Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the most exciting products to come out in ages is the Go Pro. It’s a small waterproof HD camera you can clip on stuff like bikes, helmets, surfboard and every week someone comes up with an even better use for it. It’s now available in a 3D setup… And it’s dirt cheap! Even as a frequent iPad user/lover I concede that the Go Pro is even more of a landmark product at around 300$!

and don’t forget to backup your money 🙂

If you look at the weather channel it is always promising Montreal will be less dreadful tomorrow, or the day after but it’s always so frickin’ cold and wet!

About a month ago I found a sub-leaser for my apartment and decided to move all my belongings downtown with only 6 days notice. Being a long-time project manager, I organized everything perfectly and everything went superbly. I now have to spend my days in our new commercial space where I have set up my new workshop and office. I have only limited I.T. and Web contracts right now because my priority is cleaning and fixing a large space that is our martial art school. This is also from where I will be working and we will be starting a new commercial venture this summer. It is a lot of work as this space has been unoccupied for 10 years and has very little amenities. There isn’t even hot water hooked up yet. On the other hand my spouse, who advocates dousing yourself in near freezing water to cure anything and rolls around the freezing floor looking like a Russian bear is beyond happy.

I have been feeling forever cold for almost 3 weeks. It barely gets above 10 degrees here. To further make my life miserable, on Thursday I came in to find that an electrical fire upstairs had affected the power supply. Because of Easter break we have limited power and no heating for a few more days. Today, I decided to turn a sweater I bought a few years back into a pair of thick and warm booties. The result is instant bliss! Now if I could only says that about my forever cold hands but one cannot type, knit or embroider with mittens!

This project is suitable for a huge extra large sweater. Felting it makes it thicker and more resistant to fraying. It took me a few hours however I had already done one step: Felting the sweater (which you can do by washing it in hot water with soap in the washing machine) When I originally bought the sweater, exactly 3 years ago today, it fit me just fine but I wanted to turn it into a knitting bag. Not a good idea as it turned out because upon felting it became too fuzzy and lost it’s beautiful pattern.

*All pictures lead to a larger version on Flickr.

Step 1

For this project I only used the sleeves. So once your sweater is felted and dried, verify that you can still slip on the sleeve with your foot going up the armhole like a comfortable sock and then cut off the sleeves. You will not have to finish off what will become the top of your boot as it is already edged like a sock would be.

Step 2

Turn your sleeve inside out. Trace a pattern of your foot. Place it on the sleeve with the point facing the large opening of the sleeve about a few centimeters away. Using safety pins, fasten together the two sides going around your pattern but arrange them so their imaginary line reaches the natural sides of the sleeve. This is merely to shape the large part of the sleeve to the form of your toes. The rest of the boot should be left as large as possible. Turn your boot back in to judge the shape is you want.

Step 3

Using embroidery thread (all six strands) or strong polyester thread backstitch inside the line you formed with the safety pins. You will need a lot of thread for this because the seem has to be sewn twice.

Step 4

Remove the safety pins. Cut the excess material off about a centimeter away from your sewing line. Be careful not to cut where the sewing meets the natural line of the sleeve.

Step 5

Blanket stitch all along your first sewing line. This will strengthen the seem and prevent bits of yarn for escaping the seam.

Step 6

At this point you can turn the boot right side out again and try on your boot. I decided to add a leather sole because I had leather to recycle and thought it would look cool. Use the foot template to trace and cut a non fraying fabric, leather or heavy felt in the space of your foot. Make sure to match your right and left sides correctly! I pierced my leather with a tiny hole puncher but depending on what fabric you use, you may not have to do that. Once your sole is correctly placed, keep it in place with safety pins. Blanket stitch around the whole sole.

Voilà, eco-friendly and upcycled warmer feet!

Now that Xrumer 7.0 Elite can make sense of most CAPTCHAs, we need a new completely automated public Turing tests to tell Computers and humans apart.

Why are we making humans prove they are human while it is much simpler to catch robots being robots? Let’s create a completely confusing UX for spambots and be done with most of their shenanigans!
Continue reading “On The End of CAPTCHA”

Google recently announced that it’s going after content farms lowering the ranking of sites its new algorithm has identified as low-value. You know those annoying sites that offer absolutely nothing to the reader but a bunch of Adsense ads. This could make highly capitalized companies like Demand Media, Yahoo! and AOL shake in their boots as they continue to use their content development workflows to cram out crowd-sourced McContent purchased at, what I consider, sub-par wages.

As I enjoy my first day of corporate freedom and ponder which ventures to take on next I say ‘it’s a bout time!’ and ‘I love you Google’!!!
Continue reading “I am going to tell you a secret, or two…”

Lors de la création du premier guide de stratégie SEO pour les sites mobiles chez Médias Transcontinental, j’ai du me poser la question « Quel sera le meilleur URI à adopter pour promouvoir un site Web mobile? ». Le reste de la stratégie qui permettra de maximiser le pouvoir SEO des sites via les médias sociaux, les sites de bookmarking et blogues, dépend de ce choix.Continue reading “Quelle est votre stratégie de URI mobile?”

Instead of an Easter Egg Hunt we had an Easter Egg Make. Marie-Tangerine applied miscellaneous sequins to felt egg shapes to create gifts for everyone. We also watched the first season of Full House. I had never watched that show before and boy does John Stamos have big hair! Marie-Tangerine thinks Michelle is the cutest baby ever. I am more of a Stephanie fan myself.

I am getting a new roommate soon. She is arriving from the Phillipines. I will soon write about the why and how of this as it is HUGE! I have everything she needs and today decided to go look for a coat. She is after all someone who has never lived in the cold. I found her a beautiful designer winter trench coat, it’s green. Hopefully it’s not too big.

Again I found a myriad of odd things but no sweaters this week.

Pink suede jacket (to recycle)
In the same tone as the blue suede pants. It could make a cool combination.

Green 70’s cookie jar
With animals around the side. Marked JAPAN. I used to have a cookie jar shaped like a mushroom but gifted is as a joke housewarming present.

The Encyclopedia of decorating, Tome II (French – Marabout)
Small paperback with cute deco info from 1964.

Craft magazines and patterns from the 70’s (LOTS)
There are some absolute gems in there including instructions for a macrame top, awesome cable sweater patterns, cute cross-stich alphabets, vintage baby wear, so very 80’s sweater patterns and the list goes on. From 1977 to the early 80’s including a Phildar Winter Book, 100 idées from France and Family Circle Craft Issue. There are no more craft magazines at the thrift store, I took them all. Next time I attack the craft books.

A pink Phentex slipper making kit with pattern and crochet hook.
Too cheesy to resist. I’ve never used Phentex before, I’m curious to see what it can do. The pink is perfect. My idea right now is to crochet flowers along a long chain line and make a super kitsch curtain. I have matching beads!

Knife block that is 1mm too small for my cleaver (to re-gift)

2 sake cups (for my Japanese errr… china collection in tones of brown and blue)

A WPRDJ radio toy from Wild Planet that transmit to the regular radio and has laughter and other sound effects buttons. Had a Louis Armstrong cassette in it. Fun but needs to be so close to the receptor to work. I found a hack page for it!

A vintage metallic thread sewing on card kit (Sew Design)
Barely used and in mint condition. Who wants some shiny owls on black cards?

Various conveniently shaped tins and baskets for storage.

A vintage trivet shaped like an orange
I spent many winters in Florida as a child and yearn for kitschy cheery Florida souvenirs.

Single sized white cotton blanket. Those cool thick cotton blankets that are textured. If it’s in pristine condition, I buy! I had one over my outdoor couch last year but the sun made it go yellow. Perhaps I will attempt to dye it some crazy funky color.

There must be other things but I can’t remember them right now. All this for 7$. I know, weird but I will not argue. I brought a huge thing of big heavy duty shopping bags, they always run out.

Is this a totally crazy idea? I will soon put some crochet flower stickers in my Etsy store Petitcoeur. Yes your eyes are not deceiving you, these are actual crochet stickers made with Alpaca yarn. Each is about an inch wide, some are smaller. They are all different.

Yes, I know, I make really random stuff! But I really want your opinion. They should retail at about 10$ for 5 and come with a package of random ephemera as a bonus.

UPDATED: I posted the flowers. I will make more this weekend. I have been playing with them and they can be used as appliqués, made into earrings and so much more. I am trying to get my urgent work done so I can have myself a Crafty Thursday and renew my set of gifts with Etsy order. I love making surprise bags and now I even have a printer to identify everything neatly. I have enough stash to make 1000 things for my store but not the time. I sign on a few clients to my Friendly Webmaster service each week and they all have pressing issues to fix and websites to launch. Oh and I also have to work on MY website!

I have been putting a part of my revenues in Kiva.org. This month it kind of equals 17% which is more than what I told myself I would put in (10%) but I like it as a savings account. Some people are investing their toddler’s College fund in Kiva which I think it is a great idea.Let’s say you want to put 75,000$ away for college and say you put 1/3 of it in Kiva.org and grow the rest with interest in a traditional REEE-type account. Those 25,000$ can be returned annually into Kiva.org loans and help thousands of entrepreneurs over the course of 15-17 years. Be aware that there is a very small default rate so your funds are not 100% guaranteed.

My daughter already has two REEE (college savings accounts in Quebec), one from her dad and one from my dad. When she is ready for higher education she can certainly choose from ALL possible programs and schools. While I can’t contribute to them myself I can create for her a Kiva.org portfolio in the hopes that she will soon be able to manage it herself (Choose who gets the new and reimbursed funds.) I think that it will teach her to value money as something that can do more good when put towards a loan rather than a toy or candy.

Kiva.org allows you to read the business info of people applying for a loan. Loans rarely take more than a few days to be funded. The typical loan is about 70$ which can fund individuals or groups of 5 people. Most loans go to women’s businesses. You can contribute in small or large sums, the average contribution is 25$. You get an almost real-time account of the fund raising process, payments and follow-up.

Of course I have another ulterior motive!

Through Kiva.org I would also like to make contacts in Cambodia and Thailand (and to a lesser extent Southern Africa) with woman who own small craft business and sell clothing or accessories either to import their goods or send them second-hand or surplus clothing and shoes to sell (a popular business model in Africa.) I also want to visit in the near future.