Things have been moving pretty quickly here. Getting settled in to the new digs but there’s still a bit to do. I have some visitors coming in mid February so I have to get it all finished by then!

So for the first time ever, I’ll be heading down to Lotusphere in Disney World in Florida. IBM puts it on every year, but this will be the first time anybody from MNP has gone. Big thanks goes out to IBM Canada for the free pass! I’m really stoked this year about it too, as we are looking towards using more Lotus products in the future and this will get the ball rolling. Lotus has been moving towards “webifying” many of their products, making it easier to collaborate between users. This is especially significant for MNP as we have such a wide spread firm across Canada.

So I’m off away from the snow and the cold to hopefully warm and sunny Florida! My computer is broken at home currently, however I’m borrowing Jana’s camera. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some more photo’s soon. And get some photo’s of the new place up as well.

Stay tuned!

Hello Everybody!

2008 is here and I’ll try to get more posts about my life on here more often.

Stay Tuned!

-Matty

Wow! It’s been a while.

Took a little vacation at the start of July back to Manitoba for a few weeks. This time though, I took the long haul of a drive instead of flying like I normally do. Nothing but clear sky’s going there. Coming back we hit a few rain patches, just enough to wash off the bugs from the windshield.

The picture above is from our annual MNP Stampede party (dubbed MNPede) which was a blast once again. This year being held at the outdoor patio of Ranchman’s. The beautiful day helped the beverages go down even faster. There’s more pictures of the MNPede in the gallery (thanks Scott for the pictures).

It’s been 30° for the last few days with no real end in sight here. These are the times which you wish you had an air conditioner like most people have in Manitoba..but noooo, not here.

-Matty

There’s some new photo’s posted up in the gallery of the Kananaskis Trip. Last weekend we had an IT conference with some personnel from across the firm. For a “Team Building” activity. We took a bus out to Kananaskis country, west of Calgary, just before you hit the mountains, and had some outdoor activities including fire building, and boomerang tossing. For the afternoon we headed out white water rafting. For those that have never done it, go right now. It is super fun. I’ll gladly go again.

Before that on Saturday a bunch of us went paint-balling. The outdoor course was huge and had several courses ranging from full forest to an open, tire-filled field. No serious injuries came about, which was good, however on the way home, I got my first speeding ticket. 70Km in a 50km zone. I was bound to get one sooner or later. Honestly I wasn’t even on the gas and was slowing down, however going down a hill, you don’t slow down quick enough and 2 cops were sitting at the bottom of the hill, pinging off people left and right. $124 later, I was on my way.

So the weekend of firsts had it’s up and downs!

I’m a big fan of Google Maps.

When I see people using MapQuest to get directions to places, I cringe. I ask them - “Have you ever used Google Maps” to which most of the time they reply - “Google has maps?“. I then show them the awesomeness that is Google Maps. The responses range from “Cool” to “That is unbelievable”.

This week, Google Maps came out with a new enhancement - something they are calling StreetView. Basically, they’ve taken a van, equipped with a 360° camera, and drove on streets, taking a full panoramic picture every few feet. They then added these pictures into Google Maps to allow you to view actual pictures of streets as if you were there with them.

For example, I looked up “Late Show with David Letterman, New York” and it shows me the view below.

You can then “stroll” down the street by clicking on the arrows inside the map.

So how is this actually useful? Well for starters it allows you to see landmarks in real pictures. Say for example your going to visit New York, but don’t know how to get to a restaurant or a hotel. Street View can show you what building down the street, next door, etc look like. By allowing people to see what actual buildings look like from your view point (instead of the top of the building from satellites images, you can more easily find your destination. Like Miami Ink for example!

Currently this is just in a few US cities. There’s been some concerns about privacy, catching people “at the wrong time”, but hey it’s a public street.

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated nor work for Google (I wish I did), I just like their products

-Kiazyk