Village Gamer

Autodesk invites Canadian creatives to see what’s new in the company’s 2012 product line-up.  There will be three events across the country featuring speaker sessions, demonstrations and a continental breakfast:

Vancouver – May 3 at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre
Montreal – May 10 at the Hyatt Regency Montreal
Toronto – May 12 at the Toronto Congress Centre

The standardized agenda for each event:

8:00 a.m. –   9:00 a.m. Registration/Expo/Continental Breakfast
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Industry Sessions: Manufacturing, Building, Infrastructure
10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Expo/Break
10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Industry Sessions Continue

What you can expect from product updates:

New Integrated Design Suites: Delivering valuable design, simulation, management, and visualization tools, the new family of design suites provides the most complete creation and production solutions available — at an exceptional value.

A Powerful Leap in Productivity: From simple changes like faster startup times and graphics acceleration to astonishing visualizations and an improved learning experience, you can get more done in less time.

Robust Analysis and Modeling Tools: Evaluate what you are creating before it gets built — from energy use and structural integrity to stress points and final assembly — to save time and money on costly changes.

Enhanced User Interfaces That Are Intuitive and Easy to Use: You will find new tools and enhancements this year, such as updated ribbon interfaces, quick access toolbars, direct object manipulation, a marking menu, highlighting, automation user interface, and many more. All of which make it easier to get from concept to creation.

Better Ways to Work Together: With accelerated timelines and dwindling budgets, coordination among all team members is critical. And Autodesk is making it easier, with improved visibility into projects, better collaboration tools, and easy-to-access design information. All of which helps you deliver projects that are on time and on budget.

As you saw on the schedule above, there are three industry sessions. The Business Session will be presented by Caesar Ruest, Jay Ayala and John Janzen. The Infrastructure Session will be presented by Pete Southwood, Steve Stamatoplos and Neal Niemec, and the Manufacturing Session will be presented by Daryl Corelli. Registration for this event is free and I would recommend registering as soon as possible to reserve your spot.

marblemedia has launched Storm, the newest browser game for its hit YTV show Splatalot. Head on over to the Splatalot site and test your luck in dodging the obstacles as you battle your way to the castle. The bonus is that unlike the show’s competitors, you get to stay safe and dry. If you haven’t yet watched Splatalot, you really should check it out. YTV and Danone has also paired up to give kids a chance to be a contestant on the show – details are on the Splatalot Winalot page.

Those of you who are still celebrating in the euphoric cloud of last night’s Canuck win over the Blackhawks may not be aware that scheduling service Tungle has been acquired by Research In Motion. In a statement on the company’s blog this morning, Tungle CEO Marc Gingras stated that “We’re really excited about this. We know there isn’t an industry more exciting than the smartphone and tablet markets, and RIM is a dominant player in this space. As of today, the entire team is joining the ranks of RIM. It’s playoff season and the Tungle team is focusing on putting the puck in the net for you, our customers. You have kept us on our toes, given us great ideas and most importantly, have been great supporters. For that, we thank you. Our objective is to keep innovation at the forefront – to be rebels in our own way. Think, Create, Innovate.”

Roaring Penguin Software Inc. has announced the availability of CanIt Archiver, an e-mail archiving and e-mail business continuity software program for small business.  CanIt Archiver automatically archives e-mail and makes it available from anywhere via a web-based user interface, making it an ideal tool for e-mail business continuity.  In the event that your e-mail server disappears, it is comforting to know that you will be able to read your e-mail.

CanIt Archiver allows you to search based upon the date range, message subject, sender, recipients, message body, attachment filename and many more advanced criteria.  It also allows you to perform nested searches to narrow down your search criteria.  Also, CanIt Archiver can find “related messages” which finds all messages referred to by a given message.  This allows you to easily follow the thread of a conversation.  Best of all, CanIt Archiver allows end users to search their own archives, saving system administrators time and effort in tracking down old e-mails.

CanIt Archiver allows you to specify how long mail should be retained, thereby tailoring your e-mail retention policy to match your organization’s policies or regulatory requirements such as the Freedom of Information Act, HIPAA, SOX, etc.

CanIt Archiver is integrated with:

* CanIt-PRO, an anti-spam software solution suitable for small and medium business.
* CanIt-Domain-PRO, spam filtering software for MSPs to host anti-spam for their customers.
* Hosted CanIt, a fully outsourced, hosted anti-spam service.

The IGDA has put out a Call for Speakers for its two Leadership Forums. Qualified individuals are being sought who can provide insightful leadership and production-related sessions for the 5th Annual IGDA Leadership Forum US and new this year, the First Annual IGDA Leadership Forum EU, focused on advancing the state of the art in game production and management. Both forums will take place this fall, with the European forum being held in Copenhagen on October 20th and 21st. IGDA Leadership Forum US is taking place at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles on October 27th and 28th.

Toon Boom Animation Inc. has release of its initial line up of fun apps for the Apple community, from mobile devices to Mac computers. Each app has several entertaining features, these vary depending on the app and device used. The Mac AppStore now offers Flip Boom Cartoon and Flip Boom Doodle which are available internationally.

On the mobile devices front, Toon Boom has launched Flip Boom Lite for the iPhone and iPod, a free app that lets your fingertips doodle, scribble or draw fun animations. Flip Boom Lite is already available for the iPad and has received rave reviews.

“A natural synergy exists between Apple and Toon Boom Animation, as our award-winning applications are used by the largest animation studios in the world, while Apple products are the most popular devices in the world,” said Joan Vogelesang, President and Chief Executive Officer of Toon Boom Animation. “Toon Boom is an amazing example of the potential that can be unlocked by applications that can run smoothly on any Apple platform.”

Vancouver-based JAH App Development is pleased to announce the release of the fun, interactive Kids Anatomy Puzzle iPhone App is available through iTunes App Store. The Kids Anatomy Puzzle is a series (16 in Total) of body part puzzles with easy tap and swipe controls that lets your child learn the anatomy of his or her body by building each puzzle. Upon completion of each puzzle your child will see and hear the body part they have just completed.

Starting with a basic Boy or Girl head, kids can can choose a part of the face and create a puzzle to complete the face. There are audio and visual rewards upon completion of each puzzle. This game is recommended for kids aged 2 – 10.

WinMagic® has launched SecureDoc Version 5.2, the only full-disk encryption (FDE) solution to support Lenovo® Hardware Password Manager (HPM) on ThinkPad laptops and ThinkCentre desktops. Hardware passwords prevent access to hard drives, including self-encrypting drives, to deter theft by making stolen devices worthless.

Lenovo and WinMagic have teamed to integrate HPM with WinMagic’s SecureDoc Enterprise Server (SES) to enable administrators to centrally manage all four standard hardware passwords from the same console that manages enterprise-wide encryption – making it simple to utilize SED (Self-Encrypting Drive) and BIOS credentials, monitor device status and reset BIOS passwords to ensure forgotten passwords do not negatively impact productivity.

SecureDoc v5.2 is also the first FDE solution to incorporate Pre-Boot Networking (PBN) and Advanced Encryption Standard New Instruction (AES-NI) to make FDE easier to manage and faster than ever before – enabling organizations to provide all the security benefits of FDE without any of the management, user or network performance headaches associated with encrypting endpoint devices.

PBN enables SecureDoc v5.2 to authenticate fully-encrypted endpoint devices against Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) and the SES from the pre-boot environment – before the key to decrypt and load the operating system is available. By eliminating the need for users to authenticate locally in the pre-boot environment to unlock the system and connect to the network, PBN makes it just as easy for users to access the network from an encrypted device as an unencrypted device. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft has announced the public beta of Microsoft® Office 365, the company’s next generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes, which is set to officially launch later this year.

Office 365 was introduced in limited beta last year, bringing together Microsoft Office, SharePoint® Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. The public beta allows millions of people in more countries, including Canada, to try Office 365 for the first time.

In addition, Microsoft unveiled the Office 365 Marketplace today, which gives customers a simple way to find partner apps and services for Office 365. Since the introduction of Office 365, more than 150,000 organizations, from independent professionals to large enterprises, have signed up to test it.

“Microsoft has been in the cloud supporting larger organizations like Kraft Foods, Starbucks, The Royal Mail Group and Swedish Red Cross for years. It was energizing to see that worldwide, more than, 70% of the organizations that signed up for the limited beta were small businesses with fewer than 25 employees,” said Bryan Rusche, product manager, Office 365, Microsoft Canada. “Here in Canada, Office 365 resonates with small businesses that want full-featured professional technology, delivered in a way that makes sense for their company.”

With Office 365, moving to the cloud doesn’t require people to change the way they work, because it’s based on the familiar, industry leading productivity tools people know and trust.  Employees get new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device or mobile phone, using familiar applications, such as Office, that they already know and love. Business owners get the reliability, security and IT controls they need in the cloud.

The Office 365 Marketplace gives customers a simple way to find apps and services when they want to extend and customize Office 365. The Marketplace is now live with over 40 apps and 400 services available from the established community of more than 16,000 Microsoft cloud partners – with new apps and services to be added over time.

With Office 365 professionals and small businesses can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and an external website in approximately 15 minutes, for $6.75 Canadian per user, per month (minimum seat is one).

Office 365 for enterprises has an array of choices for midsize and large businesses as well as government organizations, starting for as little as $2.35 per user, per month ⁽minimum seat is one) for basic e-mail. Office 365 for enterprises also includes the option to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis, for the first time ever. For $29.25 per user, per month ⁽minimum seat is one), organizations can get Office Professional Plus along with e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voice conferencing and videoconferencing, web conferencing, 24×7 phone support, on-premises licenses, and more.

The Edmonton Social Media Breakfast (SMBYEG) is pleased to announce internet marketer extraordinaire, Jennifer Banks as this month’s guest speaker. This month’s topic is “What the heck? Why aren’t you doing SEO?”

Search engine optimization is probably the most effective, misunderstood, bad-mouthed, and ignored component of a high performing online presence- including blogs and social media. The idea is simple; create your content so that Google knows what you do and assists you with gaining visitors/followers and ultimately, making money from your website. Why is this so controversial? There are no secrets, and the basics are straightforward.

This session will cover:

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Why do I need SEO?
How do I integrate SEO into my blog/website/social media?
Live website audits (time permitting)

Stay after the discussion to network and share ideas within the realm of social media. Marketers, PR pros, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, new-media fanatics, and online social networkers are all welcome to attend. More seats will be released on April 15th at 12:00 p.m. Seating is limited and fills up quickly so hurry to book your place on Eventbrite.com. (Registration will be taken at the event.)

Nevada-based independent payment gateway organization Shift4 Corporation is pleased to announce a recent integration with Burnaby-based POS innovator Squirrel Systems. This integration pairs Squirrel’s state-of-the-art POS system with Shift4’s SaaS-based enterprise payment solution.

“I’m excited by the potential this relationship holds for both organizations,” said Bob Lowe, Shift4’s Director of Strategic Relationships. “It’s nice to see Squirrel building their POS with truly modern Microsoft SQL technology. Now with a certification to Shift4’s Dollars On The Net^®, their offering just got that much better.”

Both companies are industry veterans, recognized as technological innovators in their respective spheres. Squirrel was the first vendor to introduce POS touch screen technology and continues to innovate today. Shift4 introduced tokenization to the credit card industry in 2005, and remains at the forefront of payment technology. Squirrel Systems integration of Shift4 payment solution is a next step in meeting the needs of their customers.

“With the integration of Shift4’s solution to Squirrel, we are able to provide our customers with a very flexible, proven, and secure payment processing platform. Our customers are thrilled with the capabilities and cost-effectiveness of Dollars On The Net,” said Joe Cortese, Squirrel’s Vice President of Product Development.

The integration premiered at the Fort Garry Hotel, Spa, and Conference Center in Winnipeg, Canada. Fort Garry also opted to install Shift4’s It’s Your Card^® gift card solution, which enables gift card use across POS and PMS systems, and allows guests to use the same gift card throughout the property’s various revenue centers.

“Thus far, the Dollars On The Net feature most impressive to me is the back-of-house reporting functionality,” said Fort Garry Controller Mike Watson. “It’s all online, accessible from anywhere, and the lookups are flexible — so when I go to search for info, it’s right there at my fingertips.”

In addition to top-notch auditing features, this integration brings Shift4’s industry-leading security, speed, and reliability to Squirrel’s clientele while offering them enhanced flexibility and lower costs.

MultiCIM Technologies Inc. has released eXadox™ WIZ, a software wizard that simplifies the creation, re-working, and sharing of document naming and storage policies for all organizational entities (e.g., departments, work-groups, business-units, etc…). Organizations should institute file naming and storage policies to ultimately benefit from fast and precise searching, identification, and retrieval of their electronic documents. This helps increase productivity and collaboration amongst all staff needing to share and access common electronic files/documents. A filing policy plan is always essential, regardless of whether the organization plans to implement a manual document management strategy, or deploy a dedicated document management system. 

Vincent Santaguida of MultiCIM Technologies states “As organizations migrate from paper-based operations to paperless or ‘less-paper’ practices, staff generally lack direction in terms of electronic document naming and storage policies. Each individual names and saves departmental files as they see fit. Therefore, there is hardly any consistency in how everyone names and stores electronic files. The end result can be utter chaos and awful inefficiencies in the file searching and retrieval process. A minimum initiative is to institute storage and file naming policies for each business activity in the organization. We created the eXadox WIZard to make it easier for our clients and others to start instituting best practices for file naming and storage. The rewards in productivity gain can be incredible with minimal effort.”

eXadox WIZ operates in a wizard-mode by automatically guiding the user through five simple steps to quickly build a unique filing policy plan. It also comes with ready-built filing policy templates to help expedite the planning process. Users may modify, mix and match several templates in order to build a unique filing policy profile that best satisfies their operational requirements. The plan import/export feature enables the planning team to collaborate in planning activities by taking advantage of everyone’s contribution to more readily establish policy consensus. Read the rest of this entry »

Absolute^® Software Corporation has released a list of best practices for consumers looking to protect and secure bank account information, identification numbers, and other sensitive data that is stored on their laptops, particularly during tax season.

“Tax season provides cyber-criminals with the perfect opportunity to gain access to the most valuable stolen goods on the market – personal data, including bank account information and social security numbers,” said Mark Grace, vice president of consumer business, Absolute Software. “Through our involvement in laptop theft investigations in 75 countries, we’ve seen countless cases where stolen information was used to open credit cards, withdraw money from bank accounts, or apply for loans. Given the type of information needed to file taxes online, there has never been a better time to make sure that the correct safety precautions are in place.”

With approximately 70 percent of individuals filing tax returns online in 2010 according to the IRS, Absolute recommends that consumers adopt the following security best practices to ensure that personal information stored on computers is protected well beyond this year’s April 30^th (18th in the USA) tax filing deadline:

• Protect against phishing attacks – Large companies like Target, Citi, and countless others impacted by the recent Epsilon breach have sent emails to consumers, notifying them of their official policies for collecting personal information. Government agencies have been impacted by phishing threats as well. To help educate consumers on the ways that it collects information from filers, the Canada Revenue Agency offers this PDF on protecting yourself, and the IRS lists current procedures on its website. Becoming familiar with these policies and being alert to suspicious emails is key to preventing the disclosure of personal and/or financial information to malicious sources.
  Read the rest of this entry »

Markham Electronic Medical Record service provider Nightingale Informatix Corporation has launched its web-based EMR and practice management solution, Nightingale On Demand on the Apple^® iPad™.

Nightingale On Demand for the iPad™ responds to the increasing need for physicians and healthcare providers to have mobile access to their patient data. Key functionalities of the application will allow physicians to review patient charts and lab results, respond to patient and staff messages, as well as manage the scheduling and billing of patient visits. This is a complimentary tool for physicians using Nightingale On Demand and has been designed with use in settings, such as hospital rounds or offsite patient management and homecare, in mind.

“We are pleased to offer Nightingale On Demand to our customers for use on the iPad™,” said Sam Chebib, President and CEO of Nightingale. “Product innovation is a cornerstone of the Company’s mandate. We strive to provide solutions that not only make EMR implementation easier for physicians but also leverage the most current technology available in the marketplace.  We are confident that this will be a significant value added product offering for our customers. As a result, we anticipate considerable uptake over the coming months.”

Nightingale is leading the Canadian EMR market as one of the first companies with plans to launch an iPad™-enabled solution. Physicians and healthcare providers will have the comfort of knowing that all patient data entered while using the iPad™ is stored directly to the same secure servers Nightingale uses for its existing ASP EMR, and that no patient data will remain on the iPad™ device. Nightingale On Demand for the iPad™ will be made available to the Company’s more than 3,000 EMR users in Canada, as well as all new EMR customers.

UK education software specialist NetSupport, who does have a subsidiary office in Markham, has once again responded to the challenges of the modern classroom with the release of NetSupport Assist; the new cost-effective and efficient way for teachers to manage and engage with their students in a Mac and Linux environment.

Twenty-first century education is providing students with inspiring learning opportunities and giving them unparalleled access to a diverse range of computing assets. However, providing the latest IT infrastructure is only half the equation. Ensuring it is used in the most effective way represents the other half.

With 22 years of development expertise to call upon, NetSupport Assist brings together NetSupport’s core classroom management technology to deliver a focused feature set that ensures teachers can give their time and attention to their students, without having to worry about learning and maintaining the software.

Crystal clear student thumbnails enable teachers to monitor the entire class in a single real-time view, each thumbnail displaying visual indicators to show when applications and websites are in use. To ensure the resources being accessed by each student are appropriate, with a single click you can switch to a view that details exactly which files and websites are open and, if needed, take remedial action to block the internet.

A powerful range of remote control tools enables teachers to interact with students individually or as a class. Teachers can discreetly view an individual desktop to confirm the student is on task and, for example, conduct a two-way chat session without disrupting the rest of the room.

With NetSupport Assist there’s also no need for expensive front-of-class display equipment: real-time presentation tools enable the teacher to ‘show’ their screen to students.

To gauge topic understanding, teachers can, on the fly, poll students for their feedback. A question can be sent to each machine with a pre-defined list of responses and, once the students have responded, the results are instantly reported on the teacher’s screen. Read the rest of this entry »