that canadian girl

Category: Blogging & Online Media

  • Heads up! Driving Tests are changing

    Some of you might remember that I’ve only passed my driving test a few months ago. Feels like it’s been years already, and I’m generally pretty comfortable with the whole driving thang (aside from the M25 and tight Cambridge car parks!)

    So for those who are lagging a few months behind me, I just spotted some new legislation information which might be of interest:

    If you are still to book your Theory Test? Then you need to be quick. As of the 3rd September 2007 the Theory Test will be getting harder. The current pass mark is 30 correct answers out of 35, As of the 3rd September this will raise to 43 correct answers out of 50. There will also be a test fee increase from the current £21.50 rising to £28.50.

    I found this via ABMW Driving School‘s news page, one of our past (and favourite!) Pepsmedia clients, and thought I’d share it around. The pass mark you need to get remains 86%, but more questions and more money to spend are never such a welcome thing. So go ahead and book now! Yep, you know who you are! 🙂

  • Breaking up in the age of social networking


    Girl 1: Omg, are you alright babe?
    Girl 2: What?
    Girl 1: Well… I just saw you and Josh broke up, he updated his relationship status on FB to single. You ok?
    Girl 2: Oh… I kinda thought we were just taking a break… Hmm :/

    Splitting up with a girlfriend or boyfriend has always been a thorny issue. It’s not much fun to go through it in the privacy of a kitchen or a coffee shop’s darkest corner, but social networks are bringing a whole new public aspect to break ups.

    Jessamyn West of librarian.net, along with many others, has covered the issue before me:


    “Do I take my ex off my buddy list? Do I remove his blog from my RSS feed reader? Should I stop commenting on his Flickr pictures or block him from commenting on mine? How many passwords do I need to change? Do I deauthorize his computer from my iTunes store?”

    Facebook BreakupWhen your blog, your MySpace page or Facebook profile is your personal soapbox and daily diary, how can you find the right balance between keeping your friends updated about your real life and avoiding airing your dirty bedsheets in public? What about when the new boyfriend comes into the spotlight? Should the ex be demoted from friend status to hide updates? That’s a whole new set of online ethics for which we’ve categorically lost the handbook.

    Such drama over bits and bytes, really, but social networks have weaseled their way into having an impact on our very real flesh and blood lives. We’re all warned on a regular basis to watch what we blog, in case future employers find out about our drunken sexcapades, but what about future (and past) boyfriends and girlfriends?

    [Disclaimer: I’m not splitting up with anyone, by the way, this is purely an observational post.]

    [Update: I came across this post by Thomas Crampton dating from approx a month ago. I remember seeing the update on Loic’s Twitter feed, but it’s interesting to see what impact it had on Thomas in real life.]

  • Setting your expectations in business

    When you have two dollars in your pocket, you don’t expect to travel in a limo, do you? You take the bus. So why do people with a small website budget expect otherwise?

    There’s nothing wrong with being thrifty and on a limited budget, but expectations and budget need to be aligned.

  • Taptu goes beta

    Monday morning in the quiet town of Chaverhole Haverhill, the local pikeys residents suspected nothing. Little did they know, they were about to witness the most flagrant act of self-promotion ever seen on thatcanadiangirl.

    Taptu Mobile Search & ShareYes, let the proud bragging North American in me come out and shamelessly promote the awesome mobile search & share engine that’s bubbling away in the office. If you find that going on the web on your phone is more hassle than it should be, then go sign up for the Taptu beta and we’ll let you know as soon as we’re done cookin’ it up.

    We want to make the mobile web a friendlier, less clunky place to hang out. We want to give you more ways to cheat on a pub quiz find out useful information without spending hours trawling through sites that turn out to not be mobile friendly, chucking a 800kB page header your way, promptly busting your data tariff.

    We also want to make the mobile web a less cliquey, nerdy place to be. If it’s easier for your friends to share new mobile links and bits of info with you, it’ll make it a whole lot more interesting, won’t it?

    To put it simply, we want to open the mobile web to the rest of us.

    We’ll also be launching our blog soon, so plenty more news coming soon.

    Note: Don’t worry about sticking your email address in the Taptu signup – I’m the only one who’ll be handling any mailouts (along with my trusted gnomes with toothpicks, of course) so if I spam you or send unwanted mail, you can come back here and slap me. 🙂

  • Getting through 127 RSS feeds a day

    While I may not have as many RSS feeds to read as Scoble does, I crunch through my fair share of blog posts and news every day. I’ve already mentioned how much I love Google Reader, but again, it’s impressed me by its simplicity.

    If you’d like to see which items I’ve read and have found worth sharing, visit this URL and sign up for the feed (how meta!). I expect it’ll focus around mobile web, gadgets and technology, with the occasional geek marketing post (probably by the wonderful Tara) and lolcats.

    When I upgrade to WP 2.2 (which I haven’t done yet, how disgraceful!), it’ll become my blogroll in the sidebar for ease of browsing.

    Think I’m missing out on any essential feeds? I’m always up for new reading material so drop me a line and I’ll have a look – Mobile, Apple and Marketing related blogs particularly welcome.

  • You know you're a designer when…

    “Wishing I knew how to explain the hex color I want in terms of Benjamin Moore naming scheme to my house painters.”

    – Tiff on Twitter yesterday

  • Nightmare clients

    A “funny because it’s true” article on nightmare web design clients by MB Web Design, which I thought I’d share to amuse those friends of mine who are also mad enough to have their own design, development or digital agency of some sort.

    On the similar topic of difficult clients, Freelance Switch’s “12 breeds of client and how to work with them” is also a good read.

    Web design cartoon

  • Jaw droppingly cool viral video

    Every online corp is trying to jump onto the viral video and user generated content bandwagon these days. Most of them fall off the wagon with a few scratches and a bruised ego, but the occasional one succeeds.

    Criss AngelWill It Blend was a great example of a viral campaign that succeeded massively on YouTube, one of the first in fact. Yielding many whiny wishes from my husband that “if we lived in the US, he would definitely be buying one of their food-blenders-with-a-lawnmower-engine”, the aim of the campaign was to show quite how powerful that engine is.

    The latest campaign that impressed me is in fact for an American illusionist called Criss Angel and his (probably lame) A&E tv show. Rather than opt for a one-size-fits-all viral video, it’s been done through the use of a vast number of pre-recorded cut scenes, which are stranded together based on the customisation your friend has done. No explanation is as good as seeing it for yourself, so here, go try it (and freak your friends out).

    There’s no doubt in my mind that the idea is based on Burger King’s Subservient Chicken from 2004, but the Criss Angel video, while simple, is well executed and fits his style.

    If the bar continues to be raised for viral videos and this kind of funky stuff continues to be created, then roll on the bandwagon!

  • Give poor customer service, pay the price

    These days, so many companies skimp on customer service, hiring teenage-bots who can’t make decisions in-store or outsourcing to a call centre that’s so disconnected from reality, there’s no hope of finding help there. And inevitably, it results in unhappy customers.

    Back in the good ol’ days, I recall being told “Please a customer, they’ll tell at most 7 people. Anger a customer, and they’ll tell 21 people.” That was pre-blog. We all know that, with the cozy little designer soapboxes we call blogs, we can now amplify that message. Seven becomes a few dozen, and 21 becomes many thousands. I should know, I gave Red Letter Days its fair share of bad press a couple of years ago.

    Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer recounts the events of the past few days where Terry Heaton buys a $269 digital camera to find out the box is empty once he gets home. CompUSA tried to play dumb with him, refusing to refund his money and saying he should’ve checked the box before going home, but Terry broadcasted his experience and, while he didn’t manage to get the attention of anyone with half a brain at CompUSA the day of his complaint, promptly got the attention of thousands of Diggers, BoingBoing readers and FoxNews readers.

    Terry’s short but eventful past few days in more details here.

    If you’re part of your company’s marketing team, and even if you aren’t, is YOUR company doing everything it can to keep customers happy? If not, make it your job to remind those in charge that without customers, there’s no business happening, so treat ’em well!

  • Joining Facebook

    So it’s happened, I’ve given in and joined Facebook. It’s a growing monstrous beast with, apparently, approx 18 million users as of Feb 2007.

    Now, I’ve got a few friends and acquaintances with whom I’m linked, and a few groups which I’ve joined (such as “Twitter Addicts”, hah!) but… I still don’t get it.

    It strikes me as a slightly more “grownup” social network than MySpace, and I love the fact that users can’t bastardise the layout and look of their personal page the way MySpace allows Lily Allen to do so.

    I admit, it is a great way to get back in touch with some old friends, but beyond that, I’m still a bit baffled.

    So what’s the secret? What’s so great about Facebook that there are 18 million people willing to join it? Or is that what makes it so great? The fact that you can search for just about anyone you know, and you’ll find them there.