The MontrealTechWatch server has been moved to slicehost, for reliability, and also for architecturing reasons.

I missed some of the action which might have happenned here, but there should be a follow-up soon; plus a few user comments might have been lost in the transfer process. Thanks for keeping up.

I wrote in march a rather quick summary of the “Anges Financiers” gala, with a last note stating how the featured companies had interesting ideas but without any potential “breakthrough” technology. Christian Laforte, CEO of FeelingSoftware, replied then with an elaborate analysis on what they’re doing and where they were going.

Since then, I’ve met and discussed with Christian and Joshua Koopferstock, through different events, and realized that while the company gets less attention or exposure than pure web plays, it’s actually an impressive technology and they are doing strong R&D.

Even then, all of these seemed distant since they did software for game producers and other highly specialized markets such as video fx.

I’m happy then to see that they are launching a new product this week that would give them a much broader appeal, both for artists and for consumers. Presto3D is a new online marketplace for high-quality 3D models, where any 3D artist can upload their work and earn up to 70% royalty for any successful sale.

The website in closed beta test right now, but Montreal Tech Watch readers can access the site with the code access presto0473

Of course, there are already websites doing this, such as the 8-year old Turbosquid. However Presto3D brings unique new features:

• customers can preview the 3D models prior to purchasing (this requires a plug-in that currently works for Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows, with mac version under development)
• converts models to/from the most popular 3D formats
• will allow contributors and clients to embed the 3D models on their own web site, blogs, etc.

Christian Laforte stated that this is a niche market (evaluated at $3-6M in the US and Europe) that hasn’t evolved technologically, and they are working on developing new innovative features that would bring 3D modeling and manipulation to mainstream users, like working with Adobe to integrate 3D directly into Photoshop. There will also be an option to access their “Reconstruct” technology, which is automatic creation of 3D models from a set of photos, taken from different angles, a tool that was previously only avalaible on proprietary software.

While I am not (anymore) a user of 3D software, I certainly see a more exciting product in FeelingSoftware’s new offering, with a bigger potential (ok, I am biaised :-)

Phil Bergeron-Burns calls consultants and freelancers for an open house event this wednesday at the Northcliffe Square:

Northcliffe Square is looking for new individuals interested in renting in a co-working environment. This is an ideal environment for self-driven/motivated individuals working on a variety of relatively autonomous projects (consultancy work, crafting/hacking projects, academic research, freelance writing, etc.) who enjoy working side-by-side other people. Fees for rent range from $56 - $172 / month depending on frequency of use and needs of space.

Upcoming Northcliffe Square Open Houses: 5pm to 7pm on Wednesday August 6th

Northcliffe Square is a collectively run office space where people make their livelihoods and do good work. We are looking for new members!

Come for our open house (2000 Northcliffe suite 219, corner DeMaisoneuve) in NDG near Vendome metro or call us at (514) 64-1074 ext. 103 (ask for Emily) Or email us at info@typeleft.com

–

Northcliffe Square cherche en ce moment de nouveaux membres intéressés à louer dans un environment de travail collectif. C’est l’environement idéal pour des gens motivés / indépendent qui travaillent sur divers projets autonomes (consultants, bricolage / hacking, recherche académique, écriture à la pige, etc.) mais qui aiment travailler aux cotés d’autres gens motivés. Les frais varient entre $56 et $172 par mois dépendemment de l’utilisation et fréquence.

La prochaine soirée portes-ouvertes du Square Northcliffe est: mercredi le 6 août

Le Square Northcliffe est un bureau partagé par des gens qui y gagnent leur pain en faisant du “bon travail”. Nous sommes à la recherche de nouveaux membres! Venez pour notre soirée portes-ouvertes ou bien appellez nous au (514) 664-1074 xt 103 (demandez Emily). Ou envoyez-nous un courriel à info@typeleft.com

Présentez-vous au: 2000 Northcliffe (coin deMaisonneuve) à NDG, metro Vendôme. Prenez la ruelle et continuez j’usqu’à la cour et entrez la porte #219 à gauche.

Company: Ecom Access

Position: Interface Designer

Responsibilites and Tasks:
* Designs and specifies user interface based on user and business requirements, information architecture, and branding requirements.
* Works with graphic designers on user-centered product development methodology.
* Designs interactive navigation, controls and icons.
* Creates navigation trees, wireframes and flow charts to facilitate application development.
* Maintains b interface designs, sketches, mockups and functional specifications that showcase the process of UI design phases, from concept to release.
* Constantly analyzes current interfaces’ design and performance, making recommendations and changes as needed to ensure that layout, design and usability are optimized and at par with current industry standards.
* Research and keep up to date with new technologies and industry trends in the areas of design, layout and usability and initiate the implementation updates as needed.
* Work with product development teamon the development of new software features (e.g. reports, graphs and other tools) to understand functional requirements and ensure optimal usability and aesthetically appropriate design.

Required Knoweledge:
* 1 to 2 years frontend and backend interface design experience
* Good communication skills and ability to stay organized
* Detailed knowledge of fundamental design principles and disciplines that affect typography, color use, animation, composition, use of space, weight etc.
* Good knowledge of user interface design processes and methodology
* Knowledge of Web analytics principles as they apply to usability.
* Proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio, and Dreamweaver, etc…
* Knowledge of capabilities and limitations of appropriate technologies and approaches including AJAX
* OHO, ASP, AJAX, HTML, CSS, XML, XSL, Javascript, AJAX related frameworks, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash
* Knowledge of Web 2.0 interaction paradigms and technologies
* Proficient in MS Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and other common office technologies.
* MUST possess a b work ethic
* Self motivated and keen to demonstrate initiative
* Goal oriented and career minded
* Creative and able to think independently

Compensation:
· TBD
· Benefits

Additional info:
The Interface Designer will design and help develop web interfaces for our online products based on usability factors, development requirements, and aesthetics. The Interface designer will be expected to stay up to date with design and usability trends and will be responsible for initiating design and layout changes for our products that keep our look and feel at the forefront of web trends.

Ecom Access is a rapidly growing online marketing company in downtown Montreal that specializes in Affiliate Marketing. In business for more than 5 years, Ecom Access has grown in size from 4 employees to nearly 40 and continues to grow, building long-lasting relationships with clients, colleagues and employees. Part of our core-philosophy is to foster a working environment that is professional, enjoyable and full of opportunity for smart, eager, career minded individuals that thrive in a team environment.

How to apply:
Interested parties should reply to this post or send a CV and cover letter to jobs@ecomaccess.com.

View the complete list of job listings
Submit a job ad

For those who were not aware, MontrealTechWatch was down from yesterday early morning till 8.00pm today 17th of July.

It might seem normal and in the-order-of-things that the server comes back; for most sys admins, it’s just a matter of opening a ticket and the tech support would restart somehow the whole thing. But this time, it was radically different. Just a few hours ago, it was considered to be un-recoverable *sweats* , and with it databases **shivers** plus all generated files for the past 2 years ***faints***. We tried one last hack, which miraculously worked.

For those curious about technical details, this server hosts many websites and services. It hosts for instance a RoR site, graciously hosted since it’s a friend’s, plus another experiment, using Phusion Passenger. I’ve discovered that mod_rails has a big memory problems and leaves around dead processes; which I intended to solve by writing a god-like ruby script that would kill & clean processes, and even if the parent process was defunct and couldn’t be killed. Fast-forward, yesterday morning, this script launched the system command kill -9 1 … with the script owned by root user… which is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the head … while jumping from a plane 30000 feet high. XenServer can’t even restart, reinstall snapshot backups, relaunch, nor be re-setup, and all files & databases were deemed lost and inaccessible.

MTW is taken very seriously and I know of its importance; and this should never happen again. There’s one thing to blame here, which is trying to use experimental scripts on a production server. If this was a company, I would have fired the Linux idiot who wrote the script. Oh wait… Anyway, thanks for everyone who were there, it’s much appreciated. I’ll look into getting an additional resource as a sandbox and get a bulletproof environment for MTW

Company: Dextel.net

Position: ASP Web Developer / Programmer

Responsibilites and Tasks:
We are looking for a highly skilled ASP Web Programmer / Developer to join our dynamic web development team. We are a web design and development company dedicated to creating sophisticated and innovative web projects in a wide range of industries with clients across North America. You will be working with other developers on various exciting web projects, with a focus on ecommerce and content management.

Advantages:
• Competitive salary
• Room for advancement
• Young, relaxed working environment
• An exciting variety of projects

Required Knoweledge:
- Must be an expert in ASP
- Strong knowledge of ASPX (dot.net) is a major advantage.
- Must be extremely comfortable with CSS, JavaScript functions etc.
- Must have a strong knowledge of SQL Databases and Server.
- Must be extremely comfortable with structuring databases, putting together complex queries, stored procedures, etc;
- Must have experience with real web projects
- Experience with ecommerce is an asset.
- AJAX, XML, Web services, are major assets
- Strong knowledge of IIS servers, DNS, etc.
- Must be fluent in spoken English.
- Spoken French is an asset.

Compensation:
Competitive. Depending on experience.

Additional info:

How to apply:
Please send us your CV, example URLs of actual websites you have programmed, and some sample code sheets to careers[at]dextel.net

View the complete list of job listings
Submit a job ad

Usually, I quote this kind of article in the found section of montrealtechwatch, but I think this article is an eye-opener on the dire case of (future shortage of) technology talent in Quebec.

The MontrealGazette freelancer Stephanie Whittaker tells the case of Vanier College:

This year, Vanier will graduate only about eight students from its three-year computer technology program.

“We’ve suffered from the Nortel effect for the past few years,” Popovitch said. “Young people have been hesitant about entering the IT sector and their parents are cautious about their children’s college program choices.”

..

“We used to get 300 applicants in the late 1990s for 100 places in the program.”

By contrast, she added, about 20 students now enroll, but by the end of the program, fewer than half graduate.

This echoed an earlier article on montrealtechwatch.

Editor’s Note: This is a feature article from Alistair Croll, from rednod and bitcurrent. He has extensive executive experience in marketing and operations and is now launching rednod, a “startup accelerator”. Alistair Croll also provided us helpful advice for Blitzweekend; and writes for webware and gigaom.

Web sites matter. And the previously thankless job of web operations is getting more visibility.

O’Reilly called operations the secret sauce of many companies. Which is weird, because a few short years ago, web operators didn’t even know what to call themselves. They were the guy who knew how the load-balancer worked, living in that weird space between web design and networking. They wrote scripts, and understood BGP. But as designers and marketers, we took web operations for granted.

No more. As soon as an app goes live, it needs operating. A few high-profile failures have shown the world that reliable, scaleable websites take good architecture, reliable infrastructure, and constant vigilance. Allen Lewind wrote that “Failing to do so will inevitably cost these companies users, performance and money.”

Operations is also in transition. With cloud computing and on-demand hosting, much of the equipment is out of our hands. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do; on the contrary, operators now need to keep tabs on their managed hosters and virtual machines. So whether you’re a “server hugger” or have all your stuff in the cloud, you need to worry about web operations.

Montreal-based Bitcurrent is a loose federation of analysts and technology pundits that look at the challenges of web operations. Several of the organization’s partners built the underlying components that make the Internet run today; others have built out some of the world’s biggest web applications.

And we want your help. We’re conducting a survey of Web Operations, trying to understand the challenges and trends web operators face.

If you run a web application, head over to Bitcurrent and take the survey. You can respond anonymously if you like. Tell your friends to respond. Spread the word.

In return, you’ll get access to Bitcurrent’s forthcoming report, The State of Web Operations. Plus, in conjunction with MTW, we’re giving away a free pass to the Bitnorth conference that’s happening in September to a random survey respondent. Fill out the survey and you’re automatically entered in the draw.

This is not exactly news, but I thought I might share a new study published by TechnoCompétences, an organization tracking the IT workforce in Québec.

TechnoCompétences said IT was hit very hard in the beginning of the decade, with companies laying off personel by thousands, while the rest of companies just went busted. However, TechnoCompétences’s new study showed that the IT industry is now expanding at very high rates. Between 2001 and 2007, the IT industry in Québec is growing +29% while it’s just at 16% for other Canadian provinces. More details here [pdf]

The organizations also predicts that the industry will hire 7000+ people each year until 2010.

MontrealTechWatch does not specifically track the IT industry, but it’s still good to know the larger picture. It’s well known for instance that youth are shying away from computer science and other related fields. While cégeps could easily fill each 4/5 classes in 2000, they now have trouble filling one small class. Last year (2006 to 2007), applications to CS degrees (and related) fell by 20%. This year (2007 to 2008), applications fell again by 19%. This impacts everyone, from recruiters at Bell Canada, recruiters at videos games companies like Ubisoft, to new technology startups looking to complete their technology team. It’s still possible today to find talent in Québec, but it looks like it will be a major barrier tomorrow.

I am not sure how the situation is in other provinces, and how they are dealing with it. In Québec, I am expecting salaries to go up; specialized recruiters having great business; at the expense of small & new technology companies who might not have the financial resources to compete with large companies like Videotron or big banks. So if you are starting a company, you should be aware of this problem, and try to come up with a great formula to attract talent (office perks like the guys at standoutjobs; high salaries, like what capazoo did; or try to connect from the very beginning with the developer “community” like what Akoha is doing). Or come up with a new solution to solve the problem of IT talent shortage.

Morgan Stanley, a Wall Street investment bank, has opened yesterday an IT development center in Montréal, investing up to $200 million and creating 500 jobs in 5 years.

The bank already has 18 other IT development centers throughout the world, and was considering opening a new center in an Eastern Europe country, but chose finally Montréal.

This tells a lot about Montréal, where salaries are much lower than those found in New York city. The province also introduced recently new tax credits, up to 30% of the salary for each employee, with Morgan Stanley being the first big company to benefit from it. A third reason why Montréal was chosen was that it had the same time zone as New York city. I am not sure that the word “offshore” development center was used, but when the bank representative talked about developping systems for the New York City office, it pretty much looks like it.

Great news then for finance/math/CS grads. Great also because this might spun off a couple of finance-related emerging companies.