Technical writing in a nutshell

I finally got a round tuit!

Jokes aside, I have finally got around to revamping my business website: Russian Translation and Technical Writing in Toronto. You are very welcome to have a look.

Bonus: a picture of a Round Tuit and an explanation of what it is.

Maker to Making a Living

Maker to Making a Living is a workshop series designed to guide crafts-people through the process of under-standing, designing and building their individual businesses. CraftSmarts are the Ontario Crafts Council’s year-round series of professional development workshops. The program focuses on fostering the skills required to be successful as a small business owner, as an exhibitor, and overall, as a maker that needs to ‘make it’ in the greater cultural community.
Led by maker and award winning business leader Jacqueline Sava, attendees will be guided through an eight-part series of lectures, exercises and activities focused on the development of their own craft-based business practices.
For OCTOBER 2012 dates, please visit: http://www.craft.on.ca/Programs/CraftSmarts#making

2012 YOU Innovate Canada Tournament Deadline for sign up: October 15, 2012

The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) is pleased to announce that the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), has announced the YOU Innovate Canada secret everyday household object in Ottawa and already generating a lot of social media buzz. The 2012 YOU Innovate Canada tournament object is……an egg carton.
Participants are asked to turn an egg carton into something valuable for the chance to win a share of $10,000 in cash awards and a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil to attend the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Congress. Winners will be announced during Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 12-18, 2012. Full details can be found on the website: www.cybf.ca/youinnovate
Sign up for the tournament today at:  https://yitc.myreviewroom.com

Going to plant some potatoes over the long weekend

For the long weekend, I am going to St.Mary of Egypt refuge to participate in vegetable planting. The vegetable garden will serve the needs of the people staying at the Refuge. Potatoes, here we come!
A nice feature of the Refuge is the absence of the Internet access. (I doubt that I would have strength for Internet browsing anyway, after 8 hours of serious potato planting.)

The purpose of the Refuge is to be a “home away from home” for people who need a break: peace and quiet, shared meals and work, nature, fresh air, prayer space. It is located near Madoc, Ontario.
Here’s their website

New prizes available for completing the 2011 Mobile Innovation Survey

In addition to Microsoft Canada’s prize offer of a Windows Phone 7 smart phone, OCAD University has kindly offered a lunch with Dr. Sara Diamond at Spoke as a prize for completing the 2011 Mobile Innovation Survey.
The survey is designed to gather responses from companies that are either producing products and services for mobile devices or are providing enabling technology and services to companies that are building mobile products and services.

Plus, MEIC is offering one free registration to the Mobile Accelerator Program (MAP). More information on MAP is available here: http://www.meic.ca/mobile-accelerator-program

MEIC needs to have 250 completed surveys by the end of this year. Please help MEIC reach their goal by completing the survey now:
http://5965502.polldaddy.com/s/mobileinnovation

My I’ve Been Had week, or Coupon Rant

As I had said in my previous post, I tried to reach the people for McLuhan Future Festival or whatever its name is, to recover the money I’ve spent on buying a ticket to their 3-days Vortex Videogame Competition event that petered out to two hours. The e-mails are bouncing, and their web domain of mcluhanfestival.com is for sale, so I suppose there is no way to recover the money. Oh well. Such things happen. The only thing I don’t understand is, is it really so easy to call yourself a Mighty Fund of All Things Bright and Beautiful, rip people off, and vanish into thin air?
I am going to contact PayPal and find out whether anything can be done still. It being over a year, probably nothing, but I can at least try. Will keep you posted.

—-

Interestingly enough, I’ve been had this week again.

Trying to get my money back after Vortex Videogame Competition that never happened

The story is as follows: in late 2010 I bought an admission to Vortex Videogame Competition and Vortex Boot Camp, a three-day event on game development, with a dinner, a game development competition and so on, organized by a “McLuhan International Festival of the Future”. In January 2011 I received a letter from the organizer, Sari Ruda, saying that the competition had been postponed. The event got rescheduled several times, shrinking to 2 days, then to one, and eventually the organizers offered two hours (yes, two hours for the price of three days!) at a two-days notice. I was unable to attend at such short notice, and notified the organizers accordingly. You will probably guess what happened, or rather, did not happen next. I never got an apology and I never got my money back.
Since it’s been a whole year and it now becomes very clear that the event will never happen, I would like to get my money back. Today I wrote to Sari Ruda asking for a refund. Will I see my 160 dollars again? I’ll keep you posted.

Latest in math from Shoppers Drugmart

Yay! I took third place in Blogging Idol contest

A special thank-you goes out to Greg Wilson who gave me an idea for this post.

You can read all my contest posts here.