How to travel across the country for free: Ride Sharing

By in Rants

Last March I took a trip half way across the country. I spent a week visiting friends and loved ones, interviewing, and apartment hunting, among many other things.

The catch is that I did it all for around $40 – including gas, food for the week, and even a St. Patty’s day celebration.

There are many things you can do while traveling to save money, including staying with friends instead of hotels, buying groceries and packing meals instead of eating out, and the list goes on. The one thing I did that saved me so much money was setup a successful ride share.

What is Ride Sharing?

It is similar to car-pooling – basically just sharing a ride for a negotiable rate between destinations. So how do you use this to make money?

If you’re making a long drive – or any drive for that matter – and looking to save (or make) money on gas, etc. be sure to start at Kijiji to post your rideshare ad. Make sure to post the ad in all the major cities along your routes.

For best results, make it clear that your dates are flexible (and be flexible) and your price is negotiable. If you’re planning on returning the same route, offer a round trip option as well. I had over 25 requests for a ride with the above method.

So now that you’re receiving multiple emails inquiring about rides, it’s important not to commit to anything until you’ve found the best ride-share participants. I searched everyone who emailed on Google and Facebook to make sure I knew who I’d be driving.

UPDATE: A new site has been brought to my attention that not only offers a place for drivers and passengers to connect who are looking to ride share, but also helps in the process I mentioned about verifying them on Facebook, etc. I haven’t actually used it myself yet but from what I’ve been reading it looks like an awesome spot if you’re looking to share a ride. The company is called Ridejoy, and you can check them out at Ridejoy.com.

To optimize your ride sharing (and make the most money) take many people short distances, rather than a few people the entire way. In a dollar-to-milage ratio people are typically willing to pay more for shorter distances. The reason I was able to make money on my trip is because I took the following combination of ride shares:

Halifax to Moncton, Halifax to Quebec City, Moncton to Toronto, Quebec City to Toronto, and Toronto to London, and most of them took a round trip. Five people total allowed me to make more money than taking a couple the entire way.

A few things to note for both drivers and ride-sharees:

Driving people into big cities, especially if you’re both picking up and dropping off can be a logistics nightmare. Make sure you arrange where you’re going to pick up and drop off before agreeing, or make sure you have a GPS handy.

Don’t charge everyone the same price. Some people are willing to pay more for the ride than others, when you’re negotiating your ride-shares make sure you keep this in mind.

Drive safely and efficiently. Plan out your trip before hand and even email your ride-shares your itinerary so they know what to expect.

Learn to say No. You will not be able to satisfy everyone, especially when choosing the people you will drive. If someone wants to be dropped off in the depths of Montreal and you don’t feel comfortable driving in – say no, you’ll find someone else willing to be dropped off somewhere more convenient. Same goes for stops along the way, be respectful, but be efficient.

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For people that are curious, I spent $190 in gas for a round trip to London, Ontario from Halifax, Nova Scotia and I covered all that, plus $100 from my ride-shares.

If anyone has had any positive or negative ride share experiences, I’d love to hear about them.

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How to add a Flickr-based photo gallery to your website: phpFlickr + Lightbox.

By in Online Business

Many people struggle with installing and setting up third-party gallery applications and although there are a couple popular image galleries that most web-hosts offer as an easy-to-install application, they can still be frustrating and pose many security issues for the inexperienced.

With the growing popularity of using Flickr to manage photos, more and more people are looking for an easy way to display these photos on their website.

After some playing around, I’ve settled with the phpFlickr and Lightbox combination to nicely display photo galleries on a website. PhpFlickr is a class written by Dan Coulter to act as a wrapper to Flickr’s API, and lightbox is a very simple and elegant way to display photos on a page. This tutorial will teach you how to quickly setup a photo gallery with phpflickr and lightbox on your own website.

So what do you need?

1. A flickr account (a free one with 100mb monthly upload is fine for most). You will also need to know your user ID (usually in the format xxxxxxxx@Nxx)

2. Latest version of phpflickr: can be downloaded here

3. Lightbox 2 java script: downloaded here

4. Obviously, your photos.

What to do:

1. Upload the photos you want to display to your Flickr account. Organize the photos into Sets to best manage the separation of “galleries.” The code below will not work if you have not put your photos into at least one set.

2. Install phpFlickr and Lightbox by easily extracting them to the directory of your choice (ie. /photos/ on your website). Both phpFlickr and Lightbox are ready to go out-of-the-box so you won’t need to play around with them too much if you don’t want to.

3. Include the necessary content in your php file.

For lightbox, the following will go in the header section of your php file:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
          src="js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects,builder"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/lightbox.js"></script>

and

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/lightbox.css"
     type="text/css" media="screen" />

For phpFlickr, add the following code in the header section of your php file: (it’s possible the folder might be called phpFlickr-1.3 if you are using the latest version.

<?php
 require_once("phpFlickr/phpFlickr.php");
 $f = new phpFlickr("b16911dd0ec59f16ed66e80711edbdaf"); // API
 $user = "xxxxxxxx@Nxx";
 $ph_sets = $f->photosets_getList($user);
?>

Where the user value can be found in your flickr account.

Now we are ready to use phpFlickr to import and Lightbox to display our pictures from our Flickr sets. Here’s a simple bit of code I use that imports and displays the photos:

<div id="gallery">
 <?php foreach ($ph_sets['photoset'] as $ph_set): ?>
  <div class="photosets">
  <p><h2><?php print $ph_set['title']; ?></h2></p>
  <?php $photoset_id = $ph_set['id'];
  $photos = $f->photosets_getPhotos($photoset_id);
  foreach ($photos['photoset']['photo'] as $photo): ?>
  <div class="photos">
   <a rel="lightbox[]"
     href="<?= $f->buildPhotoURL($photo, 'medium') ?>"
     title="<?= $photo['title'] ?>">
   <img src="<?= $f->buildPhotoURL($photo, 'square') ?>"
     alt="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" title="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" />
   </a>
  </div>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
  </div>
 <?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

The CSS I use for this is:

#gallery {
	position: relative;
	float: left;
	width: 600px;
	padding: 0px 15px 10px 15px;
}

.photos {
	position: relative;
	float: left;
	display: block;
	padding-bottom: 10px;
}
.photosets {
	clear: both;
	padding-top: 1px;
}
.photosets h2 {
	color: #000;
}

The full documentation on both lightbox and phpFlickr is available in their downloaded packages. They are both quite powerful. The example given here is just a simple way to grab all the Sets in your Flickr account and display them in a gallery format.

I recently added this to the site designbyroeland.com. You can check out the example of how it will look here. Simple. Elegant.

EDIT:

If you’re looking to only display one set, this can be done with the following:

<?php $photos = $f->photosets_getPhotos('xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'); ?>
<?php foreach ($photos['photoset']['photo'] as $photo): ?>
<div class="photos">
<a rel="lightbox[]" href="<?= $f->
    buildPhotoURL($photo, 'medium') ?>"
    title="<?= $photo['title'] ?>">
<img src="<?= $f->buildPhotoURL($photo, 'square') ?>"
    alt="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" title="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" />
</a>
</div>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Where the xxxx’s are replaced with the set ID that you can find in your flickr URL for that set. Feel free to republish this guide if you wish, but please try to link back if possible. Thanks!

EDIT (DESCRIPTION):

A lot of people have been asking me how to display the description of the Flickr photo instead of using the title within the lightbox display. Here is the change of code you will need in order to do this (very similar to the code in the tutorial, with 2 changes):


<div id="gallery">
 <?php foreach ($ph_sets['photoset'] as $ph_set): ?>
  <div class="photosets">
  <p><h2><?php print $ph_set['title']; ?></h2></p>
  <?php $photoset_id = $ph_set['id'];
  $photos = $f->photosets_getPhotos($photoset_id);
  foreach ($photos['photoset']['photo'] as $photo):
  $d = $f->photos_getInfo($photo['id']); ?>
  <div class="photos">
   <a rel="lightbox[]"
     href="<?= $f->buildPhotoURL($photo, 'medium') ?>"
     title="<?= $d['photo']['description'] ?>">
   <img src="<?= $f->buildPhotoURL($photo, 'square') ?>"
     alt="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" title="<?= $photo['title'] ?>" />
   </a>
  </div>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
  </div>
 <?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

The difference is the addition of the line $d = $f->photos_getInfo($photo['id']); as well as changing $photo['title'] with $d['photo']['description'] inside the ‘a’ lightbox tag. Unfortunately, this method isn’t very efficient as it calls the description inside the loop, which means it has to check the description for each photo. As far as I know there isn’t a more efficient way of grabbing all the descriptions for the photo set yet. I will keep my eyes peeled for it though.

EDIT (available sizes):

I use the size ‘medium’ in the above tutorial quite a bit. There have been a lot of questions about how to change this to its original size or to a larger size. There are a variety of sizes that are supported which include:

‘square’, ‘thumbnail’, ‘small’, ‘medium’, ‘medium_640′, and ‘large’. If you would like to display another size with lightbox, simply change where I have ‘medium’ to the option you’d like.

Did you find this guide useful? Share it with the social media buttons to the left or follow me on twitter and say hi – I’d love to hear from you if you’ve enjoyed this.
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Become a Knowledge Expert in Anything in 6 Months.

By in Personal Development

When I chat with people about personal branding tips a common theme surfaces in most young new graduates, students, and entrepreneurs – not enough experience. More importantly than not having enough experience is not having a way to stand out in the crowd – or the industry in which they are or wish to be working in.

So here is a 5-step process that will allow you to be deemed an expert in any field within 6 months.

Start a business.

Pick a name and register a business. A sole proprietorship will do the trick, you won’t need anything too expensive or over the top – for under $100 you can register your own business online. Register a domain name to go along with it and put up a static company website with contact information for the time being.

This gives you the professional aura that you’ll need and instantly gives you some credibility. You aren’t just another freelancer in the industry that’s there one day and gone the next. This will give your clients some peace of mind.

Lots of reading and blogging.

After you have your business registered and a website on the go get very familiar with the industry and start your own blog. Become comfortable critiquing current events and giving your opinions and recommendations on things. Keep your blog semi-professional and avoid any negative posts unless they are constructive – don’t complain for the sake of complaining unless you can suggest how to fix it. Some things to write about may include current events and trends in the industry, your take and perception on certain things, or some personal tips and tricks.

Remember not to over-do it, but don’t under-do it either. Don’t let your blog go stagnant, but a new blog post every day can be exhausting. Try for one every 5 days, or once a week.

This gives clients the perception that you are confident and you know what you are talking about – and hopefully by this time it’s the truth.

Freebee or discounted work.

Now that you seem to have the aura and the knowledge to tackle some work go out and find some. You may initially need to offer your services for free or at a discounted rate until you’ve proven yourself.

Let me reiterate that – until you’ve proven yourself. I’m not recommending you undercut the industry and charge prices that you can barely live off of. I mean for the first one or two projects you do offer a highly discounted rate or work for free but explain that this isn’t your typical rate. Your objective after all is to be able to charge a premium as being an industry expert.

This gives you a bit of experience and a portfolio to show off to future clients and on your website.

Present to whoever will listen

Where and how you present will depend on what you’re doing, but now that you have written some short articles, and done some work in the industry, contact some local colleges, universities, high schools, industry groups, media, etc. and offer to present [insert your topic on your industry here]. Create a 15-20 minutes presentation on something you feel is important to learn or know in your industry and ask to present it to students, the media, etc.

This will add to your experiences and credibility in the eyes of both future clients as well as others in the industry. By this time you are beginning to look like an industry expert.

Volunteer and Mentor

Now that you have that expert aura, people will likely start contacting you for advice and help. Take on a couple volunteer roles in your industry – help out with others starting their own business or partner with complimentary services. Mentor students in training in the same industry.

These students won’t forget the help you’ve given them. Your reputation in the industry will reflect the fact that you’ve helped out.

—

You are now branded as an expert. This process can typically be done in 6 months if given proper attention. If you are a student, you can start the process while still in school in order to hit the ground running after graduation. Note I haven’t mentioned anything about formal education in this process. Of course a formal university or college education helps but if you can prove yourself in the industry without it, your reputation and experiences will ultimately be worth the most.

As always, I encourage any thoughts or feedback you may have.

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Cirque Du Soleil Alegria in Halifax

By in Rants

If you’re looking for tickets for the Cirque Du Soleil performance in Halifax, Nova Scotia there is still time. I had the opportunity to attend the opening night’s performance on Wednesday May 27 and must say it was amazing.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to snap any pictures – mainly due to our constant state of shock and awe from the outstanding demonstrations. It was a superb mixture of art, song, comedy, gymnastics, acrobatics and much, much more.

If you don’t yet have tickets you can pick them up online through Ticket Atlantic or by visiting a Ticket Atlantic Outlet, such as the Atlantic Superstore.

The Cirque Du Soleil – Alegria show is in the Metro Center until June 7 and tickets are very reasonably priced. As a heads up when purchasing tickets, the performance in the Metro Center is facing the north side of the center, so keep that in mind if you are choosing your seat locations. We had upper bowl seats on the side of the stage and although we never felt like we missed anything, I believe seats on the end of the center would have been a little better if they were still available.

The theme of the Alegria show was that of the abuse of power and struggle for freedom and the show was about two hours. For some more information and pictures of the Cirque Du Soleil Alegria show check out their official website here.

For me, this was the first Cirque Du Soleil show I’ve seen. I’d love to hear some feedback on this show as well as some of their other performances that people have seen.

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Spend money guilt-free on whatever you want: Be smarter about your finances.

By in Personal Development

When was the last time you spent even $100 and didn’t feel any guilt?

If you know me, you know I have a “spending” personality. I enjoy spending and typically have lived such a way. Unfortunately, being a student for most of my life, every purchase was full of guilt. Do I really need this? Should this money be better allocated somewhere else? Many people go through their entire lives living like this, even with comfortable salaries. After finishing school, I swore I wouldn’t be one of them.

But it’s one thing to say it, and another to implement a plan – so that got me digging around for the best ways to independently manage finances. I thought I’d share some things with others in a similar situation as me. I’ve come up with a few things that can be used to better manage your financial situation: Automation, Barriers, Goals, and Knowledge.

Knowledge:

Knowledge is needed so you aren’t ignorant of the fact that YES YOU DO HAVE TO SAVE MONEY.

Do you plan to have kids? Did you know that it costs between $20,000 and $30,000 per year (Not including University) to raise a child?

Do you plan on getting married? Did you know that the average wedding cost in the US is around $20,000? And that typically the budgets for those weddings are 50% of that.

This knowledge and understanding isn’t meant to scare you, but to make sure you aren’t being ignorant of the fact that you do need to save some money.

Goals:

Lets face it, it’s tough to save money without a reason for saving. It’s important to have both short term and long term savings goals. I’ve realized that a goal should not be a dollar amount, but instead an object or an event. Don’t set the goal to save $10,000 this year, because money is only a means to an end, and without knowing what that $10,000 will be spent on there is no motivation for you to save it.

Instead, set some real goals: A down payment on a house. A wedding. A yearly vacation. Things that you can feel good about working towards. This will get you some motivation to take the most important step: to implement a financial plan.

Barriers:

What do I mean by a barrier? Active and Passive barriers hinder people from saving money just as they make everything more difficult, including eating healthy and being more productive. An active barrier is a physical obstacle that’s prohibiting something, where a passive barrier is the lack of something that in turn makes things more difficult.

It is important to try to increase barriers that stop you from unconsciously spending money and to destroy the barriers that prohibit you from saving money. I’ve recently started getting my pay cheques deposited into my savings account instead of my checking accounts, the reason for this is because I don’t have access to the funds in my savings account with my debit card, and so if I want to make a purchase I need to log in to my online banking and transfer money into my checking account – which will ultimately deter me from making petty purchases with my debit card that I don’t need. Also, I’ve set up some automatic deposits from my checking account into another savings account – one that I don’t have access to funds immediately. This is by no means a full plan, but it has been helping me tackle some of the barriers while I set everything up.

The first step here is to identify the barriers that need removing or implementing. To get a better understanding on why or why you don’t do some things – try using the 5 Whys method.

Why aren’t you currently saving money? – I don’t have a savings account…
Why? – I don’t have a need for one…
Why? – I have nothing to save for…
Why? – I haven’t thought about the things I’ll need money for in the future.
Why? – I’m scared to think about those things because they stress me out.

And you’ve identified the reason you don’t save money – because thinking about finances and planning for your future scares you. Now you can work at fixing the root problem and start saving some money.

Automation:

Financial automation will solve many headaches and stresses when it comes to paying bills, saving money, and all around managing your finances. Remember how stressful paying your rent was until you set up a direct deposit? Or how many times you incurred some interest charges on your credit card because you had to physically deposit the money into the bank machine? This can all be avoided with a little financial automation.

So how do I start, what’s the plan?

Determine what’s most important for you right now in terms of saving. A new house, wedding, vehicle, furniture, etc. Rank them in order of importance. This will get some motivation for you.

Visit your bank to learn about RRSP options or talk to your employer if they have some sort of savings program as well. Get an RRSP going as soon as possible.

Open a convenient savings account – I recommend ING Direct because they allow for “virtual” or bucket savings accounts within your savings account. You can do this online or over the phone.

Contact your employer and set it up so that a % of your pay cheque goes right into your RRSP. This will take ALL the hassle out of funding your RRSP, and will insure that even if you don’t cap your limit, you will get at least some of the tax benefits. I would recommend by starting at 10% of your after tax income. So a 90/10 split between your checking account and RRSP account – your employer should have no problems doing this for you.

Note: If you’re a new grad entering the work force, I recommend building up an emergency fund before funding your RRSP. Determine how much it would cost you to survive if you happened to lose your job. IE. Rent, power, and food. (You can suspend your internet, cable, data-phone plan, etc while you find a new job.) And build up a 3-6 month safety net in an account as quickly as possible. Lets be honest, your RRSP isn’t going to help if you get laid off from your first job a few years after graduation, make sure you can survive first.

I recommend another 10% within the first day or two after your cheque is deposited to be automatically moved into your ING savings account, and it can be allocated between your long- and short-term saving buckets. IE. 5% to down payment on a house, 2% into the wedding fund, 2% into the furniture fund, and 1% into the trip to Europe fund, as an example.

Set it up that after another day or two, all your fixed costs are automatically paid for. Your utilities, rent, internet, phone, etc. (you might need to have this split over two withdraws if your employer doesn’t pay you once a month) You’ll need to budget money for food and miscellaneous things, which over time you’ll get good at keeping these consistent and knowing typically how much they’ll be. In the beginning you might want to set aside cash into another account to make sure you can cover them until you get into the routine.

Now: You’ve automatically saved money in your RRSP and long and short term savings, you have your bills paid for the month and money for food. You’ll be surprised now how much money is still in your checking account. This is your guilt-free money. Go shopping for a new pair of shoes, go out with the guys for a drink, buy that new ipod, whatever you do with it enjoy the fact that you can do it guilt-free.

A few things to note: If you have a convenience/credit card that gets you points or cash back, etc. You should use this for your purchases such as your fixed bills, food, and guilt-free purchases. If you don’t have the discipline to stop here, perhaps you either shouldn’t be using it or lower your limit. Also, try your best to cap your RRSP contributions each year for maximum benefit. Lastly, there are huge benefits to investing beyond your guaranteed personal savings accounts and RRSP. If you’re looking to diversify your investments, be sure to do some research and understand investing before jumping in. Also, be sure to invest with money that’s okay to lose.

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How to Survive University: 11 Step Guide.

By in Rants

With my upcoming graduation next Tuesday I got thinking about how I survived the last 6 years. I’ve had serious ups and downs, fantastic opportunities won and lost, have both struggled and soared, but I’ve had an all around positive experience.

So I thought I’d break down a few guide lines to follow if you want to make your University experience as fun and rewarding as possible. This list comes from 6 years of experience within an undergrad, as well as some discussion with peers.

#1: Get involved with Frosh.

I don’t care if you’re a shy introvert, I believe getting involved with Frosh activities is an extremely important aspect for University. It’s during this week where you will meet future friends, class mates, and lovers. It’s likely that no one knows you going into Frosh week so put everything from the past aside and go out and have fun.

#2: Go to class.

When I asked a few people to give me one piece of advice to survive university, this is the one that kept coming up again and again. While I haven’t always followed it religiously, I do agree that going to class makes everything else easier. It’ll be easier and less stressful to study, as well as easier to meet new people. But don’t assume that because you went to every class you’re going to get an A. You also need to learn how to study.

#3: Avoid the Snowball effect at all cost.

I think everyone knows what the Snowball effect is. It can happen with anything – not going to class, not staying in touch with friends, drinking, getting yourself into debt, etc. It seems to be very popular amongst students in first year who are perhaps unprepared for the freedom that University life brings. It starts with justifying missing one class, and before you know it you’ve missed a month and a half of Math 1010 – trust me, it’s hard to make that up. You need to condition yourself to nip this effect in the butt before it gets the best of you.

#4: Find a best friend.

Most of the time this starts with Frosh week but depending on where you went, it could also continue on from high school. I don’t mean find someone you can put up with on the weekends. I mean a true best friend. Someone that you can spill everything to – because there will be times that you’ll need to. I can’t stress enough how important it is to find a true best friend – these are people that positively influence you. Also, don’t be afraid to fire a friend if they are holding you back or negatively influencing you, it’s just not worth it.

#5: Don’t drink during the week.

Why would I drink during the week? You might ask. Because a ton of people do it, and lets face it – it’s cheap. If you’re a big party animal, save it for the weekend. Don’t let alcohol control you. Keep it out of your weekly schedule and have fun during the weekends. This gives you something to look forward to after a long hard week – work hard during the week and reward yourself by drinking with some friends (if that’s your thing), believe me, there will be plenty of time during the weekend to humiliate yourself one way or another.

#6: Get to know your professors

My advice on this one is to get to know one prof every term, personally. I suggest choosing the prof of your favourite class that term. Book office hours, email any questions for assignments, pop in to say hi, etc. Before you know it you’ll have a mentor in an area that you enjoy, a great reference for your resume, and it could be the difference between an B+ and an A. I guarantee you’ll have an easier time in all your classes if you do this.

#7: Take your time – work and play.

As mentioned, I took 6 years to do an undergrad. Do I regret it? No. I wasn’t ready for the real world after 4, I could have handled it at 5, but the extra experience and knowledge I have now vs. what I had at year 4 will allow me to hit the ground running. I am not intimidated by much anymore.

So don’t be afraid to take a term off and work, or to take a lower course load if you want to work part time or dedicate time to a relationship. It’s important to have fun during university and it’s important to have a life outside of class as well. Make sure you have a nice balance and separation between them though.

#8: Learn how you learn and when you learn.

It’s as important as studying itself. Make sure you know how to study and how you learn. I was two years into University before I understood how to study for maximum results, and when and where I could do it best. Naturally, it’s different for everyone.

If you are not a morning person, avoid 8:30 AM starts. If you can’t concentrate at night, don’t take 3-hour night classes. The good thing about University is for the most part you can pick and choose your schedule.

Probably more important than when is how. How to deconstruct a course and figure out exactly what’s involved so that you can approach it in the most efficient way possible. Apply an 80/20 rule for further efficiency. Learning how you learn can be hugely beneficial. The best way isn’t to memorize every chapter – it takes far too long and you aren’t going to remember it all anyway.

#9: Be Involved with your faculty.

Many people avoid this like the plague, but it’s a good way to volunteer and get to know a lot of people. You don’t need to hold a position on your faculty’s council to get involved. Go out to the social nights, help out with any events, and be positive about your faculty. After switching from Computer Science to Commerce, it took me a couple years to become more involved, but I guarantee it pays off.

#10: Be independent: don’t rely on anyone else.

I think this one has been drilled into my head by my parents for as long as I remember. You will likely be doing a lot of team and group work throughout university, which is definitely important for real world development. However, take responsibility for your actions and your learning. Don’t try to free-ride your way through University on someone else’s shoulders and don’t let anyone else try to use you to free-ride either. It’ll only come back to hurt you.

I found the best way to avoid this is to find a group of people with which you work very well together on anything group related. People that you trust will take responsibility for their work and ultimately create a group where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You will naturally filter these people throughout your years of study anyway, but the sooner you find them, the easier things will be.

#11: Brand yourself: be proactive.

As soon as you know what you want to do with your life, start working toward that goal. Don’t let others label who you are – you need to be proactive, not reactive. When you meet someone new, don’t let them form their own opinions of you without you influencing them. Build a rapport with them and make sure you convey who you are to them. Attend related events to meet the right people in your industry, and make what you want to do a part of who you are. If you’re goal is to be a respected culinary artist, be the guy who brings that awesome dish to the events, etc. Be the one who subtly gives tips for hosting great parties, etc.

How to brand yourself effectively is a blog post on its own that will get some attention down the road, so I’ll leave it at this.

—

If you take nothing but one thing from this post, remember to balance things. University should be a great learning experience, should yield a lot of personal development, and naturally, be a lot of fun.

I would love to hear your comments on these, as well as any other recommendations you might have.

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Interview Smarter: The Three E’s to a Successful Interview

By in Personal Development

I was helping a friend prepare for a job interview the other day and I was having trouble explaining how to bleed confidence without seeming cocky. It’s a skill that many people don’t have and it really makes you stand out if you can do it well. Needless to say it evolved into a discussion on what we felt were the most important aspects to convey during an interview, which I will now share.

There are many subtle tips and tricks that I’ll save for a post on how I approach an interview but I thought I’d give my “Three E’s to a successful interview.” There are three very important aspects that every employer is looking for during the application and interview process – Education, Experience, and Enthusiasm.

Keep in mind that by the time you land an interview, the employer is likely convinced that your Education and Experience are adequate to perform the duties of the job you’re applying for. What’s going to make you stand out is how you demonstrate your experience and education (as well as enthusiasm) in the interview.

Education:

For an entry level position in most industries, education is probably the least important of the three aspects. Of course, there is a certain threshold you need to meet – ie. Do you have a university degree, decent GPA, etc. but after that it really doesn’t matter if you scored an 80 in that course, or a 98 as so many more factors come into play.

Keep this in mind when entering an interview – when using examples or answers from your University days forget about boasting your GPA and instead focus on conveying how you learn new things and your ability to acquire them.

I do this in every interview. I focus on conveying my efficiency of learning new information and my “process” for studying, learning, etc. both formal learning and learning done outside of the classroom. This is extremely helpful if you’re applying for a position in a non-familiar industry, for example if you’re applying for a sales position or project manager in an industry that you haven’t studied or don’t have experience with. It can convince the interviewer that even though you don’t have a high knowledge of the specific industry, learning the new information involved won’t be a problem for you.

Experience:

It doesn’t take long after University that you start weighing your experience higher than your formal education. It is that moment when you realize that wearing your University ring doesn’t have the same pull as it used to (Seriously X-ers, there is a time for this, and flaunting your X-ring at 53 after 30 years of teaching isn’t impressing anyone, sorry. :) )

This category is very broad and includes more than just “work experience”, but there are a couple things I like to bring up. One quick thing to mention is that no matter what situation you talk about, make sure they know what it has done for you. Explain in detail how it has benefited you, and specifically how it has made you better at doing what you do.

Firstly, anything risky should be noted. If for no other reason than to impress. Have you taken an unpaid internship to further knowledge? Taken a 100% commission-based job because you believed in yourself? Got certified in sky-diving? Piloting? Scuba-diving? It’s really these activities that define you. Also, anything leadership-based. Have you started your own business? Organized a sports team/league? Captained your varsity team? Make sure you get into the details.

Enthusiasm:

This is definitely what will sway the decision, and rightfully so. You can’t really fake enthusiasm and motivation. It’s the reason why it can be so difficult to replace the founder-CEO of a startup: you can’t delegate motivation.

If you’re enthused, it will show. So my advice here is before your interview go get yourself excited about the position. Perhaps the pay is way over what you expected, the opportunity for advancement is excellent, it offers the ability to travel, or it’s in an industry that you love. Whatever your reason for getting excited just do it.

It’s also important here to learn about the company you’re applying to – what is there community involvement like, what does their organizational structure look like, etc. This will help show your enthusiasm.

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After participating in Dalhousie School of Business’ Tap the Talent this past September – during which I completed mini-interviews with 10 companies – I’ve taken more of an interest in how I actually interview. I may post some of my detailed notes on some of the tips and tricks I found were very successful some time down the road.

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Halifax Public Gardens – No Feed Zone for Ducks

By in Rants

Sneaky sneaky, HRM.

A couple weeks ago the Halifax Regional Council deemed the Halifax Public Gardens one of fifty spots around the city where it will be illegal to feed the ducks and pigeons. Being an avid duck-feeder during the summer months and having spent many hours enjoying the public gardens during my years in Halifax, I have a big beef with this new bylaw.

What frustrates me is the reason they quoted as to why they implemented the bylaw. You can find the cbc story here, which states that “Municipal staff said the new rule is needed to protect the birds from an improper diet and to avoid water pollution caused by increased waterfowl waste.”

Firstly, if you go to a park with birds and ducks, expect to see some bird and duck crap – that’s a no brainer. I’m not saying it doesn’t increase the amount, but I’d argue that the public doesn’t mind it in a park.

I think the idea of “protecting the birds from an improper diet” frustrates me the most. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ducks, and I’d hate to see them unhealthy. But where’s the fine for feeding our children McDonald’s? I think more time and effort should be put into the fact that Nova Scotia has the highest obesity rate in Canada than using our resources to fine those few people who find enjoyment in getting outside and walking through the park to feed the ducks. It really doesn’t make sense to me.

I know for me the public gardens was a destination because of the enjoyment from feeding the ducks. I know this is especially true among the elderly and children in HRM. People were actually making a trip out of the house and walking to the gardens to feed the ducks and for those who relied on that walk as part of their daily activity are now in need to find something else they enjoy.

Is there some sort of healthy duck feed you can charge (perhaps quite a premium) for people to feed the ducks with at the Public Gardens? Perhaps fine people who use anything but the feed. I would look into alternative ways to make this a win-win instead of just an outright $200 fine.

Although, something tells me it will last half the summer and it will become too hard to enforce anyway.

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Things to do in Bermuda

By in Rants

There are plenty of them. A lot of folks will say there is not a whole lot to the island – as the cab driver put it on our way to the air port on Saturday: there are two types of ex-pats, firstly, those who cling to their work-crowd, that is, work all day and then drink at the pub with other ex-pats all weekend and try to sober up in time for work again on Monday. The other type are those that get themselves involved in the Island, find community organization, sports teams, etc. to get involved with.

My brother and I went to Bermuda for the past week to visit our other brother who has been working there off and on for the past year and a half. It was an amazing trip and was so nice to familiarize myself with all the places and people that have been ‘skyped’ about for the past eighteen months.

We took in a lot during the week as we rented some scooters and did the whole tourist thing. From popular Bermuda tourist attractions, to off the grid spots referred by Colin and other locals. We even helped out with some coaching of a little-league baseball team that Colin is the assistant coach for.

As an FYI to other travelers planning a trip to Bermuda: the tourist crowd is older than other popular southern destinations – which is mainly due to the fact that it’s a popular cruise destination and not an “all-inclusive” destination. Also, things are quite expensive compared to the US or Canada, and you can end up spending a lot more money if you’re not careful and don’t have a place to stay.

I’ll leave you with a couple photos from our trip – check out Colin’s Photo Page over the next little while for more, as I’m sure he’ll have a few up on flickr for us.

Peter and I by Spanish Point:

Our “fleet” of scooters – The red ones were the rentals:

PS: Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

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Bermuda Bound

By in Rants

This time tomorrow I will be enjoying a nice Bermuda evening with my brothers, Colin and Peter. Peter and I fly out tomorrow morning at 6 via Toronto and arrive in Bermuda at noonish local time.

I have decided to bring my laptop, as I won’t have my cell with me – so there will be some pictures appearing throughout the week.

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