I just recently moved into a house on Southern Drive.  It’s fun and exciting to move into a new and bigger place.  Little baby Ava and our cat had no problem adjusting to the move.

 

My body is still punishing me for all the work I put it through.  My wife and I still have a lot of unpacking and reorganizing to do.  My obsession to find my computer mouse has led me to unpack half of the boxes in the house and I’m still at it. 

 

So if anyone needs a big pile of moving boxes please let me know.

 

Paul Nicholson

The Virtual Law 2008 Conference is being held in New York City in April. This conference marks a very interesting time in the continuing development of the Internet and the technology it has spawned.

Virtual law needs to be talked about because virtual worlds exist. A virtual world is basically a very, very, large website. It may look three dimensional, but its not. You cannot get to a virtual world as a human person. You, the person, sit in front of a computer and control an “avatar.” Avatars are computer generated images of people (or animals, or fantasy creatures) that interact in virtual worlds.

Now, the real people that are controlling the avatars, control what the avatars say, and how they act, depending on the rules of the world’s creator. Some worlds have gravity like Earth, some don’t. Those are the sorts of rules that virtual worlds have. Not, is a marriage between two avatars legal in the Province of Manitoba, or does virtual property, like that fancy lamp I programmed last night, have real world value. That’s why the lawyers need to have a conference.

If you’re thinking, “What do I care what these haywire kids fight about on their computers,” time for a reality check. First of all, they’re not all kids. Second, these issues are just starting to emerge. Third, let’s face it, if the lawyers are talking about it, there’s got to be big money involved.

The conference looks pretty interesting. Steve Mortinger, VP & Associate General Counsel for IBM will be giving a keynote address titled the Top Ten Things a Brand Should Know about Virtual Worlds. IBM certainly knows about branding, and 5,000 of their employees have avatars in virtual worlds like Second Life.

Second Life has more than 12 million users, and is only one of the many, many virtual worlds out there. IBM has a sales presentation centre in Second Life, and employees working there. So, your avatar can fly over to the IBM centre and chat with a sales person about the type of computer they should purchase.

A lot of companies are also holding meetings in virtual worlds. It saves them tons of money in travel costs. It’s a great conferencing tool.

But what happens when the boss’s avatar tries to kiss an underling? Is that breaking the office policy?

Legal issues that stem from virtual worlds and get played out looking for resolution in the real world are on the rise. Can you steal virtual property? Can you legal marry on-line? Is the real you legally responsible for the actions of your avatar?? As silly as it might sound, that where the world is headed…. or rather, where the worlds are headed.

With millions and millions of people interacting online, relationships are formed. Communities are formed. And where there are people congregating, there are entrepreneurs and advertisers. It was only a matter of time before there was also a need for law makers and enforcers.

I’m pleased to announce that we upgraded our photo subscription from Comstock Complete to the full Jupiter Images collection at print quality.  It wasn’t cheep but our clients will benefit tremendously from the selection hundreds of thousands of high-end images being applied to their sites.  Great images can take a mundane website and make it magnificent.  At iias we strive for excellence in our design and customer support.

 

We’ll do whatever it takes to make you look good.

We’ve lost our back parking lot.  It was never actually ours.  The lot behind our building was having rezoning issues for a long time and we took full advantage of the free parking.  It was a good run while it lasted.

 

Now our building shakes with the rumble of excavators digging out the foundation of the new building that will soon live there.  It will have two layers of underground parking, a layer of retail followed by three floors of condos.  I have to say that there is something refreshing about the renewal in Abbotsford’s Downtown.  Seeing all the charming new buildings seems to breath new life to the once decaying part of this city. 

 

We also enjoy watching the excavators dig out the foundation on our coffee breaks.  There’s something about watching these giant machines reshaping the earth that fascinates all men.

We are very happy to welcome Dan Hoy to the iias team. Dan is a web developer who studied Interactive Design at Capilano College, and Media and Communications at the University College of the Fraser Valley. He’s been doing freelance graphic design and web development for the past couple of years and has turned out some great work. Dan’s first assignment is putting together a new website for West Coast Machinery and it’s looking good! Great to have you here Dan!

Here’s a photo of my little cutie.  She’s a happy and alert little baby. After nine days it feels great to be out of the hospital.  I want to thank you all for your support.

Paul, our Senior Media Designer, and his wife Greta had the joy of welcoming their first child into the world today.  Ava Rose Nicholson was born early this morning!

Congratulations guys!  Best wishes from all of us at iias & Ambassador Travel.  We are all eagerly awaiting our first glimpses of the little cutie!

PS. Sorry if her name was misspelled, I haven’t seen how you spell it yet. :c)

We are all well aware that Google, in recent years, has gained popularity among Internet users desirous of search (just how popular, click here). However, you have probably also noticed that Google not only offers users superior search results but also a host of other online services, one among which is iGoogle.

What is iGoogle?

iGoogle is a Google service that gives you at-a-glance access to key information from Google and across the web. By means of "Google Gadgets", you can create your own customized Google search page, organizing content such as: your latest Gmail messages, news headlines from sources worldwide, weather forecasts, stock quotes, movie showtimes, daily quotes, a daily word-of-the-day, online bookmarks, and multifarious foreign language and science resources, games, and more. Your iGoogle page can be skinned with its own theme and can include multiple tabs for organizing your desired content–all customized by means of a friendly drag-and-drop interface.

For the especially web-savvy, Google presents you with the opportunity to create your own "Google Gadgets", publishing all the information necessary to interface with their Google Gadget API.

Although services of this caliber does distinguish Google among other Internet search and online advertising providers, this is just one of the many robust features Google that provides, giving its users an enhanced and more complete Internet experience. If you are a current user of Google, try iGoogle today!

Most of you, by now, have heard about facebook in one way or another.  Your co-workers don't stop talking about it or maybe your friends or family members have mentioned it.

 

It took me a while to warm up to facebook.  After hearing about it for a year or so my wife finally convinced me to sign up. WOW, I didn't know how easy it was to find all my old friends!  Everyone is on facebook, why didn't I sign up earlier!  Within days my friends list went from one friend (my wife) to over 80 friends!  Facebook makes it super easy to connect with old friends with what they call the "Social Graph" which is basically a network of friends that can see users friends and friends of other users friends.

 

So facebook is big.  But how big?

 

Here are some statistics:

 

 - More than 46 million active users

 - More than half of active users return daily and spend an average of 20 minutes on the site.

 - More than 200,000 new registrations per day since Jan. 2007

 - An average of 3% weekly growth since Jan. 2007

 - More than 54 BILLION page views per month

 - More than 14 million photos uploaded daily

 

The numbers are staggering.  This is another case of a project started in a university that took off in a big way, very fast.  Facebook was not developed by an already huge internet company.  It was started by a few young guys!  I get a kick out of looking at their executive’s page (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?execbios).  These young (and by young, I really mean YOUNG) lad's have made something big for them selves!

We just finished the developng of fully functional role-based login system. The system provides access to different set of pages for users with different credentials. Microsoft provides number of standart web controls intended to help in implementation of such system. These controls make the implementation easier but they have some limitations. To improve the functionality we developed several custom data providers and procedure. The system can be used for any web site having restricted areas for registred members or administrators.