Several thing stood out is this year (my 4th Mesh) :

• Chris Thorpe, from The Guardian newspaper, did “Data Chemistry” (a older version of which is The New Raw Materials and Data Chemistry)and a Keynote which delved into the work the The Guardian is doing to create a interface allowing full access to the content and / or the data behind that content. I was not aware of the full breadth and depth of what they were doing. It was also interesting to near some of the story behind the curtain. After the conference was the official Guardian announces commercial launch of Open Platform.
• Diana Clarke, from FreshBooks (Online Billing and Bookkeeping) talked about Evolving the Platform and how they moved from legacy php to a RESTful python web service. Excellent!! I use Freshbooks, it always impressed me, and now only more so.
• Joseph Menn’s keynote and book about the new Cyber Crime lord ecology was enlightening and scary.
• one of the panel’s was tapped as part of the TVO’s The Agenda in a discussion about the evolution and changing face of privacy in the digital age with Ann Cavoukian, Mathew Ingram, Joseph Menn, Alan Sawyer, David Fewer.
  

  (Link is here for the above
  The Agenda live from Mesh: Canada’s Web Conference)

  FaceBook came in for heavy criticism, with Leigh Honeywell making the best comment of the session!

  And yes I’m like all over the back ground shots. (Hi Mom! I’m on Television!!)

• The Agenda also tapped 3 interviews form Mesh Speakers : Joseph Menn: Fatal System Error | Chris Thorpe: Future of Newspapers | Avril Benoît: Social Media to the Rescue. Very worth watching.
• All in all a great conference with lots of insight, and good gut check of what people are doing and where they what to go. I’m still recovering and processing. I got my annual Mesh Portrait by the magical Rannie Turingan aka Photo JunkieAlso I got to lick an iPad. Yummy. :Q
• other writeups for Mesh :
  • BlogTo highlights
  • Isaac Garcia does a wrap up
  • from Digital Journal we have : mesh 2010: How social media are transforming newsrooms (Includes first-hand account) and mesh 2010: Dissecting new media’s ‘fast-food content’
  • Soldier of Code’s Kaptain Krispy also had a Mesh 2010 report

  this was extracted this from the Quick links as of May 21th 2010 post, and expanded.

The pre Demo activity was food catered by Liberty Noodle which was some good beef/chicken/veg with noddles/rice and it a cost effective way to grab some grub before the main event (not always the easiest thing after a busy day) – plus per-event gossiping.

The Keynote was a interesting and informative talk by April Dunford who related her experiences marketing with startups, and talked about customer development and product fit as it related to the Lean Startup.  (Call it Lean Marketing?) April has a summary of it up on her site at Startup Marketing 101 with links to the slides, but the really good parts were in the talk!

Then after a short break there where the demos :

• First up was OpenApps, as demo’d by Kristan “Krispy” Uccello, which would allow you, as a web site owner, to add new functionality or content to your site with the same look and feel. It currently (march 2010 ) has a few (free) search shopping and shopping applications, it also allows developers to build new many new applications and sell them on a marketplace, so there should be many more “Apps” in the near future. OpenAPps has done a amazing job of building a framework, which is as eay to use as it is powerful,and the beginnings of a marketplace for website plugins and/or micro applications. Krispy is a cereal serial presenter at DemoCamp and it’s always great to see him pull the whiz bang out of the hat!!
• Next up were Chris Nguyen and Lee Liu who are also veterans of DemoCamp 8 being 2 of 5 young founders (at the time Ryerson students, now alumni) having shown their JobLoft site for the service industry, before going on to CBC Dragons Den TV show, and then acquired by onTargetjobs.
  Having learned a lot from their previous experiance, we where presented with a early look at the soon to launch (10 days?) TeamSave a group buy – or Social Buying – web site. I’m looking forward to seeing this launched as it looked good and it sounds like they understand the infrastructure issues, plus who doesn’t like saving money!! I think they have another hit on their hands, this time in the direct Marketing space.
  TeamSave is Launched! BlogTo has a writeup Collective buying sites battle for the attention and wallets of Torontonians.
• Kobo Books is a e books platform (iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Prē and Android, Desktop), as well a having their own slick eReader (regretting I did not try to play with it) and they showed off their upcoming iPad application. The eReader looks very nice with a good balance of features (like usb syc and sd card for data and eInk for the display) at a decent price (I’m hearing ~CND$ 149). If it was < $99 dollar I would so jump on it, but even at that price it's tempting
• SWIX is a analytics for social media tool (currently in beta but soon to be launched) will give you metrics on a bunch of Social Media web sites. They have made it very easy to gather all this data in one place – none trivial – in a way that very easy to use. Try it! Now!
• Last for the night was James Walker, another cereal serial presenter at DemoCamp, from Status.net. Status.net is the wordpress of Microbloging/Twitter/FriendFeed which might be better know for it’s Identica web site, a twitter micro-blogging like site/service powered StatusNet open source software. Status.net with let you run or own Twitter service either open or closed, within your firewall or outside, and let you run it in a federated or distributed manner, as opposed to Twitter centralized model (hence the Twitter fail whale issue).
  
  After answering the what is Status.net question, James went on to talk about some of the underlining and emerging protocols used by Status.net and other services, covered by the wrapper protocol for Open Micro Blogging called OStatus which uses existing protocols like:

• Activity Streams encode social events in standard Atom or RSS feeds.
• PubSubHubbub pushes those feeds in realtime to subscribers across the Web.
• Salmon notifies people of responses to their status updates.
• Webfinger makes it easy to find people across social sites.

Really cool and interesting stuff which will have a big impact in the next couple of years. Now big? Well early in that day a post come up on Read Write Web titled Cracking Facebook’s Dominance: New Cross-Network Commenting Protocol Could Be a Game Changer all about Salmon and Status.net.

A great DemoCamp.

(and that was before beers and Ben’s “the Hand in the Gum” incident).

2 additional writeups to point to :
Sandy Kemsley wrote an in-depth look at OpenApps at DemoCamp 26: Easy Functional Extensions of Your Website and Ian Chan reviewed all the Demos in DemoCamp26 : What You Missed

The impact was so huge, that head and body was severely disfigured, and she pronounced dead at the scene. Her family was shocked, devastated and traumatized by this violent end of their beloved mom, who had been an ambassador of road safety – never jaywalked and very cautious.

The police informed them the driver was charged “careless driving causing death”. However, when attending the court hearing on Feb 4, 2010, they are extremely outraged to learn that the charge was changed to “unable to proceed with caution at a STOP sign”.

The driver was only fined $400 and 3 demerits points!

In a email, her daugther says :

Where is justice? The careless driver was set free with just a slap on his hand! We, as family of victim, have no right to appeal both the conviction and sentence. This judicial system fails to serve the justice.

I came across a website: Families Fighting Careless Driving.com and learn many family tragedies who are going through similar pain and sorrow. Human life loss is not valued and the whole system favours the careless drivers. The organizer of the website has been advocating for law change to fair conviction and sentencing to careless driving since 2008 after his dad was killed by a careless driver in Hamilton.

I signed the petition. I urge everyone of you to view the website and showed your support for this good cause; and to honour the life of my mom and other victims. Thank you very much for reading and your support. I will also appreciate you forward this email to your friends who may support this cause.

In grief,

Miu Lin

I know the family and Mrs. Wong, and attended her memorial at Bates & Dodds Funeral Services on July 2nd 2009. She was great and good lady, much loved and I was lucky to have meet her. My sadness is only increased by the manner of her death, and the (lack of) justice dealt to the driver responsible.

Her death is to me personal, but this further injustice comes at a time when a) the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has had a unusual rash of pedestrian deaths in January of 2010, (see see Grim month continues with 14th pedestrian death), and b) the recent CBC story of Suspended drivers still driving.

Please checkout Families Fighting Careless Driving.com and the reforms advocated. I signed the petition and I hope you will also.

Below is a Brief Biography of Siu Mui Lam – from her family – a woman that never gave up!

Siu Mui Lam, the beloved mother of her six children and 7 grandchildren, was born to in a poor village family in China in the early 30s and she grew up during hardship of the war. Her father died when she was younger than 10. Unable to afford to feed all the children, my mother was given up for adoption by other relatives. As little girl, she had to work as a farm hand. As a teenager and just old enough to live on her own, she left the village and worked in a factory that required her to handle hazardous materials. While working as a maid servant, she followed her employer’s family and moved to Hong Kong just before the Communist took over in 1949. She did not have a chance to attend school.

She met our father got married in the 1950s. They operated a tailor shop together and started their new family with the arrival of our siblings. She continued to work hard for the shop and nurture her children. She was happy with our father and the children.

Unfortunately, my father got sick and passed away when my eldest sister was 13 and the youngest brother was 3. Life was very difficult growing up because of poverty and alienation from extended families. She was determined to raise the six children on her own against all odds.

Looking back, our siblings feel the awe of the sacrifice and resilience of our beloved mother in the two decades following the passing of our father. We were lucky to have her as our mother. She never gave up and always protected us from many harsh realities. Although being deprived of an education herself, she ensured all her children were provided the best possible education opportunities, and most important of all, hope and inspiration that things will be better.

Our mother always had a beautiful smile. Her given name “Siu Mui’ literally means ‘Smiling Plum Blossom”. Plum Blossom resists severity of winter and blooms in the cold. She always encouraged us to think positively and put up a smile even life isn’t.

With all her children grew up, finished universities, started working and raising their own families, some far away in Canada and Australia. She officially closed the shop and entered her retirement after decades of hard work. She wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren. In 1994, She moved to Canada to be closer to some of her children. She loved her new country and she loved her retirement. She was excited about learning in a classroom – first time in her life. She shared with us and our friends the alphabets and simple English phrases of good morning and good afternoon. She prepared our dinner and delicious lunch boxes. We often blamed her for making us fat. We all shared the joy of the arrival of Justin, Miu Lin’s child in 1995. She took great pride in raising a healthy grandson with my sister. She was always proud of Justin, and her many other grandchildren in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. She traveled often to visit them.

She made a lot of friends in her new country. She volunteered for the senior club, and other charity and social justice initiatives we have involved with. Our mother was always generous. She always prepared the best meal for our friends and relatives when they come visit. She lived a simple life, wore her clothes for many years, and saved leftovers for herself. Sometimes we had to force her to enjoy life luxuries and trash leftovers. Very often she prepared gifts for older relatives and friends when she visited them on our behalf and she did not even let us know.

Mother was very healthy and she kept all her regular medical check-up with her family doctor and specialist. She was very independent; and she could take the subway on her own. She visited the Buddhist temple often and prayed for us. With her health, optimism and resilience, we continued to plan for years of sharing our life with her and little by little repaying her kindness and sacrifice.

Bronto Burger is now Jocelyn’s Place (2982 Dundas St. West, just west of Pacific Ave.), with a new owner but same menu/price and deco (at least for now). The food and service continue to be as good.

The High Park Avenue and Dundas Street West intersection now has a stop light, breaking up the block and routing around the traffic from the no frill on Pacific.

The junctioneer has details on Ribbon-cutting ceremony, Dundas High Park Ave traffic lights.

And Lou’s Coffee Bar has been transformed (reincarnated?) into Buddha Pie (514 Annette just East of Runnymede Road), serving up gluten free thin crust pizza and sandwich’s with the best ingredients, plus great coffee!

It’s great to to see Lou is back after a loong renovation. And the pizza is buzz worthy too!

that’s the “Presto Pesto Pizza” with pesto sause, red onions, green peppers, sun dried tomatoes and (real) Bufalo Mozzarella (you could have Goat Cheese) (and you can add fresh garlic and/or chicken).

Update : Buddha Pie is now Twittering @eatBuddhaPie and has a FaceBook page, and BlogTo has a in depth review (they like!)

We started off with a Irish film, Perrier’s Bounty, set in the underside of North Dublin. Great and meaty characters. I hope the DVD has English subtitles and translation so I can understand the other half of the dialog.

Next was a Danish film Applause, very very northern European, although not totally bleak. (or at least, not as bleak as I thought it was going to turn out.) The big surprise was now tall and beautiful the main actress, Paprika Steen, was!!

Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen was a great comedy, set in Hamburg Germany!!

Hong Kong’s Yonfan presented his Prince of Tears and it was very sad and gorgeous.

The Double Hour, an Italian film, keep us guessing with each twist, and I wouldn’t say they were happy twists but they were delightful surprises as we followed these characters we came to care about.

All the film very of the highest quality and enjoyable. I would recommend them all, but Perrier’s Bounty and Soul Kitchen are more mainstream cinema, easier to watch and understand. It was also great hearing the Directors and Actors after for a Q&A.

Check out their website Junction Arts Fest and blog, Twitter link, and and FaceBook Group or Upcomming page

Last year was massive fun.

Following that there is the nearby Toronto Ukrainian Festival (The 13th and previously known as the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival), is on Sept 18 to 20th, Bloor West Village, on Bloor street between Runnymede Rd and Jane Street. The Website is UkrainianFestival.com.

We always have good time and lots of yummy food, and sights

Competing with that this year is the 2009 Roncesvalles Village Polish Festival in Toronto on Sept. 19-20. Tough choice.

And then there is a little thing known as TIFF otherwise know as the Toronto International Film Festival, which is Sept. 10 till the 19th.

during September I also expect to play Tennis, sleep, and, on yes, get some work done…

Keep on Coding, Sharing, Story telling, and Connecting!

I became aware of this because they used (part of) a photo (with Attribution) I had taken of their Beach location (1917 Queen St. East) and posted on Flickr.

They covered several interesting places : used-book store and record shop Pandemonium; and Rawlicious the raw, vegan cafe. and the covered our Junction Arts Festival event in September (here are some photo’s from 2008. They also mentioned Delight Chocolates who not only make delicious Fair Trade Organic Chocolate, but also other delectable treats, including handmade, organic fair trade Ice Cream (I’ve raved about their seasonal Maple Walnut (in march) and Strawberry Ice Cream (in july), which several liters later exceed expectations). Cool Hand of a Girl and Margret are both new to me, but I’ll be checking them out.

However they missed several of my favourite places :

• SMASH, the art and architectural shop.
• Creama Coffee, at Dundas West and Quebec Aveune – across from Rawlicious and one of the few (3?) clover coffee machine coffee shops in Toronto (read the blogTo review and the very unofficial blog : ummonshadow by CC barista Matthew Hall )
• Bronto Burger’s for Flintstones inspired cooked cow yumminess at Dundas West and Pacific.
• Curry Twist (Maghlai style Indian, a couple of stores down from Delight Chocolates).
• Young Thailand (Toronto’s original Thai, now at Dundas West and east of Medland street).
• Hairy Tarantula (graphic novels comic books, gaming and related stuff, west of Medland on Dundas West).

plus many more!

update : I had an email from the writer, who explained that SMASH and CREAMA where in the orginal article, but where edited out.