Blogaround Toronto

Richard Stallman at UT Mississauga on July 5

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:49:34 GMT

World-renowned activist and free software developer Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of the free software movement, will speak on “Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks” in Matthews Auditorium, Room 137, Kaneff Center, University of Toronto, Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Rd. N., on Thursday, July 5th at 5 pm.

July 5, 2007 5pm - 7pm - Richard Stallman at UT Mississauga - Matthews Auditorium, Room 137, Kaneff Center, University of Toronto, Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Rd. N., Mississauga, ON

Blogiarized from David Crow

http://davidcrow.ca/article/1592/richard-stallman-at-ut-mississauga-on-july-5

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:52:34 GMT

David Crow: Is Dragon's Den bad for innovation?

Posted with R|mail.

Toronto Tech Week 08

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:53:57 GMT

Dave Forde has jump started the organization of TTW 08. If you wish to help next year, then show up here in two weeks.

Date:	Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Time:	8:00am - 11:00am
Location:	Metro Hall - Room 304

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=2459081428

Bjarne Stoustrup at University of Toronto

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:01:04 GMT

David Crow just invited via Facebook to this cool event. Bjarne is the father of C++. This might be forth the show.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=2671546340

Friday, June 22, 2007

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:19:28 GMT

Simply Albert: Strange Couple of Days

Tags: canada toronto

Posted with R|mail.

Albert Lai fronts Canadian Business

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:13:17 GMT

Albert Lai, my x-boss, is on the cover of Canadian Business, talking about the business and website I helped him start called BubbleShare. He also mentions Rmail. I haven't seen a copy yet. Congrats Albert!

http://canadianbusiness.com/

407 ETR Racket (I defeated the)

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:40:40 GMT

Today, the 407 ETR has agreed once again to void my outstanding balances on my RV accounts. This would be about the 10th time they've agreed to do this and every other time, they failed to carry through. This time, it was the Ombudsman of the 407, Denise Peltier. Mind you, she told me the same thing last month about one account and the balance decreased from $41 to $0.17, but not zero. We'll see if they actually keep their promises this time, but I've heard them lie so many times, that I don't believe them for a second.

On a second account, Denise insisted just last month that I stilled owed $80.What changed her mind? Yesterday, I told the Ministry of Transportation that I'm going to sue Denise, the 407 and the Ministry. I guess lawsuit threats work, even against the 407. If you have any problem with them, then use my experience and threaten to sue.

Just to finish off the story, about a month ago I contacted Gary Jameson at the Ministry of Transportation. He said I contacted the right person, but asked how I got his phone number. I told him a trail of a hundred calls finally led me to him. He said he wanted to contact the misleads to give them the proper phone number. I asked, if I should give his phone number to others in my situation and he said NO. Huh? Gary said he'd contact Denise about my case and call me back. Three weeks went by and I didn't hear back from Gary or the 407. I called him again and at first, he claimed not to even know who I was. Eventually, he said he left Denise a message and didn't bother following up. It was obvious that this was another dead-end, so I asked him for his bosses phone number.

His boss is Lisa Vescio. She said she'd pursue the matter with the 407 and call me back the next day. She didn't call the next day, but did eventually call me. She told me Denise said that it was my fault because I moved and didn't provide them with a change of address, that it was my fault because I was using multiple vehicles on one transponder and on and on. Well, either Denise lied to Lisa or Lisa was lying to me. I suspect the former. I told Lisa that Denise was lying, but Lisa wouldn't believe me. She insisted that my story was implausible. I asked Lisa for her bosses phone number, called him and he took the same attitude.

Later the same day, Denise called me and suggested that Lisa was misinformed and that she'd call me back today to resolve the issue. I called Lisa and her boss because I now wanted a statement from them that Denise told Lisa these lies because I was suing them and wanted proof of their lies. Lisa refused to provide such a statement. Previously, Lisa had indicated that they were fighting with the 407, now we had a clear cut case of them lying to the Ministry to cover up their racketeering and Lisa was now refusing to help. And now, Denise denies ever telling these lies. What a soap opera!

I guess Lisa or her boss told Denise about my pending lawsuit, because today the 407etr have agreed to drop the outstanding amounts owing. Denise also insisted that the 407 have been sending me regular invoices for all my account to the same address. When I told her that I have never received invoices on two of the accounts, she told me that I should check with Canada Posts and they are likely the problem. I couldn't believe she said that. I get one of three account invoices every month (without exception). I don't get the other two account invoices (without exception). They are all sent to the same address. She insists that it must be a problem with Canada Posts and that it couldn't be that the 407 is at fault. In the end, Denise agreed that my account was mismanaged, but she put any actual blame on the 407.

I suspect that the total amount of reversals in the last three years is somewhere between $500 and $1000. To get these reversals I had to escalate the issue to the police, the Ministry of Transportation, the Premier and more. Most people simply pay the amounts to avoid the hassle. Monetarily, that would've been a good choice and my wife wanted me to do that on several occasions. But I DON'T GIVE MONEY TO CROOKS. If the Ministry had any balls, they would investigate and I bet they would find hundreds, maybe thousands of cases like mine. Ever since I blogged this, I've received dozens of emails from people in a similar situation as myself. And the Ministry simply allows these guys to extort this money from people.

Note also that I sent my story to all the major newspapers and none of them pursued the story. This is major case of fraud in our community and the newspaper are too chicken to report it. LONG LIVE THE POWER OF BLOGS.

Read my past post on the 407 ETR racketeering.

724 Closes Toronto Office

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:14:41 GMT

724 Solutions is finally going to close the doors of the Toronto office on June 30th. For those that don't know, 724 Solutions was the greatest IPO success story in Canadian history. They went to a valuation of $10B in 2 months back in early 2000. I was one of the first employees of the company and one of the biggest contributors to their success. They named me a key employee of the company. 724 is a prime example of success leading to the failure of a company.

http://www.724.com/

Walmart Beats No Frills

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:24:29 GMT

For the longest time, I've been buying my groceries at Loblaws' No Frills near the corner of Hwy 410 and Queen. I did so, because No Frills had everybody beat on their everyday prices and also have my favorite near-beer. But then, they opened the Super Walmart at Airport and Queen. They don't have my beer, but they have No Frills killed on price. And I'm not the only person who knows. The Walmart's grocery section was packed yesterday. Mind you, it didn't look like No Frills is hurting either.

Walmart never has lineups at the cashiers and you'll spend more time in line at No Frills then actually shopping.
Walmart provides shopping bads free of charge. No Frills charges for shopping bags.

Dixie Ford Apology

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:34:59 GMT

After giving me horrifying customer service, writing fake comments in my blog, threatening me if I didn't remove my blog post detailing their horrible customer service, offering a bribe to get the post removed, agreeing to apologize, denying they agreed to apologize, me threatening to report them to Ford, failing to pay my invoice in-time, Dixie Ford has finally sent me their apology letter. I'm still waiting for the $150 they owe me.

http://www.kbcafe.com/toronto/dixieford.pdf

BellWorld Sucks!

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:59:20 GMT

I've been struggling with my Motorola Q. I tried to bring it in for service at the Bell World where I bought it (Trinity Commons), but the clerk insisted he couldn't help me, even though I bought the 3 yr extended warranty and we were still only in the first 6 months. I even tried to get my car adapter changed, because it didn't work in 2 of my 3 cars. The clerk simply insisted that it should work and refused to help me.

Today, I tried another Bell World (Bramalea City Centre). The clerk was a bit more helpful, but he insisted that I had to rent a loaner phone ($25+$100 deposit), which didn't have email or data. When I agreed to pay the $25, just to end the headache, he told me the loaner cupboard was locked and that the manager wasn't schedule to return until Friday. At this point, I started getting a little irritated. It seems that Bell World always has an excuse why they can't help you. They really need to work on their customer service.

I was about to leave, when a second clerk said that I could simply call this phone number (1-877-DATA-123) and they would send me a new phone. WTF? Where did this come from? I've talked to about 6 clerks in the last month about getting my phone fixed and this is the first time I hear this. I've argued with them at length and stormed out of their store in disgust. All along. All I had to do. Was call this F'in number?

I called the number and this overly polite clerk fixes me up with a new phone which will arrive in the next week. I asked the clerk why so many clerks didn't tell me this in the first place. He insisted this was policy and that the clerks should be well aware of the policy. Bell World Sucks! Bell is now in my good books.

BTW, I resorted to checking out Rogers, at one point. All three times I went to a Rogers store, there was a deep lineup for service that didn't move in the 5-10 minutes I browsed the store. I figure I would've had to wait 30 minutes, just to talk to someone. I gave up each time. I simply don't understand why everybody insist on providing bad customer service.

Telus Sucks

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:22:04 GMT

I've been so disappointed with my Bell Mobility service that I was considering converting to Telus or Rogers. It looks like Rogers wins as Telus proven they don't want to be corporate citizens. If you work there, then forward this to the idiot behind this stupid. You lost another potential customer and I will spread the word of your evilness to all my friends.

Telus blocked their users from viewing websites run by their union and sent takedown notices to YouTube for videos created by their union.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070604/130110.shtml