Currently, I have images for Web Directions North and the Child’s Play Charity. Neither of these are DavidCubed sponsors, but they are groups that I feel deserve exposure, and especially ones that I think my readers would be interested in knowing about.

Web Directions North is a web designer and developer conference that has a line up to be very envious of. With organizers like Dave Shea, Derek Featherstone, Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp, you’ll have a conference that no one who attends will ever forget.

Child’s Play is a charity funded by gamers. Organized by the folks that do the Penny-Arcade comic, the Child’s Play charity is giving sick children an opportunity to forget about their sickness, and just enjoy a moment with a movie, book or game.

So please, take a second and look at both sites. They are both worthy of your time, and efforts.

• November 16th, 2006 7:20 PM EST
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Well, my birthday has come and passed, so I figured I would give a quick update on how it all went. The actual day before and after my birthday was a whirlwind, with visiting and travelling. We went to Ottawa to see my family and to bring Sabine to her specialist appointment.

I got tons of great gifts for my birthday though. Things like:

• Bulletproof Web Design and CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions thanks to Griffith
• Money from my brother and Amber to get an Xbox 360 game, as well as a set of 4 rechargeable AA batteries
• Ergonomic seat cushions from my mom to help with my lower back pain, and sitting in my office chair all day as well as a dinner out.
• Lunch thanks to James
• Need for Speed: Underground for the Xbox 360 from Sabine
• Some money from my dad and grandma
• A day off work from my bosses

Pretty decent in my opinion. I can’t believe I have so many people in my life that really care that I have made it another rotation around the sun.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishings. Here is hoping I have another great year.

• November 16th, 2006 6:49 PM EST
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As I count-down the days to my twenty-fourth birthday, I look back in time to the years that have passed, and even turning just twenty-four it feels like time is zipping right by.

Someone asked me what I’d like as a present for my birthday this year, and I really couldn’t think of anything. (At least nothing that was not too expensive for a birthday present.)

After telling them that there was nothing, and being further pressured to give it up and tell them, I finally took the time to ponder what it is that I am missing.

I am a pretty lucky person. I am doing my dream job, I have more technology than I ever have had in my life. Things are going really well for me. I might not have tons of money or friends nearby that I can visit, but all in all, my life is good.

As for small things that I would really appreciate for my birthday, I guess somethings that’d be nice to have that I won’t buy myself include:

• More AA Rechargeable Batteries. They are expensive, but my camera eats batteries like crazy. I have one set, and then when they are in the charger, I basically “waste” a set of disposables.
• A One-Gigabyte Compact Flash Memory Card. I bought a cheapy 512MB card from Shoppers Drugmart for like $15, but its slow, and who knows how long it will last.
• And a bunch of the “cool” web development/design books from Amazon.ca. CSS Mastery, Bulletproof Web Design, and Zen of CSS Design

Other than that, Sabine and I are saving for our wedding, paying off the car, and drooling over getting a new TV (ours shows a rainbow of colours). So if you are going to buy a new TV, and yours works great, we could use one. Or if you’d like to donate to our wedding fund or paying off the car fund, let me know, as those things would help as well. Seems the years coming up are all going to be expensive. Wedding, car, and hopefully a house next fall, depending on the market.

Sometimes I wish that I was still fourteen, without much responsibility or care in the world…

• November 10th, 2006 4:49 PM EST
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Marco “Griffith” Jardim has tagged me on a meme he has decided to start called “What has blogging given me?”

It is a chance for us to reflect on all that blogging has done for us, and while it may seem like bragging, I hope that it inspires people, as well as reminds people how real of a career or provider blogging can be.

So basically the intention is to find out what people have gotten from blogging. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a material possession, it can be something like a new job, or a reference in your community, or simply a personal achievement.

Marco lists his prized posessions as well as things like:

Blogging has allowed me to take my mother out for dinner for instance, which was something that I always wished to do. It has also allowed me to give my girlfriend a special gift from time to time.

For me, blogging has provided over a year of everything in my life. From the simple things like toilet paper and meals, all the way up to helping put a downpayment on a car, and getting me some gadgets.

Here is a shortlist of the physical items that blogging has helped me get:

• A digital camera: Canon PowerShot S1 IS, 8AA Rechargeable Batteries and Charger as well as a 512MB Memory Card
• A game console: Microsoft Xbox 360 Premium Bundle, and the game Kameo
• A LCD monitor: 19″ Samsung SyncMaster 915N
• A laptop: IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43
• A nice computer desk from Staples
• Games for the GameCube
• DVD Movies
• Various Computer Parts (headphones, RAM, hard drive, video card)

I have also been able to meet some great people, do some writing that I am proud of, learned the in’s and out’s of owning a business (still learning, please don’t hurt me taxman), and gone to some events that were a lot of fun (Blogger Meetup in Ottawa rocks!).

What did blogging get you Jon Watson, Justin Shattuck, Duncan Riley, and Jonathan Snook?

• November 9th, 2006 8:35 PM EST
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If you live on the west coast or have a fair bit of money lying around and you are interested in Web Development, you should check out Web Directions North, a conference being held in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia on February 6th through the 10th.

This conference is being brough to Canada thanks Dave Shea (big fan of his work), Derek Featherstone (great guy, I met him at Barcamp Ottawa), Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp (the Style Master people).

From their Site:

Over two days and nights, Web Directions North is packed tight with sessions by renowned, inspiring, entertaining speakers and experts, parties, and more.

Come along and hear Kelly Goto, Andy Clarke, Adrian Holovaty, Douglas Bowman, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clark, Molly Holzschlag, Derek Featherstone, Veerle Pieters, Jeremy Keith and all the other present and future web luminaries, who’ll be covering covering Ajax and Javascript, CSS, Microformats, mashups, standards based web design and development, accessibility, web app development, XHTML and HTML and more.

Cost
Early bird pricing for Web Directions, through to December 31, is just $895 CDN and after that it is $995 CDN.

This includes:

• Two full days of conference sessions with world leading speakers and experts
• A quality conference laptop bag full of goodies
• Lunch, morning and afternoon tea, fully catered each day
• The Web Directions Reception, with food, beer, wine and soft drink
• Free wifi at the conference venue
• A closing night party

The chance to meet some experts and hear them speak on subjects they are thought leaders in is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sure they Derek, Dave, Maxine and John might get together and do it next year, but it won’t be the same.

Unfortunately, for this problogger, I can’t afford to go. The expense of going from London, Ontario to Vancouver, B.C. is just too great, let alone the cost of the conference is more than I make in two months from one of my part-time blogging contracts.

So if you know of any company looking for a blogger with some street credibility, and no qualms about getting in there and bugging people, and you they are willing to sponsor me going, please let me know. I’d love to attend if there is a way, even if I am doing it for someone other than myself.

Check out their site for more details.

• November 9th, 2006 8:04 PM EST
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If you are here and it is before November 14th, then welcome. If it is on or after November 14th, where have you been?

As you can see I brought some of my posts from Phoenixrealm.com with me. I couldn’t let all of the over 850 posts die an Internet death, and so I saved the ones I liked the most.

DavidCubed is going to be more business focused, with a bit of my personal life thrown in the mix. I will try to never post a “I am still alive, sorry for not posting lately” post. I couldn’t believe how many I had on my old site. So take a look through the archives, and let me know what you think.

The design is thanks to Elena of DesignDisease, who did an incredible job. The instructions I gave here were that I needed a simple, professional, easy to read blog design, and this is what she came up with. Very slick!

I also have to give a big thanks to my host, Vortexhost, who dealt with my old domain and my new domain, and just made everything easy. If you want a hosting provider you can talk to and will actually care about your hosting, jump over to Vortexhost and tell Justin that I sent you.

Also a big thanks to Gary Cottam, who will be taking up Phoenixrealm.com as his new home. I hope it suits him well, and you all continue to check out the site.

I also want to thank everyone that has been nice enough to change over their links to my new site. Your continued support and friendship is much appreciated.

• November 8th, 2006 11:58 PM EST
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