Archive for the 'Business' Category

Statscan RSS feeds available

Monday, June 6th, 2005

Since there doesn’t seem like much happening in domestic politics to write about these days (sarcasm intended), I think this is a pretty awesome development at Statscan. Now you can use Firefox live bookmarks, or — my favourite — Thunderbird’s RSS reader to keep up with Statscan’s publication, The Daily. The Government of Canada Newsroom [...]

Anonymous Library Cards

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

On the heels of Blockbuster’s “end of late fees”, comes an implementation of credit/debit system for libraries. The problems are questions of privacy, civil liberties, and even financial liability for unreturned materials. From the civil liberty perspective, the Patriot Act in the USA allows authorities to keep an eye on what you are reading without [...]

This space for rent

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

The Oracle of Ottawa had suggested potential sponsorship advertising space for sale at eBay: Rent Canada’s (perhaps) Largest Invisible “Billboard” Approximately 30,000 Sq. ft. advertising space. We will place your message across our freshly refinished roof at any angle you desire – (see aerial photograph) within sight of martians, birds and a flight path to [...]

Domestic sales of refined petroleum products

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

Statistics Canada’s publication The Daily reports today on the domestic sales of refined petroleum products What caught my eye is that the category “Motor Gasoline” is down 3.2% from April 2004 to April 2005. If memory serves me, the last year has seen prices in my area rise my at least $0.20/litre. In the short-term, [...]

Shaw is in the phone business

Tuesday, April 26th, 2005

I’m frankly a little surprised it took this long, but the Edmonton Sun reports that Shaw Cablesystems has finally expanded its cable offering to include telephone service — in Edmonton only. Their serivce uses a technology called VOIP which, if you haven’t heard of it yet, you’re going to hear a lot about as time [...]

Power of Apology

Wednesday, November 17th, 2004

In business, an apology has good social and economic value. Public Relations writer Peter West takes what seems like common sense and puts it into an economic perspective: This right out of The Globe and Mail: Seems hospitals in the University of Michigan Health System have seen their annual attorney fees drop from $3-million (U.S.) [...]