Moving site to www.sukornyk.com

test april

2011-04-18T11:28:00.002-04:00

test - conversion page

test

2009-01-30T09:56:00.000-05:00

Moving this Blog

2008-02-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

I am officially moving off of Blogger.com. For the latest and greatest please go to http://chris.sukornyk.com

Dive shots from Mexico (Cabo)

2008-01-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

Cheap Vegas Hotels

Off-Grid cottage update

2007-12-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

I've just started working with Altius (designers of the minihome) to help design my off-grid cottage. They've got some killer cottage designs and I'm really looking forward to seeing how comfortable this off-grid cottage can be. Looks like we will be using a combo of wind, solar and passive solar.

Life at Kaboose

2007-11-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

There was a small little mention of my new role in the latest Kaboose Press release..

Essentially my role at Kaboose to is dream up ideas for new consumer facing Web applications and then make them happen. I coordinate a team of 20 developers and in case you didn't know, we're hiring about 12 more!

While you may not of heard of Kaboose, we're actually one of the top 5 family destination sites on the Web. So stay tuned and we'll see if we can't turn these static HTML pages into something a little more dynamic.

Safe Toys

Fivelimes Aquisition

2007-11-12T09:09:00.000-05:00

I recently closed a deal to sell my startup Fivelimes. Selling your company is always bittersweet. I started Fivelimes about a year ago and within that space of time built a green-focused community leveraging some cool new technologies. Fivelimes had aspects of Digg, Yelp and Facebook all rolled into one. Best of all it was all powered by Ruby on Rails (my language of choice).

Unfortunately Fivelimes always took a bit of a back-seat to my other projects. I started Fivelimes while also co-founding BubbleShare and as a result could never give Fivelimes all that it needed to ramp up. Running two startups while having two kids under 2 is a challenge!

The company that purchased us is a Canadian company called Avid life Media.

In the end I think a bird in the hand is the right approach. Time to move onto the next idea :)

Socially Responsible Social Networks

2007-04-19T16:45:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to come up with a decent elevator pitch on how to describe exactly what my startup Fivelimes is. I cringe somewhat at calling it a green social network, but hey, people get it. At it's core it is community of users (ok a social network) who's mission is to help people live an ethical and eco-friendly life. You will find local reviews of sustainable companies in your city as well as a global directory of green products and green people.

What is really cool is that there are already a few sites popping up that are doing something similar. Competition is a good thing as it keeps us on our toes. Here is a recap of some sites doing something roughly similar:

Dotherightthing
Fivelimes *
GreenMaven
SustainLane
Zaadz
Alonovo
Riverwired

Local Green Stuff in Toronto

2007-02-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

BubbleShare has been sold

2007-01-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

Well I am happy to announce that BubbleShare has been sold today!

Carbon Neutral Update

2006-08-14T15:47:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick update regarding my quest to go carbon neutral. I've traded in my 20mpg car and now get 60mpg with this little number. I'll admit I was a little concerned at first with the Smart car about a) saftey and b) looking like a looser.

It turns out this little car is built with a steel cage and can withstand a normal collision (see below). As for my latter concern I suppose that's TBD, but at $12 a fill up who the hell cares!

SMART Car Crash - video powered by Metacafe

BubbleShare got "Techcrunched" again

2006-07-10T11:15:00.000-04:00

Here's a great little article on BubbleShare.

Myspace.com/sukornyk

2006-05-25T19:37:00.000-04:00

Ok, I've broken down and finally created a MySpace account. Yeah yeah, I know. It's only the most popular site on the Internet. How could a self confessed Internet guy not have created a MySpace account before? Well I've obviously explored the site quite a bit, but the truth of the matter is that without having any of my friends on MySpace the service isn't really that useful. If I were about 5 years younger then I think this site would basically run my life. So head on over to MySpace and be my friend.

http://www.myspace.com/sukornyk

The Pear Shaped Website - Skinny on Top with a Fat Bottom

2006-04-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been giving a great deal of thought on how to design the front page of a Website to maximize simplicity while also providing the maximum amount of marketing information. Our BubbleShare website is a perfect example. Our service is known for its simplicity, therefore I am leery about messing up the Google-like homepage with a pile of marketing.

Nevertheless, communicating to potential users about what is available 'under the hood' is critical. We have so many features that most users probably wouldn't even find. So I've come up with a concept called 'The Pear Shaped Website'. Ok cheesy name I admit....and I'm not the first to come up with it, but working in my little bubble I thought it make sense.

Basically the idea is to have the top of the website extremely clean with perhaps 1 or 2 action items at most. The height of the top section should roughly be 500 pixels so that on your average browser most people only catch a glimpse of the bottom marketing text.

The bottom line: Upon loading the website, users only see the very skinny 'simple' part of the website and can choose to engage one of the few calls to action. OR, with a simple scroll down, the user is exposed to all the fat marketing text.

Kudo's to Stephen Gay for making this design come to life!

New Bubbleshare widget - Looking good!

2006-04-22T22:35:00.000-04:00

The Future of Driving

2006-04-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

Our personal mode of transportation is often the most environmentally negative part of our ecological footprint. Yet does it have to be this way? What is the future of driving and how will it evolve to meet the growing concern of climate change?

Will we all be driving hydrogen powered vehicles in the near future? In a word, no. The hydrogen economy is a myth, plain and simple. Not only is the technology far too complex, but there are storage issues (think big explosions) and one insurmountable problem which is that hydrogen isn't a fuel at all, it is a battery.

There are no hydrogen mines anywhere in the world. You can't dig hydrogen out of the ground.

Hydrogen has to be created and currently it is created using natural gas. So using fossil fuel to create hydrogen isn't exactly a solution to our climate change problem. Certainly hydrogen can be created using nuclear or wind power, but the aforementioned technological complexity and storage issues cancel that out.

So what then will we be driving? Are we doomed to walk everywhere? Well, the coming oil shocks do mean many of us will simply not be able to afford cars. The economy is going to go through some major disruptions and assuming some of us do manage to save enough money to buy a new type of car, you can bet it will be smaller and not have all the technological bells and whistles you might expect. The bottom line is that the car of the future will be simple and use existing proven technologies that can be mass produced efficiently.

Flex-Fuel and Biodiesel plug-in hybrids are the most likely candidates. Flex-fuel cars can burn gasoline (when you can afford it) and ethanol (sugar cane, corn) or any mix thereof in a regular piston driven engine. Biodiesel can burn various percentages of diesel allowing consumers to choose whatever fuel is the cheapest (or even available) at the current time. Hybrid technology lets you use that fuel as efficiently as possible by running the engine only when needed and at its peak level of efficiency. Plug-in hybrid technology lets you charge your batteries overnight and so gaining another 100miles of driving totally pollution free (depending on source of electricity).

All of this technology exists today. For short trips these sort of cars would effectively operate at an infinite mpg rating (they would run off electricity). For longer trips the cars would burn biodiesel or an ethanol mix. Fossil fuel could eventually be entirely removed from the equation as biodiesel and ethanol production finds ways of creating their products efficiently (ie. cellulous ethanol production).

What we are missing is the foresight to make this a reality before it is too late.

Great Quote

2006-03-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

Here’s a great quote I came across on Wired today. "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth."

Oystein Dahle (after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was Exxon's vice president for Norway and the North Sea

Ruby on Rails

2006-03-16T16:37:00.000-05:00

Ruby on Rails is a relatively new programming language('95) & framework('04). Ruby is an object oriented programming language and Rails is an MVC (Model View Controller) framework designed to keep your code nice and clean. Bottom line : Fast and agile development.

If you are building a Web based application from scratch that requires constant refactoring then my recommendation is Rails all the way. In Toronto there are relatively few Rails specific shops but you can checkout the folks over at Unspace.ca

BubbleShare getting top marks

2006-01-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

I am very pleased to read the very positive comments about my new startup BubbleShare. Having spent a great deal of time directing the team towards simplicity and user interface design it's nice to hear the postitive reviews. We have a new version launching this week which I hope makes things even easier.

Digital Camera Tracker writes:
"BubbleShare, a Toronto-based online photo sharing is scoring very positive marks across the Internet for its intuitive ease of use."

The Red Ferret Website writes:
"Online photo album sharing really doesn't get any easier than this, believe me. No account to set up, cool AJAX upload system (including an excellent bulk uploader), RSS so sharers can stay updated as images are uploaded and a superb blog code feature which lets you add a gallery to your own web site with a quick cut and paste. I got my small album up and running literally in 3 minutes!"'

livedoor goes pop

2006-01-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

Livedoor, a Japanese company, is in the news again unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. It seems that the company cooked their books.

Livedoor was a company that started out in life as the first free ISP in Japan and in fact was formed around 1999 as a joint venture with my company The X-Stream Network. But after going through many millions they then sold their assets (including their name) to another company....which has just recently had a melt-down.

The Green Tipping Point

2006-01-13T09:34:00.000-05:00

It may take gas shortages, additional freakish acts of nature and other ecological based threats to our economy, but I get the sense that we are approaching a tipping point where Green goes mainstream.

There are signs that alternative energy are becoming more mainstream. North American wind power is expected to see a more than fourfold increase in wind power plants in operation by 2010. Sure that is a drop in the bucket in the greater fossil fuel landscape, but it is a start.

While food production is on the whole completely unsustainable, companies like Whole Foods are exploding. Customers are demanding organic, non-GMO and sustainable products.

And you know when the evangelical right starts talking about going green things are shifting. Perhaps you caught their recent "what would Jesus drive?" campaign.

There are even signs of hope that the general American attitude can be adjusted. Thomas Friedman from the New York Times writes "...focusing the nation on greater energy efficiency and conservation, is not some girlie-man issue. It is actually the most tough-minded, geostrategic, pro-growth and patriotic thing we can do. Living green is not for sissies."

Of course, in order for Green to go mainstream there needs to be a fundamental shift in what people desire in life. I for one think that the desire to accumulate 'things' and thereby achieve some higher social status is an deep seeded desire from millions of years ago. So I don't think we can just flip the switch and stop wanting to acquire that perfect house, wardrobe or furniture set that is all of our friends envy.

What we need is for Green to become the new bling. That sounds pretty silly, but imagine if instead of buying that Ferrari our goal was that ultra efficient yet-very expensive hybrid. Or instead of that diesel powered mega-yacht, a solar/wind powered eco yacht with adjoining eco-island habitat. So perhaps there is a role for consumers to purchase green thereby helping shift us towards a happier, healthier and more sustainable future.

Northern Eco-Tech Companies

2006-01-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

This holiday I was up in Sault Ste. Marie Northern Ontario visiting with family and friends.While I was up there I visited a local eco-tech company called Northern Lights. They are doing some fantastic work up there and are pretty much the only renewable energy specialists in the area.

By all accounts business looks like it is booming as more and more people offset high heating and electricity bills with solar or wind projects. Despite it's northern latitude, the Soo has plenty of open spaces, lots of wind and enough sun to run a home fully off-grid. There are even several large scale wind projects under way in the region with more to come.

As I will be re-locating to the Soo in the future it is great to see eco-tech businesses in the Soo that are thriving. If you are in Northern Ontario and need a solar or wind system then I suggest you give Lawrence a ring (705) 246 2073

Drilling the ANWR

2005-12-22T10:05:00.000-05:00

As you probably already know, the latest big green story from America is that oil development for the ANWR was shot down in the Senate.

I have a hard time calling this a victory because what impact does this really have? The ANWR probably won’t be opened to oil exploration this year, but what about a year from now or 3 years from now? At some point, the dwindling energy supplies and rising oil prices will bring this issue to light again. When oil hits $100 per barrel and soccer moms across the country can no longer afford to drive to Walmart then cries to open development will be heard from coast to coast. “The American way of life is non negotiable” and so nothing will be held sacred. The sad thing is that the oil in the ANWR won’t make much of a difference, this world is going on a petroleum crash diet like it or not. All one can do is prepare for a new economy and a new life while the old economy is burning around us.

Power of the Blog

2005-12-21T11:19:00.000-05:00

Well the power of the blogosphere never ceases to amaze me. My company Bubbleshare.com got mentioned on TechCrunch yesterday and already we've had about 4 times as much traffic as usual this morning. Their write up was also a major compliment to our design philosophy and our team.

"Toronto-based online photo sharing BubbleShare is just wonderful, and ridiculously easy to use. Their interface team deserves a gold star or something, because I don’t think I’ve ever used a site’s full functionality without consulting a single FAQ or other instruction."

Smart Cars - No Biodiesel allowed

2005-12-19T14:21:00.000-05:00

I drive about 20 minutes to work each day and I hate spending the money pushing an extra couple of tons of steel with me. So, in my bid to reduce fuel usage I am considering purchasing one of these 70mpg cute little Smart cars. Apparently these little things can handle a snowy Canadian winter and have a decent saftey record.

One major plus is that they run on diesel, which made me think I could easily run it on biodiesel from my local distributor (Yes there are a few stations here in Toronto). 'Hold on' says the salesman at the dealership. 'using biodiesel will void your warranty'. What?

Despite the fact that biodiesel is cleaner and better for your engine it appears Big Auto is in cahoots with Big Oil. Big surprise. Screw them, if I get one the first tank will be B20.

BioDiesel Locations in Toronto:

Stohos Gas Bar- 1001 Queen Street East(corner of Pape)

2) Olco Station - 31-51 Old Kennedy Rd.

Map of Biodiesel locations in the US

Photos from DemoCamp

2005-12-14T11:39:00.000-05:00

Here are some photos of democamp using bubbleshare's little blog integration tool

DemoCamp

2005-12-13T10:11:00.000-05:00

Last night my company hosted a neat little gathering of tech geeks in Toronto called DemoCamp. The idea was to provide a forum whereby techies can demo some cool new things they are working on. By all accounts it was a great success, here are some of the presentations. I'll post some pictures shortly.

1) bubbleshare.com - A demo of some upcoming photo sharing enhancements.
2) rmail - A very neat service for delivering RSS feeds to your email inbox
3) ehlist.ca - A great Search Engine Optimization tool - I highly recommend
4) Ambientvector.com - Think "Social Searching/Tagging from your mobile phone"

Future Thoughts

2005-12-08T11:19:00.000-05:00

Entrepreneurs are pre-programmed to ‘think big’ and usually I find they spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about how the future will impact their businesses. While this is clearly a positive on one hand, it is often dangerous for small businesses to constantly think about the future at the expense of your customers’ immediate needs. Perhaps this seems obvious, but in the tech world where new technologies can upset the known world in months it is easy to get into the trap of predicting the future.

I have certainly been guilty of this in the past. But I’m glad I’m not alone! Just the other day I had to catch my partner and tech-entrepreneur from trying to build a product based on a future technology that won’t even be released for 1 year and then not even widely disseminated for another 3.

I think the key is to catch yourself if you find yourself saying “my businesses will succeed IF THIS occurs”. The introduction of that little ‘if’ adds an element of risk which may doom your business from the start. I believe that you should build products to solve problems that your customers are experiencing now. I often have to remind myself that I am not running my business in the future, I am running it in the present.

Eco Entreprenuers

2005-12-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

Well this proves there is more than just one self branded eco-entrepreneur out there! Checkout Sheagunther.org Shea is doing some good work documenting his thoughts on all things green.

Of course, there have been many eco-entrepreneur pioneers that have paved the way (ie. Body Shop and Seventh Generation). However I think there is a whole new generation of young entrepreneurs that are just waiting in the wings. This new tech savvy generation of entrepreneurs are going combine pervasive computing with their passion for the environment in unique and unexpected ways.

Going Carbon Neutral - cont'd

2005-12-06T16:31:00.000-05:00

BP has this neat little flash tool to calculate your carbon footprint. It's a pretty clever marketing gimmick meant to convince people that oil companies are not solely responsible for global warming. Which is true in one way because ultimately the consumer is the one demanding the product.

Anyway, my result was 24 tonnes, which was considerably lower than my estimate of 40 below.

Carbon Neutral by the end of 2006

2005-12-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

Most of us know that climate change is one of the single greatest threats our planet has ever faced. I’m tired of feeling personally powerless to do anything to stop it. So I might as well start change on my own front doorstep. My new goal for 2006 is for my family to be completely carbon neutral.

First things first, I have to take an inventory of our carbon output. I’m frankly a little nervous about this because I don’t think the results are going to be pretty. Here’s a good tool.

Toyota Prius – 25K km / year = 3.5 tons (using Fueleconomy.gov)
2nd Family Car – 12K km / year = 5.5 tons (using Fueleconomy.gov)
Gas Toys – Let's say 1 ton
Natural Gas Heating:
1 m³ of natural gas = 0.3639924 therm [U.S.]
Avg house 3500 m3/year = 1273 therms * 11 lbs CO2/therm = 14000 pounds = 7 tons
Products we consume, travel etc. – Let’s say 5 tons
Electricity - 20,000 KWh * 1.5CO2/KWh= 30000 pounds = 15 tons

Total = 37 tons CO2 / year

This is by no means a scientific approach, so I’ll throw on a couple extra tons for speeding and call the number 40 tons. Crap, that sounds like a lot. Well considering I am in southern Ontario where most electricity is either nuclear or hydro, the electricity number seems a little out of whack. But I’ll ignore it because we still do have several coal power plants and who knows where my electrons have been.

Solar Decathlon

2005-12-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

I saw a fantastic piece on The Solar Decathlon the other night. Teams compete to create efficient and livable homes that are entirely off-grid. The rules stipulate that you have to put the homes through their paces (including running dishwashers, leaving TV's on etc.). It shows that off-grid living is affordable and achievable with current technologies.

Rules for Startups

2005-12-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

I recently came across this blog posting documenting 10 good rules for startups.

37 Signals - quite a statement, quite right

2005-11-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

37 Signals. “We're trying to underdo the competition, and do less than they're doing to beat them. It's a very Cold War mentality to keep trying to one-up everybody. We're trying to "one-down" people.”

Wired has a good piece

2005-11-10T10:50:00.000-05:00

Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die
"You think technology benefits you because it gives you an easier row to hoe? Bollocks. The ease it provides is illusory. It has trapped you, made you a slave to things you don't even need but suddenly can't live without. So you rot in a cubicle trying to get the money to get the stuff, when you should be out walking in a meadow or wooing a lover or writing a song." - Wired

Economic Flash Mobs

2005-10-27T10:59:00.000-04:00

One idea has been percolating within me for a while is what I call an economic flash mob. Imagine a large group of connected people who make syncronized purchasing descisions thereby punishing or helping companies that produce sustainable and socially responsible products.

The origin of the Flash Mob concept relates to mobs of people who coordinate over the internet and congregating together for no particular reason. Here's the first report of one.

About Me

2004-11-11T12:39:00.001-05:00

Please see http://chris.sukornyk.com/about/