Guest Biographies
Stewart Arneil
Stewart Arneil has 20 years experience in private and public sectors in the design and development of software with specific interests in project management, instructional design, language learning, and training people in the appropriate use of technology in research, teaching and learning. He has an M.A. in Computational Theory, certification as an Instructional Designer and is about to complete certification in Project Management. He is a founder and director of Half-Baked Software Inc.
Duncan Ayre
Born in Thunder Bay Ontario, Mr. Ayre was educated in music performance and arts administration. He worked across Canada with established and evolving musical artists until moving to Victoria British Columbia in 1991, after which he switched to the computer industry. He worked in local stores, national retailers and at major internet providers until 2000 when he accepted employment in an IT position at Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt in Victoria British Columbia. Mr. Ayre is currently a member of the Public Affairs team responsible for Media Monitoring and internet communication including the public websites. He is part of the team that keeps the senior leadership of the military informed on what is happening in the world and the pubic informed on the important role the military is doing on the west coast of Canada to keep North Americans safe.
Dr. Ivan Bajic
Ivan Bajic is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Science at Simon Fraser University, where he lectures and conducts research in image and video processing and compression. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2003.
Jordan Behan
Jordan Behan is Owner and President of Tell Ten Friends Marketing Co. (Founded in 2006) In the first person: Before founding the company, I worked in newspaper both as a reporter and advertising, later in TV marketing and advertising, and later still in public relations. The web combines all of the best of what I love about media, and the new tools of the web mean that everyone can be a publisher or broadcaster. I’m also an organizer (and evangelist) of our local Barcamp Vancouver, which will celebrate its second year in mid-August of this year. http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver2007.
Pat Beck
Pat Beck presently teaches Technology Education, which includes Metal Shop, and Design and Drafting, for grades 9 through 12. Her background includes a diploma in Architectural Technology and more than 15 years experience in the Architectural Design and Drafting industry.
Cole Benoit (AKA Flawless Imperfection)
Cole Benoit, Aka Flawless Imperfection, has been creating and producing electronic based music since 2000, as a solo artistic output, as well as collaborating with local MC’s, doing various remix work, and the occasional scoring foray. He also plays in the local bands In.Ovo and Origami Swan. He is the keyboard/software specialist at Long and McQuade Music Hastings.
Shannon Bentley
Shannon graduated on the Dean’s Honour List from the University of Western Ontario. From there, she began her career at TSN in 1995, where she honed her skills as a journalist producing sports highlight packs and feature stories for SportsCentre and TSN Sunday. She joined Discovery Channel in October of 1997 to produce science and technology segments. This led to a position in front of the camera hosting and producing the column “Shannon’s Gadgets”. She can also been seen as a recurring guest on CTV’s Canada AM and Talk TV’s The Chatroom, where she keeps viewers up to date on the latest science gadgets and gizmos. You might also see her bringing technology reviews to shows like Breakfast Television and A-Channel across the country. She also had the opportunity to produce and host her own half-hour show on The Women’s Sports Network (WTSN) called Shannon’s Science of Sport. Her other interests include sports, music, film and theatre acting. Shannon is a member of a local theatre group and participates in the renowned Second City Improvisational Classes. Calling Shannon an adrenaline junkie is an understatement. She’s more like an addict that would sell her TV for one more hit of the stuff: She mountain bikes in the Ontario Cup series, plays competitive ice hockey, loves to hit the local race tracks in a stock car or motorcycle, as well as find the slopes for some downhill skiing and snowboarding.
John Botti
John Botti is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in Computer Science and minored in Filmmaking. By combining the two with his passion for video games, John launched Black Ops in 1994, with some friends from MIT and a contract from Virgin Interactive. Since then, John’s company has released 20 games for the Playstation, XBox, and Nintendo platforms. His company is currently working on the new HD DVD series, “Video Game Jumpstart,” which is designed to help kids and people get into the games business, and even start their own production company.
Avi Bryant
Avi Bryant is the founder and co-CEO of Dabble DB. He has a strong background in the open source community, where he is best known as the developer and maintain of the popular web application framework Seaside. He received his bachelors in Computer Science from the University of British Coumbia, where he has also worked as a research assistant and software consultant.
Bruce Byfield
Bruce Byfield is a contributing editor for the SourceForge sites Linux.com and the IT Manager’s Journal. Among other topics, he reports on the Debian Project, the Free Software Foundation, licensing issues, and office applications. He also writes a twice-monthly blog for the Linux Journal website, which centers on varying aspects of OpenOffice.org, the free software office suite. In addition to his online publications, he has published in such magazines as Linux Journal, Maximum Linux, and The New Internationalist.
Dick DeBartolo
The Giz Wiz, from Daily GizWiz Netcast fame, appears regularly on ABC’s World News Now and is MAD Magazine’s Maddest Writer.
Brenda Campbell
Brenda Campbell, compositing supervisor for Atmosphere VFX, has rapidly climbed to the top of her field as one of the world’s leading Digital Fusion artists. Cutting her teeth at Frantic Films on major feature film projects such as X-Men 2 and Swordfish, Brenda is now a key part of their core creative team, and also lends broad technical expertise to their pipeline.
Andre Charland
Andre co-founded Nitobi (http://www.nitobi.com) in 1998 after working for several other Internet start-ups. He’s been involved in the execution of over hundreds development projects and was a early proponent of the building blocks of Ajax , and helped build Nitobi’s User interface components. Andre has spoken widely on Ajax and usability, and co-authored a book on Enterprise Ajax for (www.enterprisajax.com) Prentice Hall. Andre maintains a blog at: http://captainajax.com.
John Chow
In April 1999, John Chow started a little six page long website about the first computer he built. Today, the site is known as The TechZone, one of the largest technology and computer hardware review sites on the net. John Chow started his blog a little over a year ago at John Chow dot Com and grown it into one of the top 100 blogs on the Internet, according to Blog ranking service Technorati. His blog talks on a range of topics but the main focus is helping other web publishers make money online.
Megan Cole
Megan is a designer, consultant, blogger and likes to dabble in photography. She is Creative Director with Catapult Media, building online communities for non-profit and civil society organizations. She co-produces and hosts music video podcast ThisCityRocks.com She also videoblog for Capital Magazine, interviewing people in the community who are making social and economic change in the world. She occasionally likes to write and contribute to Now Public, a participatory online news network for “citizen journalists”, and believes that this online space can change the way we create and receive our news from around the world.
Dr. Dianne Cyr
Dr. Dianne Cyr is a Professor in the Faculty of Business at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She has a Bachelor and a Master degree in Psychology, and a Ph.D. in international business. For the last 5 years she has led a research project titled “Managing E-loyalty through Design” which is focused on how trust, satisfaction, and loyalty are built in online business environments through website design. Unique features of this work are comparisons across cultures, genders, and concerning applications to mobile devices. Dianne Cyr is the author of five books and over 50 research articles. She has presented her work at numerous international conferences.
John E. DiScala (AKA Johnny Jet)
Johnny Jet has been featured over 900 times in major publications, including USA Today, Time, Fortune and the New York Times, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC, FOX News Channel, and PBS. JohnnyJet.com has been named “one of the top best money-saving web sites for travel” by Budget Travel Magazine, while the L.A. Times calls it “one of the top 10 essential travel resources on the internet.” Every week Johnny hosts a “travel website of the week” for several radio stations around the country, he writes weekly for Frommers.com and he has written for USAToday, The Boston Herald and Coast Magazine. Sign up today for Johnny Jet’s free weekly travel newsletter at www.JohnnyJet.com.
Keegen Douglas
Keegen Douglas is the Lead Compositor at Artifex Studios.
Tavis Dunn
Tavis Dunn has been working at Greedy Productions for over 10 years now. Serving as the Art Director on numerous TV shows such as The Electric Playground, The Lab, Art of Play, and Nightman, and commercials for clients such as Nokia, Nintendo, and a bunch of others.
Jim Everett
Jim Everett is an experienced photographic artist who combines his art with a knowledge of technology, to create podcasts and other media that demystify picture-taking. Five of his podcasts have aired on G4 Tech TV Canada – Torrent show. He loves to show people how they can take and print pictures they never thought they could. He is an independent media contact for the Photo Marketing Association. His art has been included in an exhibition, “Distinctive Artists of Southern California”. He has been interviewed on Shutterbug Radio and frequently on Seize the Morning on Sirius Satellite Radio. Jim has worked for Apple in Australia and the US for a total of 10 years.
JD Frazer
JD Frazer (BC, Canada) is a cartoonist and writer who enjoys a readership in excess of 1.5 million fans internationally. His site, Userfriendly.org, is the first stop on the Web in the morning for a vast number of Information Technology professionals. He has spoken at more than 50 events as both keynote speaker and panelist on topics related to the business of online content, intellectual property, and online communities. He has consulted for companies on online consumer trends and community development. He has been published several times by O’Reilly and Associates and most recently by Wiley Publishing Inc.
Chris Floden
Chris Floden has an MBA degree (2000) from the University of Alberta. He has experience with purchasing, supply chain management, marketing and communication. He is an athlete that takes on the cruellest of events: the Ironman.
Kevin Gamble
Meet the man in the fez: Kevin Gamble, AKA “Johnny Johnny”; master mixologist, wise-cracker and co-creator of the Tiki Bar TV Video Podcast. It’s the very same Podcast that Steve Jobs himself showcased at the launch of the video iPod in October of 2005. After being thrust into the limelight, Tiki Bar TV quickly rocketed to the top of the iTunes charts, and has since continued to serve up comedy and cocktails to an ever-growing audience. Kevin started his filmmaking career at the tender age of nine, shooting short movies on borrowed equipment - amusingly enough, doing so with filmmaking cohort & Tiki Bar TV creator Jeff Macpherson (AKA “Doctor Tiki”). When he’s not cracking jokes or mixing drinks for Tiki Bar TV, Kevin creates and produces animated series and specials for more “traditional” broadcast models. He’s currently producing a 26 episode animated series entitled “George of the Jungle”, which is slated to air on Cartoon Network (USA) & Teletoon (Canada) in 2007. Tiki Bar TV can be enjoyed online at www.tikibartv.com (or in the iTunes Podcasting section, usually found under “Top Podcasts”). Kevin’s professional bio and credits can be found online at www.crypticent.com.
Susie Gardner
Susannah is partner and creative director of Hop Studios (http://www.hopstudios.com/), a Vancouver-based Web design. Hop Studios brings an insightful concern for community building and editorial workflow to bear on each project, backed by solid design and interface interaction skills. We build many types of sites, but specialize in those with copious, rapidly changing content or with a strong journalism, education or editorial component. Currently, we’re thrilled that our client, Truthdig.com, won both the 2007 Webby Award 2007 People’s Voice Award for best political blog.
Paul Garay
Paul (www.garaymusic.com) began piano at four, and performed in bands starting in high school. Shortly after school, he toured professionally across North America as keyboardist and singer with several different recording acts, and began dabbling in computer recording in 1984. Ten years later, after a series of jobs that included refurbishing and selling pianos, he opened his own studio, focusing on music production and digital audio recording, where he has worked with a who’s-who of major west coast Canadian recording talent. In 2000, Paul began teaching at Vancouver Film School and scoring for video—some of his music appeared on TV’s Smallville in 2004. More recently he has returned to his independent studio work. He is a regular host of cross-country instructional tours for Apple Canada and Apple U.S., featuring the company’s recording tools, such as Logic, Final Cut Pro, and GarageBand, and also records educational videos for macProVideo on music and podcast recording.
Steve Gibson
Steve is the well-known president and founder of Gibson Research Corporation which is the publisher of Steve’s highly regarded "SpinRite" hard disk data recovery and maintenance utility.
He is credited with first using and coining the term "Spyware" and putting the term into common use within the PC industry. He also wrote the PC industry’s first spyware detection and removal utility software: OptOut.
For eight years Steve wrote his top-rated weekly "TechTalk" column in InfoWorld and with Leo Laporte he now produces the very popular "Security Now!" podcast, now in its second year.
Aside from GRC’s commercial product, SpinRite, Steve has written and published a great many pieces of security and privacy related freeware including "LeakTest", the industry’s first personal firewall leakage tester, SecurAble, a tool to determine how "securable' a PC’s processor might be, 'Shoot The Messenger', "UnPlug n’Pray", DCOMbobulator, Wizmo, XPdite, MouseTrap, ID Serve … and many more.
Steve has been a keynote speaker at numerous industry tradeshows and public and private events. And he is a frequent guest on Leo Laporte’s Call For Help and Leo’s Lab cable television shows.
Zak Greant
Zak Greant owns a strategic consultancy called Foo Associates. The Foo team helps organizations adapt to and thrive on the electronic frontier. They are a tiny shop, but have great clients (like eZ Systems, Canonical, the Mozilla Foundation & Navarik.) The Net has been a part of his daily life for more than a decade now - most of his adult life, in fact. After dropping out of high school, then cooking school, the Net was a gateway to tremendous opportunity and wonder. Like all tools, it wasn’t the Net that mattered so much - instead it was what the Net let people do that was the true alchemy. He has been an active participant in many Free Software/Open Source communities, from PHP to MySQL to volunteering with the Free Software Foundation’s License Compliance Lab.
Brian Hogg
Brian Hogg is a writer, filmmaker, and puppeteer. He is the creator of dotBoom, a video podcast about a fictional company of web designers, and the owner of Hoggworks, a puppet and video creation shop. A longtime creative professional, Brian has made a career out of creating compelling online experiences for a wide variety of clients, from Nokia to PBS to Alliance Atlantis. Brian co-authored a popular reference manual for Adobe’s Flash, the leading application for creating online animations, and rich-media web applications.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes holds a BA (Hons) in English, an MPhil, and the RSA Dip. TEFLA. He was an ESL teacher for many years, working in Japan, Indonesia, Britain and Saudi Arabia before settling in Canada. He now works as a programmer at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre, where he specializes in Windows programming and Web-based digital humanities projects based on XML/XSLT/JavaScript/CSS. He is one of the creators of the Hot Potatoes and Quandary authoring tools, and is a director of Half-Baked Software, Inc., as well as authoring other commercial teaching tools such as Markin and TexToys.
Constable Dave Howard
Constable Dave Howard is a 3 year Member of the RCMP in North Vancouver. He Started his career as a General Duty Constable and has been a School Liaison Officer for 6 months. As a School Liaison Officer he speaks to classrooms of children on a daily basis about personal safety, internet safety and drug use. Prior to joining the RCMP he worked as a telephone support technician for a retail software company and taught martial arts and Personal Safety to children, adults and seniors.
Jeremy Hubert
A web developer since 1998, specializing in Ruby On Rails for over 2 years. Previously the CTO of Clubvibes Media and Director of Development for Raincity Studios. Now acts as an internet consultant for companies all over North America.
Tris Hussey
Tris Hussey is one of Canada’s leading professional bloggers and social media consultants. He is the Chief Technical Partner in One By One Media, a blogger for b5media and editor for Blognation Canada. In addition to his Web 2.0 activities, he has specialized in collaboration tools and applying social media tools to mainstream business. His blogs include A View From the Isle, Pimp Your Work, One By One Media, and The Homely Scientist.
Ponzi Indharasophang
Her interests lie more in what technology can do for her than what the latest must have gadget is. Truth be told she likes the geeks more than the geekery. She claims to be more of a geek by association than anything. Here’s an interesting tid bit – she orginally she hails from the mortgage industry. After partnering with Chris Pirillo in 2004 her primary focus has been Gnomedex (a technology enthusiast conference) and Lockergnome.com she also likes to podcast and videocast on occasion. More to come on that in the coming months…
Bill Jelen
Bill Jelen is the author of 15 books about Microsoft Excel and the host of www.MrExcel.com
Jason Kapalka
Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer of PopCap, founded the company in 2000 along with Brian Fiete and John Vechey. Prior to PopCap, Jason spent five years at pogo.com as Senior Producer, where he created nearly two dozen of the company’s hit online titles and its prize/token rewards system. All told, Jason has designed and/or developed three dozen games that have been played billions of times by more than 200 million people. Earlier, he was a columnist for Computer Gaming World, the oldest and most respected PC gaming magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Alberta.
Jeff Kee
Bringing years of design and developing experience while growing up in the middle of the internet revolution of the 90s, he provides custom design, web, database, and marketing solutions to the table. He presently runs a company providing these services, and is expanding out to online marketing as well as technology research etc.His personal blog can be found at http://blog.jeffkee.com, if you want to read more about his work and his ideas.
Todd Keeler
Todd is a PhD Student at Simon Fraser University in Applied and Computational Mathematics. His current research is on fluid simulations for computer games which he is doing in conjunction with Radical Entertainment.
Michael Kenchington
I have been in the Audio and Video industry since 1995 selling Entertainment Systems. I am an avid home theatre enthusiast, and enjoy collecting movies and music. I have worked for a number of companies in BC and Ontario. I specialize in complete entertainment systems for homes. I have worked for Sound Plus for four years. Sound Plus has been serving the Specialty Audio/Video for 29 years.
Dr. Steven Kirzner
Coal Harbour Eye Centre’s Medical Director and Chief Surgeon is Dr. Steven Kirzner A conscientious and dedicated eye surgeon, he has been involved in his own private ophthalmic practice in 1985. After successfully completing his training in refractive surgery in 1990 he devoted his time solely to laser refractive surgery and has performed over 35,000 procedures to date, both LASIK & PRK. Dr. Kirzner’s wealth of experience includes being the Medical Director for LVC’s Vancouver centre for 18 months. As part of his daily responsibilities of surgeries, administration and office protocols, he had been actively involved in the training and instructing of other laser refractive surgeons. Dr. Kirzner is a firm believer in this procedure and chose to have his own myopia treated in 1997 when he underwent the procedure. Dr. Kirzner is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada and a Diplomat of the American Board of Ophthalmology since 1984, as well as being the Ophthalmic Consultant to the Yukon Territories since 1990. “My philosophy was to open a centre with emphasis on medicine and patient care. With this in mind we have assembled a staff with unparalleled experience and expertise and have purchased the finest equipment in the industry in order to deliver to our patients the best experience and results possible. Not withstanding that, we remain committed to provide this service at an affordable price and in no way comprising patient care.”
Kris Krug
Kris Krug, a Vancouver fashion and editorial photographer. Kris is the founder of photography studio Static Photography, an author, technologist, public speaker, designer and all around good guy. Kris is also a major Flickr contributor, whose photographs have appeared in Business Week, Wired Magazine, JPG Magazine, ION Magazine and more. He has covered events such as South by Southwest, the 2006 Winter Olympics, and the Consumer Electronics Show. As a speaker, he has been organized his own events and been invited to speak at media and technology events, including South by Southwest.
Ifny Lachance
Ifny Lachance is a community organiser and sustainability advocate. Currently she is founding director of Vancouver’s FREE GEEK Community Technology Centre, promoting ethical computer recycling, community empowerment, and free & open source software. She produces the Pedal Revolutionary Radio Show, which focuses on sustainable transportation. Now based in Vancouver, she has lived and worked on projects in Japan, Lebanon and Iran.
Dee-Ann LeBlanc
Dee-Ann has spent the last ten years focusing her career around Linux. She’s the author of 14 books including “Linux for Dummies,” over three-hundred articles, numerous online courses, and more. After years of freelancing she has accepted the position of SplunkBase Knowledge Manager for Splunk, an IT Search company in San Francisco, where she’s helping to build the world’s best IT troubleshooting resource.
Cali Lewis
Cali Lewis is the host and co-producer of GeekBrief.TV (a video podcast about the latest gadgets and tech news), iCali.tv (a video podcast all about the iPhone), and The Dear Cali Show (Tech Questions? Answered.). She co-hosted Call for Help with Leo Laporte for three months, and appears regularly on MSNBC to talk about hot gadgets and tech news.
Alex Lindsay
Alex has been involved in computer graphics for nearly 20 years. He has extensive experience in digital production including print, real-time graphics, multimedia titles, forensic animation, television, and film. He spent several years on the production of Star Wars: Episode 1 (at JAK Films and then at Industrial Light and Magic). Alex has taught at the Academy of Art and at the San Francisco State Multimedia Studies Programs. He writes for 3D Magazine, 3D World, and Post.
Frank Linhares
Frank Linhares, born and raised in the big smoke, Toronto, Ontario. Ever since his younger years running around with a 300 baud modem he has always been at the bleeding edge of new media. Be it the original newsgroups back in the day to bbs message networks. from good old school vax and unix hacking via war dialing, to being a 2600?er he’s been there doing what he can to advance the cause. Currently the host and producer of the Digital Underground video podcast, the techPhile podcast and the simple reboot podcast. Weekly tech based show covering news, view, and reviews in the world of tech. with a circulation of approx 30,000 online listeners and viewers a week.
Jonathan Lyon
My Real Place is co-founded by Jonathan Lyon. He has over 20 years experience in advertising , marketing and business development strategy. An expert in web based social media and building communities. My Real Place was born out of an idea to make real estate search easier and to empower consumers and give them a voice.
Bill MacEwen
Vancouver based entrepreneur founded WorkSpace in 2005. More info about bill at www.billmacewen.com
Jeff Macpherson
Jeff Macpherson is the creative mind behind one of the Internet’s first and most successful Video Podcasts: Tiki Bar TV (www.tikibartv.com). Created in 2005, Tiki Bar TV quickly became one of the most downloaded podcasts on the Internet, holding #1 in the iTunes top 100 chart for four months running. Garnering the attention of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, he used Tiki Bar TV to demonstrate the use of the Video iPod during his keynote speech. Tiki Bar TV recently ended a 6-month promotion in Apple stores worldwide. Furthermore, Tiki Bar TV clips were run in Target stores as part of a nationwide advertising campaign. Just recently, Tiki Bar TV was cited in the New York Times bestselling book The Long Tail: The New Economics of Commerce and Culture by Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired magazine. Prior to Tiki Bar TV, Jeff was a producer of music videos and television commercials for clients such as Toyota, Hyundai, and LG. During this time Jeff was also a writer on two feature films for First Look Home Entertainment and soon thereafter directed the feature, COME TOGETHER. The film premiered as a Special Presentation at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2001 and won two awards at the New York International Independent Film Festival. Jeff was recently a panelist at the annual conference of Forbes MEET forum on the subject of video podcasts and the next video revolution. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, The National Post, CPU Magazine, Times.com, Businessweek, G4 TV’s Attack of the show, eTalk Daily and CBS News among others. In July, Jeff was profiled in Forbes Magazine Celebrity100 Issue as "one of the first breakout stars in the world of Internet television".
Jason Madar
Jason has been teaching for the last 7 years and is currently the head of the Computing Science department at Capilano in North Vancouver. A software engineer by training, he has worked in the area of software development and consulting for over 13 years. His areas of interest include 3d graphics, data mining, software engineering and computational biology. When not busy publishing papers or grading assignments, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and 2 beautiful daughters
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Tod Maffin
Tod Maffin is the CBC’s national technology columnist and editor of the broadcaster’s official blog (www.insidethecbc.com). His personal blog is at http://www.todbits.com
Flavio Marquez
TThe technical visionary behind Snap Technologies, co-founder Flavio Marquez has created the modular design technology that allows Snap to deliver fully-functional, highly-customized interactive websites at considerably less cost than other professional developers.Because of Snap’s modular approach, small and medium businesses can now take advantage of website functionality previously available only to big business. Prior to founding Snap, Flavio managed the production and Intranet applications for companies including Stockhouse Media Corporation.With nearly 10 years management experience, he not only has a proven track record in directing technical teams but has also maintained a ‘hands on’ approach that allows him to stay at the forefront of technology development. His broad expertise includes e-commerce; business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer technologies; web development and design; Internet marketing; Internet-related software; and research and development. With a reputation for both excellent technical knowledge and outstanding client service, what sets Flavio apart is his ability to apply his broad expertise to solve real-world business problems.
Cathy Matusicky
Cathy brings a strong track record in corporate design and communications to Studio B. Since 2005, she has lead the studio’s graphic design, overseeing all marketing, development, and sales collateral for Studio B’s properties and corporate materials.
Ray Maxwell
Ray has spent most of his 40 year career as an Electronics Engineer working in the areas of H.F. communication, remote sensing, satellite ground stations, computerized flight dispatch and many other areas. In the last decade he has specialized in the area of Colour Science, digital photography, and offset printing, half-tone and inkjet proofing. Ray is an owner and operator of a 22 mega pixel professional camera system. He also does real-time support during digital shoots for commercial photographers in the Vancouver area. In addition he was a Beta tester for Adobe Photoshop CS3. He is currently doing technical support for a PBS video production that is being produced in Vancouver. Ray has been a guest speaker at many professional photography and printing organizations and schools. Ray has also piloted both gliders and power planes in the movies and television commercials. He flew a glider in a automobile commercial that aired at the halftime of the Supper Bowl. Ray is a regular guest of “The Lab” and teaches us about colour science, digital photography, image software, and how to juggle.
Terry McBride
Terry McBride is the CEO and one of three founders of the Nettwerk Music Group, which includes Nettwerk Productions (Canada’s largest independent record label), Nettwerk Management (artist, DJ and producer management), Nettwerk One (publishing), and Artwerks (graphic and fashion design). Founded in Terry’s apartment in 1984, Nettwerk now has major corporate offices in Vancouver, New York, London, Boston, Nashville, Hamburg and Los Angeles. Nettwerk Management exclusive clients include such artists as Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Stereophonics, Sarah McLachlan, All Saints and Jamiroquai. Since its inception, Nettwerk has released over 400 different albums with worldwide sales in excess of 100 million albums. Most recently, Terry’s attentions have focused on advances in digital technology, intellectual property rights and the future of music distribution.
Alec McClymont
Attended Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation and Digital Effects program in 2000, after graduating high school in 1999. Hired at visual effects company (GVFX) about three months after finishing the VFS program. Did a short stint of work on “Andromeda” in 2003/2004 before starting at Atmosphere Visual Effects in March, 2004. All told, approximately 6 years of experience as a 3D artist in television visual effects. Recently a VES (Visual Effects Society) award winner for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series” for “Battlestar Galactica” episode “Exodus, Part 2”.
Derek K. Miller
Derek studied classical guitar as a kid, learned computer geekery in his early teens from his dad, and took up the drums some years later. Today he works as Communications Manager and web guy for Navarik (navarik.com), a Vancouver software company, and as the drummer for The Neurotics (theneurotics.com), a classic-rock cover band. He started his blog at penmachine.com in 2000, released his self-produced album of podsafe instrumental tunes in 2005, and has co-hosted the Inside Home Recording podcast with Paul Garay since early 2006.
Leland Miller
Graduated with honours from the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Broadcast Communications Television Program in 2000. Was part of a group that won the first ever Broadcast Educators of Canada (BEAC) award for Best Student Documentary in Canada for Raves: The Experience. Has been an editor, shooter and writer for the past 7 years. Has worked on Japanese Anime, commercials and PSAs, music videos, independent films, various television programs and is currently working on the online program GameTap News, which won an Emmy this past summer.
Chris Mizzoni
Born and raised in southern Ontario. Moved to Vancouver in 1994 after attending Sheridan College School of Animation. Has been with Studio B Productions since and is currently a supervisor and designer on various shows. Clancy with the Puck has been in the works since the days of Sheridan College and was originally conceived of as a student film. Chris plays ice hockey twice a week, cycles to work and goes camping with his wife, Nancy and 2 year old daughter Dreya. Avid collector of vintage sports memorabilia, books, programs and even has a seat from Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in his den.
Greg Mori
Greg Mori was born in Vancouver and grew up in Richmond, BC. He received an Hon. B.Sc. with High Distinction, in Computer Science and Mathematics, from the University of Toronto, graduating in 1999. During his undergrad years, he spent one year (‘97-‘98) as an intern at Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR) in Kyoto, Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004. His thesis was on computer vision, advised by Jitendra Malik. After graduating from Berkeley, he returned home to Vancouver and is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University. His research interests are in computer vision, and include object recognition, human activity recognition, and human body pose estimation. The main thrust of his research has been in exploring methods for analyzing images and videos of people. He has also developed methods for object recognition in cluttered scenes. He has applied those techniques to break the “CAPTCHA” word-recognition puzzles, work that was featured in the New York Times. Greg serves on the program committee of major computer vision conferences (ICCV, CVPR, ECCV), and was the program co-chair of the Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV) in 2006 and 2007.
Colleen Nystedt
Colleen Nystedt founded MovieSet™ after 20 years in the trenches of the Motion Picture industry. Throughout the 1990s her Vancouver-based company produced dozens of feature films and TV movies for the studios and networks. She has an extensive background in film production, finance, business affairs and creative development. Recognizing that marketing and distribution of feature films needed to be reconceptualised in the Internet age, she began to develop what has become MovieSet™.
Kevin O’Keefe
Kevin O’Keefe is president and founder of LexBlog, the leading provider of professional marketing blogs to the legal profession (www.lexblog.com). Kevin was a trial lawyer for 17 years, and successfully marketed his law firm via the Internet in such a positive way that USA Today said “If he isn’t careful, he may wind up giving lawyers a good name.” He founded Prairielaw.com, the leading online law community for consumers and small businesspeople, later acquired by LexisNexis and now incorporated into Martindale-Hubbell’s lawyers.com. Kevin then served as a VP of Business Development of LexisNexis’ Martindale-Hubbell heading the formation of content and community. Kevin’s own blog, entitled Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs (kevin.lexblog.com), is the leading source of information on the use of Blogs and RSS for the marketing of law firms and other professional service firms.
Alex Oliver
Alex Oliver is the CEO and co-founder of the design firm Igloo Studios, a multi-faceted company with divisions that create geographically positioned 3D content (The Blue Marble Project), that engage in full architectural design projects (Igloo), and that create educational video training aimed at 3D hobbyists and professionals (School). Alex also spent the last two years as a regular speaker and presenter contracted by Google to teach their certified courses for Google SketchUp.
Joshua Paul
Josh began developing programs early. At 12 he wrote an invoicing package for the TRS-80 for a Vancouver film company. After studying cognitive science at Simon Fraser University he joined Canada Computer Paper Inc., publisher of The Computer Paper. He quickly rose through the ranks to become Manager of Information Services where he was responsible for over 70 desktop computers and a dozen servers, across five cities in Canada. He developed a system that allowed editors to put their work directly onto the Internet and to schedule when it would appear on the web site. In 1998, he began HomeBase Internet Publishing Ltd, with a partner to offer web hosting and development services. In 2002, his partner retired and Joshua started Neo Code Software Ltd. Since then, he has managed on hundreds of database and web-related projects, specializing on web site automation for associations, publishers, and manufacturers.
Chris Pirillo
Founder and maintainer of Lockergnome. He spent two years hosting the TechTV (now known as G4) television program Call for Help before parting ways from the company. He also hosted the first annual Call-for-Help-a-Thon on TechTV. Also started www.undo.tv with Leo Laporte. He lives in Seattle with his wife and business partner Latthanapon “Ponzi” Indharasophang and their two dogs Wicket and Pixie.
Matt Prendergast
Matt Prendergast has been doing lighting for live events for 5 years, getting into it through the music scene. 2006 career highlights include 2 cross Canada tours and a show in Maui, as well as such high-profile shows as John Digweed, Carl Cox, Colin James and Young M.C. Currently freelancing for select shows and head Lighting Designer for 365 Productions inc.
Sarah Pullman
Sarah Pullman has worked in online communications since graduating from university, while pursuing her passion for yoga in her spare time. Two years ago, she took her yoga teacher training at the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga, and shortly thereafter decided that she really wanted to bring this practice to the geeks of the world. She aims to make yoga accessible and non-intimidating, and to inspire people to take better care of their bodies, minds, and spirits.
Victoria Revay
Based in Vancouver, Victoria Revay combs the city for everything that’s fun, fashionable and fabulous for Sweetspot.ca. Victoria brings a solid journalism background to her role as a trendy “Sweetspoter,” including a coveted internship in New York with ABC’s The View and later Good Morning America. She first caught the fashion and lifestyles journalism bug there after co-producing a Golden Globes fashion segment that included a performance by Lenny Kravitz. Victoria has also spent time as a news writer at Global’s BCTV and holds a Broadcast Journalism diploma from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Victoria has been interviewed by CBC, CKNW and BT on City TV and was the MC/presenter for the web televison portion of Stripped Concert Series 2007 and Fashion Rocks Vancouver 2004. She has had considerable “on camera” experience including interviews with Céline Dion and Stephen Harper and she has also appeared on OMNI Rogers and Global Television in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal as a backup singer for Canadian recoridng artist, Nazanin. She is also the online video presenter for NowPublic.
Jim Rutherford
Jim is a freelance Web Developer and technology junkie in Nanaimo, Canada. He enjoys the constant change that is inherent in the web development and technology industries along with the continuing learning process and challenges that it brings.
Akash Sablok
Automotive writer since 1991, Technology writer since 1998, mostly new product reviews, tech that improves our lives and makes life fun! Also practices as a Notary Public in B.C. Can do some breakdancing moves…...
Marc Saltzman
Marc Saltzman has reported on the high-tech industry for the past 11 years as a freelance journalist, author, lecturer, consultant, and radio and TV personality. His specialties lie in computers, consumer electronics, gadgets, video games, Internet trends and DVD reviews. Along with his weekly syndicated columns with Gannett News Service, CNN.com, USAToday.com and CanWest Media, Marc currently contributes to more than 50 prominent publications, including: USA Today, Toronto Star, Sympatico MSN, Montreal Gazette, Microsoft Home, AARP – The Magazine, The Costco Connection (U.S. and Canada), Common Sense Media, Inc.com, Playboy, Playboy.com, FHM, Yahoo!, Movie Entertainment, U.R. Magazine, Urban Male Magazine, Bobbi Magazine, Here’s How/Voici Comment, Spree, Hub: Digital Living, Hub: CE, Chill, Digital Journal, Homefront, New Pharmacist, Gamezebo, PC Gamer, and others. Marc also writes a daily blog, Sync, available at www.sync-blog.com, and contributes each week to the popular USA Today blog, Technology Live
Cat Schwartz
American television personality best known for her former role as co-host on the TechTV television program Call for Help with Leo Laporte. She earned degrees in Broadcast Communication Arts and Sociology from San Francisco State University. For more information about Cat, check out her latest venture - www.hitechmommy.com.
Randal L. Schwartz
Randal L. Schwartz is a renowned expert on the Perl programming language (the lifeblood of the Internet), having contributed to a dozen top-selling books on the subject, and over 200 magazine articles. Schwartz runs a Perl training and consulting company (Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc of Portland, Oregon), and is a highly sought-after speaker for his masterful stage combination of technical skill, comedic timing, and crowd rapport. And he’s a pretty good Karaoke singer, winning contests regularly.
Adam Stern
A self-taught visual effects artist, Adam started Artifex Studios in 1997 after working as a freelancer for several years. Artifex has grown from a one-man show to a full-fledged boutique vfx studio, currently housing 16 artists and staff. Adam acts as vfx supervisor for all feature film and television work, and along with the talented artists at Artifex has created visual effects, motion graphics and animation for over 40 films and television shows, including X-Files, Dark Angel, Mission to Mars, Josie and the Pussycats and The One.
Darren Stone
Since graduating from a top Canadian university with a Computer Science degree, Darren Stone has become a software industry veteran having spent 15 years working as a software engineer or consultant with such notable companies as Electronic Arts, Thomson Financial, and Relic Entertainment (THQ). Today, he is the Chief Technology Officer at Verrus.
Craig Syverson
Craig Syverson is the founder of gruntmedia, a Silicon Valley-based new media company. gruntmedia produces the “grunt” series of video programs that reveal the basic working of everyday things. Additionally, gruntmedia provides a wide range of consulting and creative services that enable organizations to engage in online media content creation. Craig is also a regular co-host on two popular audio podcasts, VentureCast and This Week in Media. Prior to this, Craig established and led the in-house media production group for IDEO, the world’s leading design firm, where he applied video and storytelling techniques to communicate complex design solutions for IDEO’s clients.
Jayson Thiessen
Jayson was born on a pirate ship where he spent his entire life watching cartoons. He eventually decided that just watching them wasn’t enough.. so he decided to make them. He went to VFS, learned classical animation and went on to seek out his dream job. Ten years later he has several thousand television series and commercials under his belt and moved up the ranks to a director position. From there, who knows, perhaps he’ll return to his pirate roots and go for animation world domination.
Jacob Tran
Jacob Tran is a professional Software Consultant and Game Design Instructor. He recently deployed numerous successful game titles worldwide with Electronic Arts. He was an integral part in creating the first seamless online experience for a sports title and helped pioneer the underlying common architecture for EA’s front-end development tool, which largely utilizes Adobe Flash technology. Jacob has also created online, dynamic user-experiences for clients such as Nike, DirecTV, and Nintendo. With extensive experience in financial, web and game development, he has followed his entrepreneurial spirit and started his own consulting company. He currently teaches Flash Game Design at VFS.
Randy Troppmann
Randy Troppmann has a BFA (Visual Communication Design) degree (1989) and a diploma in web programming (2001), both from the University of Alberta. He is passionate about bringing together the worlds of design and software to create solutions that are powerful, intuitive and unique. Since 2001 he has specialized in developing data driven applications using the Flash Platform. Randy is an avid runner and thought of the idea of runningmap while training for a half marathon in 2003.
Matt Vogt
Matt Vogt is a graphics artist who is currently teaching 3D modeling and animation at Abbotsford Virtual School (and hates writing in third person… oh well, maybe it sounds more important). He’s passionate about helping others realize their creativity. Matt’s diverse skillset includes photography, painting, 3D modeling, and character animation. Matt’s strengths in the study of computer graphics can be fully contributed to the self-led education model Bill Henderson created at DXLAB, a business which focuses upon educational services for this digital age. In his spare time, Matt is found enjoying himself flexing his creative muscles and sharing his discoveries on his website, http://mattvogt.com.
Andy Walker
Andy Walker is one of North America’s top technology journalists. He is Leo’s former co-host on Call for Help and runs the tech help web site Cyberwalker.com and co-hosts the massively popular video podcast LabRats.tv with Sean Carruthers. He is the author of the Absolute Beginners Guide to Security, Spam, Spyware and Viruses and Microsoft Windows Vista Help Desk. He also hosts the DVD Getting Started with Windows Vista.
Catherine Winters
With over four and a half years of experience in Second Life, Catherine Winters is one of SL’s longest-tenured users. As her virtual alter-ego Catherine Omega, she co-founded the original LSL Wiki, ( www.lslwiki.net) the preeminent Second Life programming reference. In 2006, Catherine coauthored Second Life: The Official Guide. Today, Catherine works as a branding and marketing consultant, advising organizations on the effective use of virtual worlds like Second Life.
Howie Woo
Howie Woo is a freelance illustrator who specializes in fun cartoons for online and print publications. Self-taught, he created his illustration website in 2002, and his drawings have since appeared in several children’s books and magazines, including Yes Mag, Know Mag, Chirp, Chickadee, and Owl. More of Howie’s work can be found at wootoons.com.
Rick Yaeger
Rick Yaeger is a professional Macintosh print production artist who has been running MacMerc.com since he started it back in 1999. He has been using Macs professionally in the graphic design field for 15 years and is well known for his Photoshop tutorials found on MacMerc.com.
Robertson Dunn
Robertson is an offline editor for Greedy Productions. He is normally responsible for all the offline editing for Reviews On The Run, although he’ll sometimes be moved over to other productions when needed.
Victor Lucas
Creator, producer and co-host of “The Electric Playground,” and “Reviews on the Run,” Victor Lucas is a self-confirmed media junkie. A lifelong lover of videogames, Victor created his first original videogame TV series, “The Electric Playground,” which hit the airwaves in September, 1997. Through his company, Greedy Productions, Ltd., Victor has directed, produced and edited documentaries, specials, corporate videos and videogame multimedia content.
Ted Darcie
Dr. Ted Darcie
- professor at University of Victoria working on low-delay network technology and optical communications
- 20 years at AT&T/Bell Labs defining technologies like optical and ethernet networks, wavelength-division multiplexing technology, modern cable networks, WiFi, cable modems, DSL and 3G cellular systems
- before coming to UVic, spent 7 years as VP in AT&T, managing research in communications systems and plotting the course for the introduction of new technology into AT&T’s network.
- (pretty much a technologist, but spent enough time at the big company VP level to see the big picture.)
- co-founder of Lightspeed Audio Labs – new company focused on connecting musicians and fans using the Internet – just launched Jamnow.com
Faisal Beg
Faisal is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering Science, SFU. He received his Bachelor’s from the best engineering college in India, the Indian Institute of Technology, in Electrical Engineering. He received his MS from Boston University, in Biomedical Engineering, and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, also in Biomedical Engineering. His main interests are in Image Analysis, how to quantify the shape of anatomical organs and relate them to different diseases.
Dave Shea
Dave Shea is an independent Vancouver-based web and graphic designer who created the CSS Zen Garden in 2003. He wrote The Zen of CSS Design (New Riders, 2004) and is currently involved with bringing Web Directions North — a web design and development conference — to Vancouver for the second year running.
Ian MacKenzie
Ian MacKenzie is 26, lives in Vancouver, and is recently married. He has been developing websites since 1998. He holds a BA in Communication from Simon Fraser University. He is the creator of the online travel magazine Brave New Traveler http://www.bravenewtraveler.com and is currently producing a weekly web show - One Week Job http://www.oneweekjob.com
Monique Trottier
Monique Trottier is the president of Work Industries, a Vancouver-based internet consulting firm with expertise in website strategy, online marketing, and content development (copywriting, email newsletters, podcasting and more). Monique writes a monthly newsletter for non-techies wishing to keep abreast of best practices in online communication. The Underwire Newsletter: Full Support for Non-Techies is available at http://www.iworkindustries.com/underwire/
Greg Sweatt
Greg Sweatt is a Suma Cum Laude Graduate from the University of Texas with a double major in Asian Studies and International Business. He also participated in a Masters of Science program focused on the Commercialization of Technology. With 8 years of experience in emerging semiconductor capital equipment markets with Applied Materials he is familiar with cyclical industries as well as large account management practices. Greg has worked in the field of health care information for the past 5 years with a specific focus on documentation practices and processes. After extensive travels through Europe, Asia and Latin America, he calls Austin home with his wife of 8 years, Tracy.
James Sherrett
James Sherrett has been working and playing with technology and the web since 1997. He loves to explore the questions to be found at the intersection of people, culture, commerce and technology.
He has written one novel, Up in Ontario, published in 2003, and is a partner with Work Industries, a web marketing consultancy. Motto: We make you a web marketing genius. He has no spare time.
iworkindustries.com/services/personal-technologist
The Real World of Technology
by Ursula Franklin
http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=58
