Wireless in Welland, Ontario, Canada

City of Welland Ontario
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Over the holidays this year I’m in Niagara staying at my parents’ place. Used to working at the Red Brick Cafe in Guelph, I was worried heading back to an area without a focus on tech would mean staying in the basement to do work. I searched for a few hours online and talked to some folks to figure out where the wireless hotspots in Welland are.

I couldn’t find much.

So, I figured I would list wireless hotspots I had found in the area to let those who come after me to know where they can get some work done in a comfortable environment.

The List So Far

Cafe on Main

Where: 91 East Main Street.

Hours: Mon-Fri – 8am to 5pm, Sat – 9am to 3pm, Sun – Closed.

The best cafe experience in Welland, bar none. Take the #9 or #10 bus to the downtown terminal and walk a block toward the historic bridge. Located directly across from the courthouse, it offers a quiet and comfortable atmosphere and includes a fireplace. If you’re in the area and are looking for a place to get a good latte, this is it!

Seaway Mall Food Court

Where: 800 Niagara St., Welland, Ontario, Canada (view map)

Hours: Mon-Fri – 10am to 9pm, Sat – 9:30am to 5:30pm, Sun – 12pm to 5pm

Seaway Mall’s food court has several wireless hotspots and some work better than others. I had great experience with SSID SeawayMallA but almost none with SSID SeawayMallE.

Cafe Mochaccino in Seaway Mall

Where: 800 Niagara St., Welland, Ontario, Canada (view map)

Hours: Mon-Fri – 10am to 9pm, Sat – 9:30am to 5:30pm, Sun – 12pm to 5pm

Great (and inexpensive!) cappuccino but no in-house wireless. Using Seaway Mall’s wireless required me to sit at one of their tables just outside of the cafe.

That’s it, for now. Expect this post to grow as time goes on and more wireless hotspots are discovered. And, by all means, if you find your own wireless hotspots in Welland please list them in the comments!

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Develop a Windows Mobile Game With Us!

Microsoft Surface
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The Guelph Coffee and Code user group is developing a Bit.Trip.Beat-style game for the Windows Mobile platform in the hopes of submitting it to the Race to the MarketPlace Challenge and winning a Microsoft Surface!

If you’re in the Guelph, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Kitchener area, here’s what you can do to help out:

  1. Sign up for an account at Assembla (a free team and project management tool with source control built-in)
  2. Get in contact with me via E-Mail and let me know how you’d like to help out
  3. Install Visual Studio if you haven’t got it already (note: cannot be Express Edition)
  4. Install both Windows Mobile 6 SDK and Windows Mobile 6.5 Refresh
  5. Come out to Coffee and Code on Thursday at 7:30pm (read about the weekly event)

I’ll be posting our progress here as well as my impressions of the Windows Mobile SDK since this is my first exposure to it as a developer.

Hope to see you there!

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Google Chrome for Linux Now Available

Google Chrome Icon
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The world’s fastest web browser, Google Chrome, has recently been released on the Linux platform. This is big news since it will greatly improve the web browsing performance of many of the world’s netbooks.

I’ve been a huge fan of Google Chrome since it appeared in the summer of last year, but haven’t used it heavily simply because of the lack of Linux support. It is installed on my Windows 7 virtualization, however.

Word on the street is that Google Chrome is also available for Macs, so if that’s your platform, take a look!

One thing that I think is important to note that I haven’t seen anyone pick up on is this line on the Official Google Blog post about Chrome being available for Linux and Mac:

“At Google, most engineers use Linux machines …”

Hmm.. No wonder they’re winning! ;)

Go for it -> Download Google Chrome for Linux

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I Met The Woz!

This past week, I met Steve Wozniak at the Communitech breakfast event in Kitchener. He was there to speak about his past at Apple as well as a new company he’s a part of called Fusion-io. The CTO of Fusion-io was on-hand as well to describe the company from a technical perspective. I really think the things they’re doing there will take the industry in the right direction. I’ve been a fan of SSD / Flash memory technology for years and they’re basically re-writing the book on it.

Me and The Woz :)

Me and The Woz :)

Put simply, they are offering Flash memory storage directly through a high-bandwidth PCIe card vs. using hard disks or trying to force SSDs through standard SATA controllers (which each have their own controllers, and those have controllers as well, and so on). By simplifying the process they are able to achieve incredible results.

If you’re in need of high-speed data access, take a look at some of Fusion-io’s services. You won’t be disappointed.

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Coffee and Code in Guelph

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Coffee and Code

If you’re a developer looking for something to do on Tuesday nights, look no further: Coffee and Code has come to Guelph. We meet between 7:30pm and 9:30pm to network, discuss relevant programming topics, and get some work done. It’s a great opportunity to meet some like-minded individuals and work in a setting other than your usual lair. Bring your laptop and whatever else you’ll need to do your thing.

Cory Fowler began the Coffee and Code event in Guelph a few weeks ago and has been diligently building up some momentum with it. I think it’s been going for 5 weeks now. I started going on the third week.

Next meeting place: The Albion on Gordon St. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

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