Gus Digital

VinoCamp 2008 has come and gone, and what a great success it was.

This was part of my birthday present to Russ.  It was a combination of wine tasting and education with a splash of geekiness thrown in.

Getting to the event proved to be harder than I had thought, and even my trusty GPS on the iPhone failed me to find my location.  I was glad that I was at least able to get online and find a map of the UBC campus to get me to the UBC Botanical Gardens before the 10am start.  Luckily we weren’t the only ones that were lost as the even was about 1/2 hour late in begining.

Thankfully when we arrived I had spotted Colleen who was live blogging the event over at Drinks After Dark.

The morning began with an opening address from Dr. Hennie JJ van Vuuren, Founding Director of the UBC Wine Research Center.  In his address he discussed how UBC was isolating specific genes of the yeast to help in wine production.  Most of it was fairly technical and even with my biochemistry background it was hard to keep up.  I think it was also hard to hear him though he was only 2 tables in front of us.

We then had a great discussion of the BC Wine Regions by Kathy Malone of Township 7.  She went through the specific regions in BC which produced wine and which specific grapes they grew. Of course most was centered around the Okanogan area as they produce over 60% of BC wines.

Our next speaker was Brad Cooper, also of Township 7, and discussed better ways of making homemade wine. He discussed how a new start up company, Crushpad, has elevated the premium homemade wine industry.  Crushpad allows you to to create your own distinct wine.  You have access to a variety of grapes, as well as access to their own specialized winemakers.  All this allows you to create your own specific wine which you can then market and sell to restaurants or other sellers, all without having to have your own production facility. Truly awesome!!

Our next presenters were Michelle Bouffard and Michaela Morris of House Wine.  They discussed how you pairing of wine with foods is important.  They let everyone know that when having a very hearty and heavy meal, you should pair the meal with a more flavourful and robust wine.  These two will always compliment each other.  This was a perfect gateway to what was next, our lunch.

During lunch we had the opportunity to try specific wines with each portion of our meal.  Although I didn’t try out the wines during lunch, Russ said the combination of the food with the requested wine was actually very refreshing.

After lunch we were treated to what I would say was one of my highlights of the event.  David Sanders of Riedel Crystal, discussed how the glass shape actually affects the taste of the wine.  Of course I was very skeptical of this, but as we tried wines and then tried them again with different shapes, you actually noticed a difference.  The main reason David said was that the wine glass is meant to help target the specific taste buds in the mouth. Colleen has a better write up on this.

We were then treated to Bal Arneson, how showed us that even through Indian Food you can always pair a specific wine to go with your meal. Anthony Nicalo discussed about Organic and Sustainable Winemaking and closing off Kelly Robson who writed a wine blog called Full Bodied.  She started this blog as a hobby which caught the attention of Chatelaine Magazine, who she now writes for.

I couldn’t believe all the wine that we got try, who knew that drinking wine starting at 10am would be so much fun!

My hats go off to the organizers, Boris, Lori, Megan, Lauren, Colleen, Tanya, Degan and Cyprien for a fantastic event.

I can’t wait for VinoCamp 2009!!!

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Face Your Manga Avatar

This morning while I was on Twitter, there seemed to be a new sensation beginning (You might recall the Colour Wars).  What might you ask is this new sweeping sensation? Well everyone is changing their profile picture and creating an avatar from Face Your Manga.

The interface is pretty cool and is quick and easy to get started.  Granted I don’t think my avatar looks alot like me, but hey.

Go get yourself a new avatar!

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There are a few bloggers in Vancouver participating this weekend in the Vancouver Blogathon. What is the Blogathon? Bloggers are encouraged to sign up for a charity and blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight. You can see more information at their wiki site.

I alas will not be one of the participants as I honestly don’t feel I could do it non-stop for 24 hours. I give great shut outs to the participants I know - Rebecca, Raul, Jenn and Nadia and Duane. You all are amazing for doing this and I’ll try to support anyone I can during the 24 hours.

I’m happy to see that awareness will be brought to your charities and the what they support.

Good luck all!

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Today is the official launch of the iPhone in Canada, but the 3G model no less and I have ot admit I’m feeling envious to all the people that currently lined up and will be purchasing this awesome looking device today. I had been waiting for this for over a year and I had even signed up with Rogers 4 months ago in anticipation for this.  Alas since doing this so early, I am on a "contract" and cannot get one for a year.  This just bites and it bites hard.

A good friend of mine says he knows a manager at one of the Rogers store and is getting one (even though he is currently on a contract himself).  If he does, I am going to try to get one myself next week since I will be going camping this weekend and this will get me away from the city and avoid seeing my fellow techies walking around with the phone I’d love to have!

A co-worker of mine had said that today will be a sad day for me and that I should have called in sick.  He did say to other co-workers that no one should talk about the iPhone today to help me out - What a nice guy

So to all how have gotten the iPhone, just know this guy here is envious.

Enjoy the iPhone everyone!!

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I have been using WordTwit plugin from Brave New Code for a few months now, but ever since I’ve upgraded to FireFox 3, I have been having problems with it.

For those that do not know, WordTwit is suppose to send a Tweet message on Twitter letting everyone who follows you know that you have a new blog entry.

Alas lately it hasn’t been sending out any tweets when I have added a new blog post.  I get the following error instead:

Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in /home/gusdigi/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordtwit/wordtwit.php on line 31

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/gusdigi/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordtwit/wordtwit.php:31) in /home/gusdigi/public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 694

Granted I’ve asked people on Twitter to help, but have gotten no response yet, so I’m asking anyone out there again if they can help me out on this one.

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I’ll start off by saying I’m not a big fan of Dell Computers, heck I’m not a fan of them at all. That said today I had a wonderful experience with Dell’s Tech Support and I had to share it with the world.

I have been trying to format a Dell computer here at work for a few days now and I kept getting an error as the computer was trying to load the drivers from an XP CD. At first I thought it was the CD I was using and I asked our IT Department to send me a new one. It arrived yesterday and still I had a problem with it. I would get a lovely “blue screen” telling me that something went wrong and that I had to run scan disk on it. Of course when I ran scan disk, I had the same error appear.

Our IT Department asked me to contact Dell since the computer was still under warranty. As I called Customer Support they were very pleasant on the phone with me and quickly passed me over to Tech Support and gave them my details. In the past I recall having to call Tech Support separately and explain my story to them all over again, but not this time.

Jeff, who took my call, was awesome. The only problem I would have to say is that I was put on hold for over 10 minutes before he came back on the line to tell me they would be sending me a new hard drive and had all the details there for me.

Thank You Dell for a great experience overall.

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My beloved Twitter is sick again and has been acting up all day afternoon.

I think I’m officially addicted to you since I need to see what my Twitter pals are up to. I’m having a rough day at work and need some humor STAT!

Hope you feel well soon.

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Today I received an email from a friend of mine with the following information regarding your cell phone and things you might not know.

For all the folks with cell phones. (This should be printed and kept in your car, purse, and wallet. Good information to have with you.) There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST

Emergency

The emergency number worldwide for mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to
establish the emergency number for you, and int erestingly, this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND

Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys In the car and the spare keys are at
home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the
mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other ‘remote’ for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Editor’s Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!’

THIRD

Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#. Your cell phone will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get
charged when you charge your cell phone next time.

FOURTH

How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following Digits on your phone: *#06#. A 15-digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.

If your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can’t use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

And Finally….

FIFTH

Free Directory Service for Cells

Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don’t have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800)FREE411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

This should be interesting to test out.

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It’s official. Today Rogers announced that the Apple iPhone is coming to Canada this year. Though not much more was said, I’m definitely excited about it finally arriving officially in Canada.

Of course the questions on how much it will be and how much the data plan will be still remains to be seen. As well the launch date wasn’t mentioned. I hope the phone won’t cost over $600, but with our luck it probably will be. It will most likely be the 3G version of the phone which is suppose to be launched sometime this summer.

I was hoping to have gotten the scoop ahead of time from my niece (who works at Rogers), but alas she was tight lipped about the whole thing. Maybe she can make it up to me by sending me an iPhone when it arrives.

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Last night I reached a Twitter milestone; I posted my 1,000 tweet.

For all of those who don’t know Twitter is site where you post “what are you doing now”. Sorta like a micro blogging site, where you only have 140 characters to use. You can “follow” people and have users “follow” you. That means when you post a tweet, everyone who follows you, receives it. You can also be apart of a conversation and discussion as well.

I have been using Twitter for just over a year and have developed some great friends using the social media tool. Thanks for all the support I’ve received from others last night to make it to the milestone.

What might you ask was my 1,000th tweet; well it was announcing my 1,000th tweet
If you would like to follow me on Twitter, please search for GusF

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