technology

Quick reminder - voting in the City of Ottawa’s Apps4Ottawa contest ends this Friday, Jan 28 at 5:00pm. You can vote here. Launched last fall, the contest encouraged residents to come up with an idea for an app to “help get more information to people where and when they’re looking for it”. ...

The Ryerson Review of Journalism has a good article about how blogs, twitter, social media, and BlackBerrys are affecting political coverage in Ottawa. And it includes this great line: In an Ottawa where BlackBerrys are unholstered and placed on tables like guns in a spaghetti western, the ubiquity of smartphones has changed how the news is produced, consumed and digested. ...

Looking through the list of [ app ideas submitted to the City of Ottawa ](http://apps4ottawa.ca/) . Some of the more unusual entries include: * "An app that displays the location of where I can warm my lunch in a microwave." [ http://apps4ottawa. ...

_ ** Update (Jan 7): ** Apparantly the City of Ottawa has suspended open access to the OC Transpo GPS data that this app (and others like it) relied on to provide the info. Could be a few weeks until it’s back online. ...

Canadians watched an average of over 10 hours of online video in February, more than any other country in the world. That’s one of the stats released by comScore based on a survey of Canadian internet use. Some other highlights: ...

OttawaStart is now on Twitter. You can check us out at: http://twitter.com/ottawastart/ We wanted to figure out what this Twitter thing was all about … and we figured the best way just to jump right in. There are lots of Ottawa people, businesses and organizations using Twitter to communicate. ...

The Ottawa Citizen is tracking the Google Earth Streetview car . They’ve set up a page with reports emailed in from readers, and one photo so far as well. ** ** A sample report: “Google st view car sighted 12:30 (Wednesday) on Rue Laurier out front the Museum of Civilization, then turned right up Rue Victoria. ...

Here’s an amusing rant from David Scrimshaw, about his experience emailing a medical specialist to confirm an appointment time . I’d give you a little snippet, but you really have to read the whole thing. ** ** ** Related: ** Ottawa Health Guide

[ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/Urban-Electric-Inuksuk28.jpg) You have to check out David Scrimshaw’s blog for his account of how he built the amazing urban inukshuk pictured above. David says: “A couple of years ago, I told Keane I wanted to make an inuksuk … Unlike on the barren tundra, flat rocks are hard to come across here in the centre of Ottawa. ...

Does this look familiar? [ ](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/notice-of-confidentiality.gif) Keelan at the Capital PR blog wonders what the point is of these email notice of confidentiality disclaimers : Is all this text really necessary in every email sent from every person in your organization? ...