From us here at Canada’s Web Shop, advance Happy Canada Day!
(Photo source: I took the photo at Kingston, ON. A beautiful city located in Eastern Ontario.)
Archive for June 2010
Fête du Canada
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
HST, Taxes in Canada, and e-Commerce
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
HST is coming to Ontario and British Columbia July 1, 2010. Are your e-commerce stores ready? There are implications for small business and online retailers. HST is not simply PST + GST. For the purpose of this article we’ll stick to what online retailers need to know for selling goods between provinces, i.e. if/when/how the taxes are collected and remitted.
Start-Up Business, Why Put It on Paper?
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Entrepreneurship is something I care so much about that when I decided to make it my second major in university, it totally changed my outlook on school. I started to love going to class, reading text books, and writing assignments, because everything we did centered around different businesses that all have their own story. It has been said that innovation and entrepreneurship are the fuel of an economy, and I feel they too fuel my passion for business.
More reasons to start taking Bing seriously
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
It’s been over a year since the Bing search engine launched. It’s done fairly well, often beating Yahoo! in terms of market share; not surprisingly, though, it doesn’t come close to Google. However, lots of people are considering Bing to be a positive alternative to Google.
Including Facebook. Facebook may not be the first place you’d go to do a search, but if you’re looking for something on Facebook, whether or not Facebook itself has results, it offers web results served by Bing. See the screencap below.
Radio ads good and bad
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
I like to listen to one station going to work as it gives good local and Canada wide news and it also offers good timely traffic tips so I know where to avoid on my way downtown. But along the way I hear a lot of ads and here are some of the annoying radio tactics I hear and some of the good ones.
Annoying Radio ad tactics:
- Radio spokespeople who whisper on the air (speak up I cannot hear you!)
- Advertisers who point listeners to their ad in the yellow pages (can you sound anymore out of date with the online world)
Website $599?? Run and hide!
Monday, June 14th, 2010
We have a competitor in Winnipeg that advertises all over the city for professional websites for $599. Every time I see this sign I think first of all this is a lost leader if I ever saw one. I am sure they get you in there and try to up sell you, they must? There is just not enough hours to produce a site with quality that actually pays for itself with online sales or leads. Then I read this article that really hit home on what you need to produce a high quality website. This article is a little technical but really describes what skills truly go into a professional website that pays for itself and more.
Quick Tip: Load Google Tasks (Todo List) To Your Firefox Sidebar
Friday, June 11th, 2010
Google Tasks has been available inside Gmail for many months now. But what if you wanted to only load that functionality? More so, you want it loaded on your Firefox sidebar? How do you do it? Well it’s easy. Here’s how:
1) Login to your Google Account (assuming you have a Gmail account)
2) Go here https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig?pli=1
3) Drag that google.com favicon (green check mark icon) to your bookmarks menu bar
4) Once you have that right there, right-click on it and select “Properties”
Designing On A Grid
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
Before the invention of movable type and printing, simple grids based on optimal proportions had been used to arrange handwritten text on pages. One such system, known as the “Villiards Diagram,” was in use at least since medieval times. Interior designers arrange rooms based on a grid system, and city planners work on a grid too. It’s a wonder what took web designers and developers so long to show interest in a system that has been essential to the printed word since the ‘30s.
Google Suggest is the New Vanity Search
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Google Suggest returns search queries based on other users’ search activities and search term popularity. So, if your company name doesn’t show up on Google suggest auto-complete, it may mean that it isn’t a popular phrase online (or not yet).
Here are some of our clients with a good position on Google Suggest:
Note that this doesn’t always work. Especially if your company name is common. You may want to try different phrases to work it out.
Integrating Symfony with Existing Software
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Lately we’ve been looking for ways to build custom web applications faster. Our existing software is great but it’s not quite up to the calibre of some of the frameworks out there. After deciding on using Symfony to build our next generation software, and loving it, I set out to wrap our existing software in Symfony. As it turns out that was fairly easy thanks to Symfony’s routing system.
