I'm a freelance writer specializing in technology and business.
Where are they now? Charting the fortunes of past Deloitte Fast 50 winners
An analysis of what happened to some startups on the Deloitte Fast 50.
Are you an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Or both?
So, you own a small business. Does that make you an entrepreneur? There’s more to this question than mere semantics. All entrepreneurs are small business owners at some point, but not all small business owners are entrepreneurs.
Learn to have an entrepreneurial mindset, not how to run a business
Article about how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
Entrepreneurs on the edge
Successful entrepreneurs have made their mark in the world because their thought processes don’t follow predictable paths. But at what point does “thinking outside the box” become a mental disorder? Local entrepreneurs who have skated close to that line share their stories
“I didn’t actually listen to you,” says Jason Bailey, well into our conversation. It’s not just me, he says. He does it with everyone, including his wife. We are already 20 minutes into our meeting, but we have only just sa...
Canada's startup scene makes a polite pop, but still awaits its big bang
Canada has a lot of technology talent: it's a hub for innovative game design and clean tech ventures, for example. It has its share of smart software companies, but when it comes to helping them all grow, it needs help.
New business taxes creating 'a whole new group of losers'
When the federal government introduced new tax rules last year, small businesses said they were being unfairly targeted by “punitive” measures. According to Small Business Association Canada, up to half of the country’s entrepreneurs say they’re already feeling negative effects.
Changes to passive income is one pain point. In the February budget, the Liberals implemented a grind-down mechanism for small business tax deductions by which every dollar of passive income over $50,000 — for example...
Are you an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Or both?
So, you own a small business. Does that make you an entrepreneur? There’s more to this question than mere semantics. All entrepreneurs are small business owners at some point, but not all small business owners are entrepreneurs.
They may start in the same place, but they rapidly diversify, says Christopher Young, partner in EY Canada’s private client services practice. He spends a lot of time with Canadian entrepreneurs as part of his involvement in the company’s Entrepreneur of the Year awar...
Blockchain mortgages, touted for real estate investors, get thumbs-down on security concerns
Blockchain advocates have long touted the technology’s ability to disrupt entrenched business models. Now, several companies want to use it for real estate crowdfunding in a bid to circumvent the banks.
Bermuda-based Viva Network wants to exploit the blockchain’s ability to store records and transfer value quickly across international borders. “Viva Network is a platform that has developed a peer-to-peer version of the mortgage-backed security, known as the Fractional Mortgage Share (FMS),” s...
Your AI pet project is only as smart as its garbage training set
No one said it'd be easy
AI isn't immune to one of computing's most basic rules – garbage in, garbage out. Train a neural network on flawed data and you'll have one that makes lots of mistakes.
Most neural networks learn to distinguish between things by sampling different groups. This is supervised learning, and it only works if someone labels the data first so that the network knows what it's looking at.
But how can you find the "right" data to train your AI, and confirm its quality? Well, w...
How Veterans Are Defending Our Networks
Veterans spent their lives serving a mission of defense. Cybersecurity professionals do the same. Could employing vets be a way to fill the skills gap?
How to Build a Next-Generation Cybersecurity Team
Cybersecurity challenges are increasing, and people are getting harder to find. Here’s how to build a solid team.
Buzzwords Will Kill The Internet
Sharif Fotouh, the founder and CEO of Compass-owned edge data center builder EdgePoint Systems, talks to Danny Bradbury about why certain buzzwords make him squeamish.
Software shortcuts: Pay down your techie debt. It's time to fix a price
Rushing to ship won't get you to the other side
Technical debt: we probably create it every day. It happens when you do things that might get you closer to goal now, but which create problems that you’ll have to pay for later.
The concept “technical debt” in software design and development comes from Agile development guru Ward Cunningham. He described what happens when you rush to ship software without applying what you’re learned about the problem you’re trying to solve.
If you don’t refact...
Hyperledger 3 years later: That's the sound of the devs... working on the chain ga-a-ang
But is anyone actually using it?
The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project was announced in December 2015. When Apache Web server daddy Brian Behlendorf took the helm five months later, the Foundation’s blockchain baby was still embryonic. He called it “day zero.”
Driving Hyperledger was the notion of a blockchain, a distributed ledger whose roots are in digital currency Bitcoin, for the Linux ecosystem - a reference technology stack that those comfortable with a command line could experimen...
2017 – the year of containers! It wasn't? Oops. Maybe next year
Immature tech still has a bunch of growing up to do
2017 was a big year for containers. One of the biggest container events came from the Linux Foundation, and it was – by its own admission – one of the most boring.
The Foundation’s Open Containers Initiative (OCI) finally dropped two specifications that standardise how containers operate at a low level. Chris Aniszczyk, vice president of developers relations at the Foundation and the OCI’s executive director, likens the initiative’s work to ...