do something you already know how to do in PHP or ASP and have to spend time totally re-learning something basic.
While there’s moments that I’d just like to scream, I’m still very happy about feeling like I’m stretching the bounds of my knowledge… it’s been a while and it’s quite fulfilling.
Well, it’s that time of year again to make resolutions, take stock of everything and prepare for another year.
This year, like many others, I’m going to really try not to spend time/effort/money on things I don’t need. A little belt-tightening (both physical and financial) seems like it’s long been in order and I’m actually looking forward to living life with a little more control and forethought.
I recently started a new job and I’m really excited about the new year being entirely different than the one before it. I’m already working everyday on hands-on projects and for the first time in a long time, I can actually see the results of a day’s work when I go home.
So, although it doesn’t seem like a time for optimism on a large scale, I’m going into this year feeling positive, excited about the future and happier than I’ve been in quite a long time.
cheers all, and happy new year!
So I finally got around to integrating a blog into my main website at gregvaliquette.com. Basically, I just wrote a custom ActionScript front-end to display posts directly from my installation of WordPress.
Everything basically works now. Still going to play around a little bit to get inline photos and some extra CSS formatting working, but otherwise the site is up and ready to go.
Well, we’re through another election. I’ve got to say that tonight makes me feel really depressed for my country and our collective future. First of all, we set a new low in voter turnout. I really believe that we need to enact laws that make voting a responsibility, not just a privilege. It doesn’t matter to me what party you vote for, or even if you go out and strike your ballot in protest… but the thought that a full 40% of people in the country couldn’t even be bothered to get off the couch and go vote… well, it makes me very sorry for our future.
Not that I’m happy we had to vote at all. I can’t believe that our Conservative government broke election law and called an early election purely out of political opportunism. Naively, I assumed that electoral law should be controlled by a body that could not be affected by the ruling party. After $300 million spent on nothing, the conservatives managed to gain absolutely nothing!! Nothing whatsoever… but across the country, our elected officials abstained from their day-to-day duties and instead were out attempting to gather votes for the 3rd time in 4 years! I would sure love to see someone hold Stephen Harper to task for this frivolity. Kind of like if you file a nuissance lawsuit, you can be forced to pay court costs… seems apt in this situation.
The other thing is the conservative gain in power. What makes me sad isn’t really that the Conservatives won a few seats, or that the Liberals lost a few seats. The thing that made me sad is that Stephane Dion actually stood up and told Canadians that they would have to make some small sacrifices in order to make long-term positive changes for the environment. It was a rare example of a potential leader forsaking the easy voting promises of low taxes and placating solutions and instead offering a real plan for change and a real funding mechanism to make it happen.
The depressing part is that it makes me think less of people to think that everyone is “green” when they can do something superficial or offer an opinion, but no one actually wants to accept some minor inconveniences that are going to be inevitable if we are really to make change. And this argument doesn’t just hold to the environment. If we look at the American election situation, we’ve got people talking about bailouts and billions (if not trillions) of dollars while both candidates talk about reducing taxes and reducing burdens on citizens. Why is it that people can’t seem to equate paying your fair share in taxes with the services that we all require from government.
Anyhow, I just think that if everyone could be just a little bit more realistic and stop accepting easy answers, our society might just make progress. Oh well… like I said, it’s been a bit of a depressing evening.