Gus Digital

Today is the day where we all celebrate being Canadian. We celebrate our wonderful country. We celebrate the diversity which makes up this country from coast to coast.

I myself am not a born Canadian. I immigrated here with my family when I was 5 years old and I have grown up experiencing all of the wonderful things this country offers. I’ll be fist to admit that I have not fully explored this country, especially the eastern coast, but what I have experienced has only enhanced the pride I have for being a Canadian.

I hope everyone will get out there and show their red and white colours proudly. Enjoy it with family and friends.

So to all Happy Canada Day-eh!

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Today I’m heading off to San Francisco to be apart of the IABC National Conference.  I’ve been invited to attend a “Think Tank” today where 30 people will discuss Social Media and how it is changing the landscape of communications through-out the world.

I’ve never personally participated in a “think-tank” so I’m not sure what to expect, but I am happy to go a day early to San Francisco to participate in it.

The conference attracts many communicators from around the world and our company Marketwire will be well represented. I will the only Canadian person attending from Marketwire so I’m overly excited that I was given the opportunity.

That said, I will miss not being here for the CPRS National Conference which I have been planning with the organizers since early November. I know the conference will go off well and I wish all delegates a fantastic conference.

I plan on staying an extra day in San Francisco just to relax and come down from the IABC Conference. These conferences are usually a lot of fun and also a lot of work. Waking up at 6am and going until late in the evening for 3 full days!

I’ll try to report back as much as possible and add photos where I can.

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While watching Planet Earth on CBC this evening I was stunned and shocked by a segment on fungus. There was a paticular fungus, the Cordyceps fungus which attacks insects, especially ants and causes some very interesting results as seen on this YouTube video I found.

It’s scary and amazing at the sametime. It’s like watching a creepy Sci-Fi movie. Can you imagine this affecting humans? Creepy thought!

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Today The Community Against Preventable Injuries (The Community) launched their year campaign to raise awareness and form a community to prevent the 400,000 injuries suffered by British Columbians [link]. These injuries are also the leading cause of death for individuals for people between the age of one and 44.

The Community is a new organization (businesses, injury prevention organization, government and other individuals)  established to raise awareness, transform social attitudes, and and ultimately change behaviours. Its goal is to significantly reduce the number and severity of preventable injuries in BC.

I myself have been injured in the past during summer work, and like everyone out there, we always feel that injuries can’t happen to us.

For more information on The Community, visit the website at: preventable.ca

Here are some facts as well as an interesting video to launch their campaign.

Magnitude of Injuries: Fact Sheet
THE HUMAN TOLL

• 95% of all injuries are both predictable and preventable
• Preventable injuries are the leading killer of Canadians in the prime of their lives (one to 44 years old)
• More than 400,000 residents of BC are injured each year
• Every hour of every day, 47 British Columbians suffer a preventable injury
• On average, more than 1,200 British Columbians die and more than 27,000 are hospitalized every year
• On a daily basis, over 1,100 British Columbians are injured seriously enough to require medical attention. Of these, approximately four die, 90 are hospitalized and some 27 are left partially or totally disabled
• More children die from injuries than all other causes
• On average, 200 children and youth die from preventable injuries every year
• At least one person dies every day due to a motor vehicle crash in BC

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Well I did it. I auditioned for a dancing role for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

I admit this morning when I woke up, I was very nervous. I was at the point of not even attending the audition since I was starting to feel ill, but Russ gave me a pep talk.  He let me know that I have been talking about this for over 8 years. I’ve been wanting to play a part in the opening ceremonies for as long as I can remember. I’ve wanted to experience being apart of history and welcoming the world. This was my one chance to living that dream.

My audition was scheduled to begin at 5:30pm so I arrived early. I quickly began to scan the group to see who my competition would be. As more and more people began to arrive I started to notice that I was probably the oldest person there and I was definitely not the fittest person in the bunch. This didn’t help my nerves in the least.

As we began to enter the audition area and get our “number”, some people in the line began to chat up and noticed that a few of them had come from some form of dance training background. What was I doing?

I entered in the auditorium and was given my number, measured from head to toe, had a face photo taken, and had a full body photo taken. We then sat down and watched some video of opening ceremonies of the past. Once everyone had their measurements taken we were taken into another room where we would begin our audition (though from what people have told me, we were on audition since the moment we arrived).

I didn’t know what kind of dancing we would have to do, but when I found out it was a Hip-Hop routine I began to get nervous again. We were given a dance routine to learn and divided into groups to “perfect” the routine. I have to admit the routine wasn’t too bad and was fun to learn and perform in front of the Opening and Closing organizers. All this was done while we were being filmed for them to review and make notes.

After our routine was completed we were taught a different routine. This routine was more complex than the first one and gave me trouble after beat 8. yeah we had 24 beats to memorize. I got to perform this routine 4 times and had a great time trying to get in all the steps, but I didn’t “nail” it as others were doing it, but I kept on smiling and give them all my energy.

There was some other items that were done during the audition, but I am not liberty to say since I’ve signed a “confidentiality agreement”.

I won’t find out if I made it until sometime in September with the first rehearsals beginning in November.

At any rate I had a great time and I’m glad I was part of something, even if I don’t make it to the opening ceremonies.

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After testing out some photo options the other day and some today, I thought I’d try out the video functionality of the Canon Rebel T1i. As it shoots in true high definition (1080i), I think the results speak from themselves below. Granted these are uploaded to Flickr and some quality is lost (alas Viddler wouldn’t upload the video in HD, nor do I think there are any true HD hosting sites out there).

Let me know what you think.

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After a week of having the Canon Rebel T1i, I finally installed the software that came with the camera and downloaded the photos.  First impressions is I’m very happy with the photos. I’m looking forward to taking some more, though not looking forward to the image size files. I guess this is the only drawback, but as you can see it’s not bad. These were taken with the lens that came with the camera.

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With corporate blogs becoming more predominate, and used more for corporate communications, we often forget that just like any other site, blogs can be hacked.

On May 28th, the Better Business Bureau will host “Cyber Security and Your Business: How to Protect Your Consumers from Online Threats”. Join Vaclav Vincalek, President and founder of Pacific Coast Information Systems (PCIS) Ltd., and learn how to protect your business and customers.

At this presentation, you will learn:

• How and why cyber criminals target your business

• Consequences of a web security breach

• How effective network security, web security and identity management tools and practices can protect your business assets and your customers’ privacy

This will be taking place on Thursday May 28th at the People’s Law School, 150-900 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC. Registration is between 8 – 8:30am with the session and Q&A lasting until 10:30am.

COST (incl. GST):
BBB Accredited: $25/person
Non BBB Accredited: $45/person

REGISTRATION: To register, please click here for the registration form, email Susanh@mbc.bbb.org or call 604.685.7226.

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From as long as I can remember, we’ve always had Canon cameras in our household. My father always swore by them and I began to enjoy photography, I started using the old Canon SLR’s.  My very first purchase of a camera was the Canon Rebel SLR camera. Though I’m not the best photographer, I mainly used the camera to experiment with black and white photography. I remember taking the camera down to New York City in ‘95 and remember taking some great photos (yeah I need to scan some of them one day).

Five years ago I purchased the first Canon Rebel Digital SLR camera. This camera was state of the art for back then and is a 6.1 mega-pixels camera. I bought the DSLR instead of the point and shoot, so I could experiment more and have more control over the photo itself. This camera has been with me over 5 years and has always taken great photos for me. I recently began purchasing extra lenses to get a better range.

This past March, Canon announced the Canon Digital Rebel T1i (50D) into the marketplace. Not only does it take photos in 15.1 mega-pixels, but, this is the first of the Rebel line of cameras to include HD video recording.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my camera for over year now, wanting higher mega-pixels as well possible video.  The only way to do this was to get a point and shoot camera, which I wasn’t willing to downgrade to this. This was the camera I was going to purchase and finally after a couple of months I am now the new proud owner of one.

I’m still experimenting with the camera, and I still have to install the software the camera came with onto my computer. From what I have seen so far of the camera, the picture quality is outstanding (even in low light) and the video capabilities are great (though it doesn’t include auto focus when recording).

I’ll try to play with it more in the coming weeks and write something else then.

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Last November I wrote about my experience at being interviewed to volunteer during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  As I didn’t hear back from them in sometime, last month I decided to put my hat into appearing in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Today I received a call saying I have an audition at the end of this month. Based on this CBC footage I just found, it looks like it will involve  some dance routine numbers I’ll have to memorize and lots of enthusiasm.

I’ve always wanted to participate in the Opening Ceremonies and I have always joked around with fellow friends and family that I wanted to be a black dot forming the Olympic Rings. I’m not sure how good I’ll look in lycra, but I’m eager to give it a go just to have a camera run up and down the field and highlight my smiling face!

Wish me luck!

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